i have a unique front row seat to paintings in process. running downstairs to throw in another load of laundry or seek out a tool i need, i will glance at the easel in the studio to peek at what’s up next…this time, the sketch of two people dancing made me stop. it immediately made me thinking of when we have danced in the front yard or the kitchen or out on the deck or on a mountain trail. i got lost in the tango and wandered back upstairs, no new laundry spinning in the washer or tool in my hand.
the next time i looked at the easel i found these two people emerging and color exploding off the canvas. i have learned, in this time of living with a brush-in-hand-artist, that this is the under-painting, a place that involves steps at which i often want to tell him to stop!wait!it’s perfect! sometimes he does – stop. other times he keeps going, for the vision in his mind’s eye is beyond what is on the easel and there is more to develop.
it’s a unique place in the front row. maybe more comparable to back-stage or the green room or the recording studio before “record”…a place of preparation, a place of reflection, a place of swirling beauty, a place of possibility, a place where the-painting-someone-dreams-of-hanging-on-their-wall is being born.
i went back. we had passed this on the street while taking a walk. when it registered a moment or two after we passed it, i had to go back. out of context, it made me laugh aloud. i showed it to jen and she and i both decided on a 3 year old. i mean, it’s a FREE 3 year old!!!!
now….everyone knows THAT’S just not true. i think wryly about the lifestyle difference between people i know who have never had children and people i know who have had 2-4 olds (who grow up into snack-devouring-soccer-playing-music-lesson-taking 8 year olds who grow up into gatorade-guzzling-granola-bar-munching-tennis-playing-nike-sneaker-loving-makeup-wearing-hair-dying teenagers who grow up into university-tuition-paying-care-package-receiving-ramen-noodle-eating-dorm-room-paraphernalia-moving-apartment-sharing-car-driving college students who grow up into….. )
what you can’t see in this picture of dogdog, his gaze intent on me taking his picture, is that he has a chip on his head. a tortilla chip. a mission tortilla chip, to be specific. gluten free. dogga loves chips. he loves to have chips on his head, staying perfectly still with the “leave it” command issued. even more, he loves when “leave it” is released and he can bend his head down and eat his treasured chip. he prefers it sans salsa. good thing, because his aussie hair would be a total mess WITH salsa. and i hardly think salsa is on his doggadiet (for that matter, neither are chips.)
i have to say, dogdog and babycat pretty much run the show here. not just merely sponsors, they are producers, directors, screenwriters, actors and extras. we laugh every time we wake up after a fitful night sleep because babycat has taken up 2/3 of the bed, snoring his way through his peaceful slumber. we could move him, wake him up, nudge him, anything…but instead he just rules over his two-thirds and we deal with it, yawning and complaining about cramped legs all the next day.
dogdog, on the other hand, sleeps in his crate next to the bed. he loves loves loves sleepnightnight (his word) time and makes sure that everything happens in the “correct” order. he goes out. he runs back in. jumps on the bed. and listens. he waits to hear the water-in-the-fridge spigot filling the coffeepot. waits to hear the coffee grinder. waits to hear d put a small amount of nighttime kibble in babycat’s bowl. waits to hear the container on top of the fridge opened from which d gets his cookie. waits for his bellybelly (also his word) on the bed and kisses on his sweet head, chipcrumbs mixed in with his messy fur. day’s end for a dogdog.
i don’t know about you, but i don’t know what i’d do without them. our sponsors.
“how was your week?” jonathan asked. we rolled our eyes. he was unpacking his bass while i uncovered the piano and d adjusted the mic stands. he said, “tell me about it. you guys always have great stories!” eh. great stories. more like mini soap operas, you might think schadenfreude applies here (where he might derive some pleasure from our angst) but on the total other side of the spectrum, we have agreed that jonathan is an angel. i wonder if, as he drives away in his subaru outback, he turns the corner and POOF! he disappears.
