Smile

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I’m never sure what it is about sketching that produces such calm.  Maybe it’s the instant gratification – watching something appear on a recently-blank page.  Sometimes I think it’s the hypnotically rhythmic sound of the scratching pencil on paper that lulls away the angst. All I know for sure is that while listening to the gentle din of the café in the morning as I watch my son’s enigmatic gaze appear, all I have done for the last half hour is smile.

 

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Paper Puttering

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A few weeks ago, I told a friend that I rarely feel like an artist. I was just a writer who does a doodle or two with her posts.  I think all of us have a tendency to look at the work of others – creative or otherwise – and feel like we’re coming up short.  Those perceived shortcomings often cause me to hem and haw about claiming the status of artist.

Lately, though, I’ve been doodling a lot more. It’s not about a status, and it’s not about getting better at doodling.  It’s just about getting better inside my head. Words spoken out loud can get you into trouble, but doodles get you through it.  They may seem just like scribbles on a cheap sketch pad, but there’s a lot more going on in those lines even if it’s not spelled out.

Best of Worlds

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  The one-traffic light town of Cambridge, NY seems like a metropolis compared to our neighboring village, but it wasn’t until a year ago, when a new cafe moved into the building next to Hubbard Hall, community theatre and arts center, that it became a different world – one I’d been missing since we moved to Vermont from Germany over a decade ago.

Our tiny mountain town is so small we merge with ‘historic’ Arlington for a lot of our services.

Every town in Vermont is ‘historic’, but I come to love Arlington because of what it is now. Our kids know most of the other kids here. Drivers still wave as they pass each.  There’s a predictable rhythm of clotheslines and gardens, carnival fundraisers and heated debates over deer hunting and the mud-rutted roads.  The cars may be modern and the glow of  smartphones can be seen at town functions, but time seems slower here.  It’s mundane, but  as Thing1 was joined by Thing2, I’ve learned to appreciate the mundane.

Hubbard Hall, a cauldron of creativity housed in a nineteenth-century opera house first drew me to Cambridge.  It pulled my husband into acting, my kids into theatre and music, and me back into art.   Regular workshops for me and the kids have made the cafe my favorite new haunt and, as much as I still love the mundane, there’s something to be said for being able to live in two worlds.

Jitter Bug

Jitter bug medicine blog 4 8 2014

There’s a bug going around the school this spring.  I usually resist the urge to pump my kids full of unnecessary antibiotics, but last night Thing2’s nose was runneth-ing over, and I got out the purple stuff.

Literally taking his sniffles in stride, Thing2 came limping over to me (apparently this particular strain of flu is being sponsored by the American Branch of  the Department of Silly Walks) and opened his mouth.  I popped in a spoonful of grape-flavor.  He danced on one foot and then the other quickly and then looked at me and smiled.

“I’m just making sure it gets everywhere, Mom.”

“The flu?”

“No, the medicine through my body.”  His legs regained functionality as he slid around the floor, jitterbugging to his internal iPod.  “And, I think it’s working, Mom.”

One of us clearly doesn’t understand how the purple stuff is supposed to work, but it might not be the guy dancing around the kitchen in his jammies.

The Common Thread Give-a-way, Win a Visit from the “Easter Bunny”

Easter Bunny by Kim Gifford

Happy April – hopefully Happy Spring wherever you are.

Kim Gifford is the Common Thread’s artist of the month, and her print, Easter Bunny, is perfectly in sync with a season of renewal.  Kim’s digital collages always look like renaissance paintings to me, complete with real world angels and, of course, her signature pugs.

Easter Bunny is an 8 x 10 Print on Watercolor Paper. (Collage image is approximately 5  x 7 in center of white border) and is ready to frame.

If you’d like a chance to win Kim Giffords “Easter Bunny”  just leave a comment here on Kim’s Blog Pugs and Pics.   The winner will be announced on Thursday.   Good Luck!

When you’ve commented on Kim’s blog visit the rest of the artists in our group – when you’ve commented on her site, take a minute to visit the other artists in our group –   Jon KatzMaria Wulf, and Jane McMillan!

 

If Everyone Jumped

Windpower Apr 1 2014

“Mom, I have a new superpower!”  Thing2 barely had his seatbelt on.  “I can create wind!”  That neatly explained seven-year-old Thing2’s energetic,  skyward gestures as he hopped off the bus.

“What do you mean?” I asked.  Thirteen-year-old Thing1 smirked as he tried not to inject eighth grade into a heretofore innocent and imaginative conversation.

“I can,” Thing2 insisted, launching into an explanation of how to get the weather to bend to your will.

