A MANY-SIDED COIN

"Under the Influence of Ben Shahn" by M. Slavin

Last Saturday was a beautiful day to be outside. The sun was brilliant,  and the wind didn't roll down the streets to whip around our faces. Even the weather seemed to be supporting us as we marched toward San Francisco's Civic Center. 

As Bill and I moved with the joyful, peaceful No Kings crowd, we decided to shift to the edge of the marchers so that we could find a place to sit for a while. A young Latino walked towards us, looking at the marchers, and muttered, "It's all White people."

If I had the wherewithal, I would have stopped to ask him about what he meant, but from an early age, I'd learned, as a small woman, not to stop to talk with strangers in any city. I'm still thinking about his comment. He was mostly right. The crowd was majority White, but other ethnicities filled the streets too. Or maybe he was expressing the same idea that the 92% Black women who voted in 2024 might be thinking, "We told you so!" or maybe he was a Trump supporter and didn't like the large crowd.  Or he could easily be resentful of our White privilege to be able to freely walk the streets in protest while people of color are being dragged from Home Depot parking lots, from their homes, and off the streets. I wish I had asked him what he meant.

As we walked home, we turned the corner onto the Embarcadero and merged with a large group of young people clustered at the corner of Mission and Embarcadero. They were not part of the march; instead, they all stared down at their phones, moved in unison down the Embarcadero, and stopped in front of the Google office just past Folsom. A virtual scavenger hunt was in progress. So focused on their screens, they barely looked up as we passed them to catch the streetcar.

At our stop, we looked back at the Bay Bridge and saw a long, slow line of cars coming into the City across the Bay Bridge, and wondered what else was going on that would bring so many people in. We watched as several sailboats came into the docks near Oracle Park. When we got home, we ran into a few residents carrying protest signs. We all expressed our enthusiasm for being part of something so huge and so peaceful as that day's march, and also wondered among ourselves what the next step would be.

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Ben Shahn is one of my favorite artists. He was alive and working on artwork from World War I to the end of the 1960s. His art contained images of Sacco and Vanzetti, union workers, and other protest figures. His calligraphy is a style that is popular now among calligraphers. The Jewish Museum in New York City has a retrospective of his work until this Sunday. If you can, go see it. You will see a different view of our history.

https://thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/ben-shahn-on-nonconformity/ till October 26

Shirley Chisholm, Ophra, Ida B. Wells, and Ruby Bridges, all Black women who made their mark in history and fought for equality, voting rights, and inclusion. Find out more about them:

https://blackwomenvote.com/about 

https://www.today.com/popculture/celebrate-black-history-4/black-women-in-history-rcna12963

RAINY DAY CHANGE

 

Seen on the Street: Ghost leaves after the rain

We had weather yesterday! It feels like fall, finally. Rain hit our windows and streaked down to the ground. Rain in October in California, just a hint of what's to come. After our dry-as-usual summer, rain is welcome in the state. Rain can be celebrated until we end up with one of those torrents that wreak havoc with neighborhoods and landscapes. But today is a good day for a little rain and a good day to find a good book to read.

I am behind in my reading. I picked up Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, which was published several years ago and has already been made into a movie. But it is worth the read. The main character is a woman and a chemist, and her story includes all the prejudices and misogynistic behavior that women have endured, especially while seeking a career in what was considered a male profession. The book reminded me of a college friend, one of three women at a tech college. She was first in her class in engineering. When she applied for graduate school, if she put down her first initials with her last name, S. A. Smith, she received numerous positive responses. When she included her full name on applications, Susan A. Smith, she got no response at all. Lessons in Chemistry is still relevant today and a good reminder of the rights of women that are being lost. On my list of favorite books for this year.

Other books that caught my eye include Olivia Hawker's The Ragged Edge of Night. I've had my fill of World War II novels, but I couldn't resist this one. It's a novel based on the true story of the grandfather of the author's husband, and what he did as a German living in a small village in Germany during the war.

I needed some uplifting this fall and turned to We Are the Change We Seek, the Speeches of Barack Obama. His words are a good reminder of the promise of America, of our ability to learn from our past and to overcome dark and difficult periods in our history.

