How are people not scared and irate and determined to fight against the systems that are preventing us from dealing with CLIMATE after this week? Orange skies from forest fires in Canada that are wiping out towns. Air quality that is at an unprecedented level and endangering our health. And then SOHO in NYC flooded!!!! A fire truck is driving down the streets of Manhattan with water up to it’s chassis. WTF.!!! ICE kills a father in front of wife and young child. Mass packaged lettuce is making people sick. The pointless bombings and destruction and genocide continues despite politicians throwing around the word “Ceasefire” as though it means nothing. How has the world allowed an entire generation of young children in the middle east to be traumatized, maimed, orphaned and killed? What sort of dystopic future are we creating for our grandchildren? I want to believe that somehow everyone around the world will WAKE UP and a revolution will happen and change for the better will follow. But I just don’t know.
We cycled the Prouty
The Prouty is a charity ride/event that happens every summer in the Upper Valley to support Dartmouth Medical’s Cancer research. The ride just happens to go right by our son’s house. It is hard to believe our son has lived in the Upper Valley for 5 years!!! Every year we say we want to participate in this event but the timing has never been right. This year Roy was determined to do it. He signed us up in the spring and we made a point of riding distance on the few days we could find the time to do so. And despite all my various ailments it felt great to ride 30+ miles and not feel at all tired or sore afterwards. BUT the catch is riding our route in Cambridge is mostly flat and the Prouty has many hills and some of those hills were steep, long and challenging. And we were not riding road bikes so we were at a disadvantage.
The hill I was most worried about ended up not being so bad. It was the hills at the end of the ride that really got to me. And I failed to eat enough salt and got muscle cramps at the very very end climbing a hill to get to the parking lot where our car was. A kind older lady who was doing one of the Prouty walks helped me and once I downed a bottle of Pelligrino and a bag of potato chips I was better.
The ride was gorgeous and I am obsessed with what looked like a cut flower farm on River Road. My only regret was not stopping to take photos of it. I want to try to find it again. It was like a painting. All the colors of the rainbow dotted this hillside. The river views were also gorgeous.
We definitely appreciated the free King Arthur Cookies at the end and it was super nice to go get lunch and hang out in the Adirondack Chairs at Cedar Circle Farm afterwards.
The next day our daughter-in-law and son went on a breakfast date before she dropped him off at the Dartmouth Coach as he was flying to Austria for work for the week. So we hung out with the kids at the house. The plan had been to take them to Montshire but they just wanted to play on the swing their parents had installed the previous day from a tree right outside their house. The swing is a round rainbow rope net disc swing….It can function as a spinning swing, a hammock to just lie on,a pirate ship or just a climbing rough housing toy. It is great and the two kids love it. I found I could lay down on it and get Nikko engaged with her imagination about travel to magical lands. She and Maeve are both obsessed with the Odyssey lately. When I first laid down on the swing Luke (age 2) said to me “Granma you are too big to lie on the swing. If you break it we will be mad.” LOL
Too busy for Art
Art always seems to suffer in the summer. Once while weeding, a fellow artist-farmhand pointed out that I nurture my creativity differently in the summer…focusing on the fresh vegetables, nature, cycling and family. I poured myself into our July Fourth family gathering sewing a bunting for everyone to decorate and making a massive amount of Grain Store’s Chile Con Veg -every last bit was happily consumed. The girls had a blast decorating the bunting (of course Roen had to do more than one). The adults pitched in as well. Roen, Maeve and Nikko inspired by tales of Medusa while hiking are now obsessed with greek mythology. The three spent a lot of time on the couch being read to from a very 90s children’s book of greek myths which they loved. But they also spent time getting into mischief and running around. The two five year olds now happily play together for hours.
The Orford/Fairlee fourth of July Parade was quite the scene and everyone had fun. Roy and our middle son were especially psyched about the fly-over. The weekend ended at Montshire Science Museum and my only regret was that Roen did not have more time in the museum because she could have spent hours in the exhibit about how designers use biology for inspiration. But her parents had promised her time in the outdoor water feature before they got in the car to drive home.
Now we are heading back to the Upper Valley because tomorrow we are cycling the Prouty…35 miles. I am so nervous about the hills.
The Bunting I made
The Chile
The decorated bunting
the start of the parade…..which also involved a lot of candy being tossed to the kids. Honestly it was as good as Halloween for the kids. Kids in the know even bring bags.
No need to put on bug spray as we could see the fireworks from the living room…shortly after the girls all joined us
Puzzling over air pressure
Slowing Down
In a world and time when everything seems to be speeding up and one can get whiplash reading the news I thought I would write a post about slowing down.
Yesterday I was watching my daughter’s youngest child, B. She is 16 months. We went for a walk to the library and as I always do I let her get out of the stroller so she could walk. In the past she has just been interested in practicing walking. But yesterday she started to notice the world around her as small children often do. Every rock and seed and stick was of interest. And so it took us almost 30 minutes to walk a small stretch of bike path. And I noticed how calm I felt as I focused my attention on the things she was picking up and making sure nothing went into her mouth. There was a calmness in being still, not rushing to get anywhere and just being in the moment with the birds singing in the background.
