I made postcards for friends with these 2 inks as seen on my Substack newsletter. As you know I see art as a way to connect with people.
Playing in my sketchbooks is a way to explore and experience new art supplies as well as my own thoughts and feelings. I used on of the larger 8 x 10 inch sized sketchbooks as seen in this recent post when I got a batch of new sketchbooks.
This week we visited a locally owned bookstore called Broadway Books. I love their curated poetry section and got two books of poetry and some “haikubes” for added wordplay fun!
Another day this week we went to a 2nd Powell’s bookstore location on Hawthorne street. They have completely different book selections in each of the Powell’s bookstores so it’s fun to visit the curated collections for a good browse.
And we celebrated our anniversary of 27 years together and 10 years married at one of our local craft brewpubs!!
What a great week of soaking up the fun and celebrating life!!
Much love to you all and thanks for sharing in the fun!!
I finished my commission for the Caplan Art Designs Gallery and delivered it. Still can’t talk about it yet but I’m pleased and the Gallery was pleased… enough said!
With the leftover paint from the commission I began working on this painting currently in progress…
As a reward for finishing the commission my wife and I took a day to visit a few of our favorite places in Portland Oregon to play and generally muck about. The first place was Powell’s City of Books where we explored many of their 5 floors of spectacular book reading goodness and other fun things…
We each came home with small book hauls. Here’s mine…
Our other favorite place is Oblation Papers and Press. We got 3 bottles of ink: two are coffee colored and named “Caffe Creama” and “Espresso”. The third ink is named “Portland Rain” and it is a grey-purple-blue color like the, um, rainy Pacific Northwest sky this time of year! I also got two dip pens because…they’re dip pens.
…and I wrote on my email newsletter about a new bent pen recently. Here’s a photo of it…
…and here below is some mucking about that I did with the new pen in one of the larger new sketchbooks.
I’ll play around with my new inks later this week! I cannot stress enough the importance of play – aka mucking about – to creativity and mental health. Wahoo!!
I hope you have fun doing your own mucking about this week. See you next Monday-ish.
A friend asked how I maintain creativity while doing a commission. My reply: a schedule and lots of joy breaks. I deliberately make the mundane magical. Especially via joy breaks.
Joy breaks, also called “Joy Snacks“, is purposefully taking time to recognize and savor small pleasures. Think of the old fashioned coffee breaks office workers were allowed within a work day but for me now it’s a scheduled “check in” with whatever seems pleasant to me at regular intervals throughout a day. It’s allowing myself to fully feel the pleasure I feel however small the feeling may be. I add a corollary that it’s also avoiding killjoy thoughts – including those U.S. Southern style self depreciating cynical put downs of my own pleasures. It’s taking time to make note of a memorable moment in my journal/sketchbook each day. Yes, notes of things I’m grateful for but also just things I enjoyed and the surprising things that pleasantly caught my attention during the day. It’s also taking a moment to maintain awareness of what is within my control and what isn’t – a crucial thing to remember during creative deadlines – while allowing myself to relax and let go of some things in the Stoic philosophical manner.
In a technical/physical sense while doing an art commission (my current one is for the Caplan Art Designs Gallery) there are times I need to wait for parts of the commission to dry before doing other parts. There are also times when I have extra paint that I mixed for the commission leftover. So part of the mundane creativity task is to monitor the commission as it dries – to stay on task – and yet also use up any excess paint. This week I did a painting of a pig titled “Red Eye Gravy Train”… (details of the painting, the related limerick and a view of my sketchbook is on my Substack https://sueclancy.substack.com/p/early-starts )
Red Eye Gravy Train by Clancy
I had mixed a pink color for my commission and had a wee bit leftover so I added a bit more of the white and used it on “Red Eye Gravy Train”.
During another days work on my commission I was mixing a particular shade of light blue and the tube of blue suddenly smooged out too much color in a gush. So I had a huge amount of leftover blue color to deal with.
So I consulted my sketchbook for ideas and with a watercolor pencil quickly drew a design and filled in with the extra blue paint (and the wee bit extra green too).
Even after painting that there was still extra blue paint left so I covered two boards edge to edge with the blue till the paint was used up. No clue at this point how I’ll use these new blue boards…but that’s what creative thinking is for!
Since I’ve been so busy working we’ve had lots of beans and rice for our lunches. I have a keeper of my precooked magic beans in the fridge so I toss a scoop or two in on top of the rice in my “push here dummy” rice cooker, to quote my adopted Mom’s phrase for simple kitchen appliances.
