Art Camp or Bust

When I was a kid, summer was all about the out-of-doors: enjoying the weather (never too hot for a kid), the friends in the neighborhood (real face-to-face friends), playing in water to keep cool, using your imagination and savoring the sweetness of something inherently fleeting. Times were simpler and we were of average means. Water might mean the huge community pool with mobs bobbing, then sunning on towels on the hard concrete, the foot deep baby pool in the backyard, or most especially, running through the lawn sprinkler. We built forts under trees, caught fireflies in jars, drank pitchers of Kool Aid and waited every day for the pied piper music of the ice cream truck. Life, in short, was great.

Our favorite past time, beside art, is observing nature and the garden.

Chillin' after a wild storm played havoc with our nature.

Sunset on the front porch is one of the best times of our camp day. Work done, satisfaction registered.

But for some we knew, there was a different sort of summer routine. People with more money then we went away to "camp" where they took lessons in the arts, rode horses and played team sports, put on plays, sang around the campfire, and engaged in myriad mysteries we just knew belonged only to that special society. We were given a taste of camp several times in our youth, but that meant a two week session at a nearby day program, or the endless overnight misery of Girl Scout  camp, with latrines  we not only used but had to clean, sleeping bags in wet fields, tents with huge spiders on the ceiling, and more chores than fun.

Chores still need tending.

July 1 ? 

I thought I had found my final chance at real camp the summer after my freshman year at Penn State (sweet 1970). I was recruited with a lot of other foolish dreamers in need of a few bucks and a place to continue escaping home, to be a counselor in the Catskills of New York, in a little town called Bethel. If you're old enough, you might recall that's where the original Woodstock music festival had taken place just the previous summer.  I went with high hopes that quickly turned to homesickness and desperation after realizing I was neither cut out for camp life, nor was I the camper. I was a designated slave for ten weeks at slave wages and almost no free time, and nursemaid to five year olds who wet their beds and didn't like sports in the sun any better than I did. I broke out after two and a half weeks (along with about a third of the staff who felt the same way), returned home to work in a factory assembling riot control guns in a time when I was likely to be marching and in need of "control". But those were days when you did what was necessary to be independent of your parents, and I was trying the best I knew how.

In "Shoot Your Art" with Steve Sonheim, I learned about the magic of a couple of shop lights and a level. This quilt, called "Dancing Solo" was made specially for illustrating the design technique, blind painting, for the book "Design Explorations for the Creative Quilter" by Katie Pasquini Masopust.

Getting psyched for summer camp with Carla, we drew on our imaginations and sidewalk cracks.

Fast forward to my current life in "almost" retirement. In a sense, every summer day is camp. Sure I have many household responsibilities to fit in to the mix, but I can craft a day to take advantage of sun and summer opportunities. This year I have been doing what I would have if I could have as a kid: attending art camp.  Of course, it hasn't been the sleepover variety, but that would've involved a lot of travel if it did. You see, my teachers and fellow campers are kind of spread out around the world. So we meet each morning at the computer to get our schedule, go off to a day of creative sessions (with some responsibilities squeezed in) and return at dusk to share around the campfire, although our fire is the flame of "flikr" or Yahoo groups or our counselors' blogs. Works great except for having to make your own s'mores. But I don't have to take swimming lessons (not a water baby), I get to sleep in a private air conditioned room, eat when and what I want. For exercise, I choose to walk every day for 4-7 miles  instead of having to sit on the sideline of a hated team sport, have iced coffee breaks on the porch and a grownup beverage, if I desire, at day's end. I don't have to drink bug juice in a saggy wet suit or be bullied by mean girls. I do miss the story time around the fire, but some days the stories on campmates blogs are far more captivating, and I get to choose which ones to read.

Learning to loosen up and be expressive, these one-liners were so much fun.

As was scribbling.

Coffee  breaks are important in a hectic camp schedule.

