Art Has Always Saved Me

I bought new watercolour brushes for the first time since I was in Windsor, England in 1987. I didn't look at the price tag and shocked myself when the 5 brushes I bought came to $29.95. Nothing really cost-wise, had they been red sables, which I have always preferred, they would have easily cost $60.00 to $70.00 dollars. The last brushes I bought had been at Boots on the High Street, along with some really neat watercolour pens and pots of paints. The day after I bought them, I rose early and walked to a bench lining the Long Walk and proceeded to paint a picture of another park bench close by.

Watercolours have been a staple art supply in my house since early childhood. My father was the real driving force in my learning to draw and paint. Dad would pack me up in the old Chevy Bel Aire and away we would drive to the deYoung Museum or the Palace of Fine Art. I would be enthralled at the fact that anyone could take paints and brushes and create a Renoir or Monet. Sometimes I would ask my Dad to pick me up and hold me so that I could look (but don't touch) closer at a painting. It was so amazing to see the brush strokes, proving to me that, yes, someone actually painted the picture. Up close, you could sometimes see the colours blending...just a minute line a hair's breadth...but enough to capture the eye. I still remember seeing a stroke like that in a Rembrandt painting where the crismon turned to orange...a faint trace of yellow...just a scratch of it peering through. You wouldn't have seen it if you were standing at normal viewing range, but the arms of my father made it possible.

From that time on, I have painted on sidewalks, walls, and rocks. I was disappointed as the pigments faded in the sun and bled off into the gutters in the rain. Later on, in high school, I took watercolours my sophomore year. My grandmother bought me a box of Binney & Smith artist's colours in a white plastic case. I remember sitting in the freezing classroom, listening to the instructor whose name I can't remember, droning on about how you have to see with your own eyes...not what people expect you to see. It was a passion...something to be felt...like when Renee Farnsworth had a leaf bug land on her shoulder in the middle of an outdoor painting class. I was absolutely fascinated at the green wings it had...so much like a leaf and the tiny beady blue eyes peering up helplessly as I grabbed it before she, still screaming, squashed it. I had to paint it. The painting never was displayed it school...and has long since disappeared in the many moves I've made throughout the years.

After my graduation from high school, I again found myself in art classes at the local technical college. Photographic developers, inks, printing inks, and the pungent scent of solvents came whaffing through the lower bowels of the college, blending with the smell of coffee, cinnamon buns and bacon from the cafeteria next door. I fell in love there...or lust...I'm not completely sure which... with a fellow student...all unreciprocated unfortunately...over coffee and discussions of art history, Gutenburg and who had the best prices in town for art supplies. I was in heaven in those classes until I had to take the rest of my core classes to graduate. Art was everything...health, P.E. and algebra seemed dull and hardly worth the effort.

On the walks home, I began to see angles, shapes, shades and nuances in the world around me. Provo in those days had huge horse chestnut and maple trees in front of the spooky, old BYU Academy building. The textures of the rain-soaked, ancient grey sidewalks, littered with wet autumn leaves in every conceivable shade of orange, red, brown and yellows plastered to it was gorgeous. I wondered how anyone could miss this...didn't they see when they walked down the street? Rich brown horse chestnuts rained from the denuded branches, occasionally hitting you in the head as the crows sat and laughed.

Old farm houses and fields took on a whole new meaning. Art became a secret language, one that my father had successfully transmitted to me as a child. It was my own world. The old train tracks up Provo Canyon could become beautful, spooky and sensuous all depending on the light during different seasons and time of day.

When I divorced my first husband in 1987 and went back to England, it was like coming home in many different respects. I had began to recapture myself with watercolours, pens and pencils. Poetry began to mingle more steadly with the art work...like a filling in a pie or pastry. I couldn't live without the colours or words painting something I had seen and had to share or capture in my mind.

Enter Jan McIntyre when I returned to the states. A sculptor, painter, and artist extraordinare, we were distant cousins who became close friends instantly one evening in a bar gathering of musicians. That group was something I will always treasure, even though we have gone our separate ways and Janny has long since passed. The art carried me through the victory of my first gallery showing of watercolors and wood burned items. It carried me past the pain of a failed marriage and into a new life. It held me together through a doomed relationship with a musician that was cursed from the start. Love or lust (definitely both! Oh, yes.), I am not quite sure. Love and lust for the creative life was a definite addiction...and like all junkies, I had to have more.

