Art/Life

reflections: kansas city trip

2012-01-20T09:21:00.000-05:00

what we look at and what we think we see are often very different

I postponed my trip to K.C. from December to January because of Simon's eyes.
I was there last week, from the 11th -17th.

It is always a challenge to spend time with my parents, bless their hearts. That is not new, that is just how it has always been.

I probably flunked a bunch of the Buddhist/ mindfulness/ workable tests during my visit. But one I did learn brand new is to be compassionate with myself about just how insanely tough it can be maintaining any equilibrium there. That heaping extra self-recrimination on top of what is coming from other sources is not helping me clarify what is the reality of the moment. Very often it is an emotionally distraught person behaving irrationally in an irrational situation, and trying to grasp a thread of clarity and discernment under those circumstances would challenge Ghandi himself.

It is very helpful and healthy to spend time with my sane siblings and get a reality check on just where the craziness is coming from. Very helpful indeed. I am grateful for that. And we have fun, which is necessary and therapeutic! I also send an appreciative and affectionate shout-out to my Best Old Bud. We are each other's history keeper, having lived through so much and kept each other afloat since High School.

So now I am back home, after a typically bittersweet trip to the midwest. One sign that I am getting better at this is that I only need about 24 hours to process and then I am good to go. It used to take weeks of emotional damage control.

Skip and I celebrated our fourth anniversary on Wednesday the 18th, the day after I got home.
Perfect timing.
Celebrating This Is What Is, Who We Are, and What We Work On Every Day, Together.
Love.

...and a Workable New Year!

2012-01-01T09:57:00.003-05:00

Whew! We made it to 2012.

2011 was a good year. I guess I gauge a good year by what I have learned. Sometimes the lessons are very uncomfortable, sometimes ironic, or humbling, and they are frequently funny. I would say that 2011 was a big learning year for me in terms of "wisdom downloads" or A-ha moments that took hold. That's good. Always preferable to be a little wiser than not.

I have been working with my 2012 "one word resolution" for quite a while now, so it isn't really a New Years resolution, but I am sticking with it anyway. "Workable", that's my word. I have road tested it for quite a while now and it's a good one. Not too esoteric or hard to remember. "Workable" is, well, workable.

I got it from dear, wise Pema Chodron who got it from her teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, so it definitely has legitimate street cred as Buddhist practice goes. And, really, what more does one need in any situation, in any moment? Solutions or happy endings are elusive and not guaranteed, E V E R, so the best we can do is work with what we've been given. It is amazing how something that seems overwhelming or intolerable, even happily ecstatic, can be put into perspective when you step back a millisecond and simply say, "I can work with this. Right now, this is workable." It is both empowering and surrendering in one word. I may not be able to change all of this but I have it within my ability and intelligence and experience and innate wisdom to work with my little piece, and in working I move forward.

Workable.

Today, the tree comes down, the glitter and glamor of the Holidays gets packed away until next December.
It was a beautiful holiday this year-or last year, now, and the glow of it will warm us going forward.

The Bluebird residents put on their morning show. They are around all year now, living in a little commune in the back box. Such a delight to see the flashes of cerulean going in and out of the box, or seeing three or four of them, feathers plumped up against the cold, sitting like chubby jewels on the fence. So sweet.

May you all have a very wise and workable 2012. Namaste!

winter solstice: towards the light

2011-12-21T11:20:00.001-05:00

"Hope", Emmy White, 22x30, watermedia on paper

Winter Solstice is the shortest, darkest day of the year. It is the first day of winter.
It is also the beginning of the incremental lengthening of the days, the slow increase of sunlight as we turn toward Spring. The tipping point toward the light.

Simon seemed to hit his tipping point toward the light and has been doing really well. Very happy to report! We are getting better nights and easier days and he seems his old feisty self. And he can see, which is what all the effort was about. There is still a regimen of eye meds, but we are weening off some. And we still have to be vigilant, but, not hyper vigilant crisis mode. W H E W. Yes. Much better.

We had our Holiday Open House Sunday and it was a fabulous success. An abondanza of good friends, great food and high spirits. I love throwing parties and when it is like this one the buzz begins as soon as the invitation goes out and the glow lingers long after. This is, for me, the true holiday spirit: celebrating and appreciating the good that we have and sharing it with people who mean so much to us.

So now we are in a relaxed cruise to Christmas Day. The party is a big motivator to clean house, decorate, organize, shop and cook in advance, so all the seasonal heavy lifting is done. Plus, dealing with Simon's eye business meant I had to get stuff done when I knew I had a window, since at any moment plans could change and we'd be in Gaithersburg for the afternoon. This week we have the gift of ease. That's a real, much needed and appreciated gift after a few pretty intense weeks.

So Solstice today does feel like a return toward light. Day light, sunlight, candle light, Christmas lights, firelight, light heart.

My friend, artist Emmy White says it best. Her painting, above, "Hope" and her poem were her Christmas card this year and she has graciously allowed me to share this with you.

The Traffic is Heavy and Slow
The Wind on the Ice does Blow
Christmas Week. What Can I say?
Carols on my Radio find their way
into my car. I am suddenly calm.
The word "HOPE" comes to mind like a balm.
What does it mean, this vague flown word?
Sad to lose and great to have, I've heard.
HOPE brings all possibilities like
Light, laughter, even summer might all be realities.
Carols in my car travel on air waves
HOPE, a powerful word, she raves.
It is a Minnesota Call. Merry Christmas
to you and Hopefulness to us all.

better by daylight

2011-12-11T08:02:00.003-05:00

7:20am
I have been sitting here at the laptop at my kitchen table, reading the New York Times online and drinking coffee for the last hour and fifteen minutes. When I sat down, it was still pitch dark outside, the full moon shining like a spotlight in the western sky. I have been sitting here, the daylight slowly rolling in, the sound of Simon's sleeping breath as rhythmic as little waves quietly lapping the bottom of an anchored boat.

The lighter it gets, the farther away a long restless night becomes. A night illuminated by the cold beam of an LED flashlight, then a dim yellow moon of a halogen reading lamp beside my bed, on very low, at 1:30, 2:45, 3:30am. A little light in what feels a cavern of a dark bedroom in a disjointed, timeless, unsettled night.

Why Simon was so restless last night is still a mystery. He has been getting up once, at most twice in the night and settling back down. But not last night. He would not be comforted, but did not seem uncomfortable, just pacing, restless. His eye looked OK, but I still did the massage to bring the pressure down. Went out to pee, came back in. Out, in, again, times two. Finally, without any clue as to why, he curled up on his bed and promptly went to sleep. I immediately followed suit. Until a dark and cold 6am. Time to get up and start the cycle of his meds again.

Why am I writing this? To vent about a bad night's sleep? A sick pet? (both of which fall under the heading of bourgeois suffering.) Well, Ok, yes. But really it is to share one of my many ah-ha moments that have been popping up through this "practice" of Simon's glaucoma.

Everything is Better In the Daylight.

There is such an immersion in 'being in the moment' with this whole experience. It is a full-out crash course intensive retreat. What else can you be but minutely observant in the moment with a creature who cannot articulate his needs, but can only communicate subtle critical changes in his condition with subtle behavioral and physical clues? If I try to anticipate or expect him to play along a scenario I will be flummoxed every time. Every. Time. So the only way to get through this is to just be in the NOW and take clues from him. Needless to say, this is much easier when I am rested, warm and not wondering if I am going to have to rush him to Gaithersburg in the middle of a cold, dark night. So I do my best. Which often falls short of good. But I keep at it, getting back on task, back to the 'breath' of right here now. Sensing what the moment requires, and while I am doing that, the sun is coming up...

And everything is better in the daylight.
We'll make it through another day.
Naps may be required.

tiny invasion

2011-12-09T09:32:00.002-05:00

how many baby praying manti fit on the head of a pin?

just a few of the little guys...

I went to water the ficus tree the other day and noticed that it was covered in teeny tiny baby praying manti. Teeeny tiiiny and Everywhere.

I had noticed the mantis nest on the ficus when we brought it in from the deck when it got too cold to leave it out. I naively assumed that nothing would hatch until spring and was delighted to incubate a batch of lovely garden predators. Why on earth would I think they'd wait on my convenience and time their arrival in spring? Some sort of belief in the natural order.

So here they were...thousands of them. Really amazingly cute and fascinating. Fully developed, with their recoil reflex, swivelly little heads and grasping forearms. Listen, I thought, if they eat all the giant crickets, sprickets and spiders in this house they are welcome. And stinkbugs! Eat up, little guys, the all you can eat buffet's open!

But then I kept thinking about it and it seemed like the perfect set-up for a bad sci-fi horror movie. I began imagining myself waking up with a giant mantis sitting on my chest staring hungrily at me. Or skittering across the floor like in the movie "Alien". Could be worse things than giant crickets, sprickets and spiders I guess.

Skip and I dragged the ficus tree out into the cold rain and gave it a good shake. I vacuum'd up as many of the little greenies as I could find in the house. Sadly. I would have so preferred to let them thrive out in my garden, but... I saw the "Alien" movies, I know what happens. Giant mother Alien in the basement and me in a robot suit doing battle.

simon's post-op

2011-12-03T17:35:00.002-05:00

First, I offer my deep thanks to all of Simon's well-wishers for the support and healing vibes!

So...here's what we left the hospital with on Thursday afternoon:
-four eye drops, two eye ointments, two pills, one ear drops divided over six different dosing times a day,
-one sweet puppy patient with a beastly plastic cone around his head.
We have been back to the Doc for a recheck everyday, today being an emergency.
The eye that got the laser surgery to preserve what little sight he had is not cooperating. With the complexities of glaucoma, the recovery from the surgery is like a shell game of which symptom do we treat without complicating something else. Lordy lordy, I cannot even go into detail, but suffice to say it is confusing and exhausting. Simon rests in about three hour intervals broken by pee breaks. The steroids make pee urgency a real priority. It's like having a newborn- no sleep for us but for a couple hours at best, sleeping one eye open and one ear listening for any disturbance. Just organizing his meds requires a spread sheet and my cell phone set on an alarm to go off five times during the day. I am approaching overwhelm.

Thank God Simon is so easy. He is the perfect patient. Puts up no resistance when I am administering all those drops and ointments and pills. He doesn't seem to be in much discomfort, but he is a pretty stoic little guy. I am truly afraid that after all this he is going to lose the sight in that left eye after all. But I won't dwell on that right now...Keep Calm and Carry On, as the Queen says.

I was supposed to be flying to Kansas City today to visit my 86 and 90 year old parents and other family for a quick holiday visit. Needless to say, I'm NOT. I was able to reschedule my trip for January (I love you, Southwest Airlines!) and I am putting in an order for perfect weather now.

Sorry to be a little glum today, but I am sleep deprived, in need of a shower and tapped-out emotionally.
One step at a time. Workable.

I would so love a martini, I but need to keep my wits on my 24hr shift.

simon's surgery

2011-11-30T11:39:00.000-05:00

monkeyboy in a dignified pose that belies his goofy personality

It was a pretty short grace period managing the glaucoma with just the eyedrops.

The damage to his right optic nerve had already rendered him blind in that eye.We were managing the pressure in that eye at this point to keep him comfortable and working to keep the left eye visual as long as possible.

Sadly, the pressures spiked yesterday. Another painful episode. So, off to the hospital in Gaithersburg and the good Dr. Nunnery.

We knew already that we were facing an inevitable surgery to preserve the vision Simon's left eye and a surgery that would completely disable the right eye. The question was how long could we hold a status quo with the meds and put it off. Time's up. So today, right now, actually, Simon is having the surgery. A ciliary body ablation on the blind right eye. This will allow the blind eye to stay in place and keep him comfortable without the constant risk of a painful pressure spike. A trans-scleral laser surgery on the left eye will lessen the build up of fluid and pressure in his eye and, fingers crossed, preserve his vision. It is not without strings attached, eyedrops for maintenance, etc, but it is our best hope right now.

I am sure that is more info than you ever wanted to know about canine glaucoma, sorry, but that is what we are dealing with right now.

Send My Boy some healing vibes, ok?

Nigella's Guinness Gingerbread = dinner party triumph

2011-11-21T08:30:00.001-05:00

this generic image does not do this sublime cake justice...trust me

Had some friends over Saturday for a dinner party. A perfect evening: talking about art and life, sharing laughs and eating great food. This is how we topped off a very fine meal: Nigella's Guinness Gingerbread.

I had never made this recipe prior, but I assure you it is SO EASY. I was a little nervous about sub-ing Karo and dark molasses for the Lyle' syrup, but it came out beautifully. Beyond that, I did not go off recipe, in terms of the ingredients.

My guests unanimously raved and I sent them all home, gratefully, with foil wrapped seconds. I improvised the Orange Cream Topping and it is a worthy addition. Try this. I think you will find a new favorite in time for Holiday sharing.

Guinness Gingerbread {my adaptations are in brackets}
From NIGELLA KITCHEN by Nigella Lawson. Copyright (c) 2010 Nigella Lawson.

Prep Time:10 min Inactive Prep Time: -- Cook Time:45 min
Level:
Easy
Serves:
24 small, squat squares or 16 generous rectangular slabs

Ingredients
1 1/4 sticks 10 (tablespoons) butter, plus some for greasing
1 cup golden syrup (such as Lyle's) {I sub'd 2/3c light Karo syrup+ 1/3c dark molasses}
1 cup (packed) plus 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1 cup stout (such as Guinness)
2 teaspoons ground ginger {I used a FRESH jar of organic ginger-definitely added a sharp fresh flavor!}
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/4 cups sour cream
2 eggs
1 rectangular aluminium foil pan or cake pan, approximately 13 by 9 by 2-inches {I used an 11x8 pyrex which resulted in a deeper cake.}

Directions
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F. Line your cake pan with aluminium foil {optional} and grease it, or grease your foil tray.

Put the butter, syrup, dark brown sugar, stout, ginger, cinnamon and ground cloves into a {4 qt sauce}pan and melt gently over a low heat.

Take off the heat and whisk in the flour and baking soda. You will need to be patient and whisk thoroughly to get rid of any lumps.

Whisk the sour cream and eggs together in a measuring jug and then beat into the gingerbread mixture, whisking again to get a smooth batter.

Pour this into your cake/foil pan, and bake for about {40-}45 minutes; when it's ready it will be gleamingly risen at the centre, and coming away from the pan at the sides. {a toothpick came out moist but done at 40 minutes.}

Let the gingerbread cool before cutting into slices or squares. {I served it still a little warm...mmmmmm!}

My Brilliant Addition: Diane's Orange Cream to Dollop on Top

1 cup heavy cream
2 Tbsp powdered sugar, pushed through a tea sieve to remove lumps
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp real orange extract
Outer rind of one orange grated on a microplane grater
3/4 c sour cream ( conveniently, the remainder of the 16 oz carton you bought for the gingerbread!)

Whip cream until it begins to thicken. Add sugar, vanilla and orange extracts and orange rind and continue whipping until fluffy but not too stiff. Fold in sour cream. Chill until serving. Serve dolloped generously on top of the warm gingerbread. Enjoy the appreciative silence.

no need to sing the winter blues

2011-11-15T14:42:00.001-05:00

last February...

Here is a really good article about Seasonal Affective Disorder and light therapy.

I can personally endorse the effectiveness of regular, year-round, sunlit outdoor activity as a necessary mood manager. ( And if that activity is in New Mexico, all the better!!)

I also use an Ott-Light lamp at my computer desk and where I bead just for an extra dose of those full spectrum rays.

We need all the help we can get sometimes!

Here is the link to the original NY Time article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/health/policy/light-boxes-may-help-melt-those-winter-blues.html

November 14, 2011

A Portable Glow to Help Melt Those Winter Blues

By RONI CARYN RABIN

Jan Brehm lives in rainy Portland, Ore., and she has always dreaded this time of year, when the days get shorter, her mood plummets and all she wants to do is crawl into bed and eat cookie dough.

She and her husband were considering moving to Arizona or Colorado — anywhere with more sunlight — until last year, when she purchased her first artificial light box. She keeps it on her desk, and every morning, before she starts her workday, she turns it on and basks in the bright artificial light for about 30 to 45 minutes while catching up on her reading. The boxes come in different sizes; Ms. Brehm’s is about 15 inches high and 12 inches wide, and she keeps it a foot or more from her face.

“I still say to myself, ‘It’s a dark crummy day,’ when the clouds roll in,” Ms. Brehm, a 57-year-old actress and entrepreneur, said. “The difference is, I don’t feel like going back to bed.”

For the millions of Americans who suffer from mild to severe winter blues — a condition called seasonal affective disorder, or S.A.D. — bright-light therapy is the treatment of choice, with response rates comparable with those of antidepressants. “Your natural clock is usually longer than 24 hours, and you need light in the morning to set it and keep it on track,” said Dr. Alfred Lewy, a professor of psychiatry at Oregon Health and Science University and an expert on seasonal depression and light therapy.

