countdown to Christmas

I'm pretty sure nobody reads this blog, per se...so I could elaborate on my secret Christmas plan here if I so choose.  But I guess I'd better be careful about it...thinking that to leave from Bellingham on December 23, which would be a creative move on my part, hehe..I'd have about sixteen hundred miles to do and could do eight hundred each day, which would take two days, sleeping momentarily here and there...which I've been doing anyways, arriving on the doorstep Christmas day, sometime.  I'd so like to do it but I'm not probably going to, for reason and another, and am looking into airflights and so on, to see how that goes..
It's going on noon right now..the wind has been howling all night.  An excerpt from Handel's Messiah "For Unto Us a Child is Born" is playing on the Canadian radio station I listen to.  The fire has been burning steadily for several hours but this old house doesn't like to warm up.  I feel like a good book and some hot food a little later. Meanwhile, I'll keep busy figuring out the accounts and wondering what comes next..it's a challenge.

art

I s'pose that if I weren't who I am, I might not even care about the topic, or what it means.  art is something that is contained within one's environment.  Not all of us use it, look at it, like it, or are even aware of it.  I'm kind of in the middle of it because I do it all the time, I find it is the curvature of my earth, so to speak...the interpreter of my existence in real time.  The spirit of me, talking.
I was helping a healer heal someone the other day.  Still kind of regrouping from that one because my mom called up just after we were at the home and told me there was a rumor going around I was bringing a 'devil man' to the lady's house (the one who needed healing).  I got a picture of "Guernica' in my head as Mom was talking.  Yep....ignorance isn't bliss if you're dying and could be helped.  But, one must take the high road or not get there, either.  So, "Guernica"....
Kind of a stark example of what I mean about art being the rudder of my little ship...but I had this other thing, about faith I wanted to share because I guess my friend who's dying is going to die.  I can't do anything about it because that is what she wants...even though I tried to press the logic into her about what it was that was going to happen...there won't be any Jesus at the end of the tunnel for her because he's there watching her suffer and wondering why she wants to do that.

Here's a little prayer from Louisa May Alcott...

A little kingdom I possess
where thoughts and feelings dwell
and very hard I find the task
of governing it well
For passion tempts and troubles me
a wayward will misleads
and selfishness its shadow casts
on all my words and deeds
How can I learn to rule myself
to be the child I should
honest and brave nor ever tire
of trying to be good
how can I keep a sunny soul
to shine along life's way
how can I tune my little heart
to sweetly sing all day
Dear Father help me with the love
that castesth out my fear
teach me to lean on thee and feel
that thou art very near
that no temptation is unseen
no childish grief too small
since Thou with patience infinite
doth soothe and comfort all

I do not ask for any crown
But that which all may win
Nor seek to conquer any world
except the one within
be thou my guide until I find
led by a tender hand
thy happy kingdom in myself
and dare to take command

So the happy kingdom of myself is the awareness, for me, that I can make art, that there is art, that art is what sustains us on the mortal plane.  Brotherhood and the entire can of worms that is humanity, the spirit thereof, if you will, is about being interpreted as such, by art.  Take the movie Hotel for Dogs, for example.  I just saw it so it's fresh in my mind.  Two kids really taking care of some animals with some clever little rigs that feed, exercise and attend to the needs of stray dogs in the big city.  The happily ever after comes with the kids actually running a dog hotel with foster parents.  Wonderful story.  Good for everybody because the comical inventions to keep the pets fed and so on are extravagantly efficient along the lines of a PeeWee Herman story ...
the point is that it was art that explained the kids' need to care for the dogs...better it would be human interest but then that would be "The Soloist"...with Robert Downey, Jr.  Jamie Fox got big kudos for his performance as Nathaniel Ayers, the mentally ill guy that played Beethoven's cello so well.  It was, after all, Beethoven who was playing the music for Fox's character.  Had to have been. The strings would not have resonated for anyone else, quite as well, because Beethoven is a consumate artist.  He has gone to his rest centuries back but he's still here, coming to us as a broadcast whenever his music is performed, by anyone.  Fox included.  Ayers' situation was convoluted because as they said at 'The Lamp' where he was allowed to have the gift cello he played on, 'we don't treat 'em unless they want it, they have to ask for it' , meaning that it is convenient to dispense with someone and also to keep the person dispensed with, if they can't function without some help. 
Point of the Soloist story was that Downey's character, Lopez, wouldn't give up on Mr. Ayers, whereas I, who have been in the field with the psychotics and so on, know a different tack on his situation and that would be that mmm, yes, Fox is psychotically dangerous, but not to himself because to himself, he's not hurtful but does just as he pleases, only sometimes when forced into the corner where he has to confront the issue of WHY he is creative with music, he has to admit he stole it - that ability - from Beethoven himself - and that makes him want to confront who so ever is nearest (I call it the 'food' factor)...physically assaulting them to the point of committing murder.  It's getting so those of us poseurs who only control the art, that is, disseminate it (havening lots of issues with that at the moment but there is another story there as well) are becoming like the restaurant in the old neighborhood "Food for Thought", which I think is a great name for a restaurant and I want to run one by that name someday...

   Well, I feel as though I digress a whole hell of a lot and don't get to the point of the issue by being bogged down in things...real time issues, when the truth of the matter is that I enjoy my day off more fully than I'd ever done till now...the dog standing by the door wagging her tail because she wants a walk...to sit here and write when it would have been time to rush out the door to an office..well, the office has changed but the art hasn't.  I had the most marvelous studio in a warehouse recentlyand all I did all day was kowtow to the muse when I realized that the muse cou ld be exploited I decided it would be a societal thing and so here I am, en tow, to make that happen.

The topic was 'art'...more to come

artist in residence...

