So I Write

 So I Write

I’ve always loved this quote by Stephen King: If God gives you something to do, why in the world wouldn’t you do it? So I write. 

Does Stephen King think we need yet another book in the world? I guess he does because he’s still cranking out dozens of them.  Does anyone need a book, poem or work of art from me? I don’t think so, but I do have a strong sense that God gave me these things to do. So I write. I love the writing and hate what comes afterwards—the months of sending out queries, the rejections, being ignored, feeling like I had wasted my time—every writer knows this feeling—except Stephen King, of course. 

Whenever something I’ve written is published I think of my grandmother. She raised six children, lost much during the depression, and became a widow in her sixties. I remember her dwelling alone in a small apartment above a hardware store across the Ohio River from a steel mill. She wrote novels and some poems. I relate to the need to create and accomplish something once your children are raised and you finally have the time. She dreamed of being published but her dream was never fulfilled and so sometimes I feel like I’m living her dream or at least doing it in her honor.

Long after she was gone all of her handwritten manuscripts were found in a relative’s basement. She was so short on money that the words were crammed on every page from top to bottom, front and back, to save paper. I set about sifting through the thousands of pages, some out of order or missing, and put together six complete novels and some pieces of others. They were full of good people struggling through life, just as she had. There were also letters from “vanity presses” expecting large amounts of money in exchange for publishing her work, which was an impossibility for her. I put them in 3-ring binders, and after re-reading them, I presented them to my mom. So much for the dilemma of what to do with them—until my mom died and I was left to clean out her home of sixty years. 

At that point I laid them out at a family reunion and offered them to my cousins. They took them all but it made me think about all the unread copies of my three novels and three poetry books (so far) that are languishing in my house. What to do with them? Will one of my children have to throw them out at some point or should I make a bonfire in the backyard and do that now? Because, you see, even though my books are published they are not in demand. Yes, I feel the sense of accomplishment and I am proud of all of them, but all I ever wanted was for them to be read—maybe by more than my family and friends, too. 

I’m facing the same dilemma with my mother’s art. She was prolific and spent over forty years creating beautiful and unique works. She entered many shows and won awards but she never made much effort to sell her work. Everyone in the family chose pieces when she died and many are being displayed, but, you guessed it, the rest are all stored in my house and in my sibling’s houses and none of us know what to do with them. Some of the work was experimental, class work, or unfinished, but can I just throw them in the trash? Not yet. But neither do I want my own children to have to do it. (I like to paint also, but I hesitate to put another piece of unwanted art out into the world at this point.)

I acknowledge that I have a deep need for self-expression—sometimes I envy people who do not—so I know I will continue to create. As infuriating as the internet and social media can be, the upside is that there are multiple ways to publish and share all types of creative work. This is something my grandmother could have never imagined. 

During this terrible year of a world-wide pandemic those in the arts have had to be especially creative to get their gifts out into the world. It seems like everyone is vying for attention for what they do to stay relevant and unforgotten. I am thankful for all that is available to me. Writers can self-publish now without stigma and, if they’re good at promotion, they can do quite well. Personally, I stink at self-promotion, but I will do the best I can for this new book and if God gives me another one—-I’ll probably have to write that one, too. Oh well.

Of an Aesthete

Of an Aesthete

For love of the Cleveland Museum of Art

What the museum is not—

crowding, touching, breathing sometimes,

just free easy looking,

distancing and whispering.

But my back won’t concur 

and there is nowhere to sit now,

no place to contemplate

the overwhelming proof

of God on every wall, every

gallery a devotional to creation.

The Christ Child sleeps alone in heavenly peace

on a bed of marble, obeying the rules,

his illustrated life surrounds him,

from angelic innocence to piercing agony.

What would we know otherwise

if not this promise of preservation

in this stone pantheon, light swelling

through the open-sky atrium, so near, so eternal.

 

Harp of Love

This is a painting by my mother and favorite artist, Martha Vogel . It is called "Harp of Love."
Happy Easter to all.

Rembrandt

Rembrandt in America is a touring show at The Cleveland  Museum of Art right now. It will only be in three other cities in this country. Art lovers are truly blessed in Cleveland.  I have seen the exhibit twice. The appreciation of art can only be experienced in person with the help of an abundance of information. The museum provides a detailed audio tour that is essential no matter how much you just like looking at paintings.

The photo shown here is from Rembrandt's later years in a style you may not recognize as Rembrandt.  As always when I include art on this blog I will reiterate that this small photo, in no way, can reveal the beauty and intensity of the real thing.  I was  moved to tears as I viewed this painting of Lucretia and the heartbreaking pain in her lovely face.

 I was not familiar with Lucretia's story.  It is debated whether Lucretia was a real or mythical character, but evidence points to a real woman who died in 508 AD. She is a legendary figure in the history of the Roman republic. According to the story she was raped by the king's son and her shame was so great that she chose to commit suicide to spare her family her shame. The red streak on her gauzy clothing is her stab wound.  Her suicide was the immediate cause of the revolution that overthrew the monarchy and established the Roman Republic.

