Speed of Light

You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon

2012-01-23T08:43:00.010-06:00

One of the things I most like about reading is stepping into a subculture I know next to nothing about. Siobhan Fallon does a very convincing job of revealing contemporary American Army culture in her short story collection, You Know When the Men Are Gone (Amy Einhorn/G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2011). Fallon earned her MFA from the New School in New York City and lived at Fort Hood while her husband was deployed to Iraq, great credentials for her slice-of-life fiction. Most of the stories take place in and around the haunting, insular world of Fort Hood on the outskirts of Killeen, Texas.

One story that stood out for me was "Leave", where Chief Warrant Officer Nick Cash breaks into his own house as if he was on a strategic mission. And he is. Having strong suspicions his wife is having an affair, he lays low in the basement, coming out only when his wife and daughter depart. They do not know that he is on leave. He eats MREs and grazes lightly on food in the fridge when they are gone. He inspects the house for clues to what might have changed in his absence. A string of week days are one thing, coming one after another in a similar fashion. Nick knows the true test will come over the weekend. Will there be another man sitting down to dinner or staying the night? Is he simply paranoid, so used to searching out the enemy that suspicion has become his modus operandi? I won't tell you which way this story goes. You'll have to read it yourself to see, and I hope you find it to be every bit the masterpiece I consider it to be.

Although these stories are not often interconnected as far as characters go, a device that can make a collection more like a novel, there is much similarity in tone. An enormous tension lies just under the surface of the lives of the wives and children of the deployed, almost as if roadside bombs were to be found all over the home front. And when the warriors return, many seem to bring the ticking of such bombs home with them. Much as the soldiers display signs of post-traumatic stress, the spouses and families stateside might be described as having a constant stress disorder: before, during and after deployments. Although the collection portrays difficult themes of loneliness and loss, I also glimpsed much compassion, perseverance and strength.

The book's title implies an emphasis on the female point of view, yet we also step into the minds of the enlisted men. In "Camp Liberty", an American soldier starts to fall for his Iraqi translator only to have her disappear. In "The Last Stand", a wounded soldier returns home to a wife who is ready to give up the ghost of their marriage. We've all read war novels, but how often are we given the chance to go behind closed doors on an army base? If you are at all curious, You Know When the Men Are Gone is a good place to start. Just remember, this is fiction. The author's spare but revealing style may almost convince you otherwise. And that's a compliment!

Thinking Back to my Childhood Fascination with "Christina's World" by Andrew Wyeth

2012-01-09T13:20:00.006-06:00

I did not have much exposure to art as a young child. Other than the usual portraits of U.S. Presidents hung in our classrooms, I rarely came in contact with paintings or reproductions of paintings. But I have a very early memory of seeing a full size reproduction of Andrew Wyeth's painting, "Christina's World," quite regularly. Of all places, it was hung in the children's room of the Floral Park Public Library in Floral Park, Long Island, New York. I must have seen in about every two weeks for many years.

Now I wonder who decided to hang it there and why, for it was not what anyone would consider children's art. I might have asked my mother about it. Why was the young woman crawling up a hill? Was that her house? She seemed so alone. Either my mother told me, or I just intuited that perhaps Christina could not walk. I may have found it a little sad, but most importantly, I also felt a certain empathy for her. In the 1950s and early 60s, the sight of people living with polio disease was not uncommon. Some of my schoolmates and neighbors had polio. I also recall with great fondness a few children with intellectual disabilities and/or deafness that lived in our neighborhood. I played with them, and later did some babysitting for special kids. For awhile, I thought of becoming a special ed. teacher.

Recently I had the opportunity to view a videorecording of Andrew Wyeth talking about his life and art. He talked about Christina Olson and the painting. For three decades, starting in 1939, Wyeth used members of the Olson family as models for his paintings. By the time this was painted, Christina (who did have polio) was no longer young. Wyeth's wife actually modeled for the painting, but its essence is based on Wyeth's recollection of Christina crawling. The house at the top of the hill is the Olson residence in Cushing, Maine, now a part of the Farnsworth Art Museum complex. Some day I would love to visit both the Olson House and the Wyeth Center at Farnsworth, which features the work of N.C., Andrew and James Wyeth.

But back to the painting and my connection to it. As a fiction reader, I've always had a strong attraction to characters who make me care. If they suffer, so do I. When they find happiness, I share in their joy. This started way back with when I was reading Lois Lenski and Louisa May Alcott, and continues today, including favorite authors such as Anne Tyler or Richard Russo. There has to be an emotional hook. My sense of empathy has to be awakened. In visual art, my tastes run wider. But the suggested narrative of "Christina's World" probably appealed to my yen for story. I wanted her to turn around and tell me how she was. Was the world a beautiful place to her? Was she lonely? Was the smell of the grass sweet and familiar? Did she have a big family living up in that house on the hill? And though it took me several decades to really get the full scoop, I still feel a powerful sense of mystery gazing on this most familiar painting. I own a reproduction of it myself.

I was a bit starved for at growing up. We did have good art classes in the Floral Park public schools, thank goodness. And once I became a Girl Scout, I was lucky enough to make friends with a girl whose father was a painter. He taught us how to oil paint! I may have been taken to the Metropolitan Museum in Manhattan a few times. Yet the walls of our house held little art, partly because my father did not approve of making holes in the plaster. Oh well, perhaps the deprivation was good for me -- eventually I escaped to college, where I was an art major, and since then, I've been guilty of having plenty of colorful art around. Can't live without it. And my mother (who turned 93 a few days ago) picked up a paint brush at age 70 and began making some amazing oil paintings, which line the walls of her house to this day.

"Art to me, is seeing. I think you have got to use your eyes, as well as your emotion, and one without the other just doesn't work. That's my art." - Andrew Wyeth

image: "Christina's World" by Andrew Wyeth, Museum of Modern Art, NY (tempera, 1948)

Quilting for Christmas

2011-12-22T12:32:00.008-06:00

Just in the nick of time, I am done with this little quilt I made for my niece. Now it is wrapped and ready to go under the Christmas tree. Tomorrow I get to spend the day with said niece, making Christmas cards and delighting in her company.

Thanks to all who read this blog. Life as a retired lady has gotten so busy I am blogging a little less frequently. But sharing my thoughts and images here is still a pleasure. Happy holidays!

Favorite Books, 2011

2011-12-10T10:25:00.012-06:00

I'm such a book nerd, I write down my impressions of the best books I've read on index cards to keep in an alphabetized file, giving me plenty of access for writing projects, etc. This practice goes back to second grade, where Mrs. Palmer, one of my favorite teachers at Floral Park Bellerose Elementary School, rewarded us with stickers for our index card lists of books we had read. I also found this useful for readers' advisory work in public libraries. I also keep electronic files of all the books I've reviewed for Library Journal. Without further ado, here is my list of favorite novels read during the year 2011, (some published in 2010):

Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson. A British woman wakes up every day not recognizing her husband or home until a doctor suggests she start keeping a daily journal which she keeps hidden from her husband. Amnesia done well –- full of suspense.

Happy Now? by Katherine Shonk. Claire Kessler, artist and home stager, recovers after her husband’s Valentine’s Day suicide. A believable portrait of grief and healing.

Emily Alone by Stewart O’Nan. A widow’s solitary life, full of small epiphanies and hard-won wisdom. A literary delight.

Friendship Bread by Darien Gee. Three women bond in a new friendship based on a pass-along Amish bread dough starter shared with their Illinois town. Feel good fiction, recipes included.

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. Victoria Jones, freshly emancipated from the foster care system, sleeps in a public park and grows a small garden. Her love of flowers becomes her career path, but she faces many demons along the way. An intense first novel.

Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell. When her father dies, Margo Crane quits school and learns how to survive living alongside a river in rural Michigan. She becomes a sharpshooter, but is much less on target with interpersonal relationships. A tour de force novel of gritty self determination.

Remember Ben Clayton by Stephen Harrigan. After losing his son in World War I, Texas rancher Lamar Clayton decides to commission an artist to make a memorial sculpture of his son. Sculptor Francis Gilheany and his daughter Maureen start the commission, but run into many complications and emotional minefields. A literary masterpiece with much gravitas.

South of Superior by Ellen Airgood. Waitress/artist Madeline Stone moves from Chicago to Upper Peninsula Michigan, the place where the mother who abandoned her grew up. A quirky book full of wonderfully drawn, idiosyncratic characters.

To Be Sung Underwater by Tom McNeal. Film editor Judith Whitman tosses aside her hectic, stale life for periods of contemplation that eventually send her on the road back to Nebraska, in search of Willy Blunt, her first love. Their unfinished business runs deep, resulting in a haunting, elegiac novel. One reader on Amazon compared this book to The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy, and I thought that was an apt comparison.

The Widower's Tale by Julia Glass. When Percy Darling, a retired librarian/Luddite curmudgeon living outside of Boston, rents his barn to a group who want to start a private school and starts a new romantic relationship, his life gets a lot more complicated. Add in one daughter who is a workaholic doctor, her clueless, always floundering sister and a beloved grandson flirting with eco-terrorism, and you’ve got a compelling novel full of complicated relationships.

Art for a Cause: Labyrinths

2011-12-03T14:17:00.025-06:00

Last month I donated two collages to an auction for Veriditas offered on the Bidding for Good website. For a description of Veriditas, here is some copy from their website:

The vision of Veriditas is to activate and facilitate the transformation of the human spirit. The work of Veriditas centers around the Labyrinth Experience as a personal practice for healing and growth, a tool for community building, an agent for global peace and a metaphor for life.

I am a strong believer in all things-labyrinth related, which has led to much use of labyrinth imagery in my artwork. Some of those labyrinth pieces are for sale at Lucia's Garden in Houston.

Anyway, the auction took a few weeks and whenever I checked, the bids on my collages kept rising. When the event wrapped up, they sold for nice sums, all profits going to Veriditas. My personal gain is knowing they went to people who strongly connect with my art. And so it goes....

Collages by Keddy Ann Outlaw:

Altarpiece 08: Femina Mundi
Altarpiece 41: Path to the Labyrinth

To Be Sung Underwater by Tom Mc Neal

2011-11-22T09:53:00.005-06:00

Judith Whitman, a film editor living in Los Angeles comes home from work one day to find that her husband has bought their daughter a new set of bedroom furniture. The old birds-eye maple bedroom set sits marooned in their backyard out by the pool. Thus begins To Be Sung Underwater (Little, Brown and Company, 2011) by Tom McNeal. Some twenty-five years ago, Judith helped her father refurbish the maple furniture for her basement bedroom. Their living arrangement was improvisational, taking place in Rufus Sage, Nebraska where her father, a college professor, had fled following a separation from Judith's mother. The relationship between father in daughter evolves into one of shared respect.

During Judith's last summer in Nebraska before heading out to California for college, she falls in love with a blue-eyed carpenter named Willy Blunt. This was one sweet, true man. Now she can no longer forget him. She still carries a picture of him hidden in her wallet. The maple furniture set represents that vividly recalled summer and when her husband discards it, Judith takes the protective stance of renting a storage unit. Nothing unusual there. But then she feels compelled to recreate her bedroom within the unit. She retreats there often, falling into reveries of memory and reexamination. Ultimately this leads to her hiring a detective to find Willy Blunt.

One more complication: it seems Judith's husband Malcolm may be having an affair with a bank coworker. Some of these plot devices sound hackneyed, but in McNeal's hands, they ring true. He skillfully interweaves Judith's present with the past. And the past starts to win to the point that Judith risks her job and marriage seeking resolution. Readers feel the same compelling pull of tenderness Judith experiences recalling the past she shared with Willy. Sounds sentimental, I know, but somehow this novel was anything but. I found it to be a powerfully compelling read. At times it was surprising, emotional and bittersweet. I could keep slewing forth more adjectives, but none could quite encompass the depth so well explored below the surface of ordinary lives in this novel. Thank you, Tom McNeal.

Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan

2011-11-09T14:51:00.004-06:00

I slipped into Emily Maxwells' world seamlessly, into her home on a quiet street in Pittsburgh, and into her mind where past and present circle and meander, intertwining effortlessly with the classical music she often listens to in solitude. Emily Alone (Viking, 2011) by Stewart O'Nan is not for everybody. I am sure many readers would find the bulk of this novel rather mundane. Other readers will savor every small epiphany in Emily's often orderly days. I know I did.

Emily is a widow of a certain age. She rarely sees her adult children or grandchildren, who live in faraway cities. Her most constant companion is her sister-in-law Arlene, who also lives alone nearby. Together, with one or the other of them cautiously driving, they adventure out to breakfast buffets, funerals, art and garden shows. Intimations of mortality abound, not only when Arlene enters the hospital after a fainting episode, but also when Emily's aging dog Rufus rapidly starts gaining weight. Rufus also ably serves as Emily's familiar; some of my favorite passages involved her comments and near-conversations with the dog.

O'Nan does a wonderful job of portraying Emily's mindset via a third person point of view. I had been reading a few too many novels with multiple points of view, and it was such a welcome change to thoroughly settle down with just one character. To some extent, I identified with her thought processes. She second guesses herself, analyzes things, judges others and herself, and beats herself up for much of it, all very believably. Driving to her old hometown of Kersey, she ruminates on how badly she had needed to distance herself from the place and who she had been there, "where everyone knew her as a teacher's pet and a crybaby." She used to throw tantrums and could not get along with her mother. But now she demonstrates greater wisdom, coming "to think of everyone close to her with a helpless tenderness, accepting that life was hard and people did their best."

Yes, this book blew me away with its quiet accretion of wisdom and wonder. I had only ever read one other book by O'Nan, Last Night at the Lobster (Viking, 2007), which did not really rock my world. Now I have an earlier book about Emily Maxwell and her family to look forward to, Wish You Were Here (Grove Press, 2002). Although it might have been nice to have read it first, I don't think it much matters. Spending more time with Emily Maxwell, alone or otherwise, sounds just heavenly.

Photos from the Land of Enchantment

2011-10-31T08:34:00.009-05:00

New Mexico photos by Keddy Ann Outlaw

Collage Fun on Flickr

2011-10-21T13:41:00.007-05:00

A few weeks ago, I made my first altered postcard pictured above, entitled "The Family Cactus", an exercise I might never have done were it not for my membership in the Flickr special interest group called Post Collage. One comment on this collage really gave me a laugh, noting all the "prickly" relatives.

It's been fun meeting other collage geeks on Flickr. Some of the Flickr collage groups I've joined are Vintage Collage Art, Waste Cut & Paste, SoulCollage and Collage Crazy, among others.

Another feature I've come to enjoy on Flickr is the ability to "curate" galleries. You can assemble small shows based on Flickr images. I was in New York visiting my mother and found I had the time to create a few galleries, mostly collage, but also including abstract art and word-related photos. I combed Flickr to find images that really appealed to me. What fun! Often people are flattered when you include their work in a gallery, and make contact to tell you so. To take a look at my galleries, click here.

"Collage is the noble conquest of the irrational, the coupling of two realities, irreconcilable in appearance, upon a plane which apparently does not suit them." - Max Ernst

Addition by Toni Jordan

2011-10-16T13:53:00.009-05:00

Addition (William Morrow, 2008) by Toni Jordan takes the reader deep into the mind and soul of Grace Lisa Vandenburg, places very full of numbers, formulas and theories. No, she is not a mathematician. She has an obsessive-compulsive disorder, and although she had been a working member of society, she lost her teaching job after a playground breakdown. Her carefully ordered world involves a strict schedule. Grace shops, eats, and sleeps by the clock and calendar. She calms herself by counting bristles on toothbrushes, seeds on cake and letters in names. She graphs the weather in her Melbourne, Australia locale. Her favorite numbers involve sets of 10. Other than weekly phone calls with her mother, her sister and favorite niece, Grace has little connection to people. She keeps a photo of inventor Nikola Tesla on her bedside table; indeed her mind is a catalog of facts about him. Her adoration for him is safe and sustaining.

Talk about a quirky character! Grace is funny and self-deprecating. It was unnerving at first to spend time in her world. I knew something would come along to challenge her. She was obviously bright, and she had settled into an existence that seemed way too careful and dull. She hasn't had a date in more than two years when she meets an Irish fellow named Seamus Joseph O'Reilly in her favorite cafe. She manages to fall into his arms, and thus her careful world takes on some new dimensions. With the addition of a boyfriend, will Grace become more whole and/or "normal" (whatever that is...)? When Seamus begins to untangle the story of her childhood, trying to get at the root of her obsessive counting, Grace tells a half-truth. Then she tries mightily to rehabilitate herself to please him. Of course, the arc of their relationship has it ups and downs. So I'll say no more about how the plot develops. Grace is one character I'll not soon forget. Addition is a touching, unconventional romantic comedy I'm glad I spent a few hours reading.

Memoir: an Interview with Bonnie L. Casey

2011-10-06T09:17:00.027-05:00

In 2010, I read and blogged about Growing in Circles: My Struggle to Make Peace with God, Myself, and Just About Everything (Two Harbors Press, 2009) by Bonnie L. Casey. We connected online at Here Women Talk, where I facilitate a discussion group called Creative Intentions. We also met for lunch in the DC area one fine day last fall. Bonnie is a medical and scientific editor at the National Institutes of Health, and also writes blog posts, articles, stories and music. To my delight, she has become a big fan of my collages. It has been great to fall into a friendship with Bonnie, and I am most pleased to present this interview with her.

What galvanized you to the point that you knew you HAD to write your memoir?

I “had” to write my memoir in the same way that I “had” to give birth to my son after nine months of gestation. With my legs up in stirrups, I realized that childbirth wasn’t really an act of volition—it was happening because its time had come and I was merely the vessel of emergence. Melodramatic, perhaps, but that’s really how I experienced the process of writing Growing in Circles. By 2008, with determination and an army of helpers sought and unsought, I was finally recovering from the serial trauma of parental, spousal, and cultural abuse that had bound me to cycles of depression and self-hatred for as long as I could remember. I was coming to terms with recent losses and old wounds and finding a new spiritual grounding. But I knew intuitively that I couldn’t complete my recovery and learn to accept joy and inner peace until I found a way to let go of my past. The urge to write my story finally became overwhelming, like the urge to push after 19 hours of labor. All I needed was a matrix for combining accounts of my personal and spiritual journeys—a way to organically connect my history with the story of the creation of the Sacred Circle that had become central to my spiritual growth. As soon as I found that matrix, Growing in Circles virtually wrote itself in three months. When friends who know me as fiercely private and introverted ask what moved me to reveal such intimate details of my life, I tell them the simple truth: that whether or not anyone else ever read or understood my story, I had to write it down so I could get past it and move on.

Your blog “My Write Mind" is one of my favorite online subscriptions. Tell us what being a blogger means to you, and comment on where your inspiration for topics comes from.

After I wrote my memoir, I realized how central writing had become to my emotional and spiritual well-being. So, as an extension of the practice of mindfulness, I started to write short literary essays about finding grace, wisdom, and humor in the ordinary events that propel us through the seasons. I wrote sporadically while searching the Internet for someplace to park these quirky little pieces—a site, perhaps, with the title “Occasional Forum for Earth-Loving, Moon-Worshiping Crones with an Itch to Write Short Essays on No Particular Theme.” When this search proved fruitless, I filed my half dozen essays on a flash drive and went back to journaling. As my memoir attests, it can take a while for circumstances to drop-kick me toward the obvious, but the light eventually flickers to life. In this case, one morning I awoke to one of those “Duh!” moments and thought, “Well, if I can’t find the right website for my writing, I’ll just have to create one.”

Besides imposing much-needed discipline on my writing process, the blog’s greatest gift to me has been the opportunity to see my experience through a new lens. After I was divorced, my son was grown, and I had severed a lifelong connection to a church community, I fell into the habit of defining myself in terms of what I’d lost. I became somewhat reclusive, not entirely by choice, as my universe shrank to the rounds of maintaining my job, property, and person. But setting myself the task of writing and posting a monthly essay forced me to find inspiration from within what I had come to think of as “my small life.” The blog graces me with the insight that, at least once a month, something happens that opens me to love and wisdom, or absurdity and humor. And if I’m tempted to give in to the urge to hunker down and close my door to the outside world, the thought that I’ll need something to write about next month will often be the impetus to accept an invitation or seek out a new experience.

When I taught college writing courses, I’d exhort my students to write about “the leaf, not the tree,” to craft a vivid word picture of a single oak leaf rather than a blurry image of an entire forest of oak trees. Now that my days have become a collage of small leaves, I have a chance to put that theory into practice, to find meaning in the act of living an ordinary life and, in so doing, turn it into a work of art.

Tell us a bit about your connection to Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. (I must add here that hearing of Bonnie's love for the book, I reread this beloved childhood classic and found it absolutely endearing once again. Honestly, there's no such thing as being too old for The Wind in the Willows. If you'd like to read it too, be sure and find an edition with the Ernest H. Shephard illustrations.)

