And it's starting to feel like a real apocalypse

There is a madman in charge of the United States and he has a loyal and armed following. Elsewhere in the world dictators are feeling empowered. The climate emergency is finally playing out the way scientists told us it would years ago. The west coast is burning. Hurricanes are plentiful in the Atlantic. They are being named after Greek letters, something that has only happened once before. There is a global Pandemic caused by a virus with the potential to cause great suffering and even premature death for those who catch it. The world is out of balance with nature. Humans are destroying their only home.

A year ago last summer, somebody who I considered a true dear friend, a sister of sorts, told me she felt we no longer had anything in common now that our children were grown. Our children had been grown for a while and so this confused me. She went on to tell me she did not want to remain close friends because our opinions on things made us too different. When I asked her to give me an example she said “Well you are always saying that certain events are due to climate change.” This felt particularly odd since years ago my husband and I had an extra ticket to hear Al Gore talk at Harvard and we invited her to join us. She was energized after that lecture about the importance of standing up to those who did not believe in the urgency of dealing with climate change. In the months prior to this conversation my husband and I had attended several Extinction Rebellion events and we were both starting to feel panicked about the failure of the western world to address the climate crises. My passion fueled by my concerns about what the future would be for our first grandchild who was about to turn 1. In response to her comment brought up how attribution science had come a long way in the past decade and scientists were indeed confident that climate change had contributed to many of the notable extreme and damaging weather events that have occurred. Once home I would send her articles to support this. Her in laws were (and maybe still are) Trump supporters and although she has always claimed to be a die hard suburban mom liberal, I wonder how much the political turmoil that was building last summer contributed to her deciding she no longer wanted to associate with me as she probably found my comments on this subject overwhelming and too much. It was concerning she no longer felt she could engage in a conversation about this subject. Or for that matter on other topics we disagreed about such as my strong belief that universal health care was the only moral health care for a country to have.

What does any of this have to do with the art I am posting? Not much except when making this image I was thinking about people, like this woman, who turn their back and choose not to listen to those who are saying truths they what they do not want to hear. One of the my last interactions with her was to suggest 2 weeks before the official lockdown that she consider not going in to the middle school where she worked. I am sure she thought I was just being my ridiculous over the top self. But if the entire country had shut down then many many lives would have been saved.

These drawings were done with black walnut ink that I made myself. For years I wondered what the hard tennis ball like seeds that littered the ground around Fresh Pond were. During quarantine I have been doing an herbal CSA and through that I learned about Black Walnut and experimented with making my own ink. I have no idea if it is archival or not. I know the old master’s used black walnut ink, but who knows what they added to their formula in addition to black walnuts. And I am pretty sure their paper was sized with Rabbit Glue. If you buy black walnut ink in the store it is not really black walnut ink because black walnut ink is too acidic. I did add a lot of baking soda to the boiling black walnuts and it frothed all over the place (imagine a vinegar and bakings soda mess but with something that stains…LOL). The dishrag I used to clean that mess up has a beautiful brown tie-dye on it after being washed many times so the color has held up. Anyways as I am short on funds these days it is fun to make my own art supplies. Plus now I know that if it comes to it we can harvest the black walnuts to eat.

No Words

Protests, BLM and me

I don’t have words for this nightmare of America and Race. Then again I am not sure as a middle age white woman it is appropriate for me to say anything. The thing is my heart broke in a million pieces seeing the anger, hurt and frustration of Isaac’s friend David, who is the sweetest nicest guy I have ever met. Like all young people who I have fed at our house or taken out to dinner over the years I find myself having strong maternal feelings toward him. And it hurt as I listened to him vent his frustration, fear and anger on social media because I could tell he was hurting so much. I also am friendly on social media with another young black man who I friended when I was at the SMFA. I always liked Yannick and we shared a bond over our connection to Salt Lake City, where my son was living at the time. He had family there and had lived there for part of his childhood. He was one of those undergraduates I respected and would enjoy talking to. I always made time to look at his work and talk about it. Several times we helped each other pull our prints in the print room. He was so excited when he came up to me and excitedly told me he was chosen to do a senior thesis. He was kind and never made me feel like I was an out of place old woman, like some other younger students did. I definitely was cheering him on and hoping he succeeded after the SMFA. Like David, Yannick was also broken by the recent events. I messaged him and he wrote me back. It was clear he was feeling so much pain and anger around what was going on. His words mimicked Dave’s. It was hard to see these sweet young talented men feel so betrayed by this country.

