Elizabeth Adams's Blog, page 80

Everyone must eat.

As the Boston manhunt story unfolds, I sit here filled with dread and sadness at how this will play out politically, socially, militarily. Some of the stuff I've read people saying -- including people who should know better -- makes my hair stand on end.

What a disheartening week, in so many ways. When will we learn to connect the dots?

Anyway, I'm turning off the computer and going home. Here are some phone-camera images from several days ago, when we rode our bikes up to the market, just to enjoy the warmer weather and pretend it was summer. Today they remind me that people all over the world are going to markets and buying food and going home to prepare it, in spite of violence, danger, and war; in spite of their own personal problems, in order to feed themselves and the people they love. They remind me of those who don't have enough to eat, and can't take care of themselves and those they love.

I wish all of you peace this weekend.

 A typical young Montrealer, with her shopping bag on wheels.

 The egg and honey man.

Clementines.

She always wears pearls.

Perhaps an omelette...

 

 

More Ink, Less Pretty

Dish garden with cacti and shells, 4 x 6", fountain pen with watercolor

This was last night's experiment. I had some technical problems - unlike the absorbent envelope the night before, the fountain pen ink (Noodler's) ran incredibly on this better paper when I wet it. Although I liked the original drawing without any color or wash on it, once I'd gotten any of it wet there was no turning back, so I carried on, and went back with the pen afterward to emphasize some of the lines.

I kind of like how weird it is: the lurid blue, the way the curves of the cacti are echoed in the shells, and the overall rather menacing, sinister effect. This is closer to what was happening with the Iceland drawings, where the moss and lichens on volcanic rocks morphed into something else, less identifiable, where the eye is no longer quite sure of the scale of things. Here the technical problems and the chosen materials affected my ability to control the contrasts as much as I would have liked, and I lost some of the energy of the lines when they got wet. But I learned some things too. It could go further still.

In a comment on the previous post, Jean wrote about a recent exhibition of the work of Morandi that she'd seen in London, and how perfectionism and minimalism can also create a deep emotional impact. That was a very valuable comment for me right now; it helps me think. I replied:

As I've thought more about this, I'm realizing it's not so much the
style as the intent of the drawing. I think I've let myself be influenced too
much by the wonderful Urban Sketcher movement - which I love - but their goals are not the same as mine. Sketching as a daily practice is valuable in and
of itself, too. I've seen still lives -- Morandi is one great example -
where definite choices were made and a mood established, and the work
goes beyond a careful representation of objects. Realism and/or
minimalism aren't the stumbling block for me as much as the need to
think through what I want to do with the drawings or paintings; what I
want to say.

I do love what the Urban Sketchers are doing, and their example has encouraged me to reestablish a practice of sketching a lot, and often. I have a special section in my feed reader for drawing and art blogs, and they're often the first thing I check now; I find them inspiring, interesting, and often just plain fun. It's just that what i really want to do with my artwork at this point is somewhat different. That's not intended as a value judgement at all, it's a reminder to myself to keep my eye on my own ball and not get too sidetracked. Selling work online can be the same kind of distraction and temptation for me: I start thinking about making work that I think will sell rather than keeping to a steady path that involves challenge, growth, risk, self-confrontation, and, frankly, pain.

It's not simple. Everything has to work together: the choice of medium, the style and technique, the very deliberate choice and arrangement of the subject, the intention, and most especially the feeling of the artist during the making of the work, allowing chance to enter in, allowing flow. (The same could be said about all the arts.) I'm not up to that level of mastery yet -- it feels almost impossible -- but it's worth striving toward.

Not-So-Still Life

We talked earlier about drawing still-lives, and I'm continuing to explore that topic, both artistically and because I seem to be drawn toward certain objects and arrangements of objects lately; I think it's because of what they represent to me. Anyway, I did a couple of pen drawings, without color, that are shown below:

Here's another:

They're charming, in a way...they could be illustrations...but I just didn't feel they were what I was after. They look to me...like nature morte. Like a bunch of objects.

