the cassandra pages

Can We Reprogram our Brains?

Yesterday I read an article in The New York Times titled "What Killed Penmanship?" The teaching of cursive handwriting has fallen out of favor in schools, and been dropped from many state curricula. The reasons cited are obvious: we are living in the digital age; we spend so much time on our smartphones, tablets, and computers, that hardly anyone needs to be able to write by hand anymore, and certainly not "beautifully". Today, the most handwriting that many people do is to scrawl a note to themselves, or write a grocery list (though even I use my phone for that!) - so it's hard to justify forcing kids to learn to write well by hand, practicing all those loops and consistent slants. However, the article went on to talk about a site on Reddit called "Penmanship Porn" where people post and look at examples of beautiful handwriting, and also about remedial courses some people are taking, as adults, to try to improve their penmanship, or even learn how to write in a way that might make a splash on that Reddit site.

This is all quite interesting to me, as a former calligrapher, and granddaughter of a teacher of the Palmer Method who instilled that exemplar of cursive into me at a young age. I still have some of the Palmer Method pens she used - the kind with a nib you inserted and then dipped into an inkwell. Imagine that. My own handwriting, however, has deteriorated a lot over the past thirty years: proportionately, no doubt, with the marked improvement in my typing.

I'm not as concerned about whether or not kids learn cursive handwriting in schools from a motor-skills viewpoint -- after all, no one can argue that there's not major dexterity involved in typing on a phone with both thumbs at high speed, and most young people seem amazingly good at that. The brain's ability to form ideas and thoughts and transform them into words is probably not hugely different when the end result is written with a pen than when it's typed - although, let's admit it -- there's a big difference between texting and writing a long, thoughtful letter to a friend. 

But because the development of writing, as symbols made by hand, was such a critical part of human development itself, I do suspect that some sort of evolutionary neural pathway is no longer being used when we do not use our hands in this way. Maybe another question to ask is, "What Else Died when We Killed Off Penmanship?" I'm being somewhat facetious: plenty of people, like my left-handed husband, never learned cursive handwriting, and that fact didn't interfere with either his dexterity or creativity. It's not cursive that's at issue: it's what happens when we write words and thoughts down by hand. It's a slower process, related to drawing, that requires us to think carefully -- there's no delete button -- and use fine-motor coordination, as our brains navigate a complex communication pathway between mind, eye, and hand -- and from there to the intended recipient of whatever we wanted to record or communicate.

What specialized and complex tasks DO we actually use that mind-eye-hand pathway for, anymore? We brush our teeth and dress ourselves, we might prepare some food; some of us play sports; we certainly type. But fewer and fewer people play instruments, learn to draw, learn to write beautifully, know how to do needlework or woodworking, make a really good meal from scratch without taking all night, throw a clay pot, know how to fix their own cars or a leaking faucet -- the list goes on. Cars are a good example -- even if someone might want to learn how to service their own car, most vehicles have become so complex, with computer-controlled systems, that it's not even possible. In this sort of world, where the knowledge, desire, and need to do such things are disappearing, I wonder if the human being isn't becoming something quite different from what we were in all the preceding centuries. How are our brains changing in the process?

When I searched for information on this topic, it's predictably voluminous, but also rather vague. Scientists acknowledge that technology has contributed to weaker memories, attention spans, and information-processing ability. On the other hand, so many tasks that we once had to do in our heads, slowly and carefully, have become rapid and automatic -- and who doesn't prefer that? Going back to the old ways has become inconceivable.

But in terms of the loss of specific practices like handwriting or drawing, there is less written. What science does know is that our brains adapt and change in response to external stimuli but also what we tell them to do: we actually have some control over this. Repeated behavior reinforces certain neural pathways, and causes disused ones to atrophy -- though in many cases this can be reversed. Being repeatedly exposed to disturbing media that upsets us, for instance, can cause our brains to form pathways that automatically end up stimulating negative thoughts, worry, and stress.  When we are under stress, certain hormones are also released that affect our bodies. One of the best ways to interrupt this destructive process is to reprogram our brains through making time for creative activities that help us to focus and concentrate in different ways.  When we draw, write by hand, doodle, play an instrument, knit or sew, whittle a piece of wood, make a paper collage or scrapbook -- as when we meditate, or do yoga -- we are giving our brains a break and stimulating them to strengthen positive pathways, relax our bodies, and decrease stress. But those activities need to become a regular practice in order to have a real effect.

While these kinds of activities have declined since their last resurgence in the 60s and early 70s, it does seem to me that there is a counter-reaction now, and that more and more people want to step away for a while, slow down, and learn to do something contemplative -- and perhaps also useful or beautiful -- with their hands and bodies, perhaps driven to it by wanting something, anything, that will help with the anxiety of living in our chaotic world and the constant barrage of upsetting news. Last week I went to an evening meeting of a new knitting club at the local library -- and it was eye-opening. More about that in a subsequent post!

