Summer Plans

Some friends bought a little castle on the Sunshine Coast so we went and paid them a visit earlier this month. We helped to hack and hew around the place to clean up the debris from last winter's storms, and the previous owner. It's incredible what volume of stuff humans can accumulate. The place is sweet and it was really special to share this time with good friends who are embarking on a new adventure. We hiked up to their local lake and I plunged myself in and paddled about. Luna joined me briefly. It was my first swim of the summer season.

Mark and the fire at twilight.

Writing my morning pages in the sun with the castle nearby. Without meeting him, I think I like the mind of the person who had this property last. He surely left his mark on it, not just in the building but in the many trees planted around the place.

Someone asked me what my summer plans were back in June and at the time I had nothing very concrete to say. Beyond the usual trailer meets and camping trips here and there. I like to stay close to home in the summer as it is the best time of year in the PNW, when the sun finally shines and you can live outside. We visit nearby Vancouver and sail the little boat we keep there. Some summers we meet up with family from the south but not this year. So there is a lot to do even without big plans.

Since that question was posed and in an effort to move my art practice along I have decided to reclaim my little barn to use as a drawing space until fall comes. I have been de-ratting it and generally clearing it up all the while thinking about mark-making. I have painted the inside so far and it feels better already. Often I have dreamt of a house where I suddenly discovered several unused rooms and I think this represents the innate knowledge of my own potential which I keep sort of closed up and away from public view, often forgetting that it exists at all. At the moment the whole 5 acres feels like a potential canvas for expression.

Labor Day

Jonathon Borofsky, Hammering Man outside SAM in Seattle Photo ©Rowan Moore-Seifred Feb 2015

Labor Day, Everson Wa.
The weather is hot and winds from the east are blowing wild fire smoke over us.  The weekend was full of traversing the border, visiting friends and laying around stunned by the heat and that feeling of summertime sadness. The beautiful season is winding down and I am looking forward to moving ahead but I must be present in this moment now and sit with the sadness. There is a lot to reflect upon.

Labor Day makes me think of the Hammering Man by Jonathon Borofsky. I saw his exhibit at MOCA  (Mar 17, 1986 – May 18, 1986) in Los Angeles when I was attending school there. My friend Mike and I went. I think we were both pretty impressed with it and reading about him now, I am struck by this:

CMM: When you stopped working and started counting, what prompted that?
JB: I had just left graduate school and moved to New York City [in 1966]. I was digesting the New York scene. There was Pop Art and Minimal Art. Both seemed very beautiful to me. Yet each had a weakness or flaw. I was a young artist, searching for his own uniqueness. I ended up in my studio a lot, thinking a lot, writing thoughts down. Less making of things and more thinking about things. I looked for a way to simplify the thought processes. I began to do little 1, 2, 3; 1, 2, 3, 4; 1, 2, 3, 4, 5—writing of number sequences on paper almost as a way to pass the time and not have to think so deeply. Later, I made a decision to count from one to infinity and did write those numbers on paper. After about a year or two of doing that solely with nothing else, counting for a few hours a day as my art activity, I began to go to painting and sculpture again. I made this connection...instead of signing this painting I made today with my name, I'm going to sign it with the number I was on on this particular day when I stopped counting.

We camped at Alouette Lake with friends and witnessed the eclipse together. I am so grateful for my long and evolving friendships. It was our 16th trip this time.

The sky was clear and the sun felt altered, brighter but deeper. Then the moment of cool when the sun is blocked. All that energy stopped for a few seconds.

 

We waited and tried not to look at it. The lake glistened. My heart glistened.

I hoped the dog would not be blinded. I had no sunglasses for her. She seemed instinctively to know what to do.

Bringing old friends camping with us was my favorite activity of the summer. 


It was a great season in my garden, I learned so much and had many little successes. I visited this Bellingham Wa garden of my friend Binda Colebrook. A lovely place to walk around and muse about plants.

It's sad when summer comes to an end but there is an excitement about getting started again. I connected with quite a few people over the summer who expressed a lot of anguish about the American political situation. In fact it was impossible to avoid it at almost any gathering. I see that people are feeling angry and hopeless and it's all too bad I feel. All this wasted energy feeling fearful. It pulls us away from the real work at hand.

I think our real labor is to be human and to help one another, to lift one another up. I have felt the malaise of the times but I am working to reject it through my daily art making practice.

The Hammering Man photo up top reminds me to keep creating the reality I want to exist in. A notion lost to the young man in the photo who ended his life a few months after this was taken. Life is already a lottery win so why not experience every minute of it. There are no second helpings.

Happy fall, happy new year!

A long silence

The weather has been mixed. The bees are frantic in the kiwi vines above the path to my office. I can hear them buzzing furiously as I pass. They are oblivious to the dense clouds shifting back and forth in the sky, time is of the essence as the blossoms fall like snow at my feet. One minute glorious sun the next, atomic darkness. My pupils are sore from all the adjusting. The bees are charged.

I am trying to keep up with my integrated approach to my work keeping my guilt about certain activities at bay. I have a little chant, take breaks, take care of yourself, rest, work, repeat. Overall my energy to work has been good. I have gone from light work to almost every client I have every known contacting me seemingly overnight. I am sticking to my routine which seems to hold me together and I am making lists like a fiend and following them. I am not letting my mind go wild which seems counterintuitive but the result is calming. I stick to the structure of my day and complete the items on the list. I am talking to people, I have made more phone calls this last month than I made all last year. I can hear a change in my voice. I feel as though the blog has suffered because I feel well, but that is a twisted notion. I am writing now, that is positive.

