I was recently jarred into awakening by a Mary Oliver poem. I was reading another blog and the author mentioned the poem, The Summer Day. I quickly opened a new tab, and looked up Mary Oliver and the poem. The Summer Day details the wonder and magical simplicity of what lies in the natural world. The poem reminded me to slow down and absorb the magic and the miracle that lies outside my door. All of this is not new fodder for a poem, quaint and somewhat clichéd, until the last line. That last line was a simple profound question; that put me on notice:
“ Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Wow, in one fell swoop she points out that I too am wild, (really?) and secondly that my life is rare and my being is a reflection of the divine. Now that I have been given this gift, what do I plan to do with it? Ummm….Sheesh. I was just sitting here having a cup of coffee and thinking about what to make for dinner. Well, ahh…… I have been turning that question over and over since I’ve heard that line. That call to live up to the rare and precious opportunity I have been given. That call to live in largeness, abundance, and consciously. Yeah, that question kicked me out of the mundane.
I love this about poems, how in a few short lines the poet is able boil down to the very essence complicated and essential themes. How a poem can resonate in your bones for a very long time. How you can use poems to lean on during troubled times, celebrate happier times, and even explain the world.
I love words, I do. I love how they symbolize ideas, communication, and experiments in thought. Oh, I love me some words. There are poems that have marked certain times in my life, important moments of choice, and complicated thoughts I couldn’t quite get out. Are there poems that have changed you? Resonated your feelings? Marked time periods?
Here’s my list of milestone poems:
Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would not Take the Garbage Out – Shel Silverstein
She Walks in Beauty – Lord Byron
Daddy – Sylvia Plath
Recuerdo- Edna St. Vincent Millay
When You are Old – W. B. Yeats
The Road Not Taken – Robert Frost
Sonnet XVII- Pablo Neruda
The Summer Day – Mary Oliver
I challenge you to compile your own list and share it with us. Shaking up the mundane is not a bad thing.
After leaving the lovely town of Rouen, we started driving toward Caen. On the way we stopped at a Cheese Factory. It was kind of funny because I kept thinking that this was the French equivalent of the Herr's Potato Chip factory near my home which gives tours and samples. Inside it was much the same with the welcome area explaining in the process, the introductory videos, the long hallways with windows into the different making and curing rooms with the gift shop and tasting room at the end. We got there in the afternoon, so unfortunately we didn't get to see any live workers because they milk the cows and start making the cheese while it is fresh very early in the morning and then go home, so that made the tour a bit dull until we got to the gift room. This was filled not only with your typical tourist cha cha's but with all kind of tasty delights which I had never seen or heard of. This is where my first encounter with Calvados, Cidre, and the very stinky cheeses that the Normandy region is known for occurred. Calvados is a drinkable brandy created, believe it or not, from apples.It is very tasty and one of my new favorite drinks. Our tour guide said that when she was a little girl,her mother would cook a 13 course dinner on Sundays. They would spend hours at the table and in the middle of the meal, every one would take a shot of Calvados, because they say it puts a hole in your stomach so you can eat more! It is aged and priced like whiskies according to age and Calvados Boulard is one of the most famous brands. Normandy boasts the famous villages of Camembert, Pont-l'Evêque and Livarot and makes cheeses bearing their names. They also make a Neufchatel that is nothing like what we buy in the grocery store. CiderIn an area so well known for growing apples it should come as no surprise that there is also a large cider industry. The main production centres around the Pays d’Auge between Caen and Lisieux. We bought a bottle of the cider which happens to be alcoholic (about 5.6%) and I have to say that this was NOT my favorite. Nor was the Pont-l'Evêque that we bought to eat with it.
Once we left the cheese factory and headed to our hotel, I went upstairs to our room. The hotel seemed like the freakiest place because you walked into dark hallways and had to feel along the wall to find a light. Oh, those energy conscious Europeans! I don't think this would ever play in the US! Our hotel was in a quaint residential area and when I entered our modest hotel room, dumped my gear and looked out our window, I saw that it overlooked a back yard that seemed to be peppered with art and sculpture. I opened the window (you can actually do that in a European hotel) and stood taking inventory of the scene. In addition to the art and sculpture, there were people sitting in chairs and listening to someone read under a canopy and a table with wine glasses and lots of bottles of wine on it. All of these items put together in my head = art opening!
