the cassandra pages

Fitting It In

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An Open Lenten Letter to my Bishop

How should our diocese respond to the Anglican Communion's refusal to Invite same-sex spouses to Lambeth?

Dear Bishop Mary,

This week we observed the beginning of Lent together at the cathedral, with prayer, a solemn liturgy, beautiful music. During the Ash Wednesday service, and as you placed the ashes on my forehead, I found myself reflecting on a sermon sent to me earlier in the day by my sister-in-law.

The author, Fr. James Weiss of Boston College, wrote: "What to give up for Lent? The answer is simple: Anything that gets in the way of loving. Lent is not a negative, it is a positive. What do you need to give up in order to love better?" This simple but difficult suggestion encouraged me to think about personal answers, as I struggle with my own crankiness and emotional fatigue at the end of a long winter here in Montreal. But I also thought about what it means for us as a community. How can we love others -- especially the marginalized among us -- more fully and unconditionally? How can we, as a diocese, lead the way toward "loving better?" Where are the obstacles in our path, and what can we do to recognize and surmount them?

Bishop Gene Robinson preaching to a full church at the first OutMass held at Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal, in July 2006

One issue where we, as a diocese, have made great progress, has been toward full acceptance of LGBTQ+ persons. Like you, I am a straight white woman who has been blessed with a lifelong marriage to the person I love, the right to which was never questioned by anyone. Because of my many privileges, I have always felt it was incumbent on me to fight for the right of all people to full equality, and especially the right to love and marry whomever they choose. As the author of the 2006 biography of Bishop Gene Robinson (who became my own bishop in New Hampshire) I was involved early in this debate within the Anglican Communion and Episcopal Church. After we moved from the U.S. to Montreal, I was proud of our cathedral, and later the diocese, for taking a strong leadership role in moving us forward toward openness, inclusion and acceptance, to the point where this is barely an issue anymore among us. So it was with dismay that I heard that that same-sex spouses will not be invited to the dicennial Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops in England in 2020. You will be attending as our representative. What should our response be? Can we send a message with you that conveys all the growth and love that has been shown over this past decade and more here at home -- that explains that we have given up the things that get in the way of loving?

I appreciated the statement by Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town, calling on all bishops to attend regardless of their differences on sexuality: 'Whether you agree with where the communion is, whether you don't agree, come and express your difference in this beautiful space which is a gift from God. Don't just stay at home and say "I'm not going". Even so, some African bishops have said that they will not attend, presumably because they have disagreed with the ordinations of gay bishops and, in some cases, of women.

This letter is not a request for you or other Canadian bishops to boycott the conference, it is an appeal to you and to our Diocese to use this Lenten period as a time of reflection on how we feel, and prayerfully consider what our response should be. For my own part, I cannot call myself a follower of the Gospel, and then exclude anyone.

I hope that other members of this diocese will not just respond on social media, but write to you or communicate to their representatives on the Diocesan Council how they feel about this issue. I hope that a response can be crafted that is consistent with the message of love with which we are trying to shape our lives, and which we show to the world. And this last is important: the world we live in and represent has moved on, society has moved on. The Church should lead on moral and ethical issues, but instead it tends to lag behind, or to take positions which are widely seen as wishy-washy at best and hypocritical at worst. As attendance declines, and young people in particular look for role models and ways of engaging positively with a chaotic, confusing and destructive secular world, we must lead and do so publicly.

With thanks for your leadership, and very best wishes for a fruitful Lenten journey --

Elizabeth (Beth) Adams

 

The Best Thing I've Read about "Roma"

"Roma" exposes Mexico's darkest secret,

by Marcela Garcia in the Boston Globe

 

Such an excellent essay by Marcel Garcia. A number of people I've talked to may have liked this movie, but when we've talked about it in more depth, it's like we've seen two different films. That's always possible with a book or film, of course, but in this case, and at this particular time in history, I've found the dissonance quite disturbing.