it's 4 a.m. and the wind is kicking up outdoors.  The fire has been lit, the animals have been let out, in and out.. I'm wearing two sweaters and a tee-shirt, a pair of jammy bottoms and a pair of thermal pants, socks and slippers, a long knitted cap, over which there is another sweater.. We've had a blizzard and the snow is now melting.  The girls at the gallery are at Lake Quinalt having two days of turkey and spa.  Foster boy is with his real parents.  I've been home alone, keeping the fire warm, trying to complete some creative projects for a show and sale at the Community Center in Neah Bay on the 7th of December.
Yesterday I woke up dreaming about Kenny, which I thought meant that I should start writing.  Well, I didn't.  Yesterday was Thanksgiving.  I planned to go to the Sekiu Community Center for the turkey dinner there.  I would meet my mother and brother.  The guy up the street came down and ploughed out the parking space in front of the gallery next door and left a big pile of snow in front of my car.  I got out the snow shovel and tried to clear a path to back out of where I was parked in front of the house.  I did manage to get the car out but when I went up to put some gas in 'er, the gas station wasn't open.  I didn't want to get over to Sekiu and find out the snow was bad over there.  I thought I would run out of gas trying to get unstuck.  I didn't have enough left in the tank to risk it.  I had made a great big sweet potato, apple, carrot dish because the dinner was potluck, with volunteers cooking turkey.  Never heard from my mother or brother if they made it there or not.  I called them when I got back from the gas station but got the answering machine (it didn't play a message, just clicked on.)  I saw Ted Muralt and his daughter walk by with backpacks.  I figured they must be headed to Sekiu.  I thought about joining them but I wasn't ready to pick up and run.  I had my casserole in a brown crockery bowl: it wouldn't have traveled well walking. 
What I did was put the vegetable dish in the fridge, put some more logs on the fire and watch the snow start to melt.  I fried a steak a little later on, added a romaine lettuce salad and a baked potato with sour cream and bacon bits.  For dessert, I had a slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream that I had been given.  I made a fresh pot of coffee and drank that with the pie.  No one called to ask if I were going to the turkey dinner or why I wasn't there.  It was a very quiet evening.  I watched movies on Sundance.  My son called from Maui and asked how Thanksgiving Day was going.  I told him that I had been marooned in my own home due to circumstances.  (Time to check the fire.)
The dog is barking, no doubt at the paper girl, although I think it's a bit late in the morning for that (5 am now).  She's usually around by 3, which is about the time I woke up this morning.  Wondering how to manage the rest of the day on 5 hours sleep..  The studio is a wreck and has been for some time.  Every once in a while I get it tidied up but I haven't painted since last winter.  I really miss that I think.  Something inside me feels blue and sort of abandoned when I don't paint.  I do get some good drawing time in when we meet on Tuesdays for our painters' circle.  That's not why I came to the studio though.  Here I intend to give full rein to my creative processes.  I think what's holding me up is building new stretchers.  That's probably it.  I have to take apart the table saw a little bit so I can push the wood through and slice it to size.  There's the jig of course, but it's all dependent on getting things so I can move around in here.  I use the studio as an office among other things.  The basic elements of painting are all here.  It was much simpler without two desks and the cupboards that hold the paint.  Last spring I made a series of containers for ponytail palms that were used at my daughter's wedding. I collected shells and lacquered them with white enamel.  I brought them to the wedding and they were used for gifts to the people who came.
Since that project, I haven't been all that creative.  I've been working on a portrait of myself and my oldest son.  He is 5 years old in the photograph I've been using.  I did a series of drawings and the canvas is still in progress.  I'm not happy with the skin tones, they look a little bluish, so I might just paint it over and begin again, or start a new canvas.  One chair in here is draped with fabric that will be stretched and sized.  Getting up at 3 am doesn't make me feel terribly energetic to get the stretchers built but just thinking about it starts the process, I believe.
We've been having a series of women's support group sessions at the gallery.  I don't know that I'm any sort of mediator but it seems as though I take on that role.  Usually the therapist from the Neah Bay Clinic has a series of comments to make about her staffing issues, patient situations and her coming to the area.  She was last in Colorado so the climate is taking some adjustment.  She was living in a FEMA trailer at Neah Bay and has moved here to Clallam Bay to a very nice modular home on the hill above my house.  I can't see her place for the trees but she has a spectacular view of the Straits of Juan de Fuca whereas here where I am, I can hear the surf but don't see much of the water, just the twinkling lights of Sekiu at night.  When we gather, there are at least four of us, more often five.  We talk about general subjects like what we want to do with our lives, where we think we are at, how to be positive and direct our energy to the achievement of the goals we set ourselves.  It's definitely a consciousness-raising session.
Right now the dishwasher is running.  I could go out and get the paper and climb back into bed and read for a while.    I could go out and get more wood for the fire...I could CLEAN UP the studio and get started building stretchers which is what I really ought to do.  Having moved into this house and started my life here, it's been a challenge to stay on task because so much needs done.  In addition there's the foster kid, who is autistic and a teenager.  Wonderful combination, hehe.  He's fine though, not really many issues there other than it's just the two of us and he is, after all, a teenager.  I find life with him has settled into an expectable routine.  There's another clean up pending in his room, while he's visiting.  Like to just take everything out of there and shampoo the carpets, see if I can find where my dustruffles went off to, if they're lodged somewhere in the bins under his bed.  We painted the room before he settled into it but we never quite got finished with it before we were in.  I could do some finishing up in there, in addition to getting the studio more functional but I do feel a little bit tired from getting up so early.  It's not even time for Bob Mackowitz, who starts his radio show at 6 am. 
I was thinking that I have done my multimedia thing with the art process by getting ready for this craft show.  When I see something that I want to make, I take the materials I think I will need and create it.  For the past few months this has been alternately the garage...oh you should see the nice doors I built for the front of it...the siding, which has been long cedar boards and donated shakes, along with the lids from tin cans that have been nailed to one bottom edge..I'm also painting a mural on the street side.  We stored wood underneath the garage because the little storage area I built got flooded.  I see now that the snow has caved the roof on that little shed, along with the plant place I made that was intended to become a greenhouse.  More carpentry there to be done.  My intention is to create a driveway behind the garage with covered parking and a deck off the back of the house.  Probably won't get to that until summer, in meantime am storing likely wood for that project.  Besides the garage I've been doing the portrait and drawing birds for the mural on the garage.  I haven't tacked in the molding in my bedroom, which was left undone when I put my bed and dressers in there.  I have put up the curtains several times because the cat likes to climb them.  When I was in Maui he brought one of them down.  I've tried to keep organized in the bedroom because it has plenty of built-in cupboards and closet space.  It's hard to do because I'm downsizing from the four bedroom house I was in.  My piano isn't here yet but I think it will be before long.  I practiced for several hours at the last painting session at the Sekiu Center.  That was very fulfilling.  I didn't feel as though I was challenged by not playing at home, rather I enjoyed the sound of the music.  Since there were only two of us that day, I played in the downstairs room and my drawing partner said she enjoyed the music as well.  So I haven't not been doing art, I've integrated it into my daily process, which is what my intention was, just like this blogging exercise.  What I haven't done is read any books.  I haven't been to the library since I moved here.  I can't say why that is, other than I'm not sure what I want to read.  I spend a lot of time watching movies, catching up on the films I've not had a chance to see.  I think I've seen most everything current, including a lot of the popular films of the last several years.  Of course, the library has them available for rental as well but I haven't gotten to that yet because I can see most everything on television, other than the pay per view, which my phone isn't hooked to as yet and probably won't be.
I haven't spoken to my brothers this Thanksgiving.  I wanted to go to St. Louis to visit my brother's new place in the suburbs.  As it turned out, I probably couldn't have made it even if I had gotten the reservations because of the weather.  (Need to check the fire..)
Fire's going well.  Haven't spoken to my other brother in Port Orchard, either.  I guess, according to my mother, that Kitsap County got hit pretty hard with the snow.  We're now into the melting part and there's a slow drizzle, which I expect is coming there way as it passes through here.  We wouldn't have been able to get down there or meet them in Port Angeles as we have done other years.  My mother and brother did well to get to the Sekiu Center, if they did make it there, which I don't know because they didn't call and I haven't heard from them to know if they got there ok.  I would have thought the brother in Port Orchard would have called but he didn't and I only heard from my oldest son.  My daughter called the day before Thanksgiving to tell me what she was up to, lots of people coming for dinner Thanksgiving day, heading to the gym to work out in anticipation of a big feast.  She's starting a second job today.  She'll see how she likes it.  She works as a nurse in a clinic attached to a hospital in Phoenix.  Since my neighbors next door had gone off to the Lodge at Lake Quinalt, there was only the couple across the street, who as it turned out, evidently went to the Sekiu Center for dinner.  I probably could have hitched a ride with them if that's where they'd gone.  She came out while I was trying to shovel out the car and called out 'Happy Thanksgiving' in her pink bathrobe.  It was around noon at that time.  Her husband was piling wood into a wheelbarrow.  They got ready and left around two fifteen.  I didn't know they were going out for supper.  I had a little feeling that I could have dined with them because the girl at the gallery says she eats with them sometimes.  They've never asked me though.  I invited them for a turkey dinner this summer but neither they nor the girls at the gallery came.  Only my brother came and I think he thoroughly enjoyed it because Mom was in Minnesota at that time.  He was batching it.  It occurs to me I could have called my brother in Port Orchard to wish his family a Happy Thanksgiving and probably that's what I should do but I just haven't gotten to it yet.  I'm too busy at the moment keeping the fire going and making things for the craft sale.  That and watching the snow fall, which it did quite a bit of up until yesterday morning, has been the sum of the last week.
I've got some minutes to do for an economic team I'm a part of here.  I should probably get those out of the way and then go read the papers for a while.  I think maybe I wanted to make some observation about life in general but I don't know exactly how to put it.  I'm hustling along, baking bread, keeping the house as clean as I feel like, thinking about rearranging things, getting the bed nice and comfy for when I land there...that's been the sum of my days up to now.  I had a nice trip to Maui in September for my 60th birthday but that seems like ages ago.  Winter really set in which they said it was going to do, but it doesn't feel any more harsh than in previous years.  I was able to trade my windmill frame for manure which I mulched around the transplanted rhodedendrons I brought here.  With this snow and ice we've had,   I think that will probably help them out.  There's a couple of piles of branches to be burned at some point and the creek needs rock where we cleared out the debris that was clogging it.  I got a line on a guy that hauls dirt but I haven't spoken to him about that.  I want to get the rest of the brush out of the way and see what I've got there before I go layering it with fill.  As far as observations go, it's all about staying with the processes of being creative and where that leads.  I look forward to each day and the new things that come with it.  Also cherish the past as the golden opportunity it was.  I find myself referring to my days back East as a continuation of what I do now.  I'm not in a major metropolitan area here and the ability to think clearly about a specific process I want to explore is very easy to do.  As I said above, the phone doesn't ring all that much even though it's a holiday and I've got a couple of days all to myself with lots to do, once I get to it.  Writing at the blog was probably the first task.  The rest of the day awaits!