Yet many experts think light therapy is underused, given its affordability and relative lack of side effects, in large part because there is little profit to be made from it and no commercial incentive to promote the treatment.

Patients generally sit in front of the light box, which can be as small as 9 by 11 inches and 5 inches deep, with the bright light emanating from the square surface, in the morning. “With the natural dawn being later in winter, the body rhythms drift late,” Dr. Lewy said. “If you can fix the drift, you can fix the depression.”

Light therapy may even help with major nonseasonal depression, experts say, and with sleep disorders. And because it has few side effects, researchers are studying whether light therapy can help with depression during pregnancy and be used to treat elderly people with dementia. It is also being investigated for the treatment of bulimia nervosa, severe premenstrual syndrome and even attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder.

Though randomized controlled clinical trials of bright light are difficult to do properly — one expert is fond of saying that it is difficult to “blind” studies of bright light — the American Psychiatric Association considers bright-light therapy an effective low-risk treatment for both S.A.D. and nonseasonal major depressive disorder.

A 2006 multicenter double-blind randomized controlled trial that compared bright-light therapy head to head with the popular antidepressant Prozac (fluoxetine) in 96 subjects found the two treatments equally effective for alleviating winter depression, though light produced results faster, usually within a week, and with fewer side effects.

Why, then, do so few doctors prescribe bright-light therapy? Some say their patients don’t have the patience to sit in front of a light for 30 to 45 minutes every morning. Moreover, “doctors are just more comfortable prescribing medication, because that’s what they do for everything,” Dr. Lewy said.

Some patients who suffer from chronic depression say they use light therapy in addition to their regular medication in the winter months.

“I’ve always seen a drastic change in my personality from spring and summer to fall and winter, and it got worse as I got older,” said Rick Bach, 54, a painter who owns a hair salon in West Hartford, Conn., and tries to spend every January in Puerto Rico.

But while bright-light treatment is helpful, he said, it is not sufficient for him. “It can help you from falling into a deep depression, but it won’t help you climb out of one,” he said.

No one knows exactly how light treatment works, but most experts seem to agree that the body has a master biological clock that responds to or is “set” by natural light fluctuations.

“Light does more than just enable us to see,” said Dr. Norman Rosenthal, author of the landmark book “Winter Blues,” who was among the first to identify and describe S.A.D. Light also has an effect on hormones, the body’s chemical messengers, affecting the brain’s hypothalamus, which is involved in regulating mood, energy and appetite.

“The hormone melatonin, which is secreted at night, can be suppressed by light,” Dr. Rosenthal said. “Studies have also shown that light influences serotonin andepinephrine pathways in the brain, the same neurotransmitter systems known to be affected in people with general depression.”

But while part of the appeal of light therapy is that it can be self-prescribed, using a light box is not as simple as it may appear. Experts recommend consulting with a knowledgeable health care provider before starting treatment to rule out other medical conditions and to help with monitoring and adjusting bright-light exposure.

Some patients may want to try simply getting more natural light to help with seasonal mood changes — getting out as much as possible during the brightest time of day in the winter, sitting near windows during the day or taking vacations to sunny locales in the winter.

If you choose to try light therapy, here are a few tips from experts.

COSTS Light boxes can be purchased for about $200 online; they are also available for rent. Some patients manage to get insurance reimbursement by having a doctor write a letter, but don’t count on your policy covering it.

PRECAUTIONS Side effects include headaches and hypomania, though experts say these are rare. Face the light but do not stare at the light. If you have an eye condition of any kind, clear light therapy with your ophthalmologist first.

MORE INFORMATION Check the Web sites of the Society for Light Therapy and Biological Rhythms at www.sltbr.org and Center for Environmental Therapeutics atwww.cet.org.

Auspicious Day: 11/11/11

2011-11-11T07:44:00.003-05:00

STATE OF MIND: FINDING THE BREATH, Diane Santarella, 2009,
mixed media on paper, 30 x 22

Astrologically, numerologically, cosmologically speaking, this is supposed to be an auspicious day.

Frankly, if you woke up in a warm safe bed and can drink a glass of clean tap water it is an auspicious day and you are ahead of most of the world's population. Consider that for a moment.

So, hmm, how to spend a once in a lifetime cosmic jackpot lottery ticket of a day?

Coffee, give Simon his eyedrops, notice the full moon still up at 6am like a giant pearl in the western sky, feed Simon, let Simon out, hear the bluebird singing his heart out on the fence, more coffee, check email, talk to my Sweetie who's away on a workshop, blog, throw on some painting clothes, and then hit the studio. Make art.

Indeed: an auspicious day.

Some words to think about along the way...
"If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done and whoever you were and throw them away."
Steve Jobs

where all that meditation pays off: in the studio

2011-11-10T11:05:00.002-05:00

we'll see where it goes...

Yesterday, fellow artist and friend Deb Winram came over for a studio "play date."
It was a great creative session for both of us--I'll write more on that later.

I took out some of the new paintings in the Oyster and Pearl series that I am working on to show her.
I had packed them up and taken them to Bon Secours to show at the workshop. I hadn't looked at them since then.

So...you know that thin rubber waffle-y stuff you put under rugs to keep them from slipping? I used some odd pieces of that stuff to cushion between my paintings for transport, face to face. Hey, they are acrylic, what can happen, right?
Well.........don't do that.

The paintings were firmly stuck together with that stuff between them. When I pried the masonite apart, the rubber had left a pattern of little sticky bumps on the smooth, shiny parts of the paintings. The smooth, shiny parts that I labored to get smooth, shiny and enamel-like. Subtle, glistening. Now covered in a pattern of fuzzy dots.

My initial response was, surprisingly briefly, "W T F ?!" followed quickly by "Hmmm. Interesting. We'll see where it goes from here."
Really. Not panic or despair. Just curiosity. It is workable. I felt a refreshing detachment to the paintings they were and a pleasant anticipation of the paintings they were to become.
Truth be known, I was in a dangerously comfortable place with these four paintings. They could be finished, but I, in my heart of hearts, knew there was more to do there. More to explore. More complexity and depth. Circumstance was decisive, where I was timid. So, onward!

As Master Diebenkorn said in his "Notes" #7, "Mistakes can't be erased but they move you from your present position." And of course, #9, "Tolerate chaos."

And as Master Skip said, "Don't be a chicken-pants."

Today I am doing some remedial work on the paintings to see just exactly how many steps back before I go forward. Or sideways, the long way around. A detour. To a much better place.
At any rate, it will be an interesting practice.

Post Script: S A N D P A P E R. It takes real surrender (some would say cojones) to take sandpaper to your paintings.
And yet, happy to report, it works.

Skip's Autumn Painting Workshop, 2011

2011-11-02T10:06:00.002-04:00

Late October. The colors in the garden and woods are burnishing to amber and carnelian. The sky is like polished Persian turquoise. There is a chill in the afternoon breeze, wrapped in a wisp of woodsmoke. The artists are arriving from far and wide by the winding, shady drive of Bon Secours Spiritual Center in Marriottsville, Maryland for Skip's Autumn Painting Workshop.

Twenty-six painters commit a week to going deep and working hard. The rewards are discovering new levels of creativity and authenticity and a renewed excitement in making art. There may be some frustration and confusion as old habits are put to test. But the support and camaraderie of the fellow artists and Skip's own commitment and humor are good medicine for that.

Most of these painters have studied with Skip for years, some for decades. The sense of mutual admiration and respect adds a feeling of fond reunion to our October gathering. This is family, in the best sense. The new students have the advantage of coming into a "pack" that gets right down to work, and the work is already impressive!

It is also the best kind of workshop for Skip. His passion and lifetime of experience as an artist are taken full advantage of by these painters who embrace, in fact demand the inspiration and integrity he brings to his teaching. It really is a Master Class, and it is exciting to watch it evolve each year. By the end of the week we are all exhilarated, exhausted, and excited to see where the work will continue to lead us. It is a perfect way to go into the autumn season and prepare for a winter in the studio.

I realized that I had taken a paltry few photos during the week. I was so involved in the daily critiques and enjoying the company that I neglected to take pics. But the memories are vivid and continue to resonate, undimmed even by a freak snowstorm on Saturday.

Thank you all again for an amazing week! It was my pleasure and privilege to spend a week with good friends and great artists! Your courage and dedication are a continuing inspiration to me!
Namaste!

feininger's halloween

2011-10-27T09:32:00.000-04:00

While I am busy with Skip's workshop at Bon Secours Spiritual Center this week, I will let Lyonel Feininger send my Halloween Greetings!

I photographed this painting, entitled, Spook,I, an oil by Feininger, 1940, from The Phillips collection in D.C.

Delightful.

Trick or Treat!!!!!!!!

El Anatsui at The Clark

2011-10-24T13:15:00.003-04:00

Everywhere his work is installed, he allows the curators a lot of input into how the pieces are displayed in the space. Thus his work is always changing based on the context, space and the curator's vision.
Nice way to work.
Nice way to live.

From trash to treasure

For scale, Skip and El Anatsui

This is from a show at The Nelson-Atkins in Kansas City a few years ago.
What a stunning example of one of El Anatsui's pieces and an adoring fan.

A couple weeks ago, en route to Greenville, NY, we took in the beautiful show of Ghanian artist El Anatsui's work at The Clark in Williamstown, MA.

We had seen El Anatsui's work in various places, MOMA, and The Nelson-Atkins in Kansas City, but had never seen a solo installation. The Clark show was a wonderful opportunity to see one of my favorite and most inspiring contemporary artists.

From The Clark's webpage:
"One of Africa’s greatest living artists, El Anatsui (b. 1944), weaves together discarded metal objects to create large-scale sculptures that demonstrate a fascinating interplay of colors and shapes. By “subverting the stereotype of metal as a stiff, rigid medium,” the artist says, he creates “a soft, pliable, almost sensuous material capable of attaining immense dimensions and being adapted to specific spaces.” A selection of Anatsui’s ethereal and transcendent sculptures, including Strips of Earth's Skin, will be on view at the Clark’s Stone Hill Center in an installation that explores the themes of history, economy, sustainability, and identity."

These vast, sensuous tapestries are made of the discarded foil wrappers that enclose the necks of liquor bottles. Trash elevated to the sublime. These bits of foil are woven, folded and linked into draperies that shimmer and undulate like the skin of an enchanted serpent. The sensation of standing before one is something like drowning in the glittery dream of a Gustav Klimt painting, or the dizzying tessellation of a Bonnard. Have I used enough metaphors? The fact is: they are exquisite. Complex and masterful in the abstract use of space, surface, color, texture. Brilliant. Literally and descriptively.

Best of all, they are more than beautiful. They are an idea, a social/ political/ historical statement worked into a perfectly expressive form. The liquor labels are a direct symbol of the currency that has bound the culture and economy of Africa, Europe, and the Americas for centuries. Liquor from Europe traded for African slaves who were taken to the Americas to work plantations to grow crops to produce liquor for Europe... Power and status, who has and has not become the currency within the smaller social groups, tribes, and developing countries and economies in Africa, and liquor has its' part to play there as well.
Where El Anatsui succeeds so satisfyingly (for me) is that he takes layers of dark subject content, and layers of actual garbage, and elevates it. The resulting artwork becomes something that seduces us with elegance to see his point of view.

To see more about this treasure of an artist go to The Clark's webpage and follow the extensive links.

sweetest big brown eyes

2011-10-19T18:04:00.001-04:00

best little MonkeyBoy in the world

in Maine

travelin' boy

bath boy

It has been a crazy, exhausting few days.
We feared the worst, but it is...workable.

I'll spare the details, but Monday morning we thought Simon had had a stroke, or a brain tumor or worse. Turns out it was acute onset glaucoma. We were extremely fortunate that our vet quickly saw what was going on and got us immediately into an emergency vet hospital in Gaithersberg. Timing was critical because glaucoma is increasing fluid pressure inside the eyeball = very painful and, as it progresses, increases the chance of blindness. We needed to get this under control quickly. Humans describe glaucoma as the worst headache imaginable. I can sympathize!
Simon is amazingly relaxed with vets which made a long day much less stressful. He responded very positively to the medicines: his interocular pressure went down to happily acceptable levels while we were at the hospital. That ruled out having to do an emergency surgery to relieve the pressure (basically, a needle in the eye!) Instead, we were sent home with a pain killer, three different eye drops to be administered every 8 hours and an appointment for a recheck this afternoon. At the recheck today, we were all very happy that the meds seem to have stabilized the pressure to normal levels.

So...he is doing well. So far. No surgery. For now. We check back with the Doc in two weeks.
The long term outlook is a guess. Glaucoma doesn't get better, it isn't cured. At best, it can be managed and vision preserved for a while. We take it one day at a time. One day divided into precise eight hour intervals, punctuated by application of eyedrops, at a time.
But our Simon is comfortable. And silly. And feisty. And he loves his long naps. And dances the hustle for treats. And when I look at him he looks back at me with the sweetest big brown eyes.

three cans and a blender

2011-10-04T12:55:00.003-04:00

it took about as long to set up the photo as it did to make the soup: in other words, Quick!

Mmmm, mmm delicioso!

BTW, The sun came out today. Ahhh! Finally!!!

Yesterday, while it was still raining, I had a craving for my favorite snack, Pacific Naturals Roasted Pepper and Tomato soup. Alas, I didn't have any. How hard can it be to whip up a creamy tomato soup, I thought? Turns out, it's not. And a very tasty one, at that.

I will give you the quick version I made. Everything that goes into it is stuff I always have in the pantry. This is a template that begs to be elaborated upon, so feel free to spice it up as you like.

Di's Super Fast Creamy Tomato Soup

1 big can of best quality crushed tomatoes in puree
(my#1 brand is Muir Glen, but the Redpack was very good too.)
1 can of cannellini beans (15oz) drained
1 can of 2% or nonfat evaporated milk (NOT sweetened condensed milk!!)
a handful of fresh basil leaves and some fresh fennel I happened to have from the garden
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 tsp smoked paprika (essential for the smoky roasted pepper taste! Plain paprika is NOT the same)
2 dashes of nutmeg
3/4 cup+/- water with a tsp of chicken soup base dissolved into it, or chicken broth
pesto for garnish

Put condensed milk, drained beans, basil, garlic, nutmeg and paprika in blender and puree until smooth. Add half the tomatoes and puree. Pour into a saucepan, stir in rest of tomatoes, and slowly warm. (Do not boil due to the milk.) Add the chicken broth to thin the soup to desired consistency .
Serve with a dollop of pesto swirled into the soup.

It was really perfect for a cold rainy afternoon and deee-licious!
I will make it again with spice variations- Indian: garam masala and cumin, Mexican: cumin, chipotle and cilantro, Scandanavian: dill, cardamom and sour cream. Or substitute clam broth for the chicken broth and throw in some shell fish or tillapia for a hearty fish chowder.

If you have a little more time and want to develop a deeper flavor, here's what you do:
Start by sauteing a small onion, diced, in a little butter until it begins to turn golden. Add the crushed garlic, cook until transparent. Sprinkle a pinch of brown sugar and the spices (except fresh herbs) and let them become fragrant. Add the crushed tomatoes and their puree and let them gently simmer for 20 minutes or so. This deepens the velvety plushness of the tomato flavor. The resulting soup will have a mellower flavor, rather than a fresh piquant tomato taste.
Then simply follow the rest of the blender directions with the remaining ingredients, pureeing half the cooked tomato mixture. Add that to the cooked tomato onion mixture and warm as usual. (Of course, if you want a really smooth soup, puree all of the cooked tomato/onion with the beans, milk and fresh herbs.)
If you are feeling really decadent, serve with a generous swirl of cream or olive oil and accompany with a glass of wine...

Enjoy!

walk for life

2011-10-03T10:56:00.001-04:00

Simon basking in a rare sunbeam

We have not had more than a fleeting hour or two of sun for 16 consecutive days.

I really need those solar rays to keep an even keel, emotionally. I am managing this dark spell because I am so very aware of that and I am taking measures to stay balanced.
Like not wearing sunglasses on my walk every day to let what little UV is out there a chance to hit my sun-starved brain cells. I know that this weather makes me want to curl up on the couch with Bronte and carbs so I keep busy. Keep moving. Keep walking.

Not only do I soak up some watery sun while I am out walking, I also sort through the mental junk mail that tends to accumulate. Spinning out plans, running through played out conversations, redecorating...I get a chance to look at it and toss it, and then that junk is less likely to nag at my attention while I am meditating.

I also get to check on all the dogs in the neighborhood. I give them the delight of barking at me as I pass.

There are the changing leaves. The other day, a breeze picked up as I was approaching a big walnut tree. The yellow leaves rained down so beautifully, softly, shimmering, fluttering, landing on the black rainwet pavement. A private performance. The hush of the golden leaves drifting down, the dark space between them as they danced lasted only maybe 15 seconds, and it was well worth going out for that 45 minute walk on a rainy day, just for that jewel of spontaneous beauty. That keeps me going.