The small town where I grew up had one drab public library and one tiny, poorly stocked bookstore. My mother, an avid reader and bibliophile, was eager to acquaint me with as many of the classics of children’s literature as possible, so when she couldn't find a title in the library, as was often the case, she would cajole the bookstore’s proprietor into ordering a single copy for her. One day she proudly presented me with a small Avon paperback edition of The Wind in the Willows, on whose flyleaf she had glued a bookplate and written my name in her elegant script. The corners of the little book were rounded instead of squared, and the heavy card-stock cover showed Ratty, Mole, Badger, and Mr. Toad enjoying an outing in the idyllic English countryside. The story itself was enchanting and hilarious and planted one of the first seeds of my deep, mystical connection to Britain and all things British. In my teens, as I became disillusioned with the religious culture I was raised in, I realized that Grahame’s four animal friends embodied an ethos both simpler and more profound than the dogmas of conservative Christianity: reverence for nature and its seasonal rhythms, the joys and obligations of friendship, patient acceptance of one another’s differences, appropriate awe in the presence of the supernatural, and recognition of the sanctity of afternoon tea. When my Avon paperback started to get shabby I graduated to a hardbound edition illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard. This probably explains why, as most of my generation were identifying with The Catcher in the Rye, I was dreaming of “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” (chapter 7 of The Wind in the Willows).

Thank you, Bonnie!

Putting a Price on Art

2011-09-28T14:10:00.009-05:00

What price art? That is a thorny question. Yes, I want to to sell my collage art. Coming up with a price is tricky.... Cynics look at collage and see a few pieces of paper glued down. Those who have tried their hand at collage, quilting, mosaics, etc. know that a lot goes into assembling all those small pieces together. It begins with the hunt for materials, then more time is spent assembling and cutting various pieces for the composition. Some will be used, some not. I use archival matboard as a substrata. It is sold in big sheets and must be cut up into usable sizes.

Also needed: a sense of color, balance, design, and some sort of theme. The theme may be clear cut from the get-go, or evolve during the process. And let's not forget tools: various scissors, a paper cutter, glue, rulers. If you get into adding more media, the list is endless. I use Copic markers (the most expensive kind), colored pencils, paint. Sometimes I use stencils. For my assemblage projects, the ingredients list grows much longer and esoteric.

Perhaps the hardest thing to factor is time. Some collages come together magically with little or no fuss or agony. You sail right through and it feels like heaven. Others start easily enough, but may take hours to finish. The last few pieces are usually the trickiest for me. Knowing when to stop is a part of any creative process. And how do you measure the time that you have spent developing your craft?

Anyway, all this comes to mind as we come up into the fall and winter holiday season. Yesterday I placed a bunch of small assemblages with the Texas Art Asylum here in Houston. They have had four other larger works for months. None have sold, so it was certainly hospitable of them to take a bunch more. I checked on my labyrinth-themed art on consignment with Lucia's Garden. None have sold. Yes, the economy is much challenged right now. But I am determined to push my particular boulder uphill. I have signed up for the AIGA Annual Art Festival taking place at the Heights Theater on November 5th. My art is also for sale through taostaos.com and Saatchi Online. Caladan Gallery also still provides access to fifteen works from my Summer of 2011 solo show. Recently, I have also donated art to charity auctions. After the new year, depending how things go, I may try selling through Etsy.

It's not that I would starve unless I sell my art, it's that I'd love to get it into the hands of people that would appreciate it. I'd like to think my art matters to more people than just me. I know my life is much enriched by the art I surround myself with, and by the art I view in museums, books, etc. I find a parallel in what Adrienne Rich said of poetry, that it is: "News in verse that men and women require as much as their daily bread." Visual art, too, provides longed-for sustenance.

collage by Keddy Ann Outlaw: "Citrus 3", in homage to Jeff McKissack, creator of the Orange Show

Michigan Gals

2011-09-20T14:19:00.005-05:00

When I think of Michigan fiction writers, Jim Harrison is the first one to come to mind. Now I've got two more talented writers from the Wolverine State to keep up with: Ellen Airgood and Bonnie Jo Campbell. They are both Michigan residents who have written fine novels about gutsy young women.

South of Superior (Riverhead, 2011) by Ellen Airgood stole my heart. Although her mother's family was rooted in McAllestar, a small town in the Upper Peninsula (U.P.), Madeline Stone was raised in Chicago. When she was very young, Madeline's mother abandoned her and she was adopted by a kind-hearted woman who recently died of cancer. Soon Madeline packs up her life in Chicago and moves north to the U.P. She stays with two sisters (one sweet and one rather sour) well into their senior years, one of whom (the sour one, Gladys) used to live with her grandfather. She begins to meet many colorful, cantankerous, but good and generous townspeople, folks who have survived many hard times and long winters. Madeline loses her heart to a young boy whose mother is incarcerated. She works for, but then loses the trust of a man who seemingly works 24/7 trying to make a living as as a prison guard and pizza maker. Before too long, Madeline harbors dreams of renovating the rundown and quaint hotel owned by Gladys' family. She begins to paint pictures of Lake Superior as seen from the attic window of the hotel. Will Madeline make peace with the tangled bits of family history she uncovers? Will she and the town take to each other? McAllestar in winter is not for sissies. Will she make it there, and will her dreams flourish? Read it and see! I promise you it is worth it. Ellen Airgood knows the U.P. well, and it shows. She and her husband run a diner in the Lake Superior town of Grand Marias, Michigan, perfect credentials for writing this cozy yet unsentimental, homespun type of fiction.

Once Upon a River (Norton, 2011) by Bonnie Jo Campbell is not for the faint of heart, as the novel involves plenty of guns, guts and blood spill. Sixteen year-old Margo Crane emulates Annie Oakley, and becomes quite the sharpshooter herself. Usually she hunts deer and other four-legged protein sources. But if the people she loves are in danger, Margo is quick to draw a weapon. When her father dies following a real mixed-up, messed-up family feud, Margo quits school and starts living by her wits alongside the Stark River in rural Michigan. Sometimes she lives in boats, at other times she takes shelter with men of all ages. She becomes a skilled manipulator of men, not that she's always wise in the men she chooses. Readers quickly learn that Margo is bound for trouble at every turn. What kept me from finding Margo's sometimes violent odyssey unbearable was her deep connection with nature. Margo loves the silence of the woods, the rise of the river, birds in flight. Attuned to the wilderness, she manages to evolve and survive. Once Upon A River is a novel of endurance I won't easily forget.

Recent Collages

2011-09-11T12:22:00.023-05:00

RedBlueGreen

Of the Earth #1

Ferris 13

The Empty Vase

Cartographia #3

2011, Keddy Ann Outlaw

Three Good Novels

2011-08-28T15:00:00.028-05:00

I just finished A Good Hard Look (Penguin, 2011) by Ann Napolitano. Perhaps you've heard of it, since there has been a lot of buzz about a book daring to introduce writer Flannery O'Connor as a fictional character. But actually she is not on stage in this novel very much, crippled by lupus, homebound at her mother's farm in Milledgeville, Georgia, writing her novels and stories, sitting out on the front porch surrounded by her raucous brood of peacocks and other birds. Instead, the main characters are mostly townspeople, some who have regular contact with Flannery, some none at all. Yet their lives very much resemble one of her short stories, full of tragedy and rare moments of grace. Although I couldn't totally buy some of the goings-on pertaining to these characters, I very much admired Napolitano's portrait of Flannery. Her stubbornness, bluntness and lack of sentimentality are a few of the characteristics that really rang true for me. Although I have found reading O'Connor to be something like a daunting, scream-filled roller coaster ride, years ago I went through a stage of literary curiosity where I dipped into The Habit of Being, O'Connor's collected letters, so I know enough to say that Napolitano truly called forth the writer's essence. Never mind the other characters -- my favorite scenes involved Flannery and her peacocks. "The birds soothed her; their bright colors and disdainful expressions were precisely what she wished to see." (p. 288)

Solomon's Oak (Bloomsbury, 2010) by Jo-Ann Mapson is the kind of domestic fiction I think of as my bread-and-butter reading. Recently widowed Glory Solomon lives on a farm in California where an two hundred year-old large white oak tree reigns supreme. Photographers and seekers from around the world often stop by asking for permission to hang out under the tree's branches. Glory's husband built a small chapel near the tree, and she has started offering catered weddings there. Her finances are so tight she also holds down a job at the local Target store. She is also a dog trainer. Against her better judgement, she takes in a pierced and tattooed foster child, Juniper McGuire. Their rocky relationship is bettered when photographer Joseph Vigil, a former cop recovering from a painful gunshot wound, becomes a regular visitor to the farm. All three characters are suffering. And I found I very much cared what happened to them, which for me is the essence of a good read.

I've been meaning to catch up with Sarah Addison Allen ever since I listed Garden Spells as one of my favorite books of 2008. I picked up The Girl Who Chased the Moon (Bantam, 2010) in an airport a few months ago, and by the end of a long day of travel, that book was fully consumed. Emily Benedict is seventeen years old when she meets her (eight foot tall) maternal grandfather for the first time. She moves into his home in Mullaby, North Carolina, hoping to learn more about her deceased mother. Instead she has stepped into a fairytale; the wallpaper in her room changes much as a mood ring might, and ghost lights appear in the yard. She becomes friends with Julia Winterson, a baker whose cakes represent all her hopes in the world, having aromas so powerful they seem to rise up off the pages. For more sweetness, there are romantic elements. And of course, secrets bubbling under the surface of the town. Add it all up and you've got a frothy, offbeat fun read. If you like Alice Hoffman, you'll enjoy Sarah Addison Allen.

Those Loveable Waltons

2011-08-20T10:52:00.006-05:00

I am deep into Season Six of The Waltons. At the end of Season Five, John-Boy had his first novel published and moved to New York City. He was moved to tears at leaving Walton's Mountain and I admit it, my eyes were not dry either. My IRS tax refund gift to myself this year was a complete set of The Waltons tv series. My husband keeps asking me what I'll do when I finish the series, which runs to nine seasons. I truly don't know, for I find an hour or two of Waltons daily to be most satisfying.

I've written before about my enjoyment of books that have homespun appeal. Much of Earl Hamner's oeuvre, including books, film and tv, has that Depression-era, down to earth, homespun quality. But did you know he also wrote for The Twilight Zone and Falcon Crest? Not to mention the screenplay for Charlotte's Web (1973). Somewhere in my Hamner research and reading, I came across an anecdote where Earl Hamner answered the phone from his desk where he was finishing up his Charlotte's Web script. The caller asked why he sounded choked-up. His answer: "A spider just died."

But back to The Waltons. One of the things I appreciate is the religious differences between Oliva (Michael Learned) and John Walton (Ralph Waite). She is a Baptist and he is unchurched, although he does go along to church every once in awhile to keep the peace or see his children perform. At various times in the series he is called to explain that life is a great mystery, and that we are all a part of it. He walks his own walk, which matches his talk, and he is an archetypal good father. Not that Olivia doesn't keep hoping and trying to convert him to her faith! I also love the way the family has its squabbles but always manages to come together. Yes, that might be a little idealistic, but there is also a great deal of realism involved in depicting the whole 1930s and 40s era rural Virginia way of life. Butter gets churned, pennies pinched and treasured, wood chopped, hand-me-downs worn and made over into quilts.

For me, the Waltons are salt of the earth type folks, exemplifying common decency and compassion for others, be they human or animal. Grandpa Zeb Walton (Will Geer) is a walking encyclopedia of mountain ecology, folklore and family history. His wife, Esther (Ellen Corby) is one of tv's most delightfully vinegary characters. The entire clan is based on Hamner' own family, including a preponderance of red hair amongst the children. Richard Thomas is brilliant as John-Boy. I admit it, I have trouble believing these characters are not real. I care deeply what happens to them. And so I treasure watching each episode, down home on their mountain, no matter that most of the filming took place on some Hollywood lot. The wonderful voice-overs introducing each show are read by Mr. Hamner himself.

In 2002, Earl Hamner and Ralph Giffin came out with the book Goodnight John-Boy: A Celebration of an American Family and the Values That Have Sustained Us Through Good Times and Bad (Cumberland House), which I have enjoyed consulting as I work my way through the series. Some day I would like to visit the Walton's Mountain Museum in Schuyler, Virginia. I'm all ears for any view-alike type recommendations of what to watch when the last goodnight sounds from that cozy Walton's homestead. To close, here is an exemplary quote from the series.

Olivia Walton: [after John Boy has read her a poem for her birthday] "John Boy, those words were just like listenin' to music. I don't really understand what the poem meant, but I think those were just about the most beautiful words I ever heard."
John Boy: "Well, I think the poem has a meaning, um, to me; it means that some things which may seem too simple, or unimportant, or even just downright plain, those things are really every bit as important and every bit as beautiful as the most magnificent things in the whole world." - from Season 2, episode 13, The Air-Mail Man.

The Girl in the Blue Beret by Bobbie Ann Mason

2011-08-11T13:39:00.008-05:00

I sometimes have to be talked into reading World War II fiction. It is perhaps too easy to dismiss the topic, thinking we've heard it all before. But when one of my favorite authors, Bobbie Ann Mason, came out with The Girl in the Blue Beret (Random House, 2011), I stepped up to the challenge, and am here to report it was well worth the effort. I felt the same way last year when I read The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (Knopf, 2010), a title included on Texas Library Association's 2011 Lariat List. Both seduced me with their Parisian atmosphere and brooding, troubled characters.

Come to think of it, I've probably learned more about World War II from fiction than from reading history. Maybe some of that knowledge is a little less than factual, but I'd like to think I've gone deep into the whole worrisome gestalt of the time period and gained both compassion and insight. One of my library customers, a World War II vet, read nothing but World War II books for the twenty-something years I was privileged to be his librarian, and sometimes he shared small remembrances of the war with me. Also I will never forget a Holocaust Museum Houston program we hosted at the library where a Holocaust survivor came to tell us his story of concentration camp survival and release.

Mason's The Girl in the Blue Beret was inspired by the wartime experience of her father-in-law, Barney Rawlings. The novel closes with a selected bibliography as well as acknowledgements to the many experts and survivors she interviewed and corresponded with during the course of writing the novel. Although I'm no authority, the novel felt extremely authentic and well researched. It took me awhile to warm to retired jumbo jet pilot Marshall Stone, the novel's main character, but I felt interested in his quest to return to France and bind up the loose ends left hanging for decades since the wartime when his B-17 was shot down and crash-landed in Belgium near Nazi-occupied France.

Stone and his surviving crew members were hidden and helped by members of the French Resistance. He especially recalls a teen-aged school girl named Annette, who wore a blue beret and led him around Paris. Her family hid and helped many such Americans, forging false identification papers for them, making sure they were guided across the Pyrenees mountains into Spain. When Marshall finds Annette, now a widow, the whole tone of the novel deepens and finds sure ground. The back story of what happened to Annette's family and other brave members of the Resistance who helped Marshall and others, brings all the barbarity of the war into sharp focus. Marshall will be forever changed by what he learns from Annette and others. He realizes how little he really knew back then when he was just another cocky flyboy. "He had been ignorant. Maybe he had never learned anything truly important until these last few days."

Reading The Girl in the Blue Beret, we are witness to all that was horrible and all that was heroic from that time in occupied Europe. Annette shrugs it off, but I for one, was immensely moved by both her story and unforgettable spirit. Bobbie Ann Mason blew me away back in 1985 with her Vietnam War-related novel, In Country, and she's done it again with The Girl in the Blue Beret, and for that I am thankful.

Costa Rica!

2011-08-06T07:44:00.014-05:00

Eight days in Costa Rica gave my camera a real workout! I wish Blogger would let me write about each photo directly underneath it, but no luck there...(if anyone knows a way to get around this limitation, I'd love to hear about it). Although most of my photos were family snapshots, here are a few others in homage to a beautiful country. My favorite things about Costa Rica were: the incredible tropical foliage, the wildlife, the people, the food and art. One by one from the top, here are the photo descriptions:

1. A Pacific Ocean sunset as seen from the deck of El Avion restaurant, Manual Antonio.

2. My camera batteries gave up on me right after this shot of a monkey climbing onto our tour boat during a mangrove swamp tour. They were white-faced capuchin monkeys, and they scampered back and forth from our boat to the shore when the tour guide offered them coconut meat. One even scampered over my head!

3. A ubiquitous Coca-Cola sign.

4. Rather dreamy foliage as seen through a van window during light rain. (This is the rainy season in Costa Rica. How I wish we could divert some of that rain here to Houston.)

5. My encounter with a toucan at La Paz Waterfall Gardens.

6. Sarongs for sale at market in Manual Antonio. My sisters-in-law and I bought plenty of those!

7. Heliconia plants in the rainforest.

8. Tree canopy -- so lacy and green. Someone told me this is called the monkey tail tree, but I'm not 100% sure of that.

Eco-tourism is certainly a big part of the Costa Rican economy. At times I felt there were a few too many tourists everywhere we went, even though the rainy season is said to be the slow season. Being a tourist is always a little uncomfortable for me, but all the Costa Rican people (known as Ticos) were so warm and welcoming, I had to get over that. Going green is a natural for Costa Rica. They have plenty of beauty to preserve. So much of their food is locally grown: bananas, pineapple, coconut, coffee, etc. As a librarian, I was impressed to learn they had a 96% literacy rate. Many people speak both Spanish and English. Their national brand is "Pura Vida", the pure life, and is also used colloquially meaning full of life, the good life, going great, etc. Heres to la pura vida!

photos by KAO

Dance: an Interview with Liesa Bassoi Pedersen

2011-07-25T07:37:00.016-05:00

Lisa Bassoi Pedersen is the founder of Masouda Dance Ensemble in Plattsburgh , New York. She and I were close friends in college, where we shared our love of books, art, crocheting and life in general. Liesa was the first person I knew who had a green thumb, and to this day I picture her pinching her coleus house plants in just the right manner to make them thrive. Liesa became a dancer after I left Plattsburgh, and although I have yet to attend one of her dance events due to the long distance between us, I have kept up with her ensemble via emails and youtube.

How did you get into belly dancing?
I come from a mixed ethnic heritage from NYC - my favorite family functions were weddings on the Turkish side complete with mesmerizing music and Belly dancers! In the 60's, my beatnik older sister took me to the 8th Avenue clubs in Greenwich Village & I was hooked! I took folk dance & modern dance classes as a teen; and Turkish dance at the local coffee shop & art gallery where I went to high school. I started serious study Middle Eastern Dance with Amira (Joanne Ives) in Plattsburgh NY in the 80's.

Tell us about the evolution of your Masouda Dance Ensemble.
I loved being in my teacher's dance troupe "Hayetti" (my heart, my life - Arabic). When she retired I took up the torch and formed my own group. Masouda means happy, lucky, fortunate in Arabic. I consider us fortunate to spread the joy of dance! I formed it in 1993 as a collection of students to perform at local functions. As time went on, the ones that stayed pursued studies in dance and our tone evolved into a finely honed professional group. Some of my troupe members have studied in Egypt. At this point the core group has been with me over 15 years; and all the members have had extensive dance training in various areas of dance and movement. The newest member joined a few months ago. I am very proud of the hard work, energy, and creativity that they put into troupe.

Tell us a bit about what's involved in belly dance choreography and costuming.
Music drives the choreography - Arabic music has an emotional quality produced by quatertones; and the percussive TEKs of the doumbek drum make it impossible to sit still! I start with a piece a music that calls to me; or with an idea that calls to me. Then I work out the nuts and bolts of the choreography according to basic movement principles. I make notes with how many beats are in a certain section; draw pictures of the sounds of the music; write a story about the music - I have a lot of tools in my box. It is like any other endeavor to me: inspiration + sweat = result. I am constantly dreaming of dances, movement, body placement.
Costuming: same as above but more challenging due to money and time constraints! I design most of the costumes for troupe, classes, and my solo work. Then it's a matter or how to make, what parts to purchase, what's affordable, who can sew, etc. I cull ideas from everywhere and am constantly dreaming of colors, fabrics, shapes...I research traditional Middle Eastern Dance costumes, current styles, and theatrical treatments as well.

How does teaching dance inspire you?
I love to share the growth of my students as dance leads them to a place of freedom, self acceptance, and a joy in music and movement. It's been over 20 yrs and I never tire of the process.

How does dance inspire and/or change the lives of your students?
Most of them say things along the lines of "It has opened up a whole new world for me"; "I always loved to dance; now I have somewhere to channel that"; "I had no body confidence or awareness, now I have gained some" and my favorite "I've become addicted to Belly Dance - there's just something about the music and the movements!!"

What's next for you? To keep the next generation of dancers growing so I can pass the torch on when the time comes!

Thank you, Liesa!

Photos by Ron Nolland:
Liesa on stage.
Masouda Dance Ensemble, 2011,bottom L to R: Ali, Ilana; middle: Treza, Samian, Erika; top, Caitie, Liesa, Paul Pedersen, drummer for the Ensemble.

Despite the Near Drought

2011-07-21T10:48:00.020-05:00

Despite this summer's near-drought conditions, some of the foliage in our yard continues to flourish. And yes, our water bill has been larger than our electric bill for a couple of months, even though we take certain water conservation measures. Houston is a difficult summer gardening locale and I am always looking for plants that thrive in spite of our heat and humidity. Here are some photos of the happiest plants that produced the large water bills. Not shown -- brown grass and the bare spots where the tomatoes used to be.....

1. Last of the sunflowers, in front of a jicama vine growing towards the roof.

2. Unknown hanging plant that grows strangely embryonic looking flower heads.

3. Coneflowers (Echinacea) -- largely dependable, and the flowers last a long time.

4. Blanketflowers (Gaillardia).

5. Two tiny Meyer lemons (hope you can see them) on a miniature tree the Friends of West University Library gave me a couple of years ago.

