Rhapsody in Goo

(This is the park unpainted)

Papier-mâché, newspaper, gooey clay and a can of white spray paint: sound like the stuff you’d find in a landfill. To me it is what is in my toolbox. And it is so me -- so Richard Dreyfuss in “Close Encounter of the Third Kind” -- to start building a mountain out of mash potatoes on the kitchen table and end up with chicken wire and dirt all over my living room. All I was going to do was draw a map of “Plush Park” (where my story is taking place) but lines on a paper just don’t cut it for me. I need the thing in front of me for it to be real. Thus began another on of my typical obsessions.

(This is the park painted. They are doing sidewalk art and behind them is a field of poppies)

I gathered all the aforementioned garbage and began building the thing that wasn’t yet clear in my head. I ruled out going to a craft store and buying toy grass, tiny trees and all the fake nature one can buy to build a scale landscape for two reasons: one, it would look so boring and, two, I was kind of broke -- which is good since that always sparked creativity. I was building a set for am arty-farty movie -- like the “Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” where the set are expressionistic painting. Next I thought it would look like Van Gogh had painted it. But in the end I made it look like what I imagined the painting in the book to be. It should be done in my style.

I wanted it to look like a three dimensional version of what I have been doing for rough sketches for the book -- loose and with mostly white, like a piece of paper with splashes of color to it -- a bit of Matisse, Picasso and the Impressionist as done by someone in love with simple directness of Chinese brush drawings.

Now that I’ve assembled the whole mess with my usual child-like enthusiasm plush park (like Paris, London or the 100 Acre Wood) is now a real place.

By the way I am working on five painting for the book and should post them before to long. I am doing large acrylic painting -- they take long than I thought but are turning out well.

My Rough Draft for “Starry, Starry Playground” is Done!

When I started this project, it seemed easy enough: write a goofy story, draw a couple pictures and there you have it -- a children's book. Well three months on and I have just finished the rough draft of my book called “Starry, Starry Playground.” The story is done, the rough sketches make me smile, getting the tone right was a challenge since this IS a book about art, creativity and mental illness.

In the end I decided to focus on something many of my friends and I know all too well: depression. In the book I call it a dangerous sadness since loneliness is a dreadful disease. Umm. did I mention this is also a book about joy?

The tone I meant was charming, funny -- a kind of celebration of people who are just different. Diva is taking a psychology class in college and is upset that mental illness in the text book is treated so unsympathetically. It is a list of damage. My book is a list of possibilities.

To get to this point meant I was a monk hiding away studying things I never imagined I would be studying. Just today I picked up a plush toy as the best model for Tippy the Cow. It has great body language as it sits and a fantastic hoody. Yes, a grown man playing with teddy bears and such -- or Tippy Cows. But they are models who I don't have to pay and will assume any position and hold it patiently as I sketch and paint them.

I decided not to show you my whole rough draft right now. I was working on the final sketches for my paintings until 2 AM this morning (no, I’m not obsessed) and then I will attempt the finished watercolors. When I am happy with each of them in turn I will show you the doodle I scrawled out when I had the idea, the final sketch and the finished work.

Here is a list of what I have read and watched in the last three months as research:

I bought or made toys so I can see how plush toys sit and flop about. It was kind of a casting call in a toy store. I got Nicole the Tree Frog and Priv the Tiger at Savers for a couple of bucks. Being tall, I also helped a lady by getting to plush sea turtles off the top shelf. I got Tami the Dolphin at Dollar Tree. In Toys-R-Us I found Hockney the Hedgehog for about five buck -- he makes funny noises when you squeeze him -- just like me. I saw a scanner for price checking. It didn’t scan so I pushed a button which I thought was for price checking. Nope.

I noticed too late that it was for calling for assistance. Over the loudspeaker: “Customer needs help in plush toys.” I ducked behind the hot wheels, jogged passed Hello Kitty and checked the hell out before I pushed any other damn buttons. This casting of characters is hard -- but now they sit on my table. I have live -- er plush models to patiently assume the position and let me draw them for hours on end.

