Pink Elephant Parking

Pink elephant parking, Inverness, FL

What I've Been Working On

After a distressingly long absence from painting, I'm putting in a little time at the easel.

Various paintings in process:

Heartbeat - This piece was a less-than-successful portrait I started in a class months ago that I put aside until recently. I changed a lot of colors around, added shadows, background texture, etc. I may never love it, but it's significantly more appealing than it was. Her face is based off a magazine photo, although since, ahem, representative drawing is not my strength, it only looks somewhat like the original person.

Floral - This painting originally had a watery base, that I've since added on some more impasto effects to give it more oomph and depth. It's still essentially abstract floral and light. I may try to emphasize where light is coming from more, or I may just leave it suffused - I'm not sure. I'm also not sure which way it goes; it may end up with a landscape orientation. The balance is not quite where I would like it, but for now, it's pleasant, simple nature.

Voices - This quick painting came out of one damn bad day.  I had a swirled background canvas, and staring at it, I started seeing cartoonish faces, so I pulled those all up to the surface and added in more color; this is how it landed. It's a not-pretty representation of the inside of my head on a rough day, conflict voices orbiting an angry center.

Recycling an Old Article: So What Do You Do?

Birds, and one man, in flight

Because the old version of cynthiadaffron.com is now dead, and the domain temporarily redirecting here to the Artful Mistakes blog, it's a fine opportunity for me to slap some old work up here. And so I will.

For a time, I wrote the back page article for a magazine for beginning computer users. I tended to have a hard time staying on topic, but the editor gave me a lot of latitude (thanks, Susie), so I often managed to work in what was on my mind if I at least, as in the case here, alluded to computers.

This article (below) was written in the winter of 2005, after I had finished a masters program in creative writing at UMiami and moved across the country to get rained on in Portland, Oregon. Oregon set records for the number of gloomy, gray days records that year, and my quest for employment was slow-going, leaving me to reflect on career choices. Not every point holds true to my current thinking, but I'll let it stand as is, a marker of that time.

What I like about this piece is that it hints at things that I would do in the future. I did, in fact, become a property caretaker, at two different places in New Mexico, in 2006 and then in again in 2012. I did end up taking painting classes, and sailing lessons. My interest in visual art was starting to bubble up a bit, before I was aware of it. And I still have itchy feet, prone to long walks and longer road trips.

I also still very much believe in the importance of dreaming.

------------------
So What Do You Do? 

Like the roots of plants growing in the same pot, identity and career are deeply tied and tangled. It's difficult to know where one plant ends and the other begins, even though on the surface, the different leaves and stalks appear distinct.

Here in America, "we are what we do." Politician or police officer, librarian or lawyer, musician or mortician, the answer to what we do (a verb) is usually announced as a noun: "I am a ____." We don't say that we politic and police. If we are trying to be a bit more evasive, we may say we are "in the __ industry." For example, you might say you're "in the film industry" when what you really do is drive a golf cart all over the set relaying messages and taking coffee orders.

These issues are on my mind because I'm unemployed and having an identity crisis. I'm pretty sure the two are related.

Technically, as a writer, I am not unemployed. I am "freelancing." Writers are either employed by a company or self-employed and freelancing. Of course, some writers are financially successful at freelancing. And then there are others, like myself at the moment, who quietly draw from savings and solicit loans to tide them over through lean times. (As the old saying goes, there's a fine line between self-employment and unemployment.)

Many of the efficient and gainfully employed around me have wondered, subtly and not so subtly, enviously and/or disdainfully, exactly how I've been spending my days. Here is the scandalous truth: courtesy of the Information Age, I've been spending an inordinate amount of time playing Internet dress-up with wildly diverse careers and the lives and personalities that might accompany them.

Over the last few months, I have looked into graduate programs in art, art history, library science, psychology, speech pathology, journalism, nursing, communications and business. (In a fit of confusion, I even read up on law school!) I've also pondered certificate programs in massage therapy, computer programming, and driving a semi. I investigated teaching English in Japan, organic farming in Maine, and permaculture in Costa Rica.

Under the idea of cutting expenses, I've looked into caretaker and housesitting gigs. So I've corresponded with a writer in Rhinebeck, NY, a graduate student in Cantonsville, MD, an artist/retreat owner ten miles from nowhere in Mississippi, and a very polite man in Portland, Maine, who didn't realize we were talking about two different Portlands (I live in Oregon, not Maine).

My surfing exploration has netted international opportunities such as volunteering at a yoga studio in Costa Rica, a fellowship in France, and sailing as crew on boats in exotic locales. I've learned surprising new facts, including of the existence of a country named Palau (1000 miles away from Guam, it is a tropical paradise devoid of any poisonous snakes).

