AT THE EDGE OF OUR COMFORT ZONE ...WHERE LEARNING STARTS

I wish I could give credit to the person who said, "Life begins at the edge of our comfort zone." , but can't find the source, which has something to do with a clogged memory.  I have taped it up on the wall as inspiration when doubt about a new direction or project looks me in the eye.  I'm often amazed, with all the experience and opportunities I have been given, at what a small comfort zone I can get in to.

Last week I started taking figure study classes.  They are the first in over 40 years, and as an artist, that is not something to be proud of.  The instructor is a well-known painter whose work I have admired for years.  I found out two things from the first class, in addition to figure study.  I am more comfortable teaching than learning. and the woman who is teaching spends an enormous time studying with artists that she admires. The last fact was a needed kick in the butt.
 
I do a lot of consultation with other authors and illustrators who are working their way into publishing, a lot of speaking at conferences and schools and I teach art lessons on the weekends.  It is easy to pass on what you already know or believe. It becomes easy to stay in the role of the teacher, but I need to be a student this year in order order to improve my own art and writing. So I will be taking classes on and off for most of the year ...both figure study and plein air, and always in writing. 

What I have ended up admiring over the last few years of teaching and speaking is how eagerly those who can leave their ego at the door embrace being taught.  When you are willing to take a class, learn a new skill, the first thing you have to do is come to terms with the fact that your world needs to expand, to become bigger, and a little uncomfortable as you start your learning curve.  But it also becomes exciting, and by the end of the class last Friday, I was happily exhausted, remembering that there is no where better to be than at the beginning of a steep climb to new skills and understandings.

For those who have studied with me, embraced things being thrown at you in large doses, thank you for squirming through your discomfort to constantly improve.  For  each  and every time I teach  or speak  I am allowed to strengthen what I know...or to sometimes explore it with you and make a change.     I am learning from you, not only what I know about my craft or don't know, but how to leave my ego at the door when I am the student..

Happy New Year!

GETTING WHAT YOU ASKED FOR

I was floating in my cousin's pool in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago, after visiting her daughter's new baby, and I talked about how scattered my life feels. I recall saying something like, "I wish I had an assignment or a project that ties most of these facets together...writing, illustrating, consulting and editing peoples' work for them, etc. Family is a given, but professionally I can often be all over the map, between plein air painting trips, gallery work, book dummies and writing.

This is the umpteenth lesson that you get what you asked for, but not always in the form you envision it. Thanks to a professional friendship with a dynamic educator, I am starting a short term, intensive project, working with a wonderful Native writer in Anchorage on a history textbook that will explain Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act to upper elementary students and to make it relevant and fun. As an ex-6th grade teacher, I know it has to have humour. My job will be to edit, illustrate and plan the format of the book.

So, as I head for Anchorage tomorrow for the first meeting on the project, I must say thank you for a job that is daunting but puts many parts of myself together. Like many creative projects, the deadline is formidable. I think we can do it,
but you may not hear from me again for another three months.

And I can't wait to get back to Alaska.

So, my message is this, I guess. We all lead complicated lives that seem more complicated the more we try to list all the things we do, but once in a while a project comes along that ties things together. When that happens, hope for an understanding family, dust off those tools of organization (I have few), and grab that ring.

TIME OFF AND A PERFECT MORNING

This morning a friend called to say she was going to do some photography at a local farm, 30 acres of row vegetables and orchards that supply one of Sebastopol's most popular restaurants, The French Garden. Did I want to go with her and paint while she was taking pictures?

My first response was that I had too much work to do, too many paintings from other outings that needed finishing touches as Open Studio weekends approach in June, as well as a long overdue storyboard for a book, etc. But, some lovely said, "Is it true that you are going to turn down a 70 degree day of painting and time with a good friend?" So I grabbed my pastels and headed out to join her.

My first reward was foxgloves...on of my favorite flowers, and
the painting you see is called FRENCH GARDEN FARM. It needs cleaning up, and I brought home another that needs finishing. Both are reminders that sometimes when we take time off we can do our most rewarding work.

I realize, with reminders like this morning, how many of my best ideas, my most pleasurable writing, starts with "time off". I think one of the joys of being an artist is that we are always working with our minds. The more disciplined part of our jobs...the cleaning up, the editing, the revising may feel like work, but most good ideas start with pleasure.

In this economy it is tempting to try to create what we think will sell instead of what pleases us, and we feel guilty (or at least I feel like I'm not trying hard enough) when work feels like time off.
So, at schools and conferences lately I have been asking teachers and administrators if it is possible to create a time in the day for unfinished projects...to start something that doesn't have to get done, to experiment, so that the students can experience the exhilaration of starting on a new idea and the freedom of a little time off in a creative environment. Schools have authors,, like myself, come and talk to the students about our finished projects, which I love to do. But I also talk to them about how much fun I have had with unfinished, or as yet unpackaged ideas. It is my wish for them as well, that there is time in their day for this, for it is the place where good work comes from.

