Laurelines

A world of good

That's what my two-week blogging hiatus did for me!  It's all about balance--- and I'm in the process of rethinking and redirecting my time and energies to regain that balance.
So, back to the search for water! I'm discovering as I go that I'm drawn to subjects that show the play of water against and around rocks.  I'm starting out in a fairly representational mode, but I can feel the pull of a more abstracted, more stylized approach to this theme. But, you know, I'm not going to try to control the process---I'm just going to paint and see what evolves.
I'm also in the midst of making arrangements for my second big trip to a watery place---the place that is very like Hawaii, but very different, too. I'm really excited about it and will make an announcement as soon as I've got it all sorted out.
I'm also going to Monterey, California at the end of May. My daughter C is interested in a graduate program at the Monterey Institute, so we're going to check things out there. Talk about rocks and water! Big Sur is a famous example of exactly the phenomenon I'm drawn to.
Then it's off to Montreal with my daughter K, for a last mother-daughter trip before her baby is born in October. The last time we were there, she was 7 months old. A sentimental journey, indeed.
Here are some things I've been working on lately.

Creek at Peregrine Farm. Acrylic on board, 8" x 10".

Water movement study, creek at Main Farm. 8b graphite on bristol.

Book talk and book signing, Regulator Bookstore. Ink and wash in sketchbook.

'that passionate patience....'

...which is the core of life.'  Poet and translator Witter Bynner in his preface to The Jade Mountain, an anthology of Chinese poetry, says that passionate patience characterizes the poetry of the masters of the T'ang Dynasty, and that western poets can learn from a study of this work how best to express that apparently oxymoronic quality in their own poetry. I think all of us would profit from trying to cultivate passionate patience, don't you?
Me, I've never been short in the passion department, but lately (and mostly always) I've been lacking that pesky patience part. And me a gardener! If there ever were an activity that calls for passionate patience, it's the making and sustaining of a garden!
Art making calls for passionate patience, too, and I'm ready to take my couple of weeks' blog break and get rejuvenated on both fronts.
Here's where I'll be spending a lot of time:

And I'll be reading more Chinese poetry, too. The best anthology I've found (other than The Jade Mountain mentioned above---I like Bynner's translations the best) is The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry; from Ancient to Contemporary, the Full 3000-Year Tradition, edited by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping.  If you haven't read these poems, please do. The imagery in much of Chinese poetry is startling, clear, and pure---for this visual artist, it's a world of endless inspiration. I'll be listening to Chinasong by the Shanghai Quartet, among other things, too.

Finally, here's my first sketch for the Moleyx9 International Exchange. Our group is to render what is outside our windows, so I took that injunction literally this week, and sketched the 'Old Blush' rose outside my bedroom window, in the rain . 'In the rain'---the loveliest phrase in the English language.

See you in a couple of weeks! Be passionate! Be patient!

Vintage weekend

My daughter C and I went out sketching on Saturday. First, we went to a restaurant adapted from an old train station and train car that once belonged to her late father, my former husband.  I drew a couple sitting at the bar who saw me sketching them.  They were all teary eyed when they saw the sketch and asked if they could have it---awww.  So, I'll give it to them this week. C and I next headed for a vintage clothing shop across the street, where she (mostly) browsed and I (entirely) sketched. Later this week, I will post one or two drawings I have to do for a sketchbook exchange (more about this later) and some photos of my garden, which is happy after some April showers. Then I'm going to take a couple of weeks break from blogging. I haven't really taken a break in the three+ years I've been Laurelining and, like the tailor of Gloucester, dear buddies, I'm worn to a threadpaper.   I'm going to work in the garden, paint, draw with friends here, and spend time with family and other friends.  Good idea, eh?
Here, now, are those sketches!

Send in the clowns

Isn't it rich?
Isn't it queer,
Losing my timing this late
In my career?
And where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns.
Don't bother--- they're here.

From  ' A Little Night Music,' by Stephen Sondheim.

