Hurry Up And Wait

Okay, so no photos in here yet, as part of the cataloging process, but I have gone through my fairly sizable collection of paintings to see what I already have, and what is (in my opinion) suitable for showing to the public. Example: Brown-skinned woman in the Temple of Bast painting who still has no nipples - not suitable. Cher with a snake in her hair - suitable. Tree series - suitable. Unfinished and very boring painting of the seaside - unsuitable. First of the Water's Edge series - suitable, I think. And so it goes.

I'm halfway through another of the tree series, which frankly, will make up the bulk of this show (which i'm still waiting to hear back about, but chins up (sigh! that could apply to just me - ugh!) it's going to work out - I have faith) and pondering the possible ways to fill an immense brick wall in a trendy restaurant/bar. Too many small paintings could get lost, but I really don't want to do an entire series of huge paintings, just to fill that wall. The tree series has been a lot of fun - every one is different, even though it's more of a formula than I've used in the past. I think I like working in series - it gives me more comparison/contrast to look at and learn from. The next series will be The Water's Edge, and will be more dreamlike. The title comes from lyrics in Peter Gabriel's song "Red Rain" and has to do with dreams, portents, and a ghost that I am searching for still. I'm still formulating this series; not sure if they might not include mixed media to achieve what I'm looking for.

A Moment's Venting:
On top of these lovely distractions comes the news that my dad has cancer. He's been taking his sweet ambivalent time to tell the rest of the family, which is pretty true to form for him, and I feel sure he's still in the (internally) freaking out stage (pretty sure I would be too). The good news is that the cancer is encapsulated, contained in one area, and the doctors are optimistic he'll make a full recovery, and that's the story I'm sticking to. It is scary to think of though, the physical reality of what was an academic thought - that your parents DO get old, they DO get sick, and eventually, they DO die. You would think at 49 years old, I would have come to terms with the physical reality of this, and I have, kinda. I always thought it would be my mother who got cancer first - I've been preparing for that inevitability for some time, because she isn't in great health, but my dad - he's 78 years old and doesn't look it at all - more like 60 maybe - so it's a shock that he would be the first one to have cancer. It doesn't help to know that his father died of cancer, and that his sister died last year from complications due to esophageal cancer, but I'm trying to remember that his mother lived to be 96, and that he is far more like her than he would care to admit, though maybe not so much now.

Not to worry, dear reader: the basket case of crazy will not be unleashed just yet.

And I will try and get some photos up of stuff that I'm considering for the show in September.

Shhhh! No Sudden Moves

Just pretend I'm not here, bumping around in the dark, trying to find my words that I stuffed under a sofa cushion, how many months ago??? Dammit, where did I put them??

I have been painting more, since I stopped blogging, so I haven't been totally mind-sucked into Facebook, and if all goes well, I am hoping to be in the planning stages of a bonafide show very soon. I've never really done a show - I've never really thought I was professional enough to warrant one, but I'm almost 50 and dammit, I'd like to be able to say I had at least one damn show to my name before it's all over. Besides, after a few trips up to Asheville, where we looked at tons of art, I realized that I don't suck nearly as much as I thought I did - high praise, no? And it's time to carpe diem baby!

So with that in mind, I'm going to be using this space for the next few months, to try and organize both my thoughts and my painting body of work, so when September rolls around, I will hopefully have not only my paintings ready to show, but that I'll be able to articulate some kind of thought process or inspiration about how they came to be. You know, the bullshit blah-blah, yappity-yap that artists expound on the opening night - yeah, I don't know shit about it either, so I'm going to have to practice, on you guys.

The idea of doing a show is thrilling and definitely a good thing to be fixating my OC ass on, but there are many unseen forces pulling me in several directions right now; some are the predictably unpredictable, like my boys - the Professor has recently informed me that he can only eat humanely raised meat  now, and preferably, he would prefer to eat none at all - I swear he's my sister's changeling child!!! Other things chumming the waters of my mind right now are murkier and not publicly known yet, so I'll have to promise to divulge when I can, later on.

Serial Painter

February has been a dark month. That the dark twisty whirlpool held off until February, rather than kicking in straight after the holidays is pretty great, and partially due to the wonderful trip I took up to Asheville, NC with Bea and Ms. Q. We looked at a lot of art in a lot of galleries while we were there, and I found myself asking what was holding me back. I decided that I tend to take on a painting often for the challenge of it, which often leads to unfinished pieces and a sense of frustration. My sister, who makes dolls, has told me that the first doll of any type is always the hardest and most time consuming, because she's working through the process for that particular type of doll. The subsequent ones tended to go faster, even with slight variations from doll to doll. This got me to thinking that maybe I should try to do a series of paintings. I have been photographing trees a lot lately, and I've always been obsessed with clouds, but the sunsets we saw up in Asheville were the final inspiration for this series of paintings.





Forgive the glare: my camera doesn't like low light.But hey, no razor blades or dark twisty thoughts were used in the painting of these canvases, so that's something, right?

Groundhog Syndrome?

Is it Spring yet? Can I come out of the hole I've been hunkering down in for the last quarter of a year, consuming mass amounts of carbohydrates?

