When I grow up

William graduated from kindergarten yesterday. He and his classmates looked so young, yet so grown up, in their cheery red caps and gowns.  They entertained us with an impressive musical presentation, then each child received his certificate, stepped to the microphone, and told us what he wanted to be when he grew up.  Among the dreams – a teacher, a gymnast, a football player, a doctor, a famous pianist, a zoo keeper, a veterinarian, a lawyer and a cabinet maker. When it was William’s turn, I was not surprised to hear him  say, “When I grow up, I want to be an artist.”

When I grow up.......

 

William and Miss Nancy

Today he will come to my house for a few hours, and he will want to work on an art project. He’s been making books lately, filled with drawings of alien characters and pictures printed from my computer.  We set a limit on how many he can print, not because I think it isn’t money well invested, but so he is aware that supplies and material cost money and it is not respectful of the planet to be wasteful.

If we talk about what he said at graduation, I will point out that he is already doing what he wants to do when he grows up.  I would love to hear his explanation of why he loves to make art, but I won’t push the conversation for fear of making him self-conscious about it.  I want making art  to be as natural as breathing to him.

 Today the scissors and colored pencils are out on his table and I have finished everything I need to do on the computer so he can click on the Poptropica bookmark on my menu bar, and get to work. When he grows up he can analyze why he wants to be an artist.

The Class of 2009

Dear Madelyn,

The main event of the past week was most certainly your graduation from high school, but I’ve put off writing about it because of teeth. Really. Every time I turn around I come face to face with a new tooth issue! I’ve come to think there must be a connection, however murky, between your graduation and all these teeth!

Maybe when you write a blog you’re more attuned to the possibility of connectedness in what formerly seemed random, but the subject of teeth has been remarkably intrusive.

It started with Karsten, when he bounced off that ball,  crashing into a marble fireplace surround, and breaking his two front teeth. Accidents do happen, but this one established the pattern. Celeste had no teeth, but now some are trying to break through, and she’s cranky.

William has been losing a baby tooth every few days for the last two weeks, and regular trips are made to the bank to keep the tooth fairy supplied with cash. There was some discussion about the proper amount for the tooth fairy to leave, with the going rate finally established at $5.  Then William lost his bottom, right tooth, which happened to be a double tooth, so the discussion had to be opened again.

Robert had a root canal Thursday. Not everyone is given the same gifts. Some people do not have trouble free teeth. I would like to not, however, be the assigned culprit any longer for whatever bad genes my children claim they have inherited.

On Tuesday our dentist’s office called to say Frank had missed his cleaning appointment. I told them I was sorry, but something came up, namely, open heart surgery. He didn’t remember to call and cancel before they split his chest open, and I didn’t even know he had the appointment.

Your graduation ceremony was on Monday and you had your wisdom teeth out on Friday, which introduces the most interesting question of all! Do you know it all, now that you are a graduate? Is that why you don’t need your wisdom teeth anymore? What does it mean that you only had the two upper wisdom teeth? Luck? Genes?

Do you see why this connection has become a subject we can really get our teeth into?

Madelyn, I know they said at graduation that you can spread your wings and fly, but in your case I’m convinced the tea leaves point to teeth. So use those choppers, and taste life from Apple Pie to lemon Zest! If the menu ever seems bland, just call to mind the deafening cheers from the stands when your class of 2009 walked into Allen Arena. The outpouring of love and pride gave me chills, and I thought I was going to cry. Waves of cheers and smiles and calling of names followed as each of you processed to your seat.  You all looked a little overwhelmed, like you wished those mortar boards were big enough to let you hide, but you were smiling, too, as you tried to see where your families were seated. A thousand cell phones had already texted you, “Right hand side, middle, half way up,” and three hundred cell phones had texted back, ” Right hand side, fifth row, fourth seat”. The room was filled with popping camera lights, waving handmade signs, cheers, whistles, and flashing, white, smiling ……TEETH!

Maybe that’s it? All of this toothy activity just means you make us smile. We salute your accomplishment. Good job! You’ve come a long way to being the strong, smart, confident, patient and kind woman I saw walking up to receive that richly deserved diploma. Getting to this point was fun, hard, heartbreaking, rewarding, but you made it! We’ll never stop cheering for you. We absolutely love you!

