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Sep 26

Rituals: Georgia O’Keeffe

I am fascinated by the rituals of artists. It is very interesting to me to see how artists crafted and designed their life encompassing their passion, their art. This is not an easy feat. I love Georgia O’Keefee’s work and became interested and curious in how curated her days, while still making her art.

“I like to get up when the dawn comes,” O’Keeffe told an interviewer in 1966. “The dogs start talking to me and I like to make a fire and maybe some tea and then sit in bed and watch the sum come up. The morning is the best time, there aer no people around. My pleasant disposition like the world with nobody in it.” Living in the New Mexico desert, O’Keeffe had no issue finding the solitude she craved. Most early mornings she took a half hour morning walk. Then, breakfast at 7:00 a.m., prepared by her cook. If she was painting, O’Keeffe would then work in her studio for the rest of the day, breaking around noon for lunch. If she was not painting, she would work in the garden, do house work, answer letters, and receive visitors. According to O’Keeffe, painting days were the best:

On the other days one is hurrying through the other things once imagines one has to do to keep one’s life going. You get the garden planted. You get the roof fixed. You take the dog to the vet. You spend a day with a friend. . . . You may even enjoy doing such things. . . . But always you are hurrying through these things with a certain amount of aggravation so that you can get at the paintings again because that is the high spot–in a way it is what you do all the other things for. . . . The painting is like a thread that runs through all the reasons for all the other things that make one’s life.

O’Keefe’s dinner typically took place at 4:30 in the afternoon–she ate early in order to leave plenty of time for an evening drive through her beloved countryside. “When I think of death,” she once said, “I only regret that I will not be able to see this beautiful country anymore.”

Sep 17

Tangibly Commemorating Your Child’s Artwork

Over the summer, I photographed all of Alex’s first grade artwork and made a book for her containing images of her art. Alex made many art pieces at school, and she loves that I have been making her books of her art for the past several years! It is a great way to help encourage Alex to continue to make her art and to continue to be creative. I made a 70 page book of all of her first grade artwork, approximately 100 pieces of her artwork, via OnceUpon, and I selected the matte paper option. (A sampling is shown below.) The book turned out well, it is simple in design, and not as expensive to print as compared to other places where you can make books.

The best part is—I printed one of these books for Alex, and she loves looking at her art via this book, while simultaneously encouraging her to keep making her beautiful art—she is incredibly creative! The arts are really important, and we hope to keep fostering this love within Alex. I hope to continue to make yearly books of her artwork as a way of preserving her artworks! Here are Alex’s previous artwork books, which you can view here, here, and here. I am still making our family yearbooks, and I am a trying to catch up on the editing of our family photographs—these books are so meaningful to have and to share with your family!

Addionally, Alex recently designed and created a shirt for a school event, and she did such a fantastic job—she is so creative and she comes up with the most unique ideas!

Sep 12

21 Years Together

Yesterday, on September 11, we celebrated 21 years together from our very first date, and I can remember it like it was yesterday — dinner and a play, Uncle Vanya. Life has been so hectic; yesterday, we divided and conquered — one of us went swim practice with Alex, and one attended the back to school night! Most of all, I cannot believe over two decades have already passed — the time has flown in so many ways. We were so young, and we had so much more “free time” on our hands in those days, but I would not trade anything for our little family. I actually had to go digging through our actual physical photo albums from our dating days, and this image, below, is from when we saw a play together at the Kennedy Center!

Oh how life has changed, but remained the same in so many ways! With everything going in with the world, I feel so thankful for our marriage, grateful for our little family, and the life we have made together. I am especially grateful for Doug, he is my rock, my everything — we have endured so many unexpected twists and turns in life, and we’ve always figured things out, together. Alex absolutely adores her Daddy, along with Victory! In fact, each night, Victory, without fail, gives Doug an entire face washing, including his ears, hitting every nook and cranny, as he falls asleep — it is so endearing! I feel so lucky!

“To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.” –Mark Twain

Aug 22

ABANDONED: International Photography Awards

My first book, ABANDONED: Chronicling the Journeys of Once-Forsaken Dogs, earlier this week, received an International Photography Award, Second Place, in the Professional Book, Other category! You can view ABANDONED on the International Photography Award site here.

