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A Writer’s Life is Many Lives #WDC18 #amwriting

August 15, 2018 by admin

As I come off this year’s Writer’s Digest Conference, I am thinking about how fortunate I am. I get to do work that I love, and when I spend time around other writers, I am among incredibly generous and supportive people. As author Steven James said during his “Story Trumps Structure” workshop, we are in a rare business where people who could be our “competition” come and share everything they know. He likened it to Apple going to Google and sharing all their secrets.

The magic, of course, is that there is  no competition. Each of us has a unique story to tell, so the more of us the merrier. We don’t have to elbow anyone out of the way.

Back home, I am once again immersed in my projects. For one, I am reading about artists, particularly female and self-taught. Think Grandma Moses as one of many examples. I’m also learning to draw and watercolor. I’m not doing this because I want a new hobby, though I suspect I’ll keep at it because it’s fun. No, it’s a way to understand my main character better.

While I continue my research for that novel, I am living (in my mind) in late 19th-century Scotland. This story idea has sent me to Scotland twice and the old mills of Lowell, Massachusetts; introduced me to proletarian novelists such as Elizabeth Gaskell (think contemporaries of Dickens); and introduced me to genealogy.

When I wrote What She Knew, I studied the victims and perpetrators of the Madoff Ponzi Scheme. I was fascinated with the movers and shakers of Wall Street and what would happen if one of them actually grew a conscience.

In short, as a writer I get to live many lives. I get to play dress up and try on new identities. I get to peer inside the heads of my characters, who I grow to love as if they are real people and real friends.

This is a good life. A happy life. A fulfilled life. Last week I met a lot of wonderful writers who share this journey with me, and I am looking forward to getting to know all of you better.

 

Filed Under: art, fiction, women, writing Tagged With: art, research, writers, writing, writing life

Giddiness

September 9, 2014 by admin

Tomatoes
Tomatoes

Here, enjoy this taste of tomato through the Internet. They’re small, just a bit larger than a cherry tomato, but take one into your mouth. Let it roll around your tongue and teeth for a moment. Now, bite down on it. Let it fill your mouth with its juices, sweet yet tangy. Just one will leave you nourished, but go ahead. Take another. We leave the bowl out on the counter and eat them like candy. If you’re old enough, you remember when tomatoes always tasted this good, nothing like the red cardboard you get in the grocery store.

The anticipation began in spring when the first tomato starts appeared at the farmers’ market. When I grow them from seed, it begins even earlier, in egg cartons under grow lights, as the first leaves start to emerge. In late May, when it’s warm enough, I put them outside on my deck. By this time, the plants are already tall enough to need support. In early July, I am harvesting the first fruit.

It’s late summer now, and the tomatoes are just about finished. Here in the Pacific Northwest, tomatoes are the holy grail, difficult to grow because our temperatures remain in a narrow band, never too cold, but never too hot, either. After last year’s bumper crop, friends told me not to expect that kind of production every year. I know they’re right, but I’m too busy eating them to think about next year.

As some of you know, for the past 20 months or so we have been involved with a bitter and nasty legal battle. I can’t and won’t write the details here, because some aspects are still ongoing. However, on Friday, one piece of the battle ended. It’s hard for me to take that in, and my Sunday night sleep was disrupted as it has been for some time. Still, I am freer than I’ve been in some time, and that makes us giddy.

Ancient Madrona by Rachel Josepher Gaspers
Ancient Madrona by Rachel Josepher Gaspers

Port Townsend was filled with visitors for the annual Wooden Boat Festival. The monthly Gallery Walk coincides with the festival, filling our little downtown with people and a carnival atmosphere. We ran into friends everywhere we went, and without the expense of a hearing, we spent some of that money on art. Seems like a better use of funds! I include a couple of photos here, and will follow soon with a photo of the third piece we bought — which has its own separate story.

IMG_2895
Lavender – Fiber Art by Lauralee DeLuca

We are deeply grateful to the friends who have stood by us in our difficulty, to the creative atmosphere of our town, and to the garden that always reminds me of what truly matters.

Taste the tomato and see if you, too, don’t feel as giddy as I do.

Filed Under: art, gardening, Life Changes Tagged With: art, gardening, Port Townsend, tomatoes, Wooden Boat Festival

Random 5 Friday – Movin’ On

November 1, 2013 by admin

Fall is on full display in Philadelphia (taken at the Barnes Foundation)
Fall is on full display in Philadelphia (taken at the Barnes Foundation)

This morning’s Random 5 post comes to you from Langhorne, Pennsylvania. Yesterday we took the train from NYC to Princeton, NJ, where we rented a car and are looking forward to more interesting explorations. Thanks to Nancy at A Rural Journal for hosting the Friday Random 5…I know I say this every week, but some really fine bloggers hook up to her site every week, and are well worth your time!

