Interesting Illustrations

Sometimes, being an illustrator is easy. There are days when drawing is painless and the images rush and flow from the pencil as if the graphite was lured onto the paper by Odysseus's Sirens, to be trapped on the page, which is transformed into a more forgiving place forever and always. The shapes are lovely, the shadows rich and supple. Its a world where ugly is transformed into fine art and becomes a thing of beauty simply because it was rendered with a pencil. Plain becomes interesting and mysterious. The blank white page comes alive with emotion and the artist... yes, me... I cannot believe what I have created.

I am stunned and filled with fear that this thing I have created sucked my stores dry and there is no more where that came from. I study it, find faults that no one will ever see and worry a little about what I will do with such an amazing creation. I can't keep everything. Like children, they must be set free to find their place in the world. I like the idea that there is artwork out there that I created, but don't know exactly who is currently looking at it and whether or not they have come up with the proper interpretation.

I take a picture of these great works and stare at them until I nod off and my ipod slips out of my hand and hits me in the nose. This indicates a good day's work.

On occasions, the illustrations come hard and heavy and the creating is chore. The lines awkward, the strokes offend the image. Nothing flows with peace and abandon. Rending becomes an effort like dragging glass over wet boulders, they slip and break on the rugged surface, shattering, leaving shards that cut and scrape. Every line is carved. It is easy to abandon, but this work must be completed, whether it is for an assignment or commission, the work must be completed. This is when it is difficult to draw.

I have been known to question myself where my art is concerned. I admit, I am a demon in my own head. I keep looking for my "style" to emerge and feel disappointed that all I see is the same old me... my style.

I draw, paint, render, print, sew, bake.... etc. I do it as I have always done it. I am careful, controlled, rigid, methodical and... I am hopeful, enthusiastic, enamored, playful, creative and in love. I am all of these things when it goes well, leaving less of the left brain qualities behind while I dive freely into a pool of the more engaging characteristics of my art self.

Still, all of these qualities and more are present when the art flows as well as when it doesn't. I never leave any of them behind, so when it goes badly, it is really my perception that is skewed. I know that when I am disappointed, its not really half as bad as I think it is. I don't really give myself a break and yet, I can look at any other drawings and find the glory, well rendered or not. I love gazing upon the artwork of children. I can see a love for the process of art in them and that is beautiful thing.

My first child, Courtney, spent many years feeling as if she missed the creative art gene that the rest of us all have. She felt her work was never good enough. I do know the feeling and maybe she was echoing my doubts about my own abilities. But the main characteristic of her artistic discontent was that she didn't love the process. Art is messy and she wanted it to be perfect. The one thing art is not.

When Courtney left home to attend college in Bellingham, she began to explore her art self, in the same way I explored design at Central. She launched an expedition through the uncharted territory of her creativity that was quite amazing, creating interesting art using any medium she could obtain... all the while claiming she wasn't an artist.

When I attended Central Washington University, I discovered a different world in art and its relationship to communication and design. That was my focus. Occasionally, I produced a drawing that wasn't technically perfect, but I loved it anyway and even though I didn't have an ipod to stare at before I fell asleep, I would sit in our tiny kitchen late into the night and look at what I made with my hand and a pencil. I did that with many of my works, but with my Self-Portrait from 1983, I feel wonder every time I look at it. Sometimes it feels amazing.

It was like that when Courtney came home from college and showed us this urgent need to create a charcoal drawing. She was driven and it was a strange thing to watch someone who felt like a left-brainer attack this artwork like a full-blown, obsessed artist... and she wasn't free until she finished the thing.

This piece is my favorite of her now vast body of artwork.  I loved the lines and the energy and her commitment to finish or to get it right.  It was perfect.

I know a well-drawn work of art gets the glory, but, what makes it interesting is loving the process.

As I begin a quarter of Advanced Drawing, I am going to give myself a break and try not to be the perfectionist. I am going to learn and lose control and draw freely. No mistakes will be made, because art is joy, the process is love and the result is a gift.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up. — Pablo Picasso

Smoking, Courtney Cline, 2010 Charcoal 

My Self-Portrait from 1983 - Pencil on Newsprint

Helping Hands

The art of helping is a delicate thing. There are so many different ways to do it right and so many people doing the work. This is a good thing. Helping doesn't necessarily mean we have to roll up our sleeves and get dirty.  Sometimes it’s as simple or maybe as difficult as writing a check and sending it in the mail.

Every effective organization needs money to get the job done and that person, who sent money instead of joining the mission, becomes an equal partner in the solution. Everyone helps in his or her own way, and this is extremely important.  Who am I to tell anyone how or where they should direct their energies to make a difference in this world of so many areas of need. I don't think it matters how we help, what matters is that we do help. Purchasing Fair Trade products or even buying a pair of Toms shoes helps someone else in the world. Help is help.

There are people who change their world simply by the nature of their career or job.  My husband is a special education teacher and every day he is dedicated to his work with students. He loves his job and has loved it for 25 years.

