Poem: A mother's breasts

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A mother's breasts

My body in the tub, candlelit,
doughy breasts shining, and
because of the baby to come
from my daughter’s body,
in this dream-light of a crone
everything is mother and baby
again, and my breasts cairns
to the memory of my children,
my daughter first, who swam to me
with her thrashing arms, and landed
a starfish hand on one white beach dune,
locked her shell-bud-mouth onto the biscuit
nipple, the soft pebble of her nose
pressed into shelter, the nipple
her doorknob into the hut—
to survive, to awaken, to trust,
to learn before the intolerable comes
with this quivering tongue, this pause
of eyes, this mouth petalled
into smile, the blue milk pooled
in the upturned keyholes at her mouth’s
curls, that this is the beginning
of life. To be kneaded
by the cupped tongue,
her eyes closed now. To be enough.
To be the bread of life.

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In love with love

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Lesley planting our garden 2 1/2 years ago

There is the delusion of falling in love with love. My unborn grandson is a fragile being (and also powerful), and within minutes of his birth (maybe even mere seconds), his foibles will begin to appear, and my own will keep unwrapping, in our miraculous humanness. Something of love’s litany of pleasures remains in the heart, so that we seek another new love. We might reap more joy than sorrow, once again, this time. And when the new love is imperfect, meaning that we, or they, are disappointed, we come to the next fork in the road, able to choose: I will love you even if you do not want me in the way I envision. I will love you even when you are so different than the boy of my dreams. Is a dream a fallacy? Reality’s moment hoped into fairy kingdoms? O blessed are the realities that exceed our dreams. But set my heart in the fertile ground that includes poo in the compost. Rotting matter is what feeds the next fruit of abundance.

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'A Distant City': Moving is done

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The view from Brian & Lesley's new apartment in Michigan;

that's a corn field on the horizon;

see the brown grass, the need for rain;

rain was light while we unloaded the truck,

then it let loose in a full-clapping thunderstorm welcome

when the helpers had gone home

I want to thank you for your kind wishes, thoughts and prayers for the Big Move. They bore fruit. The immense heat broke in a gentle rain Sunday night in NYC, before we packed the truck to the gills Monday. Then the rain held off while we loaded, letting loose again while we drove out of the city that afternoon. The drive through five states, including Pennsylvania, where veils of gauzy mist demurely covered the shoulders of the Poconos, was uneventful and easy. (I fell in love with Lesley & Brian’s VW Jetta, hardly letting Lesley drive; the guys drove the moving truck.) Yesterday, unloading with family in Michigan into their roomy apartment was exquisitely sweaty and leg-aching (third floor, no elevator).

Now the four of us (five with Poppy Seed, who is now the size of an apple; imagine, trading one Apple for another in one day!) are resting and recuperating at the lake for a few days. It is raining on this cottage’s tin roof in the early morning dark. I hear it patting oak leaves that surround us, insisting we stay indoors and sleep: Don’t move unless you absolutely have to. Moving is done.

 Their balcony is more like a porch, deep and partially covered.

Lesley's plants emigrated safely from a NYC windowsill

and now sit bookended by potted herbs and a tomato plant

we grew on the farm. Rain. The plants revel, as we do.

The Queens kitchen they left behind, with its street view;

that's the windowsill where the plants lived

(this photo was taken last year)

In my glad hours, I will make a city of your smile, 
a distant city that shines and lives.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke
from "In My Glad Hours"

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Birth mandala, baby poem, and a wee announcement

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I wrote a poem for my friend, the Renaissance woman Dutchbaby, at her request for the occasion of a baby shower for a friend. Dutchbaby introduced me to the idea of birth mandalas, which take Carl Jung's concept of mandalas representing the Self, to the next level: an image for a mother to focus her imagination on the emerging identity of her baby. That's one of Jung's mandalas at the right, which I happened upon after writing the poem, with its image of paisley.

Dutchbaby colored a mandala, below (from online mandala coloring pages), in PhotoShop for her expecting friend, who has Swedish heritage. From it I feel my own connection with Sweden through Grandma Olive. The blue and yellow remind me of tole painting on a pitcher or a barn's peak, or in Carl Larsson's kitchen. Dutchbaby paired my poem with her mandala as a gift to the mom-to-be Saturday. (Bless this baby, oh universe.)