I add spices, freshly chopped onions and other vegetables to vary the dishes from meal to meal, press the cook button and head back to the studio to work some more.
Even though these beans and rice bowls I make are simple and cooked in a busy-artist-hands-free-cooking way they still feel like homemade comfort food. (My beans and grains bowl recipe/strategy can be found in my kitchen sketchbook “Favorites So Far“)
I like handwritten works, homemade food and just about anything made by hand. So I enjoyed this post by Austin Kleon about how AI (and algorithms) can’t kill anything worth keeping.
And I admit to getting a joy snack style chuckle from this article about today’s teenagers going luddite and ditching social media and smartphones in favor of handmade real life!
The additional poetry book title by Andrea Gibson, the new favorite poet I wrote about last post arrived this week! I love it that it looks handwritten. I know it’s a font…but I like the look. Gibson’s words feel so true to my own experiences and the semi-handwritten hand illustrated look adds a sense of comradeship for me.
Speaking of handwritten poetry… I read a fun article about a park ranger who got creative and made a free little library style kiosk for poetry in the park!
One of the most delightful joy breaks was this video of what happened when a girl gave a street musician a coin.
And I hope today’s post itself gave you a small joy break. Remember to take breaks and notice pleasant things. See you next Monday or thereabouts.
I’m borrowing a concept: I create an original one-of-a-kind artist book and then make limited edition reproductions of that book. Just like a fine art painter might make art prints from a painting. Only my art reproductions are books! Anyway my artist books, both the original handmade books and the limited edition reproductions of the originals are currently at the Aurora Gallery www.auroragalleryonline.com
The Aurora Gallery has Patchwork Poems and 14 of my other artist books on a shelf!
Below is a fun video by Caplan Art Designs about my 3d sculpture “Dogs On The Block”!! On Dec 1 from 6 to 8 there was a reception at the Caplan Art Designs Portland gallery – and my work found a new home! The Gallery specializes in shipping and delivery of artwork and will handle delivery of my sculpture to it’s new place! www.caplanartdesigns.com
Below are some recent books that have come via mail! I’ve had time to peek at them but not to do any serious reading. It’s a fun to tease myself with them. Thanks again to Liz Gauffreau who suggested “Rescuing Socrates”!
Games have come via mail too! Our cat loves the practice golf balls more than any other toy. We joke that he must have been a golf pro in a former life. So we got him a new package of balls. Which meant that, to be fair, we needed to get the dog a new toy too. Of course then we decided that the humans needed some new toys too…
Rusty loves his new toy! First he checked to make sure it didn’t have much stuffing. Here’s my wife demonstrating that the new toy is flat and floppy as per his preference. Once that prerequisite was shown Rusty loved it!
On my email newsletter I shared my sources for sketchbooks, pens and other art supplies in case another creative person like me is looking for a gift for themselves. BTW: My paid subscribers will get an 84 page ebook from me this week!! (Hee hee hee 😁 and yes, let Jolabokaflod begin!!!)
Just in case another creative person wants a source of inspiration for creative thinking I also shared one of my favorite books that stimulates my own creativity. “How to be an explorer of the world” by Keri Smith
As you know many of my art projects this time of year are someone’s holiday gift so I can’t talk about them online. But recently I was asked to do two different pet portraits for two different people who were getting art prints of the portrait as a gift for themselves so they generously allowed me to share…
Here was one of the photos of the dog for the portrait to be. Trusty lived to be quite an elder dog and he’s passed now so for the portrait painting I compiled the various photos his human sent of Trusty throughout the years. This photo below is of him as a younger fellow. Trusty was a mutt with Terrier in the mix. His hair had to be groomed and he greyed over the years. So creating this portrait was a challenge. This photo below showed the nose and eyes best though this hair style wasn’t quite the normal. Like I say… a challenge
Here’s what I came up with. The human, thankfully, was pleased!
And here’s the other portrait… it was of a West Highland Terrier. The photos I was sent were taken of the dog that very day and more photos were possible.
I created the original artwork using watercolor pencils and brush and sumi ink.
Then I made an art print of the original artwork. This human too was very pleased!