Nurses, shelter employees, counselors and psychologists (and so many others) also heal, protect, and listen to, interpret, advocate, assist, and on and on.

I recently had the opportunity to meet another kind of job-related helper on a team building challenge ropes course for our office retreat.  Let's call this helper "Travis."

One of the new terms I have learned through my job and our training workshops is "Vegas Rules." You know, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." I find I quite like this rule. I am bound by Vegas Rules not to reveal any information about other people on this retreat. But, I do feel I can share my personal experience because I have decided there is a true art to facilitating a challenge course where participants are expected to expose themselves and learn to trust their coworkers. And this facilitator is my focus... well not really.  This is about me.

I have never participated in an event like this before and spent a great deal of energy trying to get out of attending. I somehow knew I would not like to be "exposed" to this ropes course and imagined all nature of horrors such as not being physically capable of mastering some of the unknown challenges and facing humiliation, granted in my head, as I imagined people trying to push my less than physically fit, 52 year old body over a wall like Richard Gere did during the obstacle course scene in "An Officer and a Gentleman." This is only a small example of what my mind was doing to myself and despite all this, I did end up attending.

So, about this helpful person... the moment Travis introduced himself and began to lead us through the forest and had us doing simple exercises to determine how well we worked as a team, I trusted him. I couldn't begin to define why this was so, but maybe it began with his straight talk and direct eye contact. Those mannerisms alone would be solid lead points for building trust.

Travis is a big man, sturdy and a little imposing with close-cropped hair, good skin and a sense of humor. He exuded physical and mental strength, helpful qualities for a man in his position.

He also explained everything we were about to do and what he expected from us. First thing, individuals have the right to exclude themselves from any activity in which they do not wish to participate.  Another important point he made was a little explanation about comfort zones.  He threw a few nylon harnesses on the ground and arranged them like a target. He stood in the smallest center circle and said, "This is your comfort zone." Then, as he stepped out of the smaller circle into the larger circle, he said, "this is your risk zone. This is where I want you to be today." Then he stepped out of that circle into the unconfined area and said, "This is the Death Zone.  This is not where you want you to go today. We clear?"

This little graph should help:

Most of the information out there refers to the outermost ring as the Panic Zone. Travis called it the Death Zone... I will stick with that.

I spend a great deal of time in my Comfort Zone.  A huge part of my brain spends time making sure people won't notice me, or more specifically, notice that I am fat. It's a really silly exercise to think I can manipulate this perception because, logically, I know people see me exactly how I am.  This fact doesn't hold much real estate in any practical region of my brain. Emotionally, I've got the Klingons running all over the place, strapping me into a cloaking device that indeed, hides me from all the perceived judgment going on in my head while at the same time, keeps me firmly rooted in my boring little Comfort Zone. Yes, that place where fear lives and action is limited or sporadic.

Now, here we are back at the challenge course and I am keeping up with my team.  We are weaving in and out of trees, suspended a foot or two above the forest floor, by ropes, widely spaced 4x4 posts in the ground or large staples protruding from the trees, creating a foothold. We must stay linked by a body part, hand, foot, hips, etc., as we weave our way through the ropes. A quarter of the way through the course and I'm sweating.  If I shake my head, my teammates would get drenched.

Our challenges have gotten more difficult and I have this thought in my head that if I can do it, it's too easy.  Is this the Risk Zone? My death zone would have been falling off the course and making my team start all over again so I am certainly not complaining as I hang on. We finally reach the end and I haven't yet let them down and feel quite proud of that fact, when our guide directs us to the area where we will really be tested.

We enter a clearing in the woods and just beyond Travis' head, I see a clearing with a huge wooden wall looming up into the trees.  I swallow hard.  We are here, not there, I tell myself and concentrate on the rules and directions our facilitator is sharing with us.

When I refocus, I see that we are expected to climb, while strapped into a harness and safety cables, 50 feet up a tree using those dratted staples that caused my feet to scream at me while on the low ropes. We climb up and maneuver ourselves onto a log suspended between two trees. Once on this log, we balance and walk across, maybe 30 feet, ring a cowbell, turn and then walk back to the middle of this beam.  Once there, we turn around and sit back into the open air, while our team brings us safely back to earth, where we kiss the ground and thank Heaven we are back in the United States.

While Travis is tossing around what looks to me like diaper harnesses, I have officially stepped into the Risk Zone. I am not looking at the trees anymore. Nope. Who the hell cares about the trees, the balance beam, the cowbell... no I am looking at these harnesses and they look soooo small.  I can feel my blood pressure rise as my coworkers are buckling themselves into these little bits of nylon and steel. The vein throbs in my neck sparking the idea, "if I have a heart attack, I will get out of this."

I look at Travis until he establishes eye contact and I ask him "who's got the biggest harness?"

He points to one of the young men in our group. "He does."

I look over at the harness and watch as a slim, small stature man pulls the strap tight over his stomach, which is an average-sized stomach, some would say even normal for his height and weight.

