You have to be brave to make art. Not think about the consequences. The times when you feel like you are working in a vacuum. No one to say you are okay, doing the right thing. Just believe all alone, trust, that you are. It takes bravery. Or stupidity. You be the judge.
One of the people who came yesterday for Studio Rally asked about those times, those places in a painting, when things are good but not quite right. Do I leave it or take a chance that I might ruin it by working into it more. My answer: I never let anything go that isn’t quite right. That’s the fun of it, taking risks. Making choices. I have more to lose by not working into it to get it to be what I feel is right. The ultimate goal is to make it feel so right that it is not possible to understand, see how it happened. And that often takes simple blind trust, bravery.
Terry Drahos is having an exhibit at the Grand Pre Winery Gallery. I saw it last Thursday. It was another cold rainy day. The work is very good, well worth the trip to Wolfville in any weather.
It will be up until June 11. All of the paintings are the same size which gives the long narrow gallery space a cohesiveness that it needs and showcases the work well (although I could have done without the wine barrel).
The gallery overlooks (through wired glass) the wine making barrels. I had some fun taking pictures through the (looking) glass:
Terry is pointing out the wine barrels behind the glass with her paintings reflected in the glass:
Tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday are Studio Rally Weekend. I’ve been cleaning my studio all day. It hasn’t looked this clear of boxes and canvases and plastic and sundries since before I moved in seven years ago. If you are in the area, please do stop by!
I’ve been telling everyone (and I mean any one who comes within six feet of me!) that I bought $1000 worth of rubber matting for my studio floor! Very exciting news! It sounds much more dramatic than saying I bought 20 feet of rubber matting because standing on the concrete floor for several hours at a time was beginning to be unbearable on my back (and legs, and knees). So I am very excited that it is now down on the floor, covering the areas where I stand. But it smells oh so bad and I have all the windows open, two air purifiers going and the ventilation system circulating fresh air in constantly when I am in there. And the heat on because it is still very cold outside. (Yes I know it is Spring, but someone forgot to tell the weatherman.) The heat will also help with the out-gassing, accelerate it.
Usually when I paint I change my clothes completely, including shoes, wear a full face mask and rubber gloves. I look like Darth Veder on an undercover (under paint) job.
I love my mask, really. Making art is a dangerous profession, hazardous fumes, toxic materials. With my mask, the air smells pure.
It looks like the tulip had a fight with the reflectors. And the tulip won!
I wish I could give you the sound of the loons as they were tonight, singing loud on the lake into the cold dark misty air.
In order to improve my conversational French (which is not so great, believe me!), I am taking out videos in French (with English subtitles so I don’t miss too much). The last three were two by Francois Truffout, The Bride Wore Black and The Man Who Loved Women, and Claude Chabrol’s The Story of Women with Isabelle Huppert. Lots of women. In every imaginable role. Wife, mother, prostitute, widow, murderer. And beautiful films. They were all, in their individual ways, about love and loss and maybe that is what women are about. We love we lose we love we lose and we love again. But don’t men do the same?
I like being female. I like loving. I love loving. I’ve learned, I hope, to live with losing. It’s part of life, of loving. Perhaps men feel the same sense of loss in their lives, but I am not a man and can’t really say. But I am always fascinated by what men see when they write about or portray in films their view of women. At least in a film, the woman acts the part and imparts feminine qualities to a woman.
Teaching figure drawing, I see lots of naked bodies, male and female. The physical structure is different. Besides the obvious, men’s hips are narrower, chests broader, their legs set into their hips differently, women’s arms hang from their shoulders to be able to carry babies and laundry.
I used to read a lot of self-help books: Men are from Mars, Men Who Hate Women (a very upsetting book), and such. I’ve researched men in life and in books. I work in a profession dominated by men for centuries. I’ve never dwelled there, think that the work itself will transcend cultural gender prejudice. Most of my female friends say there are few good men. I personally think that there are as many good men as there are good women. Good people. Maybe we act and react differently to some emotions and events. I do think men are wired differently, have different expectations and needs in certain areas, but we are both (men and women) people and we all want love and (at times) suffer loss.
