Journaling Group 2013 - 2014

1. Character sketch/portrait

Writing a complex, interesting, even lovable character is a great skill of the fiction writer as well as it is the illustrator. In a statement that appeared in a 1923 issue of International Studio, Norman Rockwell said "People somehow get out of your work just abut what you put into it, and if you are interested in the characters that you draw, and understand them and love them, why, the person who sees your picture is bound to feel the same way."

Stroll through the Norman Rockwell Exhibit and find a character that you are particularly drawn to. Who is this character? Try to create a portrait of the character in words; try to convey the essence of the character though clothing, sound, dialogue, gestures, etc. Don't worry about writing scene. The portrait doesn't need action, just characterization.

2. Writing scene/using sensory detail

Recreate one of the events captured in a Rockwell piece and use sensory details to create a felt sense of setting, action, and character. Use sensory details to create a felt sense of the setting, action, and characters. You'll want to try to establish setting through description, characterize people, and make something happen (show the event depicted in the illustration as it happens). To springboard into the scene, you may focus in on a specific detail in the illustration or use the medium of the piece (color of paint, texture, etc.)

I was drawn to the the Norman Rockwell painting, "Girl at a Mirror" because it evoked memories of my own childhood. Mary’s pose seems apprehensive, as if she understands that womanhood is upon her and fears that she is not quite ready. However, during the audio tour of the exhibition, I learned that Mary Whalen (Rockwell's little model) didn’t have a clue. She hadn't gotten to that stage and wasn't worried about any of that stuff. It was years later when she understood the meanings behind the painting. I wanted to use that in my writing.

THE LITTLE MODEL

The cluttered artist's studio was chilly when Mary and her mother entered. It was not exactly the kind of place a 10 year old girl would want to strip down to her slip. Mother said it was fine and Mary knew the man with the sketch book. Mr. Rockwell was always patient as he directed her poses and expressions but today was really strange.

The slip business for one thing. Mary hugged her knees as she sat on the little red stool. She wondered if Mr. Rockwell would paint the goose bumps on her arms. Mr. Rockwell told mother to apply a bit of lipstick to Mary's lips, "Not to neatly".

A big mirror was propped against a chair and he wanted her to look into it with a pensive expression...whatever that was. "No...no" he said gently. "Put this magazine on your lap and put your hands together under your chin and think of a question."

A question? Mary had lots of those. Who was the hard looking lady in the picture in the magazine? Why was the lipstick now on the floor with a comb and brush? What about the doll practically standing on her head by the mirror? "Oh, well" she thought perhaps someday I'll understand.

Have four separate sheets of paper. Select one of the works in the exhibit that you feel particularly drawn to. For each of the following prompts (one on each section of paper). take about five minutes. I selected "Orange" by Mark Rothko.

• First page: Describe a color in the painting. Describe the quality of the color. It is sour or sweet, clean or smoky, sharp or dull? What does it remind you of? Keep this to around four or five sentences.
• Second page: Describe a shape in the painting. Try to focus on one shape. Where or when have you seen that shape? Or have you felt this shape in your life? Describe the quality of rthe shape, and it's presence in your life.
• Pick a snippet of conversation you overhear in the gallery, or something that you've heard said abut abstract art or this particular artist. This can be a piece of information or explanation about the art, or a seemingly insignificant comment made by someone first exposed to it. Do not illuminate, describe, or elucidate. Just give the quote.
• Rothko is said to have wanted his works to express the "big emotions." He wanted to illicit an emotional response from his viewers. What big emotions do you feel while looking at the painting you've chosen. Pick on. Write it down. Then write a list of 20 words, primarily nouns, or nouns with some slight modification. Each of these words describes something that your past that you associate with that emotion. It's is not important to give the reader enough information to ully understand the association you make between the emotion and the noun/thing yuou associate with the emotion. Just make your list.

When the group reconvened in the Library, Sarah explained that what was written could easily apply to ourselves. Descriptions were read and most agreed that they fit themselves. I did the exercise but my descriptions had too many artist's terms prevented it from working as it should have. I had time to write a very short story while I was waiting for the others to finish.

