VIEW FROM THE BAY

Heart within the Fairmont Hotel,
part of San Francisco's Heart Project

Standing in a line before we boarded the ferry to Sausalito, Bill and I heard numerous languages being spoken around us. We caught someone speaking French. Bill asked if I understood anything in their conversation. I replied, "No. It's been too long since we live in France. I've lost the little that I could understand back then. I like to hear the rhythm of their conversation though."

I thought of my lack of skills learning other languages. I spent three years in Japan in a weekly class to learn one of the world's difficult languages, which include Russian, Chinese, English, Hungarian, and every other language on the planet to me. I'm not an auditory learner and do best when I can read or write as well as listen. It wasn't until the last six months of the third year in Japan that my brain was able to distinguish one Japanese word from another. I could read some of the kanji by then and could get around in a taxi. (Please stop here: "Ko ko de to me te ku da sa i." ) Bill and our son took lessons too. We used to joke that Theo had the perfect accent, Bill could speak Japanese, and I could read the subway signs. Our level of Japanese was the equivalent of a three year old Japanese child.

Heart sculpture in Jackson Square, San Francisco

Bill picks up languages quickly because he isn't afraid to make mistakes and just barrels through. While we were in Paris, he understood French better than I did, even though he had studied German in high school. We wondered why he had taken German back then. Similarity to English? Difficulty and a challenge? Girl Friend? Science Related? though he was a math major not a science major. 

I chose French because of one of my grandfathers, whose heritage was French and who spoke a rusty French Canadian version. I took two years of French in high school and repeated the same two years in college, while not improving my speaking ability. I could read French though and surprisingly, retained more of French than I expected when we moved to Paris. Yet my French teacher there soon realized that my ability to develop conversational skills in French was limited. I was better at the written word, and she gave me essays to write along with trying conversations with her. The one phrase I learned quickly, "Desole. Je ne parle pas beaucoup francais," (I'm sorry. I don't speak French very well) helped me navigate my neighborhood more easily.

Heart sculpture inside Bank of America office

My obvious difficulty in picking up a language reminds me of people who say, "I can't draw." I tend to discount those ideas because they are automatic responses learned in childhood. But then, I realize I have the same response about learning a language or doing math. My math skills dropped considerably when I reached Algebra. I lost interest and didn't spend time studying. I remind myself of my own responses when I listen to someone say they can't draw. Rather than saying, "Oh, yes, you can. It's a skill, not a talent." Now I say instead that learning to draw is a skill that takes practice. Learning to draw should be fun. If it isn't, find something else that inspires you. I have to tell myself the same thing about other languages. I am still thrilled when I understand a word or two while hearing a native French or Japanese speaker, but unless I move to another country, their conversation will be beyond me.

As the boat made its way to Sausalito, we watched as people lined up along the side of the boat to see San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge from the bay side, which is beautiful sight to see even for those of us who have seen it many times. We all had our cameras/phones in hand aimed at the view while speaking excitedly to each other in English, French, Polish, Chinese, and four or five different languages. As I looked at the beautiful view, I knew what the others were talking about without understanding a word of what they were saying. I thought how seeing something beautiful can tie us together even without a common spoken language.

A RAINY OR SNOWY DAY CHALLENGE

"A" by M. Slavin

Today is January 16th.

Half of the month gone already.

January used to be the month to slow down after the holiday rush.

No more.

Take a deep breath.

Have you ever looked carefully at an illuminated manuscript from the Middle Ages? Using some of the techniques mastered by the monks from the Middle Ages might help to slow down the world around us.

Lindesfarne Manuscript

The monks who created these pages were early graphic designers who filled every inch of the page. They drew intricate, fascinating designs including patterns such as Celtic Knots, natural objects such as leaves, flowers, fanciful humans and animals, and often some gilding to make some areas of the design pop out. They made woven patterns such as the Celtic Knots that seem easy to draw until you try one. 

This past year in calligraphy circles, the works of these monks and more modern monks such as Father Catish are trending. People are learning alphabets from the Lindesfarne Manuscript. Others work on filling the spaces inside and around a single letter with the same kind of fantastical designs on an illuminated manuscript. The monks spent hours each day bent over their work. We could learn something from this slow process.