Dutchbaby did not know when she requested the poem that we have our own baby on the way. I am going to be a gramma! And so I offer this poem not only to a friend's friend, but also for my daughter Lesley, and the little poppy seed growing inside her to the great size of a kidney bean at this moment, with webbed feet, a bulging head, and joints in her/his knees. Imagine.

Don and I are over the moon, and no amount of exclamatory punctuation is enough for what I feel, so I used just the one, but picture exclam-infinity. (Bless this baby, oh universe.) How about this photo of them with my nephew's baby, Evangeline? (Bless Eva, too.)

The multi-bonus is that Lesley & Brian are moving to Michigan where he begins a teaching job in the fall (exclam-infinity). We will be close by when baby enters the world (due in January), no need for booking flights at just the right time to NYC. Just hop in the car and drive an hour and a half.

Our son Peter (right, with his sister on her 30th birthday this year) just moved to L.A. to join his band Lord Huron (all the band members are from Michigan). Such is life, the child who lived close moves far away, and the one who lived far away moves close. But we are incredibly excited for Peter and feel, well . . . expectant about this change for him.

Dutchbaby's mandala and my poem are below.

A note about koans (in the poem title): When Dutchbaby told me that the expectant mom said the baby was "sitting like Buddha" in her belly, I decided to shape the poem in koan-like questions. (The image of a sitting Buddha also made me think of paisley.) A koan is a question a Zen sage asks a pupil that does not have an answer from the reasoning mind. A famous koan is: What is the sound of one hand clapping? "The master is not looking for a specific answer but for evidence that the disciple has grasped the state of mind expressed by the kōan itself." More on koans here. Samples of koans at The Gateless Gate. If you listen carefully to the podcast of the poem, you can hear the birds that chirp incessantly outside my office window. Does a bird's song answer the heart's questions?

Koan-like Questions of a Mother to her Unborn Child

Is there something quieter than sleep?

      My whispers circle you like jasmine vine, the way

      my arms want to, when my palm will cup your head,

      my thumb in the shallow petal of your temple.

      Terrace.

Where is the pocket in the nightshirt of early morning?

      You didn’t notice just now that I turned over in bed, rolling

      first onto my right side, then onto my left.

      Leaves everywhere on blue-white cotton.

What shape are you?

      In my teardrop body you sleep, sucking your thumb —

      puzzle piece in the circle of your mouth.

      Paisley baby, paisley thumb,

      paisley me, paisley breast. Lace.

What is grace?

      I pull myself up, like a camel, into a sitting position,

      lean left, push off, grunt, rise, stand, and low into the sway

      of this me, your cradle, creaking at my hips.

      Caravanserai.

Do you remember it, that hymn from the old church

through the window as we slowly climbed the stair?

      Holding the bedpost, carved like an altar,

      my eyes closed, up from the organ

      in my chest the music — unnamed song

      through the vibrating reed of my watery throat.

      Repeat.

      Stained glass moon. Bosphorus.

Can you see me in the dark?

      My hand rests on the olive of your shoulder,

      or is that a heel? Hush, keep sleeping, don’t worry

      about positions. You are touching everything

      in any case.

      Mountain magnolia blossom.

Listen to a podcast of this poem here. (You can hear the birds outside my office window if you listen carefully.)

Poem notes: 

Caravanserai: the fortress-like hostelries for sojourners on the Silk Road.

Bosphorus: the body of water between the European and Asian sides of Istanbul; 'bosphorus' means 'throat' in Turkish; Lesley went to school on the European side, crossing the Bosphorus every morning and evening from and to our home on the Asian side.

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National Poetry Month: Prose Poem

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It's National Poetry Month, and suddenly my well has run dry. When I had no particular excuse for writing and posting poems, they popped out, the way babies do sometimes. But just as soon as I tried writing a poem for April 1, the first day of this month devoted to verse, I went into labor of the sort I experienced with my first child: many, many hours of pain and hand wringing and nothing happening.

In fact, not only did the labor last long with little consequence (I finally got a dose of Pitocin after ten hours of labor with dilation to just two out of ten, and that helped speed things up: she was born three hours later), but she was incredibly late. My due date was April 2; she arrived April 30. That would be like the whole of poetry month devoted to expecting her immanent arrival, daily.

