Woof, Woof

I am somewhat sleep-deprived. I'm slowly catching up, but after three days of sleeping fitfully because of the heat, I'm feeling a bit ragged. I spent much of last night working on my art journal. I started out with two pages of abstract images, but soon filled them up with more tangible objects such as this bulldog and chair. I like this collage. It amuses me. Maybe the heat contributed to my creativity -- or at least to my bulldog tenacity.

Art Day

It was a blistering 93 degrees today. When it gets that hot, I get hyperactive. In reality, I end up achieving very little, but it's more bearable to move around than to sit still in my overly air-conditioned bedroom -- so I drove over to Deb's house and we spent the afternoon making collages. Actually, she made collages while I worked on my art journal. When I first bought the journal, I was afraid of spoiling its pristine pages, but now that I'm halfway through, I'm starting to enjoy myself.  Her collages were great. She used a drawing that Christina had donated to my collection as the background for one of them:

As you can see, it was a perfect choice. She's just finished taking a Photoshop class. Her teacher told her that collage wasn't Art since you were using other people's material and besides, there were copyright issues. Well, my previous experience of techie teachers leads me to the conclusion that
 1. They have very little knowledge of the art world or the history of art, but think they know everything and that you know nothing.
 2. They are under the mistaken impression that they themselves are artists.
 3. They have terrible taste that runs along the lines of Hallmark greeting cards and clashing color choices.
 4. They think art means commercial art.
 5. They think that being technically proficient is all that counts.

OK, I'm making gross generalizations and I apologize to all creative techies out there that I have offended, but this has been my experience with more than one Photoshop teacher. Some of them are perfectly nice people who are good at what they do, but they don't have an art background. This would be OK if they were properly humble about their ignorance, but they're not. Anyhow, the point is that I don't want anyone stifling my friend Deb's creativity!  Besides, who the hell cares about copyright issues unless it's a case of direct plagiarism? Think Dada, my friends. But then you all do or you wouldn't be my friends.

Postscript for Kim: Deb loves your collage, the one I posted on my blog two weeks ago.

Postscript for Christina: Thanks for that drawing. I loved floating it over to Deb; then watching how it magically brought her piece together.

Postscript to Deb: Thanks for the day and for letting me use your collage on my blog.

Shipwrecked

It was so hot that I spent much of the day in my small bedroom. It's the only room in the house with an air conditioner. I spent the time cutting up a picture book of the Titanic for collage purposes. I bought the book for a dollar at a library sale. It seemed a shame to cut it up, but my rationalization was that I wasn't destroying anything rare since it's one of the most popular disasters in our culture.

I have a friend who is fascinated with shipwrecks. I don't think of myself as such a one, but the information that came with the pictures cast a morbid spell. I found myself reading once again about how the management didn't carry enough lifeboats on board and the crew didn't fill the ones they did have up to capacity. Lifeboat #1 only carried 12 people though it had a capacity for 60. And then there are the statistics about how many people perished in third class accommodations as opposed to first class. These chilling statistics gave rise to the rumor (later proved untrue) that the crew locked in the third class passengers so that the rich people could escape first. And the legend of how the band played on nobly as the ship sank: "Near, My God, to Thee." And the story of the girl who was thought to have drowned on board with her mother, but later re-appeared to claim her family's estate. She was proved to be an imposter.

Then there are the details about the ship itself: the exquisite craftsmanship in the carved wooden panels, the crystal chandeliers, the marble fireplaces, the sweeping staircases, the luxuriousness of the staterooms, the coziness of the men's smoking room, the elegance of the women's writing room, the swimming pool, the dining area and so on. The Titanic's fussy Edwardian luxury becomes our version of lost Atlantis.

More Weather

Hot weather arrived right on schedule with the beginning of summer. We celebrated the change of season by going to a party at a friend's house. This friend owns an outdoor hot tub. My body felt too hot to subject it to more heat, but Bob and others took a relaxing soak in the warm water. More power to them. I stretched out in a chair underneath the apricot tree, a perfect spot. I was protected by the shade of the tree, but could still enjoy the beautiful day.

It was 80 or more, a bit too hot for comfort. I know I won't get much sympathy from my friends back east who have been enduring weather in the high 90's, but we're spoiled here. To us 65 to 70 seems normal so when the thermometer leaps up our bodies aren't acclimated. Besides, in the part of California where I live, air conditioning is rare even in public places and the houses aren't designed to stay cool. Our little house is bearable when there's a breeze, but when there isn't, the indoor temperature increases as the day goes on. By evening, it's much hotter inside the house than out. With the sun beating down ferociously through the kitchen windows at dinnertime, it's too hot to even contemplate cooking. That makes for a diet of salads and ice cream or late-night meals.

Bookkeeping

We've been moving furniture out of our dining room so that Christina can paint it. It was full of a number of objects besides the dining room table and chairs: Bob's computer desk and filing cabinets, three tall bookcases stuffed with books and a comfy armchair. Bob did all the heavy lifting, but I'm the one who feels tired. Osmosis, I guess.

When you move stuff, you suddenly start thinking about what you can get rid of -- in my case, books. I donated my Harry Potter series to the library this morning, but the rest of my books are still sitting on the shelf. If I give them away, I'll have room for more, but it's difficult to part with old friends. Thus my tormented inner monologue: I'll probably never read that one again. (I pick up the book and open it.) -- but it has nice illustrations so I'll keep it. (I open another one.) God, I forgot how good this was. Maybe I'll re-read it before I give it away. And so on. No wonder I'm tired.

Groceries

I went to Berkeley Bowl yesterday for groceries. It's like the Whole Foods experience, except funkier and cheaper.

Micro-Climates

After the cool rainy spring, warm weather has finally arrived in the Bay Area. It's not too hot yet, just pleasantly sunny, though the grass in our yard has already started to resemble stalks of straw. It doesn't take much for the green to evaporate in this dry climate. I remember noticing that fact some years ago when we returned from a trip to the UK. When we got off the plane in San Francisco, I was astonished at how dry the air was. It was mid-October. Compared to the England we had left behind, the California sun was bright and glaring, the sky a dazzling blue. Even the colors of the buildings were brighter. I wasn't quite sure I liked it. In comparison to the British landscape with its sooty gray buildings and muted inhabitants, the colors of the California landscape were harsh and garish, the people loud and rude. We had gotten used to a courtly courteous country whose residents apologized as a matter of form. After just a few days' stay in London, Bob and I caught ourselves saying, "Sorry," to each other for absolutely no reason.

But then, California. I remember holding my hands up to my face to shield myself from the light as I squinted at a couple of bedraggled palm trees in the distance. "Why, this is a desert climate!" I thought in astonishment (odd to realize it at that moment since I'd been living in California for decades.) But of course, our weather is not always reminiscent of Arizona's. In the winter when it's gray and foggy, the climate is much more like England's. And if you travel along the coast up to the town of Inverness, the rolling hills dotted with fleecy sheep and huge boulders remind you of the Scottish Highlands (which is why, of course, that it's called "Inverness.") A drive through the wine country takes you to sunny Italy. I won't discuss the rest of the state except to say that Southern California is a foreign country to me. I've been to the UK more often than I've been to Los Angeles.