Thoughtful Thursday-Pre-Travel

I always think I will start any travel as the ideal me—the one with the neat house and the organized studio, the one who has no project left hanging, no correspondence unsent. As I get ready for Monday's departure for our three-week stay in Paris, it's time to face the fact that is the real me who be embarking on this journey. My list of what must be done is getting smaller and not because the tasks are completed. By Monday I will be ready for the future of our trip and leave the past of life here in Newburyport behind for a short while.

The blog will be on holiday until October 15. I may, or may not, make a few posts here or on facebook along the way.

Art Lessons Excerpt on NAA Blog

To be an artist means not to compute or count....Rainer Maria Rilke

The rest of the passage and the essay that accompanies it in Art Lessons: Reflections From An Artist's Life, has been published on the Newburyport Art Association blog.

Books Arts Tuesday-Unicorn Cookbook

From the British Library blog:

A long-lost medieval cookbook, containing recipes for hedgehogs, blackbirds and even unicorns, has been discovered at the British Library. Professor Brian Trump of the British Medieval Cookbook Project described the find as near-miraculous. "We've been hunting for this book for years. The moment I first set my eyes on it was spine-tingling."

There are lots of other great links to follow as well. Thanks to Esther K. Smith of Purgatory Pie Press for calling attention to this on facebook.

Outdoor Sculpture at Maudslay

Saturday was installation day for Sculpture at Maudslay. The theme this year is Interwine. Here is my statement for the catalog:

Resting Prayer

Intertwine past and present
Lay to rest old work and old ideas
Pray for the rebirth and renewal of the spirit

Originally named Rising Prayer, this piece was installed at the Carney Gallery at Regis College in 1995.

It had been wrapped in quilt in my studio since 1995, a silent and covered presence that would occasionally tug at me and say, I should be seen. Over the years, despite the covering, the paper faded and it was no longer gallery quality. When I finally decided to deal with it this past winter, I thought it should have a farewell at Maudlsay before its end, hopefully through burning.

Studio Sunday-What About Me Book

When I first started teaching bookmaking, I did some workshops for at risk and girls' empowerment programs. I used art papers and in this case, made an accordion within a folded cover. This was a project that I did with a girls' group at a retreat in New Hampshire. Whatever kind of book I teach, I always made a model of my own. I assume this was made in the early 1990s. I'm not sure why, with a long list of things to do before our trip, it seemed like the time to browse through my book projects drawer but it was interesting to look back.

The prompts for each page of What About Me: A Book of Questions & Some Answers were:

What do I love?
Whom do I admire?
What do I like about myself?
What would I change about me?
What are my dreams?
What are my hopes?
What was my best day?
What was my worst day?

If I were doing it today, I would probably end on a more upbeat note.

Thoughtful Thursday-Public Speaking

I've added a new line to my business card—speaker. Much to my surprise, I have discovered that I love standing in front of a room full of people and talking about myself and my work. There was a time in my life when I would have said that was impossible. Last month, I spoke during the Sunday service at Wesley Methodist Church in Lincoln, RI and was one of the presenters at Pecha Kucha Night in Kennebunkport, Maine. It seems like a good time to reflect back on how I got here.

I first learned how to be comfortable in front of large groups of people when I taught bookmaking—40 to 50 different schools a year, 25 to 50 new faces every 45 minutes. The teaching was always about something other than myself—to get each child to make a completed blank book in the allotted time. My task was to give directions in the clearest, most unambiguous way and to keep the students's attention which meant never using notes so that I could always have eye contact. My most repeated words were, "Nothing in your hands, eyes looking at me."

While the teaching became routine, I was still nervous when I had to speak about my own art. A change occurred during the gallery talk at my exhibition of the Spirit Books at Regis College in 2005. I always felt that I was missing something because I had not gone to art school, that there was some secret I would have learned about how to talk profoundly about my work. With no other real alternative, I decided that the best I could do was speak matter-of-factly about what I was thinking when I made the Spirit Books. About half way through the talk, I looked around the gallery and realized that people seemed to really care what I was saying. It was the most warm and wonderful feeling.