We quickly figured out that the weekend’s Frozen marathon – halted when Thing1 threatened to get a court order to get Thing2 to stop playing it – had inspired the afternoon’s flight of fancy.  It’s the result of a pattern that’s threatened to force us into using the worst parenting platitude ever devised.  It’s one I prayed I’d never use, but here we may be.

Thing2 had zero interest in Frozen until last week.  He, along with the rest of the boys in his class, were left off the guest list of a girl’s slumber party (a story unto itself).  Discovering the party’s theme and certain he was off the list because of his ignorance of the plot’s complexities, he promptly began begging to see it.

“I’m the only one in my class who hasn’t seen it,” he told me, digging out the other most over-used phrase in parent-child relations .

“Where have I heard this before?” I asked, resisting the temptation for a traditional answer. The question was rhetorical – I’d heard the complaint two weeks earlier.  It was before ‘Everything is Awesome’ from The Lego Movie became the newest tune Thing2 used to torture Thing1’s highly sophisticated musical ear and he’d been the only kid whose parents were keeping him in a cultural wasteland devoid of talking Lego characters.

I was a teeny bit curious about Frozen, however, so when the Big Guy and Thing1 were busy with homework  hit the download button.  The rest of the weekend was history.

I’ve avoided completing the other half of the ‘Everyone else is doing it’ equation for thirteen years not because I’m a parenting genius, but because Thing1 is a born skeptic.  If his friends were jumping off the proverbial bridge, he’d ask if they had insurance and a rope.

Thing2 is a different matter.  He doesn’t go along with the crowd just to go along with the crowd.  He goes where the fun is.

When we got back from the bus stop,  Thing2 offered to demonstrate his wind powers.   I fetched firewood as Thing2 climbed to the top of a snow drift, raising his hands in the air and gesturing to the clouds.  The top of the pine trees continued to sway.  “See?”

Weather control soon bored him and he began jumping from drift to drift.

“You’re going to get hurt,” I said.

“No I won’t. Look, Mom,” he said as I filled the canvas wood carrier again.  “I’m jumping over the Grand Canyon.”

I stopped and watched him leap between two solid snow drifts.  He really did look like he was getting ready to jump over a gorge, and I realized I’ll never get to ask the oldest, most-overused query in parent-child relations.  The answer was already there in his flushed cheeks and every new story he was imagining with each leap.  More jumpers would just make it more fun.

 

A Sketchy Blog

woodpileOnce upon a long time in high school I had a fantasy about being an artist.  It used to keep pace with my other fantasy of being a writer.  I didn’t have any other professional goals – I fell into the field that employs me now almost by accident.

Even when I was buried in technology, I found time to write.  I wrote on the train and at night, convinced that I had a story somewhere.  Sometimes I fantasized about writing a comic book or finding a way to draw again, but art was something I bought, not something I did.

Then I signed up for a fateful workshop at a magical place – The Writer’s Project at Hubbard Hall led by Jon Katz and started a blog.  The blog needed pictures, but I was too cheap to pay for other people’s photos and too busy to go out and take my own.  It took me about 2 days to fall back on my  tried and true solution to every problem with an expensive solution and revive a long-dormant drawing habit.

Acclimating to the badge of ‘real writer’ (anyone who writes), I remembered this girl who used to draw constantly.  I wasn’t sure which outlet I should pursue, but our teacher said, “Do both.”

So I did both. The drawing, however, always seemed secondary.  I admit to being intimidated by the amazing work I’d see in Facebook groups or other webpages and never considered myself in a similar league with ‘real’ artists.

It’s a bit of cognitive dissonance – I’ll never be another Chekhov, but I don’t need to be to think of a life as a good writer and a working one.  But for some reason, I could never apply that logic to sketches.  It was just a hobby, something to add color to the blog.

Saturday, I had lunch with friends after a short story class before getting ready to hit the publish button on a new story.  Talk turned to publishing and selling artwork on the internet, and the group’s enthusiasm inspired me to voice a tentative desire to do the same.  The other artists at the table are established in their fields, so, despite encouragement from this talented group, I was still a little dubious about trying to put together a book of my ‘work.’

Sunday, after clicking Publish for me and setting up a blog for Thing2, I was feeling a bit bolder and started sorting through scans of sketches from posts and some that hadn’t made it onto the blog. When I reached the year mark, there were almost 150 sketches in the pile.  Labels and badges aside, art doesn’t just add cheap graphics to the blog.  It -as much as writing – is the blog.

Short Story – What Happens on the Road

What-Happened-on-the-RoadI put out a new story over the weekend, “What Happens on the Road.”  It’s available as an e-book as a PDF, ePUB or Mobi format.  You can read them on a computer or most e-readers.