I could not find a blonde, blue-eye squirrel for Jill or the right cow for Tippy (until today!) so I had to make them. But that’s another article.



Animal Reference (Yep, method drawing. Know the hedgehog -- be the hedgehog):

Hedgehogs by Pat Morris (Everything you want to know about that varmint and much more. Diva‘s mother adores hedgehogs so I am putting one in the book for her -- but she tells me that they are the worst pets in the world.)

Squirrel: The Animal Answer Guide by Richard W. Thorington Jr. and Katie Ferrell

Squirrel by Jessica Holm

(Jill the Squirrel will be a real squirrel -- that wears a pageboy hat and stripes.)

A Cat in the Family (A Complete Authoritative Guide) by Uschi Birr

The Natural Cat (Understanding Your Cats Needs and Instincts) by Helga Hofmann, Ph. D.

Beautiful Cats by Uschi Birr

(Pete is a real cat of my friend Jeanne. I want Pete to move and act like a real cat. I have had many dogs in my life but don’t know cats as well so I need to study them. I love the fluid grace of cats and am already fascinated. Diva has own cats and loves them so.)

My Puppy is Born by Joanna Cole

I have also visited people with dogs or cats and nip into pets stores to sketch those pets from life. I have been doing a lot of gesture drawings of people -- which are turning out very well. I hope to get the same simplicity and grace in my animal drawings.


Art Reference:

I hope to use Van Gogh’s art and Impressionism as a stage for my plush drama so I need the images to study (I wrote that about a month ago -- little did I know then that the paintings would find their way into my book and become a child‘s playground):

Impressionisms:

The International Movement 1890-1920 (Great very rare works from all over the world)

Impressionism and Post-Impressionism

Vincent by himself edited by Bruce Bernard

The Treasures of Vincent Van Gogh by Cornelia Homburg (Thank you again, Tom -- It is a gift that I uses a lot.)

Sargent Portrait Drawings and
John Singer Sargent both by Trevor Fairbrother

100 Masterpieces of Art by Martina Vaizey

The DK Art School: Watercolor Still Life (in Association with the Royal Academy of Arts) by Elizabeth Jane Lloyd Pub by Dorling Kindersley 1994 Great technical information on paint, paper and brushes.

Classical Life Drawing Studio (Lessons and Teaching in the Art of Figure Drawing) by James Lancel McElhinney (Sterling 2010)

Picasso and The Human Comedy (a Suite of 180 Drawings) by Michel Lewis (Modern Library Paperbacks - Random House 1954) I love the way Picasso drew.)

Picasso’s Picassos by David Douglas Duncan (Ballintine Books New York 1968) The painting in Picasso’s own collection.

Picasso (from the Musee Picasso, Paris) by Martian Friedman (Walker Art Center, Minneapolis 1980)

Van Gogh by Gerald E. Finley (Tudor Press Company New York 1966)

Seurat by Pierre Courthion (Harry N. Abrams, Inc. New York 1988)

Degas (Impressions of a Great Master) by Gerhard Gruitrooy (Todtri Productions Limited, New York 1994)

Step by Step Art School: Nudes by Jack Buchan and Jonathan Baker (Hamlyn, London 1994)

Matisse by Jean Selz (Crown, New York 1969)

Magritte by Daniel Abadie (Distributed Art Publisher, Inc. New York, 2003)

Eyewitness Art: Monet by Jude Welton (Dorling Kindersley Inc., New York, 1992) Great information on Monet’s methods of painting, colors he used, pallet, brushstrokes -- the works.)

Eyewitness Art: Van Gogh by Bruce Bernard (Dorling Kindersley Inc., New York, 1992)

Monet Water Lillies by Charles F. Stuckley (Park Lane -- Random House, New York, 1988)

Painting the Impressionist Landscape ( Lessons in Interpreting Light and Color) by Lois Griffel (Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 1994) A wonderful instructions on how the impressionist worked.

