WHAT TOUCHES YOU

Happy Birthday       XXXX   OOOO

These phrases came to me scrawled across numerous cards that I receive as a child from my Great Aunt Josephine and Uncle Gerald. Even today when I see XXXs and OOOs, I am reminded of those two distant relatives who lived in Boston. I loved my aunt and uncle for sending those occasional cards in the mail, yet I didn't meet them until one summer during college.

I took a summer job as an art instructor and cabin counselor at a camp for privileged kids in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts. My salary for the 8-week camp just covered my expenses getting back and forth from California.

I was ready for an adventure, and made all my own arrangements to travel across the country, once there found a small plane to take me to the Berkshire Hills, made train reservations to different towns, and hailed cabs in big cities. Yet I learned I had no idea what I was getting into as a camp counselor. I had never been to camp as a camper so my impressions of camp came from books and TV programs. I discovered the six squirrelly 8-year-old girls in my cabin would rather play and shout than take a nap in a space just big enough for our cots, sleeping bags, and gear. During each day's prescribed "Quiet Hour," my girls made the old canvas cabin shake. I learned a lot that summer about what I needed to do to make my own way in this world besides just organizing travel reservations.

At the end of camp, with great relief, I hopped on a train for Boston to see my aunt and uncle. I arrived at their apartment building and discovered Uncle Gerald waiting for me. He was in his 80s, but he hefted my duffel bag filled with a summer's worth of gear on to his back and preceded to climb briskly up the stairs with me trying to catch up to him. My Aunt Josephine was waiting for me at their door. She had a big smile on her face, happy to see me. I knew her instantly because she looked like her brother, my grandfather, who was short with dark, grey-streaked hair. He was handsome; she, not so much, but she had his same mischievous character.

I was in for one more adventure as I discovered my uncle was an alcoholic. Most of the time he remained in their apartment, drank beer, and watched the Red Sox play ball. When he wasn't watching the game, my aunt and I hunted him down and chased him out of one bar after another. When we weren't bar hopping, we took the subway to Filene's or to see the sites of Boston.

Uncle Gerald drove us to Nantucket. He sped through Boston, driving down one-way streets in the wrong direction, weaving back and forth along the expressway, and miraculously, arriving at the Cape in one piece. After we returned, my aunt and I went to Mass. The first time I ventured to a Catholic Latin service. The first time I felt like getting down on my knees to pray for my survival in a summer that was filled with adventures.

Here's some XXXs and OOOs for those of you born in March.  Happy Birthday too!

What are some of your favorite childhood memories?

I hope you had many adventures too!

SHARE

Artists are well known for sharing. That is why I liked this sign that I saw in San Francisco one day. I think of it as a reminder to us all to value the work of creative people.

A good friend, Deborah Hansen, sent me a drawing of her cat, which had been prompted by my post, Look or See. Rather than a pencil sketch, Deborah employed her iPad to make her drawing. She uses the Procreate app on her iPad for much of her work, and as she said, "I decided to cover the existing design with a solid layer and used the eraser tool for the contour drawing. Using the eraser shows what is underneath the solid color." I'm going to have to try this technique.  Great way to get a scratchboard effect!

Deborah does beautiful work in many media. Take a look at her wonderful website at http://deborah-hansen.squarespace.com

Another good friend and I sat in La Mediteranee in Berkeley the other day and talked of our plans for our college reunion. She is an artist who especially loves Diebenkorn, Robert Motherwell, and the quality of a line. I was surprised and delighted when she mentioned how my blog post, Look or See, had reminded her  to be brave in her own work. Contour drawing gave her the chance to focus on the quality of her line. I love that!

One last example of contour drawing shows how this technique develops the character of a line. These chairs seem a little quirky, don't they?

Contour drawing is a fun way to learn to draw. It does take some patience because you need to make yourself draw slowly as you absorb the shape of the object that you are drawing. You only look at the paper when you turn a corner and you never take your pencil off the paper.

With contour drawing, you become aware of all the details of an object. You are practicing 'seeing.'

