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Sunday Jan. 7 '39

16

So much to say!

  Tschaikowsky:  he was a man of the most contrasting & profoundest words - sadness and gaiety; he expressed each with a passionate clarity.

  My "Island Foreground" haunts my thoughts.  I am working on "Three Islands," which will be emotionally dramatic, with strong chiaroscuro, and extreme liberty with forms and rhythms. I am wondering whether my "Foreground" is more powerful because it is so plain, so silent!  It is a very troublesome thing - this so called "artist's conflict" - and with me - it's conflict on so many points:  displayed emotion or quiet realism?  imagination or intellectualization?  So much - I must only paint & paint and not think too much.

  I have a fierce desire to go to town next year to live.  Honolulu is intensely stimulating, inspiring, and liberating!  Kauai flares up in my imagination when I'm there:  I am divorced from the realistic and retain the emotional sythesis of the places I love:  The freighthouse beach, the reefs at Waipouli, Wailing Bay, Kealia cliffs, Kilauea Lighthouse, Airport Beach, and the Dunes at Wailing, I must get to town soon! 

  Spencer Devinel came over yesterday to see my paintings.  He liked Foreground, I think.  Very interesting young artist. He will suffer much, perhaps, being so fine and sensitive (or is it a fable told & retold without much meaning?)

  Buddy said Friday nite: Millay is great, no fooling.  Today I reread "Wild Swans" & "Cameo" - intensely moving!  He mentioned our living on this island as "secondhand-" true.  The long wail of trains at night - waking to watch the great trains across great continents - But then, to have so much grandeur of land & sea & sound - even if it be on a small scale - is enough for me, I think.  (The Monterey coast - I must see that before I die!)