Domestically, I've researched rents and yoga studios, universities and job markets in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, Wilmington, North Carolina, Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, Washington, D.C., and St. Petersburg, Florida through bestplaces.net, craigslist.org, findyourspot.com, and a whole lot of Googling.
Locally, I've inquired about positions in painting, jewelry making, working with an autistic child, and fruit basket assembly. Although none of those folks responded to my queries, I did interview at a health and wellness medical clinic and an upscale watch and jewelry store. No luck in either case, but I didn't mind because once I was inside, I couldn't see myself happy there for long. (Apparently, neither could they.)

Of course, if you've gotten this far, you may have noticed that the vast majority of this frenetic research has nothing at all to do with what I say I do when people ask. My actual stated career as a writer, excepting sporadic but enthusiastic work on my novel, ranting and researching e-mails, quarterly columns and rare blog entries, has been largely ignored amidst this uproar of possibilities.

So if "we are what we do," what does all this Internet research and dreaming and dress up say about me? That I don't know who I want to be, and I don't want to be who I am? Yes, in part. But in a larger sense, what does it say about our society that most people will no longer have just one career, but several? Amid the end of company loyalty and pension benefits, the Internet offers quicker and broader exchanges of information than ever before. It sets the scene for career switching to blossom as quickly as hothouse flowers.

Consider one of my friends, who went from seven years as a librarian, and then retrained to be a psychologist. Or my cousin the graphic designer who is now studying accounting. Or another friend who went from repairing Persian rugs to working as a computer guru, and is now starting his own business as a photographer. Two other friends both worked as lawyers, and then quit. Neither is sure what is next on the horizon. But then, another friend, a former caregiver and vet tech, is in her second year of law school, and loving it.

Americans, in particular, tend to ask that dreaded and dreadful questions, "So what do you do?" and then slot you into whatever category and status your profession allows. But we are not only that. We are also what we dream about doing even if we never do it. Because in those aspirations and explorations, we are trying to find expression for some part of ourselves that we want to expand and allow to grow.

We want recognition for characteristics not usually associated with our primary profession, or we yearn for something in our lives that the profession doesn't necessarily foster. The librarian realized it was the people he wanted to help, not the information he wanted to find, and so psychology was a reasonable switch for him.

Many people find a livable compromise in deciding that their hobbies outside of work can reflect other facets of their personality. Another friend runs a fashion design company, but I met as a classmate in a poetry class in graduate school. My aunt, who by day deals with bankruptcies, by night is ballroom dancing or quilting or otherwise doing something completely different.

We are not just what we do for work now, but also what we have done before for work, or for fun. Changing jobs does not change who we are. The librarian still lives in the psychologist. But even that history, the total of our actions in and outside of work, with friends, family and loved ones, this is still not all of it. We are also what we have thought about, what we have dreamed about, what we've wanted to do and might (or might never) do in the future. We are also what interests us, by which I mean, what we remember, what moves us, what motivates us, what we admire, what we care about, what makes us curious, what we want, rational or not.

We are not just actions. We are not (only) what we do.

The Internet makes it easy to let our thoughts wander. Wandering helps our dreams evolve, sets the scene for that serendipitous stumble into new connection. Without wandering through caretaking ads, I'd never have heard of Palau or ever corresponded with a literary archivist. Not that it may ever be important. But then again, it might be. Without the dress-up, without the random reading, without asking the questions, without exploring and e-mailing of experts and amateurs, how will we, in the present moment, continue to step forward onto increasingly authentic paths?

Preferred career: cat pillow

And yet: a caution. Many eastern religions stress the importance of being present in the moment, and there is great wisdom in that, in paying attention to precisely what we see and hear and smell and taste, enjoying, or at least noticing, the life we are living right now, rather than always daydreaming or researching an invented future. As much as I try to put myself in other shoes, I only have my current self. No matter how hard I imagine, I can't ever so completely envision my dream life as a dream lawyer or sailor or best selling writer so to determine my next move small with certainty – I can only expand the possibilities of which I am aware. Until I, or you, are in a place or situation or job, with all of its real life complications, until we are in a moment, actually doing something, we can't entirely know how we will feel.

In the end, every choice in life is a gamble on an unknown. We can't know if what we choose will be better. We can only know that if we choose change, it will be different. And even if we choose to stay the same, life changes every moment anyway.

Still, I'm pretty sure the next place I live and the next job I find will be perfect. Everything I've read on the 'net, and everyone I've asked have verified an idyllic world where I am magically transformed into a much, much better person than I am right now. It's all out there, just waiting for me to make the leap into becoming the person I've always dreamed of being.

Whoever that is.