 

It always bothers me that so many people think they already know all there is to know (or all they want to know) about the complex cultures south of the American border, when they actually know very little. I'm probably hyper-sensitive because I too was quite ignorant before I started going to Mexico and learning about it myself; I wasn't even sure I wanted to go, except that I knew there was a tradition of art that I wanted to see firsthand. Now I wonder how I could have been so limited. Where does this ignorance come from? Is it because we are inundated with media "information" and mass culture through Hollywood films and TV, and equate that with real knowledge? Is it because most people don't travel to Latin America beyond the resort beaches? Is it because so few of us form real friendships with people from different cultures, religions and ethnicities than ourselves, where we are willing to actually listen to and learn from the truth of their lived experience?  Perhaps most people simply don't want to be stretched in this direction because it also requires looking at oneself.

 

I've now been to Mexico City for six extended periods of time, and have relationships with a number of Latin American friends. Yet with every visit and conversation, as with people from every culture different from mine, I realize how little I knew, and still know. Of course I've become uncomfortably aware of my own privilege, and ability to travel and come back to my far easier North American life. But it's a lot more than that. I want to be as open as possible when I see a film or read a book or talk to someone, as well as when I'm traveling, so that I am able to learn. I don't want to live in a North American bubble and take it with me everywhere I go. We all do that to some extent, but dropping it consciously seems to be more than most people want to do.

 

I also know firsthand how uncomfortable this process can be. I've been doing it for my entire adult life, partly because I married outside my culture, but also because of a longstanding desire for knowledge of otherness and for being stretched. I know everyone doesn't share this, or feel that the reward of growing wiser is worth the pain of feeling uncomfortable, hurt, misunderstood, or being in the minority, where we suddenly have to listen and accept different ways, and not be in a position of control or power. I get it. Most of us prefer to stay in our own tribe, however narrowly or broadly we define that. The world is moving in a different direction, though, and we can either accept that, understand our own privilege, and change -- or fight against it, which I see so-called liberals doing just as much as conservatives, when it involves actually confronting one's own stereotypes and sense of entitlement or superiority. It's one thing to oppose building a wall, or separating families, and entirely another to actually learn what is beyond that border, or who those families are, or our own complicity in the systems that have made them want to leave -- perhaps for a life of domestic servitude in America.

 

Roma confronts racism in Mexican culture, but it also asks us to look within. So I was grateful for Garcia's insights and explanations about her own culture, and the lens through which North America has viewed both Mexico and this particular film. I'm grateful she took the time to write this piece.

Exploring Delphi on Paper

In the last two weeks, I've been making some drawings and small paintings of Delphi, trying to explore what made it such a special place for me. What do you do with ruins? We're undoubtedly influenced by all those 19th century travelers to the Middle East and Mediterranean. I saw a lot of them in museums on this trip: here's an example by Jean N. de Chacaton, a view of the Parthenon painted in the mid-1800s.

It's tempting to try to draw the monuments accurately and make pretty travel pictures, especially when the light is so clear and graphic as it is in these places. I always find myself sidetracked in that direction, and it's enjoyable to do detailed drawings and watercolors, or even fast sketches as a record of a place. But sometimes there's something more that feels like it wants to be expressed, and the actual "stones" seem somewhat peripheral to that.

So I started out, as I often do, with a detailed drawing that came before I was even thinking about doing a series. In fact, it was during the making of this first ink drawing that I began thinking about the essence of this particular place and how to express it. But it's often a circuitous route to an answer, and even then, there are multiple possibilities, because a landscape is complex, and so is our emotional response to it. There are physical elements of that landscape that affect how we view it; there is the weather and atmosphere; there are the people we're with, or not; events that happen while we're there -- and there is whatever we bring with us: knowledge of history, reading we've done or things we've been told, or perhaps a completely blank slate; things that happened on our journey there; expectations; the mood and physical state we're in on that particular day. Finally, certain places seem imbued with the events that have happened there and the people who have been there before us. Delphi is certainly such a place. Some people are more receptive to that than others, and that receptiveness may vary with different times or circumstances: arriving at the same time as two noisy busloads of school children is a big difference from being alone at a site. 