The sun was shining just enough through the grey morning sky to see stars on the lake:
Usually I don’t skim a book when I am reading it. Usually I read every word, savor every phrase and twist of thought. Finish most books I start. Yet when I was reading Ian McEwan’s Atonement I decided I would skim the book and put it aside. The first part of the story had been so tedious to read I almost didn’t want to finish it at all. The people he was writing about seemed so pampered and artificial, I just couldn’t get excited about their problems. (Especially after reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake which moved me very deeply by her compassionate writing and also, even with its different cultural references, felt like the story of my life.)
So I found myself skimming the book (it really was fun to do!) and when I got to the very end, decided that I really wanted to read it. And I am glad I did. The best part of the novel, for me, was his description of World War II in France and England in 1940. Even though I have a horror of war and war stories, I was fascinated by the details and the view from colonal Robbie’s eyes. Growing up with the body counts of deaths during The War seeming to be the only news on the radio, I’ve avoided newspapers and only recently been able to listen to talk shows. Yet there was something personal in the telling of this part of the novel. I think it might be the guy thing, where action speaks better than feelings (as told by this male author).
The story is one of a pubescent sister’s actions towards her older sister and it’s consequences. It took her a long time to understand how much pain she caused. As a nurse in training during The War she learned.
“From this new and intimate perspective, she learned a simple, obvious thing she had always known, and everyone knew: that a person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn, not easily mended.”
In the end, although I wouldn’t rush out to find another of Ian McEwan’s novels, I am glad I did read the book carefully.
This morning I was out by 7 am, planting my vegetable garden, hoping to outsmart the black flies who sleep later than I do. It worked, and now my seeds are in the ground (except for the beans and squash) and I can sit back and watch them grow.
I noticed that there are a few asparagus stalks poking up, a sure sign of spring! Tomorrow I will put in some flower transplants I have picked up here and there.
It’s raining now. It always rains after I do some planting. It makes me feel so powerful!
Yesterday I talked (on the phone) to a friend I hadn’t seen in a long time. She lives in another province and our paths don’t usually cross. She told me her life had recently been turned upside-down. Again. About ten years ago her husband, after they came home from a party, had gone out to buy milk for the morning and he never came back. When he tried to avoid an animal that was crossing the country road, he had swerved and crashed the car (and been killed instantly). Their marriage, passionate and often stormy, had been good before he died. He left her with two young children and a big house.
Soon after, a man came to buy her husband’s car. They fell in love, moved to a bigger house away from memories and started a business together. But within the last couple of years this man started playing with a young woman who was working in their business, moved in with her, and it has been a painful story once again. And now my friend can look back on how belittling this man had been to her and her children when they were together. She took refuge in the man and this doesn’t work.
This was hard to hear. How easily/quickly a person can overlook/ignore the difficulties/abuse in a relationship in order to have (temporary/imagined) relief from that ever-present human condition—loneliness. The night before I had had a dream where the main character was my ex-husband. After thirty years of being apart, he still has the power to invade my dreams and exert control (in my dream), especially when I am having difficulties, feeling under stress. Here he was trying to prevent me from going to a meditation event and had also dressed me in embarrassing clothes (that I covered up with a white jacket) and a newspaper to read at the event (which I left by the door without his noticing). At least I got out the door.
Which is where I am going now. To a meditation practice at our local St. Margaret’s Bay Centre. No quick (or external) fixes.
There was an interesting conversation on the radio last week about blogging. Sheilagh Rogers was interviewing three people with different relationships to blogs. One of them, Caterina Fake described the interview on her blog. She was on the program with (in words taken from her blog)
Tod Maffin, broadcaster and futurologist and Jim Elves, who created a site called Blogs Canada. We talked about Tod's moblogging, and Jim's site, which is an attempt to organize the blogosphere for Canada. I said that in the beginning there was a lot of backlash against blogging because people thought the internet was getting "polluted" by all these people writing about what they had for breakfast, but I pointed out that the intended audience for those blogs was probably just that person's friends and family. I also said that one of the things that we had discussed at the CAJ conference on Friday was the difference between bloggers as "citizen reporters" and journalists. Journalists actually have some accountability, the reputation of the paper to uphold, and a phalanx of fact checkers employed by their paper. Bloggers, Jim said, are more like "Letters to the Editor" or the Op-Ed page fo the newspaper. And I think the future of weblogging is what you see over on the right hand side there: photoblogging. And photoblogging just for your friends and family.