Stonehenge, Treasure Island Style

Many days, usually around sunset, I walk from my home to the southern end of Treasure Island where it ends at a rocky canal.  One day I found someone had spent some time erecting their own mini-Stonehenge, beach-style.  The beach brings out the artist in people.

Chihuly Collection: Shine, Shimmer & Wave

A garden of glass, weirdly festive in a Dr. Seuss sort of way.

Gorgeous floral
-themed sculpture

A few weeks back, I did (finally) slide into the Chihuly Collection presented by the Morean Arts Center. Viewing the collection is free for Morean members, but for whatever reason, it took me a while to actually get myself through the door.

The stunning collection contains enormous complicated gardens of glass interspersed with more moderate-sized pieces.  The collection is housed in a warm wood-beamed buildings and gorgeously well-lit, but felt thin on information to me (unless I wanted to buy a book in the gift shop, which I am way too cheap to do).  Perhaps I missed the signs while ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the glass.

The scale of this isn't apparent in the photo, but it takes over a whole room - that boat is the size of a real rowboat. 

The Traditional Antler Pictures

Merry Christmas from the kitties (who, the other 364 days of the year, are not required to dress up).

"Merry Christmas.  Can I return to napping now?"

"The indignity of the holidays never ends. Ho ho ho."

Love in the Wild: Creative Loafing Tampa Fiction Contest

Happily, my story "Love in the Wild" (JP and the bride with the alligator costume head), made the first cut on the Creative Loafing Tampa Fiction contest. Read & vote here: http://cltampa.com/dailyloaf/archives/fiction-contest/#.Up-6ksRDuSp.

Bea’s River

Found the following snippet floating in an old file, so played around with it today.  It's a creative response to a The Cowboy Junkies song, Bea's Song (River Song Trilogy: Part ll). Lyrics to the song follow the story snippet. 

For those that were following my recent attempt at re-booting writing, I did finish a draft of the story for the winning story start.  I'll post it here in a bit.  

--------------------------

Bea’s River

I stood by that river in Colorado for a good long while, listening to the rhythmic burble of it: up and over, up and over, up and over the rocks, on the rocks, on the rocks, up and over the rocks. A bird of prey circled overhead.  When he caught the highest loft and disappeared over the scrawny pines, the music ended and I leaned over to untie my hiking boots.

An old Peanuts cartoon has Charlie Brown telling his sister before a big game that he always puts his right sock and shoe on first, and then his left sock and shoe, for luck. His sister pauses for a minute, and then asks, “What kind of luck?” The last panel shows shoeless Charlie Brown staring at his feet.

My first barefoot step into the water (up and over, cold! cold!) forced an inhale, but as my reddening feet settled into the coarse sand at the shore, the shock fell into numb.

Behind me, John swore under his wheezy breath, closing the car door not quite hard enough, so it clicked only once, not twice to latch.

“My keys, you have them?”

I wiggled my toes. They responded, but as from a distance. I felt the gritty texture of sand, but nothing else. Up and over. Up and over. The rocks. The rocks. On the rocks.

I held out my arm and dangled the keys from my hand, rattling them maraca-like.

“Why didn’t you say so?” The clawing crunch of his footsteps approached steadily until he slid slightly at the two-foot drop off near the river’s edge, the stumble marring the beat.

“You’ll turn blue,”

“Color me Neptune,” I said, and turned from the waist to toss him the keys. They flew up and over light slanting through trees, skipping rope with sunbeams.

“You look at the moon and the stars more often then you look into my eyes,” he said

He was right, of course, but I didn't want the conversation or the life he wanted to have. And so I said nothing, cradling our illusions in simple rhythms.

 ------------------------------------

Bea's Song (River Song Trilogy: Part ll)

Songwriter: TIMMINS, MICHAEL EDWARD.  

Speed river at my feet running low and flat
I'm sitting here burning daylight,
Thinking about the past
And that distance out there
Where the earth meets the sky
The slightest move and this river mud
Pulls me further down
John's at my side, but he's sitting on firmer ground

John says I look at the moon and the stars
These days more often than I look into his eyes
And I can't disagree so I don't say nothing
I just stare on past his face at venus rising,
Like a shining speck of hope hanging over the horizon

With each passing year that I sit here
That horizon seems to inch just that much nearer
And all that appears on it seems as clear as spit
But if there's one thing in my life
That these years have taught
It's that you can always see it coming
But you can never stop it

Speed river at my feet running low and flat
I'm sitting here burning daylight,
Thinking about the past
And that distance out there
Where the earth meets the sky
The slightest move and this river mud
Pulls me further down
John's at my side,
But he's not noticing that I'm drowning
The slightest move and this river mud
Pulls me further down
John's at my side,
But he's not noticing that I'm drowning

Catch Up

A month evaporated quickly, thanks in part to a new part-time job at an art museum.

