Lovely at the End of the Lane

Many of you know that I love to walk. Prior to my illness and surgery, I walked several times a week, 3-5 miles in and around my neighborhood. The first day I was home from the hospital, the outdoors called to me. But I was only able to make it to the stop sign at the corner of our property.

But each day I would try to walk a bit further. Hunched over and shuffling, I just didn’t care how feeble I looked. I took my husband or a friend with me, and breathed in the fresh air, drank in the lingering spring, enjoying moving my legs.

The last two days, I have ventured up to Silver Dapple Lane. My favorite lane in the whole world. My neighbor and I have gone down and back twice. And today, I even made it three times! Progress indeed! The lane is lined with wildflowers, especially over in Mr. Whicker’s field. At the end of the lane is the best view ever! One of Mr. Whicker’s pastures for his cows is burgeoning with buttercups! It looks positively dreamy!

So I came home today and tried to capture that dreamy field on paper with watercolor. I don’t know that I got it exactly…but it’s enough to remind me of this morning…a gift to start my day.

 

My Lollipop Girls & Memory Lane

I’m trying to gather myself after last night’s Art Show. It was the culmination of weeks and months of preparation and planning, of vision and hard work.  Though it was an amazing evening, which I’ll share with you someday soon, it is always a bit de-centering.  I do still have much left to do to close out the Art Show chapter, but I waken feeling a bit lost: “what next?”, what was I into creatively before the last month of full-on Art Show prep began?, where would I like to turn my energies now? etc.  Today, my plan is to clean my house which has suffered neglect for quite a while.  It will feel so good to slowly, methodically move through each room to clean and tidy up.

The night before our school’s Art Show, I had taught all day.  Exhausted from that, and from the thought of the mountain to climb on Thursday, I sat at my drawing table to draw from a photo of Maddie I had just snapped at dinner time.  She bought a yellow lips lollipop at school that day and was showing me her “lips”.  It was a good and restorative thing to sit there, after she had been tucked in, slowly drawing my sweet daughter.  Then a memory of another daughter and a lollipop came to mind.

This is my oldest child, Catherine. You can see the date of this pencil sketch. She was 5 years old.  As I drew Maddie, I remembered drawing Catherine from life…she sat so still and long enough for me to draw this, probably due to having a yummy red lollipop to lick while I drew. I had to go digging to find this sketchbook.  There’s a bin of sketchbooks I’ve filled over the years sitting out in the garage.  There are more stashed in a closet upstairs. And still more here in my studio. I remembered the dark green, hardbound, wire bound sketchbook with the star sticker on the cover to denote the “front” of the sketchbook.

I remembered sitting on the park bench while my older two kids played.

I remembered drawing their favorite slide there at Ardmore Methodist Church.

I remembered Catie and William playing together on the “fire truck”.

I remembered that my boy was the cutest thing I had ever laid eyes on.

I remembered Catie liking to draw in my sketchbook. A sweet picture of her with her brother on his first “skateboard”.

I remembered Catie riding her bike with training wheels.

I remembered how hard it was to draw William as he rarely stopped for long on his bike.

And then this.

The birth of  my third precious child. Maddie. This would have been the day after she was born. I remember it. I remember thinking how can you draw such exquisiteness? I remember thinking that the pencil lines needed to be as soft as possible to adequately depict the softness of a newborn. I remember thinking that this sketch didn’t come anywhere close to showing her beauty.

But I am glad that I drew it. So glad I drew all of this and all the thousands of other sketches and drawings I have sitting in that tupperware box and stashed in so many other places.  They are more precious to me than photos, though I love them too.

I’m not sure this has helped me gather myself and move on today.  But it has served to answer the What’s Next question…to continue drawcumenting this beautiful life I’ve been given. It is indeed FULL, art shows and all! Cleaning will be good to do today, since seeing through teary eyes is not a huge hindrance to that kind of work.

The Balloon Tree

I sit outside, in a brief interlude of warmth and peace, gazing up at the winter trees. An idea begins to form…those lines, those lovely lines…they make shapes, hold spaces where shape resides.

The idea I have doesn’t take shape fully yet. I’m searching, thinking about these spaces and the shapes that inhabit them.  I can’t sleep ’cause the formless shape won’t let go. I rise early to search it out on paper. I draw.

The shapes that come out are round inside those lined spaces. I didn’t know ’til now. All these circles, these doodles in the tree, the tree that sits IN the path, with a couple others off the path. Why am I drawing this? I still can’t make it out.

I’m nearing the end of my search, my doodling, and one circle, which has lifted off the tree develops a tail and becomes a balloon. A balloon! Oh! How fun! But I still don’t know it’s significance, or why, or what for.

I paint. White opaque gouache mixing with the watercolor, some light tones, some vibrant. Enjoying the process of searching. I “finish” the doodled page wondering what it is, why I had to get this thing out of my head. Would this just be a searching page with no answer? That’s ok.

