Tuesday, July 28, 2020

rain, repairs, and resist


Hurricane Hanna made landfall Saturday afternoon/evening just south of Corpus Christi at Padre Island. It's far enough down the coast that all we got is rain which we got off and on all day Saturday, 2 1/2” total. Some bouts of hard rain but mostly not as the bands swept through with pauses in between in which I got out there with a shovel or hoe trying to direct the accumulating water away from the part of the house on slab. Of course, the lowest part of the property is right around the slab.


I've been pondering lately my complete disinterest and lack of motivation in making art. No drawing, no watercoloring, no model making or glass casting. It's not like I don't have plenty of time and opportunity though I have been blaming it on the remodel of the bathroom, then the remodel in the shop, then the house hunting and preparation for it to be delivered but the truth is, I just don't have the interest these days. As if finishing the heron box last December was the cap on my career. Apparently. My colored pencils and watercolors stay spread out on the small work table as I studiously ignore it all. I tried to do some sketches at one point for a new piece that's been floating around in my mind but after three days of zero progress I gave it up since I do have some pieces I can offer the gallery for their anniversary show in September. If this keeps up I'm going to have to change the description of my blog.

Although, the more I look at the picture of the begonias on my Friday post the more I think I might draw them. I even went so far as to print out a couple of images and even opened my sketchbook to a clean page but that's as far as I got. Maybe tomorrow. I'm trying to finish the book I'm currently reading but it's gotten tedious here towards the end and not holding my attention. But then nothing seems to be holding my attention.

And so yesterday it was tomorrow and I did not draw but I did go to the grocery store and I did finally mend my skirt. You might remember last spring when I made three skirts. I wear two of them all the time around the house and on my walks, when one goes in the laundry I wear the other. As it happened, a couple of weeks ago I looked down to see that I had caught my skirt on something and there was a big tear, two sides of a square, each leg 2 1/2”. My first attempt was a total failure. I lined everything up and put cellophane tape over the tear on the inside and then zigzagged over it on the outside thinking all the little holes would perforate the tape and I could just pull it off when done. Wrong. So seam ripper and scissors in hand I ripped out all that zigzagging making the frayed edges even worse but I remembered I had some lightweight interfacing, the kind that you can iron on, so I got some of that out, cut it into an 'L' shape and pressed it on over the tears on the inside and then stitched around it and then zigzagged in the middle and I think it did a fine job.


Another rainbow formed as we were coming back from yoga last night (is it night if it's still light outside even though it's after 6 PM?). It started at one end, then started at the other end until it arced across the sky. Short lived and not very strong, nevertheless a picture was got through the windshield.


My sister and my daughter think all I do here is rant, rant about things I can't change and I'm working myself into a heart attack but they are wrong. Things don't change if no one speaks out, if no one observes, if no one shares what they see and learn, if no one resists, if no one confronts, if no one puts their body on the line, if no one informs why it is essential to vote, if we turn a blind eye to the subordination of the constitution and the rule of law and allow a would be dictator supported by a compromised Senate to rise. I resist. I resist by refusing to stuff the anger. I resist by shining a light, however small, on the evil that is this administration. I resist by communicating with the people and our political representatives. I resist because there is no guarantee at this point that we will have a fair election with all the voter suppression perpetrated by Republicans or even have an election. When the Justice Department is compromised and the head Attorney General of the United Sates has become the fixer for a corrupt president supported by his corrupt political party with his own militarized secret police force which is right now being sent into the cities and states governed by the opposing political party to suppress the demonstrations and 1A protests against police brutality and inherent racism in our judicial systems, there are no guarantees, there are no guarantees this same brutal force will not be deployed to prevent people from voting.

This blog was never meant to be about fluff though I have published plenty of fluff. It was and is a chronicle of my life through memories and current activities and what catches my attention, and, to a lesser degree, a history of the time in which I live and my place in it. It's the good, the bad, and the ugly; mine and the world's. And while I don't consider these essays rants I will continue to write them as long as events demand.




18 comments:

  1. The art will come when it's ready, don't you think? Every artist goes through dry spells, especially when they have as much going on as you do (with the bathroom and the new house).

    I must admit I don't find writing about politics very useful on my own blog, and lately I've been generally avoiding it. It just depresses me too much. But hey, if it gives you a vent and helps you deal with the insanity of our current administration, go for it! I admire the fact that it helps you feel empowered. That's a good thing.

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  2. And thank you for that!! I can always count on you and your blog to be keepin' it real, i so appreciate it! It keeps me from going insane, thinking that I am the only one - though my blog is fluff I come to yours - full of admiration, I feel fed! especially now that i have been somewhat silenced due to Portland circumstances.
    As for the mending job- brilliant! Looks better than new.