I've been having this internal conversation lately, about whether I should continue to blog or not. It certainly is more creative than playing Vampire Wars in Facebook, but let's not poke that bear quite yet. I kind of felt that I was becoming stale in what I was posting, that it ran in a cyclical format. Post about my life, my kids, the cats, drinking on a Sunday, and the ubiquitous photo -op post when all words had dried up and blown away. These are all things I am interested in, but are they things worth writing about, and more saliently, self-publishing? I don't have the kind of egocentric personality to think, unquestioningly, "Why yes, they are! Who doesn't want to read about ME?" Rather, I shrink inwardly, thinking of the exposed, winter-white underbelly I'm exposing. Granted, my ego is unrealistic enough to have thought, at the outset of blogging, that I would become a famous celebrity blogger, doing talk shows, writing a book, and somehow transcending the mundane.

Yeah, not so much, and most of the time that's okay with me. I don't really want to be accountable to thousands of readers, who are going to take issue with me every time I take a stance on something. There is less pressure in knowing that virtually no one will read this, but it does raise the question of why do it at all, and I don't really have an answer for that right now, because I'm waffling as it is.

I'm disappointed with myself, and a little angry as well. I start projects only to never finish them, and the biggest unfinished project I have is Who Am I? At 47 years old you would think I'd have that answer, but nope - nopety, nope - I'm clueless. I'd like to be able to place the blame elsewhere, but ultimately it's all on my head.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's been a busy period, despite the self-imposed hibernation: I took in another stray cat I found wandering the streets during a snow storm. I thought she might be terminally ill, with something horribly contagious like Leukemia or FIV, but upon observing her I discovered she couldn't chew the dry food that the neighbors had left out for her. she would bolt it whole and then vomit it back up, which was causing her to dehydrate and slowly starve. I took her in, fed her soft food, and kept an eye on her. She was covered in fleas, even in January, so I bathed her. The water ran so red I thought I had opened a wound on her body somewhere, but it was only from the flea castings. When I took her down to see Doc after about two weeks, she was stable but still fragile. He told me that she had suffered a broken pelvis and jaw, and was anemic from the flea infestation, but other than that was healthy and disease-free. And that is how Miss Willow came to be among the chosen few here at the Temple of Bast.

But wait, there's more: I discovered on Monday that Pooh Bear, named for his prodigious eating habits, had an abcess on the side of his face. I cleaned it, dosed him with Amoxicillan and put him in solitary to rest. When I checked on him later I discovered he had another abcess a little further down his neck. Apparently he was bitten by one of the feral and intact males who roam our neighborhood. Luckily, he has had his shots, and I am an old hand at abcesses, so two days later, he's looking much better.

On the family front, my son, The Professor, came down with Strep for the very first time, at 12 and a half. It was the damnedest thing I've ever seen. He came home from school on a Friday, complaining of a sore throat and a headache. Saturday morning I looked in his mouth and there were the tell-tale pustules on his tonsils. We decided to wait and go to his regular doctor on Monday, since I don't trust the doc-in-the-box and he wasn't that severe, symptomatically speaking. Sunday morning, his throat had less white lesions, but it still hurt a bit. By Monday morning he had a clear throat, albeit a bit red and puffy. I took him to the doctor, he tested positive for Strep and he started his antibiotics. He's fine now, but I wonder: would he have recovered from the strep without any antibiotics? I've never seen anyone come down with Strep and two days later, be on the mend, but it sure looked like that was the case with him. I just wish I could bounce back like that!

Letter to an Old Friend

(Because this is where my mind is at these days)

Dear _____,

It's funny, I was just getting ready to drop you a note, and here's one from you! I've been pondering the haiku, and wanting to write one, but my head is just not there right now. Jasper, my oldest cat at 18, is, I believe, in the last throes of dying right now. I'm mostly okay with it - she's ten days older than God, for crying out loud - but it's still the end of an era and kind of depressing, to watch her "go gently into that good night" before my eyes, leaking her life on towels laid in strategic spots. Not my best poetry writing kind of mood (although it's apparently good for prose!), unless I'm going for the teen angst type, ya know? So I'm going to owe you a haiku, as soon as the funk clears.

I was thinking of the question you put to me, the other night - what do I do? I never feel like I answer that question very well, not because my life isn't full or busy or satisfying, but because it's hard to explain that money isn't part of my equation for happiness, especially since we as a culture have come to think that one equals the other. I don't deny that I blew my academic chance, that I shoulda coulda woulda done more with what potential I was given. I never had the tools necessary to do well in school - hell, I never did homework, never wrote a paper any sooner than the morning it was due, and what a chip my parents gave me about the educational system! Nonetheless, as an adult, and as a parent, I can see where I went wrong, and decide to not make that same mistake with my own kids. I always knew I would have children, even though I was ambivilent about having them. I think I was 34 when The Professor was born - not exactly a career mom, starting that late (and there are more than a few sagas to fill in that time). But I had always felt that if I was going to have kids I wanted to really be a full time mother. Art did take a back seat to mothering, but I've often thought that maybe I'm just not crazy, or self absorbed, or driven enough to really be a serious artist. I mean, doesn't it seem like a lot of the career ones are kind of wacked and unbalanced? My childhood was such a roller coaster ride that unbalanced doesn't really appeal to me.