I go to rinse the chalky water out of my bucket, I clean dishes leftover from the night before. I wonder, a bit frustrated with myself (once again), why I do so many different types of creative stuff, even different types of drawings and  paintings? Why can’t I stick with just one thing? Just splashy watercolor? Or just pastel? Just portraits? Or just knitting? JUST ONE THING?

And it hits me full force, hands in the sudsy dishwater. It’s my tree. My creative tree. Full of bright colored balloons sitting there waiting for the right breeze to come along and nudge them free. No two balloons exactly alike.  Some have shades that are similar, but each one waits to be loosened from the lines. To rise gently and softly, without fanfare, off into the great beyond.

I’m no longer frustrated with myself. I get it now. It’s all ok, these differing ways of creating. It’s because of my Tree, and I like that tree. And there are many balloons yet to be released. And I can’t wait to see what each of them is going to be.

Thank you for checking in on the Balloons that get nudged out of the Tree. Maybe you have a Balloon Tree too? Please share it with me.

There is Music in my House

I am, as I type, listening to Eileen Ivers O Holy Night, a gorgeously simple violin piece. And I gaze at an ornament on my tree that was made for me many, many years ago by Nan, my violin teacher. I played the violin, learning by Suzuki Method, from age 3 through 8th grade. Took it up again as an adult, getting back up to Book 4, where I’d left off.

My youngest hums tunes around the house. We hear her in the shower singing. We hear her hum while making things and doing homework.

Tunes waft through the house in guitar, mandolin and ukulele from our son upstairs in his room, playing hours on end. Singing along too! Some tunes belong to others that he has taught himself. Other tunes he is creating himself.

We’ve traveled several times to Wingate to hear our oldest sing with her University Singers choir at Wingate. Enchanted, Randy and I  listened to them perform live on WDAV at St. John’s, a church in Charlotte just a few weeks ago.

We attend every Concert Choir performance at Glenn High School since William sings in it now, as his sister did for years prior to that.

We always have Folk Alley’s Christmas streaming through the speakers. Or we play all our gathered Christmas music favorites through iTunes.

We head to Pittsboro, NC to enjoy my brother and sister-in-law singing in their band Trilogy on the 22nd of December. This is one of the highlights of our Christmas holiday.

Many of the gifts under our tree are music related.

Both of my parents were music majors in college. I knew this about my mom all along, having studied at UNCG. But I just recently realized that dad had been a music major his freshman and half of his sophomore years at ECU before switching to study theater at Cornell Univeristy. ECU wouldn’t let him major in voice and minor in violin. (The things you never knew about your parents!)

I love this.

I have a friend who lives alone. Every time I visit her I say she needs to be playing music! For me, music is so much more than a background tune. When I am cast down, it uplifts. When I’m weary, it soothes. When I’m blah, it cheers. When I’m dull, it fascinates. Music is amazing. And the more my kids study it, the more I’m amazed.

And there’s a Music that runs in my heart and mind that is woven in and through the voices and instruments no matter what kind of music they play. It’s a tune that has to do with the Christmas story, with what follows that, with a Person who was God come as a Babe. Even when there are no notes in the air, this music still plays on.

This Christmas, I’m grateful for music. For the Music of the Ages and the music through the ages. I will always be a violinist though I do not play it anymore. My ukulele provides the outlet I need for music making. But with so much wonderful music in my house, I am content to listen, to get caught up in the hums and tunes throughout our halls.

May your Christmas be filled with Music! I wish all my online readers and friends a holiday filled with beautiful Music for your heart, your soul, your mind.

Little Bird

A little pink bird sits in the Christmas tree in my studio sunroom.  He looks out at me from the white branches (fake table-top tree:) as I sit every morning to sip  guzzle coffee, to read and reflect. This is one of my newly acquired ornaments this year. I’ve spruced up this little tree, as it is “my tree”.

I announced to the family two years ago that I wanted to have, instead of a Frasier Fir tree, a white fake tree for the living room.  I had seen this absolutely gorgeous tree in a friend’s photograph of a Paris store window and I wanted a bit of Parisien holiday in my house. But  my family revolted! Gasped in horror.  No way I could win.  So, just like my dear grandmother, I decided I would have my own little table-top tree, white for me (hers was green) and decorate it however I like.  It is in process…I hope to add a new decoration to it every year.

This year, along with the pink bird and a few other ornaments, I added a crocheted tree-skirt.  I’ve typed up a little FREE pattern for it, so that any crocheters who’d like to can make it for their table top trees. My tree is nowhere near what I remember the Paris shop tree looking like…but I like this little tree so very much, with it’s pinks, lime greens, and blues, a very happy site in the studio!

*The second drawing I made December 2010, when I first got the tree. I remember now that it sat on a table very close to my drawing table and wound up with art supplies underneath it. Now it sits in one of the many windows in the room to be enjoyed by those driving or walking by on my neighborhood street. I’m prolly stretching it…but perhaps it’s a teensy bit of Paris for my Kernersville street.

A Christmas Line

A Christmas Line

If you followed a line from the angel on your tree
All the way down to where presents should be

Would you revisit  memories of the years gone by
Curling ‘round ornaments with a twinkle in your eye?