Last night I sat down at my desk with a cup of espresso and looked again at that Mexican embroidered purse that appears in the drawing above, loving how colorful and lively it is. There was an envelope on the desk and I just started sketching really quickly on the back of it, and then added a little color. I'm so much happier with the result (at the bottom of this post): even though the drawing isn't careful or accurate, the sketch has energy, life, vigor. This is much more the direction I want to go in.

I already know this, but for some reason I seem to keep returning to the careful stuff, like a child who's afraid to let go. Some pen drawings from 2011 (below) were a step, and then the Iceland drawings went further. Maybe I need to make records of things, as a way of holding onto what feels secure. But I don't think I need to do it the old way. The work itself shows the way, but you have to keep making it, keep trying.

I like to see the artist's hand at work, feel her energy, his passion, have an idea of what interested him in the first place. The subject can be anything. The question is what comes across, what's communicated. Is there any emotion? What is it? And in the act of making the art, I want to feel all of that myself. I'm getting too old to be care about being careful, about being a Virgo who does things precisely, or makes them pretty, or needs to please anyone else. There's a definite place for that, and I can do it when I need to -- say, in sewing a dress or making a meal -- but here, I don't think that's what I'm after, or what I'm even about anymore.

What are YOU about? What helps you to find out? It can be scary stuff...but makes for a terrific journey.

 

Update on Anxiety and the News

Thanks to everyone who commented on the previous post. I left another ocmment of my own at the bottom of the thread, saying I planned to send the whole thing, comments and all, to my clinic's director, and describing an innovative solution recently installed by my dentist.

Loren just sent me this link to an article in the Guardian, addressing the same topic (news and anxiety) in depth; you might be interested as I was. I made a less-dramatic but similar decision about ten years ago, to limit my own exposure to the news, and mainly to read (not watch) quite selectively, for a short time each day.

Meanwhile, Mary, another frequent commenter, said that "nature does it for her," and offered this link to the Cornell Ornithology Lab's live webcam of great blue herons incubating their eggs, which is absolutely wonderful.

A Plea Against Anxiety

Yesterday morning I sat in the waiting room of the clinic where I have my annual medical exams. Something had changed since my last visit: a huge black television monitor occupied one wall, with the channel tuned to CNN.

It was impossible to ignore; the small waiting room had been turned into a screening room, where even patients who didn't want to watch were forced to listen. In the space of just a few minutes, I heard commentators speculate that this might be the day that North Korea decided to launch a missle. I heard reports of a new, deadly strain of bird flu in China, and an outbreak of meningitis among gay men in Los Angeles.  There was discouraging discussion about the gun control bill, and a story that parents in Japan are starting to refuse to allow their children to come to the U.S. for university study, because of a perception that the country is becoming too dangerous.

My doctor came to the door and called my name; I was glad to escape. But during the morning I had to come back to the waiting room several times, between visits to the nurse for blood work, an EKG, and various other appointments. Each time, I watched the behavior of the other people in the room, all of whom would turn to face the TV, shaking their heads at each grim, frightening story. Last year, most of them were absorbed in their cell phones. I looked for a magazine or newspaper; unlike former visits, this time there was only one, an old issue of Vanity Fair; instead I pulled a book out of my pack, but it was very difficult to concentrate on the words.

Finally I turned to one of the other women and said, "I'm American, and really, this is part of what I came to Canada to escape."

As it turned out, she was originally American too, from North Carolina, but we had a pretty different take on things. She was conservative, I more liberal. While I objected to being force-fed anxiety by inflammatory stories in the media, she insisted it was "important to be informed." "I'm really worried when I go to the U.S. now," she said. "If I go to a shopping center across the border I really look around me at the people; it seems like anything could happen. Everyone has guns." Well, yes, I agreed, many people do, and I think that's a big problem. But you have to look at the statistics as well; your chance of being killed in a Wal-Mart in Burlington, Vermont, is not extremely high.

We both finished our appointments and went home, where in the afternoon we learned what had happened in Boston, and the cycle of horror, speculation, analysis, and fear began spinning all over again.