I don’t agree with her. I do enjoy the photographs from different lives, but I also want to read what people feel about their lives. The directory of Canadian blogs is organized by region and category, with over 8,000 blog-sites listed. I haven’t had enough time to research it but am looking forward to looking into it.
So—the blog is here to stay—until it mutates into something else.
I received the most interesting (interpret: “strange”) phone call yesterday afternoon. It was from a woman who had been given my card from someone who was at the RBC reception last Thursday (where I had some paintings displayed, along with other Studio Rally participants). She was recruiting new people for her office, had been given my card as someone who was “upbeat” and competent and she asked me if I would be interested in a job with her financial company, advising and helping people get out of debt. Now that is very strange, considering that staying out of debt is a major part of being an artist. And that I am not usually considered “upbeat” nor always out of debt. She asked me if I was happy with my work, if I was making enough money. Yes, I love my work, I am ecstatic, in love with my work and no, I don’t make enough money (to expand my studio and buy a new car) but I wouldn’t trade the financial insecurity for an office job, not on your life! Not after struggling so long to be able to see a (possible) end to my debt-load.
My life has been a financial roller-coaster, sometimes up and just as (or more) quickly, down. After 9/11 things were very (extremely) bad for a year and a half. But I am stubborn and I kept going, believing that, even though I had many sleepless nights, things would get better. That someone, somewhere would want my work. That it would start selling again. Be appreciated. And I have been very very very careful once I realized that the roller-coaster ride can continue unpredictably, even the track is not stable.
So when I hung up the phone, I went back to my painting, finding the conversation very amusing. And glad that I don’t need the job right now, nor the services.
School started again last week, this time for the summer sessions. I have one class, Foundation Drawing II. It meets once a week for fourteen weeks, but since it is on Mondays, and there are two Monday holidays, there are twelve classes. And I plan to go to the Montreal Jazz Festival in July and will miss one class (have someone teach for me that day), so that makes eleven classes for me. Not bad. It will give me some time to enjoy summer (when/if it comes) and a small income.
My class is only ten students. A big change from the usual twenty. Monday morning I was musing that the enrollment at the College is 70% female/30% male and of my ten students, there are three male and seven female. Perfect statistically. But I couldn’t say why there are more females than males, probably parental/career pressures even though the art fields are dominated ultimately by males.
At one point I was giving a slide presentation and included some slides of Parmigianini, an artist from the 16th century whose work was shown at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia recently. I had seen the work in Ottawa at the National Gallery when I was there in November. I found the work inferior, weak, too florid and said so. Several students seemed shocked. One said that if she could draw that well, she would be ecstatic. Next to the Raphael slides that I showed, this work definitely looked lacking.
Earlier in the morning we had been talking about playing music in the classroom. I asked them what kind of music they liked to listen to. One student said “good music.” So I asked what makes good music. The general consensus was something they enjoyed listening to. So I asked was it easier to tell what was good music or to say what was good art. Of course, being art students, it is easier to tell what is good music. But……..I love jazz. I used to go hear Thelonius Monk play at the Five Spot on St. Mark’s Place (when there were only a half dozen people sitting around listening). And when I put on a Monk CD in class a couple of years ago, a student came over and asked me to please change the music, he really didn’t like it at all. So who was right there? (That’s what makes for horse racing, as my mother would say.) If only there were some objective standard that I could trot out when giving critiques, listening to music, reading a book.
There is a slogan of Atisha that is one of my favorites: “Of the two judges, hold the principle one.” Quite simply, trust yourself.