Here’s my Random 5 for this week:

  1. I love eating seasonally, and that means I’ve been getting more than my fair share of pumpkin. This past week I enjoyed pumpkin hummus in NYC, and last night I had a pumpkin risotto at Talula’s Garden in Philadelphia. Talula’s is spendy, but the food is fresh, local, and exquisite. If you’re looking for a splurge, check it out. We had s’mores for dessert, truly decadent with rich, dark chocolate.
  2. We’ve been fortunate in our lives that we have been able to travel the world and see some of its greatest art. Yesterday we explored the Barnes Foundation, right in good ol’ Philadelphia, which is filled with Renoirs, Cezannes, and the occasional Van Gogh sprinkled in the mix. It is one of the great museums of the world, in my opinion. We walked from room to room, gasping all the way.
  3. Riding around in downtown Philadelphia makes me cringe. We plugged in our GPS (affectionately known as Gertrude or Gertie) to take us to Independence Hall, but at rush hour it’s hard to get in the right lanes and make the turns, so our trip was longer and more stressful than we expected. After more than 30 years of living in Houston, you would think it wouldn’t faze me, but no.
  4. We also saw the Rodin museum. We had no idea that Philly had one, but when we saw it we decided to wander in.
  5. I’m looking forward to spending some time in Amish country. Cities are nice, but I’m ready to get back into more rural settings.

Have a great weekend!

The Liberty Bell...I thought the gardens in front of the building were gorgeous!
The Liberty Bell…I thought the gardens in front of the building were gorgeous!

Filed Under: art, travel Tagged With: barnes foundation, good food, independence hall, rodin museum Philadelpia, Talula's Garden, travel

The Ghost of Emily Carr

May 16, 2012 by admin

Canadians love Emily Carr. They didn’t back when she was still alive, an eccentric woman who didn’t follow society’s rules for her, but decades after her death, this artist and writer is hitting her stride. A Carr painting sold in 2009 went for $2 million. In Victoria, a bronze sculpture of her, complete with signature hair net and pet monkey Woo, greets tourists as they enter the garden area near the Fairmont Empress Hotel. A short walk away, her childhood home is on display for those who love her writings, art, or both.

(For a look at Carr’s art, click here. For a look at her books, click here.)

The sculpture apparently sets some peoples’ teeth on edge because it conveys the oddities of the woman and not her genius as an artist and writer. “This is a sculpture for tourists,” one critic complained.

Carr was well ahead of her time, a woman who chose not to marry in order to marry her art. She spent time in the forests of Vancouver Island, living with First Nations People and drawing images of their lives, including totem poles that European settlers later took down.* She lived in Victoria during its beginnings, born upon the arrival of the railroad, and her writings are rich with description of life in the city that hadn’t yet developed.

Though she struggled most of her life for money (even turning her back on art for 15 years to run a boarding house), she managed to scrounge enough together to study in San Francisco and, later, Europe. Fascinated by the post-Impressionists, her work took on new depth and dimension when she combined her love of Canadian nature with the influences of her European teachers, creating extraordinary works of vivid color and expression.

Though she had always kept journals, she turned seriously to writing late in life, when ill health kept her from traveling to her beloved woods to paint. Her writing gave her recognition, which then led her to Canada’s legendary Group of Seven, Canada’s finest artists of the time. She found a level of success at about the time she could no longer paint.

Carr was considered a “difficult” woman. Her legendary rudeness occurred when she thought young artists were lazy, or when someone was trying to interfere with her own art-making time. As someone who often gets snappish when I feel that others are trying to usurp my work time, I relate to her.

I thought about the many male geniuses whose bad behavior was often excused. Picasso, anyone? Or, we just saw a documentary on Bob Marley, whose influence on reggae and music in general still astounds — but who also seems to get a pass for less-than-stellar behavior. We women, on the other hand, are supposed to be “nice” no matter what. Some things haven’t changed since Carr’s time.

Sitting in her childhood home, I was overcome by her courage and forthright individuality. She reminded me, in her way, to get on with it — to create and to learn, to continue to seek out my own vision for my work. Like Emily, I love nature and animals, but am less comfortable with people. Like Emily, I have often felt a sense of isolation, of not fitting in, which often shows up in my fictional characters. Yet what fascinates me is that Emily Carr, in spite of what people thought, kept on with her craft, creating until the end of her days. I am a sucker for resilient people.

Let me be like Emily and to always create no matter what!

What artist, writer, or other figure has influenced you in your work? Do tell!

 

*Emily’s reputation has endured some controversy about her painting of Native totems. Though it is believed that the First Nations People of her generation supported her desire to preserve the images, other modern First Nations People see her as appropriating their work. In her writings, she herself struggles with her inability to comprehend fully the experience of native life. She also rails against the fashion of the time of “converting” and “civilizing” native peoples. Unfortunately, many of her reflections were edited out of her first book, Klee Wyck, leaving many First Nations People with an inaccurate impression of Carr.

Filed Under: art, women, writing Tagged With: art, Canadian artists, creativity, Emily Carr, Group of Seven, painting, Vancouver Island, Victoria, writing

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