alla prima painting class

I had a fabulous weekend. Friday, Austin Museum of Art's Art School (where I teach bookbinding) sent out an email about an alla prima (Italian meaning 'at once') painting class taught by Laurel Daniel, that was going to happen over the weekend. One of the fabulous things about teaching at the Art School is that you get to take, ummm, I think it's one class for every class you teach, per semester, FREE! Art classes, for FREE! Never mind that somehow this gem of information had escaped me in the last umpteen years I've taught there; it came this weekend, and for a painting class that was FABULOUS!

The whole point of alla prima painting is that it's done quickly, so it's just what you need for painting outdoors (or plein air... Note that to be really cool, all artist's terms are in a foreign language...) where the light changes from moment to moment, giving you at most about 2 hours to paint something before the light is so radically different that it's a completely different painting.

But we were not painting out of doors, because, frankly, the light changes a leetle too fast for beginners to deal with. No, we were working in one of the wonderful new studios at AMOA/Laguna Gloria, with spotlights on little vignettes (see, another French word) set up by Laurel. Still lifes (ok, that one's in English), as it were.

Laurel's technique involves using a warm and cool of each primary color and raw umber and titanium white. So our palette (!) was: cadmium yellow pale, cadmium yellow, cadmium red, alizarin crimson, ultramarine, and pthalo blue... (plus the umber and white). Laurel uses no turpentine or mineral spirits, which makes it a fairly non-toxic art class (you still can't suck your brush or anything, because cadmium is poisoinous and besides, it's hard to get off your teeth and lips). You just use refined linseed oil and Masters Brush Cleaner.

First you mix up blobs of alizarin crimson, ultramarine and raw umber to create a really dark neutral color, like a black but not black. You don't paint with black, actually, because it doesn't really exist in the world of art because it's the absence of color, or something, and it just deadens anything you add it to. So you use dark neutrals or purples. You mix in a bit of linseed oil until you have a nice yogurt-cream consistency mixture and paint your underpainting, complete with some drybrush shading.


Here's a small underpainting for the first painting I did. Notice that the original drawing is scrubbed out because it was too small. This is what you paint over using your limited palette of color. One of the things you have to do when painting is figure out the 'value' of everything, how light or dark it is. To help us start thinking about value, Laurel had us do a value painting using only 6 or 7 tints of the dark neutral paint. Here's that little painting. (These two paintings were on 12x12" canvas boards.) After that we were ready to start our 'big' painting, in color!

At the end of class the first day it got kinda hectic, with Laurel telling us we had 15 minutes to finish so to start throwing on our background colors. Sheesh! Actually, I think that that was the best thing about the class and these paintings: working under a deadline... Because I've never been happier with paintings! Sure there are things 'wrong' with them, but as a whole, they are what I wanted. The painting style is loose, which is something I've wanted to achieve for years! (You'll notice a lot of exclamation points, because I'm just so jazzed about this!) I could go on and on, but frankly, I'd rather be painting!

My Dad

I call my Dad every night... Well almost every night. He lives in NC in a retirement village and I live in Texas, and I call him after 8pm, when my free minutes kick in. He's in assisted living now, 'cos he's in a wheelchair and can't really get in and out of it without help. And, he's getting kind of old (almost 90!) and can't hear too well and has trouble concentrating.

That's something that happens when you get older... You lose the ability to multi-task. Now some of us think multi-tasking is a moral weakness, so this doesn't bother us, but still. Dad can't really concentrate on more than one thing at a time, so, if you want to talk to him it's actually easier to do it over the phone, after he's in bed and the nurses have him all tucked in and everything. He can actually hear you and nothing distracts him and it's this kind of insular little thing between us... And my computer.

We start off on a discussion - tonight we started with him telling me about zarzuelas, because a group had performed one at the retirement village tonight. So he says "Zarzuela," and spells it and I look it up on wikipedia, just like you probably just did... And then I read him anything interesting I find on wikipedia... The zarzuela he heard was Cecilia Valdes by Gonzalo Roig, and I noticed that the singer was Aida Pujol. Now Pujol is an interesting name to me because it's the maiden name of my 2nd ex's mother, whose family was from Cuba. And Dad said he didn't remember that (after I mentioned it to him) but he remembered that when he'd met her, she'd shown him a bunch of old family letters in some variant of German...