I had the same feeling on Wednesday. CSA was slow which I suspect had to do with the end of the school year. In the later afternoon I went to return scissors to the greenhouse and noticed a bunch of seedling trays that needed thinning. Earlier I thought I had taken care of all the thinning but I must have missed these. So I paused and in the late afternoon sun I thinned the baby plants. Normally when I am thinning I listen to pod-casts but because this time I worked in silence admiring the lengthening shadows and the sounds of the birds and view over the fields. I gave myself time to just be present and what a joy it was. I noticed the effect as I drove home.
My PT and OT are always reminding me to slow down when I do my exercises so I don’t just let momentum do the work but I really focus on the muscle we are trying to address. And I suppose the same can be said for the brain. We need to take time to slow down and just be present. Over the years I have done yoga and meditation classes. They are fine but they really don’t compare to just being present outdoors in nature.
On a separate note Roen got off the school bus yesterday with a giant bag of stuff she had created at school. I can only imagine what her cubby and desk looked like at school. Well I don’t need to imagine as I was also one whose desk and cubby was a disaster of paper by the end of the year. After she dumped her stuff and rushed off to play with her friend, a boy her age who lives across the street, I peeked into her backpack which was also stuffed to the brim with papers. In it I found the most marvelous bit of writing about an imagined “Arctic Fox” that was a marsupial and had two pouches (one for a baby and one for things it collected). It was venomous but does not make it’s own venom but instead tricks venomous snakes into it’s pouch and uses the snakes venom. And then there were lines about camouflage and protecting itself and it’s den from predators. It was classic Roen…over the top and super imaginative. And like myself Roen is going to have to learn to slow down at times.
Anniversary of Royal Academy Trip to London
Hard to believe it has been a year. What a magical time it was. The trip, varnishing day, the globe, returning home and having our son and family arrive, going to my niece’s wedding and having the whole family together, waking up to learn that both my pieces sold, breakfast with our son and kids and then a magical day at Storm King. All that followed by a family gathering in NH and a visit by our daughter in law’s niece so we could deliver her to Tufts pre-college program.
This year I was not even shortlisted for the Summer Exhibition, but looking at the work that did get accepted I can see why my work was not a match. Instead we are off to NYC where we will attend our son’s performance with the Iranian band he plays with. His girlfriend’s parents and his girlfriend are joining us for dinner before. We will see some theater and see art. I am particularly excited to see the Klee Exhibit at the Jewish Museum. After NYC w will go to CT to spend a day helping my in-laws go through their house and stuff and come up with a plan. My FIL is 91 and has decided he does not want to move. But my in-laws are collectors and there is a lot of stuff that has to be sorted through. This is especially important as my SIL is my age and will have to downsize when my FIL passes away. She will probably move up to Massachusetts to be near my daughter and us. But when she moves she will not have nearly the space she has now for all her video tapes and books and other collectables. It is not going to be easy to sort through and process what has emotional value. I hope being near the little ones (her grand nieces) will be wonderful for her.
Speaking of grand nieces, Mae has decided she wants to be a DJ (of course). Roen is collecting health data (the apple does not fall far from the tree) and Blythe has become very mischievous and speaks paragraphs of nonsense babble that sounds like real language. Nikko facetimed with Roy and told him there is a virus brought my a meteor that is infecting all the mermaids and she has to find a solution. And Luke is just talking and talking away. They are all pretty magical.
The trad-wife conversation
Against my better judgement I read the book “Yesteryear” about a social media obsessed trad-wife. I am not going to disect or write a long critique of the book, which I felt was not very good. BUT…it has me thinking about the chatter around “trad-wives” and stay at home moms and the man-o-sphere.
I wonder if this conversation is happening in countries with socialist policies: generous parental leave, universal health care, and state run high quality preschool/day care. When those things are in place families can be flexible and women can navigate early motherhood more easily because they do not have to choose between heart and mind.
When I was a senior in college in 1984 I went to a tea with Matina Horner, the then president of Radcliffe. It was a group of around 15-20 undergraduates. She talked about her career and family and when I asked her how she managed to balance motherhood and her career, she made a comment about only needing 5 hours of sleep a night and then told a story about coming home and waking her young daughter up and sharing hot chocolate so they could have “quality” time together. Now I spent a lot of time babysitting young children and reading about child development and something about this did not sit right with me. My first thought was “Is it fair to the daughter to wake her up just so you can spend time with her? Is that even healthy”. My second thought was “I CAN’T survive on 5 hours of sleep every night. It made me question the mantra from a TV commercial that embodied the 60’s and 70’s Gloria Steinem feminism.
Cause I'm a woman, Enjoli!
I can bring home the bacon,
Enjoli!
Fry it up in a pan,
And never let you forget you're a man!