So back to the question: what do I do? I am:
> a full time mother, who really loves being that to it's fullest sense.
> an educational volunteer with 2nd-5th grade children 6+ hours every week.
> a history researcher, family historian and history buff
> a writer, of both family history, and a blog, where I try to hone my literary skills in a forum with more accountability than journalling.
> an artist on hiatus, though that is changing as the kids get bigger and I have more time.

These are all things that make me happy doing them, but I understand, that to the corporate world, I am considered to be a failure; that working without monetary compensation equals failure. It bothers me sometimes, that I don't measure up, but I realize also that I've never wanted to measure myself by the same yardstick as the rest of the world, which does make it easier to thumb my nose at the negative nay-sayers.

I had a vision as a child. It was a dream, but it's portent has never left me. I wondered for years why a dream at the age of 4 would haunt me into my adult life, and then I read "Black Elk Speaks". Black Elk had a vision dream when he was a small child that defined, for him, his purpose for living, and upon reading his story I knew what my dream had meant. The things I do, the things that define who I am are all expressions, or fufillments of that dream. I might not measure up to the warped standards of a consumer-driven society, but I am whole.

Waiting For The Shoe To Drop

So,
"I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains,
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains"
-Closer to Fine, Indigo Girls

And so far, I don't have strep or mono. So that's good news, but I'm still waiting to hear about dying from a terminal disease, via all the blood tests they're (the doctor's office)going to run. The Professor (my 1st born) has been sick with a sore throat and fever this week, which apparently is sweeping the public schools in this area. I'm wondering if my recent brush with death wasn't this virus; so does that mean I'm the girl who cried "Wolf!", or rather, "I'm dying, can you make dinner?"

Maybe, unintentionally. I could still be dying, you know.

So to while away the hours, waiting by the phone, I decided to edit some pictures I took while up in Virginia last month. Bea, Ms. Q, my sister-in-love, and myself all headed up to the Tidewater area to stay at the flawless B&B known as Bea's parents' house. It's a gorgeous place, right on the river, and just watching the sunset with a glass of Pinot Noir in hand was exactly what the doctor ordered.

I ran some of my favorites through the colored pencil filter in Photoshop and put them up here side by side, so you can see the transformation. I love that filter!

Well, at least I tried to place them side by side - Blogger doesn't always do what it's told, as you can see!

If you want to see some more awesome pictures of this part of the world, check out The Bantering Bibliocrat's month of photos going on right now. I've always loved and expected a certain dry wit from Gene, but his pictures, his way of looking at things is just wonderful. Check him out, and tell him Becky sent you!

Delicious Fishes

There are moments when I catch a wisp of wistfulness for a life less ordinary.

Don't get me wrong - I love my life. It's a full and happy life, when I consider and add up the sum of the parts, and divide that by the possibilities. Sure, we could have more money and things, but would they really make us any happier than we are right now? I don't believe it. I have the now-rare luxury of not only being at home with my children, but also having the time to pursue writing, painting, an obsession for historical research, as well as the surprising joy of working as a volunteer tutor. I am rich indeed, in things more vital than spending money and shiny cars.

But sometimes, when the bustle of the boys is off at school and work, and I'm here in the rippling pool of silence, glimmers of dreams from the bottom of my mind resurface. Old half-forgotten fantasies swim up and catch themselves upon a fishing line I didn't even realize I'd cast out. Reeling in these catches I see them for the sodden boot, or old tire they are, and throw them back with a rueful laugh at what swims in the depths of my mind. But looking deep into the pool I see, swimming at the bottom, an elusive silvery school of fish who glint and shimmer with delicious potential, and I'm suddenly, ravenously, hungry.

And yet, I have said I am happy, content, so why search and crave for something more that perhaps would ruin my desire for what already is? The answer lies deep within me, perhaps even within all of us: an innate dis-satisfaction with wholesome fare, a desire for piquancy to flavor our perceptions, even at the risk of upsetting our philosophical stomachs, and retching forth that which sustains us.

We are all so much more than we appear on the surface, the shoulda coulda wouldas layered like so many coats of lacquer; each a separate chapter, regret, or dream of our lives, our selves. They combine to create an outer shell that gives no hint to the diverse layers it's actually made up of. Here, on this page, I am the same as I would seem to you in person. I have no patience for subterfuge, to be other than I am. But I confess: I have a secret longing for the sweet meat of those dream fish, spread upon the cracker-like layers of my inner selves.

A Tale Told By A Nine Year Old

...Full of sound and fury, and the occasional political snippet. I present to you, my son the Bohemian's turkey saga:

One Thanksgiving Turkey

One particular Thanksgiving a very special turkey was on my table. This is the unusual story of that turkey and how he came to be there.

Joe Turkey was born on a turkey farm, just like other turkeys, and he lived in a pen with his brother turkeys. He looked like all the other turkeys but Joe was different. He was smarter than the other turkeys, and he didn’t want to end up as someone’s dinner. Every day he wondered, would today be his turn? Would he end up being killed to make a nice Thanksgiving dinner? One day, at last, he found out it was his turn! He had to find a way to not get killed, but how? He had no time to think of a plan. Suddenly the pen gate opened. One of the turkey farmers came in to get another turkey. Joe ran out as fast as his turkey drumstick legs could carry him!

