something about nothing

Time was, I blogged every night whether I had anything interesting to say or not.  Then life got in the way and I not only had nothing interesting to talk about, half the time I didn't even have anything boring to say.

I'm trying to get over it and post more frequently, no matter what.  So YOU are going to have to suffer through the blabla inutile of the less fascinating posts, or use your delete button.

I love buildings that reflect other buildings. The picture above was taken in the historic district of San Jose.   I should say the alleged historic district because visual history seemed scarce except for a couple of signs and this building, which is looking for an occupant. Reminds me of something I might have seen in Boulder, CO when I lived there in 1970.

After the meetings were over, I had two treats in store for me -- and they overlapped.  My friend Mary from high school now lives in San Francisco and is a doctor who specializes in AIDS.  We have not seen each other in 53 years and it was remarkable that the years fell away and we had a wonderful reunion.

In this picture, an exuberant Mary has her arms draped around Frances and me. The lovely Frances is lucky enough to be married to the charming and talented man on my left.  He is my dear friend Ted who had just stepped off a plane and stopped to see me on his way home.  What a delicious visit all the way around -- although never enough time to  talk about STUFF when your friends live 3000 miles away.

I have been working at home all day and actually got something done! Tomorrow, studio to clean up for my workshop next week and get materials ready for the class. And maybe if I am really efficient, I can do something with the pieces in my bag that need to get finished.

We have open studios coming up on November 7 and I need to get busy!

Saturday's treat

I had a whole day free yesterday before taking a late night flight back to Newark and I was able to make the most of it, thanks to the charming and talented Ted Orland, who drove up from Santa Cruz and took care of me for the day. We drove down the coast, stopped for lunch in Half Moon Bay - a charming little town along the way, and stopped en route to see the kite surfers. Kite surfers? Never heard of such a thing, but hey - it's California. Here are a few of the kites, which the surfers inflate and then attach to their surfboards. The sky was full of these kites, which seemed to lift the surfboards into the air along with them - but it was sunny and my new little travel camera doesn't have a viewfinder, so I couldn't really see to shoot what I wanted. Picture a sky full of balloons. It was VERY windy and I personally think those surfers are nuts - but then, I am highly risk averse. Here is Ted, who is, after all, a photographer, braving the wind to get a picture with his good camera. We arrived in beautiful Santa Cruz, getting to his house just as his wife, Frances, pulled into the driveway. After a while,the three of us took off on foot, along with Sophie, their dog, and walked over to the harbor. The water taxi was just about to leave, but Frances ran ahead to see if there was room and yes, it waited for us. Here is a view looking toward the Pacific. This is a rather dreadful picture of me, but a good one of Flopsy and Mopsy.And an even better one of Ted, Frances, and the dog who is much happier with her mother around! Ted's book The View from the Studio Door has just had its second printing -- another hit! He made a few revisions based on feedback from readers, and I'm looking forward to re-reading it. I did notice that he listed Melanie Testa and me in his acknowledgements for all the conversation on our blogs -- gee, thanks, Ted. And I forgot to ask you to autograph my copy.

'Twas a delicious day, followed by a delicious dinner out before Ted and Frances took me back up to SFO to catch the midnight flight.

I got home early this morning, fell into bed, and slept some more in an attempt to get back on Eastern time. Back to real life: the supermarket, laundry - and tomorrow, the dentist. Marty, who was in San Diego while I was in the Bay Area, just landed in Newark and will be home shortly. Hooray. It has been a revolving door.

The (Over)View

(This is from Ted O -- and THANK YOU, Rayna, for inviting me to post some thoughts on your blog!) Well, OK, now that Rayna has seduced me into joining her discussion group about “The View”, I’ should first lay out a few Ground Rules, Universal Truths & Other Disclaimers. To wit: 1. The View From The Studio Door is, I fully recognize, The View From MY Studio Door. Your view WILL be different! 2. Throughout the first twenty-odd drafts of “The View”, its actual working title (and this is true) was “Questions Worth Asking” -- so-named in recognition of the fact that (A) I didn’t HAVE the answers, and (B) questions are the more interesting half of the Q&A equation anyway. 3. I’m not inclined to fight to the death over ANY statement I’ve made in the book. My operative principle is that the Best Way to deal with Any Problem at all is to Duck It Entirely! (It’s a male concept…) Besides, at least by my accounting ideas are the coin of the realm, and if you have a good counter- argument to one I’ve put forth, I want to hear it. 4. I have to admit at the outset to having a disability: I am temporally challenged. After visiting Rayna’s wonderful site for about two days it’s become painfully clear that (A) Rayna has the metabolism of a hummingbird, and (B) the gods have alloted her (and apparently most of you) more hours per day than they’ve given me. So if there are long gaps from my side of the conversation, it’s just me laying here beside my computer gasping for air. SO: next on my To Do List is responding (seriously) to Rayna’s observations about leading an interesting life. I’ll append that to the comments section for that entry. Soon. Maybe.