I’m primarily doing my portraits through the galleries I work with yet I’ve found that some people prefer art prints as they can fit a budget better. There are several size options and frame style choices for all of the prints I create. Here’s a link so you can see what I mean. https://society6.com/product/jozy_framed-print
Am I tired from all of the commissions and recent art exhibits? Yes. But I suspect all of Santa’s helpers are tired this time of year. So I’m content to restore myself each evening with time to read or play a game with my spouse.
Since I can’t show or talk about the main pet portrait work I’m doing I’m especially grateful that a dear friend gave both of us an advent calendar of Arteza art supplies !! I’m posting pictures on my Instagram and Facebook of each days unboxing and showing what was inside. We will also share whatever we make with the supplies too.
I hope your week contains many moments of restorative fun! See you next Monday.
This week was about completing projects that have been in progress for the last few months. Now my focus turns towards feeding my creativity via my Bradbury Reading Program – more on that in a sec.
I so appreciate Bonnie for helping get the word out about the cookbook. And a deep heartfelt thank you to all the other people who have shared about it too!
This week I delivered the finished 3D box I’ve titled “Dogs On The Block” to the Caplan Art Designs Gallery for the upcoming holiday exhibit.
It has come to my attention that I’ve not explicitly shown that in the mornings I use two small books, both referred to as “sketchbooks”, one for writing and thinking in words: my efforts at poetry, stories, and plans about my artist books and art exhibits. The other book is art, drawing and painting focused. From either sketchbook I work on more finished versions of the art, poems and stories. Here’s a few photos of what I mean and there are more details on my email newsletter.
The writing sketchbook has lighter weight pages which are nice to write on with fountain pens and suit light pen drawings. When I want to really explore an image idea I redraw it in my art sketchbook which has thicker paper that can deal with heavy pen drawings or whatever other art materials I want to use. Here’s an example of that. The writing book is on the left, the art book on the right.
Anyway, the little poem book for children that I’ve been working on for Storyberries is finished now, titled Patchwork Poems and will be released as an ebook on Storyberries.com this week on Nov 12!! Because you follow this blog here’s advance access and a full preview of the entire book along with a look at the cover!
There are promotional things still to do about Patchwork Poems but the active creation part is done.
Whenever I’ve finished most of my current art projects to refuel my creativity I turn my attention to what I call my “Bradbury Reading Program For a More Creative Life”. I’ve practiced this program fairly constantly for more than a decade by now and firmly believe it has helped me be as creative and prolific as I am. Here’s the “Bradbury Reading Program” in a nutshell: for the next 1000 days read one poem, one short story and one essay on any topic. Even if I don’t actually manage 1000 consecutive days I aim for as many in a row as possible. If life happens and I miss a day I forgive myself and get back to it asap. Here is a video of Ray Bradbury himself talking about this reading program. https://www.instagram.com/reel/CkdkDiuvNrR/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
In the mornings I play in my writing or art sketchbooks in response to whatever is on my mind in the mornings while I’m still in that groggy half asleep state. I am *not* a morning person and this is my superpower: dawdling, doodling and dream-noodling over coffee and breakfast.
The poetry and short stories I read each day are seriously short. Towards evening I randomly pull a book from my shelves, read the poem or story within a few minutes, replace the book on the shelf and go on with making dinner. To show you what I mean… here’s a bookshelf with poetry books on it…
…the book I chose is titled Comic Poems – Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets…
… I open it randomly and read the 4 line poem by Ogden Nash. I replace the book on the shelf and the poem section of today’s Bradbury Reading Program is done.
Now from part of my short story bookshelves…
… I select Tales of the Dervishes by Idries Shah and open it at random…
… to a half page sized story titled The Oath. I read the story and replace the book on my shelf. Now the short story part of the Bradbury Reading Program is done. And possibly dinner is ready too – or will be shortly.
I shared this photo below in my last post but I’m still happily reading these books each day after dinner. The top most book, The Book of Delights by Ross Gay, is a book of short essays that fits with my “Bradbury Reading Program”. The essays generally are two pages long, sometimes a bit shorter or longer. It doesn’t take long to read an essay after dinner prior to clearing the table and doing dishes. I’ve been reading these essays aloud to my wife just so I can keep my voice in practice while I’m basically without hearing aids.
The titles by Salman Rushdie were chosen because I enjoy reading biographies of artists alongside one or more of their creative works. In this way I learn so much about living the creative life. These Rushdie books are what I’m reading each night for about an hour before bedtime. Usually with a mug of hot chocolate.
