Jackie's Tesserae

Art Journaling

2011-06-06T07:38:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in my last post that I was developing a workshop on Art Journaling for Tweens and Teens and that, in preparation for that, I was working on an art journal myself.

I started out thinking that I was just going to make an example journal. Something to show the kids that had different examples of techniques they could use in their own art journals. As usual for me, I've exhaustively researched the topic and have way too much material for one simple hour and a half long workshop for kids. But working on this makes me realize that I love doing this, putting together workshops on how to do stuff. I've done several now, artist trading cards and mosaic making, as well as more boring topics, and I like to think I do a comprehensive job of providing my students with the basics to go and have fun on their own.

When I first graduated from design school, I toyed with the idea of starting a studio space that could be used for classes as well as work space for design students who couldn't afford their own studio space, but needed a place to spread out and work on art projects. I still think that's a great idea, although, I have no idea how to go about creating such a thing without a lot of money, which is, unfortunately, my perpetual stumbling block.

But, since I always overthink things, maybe I can start smaller, by creating a series of classes and get a good curriculum going and then looking for space. I've got quite a list of potential classes and I've even developed the actual format for many of them.

I know this is not a new idea, many artists do this, and quite successfully. What makes it novel to me is that I have a great deal of difficulty figuring out how to translate a great idea into a great idea that will make you money. Something I'll have to work on if I plan to oh, I don't know, ever make money.

but I've strayed some from my initial point, which is this. Art Journaling is completely addictive. Who knew? I find myself pulling out my art journal at odd moments and writing down something and then drawing in little illustrations. I documented and illustrated making Mac & Cheese for my son's birthday dinner. Who does that? I guess I do, but it was never something I would have thought to do before. The creative freedom unleashed through this relatively simple exercise has completely taken me by surprise. A very pleasant, very productive surprise.

The Book of Lists

2011-06-01T05:55:00.000-07:00

Almost exactly three years ago I wrote a blog entry about Lists. I mention this not because I remembered that I wrote a post about lists, but because I was reading back through old posts and I found that one. (I know there's a way you can link your entries to other entries, but I don't know how to do that and I'm not able to take the time to learn it now, mainly cuz I have to go shower but I'm going to write this post first.)

In that post I vowed to make more non-shopping lists. And then I didn't. For three years. But a few weeks ago, as I began to develop a workshop for tweens on Art Journaling, I began a small art journal and I called it "The Book of Lists". Right now it has only one list in it, but I'm working on it, okay? It's a work in progress.

And I have a list of lists to put in it. And that list is a pretty good non-grocery list in and of itself. I was in a hospital cafeteria. (Minor procedure for husband - one of those - "Oh you're 50? Here, take this test.) I had some time to kill (er, I mean, some time to spend) and I knew, even then, that I was going to be working on an art journal as I developed this workshop. But the problem was, in all the useless things I'd brought along to keep me occupied (I need more toys than a 3 year old on a bus ride to Mississippi) I couldn't find the notebook I'd decided I was going to journal in. So I did what I often do in these circumstances. I pulled out my trusty plastic organizer (10 pockets, fold over top with elastic and button closure, filled with handy colorful 3x5 index cards - I like index cards almost as much as I like pens, funky magnets and decorative pushpins.) and started to make a list of lists that I should put in my Book of Lists.

Pretty meta hey?

So I know you're wondering what is this metalist of lists. Not in order of importance.

1) Super powers I'd like to have
2) My personal 7 wonders of the world
3) My favorite color combinations/names
4) Food combinations you should never try (although I later changed this one to "I wouldn't want to try" as I don't like to tell people what they should or shouldn't do. I do, but I don't feel good about it. For the most part.)
5) Places I want to go and why.
6) My favorite pet names.
7) Jobs I wish I could do. (I'm betting "astronaut" is at the top of that list for almost everyone.)
8) People who are on the "Having Too Much Fun" list. (a list within a list)
9) Places I would like to live if I didn't like to live here
10) Amenities I would have in my Secret Sanctum (with map)
11) If the world was fair....
12) My own personal months of the year
13) Likewise, holidays (maybe incorporate these into one list, unless, like homework assignments, the double spacing doesn't quite get me to the full assigned length)
14) My top five desserts (top five deserts would just be too easy.)
15) If I had a store I would sell....

Keep in mind, I'm making an art journal to share with tweens. So some of the lists came out of my own, inner tween, who is finding it refreshing that I've finally decided to let her into the driver's seat for a while.

Gotta go, the tween is late and the adult is thinking that now I only have 5 minutes to shower and get ready for work. The tween is being quite distainful of the adult's concerns. I mean, really, who needs more than 5 minutes to shower, brush your teeth, throw on some clothes and get in the car. The adult is pretty sure that it will take at least 5 minutes to find her glasses which she is pretty sure she knows where they are but the last time it took a while before she found them perched on top of the underwear that she pulled out to wear but then forgot that she'd taken out and took out other undergarments instead. The tween has now rolled her eyes several times and is ignoring everyone.

May Already?

2011-05-12T08:29:00.000-07:00

Since I last posted about chi-stipation, I've made some inroads. I can now actually walk straight into my studio, without worrying about a shower of glass shards, (although it's still far from neat and organized) I've finished two large mosaics, one which I submitted to a national juried show, the other to a show themed "American Dream" for a local gallery here. I'm working on a commissioned piece (not a mosaic) and several other things that will end up being travel posters for the summer library program.

In other words, I'm busy. And this is a good thing. But...(and isn't there always a "but"?) I still feel like I'm not doing it right. Which makes me wonder, what is doing it "right?" What do I expect from myself that I'm not getting?

I've always struggled with this. When I'm writing I feel like I should be making mosaics, when I'm making mosaics I feel like I should be doing more cut paper work, and when I'm doing cut paper work I think about painting more or quilting more or just something else, more.
And I ALWAYS feel like I should be spending more time with the kids, gardening more, exercising more, and just, in general, being a better person. When it gets like this I never think I should be watching more television and yet somehow, I always manage to find time for that.

I've read lots of books on how to be more creative. I learned a lot from Julia Cameron and "The Artist's Way." I loved Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird" about the writing life. And I believe that Stephen Pressfield's "The War of Art" should be required reading for everyone aspiring to the creative life. And virtually every book, article or random piece of advice I've ever read or heard has one element included in it.

If you want to be a...insert artistic pursuit here...focus on doing that. Don't allow yourself to be distracted by other things you could be doing. And yet that is exactly what I end up doing.

But what would I give up? See. That's the real question. It's not so much that I'm distracting myself away from my "true" goal, which may or may not be true, but that I have such a hard time letting go of the other things. I can't imagine not writing. I can't imagine not making mosaics or painting or cutting up gorgeous little bits of paper.

I almost managed to walk away from quilting. I gave it up for several years. But this spring, when my family received a particularly cruel blow, I found myself making a baby quilt for the friend of my son. It was like comfort food, flexing the scissors and threading the machine.

So like it or not, I'm going to be doing these many things that I do. And I'm resigned to that. I just need to find the balance that will allow me to be productive and yet not feel as though I'm missing out on some other great adventure.

Since I'm on a roll...

2011-05-12T08:06:00.000-07:00

Thought I would add in some other work that I've done in the last few months, but which I haven't put out there. All in preparation for updating my website with the latest and greatest stuff...

This first piece is another cut paper piece. I have been working in this media on and off since design school. I'm on again right now. I'll have a few more pieces in the weeks to come.

Chi-stipation

2011-03-28T07:14:00.000-07:00

I knew I'd been gone a long time. I might even have admitted to six months, but it's been nearly a year since I've updated my blog. Now, one the one hand, I know that there were very few out there pining for my pearls of wisdom, but, on the other hand, I believe that when I was making (more) regular entries, I was getting down some things. So, my Spring resolution is...doesn't everyone make resolutions in the Spring, when the grass reappears and the world is fulfilling it's promise to let you out of the damn house again?...that I will go back to blogging and that I will update my work on my website.

There. I've said it. Work. Out there. For people to see. If my art career grew on mystery I'd be famous by now. I seem to have an even harder time showing people my art than I do sitting down to create it. But both of those areas have been better lately, and I think I know why.

One of my favorite guilty pleasure movies is "Big Trouble in Little China." Yes, it has Kurt Russell and Kim Cattrall in it. Yes, it's horrifyingly full of demeaning cultural cliches. And yes, the production values make Conan movies look like art house cinema. But it also has a string of one liners, mostly delivered by Kurt, that just ache to be made into a self help manual for sound bite editors. And one of my favorites is when the shaman is explaining to Jack Burton about eastern religion, during the course of which he compares it to "your American salad bar." I first saw that movie thirty years ago (much as I hate to do that math!) and I still remember that line, complete with cheesy chopstick punctuation gesture.

So one of the things I've picked up from my trip to the world religion salad bar is the concept of "chi" or energy, more specifically (in my mind) energy flow. When the chi is flowing all is right with the world. You feel good. Things happen they way they should and you are movin' to the groove. When the chi is blocked, well...I have never read this specific analogy in any philosophical manual but it seems to be akin to a massive case of energy constipation and when it happens there is irritability, bloating and general peevishness for all. I'm sure I'm mangling this venerable and respected concept, but to me basically it means the more crap cluttering up your life, the harder it is for the chi to flow (and the chi is what gets things done baby!)

And I've had some chi issues. Perhaps it isn't unusual that I haven't posted in a year, and that my last post was about the death of my father-in-law. Dealing with death in the family, even when, superficially, it seems to be over and done with, takes more than you might think. More than I would have thought, even a year ago. It's not that we were so set adrift by grief that we were unable to function. There was functioning taking place, I'm pretty sure. It's more that we were set off course for a time. We had to readjust to the new state of the world, and it was harder to do that it seemed as though it would be. Time passed and the need to return to purpose was perceived but, at the same time, it was as though we couldn't quite find ourselves.

And, in the middle of all that, in my studio there was a large mosaic, a little less than half completed.

Understand that my studio (lovely grand word that) is a small, converted bedroom in a 100 and some year old farm house. It was converted to a kitchen for a miniscule upstairs flat probably around the time soldiers were returning from the war in 1945 and then converted to a studio when my husband and I moved here to get a little more elbow room. Unfortunately, we had both underestimated the size of our elbows and had limited funds for the massive warehouse that was what I apparently needed to corral all my crap (remember crap? The stuff that keeps the chi from flowing?) and so my studio began overstuffed and just progressed from there.