Although he was scared, Joe kept running. He didn’t want to get killed! A man jumped out from behind Joe and grabbed him. Joe sunk his talons into the man’s face, and he kept running. “Get that turkey!” a man shouted. Joe ran into a barn to hide. As he was looking for something to disguise himself with, he heard a sound behind him. It was Joe Biden, the soon to be new Vice President of the United States. He had given a long speech to the turkey farmers earlier that day and was taking a nap in the barn.

Wham! The barn doors slammed as the turkey farmers came into the barn. They were holding axes, and pitchforks. “Hey!” yelled Joe Biden. “What are you doing in here with those?” One turkey farmer spoke, “We’re here to kill that turkey!” There was Joe, and Joe Biden. Joe Biden licked his lips. “Looks like dinner to me, let me tell you some thing about Joe Biden, Joe Biden likes a good turkey dinner.” One turkey farmer said “get that turkey!” Joe flew out of the barn skylight. The farmers stabbed the ground.

Then Joe fell down out of the sky. He must hide. Slash! An ax fell next to him. It was Joe Biden! Away the hobbling turkey ran. But Joe was snatched by a turkey farmer. A boy held him on the block and, slash! Joe’s bloody head fell in a bucket. Then Joe’s headless body was plucked and papered (prepared, dammit - I missed this one in the editing!). Later my mom bought his body at the store. Joe‘s body was roasted with a delicious stuffing. And that is the story of how he came to be on my table, on this special Thanksgiving day.

This, I feel, is a story destined to be a classic, right up there with the Story of The Mince - an old family favorite (What? You've never heard of a Mince? The small, badger-like creature that was originally the contents of the now-famous pie? Come on...really? Sheesh...!)

Happy Turkey Day to all!

Thought Process, aka Procrastination

the women in this painting need faces. I've held off painting their faces because I knew they weren't going to look like the women in the photograph, but I wanted them to have some of the essence of the photo, nonetheless. It doesn't help that these are my grandmother and my great grandmother in this picture. Their own personal identities have been obscured by time and family dysfunctions. So whose face, whose essence do I paint into this picture?

The going has been slow, and I confess, I am easily distracted.

After doing a little thinking with a pencil in hand, I realize that their faces are pieces of myself.

I tried to remember how my great grandmother's eyes were large, and dark, though somehow empty when I met her. And I was little, so she was no doubt, a bit daunting. In my mind, she is alway sitting at the end of the flip-up formica table in my grandmother's kitchen. She is tiny, birdlike in her fragility, and she's hunched over, smoking perpetually. (There is something terribly wrong with the nose on this woman - I'm going to erase all my pencil marks and start over.) My grandmother, on the other hand, is obviously the protagonist in this picture. While sketching on her I realized that this affinity, or sympathy for who I thought she might have been like in her early married life, is the real subject of this painting. And while there may be aspects of myself in each of these figures, my identification with both of them becomes the hidden portrait in this painting. Hmm, food for thought. So there you have it - a glimpse into my painting block, and the annoyingly self-absorbed psuedo-self-analysis that goes along with figuring out where to go.

And it's only Monday!

Woof - who's up for a lunch break at Tacos Mexico? (this is the procrastination part, like you couldn't tell!)

Painting With Words

Travelogues are easy...too easy.

It's like following along the lines in a coloring book. Sure, you get to decide what color to make everything, but the image has already been decided for you. I'm usually the one who takes the pictures , so the creativity is still there in a travelogue, but the artist, the poet in me, notices the lack of impasto to my words. The lack of tenebroso, the wallpaper smoothness with which I present a pretty slice of life to you.

It's a hell of a lot messier in real life. The everyday passions and woes leave splatters and splashes of red anger, and slate blue sadness; sunny yellow children's kisses and grey streaks of self doubt leave their marks upon the walls of my mind.

I'm not much of a housekeeper because I kind of like the clutter of life around me. Still, I'm hesitant to ask you in, afraid you'll see the mess and think less of me, despite my disclaimers of, "Please excuse; it's usually not like this", because, honestly? It usually is.

If you don't mind mental messes, please come in. I'll make a pot of coffee and we'll talk, while we fill our minds and mouths with tarty-sweet cobbler ideas.

I have an inner restlessness lately, I just can't shake. All my projects are in stasis, for one reason or another. I made a batch of cookie dough, but I don't feel like baking it. The women in my painting stare sightlessly out at me, waiting for definition; for life, but I stare right back at them, equally blind.

Is it the weather? Maybe - its been kind of gray for several days now. We need the rain, and I love it when it rains in the spring, but the pervasive damp and the perpetual gray push me ever closer to the mental edge. You know, the edge where I burst out in tears over a damn lame joke, like last week (and again, Ray - mea culpa, man). Yeah, that's not good.

I think a part of it is school. The field trips and projects due have ramped up recently, and both require more of my personal time. The Bohemian, who was doing so well with the reading, has slumped again, so every night we're taking extra time to have him read to us. It doesn't leave much time for grown-up interaction, which makes both myself and the hub-man cranky. We still have a month and a half left before summer vacation; we're at the end of the tunnel, but damn, this last 7 weeks feels like pure torture. I love my kids, and they're really pretty good guys, but Oh My God, they have turned into Essence of Pure Boy, and some days, it just pushes me to the Dark Side, making manicures, teased hair, and fluffy pink shit look almost inviting (Noooooooo!)