Details about the books in the above photos are available on my public bookshelves on @bookshop_org – and book sales from this link benefit indiebookstores https://bookshop.org/shop/clancy
The only book pictured in this post but not listed on my public bookshelves is Comic Poems by the Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets. Sadly it seems well and truly out of print however they offer many other small books with short poems https://knopfdoubleday.com/imprint/everymans-library/
I hope your week is pleasant and full of creativity! See you next Monday.
My Odditerrarium exhibit is humming along nicely at the Caplan Art Designs Gallery! This week was another busy week and I’m grateful to have a Gallery collaborator who helps keep things going in many ways including with posts like this! What a nice way to show the pets that inspired the portraits in my exhibit!
Since I knew this week would be another busy one I carefully carved out some time to sketch. Because I’ve discovered I enjoy sharing step-by-step how I create my sketches I documented my sketchbook session and posted it here on my email newsletter. In the post I show the art supplies (like the NIL-TECH watercolor pencil set) and how I use them as well as how I got the idea for my sketch.
As you know from earlier posts I’ve been working on a new illustrated poetry book for Storyberries.com. Knowing I wouldn’t have much time to work I did “need to let it dry” kinds of tasks: I spray-fixed the pages and glued the still-raw boards for the book covers. In the last photo you see the small credit card sized book just before I set it up interlaced with wax paper and paperweights to dry while life happens.
Then a wonderful visit happened over three days with family! There were two college soccer games to attend in support of one family member. We ate in a number of locally owned restaurants. We went for a hike in a park. We played games of dominos well into the night. I didn’t photograph everything and I never managed to get everyone in the photos at the same time but this photo below was the most successful.
One family member was on the field being a goalie. Other family members were along sidelines taking photos of the action on the field. There were so many reasons we were seldom in the same places at the same time for a family photo. The games were active occasions!
The outdoor soccer games were also unseasonably warm and sunny, for the Pacific Northwest, as you can see below.
I wear two high powered hearing aids and have since I was 8 years old. My right ear is a bit better at hearing with hearing aids than my left one. I know well from past experiences that hearing aids are sensitive to heat, moisture and interference by hats – among many other things – so I try to be careful. I even remove my hearing aids before I use spray-fix on my art projects just in case.
Well, during the first soccer game I was enjoying listening to family members and the noisy hubbub of the game when suddenly everything went quiet as if a switch turned the sound off. My right ear was completely silent and I could barely hear, with the hearing aid in my left ear, the loud drums and shouting from the crowd. Immediately I told the family member who was talking to me that something had happened to my hearing aid. I told my wife too and excused myself to go to the car to see if I could replace a battery, adjust a setting that was knocked off by my hat or do something and get my hearing aid back on again. No such luck.
So I went back to the stadium and told my family that I’d be more deaf than usual the rest of the day. My hearing issue was no problem for anyone else, some sign language, repeating things patiently, and my lip reading skills could compensate. It was me that had a problem. In such scenarios I have FOMO, a Fear Of Missing Out. My family loves me and includes me in everything- I can trust and rely on that – it’s that they are all such good storytellers. They’re good storytellers in the literary sense of building suspense using nuances of wordplay, of voice tones and inflections, of playing shared family knowledge like a violin (in kind, gentle ways) while building towards a punchline. To miss some of the words or sentences means a high probability of missing the joke! If you know me at all you know how I love a good story so I had a serious case of FOMO!!! I didn’t want to miss any clever turn of phrase that would be said!
To cope with the FOMO I did my best to focus on the bigger picture of just enjoying their physical presence and to appreciate the things I did hear and let the rest go…and to just trust myself and them! I did my best to “catch the conversational drift” and add related stories of my own now and then. I tried to be as much a full participant as possible. It was hard at first to keep my FOMO from dropping down like a barricade between us but I leaned on trusting myself and everyone else. I imagined the conversation was a happy-accident style painting where an artist just trusts the creative process. I reminded myself that I like surrealism and nonsensical poetry – that I would be fine with things not being comprehensible. I recalled the art college essays I wrote about the artists John Cage, Rene Magritte, Joseph Cornell and Ray Johnson. I also remembered reading about Surrealism and Dadaist poetry and storytelling in addition to the art styles.
Later that day when we had dinner and as the evening cooled off my right hearing aid fluttered to a little more life. Not back to it’s normal power but I was glad of a wee bit more sound. After we were home I got out the hearing aid instructions and fiddled with the settings. During breakfast the next morning I fiddled with the settings some more and the second game day had a bit more – not normal but better- hearing in it. Still I practiced “just appreciating what I did hear” and “just trusting and loving”.
