Another book recommendation / JUST AS I AM, by Cicely Tyson

Cicely Tyson was interviewed shortly before she died on January 28, 2021.  It was after reading her book this past week that I found the interview.

*

"... A lesson before dying -- that is what Miles, in his passing, left for me.  We don't have long here, children.  Our hopes and aspirations may feel limitless, but our days are finite, our experiences fading in the twinkling of an eye.  Death is a love note to the living, to regard every day, every breath, as sacred.  "What is your life?" the scriptures ask us.  "You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes" (James 4:14, NIV).  The Spirit is ever beckoning us to heed that wisdom, to get on with what we've been put here to do.  And whatever that calling looks like, however it may seemingly vary from one person or season to the next, at its core, it is simply this:  cherish one another.  That is all.  That is our purpose in its entirety, to bestow God's care onto others.  "Do you think Miles knew just how loved he was?" a friend asked me after his passing.  Sadly, he did not.  That awareness is why now, in these times today, I hold my dear ones ever closer.

In the years immediately after Miles's passing, I grieved in the way that I always have, between the crevices of my art.  Stepping into another's reality gives me shelter from my own.  Slowly, as I become a conduit for someone else's anguish, the raw pain of my own throbs less.  Healing, as I see it, is not the absence of pain.  Rather, it is a gradual reduction in the ache.  The lessening of the hurt eventually makes room for fond memories to surface.  Miles has been gone for three decades now, and to this day, when I see a photo of him, or else recall one of his crazy sayings (Can't no one monkey stop a show," he'd quip when someone attempted to block his path), it can take me right back to our years together.  At the start of this journey called grief, I teared up upon remembering him.  These days, I do more smiling than weeping.  Though Miles is long gone, he is right here with me.  Our love story will never be finished.  After his passing, I went out with other men, some of them in the industry, none of whom I care to name.  Nothing serious came of it.  We're fortunate, in this life, if we've known true love once.  I have and I relished it." 

(p. 346-347)

...

"Each of you, my dear readers and viewers, has surrounded me with the sweet scent of your presence.  When I made the choice to devote my life to the stage, I did so with the hope that I might change one person -- just one.  God heard my quiet prayer and granted it a hundredfold, with grace beyond measure over all those decades.  Thank you for your abundant love to me during my journey.  In your care, I have flourished."

(p. 406)

BALANCE / HEALING HANDS / SACRED MUSIC

(35-minute drawing time, 5:50 to 6:30 a.m., using two "Paused" images from the PBS film "Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet." The first image is of a hospital nurse and the second image is of her hands holding the hands of an elderly man in her care while they talk. Click on the pictures for a clearer image. I haven't figured out why the image degrades when I save it. I used the Appleworks6 "Painting" program on an iBookG4 while listening to nothing except what was in front of me.)

(Today, while writing, I am listening to "LIVE: Ravi Shankar at the Monterery International Pop Festival. Two friends and I were there in 1967 and heard this performance.

On Sunday, June 18, 1967, two other 17-year-old young women and I drove from Redwood City, California to Monterey, California for the afternoon concert of Ravi Shankar at what came to be known as the Monterey Pop Festival. We had just graduated from high school a few weeks earlier. Two of us had been to the Magic Mountain Music Festival, earlier in June. As it states in one of the links, Monterey was the first "widely promoted" rock festival in the world, but the first rock festival was the Fantasy Fair & Magic Mountain Music Festival which took place at the summit of Mount Tamalpais in Marin County.

None of us were familiar with the music of Ravi Shankar, but the only tickets left were for his concert on Sunday afternoon. As it turned out, we were extraordinarily fortunate to have heard that astonishing and memorable concert. The beautiful and complex energy of Ravi Shankar and his friends performing the sacred music of India couldn't have been more moving. The music lifted me, carried me and set me down again in amazement. I have listened to this concert again and again, always with renewed awe and gratitude.)

I have a perpetual calendar with daily images of quilt patterns. The names of quilt patterns fascinate me. Today's pattern is called "Balance."

When practicing yoga postures, balance is not a fixed state. Early in my practice of yoga postures, I thought the goal was to be as still as a statue. I felt like a complete failure in those poses which required balance. Then one day, while my yoga teacher was demonstrating a pose that involved balance, I noticed that her foot was not still at all but making constant tiny adjustments which resulted in balance. From then on, although I still found it difficult to balance on one foot, I gave up the idea of being motionless in a balancing pose. In fact, in some of the balance postures I am constantly about to fall dramatically, one way or the other. I let that be okay.

The same goes for a balanced life. Not easy, but I keep practicing.

WOUNDED WARRIOR / REFRAMING

"Mess? You're not a mess -- you're a wounded warrior."

Calendar Series: 20th Month / 222,222

Today it occurred to me again that what I had been trying to do by painting the "calendars" was to reclaim, a month at a time, beginning in January of 1971 when I was 21 years old, those parts of myself and my experiences that I had relinquished while mistakenly thinking that that was what I needed to do to be accepted and loved. 

