Where We’re Going

October 26, 2022October 26, 2022 / still a dreamer / 9 Comments

More and more I realize how everything we choose is moving us forward on our path. Whether it’s who we meet, what we read, what we listen to, where we go, what we dream about … it’s all moving us forward and serving our mental, spiritual, and emotional evolution.

For example, this month, I have committed to Inktober, an October challenge to create a new pen and ink drawing each day and post it on Instagram. I am sharing four with you, but I have faithfully drawn every day. I’m using this to get my creativity going, to get the feeling of what it’s like to draw on a regular basis, plus I love pen and ink. There are things I plan to do, and Inktober appeared to me. Right on time.

I have been trying to see more art, and have finally been able to get back to Grounds for Sculpture, a 42-acre outdoor museum for contemporary sculpture and arboretum. I’ll share a few of the beautiful pieces i saw …

And when I can’t get out to see art, I am finding it online, especially on Instagram. Instagram, of all social media, is highly visual and a great fit for me as an artist, photographer, and illustrator. But it has also been a constant source of positive and inspiring messages that uplift my mind and spirit, and I try to share them with whoever stops in and visits me. If interested, I am @jeannebalsam.

In reading, we also grow. I have picked up four books recently, and left off on three – I chose them at one time, but they are not where I am now. The fourth, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, is written in letters back and forth between characters in the years following WWII, and about how life was affected in the Channel Islands by the German occupation. It’s rich and funny and heartfelt, and also about how reading connects us all. It received unanimous glowing reviews. Go look; it’s excellent.

And music – finding and listening to new, all that speaks to me now. Music is so healing, whether music for meditation or Indie/pop, whatever it is, keep music in your life. And dancing … mostly in the kitchen, to my phone. It makes me happy. Tried it?

When I don’t post for a while, it does become an epistle, so I’ll leave you here with the thought to remember to feed your life well in all you do. And also a video – Dancing with My Phone. This is from HYBS, a duo you will see in the odd (and inexplicable to me) Christmas moment. I hope it makes you smile … and turn up your phone.

Drawing Angels

September 1, 2022September 2, 2022 / still a dreamer / 10 Comments

A number of months ago I found myself sketching an angel, but not just any angel. I had drawn a stone cemetery angel. Not too much later, I drew another, below.

I have always been fascinated by the amazing angels that one finds in cemeteries. To me, they’re just beautiful and are so expressive. Sometimes holding the child who’s buried below their feet, sometimes quietly sad, and sometimes they are weeping in unutterable grief.

These angels are found all over the world, but, in my research, I find the greater majority seem to be in western Europe. When I worked in publishing some time ago, we put out a magazine called Camera Arts. They did an extensive, full color photo essay on angels in graveyards and cemeteries, many in Italy, and the extent to which these statues were carved and detailed was mind blowing.

As my life has been undergoing many changes, I want to return to drawing. For me, the best way to do that is just draw something – anything – I’m interested in; if these magnificent stone angels are calling to me, then I should draw them. As I posted the drawings on Instagram, I found people with a similar interest who also provide a rich resource of subject material. There I even found a cemetery angel who did not have wings (above.)

As I looked further, I found that angels might even be animals, like this heartbroken lion in California. And so I draw, “keeping my hand in”, as they say, re-familiarizing myself with that part of me that didn’t have much reason to express itself. And now it does. I don’t know where any of this will take me; I’m simply grateful to be finding myself again.

Time Passes ….

August 8, 2022 / still a dreamer / 11 Comments

Sometimes it’s hard to know what to write when a month or two has passed. It’s not that I don’t have something to say – I am never at a loss for words – maybe how much to say? Or how to put it?

I’m moving into a new phase of my life. It began last November when I chose to leave the organization and work that I have done for over three decades. It was the right time and the right choice for me. I am grateful for the opportunity to have saved many thousands of lives and raised many millions of donation dollars for this organization. It was wonderful. But now, I have other things to do.

Almost all work in my life has involved healing others, whether humans or animals. I believe it’s why I’m here. I recently spent a period of time needing to take care of and healing myself after some medical procedures and the accompanying stress, but I feel myself pulling away from that period now and re-focusing on where I’m going.