I don't want to add yet another voice to that sad and mostly-well-meant cacophony. I've spent many days of my life in Boston, and my heart goes out to the people of that city. If there is something concrete I can do to help, I will do it.

What I've been thinking about is the television in the waiting room, a Canadian waiting room, that once was a quiet place where people read, or talked to a companion, or even simply sat and looked out the window. Its presence seems to me an ominous symbol of something that has gone very wrong in most western societies: our inability to be with ourselves, to cope with the essential human condition of solitude, especially in situations that cause our anxiety to rise. It concerns me that, in our secular, post-liberal-arts, technological, perpetually-connected society, so little effort goes into teaching children how to be alone, showing them the richness and solace of time spent with nature, with the arts and handcrafts, with books and music, with oneself walking in a city or sitting on a bench: eyes open, ears open, mind and heart awake to the dance of life flowing around us.

When I return to the United States, as I did just last week, I'm always struck by the palpable level of general anxiety, so much greater than it is here in Quebec. But is that anxiety, and the corresponding reactiveness -- even in the wake of tragedies such as have been experienced in the past decade -- justified? In today's New York Times, University of Maryland criminologist Gary LaFree states, “I think people are actually surprised when they learn that there’s been
a steady decline in terrorist attacks in the U.S. since 1970.” Speaking of both domestic and foreign plots, he noted that there were approximately 40 percent fewer attacks in America during the ten years after 9/11 than there had been in the previous decade. (LaFree is director of the
highly-regarded National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to
Terrorism, which studies terrorism and keep a Global Terrorism Database. He adds a note that nearly half the worldwide attacks, and 1/3 of those in the U.S., have never been solved.)

However, I think the media bears a large responsibility for fanning the flames of American anxiety.  Supposed neutral channels like CNN feed viewers an endless diet of anxiety-producing stories, while the left and right square off in loud, combative talk shows and news hours, each side trying to out-shout the other. Television is a very powerful medium. Is it any wonder that so many people feel under attack, vulnerable, and constantly anxious, worrying about what is going to happen to them or to their loved ones? It it any wonder that they feel like the entire world is taking sides, at war, that it's us-against-them, myself against the potential unknown assalilant, intruder, terrorist, crazy person lurking in every community? Furthermore, we know that violence begets violence, that copycat crimes proliferate, and that what a lot of perpetrators want the most is publicity.

If the U.S. wants to worry about drugs and terrorism slipping across its porous northern border, then I am concerned about the insidious infiltration of this kind of secular preaching, these incessant sermons of anxiety and fear originating from the south. And much more than that, I wonder if those of us who have chosen to live our lives differently can perhaps be more vocal and intentional about why, and how. The world has always been dangerous for a vast majority of its citizens, but we in the west have been able to ignore that too long. Living positively, with awareness and joy in each day -- in spite of the possibility of death, which can and does happen anywhere, anytime -- is actually possible, as our brothers and sisters in war-torn, poverty-ravaged societies can teach us. And to look closer to home on this sad day: who knows better the fullness of solitude, or the potential triumph of the human spirit, than the long-distance runner?

A visit from Pica

Pica posing with the last falafel - after we shared a vegetarian platter of Lebanese dishes at Basha. She's wearing her "Celestarium" shawl that she knit herself: it's a large circle that includes a picture of the night sky laid out in tiny pearl beads against the dark blue -- brilliant, and gorgeous.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a wonderful visit from Pica, co-author of Feathers of Hope, which also turned ten that very week. Pica and I got to know each other early in our blogging careers, and then became close through The Ecotone Wiki, a collaboration of writers exploring the theme of "place." Many of us have stayed friends, and continued to blog, for all these years.

