Weekend at the pottery

 

www.beaumontpottery.com 

When I was a teenager, I spent a memorable summer living with my sister and her husband, JB. I worked in JB's pottery in the historic village of Strawbery Banke, New Hampshire. He and my sister later divorced, and I lost track of JB for almost 20 years. Facebook put us back in touch again a few months ago.

He recently invited me and my family to come visit him and his wife, J, at their place in Maryland, and we drove there on Saturday afternoon. We had the most amazing weekend with JB and J.  Any concerns that it might be awkward to see one another after so many years dissolved within minutes of arrival. Our families connected, and we all felt at ease with one another and happy to be together. The home and life JB and J have built together are a testimony to their faith, and there's a life-giving presence there.

Nine years ago JB was homeless and in debt, a man who had lost everything: his business, his family, his success. The journey from that dark day to the place he is now is remarkable. He shared several stories of Divine Providence, of needs being met in unexpected ways by strangers, friends, and family who stood by him in his lowest moments. Truly his life was thrown on the compost heap, broken down, and made new. 

We were only there for 24 hours but I felt as refreshed as if I'd been on a long vacation. JB built a big bonfire Saturday, and we sat around it talking long into the night. The house he and his wife live in is a big country farmhouse, much like the house I lived in from the time I was 12-16. I loved its imperfections--the sloping floors, peeling paint, and worn woodwork--as much as I loved its beauty--the tall bay windows, high ceilings, and hardwood floors. We had a huge country breakfast Sunday morning, went on a tractor ride to a buffalo farm, spent time in the pottery studio making pots, enjoyed a cookout,  and sat on the porch while a storm blew through and sent rain rattling down onto the tin roof.

 

When we left, JB and J loaded us down with gifts--pottery from his studio, scented soaps, photographs. It was like Christmas. My kids are already plotting our return, and I'm eagerly awaiting the restoration of Crack House and the chance to reciprocate their hospitality.

 

July 28, 2008

Scenes from BlahgHer and DrunkHer 2008

Welcome to Crack House. This used to be the media room.

Le Sigh

The writing life--full of ennui.

Thinking of the Muses.  Fickle vixens.

Keeping things in their proper perspective--fuzzy memories call for fuzzy photos. With all these out of focus pix, Kelby should have vertigo by now.   

Manic and Peter, thanks for bringing the Stella Artois. Next year it's Leffe!

(For details on BlahgHer and DrunkHer, read the post below this one.)

July 19, 2008

Welcome to my blahg

I feel so uninspired, like a tire with a slow leak that drags on pavement and brings everything to a halt.

The cursor keeps blinking, taunting me to say something.

My e-mail box overflows with empty promises.

I’m just a  twit on Twitter.

I feel faceless on Facebook.

Social networking has given me even more ways to fail creatively--and more ways to advertise it.

Le sigh. [She pauses to light an imaginary cigarette.]

All the buzz this week is around BlogHer, where the movers and shakers in the blogosphere will congregate. Women will arrive with full posses of blogebrity friends, appear in dozens of photos posted on Flickr, a few silly YouTube videos, and be linked all over the ‘Net when everyone writes about the great party last night, who they met, and the cool swag.

While the band plays in San Francisco, I will be home for another 100-degree weekend in Virginia, doing housework, pushing a cart through a grocery store, pulling wet laundry out of the washer, stuffing it into the dryer, feeling like a hausfrau, wearing my boredom and bourgeoise on my sleeve.

Le sigh. [She pauses to blow a plume of blue smoke at the ceiling.]

I know I'm not alone.

To honor all the Friends of V who are also going nowhere this weekend, I’ll be hosting BlahgHer on Friday night, followed by DrunkHer on Saturday night. On Sunday we'll close with the HangoverHer brunch.

Y’all are invited. Even those of you who are Not Popular, Not Clever, and Have Nothing Interesting to Say. Those of you with No Money, No Prospects, Nothing to Wear, and Bad Hair are welcome too. I want to meet everyone who is Not Thin, Not Tan, Not Young, and Not Having a Good Summer. Birkenstock wearers will not be reviled (ahem). We can all be Not Happy (or not) together.

Everybody come and bring your grievances and ennui and leave them in the comments section.

July 18, 2008 

Bad days and tattletales

Today was the first day of my intermediate painting class, a continuation of the class I took before.

One of the things I love about my painting classes is that it throws me together with the type of creative people I'd have a hard time meeting in my usual social circle. These women are fun AND they're all older than me. Much older. And I like that.

For at least the last 20 years, I've always been the oldest one in my various social circles. I was the oldest of the class moms, oldest among my neighborhood girlfriends, oldest chick among my expat friends. I've long thought I needed to have more older women as friends so I could be mentored by someone wiser and more experienced in the next stage of life. I'm tired of being my own point man. I want someone to show me the way.

