Summer...

I've always been very fond of the ellipsis. No doubt former English teachers of mine would say too fond. Defined by my favorite of dictionaries, the Oxford English Dictionary (more commonly referred to as The OED by word nerds such as me) as the the omission from speech or writing of a word or words that are superfluous or able to be understood from contextual clues usually indicated in written speech by a set of dots.

It's the first day of summer and exactly one week since I officially concluded my teaching duties.  I've had time to catch up on a few outstanding chores, gardening, some sleep, and begin to revive my exercise routine. I know many people, especially in this time and culture where everyone needs to be productive, pithy, and innovative at all times, have an almost neurotic fear of unstructured time, not me.  I look at any expanse of time with great excitement and structure or rather un-structure it for myself. As I've grown older I have learned the value of "ellipsis" time.  What is ellipsis time? Time just to be, to watch clouds, listen to the baby blue birds in the nesting box outside my bedroom window, watch the shadows of our Japanese maple's leaves change on the ground, or pick up a book that I hadn't noticed before on the shelf.  Somehow, I think, I find most of the much needed "teacher" renewal in the ellipsis time.  It is, for me, time of being present, abandoning plans and projects and just letting life happen.

Because I keep this blog as a record for myself and as a model for maintaining the practice of artistic reflection for my students, I'll share my summer goals.  But keep in mind, its the ellipsis time that will be first and foremost, for not only is that the time and space where my creative batteries recharge, but its the space where the happy accident, the place where what started as diversion becomes a new passion or old ones become more deeply ingrained.

​Taking a cue from one of my colleagues who uses this terrific conversation starter as a tag line on her emails, I'll share with what I'm reading this summer. 

For fun:
I have long been obsessed with  books about and starring cats. Cat mysteries, natural science books about cats, caring for your cat, poetry about cats, stories about artist's and their cats you name it.  For many years, I hid this fact from even my closest friends, fearing I would be judged for being trite in my intellectual tastes. Now I just don't care, judge away, as I sip my tea and enjoy finding out whether Koko and Yum Yum (the main cat characters of the Lilian Jackson Braun "Cat Who" series) catch their criminal.  My literary ailurophilia has led my to cross a continent and ocean to Japan.

Getting my studio ready for Summer!

This spring I stumbled on to the contemporary Japanese novel (based on a true encounter by the poet, Takashi Hiraide and his wife), The Guest Cat. I am pleasantly surprised to find that the Japanese seem to love cat stories at least as much as I do.  So my evenings are spent reading:
The Cat Who Saved Books by Sôsuke Natsukawa
and 
The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa

To feed my endless curiosity about the natural world:
A Natural History of Shells by Geerat J. Vermeij, which makes me wish I had been a better student of mathematics
and
The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, I can't wait to dive into this one because the preface alone changed how a look and feel in the forest forever!

Some works already in progress.

​For Art Inspiration:
The Way of the Brush by Fritz van Briessen, which is proving to be an interesting text which combines both Chinese and Japanese painting techniques, especially after reading and rereading the Tao of Painting (The Mustard Seed Garden Manual).  This also has me revisiting Arthur Wesley Dow's Composition. An oldies but a goodie and fascinating interpretation of Asian compositional aesthetics into American fine art and illustration from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
and
Ways of Drawing, Artists' Perspectives and Practices from the Royal Drawing School.  This is a text both my students and colleagues are reading this summer.  A delightfully "non-linear" read with more pictures than words, always an asset!

Lastly,
The Unknown Craftsman by Soetsu Yanagi. Recommended by my ceramics colleague, a delightfully accessible insight into Japanese aesthetics. 

So what am I doing...besides reading and gardening and most importantly, trying to keep my practice of drawing and painting everyday:
1. Continue my on going bonsai project
2. Taking a Mokuhanga course from Japan online-super excited! My first formal instruction in this wonderful technique!
3.  Exploring photo etching with a colleague.
4.  A little bookbinding and printmaking
5. Possibly starting a new project: images inspired from the Zen Buddhist text "The Blue Cliff Record"
...stay tuned to see what actually happens I will be posting here and under my "Works in Progress" page...art will be made...just not sure if it will be as planned!