KEEPING RECORDS

My new art journal before COVID 

Sitting in doctors' offices to have my eyes checked regularly or having a cup of coffee at outdoor patios became my routine outside activity for the last year and a half. To pass the time, I pulled out my small art journal that became my COVID diary and began to draw. Sometimes I would make doodles in small squares, similar to Zentangles, but with my own patterns. Sometimes I would draw the people and objects around me.

 

I am now at the end of my COVID Diary. The counties around me are considering opening up from the important mask mandates that have kept us safer than other parts of the country. The rates of COVID are down in our area, and we can only hope that this time, loosening restrictions will be okay. As I finish this journal, I also consider that it is time for me to continue to expand my contained universe of the last year and a half with activities that take me more and more into relatively safe experiences.

Visiting towns around the Bay Area has been one way for Bill and me to explore the area we've lived in for many years. This week we drove to San Rafael to drop off two watercolor paintings of mine that have been accepted in the CWA juried member show for the fall. The local show is an opportunity for painters like me to enter smaller shows. I look through national shows occasionally for inspiration and realize I'm not ready for those shows, but the member shows fit my level of work well.

 The center's building is a restored Victorian on a hill near the mission in San Rafael. It is the former home of the Dollar family, another wealthy family from the 20th century, with roots in the Bay Area. The property was saved from development by community members in 1974.  The grounds contain a water-wise garden as well as exotic trees from other Mediterranean climates. This time of year, the grounds are dry and dusty, but the inside of the house is light and airy, the perfect place for an art exhibit.

We've found other interesting places to explore. Walnut Creek's plazas are good places to people-watch and draw.

Fillmore Street in San Francisco offers coffee shops, book stores, and good places to eat outside in their parklet patios.

How have you been keeping a record of COVID times?

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I've had several people ask me about my visits to the eye doctors.  I have glaucoma, which causes pressure on the optic nerve. I've had it for over 15 years. My right eye has a narrow strip of lost vision that I only notice when I close my left eye. It is amazing how eyes can compensate.  My glaucoma is controlled by eye drops, a stent in my right eye, and frequent visits to my eye doctor to check the pressure. I am stable and lucky.  The people in my sketches have macular degeneration, which is much harder on people, I think, leaving many people with vision loss.  Best advice: annual vision checks to catch either eye disease.

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Three writers from the Friday Writers group that I attend have published books during COVID. They are all good reads:

In My Mother's Footsteps: a Palestinian Refugee Returns Home by Mona Halaby is a memoir of growing up in Egypt and Geneva after being uprooted from the family home in Palestine in 1948 during the Nakba, the occupation of Palestine. Her writing is a tender remembrance of close family life and the effect the Nakba has had on her family and other Palestinians.

75 - a Number, a Passage, a Present by Audrey Ward tells us the story of living in Europe for two months after her retirement plans changed. The poem at the beginning of the book will grab you. Audrey earlier wrote a memoir, Hidden Biscuits, about growing up with an itinerant preacher/father and mother who traveled through the South to lead Revival meetings.

Shelter in Place Art & Limericks: In the Time of COVID by Mary-Jo Murphy, who is a wonderful artist and writer, has kept a COVID diary too.

Here are the links to Mona Halaby's, Mary-Jo Murphy's, and Audrey Ward's books:

https://imeu.org/article/mona-hajjar-halabys-new-book-and-the-journey-behind-it

https://bookshop.org/books/75-a-number-a-passage-a-present/9781636610160

https://www.mary-jomurphy.com/illustrations.html

Check out Zentangles on their website here:

https://zentangle.com

Learn more about San Rafael's Falkirk Cultural Center here:

https://www.cityofsanrafael.org/falkirk-history/

CURIOSITIES

With Autumn here, trees get a lot of attention. People plant trees as memorials to loved ones. On a larger scale, the organization One Tree Planted has planted over a million trees around the world. They have provided meaningful employment as well as worked towards their goal of affecting climate change. The significance of trees has caught the imagination of writers with books such as The Overstory, The Long, Long Life of Trees, and Finding the Mother Tree.

Trees are also the focus of the Treewhispers project created by Pamela Paulsrud, an artist and calligrapher, who works with groups to make paper rounds from shredded recycled paper. The wet pulp is spread inside small hoops. Once the paper is dry, each person writes a short story about their relationship with trees. The group attaches the circles to long cords. Pamela has created exhibits around the world using the thousands of circles she has collected. Her latest project included the Kalligrafos Calligraphy Guild. After making circles, the group suspended the rounds on long cords in the winter forest of the Thomas & Brenda Burns' property. People could then walk through the forest of trees and paper circles.