Hermit Diary 49. Star

Christmas in my house would hardly be Christmas without a paper project or some sort of ornament-making, and this bizarre year is no exception. A while back, I became fascinated by mathematical origami models which are constructed using identical folded units that then are assembled into a shape, and over the years I've made a number of stellated octahedrons using Japanese papers in various combination of prints and solids.

This year, though, seemed like a good time to tackle the Bascetta Star, a model created by an Italian mathematician, Paolo Bascetta. The repetitive folding and concentration of origami are calming and meditative for me, and the process of making this star was a perfect antidote to the news.

Although each star requires 30 modular units, compared to the octahedron's 12, the folding goes fast once you understand how to do it and memorize the steps. And the assembly was actually easier than the octahedron, and way easier than the finished product would indicate. If you want to try, it's fun, and you'll end up with a pretty spectacular object that could even be hung with a small bulb inside. I made two -- this larger white and blue one, from 6 3/4" square sheets in different shades of blue and green with white on the reverse side, and a smaller red and gold star ornament from double-sided 3" squares.

 

This is the basic unit, folded from one square of paper. You can download a .pdf with instructions from Paolo Bascetta's website, and see other 2- and 3-dimensional origami pieces he's designed.

Three units joined together to make one "point". At first I thought you needed to make a bunch of three-unit modules, but that's wrong; in the final assembly, you make only one of these, then add one unit at a time in the same way, and in a particular order, until you've added all thirty. There are a number of videos out there, but I found this one on YouTube the best; it explains the assembly process very clearly, including how to hold the growing star and count the points so that you don't get confused!

Let me know if you try it -- I'd love to see what you make.

A June Watercolor Sketchbook

Studio still life with a painting of Thingvellir by Kjarval. A recent fairly loose watercolor; I want to do more painting like this.

About a month ago, I read about an online watercolor challenge happening in the month of June. The idea is to paint 30 "direct" watercolors in 30 days -- that means painting without preliminary ink drawing, just plunging in and painting or drawing rapidly with your brush. his is the second year for this challenge, the brainchild of Marc Taro Holmes, a well-known "urban sketcher" who used to work in the video game industry, and now happens to live in Montreal, and Liz Steel, an urban-sketcher and watercolor teacher  known for her watercolors of architecture. The point of the month-long challenge is to encourage lots of painting practice and less thinking and worrying about picky details or great results; like life drawing, this is to get people loosened up and moving from one painting to the next without judging themselves. I'm totally in support of that, because what I see in so many people who tell me they'd love to paint is fear of beginning, and then a whole lot of self-criticism which boils down to "I'm no good at this." There's no way someone isn't going to learn and improve if they paint 30 sheets of paper in a month, while just one a week, or one a month, leaves a lot of room for those self-defeating thoughts.

I kept thinking about the challenge, and finally decided I wanted to participate. The experience of doing my Lisbon sketchbook has taught me a lot. I've still got two pages left to go in that book, but by eliminating the ink lines about halfway through I've ended up with sketches I liked much more. And I really liked the fact that it's a complete book.

As for the "rules" of this challenge, I'm probably going to bend them. I'm in a different position from a beginning painter; learning to draw with a brush isn't my personal challenge; it's to pursue the work on a daily basis, sometimes painting very freely, at other times with more detail. At this point what I'm interested in doing is painting better (and more) watercolors, toward a particular style. Sometimes that means I need a quick preliminary pencil under-drawing -- so while I may sometimes go directly to watercolor, I'm not going to force myself to eliminate pencil drawing on every page. However, speed is going to dictate a certain amount of looseness, and that's always good for me.

Because I wasn't satisfied with the paper in my Moleskine watercolor sketchbook, I decided to make myself a new sketchbook for June. I used a single sheet of 22" x 30" Arches cold-pressed paper given to me recently by a friend. It's the lightest watercolor weight, 90 pounds, but still substantial. I cut it into smaller sheets that were 10" x 7 1/4", which folded down into 5" x 7 1/4" pages. The one sheet of Arches yielded three signatures of 12 pages each, for a book of 36 single pages, or 18 spreads. I made a traditional sewn binding on linen tapes, with cover boards made of acid-free matboard, covered with Italian marbled paper from my paper stash, added black Canson endpapers, and a spine covered with black leather. 

I wasn't sure how it would work, because I'd never made a book with such heavy paper. The only technical problem was that I didn't sew the signatures quite tightly enough, so even after gluing there is a small gap between them when you open the book to those pages.  But otherwise, it came out well.

The big challenge, I knew, would be to actually USE it. My own inner voice was already saying, "You're going to ruin that beautiful little book!" But I told myself I could make others, and on June 1, the same day I finished the binding, I painted the opening page. 