I find some treasure on every walk. A butterfly perfectly preserved, a feather. I have collected so many lovely feathers I could build my own bird.

The bluebirds are around a lot these days, too. Whole families! And the Yard Deer. Whole families! I'd miss seeing them if I were buried in a broody novel. It is too soon for that. January, OK, not the beginning of October! Rain or no rain, sun or no sun, I will not surrender to sweatpants and the couch.

I keep painting, I keep beading, I keep writing, I keep planning, I keep meditating.
I keep walking.

in the words of JFK

2011-09-14T15:31:00.001-04:00

From the outside walls of The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Once, not so very long ago, it seemed not only possible, but inevitable.

a week in the studio

2011-09-12T19:41:00.000-04:00

Two works in progress.....

OYSTERS AND PEARLS,3,A, 24x24, mixed media on board

OYSTERS AND PEARLS,3,B, 24x24, mixed media on board

After almost eight months of not touching a brush...I spent six straight days in the studio...painting.
Skip was away on a workshop for a week. I was caught up on other projects. I cleared my priorities and got my ass out to the studio...
To Paint.

I have eight, yes, 8, paintings going. And I am Very Happy with how they are progressing.

When I spoke to Skip on the phone last week he said" Gee, it didn't take you long to get back into it!" No, not long at all, if you don't count the eight months I couldn't even make eye contact with a tube of paint!
The difference this time, is that I have been through this before. Enough times not to let it rattle me. There are ebbs and flows. Periods of focused, feverish activity, like a free fall, then there are the gestation periods. I have never stopped..."painting". I am always storing away sensations, impressions, ideas...the sound of the waves in the cove in Maine, the feel of the fog on my cheeks, the solar heat that fills up my soul batteries in New Mexico, the taste of green chili and the tang of a perfect margarita. Everything, everyday is downloading into my resource, so that when I approach the blank canvas or board...there is a deep, rich stew to dish up.

I am still working on the "Oysters and Pearls." It is a good source for me. (Who can ever know what is going to do it, flip the "on" switch for an artist?) There is still a lot to be mined there. What is fun this time is to abandon all agendas and just keep pushing the form further and further from description. Ultimately, there is No Oyster, there is No Pearl. ("There is no spoon." If you get the movie reference, email me)
There is only painting: sensation and surface and color, mark, texture, rhythm.

Damn, it feels good to be back!

my new art blog

2011-09-03T11:55:00.000-04:00

PEARL,7, 30X24, MIXED MEDIA ON BOARD

I spent the last couple days getting my new art portfolio blog up.
It is called Talking to Myself, and the link is http://dsantarellapaintings.blogspot.com

nine days in new mexico

2011-08-28T14:58:00.006-04:00

Thursday: Easy flight into Albuquerque, arriving about 11 in the morning.
I never tire of the drive up 25 to Santa Fe. It is about an hour of a vast changing landscape and deep skies. Big clouds in bullying competition over the mountains foretell of summer thunderstorms later.
The first stop: Bobcat Bites out on Old Las Vegas Highway for one of their unparalleled green chili cheeseburger. Medium rare. No fries-no room! Ahhh. Now we have truly arrived.

Friday: The big fishing day on the Pecos with The Reel Life guide extraordinaire, Ben Casares. Skip had fished with Ben a couple years ago and we all had such a great time. This trip we went further upriver to Cowles to a gorgeous stretch of the river in a canyon bordered by wildflower meadows, moss-covered cliffs and towering ponderosas. Skip was on the water all day with Ben and I hiked the lovely trail along the river. There is a cool, mossy lushness here. Overcast, passing thundershowers, perfect for fishing. The fish were less enthusiastic than we were, but there were enough willing to play along to keep it interesting. It is always a good day on a trout stream.

Saturday: The world famous Indian Market. It was a zoo. So crowded you couldn't get up to see any of the artists' wares. Madness. Now, I confess a real jones for good Native American jewelry, but there were hoards (or herds!) tacky fat Anglos of a certain age draped in way too much ersatz Indiana that I had to get the hell outta there. It was turquoise overdose! No disrespect to the artists: I just couldn't get close enough to see the good stuff.

So we headed up to Taos to see our friend Lindsey Enderby at Horse Feathers. The Last Real Cowboy and a True Gentleman. If you are in Taos you must stop in Horse Feathers . You will find some piece of retro authentic cowboyana that you never knew you needed! Lindsey will have it! Hats, chaps, boots...spurs! Everything but the horse. And he'll even throw in a good tall tale or two.

I also made a stop in one of the best bead stores I have ever shopped with the most unlikely name of Thunder Lizard. (That's what ancient people called dinosaurs, and they sell fossils, too...) I discovered them in the spring and have been biding my beads until I could get back and restock. Unfortunately, they do not have an online store. Or maybe that's good...I'll just have to go to Taos!

Sunday: Food Poisoning. I'll spare you the details.

Monday: Skip started his workshop at Valdes Art Center Monday morning. I spent the day recovering.

By Monday evening I was beginning to feel human. I had lost a full day of hiking, but I was so weak and wobbly that I could barely muster disappointment.

Tuesday: Feeling better. I had missed one day of hiking and I was not going to miss out on another! I had a hike scheduled with Georges Wednesday so I knew I needed to get my land legs back. It was a beautiful day, after a couple days of heavy rain, so I headed up to Ghost Ranch. It was the best medicine for me.

The sky was so clear after all the rain that the colors were spectacular. I have often been up there with a late summer haze. Not today. Electric! The sky really is that blue and the rocks really are that red. I hiked the Chimney Cliffs trail, which is about 3miles round trip. Perfect to break in on. It is called an easy trail, but unless you are fully acclimated to the altitude, any trail can feel more challenging. The hike takes you up to the ridge, putting you at eye level with the Chimneys, so it is pretty much a steady climb. I lingered at the top, enjoying the expansive views of Miss O'Keeffe's world. From the top, you could see her little adobe house that is off limits to the public. I can only imagine waking up every morning here, watching the stars come out over Cerro Pedernal...it is an amazing piece of real estate!

I reached the ridge of Chimney Rocks just about the time the earthquake was shaking up Northern Virginia. My sister in Hawaii texted me. Ah, the 21st century!

The view down the north side of the cliffs from the ridge, Pedernal on the horizon. Look at the color of Abiquiu Lake, real turquoise!

Wednesday: Georges took us on a hike up at the top of Hyde Park Road, through pine and aspen forests, across alpine meadows. Breezy and shady and green: the opposite of my Chimney Rocks hike. The Aspen woods are spectacular, the white bark and shimmering leaves glowing in the sun, the breeze whispering that unique aspen hush.

Later that afternoon, Sue and I met up with Porter Swentzell for the Tewa Circle Tour. Porter is the son of famous sculptor Roxanne Swentzell and a Native of the Santa Clara Pueblo. He has started a guiding company,Tsikunu Tours specializing in the history and culture of the Tewa Pueblos of Northern New Mexico. I had been wanting to get to the pueblos and this was the PERFECT way to go. Porter's knowledge is so broad and so deep, and so personal that there is no better guide to give you insight into the fascinating, complex, and mostly hidden life and history of the pueblos. We did a driving tour north out of Santa Fe, stopping to walk around at the San Ildefonso plaza. We continued through the landscape, touching in on the lay of the land and its' history, through five pueblos. We stopped out near Los Alamos at a scenic overlook that had a spectacular vista of the Rio Grande and the expansive 360 horizon. Porter explained how each Pueblo counts their world in sacred concentric circles from the center of the plaza, out to four significant mountain landmarks in the four directions. These concentric circles overlap like the rings around raindrops. This is Black Mesa, one of the cardinal points for his home pueblo, Santa Clara.

Porter describing the sacred circles of pueblo geography to Sue.

That is Black Mesa at the upper, far left edge of the horizon. A camera cannot capture the vastness and grandeur. You'll just have to go there. Call Porter.
That was truly a memorable day. Amazing. I can't wait to go out with Porter for another history tour!

Thursday: A little shopping, a lunch date at La Casa Sena with John Schaefer of Peyton Wright Gallery, a little more shopping. Stop in to Peyton Wright to see the beautiful show of Stanton Macdonald-Wright's colorful "synchromies." Lyrical. Mesmerizing.
Thursday night, we had to get out of denial that our return flight on Saturday would have us landing in Baltimore about the same time as Hurricane Irene. Easy to forget a hurricane when you are waaaaay our west with the biiiiig blue skies. I moved our ticket to an earlier flight on Saturday. However, the dire storm predictions kept mounting. Which meant that...

Friday: 6am I am on the phone with Southwest booking us on a 3:50 flight out of Albuquerque that afternoon. Even if the storm changed course and was less of a problem than predicted on Saturdy, the airport/ flight logistics would probably get pretty complicated. Better to beat it out of Dodge ahead of the stampede. So, Skip and I packed up. I finished packing while he taught the last day of the workshop. I picked him up at noon, cutting the class short by a few hours, and we said our good-byes. Off to Albuquerque.
So our visit to My Favorite Place was cut short by Irene, and interrupted by a stomach bug. At least I missed the earthquake. Oh, well.
It was still a week in My Favorite Place and that's pretty wonderful.

migraine, Uncle Vanya, New Mexico

2011-08-15T11:25:00.002-04:00

dreaming of New Mexico.......a tribute to Miss O'Keeffe from my garden

A five day migraine. Now, that's special. It started Thursday. I think it is on it's way out today.
I's a semi-functional migraine, meaning that I can still get on with my day, mostly. I did sleep most of Thursday, though. When it is one of these bloody hangers-on the meds only push it down, tame it a little, but it never really goes away. And, cruelly, it will wait until I am sound asleep and sneak up on me and whang me in the head with an iron skillet. Every morning, at 3:30 am. Special.

But life goes on. And one thing I have learned living 44 years with my special friend, Migraine, is that I can only let it win some of the time. The best offense is to enjoy, in spite of it. I have learned to Be In The Good Stuff even when my head is relentlessly aching. I have to, otherwise I would have missed so much.

Which brings me to "Uncle Vanya." I hopped on it and got tickets to Sunday's performances of the Sydney Theater Company's sold-out production at Kennedy Center. So, come Sunday, headache or no, I was going to go and bask in the brilliance of Chekov done to perfection. And, yes, Migraine came along for the ride. I have learned that I have to make a soft gray space inside and settle my brain into it for rests, between moments of having to think and do. So while we drove down to D.C.:quiet grey place. Waiting before the show: quiet grey place. Like a computer powering down to sleep mode. That way, balancing moments of interaction with moments of reserve, I can kind of cruise through and Be Here without escalating the pain.

The show was wonderful. Here is a link to the NY Times review that says it better than I : chekhovs-slugfest-with-pratfalls I have seen many performances of Chekov over the years. It is notoriously challenging to hit the right note of humanity without swinging to much toward tragedy or satire. I have seen productions that made me beg for the gas pipe. ("Will we ever get to Moscow"---I'd like to get out of this bloody theatre!) I have seen productions that only lacked roller skates and a taxi horn. This is the first time I have ever seen Chekov where I wished it would not end. The characters were so honest and real and I felt so for each one that I wanted to see the story go on. If you know Chekov, that says a lot! It was one of the finest ensemble performances I have ever seen. Such a delight and rare privilege to see the craft of acting done with such depth and delicacy, the whole human catastrophe, beautiful! Although the star draw was Cate Blanchett- lunimous- I felt that Hugo Weaving and Richard Roxburgh stole the show with their Astrov and Vanya. I haven't stopped thinking about the whole production since we left the theater. I will be thinking about it for a long time. An unforgettable performance and a seamless production.

Now on to New Mexico. For which we are departing Thursday bright and early. Excuse me while I indulge in a happy little shudder of excitement! Headache or not, today I need to start getting organized.
I am looking forward to getting in a couple hikes with Georges and Sue this trip. Sadly, I think climbing Pedernal might be beyond me at this point. A 15 foot technical climb up a sheer face to the summit...hmmmm. But there are plenty of other trails, for sure. I am PRAYING that my migraine friend decides to play nice while I am out there. We'll be in Santa Fe in time for the Indian Market. Very Exciting. Today, I have to go in and out of the quiet grey place so I don't go into spazzy overwork mode. I want this f'n headache to MOVE ON! Breathe....grey place.....e a s y.

new mexico! yippeeeee!!!

LOL :-O !!! from The New Yorker

2011-08-10T12:10:00.003-04:00

SHOUTS & MURMURS
TEXT SLANG FOR BABY BOOMERS
by William SorensenAUGUST 15, 2011

NSR = Need some roughage

T4W = Time for whiskey

TXT L8R = Can’t find reading glasses

WWIS = What was I saying?

IV-NV = My kid’s going to big-name college, neighbors jealous

JDTV? = Which channel has a Judi Dench movie tonight?

3dickPM = Read three detective novels this afternoon

M = Margaritaville

X2EZ = Crossword puzzle too easy

WILMA! = Lost my keys

WSWS = Wearing socks with sandals

RxV-->BW = Got Viagra prescription, just need Barry White cassettes

GOTMG = Going out to mulch garden

VROOM! = Got tires rotated

RB>DM = Russell Brand is no Dudley Moore

80/20 = Spouse doing more and more of the talking

NPR = Sleep aid; no prescription required

ARF :-) = Dogs don’t talk

]CVG[ = Stuck in Conversational Vise-Grip

DdoTH = Don’t do the Hustle, ever

VCR Rut = Watching “Caddyshack” tonight

M = Mojitoville

Ahhh = Memorable smoke smell wafting from my kids’ rooms

Brrr = Wearing socks to bed

TN2WMP = Trying not to wet my pants

PNP = Peeing in pants

SEXTING? = We sure as hell didn’t need smartphones to get laid

[------] = Another funeral, can’t play poker/bridge/Scrabble ♦

ILLUSTRATION: STEVE POWERS
To get more of The New Yorker's signature mix of politics, culture and the arts: Subscribe now

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2011/08/15/110815sh_shouts_sorensen?printable=true#ixzz1UjDwFuf4

practicing not practicing practicing: resources

2011-08-06T09:23:00.000-04:00

It is hard to start sitting meditation practice again after a long absence.
I expected that.
This time around, though, it is different. I am actually delighted by the difficulty. Delighted because I know from experience that it will get a little easier as I get back into the groove. Amused by just how many crazy thought trains my chatty mind can get on to avoid just riding the breath. Encouraged because having been through this bumpy sitting so many times before that simply being aware of it all makes it all good. It just is. Just being here, being present, laughing at my monkey mind, being in humble gratitude to have this glorious tool at my disposal, feeling such appreciation to the teachers and practitioners who go before me, just touching the breath. Just being here.

People often ask me about meditation, and Buddhism, and I refer them to the writings and recordings of my wise teacher, Pema Chodron. I always defer to her down to earth, honest, engaging teaching rather than make a botch of an explanation myself. In fact I am reluctant to publicly call myself a Buddhist because I don't want my clumsiness or ignorance to reflect badly on on something I so respect.
But that's why it is called a practice, right?

This chapter is really helpful as a reminder of how to sit meditation: Precision, Gentleness and Letting Go, from her book The Wisdom of No Escape. I read this chapter a little at a time now before I begin my session, just to align my focus and intention. A gentle reminder.

Another teacher who is a gift and beautiful resource, especially for beginning practitioners is Susan Piver. She is of the same Shambhala lineage as Pema. She is fresh and honest and it is like sitting with a kind sister who will answer your questions with answers she has earned from her own experience.
She has started Open Heart Project , a series of podcasts that will guide you through beginning a sitting practice. Brilliant! An answer to prayers!

So, I hope this is helpful. If you are sincerely interested, your heart will guide you.
Oh, one piece of experience I will share. Since I have a real tendency to complicate things and over intellectualize and research something ad nauseum, I decided, up front, going into Buddhism that I was going to KEEP IT SIMPLE. Keep the focus on one or two teachers and get comitted to sitting meditation. Be a "scientist of my own experience" (I think Liz Gilbert said that) by observing what is going on. Let my experience feedback be my own guide. Everyone's journey will be unique, but I
recommend starting with baby steps and simplicity.

Let me know how it's going: we'll have our own little sangha.

practicing not practicing

2011-08-03T09:36:00.002-04:00

When I got to Maine, back in mid-June, I had every intention of continuing my daily meditation sitting practice. I was coming up on my three year anniversary and my routine was well established. A little stale and squirmy, perhaps, but I was still hitting the cushion daily. More or less. OK, I'd miss a day with travel or something, but I still had the momentum. I was sure I still had the momentum...somewhere, did you see where I packed it?

After about a week in Maine, big surprise, I was not making it to the cushion every morning. Hmmm. I didn't want to give up, but I needed some perspective, some freshness.

That's when I decided to let Not Meditating be my practice. What a masterpiece of rationalization, you say! And you would be right. But it is also a valid test and a valid practice, if mindfully applied. A Buddhist practice does not begin and end with a meditation session- there has to be a broader, whole life, real time practice and that is where the results and rewards of all that sitting should pay off. Right?