My vista is smaller. I've been picking leaves off the ground as I walk the neighborhood. I've discovered that we have 5 different kinds of oak trees on our street. I've collected red and black oak leaves, both deciduous oaks, and evergreen live oak, valley oak, and possibly netleaf leaves. The leaves of the deciduous and evergreen oaks are quite different, and I questioned why all these trees are classified as oak trees. Lucky for me, Google exists. I discovered numerous societies and studies dedicated to oaks. As I read through the information, I realized, once again, that real research on any subject takes time. A casual researcher like me can find possible answers from experts, but there is always lots more to learn and to verify by collecting data, comparing samples, and asking more questions.

Thinking back to my old science lessons, I assumed that trees could be identified by their leaves and bark. I had forgotten about cross-pollination and how important that is in the life of trees. Looking at the many oak trees in our neighborhood, especially along a creek, I laughed at the idea of these trees busily hybridizing themselves.

My next question: why are the leaves of the deciduous and evergreen trees so different? After reading many fact-filled articles, I concluded that deciduous trees use their leaves as protection from the wind, which is why their leaves are thinner and deeply lobed (valley oaks).  Evergreen oaks need protection from temperature changes so their leaves are smaller and thicker (live oak).

Big or small, our relationship with trees spans centuries. We climb them, we are sustained by their acorns and fruits, we build with their wood and use the wood for heating, we play with wooden toys, we plant them to provide windscreens to protect our crops, and we use the galls and nuts to make ink. 

Best of all, the last question is: 

What better way to spend a hot afternoon than under the shadow of a sheltering tree?

Good sources to understand tree identification:

https://calscape.org/loc-California/Quercus(all)/vw-list/np-0? 

https://www.hellis.biz/why-do-different-trees-have-different-shaped-leaves/

https://www.internationaloaksociety.org/content/hybridization-quercus-seen-through-eyes-enthusiast

https://lizzieharper.co.uk/2013/10/botanical-illustration-compound-and-simple-leaves/

Check out Pamela Paulsrud's Treewhispers' blog:

https://treewhispers.com

Vimeos of Treewhispers exhibits:

https://vimeo.com/340542783

https://vimeo.com/612638534

Check out the Kalligrafos Calligraphy Guild:

https://kaligrafos.com

YouTube video about OneTreePlanted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC7QsnezCLc

WHAT DO YOU BRING WITH YOU?

We all get stuck sometimes, don't we?

Artists and writers sometimes confront the blank white page and freeze. As an artist, I know I can get past that blank page. I have found several ways to help myself. I wash a light yellow over an entire piece of watercolor paper. With a pen, I draw connected circles back and forth across the page just as I did when I was learning how to write. I write my name backwards in big letters. I get up and take a break. Little tricks that might get my mind working creatively. I use those art exercises when I need to loosen up to write. My first question to myself every Monday: what could I write about this week? Some weeks I know right away, other weeks I will start with one thought which will morph into a hundred different ideas.

If I'm really stuck, I participate in a 30-day challenge to re-ignite creativity through practice, practice, practice. If you Google 30-day art or writing challenges, you will find lots of good ideas to help you jumpstart your day. Doodlewash presents a Watercolor Monthly with lists of things to paint or draw. In October, Jake Parker encourages artists to draw with pen and ink for Inktober. November is Writers Month. The challenge there is to write a 50,000-word novel in a month. For something less daunting right now, fellow blogger, Chandra Lynn from Pics and Posts lists ideas that could inspire you to dig deep into your reservoir of potential subjects. She got me thinking because I love lists too.

I asked myself, "What are three things I always carry and that I actually use? 

I couldn't hone it down to just three, but it was an interesting exercise to discover which small things become essential.

Lip Balm

Pencil or Pen

Smallest Art Journal that fits in my purse. The journal has become my COVID diary of my appointments and the other people I see there.

Phone/camera

Then I thought of all the things I put in my car's trunk that I've either forgotten about or never use, and knowing that if I remove them, I will need them the very next day.

Sunscreen

Change

Animal alarm for my walks just in case I run into a mountain lion (we all have unusual fears, don't we?) In my defense, we have had sightings of bobcats in our neighborhood, but I never remember the alarm.

My complete art kit, including a sketchbook, pencils, pens, water brush, colored pencils, eraser. Somehow I forget to take it with me and wish I had something to sketch with. That's why I carry my camera.

Water to drink and to fill my water brush.

The discount coupons from my favorite garden store that I forget to bring with me into the store. 

Sunscreen. And I was born and still live in California.

What do you bring with you?

Check out these websites for good ideas to break the blank white page:

https://doodlewash.com/watercolor-art-challenges/

https://iamchandralynn.com/2021/09/15/lets-make-lists-seven-bits-of-wisdom-from-seven-favorite-books/

https://inktober.com

https://lindahoye.com/author/lindahoye/

WHISPERS OF FALL

September -- one of my favorite and least favorite times of the year. People who move from other states to California say that the one thing they miss is the change of seasons. As a native Californian, I know our state has only two seasons -- wet and dry. The more traditional ones whiff by and can be missed unless you pay attention.