In some ways, working at a museum is like working anywhere else.  The server is sometimes slow, the new database quirky, free food brings everyone out to the reception desk, and parking can be tough some days.

And in some ways, working at a museum is totally different. For instance, I can take a 5 minute break and run downstairs to stare at a Georgia O'Keefe painting if I feel like it.  I get to peek into rooms and see the exhibits going up.

Plus, the art by the copy machine beats the heck out of that at any other office I've worked: an enormous Impressionist oil painting of rocking chairs, complete with fancy gold frame.

Unable to get a decent photo of it (light streaming through the window left it dark and sickly yellow) I had a little fun photo editing.

In my head, the copier station now looks like this:

Disco pink photocopying!  Get your glitter on, and I'll see you by the rocking chairs.

In other news, I acquired a bag full of golf tees from a museum fundraiser that I'm trying to turn into an art project.  So far, no substantial progress.  Suggestions welcome.

Bird of Prey

Watcher
acrylic on canvas
11" x 14"

Another new painting...this one grew out of a random swirls started last week that, upon reflection, ended up looked like eyes. I dug around for bird photos after that, and found a face that fit my start.

Our last class was made more festive by the addition of cookies - thanks Marylee!

Skulls

Ancestors
9" x 12"
acrylic on canvas

Dance
8" x 8"
acrylic on canvas

I dropped off two canvases today at the Morean Arts Center, with the hope that they'll make it into Skulls & Skeletons student retail show that they're putting on in conjunction with Fork & Cork Café. If my skulls make they cut, then they'll be for sale at the cafe for a couple of weeks (and if not, well, I still had a great time making them - time well spent).

These paintings are notable in that they are the first that I've ever actually varnished.  I'm digging the shine that brings out the colors!

UPDATE: Both paintings will be on view at the mini-exhibition from October 21st through November 26th. Neat!

Stained Glass Forest

Another new abstract.  I've been in a huge rut of frustration with painting recently, of the, what's-the-point, skill-less hack variety, and so this painting was a struggle.

It started out as a blank canvas with a light blue base last week in class. Demoralized by a particularly unsuccessful portrait attempt the previous week, I had opted for working on a relaxing abstract.

The painting turned into a swirl of motion, but with nothing appealing or cohesive, a mish-mash of energy and unfortunate colors. Some days it just doesn't come together. I went home when I realized my mother gave me most of my paints, and I would no longer be receiving the fancy paints from Mom on Christmas and my birthday.

On the way out of class, I accidentally-on-purpose dropped the painting in a puddle and then swished it around a bit, with the idea that either drip art would make it better, or dirt would add texture, or really, anything would be an improvement.  But the paint mostly just stuck there, still lifeless and now under a sheen of dirty water.

Once I got it home, I took the sink sprayer to it.  God love good water pressure.  Sections of it peeled up, others flaked away. Amazingly, that actually made it somewhat better.

I put it aside and ignored it for another week.  This week, I dragged it back into class, and started layering in the lined framework,and washes of color over places that were flaked back down to white canvas, and otherwise rearranging things a great deal.  I turned it around and around, and have decided that this way is up (partly because if I turn it the other way, I see an enormous duck).

I built a story line of sorts for it, involving a birch trees and a cave with pools of water and hidden jewels, some kind of ancient adventure, as seen through a window from afar.  And with that, I can find enough affection for it to, at least, keep it out of puddles.

Thanks for Your Votes!

Voting results are in now for the Get Me Back to My Writing Desk Survey!

THANK YOU! A huge thank you to everyone who participated by reading and voting. Your vote helps nurture the feeling there are projects to work on and that creativity does matter, a feeling well-needed after a difficult year.Thank you for responding with curiosity, smarts, compassion and humor.

THE RESULTS : 
(click here to review the blurbs)
1 Chloe - 4 votes
2 Harry - 2 votes
3 Glory - 4 votes
4 Anne - 4 votes
5 JP - 5 votes
6 Ellie - 0 votes
7 Meg - 1 vote
8 Maddy - 0 votes
9 Julie - 1 votes
10 Paul's Mother - 3 votes
11 Jack - 0 votes
12 Diana - 4 votes
13 Ivy - 2 votes
14 Hattie - 2 votes

THE WINNER:

And the winner is:  Option #5 - John Paul (JP)

When I saw the groom with a black eye and the bride with an 8-month belly draped in lavender sequins and carrying the head of an alligator costume, I knew this was going to be my kind of wedding.

The winner, oddly enough, is one of the most recent starts I've created, and the one that I have the least amount of information on in my own head so far.  So thank you for choosing the character that is a fresh exploration, and one where my sometimes acerbic humor is likely to find expression. While I do have a few pages on this story, I suspect that I'll be taking it in a different direction than those pages currently detail. 

