Can You?

Can you post a blog without using the word "I"?  I (easy to do and difficult to omit!) have been looking over my blogs for the past three years and realize they are an autobiography of sorts.  I have taken through my life from my grade school years, through my cancer battle, my years of construction and my introduction to the world of art up until the present.  I have even described my morning bath.
My blogs (a sneaky way to omit "I"!!!) are becoming repetitive, my daily journal being much the same, all pretty much routine.  I did this!  I did that!  Look at "me"! The true state of affairs is my today is much like it was yesterday and I am running out of stories!
    I have tried, with much criticism I will admit, to get the discussion away from me, with the introduction of politics, god forbid!  Many of my "followers" totally misunderstood my position and what I was attempting to do and some went by the wayside.  My idea of politics is simply WHY do we believe what we do?  What historical accident makes us think the way we do?  Clearly if we were Eskimos we would like seal eyeballs and consider them a delicacy.  There are reasons one believes what they believe.  I was just trying to discover what they were.  Sort of trying to find out how I got here before I can figure out where I am going!  Well, that discussion went nowhere and I will try to figure out another one.
   For some reason I have a lot of "followers" from Russia and I have many who check up on me from all over the world.   I am curious?  What did you eat for breakfast and what will be for dinner?  How much money do you make and what do you do?  What are your worst fears and happiest times?  What are you really good at cooking?  I love to share recipes!  How much is a quart of milk where you live?
How much is the rent?  What do you want that you don't have?
   I don't use this blog to sell my wares, I have Websites for that.  So, I am hunting for other topics, besides "me" and other than politics.  ... So I will tell you what happened yesterday!
  The Mercedes needed a front end alignment and I took it to the shop at eight in the morning for the scheduled appointment. I arrive at ten minutes before eight and only the boss was there.  He told me that people over 50 arrive early and people in their 40's arrive on time and younger people always arrive late.  So we had a discussion on the ruin of youth and how difficult it is to find good help these days!
While the car was being fixed I walked about two blocks away to find a cup of coffee and was accosted by a prostitute!  A very pretty girl in her 20's wanting a "date".  Or what was once a pretty girl, someones daughter.  She had maybe forty open sores on her face, red and pussy, the mark of
meth users, wide open eyes, dark and dilated and scary.  In a parallel universe she would be in school, dancing and happy, curious and investigation life.  She will be dead soon and I can't stop thinking about her. There was nothing I could do, no power to help her.  It still bothers me.  Meth is the devil's drug for sure and I wonder how it could have been different?  We don't teach much art in school anymore, not much literature or music or theater.  Even physical education is taught less and less.  I wonder when there is not a reasonable method of escape people sometimes will choose the unreasonable.
    One day I will write a blog post without a single "I" but it may be difficult!

The Proof is in the Pudding!

I think the most precise art, the most exacting and finely crafted masterpieces are edible.
   The microwave oven has been the most destructive invention ever to the culinary experience.  If we are what we eat it is no wonder we have lost a sense of purpose and have an empty unfulfilled sensation.  No sense of accomplishment other than to say, "yeah, I did that", heated up the instant dinner in the microwave!
   I think modern people know so much less than generations before us.  We no longer darn socks and most of us wouldn't even know how to do this.  Bread is something that comes from the store and is wrapped in cellophane, a nice meal is purchased from the deli in styrofoam containers.
   I like the Christmas Season because for two weeks in the year all of this changes.  Pots and pans almost never used are dug out from the back of the cupboard, grandma's old recipes are carefully read over and the smells of good food permiate the entire house.  People are cooking!
   There is a satisfaction in making something and sharing it with others that we are rapidly losing.  In our modern technological world we are becoming all the more capable of making nothing!  That is the sense we get.  Today I made nothing.  I am a maker of nothing.  That is who I am.  Nothing.
   So in this Season, for two weeks we can become something, a candy maker, a candle maker, cookie, bread maker.  Maker of gifts.  Joy maker.  Creator.
   I think artists are aware of this desire, this necessity to make things, to create and share.  And I think a good cook, a well prepared meal, a nice loaf of bread, a plate of home made cookies is art in itself.  All of the senses are captured, sight, smell, and I can eat it.  It is the best art, produced from the soul and appreciated by all.