Would you find yourself there when your babies were born?
When they made preschool ornaments, now shabby and torn?

Would you see faces of friends who  made or gave one to you?
Would you relive your childhood, tracing baubles from then too?

And as your line meandered through santas and stars,
Penguins and trees, toy trains and cars…

Would you find ‘neath your tree more gifts than you could count?
Dazzled by the ache as your memories mount?

Your line would’ve found, from the angel to the earth
A trove of presents that fill you with mirth.

Though the tree will soon fill with wrapped boxes underneath
They can never surpass what I’ve already received.

-jpe

December 13, 2012

*I created the drawing in ONE LINE. Perhaps you can see the beginning of it up by the angel’s hair and follow it to the tree-skirt end. Sometimes I drew over and through things, sometimes I retraced my steps back to where I needed to go.  But one line it is, and only a splash of color.

**If you’d like to read more of my poetry from around Christmastime, click here. This is page 2 of the Poetry Category that you can always access from the category section in the right hand margin. Just  keep scrolling ’til you get to the section from last December.

***Also, I have a couple of poet friends who are marking their December days with a line of their own.  If you enjoy poetry, find Alice’s here, and Kevin’s here.

Drawing Friends

 

Drawing with friends downtown Kernersville has been one of the highlights of my week since last Spring. We started out at the Factory and kept drawing through the summer there. then we moved to the Ciener Botanical Gardens in the fall and now we draw at Eclections, a wonderful artisan booth space with a cafe and seating area.

 

Sometimes we chat more than we draw…

 

Other times we’re quiet and concentrating on our sketches…

 

But most of the time we are chatting AND drawing, multi-tasking at its best!

 

I love drawing my drawing friends! Can you tell?

Maddie’s Menagerie

It’s been a while since I’ve shown you the menagerie that lives on Maddie’s bed.  The first drawings I made of the critters she houses were when she was in second grade, and then third grade, and fourth.  Now, as  a fifth grader with her double bed (we switched out rooms and furniture when our eldest went off to college:/) the arrangement is different.  She is much taller now, so the end-of-the-bed assortment gets in the way as she sleeps.

The way she arranges everything on her bed is so festive! The old bed which belonged to my grandmother Catherine, looks positively inviting  with it’s explosion of colorful pillows and plushies!  There’s “Lips”, the beanie baby fish, “Snippy” the small sea turtle, “Squirt” the large sea turtle, “Rainbow” the bear beanie baby (whose birth date on the inside of the little card attached is her diabetes anniversary, which was yesterday, btw!), and then, last but not least, “Isabella” the unicorn, or the pig, or a pig-unicorn??  This last addition to the menagerie occurred at Halloween of this year as Maddie chose to be Agnes from our favorite movie Despicable Me.  It’s a kid-size body pillow that she snuggles with all night! (I don’t think she would like me to write that bit…she is slowly growing into those “that’s not cool mom” years.

The following are my drawings of her menageries from years gone by.  She asked me the other day, “Is it too babyish that I love stuffed animals on my bed?”  My heartfelt response: “Not at all!!  I hope you have stuffed animals with you for as long as you want them!”  Thoughts of her college dorm single bed bursting with pillows and stuffed animals filled my vision!  Oh why do our dear children have to grow up?

Our cat, Lucy, loves to join them for her daily siesta!

A Fair Memory

This year, at the Dixie Classic Fair in October, something significant happened.  I was reminded of it this morning.  To read what happened, click on the drawing above to enlarge it.

When words fly out of my mouth like this, they often have a sense of gravity to them, as if I’m not just saying them to the other person, but saying them to myself as well.  There are so many things I long for.  We could call them dreams, but that word seems flimsy in comparison to what I’m trying to convey.  They are the things wrapped up in our creative dreams, in our relational hopes, in the things we both have and want.  I know my own self, as an adult, to be just like my youngest, when something has been taken away, or it breaks, or it’s just out of reach.

Lately, I’m trying to remember my own words…

Leave it with your Dad, Jen. Put it at His place at the table and leave it there for Him.  He WILL get to it in His time.  It may not be tomorrow or next week, or even in this life.  But He will get to it.

A Line for Maddie

Friends of ours who went to live overseas, said to those of us sending them off, that we were the ones holding the line on the other end for them.  I loved that thought! And, as an artist, the idea that I hold one end of the drawn line as they “draw” the lines of their journey, fascinates, inspires, and touches me deeply.

This is what I envisioned this past Saturday, as we Walked for a Cure for Type 1 Diabetes with our daughter Maddie.  ALL of these people, the long ribbon of folks ahead of and behind us, hold the line for her and for every Type 1 child and adult who lives with this disease. We were ALL connected that day.  All of us joined together by one single line… a HOPE for a cure for juvenile diabetes.

I thought how, for me, this line begins with my daughter and connects to me, my husband (the one carrying the young girls’ jackets:), Maddie’s cousin Zoe, our friend Anna, and all of you!  You who have sent donations (over $500!) and well-wishes and cheers of support for our girl.

Thank you for holding the line for my Maddie! Randy and I are deeply grateful to all of you! Merci.

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