Just a little shout-out to my great counselors: thanks, Steve and Carla Sonheim (calling in from Seattle, USA) for photography and drawing lessons, and happy attitudes. Thanks to Sharon Boggon, stitcher extraordinaire (all the way from winter in Canberra, AU) for her excellent lessons in creative embroidery design, the art of discipline with freedom. You can check them out for your next summer camp. But why wait, when summer is a state of mind, and it will soon be summer again in other parts of the camping planet.

At the end of week one, four paintings entirely from imagination, with the help of Carla's techniques for discovery.

Never a plan, just working from the "gut" and having fun.

When you finally like them, they are done, and not a minute before!

Oh, and as counselor Carla says is the first order of business: "spring out of bed enthusiastically!" You know that I always do!

My "blob" creatures are full of joy!

Groovin'

It has been a groovin' summer for me so far. Maybe not in the sense of lying-on-the-beach laid back, but mine is a kind of permanent vacation, being retired and all. Still my days usually come with as much work and scheduling of projects as a thoroughly supervised corporate peon. Really, my summer project should be learning to climb down from the machine, step away from the idea, forget about the goals. But that's just not me to do that, and I think I really don't mind the structure. It's more a matter of degree. How many projects are enough, are they relevant to my current goals, do they bring me joy or at least satisfaction? So that is where I stand. Having achieved a strong turn this past year toward the life journaling arts, I am finally stepping back, breathing, and feeling a sense of connection to my story.

So yes, a happy medium has got me groovin'. What exactly does this mean? Well, in the sense of the 60's Hippie slang, my life is "groovy"--I am liking, enjoying, being one with--summer! I am sitting still enough for it to warm my bones, soften my consciousness, engage me in just being. Every day possible there is a long walk in the sun with music in my step, there is quiet time in the shade with a beverage, special moments of connection with my husband, time observing and recording my world.


Groovin' is also "in the groove." Literally, fitting in to the stream of the moment. Connecting with a flow both in my online and local worlds. One that I have created over time, and that absorbs me, supports me and lifts me.


So what have I been up to in the last month  (when not just being there?) Starting in mid June, for two weeks , I was totally absorbed and stimulated by 14 lessons in 14 days, in a class called "Photo Silly" by Steve Sonheim. Each morning I woke up to a new challenge, and ended each day with an amazing new vision of my world and my abilities, as well as connections with new friends from, literally, around the world. Two of my newest Facebook friends are from Germany, and we met through the flikr class site. Others were recording their lives in France, and Russia, and New Zealand. While I might be taking shots of an all-American supermarket bagger gathering carts, one of them was doing a portrait of a Maori couple and their wonderful tradition facial tattoos. It was amazing fun.


Here are some shots taken during each day's lesson. These are generally not the completed or chosen entry for the assignment, but illustrate what I was striving to achieve. The complete set of final cuts can be found here on flikr.

Assignment #1-Shooting 20 shots in a row with our eyes closed, but trying to imagine the shots we were getting. This resulted in,  to say the least, some unexpected, but often interesting images.

Assignment #3-Blink. Compose shots with a cardboard viewfinder and  commit to memory or sketch.  Two days later we actually went back to the images and captured them with the camera.

Assignment #4-Biographer Frog. A Self portrait without the self, from the point of view of  a wee thing on the floor. I chose this dark image from a series of seven bracketed exposures, because I like the drama.

Assignment #8-Take Your Camera to Work Day. A rainy start to a day of recording it all. The final pick of twenty shots went into a photo collage.

Assignment #9-Really? Turning our hand into a character and photographing with backlighting. The final pose became the giggle getter on flikr. Look for it there.

Assignment #10-Flip Flop. Teach Steve how to do something in four photo steps. This shot was a warm up idea for "How to Brew Satisfaction".

Assignment #13-Blur. Learning to capture a blurred image on purpose.

What pleased me the most was not any particular technical skills I learned (although the camera started to be less of a mystery, for sure), but three important concepts applicable to all my art:


     1) Find a new focus: look beyond the expected.