SHEEP

We went out painting a couple of weeks ago. I packed my pastels and we were graced with a windy, but warm California afternoon at a sheep barn. I remember when my grandparents had a copy of a painting of sheep in the pasture over their couch. When I was little, I thought it was delightful..the sheep were in the distance and the hills behind them made it complacent scene. It was a land I wanted to walk through. But, by the time I was an adolsecent, I thought it was the most boring painting I had ever seen. Sheep, for heaven's sakes, just following what life had to offer.

But here I am looking at things from a more childlike view and I still love sheep. I love the way the sun hits their backs, the shadows on their dirty wool, and the fact that they move like clouds across the pasture. We make fun of sheep. They seem to have no thoughts in their heads, but when you watch them they are contented clouds floating across the land, like cartoon balloons, that change with the light, making them ordinary or dazzling. And then if you stand and watch them or paint them long enough you will suddenly see them moved as if by the same wind running towards....you guessed it...the next piece of grass. We can fill those cartoon balloon sheep with whatever thoughts we have that might be complacent... they become vessels for our most peaceful thoughts. But the best part is that I think they are content with being who they are.

SPRING AND NEW BEGINNINGS

Spring may not be officially here, but the calla lillies are coming up and our new granddaughter, Gracie, arrived last Friday. And, like the calla lilies beginning to open , there is so much hope and promise in that beautiful package. Grace is simply beautiful, all 8 pounds, 20 inches of her, crowned with a head full of black hair. And like a good caregiver, on the way home our grandson, Jack, said, after giving it sober thought, "I will be a good big brother. I take care of Gracie." It is his first chance to watch something grow, to teach, to be patient, and to help this little girl make her way through life.

And, of course, he will soon decide how she "should be" so that she fits into his life well. But if Gracie is like her mother, she will have a mind of her own. For those of us who write and illustrate we know that in the course of allowing those budding ideas to grow up, we have to sometimes just watch and tend them until they are ready to bloom. There is nothing more exciting than a new idea, but sometimes, stories and art have an idea of their own. The painting above was started a year ago about this time, but I kept trying to make it into something else, something calmer (actually I tried to tame it down to make it look like a pastelist's work that I admire). After a while I put it away, and when I took it out to look at it again, I remembered what it was all about....it was not just about the beauty of the flower but also the energy of spring. So I quit trying to tame it, and let it be what it wanted to.

The same thing has happened with many of my stories, of course. I have to keep getting them out and asking them, "Who are you? What are you made of?" instead of "What can I turn you into?"

So, I could probably learn a deeper meaning to Jack's serious words and apply it to my own work. I will take care of you. I'll let you sleep when you need to, and when you are ready I will help you grow into who you are meant to be.

PIGEONHOLING OUR GOALS

For those of you have joined my blog after August and watching Julie and Julia, you will know that it has only occured to me in the last few months that blogging is just another form of writing, and I am a writer. At first, a year or so ago, it seemed like foreign territory. I was a picture book writer, not a blogger for an invisible audience of adults.
But a couple of weeks ago I went to a local SCBWI event and listened to Annie Fox speak. One of her main messages in a talk that was so informative about use of the internet..the tweet, the blog, the fan clubs, etc, was that we shouldn't separate one type of writing from another.
I'm still thinking about this, with full knowledge that I am the first to put a label on myself for the sake of having some kind of identity. So, when I started a novel a year or more (I'm sure) ago, I felt my heart beat faster and some kind of grade school mentality creep in that said, "You can't do this. You are a picture book writer, not a novel writer, or a chapter book writer." The voice didn't think to say, "You're a writer, you can do this." And I have decided that if we make each change in our work a bigger step in our minds, filled with fear, our ego has a chance to say..."Wow, look at you. You are trying to write a novel!" When, in truth, I'm just writing in a different voice about a different subject.
So, something in my brain keeps saying for the sake of my ego that writing in different genres is a brave leap, instead of saying, "You're in the same house, for heaven's sake...all you have to do is go to another room and look out a different window."
If you want to know how ridiculous this can all be, I have been a book illustrator for almost 20 years, and moving into gallery art has felt like a big leap. It is just a change in packaging, and getting to know other editors (gallery owners) and other critiquers (buyers). Some of my visions come out in books, and some come out in "wall art", but they are still art, and whether they are landscapes or folk art, they still tell a story. And I think that is one of the basic goals of humans...to tell their story.

Annie's talk was a breath of fresh air in a time when we have been taught to claim our identity with a label of what we do, who we work for, and how "successful" we are. I am finding a great admiration for those who do not walk a straight line into fame, but let themselves head into different arenas, even if they feel like they might not be on a path any longer. Steve Jobs has a great talk hosted through www.ted.com, in which he speaks about how we cannot connect the dots in our life looking forward, only looking back. I think it has been, along with Annie's talk, one of the most inspiring talks I have listened to.

And, speaking of being on the path, do you remember the story of Little Red Riding Hood. She got in big trouble getting off the path. She met the wolf, picked flowers, etc....and that all gave her a great story to tell. so for those of you who have strayed off the beaten path, not pigeon-holed yourselves, I say congratulations...you have a most interesting story.