Pica is a woman of many talents; in addition to being an excellent writer and editor, she is an avid bird-watcher and sketcher (she maintains a second blog, Bird by Bird, for her avian sketches) and a master knitter who has recently learned to spin her own yarn. Like me, she's still a bit of a hippie at heart, a do-it-yourselfer who's intrigued rather than daunted at the idea of, say, making a solar cooker and cooking the vegetables she's grown in her garden that way; she likes making things with her own hands. Right now she's in-between jobs, and to celebrate that transition she fulfilled a longtime desire, and took a trip by train from California across the country and back, to visit her mother in Maine, with various sidetrips to see friends along the way, recording her travels in a sketchbook.

One of Pica's sketches from the trip, of birdwatchers in Massachussetts.

--

Somehow - I can't remember exactly - we got onto the subject of personal appearance and getting older, and she told me that her sister in Maine had encouraged her to go to Sephora in Portland to get "a little help and advice". Sephora -- an upscale, hip cosmetics retailer -- has recently opened a shop in the center of downtown Montreal. I'd been inside and admired the packaging of the whole experience, but hadn't bought anything; however, to my complete astonishment, my husband had bought me several Christmas presents there, and raved about what fun he'd had beign helped by a personal shopper who asked him all sorts of questions about me and then recommended products for him to give me - all of which I loved.

"Let's go together!" Pica said. "Look, I was a Sephora virgin
until last week -- you'll see, it will be fun." So off we went, two aging hippies who are into looking "natural."

Well, they were both right: it was quite the experience. We walked into the black, shiny, mirrored store -- dance music was pounding on the speakers -- and some young beauty with a headset offered me a little shopping basket, but I said I wanted some help, so she said, "Sure! Please go over to the beauty bar and I'll call someone to be with you right away." The beauty bar is a mirrored, two-sided, free-standing, well, bar, with tall stools, and is loaded with brushes and tissues and applicators and all the tools of the trade. My personal consultant showed up, and asked what I would like. Taking a cue from Pica's prompts, I said I didn't wear make-up except for a bit of mascara and lipgloss, but was curious about a very light makeup that would "even out" my skin a bit, and about something to help under my eyes.

She took charge. First, using a brush, she painted my face with something called a primer which "protects your pores," so she said. Then she used two different types of a new type of foundation called BB creme, "very light, no oil in these at all" on the two sides of my face, to compare. Then "concealer" under my eyes, presumably to conceal the fact that I've been alive for 60 years and sleeping about six hours a night for weeks. Then powder, so the "concealer" wouldn't be revealed as shiny. Then some blush, since she had obliterated all the color in my face in order to "even things out."

Pica asked lots of interesting questions of our totally bilingual cosmetology pro, whose name was Amina. I mostly held still, amazed to be where I was, putting on my reading glasses every now and then to peek in the mirror.

Funny thing, I actually looked pretty good when she was done, and not "unnatural." And fortunately I made it out of there without spending too much money. When we got home and told J. what we'd done, he was completely disappointed not to have been along - with his camera!

--

Pica back in our studio, adding color to a pen sketch while I sketch her. This isn't a great likeness, but I like that it includes her starry scarf, travel bag, and her trusty folding Schminke watercolor set!

The really fun thing, though, was having such a lovely visit with a longtime blogger friend. We sketched together, and talked, and ate, and drank wine, petted the cat, and talked some more, and she even came along to two of the Holy Week services where I was singing, which was a pleasure for us both. Some people seem to feel that online friendships aren't real, or can't be as deep as face-to-face relationships, but that just isn't my experience at all. Reading one another's blogs and communicating by email for a whole decade makes me feel that I know friends like Pica better than many people I see much more often. And on the rare occasions when we meet up in person, it's just a confirmation that, yes, these are very real friendships based on trust, honesty, intimacy, shared interests, love, and commitment over the long haul.

A Tiny Chapel in a Square

This weekend I worked on this sketch of this strange little chapel, just a single room really, that we stumbled upon in a small square in Mexico City. I was fascinated by its age, which was extreme, and the lovely pink color; it had a kind of doll-house effect. Unfotunately it was locked and we couldn't go in. The surrounding neighborhood was relatively poor, but there were beautiful old Spanish buildings dating from the 1500s on every street.