As for the rest of the show - well, go, learn, appreciate -  if you can.

Pure Beauty

Of course, an upload on a blog on a computer screen could never do justice to a painting like this - or any other work of art for that matter. Art is like the Grand Canyon - you have to see it in person. My mom and I went to the Akron Art Museum to see a wonderful show of Impressionists - but the difference was that the vast majority of this show was American Impressionists, not European - many I had not heard of before.

This painting literally glowed from across the room -the sunlight shining on the faces and reflecting under their chins. The sky so clear and blue you believed you were there with them. I was drawn across the room and did not want to leave it.

Every time I go to an art museum or special exhibit I always choose my favorite before I leave and this was definitely it. Yes, the theme is a bit sugary and prosaic, but how can you argue with pure beauty?

It is called "On the Heights" by Charles Courtney Curran. It was painted in 1909. Curran was an extremely successful American Impressionist. He lived from 1861-1942, born in Kentucky and lived in Sandusky, Ohio. This beauty hangs in the Brooklyn Museum in New York so I am grateful to have seen it.

The First Occupy Wall Street Protester

Coexisting With . . . Crows.

I just read an amazing book called "Crow Planet" by Lyanda Lynn Haupt. Your first reaction is probably - crows? Yuk! Those disgusting birds picking at bloody roadkill?

Well, of course they are just finding their daily bread like the rest of us. Personally I am always enchanted with birds. They are my favorite of God's creatures (along with dogs) and I think they are all beautiful (even the Canadian geese that traverse and befoul our yards and neighborhoods). Haupt convinces us of the intelligence and ingenuity of the ever-present crows. She tells of how they have learned to drop a nut from a tree onto a road and wait for a car to run it over and crack it before swooping down to retrieve it. She tells of how playful the crows are, taking a stick into the air, dropping it and then catching it on the way down.

What this book really did for me is remind me to slow down and observe what is around me. I love seeing the wildlife around me, but do I really observe what they are doing?

I want to co-create a nation of watchers, of naturalists-in-progress, none of us perfect, all sharing in the effort of watching, knowing, understanding, protecting, and living well alongside the wild life with whom we share our cities, our neighborhoods, our households, our yards, our ecosystems, our earth. All of us in cafes, pulling out our laptops and beside them our binoculars, just in case we want to see how that crow outside the window is doing with his bit of garbage, how his feet work to hold down the paper bag while his nimble bill extracts the french fries. Just in case we want to see, above the crows, the swooping swallows that only days ago arrived all the way from Mexico, violet feathers shimmering. From the swallows we can turn to the person at the table across the way and say, "Did you ever see a more beautiful color of blue?"

Falling Water

In March we had a little getaway and I got to visit something I had always wanted to see - and it did not disappoint!! "Falling Water" is a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built for the Kaufman family (of Kaufman's Department Stores) in 1936 in southwestern Pennsylvania. It is built into the natural landscape over a waterfall with reinforced concrete and a cantilevered design that seems to defy gravity. In 1963 the Kaufman's only child donated it to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and it became a museum in 1964. Over 6 million people have since visited.

I found it to be truly beautiful and hugely inspiring. The second photo shows a living room "hatch" that could be opened to stairs that go straight down to the river and waterfall. Spectacular!

Christmas Art

Sunday I had the opportunity to go on a personal guided tour at the Cleveland Museum of Art of Nativity paintings. The tour was led by a member of my choir who is also an art docent at the museum. (I also learned from the room with the large and magnificent paintings of five of the muses is that MUSE is where the word MUSEUM comes from! Also MUSIC! Somehow that never occured to me - but I digress.)

The painting at the top is The Holy Family on the Steps by Nicholas Poussin, a French painter (1594-1665). The other one is The Holy family with Mary Magdala by El Greco (1541-1614)These, and most of religious paintings we know today were required by the Catholic church of that time.

In both paintings Mary is shown wearing red and blue. The red signifies her humanness (blood) and the blue was to show that she belonged to heaven. The light shining down and brightening the baby and Mary's images is of course heavenly.Both paintings also contain fruit which tells us that God already tried to make a perfect human in Adam and Eve but the fruit brought the downfall of humans.

Having Mary Magdala in a painting with the baby Jesus is erroneous since she would have not been around then and also would have been closer to Jesus's age. It is thought that El Greco was required to put someone's relative in the painting and they called her Mary Magdala. Mary looks innocent, young and virginal next to the woman in scarlet.

In the Poussin painting Joseph is relegated to the shadows. This was the case in many of the paintings - showing his secondary part in the story.The significance of the family blocking the steps is to show that you can only get to the beautiful blue heavens through them. Elizabeth and John (the Baptist) are sitting with them.