Louise Penny is one of my favorite mystery writers and I am giving her more credit because she is a Canadian who has spoken out about the direction America is heading. I've missed several of her latest books. She is prolific. Her characters, Inspector Armaud Gamache, the police officers who he has carefully chosen to work with, and the quirky people who live in Three Pines still entertain. Penny reminds me a little of Alice Hoffman since she imbues the world in her stories with threads of history and a life force running through the natural elements of her story.

Two other recommendations:

Ten Birds That Changed the World by Stephen Moss

Charlatans: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Hucksters Bamboozle the Media, the Markets, and the Masses by Moise Naim and Quico Toro

CITY SOUNDS

"Mark Making" for my first Inktober exercise

October marks two years since we moved into San Francisco, halfway through five moves after we sold our house in the suburbs. We don't miss our house and all the work entailed in keeping it in good shape. We have been on an adventure exploring different parts of the city, some of them familiar, others, new discoveries for us. We travel as much as possible by public transit.

The 22 Bus opened its doors, and we stepped out, expecting to hear all the noises of a city. Instead, at the stop in front of Galileo High School, we heard stone silence. Not a rumble of a bus, not a car gunning past us, no fire engines or police cars, no shouts from people walking on the street. We were stunned by the lack of noise. We expected to hear the calls of birds at least, but even they were silent.

The 22 Bus goes from Mission Creek through UCSF, with stops at Valencia and Fillmore streets, and ends near Chestnut Street on Laguna in the Marina. Two- and three-story stucco houses line the narrow streets crossing Laguna. Some of the streets have trees lining the walkways, while others are just concrete paths through a city. We miss the sweet chirping of small birds, such as finches and sparrows, that are so prevalent in the suburbs. We expected to hear them in the street trees near the bus stop, but all we heard was silence instead.

We used to belong to Cornell's Feeder Watch, and we spent time counting the different species of birds that landed in our former backyard. Counting birds is much easier to do in South Beach, where we now live, because there are so few birds. In the Spring, we hear finches calling out to prospective mates, and some street trees fill with their chatter during the Summer. If we step across the Embarcadero to the wharves, we can watch seagulls circle and circle, then squawk as they make a landing between the docks where the halyards of sailboats clang in the wind.

When we first moved into the city, we were surprised by the large flocks of crows. In Danville, more and more crows had moved in, battling with solitary hawks for food and nesting. But the city didn't seem an inviting place for crows. Lately, though, they have been banding together at sunset. They line the edge of the roof of the brick building across the street, then fly up to the huge billboard that faces the Bay Bridge. Restless, they disappear with sunset.

Doves used to nest in the porch eaves at our old house. Their relatives, pigeons, are city birds and feast on any scrap dropped on the ground. We watched as an older man flung down torn pieces of bread, instead of feeding using birdseed, a mistake that many of us make. The pigeons didn't care and gobbled up every crumb.

Occasionally, we see a hawk sailing high overhead or a group of pelicans skimming the water on the bay. Both of these birds are keystone species, as predators that influence their environment.

We notice the absence of birds because we came to enjoy their presence. In the city, we don't hear woodpeckers, another keystone species. At our former home, we regularly heard their rapid tapping as they made holes around the trunk of a birch while they sought insects for a meal. The holes became home for other species as well as a way to keep insect populations in check.

Several weeks ago, I published a post called "Keystones." Since then, I've been working on an illustration for the essay, which will be published this month in Story Circle Network's Substack called True Words from Real Women. But now, I need to figure out a way to add keystone birds to my drawing. October is also Intober, a challenge to do an ink drawing each day of the month.

by Martha Slavin

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Check out the prompts for Inktober and pick up a pen:

https://inktober.com

You can help count the birds in your area. Join Cornell's Feeder Watch:

https://feederwatch.org

END OF SEASON

 

Baseball mosaic by Bill Slavin

The skies were grey with a hint of rain and the change of the seasons. Oracle Park, the Giants baseball stadium, was packed for the last regular baseball game of the year. The young woman, whom we'd begun to call "Sparkly Lady," walked by our seats with her sequin-adorned cap on her way to her perpetual seat behind home plate. The three of us smiled and bumped fists. The Giants had had an up-and-down season, raising fans' hope and crushing them in equal measure.