To start, try making Celtic Knots. The knots take some concentration to master. Supplies are easy. You will need a piece of graph paper with at least ¼ inch squares, a pencil, an eraser, and patience. I learned how to do these knots from Friends of Calligraphy members, Sara Lewis Cortes and Sara Loesch-Frank. I am still working on mastering the process.

First, you need to make a square. Place four dots on a line that is two squares from the top and two squares from the left side. Place the dots on every other vertical line. Do the same on each side and on the bottom line of the square. (1)

Then add four dots in the center of the square. (2)

Then add dots on the alternating lines within the square so that every cross section has a dot. (3)

Draw diagonal, parallel lines between the dots. (4)

Continue to draw the parallel lines so that they weave over and under each other. (5)

Round off the corners at the edges of the square. (6)

Clean the drawing up and add color. (7)

Once you've mastered the square, expand your Celtic Knots so they form a border. Watch out for the inside corners.

A friend sent me an example of another design often found in the manuscripts. The design is called a Triskele Triple Spiral and can be found in times and cultures long before the monks started working on their pages. The design, again, looks simple. The best way to learn is to watch Clarissa Grandi's YouTube demonstration of the technique. (Look for the link at the end of this post.) This is what a Triskele Triple Spiral looks like. (image is from the internet. I'm waiting for a rainy day.)

Dover Publishers produce copyright-free books of designs. One amazing book is Decorative Alphabets and Initials, which has samples of alphabets dating back as early as the 8th century. The cover is full of the complicated designs. Some of the patterns around each letter remind me of Zentangles, a form of doodling.

Doodles similar to Zentangle squares

To make an alphabet or just one letter, find a capital letter on the internet, in a book, or magazine. Make a copy of the letter. Surround the letter with either a circle or square shape. Use tracing paper to create your design. Once you find one that you are happy with, you can create notecards or postcards easily to send to friends.

A simplified letter colored with watercolor pencils

Try one of these techniques and see if they help slow you down.

Have fun!

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Watch Clarissa Granti's YouTube demonstration on how to make a Triskele Triple spiral:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8luJDecaKw

Check out the calligraphic work of Father Catich here:

https://cdm16810.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/Catich

A CROWD TOGETHER

 

December 2025 View from My Window

A week of horrible news where I am having a hard time finding the joy in the moment. I send emails to my representatives each week and receive back their thoughtful messages. I read and read and read all those bloggers/op eds/columnists who write better than I do about our country and where we find ourselves today. I've signed up to march again on January 20, the anniversary of the 2016 Women's March. I've donated to people whom I feel are working to disrupt what our federal government is doing. I focus on the small things around me, but know I need to do more in this existential struggle we are in.

I look out my window and glimpse the young mother in the building next to me as she comes to the window holding her baby. I think of my time doing the same with our son. I see pink camellias blooming right below her. I hear the noise of workmen pulling up tiles in a unit somewhere above us. I see the last leaf on the Japanese maple, which is tall enough to reach halfway up to the fourth floor where we live. Ordinary things.

On a drive last weekend to friends' home, we listened to Rachel Maddow's newest podcast, Burn Order, about the WWII internment camps set to house Japanese Americans, who were no threat to our country, but an easy target, and heard once again about our cycle of history repeating itself again.

KQED, our local public radio station, asked listeners a question recently: What was a moment you remember when a group of strangers came together with kindness towards others?

I immediately though of moments that were just the opposite: the Hitler rallies, the Trump rallies, sporting events gone wrong. But that is only one side of the ability of humans to come together.

"Two Sides of a Coin" by Martha Slavin

I thought of one day when I was new to Tokyo and getting used to their bus system without being able to read the bus information signs. I boarded a bus from Shibuya to Roppongi, districts close to our home in Minami Azabu. The bus was filled with people and there wasn't much room. I stood on the yellow lines in front of the exit door. When the bus came to my stop, the door wouldn't open. I was confused and looked for a button to push. I then felt a light tap on my shoulder and turned to find the entire group of riders lifting their hands up in unison, directing me to step off the yellow stripes. I patted by forehead with my fingers and moved back. As soon as I did, the yellow stripes became stairs that moved down to the platform. I bowed my head slightly to all those gracious, helpful people and descended the bus, feeling both grateful and embarrassed.

That group of people united for a moment to help a stranger. As I read the news this week, I find hope in the ordinary citizens in the United States who are standing up to power to protect our freedom.