Here are some photos from the second soccer game of people I was just loving and trusting.
Our family soccer goalie is in the middle behind the fence. The 4 others are also family members.
And I found myself just enjoying our meals together and didn’t take photos. Except for this one at happy hour.
Stories got told over our domino games we had at our house till after midnight! In our quiet house I heard a bit more of the stories but it’s obvious that these hearing aids need repair! Will visit the hearing aid repair place asap!
So I learned this week that it really is true that “A little nonsense now and then is valued by the wisest people”, that art can help – even when it’s memories of art history essay papers, and also that just loving and trusting can lead to some of the happiest of experiences! What a great time I had with family!!!!
I hope your week is filled with love, trust and happiness too! See you next Monday.
Of course I did a drawing too because I’m me and that’s what I do – in these copies I did a small self portrait. These can be ordered for shipping from Vintage Books to anywhere. Just tell them you want a signed one.
Since my wife and I were in the bookstore we had a good browse. My wife has her own book haul and here’s a photo of mine.
We got our covid booster shots and our flu shots at the same time. It was the appointment time available that fit (sortof) into our schedule. Felt tired and achy the first day but the next day, the day of my Odditerrarium art opening at Caplan Art Designs…
… I felt punk. The house was 74 degrees but I was very shivery cold. Mostly I read The Hobbit (it’s in my books to cheer up by list) and napped. It felt very difficult to do the social media necessary for my exhibit. But I did my best.
Thank goodness for Amy and Steve at the Caplan Art Designs Gallery!!! They’re both kind, understanding people and they’re very talented at what they do. I appreciate both of them a whole lot in ordinary times but this week I appreciated them even more.
If you’re just catching up here’s the photo of my entire Odditerrarium series on the Gallery’s wall before the lables were added like you see in the pic with Amy and Steve.
Wow! Caplan Art Designs sold 8 of my paintings from my Odditerrarium series!! They sold some of my Odditerrarium artist books too!!! Thank you all again!! ❤❤ Odditerrarium continues through October. More details about my Odditerrarium project here: https://sueclancy.com/portfolio/odditerrarium/ But these paintings below went to new happy homes!
By Friday afternoon I felt almost 100% back to normal! Not a bit was done this week on any of the other projects I’ve mentioned in my last post. I didn’t even do any playing in my sketchbook. Even so it was a good thing I felt back to normal Friday because we had planned an after the exhibit opening get-away.
So this weekend we had a delightful day with Rusty on the Oregon coast! Our long awaited date day consisted of a long leisurely windy walk along the Pacific ocean – and beers and burgers by the outdoor fire pit at Pelican brewing – Rusty had water with his very own burger patty, which we cut into small bites for him. Rusty enjoyed meeting so many dogs and we had fun conversations with the dog people. Many of the dogs were not easily identified as one breed and all were as darling as darling can be!
Anyway, a much needed relaxing day was had by all!! Of course art studio supervisor Rusty, and his staff, want to plan more such outings! And now I’m fascinated by mixed breed mutt dogs. I love the puzzle of them, the gentle humor of the look of them…
I hope your week is pleasant and that, if you have them, your beers and burgers are just the way you like them. See you next Monday
I think a lot about thinking. So do cats I think. Here’s another painting in my Odditerrarium series for upcoming exhibit at Caplan Art Designs in October. My painting is titled “Cognition”. Sometimes it seems like brains are fish bowls with thoughts swimming about.
Here’s the sketchbook page that began my Odditerrarium series.
Besides forming a theory of mind as related to other living beings – I find it’s helpful in my creative life to keep notes, in a sketchbook/notebook, on things that happen in my life, things that catch my eye, my feelings, thoughts and responses to the world. My sketchbook/notebook becomes part of a collection of objects, photos, books, places etc that resonate with me in some way and yet may also be relatable to someone else. I think creativity is a way to connect with both ourselves and each other. To the elements of my ongoing collection I add my imagination…
… like in my current project for Nil-Tech I free-associated or imaginatively mixed a feeling experience in my life (of enjoying a coffee) with a real life cup from my kitchen and a photo of a dog. Almost everyone has has the experience of sinking into the relaxation of a pleasant beverage – almost like a hot tub – so it’s a safe bet that my feeling is relatable. A cup and a dog are common reference points too. Anyway, here’s a photo below and link to one of my videos on Nil-tech: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CitjpxIoBoO/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
My point here is that my system of getting creative ideas is a lot like cultivating a garden: carefully planting perennials, evergreens, planning to rotate annuals etc regular cultivation for ongoing use in cooking or decor. This helps me sustain my creativity over the long term. Also for sustainable creativity I find it helpful to keep an uncultivated wild patch or two, some experimental ground areas where anything goes and uncertainty reigns, where I’m in the classic “beginner mindset”, or in the spirit of a kid flopped on their belly coloring to their heart’s content with no thought of their scribbles being “good”. All of this in my mind when I say I’m re-wilding myself.