And then I met Tony in 1992. Tony was earthy, intelligent, well-read, foul mouthed, and the most beautiful man I had ever met...and he wanted me. He was the high school girl's dream. We became lovers within a month and never left each other's side for more than a couple days at a time. He encouraged me to paint, draw, and bought me a 35mm camera outfit. We explored eras; he was in love with the geometrics of art deco and I with the flowing sensuality of art nouveau.

Through the years I lived in arts and crafts stores; always on the search for some technique book, ink, medium or glue. He would stand there sometimes at the end of an aisle, hands on hips, head tilted, "Are you ready yet?" His patience was more immeasurable than he would ever let on or perhaps, realize. He was my muse and pushed me forward to experiment with using different mediums.

I began taking photo copies and painting them, using them in collages and putting them into journals. Beads and glass, their fine pure colours, intrigued me. Seed beads became another way of expressing myself through jewelry and then peyote stitch. Spirit bottles and loomed murals began to fill the walls. I bought beads and hoarded them, amassing some several hundred pounds, up until this summer when everything came to a horrible, sudden stop. Tony died on a beautiful, cloudless Sunday afternoon.

The last few months have been rain soaked. I have viewed the world through eyes every bit as unclear as rain washing down glass. Isolation and intolerable grief, along with with an incredibly acute loneliness has shut me off from the world and myself. I began searching through closets in my mind, frantically throwing open doors in dark hallways trying to find a reason for this or some momentary peace. My pens dried up with the heat and disuse and my beading loom covered itself in a fine veil of dust. The vintage mahogany dining room table I had claimed as my art center lay silent and cluttered with ideas and projects now completely gone by the wayside...until last Sunday.

Curiosity got the better of me. I found a small piece of watercolour canvas I had preped with Gesso last spring. It was gritty and I liked the way it felt under my fingers. In the buffet behind the table are my paints, pastels, and other implements. I pulled out a pallette, the old Binney & Smith box of colours and a few brushes from the cat jar. Armed with a glass of water and a rag, I began to paint for the first time in months. I had too much water on the canvas, and the human heart that I had painted began to bleed down the canvas in a happy accident, pooling at the bottom. I bled off the excess water and decided that it was perfect the way it was. Let it dry and rework it in a couple of days to get down the details.

Slowly, I am breaking free of the sorrow. Slowly, once again reaching for who I was and now am through watercolours and brush strokes.

Still Life

July 2009

Your Scent

You wore the scent of maple leaves crushed under foot in the warm, dusty autumn afternoons. It wasn't a cologne or aftershave, it was your scent...who you were. I smelled it the first time I met you and it clung to me, haunting me as much as your eyes looked into my dreams....told me you were the one. I knew you instinctively through a scent I knew would identify you. I had known it for decades, searched and almost gave up and then suddenly found it in you.

It was the smell of pleasure and something deep, smoldering slowly and spirling up and around me. It calmed me and at the same time made me hunger for that undercurrent that swam below the surface of your voice. I breathed it in as if I were drinking life itself...I could never get enough of you!

Tearing through our closet, I screamed....howled through tears and terror at the scent of you gone. Clothes still hanging, dresser drawer full...I cursed myself for washing the clothes the day before you...oh , OH CHRIST!

My daughter-in-law came in. I whimpered..."I can't smell him!" panic moved on to devastation and I sat down in a messy heap, sobbing hysterically. I found one worn tee shirt, folded it and put it in a zip lock bag to make sure I had the scent somewhere safe for later. Virginia moved me out of the closet and quietly shut the door.

It comes to me at times in odd places...suddenly wafting around me in the open breeze of the rental car last weekend as we crossed the desert going home. No earthly explaination...just suddenly there and gone...caressing me lightly in the afternoon heat. Faint traces at the table last night as you were standing there..unseen...watching me...waiting for an invitation...unnecessary as you unlocked my heart years ago, moved in and never left.

Candles burn for you..lighting your way home and to my heart. I know you are always there by your scent...the scent of maple leaves in autumn...mingled slightly with the smell of a cigerette freshly smoked when no one else is there.

