"According to Expectation"

A little more on my teaching days... I only taught school for three years, until they ran out of money and layed off 35 teachers to make up the budget. By accident I went into construction and carried all my teaching ideas with me. I always made "lesson plans", daily goals and how to reach them and whether it is putting a roof on or getting a kid to read a book, the process is the same, and it is really very simple. If I thought my crew couldn't do the job they never did; if I thought the child wouldn't read the book, they never did. My expectations as a teacher and as a construction foreman were always huge. I actually prefered the rowdie kids, the trouble makers, those with an abundance of energy, those that made a point of hating school. There was a lot of energy there and I made it my job to channel it.
"Whether you think you can or think you can't, you are surely right". That is one of my favorite quotations and I am sorry to say I don't even know who said it! It is like "The Little Engine that Could" from my childhood days, "I think I can, I think I can" and eventually you will.

Attitude!

An attitude is hard to teach. My second year of teaching in a Junior High School

I was given two class of rowdie kids, children who only knew failure in their other classes and maybe in their lives. These kids, about thirteen years old were marked and now grouped as one class and my instructions were to teach them anything I wanted, just keep them under control and away from the principal's office. I was officially "the History Teacher", teaching American, Russian, and Indian History

but I wasn't restricted to this; I could do anything, just keep them out of more trouble was my job.

In an earlier Blog I mention my youth and a little printing press that was given me and the effect it had on me and I so wanted to replicate this experience. The class had no funding and no resourses so I went around hunting for donations and found lots of support. I acquired two printing presses and fifty fonts of type, litterally about a million pieces! I ordered the absolute

most expensive papers I could find and had six colors of indelible ink. This was not children's

ink, this was ink that would never come off! The other teachers thought I was absolutely nuts and predicted mayham and defeat for this beginning teacher! to make a long story short,

These classes were a wonderful success! The kids printed perfect calling cards and quickly went on to poetry adding linoleum cuts illustration. Always aware the class was an experiment

and could be shut down, they were extremely respectful of the equipment and supplies. Many

found success for the first time in their lives and continued this attitude into their other classes.

They wanted to work through the lunch period on their projects and I informed them that "school policy" mandated that when I wasn't there the room was supposed to be empty and the door locked. I read this rule to them and reflected that this policy didn't mention windows!

Often I would return from lunch and there would be 30 kids in the room, all responsibly working

and even aiding each other on their projects!

Attitude comes from experience and it is really very easy to teach success!

Serendipity

is one of my favorite words. It is viewing the world and instigating your search with your eyes wide open. Not to be confused with being easily distracted or settling for less, it is the discovery of something you were not looking for. Life should not be a preordained straight line from birth to death. We are able to visit the side road amusements, to travel trails uncharted,
expanding our horizons in this quest for whatever it might be but we so seldom do it!
I think we get tricked into the things we do. I don't know why anyone would ever want to go on a cruize ship? These are not "Love Boats" nor the passenger ships of the last century with their open decks and just cables between you and the ocean. These are floating cities with glass between you and the water, packed in like sardines, just you and six thousand others! and with television sets in the cabins! "Tours" are the same, guided and safe and predictable, offering us a taste of we don't even know what and allowing us to chat amongst ourselves, viewing the world from the inside out. We have lost our sense of adventure and see life in thirty minute episodes complete with commercials! Serendipity requires the ability to jump ship.

Getting from Here to There

How does one "become" an artist?
I recently went through an old box

of slides and had them put on CD's, reminders of my youth and the road I have been on. What turn was significant? Did I take the high road when I should have taken the low road, turned left when it was meant to be right? There were other impacts on my life not caught on film, these are just moments caught in a box. The top photo I was twelve years old and had received "The Family of Man", a photo collection of humanity, from my cousin I met while in Disneyland. What is significant about this is that I remember the title fifty years later! How can that be? Curious?
The next photo I was seventeen and doing my laundry aboard the SS Ryndam, a passenger ship that sailed from Montreal, Canada to Rotterdam, Holland. That is when I ran away "the first time", dropping out of High School and off to seek adventure! The one way ticket (I didn't know when nor if I was returning!) cost $225 for the ten day voyage. Why is this exact price in my memory? I hitch hiked my way around Europe for six months on three dollars a day! Those were the days!




The next photo on the far right is me again, proud beyond belief because I had just won this
trip for my whole family to this magical kingdom! It is on this trip that I discovered an idea can be better than reality! This was 1958, a half Century ago and Disneyland was brand new and talked about everywhere! Fantacyland, Frontierland, Adventureland, and I think some kind of
Futureland! It was exciting and crowded and dirty and tiring!






