Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, October 23 - November 6, 1941

Oct. 23 (Thurs.) – Nov. 6 (Thurs.)

The usual period of getting over the effects of an exhibition and a trip: trying to pick up my life here again, and get re-oriented so that I can start painting again. I have not really been so, since the first trip to N.Y for Carnegie.

            The first day home (Oct. 23) I slept most of the day, getting up at late afternoon to drive over (with B + A-) to meet the girls, home for three days vacation.

            One day spent in town searching, with little luck, for chin-rests – four girls to movie.

            Remounting + enlarging some picture: -

            Study of Bertha (1937) reading from 21 x 23 to 23 x 33 –

            Uprooted Tree (1920-) from 21 x 30 to 27 x 41

            Storm over Irondale (1920) from 26 x 30 to 28 x 40

            March Day at Gowanda (1924) From 23½ x 26 to 26 x 36.

Finished work on these Wed. (Nov. 5) – “The Up-rooted Tree” seems to suggest possibilities for a much bigger theme than simply the study of a fallen tree.

            Wednesday was a beautiful, Indian Summer day, one on which the sun always seems to be in the south, from early morning to late afternoon – The mild sunlight, enveloping Bengert’s bleached corn-patch, and the yellowing poplars beyond, fills the studio with a mellow golden glow.

            I finished my work in the studio, and spent the rest of the afternoon in the yard; I potted a few plants for Bertha, and got Arthur to put in his spring bulbs, that had been dug up last spring.

            The pale afternoon sun disappeared early in a slowly rising bank of blue-gray mist; at the same time, a raw wind from the east sprang up.

            On Monday evening Frank called up to ask my advice on two offers he had received on two picture - $500 for “Old Barn at Sunset” priced at $750, $200 for “glare of Afternoon Sunlight (1917) priced at $300. I told him to accept + he agreed we should.

            He said he had just come from the gallery, where he had been detained by “people from Boston” (museum?) – that they had “given” him too many cock-tails, and he was half-lit.

            Today – a dark rainy day with wind still from the East. Yellow leaves continually falling from the poplar row over our yard, as if the trees August 4, 1942re startled by a sharp explosion: - we could not agree on the direction whence it came. Bertha thought it might be gas in the furnace; while I thought it came from Bengert’s garage. An examination all around revealed nothing.

            Today’s paper reported it as a natural phenomenon – described by a physicist as a “bronchial cough” of “mother earth. He called it a brontide (which literally translated would be thunder – tide or – wave. It’s cause has never been explained. He said that the Indians had observed it, and called it the “death-drum” – I have never before experienced; or even heard of it.

            I like to think of it in connection with the season – of the retreat of life into the black earth; and the approach of winter.

Charles E. Burchfield, October 23 - November 6, 1941