The next step came when I gave an illustrated talk at the Exeter (NH) Center for Creative Arts in 2010. I did not have the comfort of the physical presence of my work but basing what I had to say on images on a screen actually made it easier. I traced my history as an artist and shared work that was successful as well as work that wasn't. I tried to be as open and as honest as I could and people seemed to like hearing about my doubts and insecurities as well as my accomplishments.

I did my first Pecha Kucha Night in Portsmouth, NH in 2011. Started by architects in Japan, Pecha Kucha (Japanese for chit chat) Nights are a series of presentations on a variety of subjects. The catch is that each presenter shows 20 images and has exactly 20 seconds to talk about each. I gathered my images, placed them in powerpoint, created a timed slideshow, and practiced, practiced, practiced.

Now, in 2013, I want to make speaking more a part of my life. I have practical and personal reasons. Practically, I have a book to promote—Art Lessons: Reflections From An Artist's Life, and more to come. As print-on-demand self-published books, they do not fit in bookstores or on amazon so I need to create my own opportunities for selling. Personally, I want to have work that takes me out of the studio. Because my teaching was so much about the relationship between me and a room full of people, rather than the more intimate kind one has when teaching a small group, the speaking is the closest to what I know.

While it is wonderful to feel a connection to others through my words, the joy is not just about the time I spend in front of an audience. It is as much about the time I spend preparing. I may jot down a few notes but I never write anything I am going to say. I think that reading and speaking are two very different things and that speaking works best if it evolves without the written word. I take great satisfaction in honing the words and then committing them sufficiently to memory, but not memorizing. Needless to say, this involves lots of repetition and lots of time. As Rilke says, "To be an artist means not to compute or count."

Should you be looking for a speaker for your institution or organization or know of someone who might be, please be in touch.

Here is my Pecha Kucha Night Kennebunk presentation in two parts. You'll hear the ding of a bell at the beginning which is what the presenter hits to say, start the slides.

Book Arts Tuesday-The Dame of Dictionaries

"Dictionaries themselves unlock the world for me," she says.

Here is long and wonderful article in the online New York magazine Narratively about Madeline Kripke whose collection of 20,000 books, mostly dictionaries, resides in her home in the West Village, New York. Her collection of dictionaries, with a particular emphasis on slang, is considered by some to be the best in the world. Daniel Krieger has written an in-depth article with photographs by Emon Hassan. If you love books, I think you'll love reading this.

And speaking of the underworld, where slang runs rampant, she takes out a worn, slim green volume called Larks of London, published in 1840, by the pseudonymous Dick Rambleton. It is "unrecorded," meaning there aren’t any other known copies, one of about a dozen sole existing books Kripke possesses. It's a guide to the underbelly of the city and includes the language of its denizens, with a subtitle that reads, in part: "The Swell’s guide to all the flash cribs, harmonic meetings, cock-and-hen clubs, night-houses, ‘Little Goes’ and ‘Big Goes,’ flash houses, seducing houses, and all sorts of houses."

Dame of Dictionaries in Narratively

Studio Sunday-Ready for the Lantern Festival

Tonight is the Newburyport Lantern Festival where I am one of the volunteer calligraphers. The lanterns will floating on the Frog Pond at Bartlet Mall at dusk. It was suggested I bring fountain pens or markers. I'm not sure how waterproof the writing needs to be so I did a little test. "Brush" is written with Faber & Castell PITT Brush Pens. They are waterproof but I'd prefer to use something more responsive. "Nicholas" is written with my favorite Pentel brush pen and looks like it will hold up fairly well. And the Pilot Parallel pen ink definitely does not stand up. I'm going to bring all but hope to use the Pentel brush pen.