6. Hibiscus growing in a planter on the patio -- they come and go in the space of one day.

Photos by KAO

The Journal Keeper by Phyllis Theroux

2011-07-11T08:01:00.006-05:00

I borrowed The Journal Keeper: a Memoir (Atlantic Monthly, 2010) by Phyllis Theroux from the library, but halfway through it I knew I better order my own copy; there were just too many passages worth keeping. In other words, this is a book of uncommon substance, rich and thought-provoking. The author is very much a reader and thinker, peppering her memoir with brief excerpts from a wide range of writers. Theroux skillfully relates their wisdom to whatever is going on in her life. She dips into Ralph Waldo Emerson, Karen Armstrong, Lao-Tzu, Eckhart Tolle and Gary Zukav, to name a few.

Theroux is a journalist, novelist and creative writing teacher based in Ashland, Virginia. To hear her tell it, Ashland is a small town laced with colorful characters and charmed views. But it doesn't much matter where Theroux lives because wherever she goes, her writer's eye for detail paints a vibrant picture. During the course of the five years presented here, Theroux loses her mother, who she had been lovingly sharing her house with. Suddenly, the writer is alone. Her three children are grown and gone. Matters of mortality, aging, independence, home maintenance, faith, finance, love and family are given careful consideration.

In Theroux's contemplative search for what matters most, her journal is the perfect stomping ground. As per Ralph Waldo Emerson, "There is guidance for each of us and by lowly listening, we shall hear the right word." Such "lowly listening" is presented as her own inner voice, the one she searches out so carefully. And here is her angle on the process of keeping journal that I most loved: that journals are a place "to collect the light" and can function as a personal cheering section. Journals can also be a ragbag of impressions, later laid out into a beautifully embellished quilt, and that indeed, is what I found in Theroux's insightful book.

Here is one passage that exemplifies her substantial way with words:
Yesterday was a perfect summer day. All the earth was perfectly moist, the weeds came up easily, the grass glistened, and I spent nearly all day outside planting flowers, pulling up lamb's-quarter, and reclaiming the garden. It is beginning to have a luxuriant cared-for look. And even though, at various times during the day, I realized I was alone and should perhaps be uneasy over this, I dismissed the thought as unworthy of the day itself.

Perhaps this book can be most enjoyed by those in midlife or beyond. Enlightenment and wonder sure to follow!

My Collage Show @ Caladan Gallery

2011-07-01T13:48:00.039-05:00

Marjorie Kay at Caladan Gallery made my day back in January when she awarded me with the opportunity of having a solo exhibit this summer. Well that time has come. Visit Caladan Gallery to see the 15 "Altarpiece" compositions in the show.

I had just begun the Altarpiece series when the opportunity to show at Caladan came to me. My sense of purpose increased and the series expanded. Buddhas and goddesses, labyrinths and mandalas rolled into my picture frames. From my point of view, many of these ancient symbols and forms seem still to be magically alive, as well as full of mystery. Perhaps my Unitarian Universalist faith is also involved, because we believe there is wisdom to be found in all the world's religions and spiritual practices. Although the initial series wound down after a few months of focused play, I'm sure eventually there will be new pieces forthcoming. Happy Fourth of July, and thanks for taking a look at my collages!

collages by Keddy Ann Outlaw:

Altarpiece 1: The Widow's Altar

Altarpiece 16: Compassionista

Altarpiece 39: Chaos Balanced

A Poem: Dream E & F

2011-06-26T16:18:00.010-05:00

Back in my poetry-writing days, I had fun submitting work to small and/or obscure journals. It was always a pleasure to have a poem published. If you hadn't ever seen the publication you sent work to, it could be tricky. A couple of times I was rather disappointed by the look of the zine, or the company I found myself in. That was not true of Dream Machinery, a delightful small journal that published dream poems. If I could find my copy, I would gladly supply the editor's name, but I could not put my hands on it today. But my notes indicate that this poem was published in Volume 1 of Dream Machinery, 1994.

DREAM E & F

Elvis and Frida
dance together,
he still a teen
in his movie usher uniform,
she even younger,
a schoolgirl in the days
before the bus ran her over.

A,B,C,D,
E & F.
Elvis Forever,
Eternally Frida,
equally flamboyant.

After they dance,
they shop the racks of Limbo,
but the clothes are monochrome.
Either heaven or hell
would have had better shopping,
they agree; better colors:
pomegrante red, electric
guitar lustre blue, gold
sequined grandeur, and
cadmium yellow.

On Earth
their images
multiply: on posters
and apparel, notebooks and
3-D post cards.

In Limbo they have
vague recollections
of gaudy fame.
They know they are different
than the rest of the crowd.
They keep busy, Elvis looking
after his stillborn twin Jesse,
Frida fussing over an imaginary friend.
But sometimes when they dance
it comes back to them,
the adulation, the sweet, sharp
tastes of life, was it a dream?

- Keddy Ann Outlaw

photo by KAO: Memory Lane Inn

Collage: the Circle Game

2011-06-18T12:23:00.011-05:00

Alongside my series of collages on labyrinths, I've begun a new set of circle-based collages. Limiting yourself in any way through choice of shape, colors or theme helps to focus the choices. Just as in writing haiku, having certain restrictions really forces your hand. Cutting the circles is something of a meditative act, since it takes patience to get the circle cut correctly. I do have a handy circle cutter for circles larger than four inches, but even using that tool, sometimes the circles come out slightly imperfect. You just have to work with that and often due to the overlapping nature of collage, you can hide the imperfect edge.

Beginning collage artists might appreciate doing an exercise limiting themselves to circles, as it makes the overlay and fitting together process much more intuitive. There are no jagged edges or complicated jigsaw-like pieces involved. I've also begun mounting some of my matboard collages on wood which I wrap with paper, creating a frame effect. I am experimenting with different lacquer, varnish and gloss mediums for a final durable finish.

We are having a season of drought here in Houston, and the temperatures are getting into the three digit zone, so unless you get out and about in the morning or late evenings, it's hard to stay outdoors for long. I am thankful for air conditioning, and for my continuing collage practice, which keeps me inside, cooled down and busy. Tuesday, June 21, 2011 will be summer solstice, which I plan to commemorate with an early morning labyrinth/photography walk. Happy Summer Solstice to all!

Art images by Keddy Ann Outlaw: Wheel of Life, Labyrinthia 13 and Going South (collages on archival matboard and wood)

Dederer, Hall and Howe: Three Good Biographical Reads

2011-06-07T08:24:00.015-05:00

After finishing my novel-reading duties for the TLA Lariat task force, I have (finally) found more time for reading memoirs and biographies. I've got three good ones to tell you about today: Poser: My Life in 23 Yoga Poses (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010) by Claire Dederer, The Best Day The Worst Day: My Life With Jane Kenyon (Houghton Mifflin, 2005) by Donald Hall, and My Korean Deli: Risking It All For a Convenience Store (Henry Holt, 2011) by Ben Ryder Howe.

Indeed, my favorite YMCA yoga teacher liked Claire Dederer's book so much, she read us a short excerpt in class one day. But you don't have to be a yogini to get into Poser. Although the topic of yoga gives this book much of its structure, topics such a marriage, motherhood, and individuation make it the touchy-feely memoir it is. Dederer, a New York Times journalist is one of those brooding, cerebral types who definitely needed to get out of her mind and into her body; thus the yoga. Sampling various yoga classes and calming herself down, Dederer gains in both strength and spirit. Bonus asides include her prickly analysis of popular culture, especially involving the crunchy granola crowd she and her husband find themselves living among in both North Seattle and Boulder.

I remember being so struck and upset by the early death of poet Jane Kenyon, who died of leukemia in 1995 at the age of 47. Although her husband, poet Donald Hall's biography was published ten years later, obviously it took me awhile to get around to reading it. The Best Day The Worst Day reconstructs their marriage in alternating chapters between sickness and health. What a privilege it was to step into their shared life in the New Hampshire farmhouse they loved so much. Read Kenyon's poem "Otherwise" (also the title of her posthumous collection) to sample her deceptively spare yet potent style. I know so much more about both poets after reading Hall's bighearted biography. See also the Bill Moyers documentary, Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon: A Life Together.

My Korean Deli is a book perhaps best enjoyed by those who have some familiarity with New York City and Brooklyn. What an offbeat book. Why? Because Ben Ryder Howe is not the kind of person you'd expect to own a Brooklyn deli. He also had a day job as an editor at Paris Review. He and his Korean-American wife, Gab (a lawyer) buy the deli for Gab's mother, Kay, whose work ethic demands but cannot afford such a business opportunity. Howe and his wife move into the basement of Kay's home on Staten Island in order to save money for their convenience store project. Of course, such an undertaking has disaster spelled all over it, not that they don't enjoy some level of success. Even George Plimpton, the infamous editor-in-chief of the Paris Review, asks if he can play stock boy for a day, although in the course of the book he dies before this fantasy can be played out.

One of the things I most love about biographical nonfiction is the way such books integrate disparate elements of one person's life into a whole narrative. Interweaving the strands of multicolored lives, the best biographies and memoirs remind us that life is a tapestry whose pattern, however random, can indeed be made sense of when reflected upon and shared.

Adding Text to Photos, a Popular Pastime

2011-06-02T11:04:00.010-05:00

I don't always like photos or art with verbiage inserted, yet I find myself playing with it myself. Photo editing software makes such a task pretty darn easy. Sites such as I Can Has Cheezburger? attest to the popularity of adding captions to photos.

Perhaps it was a blogger's block, but this morning I first thought of doing an update on my 2008 Not So Commonplace Books post, where I presented a handful of quotes I'd collected in various notebooks. I browsed through my collected quotes again and then began to look for a photo to use with whatever I presented. Instead I started doodling with adding text to an old photo I'd taken of palm tree twigs. Their swirly contorted form delights me. And thus the captioned photo above was created. That feels like enough for this week. Otherwise, I am busy getting ready for an art show. More on that in a few weeks.....

"What one relishes, nourishes." - Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1734.

photo by KAO: Palm Twigs

Friendship Bread by Darien Gee

2011-05-28T06:54:00.004-05:00

Take one grieving mother (Julia Evans), an about-to-be divorced concert cellist (Hannah Wang de Brisay), a widow who just started a tea room (Madeline Davis), add a bag of Amish friendship bread starter, some good small town Illinois atmosphere and you've got a yeasty sugary/spicy novel named Friendship Bread (Ballantine, 2011) by Darian Gee. Add in access to all sorts of friendship bread recipes on the official Friendship Bread website, and you've got a phenomenon!

This novel falls into the cozy women's fiction niche that I so enjoy in between other more literary or genre-busting novels. For me, one of the most important appeal factors in fiction is characters I can care about, worry over and sit with in times of trouble. This novel provides that: all the main characters have their issues and problems, and somehow through the sharing of a bread starter and a few cups of tea, connections are made and new friendships born. Who can argue with that?

When I first started working at HCPL/West University Library in the early 1980s, my coworkers were into sharing a sourdough starter they named Herman. They passed around bags of dough, and for reasons I can't recall (perhaps my hectic big city social life), I never accepted the offer of a bag of Herman to take home. Prior to my professional career in librarianship, I was involved in an upstate NY back-to-the-land lifestyle that involved plenty of bread baking (on wood stoves, no less). Maybe I was taking a break from baking after I moved to Houston. Now I love to bake, and later today will be making a strawberry rhubarb crumble to take to a family gathering this weekend. Although recipes are included in the Friendship Bread book, I'm not sure I will ever get into the project because of the rapidly-multiplying starter factor much exemplified in the novel.

Also, most of the recipes seem to involve the eventual addition of Jello pudding mix. I'm sure these recipes result in some unique and tasty sweet breads, but somehow the use of Jello doesn't sound very Amish, does it? However, I will be reaching for Gee's next novel in this new series, which I learned she is busy writing. For a first novel, it looks like she is having incredible success, and I'm curious to see how the recipe evolves in the next installation. Bon appetit!

Creative Writing: an Interview with Chris Woods

2011-05-19T10:14:00.007-05:00

Christopher Woods is a writer, teacher and photographer who lives in Houston and in Chappell Hill, Texas. He recently completed a darkly comedic novel, HEARTS IN THE DARK, about a radio talk-show host. His photo essays
have appeared in Public Republic, Narrative Magazine, Glasgow Review, Best Fiction and Deep South. He shares a gallery with his wife Linda at Moonbird Hill Arts. I first met Chris via a creative writing class I took many years ago at Rice University Continuing Studies. Here is one of my favorite poems from Chris:

Edward Hopper’s Women

So easy to call them fragile,
but that is how they appear
their eyes fixed on something
still unnamed.
Moving and not.
Inside the wide world of a room.
Or through a window, staring into the void.

In the end, all that truly matters
is that they continue to gaze.
that their eyes have not yet closed
in private defeat, even if the world itself
has given up the cause.
Their faith is not in what they see,
but in what they seek.

Out there, beyond a world
always so very close to breaking.

How does teaching creative writing affect your own writing practice? I think it helps. Teaching keeps me involved with others who are being creative. It helps me to know how others work, what they write about, what is meaningful to them. Because I submit my own work, I am familiar with the writing markets. I share this information with my classes. In my mind, it is all connected.

I know you often assign writing exercises involving photographs. Do you write from visual images yourself? Personally, I find that a single image is seen and interpreted differently, and often quite distinctly, by each person. This is because we have different pasts, memories and life experiences. A visual image can awaken something inside us in a way that a written prompt cannot. When I am writing, I often begin with a visual, whether imaginative or simply something I have observed. It rarely fails to ignite the creative process. Images can dip into our subconscious.

You have had many plays produced. What has that been like? There are few more exciting things than to see one's characters come to life on stage. Different actors bring something new to a role, no matter how many times a playwright sees a work produced. I have learned much from actors and directors. I am thankful for the collaborative effort to produce theater. Most writing comes about in solitary confinement, so to speak, so to work with others on a play is completely different, and I think most rewarding.

Do you write every day? Tell us a little about your creative process. I do not write every day unless I am trying to complete a longer project. I write when the spirit moves. But I usually do something related to writing every day. It might be to make a submission, or to correspond with an editor. I make notes. I revise. I work on photographs. I keep my foot in the creative river. I am always reading, usually literary journals.

Who are your favorite writers? There are some writers that I have admired for many years. William Stafford comes easily to mind. I like the French existentialists, the Latin magic realists. In plays, I like the work of Harold Pinter most. I am also inspired by photographers and painters.

What's next for you? I am working on a collection of photographs and texts. The working title is "Ruralities" and the book is about life in the country. My wife Linda and I have had a place in the country for five years, and our lives have changed so much. I have been publishing photographs and various kinds of writing with the "Ruralities" theme, and I realize now that it might be good to collect them in book form.

Thank you, Chris!

Photo and text "At the end of every road..." by Christopher Woods

Photo of Chris by Linda Woods

The Rich Symbology of Labyrinths

2011-05-12T08:05:00.000-05:00

Labyrinths have found their way into my artwork for the last year or more. I like to use them in two ways: as symbols of wholeness, and then the reverse: when chopped and broken, to reflect the disharmony of our modern world. For me, labyrinths are both simple and complex. I have been powerfully drawn to labyrinths since I first set foot on one in the late 1990s.

My favorite labyrinth in the Houston area is located at the University of St Thomas, next to the St. Basil's chapel. What makes walking this labyrinth particularly pleasant is not only the wonderful stone inlay work, but also the ambiance. There are some lovely rose bushes encircling the labyrinth as well as three fountains spouting water, which help to drown out any traffic noises on nearby Alabama Street. Walking a labyrinth can be a form of spiritual practice, prayer or meditation. Lauren Artress, author and renowned labyrinth facilitator refers to the labyrinth as a watering hole for the spirit. Her book, Walking a Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Tool (Riverhead, 1995 and revised edition 2006) is essential reading on the topic.

To find a labyrinth near you, go to the Labyrinth Locator website. To learn more about labyrinths, visit The Labyrinth Society or Veriditas websites.

collages by KAO: Labyrinthia 1, Broken Labyrinth #5, The Path to the Labyrinth.

Painting: New Mexico Artist OlgaTeresa Gonzalez Baigus

2011-05-03T09:28:00.021-05:00

OlgaTeresa Gonzalez Baigus is a friend from my college days in upstate New York. She has always been tremendously inspiring to me. When I first met Olga, she was active as a poet. Later she became a dancer, and now a painter. She lives and works near Taos, New Mexico. Since the two of us could talk for hours about our mutual fascinations, it was difficult to narrow this interview down, but I think her answers to the few questions we have room for introduce her Gestalt very well. To see more of Olga's work, visit taostaos.com

You were a dance teacher for a number of years. How does dance influence your painting? My orientation in both Art and Dance is communication. Gesture and Line are basic considerations when I do figure drawing, landscapes, and even portraits. As a dancer we are always aware of place in space, silhouette, negative space, and communication through line or stance. As a choreographer I am always aware of composition and placement in space. All of this combines into my work with Visual Arts (painting, drawing, printmaking)and the difference between the two art forms (Dance and Visual Arts) is seamless for me, unambiguous, and inseparable.

What is your proudest accomplishment as a painter?
To date, it is the ability to communicate to the viewer. I am a selling artist, and those who buy my work are particular and "Get the Connection". I can make art and dance for myself; however, in both painting and dance, it is the ability to communicate to whoever appreciates and is affected by the work that matters. Such appreciation continues to enable the flow of the "Creation Gift" that is a definition of my existence.

Do you start a painting knowing what it will be, or does the work unfold?
Sometimes. I am currently into a body of work using painting as a narrative... a social, spiritual, political comment or question. Because of this I use preplanned layout, impact with color, mixed media etc. However, I am the kind of artist who feels some other thing or one works through me ("Within me and Without me"). I feel at a point I plug into a creative flow and another hand, beyond Myself is at work... so my work takes a turn sometimes that I know not how it entered, what or why it did what it did, and what it means. I do not fight this impulse... this is the most important part of the art... and many times I look back at the piece and do not know who painted it.

Did you enjoy drawing and painting as a child?
Yes always. I was in love with the Crayola Box. I was a first born Hispanic to the USA with Puerto Rican and Cuban immigrant parents. I was born in 1950 in the Bronx, New York City. When the 64 Crayola Crayons came out, it was paradise for me. I had bags and bags of crayons. I do not know how I kept from eating them...the colors meant so much. The smell of the wax! I loved the rough texture of most of my earlier coloring books that took the wax pigment so well. I lusted after comic books and spent eternal hours trying to copy Marvel comics, though I was prompted by a very strict mother who said I shouldn't read boys' comics so much... So I amassed a large collection of Little Dot (I loved her Dots), Nancy and Sluggo Art, and later Katy Keene (who took me through many lonely years by allowing me to make total fashion lines for her...many bridal gowns that looked like birthday cakes).
I also remember seeing Miss Frances' Ding Dong School, on our tiny black and white TV in 1955. We sent away for a special film we could stick on the screen and then with special pens so I could draw what Miss Frances drew. I was obsessed with the early Color Forms (squares, triangles, etc. that you could stick to a special board)... I would make cities and perspective and try to redraw them on paper. I always loved the paints in school and raised my hand for all paint projects... finger paints, poster paints. My Mom loved the paint-by-number oil paints. She was meticulous and taught me to fill in the shapes carefully. I wish I had more training when I was young, and encouragement to be free with my art. However, thanks to the comic book world and to black and white cartoons, Terrytoon Circus and Max Fleischer productions (dark and strange as the black and white mice and cats danced across the screen to music) and Walt Disney, I was given courage. My mind is in this neverland. I also cleave to Juxtapose and graffiti art, though I also have passion for more classic art... I see the same in both.

What's next artwise?
I am renovating my website (If I can conquer Dreamweaver) and want to open an online gallery to sell my own work, as well as my friends' work. I have a lot of art friends; we habituate the University of New Mexico art department in large painting, printmaking and drawing classes and feed off each other's psyches and spirits. We enter "Shows" all the time and try to sell. We are all different, which is thrilling and inspiring. I have recently retired from full time dance teaching and choreography, though to keep my body from fading away, I teach 2 classes a week to young teens. I work 100% with my artwork. My styles change as I explore, though I am always fascinated with Magic Gods and Monsters (icons and archetypes). I train (as I would in dance barre work) with various teachers in portrait, landscape and figure drawing. My newest teacher is a nonrepresentational minimalist. I am going to try my hand at this orientation. I also am going to expand my outdoor art series (colorful 8 foot tall totem poles) and am working on a new piece related to the catastrophe on the Pacific Rim.

Thank you, Olga!

Artwork by OlgaTeresa Gonzalez Baigus: Ghosts panels (mixed media), Silver Wolf (pastel and pencil)

Remember Ben Clayton by Stephen Harrigan

2011-04-28T08:41:00.014-05:00

Texas novelist Stephen Harrigan only gets better. Remember Ben Clayton (Knopf, 2011) is his latest masterpiece, and because of its accomplished literary gravitas, I was very much reminded of Wallace Stegner. This is a novel of substance! I was lucky to pick up an advanced reader's copy at the TLA conference; the official publication date is May 24, 2011.

Who is Ben Clayton? He is a young soldier who died in France during World War I. His father, Texas rancher Lamar Clayton, wishes to immortalize his son by commissioning a sculpture in his honor. He hires Francis "Gil" Gilheaney to design the piece. Gilheaney is a sculptor who fears his best days may be past, yet when he visits the remote ranch setting where Clayton envisions placing the sculpture, his deepest artistic ambitions are stirred. Ben had a horse he loved, and the horse too will be created in bronze. At this point, readers too are bound to start envisioning the sculpture; I know I did...