Additionally, I am donating a portion of my royalties, earned from the sales of this book, to the SPCA International, helping dogs in need around the globe. You can read more here and here.

And, if you have not ordered your copy of ABANDONED, I hope you will consider ordering ABANDONED today!

Aug 18

Gone Fishing . . .

I hope that your summer is going well! It has been a really busy summer here! We recently finished up the summer swim team, which went really well! Victory is healing well from her recent surgery, which we are very grateful.

We just returned form our vacation, Doug is in Norway for work, and I am taking a break from the blog for several weeks to soak up the remaining summer days together; and to just be. Whether you are a recent reader or have been following the blog for awhile, I am honored you take time to read the blog. I am truly grateful. 

Meanwhile, if you are in a blog-reading mood, you are warmly invited to visit the archives — the links are shown below.

Dog Related posts

Dog Rescue posts

‘Dog-Centric’ Artists Interviews

For Artists posts

Photography posts

Personal posts

Victory Related posts

Aug 6

Anne Truitt — Parallels of the Artist and Parent

Anne Truitt in Daybook: A Journal of an Artist, shares a lifetime of artistic and parenting experience. Truitt, a widely recognized sculptor, successfully weaved her family life into this artistic practice, exploring how the two could feed creatively and intuitively into one another. At the peak of her career, Truitt raised three daughters, and it was not always easy, but she proved it was certainly possible. For Truitt, the ultimate sacrifice was shutting out the external world and making time for what she called an “inside life,” that of her intimate family circle, as much as her inner world of thought.

Truitt traces her creative roots to an encounter with a single painting at the same Picasso retrospective. Truitt writes:

“I had no idea at all that I would become an artist. It was in one of those deflections that sometimes subtly predict the course of a life that I sought out, just for pleasure, the Museum of Modern Art.

On entering, I turned left and up the stairs straight into Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Shocked, my eyes clamped on it. I focused on the three towering women gazing out at me with the eyes of basilisks — their breath would be fatal — and then took in the remote shadowed faces of their companions. Suddenly I understood that I knew very little of what it is to be female. Even less of art. I had not felt its naked power before, its power to shatter the appearance of things so as to reveal behind them another order. When in 1949 I began to study art, I more or less consciously looked for what I had found in Les Demoiselles: shock, an understanding deeper than my own of what it is to be human, and a mysterious revelation of a radiant order.“

Truitt, who was trained as a psychologist before she became an artist saw the two strands of her life, as mother and artist, to be intrinsically linked:

“People sometimes ask me if I feel as if my sculptures were my children. I do not. The love I feel for my children is unique in my experience. Nothing is comparable. But it occurs to me this morning that they too are transformations of secret, silent resources similar to those out of which [my] sculptures emerged.“

Truitt also revisits the subject of parenting and how it illuminates one’s creative autonomy:

“I noticed that when my children reached the age of about twelve, the balance of power shifted from me to them. I have sometimes felt myself in the quandary of a chicken who has hatched duck eggs: my children took to the water, I remained on the riverbank. But I cherish my own independence too much to begrudge them theirs. I do better on the bank cheering them on. If I keep a respectful distance, they welcome me into their lives almost as wholeheartedly as I welcomed them into mine when they were born. “Almost” because even the most affectionate adult children maintain with their parents a healthy reservation that marks the boundary of their autonomy.

I am more impressed by what my children have taught me than by what I may have taught them. The physical purpose of reproduction is, obviously, the continuation and renewal of genetic continuity, human survival. Its psychological purpose seems to me to be a particularly poignant kind of mutual learning and, matters being equal, ineffable comfort.“

Jul 17

Alex and Victory

Last week was a big week at our house: Victory had surgery and Alex turned seven, all within a few days of each other. We are happy to report that Victory is recovering well from her surgery–she had two masses removed, and she did really well, per our beloved vet! She gets her stitches out next week!

Alex turned seven, which is so hard to believe! The time is going way too quickly! On Alex’s birthday, we celebrated at home with a summer flower themed birthday! Alex even lost her seventh baby tooth on her birthday at the pool! She has a birthday party coming up with her little friends, which she is very much looking forward to! In the video below, Alex said that having Victory is her best birthday gift! We are so grateful for our girls. A few photos are shown below!

We hope your summer is going well!