RAH, RAH, RAH! SIS BOOM BAH! Be true to your school!

And remember what your Grandy always says, “Be true to your teeth, or they’ll be false to you”.

A Star is Born

 

Cast and Stagehands

I applaud every teacher, school and parent that encourages a child to make art part of his life.  

My grandson’s day care recently put on a “dance recital”. On the surface it was a chance to see eighteen month to three year old kids being too cute for words. Beyond that it allowed children to practice together, to be patient while waiting a turn, to perform for an audience, to use their bodies in new ways and to begin to learn to express themselves creatively.

In the picture of the eighteen month olds above, there is one teacher for every one and a half children. Whoops! One of them still manages to escape!

Karsten's cue

Karsten, part of the two and a half year old group, is called to center stage. Wait. I think he has located his Mom in the audience.

First act appearance

There’s seems to be an attention problem. The rule that the show must go on is for four, maybe five, year olds. When you’re two and a half, Mom can be a show stopper!

Torn

 What to do?  He is torn between his dance commitment and  the siren call of the beautiful woman in the audience.  I bet she would hold him tight and reassure him. He’s a little bit scared.

Trying to be brave

Not able to keep it together

Sympathy from his classmate

Released to go to Mom.

I wanted to come to you, but I was held on that stage against my will!

Smiling again

Yay! A star is born!

I hope each of my grandchildren finds a passion in some form of art.  I encourage them to do art projects at my house, to print pictures of dinosaurs and Alien Force characters for collages on my computer, to take pictures with disposable cameras.  I take them to children’s art workshops that allow them to try out different art media. I attend their “dance recitals” and clap like crazy for their efforts, whatever they might be. The rest of the family does the same.  None of us doubts that our efforts will be rewarded by children who can see the beauty in the world and can express themselves in terms of their relationship to it.

Nicholas Ivan Snowbear

Nick 1988 - 2002

On April 23, 2002 we lost the second of the famous three Samoyeds. Nick was the best dog ever, and I will always miss him. The photograph was painted using Corel Painter oil brushes. This is the story I wrote about him.

NICHOLAS IVAN SNOWBEAR

Nick was the second of the famous three – Minka, Nick and Flash.

It was love at second sight. First sight was not promising. He arrived, pulling his owner on a short leash, hopelessly matted and tick infested. He looked huge and powerful and a little scary, not at all like the compact little Minka. His owner was moving to Atlanta and could not take Nick. His vet, and also ours, sent the young man our way, knowing that we had a Samoyed, and thinking surely we would want two. His owner, obviously upset, had waited until the last minute to make arrangements for his dog, and announced that if we couldn’t take Nick he would have to go to the pound the next day.

I was not in favor of this addition to our family, although nobody believes this. I sent the young man off, nevertheless, to get Nick cleaned up, and agreed to take him long enough to find a home for him. Nick was returned while I was not at home, and I dreaded walking in the house and finding the anticipated chaos. The front door opened to silence and I cautiously proceeded to find all people and dogs quietly watching TV. Minka had checked him out and found him acceptable, and he had found a comfortable spot and parked himself as though he planned to stay awhile.

So, there he was, a two-year old, sixty-five pound, outsized Samoyed with a coat like a lion and Elvis eyes. There was never even a hint of a discussion of finding him another home. He stayed with us for the next twelve years.

The opposite of a scary dog, he was gentle and sweet and very, very serious. He was so solemn that his nickname soon became Milhous. Minka bounced around trying to get him to play, but he didn’t know what to do with toys even when she hit him in the nose with one. He had his favorite spots and routes by which to reach them, but he always made his way with an unhurried amble, in direct contrast to the dancing Minka. It wasn’t that he wasn’t strong, because he could climb a a chain link fence, jump over a baby gate or thunder across the yard in record time whenever he had to investigate any dog that had had the temerity to approach the fence. Since he was never in a hurry, he didn’t mind stopping for you to give him a hug. We were used to Minka, who could not stand to be restrained in any way, not even for hugs and kisses.