Place into the middle of that limited space a folding table with a mosaic that is roughly a yard wide and two feet tall, covered with enough broken glass to create some sort of torture chamber with the single misplaced bump of a generous hip, and you have the perfect recipe for chi-stipation. (My hips are so generous you could even call them philanthropic.)

Well, a few weeks ago I realized that I had to make a change, and part of the change was to get that mosaic done and out of there. I actually love making mosaics. There is something so fine and fiddly about finding just the right snippet of glass to express a curve of shadow or the glint of an eye. It is quite satisfying to labor in so close with pieces of glass the size of a baby aspirin or a grain of rice, and then step back and see what those tiny bits of color come together to create. But, for some reason, despite loving the process, I have a hard time with mosaic making. It taunts me. I become fearful at times. Most often when I am close to creating something that I really love, and I become more and more aware that with a single bad decision, in the too close moment of placing the small, I lose track of the larger picture and it all goes bad.

I freeze then, within that moment of fear, and have trouble moving forward. Pressing through to finish the work, where there is freedom of movement and the joy of creation. And the point at which I can get the damn thing out of the middle of my studio!

So maybe this is all part of the same thing. Maybe the fear of making mosaics is just the reflection of the larger fear that has been freezing me in place for the better part of a year. The placing of the small obscuring the larger picture. So I went back in there. Into the moldy chi corner of my life, and I started putting small pieces of glass onto the wood again. I made a few shelves and organized some more glass. I sorted and separated and broke glass into small pieces (a satisfying step all by itself) and, in essence, packed my mosaic making bags for the continuation of my journey down that path. And it worked.

I feel better. I feel positive about what I'm doing with my life again. I feel like the work I do is getting done and I'm back in the pattern. And I'm kick butt proud of my latest mosaic. So here's to Spring, and grass and longer days and more sunlight and an undeniable urge to move some more chi around.

Rituals

2010-04-24T17:48:00.000-07:00

I attended a small presentation today. Suzanne Vega, the lovely singer/songwriter, is performing tonight at our local performing arts center and she agreed to give a free workshop on creativity today. Okay, so the words "free" and "workshop" and "creativity" each have their own pull but combine them together and I'm in the front row. (Actually the third row but who's counting.)

So there we were, a small group of about 50 artists, surprisingly few of them actual musicians, but all admitting to being artists, ready to hear the low down from some who's made it. Not surprisingly, she started out with the disclaimer that there is no magic formula, no one special task that will make it all happen.

I knew that. But it bears repeating.

She had some other good points. She suggested that you carry a pen and notebook with you, everywhere you go. And write things in it. I wrote that down in my notebook that I carry everywhere with me, with one of the dozen pens floating around in the bottom of my bag. I started doing that while in school and the habit, fortunately, has stayed with me. It made me smile a little bit.

She said that you need some space to work. Maybe it's a chair. Maybe a room or a corner of a room. Someplace where you can sit and think and no one gets to ask you if you know where something is or if they can eat this. My chair for the last year has resided at Panera Bread but I got the point. I didn't write that one down.

Maybe this is only surprising to me, but the most relevant point she made, in my opinion, was that you have to connect with people, and stay connected, and these days that means on the internet. It means Twitter and Facebook and MySpace and Blogging. I wrote down "Blogging - rituals." because when she said that I remembered where I had been just over 24 hours earlier and thinking about rituals.

My father in law died two weeks ago. It was not sudden. It wasn't unexpected or tragic. It was the passing of a man who had lived a long life into a different part, the last part, of the human experience. But we couldn't hold the ceremony until yesterday. There were any number of reasons for this, not important ones, but we all seemed a bit in limbo for those two weeks.

It didn't seem like it should matter, and maybe in the long run it didn't. Sometimes, when I thought about it, I even felt like it was a good thing. The extra time gave us room to process, time to reflect and think about how we felt. Except for the fact that once we were there, in that small chapel in the Veteran's Cemetery, it seemed all at once like we'd just lost him. Again.

It was a military ceremony. The family had a few minutes to say what they wanted to say and as I listened to his children talk about their father, I both knew him again and knew him for the first time. We laughed a little and cried some. I was proud of them all, these people who were my family through another ritual and a shared lifetime. They were good people who stood to honor their father.

Then, polished and poised young soldiers moved with erect precision through a ritual that has been witnessed by millions of families at this time. The salute, the unrushed and precise unfolding of the flag, then holding it out over the soldier, covering them in the flag of their country while the sharp and strange 21 gun salute is made, and then the even more precise refolding of the flag and it's presentation to the next of kin.

The soldier folding the flag was a young woman, dark hair in a tight bun at her neck and her face solemn and nearly expressionless as she folded the flag. Each bend of the fabric smoothed deliberately with a white gloved hand before moving to the next fold, down the entire length of the flag until the solder at the other end, a young man with a round, young face, tucked the ends of the flag into the triangle, taking time to carefully smooth and secure every bit, every wrinkle.

This was a packet that was not going to come undone. This was a duty that was not going to be rushed. This was a ritual that was as carefully and deliberately performed for an old man long away from his service and his uniform, just as it was for the young soldiers who might have died recently. At the end they gave it to his wife, who wanted to protest, and maybe didn't want it at all, but who took it, trying earnestly to tell this young man, this stranger, this soldier, that Will had been a man of peace. As if that meant that he couldn't be here, in this military place.

Everyone was very respectful to us as we filed out, to complete the ceremony and then complete the ritual, with the breaking of bread and the celebration of life.

And on and off during this entire event, this entire day, I thought about ritual. I thought about how we place ourselves in the context of ritual and custom, to ease emotion. To create space for our minds to work through whatever we have to do now. I thought about the meaning of the senses, the sharing of photos, the sharp report of seven guns firing together three times, the food we eat as we spend time together and the touch of a hug.

How did we develop rituals? What is it about us that creates rituals to deal with the events of our lives? As I listened to Suzanne talk about the use of prayer, meditation and sometimes even things like Tarot cards to access the archetypes of our nature, of our waking dream space, I thought about the rituals of art making.

I read an article recently where an artist, talking about his work and his method, said that the Jewish philosophy is that art is as much about the materials used as what you do with them. That you invest, through your time and attention and intention, added meaning to the materials you select and that you use to create your art. To make important art, you use important materials.

Subject matter, thought process, that zen state when you are working and your hands just seem to be doing what they're doing without you even knowing exactly what it is that you are doing or why, these are all made relevant through the ritual of creating art.

It seems to me that once you go through something like that, the question of whether or not anyone else likes it is actually irrelevant. Someone will see it and understand. Someone will recognize the layers of intent and attention wrapped in and around the work, like the thick waxy coating on an encaustic painting, deepening and coloring the subject. And you will have succeeded, even if you never make a dime.

But its more than that. Because the same is true of your life. Intention, attention, respect for your materials, love of the results, fearless movement in your own direction, listening for the voice of inspiration and heeding the delicate, tentative, almost invisible call of intuition, of the pattern. These are the things that create value in a life, just the same as in a work of art.

And it is a wise person who, at the end of their life, has given that to those around them. Freely, and without reserve.

What is the difference between someone who wants to be an artist and someone who is? I believe it is the person who has incorporated the ritual of art, not merely the act, who is the artist. Suzanne is right, there is no one magic formula or task. There are many. And, like any ritual, they only become more powerful, more meaningful with repetition.

Too Long

2010-03-11T06:36:00.000-08:00

I must admit that there are many other things I should be doing right now, but sometimes you just have to write. I've been working on a project for some time now, a retelling of a Norwegian fairy tale, and while I think I have a good handle on the written part, even though it's still not completed, I've struggled with the illustrations. I keep going back and forth on how I want the story to look.

This is something I tend to do. If I have an external deadline (somebody wants it from me) I have no problem deciding on an idea and pursuing it. That's fortunate I suppose because otherwise I'd constantly be in trouble with the people who expect me to produce things for them. But, if my deadline is internal, for some reason I feel comfortable with extended the deadline, sometimes indefinitely. Well, maybe "comfortable" isn't the word, it's more like I have thought in the past that it's okay to extend my own deadlines, because I'm the one setting them. And I justify it by telling myself that I haven't decided the direction I really want to go in, I need to do more research, it's not quite there yet, blah, blah, blah. What I've been trying to do recently is to create the same sense of urgency for my internal deadlines as I do for my external deadlines. And artistically this means choosing a direction and going in it, full on.

To that end, I finally started one of the illustrations I've been envisioning for Tatterhood for some time. One of the key elements of the story is that she and her sister embark on a journey. It is a journey of salvation and restitution and I've chosen to make the ship they travel in more than just a means of transportation but also a symbol of who Tatterhood is internally. The ship represents her own need to move outside the bounds of her defined role, and also her ability to do so. With all that riding on it, I really wanted the ship to represent this in a visually cool way.

Pretty big order. And this week I started the ship. Whew. It's not ready to show you yet. Still looks pretty odd. But I'll post some pictures soon. And the process of creating the ship has been really interesting for me. I'm exploring a lot of my own ideas about making things.

Even though I've been thinking about this story for so long, living with it, if you will, I'm only just starting to feel like it's becoming real as I create the miniature version of Tatterhood's ship. It's as though the physical act of building the ship is helping me to see her character even better, and making it easier to write her actions and thoughts down in the pages of the story. The two are becoming more closely tied together, something I didn't anticipate when I started to work on this story a year ago.

I probably should have begun this process long before now, realizing this today, but we learn what we learn when we learn it. I am very excited about the prospect of seeing this through to the end now and seeing both the words and the images on paper. It's quite empowering to be working on something that is my own, start to finish, idea to execution.

I love the process of creating design work or illustration to make other people's ideas visual. I always have. It's one of the reasons I did so well in school. I can take an idea and run with it, and I love the interaction with the client. I think one of my particular strengths has been to find out a particular angle or idea unique to that person and create something that speaks to that idea. But with Tatterhood, I'm starting to really get a taste of what I can do when I combine my own ideas and talents to that same end. And it's exciting.

In the art world they call this "finding your own voice." And it makes sense because it's when your art really starts to show you, as opposed to showing the myriad of images and ideas that have influenced you. I know that some artists never really do find their own voice. And I know that I've felt close to finding it for years, but never really felt as comfortable as I do now with this direction.