ANOTHER REASON TO HONOR THE INNER CHILD

Ok, so this my memory of the Yellow Submarine and, to those who know me, it is no surprise that is my grandson's trip underseas. The picture came about because he was part of the first crowd to see the new Aquarium in San Francisco. For a short period in his life that I hope repeats itself, his joy came from seeing life underwater...fish, octupus, turtles, etc. I love the excitement that comes when he moves to a new interest, partly because I still have a kid in me that moves from one fascination to the next. I often feel that this feeling is immature, that I should stick with a set of interests for a while. But the truth is that I want that same fascination all over again and I head for it. I am a fascination junkie.

Last night the gallery I belong to had a reception for one of our plein air painters. He finds his fascination in local scenes, and the ever-changing light and color of landscapes everywhere. But as I get to know him I know his paintings are appealing because he is happy when he is creating them....the whole process, standing in changing weather, painting fast and by instinct after years of practice and always finding something new that he can add to the process. It is this happiness and energy that we feel when we see his work.

In a conversation last night, a supporter of the gallery said my art makes him happy because it makes him feel like a child. He also said that one of my prints from the north reminds him of Chinese art. He had lived in China when he was younger. He did not evaluate my art, just told me how it made him feel, and picked a logical reason why he liked it. I think what he could feel was that I was happy and somewhat full of childlike abandon while creating the art. There is something inside of me that believes others can share the feelings we have while creating someting when they see it.

I admire people who spend as much of their time possible doing what makes them feel full of energy. Often when we do things that make us happy, we refuse to feel like we have done any work. When I wrote one of my picture books, I kept trying to find things to improve in it because it wasn't as hard to write as some of my others. My editor finally said, "Not everything needs to be hard to be good." Somehow we have equated work and quality with sacrifice, and if things are easy, we feel we should be "working" on something harder. I would like to think that working on our own happiness is the best career we could have, and while it may take energy, it is good energy, a chidllike energy that other people can enjoy as well.

CREATING A NEW YEAR

Well, it is not the beginning of the year anymore, and half of a month has gone by. But if I didn't get hung up on time and its problems, 2010 has been a year I have floated through so far.

Part of that is due to the Santa Clara Reading Association Conference at Asilomar, a reading conference on the beach where I was well taken care of as a speaker, and in the company of other authors, artists, librarians and teachers. There could be nothing better in my mind. Right after that was a trip to Campbell, California in the San Jose and a day at Fammatre School, a school that is proof that there are still happy schools teaching happy students. Two other authors will be coming this week...Bob San Souci, and Jeff Savage. I had such a good time speaking to the kids and recharging my own batteries of creativity.

So, while the year is off to a wonderful start, I have work to do. Starting a new year is like getting the idea for a book. For some reason, you think it will be finished by the end of the year. But the truth is I am still working on projects from three years ago...they might be done in a month or it might take all year. I am still painting in the studio, finishing a vineyard painting I started while painting outdoors several weeks ago. And I am still creating three new stories...all of which I can only hope I will "finish".

January is a time of relaxation and expectancy, and when our mind is cleared of the obligation of success that comes towards the end of the year, it is a time of creativity because no matter how we are programmed it seems we think of life in years. I keep hoping that way of thinking will change, but it is up to us to make the change if it is going to happen. So while, in my mind, I am lining up projects that will get done this year...books to complete, paintings to be done, I know that they are all part of an ongoing process.

While all these new things are getting started, I look to the past that I can count on. This year, my grandson turned two. I still get to take care of him one day a week and on the days that we are together I get reminded of how wondrous our world is because he tells me. The image above, called Jack's Tractor was his birthday present from me. He loves his grandpa's tractor and knows the names of just about everything that grows in the garden. When he comes next week, he will find all kinds of lettuces growing and tell me more stories.

Jack has a sister coming, so his "world" will change. All of us have changes coming this year. They are all worthy of stories. I hope that we can keep track of the potential for all of these stories.

A STORY TO PLAY FORWARD -FOR MY MOTHER

As I start 2010, I have some unfinished business. I need to start a new blog that is strictly for that purpose. It will be called FINDING DIAMONDS....the name of a talk I've given to libraries and those involved with elder care. The "diamonds" are books....books that are adult, YA, and picture books that can be introduced, shared, and eventually read to those who find themseles needing to move from the longer, thicker books in the adult section of the bookstores and libraries. The reason for this may be poor vision, illness, loss of memory and/or shorter attention span.
My mother always read to me as well as to the neighbor children. She did not have a degree and did not have friends that shared her love of books. But she knew I needed it, and also invited the neighbor's children in to listen at story time. When she moved down here in her 80's there was a little boy at the screen door the night before we moved her waiting to be read to.

When she was 94 we began to notice some changes in her own reading skills. While she stayed highly active on the social scene, she was no longer finishing the novels she started...stating that she "just couldn't get into the book". Or she would realize part way through that she had already read that title not long ago (I already can do that, myself). She became bored more easily, and complained that books jumped around forwards and backwards and were harder to keep track of.
I slowly realized her books were too long and filled with too many threads to follow. She needed books to sweep her away but that were shorter and written in a straightforward manner. I also realized as I gave her some of my YA books to read that she was not familiar with YA books. And because I was a picture book writer and illustrator, she was open to me sharing wonderful picture books with her.