She finally did arrive, though I thought she'd never come out. She just took a little more tinkering and tweaking than we expected. And what a masterpiece! Some of my best work yet. This month we celebrate a golden milestone: Lesley turns 30 on the 30th.

This year for National Poetry Month I would like to present poetic forms. I want to try new forms I haven't before, like a cinquain, sestina, triolet, etheree and a rondel. I may write in forms I've already tried, like villanelle, sonnet, tanka and haiku. Besides attempting my own, I'll also post examples by other poets.

Today's form: prose poem. Prose poems are prose pieces that aren't broken into verse lines, but still include other poetic traits, such as metaphor, figures of speech, lyricism, and heightened emotion. One way of writing a prose poem is a letter, which I'm using. It's followed by a sweet prose poem by Amy Lowell.

Here's my prose poem to the baby I waited and waited for in our little house in Pasadena, California, thirty years ago.

To My Unborn Child

Dear Baby ~

I was thinking of you so I thought I’d write.

How are things? I’d love to hear from you.

Your room is ready.

I filled two brown grocery bags with avocados from the trees and the ground out front. I only picked the ones that were heavy and ripe, like my breasts. Dad took them to work to give away.

Did I mention your room is ready? I straightened the picture above the crib last week. I’ll teach you how to do that. See your grandpa taught me. He did it constantly. He couldn’t go through a room without straightening a picture. It’s OK if you don’t get it right at first. You just have to practice. After a while you’ll be straightening things for everybody like Grandpa.

Madeleine, our beagle, keeps misbehaving. When we let her outside, she keeps digging under the fence and getting out. One of these days she’s going to get hit by a car. We should probably tie her up. What a pain. I hate giving her a spanking. I just really have no idea how to train her.

Well, I miss you. Wish you were here.

I love you,
Mommy

She came, and then we had to learn everything;

but the loving came oh so naturally

The baby who finally arrived

And another prose poem:

Bath

by Amy Lowell

The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is a smell of tulips and narcissus in the air.
     The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and bores through the water in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white. It cleaves the water into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright light. 
     Little spots of sunshine lie on the surface of the water and dance, dance, and their reflections wobble deliciously over the ceiling; a stir of my finger sets them whirring, reeling. I move a foot and the planes of light in the water jar. I lie back and laugh, and let the green-white water, the sun-flawed beryl water, flow over me. The day is almost too bright to bear, the green water covers me from the too bright day. I will lie here awhile and play with the water and the sun spots. The sky is blue and high. A crow flaps by the window, and there is a whiff of tulips and narcissus in the air.

 Amy Lowell

1874-1925

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A different kind of uprising

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Diego Rivera's "Detroit Industry" murals in the Detroit Institute of Arts

It was like a new bird was born out of the burnt ashes of the phoenix Sunday.

If you don't live in the U.S. you might not know about the big hype over TV ads they run during the Super Bowl, the playoff football game between the two conferences of the National Football League. Advertisements cost $3 million per thirty seconds of air time. People like me who don't care about American football watch between touchdowns when the ads come on, for the entertainment, and to see if they spent their money well. For the most part, they're a whole lotta money spent on silly. In fact, the ads were so mediocre Sunday that Don started flipping to other channels during ads. Poor Madison Avenue.

But apparently in the third quarter an ad aired that hadn't hit the Internet ahead of time like many ads had done. It was two minutes long, unprecedented for Super Bowl ads, and cost $9 million to produce and air. (Sounds like maybe they got a bargain.) After the Packers beat the Stealers, the buzz started, and the ad was aired by 2,000 news organizations, including the NBC evening news that we watched Monday night. I immediately loaded it on YouTube and watched. It had 1.5 million views by then after the first 24 hours. At the moment of this post it has 4,740,910 views. The ad was made for the new Chrysler 200 automobile, starring Eminem, but more than being a car ad, it is an ad for Detroit. It's called "Imported from Detroit." Be among the millions and watch the ad here or at the bottom of this post. Chrysler is being criticized for taking the $15 billion bailout from us taxpayers, still being in debt, and then spending so much money on this ad. But as one of the "shareholders" of this loan (which won't be paid back, since they filed bankruptcy), I think the ad might be a good investment. The Chrysler 200 web site traffic has increased 1600%.