These two characters are satisfyingly complex, as are others I will tell you about in a minute. Lamar Clayton has an interesting back story. As a child he was kidnapped by Comanche Indians, and grew up learning their fierce warrior ways. Both men are widowers. Gilheaney hid the very existence of his marriage to a non-Catholic from his very Catholic mother, a holy card painter. This secret grew to include the existence of his only child, a daughter, Maureen, who is very much her father's artistic helpmate and an aspiring sculptor herself. Maureen's somewhat late coming of age is also an intriguing part of the plot. The fourth character of substance is a young soldier named Arthur Fry, Ben's GI buddy who was with him when he died in battle. Arthur's face is so torn up, he decides to stay on in France after the war rather than face going back to the States. During the course of the novel, he and Maureen become pen pals, and eventually Arthur meets both Maureen and her father when they travel to France. These characters' stories are deftly interwoven and deeply compelling. The sculpture commission has its setbacks, and there are many personal crises revealed and resolved as this beautiful novel plays out. I've been travelling these last few weeks, doing plenty of reading along the way, but this is the novel that stuck with me.

At the TLA conference a few weeks ago, I heard a fellow librarian comment that World War I stories are almost becoming a genre themselves. Others fast agreed, thinking of the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear, as well as novels by Anne Perry, Jeff Shaara and Ken Follett, to mention a few.

Stephen Harrigan's books always have strong Texas settings, but this time around, elements of France and New York City also add to the success of the novel. When I read Jacob's Well (set in and around Austin) by Harrigan shortly after it was published in 1985, I knew I wanted to read more of his writing. From then on, I mostly came across his nonfiction pieces in Texas Monthly magazine. Many of those fine writings are available in his essay collections. But it is his novels that bring me the most joy. He won the Spur Award for the Best Novel of the West from the Western Writers of America for The Gates of the Alamo (Knopf, 2000). Also a screenwriter, Harrigan is a University of Texas faculty member at the James A. Michener Center for Writers. While researching his life for this blog post, I learned he is involved with Capital Area Statues, Inc., a nonprofit group that raises funds for public monuments celebrating the history of Texas. (Now I know how the wonderful Philosopher's Rock sculpture at Barton Springs Pool in Zilker Park, Austin came to be!)

For a short video of Stephen Harrigan discussing the genesis of Remember Ben Clayton and other matters, click here to visit the Texas Monthly website.

Hot Off the Press: the 2011 Lariat List

2011-04-15T15:27:00.008-05:00

I have just returned from Austin, where I attended the Texas Library Association conference largely to finish out my second year as a member of the Lariat List task force. Twelve librarians from around the state met to craft the second annual Lariat List of Recommended Adult Fiction. And so it is my pleasure to present it below. Happy reading!

Belfer, Lauren. Fierce Radiance (HarperCollins.) On the eve of World War II, when Life photojournalist Claire Shipley files a story about the development of penicillin, she stumbles upon corporate espionage and murder. An enlightening look at life before antibiotics.

Billingsley, ReShonda Tate. Holy Rollers (Gallery/Simon and Schuster). Frustrated in their searches for Mr. Right, three women turn to the pulpit looking for love. Self reflection follows as the women realize that loving and living is serious business. Readers ride through the highs and lows of rejection, respect and relationships.

Bognanni, Peter. House of Tomorrow (Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam/Penguin). Teenager Sebastian Prendergast is thrown from the sheltered world of his eccentric, Buckminster-Fuller-worshiping Nana into the life of a family struggling with monumental issues. An off-beat, humorous read.

Borodale, Jane. Book of Fires (Pamela Dorman Books/Viking/Penguin). London, 1752. Seventeen year-old Agnes Trussel becomes an assistant to a master fireworks maker. What will happen when her pregnancy becomes known? Captivating and colorful historical fiction.

Burke, James Lee. Glass Rainbow (Simon and Schuster). Detective Dave Robicheaux is on the hunt for a serial killer in his own backyard of southern Louisiana. His daughter’s boyfriend might be one of the suspects. Strong, colorful characters drive this hard boiled thriller.

Cisneros, Carlos. The Name Partner (Arte Publico Press). Ambitious South Texas attorney Guillermo “Billy” Bravo struggles with ethics when a complex pharmaceutical case becomes personal. Fast-paced suspense with lots of twists and turns.

Cowell, Stephanie. Claude and Camille: A Novel of Monet (Crown/Random House). Step into the world of French Impressionist painter Claude Monet and his wife/muse Camille. Amidst the colorful stories of their circle of struggling artists, their unruly love story unfolds. A deeply felt, vividly told tale of art history.

Donoghue, Emma. Room (Little, Brown and Co./Hachette). Five-year-old Jack and his mother live as resourceful prisoners in the small room that is their universe. Will they escape? A harrowing emotional drama you will never forget.

Ferraris, Zoe. City of Veils (Little, Brown and Co./Hachette). Saudi desert guide Nayir and forensic technician Katya link disparate events leading to kidnapping and murder. A thought provoking mystery revealing women’s lives beneath the veil. A fascinating read.

Fortier, Anne. Juliet (Ballantine/Random House). American Julie Jacobs is shocked to learn she is a descendant of Guiletta Tolomei immortalized by Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet. As she traces her ancestry she begins to fear that old curse, “A plague on both your houses!” is still at work – and she is the next target. An unusual premise in a beautiful setting.

Franklin, Tom. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (William Morrow/HarperCollins). Small town Mississippi Constable Silas Jones investigates the disappearance of a local girl. His former childhood friend Larry Ott is the main suspect. Racial tensions and family secrets abound in this tight psychological thriller.

Gardner, Lisa. Live To Tell (Bantam/ Random House). Detective D. D. Warren’s investigation of a family annihilation leads her to a juvenile psychiatric ward where personal demons come back to haunt her. An intense and fast-paced thriller.

Hornung, Eva. Dog Boy (Viking/Penguin). Abandoned and alone, 4 year old Romochka, finds both home and family with feral dogs in post- apocalyptic Moscow. Gritty, not for the faint of heart.

Hurwitz, Gregg Andrew. They’re Watching (St. Martin’s Press/ Macmillan). Patrick Davis is failing in his career and marriage; who would want to stalk him? But incoming mysterious DVDs and phone calls show someone is doing just that. Plot twists keep the reader guessing until the very end.

Koryta, Michael. So Cold the River. (Little, Brown and Co./Hachette). Washed-up filmmaker, Eric Shaw arrives in West Baden, Indiana to research the life of a reclusive billionaire. After sampling the town’s famous “Pluto Water” his nightmares begin. A gothic chiller.

Larson, Leslie. Breaking Out of Bedlam (Shaye Areheart/Random House). After her children put her in assisted living, feisty octogenarian Cora Sledge records her life story in a journal and plots her escape. Hilarious and heartwarming.

Mosley, Walter. Last Days of Ptolemy Grey (Riverhead/Penguin). During a reprieve from his dementia, Ptolemy Grey puts his life in order and darn near adopts a homeless girl. Great realistic dialog drives this novel about an unexpected relationship and the power of memory.

Orringer, Julie. Invisible Bridge (Knopf/Random House). A young Hungarian man moves to Paris to study architecture and falls in love with a ballet teacher nine years older. Both Jewish, their lives as well as their families are torn apart by World War II. A top-notch historical epic.

Pickard, Nancy. Scent of Rain and Lightning (Ballantine/Random House). The man who went to prison for killing her father 23 years ago is back on the streets. Should Jody Linder believe new rumors of his innocence? Surprise and suspense electrify a small town in Kansas.

Simonson, Helen. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand (Random House). Major Pettigrew, a widower in a small English village, faces racism and resistance to change when he falls in love with a Pakistani shopkeeper. A sweet, leisurely paced comedy of manners.

Stevens, Chevy. Still Missing (St. Martin’s Press/Macmillan. Realtor Annie Sullivan is kidnapped and held captive in a secluded mountain cabin. Will she survive? A suspenseful debut novel with unpredictable elements.

Stuart, Julia. The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise (Doubleday/Random House). Living in the Tower of London with The Royal Menagerie and a cast of eccentric characters, Beefeater Balthazar Jones finds his life at a crossroads as he deals with the death of his son, his crumbling marriage and his 180-year-old runaway tortoise. Funny, touching and quirky.

Vantrease, Brenda Rickman. Heretic’s Wife (St. Martin’s Press/Macmillan). Kate Gough smuggles Lutheran bibles into Henry VIII’s England. To be caught by Thomas More would mean death at the stake. Tense and compelling historical fiction.

Verdon, John. Think of a Number. (Crown/Random House). A retired detective is drawn into a complex puzzle laid out by a killer who asks his victims to “think of a number.” This cunning perpetrator knows when your number is up. A brainy thriller.

Zepeda, Gwendolyn. Lone Star Legend. (Grand Central Publishing/Hachette). When Austin journalist Sandy Saavedra is reluctantly transformed into a successful gossip blogger, the resultant celebrity spillover into her real life leads to surprising outcomes. Laugh your way through a novel well seasoned with blog posts, emails and the advice column “Just ask the Chupacabra."

Photography: an Interview with Ron Nolland

2011-04-07T08:43:00.022-05:00

Photographer Ron Nolland lives in Plattsburgh, New York, a place very dear to my heart. He and I are old friends, and when my husband and I visited Plattsburgh this past fall, we much enjoyed seeing some of his photography not only at his home, but also in the hotel where we stayed. To see more of Ron's photos, visit zenfolio.

Tell us a little about yourself and how you got into photography. After not having a camera for many years, my wife urged me to get one as we were expecting our first grandchild, and she thought photography would satisfy my artistic side. I play music, and enjoyed writing, but had not been active in anything creative in quite a while. I bought a point-and-shoot, and took lots of family snapshots. I enjoyed taking pictures of nature when I walked my dog along the river, starting to see images all around me I needed to capture. I bought a better camera, and used it for almost five years before moving up to a digital SLR. I entered my work in member shows at the local cultural center, and it was well received. The director asked me to exhibit at an off-site gallery (a doctor's office), and urged me to get a grant to help pay framing expenses. That led to exhibits other places, joining an Artist's Co-op Gallery, and eventually getting another grant. Once the creative flow started, it was impossible to stop. I work full-time, so the photography is truly for art's sake, although it is supporting itself through sales of my work.

For you, what is success in photography? I have had several solo exhibits, and have had my work chosen for all the juried shows I entered. These would normally be considered as "success", but I actually think of the real success as being when someone looks at one of my photos and sees what I saw and explains my work to me; then I know they got it! People will often say "what a beautiful photograph", or how nice an image of something generally accepted as pleasing is (such as a sunset or landscape), and that is satisfying to some degree. But the real success is when they look at an image that is not your standard pretty picture, and see the subtle, hidden qualities that made the image speak to me and to them.

How would you describe your style? I shoot most of my images outdoors, where I like to find patterns in nature that often go unnoticed. The abstract lines, curves, and relationships between shapes of the mundane take on a quality reflective of the world around us, yet usually not glorified. Tiny wildflowers and weeds can be as gorgeous as the orchids and roses we usually see photographed. Subtle patterns in flowing water or ice, reflections of sunsets rendered as abstract patterns all interest me. Close-up photographs of tiny pieces of nature show us that everything is a part of the larger fabric of life, and I try to show both the the threads and the cloth. I try to be, and my work is often described as "painterly".

Tell us more about your subjects and themes. Do you chose them or do they chose you? I live in a beautiful area, the Adirondacks, which means there are great mountains, Lake Champlain, and several rivers nearby. Photography of plants at all stages of growth, from sprouting to their return to the ground interests me. As I look around, the images say "pick me, pick me" and I try to bring them back with me to show others. It is very difficult to take what you see and have others see it too. Sometimes I don't chose images that have presented themselves because I fear they will not translate. I am learning that I should not fear that and should let images have a chance to reach others and not to worry about viewers "getting it". Otherwise, I would only have the safe, commercially viable images, and my photography would be the less for it.

What is your favorite camera and photography software? I am presently using a Canon T2i digital SLR with kit lenses (18-55 and 55-250 mm). I used a Konica Minolta A200 for five years and kept is because it is still a great camera. The Canon is a step up, but requires more work for the finished product, including more post-processing of the image with software. I shoot in RAW, which is an uncompressed file format that allows much more control of the image. I was using Photoshop CS2 for post-processing, but have since been doing most of my work in Lightroom 3, which handles RAW files better.

Name some of your favorite photographers. Of course it is easy to say we all like Adams, Liebovitz, Cartier-Bresson and all the other greats that have been around. National Geographic has many people whose names you wouldn't know who do great work, but my favorite photographers are my fellow enthusiasts. When photographers with big travel budgets go to exotic places with expensive equipment and a staff to help, you expect some pretty good photos will be produced. When we enthusiasts do this, our kits cost less than one lens for a pro, yet it is amazing what we find. A large online community has developed, and it is inspirational for me to see the quality there. I enjoy looking at this work as much as that of the famous photographers, if not more.

What's next for you? I have started to do custom photography. I was hired to take shots of a property with beaver ponds and forests during all four seasons. I hope to expand this concept for people that want fine art photos of a particular place. I recently did a series involving people and their tattoos as part of an exhibit, and my work was well received. I want to learn more about portrait photography and will offer my services at various tattoo shops in the area so people can get artistic photos of themselves and their tattoos. My camera shoots High Definition video, and I hope to start that learning curve and carry the same interest in patterns to moving pictures.

Thank you, Ron!

photos by Ron Nolland: Saranac Sunset, Fiddlehead, Submersive.

photo of Ron by Ernie Lamberti

Five Good Reads

2011-03-31T15:11:00.031-05:00

My two year involvement with the Texas Library Association Lariat Adult Reading List task force comes to an end in about two weeks. We will meet at the annual TLA conference and vote on our favorite 2010 fiction titles. Many are nominated; only 25 can be chosen. Our criteria: that they be "a pleasure to read"... Today I thought I would feature a handful of titles I thought were good reads.

Joyce Maynard is one of my all-time favorite authors, so I knew I would like The Good Daughters (William Morrow, 2010). Two girls born on the same day in a small New Hampshire hospital are as different as can be. One grows up to be a farmer, the other an artist. Neither feels at home in their family. Why? Maynard slowly reveals family secrets that redefine both women's lives.

The Confession (Doubleday, 2010) by John Grisham presents a bleak panorama of the Texas criminal justice system, but as usual this super-popular author uses his top notch storytelling skills to bring a death penalty case into sharp focus. A recently released rapist confesses to murder just as the young black man imprisoned for the murder faces execution. The sweeping cast of characters includes parents of the victim, the wrongly accused prisoner and his family, lawyers, state officials and one minister caught in the middle of it all. A classic legal thriller.

Lauren Belfer's novel, A Fierce Radiance (Harper, 2010) is a fascinating look at the history of penicillin. During the World War II era, Life photojournalist Claire Shipley files a story about the development of the new penicillin drug, a story which becomes so political and sensitive, it is killed. But this isn't the end of her involvement with the new wonder drug, and thus the plot thickens. Set in New York City, this historical thriller was unexpectedly eye-opening. I now have a much greater appreciation for antibiotics.

City of Veils (Little, Brown and Company, 2010) by Zoe Ferraris combines two mystery plots: that of a missing husband and the murder of a female filmmaker. Time frame and place: modern day Saudi Arabia. Katya, a Muslim woman working in the medical examiner's office, steps up to an investigative role. She has to pretend to be married in order to keep her job, and there are some romantic developments stirred into the book's mix. For me the most fascinating part of the novel was learning more about Saudi Arabian women's roles, restrictions and conundrums.

I don't think I ever read anything by Lily King before, but after reading Father of the Rain (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2010), I plan to hunt down her earlier books. Told over some forty years, it is one daughter's story of how her allegiance to her alcoholic father both weakens and strengthens her life. Set in an east coast WASP shore town, this novel's time, place and characters rang true for me. If you like your fiction rich, moody and insightful, this is one book you shouldn't miss.

I have about 5 or 6 novels left to read before we vote. Hopefully I will get through them! Although it has surely been a privilege to work on the Lariat list, I must admit I look forward to regaining absolute reading freedom.

Dance: an Interview with Sandra Organ

2011-03-24T07:54:00.009-05:00

Sandra Organ is the founder and Artistic Director of Earthen Vessels/Sandra Organ Dance Company here in Houston. A former soloist with the Houston Ballet, Sandra was their first African-American ballerina. I am most pleased to start an ongoing series of interviews with creative friends by sharing Sandra's answers to my questions about her career in dance.

What does dance mean to you? Dance is such a part of the fabric of my life; I am not sure who I am without it. Dance is the expression of who I am at my best and worst. It has kept me looking young, but feeling older than my age at times! I think it is everywhere choreographed in the creation surrounding us, the natural forces of life, flight and fight...it has been a passion for me, prayer and performance, meditation and movement, a lifestyle and livelihood. It is a privilege, but is a common practice in the cultures of nations...so whether upgraded as art or downgraded as exercise, it is inexplicably bound to the universe, a celebration or reflection of the human spirit.

What is your proudest accomplishment as a dancer? Getting to dance the great canons of the classical ballet world -- all the story ballets ("Nutcracker" "Swan Lake", "Sleeping Beauty") -- plus a wonderful stew of works that are more rooted in the modern experience ("There is a Time"/Jose Limon, "Ghost Dances"/Christopher Bruce, "Company B"/Paul Taylor). But even to get into a classical ballet company, be paid union wages to do the thing I loved...and as a black ballerina! There are still too few of us, however.

And as a choreographer? To have one of my works, "to the thawing wind" (entitled from a Robert Frost poem) performed before a national audience brought to Houston by the dance community. To have made over 80 works in 15 years, many about the experience, contributions and inspiring creations of African Americans in celebration of Black History month.

What are you major sources of inspiration? Other works of art and poetry, architecture and form, stories of people and eras of history...recently, add to that: comedians, games of chance, speeches and moods of a nation. I love it that my inspiration points shift and are seemingly inexhaustible.

What can dance do for young people, whether as participants or audience members? Whether dance is an activity used as exercise, entertainment, in competition or social, I think dance is as good as any form of sports in keeping one fit life long. But one must be exposed to or given opportunities to participate in dance by those who value it. I love it that through Earthen Vessels performances, young audiences can see a dance about Harriet Tubman, maybe even before reading about her in American history! Or getting to know the artwork of John Biggers or the music of Scott Joplin from a ballet, which may peak their interest in someone they may not have been familiar with before they stepped into a theater. Dance can be used as a tool to educate, inspire and move one to a different perspective.

What's next for you? For me to continue presenting new works based on the stories and contributions of people of color is my immediate future. I anticipate utilizing new ways to take dance to the public, so organizing some flash mobs and audience participation opportunities will bring more people to see and do dance, one hopes! Lastly, by using movement as meditation, transformation and healing to those broken by life circumstances. That is something I would very much like to pursue, especially as our society begins to face the human tragedies of trafficking and rescuing it victims from the objectification and abuse of their bodies. I think dance can help transfigure, transport and transition those captive into liberation.

Thank you, Sandra!

photos of Sandra Organ by Andis Applewhite

A Collage in Honor of Spring

2011-03-19T14:31:00.005-05:00

In honor of the Vernal Equinox tomorrow, here is a recent collage from my new Altarpiece series. "Green Gestures" has been shipped to a friend in North Carolina labeled simply as Altarpiece 15. She took a liking to this particular collage and may wish to chose a title herself.

Spring energies have been active in Houston for the past few weeks. The weather continues to be warm and tolerable. My tomato plants are getting to be knee high, and the cone flowers I transplanted from a neighbor's yard are blooming nicely. We did our annual tear-out of the poison oak vines growing through the fence into our yard from the yard next door. My husband Tom can handle poison oak without getting a rash, but not me -- I break out in blisters just passing anywhere near it. Construction workers are tearing down the ranch house on that lot to rebuild a two-story home. So it's going to be a long noisy summer. But that's life -- ever changing, and in the meantime, I'm happy creating imaginary worlds via collage and mixed media.

"Every spring is the only spring -- a perpetual astonishment." - Ellis Peters

photo: Altarpiece 15: Green Gestures, collage by Keddy Ann Outlaw

My Great Grandmother Peg Stanton's Irish Soda Bread

2011-03-11T06:50:00.007-06:00

3 cups white flour

1 cup oats (quick or old-fashioned)

1/4 cup white sugar

1 tsp. salt

1/4 cup butter

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking powder

1 - 2 Tbsp. caraway seeds (optional)

2 cups raisins

1 1/3 cups buttermilk

1 tsp. baking soda

1 egg

additional flour for kneading

1 egg yolk (optional)

- Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Mix flour, sugar, salt and baking powder together in a large bowl. Stir in caraway seeds.

- Cut in small pieces of butter.

- Add raisins and stir to distribute well.

- In a separate container, combine buttermilk, egg and baking soda. Stir into the flour mixture until just moistened.

- Begin to knead mixture into a large ball, adding more flour as needed. (I have found that doing this right in the bowl is the easiest way. It takes a bit of scraping together to make the dough whole unto itself and ready to knead.) Knead lightly until smooth and shape into a large round loaf.

- Place into a greased cast iron skillet or 2 quart casserole. Cut a large cross on top (to keep the leprechauns away - otherwise they may steal your children, or so I've been told).