a book by Collette

I just finished reading The Vagabond by Collette.  She portrays a female divorcee in France, not sure of the year but that doesn't really matter so much.  The divorcee, Renee, is a player in a revue.  She lives alone with her little dog and entertains friends sporadically.  She falls in love with an admirer from the revue, a wealthy gentlemen with 'no visible means' of employment but plenty of money.  Odd how one usually makes a case for wealthy gentlemen, even those pursuing women from the theatre. 
Renee makes it difficult for her admirer, whom she refers to as 'the Big Noodle' because he is like many men she's observed at the performances.  They make mistresses of women such as herself and while she doesn't consider that she is a particularly desirable candidate for this, she falls in love with him after much pursuit.
Renee convinces 'the Big Noodle' to wait for her when she goes on tour with her troupe.  While she is away, it becomes obvious to her that this will never become the enchanting romance she and her lover dream of.  She finds that she has been damaged emotionally by her first marriage because her husband was unfaithful.  Her concept of what love and marriage should be is forever marred and she is too cynical to believe that the gentlemen who offers her marriage is going to remain true to her. 
I found the book quite vivid with descriptions of every day things but when Collette refers to 'a silky mouse' I found that her images, though quite poetic in their visual references, were, like the character Renee, not quite true to their being.  Renee does love the theater.  She describes herself as 'being alive' when she is on the stage and is able to shut out the audience just so she can live in the moment of the performance.  All outside the stage are in another world. 
Collette does not opt for the neat and tidy approach in her story.  She does not go for the 'happily ever after' concept but does go on for many pages of effusive script on the 'being in love' idea only to smash it like a bug with the idea that Renee cannot accept the promise of her lover to love her always, no matter what comes along.  All it takes is for Renee to see a snapshot of him with a young female tennis partner and she is skeptical of the idea of their lives in marriage.  She doesn't accept it. 
Collette does not describe at all how the lover feels when he realizes that Renee will not marry him.  He has waited for her during the forty days of her tour and written consistently, as has Renee.  When Renee tells him that she will not always be the woman she is at 34, he tells her he does not care, that it is she he loves.  She does not believe it and the romance ends.
I didn't find the ending of this book to be satisfactory.  While it is right to express one's doubts and fears about love, one has always the duty to believe in the fact it exists.  It is easy to revel in the happiness it brings, but to cloud the future with 'what ifs' as does Renee with Max, her lover, only serves to justify the ending of the romance because Renee has not the faith to live it and believe in it, to accept it for what it is.  She would rather stick with her stage career, as she sees other women, older than her, who have done so, who have lived a colorful life singing opera in Saigon, pursuing alternative lifestyles.  She sees that she can accept her career, but she cannot accept love everlasting, because that she does not believe in.  She was disappointed once and for her, it will happen again.
I find this personal discovery of Renee unsatisfactory.  Always she was uncomfortable with the courtship of Max and only when he stirred her passion did she respond to him.  Once she did, she was hooked on the thrill of his attention to her.  Away from it she believed that this is all it was, silly passion not likely to enable her to sustain herself throughout the rest of her life like a career in the theater would, where she could adapt the role to her interpretation of it.  She couldn't interpret growing old with Max.  Collette has portrayed a woman scorned who is unable to 'get over it'.  My only thought about Renee is that she should have tried to 'get over' her past life and unhappy marriage and go with the bliss of the new romance, to believe in it and give it her best, which she doesnt seem to think she is capable of doing.  I found this disappointing to say the least.  She was more interested in performing than actually living her life with someone who loved her.  She didn't believe he always would love her and though he offered her marriage, she rejected it.  She wasn't about to be a kept woman and that made it impossible for her to see into what her life could have been had she accepted his proposal.  I found her disappointing, accepting that she was forever skeptical of true love.  It is my belief that one accepts love for what it is, something two people share. 

a day in May

the Reef is coming along, there's a carpenter on duty now, building a deck to house the washer/dryer and hot water heater, the portrait is in process, the weather has been nice.  Saturday was wedding day, the two days before were getting flowers ready and having the rehearsal dinner.  I had some observations on that big celebration but right now I'm tired.  It's all swimming around in my head.  I feel tired.  I hammered my finger putting on a very short piece of molding near the shower this morning.  It's sore.
I went to see Robin Hood while I was at the wedding.  There was a free afternoon before we got together to do the flowers.  I went for it.  I could say that I enjoyed the free time.  I could also say that I'm one of those people who enjoys a good fairy tale.  I didn't know much about King John who took over from Richard the Lionheart.  In this movie, neither King John nor Richard the Lionheart were much to write home about, though King John was portrayed as a weakling and a coward while Richard was foolhardy to go into battle without his men at arms.  The real hero was the son of the author of the Magna Charta, something I've been aware of though I'm not that well versed on history to know the points of the document.  It would seem that this person rose through the dust of his father's ashes to become Robin Hood, a totally new take on the story of that character, who has been the subject of earlier films and a television series.  In this version, Robin comes late into the game from fighting the Crusades, hangs in there until Richard the Lionheart is slain in battle, then returning to England in the guise of a fallen Knight.  He takes with him his men at arms, a lesson for the history books, that, because Richard might have had the honor to assume his throne had he not done the same. 
When I was in college, I had Father Meinrad for my history classes.  He knew the history of Europe by heart.  We would take notes but he never had a history book in front of him.  We did cover English history during the time of Richard the Lionheart.  It didn't really sink in.  I think maybe the movie clarified some of it for me, if it follows the truth of the matter.  I had some confidence in Eleanor of Aquitane but here in the newest Robin Hood she is portrayed as the 'floozy' of King John, another French girl with tangly blonde hair.  She is often seen warming up the sheets for the wishy washy king.
I did miss the mud wrestling of Robin Hood and Maid Marian because I had to slip out for a moment.  I understand that was quite exciting so I'll have to see it again.
Meanwhile, the creative process is forever interrupted by the daily chores, life in the workplace, taking care of the dogs, being sensitive to my sore finger.  I made a cake for supper, some potato salad, will barbeque lamb riblettes.  The weather is overcast.
It was lovely for the wedding.  The food was good, the service short.  Many pictures taken, old friendships renewed.  Ok, finger is sore.  Adieu for now. 

our weather

beginning of spring? 49 degrees outdoors, heavy rain during the night, working on the containers for plants for the wedding in May...struggling with that, somewhat, busy with moving house...did more paintings and mopped floors in the studio, backbedroom looking more like the twilight zone than I would have thought, house nearly furnished, front bedroom the office, backbedroom where I will sleep, interesting how it develops, nice to talk with the ladies from the gallery...little notes..here and there, see how it goes...

it's another day in the neighborhood...

I planted the reisling grape yesterday.  I set the posts for the wire in the evening before, when it was dark.  The directions on the bag of ready mix said 'just add water' but it seemed as though it hadn't set but I went ahead and put the wire on anyway and put the vine on the wire after removing it from the other yard.  I also planted several lilac and a fruit tree, which has dark plum colored leaves and so I think it may actually be a plum, but we'll see.
The reisling had grown along the fence in the other yard, it's gotten bigger over time but has never been what you'd call 'flourishing'..hopefully now it's on a slope it will become a more vigorous plant, assuming that it has survived the transplanting process.  It's raining today so that will help it acclimate.  I put plenty of good soil on it after putting it in the ground.
I'm still in my pajamas and the artists' painting group started a half hour ago.  Little gaberoid has showed up, courtesy of his dad, so I'm gonna have to get with the program here and get off the computer, which I've been slaving over since early this morning, due to a glitch that kept me off line and frustrated that I couldn't budge the web.  My son called and wants me to come over to hawaii for a visit which would be nice if I could find the time.  I can find the time alright, it's staring me in the face asking me why I have been online since five am but that's because I had to resolve the glitch which I did and now I'm en modem which is fine because blogging gets like that I suppose...stream of consciousness relating to the topics one pursues, etc. 
Have to get moving though...probably start by jumping in the shower though I'm concerned the phone may ring while I'm in there but probably not because I've already had several important calls and I only expect one more which I guess I'm slowly waiting around for but it's not crucial I be in the house for it because I have the cell phone number with that person as well.  So off to the shower I guess. 
Should be at the painters' group around noon if all goes well, and yeah, the creek rises in the backyard of the reef but I've been making great headway there.  dug up three rugs, two baseboard heaters, a car bumper and numerous items of trash.  Metal has gone with the metal guy and darn if I didn't forget to tell him about the discarded hot water heater in the basement.  I'll get that next time I guess.  Meanwhile, on to the day and then some..