My goal isn't to do 30 watercolors, necessarily, since I don't have a 60-page book; what I hope to do is to completely fill this sketchbook with sketches and paintings from the area around my studio, which is near the Canadian Pacific railroad tracks. (We'll see what happens -- already it's June 3 and I've only done one painting!) I was shocked when I first put my brush on the Arches paper -- even though I've used hundreds of sheets of it in the past, I had become so used to using the Moleskine paper that the extra "tooth" and receptive surface felt like a wall of resistance, when really the high-quality paper was just begging for more water and paint. I'm not sure what will happen to the book itself when I get this paper really wet -- unlike a block of watercolor paper, the pages will ripple and buckle. But as a teacher once said, "Sometimes you just have to fight with it." At the end of June, I hope I'll have an interesting book full of paintings, and that I will have learned some more things. And you know what? If it's the end of July, that's OK too.

 

Lisbon Travel Journal: A Process and a Search

The Logistics

I went off to Portugal with a new, blank, pocket-size watercolor sketchbook, and the intention of doing as much sketching as I could -- more, I hoped, than I had ever done on a trip. That's what happened -- but, as usual, things got complicated. We planned an itinerary each day, and were on the go most of the time. J. and I walked a lot and for the most part we were always together. This is my choice, even though it conflicts with drawing. Lisbon is beautiful, with many exciting and challenging views, plazas and monuments, and complex perspectives. Still, I found that I didn't want to take too many precious hours out of the day to sit and draw. And when I'm traveling with someone else, it's not fair to ask them to be patient for an hour or more while I sit bent over a sketchbook. My partner -- a photographer -- is really very understanding about this, but we both try not to impose on each other's good nature too much. I sketched before or after some meals in restaurants or cafes, and occasionally at a church or a miradouro -- one of the many "lookouts" scattered at high points around the city. I also did some still life and interior drawings in our apartment in the larger sketchbook I'd brought. Sometimes I did a quick sketch in pen-and-ink on location, and added watercolor in the evening after we were home for the night. But all of this still barely scratched the surface of what could have been recorded in my sketchbook.

After we returned home to Montreal, three weeks ago,  I plunged into choir duties for Holy Week and Easter, plus we had a big professional design job to finish up by the end of the month. The sketchbook kept calling to me, though, and when my friend Valeria Brancaforte, a printmaker and painter in Barcelona, suggested that I just use my photographs and my memory to fill out the pages, it was the encouragement I needed. I've tried to do one new drawing every day or two.

The Project

What started as a fairly amorphous idea -- a bunch of random sketches and impressions of a particular place -- became even less clear to me during this trip. 

Whenever I've traveled as an adult, throughout the past forty years, I've generally kept some sort of journal. Originally, before computers and long before phones, these journals were mostly words in a small notebook, maybe with a sketch or two. I took pictures with film cameras, and made albums of prints when I got home. Later, this same journalistic process evolved into blog posts. After we moved to Montreal and established a much more functional studio space, my blog -- which had been mostly words and photographs -- became more of an art blog, and I started drawing nearly every day. When I traveled, I still took along notebooks or sketchbooks, but the words went into my computer. Although I was drawing while away, I never tried to make a sketchbook that stood on its own. The sketches, along with words, ended up on my blog.

View of the Targus River and Castelo de Sao Jorge

During these same years, in the craft world, scrapbooking became a thing, while artists took it one step farther, making personal journals that combined elements of scrapbooks, sketching, and handwritten journaling, and teaching others to do it. Online, we saw the rise of the wildly popular urban sketching movement, with talented artists holding international seminars on techniques for drawing architecture, urban landscapes, and people. Local groups of avid sketchers have sprung up in many cities. These travel and urban journals are personal too, often combining words and paper ephemera along with pen-and-ink or watercolor sketches. People share their work not only in local groups but on personal and group blogs, and social media.

Natas (Portuguese custard tarts) in pen-and-ink and watercolor, with stickers and packaging from Pasteis de Belém.

All of this is fantastic, I think -- it's brought new methods of creative self-expression, as well as community, to a great many people. I've certainly been influenced by some of these trends, and they've found expression on my blog, but until I decided to make one cohesive paper journal of this trip, I hadn't thought it through. What exactly was I trying to do? What was this thing I was making?

The Targus River from the Alfama (the old Moorish quarter)

The drawings in my large sketchbook were not confusing: they were black-and-white line drawings done in my familiar style. I had made a somewhat subconscious decision to do the small pocket sketchbook pages entirely in color. But in what style? Good question! The answer that emerged was that I didn't have one -- at least, no style I was completely happy with. Most of the first pages were done with pen-and-ink, followed by watercolor washes. Sometimes the line felt too heavy for the small pages, giving a cartoon-like feeling. At other times, when I managed to stay looser, the result was more pleasing to me. I thought I'd try working in direct watercolor, over a lightly sketched pencil drawing. I did the two landscape sketches (above) over the rooftops looking toward the Lisbon harbor, as a comparison. Both were nice: they're just very different in feeling and even in purpose. 

When drawing tiles or ceramics, using line work made a lot of sense, and seemed effective. For sculpture or landscape, I wasn't so sure. I kept going back and forth between the two.

Madonna and Child at Igresa de São Domingos

Halfway through the trip I decided that this was the real purpose of the project: to explore and search out a style that I liked, or perhaps to refine two different styles for different purposes.