Once we arrived in the gallery we had a choice of paintings by the above mentioned artists. Sarah adapted this assignment from one made by Dinty W. Moore. Logic...is not the only way to truth. The purpose of the assignment is to force incongruity. Also, to teach the importance of detail - nouns and verbs, specific moments and particular things. Finally the exercise encourages the writer to trust "chance" to a certain extent. Seasoned writers often marvel over some element or another that just seemed to show up, unbidden, in their writing, yet ended up being alive, surprising, and richer than where the author was headed. This, of course, is the unconscious reaching up and through the rational mind. but at times it seems random and capricious. If some oddity of detail or language appears in your writing, and it works, then keep it there, and be thankful. You don't have to know why!

ABSTRACT ENCOUNTER

He had been told the differences between abstract art and non-representational art but to him it was all just a waste of paint. Yes, he was sure he could have painted some of these types of pictures. He usually skipped the late 20th Century section of the gallery but today he glanced in if for no other reason than to reaffirm his negative feelings.

The woman was a dark, curvaceous silhouette against the undulating orange rectangles of the Rothko. He found himself walking forward until he stopped and stood next to her. All was silent until he finally spoke, "I love museums but I'm not sure about this. Do you understand it?"

She turned to look at him and her face seemed to glow in the reflected light of the painting as she considered his question. "I think abstract paintings are waiting for something in the viewer's imagination - a sunset, a field of flowers, a dancer...or..." She lowered her voice to a whisper but he heard her say, "a dream come true."

He took a deep breath, "So...what is this painting waiting for?"

She smiled up at him...and he knew.

• Sit down and make yourself comfortable. Try not to sit near or close to other students. The object is to hear non-human sounds.
• Draw a small picture of yourself in the center of the page, leave enough room to add in all the sounds you hear around the picture of yourself. Note on the drawing a picture of the sound you hear, e.g., a bird singing. This should be written on the paper in the same vicinity where the direction of the sound came from. In front? Behind? To the left?
• When the time is up, we will meet in a circle and discuss some of the things you have observed through listening. Show and explain your map to a neighbor.

Haiku:

• Create a haiku, an ancient Japanese poetry form, based off of sound map experience.
• Haiku consists of three lines with a specific structural format of 5 - 7 - 5; five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the last line.
• Haiku's only contain 17 syllables, they cannot capture a "big picture." Instead, they can focus on something that really caught your interest, such as how a sound made you feel, or a memory the sound triggered. It is a depiction of tiny images or incredible beauty. It could be as simple as one blade of grass against another. here are two examples

Examples:

The wind blows softly

While leaves calmly rustle

Ah! It feels like fall!

A gentle breeze blows

Taking the scent of a bud

Along for the ride.

Fragments of talking

Filter through the leaves of trees

Kill Serenity.

Natures breath and sighs

Wasted on girl with headphones

Lost in her music.

Inspire your writing by following the rhythms and lines of Louise Nevelson's massive minimalist sculpture.

• Pick three specific elements in the sculpture that draw your attention. Describe these elements in detail but without lingering, or overthinking. Keep your pencil moving. This part shouldn't take long.
• Examine how these elements correspond to one another; try to understand why it is they are the elements you have chosen, what associations they bring to you, and how they serve to illuminate that place that is uniquely yours within the created space.

THE MOUSE

When is a wall not a wall? When it's an environment. When it has a shinny metal frame that contains the kayos - almost. When all elements are flat black though they reflect the light in infinite variety of ways and seem almost burnished on the orbs and cylinders.

I want to be a mouse so I can spend hours in its maze, climbing, running, sliding, scampering all over and through the various rectangular and circular paths. If the right combinations of areas were pressed by my furry little feet, would some secret force animate the toothless gears? Would the flame shapes slowly begin to glow orange collecting heat from unseen levels behind them? Would rectangles slide back and forth with crushing force? Would the ice cycle shapes at the top become actual cold blue ice that would melt in the heat and cascade down over the balusters onto the floor?

Alice wouldn't like that! (Of course I mean Alice Walton who built Chrystal Bridges.)

The Transcendentalism Movement began in 19th century. Although many Hudson River School painters emigrated from England to the newly founded America, they were mindful of creating a form of art that was completely unique and separate from the art of their homeland. The Hudson River School of art focuses on depictions of bountiful landscapes and focuses on the natural beauty of the New World, portraying man as the small and final piece that completes the puzzle.