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  3. Your blog is to speak your mind, let people know what is going on in your part of the world, what you have done recently. Stuff like that. If you choose to rant about a stupid worthless animal like the president and his crappy cabinet then more power to ya. That is the way I feel and I use my blog as a way of connecting with everyone who happens by to read it. I think that is why I love yours and your sister's blogs, y'all tell it like it is.

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  4. Speaking of rain, have you read Kay's blog.

    https://travelerswife.blogspot.com/

    I'm like you. After 8 years in art school, I quit art. I quilt a little, but I don't watercolor or draw at all. I feel guilty too.

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  5. Maybe now is not the right time for art. But it will change, things change, people change. And those who believe that there are things we cannot change, I fear for them. What made them so defeated?
    It is a breath of fresh air when I read your "rants". Your current pre3sident is just one of the changes that will eventually happen. History has always shifted from tyrant to democracy. Don't you shut up please.

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    1. it's not that they think change won't happen but that I won't change any specific person's mind. I know that but I won't give whoever the excuse of ignorance for whatever mind they have. and I think they are a bit naive perhaps in their belief that this election will go on just as every election has. and maybe they are right about that and I'm being alarmist. won't know until we get there but what I do know is that Trump and Barr have done things and are doing things no other president or attorney general has ever done.

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  6. That is exactly what I have been saying Trump will find ways to block people from going to the polls, He always has a motive, and soon if he is not taken out of office he will begin to turn his little mindless rallies, into organized squads to take US the liberals out...the rubber bullets will be live and he will deploy them into every liberal city. HIS ads are everywhere and each one filled with propaganda pitting them against US.

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  7. Write on. It is, after all, stuff from your head and rant worthy. Resist.

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  8. Did you see that yesterday (I think it was yesterday) was the one year anniversary of Heather Richardson's Letters from an American? Her voice is so vital, and I count yours in the same category. It helps me stay focused on what matters.

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  9. I bet that sewing on your interface will hold the material in place very well:) I'm with you regarding Trump and Barr.

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  10. Please continue the rants. I beg you, get rid of this moronic monster or the whole world might go up in flames.

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  11. It does me so much good to see my thoughts in print on your blog!!! Please keep it up. About the art. Maybe there is just so much turmoil on every front that you don't have the necessary peace of mind??? I have always been a reader. Lately, I find it very difficult to get involved in a book. The fiction books seem too full of fluff; some of the nonfiction is too depressing. My lifetime escape mechanism isn't working very well. Also, I have no knitting or sewing projects going. Can't find an interest in them. Thank you for the time you spend on your blog.

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  12. Sweetness and light can be boring. Plus, it helps me to hear other people voice the angst I'm feeling.
    And I don't know any more than you why this is, but my creativity has stalled out, too. I finished my third book last fall, and outside of the usual hopeless outreach to agents, I've done nothing more with it. And haven't been interested in starting another. Maybe this is because we have so much time now we don't feel compelled to use it?

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  13. Well, Ellen, what I do isn't art. It is the output of a skilled artisan, though, and it's been damn hard these last couple of years. Remember our righteous anger when another presidential candidate was cheated of the last presidential election. We turned out in body and soul around the world, in numbers far greater than her quarter million vote surplus. But the lies, the damage over the last three years grind, grind, grind. Shut our mouths except on occasion. And you have honed the discipline to keep focused on the bad men, call bullshit on the lies, tell your readers to keep angry. We try. I try. I can still write a decent piece when my lips are barely above the garbage. Maybe I can do better. Maybe it will be you, dragging us to the finish line.

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  14. I think even people who have been doing the best at coping with the pandemic, politics, social unrest, and such, are just tired -- I'm having a hard time writing, and many of my friends have talked about how the reading, knitting, painting and such that always has given them so much pleasure just doesn't appeal right now. I don't think there's anything to do but just keep going on -- doing what has to be done, and avoiding the things that sap energy. There are many issues I can't do anything about, but I can take peach cobbler to the elderly woman in the building next door. I have some friends who are going to begin home schooling this year, and there are some ways I can help them, too -- sometimes local projects are the best.

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  15. All of us who blog have our reasons for writing what we write. And those of us who have been doing it for a long time obviously find that the writing fills a need. Those reasons and needs vary from person to person but they are valid and important and unique to each of us. I cherish that. I cherish you and your insights and thoughts and flowers and skies. You inspire me.

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  16. I think the pandemic has given the muse a bad cold. My creativity has flown...or is coughing downstairs. Ranting is better than killing someone, remember that!

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I opened my big mouth, now it's your turn.