Geography: Acrylic paints with vintage paper and wax
Being a late-blooming and unschooled artist, I’ve spent a lot of time experimenting with new techniques lately. Browsing through Jerry’s Artorama catalogue spurs some experimentation. Who can resist the rich colors and intriguing possibilities presented there? The talents and techniques of all the fabulous Melange Team Etsy artists spur experimentation, too. I want to try everything.
But, like all experiments, some of mine haven’t turned out so well. For instance, I’ve experimented with encaustic techniques, without investing serious money for the necessary tools. There is no way I can get a nice, smooth encaustic surface with a little heat gun and a soldering tool.
I experimented with representational drawing and painting and managed to work out a watercolor of a barn that I have to my father-in-law. He loved it. But, he’s my father-in-law. I tried a second piece – a trite and hackneyed landscape scene in a truly freaky pink/green color scheme. (I tried diffusing it with wax, but couldn’t get it smooth — see above).
I’ve experimented with a high-gloss, thick resin finish on a couple of collages on wood panels. The look is stunning – it looks almost like a ceramic tile. But, it was difficult to get a flawless finish. I sanded and added coats until my husband finally told me that he had given me “old” resin and that’s why the piece had flecks in them that I couldn’t sand out. Thanks, dear! There goes three pieces right there.
For the past few years, learning new things has been my mission in life. I’ve learned I’m capable of doing things at which I thought I stank. Exposing your brain with new experiences keeps your brain in top working order; it really does keep you young. At the same time, one struggles to find one’s voice. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. The struggle is to listen for your own voice amidst the clamor of everything else.
Meg Wolitzer's The Ten Year Nap
I was in my car when I heard Meg Wolitzer on NPR discussing her new novel, The Ten Year Nap. For a weird second, it seemed like I was talking on the radio, but that was impossible because I was in my car, swerving inappropriately into other people’s lanes. Wolitzer was definitely talking about my life-the life of a woman who quit working to stay home with the kids. I dug around for a pen, and scribbled the title of the book on an old bank receipt.
I went straight home and ordered the book. The Ten Year Nap follows a group of women who put careers on hold to be stay-at-home moms. But, Wolitzer doesn’t write about that initial decision that comes as such a shock to many modern new moms who find themselves embracing what we thought was an old-fashioned notion of motherhood. Instead she focuses on a later stage of motherhood, when the infants have become school-aged, and what was meant to be a temporary situation begins to feel disturbingly permanent. Wolitzer examines the moment when the mother comes up for air, catches her breath, and figures out how to become comfortable in her own skin again. I responded as strongly as I did to Wolitzer’s book because I am a mother who quit working to raise a child. I was desperate to read The Ten Year Nap because I hoped to find some explanation or justification for the decisions I’ve made. Honestly, I was hoping the book would confirm that what I was doing was smart and worthwhile.
Wolitzer’s book, though, doesn’t take sides in the work-home debate. What it does do is elevate the debate by treating the subject intelligently, with wry humor, and a certain amount of contemplative reverence. It is a fairly realistic paean to the confusing mess of feelings that go along with modern motherhood. The women in the novel, each in their own way, are experiencing a kind of mid-life crisis. One central character, Amy, gave up a law career ten years earlier and now worries that she’s too out-of-date to go back to work. She’s also coming to grips with the financial toll the decision to stay at home has had on her family. Amy’s best friend, Jill, chose to stay at home to raise her adopted daughter with whom she is disturbingly unable to bond. Isolated in her new suburban home, Amy struggles to reconcile her expectations with her real life. The barrier-busting feminists from the early days of the women’s lib movement are represented in the character of Amy’s mother, Antonia. In a way, Antonia and her group of aging feminists seem almost as dated as a group of June Clever moms. Yet Amy can’t help wondering if, in making her decision to quit working, she has turned her back on the hard-fought gains made by women like her mother. Is a woman who quits work to raise children backsliding? It’s a question many women struggle to answer.
When I entered the work world in the 1980’s, women executives tied little scarves around their necks in a strange homage to the men’s necktie. Female veterans of the workplace warned of the danger of appearing too feminine. We should never coo over pictures of other people’s children and should never bring baked goods to office parties. God forbid anyone should visualize us in the kitchen with a mixer and an oven mitt. We were wedging our way into what had been an exclusively man’s world by mimicking as closely as possible the successful man. What our strategy failed to consider was that by modeling ourselves on men, we became conspirators in further diminishing the value of work traditionally considered “women’s.” If the feminist movement was about “self-actualization,” it has failed women who choose home over work. Women have gained status in the work world. But women who discover they want to stay home with their children can’t shake the feeling that they are somehow settling for less than they should.