I'm trying to develop a style for drawings like this: loose and energetic but fairly accurate. It's not easy. The perspective distortion on the edges here is mostly in the photograph, though, and even when I used Photoshop's perspective correction tool I wasn't satisfied so I removed it. But I like this better than if I drew the entire thing like an architectural rendering, with vanishing points. No matter what, it takes a long time; I'm trying to get faster. This is obviously from photographs; I never felt like Ihad sufficient time in Mexico to sit and draw - we were too interested in wandering and seeing what was around the next corner!

Here's the drawing without the color; I might like it better. What do you think?

Drawing my desk

The still-lives formed by objects I use everyday have always found their way into my drawings. Maybe it's just because they're there, and it's easier to pick up a pen and pencil and draw them than to make an artificial grouping, but I suspect it's both a desire to record these scenes, which feel personal and intimate, and a sense that they represent certain things about me: that they are alternate self-portraits, in a way. I did the sketch above last night, but thinking about it sent me searching back through old sketchbooks to find some others. I know there are more in sketchbooks back at the house, too, but here are a few examples I unearthed here at the studio:

This one is from early March, 1988 - part of my desk and window in Vermont - the imperfectly drawn jug here is the same one at the top left in first image in this post. It's funny how a black-and-white pencil sketch like this returns me to feeling of that place immediately, even more than a photograph does.

Same Vermont window: a set of Shaker boxes, same pinecones as I have now, and a very different cat. Her name was Madonna, and she lived with us for fifteen years. I was so sad when she died.

From a couple of years ago, a warm-up sketch when I was just starting to draw again: a small Moleskine notebook, an eraser, a small wooden box from Germany given to me by a friend back in the 1960s. I keep change in it.

Maybe 18 months ago? Close-up of same desk and objects as in the top drawing. I'm fond of that carved sandelwood box and Chinese porcelain bowl; the fan was a gift from my friend in China, and that's a little bronze horse beside it, also Chinese. The embroidered purse below it, in the desk, is Palestinian work, a gift from J.'s aunt during one of her visits here from Beirut. To its left is a small porcelain cup with a rose decal, very old, which belonged to my dear great-aunt Inez.

And this is a weird little charcoal drawing from last year, of the box, the fan, the porcelain bowl, and the incense burner in a brass dish that also holds some pine cones, sycamore leaves, and two poppy pods. Behind them, and also in the top picture, is an inlaid Persian frame and miniature painting that belonged to my father-in-law.

Looking again at the top image, the most-recent drawing, I notice that I included both a painted mug that's always held brushes - it's a coronation mug showing King George and Queen Mary that my mother bought on a trip to Canada when she was a girl -- and, on the desk surface, the embroidered purse I brought back from Mexico, from the stall photographed in the previous post.

Make of it all what you will!

Happy Easter

It's Easter Monday and spring has finally started in Montreal. Most of the snow is gone, the sky is brighter, and the first shoots are poking up through the soggy earth. Yesterday, as I arrived very early at church to begin a long day of singing, I was greeted by a patch of purple crocuses in the lawn: not open yet, but unmistakable. Even color might make its way to this grey northern city before long!

During Holy Week I struggled with resistance to the focus on tragedy and suffering. Some years the difficult part of the story is actually fruitful for me, but this year that wasn't the case. It took all the way through Saturday before I figured it out -- and for that I had to go back to Mexico.

On Good Friday, I sat in the baptistry, trying to meditate between our musical responsibilities, and -- bizarrely, I thought -- all that came to me was the image of people dancing in a park in Mexico City. We had gone to visit the handicraft market at La Ciudadela, where I took the picture at the top of this post. I walked around the entire vast market, looking at pierced tin stars and embroidered blouses, blown glassware and painted tiles, whimsical painted wooden animals from Oaxaca, colorful sombreros and woven rugs. Finally I returned to this young woman's stand, drawn back by the colors and careful Indian handwork and unique embroidery styles of the bags she was selling. After we talked with her and bought a few pouches to take home as gifts, we walked out into the nearby park, where salsa music was playing.