I can work till 5 o'clock,
Come home and read you tickety-tock,
Tonight I'm gonna cook for the kids,
And if it's lovin' you want,
I can kiss you and give you the shiverin' fits.
Enjoli... the 8-hour perfume
Looking at those lyrics now I can’t believe how misogynistic they are!!!
When my daughter was born I thought I was well configured to have a child and a career. I was working at Cornell and they had a day-care that was a national model for high quality infant and preschool child care. My office and apartment were walking distance from the daycare, so I could visit to breastfeed. But our daughter refused a bottle and screamed so much at day-care they actually expelled her. I struggled to concentrate the way I needed to for my job due to new mom sleep deprivation. I was tired all the time. When my husband and I interviewed at Microsoft in the summer of 1989 I asked the HR women about day-care and flex-time knowing what I would need if I was going to succeed at work while being a mom. At lunch I asked the man I was with how he balanced having kids with work and what he did when they got sick and he said, “Oh my wife is a stay-at-home-mom” I sighed as I was really tired from traveling across country with a 15 month old that had woken up at 3am. “That’s nice” I responded and after lunch I could tell that my comment had been conveyed to HR and they clearly had demoted me in the interview process. Thankfully Roy got a job and we moved to the Seattle area.
I didn’t mind being a stay-at-home mom. In fact I really liked it. I have fond memories of walks in the woods, attending mommy and me dance classes, going to the library, hanging out at the playground and pretending to be Peter Pan, doing crafts and cooking together. I tried to imagine having a home business. But I never had the organizational ability or brain space to pull it off. Instead I poured my intellect into becoming a La Leche League Leader and building a passion for maternal child health issues. I did a work share at a women run farm CSA and developed a passion for local agriculture. I loved cooking and baking and spent a lot of time and energy making home cooked meals. I rarely felt bored Even if I was not accumulating my own money I felt I was contributing to the world. I was lucky my husband was never controlling and supported me while he worked. Today one might call me a trad-wife. But was I? I was (and my husband will confirm this) an absolutely AWFUL housekeeper. The house was constantly in disarray and I struggled to stay on top of laundry and clutter and paperwork. Sometimes I even joked that my parenting philosophy was benign neglect rather than helicopter mom.
When we moved back East I had a wonderful helper who did laundry for us and helped me with organization. I had dreams of returning to graduate school. My husband was not working at the time, we had resources and it would have been easy for me to tell him it was his turn to stay home and cook and clean. BUT at the time we had our Miicrosoft stock and to be honest with myself we were having way too much fun together going on long bike rides and sitting at cafes. And I was busy taking art classes that I LOVED. In class one day a fellow painter, who happened to be a doctor and have a PhD in public health, was talking with me. I was asking her if she thought I should apply to BU’s school of Public Health given my math background and my obsession with maternal health care. She walked over, stood behind me and looked intensely at my painting and said, “Jill I think you should just paint!”. I knew I was good. My teachers told me I was good and I also knew in my heart I always wanted to be an artist. On top of that we were also trying desperately to figure out how to help our middle child who was struggling and I was filling my days with research about how to help him. So I think a big factor in my reluctance to return to school for a degree or seek a traditional job was I was never bored. Whether I was making art, doing origami, taking a course on EDX, reading, cycling, cooking and baking I was happy to be my own boss. And honestly that is the total opposite of what a Trad-Wife is. I was not doing what I was doing for my husband or for social media. And I was fortunate my husband always believed in me as an artist and put up with me being a REALLY SERIOUSLY bad housekeeper.
I suppose my choices were risky for me as a women and for us as a couple. As they say sh—t happens. Maybe because I have always believed in my own creativity to come up with solutions I never felt like I needed to choose a path based on the “what ifs”. I still have 1/4 century left (based on my own mom’s passing) to somehow navigate and survive. Time will tell. But I am not sure my parent’s meticulous planning for their future necessarily helped them navigate the pain of aging and decline. Life is meant to be lived.
Mumblings
I feel like writing today. Not because I have anything profound to say or comment on but just because I want to be typing in hopes that my right hand will improve with practice. I have always been a fast typist but obviously the wrist break and nerve compression has impacted my typing.
Clark Farm continues to be a source of joy for me. I enjoy being out there, seeing the Hawks and plants grow. Helping tend the baby plants and then doing distribution and seeing how happy people are to pick up fresh healthy produce. The crew is wonderful as is the head farmer and CSA manager. For their open house I lead a craft where I had children draw on watercolor paper with crayons, then dampen the paper and then print over it with a red beet, creating a resist. It was very successful. So successful one of the preschool teachers did the activity the following week with her class. And of course Roen, whose family came to the Open House day, loved the activity.
Art Zoom Group has wrapped up for the year. I need to add some fresh air into it next fall. Hopefully I can coordinate another print room visit. Everyone wrote really sweet notes saying how thankful they are for the group so I will plan on forging ahead in the fall. And I need to figure out where I am going with my own art. I feel a bit stalled right now. Then again I am often stalled at this time of year.