Chloe, Glory, Anne and Diana tied for second - and so what is next on the agenda could be more complicated question (and not one that currently needs to be addressed).  It was encouraging to see that all but three blurbs got at least one vote, that there was some kernel of interest be activated. Most who voted voted for several stories.  

Jack and Meg, who between them only collected 1 vote, are the two oldest stories floating around (the two that got me into graduate school, although I never considered them finished so much as abandoned).  I am relieved to have excuse to let them gently rest permanently. While I'm fond the characters - characters are children in a way, and I have fondness even of the less appealing ones - Jack and Meg have somewhat worn-out situations and making those interesting would have been an arduous challenge for rusty writing skills. Maddy and Ellie, the other zero votes, were both part of multiple point of view exercises, and were, in each case, the least strong voices in the exercise in my mind - and apparently the voting audience's as well.

Voting on creative elements doesn't live in a vacuum, of course, and I learned a little bit about folks' reading tastes - those that opt for humor and romance (including G's entertaining comments on those that sounded "porny" on FB) while others preferred a darker or more reflective tone.  Several people were irritated by the use of present tense, so stylistic elements clearly were in play even in such small snippets.

It's worth noting that I don't intend to write the Great American Novel. I'm not looking to alter the course of history and create a new world philosophy.  Rather, I intend to tell a story and let some characters explore. Obviously, I've got my own set of themes and tics that tend to reappear in one form or another, which I suspect most readers have already intuited in this blog well before the fictional parade of characters marched by.

Thanks again for reading.

Story Prompt: What if a door-to-door salesman
was a 2-foot tall white bird? 

New Abstract: Geometric Rain

A relaxing day playing with a new abstract.

Current title is Geometric Rain, but that (and the painting) may change - as usual, I'm not sure if it's done yet.

I am sure it was a fun way to spend the day.

Voting Now Open: Choose the Story to Be Finished

Long, long ago, I went to graduate school, and while there and sporadically afterwards, I started stories.  I have the first draft of, well, a lot of stories, and the final draft of none. 

In sorting through story snippets, I get overwhelmed by which one has any intrinsic interest, and end up running away from all of them.  

So I'm asking for a vote.  For those brave souls that can face it, read through the first paragraph of the following possibilities,and vote for the paragraph that would most inspire you to read a second paragraph. Whichever one gets the most votes (possibly any, given the tininess of Artful Mistakes' readership and odds of actual participation) will merit a fresh literary attack. Any other comments also welcome.  

Vote early, vote often!


Option #1 - Chloe
When Chloe pulled the car off to the shoulder of the road, and she could see the man’s face more clearly, she started having second thoughts.  From seventy miles per hour, he appeared as a scrawny teenager.  But as he grew ever closer to her, he looked like an ex-addict, ex-con, current axe-murderer in his early thirties, all sharp elbows clanking around a skeletal frame, tangled black hair too long to be tame and too short to be pulled back, and skin tanned and weathered from long hours outside burying the bodies. Tall and lanky, the muscles in his arms weren't bulging biceps but sinewy lean, taunt under his faded lime green t-shirt.

Option #2 - Harry
Harry wakes with a start, swatting and missing the fly that has landed on his stomach.  Blinking widely a few times, he leans forward in his beach chair and stares blankly out at the ocean, neither seeing the sunset sky nor hearing the rushes of wind and tide.  At the tip of his memory are the remains of his dream, something about playing as a child in a hotel pool he visited with his mother at his cousin Deanna’s wedding.  In real life, Deanna has been dead for ten years, besides which, she never married, but in the dream, her invented daughter was splashing in the shallow end of the pool.  He kept tossing beach balls at the daughter, but they never landed close enough to her to float into her tiny grasp.  As he sits by the ocean, he instead smells chlorine and cement and the floral candy scent of his mother’s hand lotion.  He hadn't thought about Deanna in years.  They had never been close.  She died in a car accident when she was 51.  Harry blinks again, closing his eyes, trying to shake her death and his mother’s smell loose from his mind. He breathes in the salt air.  Deanna was awfully young to die.  But at least she didn't have to grow old alone.  And she would have been alone. She was ugly as an old wooden shoe as a grown woman.

Option #3 - Glory
Her second husband, Robert, was a boob man, obsessed with the glories of mammary glands, and convinced of his own expertise in detecting the real from saline.  He claimed he could tell saline from silicon as long he could “give them lovely lasses a wee squeeze.”  When he drank, he turned into an Irish caricature.  However, when sober, his Tennessee accent gave Glory a weak feeling near her jawline, a loosening of skin and tension that for some time allowed her to ignore what he actually said and focus solely on the smooth waves of tone.