I glance back at Travis, who is probably quite intuitive and has continued to watch me unravel in tiny degrees from 15 feet away. I know everyone can hear my next words. "That is too small. It won't fit."

And BAM! I'm in my Death Zone.  I can feel myself tear up and I am trying not to show my panic. Did I just say that in public?

A few minutes later, I am looking up at the young fit people climbing the pole one after the other... success. Success. Success. I will not establish eye-contact with anyone, except my coworker standing next to me, someone who is actually closer to my age than anyone on my team, puts his arm around me and says "its okay. Just go slow, work your way up and don't look down. You can do it, Darcy." It occurs to me that I know I won't look down because my stomach would just get in the way.

I did look him in the eye and nod. He was so nice to try to reassure me but I can't maintain eye contact because, although my Death Zone receded a bit, I know there is someone in this group who is now thinking about my stomach and once I think about this fact, my Death Zone expands.

An hour passes rather quickly and everyone has taken a turn… everyone except me.  Travis asks me if I would feel more comfortable in a full torso harness.

"Will it fit?" I don't say me because I am still doing that thing I do where I try to make sure no one notices ME.

"Yes." He assures me and then walks through the group, down a path and disappears from sight.

Well now I am all alone in the middle of this crowd. I didn't realize how much I needed his calm assurance until I didn't have it to keep me from wondering what the group was doing. It reminded me of labor made easier by having a focal point.  Travis was my focal point.

As the last one to climb the tree, I think everyone is watching and observing that Travis is out of the area and I am not wearing a harness.  I don't know if they are thinking about my stomach, but I am and I can feel a surge of panic like I have never felt in my life. It brings tears to my eyes just writing it.

Travis returns and I feel simultaneously reassured and panicky. He tosses this new harness on the ground and arranges it so it looks like I am stepping onto his version of the comfort zone target and I glimpse a fleeting thought that I am so far away from safety, I can't remember how to get back, so I am obediently following directions and ignoring the fact that he can't buckle this new super huge harness over my stomach.

I look at him and realize, it doesn't matter what I do now; I am exposed. The tears begin falling in earnest although Travis has done nothing to spark them... well other than get down on his knees in front of me and fiddle with my harness. He keeps looking up at me, checking my status, I'm sure.  Then he stands, crosses his arms and contemplates my Death Zone... still, again, more.

He is as comfortable in his contemplation as I am uncomfortable with it and after an excruciatingly long moment that was probably no more than three seconds, he disappears from my sight again.

I don't move. The straps around my upper thighs and over my shoulders restrain my body.  I have no idea what my team is doing... I can't even look at them. I feel like the straps are pushing and pulling at me from behind but I know the pressure point where the cables are attached so my people can bring me down safely are in the front. I try to draw in a full breath but feel pressure around my lungs like I do when I am having an asthma episode.  My breathing is shallow, as it tends to do when I speak in public. Given that, I know I have three minutes before I start to see stars.

I see his boots as he steps back into my personal bubble; Travis has three big hiking clips in his hand.  As he clips them across my body, I begin the sobbing.

He looks me in the eyes and we are literally face-to-face. The knuckles of both his hands are digging into my stomach as he checks the strength of the linked hiking clips. "Are you okay?" This is the first time he has addressed my panic issue and I feel like I am totally the wreck of the day.  His sincere eyes are searching mine for some sign of retreat. "You don't have to do it," he says, as he stands ready to unhook everything he has just rigged together.

I can see it in his face.  He will stand down, no judgment... just say the word.

It's at this point it occurs to me that to everyone else, it might appear that I am afraid of heights. Through my sobs I tell him "I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm just processing."  I don't even know why I said that.  I am devastated and I am trying to reassure him that he doesn't have to worry about me. I'll be fine even though you just spent an hour in my "no-man's land."

"I am not afraid of heights." I say and think to myself that he was the only one who heard that as I move towards the tree, with the soundtrack of my team shouting out encouragement.

The good news is now that my stomach isn't the center of attention, I stop crying and get down to the business of climbing.

Some would say I am a pessimist. Some people also might think a realist is a pessimist but that is not always true.  I think I am a realist in that I know what my body can and can't do, which is why I wanted to stay home in my comfort zone and not go on any ropes courses and not climb any trees.

My arms are just not strong enough to pull my weight up a 50-foot tree.  I knew I could only go up so far before my arms or my knees would give out. I know this about myself. I am heavy and I cannot do chin-ups or knee-bends. I know this and I wanted to do it anyway because I had to see how far I could push myself.

The climb was rough even from the start.  That harness was so confining that it felt like it took twice as much muscle to lift my legs up against the resistance of the straps on my thighs. And as I hefted myself up each staple, I had to extend my arms to ease my stomach away from the tree and then up because the hiking clips around my front kept snagging on the bark each time I took a step up.

I knew that everyone was watching me, I wasn't imagining it. I could not hide on that crawl up the tree. I also knew that Travis was keeping his eyes on me too.  He watched every person climb up that day and I felt his focus as he made sure his contraption was doing it's job.

