Canyon weekends
It appears as if I am doing absolutely no drawing or painting, although I am doing a lot of Art. I am seldom at home, or in front of a computer, so the timeline has broken down somewhat. Art and I spend a lot of time in Canyon. He moved out of El Cerrito the day before we left for the festival in Iowa. There was still some furniture and instruments that he finally got moved by the end of September. Much of his stuff is still in boxes, rare instruments and treadle machines- one for sewing, one with bellows for accordion tuning- are in my storage space.
A friend gave me an iPhone in August, and my photo collection is mostly there now. To get an image for posting I must email it to myself. This weekend I drove to Canyon after work on Friday and came back to Essex before going to work Tuesday. While there I helped Art dismantle the roof of the wood shed. It will be leak free and cosy on a rainy afternoon, with maybe alternating clear and brick red corrugated panels.
Art, the big truck, and Good Cat
My brother died unexpectedly on September 21, the Autumnal Equinox, but it is numbing, and affecting how I spend my time. It hasn’t quite hit me yet.
Seven Months Later
I haven’t been here blogging in seven months–well, who’s counting? Just me. A lot of time spent in Canyon (https://travelswithstevie.wordpress.com/canyon/) which is all the way over in my Travel blog. I may have to sort that out, drag it over here with a copy function–which isn’t available there, it appears.
I have begun a practice of drawing or painting–only once, actually, last weekend in Hayfork. I am still searching for my watercolor sets and Kaweco and other fountain pens. It doesn’t matter how many boxes and types of art supplies I have if i don’t use them. It turns out what I really want to do is sit in bed and read. I used to spend so much time in front of the TV just to be next to Steve, all that time is now my own.
Posting here a photo of less than half of a 4×5 foot canvas that is stored next to my bed, a painting that I call Dark into Light, sort of a self-portrait of me (off-camera) embracing the darkness–which is another post
Cranky Pants
3.2.15
So much drama! People threatening to quit the band if we go onstage. Demanding I have an opinion, and it better be the same as theirs. Well, what to do? I love the stage. I wouldn’t mind either way. It’s not an emotional issue, and besides, isn’t it up to the venue? Aren’t we putting on a show? Maybe not.
It was threatening to rain all weekend, but why threaten? I am ready and waiting. Maybe some fruit trees will get their blossoms knocked off. It’s not up to me. My big thrill today, one white onion, 22 cents.
I banged my head in the bathroom at rehearsal. Banged my knee on a tool box I had forgotten to put away. No one can take a joke, least of all me. I am so caught up in other peoples opinions and activities I don’t know where my extremities are. I think it is another chapter of grief, just to be absent and let people lead me around on a leash, but it does get dreary.
Yes, maybe I don’t hear what you say, maybe that’s okay, maybe I have a right to tune out, rest, ponder, exhibit indifference, wait for rain not to fall. If you have a great idea, write it down. Sketch it out. Make a list. We can check it, or chuck it later. That’s what I’d do. I’m sure I have a blank piece of paper in the recycling, or a watercolor block, or some nice Bristol board. Don’t get invested. I’m an artist, yo.
4 day wkend+
What happened to Veteran’s Day? Well, I’ve already had a 4-day weekend, so I am going back to work tomorrow. Blasphemy! But I’ll post a shot of my dad with his war injury – motorcycle accident at basic training in Texas. Smiling, he almost lost his left foot – but not going to war. 
Big change here, though, hope it worked. We moved the Furniture today, as per the drawing below–in the Oct 7 post– a little snug over here with 2 printers, but maybe that means more room on the other side of the studio. i am pretty exhausted. But also happy I am finding things I didn’t know I was looking for. Consolidating the sewing stuff in the acorn dresser. Didn’t move that, though. It’s crowded enough here without moving it, and leaves room in the far south west corner for guitars.
Scattered
My Friday client called to say the painters are almost done, and I sussed it that it was better if I don’t come and stir up dust and leaves near the fresh, new, wet paint. Mr A. has gone to a guy’s-party-induction-afternoon in the canyon. I suppose it entails drinking expensive whiskey. Very great! that he is spending quality time with his neighbors. He has been doing a lot of work on the foundation of the building that will be his home, and someday, maybe, my studio, in a remote pocket of wilderness over the hill.