The last pitch, a strike, ended the last baseball game of the year for the Giants. We all jumped out of our seats for the win. We listened as Tony Bennett sang, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" before we turned to leave the stadium. That was the end of the season. At the beginning of the game, I found myself choked up as a young woman with a guitar sang a simple version of the "Star Spangled Banner," the song that always opens a game, a song that most singers change in some way. In the ballpark, we all came together as one to listen to her clear voice champion the existence of our country, reminding us of simple pleasures that we can all enjoy. Then two jets tore across the sky above our heads, and I shrank down a little. Later, the pilots walked up the same aisle as the "Sparkly Lady" had, and people clapped them on their way to the top of the stands.

I've been a baseball fan since I was a little girl and collected baseball cards of my favorite players. Though we lived in LA, I had cards for Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Roger Maris, and Whitey Ford, the great Yankee players, as well as a few Dodgers, Don Drysdale, Jackie Robinson, and Roy Campanella. I wasn't tied to either team, but I loved to watch the hitting and fielding that occurred within a game. During the World Series, my whole family was glued to the TV to watch every play. When Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, I was too young and naive to understand the significance of his actions. He, Willie Mays, and the other players on the teams were just fun to watch to me, but he changed America so that players like Felipe Aleu, Dusty Baker, Ichiro Suzuki, and Shohei Ohtani had an opening to play in major league baseball.

My family played baseball in our backyard, using the maple trees as bases. We practiced our skills (no bunting, for some reason) until we were good enough to hit the ball over the fence into our neighbor's yard, much to my mom's consternation since she and the neighbor were often at odds with each other.

Even in college, I would stop for a week to watch the World Series games, which I thought was better than watching "Dark Shadows," the first Gothic soap opera that caught everyone's attention in the 1960s.

When I married Bill, who grew up playing baseball and played in college, we cheered for both the Giants and the A's. We went to our first game at Candlestick Park, and shivered along with all the other fans until the game was called because of rain. Moving to the east side of the San Francisco Bay, we became Oakland A's fans, and watched Rickey Henderson steal bases, Vita Blue pitch, and thrilled at hits by Jose Conseco and Mark McGuire as the team raced to the playoffs.

We spent many a hot summer at the Oakland Coliseum, whose name changed with each season from UMAX to McAfee to O.co. We called it the Oakland Coliseum regardless of its sponsor. We watched some great baseball and groaned at the owner's penchant for trading away his best players, such as Matt Chapman, Marcus Semien, and Matt Olson. We used to joke that every time we watched a World Series game, we could pick out former A's players on the roster. The one time in 1989 that the A's made the World Series, they played against the Giants. They went on to win the series even though both teams were jolted by the Loma Prieta earthquake, which devastated so much of the cities by the bay.

We stayed home during the pandemic and the shortened seasons, but once we were allowed to show up at the ballpark with masks in place, we took our seats at the A's stadium until the owner became so thoughtless of the fans that he moved the team to Las Vegas via Sacramento. We, like many fans, gave away our A's paraphernalia and moved our allegiance to the Giants and a new team in Oakland, the Ballers, who have a B on their caps.

Sitting at the ballpark, watching that last Giants game of the season, reminded me of how much baseball has been a part of my life. The emotions I felt while the "Star Spangled Banner" played brought back those memories of playing the game as a child, and later, of sitting in the stands, first watching Bill play, and then going to various games at stadiums filled with people, decked out in their favorite team's gear. We often choose seats on the opposing team's side so we can watch the action between the hitter, pitcher, and first base. I thought about how easy it was to sit next to a fan who supports the other team. For the most part, we could all sit together, appreciate the skills of a difficult game, while we enjoyed the camaraderie of other fans of baseball, a game, like other sports, that has brought people together.

End of the season by Bill Slavin

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"You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make." 

Jane Goodall planted seeds of hope. RIP

EMPATHY

A post of two dogs scrambling in a vet's office to reach the food bowls made me laugh and at the same time feel sympathy for the Labrador who couldn't get its feet under him on the shiny floor and spread-eagled itself and slide into the first food bowl, face-planted in the kibble, and then did the same thing into the next bowl. I laughed as I watched. So often, I see something in the cat and dog videos that flood the internet that brings up two conflicting emotions at the same time. Many of the videos are the natural antics of these two favorite pets, and I smile. Others show people creating a scene for a laugh.

 It's hard for me these days to find something funny. I think that is true of the internet posters. They are trying to create a space where we can also have an amusing moment. Yet, I ask myself, what part of us brings out our enjoyment of watching someone or an animal flounder? On a bigger scale, what part of us wants to save the planet, yet can ignore the struggles of people who live on it? Elon Musk once said that, though he believes that you should care about humanity, empathy is destroying Western civilization. He went on to blame the Democrats for their empathetic actions toward immigrants and to create DOGE, firing thousands of people.

We seem to be living and accepting the cruel world we humans have created. I looked up the definition of compassion, which comes from the Latin word compati, which means to suffer together. On one hand, we can laugh at others and watch passively as families are torn apart. Yet, we are also capable of great compassion. We stand up for people or animals, save them from burning buildings or floods, or provide comfort/food/housing at their loss. We are a group filled with contrasting ideas all at once.

I grew up going to church. In college, I studied the world's religions. The best lessons I learned were three ideas that can be found in the teachings of religions all over the world:

Be Kind

Love One Another

Do to Others What You Would Want Them to Do to You.

Those ideas ring true to me. I don't have to attend church to live by them. I have learned that it is important when I listen to a well-known person that I ask myself if they practice those ideas when they exhort people to follow their lead. Do they aspire to be good? Or do they lean towards their darker side and lack empathy towards others?

"A New World Where Kindness Matters"

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Elon Musk's discussion with Joe Rogan about empathy:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/05/politics/elon-musk-rogan-interview-empathy-doge 

FINDING CALM, FINDING PEACE

What have you done in the last week to ease the fear, the dread, and the anger you may be feeling as a result of the ongoing horrific attacks on one person, young children, or other groups, by, usually, a solitary individual? We don't have a leader who will stand with others and unite us. Instead, we can depend on our communities and ourselves and do two things at once: be active in our push to keep our democracy, whatever that action might be, and also preserve ourselves by finding ways to let go of the heightened emotional responses to tragedies. A friend recently mentioned the creative activities that she and others she knows do - everything from ukulele playing, ballroom dancing, and quiz nights. Each of these pursuits requires creative thinking and, at the same time, brings together people in community.

I am in the process of making a simple book of watercolor shapes and colors after taking a one-day online class with Amy at Mindful Art Studio. I didn't really need the class for the techniques she offered. What I needed was the art community. The work is meditative and easy, and it was fun to see the work generated by a group of people willing to give art a try.

First draft

Second, with dark rectangles covering squiggles

Lettering done with white crayon
on top of watercolor

I am not allowing my critical self to review it. When I paint something I don't like, I change what is on the paper by painting over the section with a rectangular shape. I draw across the shape with a white crayon and add lines of phrases. On another piece of paper, I use a 4-inch-wide cup to make circles. I use a white crayon again to draw small circles, lines, and branches, enclosing them all within the circle. 

A circle is a powerful symbol in many cultures, and to me, it represents a sense of wholeness. It is complete in itself, soothing, calming, like the moon. This last week has been a special week in the sky with the Seven Sisters close to the moon. One of my favorite quotes comes from Bill Waterson:

We can step away from the chaos of the news for a while. We can take a deep breath and concentrate on something close at hand, do something creative without judgment, and then go back to standing strong.

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Two observations from this week:

The San Francisco Main Library posted a flyer for the Silent Book Club, which meets weekly at a local food court. For an hour, participants read whatever book they like. Then, they can proceed to have dinner together or not. They can discuss what they are reading with other participants or not. No one has to read the same book. Meeting to read is another form of meditation, isn't it?

One of the joys of belonging to a calligraphy guild is receiving an envelope or a card that looks like these:

by K. Sevilla

 two versions by K. Charatan

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Robert Reich: The core of our national identity has been the ideals we share: our commitments to the rule of law, to democratic institutions of government, to truth, to tolerance of our differences, to equal political rights, and to equal opportunity. 