He would take food and treats and barely brush his lips against your hand. When we had to take care of a litter of puppies whose mother (Minka) would not feed them, Nick hovered over them anxiously. After we bottle fed them, we would hold them out to him, and he would lick them just like the mother was supposed to be doing. Unfortunately, the puppies were all sick, and despite our and Nick’s efforts, they all died.  Minka’s instincts had told her this all along.

Sometime before he came to live with us he had developed a fear of storms. He thought he was safe with us, so when he sensed a storm (about when it passed over Memphis) he searched for us. Ninety pounds (he’d gained a little weight) of dog arriving abruptly in your bed was a sure sign of an approaching storm. One day I developed the same fear. Tornadoes were dropping out of the sky all over middle Tennessee. I cleared the coat closet in the hall under the stairs and took all three dogs and a cell phone in for safety. Nick pushed his way to the back of the closet ahead of all of us and took up residence. He was sweet, but not inclined to share refuge. Minka didn’t care anyway, so she volunteered to the the one half-in and half-out of the door. When I called the all-clear, Nick didn’t believe me and stayed in the darkest recess of sanctuary. From that time on he would stand by the closet when a storm made him anxious.

Samoyeds are Siberian sled dogs, so naturally, they revel in cold weather. Nick would sit outside in his corner in freezing temperatures like it was a day at the beach. I used to laugh when the weather person announced some arctic temperature (in Tennessee that starts at about thirty-two degrees), and issued the warning to be sure to bring pets inside. One freezing, rainy day he came in such a mess that I hauled him to the tub. After I had washed the mud off, a section of 2 x 4 lumber floated into the tub from where it had been frozen to his belly.

In the spring, however, there came that day when the combination of temperature and humidity became unacceptibe to Samoyeds, and the annual shift to lying on the air conditioning vents occurred. That signaled time for the summer haircut. Minka looked darling. Nick was ridiculous. Although short hair was too informal to suit his personality, Nick’s thick coat was a nuisance and prized at the same time. The 2 x 4 was the heaviest object to get caught in it, but he collected some impressive branches and other assorted forms of plant life, bringing about the nickname of Chief Leaf in his Tail.

I found a bird nest in our yard, carefully constructed by mama bird with strands of Samoyed hair. The long, guard hairs were woven outside and the downy, soft undercoat formed the inner lining. A friend in the Handweavers’ Guild took bags of fur from summer haircuts to weave into cloth. We think nothing about cloth from sheep’s wool, but we all carried enough dog hair sticking to us without deliberately making our clothes out of it!

At age fourteen, Nick was physically worn out. His joints weren’t supporting him very well, stairs caused him pain and breathing was difficult. Finally he developed a terrible sore on his elbow that was going to require surgery to repair. We didn’t think he could tolerate that.  He missed Minka, and on April 23, 2002, we let him go with her. We will plant another dogwood near Minka’s in the backyard and bury his ashes there.

Taking Stock

 

Looking at the big picture.

 

In art, whether in story or on canvas, one generally starts with an idea, then sketches, develops and completes, although it’s rarely a straight line in effort or in time. Typically there are periods for taking stock and testing the direction your creation is taking, when you go a distance away and look back with your eyes squinted, or you turn your story pages face down and go away for a day, a week, a month. Upon returning with a fresh perspective, you can decide to continue, gesso over what you’ve done, or save the parts to use in something else. You might also decide to go and sell shoes instead, I suppose, but if you make art, you probably won’t do that.  You have to make art, like Salmon must swim upstream. That might not be the prettiest analogy, considering what happens to the Salmon at the end of the journey, but it does make my point.

I have several art projects in the works, not the least among them, my blogs. It has been a spring full of travel, broken bones (now fairly well healed), and good intentions that have been interrupted by life, all in a good way. Projects have languished, as has the spring clean-up of the yard, because of all the above, and rain, rain and more rain.

Spring clean-up tools.

Three days ago I could not put the weeding off any longer.  It was the fifth of May, and it is my rule to be finished with spring yard work by June 1.  This is not an arbitrary rule. On June first, the mosquitos are more than I can stand. I’m a magnet. So, I went out in the rain with the Move n’ Groove, the clippers and the weed digger, and lost myself in the job.