progression...what is the nature of art...my view

pro...these three letters appear as I attempt to struggle through my blogging exercise without benefit of a fully functional 'mouse'...the little 'golf ball' inside the bugger has become weighted, as they do, only had this one a few months, and it's optionally disfunctional (wonder should dysfunctional have a 'y'...looks like it does).
So, that begins the topic of the nature of art..the struggle to connect with one's tools, to enhance the progression of the process, and the basic contentment that the process provides, not unlike a religious satisfaction, that one has met one's obligations in that regard, and lived by that rule, that it is must be done, or else the soul is unsatisfied and does not live in a state of grace.  Well, self-indulgent as it may seem, it is essential that the need to produce, to express what is observed (I want to say intrinsically but I don't know the word intrinsic to express just what I am explaining)..observed meaning that every element of one's consciousness is obligated to be part of the process, what one has consumed, physically, mentally, the environment.  Without the process of expression, to the artist, well I do think I'm going out on a philosophical limb here which is probably the biggest mountain of all to climb in terms of the right landing place in which to express 'the art'...the artist is somehow stifled, inhibited, ah...ungrown?
Not all of us have a problem with that...nor do I other than to observe my own progress and progression in living with the idea that I am a creative person and I have to be responsible to my need to do that.  There are desperate elements to the way we live, there have been since we lived in caves..even that gets argued, did we live in caves and look like monkeys?  Or does it matter, what is history anyway?  Who's that guy Jesus?  So on...better to say my belief is my belief and yours is yours.  For the artist, the belief is that there is something going on inside one's head that insists you record what you are seeing and hearing..somehow.  For writers it is the story to tell for painters the picture to see for photographers musicians actors same thing different medium.
So I'm a multimedia artist, as I discovered in the days of the artists' cooperative I participated in in Washington DC back in the late 1970's early '80's.  I'm glad I missed a lot of the mainstream culture during that time because as I look back on it now, my pinned together tuxedo pants from the '30's and my painted clothing were much more interesting than the heavily padded shoulders and strict lines of the fashion dictates (on the superficial level)...on the more culturally obtuse level, Desert Storm and the rise and fall of intense Republicanism in the Mideast was something that started for me in a rattletrap van somebody had that I rode in so that one of us could snatch the garbage from the back of Henry Kissinger's rowhouse a block over from the White House.  Can't be fashion conscious when one of us is getting the goods on a political advisor.  Turns out the garbage was chockablock full of Prep H cartons, all empty.   Amazing, we thought.  Guy must be doing some heavy lifting.  It was a good laugh, finding that but one that for the early morning hour it was, eight am or so...and us driving off in a huff with the black plastic bag containing the goods, the definite underbelly of American politics, and one which you wouldn't think would get you in any trouble but the truth was that the neighborhoods like that, just crawling with people representing themselves as National Security types, or what have you.
Washington DC is lovely in the spring and summer.  Rather warm come summer but spring is divine, heavenly with blooms and reasonable temperatures.  Not like here where one day the rain is enough to drive you inside and the next it's dry and you can finally attack the weeds beginning to assert themselves in the garden.  There's not a lot of warm weather here but summer does tend to hypnotize you into thinking it's utopia.  Factor in the absence of traffic, overpopulation, crime and so forth and you begin to realize that while you have been exposed to the ultimate population densities of New York and DC and the East Coast in general, not to mention somewhere like Tokoyo or a large city in India like New Dehli where I dreamed I was living in a cardboard box and woke up when it was time to light my fire, hehe...this little town that is my home has got it all..a nice little cooperative grocery down the street from the studio (the Reef is being referred to as the 'little house'...), several well attended churches, a fascinating library that is also well-attended, strands of beach that dispute the notion that we've reached the end of our accessible wilderness and some good food.
People are friendly here in a way that makes you feel you've earned their respect.  They're tolerant if gossipy and very considerate.  Well, now..I was on about the progression of art and the need to express it if you're of the artistic type and here I am talking about the weather..hehe...what does that connect to it?  Ok...you don't have to think of the aspirations of someone like Van Gogh who was very rampant in his need to convey what he felt...gestures and so forth asserting the need for expression (to the max in his case)..but you have to think of the healthy channeling of those creative expressions for if they're not allowed ability to expound, the process of creation is very much disturbed and I would say Van Gogh is a case in point. 
How then to breed and foster a creative person?  Oh, and I might as well throw this in as well, artists should be in charge of running planets because they're always ahead of their time and have the most benevolent view of their fellow man and his environment.  Hmmm...my self-critical process tells me I'm writing from the feminine side but I can't help it, it's who I am.  Finding a creative person in our midst, we should be aware that little geniuses like baby Mozart and his twinkling stars weren't just for us but for everyone who comes after us because that music will live on.  There's a key there, finding those among us, realizing that while we have a joy in our existence, they know from whence comes that joy and it is a voice inside them.  Nobody but Jesus was Jesus I always think so don't pretend you are anything but yourself but these guys, they talk another language and it's all about interpreting who the rest of us are.  Fascinating I always think because sometimes they more than anyone else feel the process of the rest of us and what we go through, more than we do. 
So it's important these creative sorts are happy because in them is our joy.   It's like the Star Wars line '..a disturbance in the force'.  Which I think is what happens when someone like Van Gogh gets so overwraught that he cuts off an ear.  The motivation behind something like that, or Heath Ledger getting the big o.d., or Elvis or whatever else...it's not cool but it happens so we should be considerate of it, maybe not so tolerant of the indulgences some of the more famous but to be aware of the little ones coming up that may be of this category so that they are aware they need to stick with it and let it speak from inside them so they'll be content in their ability to do this and not be frustrated that they don't understand they can.
Not complicated to me but one wonders why if my son just called with news of some great disaster somewhere that may affect his living in Maui, i.e., the possibility of a tsunami (and here as well he relates)..I haven't dropped everything and flipped on the news on the radio or the tv...well, I left my disaster radio at the studio because I know that if we fiddle while Rome burns, and Nero perhaps was the ultimate identity of the creative process stunted...it's not really going to burn for a little bit and that's how essential the need to be creative is for creative people.
We probably all have a little of it inside us, our ability to make the best biscuit or mow the neatest lawn, yep...we're trained from birth to do well at whatever it is we end up doing for the rest of our lives.  Selfdeprecation gets in the way a lot.  Art deflects selfdeprecation by getting the mind off the hypercritical aspect of introspection.  Art repositions the sense of self-worth in the individual.  It makes the mainstream collective consciousness a worthy endeavor the sociological body of man identifies himself through.  Not all of us relate, of course.  But the more we put art up there with religion and politics the more we'll see that art really does rule better than anything else.  Well, next to God there is art.  Nice three letter word isn't it?
Hmmm, feeling teary eyed at identifying what it is I believe in.  I shouldn't ever expound on religion because that's the truly private domain of the individual and his Maker.   Politics I've made a study of and it's all about the great confounding to get the job done.  Art is a fluid process that defines all of it, the Pieta talks about the crucifixion more vividly than sermon or biblical text, encapsulating and making material the factors of the event in a way that transcends time and makes eternal our universal knowledge of our belief systems generally.  We don't all subscribe to the events that created the Pieta or the need to create the Pieta or even to find it relevant to our daily existence.  But enough of us do that the rest of us don't even need to consider it.  Those are the artists, they know because through them our life-string is always connected to the theology of existence, the reverence for life and the need to protect it, to shelter it even.
My hands have taken a beating the last day or two.  Truly, I am treating the landscape of the Reef like an external palette upon which to create an ongoing canvas of growing things.  Starting out I am replanting the original garden and have installed two older rhodies from the yard here on the little ridge in the front yard where it slopes into the backyard.  Behind these there will be a riesling to grow towards the garage from the sidewalk at the backdoor, also on the little slope where hopefully it will get nice sun in summer and some beach shells when we get to bringing those home.  Right now I've not been to the beach too often but I will.  What I've done lately is soak up the puddles where the backfence used to run.  That's going to have to go because I'm told the easement that was is no longer and the creeksides are ours to navigate as we see fit.  What I see is an absence of nice border rock and a deluge of silt which needs to be scooped out, so that'll come along as I get closer to it.  I broke through to the waterside with much effort and found a roll of chainlink fence that I'll have to yank towards the yard probably with a tow line on the truck at some point because it's massive for one person to shift.  There are wild roses in abundance and their thorns more than two inches long...like that's the sort of thing you want to get scraped by on the way to the creek's edge.  For now I've been cutting back a cluster at a time of those things and there's a great line of brush in the really dripping part of the yard at the back fence.  This I call Stalin's mound, not for any reasonable purpose other than to get myself some credit for working diligently at resetting the natural boundaries of the property in terms of enhancing the creative process engaged at it.  The yard is integral to that due to its view, its natural aspect, if you will.   It's a bit dumpy at present, the fish pond only has sufficient water when it rains heavily and though I bought some 'weed out the chaff in the fry' meds for the water, I haven't used it yet.  The pond is only a third ringed with rock and the iris are beginning to come up, as is the blackberry and wild rose and salmon berry.  I'm saving the beach grass for now, tall canes it becomes in summer, with a frond not unlike pampas grass.  I do intend to mow and there's got to be a place for the dogs to be let loose so they'll be fenced in and not go eating the raptor center's chickens, like I saw one of them do the little brat.  hehe..how unforgiving is nature.  So I have some fence along the back and the side yards are totally encumbered by encroaching brush and I've gotten six bags of cement to set in posts but it's raining cats and dogs so the cement won't set until it stops raining but there's wire in the garage and beachwood for the rails so I think the materials in hand for the dog fences and I do want a trellis for the rambling rose that grows under the front bedroom windows with some aclarity...is that a long sentence or what...how my mind works, yada and yada...at the back of my thought process is the news about the big earthquake in chile ... 8.9...which I ought to go learn more about or at least find a website here that might tell me something but it's happened and that's about all there is to know at this point...so we'll see...meanwhile, the Reef looks as though it's endured numerous disasters of that sort and all I need is to put pontoons under the house and she'll just float out to sea as nicely as you like...with the moat that occurs in these heavy rains, in the basement,  you'd think she was at anchor presently, just waiting for some desperate input like a tsunamic warning.  Well, I'd guess that my emergency preparedness training is kicking in and I'd better get on the news channel and see what the alerts are.  My son says Maui is sitting tight.  I should like to think that we here are too.  So what's the point of it all?  It's not the French Revolution but I've been through the Sixties Movement and come through to find the light at the end of the rainbow.  That light was the double rainbow I saw over Sekiu the other day on the way to my art group.  by the time I got to the painting session, a cloud had pushed over and covered the rainbows and dumped rain by the bucket.  Didn't matter to me, I'd seen the light.