It's a process to sort through all of that in order to find a personal response and find a way to express it simply and clearly through art, or writing, or any other creative form. A teacher once suggested, when I spoke of my confusion and difficulties with this, "search it out through drawing." I've tried to follow that advice, and I still find the process challenging, but now more fascinating than confusing. Often, as here, I have no clear idea where I'm going at the beginning. By drawing the reality of the subject, I start to edge closer. Certain forms may stand out, or become more important, or perhaps I notice lines in the scene that lead toward or away from each other. I may begin to remember things I had forgotten about how I felt. Recalling the scene through drawing it may tell me something I didn't "hear" when I was there. It is a process similar to a type of dream analysis, where in a quiet meditative state we revisit a dream and the characters who appeared in it, and have a waking conversation with them. When we pay close attention a second or third or fourth time, certain elements drop away as unimportant, and others come to the fore; we begin to identify with certain people or elements. It's also true that whatever answers we get may be partial; a month or a year or even longer may elapse, and then fresh insights might come.

This charcoal sketch came next. Obviously I was starting to hone in one the trees and the way they create a unique vertical punctuation on the side of steep mountains that form a series of interlacing triangles. 

This gouache study followed later the same morning. It crops into the scene in the charcoal drawing to emphasize the trees -- are they cedars or cypresses? -- and adds some minimalistic color. The rocks from the ruin in the foreground are present, but downplayed. I liked this sketch a lot and felt it showed a new direction that could go toward either a  print or a painting. That was confirmed when I posted it on Instagram and got an immediate direct message from a friend whose instincts I trust: " I love this." I replied: "It's so...nothing...and yet..." and he responded, "It's all there." Then I asked myself, OK, if "it's all there" -- WHAT have I put there? Old rocks, cedars, mountains, sky. Simple shapes. And what about these non-colors? Why do they work? Because they are harmonious. But in order to figure that out, I had to deviate some more.

Next I used watercolor on rough Arches paper. The full sheet is above, and a cropped detail below that I think is the "real" picture and contains most of what I was aiming for.

 

I love the saturated color and the freedom of the brushstrokes, for themselves, but the result is pretty unreal for this context. 

Delphi, I was beginning to understand, was in a spectacular setting on the side of Mount Parnassus, but its overall feeling was very quiet and "inner." That came across better in monochrome or subdued colors, which I used in the next iteration, the gouache above. I was also getting interested in the shapes on the sides of the mountains. 

That was followed by another watercolor. I like it, but felt both of these were too pretty and didn't say much beyond that. The full view kept looking like a postcard.

Then I did another bright watercolor, above, from memory, simplifying and stylizing the shapes. This one seems to have possibilities too. Historically, the monuments here would have been painted in bright primary colors - we tend to forget that. A friend who is Greek wrote to me that she liked it a lot: "Beautiful, those light lines on the cypresses. And the expressive colors feel more apt in uniting the landscape with its wild, somewhat extravagant past than the usual soft watercolors which mainly just point out the natural beauty of the Mediterranean landscape."

 

Finally, last night, I did a brush drawing in ink and indigo watercolor, also from memory. The single, rather Munch-like tree, standing alone, comes perhaps closest so far to my feelings about the place. I also return to that early gouache, and can see better why it works.  I'm getting closer, but I'm not finished yet.

What's made the greatest impression on me is the Greek sense of place -- they had an unerring ability to choose particular sites for their cities, and within them, for their temples, theatres, meeting places, dwellings and tombs. I've only understood this by being in those places myself; you simply can't feel that from books or slideshows in art history classrooms. When you are actually there, you see why they chose a particular site: regardless of the centuries that have passed, usually you can still see the view that they saw, feel the wind off the ocean or glimpse the water or a mountain in the distance; you have a sense of what they felt was special or sacred in that place. This uncanny ability to sense what is special about a place, and use it for its full effect, seems equal to me to their architectural skill, or mastery of balance and harmony.