Entering Dreamtime

To say that I have been a little lazy the last 17 years is to be truthful. You become a bit complacent when you realize that there are two of you to make ends meet instead of just yourself. It had been hard back then before Tony. It will be hard now, although now, unlike then, I do not have a 12 year old to raise. Jon is now 25.

There were important things that I came away with both of the hard times…..when I was younger living vicariously with my grandmother in Daly City, and then again in Fresno after my divorce. I found that I could be both resilient and resourceful. I found that in extreme adversity, I could survive. You get creative living on a shoestring. Extras become special treats instead of everyday commodities. Bisquick, once again, saves the day at suppertime, or lunch or breakfast. The library becomes a free vacation to anywhere in the world whether it is past, present future or fantasy.

There was a simple grace in those days. You relied on what you knew you had. You would use it more judiciously. What you didn’t have, you didn’t want…period. When you could afford it, its appeal had tarnished. You could get other necessities you could really use in the future and put away now. Therefore, you didn’t really want or need it in the first place.

There were mistakes made; many foolish ones. Those same mistakes will not be duplicated due to the lessons learned the first time through. There were certain things I just couldn’t have known as a kid. I had to learn adult mistakes by myself.

Making enough to pay the bills, put food on the table and clothes on are back is more than enough at this point. Some might say it is merely being able to get by. No, it’s more than that. It’s the comfort in knowing that everything else is just icing and glitter. Simple living has so much more substance to it. Amazing how much we, as a society, have forgotten that!

Knowing now that I will not be going to the parties, or dancing, or looking for Mr. Right (due to having found him, married him, and now am his widow) takes the emphasis off what had been supposedly important the first and second times. The fancy clothes, make-up, hair and shoes have been replaced by sensible, necessary and wrinkles. There is a comfort in not being in the “meat market” frenzy. I hadn’t enjoyed it the first time.

The big date has taken on another meaning…a final one. I am rather looking forward to that knock on the door by a healthy, boyish-looking husband to come and take me home to his place once again. I know that once I step through that door, I will be transformed not unlike Cinderella and her pumpkin into the girl I once was. (Boy that will be some hot reunion! Yes, I did go there.)

I don’t want to imply that I intend to let myself go. On the contrary, my interests are being focused in different directions. Classic books that have waited to be read for years are calling to me. Teaching myself and relearning skills I had once had or wanted to attain is now mine to achieve, such as writing, painting and drawing. Solitude is not an enemy.

Since I was the kid that didn’t quite fit in, I learned that being alone and my own best friend wasn’t to be feared. Some of my favorite evenings as a teenager were spent sitting and talking with my grandmother in the cottage in Daly City. We would turn off the radio or t.v., not turning on the lights when it began to become twilight. There we would sit with coffee and maybe cookies she had made that day and she would tell me stories about the family. I remember seeing her turn gradually into a silhouette against the curtain backdrop, slowly fading into the evening. Her voice was soothing and soft. Birds would twitter in the background as they settled down for the night. Gradually, even the noise of the traffic moving down the hill and on Juniper Serra would fade ever so slowly until you could almost hear the ocean 4 miles away.

There was a magic to those evenings. I was aware that the magic was still there over the years, waiting for me to recapture it, and I have. The summer evenings are spent sitting outside on a chair or the front bench, perhaps before the open window of our bedroom.

Wrinkles, middle age spread and strands of grey in my hair are no longer dreaded. They are a testament to the fair share of hell that I have raised in my time. I am thankful to have made it this far alive and in one piece. I’m not telling the stories to an attentive audience, but I am writing them down. It’s my turn now to sit in the soft glow of sunset and recall memories or make new ones.

I have entered dreamtime now....passing into the shadows...

Thank You, My Love

This photo was taken on Friday, August 28, 2009 around 10 p.m. pst, in my father-in-law's backyard in Fresno, CA.. My son, Jon took the photo for no real apparent reason. This is what he captured. It is not touched up.

I had lost a child in 1994, when I was almost 3 months pregnant. I had wanted that baby so badly. My husband didn't want anymore children. When I lost the baby it was a sore spot, as he maintained it was for the best. It hurt, but I forgave him in my heart for his feeling that way, although I never really got over it. It would naw on me a times, secretly driving me to tears. I deliberately made myself not think of it...blocking it out. I had almost forgotten....almost.