 My Daughters, cooking!

I can be found HERE

I Taught Success

   Failure is easy to teach.  Years ago I taught at a Junior High School, history classes mostly, "World History" and specifically History of Russia, India, Africa and Western European History.  These were each eleven week classes and there was a lot of ground to cover, a lot of information for the exploding minds of fourteen year old school children.  I was often asked what I taught?  The answer was always students.
   I never felt as though I had to teach them everything, get to the end of the book nor rush to complete every assignment.  I never packed them full of data and dates, times and places nor tricky things that I might test them on later.  In fact, the final exam I passed out to them on the first day of school.  They knew what was expected of them.
   Most had never had a teacher like me.  All of my tests were "open book" and they could bring all of the notes they wanted to class.  They could even talk to each other and pass notes during the exams.  I solved the "cheating problem" by making it impossible to cheat.  I also never asked those kinds of questions, tick the right answer or fill in the blank.  I wanted explanations, a defense of their positions.  I wanted to know the why of history.
   In an eleven week course I spent the first three weeks on how to write essays.  How to outline an idea and break it down into smaller segments which could be discussed and how to discover information to support an idea.  How to look at an argument from both sides.  How there are views of History and differing approaches to understanding it.  How to write three sentences in a row and finally whole paragraphs.
   It is no different than cooking or any other activity where we might find success.  We feel powerless and in despair when every attempt seems to end in failure.  I think success breeds success and confidence creates confidence and self esteem can be bolstered in small achievements.

You can always find me  HERE

A Storm Came Through

   I don't really sit in my mother's basement at this computer hunting for trouble spots in the world nor do I look at "hot Russian Babes".  I am in my shop where I have three fire extinguishers and a garden hose nearby.  I am surrounded by metal, a pretty big inventory for a retired guy.  It is sort of like my savings account.
   I am working on my latest idea, a "painting station" for artists, something not too big with rings for yogurt containers or cottage cheese containers.  A "cleaning station" for brushes, but something on wheels so it could be moved about and with its own palette and storage area for paint.  So far I have three "table models" and four pedestal models and two steel easels that are self-contained with these features.  I am near to being ready for the perfect "furniture quality" model, something attractive enough to be put in a living room.
   I still don't know whether this is a good idea or not, something needed or useful for an artist?  I like them.
I have already decided that if there is no market for these they will become my new trellis's in my garden next year!  That will be pretty cool, little art pedestal tables for my cucumbers to climb on!
   All of this reminds me of years ago when I wanted to invent the "perfect trellis".  Oh, there were millions of trellis's on the market and people thought I was nuts for trying to create one more in an already flooded market.  The one's that were there weren't any good, that is what they had in common.  They would not support themselves let alone a plant.  So I played at this for months until I came up with the perfect trellis!
I think over the years I must have sold a thousand of them but the first one's were failures.

 Just so you can see there is some detail to this painting.

   I am also painting!  My "landscape" has become an abstract!  Painting is a lot easier and less expensive than working with steel and there is never any waste.  Sometimes I have painted over the same canvas six times.  It will be fun if a hundred years from now an art restorer finds one of my paintings, chipping away to find stories buried under stories, paint under paint.

Painting over a painting is interesting. I can leave some background, create shadows and depth and texture becomes a part of the painting.

 about 5' x 3'
"A Storm Came Through"

This one is meant to be pleasant and red, red from a distance but detailed and mysterious upon closer inspection.  That is all.  It doesn't mean anything.
   Sometimes we hunt for meaning where there is none.  It is so hard to just accept something as it is.  We hunt for ulterior motives where there might be none at all.  We do this with people all of the time and the art world is full of it.
   This painting is screaming "nothing".  It just is, that's all.  But it is pretty red, I'll give it that.

