Picture And Memorabilia Project - Part 1

At the start of this extended time of physical distancing, I spent a ton of time with photographs and other family memorabilia when I started a project to scan "my collection". Over time, I have become the family historian and have most of my Dad’s old photos, including ones he acquired when his parents died. I also have the photos from when my mother and father were married and the photos from my brother childhood and mine.  Given my Mom's circumstances, there's virtually nothing from just her side.

Especially with the older stuff, it's not just photos.  I have old letters, ration books from World War II, newspaper clippings, and other things.    

Some time in the 1990s when I received my first batch of old family photos from my Dad, I brought them back with me to a family Thanksgiving. I made my Dad and my Aunt look at all of them and identify who they could.  We documented names on the back of these photos.  

This spring, I started to sort through different pockets of the collection, beginning with the newspaper clippings and other items my stepmother gave to me after my Dad died 13 years ago. I had never looked at any of this. It was all waiting for me in the drawer of a file cabinet in the basement. Once I got started, I started pulling out more and more of the collection which was tucked away in different places.

At some point, I came across a number of pictures which were not documented and contained people that I didn't know, so I reached out to my Aunt.  She is 90 years old, still lives independently, and has a good memory. She's also been stuck at home most of the time like the rest of us and is bored. For several months, I sent her several scanned items each day. 

With her help, I got many more photos identified and also got some background stories from her.  One photo with my Grandmother and a couple I didn't know prompted her to tell me that the couple in the picture were my grandparent's best friends. She told me that this was the same couple that my grandparents called to sit with them after they first received notice from the Army that my Dad had been injured in Europe during World War II. I learned a bunch of things I didn't know, got closer to my Aunt, and gave the both of us something to do.  

For the scanned versions, I've figured out a way to document names and other information in a picture's margins.  It takes a lot of time, so I'm only doing that for some of the collection. I'm saving the scanned photos in a folder out in the cloud and have shared the folder with my family members, so they can access what they want.  I hope someone from the next generation gets interested.

At this point in a rambling post, I feel compelled to share at least one pictures. Out of all the family photos, I'm drawn to this one. It's from July 13, 1919 and my grandparents on my father's side are in this picture.

This grandfather died before I was born and I was not close to this grandmother, but there's something about this photo that makes me feel connected to them.

 

I did a rough draft of this post on May 8th. Today, I decided to finish it and post it. 

When all of the uncertainty and disconnection from people and regular routines first occurred, my own reaction to it surprised me. I had zero capacity to draw or paint. I certainly had time and I also really wanted to, but I just could not. Instead, I found that I had to knit. 

This project also was helpful and needed distraction and I think it was creative in its own way. 

The End Of An Era

My partner and I made the difficult decision to have Dorian Gray put down this morning. 

On July 29, 2002, we brought home two adorable gray kittens, who were approximately 3 months old, from the vet. They were from Wadena MN, where one of the vet's sisters lived. In early July, we had asked to be put on a list to be notified when the clinic had kittens and this was the 2nd time the clinic had called.

The first time they called, the timing was terrible. It was right before we were leaving on vacation. We went to see them anyway. Who wouldn't?  It was a Friday morning of a tough work week for both of us and it was a chance to play with kittens. This was a larger batch of kittens and they were around 2 months old. They were sweet, but the timing was bad and I didn't feel an immediate attachment.

I was at work on a Monday morning when the vet called the second time, she said that she only had 2 kittens this time, but they were both sweeties.  She was tempted to keep the one, which turned out to be Dorian (in fact that was what the vet was going to name her), but she didn't want to split them up.  I immediately called him at work and said I wanted to go look at them at lunch that day. We went and when one gray kitty got placed in his arms and one in mine, I was instantly hooked.  At one point, he turned to me and asked "what do you want to do", which was immediately responded with "I want to take them home".  The follow up question was "when" to which I replied "now". 

We were planning to get kittens and had all of the supplies, including cat carriers,  We did not have the carriers with us, so Daniel got to hold on to two squirmy balls of gray fur on the way home.  

This is the first decent picture I ever took of the both of them way back in 2002. They both grew into those ears.

We lost Ella Phant in September of 2018 and we lost Dorian this morning.

It is the end of an era. 