Of my 54 years, some of which I lived in Chicago, Oregon, California, and Istanbul, 43 years have been  in Michigan, with Detroit down the road. Two years we lived a couple of miles from the General Motors proving grounds. I grew up when the population shifted from the city of Detroit to the suburbs, becoming one of the wealthiest metropolitan areas of the country, sadly and ironically, as the city of Detroit began collapsing in on itself. The peacock strutted as the phoenix burned. Simultaneously there was the excitement of Motown Records, making black musical artists like Stevie Wonder (from Lansing, where I was born) international stars. After the Twelfth Street race riot of 1967, we felt the heart of Detroit turn sour, as white flight, political corruption, a disappearing tax base, and the decline of the American-made automobile turned a once gilded city into a sepulchre. There was little to be proud of, it seemed, and we felt the shame as the whole world thought of Detroit as the armpit city of the U.S.

Slowly a few have started to invest in Detroit. I've been skeptical, wondering how those with money to invest would want to do so in a still failing city. While our daughter Lesley attended art school in the heart of Detroit's cultural center, the city buses stopped running at night. The workers in the city who had no cars of their own couldn't even get to a night job! Automobile plants closed one by one as imported cars like Toyota and Honda became more and more popular. Unemployment rose, until Michigan's economy was one of the worst in the country. In high school when Lesley went to punk rock concerts at venues in Detroit, I worried about her in Detroit at night, even with friends. In the last few years, when I've wanted to go photograph interesting neighborhood art projects there, Don hasn't wanted me to go alone, even in the daytime. It's just how we think of Detroit.

So when the Super Bowl ad titled "Imported from Detroit" played, a miracle happened. I could feel the city down the road rising up from its nearly burnt out forging fires. You can watch the two minute ad for yourself, and maybe you'll feel something of its power too. As my friend at work said, whose husband was a Detroit cop for twenty years (such terrible tales he tells!), "he was speechless, and I cried." What is so moving to me about this little film-ad is how it gets inside the very aspects of Detroit that we had thought were its weaknesses, and convinces me they are its strengths! The laboring class, abandoned buildings, keeping on with toughness, even when everyone says you're burned up and out.

This little ad has inspired me to turn my attention to Detroit and share things with you. In the ad you can see shots of Diego Rivera's 1932-33 Detroit Industry murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts (top photo of this post). I'll write about that eleven month project soon, the only Rivera murals in the U.S., and what he thought of as his most important work. This is across the street from a beautiful art deco hotel where he lived while he painted the fresco in the gorgeous atrium court of the DIA and his wife Frieda Kahlo visited, and where our Lesley lived while she went to art school a block away. I felt such pride as I watched the Chrysler ad, about just these murals alone. I want my friends to know something good about Detroit. But I promise I will show you some of the "sepulchre" along with the "gilt."

As long as I live in Michigan, I want to pay attention to this city, as it keeps rising and filling its dead, abandoned spaces again with life. Maybe it will be safe one day for me to take my future grandchildren to walk its streets any time, just as we will in Chicago and New York City.

Detroit skyline on the Detroit River, viewed from Windsor, Ontario, Canada
taken the year we went to the North American Auto Show in 2007


The Chrysler ad "Imported from Detroit":

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Tattoos, like manna

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Young woman: May I help you?

Me: Yes, I have a strange request.

Young woman: What's your strange request?

Me: I have a blog, and I'd like to talk with someone for a few minutes about tattoos, and take pictures.

Young woman: Sure! . . . Perry! This lady has a blog . . . .

I had recently met a delightful woman, who happens to have tattoo "sleeves." Not having spent time with anyone who had so much skin covered with art, hers has been rumbling around in my psyche. Suddenly in the middle of one insomnious night (that's about perimenopause, not tattoos), I knew I was curious to know more about tattoos, especially for people who see all their skin like a canvas. So on my lunch hour yesterday, I walked across the street from my university building and dropped in on Splash of Color. This is where I accompanied Lesley one year when she was 15 or 16 to get her eyebrow pierced. The next year her dad accompanied her to a different tattoo shop to get a tattoo on her back, which she wanted to wear with her magenta organza prom dress and bleached punk-spiked hair. If you're under 18, you must be accompanied by a parent or guardian for a tattoo or body piercing. Friends thought we were nuts. But we were pretty sure that conceding on these requests was a small price for maintaining openness and understanding with our teenage daughter. This is Lesley's pretty tattoo, at the right.