For the Greeks, Delphi was the center of the universe. Kings traveled in person from all the city-states, including the islands, to consult the Pythia, the Delphic oracle in the temple, and they built treasuries on the side of the hill to house part of the spoils won in battle, as a gift to the gods. Mount Parnassus is remote, and far from the sea; at 2,457 m (8,061 ft) it is one of the highest mountains in Greece, sacred to Apollo and Dionysus, and it was also the home of the Muses, who inspired poetry, art, and dance. Delphi is located far up on its slopes. It was a real journey for us to get there, in a modern car, on winding mountain roads. I can hardly imagine what it took for ancient people to make that journey and arduous climb; clearly it was of vital spiritual and political importance to them.

Oracle of Delphi: King Aigeus in front of the Pythia. 440-430 BC, drinking cup, Attic red-figure, Kodros Painter. (Berlin, Altes Museum)

But going there myself, I could see and feel why they thought it was so special. On the way up, we drove hairpin turns, stopping once for a shepherd with his flock of goats, the bells around their necks tinkling, their hooves clicking and scrambling on the loose rocks. We passed through the narrow winding streets of the town of Delphi, perched precariously on the slope, and back into the wilderness to the ancient site, from which you see no signs of human habitation. It's spectacular and wild: from the steep rocky slope with its pines and cedars, you look down across a deep rugged valley. Hawks and owls and crows must have been common then as now, the wind blows, the dark cedars punctuate the sky, and you climb the same paths, past the market and the treasuries, up toward the man temple where the oracle gave her riddles, and even higher to the theatre. Of course, what was once a busy mecca is deserted except for tourists. I tried to imagine a bustling marketplace, smoke rising from sacrificial fires, human voices everywhere: that was difficult. But there was something about the place itself that hadn't tumbled with the stones, and had perhaps even preceded them. Standing on the ridge above the main temple, I tried to imagine coming there any of the grand buildings had even been built. Who were the people who identified this place and first called it sacred? Perhaps what I was seeing and feeling now was closer to what they felt. I kept hearing the cry of a hawk as it circled and rose in the mountain thermals, and then plunged down into the deep valley we can had come from. Above us was snow, the inaccessible realms of the gods. Closer by, in a glade in the woods, near a rushing spring, perhaps the Muses still danced: it wasn't hard to imagine.  

Drawing Basics #3: 7 Reasons for Drawing

We all need positive reasons for getting on a creative path, and sticking to it. As I remarked before, there's often a false friend in our heads, making negative comments that can derail us. Even if we can't get rid of that all-too-familiar voice, we're going to learn to tune it out. One of the best ways to do that is to remember all the excellent reasons for taking up this creative pursuit and building it into our daily life.

Here's a list of seven unarguable reasons for drawing:

1. Almost everyone can learn to enjoy drawing and sketching
2. Drawing is a way of connecting more deeply to our world and what we see
3. The brain-hand-eye connection is fundamentally human and physically and psychologically good for us
4. Drawing is a meditative activity that helps us slow down and re-center
5. Inspiration is everywhere
6. Drawing is the ultimate portable activity
7. Learning to enjoy and appreciate process is easier and more valuable as we get older

To expand on these reasons a little, let's take them one by one.

1. Almost anyone can do it. No, not everyone is going to be Rembrandt. But the basic skills of training one's eyes to understand what they're seeing, the brain to interpret that in two dimensions, and the hand to put it down on paper, is something that can be taught, and most people can get far better at it than they thought possible. It's not a question of tricks, but it's about paying attention to spacial relationships, relative size, shape and form in a new way. There are lots of excellent teachers out there, including on line, but the most important factor is practice. Furthermore, we can all continue to make progress: this is a skill that improves with practice forever. Furthermore, we live at a time when no one thinks that drawings have to be literal or super-realistic representations. You can develop your own style and forget about being judged against some universal standard. That's both freeing, and inclusive for a much larger proportion of people who want to do art.

 

30,000 year old painting of a hyena from Chauvet Cave, France. 