- If desired, brush top of loaf with an egg yolk to make it glossy.

- Bake for approximately one hour.

- Cool before cutting. Serve at breakfast (soda bread goes great with scrambled eggs) or at teatime. The soda bread can be eaten plain or buttered.

My mother (who is 100% Irish) remembers growing up surrounded by a tribe of Gaelic-speaking family and friends in Brooklyn during the 1920s. On the way home from school on cold winter days, she loved to stop in at her grandmother Peg Stanton's house to warm her hands in front of the coal stove in the kitchen. If Mom was hungry, she helped herself to a piece of her grandmother's Irish soda bread that was always ready and waiting, wrapped in a clean tea towel in the middle of the table. "No sooner were you cutting into it than she was at the stove baking another," Mom recalls. She taught me how to make it, and I like to send her a loaf every now and then. Mom is age 92 and has stopped baking.

I did make one change to the recipe when I substituted a cup of oatmeal for some of the flour, to make the bread a bit healthier. You can also use some wheat flour if you like. When I went to Ireland years ago, I sampled many types of soda bread and they were all different. At Christmas time, I sometimes use dried cherries or cranberries instead of raisins. Also, you can make two round loaves or shape the dough into scone shapes, in which case the baking time may be shorter.

Erin Go Bragh!

Playing the Tourist in My Own City, Houston

2011-03-03T15:51:00.015-06:00

Shadows in office windows, downtown Houston.

March of the stumps near the pond in Heritage Park.

Azaleas in bloom, Heritage Park.

Fence ends, Heritage Park.

In the shadow of skyscrapers, the "Old Place" (1823) @ Heritage Park.

Mural, downtown Houston.

Wonderful new Tolerance Sculpture by Jaume Plensa, Allen Parkway, Houston.

Another Tolerance Sculpture (one of seven) by Jaume Plensa, Allen Parkway, Houston.

As you can see, I got carried away taking photos today, allowing myself a few hours walking around downtown and riding the bus through the Allen Parkway area. I needed to go to the downtown City Library and elected to ride a Metro bus, something I do rarely. The ride there was fine, but I had to wait an hour for the bus back. Apparently the bus I thought I would catch in 10 or 15 minutes suffered a breakdown. Thank goodness the weather was what we call "tolerable" here - yes a bit humid, but not too hot yet. I don't know how I might have stood that hour wait in the true heat of summer.

I always feel like a stranger when I walk around downtown, even though it is just a few miles from our house. Often when my husband and I go down there, it is for a theater performance or jury duty, etc. Rarely do I wander around taking in all the ambiance. At mid-day the streets are full of well-dressed office workers who look very savvy and accustomed to the downtown scene. I actually feel much more at home on the streets of Manhattan; maybe it's hard-wired into me since I grew up there. And the public transportation in New York is pretty reliable. Not that I don't love Houston, but New York City it is not. I feel much more at home in the Museum district here, or in my neighborhood near the Medical Center. But I love exploring new corners of my adopted city. Downtown is growing by leaps and bounds, and there is plenty to see and do.

I love the new Allen Parkway Tolerance sculptures of kneeling human figures made of enmeshed multilingual metal letters. They have a very ephemeral, spiritual quality. I could only take a few quick snapshots through the bus window, but want to go back and see them up close, along with the new Harmony Walk and Rosemont Bridge. My minor road trip today was long overdue. I've been working on getting our house ready to be painted, messing with the garden and making art. I hope to get back downtown again real soon!

Tomato Time on the Gulf Coast

2011-02-24T09:57:00.008-06:00

Earlier than I've ever done a gardening post before, here is my Spring fever report. No matter how long I live on the Texas Gulf Coast, I can't get used to how early the time comes to plant tomatoes. I went to the Urban Harvest Farmer's Market last weekend and bought five varieties of tomato plants straight from their growers. The 10 day forecast showed no freezes expected, so I got them into the ground a few days ago. I still need to hunt down the Juliet variety I've grown with success before, but among this year's novelties as far as new varieties go, I chose Maremmano, Costoluto Fiorentino and Sweet 100s.

The Maremmano tomato is an early determinate, hailing from western Lazio, a province of Rome. We need early tomatoes here to get fruit before the weather gets too hot. The Maremmano is a red, round 3 inch fruit that grows in clusters, said to be good for slicing and sauces. Costoluto Fiorentino is an indeterminate heirloom tomato with pumpkin-like ribs widely cultivated in Italy. Hopefully it will produce numerous mid-sized to large tomatoes. The Sweet 100 is an indeterminate cherry tomato, known to grow as tall as 10 feet - we'll see. Hope springs eternal at this time of year.....

I have a small collection of clippings and Houston area garden books, but this year I decided to put on my librarian's hat and make index cards for each plant, tree or shrub we are trying to cultivate. I had fun collating facts from different print and online sources. Hopefully this will help me focus the right kind of care on each plant. Last year's experiments with beans, cucumbers and squash were not all that fruitful, so I'm concentrating my efforts on the known producers - tomatoes of course, along with herbs, greens, sunflowers, nasturtiums, zinnia, morning glories and coneflowers. The two Meyer lemon trees took a beating from this past winter's 3 or 4 freezes, but I think they will come back around. A friend at church gave me an unknown variety of orange tree that she grew from seed, and we are going to put that young tree in a large, portable planter. It's good to keep citrus trees relatively small so you can cover or move them in the event of freezing weather.

Hard for my family and friends in more northern states to believe, but we've had temperatures in the high 70s this week. With the high humidity, it feels even hotter. Every gardener here knows that familiar sweaty feeling of disbelief. How can we feel so overheated already when there's much hotter weather to come? A big annual event here is the Azalea Trail Home and Garden Tour, taking place March 4 - 6, 2011. Many years ago, I had fun doing the tour with a bunch of friends on bicycles. This year I'll probably be too busy sticking to my own little patch of green. Wherever you are, I hope something green is beginning to bloom.

"Nothing is more the child of art than a garden." - Sir Walter Scott

photo by KAO - Basket of greens & herbs, seed packets, etc.

Lines and Shadows: Recent Photos

2011-02-17T10:49:00.009-06:00

Camera in hand, my eye is easily drawn to intersecting lines and shadows, often where nature and what we would call the manmade overlap and combine. Today I've been fooling with Picasa and Picnik to see if I have any use for their features. No decisions to report. I'm mostly content using two versions of Paint Shop, one from Jasc, the later from Corel. I've never made the move to Photoshop, but may decide to in the future.

One of my goals with collage is to use more of my own photos, and I've also been getting more into applications of paint, pencil and simple printmaking effects. The variety of choices is ever- expanding. The photos chosen for today's post could easily make the transition to mixed media collage. Allowing myself to play with software and materials at hand leads to breakthroughs. Such is the life of an artist, a "job title" I've only recently felt entitled to use.

Making the transition from public librarian to working artist is a privilege, for sure. Retirement makes this possible and I am most grateful. In a recent email to a writer friend, I found myself stating that any day where I don't get to make art is less than optimal. He agreed 250%. It feels great to have a grand obsession. New ideas keep marching in. The trick is staying in balance, keeping yourself physically fit and well nourished, as well as having time for family and friends. With that in mind, now it is time for a morning bike ride or walk, filled with a blogger's relief that I have reported something or another to the world and am free to get back to other pursuits! Cheers - KAO.

Photos by KAO:

Street Surface Abstraction, Long Island, 2010

Rain on Screen Abstraction, 2010

Vines on Arbor, Antique Rose Emporium, Brenham TX, 2011

Iron Arbor Against Sky, Antique Rose Emporium, Brenham TX, 2011

Herman Park Japanese Garden Pond, Houston TX, 2011

Herman Park Forest Floor Abstraction, 2011

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley

2011-02-10T08:35:00.009-06:00

Who is Ptolemy Grey and why should we care? Walter Mosley's novel, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey (Riverhead, 2010) does more than introduce a Mr. Grey, a 91 year-old African-American addled by dementia who is given a second chance at getting his life in order via the dangerous vehicle of an experimental drug. What will he do with what little time he has left? This extremely well-written novel is not without suspense.

Ptolemy Grey's last days are well worth our time. What family he has left in southern Los Angeles have been taking advantage of him, raking what they can from his retirement checks and generally giving him the shaft. The exception is his nephew Reggie, but he becomes the victim of a drive-by shooting. Then along comes Robyn, a teen angel in disguise. Not family exactly, more a friend of the family -- and she more or less adopts Ptolemy, and vice versa. Soon his cluttered apartment is made over, the plumbing back in order, the kitchen sink empty of crusty remains.

Battling with his newly recovered memories, Ptolemy identifies a lack of courage. The child of a sharecropper, Ptolemy grew up in Mississippi and witnessed the lynching of Coy, a man he considered a mentor and whose ghostly voice voice he still hears. In fact, Ptolemy is hiding a cache of gold coins Coy gave him, coins stolen from a nasty plantation owner. And so the plot thickens as we watch Ptolemy get his surprisingly considerable estate in order. Karmic revenge is also involved, but I will leave those details undisclosed.

Although some of the flashbacks and distorted memories were at times confusing, that is to be expected in a book touching on dementia. What emerges is a prickly and robust time-lapsed photo of Ptolemy Grey in the making. We begin to understand his every quirk and motive. Whether we approve of some his choices is another thing, and would be good fodder for book group discussions. Not to be hyperbolic, but for me, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey comes darn close to being a Great American Novel.

Visual Joy @ Caladan Gallery

2011-02-01T10:12:00.003-06:00

On a lark, I submitted three of my collages to Caladan Gallery when they put out a call for art related to Visual Joy. It was a delight to learn that my art made it into the show, which is online from February 1 - March 4, 2011. The collage shown here is one of them, entitled "And So We Were Born Unto the Universe".

Marjorie Kaye, Director of Caladan Gallery, has this to say about the theme: "Love, humor, quiet reflection: all of these illustrate, in addition to other experiences, what it is to be in a state of joy. Color and form generate this; the flow of paint, the capturing of natural formation; emotion, expression and deep spiritual realization reflect it. It seems to be easier to reflect the frustration and isolation of existence in these times, than it is to give oneself over to pure joy. The works chosen for this exhibition are signs of life in a troubled time."

There are eighteen artists in the show. My joyful reaction to the works of Howard Berelson, Lauren Curtis and John Knight was immediate. Howard Berelson creates digital works which remind me of Millefiori glass, composed with delightful bursts of color and intricate details. Digital artist Lauren Curtis presents two transcendent images of spiritual rapture. Painter John Knight composes playful oceanside landscapes ripe with colorful biodiversity.

Although I showed with Caladan Gallery one other time, somehow I didn't pick up on the genesis of its name. Caladan is a fictional planet from the Dune series by Frank Herbert! As a librarian, I am always delighted to see literary interconnections such as this. In closing, here is a quote from Dune: "The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience." (spoken by Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam to Paul Atreides, a statement based on the philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard.) Native Americans speak of the creative life-force as the Great Mystery, and in my humble opinion, making art surely leads there. Infinite are the lessons, interlaced with pure joy.

photo: Collage, "And So We Were Born Unto the Universe", 2010, by Keddy Ann Outlaw.

A Travel Poem Revisited

2011-01-20T14:43:00.018-06:00

On the Bus Through Tennessee, circa 1995

Two white-haired ladies up front ask each other
"What's your favorite Bible verse?"

A foreign man discovers he is going the wrong way towards Knoxville.
"Son, there are 5 Knoxvilles," the bus driver shouts.
We make an unscheduled stop to let the man out.
"And they wonder why we're late," the driver huffs.

"Trust in the Lord," answers one of the Bible ladies.

A woman wearing many rings on both hands
gets out her red lipstick, red as her red plaid muumuu.
"This little suitcase has been to Egypt," she tells the Bible ladies.

"Oh, you couldn't pay us to get on an airplane,"
the Bible ladies answer.

Out the window we pass small hills
of furrowed orange soil, shiny new trailer homes
and weathered wood buildings, their roofs as orange as the dirt.

We stop in some small town to refuel and watch
a crowd of beauty school girls with short, crimped hairdos
enter their place of instruction.
Haircuts half-priced! a faded sign proclaims.

Two college girls on the bus laugh at the beauty school girls
and talk about their favorite night clubs.
"We went to this techno-music place, "one says.
"You know, with real fast music, but my dumb sister
danced just the way she always does, snapping her fingers real slow.
I was so mad at her, we didn't stay there long. Why couldn't she
look around and see the way all the other people were dancing?"

A man boards, a bug-eyed man wearing snakeskin boots
with real snake heads sprouting out of the pointy toes.
He says something to the Bible ladies, but they ignore him.
They talk about how pretty the daffodils are,
out there along the highway.

Coming closer to Nashville, all the people below in their tiny cars
begin to look different, more glamorous and souped-up,
wearing fancy western wear, satin touring jackets,
bouffant hairdos and theatrical makeup, like they are
all candidates for the Country Music Hall of Fame.

"Woo-eee, Nashville!" a young soldier shouts,
and all the passengers look around at each other
and smile, roll their eyes, or sigh.

We are glad to get where we are going,
glad to pack up our lunch bags and magazines,
glad to leave this stuffy bus
and its weary assortment of ragged humanity behind,
glad to be hurrying towards people
we can tell stories to, stories about all the strangers on the bus,
so very glad to see people who know us and call us by name,
so glad not to be strangers anymore.

- Keddy Ann Outlaw

This week finds me without fresh words, so I dug out an old poem and dusted it off. Don't think I've been on an intercity bus since then.... Train travel appeals to me. Years ago, I went clear across Canada by train. And once I went by train with a group of friends from Houston to New Orleans - great fun. This winter, I'm digging in at home. I traveled to NY in December and that should hold me for awhile. They say it snowed in 49 of 50 states last week. We had one frost in Houston so far, and I'm hoping that was it for our winter. Wherever you are, hope you are staying warm and faring well.

photo by KAO: Winter Sky

The House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni

2011-01-15T08:28:00.006-06:00

Remember when geodesic domes were cutting edge? You don't see or hear much about them anymore. Sebastian Prendergast lives in one. His grandmother took him in some eleven years ago when his parents died. Their dome on the outskirts of a small town in Iowa is a weekend tourist attraction, and Simon's job is to man the gift shop. Because his Nana is a die-hard devotee of R. Buckminster Fuller, Sebastian has learned plenty about the man and his philosophies. Indeed, Nana seems to expect Sebastian to follow in Fuller's genius and do something very big with his life on Spaceship Earth. Poor Sebastian doesn't get out much, which is not a natural condition for teenagers. Thus begins The House of Tomorrow (Amy Einhorn Books, 2010)by first novelist Peter Bognanni.

Sebastian gets booted out into the world when Nana gets a tad manic following a hospital stay. Bunking in with one of the families who recently visited the dome, Sebastian gets a taste of non-dome life, including various junk foods, punk music and church. He becomes buddies of sort with seventeen year-old Jared, a moody, sarcastic, chain-smoking heart transplant patient, and also develops his first crush on Jared's sister, Meredith. Jared presses Sebastian to take up the bass guitar. Together they form a hasty punk rock band they name The Rash. Hilarious!

Bognanni's writing is so tight, I can see this as a screenplay, something along the lines of What's Eating Gilbert Grape? Without being too obvious about it, the bone structure of this quirky novel's development follows the classic Hero's Journey blueprint. Sebastian slays many dragons and emerges on the brink of young adulthood. All the characters are well-developed. This is not just about teens, nor is it written for teens, although certain teens would surely enjoy it. The House of Tomorrow reaches across generations, displaying underlying human frailties and foibles in dark comedy. You don't have to like punk music to hear its rhythms and nod your head to its offbeat sounds. I might not have picked up this book were it not for my TLA Lariat duties. I'll be chuckling over it for months to come.....

Kurt Schwitters: Color and Collage @ the Menil Collection

2011-01-06T13:55:00.005-06:00

I knew next to nothing of German artist Kurt Schwitters (1887 - 1948) but because a friend reminded me he was a collagist, I made sure I got over to the Menil Collection today, where the show Kurt Schwitters: Color and Collage runs through January 30, 2011.

Largely abstract, using mostly found materials in collage and assemblage, in Schwitters' work I saw elements of expressionism, surrealism, Dadaism and cubism, to name but a few of his styles or influences. His collage work began around 1918, when he coined the term "Merz" to describe his style and or philosophy, meaning "to make connections, if possible, between everything in the world." (source: Menil Collection Kurt Schwitters brochure) I find this description incredibly delightful. I love collage because it seems to me to be a wild and vast, wide open picture frame where almost anything seems possible, where an artist is able to just about rearrange and remake the world. As in poetry, disparate metaphoric elements come together making what seems like magic happen. Schwitters is a pioneer of collage and assemblage, and today I learned that I much appreciate his aesthetic.

Schwitters' modern art was banned by the Nazis, and so the artist fled Germany in 1937, and he never lived there again. For the rest of his life he lived in Norway, Scotland and England. Recreated at the Menil is a portion of his Merzbau, a grotto-like construction he built in his home in Hanover starting around 1923. A walk-through sculpture/assemblage/installation, the Merzbau was a playful assortment of niches, arches, columns, planes and angles, serving not only as a studio but also as a gallery and gathering place. It was destroyed during World War II. I'm glad I got to see this reconstruction, which has never before been shown in the U.S. Because of its visionary playfulness, the Merzbau reminded me of the Houston Orange Show, a marvel I would like to revisit again soon.

The Menil show concludes with a few works by Twombly, Johns and Rauschenberg, just a few of the artists clearly influenced by Kurt Schwitters. Revolutionary and innovative, Schwitters also worked as a typographer and poet. For a thoughtful Wall Street Journal review ("Lost in Found Objects" by Richard B Woodward, January 5, 2011) of the Schwitters show at the Menil, click here.

image: MZ443 (?)/Untitled (kao) by Kurt Schwitters, 1922.

Shosin: Otherwise Known as Beginner's Mind

2010-12-30T12:26:00.008-06:00

Shoshin is a Japanese word, roughly translated as "beginner's mind", a Zen concept I admire. At times in my artwork, this state of mind is most useful. And I was reminded of it a few days ago, making art with my five year-old niece. She puts her favorite colors everywhere, so the people she drew had bright blue hair and rainbow dresses. To quote Pablo Picasso, "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."

Not growing up comes in handy when facing the blank page or canvas. There are many ways to head into the direction of beginner's mind. Writing or drawing with the non-dominant hand can jumpstart a certain playfulness. In writing, sometimes it's provocative to start at the end, not the beginning, and then decide how things got there.... In all creative endeavors, the trick is allowing yourself to to play with the ingredients and make new combinations. The biggest challenge is emptying the mind of preconceptions. Just as in meditation, the mind is over-busy, full of shoulds and should-nots.

In various creative writing circles I've belonged to, we often played the game where we came up with a short list of words and everyone wrote a poem or short story using those words. What fun it was to see the unpredictable variations that were born. I also recall hitting beginner's mind under the tutelage of Natalie Goldberg at a writer's workshop, where she would give us a prompt such as "Tell me about the street you grew up on." Then we would freewrite for ten minutes, a method she fully develops in her seminal book, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within (Shambhala, 1986).

Depending what stage of art-making I am in, I sometimes need to tidy up my workspace and put away unfinished projects, messy scraps and files, etc. When I am deep in a collage series, the mess doesn't matter. But if I've been away from making art, as now during the holidays, I can't seem to get started again unless I clear the deck and start anew. At some point where once there was only chaos, the arrow turns instead towards potential. Maybe that doesn't qualify as true beginner's mind, but it brings me calm and makes me receptive to whatever might come next.

May your new year start fresh, and bring much creativity and unpredictable delight!

photo by KAO: Dawn Shadows

Sticks and Yarn

2010-12-23T12:48:00.009-06:00

Knitting: how did it ever get started? Did people use twigs, perhaps bones? And the yarn itself - when did spinning fiber into strands become commonplace? These questions were on my mind last week as I tried my hand at knitting. I was visiting Mom in New York, and she was recuperating from a hospital stay, so I had some time on my hands. Mom is much better now and I'm back in Texas getting ready for Christmas. I've not gotten very far on a narrow blue scarf, but I am intrigued and hope to keep learning this ancient womanly art. I've been a crocheter since college and do find knitting to be much slower than crochet, but both have their appropriate uses. Knitting is known for its ability to stretch as needed. Crocheting is great for intricate open designs.

As it turns out, knitting was not always done with two needles. Rather, it is thought to have started with a single needle, employing a series of knots or loops. There was also a technique known as nalbinding that could be confused with knitting, so in some ways knitting's exact train of origins remains unknown. Socks are among the first known knitted items, dating back as far as nine or ten centuries ago. In the OED, the word 'knitting' dates back only to the 1400s. Egypt/the Middle East is the place knitting (using cotton or silk, not wool) is thought to have started, later spreading to Europe and the American colonies. In the Scottish Isles, woolen goods became an important, highly developed craft. The origins there may have been related to the knot making done by fishermen. During the Middle Ages in Europe, there were knitting guilds. In other times, being trained in knitting was promoted as a way for poor people (both men and women) to make money. Of course, eventually the Industrial Revolution came along and now we all take machine-knit goods for granted. My curiosity about the first knitting needles still remains partially unsatisfied. Mysterious and ancient, knitting makes me feel connected to centuries of peoples past, clicking away by candlelight and moonlight......

