Sassy Summer ‘Do and Refurbished Flowers—Yes, Another Installment of Vanna White Dog

I’ve just gotten back from a two-day work trip.  My husband and daughter got along fine, in spite of H.’s foot injury and crutches (from which she’ll recover fully).

One of the first things I did was to refurbish last week’s Flowers de la Semaine.  I found them last night pretty much dead on the kitchen table—I guess they were not a priority around here while I was gone. 

The green mums from the grocery store were still going strong, so I pulled them out and washed them off.  I added some other stuff from our yard:  one sprig of blooming white lilacs from a very low-producing bush; pink hawthorne branches, and some other white branches whose name I can’t remember. 

I put this arrangement in a green Royal Doulton pitcher that had been my grandmother’s.  The state of my house these days is making me feel a little like a slum-dweller, so I’m casting around for all the refinement I can find. 

If you’ve been following Flowers de la Semaine, you know that this cute white doggy is really a little boy named Riley, but when it comes to flowers he likes to pose as Vanna White Dog.

Vanna is now sporting his/her new summer haircut.  It was warm in the photography corner today, though, and s/he was having trouble looking the part. Daughter H. stopped by help out…

…and then Vanna pooped out altogether. 

Here’s wishing you a weekend that’s full of whatever you need for yourself, your life, and your loved ones.  ♥♥♥

Emergency Room, High Water, Forest

Palouse Country, Central Idaho

Yesterday my daughter cut her foot on a chain link fence. The cut was bad. She had to be taken to the emergency room. She had many stitches and a small tendon removed because it was too damaged to be repaired. She had much fussing over; but she came home from the emergency room happy.

This morning, she insisted on going to school. As I dropped her off with her crutches and overloaded backpack, I felt a strong twang of mom-guilt. I would be leaving in a couple hours for Idaho and would not see her until Friday. But my husband had assured me I needed to go.

H. patted me on the arm and said, "Don't worry, Mama. No fretting."

"That's what you told me yesterday when you insisted on wearing your flipflops to school, " I protested. "And look what happened to your foot."

"No fretting," she said.

I let go.

After that I took a walk by the river. I was going to Idaho, this time with other people because a space had opened up in someone else's car--a space originally reserved for a man who had just lost his grown daughter.

The river boils and rages through town in May. I watched it from the footbridge, thinking about daughters. Last summer mine jumped into the river from this bridge when the water was low--allowed to do so by the father of the friend she was with; and within sight of the sign warning that serious injury or death could result from jumping.

I lectured her that day, and vowed never to let her go anywhere again with that parent.

This morning I watched the river slam into pilings. I watched it bend and tug at young cottonwoods that today are far into its current, but in normal flow stand on the shore. I wondered how long it would take for someone to die in the river. If H. jumped in now, how long would it take her to get to shore? Last summer it took seconds. Today, she might not make it.

I walked. I drank in the green on the mountains and felt the spray of the river on my face and inhaled the cool air rising from the alder trees. I walked and willed my feet to absorb power from the earth. Power I could not use to protect anyone but myself--and maybe not even for that.

As we drove through Idaho today, we came to the heart of a forested landscape larger than most countries in Europe. We talked about mountains and rivers and forests--what made this plateau so hilly; what made the river bend that way. Tomorrow we will sit at tables and discuss such matters and what humans can--or should--do with places like these.

But when it's all said and done, there's a man back home who won't be there tomorrow because of the daughter he lost. There's a girl nursing her thrills with a hole in her foot. A small part of her is missing. The earth's power will not be hers.

A brand new award created by me. Please find your name on the list.

 

This week finds me so busy that I am way behind in my blog reading.  Yes, I have more “work” work than I want, and I’m going to Idaho again this week on a business trip.  Still, it’s no one’s fault but my own that I’m behind.  I take on more things than I can reasonably accomplish.  Does anyone else have this problem? 

To thank readers who visit here regularly, I made the award and graphic above.  You can post this on your blog, and pass it on to others if you’d like.  