Paint with the Impressionist (A Step-by-step Guide to Their Methods and Materials for Today’s Artists) by Jonathan Stephenson ( Thames and Hudson New York 2010) Showing the methods of Van Gogh, Monet, Manet and Degas.

Chinese Watercolor Techniques (Painting Animals) by Lian Quan Zhen (Northen Lights Books, Cincinnati, 2005)



Great Picture Books:

You may know many of the books I have listed but the works by Patrick McDonnell are recent and brilliant. Hug is charming and South tells the story without dialogue. I love McDonnell’s drawings that remind me of Chinese ink drawing.

Art by Partick McDonnell

Just Like Heaven by Partick McDonnell

Hug by Partick McDonnell

South by Partick McDonnell

Wag by Partick McDonnell

The Complete Tales and Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne with the original charming drawings by Ernest H. Shepard

Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll with drawings by John Tenniel

The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, Illustrations by David Jorgensen as read by Meryl Streep

The Inferno by Dante, illustrations by Dore (Well, I read it as a kid -- or looked at the pictures -- but I was an odd kid.)


Poetry:

I hope to have a poetic tilt to the work and have been listening to the artists performing their own works on CDs.

T.S. Eliot The Love song of J. Alfred Profrock, The Wasteland, Quartets, Practical Cats (Yes, he wrote a children’s book)

The Voice of the Poet: Sylvia Plath Random House Audio

Dylan Thomas reads “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”
Sylvia Plath reads her own poems

The Caedmon Poetry Collection (A Century of Poets Reading their own Work)

Bob Dylan The Witmark Demos 1962-1964 (Dylan’s original demos -- hear Dylan becoming himself.)

So, you were expecting Dr. Suess? It may seem like a odd and cheerful lot for picture book inspiration. But theses are the ones I love. To listen to a poet speak their own work is like hearing a composer play their compositions. Just looking at it on the page won’t cut it.


Life Drawing and Art Techniques:

Yoga for Dummies (Priv the Tiger is from India and uses Yoga to relax)

The New York City Ballet Workout by Palm Pictures
Understanding Ballet by John Gregory

Body Parts (a practical guide for artists) by Simon Jennings

The Figure in Watercolor: Simple, Fast and Focused by Mel Stabin

Chinese Brush Animals by Lucy Wang


DVDs and Videos:

Great Courses: A History of European Art taught by Professor William Kloss, Independent Art Historian The Smithsonian Associates, Smithsonian Institute 48 lectures, each 30 minutes long. (The Teaching Company, 2005) A college course, Kloss clearly enjoys his work -- I wish more college professors were as fun.

Great Courses: Museum Masterpiece - The Louvre, taught by Professor Richard Brettell, University of Texas at Dallas, 12 lectures, each 30 minutes long. (The Teaching Company, 2006)
Great Courses: Museum Masterpiece - The National Gallery, London, taught by Professor Catherine B. Scallen, Case Western Reserve University, 24 lectures, each 30 minutes long. (The Teaching Company, 2009)

Vermeer: Master of Light -- narrated by Meryl Streep Microcinema 2001. Very detailed explanations of how he painted -- fascinating.

Magritte: An Attempt at the Impossible. DVD by Kultur International Films. Magritte was once asked what was behind his paintings, “The wall,” he cracked. Unfortunately the makers of this film don’t get jokes. A very serious art film about a man who spent his life making fun of serious art.

Vincent, a film by Paul Cox. Docudrama DVD 2005. Using Van Gogh’s letters and paintings Cox takes us on a life’s journey and obsession. The document on Cox is also amazing. I admit that I felt a kinship with Cox, So many of his statements hit home, “Loneliness is a dreadful disease,” he says and it feels like the theme of my own book.