“it’s ok,” he says. “trees must split their bark to grow. there is pain.”
i can’t remember ever truly thinking about this. but…i immediately pictured a beautiful sapling, our own “breck”. a baby aspen we brought back from colorado, we have been nurturing it for over a year now, watching it carefully -and proudly, like parents- through the seasons. the smooth bark on its adolescent trunk glows in the sunlight and we worry as we see this summer take its toll on the young tree’s leaves. we notice little scions near its base, our aspen sending out roots to perpetuate itself.
i think of all the walks in the woods, the trails in the forest, the old trees in our yard and neighborhood and i can picture the rough bark, the puzzle pieces up and down the trunk of each tree. somewhere along time, these trees, too, had smooth skins. and then, in growing, the cambium layer’s cells, just under the bark, divided and grew, adding girth to the tree’s diameter in the process. the outer bark continued to protect this inner layer of growth. the job of that outer bark is forefront, keeping the inner tree healthy, as it experiences pain from the environment. and the tree grows.
the bark. the cambium. the heart of growth. and angels.
thank you for the perspective-arranging, jonathan. again.
a few years ago, after my tealight-vessel-throwing-on-the-wheel experience, i felt like i still needed to express myself in another medium (other than music). as much as i adored the idea of throwing pots, the cost of the clay and studio time was not in direct proportion to my level of ability; it was time to put that aside till the budget was flush and i could return to the pottery studio without counting pennies. a tealight vessel (ok, there were a couple tealight vessels if you must know) and one lonely bowl were a total joy but it was clearly going to take some good-long-time to get better on that wheel. demi moore (in ghost) made it look easy. it is not.
and so i went to the art supply store and bought a huge canvas. the biggest one they had in stock. the kind with a deep side (1.5″). i brought it downstairs to the workroom and searched around for paint. since i am not well-versed in this area (to say the least) i selected a can of black paint and a can of white paint. both household paints. latex. semi-gloss. i searched around for one of the old brushes i had been using to paint furniture and i set up my “studio”.
day after day i would go downstairs to look at this spot in the basement. i could feel my excitement gathering. i had no idea what i was going to do with this canvas, but it was ready for me. until one day, indeed, i was ready.
i stood before the canvas and began to paint. i brushed on paint. i threw paint. i spattered paint. i painted over paint. time fell away and i kept painting. i’d walk away and let it dry and then return (this doesn’t take very long with household latex…long enough to pour another cup of coffee or glass of wine) and i’d paint some more. i’d stand back and i could see what it needed (at least what my eye said it needed.)
and then, i knew. it was time to stop. i didn’t know where it was going, but i did know when it was time to stop.
now, i can’t say if the cost of the canvas and studio time were in direct proportion to my level of ability, but i can say they were way less than what my heart felt. these moments, gathered together, a storm of inspiration, fed me.
this painting hangs in the hall in our house. when i sent a photo of it to a friend of mine right after i was done, scordskiii wrote back to ask whose work it was. i told him it was mine, laughing and apologizing for it. he was appalled by my apology and made me promise not to apologize again. so now there are a few more in the living room. arriving after these paintings all had their dedicated spots on the walls of what-is-now-our-home, david, the real painter in our house, said he loves them. i’m always invested in real art made by real people, regardless of the genre, so i love them too. not necessarily because of what they look like. but because of what they made (and make) me feel.
this face entered my life nine years ago now. i had never had a cat before, but my sister and niece conspired when a kitten showed up on heather’s doorstep in florida. my sister had asked me, maybe weeks before, what kind of cat i would want if i had a cat (which she insisted i needed.) not having had sharing-life-with-a-cat-experience (for i know now not to call it “owning a cat”) i was less convinced. but then this little (short-lived on the word “little”…babycat is BIG!) kitten showed up on heather’s doorstep. after searching for its owner, it seemed fortuitous that i had answered my sister with the less-than-emotional-or-even-informed-but-kind-of-more-practical response, “i guess i’d want a black cat so it will coordinate with my clothing and i won’t always be using a rolly-thing to get fur off my clothes.” it was a match!
and, indeed, it was. after many trials, babycat was named “wilson” (a nod to The Boy’s tennis involvement) and we (The Girl, The Boy and i) drove him back to wisconsin, none of us quite sure how to handle his eating and relieving himself, a crate, food, portable litter box, water, toys and our laps handy. he has never ever answered to the name wilson and he totally chose his name babycat, readily answering to one of his nicknames. and so, his dominance over the household started.
babycat was one of those who-rescued-who stories you read about. at just the right moment, he entered our lives. he has been a big (no…BIG) presence ever since. not knowing what cats really do, i taught him many a dog-trick, sitting and speaking on command, coming when called, sitting up to beg for a treat. he was able and, more so, willing. (if he’s not willing, there’s no way to make something happen with him.)
and then david and, subsequently, dogdog came along. b-cat reined them both in, alpha to each of them. a bit more aloof when younger, but never one to hide or totally ignore us, somewhere along the way, he became a cat who wanted to snuggle.
but that face. it’s just too easy to read babycat’s mind. and right now, i agree with him. where DID the summer go?
babycat. he’s a force. and a big (no…BIG) part of my heart.