Option #4 - Anne
Each time I move, the first piece of mail I receive is from the Academy.  With their endowment, they can afford to send an endless stream of postcards and announcements.  Despite the fact that I never give them my new address, they are diligent there in Alumni Relations, and always manage to update my file.  Why, I’m not sure, as my lifetime contribution totals fifty cents.  I sent that one check the year after I withdrew, just so they would know it wasn't just an oversight, an accident, that it’s not that I was too busy or too broke (although those were true too).  But I do always read the Class Notes in the magazine, about the awards and the weddings and children, the charity work and the trips to lush islands, the art openings and the advanced degrees.  I can picture faces, some fondly, all now over twenty years past.  But I've learned to stop memory from going beyond those high school years with those people.  For a while, it seemed fate pushed connections upon me, the way Tim turned up in the most unlikely of places, the years Lorna and I talked over our history, the way my mother still dropped the prestigious school name at the Garden Club, the way the magazine always managed to find me.  But fate had nothing to do with it.  Some signs are misleading. Some signs point to places you can never go.

Option #5 - John Paul (JP)
When I saw the groom with a black eye and the bride with an 8-month belly draped in lavender sequins and carrying the head of an alligator costume, I knew this was going to be my kind of wedding.

Option #6 - Ellie
Ellie walks in a broad circle around the old man, surreptitiously noting the even rise and fall of his chest under the terrycloth robe.  For the last hour, she has been sitting on the beach several yards behind him with her sweatshirt tucked under her as a makeshift beach blanket.  She wiggled her lilac-painted toenails in the sand while writing in the spiral notebook that serves as her journal.  The ink of the pen scraped and caught on the paper as she poured out her words, writing the note she now carries, folded in triangular eighths, in her left hand.

Option #7 - Meg
Hiding from Gary in the women's restroom at Miami International Airport, I stare at my face in the mirror and stick out my tongue.  My sunburn glows a stunning skin-stretching, two-days-tourist red, closely matching the shade of my outstretched tongue.  Against the stainless steel of sinks and stalls and mirrors around me, I am like a canned tomato – pulsing with red juices, trapped among metal. The remains of mascara settle into tiny wrinkles under my eyes, tracing maps to new territories of age. I wonder if I’ll still stick out my tongue when I’m 40.  Turning 30 ten months ago obviously didn’t stop it. My immortality evaporated in a poof of smoke, but there’s my tongue, still lolling in the air, stained red by a cherry-flavored Tootsie Pop.

Option #8 - Maddy
Maddy's father never hired that tree company again, although perhaps that was because there were so few trees left in the backyard by then that he could trim the remaining bedraggled twigs himself.  After the big elm came down, killed by a neighborhood resurgence of Dutch Elm disease, the backyard hosted only small squat trees, angry trolls.  Still, for months afterward, Maddy found herself looking for the Collins Brothers Tree Care white van around the neighborhood, began noting the few remaining infected elms to see if Tim and Mitch Collins would be tending them.  She never saw them though.  Shortly after they dragged away the stump of the elm, she heard her father complaining at a barbecue, and she wondered if he’d put a word-of-mouth hex on the Collins’ business.  Or maybe the elms took them elsewhere.  There was no way of knowing.  Ten years later, she looked for Collins Brothers in the telephone book under Gardeners, Trees, Trimming, everything she could think of, but they were gone by then.  Maybe they were long gone; she would never know.

Option #9 - Julie
Sitting at the hotel bar of the Westin in Minneapolis, Julie pointed her camera up at the sweeping shadows formed by lighting fixtures in the cavernous ceiling above, then swiveled her view down to zoom in on Steve's left eye, green, bloodshot, observing her.  She did not hit the shutter button, but moved the camera away from the hand rising up to block the shot.

Option #10 - Paul's Mother
Given that the incident occurred off the grounds of the school, Paul’s mother felt sure they couldn't very well suspend her son. She had already talked that nincompoop sheriff Earl Wiggins out of an arson charge – twelve year olds couldn't very well be held accountable for acting out a Wile E. Coyote cartoon. It wasn't as if Paul and Jack intended to burn down Morgan’s garage. Still, George Templeton, Dean of Students, known as Curious George by his students, could make things unpleasant for Paul. Templeton had been curt with her on the phone, requiring a meeting rather than being sensible and letting the whole silly fire cool down and blow away like the ashes of Morgan’s decrepit old shed. Templeton had an unreasonable streak – she saw that now.