I grabbed Dyana and we headed around the corner to investigate. We found the opening to the yard and we slinked in timidly at first in case we were intruding on some private affair, but it became clear very quickly that this was indeed a show and sale of local artists. The home we later learned had been owned by a prominent French artist who had no heirs and had left it as an art center when she recently died. Dyana is fluent in French and began speaking with one of the artists who was perched at a table under a tree, leaning back, smoking french cigarettes with some others. I stood around in amazement at what luck had brought us. Was it not enough to be in France and treading the ground of my artistic heroes, but now to be visiting with modern, living french artists? I was absolutely giddy inside! They were all so friendly and nice. Jeanne Francois spoke some English and took us to see his paintings in one of the co-op spaces where his show was hung. We conversed awkwardly about being artists (he said he had bagged the corporate life to be an artist) but the smiles and friendly laughter transcended the language. We had to leave for dinner but when I went to close the window in my room, Karin, a friend of the other artists, saw me and insisted that we come back over and drink some wine with them. Dyana and I went back over and sat in the yard with JF, Karin, David and a lovely gentle man named Emmanuel. Dyana did most of the talking and I listened to them all converse in French but it's amazing how much can be picked up and communicated through, laughter, smiles, hand gestures and nods. It was such a wonderful night. One I will never forget. Jeanne Francois is my friend on Facebook and you should check out his art and say hello. (Facebook translates comments). This is undoubtedly one of the best nights I had in France.
I self published my first children's book in softcover using Print on Demand and sold 300 copies mostly at art fairs and festivals. At that point, having evidence of a market for my book, I produced a new hardcover edition and have sold 400 more copies. These are not bad numbers in the tough world of self publishing. Many people have approached me as they page through my book "Millicent and the Faraway Moon" and wax fondly about the children's book that they always intended or hoped to write someday. They pepper me with questions and I answer as many as my time, (usually at an outdoor art show) will allow. People generally seem to have a curiousity about the steps it takes to create a book, so I thought I would share my process and adventure into the world of self publishing in a few posts.
Step one: Draw on a good or meaningful story. In my case the story grew out of a negative incident with a teacher in 5th grade. She berated me in front of the class because I couldn't do a math problem and swatted me with a yard stick. What hurt worse than the stick were the words she said. "You're no good, you're family is no good and you'll never amount to anything." Ouch.
I have lived with those words and feelings my whole life. They became my "not good enough story " that I have continued to struggle with. I had heard of therapies where adults write a letter to the child inside of them and say what they might say to another child to help them heal. So I thought I would write a letter to myself. Then I started thinking about other people and figured that I wasn't the only kid in the world to have her self esteem crushed by a mean person. So the letter morphed into a story and then a book.
Since I had been painting cows for several years, it stood to reason that my characters should be cows. There was also no question that I would illustrate my book. The story is autobiographical. It starts out "Millicent was a sad and lonely" cow. I didn't have the greatest childhood, I was sad and lonely much of the time. It then moves into Millicent trying to succeed at something and be just as good as the other cows. That was me. I was always looking around at other people, trying to find out how they did it, what (I thought) made them better, more special than me. But somehow, somewhere deep in my soul, I knew that I was just as special, talented, smart and capable of success as anyone out there and that one day, I would totally rise above the circumstances of my early life and touch the world in a grand way. So I decided to write the book and make tangible evidence of my future. I was writing a declaration! And so, while "Millicent starts out "sad and lonely" my book is a story of overcoming and triumph.
I can't say that I did a lot of research into publishing a book, I just thought: "I need to do this." And so I set about my project.
Once I wrote the story, I drew out what I imagined the book would look like in page layout in some sketched story boards....
I have been asked where the name "Millicent" came from. All I can do is point up. It was just given to me. The next step was to develop my characters which is where I will end for today and pick up in my next post. I invite you to stay with me through the journey of writing a kids book. It is no easy task and not for the faint of heart. If you are thinking about embarking on writing your own book, follow your heart and DO IT! But be ready to fully commit because it takes all the love, nurturing and hard work of raising a child. ( I know because I have one :0) Please feel free to comment or ask questions.....God Bless.. see you next post :0)
If you like art, but don't enjoy traditional stuffy art museums or you're just looking for a little fun in your life, visit the Baltimore Visionary Art Museum in the Inner Harbor area of the City. What feels like part fun house, this is definitely an art museum and is my very favorite place to visit in Baltimore.