Next best thing to a mountain stream.

It was cool. Of course it was, it was raining! The ditch in the front yard, which usually gives me fits because all the new construction on our street has increased run-off and makes it flood, was gurgling like a mountain stream, providing music as good as any sung by Willie, Lucinda or Etta. There was nothing in my world for a little while except the sound of flowing water, the satisfying removal of chickweed and violets, and my mind refreshing itself, taking stock. It was a productive time, part meditation, part therapy.

Weed be gone.

I have been mulling over my blogs, and as I weeded, I picked up on the thought about what I was writing, and  where I was going with them.

Last October I held the opinion that blogs are a fad written by people who have nothing important to say, and read by probably no one. Everyone writing, no one reading! Last October I received two emails from people I slightly knew that contained links to their blogs. One was on photography, the other on art. I read and enjoyed them, noted that both were written using WordPress, checked out WordPress, set-up an account (I LOVE the computer!), and wrote a blog entry.  I couldn’t say how that happened.  It just did.

My first post was personal, a sweet remembrance of a tender moment between my daughter and grandson, and a tribute to my mother, whose birthday was coming up. My grandson loved it because it had a picture of him.  My mother was very touched.  Then I posted a story about Halloween that contained pictures of every costume ever worn by my grandsons, which was not too hard as they are only  five, two and two.  They loved it and wanted me to pull it up and read it to them whenever they came to my house. I was hooked as a blogger. What I was writing wasn’t important to many, but in my world it was a success.

My next effort was an art post about blind contour drawing. It’s a good thing I liked the result, as my family wasn’t interested in the slightest, and I was my only reader. I posted a link to it on my Facebook page, and started to get some responses from people who were interested in blind contour drawing. That sounds crazy, even to me! It was clear I had two distinct audiences. My solution was to create a second blog. One would be for family, one would be for art and photography. The problem since then has been, in addition to it being a little stressful trying to keep up with two blogs, that often the two subjects are the same.  

My mind played with my blog issues, helping me take stock of the situation, and I came to some conclusions.

I’m going to return to making one blog. Art and photography are intertwined throughout my life, in what I choose to do, and how I see the world and people in it. It never worked, and it never will work, to try to separate them. I learned this from writing a blog. I have changed from thinking of myself as a person who sometimes makes art, and sometimes takes photos, and the rest of the time does the important stuff, to realizing that the art I make and the photos I take speak for who I am.  I have always filtered everything through these two mediums in order to answer for myself the big question of what is my place in the world, but I didn’t realize it until I tried to compartmentalize them into a blog that separated them from the rest of my life.

I also learned that even if everyone is writing, and no one is reading, there is a great benefit in blogging. I know mine showed me some important things when I stepped back and squinted my eyes for the bigger picture.

The Difference between Life and Art

One of the good guys

William has it all figured out.

An old-fashioned Western came on TV the other night, and William was cautioned that there would be a lot of shooting, but it was just a movie, and none of it was real.  William assured his parents that he knew that.  In movies, he told them, the good guys always win, and the bad guys always lose.  In life, well, you just don’t know.

Too bad life doesn’t imitate art.

As for me, I’m still going by the hat color.

Minka Bear

Minka Bear 1989 – 2002

Thoughts of dogs are weighing on my mind.

Our little friends are wearing out and leaving us. Josie has been suffering with old age issues for some time, and Sammy the Lab doesn’t do much except sleep. The boys are being prepared for his passing. Janet is keeping Pokey alive through some miracle. Peyton, Poppy and Mannix have all gone to their doggie reward.

Do they know how much they become part of our lives, and how stories of their antics and how much they meant to us are told over and over? Through stories they are with us again for a little while. That is why I write a story about each of my pets when they pass, to keep them with me for a while longer. Sadness goes along with the stories, but also smiles as I reminisce on each of their funny quirks and personalities.

It’s time to publish the stories of the famous three. One of William’s and my back seat conversations was about how hard it is to lose our pets, and how writing about them helps me. William is only five, but I could help him write a story about Sammy.  I want him to know that the art of writing or drawing often helps when life hits too close to home.