TALL TREES AND TALL BUILDINGS

Last weekend, we took a walk. We ended up at Redwood Park. We stared up into the small forest of redwoods towering above us. The cool canopy of 50 redwoods, transplanted from the Santa Cruz Mountains, muffled the street sounds and made the space feel cathedral-like. Adjacent to the park, the Transamerica Pyramid reached above to the sky. Nature and human achievement side by side, competing for space.

We had set that day for the Chinatown Car Show. We wondered how a car show was going to fit on the busy, narrow streets of Chinatown. We walked past small shops brimming with bins of fresh vegetables, dried fish, and cardboard boxes of fruit. We watched as people crowded into a tea shop with its walls lines with various types of teas and into a shop next door full of traditional Chinese medicine. Next to the crowded sidewalks, the cars lined up, one after the other, for several blocks. Car shows have become a popular entertainment in Northern California. On other adventures, we walked through blocks of dressed-up cars in Danville, strolled around a collection of Cadillac CT5s at Cavallo Point across from the City, and watched lines of low-riders follow each other on the San Francisco Embarcadero. We turned the corner at Jackson Street, intending to walk to Jackson Square, but we were sidetracked by the Transamerica Pyramid, newly renovated.

We didn't go into the Pyramid itself, but wandered around the open plaza with its giant planters full of greenery and plenty of places for people to sit. At the back of the Pyramid, we found a small exhibition hall showcasing the contents unearthed from a long-forgotten time capsule from 1974. We looked at news articles, photos, and diagrams of the then-controversial design. We glanced at a sheet of paper labeled We Built This, with the signatures of all the people who worked on the building. We read letters written by artists and community leaders who protested the building's design and its interruption of the San Francisco skyline. One poster showed what the artist imagined would happen to the San Francisco skyline if the Pyramid were to be built. As in the poster, today, the pyramid is almost hidden among the much taller skyscrapers that crowd downtown.

Next to the time capsule exhibit is another filled with the designs from the last years of Ray and Charles Eames' work, whose furniture designs match the mid-century modern style of the Pyramid. They are well-known for their lounge chair, stackable office chairs, and the wire and curved fiberglass chairs that sat together in the exhibit , along with small, brightly colored household objects and toys. Walking through the collection reminded me of how much the mid mid-century modern aesthetic had influenced my own early graphic design work.

When Ray and Charles Eames first presented their wares, the items were a radical departure from the heavy oak, maple, and mahogany furniture popular at the time. Suddenly, chair legs became spindly, seats were barely padded, and tables were unadorned and sleek. The makers, inspired by the Danish modernism and Bauhaus movements in Europe, followed the idea of form follows function. 

Mid-century modern has made a comeback. Its simple lines and easy care appeal to a different generation, setting up new living spaces. They are turning away from the Tuscany-influenced heavy furniture that has been popular for so long. I find walking through a Mid-century modern room to be a quiet space without clutter and the visual cacophony of other styles. 

The Pyramid's plaza and the park next door felt like a three-dimensional walk through the design principles of mid-century modern, including functionality, bright colors and earth tones, and organic and geometric shapes The two together created a quiet harmony within a very busy part of San Francisco.

Examples of the Eames furniture designs:

https://eames.com/en/seating 

Even better, the Eames Institute, whose mission is to encourage curiosity and creativity:

https://www.eamesinstitute.org/about/

ANOTHER WORLD DISCOVERED

A friend sent me a card recently. We both grew up when cursive was an important part of a school's curriculum and her handwriting is a perfect example of cursive penmanship. In school, we all practiced our handwriting every day. After a year, we graduated to a fountain or ballpoint pen. Some of us, like my friend and I, developed a love of writing, while others, like my dad, never achieved legibility when he wrote by hand. He typed or printed his letters. He had a lot of practice printing since part of his work as a comic strip artist was to fill in the caption balloons with words that everyone could read.

™: WarnerBros

I'm not here to argue for or against the teaching of cursive, other than to say that learning to write by hand is the same kind of practice in mind and hand coordination that origami folding provides. I've read many articles that proclaim that handwriting is dying. But this past week, I found hope.

When I first learned of the SF Pen Show, I thought this event must be for a small group of people interested in writing implements who gather to exchange ideas and to buy new pens. The Show ran last weekend at a local hotel. I walked into a crowded lobby with a line of people stretching from one end of the hotel to the other, all waiting to get into the show. I couldn't believe that there would be so much interest in pens, mainly fountain pens. I looked at the line, and saw people of all ages, oldies, eccentric dressers, and many young people eager to get into the exhibition hall.