My son, Jon, daughter-in-law Virginia, daughter-in-law's mother, and two of his best friends (one of which was our best man) all saw Tony in the photo. Virginia was the one that said, "he looks like he is holding a baby in his arms." I was stunned. No one knew the story until then. I started to cry because I saw what they were looking at and realized he was telling me not to worry or let it hurt anymore...he has the baby and they are ok.

He has our baby.

Thank you Tony, I can never tell you exactly how much that means to me or how it has given me peace. I hope you can feel what is in my heart and mind. I hope you know how very much both of you mean to me and how very, very much I love you. I look forward to seeing both of you someday.

Love,

Me

Grieving

I am not feeling social...nor charitable...nor tolerant right now. I do not want to answer questions, talk about IT, or go to work. I don't want to sleep all day...although rest is what I am craving....I want to be alone but with someone at the same time who leaves me alone...knowing someone is in the house is enough.

Stretching myself out on the stone floor, I can feel the cool, uneven surface of the worn rock. Hundreds of feet have walked it smooth. I want to just lie here embracing this sanctuary in my mind, loving the solice and peace it offers.

Leave me to my grieving, for you can do nothing for me. No word or deed will stop the pain that tears at me. I pray for release that won't come right now when I want it. It eludes me, dancing around me as a shadow in the darkness...reaching out and drawing back in a ceaselessly taunting game. I live for seconds at a time when the agony subsides for just that brief span and then floods back in waves.

Blood coarses...bleeding out...an act of mercy and finality...virtually painless for you...and I am envious of your new freedom! I long for it like I longed for you in those nights to come to my door...my lover. I long for you again...aching with the knowing you will steal up on me and make me catch my breath...fingers brushing my skin....holding me in your arms...kissing me and claiming me...smiling like the dawn breaking...telling me to come away.

But until then...I wait with the longing...the anticipation for my lover to come in the night.

For My Husband On His Death

and so I
dance alone
again
waltzing to the sound
the faint melody
of your breath
the voice in my head
that says
it's ok darling
but here
in the quiet night
the darkness
no longer
a stranger
I peel off my body
slipping out
circling over
waiting for your soul
spiraling
downward
to hold out
the unseen hand
and bring me home

Sutro and the Past

Walking the Fog

We walked the fog

weaving patterns within

the tall grasses and dill

looking for bits of glass

bits of brick in the rubble

of my father's dream.

We walked

on narrow walls of concrete

rust forming jagged teeth

framed in skeletal jaws

bathe in sea water and silt

Sea birds screamed against the rising tide

raising memories

my father telling me

gulls were the souls of the dead...

Today

I believed it.

We walked the ruins

old Sutro's past glories

whipping up the mists

bathing our faces with that same water

that fed in from the tides

moving

through the tunnels

pulling and pulsing

arteries of the huge pools

pumping millions

of gallons

of sea water

still

filling the tanks

during the day

and then

into the long

chilled

lonely nights.

The ghosts walk

slipping through the green depths

gliding past the pump house

unseen

holding a brittle hand to your face

catching warm breath

in cold fingers

as you pass by the brick stairs

leading to no where.

We walked

the dark

the mist waiting

lurking

for us

at tunnels end

the booming

of the surf

pounding rock walls

crashing on the staircase

washing brick and sand

down cliff faces

pummeling our hearts

with its heart beat.

We walked the fog.....

San Francisco, CA

Monday, Auugust 11, 2008

Copyright 2008

The WInd and the Rain II

And with you comes the rain
the winds and
the waters of the sea

Gentle
always gentle in the moment
tea and thunder
lightning
and the rain
with and
without you
and

always

always the scent
of wet pavement in a Windsor summer
decades ago

powerless against the tide of flooding memories
half forgotten bits
of torn photographs
carried on the waves from the sand
drifting

yes

smells of dust and diesel
wisteria and fallen leaves tangle
in the ocean tang

roar and boom
the gulls call
fallen angels against the fading phantoms
of yesterday's amusements
strings of smoke blow
from a lovers cave
hidden in the rocks
rimmed edge of ruins
laid tretcherous on the wind and rising tide
black with the waves and dark grey against
the sky

the fog horns blare

leaving me alone
and restless
hopeful in the wind and the rain
and always the waters
and that you
will come