doing well blogging

another story of a blogger getting a television series from his writing has come to light.  it's the new words without a page, using the blog entry as a journal.  I don't really read the entries that are made but I do like to use the medium. 
Have been bringing firewood to the Reef.  My right wrist is complaining about it.  There was one major chunk that will probably end up being the outdoors table, it's so large, the lower portion of a tree, took a big effort to get it on the truck, will have to roll it to where I want it to set.   Thinking nice flat stones and then plunk it on those just to keep it off the ground.  Need also a fire pit of sorts, so I can start using up the twigs and branches that have been cleared away.  Strange how last year it was a bramble mess and now it is showing up with little flowers like grape hyacinth that were there all the time only lost in the clutter of blackberries and salmon berries. 
I suppose that nice rocks will be my next scavenge.  I found a little dresser when I brought my son's kids over to their old neighborhood last evening.  I am visiting until tomorrow morning when I go back to attend the school board meeting and hopefully get in a yoga session.  My stomach is like worn out elastic, rather flabby.  Shouldn't be too bad with all the labor intensive chores of the Reef and getting settled there but it appears so.  The little dresser has veneer issues but all the knobs are there and it was sitting out free in front of the buildings at the entry to the little alley where my son's family lived until last fall.  The kids hadn't been back.   They did find some of their playmates and as the baby schlepped in her carseat and I discovered two chin hairs in the car mirror, they played.
I debated back and forth with myself about the free dresser.  I love to restore furniture but don't I have enough? I wondered.  Yes, but the prospect of restoring this piece was too much.  We and the oldest daughter loaded it into the back of the SUV and it came back here with us.  I'll fix it up, it'll be great. 
So the point of this effort is to discuss art and the influence it generates by the visual medium.  Still on about that.  Have been working on a portrait of my son, myself and our cat, Felix, from a snapshot of us on the front porch of our house in Salisbury, Maryland, where we lived when my son was small.  Summers were great there because we were thirty miles from Ocean City, Maryland, where we could swim in the Atlantic to our heart's content.  The portrait of the three of us is coming along nicely.  I've done a series of sketches so far and have several sizes of canvas that I'm going to use, one or the other, have to get those stretched and sized so they'll be ready when I've finally done the composition enough to feel comfortable about putting it on canvas.
Point of the art?  My middle son's kid's are the ages of the older son in the portrait.  They're different in aspect, of course, but the age is right.   I took a series of snapshots of them yesterday at the park and will take some more before I go I think.  It's taken me more than thirty years to get around to the portrait of my son but he never married so this is to capsulize the elements that he might have passed on, but so far has not.  He was always like a fairy child when he was small.  Sturdy and bright like a freshly bloomed daffodil, sunny and pragmatic, like he is now, living in the tropical landscape of Maui, where he loves the beach.  He was engaged once to a sweet girl whose portrait still sits in my bedroom display of family photographs.  Of the several he intended to marry, that one was the most endearing, though they were all very nice.  I don't think of him as married, with children, because he was all about himself, always, and that's just how it was.  He was loyal to me and he loved our home in Salisbury.  Part of him is still there, so that's why the portrait now, because he is in Hawaii, not Maryland, not New Orleans where he lived with the dear girl, not Bellingham, where I am now and where he lived with his stepfamily until he came to finish school with me and his  younger brother and sister.  It's confusing how we extend our families to include everyone we love, but not really, because the time we spend with them is precious and that's the only thing that really matters.  So that's the art intent, to record our time in Salisbury, which I know my son loved and cherished ever after as the summers at the beach.

Priorities...in art...

well, I think I've said this before, that I have to get organized when I work on art projects...which means, for me, cleaning, arranging, even waiting for the proper weather on the proper day...I find it frustrating but a challenge more than that...and it allows the creative flow to remain unencumbered because this is the way I have found to permit my thoughts and processes, i.e., painting, writing, sewing, whatever...even culinary effort, to achieve its parameters and not be hampered by self-critique or a disillusion or distillation process...meaning that while I allow the day to day routine to flow around me like a little stream, I also achieve that which it is I am attempting to convey concept wise
and for today, though I have written minutes for meetings that I am secretary to...my creative processes are in the maintaining position, moving articles to the Reef, setting up the transfer of documents and kitchen articles like new plates and a little shelf, while I took a call from a potential literary agent and allowed the dogs to wander for more than an hour, planned how the process of the actual move to the studio is going to take place and no doubt should email the real estate property manager..i.e., hook up some folks to live here while I live at the studio...yeah...now that'll be interesting...
am finding that while the creative process is in full flower at the studio...here is like the protective covering that nutures it...while the dogs were out I thought how nice not to have to clean up their burnt offerings, as I cleaned up the latest batch...chili for lunch, much coffee, probably too much so as I could use a nap about now..am on a sensible kick after watching six disks of Inspector Morse, which I used to truly enjoy watching and am wondering why A&E doesn't have that on its bill anymore (they used to be a wonderful station for British detective series)
no matter, am going to hunt down the book the potential agent was referring to and see what can be done with it as it stands...I'm thinking that painting and writing go  hand in hand with cleaning up my office, so I have to see where I'm at with that because I know where I'm at with the office, it's staring me in the face like a muddy car (two of those as well)...not burdened by the process but learning to appreciate the definition of it in terms of where it takes me...well, Wednesday is Ash Wednesday and beginning of Lent, I shall give up anxiety this year, haha...never had it (hmmmm) but a reasonable facsimile there of has been a constant meaning that dumb stuff creeps in  and has to be swept up (hence the cleaning gigs)
ok...one final note, put the little Mermaid doll back in the wreath at the Reef after mending her up a bit...will get out the embroidery threads another day, she's been beaded after a good washing up...so, yoga this afternoon, classical music on and on...Mom and I to Port Angeles yesterday for dinner with my brother and his wife...visited Dad's grave afterward, wet feet because I finally wore the patent slides I'd been keeping in their box under the bed and they killed my bunion, owie...Dad's grave is next to brother John's grim day standing there but the knowledge of death, the finality, the temporary quality of daily life that resounds in those tombstones..have to visit daughter's grave in Ferndale while I'm over with Tones...not that it's a fun thing but more of an obligation to oneself for continuity...we'll see...could hardly find the marker last time