I decided to stay home and untie some of the knots that are keeping me in a state of confusion. I repaired the extension cord to the hall closet and moved the clamp lamp, rearranging clothes onto one-rod-only, which has opened up a clear space in the back. I have been very slowly sorting and rearranging things, which often results in an increased level of clutter for a good while. I can never seem to find an optimum arrangement for paints and things.
The proximity of urban neighbors impinges on my sense of free access to outbuildings and what I have in each of my many hidey-holes. I wish for a better arrangement, although I know that nothing external will make a difference in my personal behaviour. I like to be reclusive, secretive, I hide myself from myself. There is an incredibly long arc of creative intent. I repainted the red leg of my turquoise stool a lupine blue–very satisfying and calmer–but to do so I opened up the cupboard where I keep tubes of paint in a suitcase, begatting a wild reshuffling of magazines and calligraphy notebooks between armoire and book case.
I have many collected boxes for art supplies that often replicate each other. Pens dry out, blades corrode from neglect. There are five open receptacles on the round table now, none of which have a clear purpose, except to be lovely useful objects in their own right. Last week after smoking some weed I found myself in the kitchen working over a sketchbook like in the old days when this was my studio and we cooked in the kitchen in Steve’s apartment next door. I suddenly decided it would be perfect if I moved the calligraphy toolbox into the cupboard where the tool-toolbox was, but now that seems a futile exercise. Have I DRAWN anything in ever so long? I can’t despair, though. I always make some headway, somehow.
upbeat
October is blastingly hot this year, with rare and spotty rain days. It is normal to have Indian Summer in October here in the Bay, but the unrelenting heat is something new, i think, and the drought is deepening. I have made a couple of trips to the Framing Garage, not sure what to call it. Last week I spent most of Thursday afternoon, an hour or so indoors, an hour trimming the roses and clearing dead wood out of the hedge, then back in for an hour or so. This is a good procedure, so I get some fresh air. The subtle stink and dust are still limiting the amount of time I can spend there, with or without a face mask. Ew. 
Visually, though, it is a lovely space, and with the sun moving southward, the light is intense through the big window. There is a paper-bark Eucalyptus trunk right out the window, which I find meditative. I got quite a lot done, and really have a new approach–I have a select array of supportive audio clips, KPFA archives and New Dimensions shows, to keep my monkey mind distracted. I am listening to an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert and Caroline Casey on creativity, and it has finally made a dent in my woe-is-me routine.
Painting is a communication, writing is a magic spell. Ugly paintings are healing, revealing places where work needs to be done. I know all this, but I still approached these crates of frames and glass and scraps of paper as an outsider, as to a foreign language. Today I realize it is a collaboration, and began by pulling out a crate to SEE WHAT IS THERE. Some cut glass, some frames with glass, some frames without glass. I added a few more sheets of small cut glass I found in other boxes, and marked the sizes on them. I pulled out frames in odd formats. Labels on the drawers of hooks, pens, small nails, tags, etc. I sorted two boxes of clippings, paper, drawings, prints, so that one has original art and archival paper, another has 8.5×11 copies and prints. All sorts of clippings and articles are filed into folders, stacks of magazines sorted, and a sheaf of recipes! well, they go back home, to the kitchen. The last thing I did was to put work-in-progress into a large drawer with sketchbook and supplies, so when I return I can pull them out and continue that project.
Indian Summer
I drew out a plan for my tiny studio so that I can arrange to have an area (a 5′ x 8′ space I call the Annex) to use as an office/drawing space. Currently there is a shelf behind the table with things I can’t really reach, which would be a handy receptacle for boxes of pens and paints and whatnot if it was under the window, and the desk, right next to it, on the other side of the table. The supro amp and printer shelf are currently switched, the desk and commode (a pine cabinet I use as a file cabinet) are also switched. The table is where it is pictured, and my armoire and bed are off to the right, just past the commode. I am not sure the wiring will work, but it can hardly be worse than the way it is now.
