Art

Inktober 2024

/ still a dreamer / 8 Comments

This is the third year I’ve participated in Inktober. The challenge is to create a new pen and ink drawing every day for the month of October. They provide prompts, but you don’t have to follow them.

Below are a few of my favorite drawings I’ve done so far.

The prompt was “Remote.” This is my interpretation, as music takes me anywhere (Books, too.)

The prompt was “Hike”. I don’t hike, but I’d like to see this if I did.

The prompt was “Roam”.

The prompt was “Sun”. For me … “Got that sunshine in my pocket, got that good soul in my feet.” from Can’t Stop the Feeling by Justin Timberlake.

This was an instance where I had no inspiration from the prompt, “Guidebook”. So I just drew what I wanted, my beautiful cat, Mewsette (no longer with us.).

Well, I made it to the halfway mark. Whew! Only 16 more to go. Am I more disciplined? Hard to say. But I am persevering.

Early Shades of Fall in September

/ still a dreamer / 11 Comments

The sun has not shown its face all day, there is a chill in the air, and I felt a call to go walking. The Delaware River, rippling in the breeze beneath a moody sky, has a flawless beauty in every kind of weather.

The last roses of summer tangle with a shrub with red feathery flowers under a tree slipping into her bronze foliage.

This small ancient barn and its weathered doors still hold some fascination for me. They are such a willing photographic subject.

The tracks heading north out of town and the surrounding greenery were recently treated to a little freshening up for a townwide event. Once upon a time, these tracks were used by trains hauling grain from the town’s mill to destinations both north and south.

I recently saw some advice – “Walk Happy.” I like that advice.

Alone … kind of

/ still a dreamer / 2 Comments

If you love animals, chances are good that you are never alone. Whether you have people around you or not, we animal lovers likely have a pet keeping us company. Some think that doesn’t count, but it counts a great deal.

I was thinking this morning; Jazzy passed away nearly two months ago. She was the only animal in the house, and having no little four-footeds padding about is a big change. Of course, we need time to mourn and miss an animal who is no longer with us. But then came an interesting stage which I had not expected. As I cleaned each room in anticipation of a new resident, I noticed that cat hair was not coming back – seemingly an obvious outcome, right?

However, it was an unknown pleasure as I sat down to write each morning … there was never cat hair on the couch. Never. Hmmm …. I could get used to this, I thought, knowing even as it crossed my mind, that I never would.

When I was 20, a junior in college, I took a drive upstate with a friend to visit her former art teacher. The place was a sprawling shambles with cats everywhere, and I mean everywhere. There may have been 30, 40 or more – different ages, appearances, states of health, and none neutered. In the house were two mothers nursing litters, and though I hadn’t planned on it, I took one of those kittens home — an adorable grey polydactl who I named Pharaoh. It soon became apparent that she had distemper. Thanks to the kindness of a local vet, she pulled through, likely the only one of that litter to survive. Pharaoh lived to a healthy 18-1/2 years old, my first pet as an adult.

Since that time, my house has never been without a cat and/or dog except for a week or so after Claude passed away. And even then, there were my next door buddies, Pumpkin and Cloudy, always visiting. Here we are now, at the next stage, looking for the cat who’ll restore that wonderful animal energy to a house where a purr has been sorely missing.

How Much Time for Ourselves?

/ still a dreamer / 6 Comments

Technically speaking, all our time is for ourselves, but when we ask this question, what is implied is how much time for things we don’t have to or should do. How much time for things that make us happy or give us pleasure? And how do we even know where that line is?

The bottom line is (speaking for myself), I am not getting any younger and there are things that are important to do, even if reading a book is one of them, or sharing time with like-minded people. There is always the reality that an income needs to be made, a house kept up, animals cared for, but what about the rest?

Raised in a society that firmly believes in a strong work ethic (which is fine to a degree), we are also often raised to believe that we should always be busy, “doing something” (meaningful is the implication there), and enjoy our reward at the end of the day or perhaps on the weekend. But what about if we toss our schedule and sit and read a book for a few hours smack dab in the middle of the (work) day? Or write? Or draw? Is that tyranny? Punishable by guilt?

Personally, I’m very tired of the restraints that are so incorporated in our brains that they became our reality. But that’s just the old reality we were raised with. I want to create a new reality. I am ready for the book you see here – it’s about changing everything and the way we perceive it and how we live and how we can heal ourselves. It requires learning, understanding, and focusing in a way that we were never taught, or even knew existed in those formative years. Change.

How much time is really for me? For ourselves? Why not change the equation?

On Being Vulnerable

/ still a dreamer / 4 Comments

There are still many outdated ideas running around that to be vulnerable is to be weak, and in this country, at least, especially if you’re a male. The truth of the matter is that to let our guard down and let someone in, or to truly open up to our own creativity and inner light … to be vulnerable … takes courage. That’s not weak — it’s brave.

And it takes trust, trust that we won’t be hurt, that we won’t fail, that we won’t find ourselves incapable of meeting the task at hand, whatever it might be.

As a visual artist, I find being vulnerable extremely challenging. As a writer, I am somewhow able to put my heart and soul into words, whether writing for myself, or as I did for over three decades, writing fundraising appeals for literally thousands of abused and neglected animals. I had only to look at their pain, and the words flowed. And our donors could feel what these animals suffered through my words, and helped support their healing and care.

Art? That takes digging deeper. I find myself in a daily dance of desire and resistance. What do you — what do we — find so frightening about pulling forth our art, in whatever form, from the depths of our being? Of laying it out in front of no one’s eyes but our own?

Being vulnerable, even to ourselves, can be a challenge. Finding the beautiful light within and letting it shine brilliantly is so important. The world needs us.