Here’s some text to go with it. 

“This award is given especially to these readers.  Your visits and comments make me happy to be a blogger.  I learn from you, your comments, and your blogs more than I can say. 

In the words of Voltaire, ‘Appreciation is a wonderful thing:  it makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.’”  

Here are my award recipients:  

Protege, Moannie, Lola, Hazel at Clever Pup, Fhina, Belette, Kate at Newhouse Designs, Tina/Gal Friday, Saz, Profoundly Superficial,  Deja Pseu, Duchesse, Sparkling Red, Drollgirl, Ms Lucy, Kayleigh, Lilith, Catherine at A Thousand Clapping Hands, Modest Mom, Amy Corbin, Bethanais, Pyzahn, Marisa at Renaissance Chick, Erin at Woman in a Window, Kismet, Cynthia, Jennifer, Jennifer, Mervat, Sher, Michelle Jacobs, Cheryl, Clare, Shey, Sarah at Blogtastic, notSupermum, Penney, Lorna, Tessa, Suecae Sounds, Apriliniowa, Lakeviewer, Imogen at Inside Out Style, Maria at Colour Me Happy, Angela R., Lizzy Frizzfrock, marc aurel, Littlebyrd, Fragrant Liar, Purest Green, Marilynne, Tiffany, aims, Relyn, Pamela Terry, Stephanie N., Jane at Work That Wardrobe, Vicki Archer, Lenore, Ingrid M., The Seeker, Poetikat. 

Thank you! 

Sallymandy

Doggy in Hiding and Flowers de la Semaine

Vanna white dog is not posing with the flowers today.  s/he’s hiding under the bed because s/he’s embarrassed about her fur. 

it’s long and mangy from winter.   but on monday s/he’ll get a sassy new summer ‘do.  and Then—back for more flower posing! 

(if you missed vanna’s last appearances, you can catch them here and here.  woof.)

 

Here’s a bunch of flowers put together with greenery and lilacs from our back yard, and two bunches of flowers from the grocery store. 

AAAhh…can’t you smell spring sliding into summer? 

Will the Real Favorite Color Please Stand Up?

Country Living Magazine Online

A while back, I was with a group of women talking about being completely wrapped up in other people’s lives—spouses, children, bosses.  So wrapped up that one could lose her sense of herself.  So wrapped up, in the words of one, that she “didn’t even know what my favorite color was anymore.” 

Though I do know how it feels to be too focused on another person, the favorite color issue didn’t register at first.  And then I felt annoyed.  What did she mean, she didn’t know her favorite color? 

Finally it hit me.  I’ve said my favorite color was blue since I was a small child.  But that day, I realized it’s not. 

It’s my mother’s favorite color. 

It took some courage to admit this to myself.  But I knew right away that my real favorite color is not blue, but pink.  Pale, peachy pink like the inside of a seashell.  This is my favorite color.   It’s kind of hard to come to grips with, though.

Something in me has considered pink too girly and vulnerable for daily use.  It doesn’t strike me as independent, sophisticated, hip—qualities that I suppose seemed important for a certain stage of life. 

And yet… pink makes me swoon!  It literally affects my emotions, mood, and outlook.  When I wear it, I feel happy, pretty, and alive.  Is there a way to embrace pink without reverting to girlhood? 

I think it’s time to explore this question. 

What’s your favorite color?  How long has it been your favorite?  Is it the same one you had as a child?  

 

Are there colors you love but don’t use in your clothing, your house, other parts of your life?  Colors that make you happy or peaceful or joyous?

Simple+Pretty

Is This Woman Dressed “Too Young?” Discuss.

This Parisian woman was featured in March on The Sartorialist.  Her outfit generated buzz along these lines:   

• Is she dressed “appropriately” for her age?
• could she wear this with credibility outside Paris?
• what is “age appropriate” dressing?
• who cares… ?

I love her attitude and smile.  I love the Converse, sweater, scarf; but the pants and belt wouldn’t work for me.  I agree that in the U.S. it’s harder for women over forty to wear “young” clothes.  Not sure what age appropriateness is, except that wearing what we like it the most important thing.    