Squaw Rock

Only a few minutes from my house in an area of the magnificent Cleveland Metroparks system is Squaw Rock. The trails around it are cut into hilly prehistoric rock formations. If you walk just a short way from the parking lot you can see the sculpture. A blacksmith named Henry Church sculpted it into the rock near the Chagrin River in 1885 to tell the story of the Native Americans, which he called,"the rape of the Indians by the white man."

Into the sandstone he carved a quiver of arrows, a giant serpent, an eagle, a woman with a skull behind her and a baby in a papoose. The other side of the rock has an image of a log cabin and the first capital building in Washington DC.

You never know what you may find on a short walk in a park.

Soliloquy

". . . I was a flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."

Molly Bloom's soliloquy from Ulysses by James Joyce.
Painting by Marc Chagall

Eggshelland

At Eastertime in the northeast Ohio town of Lyndhurst you can visit Eggshelland. It is located about a mile from where I used to live and where I raised my children, so we visited often. Ron and Betty Manolio have put on this free display in their front yard since 1957. Every year there is a new theme to add to the everpresent fifty-foot cross and the Easter bunny. In the beginning they saved their own egg shells by putting a dime-sized hole in the bottom and draining the contents before enameling. Now they get new shells from local restaurants.
The displays often include over 50,000 colorful egg shells, with an annual average breakage loss of 1500. In 1998 a hailstorm destroyed 10,238 and an ice storm and six inches of snow damaged 11,941, but the Manolio's are undeterred.
Imagine how many smiles they have evoked from children and adults over the years.

Soldier's and Sailor's Monument in Cleveland

Continuing our tour of Public Square in Cleveland we see the Soldier's and Sailor's monument. It is 116 years old and newly renovated. This monument commemorates the Civil War. Outside there is a 125 foot column with four bronze groupings depicting battle scenes of the Navy, Artillery, Infantry and Calvary. Inside 9000 names of Cuyahoga County residents are presented, 1800 of them died in the war. There are more bronze relief sculptures including the Women's Aid Society.
I've lived in greater Cleveland all my life (which is a long time) and this was my first visit inside the monument!

Old Stone Church in Cleveland

The Old Stone Church, a Presbyterian congregation on Public Square in Cleveland dates back to 1820 when Cleveland was just a village. Several disastrous fires later the present building has been in this spot since 1858, squeezed in amongst newer and taller structures. The church offers noontime services, an art gallery and concerts on a glorious pipe organ. I visited on my lunch hour from jury duty this week and was welcomed and inspired. If you're nearby it's worth a visit.



Amasa Stone window by John LaFarge
CLICK ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGE

Coexisting - Moving In

More on the Cleveland Museum of Art

My mother is an artist and instilled a love of art in me. So we often enjoy trips to the Cleveland Museum of Art together. Over winter break they had an exhibit of Paul Gauguin and some of his contemporaries. The focus of the exhibit was the story of how these artists were berated for their unconventional style and talent, and so produced their own exhibit of work despite their critics.

Wandering through the art museum with an audio tour is like entering another world to me. It's thoroughly relaxing as the art and the information consume you for those brief hours. Everyone around you looks as though they are completely absorbed in the exhibit (and trying to appear as if they understand it all too, I think!)

My favorite piece turned out to be the one above by Jules Breton, a contemporary of Gauguin's, called "The Shepherd's Star." I thought I'd share it with you. If you live anywhere within driving distance of Cleveland, do yourself a favor and visit the museum. It is beautiful gem in the midst of a belittled city. If you want to read more about the recent renovations click HERE.

Quotes on Human Nature

Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
Mark Twain

The sorrow which has no vent in tears may make other organs weep.
Henry Maudsley (psychiatrist 1835-1918)

Man can be the most affectionate and altruistic of creatures, yet he is potentially more vicious than any other. He is the only one who can be persuaded to hate millions of his own kind whom he has never seen and to kill as many as he can lay his hands on in the name of his tribe or his God.
Benjamin Spock 1903-1998)

Art by Bruce Holwerda

Poetry on the Dance Floor

His songs have been on shuffle
in my head since the end of June,
haunting, pulling, I see
visual bodily poetry
images not to be seen again.

Painting by Diane

Cleveland Museum of Art

These are photos from the newly opened wing of the Cleveland Museum of Art - spectacular! This is glass room facing out into an area of University Circle that is full of Rodin's scuptures. In the background of the second photo you can see a little of the Case Weatherhead building which looks like shiny twisted aluminum. This is a world-class museum. The renovations are stunning and will be completed in 2012, but worth seeing now.

My Mother's Art - Harp of Love

Here is my beautiful mother and amazing artist, Martha Vogel with her latest painting entitled "Harp of Love". I am constantly inspired by her originality and awed by her talent. If you want to read a poem about her click HERE.