I went to a performance of Harold Pinter’s Monologue last night. The actor was Henry Woolfe, for whom the part was written in 1972. It was a brilliant performance, very moving. Afterwards, Woolfe talked about his experiences working with Pinter. They have had a long, fruitful association.
Woolfe, who is a delightfully entertaining speaker himself, said that Pinter is using words to stake out territory, words not to communicate as we expect it but to express the interiors--of rooms, of the mind of the characters, how people feel between the usual lines of speech. He also said that people too often do not connect to the humor in Pinter’s writing. This audience did. The laughter was definitely there. As was the pathos of the character on stage. But it is never quite clear in Pinter’s work who is feeling exactly what, who is on the other side of the door, or in this case, who is in the room and where that room is.
The saddest part of the production was the scarcity of audience. Apparently this little burg of Halifax cannot support serious theatre. Even when it is (at times) very funny.
Last night was the kick-off event for the (Nova Scotia) Studio Rally map for 2004. The Royal Bank, which has been a strong sponsor of the Studio Rally, invited their top 100 investors to a reception before taking them to a production of Cats at the Neptune Theatre in Halifax. And so our fearless Studio Rally coordinator, Adrianne Abbott invited a few artists, myself included, to display some work at the reception and (hopefully) talk to the guests. (Most of the guests seemed to know each other and were talking mainly to their friends and colleagues.)
Of course the main question I received was framed in the context of “I don’t know anything about abstract art. What does it mean?” So I gave the short form answer: just relax and experience it, don’t think about what it is “supposed” to mean. One young man said his wife thinks he is too one dimensional (thinks about numbers literally) and therefore doesn’t understand anything with depth. (Uh, oh. Sounds like marital trouble there.)
At the end, Adrianne came over and told us a man had said he “just loves artists, they are so fanciful.” He had asked a painter how much a certain piece would sell for (he wanted to buy it on the spot) and she replied she didn’t know, she would have to go home and think about it.
In case you are in the area, the Studio Rally Weekend is May 29 and 30, from 10 am to 5 pm. The (more than 90) artists and artisans on the map will be in their studios and you are welcome to come visit. Please do come visit! (And it’s a great opportunity for me to clean up my studio!)
Hope is a dangerous emotion. We live in anticipation. Miss today, etcetera. But……….Black fly season started yesterday. That means not being able to go outside without protection from the vicious little buggers for the next month, at least, may even six weeks (unless it is a windy day and then they stay away).
Yoko told me she googled “black fly” and discovered that it is a kind of sunglasses, very popular in Japan. (Very expensive sunglasses. Our black flies are free!) So we looked together and found different styles of black flies (actually the sunglasses are called Black Flys) that you can get: Mile Fly Club black flies, Fly Candy black flies, Sex-E Fly (hmmmmmm!) black flies. Much better than what is flying around my garden making me wear outrageous costumes for the next month so they won’t bite my skin.
And I hope their visit is only for a month.
Tamar is (emphatically) telling the bugs to go away:
She was four years old when this photo was taken (in my parents' back yard in Bethesda, Maryland).
The sun was bright today down by the waterfront:
and on the boardwalk:
and the boats:
and everyone was smiling and friendly.
This morning, the sunrise was reflected on the trees with the mist rising on the lake; I went outside in slippers and bathrobe with camera. Everyone will be smiling today. The sun is bright after two days of cold and rain.
The worst part about being a parent is when they leave home. The best part is that they never really leave home. That is, they are always your children. I’ve been very fortunate. My children are wonderful people and we are close. It hasn’t always been easy (and I have done some terrible things as a parent that are too painful to talk about) but it has always been good.
In Ian McEwan’s book Atonement the mother muses, as her youngest approaches the end of childhood, that “nothing between here and the grave would be as elementally important or as pleasurable as the care of a child.” (Of course, she is talking as a mother who had lots of domestic help. And it is the only comment in the book, so far, that has moved me.) The sentiment of the comment is real, there is nothing that compares to being a parent. Nothing more instructive or potentially rewarding.
