Light picture

One thing I love is the way light dances around this house in the mornings. And sometimes I don't "see" things until after I've photographed them, like the subtle green from the reflected vase.

just a few pics

I thought I'd post a couple pictures this morning to keep this blog creatively active. 

I had fun photographing graffiti on a Bancroft Ave sidewalk. I think there was a student election and this was "advertising" for a nominee.

I also checked out the SF Ballet mini job. Turned out to be telemarketing. Not for me, now, but it was interesting to learn more about the Ballet and the methods - scripts, persistence and detailed tracking of an art marketing company.

Crepes, Lizards, Authors and Re-Minders

Crepes for breakfast with lemon, butter and honey, a Sunday morning family tradition. Then upstairs to my father's den to view the anole lizards he is pet sitting for my aunt. Like chameleons, they can change color and blend with the sticks and leaves in the glass aquarium. They also eat enormous crickets, or enormous for their diminutive size. (These two lizards are small.) The crickets came from the East Bay Vivarium and are a sprightly crew, hip-hopping around and occasionally "jumping ship" or jumping off their egg-carton refuge to explore the house, blithely chirping as they go (much to my step-mother's chagrin).

Feeling the need for creative inspiration after tedious tax preparation, I drove to Book Passage for this line-up of authors:

• Vivienne Flesher with Alfred's Nose. I also spoke with illustrator Ward Schumaker nearby about the state of illustration today. Nice to hear he's busy.

• Andrew Pek and Jeannine McGlade with Stimulated! Habits to Spark the Creative Genius Inside had some good ideas. One woman in the audience, struggling with how to sequence chapters in a memoir she is writing, was advised to write chapter notes on brightly colored post-its and arrange them on a wall to perhaps see a solution.

• Jean Shinoda Bolen with Urgent Message from Mother, discussed how we have just 20 more years to save the earth, "to make a difference." Discussion or how morphic fields work, the tipping point, the 100th monkey, gatherthewomen.org.  "What do you know in your bones about your journey," she asked. "Ask is there an assignment for me?" "What do you have a passion for and why?"

After the talks, drove to Phillip Moffit's sangha (meditation and dharma talk). The theme this evening: mindfulness. He also spoke about right effort, how making the effort itself is worth it, even if you're not "getting anywhere" (not sure I'm explaining this most accurately, but I also bought his new book this evening: Dancing with Life)

Driving home, I thought about how I struggle with getting down to work on my "house project" and it occurred to me "it's about showing up for the effort. This takes me out of the ego identification with what it is, and it's a process. I'm committed to the process, as an experiment." See if that helps! . . . Mindfulness and art-making, what is this like, really?

Enough words! I carried a drawing pad, pens and watercolors around with me all day, but I did not draw! Tomorrow I must start!

less Art but lotsa links

I've been more focused on looking for a job than on art in the last few days. But life, or what I notice, still feeds my art or healing.

I heard about a part-time short-term job with the  San Francisco Ballet. It could be kinda fun to be back in the dance world again!

Wed night, I went to Web 1: Layout and Design at Berkeley Community College. I hadn't been in weeks but felt welcomed back by the teacher, Jan Dove, who will help me catch up or at least partway. I am grateful! It also occurred to me, I can probably choose the same artist to profile for assignments in both my Intermedia class at JFK and the web site class at BCC. 

On Thursday morning (April 10), this post arrived from Daily Good  "You Gotta Have Art." It began with a quote from Rachel Naomi Remen "At the deepest level, the creative process and the healing process arise from a single source. When you are an artist, you are a healer; a wordless trust of the same mystery is the foundation of your work and its integrity." The article continued: "As health-care costs skyrocket, a down-to-earth approach to healing is emerging, complementing high-tech medicine with high-touch arts..." Good stuff.

Although tempted, I did not go to a guided imagery and expressive arts group that meets every Thursday at the Institute of Health and Healing in San Francisco. I stayed home to "work" but will check it out another time.

In the afternoon, I visited the new East Asian Library at UC Berkeley. I met a photographer who was photographing the pretty building for a campus newsletter and we spoke about cameras and working at UC. She was toting a NikonD200 but likes her D80 for its size and weight. That could be a good choice for me.

From speaking with her and the newsletter editor, I learned how one can join the California Alumni Assn without being an alumni(!) - although I did go to UCSC for 2 years - and gain library privileges and many benefits. On the CAA site, I found this fellow (gecko) in an article about Madagascar Also, a photo of those so strange baobab trees. These reminded me of my zoologist grandfather's photos and notes about Madagascar in 1936. I wonder if the researchers would be interested in any historical data.

This evening, I chose not to post a picture I took of a reflection of a print hanging at Starbucks because the print was someone else's work - appropriation? I researched copyright issues regarding the web. I feel uncomfortable with the common attitude, I think, if it's on the web, it's up for grabs! So how do you protect your work? One answer. 

direction

Still feeling a bit confused as to what I want to do with this blog. Robbyn wrote "to chronicle personal musings and experiences as an artist through text/or image."

This can be anything. I can document what catches my eye on a walk up the hill like this morning, or share other "discoveries" throughout the day. 

Or this blog could focus on progress with a project about the history of my house and what is "home?" Originally imagined in final form as an artist book,  I am now intrigued with exploring how film, sound or projection could tell tell a story or evoke a feeling of place and time.

But I think I need to see what I have to work with, to determine direction.

Creative license

Writing in the living room. Tinges of sadness about leaving here? I notice the glass ball held with the claws of the piano stool. Reminds me of the photo I took a couple days ago of roots that looked like feet. Roots, as a subject. Roots, like this house.

What's on my agenda today? Peace. It helped to speak with Amelia yesterday. First asking about the exact location of the Lung 1 point she had shown us earlier. Holding one's body, crossing one's arms, holding points for grief or sadness. When I told her my story, she crossed her hands over her heart, another gesture, another point. "You're letting go of family," said she. Yes, indeed, she saw or heard it in a flash. (emotional accupressure book)

Find that inner well, that inner space of calmness, of well-being.

Let the generations nourish me. For a moment, I feel/see the waves of people - my grandparents, my mother, uncle. I still haven't seen all of the pictures, remnants of their 'presence.' Upstairs, hundreds of negatives and prints rest, filed in narrow heavy cardboard boxes. How can  I give myself the permission to work on this? Just DO it. I have to, I'm running out of time!

After yoga, radiant poppies caught my eye on my way to Peet's. There, sipping a hibiscus cooler, I read Trust the Process with its introduction "License to Create." McNiff writes about how setting up a workspace is vital for the creative process. Environment has an impact. Yes! Improve mine.

a peaceful day

Notes from Entering the Now - Monastic Daylong with Ajahn Amaro and Amelia Barili at Spiritrock. 

How do you access the mind through the body, or the body through the mind?  

Mind is not a structure but a process. We can re-invent ourselves even at the physical level.

Learned yogic and Tao breathing practices, acupressure points and Qigong.  Meditated and walked outside with "mindfulness in every step."

Instructions before a walking meditation:

"Feel the aliveness in the palms of your hands and soles of your feet. And as you step, ask permission as if you are kissing the earth, receiving energy from the earth. Your energy meets the earth. 

Bring attention to the silence between the sounds.

Look at the spaces between the trees, instead of looking at the trunks and branches." (similar to drawing exercise)