We'll see where this goes. Maybe Tatterhood's ship will be the thing that helps me break through my bad habit of shortchanging my own work. That would be really cool.

Man oh Manifesto

2010-01-06T14:45:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, I came across an article about writing a manifesto. I had a vague idea of what a manifesto was, sort of a “rules to live by” meets “wild-eyed fanatic” mash-up (another new word that’s already overused.) So of course I immediately thought, ahh, here’s some blog material. Because that’s how I usually think. (Not really.)

First, I imagined what sort of manifesto I would write. Clearly, it would be funny. Very moving and deep, in a funny way. Perfect, actually. Except that I don’t usually write things like manifestos. They’re too concrete and directive. And they use big words. Bigger words than I use because I’m not very deep, or a concrete thinker, or inclined to issuing directives. I mean, really, how am I to know what others should do? I barely know what I should do.

Second, I realized that if I actually had a shot at creating a moving, deep and yet pee-your-pants-funny manifesto, I better see what one looked like. Or even maybe just look up the definition. To be honest, this is always what I realize at this point. It's my "go to" second step. Research. I research. A lot. Because that’s a great way to act like you’re working, while not really actually working.

So here’s what I found. There are 23,700,000 Google results for “manifesto” with the first one being the Wikipedia definition. (That's twenty three million, seven hundred thousand for those of you, who, like me, tend to lose count after two, maybe three, zeros.) So of course I went to the Wikipedia site, and learned the definition of manifesto, which is “A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often politcal in nature. However, manifestos relating to religious belief are rather referred to as credo. Manifestos may also be life stance related.” It comes from the Latin word "manifestum", which means clear or conspicuous. But, given some of the examples of manifestos I found, I don’t think everyone looked up the definition in Wikipedia.

Wikipedia lead me to some interesting stuff. For example, out of all the manifestos they could have chosen to quote they selected an excerpt from the Maintenance Art Manifesto written by Mierle Laderman Ukeles in 1969. Here is the quote they included:

"Maintenance is a drag: it takes all the fucking time (lit.) The mind boggles and chafes at the boredom. The culture confers lousy status on maintenance jobs -- minimum wages, housewives - no pay. Clean your desk, wash the dishes, clean the floor, wash your clothes, wash your toes, change the baby's diaper, finish the report, correct the typos, mend the fence, keep the customer happy, throw out the stinking garbage, watch out don't put things in your nose, what shall I wear, I have no sox, pay your bills, don't litter, save string, wash your hair, change the sheets, go to the store, I'm out of perfume, say it again - he doesn't understand, seal it again - it leaks, go to work, this art is dusty, clear the table, call him again, flush the toilet, stay young."

After I read this I realized I probably didn’t have to write a manifesto, Mierle was pretty darn close to universal. But maybe there were others that would come even closer to representing my personal manifesto. (Although that was before I actually read Mierle’s entire manifesto, wherein she proposes to live in the museum and do the maintenance as an art exhibit – and then extends it to the disposition and cleaning of other maintenance objects such as garbage trucks – I don’t see myself doing that.) I got to Google result number 750 before I realized that I was just polishing the rocket, (um no, wrong metaphor) before I realized that I was already done with my research and further googling would be silly. Here is my list of things I learned about manifestos.

Things I’ve Learned About Manifestos

Other people are more likely to read it if it has a great name, no matter what it actually says inside. Probably the best example of this is the Peanut Butter Manifesto. I doubt I would have read it if I’d known it was about what Yahoo isn’t doing right and not peanut butter, as I’d originally thought. Although it’s certainly worth a read. Second best is The Awesomeness Manifesto, written by Umair Haque for the Harvard Business Review, which in no way lived up to its title (the Awesomeness Manifesto, that is, not the Harvard Business Review.)
Umair Haque is crazy for manifestos. I found four within the first 50 or so examples of manifestos. The aforementioned Awesomeness Manifesto, The Builders Manifesto, The Generation M Manifesto and The Smart Growth Manifesto to name a few. And it made me wonder. Can one person really write more than one manifesto? Shouldn’t there be some sort of limit on the number of times you can tell the world how it should behave? Or am I the one that’s crazy here? Although, to be honest, the salutation at the beginning of "The Generation M Manifesto" is my favorite. Like many manifestos, it is written like an open letter, but this one is addressed to all the old people who run the world. How precious is that?
Manifestos generally manifest as a series of rules or points. Shorter is usually better here. Five Rules for Life actually limits you to five rules, but on the up side, you get to pick your own. The Simple Living Manifesto has only two rules, but then they give you 72 more rules to clarify the two simple ones. Some of the additional 72 include “Be present.” “Learn what “enough” is.” And my personal favorite “Declutter before organizing.” (emphasis mine) Oh man. I’ve been doing it all wrong!
There are many resources available to you should you decide to write your own manifesto. These include “How To Write A Manifesto” which handily explains what size paper you should use and gives a nifty example of a possible format, and a remarkably concise document also titled “How To Write a Manifesto” found on the Scottish Parliament site which suggests that you include pictures of desired outcomes, either drawn by yourself or found on the internet. I like the homemade quality of that idea. Plagiarist.org gives specific examples about what not to do and suggests a reasonable number of pages (2 – 4. Max 5, please.) Lance Whipple in his blog creatively titled “Lance Whipple” covers a wide territory when giving you advice on creating your manifesto, including guidelines for the appropriate number of rules to live by and suggesting advice from the Air Force little blue pamphlet on “Core Values”. The “How To Write An Avant-Garde Manifesto” by Lee Scrivner, goes into great detail about the use of caffeine as a brainstorming aid and the now famous (I’m sure) no quotations imperative, but I have the sneaking suspicion he’s not completely serious.
Manifestos do not have to be about earth shattering subjects. The winner in this category clearly has to be “really. tights are not pants” although the runners up are “Tank Girl: Post Feminist Media Manifesto” and “The Gobbledygook Manifesto.” Although, to be completely honest, the “Tank Girl: Post Feminist Media Manifesto” went mostly over my head, I just liked the movie and the Gobbledygook Manifesto is here because I liked the Gobbledygook Volume Analysis Chart. Oh and an honorable mention goes out to The Cloud Appreciation Society.

And that’s five things, and I have it on good authority, or at least sort of by consensus, that a list of five things is perfectly adequate for anyone. Any more and you’re just showing off.

If you’ve stuck with me so far, here’s your prize, a lovely three part series of interviews on The Transom Review with Ira Glass, on what makes great radio. It’s long but well worth every minute.

Ira, who’s name is practically synonymous with his show, This American Life, (which, in fact, I can’t even sit here and type without hearing Ira’s distinctive voice saying in my ear “This American Life presented by Chicago Public Radio”) talks at one point about the Big Idea and how what often makes radio stories worth doing is how well they can tie into that Big Idea, the universal idea or concept that makes a story bigger than itself. So maybe that’s the takeaway here, that manifestos are simply an attempt to tie into that Big Idea, the one that makes sense out of nonsense, creates order out of chaos and a map in the wilderness.

Or maybe not.

As the days get shorter...

2009-11-18T04:43:00.000-08:00

I start to think about the holidays. More specifically, I start to think about what to make for the holidays. I can't help it. Starting in October I turn into a very large elf. And I wouldn't have it any other way. And it's genetic because my sisters are all the same.

I remember childhood Christmases. We would make ornaments for the tree and simple gifts at church. One year we knitted simple slippers. We made Christmas cookies and fudge and painted pictures.

I love to shop, don't get me wrong. Shopping is pretty darn fun. All those wonderful things out there, shiny new, wrapped in layers of plastic wrap, packing foam and nestled in their fabulously decorated cardboard boxes, just waiting to be wrapped in more paper, prettier this time and accompanied by ribbons and/or glitter. But the problem is, I only have so much money, so the shopping is pretty short lived.

As for making gifts, now that lasts much longer and is, in the end, a much more satisfying gift giving event. I get to spend hours thinking about the possible gift ideas. Poring through books and magazines crammed with ideas. Thinking about each person on my list and what I think they would like to receive. Then I get to go through my stash of supplies (and believe me, there is quite a stash of supplies to be gone through - sometimes I even find supplies for gifts I intended to make in previous years but never got around to) and pull out the things I will need to make the gifts I've decided to create.

Some years I know I will have limited time. Last year, for example, I was in the middle of preparing for my portfolio show, so my gift making was limited to jam. Other years I decide I must make one item that is so big, so glorious, and so time consuming that no one else will make it onto the home made list. They still get gifts, of course, but the recipient of the one gift is just lucky that year.

After all the lovely planning, which is much of the fun, I settle down to the actual creation. This is when I really start to feel the spirit of the holidays. I put on some holiday music or a fun holiday movie, and start to work. In some ways it's like a magic spell. Hours of labor spent, while thinking about the person who will receive the gift. Pursuing small creative impulses and embellishments. Thinking about presentation and purpose. All of this ties in to the process of gift making and creates a memory that stays with me, long after the glow of purchasing a great gift has passed.

My husband laughs at me because I'm almost always more excited about others opening gifts I've chosen for them, and especially gifts I've made for them, than I am to open gifts for myself. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE getting gifts, but there is something about seeing someone enjoy a gift you've made that just gets me going. I can barely restrain myself. Especially when I really think I've gotten it right.

My parents and sisters and their families all live far away from me. We don't usually spend the holidays together. So it is a little disappointing to pack the gifts in a box and send them off, to be opened unseen, although I do still enjoy the gift exchange. And it doesn't have to be elaborate, or expensive. It's not about that for me. I just like to send my loved ones a little something to remind them that I think about them, even when we're not together.

Quilt Expo Underwhelms

2009-09-12T16:37:00.000-07:00

First, let me start off by saying that I would be indistinguishable in a crowd of middle aged women wearing capri pants, sensible shoes, misshapen but comfortable tee-shirts and carrying a bag the size of a small Midwestern town. Which is exactly where I found myself at this year's Quilt Expo.

But for all the trouble I've gone to to develop my Quilt Expo Camouflage, I guess I forgot one key element. An overriding interest in traditional quilting. That's not to say I don't appreciate it. Row after row of lovingly constructed, beautifully executed quilts graced this year's quilt exhibit, a large display inexplicably walled off in the very center of the room, and set up so that you are forced to zig zag back and forth, dodging camera shots and docents. You are given a slip of paper at the beginning to vote for your favorite, but make your decision carefully. Should you decide to go back and see an earlier quilt again it's similar to a salmon spawn.