There were a few minutes waiting in the lobby while all the clients were being assisted that I had second thoughts and wanted to flee. I had never done anything like this (had I?), just dropping in and introducing myself to strangers for an interview. But as soon as I met Perry and Kris (the owner), they put me at ease with their gracious welcome.

 Perry introduced me to Sue, a visiting tattoo artist from Chicago.

Sue was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri.

"When did you get your first tattoo?" I asked.

"I was 13."

Concealing my surprise, "Did one of your parents accompany you?"

"Oh. My mom looks like me. Everyone in my neighborhood looked like me. I would have been odd if I hadn't gotten tattoos."

Sue has been creating tattoo art since she was young and realized she could do better than what had been done on her. She takes her portable craft industry around the world. She has drawn tattoos in Barcelona, Milan, Puerto Rico, Manhattan, Chicago and now East Lansing.

Sue told me about one U.S. town where she worked, I forget where (I'm a blogger, not a reporter, dammit), where there was a state penitentiary. Most of the people who lived in town were on parole, and they came into the tattoo salon regularly for tattoos.

"These were big, burly, intensely macho types, and they weren't interested in having a woman tattoo artist paint their big art. There haven't been many female tattoo artists traditionally, and so it's hard for them to trust us. It took me years to build up a 'portfolio' that would show people that I was good at what I do. I watched while the male artists got the big jobs, and I was stuck with the $50 roses or hearts on teenage girls' ankles or wrists. Tattoo creation involves a lot of trust. I've also had to help young women understand that this is an expression of their own taste. They'll ask for a rose. I'll ask them, 'What color?' They'll ask, 'What color is it on the art I picked out?' I say, 'It's blue, but this is yours, and you can decide.'"

I said to Sue, "You're a tattoo adviser!" I told her I'm an academic adviser.

The writing on Sue's neck says, Die Trying. And here are her hands, with HOLD FAST.

After a few minutes Kris, the owner of Splash of Color joined us.

Kris told me about how she trains people in the tattoo industry on health and safety. More and more states now have certification and inspections, though the inspections are lax. Health inspectors don't know what to look for. These are the same inspectors who check up on restaurants and nail salons. There isn't a lot of specific training out there for inspecting a tattoo parlor. But Kris is helping to raise that standard and keeps her tattoo shop impeccably clean.

Kris and Sue explained that many of their clients have past lives they want to forget. Some have served time in prison and are moving on in a new job where gang tattoos or memories of prison are unwelcome. So some tattoo art that Sue paints is to cover up previous tattoos. In fact, she has gang tattoos of her own that she has had covered.

Shop owner Kris showed me her art. She is not an artist. Her wrist says Hang Tough.

I told Sue and Kris about the lady I had recently met, with sleeves, and how she sees her tattoos partly as reminders of life messages she wants to give herself, and not just to others.

"Oh yes," said Kris. "A lot of people get words written on their bodies to be like a mantra. They want to remind themselves to hang in there when life gets hard. There those encouraging words are, every morning when you wake up."

Sue and Kris spent almost the entire lunch hour with me. Kris, who has a 13-year-old daughter who hangs out with her at the shop, said she has tried working in places other than tattoo salons, and she always comes back, because of the open, caring atmosphere. She's owned Splash of Color now for about 13 years (if I remember right, no notes).

"I love having my daughter grow up in this environment where people are accepted for who they are. I've never seen more accepting people than these."

I thanked them for their time and willingness to answer my questions, pose for my camera and be posted on my blog. On the way out, I stopped in one of the rooms where Perry was painting an American eagle on Russ, a Harley Davidson club member.

Perry showed me his arm, which has undergone four treatments of tattoo removal.

"Why are you having it removed?" Dumb question, and I was pretty sure I knew the answer.

"So I can get a new one."

Do you recognize that woman on Perry's left leg? Oh. I forgot to ask Perry what his new tattoo was going to be. Drat.

Even though I don't anticipate ever having art permanently painted on my body, it's fun to think about what I would get if I did. What symbol of my life? What words for a mantra to see fresh every morning, like manna, except that they don't rot overnight? I don't know, but I like knowing that these women keep on keeping on with a little help. Hang tough, Hold fast, or Die trying.