Van Gogh, Brush with Genius. A Camera Lucida Production,. Imagine DVD 2010. Having Van Gogh’s ghost show up to narrate the film is pretty funny, having him introduce the director as if they hang out at the bars nightly is jaw dropping. That said, the images shot with an Imax camera are amazing. The film makers were allowed unprecedented access to glide their lens inches from the paintings to pick up incredible detail. Also wonderful were scenes showing Vincent's paintings that fade into the present day location where Van Gogh himself stood -- unlike the cheesy narration, I did feel a chill of a ghost passing by at moments like that.

Van Gogh’s Van Goghs, directed byJackson Frost, Home Vision Theater/ WETA Washington 1999

Portraits in Watercolor (a complete video course) by James Kirk

Starry, Starry Playground

I don’t have internet at home anymore and get so much work done because of that. To the digital world it must seem that I tend to vanish because I don‘t go to the library and log on. I am sorry --- but not really. When I fell in love with Diva I made myself a promise: I will never be so busy that I can’t put down everything to go for an impromptu walk to chase crows, cuddle a frightened teddy bear or sing loud and out of tune if that is what Diva needs. And if it means that I either vanish for two weeks with her or tell her, “no, I’m busy, kitten” -- well, the choice is easy.

We all want to get things done in our lives. We are in a mad rush to finish something -- make our mark so we can be proud of what we have done with our lives and the short time allotted to us. For me that something is the book -- which I am now calling “Starry, Starry Playground”. I want to always remember what I am celebrating with my little craft project: the miraculous mind of artists, dreamers and the very, very sensitive. THAT is the starry, starry playground that fascinates me. I am struggling to put it into words and paintings like a chimpanzee having just learned sign language and excited with the new found joy of words. My monkey talents may not be up to the struggle but the mess I am making gives me such joy -- and that is enough. Yet I’ll drop that Everest climb of mine whenever Diva needs me. And right now she is on her own Everest -- trying to get her degree in college and needs someone to cuddle with, complain to -- and feed her kindness and homemade pizza.

I will admit that I do feel guilty since I end up having the time of my life whenever she kidnaps me. In the end it is the little things in life that are the big things. The book and I are so much richer for the time I spend with her.

Years of Suddenness

My hunger for experience (and finding connections with other people) leads me into some strange places. And no, I am not talking about crashing my van into a Dutch police car high on dope with Neil Gaiman’s daughter passed out in the passenger seat. You have me confused with Amanda Palmer -- yet again. I’m talking about finding myself on the ice with a leading astrophysicist, thinking.

“Yeah, I know just what you’re feeling, man.” What, you might well ask, does a loser writing about creativity (stuck in the middle of Minnesota) have in common with a world renowned scientist? And am I SURE I’m not on crack? Answer: we both create for living (and struggle to understand that process in the same way that a jet pilot really should know how his airplane works) and, no... I’m not high -- right now. But if I get into the creative zone (and I feel it coming on) I might be soaring.

I have been watching a DVD called “Me and Isaac Newton” just because I have a insatiable hunger for knowledge of all kinds. At times it was boring as hell, but at other times (when the scientists discussed how they came up with their ideas) it was a revelation. I have been talking to songwriters to understand the process. It never even occurred to me to ask a scientist about creativity. Oh! I’m an idiot! Scientist create, take much better notes and rarely run afoul of the Dutch authorities. I should have done this ages ago.

Writers Block

“When things go wrong, I get on the ice and all the problems just melt away. ‘cause once I'm on the ice rink it is just me and Isaac Newton. I realize that Isaac Newton’s law’s have been well understood for 300 years. I don’t have to bat my brains against the quantum theory, against black holes, against the big bang. It’s just me and Isaac Newton skating on the ice, free of all the constraints I had before.” -- Michio Kaku (Theoretical Physicist)

“I think, we get stuck all the time. All of us that are doing exploration. Because you pursue a path and then suddenly it looks like a dead-end... Sitting down and saying, ‘Okay, let me think about it really hard while it is silent around me,’ doesn’t really work for me. It is better to do twenty different things per day. Often you end up doing one of the little things -- and that kind of gets your brain thinking laterally. Next time you look at your problem you might have a new insight.” -- Maja Mataric (Computer Scientist)

“I think the failures, in some ways, are kind of fertilizer for accomplishments. I think you sit there, you’ve just had a paper rejected. You know, something just didn’t work out... your whole world has been shattered. I think out of that you actually build something better.” -- Patricia Wright (Primatologist)

Years of Suddenness

“I’m often asked if there were these wonderful eureka moments when you know you had finally accomplished what you sought. But I don’t think so. I think there are a lot of little eureka moments when you are heading for something and you suddenly find that the pieces begin to fall into place. So that doesn’t mean you’re there yet. It is never the kind of thing as described in movies or in books... suddenly the light dawned and you knew you were there. It’s not quite that sudden, it’s years of suddenness.” -- Gertrude Elion (Pharmaceutical Chemist)

“Like a lot of people, I often think ideas occur in a flash of inspiration, welling up form the unconscious or a light bulb goes off and all of a sudden a brand new idea occurs without warning. But there are psychologists who study creativity and genuinely creative people: brilliant scientist and artists. And they often work with historians and go back over their diaries, correspondence and notebooks. The usual finding is that what seems like a sudden epiphany is actually a tiny little step from hundreds of little baby steps that went before.” -- Steven Pinker (Cognitive Scientist)

Scientist and artist? Both are explorers of thought. The mind is as vast and unknown as the universe. Then again, with space telescopes we can almost see to the end of the universe. The mind? Dang, we still have not fathomed its true depths. I still haven’t the faintest idea what makes me tick.

A Box of Joy

When I rounded the corner there it was on my doorstep: a box the size of a small refrigerator. Wow, I thought, my friend Tami said she was going to send us a box but this was pretty stunning. She lives near New Orleans and it is Mardi Gras time. The first thing I thought was, “That is an awful lot of beads.” Then another idea crept into my head, bending down, I rapped on the vast box and said, “Tami -- are you in there?!” No answer. Perhaps she was sleeping. It had been a long journey.

I decided not to open the box until Diva showed up. After all, if Tami did jump out, she’d be ever so disappointed that Diva wasn’t there screaming and falling unconscious with terror. You never get a second chance to make that all important first impression.

Yep, I had to wait for Diva before I opened it. I knew this was a box of joy -- and happiness is always better when shared. Diva called and asked if she could come over. “Dang yes,” I said, “but bring the camera, Kitten. Tami sent us a really big box.”

When Diva arrived she was stunned. I took the camera and gave her a knife to open the package. Slowly she rocked the box, then she looked at me as she whispered, “Maybe Tami is in there.”

“Cut carefully,” I said and began documenting the whole adventure with the camera. I now realize how boring it is doing anything without Diva. To watch the excitement in her face, to hear her comments -- I really come alive when we are together. I have thought about that a lot, the idea that I have been afraid to show my real emotions. I was taught that as a child: men don’t cry, be John Wayne, be impassive and tough it out. I have missed out on my own life by not allowing myself to feel.

When I am with Diva, or I am creating, it’s all about the real emotion -- my emotion. I am crap as an artist but I am aces at being me. Here is the time when I can feel what I hadn’t allowed myself to. This is my chance to become real -- kind of like the -- the velveteen rabbit.

Out of the box Diva pulled bags as big as she was. She was exploding with joy as first a giant plush dog and then an enormous plush frog was flying around the apartment: jumping, dancing and giggling. We both started laughing and couldn’t stop.

Later, laying on the couch we four (Diva, dog, frog and me) all cuddled and looked at the photos. I thought I could use them as reference for our book, Stay. They capture the joy I see in Diva all the time.