If men and women were valued equally, there would be equal numbers of men and women choosing home over work. Clearly that is not the case. The Ten Year Nap illustrates how intensely personal these decisions are. It also reflects the biases that still remain in play between men and women. The decision to return to work or stay home with a child depends, not just on unique personal factors, but also on perceptions. Real parity between the sexes isn’t possible until both sexes perceive both kinds of work as equally valuable.
- Kalidascope by Ruth Powell
Two things conspired on me today to bring back a memory. First, we have been snowed in here in Fairview and only just ventured out today. Talk about cabin fever! Second, my son turns 15 in a couple of weeks and will be able to get a learners’ permit. It reminded me that when I was his age, my sweetheart got a little green Toyota mini-truck as soon as he got his driver’s license. When it iced over, he was able to make it way across town to pick me up and take me out for pizza. What I can’t believe (now that I’m a parent) is that my parents let me go out with a 16-year old newbie driver and black ice on the road!
Moon Wishes by ruthsartsandletters on Etsy.com
Last night I said farewell to old friends. I left them where they were and walked down the dirt road that led through town. I passed through the heavy gates that protected the city. I walked over the bridge, the centerpiece of my friends’ lives, and out of the Middle Ages, back into 2010 and the busy paved street that led to my house with indoor plumbing, central heat and air, and a great big comfy reading chair. I closed my book, placed it on the table beside me and sat silently for a few minutes, grieving. I had just finished Ken Follett’s historical fiction novel World Without End.
After nine hundred and twenty-seven pages, I had become attached to a cast of fascinating people. In the best novels, we are deliciously tricked into believing that when we close the cover, life between the pages goes on without us. How can characters so vivid just disappear into thin air when the book is closed? Therein likes the writer’s craft. Character Basics
Unlocking the character code can be a tool for critiquing literature. A character is born where speech, appearance, and action come together around a name. A characterization is the process by which the writer makes the character seem real to the reader. The protagonist, a hero or heroine, is the character with whom we become most deeply involved. The antagonist is the character that parallels or opposes the protagonist, providing the conflict in the story. A character that does not change through the text is a static character. A dynamic character does go through change as a result of the action in the plot. A flat character is one that has one or two simple qualities or traits and is not psychologically complex. Sometimes flat characters are called “stock characters.” These can be easily summarized, and are more a “type” than an individual.
Characters that are more complex and fully developed are round characters or dramatized characters. Round characters generally are consistent in action and reaction, and plausibly motivated. Writers may use direct presentation to tell the reader by exposition or analysis about the character. Writers also use indirect presentation, showing the character in action and letting the reader infer the character’s qualities. Traditionally, readers explore characters on a personal level. In other words, a reader asks, “What kind of person is this character? Is she a person I’d like to know?”
A reader might also try to figure out why the character behaves as she does, or compare the character’s action with what we would do in a similar situation. In order for a reader to become involved with a character on a personal level, we make a few assumptions about literary characters •• The character is motivated from within to act •• The character is responsible for their own actions •• The character is unique and responds in personal ways •• The character is can be judged by comparing thoughts with actions.
A personal approach to reading characters implies that the character is morally accountable for her actions in the same way a real person is judged accountable. As with contextual readings based on social customs, character readings based on social customs may reinforce the prevailing set of values and discount new, different, or novel beliefs and practices.
Characters as Signs
Another way to interpret characters is to see them as signs or devices that represent values in the text. In fiction, characters can be used to open up or explore aspects of human experience, or to illustrate a trait of human behavior. A symbol is something that stands not only for itself, but also for an abstract idea, belief, or quality. Conventional symbols are ones that are widely accepted and used by writers. Some symbolic characters are consistent throughout the text, but others gather new meaning throughout the text.
An archetype is a universal symbol or prototype that evokes response in a reader, sometimes unconsciously. An archetype symbolizes basic human experiences, regardless of time and place. Conventional archetypes include •• the “great mother” •• the “wise old man” •• the “trickster” •• the “scarlet woman” •• the “faceless man.” •• the “artist-scientist”
Example: The Symbolism of the “Artist-Scientist“
One archetype is that of the “artist-scientist.” The artist-scientist is a builder, an inventor, a seeker or dreamer, and a thinker. They may be so caught up in their own thoughts, they often must be reminded to eat or sleep, or come in out of the rain. They are both highly knowledgeable and innocent. They represent the wonder and the danger of curiosity.