Some of the details were breath taking. The minute stitches. The carefully pieced intricate patterns. The time consuming and almost unimaginable attention to detail was enough to make even my jaded attention span pause. There was one quilt where the beauty of the pattern was entirely created by incredibly dense quilting of deep orange thread on a lighter orange fabric. Stunning. But I wanted more.

I wanted art. To be fair, I'll amend that to I wanted MORE art. There were some beautifully artistic pieces but most of it was simply perfectly executed traditional quilting. Nice but hardly art.

Maybe it was the booths surrounding the show, more than the show itself. Yards and yards of fabric. More sample quilts. But it's all been done before. I've seen it before. There wasn't anything that I saw that I thought was truely innovative. And that's the problem.

I love quilts. They are both warm and extravagantly time consuming. They can be beautiful and fascinating. But they seem to have reached their limit. There doesn't seem to be anything new going on with the quilting world, other than technical advances that make it easier to make your traditional quilt.

And that's okay, it's just not for me.

And, as a side note. $5.50 for PARKING? Are you kidding Alliant Energy Center? Really?

A Head Cold and a Mad Men Marathon...

2009-09-01T14:58:00.001-07:00

Sitting in the television room, watching a mini Mad Men marathon and fighting off a vicious head cold leads to places I probably wouldn't normally go. I began to wonder, watching the women characters all struggling with their own places, what kind of person I would be, or would have been, had I grown up in the forties and been an adult in the sixties.

Would I be the same as I am now? That seems unlikely. I am as much a product of my time as anyone. So if not, who would I be? Would I be pushing the envelope like Peggy, trying to use her brains and creativity despite an unswerving wall of indifference from the men around her? Or would I try to resign myself to being a good wife, whatever that means, like Joan Holloway, all the while knowing that I was better than that. Or would I be one of those multitude of women in the steno pool, just trying to pay bills and find a husband. Pretty sure I wouldn't be Betty. She's just plain too crazy for me.

Deep down I don't think I'm the steno pool sort, but then again, times were different then. Women had few choices. Those lives of quiet desperation were part of what lead to the sixties and the Women's Movement. I have a sneaking suspicion I'd be a Joan. Damn good at what I do and letting it kill me that men got the sweet end of the deal just because they could pee standing up.

I know that Mad Men is a television show. It's a drama, with character development suited to making interesting story lines, not a documentary about a time now gone. But the question remains relevant. What kind of person are you? What motivates you? What makes you either part of the norm, or makes you break out of it? And women still have issues to resolve.

We're all a lot more PC now. We don't say and do certain things in the work place. We, as women, expect that we can do just about anything we please, if we are willing to put in the effort.

No matter what sex you are, using your creative mind is hard. It requires effort above and beyond the simple matter of day to day existence. It requires time and effort, energy and enthusiasm, courage and encouragement. It requires being impractical in many ways, because the payoff for creativity is often the most elusive, sometimes never arriving at all. Whereas, the payoff for practical skills like organization and attention to detail, while undervalued, are rewarded with regular pay and your own chair. And impracticality doesn't feed the babies. It doesn't pay the electric bill. And women generally find it hard not to be practical.

Sitting in my Studio

2009-08-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in my studio. The windows are open and I can hear rain as it finds its way through the leaves of the massive oak tree we call Big Ray. (Burr Oak - Raymond Burr - Big Ray) I've come up here to clean and hopefully work, but instead I'm writing this blog post.

I haven't written much lately, mainly because I've actually been working on art. Something, somewhere, has loosened in me and I've started to actually produce work. Not as much as I would like. NEVER as much as I would like, but more now in the last six to eight weeks than I have in many months before this. And it's good. It's very good. Mosaics and mixed media work. Some painting. I'm settling in and creating some of the things that I've been thinking about for a long, long time.

The thing I hate about my studio is that I've got it so crammed full of stuff that I have a hard time finding things. I wish I could be more organized. More respectful of my own, hard won space.

The things I love about my studio are many.
It has a sink. I am so freakin' lucky to have a studio with a sink. And cupboards.
When I look out the window I see leaves and some little bit of sky. It's like having a studio in a tree house.
As much as I hate how much stuff I have in here, it's great too, because almost anything I want to do, I have the stuff to do it in here.
I can do whatever I want in here. There's no one who is telling me that I have to do a certain thing or not do a certain thing, other than the mean voice in my head, which I am trying to still with work.
It's a luscious melony orange color, full of juice and creativity. And while there's not a lot of wall space, there's still some left for things to go up.

And finally, let's face it, the best part about it is that it's a studio. I have a studio. For many years I didn't have one and I limped along, working on the dining room table or in a corner of the living room, with art supplies stashed in boxes or drawers but always overflowing into our living space.

In one memorable apartment, during my quilting and doll making phase, my studio was behind the couch in the living room with the sewing machine right next to the hall that went to the bedrooms. My husband remembers that one every time he thinks about the foot surgery to get the broken needle out of the ball of his foot. I remember that year because my oldest son was two and the only time I could find to work was late at night, after everyone else had gone to bed. Not a lot got done but it was good stuff.

I learned to mosaic in first house we owned, sweeping small shards of glass off the dining room table whenever it was time to eat dinner. In that house I also took over almost half of our bedroom, with my fabric and sewing machine. But I hated to sew up there because it was always hot, stuffy and the roof slanted down in such a way that the only place in the room where I could stand upright was right in the middle. So I would haul stuff down and work on it in the small living room, with the kids crawling through the work.

Don't get me wrong. Even with a studio my art supplies are not confined here. They bust loose and creep down the staircase with alarming and overwhelming frequency. As I write this there are bags of fabric in the tv room, waiting to be turned into costumes for 3D fairy tale illustrations, a big bag of paint and brushes in the dining room, left over from this week's art date, several tubs of glass shards in the dining room and garage, given to me by my local stained glass supplier, waiting to be sorted and then cut up into smaller shards for my mosaics. And there's always random art tools stuck into drawers or pencil cups, and rolls of paper tucked out of the way in crannies behind the couch or between the hutch and the wall. And that's just the stuff I remember.

And I'm grateful. Grateful for all of it. Grateful for the luxury of space to devote to something that I clearly could never NOT do. Grateful for the patience of the man I married. He not only lives surrounded by my art, but occasionally finds himself wounded by it, and still he doesn't complain. Too much. Grateful for my sons who, maybe because they never knew any different, don't seem to notice or mind that their home is a colorful, patterned mess. Actually, I know they notice, and I suspect they mind, but they don't make me suffer for it, and for that, I am also grateful.

Sitting in my studio. I'm going to get to work now.

A Done Bun Can't Be Undone

2009-04-07T13:38:00.001-07:00

I was wishing today that I'd never learned to play Bejeweled. (I started to write Bedazzled but that's something else entirely, maybe a Ronco product?) Not only is it a time waster but I'm compulsive about it when I get stuck. Stuck on an idea. Stuck on what to do next. Stuck with too many things to do and none of them include a beach, sun and some fruity rum drink.

And then, as I was wishing this, this voice in my head said "What's done can't be undone." and that pulled me up short. It's true of course but I wondered if that came from somewhere. Did Hamlet say it? Or maybe Napoleon? I don't think it's biblical because I can't envision Charlton Heston saying it, it seems a little too homey for him. So, I googled it. And found "A done bun can't be undone." which I like even better. Such nice assonance. (yeah I looked it up.)

So much of what I read today seems to talk about all the things we've been doing that we know is a "done bun." Probably shouldn't have run up so much debt. Really shouldn't have put all our money into things we didn't understand. Definitely shouldn't have trusted people who said "I have a formula." Stuff like that.

But hearing about what we shoulda, coulda done, doesn't change where we are today. It's a done bun. We have to just eat it and move on. So starting today I'm going to work on forgetting where to find BeJeweled. And Zuma.

A Day in the Life

2009-03-25T09:49:00.000-07:00

Participated in an interesting project set up by my friend Jennie recently. She asked several artists and designers to document the same day, March 6, and then she plans to put them all into a book. I have to say this up front. I was very excited about the project, but that day, that particular day, was about as far from an artist/designer's day as one could possibly get. By the end of the day, I was so discouraged by the mundane-ness (mundanishness? mundundity?) that I almost gave up on the project. Still, I spent some time thinking it over, and realized that any given day is what you make of it. Not all of us get to order our days, and yet, we still have to find some meaning in them.

So here it is, my essay on March 6, 2009 called "So I Took a Picture of It."

At 5:45, Dave the neighbor begins to warm up his truck. It’s 42 freakin’ degrees, so why he’s warming it up I have no idea but the jet engine rumble is more effective than an alarm. I take a picture of it. At 6:30, NPR kicks in. Before bank disasters and layoffs can lull me back to sleep, I get up.

I can’t find my new glasses right away - a week without and it’s like starting over. I take a picture of them. The street lights are still on and shining a pool of orange light through the early fog. The marsh across the street is dark and silent. I take a picture of it.

Breakfast is tea, strawberries and cereal. It used to be Diet Coke and a wince. Getting older. I take a picture of it. Gray heads off to school. I take a blurry picture of him at the door. Most of my pictures of Gray are blurry, he’s growing that fast.

Shower. I don’t take a picture of that. Throw clothes on and head out the door. Frost still on the windows. You can feel that spring is in the air, if you stand still and breath deep. But the quick glance reveals only frost. I take a picture of it.

7:30, I take Hunter to school. Look at car ass all the way. Take a picture of it. See a dashboard hula dancer. Find myself wishing cars were more interesting to look at. Once I found myself following a van with one of those video screens mounted between the back seats. Pathetically grateful for the 30 seconds of video distraction. No such luck today, just a hula skirt’s gentle sway for the duration of a stoplight. I take a picture of it.

Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. MATC. Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Work. 57 degrees. Stoplight. Stoplight. Took a picture of them all.

Lunch is two corndogs, an apple and a plastic bag of tasteless carrots. Michael Pollan wrote something like...“Never eat where you get your gas.” Does Michael Pollan have one car, one son in school 30 miles away with no bus, doctors appointments across town and a schedule tighter than a new pair of control-top pantyhose? I doubt it. I took a picture of it.

Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. MATC. Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Not sure where this doctor is but the nurse said we’d know it when we saw it. Saw it. Took a picture of it.

How do you kill 15 minutes in Middleton? Cost Market Plus and Sea Salt and Vinegar Chips.

Stoplight. Roundabout. Stoplight. Beltline. Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Car broken down and blocking - you guessed it - the stoplight. Picture. Picture. Picture. Oh Hell.
I snapped them all.

Stoplights turn into stop signs. PDQs and strip malls turn into horse farms and Lake Kegonsa. Almost home.Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Dear God. How much time do I spend at stoplights?

Pizza for dinner. I took a picture of it. It’s Friday and we’re all wiped. Lay around the TV room like we’ve been drugged. Cheesy doughy drugs. Stopped taking pictures. Tomorrow’s Saturday. Thank God!

Keeping Busy

2009-02-10T06:56:00.000-08:00

Still looking for paying work but really my heart belongs to my latest project. An illustrated fairy tale called Tatterhood. It's the story of a girl who doesn't fit in. She's messy. She's contrary. And she doesn't really care what others think. Now what would I love about that, huh?

The folk tale is Norwegian, but I'm retelling it, so I'm adding other elements beyond the basic story. The only problem is, it's getting long. And, you know, it's not really a children's fairy tale. It's more like a woman's fairy tale. So that's my plan for illustration. It won't be one of those cutesy kiddy things, but more a coming of age story. With birds.

The Library

2009-01-27T15:49:00.000-08:00

I went to the library today and made myself right with the world.

Yes. I am one of those. I am a chronic tardy book returner. And worse, I occasionally lose them. Which means that, on occasion, I am unable to check out books due to the large-ness of my library fines. And sometimes that state of having fallen from grace extends so long that I forget what I like most about the library. The vastness of the supply. The variety of the goods.

I've learned to accept this about myself. I mean, I am, in many other respects, a good person. I am kind to the elderly and small children, mostly. I cook nutritious meals for my family, mostly. And I try to avoid frequenting enclosed public spaces when I'm having intestinal difficulties. I think you know what I mean.

And it's not like I check out two books and lose one of them. When one continuously checks out books two dozen at a time, it's natural for one to slip the corral, as it were, and go astray, once in a while. So, back to today, I decided to go and find out just how bad the damage was, and try to make it right.

In my library, you can ask them to check the shelf for a book you've been accused of losing. It doesn't take too long, but is like asking the ticket clerk at 11, if they are sure you've missed the 10:45 bus. It almost never works but you've gotta do it. And, low and behold, today it worked! As it turned out, all this time, I actually DID return the darn book, and it's been waiting on the shelf, all this time, unchecked in and lonely. And I am not quite the regenerate book loser I can't help but think of myself as.

So I've been curled up on my couch, reveling in my library stash. Books on Norwegian fairy tales, organic gardening, the latest Terry Pratchett and some Dana Stabenow that has somehow escaped me before now. All that treasure, returned to me. Just for the price of a question.

The Thin Line

2009-01-24T15:34:00.000-08:00

I read an article this morning about Shepard Fairey, the designer/artist who has taken the world by storm with his iconic Obama campaign (and, it appears, now presidency) images. According to this article, Fairey has lifted vast quantities of historic imagery in the creation of his own for profit work. http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Obey/index.htm

I'm sure I'm a naive fool, but I've always just thought that he was for real. I loved those boldly graphic images reminiscent of Russian and Chinese revolution posters, and 60's social revolution statements. Now I come to find out that the reason they reminded me so strongly of those things, is because he used those things, outright, in the creation of his own work. He did this knowingly and seemingly without concern about the appropriateness of his actions. For anyone else this is called plagarism.

It's discouraging to see, not only the article, but response to the article, where people say things along the line of "well, that's what graphic designers do." That is NOT what graphic designers do. Graphic designers, good ones, struggle and strive to find a new way to say what needs to be said. They may be inspired by work from the past, how could they not, but they know that what they create needs to be as original as they can make it. They may use echoes of the past but they do not just copy it line for line and plant it in their own work with no acknowledgement or compensation for the original artist.

Being a collage artist, I've struggled with the thin line between using work to create new work, as many collage artists do and stealing. I've always tried, very hard, to stay on the correct side of that line, and, in many cases, have simply decided not to use an image if my use could be construed as stealing the image. And this is for personal work that may only be seen by my friends and family. I know the joy of an original creation and the nagging doubt when too much of the piece owes itself to someone else's work.

How is it then, that someone of Fairey's public stature, can be so ignorant to the ethics of the situation as to feel that he is entitled to the use and even subsequent copyright of such material? Have we lost our moral compass? Shame on you Mr. Fairey. Shame on you.

Abundance

2009-01-10T09:07:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking a lot about abundance lately. There's a school of thought that says that if you visualize abundance you will receive it. Sure, there's an element of magical thinking there, but I'm all about magical thinking. What makes it relevant today is this:

I've been waking up to NPR pretty much every morning for the last few years now, and I've never heard such an unending string of negativity as I've heard recently. The economy. Corruption. Death. Greed. War. More corruption. Failure. Poverty. Layoffs and bailouts. Rising unemployment. Who deserves help. Who doesn't? Where will the money come from? Where did the money go? Why are people still behaving like greedy scum? (My question here is, what made us think they were going to stop?)

I found myself becoming more and more depressed about the state of the world as I listened. The problem is, I don't see how I can do what I need to do while focusing on these things, most of which I can't even wrap my mind around, let alone change. So I've stopped listening to NPR in the mornings. Sorry NPR, I still love you. It's not you, it's me.

What I'm going to do instead is this. Exercise. Eat a good breakfast. And focus on creating abundance. The world is a vast and glorious place. Still. The sun rises in the East. Every morning. Still. Every day (for the next six months or so) each day will get a little longer, a little warmer. And for every greedy bastard out there, trying to hide his ill-gotten gains, there are a hundred people doing little things to help a fellow citizen of earth, be they human, animal or plant. A thousand people, doing what they can.

For all the big horrible stories that glow and pulse with a sort of sick fascination, there are lots of small stories, quiet and unprepossessing, that glow with the creativity and humor and beauty of the human spirit. I'm going to focus on those stories for a while.

I know that it's seen as important to see what's going on in the world. To make yourself aware of things. To read newspapers and magazines to educate yourself about what's happening. But for all this awareness of evil, there ought to be some sort of flip side. Some sort of acknowledgment of the good. I don't mean to say those in trouble should be ignored. Their pain is real. But we focus on it excessively. We wallow in our bad news.

I believe in focusing on abundance. On bending my thoughts towards the positive, in order to help the positive become stronger. This sounds pretty metaphysical but look at it this way. Visualization is an accepted practice in sports. Top athletes visualize themselves doing their thing, over and over, with successful results. They know that if they think they can't do it, if they allow negative thoughts, thoughts of failure and despair to dominate their minds, they will not succeed. Studies show that when an athlete is successful at visualizing, they are more likely to be successful when the actual event arrives. I'm suggesting that the rest of us take up this practice as well. To visualize ourselves succeeding. To visualize and focus on the good in the world, the things we want to succeed.

Pretty Pollyannaish stuff. I know. But it's worth a shot. Visualize abundance.

More on the Altered Books project

2009-01-02T17:19:00.000-08:00

Beginning any art project can be hard. Deciding what to do, getting past the fear and really committing yourself to the work, can all be daunting. Combine this with three other sisters and trying to communicate a basic sense of guidelines for everyone to work within, via posts to a family website and you've got our Altered Book Project.

To help my sisters out, as none of them have done an altered book before (and to be honest, I've only done a couple myself) I researched some websites for them. Don't worry, I'll share. This list is far from complete. In fact, I know there are so many out there, I almost don't even want to commit to just this list, but I will because the beginning is important. And by "beginning" I mean "starting". You have to start.

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

So I begin, as I always do, by looking at what others have done. Not to copy, but for inspiration.

www.alteredbookartists.com
www.altered-book.com
www.art-e-zine.co.uk/alteredbook.html

And best of all, a site called Recycled Words, by Will Washford.

There's more. There's so much more. But here's a start.

A Sense of Fun

2008-12-31T13:25:00.000-08:00

It's so easy to forget the golden rule of living.

Approach living as you would like to live.

I've been so busy fretting about all the stuff on my to do list (a quick top three: 1) get a job 2) Get a JOB 3) GET A JOB) that I forget that I am really extraordinarily lucky. I have a great family and a wonderful life. I wouldn't trade it for the world.

I've also forgotten the first step to achieving the nirvana of the golden rule of living. Have fun.

Why am I starting out my blog post with this? It's circuitous but here it is. Last night my sister called. We talked about many things, but one of them was a new sister project we're starting with the new year. Our previous sister project was as follows:

Create a doll. Put it in a box and send it to the next sister up in birth order (except for me, as the oldest I sent mine to the youngest sister.) Once you get the box, open it, continue to work on the enclosed doll, add to the story of the doll, replace in the box and send to the next sister. Repeat until all sisters have had a chance to work on your doll and it comes back to you.

The outcome was unexpected in several ways. First of all, what we all thought would take, oh say nine months tops, (there are, after all, only four of us) took five years. Yeah, you heard me, FIVE YEARS. Second, the process was very revealing. We learned a lot about each other as we saw the changes and additions each sister made to the doll in their hands. Third, the product was unexpectedly meaningful. And I don't just mean the product of the dolls, which were all great, but the idea of having something that all my sisters contributed to made it mean that much more to me. And the stories...well, the stories were funny and weird and didn't always make a lot of sense, but they were really, in some ways the best part of the entire project.

I forget what incredibly creative sisters I have, and how extraordinary it is for us all to have the kind of relationship we do, living as far apart as we do. This project was a reminder that we always have each other.

So the new Sister Project? I can hear you wondering. It's altered books. We will each be creating an altered book and sending it around to be further altered by our sisters (and possibly others - this could become a different animal all together!) The theme is our family, so this ought to be wild.

As I was talking with my sister about this project, she told me about her friend, Robbye, who is also creative and who does a blog as well. This morning she sent me the link to Robbye's blog. I loved it. And what I loved about it? The sense of FUN! It reminded me that I am at my best when I approach life the way I want to live it. She seems to embrace life with a sense of creativity and vitality that I find very appealing and tend to forget to add to my own. So thanks Ame. Thanks Robbye. Ame posted pics of her doll on her site. I'll see if I can find some photos of the others.