I did two full-spread seascapes using watercolor alone, and began to feel a little more satisfied. Both were too contrasty, and I struggled with the Moleskine paper, which is really not very high quality, but they had more feeling, depth, and emotion than ones that began with a pen line. Was it ridiculous, I wondered, to spend so much time on an 11" x 3.5" sketch, when I could have worked much larger on excellent paper, and gotten a much better result? 

Calçada do Combro, with tram lines overhead.

Then there was the problem of perspective. For years I avoided drawing buildings, even though I've studied perspective and know the basic rules -- I thought it bored me, but really I lacked the necessary patience. Doing complicated urban drawings of buildings and rooftops, which I'd first tried last year in Mexico City, gave me more confidence. In Lisbon, with its hills and endless angles, I tried to pay more attention, and take the time to get the drawing approximately right, but I was also learning how much to leave in and what to leave out to create an evocative impression and satisfying sketch rather than an architectural rendering.

In spite of all my second-guesses and self-criticism, the sketchbook itself was beginning to fill out, the pages adding up to a record and impression of what I had seen. I didn't have this from any other trip we had taken. So I kept going, determined to finish a standalone, completed book, rather than abandoning it mid-stream. Some pages would just work better than others; that was fine with me. It could contain a variety of styles. In the end, it would be a record of my own search and struggle, as much as it was a record of a place.

Dinner at the apartment: salad, fruit, and vinho verde.

A modern travel sketchbook can be so many things -- there are no rules. The most satisfying ones, to me, have a developed, personal style, but their "tone" varies just as much as we artists vary in personality; that's part of what makes them so cool and interesting. Some are detailed and architecturally accurate, some much looser; some are whimsical and playful. Some focus on food, or buildings, or people; some use more or less color or pen line; some incorporate a lot of ephemera. In the end, it's all up to the maker.

 

John Singer Sargent, Ceiling of Palatine Chapel, Palermo, Sicily, watercolor, 1897

But what did I most want to do? A few days ago, I spent some time in the library looking at some John Singer Sargent watercolors I hadn't seen before, including his travel sketches from Sicily. Back in 1897, he had sketched altar retablos, wall mosaics and pavements that I too had admired and photographed 120 years later. I felt a flash of connection and recognition, as well as gratitude, as I pored over his masterpieces. Each sketch, no matter how loose or unfinished, was worthy of framing. They confirmed my gut-level instinct: I was most interested in trying to follow in the footsteps of artists like Sargent -- whether that took the form of a book of paintings and drawings, perhaps to use later with words, or loose sheets intended as standalone paintings, or sketches that could form the basis for later paintings.

This, on balance, is the most important thing the process has showed me: that at least part of the time, I want to aim high and do something more serious, partly because I feel the press of years: I don't have unlimited time.

Like anything worth doing, drawing and painting require discipline and practice, and also passion. I really love to draw, and always have. Developing a lively pen-and-ink style, with or without color, has been a priority for me, and it's fun. Likewise, direct watercolor is a medium I love, even though it's technically difficult, and very easy to ruin. Better paper is a requirement. In the future, maybe I'll end up binding sketchbooks for myself to use, with the paper I like best -- I can guarantee that the traveling artists of the 1800s and early 1900s were not using cheap sketchbooks. I need to take my own advice, and use the best materials I can afford.

I was happy with the first direct watercolor I did after revisiting Sargent's. It took twenty pages to get to this point; I've got another ten to fill. 

 

 

 

Fitting It In

The Tower of the Winds, Athens, the Roman Agora. Watercolor and fountain pen, 9" x 4".

We've been super-busy lately, with a large professional design job that came to us unexpectedly, an upcoming book for Phoenicia, taxes, and various other personal and volunteer responsibilities. I've also had some more dental surgery, oh joy. I've felt like I haven't had any sustained time to do artwork, but in spite of that, I've managed to fit in a few drawings or other projects. It's important to my sanity to keep a creative practice going, so I'm glad to see the evidence when I look back through my photos from the past couple of weeks.

The drawing above was a test of a landscape-format Arches watercolor block, done one evening from photographs I took in Athens. We're going to be taking another trip soon, and I've been trying to get my art supplies together. I still don't have the ideal travel sketchbook; my hardcover Stillman&Birns is just too heavy to carry around in a purse all day, and the smaller sketchbook is a bit too small for serious sketching. So that's a dilemma to solve in the future.

Paints are easier. Here's a sketchbook sketch of my current palette, with some ideas for changes. In the end, I couldn't buy a small tube of perylene maroon locally, but was happy with the mixtures I was able to achieve from my basic palette of colors. All I'm doing is swapping out the Cadmium red for Quinacridone Burnt Orange -- a very beautiful intense burnt sienna that is full of light on its own but different from Quinacridone Gold, and forms lovely darks when mixed with deep blues. (Thanks to Liz Steel, who's always tinkering with her watercolor palette on her thoughtful and well-annotated urban sketching blog, and Jane Blundell, an online expert in watercolor pigments and mixing.)