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The museum hosts the work, of visionary and outsider artists both established and emerging. What is visionary art, you ask? Here's the museums definition:
"Visionary art as defined for the purposes of the American Visionary Art Museum refers to art produced by self-taught individuals, usually without formal training, whose works arise from an innate personal vision that revels foremost in the creative act itself."
In short, visionary art begins by listening to the inner voices of the soul, and often may not even be thought of as 'art' by its creator.
The work you see here will differ wildly from most anything at the Philadelphia Art Museum or the Met. Part of their permanent collection is a giant whirligig which greets you outside, school buses, eggs and buildings which they call "bling universe" covered in mosaic mirrors guide your way into the building.
The museum houses the work of Howard Finster, probably the grand poobah, of Folk and Outsider art, Nek Chand, The Baltimore Glassman and the very well know and always wonderful, Mr Imagination. Inspiration for these artists include religious experience, dreams, visions, hallucinations and predictions. Many feel that they are divinely called to create art containing direct messages from God.
Mediums include paint, wood, rocks, shards of glass, bottle caps (Which is Mr. Imagination's most well know medium), trash and pretty much anything that costs little to no money. Some artists may have mental or emotional problems which manifest themselves in to compulsive drawings or paintings as in the case of ted Gordon whose precise and inspired drawings look like they were done with a spirograph.
This place is so much fun, there is so much to see on every wall inside and out. The restaurant is even called Mr. Rains Funhouse and the gift shop is called the Sideshow shop which makes me feel like I am in a toy store for grownups whenever I visit.
The third day of our trip took us to the beautiful medieval town of Rouen about 2 hours northeast of Paris. I LOVED this town. It was small, quaint and old. Really,really old. Like, we're talking Vikings running around here in the year 841.
This is the home of the spectacular Rouen Cathedral whose massive form dominates the streets and buildings all around it.
It is the final resting place of Richard the Lion Hearted entombed in this crypt.
It is also the famed Cathedral painted by Monet 20 times in all kinds of light, weather, and atmospheres.
When I told my husband about this, he said "20 times? Couldn't he get it right the first time?" That's my husband :0)....
There is a fine museum in the town where I made a mad dash in the hopes of seeing a great collection of the Rouen Cathedral paintings, but to my sadness and surprise there was only one and also a surprisingly small collection of any Impressionist work.
The building which now houses the Tourism office sits directly across front the Cathedral. This is the building that Monet lived in upstairs and painted his famous masterpieces. What a thrill it was for me to stand on the same cobblestone streets and see what Monet saw and walk the town that he lived in.
If you know me, you aren't surprised by this :0)
Rouen is also the town where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. The Cathedral which honors her, was surprisingly modern and unimpressive from the outside but inside, it was bathed in light and color from the stained glass windows.
A cross stands at the spot where she was burned at the stake. I was struck at the thought that when she died, she had already taken on armies and kings and her life ended at only 19 years old, one year older than my daughter.
A lovely outdoor market.
A restaurant that had been in business continually since the 1100's!
The chocolate shop whose specialty is what they call
larmes de Jeanne d’Arc (tears of Joan of Arc) which are a type of chocolate covered almonds. They are super delicious although a bit pricey.
Artworks are lost for several reasons. Disasters – both natural and man-made, war, repression by political or religious authorities, or destruction at the hands of artists themselves seem the most common cause. Whatever the reason, a lost artwork is always a huge loss to our shared cultural heritage.
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A Portrait of Alfred Jarry
Henri Rousseau
Henri Rousseau was a post-impressionist painter whose child-like works had a profound impact on the surrealist, expressionist and primitivist movements. Alfred Jarry was a genius playwright whose own work had a huge impact on the course of modernist theater, influencing Dada, Surrealism, and the Theater of the Absurd. According to popular legend, Jarry in fact inspired Rousseau to paint by declaring he had the face of an artist. In 1895, Jarry, who had written some positive reviews for the now noteworthy Rousseau, sat for a portrait by the artist. Frustrated by vanity, Jarry could not stand the results and promptly destroyed the canvas, thus depriving today’s audiences of a glimpse into the world of two precursors to so much modern art.