I am also remembering that while in the process of beginning to paint "calendars," after being alone for almost two years, I had entered a relationship with a recovering alcoholic who gently suggested that I might benefit from an eating disorder support group. He was enthusiastic about my art work. 

As a result, I began making paintings with his acceptance of me in mind as well as my past experiences. He, along with most people I encountered during that time, liked the calendars more than my previous chalk pastel images. 

By using color, symbols, numbers, letters and landscape, I was able to "talk in code." What I was talking about and what was experienced by the viewer were often two different things, but I didn't see that as a problem. For me, "222,222" was a visual depiction of a person's attempt to create meaning when feeling overwhelmed by circumstances beyond that person's, or anyone else's, control. It didn't matter if no one saw what I saw. I wanted to know what other people had seen and experienced. The words that often came up during this time when people commented on my paintings were "beautiful," "healing," and "celebration."

Two Witnesses (1984) Three Daffodils (2007)

From January of 1970 to December 8, 1970, a man I love was a helicopter mechanic for the U.S. Army in Vietnam. He was a direct witness to war, and I am an indirect witness. I don't know much of what he saw there, but when he came home I saw a look in his eyes I will not forget. 

It has been twenty-three years since I made this image using gouache, watercolor and Rembrandt pastels on Arches watercolor paper and thirty-seven years since he returned from war. 

These days I think about the men and women who are in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the friends and families who love them. These days I am grateful for the healing presence of ponds, lakes, rivers, creeks, bays, straits, mountains, foothills, day and night skies, birds, and trees. 

 I just noticed three daffodils coming up in the large planters on my porch. Last year I noticed them on January 23.

Homage to Edvard Munch (1984)

"Homage to Edvard Munch," is in contrast to "People Listening" from yesterday's post. In this image, a woman and man are leaning away from each other in somewhat awkward postures. When I first showed this image to friends and acquaintances, at least one person remarked that it was reminiscent of Edvard Munch's images, a remark which prompted me to title the drawing as I did. 

Although my intention was to draw a peaceful image of a woman and a man sleeping, "peaceful" didn't seem to be what was conveyed to most people. 

During the early 1980s, there were a number of occasions when I viewed exhibits of work by Edvard Munch. While I was moved by his dramatic use of color, his subject matter of grief, anxiety and alienation distressed me. All those years ago, it was heartening for me to learn that, after years of mental instability, Edvard Munch in his later paintings showed a decrease in pessimism, portraying the natural world in vibrant and healing color. Looking around the internet this morning to refresh my memory in regard to Edvard Munch's images, I found a site which has a representative selection of Munch's work.

Gardener with Ideas (1984)

Untitled Witness (1983)

Until now, I hadn't made the connection that "Untitled Witness" from 1983 is related to the drawing from 1966 that I posted on this blog on December 8, 2006, "Imaginary Brother as Witness": In both images, I see a young person who is a witness to something unnamed, a person who is marked and changed by what was witnessed. He is not guilty, but he is no longer innocent. 

As I look at these drawings I remember Bob Dylan singing: “. . . Ring them bells, for the time that flies, for the child that cries when innocence dies . . .” (from “Ring Them Bells,” Bob Dylan, 1989) “ . . . In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face . . .” (from “Every Grain of Sand," Bob Dylan, 1981) “ . . . I offered up my innocence and got repaid with scorn . . ." (from "Shelter From the Storm,” Bob Dylan, 1974) “ . . . The geometry of innocent flesh on the bone . . .” (from “Tombstone Blues,” Bob Dylan, 1965) 

 "I was thinking of a series of dreams Where nothing comes up to the top Everything stays down where it's wounded And comes to a permanent stop Wasn't thinking of anything specific Like in a dream, when someone wakes up and screams Nothing too very scientific Just thinking of a series of dreams Thinking of a series of dreams Where the time and the tempo fly And there's no exit in any direction 'Cept the one that you can't see with your eyes Wasn't making any great connection Wasn't falling for any intricate scheme Nothing that would pass inspection Just thinking of a series of dreams Dreams where the umbrella is folded Into the path you are hurled And the cards are no good that you're holding Unless they're from another world In one, numbers were burning In another, I witnessed a crime 

In one, I was running, and in another All I seemed to be doing was climb Wasn't looking for any special assistance Not going to any great extremes I'd already gone the distance Just thinking of a series of dreams" (from "Series of Dreams," Bob Dylan, 1991) 

*

Today is the last day of 2006. 

*

Child stepped

leapt 

grew steady 

everything under the sun is new. 

*

Kind wishes to all for the New Year.

Drawing a Sun where there is None (1982?)

Starting around 1975, I did a series of linocuts. This may be the last one that I did. It appeared in JEOPARDY (1983), which is published annually at Western Washington University under the auspices of the WWU Student Publications Council and the WWU Department of English. I graduated from WWU in 1982, receiving a B.A. in English Literature with a minor in Art, despite suffering from a long-term eating disorder and frequent bouts of depression. Drawing and painting were the keys to finding a way out of the eating disorder and the accompanying debilitating depression. It was up to me to draw a sun where there was none.