2. Close observation changes our relationship with our world. When we look at something -- a walnut, a doorknob, our own face -- with the intention of drawing it, we simply see it differently. During the process of studying that subject, we connect with it on a different and often deeper level than we ever did before. We will never see that flower or tree or scene again the way we used to, and what we've learned about them through drawing will become embedded in our brain. That, right there, is a major reason why drawing is so valuable. Drawing changes the way that we see.

3. Drawing stimulates the brain in ways that strengthen the neurological system and can even help stave off dementia. It's also a pursuit that is fundamentally human, causing us to use and develop the connections between seeing, using our hands in a skillful way, and thinking. As our lives become more and more digital and less and less manual, we are in danger of losing fundamental aspects of human skill and behavior. Drawing, playing musical instruments, and making things with our hands are all brain- and life-enhancing pastimes not only because they create things of value, but because they touch something deep within the human mind and heart. What will humans be if these skills are lost?

4. It's meditative. So much has been written about the value of slowing down and doing meditative things that I'm not going to go into it here. Drawing puts me into a different zone: when I'm doing it, that's all I'm thinking about, and when I'm finished, I'm calmer because I have been somewhere unlike the daily routine.

5. You don't need to go anywhere special: the inspiration for drawing is all around you, in your home, your place of work, on the metro or busy city street, out in the countryside. We can draw everything from the smallest beetle or blossom to a vast ocean or mountain landscape: the scale and the vision is completely up to you, and it can change with the day or hour. 

6. It's completely portable and inexpensive. How many cool things can you do with so little equipment? All you really need is a piece of paper and a pencil or pen - in moments of boredom, I've made many sketches on the backs of programs or napkins, meeting notes, the corner of a placemat. I've never drawn on pieces of music, but I've certainly drawn on the service bulletin or music lists in my choir folder during a less-than-exciting sermon. With a small sketchbook and some relatively inexpensive supplies, you can create a sketching kit that fits in your purse or pocket and can go with you everywhere.

7. Being older helps us to appreciate the process of doing something rather than judging individual results. Though I've been drawing since I was a child, I've found that I appreciate it for itself -- as a process that I enjoy -- a lot more as I've gotten older. I'm less concerned about making a great drawing every time, and more content to explore, try new things, experiment, and also just to document my world and daily life. When you have a regular drawing practice, the sketchbooks begin to form a record, like a journal, and that's very satisfying. The quality of the individual drawings is less important than the accumulation of knowledge and experience, and what those drawings say about your life at the time. But some of them do stand out, and you can look back and see progress and breakthroughs. I've photographed most of my sketches over the past five years or so, because I would really hate to lose my sketchbooks if we ever had a fire or flood, or if one were lost or stolen while I was traveling. I think most artists feel this way. Our sketchbooks are the closest to the bone: they're our private workshop, and hidden within them are often memories or coded, personal hints of whatever was going on in our lives at a certain time. The creation of drawings, over months and years, can become a quiet practice without pressure or angst, but with great personal value. For me it has aspects of spiritual practice; for you it may be something else, but it is on that kind of level, once you stop pressuring yourself to do it perfectly.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, let's take those apart.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next: seven reasons why drawing is absolutely worthwhile.

Never forget: Dorothea Lange's repressed photographs of Japanese internment

Dorothea Lange's caption: "May 2, 1942 — Byron, California. Third generation of American children of Japanese ancestry in crowd awaiting the arrival of the next bus which will take them from their homes to the Assembly center."

In 1942, the United States government hired photographer Dorothea Lange to document the rounding-up and internment of Japanese-Americans. But when the military and intelligence officials saw what her humanitarian lens had captured, the photographs were impounded and themselves "incarcerated" in the National Archives, only to be released to public view in 2006.