And there have been a few drawings. Here's one of my father-in-law's small Nefertiti-head with the houseplants we're coaxing through the winter, and a still-life of two pears wrapped in paper and the orchid pot that seems to keep reappearing in many of my drawings this winter, because of it's pride-of-place on the table where we eat.

But the most fun I've had making things lately happened on the day before Ash Wednesday, called variously "Shrove Tuesday", "Fat Tuesday" or "Mardi Gras", when the cathedral traditionally holds a pancake and sausage supper. I don't think many Anglicans fast during Lent, so this won't be the last time they see fat or meat for a while, but it's a nice tradition to observe anyway. This year, the dean suggested that we wear masks to make it more fun. I spent an afternoon making these two for J. and me to wear, and they came out in a sort of Viennese style, with the gold beaks. I've never been big on dressing-up, but this event was a lot of fun and I loved making these masks!

I hope that you can see signs of spring wherever you live (unless you're in the southern hemisphere) and are able to do whatever keeps your spirits up!

Drawing Basics 2: Fear of Failure, and How Not To Succumb

Let's get some of the clichés out of the way, up front. Do any of these sound familiar?

"Oh, I can't draw a straight line!"

"I'm not a REAL artist..."

"I used to love to draw as a kid, but my teachers told me I didn't have any talent."

"I don't think I have the patience for it anymore."

"I don't have enough time in my day."

"Oh, I'll never be able to draw like  ______."

"I'm afraid my kids/husband/friends would make fun of me."

"I've tried to do it, I've even taken classes, but I get so discouraged."

"I was told I was pretty good once, but then my life got so busy...and now it seems like it's too late."

OK, that's just a sample of the phrases I've heard from wistful would-be or former artists over the years. Maybe it surprises you, but I've said some of the same things to myself. Whenever we consider starting something new and challenging, we're listening first to a positive inner prompting that ranges from a subtle whisper to an insistent, persistent longing. That voice in our head is important, and we need to pay attention. When we're children, we just plunge in and try things, but as older people, that inner voice of longing and desire and attraction is followed immediately by doubts, and arguments aimed at convincing ourselves why failure is likely. That second voice is good at what it does: it's had a lot of practice! We truly are our own worst enemy.

Try to go back to the source of the love and the longing. Where does that prompting come from? Can you remember? Did you like to draw and paint as a child? Do you love looking at art and would like to try to make some? Did you once draw and paint and then gave it up? Why? What happened? Now, when you think about taking up drawing or painting, what is the inner dialogue that follows? Are there discouraging memories that surface, or fears about what might happen if you did try?

Here are seven reasons why I think people give up almost before they've begun. (And of course these apply to many pursuits, not just drawing.) 

1. Comparing ourselves to others. 
2. Expecting good results too quickly
3. Difficulty enjoying a solitary process while beginning
4. Difficulty establishing a regular practice
5. Negative conditioning from childhood or later
6. Embarrassment, fear of ridicule
7. Setting unrealistic goals

Now, let's take those apart.

1. Comparing. We all compare ourselves to others, no matter how good we are or how long we've been at it! It's human. But it's also self-defeating. The bottom line is that comparing yourself to yourself is the only helpful comparison, and practice makes you better. You will never improve if you don't do it at all, so there's only one solution: getting started!

2. Lack of Patience. It takes time to develop any skill, and you will need some patience. There's no magic formula, but what I would suggest is to fall in love with the process and the materials. Really enjoy the feeling of the pen or pencil on the paper, or the colors of your paints. Buy some good materials and use them. Enjoying the process of seeing and creating and making is what saves all of us, because we all get discouraged. If you focus too much on the finished product instead of the creative process, you're making it a lot harder for yourself. Yes, look at a lot of art, see what you like and think about why, get inspired, ask professionals for advice. But just keep your eye on the ball, which at the beginning is a regular practice of drawing, ideally every day.

3.Getting through the early stages. OK, you say, that's hard when I feel so clumsy and inept. Right. You might take a class, watch videos, join a sketching group or team up with a partner. Find the parts of the process that are easy to like, like going to a park or botanical garden, or a favorite cafe. Or you can embrace the solitude and the meditative time spent with yourself. Enjoy the realization that you're opening your eyes to seeing things differently, seeing things as an artist! Focus on the seeing, and draw a lot without being too hard on yourself. Draw something simple every day -- don't start with people, or your dog or cat, draw everyday objects with simple shapes, even if it's just your teacup or a piece of fruit! Make it a practice. Over time, you will be surprised, because practice in seeing always pays off, in more ways than just in art.

4. Establishing a Practice. We all accept that playing an instrument requires practice, but I think a lot of people think art is a matter of talent we're born with and arrives sort of fully-formed. In fact, drawing is a discipline; you're training both your eyes and your hands. Even if you get pretty good at it, if you stop for a while you get rusty. So practice is necessary. The trick (as with all forms of exercise) is to make it regular and fun, and then you'll keep at it. We're all different so I can't tell you what will work for you. My most basic advice is to get a sketchbook you like and always have it with you, or else set aside a time when, most days, you're going to spend fifteen minutes or half an hour drawing. Make it something enjoyable, precious and personal, whether that means having a cup of tea or coffee while you draw, or going someplace you especially like -- just carve out that time until drawing becomes a habit and something you look forward to. And as you can see here, it's OK to draw the same things over and over again!