room to a view blog...influence of the Kali red in Jasper Johns' influence paintings

it's closing in on Valentines day, one of my favorite holidays..well, holiday in the sense that one has a sweetheart on that day that one is especially fond of doting on, but...I did paintings...and I would have to say that Jasper Johns has come about of an influence on them because of the Kali red I used...and the blue
Johns did mainly mostly flags...but as the color influence asserts itself...to me, the Johns work was about the white, the red and the blue he used...he was confined by his painting circumstances to painting flags...my brother has a friend on the Sekiu River with advanced alzheimers...this guy is the spirit of Johns to me...he sold me a funky air pump for the air mattress I bought from him and though many of us sweated on that pump, we could never get it to fill the air mattress...as I was sweating away...I thought to myself that it was like painting the American flag over and over and over...and would be relevant to continue to try to do so only if you were Jasper Johns...I don't know if that makes any sense..but that's when I realized this advanced alzheimer guy was Johns' spirit...he's beginning to not be able to do things for himself...rather disturbing...but those paintings of the flags...I have to divert my concerns there to the flags and the beauty of their concept..and revel in the colors..like a certain chord in the Bridal March by Lohengrin...the twang of the fallen in the Civil War I felt it conveyed...and not a twang so much as the sound of glass cracking...(or an air pump not filling the air mattress...duhh)...
so about the Kali red...I did an exhibit once back in DC at the Organ...Kali the Hindu goddess was everywhere in it...I had a Greek soldier's fluffy white skirt all dyed briliant reds..well they were pink more or less, I think this particular reddish hue the Valentine color...the sense of love conveyed in color...like how to do pacifcism probably...promote the concept that all is good and all is love and all you need is love...the mantra from the Beatles...it is true though and in the origins of the peace movement, which we all kind of evolved into what with our fringed moccasins and bell bottoms (does still wear those)...so in honor of the Kali influence a couple of my friends came down the street, having taken the Greek skirt from the wall of the exhibit, put it on...donned a few other Kali color display items..and marched a little peace march in the Adams Morgan 18th Street area..one was particularly tall and lithe being a sort of Isadora Duncan and the other was little Kira who lived up off Columbia Road with her parents...one of whom handed me in a cheese sandwich when I was gallery sitting and half starved, wearing my "Miss Whipple" outfit also a hand colored effort and when I walked up the 14th Street corridor I was restored...of course the next hand colored effort was 'thou restored'...and written on the leg of one of the previously starched white pants..actually I don't know if the pants came first or second but part of the art thing with me is coloring clothes and wearing them as an art statement...I'm not sure when I do it what the statement is actually but I know the Kali things were about peace and love...I feel numb thinking any other way about our human coexistence with one another because I know in the nuclear age we can't be any other way because of the 'dos' influence, direct operating systems...auto executor states...animals and so forth, plants, what we consume...I don't think it's so terribly confusing but I know that we don't get buy if we don't respect those rules as they were initiated by the Manhattan project and all the nuclear relevations of that time...well anyway, a bit of hippie art chair philosophy that but so it is...
haven't written much the last week or two...busy PAINTING!!! and yep..that was the point of writing just now, that it was the Kali red time...and the blue which I haven't found as pervasive an influence though the Reef is right across from the water's edge and I should know it...the Kali red comes to me whenever I call it up...if I have to call it up, there it is, perhaps because inside us all is blood and darn I poke my finger now and then but when it dries, that blood is an ugly brown, literally putrid in its effect and so only when it is live from within does it have any sort of grace, though it isn't of any particular warmth to me...the Kali red is that life blood distilled and conveyed as the spirit of man, I think, in its love, well, it's not my favorite color either, as I love them all, but for purposes of purpose, the Kali red does have a singular effect I've found, in that little peace march of Kira and her adult dancer escort, both of them coming down the street all dressed in the Kali reds...a strange configuration..something that until now hadn't been recorded properly and one I am curious to see may come again since I'm in the Kali mode I think...found a can of paint in a cupboard at the reef, I knew I'd brought one in but the anticipated tenant had waylaid it...so it persisted and I found it...just like I find a vat of terrible brown under the sink when I'd had a tummyache ..which I painted a little on the garage with...
So here it is...what, quite a bit later, the Kali peace walk was in the early early eighties way early...maybe before '79 not sure, we didn't keep records but there it was...and here it is again...and this is 2010 and it's not red dye on white cotton, which it was there, and the 'thou restored' was inks in blue and green so I don't know where that fits in but I do know that the color in the pieces I just hung in the front room at the Reef are those Kali reds...and the blue which hasn't any life yet so I'm not done with them but I hesitate to go too far into it until I look at them more..I made two more stretchers from wood my son cut for me...but I haven't put the canvas on them..have some linen to bring there and maybe I'll use oils for a change which I don't know about the sizing part but I guess I could muddle through...we never painted in oils at Madams Organ, we used whatever was sprouting out of the environment...which for me was sometimes music, sometimes writing, sometimes the studio wall itself...but anyway...a few more details and then a hot shower
There is a new visiting resident across the street, another Aaron...there's an Aaron up the alley in Albert's house and he the Albert Aaron was in a guitar band with my daughter when she was in high school..this other Aaron had a look at the gallery but said not a word about my paintings...I explained the neoGerman expressionism movement influence on the lineoleum works but I didn't say anything of Jackson Pollack so I guess I left it to him to figure that part out but it's strange how little people know about art when you think they do especially this other Aaron who is tall and looks like a young Indian brave wearing one of those funny peruvian caps that come down over the ears and have strings hanging (for some reason I used to think of those caps as 'period hats' meaning that either the male in the couple wore one or the woman when she was bleeding...so maybe that was Kali again)
this other Aaron came over Saturday when I was painting...I hadn't started anything and he ran into me when I was coming back from a foray to the Cannery building, which we'd been talking about at a co-op meeting which all of a sudden I'm going to meetings on even though I am part of several other clubs like I don't have enough to do...so this other Aaron looks like my brother Mark in a strange way and he's rather young, like one of my sons...but he's an adult and I want right away to see him as the young Pollock before he gave it up to the alcohol gods (if he did, I wouldn't know I wasn't there) or the Johns, who I don't know but don't have the association with because I have to say the life in Adams Morgan running the gallery there was kind of a strain in weird ways, like having been a conformist more or less and letting it all hang out all of a sudden was cool but stressful thinking about ways to make a living and so forth...I depended on my husband then for the physical support, but not really because I could always make my way and we never sold art...well we could but we had terrible arguments about it...just brutal arguments about how can you make money on something that is going to influence everyone great and small it's like religion...you don't make money on religion...but you have to eat...you have to be able to switch on your television and not have some moron say you can't watch that channel...back and forth...gnarly
so I made these three paintings and have two more to stretch and paint and I told my painter friends that I was going to do realism on these canvasses but it's not looking that way which is a challenge to me in some ways but it's also kind of spooky going to painting circle because of some of the people there, not that they're not nice but some are trapped in the between life phase issues...they paint well but are like the great void in terms of interaction...they're not like they were at the Organ...art as relevant to everyday life...we the great influencers of it with our psychology of color...I don't think this bunch would give it any credence although I have mentioned it to them a time or two...to not criticize either because they're dear to me...sometimes I bring my knitting, or play music in the ballroom upstairs..without the heat on...brrr
so at the Reef Raphael has been coming to help with little things but first off he tore his shoulder up and is wearing a sling at the moment...We went up to Dale's house yesterday after Mass and what a mess the boys left..Dale died a year or so ago, I think of him as Evelyn Waugh (don't I always think of someone as someone, like Art Grossman, Kira's dad..his beautiful wife Marty and their row house in Kalorama, haven't put a tag on the Grossman's yet but I'll come to find out what they art)...when Dale died the boys took over and Debbie got a new partner so she's still around but the place where they lived is like a bomb shelter after the Blitz...Raphael showed me the piles of things and things and things...and I wondered what talisman to take away with me to give good karma to the circumstances...I found a broom, a floodlight and a basket that had been through a fire...what the relevance is I don't know yet, but I'll think of it...realized after we left and came back to the Reef that I needed furring strips for the edges of the canvasses to present a properly framed piece but I can get those elsewhere...Dale's place will be restored (the pants...'thou restored')...one of my little art prayers perhaps...the great mountains of laundry, tools, general litter, motors, dead cars...oh my...well...looks like the Neah Bay dump there without benefit of a tractor to bulldoze it into oblivion...we'll see..several worthy ladders at the bottom of the yard...those I could use on the Reef roof but eh...Susan next door has one
A note on the other Aaron, he has a wife I haven't met yet named Rikki, didn't say anything about her when  I met him, so I'm always thinking hmmm...but they told me at the co-op that he did because I stopped in there to tell them the Cannery was open (another place with much flotsam)...so, neither here or there that but the other Aaron isn't married and he looks remarkably like my favorite actor Russell Crowe and is terribly nice but somehow isn't my cup of tea besides being much younger well...not to speculate on the male population or anything because I'm not about that I think..though the Kali influence does wander that way...not like I'm going to worship it or anything because I don't feel that it moves me THAT much...this Rikki lady is newly arrived from the Nepal borders now there is a Kali influence in that as well I think but they're only temporary as Robert and Thu have gone to Viet Nam for a family visit for a little bit and Aaron and Rikki are sitting the very old labrador retriever. 
So, I think I've covered all the bases up to date and have been cooking pot roasts and big squashes and watching little children along with the painting cycles and the weather has improved slightly though it's still drearier than Ingmar Bergman.  Have added rock to the fish pond at the Reef and contemplate removing the back fence to get to the pond and deploy a lot of soil and turf to keep the water out of the yard...have to take down a great mass of brush yet and can't decide if it should be burned or carted off...have ridden the bicycle george gave me and puffed my way up the hill to the house but flew down again to the Reef, ending the day walking it up the middle road which is much much steeper and not sharing dinner with the neighbors, who went into town instead.  None of the kids called today but I did talk to Middle Son yesterday and will go see them with the Valentine presents soon...
dogs are gnawing on their bones from the pot roast, on my second or third coffee and one piece of dark rye..time for a shower and flip on the radio...richstirfry and the jewish lawyer Bob Mackowitz (don't know that Mack is a lawyer but he's probably Jewish with that name)...wonderful Canadian station which I don't want to tout too much or they'll start playing too much Gordon Lightfoot...they had a Kate and Anna McGarrigle hour yesterday in honor of Kate's passing what beautiful music...my relatives of French Canadian descent in Minnesota it reminded me of...I neve rmiss those people but it's like an amputation you learn to live with it...I would have grown up with three hundred cousins but my dad moved us out West when I was still a baby...I've felt lonely all my life
I think that's why
so that's why I wanted to mention the other Aaron staying across the street because he looks very much like one of those cousins..Paul Marlenga for one...at a younger age...and my brother Mark for another...again, at a younger age...
sometime I'll comment on the nature of youth because this other Aaron has it in spades...for now it's about the influence of the Kali red...the little peace walk of Kira Grossman and the adult dancer..Kathy Keefe...upcoming Valentine's Day, mild weather, my three new paintings...two blank canvasses..the white doves from the Reef yard...I do think those are just fo rme but we'll see..have to make them a habitat if they are...