I spent the weekend at my elderly mother's house a couple of hours from here, tending to her and tidying up her house. In the process, I found a box of letters I'd sent to her, from age 17, when I went to college, to my late 30's. Now THAT'LL make you think, the rereading of letters from your younger, naïver self. There were letters that announced the beginnings of love affairs, that anticipated with delirious joy the same marriage whose abrupt ending was to be tersely and defensively discussed in a letter several years later, letters that told of pregnancies, of the antics of children,  of moves to foreign countries. My voice was by turns exuberant, anxious, hopeful, disappointed, confident, devastated.
And, at at time when I simply CANNOT paint ONE SINGLE THING (yes, it's happening again) how comforting and disconcerting all at once to read this excerpt from a letter written to my mother in 1982:
'My painting is going well. I'm thrilled. At last the gap between what I want to do in paint and what I can do is narrowing.'

So, though I know it already, by heart, the letter tells me that icky painting times such as the one I've been experiencing do end. You just have to  keep on working. I'm not going to show you the hideosities I've been producing in the studio of late, but I could, you know.  I could.

I do have something, some recent sketches, among which is a quick drawing of my mother-in-law, Grace.  I'm trying so hard to keep those clowns at bay for as long as I can.

Jeffery and me, back in high school again

Yesterday, dear friend and wonderful poet Jeffery Beam and I went to  Amy Kostrewa's creative writing class at Cedar Ridge High School. It was the second year we'd done this---Jeffery talked to the class about the art of poetry and read/performed some of his work. I drew the students.

I was completely bowled over by those kids. Smart? Engaged? Friendly? Absolutely!

Jeffery did a masterful job of teaching and reading. He's a natural performer and anybody who is lucky enough to hear him and watch him live his poetry out loud never forgets the experience.

I wish the class had lasted all day. Miss Kostrewa said I could come back week after next and draw the students again.  Wouldn't it be a great project to draw her class once a week for a whole school year? Imagine documenting all that energy, intelligence, talent for nine months! Imagine an exhibit of those drawings! I'd have to write a proposal to the school that would tie in the project, somehow, to their creative writing curriculum, I guess. Anybody have any ideas? Of course, the teacher and the students might not want me around for that long. There's that.

Anyway, here are sketches from yesterday. Compare them with those from last year, just for interest's sake.  A big thank you to Sara LaFone, Ben Villanova, Katie Redmond, Jamie Mebane, Alex Leith, Cece Pascal, and Bob Pfeiffer for letting me draw them! You are all adorable. And to Miss Kostrewa, too, many thanks.

Charleston sketches from an erratic life

I feel as though I'm leading a good, but interrupted, life, which is scarcely odd, because I am. So, now....  where were we? Back from Charleston, where it was chilly and gray, though we had a lovely time with our English visitors. A busy weekend and busy weeks ahead. Here are a few Charleston scenes. I have a few more, which I will share anon. I will not be traveling again in a big way until late June or early July. Home just in time to enjoy my garden, my family, my friends and to work on my watery theme.

' Here are the three accordion sketchbooks from my trips to Hawaii, Paris, and Charleston. I like seeing them all together. They have such different feelings and moods. The Charleston one is the most languid.

The good rain

The good rain knows its season,

When spring arrives, then it comes.

It follows the wind secretly into the night,

And moistens all things softly, without sound.

 

'Welcome Rain on a Spring Night'

Du Fu

I have taken advantage of a week of intermittent good rain to rest, to introspect, and to dream. I feel better. We have lovely visitors from England now, and we leave, with them, for a few days in Charleston. SC. I'll be sketching watery and other images while I'm there. See you very soon!

Antidote for the blues and the grays

I will NOT complain that we've had several rainy and gray days in a row---I am deeply grateful for every blessed raindrop that is sinking into our parched land and helping to refill our lakes, rivers, streams, and reservoirs. You know I am. Still saddled, though,  with the head cold from hell (well, from France, actually) and forced to cancel a family trip, I've spent the morning fighting the fogginess inside and out by.... drawing. And then painting. Nothing cheers me up like a dip pen, violet ink, Schmincke paints and some oil pastels thrown in for good measure. Add the tulips and anemones from this weekend's farmers' market and we've got ourselves a party!