MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

Now that Spring is here, summer is only around the corner and a good time for stories. And since you are probably somewhere that is colder than California is right now, I thought I'd tell you a story about one summer trip to Minnesota from California when I was eight -- a hot, infinitely long drive for all of us.

My mother recalled that my sister, Linda, and I kept asking, "Are we there yet?" My dad hung a burlap bag full of water on the front grill of our midnight blue Packard so that he could pour water into the radiator, when it started to boil over in the Mojave Desert. My mother, the map reader, became know for 'Mother's Shortcuts,' which took us miles away from our nightly destination, and which made our trips even more fun because of the extra sights we saw. Linda entertained us in the back seat with road games such as License Plate Bingo.

I spent the rest of the time in the car making up stories about the Old West and the trail that became Route 66, the road my dad was driving on. I also called out at every quirky place that had a sign in the window proclaiming:

"Stop! Look! Rock Museum -- see Volcanic Rocks!"

"Monster Dinosaurs -- Paw Prints as Big as Houses!"

"Ft. Bridger -- Don't Miss Jim Bridger's Guns!"

I wanted to explore them all. My dad obliged me and stopped at a few along the way. What better way to collect a few souvenirs of the Old West?

By the time we got to South Dakota, we were all tired and fairly grumpy. We made a short stop in Pierre to see one of my dad's sisters and her family, but our final long driving day meant we had to cross the Badlands, a place of moonscapes, and no water or gas until the other side.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badlands-Nationalpark

My dad stopped at the last gas station to fill up the Packard. I ran to the restroom and waited as an elderly woman took her time in the single stall. When I was done, I walked out the door. My heart skipped a beat as my eyes looked at the gas pump -- no Packard there. "Where'd my family go?" I didn't look beyond the pump. 

Thinking that I was in the back seat already, my dad had started the car out of the station. When Linda yelled, "You forgot Martha!" he backed up and came right back to retrieve me. My poor dad must have been thinking of that last, hot, difficult drive through the Badlands to the state border of Minnesota when he almost left me in the middle of nowhere -- and me without a horse.

Martha in the Middle of Nowhere

BOYS AND GIRLS AND BUGS

Deep in the heart of every man still lurks a little boy.

Boys building in the sand at Pt. Reyes Seashore

While we were remodeling our house, our contractor came over to me excitedly. I walked over with him to the rest of his crew who were all huddled around one part of the house's foundation. 

They pointed at what they wanted me to see: a colony of termites as dense as a beehive, wiggling and squirming around the wood part of the foundation. I just knew they were waiting for me to shriek. But I didn't. I love to look at bugs, and here was a whole feast. Finally, one of the men shivered and turned away. I smiled, knowing that they not only wanted me to know about the termites, but they had been hoping for that age-old 'girl' response to insects of any kind.

I love insects. As a young girl, I used to collect them, suffocate them in jars, stick pins in them and put them on a display board. All I can say about that:  I didn't know any better, and that's what insect collectors did, right?

As an adult homeowner, I can no longer kill a bug intentionally (mosquitos are an exception). I keep what my husband calls, 'my bug cup.'  So when we have a spider or insect, including wasps, trapped in our house, we sneak up on the insect, put the cup over it, gently slip a piece of paper under the cup, and trap the insect inside until we can open a door to allow the insect to escape. Making up for all those beautiful insects that I killed when I was young, I guess.

A large Sphinx Moth

We have caught some interesting ones around our house: many Daddy Long Legs, ant lions, bumble bees, moths, butterflies, and one that I had never seen before, a hummingbird moth. I thought at first the fluttering I was watching was a hummingbird -- same size but this one had a long feeding tube instead of a bill. What a beautiful sight to see!

Makes me want to get out my book of insects again, and learn more about them. I've started taking pictures of them so that I can paint them. They are hard to get since they move so quickly and are so small. What kind of insects are your favorites?

One of the cicadas that fill the trees with their clicking in Arisagawa Park in Tokyo in September -- not painted yet!

WHAT BRINGS SPRING TO YOU?

What are your first signs of Spring where you live?

We can tell it is Spring when the pollinators make our Japanese maples and liquidambar trees thrum. Above our heads, the bees dance and knock the flower stems out of the trees. The sap drops on the deck. Our shoes pick up the stickiness and we make snapping noises as we walk.