My Niece and Nephew both had baby boys recently. There is a coldness around my interactions with my niece. Maybe that is related to the narrative from her mother about me. Or maybe it has to do with my outspoken anti-Israel views and comments I made to her about how someday she would regret the positions she was taking with regard to Gaza. I know her husband’s family is very pro-Israel. I sent a baby gift and she did thank me for it. In contrast her brother has been quite sweet. I felt bad telling my dad I could not travel with him to the Bris. But I had an important doctor appointment and Shira could not afford to loose me for a day. In the end it all worked out for the best because baby Blythe started day-care last week. Tuesday she had a runny nose. Thursday both her father and I had nasty colds.
On the subject of Israel while traveling to and from NH/VT to visit our son we listened to the new book by Molly Crabapple about “The Bund” and it is fascinating to learn that from the beginning the Jews who were Zionists in the late 19nth and early 20th century were the “MAGA” like politicians and capitalists of that era. And interestingly they were not particularly spiritually religious. All the stories told to my generation about Zionism and its origins were outright lies. Time and time again revolutionaries who try to overturn power and make the world a fairer more equitable place for all are squashed and replaced. And then stories are told to make those revolutionaries seem like they are bad and dangerous.
Healing`
Gradually very very gradually the hand is healing. I am starting to regain function in the thumb and pointer…although they are still a bit tingly. Some days it hurts more than others. But the pain is not front and center in my brain. I still cringe a bit when somebody wants to shake my hand. But at least I don’t pull back and awkwardly offer my left hand instead. I restarted our art group but it has been slow. On the positive side my art peeps suggested I draw how my “hand feels” rather than just drawing my hand and some magic happened.
Here we are in mid-April. It almost feels like March didn’t even happen. Last weekend my youngest son who is the bass player had his Scullers debut with Javon Jackson for the release of the album “Javon Jackson Plays Dylan”. Ryan Sands, the drummer for Altus and a good friend of Isaac’s since Freshman year at NEC was the drummer. I just love the chemistry between the two of them. Being good friends they are just able to read each other and it comes through in their music. I used to think of Ryan as shy and reserved and restrained. Especially compared to Isaac’s other NEC friend Dave who is the sort of person who can instantly connect with anyone. But I have to say Ryan has suddenly blossomed as an artist and for the first time I am really getting a feel for his creative energy and who he is as a person. It almost seems like he has morphed from the little boy I first met when he was a freshman into the man he is today. Two weeks before, Roy and I went to hear him play at Club Passim with a folk group from CT called, “Goodnight Moonshine Quartet” and although the folk songs were good Ryan’s drumming really added some special sauce to the music.
All week this mom has been bursting with pride over Isaac. My only sadness is that my mother would have been OVER THE MOON to hear him play with Javon at Scullers.
Other news I am working at a new Farm this summer. And what a joy it is. Yes I loved Drumlin and many of the people there but the dysfunction of the farm, the administration that seemed determined to create problems for the CSA and the struggles the farmer was having to produce a successful crop was painful. Especially since I spent years admiring the gorgeous soil and well tended fields that existed when Matt was the head farmer. The new farm is well run and organized. And they will have berries and flowers and peas. The community seems wonderful and there are animals including a really wonderful border collie. The drive to the farm is a bit longer but the farm is closer to where my daughter lives so maybe some days I will go visit her after I am done.
YIKES 2026
Shortly after I wrote the “Hello 2026” post we drove to meet up with our daughter and family at the towns ice skating rink. I was never a competition skater and never progressed to actually using my edges. But I was a solid ice skater that could do two legged twirls, skate forward and backward and do bunny hops. I was eager to skate with the grand girls. But I forgot that I had not been on Ice Skates in 20 years and 62 year old bones are (as EVERY ORTHO DOCTOR I WOULD SEE LATER THAT DAY POINTED OUT) not the same as 50 year old bones.
And so I stepped on the ice. Fell immediately and shattered my wrist. Roy got to play ambulance driver and drove me to MGH where I knew I could smoothly transition to see the hand surgeon** I saw years ago when I had my previous wrist break. And so we spent our New Year’s Day in the ED.
**The hand surgeon has been at MGH for a long time and has many fans among artists I know. He officially retired on Tuesday. I was one of his last patients.
And 6 weeks on, 2 surgeries later I am still not back due to my median nerve being angry. What a mess. No cast this time because I had to have plates as the wrist fracture was so bad. And thankfully it was my right wrist again. I am a lefty,
Meanwhile there is everything else going on in the world and my daughter’s nanny had a family crises and was out of commission and now we are expecting a blizzard. 2026 has ben a real $%#& show,
That being said last week we entertained our son’s band…what a blast to host this group of 5 talented SMART musicians. we have known 2 since they were Freshman and I just love them so much. It was fun to get to know the other two who we had never really met before.