These women fit the bill and it's been enlightening and fun to talk to them about retirement, post-menopausal sex, relationships, grandchildren, and Brad Pitt. Of course, it's been depressing to hear about fixed incomes and health problems and spouses that die unexpectedly AFTER secretly canceling their life insurance policies, but hey, crappy circumstances like that are why we need the diversion of Brad Pitt and painting classes.

Today, however, I was having a Bad Art Day. We were doing an exercise where we were painting a landscape upside down on brown paper and omigosh, mine looked upside down and backwards. My brush strokes sucked, I couldn't mix and match my colors properly, the paint was blobbing and streaking and I just couldn't "see."  It looked like I painted with my eyes closed. Aargh. It was really embarrassing. My first one was definitely the worst result in the class. Then we did a second one and oh lord, that was horrible too.

As I was packing up my stuff at the end of class, I surreptitiously tossed my work into the huge trash can. I didn't even want to take it home. Bleah.

And then one of the other women was cleaning her palette at the sink and noticed my art in there. She blabs to the teacher, "Hey, who threw their work away?"

My teacher was over on that side of the room in a heartbeat and pulling the painting out. She gave me the Bad Grrrl Look.

"Why did you throw this away?!"

Then she insisted I take it home and make it better. Ugh. I'd rather just start over!

On the way out I gave J, the student that ratted me out, the Evil Eye.

"Tattletale! Teacher's pet!"

We both laughed. Today's lesson? You're never too old to act childish.

July 16, 2008

Sunday morning and the Muse is still sleeping

The deck sits high above the ground, surrounded by woods like a tree house. The cicada chorus rises and falls, the Carolina wrens are warbling, the squirrels convey both urgency and distraction as they rattle the leaves, but the air, heavy with heat and humidity, brings a stillness to the day.

The wind chimes are silent. 

For days now, she had been looking for a lost key, refusing to believe it was truly lost, preferring to believe it was only hidden from sight.

At night, though, she wondered if she really had lost it.

In the dark hours after midnight, her mind wandered from room to room unlocking possibilties while her partner inhabited his dreams and the train whistles marked the lives passing swiftly by on straight steel tracks.

Then this morning, she reached into a pocket in the shadows of her closet and found the key.

Now she sips a cup of tea on the deck and  hears a dove cooing out of sight.

Next to the stone wall, a massive oak overshadows a scraggly magnolia tree that has only one bloom, a giant flower the size of a dinner plate.

Its creamy white petals cup the sunlight and offer it to the sky like a gift.

July 13, 2008

Life is better when you're off center and falling over the edge

My first four-lesson session on acrylic painting ended and my second session has yet to begin. What to do inbetween?

A friend of mine was telling me about the passion flowers in his garden and sent me photographs of them. I was enchanted by their colors and intricacy and thought maybe I'd try to paint one.

Yes, my initial intent was to paint ONE big passion flower on my canvas--a dead on, dead center composition.

The problem was my canvas was 16 x 20 inch rectangle, not square. I thought I could make it work, but as the painting progressed, I knew it wouldn't.  I needed to add more elements, so I added two more passion flowers.  Since I hadn't planned to do an arrangement of three, it came out weird because all the flowers were flat on the canvas and seemed to float on it instead of being part of it. (Yes, Linda, I need shadows!)

View on the easel:

When I photographed the canvas, one of the shots came up horizontal, and hey, I liked that better:

Then I used my photoediting software to crop it:

Cropping the photos let me play around with the composition and see how I might have done this better. I think I like the final shot best. What do you think?

Truth is, my favorite part of the canvas is the background. I love how I managed to bring leaves into the composition without really painting leaves. They emerge and disappear and keep the eye moving.

The whole painting took me five hours. Yeah, this was a lot more complicated than painting tulips!

July 8, 2008

Stunning

While the work I encounter in the blogosphere often moves me or makes me laugh out loud, it's rare for me in my time-pressed and word-soaked world to come back to a blog post and read it over and over and over again. 

This piece by Jane has me doing just that. It is poetry and prose melded into one.

It's mothers and daughters.

It's Good Girls and the Grrrls Who Just Want to Be Free.

It's the voice of every artist and thinker who has nurtured their creative impulses like a child that needs discipline, freedom, and unconditional love.

It's our ongoing struggle to be fully ourselves and fully present in the world.

It's ALL that and more.

Check it out.

I dare you to read it only once. Tell me what you think.

June 28, 2008

Strategies for taking art classes

In my eagerness to get moving studying art, I signed up for both a watercolor painting class and an acrylic painting class, one on Wednesday, one on Thursday.

 This was a mistake.

Both classes demand more time than I anticipated, and it's been expensive to purchase supplies for two classes at once. (I didn't have a supply list in advance for either class, and because I'm truly a beginner, I'm having to get everything. I can use the same brushes for both classes, but everything else is different--stretched canvas vs. watercolor paper, easel vs. clipboard, acrylic vs. watercolor paint, etc.)