Two or so hours most every Tuesday night, three other people plus me come together here for band practice, crowding in from the door and sitting around the table. Over time, I have figured out how to arrange things so I don’t have to do a major rearrangement every week. What has happened, though, is that things get jammed up into an impermeable pile so that i am always searching, or climbing over STUFF to get to what I need, often without success.
I am reverting to a state I was in about a year ago, when my tag line was I CAN’T FIND ANYTHING! Madness.
I have been playing music three or four nights a week, plus working at my gardening business, and then there is the new Love in my life, crowded into my very small studio apartment. He has his own tiny space, in a large room that is 1/4 full of a stack of boxes he used to have in storage. I don’t have the luxury of having put much of what I own into a discrete space, and I find it very distracting and confusing to have four different places where I have belongings that I don’t really need or use packed in boxes. No, make that 5.
glasscutter
Ok, that took six weeks. One thing I appear to be very diligent about is acquiring new objects to lose, unused, somewhere in the clutter. I finally got a nice new glass cutter with 6 wheels. I just have to get it over to the framing studio, but now I can’t seem to find it. There are a great many sheets of glass that I could use to fill odd-sized frames I have there. I plan to drop by to look for my very small Cotman traveler watercolor box to take on our trip to Iowa- I have a beautiful valise filled with stuff for watercolor class, but neither of my paintboxes is in there. There are other options if I can’t track them down.
Last week at a bookstore in Santa Cruz (right by the Saw Festival jam) I bought a book on hand lettering, so I am putting together a set of pens and stuff to use in my daily journal– hoping I can sit still long enough to do some drawing. I seem to always have enough time to write almost every day, but even then there are long stretches without entries. I got a subscription to the S.F. Chron, thinking I could emulate a friend who copies a photo from the newspaper every morning, but I usually can’t find a thing i want to draw.
Back to the framing studio
I am so conflicted. I don’t know why I can’t go get a glass cutter and make some frames usable for prints TODAY. This is a period of shuttling back and forth with a few objects I think I need here, there, here again, back and forth. I don’t have any sort of system–random crates of things organized by vague shape and size. Multiple objects redundantly filed, insufficient to the task. No clear outcome. Not a great pull to get there, then psychic overwhelm and subtle stink of stale raccoon pee. Hmmm, what’s not to recommend this? I used to draw more when life was more difficult.
Peyote button, from life, Tucson 1972
Silver Kittens
After a long hiatus, Fluffy is back writing songs and playing again, and we have reformed the Silver Kittens (without Steve). So now it is Fluffy, Muffy and Possum. We decided to shoot some photos at Ann’s Failure Farm, a beautiful location, and Art offered to do the camera-ing with my Dx40 (Thanks, Dave!) of 378 shots, at least 70 were suitable for reproduction. It’s a shame we didn’t do some costume changes, the series would have stretched much farther–although Muffy and I got in some test shots at the beginning. What fun, we are a fun band on so many levels, and very close friends, having gone through terrible losses and fun adventures together.
Wrong Book
Last week I ordered a book from Amazon- I had been planning for a long, long time to give it as a gift, but could not let go of the copy I have for sentimental reasons. I had earned two $25 gift cards from my credit card after paying off the overdue hospital bill of my now-deceased life partner. Imagine the conundrum. The package appeared at my door Monday, almost instantaneously. When I picked it up and felt it, I was already disappointed, because it was too small. I tried to bend it–paperback? No, hardcover. So, I tore the envelope open and there was a different book, SexDeathEnlightenment, by Mark Matousek. What the hell? I checked the invoice. The book I ordered was clearly described, and there was an email address to contact in case of error. So, I did.
Today I got a reply, keep the book, yours was right here, I already gave it to the postman! Expedited shipping.
So I opened it up, it is a story of life with Andy Warhol, with a blurb by Ram Dass “An extraordinarily articulate account of how the sicknesses of our time can spawn spiritual awakening and compassion.”
Parking Dilemma–15 minute story
Set the timer–
It has been a week since I found the note from LL on my door. He had dropped it in the mailbox of the wrong apartment, as if he was ashamed, or didn’t want me to see it, really, for some reason, Cowardly, Nefarious, Idiotic.