The artist-scientist is an agent of change. This archetype character might spend hours concocting elaborate plans to reach the tower of the castle to rescue the princess, while the hero simply walks in the front door and up the stairs, scoops up the damsel and rides off into the sunset. The artist-scientist has an idealized view of reality. As a failure, the artist-scientists may symbolize the futility of trying to control one’s own fate. If successful, the artist-scientists can symbolize the idea that you can’t stop a dreamer from trying to change the world. Frequently naïve, the artist-scientist can also symbolize a gap between knowledge and fact.
Application: The Artist-Scientist in World Without End
In Follett’s historical novel World Without End, the characters were vivid and detailed. His research was thorough, and he effectively used indirect presentation to flesh out the characters, which behaved, thought, and spoke in keeping with the historical period. The character Murthin is an example of the artist-scientist archetype. He’s of noble birth, but forced by poverty to become a builder. Since little science and engineering was known in those days, Murthin had to excel as an engineer, an architect, and a physicist.
When faced with a problem, Murthin never failed to invent or create something that solves it. In particular, Murthin designed a bridge to replace one that failed. Murthin studied the problems with the old bridge, and came up with new technologies to solve them. Superstition and religion are at cross purposes with Murthin’s science and Murthin mirrors the medieval trend from church rule to secular rule.
To the townspeople, Murthin’s methods are strange and untried, and Murthin is faced with constant efforts to thwart his plan. Murthin represents the science side of the science-religion debate. He is determined, logical, and tolerant of new ideas. He is so persistent, that the changes he wants to bring to the town seem inevitable, like the proverbial progress that is said to be unstoppable.
By refusing to work with mindless adherence to the past, Murthin represents the idea that knowledge isn’t finite, that all there is to know is not already known. For Murthin, knowledge as dynamic rather than static, and mere mortals are capable of moving knowledge forward. Murthin literally and figuratively builds, stone by stone, the foundation for the village’s inevitable crossing into an uncertain future.
Bibliography
Schema (psychology); http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schema_(psychology)
Glossary of Literary Terms, Mayer Literature
http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/literature/bedlit/glossary_p.htm#top
PAL: Perspectives in American Literature – A Research and Reference Guide – An Ongoing Project, Paul P. Reuben http://web.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/append/AXG.HTML
Literary Archetypes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Literary_archetypes
Schema Theory: An Introduction, Sharon Alayne Widmayer, George Mason University, http://www2.yk.psu.edu/~jlg18/506/SchemaTheory.pdf
A Glossary of Literary Criticism http://www.sil.org/~radneyr/humanities/litcrit/gloss.htm Anatomy of Literary Criticism, Frye, Northrop 1957.
http://www.sil.org/~radneyr/humanities/litcrit/anacrit.htm
Follett, Ken, World Without End,
New York, Penguin Group. Moon, Brian, Literary Terms,
The NCTE Chalkface Series, 1999 Segal, Robert Alan; Jung, C. G. (1998). On mythology, Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-01736-0
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
In a sort of steroidal six-degrees-of-separation excercise, In Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann spins a giant tale out of several disparate small tales. Sometimes the threads spin with a a leaden sense of doom, somtimes with a jolt of recognition and joy.
Set in the mid-70’s days of Vietnam, racial tension, and sexual revolution, Let the Great World Spin begins with a discomfiting scene at the World Trade Center twin towers. A tight-rope walker has inexplicably strung a wire between the twin towers and is performing a breathtaking balancing act, mid-air, in the exact spot that, years later, takes a punch in the gut from two airplanes.
Next we meet a young Irish man trying to make sense of the life his brother, Corrigan, has chosen to lead – the life of a priest whose only church exists under the freeway in the projects where his congregation – a group of hookers that include a mother and daughter team – ply their trade.
Next we meet Claire, a blue blood Park Avenue wife struggling with loosing her only son in Viet Nam. Through Claire, we meet Gloria, another grieving mother, but from the Bronx, a million miles from Park Place in the seventies. Gently unfolding fully developed characters, McCann gives us a judge, desperate for something, anything, meaningful in his life. He gives us a self-centered new-aged artist and the woman who is more than ready to walk away from him, given good enough reason — which she has after a monstrous car crash.
If any of these tales sounds comical, they are not. They are wry, ironic, and sharp. But not comic. There is no “I knew it all along” moment for the reader. McCann’s writing is delicate enough to avoid reeking of conicidence yet strong enough – like the tightrope- that each scene carries its own weight. In Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann suspends relational definitions. People slide into common orbit through nothing more than grief. With nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, lives change. With nothing but shared awe at a speck prancing boldly in the sky, bonds forge. While familial relationships form the baseline bonds for most people, sometimes it is the encounter with a stranger that leads to the most important bonds.