It was time to give my mother back the gift of reading that she had given me. I will talk more in depth about this but, to make a long story short we read my mother backwards. I picked books that reflected her life, her interests, or the life I had lived. I gave her TISHA, the story of a young teacher who moved to Canada to teach in a rural area. I brought her OUT OF THE DUST because she was a child of the Great Depression, had roots in the midwest and grew up on a farm. She read BEYOND THE MANGO TREE because she was diabetic, and I read short stories from THE FEATHER MERCHANTS because she had a wicked sense of humour. As she was reading these books on her own, I found picture books that reflected some of the things we had talked about, THE PAINTER WHO LOVED CHICKENS, NIM AND THE WAR EFFORT, MAILING MAY. She was open and willing to having books shared with her.

When she wasd 96 she was diagnosed with cancer. She only lived a week after that but during that week as she slipped in and out of sleep I re-read books to her that she was familiar with. It eased my fear and discomfort and she would smile occasionally and nod, and I would like to think that the familiar voice and words were soothing to her time of transition.

In order to read my mother backwards, I needed to find diamonds...books that read straightforwardly, with a limited amount of threads and characters to keep track of, books that fit her interests, background and passion. The benefits were a renewed interest in story, a diversion from some of the pain and boredom that often come with illness and aging, and often a trigger for memory and reminiscence.

I talked to Jim Trelease whose contributions to reading children forward is amazing, and he said it was a topic that has yet to be addressed. So here it is. And here is what I want from those of you who are interested. I would like to add to my list of books. I would like some examples of the types of people you think these would appeal to. When I get this blogging thing down better, I will begin posting my collected list that has been added to by librarians and friends.

My dream is a database of books well silently as well as aloud, a place we can type in the characteristics and interests of those we are close to, and up will come books that are just right for them. I feel that those who would benefit from this effort are hospice workers, nursing homes, family caretakers and companions, adult literacy programs and families moving from literacy to literature.

Let me know if you are interested. I want this in place when I need it.

GIVING THE OLD YEAR AS A GIFT TO THE NEW YEAR

We have just returned from our cabin in the Trinity Alps where we had a quiet New Year's with no TV or computer, a wonderful brunch with old friends the next day, and I was thinking on the way home....what would I choose to wrap up from 2009 as a gift for 2010. So, at a risk of waxing nostalgaic, here are some things I would put in a little box. When I open the box this years they will be memories that will scoot me forward into the direction I want to go this year.
On a David Lettermen note we will start with....
10-Getting ready to teach under a visiting professorship at Hollins University. Going through the last 10 years of writing and illustrating to decide what to teach. It was a walk down memory lane.
9- Babysitting for my grandson once a week and having him tell me each time he wants to paint with Grandma.
8-6 weeks of teaching at Hollins and meeting part of the next wave of writers's for children, and having my youngest daughter live with me for 6 weeks.
7- My first art show at Stephans Fine Arts in Anchorage. It is one of the galleries I dreamed of being in "someday" when we lived in the bush in Alaska.
6- Finishing the next two manuscripts, which have been buried for four years.
5- Listening to my grandson tell his first story last month and then say "teasing Grandma" .
4- Joining the Sebastopol Gallery, and learning the ying and yang of the fine art world.
3-Learning how a business works, how to work a gallery, how to be a merchant selling other people's work as well as my own.
2-Going to a retreat at Asilomar, where writers went to work, but ended up talking about what was really important in their lives and what we have to offer.
1-This is selfish, but a few days ago I received a gift....a book of Inuit Women Artists, art I have studied and admired for years. I am not there yet, but it is where I want to go.

And there should be a no-brainer part of this...meeting new people who have similar views on the world, children who are all doing well, and pursuing their own dreams while forming families and careers, a husband of 40 years who supports my work, while becoming a master meat maker...coppa, pastrami, sausage, salamentes, etc.,. I think these may be the things we take for granted...so they can be the wrapping paper for the last ten gifts that will move me forward into 2010.

I visited with two writing friends today, and will meet with many more next week.and know I should put their support in the gift box as well. So if you have a chance, check out the work of Marsha Diane Arnold, Milly Lee, Stacey Schuett, David Schwartz, Marilyn Sachs, Matt Gollub, Susan Meyers, Lisa Schulman, Julie Downing, Ashely Wolff, and others.

A late Happy New Year to you all, and I would love to hear what is wrapped in the gift box for 2010.