My experiment would do two things: give me a temporary break from the routine of daily sitting and focus my observation onto where the possible effects of all that sitting/staying were showing up in my daily life experiences. Or not. The proof in the pudding, so to speak. So Let the Experiment Begin!

Here is what I observed over the course of approximately 5 weeks of my Not Meditating Practice:
I am more patient. I am more curious and willing to wait, which results in being less reactive. I am still prone to being judgmental, but I also feel an acute compassion more readily and spontaneously. I am actually more in the moment which results in a sort of amused enjoyment. If you rush by life you miss a lot of the funny bits. So yes, I guess all that sitting had yielded some positive results.

I also observed that these lovely qualities began to decline as the experiment proceeded. My tendency to get stuck in rumination began to return, my ability to hold back a second on the snap response got flabby. My sense of self importance slowly crept up and my sense of silliness subtly diminished. My judgementalness got really tweaked! I realized that I really, really missed the daily dose of discipline, the sense of mental and spiritual hygiene that I got from 25 minutes of meditation. But I stuck with the experiment! I was committed! I wanted see just how ornery and uncomfortable I would get without my sitting practice.

Fortunately, we got back to Maryland before I became a complete recidivist (insert image of a craggy, crazed Mr Hyde.) As soon as I got the bare minimum of domestic reorganization done, it was priority one to SIT.
I rearranged my little altar area to the other side of the room, fluffed up my ersatz zafu and took my seat with renewed zeal. Like returning to an old friend.
And the mind, she was off and running like a new born filly! That's OK. Hard all over again. Noisy and ornery, yes, but now I know how bad I get if I DON'T sit.

I have renewed my practice with a fresh, tender love, in time to celebrate my third year anniversary. That is a really sweet gift.

Having a practice is hard. But now I know Not having a practice is even harder.

It is easy to underestimate the effects of daily sitting meditation. It is easy to get lazy or distracted, but the pay-off of that repeated dose of discipline and gentle stillness is far richer and deeper than is obvious. Now I truly, humbly know that. And I am going to give myself a little bow of respect and appreciation for sticking with it, practicing /not practicing/ practicing.

home, again

2011-07-29T13:40:00.001-04:00

Simon misses the breezy walks on Pemaquid Point

We left Maine a week ago tomorrow.
I was sad to leave this year.
But glad to be home.

Our time in Maine is like an alternative universe. We get into a routine there, for 6 weeks, shop where we shop, eat where we eat. I set up house, bring my flowered tablecloth and good chef's knives...It is not like vacation, where you know you are only in a place for a little while. But it is not exactly a fully fleshed out life, either. It is a play-life. Like playing house. We have more social life in these six weeks than almost the whole rest of the year. Good friends, lots of laughs and deep talks, art -making, politics-arguing and cocktails. It is great. But then everybody goes back to their real lives, too. Hard to think that it will be a whole year before I see most of these people!

It was a good creative six weeks for me, as well. No painter's block this year. I took an official break from painting to work on my jewelry. It is fun, satisfying, productive, and profitable. Which is always a nice thing: to have people appreciate your work enough to eagerly purchase it from you and ask for more! That hasn't happened in a while, and yes, it is a very positive motivator, and no, I do not feel mercenary to admit it. The creative wheels are definitely greased now.

Reentry to Maryland was fairly easy. The blistering heat wave broke just before we got home. The garden held up amazingly well. That means less triage to do to heat blasted pots and perennials. The feral lettuces had taken over my formerly neat veggie patch. I was pleasantly surprised that they yielded a lot of edible greens, even if they looked as if they were grown on Planet Seuss.
Unpacking always takes about three days. Just putting stuff away, going through the piles of mail, and emails, laundry, restocking the fridge...Just time consuming. The disorder is tiresome, but temporary.
It keeps me distracted from missing people.
I actually do very well with a LOT of alone/quiet time. I need it. But I do go through a little withdrawl period from having a steady dose of (especially, feminine) companionship for such a concentrated period. I appreciate my Art Buddies. AKA "The Bling Sisters." Hey Girls! Miss You!!!!
Withdrawl is all part of reentry. I guess it is the contrast of having/not having that allows for real appreciation. Sad to say goodbye, but lovely to know it's only for a while.

So now, home, again.

PS
Happy Birthday Sweetie!!!

still, maine

2011-07-16T17:35:00.001-04:00

These are a couple paintings of the coast I did the first time I came here in 2006.
They still feel right. Even though my painting style has evolved since then, I feel that I captured my experience of the place. I was working with layers of plaster and paint and that added a sense of weight.
Anyway, since I am not painting this summer, I thought I'd pull something for you out of the archives for show-and-tell.
Nice to see that it still works for me. That says it came from a good place.

postcards from maine

2011-07-03T12:05:00.001-04:00

my maine

2011-06-26T18:45:00.002-04:00

We have been in Maine now for 11 days.

This is only the second time I have been on the computer in 11 days.

Where have I been, you ask?

In Maine. My Maine.

Anyone who has followed this blog knows that the annual relo to Maine presents a whole package of challenges to me. Emotional, historical, agricultural, logistical, artistic, romantic, domestic... a whole chowder of icky confusing stuff surrounding coming to Maine.

This year, however, something shifted.

The yucky pit of the stomach anxiety begins a couple months before we leave. It's a heavy dread and edginess. I try to work my practice and stay in the present, but it is a layer of emotional history that wants to replay like a bad movie. I don't want to be in that state, but I had to let it show all of it's ugliness before I could let it go. When I had reached critical mass, I vented to a very kind and understanding friend. Vented with all the Linda -Blair- pea- soup- puking- fury that had built up. And then I felt better. Really. Like the sun coming out after a storm. Truly. Wow. All Better.

And what was left after that purge was a big space waiting to be filled with much nicer, healthier things. I have made this an opportunity to replace old, confused, clouded, negative responses with new, fresh, delighted responses. Rewriting the script. Falling in love again.

I wished on my birthday candle for warm sunny weather in Maine, and I got it. For our first week it was glorious. The meadows of wildflowers are like scattered jewels, the sky is blindingly blue, add a glittering indigo sea, and temperatures warm enough for skirts and flip-flops. Lovely. Perfect for reintroducing myself to this place. This place that is part of my life. Our lives.

So, instead of blogging I have been exploring coves, rock-hunting, building dish gardens with found treasures and moss and furled ferns, making jewelry, meditating, planting salad gardens in odd pots and pans, starting nasturtium and pansy seedlings, having dinners sea-side with friends, reading novels, making a cozy home in the Tea House, and taking in the enchanting beauty that is here.

I am discovering that perceptions can be rewritten. That history is not destiny. That I can move constructively from old painful habits into an open place of wonder and discovery. That I can be happy here.

I am discovering my Maine

avian report

2011-06-11T10:00:00.001-04:00

I checked the wren nest a couple days ago and there were six eggs.
I checked yesterday afternoon and there were tiny hatchlings emerging! I took a quick pic and left them to their business of hatching.
Awesome.
Meanwhile, Mr and Mrs Blue are busy getting ready for Blue Family#2:2011. The last two springs, we lost the first brood each season. Last year, the Blues recouped and we fledged two broods. This year, with one successful brood to start the season, we may still get two more nests in before autumn! Go Team Blue!

re: creativity

2011-05-26T16:33:00.001-04:00

LEARNING TO STAY, I Diane Santarella, mixed media on paper, 22 x 30

"Creation is pleasure and torture at the same time.
It's trying to make something out of nothing.
It's a birth of some sort.
Sometimes it is like pulling a piano out of a swamp.
Sometimes it's like walking on air.
The torture of that nothing-space in front of you,
and the pure elation of filling that space with something good -
it's one of life's great juxtapositions.
I'm grateful for that - the torture and the pleasure."

Zooey Deschanel, actress and singer,
quoted from an interview in Spirit magazine

baby blues and brown eggs

2011-05-25T16:08:00.001-04:00

Five Baby Blues, as of Monday, the 23rd, little feathers beginning to come out.
They look alert and healthy. Mom and Dad have been busy with the food supply! Good work, you two!

I took this photo this afternoon of the Wren nest in the back box. Four sweet brown eggs, deep in the nest. The Wrens evicted the Blues from the back box who were slow on the nest building project. They are very cute and animated and will sit with their heads out of the box, watching you, cuckoo-clock style.

salad days

2011-05-19T08:56:00.000-04:00

There has been an abundance of rain, so my gardens are exploding.

My little veggie garden is successfully feeding my salad addiction.

The flowers are feeding my addiction to blooming, growing beauty.

It's all good.

eight days in new mexico

2011-05-10T10:00:00.007-04:00

Here is a whirlwind report of our trip out west...

St. Francis de Assisi church at Ranchos de Taos.

Ranchos is a little village just south of Taos. It is famous for this church which has been painted and photographed by hundreds of artists. It is truly beautiful. Sadly, no photos inside. I lit three candles. Something about these old mission churches makes me want to put on a lace chapel cap (anyone remember those?) and light candles.

I met the fascinating proprietor of the oldest trading post in the country, Dell Orr. A new Taos friend.

Cocktails at The Sagebrush Inn, Taos, with buds/fellow artists, Katherine Hart, Casey Morse (above), and Martha Wakefield, and Skip (below) They are all taking Skip's (et al) workshop at the Sagebrush while I go exploring/shopping/making friends in Taos.

The best margarita this trip: the Silver Coin at the Sagebrush. Second best: the Silver Coin at La Casa Sena in Santa Fe.

Hiking guides, Georges and Sue Mally of Santa Fe Walkabouts

Good friends and a great resource for getting off the beaten path in NM.

I did my fifth Walkabout with Georges on Friday morning, the Rio en Medio trail.

We are planning to climb Cerro Pedernal in

August. Wanna come along?

Here are Georges and fellow hiker from Jacksonville, FL, Sarah, on the Rio En Medio trail. It follows a small river (creek?) up to a waterfall. Beautiful variety of trees and wildflowers, shade, mossy stone cliffs, and the music of the babbling water make an unusually verdant trail in NM.

There are sweet local dogs who act as trail ambassadors.

Puppies xoxoxo!!! Doggie paradise!

We climbed up the cliff overlooking the falls. It was so beautiful that I momentarily forgot that I don't like heights! That edge is a long, straight drop to the river canyon below.

At just over 4 miles, the Rio En Medio trail is a perfect way to spend a New Mexico morning.

Here I am modeling a solid gold Mayan crown from 200 BC-800 AD at

the Peyton Wright Gallery in Santa Fe.

It's about time someone noticed my royal qualities! My birthday IS coming up...

At the Peyton Wright Gallery, with owner John Schaefer.

We always look forward to a visit with John to talk art and news, near and far. He makes a mean Ethiopian espresso, too. And there is always something fabulous at Peyton Wright that has to come home with us, for example, the stunning Paul Burlin oil behind us.

We had a fantastic meal at Max's to celebrate.

What a great trip. I love NM. We'll be back soon!

I'm in training for Pedernal.

postcards from the Bluebirds

2011-04-21T09:07:00.001-04:00

Mr Blue,I at the front house. Mrs. Blue is inside the box.

Mr Blue,I

Mr and Mrs Blue,II, in the yellow wood tree, near their back house

Mr Blue,II at the back house

a few of our goldfinch flock

It is officially confirmed: we have two separate pairs of Bluebirds in residence at the Lawrence-Santarella Bird Sanctuary!

We thought for a long time that we had one pair building nests in both boxes. This morning, however, we had a simultaneous sighting of both PAIRS. Males and females, at the same time, at both houses, got that? YES!!!!!

the happiness formula

2011-04-18T10:09:00.003-04:00

I can't even remember where this graphic came from. Someone sent it to me in an email, probably. But I was going through stuff on my desktop the other day and came across this.

At first look, and laugh, it seems like the perfect formula, doesn't it? Pretty simple, right.

But to a lot of people (self included) the loop diagram becomes a continuous chain of "change something" that never produces the desired "Happy." Just a lot of change. A lot of activity. A lot of self doubt as one change disappoints and then the next and the next until one begins to disbelieve that real lasting happiness is anything but a myth.

Now that we are on the subject anyway, what is Happy? It is kind of a myth that happiness all looks the same. The yellow smiley face. Fun! Giggles! It is kind of sparkly...and it smells like baking sugar cookies...maybe.
That kind of Happy is like that Great Party in High School that you drive around all night looking for, the tantalizing promise of The Great Party that you don't know the exact address, but you know, you think, it is in this neighborhood, and you and your buds drive in slow loops for hours, but you never find it and waste a whole Saturday night. Know what I mean? It is Happiness promised, postponed, you know someone else is having it and if you just knew the address so would you, but it is just out of reach, not lived.

I guess as the result of maturity and meditation, I am finding happiness actually involves a lot less movement these days, and a lot more stillness. Less chasing change, more sitting still long enough to observe what is actually going on.
It is not that I have conquered the lifelong habit of the Self Improvement Project. Far from it. But I am learning that the buzz, the distraction, is short lived, and offers no guarantee of lasting satisfaction. Actually, knowing that I KNOW that gives me...happiness. See, I am teachable!
It requires regular, prolonged doses of stillness to see the subtle, simple layers of life that add up to Being Present. When I slow down, I find a complex and textured kind of contentment that is far more satisfying than the yellow smiley face variety of Happy. I'm throwing my own party now.

craving New Mexico, and "The Coleslaw Different"

2011-04-10T14:28:00.002-04:00

The stage is set for greatness

mui bueno!

Elaine W-R gave me these cute spoons that are marked "pinch", "dash" "smidge" etc. I actually use them

bring on the barbeque, margaritas and mariachi band!

We are heading out to New Mexico soon for Skip's big workshop, Intensive Studies Seminar (www.isstaos.com) It is an annual painter's retreat that he co-teaches with four other artists. Check out the website for more info.

I am now in my full-blown anticipation/ obsession mode on all things New Mexican.
I love that place with an irrational, gut shuddering ardor. I fantasy real-estate hunt all the time on Trulia for my dream adobe, with a blue painted door with ristras hanging next to the wild growing hollyhocks.
In the evening, I stand on my deck as the sun goes down and look west toward the blue Catoctin mountains. I swear that if I squint just right I can see the silhouette of Cerro Pedernal rising beyond Sugarloaf. I mix and match new combinations of my navajo silver and turquoise jewelry with my thrift-store cowgirl duds. I walk around for weeks, months, before our trip with a fluttery anticipation of being reunited with a lover. I am besotted.

That passion, of course, runs directly through the kitchen. And today, my madness manifest in a little concoction I call Santa Fe Slaw. Or, "The Coleslaw Different"
I have some BBQ brisket and a slab o'ribs that I got take out from our local BBQ opium den CarterQue in Mount Airy. It is righteous Que, and from a girl born and raised in the Que capitol, Kansas City, that is high praise indeed! I thought the perfect accompaniment would be a crisp, refreshing coleslaw. Given my bend towards all things New Mexican, here is what I came up with. What typically happens while I am cooking is that I grab what I have in the fridge and cabinets and see where they lead me. I could see this Santa Fe Slaw on fish tacos, pulled pork, or in a low-carb roll-up of smoked turkey or sautee'd shrimp and slaw wrapped in lettuce leaves. Or just scooped, salsa style onto tortilla chips. Yummmm! I am making myself hungry! At least I know those ribs are waiting for me...and this slaw -which is really delicious, if I say so myself.
Here's How to Make It Yourself!

Di Santarella's Santa Fe Slaw

Toss together to mix in a big bowl:

(amounts are approximate, so feel free to adapt)
1/2 head green cabbage very finely shredded
1 red bell pepper cut neatly (or not) into little confetti
2 ribs celery finely sliced
4+ scallions, green and white sliced
Half a big bunch of cilantro washed and chopped - I love cilantro, so adjust +/- to your taste

Mix in a 2+ cup measuring pitcher:

Juice of 2 limes=1/4 cup
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
3 +/- cloves of garlic, crushed
grated zest of 1 lime
1/2 tsp smoked sweet Spanish paprika- if you do not have this in your spice repertoire GET IT: you will thank me later. It adds a deep, warm, complex flavor that elevates everything it touches.
1 "pinch" (or approx 1/16 tsp) ground chipotle pepper (go easy if you can't take the heat)
1/4 - 1/2 tsp cumin ( I like a lot)
1/2 c jarred salsa - I used an organic roasted tomato salsa from Safeway
1/4 c Hellman's mayo,( or buttermilk or plain yogurt, or even sour cream if you prefer)

Add the dressing to the slaw and mix together. Taste and correct seasoning. Since the jarred salsa is pretty salty, I do not add extra salt. Also, if you plan to serve it with salted chips, consider that as well.
I would serve it with diced fresh tomatoes and avocado, but added just before serving.
This slaw improves with a few hours sitting in the fridge: the warm spiciness of the chipotle and paprika and cumin start to "bloom."
You could also add diced cucumber, shredded carrots or jicama, even a can of drained black beans mixed in. But it is mighty fine just as it is. Enjoy! Let me know how you like it!