5. Negative conditioning is the hardest thing to overcome. I'm so angry with the adults who discourage people -- from anything -- especially when we're mere children. It is so often more about the adult than the child, but it can scar us for life. Try to listen, instead, to the longing and the love you feel for art and for self-expression. That's the true and original thing, and no one can take it away from you, because it is human and universal. Every time you hear the discouraging, negative voice in your head, try to remember a place or a time when you felt inspired, and hold onto that rather than the negativity. Every one of us not only has a right to be creative, but it is our birthright as human beings. Our individual path is for us to discover, and choose. Overcoming negativity is difficult but possible, and getting on the path is the first step; in fact it's already a victory. (A personal note: I gave up art for five years in my thirties because I was so discouraged by interactions with a teacher whose words and method I didn't understand. I know the effect this kind of negativity can have and how hard it is to recover one's own path.)

6. Ridicule. We are all afraid of making a fool of ourselves! My answer to that is: I'm doing it, I've had the courage to take the risk and try something new, so I'm not going to let people taking potshots from the sidelines faze me. That's their own insecurity talking, or else simple meanness and bullying, and I'm not going to pay attention. If people close to you can't be supportive and understanding, tell them politely but firmly to leave you alone. If the person giving you a hard time is yourself...learn to gently tell that side of yourself to go take a walk, and return to your practice.

7. Unrealistic goals. Watch what you're projecting for yourself; listen to your inner dialogue. If you go into this imagining your work up on the walls of a gallery, with a crowd of admiring people telling you you're wonderful, you've set up a pretty high hurdle. We're fortunate that today we can share work online with friends, and to pursue the things we like to do with far-flung, link-minded people. I think it's a whole lot healthier than expecting to publish best-sellers or have a Carnegie Hall debut, and have gallery shows and sell our work for millions of dollars; very very few people ever achieve that, and frankly it doesn't necessarily mean the work is great. If you keep at it, you will find ways to share your work that are satisfying and rewarding, and you may even sell some -- but go back to point #2: keep your focus on the process and the pleasure of learning and making gradual progress in seeing and creating, which can continue throughout our whole lives.

What do you think? Have I missed anything important in this list?

Next: seven reasons why drawing is absolutely worthwhile.

A studio still life, and some talk about buying paints and pastels

I was in the local art store the other day, buying pastel paper, and ended up also buying three oil pastel sticks - a dark blue-green, gold, and purple. It isn't a medium I've used much since I wore out my childhood set of Cray-Pas a very long time ago, but I've been seeing oil pastel work I liked and thought it would be a good experiment. This is the first attempt -- a fast, ten-minute drawing -- and I quite like the refusal of the thick stick to become pointed and fussy; the intense, rich color; the possibilities for thick dark application and for blending.

The same basic set of objects, drawn in pen-and-ink sometimes last year.

In art supplies as in most things we buy, there's a big difference in price and in quality between different brands. Usually the more expensive brands are worth the price, and that seems to be true in this case. The main stick I've used for the drawing here is Sennelier ($4-$5.50/stick, depending on vendor), while the gold is Van Gogh ($1.75-$2.50). The Sennelier is creamy, non granular, and luscious to draw with. The Van Gogh, much drier and more granular, is about the same as the Cray-Pas of my youth: I'd call them student grade. Other types -- and other colors -- may be stickier, or crumblier. A full set of Sennelier oil pastels lists at $539; I've seen discounted prices of $243 - but I'm not interested in a full set at this point, but in acquiring particular colors. I'll be buying more, slowly. They also come in very large sticks, at a commensurately larger price, but those are too big in diameter for what I want to do.

Beginning artists sometimes ask me whether to buy a set of colors of paint or pastels or other media - or to buy open stock. I usually suggest that they buy a set, but of the best quality they can afford. I think we all love sets of colors - there's something about opening a metal lid, or a lovely box, and seeing a whole range of colors nestled inside - maybe it reminds us of those big boxes of Crayola crayons. As a kid, I used to spend hours rearranging my crayons in different ways, which probably foretold more about my future than any Tarot deck. Six colors often isn't enough for someone without experience in color mixing, but a set of twelve colors is usually plenty for someone to get the feel of a medium and decide if they like it, without spending a fortune - because good art supplies are really quite expensive.

