It snows and snows so nothing to do but shovel and work! But another happy development. Thierry Bogliolo, director of Findhorn Press, stopped in to meet Dear A last week. He’s publishing Allan’s latest, Stories We Need To Know. The book traces characters in great literature as they progress towards self-awareness and self-mastery and shows us how we can see where we are on our own life journey. I’ll be giving a big shout-out when it comes out in January. I’m a little prejudiced, of course, but I can tell you it’s a fascinating and really useful book in the way it points us in the forward direction.

Well, we all had an excellent dinner at Casablanca in Harvard Square. They really never let you down in the food department. Findhorn publishes wonderful books on spirituality, healing and self-improvement so it was a pleasure to meet Thierry.

And also a pleasure when he wrote a couple of days ago to ask if I could design a book cover for him. It was snowing, as I said, so I sat right down to do it. There wasn’t time to do original art so I dove into my files and found one of the paintings that had been rejected from the art show last month. I was able to manipulate it and create the cover. It’s for a book on living and dying—seeing death as a transformation and is written by a hospice counsellor.

I love how it came out and good to note that nothing we do is wasted. One rejection is just another acceptance. I do believe that everything good we do leads to more good if we hang in there. The good gets better.

Now that it’s stopped snowing I went out with my son to the shops tonight and we both bought new digital cameras. The technology has improved so much and I want to photograph my work more and other things that I see. As luck would have it there was a most knowledgeable young salesman there who’d read all the reports about what is good etc.—something I could never do. So I have a small box on my desk with a camera no bigger than a pack of cigarettes but that will do me a whole lot more good than a smoke. I’m going to wrap it up and give it to myself for Christmas. Great things will come from this wee thing. The gift that keeps on giving, as they say. One of them anyway.

Yesterday an invitation arrived via email asking if I’d like to enter a piece of art into ARTIADE—The Olympics of Visual Art 2008 Beijing/Los Angeles. As an artist of no repute, one who maintains a constant art practice but without ambition, I was surprised to receive such an invitation. I knew nothing about ARTIADE until a visit to the website revealed a wondrous display of rather interesting art from the previous art Olympics in 2004 in Athens. Art is submitted from all over the world and an international jury selects pieces that reflect what artists are preoccupied with in different places. A brilliant concept and the invitation is an open one.

As for the invitation—well, my work is not as defined or as accomplished as what I see in the exhibit so my first thought was that I would not enter. I have nothing worthy of entering at the moment. That thought flitted through my mind. Then I had a better one. I received this invitation because Sarah Shallbetter at The Art Connection saw my art at the Joy Street open studios a couple of weeks ago and invited me to donate a piece to their organization which places art in hospitals and homeless shelters, places where the art might bring needed uplift. I was especially happy to say yes to Sarah’s offer because the art she appreciated was the very same art that had been rejected a couple of weeks before from a juried show. So the next thought I had was—Wow, this has come from that! So, let me just follow what comes to me. Let me say yes to yes, again.

So, without any other reason, with no viable work, I have decided to enter. This means doing new work and continuing to puzzle over what I can create visually and how. It’s a wonderful puzzle, one that never gets fully solved. I know what I want to share but what can I do visually that truly moves people?

Well, the more questions I ask, the more motivation I feel. A good thing. And all the while I carry on writing. Another yes.  Life is very, very fine when you just flow with it.

Well, it’s just been announced in London that an artist named Mark Wallinger, aged 48, has won the prestigious Turner Prize. He is apparently famous in certain circles for parading around a Berlin art gallery in a bear suit to suggest something about the bearish nature of German politics, I believe. The Turner Prize was not for that but for staging what looks like an anti-war protest and that strikes me as very cool.

This from today’s Guardian from Wallinger—’I think art needs to engage the viewer and has to have a hook that isn’t entirely cerebral … I like Velázquez, Manet, Warhol - realists that held up a mirror to their society that was radical, but not pedantic.’

I really love that. He is speaking directly to the vital concern of any aware human being—peace. Amazing he won a prize that is both prestigious and established. It’s an art statement in itself that such a message can be acclaimed in these times. So, hurray, Mark Wallinger.

On another note—the Saturday Morning Ladies Drawing Club went on a field trip this past Saturday to The Natural History Museum at Harvard, ostensibly to draw. We met first at the diner for breakfast.

Then we got on the bus to Harvard Square to travel the few miles to the museum. Some of us hadn’t taken a bus in a while and there was a bit of a delay while we fished for quarters etc. The fare has tripled since I last rode it.

We walked from the bus across the park towards Harvard Law School. It was a frigid cold day, the first one we’ve had, and some of our group had not dressed warmly enough.

We started off at the North American Indian exhibit where we were greeted by an enthusiastic guard. We ladies are not unaware of enthusiasm. Even though it was almost ten when we arrived there was no one at the museum and he was sitting on a bench with a book eager for a bit of conversation. I explained that we were here to draw and he was exceedingly encouraging. We can take encouragement. One of our group had been to the installation of the new totem pole so we all went to see it. I explained to the guard that we were on our way to do some drawing in the animal and bird departments.

‘You must come back,’ he said. And he meant it!

We pressed on after spending a little time with the Day of the Dead exhibit from Mexico. Not that we were feeling morose, far from it. For a moment or two, I worried that we’d never get to the ‘natural’ part of the museum. It’s a fantastic place and there are so many places to be waylaid. I had to let go of expectation and just flow. So what if we drew—there are wondrous things to study in this place.

But, we pressed on, in time.

I was intent on getting to one very special room. We had to pass through rooms of stuffed animals.

I’m always gobsmacked by the little deer. She’s so young, so sweet. She gave her life for us. And there she is. She reminds me of how sweet we all can be, how fleeting our time and how we go on (not in stuffed form, I hope, but in another)—all at the same time.

But I had something else I wanted to show the class before I set them loose to draw.

It’s the best room in the place, I think—so spectacular to look up and see an entire skeleton of a whale.

We climbed the stairs to the upper level. Only Maureen stayed behind and when I looked down I found her sketching.

We then split up, each to find whatever she wanted to draw. There is the glass flower room, of course. A father and son spent fifty years making these flowers out of glass and they are accurate reproductions of real flowers.

We’d decided to meet at the gift shop at 11:30 but some of us arrived early. It’s nearly Christmas, after all.

Afterwards we sat on a bench outside the glass flower room and showed each other our sketches. We hadn’t done many. It was too exciting to see all this stuff but we decided we must come back, and often.

We headed home.

And waited for the bus at Harvard Station underground. Some of our party left us in Harvard Square for other pursuits.

I tell you all these things because our trip was so filled with fun, the good spirits of a small band of emerging artists. Not Turner prize winners though roughly the same vintage as Mark Wallinger and just as pro-peace. Our little outing seemed proof again that life is art. The best one yet. It’s the prize.