I've sat down to write but nothing is really flowing, except discontent. I could get lost in painting, finding faces for those women, but my schedule is all chopped up with school related shtuff, so my mind is equally chummed and unable to focus in on minutiae.

You know what? I think its time for the guys to take a weekend trip to visit the grandparents and give Mom a couple of days of absolute silence, so I can reboot my brain.

Of course, that won't work this weekend, because there's a damn field trip to Winston-Salem on Friday that won't be back until after 5 PM. Did I mention that I loathe school?

I finally located Scrawny Joe across the street, in a bush that rustled and yowled. The old dish of cat food to rattle worked like a charm; that and acting like I could care less if he was there. If it hadn't worked, it would have been time to pull out the big guns and open a can of tuna - this is best saved for desperate measures, because it attracts EVERY cat in a two block radius. I got him in the house (FINALLY!), cleaned his gnarly little wound and doped him up so he would sleep and stop pacing and fretting.

The car was in the shop for brake issues yesterday, so I was off the carpooze hook - "Honey" picked the kids up and I was given the lovely gift of an afternoon without scheduling, so I painted.

Its been so long since I was really a daily painter, I think I've forgotten how to get in the groove, but I'm trying to get back there.

Yesterday, it felt good to just focus on a canvas. Forgetting all the world, I lost myself in the patterning of a damask tablecloth and the delicate striations of flower petals. The feel of the paint as it slipped from the brush and slid down the canvas, curving and swerving, was almost a hypnotic experience. The faces of the women remain vague; they haven't revealed themselves just yet, so the patterns of the room around them continue to build up around them, as definition for now.

Bea and I were looking at the painting in progress last night and comparing it to another, earlier painting on the wall. Something about juxtaposing patterns as well as color is very pleasing to me. Not just for the contrasts in color and texture, but because patterns are soothing to paint and exciting to look at in a finished piece.

I was having an internal conversation yesterday, while painting, about the Whys of what I paint. You know, sort of like the crap they ask you to come up with for a slide in an Art History test - 16th c. Italian, Mannerist, contraposto forms, kineticism, depicts moment of ecstasy - that kind of junk, only like a reviewer would say it. "Gauguin (Oops - Van Gogh, thanks Cin!) wasn't out of his gourd when he painted Starry Night, rather he was showing his awareness of the minuteness of his place in the bigger world, blah blah blah..." I truly doubt ANY artist sits down and consciously investigates what they're doing while they're doing it. "Hmmm, I enjoy drawing little spirals because they're the symbol of the route to the underworld, and as a pagan, I must be sure to cram my belief system down everyone's throat, every time I paint."

Where was I? Having a conversation with myself, I think. Yeah. I was thinking about the fact that I do tend towards patterns anymore, and sometimes I don't really care if there is such a thing as perspective when I'm doing that. But how would you explain that to a professor who's critiquing your work, and make it sound good enough to get away with it (because that's how its done, my chickens)? I don't think I would have been able to defend my reasons for what I was painting when I was in college, but the ensuing years have given me a better sense of self than I had at 22, as well as a better idea of why I like to paint certain things. I'd like to think I could bullshit with the best of them now, but I can't help but wonder why anybody needs to explain a picture? Either it works or it doesn't; you get it or you don't. Hemingway may have been a gifted writer, but he was still a misogynistic, alcoholic prick who wrote stuff I could give a rat's butt about. Poe may have written the perfect short story, but Jesus Christ, are they morbidly dull! Andy Warhol may be considered the father of Pop Art, but I still think he was a fucking creativity vampire, who sucked the essence out of others and took the credit. Van Gogh may have been a gifted artist who actually knew what he was doing, but he was still misunderstood and miserable most of his life.

The point is: you can't spend your life and your precious time worrying about whether or not other people "get" you. You have to go where your muse leads, and other people follow, great. If not, maybe you're ahead of your time - look at Leonardo da Vinci - everyone thought he was a loser who could never finish a job, because he was always drawing in his notebooks instead.

Hmmm....what to write about when your brain is dried up pasta bowties (man I hate bowties!).

....nope. I got nothing.

I'm going to go embrace my other muse and paint today.

But I will leave you a pretty picture!

Catch ya tamari pickles!

Addendum: According to my comments today, neither my writing nor my painting are worth a damn, and scrapbooking is the real creative hobby. If I was in a better mood, this might pass as lame humour, but I spent a big chunk of my day searching for a cat who's been missing for two days, and being slapped upside my head in my blog comments really wasn't helpful. So unhelpful that now I feel even more like shit and to top it off, now I can't stop crying.

The Blog Giveth And The Blog Taketh Its Sweet Time

What? You thought this was going to be Rattling a Few Bones~Part III?

You thought I had, all professional-like, written the entire piece and just split it up into serials, to drag it out and mess with you? Seriously? Do I look like I have my shit together enough to do that?

Pickle, its Monday here. Again. All damn day.Bea and I did our best on Sunday to weave a mist and make it Saturday again, but the spell just didn't take. Oh, wait a minute! We were supposed to POUR the libation on the ground, not DRINK it!! Ohhh! Well crap. So its Monday, but what a great Sunday afternoon it was, in spite of it NOT being Saturday again!