Thing1 is the inspiration for this one.  A born lawyer, he mastered the art of banter by the time he was eight.  He’s thirteen now, and he keeps me simultaneously laughing and on my toes and, when experience runs into his wall of teen logic, trotting out motherly witticisms I swore I’d never tell my kids.

Blogger by Day

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Seven-year-old Thing2 swears he can fly.  It’s one of his many superpowers and one of the few I don’t get to see with my own eyes.  I believe him when he says he can because I’ve seen proof of most of his other superpowers.  If he says he can fly, he does.  He’s a superhero, after all.

He doesn’t usually trade in the garden-variety  abilities found in the pages of many comic books. His powers make music in his head – as evidenced by a spontaneous pre-dinner ritual of jumping and pirouetting around the living room. They enable instant superhero wardrobe changes the moment anyone in the family needs cheering up or consoling.  He pulls impromptu party ideas for four out of his latest favorite movie and new worlds from his dog-eared sketchbook.

I was an easy convert to the Ministry of Encouragement over at the Open Group for Bedlam Farm Facebook. I’ve come to think of encouragement as a source of magic, as much as a belief system, however, because just like other magic, encouragement grows, sometimes producing unexpected results.

This is especially true for your average superhero.

Thing2 is my shadow whenever I pull out my notebook, and I bought him his own soon after starting my blog.  With my ‘borrowed’ colored pencils and stapler and a super-powered imagination, he’s written and published dozens of books.  Superheroes are in short supply these days, so I encourage all his creative adventures.  I was a bit surprised, however, when my superhero came to me seeking his own blog.

Forgetting the ministry’s edicts, I said I’d set one up for him and then got up to do the dishes.

A few weeks later and a week after that, he came to me still wanting a blog. Saturday, he got his wish, and Powerman, The Journal of an Average Superhero was conceived.  Powerman has mom’s help with the tech end, but the images and ideas will be his.

I’m not sure what new abilities he’ll discover with this endeavor, but I know the power of encouragement.  Someday, somehow, it will help him leap something a lot bigger than an ordinary building.

Live a Little

“Look up!” The thickly-accented command came as my skis crested the top of the conveyor belt. I obeyed just as I fell flat on my face and tried to remember what the hell I was doing here.

I hadn't skied in over a quarter of a century and didn't remember getting to the top of the bunny hill was so humiliating. Free lesson and equipment rental are rare, however, and I was committed to being able to ski with the boys for Vermont's junior ski program (JISP) next year.

JISP got our kids skating and skiing almost as soon as they learned to walk. For me, however, winter has been mostly a spectator sport. I'd been big on spectator sports until last summer, when a retreat from another abyss, made me question the affinity.

Twelve-year-old Thing1, had followed his cousin to a cliff's at one edge of a lake. The only remnant of an ancient waterfall that had once dwarfed Niagara Falls, the lake attracted swimmers and jumpers. Thing1 was ready for both.

My nephew went first, doffing his shirt and flip-flops before raceing off the cliff. We heard a whoop and a splash. Thing1 and I walked to the edge and looked down. The drop was about 25 feet, but the water looked plenty deep, so I kept my worries to myself. Thing1's cousin joined us again and took another jump.

“I'm going to do it.” The second splash was too much for Thing1. “Mom, can you take my shoes back?” Not waiting for an answer he setup for his maiden run. “I'm going.”

There was silence and then a massive splash. Thing1's whoops echoed through the canyon, and he scrambled back up the cliff. “Mom! You gotta try this!”

I nodded and smiled and retreated to the picnic area. The family swam while the boys jumped, each splash a siren call to join the fun. I soon found myself paddling toward the tiny beach by the cliff.

Another group of divers appeared at the top of the cliff, and my stomach tightened as I thought about marching my paunchy body up the beach in a bathing suit. I'd wait until they were gone, I decided. The strangers lingered, however, and I never jumped.

Now I waited for direction at the top of the bunny hill. Thirty minutes passed, and no instructor was to be found.

“I'm going,” I said to myself. I slowly slid down the hill, muscle memories reviving as I banked and turned. At the bottom, accident free, I surveyed the line for the bunny hill lift, trying to decide if my pride would endure another run.

Just then, Thing1 and seven-year-old Thing2 came racing up behind me, their faces flushed with exertion.

“Mom!” Thing2 got to me first. “We went up the big hill! You gotta try this!”

“I'm still wondering about the bunny hill,” said to him. “I fell flat on my face. I may wait.”

“I fell too,” answered Thing2. He patted my sleeve. “But he got me back on my feet.” He gestured at his older brother. “You just have to try again.”

“Yeah, Mom.” Thing1 nodded. “You just have to live a little.”

So, forced into life for and now by my boys, I went again. And next year, I'll jump.