I loved both of these cats so very, very much. I don't think it takes anything away from Ella, but I wrote in my journal yesterday and have included the following thought as I have told several people today about Dorian.  If someone wrote a book after the very best relationships throughout time between a cat and her person, there would be a chapter in there about Dorian and me.

She was a sweet, sweet, but, also, very reserved cat. She would not smile for the camera. Several early and bad attempts at using a flash when taking her picture resulted in a lifetime of pictures of her scowling. This is not how I picture her in my mind, but this picture makes me smile because it shows her at the extreme end of her scowling and annoyance at being photographed. 

I miss you, my sweet Dorian Gray.

Smug Or Annoyed

 Last week, I met a friend in a park along the St. Croix River on the Wisconsin side for lunch on a picnic table and to paint. It has been a long, long time since I picked up a paint brush. Since then, I’ve painted on average every other day. Drawing has been sporadic. 

I started this on Monday and finished it last night. I like the nose, which I usually overwork, but didn’t this time, and I like the suggestion of the body. Next time, my goal is to not overwork the paint strokes. There was an energy when I stopped on Monday which disappeared by the time I finished.  Also, the light side of the cat should be lighter and brighter colors. 

In the painting, Hammett looks annoyed, while in the source photo it’s more of a mixture of smugness with a dose of mild irritation. 

#368 - Waterfall Legs & Paws - 5” x 7” - paper

The source photo is one I will return to. I like the drape of the legs and paws. In the source photo, the cat  is being held by his person, D. I didn’t want to show the person in the painting, along with the hands and cell phone which was also being held, although I’m not sure the background works.

Drawing Practice

I'm back to drawing. I'm sorry to say that it's not every day, but it is most days. Taking the online class was a good choice. In the last week, I fell behind on the lessons. Class ends this week. I am planning on starting it all over again and going through it more slowly. 

For now, here are several practice sketches of Hammett. When he is sleepy in the afternoon, he is a fantastic model. When he is deep in sleep, he holds poses like these for a long time.

He will hold interesting poses for a short time if I pet him on his tummy when he's sleepy. He goes onto his back with his paws at interesting angles. After that, he will sometimes settle into a pose which I call origami paws. He tucks and folds his paws in delightful ways. 

He's a fluffy guy, so he offers a lot of opportunity to figure out how to capture that in a drawing. 

Respite

I got away this weekend with my sweetie and several friends, who are all taking the physical distancing due to Covid-19 very seriously. Yes, there is some risk, but we took a number of precautions to reduce the risk.

It's a magical place I've had the fortune to visit annual for more than 20 years.

Here are several of my favorite pictures from the weekend.

Mosses and lichens on stone

Lichens on fence

When I got up the first morning, I spent some quality time with this bird.

Later in the day, I spent some quality time with a friend and some other birds in and near a rookery.

I did crop the following one. I'm pointing this out, since I've been trying to better develop my eye and taking the picture that I want to end up with rather than relying on cropping.  Although, I do crop when I am going to paint from a photo. 

I'm still obsessed with hummingbirds. I should have brought the tripod along. Being at full zoom, I got very few crisp, sharp photos.  This is one of the few exceptions. It was when I was first getting set up, so I wasn't actually ready when this charmer showed up, which accounts for the lack of composition. It may sound like complaining, but it's not. It was glorious to be away and to have the luxury of focusing on things like taking good pictures of birds.

Drawing Practice

I mentioned Roz's class in my last post.  Her class moves you along at a pretty fast pace.  Once class is done, I intend to work my way through it again at a much slower rate.  There are a lot of fundamentals that I want to work on.  Really seeing and capturing values is one of those skills which I've mentioned a lot over the years on this blog.  It's even more challenging to me when I'm trying to do this with a live subject, even if it's a sleeping house cat, and I find that I still have a lot to learn with this. 

As a result, I sort of cheated one day this week with my homework.  Rather than working with a live subject, I used my polar bear toy with very extreme lighting so that the values would be distinct.  I used a single color of watercolor and a water brush.  It was slow going, but I felt like this was a mini-breakthrough for me.

The top part was practice.  With the bear in the bottom, I like the chest and two front paws the best. I am annoyed that I didn't let the face dry enough so when I finished the nose and mouth these features grew and it looks like the polar bear is smiling.