FAMILY AT CHRISTMAS or ROMANCING THE STONE

THE FAMILY STONE is one of my favorite movies, not because Diane Keeton is dying, but because everyone has to fiercely protect the things that they love, even if that causes a dance where people shift partners and learn to respect new values. My favorite son (my only one) and his lovely wife arrive tomorrow. They will pull in right behind my husband who has been fixing broken pipes at our cabin in the Trinity Alps. And while I'm writing they are enjoying a night together at the cabin. My daughter and her significant other come the next morning and my other daughter and her husband will dance in and out as they go back and forth to their own home with my grandson and soon to be granddaughter. The next four nights are full of family and family extension dinners. For those of you that aren't old enought, that means we are all grandparents and our families now fill our houses...which means a separate night is involved to get the WHOLE family together. Chaos! And as an only child, chaos and the love of people we are close to is all I have ever wanted. Well, not really. I didn't know chaos might be a byproduct.

Once in a while you feel your life come full circle. When we lived in villages in Alaska, we had the same kind of chaotic Christmas week. We had a "village" family. The girls came to our house to bake and create crafts to share. We met at the dance hall, the drums beat and we danced and the kids were given gifts from Santa. Then village families joined their family of relatives. always telling us we could join them. But it was time for many of the teachers on the delta to enjoy their own family committment...to meet in a bigger school, where there was a gym or an extra classroom for the mom's and kids to sleep in. We layed pallettes on the floor and the kids all went to sleep, not caring who they were next to. If we had met these other couples in Sebastopol, where everyone had their own families to go to, our kids would never have known the idea of a village family, or a family of friends. We are lucky. In my family's world there are so many different kinds of families.

During the holidays... Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanza, etc. the idea of a family can become stereotyped. A mother, a father, a tree, a menorah, and don't forget the gifts! For those who have widened their circle, we should all be grateful...for those who work at food banks, share shifts at hospitals, take the extra shifts at grocery stores so that other can go home, recognize that we are all a part of a bigger family, a wider circle.
...
I think that those of us who write and share our art are also looking for the bigger family.... a group that is open to hearing our story, and is willing to share theirs. And we are looking, often for the greatest gift... listeners. These are the people who listen to our stories, then tell their own so that our own circle can widen.

PIECES OF CHRISTMAS

Several years ago I wrote and illustrated a book called PIECES OF CHRISTMAS. It is about Santa calling the North Wind to recycle all the letters he's answered.

When Santa returns from making his rounds,

the letters he's answered lie drifted in mounds.

He calls the North Wind to swirl them around,

And pieces of Christmas cover the ground.

I wish we could break up what we try to do and feel at Christmastime, and at other holidays through the year, into pieces. I wish a piece of that feeling would land on us every day....talking to a loved one, creating something just from us out of love, giving more than taking, and a belief in something magical about to happen. I have been wondering why some of us, including me, save these good feelings, good thoughts and generous actions for times around holidays. I do know that these pieces often come unrecognized at other times of the year. But during the holidays we are more open to receiving them. We just have to listen, not to the earthly news, but to sounds of goodness that are all around us. As the poem for the stamp above says,

The vole performed throughout the night...

He violined in black and white,

While people stopped to hear the sound

of Christmas coming from the ground.

For all of you who have put extra stamps, exotic stamps. collectors stamps on Christmas mail to us, thank you . They are like small magical windows to look through. And like any perfect gift, they tell me that you know a little about me. As we exchange gifts and thoughts during the holidays, let us share small pieces of ourselves and let us continue to share these pieces after the holidays.

Oh, and usually I connect this with writing. All I can say is that when we write, we need to share a piece of ourselves. It is our greatest gift to give.

REPACKAGING

Ok, no more reflection. First it was reflection as I went through the year...and cleaned out my studio with its old memorabilia, but today was purging time. Time to throw out the old so that there is room for the feeling of Aaaahhh! that this time of year is supposed to bring. I threw out over 30 oil paintings today, and it felt good. I through out slips of paper with story ideas...something I tell people never to do. But I have a little more confidence that they will come back in some other form if they are important.
The paintings I threw out were not wasted. They led to something better, and now it's time to let them go. Who knows, someone at the recycling center may have that aaaahhh! feeling when they find them. But if I don't have it anymore, they just take up space....and they don't just take up space in the studio and shop, they take up brain space and they use energy. They keep you looking backward, unless they are that unusual idea that you are glad you rediscovered and now are thinking of packaging differently.
Speaking of packaging... about ten or twelve years ago my family started packaging Christmas and other holidays in a different form. My kids and I joined other soccer players in the county and had a Turkey Bowl at Thanksgiving, a Christmas Bowl, a New Year's Day get-yourself-out-of-bed game, and an Easter Game. People have had to pull out at different times. They are pregnant, like my daughter...they are out of town, they have injuries, etc. After the last knee surgery I can't play, but I still go...to watch my kids and their spouses and significant others. It is a tradition as important as sitting around the table. And afterwards, just before each family goes to their own homes for holiday dinners, we join at the bar for a beer. We toast each other, catch up on news, and know that we will see each other again at the next holiday.
This year, one of our players, a coach at a local high school, died scuba diving, and on Christmas Day we will toast him, his wife, and his love of life.
So what does that have to do with this time of year? Today a friend and I were talking about what Christmas used to mean to us. We agreed that it was the magic.... not knowing what would happen but having some traditions to look forward to.
So here is my question, now that you have made space for this time of year. What is the magic you remember from your past that you hope to find again, and what are some of the changes in tradition that you have made in the last few years? How are you repackaging things this year?

