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!
Friday, November 26, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, March 29, 2010
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...
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
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..
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..
Saturday, February 27, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
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.
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.
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