BELLINGHAM SPECTRUM SERIES: SPRING AT THE OCEAN PAINTED FROM MEMORY (COPYRIGHT 2007)

July moon to the southeast at twilight:

BELLINGHAM SPECTRUM SERIES: OCEAN VIEW PAINTED FROM MEMORY (COPYRIGHT 2007)

It was late summer of 1973 when I left my home which was 10 miles from the Pacific Ocean in the San Francisco Bay Area and, out of curiosity rather than a desire to leave California and the Pacific Ocean behind, traveled to the east coast with a man friend who wanted to find a Pennsylvania farm which had been in his father's family from the 1700s until the 1950s when it was sold to someone outside his father's family.

He had a dream of working on the farm and possibly buying it at some time in the future. We found the farm, and although it was a lovely place, it turned out to be within view of Three Mile Island. He didn't see the nuclear power plant as a problem, but I had no intention of settling anywhere near a nuclear power plant and already was seeing a future where we would go our separate ways. On March 28, 1979, the worst nuclear power plant accident in U.S. history occurred at Three Mile Island. I was beginning to learn that I can trust my intuition.

We ended up staying the fall and winter of 1973 and the early spring of 1974 in Wayland, Massachusetts, near Boston, not too far from Walden Pond. A former housemate of mine from California was living near Wayland and doing his psychiatry internship at Massachusetts General Hospital. He offered us a room in his home until we found a room in a house on Dudley Pond in Wayland.

At that time, my grandmother's brother and his family may have still been living in Boston, but because I was traveling with a man to whom I was not married, something not widely accepted at that time, I did not feel comfortable looking up relatives with whom my mother and her mother had not been in close contact.

My great-grandfather and great-grandmother had come separately to Boston from Germany in the middle of the 1800s and my grandfather was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. My grandmother and grandfather had met and married in Boston. My grandmother's family had come to Boston from Canada and Ireland. Here is a photo of my grandfather and grandmother in the 1920 in St. Paul, Minnesota, when my mother was 4 years old and my grandfather had been home from World War I for nearly two years. He had become a doctor when in his 30s and had served in France as a surgeon during the last days of World War I. This was my mother's favorite photo of her parents. She said that she did not often see them looking this happy.

















Currently, I'm reading WILLIAM JAMES: IN THE MAELSTROM OF AMERICAN MODERNISM, by Robert D. Richarson, and am wondering if my grandfather took classes from William James or heard him lecture, because he attended Harvard Medical School during the time William James was still teaching there.

On page 490 of that book, I was interested to find the following because, along with my plans for becoming a massage therapist, I plan to become a yoga teacher:

"James . . . quotes at length from his friend Lutoslawski's experience with hatha yoga, which James calls "the most venerable ascetic system and the one whose results [strength of character, personal power, unshakability of soul"] have the most voluminous experimental corroboration."

That's it for today.

SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THE EDIT FUNCTION ON BLOGGER.

WHAT SHOWS ON "PREVIEW" IS NOT WHAT IS PUBLISHED ON THE BLOG.

HOPE BLOGGER FIXES THIS SOON.

BELLINGHAM SPECTRUM SERIES: CROSSING FROM WINTER INTO SPRING (COPYRIGHT 2007)

and looking east on the afternoon of July 25, 2007:

















Today I learned about this today via Theresa William's blog and added "My Library" to my blog below my archives.

BELLINGHAM SPECTRUM SERIES: INDIGO TREE (COPYRIGHT 2007)

While painting these recent images, starting in March and ending in May, I was listening to a reading of Robert Pirsig's book, ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE , having first read the book around 30 years ago, and then went on to read Robert Pirsig's second book, LILA: AN INQUIRY INTO MORALS, where he mentions an affinity with William James, a philosopher and psychologist and author of the book, VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE.

The next time I was in a bookstore, I came across the recently published book, WILLIAM JAMES: IN THE MAELSTROM OF AMERICAN MODERNISM, by Robert D. Richardson and bought it and am nearly finished reading it.

