The Circle Volume 8 by John Stretch

THE CIRCLE

VOLUME 8 NOVEMBER 2021

In this issue: 1. Vermont Autumn is the best time to tour rural Vermont when for a few short weeks the leaves turn to gold, red, and bright orange. You can taste maple syrup direct from a tree, visit an orchard for fresh apples and cider, stop at a covered bridge, and explore colonial churches, farms, and village greens.

2. Edward Hopper In 2018 this painting was sold for $92 million dollars. What’s so special?

3. The Bride’s Secret The final chapter in the series on Sandra’s Bridal Boutique. 5

1. Autumn in Vermont

Introduction New England has six states - Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine. The British colonists named the region after their home country, and today rural New England consists of secluded farms, quiet rural towns with village greens, country stores and white-spired churches.

Most people plan to visit New England in the fall (autumn) when the hills, valleys and coastlines explode into mellow gold, deep red, and bright orange foliage. It’s a sight you don’t easily forget.

Fall colours We chose to visit New England on a conducted bus tour. There are many tour companies that travel through the region during the three-week window when the leaves are at their best. A guide with a sense of humour, like-minded fellowtravellers, and your luggage deposited in your hotel room each night - what more could you want? Our tour group was made up of friendly senior citizens from all over the United States. You sight your first fall colours as you climb through the hills northwest of Boston towards New Hampshire and travel the famous Kancamagus Highway in the White Mountains before moving on to Burlington, the capital of Vermont.

Autumn in Vermont The colours are at their very best in late September and your guide will know where to find them. We spent time in the countryside around Burlington, and the villages of Stow and Woodstock. The people in this region are from farming stock, relaxed, slow speaking, easy going and friendly. For children, Vermont’s main attraction has to be Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory with its free samples and tastings. ( See Edition 5 of the Circle)

Route 100 The billboard-free Route 100 travels the length of Vermont and winds through many of Vermont’s villages, with scenic views and stops along the way. There are many lodges and restaurants, and galleries and shops featuring handmade furniture, ceramic wares, antiques and contemporary art.

Rural Vermont

Lunch in a country inn

Pumpkins and pies

Country store In Rockhampton 5

Apples and cider doughnuts

Maple syrup In Montpelier, you can visit a maple syrup farm where you view the sweet golden liquid being tapped straight from the trees. The red and sugar maples that comprise the majority of Vermont's forests provide the most impressive scarlet, orange, and bright yellow shades of foliage colour.

You can taste many mapleinfused products, and learn how the syrupmaking process works.

Vermont produces the world’s best maple syrup. Morse Farm Maple Sugarworks is the perfect place to sample some of this liquid gold.

Covered bridges Vermont has more than 100 covered bridges, more per square mile than any other state. The bridges were constructed during the mid and late 19th Century.

The bridges were designed to keep snow off the bridge roadway in the winter. In areas with very high snowfall, like Vermont, the weight of snow can demolish a wooden bridge (as many were). The sloping roof allowed the snow to fall harmlessly into the river.

Stowe Feast your eyes on the the vibrant reds and oranges as you travel to Stowe, where the real Von Trapp family of ‘The Sound of Music’ chose to live. The village with its many restaurants is an ideal place to stay overnight.

The Austrian family emigrated to Vermont and settled in the Stowe area, because it reminded them of their beloved alps.

Vermont fall scenery

Autumn Colours in South Africa Of course you don’t need to travel to New England to see Autumn colours. South Africa has many equally beautiful places which showcase autumn colours including the jacarandas in Pretoria, Johannesburg (below left) and the Hex River valley (below right)

2. Edward Hopper’s paintings

Introduction We have one as a magnet on our refrigerator. Millions of people know the painting even if they don’t know the artist or the painting’s name. And a great deal has been written about it by people with infinitely greater appreciation and understanding of impressionist art than I have. But very few who study the painting for a few minutes come away unaffected.

Early years Edward Hopper was born in 1882. He studied art in New York and spent time in Paris where he was influenced by French Impressionists Manet and Degas. After returning to New York he struggled to develop his own style. As just another unknown artist, Hopper was forced to become an illustrator to support himself.

In 1912, he painted the first of his many lighthouse paintings, Squam Light. In 1913 sold his first painting, Sailing, for $250. Hopper hoped this sale would lead to others, but it did not. He lived in relative poverty for many years.

To earn money, Hopper created this prizewinning poster, Smash the Hun in 1919.