Sons of Norway, Mission BC Vintage Trailer Meet

(long pause)

I didn't finish this post. It has been sitting here in a tab on my laptop. What have I been doing? What haven't I been doing? Writing is the main thing I haven't been doing. But the good thing is that I am busy, doing things, feeling well. School is out and so we are gliding into summer which for me means working diligently but also sliding in more recreational activities. When the weather is fine, one must get out.

We just spent 3 days on the Coast helping a family member manage his life. It wasn't so bad. There was the usual tension between Mark and his siblings when this work has to be done but they have agreed to do it, and so they do it willingly. No matter where you are in life there is the potential to be someone's caretaker or at least take part in the care of another human being. Our helpee lives in a small trailer park near a creek on the gorgeous Sunshine Coast. Whenever I visit there I imagine what it would be like, how one could arrange a minimal space and make it pleasant. Many of the residents have sweet little set-ups, making the best of where they are. Others are a little less polished or welcoming but the world is full of all types. Gardeners and hoarders, smokers and the deranged. We all have to end up somewhere and I like to imagine various possibilities so that if I ended up in a 16ft travel trailer with a joey-shack-sunroom and a sidewalk scooter I'd be okay with it. There are many ways to live, the point is to be happy with where you are and make it the best, for you.

So the summer means mobility and that means I have to get used to working everywhere because there is work that needs to be done. It's fine, it's better than fine. The routine of work keeps me sane and money keeps me from being a burden, and doing it in different places is freeing.

The Grand Coulee, Part 2

Roll on, Columbia roll on. 

Roll on, Columbia roll on. 

Your power is turning our darkness to dawn.

Roll on, Columbia roll on. 

-Woody Guthrie

We left our campsite and raced up to Mason City for the tour of the Grand Coulee Dam. I look forward to visiting this park again as there is much to discover.

The tour was reasonable but the security on the dam makes the whole experience feel somewhat surreal. The presence of an armed guard sort of puts a chill on your holiday sightseeing adventure. On the positive side the hum of the turbines is soothing. The reception area is a relic from the 70's.

High above the dam the hillside is covered in high tension power lines and the over sized tubes that carry water, pumped up from the dam to fill the thirsty land on the other side of the hill. The water ends up in Moses lake to the south and feeds irrigation systems along the way.

We headed south to Dry Falls and Soap Lake and then west along the 90 and home. A circuitous route to be sure, next time we'll take the 20. Had to take this picture. Nothing like big neon letters in a hot barren landscape.

We stopped at Dry Falls along the way. Another spectacular area carved out by massive flows of ice and debris 15000 yrs ago. The pools are a result of the water from the dam, all deathly still but apparently fishable. Being from an area where there is plenty of moving water I find it hard to totally trust water this still. It was gorgeous though, in it's vastness. 

Looking south toward the interpretive center. The rock posts lining the canyon were lovely and lichen covered, made from the basalt which is plentiful.

View of the falls through the lookout gazebo.

Still bare trees and windmills at the rest stop on I-90. Although we took the wrong route home home, we'll know better next time, it was nice to show P the Columbia River as it cuts through Washington and there is a new sculptural piece on Iron Horse Ridge which was cool. I found PSE's 150 windmills pretty great too. Big art in a vast landscape.

The Grand Coulee Part 1

So we took a little impromptu trip last week. The idea for the trip came from a combination of sources, including; a TV show about the Hoover Dam, a classmate's social studies report, and last but not least—and most importantly— a friend's facebook post. We agreed we should dash out to Eastern Washington and see the The Grand Coulee Dam! We decided camping was the thing even though it has been cool out west I knew that the east side would be a tad warmer. We set off Saturday morning, heading East on Highway 2 and enjoyed the sights as the landscape  rapidly changed the farther east we went. This photo was taken on the approach to Steven's Pass.

The eastern slope, wildly different from what we are used to in the west.

We arrive at the dam late in the afternoon and miss the tour but make a more bulletproof plan for the following morning. The air was very still, it was warm and I was relieved I had not brought the dog.

Six new turbines installed in the 1980's produce two thirds of the dam's power now.

Looking down at Grand Coulee and Mason City, across the bridge from each other. Engineers lived on the left and construction workers, closer to the dam on the right.

Back of the dam and Roosevelt Lake. Stiller than still.

Looking up Roosevelt lake to the north. It extends 151 miles to the Canadian border.

Driving away from the dam along Banks Lake which is fed by the dam and in turn spills down into the valley supplying the farms with much needed water. Banks Lake is 26 miles long and has many little islands and inlets.

Taking pictures at sunset. My partner in crime.

The basalt formation is covered in lichen which changes color as the sun subsides and emerges.

Little Pine on the sandy shore near our campsite. The park itself was very nice. Good amenities and over all very clean and serene. Lots of people fishing, and one nice thing about fishing is that it behooves you to be quiet. This is a very good thing.

I brought my bike on a whim and enjoyed the ride up the hill at 7am. Best mother's day ever.

Steamboat Rock in Sunday's sun. Now that is something to be thankful for.