Then my son and family came and we had the most magical weekend with all the grandkids celebrating Nikko’s birthday and baby Blythe’s birthday. I made magic wands for the girls…turns out the one bit of art I could do in my misery was use a glue gun,
Part of Roen’s birthday card to her baby sister Blythe who turned 1!!
Hello 2026`
May this year bring changes that will make the world more fair, more humane, more sustainable and healthier.
I was thinking how I knew EXACTLY where I was sitting and what I was eating and who was in the room at the start of another New Year: The Jewish New Year of 1973 when the Yom Kippur war broke out. My grandfather was with us and we were all in the kitchen and I was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which is often what parents who are fasting feed kids, who do not fast, on Yom Kippur. I remember my parents and grandfather’s anxiety. I don’t really remember anyone taking the time to explain what was happening to me. It was just assumed I would pick it up from their conversations. I was 10 at the time. I think my brother, who would have been 13 was outside with friends because I don’t have a recollection of him being in the kitchen.
Around a decade later, I was sitting in that same spot in the kitchen having dinner when I found myself debating my father about the Palestinian youth who were throwing stones. I was trying to get him to see that maybe the young men were throwing stones because they were oppressed (although I suspect I did not use that word back then). I was in college and my brother had brought the women who would become his wife to meet us for the first time. We had only just met this woman but she felt emboldened to interject into the debate I was having with my father and said, “Jill does Judaism mean anything to you at all?” Hard to believe but she rendered my very chatty mother, my father and me speechless. Later we would wonder how a stranger could ask something so personal like that, especially in front of potential in-laws. My mother used to tell me that it was at that moment she knew her relationship with this woman, who my brother loved, was not going to be easy. And it wasn’t. And the same can be said of my relationship with her.
I was not a particularly political student. But something about Zionism and the Palestinians did not sit right with me. It is insane that it took me 40 years to learn about the Nabka or about the Massacres by Israeli Zionists in the mid-20th century. I was told a mythology about the creation of Israel that had nothing to do with the reality. Then again it meshes with the lies we were told about plastic, climate change, automobiles, mass produced food, pesticides and capitalism. The lies that end up serving a few while harming the masses. Some of my feeling despondent these days relates to feelings of betrayal by teachers, clergy, parents and those in authority who knew but did not feel compelled to speak out. It is the quiet acquiescence that ends up being dangerous.
And so as I enter the new year thinking about my art, feelings of abandonment as I see friends and family take positions I feel are abhorrent on issues I am passionate about, I am trying to find peace with the fact that I can not change people and grow my confidence in what I know is right. I must be like Greta and Mrs Rachel and not be afraid to speak out and stand up.
Thankful
Like many modern people, I battle the blues. Especially with all that is going on with the world. And sometimes it can take one thing to really send me spiraling to a dark place. Yesterday it was a sweater I had found at a thrift store that I absolutely loved. The color a blue with yellow trim just spoke to me and the cut was a bit boxy which works with my rather generous chest. But the sweater smelled of some awful laundry fruity chemical. I thought I could get it off but alas the smell like the pink in the “Cat in the Hat” story spread and made Roy grumpy and annoyed me. No matter how much vinegar or baking soda I used the smell would not go away and now the sweater hangs on our front railing outside. Maybe I can take it to the dry cleaner and they can get the smell out. It’s too bad as the sweater is all wool and not made in China! I am so tired of cheap wool that moths seem to love,
When I feel down or lost or lonely I remind myself of all that I have to be thankful for. Three lovely children and their lovely partners and 5 amazing incredible awesome unique grandkids. A husband who is also my best friend. Kind sweet in-laws. A wonderful supportive Uncle who has been there for me despite having a lot going on in his life. Old Friends and Art friends who inspire me, believe in me and keep me smiling. Drumlin Farm and all the wonderful friends and people from there who share my love of nature and farming and good food.
So Happy Thanksigiving. I am grateful despite being frustrated and down about a sweater that somebody covered in awful chemicals.
Jill
Ode to Roy and his titles.
Having people around you who believe in you and your art is so important. I am not sure how I would feel about creating if I did not have a spouse who believed in what I do. I also have peers and mentors and friends who are wonderful. And my kids are all supportive. I want to give a special shout out to my son-in-law who is an art school alum who has an excellent eye and knows how to give helpful critique. But at the end of the day nobody understands me or my art or the work I make better than my other half/husband/partner for 40+ years Roy. Since we both work at home it is not unusual for me to have him look at something I am working at to see if I am on to something. Sometimes he will say the work is not doing anything for him and walk away to go get his tea. And I have had to learn to not give up on a piece when he says that because often it is just that I am not clear about what it is I want to say or what I am creating. That was certainly the case with the piece below. He initially was not that excited by it but as it developed he began to see the ideas I was trying to get across. I trust his opinion and he is sometimes so much better than I am at using words to explain my art. Most titles are discussed with him and I give him credit for coming up with some of my favorite titles. Sadly the title of this piece is still eluding me and him. I want it to say so much but I also don’t want it to be cliche. It is about how we are all interconnected and the harm done to one is done to everyone. It is about the loss of so many precious Olive Groves and agricultural land…note the olive leaves on the Tallit and the Olive leaves on the Keffiyah. It is about the hooded figure that often represents death and the wrapped bodies. It is about too many things and I can’t seem to find a title for it.