So here's my one and only New Year's resolution. Approach living as you want to live it. Pretty simple huh?

An Illustrated Life

2008-12-28T08:12:00.001-08:00

As I mentioned before, I got An Illustrated Life for Christmas from my beautiful and psychic sons. How DO they know what I want? After having read it practically cover to cover on Christmas Day today I decided to go back in and check out each of the artists. So, first on the list, Mattias Adolfsson. He lives in Sweden and draws with grace and humor. Damn I'm jealous. But the best of all, he interacts with his blog so that we get to see a bit of his brain nearly every day. www.mattiasa.blogspot.com The thing I really recommend here, probably because I'm onto this sketchbook thing right now, are the videos of him just paging through his sketchbooks, but don't neglect the bot drawings.

At home, the geese have temporarily abandoned the Knucker Hole marsh. After yesterday's warm foggy bath, they are probably sleeping it off somewhere, unwilling to brave the returned cold weather. I know I am.

Excited about the prospects

2008-12-26T09:11:00.000-08:00

It's the day after Christmas. It was a lovely holiday and quite nice to spend time with my loved ones and give and get presents. Now it's time to get back to work. I've been inspired. I got the book An Illustrated Life from my wonderful boys and spent a few hours looking at the sketchbooks of other very talented artists. Of course, this made me want to run right to my studio and start working, which wasn't exactly possible at the time, given that we had guests coming and still had house cleaning and cooking to do.

But today, ah, today, there is no one coming to see the dirty dishes in the sink or to complain at eating leftovers. I am free to create. And I consider this my fresh beginning, blog wise. School is over and I am free to pursue my chosen career. (There is some internal discussion as to what this career should actually entail, but I'm confident that those questions will work themselves out.) Part of the pursuit is the resolve to continue and improve my blogging efforts. To make connections. To become accustomed to the regular production and revelation of my work to the public.

I've been spoiled at school. Assignments assigned and time lines given. Having to do this for myself is much more difficult, and yet, much more exciting as well. Thus I am, and continue to be, excited about the prospects.

Learning how to know what you want

2008-11-02T09:29:00.000-08:00

I find myself wondering if Barack Obama and John McCain are feeling a little bit the same as I am today. Here it is, two days before election day, and no matter what the outcome, both of them will find their lives very different than they are today. Are they finding this home stretch exhausting? Are they wishing, in some ways, that they'd never embarked on such a monumental task? Or do they find it energizing to be on the brink of such a large job.

I'm not saying getting my degree in Graphic Design is the same as running for president, but anytime someone commits their life to a project for an extended period of time, I think there comes a time when you wonder if you've made the right decision. Maybe this is fleeting, a moment of doubt or fear during a quiet time, or maybe it persists and causes you to quit, to walk away from this very big task. Moments like these are different for all of us, but I believe we all feel it. As I'm feeling it today.

I know that I'm not going to quit. That's not what this is about. It's about how we work through that. How we get up in the morning and find that energy to keep working on our project, whatever it is. How we keep going back to it, working on it, refining it, shaping it, maybe in spite of odds to the contrary.

One of my instructors brought in an article from a recent New Yorker, about late bloomers. Those of us who are late bloomers understand better than most, the energy it takes to continue working on something with very little in the way of reward. We keep working on our art or our book or our whatever, and it comes out of a place that is completely separate from financial or social reward. There is always the hope that reward will come, but it's by no means a guarantee. And yet we give up much to keep at it.

People who are successful at the arts often say that they feel the same way. That achieving the "prize" isn't really the point. They feel as compelled to do the work as anyone else. The difference, the reason they achieve more, may just be luck, or a better network of acquaintances, or just more persistence.

Talent does not necessarily equal success, and success doesn't necessarily equal talent, but we do, as a culture, seem to think that's true. It seems to me that a major component of success, whether you know early on or it comes to you later in life, is knowing what you want. Sometimes the only way to learn that is to keep trying different things until you get the one that works for you.

Summertime

2008-08-08T12:23:00.001-07:00

And, as the saying goes, and the livin' is easy. Which means I'm doing way too much hanging around and not nearly enough stuff. However. That is pretty much my constant state so I won't go on about it here.

Have spent some time this summer organizing my workspace and working on staying in contact with other artists. First the workspace.

I keep telling myself that once I have the studio clean, I can move on to other things. Have now come to realize that that is probably the worst form of procrastination there is. I tell myself I'm being virtuous, by cleaning, when in reality, I'm bagging off and I know it. Shame on me. Still. Some things have gotten done in the name of procrastination. A few projects have staggered across the finish line and some really awful first drafts of work have crept into existence. In addition, nearly 15 years worth (yes you read that right - 15 YEARS worth) of magazines have been reviewed, any relevant articles torn out and the rest recycled. You see what lengths I will go to not to work?

And, as I write about this I'm recommending a book. It's called The War of Art, and it's a beautiful essay on the evils of Resistance (read here procrastination) and the divine nature of creativity. A really inspiring read. The author is Steven Pressfield, who has also written some great historical fiction.

Second, staying in contact with other artists. I have a hard time sometimes, connecting with other artists. It's probably just me, but I get freaky when it comes to making contacts with other artists. Either I love their work so much, I feel unworthy of their friendship (as in "Damn! Now they're going to think I'm a total dilettante. ) or I don't much like their work and would have a hard time being friends because I'm really bad at lying about things like that. And it strikes me that even if I was good at lying about things like that, is that really what a friendship is all about?

But I've also come to the realization, after going back to school in my forties, that I really do need to connect with other artists. There is a benefit to talking with other people who understand at least the language of what you're trying to do. As my friend Victoria says, they get it. And the connection also inspires work. It's sort of like having an assignment, having to report to your friends about the progress of your work. They give you that look when you're bagging off. Doesn't mean that the friendship should take the place of the work, and that's tempting too, but it adds another dimension to working alone. Feedback.

So I'm working on it. I've read several blogs on the creative life this summer, and it seems to me that this is a constant battle with many artists out there. Working alone, versus feeding the well by entering community and getting involved with other people out in the world. It seems like it should be such a simple thing, to balance art and life, but it's really very complex and not altogether fun.

Still. I wouldn't have it any other way I guess. Now it's nearly 3pm and I have to go out and meet up with an artist friend of mine and enjoy this great summer afternoon.

Lists

2008-05-28T11:07:00.000-07:00

I'm out of school for the summer now and have prepared The List. The List is a compilation of the things I plan to do this summer. I know, full well, that I won't even get close to completing the list. That actually isn't even the point. I will, however, take great satisfaction in crossing items off The List, and looking at some sort of progress. Last summer I didn't make a list and when September rolled around, I found, to my dismay, that I had accomplished nothing. Well, I'm sure I did something, I just couldn't remember what and had no proof.

I couldn't live without my lists. I make lists to go to the grocery store, which I promptly forget as I'm walking out the door. I make lists of things I should do, things I want to do, things I don't want to do but have to do, and let's not forget, things I will never do, but would like to think I'll get around to. Lists are my memory, my process and my bane. I sometimes find lists tucked into a book I haven't opened in years, and realize that, with a few slight differences, it could be the same list I'm building in my current notebook. Okay, that can suck. But it's also strangely liberating.

Recently I was looking through Gwen Diehn's, The Decorated Page, a really nice little how-to book about creating and using artist journals, when I came across a segment she'd included about Sei Shonagon. Sei was a Japanese courtier, diarist and poet who lived from 966 through 1013. Her pillow book is considered by some to be one of the first and best examples of good writing style. Oddly enough, I had just read another book, a novel called My Year of Meats, and I'm sorry I can't remember the author's name, who had also referenced Sei and her lists, which is why this little segment really stood out to me.

Sei Shonagon wrote in her pillow book, among stories and impressions of her time and culture, 164 lists. Some of the titles were "Things Which Distract in Moments of Boredom", "Annoying Things", "Things Which Make One's Heart Beat Faster", "Elegant Things" and "Things That Have Lost Their Power". Just reading the titles made me think about the nature of lists.

We all make lists. Sunday Morning did a segment on list making a few months ago, and while I put it on my list to blog about it at the time, now it's been so long I can't remember what they actually said about list making other than the fact that everybody seems to do it. As I prepared to write this entry I googled "list making". The best entry was an Onion article (one uncomfortably close to the truth actually - which is why the The Onion is so damn funny) and the weirdest to me was one from the Psychology Today website, that basically gave you five things to put on your list. Things like "Be Happy", "Write a Book" and "Fall in Love". Who knew it was that easy?

And by the way, I was just reading over this last paragraph and I want to reassure anyone reading this blog that I very seldom actually do homework/preparation to write it. But then, you probably already knew that.

So, back to the nature of lists. See, all of my lists are usually in the form of practical, get it done sorts of things. I put on there things like "Reorganize the buffet." "De-magazine." and "Return library books." I had never really even thought about making lists about, oh say, "Things That Are Thought About at 2am When One Has Woken From Sleep and Now Can't Go Back" or "Things That One Wishes One Could Say to the Teacher at Parent/Teacher Conferences" or "Things That Make One Cry in a Sentimental Way". This is kinda fun. How about "Things That One Finds at the Bottom of One's Purse That One Had No Idea How They Got There." or "Outgrown Things." or "Things That Taste Better Than One Thought They Would."

This puts a whole new spin on the list making compulsion. The categorization and documentation of these things is unique and immensely entertaining, in a way that "Potatoes, Rice, Onions, Oatmeal" just can't approach. I mean, my version of "Things That Smell Bad But One Sniffs Them Anyway." is probably very different from yours. Or maybe not. Maybe we shouldn't even go there.

So anyway, I'm adding another item to The List. I'm going to spend some time making non-functional lists. Categorizing and collecting my own thoughts into a journal, that, like Sei Shonagon's work, will hopefully reflect my time and culture. So that when I find the list, tucked into a cookbook ten years from now, I won't cringe that "Lose Weight." is still on it.

Back in the Saddle

2008-05-01T04:46:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a long time. I know. And I could explain but that would be as boring for you as it would for me. Suffice to say one word. School.