A poster I wrote during the Pandemic that seems even more important today.

****************

Remember Renee Nicole Macklin Good.

NEW START

"The creative adult is the child who survived.”

Quote from Ursula Le Guin

One side of a gessoed signature

Reverse side of gessoed signature
(each signature is folded in the middle and
on the fold you can see in the photo.)

Sitting next to a pile of torn paper, some with marks made with marking pens, fountain pens, and colored inks and others from watercolor failures, I realized that in the last year and a half, I hadn't done much "messy creative" work. Because of our move and all the unpacking and sorting, I had limited myself to watercolor and hand lettering exercises, both techniques that are for me not usually messy, and are more disciplined and intentional than other techniques I've used. My messy art-self felt sleepy and stiff as I looked for ways to apply torn bits of paper, scrawled lines of paint, brushed ink across gessoed paper, and splattered diluted ink across paper. My body was remembering the fun of being messy and the results that occur when I'm not trying to fit letters between two lines or merge one color of paint carefully with another. All of these processes, the careful and the messy, make me a better artist, but I had neglected the fun part for too long.

One side of second signature

Reverse side of second signature

After finishing two online mixed media classes, I combined the techniques from both classes to start an art book. The class that began this combined project was Andrea Chebeleau's Creative Practices Journal. The journal is intended to be made over a year with each signature representing a month's work. My book instead will be finished after four signatures by the end of January. (Once I get going, it is hard to stop.) The first instruction for the journal was to take 12 manila folders and cover them with gesso. When I read that instruction, I realized I would have a hard time covering the 12 pieces. I no longer have the space where I can lay out that much material and roll gesso on all those folders at once. I limited myself to four folders instead. I then used the gessoed folders to paste the mark-making papers that I had created in Crystal Marie's Rust and Alchemy class.

Two complete signatures of my Creative Practices Journal

I returned to making art while we lived in Japan and I took a botanical illustration class. As I washed over the paper with watercolors and pushed the paint to the edges of the flower petals, I realized I could still do the work. The class motivated me to get out my rusty supplies again. 

Botanical illustration in watercolor

Once back in California, I hoped to combine my writing work with my artwork and took a letterpress class at the Center for the Book in San Francisco. Though I loved doing the slow, meditative process of setting up a press to print, inking the press, and rolling sheets of paper through, I wondered how I could set up my own print shop, acquire all the equipment I would need, and find a place that needed my printed results. I also didn't want to limit my art activities just to printmaking. So I changed direction.

Letterpress booklet: "Do You Know Cats?"

I took some classes in mixed media, eco-printing, calligraphy, and watercolor. I found taking classes to be an important part of my process of discovery. Working around other creatives stimulates me in new directions. I've taken online classes from teachers in Uzbekistan and the Netherlands, and from many parts of the United States. These classes have introduced me to ideas that I might not have considered without the exposure to ideas from people from around the world. In the process of taking classes, I've refined what I want to do in art: make art books, paint with watercolor and other water-based media, practice hand lettering, and produce mixed media constructions. I am not one to focus on just one technique so I will never be a master of any. But at this point in my life, I want to have fun with these creative endeavors.

Ikegai: Making your life worthwhile

My one piece of advice for the new year: 

Stretch yourself by taking a class

***************

Watch how to letterpress at Arion Press, San Francisco:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1xKcRrn_i4

Find a calligraphy teacher here:

https://www.friendsofcalligraphy.org

Andrea Chebeleau, mixed media artist:

https://aworkofheart.com/pages/about

Amy Maricle, art therapist and slow drawer:

https://mindfulartstudio.com

Lindsey Bugbee, calligrapher, offers online calligraphy lessons:

https://thepostmansknock.boldermail.com/w/9OJUlEcWYZ763uRwgugadZzw/BvbWS5U7630lcvBgpLldID9w/JZlnihpOEy5OblHAe2obwg

Rachel Hazell, bookbinder:  (I haven't taken her class, but her website is beautiful. She lives in Scotland)

https://www.thetravellingbookbinder.com/2025/11/2026-preview/

Crystal Marie Neubauer, mixed media:

https://crystalneubauer.com/home.html

Ann Miller, calligrapher and mixed media artist:

https://www.pennib.com/teaching

Barbara Shapiro, basketweaving:

https://www.barbarashapiro.com

Mixed media artist, Donna Watson:

https://www.donnawatsonart.com

Sketchbook online class with Liz Steel (Australia):

https://www.lizsteel.com

Online learning from Vintage Page Design: Making books: 

https://vintagepagedesigns.com/5-easy-end-of-year-journal-spreads-for-reflection/?ck_subscriber_id=2585883933&utm_source=convertkit&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=What%20I%20Loved%20Reading%20(and%20Listening%20To)%20This%20Year%20-%2020144172&sh_kit=5b436953d24d1f0632344f3c23c683ac0fde615abf7081f76f87a15eeab984af

Have fun!

FIVE YEARS AGO

The majesty of mountains

Living in a city means that birds are a subtle part of our lives. We notice when we see a bush full of birds, we watch as seagulls soar, and we stop to look for the hawk, whose screech catches our attention. We used to sit in our backyard and watch as flocks of birds gobbled up the seeds at our feeders. We could identify each different species who either stopped on their migratory path or nested in our backyard. In the city, birds are rare in comparison.

Bill and I have made a lot of changes in the last five years. We've downsized and moved from a suburb to a city. We've adapted to the changes and often joke about how everything in our new home needs to be much smaller than in our previous place. An article in the NY Times reminded me how much life on Earth has changed in the same time frame. The article described how the beaks of juncos that live in urban Los Angeles have adapted to the different food, such as bread and pizza, they find in the city instead of the seeds and insects they hunt for in the wild. Juncos are those small birds with white breasts, mottled feathers and a black hood dropped over their heads that flit about in backyards and forests. During the pandemic, their beaks changed back to their natural shape because the urban food sources disappeared. Now researchers have found that the juncos are once again adapting back to urban life and their beaks are changing shape again.

Mt. Shasta with snow

Five years ago, we were just at the start of the COVID pandemic, which disrupted life on Earth. Do you remember the silent, empty streets, the people standing at windows banging drums or singing, the body bags piling up outside of hospitals, and the skies clear of smog? The more natural world changed in response to the lack of human presence. Birds modified the volume of their songs, and animals ventured in places that people had abandoned. All manner of changes occurred. When the vaccines eased the threat of the pandemic and we got back to our normal life, we shoved aside the memories of the pandemic though we are still feeling its effects. Many people hated the isolation and/or the confined space of the pandemic. Their anger has been released in small town gatherings and in our federal government. Our mean streak has been flourishing.

2025 has proved how important the understanding of history can be. We look back and see cycles of progress and retrenchment. Our Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights, which have lain under glass in Washington, D.C. for so long, have become the defining must-read of the year. Some of us carry a copy with us. Some of us have read the documents for the first time. Some of us have re-read the three documents again. Small concerned groups have mushroomed all over the country to protect those documents, their meaning and people protected by them.We worry about how our democracy will survive. I think of the juncos and their ability to adapt and learn and hope we can keep the founding ideas of freedom, equality, justice, and opportunity for all alive in 2026 and beyond.

***************

Changes in juncos' beaks:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/15/science/covid-ecology-anthropause-birds.html 

Read the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights here:

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs

AN ORDINARY KITCHEN TABLE

How do artists create something extraordinary from something ordinary? What would you do with pieces of wire, felt, plastic netting, zippers, bobbins, pull tabs, flossers, and shells? To create something with these disparate objects needs a combination of discipline and abandon along with being able to seeing something from a different point of view.

Last summer, the Ruth Asawa exhibition at the deYoung Museum in San Francisco (now moved to NYC) provided viewers a showcase of all of Asawa's art interests including her meticulous drawings of natural elements to woven wire sculptures. The exhibit also included examples of her teachings within her community to develop creative thinking in everyone. The exhibit invited us into Asawa's home, which had numerous woven art projects hanging from the rafters while unfinished work lay on a long wood table constructed by her architect husband, Albert Lanier.

The table reminded me of sitting at our kitchen table as a young child, mostly unaware of the world around me. Our table, unlike Asawa's, was one of those linoleum and shiny metal tubing tables popular in the 1950s and 60s and took up most of the space in the kitchen nook. We ate our meals there, saving the maple dining table for Sunday dinners and special events. We watched our mom making Sandbakelses, a Norwegian Christmas cookie, that took her all day to form in small, fluted tin cups. The table became the place where we did homework together, told stories and argued with each other, and answered the phone set on the counter next to the table. My sister and I made paper sculpture ornaments based on origami to hang in the windows and on our Christmas tree. We weren't a family that was allowed to leave stacks of books or collect mounds of stray papers on the table. When not in use for meals or projects, the table was swept clean.