What do you think? 

Photo used by permission from Scott Schuman.

A Hundred Posts. A Hundred Years. A Gallery of Blue Kimonos.

William Merritt Chase, The Girl in the Blue Kimono (1888) 

Chase was one of the primary American Impressionist painters and renowned as well as a teacher. He is considered one of the first of a “wave of European-trained American talent” in the visual arts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Alfred Maurer, Gabrielle ca. 1900

Maurer is considered one of the first great American modernists. This painting is part of the collection of Fra Dana, the American artist (and wife of a Montana cattleman) about whom I wrote here.  Maurer and Dana were both students of William Merritt Chase, above. 

Guy Rose, The Blue Kimono (1909) 

Rose was an American Impressionist painter originally from California, who like the painters above studied for a time in Paris, where Orientalism was influential.  Claude Monet was one of his mentors. 

(All the paintings here are indicative of the influence of “Orientalism” on the American painting establishment at the turn of the twentieth century.  Not surprisingly, this movement in the U.S. has been criticized for its colonialist overtones.  Which begs—or maybe answers—the question, “why do all these women appear to be of Northern European descent?”)  

Robert Henri, The Blue Kimono (1909).  

Henri was one of the “Ashcan School” of artists that came to prominence in the U.S. in the early 20th century—depicting scenes of real street life.  Edward Hopper was one of Henri’s students.  This painting seems to be a departure from the gritty scenes Henri often painted.  And why is it called The Blue Kimono? 

  William Merritt Chase, The Blue Kimono (1915)

 

Joseph DeCamp, The Blue Mandarin Coat (The Blue Kimono) (1922). 

DeCamp was a founding member of The Ten American painters—a group of mostly Impressionists who broke away from the establishment Society of American Artists in 1897.  He was originally a landscape painter, and sadly lost hundreds of works in a fire when he was forty-six. 

thank you to all my blog friends for giving me reasons to do a hundred posts!  SM ♥

Essential Chocolate Cake

  

My friend, the Artista Fabulosa Jean, sent this most excellent recipe to me:  a five minute chocolate cake you make in the microwave in a coffee mug.  I think it’s been making the rounds on the Internet.

I’m abstaining from wheat and have not made this.  One review online said it’s messy.  One said it’s more like a chocolate pudding than a cake.  Many said it’s yummy.  If you’ve tried it, let us know! 

Five Minute Chocolate Mug Cake

4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
A small splash of vanilla extract
1 large microwaveable coffee mug 

Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well.  Add the egg and mix thoroughly.   Pour in the milk and oil and mix well.  Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla extract, and mix again.  Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts.  The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed!  Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.  EAT!

“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”

by Joseph Chilton Pearce.  Photographer:  unknown.

Weekend Feast for the Eyes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some beautiful flowers I found recently.  I’m soaking up the forms, colors, lines, and variety of natural shapes.  I thought you might like them as much as I do.  They are by Nicolette Camille Floral Design.  All photographs are copyright Nicolette Camille. 

In this top photo, I love the maidenhair fern and the small pink blooms drooping over the left edge. 

In this one, I love the stunning color combination!  Those cream and black poppies take my breath away, and the tiny touches of blue in the hyacinths is unexpected yet brilliant. 

This designer’s aesthetic makes me feel happy.  She’s using the abundance of forms and lines in the floral material to perfect effect—contrasting smooth/round ranunculus with feathery/round  peonies; small blooms with large; vertical lines with horizontal.  Three large spots of this rosy orange peonies give the eye a circular course to follow.  

 

Again, I love how she’s used the natural lines of the flowers to make a basically round wedding bouquet into something wild and natural. 

Same thing here.  I don’t know the name of the pinkish-purple material hanging down and on the right, but it alters the traditional form in an exciting way.  Instead of a basic round shape, it’s circular within a loose triangle, giving the eye many places to go and a gorgeous home to return to. 