Life changer Then in 1923, now aged forty-one, Hopper's life changed forever when he met and married Josephine Nivison, a fellow artist. Jo provided the stability and support he needed to actualise his artistic genius. She shared his reclusive lifestyle, managed his career and his interviews, was his primary model, his muse and his life companion. Hopper was able to live the stable and structured life he needed. He continued creating his unique and personal paintings for another forty years.

Life changer

They lived and worked in a walk-up apartment in New York city and spent their summers on Cape Cod.

Hopper’s career took off. As his style matured, he produced and sold more and more paintings.

Subject matter Hopper selected his subject matter from two sources: first, familiar features of American life (gas stations, motels, restaurants, theatres, railroads, and street scenes); and second, seascapes, lighthouses and rural landscapes.

Once his style matured, his art remained consistent and self-contained, in spite of the numerous art trends that came and went during his long career.

Subject matter Many of Hopper's paintings focus on people and their internal and external worlds —expressed through solo figures, couples, and groups. His emotional themes are solitude, loneliness, regret, boredom, and resignation. He expresses these emotions in various environments, including at the office, in public places, in apartments, on the road, or on vacation. As if he were creating stills for a play, Hopper positions his characters as if they were captured just before or after the climax of a scene.

Career take-off In 1927 Hopper sold a painting for a personal record of $1,500, enabling the couple to buy a car, which they used on field trips to remote areas of New England. In 1929, he produced the masterpieces Chop Suey and Railroad Sunset. In 1930, the Hoppers rented a cottage on Cape Cod. They returned each summer for the rest of their lives, building a summer house there in 1934. From there, they would take driving trips into other areas when Hopper needed to search for fresh material to paint.

By 1931 the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art were paying thousands of dollars for his works. He sold 30 paintings that year.

Nighthawks The best known of Hopper's paintings, Nighthawks, (1942), shows customers sitting at the counter of an allnight diner. The shapes and diagonals are carefully constructed. The viewpoint is from the sidewalk, as if the viewer is approaching the restaurant. The diner's harsh electric light sets it apart from the dark night outside, enhancing the mood and subtle emotion. As in many Hopper paintings, the interaction is minimal.

The restaurant depicted was inspired by one in Greenwich Village. Both Hopper and his wife posed for the figures, and Jo Hopper gave the painting its title. The painting has been interpreted as an expression of wartime anxiety. In keeping with the title, Hopper said, Nighthawks has more to do with the possibility of predators in the night than with loneliness

Hotel window Works by Hopper rarely appear on the market. The artist created just 366 paintings during his life. During the 1950s, when he was in his 70s, he produced only five paintings a year.

Hotel Window was painted in 1955 and sold in 1957 to a collector for $7,000 (equivalent to $64,500 in 2020). In 1999, the painting was sold to actor Steve Martin privately for around $10 million. In 2006, Martin sold it for $26.89 million dollars at Sotheby’s in New York, an auction record.

East wind over Weehawken In 2013 the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts put Hopper's East Wind Over Weehawken (1934) up for sale, hoping for $22–$28 million.

It is a street scene of a gabled house in Weehawken, New Jersey, and is considered one of Hopper's best works. The painting sold for a record-breaking $36 million at Christie’s in New York to an anonymous telephone bidder.

Chop suey In 2018 Chop Suey (1929) was sold for $92 million, becoming the most expensive of Hopper's works ever bought at auction.

Nighthawks is owned by the Art Institute of Chicago. We can only speculate as to its value.

3. The Bride’s Secret

Introduction “The old mall is closed now, the studio dismantled and the wedding dresses sold. Sandra has moved on to a new life. For twenty years Sandra’s Bridal Boutique dominated her waking hours. The brides and their mothers provided her living, new problems to solve every day, many triumphs and some disappointments, laughter and tears, adventures and misadventures. This is her story”.

The Bride’s Secret It is after midnight on March 11, 2017. Her husband is asleep, and she has removed two velvet display trays from the safe. She has a dozen rings on the fingers of each hand. As she ponders, she gently turns her hands from side to side to watch the pebbles sparkle in the moonlight.

When Mrs Swanepoel “just happened” to be in the Cape and phoned to invite herself for a cup of tea, Sandra knew something was up. Now she has 48 hours to reach a decision.