My father once asked me (about fifteen years ago, when he was in his late eighties) how come my sister and I were so different. We had both grown up in the same house, same family, same advantages. Things seemed to be much easier for her. She is still married to the same man after (how many, maybe 45) years, three grown children, grandchildren, big house, security. I told him then that we were just different people, that you notice in a nursery in the hospital that some babies startle more easily, cry more, some are more quiet even from the beginning. What I didn’t say was that because of these inborn differences, we needed to be treated differently. The one thing I tried to do with my children was to see them as people separate from myself, with their own needs and interests.
I read in Vogue magazine years ago that if you consider your child your best friend then something is wrong, you are too dependent upon them. I was. But I am not now. They are my friends and I know what the boundaries are. I genuinely enjoy their company, exploring their minds, their worlds. But I also know that all friendships have places that you don’t go into, things that are better left not said. That relationships are about being with someone, relating to them as they are, not trying to make them into someone more like yourself, more of your own needs.
My children have only left home physically. They are always with me.
A few photos of my exhibition at the Art Gallery of Lunenburg:
From another angle:
And another view:
A closer view of some paintings. The next two (20" x 20") are from a series titled Measuring the Importance):
And another. (This painting is only 12" by 12" and is titled The Science of Everyday Life):
I also put four drawings of flowers in the exhibit. Here are two of them:
My garden is beginning to bloom!
So far, although I have seen deer crossing the road near my house, they have left my flowers alone. (Keep your fingers crossed for me!) When I was at the vets a few years ago, I was bemoaning the loss of my flowers to the deer and bunnies. Another woman there said she uses a spray of rotten egg water. For those of you in deer country, the recipe is: put a half dozen eggs in a quart jar with water, run it through the blender, let it sit for week. Then dilute it with more water into a gallon spray container. And poof—no deer! I spray after it rains and any other time I feel deer-paranoia.
About five years ago, I read one of John Udike’s novels (his books are some of my all-time favorites but this one was not, so I don’t remember the title; sorry, Mr. Updike) wherein the major theme at the beginning of the novel was his becoming a deer vigilante, and of course, losing. (I could relate to that, but not much to the rest of the novel.) I probably should write him and let him know about the rotten egg-water.
Whenever I tell a friend that I have a blog I get mixed reactions. Usually a blank stare, sometimes a giggle, rarely a mutual understanding. Partly I think it is because most people my age did not grow up with computers (or TV for that matter, or even turning signals on cars. Can you imagine shifting and at the same time putting your arm out the window to signal a left or right turn?) and it seems like an exposure, an invasion, or basically, an absurdity. (Don’t you have your friends to talk to?)
A few of my younger friends have blogs and easily understand and appreciate the need for communication in this fragmented world. I was very excited when Yoko told me she, after reading my blog, has started one of her own. But I cannot read it. It’s in Japanese and although she tried to translate it for me, it is too difficult for her. If you and/or your computer can read Japanese, go see. Do anyway: she has some beautiful photos up. (And I found it exciting to see pages of Japanese script on my screen!)
Yoko tells me that it makes sense to keep an on-line journal. In Japan, when someone retires, the person starts a memoir of his or her life. With a blog or journal, it is an ongoing record of your life as it happens, as it feels, as you react to it. And it is an invitation you send out to an unknown, an invitation to connect to and know a bigger world.
I’ve read a few articles recently on the blog coming of age. How it is maturing into a respectable form of journal-ism, evolving from journals. The last article I read was more about political writing and discussions. The blogs I tend to read expand my view of more personal worlds. Living here somewhere on the edge of nowhere, it is rewarding to peek into the more intimate corners of other people’s lives, people who live in the center of their worlds, what they see and feel as they look out from that spot. Toni’s very thoughtful essay on internet journal writing spoke directly to why I write and read blogs, the ongoing record, a new form of communication, or as she puts it so precisely, a short film, intimate communication on a global scale.