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Family (H)art

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Come in, come in, just follow the crowds (hehe). I hope you don’t mind if I indulge myself. I have created a gallery of visual art by members of my family. It’s my gift to me mostly, an acknowledgement of the love of growing up with Art as a recurring character in our family tree. It’s long, but you can be grateful that every single member of my family is not represented. In total we number 70 living souls, if I count correctly (math is not my strongest subject), but I am only including the visual artists, several of whom have passed on. I'm sharing 15 artists in all. I am defining visual art narrowly, as what you can hang on a wall (except for one exception, one of Lesley’s). Please click on the images if you’d like to see the details enlarged. I’ll start from oldest to youngest, except me. I’ll be last, but it doesn’t mean I’m saving the best for it. I’m just trying to be polite. Of course just look at pictures if you don't want to read all the information about the artists. I wouldn't blame you one bit, I know you're busy. This is documentation for my family and me as much as anything.

DISCLAIMER: I took photographs of many of these images, or the artists did, so there might be glare, or distortions. Blur your eyes when necessary.

Welcome, won’t you come in? Would you like an audio guide? They’re only $5. Or you can leave your photo ID. (I don’t really have an audio guide, I was just kidding.)

Corn, by Grandma Elizabeth

1 Grandma Elizabeth  b. 1870 d. 1957. My dad’s mother was 47 when Dad was born (and his dad, also a minister, was 70 when Dad was born and fought in the Civil War!), and I do not know if I met her. She died in Charlottesville, Virginia less than a year after I arrived. When my older siblings knew her, she was deaf and used an ear horn to hear. I know little else. Were we ever surprised when Dad was dying gently on a hospice bed in his dining room in 1995, and someone found this corn painting of Grandma’s in the attic. We had never seen nor heard of it, or that she was an artist. Lucky me, it’s hanging on the wall in our bedroom. (We don't have a formal dining room, where it would be more appropriate.) Sorry about the glare and distortion, I tried to photoshop it out and just couldn't get all of it.

2 Grandma Olive  b. 1891 d. 1960. I’ve posted about Grandma Olive, my mom’s mother, many times at this blog. I have no memory of her, she died when I was 3 or 4. After graduating from the Art Institute in Chicago, Olive was a professional artist/designer/illustrator in the 1920s and 30s. She designed clothes for Vogue and wallpaper for Thibaut. Her pen and ink drawings illustrated World Book encyclopedias and newspaper ads. You know that curious little sepia girl studying life from my sidebar? It’s one of hers, from a page in World Book, below. In this gallery I’ve also included a cabinet she painted that now lives in our family room. Mom said her mother used to go tromping on the streets of NYC looking for dilapidated bargains and would bring them home and doll them up. Below is also her cover illustration for the Bayonne Times (she resided in Bayonne, New Jersey) when the NY Holland Tunnel opened – the world’s first vehicular tunnel.

Illustration in World Book Encyclopedia, Grandma Olive

The "bastard" cabinet (so-called by an antiques dealer
who said it mixed many styles)
that Grandma Olive rescued and painted

Cover and detail in the Bayonne Times, on the event

of the opening of the Holland Tunnel, by Grandma Olive

3 Uncle Jimmie  b. 1906 d. 1994. My dad’s 10-year-older brother. The subject of a poem I posted. Uncle Jimmie had his own printing company, and he used to send us calendars at Christmas with prints from his carved woodblocks. Woodblock prints require a long, arduous and painstaking process, with a different block carved for each color, leaving the rest of the design uncarved and left for another block, then having to align everything perfectly.

Woodblock prints, by Uncle Jimmie 

4 Mom  b. 1916 d. 1997. Though my mom was a musical artist (pianist, choir director and composer), not so much a visual one, I’m including sheet music from an operetta she wrote based on Alice in Wonderland, which I only just learned about from my niece Shari, herself a splendid pianist, who inherited her grandma's handwritten sheet music. It has Mom's maiden name on it, but I have no idea when she wrote it. I think the flourishes of musical note flags are lyrically and visually beautiful. I sat by my mom on the piano bench as a toddler while she composed, watching her play a phrase, then transcribe the notes onto staff paper, painstakingly, one phrase at a time. Eventually I started pounding out melodies after hearing them repeated so often, surprising everyone. Too bad I didn't turn into a prodigy.