I get the idea the designer’s hands are simply guiding the flowers in the ways they naturally want to go.  It makes me want to go out and pick anything I can find, and see if my hands can do the same. 

If you’d like to see more of Nicolette Camille’s work, she’s been featured in Domino Magazine and Real Simple. 

A River Runs Through It

It’s not very often I think Brad Pitt is the less gorgeous of two men.  But look at these photos.  Directly above, we have Brad Pitt in the movie A River Runs Through It (Craig Sheffer, to the left, plays Norman Maclean).  Brad’s role was the troubled, brilliant Paul Maclean.  In the top photo, the real Paul Maclean. 

Who wins the handsome-ness contest? 

warning:  movie/book spoiler ahead!

The striking Mr. Maclean, with his drill-right-through you gaze, is only one reason I love A River Runs Through It—the movie and the book.  Mostly the book.  Written by Paul’s brother, Norman, it’s a painful, lovely depiction of the limits of a family’s devotion, and what happens when one of them dies too young.      

“The world is full of bastards - the number ever increasing the further one gets from MISSOULA, MONTANA.”  from the book 

The story is set in my town of Missoula, where the real family lived.  Here’s a photo of their house, a few blocks from my neighborhood. 

Across the street is the Presbyterian church where Norman and Paul’s father, played in the movie by Tom Skerritt, was the minister.

“My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe.  To him all good things—trout as well as eternal salvation—come by grace, and grace comes by art, and art does not come easy.” from the book      

And here’s the Maclean family in 1911. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both Maclean sons attended Dartmouth College.  Both chose careers in writing—Paul as a journalist, and Norman as a professor of literature at the University of Chicago.  Here’s a photograph of Norman at Dartmouth... 

 

…and his wife, Jessie Burns Maclean, in 1934 (photo by Norman Maclean). 

 

Norman Maclean, teaching at the University of Illinois in Chicago. 

The Montana depicted in the book, and well-captured in the movie, rings true to my heart.  My grandparents were contemporaries of Norman Maclean, and casual acquaintances.  The patterns of their lives had a number of similarities.  Though I wasn’t alive when the story is set, I feel I know it at some level—absorbed, maybe, through what my grandparents shared with me of their lives.  

The stories, for instance.  Missoula is minutes away from the Big Blackfoot River, which is now called simply the Blackfoot.  There were stories of streams and forests and “characters:” of men being men—and women being men, too.  People in trouble with liquor.  Stories about fishing…always fishing.  And these alongside the taken-for-granted values about literature; education at good colleges;  politics; lawmaking.  

“Norman Maclean was not responsible for Montana's fly-fishing tourism boom and would never have wanted it,” says his son, writer John Maclean.

Did I mention fishing?  My grandfather was of the same fly-fishing generation as the Maclean brothers.  I remember his slow-gaited tread down to the dock and the patterns his line made on the glassy water of Placid Lake on an early summer morning. 

When this grandfather was a child, he lost his younger brother in the river that runs through Missoula.  The two brothers were fishing near their home with a cousin.  I don’t know if they were fly fishing or using bait.  What I know is that they were by the river, and the younger brother didn’t come back.   

A River Runs Through It—The Clark Fork River downstream of confluence with the Blackfoot River, a few minutes from my house. 

There was a current of melancholy in my grandfather throughout his long and professionally successful life.  I think I inherited a sort of an intergenerational sadness that surfaces sometimes, and attached itself to Maclean’s story the first time I read it.  This river in no small part drew me back to Montana.  But it also scares me, and puts me in my place.     

These favorite words from A River Runs Through It are some of the loveliest I’ve ever read: 

“Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn't. Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are words, and some of the words are theirs.

I am haunted by waters." 

from the book

Stages of a Woman: Self-Portraits of Imogen Cunningham

1974

1932

1910

 

1908

“Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976) is renowned as one of the greatest American women photographers. In 1901, having sent away $15 for her first camera, she commenced what would become the longest photographic career in the history of the medium.