I came to the Pen Show because the Friends of Calligraphy (FOC), an active calligraphy guild filled with members interested in the art of calligraphy and letter forms, provided free bookmarks to the show attendees. Many of our members are experts; some of us are students like me. FOC looks for new members by offering classes and workshops, participating in calligraphy conferences, and, for one weekend each year, creating bookmarks at the annual San Francisco Pen Show.

FOC calligraphers busy writing bookmarks

Bookmarks made by FOC members

Inside the Pen Show hall, I found table upon table filled with fountain pens, paper, inks, notebooks, stickers, pen nibs, boxes and wrappers to hold pens, and a room set aside for nibmeisters, people who have learned to grind a nib back to its first glory. I had no idea that there was so much interest in pens, and therefore, so much interest in writing by hand. Some of the vendors offered vintage pens, others showed a selection of handmade caps and barrels. Some of the pens reminded me of the detailed painting style done on show cars. 

I stopped at Deanna Ruiz's table, and she showed me her fine woodworking, which included not only caps and barrels, but a meticulously constructed box to hold a pen collection. She had learned her skills from her grandfather, a master woodworker, and it showed in the way she made the "waterfall" edges on the box. Each change from one side to another matched the direction of the wood grain on top. 

Another vendor offered Oak Gall Ink that he processed himself from the galls he collected from oak trees.

One wall in the room contained stickers, marking pens, papers, ribbons, pins, and brushes from Japan. At the end of the conference, an older Japanese man came to our FOC table and asked for a bookmark. He watched silently as the calligrapher wrote his name. With the Japanese tradition of calligraphy, I wished he had time to make a bookmark for FOC in return.

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A good source for information about pens and writing. Also, a list of pen shows around the world.

Well-Appointed Desk:

https://www.wellappointeddesk.com/about/

Nib Grinders:

https://www.galenleather.com/blogs/news/nibmeisters?srsltid=AfmBOorJCsNzfFbMPjRo_WhD_-vpCoLpuL8N8Q6IBNg9dzkh1Rle8fy8 

Window View -- August 2925

FRIENDS REACQUAINTED

 Some of us met in kindergarten, many of us came together in high school. Almost all of us went our separate ways afterwards. A couple of weeks ago, some of us gathered together to celebrate a significant birthday for all our class. I looked around at the many people in the room and realized I recognized most of them, even without name tags to help me. We stood together for an afternoon and had a good time reminiscing about shared experiences. 

High school was our last communal stepping stone. I looked around at the people that I grew up with, and I never imagined the paths we all would take. Some of us became teachers, lawyers, business owners, parents, farmers, criminals, adventurers, journalists, or lived unsheltered. My own life took me to unexpected places. I traveled to Peru while working for a fashion magazine, worked in the personnel department of a tech company for a while, became a teacher, married, had a child, served as a community volunteer, lived in Japan and Paris, and returned to artwork and writing once I retired from paid work. A life full of unexpected adventures.

Every person in the room also lived a life full of twists and turns, leading each of us to be the person we have become. Yet, standing in the group of familiar faces, none of that mattered so much as how we now welcome and accept each other. We are eager to see old friends who knew us when we were going through all the trials, heartaches, and joys of being a teenager. We could reminisce about dances in the gym, doing the Surfer Stomp, parties during Spring Break at Huntington Beach or Bal Island. We could laugh at wearing circle pins with their hidden message, depending on which side of your collar you wore it on, being checked for too-short skirts or for not having T-shirts tucked in, and sitting in tent classrooms because our town wouldn't provide the funding for our school to build more permanent classrooms. We remembered driving down Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena to go to Bob's Big Boy for one of their legendary hamburgers, and we talked of one of our classmates who was notorious for funny antics and disrupting classes. And we also spoke of the ones who could no longer join us, taken by the Vietnam War, cancer, accidents, and just the arbitrary circumstances of life.