9
Tilted Arc
Richard Serra
Minimalist artist Richard Serra’s massive Tilted Arc, which featured 2.5 inch thick steel sculpted to be 120 feet long and 12 feet high, was commissioned by federally funded arts organizations for the Federal Plaza in New York City in 1981. Over the years, the sculpture was opposed for reasons of maintenance cost (it had become an attraction for graffiti artists), convenience (it made movement around the Plaza difficult), and for aesthetic reasons (many publicly declared the work an eyesore). In 1985, a decision was made to destroy the work. Four years and many court battles later, the work was scrapped for steel by federal workers. Serra believed the piece altered the visual perception of the viewer’s environment. Unluckily for Serra, the public perception of Tilted Arc seems to be that something as solid as steel can be altered into invisibility at the pound of a gavel.
8
Pearl Monument
In Bahrain, Pearl Square became the site of sweeping protests for democratic reform and economic equality in February 2011. Central to the square was Pearl Monument, a massive sculpture featuring six sweeping arches, representing the six Gulf states that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council, holding a pearl, a symbol of wealth. After several weeks of demonstrations, the Bahrain government removed the protesters through military power. The sculpture, which had begun to hold symbolic meaning to the protesters and their sympathizers, was destroyed by the government. A migrant crane worker was crushed to death during the demolition of the monument.
7
Canvases from the Entablature Series
Roy Lichtenstein
In the early 1970s, pop artist Roy Lichtenstein took a break from appropriating comics and began making canvases based on entablatures. Entablatures are moldings decoratively placed horizontally above the columns on buildings. Lichtenstein copied designs from Greco-Roman sources in his typical style, giving the motifs a modern edge. Several of the original canvases were housed in one of the Twin Towers and were destroyed during the 9/11 attacks.
6
Works by Sandro Botticelli
Destroyed in the Bonfire of the Vanities
Many works of great importance to Western art have been lost in a series of events termed the Bonfire of the Vanities, a practice initiated by an Italian priest in the late 15th century wherein artworks depicting secular or mythological themes or images deemed sinful were destroyed by fire. Perhaps the greatest loss to our cultural heritage is the destruction of several paintings by Sandro Botticelli that are based on mythological and pagan lore. Botticelli’s use of Greco-Roman and pagan themes stirred the interest in the ancient arts and sciences that were crucial to the development of the Renaissance. It is a great deprivation that the works of his that remain after the fires are mostly meditations on religious themes and not the more stringently humanist, mythological, and sexual themes he was renown for during his life.
5
Study after Velazquez III
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon was a giant of modern art who left both his critics and the general public in awe of his hallucinatory and visceral canvases. The Velazquez series is generally considered to be not only one of his masterworks, but also one of the masterworks of 20th century art. Unfortunately, Bacon himself was rarely satisfied with his work and was also prone to alcohol fulled fits of rage in which he would destroy his canvases. The third in his landmark Velazquez series was one of the more notable victims of his despair.
4
Works by Pablo Picasso
featured in the Mystery of Picasso
Film noir maverick Henri-Georges Clouzet directed the documentary the Mystery of Picasso, which features the eponymous aged and shirtless master creating whimsical drawings and paintings. Filmed in an innovative manner that allows the audience to see Picasso’s simple, abstract, but powerful figures come to fruition brush-stroke by brush-stroke, it seems the process was more important than the result for both filmmaker and artist. All of the works created for the film were destroyed upon completion, so they would exist nowhere but on celluloid. The French government declared the reels a national treasure.
3
Man at the Crossroads
Diego Riveria
Commissioned by Nelson Rockefeller to create a mural for the entrance to Rockefeller Center, Diego Riveria was given the theme “man at the crossroads,” a utopian sentiment chosen by Rockefeller to stir ambitions for a hopeful political future in the viewer. Riveria had ambitions for a very different political future than his patron when he painted two leftist heroes, Trotsky and Lenin, standing amidst a crowd of workers. Rockefeller demanded the painting be altered, but Riveria refused. The painting was covered with a curtain upon completion, an act which was met with many protests. Despite the public outcry, the mural was destroyed by workers.