     2) Wait for the light: the best photos are real and don't require a lot of artifice to make them work, just look for the best and shoot, shoot, shoot (then toss, toss, toss.)


     3) Connect with my work and the people and animals within it, lose my fear of the stranger and the strange situation, make friends with life.

None of this is what I expected to learn, and all of it was wonderfully useful for moving forward in many disciplines.


Starting next week I will be taking a one week class by Steve called "Shoot Your Art," a more technical set of exercises in how to capture images of your 2D art. I'm expecting this to prove useful and enlightening. (Small pun :-) )


Following the June class I recaptured what I feared I had lost--my need to draw and paint without prompts from others, something I have done on a regular basis since. The carry over of lost fear is allowing me to draw more easily in public, and at a recent minor league baseball game, I did these two journal pages.

Waiting to get in the stadium, I stood in the shade of a tree and sketched a streetlight with my  Grey  Tombow and water brush.

Very new to trying to draw the human figure, and these gentlemen  NEVER stopped moving. An interesting challenge. I was also being watched by my husband's workmates who were sitting nearby.

My little themed handmade books are calling me and I decided to fill the garden journal with ink and watercolor pages that allow me to practice creative composition and record scenes from my own garden while I vacation there in this first half of summer. I am able to do more complex and leisurely painting on my home turf that may take two or more sessions and several hours. Later in the summer I want to practice a simpler,  looser style on locations away from home.

The fountain in the center of my garden, under a large shady elm. The plants were brought in to the house for closer study.

Fourth of July morning,  instead of doing the parade, I painted the hot of the day.

Each of these pots holds a complex floral planting. I decided to go simpler.

One of my online creative friends recently remarked that it doesn't matter how we express ourselves, creativity must out! Less defining, more acceptance and integration with everyday life. The needle is tracking the groove, and it's all beautiful music to me. Care to join the dance?

In the Summertime When the Weather is High...

The creative life presents such a quandary. To be creative you have two paths to follow. Practicing your craft is the most obvious: drawing and painting, photography, stitching, time spent designing and recording the parts of your world into interesting new manifestations of your perceptions and feelings. And yet there is an essential and primary path to being an artist: knowing how to be alive in the world. Being both an observer and a participant in the order of things is where you find the meat of your creative vision. There are many ways and places to do that interfacing, but for myself, the recharge comes best from direct connection. And in the summertime that means just go outside and plug in to life.

Looking at life through the canopy of a Japanese maple.
 What was planted as a spindly leftover that lost one-third of it's bulk the first year is now a beacon for my house from down the street.

Life and inspiration are everywhere right now. Sunlight and shadow, soothing breeze and violent thunderstorm. The constant movement of birds and insects across my path. The drone of mowers. An endless stream of golfers in carts and golfers addressing their shortcomings. 

The cool spring was perfect for abundant long-flowering of my azalea.
The garden hippo approved.

Ah, but the birds. They have been my constant companions lately. The drama of the territory and the building of homes. The whole birthing cycle with me as enemy of the peace (sometimes the squirrel gets chased from her new nest). Hey everyone, it's a big tree and plenty of space for all. But in reality, always the sad realization that some will be found lifeless in the grass and others too slow in the streets, and the hawks ever circling and watching. On my walks across the end of the lake, the swallows dive and swoop around my feet as if I weren't there, but the lone great blue heron will be threatened and take off across the water. I haven't seen the trio of swans yet, but they are probably nesting in a cove. At sunset, the entire population of seagulls takes to the sky and circles the big lake, always moving counterclockwise. I don't know why.

One of the backyard nursery occupants. She shared the gazebo with me on a couple occasions (until Mom and Dad wised her up about the ways of humans.)

The last of four to leave the nest. Never leave home during nest building, or robins will take all your favorite spots!

