NEW STEPS FORWARD

Watercolor cut and assembled as a mixed media piece

Can you draw? So many people I know tell me they can't draw. I know that is not true. Like learning how to do math problems or how to build a bridge, drawing is a skill that is developed over time. If you look at my early artwork, you would wonder why I persisted. They were no better than yours. I had one advantage. Everyone knew I came from an artistic family. They expected me to be an artist. My family encouraged me to develop my creative and artistic skills as well.

Early painting with an attempt at calligraphy

I have to remind myself of my belief in everyone's ability to draw when I get stuck at a level in any artistic technique including watercolor or writing poetry. I persist, which has taken me a long time to learn. When I was young, I knew I was an artist (hadn't everyone told me so?) and thought everything artistic would come easily for me. When something turned out to be harder than I expected (ceramics comes to mind), I put the learning aside. As an adult, I find learning takes me longer, but I'm more forgiving of myself.

Right now I am at a point in my watercolor pursuit where parts of my paintings work well. They have the fresh appeal that you expect from watercolor, not the muddiness that often happens when I overwork an area. I look to Winslow Homer or Andres Zorn for masterful watercolors. Sometimes I can rescue a practice piece (all my paintings are practice pieces) or sometimes I cut them up into little squares and mix them up on another piece of paper.

Cabins and trees are a frequent theme of mine. This painting is resting right now.

A myth about watercolors:  they can't be fixed. Yes, they can. I learned to use original Viva paper towels, a drafting eraser shield, and the original Mr. Clean sponge to help me lift off paint from the paper. I wet either the towel or sponge and dab through the shield over an area I want to lift up. It works except with heavily staining colors such as alizarin crimson and Winsor Violet. Try it!

THE SAME OR EQUAL

The leaves may be turning, pumpkins may gather on porches, and early sunsets may come, but Autumn doesn't arrive for me until I am back in a classroom. Long ago I walked through the halls as a student, then as a teacher and now, I am back as a WriterCoach Connection volunteer. Today I am at Longfellow Middle School in Berkeley. The building was dedicated in 1923 and hasn't changed much since then. The stale smells of cafeteria food mingle with the odors of sweaty teenagers. The wood doors have transoms over them, the plaster walls show scuffs and dings from one door to the next, and the linoleum floors squeak when someone in athletic shoes strides by. It's a warm day and the fans in each classroom counter the beating sun.

I sit across from one of the four students I will mentor this year. They all study using the Common Core guidelines. The two 8th graders are reading Harrison Bergeron, a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, and the two 7th graders have written paragraphs based on Anne LaMott's book, Bird by Bird. The assignments are harder than I remember from my student or teaching days. Most of all they encourage critical thinking. The students often need to talk through their ideas, which helps them to put their thoughts on paper.

The Vonnegut story is science fiction about a world where everyone is the same or is made the same by various external devices such as wearing ear buds that emit screechy noises when someone starts to think. The two 8th graders understand the ideas expressed by Vonnegut. They grasp the difference between being the same and being equal. They also relate the story to some present-day experiences such as using social media and other technology.

The seventh graders are new to the program. They don't know what to expect so I explain that I am there to assist them where they think they need help with their writing. In years past, I have had 7th graders who had a hard time getting anything on paper. Sometimes they were timid in front of a strange adult, other times they needed help discovering a personal event they could write about. This time both students bring me short memoir pieces full of detail and good transitions from one event to another.

I ask all four of them what they need with their essays. One asks for advice on each sentence, one wants to know how to end a humorous experience, another shows me two paragraphs that are his reaction to what he read in class. The last student fidgets, wants to get a drink of water, doesn't answer questions but finally begins to discuss what the difference between equal and the same are. He gets it. I write down his conclusions so he will have notes to use to begin his essay. He pops up, grabs his computer and backpack, and bolts out the door.

Autumn is definitely here.

To read the full text of Harrison Bergeron, click here:

https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Bergeron_djvu.txt

To learn  more about WriterCoach Connection, click here:

http://www.writercoachconnection.org

OCTOBER FOCUS ON WOMEN

Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I think it's also a good month to champion women, to look for heroes among us and to examine how those heroes have influenced our lives.  Who are your female heroes and where did you first learn about them?

Growing up, did you read the funny papers? I did.