We were a large group, over 500 students, when we graduated. A core group of classmates organized reunions throughout our lives. Our class has been lucky to stay in touch over the years because of their commitment. Some of us, like me, only arrive for the occasional reunion, while others have maintained their close friendships since school days, meeting weekly for card games or, occasionally, celebrating a birthday, and helping classmates out when they needed support. 

Each year, the list of people who have passed gets a little longer. As we get older, each meeting becomes more meaningful to me as these long-time acquaintances seem part of a larger extended family rather than just classmates.

BEAUTY FROM DIRT

 Raku pottery by R. Kagawa

 Did you ever play in the mud, make mud pies, or squish mud through your fingers?

 Delicious feeling, wasn't it?

Some people continue to work with mud, becoming potters who make extraordinary ware. I tried pottery classes in school. I learned that pulling clay up on a potter's wheel is hard work. It takes practice to achieve thin vessel walls and prevent them from collapsing. One time, as I was pulling the clay up, my oversized shirt got caught in the spinning clay, and I became one with my pottery. Attaching a handle to a pot is difficult. Mine often broke in half during the firing process. Painting glaze on an unfired piece is hard. A friend gave me one of his pots that I still treasure today. He learned to fashion a lid that fit the pot and splashed a dark, matte glaze over his pots. His abilities filled me with admiration. But with practice, more practice than I attempted, you could be like my friend or Korean celadon potters who make extraordinary wares.

Celadon by Bill Slavin

When we traveled to Korea while living in Japan, we visited a celadon factory with a huge warehouse filled with what seemed like miles of celadon pottery of every shape and size. An intensely hot kiln with low oxidation achieves the blue-green celadon color, similar to the color of jade, a stone prized in Asia. But that is the end of the process. To make each piece, a potter spins a lump of clay into a vase or other vessel. The piece is allowed to harden, though flexible enough so that the potter, using a small scooping tool, can carve out traditional patterns, most often hundreds of small cranes around the surface of the pottery. Once those carvings are completed, the potter brushes a slip glaze of a different color clay from the foundation into the body of the crane, and then, using a darker slip color, fills the lines of the feet and beak. Each step is meticulously carried out to ensure that each vessel is identical. Any that come out of the kiln and are not perfect are immediately destroyed.

Korean Celadon inlaid designs on a vase

In our time living in Paris, we discovered the pottery of Jean Gerbino from Vallauris, a pottery area, who used a similar technique to the Koreans, though all his work is done without a potter's wheel. His creations remind me of working in Sculpy, a non-fired clay dough. He would roll different colors of clay into a long cylinder, cut the roll into tiny pieces, and attach each piece together to make the bottom of the bowl.

A roll of different colors of clay 

Bowl by Jean Gerbino

Next, he rolled out small sections of flat clay, cut out gingko leaf shapes, and inlaid gingko leaves of a different color clay into the cutouts. He attached each gingko medallion to two others, continuing the process until he had numerous gingkoes in a row, then connected the two ends together, and finally attached that to the bowl's bottom piece. I looked carefully at the bowl and could see where each medallion had been connected, but marveled at the amount of work that went into making such a meticulous piece. When I turned the bowl over, unlike with more conventional pottery, I could see the various colors of clay that Gerbino used.  

Because most of us played with mud as children, we often treat crafts such as pottery-making as trivial pursuits. By examining the work done by trained potters, we can see what makes these creations an art form instead. 

Pottery made with inlays or with different colors of clay rolled together

Watch the video here to see how celadon pottery is produced:

https://www.worldhistory.org/article/945/korean-celadon-pottery/

Pottery-making in Vallauris, France:

https://perfectlyprovence.co/vallauris-pottery-french-riviera/

https://www.ceramic-signatures.com/france/vallauris#gallery-25

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"Hang onto your hat. Hang onto your hope, Wind your clock, for tomorrow is another day."

E.B. White

END OF SUMMER READING

San Francisco by Bill Slavin

 August, and we haven't had temperatures above the 70s all summer long. Unusual even for San Francisco. So the coming of August has been a surprise. Schools are about to be back in session. Autumn activities will soon ramp up, but there is still time to get in a bit of good reading and for taking a walk in the town or city we live in. Moving to the City has made our wandering around the San Francisco neighborhoods a different way to go sightseeing. Bill looks up to the skyscrapers and finds interesting photos in the reflections and unexpected views of old and new. I look down and find poetry and artwork embedded in the sidewalks.