September at five in the evening is warm and still outside, not the suffocating, blazing hot of mid-day. The sun approaches a different position and casts shadows across long stretches of ground. Dust floats in the changing sunlight. The first redden Sycamore leaf drifts down to our deck, to join the Japanese maple seeds that cover the same area. Spiders have filled nooks with their webs and stretched their delicate-seeming threads from one post or leaf to another. 

With climate change, the dry, baking heat that makes the ground crack and your skin feel the same and that used to erupt during the first weeks of September, heated the air as early as June. We've had the hottest summer on record and fires started much earlier than usual. We listen in horror of the news yesterday that the Giant Sequoias in Sequoia National Park, thousands of years old, stand threatened by an out-of-control fire near them.

We notice other signs of fall. The yellow jackets come out and try to nibble at the edges of our picnic. We pick up our plates and hustle inside. At the top of the hill, we surprise a buck with four points crowning his head who crashes down the hill and out of our yard. We wonder at the glimpse we have of him. We think he must be down from the hills to find a mate. We rarely see bucks in our yard. Up the street, a Northern red oak's leaves shiver in the breeze as if they know that soon they will turn dark red and drop at the end of autumn.

I remember an editor of a home and garden magazine because she often wrote of her flourishing garden. Just before she retired, she wrote of pulling out her much-used herb knot garden because she didn't have the energy to tend it anymore. I was taken aback that she stop something she had prized for so long. My garden is also long gone due to the lack of adequate sunlight and the wildlife who loved it too much. I still keep pots of herbs though. The deer are repulsed by thyme and mint, so these herbs are sprinkled in pots through the garden. I've harvested my bunch of basil, whose scent fills the kitchen as I chop the leaves for pesto. I toast Ciabatta bread slices, give them a light coating of olive oil, spread the pesto on top, slice up some of my neighbor's tomatoes, scatter them on the pesto, and dust the top with grated parmesan. Those and avocado toast are tasty treats for this time of year.

The drawings I've been doing have changed too, from summer blooms to bulbs ready to be planted, acorns, harvested fruits and vegetables, and autumn leaves, a whisper of autumn in California.

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If you too are concerned about the Giant Sequoias, email President Biden and your state representatives to encourage them to commit as many resources as possible to contain the fire that is now raging around them.

To reach the President:

https://whitehouse.gov/contact/

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Last of summer's good reads:

 

What are your favorite books from this summer?

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Go to Filoli's Instagram account to see my post about a trip to Filoli as well as to see the beautiful gardens there: https://www.instagram.com/_filoli/

BRUSHES PAPER PAINT

 On a quest to paint a flower on a postcard each day this month, I ran into a problem with a box of postcard-sized watercolor paper that I had purchased recently, the result of walking into an art store and being unable to resist grabbing new supplies. I thought, when I saw the box of EtchrLab postcards, "This is just what I need." 50 sheets of pre-cut postcard-sized paper in a nice black box (organizational tools also intrigue me).

With watercolor, three supplies matter: the quality of brushes, paper, and paint. I've experimented with all of these to find which ones work for me. Of the three, I think the quality of the paper makes the biggest difference. Watercolor paper comes as either student-grade made from wood pulp (not recommended except for sketches), or professional-grade, made from 100% cotton and acid-free. Watercolor paper comes in three different textures: smooth Hot Press, somewhat textured Cold Press, and Rough. Watercolor paper also comes in three different weights: 90lb/190gsm, 140lb/300gsm, or 300lb/640gsm. The pounds and grams per square meter were determined by weighing 500 sheets of 22" X 30" paper. That's a lot to consider for one piece of paper.

There are many brands of watercolor paper: Strathmore, Arches, Fabriano, Saunders Waterford, and Hahnemuhle, which are some of the most well-known. Each has qualities that attract different painters. I've tried as many as I could by purchasing sample packets from online art supply stores. I finally chose Saunders Waterford (SW). Similar to Fabriano, SW allows me to push the paint around the surface, lift up the paint, and even remove paint almost back to its original white. I've been using it for a while and have learned its many characteristics.

I used SW to paint the group of flowers from Filoli. I decided to paint the Echinacea again on the new postcard paper. "Whoa," I said, "This paper doesn't react at all like the SW."  First, the Etchr paper didn't seem to have any sizing, a gelatin that is smoothed over most watercolor paper to make absorption more consistent. Instead, the water from my brush soaked through the paper to the back. The paint dried quickly, not allowing me to push it around. "Oh, boy," I said, "Is this going to work or not?" 

I played with the flower some more being careful to feather the edges of each brushstroke so I didn't get a hard line where I didn't want it. I kept thinking, "Am I wasting my time?" But I finished the flower and set it aside to thoroughly dry. I was surprised later. The finished postcard looked similar to the one on the SW paper. Lesson learned though. Good quality paper actually makes painting easier.