These next two pictures probably had a more significant impact
on my life, more closely resemble "who I became". Me, hanging from the tree branch represents strength and I see myself that way. In my youth I would go back packing in the mountains with
a seventy pound load strapped to my back! I loved Alaska and my
fishing adventures there and arm wrestling with the local loggers!
A lot in life is just plain accidental, without design. I dropped out of High School but completed it and went on to the University, dropping out there as well but always going back. I was trained as a history teacher and did that until there were massive layoffs and I lost my job. I went into construction mostly because a friend of mine owned the company and hired me as a construction foreman!
I didn't know a damned thing about construction! "I am hiring you because you know about people", he said. So, that is how I got there, an accident, and I loved it. Mostly I loved looking back at the end of the day, seeing all the accomplishments and figuring out what to do tomorrow!

The photo on the far right, with the printing press, was one of the most significant things that has ever happened to me! This was 1963 and the height of the Vietnam War! A friend of my brother's

was drafted and gave me this printing press and all its supplies.

This was my introduction to poetry! Although small this was a real printing press with real ink and hand-set lead pieces of type.

It produced perfect products and in the process of learning you

begin by making calling cards. I made these for myself and all

of my friends and went on to create poems which were easy to

print and...said something! In twelve lines I could create a thought

and in sixteen lines I could tell a whole story!

This last photo is Alaska, an adventure I had while eighteen years

old. I had "done Europe" but wasn't ready to settle down and make "something of my life". There was just too much I hadn't seen! That summer I took a train to Seattle Washington and walked along the docks stopping at every fishing boat, asking for a ride to Alaska! One captain had his deckhand for the summer but offered me a ride if I would paint the rails and take my turn at the helm? I didn't even know what that meant but happily hopped on board and three days later was caught in an adventure I will never forget! This was a fifty foot fishing boat and this trip to Alaska took about six days. The captain would teach me how to run it and soon enough I would get my own two hour stint while he took a nap. The captain took the tricky passages through the little channels amongst the hundreds of islands between Seattle and Alaska. His deck hand was experienced and got the second hardest routes

and when we hit the open seas where it was supposed to be safe it became my turn. The third day out in these open waters we hit a storm and the waves crashed over the boat something fierce! The captain and his deckhand became seriously seasick and spent this time rolling about the cabin floor and the boat became mine! I don't get sea sick, so on this trip, "the worst" the captain said, with six hours training, I was alone at the helm! You don't have any time to think yet thinking is all you do, or just reacting to the wheel, trying to keep the boat upright and turned straight into the waves. This was a real roller coaster ride and way better than Disneyland!

If I screwed it up we would be dead. That is a pretty cut and dried assignment. No C+ to it,

you do it right or you fail, simple as that!

Acrylic on Copper

I began "painting" one year ago and hadn't touched a paint brush since Kindergarten. I started with 10 store bought primary colors, four cheap brushes, a spounge and a roller, plus some odds and ends from around the shop. My shop is a metal shop and I had a lot of sheets of copper about 12" x 18"

so that is what I painted on! I love painting on copper. The paint doesn't absorb and doesn't even stay where you put it. It has a life of its own. A year later I am running out of copper but

yesterday I made a discovery! These three "paintings" are on the same sheet and really exist only "in camera". I blob some paint in random colors here and there and hit this with the spounge and paint roller giving me some kind of background. Then I add "the flowers", a few leaves or whatever strikes me. I then take a picture of it then hit it with the roller again and start the process all over! I did six paintings on one copper sheet yesterday and the last one, six paintings deep is the only one that really exists! If you don't have copper handy this can also be done on kitchen foil. It is a lot different from painting on canvas and you can use the foil with your artwork on it for Christmas wrapping paper!

World of Imagination!

We had already had one Summer vacation, that

trip to Canada where I got voted out of my desire to see Disneyland. Boy, was I excited to have won this all expense trip for the four of us. It was not first class, nor even on an airline. It was a bus trip on Grayhound lines, rumbling along the

1000 miles or so from my small town to Los Angeles, California. I had never been on a bus and never dreamed of an airplane, never seen a freeway; we didn't have any in Oregon! California had everything and the bus was huge, way off the ground giving me a grand view! I got car sick or bus sick and threw up easily! I mostly sat at the front of the bus near the driver and that was a lot better and I felt so very important!

We stopped in Reno, Nevada for an overnight, my first time at a real Hotel. My parents saw the casino and did a bit of gambling while my brother and I stayed in the motel room and watched television. We didn't have a television and that was a lot of fun. There were three channels! The next day we would be in San Fransisco visiting cousins I had never met, a trip to China Town and rides on the street cars! I could hardly sleep!

LOUD ART

Gate Entry at Local Winery Stainless Steel
leaves and grapes

Most of my art can be seen from a distance and I design it this way on purpose. I want it to be a landmark,

to catch the sun, a statement: Yes,

you are here! A well designed gate will do that and keep you out when not wanted. A good gate gets its strength in its design, the elements

bonding together to build a truss.

The copper in this gate adds flash,

you can see it from a mile away when the sun hits it in the early morning.

Many people stop and get out of their cars to look at the detail in the copper

or examine the stainless steel leaves and grape clusters. YES! that is what I was after! tomorrow...more on Disneyland!