Another issue is that the techniques and approach to the two media are completely different. I think I'd do better to focus on one at a time. Without thinking, I bring acrylic techniques to watercolor and use too much pigment or muddy my colors with attempts to paint over an area. Other times I use watercolor techniques with acrylics and end up with too much water in my paint and too much white space peeking through.  It's better to be grounded in one media before trying the other so that if you bring techniques from one media to the other, it's done strategically and with purpose.

I've loved my acrylic class, which is small and personal and is very much a learn-by-doing atmosphere.  The participants are all true beginners, and the instructor paints as we paint, explaining her approach and methods and giving tips as we go along.

In creative work, if I'm subjected to too much lecturing and too many rules, my brain becomes preoccupied with sorting out and organizing all the information, with doing things "properly."  The thinking half of my brain overcomes the intuitive side, and I become blocked, my work loses its energy, I stall and can't find my way out. The acrylic class is a good match to my learning style. 

My watercolor class has been much less satisfactory. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it's a large class (25 students!)  with a broad skill level. Some people are true beginners; others are seasoned artists who have exhibited or sold their work.  Because of the size of the class, there's very little, if any, personal attention. The instructor doesn't paint along with us, so we don't get a demonstration on how it's done.

Some of have no idea how to even start, others are eager to advance skills that are already good. We're taught by doing homework on our own and having our work critiqued in front of the class. For me, this has been less effective. I don't feel I'm learning enough for the time I'm investing, both in class and out of class.  I don't know any more about watercolor now than I did when I started. I have learned some composition and perspective lessons, but not how to handle the paint. So yes, I'm disappointed, and I won't pursue another watercolor class like this anytime soon. Yesterday I decided to stop attending as the class is almost over anyway. 

So one class has been a joy, the other more work and less satisfaction. The plus side: now I know what I'm looking for in a class. If you do try a class in an area of interest and it bombs, don't give up. Analyze what went wrong and look for an opportunity to pursue your interest in a setting that better matches your learning style. 

I'll close with my one and only completed watercolor. The composition  is static and it took me forever to do:

Encouraging you to just do it

Thanks for all the comments on my last post and my journey into painting. I hope that by putting myself and my art out there, I'll encourage some of you to try that "thing" you've always been interested in but either didn't think you had the talent for or didn't have the time to pursue it. Maybe it's some genre of art or cooking or photography or creative writing or gardening or geneaology or history or sewing or quilting or knitting or carpentry or woodworking or working on cars or something else altogether.

I think everyone has "something" that bubbles up and keeps being pushed down by circumstances or self-doubt. Pay attention to that secret wish that keeps bobbing up to the surface and pluck it out of the water and give it life.  Don't let your dream drown and become your secret sorrow, your private regret.

Dare to try something new or reacquaint yourself with an old love. Allow yourself to be mediocre at something so you can learn to get better at it. It's a cliche, but we have to risk failure to succeed, and risking failure and judgement is hard. Those who are very successful in some area of life don't like to start at the bottom with a new enterprise. Those who have fragile self-confidence don't want to be criticized and have any more negative voices joining the chorus in their head.  I am both those people!

I have to constantly push myself to step out of my comfort zone, to remake my image of myself, to see a different person than the one I've been conditioned to see. We have to be willing to make compost out of some of our old ideas about ourselves and fertilize new growth.

Where to start? Try your local community recreation center. It's been a great gateway for my journey into art. The classes are not too expensive and encourage people to come as they are--with whatever level of interest, skill, or talent they have. There's a time and place for you to explore new territory--dare to find it, dare to just do it, dare to do it badly and improve.

(What hobby/interest would you like to pursue?)

June 25, 2008

A study in tulips

My first art class was all about painting a landscape in black and white. I was stunned at the results. I expected to be embarrassed by my efforts, and instead I felt pretty good about them.

For our second class meeting, we had to bring a photo of a flower arrangement and paint a still life inspired by the image during class. Here's the photo I brought with me, a scene from my kitchen in Belgium:

Here's my first color acrylic painting ever, based on the tulip photograph. Note that it's not supposed to be an exact duplication of the photo. This took me about 90 minutes in class. It was a large canvas, and I struggled with my smallish brush and figuring out what type of background to do and how to get the flowers on it.

For homework, we had to paint a second floral still life. I chose to do the tulips again so I could compare results. Here's my second study in tulips. I think I spent about three hours on it this afternoon, and it's a smaller canvas. I bought a new brush that offered a firmer feel and more coverage:

It was encouraging to see how much I improved from the first canvas to the second. I'm not good at spatial relationships and perspective, and that's something I have to work on. As I train my eye to "see" in new ways, my ability to add dimension to my compositions will improve. Now they all seem a bit flat to me. In time I hope they'll become more dynamic, especially as I master light and shadow. Lots to learn, but I'm making progress and that's what counts.

June 23, 2008