Spinning began with the spindle and distaff, later evolving towards the spinning wheel and the spinning mule. I've never tried hand spinning, but know it has experienced a revival in the last few decades. I'm not sure I'll ever have the patience for it, but appreciate the unique results artisans are able to achieve by starting from scratch. I learned that yarn itself is much older than the art of knitting, having been dated back some 20,000 years to the Upper Paleolithic era. Primitive people are thought to have rolled tufts of animal hair or plant fiber down their thighs to make yarn, then winding it onto stones. It is fascinating to think what a breakthrough this simple act may have been.

Interestingly, crocheting dates back only to the 19th century, when it became known as a less expensive method for lace making. When I was in college, many of my friends crocheted and we wiled away many an hour making mittens, shawls, hats and purses. During my years at West University Library, I taught a coworker, Bill, how to crochet. He took it up with zeal and far surpassed my level of expertise. He then stepped up to knitting and eventually bought a knitting machine. He would even crochet or knit at stoplights on the way to work! And he learned if he took his knitting with him when called up for jury duty, he never got picked for a jury. Bill gave me a lovely, elaborate crocheted doily when he retired.

At this time of the season, I would be remiss if I did not offer my thanks to all who read my humble blog. I always loved doing reports as a child in school, especially the kind where I got to do artwork as a part of the project. Sitting down to blog is a weekly ritual I enjoy, giving me an excuse to marry words and images together. I am thankful that Harris County Public Library required staff to learn how to blog some 3 or 4 years ago. Blogging helps me stay focused. It keeps my language skills polished (to some extent), and hopefully givers readers content they can use or enjoy. Thanks especially to all who took the time to make comments this year. Happy holidays!

Room: a Novel by Emma Donohue

2010-12-15T12:52:00.005-06:00

Room: a Novel (Little, Brown & Co., 2010) by Emma Donoghue is simply unforgettable. Room, like Door, Bed, Duvet, and other nouns, are always capitalized words in this purposely claustrophobic novel. Room is five year-old Jack's whole universe. He and his mother are held captive in a 11 x 11 foot bunker. Indeed, the Room is the place Jack was born. His mother was kidnapped from college seven years ago. When mean "Old Nick" visits his imprisoned sex slave, Jack hides in the wardrobe. His mother has poured all her love, attention and knowledge into her son. He can read. He has an impressive, quirky vocabulary. Together they recycle everything that comes their way into art or other inventions.

I won't say much more because of the spoiler factor. How much longer must mother and son live like this? Will they escape? Read it and see. Jack is a boy wonder you just have to meet. I think Room will be popular on the book discussion group circuit because it brings up so many horrifying and sadly relevant issues. Because one of my friends is very involved in campaigns against human trafficking and modern slavery, I have become much more aware of the issue. Please see the Not for Sale: End Human Trafficking/Re-abolish Slavery site for further information.

Favorite Books, 2010

2010-12-09T06:34:00.018-06:00

Time for my annual roundup of best books read.... Since I have blogged about many of these during the year, I will keep my comments short. Due to my 2010 TLA Lariat List reading duties, all titles are fiction, and quite by chance this year, all the authors are women.

The Postmistress (Putnam) by Sarah Blake. When a doctor leaves his small town on Cape Cod to volunteer in London at the start of World War II, in case of his death he leaves a last letter for his wife with the town's postmistress. Will the letter ever be delivered? Top notch historical fiction.

The Book of Fires (Pamela Dorman Books) by Jane Borodale. In 1752, pregnant and ashamed, 17 year-old Agnes Trussel flees rural Sussex for London, where she becomes an assistant to a fireworks maker. Will she lose her job when her pregnancy becomes known? Explosive, colorful and captivating.

Claude & Camille: a Novel of Claude Monet (Crown) by Stephanie Cowell. The unruly love story of Impressionist painter Claude Monet and his wife/muse, Camille Doncieux. An intense portrait of the Monets and the Parisian artists the surrounded themselves with.

Good to a Fault (Harper) by Marina Endicott. After a lonely woman crashes her car into the car of a homeless family, she invites them to live with her. Indeed, her life will never be the same. Heart-warming/heart wrenching story from Canada.

I Still Dream About You (Random House) by Fannie Flagg. At age 60, a realtor and former Miss Alabama has lost her interest in life. She plans her suicide, but a much coveted real estate listing keeps interfering. Spunky and oddly enough, humorous.

The Irresistable Henry House (Random House) by Lisa Grunwald. Raised as a practice baby in a college home economics program, Henry House has many mothers. How will this affect his life? Darkly comic.

The Brightest Star in the Sky (Viking) by Marian Keyes. When a spirit periodically visits a Dublin townhouse, the tenants are suffused with the expectancy of romantic change. What follows is a plenty of falling in and out of love as forces of fate and magic collide.

The Swan Thieves (Little, Brown) by Elizabeth Kostava. Psychiatrist Andrew Marlow tries to solve the mysteries surrounding his patient Robert Oliver, a prominent painter, who stopped speaking after attacking a painting in the National Gallery of Art. Contacting the women in Oliver's life, Marlow becomes deeply embroiled. A multi-dimensional, sweeping novel about art, love and obsession.

The Scent of Rain and Lightning (Ballantine) by Nancy Pickard. The man who went to prison for killing her father 23 years ago is back on the streets. Should Jody Lincoln believe new rumors of his innocence? Surprise and suspense electrify a small town in Kansas.

Still Missing (St. Martins) by Chevy Stevens. Realtor Annie O'Sullivan is kidnapped, impregnated and held captive in a secluded mountain cabin. Will she survive? A suspenseful first novel with many unpredictable elements.

I really miss having time to read nonfiction, especially memoirs. My Lariat List assignment will end in April of 2011 after we vote on our 25 favorite novels (main citeria: that the novels be a pleasure to read) at the TLA conference. Then I'll be free to read as I please. The Fed-Ex and UPS drivers will not be stopping by my house quite as often, delivering large quantities of Lariat fiction. It has indeed been a privilege to serve on this task force, as well as a real bonanza for books. Any fiction-loving Texas librarians who might be interested in turning themselves into Lariat reading machines, please feel free to contact me. In the meantime, happy holidays!

"Good fiction reveals feeling, refines events, locates importance and, though its methods are as mysterious as they are varied, intensifies the experience of living our own lives." - Vincent Canby

Rock, Shell, Bead & Brick

2010-12-02T09:07:00.008-06:00

I needed a little break from collage so I picked up my pliers and wire and started wrapping rocks. Call them tchotkes, doodads, fetishes, what have you, I don't care -- I'm on a tear. Earlier in the year, I blogged about finding finding a bunch of beach brick down in Galveston, most of it likely to be remnants of hurricane Ike, which manifested its horrible self here on the Gulf Coast during September of 2008. The bricks' humble shapes spoke to me, softened as they are by sand and salt water. As for rocks, I've tended to pick them up wherever I go. Funny, though -- looking through my scattered-around-the-house collections, I realized you can never really have too many rocks. Indeed, I need more! For purposes of wrapping as small sculptures, the less rounded the better, and also it's best to have at least some flat surface area.

And so my season of Christmas giftmaking began. I pulled in all sorts of supplies that were otherwise languishing in my study -- ribbon, beads, shells, etc. Though not used in any of the photos above, I also have a small stash of plastic-coated telephone wire, delightful because it comes in many colors, some of them even striped. Wish I could get my hands on more of that stuff! I also began to incorporate small pieces of driftwood into these small assemblages. Yesterday I took a short day trip to Galveston to see what else I could find on the beach. The softened bricks were less abundant and the pieces I found were often small. I imagine most of it has now been buried in the sand or carried away by beachcombers.

Brick has been around for at least 5,000 years. It makes sense that the first bricks were made in the Middle East, where rocks are in short supply. What are bricks made of? Clay, shale and sand mostly. After being formed, they are baked in furnaces for as many as 100 - 200 hours. I took several semesters of ceramics in college, and now I'm thinking it would have been fun to make some artisan bricks, but life is short and I'll let that thought go!

Is it just me, or does this time of year seem to speed up and rush towards the holidays? My time and attention span for blogging, not to mention household chores, is in short supply. And so I'll say adieu and get back to my giftmaking.... The rocks and wire are calling me. Happy holidays!

photos: 3 wrapped rock/brick assemblages by KAO

Favorite Childhood Reads

2010-11-18T09:21:00.009-06:00

I've been thinking about the books I loved as a child, when I regularly checked out the full limit of five books at a time from the Floral Park (NY) Public Library. Perhaps the reason I've felt these memories stirring is that I've been poring over old elementary school class photos posted by a fellow Floral Parker on Facebook. Guess I've always been an enthusiastic reader. When Mom and Dad first started giving me an allowance, I saved up four weeks worth to buy a Bobbsey Twins book! I also loved attending the Public Library's used book sales and filling up a grocery sack with unbelievable bargains. And here I am so many decades later, getting ready to volunteer a the Friends of the West University Library book sale this weekend.

For purposes of this post, I decided to indulge in a bit of research about three of my favorite children's authors: Lois Lenski, Louisa May Alcott and Maud Hart Lovelace.

Lois Lenski (1893 - 1974) began as a book illustrator but blossomed into a prodigious author who still did her own illustrations, which I remember with great fondness. Growing up in Ohio, Lenski later lived in New York and Connecticut. During the 1940s, for health reasons, she and her husband began wintering in the South. That is when she began producing her series of books about the lives of children in different regions of America, among them Bayou Suzette, Strawberry Girl (which won the 1946 Newbery Award), Cotton in my Sack, etc. I couldn't get enough of this series and read the books over and over. I knew of no other books quite like them. Striking in their realism, they put me into the shoes of then-contemporary children whose lives were so different than mine, migrant workers, houseboat dwellers, cotton pickers, etc. Children even wrote to Lenski and asked that she come visit and write about their lives. She also created many wonderful picture books most of us baby boomers can't help but remember: The Little Auto, Cowboy Small, We Live in the South, We Live in the North, etc. Unsentimental, innovative, prolific and dedicated, Lois Lenski gave the world her autobiography, Journey Into Childhood, in 1972, a book I hope to someday read.

I hardly feel qualified to write about Louisa May Alcott (1832 - 1888), except to say I must have read Little Women more times over than any other book from my childhood. I identified with the character of Jo, always a "scribbler", and remember how delighted I was to discover that her story was continued in Good Wives, Little Men, and Jo's Boys. During Alcott's childhood in Massachusetts, she was educated not only by her father, Amos Bronson Alcott, but by many of his learned friends, among them Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Alcott was also a nurse during the Civil War, an abolitionist and suffragette. I've long wanted to visit Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, where Alcott wrote Little Women. She also wrote Gothic "blood and thunder" thrillers under the pseudonym of A. M. Barnard.

Maud Hart Lovelace (1892 - 1980) grew up in Mankato, Minnesota, a place she would later fictionalize as Deep Valley in her beloved Betsy-Tacy series (illustrated by none other than Lois Lenski). Very much based on her childhood, they took the main character of Betsy from age five to her wedding days. Tacy and Tib, her adventurous sidekicks were fictional versions of her real life best friends. How I loved immersing myself in their lives, replete with happy endings and the sustaining power of friendship. Researching the books today, I realized the series had a definite feminist undercurrent, for the girls had independent dreams and aspirations far beyond the expectations for girls of that time. Her popularity continues today, especially through the efforts of the Betsy-Tacy Society.

Collage Exercises

2010-11-11T09:38:00.004-06:00

A playful approach to collage is the best tactic whether just starting out or feeling stuck for some reason. To that end, here are some collage ice breakers.

1. Find an image you like and cut it into 3 or 4 pieces, as in the sunflower above. How do the pieces interact in their new shapes? How can you make a new composition using them in any way but right back together?

2. Take a landscape image or some other patterned design and cut it into some commonly recognized shape: a circle, star, hand, heart or cross (as in the cross combined with the sunflower parts above). Use this as the starting point or repeat with many similar or contrasting shapes. You see this in commercial art a lot lately: the human body in the shape of a field of ragweed for an allergy drug, etc....

3. Take 3 or 4 images about the same size. Cut through all the pieces at once, making the same shapes. This might mean you cut the pieces quite randomly, almost making something like a jigsaw puzzle, or in any combination of known shapes. Take a look at the assortment of shapes you've created and put them together in a new and interesting way. Add to this as needed to form a whole composition.

In general, just sitting down with a stack of magazines, catalogs, etc. and giving yourself the license to cut out whatever appeals to you is the gateway to good collage. Doing collage with a group of friends is always fun, as collage can be very instinctive. Seeing what everyone chooses in the way of images can be revealing! Our obsessions pop right up. Making collages for me is something like a waking dream state, where all sorts of subjects and passions recombine and interweave. For me, collage is a world where all things are possible. Reinvention, integration and revelation sure to follow...

Collage by KAO: Flame of the Flower, 2008

Collage Online

2010-11-04T09:12:00.010-05:00

One of my favorite online diversions is visiting collage-related websites. So today I thought I would share a few of my favorites. First up: Scrapeteria, a blog where weekly themes are

announced and then exemplified daily by a variety of artists. Recent themes have included Weird Headlines, Halloween, Laundry, Assemblage, Pets. I've had one assemblage and one collage featured in the last two months, and hope to continue to find work to submit. Themes are announced every Thursday night.

Collage artist Julie Sadler maintains the website called Collage Clearinghouse, a "place to find all kinds of information about collage". There is such a great collection of links and resources there, I need to spend more time pointing and clicking around.

The National Collage Society, which I joined for the first time this year, lists as one of its purposes as advancing collage as a major art medium, and I'm all for that! I am pleased to be included in their 2010 26th Annual Juried Exhibit. See my piece above, Broken Labyrinth #3.

Notpaper is a Flickr group about collage, as well as a blog. Then there's Collagista, a collage-based e-zine, which I learned about following Cultural Dissection. Lately many of my friends have been exploring SoulCollage, a fantastic intuitive collage process. Global Collage is an interesting, diverse, participatory collage site I just discovered today. Thanks to the internet, there seem to be more places than ever to show and share collage work!

photo: Cut and paste paper collage, Broken Labyrinth #3 by Keddy Ann Outlaw

Apple Season

2010-10-28T11:38:00.009-05:00

Once upon a time I lived in the land of apples. As a college student at SUNY Plattsburgh, I remember picking apples for cash over at least one long weekend, even camping out in the orchard overnight with a group of friends. Then later, in St. Lawrence County, during my first marriage, we owned a farm that had a number of apple trees. What a pleasure it was to stroll from tree to tree tasting their fruit. We dried apples and made apple butter. We also took large quantities of apples to a cider mill.

Well, those days are long gone, but on a recent trip to Plattsburgh, we had the pleasure of visiting Banker Orchard. My husband bought a load of apple wood for grilling. I especially took a liking to Empire apples, a small dark red variety which manages to be both sweet and tart. Reading about them, I discovered they are a cross between McIntosh and Red Delicious. The New York Apple Country web page is a good place to learn about apple varieties, browse recipes and figure out which variety of apple is best for pies.

As a child I had a fascination with Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman, 1774 - 1845). So I decided it was time to sift the facts from the lore of this beloved American folk hero. He did not become known as Johnny Appleseed until late in his life. He never married, and was quite a wanderer. He wore old clothes and often went barefoot. Chapman never married. He established several small apple nurseries in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, but rarely stayed to tend them, preferring life on the road as a missionary for the Swedenborgian Church. Because he did not believe in grafting apple trees, most of the varieties he grew were wild, often only suitable for cider making. He got most of his seeds from cider mill pulp, also known as pomace. Johnny Appleseed was a vegetarian, and was known for his kindness and respect for animals. All in all, an eccentric fellow who truly followed his own path.

Apples are thought to be the earliest cultivated fruit, first raised in Turkey and Asia Minor. Apples came to America with some of the first colonists. Worldwide, there are some 7,500 cultivated varieties of apples. I was surprised to learn that China is by far the world's largest producer of apples, followed by the United States, Iran and Turkey. Eating "an apple a day" is wise indeed, as they are a good source of fiber and antioxidants. I leave you now to go create some sort of apple-themed treat involving apples, cider, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon juice, brown sugar, honey and phyllo dough!

Claude and Camille: a Novel of Claude Monet by Stephanie Cowell

2010-10-18T18:30:00.009-05:00

I wanted a bit more painterly insight from this book, but who can really know what went on in Claude Monet's mind as he painted? Claude and Camlle (Crown, 2010) by Stephanie Cowell sets out to tell the love story of Claude Monet and Camille Doncieux, an aristocratic woman who gave up her privileged life to be Monet's model, mistress and wife. Their love story is well worth imagining, full of dramatic setbacks, secrets, reversals of fortune and much passion. Since not much is truly known about Camille, Cowell invents a complex, insecure, beautiful woman who not even Monet could ever be sure he truly knew.

Friendships among the struggling artists who came to be known as the Impressionists are another strong point of the novel. Monet, Bazille, Pissaro and Renoir display their "one for all and all for one" allegiance to each other, sharing paint, food, wine and shelter. For a nonfiction portrait of this group, try The Private Lives of the Impressionists (Harper Collins, 2006) by Sue Roe. When the West University Library Book Club read this last year, we also enjoyed a tour of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, tailored to tie in with the book, an experience I found especially enriching.

I have always been fascinated by Monet's methodology of repeatedly painting the same subjects such as the Cathedral of Rouen or his Giverny water lilies, seeing them anew with each change of hour or season. As a child I saw some of his water lily panels at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and experienced true awe at the scale and totality of his vision. The popularity of impressionism is unrivaled, and is sometimes dismissed or dissed for exactly that reason. But I can't get enough of the Impressionists! Monet led the pack with his serial treatment of subjects, and we forget how uncommon that was. So if you are at all an art history geek and haven't had enough of impressionism yet, grab Cowell's book for a lovely immersion into the world of Monet.

The Lighthouse Keeper's Wife

2010-10-05T13:15:00.006-05:00

In 1991, I entered into a delightful collaboration with two other poet friends, Sharron A. Crowson and Sandra Reiff, wherein we put together a chapbook called The Wives. In 1995 we followed up with The Astronaut's Ex-Wife and Other Poems (both from MetaRaven Press). We told stories of wives in first and third person. Many of mine were historical. Being a librarian, I loved doing research on the wives of famous and not so famous men, including Rebecca Boone (wife of Daniel) and Deborah Franklin (wife of Ben), as well as many women of the western frontier. The poem printed below is based in Galveston.

Lighthouse Keeper's Wife

I am Lillian:
wife, then widow,
to Daniel Ahern,
he the lighthouse keeper
here at Red Fish Bar
on Galveston Bay.

He went to town
on the schooner one day
and fell overboard
and was lost.
"Your husband drowned
last night," a sailor
told me when
the boat returned.

Inspector Mead
allowed me to continue
here at the light station,
so I kept
the light going
for two more long years,
and fed my babies,
kept them tied
to my waist
so they would
not fall over the railings
into the water.

But no more
will I study the waves
for some sign of
my Daniel.
for it is 1889
and I am tired.

Another man has asked
me to marry, and
I agreed.
This morrow
we move to town
where
I must learn
how to
turn my back on the sea.

- Keddy Ann Outlaw

photo: Cover collage by KAO

Collage: a Theme Evolves

2010-09-28T15:05:00.010-05:00

At a meeting of my small Artist's Way group last Sunday, we talked about why we value making art, be they stories, painted chairs or collages. One person said she had discovered that she likes herself when she is caught up in writing a story, laughing at her own words and the characters that come to life. My first response was to say that art brought what was in me to the outside, a rather inarticulate statement. I know I like taking scraps of this and that, be they images or words, and weaving them into some new whole. Many of us said we made art for the sheer joy of it. You do it because when things are going right, it feel like you were born to do it! And that feels terrific.

Another aspect of it for me is that when I making art, I encounter problems I CAN solve, versus other issues or problems in life that don't come so easily. Every collage composition presents challenges in balance, color, texture and/or theme. Recently I watched as a certain theme evolved in my so-called scrap collages. I'd been mostly playing with color and form, somewhat abstractly. But then images of doors and windows started sneaking in, and they seemed to ground the compositions. Before too long, houses became the entire theme, though I was still using some abstract elements. And, so a whole new theme was born. Perhaps you can see the trend for yourself in the collages above, with the older collages towards the bottom, and newer more house-centric collages at the top.

Talking about the value of making art, I couldn't help but think of my friend Albert Huffstickler (1927 - 2002), who said this about the path of art in his poem "The Way of Art":

It's the willingness to be a window

through which others can see

all the way out to infinity

and all the way back to themselves.

I am humbled to think my art might do that for someone. May it be so.

illustrations by KAO: Scrap Collages 37, 28, 23, 24, 16, September, 201o

Best Novels I've Read Lately

2010-09-23T12:08:00.009-05:00

Here are three books I've read recently that I really enjoyed.

The Irresistible Henry House (Random House, 2010) by Lisa Grunwald is about a boy with many mothers. Henry is a practice baby in a college home ec program during the post WW II era. Later he is adopted by the program's strict, stalwart head teacher. When her extreme neediness emerges, Henry grows up hiding his problems and artistic talents. Eventually sent away to boarding school when he stops speaking, his teen years are largely spent developing his artistic skills and figuring out how to juggle girlfriends. His job as a Disney animator, time spent in London, as well as influences from the counterculture, influence his coming of age. Because this novel is darkly comic, expect both laughter and tears.

