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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Uh, this is an old photo . . . not a full moon at allSlowly 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..
So, now WordPress has been upgraded. I hate the new format, can’t find my way around to know what I posted last time. I do find the new little dot-in-a-circle download icon to be infinitely amusing.
Not much happening, except the hell of uncertainty vis-a-vis my housing situation, the crisis regarding non-filing of relief for my deceased loved one’s hospital bills, unfiled taxes, and piles and stacks of miscellany I have to, literally, decimate in the next three weeks . . . Plus, I have taken on more work. No time to do art. Not right now.
I’ll just put up a random watercolor that I did of the hill and firetrail above the Claremont Hotel, seen from my spectacular apartment on Emerson Street in 1981.
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