Cunningham soon turned her attention to both the nude as well as native plant forms in her back garden. The results were staggering; an amazing body of work comprised of bold, contemporary forms. These works are characterized by a visual precision that is not scientific, but which presents the lines and textures of her subjects articulated by natural light and their own gestures. Her refreshing, yet formal and sensitive floral images from the 1920’s ultimately became her most acclaimed images.

Cunningham also had an intuitive command of portraiture but her real artistic legacy was secured though her inclusion in the "F64" show in San Francisco in 1932. With a small group of photographers which included Edward Weston and Ansel Adams, she pioneered the renewal of photography on the West Coast.  Awarded a Guggenheim fellowship, Cunningham’s work continues to be exhibited and collected around the world.”

Biographical notes from Photography West Gallery. 

Memoir: Lessons about Art and Beauty

This week my head is swirling with stimulating comments readers have sent about art and writing. 

On Monday, Ingrid at Fashion is My Muse added food for thought when she wrote about art and beauty.  She said contemporary artists are pressured to create work that provokes reactions, even if that means foregoing beauty in their art.

I’ve been thinking about this all week.  And it’s bringing me around to Material. 

About three weeks ago I posted a story about my marriage to a military aviator.  It was my sixteenth wedding anniversary.  In it, I related that a writing instructor once told me that this military-wife experience was “my Material.”  What does this have to do with art and beauty? 

This instructor was an author/poet from a private American college.  He was my teacher at a workshop in Bloomington, Indiana, the summer my daughter was two, when my family and I still lived on an Air Force base.  When he said that about my Material, he was referring to a story by me that I’d worked on all week. 

Not surprisingly, the story was about an woman married to an honorable, yet slightly naive, U.S. Air Force pilot.  She’s not happy about the military life; she feels victimized.  He feels guilty. 

Cleverly, I made “Abby” a “photographer” instead of a “writer” to conceal my identity.  I named him “Peter” to conceal my husband’s.  I’m sure I fooled no one.   

The story recounts a true incident in which my husband helped a sick pilot from a former Soviet block country.  It’s called “Containment,” and there is much, you know, symbolism about the Cold War, and all that is getting contained in the lives of the characters. 

On that balmy summer evening at the workshop, I felt pleased that my instructor thought I had material.  It’s possible that he encouraged me to pursue it because it would be therapeutic.  But it’s also possible—and I think likely—that he felt the Material could provoke reactions.  As in, “you should write this because a lot of people in America would like criticism of the military from inside the military.”          

My writing group agreed with the instructor.  My family members agreed.  Even “Peter” encouraged me.  This story is the “best” one I’ve written.     

But today I have problems with this story.  It came from a place that I now feel is not authentic.  At some level—certainly not conscious at the time—I knew the subject matter might provoke a response and earn me some approval I craved.  I sort of hijacked my own experience and that of my husband, in a way I don’t care to repeat.  Maybe that’s a part of “art,” too; I don’t know.       

A couple of years ago, when anti-war sentiment in the U.S. was especially high, I finally submitted the story for publication, by way of entering a national fiction contest.  It was a finalist.  Had I won the contest, of course I’d have been thrilled.  But now I don’t care about publishing that story.  It does not reflect my life today.  It’s done its work for me, and I’ve done my work for it.   

Thank you, readers and bloggers, for your thoughtful insights this week about art, writing, and what makes an artist. 

What is an Artist? Some Things to Ponder

Rooms by the Sea, Edward Hopper 1951

The artist has one function--to affirm and glorify life.  W.
Edward Brown

The role of the artist I now understood as that of revealing through the world-surfaces the implicit forms of the soul.  Joseph Campbell

What is an artist? A provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one. It's this in-between...this frontier country between the tangible world and the intangible one -- which is really the realm of the artist.  Federico Fellini

The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world.  Marc Chagall

Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.  Margot Fonteyn

Be Yourself--Everyone Else is Taken (Oscar Wilde)

Lady Rhoda Birley, by Valerie Finnis

Post script to yesterday’s post:  whenever I feel like writing, I hoof it to my computer.  Or my notebook, or the back of a napkin. 