String Art assignment I used to give my students

Ruth Asawa's kitchen table now rests at Ruth's Table, an art class and exhibition space connected to the Bethany Senior Center and Front Porch organization in San Francisco. The center, founded by Lola Fraknoi and supported by Asawa, has an exhibit of basket weavers' work (today is the last day) that uses all the supplies listed in the first paragraph of this post.

Basketweaving is a craft that requires the same meticulous attention to detail that calligraphy and origami need. The baskets on display include a wide range of shapes, including some that test the limits of the word, "Basket." One flat piece is made from woven computer cables and another is made from wire and the horsehair from old violin bows. Another incorporates indigo and persimmon dyed paper into a basket shape made from dyed Japanese Sedori cane.

The two exhibits are also a reminder of our past. Ruth Asawa's family, separated from their father, were sent to our internment camps during WWII. Her retrospective exhibit shows  her resilience during that time and as she said, "...good things come through adversity."

During her stay at the camp, she spent most of her time drawing and painting. She was given a scholarship by the Quaker Japanese American Student Relocation Council that allowed her to leave the camp to attend art school in Wisconsin. She didn't see her family again until the end of WWII. Her words about her time in the camp amaze me,

"I would not be who I am today had it not been for the Internment, and I like who I am."

***************

Visit Ruth's Table near the Mission in San Francisco

https://www.ruthstable.org

https://ruthstable.viewingrooms.com/viewing-room/ 

https://densho.org/learn/introduction/american-concentration-camps/

***************

****************

A shout out to the people of America who stand up for friends nd neighbors:

https://open.substack.com/pub/thebulwark/p/the-americans-who-stood-up-for-immigrants-in-2025?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

MARVELS

A speck, something smaller than a grain of sand, wandered over my grocery list tablet on our kitchen counter. I looked twice to be sure of what I saw. An insect so small that if I hadn't been staring at the paper trying to remember what I needed to add to my grocery list, it would have gone unobserved. I asked myself, "What could be that small and still exist and not be a microbe? Did I really see it?" A couple of days later, the same-sized insect scooted across my paper tablet again. It made me think of all the living things we cannot see or haven't found yet. According to NPR, there are over 2.5 million species on Earth, and many more thousands still undiscovered.

Human beings have long elevated themselves about other creatures on our planet. We have thought we were the only species to use tools, speak in languages, and employ complex problem solving skills. Scientists are finding more and more species who do the same. Crows use tools, other birds weave intricate nests, monkeys give out different warning signals to their group depending on whether danger is coming from the air, a tree, or the ground, and puffer fish inscribe in the sand beautiful 3-dimensional patterns that will become nests for the eggs the female lays and the male tends.

Perhaps one trait we have, our imagination, would be hard to verify in other species. Our imagination has helped us to tell stories and to invent new ways of living. Where else but our imagination would we find creatures such as the trolls in Norse fairy tales and the Lilliputians from Gulliver's Travels or Pokemon or a Kraken? I thought of those mythical creatures while I stood in line at the cafe at the Legion of Honor and looked up at a group of shiny figures above the coffee machines, display cabinets and stacks of china cups on the counters. Each assemblage, called Mimmos by Rosalia Baltazar Shoemaker, their creator, was made from small implements used in a kitchen. Scattered throughout the rest of the room were more of these fanciful creatures constructed from tart tins, colanders, utensils, and shiny stainless steel bowls. I thought of toddlers who love to play with all those kinds of tools, banging on pans, building structures, and cutting shapes from dough. I wondered if at night these figures come out to play. In a museum that showcases the talents and skills of great artists (right now, a comparison of Manet and Morisol), what a treat to find such whimsical beings created from someone's playful imagination of today.

Wikipedia's List of legendary creatures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legendary_creatures_by_type

Watch this video to see an amazing task done by a puffer fish:

A pufferfish makes a nest:  https://ca.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/a-pufferfishs-masterpiece/a-pufferfishs-masterpiece/