Onward

I find myself going between exhaustion and anger and sadness. Why can’t people wear masks properly? Why are we so focused on returning to a broken economy? What about the brown skin men being killed? Why isn’t everyone waking up to the real curve that needs to be flattened: CLIMATE? Yes there are many things I miss, but I could continue like this happily if I thought the world would emerge from this a better place for everyone on the planet. But the idea that we are doing this only to emerge to an even meaner, selfish, destructive world with a lethal virus circulating is just devastating. And so the work takes a darker turn.

This image, like many of the figures in my Quarantine art, emerged from a stereoscopic 3D image from my parents wedding of my maternal grandparents dancing with my parents. My grandfather, the one pictured is the only one of my grandparents to survive into my adulthood. I knew his face well. His face was one of those faces that did not age as he got older and looking at this image I realized I knew every bump and nuanced curve of that face. Sydney Birke was a child of the depression and he had had a hard life of poverty and loss. He had a brother who was close in age to him who died in a diving accident when he was a teen and he was the one who had to tell his mother about the accident. He loved music and worked hard to buy an instrument only to have to turn around and sell it because his family needed the money. In my lifetime he worked in the Jewelry district in NYC at a store called Simpsons. He had three wives. The first, my grandmother, died suddenly from a stroke when I was five. The second left him after almost 20 years to rediscover her gypsy roots. The third was 30 years younger than him and the first to not be Jewish. Marge was a foreign creature to me and my cousins as she was the embodiment of a middle aged wasp when she entered our lives. When my grandfather was in his late 80s she had a stroke and became mentally unwell and started to abuse my grandfather. A home health aid slipped my mother and my uncle a note and they extracted him and put him in a nursing home in Lexington and that is where he would eventually die.

Why did I leave my mother out? Well as I was making the piece I was thinking about how much I miss hugging my adult children . I have friends whose children were supposed to get married this summer and fall. Other friends who are missing graduations. It is so sad to think of these joyful events being cancelled.

But reflecting on the piece I realized there was another significance behind that white swatch of paper. I grew up in the shadow of my grandmothers' deaths. Both passed away suddenly when I was 5 and it had a large impact on my parents who were in their 20s. My mother’s grief was something I had to compete with when trying to get my mother’s attention. It was always present.

A collage made from cut up paintings Roen, my granddaughter, did. I had no idea the collage would end up being a caregiver and a baby. I posted both the black and white version and the original because I enjoy both. But also because the sketch below was done by looking at the black and white photo.

I am not a fan of this drawing. But it is another version of the series about quarantine. I might revisit.

CoVid-19

It has been almost 9 months since I entered a blog post. And the life that was 9 months ago seems like a distant memory. Visiting NYC, going to Flora Bar at the Met Breur with our son and my in-laws, hugging my adult kids, getting lunch in Harvard Square with my daughter and granddaughter, theater, museums, the library, music class for babies at Bow Market, our granddaughter’s first birthday party with family and friends crowded at the outdoor patio of the brewery and all those wonderful dinners I would complain about cooking for the kids and the meals we would eat around our dining room table.

Life seemed both oddly perfect and frustratingly scary as we confronted our precarious financial situation and the state of the planet. It was hard to ignore the articles stating how dire the climate emergency was as I pushed my granddaughter joyfully in the stroller. And it was clear capitalism and greed were going to destroy us all unless it was stopped. I did little things to try to make a difference. I tried to go plastic free, to compost, to minimize food waste, to not drive, to not fly, to reduce my footprint and yet knew nothing I did was enough. Those with power made a move to destroy a valuable start-up my husband was working on and our kids were all weighted down with debt from their educations and were living pay-check to pay check despite all having advanced degrees and professional positions. We did not see a future where the current system was going to work for us as a family. As my parents planned to move into an upscale independent senior community I would have visions of my husband and I living in poverty when we were elderly.