From Richardson's book, p. 474:

"Like all of us, James had many sides. Like other uninhibited people, he had more layers and more life in him than most, and despite notable blindnesses, he was better acquainted with himself than most. He was always teetering on the brink of collapse, but had been able -- so far -- to catch himself and fall backward to safety at the last moment. The different parts held together in a kind of confederacy. The fundamental condition of his life was, now and always, torn-to-pieces-hood. But the pieces were never just thrown to the winds. They remained loosely if oddly clumped together, never completely unified, but on the same shelf."

I am looking forward to the upcoming discussion of ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE at In A Dark Time.

Some July views from home:

BELLINGHAM SPECTRUM SERIES: LIGHT BREAKING THROUGH (COPYRIGHT 2007)

Sometime by August 17, I will hear if there is a place for me in a 1-year massage practitioner program at the local community college. My entry into the program also requires an anatomy and physiology challenge exam, so I am actively studying for that, enjoying being reminded how amazing the human body is.

While trying to get a photo of a cloud that looked like an animal, a hummingbird flew in front of my camera:

Changing the Light

"The substance of painting is light." (Andre Derain)

"Truly, it is in the darkness that one
finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is
nearest of all to us." (Meister Johann Eckhart)

"Oh mysterious world of all light, thou hast made a light shine within me." (Paul Gauguin)

(Quotes from Robert Genn at painterskeys.com)

BELLINGHAM SPECTRUM SERIES: STORMY PLACE (COPYRIGHT 2007)

"In dark rooms ghost-green fires are shining." -Tu Fu

Thanks to Brian from Five Branch Tree

MENDOCINO, JULY 18, 2007

More from one of my favorite webcams

Visit Lori Witzel's July 18 post for her photograph and link to an extraordinary poem and poet.

BELLINGHAM SPECTRUM SERIES: BIRD WITH LANDSCAPE (COPYRIGHT 2007)

BELLINGHAM SPECTRUM SERIES: NIGHT GARDEN (COPYRIGHT 2007)

KIDS WISH (2006)

and a webcam of the Pacific Ocean in Mendocino, California

MENDOCINO COUNTY AND TRINITY COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

Besides where I live, two of my favorite places on the earth are where the Gualala River meets the Pacific Ocean at the southwestern corner of Mendocino County and the area in the vicinity of Weaverville in Trinity County.

And from a favorite song by Kate McGarrigle, TALK TO ME OF MENDOCINO:

. . . Talk to me of Mendocino
Closing my eyes I hear the sea . . .

. . . And it's on to South Bend, Indiana
Flat out on the western plain
Rise up over the Rockies
And down on into California
Out to where but the rocks again
And let the sun set on the ocean
I will watch it from the shore
Let the sun rise over the redwoods
I'll rise with it till I rise no more . . .

SI DIEU N’EXISTAIT PAS

Link to poem by John Burnside at Lori Witzel's blog.

JOHN MUIR

"We all travel the Milky Way together, trees and men . . . trees are travelers, in the ordinary sense. They make journeys, not very extensive ones, it is true; but our own little comings and goings are only little more than tree-wavings -- many of them not so much." (John Muir)

4TH OF JULY 2007

Take a look at Yosemite on the 4th of July 2007.

Nobody Started It, Nobody Is Going To Stop It

I came up here from the monastery last night, sloshing through the cornfield, said Vespers, and put some oatmeal on the Coleman stove for supper. It boiled over while I was listening to the rain and toasting a piece of bread at the log fire. The night became very dark. The rain surrounded the whole cabin with its enormous virginal myth, a whole world of meaning, of secrecy, of silence, of rumor. Think of it: all that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody, drenching the thick mulch of dead leaves, soaking the trees, filling the gullies and crannies of the wood with water, washing out the places where men have stripped the hillside! What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges, and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hollows!

Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants, this rain. As long as it talks I am going to listen. But I am also going to sleep, because here in this wilderness I have learned how to sleep again. Here I am not alien. The trees I know, the night I know, the rain I know. I close my eyes and instantly sink into the whole rainy world of which I am a part, and the world goes on with me in it, for I am not alien to it…

—Thomas Merton, from the essay, "The Rain and the Rhinoceros"

See Heron Dance.

Poem by Lori Witzel from June 22, 2007

Go see this poem, "Alexical."