Inferior colors, while they may look brilliant and beautiful in the tube or box, are harder to handle and give unpredictable or low-quality results that can easily discourage even the most enthusiastic artist, who may blame herself but shouldn't. The choice isn't all black and white, though. In nearly all media, there's a middle range that is affordable, but not prohibitive. Art stores that cater to university classes are a good place to look, and there are many reviews of art supplies online. In this field, you really do tend to get what you pay for: the top-of-the-line brands are the best, using the finest-ground, best-quality, long-lasting pigments and the best binders and mediums, and sold by companies with long histories of research in the field. The beginner doesn't need to go right to this rarefied top level, but he does need to stay away from the bottom. (Drop me a line if you have a question, I'm always glad to try to help.)

This is my 90-color "landscape" set of Rembrandt dry pastels: I have two drawers full of different pastels, some inherited some bought in sets, some bought individually.

There are several problems with sets for the more advanced or professional artist. One is the need for a  greater range of colors, or a different range, from what is provided by the manufacturer in their sets, which may be general assortments, or color ranges specifically selected for landscape, portraits, or still life. Or we may find that we use up certain colors much more quickly than others, and need larger tubes or more sticks. Sometimes I start with a set that matches most closely what I think I'll use, and then augment it. In the case of pastels, that means buying new boxes for storing the ones I buy individually.

And storage of art supplies, in general, is a whole other issue, which I'll talk about sometime soon in another post.

I'm curious to hear from non-professional artists who've bought art supplies -- has it been a good experience? Confusing? Frustrating? Do you feel like you got your money's worth?

Creativity, Christmas, and Politics

In December, I didn't have much time for holiday-related creative projects. I was busy with a commissioned pastel painting of an Icelandic seascape, and the linocut illustrations (still not completed) for Dave Bonta's Ice Mountain: An Elegy. J. and I made a trip to central New York to celebrate my father's 92nd birthday, in mid-December. There was a lot of rehearsing and singing with my choir for two Lessons&Carols services, one at the beginning of Advent and one just before Christmas, and of course the music for advent Sundays and the midnight mass on Christmas Eve, but we didn't do a Messiah this year, and that was, frankly, a relief. I managed to bake a couple of batches of cookies, but for the first year in ages didn't make any fruitcakes, better known here as Christmas cakes, at all. I had hoped to make some other gifts, but alas, it didn't happen.

However, during the week before Christmas I made some linocut cards that I wanted to share with you virtually, since I only made twenty or so. This is the third holiday medallion-like image I've made; I guess it's turning into a series. So...Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to you, dear Readers and Friends!

But through it all, there have been a few drawings. I did this drawing of some quinces at my niece's house in New Hampshire, over Thanksgiving, then the dried-up pomegranate in pencil after I got home:

Yesterday I finally found a box of colored pencils I had misplaced since our move up here, and did a couple more drawings last night:

I like the illustrative quality of this Santa with the subdued background - he was originally a candy box, made of flocked paper, with a tree tucked in his arm and a head that bobs on a spring. He belonged to my maternal grandmother and always came out at Christmas in her home, and now in mine. But I think the persimmons, below, deserve a much bolder treatment than they've received here. However, it was a good opportunity to find out more about working with the pencils.

Often I do better without little pointy things in my hands, although speed of drawing helps a great deal to avoid fussiness. I like the vigor of the pomegranate above, and the spontaneity of this dashed-off, fountain pen sketch of a desktop in my studio, on a sheet of paper that already had a big scribble across it:

As the year draws to a close (uh, no pun intended) I do feel the urge to draw, both for its absorbing and meditative quality that I always find restorative, and because I see commitment to creativity as a radical and hopeful act. Not only does it affirm some of the best qualities of human beings, it speaks to a future with hope. I need to shore up my own defenses against the difficulties to come, but I also want to be doing positive creative things that say, "yes, this is who I am, always have been, and always will be, and nothing can take that away." I will be doing political activism too, sometimes combined with art or writing I'm sure (the first thing is to knit a pink pussy hat for a friend who's going to the Women's March on Washington the day after the inauguration) but I think it is vitally important that we don't allow our deepest selves to become de-railed by anger or fear.

Expressing emotion through art is one way forward, but I think it is more true to myself to continually point toward the tender beauty of the world and its people and the love I feel for them, hoping to encourage deeper thoughtfulness and embody positive emotions, rather than making dark and angry paintings or prints. I'm not talking about putting my head in the sand, or fiddling while Rome burns - not at all. What I'm trying to say is there is harmony, balance, and simplicity around us and within us, even at the worst time and in the worst places: the fact that these qualities exist is a continual encouragement, and we can always cultivate greater ability to find, nurture, and protect them. But I don't know exactly what direction my work, including publication projects, will take as events unfold, and it is part of what I know I'll be facing and exploring in 2017.

Stitching my way toward spring

I like to think that my great-grandmother's thimble made her finger as sweaty as it does mine. I like to think about the quilts she and my grandmother made together, and sometimes I sleep beneath them. We were all named Elizabeth... Not long before she died, in 1992 at age 92, my grandmother asked me, "You have Libby's thimble, don't you?"

"Yes," I said, "would you like it back now?"

"No," she said, sitting back in her chair, satisfied. "I just wanted to make sure where it was."