My mom's composition of the operetta, Adventures of Alice in Wonderland, never published

5 Dad  b. 1917 d. 1995. The image of him at right is the day he pronounced Don and me Husband & Wife. In his early days as a minister, my father supplemented his income with signs he painted. He was a fine pen and ink artist as well and created his own bookplate, below. Engravers duplicated the image on his and Mom's gravestone. Hart was his name, but it was also an animal (another word for deer) in a beautiful Psalm verse that represented his heart for God: As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, oh God.  ~ Psalm 42:1.

Dad's pen and ink bookplate.

Mom and Dad's grave stone, with Dad's art work
(that's the headstone of my childhood Dr. Garlock behind)

6 Boots, aka Ginnie  My sister.

I grew up watching Bootsie draw. She drew this girl very early, in high school I think. Now she uses Soul Girl as her avatar at In Soul, her blog, after I suggested it, since it so perfectly represents her spirit. She is also an inspired photographer, and I am including a photo of windmills, one of her favorite symbols. She lives near Amsterdam with her wife Astrid, where they are legally married. (When oh when will we catch up in the U.S.?) I like that both these images are about wind. Her blog is In Soul and her photoblog is Hart & Soul, where she unfolds her beautiful eye and insights into life.

Soul Girl, by Ginnie

Windmills, by Ginnie

7 Bennett  My brother, who passed away in 1996.

I’ve blogged about Bennett a lot. I think there is no one who has shaped my world view more than he did, eight years my senior. He loved to shoot rustic scenes in Nova Scotia and New England. He shot this Greek Orthodox priest in Greece in the 1970s. (Do you think they were related?) Bennett died before the advent of digital photography, and I think he would have loved it, though he also had his own dark room and loved to spend hours deep into the night developing prints. I have no way of knowing if this print I photographed was one he was happy with, since he discarded so many out of perfectionism. My photo of it also does not do it justice, and one of these days we’ll need to scan it or its negative (I think one of my nephews Paul or Todd, see below, might have Ben’s negatives). This photo, which he made a very large print of, won grand prize at a photography show, and was breathtaking. I have also included the poster he used to advertise his work. The grasshopper was his “avatar.” (Again, sorry for the glare on that one.)

Greek Orthodox priest, by Bennett

Bennett's photography show poster

8 John My brother.

John and Bennett are in the photo at right at the Acropolis in 1970 -- John is on the left; click to see their handsome faces better. John is my closest sibling in age, four years my senior. We spent many hours at the kitchen table sketching, and I was always amazed at his abilities. Strange story of synchronicity: As I was preparing this post last weekend, Don found the following charcoal John did of our dad in our barn in my dad’s things, quite by accident, accompanied by the touching poem. In a quick phone call to John he told me he believes he created them together sometime in his teens. I'll type out the poem here, because it touches me and expresses something of my own sense of things growing up.

You were tall and I was small—

I gazed wide-eyed at your legs and feet.

You’d hear the ring, then answer the call

and head off down the street.

(I tried, when you walked,

to follow along, but your steps were hard to reach).

And it seemed to me you never talked,

except to pun or preach.

Your silent side was good for me;

it helped me grow inside.

I watched and listened, and I could see

the heart you couldn’t hide.

I remember well one hurtful day

how you loved me in your quiet way.

You stood at my door with tears in your eyes;

your heart reached for mine with pain-laden sighs.

When I was liddle I watched you diddle—always on your knee;

You were tall and I was small, but I knew it was just for me,

‘cause after awhile—

you’d smile.

~ John

charcoal of Dad, poem to Dad, by John

9 Todd  My nephew – my sister Nancy’s son.

Todd is a web and graphic designer, among many other things. The first image, titled “Esther,” is a pen and ink drawing he created in high school. Todd has also started a photography business doing photo shoots with models (his web site is here). The second image of Margaret was shot during a photo session at our farm.

Esther, by Todd

Margaret, by Todd, shot at our farm

10 Paul  My nephew -- my brother Jim’s son.

Paul's four kids are often his photo subjects. Paul provides design for software professionally and is also quite successful selling his photos at iStock on the side. (His best seller? A hospital emergency sign.) I fell in love with these two portraits of his kids Lydia, Eli, Aden and Clara, when he posted them at his flickr photostream, taken at our family cottage about a month ago. In fact, these images were what got me inspired to do this family gallery. They remind me of a cut-out silhouette we had done at Knott’s Berry Farm when Lesley was little (right).