Are you with me so far?
It was a bit of a blustery day, on Saturday, but Bea and I, boat drinks in hand, braved the gale force winds to go out and sit in the sunshine. The warm weather this past week has brought out the wildlife, along with the first flowers.I found Mr. Rikki playing with our resident garter snake, who we like to call, rather unimaginatively, The Eighteen Incher. He was a little concerned about all the attention at first, but he did pose nicely for me. I have actually written about half of the third installment of Rattling a Few Bones, but the first part was the easiest. The climax is a bit stickier and I need to get the children out of my hair before I can think straight enough to finish writing it. That and Blogger needs to let me upload more than ONE FUCKING PICTURE AT A TIME - that would really speed things up!

So, would you say your weekend glass was half-full or half-empty? Or would you say you "half want" to take the rest of the week off? Yeah, me too, only no halfways for me - I'm 100% sick with the Spring Fever!

Childhood Memory With A Twist

I was kind of a weird kid, growing up. I guess we (my siblings and I) were all kind of weird, in that we weren't allowed to watch much TV, and were whizzes at coming up with themes for role playing. My sister usually came up with the best group themes; Undersea Mermaids (this would be priceless to see on film; 5 or 6 kids pretending to swim across the yard!), Pioneers (the poor dog had to be our cow, and we planted sprays of pine needles as carrots), or Train (a great deal of dressing up and packing of suitcases), all involved some pretty complex storylines, which she was only too happy to give. But occasionally I would play my own story-game.

One of my favorite internal games was about a little girl named Alice, who went for a walk in the woods with her family and disappeared. Even though her family searched for her exhaustively, they never found her. Alice died, alone, in the woods, and her ghost haunted the forest ever after.

I TOLD you- I was a weird kid.

I'm sure the neighbors thought I was odd, wearing an old, white choir robe with a red woolen vest tightly buttoned over it. Sort of the folk costume of Czechoslovakia. I would flit around the neighborhood in this get-up, talking to myself under my breath, as I went through the story.

What strikes me as odd about this story is the name of the little girl I was being. Alice. Sure Alice is a common enough name; especially when your older sister is obsessed with singing along to the old Jane Powell record of Alice in Wonderland. So maybe its just coincidence. But this past fall I posted a story about my great grand-aunt, Alice Snyder, entitled "The Ghost Who Haunts Me". I didn't know about her as a child - my grandmother never really knew anything about her father's family. When I was given a family bible full of tintypes and cartes de visites, her picture was the only one that had any name marked on it, and it was simply "A S" scratched roughly into the back of the tintype, but there was no information in that bible that told me anything more about her. It wasn't until I was trawling the Venango County Genealogical Society's library, in Oil City that I came across an obituary about her and her tragic end. At first I didn't even think it was someone relevant, so I didn't copy it, but after getting back home I realized she did fit in and in due course I slapped my head, a la V-8 style.

Jennifer, over at Thursday Drive, wrote a post today about ghosts and was asking if anyone believed in them, or had had experiences with them. Talk about your synchronicity - I've been feeling like Alice is hanging over my shoulder since the summer before last, trying to show me what happened to her/where she is now. Realizing that her name was the same name as the imaginary girl I role-played as a child kind of seemed more than coincidental to me now.

The other night, after I had gone to bed, and was lying there, drifting into sleep, I heard someone speaking to me - telling me their name and other things, which were garbled and didn't make sense to me. Random thoughts fluttering through? Maybe. But it was so strange and quite unusual. Things in the room moved and made noise during this as well. The floor creaked though everyone was in bed. some stuff fell off of my dresser, though no cats were about. Do i think it was a ghost? I don't know. I only know what I heard and felt wasn't the usual energy in that room. Take it as a manifestation or just as a ghost story, but I have been successfully led too many times in my family research by a hunch or a feeling to completely disbelieve in ghosts.

Do you have any ghost stories? Let's creep each other out!!

I Love Mondays in the Springtime

Hellow...

I'm a very bad excuse

for a siamese cat.

I'm not really cross-eyed,

but I'm silly, that's a fact.

My feet seem very tiny,

but Mom made them look like that!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Bohemian has been home sick with the creeping crud ("and that's all I'm got to say about that." - Forrest Gump), so we've been hanging out together. He started his first painting yesterday and is very cheesed with his work in progress. I'm thinking I might need to find another damn easel soon, because he's hogging mine! We took a walk down to the pond today in search of the ever-elusive Great Blue Heron who lives there during the winter. He's very shy and hard to photograph without a buttload of zoom capability, so most of my attempts to catch him have come out pretty badly. Today we hunkered down by the edge of the pond and waited for him to get used to us, then we crept slowly closer until I was able to get this shot, which is still pretty damn blurry, but better than what I've done so far. He's watching me as well!It was also a very welcome sight to see the first daffodils coming up alongside of a little creek we passed over on the way home from the pond. When I was a kid, the first daffodils of spring would strike such lust into my heart. Regardless of where they were, or whose they were, I was compelled to pick them. As you might imagine, I also spent a lot of time having to apologize to little old lady neighbors. Good times...!
They are almost like a visual dose of vitamin C, aren't they? I swear, roses mean nothing to me, (unless they're picked illicitly by the light of the moon,from a certain rose garden, but that's another story!) compared to the vibrant joy of daffodils, blooming in the chill of late February. Is that a snowdrop in the foreground? It only had single bells, so I know it wasn't lily of the valley, though it did prompt me to start singing:
Whit coral bells

upon a slender stalk,

lilies of the valley

by my garden walk!