Each stitch is a tiny step closer to clarity, to restoration, to the spring that is inching its way north. Across the city, a friend writes that she's just bought a balloon for a friend in hospital. The morning's snow flurries have given way to bright skies, and the afternoon sun butters the walls of the carpentry school, where students brush off sawdust and look forward to the weekend, a few beers, some music with friends. I'll see an old dear friend tomorrow, and sing a mass by Delibes on Sunday. Another line of stitches, another pocket to hold our warmth next winter. Such inconsistency in these stitches, these steps! I've been doing this my whole life and I'm still a beginner.

Taking Stock

The activity that's defined my life this fall has started to slow down. For the past few days, I've felt like one of the seals we saw in Iceland, poking my head above water and looking around to see where I am. Over the weekend I had time to clean my area of our studio and file leftover material from these projects. It feels good. But it's also never been easy for me to deal with a sudden lull in activity (hence the cleaning, no doubt) and I see it as a challenge this time. I deliberately haven't made clear plans for what comes next, in order to leave some time and space.

One of the things I want to do is to get back to some serious writing, but where that might go is still quite unclear, and I have a huge volume of artistic inspiration in the Icelandic landscape that is waiting to be explored. I know I need some time now to just be, to refill the energy coffers. I also know that it's very easy for time to become filled up again, especially during the holidays, especially when the person in question is me, and especially when I feel guilty for neglecting other people or tasks. But guilt is an emotion I've worked on understanding better in recent years, and it holds less power over me than it used to.

It's often good for me at these times to turn to meditative handwork (and much more fun than cleaning!) Last week I knitted a warm hat from two strands of wool: a thick natural grey alpaca and a thin creamy white merino - the whole purpose being a hat to go with a fur pompom that a friend bought for me at a Native powwow in the fall. The quilt I started last winter is ready to be backed and quilted, and there's a scarf to hem. Today I cut up some squares of origami paper to fold into Christmas ornaments. The appeal of these projects is that there's no deadline, and while my hands are busy with repetitive motions, the work proceeds little by little, creating a meditative space where clarity about larger questions sometimes occurs, unannounced and unexpected.

The written word, though, always functions for me both as a comfort, and a more conscious means for understanding myself. Reading is one side of the coin, the other is my own writing -- it's how I take stock, how I figure things out, and also, often, how I let go and move on. From the pages of private journals, letters to close friends, or writing for this blog, ideas form, and the swirl of inchoate emotions transform into understanding, and finally into plans. When I'm knocking myself out to meet deadlines, I miss writing that way, and I miss the side of myself that becomes too busy or too distracted to enter that space. It's OK for a while, but eventually the lack of self-care takes a toll.

In the past weeks I've seen a number of articles questioning the superficiality of social media, the emptiness of homes without books or art, the falsely-predicted death of the printed book, and the growing appeal among younger people of more tactile, less digital forms of art: vinyl records, shooting with film, learning how to knit and sew. I get it. For those of us who grew up in a world where all of that was commonplace, some of the advantages of new media feel obvious and compelling: for example, I'd never want to go back to designing on a light table with a parallel rule, waxers and phototype, x-acto knives, rubylith and stat cameras. I'm glad we gave away our collection of vinyl, and even though our house included not one but two darkrooms for many many years, we both love our digital cameras. But I agree that there's a lot that seems to have been lost, as we've hurtled headlong down the digital road: too far and way too fast, I sometimes feel.

We don't know yet if we're in the middle of a pendulum swing, with a "correction" underway, or if the road to "progress" -- in large part a skillful manipulation of human desires and anxieties spurred by corporate interests -- will simply continue as it has. I'm often grateful that I've lived in both worlds and have the ability to choose whether to pick a printed book off my shelf or click on a digital title; I'm glad I learned to play instruments and draw and make my own clothes and be curious enough about the natural world to go poking around in it, because there was nothing much else to do when I was growing up. My mother used to tell me to get my nose out of my book and go outdoors, but somehow the books, as fascinating as they were, never felt like they had an organic attachment to my brain and body the way today's phones seem to. I might have continued to think about the world in those books, but I was also able to set them down and concentrate on something else, for hours, without being interrupted or distracted. Working that way feels good to me; it also feels good to use my hands and brain together. Being pulled in twenty directions at the same time does not, and neither does spending hours and hours, day after day, in front of this screen.

I loved the tactile, physical, intellectual, and emotional process of creating a series of relief prints over the past six months. Last night, singing in a performance of the Messiah for a rapt audience in the packed cathedral, I was aware of how physical the act of singing is, and how fully it involves the whole organism: body, brain, and spirit. As a species, we have not evolved at the same pace as our technologies, but we've almost stopped thinking about form follows function when it comes to our own bodies and minds: what is this human-shaped thing actually designed to do? When it's all working together, as it so miraculously does most of the time, what does that look and feel like? When we feel incomplete, empty, hungry, exhausted --  how can we regain or achieve some balance? Personally, what I know is that I want to go slower and deeper, into this mid-winter time that may look bleak, but feels full of possibilities.