Beyond Van Gogh

For the approximately 50 years we lived in Southern California, we would attend an event call the Pageant of the Masters in beautiful Laguna Beach.  Now, if I describe this event to you, you’ll probably say, What?  Let’s find out.   Pageant of the Masters creates living version of artist’s masterpieces, creating huge painted background and posing real people in costume and makeup on the backgrounds. What?  When I first heard of it, that’s what I said, but everyone said it was wonderful … and it sold out every year … so we went.  And it was wonderful.  The lighting made the paintings look like 2-dimentional faithful reproductions and each was accompanied by music from a live orchestra and a narrator talking about the painting.  It didn’t hurt that it was held outdoors in the Irvine Bowl on a balmy Socal evening.

Some Mornings

Some mornings I begin the day by writing in my journal and reading from four inspirational daily readers that reside on my Kindle.  I’d like to say every morning but that would be a bold faced lie.  I’d like to say most mornings, but lately I’m not even close to most.  So, I’ll stick with Some Mornings, adding that those are the days that seem to go better than the rest.  If that is true, you might ask, why don’t I do it every day?   That is a topic for another morning.   Besides the books on my Kindle, there are three books (real books, hard covered!) on my desk that I read from: Dr. Bernie Siegal’s 365 Prescriptions for the Soul, Good Poems selected and introduced by Garrison Keillor, and A Year in Impressionism, a collection of 365 impressionist works by an assortment of artists.  One prescription for the soul, one poem and one impressionist painting … Some Mornings.

I.C.

Between the years 2005 and 2010, I filled two large portfolios with drawings and paintings (plus a few that ended up on my office walls).   The impetus for this surge in creativity was something called art journaling, which I first came in The Artful Journal – A Spiritual Quest by Maureen Carey, Raymond Fox and Jacqueline Penney.  When I found the book I had been doing Morning Pages (a form of freeform written journaling recommended by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way) for years.   Morning Pages is three pages of longhand writing done first thing in the morning, stream of consciousness, no stopping, nothing off limits.  Connect the brain to the pen and go.   There are many good reasons to do Morning Pages but the one I want to talk about is silencing the fellow who provides the title of this post, I.C. – your Inner Critic.  We all have one, that voice in our heads who is fond of telling us we’re not very good at things, especially that first attempt at a poem or short story … or a first watercolor or drawing with pastels.  Why?   Well, According to Hal and Sidra Stone in Embracing Your Inner Critic, it started out when you were a child as a guide to meeting the standards of those around you, correcting you internally before you get in trouble.   But somewhere along the line, it tries to take over, becoming a specialist in telling you what you can’t … and shouldn’t … do.  Mostly by telling you you’re not good enough.

Snow

I grew up in New England, Connecticut to be precise.  When I was a child, snow was a delight, a chance to sled, have snowball fights, build snow forts and snowmen.   As I grew, it became a source of income as well as fun … there were usually neighbors willing to pay a few dollars to have their driveways shoveled.   The Christmas light reflected in the glittering snow are part of my best holiday memories.  It even played a role in the courtship of my wife, Muri.  We made up after our last break-up standing on the bridge on the University of Connecticut’s Mirror Lake.  During a snow storm.  Apparently that’s a good place to make a commitment because here we are, 54 years later.

The Grey-Ghost

This is a post from my art blog, Artsy. about depression. It is bit different than what I usually post here but given the effect of the the COVID-19 pandemic on our country, I think that it is pertinent.

A few weeks ago, I was Rambling on Older Eyes, about fighting depression as I deal with the shit-storm that life seems to have dealt me in 2020.   I’m certainly not alone.   Time magazine reports that since COVID infected its way into our lives, about twice as many Americans are reporting moderate depression and about six times as many severe.  My wife and I were still adjusting a move into our new home in Utah after living in California for 50 years when the pandemic hit.  Like many people we are dismayed by the political rancor in our country and the way it is making the pandemic worse.  Add my daughter and wife dealing with breast cancer and you have the kind of environment that drives me from mild to moderate on the depression scale in spite of a daily anti-depressant.

The Art of Napping

If you have ever owned a cat (or more correctly, if a cat has ever owned you), you know that cats sleep a lot.  According to catster.com, cats can sleep up to 16 hours a day, more as they get older (I can relate).   As a somewhat fitful napper, I am always jealous of how my cats have seemed to be able to nap comfortably almost anywhere … and appear blissfully at ease in the most interesting positions.   Yes, there’s stretching, too, but we’ll leave that for another day.  However, my newest feline companion, Claude, between his Rorschach-Test markings and the variation of positions he assumes in his beds, raises napping to the level of art.   Here is a collage of just a few of his abstract patterns.

Oils Again

Back in November of 2017 in Linseed Oil Memories, a post on my art blog, Artsy, about my Mom teaching me to oil paint while I was in high school, I wrote this: If I were asked, “What’s your favorite art medium?” I’d answer, “Oils.” Yet, I haven’t done it for years. Hoping to encourage my Inner Artist to try it again, I asked Santa for oil painting supplies and, with the help of my wife, Muri, I received a wooden artist’s box and easel, along with an assortment of paints and brushes. Yes even a bottle of linseed oil and a can of turpentine. But as November 2018 rolled around, my art supplies were still sitting unused in my office. I needed … if you’ll pardon the expression … a kick in the ass which came from my daughter, Amy. One November afternoon when we were talking on the phone, she asked, Would you want to paint watercolors of my dogs for me for Christmas? Although I paint quite a lot in watercolors, my work tends to be on the impressionistic side in part because I don’t have the patience to do a lot of details in watercolors. So, before I could think, I said, How about if I do them in oils? After all, I’d painted two kittens sixty years ago. It’s like riding a bike, right?

Art History

Recently, I posted an photo of me, my parents, Florence and Frank, and my siblings, Glenn and Pat in the living room of the house I grew up in. That room was the center of my universe from the time we moved there in 1952 until I went off to college. When family … grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins … visited, we sat in the living room. Dad would often move the table from our smallish kitchen to the living room to give us more room for Thanksgiving. Christmas trees were decorated and presents opened there. I told my parents that I had proposed to my college sweetheart there. Dad took countless naps while reading the paper in the chair by the door and I learned my love of classical music listening to Mom’s records on the stereo under the picture window. In my college years, Mom and I would sit up watching Johnny Carson and talking on the sofa under “Dad’s mirror” (he never walked by it without a little gavotte). More than once, he’d call from their bedroom at the end of the hall, Would you two keep it down out there?

Artsy

Suppose you are at a party.   Trying to make small talk, you strike up a conversation with someone you don’t know.  Sooner or later, you are likely to ask the ubiquitous question, What do you do?  If the person replies, I’m a doctor … or even better, I’m a neurosurgeon … you are likely impressed, as well as encouraged that a path for an interesting conversation lies ahead.   If your new acquaintance says, I’m an engineer, not so much on either account.   But what if the answer is, I’m an artist?  How do respond?  With interest or skepticism?  Do you subtly check her out to see if she looks like an artist?  Are you intimidated?  Do you silently wonder, Do you have a real job?  If instead of introducing himself as an artist, your new friend says, I’m a painter, do you automatically assume he paints houses?  Or, if she says she’s a writer, do you ask, Have written any books?  Which means, for sure, Have you published any books?  Do you mumble, I don’t now anything about art, and escape to talk to someone else.  Or do you say, I used to like art but I wasn’t very good at it?  Or, recall that when you began to dabble in drawing, your parents cautioned, You can’t make a living as an artist, you know.

Roy G Biv

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