The term “re-wilding” typically refers to ecological conservation, a way of letting the land be naturally whatever it is as a way of restoring the ecosystem.
I really think we can do this with our minds too, we can re-wild ourselves and our own mental landscape, from time to time by allowing ourselves a more expansive diverse habitat of the mind, to sidestep our own habits, group-think, expectations and presumptions. To deliberately try a new methods or materials just to be playful. (Play, at any age, is necessary for good mental health.) As creative people re-wilding is a neccessary part of a creative life. Generally speaking re-wilding is allowing ourselves to play off-leash now and then so we can reconnect and restore ourselves.
I re-wild myself most regularly by reading and reading as widely as possible. I read banned books and obscure books — here’s a booklist of wild (and banned) books I’ve collected https://bookshop.org/lists/banned-and-other-wild-books
I wrote over on A. M. Sketching about re-wilding ourselves and included this page from my published sketchbook “Another Sketchbook” as a reason why cultivating a mental life is helpful. For us creative types our mental lives are what we create with so the quality of our mental lives is also a precious piece of equipment.
Below are some more pages from Another Sketchbook with my reading techniques.
Here below is a picture of our household lion guarding a part of our library.
My 3d block project mentioned in my last post is coming along.
Another fun project currently in progress is also using ordinary things as prompts. I’m doing illustrations for a cookbook by Chef Kim Mahan! More on that as I go.
The experimental “re-wilding” projects I’m working on are two different poetry book projects. Possibly for Storyberries experimental art books section! Here’s a peek at my two projects. Both are about the size of a credit card when closed but they open out to about 20 inches long. The patterned and colored papers you see will possibly be the book covers of one book. I’ll share more as I go along.
I hope your week is wild in the best ways. See you next Monday.
Here’s a dog portrait in my Odditerrarium series. A bird dog exercising discretion. 🤣 Yes, I laugh at my own jokes. This painting is 8 x 10 inches and created with ink, gouache and collage on board.
Here’s a closer look.
Jokes aside – as I worked on this painting I was thinking that it’s not our first thought or an event that’s the important factor it’s our second thought and the actions we do next in response. It’s having the discretion to choose wisely what our next thoughts and actions will be that’s most important.
That thought popped up again when I made a mistake in my sketchbook. I started to attribute the quote to Seneca but it was by Epictetus. So I shared how I fixed the mistake I’d made, in permanent ink, in my sketchbook in this email newsletter titled: 95% of being an artist (or a human) is knowing how to deal well with mistakes.
Here’s my sketchbook with the mistake corrected.
This week Amy, the owner of the Caplan Art Designs gallery came to pick up the Odditerrarium series for exhibit in October. It was great to see her and visit!!
Here’s the box of 20 artworks – many of them new for the October exhibit. I’m still enjoying being a miniature artist and having an entire exhibit fit in one box!!
Do you ever get suddenly tired of typing? I do. I have more I’d love to share with you about this book (in the pic above), about my projects in progress… but my typing fingers are tired. So I leave you with a sketchbook doodle and a hope that your week is pleasant. See you next Monday.
This week a box came from my sister that held a quilt our Mom was adamant that I have. Opening the box transported me instantly to my adopted Mom and Dad’s house. Love smells like old books, coffee, flowers, swimming pool chlorine, Mom’s soap and cleaning products, wine, champagne, cigars and cigarettes. Here’s what the quilt looks like.