Going back a little further in time, The Postmistress (Putnam, 2010) by Sarah Blake opens during WW II, when a doctor leaves his small town on Cape Cod to volunteer in London. In case of his death, he leaves a letter for his wife with the town's postmistress. Meanwhile in Europe, a female radio journalist struggles to find and tell the stories of Jewish refugees. The doctor's wife and the postmistress listen to her broadcasts, little knowing that fate will tie the three of them together as the war marches on. Intriguingly moody, this is topnotch historical fiction with many compelling story lines.

The Scent of Rain and Lightning (Ballantine, 2010) by Nancy Pickard kept me on the edge of my seat. As the book opens, Jody Linder learns that the man who went to prison for killing her father 23 years ago is back on the streets. Should she believe new rumors of his innocence? Also unresolved since the day of her father's murder is the disappearance of her mother. As surprise and suspense electrify a small ranching town in Kansas, readers too will feel agitated by the atmospheric changes. Pickard is the award-winning author of 18 mystery novels, and I hope to read more of them soon.

Collage: Working with Scraps

2010-09-15T13:05:00.005-05:00

I'm at a stage with collage where I'm allowing myself to play with abstractions. I approach them almost as scrap quilts. I challenge myself to use a certain small handful of scraps and go to it. I am also working with leftover scraps of matboard. Playing like this helps to turn off the inner critic. Often I am drawn to fully saturated colors and patterns, the goal being to trick the eye into almost not knowing what it is seeing.

I've had a touch of insomnia lately, so some of these were made after midnight! It is fun to wake up and go see what I might have made the day before. After I finish the first layer of glue-down, it may or may not be all done. Often I add more layers later. To make sure the layers adhere well and stay flat, I slip the images between pieces of wax paper and insert them into a large book which I weigh down with another large book or my assorted boxes of scraps. Collage is quite obsessive! I love having this outlet for my imagination. Off I go now to cut up a few more scraps...

Photos: Scrap Collages by KAO, 2010

Growing in Circles by Bonnie L. Casey

2010-09-09T09:14:00.009-05:00

I just finished reading Growing in Circles: My Struggle to Make Peace with God, Myself and Just About Everything (Two Harbors, 2009)by Bonnie L. Casey. The list of girlfriends I'd like to send a copy to is long: women going through midlife divorce, women fighting depression, fibromyalgia or PTSD. Not to mention mothers of children with conditions such as Asperger's syndrome. Also, I have one friend in Idaho who is writing a spiritual memoir and she would appreciate this book. The subtitle says it all!

Bonnie's tale, a journey from the Seventh Day Adventist religion to eclectic mysticism, is structured around the steadying influence of her Sacred Circle girlfriends. In Bonnie's words, here is the purpose of the group: "to support each other in our search for meaning and connection with the Divine." Her group meets monthly, and readers are privy to their wonderful topics of discussion, sent out in advance by email. Among the topics: finding joy in life, habits to discard, perceptions that influence inner peace, significant experiences with animals, the influence of myths and fairy tales, relationships with fathers, and many more. What an honor it was to look over Bonnie's shoulder into the group's dynamic influence on her life. Because I too, also belong to a women's sacred circle group that meets weekly to discuss similar issues, I am a great believer in their shared wisdom and resonance. I think of these meetings a form of spiritual practice as well as a bedrock of friendship and connection.

I wonder if Bonnie has ever seen the book Signs of Life: the Five Universal Shapes and How to Use Them (Tarcher/Putnam, 1998) by anthropologist Angeles Arrien. In it, she explores how circles, spirals, squares, crosses and triangles encourage and inspire us. Circles are of course a powerful symbol of wholeness. Bonnie L. Casey's circular journey to wholeness is a true heroine's journey. Among the tools she finds useful in her battle with mental, physical and spiritual crises are yoga, labyrinth walking, gardening, meditation, mindfulness and gratitude. She also touches on labyrinth walking, one of my favorite spiritual practices. One of the watershed books Bonnie found along her path to wholeness was Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype (Ballantine, 1992) by Jungian psychoanalyst Clarissa Pinkola Estes, also a book I highly value and tend to read over and over.

I am indebted to Here Women Talk, a social network I stumbled upon a few months ago, where I enjoy facilitating a discussion group called Creative Intentions, for introducing me to Bonnie L. Casey and her soul-searching, inspiring book.

Kewpie Collages

2010-08-31T14:38:00.012-05:00

Kewpie and the Carousel Horse

Kewpie Contemplates the Tree of Life

Kewpie Does the Diner

Kewpie Hits Gold

Kewpie and Feathered Friends

Indulge me in a mostly visual post this week, a selection of Dollscape collages from my Kewpie series. I had to pull of out the art show I was slated to do at a local church; it just didn't work out. Politics, poor communication and ever-changing contingencies are some of the reasons why I said "adios", and feel much the better for it. The pressure is off. My art career is still and will probably always will be a work in progress. I am investigating other opportunities to show and sell my work. The Kewpie series is mostly light and/or mock serious. I hope you enjoy them....

Kewpies originated in Germany, and are said to serve as an alter ego of Cupid. Here in the United States, they were popularized by a cartoonist/illustrator named Rose O'Neill during the early 1900s. Kewpies are highly collectible. There is also a Kewpie Mayonnaise sold in Japan (and on amazon.com). Kewpies were some of the first mass produced dolls, and have been made of bisque, wood, paper and celluloid. Rose O'Neill envisaged Kewpies as friendly little creatures who helped people get out of trouble and/or heal broken hearts. May many Kewpies be with you!

photos: 5 Original cut and paste Kewpie collages by Keddy Ann Outlaw

The Dog Boy by Eva Hornung

2010-08-26T14:40:00.005-05:00

If you enjoyed reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy, you'll be able to stomach Dog Boy: A Novel (Viking, 2010) by Australian author Eva Hornung (a pseudonym for Eva Sallis). The Road, which I very much admired, is set in post-apocalyptic America. Dog Boy feels almost as deeply post-apocalyptic, but is set in post-Perestroika Moscow.

When readers first meet Romochka, he knows nothing of dogs. He is alone in an abandoned apartment and does not know where his mother or abusive uncle have gone. There is hardly any food in the apartment and everything of value has been removed. The entire building seems to be vacated. Winter is coming. When he ventures out into the city, he encounters lots of wandering homeless people, both young and old. Danger is everywhere. Somehow he ends up following a wild dog to her lair. He snuggles in with her four puppies, he drinks her milk, and thus begins his apprenticeship as a dog or dog boy. Spending several seasons with the dogs, he becomes skilled at gathering food scraps and hunting. In time he becomes their leader.

The book is brutal. Blood and guts abound. But the story is gripping. I wanted to put it down at first, but had to find out if Romochka lived to tell his tale. Would he ever go back to a more humanlike existence? A campaign to find and poison feral dogs is involved. When the dogs bring a second child, only a baby, back to the lair, Romochka is at first jealous. But his attachment to the babe grows, and the plot thickens. The level of communication between the dogs and Romochka is beautifully developed, but at the same time challenging to read since the the first half of the book has very little spoken dialogue. But the readers' rewards are many, and thus Dog Boy is a book I feel I will never, ever forget.

I've always enjoyed books where children must survive without adults: Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George, Hatchet by Gary Paulsen and The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner (all childrens' titles) come to mind. A school librarian friend recommended Dog Boy (Thank you, Janis!) We are hoping for a sequel.

Summertime Miscellany: Right Brain/Left Brain

2010-08-17T08:55:00.018-05:00

There is a very provocative book I read years ago that I keep thinking of: The Alphabet Versus the Goddess (Viking, 1998), by physicist Leonard Shlain. Basically, it claims that our left brains became more prominent after humankind began to communicate through text, versus the pre-print era when we thought and communicated more visually (via the right brain). In this age of the Internet, we move more towards a balance of the two. Shlain aligns text with linear male thinking and women with more holistic, visual states of mind, a premise that seems too simplistic for me. Yet I am fascinated by the rapid changes in our culture as far as modes of communicating go. We have become very graphics-rich. Everyone is a photographer. Graphic novels are beoming de rigueur. We consume visual content via tv, ipods, film, YouTube, email photo attachments, you name it....

Sitting down to blog this week, I felt less verbally inspired than usual, so I reached for my camera and went out to the yard. Yesterday I snapped the photo of our one lone cucumber growing in the garden, hardly worth the dozens of gallons of water we've poured into it, not to mention compost, mulch, etc. But maybe there will more cukes coming. Sometimes I think the cuke and squash flowers just don't get pollinated correctly since it is always a challenge to succeed with these veggies in hot humid, Houston. Why do we even try? Darned if I know, but that's a different post..... I thought about doing some research on cucumbers and composing a whole post about that, but it felt too forced. So this morning I took a few more photos of things growing in the yard and wanted to be done with it, just post a few photos and move on with my week since I am busy getting ready to hang my art show.

But this notion of visual versus text kept gnawing at me. My brain is leaning more towards the visual these days since I am making so much art. But then again, I also read a lot. I'm not sure I can conceive of a world without text. Artist's Way author Julia Cameron recommends giving up reading for a week or so if you are a blocked artist. I'm not sure I could ever do that! There is much to be said for being fluid between both modes of communication. I love to pour over native American war and pony paint symbols, cave paintings and other pre-text images. Apparently most people picked up paint or sticks to draw before there was text. They took "art" for granted.

Drafting an artist's statement for my forthcoming show, I wrote that I love collage because it serves as an alternate reality where anything is possible. Because it is often multi-layered and complex, collage has the potential to portray the states of paradox, fancifulness and imagination common to the human brain. Only through collage do I feel I am saying things words can't express. We have become very sophisticated in our visual communication, and I do believe that involves some integration of the mind's ability to move back and forth between the brain's hemispheres. We have so many digital tools that allow us to express ourselves. Talking to or everyone (or no one) here in the blogosphere, I am grateful for this mode of communication that blends words and pictures. Peace out!

photos by KAO" Lone Cuke, Chickens a Pecking, Plastic Flamingos "Pete & Petunia", Yard Flowers with Metal Chicken Figurine

Assemblage Fever

2010-08-05T09:05:00.008-05:00

Assemblage boxes are multiplying on my work table during these Dog Days of summer. Last year I was sewing up a storm during August. It's good to have plenty of inside activities planned when the thermometer shoots past the mid-90s. I've made assemblage boxes before, including a portable Elvis shrine for a friend, but it's been awhile. That means my supply of oddball materials has been building, and it was time to get into action. That and the added nudge of homework assigned in the Mixed Media course I'm taking at the Art League gave me plenty of impetus.

Wikipedia defines assemblage as an artistic process in which a three dimensional artistic composition is made from putting together found objects. Joseph Cornell was a master of assemblage, and here in Houston we have access to a lot of his work at the Menil Collection. Years ago I devoured a wonderful biography of Cornell called Utopia Parkway: the Art and Life of Joseph Cornell (FSG, 1997) by Deborah Solomon, which I can't recommend enough. But I don't want look at too much of Cornell's work right now because I'd rather play with what I have, uninfluenced by anyone else's masterpieces.

I'm using cigar boxes, boxtops, frames, all kinds of substrata, and though I tried to get away from the "dollcentric" theme I've developed in my collage practice, I quickly realized there was no getting away from that particular obsession. See two works above that I completed last week, both of them including small doll elements. There are always problems to solve in such multimedia works. Will the glue hold? Will the glue show? In what order should things get glued down? Will I be able to touch up the paint without messing up other surfaces? Will there be enough three dimensionality? and so on and so forth. There is lots of experimentation and running around for "just one more thing", as well as some frustration when things don't quite work out right. There are both "oh-ohs" and "ahas", so life is never dull when I'm caught up in assemblage fever. I like to work on more than one box at a time so that while one is clamped, fresh-glued or fresh-painted, I can turn my attention to the whatever next stage is required.

I should be doing other things - there are three rooms to paint here at the house, and many other siren calls. But I'm having too much fun to stop. As long as the AC holds and we don't run into any hurricanes, I'm all set. Roll over, Beethoven - the Dog Days are here.....

Photos: assemblage boxes by KAO, 2010

Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage by Elizabeth Gilbert

2010-07-29T08:45:00.006-05:00

Elizabeth Gilbert would make a good reference librarian! She has a nose for research and a natural curiosity. I'm sure most of you have heard what a difficult time she and her Brazilian-born beloved, Felipe had with immigration, a situation which at first put them into exile and then catapulted them towards legal marriage. To say that the previously divorced Gilbert had a full-tilt case of premarital jitters would be an understatement. She and Felipe had already had a private ceremony with eternal vows, so in truth she was already married in her heart. It was the legal, financial and bureaucratic aspects of marriage that gave her the heebie-jeebies. Three times married myself, I have to say, I could relate....

So Gilbert took it upon herself to research the subject of marriage, and turned it into Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage. No, it's not another Eat, Pray, Love. It's a different kind of book altogether, a mix of memoir and her findings on the institution of marriage. At first I felt a little unsettled by this methodology, wanting more of the scoop on her relationship. But then I settled in and found it absolutely fascinating.

For instance, she presents the "Dads or Cads" theory, a DNA variation related to the vasopressin receptor gene , which makes men either trustworthy, monogamous and reliable or decidedly not. She pores over statistics related to the "marriage benefit imbalance", in which men make out better than women once the vows are said. Gilbert drops in on families in Southeast Asia, fascinated by their marital customs. Never having been a mother, she ruminates on the need for what she calls "the Auntie Brigade", and gives aunties some long overdue kudos. She points out marriage's tendency to tame the wild, comparing it to a bonsai tree. Thank you, Elizabeth, for doing all that research so I don't have to, and for pulling together all the most colorful and telling bits.

By book's end, Felipe and Elizabeth cross all their immigration hurdles and manage to lash their lifeboats together, no surprise. They live in a small renovated church in new Jersey (isn't that cool?). I've enjoyed watching some Internet movie clips of Gilbert speaking, including this one on nurturing creativity. She has such a natural, unassuming manner on stage. And I can't wait to see the movie version of Eat, Love, Pray (in theaters August 13, 2010). As far as I'm concerned, Julia Roberts and Elizabeth Gilbert should BOTH be called America's Sweethearts.

Summer at Tiffany: a Memoir by Marjorie Hart

2010-07-22T08:18:00.005-05:00

I picked up Summer at Tiffany: a Memoir (Morrow, 2007) by Marjorie Hart a few months ago to send to my mother, who at age 91 still leads an active reading life. Then I got to read it when I visited her on Long Island. As perfect as any beautifully wrapped Tiffany box, this is a book you want to recommend to anyone with ties to Manhattan. Though set during the summer of 1945, it has a certain timeless excitement that can only come from a young person's first encounter with the Big City.

Marjorie and her best friend Marty are University of Iowa college girls who manage by a fluke to acquire summer jobs as the very first female "pages" at Tiffany & Co., the swanky jewelry emporium. They only earn $20.00 a week, and must count every nickel to get by. Interwoven with Marjorie's letters home and news of World War II winding down, this memoir is a vivid historical portrait. Their summer in New York is one they find most thrilling, indicated by frequent sprinklings of their excited "ohmygosh" reactions. Agog when movie stars such as Judy Garland walk into Tiffany's, thrilled by treats such as ice cream sundaes at Schrafft's or sandwiches purchased at the Horn & Hardart Automat, Marjorie and Marty also get a taste of New York's nightlife. They date and dance with soldiers, and even celebrate VJ Day in Times Square.

Marjorie Hart did not publish this memoir until she was age 83, realizing that the summer of '45 stories she told her grandchildren were grand fodder for a book. She is a professional cellist and former chairman of the Fine Arts Department at the University of San Diego.

The New York City Hart describes is the one my parents spoke of, my mother as an overseas telephone operator and my Dad a returning soldier/college student. In the 1950s, I was taken into the city for special events. I too remember Fifth Avenue, Radio City Music Hall, Schrafft's and the Horn & Hardart automat. One of the biggest childhood thrills at Christmastime was seeing the city's store windows: Lord and Taylor's (still the best!), FAO Schwarz, Tiffany's. So naturally I took to this book like cream cheese to bagels! Give it to anyone who enjoyed The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw. New York, New York -- long may she prosper!

Process and Product: Art Chair Finally Done

2010-07-14T21:39:00.014-05:00

The Furniture Bank art chair I've been painting the last few weeks is done! I'm calling it the Four Star Crazy Quilt chair. Quilting motifs often find their way into my collages. And so when I agreed to paint an art chair for the Furniture Bank (see the June 16, 2010 post), I immediately arrived on the crazy quilt idea. Then I had one false start that I painted over. Estimated time spent: about 60 hours in the last 3 or 4 weeks.

So it's a relief to be done, especially because I find my attention moving on to the mixed media assignments related to a class I'm taking at the Art League. Last week I wrote about the art process, and shortly thereafter found myself grappling with the challenges of taking collage to canvas. My appetite for new processes was truly put to the test. I started my first canvas in class, and it was wild with images and paint and all kinds of things glued down too quickly with Mod Podge, a medium new to me. That same night, after I came home, I pulled off some of the buckling, bubbly layers. That was just the first redo. The next day another, and so forth. That canvas is now relegated to the junk heap, but I did learn plenty along the way.

For one thing, from both the chair and canvas projects, I've learned what a forgiving medium paint is. Whenever you don't like the way something looks or you've dribbled where you meant to drabble, well - just paint it over and try again. Do-overs are a very big part of most artistic endeavors. Now I feel better able to judge what will and won't work as far as paint goes. Remember that old cowboy saying: Good judgement comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgement. Sometimes you just have to experiment. The risk that you may have to start over is all part of the process. I started a second canvas today that is looking much better, well worth all the muddling that took place on my first try.

Guess I'll also mention that I've started facilitating a group called Creative Intentions on a new social networking site called Here Women Talk. We'll see what comes of it. In three days the goup has grown to 14 members. A friend in North Carolina joined the site, and soon I followed. Creativity fascinates me. To quote a friend who left a comment here last week: "I love the creative process because I disappear and become what I am creating. I feel eternal." What could be better than that?

photos by KAO: "Four Star Crazy Quilt Chair"

Art: Sometimes "It's All About the Process"

2010-07-08T08:29:00.011-05:00

I've heard people say that for them, art is all about the "process" more than, say, fame or fortune. In any art form, the journey towards a completed work of art can be rich and meaningful. Or it can be torture! Or both.... Discovering what you have to say with music, dance or paint may be a prelude to a finished piece. Yet some of the discovery takes place even as you are making whatever it is you think you are making. There are bound to be changes. Surely you've heard novelists say that their characters took over and sprouted new plotlines. The creative flow can be like that.

In collage, part of what I love is the pure mystery of what emerges. Gathering together a pile of images, then weaving them into some new whole, is for me very satisfying. Sometimes I work with intention, sometimes not. Often what I think I'm doing takes a left turn and ends up somewhere else. Backing up a bit, part of the collage process is gathering all those images that appeal to you. The search for materials, not only gathering them, but sorting them, becomes part of the journey. Unless I am involved in a process of discovery, of continually nudging my materials and obsessions into a new form, I get bored.

Only recently I learned there actually is something called Process Art. Think of Jackson Pollock flinging paint on canvas. Or Andy Goldsworthy building sculptures from icicles or twigs. Yet in true "Process Art", as I understand it, the final product is not the point at all. The actual performance of the art is what it's all about. As the Wikipedia article on Process Art points out, such art as been around a long time in the form of such rites as Buddhist sand painting or Japanese tea ceremonies.

Making art can be very ritualistic. Thinking of artmaking as ritual takes it into the spiritual realm, does it not? Such ritual can become the high point of the artist's life, be they musicians, dancers, sculptors. I'm glad I don't make art that requires public performance, but thinking of performers I know, often they have trouble winding down after the high point of a major concert or show. They make art every time they perform, whereas most visual artists perform alone in front of their canvas or clay, and then if they are lucky, bring their art somewhere out into the world to be seen. Right now I am missing my collage rituals because I am spending all my time working on an Art Chair for the Furniture Bank. I just started a Mixed Media course at the Art League, and in the next seven weeks hope to learn some new tricks for taking collage to canvas, mixing it with paint and image transfer processes. The good thing about taking a break from one medium to try another is that it helps the creative well to fill. Often you learn techniques from one medium you can transfer to another.

There's a new reality show on Bravo televison called Work of Art that I find fascinating. Viewers get to see the competing artists go through their processes to complete various artistic challenges. The winner will be given a one man show at the Brooklyn Museum.

My "Dollscape" collage above is one of the pieces I entered in the Jung Center Anthologie show, which runs through July 14th. When I was at the Center a few days ago, I noticed that very few pieces had the coveted red dot on their labels signifying a sale. I had three of my collages printed on giclee canvas for the show, an investment I may never recoup. But that's alright, making the art is really its own reward. Feeling obsessed enough to keep making art is for me a vital life force. Hope that doesn't sound pompous! And so the journey continues....

collage by KAO: Planetary Reflection (2010)

Good to a Fault by Marina Endicott

2010-07-01T09:02:00.005-05:00

Canadian author Marina Endicott's second novel, Good to a Fault (Harper, 2010), is still on my mind although I finished it more than a week ago. I miss those characters! If you like Anne Tyler (one of my all time favorite authors), try Endicott. Her protagonist Clara Purdy reminds me of Tyler's Ian Bedloe in Saint Maybe. Both characters are full of goodness, guilt and remorse.