Then in November my husband and I learned we needed to move out of the apartment we had lived in for five years in less than 30 days. I felt like my world was unraveling. We had never been completely comfortable in this apartment. The landlord was terrible and we had had multiple problems with the place. We had given up trying to even maintain any semblance of home and had mostly been “nesting” and just trying to get by. It was like we were perpetually camping out. But we were happy and it made our trips to NYC seem even more special. I loved our neighborhood and I loved the fact that I was less than 2 miles from 2 out of 3 of my kids. Periodically we would look for other apartments in the neighborhood but we never found anything even remotely livable in our price range. But on the same day we were told we had 30 days to find a new living situation an apartment around the corner became available. I had a doctors appointment so we only spent about 10 minutes looking at it. As soon as I saw it, I told Roy we could make this work and should immediately apply. It was the week before Thanksgiving and there were few apartments on the market. Two other families were also considering this apartment . Fortunately we had neighbors and real estate agents who lived in the neighborhood who knew us and vouched for us and our application was accepted. It felt like a small miracle. At the same time we given how particular we are about everything from noise to environmental toxins panic suddenly set in. How would the place work for us? Would it be safe for our granddaughter? Would Roy be able to work during the day in the space? Nothing about this was going to be easy.

We moved, Christmas Eve. Our youngest son came up from NYC to assist. It was crazy and hard and dirty and yet somehow the new apartment miraculously felt more like a real home than our other apartment ever did. It had these bizarre resonances with our home in Lexington and even stranger our upstairs neighbors were a couple who lived across from us in Lexington all those years. Our youngest son helped my husband unload a storage pod we had been paying for since we left our big house in Lexington. We found old toys and books for our granddaughter to play with and set up a play corner for her. We ate too much Chinese Food Take Out and we laughed and celebrated through this difficult time. Roy started a new consulting job in Harvard Square. Again life seemed good.

I had visions of Springtime Brunch celebrations in our backyard, reminiscent of the parties and brunches I had thrown in Lexington. It had been a long time since we had a backyard where we could entertain and I was so excited for warmer weather and flowers. I told Chris, Ethan’s girlfriend she could come over and garden and envisioned sitting and having tea and cookies afterwards with her while baby Roen and the dog Salo played in the small yard. I imagined Isaac visiting from NYC with his Bass and giving a concert for us and friends and neighbors on the deck. We might have been out of money and struggling but again our life seemed perfect in so many ways.

A few years ago when Ebola and Zika were causing a stir it seemed like I was the only person who was worried about a global epidemic. When I would talk to others about my concerns they would often shrug off my panic statements. I had the same feeling about this virus in China in January. I remember telling everyone in my studio print class that global travel and business should be shut down for 2 weeks to contain it. Everyone looked at me like I was crazy and said that would be too extreme. Sigh, if only the world had done that. I kept saying, “Why can’t the world just stop for 2 weeks….stop driving, stop flying, stop going to school and work and just take a pause. just for 2 weeks so we can prevent this thing from spreading.” We started to stockpile but not in an obvious way. Before the toilet paper crises had even entered the news I did things like restart our “Who Gives A Crap” subscription for eco-toilet paper. I filled the pantry with lentils and beans and grains. I decided to buy bigger containers of spices at Curio and joked with my friends there that I was trying to not pester them so often. In the February we went to NYC to see our son and go to theater. At brunch with my FIL we talked about the virus and the need to stockpile. We talked about our concerns that our government in the US could respond to this adequately. Even my FIL agreed this was not going to go well. We filled prescriptions and made sure we had what we needed. We told family and friends to do the same. We knew things were getting serious when our son’s scientific conference (one of the biggest international scientific conferences there is..the American Physical Society) canceled their meeting in the beginning of March Saturday night at 11pm before the conference was to start that Monday. In their message they said, “Do Not Travel to Denver”. Physicists and mathematicians were arriving in Denver only to get on a plane and head home. Still Roy and Nick had to decide about PAX (the big east coast gaming conference). They decided to go but would be extremely careful and wash their hands. At the time the information we had was that for those who were healthy the virus was not that serious and there was some thinking that it made sense to get infected early on in the pandemic. In retrospect I am not sure Roy would have gone knowing what we now know about the virus.

But as soon as Roy returned from PAX, our extended family decided to quarantine. It was a good solid 10 days before the rest of Cambridge would go into quarantine. I stopped going to classes. I minimized any shopping trips. Here we are, 2.5 months later and most of the world is in quarantine. All from this tiny little virus that doesn’t even have it’s own DNA. All from something that can be killed with soap and water.