That day in the woods, I tried.  I made it about 40 feet before I just couldn't lift my arms up. I heard my team shouting "YOU CAN DO IT," but I knew when my fingers were slipping from the staples and my legs seemed paralyzed I was not going to get up to the beam.  I saw it was about 10 feet away but my arms were done. I couldn't do it.

It was fine. I would have liked to have made it up and walked across the top of the forest but it really didn't matter to me. I had already done the one thing I never, ever do.

I show people who I am in many ways in relationship to my work or my art. I reveal my feelings all the time. I like people to know me as a wife, a mom, a friend, an artist, a mission leader, a student, a coworker, a helping hand....

The fact is I am fat. That is not a slur or insult. It's just what it is. However, I never point to my stomach and scream to the world "Look at this! Do you see how this limits me?" That day in the woods as Travis was contemplating my girth and carefully, creatively strapping me into the harness, I knew I was pointing at my Death Zone.

I was clearly upset by his attention or more accurately, at where it was directed, but he never wavered in his calm matter-of-fact demeanor. Every move he made that day and every comment he made was solid, get the job done, attitude. I believe there is art to guiding people through difficult hurdles. They must remain objective. He wasn't thrown off at all by my unruly emotions.  That was reassuring. Travis is worthy of trust.

When I let go of the tree and was lowered to the ground, I was not disappointed at all. I was exhausted, emotionally. I let Travis unhook me and I carried on.  I shouted to my teammates throughout the rest of the course, offering my support for others, but not accepting invitations to climb any more trees. Travis offered to strap me in again after everyone had jumped off another tree onto a trapeze, but I declined. I didn't have enough left in me to give everyone present another opportunity to see that I was not afraid of heights.

Early in the day, when we were planning strategies for the low ropes and how we should proceed through the course, I had expressed a thought that I would like to have people who had done ropes courses before interspersed with inexperienced individuals. The rest of the group didn't agree and continued to separate teams based on experience.

Travis said, "wait!" He looked around at everyone and said, "you have a team member who just expressed a need and you ignored it."

I, like the rest of my coworkers, was perfectly willing to ignore my needs because I moved right along to form a newbies team.

When Travis called us out, I was embarrassed, but I knew immediately that he was there for each of us and like anyone who excels at their job, he would facilitate this group in the best way possible, not just for me, but for himself because he couldn't do any less. He did that when he didn't mince words, made us listen, or when he challenged each team member to risk more, walk backwards, do it blindfolded, take a risk.

I don't know if Travis understood what my problem was, or that it even mattered. It was the way he handled it. No differently than he would for anyone.

In our meetings, after training sessions, we are asked, "What was the takeaway from this experience?"

Well, I am still fat and after you've read this I really have pointed to my stomach and said, "Look!" No reason to pretend otherwise.  Only time will tell what I have learned from this experience.  I think about how lucky it was that my boss wouldn't let me off the hook and insisted I go on the retreat because I would have felt so outside this excellent group of people, had I not attended and learned about them and myself (not just on the ropes course, but for the whole retreat.)  My job requires me to create artwork that will affect their events so we are tied together, invested in each other and that’s a good takeaway.

As for the rest? Acceptance is an art I have yet to master. I can learn from Travis in the way he accepted what is real and relevant to the situation. 

I was horrified to have someone openly looking at and thinking about my stomach. I had no idea how tightly I wrap my arms around my body to protect me from being hurt or how my efforts to be liked make me hide myself to try to make others more comfortable in my presence.

I am at peace with the events of that day in the woods and I rather like that I fell apart, because it really showed me where my absolute vulnerability lies. 

Here's a little gem.

There’s something liberating about not pretending. 
Dare to embarrass yourself. Risk. – Drew Barrymore

I can't pretend anymore.

All Strapped In       ----      Almost There       ----       Coming Down

Got Games?

Our garage is stuffed to the rafters with bins full of games: old games, new games, parts of games.  We do like a good game.  Our friends refer to Gerard, my husband of 31 years, as "The GameMaster." We meet with them monthly for Game Night.  Sometimes we play games that one of our friends have found or we play dominoes or a card game.  Always Gerard reads the rules or informs the group how the game is played. None of us really have any interest in reading instead of visiting, so this arrangement works out quite well. He knows games and we trust him. Right?

Growing up I didn't play many games but, Gerard and I began playing games before we were married in 1981. I remember the time my best friend, J.Patt and her partner were visiting. We played a game called Hand & Foot (similar to Canasta). It took me a while but I figured out that Gerard and J.Patt were cheating! I found out that he has a history of stacking the deck so other people would win.  This particular incident was not for my benefit.

Gerard loves to tell the story of when he and his brothers were playing Pinochle in Tacoma. Gerard had dealt all the cards out when one of his card loving, elderly relatives, Auntie Grace came out to the carport to see what they were up to.  When she saw he had dealt a fresh set she said "let me take this hand." So David stepped out.