This is the story I wrote about Minka, a little Samoyed with the heart of an athlete, smiling and crying as the words spilled out of my memory.

MINKA BEAR

Minka was the first of the famous three – Minka, Nick and Flash.  A small, white puppy from middle Tennessee who had rolled in the red McMinnville mud with the rest of her litter until she looked more Chow than Samoyed. She rode home in the front passenger seat of my car in November of 1989. She would steal glances my way out of the corners of her eyes without turning her head.  She was apprehensive, probably very frightened, but I knew it would be fine.

At our house she discovered steps, which she had never had to negotiate, and a half acre backyard, somewhat more vast than the small pen where she had lived. Undaunted, she tackled the stairs with what became her signature determination and decided stairs were good, but flying would be better. And so she began regular laps around the perimeter of the backyard, bounding like a lamb, stopping on a dime, and seeming to turn around in midair. Effortless. Thrilling, even. Running, she would look around as if she was enjoying the sights along the way. She became known as Minka Baryshnikov.

She was very pretty, with a tiny little body underneath a giant mass of fluffy, white coat, a bottle brush tail that she carried like a flag over her back, black eyes and nose, little eyebrow indentations, soft, pointy ears, and a pink tongue. She was known as Minka Monroe.

She was the boss, a modern woman. She didn’t like to be fussed over. She was alert and on guard at all times, even when in repose. She liked to go to her doghouse during storms, even asking to be let out of the shelter of the house when a storm approached. You would see her nose poked out just far enough to keep from being pelted by raindrops There was an air of expectation that she set the rules and that was the natural order of things. It was hard keeping things in order in the house as well as in the yard.  She went from one to the other every time someone went by the door. She was known as Princess In and Out.

She had a penchant for carrying things around in her mouth. What a sight to see a little dog strolling around the yard with an 18″ x 18″ toss pillow in her mouth! She was death on plastic eyeglass frames, and if you were foolhardy enough to ignore the warnings and leave your glasses in her part of the world, you had better have your prescription handy. She also like to fish gum and breath mints out of purses, and not a few shoes were rendered useless. Mealtime with actual dog food never interested her much. She ate only what she needed and sometimes nosed ten or twenty pieces of dog food out of the way before she found the one she wanted to eat. I never saw a dog drink like she did, putting her whole snout under water and biting mouthfuls of it. She did like to take food from the counter, and could stretch her body and turn her neck to reach farther than you thought physically possible. A tuna casserole and a buttermilk pie succumbed to her contortions before we found the spot far enough back to thwart her remarkable effort.

She was a disappointing walker, at least from a human perspective, turning pigeon-toed, straining at the leash and crushing it against her windpipe until her breathing sounded like a foghorn.  She didn’t care that a female Samoyed was the lead sled dog on the first expedition to the South Pole. Heritage be damned. She preferred the “free” run, and wasn’t keen on teamwork.

Mention should be made of her ability to turn herself into a disappearing act. She could and would slip through an open door or gate even when you thought she was in another room and you had your eyes on the door! Finding her way home, however, was a problem. With all her abilities, tracking wasn’t among them. A memorable sight was Minka flying over the crest of our street away from the highway to the sound of my panicked call, after she had taken advantage of a brief opening in our front door as a painter went out. He had no inkling the dog had gone out the door along with him. Less than one week before the end of her life she walked through a gate past two men laying stone not four feet from the gate.  They never saw her go.

She loved toys and worked hard at throwing them to you exactly right so that you would stay and keep throwing. She never tired of the game, and went on a mission to find a toy to throw every time someone sat down in a chair. How many times did a squeaky hamburger or shoe land in a book or a newspaper you were reading? Plastic hamburgers and shoes were purchased at Kroger’s as staples like milk.  She really only liked them when the squeakers still worked, and as she got better and faster at disarming them, they  had to be replaced more often.  We would find bits of discarded toys all over the backyard where they had been shredded by the mowers

Minky thought Nick should play with her, but Nick had no interest at all.  She threw toys at him and nosed them close to him to coax him into  a game. When that had no effect, she began a campaign of out and out provocation, jumping at him and running in circles around him until he had no choice but to respond.  Minka made the rules and play ruled.