Going forward, I am finding that I just need to do, accept and embrace the process, be comfortable that I may not be enamored with the results, and trust that if I work on the skills from Roz's class it will help me get closer to the place I want to go.

It's Time To Start Posting Again

I last posted 8 weeks ago.  At the time of my last post, the world which existed seven weeks before seemed like another lifetime ago. At that point, I had gone to see an exhibit at the MIA (Minneapolis Institute of Arts) since it seemed like the last opportunity to do something like that for awhile.  Two days later, my household decided that it was time to shelter in place. The official call to do so in Minnesota came less than 1 week later.

For much of the last 4 weeks, Covid has been the least of my concerns.  In fact for a period of time, I did not have the capacity to have any thoughts or concerns about Covid.  The only impact it had was that I continued to do the things which had already become habit such wearing a mask to go to a store.

I feel like I was a different person than I was 4 weeks ago, when George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis.

Nothing compares to the horror of his killing at the hands of police officers staffed from the precinct which is supposed to serve and protect the area which includes my neighborhood.  When I say that I feel like a different person that's not all bad.  I need to be a different person and we need a different world where systematic racism gets addressed and the nature of policing changes. 

When I look back, it seems like a lot has changed in the past month. The day after George Floyd was killed, the headline of the local newspaper was not about his death nor was it even on the front page.  At this point, I don't recall if it was even mentioned.  I don't think that would happen today.  At the same time, not enough has changed. One colossal failure is that the state legislature recently adjourned from a special session without addressing police reforms.

I am a different person in other ways, as well.  The subsequent mishandling by the Minneapolis Police Department of the mostly peaceful protests at the beginning of all of this made a bad situation even worse.  At a neighborhood meeting which occurred later in that week, we are told that, as a neighborhood (and for the most part across the city), we were essentially on our own since we could not count on there being enough law enforcement or firefighters to provide protection.  We had to form our own overnight watches to protect our own neighborhoods.

The preparations we were advised to take included taking everything out of the yard, including garbage and recycling bins, which could be used as a flammable or projectile.  We put everything into the garage, while still leaving one car unencumbered enough to use if we needed to flee with the cats. We set up garden hoses, so they would be accessible and ready.  We packed several back packs with clothes and essential documents and when night came, we locked up the cats with cat carriers in the room, so we'd be ready if we needed to leave.  Prior to it getting dark, we would search the yard for caches of flammable liquids stashed in bottles or water bottles and turn on lights both inside and outside the house.

During the day, there was a neighborhood meeting to attend, information to disseminate to neighbors, and a watch schedule to coordinate.  At night, we took turns being on the front porch all night with lights and noisemakers along with many of our neighbors.  The neighborhood kept in touch using social media.  This went on for awhile.

I live on a main thoroughfare, so what I saw on my front porch when I was keeping watch during the night was mostly people going from one place to another.  This was while there was an overnight curfew in place, so there should have been limited activity.  With road closures to make it harder for people to get around, our street had a lot of traffic.  It is chilling to see things like the same truck trolling slowing down the street with no lights on, no license plate, and hard to see materials in the truck bed and hear through social media that they are making their way throughout the neighborhood. 

It was nothing compared to what people experienced who live closer to Lake Street, but it was still  very, very frightening.  It also is nothing compared to the tragedy of George Floyd's death.

All of this is exhibit A of white privilege when I say that I have much less trust in the institutions and systems which are supposed to protect and enhance the lives of people. 

I feel more than a little ashamed that it took such a horrific act for me to wake up.

This blog is mostly for art, so I don't plan on documenting or exploring any of this further here.  At the same time, I had to write this to acknowledge and document a little bit of what happened.  It's too big to ignore.

With that, I don't mean any disrespect or to diminish what I just wrote, but I also want to get back to writing about art.  One side effect of the pandemic is that my art-making got put aside.  Several days after I got back to a normal sleep schedule, I started the last ever session of Roz's online class, Drawing Practice.  She graciously allowed former students to join this last session for free.  She is upfront and clear about her expectations that you do your work and that you follow through on your commitment to keep up in class.  I was hoping that it would bring me the focus to get back to making art again and it has.  Going forward, I will get back to writing about that.