Sundials: fighting time and finding patience On our morning walk we passed a sundial and the urge to check the time was irresitible. The arrow (or the gnomon as the shadow-casting feature on a sundial is called) indicated it was just after 7:00. We were confused. It was, we knew, just after 8:00. It took us a split second(!) to realize sundials, of course, don’t recognize Daylight Savings Time. The sundial moved more than time Seeing the sundial made me think more about time. How we spend it, how we fight with it, and how it teases us. When I got home, I was reminded once again, that I need to be patient. That whatever hobbies, passions, and pastimes we choose, they need time to build and develop. Just a week after I started my illustrated journal, I decided to go with the sundial for a new page and collage. But I struggled. I sketched the idea and started cutting bits of paper, but it wasn’t working. The proportions were off and even though one of the things I like most about collage is that it’s perfectly imperfect, it still needs to look like something close to what it represents. I wanted to give up and walk away because things weren’t going my way. But I didn’t. I stayed with it, and the more I worked on it, things began to shift. The idea of the sun as a background element came, then adding the minute and hour hands seemed like a good idea. It was slow going, but with each idea, my confidence grew and I forgot about the time, and the struggle. Lesson learned When I was done, I knew there was a lesson somewhere, and it seems, the lesson is: things take time. When I sat down I was frustrated and wanted my collage to come together quickly. Clearly, that wasn’t going to happen. My mind needed time to process the concept and figure things out. But that’s not all. The sundial set me on a course of unexpected curiosity, offering a couple of other lessons: You never know where something may lead When we got home, we were curious about sundials. We learned that sundials are the “earliest timekeeping device” and the element that casts a shadow is the gnomon. It gave us renewed appreciation for sculpture, the stars, the sun, and the moon. Hang in there When I started the collage I was impatient. Things were taking longer than expected and I wanted to give up. But when I finished, nearly two hours later, I felt better. More relaxed and (really) happy that I stayed with it. How often do you fight with time? Are there lessons you’ve learned from sticking with something? Tell me about it.
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Won't you be my neighbor?
We weren't part of the conversation, but heard the exchange. One neighbor talking to another, over a white picket fence. "Would you like a red dahlia?" the woman with the black dog on a leash asked over the white picket fence. "Yes," the woman on the other side of the picket fence said. "I'll pot it and bring it over in the morning," the woman with the dog said. Spring planting So many people are looking for ways to get outside, but stay close to home. There are flower gardens and vegetable gardens sprouting up, one block after another. Gardening is a hobby I tussle with. I like the idea of having one, but the work involved keeps me from digging in. After I heard the conversation, I wanted a red dahlia. So I made one. And because I'm partial to them, I modeled my collage after a botanical print. Are you a gardener? Got dahlias? For the love of books There is a brick and mortar library in the neighborhood, but still, just five blocks away, there is a Little Free Library, a “take a book, return a book” exchange. As part of our stay-at-home routine we walk around the neighborhood and every day we pass the Little Free Library box. Two weeks ago we put three books in the box and watched and waited to see how long they'd last. The day after we put them in the box, one of them was gone. But then it took over a week for the second, and today, two weeks later, the third book was gone. People love to read Started in 2009 by Todd Bol of Hudson, Wisconsin, the Little Free Library network has spread. In 2020, there are "100,000 registered libraries in more than 100 countries worldwide." People like to read. Though book exchanges are not a new idea, the Little Free Library keeps a registry of each through a community website. Build your own The project has inspired readers and carpenters alike. If you're interested in having a book sharing box in your neighborhood, the Little Free Library site has plans and tips for building and installing your library. Not sure? There is a delightful gallery of images on their Instagram site. Wondering if there's a book box in your neighborhood? The Little Free Library website includes a map page where you can look up your location. That’s where I discovered there are three within just a couple of miles of where I live. Maybe there's one in your neighborhood? Extraordinary but real
The first time I saw what I would later learn was a bleeding heart plant, I thought it was a fanciful creation. Imaginary flowers created by some skilled craftsperson with an affinity for hearts. We’d been invited by friends to join them for the weekend at the family “home,” a second home that went back generations. Though no one lived in house, it was occupied regularly by different members of the extended family, often in the way we were using it: a weekend get-away, a few days in the country. It was a grand old farmhouse with an eclectic mix of antique furniture, professionally painted portraits, pillow-soft sofas, a staircase off the living room and another in the kitchen, threadbare bedspreads, a large lawn, formal garden, and a hand-crafted lamp with bleeding hearts cut from tin. The bleeding hearts were a life-size decorative element at the base of the lamp. The tin hearts were painted pink, pierced, and threaded with wire to hang and sway like the real thing. I’d never seen such a plant and the heart shapes seemed too extraordinary to be real. It was only years later when I saw a bleeding heart plant growing in someone’s garden did I learn they were real. It’s clear the lamp was inspired by nature, but I wonder ... was it created to mirror a passion for gardening? After all, there was that formal garden. Or was it a way to explore the potential of cut metal? Maybe it was simply a one-and-done hobby project. Looking back It’s spring here in Maine and the bleeding hearts are in bloom. Seeing them always reminds me of that lamp. Of my doubt. How I admired the skill and artistry of the lamp, but scoffed at the idea of heart-shaped flowers. My ignorance colored my perception of what I was looking at. I realize now the artist must have been inspired by one or all of the elements that made the lamp what it was: the flowers, nature, their craft. And how, by creating a lasting reminder of the plant, they preserved a moment in time. Sharing matters I’m in the early stages of journaling, but I see that no matter what we create, the materials we use, or the subject we choose to represent, by giving it form, we’re able to share it and touch others in ways we’ll never know. The artist who created that lamp will never know how much I think about it, what I learned from it, what it means to me. Or how I wish it was in my living room. So share your art, your craft, your writing. You never know who's looking. What are you working on? So many of us are cooking more, and being one of those people who is cooking more, I can say there are days when it's a bit of a chore. The days I don't want to to cook are the days I want to be doing other things. When the time it takes to cook something takes me away from something else.