The Hudson River School accurately portrays many characteristics of Transcendentalism which emphasizes the divinity of human nature, intellect, self-reliance, the unity of God and nature, the reverence of nature, and non-religious omnipresent Over-Soul.

It follows that each period of culture produces an art of it's own which can never be repeated..." Since the observer of today hasn't lived though that period of time he is seldom capable of feeling the same emotions. He seeks in a work of art a mere imitation of nature which can serve some definite purpose (for example a portrait in the ordinary sense) or a presentment of nature according to a certain convention ("impressionist" painting", or some inner feeling expressed in terms of natural form (as we say - a picture with Stimmung)."

Definition: Art feeds the spirit. Sometimes the spectator feels a thrill in himself that corresponds to the feeling of the artist when he created the work. Such harmony or even contrast of emotion is the Stimmung of a work of art. Art can "key it up" so to speak to a certain height, as a turning-key or the stings of a musical instrument.

The Over-Soul is an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson, first published in 1841. The broad subject of the essay, considered one of Emerson's best, is the human soul. The essay presents the following views: (1) the human soul is immortal, and immensely vast and beautiful; (2) our conscious ego is slight and limited in comparison to the soul, despite the fact that we habitually mistake our ego for our true self; (3) at some level, the souls of all people are connected, though the precise manner and degree of this connection is not spelled out; and (4) the essay does not seem to explicitly contradict the traditional Western idea that the soul is created by and has an existence (?) that is similar to God, or rather God exists within us.

Transcendentalism defined by Ralph Waldo Emerson is "What is popularly called Transcendentalism among us, is Idealism; Idealism as it appears in 1842. As thinkers, mankind have ever divided into two sects, Materialists and Idealists; the first class founding on experience, the second on consciousness; the first class beginning to think from the data of the senses, the second class perceive that the senses are not final, and say, the senses give us representation of things, but what are the things themselves, they cannot tell. The materialist insists on facts, on history, on the forces of circumstances, and the animal wants of man; the Idealist on the power of Thought and Will, on Inspiration, on miracle, on individual culture. These two modes of thinking are both natural, but the idelist contends that his way of thinking is the higher nature."

Transcendental Club was formed in 1836 by Henry Hedge, George Putnam, George Ripley, and Emerson in a meeting at the Willard's Hotel in Cambridge. The planned to form a symposium or periodic gathering of persons who, like themselves, found the present state of though in America "very unsatisfactory". What came to be called the Transcendental Club was thus born "in the way of protest" on behalf of "deeper and broader views" than obtained at present.

Explore the Transcendental approach to people and nature through our own writing. Read out loud with the group excerpts from transcendentalist writers: Keats, Longfellow, Emerson, Whitman, and Thoreau. Then after taking time to contemplate a painting which you gravitate towards, please select a writer for writing inspiration. For a starting point, select the first line of your poet/poem of choice, and evolve your poem from this starting phrase. See where you go from here while exploring the tension between man and nature or materialism vs. idealism found in the painting and expressed through your writing.

I decided to use the fist line of "Hiawatha's Childhood" from The Songs of Hiwatha by Henry Longfellow. The line is, "By the shores of Gitche Gumee". Also inspired by several painting by Hudson River School artists that featured water.

LEARNING TO SEE

By the shores of the Mississippi

My small hand in his

We often watched the big muddy roll.

Sometimes we'd sit on a bolder

And I'd snuggle into the crook of his arm

My head on his shoulder.

"Look" he'd say and point to the sky

The building clouds partly lit and partly dark.

"Look" a turtle's head peaking above the surface

Of the opaque water for only a moment.

"Look" a wisp of a plant growing in washed gravel

A single tiny red flower at it's apex.

"Look" a beetle crawling up his pant leg

It's back all polka-dotted yellow and black.

These days with my dad were filed away for later use

With a brush in my hand and a canvas before me.

We needed no conversation on these outings,

Looking, thinking, absorbing, and learning

To really see was enough

With one so loved.

• Creativity can come like a cool breeze.
• I must give and bend with the flow of creativity and not resist it.
• Color equals emotion
• An idea can fly away like a petal in the wind so act on it immediately.
• A new idea first appears as a confusing tangle to be opened slowly revealing it's true meaning.
• Creativity is a dance.
• From the rockiest ground, beauty can spring forth
• I can take a simple idea and nurture it into a full blown creation.
• Different color flowers on one plant show the progress of time and even an old idea can be beautiful if you learn to appreciate the progression.

