So..........I'm picking up the accumulated clutter here in my dining room, office, bird sanctuary, and exhibition space and what should I find but a dog-eared copy of Loren Eisley's "Immense Journey."  It's a paperback with a torn blue cover and soft, yellowed, dog-eared pages.  Its copyright is 1946, a year after I was born.  This book was assigned reading for my freshman English class in 1963 and probably influenced me more than anything else I've ever read.  I still enjoy opening it up randomly and reading a page or two   Many of my paintings were inspired by those writings, but the biggest impact the book had on me was my view of the evolution of the earth and its inhabitants.  I always think, too, of Miss Fife, my professor, a fifty-ish prim and proper lady who obviously had a lot more going on in her head than one would think by looking at her.  I wonder what she would think if she knew how she affected my life...that shy, mousy, uncommunicative student slouching in the third row of desks, one of hundreds that no doubt passed through Miss Fife's classroom.

Well, when I saw the book this morning, I had to stop and read a few pages.  No doubt the science of that time has evolved way beyond what Eisley took as fact (though I know he realized that new information would eventually bury a lot of the "facts" of his day).  Still, basically it is his awe of nature and evolution that carries the book, along with his poetic writing.  

"I do not think, if someone finally twists the key successfully in the tiniest and most humble house of life, that many of these questions will be answered, or that the dark forces which create lights in the deep sea and living batteries in the tropical swamps, or the dead cycles of parasites, or the most noble workings of the human brain, will be much if at all revealed. ......rather, I would say that if "dead matter" has reared up this curious landscape of fiddling crickets, song sparrows, and wondering men it must be plain to even the most devoted naturalist that the matter of which he speaks contains amazing, if not dreadful powers..........."

"

Keeping up with Watercolor

 This is the latest watercolor I've done recently, an image I copied from photos of some draft horses in a nearby town (I'd name it but I can't remember what it was.......Pembroke I think).  I've been working in watercolor trying to get some interest in painting that I seem to have lost.  My paintings have been so uninspiring, looking like the work of talented high school students who haven't really learned yet what art is all about.  What joy I have found in returning to watercolor after so long.  One of my friends and patrons commented when I posted my first new watercolors on facebook, "The magic is back."  How wonderful to hear that.  Watercolor was always my medium until I lost my support system (other watercolorists who championed the medium).  When I went back to school to study art watercolor was barely mentioned.  Besides, it didn't allow the layers and layers of paint necessary for the kind of art I was doing then.  

There is such immediacy with watercolor that it doesn't lend itself to the layers and layers of paint that I found necessary to express myself at the time.  It is a statement......here it is. ........don't look beyond what you see.

Thinking about art

 Not much happens around here from day to day.  I go nowhere and do nothing.  Nevertheless, I am content.  I spend my days doing a little housework, painting, reading, doing puzzles, writing, etc....all with the companionship of my puppy.  Elliot is always in my sight, his life being so very small and confined, yet he amuses himself with toys and with Leah, the cat. While I read, he sleeps by my feet or in my lap. I have been reading my old journals off and on, amazingly entertained by the old me.  There I am......wife, mother, social worker, needlepoint designer, art teacher, Art Society president, photo retoucher, courtroom artist, portrait painter, probably more I won't bother to drag out of my memory bank right now.  For most of those many years I was also an art student at the University of Maine.  I had a degree in Modern Languages from when I was a traditional student, but in the early 70's I went back to the University to study art.  My husband had just moved out, I had two small children.  My life was in turmoil.......but hasn't my life always been in turmoil?........up until now of course.  The only real problem I have now is lack of money.  Money is a small thing and my poverty does not bother me in the least.

The years I have spent since my marriage ended were at first tumultuous .  As an art student I worked out all my demons with the help of a wonderful art teacher and mentor.  Yesterday I was reading some of the notebooks and journals I kept then (an activity I enjoy several times a year) and looking at pictures of the rather shocking and bizarre paintings, prints, and sculptures I produced then.  It's quite obvious that I was in great turmoil and used art to manage my emotions as best I could.   My paintings are calm now.....I strive for technique, composition, color, beauty.  Nevertheless, I think of these paintings as a craft more than an art.  I am a designer of canvas rectangles that remind viewers of something in their own psyches....a place they once visited, a pet they loved, an event in their own lives.  They evaluate them using their own values, their own ideas of beauty, their own emotions.  They steal my work.

I hear the voices of those who sneer at the phrase "art for art's sake."  But I also hear the applause of the abstract expressionists, searching for the meaning of art once the camera was invented.

another postponement

 Well, my surgery was postponed again, at the last minute.  Apparently I am still anemic.  Now there is no date set.  I took this with very little grace, I admit, but now I am wilted from accepting the news.  I am  in limbo with an appointment for an "infusion" pending.  So I keep limping along as best I can.

Friday is a bad day for me anyway since I have to put out the trash for collection.  Trying to maneuver large trashcans and many cardboard boxes while using a walker is a challenge.  Today I found strange full garbage cans in front of the house,,,,,some neighbor must have decided to take advantage of my contract with Moose Island Trash Removal....... likely some temporary tenants in the house next door.  It doesn't bother me.  I have a pretty big pile of trash myself anyway because I have to order my pet supplies, as well as my groceries.  They all come in gigantic cardboard boxes that then have to be disposed of.  I cringe at the amount of trash I generate.  I'm embarrassed by it.  I called the company and they offered to consolidate the shipments, but now the boxes are too big for me to handle without herculean strength.  (Try hauling a box four feet high full of canned dogfood, catfood, bird food, bags of dry food, puppy pads, cat litter, chicken feed (50 pounds) from the curb, down a cement walk, up over two steps, and through a doorway with a hysterically barking puppy and a cat trying to get through the door....all while using a walker.

Well it will all be over at some point........at least I have to believe it will be.  And all things considered I am patting myself on the back for being so independent and capable in the face of my temporary handicap. I've tried to figure out some way to take a picture of myself struggling with this, but I guess I will have to wait for some stranger to walk by while I'm doing it.  Instead, I'll take another picture of my little puppy, who keeps a smile on my face no matter what else happens.