TetraPak Printing with out a press
I think deep down I am an experimental print maker. I love printing and exploring with print. The Gelli Plates have been amazing for me, allowing me to layer colors and explore themes that appear in my drawings.
Now I learned about TetraPak from a fellow artist. And this week I made a point of trying to see if I could print at home at my dining room table without making a GIANT COLLOSAL MESS. Yesterday when I tried to print a simple Tetrapak etching all I got was a messy imprint of the creases in the carton. I was so frustrated and upset. I went through tons of paper towels and newsprint and paper trying to get a simple drawing to print. By the end of the day I had a large collection of what we artists joke is collage paper. Last night I read what I could find online about printing Tetrapak without a press…as with anything the web is full of tips and advice if one takes the time to sort through it…I suppose that is what CHATGPT is good for....
Today when I went to print, I laid down a towel under the TetraPak so it didn’t move. I put damp paper on top of the Tetrapak and used a piece of parchment on top of the paper to prevent the burnishing from tearing the paper. And LOW AND BEHOLD IT WORKED. Now none of the Tetrapak drawings I printed today are great works of art. I did not want to waste time on a complicated etching only to have it fail. Unlike copper plates there are only a limited number of prints one can make from any Tetrapak. But they are interesting and I am excited about the possibilities. And below you can see the charcoal drawing I have been working on that inspired the print.
2 years on....
So today is October 7th. 2 years ago we were awaiting the birth of Baby Luke. My mother had just been admitted to a geriatric psychiatric unit in Plymouth MA. I had a terrible cold and we woke up to the news of the Gaza attacks.
Since then Israel has been emboldened to commit genocide, ecocide, war crimes and apartheid against those living in the West Bank. My mother passed away after a year of dementia, Baby Luke was born and Baby Blythe was born. Is it any wonder I feel overwhelmed, tired and have this odd feeling that time is both moving too fast and not moving at all.
The fall is always a challenging time for me artistically. It is interesting to look back and realize that most of what I do in the fall is “explore”. Although I am working I need to have faith that the work I am doing will lead somewhere. Whether it just be drawing a crumbled Kefiyah on the table or time spent building a still life to draw or painting flowers. I have to give myself permission to be tired, to read, to embroider, to think and not expect a finished work worthy of framing. This is not always easy as I definitely think that many mid-career or early career artists at my level focus too much on trying to create that finished piece. The piece that will get accepted into a juried show or sell or be hung and look pretty.
And so I continue my quests to not only create work that will be “pretty” or “visually interesting” but also work that is impactful that says something that is telling the world what I am thinking about and how I am processing all that is happening.
I went into the studio on Monday to do some Geli Plate prints. I was thinking about the crumbled Kefiyah I have been meticulously trying to draw and these prints emerged. I think they speak to the fracturing of the world around the topic of Palestinian and Israel.
How we cope as our world spirals
I was emailing an old friend who had just completed a cruise that went up the coast of New England to Canada. She was apologizing for having been in Boston but did not have any extra time on either end of the cruise to meet up with me. In my response I asked her how she was navigating issues like climate change and politics and whether being a grandmother has added to her anxiety or concern about these issues. She wrote a long email back about how her coping mechanism is basically to turn away and focus on all that is good and wondrous and to be positive. Or rather basically the opposite of what I am doing these days. And part of me understands why she has gone down the path of “Magical Thinking” because it is easier to believe everything is OK and will be OK for her grandson moving forward than to confront the reality of where things are headed.
I also was emailing an art friend of mine who is my Peer Art Group. This friend is extremely prolific and can whip out a dozen small pieces easily in a week. And she is also incredibly talented so many of them are good. But I asked her to think about curating the pieces she was positing and to “think” about them and what she wants to say as a way of making the work more powerful. She was appreciative and wrote back that she is trying to balance the “thinking” with the “art making”. Hmmmm…her comment made me realize that sometimes I get too twisted because I am “thinking” and not just creating. And some of the my best work happens when I just “create” …although often the creation ends up internalizing the thinking.
Which brings me to where I am today. I am struggling with creating because I am feeling so passionate and thinking so hard about all the pain and suffering and struggle and want to find a way to capture it. I am typing to avoid creating right now. I need to go back and focus less on the output and more on the process.
Moved by a Poem
I listened to an interview with the poet Mosab Abu Toha by John Stewart on his Daily Show podcast the other day. I expected to turn it off as I imagined not hearing anything I did not already know. But I found it totally engaging and upsetting. Mosab Abu Toha is about the same age as my boys. Which is hard to believe as he sounds so much older than his years. Understandable given what he has suffered through. Afterwards I just had to read the poem “Under the Rubble” and here it is copied from the New Yorker. It is beautiful and heartbreaking and makes me even more determined to do what I can to speak out and protest against this nightmare.