The bees in our trees are not all honeybees. Some are smaller with straighter, hairless bodies. I've tried to identify them, but they are too high in the trees to photograph so they remain a mystery. Bees, flies, wasps -- any of these could be pollinating our trees. While trying to identify our pollinators, I've discovered that there are about 25,000 species of bees worldwide and they are endangered.  I am just grateful when I hear them in our trees every Spring. They, like Spring green, are a sign of renewal and hope.

We have friends who are beekeepers. We have ventured close to the hives to watch in fascination as the bees squirm, shake and fly to flowers in the hills near Mt. Diablo. I have never seen a wild nest of a California native bee. Some live underground like bumblebees and miner bees, and others build hives in trees. I am still looking.

When I visited Shakespeare's home in Stratford-on-Avon, the bumblebees hovered over the alliums in the garden.

Spring also brings the Tiger Swallowtails back in the garden when the weather warms. Every year we have one or two that flit around the yard starting in early Spring and continuing through the Summer. They never seem to touch down, but float across the trees and flowers. They live about two weeks so we see the cycling of many generations during the warm months.

Bees and swallowtails are delights and remind me to take time to sit awhile and enjoy what nature brings before me.

In the process of trying to identify our yearly visitors to the garden, I've come across some helpful websites:

Two honey vendors who can be found in local farmers' markets:

http://therabeehoney.com (located in San Luis Obispo County)
http://stevesbees.org (located in the East Bay, San Francisco Bay area)

three sites with information about bees and butterflies:

http://www.buzzaboutbees.net/types-of-bees.html 
http://www.helpabee.org
http://www.thebutterflysite.com

and don't miss the Spring edition of Edible Marin and Wine Country, which has several articles about bees. http://ediblemarinandwinecountry.com


Other signs of Spring:  we start cleaning -- decks, garage, offices. What do you do when Spring comes?

FINDING PURPLE AND YELLOW

I went searching for Spring Green last weekend at Pt. Reyes Seashore.

Spring Green is one of my favorite colors. To me, it represents renewal and hope.  But it is a fleeting color. You have to capture it at the right moment as new buds come out in early Spring. I was too late. At the seashore, all I found was a small sprig struggling out from a rocky path. Spring green was already gone from Pt. Reyes. Looking around the path to the sea, I saw an abundance of yellow and purple instead. Isn't that the way of life? You look for one thing and find another!

Yellow waved its head on flowers along the path, but purple appeared in the leaves and under the bushes. Purple, is the color of shadows, the mixing of two strong primary colors, blue and red. Working with my watercolors, I mixed various shades of blues and reds together to find a purple that I liked. Ultramarine Blue and  Quinacridone Red turned out to be my favorite combination. With those two colors, I painted the cloudy sky over the ocean at Pt. Reyes.

Pt. Reyes is on the western side of Marin County. As I drove there on a winding road, I discovered that each point we wanted to reach was just 21 miles away: twenty-one miles from San Rafael to Pt. Reyes Station, the small town near the coast, twenty-one miles to the lighthouse, 21 miles back to Mill Valley.

 

I had booked a cottage at an inn that looked great on their website, but which turned out to be ready for renovation. The musty smell was just bearable for one night. We groaned, "Not another Viking Motel!" (Our family joke about the worst place we have ever stayed.) We asked to be moved, but the inn was full. Instead they transferred us to another place, Tomales Bay Resort.

We arrived at the resort later in the day to find a quiet, light-filled room close to the bay. A pelican skimmed across the water. It was so peaceful that when my husband Bill set up his camera to take a time lapse of the sunrise, he wondered if the noise of the camera clicking would bother the neighbors. We had found a perfect weekend retreat. We had planned for one thing and found another.

We wandered around Pt. Reyes, walked paths to the beach, snapped photos, and sat in the sun for awhile before we headed home refreshed. I didn't see the Spring Green that I was looking for. The early warm weather this year accelerated Spring so that flowers were already blooming all along the shore. That beautiful, fleeting new green had already changed to a more hardy shade of deep green ready for Summer.