A desert garden created by professional gardener William Katsuki outside his dwelling in the Manzanar Relocation Center, California, 1942. Photograph by Dorothea Lange

Editor and Lange biographer Linda Gordon of Anchor Editions has published a selection of the photographs in the book Impounded, and writes about them on her blog at Anchor Editions. She is also making a limited number of prints available, with 50% of the proceed going to the NILC and ACLU, for their work on behalf of present-day immigrants. Gordon writes:

Lange worked nonstop for the next months, traveling to many cities and towns around California to document the Japanese people as they prepared for “evacuation,” as they were herded onto buses and trains, and moved into temporary housing in barracks and stables at horse racetracks and fairgrounds across the west coast. She then spent time at Manzanar, one of the largest concentration camps, situated in the eastern desert of Southern California where she continued to document the conditions and the people who were imprisoned. Despite much resistance from the camp authorities and military police, and several constraints on what she could photograph, she produced over 800 photographs during her assignment.

As I looked at Lange's images, of course they led me to consider what not only what they say about power and race, but also about our continuing need to victimize and make inhuman those who represent the "other." How many people in our world today are living in refugee or internment camps, or are forced to live behind walls that separate them from their former homes, lives, and loved ones? And while some groups have the funds and organizations to keep their past suffering in the public eye, most do not. How many will ever receive reparations for what has been done to them? Or will we, in fact, forget, and continue the forgetting?

Lange's caption: "June 16, 1942 — San Bruno, California. This scene shows one type of barracks for family use. These were formerly the stalls for race horses. Each family is assigned to two small rooms, the inner one, of which, has no outside door nor window. The center has been in operation about six weeks and 8,000 persons of Japanese ancestry are now assembled here."

“I remember having to stay at the dirty horse stables at Santa Anita. I remember thinking, ‘Am I a human being? Why are we being treated like this?’ Santa Anita stunk like hell.… Sometimes I want to tell this government to go to hell. This government can never repay all the people who suffered. But, this should not be an excuse for token apologies. I hope this country will never forget what happened, and do what it can to make sure that future generations will never forget.”

— Albert Kurihara, Santa Anita Assembly Center, Los Angeles & Poston Relocation Center, Arizona

Sketching & Drawing Basics: Paper

Recently, an Instagram friend asked me for some advice -- he wants to begin drawing more seriously and needed both artistic help, and some suggestions about supplies. It occurred to me that some of the readers here might also enjoy a really basic discussion of how to get started. So I thought I'd write a few posts,  expanding on what of what I told my friend.

Two things hold people back who think they might want to draw or paint. The first is fear of failure, which often prevents them from beginning in the first place (or starting again in later life).  I'll talk about that in a subsequent post.

The second obstacle is inferior art materials. Beginners often think they don't "deserve" to use artist-grade materials and tools, but unfortunately the result of using student-grade supplies, or those intended for children, is that your work will suffer and look far worse. Inferior tools behave unpredictably, pigments aren't ground evenly or are made of cheap imitation chemicals; cheap paper can be too absorbent or too slick, preventing you from getting the kind of results you've seen in other people's work, through no fault of your own -- except that the beginner doesn't know this. How frustrating and discouraging!

Investing in good materials will actually help you. You don't have to buy top-of-the-line paper and paint and brushes, but you do need to get decent ones. Then you have to actually use them -- even use them up! Fill up that sketchbook with drawings. Use more paint. Splash it around, have fun! Invest in good brushes and pens and learn how to take excellent care of them - they will last many years if you do.

It is almost impossible to make real progress in art if you have inferior tools, so buy the best you can, and try to use them freely. (I say this as someone who has a huge hoard of good paper, collected over a lifetime -- yes, I'm trying to use it up!) But my mother, who was an artist herself, always saw to it that I had good materials, even as a child. She let me use her sable watercolor brushes after I learned how to wash them and store them properly, and she bought me high-quality paper. This made a huge difference when I was learning to paint. So here are some suggestions about the first essential: paper.

 

Spiral-bound, hard-bound, and soft-cover sketchbooks.

My friend wrote that he was using his child's watercolor set, and a notebook which "might not be right for watercolor." I often see people sketching in little pocket Rhodia pads or other small notebooks. They're OK for a quick felt pen or pencil sketch, but first of all they're too small, and secondly, the paper is simply too smooth. When you try to use watercolor on paper that's too smooth and too light, it buckles, and the pigment runs. If you use it on paper that's too absorbent and fibrous, the pigment sinks in too fast and loses its brilliance; subsequent colors sink into each other and the result is muddy rather than bright and sparkling. Fine watercolor papers are available in pads or blocks from top manufacturers such as Arches and Fabriano; those papers will allow soaking without buckling, and endure a lot of repeated applications of color, as well as scraping and other surface abuse. However, you don't need a dedicated watercolor paper at all for sketching with pen and light watercolor washes. 