More of my paintings can be found HERE

Wonderful Week

I have had a wonderful week with my 1st born daughter, now grown up and 30 years old!  She lives in Austin, Texas, 2,000 miles away.  In this economy you must be where the jobs are.  Not much in my little town.  She has the beauty and sensibility of her mother and my wanderlust and sense of adventure!
   I used to be 34 times her age and am now barely twice!  Funny how time works that way.  I remember years and years ago telling her of my travels, my experiences in life, my adventures and now she is telling me of hers!  I think she has caught up to me already and at half my age has a lot of living yet to do.  She has worked at a lot of different jobs in her life, making fried chicken and serving coffee, working in little cluttered offices, teaching English in Europe and living in a hut in the deepest of Africa.  Not afraid to travel and not afraid to get into the thick of life.
   Now she is an "office manager" of a four office business!  That not being enough she is also a licensed massage therapist and follows sporting events soothing sore muscles.  She is athletic, a jogger every day and runs in marathon races and is into marshal arts!  She has a black belt in kick boxing!  Thank God I have never spanked her!
   It would be easy to think that she is one of the lucky few but she has worked hard for everything she has accomplished, made wise choices and learned the art of being self reflective, knowing what she wants and how to get it.
   We defeat ourselves more than others beat us down.  From an early age both of my daughters have learned to set goals.  It is a simple task that is no longer taught.  You set some goals, plot a strategy, list the things that will bring you closer to what you want and list the other things that will prevent you from attaining your goals.  Things you may also want.  Conflicting goals.
   A thousand dollars will buy a cheap car.  It will also buy you a round trip ticket to Paris!  That is the conundrum my daughter's grew up with!

My Art is HERE

The Hardest Question?

No, it is not a math question, no chemistry nor economics and for sure, nothing political.  I remember years and years ago, an old girlfriend, young at the time startled me with the most dangerous of all questions!
   "How do you think of me?"  How do you answer that question without exposing your own weakness, your flaws and the broken lens with which we see?  How do you answer that question without showing vulnerability?  Without need?  With no points on a radar, the answer will expose your position.  I can find my identity in how I think of you.
   It occurs to me that we are different with different people.  Other's know me from different angles and look upon me with their own expectations.  The mailman anticipating that I will meet him halfway to my mail box.  He must know me from the mail that I receive, not much junk and sometimes letters from far away.
   I no longer look upon people with expectations.  I try not to pre-define them.  I do not look for expected behavior nor patterns; frankly, I have no interest in what they have done.
   I think I learned this as a school teacher a half century ago.  Before the first day of school we were allowed to look at a student's records, check for past behavior.  See how they were graded in the past.  We knew the trouble makers, the failing students, the one's from single parents, where they lived and how much school they missed.  They were marked before the first day of class.
   I always hated that.  I never looked at their records.  I preferred not knowing.  Then they had a chance.  Then I had a chance.
   How you look at me depends upon where you are.

THIS is my business side, with a little art thrown in.

The Process of Art

   I am more interested in the process of art than art itself.  What is it about a person that would make him an artist?  What causes a drive toward excellence or the idea that tomorrow you can make something better?
The story of any particular artist is fascinating to me.
   Maybe it is true, we see the world in a different way or we see it as other's and wish to change it.  Perhaps it is just a different reaction to the world we all see?  I "art" therefore I am!  It is in the definition; it is who we are.

 Just a butterfly, colors from the torch.

   I think it is like personalities.  I am pretty convinced we are born with an attitude, our very being encrypted into our DNA.  You have it or you don't but it can be nurtured along the way, tempered and altered with experience and opportunity, small successes along the way.

   We can "learn art" from mentors or maybe a good art teacher along the way, someone to teach us the skills of an artist.

   But that won't make us an artist.  At some point we find a project, some idea we have to develop, some thought we wish to make material, some transference from the soul to the hands, a kind of poetry we wish to hold.  That is the moment when we become an artist.

My Art, my Garden and most of me can be found HERE

Spring, 1970

   Just to let you know I am consistent I wrote the following in the Spring of 1970 while helping to teach an undergraduate class while I was in Graduate School.  deja vu, nothing changes, all the issues that bother me now bothered me then.  I was a History Major and the professor asked me to write a position statement on
why I was teaching his class!

