My Right Boob - A Body Part Story in Parts. Part 2

The Bruise Rainbow.

January 17, 2019.  Eight days later, I show up, take off my bra and get down to work, lying still. If you have never had a boob biopsy, here’s the score: They re-locate the lump with ultrasound, then keep the ultrasound hovering over the lump while a doctor numbs the area with lidocaine (you can watch along on the ultrasound as the needle finds the area and delivers its load of medicine).

This is not my breast. I “borrowed” this from the internet.

Then once the area is nice and numb, the doctor brings out the Big-Ass Needle that is so fat that he actually needs to make a small incision in the skin to insert it. Part of the Big-Ass Needle barrel is cut out, producing a space that the doctor positions with the help of the ultrasound right in the lump, so some of the lump tissue can snuggle down inside the needle tube. Then he says, “you’re gonna hear a snap,” and you totally hear and feel a snap as a spring-loaded outer tube is launched over the Big-Ass Needle, trapping some of the offending tissue inside. Then he withdraws the biopsy needle and repeats as necessary. I think he took three samples.  Then they place a little titanium “marker clip” in the lump to remind themselves where they’ve been. This is handy (a) when they have to go back in and find the biopsy spot in order to clean out the cancer, or (b) when they find that it’s nothing, but they see the same suspicious spot on subsequent mammograms – the little clip is there to say, hey, we’ve been over this before. They tell me the clip looks kind of like the spring out of a ballpoint pen but way smaller. No, I don’t know why they call it a clip and not a spring.

We’re learning!

They send me home with an ice pack in my bra and tell me to wait one to two business days. Since it’s Thursday, if the oncology lab doesn’t get the results back to my doctor by Friday, it will be a long weekend.

It was a long weekend. While I wait, my boob turns all the colors of the Bruise Rainbow. Lots of purple and yellow. Red and brown. Then it was a long Monday. By Monday afternoon when I still didn’t hear anything, I called my new family clinic office. Turns out my new Nurse Practitioner doesn’t work on Monday. It sounds like they have the results but cannot release them to me. I know what that means. Everybody is happy to share negative (good news) results. Only one person can share positive (bad news) results. Argh. However, now that I have stirred the office pot, I get a call soon after, booking me for a visit with my NP first thing in the morning. By now, the results are obvious, but we all have to follow protocol.

January 22, 2019.  My nurse practitioner confirms my suspicions. I have invasive ductal carcinoma. It’s the most common type of breast cancer, she tells me, and the Legacy health system has some fine oncologists to help me navigate this new world in which I am now living. Next step: a visit to an oncology surgeon. The oncology office calls me while I’m still on the way home from this first shocking (but not that shocking) visit. Here goes nothing.

My Right Boob - A Body Part Story In Parts. Part 1

This Kind of Thing Always Happens to Me

November 28, 2018.  I felt vindicated when the American Cancer Society changed their guidelines about mammograms, especially for women under 50. Instead of recommending annual mammograms like they had all through the 80s and 90s, they dropped their insistence on mammograms entirely for women in their 40s and only recommended mammograms every two years for women in their 50s. I felt that I was a poster child for the new guidelines. My boobs were always being flagged for further painful probing due to their density (oooh, such dense boobs), or due to a propensity for harmless cysts that came and went. Spare me.

Well, yes, I am in my 50s. Quite deep into them actually. But still. I didn’t want to miss out on the freedom from boob flattening that I had endured throughout my 40s that is now offered to today’s 40-year-old women. I felt that I had had enough mammograms in my 40s to make up for several years now that I was in my 50s.  

December 21, 2018.  I got a mammogram this December because my doctor quit. My general practitioner, who worked out of a slightly grubby, cramped urgent care center in a grubby, cramped strip mall, just closed up shop one day and skipped town. I don’t know what precipitated her flight, but I’m guessing it wasn’t a call from Johns Hopkins. I was fine floating along without a new GP until I realized that she had not renewed by high blood pressure medication after my last annual checkup. I would have to find another GP so that my blood pressure would not bounce back to its natural, dangerous level. I found a new nurse practitioner in the office that my husband frequented (he never really liked my old GP and had found somebody he trusted not to disappear under cover of darkness), and because I was a new patient, she went through the gamut of health things that I should have been doing, including having a mammogram.

That’s not to say I didn’t argue with her. I asked about the new guidelines in the hopes that she would back off and tell me I had been through enough. I told her of my history of annoying and painful false positives. She told me that I was free to not follow her recommendation, but that her recommendation was to get a mammogram. So I scheduled a mammogram.

And yes, the breast center called me a few days later to tell me that they needed me back in to take some more pictures of my right breast and maybe to have an ultrasound as well. The booking nurse was all, “don’t worry,” and I was all, “this kind of thing always happens to me,” and we booked the appointment.

January 9, 2019.  The mammography tech had loaded up the mammogram I had about two and a half years ago and showed me the comparison to my new mammogram. It was obviously the same breast, all the architecture matched, except the new one had little white spots all over it and a suspicious smudge right behind the nipple. That nipple that looked a little different these days than it used to. “This is what we’re concerned about,” she said. Hmmm. This kind of thing happens to me all the time…

The ultrasound tech took a long time. A long time. And she spent a lot of time scoping out my armpit area. “What exactly is she looking for?” I didn’t wonder. My suspicions were confirmed when the radiologist came in to deliver his findings. He was an older fellow who looked like he hated this part of his job when he had to tell a woman that what he saw on his screen was nothing but bad news. He told me the that I had a mass in my breast (although my armpit lymph nodes looked clear) and that the next step was to get a biopsy to see if it was cancer. However, after seeing the lump myself on the mammogram and ultrasound and knowing there were only so many types of tissue possible in a human breast, I suspected that the biopsy was just to confirm what they already knew. Of course, they were saying the opposite: we won’t know anything until we get the biopsy, but their faces were saying we know.

Now that I knew and I knew they knew, we needed to get the work done so that we all could know together. It was Wednesday, I figured we could knock this out before the weekend. No, the next biopsy availability was Thursday. Not the Thursday that is tomorrow, the one that is a week from tomorrow. The nurse looks at me apologetically. Well, what am I going to do? Stomp around and demand a biopsy? Don’t they know who I am? (I’m not even sure who I am.) I enter the appointment in my calendar and go about my week as if I am not waiting for cancer news. (I am totally waiting for cancer news.)

Stay tuned to this channel for More Parts coming soon…

When Your Passion Becomes Your Passion

I have been waking up at 2:00 a.m. lately and staying awake for an hour or two each time. Since I know I am always in for a couple of unproductive hours sleep-wise, I try to make it productive in other ways, by reading or solving a minor problem. While awake one early morning, I had this idea for a piece in my "After Mondrian" series. I was going to flip Mondrian, or at least paint him in italics. And I was going to use one of my favorite go-to subjects: trees.

This being a linear type of painting, I sketched it out using a grid. I moved the grid to the canvas rather sloppily (I learned later), and filled in the grid lightly with very thin acrylic paint. Once I was satisfied with the paint sketch, I started in on filling the grid.

I have witnessed an old-school automotive paint detailer painting straight and perfectly curving lines. I do not have that kind of steady hand. Luckily, painter's tape exists. Yes, they make it for canvas as well as walls. I had strips of tape littering the easel, the desk, and at times, my shirt, but even for all that, some rogue paint brushstrokes got in and stayed. Plus some further paint experiments with varying degrees of success.

I wanted to complete it and have it ready to hang by this week, as I wanted it to be one of my focal points for an installation I am hanging at Vinnie's Pizza for the month of March. Okay, that doesn't sound like one of the more prestigious art galleries in town, but they have a couple beautiful walls that they generously share with members of Mosaic Arts Alliance. And we at Mosaic do not say no to walls now that our flagship Gallery 360 is out of business.

As I was basically following a grid, it seemed like a slam-dunk easy deal. But as the paint got thicker and the grid disappeared, I found it harder and harder to color within the lines. On top of that, the "formula" that I usually use to keep a viewer's focus kind of got lost in my need to make it my way. 

I would wake up at 2:00 a.m. thinking about this painting and trying to solve its problems. Every once in a while I would come up with a good idea during this time and would be able to make it happen the next day. But then I would run into a new problem and have to wait until my 2:00 a.m. thinking session to solve that one.

Then I was done. And I photographed it for my portfolio.

Then when I cropped the photograph I found a huge flaw.

Then I fixed the flaw.

Then I was done. And I rephotographed it for my portfolio. (Taking care to delete the earlier photo).

Then when I cropped the photograph I found a huge flaw.

Then I fixed the flaw.

Then I was done. And I rephotographed it for my portfolio. (Taking care to delete the earlier photo).

Then when I cropped the photograph I found a huge flaw.

Then I fixed the flaw.

Then I was done. And I rephotographed it for my portfolio. (Taking care to delete the earlier photo).

Then I cropped the photograph. And it was good. Enough.

Oregon in Italics. 36" x 24" Acrylic on Canvas.

Can you believe this little thing caused me so much angst?

Turns out I'm full of it. Angst, that is.

I Had ONE Job.

And made it into two.

I had a commission. The client knew what she wanted. Something to fit over a couch, something very much like a painting I had done that had already sold. Something like this but longer:

This little 11" x 14" guy has sold three times if you count the commissions I have accepted to reproduce it.

This type of work is acrylic on masa paper, which has been fused with a thicker watercolor paper and then mounted on a wood cradle board. Lots of layers of paper and color give it that neatly segmented yet vintage look. 

So I bought the paper and a long cradle board to mount it on. But the wood cradle board was so pretty with such a beautiful grain in it that I couldn't bring myself to cover it with paper. Luckily, I had bought some acrylic inks that are more permanent than watercolor and less opaque than acrylic paints. I began painting thinking if it didn't work, I could mount some paper over it and no one would have to know.

I now know why people don't normally paint right on wood. It sucks up paint and does not give it up unless you bring out the sander. It is UNFORGIVING. However, no matter that I might have splattered a bit there (instant seagull) or flubbed a bit there (that mountain just got higher), the results are pretty spectacular. 

Here's a quick photo I took with my phone under bad lighting:

Acrylic ink on wood. 12" x 48" (Up close you can see the wood grain through the ink.)

I guess it's back to the store for another cradle board. Maybe two in case this happens again.

New Year, Fewer Things

There will be a few changes here in Art Town this year. 

Listen here.

1. Since August I have been a member of a co-op gallery in town called Gallery 360. However, due to rising rents in downtown Vancouver, we are closing for good on Saturday. This will allow me more time to paint but fewer customers for whom to paint. For now, I will be happy with the extra time and worry about clearing out paintings later.

New Year. New Rules.

2. The People Have Spoken. My paintings are selling, but my dumb tote bags are not. I may always paint tote bags, but now only for my own damn self. 

Life is short. Art is long. Used Art was a Dumb Idea.

Don't follow the crowd.

3. I'm keeping used-art.com for now, but now janicetracy.com is my primary web domain and used-art.com will redirect there.

Make a splash.

4. I will eat less until I am not making such an effort to avoid my own reflection. This one is a bit of a cliche this time of year, but just like the lottery, you can't win if you don't play.

We're all just chilly meerkats on a stump in a zoo. Here's a hug from me.

5. I think you're nice. Don't you? 

Free Shipping Just Out of Time for Christmas!

Hey folks! I'm back from the bazaar circuit and I've updated my tote bag inventory with all the ones that I still have on hand. These are the last of the tote bags. They have helped me get to 10,000 hours of painting and now I'm moving on to other art projects. I'm hoping to make other useful items - maybe shirts or scarves - but you already all either have a car full of tote bags, or are plastic enthusiasts.

SUCH AS.

Although tote bag canvas has been the very best thing as a surface that I could paint with little worry of failure or waste of expensive stretched canvas, it is not a lucrative venture.

Starting now, I'm throwing in shipping for free via USPS for all tote bag purchases. Just go to the"Use This Art" page and pick out your favorite tote. Once you have chosen your favorite, click on the "Buy a Tote Bag" page, buy a tote bag (obviously), tell me in the notes which one you have chosen, and USPS shipping will be free.

And if you're a local friend, shoot me a text or facebook message, and I'll hook you up with a deal. 

The Best Toy I Never Owned

Question of the day: What toy from your childhood do you miss the most and, if it broke, how?

This seems like a Christmas themed question. Let’s dive in.

The toy from my childhood that I miss the most did not belong to me.

It belonged to my best friend Salli. Salli lived across the street. Her dad was an up-and-coming lawyer – so up-and-coming that they did not stay long in that house and soon moved to a bigger house in a fancier neighborhood – but one Christmas, maybe around 1968, Salli got an Easy Bake Oven. It was so technical. So delicate. And it did the one thing that I wanted all toys to do from that moment on: give me chocolate food.

The Easy Bake Oven was a genius bit of homemaker training first introduced by Kenner in 1963. It was a working oven, if by working you mean it makes things slightly warmer under the heat of two small light bulbs. However, there were these cake mixes you could get that I think you would just mix with water maybe? and would magically “cook” in these itty-bitty little pans that fit snugly under the light bulb, er, in the oven, and they were so magically delicious I would have killed a leprechaun to get more.

The first Easy Bake Oven model 

You know those moves that mark the protectiveness and fear-of-disaster of a new owner of an expensive piece of silicon wizardry or delicate workmanship of, say, a new computer or guitar when they are trying to show it off to you but afraid that you might push a hidden self-destruct button, or drop it from a height of 19 feet onto concrete, even if you are currently in a carpeted room on the ground floor? You know that thing where they give a thing to you but do not remove their outstretched hands? Just in case? That is how Salli treated her Easy Bake Oven, which is exactly how I would have treated MY Easy Bake Oven if I had one. But as the covetous friend, being the one on the receiving end of this treatment was frustrating, even though I realized, even at the age of what? Six? That this was EXACTLY how I would act. Still. I wanted that cake.

That Cake! For those of you who are of a certain age to remember those light-bulb-baked cakes, what was it about those cakes? Was it the heavy-duty chocolate flavor? Because those little guys were made of a chocolate that is probably now either too expensive or illegal to produce. Was it the density? The chemicals that are probably now on the FDA Hazardous Materials list? Was it one of those or was it that I was six and my taste buds were amped up beyond crack-level at the excitement of waiting SEVERAL MINUTES for our little cake in that little round mini-pan to come out of Salli’s VERY OWN OVEN. WE HAD THE POWER OF CHOCOLATE. I don’t remember ever feeling that much anticipation.

About the diameter of a pancake and about the height of a brownie, these babies were my world.

I tried to not eat more than my share when it came out of the oven, but it took all my willpower to not snatch and snarf it in a corner. When we weren’t playing with the Easy Bake Oven, I was thinking about playing with it. Even when I wasn’t anywhere near Salli’s house I spent a lot of time thinking about those cakes. THOSE CAKES.

Access to Easy Bake Oven cakes depended on so many things outside my control: Salli had to ask me to play at her house, she had to feel like playing with her Easy Bake Oven (after a while it did not hold the same fascination for her that it did for me), and most crucially, her mom had to have purchased some specialty Easy Bake Oven cake mixes. Such a gauntlet of circumstance existed between me and the object of my obsession.

Eventually, Salli moved on, moved to the fancy house, grew tired of the whole pretend-cooking thing, and got lots of newer, more interesting toys, but I never really did. I'm sure she grew tired of my casual, hey-wouldn't-it-be-a-gas-to-get-out-that-Easy-Bake-Oven hints. To this day, one of my favorite foods is home-cooked brownies straight from the oven, the closest grown-up food to one of those little mini-cakes.

Unlike your obsession with that Daisy air rifle, (I’m assuming), there’s no going back for me. The Easy Bake Oven is still a thing, but not really. It now looks like a spaceship and has a real heating element in it instead of a light bulb.

What the eff? If you grasp the two handles will you see through time?

Even if you found a 60’s era oven, Betty Crocker has long since stopped making the cake mixes chemically perfected for light bulb cooking. I know there’s room for improvement in my obsession; one nut even wrote a light bulb cookbook. But (a) I may be crazy but I’m not a nut and (b) I have a real oven and access to real food. My obsessions are limited by time and apathy. But if somebody offered me a bite of a real-life old-school Easy Bake Oven mini-cake, it would still take all of my grown-up willpower not to snatch and snarf.

What was your favorite toy?

You Thought My Next Post Would Be About a Painting of a Castle, Didn't You?

You can't tie me down. However, you can tie down a Tyrannosaurus Rex if you know how to do it. 

Tyrannosaurus Ex. 14ish" x 20ish" watercolor on paper. 

Hey Everybody, Wanna See My Vacation Slides? (Part 2 of 2)

Hey, come back here!

Welcome to part 2 of my vacation slides. This part will be about our trip to the Orkney Islands and down the northwest coast of Scotland. In order to keep this brief, I've left out a lot of the good parts like the time we stayed in a little B and B on the highway outside of Wick and it was just like staying at your Aunty Bee's house, with a nice couple in their 80s, lots of rules, old quilts, and a shower that ran on what sounded like an old weed whacker motor.

I digress.

Let's start with the ferry trip over to the Island.

View from the ferry between Scrabster on Stromness. Those are real names.

Drew bought us the special Big Spenders' Lounge ferry tickets. There were four of us in a lounge the size of an average bar, so that was nice I guess. There were shortbread cookies, some weird caramel bricks, plus a glass of wine. I felt quite posh as I Jansplained to Drew how the term posh was reputed to be derived from the old pleasure cruises down the European coast from London. The best tickets were for seats on the port side of the boat while traveling south (as one had a view of the coast as opposed to open ocean) and the starboard side of the boat when returning back up north (same reason). Hence, PORT OUT STARBOARD HOME were the best and most expensive tickets. POSH. He was, naturally, eager to learn and not at all humoring me.

Standing Stones of Stenness

You can take really awesome photos of the Standing Stones of Stenness, a small but impressive henge that archeologists are still studying, but if you look closely at unretouched photos, you can spot the farmhouses and sheep that crowd up around it on three sides (the road is on the fourth side). So it is hard to feel as if you are surrounded by the ghosts of the mysteries or whatever, especially when you read the interpretive kiosk and learn that a farmer had once planned to blow them up with dynamite to get them out of the way of his farm.

BUT STILL. They are big, impressive, ancient, and I touched them. You can walk right up to them and touch them. And I also want you to see this cool photo. 

Standing Stones in full drama mode.

We got sidetracked at the Standing Stones because it was on the way to Skara Brae.

Skara Brae looking its best for me

Skara Brae is a 5,000 year old stone age village that lay buried under sand for 4,000 of those years until uncovered after a particularly hard storm in 1850. It was fitfully and destructively excavated until proper study began in the 1920s. It has remained an archeological treasure ever since.

You can see that the entire village was connected by little passageways because even though Orkney was warmer than it is now, the winter nights were long and cold.

Skara Brae has been a fascination of mine since I first read about it, I'm guessing in National Geographic, some umpteen years ago.  I don't know why it captured my imagine so fully, but if you feel the same way, you can learn more about it here.

There were other ruins, other henges, but there's just one more thing I want to show you from Orkney: The Tomb of the Eagles.

The entrance to the Tomb of the Eagles

The Tomb of the Eagles sounds pretty cool, but I think I would have called it the Tomb of All Those Skulls Plus Some Eagle Talons, but they didn't ask me.  The tomb was found on a farmer's land when he happened upon a cave filled with human bones and skulls. There were also a number of eagle talons mixed in with the skulls, so they theorized that maybe the eagles knew a good snack cupboard when they saw one and took advantage of the free food.

Of all the attractions I dragged Drew to, this one was one of the few not owned by either Historic Environment Scotland or the National Trust for Scotland. This one was privately owned (actually by that original farmer's family), and was much more cavalier about the artifacts found there. I TOUCHED A SKULL! I also touched some stone tools and maybe some eagle talons? I lost track. And bonus, the entryway is so small, you have to get in by scooting in on your belly, on a wheeled cart. Like this:

Scooting inside the Tomb of the Eagles. 

FYI, there are no bones left to discover in the tomb. (I checked.) But you can touch some in the visitors center. Tell them I sent you. (It will mean nothing.)

Thanks for visiting Orkney with me. If you ask me, I'll show you one hundred more photos I took.

Smoo Cave

We wanted to make sure we didn't miss Smoo Cave in the far northwestern tip of Scotland. Some of the reason was because I read about it, but some of the reason was because of the name.  

Heather, peat, and lochs under blue sky.

I took this particular photo out of a moving car because I wanted to capture the colors happening to the water on this beautiful sunny day in the far north. 

Posh faces for posh food

Whew. After a long day of driving on one-lane roads, it's time to choose a menu, wait in the drawing room of our posh hotel until called upon, then be served a number of courses with little bits of lemon sherbet in between to cool our palettes. I thought a lot about Rodney Dangerfield's character in Caddy Shack. 

The grounds of the Eddrachilles Hotel in Badcall Bay outside Scourie, Scotland

Whereas the northeast coast of Scotland seemed to alternate between sheep farms and industry, the northwest of Scotland seems to alternate between sheep farms, wild moors, and gorgeous seascapes. Our catch phrase for this area was SCENIC AF.

Just another scenic AF view.

The heather hills are dramatic. The clouds are dramatic. And the roads are dramatic AF because there is only one lane, lots of corners and hills, and you never know when another car is going to come barreling toward you. There are turnouts for when you meet a car coming from the other direction, but they are not always there when you need them.

Scotland roads are for gamblers. 

Hey, let's see more of that dramatic Scotland scenery!

OMG ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL THING. WHEN WILL IT END?

Apparently mistakes were made when we got to the Torridon Hotel, the one real posh splurge we had planned, and they gave us the fanciest room in the place, the room with the big bow window looking out over the grounds of the estate. See the biggest room in this picture, the one on the second floor? That's our room.

I knew I overpaid, but I didn't realize by how much until I saw the room.

My Patagonia duffel bag looks right a home here.

...and the bathroom.

Draw me a bath, Jeeves.

In the morning it was time to remove our Nissan X-Trail from among the Teslas and move along before they realized their mistake. Next stop: Isle of Skye.

Here's a taste of one of the quieter pockets on the Isle of Skye.

Now that we have driven many miles south on the west coast, we are now down closer to Glasgow and other population centers, which we noticed because of the amount of tourists we had to navigate through on the Isle of Skye. We no longer felt like we had the place to ourselves. Luckily, our hotel was tucked away on a less traveled thumb of the island and we had a nice evening there.

Eilean Donan Castle

These castles sure know how to pose for photos. I dragged Drew to many more ruined castles, but I won't drag you there. I just want you to see this one last castle.

Castle Stalker

This is not the best photo of Castle Stalker, but it is MY photo of Castle Stalker. I made the hotel reservations in Port Appin for it, I hiked a couple miles for it, and I lugged my telephoto lens all over Scotland for it. So I'm going to leave you here with this photo of this ridiculous cardboard box of a castle, beloved for only one reason.

Castle Stalker as seen in Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Thanks for watching my vacation slides and only yawning once or twice. If you like what you see, I have about 480 more where these came from. 

Hey Everybody, Wanna See My Vacation Slides? (Part 1 of 2)

Hey, where are you going?

I'll keep it brief. I just want to let you know that I haven't dropped off the face of the earth, I just went to the other side of the earth for an extended romp around Scotland. OH MY GOD DID YOU KNOW SCOTLAND EXISTS? THEN WHY AREN'T WE ALL THERE? Oh, you don't like the real possibility of cold drizzly rain every single day of the year? Well that kinda weather is right down my alley, so I was HOME.

Glasgow has the BEST CEMETERY EVER, called The Necropolis, on top of a hill.

I have one hundred photos of Glasgow sights, but I am choosing this photo of The Necropolis to share with you because look at it. 

Actually, Glasgow is lousy with museums and not just local, volunteer-operated repurposed houses with a couple dusty dioramas, but huge, stone temples to the past with so much awesome stuff they have to keep most of it in storage. Oh, man, Scotland has lost track of more history than we even have. I couldn't get it all in. My eyes got sore from looking. Drew's feet got sore from walking. My feet couldn't have been happier. 

Criagmillar Castle outside Edinburgh.

Would you like to know how it feels to be inside the courtyard of a 14th century castle? I don't because I ALREADY KNOW and it's AWESOME.

Fluffy coo

They really do have these fluffy coos in Scotland, although I suspect they keep them around for the tourists as they are outnumbered by their less fluffy cousins. They seem to know that their job is posing for photos.

Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness

Here is Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness (pronounce "Urkurt," but in a Scottish accent). It's very popular because of its position right on Loch Ness which is popular because of a fish monster. 

Girnigoe and Sinclair Castle, Wick, Scotland

Here is a cooler, just as ruined castle on the east coast that we got to explore by ourselves because there are no road signs to it and there's a bit of a hike to get out to it. I hope that never changes.

Inside a Neolithic cairn

When you travel with me, you get to see all KINDS of burial ideas! Here's a stone-age one: build a big pile of stones with a secret chamber in the center.

Outside a Neolithic cairn. In particular, the Grey Cairns of Camster outside of Wick.

This is another thing that requires a good GPS and a guide book because there is not a lot of signage. WHY AREN'T MORE PEOPLE INTERESTED IN STONE AGE DEATH CAVERNS?

Stacks of Duncansby off of Noss Head at the far northeast corner of Scotland

I'm beginning to appreciate all that I put Drew through as my driver and companion to every offbeat, off-the-beaten-track bit of beauty that I was able to research during my vacation preparation. Here we are on another hike in the far northeastern corner in the rain to view this bit of earthly mightiness. Pretty cool though, right?

Drew at John O' Groats

We'll leave Drew here at John O' Groats. In my next slide show, we will cross the Pentland Firth to the Orkney Islands, even norther than Scotland to find Skara Brae and other stone age treasures, then head down the west coast.

You're coming back for the second half of our trip, right? 

Right?

Does Everyone Deserve to be Heard?

This is the first in a planned occasional series using questions from a favorite podcast, Spontaneanation. In it, Paul F. Tomkins uses a question provided by a previous guest as a jumping-off point to a conversation with the current guest. I plan to do the same – only TO MYSELF.

Does everyone deserve to be heard? That depends. Do I have to listen?

For a short period of time, I attended a Unitarian church here in town. I felt their ideas and mission most closely mirrored my own: respect for every faith and the fruit of one’s own faith ought to be works that relieve pain in others. (That’s a MY theory of faith and not necessarily that of Unitarian/Universalism. Don’t hold them to it.) I discontinued my attendance there after it became clear that I was a square peg and my attempts to fill any of the round holes in their congregation were met with indifference. I never stared at so many backs as I did during their after-service coffee hours. And at 5-foot-3 I’ve stared at a LOT of backs.

Wait, that was not my point. HERE’S my point: there is a moment during each Unitarian service where congregation members are free to share a life event that is either a source of grief or joy. A microphone is passed around for this purpose. In this congregation, there was a young man with developmental challenges who would take the opportunity every week to tell everyone about his cat and various other “I love lamp” issues that might occur to him. He loved holding the microphone and he loved talking and he had no dismount. And the congregation, as they should have, let him bathe in this moment of weekly attention. No one was hurt and the young man, when he finally exhausted all his thoughts, sat down beaming. And I SQUIRMED. And DOODLED. And thought uncharitable thoughts. But that boy deserved to speak. And he deserved to be smiled at. And heard, I suppose. Why am I writing this? I end up looking like an impatient grumbler.  Actually, “Impatient Grumbler” would be an accurate subtitle to this blog so I guess no one should be surprised.

That was the story that popped into my head about two weeks ago when I first read the question, “Does everyone deserve to be heard?”. After the events of the last weekend, the question has become much more meaningful and loaded, so I will ask myself once again, 

Does everyone deserve to be heard? Even white supremacists and pretend Nazis?

Yes, everyone deserves to be heard. No one deserves to be hurt.

How should we approach a Nazi/Confederate rally then? Nazis and white supremacists are angry weaklings who blame others for their own failings. They spread their hate to other, insecure and sad minds, so that their evil thoughts never quite die out, no matter how many wars they lose.

They want to be taken seriously. So we should stop giving them the microphone.

What if, instead of counter marching at the same day and in the same place as the Wieners (I’m tired of calling them Nazis because they seem to like it – go figure - so I’m going to start calling them the Wieners), a counter march is held, in the same place, but the NEXT DAY? It would make it much easier to gauge the relative size of the marches. The Wiener march would be maybe 50 people and the next day I’m guessing you might have 500 peaceful marchers for racial equality in the same place. BAM. PWNAGE.

In this way, we do not allow clashes where the Wieners might end up looking aggrieved by being the butt of a beat-down, peaceful people will not get hurt, and the Wieners would get much less attention.

IGNORE. Let them speak to a dead microphone. They may not go away, but they will own less real estate in our thoughts and our news feeds. They will shrink like a cancer bathed in chemo.

THEN MARCH IN PEACEFUL STREETS. If you believe in the teachings of Martin Luther King, then live them. 

“Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.”

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

I don’t expect my prescription for a Wiener-less peace to be filled, because it is so easy (and, I am sure, satisfying) to give in to the rage caused by such evil, malignant intent, but I can dream.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

And now, your art tax.

Big Sur, 20" x 16" oil on canvas (palette knife application), on display this month at Gallery 360

Sunsets and Pebbles

When I type “sunset” into my iPhoto picture catcher, it returns 156 matches. That’s only the ones that the iPhoto brain can identify as sunsets. There might be just as many that it misses. The technology hasn’t quite perfected this game.

That’s at least 156 times that I needed to record the moment of a beautiful sunset, and approximately 150 of those times I was at the beach.  I’m not going to attempt to analyze this need. I’m sure most peoples’ photo collections are similar.

I’m also not going to analyze the need to then reproduce the sunset artificially using paint and canvas. It just happens. It happens to me a lot. Usually they are not as good as the original photograph, let alone as good as the original moment, but I keep trying because that is my compulsion. (Ugh, I hope you feel for me, living with this burdensome compulsion. GOD I can be pompous.)

(I KNOW. I could have just erased that whole thing and rewritten it, but I want you to know what a ridiculous child I am. It’s part of my charm.)

(THERE I GO AGAIN.)

Here's that beach in the daytime in 2004 with my favorite model, Drew, for perspective.

Let’s get this back on track. Here I am, making another attempt at depicting a sunset. This one is based on one I photographed on Cobble Beach on Yaquina Head (also called Black Pebble Beach), just south of the lighthouse. It’s an unusual beach for the area. It’s a little cove packed with smooth, palm-sized rocks that slide around under your feet, making walking tough going. The surf sounds extra tinkly, roaring up and sliding back out, causing the stones to roll around under the force of the water.

You can’t see the little stones in the painting, but I tried to depict the feeling that you get when you have to take yet another picture of a sunset, even though you have plenty.

Yaquina Sunset (With Extra Seabird). Oil on Canvas 20" x 16"

Trail Rage

So we took this great trip to Moab, Utah a month or two back. Drew had been there several times on mountain bikes and vroom-vroom bikes and wanted to share the place with me. And what's not to love: canyons, color, ancient petroglyphs, modern recreation, and RV parking. 

I expected to love it, and did some research on the hiking opportunities in the area. Drew had the two-wheel trails pegged, but I wanted at least one day of two-footed adventure. 

I found the Fiery Furnace trail hike. It is a very lightly marked trail in Arches National Park, which can only be accessed by ranger-led group hike, or by self-guided permits which require some prior video training. The National Park requires all participants to be of good enough physical agility to clamber up and down rocks, jump gaps, and squeeze into tight spaces, and to be able to complete the 2.5 hour loop. 

This will be perfect. I can go on a somewhat challenging hike in unfamiliar terrain, and I don't have to drag Drew along as my buddy-system buddy. I'll have a ranger and a group. Drew can drop me off like a soccer mom, go ride his mountain bike, and come pick me up when my hike party is over.

At the ranger desk when I bought the ticket, the ranger showed me a laminated hand-out that showed all the squeezy, clambery types of agility I would need to possess, showed me a visual example of the amount of water I would need to bring, and made me promise that I was man enough to handle the trail's trials. I promised. Watching her explain the rigors ahead, Drew was all the more certain that, one year out of back surgery and 55 years through a life lead by avoiding the agonies of hiking, he would happily leave it to me. 

I bought a new little day pack to carry my required burden of water. Even though the weather report was for mild conditions, I did not know how strict my ranger guide was going to be and I did not want to get turned away for breaking water rules. I did not need (a) so much water, and (b) to worry about my preparedness.

Five hundred yards was all we needed to know that someone, actually three someones, did not listen to the ranger with the pictures of clambering hikers. Two were past their prime hiking age and one woman was probably younger than me but carried too much weight on a bum knee that she admitted earlier was either pre- or post-operative. (I don't remember which. I actually heard that remark at the bathroom before the walk began and I didn't think she was part of the group at the time. She somehow neglected to mention that to the ranger.) The ranger gave them all a chance to ditch the hike, which had already visibly taxed them. They did not take the hint.

Our personal Park Ranger. Let's call him Justin. He kept trying to teach us stuff. Ugh.

We moved on with the three stragglers straggling further and further behind. We would hike for a while and wait. And wait. Finally our ranger (I don't remember his name. Let's call him Justin), for the safety of the stragglers, made them lead the hike with him so that he could help them over every clambery bit. That meant the rest of us (maybe 12 of us) were in a continual bottle neck, waiting to do in a second what it had taken five minutes for the trio of dumb to manage.

Ranger Justin doing the heavy lifting

Ranger Justin did not know when he woke up that morning that he would spend the day lifting three people up and over the entire Fiery Furnace trail, and neither did we know that we would spend the day in a line behind them waiting. Alas.

I see a few crossed arms. I am not the only one not believing this is happening.

I am SO SORRY about using the word "alas." I will do better. It's just that...I mean...gaahh.

Here's Ranger Justin, bent over as ever, as he tries his best to help, while the rest of us wait and not hike.

Ooh, sorry again for that "gaahh." That's not even a word. As a journalist, I am supposed to be able to use words to express any thing or circumstance. 

Here's a hint as to the speed of our "hike." The ranger-led hike that started an hour later caught up with us and played through, as if we were an aged and bumbling golfing foursome.

As you can imagine, we "hikers" at the back were exchanging a lot of careful "what were they thinkings" and "didn't they get the warnings," but we had all paid a lot in time and money to travel to the park, find lodging, and buy tickets for this hike, and we were trying to salvage the day by trying to put a pleasant spin on it. I spent a lot of my free time at the back of the line taking photos, which was pleasingly distracting. I got some good ones.

One of the photos I took was the basis for the following painting that I think is complete.

Can you feel a little extra anger or frustration in this piece? Good, and now you know where it came from.

I really enjoyed being down in those little slot canyons. I wish I could have been able to really clamber and jump, and I hope to get to go back to do so. Hopefully it won't be so long that I will be the slow one.

Bear Promised, Bear Delivered

Leave me alone for a minute and I'm back communing with Bears.  Here's one in acrylic on mixed media paperboard.

Her Favorite Tree. 12" x 16" Acrylic on paper.

This one was inspired by a moment in the recent Planet Earth II series. Bears skritching on trees. Aaah. That's the spot.

Medium

My business cards say "Paint on Canvas. Words on Paper." If you ask me my medium, I will probably say oil paints because that is the majority of my output. However, like most artists, I have yet to rule out a medium. Somewhere tucked in my studio corner you can find:

• oil paints
• acrylics
• watercolors
• watercolor pencils
• Sharpies
• screen printing ink
• acrylic ink
• pastels
• charcoal
• graphite
• collage paper
• coffee filters

I haven't quite found a use for the coffee filters yet, but I bought the wrong size once and didn't have the ecological heart to throw them away, so stay tuned. If you see me turn out some particularly bumpy collage work, you might wonder if a shopping error played a part in its creation.

I resemble that remark. Watercolor on Arches 300 lb. paper

Here is a watercolor that I did a while ago. A friend of mine bought an oil painting of Pilot Butte, so I threw this one in as a bonus because I know her daughter, who has just graduated high school, is an enthusiastic and talented horsewoman. 

Today in my studio, I am working on a bear in acrylic. Remind me to show her to you in a week or so. Then maybe on to glitter paint. Never say never.

Ouch.

Almost But Not Quite. Mixed Media, Paper mounted on wood. 11 x 14.

Ouch. That hurt. Another art jury rejection. It’s like cutting yourself in the kitchen. At first, you look down and see the skin opened and the blood start to seep, but there’s a delay before the pain starts to register. Then there’s more pain, then it reaches another level, then you have to sit down with a bloody towel wrapped around your finger and wait it out for a bit.

I’m at the sitting down part. I'm sitting in it and wondering what it means and what it can tell me. Luckily there's no blood.

Does it mean I’m a bad artist? I hope not. It helps that I know other, really great artists who have been rejected by this particular jury. It hurts because I'm pretty sure it means I’m a mediocre artist. No one aspires to mediocrity.  I’m hoping that it means I’m just not quite cooked yet. On the verge of 55 years of age (the last 20 of which include any art experience), I still have work to do. That I can swallow and use.

Not one hour after I read the email with that rejection, I got news of a sale of another one of my pieces – the fifth sale this month (if you count prints).

Art is subjective, you guys. The Chief tells me art is a glass cage of emotion because he likes to quote Anchorman. And who doesn’t? Time to bring out the Band-Aids and get back in the studio.

--

I finished the above painting this last week. The fact that I mounted it on a wooden cradle board means that I like it. Abstract painting is even more subjective than representational art. It tends to get "my kid can paint that" remarks, but I've learned that good abstract or expressionist painting can be just as difficult to get right. To me, this piece depicts an attempt at creating a peaceful, ordered balance within a messy world.

Peace be with you.

Wills and Fates

Our wills and fates do so contrary run

That our devices still are overthrown;

Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.

-       William Shakespeare

So things never turn out as we imagine or wish.

When I was 18, I wanted to be a psychologist. When I was 20, I learned what a psychologist could and could not do and what they did and did not know. Then I had to figure out what else I could do with a psychology degree.

The first thing I found that I could do with a psychology degree was to work as a sales clerk at a Motherhood maternity shop.

The next thirty years brought more experiments in what I could and could not do. What I was good at (writing) was not lucrative. What I was competent at (analytical thinking and grammar) was valuable but not fulfilling (“fulfilling” = crap word that means fun). What I found fun (art) I was not yet particularly competent at. So I quit trying for a rewarding career and settled on a fun one.

So I don’t have a life’s work. Just a house hung with art in varying degrees of competency and a website I saddled with a ridiculous name.

What should I have done differently? It doesn’t matter. All that matters is the time ahead of me. And I want nothing more than to paint.

Here’s a picture of a forest fire.

Too Late. Oil on canvas, 20" x 16"

Soft and Strong

I bought a shirt when I was in college that I miss to this day. It was mint green, the color of institutional walls. It didn’t fit. The shoulder seams went way past my shoulders and the sleeves petered out long after my arms did. It was of the kind of material that the disco era was made of – polyester and dreams, Baby. But it was soft and satiny and cool to the touch, and made me feel small and lithe and full of talent. I wore it to dances, class, and dance class. I don’t remember what happened to it. I suppose I wore it until it was no longer made of matter but memories, because I don’t think I had it in me to dispose of it.

Disco shirt and TWO SETS OF LEGGINGS. This is peak flashdance.

It did teach me to feel clothes before buying them. I have many shirts that feel better than they look. I also have way too many velvet things. Velvet is not a day-to-day fabric. I’ve found that if you show up to a casual thing in velvet, people assume you have misjudged the import of the occasion when actually I have just misjudged people’s sense of humor.

Do you know about Tencel? I love Tencel. It’s a fabric made of wood fiber (!) that is supposed to be environmentally friendly. What I like about it is that it is soft and heavy at the same time. Like a blanket that you couldn’t give up when you stopped sucking your thumb. I used to have a pair of pants made of Tencel. Tencel is so drape-y that the pants ended up looking kind of creepily saggy, but that didn’t stop me from wearing them like ALL THE TIME. I would still be wearing them, still rocking that 00’s cargo pants look, if I hadn’t gained that last five pounds.

I have a workout shirt in highlighter yellow, not because I am worried about being seen in the dark or because the Oregon Ducks sometimes enjoy visually shocking their opponents, but because it is so soft. Unfortunately, soft things don’t last, and that shirt might have one more season in it at best.

Soft and strong is a myth, at least where toilet paper is concerned.

I guess I'm telling you this because I'm feeling sad about losing an extremely deep pile fluffy jacket that died in the washing machine this week. It was like wearing a teddy bear. It's in the bottom of the garbage can and I keep planning rescue attempts that I know are doomed to failure.

Touring Yellowstone in 2013 in Tencel pants and teddy bear jacket

I don’t know if I have a point, so I will think of some and you can choose: (1) The disco era was helpful in shaping my fashion destiny. (2) If you see me wearing something odd looking, you can safely think to yourself, "I bet that's soft." (3) Always wash your hands after using the restroom.

What I Can Guarantee RE: Your Baby

Hello. I understand that I am entering my grandmotherly years, and to many I may already resemble a grandmother, whether because of my chubby cheeks, or my jolly demeanor. However, I feel it incumbent upon me to lay down some ground rules as to how grandmotherly I am able to act vis à vis your small human offspring.

1.     I WILL be polite to your baby.  I will refrain from deploying swear words in my speech and will not bring up the subjects of procreation activities or the theories regarding the existence of either Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny (FAKE), Sasquatch, or the Tooth Fairy.

2.     I MAY greet your baby. If it seems socially contracted, I may greet your baby with one of the following standard greetings:

a.     How do you do.

b.     Hello, Baby.

c.     Good afternoon, Baby (as appropriate)

d.     Fancy meeting you here.

3.     I MAY compliment your baby’s attire, knowing full well that it had little, perhaps nothing, to do with either its procurement or its donning.

4.     I MAY carry on a short conversation with your baby, if asked a PERTINENT question by said baby.

5.     I WILL NOT engage in undignified gibberish with your baby.

6.     I WILL NOT touch your baby unless circumstances require it, such as the existence of smudges, soil, or rodents on its face. Or to free myself of its grip.

7.     I WILL NOT pick up your baby unless it is blocking an emergency exit.

HOWEVER:

8.     I WILL rock your baby IF the baby appears fatigued, I am near a rocking chair, and I am fatigued as well. At such an occasion, I MAY smell your baby’s head. Do not be alarmed. I am merely checking for rodents.

Instant Nostalgia

They paved a dairy farm and put up a McMansionland.

My daily walks have taken me past this dairy farm, tucked onto a bluff overlooking the Columbia river and surrounding lowlands, since we moved here in 2005. It was a two-lane road with often no shoulder, but the traffic was light and courteous.

If this road didn't turn here, it would run off a bluff in about 100 yards and end up either on the major north-south interstate railroad line, or in a wildlife refuge set up for water birds beside the Columbia River.

Once I made the turn in the road by the dairy farm, I could continue north, where there was a little orchard on the left and the border of McMansionland on the right. I would eventually turn back and head home through the McMansionland where there were some nice rolling hills (less conducive for farming, perfect for 4,000 square foot, split-level, architectural nightmares).

One morning I took this stunner of a photo. MAN I'll miss this old barn.

I enjoyed the peek through the dairy and orchard, to the river and lowlands below. Like a cat (or a short person), I like to peer down from heights onto smaller, less better things below me. It was a highlight of my walks. I could often see red-tail hawks trolling the pastures for field mice.

Then this happened. 

Same corner. No barn.

I say "this happened" like it was an act of God or something, but it was an act of change. The old farmer died, the kids were not interested in dairy farming, they found out how much the land was now worth, and an eager developer made them an offer they couldn't refuse.

There goes the neighborhood.

I get it. I don't want to milk cows either. But it's still sad. And you know the houses aren't going to be as cute as those cows. And I won't be able to look through the fence and through all the houses. The river will be a secret for those few, super-rich ones who can pay, not only for a new McMansion, but one with a primo view.

Last chance to see. (Reference-getters please pipe up in the comments.)

Even though I don't enjoy painting buildings, I thought it was important for me to paint that barn, especially since I had captured that photo, and it begged to be recaptured in paint. So I've been poking at it all fall (and now winter). It's close to being done, in that there is little more that I can do that will improve it. I'm sure I'm not the only one in Felida (my neighborhood's feline name - another story) who feels as instantly nostalgic about this barn.

Not sure if I improved on the photo other than making it bigger.

Here is my attempt at a barn. The Pleasant View Dairy barn. I may try it again with a little more style, but this one is what it is. And it will live on while the original is gone. Like a bad rock music lyric.