I’m not sure I communicated this yesterday.  I didn’t mean I’ve given up the dream of writing.  That’s not a dream.  That’s a reality.  I meant, there are more ways to be a writer than to wear the black turtleneck.     

I did publish a few small things, and I was happy about those.  But, as I wrote to a reader yesterday, the American publishing scene became discouraging.  In my estimation, much excellent, fine writing can’t get published—or ends up on the Costco sale table within a month of coming out.  Fiction that sells often tells a decent story but is not well crafted.  I’m a better sentence crafter than teller of major stories, and I needed to learn that. 

It’s like this.  How hard would you work for a cheesecake?  Maybe pretty hard.  But what if you never got it, after years of work?  If there was a coconut cream pie with your name on it somewhere, would you consider going that direction?  It’s a matter of finding one’s place in the world.   

Finally, Tara at dollcannotfly raised this question:  what’s a real artist?  In her case she was talking about actors.  Is it the one who says two lines and gets paid a small fortune?  The one who works her hiney off for years, performing without pay? 

Who’s the real actor, artist, writer?  And who gets to decide?  

Whenever I Feel Like Being a Writer, I Lie Down Until the Feeling Goes Away

Imogen Cunningham, The Unmade Bed, 1957

My hat is off to my friends in blogland who are working on novels.  I hope I never discourage you.  I hope you write the novels that I will never write. 

When I was a teenager, I didn’t think about being a writer.  I wrote.  Journals, poems, cynical nonsense, and sad stories—“typical” teenage emotions that still tug my heart.  I loved the feeling of ink on paper.  I could be making a grocery list or writing a term paper.  I enjoyed writing anything. 

Later, after college, I thought about being a writer.  I could see it—the coffee shops and the black turtlenecks.  The life of the mind.  I could romanticize that life.  I wasn’t sure how people like that paid the rent, though.  And I kept thinking of Ernest Hemingway, and tortured artists of all stripes.  I freaked out.  I could also see that reality being true for me.  So I put the “pure” vision aside and chose a different path.     

Edward Weston, Clouds, 1938

My professional life emerged to take advantage of writing anyway, and I always found satisfaction in that.  Later, I learned from The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron that it isn’t necessary to be addicted or suicidal to Produce Art (though I still think that gives some people an edge).  This began to change my perspective.  

Other things happened.  I took a correspondence course in short non-fiction writing.  I participated in a fiction and poetry writer’s group in Alaska.  I went to workshop in Bloomington, Indiana, at which the instructor said my experiences as a military wife were “my material.” 

I rented a writing studio and wrote 1000 words a day for months.  As you can see by the length of some of my posts, including this one, getting words out isn’t difficult.  But making them into something recognizable in the literary world is very difficult. 

Good writers are a dime a dozen where I live.  I’m old enough now to believe that there’s nothing new under the sun; no original human story.    

Through therapy and a lot of 12-step meetings, I realized I could not write what sells.  I’m talking about fierce political criticism; weird sex; regret for the past; fears for the future; excruciating love stories.  I’ve had my share of drama.  Writing for therapy is one thing, but stepping back and using this stuff as paint on a canvas is, at the moment, not for me.  My attempts to do it caused more suffering than they cured.         

I realized I wanted to have written literary fiction more than I want to write it.  I wanted respect; and to be thought cool by black turtleneck-wearers.  But I also wanted to be happy.  Maybe earn a living.  I didn’t want to cut off my ear to send to a prostitute.  

Today, once again I love putting words together within the context of a real day.  Crafting a well-written grant proposal makes me happy a lot of the time.  Journaling makes me happy all the time.  Blogging sends me into fits of joy, because the finished product is achievable.  I love the visual creativity, too; and best of all—I get to connect with fabulous, fascinating people. 

I may still write a pain-filled novel someday.  The opportunity will always be there.  But for now, whenever I want to “be a writer” I wait a little.  If the words are there, they’ll find a way out.