WHY I AM HERE.
Instructor's Position Statement

   If I said that I was here to help you, that would put me into the position of being a doctor -- that you have ills that I could cure.  I am neither sure that you have ills nor that I could cure them.  A teacher of any kind is not a doctor; he does not diagnose symptoms and prescribe medication.  But perhaps I can tell you where the pharmacy is.  One role of a teacher is as a provider of choices; he does not show a direction, but directions.  In this sense, education is the key to freedom, and freedom is a means to individual discovery.  This is what I am interested in and primarily why I am here.
   Freedom is not so much the absence of restriction as it is the presence of alternatives.  American society has put the first men on the moon and educators perhaps deserve to pat their backs for their helping hand.
But American society also has the highest mental illness rate in the world.  Where can educators pat themselves for this?  On the one hand, we demand freedom and even fight for it, yet we discard it at every possible instance.  We choose without knowing what our choices are.  There are as many different kinds of teachers as there are people teaching; each is a group of one.  The possibilities are endless and without limit. I would like you to explore the possibilities of you.  That is why I am here.
   You have been given a proposition in this course: write a contract.  This is an incredibly simple task:
a couple of tiny reports, a diagram or two, an observation feedback, hold a "conference," etc.  All this could be accomplished in a rainy weekend and you will have passed the course.  Sound like a Mickey?  It is, if that is all you do.
   But there is a catch!  What do you have to offer a child growing up?  Will you be just "another teacher" and look upon each student as just another student?  Why should you be teaching someone else's kid something?  What do you have to teach them anyway?
   You have tough competition ahead of you.  Not from the 130 students registered in Block I, they are not your problem; they might even be your aid.  Have you ever bashed ideas around with them or talked about a good book you've read?  Have you ever read a good book?  By the way, where is Biafra?
   Your competition is the machine --you might want to make sure that what you have to offer the machine cannot offer.  Machines could free us to do what they cannot do if we let them, yet do we even have the guts to turn the damned things off?
   Your competition will be a student coming to you with idealism, hatred, ignorance, prejudice, love.  What can you tell him?  his name is Sammy and he has a world to grow up in. How do you explain it to him? How do you help him come to know himself?
   Society is a conglomeration of Sammy's and Susan's.  One in ten is being treated for mental illness.  Many are killed in wars, many more by automobiles, and many are starving.  We have an extremely high rate of suicides; divorce rate in Oregon is 51%. A list of societal ills takes more paper than I have.  But these are not just society's illnesses; they belong to Sammy and Susan.  Can you teach them anything?
   This course is about teaching.  You will be given bits of technical methodology interspersed with philosophical ideas, commentaries, and practical achievements that we could put into a machine -- you we can't.
   There is no recipe for being a good teacher.  You are given two conditions and some ideas.  The conditions are you and your students, not necessarily in the position of giver and receiver, but toucher and touched, developer and developed, with teacher and student often switching roles.  We learn where we can.
Consider for a second a searcher lost at night.  You are not so much a guide as a spotlight, showing many paths; if you show them adequately, the searcher will know when he has found the right one.  You will be working with people in a state of transition so you must be able to find them and help them transcend.  Can you find a way to reach someone -- to get Sammy interested in listening to you?  Why should he?  What will you have to say?
   Hopefully, you will get three (maybe more) experiences from this class:
                   1.  You will get some practical suggestions concerning observations; a bit of methodology in
                        how to improve and create your teaching ability; how to communicate effectively.
                        Obviously, a term will not be enough time to complete the task; you must feel free to start
                        a task to be finished later.
                   2.  You will learn about Sammy and Susan: Hopefully, they will become a part of you, and
                         teaching won't become something to be "left at school" as you leave for home.  What do
                         Sammy and Susan need and how can you help them get it?
                    3.  Hopefully you will learn something about yourself. Why do you want to be a teacher?
                         What will you have to say?  How can you reach someone else?  How can you reach
                          into yourself?  What will you find?

   We hope you use your freedom wisely.  You have not been given an outline of responsibility that might restrain you.  You have been given a "carte blanche."  You must put your name on it and, periodically during the term, bits and pieces of your mind. (Don't wait until the last minute!).
   I am interested in the discovery of Sammy and Susan and you --that is why I am here.  In self discovery, one may discover nothing, but that is not to be feared -- nothing is a place from where to depart.

(Jerome Anthony Carlin was a senior history major at the University of Oregon when he wrote this statement.  He received credit for teaching the course outlined in this article. Published in SPATE Journal,
Spring 1970).

Well, that's my story and I am sticking with it. The times and dates have changed, that is all. Life is still about children and identity, what's it all about and who we are.  I haven't changed much, really I haven't.