*remember: due to the mayo or dairy in the dressing you must keep this chilled

tender harvest

2011-04-06T15:19:00.005-04:00

Every vegetable gardener comes up on the same dilemma: you have nurtured your little seeds and seedlings, but now you must thin the babies to allow the few to mature.

It is so exciting to see that things are not only growing, but thriving. Those nights of carefully protecting the garden from rogue frosts and March winds have paid off. But the bittersweet moment of having to cull the rows of radishes and beets has arrived. For the tender roots to form nicely into tasty little globes of vegetal deliciousness, they need space. My natural tendency to go for MORE is not the impulse to indulge now. Rather, the careful, mindful Minimalist must reign. So there I was, with tiny cuticle scissors (it said to use them in the gardening book-I did not make this up!) judiciously snipping extraneous little radish sprouts and putting them into my colander. I was not going to squander the fruits of my labor! Remember the three thousand pounds of solid clay I hauled uphill five miles to make my veggie bed? Ok, perhaps I exaggerate a little. But there is sun, and rain and soil and worm caresses and bird serenades at work here, and I appreciate every bit! I added the snipped baby beet leaves and some arugula. A few red ruffles of lettuce, a couple pansies for style. This is beginning to look like lunch.

After washing my harvest , I added a bolster of crunchy chartreuse romaine leaves as a base. A light drizzle of roasted walnut oil, a mere splash of white balsamic vinegar, a toss of fleur de sel and lunch was served.
There is something almost sacramental about eating your own harvested vegetables. Forgive me while I wax poetic, or gush like a new mom, but I am hooked. With the conviction of a born again evangelist I believe if everyone could grow one little pot of their own salad there would be peace on earth and we'd all be saved.

Buddhist teacher, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche is known to have taught that with mindfulness, everything in life is "workable."
Workable, like this little patch of soil. Maybe I can't tackle giant global problems, or end world hunger, but I can work a little patch of ground and feed myself. And see intimately and immediately that what you sow, you most definitely reap. I can't stop the conflict in the Middle East, or on Capitol Hill, but I can work with the conflict in front of me.

That is Workability. That is the practice. Workable. Little sprouts and little snips, one little garden at a time.

bringing it to the masses: Eric Fischl's Circus Maximus

2011-03-31T10:38:00.004-04:00

Disclaimer: This painting is NOT by me, or Eric Fischl, or any of the artists mentioned in the article.

(I pinched it from a Mexican website that sells commissioned velvet portraits.
The title is "Sad Clown Who's Lost His Mojo"
http://www.velvetpaintings.com/galleries/galleries.shtml)

The public may be disappointed to find it missing from "America:Now and Here"

No Kincaid either.

Tough.

It is a big dream, but one worth dreaming!

If you bring culture and creativity to the masses will they embrace it? Be curious? Maybe even like it?

I am cautiously optimistic.

But they better have cotton candy and corn dogs. and porkrinds. and Beer.

Culture, Rolling Into Towns on Big Rigs

Published: March 30, 2011

For Eric Fischl’s project “America: Now and Here,” truck museums will rove the country and set up like state fairs, swapping Tilt-a-Whirls for paintings, photos, music, short plays and documentaries.

March 30, 2011
Culture, Rolling Into Towns on Big Rigs

By RANDY KENNEDY

Trucks transport 70 percent of the freight in the United States, according to the Department of Transportation. And if a prominent New York artist and his friends have their way, a tiny fraction of that total — six 18-wheelers full, to be exact — will soon be a variety of cargo not usually found barreling down the interstate: art, fresh from painters’ studios; poets’, playwrights’ and songwriters’ pens; and filmmakers’ cameras.

After years of rumors about a Great American Art Trip in the works, the painter Eric Fischl has announced a privately financed program in which a truck-based roving museum and performance space will tour the country for two years to address what he sees as an identity crisis in American culture.

The idea, he said in an interview, grew out of a strong conviction in the years after 9/11 that the country, as it grew more politically polarized, was losing a sense of its place and direction in the world, more so than at any time since the 1960s.

“This came just from talking to friends, peers, acquaintances, students, local grocers, whoever I talked to,” he said. “America doesn’t usually turn to its artists for help with something like that, but I actually think it’s something that artists do very well. And I thought, ‘If America won’t turn to its artists, then I know a lot of pretty famous artists and I’ll ask them to go out and do it themselves.’ ”

The project, called “America: Now and Here,” will begin with a nonvehicular preview before the specially outfitted trucks are built, setting up first in Kansas City, Mo., in a temporary exhibition space that will open on May 6. The show will move on to similar spaces in Detroit in July and Chicago in October.

Then in fall 2012, the plan is for six trailer trucks to hit the road, stopping in towns and smaller cities that have yet to be selected, where the convoy will set up like a miniature state fair, swapping the Tilt-a-Whirls and show pigs for paintings and photographs by artists like Ed Ruscha, Susan Rothenberg, Gregory Crewdson, Laurie Simmons and David Salle; short, conversational plays by writers like Edward Albee and Marsha Norman; and music by artists like Lou Reed, Philip Glass and Roseanne Cash. Four of the truck trailers will partially unfold and link together to create a 3,300-square-foot gallery space, and two more will contain materials for a covered pavilion and a screen and seating area to show short films by documentary makers like Lauren Greenfield and Mitch McCabe.

The project has also recruited 54 well-known poets, who collaborated on “Crossing State Lines,” a book of linked verse in the tradition of the Japanese renga, published this week by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

For those with long memories of the lore of art and the open road, the project may bring to mind the 1979 comic song “Truckload of Art,” by the Texas artist and songwriter Terry Allen, among the musicians recruited by Mr. Fischl to participate. In the song a group of New York artists rent a “spankin’ new, white-shiny, chrome-plated cab-over Peterbilt” and fill it with “hot avant-garde” to drive to California and show up their West Coast counterparts.

The truck in the song overturns — “a terrible sight if a person were to see it, but there weren’t nobody around” — a fate Mr. Fischl and his collaborators hope to avoid.

They also take pains to stress that their tour is not about trying to show up anyone else’s idea of art, or to instruct people who live outside the major art centers about the merits of big-city contemporary culture.

“The conversation we’re hoping to start is not about art but through art,” said Dorothy Dunn, a former official at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, who will serve as the program’s director. In each city and region the show visits, she said, it will collaborate with local artists and institutions, and the hope is that it will be able to raise enough money to continue beyond its initial two-year run, with new groups of artists.

Mr. Fischl said the project was raising money from some of the participating artists as well as from foundations and corporations. Though a few artists he approached declined to take part — “There were artists who were scared, I think, that it sounded nationalistic or patriotic with the capital P” — most, he said, seemed eager to have a chance to reach audiences outside museums and galleries and commercial theaters.

“The art world has become incredibly insular,” he said. “There’s such a disconnect between what artists are trying to do and how what they make ultimately gets used.”

Though he first considered conducting the tour by train, he said, he and others felt that trucks would allow them to go more places.

“Plus, when these trucks come to town and unfold, people are going to be totally curious about what’s inside them, in the same way they are when the circus or Nascar comes to town,” he added. “Americans love trucks; they aren’t intimidated by them.”

Ms. Norman, the playwright, said in an interview that she saw the program as providing people with ways to think about America other than those offered by the media and pop culture.

“As much as we love Brian Williams, I don’t think he can tell us in the same way as a painter or a poet what it really feels like to live in Iowa,” she said.

But she added that giving artists a blank slate and free rein to create whatever they wanted was always tricky, especially for an exhibition that will set up shop in areas of the country much more conservative than New York or Los Angeles.

“You ask playwrights for a response and of course you’re going to get three works that are going to have naked people in them,” she said, adding that the project was still trying to figure out how it would handle that. “One of our jokes is that we’re going to set up the ‘Nude Tent,’ and whoever wants to come in and see those plays can.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/arts/design/eric-fischls-america-now-and-here-project.html

spring equinox super moon gardening madness

2011-03-22T10:09:00.001-04:00

before...I know it doesn't look like much but it was a lot of clay!

after!

Now I am going to go sit over there with an iced tea and watch the lettuces grow!

The unusually warm weather has me in a gardening mania. Let's hear it for GlobalWarming!

Last Thursday, I decided to sacrifice half of a perennial bed and start a vegetable garden. From scratch. Meaning I dug/hacked the 9'x2'x12"deep trench, hauled out at least two thousand pounds of clay and refilled it with delicious healthy soil. Whew. Done.

I then set up the hoses and soakers, which is a bitch of a job! I recommend stretching out the soakers and letting them warm in the sun before trying to lay them in the garden. Otherwise it is like wrestling with an anaconda. Probably much funnier to watch than to do. I got the damned soakers down, then I let the bed rest for a couple days.

Meanwhile, I have decided to let my deck pots earn their keep by growing edibles in them, too, rather than simply flowers. I can mix lettuces and herbs with pansies and nasturtiums and marigolds. I do have a Master Plan-sort of: Since I have to redo so many pots anyway when we come back from Maine, I figure I can get a 'crop' out of them before we go and not have to worry about keeping a bunch of flowers alive while we're gone. I can then replant the pots with a variety of cherry tomatoes, scallions, basils, and fall and winter kales and chards and more lettuces, etc, when we return. So while the bed was basking in its' fertile duskiness, I was busy mixing up fresh soil and planting up some mini-gardens on my deck. Daffodils planted with lettuce seed and dill, radishes and marigolds, mesclun mix and johnny jump-ups. Beautiful and delicious.

perfect blue

2011-03-14T08:45:00.001-04:00

This blue will stop me in my tracks and make me breathe deeply, every time.
It is a blue that everyone on the planet can see, maybe not simultaneously, but it is there.
It is the perfect blue, the color of the sky at this moment, right here.
I want a silk satin gown this color. It is Guadalupe's veil. Babies' eyes. English delphinium and Himalayan poppies. Icebergs.
Perfect beauty, perfect peace is always right there. You just have to look...and allow yourself to be touched.

who needs boring old education anyway?

2011-03-10T09:38:00.004-05:00

If I only had a brain...OK, here you go! One brain coming up! Accepted almost in all countries of the world, and Oz.

Are you tired of the same old- same old e-mails that promise you an inheritance from some African prince in exile if only you send them your bank account numbers, social security numbers, a pound of flesh and your firstborn? Is your in-box yawning from the boring offers for viagra and cialis?
Well, here is a new spin on the spammy e-mail that had me laughing so hard that I had to share...
It certainly offers an option to look forward to after the Federal budget is gutted of all education funding.
Hurray! I can finally fulfill my dream of being a Doctor of Neuroscience with a Masters in Theology, and an undergrad in Nuclear Physics! All I need is a credit card!
Here is the email copied in toto so you can call NOW for your "real, actual, perspective education!"

From: Margret Benton

Subject: Opportunities from a trusted company!

Date: March 10, 2011 3:48:33 AM EST

To: Diane Santarella <

Reply-To: sebrownd@reactiondesign.com

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Please leave us the infarmation:
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And here is another spam I got this week. Same theme, different version. I might like this one even better!

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Please leave us the infarmation:
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2) Your Country
3) Telephone No. with country code if you are outside USA
Please Do Not Reply to this Email.
We do not reply to text inquiries, and our server will reject all response traffic.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

This is not a spam
If you dont want to receive this message to your e-mail, call this number and refuse it - spell your e-mail

The Fairy tales and miracles in this life are not a lot. But a personal plan to make a life beautiful is quite possible to create.

You will need:

1. Call us

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Please leave us the infarmation:

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3) Telephone No. with country code if you are outside USA

Please Do Not Reply to this Email.

We do not reply to text inquiries, and our server will reject all response traffic.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

new paintings

2011-03-03T16:22:00.000-05:00

Since you have been wondering...

Here's what I have been doing in the studio.

New paintings in The Oyster and The Pearl series:

PEARL,VI Diane Santarella, 36 x 24, mixed media on board

PEARL,VII Diane Santarella, 30 x 24, mixed media on board

Large Oyster Shell III, Diane Santarella, 36x24, acrylic on board

empty, or another way of looking at the bowl

2011-02-23T09:22:00.003-05:00

Stone Bowl, Diane Santarella, 2010

  “Perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add,
   but when there is nothing left to take away.”

   Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Bluebird pics

2011-02-21T11:28:00.001-05:00

The happy couple checking out the front birdhouse

Ms. Blue on top of the back house, Mr Blue on the fence

Here are a couple of pics from yesterday morning.
Blues house hunting.

The Return of the Blue Flash

2011-02-17T13:17:00.006-05:00

February Dusk, Diane Santarella, 36x24, acrylic on canvas, 2008

It is 68.5 degrees today. It may only be February 17th, but Spring feels like it is coming on fast.

The Bluebirds are Back!

They made their annual New Years' Day appearance at the box, then I didn't see them in our yard for a while. I could, however, hear them, now and then, their distinctive chortling popping out among the other bird songs. I would see them flitting around the neighborhood on my walks with Simon, a welcome blue flash, a banner of outrageous cerulean against the drab snow shrouded landscape. Apparently my neighborhood is Bluebird Haven. Every other house has a nice bluebird box posted in their yard, and I always see the Blues flying around. Very sweet. They are so unlikely, so Disneyesque, that it delights me every time I see one. There is a hardwired necessity for beauty and whimsy and the persistence of the unlikely in our world, in our psyches. Bluebirds recalibrate my overtaxed sense of optimism and restores a little hope to the world.

On Valentine's Day, appropriately, they returned to Casa Lawrence, in full force. There were two pair, plus quite a few male suitors checking out both our birdhouses. The males and females would take turns going in and out of the house, measuring for drapes and carpet. Then they'd go sit next to each other on a nearby branch and discuss it, the male doing an emphatic flutter of his wings now and then to show enthusiasm: nice view, good source of berries and water and bugs, really nice landlords willing to wait on our every whim, what do you think, should we move in and make some eggs?

For winter, Skip installed a heated birdbath on the deck. The bluebirds discovered it and the nearby suet feeder. Yesterday we had quite a little party going on: three Flickers, a bunch Chickadees, Goldfinches, Titmice, Juncos and four Blues! Right outside my back door! I was so amazed to see the Blues on my deck that I watched them dumbfounded and didn't think to grab my camera right on the counter to take a picture. But I will! I promise.

Now, every morning we have coffee and check to see who is at both birdhouses. They were singing up such a racket this morning that I could hear them inside with the windows closed. They are in full courtship mode, the males singing and fluttering on the topmost branches of the tallest trees. That is a morning news report that I look forward to.

If you would like to know more about our blue-feathered guests, here is a fabulous website:
A link to a resource for all things Bluebird

When Picasso Changed His Tune: NY TIMES Arts Review

2011-02-11T08:44:00.001-05:00

Picasso's guitars at MOMA photo:Marilyn K. Yee, NY TIMES

Here is a terrific piece on the show, "Picasso: Guitars, 1912-1914" at MOMA.

It is important to remember the shoulders of the giants we all stand on. Who exploded the possibilities of form, deconstructed the definition of art, asked "Why not?" and "What if?"
Humbling, amusing, confounding and inspiring....
Let's go see the show, OK? It is up until June 6.

link here to read the whole article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/arts/design/11picasso.html

21+21 at The Waverly Street Gallery

2011-02-08T11:09:00.000-05:00

21 + 21

WAVERLY STREET GALLERY

MEMBERS INVITATIONAL SHOW

PEARL,I, Diane Santarella, mixed media on canvas, 24x24, 2010

PEARL,III, Diane Santarella, mixed media on canvas, 24x24, 2010

February 8 - March 5, 2011
Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 12 - 6PM
Reception: Friday, February 11, 6-9PM

The Waverly Street Gallery

4600 East-West Highway, Bethesda, Md 20814
(301) 951-9441

www.waverlystreetgallery.com

January in New York City

2011-01-24T16:34:00.003-05:00

The Voyage by Robert Motherwell

Me and Pollock

Skip and Rothko

We took a short trip into NYC for a few days last week to celebrate our anniversary.
What better way to celebrate than with great museums, great jazz and great theater.
These factors were all in the mix Tuesday morning: an ice storm, a snow plow, a 6 tractor trailer accident, a closed highway, a cancelled bus, a rescheduled bus, an over heated bus, more ice storm. But we made it into NYC, delayed, but in one piece.
Our first stop was Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, a supper club style venue in the Lincoln Center Jazz complex. We had a front and center table Tuesday night for the Marcus Roberts Trio, featuring Jason Marsalis and Rodney Jordan. They were searingly good! Masterful. Astonishing. I am always in awe of musicians, and when they play like these guys, I am just enthralled. What a blast!
Dizzy's is a fabulous spot for hearing serious jazz in a comfortable setting. Great acoustics, elegant space, a nightlight backdrop of Columbus Circle all in velvet and diamond. Decent food, very good cocktails, excellent service. It is not a grungy jazz cavern of the old school, but what it lacks in history it makes up in quality. I'd go back in a minute. We went for the first show, and since the crappy weather seemed to keep the typical crowds away, we were able to stay for the second set, sans cover charge. Nice!

Wednesday we headed to MOMA. The main attraction was the huge Abstract Expressionism show that they are hailing as the definitive AbEx survey. One thing I am learning about MOMA, is that I always find something else that is a surprise, a revelation that totally steals the thunder from the big headline show. This trip, it is a show called "On Line." It is a comprehensive exploration of "drawing," from 2D, to pieces that incorporate line elements off the flat plane (ie, Eva Hesse), to modern dance and performance art that uses the motion of line moving through space. It is one of the most fascinating, well presented shows I have seen in a long time. Unfortunately, we could not take photos. The book that accompanies this show is a real disappointment. So many of these pieces rely on the light moving over the piece in space, or the relative scale of materials...it just does not reproduce into a book.
But if you can get to MOMA to see this show--DO!
As for the big AbEx show...gotta say, a let down. Maybe because this is all stuff from MOMA's own collection, and they normally have the best of it out anyway, it was like they backfilled with B and C grade paintings. Or maybe because I go to museums so frequently and see so much work that is truly great, that this show just seemed to lack anything new...for me. If you have never seen these paintings, then go, by all means. I just want to learn something new, rather than just go and congratulate MOMA on it's collection of nauseating early Pollocks. Now their later Pollocks...that's another story. But they have them up all the time anyway...so no rush to see them in this show.

Matisse's "Goldfish" and details from the painting

What was a revelation were, however, the returned Matisse's, on display in the museums's regular collection. Matisse's dark paintings were just in a show focusing on the period between the Wars, so were not up in June when I was last at MOMA.

The audacity, rawness and beauty of them just gets me every time. The modernity of his compositions and surface, a disregard for conventional prettiness, pure unguarded emotion. That one room full of big of Matisses was worth the hot three hour bus trip.

Wednesday night we had a pre-theater dinner at Ca Va, Todd English's restaurant in the revamped Intercontinental in Times Square. Times Square is such an overpriced tourist trap that finding a reasonably priced and excellent pre-theater dinner was a boon. I was sad to have to wrap up our dining to make an 8:00 curtain, the food was so good, and our server was a delight. The only negative is that the sound level is surprisingly high for the space, not helped by too loud techno club music. It's not the type of music, actually a relief from the ubiquitous Buble/Sinatra loop, just the volume made conversation strained. But, I would definitely go back again for a meal or drinks. With more time to linger over the perfect creme brulee...

We saw the legendary James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave in "Driving Miss Daisy." Well done! No surprises, just the joy of watching fine artists doing what they love, having spent their lives developing their craft. At curtain call they were as glowing and energized as a couple of college students, beaming from ear to ear and applauding each other and the audience.

Thursday, we hit The Whitney. The 'revelation' there was a retrospective by sculptor Charles LeDray, called "workworkwork." LeDray plays with gender roles, macho mythology, and haunting suggestions of abuse in the surprising form of impeccable miniaturized sculptures of clothes. By changing the scale and condition of the "costume," LeDray focuses our attention on the messages and masks our social costumes convey. Other pieces incorporate tiny thrown pots, thousands of them, each unique, or delicate tiny pieces carved from human bone. It is an extensive show and the sensation a little like " falling down the rabbit hole." I found the content very moving and his craft in communicating it is truly amazing. It is a show I will be thinking about for a long, long time.

We collapsed onto an afternoon bus, not so hot or crowded this time, and headed home before the next wave of snow and sleet were scheduled to arrive.

people who need people

2011-01-14T09:41:00.003-05:00

In light of the events in Tucson this last week, I am dipping my toes into political waters here.
Or rather, I am letting David Brooks' eloquent op-ed piece from the New York Times today say it for me.
Except for the puritanical terminology of "sin", this expresses my own frustration with what has happened in the media and in our culture. Why is winning so much more important than playing the game, and learning how we can all succeed? The cult of the individual has become bullying and dull. Inclusiveness is infinitely much more interesting. The sad truth is that bullies are bullies because they are afraid to expose their own tender vulnerability, their ordinariness. This narcissism is a deep and corrosive form of aggression that we are becoming acclimated to in our daily lives as 'normal". I must win, therefore, you lose. Ultimately, we all lose.

Buddhist teacher, Pema Chodron describes a technique to to help one connect with our human inclusiveness, to decrease our sense of cocooned and righteous individuality. While sitting in traffic or in a grocery line, when you glance at a "stranger," take a moment to really look at them, and say to yourself, "Just like me, they are in a hurry, or afraid or silly, jealous, heartbroken, or joyful." Just like me, they are simply, fallibly, complicatedly, vulnerably human. Do this exercise a few times and feel yourself less alone. Welcome back to the human race.

So, Mr. Brooks, I thank you for your insightful words. Now, the floor is yours...
(Italics in the text are mine, by the way)

For original text from NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/opinion/14brooks.html

For a transcript of President Obama's eloquent and moving speech in Tucson go here: (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/01/12/remarks-president-barack-obama-memorial-service-victims-shooting-tucson; accessed January 15, 2011.)

January 13, 2011

Tree of Failure

By DAVID BROOKS

President Obama gave a wonderful speech in Tucson on Wednesday night. He didn’t try to explain the rampage that occurred there. Instead, he used the occasion as a national Sabbath — as a chance to step out of the torrent of events and reflect. He did it with an uplifting spirit. He not only expressed the country’s sense of loss but also celebrated the lives of the victims and the possibility for renewal.

Of course, even a great speech won’t usher in a period of civility. Speeches about civility will be taken to heart most by those people whose good character renders them unnecessary. Meanwhile, those who are inclined to intellectual thuggery and partisan one-sidedness will temporarily resolve to do better but then slip back to old habits the next time their pride feels threatened.

Civility is a tree with deep roots, and without the roots, it can’t last. So what are those roots? They are failure, sin, weakness and ignorance.

Every sensible person involved in politics and public life knows that their work is laced with failure. Every column, every speech, every piece of legislation and every executive decision has its own humiliating shortcomings. There are always arguments you should have made better, implications you should have anticipated, other points of view you should have taken on board.

Moreover, even if you are at your best, your efforts will still be laced with failure. The truth is fragmentary and it’s impossible to capture all of it. There are competing goods that can never be fully reconciled. The world is more complicated than any human intelligence can comprehend.

But every sensible person in public life also feels redeemed by others. You may write a mediocre column or make a mediocre speech or propose a mediocre piece of legislation, but others argue with you, correct you and introduce elements you never thought of. Each of these efforts may also be flawed, but together, if the system is working well, they move things gradually forward.

Each individual step may be imbalanced, but in succession they make the social organism better.

As a result, every sensible person feels a sense of gratitude for this process. We all get to live lives better than we deserve because our individual shortcomings are transmuted into communal improvement. We find meaning — and can only find meaning — in the role we play in that larger social enterprise.

So this is where civility comes from — from a sense of personal modesty and from the ensuing gratitude for the political process. Civility is the natural state for people who know how limited their own individual powers are and know, too, that they need the conversation. They are useless without the conversation.

The problem is that over the past 40 years or so we have gone from a culture that reminds people of their own limitations to a culture that encourages people to think highly of themselves. The nation’s founders had a modest but realistic opinion of themselves and of the voters. They erected all sorts of institutional and social restraints to protect Americans from themselves. They admired George Washington because of the way he kept himself in check.

But over the past few decades, people have lost a sense of their own sinfulness. Children are raised amid a chorus of applause. Politics has become less about institutional restraint and more about giving voters whatever they want at that second. Joe DiMaggio didn’t ostentatiously admire his own home runs, but now athletes routinely celebrate themselves as part of the self-branding process.

So, of course, you get narcissists who believe they or members of their party possess direct access to the truth. Of course you get people who prefer monologue to dialogue. Of course you get people who detest politics because it frustrates their ability to get 100 percent of what they want. Of course you get people who gravitate toward the like-minded and loathe their political opponents. They feel no need for balance and correction.

Beneath all the other things that have contributed to polarization and the loss of civility, the most important is this: The roots of modesty have been carved away.

President Obama’s speech in Tucson was a good step, but there will have to be a bipartisan project like comprehensive tax reform to get people conversing again. Most of all, there will have to be a return to modesty.

In a famous passage, Reinhold Niebuhr put it best: “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. ... Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore, we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.”

little visitor

2011-01-06T10:00:00.000-05:00

Here is my little friend, Atticus Finch. He whacked into my patio door yesterday morning and I found him lying on the deck. I gently scooped him up to see if he was injured. He sat very quietly in my hand, but did not appear to be injured, or even in shock. Just sat there quietly, blinking normally, breathing regularly, steady little heartbeat. After about fifteen minutes I tried to set him on a flowerpot outside so he could fly away. He fluttered his wings reluctantly and hopped back onto my hand. So we visited a little longer. He was looking around, alert, but seemed quite content to sit in my hand and let me stroke his silky head. And I was quite content to entertain this unexpected visitor from the wild realm. So we sat for a bit longer. Then he fluttered with a little more resolve. Back we went out to the deck and off he flew, up to the big maple tree to rejoin his goldfinch family. Happily ever after...

one word resolution: empty

2011-01-01T08:50:00.003-05:00

empty hallway filled with shadows : National Gallery, Washington, DC, photo:D Santarella

My friend, Ginny Rowan sent an email about picking a one word resolution for the year. Easier to remember, and, therefore, easier to keep. Some of the resolutions from last year include: simplify, exuberance, breathe, efficient, flexible, faith...etc,etc, and memorably, BUTTER. If you followed my baking orgy last winter you might suspect that was mine. My word for 2010 was "now."(As in "bake it and eat it NOW", apparently!)

My word for 2011 is "empty"

My word might seem odd, or counterproductive.

The word actually came to me during a meditation the other day, before Ginny's resolution reminder, and it resonated so deeply that I knew it was something I needed to stay with.

I got a singing bowl for Christmas. It's a beautiful brass bowl about the size and shape of a canteloupe, that when struck, sends forth a full, round, resonant gong that immediately calls one's senses to order and calm. It is struck to begin a meditation session and to close one. It settles the mind and as you follow that diminishing tone to its' seeming infinity, off you go to wiser, quieter places. In theory...

Unless you have a monkey mind like mine! So here I am on my cushion and it's the first time I am sitting meditation with my new singing bowl, and I strike it. It sends out that lovely ancient tone----Gggoooooooooonnngggggg--- and I am FASCINATED. Suddenly curious monkey has to figure this out! I am gazing at this bowl, a glowing, golden circle, a hollow sphere filled with shimmering light and dancing shadow, and this big sound is filling the room...from where? The bowl is empty, but full of sound. The room is empty, but full of sound, my mind is empty, but full of thoughts, my thoughts are empty, but full of feelings, my feelings are empty... except for what I endow them with ............

OOoooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

E M P T Y

empty breath in, empty breath out....

That was a good sit that day.

I know the thought of emptiness can seem scary to many people. It seems so counter to the "affirm a full wallet/ bank account/ pantry/ resume prosperity thinking" that is popular. But bear with me a moment: if what you are holding onto is already full, where is the room for fresh possibilities? Thoughts become rigid, beliefs become traps, we grasp at dust and shadows, projections of security that keep us insecure.

In Buddhist philosophy, emptiness is the primordial, pure state. And in typical Buddhist seeming contradiction, emptiness is also fullness, fullness/emptiness. Both exist at once, one cannot exist without the other. It is not an easy concept. It is something that is best sort of viewed from the corner of your eye, because as soon as you look at it too closely it is gone. Fill 'emptiness' with definitions and it is not empty any more.

For me, right here, right now, the most applicable piece of this is to see thoughts, fears, judgements, even joy, for just a flashing moment of possibility, as empty. Empty of any real power and permanence except what I choose to endow them with. I can just keep that word, that aspiration, "EMPTY" on a mental post-it. Let it disarm the charge of the thought, even a just little. It feels lighter already.

That is my hope. My practice. My one word resolution for 2011

Lunar Eclipse for Winter Solstice, December 21, 2010

2010-12-20T16:34:00.001-05:00

I always like to mark the Winter Solstice with some kind of ritual to honor the passing of old, worn out, outgrown, habits, relationships, beliefs, and to let them fade into the Darkness of the dying year, and to welcome the fresh, new, healthy, creative changes with the returning Light. There is a powerful shift in the Earth's energies, when possibilities emerge and flourish in the fertile ground of a comitted heart.

It seems that Nature has the ultimate ritual ready to mark this transition: a Full Moon Lunar Eclipse on Winter Solstice !!! This is like a royal flush, jackpot, winning lottery ticket in terms of a cosmic event, so get your lists (and be very mindful of what you invoke!) of

"To Be Gratefully Released" and "To Be Joyously Manifest" ready.

HAPPY, HEALTHY, PROSPEROUS

P E A C E F U L

NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!

This article is an excerpt from this week's newsletter from Upaya Zen Center in

Santa Fe, New Mexico

To read the entire newsletter, which is a weekly dose of heart-opening, thought-provoking and socially concerned info, go to

http://www.upaya.org/newsletter/view/2010/12/20

Lunar Eclipse and Winter Solstice December 21

Skygazers hoping to catch the last lunar eclipse of 2010 on Tuesday morning best be ready to stay up late (or wake up very early) to watch the full moon as it goes through a range of dramatic color changes.

The December 21 lunar eclipse is expected to last about three-and-a-half hours from its start as a partial eclipse at 1:33 a.m. ET to its finish at 5:01 a.m. ET, according to NASA. The previous lunar eclipse occurred June 26.

During a lunar eclipse, the moon, the Earth, and the sun align so that the sun's rays are shielded from the moon. An eclipse of the moon can only take place if the moon is full, and only if the moon passes through some portion of Earth's shadow, which is composed of two cone-shaped parts, one nested inside the other.

The start of the total eclipse is expected around 2:41 a.m, when the entire moon passes through the Earth's umbra, or inner shadow, which blocks all direct sunlight from reaching the moon.

The moon will take on a vibrant red color until 3:35 a.m., according to NASA.

Before and after the total eclipse, the moon will pass through the penumbra, or outer region of the Earth's shadow, where Earth blocks some of the sun's rays, but not all.

The entire event is visible from North America, Greenland and Iceland. Western Europe will see the beginning stages of the eclipse before moonset while western Asia will get the later stages after moonrise. To find out the best viewing times outside of the Eastern Time Zone, check out NASA's page on the December 21 lunar eclipse, and then refer to this handy guide for converting times.

(Source: http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/12/17/final-lunar-eclipse-of-2010-set-for-early-morning-of-december-21/?hpt=T2; accessed December 18, 2010.)

http://www.upaya.org/newsletter/view/2010/12/20

my personal bodhisatva

2010-12-18T12:02:00.002-05:00

My personal Bodhisatva, at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, photo:D Santarella

On of the best parts of visiting Kansas City, is a visit to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

As I was growing up, this place was my university, my cathedral, my temple, my sanctuary, mine.
My mom, with rare insight and sensitivity, sent me to art school at the Museum, every summer, from preschool through junior high. These classes were unique in that we had the entire museum as our reference library. Each day, the teachers would lead the class to one of the galleries or out into the sculpture park and use the wealth of art there to illustrate a particular idea, bit of history and culture, introduce an artist or technique. I think back to those days, as I walk the polished marble halls now, and picture those classes following the teacher like a flock of little ducks. Down hallways and galleries lined with everything from Egyptian antiquities, European Renaissance Madonnas, Chinese scrolls, to Monets, Louise Nevelson and Mark Rothko. After exploring the art in the galleries, we would go back to our bright, colorful classroom and use the lesson to make our own art. I love to go to the education department now and see the amazing artwork, made by the students, lining the halls. Such heart and originality! It was a precious experience for me as a child to have been able to feed and form my mind and imagination in such a rich and open environment. I treasure it. I consider the education I received there to be of university quality, and wouldn't trade it for a Ph.D.
Now about that Personal Bodhisatva...
This Kuan Yin, or as it is spelled at the museum, Guanyin, is a familiar image seen around the world. If you read Shambhala Sun Magazine, she has appeared on and in the magazine many times. She is a magnificent example of Buddhist sculpture, larger than life and exquisitely beautiful, displayed like a queen on a throne in a gorgeous hall at The Nelson-Atkins Museum. She is one of the museums treasures in their world-class collection of Asian art. So given my access and familiarity with the museum from a young age, I have known her intimately my whole life. And maybe other lifetimes...
Once, when our class of little art ducks visited Guanyin's gallery, I, all of age 5, slipped under the velvet rope and began to climb onto her lap.The teacher swiftly pulled me off and reminded me, firmly, that we do not climb on the sculpture! I was quite indignant and insistent that "They always let me climb on her before!" Of course, I knew we don't climb on sculpture-duh!-but she was mine! I had a very hard time convincing the teacher or anyone else that I had behind the ropes privilege status. It was such a strong, distinct memory, that to this day, I feel a little estranged when I visit her, this side of the ropes. Maybe in another lifetime I was a little monk, or a temple mouse... At any rate, she is mine, and visiting her is like visiting a dear friend, who knows how long and far I have travelled and is always glad to see me come home again.

