Take a Seat. Connect with Ginkgos.

Childhood memories + Ginkgo trees + MS Society + Berte Family = Outdoor Classroom in the Key of Bronze.



So I have this baby brother (big fat baby). Maybe he's not so good at spelling and I used that against him for awhile...but perhaps he is a brilliant sculptor who finds meaning and connection in un-before-seen ways.
(the mock-ups):



We used to climb Ginkgo trees as small children (soft bark, low branches, plenty of leaf coverage) and yell at faculty and students who would come out of buildings at BSC where Higher Learning was taking place.



We thought we were funny. Most likely, we were annoying.

But it's part of our fabric of childhood memory.



Fast forward some decades and baby brother submitted a proposal for an outdoor classroom of bronze seats in the shape of ginkgo leaves to be positioned within the Grove of Ginkgos at BSC.

And he did it.



Ginkgos are their own beast. You can read it here, and get into the dinosaurs and atomic bombs. They can survive, connect, re-connect, and survive.



Just like those of us with MS. You can survive, connect, re-connect, and survive.

The message of the Outdoor Classroom Bronze Seat Ginkgo Leaf Installation is that through connection we can DO this. We can strive for an MS-free world, we can believe in the Ginkgo, we can form connections through conversation while sitting on bronze leaves under ginkgo trees.

See more awesome-er pictures here.

Or go climb a tree. Feel the bark. Sense the connection.
Survive, re-connect and then survive again.

Peace and love and ginkgo to you all...

One's Reject Glass is Another's Favorite Project

Corinne is loving organizing Bobbie's reject glass art...

Jackson Pollock Experiment

Over Spring Break, we invited a few friends over and made a mess.

An organized chaos type of mess over several canvases.

I had visions of discussing Jackson Pollock and Art forming in the Experience and Motion of the Process. But our artists were ages 3-8 and much more interested in squealing when the paint got on their feet or went haywire off the canvases.

That's art too, I guess.

After everyone went home with a piece, I hung these four in the kitchen:

I hope they remind me to respect the process despite the end results.

"The Wonderful Butterfly and Emily" by Svea

Svea's recent work of literary genius begins with a song:

I love Alabama

The people so how kind,

the world so how beautiful.

The stars so how bright.

Earth, so wonderful

The moon so light

God is in heaven watching us all night.

Don't give up, the world is counting on you.

Now for the story:

One day, there was a girl named Emily. She was 26. She was a scientist. One day she was outside and she saw a butterfly.

Then she got a jar out of her backpack. She caught the butterfly.

She went inside.

She fed her the rest of her life.

The End!

SHOE

Playing around with ink in Drawing class and out came this pointe shoe.

Lookiethere.

Experiments in Charcoal

We were given an assignment in Drawing Class a few weeks ago to come up with a narrative about a chair. Then we were to illustrate it using charcoal (vine, compressed, or charcoal pencil). We were allowed to smudge and blend, but not correct mistakes with white charcoal pencils (found this one out after the fact).
The chair's story had to include creating an interior space, also.

I took one of the kids' chairs - Corinne's favorite wooden one - and put it in a tree outside and drew it from the inside.

Chairs should offer a place to rest, right? Or a helpful, safe boost in inches when trying to reach something, right? Corinne decided they were for dancing and balancing. I decided to have a heart attack.
She also decided she could use the chair to climb onto the dining room table and dance there for another view of the room. Again, heart attack.

I walk into a room and immediately start sizing up the chairs and what the chairs are close to that might become her end goal. I've gotten quite skilled at this, actually.

As any anxious parent does, I've already begun predicting what my NEXT source of heart attacks will be: Trees.
Heaven help us when that sweet girl discovers trees...




Here's my attempt at charcoal (above). This was the first time I have ever tried to control it, and it was much harder than I imagined. All other times, I've used it in drafts where mess-ups and smudges were okay. Charcoal pencils, which offer more control, give me the willies because of the noise they make on the paper.