Oh don't you wish

that you could hear them ring?

That will happen only

when the fairies sing! It was a beautiful spring day - the air was crisp and chilly but the sun was so warm it was hard not to get down with Miss Jezebel and roll on the scratchy cement.
Got Spring?

Works in Progress

I spent a big chunk of my Monday getting back to the easel. It felt good to be there. I need to be more selfish and make time for painting; schedule it, if need be. I'm ashamed at how little progress I've made on the two pictures I started back in November. Of course, I started out with planned paintings, because I wasn't feeling that confident about my skills, so instead of just jumping in and going with the flow, I've stymied myself with caution and planning and control. Not that those things aren't quite handy tools, in life as well as in art, but its been so long since I've been in the painting groove I'm not sure I can even claim the skill. Ever my own worst enemy, eh?

So these are what I'm working on right now. I know, I've added another one to work on. Mermaids are always fun to do and going from one painting to the next, while the paint dries, helps me keep my impetus. If I wander off to get a cup of coffee while the background dries, I may never come back.

This is going to be the hardest one of the bunch, because, ...shhh...I hate drawing hands, and this picture has several hands holding cigarettes in that intricate 1940s kind of way - because I LOVE to start pictures that I never finish. I like the grain on the buffet, though it still needs its drawers delineated. I'm still mulling over the faces right now. Its a delicate thing, because I will probably deviate from the photograph it's based on, but because it's my grandmother and great grandmother in this picture, I want to address the tension that's in the photograph. In the words of the Wicked Witch of the West (also referred to as Elphaba in Maguire's Wicked), "These things must be done del-i-cately!"

I know...don't say it...I know.

I've done so many mermaids in my life, I can paint them in my sleep. They're also good for warming up and getting going, for that very reason, and I'm sure there is someone who would gladly winkle this out of me, if I could finish in time for their birthday (did I say that outloud?) I really like the face of the girl in the front, and it's always fun to do the tails and then submerge them in the water, so the tails gleam up.

The Work of Play

Note ~ I posted this late Tuesday, in anticipation of Julie's Hump Day Hmmmm. That still counts, doesn't it? You can find the other contributors here: http://theartfulflower.blogspot.com/2008/01/hump-day-hmm-for-january-30-2008-sweet.htmlI've talked about my sister before; how she makes such beautiful dolls and how she imbued the world for me with magic from early on, but not, I think, about another gift that she gave me.

As the oldest, my sister naturally went to school first. One of her favorite games during that time was to play School, where she was the teacher and my brothers and I were the students. Of course we were quite a naughty and disruptive class, my older brother invariably being sent to the principal for disciplinary measures, and my younger brother continually falling off the front seat of the old antique schoolhouse desk, but I think, for me, more than a little of what she was play-teaching actually sank in.

I don't remember ever actually learning how to read, as a child. When I went to kindergarten it was assumed that none of us could read, so the teacher started from scratch with the ABCs and the basic colors, etc. She must not have been a particularly perceptive teacher, because she told my parents that she thought I might be a little on the retarded side, because I was quiet and rarely talked during class. Honestly, all I remember of the woman was her massive thighs, tightly clad in support hose, so they had a distinctive swish when she walked or sat, which (I don't know why) fascinated me.

What she didn't know would most certainly fill a book; she certainly never discovered that the reason I said very little in class was due to being bored out of my mind. I wasn't interested in learning the ABCs because my sister had already taught me them, as well as how to read, and if you know me, then you know I was born knowing my colors, or at least acquired the knowledge shortly afterwards! I don't recall the teacher ever really teaching us much more than separate words in kindergarten, but when I went to first grade, I knew how to read, and not just a smattering, or laboriously. I can remember feeling extremely irritated when other kids were called on to read, because of how badly they would read! I was invariably somewhere else in the book, having lost all patience with listening to another kid stumble and grope through "See Dick. See Dick run. Run Dick, run. Oh, oh, oh. Dick runs fast." For crying out loud - it's a worse plot than a soap opera and just as predictable! How hard can it be to read the same three words?

In the past few years, with the struggle I've had with my youngest son's reading, I have turned to my first and best teacher many times, for advice and ideas of how to jump start his interest. When that breakthrough finally happened last week, she was there celebrating it as well, saying,

"It's so telling what book geeks you and I are that we get so excited over our kids reading...it's the BEST feeling when they finally get it!"

It is indeed the best feeling Cin! So if I never said it before, then I want to say to my first and best teacher, my sister, Thank You - it has made all the difference, for not only me, but for my kids as well!

Victory!

I picked up the guys from carpoop yesterday and the Bohemian said to me,

"Guess what Mom? I finished the first Spiderwick book today, and it was really good! I can't wait to read the next one!"

I was driving at the time, or I would have jumped up and down like a pubescent girl with a crush. Oh. My. God, Debbie! (*not really talking to a particular Debbie - it's Valley Girl Speak) As it was, there was a bit of swerving as I craned my head around and exclaimed,

"Oh honey, I am SO proud of you! Let's go buy the rest of the series this weekend!"