Which is because before they went to Cuba, they lived in Alsace Lorraine. So I go to Alsace Lorraine in the wikipedia, but, see, this is the fabulous thing about my Dad...

He already knows all this stuff... Without the wikipedia. Now somehow from here, and I can't quite remember how, we got off onto Finno Ugric. I truly do not remember how, but on this, I could actually read stuff to my Dad that he didn't know! Boy, howdy was that exciting! And we had to hit the Proto Uralic page, too, just for good measure and I was trying to describe the pretty colored map with all the language groups on it and go through the cognates, as well as I could because these are NOT easy languages to pronounce... At least to me.

And then Dad noticed it was after 11 his time and I guess he'd had enough of Finno Ugric so we said good night.

In English.

sick cat day

Ok. Ricë posted a sick cat story, so I have to post a sick cat story. It's not a competition or anything, it's like a theme, a leitmotif... A metaphor. No, maybe not. I guess, really, that reading about Cutie Pie (who sleeps with me when I visit Ricë and Earl so I won't feel lonely) made me remember this story. It's about Abner, who is one of the 'front porch cats.' My next-door-neighbor moved about six years ago and left 22 cats. Now, mind you, she took 38 cats, and would've taken these but she ran out of cars and cat carriers, and so the ones that were hard to catch and the ones that were hanging out on my porch, got left behind. I guess it was some kind of kitty rapture thing... Anyway. It took her car, her sister's SUV and her nephew's van to move the 38, and all she ever had after that was her tiny little car, so the rest of the cats never got moved. That's how I got Abner... And a bunch of other cats, but this story is about Abner.

I truly think that kitties are only really happy when they're well. A couple years ago Abner got into a fight with something. Dunno what it was but it bit him on a front paw when he was out being a cat and by the time he came home, the infection had gone to the bone. When I finally caught him and took him in to the vet's, the vet wanted to put him to sleep, because the leg needed to be amputated, and what good was a three-legged feral cat?

Well, I didn't know, but Abner was a friendly cat, always greeting me, and nice to the other kitties, letting the older cats and lady cats and kittens eat first, so I wanted to save him. What if I just gave him antibiotics? I asked. The vet exasperatedly explained that then at best I'd have a limping cat, which was about as useless as a three-legged cat. And then he quit talking because he could see by the look in my eye that I just wasn't buying it. Didn't help his cause that this was about a year after I fell off the roof and shattered my leg and was told I might never walk again, would surely never dance again, and the best I could hope for was a not-too-noticeable limp... No one suggested putting me out of my misery... At least not within my hearing...

So we did antibiotics. And sure enough, the vet was right. Abner was positively miserable... For about six months. He limped when it was cold or damp. He didn't seem very happy to see me, and there was no little sparkle in his pale green eyes.

I don't know what happened: if the pain got better or he just figured out he was ok and was going to live or what... But now he smiles when he sees me and comes to say hullo and can climb trees just fucking fine, thank you very much, and has very little limp at all...

About as much as I do.

So we commiserate on the cold wet days...

That's what friends are for.

fortune cookie

So, I'm getting ready to teach in the new studio (What? What's she talking about... New studio? Another post, I promise!) tomorrow. This is scary. Do I have everything? I just don't know. I tried to run through the whole process in my mind, but my mind is just, well, I just don't know. I went to the bindery and loaded boxes up with things i know I'll need and then stopped at the local eco store, Ecowise and bought some hemp twine to make the cords out of. I also bought a chocolate bar and chatted about my composting toilet with the owner... Got back in my car and drove home.

I decided after unloading all the crap from the car to walk to a local Chinese restaurant where they used to have curry chicken. It's not too far. So I walked, and of course they don't have it any more. So I ordered another chicken dish and sat there eating slowly like I learned from Ricë and Earl and they brought me the check (the waiters, not Ricë and Earl) and my fortune cookie. I looked in my purse and... No wallet. I remembered leaving it on the dash of the car when I left Ecowise. So I had to convince them to let me go get it, which they were loathe to do without an ID, but, of course, I didn't have an ID because it, too, was on the dashboard of the car. I told them I'd leave them my iPhone, but they didn't care. "How do we know it's yours?" they asked. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why it mattered if it was mine; it's still worth more than a $9 Chinese dinner no matter whose it is, but when I promised to leave my whole damn purse with my DIARY, they agreed.