“You are always smiling,” I said.

“I don’t smile that much,“ she admitted, “only when I’m with you.”

It was a grand box. Thank you, Tami.

Clay Therapy

Diva gave me the gift of clay. That may sound funny but it was sweet. While watching me making sculptures (references for my book) she said it was the happiest she’d ever seen me -- outside being with her, of course. She will be on vacation for a week and decided to give me weapons grade clay. Well, weapons of peace. Clay, my drawing and the book are very selfish acts. They are as much for myself as anyone else -- as any art really is. They bring me peace when my mind is at war.

How? Well, I was riding home on the bus the other day and felt so out of sorts. I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t focus enough to write. I couldn’t pull myself together enough to draw. In the past I would have sat on the couch watching a documentary on Nazis and feeling pretty worthless.

Now I have another possibility, another way to play and find joy tucked away in unexpected places: sculpture. I think of nothing else as I work. Out of a lump of clay, I twist and pull into creation things that were once only in my unfathomable head. Like a fisherman trolling unknown depths, I often don‘t know what will break the surface. My imagination and my emotions seem to seep into it in ways that surprise even me. The clay has as much to do with the process as me. It so cold when I start, but the heat of my fingers (and all of my tugging) warms it. It flowers into something so happy. I look at what I have done and smirk -- I am myself again. On those days when my thoughts scatter like pigeons being chased by a dog in the park -- this, art, is my path back to myself.

A Dog Named Van Gogh

It is not often that I recall the moment that inspired a great idea. After all, it is generally over forty years of inspiration that has been collecting in my brain: bad romances, good food, sunlight on a lake on the last day of summer break -- all those emotions that make me and go into everything I write. Yet yesterday I saw an emotional thread that everything I have been trying to say -- those beads of feelings -- can hang on for the book I am writing called Stay:

In a very busy coffee shop sat an elderly man all alone. Around him was a whirlwind of much younger people in a mad rush with their lives. I suddenly felt such sympathy for that elderly man by himself and looking so fragile. What was his life like? Did he have anyone to go home to? What did he think of the world rushing around him? I had made an odd connection to him and my childhood pet, a dog named Lightning.

Lightning was my best friend -- well, often my only friend. She was a huge collie, so sweet and gentle. I lived a half a mile from the bus stop down a country lane. Lightning would walk with me rain, shine or snow down the old gravel road and would be waiting from me when I got back from school.

I would tell her all the important events of my world. The tragic bean sprout shame -- it didn’t grow in the milk carton farm, my finger painting mishaps -- yeah, I would spill my guts as we walked up that country road. Even if it was a wind chill of thirty below, she would hang on my every word. She would follow me over snowdrift after snowdrift as we weaved from side to side to look at that cardinal in that pine tree or that funny shape on the other side of the road It was a dragon -- if you turned your head just so -- and in need of slaying or at least a good barking at. Lighting was the warmest spirit that any child could want.

My brother would come home and see the crazy twisted trail of our foot prints in the snow and wonder aloud if I was drunk. Well, no one got me as a kid. No one but Lightning.

When I was in junior high we moved from a huge idyllic house in the country to a tiny place in the city. Lightning couldn’t come. She was too big, too old and had arthritis anyway. We’d be doing her a favor by putting her to sleep. I was a good kid, I didn’t complain. One day they just took her away, we moved the next day. I haven't thought about it -- not really -- until I saw that gentleman in the coffee shop.

Today I’m thinking about her a lot, that beautiful spirit I miss and how I have never really let myself feel that pain when she was taken away. Odd, I had been wracking my brain on how I could give an emotional center to my story and how I could give the main character a soul. I will give it Lightning's soul: a dog, a best friend and someone that the world didn’t have any further use for -- someone who was too old, too damaged and no one could possibly want -- someone who had endless patients and so much love to give: a dog named Van Gogh.