Shira and Nick let their Nanny go. They are working from home. I am relieved Shira left clinical practice for a corporate job. I cringed when she suggests she might do a clinical shift at Fenway early on when there still was not enough PPE for health care workers.

In late March we moved Isaac out of NYC to Roy’s sister’s condo in CT. NYC did not seem safe and we were worried about him being alone there. Now he is alone in this condo in CT. We FaceTime. Baby Roen thinks he is in the computer. She takes my computer and moves him around the apartment with her placing him in her fort so she can play with him by herself. He plays improvised music to accompany my reading Eric Carle’s “The Very Busy Spider”. Roen thinks it is funny to say the horse goes “Baaaaaah” rather than “Neeeigh”. If I ask her if she wants to talk to Uncle Isaac she points to the computer. When she is ready to say bye she closes the computer slowly sometimes looking inside and checking on Isaac as she does it. It is a strange world.

I have been sewing masks obsessively playing around with various patterns available online. I am learning I am a horrible seamstress, although practice does help one get better.

When all this started many made comments about being together soon or felt it was just for two weeks. We knew better. Here we are. Nobody is coming over for a mother’s day brunch. Grandparents, Kids, My Uncle and his Wife and friends will not be eating a spread of spring time salads, quiches and homemade pastries. The deck is empty and on one of the first warm days I sit there and draw and imagine what it would be like to have people in those chairs.

A collaborative drawing done by me and Roen age 20 months

Sometimes we are left with just ourselves and our reflection

Art made for granddaughter…..to help her become more comfortable with us wearing masks when we are outside.

Extinction Rebellion-The Climate Emergency

So I have been thinking about Climate Change and Greta and why we as humans are so reluctant to do anything to stop the climate crises from becoming a humanitarian night mare for our planet. I also was introduced to reductive wood cutting by Chris Wallace at Maud Morgan and have been intrigued by the potential of it to help me with my imagery. I do love printing. So this summer was all about exploring reductive wood cutting and an image that I feel captures my emotions about climate change. The image was inspired by a fresco we saw at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from around the time of Pompei.

From the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/247006?&searchField=All&sortBy=Relevance&ft=Globe+fresco&offset=0&rpp=20&pos=2

First attempt at Reductive Wood Cut Print

Second attempt (on Right)-had trouble with wood splitting. And Third and final attempt for the summer

I like the group better than I like one individual print.

I did a drypoint workshop at Harvard Art Museum’s Material Lab and made this thinking about my reductive wood prints.

The Casts.

So July 20th I fell and broke my right wrist while we were testing out Brompton Bikes (UK designed and made bikes that fold).   Fortunately I am a lefty.   After surgery I was in a series of casts for 6 weeks.  To keep myself sane I used my casts as a portable canvas had fun designing and drawing on each one.  There was a bit of a learning curve as I did not want to use anything but Sharpies on the fiberglass for fear that I would compromise how breathable it was.  And the fiberglass's texture presented some challenges when it came to my wanting to create something with too much detail.  But by the end I mastered how to transfer a drawing onto the cast and control over using the sharpies to get various effects on the fiberglass.  

Each cast has a Brompton Logo with an additional crashed bike on the bottom.  The accident happened hour 23 of our 24 hour free Brompton trial.   Then there is a tool presenting the healing (breaking, putting back together, removing of metal) along with  wasps and prickles to represent how the cast felt.  The middle cast has the eclipse (drawn with a mirror) because that is the cast I wore when the eclipse occurred which I drew for the kids in the neighborhood who really enjoyed the casts and watching them change as I drew on them.  The final cast has Yorrick's skull sitting  among all of Ophelia’s flowers (each one mentioned in the play is in there) and  a crown with the roman numeral 54 on it because it was my birthday and we went to see Oscar Isaac/Keegan-Michael Keys  in Hamlet at the Public Theater in NYC.  Sadly we saw the last performance and the cast of Hamlet did not do signatures as they were having a cast party.  I tried to get my cast into the cast party but alas the woman guarding the door would have none of it.

Jill

Thinking about rhythm

I looked at my drawing this morning and thought about rhythm and patterns and realized there was a way to make the composition stronger. I added the cell phone charger and cord to break up the square space and to add a curve that countered the curves in the egg carton. What do you think?

A new website

At long last, a new website is in the making. Stay tuned!