Option #11 - Jack
Jack pushes open the glass door of Jay’s Liquor Warehouse and then hurries to pull it closed behind him. The frigid air that followed him inside swirls and dissolves into the comfort of indoors.  He breathes in the musty smell of wood crates, stale wine, and the ammonia used to clean the floors and smiles at the familiar odor with the warmth he’d greet an old friend.  In his top dresser drawer at home -- along with a frayed leather wallet, spare change, the toothpick holder his daughter gave him when he quit smoking, a ticket stub from the Uptown and his great grandfather’s pocket watch -- seven AA year medallions rattle each time he opens the drawer to get a fresh pair of socks.  If he walks out of Jay’s right now, he can claim his eighth medallion on April 3rd.

Option #12 - Diana
In German, the moon is male and the sun is female, or so Carlos tells me.  Carlos could tell me the sun implodes every evening and leaves a plate-like flat disc known as the moon as a placeholder until the sun regenerates like a phoenix -- and I would believe him.  Or rather, I would continue to stand there, doe-eyed, lapping up the rumbling cadence of his voice and noting the length of the lashes around his dark eyes.  Lust makes me stupid.

Option #13 - Ivy
Ivy sat on the edge of the four-poster bed, an antique reproduction blown up to king size splendor, and idly swung her feet in an uneven rhythm, bouncing them off the well-padded mattress.  She surveyed the room carefully, checking for any last minute details she might have overlooked.  She worried that somehow the inanimate objects in the room were absorbing her intentions, and would betray her in the end, yielding the truth to the first person that asked.

Option #14 - Hattie
I did not go to my mother’s house, my childhood home on a quiet suburban street in Maryland, with the intention of stealing her most prized possession.  When I went to see Mom, I intended to do what I also did: store the rest of my belongings, boxed once again, in the cellar, next to the furnace and the archaeological remains of my and my brothers’ childhood -- old toys and drawings, seashells from beach trips, pine cones from the backyard, malformed art projects of clay and Popsicle sticks, a plastic ukulele with one string.

Completely unrelated photo of raccoons at the beach.

Back to the Easel

Real Life

Still Life

I am back in painting class...and, alas, repeating my usual weirdness, with unclear light sources and an inability to draw, which translates to lumpy, bumpy shapes and questionable perspectives. That strange yellow lump is supposed to be a wilted flower.

Still. Even if the effort doesn't produce the desired results, it is, at least, evidence of effort. And that counts. And if the colors are odd, they are somehow a reflection of the breadth of colors that live within grasp of my vision, and that too is appealing.  The shapes, the technique, all of it, won't come without the steps toward exploration. And a lot more time standing in front of my easel.

Corey Ave Car Show

The round headlights make
 it look so friendly.  

The great thing about being back in a city is that you can randomly run into events.

Flamingo riding shotgun.  

Last weekend, I happened into the Corey Ave Car Show at the end of the street, and so got to peek into the engines and backseats of some truly lovely vehicles parked over several blocks.

Awards were handed out to cheers, but I didn't stay for all the festivities. Florida heat is still in high great, and so I retreated home to bask in the joys of air conditioning.

Zen of Glass

Glass sculpture outside the
Chiluly Collection, downtown
St Petersburg

St Petersburg is a glass town.  Notably, the Chiluly Collection is on display downtown. I've yet to make it there during appropriate hours, which is ridiculous given how enticing the sculpture outside is, but it is on my list of museums to check out.

Working with torch

Because St. Petersburg has a thriving creative community, I have, however, managed to see two glassblowing demonstrations in the past month.

The first was on the day I signed up for a painting class at the Morean Arts Center. Conveniently, their glass studio hot shop next door had a demo starting moments later, so I zipped over to watch David Spurgeon create a vase.

High heat work.

The second demo was last Saturday night, at Zen Glass Studio. Having checked out the downtown portion of Second Saturday last month, I wandered over to the warehouse district this time, over on 27th Street South. Zen Glass had the doors wide open to dissipate some of the heat and invite wandering folks like me in to see glass work in action.

As in the first demo, there was some handing off of the project back and forth as the piece was shaped, reformed, added to, cooled, reheated, and throughout, continuously twirled of the metal tube to keep it symmetrical. It is something akin to dancing watching people move through the studio (if dancer involved a lot more fire).

I spoke briefly with one of the founders of Zen Glass, Joshua Boll, who reported that he has been working with glass for 17 years (to which, in my head, I was thinking, so they handed you a torch when you were 5 years old?  Presumably, however, he is older than he looks), and clearly remains enthusiastic and enamored with the possibilities of glass.

I put my name in the jar for the free class drawing, so I'm waiting by the phone for the call to tell me I'm the big winner.

"What are you looking at?" look from glassblower.
(Answer: flame & glass)

Sad Man with Lilies

I had my last Oregon art class yesterday, and took it as an opportunity to do a fast, somewhat strange portrait based off of two random magazine photos - one of a man, one of lilies.