Why I'm writing now is that one of my final assignments for this semester is to create a website for myself. This has been a very interesting process. Similar to having a blog, having a website appears to be a requirement for a graphic designer or illustrator these days. And, as usual, I'm having a hard time deciding what I'm going to look like online. Who would have thought the question would be so hard?

As I cruised the internet yesterday, looking for cool websites, I certainly saw quite a few, the Ames Brothers being one of the best, but while some of them were really cool to look at, they held little in the way of content. (And by saying this I'm NOT talking about the Ames Brothers site!) I do believe that the content is as important as the look, but again, what to say. So now I'm trying to decide what to say and how to say it. Whew. Even more fun. (Is there an "I'm being facetious" emoticon?)

I know I'll get there. I already have some ideas, but I have also been thinking a lot about authenticity. When designers, or anybody, creates a website that looks cool, really cool, WAY FAR OUT THAT'S JUST COOL, but says virtually nothing, what does that say about them? Is it necessary to put some of yourself on the site or is that just intrusive? Is it better to be honest and more transparent, if you will, and say what you think and feel about the work you expect people to buy from you, or have you create for them? Or is it better to just lay it out there and let others interpret what they will from your examples, with little or no comment to guide or inform their opinions?

I mean, on the practical side, as you look for potential customers on the internet, anything more personal, and by "personal" I don't mean comments about your home life, but more insight into your thought process and emotional connection to your work, has the possibility of turning off potential clients as well as engaging them. For this reason alone, I'm sure that there are valid reasons for less "personal". But, at the same time, there seems to be such a movement recently for a more authentic experience from your interactions with others. People seem to be looking for things that have the flavor of having been created by a real person, as opposed to the slick, manufactured look of a perfectly produced Illustrator drawing. I'm seeing a lot of texture and organic form and scratchy, blobby lettering that all says "Somebody made me." And I find that that's what I want too.

In the end, I believe it will all come down to being honest about who you are. If someone wants your work, they know they are getting something you have invested thought and energy into, and even though it sometimes looks imperfect, they will not be disappointed with the results. They know that they will get what they see.

If nobody wants it, maybe you're in the wrong business.

Touring Studios

2007-10-12T13:09:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I went up north to visit my sister and go on a Studio Tour. Great idea, the studio tour. You travel around the countryside, visiting artists' homes and studios to see where and how they work. Local galleries and shops put on their best clothes and invite you in as well.

What I liked best about this tour was the beauty of our surroundings. A few years ago I went to California for the first time and drove the Pacific Coast Highway. It was a breathtaking and unexpectedly moving experience. As I followed Highway 35 south from the Twin Cities I found myself reminded of that experience, especially just outside Maiden Rock, on the eastern shores of Lake Pepin. There were the same winding roads, and stunning vistas, with rolling landscapes, and views of trees clinging to vertical cliffs on the left and a shining expanse of water on the right.

Okay, so the cliffs weren't as tall as the California mountains, and the shining waters were clearly bounded on the other side of the lake, no more than 2 or 3 miles to the west, as opposed to the limitless expanse of water you see when you stand at the edge of the Pacific Ocean. But the feeling you got, of straddling some magical line, between land and water, sky and earth, was definitely echoed in this almost hidden Midwestern landscape.

And the towns (it would be an aggrandizement of monumental proportions to call them cities, and even the word "towns" is, in some cases, quite a stretch) are also reminiscent of a deep history. Small wooden houses, most wearing their century of life with weary dignity, cluster together, and for this weekend, show off their party colors.

We stopped first in Maiden Rock. It was a glorious fall Saturday, if a bit too warm (it eventually reached 90 degrees that day - and in Wisconsin, October is usually more like 50 to 60 degrees, with 70 degrees a welcome departure) and being a Saturday in Wisconsin, there was a farmer's market. Two tables. One with the biggest jar of homemade pickles I've ever seen for $10 and the other with a small selection of late season veggies, like squash and some late tomatoes.

For such a small town (I think the population was around 300) it had an amazing variety of art galleries and shops. We went to two. The first was a little converted house with beautiful contemporary art. Drawings of huge flocks of birds juxtaposed with interesting multimedia stuff. I can't list too much because as we were looking around the owner had to close for a few minutes. So we wandered up the street to a place called Basil's. This old house clings to the sidewalk like a little old lady clutching her purse and as we went in we were bombarded with stuff. The walls were covered from floor to ceiling in paintings of vibrant blue trees against orange skies and villages with jaunty red roofs and multicolored doors. Tables in the center of the room were heaped with leather purses and birdcages, holiday decorations for every holiday, not just the one coming up, costume jewelry antiques and retro boxes, all ready to slide off into your possession. Cabinets lined the walls and the open doors were hung with feather boas and beaded wire strands. As we picked our way through the plethora of stuff the owner cheerfully confessed to us that they'd already had avalanches.

Reluctantly we left. It was 11:30 and we'd only been to three places and only one of those was actually on the art tour. Before leaving town though we stopped at the Hungry Pelican. This was a bakery with some mouthwatering goods, like sour cream and green onion foccacia cooling on a table behind the counter and raspberry cheesecake pie. We had stopped to use the facilities and loved the look of the food, but we reasoned that it was early and the line (10 deep) was a tad too long to get something to eat already, so we moved on, once again passing on the $10 jar of pickles. (One of the drawbacks to a tour like this. You either have to have an impressive bladder or be willing to cajole your way into a bathroom. Another option, which we chose not to exercise, is to pee in the woods.)

Only later did I stop to wonder why a bakery in the middle of Wisconsin was called the Hungry Pelican. More on that later.

The next town was Stockholm. I won't go into detail here. I mean. I could. There's details. But the problem is, I'm blogging, not writing a novel. Here's the skinny. Great art. Great shops. Very cool look. Cooking shop!!! Small campground on the edge of Lake Pepin complete with pelicans. Still at this point (and it's 1:30 now) have only gone to 4 out of 12 proposed sites. Time to pick up the pace so we went on to Pepin.

And ate lunch. Really nice little cafe. Not amazingly good, but certainly better than many MANY a small town cafe, and great Scotcheroos. In Pepin we saw giant bamboo and tissue paper fish made by many people in the community in workshops put on by a local artists, as well as a video about an event they had held earlier in the summer, where they built a Viking ship out of scrap wood on the shore of the lake and then lit it on fire. I began to wonder just how much time these people have on their hands. And, in at least one part of my mind, I had to ask "Why don't they do this where I live?" And don't tell me, I know the answer to that. Because I'm not out there organizing the giant Viking ship burn. Well, not yet at least.

At this point we turned up into the uplands of Wisconsin, and as we wandered through two lane country roads that dipped in and out of steep crop-lined valleys, rising periodically to ride the crests of ridges, we drove past the birth place of Laura Ingalls Wilder without even realizing it until we'd gone completely past. We realized that we could easily come back after our next stop, billed as an artist who does sculpture, so we decided to go forward.

So, you're in the middle of nowhere. The last town you drove through had a population of 4. You turn at the instigation of a small orange sign and start driving down a gravel road that goes on, up and down over hills for a few miles, until you pull into a farm house driveway where you are greeted by an enormous stone sculpture, in progress. We were delighted to find that this charming artist, Stanton Sears, was also, along with his wife, Andrea Mykelbust, responsible for bringing in the artists who orchestrated the big Viking ship burn. Sears is the creator of some stunning public art that is both architectural and oddly organic. I put their website on the list. Check it out.

After this, we went back to where Laura Ingalls Wilder was born. The thing is, they had this cabin there, and there's nothing that says that this isn't the original cabin, until you walk in and realize that there's never been a fire in the fireplace or furniture on the floors. It's a little disappointing. Kind of like realizing that those tantalizing desserts on display in the restaurant are really fakes. I mean, you still get the gist but the perfection is false.

After this we really headed into the sticks, winding down gravel roads to ramshackle houses charming decorated as only artists can, to see pottery, painting and prints. We fell in love with most of the work and all of the sites. Cooing as much over artfully planted gardens, found art sculpture and the fall of sunlight through poplar trees as we we did over hand carved figurative sculptures (Dave Ekdahl at Nopointink also on the list), stone rattles (Nancy Liedl) and landscape painted tiles (Margy Balwierz, also at Nopointink) , we wandered until even we were too tired to do anything more than turn the car north again and head home.

And that was just the first day.

More to do with Books

2007-09-24T06:56:00.000-07:00

So this morning I was procrastinating, because I have a head cold and WAY too much homework, and I found this great blog, A Fanciful Twist. I put it on the Cool Links list down in the lower left corner there.

This woman, and I'm embarrassed to say I didn't get her name although I liked her photos very much, uses sheet music and vintage dictionaries in her art. She made a dress out of dictionary pages for one of her small figures. See? SEE? Pretty soon we'll be taking care of that excess book problem. If more people would just get busy. Pretty soon we'll be able to justify 50% of the population not reading a book!

Gotta go, I actually do have homework to attend to. Thanks to those of you who have communicated back to me. I had pretty much resigned myself that I was, in a very technologically sophisticated way, talking to myself, although not in that sort of mumbling way I do when I'm driving and I get lost or traffic is bad. I was okay with talking to myself. I was! But then I got an encouraging e-mail from Tom and a nice comment from June and I had no idea how great that would be.

Thanks!

Reading Books

2007-09-23T10:13:00.000-07:00

A few Sundays ago I heard on Sunday Morning that 1 in 4 people did not read a book last year. One quarter of us didn't read a book. Okay, so I know the deal with statistics. They can really mean anything. Maybe those people only read magazines, or newspapers. Maybe they couldn't read (a horrifying thought, although, to be fair, some of our non-readers are under the age of 5 or so, and can most likely be excused on that basis.) Or maybe they, like a young woman I overheard years ago on a college campus, know how to read, but just don't want to. None of those options seem that great though.

You've probably guessed that I'm one of the rest of us who did read a book. In fact, I probably picked up the slack for several hundred of the non-book readers. I love books and if faced with a stack of them, will at the very least glance through them, if not actually read several. Almost against my will, I found myself at this summer's book free-for-nobody, the release party of the last Harry Potter book and stayed up until 3am to buy a book I could have gotten up and purchased the same morning at 8am with no waiting.