The Bride’s Secret She absently reminds herself of Nicholas Murray Butler’s assertion that “Time was invented by the almighty God to give ideas a chance”. Mrs Swanepoel had come straight to the point. “Sandra, we want to make you an offer for your business. We want to expand into the Western Cape, we think this region is going to boom. People are moving down to the Cape these days, and overseas couples are coming to Cape Town and the winelands to get married. Your boutique in the Northern suburbs and your knowledge of the winelands provide the ideal platform for us to expand. And we can use your knowledge and customer contacts”.

The Bride’s Secret Over the years Sandra has often heard about The Bride’s Secret, the Swanepoel family’s two wedding boutiques up in the North of the country. Their website boasts of their celebrity clients including movie actresses and several Miss South Africa’s. When Springbok rugby players and cricketers take their vows, their brides are given special treatment and publicity at Bridal Secret’s two showrooms in Sandton, Johannesburg and Hatfield, Pretoria.

The Bride’s Secret Sandra considered the differences between the two businesses. The Bride’s Secret shops are specialty retailers rather than boutiques, she thought. Sandra’s Bridal Boutique is personalised, quaint and service orientated. The Bride’s Secret is less personal but the range of dresses and accessories, especially rental dresses, is huge. In addition to clothing, they sell makeup, hair products, and wedding gifts under the same roof. The Bride’s Secret even offers imported dresses from renowned overseas designers. Their brides are spoilt for choice. 4

The Bride’s Secret “If you let our auditors have your financials for the past three years, they can work out a fair price with your auditors, and you and I can agree on a final number”, Mrs Swanepoel said.

Sandra considers the future. Does the prospect of another 10 years in the bridal boutique excite her? “I started the boutique in 2001 before I was 30 and I’m now 47” she thinks. “And I have to admit that sometimes I’d welcome a new challenge”.

“Today more and more youngsters are renting not buying. Plus-size brides want to alter the dress but don’t want to pay for the alterations. And many dresses are returned damaged or stained. We have to photograph every rental gown twice, when it leaves the studio and on its return, as proof of its condition. But we still have problems”.

The Bride’s Secret In the last few years technology and the Internet has also impacted the wedding business. The internet offers many options and ideas for wedding dresses.

Today’s brides can choose to buy their wedding dress in China or India or Singapore.

Brides can send their measurements and either buy an off-the-rack gown or have a dress personally made. You submit your credit card number and the dress arrives ten days later. Sandra’s personal formula of consultation, fitting, event, has been falling away.

The Bride’s Secret Sandra and her staff’s livelihood depend on the income they generate, and the relationships with their customers. She has always been passionate about making it succeed. Bride’s Secret, on the other hand, is a company, owned and run by managers who may also be relatives. Mrs Swanepoel wants Sandra to stay on for six to nine months to hand over operations to one of her daughters-in -law, and also hinted that a move to the new Tygerberg mall was on the cards when it opened. She has promised employment to Mrs Andrews and the girls if they wanted to stay on.

Sandra read through the Bride’s Secret website on her laptop for a third time and realised she was starting to take Mrs Swanepoel’s offer seriously.

2018 In March 2018 Sandra enrolled as a mature student to read for a law degree at the University of the Western Cape. She keeps in touch with her friends Elsie, the Fukuda’s, and John Smith. She still has her diamond collection.

2019 In mid-2019, in a food market in Wuhan, China, somebody sneezed. In March 2020 South Africa declared a state of emergency and the country locked down. People stopped having weddings. For 15 months there was almost no activity and many smaller boutiques closed their doors. Enquiries started again in July 2021 and bookings trickled in slowly over the next 3 months. Since then, as the country went to level 2 then level 1, and more people vaccinated, the order book has tripled. At the time of writing, some bridal boutiques and wedding venues have bookings up to the middle of 2023.

Nicholas Murray Butler Nicholas Murray Butler (1862 – 1947) was an American philosopher, diplomat, and educator, and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Butler was president of Columbia University, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He stood for office as William Howard Taft’s running mate in the 1912 United States presidential election. The New York Times printed his Christmas greeting to the nation every year. Butler was known for his dry humor. “An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing,” he said.

The Circle is a private limited circulation magazine produced as a retirement hobby for family and friends, past clients, and fellow Midstreamers. Opinions expressed are entirely those of the author.

This month we stayed for two nights at Walkersons Country Estate in Dullstroom Photographs in this issue have been sourced from Unsplash.com, Google images, and my personal collection. Nicholas Murray Butler quotes sourced from Wikipedia. We visited Vermont in the fall of 2017.