All the questions and answers

In the last analysis, it is our conception of death which decides our answers to all the questions that life puts to us.

-- quote from Dag Hammarskjöld (1905-1961)

All I know from my limited experience is that many of the questions that life's diverse teachers have put to me are kōans, beginning with these questions from one of my earliest teachers:





Some answers in the wind, from the album, "The Wind," 2003, Warren Zevon (January 27, 1947 - September 7, 2003):



Now and then when I get an idea for a picture, I think, how ordinary. Why paint that old rock?  Why not go for a walk instead? (am's italics). But then I realize that to someone else it may not seem so ordinary.

When I think of death, I only regret that I will not be able to see this beautiful country anymore ... unless the Indians are right and my spirit will walk here after I'm gone.

-- quotes from Georgia O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 - March 6, 1986)

Q:  Is this worth posting on my blog? Why write this down? Why not go for a walk instead?
A:  Something moves me to spend this time working on this blog post. What can it be?

("Person with Questions,"watercolor, gouache, and pastel on paper, early 1984, by am)

With Gratitude To A Person With Questions And A Sense Of Humor

"... with my brother in peace ..."

"... Let me walk down the highway with my brother in peace ..."

The memories which come to us through music are not accompanied by any regrets; for a moment music gives us back the pleasures it retraces, and we feel again rather than collect them.

-- Madame de Staël, 18th-century French novelist and essayist
From "Letters on Rousseau" (1788)

("Person with Questions," chalk pastel, gouache and watercolor, by am, from the early 1980s.

PERSON WITH QUESTIONS

("Person with Questions," 1984, by Old Girl Of The North Country, using gouache, watercolor and pastel on paper)

Black and White Series: I am/Self-Portrait (2005)

When I look at this image, this song plays in my mind

Person with Questions (1984)

The sixth transitional piece, "Person with Questions" is the second of seventeen pieces where watercolor, gouache and Rembrandt pastels were applied to single sheets of rough 140 lb. 100% cotton Arches watercolor paper. 

Although the series of Rembrandt pastel images had been done in a classroom setting while sitting at a drawing bench or on the floor in my home, around this time my former husband gave me a portable drafting table, which allowed me to work more comfortably. To this day, I am grateful to him for the gift of that table. During this time, I had begun to work 35 hours a week in the evenings in a hospital as a medical transcriptionist. 

Beginning in 1983, I had talked with a vocational counselor at the local community college, taken the suggestion that I might make a good medical transcriptionist and begun taking classes to improve my typing skills, after having gone through college always looking at my fingers as I slowly typed up essays for both my English and Art classes. Following that, I was accepted into a Medical Assisting Program, taking only the courses that applied to medical transcription. Because I did so well in the medical transcription classes, I was hired as a medical transcriptionist while still completing the community college classes. 

Previous to that time, I had worked as a letter carrier, pharmaceutical production worker, industrial sewing machine operator, and worked in numerous short-term minimum wage jobs.  Medical transcription suited me, and I worked in that field from the beginning of 1984 until the end of 2004 and have had paying jobs sporadically since then. 

"Person with Questions" was accepted for the 4th Annual Whatcom County Art Competition in 1984 and displayed at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, Washington. Although it didn't win an award, it was placed in a prominent location, the first piece visible from one of the two main entry doors to the room where the art work was displayed. 

As I approached the room and saw my painting, one of my former art teachers, Paul Glenn, was standing near me, not aware of my presence, and upon seeing my painting said to his companion that the painting was a masterpiece. I am fortunate to have had such affirming teachers.