I had my hair cut Tuesday. I didn’t really plan it. Wanting to look good for the opening reception in the evening, I went to get my hair trimmed and such in the afternoon. Sitting there in the chair I was so enchanted watching her nimble fingers, her scissors snipping away with a mind of their own, not seeming to understand that it was my hair that was falling to the floor. Usually I am like Sampson, fall apart when my hair is short. But now my hair is no longer shoulder length. It is short. And I haven’t collapsed in a puddle of tears, yet. In fact, I think it might even look good. At least I am getting a positive response—it is a noticeable difference. But I will probably continue to think of myself as a “long-haired” person and wonder why the comb stops, hits the air, so soon.
Halifax is really changing. It is no longer the bottle of homogenized white milk it seemed to be when I first came here twenty years ago. We see more ethnicity on the streets along with the upscale boutiques and trendy restaurants. It’s growing too fast for the narrow streets and limited downtown parking. But being a port city it has always had a strong though underground night life. And one of the best music scenes in Canada. Still, you can usually see people waiting for the “walk” sign to light up in order to cross an intersection, even when there is no traffic in sight on a sleepy Sunday morning.
And yesterday I was in the parking lot after going to a bookstore with my friend Suzie and she called me over to see the car next to mine: into a very dusty hood was written “I wish my wife was as dirty as this car!”
The opening reception for my exhibit at the Lunenburg Art Gallery was last night. I was extremely pleased with the way the work looked in the gallery. It was very satisfying. (I forgot my camera but will go back again soon to take photos for you to see.) A few of my students came, also friends from the area were there, a few from farther away and lots of other people, some I knew and did not know before. A nice party. It was late at night by the time we left Lunenburg.
On the way home Aaron and Jessica, who went with me, noticed some deer by the road. Then again more deer. Then a large herd crossed the road, probably eight to ten deer walked slowly in front of my (stopped) car. And it was a very full moon.
I think I am going to add a new category, the weather report. After two perfect (warm and sunny) spring days, we are now back to our usual cold and rainy weather. Not much more I can say about that!
My paintings are now settling in to their new home for the next month in Lunenburg. It is a relief to have that part done. I kept changing what I was going to put into the exhibit right up to the last minute (depending mostly on what was dry and on the size restrictions of the gallery). It definitely has made sense to call this show Subject to Change although when I chose the title I was thinking more of my painting process: constantly changing, evolving, never sure where it will end, what the painting will become.
On the drive home (I took the long way, by the ocean), there was a concert of Dvorak’s music on the radio. They played the duet that Yoko and I have learned, one of the Slavonic Dances. And then they played one of my favorite pieces of music, the “Dumky” piano trio. (I had bought the record back when I was in school.) I remember when radios were new in cars. I am certainly glad they have them now. Once, a few years ago, I drove home from a retreat in Cape Breton with no radio in my (then new) truck. It was very spooky; the vibrations of the vehicle were accentuated by my month of silence. And now CD players are common, and even video screens, although I wouldn’t need that. The scenery is enough entertainment around here.
My truck is loaded with 23 pieces of art. I’m about to take off for Lunenburg, an hour's drive from here, to deliver the paintings. My studio looks only slightly less crowded, the sky has clouded over but my head feels clear.
Sunday I take 23 pieces of art to the Lunenburg Art Gallery for an exhibition that opens Tuesday evening, May 4 at 8 pm. If you are in the area, please do stop by. The address is 79 Pelham Street. The exhibit will be up until the end of May. You will have to call for gallery hours (902-640-4044).
This has been a hard show to put together because the paint wasn’t drying as fast as I needed it to. I had to keep changing what I was going to put in the exhibit. But now I have picked the work and have already started a (large) new body of paintings. So my studio is full and I will be happy to deliver the paintings to Lunenburg tomorrow. Hope to see you there!
My studio is a big mess! Paintings everywhere. Every time I tell someone I need a bigger studio, they say all artists want a bigger studio. But I REALLY DO need a bigger studio!
Yesterday when I was painting, a canvas fell down and of course punched a hole in another painting. And I keep bumping into paintings when I back away while I am working. Isn’t that proof enough that I need a bigger studio!
(I can fix the painting. It wasn’t finished yet but it is still unpleasant, to be sure.)
Such a mess:
and more mess:
The paintings are on the floor because that is where the heat is. Still, they are taking a long time to dry.