One girl I sometimes sit near has MAD SKILLS and control with charcoal.
In her drawing, her chair was positioned against a brick wall next to a small table. On the table were books and a journal - things that represented rest, contemplation, and time for herself.
She said she had not had much time to be alone, rest and read and she was longing for that in this drawing.

I want all that for her too, and maybe throw in a good, long hand massage...

Henry, as in HRE not HGJ.

Henry is named after my dad's dad, Henry. Most called him HG. My siblings and cousins and I called him Papa J.

He was precise and particular, and for awhile was an architect. I didn't know him well in that phase, but I like to imagine that for a good portion of Papa J's life, he spent most of his energy organizing the space around him.

I suffer from the same condition, as does my son Henry.

Therefore, as his first etch-s-sketch project, he designed a living room:

Long live the attention-to-detail-furniture-rearranging gene.

My SuperTool

Here's my SuperTool.

The assignment was to create a SuperTool from a minimum of 3 tools.

I wanted to use Words as a tool so I taped a piece of cardboard around a paint roller and cut out foam letters to make stamps

Then I inked the stamps and rolled the words on a piece of newsprint for practice. Then I drew that.

I replaced the handle of the paint roller with a pair of pliers that had screwdriver bits at the end and a joint that doubled as a socket wrench. I made the handles into a pencil and an end with an eraser. The wood grain before the eraser end is original to the paint roller handle.

I chose four phrases to repeat and then I read in a book that we make Art out of the things we most need to understand. I guess these phrases are really resonating with me right now.

Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? -Rumi

Perhaps you were made...for such a time as this. -Esther 4:14

From here what you see you become. -Patanjali

If you can cease all restless activity, your integral nature will appear. -Lao Tzu

I'm not sure how many 18 year olds rolled their eyes at me that morning of the Critique.

Seven tools melded into one with a spiritual discipline bent is not what they like to think about at 8am. I'm not sure they were thinking at all.

I hesitate to write about the critique because I would never want to hurt any of my classmates' feelings. I will say that I was shocked and appalled into fits of giggles at who felt compelled to comment on whatever work was being presented. Joe structures these critiques by letting the artist offer an explanation, then he requires 3-4 comments more in depth than, "I like it," and then he chimes in.

One guy, Chazz who wears huge padded earphones all the time, felt the need to walk up to EVERY drawing and stand 4 inches from it (that is, so no one else could see it) and then offer a phrase like, "I get a sense of UNEASE from this composition." Or he would say, "I see a heavy reliance on line and not value."

Chazz was the last one to put up his drawing and HE DID NOT EVEN FINISH IT. I was speechless.

One woman (an adult student) forgot the rules of the critique and totally bashed one girl's (a young 18yo) drawing. Joe let her bash, and then let the artist retort, then let us all hold silence. Then he gently, kindly and knowledgeably argued both sides.

It was a beautiful act of true teaching.

I hope a few fellow classmates woke up to witness his diplomacy and stopped thinking about their hangover, their newest tattoo, or the fact that they remembered the cigarette but not the lighter.

Oh - that reminds me - one dude's tool was a combination of a lighter, a bottle opener and a corkscrew. The ultimate weekend companion.

Rock on, dude.

Days 5-8

Day 5: Henry's New "Office":

Day 6: Curried Carrots in Amber's dish:

Day 7: Henry's End-of-Season Basketball Party at Sno-Biz:

Day 8: I Made the Wall in the Art Building! (mine's the paint roller on the left)

The Nude In The Vase

My mom just finished the book the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. She worked through the 12-week study with a group that met weekly, which can be a powerful experience, depending on the group and the facilitator. It is a LOT of work. That works.

So Mom decided to start a new oil painting the other day. She and her friend Mimi were having some Creative Time and Mom painted a vase with some flowers in it. Her words were, “That’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”

So she took her palette knife and scraped off everything she had done, wiping the knife on another blank canvas for a future painting project.

Then she took a deep breath, found her Artist’s Way Zen, disconnected her Mind from her Brush, and painted. She just painted.

