Artwala Road

Isn’t it amazing?  All the energy and excitement, all the hope.  I’m writing this at 10:30, the night before, thinking already about my day tomorrow.  My fellow artists and I at the art center are starting a yoga practice together.  Just so happens that tomorrow morning is our first day which seems fitting because yoga is all about finding and creating inner peace.   It’s peace we all want—peace between countries and freedom from war, peace in our selves and freedom from poverty, prejudice and limitation of all kinds.  It will be nice to practice yoga together—art and writing are solitary pursuits but we share a vision of being artists of change, artists who might bring some light into the world, each in our own ways.  Yoga will strengthen us as will camaraderie. Later I’ll dash back home to watch the ceremony on TV.  Dear A will be ensconced in a work ‘retreat,’ poor thing, so I’ll have to watch alone or drag someone back with me.  However, in the evening, we’ll be getting all dressed up, A and I, and heading off to our very favorite restaurant, Upstairs on the Square, where they’re putting on an Inauguration Dinner.  They’re even roping off a downstairs room for an Inauguration Ball.  When the manager called to confirm our reservation she said, “I hope you’ll pop downstairs for a dance or two.”  Absolutely!  “Oh, yes,” I said.  “Oh, yes!”

Let’s allow ourselves this moment of joy, one we’ll never forget.  Then let’s take that joy and roll our sleeves up.  There’s work to be done.

January 19th, 2009 | Category: Dear Reader | Comments (6)

I’ve been thinking this week about the whole creative process.  The manuscript I thought was done turns out not to be—there’s still work ahead.  I’m truly an idea person.  I get one and I’m off to the races without  a backward glance.  And they seem to shower down on me with abundance.  I work quickly, most of the time, though sometimes I have too many things on the go at once which slows everything down.  When I think I’m done though, I’m truly ready to just move on.  I’ve worked things out to my own satisfaction but it isn’t always to the satisfaction of those who give me feedback.  Suggestions are made and it looks suddenly like the wide-open road ahead is full of potholes.  The other day it felt like I’d never navigate these things, that I might just as well pack it in.

I’ve had the feeling before and indeed I’ve packed a few projects in.  I’m sure most creative people have.  We work on things, sometimes with brilliant results, sometimes not.  Some projects I’ve reworked when it looked like I’d hit a dead end but it often just made things muddy.  I know there’s a time for letting go but it’s not always clear when to hang on and just keep at it.

This time, I’m hanging on.  I’m going back in and making it simpler and more straight-forward.  I do believe that when inspiration comes to us it’s actually meant for us and not the dude next door.  And I think we’re best when we act on it.  Good things come.  Stuff happens.  I had to remember that this week.

Meanwhile, it’s freezing cold here in Boston.  Something went wrong with the heat at the art center today so I had my down coat on all day.  There we were, just 3 artists, all working with sweaters and scarves on, and me with my coat.  I love that we just carried on.  Nice thing about winter, we must just hibernate and do the work, one way or another.  How lucky we are who have creative work of one kind or another to do.  I made at least three cups of green tea, all very soothing.  A few emails, a couple of phone calls, brief chats with my fellow inhabitants at the center.  It was a good day really, even trudging through the work.

We finished Slings and Arrows last night, so very, very good, and now over.  I was warned it would end but am so very sorry.  It’s the best thing we’ve seen in ages and we had marathon viewing sessions, staying up late and once celebrating its genius with a tiny scotch in the wee hours; it was so compelling.  It’s too soon to start it over again so tonight it’ll be a book.  We’re on to Penelope Fitzgerald here.  Dear A has purchased the whole of her work second hand.  She’s a brilliant writer and a very, very good read.  Perfect for this cold night when we’re mourning the end of a great series where the characters seemed like friends.

January 14th, 2009 | Category: Dear Reader | Comments (5)

Well, today I finished the text for the drawing book I’ve been working on sporadically since August.  Pat on back.  I must! It’s based on my experiences teaching drawing to the wondrous group of artists who’ve been participating with me in a whole mish-mash of drawing experiences and experiments on Saturday mornings.  I say it’s a mish-mash because before I started teaching this class I’d never taught before nor had I been to art school.  But I had made thousands of drawings, my sole qualification.  I’ve learned so much about drawing through all the things we’ve tried but more about the way we all approach the thing it is that we desire so much—to make art, to claim our creative selves, to be free.  The book is really about how we can use the practice of drawing to find our true creative selves, our courage and strength.

It was a good day to finish because it was snowing all morning.  This is the view from the kitchen door out the back.  It was taken mid-afternoon but the whole day had that grey look about it.  My photography is still very basic—it might have been a tad brighter in reality but I have no idea how to check the camera exposure yet.  Well, never mind—that will come.  One of my realizations is that I have many projects I want to do and finish.  Ideas are not a problem for me but a disciplined attack with focus on one thing at a time can be.  Hence much gratitude to the grey day that kept me indoors chipping away at what must be conquered.

My reader is already casting his very able eyes on it and will likely mark it up a bit but it is nearly done.  I will do the drawings this week and that will be a welcome relief after too many hours staring at a computer screen.  Not a good thing.