Try it and send me your results!

FROM WOODS TO WOODSHED

How often do you get to walk in the woods? If you are like me, not very often.

Last weekend, I walked on the Presentation Trail in the hills above Los Gatos. I felt the dampness in the air, smelled the pungent pines, and bounced on the springy loam under my shoes. The path through the woods reminded me that life is a series of decaying and renewal. New lichen, moss, and green shoots pushed their way through the rotted tree bark around me. The trees overhead kept all noise except birds' songs away from me. I felt as if I had stepped from one world into another.

Who do you see here?

I attended an art workshop at the Presentation Center. The Center began as a 'wayward boys' school, changed to a thriving convent, and, today, though still a convent, functions as a conference center for various groups. A handful of nuns still live on the property in an old adobe building with a chapel attached. The center is surrounded by woods and offers the chance to be away from our hustling everyday world.

I spent the weekend with my Tribe -- a group of creative women who test boundaries, experiment and encourage each other. Thirteen of us sat/stood/danced in Orly Avineri's Art Journaling class. She is a terrific teacher who led us on an investigation of ourselves, asking questions that needed more thought than the first response we gave. She pushed us to "Let Go" of our attachments. While we pondered her questions, we layered paper, paint, distress ink, and other bits and pieces. We tied bundles of paper, metal, twigs, flowers, and moss together and sank them into a big pot of black tea overnight. The next day we unrolled the bundles to find transformation. Some of us used the pieces in our journal pages.

These papers started out as paper towels, plain paper, some with ink marks. Tied together and left in tea they became luscious pieces to use in our journals.

I came to the class because I resist covering up work that I like. I hold things precious. I want to stop when I have a good image or design. Layering gesso, acrylic paint, papers, and photos stymied me. In this class, I finally let that resistence go. Any mark that I made could be covered by other marks. Nothing was finished and could always be changed.

My walk through the woods also gave me a better understanding of layering, destruction, letting go, and renewal. Nothing in the woods is permanent. Nothing in life is permanent either. Even the manmade pipes that I found in unexpected places had crumbled and rusted. We all do.

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Check out Orly Avineri's website:   http://oneartistjournal.com 

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Next week I will feature some of the contour drawings that have been sent to me. They are terrific!

LOOK OR SEE

LOOK

Have you noticed lately when someone is in the midst of explaining something, they may blurt out, "Look!", as if the recipient couldn't understand the explanation? LOOK is a trendy word right now and you hear it everywhere. Other words, like detritus, paradigm, or journey--I know you can think of many more--have been overused so much so that when I hear them, I cringe, just as I am beginning to when someone proclaims, "LOOK!"

We already do so much looking without seeing. What is the difference? Remember this phrase: "Look around you. What do you see?" Look is a glance. See is understanding.

Do you just look at the world or do you see what makes up all the interesting parts? Someone who sees needs to take time to observe and differentiate. Artists are good at that. It's part of their training. What kind of person are you? A looker or a see-er?

Take a look around you right now--wherever you are. What do you see? What are the colors, textures, the sizes and shapes of what you notice? While you are at this, take out a pencil and paper and draw what you see. Try a contour drawing. Draw slowly the edges of an object with one continuous line with your eye on the object except when you need to turn a corner.

Contour drawing is a great way to learn to draw. When I was a student, I drew acres and acres of faces, chairs, pots, animals, anything in front of me using this technique. Remember to draw slowly. Contour drawing helps you to get away from the sketchy lines that most people use when they try to draw. With contour drawing  you end up with a pretty good understanding of the shape of the object and your drawing will have a quirky personality because you are not trying to be perfect. Remember that too, you are not trying to be perfect.

Send me your examples of what you see. And have fun. I would love to see them!

POCKETS

I went on what we used to call a "pick-up-the-worms" walk. After a rainy night when Theo was little, he and I walked up and down the street rescuing the worms that wandered too far from the rain-clogged soil. They lay on the street wiggling and helpless. So we scooped them up with a leaf and set them back on the dirt.