And to those of you who are writers, did I tell you that I have had to get rid of some old ideas in a new manuscript? I was hanging on to them because they were part of the original idea. Out with the old, let them develop into something new...something that comes in a wonderful new package.

A TIME FOR REFLECTION

How did this year go by so fast? I can't tell you all the things I thought I would have done by now, and here I sit, knowing that this is the end of fall...that next week not only brings winter and Christmas rush, but that the week after that brings a whole new year. I need a day to fluff out my feathers enjoy the brisk air and spend some time reflecting. LOON REFLECTIONS was started as a different piece of art while we lived in Alaska. The loons would call through the mist on the lakes in the delta and sounded lonely. Then we would hear another loon call back. They weren't really sociable yet, just announcing their arrival in the spring, or making their last calls in the fall before leaving. They were content to be alone a good share of the time. The air was heavy and full of moisture during those times. In the spring, it was a last chance to rest before the frenzy of mating, nesting and feeding started. In the fall, it was a time to rest up before another time of transition started.... to put away summer and fall and clear their mind for the time ahead.

As an artist, it is time not just to think about the year, but to clean my studio, to put my old work away in safe places or to display it on the wall, a time to put away reference materials from old projects and get rid of the clutter that keeps me from focusing on new projects. It's the job I have put off for weeks because it means stopping the "starting" of new work... time to throw out old pens that are dried, and pencils too short to use, and to rearrange my books.
It is my week to be almost alone so that when the holidays start and family comes home I can have a new energy to focus on being together.

I worked silently most of the day today, throwing things out, clearing spaces and rearranging , calling out once in a while to let people know I'm here, but not sociable. When the winter solstice comes next week, I hope to have a clear mind and a less cluttered space to work and live in.

THE CHILD IN US

I am an aging, like everyone else, and yet, when the holidays come, whatever holiday it is, I become a child again....that little girl that has spiritual tradition or belief, whether religion or custom or modern politics goes with that or not. For that I can thank my parents who never ushered me into adulthood in a hurry. I think as children we know what is right...maybe not the fine tuning, but the basic instinct of right and wrong, or good .

The image at the right is from my imagination mixed with the real part of my life. While sitting on a snowy, rainy day, literally stuck in our cabin in the Trinity Mts., I started thinking of a friend and her baby's babysitter Olga Michael, and how later, this woman from Kwethluk, Alaska, had been canonized in the Russian Orthodox Church as a saint. We just knew her as Hope's babysitter and a typical Yup'ik woman...full of nurtering and love, and common sense, one of the Grandmothers of our time. and full of belief that the mothers she helped with babies, and that this little girl that she took care of on a paid basis, and her mother, needed something that she could offer.

I am fascinated with icons, no matter where they are from, and their relationship to the child in us. So, while this painting is just a sream of thought about those who go before us in age or time, hanging stars in the sky for us we do not have to grow up yet, we have already created visual images to embody them in.

And as we approach Christmas, Hannukah or any other tradition that brings out the child in us, I hope the memories of how we celebrated these new periods of hope and memory bring out the child in us that felt like there was a lifetime of possibility to look forward to. And since most of us who are reading this are not children in age anymore, it is a time to reflect, not only on all those childhood dreams that have come true in one form or another, but on all the possibilites that are still open to us.

If you are a writer, pull out all those manuscripts that didn't get finished and see what the possibilites are that lie within them, and for those of us that are visual, go back to sketches and think about the excitement they were produced with. The child in us knows that they were good. Don't let the adult in you doubt that.

WAITING

Last year I gave my cousin, a close friend and advisor, a golden next with three glass eggs. I felt like one of the many things we both had in common was that we were waiting for a grandchild. She is waiting for her first and I am waiting for our second, a granddaughter who will arrive in March, just two months ahead of her grandson. So this fall I put the image at the left into print. It is called WAITING, for while it is our children and their spouses waiting to see what this new nest will hold, we are waiting as well. We can't quite picture the changes that this new arrival will bring to our lives and to theirs. It is a time of anticipation and my tendency is to focus so much on the next big event I forget to look at all of the things unfolding around me.

So as I wind up a year of new experiences that have hatched for me, I am mostly grateful for all the things that happened while I was waiting for what I thought would be big roadmarks in my life. Some of those eggs have been sitting in my nest for a long time...so long that I thought they would never hatch. A visiting professorship at Hollins University, art shows in Homer and Anchorage Alaska, joining a gallery in Sebastopol, finishing manuscripts and my new book, PAINTING THE SKY, and more study of cave paintings. But the egg that has finally hatched is something more personal. The realization that this year is a year of becoming stronger with other people. Giving credence to my own direction. In the meantime my children and my grandson are the most signigicant stories in my year.

This year reminds me of some of the books that I started to write and a great book for writers that my son gave my called The Triggering Town by Richard Hugo. It says to start writing and write till the subject becomes the background, the story beneath the intitial zing that got your started writing the story or poem in the firs place. The initial subject that your are writing about needs to be written about until it becomes background for the true essence of the story....the egg that is waiting to hatch.