Jul 9

Summer Checklist

What is on your summer checklist? It really feels like summer–it is so hot and humid! Poor Victory is panting on her walks, and we have to sometimes cut them short, as a result of the heat. Below are 10 low-key things I’m hoping to do this summer…

Swim. Enjoy a lot of swimming time at the pool together. We love the pool we belong to, and Alex is enjoying the summer swim team, in addition to still practicing with her year-round team! It is always fun to pack our lunch and get take out for dinner at the pool on the weekends!

Read. Read more books for fun! I recently started reading this fun, creative book: The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life.

Play more games. Alex likes playing games, and we are trying to play more games as a family–Mexican Train Dominoes is a favorite!

See art in real life. Alex loves art, and we have been reading books about art, and she wants to see more art in real life, and fortunately we do not live far from the Smithsonian museums!

Grill more food. Doug is a really good cook, and we hope to use our Big Green Egg, more this summer, to enjoy more grilled foods, but it has been so hot here, recently!

Get more ice cream. We found a new favorite place to get ice cream, and Victory absolutely loves it!

Go fruit picking. We are going to pick some sort of fruit this summer; we missed picking strawberries this spring, so we are looking forward to picking some other fruits this summer!

Go to the beach. We plan to take a trip to the beach, and Alex and Victory both love the beach, and we always have great memories together!

Celebrate Alex’s Birthday. We are excited to celebrate Alex’s birthday in a few days! She is so excited and she’s excited to celebrate with her little friends!

Building in more down time. I literally feel like the time is flying by way too fast, and, at times, it is hard to keep up with. Sometimes, there is so much going on, that we do not plan enough down time, and I plan to do better about planning down time together.

Jun 23

Summer Time: Grandparents

Happy Summer! Alex recently finished first grade, already! It is difficult to believe! We had a little family celebration the morning of her moving-up ceremony at school!

Then, we packed and took Alex to Michigan to visit my parents! Alex spent a week on her own in Michigan, and she had a blast! This was her first time spent away with out one of us with her, and she did really well! We were really proud of her, and she is excited to return next summer!

While there, we celebrated my Mom’s birthday and my parents’ upcoming 50th wedding anniversary!

We visited for a few days before returning home, and Victory saw her Michigan vet, who we love, and it is wonderful that her vet in Michigan and Maryland are both fantastic — they make a great team! Victory will be having a surgery in July, to remove some masses.

While in Michigan, we got our fireworks, an annual tradition Doug started with Alex, and Victory came with us to pick out fireworks, as always! Alex is now fully stocked for the Fourth of July! We also celebrated Father’s Day together, a week early!

Alex had so much fun in Michigan, and we FaceTimed, nearly everyday! Alex went to her favorite independent bookstore by my parents’ house; she went to the Toledo Zoo where she fed the giraffes and saw many fun animals, including an octopus; she went to Greenfield Village where she rode the train, carousel, a Model-T car, and a horse-drawn carriage, while visiting many historic buildings in the village; and she had special lunches on the patio and she got to try some new restaurants that we do not have in Maryland!

Additionally, Alex did fun activities with my parents. She painted rocks; she made clay animals and other types of arts and crafts; learned the beginnings of how to crochet; made cupcakes and she picked out decorations and decorated them for Father’s Day; she made peanut butter fudge with my Mom; she made a model dinosaur with my Dad; and she fed the birds and squirrels at my parents’ house, to name a few.

Here is Alex feeding a squirrel!

Jun 11

Numinous

Not long ago, I had soured on the idea of undertaking another big project; it didn’t come to me anymore, it seemed. And then, one day, a very clear image came to me, and it was numinous. “It” was back. Whatever “it” was, whatever is the precious substance that infuses life, elevates it, reminds us that humans can be wondrous despite our many failings: I started thinking more and working on an idea that came to me, and my creative juices were flowing after what felt like a drought.

In his famous book, The Idea of the Holy, Rudolf Otto described the “numinous” as a “non-rational, non-sensory experience that is outside of the self.”

These experiences take an infinite number of forms.

Here are three reflections on the numinous.

“The main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neurosis but rather with the approach to the numinous…the real therapy. In as much as you attain to the numinous experiences you are released from the curse of pathology.” —Carl Jung

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour”
—William Blake

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. This insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms — this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men.” —Albert Einstein

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