• Reality can come out of kayos.
• I can stop and slow down and get a new view of things.
• A chair is not just a chair.
• I can be one way today and another way tomorrow.
• I can paint one way today and another way tomorrow.
• You only think you know me.
• Shapes and colors define my world.
• If I rest my body - my mind keeps spinning.
• The passage of time paints lines on our faces.

The lesson was also based on the book, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. Chapter 7 of the book talks about "Focusing on Positive Attitudes for Creativity"

• Train yourself to get past your Censor, this is critical to the creative process. Listen and understand yourself.
• Art is not about thinking something up, it's about getting something down.
• Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. WE may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark."
• If you are willing to accept that anything worth doing might even be worth doing badly our options widen, "If I didn't have to do it perfectly, I would try..."

We made short lists of things we would try but didn't share it.

Take time to enjoy Edward Hopper's paintings and drawings in the gallery. Notice his style, themes, and colors. Take time to pick a few artworks that "sing" to you. Select a painting or drawing to get close with, and write a paragraph about each of the questions that are listed with the answers in the "My Writing" section.

Parkhurst's House Gloucester (Captain's House)

1. Could you imagine what Edward Hopper might have been thinking about, which than put his thought into reality on the canvas? Describe, be free and open in your writing.

I Wrote:

Hopper must have had "contrast on his mind when creating this and many of his other paintings. Contrast of light and dark is extreme; contrast of curving cornices against linear fence and bay window; contrast of the rich man's decorated house against the mean houses in the background.

2. How does this painting and the artist show courage in the IMPERFECTIONS of the work? Describe, be free and open in your writing.

I Wrote:

This watercolor & graphite painting is so free it could be a study rather than a finished work. Hopper made no effort to hide his graphite sketch and incorporated it as part of the picture. He didn't use a straight edge and instead gloried in the slightly wavy lines that some other artists might have been compelled to make perfectly straight.

3. Where do you see a risk in this artwork, and/or how has the artist, Edward Hopper, taken risk?

I Wrote:

Risk is Hopper's middle name it seems. The asymmetrical composition so heavy on the left is daring but it works. The dark brooding colors, his lack of using the human form as center of interest lends an air of mystery and forlorn loneliness to so many of his works. Even the empty flag pole which in another artist's hands might have sported a silly colorful flag makes a statement. "I don't need ordinary props or artist's tricks" he seems to say.

4. After making connections with Hopper's work, freely write your inspirations of hope for you own creative process and outlook.

I Wrote:

Hopper inspires me to keep contrast of light and dark in my mind when I paint. His works would be just as great and good if all the colors drained away. Isn't this the test of whether any painting or photo is good or bad? I want to keep that in mind when I do my next painting. I also admire the use of interesting colors in his limited pallet and the unusual color combinations and the use of grayed colors. I'd like to try to use some of those things.

The Assignment: Go into the State of the Art Exhibition space and find a paintings, sculptures, other art pieces that attract you. Make a list of them and then narrow it down to one that is your favorite. Keep in mind that the story you are going to write must "grab" the reader just as the art "grabbed" you. Write a first draft of a short story and we will review and tweak them next session and read the finished stories in the final session. Your story should be 500 - 1,000 words.

October 13, 2014 - Missed the class due to company from out of town.

Painting called All that Ever Was Always Is by Waite White. I felt like it was looking in windows at peoples's lives. The title got me thinking how things go on and on and don't seem to change. I though how it was that way in most families.

November 10, 2014 - Read my story, All that Ever was, Always Is. I felt that some listeners got a bit confused by the number of characters that were mentioned but not seen in the story. Overall it was well received and the comment was made that it really fit the inspiration painting.

ALL THAT EVER WAS, ALWAYS IS

Inspirational Painting: All That Ever Was, Always Is by Watie White

Story: Catherine Wayson

Hillary looked up from her sewing and smiled as her ten year old granddaughter ran into the room. The smile vanished instantly when she saw the birth certificate in DeeDee's hand.

"You'll have to ask your mother," was all Hillary would say as DeeDee pressed for an explanation.

"But grandma", DeeDee wheedled a determined look on her face. "How can this have my birthday and my name but a different father's name?"

Hillary sighed, "Take the certificate home."