Gerard offered to reshuffle but she insisted everything was fine as it was.  After the exchange, she discovered she had a 1500 Pinochle in her hand she nearly hit the roof! She stopped the game (well it was really over anyway) and called all the relatives out to see this often heard of but never witnessed event.  Auntie Grace told everyone she met about that hand.  For years.  The first time we were introduced, she mentioned this miracle to me.

She never knew Gerard had rigged the deck to see the reactions of his brothers, not his aunt.  Gerard confessed to his dad what he had done.  His father wisely told him, "You can never tell her the truth, she will die believing she earned that 1500 Pinochle." (Auntie Grace has since passed away, so it's okay to go public with the story.)

Gerard also loves to teach a new game.  He taught me how to play cribbage, which is a counting game... I do not like counting, but I couldn't lose at this game.  I asked if he was letting me win? He was adamant (not Adam Ant) and said he had tried to win. Most games he plays, he can win at some point, but he doesn't have to and it is nice to play with some one who doesn't have to win. (I prefer to win.)

My GameMaster also loves to create games.  We have worked together on many game projects over the years.  He works out the strategy and details, I help with the graphics and design. This is a perfect blend of our talents. Even our kids get involved in playing the games and offering suggestions, helping us work out the kinks. Together we can create some pretty fun boards.

To help with the chores, Gerard even invented a Clue-like game using our house but added in cleaning tasks that were to be completed. Each player would go from room to room and at a certain point in the game, everyone had to stop and clean in the area their playing piece had landed. It certainly added a different twist to cleaning and chores.

One evening, while watching Late Night with David Letterman, one of our favorite programs, he decided to make a game from the show.  Of course if you know David Letterman, it had to be called "Know Your Cuts of Meat." (Yes the game features a "Big Ass Ham.")

Gerard spent hours researching different types of meats and their cuts and came up with hundreds of question cards.  We included trivia about the band and funny incidents from certain episodes we had seen over the years, including Letterman's encounters with Richard Simmons and his "NOprah Oprah" campaign about not being invited on the Oprah Show.

I enjoyed the making of this game.  We worked on it together. It was time intensive and I loved working out all the details with Gerard.  I had total freedom with the design and we put together an excellent board game. Those were fun times.

We don't have much time these days with me back in school and starting a new job. Gerard is still working weekends to help pay for my schooling.  Times are tough, but we still have our monthly game night dangling in front of us like a carrot keeping us moving forward to the prize. Our friends are good sports.

We do love playing games. Everything I know about games, I learned from the GameMaster.

Every now and then you gotta ask yourself, "Do I feel lucky?"  I do.  I got games... but I also have the GameMaster... so if we don't "got games," we can make 'em!

The Know Your Cuts of Meat Game by Gerard and Darcy Cline

In our house, Gerard is also "The CakeMaster"

Friends Forever

Marcella, Marcella, Marcella.  Marcella Bateman died Wednesday night. She was 80 years old and was a member of my writers group, WWW (Wild Women Writers.) She got such a giggle out of that name.  Marcella knew how to laugh.  That, I think, was her special gift.  That and writing... and being extremely kind... and a little bit naughty... and inspiring people to love her.

The first time I saw Marcella, was in 1997 in Puyallup High School as I waited outside classroom 107.  I had decided to take a writing class and I was watching the glass door as she stepped through, momentarily blocking the evening light.

Our teacher for Fiction and Biography Writing was late. When instructors are late, I tend to doubt myself and I was feeling quite alone until this cute little dark-haired lady walked in, looking frustrated and a little frantic.

She asked "are you waiting for Marjorie Rommel's class?"

"Yes, I am." I was instantly relieved to hear her speak that name. I was in the right place and so was she.

"Oh, thank goodness." Out of breath, she continued on in a rush. "I parked clear on the other side of the building."

Of Course I noticed the wheeled oxygen tank and the clear plastic tubing attached to her nose.  She was winded but I couldn't offer her a seat in the hall so as other students arrived, I began to over-share my reasons for taking a writing class.  "I was reading these novels... and they just didn't go along like I wanted them too... and my sister is a poet so I don't have any interest in poetry... I've never taken a writing class before... blah blah blah. I just kept chatting, because I was nervous about taking a writing class and I wanted the dark haired lady to catch her breath without actually pointing out, "you, my dear, are out of breath."

I can't say for sure what she wore that day but after knowing her all these years, I find myself filling in those blanks with a floral, most likely blue or lavender polyester blend top with matching slacks, topped off with a sweater to keep her slight frame warm, her dark brown salon-do perfectly placed. I can picture her now, patting her hair to make sure it was presentable, her lips painted red and smiling a warm and welcome greeting. Marcella, neat and tidy, cared very much about her appearance.

That day in the hallway, I think she must have had her folder in hand, filled with some of the biographical stories she wrote during her time as a clerk with the Puyallup Police Department, a job she felt lucky to have had along with funny stories of the Sweet Adelines and her stint as one of their members.