And my garden. Built on twenty summers of love and careful attention, and it's own will to return, expand or contract, give and receive. It has grown mature and lush, and I am continuously startled to know it is mine. And yet it is not, for when I move on in retirement, it cannot come with me, and those who come to stay in my place may abandon or remove it. I cherish it while I can, and try not to feel sad to move on.

Early growth in the formal herb garden: Echanacea and Sweet Woodruff,  plus an interesting planter that will hold mint.

My favorite clematis produces a major cascade of these lavender colored blooms.

Cranberry iris: a week or so of glory, and gone.

Oh yes, summer can fill you up before you ever gather friends to the grill, or head to the beach. So art has slowed down for me on this first summer of my declared art life, and yet I am happy and at peace. More often than not, I am pulling out the camera instead of the sketchbook. I need to record the constant changes of color and light and growth, and I need it to be quick, and not a major project.  In fact, I am beginning a two-week class to improve my skills a notch. Photo Silly is being offered online with Steve Sonheim (and a great assist by Carla). I am excited for the assistance and the feedback of the forum. I am learning to love this ongoing connection to other seekers of the creative life.

This practice assignment involved looking at light sources to begin to understand their effect on the subject. Then we ate the meal and shot the changes. What would life be without peanut butter and jam?

Because flowers are here for the picking, it was a good time to try eco-dyeing this past weekend. I'm not sure I have the big passion for it, since I started studying silkscreen printing last year and expect to return to that after the photo class is over. I like intentional mark making and graphic, bold lines which silk screen can easily reproduce. But it was fun to try after Jude showed us some delightful purple from petunias. I gave it a go after realizing everything was at hand, including a copper mixing bowl I had the foresight not to give away cheaply at my yard sale last week, some gorgeous dark eggplant petunias and grape purple pansies, a bit of habotai silk leftover from my recent shibori class, and some cotton twine. The resulting cocoon sat in some water in the copper bowl for a day and produced a seemingly tight connection between fabric and purple (with a tinge of green and some green cotton string.)

Copper Magic

The cigar is a roll up of habotai silk and flowers. The green comes from the copper bowl.

About twenty hours of contact between flower and silk. Rinsed and ironed.

Because I'd rather stare out the window and daydream, I have resumed a pleasant UFO from the late '90's to complete. It needs much rambling stitch for a ribbon effect, and them some simple free motion quilting. The blank powder room wall has been waiting two years to receive this quilt, and I will soon enjoy looking at the Finished Object every day.

"Almost" as good as being in the garden. (Not really.)

Machine embroidered ribbon detail.

Another set of curves.

I am also continuing to practice telling stories in stitch by embroidering a woven piece I started just prior to becoming a member of Jude Hill's cadre of slow cloth storytellers last winter. I loved it mightily before the stitching began and it is very difficult for me to use it as an experimental learning place, but how else can I make art or learn to be better, except to do that? I recently shared the story with my SEW forum buddies. It involves years of self doubt stemming from childhood. You see, as a kid, all I wanted to do in life was be an artist. But family and teachers without my vision steered me from this path, and onto none in particular, wasting a lot of creative time trying to fill the void. Before the Internet, a person's world was considerably constrained to family and friends of a local nature, and sometimes that wasn't a wide enough support group. So this piece is entitled "I'm Tall Enough to Do This Work" (a reference to other's unfair stereotypes laid on my shoulders.)

In the just pinned stage. The piece is currently being hand embroidered to continue the story.

The weave is built on the shortened hems cut from my jeans, and many types of hand painted cottons, recycled kimono silks and a bit of linen napkin.  The journey to today plays out from left to right with childhood in fresh green, thwarted by black through some muddled and diffuse middle years, and on to a time of upward growth and warming self-acceptance on the right. This piece came to me in a flash--probably my first stab at conceptual art. It started my journey.

A sculptural teak root bench on the front porch.

This summer I will absorb life, and I will practice new skills. I will think about how far I have walked in less than a year. I'm going to "chase right up and touch the sky."  And then maybe a picnic at the beach.