I've asked several friends to suggest books that have been good reads in 2025. 

Three books appear on three different lists:

The Women by Kristen Hannah

James by Percival Everett

The Book of Lost Friends by Lis Wingate

The rest of the suggestions sound just as intriguing.

Mary:

An Unfinished Love Story by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Mary rates this one the best of the year)

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawson

By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult

The Address by Fiona Davis

The Measure by Nikki Erlick

The Women by Kristen Hannah

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

by Bill Slavin

Marcia:

The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

Zero Fail by Carol Leoni

The Women by Kristen Hannah

The Wager by Davi Grann

The Last Russian Doll by Marina Palmer

by Bill Slavin

Kathy:

The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate

Thursday Morning Murder Club by Richard Osman

by Bill Slavin

Bill:

James by Perceival Everett

God's Country by Percival Everett

The Trees by Percival Everett

Me:

Walking One Step at a Time by Erling Kagge

Silence in the Age of Noise by Erling Kagge

The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate

One last list of mine:

Books that I have on our bookshelves that I probably will never read, but I like the author's subject or the author's point of view, are ones that I want to support.

Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil by Susan Neiman

A Theory of Justice by John Rawls

The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt (I'm halfway through)

Lady Bird Johnson by Julia Sweig

One of a series of local bird images embedded on the 20th St T platform 

THE MAGIC OF SMALL THINGS

Two hummingbird nests

 I opened another box and found two small hummingbird nests that I had packed away two and a half years ago. I marveled at their delicate interwoven structure, which included cedar needles and white feathers. Beautiful.

I like small things. I find there is something magical about a small object that has been created by an artist. When we were in England, I purchased four two-inch tin houses. Each opened up to show the house inside. Like a dollhouse, the tin houses could be the start of a story about the people who lived there. 

A thoughtful friend gave me two origami cranes, both about two inches in height, that she had made from clear plastic. Look again, and you will see  ½ inch cranes inside both of the larger ones. She also put a small piece of paper with the inscription, "The Invisible Peace That Holds Us," referring to the Japanese legend that the cranes represent peace, hope, and longevity. When we were in Japan, I discovered that students there learn origami at an early age. The practice helps them to develop hand-eye coordination. I wish that I had that precision when I attempt one of the origami cranes. I am just off-kilter enough that the last fold doesn't quite create the shape out of a piece of paper that I want. Once again, I remind myself that, like most things, origami takes practice.

Origami cranes

This morning I went to the UCSF gym. In the building's lobby, whose ceiling reaches 80 feet, is a statue of four giant people by Stephan Balkanhol, carved from a single trunk. The statues seem life-size in their setting, but they are gargantuan and tower over anyone walking through the space. They surprise me by their size every time I stand near them. They remind me of the moment when I was about five years old and walking with my family through the agricultural section at the LA County Fair. I had moved ahead of my dad as I looked at all the wonderful fruit and vegetables displayed. I reached up to take his hand, grasping a hand beside me, but as I looked up, I saw with horror a stranger staring down at me in equal surprise. My dad, right behind me, spoke to the other man for a second, they chuckled, and then my dad clasped my hand and we walked out of the building. Serenity returned.

As part of my artwork, I create small books using color and hand lettering to express one idea. My college senior project was a book about the sun. When I started doing letterpress, I turned my printed pages into small books. I find that mixed media collage also gives me the chance to experiment with design and lettering. Some of the books I've made are big enough to fit in two hands. Others are no more than two inches and feel delicate just because of their size.

"What the Sun Said" by Martha Slavin

A one inch book with Lao Tsu quote, "Every step is on the path."

A yet-to-be-finished triangle book (2 inches tall)

At 5 feet 2 inches, I have spent many times looking up at people, especially now that people over six feet are more common. And I'm shrinking. Maybe that is why I like small things, something that I can hold in my hand, turn easily, and marvel at its ingenuity.

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This summer is the 80th year since World War II. Many sad events happened during that war that we cannot forget. Please read Ellen Newman's thoughtful post about her trip to Hiroshima.

https://hidden-insite.com/2025/08/06/hiroshima-a-survivors-story/