After DeeDee left, Hillary climbed the attic stairs with heavy aching legs. The trunk she had forgotten about was still open it's contents strewn about. DeeDee had looked at everything. Hillary pulled up an old wooden chair and wiped off the seat with one corner of her apron. She sat and bent over to pick up the items one by one to rewrap them in the yellowed tissue paper and return them to the trunk.

She had made the bonnet trimmed with antique lace when she was pregnant with her last child, Henry. She held the bonnet to her cheek. She could almost smell the talcum power scent of her little boy fresh from the bath.

"Oh, God!" she sucked in her breath. "There's Andy's photo!" Someone had snapped it in a tavern in 1938. She closed her eyes and whispered, "Andy." The old feelings were there just under the surface.

"Straighten up." she told herself sternly. "You're an old woman now. That part of your life is over."

"You're all dried up," the doctor had said on her last visit. Back in 1938 she hadn't been ready for that part of her life to be over just because her husband was dead. She had been seeing Andy for several months. She'd known he was married but it hadn't mattered one iota. Nothing had mattered during those crazy days. A wave of regret washed over her. She'd not done right by Henry who was twenty now. She'd let him think that her dead husband was his father even though the dates of her husband's death and Henry's birth were impossible to reconcile.

Her eyes settled on the small christening gown. Pin-tucked and drenched in lace it had the initials of each child who'd worn it lovingly stitched on it's satin lining. She had sewn three sets of initials herself for her own children. Her ancestors on her mother's side had sewn the rest. It was meant to be passes on to the oldest daughter but she hadn't given it to her unmarried daughter, Karen, when she gave birth to her first child. The child was put up for adoption without Karen ever seeing her. Later when Dee Dee was born to a properly married Karen, she had still kept the gown hidden away. She suddenly realized that her selfishness had destroyed its meaning and a family tradition was dead.

Karen's first marriage hadn't lasted and she had remarried and not told DeeDee about her real father. Hillary groaned thinking, "More knowledge withheld but that deception is over now and there will be hell to pay."

She retrieved two small paintings from the tissue paper and held one up to the light. Her great-grandfather on her father's side had painted his fiancée's portrait before he left Paris to seek his fortune in America. Six months after his arrival, word came from a cousin in Paris that his beloved had married another man.

He'd packed the portrait away and undaunted he'd married an Indian woman of the new country. He'd painted his bride's portrait too in much richer earth tones. Hillary held up the second painting and touched the face of her great-grandmother with her fingertips. She was darkly beautiful with brilliant black eyes. It was shocking - looking into those eyes was like looking into a mirror.

"Karen, has those exact eyes too." Hillary said aloud to no one and wondered if Karen's first unseen child had the eyes? The rest of her children didn't.

Hillary searched through the tissue for the tiny beaded turtle shaped pouch she knew was there somewhere. She, the Indian woman, had made this for her baby son of deerskin encrusted with tiny colored beads. The stitching on the side was coming loose but Hillary didn't open it...didn't want to touch what was inside. It held the baby's tiny umbilical stump, dried hard like a stone.

Great-grandfather had told her that each time the baby touched the small turtle it imparted a blessing and passed on the turtle spirit's medicine. He said his wife believed she had a supernatural connection with the turtle. "There was more. He'd been so open with his stories but who could remember it all? It was just so much hogwash anyway...wasn't it?" Hillary realize that her great-grandparents had remained in touch with the spiritual beliefs and lessons taught by their ancestors. "I haven't done that." Hillary was suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of emptiness. She'd told her children nothing about their family or the traditions on either side.

Her American Indian Great-grandmother had died young and Hillary was the only one of her brothers and sisters who had the black eyes and it was amazing that her daughter Karen could have the eyes when the blood was so diluted. Physical traits were passed on automatically but the rest was a choice. Family traditions might have grounded her children. Knowledge of past mistakes might have kept her children from making the same ones.

"Is it possible to tell them now? Would it matter if I did?" she muttered. People gave in to their selfish desires and didn't think of the consequences. It kept happening over and over. She was sure it was happening right now in every house in town. Hillary knew that she wouldn't tell her children anything. She felt unbelievably tired. She closed the lid of the trunk, turned and went downstairs and picked up her sewing. She lost herself in the repetition of the stitches thinking, "All that ever was, always is."