September 16th-23rd: Jane Carver

While Jane Carver continued her stay at the Den, I went upstate to Olana (above), the family home of the Hudson River School painter Frederick Church.  There, on the top floor of this house, I saw this painting: 

Frederic Edwin Church, The Van Vechten House, Catskill, 1847, oil on canvas, 22 1/8 x 30 ¼ in., OL.1980.37, Collection Olana State Historic Site, NYSOPRHP

In reality the painting is much darker- so dark that you can barely see the house, and the reflections on the windows upstairs are luminous and haunting.  

The painting depicts the Van Vechten House in Catskill NY, which was built in 1690, and is one of the earliest surviving examples of pre-revolutionary Dutch houses in the Hudson Valley. 

 Back at The Den, Jane continued working on a musical that draws from The Odyssey, referencing chickens as a living incarnation of the dreaded Sirens. The parameters of the Den Transaction allowed her to fully consider the relationship between host and guest, a vital subject in the Homeric world. 

Rumor has it that the artist Kiki Smith bought and now lives in the Van Vechten House.  The above image is from a compilation of drawings called "Her Home".