We meet Clara Purdy, a lonely, mild-mannered insurance claims adjuster, in the first paragraph just as she crashes her car into another car during her lunch hour. Her life will never be the same. Inside that car is a homeless family, replete with two children, a baby and a (very nasty) grandmother. On learning that the Gage family is homeless and that the mother needs a hospital stay, Clara feels so guilty, she invites them all to live with her.

Bad move, good move? Both. Clara finds herself enraptured with the three children, especially the baby, Pearce. When the children's mother, Lorraine Gage, is diagnosed with lymphoma, the temporary living arrangement becomes more permanent. Mr Gage flies the coop, stealing Clara's car and some money. The grandmother reveals her penchant for shoplifting. The plot thickens. Clara leaves her job and becomes totally enmeshed with the Gage family.

In addition to Clara's point of view, readers get inside the mind of Dolly the oldest child, who at age 8 is quite shrewd and street-savvy. Not knowing if her mother will live, Dolly starts snooping through neighbor's homes, looking for cash and valuables she figures she may have to steal later on if her mother dies and/or Clara turns them out. A soon-to-be-divorced priest, Paul Tippet, is also given page space, another lonely character who much like Clara, thrives on helping out this all-but-falling-apart family. And let's not forget Lorraine Gage, stuck in a hospital bed while her children seem to be thriving under the care of Clara Purdy.

A fine mix of characters, and for me a very compelling, both heart-wrenching and heart-lifting read. The novel was shortlisted for Canada's Giller Prize in 2008. I'll be looking for a copy of Endicott's first novel, Open Arms (Douglas & McIntyre, 2001), and hope we'll be seeing more novels from Endicott in the very near future. Happy reading!

Images of Summer

2010-06-22T09:12:00.008-05:00

Happy Summer Solstice one day late, not that it hasn't felt like summer on the Texas Gulf Coast for many weeks now. The tomatoes have quit producing, it's just too hot. The grass grows so fast you can't believe it. I ride my bike early or late and swim when I can. After putting in about 12 hours on the art chair I wrote about last week, I decided to scrap it and start over. Same quilt concept, but on a larger scale, not so fussy.... And so it goes. I'm off to the beach!

photos by KAO: Grass Shadows; Self Portrait on Bike, June 2010; Tomato Harvest; Biggest Sunflower, 2010.

Art Chairs in the Making

2010-06-16T09:55:00.010-05:00

The Furniture Bank of Houston has given local artists the opportunity to get creative this summer. All are invited to paint a chair for their big bash, the Show Your Heart Furniture, Arts and Decor Expo, to be held August 28 and 29, 2010 at the George R. Brown Convention Center. The art chairs will be auctioned off to benefit their main cause of supplying furniture to families and individuals living in poverty, "making empty houses homes". Click here for an application.

Visiting their facility to pick out a chair was like poking around in granny's attic. One of my friends took home a rocker and a child's chair. I chose a rather chunky, almost colonial-looking chair because it had plenty of wood surface to paint. My concept is that of a crazy quilt. I post this photo of my a small section of my first start with some hesitation. There's plenty of revision going on as I test my design and methodology. There may be further embellishments of the surface if I really get obsessive and try to add some calico-like patterns to my solid colors.

As often is the case with my creative process, I tend to jump into things without much prior knowledge, planning or experience. I like to wing it, but often end up hustling to catch up on technique. Right now I am enjoying playing with the color palette, creating old timey, cozy colors that would be found in an antique quilt. Finding the right brushes and paint consistency is also part of the learning curve. Since I am also doing some interior house painting this summer, my favorite old clothes will be getting a bit more paint-spattered than ever. I am grateful for this opportunity to create and and donate to a good cause. Painting a chair feels like play to me. As Picasso said, "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."

The Little Garden Within: the Poet Emily Dickinson and Her Love of Flowers

2010-06-12T09:18:00.012-05:00

I don't know if I'll ever get to Amherst, Massachusetts to visit the Emily Dickinson Museum, so instead, while I was in New York this week, I made a pilgrimage to the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, where there was a wonderful exhibit pairing her poetry with many of the flowers and plants she grew in her garden. Known more as a prolific gardener than a poet in her day, Emily Dickinson (December 10, 1830 - May 15, 1886) often worked in her garden by moonlight. As she aged, she had problems with her eyes that made bright sunlight prohibitive.

Although it only took less than an hour to see the exhibit, what I value most from making the journey was simply enriching my connection to the poet. I read the 28 page Emily Dickinson's Garden: Poetry of Flowers catalog from cover to cover as I waited for my train back to Grand Central station. Various bits of trivia spoke to me. Her poems speak to me more and more every time I make the effort to read them. Some years ago, we had a wonderful minister at our Unitarian Universalist Church who we fondly referred to as the 'poetry preacher", and for several weeks a bunch of us met with Bruce Bode to read aloud and discuss Dickinson's poems. Of course the poems bore much inspection, and sometimes we'd spend as much as an hour on one short poem, falling completely under her spell.

Dickinson's mother was an avid gardener, and thus the poet spoke of being "reared in the garden." Her favorite flowers included roses (the most mentioned flower in her verse), daisies (I connect to this because the daisy is my mother's favorite flower), lilies, tulips, daffodils, jasmine (especially loved because of its fragrance), indian pipe, gentians and even the common dandelion. Like any good gardener of the Victorian age, she understood the language of flowers/floriography. She sometimes called herself "Daisy". The most common meaning attributed to daisies is innocence, interesting because in Dickinson we do see profound purity, yet it is paradoxically paired with a multi-layered, rich, dark, complicated wisdom and intelligence. For me, her deep rootedness to the earth couples with her light-as-air, far reaching acquaintance with the heavens, an inexplicable package of genius and inspiration.

As a young girl, Emily Dickinson kept a leather bound scrapbook of pressed flowers and plants identified as to genus and species, commonly known as a herbarium. In the winters, she gardened in a small conservatory her father added to their Homestead. She sent pressed flowers in her letters and inserted her poems (also known then as posies) into bouquets she gave to friends. She was a "lunatic on bulbs" and favored perennials over annuals, though her garden was known to include nasturtiums (an annual I have always loved for their round leaves). The family kept vegetable gardens and an orchard, as well as an 11 acre meadow where wildflowers went wild.

I learned that Emily Dickinson was buried in a white coffin, holding heliotrope, with lady's slippers at her throat. Her coffin was carried through a field of buttercups near the Homestead, and her grave covered with flowers. There's lots more to read and learn about Emily, but for now here is poem 106, written in 1859:

The Daisy follows soft the Sun -
And when his golden walk is done -
Sits shyly at his feet -
He - waking - finds the flower there -
Wherefore - Marauder - art thou here?
Because, Sir, love is sweet!

We are the Flower - Thou the Sun!
Forgive us, if as days decline -
We nearer steal to Thee!
Enamored of the parting West -
The peace - the flight - the Amethyst -
Night's possibility!

photo by KAO: "The Little Garden Within " (from Letters 969, Emily Dickinson), with floral display at NY Botanical Garden, June 2010.

Short Poems from East Texas

2010-06-01T16:06:00.013-05:00

Some years ago I enjoyed taking a guided tour of the McFaddin Ward Historic House Museum in Beaumont, Texas. Today I came across these small poems I wrote about the place, some of which I've posted below. The McFaddin family were part owners of Spindletop, the place where the Texas Oil boom began in 1901. Perhaps you've heard of the Lucas Gusher, which first erupted at Spindletop on January 10, 1901, with the oil shooting as high as 150 feet, netting some 100, 000 barrels a day. Today you can also visit the place, now called the Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum.

Live Oaks

In the summer of 1836,

William McFaddin walked home

from the Battle of Goliad

with two acorns in his pocket,

acorns he gathered from

the San Jacinto battleground.

He planted them near the house

where two tall, wide, and wise live oaks

still stand today, often surrounded

by astonished tourists.

The Cook

Mr. Lemon, the black cook,

roasted red pepper

on his wood stove

to keep interlopers

out of his kitchen.

Spiritual Furniture

In the bedrooms of

all the young ladies,

ornate kneelers imported from Europe

invite even the unholiest to pray.

The Lucas Gusher

In the north bedroom,

where one of the McFaddin boys slept,

a picture of the family's oil well

at Spindletop hangs over the bed,

eternally gushing black oil.

photo by KAO: from the East Texas Road sign series

Best Reads Lately....

2010-05-26T09:46:00.014-05:00

I have a small backlog of books to tell you about! The first being The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostava, a big brooding book with ties to art and psychology, two of my prime obsessions. Psychiatrist Andrew Marlow is a mild-mannered psychiatrist whose hobby is oil painting. His life gets a whole lot more interesting when he tries to solve the mysteries surrounding one of his patients, artist Robert Oliver. An esteemed painter and college professor, Oliver attacked a painting in the National Gallery and since then stopped speaking. Marlow learns a whole lot more about the Oliver by spending time with the women who have loved him. There is also a second storyline set in the nineteenth century involving a woman painter. I am not always fond of parallel plotting, but in this case as the book marched on, I became caught up in the interconnections between both stories. Further appeal was watching Marlow move beyond his comfort zone, challenging his own issues and lack of deep relationships.

On a much lighter note, I enjoyed The Brightest Star in the Sky by Marian Keyes. Set in Dublin, largely at some flats at 66 Star Street, where the love lives of its tenants are in constant flux and turmoil, the novel has a caring, fond tone. If this is chick lit, I'm a convert. There is an unusual element herein that makes the book hard to describe. A spirit enters the building at times, seeming to influence lives with a karmic hand. I know, I know -- sounds flaky, but it works, and is never overbearing. I love books where some colorful cast of characters all living in the same building are brought to life; see also the 44 Scotland Street series by Alexander McCall Smith. A similar device is used by Maeve Binchy when she examines the lives of a bunch of fellow bus riders in The Lilac Bus.

Darkest fiction I've read in a long time, difficult to recommend, but a real heart-stopper is: Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich. Exploring love/hate and the fine line dividing them in a marriage between a Native American artist, Gil, and his wife, Irene America, who he obsessively paints, this novel reminded me of the play, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Their stormy relationship is detailed in two diaries written by the wife, one for her eyes only and one for her husband to put his hands on. Their three children strongly sense and react to the marital chaos. Alcohol heightens deep dysfunction. Although the madness and emotional turmoil are clearly not for everyone, Erdrich's provocative literary prowess kept me reading.

As always, happy reading!

One Year Later: Life Post-retirement

2010-05-19T08:44:00.012-05:00

May 15 was my one year "Retireversary" from librarianship. Where has the time gone? I remain humbled by this opportunity to "do my own thing". Although life as a public servant may not have been the most remunerative path during the actual years of work, putting in the time towards a secure retirement made it all worth while. I often hesitate to speak of my joy in retirement. So many friends and family do not have their retirement plans in place, and I don't want to rub anyone the wrong way. Sometimes I still can't believe I am really retired.

More than anything, I've returned to my art roots. My study overflows with projects, materials, tools, etc. The weeks fly by, and much like in my work days, I have to keep a detailed schedule to keep up with myself. Staying fit takes a high priority so I try to fit two exercise periods into every day. There's more time for gardening and cooking. Some travel is good, but that gets expensive. One of the pitfalls of retirement is that there is more time for spending. So I try and channel some of those spending urges towards resale and bargain shopping. Probably my biggest weakness has been spending on art materials.

I'm trying to turn into a money-making artist and craftperson again. All through college and my pre-librarian days, I sold things I made to help get by: pottery, silver or beaded jewelry, crocheted goods, etc. Back then, it seemed like there were always casual opportunities to sell at farmer's markets, craft fairs, etc. I am only beginning to ferret out the best ways to sell stuff. On the high end are my so-called "Dollscapes", the collage series I have been entering into art shows with good response but no sales so far. There are plenty of shows to consider; most of them have an entry fee, so you can't do them all. I had three of my collages printed on giclee canvases to enter in an upcoming member show at the Jung Center. If even one of them sells, it will be encouraging. On the crafty side, last summer I was obsessed with small quilting projects, and donated some to my church for a fundraiser, but otherwise have mostly given these creations to friends and family. A few months ago I started making Sculpey faces I then embellish and sew onto little wall hangings, but no sales to report there either. Soon, I may get started selling on Etsy. I have many original greeting cards for sale on my Zazzle site, but so do about a million other people, so no rewards there either. Maybe it's the economy, right? Oh well, I'm not into art for the money, but as I keep explaining to my husband, it sure would be nice to feel that what I make has value to other people.

Because of my TLA Lariat List involvement, I spend a lot of time reading book reviews online and elsewhere, plus I also still write occasional reviews for Library Journal. My Bloglines account has gotten more diverse; I've gotten addicted to a number of cooking, craft and decorating blogs, among them: Feasting on Art, Karla's Cottage, The Pioneer Woman, Posie Gets Cozy, Unconsumption, Colour Lovers and Cuteable.

But what is life if not a search for meaning? For me, the community places to explore that include Exploritas, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston and the Jung Center. I just finished a wonderful Jung Center lecture series on the Hero Journey with J. Pittman McGeehee last night. His definition of the hero's journey is the individual's search for meaning. What kind of human are we? We are an accumulation of all of life's stages, including that cliched being, the child within. (Good to know as my retirement is indeed a second childhood...) Permission to play: such "regression" is natural and healthy as we spiral through the paths of individuation. Perseverance is key; we are always going home and home is a metaphor for wholeness. I have a small notebook full of these and other wonderful bon mots a la Pittman. Later this summer I plan to attend a Jung Center lecture series about the poetry of T.S. Eliot to be given by the distinguished author and Jungian analyst James Hollis. Real adventure follows via the inner journey. Kicking and screaming, the soul is built. We all have dragons to slay, even in retirement.... One last link: Mythic Imagination, a site I hope to spend more time on, exploring experiences of life's mystery and metaphor.

Blessings to all - KAO.

photo by KAO: my study, 5-19-2010

Sunbonnet Swoon: All Things Little House

2010-05-11T09:59:00.006-05:00

I wasn't much of a tv watcher in the 1970s, so I did not get into the Little House on the Prairie series until much later on when it became available on DVD. As a child, I read and reread the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and they helped form my lifetime appreciation for historical fiction. I've always especially enjoyed American pioneer/sodbuster fiction. The minute I learned that the new "Little House on the Prairie" musical was coming to Houston, I was online ordering tickets.

My husband Tom and I attended the musical at Hobby Center on Saturday, May 8. He was not much familiar with Laura Ingalls Wilder, but became a convert. We loved the show. Sure, it condensed the books into quick song bites, but what songs they were! The music, choreography and acting were bright and lively. The backdrop lighting included beautiful, evocative prairie sky abstractions. The sets were the kind that the actors take apart and cleverly rearrange, sliding walls, wagons and fences around the stage.

Melissa Gilbert, the original Laura Ingalls from the tv series, gets top billing for her part as Ma/Carolyn Ingalls, but as is fitting for the story, it is Laura, played by Kara Lindsay who carries the show. Her tomboy spunk evolves into womanhood before the eyes of the audience, as she steps up to the plate to become a wage-earner in a one room schoolhouse so the family can afford to send eldest sister Mary to a School for the Blind. Laura's romance with Almonzo is beautifully rendered, especially brought to life in the song "Go Like the Wind". Next to that song, another one that really did it for me was "Wild Child", where Ma ponders the mystery of how her tomboy daughter grew up so fast. For me, that song, right near the end of the play, was a get-out-your-handkerchief moment or two or three....

Sychronistically, I've been running into Little House tie-ins everywhere lately. There was a Pete Wells NY Times Magazine "Cooking with Dexter" column on March 29, 2010 called "Little House in the Hood" that pointed out the wonderful frontier foodie element of the book series, their well detailed renderings of hog butchering, baking, churning butter, etc. Another Little House sighting: Our book group at the West University branch of HCPL read Short Girls by Bich Minh Nguyen this month, and in researching the author, I learned that she found the Laura Ingalls Wilder books to be important in her process of assimilating into American life and foodways.

And by the way, honestly, I think sunbonnets are cool! They might be just the thing for Houston in the summer time: plenty of room to gather your hair up in a bun in one of those bonnets. I'll be looking for a pattern. And someday I hope to visit the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Mansfield, Missouri, where the books were written. The musical has finished its run here in Houston, but if you happen to live in Dallas, Sioux Falls, Fort Worth, Atlanta or Kansas City, it's coming your way so if you have any degree of sunbonnet fever, don't miss it!

Holey Rocks, Banded Rocks!

2010-05-04T08:49:00.007-05:00

One of the delights of living in Plattsburgh, NY during my college years was wandering along a small section of Lake Champlain where the riprap along the shore yielded all sorts of geological treasures. Across the lake in Vermont there were marble quarries and somehow some of the huge marble slabs transported down the lake ended up on the lake's shoreline. There I began to indulge in a penchant for picking up black and white rocks, and have continued collecting them ever since. I especially love black rocks with single bands of white.

According to Jamie Sams, Seneca/Cherokee author of many books about Native American spirituality, any stone with a different-colored line running through it is called a Sacred Path stone. My connection to rocks is emotional, visual, and yes, spiritual. I seem incapable of retaining much in the way of scientific knowledge about Mother Earth's geological treasures. I have a friend who is a fantastic, knowledgeable geologist/earth science teacher and she helps me identify rocks from time to time, but unless I write it down and consciously memorize the facts, they go in one ear and out the other.

That said, I was fascinated by rocks spotted with holes I found on the Oregon coast last month. My geologist friend confirmed that the holes in these (often shale) rocks are made by clams. They bore into the rocks, dissolving them with acid to drill their burrows. A small bunch of these curious rocks made their way into my checked luggage turned in at the Portland Airport, where I'm sure the baggage inspectors are used to seeing such treasures tossed in amongst other souvenirs and dirty laundry.

Pondering this post about my attachment to rocks, I remembered a short story I wrote in 1997 for a fiction contest sponsored by The Raintown Review Anthology Series, Short Shots: Tidbits O' Double-Digit Fiction At Its Tiny Finest (no story longer than 99 words), a publication of HarMona Press in Roswell, New Mexico. I was pleased and amazed to win their First Prize of $20.00 and publication therein. I reproduce it here for a second airing:

The Crackup

She collected rocks everywhere they stopped, all the way from Ohio through Wyoming, sneaking them into bags and boxes, poking them under the car jack and spare tire in the trunk of their Chevrolet. Finally the car was so heavy, it wouldn't go over the mountains.

"What have you done?" her husband asked. He thought witchcraft was to blame.

"We can't go on," she agreed.

He said she could keep the sluggish car, but not his favorite history books. He walked toward Idaho, wheeling his favorite suitcase behind him.

She stayed on, and built a house of stone.

- Keddy Ann Outlaw

photo 1 by KAO: Lincoln City, Oregon shore rocks

photo 2 by KAO: black and white rocks

Oceanic Oregon

2010-04-28T09:28:00.020-05:00

No photo can compare to the real thing when you are talking about the Oregon shore. It was hard to see all that beauty and not want to capture it. On my Exploritas trip to Lincoln City, Oregon, there I was, snapping away at the ocean views like any other tourist trying to take the quintessential shot that would always connect me to that time and place. This was my longest exposure to the Pacific Ocean and I'm done for. I've truly got not only the Pacific Ocean bug but the travel bug! I may have retired all of eleven months ago, but only now do I feel deeply renewed, like I let out that one great big breath that truly signals relaxation and release. Although I am something of a homebody, I discovered I need to get out and about to new places more.

The official name of the junket was: Women: Learning, Walking & Writing on the Oregon Shore. All of those elements spoke to me, but I have to admit the biggest draw was simply the beach scenery. Ever since I was a kid, the oceanside has been a magical place. Growing up on Long Island, my family frequented Jones Beach for swimming and fishing. There were three or four summers of Girl Scout camp in East Hampton, as well as weekends and sometimes even weeks in Sag Harbor at a dear friend's summer house. Although I love to swim in the ocean, I've become more of an off-season beach nut. Give me a deserted beach anytime, and I am simply happy to be there, walking, observing the waves, beachcombing.

As for the creative writing element of my trip, that too was fun. One of the exercises asked us to draw a floorplan of a house we lived in, and then to freewrite from the memories spurred. Being rather visual, that really worked for me. In another exercise, we listed beaches we had been to and then wrote about one or more of them. We were also treated to presentations from Oregon authors, among them Michele Longo Eder (Salt In Our Blood, Dancing Moon Press, 2008, winner of the the 2009 WILLA award for creative nonfiction) and Ron Lovell (Murder in E-flat Major and other Thomas Martindale mysteries, Penman Productions). Mr. Lovell passed out opening paragraphs from famous mystery writers such as Tony Hillerman and Agatha Christie and had us try mimicking their styles. There were also sessions devoted to family history and memoir writing.

We stayed at the Inn on Spanish Head, a lovely hotel right on the beach. The view from my balcony was fantastic at any time of the day or night. The food, as on any other Elderhostel trip I've taken, was terrific. Exploritas is no longer just for for oldsters. Under their new name of Exploritas (explore + veritas/truth), the once 55+ age requirement has changed. As long as your are age 21 or older, the door is open. There were two mother/daughter pairs in our group of twenty-four, but most participants were at least middle-aged. As in other trips, many friendships were forged. We inspired each other in both conversation and writing. I'm a big believer in women's circles. Time away from the home front with other women is always inspiring; decompression and rejuvenation sure to follow. I'll be saving my spare change for another Exploritas trip in the near future!