I hope you’re all well as we trundle through this deepest part of the winter.  Our back door neighbor stuck his head out and shouted hello when I was snapping the photo of the snow on the birdbath.  We had a brief and jolly exchange then each headed back inside to our cozy dens.  It’ll be fun to come out again but we can’t hurry it along.  Good to savor these cold days and to get a little extra work done.

Yesterday we went to the opening of the RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) Alumni Show  at The Arsenal center for the Arts in Watertown, MA, home of my very own studio.  It’s a wondrous show and I’ll take some pictures tomorrow to post here.  Lots and lots of inspiration and even a couple of genius level pieces.  It’ll be fun to roam around and look at things with a little more care.  RISD is one of the best art schools in the country and the alumni represented spanned at least forty years.  You couldn’t tell though who was a recent graduate and who not, interesting in itself.  All good work feels fresh.

One of the artists is a young woman who I met a few years ago so that was fun.  She does beautiful paintings, almost landscapes but very abstract, luscious colors and bold swaths of paint.  They’re just so full of strength and invention.  Anyway, it was great to connect and have the chat that independent creative people always have about making our way in the world especially when the economic climate is stressed out.  We’re looking for creative ways forward.  I think some of the old paradigms for bringing art into the world are changing.  We talked of things like that.

Tonight we’ll watch two more episodes of Slings and Arrows.  We borrowed the discs from friends, all 18 episodes.  It has proved to be the most wondrous, stimulating series and we have only four episodes left.  Our friend said, ‘I warn you—when it’s over, it’s over.’  Well, he did warn us and it will be a terrible day, tomorrow most likely, because it is soooo good.  Check a little of it here.  For anyone who does creative work of any kind it raises all the issues about devotion to art and the dragon of commerce.  It’s the story of a troupe of actors putting on Hamlet and MacBeth as part of a theater festival that’s struggling to survive.  But it’s also the story of how the past haunts us, how we can doubt ourselves and how love can intrude and elude us too.  There is so much to think about but mostly we feel glad to have our own passions.  It’s a Canadian series and it makes me want to be a Canadian!  Which I am, though I haven’t lived there now for so long.  It makes me homesick even though it is also a fine thing to be here.  I don’t think those who do live in Canada can really appreciate just how sweet and literate that country is.  For so long it struggled against the behemoth of US cutlure, so nervous it wouldn’t have its own.  The goverment decided to support the arts with generous grants and the result is, guess what—art! Real art.  And the commerce dragon half-way slain.  Check it out, if you can— a full week of pleasure is guaranteed!

Now to make dinner then we’ll settle in for a couple of hours without blinking.  Sorry this has been so long!!

January 11th, 2009 | Category: Dear Reader | Comments (2)

Yesterday I went for a walk with my friend S.  We started at her place some blocks north of Harvard Square and walked into the square then poked around in various shops.  We discovered that Crate and Barrel is closing up after 30 years on the same corner.  It’s not that I shop there often but it seems like the universe is disturbed when such a big shop disappears from a familiar and rather beloved landscape.  The square was so funky when I first arrived from Boston almost at the time Crate and Barrel was opening.  Then it had a Woolworth’s, 4 or 5 bookshops and the same number of funky, cheap restaurants.  Now everything is high end.  There’s only one bookstore left, a big one at least, and Starbucks, of course.

We bumped into my friend C. as well.  She was out doing a little poking around as well. The air was crisp and cold but not chilly and the square was busy but not overwrought as it is before Christmas.  It seemed like life was settling back into its usual rhythms and we could all begin to breathe in the new year with the promise that new years hold.

Then we stopped in at the one café that is independently owned for a cup of tea and a pastry.  The place was absolutely jammed, so much so that tea and pastry in hand we couldn’t find a place to perch.  S. spotted an empty stool and she also spotted a bit of space by the wall so we dragged the stool over so we could use it as a little table and set our tea cups and plates on it.  There was an older man sitting there by the wall on a stool by himself.  He must also have dragged the stool over.  He was drinking coffee and had that rumpled, red-faced, unshaven look of too much hardship and perhaps too much whiskey meant to wash the hardship away.  But he immediately stood up and told me to take his seat.

‘No, no,’ I said.  ‘Thank you so much but this is your seat.  You must sit down to drink your coffee.’

He shook his head.  ‘No.  I’m fine.  You are two friends and you must sit down so that you can have a nice time and talk.’

I protested again and he insisted again, even began to walk away.  I called out thanks and he went to stand by the opposite wall, sip his coffee and watch the world parade by in this coffee shop.  I wish I’d given him a hug.  I will have to somehow pay his kindness forward.  Doubtless the opportunity will soon present itself and I’ll remember him. Funny how goodness shows up so often in unexpected ways and forms.

S. and I had a very fine talk then we walked towards Central Square before turning towards home again.  It was a fine, fine day.  Next time I’ll remember to take my camera.  New year’s resolution to carry camera with me and learn to take better shots to share the world I live in and to capture, if possible, things that might lift us up a little.  Note to self: charge the batteries!

January 4th, 2009 | Category: Dear Reader | Comments (9)