I like to cook, always have. Baking is one of my hobbies. But it's good to have a break. We cooked a lot the day before (different dishes for lunch and dinner). It wasn't planned, but the following day when we did a run-through meal plan, we realized we had leftovers for lunch and dinner. Lunch and dinner. Two meals we didn't have to cook. What a welcome break from starting from scratch. From the chopping, sauteing, peeling, measuring, and mixing. The piled up dishes, bowls, and pots and pans. It meant less time in the kitchen, more time for other things. So easy, it was like having takeout. It was a small thing, but a good thing. A reminder to notice when things are good. We noticed, and it felt good. So good we made popcorn. We had the time. And anyway, making popcorn is fun and not so much like cooking. And that was good, too. How about you? What simple pleasures are you noticing? We heard the woodpeckers, but couldn’t see them, so I had to do a bit of research to capture them in this collage.
It was late April when we took our woods walk, when the trees were still bare. The woodpeckers were on my mind because we recorded the sound of them drumming ... today I figured out how to extract the sound from the video. We're not sure if we heard a male and female, but I wanted to represent both in my collage because their coloring is different; the male has a red dot on the head, the female is pure black and white. The Downy Woodpecker is a small woodpecker: Length: 5.5” - 6.7” | Wingspan: 9.8” - 11.8” The Cornell Lab has a great site, AllAboutBirds.com for identifying all sorts of birds. Are the woodpeckers drumming in your neck of the woods? An Illustrated Journal
Early evening is when I get restless. I don’t like to read at the end of the day because most days I spend a lot of time on the computer. Sometimes a movie is a good fit, but more often than not, I find myself watching television or spending more time than I should scrolling Instagram. And that leaves me more restless. After thinking about what I could manage and what makes sense, I’ve decided to try journaling. It’s new to me and I want to experiment. I’m not interested in listing what I’ve done during the day. Instead, I want to focus on one thing that caught my attention during the day. One topic, subject, thought, or feeling. And I want to set some parameters:
This is the first collage. Last night I cooked a new dish, and when I was pulling the ingredients, I realized new recipes are what keep me interested in cooking. Sure, I have a few go-to recipes, but I like trying new ones. And I love my cast iron pans. Geez, I love those pans. They are the original non-stick cooking pans. And clean up? So easy. I use them for almost all my cooking. What about you ... do you journal? Do you set parameters? I’d love to know your process. Got any tips to share? Do you cook? With cast iron? I'd love to know. Morning I HeARd the CaRDiNal siNGing before I saw it PerCHeD in the BiRcH tree a CAt LOOkiNG At mE, LOOkiNG at iT And, ONe MoRe SaP BUCket tHat MaKes ThrEE This is a throwback: a collage and poem I created a few years ago. It's still one of my favorites. You can see I was starting to use sheet music in my work.