That image is how I will always see Marcella.  I am sure she would have preferred not to include the oxygen tank as part of who she was but, we don't get to choose how our friends will remember us. All of those things and how she cared about people is what I will smile about when I am not so sad at the loss of her. She was my dear friend.

My association came after she was diagnosed with Pulmonary Hypertension: a result of her years of smoking, which she mentions in a poignant short story she wrote. Marcella was told to "get your affairs in order.  You have about five years to live." That statement would be a difficult thing to hear from a doctor. But Marcella put a smile on and between her and Roy, they got her affairs in order and while they were at it, they got his in order too.

After that first writing experience, I took another class, and another and yet another.  Eventually, some of the women I met in these writing classes started a writers' group.  What a novel idea. At the time of the first meeting, I couldn't participate, but I had made a strong connection with one of the ladies in the group and she invited me to come to a meeting.  This is where I met some of the most wonderful women I have ever known and the Wild Women Writers were born.

Marcella Bateman was part of this group.

We met once a month and that didn't seem like enough time.  We were all writing some very powerful words and each of our stories, like us, were so different.  The creativity was limitless.  At every meeting, I felt like I had stepped into this incredible world of fact and fantasy.  For me, it was like a new awakening and I began to care very deeply for our little group and each of these ladies filled a different spot in my heart.  We spent our first hour visiting and catching up on the events of our daily lives. The second hour was for our writing.

In this lovely, safe and creative atmosphere, I developed a friendship with Marcella.  She was always such a positive influence in the way she carried herself everyday and in her writing.  She wrote non-fiction and was very careful to write positively about people she worked with over the years.  That was her main concern.  She asked us on more than one occasion, "Do you think that would hurt their feelings?"

I visited Marcella at her home on Wednesdays and we became close. Her focus shifted after her husband, Roy died.  She went from working on compiling her stories for a book, to cleaning out the house and making it easier for Tina and Penny, her daughters, in anticipation of her own death which the doctors told her should have occurred years ago. She showed them!

As part of her "clearing out" plan, she wrote vignettes about the history of heirlooms that she and Roy had collected over the years. She attached the story and then gave them to family members that could relate to those items. I always thought these were incredibly kind gifts. 

When my family moved out of the area, I didn't see that much of my writers. I missed my Wednesdays with Marcella.  The WWW continued to meet and those group meetings got me through each month.  I missed my chats with Marcella, but we did talk on the phone occasionally.

The most difficult thing about Marcella being gone, is that I know time got away from us. I hear about this kind of thing happening often; we get busy, we don't make time and we miss out. I am sad because I missed her and will continue to miss her, I know Marcella wouldn't want me to be sad. She would want me to think of her and smile... to remember the music and the laughter that were the life-force she shared with us in our meetings and as a friend. She also would want us to reminisce about her writing.  She was a terrific writer of nostalgia and the documentation of her family history, stories she told with love and care. 

This is who Marcella, my friend was...is for me.  A kind spirit. I know she would love for us to be BFFs. I can almost hear her giggle, nudge Roy and wink at us from heaven.  Best friends forever.

Marcella and Me at her 80th Birthday party.

Everything Easy

In an earlier post, Cliches and Courage, I wrote "I wish I was easier." I often ruminate on this topic of not relaxing into life as it is before me.  I don't do relaxation very well.  I worry over unknown details, what ifs and impossibilities.  In my head, I reserve a large amount of mental stock for mulling and stewing.  This constant, low-level anxiety colors my world with muddy paint and adds a stroke of dissatisfaction to the canvas of life, leaching joy from what could have been a cache of fine moments.


Even as I write this, I over-think to myself, "aren't I just sharing my worry about worrying over worrying... blah blah blah blah." Well now you've had a tiny peek inside my head and thats enough for the general public, because it can be quite toxic. I attempt to keep a harness on this gremlin.  I don't appreciate this characteristic about myself but it is part of me and who I am, which is actually a person I have come to like.


If I were easier, I wouldn't think about things like this.  But, I like that this makes me very particular about my art and at the same time, it can turn on me and cause me to doubt my ability. It's the two sides of Lake Washington when driving on the floating bridge, one side calm and shiny, the other side rough and choppy.  I know that I can produce beautiful artwork and yet, I am such a perfectionist about it that it can be a real challenge to just say "its finished. Step away from the canvas."


In my beginning painting class, I was recreating magnified marbles when I got too far ahead of myself and painted in some of the foreground before the background was settled.  I couldn't let it go and ended up painting over it to redraw the light and reflections within the marbles.  I was much more at peace with the decision to redo it than I would ever have been to carry on to the end, ignoring the flaws that would have bedeviled me until I destroyed the painting just to put my mind at ease.


This last Winter Quarter in intermediate painting, as a class assignment, I began a triptych of our family church in Iowa.  A landscape was a subject I hadn't attempted to this point.  So, I blocked in the areas where the trees, church and family members would be painted in but the placement of the church was awkward. The composition refused to flow with comfort.  I washed it away and painted it back in three separate times.  That darn church refused to cooperate and time was compressing quickly towards the deadline and critique.