from Ted O

This is a test to see whether I can indeed post a note to Rayna's blog. If it works, then presumably I have successfully entered the 21st century.... From Rayna: Ah, despite yourself, you have left the world of Luddites. ok, Ted O - I'll bite! One of the things you say in your book is that if you lead an interesting life you're on track to make interesting art. Huh? In my family, growing up, 'interesting' was dubious at best. And I think 'may you lead an interesting life' is an old Chinese curse. Setting aside those two things, how do you define 'interesting'? Rather subjective, isn't it? There are people who lead very routine, ordinary, even dull lives but make stimulating, thoughtful,with layers of meaning (ok - interesting) art. And vice-versa. How do you account for that? And how do you propose we put ourselves on a collision path with interesting experiences? Maybe it is more that we need to be able to perceive the 'ordinary' as interesting...

about seeing

I'll get to THE BOOK - but first, I have to apologize for being away from the page for a while. I needed to re-energize. Alas, I will be banished from the Ted Orland Fan Club if I do not keep the Studio Door open. I found myself nodding (no, not OFF - the book is too lively for that) and writing in the margins of The View...etc, wishing I could pick up the phone and chat with the author as I went along - or better still -- do it over a bottle of wine, which, of course, lends itself to brilliant philosophical discussions. Whether you've finished the book, have just started it, or have not even seen a copy, chime in! There are some universal truths, some stuff that seems geared for students and doesn't necessarily pertain to - ahem - mature, working artists -- and lots of questions to ponder. I found one typo and I wasn't even looking. Mr.O!!!! Fire your editor!!! But I digress... A couple of things off the bat that I'd like to explore: "Creativity is not about artmaking per se-- it is about seeing." Yes, it is about seeing, but it is also about how you translate what you 'see' into what others can see: how you communicate your own vision. If you don't have the tools to do that, it doesn't matter how creatively you SEE. (Why do I always paint myself into corners when I am too tired to work my way out? I am leaving you with that thought and am going to bed.) If you are reading the book, please comment. And if you are not, please comment.

back to the studio door

Liz Berg e-mailed me the other day to say she had finished reading Ted Orland's "The View from the Studio Door" and wondered what had happened to the discussion we had started here about 6 weeks ago. Well, first we had to give people time to get the book and read it. Second, I finally had time to finish it today when I had the LUXURY of sitting in the beauty salon without any distractions. Aaaaah - time for ME! So I fed my soul by finishing the book and making notes. I haven't underlined so much since I was in college - and you don't want to know how long ago THAT was. Liz said she found the book very interesting and thought-provoking (me too), but she says she is still trying to figure out what art-that-matters is. Ted - I like what you say -- "The art will matter when you say something essential about things that you truly care about." On the other hand, how do you know when you are saying something 'essential'? And in fact, just because you truly care about it, why should it matter to anybody else? (Understand that I am playing devil's advocate here). Does this mean that art is art only if it has content? And does the content (overt or not) have to be political or ecological? MUST it make a statement? I can only talk about this subject in terms of my own work, which is about memory and a sense of loss. Personal memory as well as collective memory - which are inseparable in my work and in my frame of reference. While memory and a sense of loss are my themes - and while not always visible, they are always beneath the surface in my owrk - I believe there is something universal there because people have told me how my work has touched them, and those who buy my work are those to whom it has spoken. Not to make this about MY work - I believe it is important for us as artists to know what our work is about. But it takes time, thought, and some self-assessment to see what patterns emerge in our own work as it progresses. Ted -- have your reassessed what matters in your work after having put together the photo album for your son Jon? Has what matters changed? Or are these parallel tracks? What do the rest of you feel about making art that matters? Let's start here.

hmmm...

It might be the light in my kitchen, but this picture doesn't really show the blonde all that much. Trust me, it is there. Well, here I am in my reading glasses before we went out for dinner tonight. My hair might have gotten blonder while we were out but it's too late to take pix. My husband says he's seen me looking better. I told him he should let me know the next time he thinks I look better and I'll hand him the camera. Meantime, I am busy reading my copy of Ted Orland's The View from the Studio Door and making notes like crazy in the margins, having a mental dialogue with him and loving every minute. This author wants feedback -- ha ha - he will get feedback from me...at some point. It's like sitting on the floor with your best friend who is also an artist, having a philosophical discussion. Some things I want to shout "YES!!! -- exactly how I feel!!" and other things have big question marks next to them that I'll need to go back to and think about -- and with which I will ultimately disagree. What fun! What stimulation! And there is more to think about than just A-R-T. And mind you, I am only up to page 16 (ooops - typo, I first wrote "I am only up to -age 16." Typo or Freudian slip??) One of the things he says, which is food for thought, is this: "We become who we are by virtue of the choices we make - consciously or otherwise - about which parts belong to the story, and which parts can be left out." I don't think so. Quite the other way around: I believe we make the choices we make by virtue of who we are and how we see things at the time. So when we edit our art (decide which parts belong to the story, or not) we are editing because of how our experience/personality/stuff in our virtual backpack, etc. colors what we see. And, indeed, if, as Ted says, art is about how we see -- where does that leave us? It leaves us seeing things differently at different times in our lives, depending on (what I just said). This is a GOOD thing because unless we are stuck in a rut somewhere, seeing everything the same way as we always did, our art will change as our way of seeing changes. What do you think? Can we all pretend we are on my living room floor, shoes off, coffee cups or wine glasses in hand, having a discussion? You're all invited... including you, Mr. Orland.