We've been talking about color a lot recently, and so, the emphasis on complementary colors here.

Not my finest work - he's lopsided, and the light source is unsteady, and those flowers are, well, a little more abstract than even I intended.  But therapeutic nonetheless.  It feels good to get back to painting.  

The Art of Childhood

Margot Daffron and her children some time in the 70s

I haven't posted for quite a while here.  There is a reason for that: I was up in Maine tending to my mother during what turned out to the final month of her life.

I didn't know that would be the case when I arrived, but it was clear a week later - or really before, but we were willing to acknowledge it then - that it was time for her to stop treatment and enter hospice. The chemo was making her sicker, decreasing her quality of life even further, and not providing any meaningful help against the relentless march of the cancer.

Upon entering hospice, Mom declined more rapidly than anyone predicted. I extended my trip to Maine.  I was holding her hand when she died a few weeks later.

Family and friends did have time to say goodbye while she was still with us, although some just saw her bright smile, happy at their arrival, more than gaining from any long chats at the end. She was unconscious for the last days of her life.

There is a great deal more I could say about cancer, about my loved and complicated mother and the life she led, the person she was, about how amazing hospice people are, the enormous warmth of family and friends, and about the dying process.

I'm not there yet.

In fact, I'm trying hard not to think about those last weeks in Maine, her pain and kindness, my panic and erratic competence, friends and family and stress, the complicated mix of personalities and relationships in difficult times.

Instead, I'm thinking about Christmas in red pajamas.  I'm thinking about coloring Easter eggs and that smell of vinegar from the dye.  I'm thinking about collecting zillions of seashells and mild sunburns on Florida beaches. I'm thinking about curling the stems of dandelions walking home from kindergarten, going back to those early childhood years.

And I'm thinking about art, because art is always my refuge, even when it's not, when it's processing that which cannot really be understood.

In Maine during bleak times, art still provided some escape. I took photographs.  I re-read favorite childhood books. I stared into the art on the walls of Mom's house and talked to her one day about a small abstract painting near her bed, about the movement of paint that to her looked like dancers.  From early on, Mom instilled in me an appreciation for beauty.

Flowers & purple house, with
creative spelling of my name: Chthia

Flower, tulip, house, tree,
dog (maybe?), swingset

In Maine, my sister and I spent an afternoon going through childhood drawing dragged up from moldy boxes in the basement. We laughed until our stomach muscles hurt.

Some clear themes rose up through each of our portfolios of art. Susie had skill in creating dog and horse drawings, as well as flowers.

Tree & house painting

Hand-sized turkey bird, Xmas tree,
purple house and huge flower

She never drew trees then though, as someone once told her she did it wrong, so she didn't draw them again in elementary school. Thoughtless comments can collapse dreams and effort so easily.

Meanwhile, I was obsessed with drawing, in some combination, a square house with cross-pane windows and a pointy roof, enormous flowers, over-sized turkey birds (using my hand as the template), and other holiday figures over and over and over again.

I did draw some trees, often the standard lollipop tree, a green round blob on a brown trunk, unless I was feeling Christmas-y, in which case it was saw-like evergreens.

Lollipop trees, 2013

I learned recently that my tree technique has evolved very little in 30 or 40 years.  

Upon my return to Oregon, I signed up for another painting class through Klamath Community College. We started
with painting trees.  My first attempts were sadly similar to my nursery school drawings, even with Joni's reminders on adding light, medium and dark.

Later attempts came out mildly better - more tree, less lollipop - but it's still clear that, ahem, I can't really draw, and that limits my painting.

Sort of strange tree, 2013, but
at least not lollipop-shaped

If criticism can lead to a tree-drawing strike, praise can inspire greatly. A number of those childhood drawings had tape still stuck to them, or black marks from refrigerator magnets. Susie and I handed our artwork off to our mother and thrilled when the good pieces got a place of honor on the fridge. And many of those homemade holiday cards were tucked away for safety.  My father still has a drawer full of them, and many of Mom's cards appeared in those boxes, saved through several decades and multiple moves.

Cathedral Fire
acrylic on canvas

Cancer is a particularly brutal way to die, a disease that chips away at you from the inside.

Losing someone you've known your entire life is horrible, a shock even when you know all along what is coming.

In my mother's house in Maine, along with many paintings of the flowers she so loved, also hung one of my more recent paintings.  Mom requested it as Christmas gift a year or two ago.  It made my artistic ego happy seeing that painting up on a wall (it being way too large to fit on the fridge).  The painting is an abstract - no lollipop trees - but in it I hope my mother saw the same message contained in all my early drawings of flowers, houses and enormous Thanksgiving turkey scribbles, and writ large in cards: