Letting Go of the Old

I have piles of (un tas de!) French notes/studies/écriture/quotations.

Should I let them go? 

Yes, (but maybe not all) as I am clearing out old papers to make room for current ones, future ones...

These papers sit dormantly, waiting on shelves &

they've been calling to me, calling me back while I'm moving forward...
It's not that I'm letting go of my French studies, not at all. It's that I'm continuing!

There's insecurity involved in letting go of souvenirs of activities in which I was so engaged, which made me so happy & so focused. Then, there's faith that what is to come will be newly engaging & fresh & glorious. 

The quote above that I had some years ago embellished with a snippet of an abstract sketch, speaks of differences in the nature of friendship in youth verses in mature age, of differences between spring & autumn...Maybe it's not a coincidence that I chose this page today. 

On Travel

 

Organizing past travel journals on my shelves, weeding out old papers. A few scribbles & quotes.
(Warning! My translations from the French may not be quite right...)

"L'esperance d'une joie est presque égale à la joie."

The hope for a joy is nearly equal to the joy itself.

~Shakespeare

"Ce qui me plaît du processus de voyager c'est l'élément de surprise."  I love the element of surprise that comes with traveling.

~Shakespere

"Ce qu'il y a d'agréable en voyage, c'est que, par la nouveauté et la surprise, l'habituel prend l'air d'un aventure."

What is pleasant about travel is that novelty & surprise transform ordinary occurences into adventures.

~Goethe

"To set out on a pilgrimage is to throw down a challenge to everyday life. Nothing matters now but the adventure."

~Phil Cousineau in The Art of Pilgrimage

(I am thinking, this applies to routine, non-travel days as well.)

Happy traveling to you, & happy staying home as well!

Québec City Illustrated

The Théâtre Capitole de Québec is one of the most imaginative examples of architecture in Quebec City. Its colors were dazzling during our visit: golds, oranges & carmines with green accents against a brilliant blue sky. Apparently this building was in a decline for a time, but now it not only hosts fantastic shows, but it is designated as a historic Canadian monument.

I've only recently learned to look up, in my own city as well as when I'm travelling. This tower is the highest point you see when you are looking up from the Marché de Vieux Port, the indoor market of local farmers & entrepreneurs at river bank level (the Saint Lawrence)  to the colline, the hill on which much of Quebec City is situated. 

Walking down the hill to the Marché we spotted some old style buildings that contrasted sharply to the modern construction that surrounds them. They seemed a bit lost in the midst of modernity. They are "holdouts". Perhaps they are a bit like me...

The First of May

I love the French tradition of giving a bouquet of Lily of the Valley as a token of good luck & happiness to friends & loved ones. 1szy maja, first of May, is celebrated in Poland, but I think it is mostly a political holiday. In the United States during my childhood we used to have a tradition of surprising friends by placing a May basket of flowers on front doorsteps & running away so that it would be anonymous. Twice in my adult life I found such baskets on my doorstep! In Ireland there is the Feast of Bealtaine, celebrating winter's departure, in Britain there is Morris dancing, in Finland, Sweden & some other countries, Maypole dancing.  In grade school our teachers organized us third graders into a Maypole dance for the Spring Carnival. We got so tangled up & laughed so much & I only hope the audience of parents & families enjoyed themselves as much as we did! It's not as easy as it looks but is beautiful to see when done without tangles.

It is the first of May & my Lily of the Valleys are just starting to poke their little tips up through the ground. It is the first of May, the day will be light & sunny & long as opposed to 6 months ago, the first of November when we were moving into darkness & cold. I woke up so excited, May Day! Bonne journée à vous, Dobry dzień! Have a day & whole year filled with good energy, luck, & happiness, no matter what the adversities be in your life. 

Daffodil Dancing

Daffodils are dancing their green & yellow dances all over town.

They bob & nod & sing to me in the sunny breeze, "Come outdoors!"

"Please don't miss us this year!" 

Me, I've not been dancing but tending to some matters that need tending. 

To those of you whose blogs I love visiting, I haven't been able to come over for awhile.

I'll see you there soon, when I've finished this round of tending.

In the meantime, I send you this greeting card. May you enjoy some daffodil dancing!

Photos: Color Soothes

 Yesterday morning in the Old Port: 

Coffee & quiet note-making at Mornings in Paris. 

Then some wandering with my camera. 

How color soothes my soul...

I get lost in blue softness,

and cheered by floating sun drenched color...

Open Sketchbooks: Daily Practice

Sketches & notes done at Mornings in Paris Café, Old Port, Portland

Practice increases fluency in drawing as in other endeavors. Sketching from observation as much as possible, as Seamus Heffernan writes in Daniel Gregory's "An Illustrated Life" (p. 81) "enriches your vocabulary & lends realism & weight to the things you create from your mind."  I love that but, I must add, I also do it simply for the joy of experiencing present moments of my life.

Passersby from a window table at a bagel delicatessen, Downtown Crossing, Boston.  

What a cast of characters paraded by & what a rhythm they created, crossing this way & that! Both recent sketches were made in my 5" X 7" Paperblanks book which is a good size for travel. This week I will need to STEAL some time to sketch as I'm needing to practice skills in other areas. 