On the left: Fabriano "Misto" - a very smooth, thin paper with dots. Ink lines are sharp, and so are the edges of brush washes. The color stays bright, but the paper buckles. There is almost no absorbency or opacity, but for a smooth paper, it's a nice surface. On the right, Stillman & Birn's "Gamma" - a good cross between a high-quality drawing paper for various dry media, and a watercolor-friendly surface that's absorbent and toothy enough to accept light ink or watercolor washes without buckling, while still retaining the character of the brush strokes.

After a lot of trial and error, I've standardized on Stillman & Birn's sketchbooks. The Gamma series (what I use) has ivory paper; the Alpha series is the same paper, but in bright white. They come hard-bound (like a regular hardcover book) or spiral bound, which lies completely flat; you can also get a soft cover version in some sizes, and the company has recently released a new line with toned papers - grey, beige, and black. Many people also like Moleskine art notebooks. These papers are excellent for pen and for light washes, where you're not going to get it soaking wet.  What you want is paper that's not too rough, so your pen can make a clean line, but also not too smooth so it has some absorbency and what's called "tooth" - the ability to accept an ink or pencil line with a bit of drag or resistance, and a bit of texture so that the pigment catches in the little invisible irregularities on the surface. Many watercolor papers are too rough for a good pen line, so if you want to sketch in ink first, and then add some watercolor wash, you want a paper that is not totally smooth, and is designated for "light washes."

A page with heavy ink lines and quite a lot of watercolor - you want your paper to hold up this well.

What size? Your ideal sketchbook will be small enough to carry with you, but not so small as to constrain you. You don't want to draw with cramped fingers and little tiny lines. My standard S&B sketchbooks are spiral-bound hardbacks, 8.5" x 5.5". In my studio I also keep a larger one, 9" x 12". I also use small Global Art Hand Book journals when I have to go smaller and lighter for travelling - these have very nice fabric-covered covers, with an elastic band and a plastic pocket in the back. I like their small square (5.5 x 5.5") and the horizontal landscape format; you might also try the Moleskine art notebook line. I prefer a spiral notebook (because it lies flat, I can work horizontally or vertically, and sheets can be removed) and am particular about the paper, but many people love the Moleskine journals and there are many different formats to choose from. Personally, I think the pocket notebooks in a 3.5" x 5" page size are just too small to allow for free hand movement; they tend to make me work too tightly. On the other hand, if I don't have a sketchbook with me because it was too big to fit in my pocket or bag that day, I often regret it!

The S&B spiral-bound sketchbooks have become my "regular" choice because they are easier to work in and simply nicer than the less-expensive Strathmore or Canson pads found in most art supply stores. There is an undeniable psychological and emotional element to artist supplies. I have used many, many types of journals and sketchbooks, with good paper inside, but have failed to "bond" with them and therefore didn't use them consistently or happily. The S&B sketchbooks suit me, but once I bought one that was hard-bound instead of spiral, and with white paper instead of cream, and I absolutely hated it. The drawings I did weren't as good, I didn't enjoy working in it, and I eventually abandoned it in disgust. The paper was identical! So there's just something extremely personal about the paper we work on, as well as the format and style of sketchbook we use. The paper needs to be good, with the right quality and attributes for the type of work you intend to do (wet, dry, light wash or whatever), but beyond that, it is up to you. 

Note: I don't receive, and will never accept, compensation for endorsing any manufacturer's products; these recommendations are completely without strings, or benefit to me!

Write!