Then Elizabeth Shelley gave her the white teddy bear. It became the singular toy of choice. It went where she did, inside, outside, under a paw when she slept. Sometimes she would come up the steps from the yard without it in her mouth, and you would know to wait while she stopped, then turned around to retrieve the bear before coming inside.

Today is Tuesday, March 19, 2002. We put her to sleep this morning after a series of seizures marked the end of quality of life for her. She will be cremated along with her teddy bear and her ashes buried under the big Oak in the corner of the backyard.  I’ll plant a native Dogwood in the spot.  Nick asked where she was when I came home. Flash, for once, was without an opinion.

They both know she is gone, but I bet they still follow the rules.

Portrait of a Young Man

Clematis Henryi prior to May 'showers'

Clematis Henryi when it still had it's petals

All that is left of the white Henryi Clematis

April showers bring May torrents! The Clematis petals are blanketing the ground below, leaving their filaments on the vine gracefully twisted like fine strands of metal, and the gorgeous Iris that opened last week have keeled over into mushy purple mounds in the grass. Fortunately, I took lots of macro shots of them last week before the heavens opened up, and due to the BetterPhoto Summit, a new 50mm prime lens and a cooperative child, I’ve moved on to sunnier pastures, at least until the rain stops.

Waterlogged Iris

I have often given lip service to the benefit of being able to take unlimited photos with a digital camera, without worrying about the cost of film, or of developing pictures only to throw them away when they turn out to be terrible. In film days I would never have dreamed of taking multiple shots of the same thing. Maybe because of those film days, I am still a bit of  a miser with my shots, trying to make every one count. After the BetterPhoto Summit I resolved to break that habit.

I am now committed and excited about using the continuous drive mode. If you are hand holding your camera to shoot, taking several shots one right after the other of the same scene gives you a greater chance of getting one that is in focus, especially since the first one is the most susceptible to camera shake and movement due to pressing the shutter button. If you are taking people shots, continuous shooting is the way to go. The result of my misguided stubbornness about this may be seen in disappointing pictures of people. Like bird photography, which I have never attempted because I just can’t see them, I thought portraiture was a type of photography that I didn’t have a gene for.

The second component of my new approach to photography is a 50mm fixed lens. Several people at the Summit mentioned that they preferred shooting people with a fixed 50mm or 85mm  as opposed to a zoom lens. I used to have a 50mm lens, but gave it away when I got my zooms thinking they would replace prime lenses. 50mm lenses are inexpensive, sharp, good in low light situations and widely used both as a walking around lens and for portraiture. I decided I would buy another one and use it as a start to experiment with prime lenses.

I was not consciously thinking I would try again to make a decent picture of a person, but there couldn’t have been any other reason for such a sudden, single-minded pursuit of a 50mm prime lens. There is a special portion of the brain, I’m convinced, that takes over periodically and tricks you into thinking you need some new piece of hobby equipment. On Monday, for example, you don’t need, want or even think about a 50mm fixed lens. On Tuesday you comparison shop for one on-line, and order it!

My purchase was relatively minor. Some people left the Summit and returned home to purchase new Really Right Stuff tripods and ball heads (no need to name names, you know who you are!), and 400mm telephoto lenses! Oh, so that’s how you get those bird shots? Well, now, that’s interesting.

So, I have my camera set to continuous shot, the 50mm prime has arrived, and along comes the flu epidemic scare. It all works together. Daycare sent my grandson home with a slight fever and since he couldn’t return the next day, he came to me so his mom could go to work. He got out the Playdough and we both became intensely involved in designing stars and bears and snakes.  Why was I sitting there getting Eau de Playdough all over my hands, when I could be taking some pictures of him with my new lens in continuous drive mode?

Walker was in such a cooperative mood for pictures that I was almost giddy, and I took picture after picture as he worked along on his Playdough project.  It turned out to be the most successful people shooting session I’ve ever had.

I’ll refine my portraiture technique for awhile, and then maybe I should think about recording some of the bird life in our yard.

Playdough 1

Playdough 2

Playdough 3

Playdough 4

Playdough 5

Playdough 6