thoughts on art and creative living

My partner and I took a short trip during Christmas through the New Year to visit family in California.  Getting out of town was not an easy thing.  I was down with a bad cold, the car needed work, and a snow storm had just hit Portland, bringing record snow fall, the likes of which we haven’t seen for something like 40 years.  I’m not kidding.  It took us 5 hours to travel from Portland to Salem, which is usually an hour drive.  Portlanders had been snowed in for days, so the first break in the storm saw a crowd of anyone with chains willing to travel south.  We broke a chain just outside of Portland, so we (courageously or foolishly) pulled through the Sisiskou mountain passes with just one chain.  It was pretty scary, and we’d heard that two 18-wheelers had jack-knifed into each other the previous day, sliding into the ravine.

After driving for 20 hours (normally a 10-hour trip), I was very happy to settle in to spend Christmas with my sister, Beverly, in Ukiah.  I really enjoyed spending some time with her family (which included my bro-in-law, Steve, and my favorite nephew, Warren).  My only regret is that I was still very much under the weather at that point, and forgot to take any photos!

By the time we arrived in Carlsbad (near San Diego), my congestion had lifted and the weather was practically balmy.  We stayed with my partner’s brother, Matt, his wife Danielle, and their 2 beautiful children, Isabella and Ian.  I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to take some photos at the beach.  The kids are so involved in whatever they are doing, whether it’s playing with each other or making pictures in the sand…. and I even got a few that may inspire some paintings.  Another wing of Christo’s family joined us a day later (Niko, Amber, and their 3 kids), so the house was full and quite rambunctious.

While we enjoyed the New Year in a nearly tropical setting, Portland continued to be hit by snow and rain.  I was quite happy to miss it.  I even started to think about a more permanent southern migration, but I haven’t lived in Portland long enough to say it isn’t working for me.  I’ve actually got a great set up here: a terrific house, membership in a cool co-op art gallery, web clients, a teaching job at the community college… and a neighborhood that feels like home.  The main thing is that I need to remember to leave a couple of times during the winter (next time, before or after a storm, not during).  I also think it’s time to consider the art market in California.  I’d like to get some gallery representation, or even just boutiques to sell my prints and jewelry.   On my next visit I’ll focus more on that.  This was a time for connecting with family.

I was really glad that I happened to bring some of my pendant jewelry with me to give to the girls in the family.  What surprised me was that the boys were interested in having pendants too.  In addition to the give-aways, I sold several pieces which actually helped pay for this trip!  Also, when it came to adorning the pint-sized Telullah (Niko and Amber’s daughter, at right), it was clear that the large glass pendant was overwhelming on her, so I created a tiny pendant just for her.  This encourages me to start a new line of children’s necklaces (or for adults who prefer smaller jewelry).  The cool thing is that the necklaces are adjustable… and for some reason, everyone really digs them, so I’m happy to have something that people can’t seem to get enough of!

On our way back up, we visited with Christo’s niece, Sunya, her husband Randy, and their kids in Fairfax, California.  Tao, Satchum, and Inua were just as photogenic (and eager to get in front of the camera).

I created a slide-show from my trip, which I made mostly for family members.. or anyone who’s a fan of pics of beautiful children (most of them on the California beach).  Click link below (or any of the images on this page):

california-trip

Anyone following my blog must be wondering by now what happened with my moving plans, or if I’ve simply fallen off the face of the earth. It turns out that I was left waiting for a full 3 months for a particular house I’d been waiting to share with some other artists (see details on my previous blog entry, ” A Portland Housing Story”). Long story short, we decided once this house was finally available NOT to take it. We had to leave our previous situation before it could be available, and even after that we would have had several weeks of work to do to make it live-in ready. By this time, we were no longer up for the overhaul and simply wanted to find a move-in ready home. We tried to find another place that would accommodate all of the house-mates we spent so much time assembling, but the search proved unpromising.

Luckily, my partner and I did find a house that works out nicely for the 2 of us to share with a midwife and her two daughters (8 and 14). I wasn’t specifically looking for a family situation, but as it turns out I’m very happy that this is where we landed. We’re now in Clinton, our favorite Portland neighborhood. We are close to natural foods groceries, a great strip of restaurants and cafes, and next door to a community garden and school. We have a large yard, a garden, 4 chickens, 2 pet rats, an orange tabby, a trampoline, a huge basement/studio, and wake up to the sounds of school children playing in a nearby playground. The kids add a lot of life to our new home, and I have no doubt that this will be a good place for creative blooming. One small coincidence: our house-mate works for the Alma Midwife Center, which is mentioned in my previous entry regarding the belly-cast.

I took this photo before the move, but I hope to replace it with one that includes all of us, and some of the creatures that make this place already feel like “home”.

There was a point earlier this week that it suddenly dawned on me that summer was over. Realizing my tendency to shrink into the indoors during winter months, I’ve been making sure that I get some outdoor activity every day before the rains hit. I just came back from a rather magical walk which reminded me why I made a commitment during the spring to take my camera around with me whenever I take my afternoon walks. Well, I started to amass a collection of hundreds of photographs (mostly flowers, plants and textured walls which, for some reason consumed my attention for the moment)…. But I failed to do much of anything with them and didn’t see any reason to add to my unsystemized files. It just seems like such a load of work to go through them all and figure out what’s useful to me.

This evening I went out and began the habit again. Gotta catch that last golden light. It’s always a revelation to me how much more attention I give things when I look at them through a lens. It focuses my attention on the macro-world which one fails to see when keeping a pace to simply “get somewhere”. Another thing that happened this time around is that children playing in the neighborhood were very interested in seeing what I was doing and wanted to talk to me. Usually it’s the cats that come up to me to accept a little cooing and stroking. This time, on 3 separate occasions, children came out to talk to me (first a couple of sisters, then a boy with his dog, then a group of 4). Each incidence had a bit of magic to offer me.

I don’t spend much time with children, so I am pretty out of touch with the way children think sometimes. Being involved with something I am interested in doing somehow makes me less intrusive to their world, as they become inquisitive and start looking at the flowers with me, or start telling me stories, or simply play with each other in my presence. The child above spontaneously bowed a flower down to smell it as I walked away.

I’ve just begun the process of getting back into the studio. I can’t say I’ve made a LOT of progress… but I’m starting to play. I’m just layering colors and patterns, trying to figure out my next step. I also started a new painting based on the process workshop I took a couple weekends ago. So far, I like the original piece best, though it does create some presentation problems (painted on buckly paper that’s not easy to hang). I wanted to re-create it as a layered glass painting. So far it lacks the intensity of wildness of the first. Maybe it’s not a good idea to try to re-create a painting. But I also don’t feel that I should have to reinvent the wheel every time I begin. I know there’s more I can do with this idea, and it’ll be interesting to see where it goes.

The technique of painting on glass is inherently less spontaneous than tempera on paper. It’s necessary to keep areas of the painting clean, so that the lower layers are revealed. This requires me to adopt a more careful attitude towards the work, and it’s already looking more stiff in its composition. (The “moon” in this photo is actually a reflection of the paper lantern hanging in my studio, but it gives me another idea to add to the painting.

In the meantime I might also dig out some of those photos I’ve been collecting. Might be some food for new imagery among all the botanical studies. Though I am transferring my balcony studio back to the basement and it’s starting to get nippy, it can still be a time for blooming.