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Christmas PRESENT

2010-12-07T17:45:00.002-05:00

Kansas City knows how to do Christmas!
photo:john dominis

We are spending some time in Kansas City, Missouri, to celebrate the season with my family.
I am especially looking forward to being there for a certain young gentleman's first visit to Santa!

It is a beautiful city, and at the holidays Kansas City pulls out all the stops. I believe the tradition of outlining buildings with Christmas lights started on The Country Club Plaza (pictured) back in the 1920's, when it staked it's claim as America's first modern "shopping center." Entire neighborhoods line the walkways with glittering processions of luminaria, and neighbors compete for the most elegant and elaborate decorating scheme. This is a city that gets it's Christmas on big!

Despite all the sparkle and tinsel, nothing can kick one's practice into high gear like the family dynamic at holidays. I spent a lot of holidays absent, either physically on the other side of the country or emotionally checked-out. I bet that sounds familiar to a lot of you... Something to do with anticipation, expectations, attachments, and that old slide show of hurtful memories that seems to get dragged out at the holidays.
It's the challenge of being PRESENT in the PRESENT when the Ghosts of Christmases Past just won't rest easy.

So many of these wounds are self-perpetuated. The original hurt was decades or lifetimes ago, but we are the ones who cling to it, nurse it, my precioussss! While I was sitting meditation today, I was letting this flow through. What came up is "holding turf or holding possibility." This is so often what happens in relationships: we hold onto familiar turf, that ground where we feel secure, feel right, and we defend it fiercely, even if that turf is rocky and barren and polluted. We defend it at the expense of harmony, of perspective, of the possibility of something different! Of a new direction opening up, a new relationship. At the expense of the PRESENT. And the future.

So this is the gift I am giving myself - and everyone I am in relationship with - this holiday season. The ultimate Christmas PRESENT. I am setting the aspiration to be in the here and now, to not drag out the ugly slide show, the list of grievances. To relate in the light of Possibility...of "what if we did it this way instead of the same tired old roles..."
It's not going to be easy, and the best I can guarantee is an honest, heartfelt comittment.

So unwrap your Present...I hope you like it. I made it just for you.

the flavors of Autumn

2010-11-17T12:35:00.004-05:00

Sadly, I cannot take credit for either making this gorgeous pie or taking the photo. Or eating it, for that matter! See the original and many more, in the NYTimes article http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/dining/17pies.html

Now that the show is up and running, I can kick back a bit. A BIT. There is a lot of autumnal garden management to tend to. The tapestry of foliage is exquisite this year, which makes an inspiring backdrop to be outside working in.
And, of course, Thanksgiving is coming up. That means it is time to get out the stacks of cookbooks and get cozy in front of the fireplace while visions of delicacies dance in my head...
The thing with Thanksgiving is that although it is tempting to go out on a culinary limb and try new things, what everyone really wants are the familiar favorites, the traditional comforting flavors, done really well. So my Thanksgiving "kitchen practice" becomes one of honing timing, polishing technique and refinement of flavors, rather than risk and adventure.
I do love looking at those recipes though! (Nigella has a new book out, too) I can actually taste them as I read through the steps and lists of ingredients...especially the d e s s e r t s!

This recipe is in the New York Times today and I have to share it. It makes me want to get out my springform and rolling pin and start making pie! I can smell the buttery crust baking already. This recipe is a fine example of not so much reinventing the wheel, but making a truly exquisite one.
original recipe as published in NY Times

November 16, 2010
Rye Pecan Pie
Adapted from Diner, Brooklyn

Time: 2 hours, plus chilling

FOR THE CRUST:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 pound cold unsalted butter, cut into dice
1/2 cup ice water, more as needed
About 5 cups dried beans (for baking)
FOR THE FILLING:
5 eggs
1 1/4 cups light brown sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup molasses, dark or unsulfured
1/3 cup light corn syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3 tablespoons rye or bourbon, not more than 90 proof
2 cups finely chopped pecans
2 1/2 cups pecan halves
Whipped cream, for serving.
1. Make the crust: In a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, combine flour, salt and white sugar at low speed. Add butter and mix until pea-size lumps form. Raise the speed to medium-low and add 1/2 cup ice water in a slow, steady stream, mixing just until dough holds together. To test, pinch a small amount of dough. If it is crumbly, add more ice water, one tablespoon at a time. Shape dough into a ball and wrap it loosely in plastic, then roll it into a disk. Refrigerate at least one hour, or up to 3 days, before rolling. (Dough can be frozen for up to a month.)

2. Open a 10-inch springform pan, flip the bottom over so the outside surface faces in, then close. This will make removing the pie easier when it is done, by preventing the dough from sinking into the pan’s crease. On a lightly floured surface, roll chilled dough into a circle 16 inches in diameter. Lift it and let it settle into pan, fitting the dough down into the edges. Press the sides firmly against pan and pinch around the top rim. Trim dough with kitchen scissors so it hangs over the rim by one inch, reserving excess. Refrigerate in pan until very cold and firm, at least 45 minutes.

3. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Prick bottom of dough with a fork. Lay a piece of parchment or wax paper in pan, then a piece of aluminum foil. Fill foil lining with dried beans to top of pan. Bake 15 to 25 minutes, until the sides of the crust have set and turned a light golden brown. Remove from oven and lift out the beans, foil and parchment. Patch any holes with reserved dough, pressing firmly. Bake 10 to 15 minutes more, until golden brown. Let cool at least 30 minutes before filling.

4. Fill the pie: Heat oven to 325 degrees. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, brown sugar, melted butter, molasses, corn syrup, vanilla, salt and rye or bourbon. Place baked pie shell, still in the pan, on a sheet pan. Gently pour in the filling. Sprinkle chopped pecans evenly over surface. Working from outside in, arrange pecan halves in concentric circles, without overlapping, until entire surface is covered. (Use only as many as needed.)

5. Bake 50 to 60 minutes, just until filling is firm and a wooden skewer comes out clean when inserted into center. (Do not worry if the overhanging crust becomes very dark brown.) Let cool completely. Use a serrated knife to saw off all overhanging pie crust. Carefully remove outer ring of pan. Slice with a large, very sharp knife and serve with whipped cream.

Yield: About 12 servings.

hanging THE OYSTER and THE PEARL

2010-11-04T11:26:00.000-04:00

THE OYSTER and THE PEARL is up and running.

Skip helped me hang on Monday, and I went back on Tuesday to put on finishing touches.

Now I can relax until the opening reception Saturday evening.

If you are in Frederick Saturday, drop by The Artists' Gallery for a glass of wine: I'd love to meet you.

catching my breath

2010-10-29T18:00:00.000-04:00

I have been in perpetual motion, it seems, for two months. Lots of projects all coming to fruition at once, lots of detail work...Primary among the projects is my art show, which I will hang Monday or Tuesday. It will open Friday.

I want to send a "Hello" and "Thanks" to the students in Deborah Winram's Aesthetics and Art Criticism class at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, WV. Debbie invited me to present my work and talk to the students, which I did this past Monday evening. I presented a keynote of my own work, discussing it's evolution, my evolution, and the direction it is going. Then I threw out a handful of the big unanswerable questions, like "How important is beauty in contemporary art?" and we got a really lively dialogue rolling for about an hour. I was delighted that the class seemed ready and willing to get into it! It was interesting to hear their perspective, and enlightening to have to present my own point of view. You learn so much when you have to actually articulate what it is you do, what you believe. The last question a student asked me was :What is the single most important advice I could give them. I thought for a moment and said that I found it important to cultivate these two qualities in equal proportion: enthusiasm and patience. Hmmm.Pretty good advice. It was a fun evening and I am sure I learned more than I could ever give them.

I have not been so busy as to be blind to the gorgeous Autumn we are having!
My garden is in it's glory this time of year. After a dull stretch in the dog days of August, it makes a spectacular encore before the freeze sets in. My mums are leading the parade, as usual. Lots of nasturtiums volunteered to join in, too. The best part is that it requires nothing of me. It is all payoff at this point. I really appreciate that right now. Low effort-high satisfaction!
The bluebirds have been very active around the property, too. It is a whole little flock of them, maybe the babies who fledged this summer. They are blue flashes of pure joy. The hummingbirds have gone south, but the flickers, titmouses (titmice?) chickadees and finches are busy.
The leaves are especially beautiful this year. Right now the trees are still full and the colors are rich and varied and glow in the western sun. It has been warm lately, which facilitates cocktails on the deck in the early evening glow. Very nice. Speaking of which, I have been on the computer or running a list of errands all day today, and a sunset Ketel One on the rocks sounds good about now. A votre sante!

Skip's Autumn Painting Workshop

2010-10-25T10:11:00.001-04:00

Friday was the last day of our third annual Painting Workshop at Bon Secours Spiritual Center in
Marriottsville, MD.
It just keeps getting better and better.

I want to thank everyone for their commitment, enthusiasm and fearless hard work! The creative energy in the room was palpable. The work put up at critique daily was evidence of the honest search - and discovery of real personal expression.

The range of media matched the range of styles: collage, monoprint, watermedia, drawing. The classs was about evenly divided among "veterans" of many years of studying with Skip, and new students. (Not, by any means inexperienced painters, but new to Skip.) The "vets" create such a wave of energy. The new students were able to catch it and their work was lifted, energized and carried by that tide. Awesome!!

There are so many benefits to staying on-site during a workshop, and Bon Secours is ideal. It allows you to just WORK. To go into your painting process, and personal process in ways that you wouldn't be able to if you have to leave and figure out where to go for dinner. The studio is open all night, and this group really took advantage of that. There was a lot of bonding and brainstorming going on between dinner and bedtime...and beyond! The immersion allows quantum leaps in the work that you hardly knew possible. The Center provides the ideal quiet space for that. Comfortable, beautiful, easy.

I send special thanks to the Staff of Bon Secours who bend over backwards to make our stay there so perfect: Rainey, Tom, Kathy, Daniel, Bob, Hamid, Nelda, Rebecca, and our chefs, who I don't know by name, who kept the hungry artists well nourished. Bravo! and a thousand thanks! We'll see you in May for the next workshop!

Most of the photos above are courtesy of Ginny Rowan who can produce a documentary, knit a pair of socks, paint a body of work, and keep us cracking up, simultaneously. Thanks Ginny!xoxo

for info on my show...

2010-10-12T16:46:00.002-04:00

I made a blog for The Oyster and The Pearl.
The link is at right, or click here:
http://theoysterandthepearlnov2010.blogspot.com

upcoming show

2010-09-29T09:45:00.004-04:00

Pearl,IV, mixed media on board, 30x24 Oyster,VII, mixed media on board, 36x24

honoring the lineage

2010-09-20T09:32:00.010-04:00

Pearl 1, DM Santarella, 2010, 24 x 24, mixed media on canvas

It is a tradition in Buddhism to honor the lineage of masters and teachers. It is by their efforts and commitment that we have their tools and wisdom to guide us in our own practice. It is a comfort, when you are sitting on the zafu, and feel your mind racing and your knees aching, to acknowledge that there are centuries of fellow practitioners who felt the same frustrations, had the same questions and experienced the joyful dividends of a committed practice. There is a deep gratitude for the many who walked the walk so that the path is clearer for those who follow.

This practice of honoring the ones who cleared the way is not unique to Buddhism. Many disciplines, sciences and industries do it. Oddly, though, it is not acknowledged much in the Arts. It is almost tacitly discouraged. It is as if honoring one's influences and "ancestors" in art is the same as admitting to copying them. There is some ignorant assumption that artists must spring fully formed and wholly original from the brow of the gods, untouched by any influence, pure, unsullied genius. Impossible, and arrogant.

I study various painters to learn how to paint. When I have a question, a problem to solve, I look at someone who solved it beautifully, and I study how they did it. I pull a big art book from the shelf and sit and study it, absorb it, honor their effort and work and talent and I learn possibilities of how I might apply that in my work. When I stand before a painting in a museum I am swept into the emotion of it. Then I get curious. Then I start asking it questions.

As I have recently gone back through my old work, and have been working on a new series, I see clearly who my influences are. I don't copy these artists, but to deny their influence in my work would be hubris. I humbly, did not spring from the brow of Zeus. I am an amalgamation of all my experience, the things I love, and the things I reject, the beauty that lights me up, inspires and guides me. The artists I am drawn to are also the amalgam of their history and the artists they were inspired by.

These are my Master Teachers. This is my lineage. I bow in gratitude.

Georgia O'Keeffe: elegance, precision + sensuality, courage

Richard Diebenkorn: space, subtlety, feeling + form in spectacular manifestation

Eva Hesse: energy and audacity

Joan Brown and Frida Kahlo: ugly/beauty, trusting your own story

Robert Motherwell and Helen Frankenthaler: surrender to the spirit and the mark

Fairfield Porter and Edward Hopper: mood, beauty in the quotidien

Mark Rothko: color, conviction, mystery, soul

Agnes Martin and Mark Tobey: quietude + complexity

Henri Matisse: everything, to relax

Pierre Bonnard: unconventional beauty

David Hockney: playful possibility

This is a short version of a long list.

Who's on your list?

everything I know

2010-09-01T09:14:00.005-04:00

(I laid the shells on the windowsill. The next morning, the sun had done the rest...)

The Oysters have given me their pearl.

I am working on a series of nonrepresentational paintings inspired by the oyster shell.

They are based on the lovely mysterious shells, and on the process of painting them. About the feeling, the transformation that happens when the materials, the vision and the presence all combine to become something else, that something being a painting.

The painting, the process of painting it, and the experience of seeing it. Oysters.

I said to a friend that this series is like a doctoral thesis, I am putting everything I know into these paintings. All the variations, experiments, explorations over the years, I have distilled the essential quality that is mine and am putting that into these pieces.

We can think we are changing form, using different materials, different handling, but the essential, consistent signature of the maker will emerge. This really hit home when I recently went back through some of my very early work, up to the stuff I am doing now. I am so focused on what is ahead, the struggle to achieve something new that I often forget what I have accomplished along the way, fail to give myself due credit. What I found in those past works was startlingly familiar. Yes, the skill was less developed , the styles are broad and experimental, but the impulse, the line, the core feeling is utterly consistent. I could really recognize a personality emerging in all the years of work: Me. I have to say, I was a bit taken aback to meet Me. And, to appreciate Her. I could see a consistent sensibility developing, surfacing, whether the work was traditionally representational, abstract, covered in plaster, scratched and splashed, or whatever. There I was...and am, still. It was very interesting, and nice, really, to see this.

There I Am.

Matisse went back in his later years and looked at one of his first student, brown and grey Flemish still-lifes, and realized that that painting came close to containing everything he ever was. All there, already. We all know his form changed, his style expanded and developed, but he could see, in that chrysalis of a painting, himself , already fully there. "I realised, thinking about it, that what I recognised in it was my personality. But I told myself that if I had only ever done that canvas, this personality would have remained unnoticed because it would never have developed."

Sometimes, looking back can help one to see ahead. Everything I now know is there.

art quote

2010-08-25T14:05:00.004-04:00

"Oyster,6", Diane Santarella 2010, 8 x 6 watercolor on paper

"The hand is never clumsy when thought is precise, when the spirit is not hesitant.

You must create, between yourself and your object, a stronger and stronger bond...

always remembering this truth,

that the design is not to be found in the model but in ourselves.

This sort of operation obviously cannot be forced, because it requires on our part

(as well as intelligence) something that comes from the depths of the soul: emotion."

Antoine Bourdelle, sculptor

Ten Things I Learned from Matisse

2010-08-19T09:56:00.006-04:00

I finished Hilary Spurling's two volume bio of Matisse (see July 8 entry).

It was quite a ride, and I feel a little lost now that I have finished it. Grieving, I guess. Whew.

Anytime I read an artists’ biography I take notes to see where their process might feel famliar, to see what I can take into the studio myself. It is tempting, especially with so lofty a subject as Henri Matisse to think,”This is it - they have it ALL FIGURED OUT. If I just do what they did, I’ll discover the BIG SECRET for myself!” But the lessons are so much more salient if one can take their journey and view it through the prism of our own experience. That particular artist mastered the lessons of their lifetime in the context of their culture and moment in history, their karma. Our journey may have similarities, as artists, but that is usually where any overlap end. There is a lifetime’s worth of wisdom to glean from Matisse’s fearlessness and dedication to his own vision. Here are a few nuggets that I saved to help me along my way.