i’ve never bungee-jumped or parachuted out of an airplane or ziplined across a gulch or dropped on a snowboard off the side of a mountain. but i understand how inspiration can make you do crazy things.
i remember my first album, 23 years ago now, felt like a crazy thing. it was scary stuff, putting my own music ‘out there’; it was scary standing on stage telling the stories that went along with those pieces and playing my first full-length concert. i imagine the adrenalin i had standing in the wings of the stage before the lights dimmed was much like that of stepping off the platform in a body harness ready to fly. now, the scary stuff would be not doing that which i know so well.
so many people who have stepped out – trusting their instincts, trusting their training, trusting their beliefs and values, trusting their resilience. following a path that might look unlikely. following inspiration. seemingly crazy stuff all of it. stuff that opens them to a wide spectrum of possible results, from wild success to something that looks like failure.
all inspired. all crazy. all learnings. all life. it may not all be safe, it may make you feel vulnerable; it may even invoke fear, but it sure is interesting.
every time we get a text from david or molly with a picture of sweet dawson coloring i believe i see an artist-in-the-making. he is intense, all not-even-two-years-old of him. his crayons seem deliberate choices, his drawing coming from a place inside that beckons him to the paper, the cardboard box, the canvas. it’s innate.
charlie is a second grader. he practices batting every day. he has ground down an area of the backyard so much that seth thinks there will never be grass there again. charlie can cite all the players on the kansas city royals and their stats and he will narrate his own one-person ballgame in the backyard, an announcer with great animation and accurate details. such a small person with such a big passion for the game. it’s innate.
khloe, a teeny but mighty seven year old, would come up to the chancel each week and john would let her play the drum set. she didn’t pound, she didn’t arbitrarily hit drums or cymbals. you could see by the combination of joy on her face and an expression of concentration that she was pretty serious. she has the beat. it’s innate.
when my sweet beth and i talked on the phone she said, “i’m not sure how i feel about her going into music.” she was talking about her older daughter, who already has been cast as the lead in three plays this coming school year. i don’t think she has a choice. for emme, it’s innate.
each of us spokes-in-the-giant-wheel come into this world with something. something that is just ours. ours to do. ours to bring. it’s innate. already in us.
if you’d like your own, your child’s or grandchild’s handprints or would like an I CAME INTO THIS WORLD product to read BASEBALL or SOCCER or READING or anything else, we are offering a new option – designing for you and personalizing your own product line. please click on the product collage boxes above to access information about personalizing.
dogdog drags babycat across the wood floors through the house with babycat’s head in his mouth. at first, when dogdog was new to the family, it really frightened us and we admonished dogga for dragging the cat around. but then we realized that it was a game. if dogdog wasn’t playing, babycat would slap at dogdog with his claw-paw and make the chase start. it mattered not who “won” the match, for there was no obvious winner. (although i must say that it appears that babycat is indeed the alpha in the house.) most important for the two of them was the chase. just having fun.
it’s the same with anticipation. i can clearly remember having great anticipation for something-or-other, relishing that feeling, the adrenalin rush, the quickening of heart, the excitement i could feel. when the actual Thing happened, it wasn’t nearly as delicious as what led up to it – the anticipation, the process, the chase to it. the Thing was almost anti-climactic, a sort of denouement of all the details getting there.
albums are kind of like that. the process of writing, practicing, the anticipation, the work, chasing the perfect recording. and then, the tying up of loose ends, the post-project letdown. as much as i wish i could, there is no way i can control what the ‘catch’ will be, whether or not the music will resonate with listeners, whether or not the album will do well in the market.
as an artist, it is all the magic in the middle that matters to me. the chase.
in pondering what to write about this piece, i took out the jacket for the album RELEASED FROM THE HEART. my first full-length album, released in 1995, an hour of my original solo piano compositions, i dedicated it to my big brother wayne who i had lost a few years prior, but whose presence i could feel as i worked on this project.
in the jacket notes, next to this piece IN TRANSITION, i wrote “many changes for many around me. changes give us time and impetus to sort through (and feel) the stuff of our lives – the transitional time.” that would explain the minor, a key that invokes going inside.
i guess i will have to defer back to that. it’s no different now than it was then. there are still “many changes for many around me”. i would have thought that things would feather out on the change seesaw, maybe leveling out a bit. but now, 23 years later from those moments of recording remotely on stage in an auditorium at northwestern university, i see that life continues to be fluid, change continues to happen, we still have to sort and feel and go with the flow, we are still learning, growing, changing, we are ever on that seesaw. still in transition.
reverse threading 