The worms today reminded me of other things that Theo picked up--rocks, leaves, snake skins--that ended up in my pocket. Funny what you will find in your pockets. Recently I put a coat on that I hadn't worn for awhile. In the pocket I found a Euro coin leftover from a rain-glorious trip to Copenhagen and Amsterdam.

The view from our B&B in Amsterdam on a rainy evening.

Those small pocket treasures become talismans, memory-keepers, to me.

 Four pocket objects lie in a line in front of my computer keyboard. Three of them are stones. All of them are smooth and cool to my touch. One is a small heart-shaped stone that I found on a beach. I've picked up several heart-shaped stones since then and I wonder how the stone becomes this shape through the pounding of the waves.

Bill's parents kept all their extra coins from their numerous travels. At that time, banks didn't exchange loose coins so they wound up in a forgotten box deep in a drawer in a bureau that followed his mom to assisted living. The European coins have no value now since the exchange period offered by the European banks is long past.

I think of taking them to the beach and, like ashes, scattering them into the waves, knowing that they will eventually be washed smooth, maybe stuck against some rock so that they end up heart-shaped to be marveled at by another small collector.  They may end up in someone else's pocket some day.

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Thank you, Bill, for the two rocks photos!

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Another great grey photo by Jan Hersh. How many shades of grey do you see?

WIND WALKING

The weather changed today. Our week of early Spring arrived with the wind. Walking towards the wind becomes a challenge as my legs are pushed this way and that so I can't walk in a straight path. Makes me think if I just raise my arms, I could fly.

The weather changed today. I look up hoping to see the Peregrin Falcons that have returned to nest near Mt. Diablo. I am envious instead as turkey vultures glide effortlessly with the wind.

The weather changed today. The last dry leaves scurry across the road, the grasses bend trying to follow, and my hair does too. I hear the grumble of the wind as it builds in the tree tops and knocks off branches at my feet. One old oak tree lost a branch that is trunk-size. It must have come down like thunder.

The weather changed today. The fruit trees are confused. They usually flower in order: white-flowered pear trees, apple, peach and plum trees, then cherry trees, and finally, tulip trees. This year the tulip trees came out first, fooled by an earlier warm spell in January. Now the others are all in bloom at once, trying to catch up.

The weather changed today. The glad rain we had in December and January has blown away. As I walk, I worry: are we back in a drought? We could be, unless our usual stormy March comes swaggering in. We can only hope and continue to walk, this time, downwind, with the wind shoving us back home.

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I love the Grey Days photos you have sent in.  Here is another one from F R:

You can still add Grey Days photos to my Google + account at 

https://plus.google.com/collection/k9LjEB

or my Instagram page at #postcardsintheair

or my Facebook page at Martha Heimdahl Slavin

My post, Challenge: Many Shades of Grey has been chosen as a blog post at Story Circle Network, a great online place for women writers.    https://onewomansday.wordpress.com

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If  you would like to know when flowering fruit trees are supposed to bloom, check out this website:

http://www.californiagardens.com/Lists/Deciduous_Fruit_Tree_list.htm

GREY DAYS CHALLENGE

Jellie by Bill Slavin

Thank you for sending me your many versions of grey that you found this week. I've seen some great photos. Of course, we have cats sprinkled through the photos. They expect to be showcased, don't they?

Here are a few of the ones I've collected this week. They are terrific and I want to share them with the rest of you.

Just Before a Storm by F R

Tree on My Walk by Bill Slavin

Train Station by elle_day

by Jan Hersh

by elle_day

Don't you think that these are such good examples of all the many shades of grey? 

My sister Linda remarked about looking for grey:

"Martha's blogpost inspired me to think of grey in different terms also & how it's all around without one's noticing it.

I like the fog & the rain."

See more at any of these spots. You can add your photos to the growing collection at

GREY DAYS  Martha Slavin in Google +  https://plus.google.com/collection/k9LjEB

Postcardsintheair on Instagram

And also at Martha Heimdahl Slavin on my Facebook page

Thank you all for taking the time to find grey in so many different places.