31/2 " by 21/2# watercolor only

I recently started filling a small handmade book with quick memory paint sketches, no ink lines. I allowed myself a few light pencil guidelines here, but many of the them are done directly with the paintbrush. Painting from memory is harder for me than from observation, but it also enriches vocabulary. It's a little exercise into the unknown that develops unused muscles.

Paper Doll Story in Progress

Using the above toys I'm playing with a little series that might make a story.

(the circle things are double sided dots, the heart & star things are shape hole punchers... 

"Write (draw) about what you know," said the Library Mouse in my previous post. On Valentine's Day (Heart Bandit post) a guy on the street asked if we knew that hearts were dropping from a window on Commercial Street! We didn't, but I was thinking that perhaps some one caught them...

 ...and continued on her walk,

 ...and continued...and I don't really know what happened after this...If you do, please tell! And I don't know if she will end up in a book with pages, or a tunnel or accordion book or a diorama box...Perhaps you do? (Please tell!) What I do know is that Maine College of Art Professor Judy LaBrasca,
who got me started on this, is a very inspiring teacher!

New Blue & White at the Art Museum

Sketch in 5X7 paperblanks book. 

At the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston yesterday I wandered unexpectedly into "New Blue & White", a show with giant paper cutouts, textiles, & mostly ceramics. Oh glorious surprise & delight! For so long museum art has seemed so serious. I love the way I smile & laugh viewing many contemporary objects.

Nakashima Harumi: "Work 0808". Ceramic, "departing from his Japanese traditions,

making an abstract statement, says the curator. I say, "Totally fun!" 

About Blue & White in art: It was first used to describe cobalt pigment applied to white clay. More than 1,000 years ago blue & white ceramics emerged from the Middle East & Asia. In the last 15 years, 40 artists & designers from Latin America, Asia, the Netherlands, the US, looked to various blue & white traditions & interpreted them with various ideas.

There is a "diverse array of art" but for me the best part was being surrounded by the imaginative abstract designs & colors. Even the air seemed blue & white! For more information on the show, click here.

 The last Exhibition I visited was The Postcard Age. Even though I adore postcards, & even though there was a huge selection of Postcards from Paris, I was fatigued. I had spent some time on a French language guided tour & some "serious" time in other galleries. So I relaxed & looked at the lookers looking. Next time I'll start with the postcards.

  

This young couple came dressed up, he in shiny black hat, she wearing a crown. Maybe they were themselves contemporary art, in the midst of more traditional attire.

Functions of Sketching

Sometimes sketching in a journal has functions other than drawing for pleasure. Last night, at a town meeting about a pending proposal for allowing tar sands to the pipelines of South Porltand, my opportunity to sketch saved me.

It was an outlet for nervous energy, allowing me to take in information & comments on a disturbing subject.

 The beauty of it is that I now have recorded information to refer back to. And I got to observe people in their poses & their costumes, perhaps like a bird-watcher observing birds. So, I DID get to draw for pleasure as well.

A note about my technique: Once home, I filled empty space  with writing to balance out compositions a bit. The beauty of this is that I got to study the information by reviewing it & by copying notes that were handed out. And, here & there, I added some personal reflections as well. 

(PS. In the drawing above: "The Three Little Pots" are soup pots from a restaurant where I'd been the day before. Sketching while waiting, also a way that sketching enriches life.)

Playful Bird Sketches

I so love the blogs I read in which people share their photos of nature & their journal drawings from their country lives! Thank you! Several people whom I know & love are bird watchers &/or birders & I love listening to the stories they tell. On this journal page I wanted to get a sense of some different bird poses, so I sketched a bit from some bird book photos, & then added colors & features from my imagination.

26 Mugs, 100 Monkeys

A drawing from my "Private-Play" Journal. 26 coffee mugs from imagination, drawn in one session.

Noah Scalin in "365: A Daily Creativity Journal: Make Something Every Day & Change Your Life!" has inspired a number of bloggers. Quantity is generated by this practice, but more importantly, I think, perseverance & continuity. It's a daily workout of creative muscles. 

I'll never forget the art show at the Smithsonian in the 80's, "Yani, The Brush of Innocence" by a Chinese child prodigy. Her prolific calligraphic paintings included a scroll in which she challenged herself to paint 100 monkeys in 100 different positions in one session. I'm not a child, nor a prodigy, but I enjoyed my 26 mugs. And that's the beauty of the accessibility of art & education & books in our culture: the enrichment of individual lives, no matter what the degree of inherent talent.

Shaun Tan has a new book, "The Bird King: an artist's notebook". Tan is an accomplished artist of very refined graphic novels such as "The Arrival". This is a powerful story of the experience of the displaced immigrant. In "The Bird King" he features selections from his private journal of "doodles" & drawing experiments. There is only one thing to do to confront "artist's block", he writes. "Just start drawing", where the meaning of the drawing is secondary to the "simple act of making". Klee called it "Going for a walk with a line."

Will I try  to draw more than 26 mugs in a sitting at another time, in the style of Yani? Probably not. But a little series involving something else? Yes!