January 14, 2010

Another grim day, wet, cold, heavy cloud cover, brrr...  Radio is talking about relief efforts in Haiti, which I haven't been following: an earthquake? 
Yesterday I attended a yoga session and did the mountain pose and the tree pose and a couple sitting on the floor exercises I would call variations on a wheelbarrow pose.  It felt good to stretch.  When I started out, my right arm felt as though it had been pulled from its socket.  By the time it was over, I felt rather limber.  There were about ten of us and the instructor, a pert lady who's in town for a couple of months.  We'll see where she goes after that.  This place grows on you, like moss on the roof.  You get it in your system and you never lose it.  I suppose that doing yoga is like that.  It's been recommended to me for quite a while now and like the other milestones of my life, I'm into it.  There was a comment by the instructor that we wouldn't need to contribute for the building rental, so the little money I had with me won't be needed after all.  It's consquently going in the ice cream fund.
Angel is here for wedding planning.  This is exciting to me because I haven't seen her since last May. We talk a lot on the phone, keeping up with our daily lives as best we can.  She's anxious about being married but the plans are working out smoothly and we'll see the site this weekend: Cedar Springs, in Gig Harbor.  I'm going to stay with her future in-laws, who just built a new house.  I could get ahold of my brother's family while I'm there but I don't know if I want to do that because I'm the relative that crashes on the couch now and again.  I'm bringing along a sleeping bag and pillow and will curl up in whatever corner in the new house that they provide me.  I might also run up to b'ham to get the canvasses Tony has been making me.  I'm about run through the Pollack series, even watched a movie on Jackson which I will discuss further a bit later on here.  I realized on a drive to Forks yesterday how deeply attached I am to my children.  I will absorb my time with Angel and use it to fortify myself for days like this one, where everything is dim and soggy and in need of attention at every turn.  I want to dress well for Angel's future relatives.  I've been sorting clothes since 6 am this morning, finding just the right things to wear for the time of year, as well as thinking of being comfortable on the road.  I plan to bring an apple pie we made Monday.  We've already had one of them and they were very good.  I hope they'll enjoy it.
I'm dressed in my bohemian beatnik gear this morning: Beatle boots, jeans (de rigeur), a huge horizontally striped loose-knit long-sleeve turtleneck sweater in rainbow stripes, a black beanie.  Last night I went to the Reef after yoga and worked on the last in the Pollack series.  It's still on the drawing board.  The rest of the pictures I hung around the house.  One actually got into a frame and is under glass.  I think it will go to the Sekiu Post Office.  I can't think of what the piece for the Clallam Bay Post Office will be.  I have a nice color pencil drawing of a movie scene I sketched: Feather River, featuring cowboys and saloon gals but I wanted to give that to John when he comes home the week after Angel.  So I'm still up in the air on that one.  I hadn't realized that we hang in both the Post Offices.  I don't recall ever putting a picture in the Sekiu Post Office before.  I was only at the Reef for less than an hour.  The radio played an oldies station due to the signal for the Canadian Public Broadcast station not having a strong enough signal out here to stay on the frequency.  I listened to Steely Dan, Motown and when it got to Burton Cummings, I switched it around a bit and came up with Rich Terfry, who has taken over from Jurgen Goth on Disk Drive, the commuters program, which was always a delight in the late afternoon.  Terfry is ok but Goth was a legend.  He came up with a quirky Sunday afternoon segment for a while in late 2009 and then he disappeared entirely.  He seemed a bit petulant, making comments that 'hope this is quirky enough for you', meaning that, I thought, his take on broadcasting didn't meet with the producers' vision and so they let him go.  He might have also just gotten too old for the radio biz and needed his retirement but I don't think so.  The 'quirky' music he played in the last shows he did was just as alive, vibrant, interesting and engaging as it had always been and I wouldn't be amiss in saying that Goth's shows did give the pathway that the station follows now as he wasn't just a classical music buff, although his Samuel Barber offerings were introduced with a kind of reverence I haven't heard anyone else pull off quite as well.  There's a guy on in the mornings now who sounds like my lawyer pal, Bucky Cotton.  His name is Bob Mackowitz and he gives the best of the Canadian folky types a good play and it's good music, though nothing in the league of Goth but still refreshing and one would like to skip through the kitchen while the pancakes simmer on the griddle. 
I couldn't get the fire going at the Reef but I tried.  There wasn't enough paper around to get the kindling going so we may go down later when Gabe wakes up and have a go at it again.  The dogs are still out in the garage waiting for little Gabe, the neighbor boy, to come to.  He's propped up on the couch under downy fleece blankets with Christmas motifs, still wearing his outside coat over his pajamas, silent as the tomb.  I've made breakfast for him: a little warm apple pie and biscuits with gravy.  He ate like a logger at lunch yesterday: turkey and gravy over Poulsbo bread.  I think I'll turn on the television and we'll watch a little tv while we eat.  See how long he sleeps.
The buzzer on the dryer just went off.  There was a load in the washing machine I hadn't realized was in there when I went to load it.  The new load was mostly sneakers and dirty boots so those were set behind the woodstove to dry out and I just ran the forgotten load.  Better go switch loads now, see if things are thoroughly dry and ready to be folded. 