Steve’s truck and Lynn’s Mustang 1997
He had dropped it in the mailbox of #1–the site of our contentious 15-week battle–now Amy’s apartment, Steve’s old place for 35 years, where we lived together for 22 years, anyway. THE NOTE WAS IN ALL CAPS, WHICH LOOKS LIKE YELLING, particularly in that the address and salutation were in Normal Writing. He had signed it “Manager”, and threatened me with towing if I park in the driveway (at my expense) and stated that I was told before moving in to Apartment #2 that there was no parking provided on the property, and I should “REFRAME” from parking there. After I read it (and freaked out!) on that Thursday night I sealed it back up and put it back in the (wrong) mailbox. The next day Amy left it for me, standing up on my doorknob, against the door frame.
I have been parking in the driveway since at least 1995, before we parked my 1957 VW van there. .
My first move was to write a long, long, frantic, angry reply in longhand. Then I typed up a WARNING PRIVATE PROPERTY THIS VEHICLE IS LEGALLY PARKED DO NOT TOW WITHOUT EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION OF VEHICLE OWNER with my name, signature, cell phone number, printed and taped to the inside front and back windows of the Westfalia.
My VW van Betsy and Steve’s Datsun 1995
Then I wrote a simple reply to the LL and edited it, printed it out, edited it further, further, printed it out, and emailed a copy of the original yelling NOTE and a copy of the reply to my “Lawyer” Jeffrey. Then I took the van on vacation for a few days, to chill, relax, “reframe”.
Meanwhile, Amy is cool, frantically apologizing, wants to park so everyone is happy–but she is paying extra for the space.
It’s terribly stressful coming home to a sense of attack and dilemma, wondering where to park, listening for a tow truck, and not knowing what to do, or what YELLING letter of weirdness will pop up next.
No Clear resolution.
DING!
Moody Ridge–15 minute story
We had such a great time Tuesday night at the Monte Vista Lodge, playing with the band Moody Ridge. I sat in front of the Christmas tree, right next to the fireplace, where I could easily plug in my bass amp. It is so warm, there is no snow, so the Christmas trees and snowflake decor are still up, giving some sense of Winter. Wednesday we did some thrift-and-gift shopping- Helen gave me a teapot with lovely prints of comfrey on one side and camomile on the other. I found a fabulous white jean jacket with fluffy fur lining, a possumy thing to wear to gigs, it does still get chilly at night!
Everyone is so friendly, and hungry for human contact, and good cooks, too. People in shops and restaurants launch into conversation at the slightest provocation, it’s almost annoying. I am a recluse by comparison, having come from the densly populated, over-stimulating SF Bay Area. But then, so did many of them, years ago.
I came out to the van to rest last night after a big dinner of spaghetti and meatballs and beer and birthday cake and ice cream. I fell asleep just after eight o’clock–woke up hours later and, as is often the case, missed the party. It’s well after 9 AM now, no one else is up yet. I am settled in my Westy on a flat spot up near the cabin, making coffee. This is a breakthrough, one of thijngs that I couldn’t imagine doing but is the easiest task possible.
Yesterday I took a hike with the dogs and got spooked–wasn’t sure where I was. Today Doogie came to see if I would go again, but i had just made my first! cup of westy-coffee and settled in to read a book. When he showed up and barked, I poured the coffee into an insulated cup and changed my shoes. By the time I got ready, he had gone. It was cold and a wind had come up, dusty and gusty. I decided to stay in the van and read–but as soon as I leaned back on the bed, the thermos cup tipped and the whole thing ran over the ocunter and onto my stack of papers, files, journal.
So, start again.
Joe Bynes’ Trees–15 minute story–
I’ve done this before, set a timer for 15 minutes and draw–or write. Today, a story about the house next door.
just a trim, thanks.
My friend Joe Bynes bought it in 1960 or so. I’m not sure– a lot of people bought houses in this neighborhood then, and Black people, like Leola and Ollie and Bruce, during or just after WWII. Joe owned a lot of houses in Berkeley, five anyway, and a ranch with a Spanish colonial style house that had an intact speakeasy in the basement. In front of all his houses, Joe planted redwood trees. At this house, he planted at least eight; three in the verge, one in the front lawn, two (or three, I think one died) by my back fence, and twins in the far southeast corner. >
The woman who bought the house from Joe’s brother Harold after he died ($120,000 I think) had rented it out (after kicking the cool neighbors out by promising them $500 cash they never received) to a series of okay people–she was okay, too, not a bad absentee landlord as far as I was concerned, otherwise.