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This week has been a week of remembrances about 9/11. 

We all recall where we were on that day.

Yard 44 and NBC Studios have created a documentary called Memory Box: Echoes of 9/11, which revisits the people who participated in artist Ruth Sergel's 2002 Memory Box creation. The original film showed the people speaking about their personal accounts of 9/11. They have returned in 2021 to reflect on the last 20 years.

It is available on Peacock and well worth seeing:  https://deadline.com/2021/07/9-11-msnbc-peacock-memory-box-1234797251/

MENDING RIGHTS AND WRONGS

Some of the plants we found at Filoli

Have you visited any of the grand houses and gardens created during the Gilded Age of the 19th and early 20th centuries by entrepreneurs such as Cornelius Vanderbilt or John Rockefeller?  California has its share of places to tour including Filoli, which is on the Peninsula near San Francisco.

Filoli, run by the National Trust for Historic Preservation,  sits in the middle of history and values. The Ohlone lived on the land originally. Over the tumultuous period when the Spanish arrived in California, the land became a Spanish land grant, then changed from Mexican ownership to American, while still remaining open land but leaving the Ohlone without compensation. 

After the 1906 earthquake, wealthy San Franciscans began to move south from the City. The Bourn family, whose wealth came from the Gold Rush and eventually from the company that became PG&E, acquired the property in 1914. They called the ranch Filoli and built a mansion and a huge garden on the grounds. The Roth family, who started the Matson shipping company, bought the property in the 1930s and continued to develop the garden into a showcase. The Roths donated the property to the National Trust.

The main benefit of Filoli for us now is the preservation of a large piece of open land in the middle of a bustling metropolitan area that is open to anyone. The National Trust recognizes that Filoli is not only a beautiful property to maintain, but provides an avenue for discussion about its history and the diverse groups of people who lived and worked there. Large posters hang in the information center explaining the history of the property before the Bourns and Roths. This past year Filoli also recognized the part played by three Asian Americans, chef Kee Low, landscape architect Mai Kitazawa Arbegast, and horticulturist, Toichi Domoto, in the development of Filoli. An exhibit, "Stories of Resilience," can still be accessed online with information on the importance of these three people as well as other essential workers to Filoli.

The ticket booth at the entrance to Filoli stands in front of an old olive tree grove, which separates the house from the parking lot.  Though not native to California, olive trees thrive in our Mediterranean climate; but because of olive fruit flies that damage the fruit, no oil is made from the fruit. The trees grow tall and provide a canape as visitors walk to the grounds. To encourage everyone to visit, the National Trust provides free admission to anyone with a SNAP EBT card and also offers botanical illustration and horticultural classes. Otherwise, tickets can be purchase online before a visit.

Entry stickers attached, friends and I, all of us long-time gardeners, walked the grounds to admire the carefully tended gardens and to take photos of plants and flowers. We saw several groups of young people building wattles and other supports from slim, flexible willow branches. When I asked them questions about the plants, they jumped in with valuable, well-grounded information. I was impressed with their knowledge and glad to see a younger generation who has learned to love the land and wants to tend the plants that grow in such rich soil. 

We strolled next to a row of espaliered fruit trees lining beds of sweet-scented roses and multi-colored dahlias. Some of the dahlias were dinner-plate-sized and hung heavy on their stalks. We saw squash vines and bright nasturtiums crawling between heather hedges, and lavender and other herbs filling two knot gardens with subtle shades of purple and grey. 

We could have hiked the Nature Trail to the Sally MacBride Nature Center and read the many placards that identify plants used by the Ohlone for food and medicine. We decided instead to have lunch at the Quail's Nest Cafe run by Town Kitchen, which provides employment for foster and re-entry youths. The food is locally sourced from minority and female-run businesses.

We left feeling refreshed and invigorated, knowing that Filoli has become a treasure for all of us to visit, not just for the wealthy families who once lived there. As William Bourne, someone who would applaud the changes at Filoli, said:

Fight for a just cause.

Love your fellow man.

Live a good life.

Fi - Lo - Li

One of the herb knot gardens
photo by Christy Myers

   

Check out Filoli's website:

https://filoli.org/about/

"Stories of Resilience" can be found here:

https://savingplaces.org/stories/stories-of-resilience-three-asian-americans-who-shaped-filoli#.YSQF8i1h2o6 

Read about the work of Town Kitchen here:

https://www.thetownkitchen.com

Wikipedia lists mansions from the Gilded Age. Some have been torn down, some turned into museums, hotels, or college buildings, some, like Filoli, have beautiful gardens to visit, and some are still residences:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Gilded_Age_mansions

A DATE TO REMEMBER

 

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Martha will be back with a usual post next Friday.