Dale Messick, the creator of Brenda Starr, Star Reporter                     Chicago Tribune photo

Brenda Starr may have been my first role model. She was the main comic strip character of "Brenda Starr, Star Reporter." She was a woman journalist, who was assertive and adventurous, and the creation of Dalia Messick.

My first hero really should have been Dalia Messick, but I didn't know her story back then. Messick started her career drawing greeting cards (one of my ambitions). In her spare time, she created several comic strip ideas; but to get them published, she needed to change her name to Dale Messick. She submitted her work to her boss, Joseph Medill Patterson, the Chicago Tribune editor in 1940, who agreed reluctantly to print her strip. It didn't appear in the comic pages, but was relegated to a special advertising section. The strip became so popular anyway that it eventually was syndicated nationally.

Messick named Brenda Starr after a debutante,  styled her to look like Rita Hayward, and patterned  her after real-life Nelly Bly. Starr became the role model for many women who aspired to be journalists, but she also was a product of her time, mainly mid-twentieth century.

In the strip, she ventured out to exotic locations, used her feminine wiles to attract handsome millionaires who either came to her aid or entrapped her, and returned with a fantastic story to print.  Like Nancy Drew, she was a hero to young girls, but needed a man to rescue her in difficult situations. At least Starr got a byline.

According to Suzi Parker, a current journalist, Brenda is "Perpetually torn between the demands of her career and her romantic proclivities. Her life has proved a long litany of frustrations. Romance, usually doomed, has dogged Brenda's footsteps throughout her long career."

I liked Brenda Starr's adventurous spirit and her confidence in getting her stories published. My young self incorporated some of her spirit into my own. After I stopped reading the funny pages, Brenda Starr continued with a very modern day version of life. She married, had children, divorced, and became an editor at her paper. Dalia Messick continued to draw the strip into the 1980s when it was taken over by different female teams of writers and illustrators.

Looking back on the comic strip now, I know that Dalia Messick was the true hero She stood up to people who thought that women artists didn't belong on the funny pages and laid the path for many others to follow.


To read more about Dalia Messick:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Messick


http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/ct-biz-brenda-starr-history-dec8-photogallery.html

JELLICA WHO SOUGHT THE SUN

Bill handed me a piece of paper at breakfast yesterday. I decided to share his words with you.

Jellica passed away quietly last Monday night.

She stopped eating on the weekend and slept in her favorite chair
 until she was too weak to move.

 She had a rough start in life.

When our son Theo picked her out of the crowd at the Dublin shelter, 

she was already street-smart, independent and determined not to be threatened by anyone anymore.

She was also a doting mother and we did not believe in separating children from their mom. 

We still don't.

  We brought her daughter home with us too.

Theo named the mother Jellica and the baby Tangier.

They took up residence here and Jellica methodically examined
 and explored every nook and cranny.

She was naturally curious,
 but she had also learned to plan possible exits in case of emergency.

Though she was playful and loved to be scratched,
it took another ten years before Jellie purred.

She was a constant presence in Martha's studio;

helpfully kibitzing on (or in) every project.

She accepted our love and maintained her dignity right to her quiet end.

Her absence has left a sad void.

She is now at rest outside the family room, next to the fountain and under 

a camillia bush.

Rest in peace, Jellica

2000-2018

From this short essay,  I think you can see what a kind heart Bill has. He reminds me that not all men are bullies or braggarts or unable to see how their actions can affect other people.  In an article in YES! magazine, Chris Winter proposed "Men, We Can Do Better." 

I know you know men who are like my husband. 

They are better than what we see on TV.

https://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/men-we-can-do-better-20180928

All photos by Bill Slavin

If you would be interested in having an essay you wrote published in Postcards in the Air, please let me know either by leaving a comment in the Comments section here or by email at marthaslavin@gmail.com

HOW DO YOU HONOR THE CHANGE IN SEASON?

Yeah! Autumn is here!

The autumnal equinox sets me on a quest for new art classes and to renew my efforts to finish projects set aside during the last days of summer. I look through my binders and portfolios to refresh my memory of what I have learned and to see what progress I have made. In the spring I had felt stuck, not seeing the improvement I wanted. I knew that I'd reached a plateau in advance of what I hoped would be a jump to a new skill level. Tomorrow my waterclass begins again, and I plan to take with me some of the breakthroughs I experienced this summer.