It's also got a bit of shorthand mixed in: that line with the dot below it. Do you know what it means? Morning. That simple line with a dot = a word. Shorthand Shorthand is a symbolic writing system used by office clerks and secretaries before voice recorders were available. I'm not fluent in shorthand. It comes from a shorthand instruction book I found at a secondhand shop. The book has an index, so it's easy to pull a single word. It's like code writing because so few people still know shorthand. Don't you think it would be great for a secret diary or message? One big drawback, though, you'd have to learn shorthand to make it work. And the poem? I don't consider myself a poet, but sometimes I like to combine words with images to tell short stories. I don't remember now why I used upper and lower case letters for the poem, but it does make it interesting. If you'd like to write more, short poems could be a starting point. Not my hobby. Even if you don't stick with it, a new hobby might lead to something else. I haven't done much more with poetry, but the collage was the beginning of a lot more collage work. I now work entirely with sheet music and really like collage. Do you have a hobby that started while you were doing something else? It was a bald eagle that started a conversation about feathers and that led to a discussion about finding and keeping feathers. Do you know it's illegal to possess most feathers? It's true. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1918) was passed to protect birds from being killed for their feathers. If you come across a feather on a walk or hike, you can take photos, but it's best to leave it where you find it. There are hefty fines for possession. If you do find a feather and you're curious about what bird the feather comes from, try identifying it. The Feather Atlas at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife is a good place to start. Feathers and art
Feathers are symbolic of freedom and the presence of spirits. They are used in art and poetry. Here's Emily Dickinson's well-known poem, "Hope" ... Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I've heard it in the chillest land, And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me. Horsefeathers! The feathers at the top of the post are cut paper feathers I made from some of my painted sheet music. If you're looking for an activity, click on the image below to download and color or paint your own feathers. You can also use it as a template to draw your own, or cut paper feathers. And if you do, I'd love to see it ... and maybe share it in an upcoming email or post. Together, we can inspire others. Not better, just different One idea, two versions. The birdhouse with the flowers is the first version of my birdhouse project. I really like the weathered copper top and the holes where birds can enter. When I was working on it, I didn’t like how the flowers and grasses were coming together. I made one mistake, then another, and couldn't find my way out. So I let it go and decided to create the image with collage papers. Looking at the birdhouses side by side, nearly a year after they were created, has me thinking. First of all, it's hard to compare them. The watercolor image has grasses and flowers which I like. The collage has a light green square behind it and wispy pine boughs that were added digitally. I wonder, now, if I should have given up on the watercolor. I had imposed a deadline on the project and was frustrated and running out of time. Collage is easier for me, so I turned to it to get the job done. In the end, I’m not sure one is better, just different ... what do you think? Do you know who said, "I taught I taw a putty tat."?
It was Tweety bird, of course, from the Warner Bros. "Looney Tunes" cartoon series, talking about Sylvester, the cat. How can you celebrate cartoon day? Here are a few ideas:
p.s. I saw a puddy tat this morning on my walk around the neighborhood. Do you have a cat lurking in your neighborhood? You get to choose
Rummaging through some old files looking for one thing, I found another. This unfinished watercolor birdhouse. The picture in my mind was not matching the picture on the paper. So I switched gears. I haven't had a lot of experience with watercolor, and I was frustrated. So I quit and went back to what I am comfortable with, collage. When I look at the watercolor today, it's not as bad as I thought it was at the time. Should I have stayed with it, tried harder? Good question. When you choose to pursue a new hobby or pastime, it's hard to know how well it's going to go. Hard to know whether or not you're going like it, be good at it, or stick with it. But it's only in the doing that we find answers. While it's important to challenge yourself, it's also important not to pursue things you're not enjoying. After all, one of the best things about hobbies is that you get to choose what to do, how to do it, and for how long. How often does that happen? Experimenting with watercolor was interesting for a bit, but I've never been as pleased with the results as I have been with collage work. My failure with watercolor is what led me to collage. With my collage work, the results are perfectly imperfect. I can create something that I'm proud of. With watercolor, I always felt as though it could have, should have been better. It took a while for me to find a groove with the collage work, but unlike watercolor, I stick with it until I get it right. Coming up, I'll post the collage I did. In the meantime, how about you ... do you have hobbies that were not the right fit? Are they worth revisiting, or have you moved on? ------- And, remember, May is all about birds and birding. If you've got artwork, writing, images, or other expressions of art, share them. I'd love to see what you're working on. You can get in touch here. Sure signs of spring The birds are singing again and Cheese and Quackers are back. Cheese and Quackers? Two ducks that make our backyard a waystation on their northbound trek. Are they the same ducks that come every year? I don’t know. They land and putter about for a day or two and then they’re off. A sure sign of spring. And birdsong It was just before dawn last week when I heard the birds singing again. They were chirping in the early morning hours, just before sunrise. It surprises me that they sing when it's dark out. It's one of the reasons I love spring. But it's not for everyone. Spring is a controversial topic here in Maine. People like to joke that we have five seasons: spring, summer, fall, winter ... and mud season. Mud season they argue is uncomfortably squeezed between spring and summer. It's still cold outside, there’s a lot of mud, and too many black flies to make a hike in the woods the thing to do. It’s not like winter they say, when you can ski. Or summer, when it’s warm and we can do so much outside. Or fall, when at least the bugs are gone and there’s foliage to fawn over. Maybe. But it's the smell of dirt as winter thaws, the budding trees, the forsythia, the crocus, and tulips that I love. The return of the robin, open windows, and most of all, the light. The May Playbook is all about birds. Did you know that birding is one of the most popular hobbies in the world? This month we'll explore what makes birds and birding so popular. We'll be listening to birds, drawing birds, talking about books, looking at movies about birds, and exploring paper birds and origami. Are you a birder? Or an artist who draws, sews, or otherwise creates bird art? Get in touch, I’d love to know more! |
Exploring the art of short story memoir
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