Frustrated, I brought the three canvases home and painted over them... goodbye winter trees, goodbye quaint little church, goodbye beloved relatives.  Instead of the old fashioned sepia toned painting I envisioned, I brushed blue acrylic over the images and the canvases took on the new life of a tattooed woman, a messy bouquet and a room that looks a bit like a Piet Mondrian Painting. These new and interesting characters emerged from the troubled canvases and saved my grade.


The worrying perfectionist who insisted on changing subjects at the last possible moment is the driving force that makes my art better. It is also the force that contributes to my insomnia and my non-sensical anxiety. This Negative Nellie inside my head is also responsible for projects started but never finished.  After all, if it isn't finished, it can hardly fail.


That debilitating "fear of failure," is a real creativity killer and it swings around the coattails of my perfectionism, sometimes succeeding in it's purpose of knocking over my confidence and making me doubt. Which then forces a start to stop.  I have a garage full of bins that are loaded with unfinished projects. Even as I sit here writing this, I have two portraits that have given me pause, eight sewing projects that got hijacked for one reason or another and ten half-written novels that were promising, yet abandoned... and as a result of the distant fear, remain unfinished.


I don't usually spend much time worrying about the projects that haven't made it to the end.  They don't matter all that much in the day to day workings of my mind. What matters are the completed pieces.  These projects are my favorites.  I can gaze upon them and see a wonderfully fullfilled work regardless of all the flaws I should have fixed but didn't because I finally told myself to step away.


These are the images I lay awake at night dreaming about before I fall asleep.


If everything was easier, if I was easier, I wouldn't care so much. I would be able to do my job and go home, not taking my emotional load with me.  I could turn in work that was good enough and forget the part that, to my eye is incongruent, but to everyone else is fine. I would never have to paint over an image because there was something out of place, some little thing that would not leave me in peace. I could create and walk away without another quarter of my mental energy given over to the details.


Well, that's not me.  A few years ago, after I apologized for an awkward moment at work, my boss said "don't worry about it.  We are who we are."  I loved that comment. It doesn't mean that a statement like that gives me permission to ditch my efforts at being a better person, but it does speak to me in that I am okay. I will always worry and stress over my work, life, crimes against children, calderas, world peace, destructive meteors, aliens, etc. etc. etc....


But this year, my perfectionism landed my art in the Pierce College Student Art Show.  The poor little lost church and trees under The Blue Room Triptych can share some of that glory because that piece also won the purchase award and is now in the permanent art collection of Pierce College. Not too shabby for having such a rough start.


I made it clear that I worry about a lot of nothing and in other areas of my life I don't always like it. But when it comes to art, it works for me. 

The Blue Room Triptych © 2011 by Darcy Cline

Dear Debra

My favorite Poet of all time is my sister.  Since I wasn't much of a reader until after high school, I listened to her read her poetry through most of elementary school and junior high.  She is the most prolific writer I know.   Debra is one of those people who will stop in the middle of a discussion, grab a napkin and scribble a poem out within a few minutes and then jump back into the conversation as she tucks the napkin into her purse. It can be a bit unnerving until she reads the story on the napkin. And then it is a little bit of magic.

Old Moon

How captured we this night

In lustrous light unfold

He said to cast the newer stars

It is because the moon is old

How laid upon the grasses dew

The light kept we from cold

Encompassed in this starry night

It is because the moon is old

How can you claim these magic things

In these stories that you told

He said look hard upon that rock

It is because the moon is old

That rivers rise next to the sea

That oceans cover shores

That in your eyes is everything

That I’ve loved no one more

How captured you my heart this night

That makes me one so bold

And pressed my lips to yours and said

It is because the moon is old

Old Moon is one of many favorites she has written.

Growing up, we were labeled early on. Debra was the writer, I was the artist.  We spent most of our childhood firmly in our corners.  When we crossed into each others' territory, we were not cheered on for the effort.  We definitely didn't invite each other to experiment into our own niches.  What if I was really the writer and she was the artist?  What would have happened then?

I remember writing a poem in seventh grade.  It began, "I like Sid, but he likes Sally..." Debra should not feel threatened by my foray into poetry, although, I do remember everyone making a fuss about it and "wasn't it so cute."

Debra rarely heard those words. No one really understood her poetry and even though I had been listening to it going on four years by the time I had written my Sid and Sally poem, I understood half of what she read to me. I can appreciate her way with words now that I have become a reader.

Over the years she dabbled in art and created a few beautiful drawings to prove to herself she could, but still was more writer than artist as the poems seemed to march right out of her fingertips, filling notebook after notebook, as the notebooks stacked up and spilled out of boxes under the bed.

In 1997, I took my first Marjorie Rommel writing course at Pierce College.  I found I had a lot to say.  I wrote a few poems... okay limericks, (I am not bad at writing limericks.) What I discovered was I liked writing wordy short stories and have since written over a hundred pieces.  I also finished a novella. I was rather proud of myself for that. But under all this personal growth, was the fear that I wasn't a writer. My sister had that wrapped up.