The park was full of people, from babies in arms to the very elderly. A lot of them were dancing. And not just fooling around: these were people who knew how to dance, and looked like they'd been doing it their entire lives. It was a neighborhood event. The atmosphere was completely relaxed; everyone was out, enjoying themselves. Was it a special day, we wondered? No, we found out - this happens every Saturday in this barrio. Other neighborhoods do it on different days or evenings, so if you are really into salsa, you can go around and dance just about every day!

The feeling was so happy, it was infectious. J. wandered around with his camera, and I stood on the edge, smiling, moving in time to the music, watching the joy of the people dancing so beautifully under the violet jacarandas.

There was a shrine of flowers and an image of the Virgin that had been put up in a tree (see the arrow at upper left). This, we found, is pretty typical. Religion is everywhere; it's as much a part of ordinary life as air or food. Homemade shrines with figures of saints, candles, flowers and sometimes incense are just as likely to be found on a streetcorner or near the entrance to a shop as in a church or park; as people pass by, they notice, and some cross themselves. The Virgin of Guadaloupe, in particular, seems to hover over the daily life of the city, protecting and watching the dance of life.

I had been standing there for fifteen minutes or so when this elderly gentleman appeared in front of me, holding out his hand. It took me a moment to realize he was asking me to dance - the last thing I had expected to happen, though maybe it had been obvious that I really wanted to try! I smiled and lifted my shoulders and eyebrows, miming to him that I was pleased but didn't know how. He shrugged, an elegant and eloquent Latin shrug, and swept one hand toward the dance floor: Don't worry, I'll show you. I smiled and took his hand. We danced: I clumsily, he delightfully; his friends on the sidelines clapped and smiled encouragment as I looked over, laughing and happy. When the dance finished he bowed to me and I thanked him, and then his friend took my hand for another dance, their warmth and generosity something I won't forget.

My former rector and friend, the Rev. Canon Henry Atkins, had a number of colorful souvenirs from his years in Latin America on the desk and walls of his office. He had worked as a priest in El Salvador during some of the most difficult years; he had known Archbishops Oscar Romero and Arturo Rivera. I asked him about these tokens once, thinking he must have some tragic memories. He smiled. "You know," he said, "I went to Latin America thinking the people there would teach me about suffering. In fact, they taught me about joy."

--

When we returned home and got on the airport bus to ride back to Montreal, I looked around at the snow and ice, and the grim silent faces of the other passengers, dressed in their black and grey coats. Across from me was a Mexican woman, about my age; I overheard her son-in-law explaining to someone that he was picking her up for an extended stay here, where he and her daughter and their children lived. The woman had on a warm coat in a beautiful shade of aqua, and she too was looking around, bewildered. I thought about the Mexican equivalent: a crowded and noisy bus or metro car, filled to overflowing with color and music and people selling things, a natural extension of the vibrant, chaotic, and entirely real life on the streets. By comparison, she -- and I -- had just landed in a frozen, monochromatic, silent world. It felt so ridiculous I almost burst out laughing. What are we doing to ourselves?

So, yes, in the affluent north, we do need to be reminded of the suffering and poverty and violence of much of the world. Actually, though, we're pretty good at feeling guilty and miserable. We have a lot more to learn about how to be truly happy, about how to live fully, how to appreciate the simple beauty that life presents every single day, how to embrace each moment and each other -- especially each other. This week, as I sang, I knew in every vibrating part of my body the joy that comes not just from the arts but from giving your best effort, and from doing something with other people for a greater goal. That makes me so happy - in spite of the fatigue, the concentration, the late nights - that I experienced joy as the dominant emotion, joy in the midst of a story of immense suffering.

And that's the thing. The ultimate Gospel message isn't one of death, but resurrection. Whether you interpret that literally or symbolically, the point is not to stay at the foot of that cross, or the crosses that we all bear, but to live and to love, learning to see that new life can happen, in spite of great difficulties, every moment of every day.

Saturday

The Black Christ at the Metropolitan Cathedral, Mexico City

 

Holy Saturday
hangs suspended: poignancy
played by an oboe.