 

Check out Pt. Reyes Seashore: http://www.nps.gov/pore/learn/index.htm

Check in to Tomales Bay Resort:  http://www.tomalesbayresort.com

TAKING A CHALLENGE

A good friend, Jan, challenged me to take five Black & White photos in five days to post on Facebook. She inspired me with the five that she captured.

by Jan Hersh

When I finished my five, I challenged one of my sisters to take five.

by Linda Day

She, in turn, challenged her daughter.

by Aimee Abitia

What I love about each set: the diverse images and the atmosphere that can develop using black and white instead of color. These last five are the five that I took. I tried to find the smallest image that I could and still have a photograph.

by Martha Slavin

Take the challenge with us. Take five black and white photos in five days. You can post them to my blog or to your Facebook page. Let us see what you create!

ARTWORK GIVES YOU A DO-OVER

A map of some special place in my life? 

 Recently, the editors of Cloth Paper Scissors magazine challenged readers with this prompt.  I thought: what a great idea. My next thought: what better place to map than my studio. While working on this project, I was reminded that creating artwork gives you the chance to do things over. I also could see where my mind wandered as I worked. My map turned into an exploration of the many layers of life that we all experience.

A mosaic of the parts of my studio

I took photos of all parts of my studio, reduced them to contact sheet images, cut them out and arranged them on a page. I attached cording leading from the whole studio shot at the bottom to my various interests that you could find there, including calligraphy, book arts, writing, watercolors, mixed media, and needlework. Okay, that turned into a confusing splatter of photos.

I whitewashed the entire page with gesso, let that dry, took a graphite pencil and drew over the images. Not quite there yet.

I added one of my favorite colors in acrylic -- a mix of Titan Buff, yellow, and Burnt Sienna --over parts of the page. Not quite there yet either.

I attached a photo of me near the bottom, but I wasn't satisfied.

So I started over with another attempt using paint rag strips, small photos and an acrylic paint marker.

 I glued more pieces of paint rags over that and added words on the page. I felt frustration that my ideas were not clear and my image of my studio was getting lost. What happened to the 'map'? Was I adding too many layers, not knowing when to stop? What was I really trying to say?

So I tried again. This time I imagined my studio room and what has been in this place before, all the layers that built up to create what is there today. We have transformed this room several times since we moved to this house. It has been my office, our son's nursery, and back to my studio. But even before that, the land was a cattle ranch, a home to the Miwok and Ohlone, and a resting place for dinosaurs and ocean shells. 

I like the layers that can be found in just one small place. I am still working on this project. Sketches are a great way to think through an idea, whether or not they become finished work. I don't plan to submit these pieces to the readers' challenge, but I know I have pushed myself into new directions.

What lies beneath the surface of a favorite place of yours?

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

Check out these links to two magazine publishers who offer reader challenges:

  http://stampington.com/Somerset-Studio-Gallery-Summer-2014

http://www.clothpaperscissors.com/blogs/clothpaperscissors/default.aspx

Mosaics such as my studio mosaic can be made at

http://bighugelabs.com/mosaic.php

Doodle your Way

Last December I wrote about doodling and how I've covered one paper after another with my doodles. Five of my doodles were published in a new book, Zen Doodles: Oodles of Doodles from North Light Books.

(https://www.northlightshop.com/zen-doodle-oodles-of-doodles/?lid=BVcmmac110414)

I mention doodling again because I gave copies of the books to some of my relatives at Christmas. To my surprise and delight, they have become doodlers!

My niece, Lindsey Szymaszek, a busy doctor and new mom, now creates doodles. She says, "I love it! I have doodled so much and they are all over my house."

She doodled around the letters of her son's name. What fun!  

I come from an artistic family. I grew up thinking that I was an artist. If you look at my early drawings though, they are no different from any other child's drawings.

The difference: I was encouraged to explore artistic outlets. I'm a firm believer that everyone has an inner artist in them. Doodling is a great way for anyone to touch that artistic spot in themselves. 

The Oodles of Doodles book gives you instructions to recreate the pieces that appear in the book. All you need are small pieces of Bristol board, which you can buy in packets at art stores or online, and a Micron pen or two. I take a small plastic envelope of doodling supplies with me. I use them all the time to create little art pieces which I often give away.

           

The Zen Doodles book gives credit to Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas, who founded Zen Tangles, their more formal approach to making doodles. They have encouraged others to use their method, and they also have no restrictions on adaptations such as Zen Doodles. Just as we have all become photographers through our smart phones, we can all become artists with doodles.

Doodle on!  And send me your doodle pieces to share with others!