My Art Site is HERE

  

  

2:30 AM!!!

Well, now I have done it.  It is 2:30 am and I am wide awake, here in my shop office drinking coffee.
I have strange sleeping habits I admit.  I go to bed when I am tired, haven't yet learned that napping ability.
My wife works graveyard shift from 3:30 pm until midnight so she is not here to entertain me or keep me awake with chatter.  Television puts me right to sleep and my body says if that is where I want to be I might as well go to bed!  Last night that was 6 pm!  Then at 2 am there was a gentle knock on the door!
     "Jerry, I can't find the dog!"
     "Tuxedo" is actually my daughter's dog.  So I will tell you that story.
Jane and I were married for over fourteen years before we decided to have children.  Getting married was one thing and having a family and a ton of responsibilities was something else entirely.  I had school to finish, a house to build, things to do.  We met by accident on a train in Italy and really only knew each other for three weeks before we got married.  Well, this was the sixties, that should explain it all.  We had discovering to do, more travel, more adventure, more getting to know each other before we wanted children.  Then there was the other problem.
     The flight from London to Portland, Oregon is about 16 hours and Jane sat cross legged the whole way.
She was stiff and sore upon arrival but otherwise okay and we were pretty excited to see each other after three months of letter writing and only one phone call.  A week later we were married!  No immigration hassle and paper work in those days.  A week later she was in the hospital and almost died.
     That deserves a chapter in itself and I will tell it later.  $2,500 later (think $25,000 in today's money!)
with no insurance of course, she was safe and out of the hospital.  No one knew anything in those days and we were just married, right?  So she gets on "the birth control" and a week later she is back in the hospital
with more blood clots!  Again, inches from death.
    So, having a baby fourteen years later was a huge decision, not really the fun of saying "okay, let's do it."
There were huge risks involved.  She had to, "administer" would be the word, heparin twice a day because
warfarin taken by pill would affect the baby.  These are shots injected in the stomach area twice a day which she did herself for the entire pregnancy.  She was black and blue all around the mid section, looking like I might have beat her up!  "Maybe this will work," the doctor said, "there is some risk and it may affect the baby".
     All during this time I did what I do, I built things.  My mind of course is racing, what if this and what if that?  I built a changing table.  I built a rocking horse.  I built a bed and a storage box for toys. I built a set of alphabet blocks all the letters from exotic hardwoods inlayed onto oak blocks.
    Nine months later, "Jennifer" arrives, healthy, ten fingers and ten toes and I am the proudest, happiest dad in the world!  It is funny, having children.  My daughter is certainly her own person but I can see her mother in her and maybe a little too much of me!  As she grew older she developed my wanderlust, my sense of adventure. an urge to travel, always after that expanded horizon.  A genetic curiosity to discover what is on the other side?  This comes with an aversion to being tied down.  My daughter, the traveller and she did it more and bigger and better than I ever did.
    Europe several times, teaching for over a year there somewhere, and she was in Africa in the Peace Corps.  She would do what I did, come home and work for a year, save her money and take off!
    About four years ago she realized that this was going to be a continuing life style unless she could find something to hold her down.  That is when she found "Tuxedo", three months old, a mix breed dog.
He looks ferocious but he isn't.  He is a mix of Pit bull, Rottweiler and Mastiff and now at 128 pounds he is a big boy!  For now Jennifer is in Texas (another chapter to be told later!) and "Tuxedo", so named because of a white single spot on the chest of this otherwise black dog, is in my care.  And now he was missing!
    My yard is fenced and cross fenced, all ornamental iron work, both beautiful and meant to contain my daughter's dog and keep out the uninvited.  Somehow he jumped the damn fence!  How in the heck did he do that?  What excitement goes through a dog's mind?
    So I am up now and I found him quickly, tail wagging and the most thrilling expression on his face!  He had his own adventure!  I will be discussing this with him when it gets light.  We will walk the fence line together, dog and man, talking about "things",  the dangers of the real world, the need for adventure.  We will talk about poetry and love and the necessity of boundaries.  I will explain to him the best that I can, that responsibilities are also valuable.  He is a good dog and will listen intently, looking deep into my eyes, but he can't stop wagging his tail.
My Other Blog is HERE!