The end of most books telegraph their arrival by dwindling pages and a sense of denouement. Even very great books can have unsatisfying conclusions. The best books leave the reader missing the characters. The ending of Let the Great World Spin took me by surprise. Literally, I must admit I was fooled by the inclusion of a readers’ guide in my edition. When I reached the last page of the last chapter, I expected to turn the page to a new chapter, but I didn’t. It’s not that the book ends abruptly – not in the way that disappoints a reader hungering for resolution. The abruptness is due instead, to the circular nature of the tale. I was engaged to the last word. Though I expected to read on, immediately I knew that the story ended right where it needed to end. The only way to survive loss is to keep moving. McCann’s story moves in a rich, full and expanding circle. Being a Nashvillian, I couldn’t help thinking, in the words of bluegrass musician Alvin Pleasant Carter, ”Will the circle be unbroken, Lord, by and by, Lord, by and by.”
A Moment in Time: New encaustic piece from ruthsartsandletters.etsy.com
Encaustic art uses beeswax and resin to add texture and intense color to pieces of art. It is an art form that has been around since ancient times. More and more modern artists are learning about and using this ancient technique.
Using wax is as multi-faceted as using any other painting media. In general, beeswax is mixed with a resin - often damar resin – and then melted and applied to a surface. Encaustic paints are available, and the colors are particularly saturated and rich. An artist can also mix their own colors using pigments. The melted wax is applied to the surface in any number of ways, including with a tacking iron, a heated spatula or other hot tool, a brush, or simply drizzled on the canvas. Once the wax is applied - it dries almost instantly – the artist can manipulate the wax using a heat tool. You can embed almost anything in the wax, and build up the layers to form 3-D images. Paints or other colors can be applied on top of the wax, also. Due to the resin content, the wax cures to a very hard and resilient finish.
For more information on encaustic art, visit the following link:
Karen of LDPhotography on Etsy has put together a very cool treasure of pieces that have a distinct mystical feel.
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=106125
"Looking Back" by Pam Carriker
Linda also included my matted aceo, Medieval Man. An image from a Medieval art book, this man’s eyes fascinated me. I clipped him with his outstretched arm and laid him atop several layers of different images I think of as “cultural data” – music, architecture, letters, numbers. After studying Medieval history with my son, I wanted to reach out across the centuries, like this man, and feel the connection to the past.
Medieval Man by Ruth Powell, mixed-media collage
Karen from Lemachi Gallary on Etsy put together a beautiful collection of disparate yet cohesive mixed-media art. All the pieces inspire me to think about Valentine’s day and a little romance. Here is the link:
Karen was kind enough to include one of my pieces, Just Knock, in the collection
Just Knock from Ruthsartsandletter.etsy.com
Golden Venice - A piece from a series by Lana Rabinovich from Fine Embroidery on Etsy
Lana Rabinovich’s award-winning embroidery is a feast for the eyes and the imagination. Rabinovich is the owner of Fine Embroidery, with two shops on Etsy and a website http://www.embroideryny.com/index.html. She works closely with individual clients, fashion designers, and interior designers to create unique pieces. Her work has been featured in Elle and Stitches magazines.
Close up detail of the amazing embroidery in Golden Venice
Rabinovich is inspired by romantic historical images, in particular the unique masks of Venetian carnival. She used Dupioni silk as the canvas and also incorporated pieces of velvet, satin, organza, tulle, silk, suede, lace and irridescent fabric in the finely detailed work.Embroidered details placed on hand painted “Dupioni” silk.
As beautiful as Christmastime may be, nothing looks more debauched the day after than the empty stocking half-hidden under the couch, or the faded piece of torn wrapping paper blown into the fence row. Even the handmade wooden crèche has collected a shabby coat of dust.
In winter, through the nude trees, nothing is hidden. Trash cans blown over by the wind. The side of the house that needs a fresh coat of paint. A forgotten junk car.
So, snowfall is welcome. It blankets the stark greys and browns with an iridescent coat. Those miraculous little flakes drift through the air and knowing that each one of them is a unique work of nature’s art excuses the urge to just simply sit and stare out the window.
A house, a yard, a street blanketed in snow is quiet. The dogs don’t bark, the children don’t yell, the cars do not whiz by. Even the noisy diesel roar of the school bus is absent.
The snow cleanses us, it isolates us, and it almost demands reflection – like Robert Frost and his snowy night. Temperatures will rise, the snow will melt and be replaced with dirty-looking slush. There’s still much stark winter to get through before the buds bring the promise of spring. So, fill your eyes while you can with the beauty of snow.