So the trees, anyway, have been there for 40-some years. I imagine they were planted in 1974, I don’t know if I heard that or if it was just the frenzy of redwood planting then, in the newly built Bart stations etc. I have been fortunate to have a view of a stately redwood and its attendant fauna, squirrels and birds, at possibly every place I have lived in Berkeley and Oakland.
Well, a Flipper has bought the house, cash, because it needs so much work and is not up to code, you can’t get a loan. The guy who redid the house next to Doug and Dean over the back fence bought it with what he cashed in off that house. We are looking forward to a less-than-horrific experience since he did that place in record time, from a junkyard shambles, and it looks great.
The trees are coming down. The two snags by the fence are gone, and the sun is blazing on the deck this morning. They took the big beauty in the front yard, too. At least they used the lumber. In back today I saw them going up with ropes to the two in the corner–I had to go out and ask, but no, they are just giving them a trim. It’s kind of bare out, but I’ll get used to it. Once the beech leafs out again I will have shade on the hot days. Things change.
Winter Trees
At last I have begun to sketch a bit, with my morning pages of ritual journaling, I left pages blank so something drawn will find its way in. I have a clear plastic lunchbox with my Prismacolor and Derwent pencils, and an electric pencil sharpener on the dining table. I have been spending every morning in bed because it is too cold to get up–I read, I journal, I drink coffee and eat oatmeal there. I was watching dvd’s on the laptop until it slipped off the little stool and crashed–opening up hours of my life, so 15 minutes to half an hour of a simple sketch, starting with my wonderful new dark-color uniball pens. I especially like the purple-black for laying in silhouette trees or shadow stuff. Also there is writing on the back. If I had posted it in reverse could you read my journal? 
“It is the wind that brought the cold I got, the loss of Jean that put me into prolonged illness and exhaustion. Friday 10 PM: Mollie gave me 2 beeswax candles. She lit a white candle for me and Steve at the U.U. church on Christmas Eve. I am burning a candle now for him, to conjure his help. The table is arrayed with art photographs and inspiration + a journal + the book The Artist’s Way. After I cleared the clutter of Christmas and travel there is a clear message of creativity there.”
Gerstle Cove Nov 13, 1992
Here is a trip where I vividly remember Steve catching a Rockfish, vivid red-and-black scales and pale turquoise flesh that turned white when cooked, delicious. I stayed in camp and drew some mushrooms growing under the trees in color pencil, adding india ink later.
Bailing out on class
sm monogram in UNCIAL
So, I bailed out on Calligraphy class. It was too restrictive, too much homework and not enough letterform instruction in class. I couldn’t get focused, and was really not ready (or interested) in several aspects of the class: a) designing another book when two of them from previous classes still have so many empty pages, are packed away, unappreciated, or so it feels to me. Although, I tried to start another, pulled a blank signature from the first book I made, pages I had added in 2011. The drawback was the scattered and unfinished nature of that book- I felt unable to present it in class, not able to pull together anything new . b) I am really too busy to take a class that isn’t aligned with my current trajectory, where I am not permitted to express the negative aspects of reality: my grief, confusion, planetary collapse. c) All the work I did in the first couple of years were so wonderful, so exemplary, I am intimidated by my own innate talent! This is really a strange laziness that I need to work through, eventually. d) and by people that have been taking the class all along, (one who also has a band and does posters etc. for them)
Monogram in Uncial hand
LAM monogram in UNCIAL
–with their beautiful greeting cards (xmas cards! I’m not really interested this year) and lovely, simple flower drawings. It’s really all about the darkness for me now. Will I follow through? Wait and see.
