[L, diary, ephēmeris] 1) BLOG

     About a month ago, having just finished a major-stress project on my boat, I rewarded myself with digitally archiving a portfolio of old, VERY old artwork.  It was a WONDERFUL afternoon of wandering down memory lane, mentally critiquing each piece and feeling, overall, I'd done good.  I wasn't too worried about perfection, either in the art itself or in the photos I was taking (sans tripod; the little doohickey to attach the camera was...ah, somewhere, I hoped).  It felt so good to be collecting these photos, knowing I would post them to this website as further validation for myself that I was more than just a semi-lone, semi-adept woman in a man's world of boats; I was also a creative, decently skilled Artist in various mediums.  I'd regained that perspective as the afternoon light changed, deliberately using it to add depth.

     Then, for the next three weeks almost everything I touched seemed to fall apart...so miserably, painfully, debilitatingly so that I simply crawled into a mental dark place and hid until my mother's voice finally came in and dragged me out, nagging about being responsible, get busy, there's work needing doing; friends were worried. A newsletter overdue.

      No one really wants to read 'down' stuff so I did my best to perk up, reminding myself of how great it felt to have photo'd my early artwork, so I decided to use some of it in the newsletter (along with John Short's perfectly illustrated THE SECRET) and found myself actually enjoying the process again.  I was exhausted, but on the right path again.  The above illustration was used for how I'd felt prior to my collapse, briefly including John's artwork as a metaphor for the recent weeks (re-titled, CYBER WITHDRAWAL) and then ended the newsletter with another  'Up' illustration:

     This is one of several sketches made in 2002, for commercial use on gymnastic tee-shirts. The gracefulness of the gymnasts, their dancing, leaping, flying through space reminded me of birds.

     At the time, I had my first personal computer so was playing around with the graphics, learning what could be done...I loved being able to copy/paste/resize, and hoped to capture and merge the bird's freedom and naturalness into drawings of the gymnasts themselves.  Here's the original of the crane behind the dancer:

...and this one, as with all of these shown, that I no longer have the original art for:

  Playing with Microsoft Draw for a flower to be used with a hummingbird, for this illustration: 

produced these two images:

I wish I still had the original art I'd submitted...I believe I had a third, final, illustration that had slightly darker flowers than the second image, but not so saturated as to obscure the girl's face, as in the first. 

These photocopies of sketches are all I have left, but they give me pleasure, remind me of how exciting it was to discover what a computer could do--and how frustrating, too, because it took so long!  For years I had been producing graphic art by hand, and it was definitely much faster.  I still think that, sometimes. 

     Several years ago I took my first Photography class.  I'd been using film for over thirty years but after three years of digital I still didn't know what White Balance meant so I figured it was time I learned. 

     One of the other students, a young bald woman about my daughter's age, was an extremely talented Artist who was very generous with her own expertise. Sometimes it was a little overwhelming because she assumed I was a TOTAL newbie, but that was okay with me...I was there to learn so letting go of my ego was just another lesson to be learned while there.  I liked this woman.  We'd connected on several levels when we realized we were both artists, as well as individually transitioning recent life changes; my husband had died and she had one more chemo to endure.  We were both exploring the highly altered landscape of our worlds.  Though I knew I would not be moving off my boat, I did still rent the large studio/house that had been the One Candle Schoolhouse, and wanted it to become a center of culturally creative projects.  My friend had said she'd made a satisfying career employed in various high-profile/high pressure commercial artwork, but wondered if she could develop her skills as a fine artist.

     When the good news came that she was in remission, I invited her to make an extended stay at the house, to use it as a retreat for exploring her new options.  She'd been living Manila during her ordeal, supported at home by her hugely loving family, so the idea of having fresh 'alone' time in a studio, on the shore of a quiet fishing village appealed to her...

     I was excited to have her stay at the house, envisioning a continuation of the stimulating, exploratory conversations we'd shared at the photography workshop and via subsequent emails.  I hoped we could maybe create something together, side-by-side, possibly focusing on a common theme but individually interpreting the project according to our talents. 

     Nice concept but pretty vague, so I gave a lot of thought to giving it shape before mentioning the idea...and one morning while checking the definition of Transition I became fascinated with a whole series of 'trans' words...I was inspired (Transported!), positive I was on to something really great, and immediately printed up a page of words on colorful flash cards to show her. 

     My idea was to select any one or more of them and create a work of art that would Transcend the literal words, Transmit and Transpose the Transvalues that were Transfiguring our lives into another medium to help us pass, with grace, the leaden Transience of  recent losses.  I was VERY excited...nearly Translucent in my delight--still am, actually, as I haven't yet given up on the idea for myself--but my new friend merely blinked, seemingly taken aback at the idea and said nothing. 

     Oh, okay...

     Unfortunately, I wasn't yet out of the 'eager puppy leaping at knees-' stage, so it hurt pretty bad when suddenly (in righteous self-defense) she barked, "Diane!  That's YOUR idea, not MINE!"  

     Needless to say, I was Transfixed; I'd obviously Transgressed.

     It actually took another couple of years before I realized the error I'd made. I'd blithely assumed that because we were both creative people, that the art we produced had the same origin, had the same significance to how we felt as people.  As artists.  Foolish, Yes, and more than a little naive. Probably like everything else in life, what significance we individually place on anything we associate ourselves with, is conditioned by how hungry we are for approval/recognition/status/acceptance/ego.  However one wants to name it. 

     So I love it when I read FASO newsletters and posts that celebrate how unique whatever we do is, and honor the process of everything having been influenced by something else.  Work stemming from the work or ideas of another doesn't diminish or discount either person's work or worth; being free to give recognition to the contributions of others helps us become better human beings as well as Artists.

     In the meantime, this portrait inspired the start of a second set of words, words starting with 'N', as in NEBULOUS...Nemesis...Nexus...  I welcome anyone interested in playing with this word game exercise to download the PDF Trans-word file, found here in my Links page or share your own list of words to choose from...I wonder what an exhibition would look like if a large number of FASO artists submitted their renditions from a common pool of themed words...