What we didn't learn when we children was that talent is very much like love.  It scoops you up and makes you feel happy, warm and confident. It's there when you need it.  It is more intimate when given attention. But most importantly, it is limitless. Like love, there is enough for everyone.

My sister and I have fought through the hard times of our youth to become the best of friends.  We designed matching tattoos to commemorate our survival.  I share my art and writing with her and she does the same with me. Debra has become a wonderful and interesting painter with a very different style than my own.  She has painted several paintings this year and has created enough work to have a solo show.  What I would really love is to have a show together.  Now that would be crazy fun!

Debra is still writing profusely and reads to me whenever we talk, mostly through Skype.  It's a very comforting feeling I bring with me from my childhood, the beauty of her voice and the way she wraps her words around me. When I listen to her, I know her.

A few months ago I painted a portrait of hands.  It was a study of style and process. I shared my progress with my sister and she asked "would you mind if I painted the picture as well?"  I thought is was an interesting experiment and so we have painted our own versions of the same picture.

I hold these two paintings close to my heart.  They are tightly wrapped up in old rivalry and competition, of talent, love and acceptance. We thought we were so different, but we are more alike than anyone knew.

Now they know.

Hands © 2012 Debra Gordon

Clichés and Courage

"Real courage is risking one's clichés.”
― Tom Robbins, Another Roadside Attraction

Be careful what you wish for... such a cliché. I shake my head at the ease with which I ignore a lesson my writing mentor, Marjorie Rommel, instilled in me; "Don't be cliché. Be an original."

Oh, but there are so many fun clichés out there champing at the bit and so little time, so let me bend your ear for a moment and indulge before we get down to brass tacks.

As luck would have it, I am back in the saddle again attending school and wishing the dog ate my homework.  I feel like I have hopped out of the frying pan and jumped into the fire.  Being a student is much harder than I imagined it would be. More fool I.

This week, I feel like I have bitten off more than I can chew.  The homework assignments are steamrolling over me at a hefty pace.  I barely have enough room to draw a breath. I imagine my teachers plotting and planning their next academic assault over an open fire, stirring a pot of "double, double toil and trouble; fire burn, and caldron bubble." (Shakespeare, MacBeth; The original original)

I know I can rise to the challenge and do the job right, but I do have my doubts.  Did I mention how hard it was shaping up to be all I can be? Maybe I could boost my spirits by telling myself "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger..."  Geez, I almost threw up on that one.

In all seriousness, I am thrilled and scared to my toes to be going back to school. It is so much more challenging than I thought it would be.  My fellow students seem so secure and skilled in this newfangled software we are learning.  I know I needed this desperately to deepen my understanding of the digital world, but it's moving so fast, it really knocks me for a loop.  My doubts land hard and heavy on my mind: what if everything I learned becomes obsolete before the year is out?  It has happened before.

The year I graduated from college in 1987, computers became the new black and hijacked my career. All the practical tools of the job I was an expert in, disappeared and were replaced by computer programs. No one was cutting rubylith for color separations, typesetting could be done by the receptionist, desktop publishing brought its own garish ease to the masses.  With a click of a little gray button, the computer could magically produce in minutes, documents that took me hours to create.

I rallied, though.  I soldiered on.  I bit the bullet and headed back to the drawing board!

I taught myself the programs I needed to become employable... just one year after achieving my BA in Graphic Design. I find myself awed by the power of technology. It amazes and excites me and I feel very blessed to have this opportunity to rediscover the art of Graphic Design in this shifting world of brain-bending discoveries. It boggles the mind, it does, when its not being difficult.

And now, I have come full circle, embracing the new, intricate, crazy technology within my reach. I am strong and grabbing the bull by the horns on this challenge of becoming a better designer and a more thoughtful artist. But, holy cow, its draining.

I fall in to bed at night exhausted because really, it's already the edge of tomorrow. I'm thankful to have a family that understands the total emotional and physical toll taken by creating art with passion and being a scosche of an overachiever... who rests the weight of the world on each assignment.

I told a fellow classmate that I had stayed up too late doing homework and I was exhausted.  She laughed and said "Four days into the quarter?  You're supposed to save that for the end."

I sometimes wish it was easier, wish I was easier, but that really isn't my style. I am a bit competitive.

When I hand my teacher the assignments... these are the times when it can be overwhelming to be so exposed.  To have the contents of my mind on display. To be given a value that tells me what my intellectual property is worth... taking no accounting of its value to me.

My success, when measured by me, is revealed to me when I complete a project that has claimed a large portion of real estate in my brain for hours, days or weeks. I don't always want to share the results of that residency, but I am compelled to seek out someone and wait for judgement. Some people are going to love my designs.  Some people will not. Everyone has an opinion and this year, mine isn't the only one that holds weight in matters of the art.

Living a creative life takes courage and I don't think that's cliché.

The Four Seasons © 2012 Darcy Cline             Bubbles © 2012 Darcy Cline