She took off her glasses.

She took off her expectations, her criticisms, negativities, others’ needs, her own needs, the clock, the calendar, her friend's presence in the room, her iPhone, her iMac, her i-Whatever – she took it all off and just PAINTED.

In the end, a beautiful female nude appeared.

If you are not interested in art and giggle when you see a unclothed bum, then you are missing the point. And that’s okay. Just skip this blog post.

But if you can, if you will allow yourself to feel this, it is amazing and it is beautiful.

The painting is still in process, as many are, but it is a testament to the magical mystery in letting art and creativity and life flow through your Mind and Hand and Brush…or whatever medium you use to engage with life.

Maybe you write, or talk, or sing, or care for others, or enjoy looking at different fonts, or draw comics, or sharpie marker over images in magazines – whatever – it is beautiful.

Let it flow.

I’m so glad my mom did.

Parenting: A Work in Gestures

Last semester in Drawing I, Joe taught us about Gesture Drawing.

I dug up my old drafts the other day because I couldn’t get some of the lessons out of my head.

The thing about Gesture Drawing is that it is quick, it is practice, and very often it is ugly.

It’s a practice in letting yourself practice. And getting over the ugly results.

That’s hard to do as a beginning art student: let yourself draw something quick and ugly on purpose. Is that what I’m paying for?

I quickly learned that the lessons are paramount.

As I revisit the lessons, I am struck with how parallel they are for parenting.

Let me explain.

Joe said:

Start the drawing from the inside of the form, not on the contour edge. Draw from the middle to the outside edge.

As I spend my days with children, it is so much easier to try and understand them from the inside to the outside. If you agree that the basic needs are inside, then I can ask: Have you eaten? Have you slept? Have you pooped? Yes? Then we shall get dressed and begin this day.

Is your heart happy? Are you frustrated inside because you can’t tell me what you want? Then let me hold you and reassure your heart, and then we will walk around the room until we find what you need.

Joe also said:

Don’t draw the contour of the form; instead, draw across the planes of the form to establish relationships.

The “contour” is the outer edge of anything. By drawing across the planes, you connect shape and form and sometimes value (that is, light and dark shading) from the inside to the outside.

What is parenting if it is not a daily blessing and struggle to establish relationships?

I draw across the planes, and some days it is quick and ugly. It is a gesture. Because I am practicing.

Joe:

Look at the subject as much as possible and at the paper as little as possible.

This one got me in the gut. If the “subject” is a child and the “paper” is “how I think I’m doing at this parenting gig,” then I truly need to be aware of my focus.

Sometimes I do parent as if others were watching. However, parenting is hard enough without an audience.

But if I focus on my subject(s) and not on my own self-consciousness or productivity or how we look at the end of the day, then I'll be a better parent.

Joe again:

Don’t pick up your pencil.

Translation: Never give up. Even on the hardest days. Even on the easy days that still feel hard. Don’t pick up that pencil.

And finally, Joe said:

Don’t think too much.

Indeed!

Why am I thinking so much when I could read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? AGAIN? Why think when I could sing to High School Musical? Why think when I could shoot some hoops in the driveway? Or do Math Facts flash cards or cut up a hot dog to add to the scrambled eggs because it is Special Order Dinner night and that is always top pick?

When I think too much, I get bored while I parent and I question the value of my college degree.

When I think too much, I get in chronos time and disregard kairos time.

When I think too much, I miss when Corinne learns a new word, fake sneezes for fun and then drips slobber down my neck because she wants to hug while those molars are coming in.

When I think too much, I miss that Svea faked a stomach ache at school and that Henry wants me to play Truth or Dare and only pick Dare.

So for a little while for a tiny bit each day, I’m going to practice not thinking too much.

Ahhhh, a life in gestures….a life that is full of practice and ugly results for the sake of practice…ahhh, a life that allows such things…

I want to learn to like these gestures. Thank you, Joe, for the reminders.