So while we look at eggs in a nest with a great sense of wonder, or an idea for a story, or a list of what we think will be our next great accomplishment or adventure, we need to remember that they are only shells that hold something deeper inside, something that is waiting to fly free when it is time. Our job is to write, to create, to live our surface story of acheivements until we find out that something more than we were imagining on the surface has come to life.

If life were a novel we would find out that while we were living above the plot line with all of our actions, something deeper and more meaningful was developing below the plot line with all of our characters.

For those of you that are writers, or people who are waiting to see where the next idea or event is going, give yourself a gift this year. Here are some suggestions. THE TRIGGERING TOWN by Richard Hugo, ON WRITING by Stephen King, WRITING FROM THE INSIDE OUT by Dennis Palumbo, THE SPYING HEART by Katherine Paterson. I am taking them off the shelf to reread them as my Christmas gift.

A COZY HOLIDAY TEA AND WHACKY CAKE

This afternoon I attended the Gateway Council Holiday Tea with my friend Marsha Arnold. It is the first of a series of holiday events and receptions that combine people who share a passion for the arts and for reading. There are many who form the backbone of the local reading council.... Carla, Marie, Paula, and others who have spent their entire lives not only raising families, but also fulfilling their passion for teaching, either in the classroom or by running our community and school libraries . They match children with good books, which means not only knowing children well, but also knowing the vast variety of books available.
I stay connected to our local reading council not only because we share a similar interest, but because it connects me with people who constantly give themselves to creating the next generation. These people are the ones who create the people who will run our future.
So what about Whacky Cake? The refreshments at the Holiday Tea were made from recipes in a book called Taste of Literacy...a collection of recipes by authors around the state. Marie made my Whacky Cake. Barbara Winslow would be proud. She is the writer of DANCE ON A SEALSKIN, a book I illustrated, that recaptures some of our dancing experiences in Alaska. Barbara always did things the easiest way, and this cake is all made in the baking pan. Only one dish to wash when you are done.....and it's chocolate!
So this afternoon I got to combine one more thing with my love for reading and the arts....food and memories of living in Alaska. When it was Christmas several (sometimes 15) teaching families gathered together in one school on the Yukon or Kuskokwim Rivers in Alaska for Christmas. We did not have time to go to our homes in the lower 48 and join our 'real' families for Christmas, so we formed our own. We flew in, snowmachined in, and divided up the cooking. We layed out palettes for the children to sleep on in one of the classsrooms and the mom's slept with them on the floors. My kids remember bouncing from lap to lap with all of our teaching friends, going to the village activities, and playing in the snow.
Christmastime is often a time for nostalgia and for remembering old friends who are still friends, and this afternoon I was reminded that part of Christmas in Alaska was Whacky Cake..... there was always Whacky Cake.
So, if your are out there Barb, we are having Whacky (Crazy) Cake for Christmas here this year.
We will dump the following ingredients into a 13x9 baking pan and stir till all the lumps are gone (sounds like what life does to all of us)
2 cups suger
3 cups flour
1t salt
1/2 c cocoa...as in Hersheys Dark
2t soda
2t vinegar
2t vanilla
2/3 c salad oil
2 c water

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 min

I laughed when I read the last line...good cake for company if you are out of eggs. We were always out of eggs in the village!

MAGICAL CONNECTIONS

Years ago I created a book that felt like magic for the whole time I worked on it. It is called PIECES OF CHRISTMAS and was a gift to me from Holt. They let me work on a surreal idea....a set of poems set inside a snow globe with the premise that Santa calls the North Wind to recycle the letters he's answered...."he calls the North Wind to swirl them around, and pieces of Christmas come falling down ". Each piece of Christmas is a stamp torn from an envelope, with a poem. The image on the left is part of the spread for the following poem:

On Pennsylvania Avenue
Possums pray for me and you-
Please bless this world and bless this town
and those whose lives are upside down.

At the end of the book you find yourself watching Santa fall asleep after delivering his gifts. The stamps are part of the quilt he is sleeping under and the pieces of Christmas...the fragments of letters my own children wrote that Santa sent back to me...are now part of the snow in the globe. My editors knew it was a long shot but believed in dreams. The book monetarily has not done as well as my others, but I think there is something more important about it. Those who like it, love it in the way we are thrilled when we feel those unexpected connections, forming in our brains. Universal studios used a spread from the book in a movie and the director bought the picture. I think he knows how to make those magical connections as well. As an artist and a writer, those are the connections I hope for.

If you were a possum, or a person like me you would find yourself thinking that we have turned our values upside down in the last ten years and are only now trying to right ourselves. The one thing we can hang on to is our mind's ability to make connections that are new and exciting, whether they explain our real world that we deal with or the imaginary world that we are trying to form.