In a sense, it’s a question of `what do I want to do/be when I grow up?’ from a whole new perspective. It’s challenging and occasionally a little frightening, but I feel myself, from someplace deep inside, starting to gather strength. And I am seeing myself unfolding in ways that would not have been possible those three decades ago. And it’s all good.

My first children’s book is now released, and I will be promoting that and hopefully, meeting lots of excited kids and more. I am soon starting some workshops in helping people self-publish, and plan on advancing other graphics skills I have to help people. How this will all come together is still unknown, but I trust it will be exactly as it should be.

One gift I have been given and which inspires me is, believe it or not, Instagram. I am an artist, but also a photographer, and have loved taking pictures all my life. Now I have the opportunity to be yet more inspired and post my images. All my life, I have also loved music, and over the last 7-8 months or so, this has been expanded immensely. And for a major portion of my life, I have loved going to museums, and recently I have been inspired to get out more, once again, and see art, which feeds my soul. And to do my own art, however that seems to be making itself known, and surprising me as much as anyone.

Some days feel a little shaky, occasionally outright scary, but others are just glowing with promise. All is well.

My Dad

June 18, 2022August 8, 2026 / still a dreamer / 17 Comments

I had wanted to find this particular photo of my Dad for a quick post on Instagram. I knew it was somewhere among the photo albums my Mom had meticulously put together, and which documented our family’s history from the 1800’s. It was a photo of my Dad taking a picture in our backyard where I grew up.

And there you see it. That would have been his Leica camera, the predecessor to his Nikon F that he bought later on. My Dad was an amateur photographer, and really quite good. He had a real eye for composition, getting people right, and an overall good photograph.

There aren’t that many photos of my Dad, mostly because he was the one always taking the pictures. In looking through the albums, I found more than I expected. But I didn’t want photos of him as a child, or on wedding day; I just wanted him.

My Dad was a kind, gentle soul. He was very intelligent even though he only achieved a high school education, which was pretty common back then. He knew a lot about lots of things, and was skilled in several areas – he was an excellent gardener and had flowers always blooming. He knew his way around all kinds of tools, and finished our entire basement on his own. He did every kind of home repair imaginable.

I followed him around like a puppy, asking lots and lots of questions. And while his green thumb never rubbed off on me, I learned to be quite competent in plastering, painting, and even building simple things from wood – “the right way”, he would remind me.

I’m sure he would have loved it if my brother and I were more sporty, but still, my Dad had us out bowling, taught us how to play tennis and to ice skate. He taught me how to swim in the Atlantic Ocean when I was just a toddler, out past the breakers where it was safe. And to not be afraid of the water. He instilled a love of driving and going places in me, and who knows how many other things I’ve since forgotten.

Maybe most importantly, his love of photography had a positive impact on me. I was given a little Kodak Brownie camera at 9, and was taking pictures every chance I got. When I began my B.F.A, I hadn’t yet decided on a major, but perhaps no surprise, it ended up as Photography. And to this day, I am always, always happy when I am taking pictures.

My Dad with my brother, taken before I was born. I just love this photo.

I think he worried about me sometimes because as I got older I had so many ideas and things I wanted to do that were outside of what he considered safe or sensible. Like owning a car in New York City. But I did, and he adapted. And the one thing he always was, was proud of me. I’m not sure I always knew that at the time as I became increasingly headstrong and wanted to live life on my own terms, but I know now that he was. And I know he’d be the proudest father on Earth, knowing his daughter got published this year for the first time.

If I didn’t say it then, Dad, thanks for everything. You helped me more than you could know.

A Little Hope and Happiness

May 27, 2022 / still a dreamer / 12 Comments

We are all challenged in so many ways nowadays – every single one of us on this planet. Some days more, some days less. I wanted to make a meme that might touch everyone, and would give you hope, some encouragement, no matter what you are dealing with today. Here’s what I came up with.

Does this work for you?

And then … a note on social media, that ever-hungry, (sometimes) beast that would like to devour our time. But here’s something I really like about it, particularly on Instagram. I am finding so much new music to love, thanks to people I follow who share it on posts and reels.

That I am being exposed to music in different genres, from different cultures, in different styles – it just makes my heart sing. The following is one of the loveliest pieces I have heard in a while. I guess you would call it folk/pop (?), and the song is “Bloom” by Lullanas. Thanks to @sawsanakar for opening my ears and heart to this piece. I hope you enjoy it.