2
Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence
Caravaggio
Caravaggio’s stunning Nativity, which demonstrates the qualities that have made him so revered – his controversial naturalism, dramatic use of chiaroscuro, use of imperfect models, and loose pairing of historical subject matter – was stolen in 1969 from a church in Sicily, Italy. The theft is assumed to be the work of the Sicilian mafia. A former mafia figure turned police informant has stated that the painting has passed through several hands, ending up in storage in a farmhouse where it was destroyed by animals. The owner at the time burned remains of the painting upon discovering it in scraps. The FBI is still attempting to recover the painting and has listed its value at $20 million dollars.
1
The Stonebreakers
Gustave Courbet
Courbet’s landmark painting shocked bourgeois audiences upon its 1850 debut at the Paris Salon. The masterpiece is a monumental depiction of lowly peasant labor. Courbet had bravely paired a canvas size typically reserved for royal portraits or religious paintings with a topic generally shunned by high art practitioners of the period. The Stonebreakers has proved hugely influential for its bold assertion that everyday activities are an acceptable theme for high artwork and for ushering the social realist tendency in visual art. The original canvas was destroyed during the U.S. Military’s air attack on Dresden, Germany in 1945.
Day 2 began with a bus sightseeing tour around Paris with a stop at the Louvre, a blast past the Arc deTriomphe, down the Champs Elysee', past the Opera House and a stop at the Eiffel Tower and theTrocadero.
This is where we got to get really up close and personal with it and where we began to hear the pretty much hourly mantra that we would hear during our entire journey "Keep you're money hidden and close, beware of pick pockets. They go even inside the churches!" Grim. I thought the states was bad.
Our next stop was the Palace atVersailles with our charming and very knowledgeable guide Thierry who someone said was so good that he was noted in Rick Steve's France guidebook.
I believe it. He knew so many things- times place, dates, but also shared funny little known tidbits about the French Monarchy, like how dirty they were because they thought at that time that bathing opened the pores and allowed disease to come into the body. That's why they used perfume so much and why the powdered wigs were invented. They were smelly and crawling with lice. The Palace, as beautiful and extravagant as it was, had no bathrooms. The King would defecateinto a chamber pot where it would be inspected and shown to the people. According to Thierry, our phrase, "How's it going?" originates from this 17th century ritual. So many people died from constipation and bowel related issues, that this greeting came about as an inquiry like, "Are you well? Are you moving?" So there was always great concern about the King. Priceless stuff that you won't get from a guidebook.
For more of my thoughts on the Palace itself, please read my earlier post "What are the French Thinking." Like the US, there was rampant commercialism every where we went. I as astounded at the Eiffel Tower however, that there was only one lonely little souvenir truck. If they were allowed to park around say, the Liberty Bell in Philly, I think there would be at least 10. Outside of the Palace at Versailles, there were at least 1/2 dozen Nigerians selling made in China trinkets. They would inch as close as possible to the palace gates to entice tourists with their wares by shaking things and yelling and would scatter when the police came riding up.
On this day, I had my first taste of a french baguette sandwich. I thought I had died and went to heaven. I think they could put dirt on a baguette and make it taste good. I got a chicken salad on baguette, (huge and very cheap) and Dyana and I sat on a stoop outside the Palace eating them in the sunshinewhile we waited for our bus and watched the comedy of the trinket sellers.
Next it was back to Paris with a visit the Luxemburg Gardens and to Notre Dame Cathedral. It was a beautiful day and we had a lovely stroll through the Gardens. Apparently the French solution to homelessness and the lack of hygiene that comes with it, was to install public baths around the Gardens. People can go in and shower and get clean, but to be sure that no one decided to camp out in there, the showers self clean every 20 minutes or so. Cool.
The walk over to Notre Dame took us through a little street that foreshadowed the medieval streets of Rouen that we would see the next day. I was enthralled with the little cafes, meat shops, bakeries and boutiques and wanted to stop there and order a glass of wine at a little table in the worst way, but alas, must keep moving!
The cathedral was stunning and everything I imagined it to be when reading about it in my art hsitory books. The line to get in was huge and I was afraid that we wouldn't make it, but it moved quickly and I was able to go in and marvel at this wonder of architecture. The feeling inside was so majestic and peaceful (except for the tourists who apparently couldn't read the "no talking" signs), that I was transported in time. I felt so small, yet hugged by coolness and ethereal precence.
After a brief time for dinner and souvenir buying it was back to our little hotel for some wine and shut eye. Tomorrow was another big day...