The panel at the Starry Plough is actually in UNCIAL hand- the one I did the Beowulf pages in. It was destroyed by inept painted lettering style when they remodeled the bar. No one notices how bad it looks except me. I plan to one day soon copy it in the proper script, on paper, anyway.
windows at the frame shop
Ann shimmed up the rotted sash and inserted the glass so the window is now so beautiful. It will take some more work, but sure looks great. Thanks for the Stagecraft, Muffy!
Here is a found redwood medicine cabinet for birds nests and such like.
Chancery Cursive
It’s difficult to manage an art blog when no art is being done. I have restocked the acrylics so they are accessible, no longer in a cardboard box in the hallway closet. Incessantly journaling, but no drawings, no paintings. I sit down each 
morning with intent and coffee . . . and do my Chancery Cursive practice homework for Calligraphy Class. Almost too wide to fit on the scanner! Well, that indicates the size of pages for the book I will make for this session. I have strange papers I collected a year or two ago that I can use- “domestic etch” already bound into my giant Chancery journal, and weird flocked-pink-and-glitter cover paper. There are possible other sheets to pull out of the closet, too.
Back to Calligraphy
A friend’s question startled and disturbed me. Am I painting? Such a painful, simple thing, but NO. Today I pulled the boxes of acrylic paints out of the back of the closet they have been stored in since converting the studio to living space, and clearing out the studio kitchen for actually cooking.
Memories of old projects come bubbling up, break, float away. It has been a very long time since I did any painting, except for bookshelves, satisfying as that may be. I am heading out now to a calligraphy class with my old crew at the Albany Community Center? Since the Adult School shut down. This is the building where we had a show that I displayed the Wisdom of the Elders piece.
So, all my inks are still in the same place they have been for these last two years or so. Clearly, this is something I always meant to take up again. And the same hand, Chancery Cursive, that I enjoyed so much in my first hand-bound journal back in 2009-10.
Summer’s almost gone
Watching the days grow shorter, night time is the right time for music around a big bonfire, toasted peeps and even stars. Time to get away to the smoky foothills and pig out on some great open-air fare, leave the fish-and-chips for another day.
Art (and music) in the Smoky Sierras
Now I am confused, music and art have commingled in this blog. How much multi-tasking can I take? Away this weekend in the Westfalia to HellyBerry, hoping I can pull out some six to eight tubes of acrylic paint and a canvas panel to plein air the mothrerfusker. What color will the sky be? Warm blue, or cool? And a couple of brushes will probably help. It’s hard to tell what I have uploaded in the past, but here is an old acrylic painting done on panel, from Diaz Lake in the Eastern Sierras, mostly from a photograph, circa 2000 or earlier. This is the back of the Inyo mountain range in the “After the Meteors” watercolor of 1998.
Goodbye Possum Lounge
Final bittersweet practice and birthday party (Muffy AND Scruffy) tonight in the Possum Lounge before the big heave-ho. Costa-Hawkins does not apply, as I have lived here since 1994, but the Fatal Flaw is I have Two Apartments! . . . Oh! The Horror! I choose to keep the sunny, clean, party-garden-studio (and the Deck that Steve Built) and leave the haunted past behind. Perfect night for it, as it includes a view of the Aquarius Blue Moon through Redwoods.
Uh, this is an old photo . . . not a full moon at all
Happy Outcome
Slowly sorting things out. The front apartment would be mine if I didn’t have the (rent-controlled) back apartment, in my name. I am lucky to have it, happy to be able to stay here, off street parking, what’s not to like? Manhattan, in the redwoods.
So tiny, though, and in such a rush, and so brutal. The pain will fade as I get settled in. I am moving my round table and brown carpet in and getting a smaller bed, replicating the flavor of the front room so I can still have people over to visit and practice.
I am playing music out about 4 nights a week. Just did the open mic at the Missouri Lounge on Wednesday, A big hit–the sullen bartender brightened up and gave me (and Tara) great praise. This is new for me to get up and sing and play by myself, this is what I was meant to do. It was always a struggle to drag Steve away from his couch, he was so conflicted–clearly this is my challenge.
Anyway, things are looking up, I paid off Steve’s bill from October, and the emergency room bill seems to be covered, getting help with my overdue taxes. Soon I will have time to smash the state, get a land line installed, travel, (key west?) and such stuff..
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