So I RAN home. Well waddled. But still, very quick for me. And I retrieved my wallet and went back and paid and resumed eating.

My fortune?

Your heart is pure and your mind is clear.

Goodness gracious....

... It's been a long time. The last time I was writing, I was getting ready to set off on a road trip, The Cake Baking Road Trip, which took me from Texas to upstate New York and involved visiting a lot of friends and relatives and baking a lot of cakes. It was very fun, and I was just too busy having fun to write. And then, when I got to Phoenicia, NY, I had no internet access and my cell phone didn't work, and to reach civilization, I was forced to drive 20 very scenic miles to Woodstock and sit in the library parking lot where I could access the internet on my computer and talk on my cell phone at the very same time.

It took me a week to get to NY and about 2 1/2 days to get back, which was not a good thing. Too much driving for too long. The trip back, however, did involve a stop at Hot Springs National Park, which is one of the weirder national parks, considering it is on the main street of downtown Hot Springs AR. It's there because that's where the hot springs are... Under the street on Bath House Row. What's so cool about the park is that you can stash your car in a garage, and walk over to the Buckstaff Bathhouse, which is a fabulous old timey bathhouse that makes you feel as if you stepped back into the '20s. You can also fill up your bottles with water from the hot springs at a fountain on the street. The water comes out at 147 degrees, though, so you don't want to use flimsy plastic bottles!

After I got home to Texas, I promptly flew back to NC for the semi-annual famdamily beach trip. It wasn't the whole family this time, and it was probably our last beach trip with Dad, as it's gotten too difficult to get him out of bed and into his wheelchair. So... Sad, but fun and Bald Head was beautiful. Got back to Austin and went to Midland to do a book signing with Ricë... And give a 'sermon' at the UU church... And party and have fun... And then I was off to Oaxaca for ten days with twenty crazy artists and Michael deMeng. Now that was a total and complete hoot! Michael does 'ahhsemblage' for those of you who are not familiar with him. The trip included several days of hitting markets in and around Oaxaca, and did I mention it was over Dia de los Muertos? How could I have forgotten THAT! So cemetery visits, and ruins and museums and restaurants and bars and mezcal and oh my land.

Then it was back to Austin and the tree lot. Yup. I run a Christmas tree lot every year for one of the animal clubs in town. You know... The Lions, the Elks, the Rotarians, the Kiwanis... Animal clubs... And I are one. It's how we raise money for youth charity, and it's a lot of work, but really fun and about the best damn smelling job you can have on the planet, providing you're not allergic to conifers.

And in and along with all of this I broke a bone in my foot, had boils and had my kidneys fail... So it was a real doozy of a year.

One more about the Rez...

...And then I promise I'll stop! Through various circumlocutions in the blogosphere, I found an article in Nature. As I mentioned before, I took a bunch of classes that summer, and one was led by several medicine men. They took us out and showed us plants they used to heal and we were allowed to attend various ceremonies they performed.

The most famous Lakota ceremony is the Sun Dance. This is a celebration of the summer solstice that's held some time during the summer near that time. A couple of different medicine men on the Rez had sun dances that summer, but the one our class participated in was by Pete Catches.

In order to participate in the sun dance - known for people who 'dance' suspended from a pole to which they are attached by long strands of rawhide held by stakes that pierce the pecs - you have to be clean, purified... You have to undergo a sweat lodge, and this in the middle of the South Dakota summer heat! Of course, if you're going to be staked by your pectorals to a pole in the hot sun, I guess a steam bath is a pretty moderate thing...

Sweat lodges are sort of tents made from flexible willow poles, covered with old blankets and quilts. There's an opening with a cover and a pit in the middle, which is filled with smooth rocks from the river that have been heated in a fire. The rocks are really, really hot. The participants go inside and the medicine man throws water on the rocks, making a lot of really, really hot steam. Everyone sings sweat lodge songs and tries not to pass out. Our class was designated to cut the willow branches for the sweat lodges, a big honor in and of itself!

Now, because this is a sacred ceremony, you have to cut the willow branches in a sacred way. You can't just go down to the banks of the lovely Little White River, where the mint grows wild in the shade of the willows, and start chopping away, no, that would be too easy.