She slept on her bed,
never woke up again.
Her bed has become her grave,
a tomb beneath the ceiling of her room,
the ceiling a cenotaph.
No name, no year of birth,
no year of death, no epitaph.
Only blood and a smashed
picture frame in ruin
next to her.
•
In Jabalia camp, a mother collects her daughter’s
flesh in a piggy bank,
hoping to buy her a plot
on a river in a faraway land.
•
A group of mute people
were talking sign.
When a bomb fell,
they fell silent.
•
It rained again last night.
The new plant looked for
an umbrella in the garage.
The bombing got intense
and our house looked for
a shelter in the neighborhood.
•
I leave the door to my room open, so the words in my books,
the titles, and names of authors and publishers,
could flee when they hear the bombs.
•
I became homeless once but
the rubble of my city
covered the streets.
•
They could not find a stretcher
to carry your body. They put
you on a wooden door they found
under the rubble:
Your neighbors: a moving wall.
•
The scars on our children’s faces
will look for you.
Our children’s amputated legs
will run after you.
•
He left the house to buy some bread for his kids.
News of his death made it home,
but not the bread.
No bread.
Death sits to eat whoever remains of the kids.
No need for a table, no need for bread.
•
A father wakes up at night, sees
the random colors on the walls
drawn by his four-year-old daughter.
The colors are about four feet high.
Next year, they would be five.
But the painter has died
in an air strike.
There are no colors anymore.
There are no walls.
•
I changed the order of my books on the shelves.
Two days later, the war broke out.
Beware of changing the order of your books!
•
What are you thinking?
What thinking?
What you?
You?
Is there still you?
You there?
•
Where should people go? Should they
build a big ladder and go up?
But heaven has been blocked by the drones
and F-16s and the smoke of death.
•
My son asks me whether,
when we return to Gaza,
I could get him a puppy.
I say, “I promise, if we can find any.”
I ask my son if he wishes to become
a pilot when he grows up.
He says he won’t wish
to drop bombs on people and houses.
•
When we die, our souls leave our bodies,
take with them everything they loved
in our bedrooms: the perfume bottles,
the makeup, the necklaces, and the pens.
In Gaza, our bodies and rooms get crushed.
Nothing remains for the soul.
Even our souls,
they get stuck under the rubble for weeks.
This is drawn from “Forest of Noise.”
Children and Drawing
One of my favorite parts about being a grandma is watching my grand children develop. I have always been fascinated by child development specifically the evolution of language and the evolution of children’s mark making and drawing. It is truly amazing to watch them go from those first little “da da da” syllables and back and forth scribbles to the long complex story telling and stick figure drawings of a four year old. No matter how many times I observe it I am in awe and amazed.
The other day the NH four year old was visiting and she had the markers and was drawing. So I took out my pad and made a mark. “What are you drawing grandma?”
“I don’t know. What do you think I should draw”
The answer rather predictably if you know four year olds right now was, “An Ellicorn” For those not in the four year old universe Ellicorn’s are unicorns with wings and they are all the rage. I have been asked by her cousin to draw multiple Ellicorns in the past few months.
Now I want to go on record and say I HATE drawing horses and I HATE drawing Unicorns and Ellicorns and Pegasuses. But I pulled up an Ellicorn on my phone and did my best to copy it incorporating the mark I had made. Then I handed it to her and told her to finish it. Thankfully unlike her cousin who is also four she is much more willing to take a leap of imagination and did not have a fit that the Ellicorn I drew was not perfect. She happily accepted it and went on to create an elaborate drawing.
The following day when she sat down with the markers she made a mark and she looked at me and said, “Hmmm…what should I draw with this mark?” Just as I had said to her the day before. I told her to use her imagination and she went on to create a drawing of mermaids hunting for treasure in the ocean that was just magical.
Now one thing I love is how all three of the older grand girls love to draw but their drawing style is so unique to who they are as people. Roen has a combination of intense observation and emotion in her drawings. It is clear she is a deeply feeling kid. Mae’s drawings are very grounded in reality and observation. Mae would never accept an Ellicorn drawing that was not accurate on some level. There is a concreteness to her drawings that matches her strong sturdy personality. And Nikko’s drawings are fantastical and intricate and clearly very much emerging from her head. I want each of them to hold on to those traits. Already I see how the peer pressure and outside world is infiltrating Roen’s work. I suppose that is inevitable. it was great that her kindergarten curriculum incorporated tons of drawing.
Rhythm of Work
Summer has often been a time when I am traditionally less productive with my art. Cooking, cycling, being outside, visitors, family, volunteering at Drumlin all take me away from art making and sometimes it can be challenging to build up momentum with an idea or work when one’s time is constantly being broken up. But Sally gave me the key to the Turtle Studio and I do not want to waste her wonderful gift and I am determined to go and work as much as I can.