As I wrote on my email newsletter I remember well over 25 years ago when this quilt was being created by both Mom and Dad. The quilt took some time to do so I saw it in several stages of production. During each visit Mom and Dad told stories and talked about ideas that relate to the quilt. Rather than completely repeating what I already shared – here’s the main story and…
…a related story…
…along with the truth as illustrated below that both the light and dark parts of ourselves are accepted – we may wish to be more careful about what parts of ourselves that we “pick up” or choose to feed. But no matter what we are accepted just the way we are. (Btw: These stories are are in this book)
There are other quilt related thoughts on my email newsletter A.M. Sketching but here’s a look at the frame and mat we chose at the Aurora Gallery. The just off white mat looks like fabric, woven texture and all. That was one thing I’d enjoyed about Mom, her use of textured fabrics around her house. The frame we chose is a teak wood which reminds both my spouse and I of Dad’s bookcases.
While we were at the Aurora Gallery I realized my current exhibit was still there. This photo is what I could see just by turning my head from where the quilt was spread out. It felt like Mom and Dad got to visit my exhibit. Yes, I teared up at the thought and no one at the Gallery minded.
Both Mom and Dad were unbelievably supportive of my artwork. My art was displayed constantly in their house. So it feels extremely proper that their artwork will soon be displayed prominently in our house! According to the Gallery it will take about 2 weeks until the frame is ready. We already have a place of honor for it in our living room.
Over 15 years ago, during my Abstract art phase, Mom asked me to make a piece for a particular place in their house. Spirals, dots and piano keys were my visual interrelated motifs, each element feeding other elements… I titled it “Food For Thought”. It was about storytelling, the arts and feeding our minds and hearts. My mixed media painting was a response to the quilt and the quilt related stories.
Here’s “Food For Thought” as it was displayed in Mom and Dad’s house many years ago.
All of the above has me thinking of the importance of stories more generally. I’m painfully aware that book writers, illustrators, publishers, educators and librarians are currently under attack – and that books are being removed from public access. I’m feeling an urgency to support local bookstores and the general awareness of books that encourage creative people. So I’ve begun keeping a few publicly available book lists here on Bookshop.org – online book sales there benefit independent bookstores and a small benefit to affiliated people who keep book lists. We create the world together. I learned that too from Mom Penny and Dad.
Ursula K. LeGuin, an author Mom, Dad and I enjoyed together, says it extremely well.
This is why I value the idea of democracy and a nonviolent society. Democracy is the ideal of creating a civilization rooted in free thinking, in equality, in equal access to ideas, to a society based on rule of law, to fact based evidence, transparency, and the right to explore ideas without having to tiptoe on eggshells in fear of some authority figures displeasure, without fear of violence from those who disagree. To create society based on the stories we tell ourselves and each other rather than via the whims of a strongman, or fists or other weapons. Stories can be dangerous enough… part of growing up (or of good therapy) is to learn to distinguish helpful stories from the unhelpful ones. To learn this valuable lesson one needs access to a wide array of thoughts. As this article says “….if we lose our librarians, we lose a core element of our democracy.”
Anyway, all of this was swirling in my head along with my memories of Mom and Dad, storytellers both, and I cried. After I subsided a bit my spouse gently asked if a visit to a bookstore would feel good. I said yes so off we went to Broadway Books. When we entered the store a clerk asked if she could help. I asked for some hopepunk books, books with gentleness and kindness in them. Quickly a book of essays by Ross Gay was handed to me followed by 3 fiction titles. Here’s a selfie of me waiting in the fiction section while the clerk looked up another title. She was so kind!
After a good browse we were at the counter paying for our books. Since we’d gotten so many books they gave us a thick cloth bag to hold them all. I teared up suddenly remembering how Mom made thick reusable cloth bags long before they were normal in stores. Mom even made cloth bags with drawstrings for use when wrapping presents rather than using paper. Whenever we had our lunch meetings at restaurants Dad would bring his Mom-made cloth bag with books in it and I would bring my Mom-made cloth bag with my sketchbook and other books… So there I was standing at the Broadway Books checkout counter with tears running down into my mask. Again no one minded. Everyone was so kind! I waited until we were outside to take my mask off to wipe my eyes and blow my nose.
Here’s the stack of books we came home with.
So I think we chose well. As both Mom and Dad often said “Stories, for better or worse, inform how we relate to our own emotions and experiences”.
Specifically I found this book and it’s chapter about dealing with grief while getting on with one’s creative life to be helpful. Here’s a link for it on my new Bookshop.org page. (Fyi: I’m probably going to mention more often the books I’m finding helpful…)
Here’s a recent sketchbook page… Mom and Dad had cats, Mom liked orchids…
I hope your week is full of love, kind people and helpful stories. See you next Monday.