first reference to the Reef as 'the Reef'

my thoughts are swirling about, as they always do when I first get up in the morning.  I meant to get back to this Sunday sometime but gave myself ample excuses why I shouldn't...my neighbor invited me for spaghetti...what else?  It took several hours to light the fire at the Reef (yesterday's fire was delightful and warm)..sometimes I don't stay long enough there to appreciate the warmth but I always make the effort because it's the only source of heat (not actually true, I have several space heaters but I chose not to use them).  I did paint again.  Saturday I'd gotten some lush (seems like a misspell, that word, but I'll go with it) pink, a white lacquer, several other colors, not doing any Jasper Johns at the moment, red white and blue, but I might get to it since I've got flags about the house and what other source of flag would we have but the ewess of ai..that's not to be a sarcasm, I don't have any regrets or misinformation about my political stance anymore, other than to say I 'once shook the Cuban Ambassador's hand' hehe...well I did...an ancient story at this point but it was in the time of the cultivation of American University students and the reeducation of art as the influence to world peace, which I think was a good effort and once that gives me the idea that it is time to have a place like the Reef...
there's always been a place like the reef...for a little while there was only the woodpile at the back of my parents' house but I was in the middle of relationships and the longterm had become the blender (spun up into a drizzling puddle), who can paint then?
one of the more delightful reefs was on 18th street, back East as I like to say, and while I reminesce about it, I think that the art created there (the Housewife's Middle being my very favorite) came about just as it does here, a sort of magic combines before your very eyes while you stand there peeling the wet canvas from the wall and trying to stretch it out a bit...the Middle piece was done on a damask table cloth and came out a hue of red and blue (aaaahhh....Johns...) that was like a Madras but softer and it pouched towards the middle of the frame like a flabby stomach but in a loving way.  It was stretched after it was painted, my husband 'P' did the framing, him of the Corcoran School...it was lovely from the start and I don't know who has it but I know I sold it as in those days I didn't keep much but him and our children.
Now it's the opposite, I keep everything (that's going to change here shortly because I think daily about moving to the Reef) and my children are grown.  At times I'm a foster parent but now I only have a little day charge, Gabe, whose mother did a runner and my neighbor, his gramma, has taken charge of things.  This little spectacle has dragged me down like a stone but I'm floating on the top of it, like something you'd throw in the bathtub to scrub with and I think that's why the Pollack inspired series is my present effort.  No structure, colors little momma mixed, colors I started out with that she got into, I packed her clothes up yesterday, she was going to live at the Reef with my little charge.  It's insulation, talking about it now. 
I can't say that being a painter, among the varied careers of my life, hasn't been like that always.  It has.  There's always high drama and you wonder about the relevancy, or why it works out that way.  A couple years ago I had a couple doing meth next door.  It was amazing.  One day the sheriff was  parked across the street, where our preschool is housed (good God).  There was tape across the fencing of the house.  It fluttered in the breeze.  Finally I asked, "What's going on?"
The Sheriff told me.  "Hmmm..." I said.  So I looked for signs and I found plenty.  The refitting of the family van every first of the month when he had cooked his batch.  His absence for several weeks after that.   Coming home to his wife and screeching and banging.  Her as twitchy as the cat in idle conversation.  We both did needlework and crocheted.  Our children had been raised together, overnights, school activities, some of the same grades.  She retired as the bank manager.  The bank subsequently closed.  It didn't happen overnight.  For years we were all substantial family elements.
It's quiet over there now.  Fit and Refit are gone and the owners are back in residence.  They might as well live in outerspace for all I see of them.  Well, that's not true entirely.  When I worked 'up on the Hill' as we call the state pen, 'he'...the husband, just sorted of popped into place wearing camo which I thought was not allowed on site, as I walked into the main building from the warehouse.  He was just under the tower at the gate and he only needed a rifle.  Cuban ambassador huh, hehe...hmm.  I hadn't noticed he was there but there he was and the camo fatigues were really out of place.  I had got chastized for wearing a camo neck scarf and I had no idea it was disallowed.  It was really disallowed.
So I'm thinking once the little momma stuff is out of the reef...there's some rather nice dishware and cookware to be boxed, then I've got to put some of my overflow in there and maybe hmm...take some of my overflow to the quarter store?  That could be the place for it.  There's really too much of it.  It's been taking me some time getting past what little momma did but as I say, tragedy is always there and tomorrow I see a centering helper about steering over the Rowandan-sized bumps in the road.  He was cautioning me, the centerist, that it does seem to interface with one's religious beliefs but I told him that being a Catholic is the starting point for me, not the authority on faith, although it seems to provide to me the toolbox AND the materials for my faith.  I can't make other people, like the meth-cooking neighbors and the little mother in the woods, live their lives the way I have been used to seeing them live their lives: peace, joy, harmony, status quo...but whatever I tried to do to keep them from sliding into the ...into the what? well, mrs meth died...nah, I'm not a failure at saving people but standing at the edge with them is frightening and teh constancy of painting is consistent with the knowledge that there are  other ways to get around the Rowandan bumps in the road.  Like having a religious faith.  Not that you have to advertise and encourage it in others.  You just have to live it.  but whoa, I really was down about little momma...really
During the housewife's middle studio days I saw my husband kissing someone else during a get together at the house.  We lived on the second floor of the building and our studio was on the top floor.  I had to admit that I liked my freedom.  He'd given me the open window and encouraged me to fly out like a bird by doing that but instead we got married and had a baby.  We aren't married anymore and I don't feel that I would like to be married to him.  His father died recently so we talked a few times about that.  Our daughter doesn't want him at her wedding next May.  My brother's wife calls him 'the deadbeat dad' but that's just a term for someone who still paints, like me, and rails at the world about  your politicians and assorted scumbags that create havoc with our lives (oh I did think Saddam Hussein might have been one of those, come to think of it) but anyway...I guess I'm spilling these beans as a reference to falling in love with Raven and wondernig where that'll go... It's been five years now, I realize, and for all intents and purposes, that's my life, but Raven isn't anywhere you'd be able to see him pop up...out on the boat a lot...dropping in for twenty minutes while I'm building a fire at the Reef...never gone anywhere with him, like dinner or Hawaii...tsskkkk...art and painting is like that...not a normal life, but plenty of bliss in it, and delightful children (they just keep coming...you should see the one and only granddaughter,,  arrrghhh...)
Well, at that rate it's time to get out the waffle iron and attempt  coconut waffles, not Julia child here but I make stuff up pretty regular...

about two cups of white flour (you can sift it or you cannot but it is lighter if you do)
a teaspoon of baking powder
third cup salad oil
dash of salt
l/2 teaspoon cinnamon
flaking coconut sprinkled over the batter to taste (about 3/4 cup if you like it crunchy)
powdered milk, l/4-l/3 cup
enough water to make the batter like thick cake batter
one big egg, separated, yolk into batter, whip the white and fold in

heat up waffle iron until it sizzles, pour on batter and cook until golden brown...delicious


going to go make some now...by the way I got another honorable mention this year for my Christmas cookies in the bakeofff...it was in the local paper and the ribbon is hanging in the beader car, ok, puff puff brag brag...have to get some boxes for little momma's dishes...urggg...it's nearly 6 am...her spawn will be here in another hour and a half and we'll tear through the day as I chew my upper lip where a cold sore scab is looking gnarly at me in the mirror...
oh...post note...great ripping fire in our little area last night...might have to go see it in the light, glad we didn't find it last night looking for it, me and my little charge...his gram is on the fire crew of course...burned the place to the ground and it was an eyesore so is that really a loss...she came looking for him last night but I'd gotten him over to his gramps after we got back from not finding the fire...she said it was still going, one never wants to see total destruction either in buildings or people but there it is...varrooommm!! challenge is to put it together and keep it together...and PAINT!!

January 3, 2010

another in a series of very grim weather, the dog scratching at the garage door to be let in, having just watched yesterday the movie, Avatar, I went early this morning to the Reef to commit to  paint my impression of the story.  Very grandiose presentation, we could have done without the commercial exploitation theme but it is very prevalent here where the Reef is situated and one might think even causal to its restoration, if that's what I'm doing there.  But I don't see that I've ripped out the family tree where the village was, rather that I carefully handcut all the briars and transported them, also by hand to the truck, off to the woods where they might grow again, the wild rose and the black berry mainly.
On the radio at the Reef played the latin masses of some fellow writing music at the time Leonardo was  dreaming of his flying machine.  I watched the fire and stoked it with the raw cedar I've been scavenging.  It gradually warmed a bit and I hung some damp laundry out to dry while I painted. 
Now it is time for Mass which begins in twenty minutes and I have to quickly dress up a bit so that I'll be presentable.
Probably I will come back to this later, check emails and probably send off long overdue greetings to friends around the country. 
My painting muse is still Jackson and this morning it was a bit of Frost, whose poetry I am unfamiliar with, other than to know he was from New England.  It just seems as though his poetry speaks about the kind of winter we are in and why it is important to keep a warm hearth wherever you are.