My painting done in Leslie Wilson's class

I've been taking a class for a couple of years from Leslie Wilson, who considers Charles Reid, a well-known artist, as her mentor. Leslie paints in a style called direct painting, which is different from the usual layering of most watercolorists. She starts at the point of interestas I did with the stripes on the pumpkin in the painting here. I find this style a challenge, but I've learned a lot trying to find my comfort zone.

My unifinished painting of my great-grandfather, Ferdinand Belfi, from Ted Nuttalls' class

This summer I took a workshop from Ted Nuttall, a portrait painter who also considers Charles Reid a mentor. Ted's style is completely different from Leslie's, even though they both learned from Reid.

First, they have chosen different color palettes:

Ted Nuttall's and Leslie Wilson's different palettes

Second, they use different watercolor paper. Leslie swears by Fabiano 140 Rough, while Ted only uses Arches 300 Cold Press, a very smooth paper.

Their technique for picking up color on their brushes is different. Leslie dips her brush into clean water, wipes off the excess, then goes for the color. She may or may not mix another color together on her palette before she paints about an inch of color.  She returns to her palette to add another color to the original choice. She uses washes only to lay in the sky or large areas of water, which she puts down after she has finished the point of interest of the painting.

Ted uses layers of washes. He will start with a puddle of water on his palette, reach for a color and mix the two together. He will then put a sweeping wash over an area of paper, leaving only places where he wants the white paper to shine through. He lets the layer dry before he adds another layer.

While trying to learn watercolor techniques, I've taken classes from Birgit O'Connor, Gloria Miller Allen, Robert Dvorak, and Sondra Holtzman. Each of them taught me different techniques and color palettes. Sondra Holtzman's choices include a natural palette made by Daniel Smith from minerals such as amethyst, hematite, and garnet. Mixing colors from this palette create some beautiful greys.

I worked with large swatches of color in O'Connor's class, and layers of paint in Allen. Dvorak taught me quick sketchbook studies.

My painting done during Birgit O'Connor's class

With all the classes I've taken, I want to incorporate new techniques into my work, but I also want to find my own watercolor style. This summer I felt that I am coming closer. First, there are certain images I like to work with such as faces, small objects such as fruit, old barns, trees, windows and doorways. There are colors I like to incorporate into my color palette such as Indigo, Hansa Yellow, Amethyst, and Permanent Red Deep that help me reach the deepest darks and the best shades of green and grey. All the techniques and color choices I've found have been a boon to help me improve. I have one direction I need to remember each time I make a brushstroke:

 step away and slow down.

Check out these watercolor instructors and take a workshop:
Leslie Wilson  http://www.lesliewilson.net
Ted Nuttall  http://www.tednuttall.com
Birgit O'Connor  https://www.birgitoconnor.com
Gloria Miller Allen  http://www.gloriamillerallen.com
Robert Dvorak  https://www.youcreate.com/HOME-YOUCREATE.COM.html

DIGGING IN THE DIRT

Find a stone, note its color, look for that color every day of the week, and write down where the stone's color appears. Simple assignment. The next step, to paint the stone, is the hard part. Stones are difficult to paint. They often end up looking like potatoes.

When I looked for a stone in our yard, I discovered a dirty pot filled with mud and small stones. Instead of doing my assignment, I squatted down, hunched over the pot, my hands between my knees, and dug into the pot filled with dried mud and stones. I told myself that this chore meant the stone wouldn't be carelessly tossed out into the bushes. The stones in my pot were river washed, smooth and cool to the touch. They were not the craggy rocks that we find when we dig in the dirt in our backyard.

The smooth stones reminded me of the stone slabs that formed the stairs leading to the Inner Ise Shrine, part of Ise Jingu, a beautiful park and the spiritual home of the Japanese emperor, near Ise City in Japan. The stones leading to the torii gate of the main shrine are huge, but so carefully placed that the seams from one rock lined up with the seams of another. I found it hard to imagine such craftsmanship. The area is dedicated to the Japanese sun god, but it is also a premier example of the value the Japanese place on workmanship. The buildings on the site are not old, though the area dates back to 4 BCE. Every twenty years a new shrine is built near the current one, which is then disassembled. Everything in the shrine is also reconstructed including textiles. The workers maintain the building skills needed to construct these structures by their continuous renewal.