TEN THINGS I LEARNED FROM HENRI MATISSE

1) To say more with less

2) To say more with more

3) Changing form is not artistic schizophrenia, it is creativity

4) Try everything, but only keep what serves your vision, or, in other words, don’t follow a popular style at the expense of your own growth and self-discovery

5) Beauty isn’t always pretty

6) Pretty can be powerful when imbued with great feeling

7) The mark is more important than the subject, or, the mark/form expresses one’s intention that supercedes simple description of an object

8 ) Any subject/object can be the starting point for making art

9) Age is no excuse for laziness.

10) Find joy in the process.

This is the most important piece of wisdom. Matisse worked in an almost relentless state of self-imposed pressure and anxiety. Sometimes the public loved the result, often not, at least in his lifetime. There are no guarantees, so if there is any satisfaction to be had, it had better come in the creative process. I hope that Matisse had at least the satisfaction of knowing he was always true to his own vision. When I look at the carnival of color and life in Matisse’s work, I wonder what a little dose of relaxation and joy might have done for him! Would he have had the perseverance to constantly push ahead in his work if he had "lightened up" a bit? Maybe not. History's gain was his loss; insomnia, sickness, constant anxiety. I guess I can rest assured that I am not rewriting the course of Art, so I can afford to enjoy the ride. It is only paint after all, and we are fortunate to have a chance to create.

So, to Life, to Art, to Matisse! Enjoy!

Artist's Block, Donuts and Billy Collins

2010-08-10T18:50:00.018-04:00

Donut,1-4, DM Santarella, 2010, watermedia on paper, 9x7

I have been wrestling with painters block for a few months. OK, many months. A long time.

"It is a cyclical thing, every artist goes through it, it's time to explore new content"...bla bla bla.

I have heard all that before, but it is little comfort when you are adrift in it yourself.

It is not simply a lack of ideas--I have plenty of ideas. It is not intellectual, at all. For me it is existential. Painting is such an intensely personal endeavor--for me, at any rate-- that it is not enough to just go through the motions, "do another good one." One to match the powder room.

The work I have been doing for the last couple of years, subject wise, is based on my own internal experiences of migraines and meditation. This is fertile ground, and I have had a very satisfying run with it. I do not think it is finished, by any means. But I am tired of painting 'from behind my closed eyelids', as it were. I am worn out and a little bored with flogging the struggle for imagery. It is getting a little stuffy and self absorbed in here! Maybe I need to lighten up...

Those words can be tantamount to heresy, in some art circles. (Mostly, the circle of critics in my own head) "Lighten up" could imply "not serious", "not real art", "regressing" or "settling", or the very worst epithet of all, "selling out."

It was a donut that saved me. And Billy Collins, but I'll get to him in a minute.

A donut from Riley's General Store in New Harbor, Maine. Skip had run out to the store before class one morning last month. I was having a particularly bad morning, in a string of bad mornings. I hadn't painted, really, since last Fall. I hadn't painted anything satisfying since we'd gotten to Maine a month before and I was on the verge of packing up my paints. I was dry. It felt like a sham. It seemed pointless. Everything seemed pointless. I was thinking "What the f---- is going to get me through this g--d--ed day?!?" when the donuts arrived. Hot, golden, fragrant. I put the donut on a blue glass plate, put my cup of coffee next to it, pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and started to paint. The donut and coffee. Over and over and over. The very act of pushing the paint around was like the desperate strokes of a swimmer through choppy water toward a far shore. I painted seven versions of the donut and coffee, not so much as donut and coffee, but as color, shape, an excuse to let wet edge blend up against wet edge, to find new nuances in grays, in light and texture.

OK. So I was painting. But it's just a donut. An outstandingly delicious donut, indeed,

but this is not "A R T ." I am going to have my "Real Artist" papers revoked if this gets out. But, there was that seductive glide of ochre under my brush, the discovery of shapes within shapes of reflected light...

Then a phrase popped into my head: "respect for the thing before you." It was poet Billy Collins. I had seen him at a reading in Fredrick, January of last year. He was describing his poem, "Girl" about a young artist, maturing from doodling fairy tale pictures to a simple drawing of a scallion. That is when he said, "respect for the thing before you." And I scrambled in the dark theatre for a scrap of paper to write that down, because I knew, somehow, someday, that phrase would save me from drowning.

So Thank You, Billy Collins, for reminding me of an essential truth about art and life. That the simple witnessing,with respect, with reverence, for the thing before you is where all real creation begins. Be it a donut, a cathedral, a poem, or a Broadway show, it is really all the same, all potentially A R T -or not- depending on the creator's point of view.

The next day, I started the Oyster series....

to be continued....

Nigella's Lazy Loaf, as adapted by me

2010-08-03T19:21:00.010-04:00

photo from Nigella Lawson's website, photo by Lis Parsons

I took Nigella Lawson with me to Maine this year. In cookbook form.

Our time in Maine is a great opportunity to try recipes I've been meaning to. But recipes have to be simple enough to manage in a summer cottage kitchen and not require a panoply of exotic ingredients, and must not be so time consuming as to interfere with painting, et al. This one, Nigella's Lazy Loaf fits the bill to perfection.

I found that a couple of simple adaptations helped the texture and taste of this dense, serious, and quite healthy loaf. If you love a real old world grainy loaf, you will like this. I became utterly addicted to slicing it very thin, toasting it and topping it with a smear of Saga Bleu cheese and a dollop of Chivers Ginger Preserves.(If you love ginger as I do, do yourself a favor and try to find this ambrosia!) Beyond delicious, crazy good and perfect for breakfast or as a quick appetizer with cocktails. (I noticed, after the fact, that there is ginger jam in the photo! See! You have to try it.) This bread is also divine toasted with a slice of ripe avocado mashed onto it. Because of the density of the bread I recommend toasting it: it is almost too compact otherwise. Toasting seems to liberate the nuttiness and complexity of the flavors, too. I have added a pinch of sugar and extra raisins to the recipe, just to sweeten it up a touch. But it is not a "sweet" bread even with the additions, and it depends on the raisins, if any, in the muesli you use. Try it either way and see which you prefer.

So without further adieu,

Nigella's Lazy Loaf

(with adaptations by me, Diane Santarella: my changes are noted with { })

2 3/4 cups whole wheat bread flour {*I used a combo of half unbleached bread flour and half regular whole wheat flour and it was great. I had written earlier that I was not sure "bread flour" is essential to the quality. But subsequent batches support that at least a portion of bread flour seems to keep it from becoming too crumbly.}

2 cups best-quality oaty unsugared muesli (not granola) {*I use Bob's Red Mill brand}

2 1/2 teaspoons (1 package) rapid-rise yeast

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup 2% milk, {quite warm, but not hot}

1 cup tepid water

{1 Tablespoon brown sugar or maple syrup}

{1/3 cup additional raisins or cranberries, if desired}

Mix muesli, brown sugar, raisins and warm milk in a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle over yeast, and mix. Let this sit for just 5-7 minutes. {You want to presoak the grains in the muesli just a little, and kick start the yeast. You do not want it to soak up all the milk and turn to soggy goo.}

Meanwhile, measure the dry ingredients into another bowl, and whisk them together to evenly blend.

Add the tepid water to the milk/muesli, then stir in the dry ingredients to make a thick, porridgy batter.

Transfer the batter to a greased 2 lb loaf pan {Go bigger than smaller. If the pan is too full it will run over}. Put this into a COLD oven and immediately turn it on to 225 degrees, and leave it for 45 minutes.

When the 45 minutes are up, turn oven temperature to 350 and leave loaf for 1 hour, by which time the bread should be golden brown and cooked through. Slip it out of its pan and although dense, it should feel slightly hollow when you knock it underneath. You can always slip it back into the oven, out of its pan for a few minutes if you think it needs more baking. {I'd say err, if you must, on the side of slightly under rather than over baking. It will continue to firm up as it cools.}

I found that this bread freezes well. If it is hot and humid, best to store in the fridge.

Bon Appetite!

Seriously, I made this a half a dozen times and I really think you cannot mess it up. It doesn't rise much, so you needn't worry about that. It's entire character is it's unapologetic density, so you really can't fail. And it is soooooo tasty! I have given away many loaves, and so I dedicate this post to all my friends who have begged for the recipe.

Here is a link to the original version, for the record

www.nigella.com/recipe/recipe_detail.aspx?rid=130

what I did with the oyster shells

2010-08-02T14:06:00.005-04:00

Oyster Shell,7 DM Santarella, 2010, watercolor on paper, 30x22

Oyster Shells,8 DM Santarella, 2010, watercolor on paper, 30x22

This is what emerged from the collection of Maine oyster shells

empty nest

2010-07-30T09:01:00.003-04:00

The young Blues fledged Tuesday and Wednesday.

I cleaned out the box yesterday.

Safe skies, Little Ones!

four more baby bluebirds

2010-07-23T18:11:00.005-04:00

Four BabyBlues resting in the sweltering heat

For my friends who follow my bluebird soap opera, I apologize for keeping you hanging.

The babies fledged before we left for Maine in mid-June. They fledged, literally, right before we left, so I couldn't monitor the fledgelings as they learn to hunt and survive. I am crossing my fingers that they all made it, although I found some ominous little blue feathers out in the yard.

But, the big news is that there are FOUR MORE little birdies who are about a week from their debut into the wild blue yonder. This is very exciting! I had doubts about the viability of a new brood with the extreme heat we have been having and the drought has baked the ground to dust. But there they are, in the old nest, four healthy young'uns, resting up for their fly-day.

There is a sweet new nest in box#2, unused. Hmmm. Maybe Dad built it, but Mom went back to the lucky old nest and dropped the next round of eggs. Not much of a nest left, but it seemed to suffice. That clean unused nest will go into storage as a spare for next year.

This is soooo cool. It is like raising unicorns or something. I ask many people if they have bluebirds in their yard, and not only do they not have them, but may never have seen a bluebird! I know that although the bluebird is the state bird of Missouri, I never saw one in twenty one years growing up there. I feel really privileged that we have an environment that is optimal for these beautiful birds to make their spring and summer homes and raise their babies.

So, we'll keep the vigil for the next week, watching for the emergence of the next generation.

what kids know...and adults struggle to rediscover

2010-07-10T10:01:00.005-04:00

When we were in NYC last month, we went to the Guggnheim.

The best works on show were from a project of childrens artwork from NY public schools.

The originality and unsullied creativity of kids' art is always a little humbling. If only we could all "regress" to that natural, unguarded state of open imagination and fresh response to the world.

Here are three quotes that accompanied the exhibit. Nothing says it better than the artists themselves:

"Something that surprised me was that when my hand is connected to my head a sculpture becomes beautiful. Be ready to connect your hand to your head."

3rd Grader

"I like that we are explaining ourselves with things that don't already exist"

6th Grader

"We learn that responsibility comes along with creativity and individuality. You will be surprised by what's inside everyone. You will struggle with decisions with the projects. The most important thing is to have experience, because of all the surprises along the way."

3rd Grader

Kudos to the inspired teachers who open the wide world to these young hearts and minds!

Matisse

2010-07-08T09:04:00.007-04:00

Matisse, "Window at Collioure"

My big summer read this year is the two volume bio of Matisse by Hilary Spurling.

"The Unknown Matisse" covers his youth and beginning career, and continues with the second volume, "Matisse the Master: A Life of Henri Matisse: The Conquest of Colour, 1909-1954."

I thank Martha Wakefield from Skip's June class for generously lending them to me. I love bios of artists, and this one seems especially to hit home for me right now.

In many ways, Matisses' struggle to find and express his voice is the archetypal quest of EveryArtist. From his late start in discovering his passion for painting to the requisite foundation in copying the canon of historical western art, and his lifelong dedication to find his own voice despite hardship for many years, there are familiar struggles for any artist to relate to. However, we know how his story ends: Matisse emerging as one of the defining and most influential artists of the century, a household name, ubiquitous today, even to the point of being too familiar and overlooked as dorm room wallpaper. Both a triumph and a bit of a shame..but mostly a triumph!

I am finding the book engaging and pithy. A surprising "page-turner." I quickly got a third of the way into the first borrowed volume and decided I had to have my own copy to highlight and annotate. The anecdotes of his relationships with other artists are fascinating. To see his life in the context of its' time and history is a reminder that none of us exists or creates in a vacuum. The influences and currents that inspire and enable us are neither random nor isolated. It is refreshing to discover the struggle he went through. Matisse says he has a "guardian demon" instead of guardian angel, he was so driven and anxious in his process. It seems counter to the seemingly lighthearted paintings he created to see that he was going at them in an almost teeth gritting rage. I want to step into the story and go up and rub his tense shoulders and say, "Relax, Henri, take a breath! It all turns out beautifully!"

I am about 3/4 way through volume one, my copies arrived from Amazon yesterday, and I look forward to happily going back and hitting those juicy quotes with a bold yellow swipe of highlighter. Some of which will undoubtedly end up on this blog. Until then, go get the books, and discover them on your own!

maine

2010-06-30T10:15:00.006-04:00

I went to one of my favorite places the other day: the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden in Boothbay Harbor.

I waited for a misty, grey day. Seems counter intuitive to go to the gardens in the rain, but that, as I discovered during the waterlogged June of last year, is when the flowers really glow and the moss is iridescent against the wet stone.

It is a spectacular place. Just the planning and design of the gardens, as they integrate into the natural landscape is impressive. And of course the plantings are putting on quite a show.

They have improved many of the peripheral trails through the woods. That is a real treat. On a rainy Wednesday I had most of the place to my self, and was deliciously alone in the woods. The mossy, misty, tangled root and stone cobbled woods, crossing babbling creeks and fern carpeted forests, one feels the woodland spirits close. It is a fairy woods. It is a tradition here in Maine to build little houses of moss and sticks and shells and leave them for the devas and fairies. The Botanical Gardens even have a place set aside for children to build the little houses.

It was a lovely day at the Gardens.

Driving back along the River Road towards Damariscotta, I stopped in at Glidden Point Sea Oyster Farm and bought my Sweetie a dozen and a half of the biggest, finest oysters I have ever seen. They farm them right there and they must know what they are doing, cuz these oysters are mighty impressive. And Skip enthusiastically gave them two thumbs up on flavor. A little dash of homemade cocktail sauce, and down they go. I am not a raw oyster fan so I had to enjoy them vicariously. But I did save the gorgeous shells for my moss garden and to hold tea candles, and to line up on the windowsills. Too beautiful to waste.

RED on Broadway

2010-06-15T14:04:00.009-04:00

Alfred Molina plays painter Mark Rothko in "RED" on Broadway

photo from www.redonbroadway.com

This year, my birthday present was to go into NYC for a couple days of museums, restaurants and....to see the play RED on Broadway at Sunday's matinee. (www.redonbroadway.com) go to the website, and under multimedia you will find video clips from the play and interviews with the cast, etc.

It is a two character play about painter Mark Rothko and a studio assistant named Ken, played with incendiary honesty and ferocity by Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne, respectively.

The characters and the events surrounding the creation of a series of murals by Rothko for the Seagrams Building in New York serve as an opportunity to explore the artists' eternal struggles with identity, mortality, integrity, not to mention finding the exact shade of ... red.

From the moment you enter the theatre, you enter Rothko's cavernous studio. There is Molina as Rothko sitting in his Adirondack chair on stage, in his studio contemplating his shimmering red painting hanging like an altarpiece, center stage. The theatre house lights darken. The play begins...Enter, stage left, Redmayne, as a young man, meeting the artist for the first time, possibly to work for him. Rothko begins with one question that launches us into ninety minutes of brilliant, challenging, stimulating, heartbreaking theatre, he asks, "So...tell me...what do you see?"

The high point of the show is a scene where Rothko and Ken prime one of the huge canvases, working rhythmically in concert, like dancers, rapidly mopping blood red glaze across the surface. When it is finished, they are winded, spent, like lovers. It is one of the most purely erotic things I have ever watched. I say "erotic" to describe the creative force, the passionate, life affirming impulse to Make. As an artist, my own pulse quickens knowing that moment when the inspiration and the impulse and the materials come together... it is Erotic.

Read the reviews, read the articles for a description of the show itself. I can only say that when it was over, after the thunderous curtain call, the triumphant standing ovation, I was speechless. I didn't want to talk, or think, I was humming with an infusion of that energy and it was a PURE HIGH. I didn't want to leave that space for as long as possible.

Incandescent.

I bought a copy of the script on the way out of the theatre so I could savor every word, relive every scene.

Bonus: This was the last performance before the Tony awards Sunday night:

It won:

RED: Best Play

Eddie Redmayne: Best Featured Actor

John Logan: Best Script

Michael Grandage: Best Director

As well as awards for Set Design, Lighting Design, and Sound Design

Sadly, Alfred Molina did not take home a Tony for Best Actor. That went to Denzel Washington for his powerhouse performance in FENCES.

I hope Alfred can personally possess the triumph of this extraordinary creation that couldn't live or breathe without him.

The show is in limited run on B'way...so if you want to go, GO NOW!