The Gelli plate printing took an interesting turn last week. I went in with an idea about how to explore my Tallit/Keffiyah drawings with print in hopes of capturing what made “Encampment” and “This Your Noise” so successful. I had an idea of using slight shifts in whites to create a graphic difference between the two garments and then play with black on them graphically much like my ink studies I have been doing at home. But instead of clean prints I was a headed toward a big mess of a sheet and ready to leave the studio feeling disappointed when I grabbed another piece of paper and had another go at it using some of what ink remained on the Gelli plate. I grabbed some fine string and tied myself some tassels. And what came out of that was magical. I immediately texted it to Sally who gave it the Title “Fog of War” and said it was for her a piece she liked much more than the drawings because it captured the feeling without making her stomach get all tight and nervous the way the other drawings did. I should point out that Sally and her Husband were in Israel for 4 months while her husband, a scientist was at the Weissman Institute. So her connection to the war and what is happening is felt quite deeply.
Today I went back. I had spent last night taking embroidery thread and making little tassels. Some were tied like the teffilot on a Tallit. Others were tied like the fringes on the Keffiyah. I had no idea what I was going to do with them but I wanted to see what happened when I tried some of the same techniques I had used in Fog of war. What happened was unexpected but also very much captured what I hoped to capture with the senseless death and sadness going on in Gaza. They are a bit more blunt and a bit less poetic. But there is so much to explore with these mono prints and I am eager to see what comes.
Scams and HAM
About once a week I get an email from somebody claiming they want to buy my art. It all seems too good to be true. They ask the price and tell me they have some large budget. But at the end of the day when I start prodding and doing due diligence they vanish. This is what recently happened to me when I got so far as asking the potential buyer (who said they were buying the art work as part of some charity) to give me the charity’s EIN number. They have me a number but the charity that belongs to that number does not have any program where they buy original art as far as I can tell. It sucks that this is something artists have to watch out for. The NYTimes just ran a piece about a successful artist who was duped into thinking she was selling to Lady Gaga only to find the piece she sold at an Auction House.
OK so in addition to art I got my HAM radio technician license. I confess I am not nearly as into it as my husband is. But at the same time I am reluctantly curious and quite proud that I passed my technicians license exam. We went to a field day event where they had a set up where you could contact people all over the US. Since the station owner had the highest level license we had access to all the bands. With HAM radio there is something called “Contesting” where an effort is made to try and contact as many stations as possible on a given day. And these field day events are also practice for if there ever was an emergency situation where HAM radios were needed so people could contact each other. Think “Station Eleven”. I confess it is fun seeking out a station signal among all the noise and it was fun after making my contact to have the guy on the other end call me a “Young Lady”. At the event we learned we can volunteer as Ham Technicians for Head of the Charles. It is tempting. Although if the weather was bad like it was two years ago I am not sure I would be happy standing outside all day. But if the weather was like it was this past year well then how cool would be it be to have a front row seat to all the action and the drama.
Art as a Career
I have struggled with calling myself a professional artist. Even as I go through life accumulating successes I have a nasty case of imposter syndrome. And then there is my upbringing where I was taught that art was not a real career. I went the other direction with raising my kids and that is how I ended up with a son who is a professional musician. So many of his equally smart and talented peers had parents who discouraged them from pursuing the creative path.
OK Positive news. Both my prints sold before the show even opened to the public. I was elated. We were in a hotel in New Jersey the morning after my Neice’s wedding and I fear I might have woken up the entire floor with my squeals of joy. On the way home we made a small detour and visited Storm King Art Center, a place I have wanted to visit for years. Going around and looking at all the amazing sculptures I kept smiling to myself that I was a “real artist” whose work might someday be taken seriously.
But now after being home a week and confronting the fact that I had to sort out the logistics of an international art sale, write up invoices, navigate the UK VAT and then think about future art the little devil on my shoulder telling me I am not a real artist has returned. Well one thing I can say is that I am a horrible business woman. Selling and navigating sales, maintaining a database of buyers and owners of my art and all the nitty gritty administrative tasks is something I struggle with and hate. I keep thinking if I was really successful I would have an assistant to handle all that, but I also know from the artists I do know who are moderately successful that that is not the case.
And now I am back to babysitting and nurturing my granddaughter, who insists she wants to be a real artist when she grows up. I want her to pursue her dreams. She has such a remarkable gift and her art at age 6.5 totally blows me away. Today while putting her baby sister down for a nap I left her and her other sister at the kitchen table making collages. I have a technique where I use a wet sponge in a yogurt container so it is not super messy. And I just threw down scraps of paper that had accumulated in my “art bag” I have in my car. She went right to work and when I left her she was cutting out the white paper to make clouds to put on a blank piece of blue paper. When I came down this is what she created all by herself….I was blown away. The way the person is stepping through the arch…the little bird in the nest and the owl in the tree. I hope life doesn’t steel her creative spirit because I am so in love with it.