Digging through the mud in my pot recalled my collection of stones that I started after I took a geography class. I was fascinated by the earth stories that I could see in the stone. I remember the names, igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary, which describe how each rock is formed. Igneous rocks form from liquid, molten lava, for instance. Sedimentary rocks develop from particles of sand, shells, and other material while metamorphic rocks such as slate or marble are the result of existing rocks changing because of intense pressure and temperature. The different materials in the stones made the stones seem like pieces of art.

I don't remember why this pot I'm bent over got so muddy. I continued to squat over the clay pot. It was the middle of the afternoon and it was hot. It hadn't rained since spring. No reason for the pot to be mud-filled. No good reason for me to be hunched over the pot. I was in the shade, at least, and tiny insects floated in the air around me. I was determined to finish finding all of the stones even though I knew my muscles were getting frozen in place. I knew I would have a hard time getting up to stretch and unbend my knees.

Instead of getting up, I continued, hunched over, my hands in a clay pot filled with dried mud and stones. Why did I persist? Perhaps taking the stones out one at a time reminded me of my childhood love of collecting rocks. Perhaps separating them from the dirt and dunking them in water became meditative and I didn't want to stop until finished. Maybe once I had found all the stones, I could select just one stone, note its color, find samples of that color in other places, and try to paint that stone.


Read more about Ise Shrine here:
https://www.isejingu.or.jp/en/about/index.html

FULFILLING DREAMS

I fulfilled one of my old desires a couple of weekends ago without having to do the hard work to make that dream happen. 

by Bill Slavin

We stayed at the Napa Farmhouse Inn in St. Helena to attend a wedding nearby. The people who own the B & B ran a bakery (another dream of mine) in San Jose for many years, but eventually sold the business to start a small farm in Napa Valley where they grow produce and flowers for restaurants in the area. 

When I was in my thirties, I imagined myself running an inn and making breakfast for hungry guests. The owners of this inn created an answer to my dream by making a place both quiet and inviting, well-thought out and lovely. Plus, Mimi and Ed welcomed us with grace, good food and helpfulness.

When we walked through their garden plot, we could see the meticulous planning that lay beneath what has become a riotous, fecund plot. The straight rows now intermingled as zucchinis and other squash escaped their boundaries, mixed with nasturiums and marigolds and butted up against the columns of heirloom tomatoes.

 Red peppers hid under the leaves while red and green chard grew tall next to onions poking their way up through more nasturiums and strawberries. The strawberries sent tendrils out across the path as asters and dahlias grew immense in row after row next to hardy shrubs ready to be dug up to expose the Yukon potato spuds within the rich earth. Basil and other herbs clustered around apple and peach trees spread across the property and lemon trees lined the walkway leading to the house. 

by Bill Slavin

Chickens clucked and pecked at the greens left in their yard. Their fresh eggs each morning became the main ingredient of a frittata filled with vegetables and sliced potatoes along with homemade bread and apricot-rhubard jam.

by Bill Slavin

Inside the farmhouse, the rooms were painted in soft colors without the clutter of some B&Bs. Our bedroom looked out on the dry garden with paths wandering from one section to the next, reminiscent of Provence farmhouses. The open kitchen, filled with stacks of dishes, bowls of fresh fruit, eggs, and potatoes, separated the cozy breakfast room from the great room. The great room, with a larger table, soft couches, and several chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, led us through to an old screen door to the back porch. Bill sat outside in a comfortable chair and read while I set up my watercolors on a picnic table under a pergola. We were able to escape for a while all the chaos that swirls around us with each daily news cycle.

The weekend seemed dreamlike with a wedding under the stars, our strolls around small towns with independent shops, meals with local, fresh ingredients, and coffee and conversation at a neighborhood coffee house.

Sometimes it's okay not to do the hard work to make a dream possible. Sometime you can be just as satisfied by enjoying someone else's dream-come-true.

Good places to stop in St. Helena and Healdsburg:

in St. Helena
http://www.napafarmhouseinn.com
https://napavalleycoffee.com
market restaurant and bar st helena
https://pennyweightnapavalley.com
in Healdsburg
https://healdsburgshed.com
https://thumbprintcellars.com
http://www.mateoscocinalatina.com/home/