We Have Been Chosen

See that white planter with a fuchsia on it? Exactly a month ago today, we left town for a wedding.  Upon returning two days later, while watering the plant,  I was startled by a bird franticly flying out of it, almost crashing into my face. 

The little guy/gal had built a nest inside the planter while we were gone. KDM identified the homesteader as a wren. Further consultation with a bird book confirmed it as a Carolina Wren. Since that day we have all but stopped using the front door, been tiptoeing around our own front porch, and let the fuchsia wilt, nearly die, from thirst, as you can see in this photo taken about two weeks ago. 

Ten days ago, four or five hatchlings appeared. I took this picture this morning, of the apparent only one surviving into fledgling - I don't know what happened to the other ones.  I have been rather bitter about their mysterious disappearance and would rather not discuss the topic. From the goings on we've observed this morning, this is going to be a big day for the little guy. Both parents have been on the go and fro, in gentle and short chirps pleading and coaxing: on this very day junior is to try its wings.  It has edged its way outside the nest since I took the photo, and I've since moved downstairs with my drawing, keeping an eye and ear on the neighborhood, especially on the four resident dogs in case junior decides to touch down on solid ground. It really takes a village. 

Random Find

For three days I've been drawing with charcoal. Charcoal everywhere, on my hair, my face, my neck, my tank top and my shorts; charcoal on the floor, over the easel, under my fingernails. 

Hello, charcoal! I've missed you. 

Next to oil, charcoal is my favorite medium.

The artwork I'm sharing below is unrelated to my rekindled enthusiasm for charcoal. I simply came across it on Facebook during lunch break, and wanted to share with you all, knowing at least one of you (you know who you are) is a fellow Albrecht Durer admirer: 

Knot Not - with update

Am on the brink of giving up a painting I've worked on for 3 weeks. As the sentence indicates, I'm indecisive. But if I do, there'll be a mourning process. Call me a drama queen. You don't give up something you've hung on for that long without feeling defeated. Besides, there's enough good moments in the same painting, almost good enough to go on fighting for. That's where the bitterness comes in.

Yet, sometimes it's better to move on. My former resolve has fallen into a jumble, a gordian knot I have little skill to untie, and it's unraveling my confidence, and worse, poisoning my joy in painting.

I need a clean slate.

I realize that this talk of the pain of painting may be boring to my readers, but belching it out helps me think and make a decision. Even a little whining can be cathartic.

So bear with me when I engage in this sort of self-absorption.

Thank you.

UPDATE:  After making the above, round-about, announcement to give up the said painting, I took another look at it, and decided to give it one more chance. After all, I had nothing to lose. I worked on it for about 3.5 hours, and quietly declared it done. No spectacular improvement, but at least, I won't paint over it like I often do to paintings I deem unworthy of preserving.

Hello Again

Sure, it's been a while. So what if I considered calling quit my pathetic blogging only a half hour ago, and at this instance am back at it again? Just ask my indestructible peony (the one I bought five years ago labeled "Guaranteed to Grow," and which I proceed to pronounce dead at end of each subsequent growing season, and which resurrected every following spring), it will tell you that for me to pick up the pieces, the object of my engagement must be made of steel, persist in staring in my face daily, leaving me restless and guilty at night.

That's what this blog has done. And, here I'm back at it again.

But if I told you that posts had not just been scant, but near extinct, not because I had nothing to say, but because I had too much to say that I simply let it slump, would you believe, and understand?

And I'll let you in on another reason for the days of not-saying-much: painting.

Unlike English, the grammar of painting is not second language to me. Line, color and shape are words I know at heart, in which intellect and instinct feed each other wordlessly. I search and formulate meaning in what I see, and delight in the pure act of seeing. When things go well I elate and exult; very often failure throws me back in self-pity and despair. Remembering the yoke of the gift and the promise of joy, I pick up the pieces and start over. At the end of a day in the studio, I'm exhausted.

It's a condensed explanation of how painting can placate the urge for verbal expression.

Placate, but not equal. And since painting is essentially a lonely activity, it cannot speak camaraderie nor utter names. There's anguish in that lonesomeness, and I have missed my friends whom I've grown fond of. Can't say I'm here to make total mends for my omissions, but at least sticking my neck out the cave to say "Hi!"

Art Ed Breeds Contempt

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that I had felt contempt for my students at some points of the past school year. This video may help explain what could cause such singular emotion to erupt within the soul of an college art instructor - this was literally a hair away from happening to my little flock: