Tag Archives: art

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Ink

I for Ink in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

I have three bottles of ink, by Windsor and Newton. Violet, Emerald and Silver. I have hardly used them, but I keep them. They are from my mother.

My mother was an artist and she also did crafts. She bought art supplies. When I was first married, my husband and I each bought a used gold chain. I started medical school and used the chain to put my rings on when I changed into scrubs for the operating room. Many people tied their rings to the scrub pants. At 2 am after a difficult surgery or delivery or cesarean section or premature baby or a trauma patient that did not survive: it’s easy to forget the rings. Lose them in the laundry. I hung my rings on the chain.

My sister told me that my mother complained about the chains. “Why would they spend money on something like that?” My sister replied, “What did you buy last weekend?” “Um,” said my mother, “Paper.” “Were you out of paper?” asked my sister, silkily. “No,” said my mother. She had enough paper for art for years, but she loved paper and art supplies and would buy good paper on sale. “De gustibus non est disputandumm.” said my sister. To each his or her own taste.

I have little caches of art supplies that my mother sent me. Beautiful ink. Beautiful paper. When I paint a watercolor postcard, it is in her style. She sculpted with clay, became a potter, did silk screens, etchings, watercolors, oils, pastels. She did crafts: glass beads. My sister did a glass bead class with her. They reported giggling that they had both made glass beads, quite hideously ugly. My mother bought the glass bead equipment. Woodcuts. Paper mache. She sewed costumes when we younger, though she didn’t like sewing very much. We both had japanese kimonos when we were little for Halloween. This stood out as too weird among our social group.

I have nibs somewhere, to dip in the inks. I have a fountain pen with an italics point. I have paper.

I look at the beautiful inks and remember my mother and my sister.

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Angel

I am in the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge and I am already late… that is, I did not post yesterday, my “A” day. I didn’t know what my theme for the month would be this morning. This morning, I am reading Micheal A. Singer’s The Untethered Soul and I found what I would be writing about.

I have written about my inner angel and devil before. That voice inside that talks all the time and makes judgements and gets excited about everything. Mr. Singer says that that voice is not us. That voice is like a roommate who talks constantly and is very dramatic. He talks about stepping back and watching that roommate and listening. If the roommate were a real person, we would cut them off. “Stop talking!” we would yell. But they won’t and they wouldn’t and we cannot get away.

So when that voice gets really irritating I call on my angel and devil to take over. They argue. The angel always says “Forgive.” The devil wants to whack the angel over the head with a hammer to shut them up. The angel forgives the devil for being nasty. The devil gets even more nasty and sarcastic and then I start laughing. The inner angel and inner devil are so over the top. Perhaps someone stepped on my toe and it hurt. The devil suggests what to say to them, where they should go, how to punish them. The devil is unreasonable and suggests punishments that are so far beyond the original insult that the angel appears and says, “Stop that. You aren’t being nice.” The devil swears. The angel says, “Well, your toe doesn’t hurt anymore does it and anyhow someone pushed the person who stepped on your toe so it wasn’t their fault and why did you come to a crowded concert if you can’t tolerate your toe being stepped on?” Then they may continue to fight for a while. At the concert I am laughing, inappropriately, because of the inner dialogue.

Today I want to thank that inner angel for all the times that she or he has calmed me down. Has stepped forward and said, “Stop reacting.” For being loving all the time.

Thank you, angel.

And here are synchronized swimmers, practicing before a competition. In the competition, they will not wear the swim cap or the goggles. This is a lift, remember, where none of them touch the bottom of the pool. It is all supported by the girls swimming. This is a team of eight, so four are supporting from under water, holding their breath. Trust and teamwork.

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Love and self

When you love someone, do you lose your self?

I think that is the tricky bit about love. When you fall for someone else, do you fall or do you hold on to yourself? Where is that boundary?

I am in a flirtation. I am very interested in a person. I am interested in what he says and what he is interested in. I am learning quite a bit about some topics that really, have not been on my radar. I also often disagree quite strongly in the realm of politics. And I don’t really care that our politics are just about opposite ends of the spectrum.

I am interested in where we meet and where we don’t meet. Where we agree and where we very strongly disagree and privately think that the other person needs their head examined. I am not falling too far into the “really this person thinks like I do, they just won’t admit it” trap. Well, perhaps I am. Perhaps that is what love is: when we project part of our self and the ideal part of ourself on to the other person. They reflect and occupy some part of our ideal. That does not mean that they ARE our ideal or that they ARE the projection.

In this particular flirtation, he does not seem interested in much of what I am interested in. Well, particularly poetry. Occasionally this bothers me but mostly I shake it off. I am hoping that I have reached the age and level of cynicism where I do not expect the other person to like everything I like, to agree with what I say, to have the same ideals or ideas. I am watching myself and wondering how much of what I like in him is him and how much is my projection. Don’t know yet. The mind is a peculiar place. So is the heart.

But …. I am feeling much happier about holding on to myself at the same time as I fall and crush. I look at what he likes and wants but I also hold what I like and want. I am trying to give them equal weight, the needs and wants and desires of the two people present.

Hold and fall, at the same time.

The picture is of an etching by my mother, Helen Burling Ottaway.

Shake it off.

Also published on everything2.com

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Niels Ingwersen: My best professor

My best professor in college was Dr. Niels Ingwersen.

I went to the University of Wisconsin, Madison because it had a Scandinavian Department. I had gone to Denmark as an exchange student during my high school senior year. I had to come back and finish high school. I needed US and Virginia Government and Twelfth grade english. I chose to do them at the Community College instead of returning to high school.

I went to the Danish embassy in Washington DC and asked about colleges where I could continue to learn Danish. They recommended three: U WI Madison, U WA Seattle and Austin, TX. My parents said that Washington was too far away. I thought there was more chance to ski in Wisconsin, so that was the only college I applied to. Good thing I got in, right?

The first class I took in the Scandinavian Department was with Niels Ingwersen, his HC Andersen class. It was packed. It was known as a fun and informative class that would fulfill an english requirement. I was fascinated because Dr. Ingwersen talked about the politics, the economics, the story behind Hans Christian Andersen’s stories.

I begged permission to write stories myself for the required paper and he let me. I moved in to graduate student classes, because I wanted to take anything he would teach.

I took a class on the modern scandinavian novel. We had five students and him. It was on Thursday afternoon from 2 to 5 pm. None of us could stay awake. In the third class Niels said, “How about we move this class to peoples’ houses? We will take turns hosting and bring potluck.” We also brought wine and the class blossomed. Instead of three hours it ended up being 5 or 6. We would stray from literary criticism into politics, world events, economics, biology, whatever. It was fun!

We each had to choose a book to read. I was tired of books about depressed alcoholics and asked him for a recommendation. He said, “How about Livsens Ondskab?” Life’s Malice. Written in the late 1800s, it’s a mocking and dark comedy about the people in a small town and how funny and awful they are. I loved it.

I applied for a summer honors scholarship, to translate Livsens Ondskab. Niels was gone for the summer, to the U of WA. I sent him questions about the translation. “How much were you going to translate?” he asked. “All of it!” I said. I worked out that I needed to do five pages a day. Some days were quick and some were slow, slow, slow.

Niels was my favorite professor because he was not only a wonderful teacher but also a really nice person. Hard to find that delightful combination, but worth it if you do.

http://host.madison.com/news/local/education/former-uw-madison-professor-niels-ingwersen-dies-at/article_1d0fe552-d491-11de-8d48-001cc4c002e0.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_Ingwersen

For the daily post prompt We can be taught!

The photo is my sister, about when I started college. I think Niels made me laugh that way.

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Voice lesson 2

I joined the Gospel Class of the 2014 Centrum Blues Festival. You can join just for the Gospel Choir and it gets you the lessons, performance and into one concert.

It was taught by Dr. Ethel Caffie-Austin and Delnora Roberts.

Dr. Ethel Caffie-Austin is described as West Virginia’s First Lady of Gospel Music and Denora Roberts is from Maryland. Both are black. Their gospel choir for Centrum was nearly exclusively white, though there were a few asian people. I went to high school in Alexandria, Virginia. I thought, oh, goody, these women will yell. At some point, they will raise their voices at us.

This class taught me the best voice production of anything I have ever done. I have not focused on voice, being a rural doctor, but I have sung folk songs since I was tiny. In college I joined the university community chorus at the University of Wisconsin, where we did Carmina Burana. I took some private lessons. When I moved here in 2000, I joined Rainshadow for the William Byrd Mass that they were going to sing for my mother’s memorial after she died of ovarian cancer. My father had helped start it in 1997. I asked to stay in it after the memorial and they let me. I have been in it ever since.

And still, these ladies from the east, did the best voice training I’ve ever had.

First they had us sing and they divided us into Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass. They did it by ear in groups. That in itself was impressive. They could hear everything.

Here is what they told us:
1. Sit in a chair. Take as deep a breath as you can, then inhale three more small breaths. Hold it. You should be able to hold it for five minutes. I can’t yet. But I am doing better. Let the breath out.
2. Do six fast inhalations and exhalations, as deep as you can and sticking your tongue out on the exhalation. You will look like a Maori warrior — that is the face you want. It may make you light-headed. That is because you have blown out your store of CO2 and your body is adjusting.
3. Nasal wash every day. Neti pot or Neilwash or a Sinugator. Ok, the last one sounds like it would bite your nose. I chose the Neilwash because neti pots look too much like teapots.
4. Stretch your range. Both of these woman could sing all four parts: down to bass, up to high soprano.
5. Drink enough water. Drink water all through class. Drink water all day.

Then they taught us. No paper at all. They would sing a part, have us sing it back, and then teach the next part. In four days they taught us four part harmony to 8 gospel songs. We would get confused and start singing each others’ parts. They would stop. “A tenor is singing the alto part. Who is it?” They would have the tenors sing and could pick out the culprit.

Towards the end of the first 3 hour lesson, Dr.Β Caffe-Austin looked at the Sopranos and yelled full voice: “Sing louder. With soul.” Everyone jumped and I started laughing. The other Sopranos gave me evil looks. Dr. CA didn’t sound angry or anything except loud. Full voice for her filled the chapel we were in.

On Friday we did a lunch concert outside. Dr. Caffe-Austin really messed with us then. “What is the order?” People asked. She just smiled. Out there she would just start a song and we’d better pull it out of our memories. And…. she threw in three we had not done. By the third, we’d gotten it: call and response, we’d better sing.

On Saturday we were first in the lineup for the four hour Blues Concert in the balloon hanger (it is an old fort, remember? Fort Worden, and it was an intelligence dirigible hanger.) This time we were ready and responded to whatever she threw at us. It was so much fun and all oral tradition: no written words, no written music and we learned it.

Hope I can do it again this year. Hope they are back: no listing yet for the Gospel class at the 2015 Centrum Acoustic Blues Festival.

The picture is from July 2005 from the Centrum Fiddletunes Festival outside the balloon hanger.

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Linking social media

OOO, today’s assignment for Blogging 101: Plug in to social networks.
I am not ready to attach fully to Facebook, honestly.
I also lurk on Sermo, which is a supposedly “secure” site for physicians, though why anyone would imagine anything on the internet is secure… dunno. I have found advertising aimed at companies that want to reach doctors, saying advertise on Sermo. So I am a bit careful of what I do there. They offer prizes for doing surveys, but I figure that that information goes right to the pharmaceutical companies. I don’t participate in the surveys….I’ve written on everything2 since 2005, well, really didn’t do much until 2007, but anyhow….
Got a Facebook page, go to Linked in occasionally, and have email…. AUGH!! I don’t want to be too wired. Reminds me of when we got our pagers in medical school, third year. We were thrilled. That wore off pretty darn quickly on call. Also, I date back to voice pagers, then numerical pagers and now people can text…. change change change….

I will think about the Facebook connection, but I am not ready yet. Also, my teenage daughter says I share too much on Facebook anyhow. Particularly dance videos. I LOVE TO DANCE. Couples dancing since, well, since I was a 17 year old exchange student to Denmark…. and that’s another story.

Sunrise! A new day! More change!