If desperate I'll read ten year old Good Housekeeping magazines. Cover to cover. I find that I do have limits though, although you wouldn't know that if you'd seen me dozing on the floor of the local Borders at 1am. This summer I found myself in the emergency room waiting area, my elderly father-in-law having needed an emergency visit. The waiting room was okay. The temperature wasn't stifling, the light was natural and the chairs weren't plastic, but they had about six magazines, and two of those were Car & Driver, one was a children's magazine, and the others were ancient Parent magazines. Apparently, all appearances to the contrary, I won't read absolutely anything. I draw the line at smoking cessation pamphlets and Car & Driver. Good for me.

The nature of a visit to the emergency room is that you aren't usually expecting to go to one, so I hadn't exactly come prepared to spend more than four hours in a room with 15 strangers, 25 chairs, a TV tuned to NASCAR, apparently permanently, and six magazines. Where were all the Women's Days and Good Housekeepings with the recipes torn out? Where were the Highlights? Where were the Better Homes and Gardens, the Wisconsin Women and the dry but serviceable Health magazines?

After more than an hour and a half of withdrawal, I left the emergency room to search the rest of the hospital. It was Sunday, and nobody goes to the hospital on Sunday (at least not anybody other than the 15 people accompanying the emergency room guests) so I had the halls to myself. Finally, about 4 sitting areas later, I found the mother lode. A cache of Architectural Digests and Home and Garden (to which Better Homes and Gardens aspires but does compare) in the surgery waiting room. And better yet, my competition was one woman, knitting and watching NASCAR.

I picked up a handful, as casually as I could, almost cringing at the thought of being caught liberating better quality magazines, and carried them down to the ER waiting room, stopping only to pay an exorbitant amount for a Diet Coke and a Snickers from a vending machine (because nobody eats in a hospital on Sunday either - well - I take that back - I could have chosen from several very well wrapped but distinctly tired looking sandwiches, apples that screamed to be released from their misery or some cereal in a covered bowl. The Snickers I knew would be exactly what I expected, the other items would certainly fail to live up to even my lowest expectations.)

Wouldn't you know it? Shortly after returning with my stolen stash, I was released from Waiting Room Hell, for a short time, and was then faced with a new dilemma. Did I leave my treasure on the tables for others to share? This was certainly more democratic and a certain justification for having stolen them in the first place. In fact, I remember feeling distinctly noble, like I was bringing good decorating to the masses. But I also knew that as soon as I left them they were fair game, and when I came back they might very well be clutched in some other hapless soul's thirsty grip. What to do. What to do.

Finally I did the only thing I was capable of doing. I put down the ones I'd already looked at, reluctantly, and tucked the one I hadn't read yet in my bag, promising myself that I'd come back and give it to the room when I returned, but rationalizing that I really had to keep something against another possible long spell in WRH. Of course, you know what happened. That night, at home, I pulled the poor magazine, boldly emblazoned with one of those bright orange "Waiting Room Copy" stickers, out of my bag, and realized that I am the reason there are no decent magazines in hospital emergency room waiting rooms.

Of course, by now, you're probably wondering what the hell this has to do with art. I mean, I did promise I'd talk about art. And this is probably wandering dangerously close to "hairball" territory, but I do have an art related theme to inject here.

As I was saying, after I heard the dismal 25% non book reading statistic, I thought, well, what do we do with all the books? I mean, we write them, we publish them, we try to sell them, we put them in libraries, and 25% of the people (and I suspect this is a growing number) don't read them. What then, do we do with all those books?

And being an artist, I began to think about some potential uses. Of course, immediately I thought about the standards (in my house at least) of coasters, end tables and presses for bills that have been soaked in water. But those really aren't that creative, they're just natural progressions. Glenn uses them for a combination sleep aid/alarm clock. He goes to bed, opens his book to read, falls asleep after three pages and then wakes up again when he drops the book on his face. This is a pretty versatile system, because it works just about anywhere, including the couch, an easy chair or the car (passenger seat of course.)

A local bookstore uses them for wallpaper, and I've seen advertisements for hardcover books sold by the yard for people who have libraries with empty shelves and no time to buy books they actually plan to read to put on them.

Still, this doesn't enter the world of art just yet. One group that has made the leap are the altered book artists. They use books as the canvas for their painting and collage efforts and end up with beautiful pieces. To see some of that go to www.alteredbookartists.com or www.art-e-zine.co.uk or just google "altered books".

And just as I was really getting into thinking about what one could do with books, build a shed, insulate your basement, make flip-flops, I ran across the latest Mary Engelbreight's Home Companion (Oct/Nov 07) with an article on folding the pages of a book to make an oddly beautiful paper sculpture. Now we're getting somewhere!

So anyway, I'm going to work on some of my book ideas and post them here.

PS: This one has nothing to do with books: I just like it. I'm working on a series of photographs of Wisconsin's capital building as reflected in the windows and reflective surfaces of the buildings around it. I took this one yesterday. I like how clean and huge the reflection is. I tried for a more complete shot of the building but would have had to stand in the middle of the pretty busy six lane East Washington Ave. and I am not crazy.

Tharn

2007-09-07T14:29:00.000-07:00

I never actually read Watership Down. Glenn, my husband, did. But I use two concepts from that book all the time.

"Tharn" which means frozen. You know when you see those bunnies in the yard, and they know you're there, and you can just tell they'd like to break like hell for the shrubbery, but they sit there, really still, hoping that you won't notice that they're sitting there? That's "tharn."

Second word/concept "hrar", meaning more than three, or way too many to keep track of.

Well, this week I spent a significant amount of time tharn because I had hrar things to do. Having a lot to do is a good thing. It keeps you busy and motivated and many people thrive on being overburdened. But sometimes it just makes you tharn.

I'm putting together an art project with my sisters so I'll post about that soon.

How I Spent my Summer Vacation

2007-09-03T08:34:00.000-07:00

I started back to school last week, after having the summer off. In my world, having the summer off means I only have to be a mom and work, I don't have to be a mom, work and go to school. In fact, Glenn, my husband is going back to school as well. And in one of his classes, he got the classic "What I Did Over My Summer Vacation" assignment. So he went through my photo file to find some examples to use in his project. And as he went through them, I found myself watching over his shoulder, looking at them again, looking at them through his eyes.

A little background here. On January 1 of this year, I started what is probably one of the biggest projects I've ever done, not including raising children or getting a degree. I decided, after a few months of owning a digital camera, to embark on what they call a 365 project, meaning that I proposed to take at least one picture every day for a year. As of today I am almost exactly 66% of the way through this project and have accumulated well over 3000 photos. In all honesty, I've missed three days of that 240 some days but I'm not going to get too fussed about that because I had really good excuses, for all but one of those days. That one day I was just really tired.

I am not a photographer. I mean, I am a photographer, in that I take photos, but I'm not one of those people that obsesses about, or even really understands things like F-stop. I own a middle of the road point-and-shoot that I really like, and I'm constantly doing things like trying to take a close up of a flower with the "landscape" function on. In fact, until we bought this camera, if photos were seconds, my body of work would cover about a minute and a half. And that's for my entire life. Some 44 years. As part of my degree, last semester I took an Intro to Digital Photography class where I learned that I really have a lot to learn. Especially about tripods. But I am an enthusiastic amateur.

All of this explanation is not to excuse my work. I'm pretty proud of a lot of my photos. Some days I get so many pics I like that it's hard to choose one to represent the day. Other days it seems like I bail, taking utter drivel, only to come back later as I'm reviewing them and find something that I like, at least enough to be able to choose one for the day.

I've learned a great deal from this project. I always knew the world was a pretty amazing place, but now I look at it even more closely, noticing things that I might not have seen before.

I've come to appreciate the beauty of deconstruction, because it adds interest to the scene...
I've learned more about composition than I ever thought possible, mainly by being disappointed in my own, but also by taking many shots of one subject, looking for just the right composition...

I've begun to notice the sky much more than I ever did in the past (and being an artist, I really do notice a lot already...)
I appreciate the vitality of movement...

the grace and beauty of pattern...

and the secrets of detail...
I love to find great reflections...
I've learned that children often have a grace that goes unnoticed...
I've discovered the beauty of the golden hour...
and that polar bears laugh...

And mainly I've discovered how much I love to take pictures. How important it has become to me. Will I keep taking a picture every day after this project is over? I find that unlikely. But I will continue to bring my camera with me, ready for that one picture...

And of course, to be ready for the assignment about what I did over my Summer Vacation.

First Blog

2007-08-26T08:06:00.000-07:00

Hi. My name is Jackie. Having fussed with the idea of starting a blog for several days, probably weeks, I finally decided to just do it. So here I am. Writing a blog.

My intentions: As I am an artist, the primary intention, what you will most likely read about here, is to write about my work and what I'm developing. This is something I do not do easily. It is about as easy for me to verbalize what I'm doing and why as it is for ducks to explain how they do that cool wings spread out splooshy water landing thing.

Secondary intentions include a way to show my work, finding a community of like-minded people also trying to figure out how to land in the water without getting their heads wet, and journaling my work. I've found that when I write about my artistic intentions I have a better chance of realizing them.

In general, I don't much care for those blogs where you find yourself reading about how their cat threw up a hairball last night at three a.m. so they're pretty tired so they're just going to post about not much (my apologies to anyone reading this who sees that statement as unbelievably judgemental on my part.) I'm hoping I don't end up sounding like that. And, since blogging is pretty new to me and I have no idea who, if anyone, will even read this thing, I would like to be very funny, artistic and wonderful for you, my invisible audience, but will probably end up talking about hairballs. Ack.

My self: I'm married to a great guy who's a writer and editor and one of the funniest men I've ever met. I've got two sons, both of whom are also funny and charming and although very creative, are seemingly without an artistic bone in their bodies, although the oldest makes a mean balloon animal and the youngest is quite a tale spinner.

Currently, nearly 20 years after getting a college degree I did virtually nothing with, I am going back to tech school to get a degree in Graphic Design. Despite the fact that I took many art classes in college I did not actually acquire an art degree and, frankly, wouldn't have known what to do with one if I had. Artistically I am largely self taught. I mainly do mosaics and collage, some painting and lots more photography. More on that later. In the past I have also done one-of-a-kind dolls and quilting and will generally try any art project once.

So that's it. Well, that's not all of it. "It" would require more than the 200'ish words here, although it seems like, at times, not much more. I'm going to publish now and then go take some pictures, because it's a gorgeous late summer Sunday in the Midwest. Talk to you later, and next time I'll bring pictures.