You have to say prayers, out loud, to the willow spirits while you cut them down. You don't want to offend the willows, because that would be bad, ummm, karma (wrong Indians, I know). First you drape the willow you're going to cut down with tobacco ties. Almost anything religious is going to involve tobacco ties. I think different medicine men may make them different ways, but the ones we made had cloth of six colors: blue (sky), white (north), red (east), yellow (south), black (west), and green (earth), each with a pinch of Bull Durham in the middle, tied onto a piece of yarn. You say a prayer for the success of your project each time you tie a piece of cloth on. Usually you have to make 49 of these, so that's a lot of praying before you even get started with the damn willow trees.

You go down into the grove and focus on a good looking little willow plant and tell it how sad you are that you have to chop it down, but that it's for a good cause, it's going to be part of the sweat lodge for the sun dance, the annual renewal rite for the people, and, boy howdy, what an honor that is; it should just be glad it doesn't have to hang suspended from the pole! Then you grab the plant right next to it and cut it off at the ground!

Of course the willow you had hung with ties and were talking to was terrified the whole time and shaking and stuff. And the little willow next to it was being all sympathetic and unawares and NOT terrified, so it dies a little willow death with a clean, uhhh, whatever willows have that keep 'em going. And the willow you didn't chop down is soooo thankful that you didn't chop it down that it breathes a sigh of relief and all the willows in the little grove feel better! Needless to say it takes a long damn time to cut down enough willows to make a sweat lodge.

There were ten or fifteen people in my class, so we spread out in the shade of the willows on the banks of the Little White. Since there were so many of us, we were in groups of three or four, each person tying his or her ties on a willow, talking earnestly to it - which is hard to do with a straight face in front of witnesses - and then grabbing the tree next to it and hacking it down. "Oh, yeah, I felt THAT collective sigh of relief!" the guy next to me said as I hacked down my poor little willow.

The medicine men were standing with our teacher, Scott Quimby, on a bridge. (They called him 'Spiritual Leader' when they shook hands with him at the beginning of class. "Ahhh," they would say, "Spiritual Leader! How are you today?" And Scott would blush, and say "hullo," and the medicine men would laugh.) I walked up onto the bridge to ask Scott a question. Below me I couldn't see my classmates, I could only hear the murmur of voices as they talked to the trees and see the trees tremble. And the medicine men were laughing...

Nowadays it seems like there's a lot of talk about Indians holding ceremonies for white people and how it pollutes the pureness of the ceremonies. It's a big topic on the Rez, so I'm glad I was there thirty years ago and got to do what I did.

Serendipitydoo... Indian country!

So, in that last post, I wrote "The politics on Pine Ridge, and, to some extent, on Rosebud in those days have filled several books. They were over my head at the time, and probably still are. Let's just say it could be a pretty dangerous place." OK, folks... This is actually an understatement. It is a BIG understatement. I just understated it so ya'll wouldn't pester me with questions that I couldn't answer.

I went to the library the other day to pick up a couple of books. At the big library in town, there's a little display area at the entrance, and there, sitting on the shelf, was the book: The Unquiet Grave: The FBI and the Struggle for the Soul of Indian Country, by Steve Hendricks. I grabbed it. The other books I'd asked for were mysteries, perhaps good ones (I'll let you know) but they weren't real and they weren't about the Rez. I picked up this book and I couldn't put it down. It's fascinating. You need to read it.

It's not just that you need to read it because you're interested in this blog and my story about the gas cans. You need to read it because it's about the utter, cold-blooded perfidy and incompetence of an organization which states that their mission is: “...to uphold the law through the investigation of violations of federal criminal law; to protect the United States from foreign intelligence and terrorist activities; to provide leadership and law enforcement assistance to federal, state, local, and international agencies; and to perform these responsibilities in a manner that is responsive to the needs of the public and its (sic) faithful to the Constitution of the United States.” That's right... The FBI.

Now, I know you. You may think you don't have time to read this book. It's summer.... You're on vacation. Ok. You can listen to the author being interviewed by KEXP's Mike McCormick. It's in two parts, and it's about an hour long. Believe me, it just scratches the surface, but it's fascinating.