How is your handwriting these days? Mine has really deteriorated, like any other skill that is seldom used. I didn't even know there was a day set aside as "handwriting day" -- sounds like a marketing ploy -- but, as I wrote recently, I've just ordered some new inks and a new fountain pen. I got my ink today, so it felt like the right time to write a bit, and think about handwriting.

My "normal" handwriting is the fast, right-leaning scrawl you see above. It's embarrassing to me to look at letters written by my mother, my grandmother and her sisters, or my great-grandmother, all of whom had beautiful penmanship, and -- I'm afraid -- more patience than I do when writing a letter or a journal entry. Here's the beginning of one from my grandmother, where she excuses her poor penmanship -- as if! -- because she's writing on her lap.

I miss those letters and those correspondences: the anticipation, the thoughtfulness of composing a reply, the slowness of the exchange. I miss finding a real letter in my mailbox in college, or from a faraway boyfriend or close friend. Here's an envelope from my grandmother, addressed to me in Vermont in 1983. Gosh.

It's so beautiful!

I actually made my living for a while as a calligrapher. Those pages of carefully-formed calligraphic scripts don't resemble my handwriting, and they represent a lot of slowing down and patience and slow breathing. For me, handwriting like the examples above is more like talking, and it moves a lot faster. But when I look at the way I write now, i'm shocked. It feels to me like it's time to do some of those breathing exercises, slow down, and write somebody -- maybe myself! -- a letter.

Not that what we write now, by email or even by text, is any less sincere or thoughtful. I still carry on long correspondences with a number of people, and we don't have the patience or the time to do it by snail mail: those days, I'm quite sure, are long gone. But our brains are connected to our hands, and writing is part of what makes us human. We lose those manual dexterity skills at our peril, I think, and I bet that one day scientists will discover that the near-overnight loss of writing by hand, and related skills, affected our brains in some significant ways. I know some of you keep handwritten journals, or write "morning pages" each day. Others draw or sketch. But the time most of us now spend with a pencil or pen in hand is really minimal - for some of us, it barely exists anymore. Do you think it's important? Do you miss it? What takes its place in your life these days?

 

Some recent drawings

Clementine peels and Mexican ceramics.

I'l get back to the travelogue soon, but wanted to share a few drawings from the past month or so.

Succulents and a bowl of green almonds.

 

Although I didn't manage to do a lot on the trip, I've been drawing pretty steadily since we returned.

 

Succulents and Knitting.

Yesterday I ordered a new fountain pen, my first in a long time -- it's a Moon Man M2 eyedropper pen. These are pens with barrels that can be filled with an eyedropper, rather than a cartridge or piston system. I've never had one, and thought it would be worth a try at only $20; other users praise the extra-fine nibs on these pens.

Embroidered purse and desk objects.

My favorite pen for drawing or writing is a now-vintage Shaeffer 580 with a beautiful, responsive gold nib, but I'm becoming reluctant to take it with me when I travel. I've never been completely happy with the Lamy Safari I bought as a low-cost alternative: it's easy to fill and use, but the nib is too stiff for me. And while I'm quite happy with my usual Noodler's Lexington Grey ink, I'm also eyeing some other possibilities from Noodler's range of bulletproof (entirely waterproof and bleedproof) inks: possibly a blue-black ("54th Massachusetts"), and a dark khaki ("El Lawrence").

 

 

Two versions: Still life with pomegranate, pears, and orchid.

 

Finally the Christmas tree made its appearance, the pomegranate got eaten and was replaced by persimmons. It's all really very mundane, I just draw whatever's in front of me.

 

And, below, one more of the tree in front of the fireplace. Montreal has forbidden wood burning and none of us want to pay for the expensive conversions required for gas, so for now, there will be no chestnuts roasting on this one.

We took the tree down yesterday, and there was a snowfall. Outside, the world is white, and inside it looks pretty bare: midwinter has arrived. It would seem like a good time to do some watercolors, just to put some color into life! But I don't mind the monochromatic, graphic quality of winter. Drawing with pen or charcoal often seems more appropriate now, and I think my mood and vision become more focused in response to the weather and the starkness. We'll have at least three more months of it, so it's important to find a way through that embraces the season.