When we got home, and homework had been done, the Bohemian, our resident Edward Scissorhands, made a "Seeing Stone", like the one in the book that helps the kids see the goblins, etc. All by himself, he made it, and damn if it doesn't look exactly like the one on the front of the book!

I love that kid! and I am so relieved that we are finally turning the corner with the reading. It's been a long, uphill battle with this one; especially trying to NOT make it a battle.

These are the wonder books that helped turn the corner for my little Bohemian:



Granted, I have been reading The Hobbit to them both, this past week as well, and we did see a trailer for the Spiderwick Chronicles film that's coming out, so those may have also played a part.

I was having an email conversation yesterday with Jodi over at Slow Panic, about getting kids, namely, little boys, to be prolific readers, and this what I wrote to her, concerning my personal philosophy as to how to bring that about. I haven't received her permission to publish her side of the conversation, so you'll have to divine what she said! (Note* If I get permission, I'll amend this.)

"We have tried everything under the sun with my youngest, and most of it hasn't been working. When we take him to the book store (so he can pick out what he wants, he picks either picture books or giant tomes that I know he can't read, so what's the point? The Spiderwick books have a lot of pictures, so its a good bridge from picture books to chapter books. Personally? I liked the Lemony Snicket Series Of Unfortunate Incidences, but I couldn't get either of my guys to read them. The Captain Underpants books, by Dave Pilkey, are good too, and little boys love them for the toilet humor (and the Flip-o-rama, of course!)

I know reading fluently is a developmental thing, but man, it's been an uphill battle at times. I guess just keep at it - we do prohibit TV on weeknights to encourage more reading (now if I could just get my husband to turn off the TV and read!), and reading aloud to them goes in that time. I try to read the stuff they might not read alone, like Harry Potter. Doing the voice of Hagrid, though, is quite the dialectic challenge - I think it's a cockney or scottish accent - but blimey- it's all "'Ere now Arry, wot's up wiff yer mum?" kind of talking."

"My eldest son, The Professor, is 10 and a great reader (we lucked out - other than reading to him, it just clicked for him at about 8). My other son, The Bohemian, is 8 and a half and is a much more physically oriented person (read: future jock), but is really creative - we call him Edward Scissorhands, if that tells you anything! BUT, he hasn't clicked with the reading just yet. It took him a long time to be able to sit still just to read to, which was really frustrating, so there were intervals that we just didn't, rather than fight about it.

My husband is one of those people who turn on the TV when he walks in the door, and I am the kind of person who chooses vacations based on their unplugged value. I have had to convince the Hubster (over many years)that constant TV DOES get in the way of the kids' ability to focus, to do homework, and to find the impetus to read. We watch TV after the kids are in bed (I love the DVR!), and the boys can watch a program in the morning before I get up. They like to watch History Channel shows, like Engineering An Empire, and Ancient Almanac, so we DVR the stuff they want. They are not allowed computer time, except on the weekends, and it's based on a combination of factors: school performance/attitude that week/willingness to perform light chores (putting away clothes, cleaning their room/messes, occasionally vacumning, setting the table, etc.) If they had been extra good/helpful that week, I might let them have extra computer time on a Friday afternoon, but generally, their time is on Saturday and Sunday mornings, until noon. If they were not helpful, that's it - no computer, and maybe no TV either.

I know - I'm a mean old mom! But having those ground rules and sticking by them has given them incentive to perform their responsibilities, with the reward at the end of the week, and they have lots of time to just go outside and play, or draw, or whatever, because they have no expectation of being plugged in during the week. I see so many kids at school, whose only point of reference is what they've seen on TV, in both their conversation/connections, as well as in their play, and it's so sad to me. I can't help but wonder how much more they could acheive if they were unplugged just part of the time.

Sorry for the sermon - you asked me, and I'm afraid it's a pet rant of mine, so I ran down to the store and back with it! As an artist, creativity is vitally important to me, so nurturing it is something I put a lead foot down about in our house, and the sports fan husband has to DVR his stuff and watch it later.

And again, I am running on at the mouth - I do hope I have not stepped on your toes - ultimately what I think doesn't matter -You have to do what you feel is best; I'm just happy to opine at length, as you can see!"

I just finished updating a profile on bloglog, where I said I don't proffer my opinions about parenting and politics, because I'm not a big fan of soapboxes, so of course I had to go and stick my foot in my mouth, right?!

Hey, It's my blog and I can opine at length, if I want to!

Photoshopping

There was a lovely atmospheric mist this morning, so I took a few shots of my favorite grove of trees on the way home.

Since our last trip to Raven Rock, where I took some shots and played with them in Photoshop, I've been wanting to try some more pictures, using the same colored pencil filter.

It's fascinating to me that all these colors are there in a photograph - we tend to take them for granted, and indeed, sometimes they are more washed out and not as dramatic in a regular photo, but those beautiful blues and purples in the trees are there, nonetheless.



Ms. Q and I both just love this effect! So much so, she thinks I should have them printed on high-end paper and have them matted and framed - they would look good as a vignette in the hallway...! I tried it with several different types of compositions, but trees do the best with this filter (the shed is wooden, so it applies as well). It doesn't do the mist much justice, but the trees have a definitive wintery feel, what with the cool blues and purples, and the way the light behind is made to look almost like snow (that might be the mist) I also like that the recent rains have given the grass a nice green tinge.