I take care of my grandson, Jack, one day a week. It is a day of sitting on the "apple porch" where we eat our apples off the tree (I'll be buying those soon), getting eggs from Donna's chickens and cooking them for lunch and making magical connections. Yesterday he watched my dog, Blue, chase vultures in the sky. I ask him if Blue could catch the vultures. He is almost two and he told me "Blue need wings to catch birds." He didn't tell me Blue couldn't catch birds, just told me the next step. He astounded me. His mind is building those magical connections that tell a story. Last night as the moon came up, we sat on the porch before we took him home, and Jack said, "Blue catch the moon". When I looked at him, he said, "Blue need wings to fly to catch the moon". Then he grinned and said, "Teasing Grandma." I looked at him in wonder as I realized he is already learning how to craft a story that makes him happy.

That night, while having dinner with my daughter and her husband, they told me he could tell a joke. They said, "Jack, can you tell a joke?" His response was "JOKE!" and the laughter of a standup comedian. While my husband says I'm the one telling this story, he has to admit those first magical connections are being formed in our grandson's young mind.

And for those of us being asked to underestimate the connections that young children can make while reading books, or being read to, I have to say, we need to counter that with the fact that our main job is to form new magical connections in their minds.

THE COLOR OF AIR

The image at the left is called Sonoma County Evening. It is imaginary, and yet it looks like most of the fall evenings in Sonoma County. After standing outdoors and painting many sketches of an area outside of Penngrove, I put my memories of those evenings painting into one picture. It is what I love about being able to create your own memory on paper.

The air in Sonoma County is always full of color. There are crystals of fog that collect the sunlight and crystals of condensation that paint the sky in the evening as the moisture in the fall rises from the ground. The sky becomes a canvas that is the beginning of the story of that time and that place. In some places a yellow sky means smog, in others, it means a sunset, but the color of the air around us always tells a story. And in a painting, smog and fog can both be beautiful. And the color of the air affects the colors of everything between us and the objects in the distance that we gaze at. I have had the same painting mentor for 5 years and she always says, "don't do anymore to the forground till you get the sky in." A yellow sky goes in and all of the colors in the hills need some yellow in them. A sky of light value makes the foreground darker. A sky of warmth needs to sparkle off of the objects in the picture.

In writing I think the sky becomes the setting, the culture, the time and the place. All of these things sit comfortably in the background so that the story itself stands out. In the foreground we avoid telling a story that doesn't match the background. In the painting above, I could not put smoke rising from the chimney. But even though that is a lovely thought, this is a warm evening, late in the summer and smoke from the chimneys would automatically place your eye on the buildings. Then I would have to add more detail to make that story make sense and pretty soon the peacefulness that I felt when I started the picture, the feeling of gazing at a sky full of color that paints the hills, would be lost.

How do I know? Because I have two drawers full of manuscripts that are overtold and need to be edited, two drawers of stories where the culture, the rhyme, the folklore template stood out as the main story and not as the underpainting and the background. They are pieces of work that I allowed to spin away from the story in order to keep a pet phrase or paragraph in tact. And for every painting like the one above, for every illustration in a book, I have ten that did not capture the essence of what I went after. But they did help me get to where I wanted to go.

So what is the color of air? Let me know what a yellow sky means to you, or a green sky, or a red sky. I'd like to know.

A SENSE OF DISTANCE

The picture I painted on the left called Spring on the Kenai Peninsula. It sits in front of me in my office to remind me of the grandeur of Alaska. It is also a vision of distance. I love places where you can see a great distance, have no idea of how you are going to get there, but still have a feeling that there is a path for you to take.
This weekend I went to a lovely retreat at Asilomar....15 writers, 15 talented and creative people still traveling to get to their distant goals. I don't think many of us knew why we said yes to the retreat. We didn't know everyone going, we thought we were going to work at this retreat, accomplish the next chapter, the next book, set of illustrations, or the next talk for a conference, but all of us dropped our goals for conversation. What an amazing gift we gave ourselves. Long awaited naps on the beach, conversations by the fireside on how to balance careers with our artistic souls, how to balance family and career, and how to honor that fact that some of us have a new direction we need to take. And, for me, how to honor who you really are when it takes you out of the mainstream.
For many, they said it was the first time they had talked at that level, and I realized I have been fortunate. I have been with a variety of peoples that hold who they really are above what the rest of the world would like for them to be. Some of these people come from Northern Alaskans who have had to step out of their comfort zone to use their gifts and to share them with others. Some are other artists who pursue their arts regardless of income. Some are like my husband, who is one of the best general contractors, but saves time for hunting, gardening meat-making and cooking. These are the people I want to be with...those who have seen something in the distance, a feeling of space, of opening up, and are willing to get off the beaten path to take that trip.
I go back to places of space, like Alaska, or the oceanside retreat at Asilomar, to feel small enough to travel through the open space of ideas with a knowledge that I am headed through a beautiful landscape on my journey.
So what is the next space that I am exploring? I thought it would be outer space, but it is cyberspace, of course. I am behind, if that matters, but have finally found that it is much like living in Alaska. The world is so vast, the communications so great, that it is a bit like my kids described landing is a mosh pit. Something will bouey you along on my journey. I hope there are a lot of strong, open hands out there to bouey me along on mine, especially as I land with all the baggage I carry!