Clara and Aden, by Paul

Lydia, Eli, Clara and Aden, by Paul, at our cottage

11 Mark My nephew -- Ginnie/Bootsie’s son.

Mark shot this spontaneous family portrait of us on the frozen lake over New Year’s one year. That’s our family cottage on the hill in the upper left of the photo. Mark is a computer programmer and also studied photography at the Maine Photographic Workshops. I’m trying to remember why we were smiling so geekily in this photo, I think we had just been skating around and slipping on the sliding ice like spazzes. We’ve paused for Mark and are holding on to each other for dear life. Oh! I just noticed . . . that scarf hugging Lesley's head is one of the only things I've ever knitted.

Family Portrait, by Mark

12 Rachel My niece – my brother John’s daughter.

Rachel lives in Utah with her husband Swede and is dying to have her own studio to create art again. She teaches English and math to special needs students in middle school. I just love this acrylic Paris painting, her own version of Starry Night. Don't Swede and Rachel look like they were just tango-ing?

Paris, by Rachel

13 Lesley   My daughter.

Lesley went to art school in Detroit (College for Creative Studies), earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Design, and a minor in Fibers. I have some gorgeous wearable art she has made. When she has time and energy after working very hard as a commercial interior designer in NYC, she knits, makes beautiful jewelry and creates re-styled clothes from vintage. I have included her charcoal self-portrait from art school, an interesting technique of covering the paper/canvas with charcoal then rubbing out the drawing with an eraser. Below that is a photo of a retail space she spent about 18 months designing with her boss at Spin Design where she still works, including the design of custom furnishings. I am especially fond of the gold mesh chandelier "sheaths." It is the Swiss watchmaker Audemars Piguet’s newly opened flagship store on 57th Street in NYC. I think the least expensive watch they sell is about $10,000, so please do browse -- you might bump into Arnold Schwarzenegger or Meryl Streep, who are AP customers. I like the juxtaposition of Lesley’s bohemian art school self and the posh watch store.

Self, by Lesley

Audemars Piguet flagship store, designed by Spin Design (by Lesley and her boss)

14 Peter   My son. 

Like my mom, Peter is a remarkable musician (guitarist, arranger). But he is also an artist and amateur photographer. This painting is one he did in Advanced Placement Studio Art in high school, in the manner of Peter Max. The photograph below that is one he shot in Hilo, Hawaii. Peter continually inspires me with his photographs and also excels at videography. (The photo of Peter and me is from a few years ago.)

Purty Gerty, by Peter

Hilo puddle, by Peter

15 Me My self.

I can draw some, but I don’t apply discipline or practice, so just sketching something once or twice a year means I haven’t developed my skills. The sketches span decades: a young man in a magazine while I studied abroad, Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain a couple of years back, an imagined girl 20 years ago, and a drawing for a Christmas card around that same time. If this is not your first visit to this blog, you know I love to take photos. The first photograph below is probably a favorite of mine, shot early one morning in October 2006, when I went out on Horseshoe Lake where our family cottage is, in Lesley’s kayak, with my little point and shoot Olympus. I watched the moon set and the sun rise in that two hour float. If you look very closely, you can see geese on the water at the left. The next photo is the same lake, same morning, the sun rising in fog, just about 30 minutes later. It may look silent, but dozens of geese were honking (like vuvuzelas). It is a strange feeling to hear something so loud and close, that is invisible.

Sketches, by me

two photos of Horseshoe Lake

top: moon setting -- can you see the geese in the mist at the left near the horizon?

bottom: 30 minutes later, sunrise

by me

Well, that's it! Thank you very much for visiting my family gallery today. I know it was long. Bravo for getting down to here. You can put your audio guide thingie over there by the door before you leave. Now the sun is up, and I hope you found some visual pleasure in the comfort of your chair.

There is more artistic talent in my family, including Nelson who designs kitchens, Susan who plays piano like a goddess, Nancy who decorates houses that should be in magazines, Jim who has skilled craftsman hands, and their many children, and their children, who are fragrant with artistic talent as well.

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