Red Duck (2006)

"Red Duck" is the last image from my 40-year retrospective (1966-2006). It was painted after I had a dream last June, where the only thing I could remember was that I had seen a red duck. The dream seemed to be a good omen, and I thought that there might be a new series of paintings in the works. Instead, it was the last image I painted until I started painting again in March of 2007. It could well be considered the first in that same series on which I have been working since March of 2007.

Although I have 24 new paintings, I am going to take a break from blogging for a week or two. Thank you to Loren, Lori , robin andrea , bev and kjm for your comments and encouragement since I began my 40-year retrospective in December of 2006. Thank you to all who have been visiting without leaving any comments.

Here's a sampling from my porch garden. The seeds I planted a few weeks ago are coming up, too.

Face Fear (2006)

Hand True (2006)

Hand true
who
paints
thy self

The haiku-like poems I wrote and used in this short series of Appleworks6 "paintings" are what have been coined "stodolas," after the creator of this form, Scott Stodola. Scroll down here to the 18th and 19th poems for a sampling of his poetry, which in this sampling was published in paragraph form, although the true poems were not in that form. In a "stodola," the first line has two syllables, the second line has one syllable and rhymes with the first line, the third line has one syllable, and the fourth line has two syllables.

Bruised Wing (2006)

Today, tomorrow and the next day are images created using the Appleworks6 Painting program. I wasn't quite ready to paint again, but I was ready to use color instead of black and white.

I've been enjoying this.

Zen and the Art...

Someone else making a connection between Bob Dylan and Robert Pirsig.

Painting from Memory / Evolution of Forgiveness (2006)

Sisters (2006)

Mystery Flowers Blooming on Memorial Day 2007

Lady of the Lowlands / Mary Magdalene / Witness (2006)

Yesterday I posted the last image from the Black and White Series. As 2005 came to a close, a period of creative energy had run its course as a series of life stresses toppled me emotionally. Interestingly, at that time several health professionals suggested that I might make a good psychiatric nurse, a suggestion which puzzled me deeply and still does. The way I appear and the way I feel inside clearly don't match.

Today's image was an attempt to paint sometime in 2006, a year which began with emotional exhaustion. There is a clumsiness to it. Still, I find it compelling. A few days after I had painted it, it occurred to me that it might be how Mary Magdalene looked, although while I was painting it, I had no one in mind. It has something of the feeling of the drawing I did of a young man when I was 16 years old, in 1966, the first drawing I posted in this 40-year retrospective, a pencil drawing titled "Imaginary Brother as Witness," a drawing which came out of the years of the war in Vietnam.






















Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands

Tomorrow is Memorial Day 2007.

Here are some flowers from my porch today.

Black and White Series: Reunion Dream (2005)

Black and White Series: Independent Child / His First Word Was Light (2005)

Black and White Series: Morning (2005)

Black and White Series: A Child With Questions (2005)

Black and White Series: Family Travelling At Night Again (2005)

Black and White Series: Ocean Family At Night (2005)

Black and White Series: Family Travelling at NIght (2005)

Yesterday I realized that the recent images that I had labeled as being from 2006 were from 2005, the year that I worked at home full-time as a medical transcriptionist for a national transcription company which is based in Illinois. I remember now that having little time for art work made me prioritize my time so that art work would be possible.

Working for the national transcription company I chose to work for was financially demoralizing, although I thoroughly enjoyed doing transcription at home. After having been a transcriptionist since 1984, it was a shock to find that I was unable to make more than minimum wage when paid by the line. I had chosen that particular company to work for because they advertised that they paid incentive for quality. After a few months of doing quality work for them, they changed their policy so that high quality work would no long result in incentive pay. I was among the more productive transcriptionists in my group and was making less than a third of what I had been making in 2003.

