BIRDS' NESTS AND VALENTINE'S DAY

 

Watercolor flowers inside heart-shaped cookie cutter

Valentine's Day began in Ancient Rome as a celebration of Valentine, a martyr. Quite a dark start for a day we think of as a time to honor our loved ones. By the Middle Ages though, Chaucer and Shakespeare helped to turn Valentine's Day around. They believed that February 14 was the day that male birds began to chirp to attract females, built nests, and showed off grand displays of feathers. With these writers' influence, the day became a way to celebrate love instead of martyrdom.

Hearts are a design that people frequently use. A heart may be in place of a dot of an i or as sunglasses or as a pattern on a shirt. We use heart stickers and stamp hearts on envelopes. At this time of year, hearts are everywhere, including  the small cookie cutter shaped as a heart at the top of this post. I have used hearts in stitchery designs too.

I enjoy participating in art challenges when I can. A friend recently showed me the results of an embroidery challenge she did over a year's time. She made a small embroidery piece each week and the results were stunning. Her book made me think of the challenge I had teaching embroidery to middle school kids, which I did for a sewing and stitchery class that I had created. For an example for my students, I made a quilt with six different heart designs, using embroidery stitches, ribbon weaving, needlepoint, and quilting. Looking at my friend's book brough back the memory of working on the quilt and successfully teaching my students some of the techniques.

Valentine's Day in the 21st century is so commercialized and super-hyped that it is hard to find its meaning in all the detritus found in stores during the Winter holidays. Instead, I take the time to make a card by hand, which gives me the chance to reflect on the days spent with that special person.

Here is a simple card structure to make an accordion card:

Accordion Hearts before decorations

Here are some suggestions from my blog in previous years. Click on the link above for Project Directions for more information.

Quilted hanging with stitched heart details

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"Many people are not lazy.

Many people are simply tired.

Many people simply are not okay."

Jonathan Jackson, at the National Prayer Breakfast

TWO WORLDS NEVER COMPLETE

While one newsworthy event continues to unfold, another, more full of wonder, has occurred in San Francisco. A young mountain lion has been wandering the city's streets, hiding in a park during the day, visible only at night and early in the morning, lost and frightened by the city. San Francisco's Animal Care and Control and local park rangers responded to citizens who captured the lion on their phones. They arrived to sedate the lion and move it away from the danger of a city. Their professional concern and action delivers a sharp contrast to what we all have watched on media in the last couple of weeks.

I feel scattered from watching the persistent news, as if we are living in two different worlds right now. One life, so normal, filled with laundry, walks, friends, reading, while the other continues to be filled with the horror at the actions of a group of overzealous federal agents.

While all the news continues to tumble out of our TV, a friend asked me for a copy of a small poster I had made several years ago. I took it out, decided to add to the design of the poster and try different lettering versions of the phrase that I had written at the start of the pandemic. The original one said,

"Together: A Word That Means So Much More Today Than Before. 

Together: By Staying Apart, We Find New Ways to Connect."

I made the original in two versions, one using a monoline font and the other with a font created by Ben Shahn, an artist/activist from the 20th Century, most famous for his posters about freedom and justice.

Today, since the pandemic no longer haunts us in the same way, I've changed the wording, dropping the last words after the second "Together." I added photos of the Earth as well.

Draft of new version

I hadn't worked with either font for a while, so I started by practicing with a monoline font using a dip pen with a bent, rounded end. I wanted the color to change as I wrote and so I practiced that. 

"Embrace Life" by M. Slavin

I switched, to Shahn's alphabet, my favorite, quirky lettering. I had studied Shahn's style and read his book, Shape of Content long ago. He, like so many artists, felt deeply about events that occurred in his lifetime and his works reflect that concern. We can think of other artists, such as Jim FitzPatrick, who designed the Che Guevara poster, and Shepard Fairey, who created the Obama and Harris posters in a similar style, and many others who put a stamp on the events that trouble or electrify the whole world.

Reworking this image reminded me that a piece of artwork is never really finished, just put aside for a while, like the circular nature of history. The painter JMW Turner would walk into a gallery showing his work, and paint over parts that he didn't like. When I paint in watercolor, I usually find a good part in any painting, but sometimes the rest I paint over with white gesso, leaving the exposed part ready for further development. 

Gesso over Watercolor , unfinished

Sometime that piece will sit for a long time until something will click, and will develop into something entirely different from the original.  I think of people trying to whitewash our history now and know that the all sides of the story need to be recorded and repeated so that we can learn from our mistakes as well as honor our best actions and beliefs.

Check out Shepard Fairey's work here:

https://www.artnet.com/artists/shepard-fairey/2

Jim FitzPatrick here:

https://jimfitzpatrick.com

Mexican poster artists here:

https://hechoamano.org/show/hecho-a-mano-victoria-selected-political-prints-from-mexico-1910-1960 

Ben Shahn here:

https://www.wikiart.org/en/ben-shahn

Video of release of mountain lion:  

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/mountain-lion-release-video-21320397.php?utm_content=hed&sid=654d0f335351ce63aaf87995&ss=A&st_rid=6096cf18-25ea-46af-982f-3673ab33621f&utm_source=marketing&utm_medium=email&utm_term=engagement&utm_campaign=sfcn%20%7C%20membership%20program%20benefits

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Words spoken by Alex Pretti at the deathbed of a patient at the VA hospital:

Yesterday, after Alex Pretti’s death, the son of a man Pretti had cared for at the VA hospital published a video of Pretti speaking at his father’s deathbed. “Today we remember that freedom is not free,” Pretti said. “We have to work at it, nurture it, protect it, and even sacrifice for it. May we never forget and always remember our brothers and sisters who have served so that we may enjoy the gift of freedom. So in this moment, we remember and give thanks for their dedication and selfless service to our nation in the cause of our freedom. In this solemn hour, we [give] them our honor, and our gratitude.”

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.

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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

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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.

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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