In August of 2005, an old friend died, and in October of 2005, I received a deeply disturbing letter, which triggered an episode of post-traumatic stress disorder which led to a relapse of compulsive overeating, although not a return to bulimia. After Thanksgiving in November of 2005, I started eating refined sugar and chocolate, something I had not done since 1987. As a result of eating massive amounts of sugar and chocolate, I developed ocular rosacea, a condition in which the skin next to my eyes became acutely inflamed, and the whites of my eyes became red and irritated from rubbing against the irritated skin next to my eyes. I was eating sugar and chocolate instead of eating the nutritious food I usually eat, and I gained about 8 pounds. I went to my doctor, who notified my employer that I needed time off work. My eyes began to return to normal with the help of medication and with refraining from eating sugar and chocolate. After discussing the exploitive work situation with the doctor's nurse practitioner, I made a decision to resign from the meagerly paid medical transcription position in order to regain my emotional equilibrium.

In 2005, I had created 21 images, but in 2006, I created only 7. My sense of well-being returned very slowly.

Black and White Series: Child With Gift (2005)

In 1988, in the Calendar series, I painted similar landscapes:













































In this part of the Black and White series, the image of a young family consisting of a mother, a father and a child entered the black and white landscape.

The "preview" function on Blogger is still not working. Hope this comes out right the first time!

Black and White Series: Pulling The Empty Carriage (2005)

Something is wrong with Blogger. I can't preview my posts before publishing them. Oh well.

In the dream that inspired this image, I was a "stable girl" walking through the night next to a pair of horses and a pair of small white dogs who were pulling a large empty carriage. It was a huge responsibility, but I accepted it willingly. I felt deep love for the animals in my care. I don't know where we were coming from or where we were going, just that it was a full moon night, and that the animals depended on me to take care of them. I could feel in my bones that I had finally been given right livelihood.

After this image are 15 more images that I completed in 2006. Since March 8, 2007, I have completed 24 new images along with 10 inkle belts. As of today, I am seriously considering taking a time out from blogging for an indefinite period of time after I show the images through 2006 and complete my 40-year retrospective. I am grateful that my energy for painting and weaving has returned.

Take a look at this and this.

Black and White Series: Clear Night Dream (2005)

For the past week or so, I've been reading BOUNDARIES OF THE SOUL: THE PRACTICE OF JUNG'S PSYCHOLOGY, by June Singer.

Black and White Series: A Question For The Teacher (2005)

This image from last year matches my continuing state of having a mind full of questions but no clear teacher. Or maybe it's that the darkness I am looking into IS the teacher. Or that there is no "teacher" and no "not-teacher."

Here are two interviews with Robert Pirsig, one from 1974 and one from 2005. I didn't read the two books that followed ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE, but now I am curious about them. In 1992, Robert Pirsig stated that he felt that he was done with writing. From the descriptions I've read, the third book is a transcript of on-line discussions of Pirsig's Metaphysics of Quality, with comments by Pirsig.

When, out of curiosity, I type the words "bob dylan" and "Robert Pirsig" into Google, my blog comes up on the first page. The ocean was my first spiritual teacher. Bob Dylan was my second spiritual teacher, beginning in 1964. Maybe I liked Robert Pirsig, whose ideas came into my life around 1974, because he reminded me of Bob Dylan and the ocean. My experience of them was that I did not "feel so all alone" after hearing what they had to say. I didn't agreed with everything they said, but what they had to "say" was expansive rather than stifling and gave me a context in which to grow, as did Georgia O'Keeffe and Thomas Merton in the early 80s and Martin Buber in the early 90s. I am grateful to all my spiritual teachers. I am still growing.

Black and White Series: Kindness at the Crossroads (2005)

Last night I wasn't able to sleep so I read for awhile. When I still wasn't able to sleep, I listened to the end of the unabridged audio version of the book, ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE, by Robert Pirsig, which I have been listening to as I weave and paint during the last several days. The book is deeply moving for me, especially the section at the end that was added in 1984. The end of the book brought me to tears, after which I was able to sleep well.

It was when I was 26 years old that I first read ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE, around ten years into my life as an artist. As was the case the first time I read the book, there was much that went way over my head. Still, what I felt I did understand gave me hope.

Listening to Pirsig's description of areas of Oregon and Northern California, where I have taken multiple solo road trips, brought back my own memories.

Also see ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE route and landscape between Minnesota and San Francisco.

Black and White Series: Solitary Angel (2005)

My mother and my mother's mother:

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

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