This spring I came to the conclusion that my potted life needed to be less “Country Home” and more “Sunset Magazine”.  I’ve been shifting my sensibilities towards modern.  For some reason fuzzy light green plants with big leaves had to be in my palette.  Mix those with lots of orange,  succulents and brightly painted pots and there you have it.  Here are some shots of our July garden at the little cottage in the woods.

I went through all my drawings that I saved from my years at RISD yesterday.  Most of them went in the recycling.  I saved a few good ones and photographed others.  I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, it just took a day of no kid and the energy.

I was fortunate enough to have Victor Lara for my first two semesters.  He was the right teacher for me.  He really pushed you to see and record the essence of things, and his teaching style was laid back but dead serious.  We drew for 8 hours a day and every night.  It was tiring work but by the time the year was over I could really draw.

I liked these two drawings because the studios at school really looked like this, chaotic, cluttered and not so clean.  I remember coming back from exercising and having to stay up till 10 doing self portraits.  I looked tired in most of them.  Hard to believe I was 18 once. 

My favorite project at RISD was my tree drawing series.  I drew the Beech tree in the president’s office garden every day for a month.   I went every morning before breakfast, no matter the weather and drew this tree.  I have spent my adult life living in and loving trees.  It is interesting to think that my core interests have not changed, I’ve simply gotten older.

Karim Rashid’s production furniture studio was the toughest semester at RISD.  As an adult and a manager I realize now he must have been an administrative headache, but he was a great teacher.  Of all the teachers I had, he spent the most time with us.  He really loved design and espoused the value of it in every aspect of life.  He continuously sat down with each of us to help refine our designs.  He was always candid and genuine with a good sense of humor.  He was also the most rigorous teacher.  He was really adamant that we design for a specific agenda on all fronts, aesthetics, materials, ease of manufacturing.  He set limitations, but you never felt limited.  He had a way of guiding you through misjudgments such that you genuinely wanted to do a better job the next time.  Inspirational might be too strong of a word, but it was something like that.

As I flipped through the drawings I noticed that many had lines drawn on the back.  Karim was really into practicing drawing a straight line.  He had us practice all the time.  It is one of the useful tricks from my RISD days that I use all the time.

I am not sure that anyone from this studio except Peter Mann continued on to build furniture, but it certainly was an influential experience for me.

I really liked Seth Stem too.  He was a very conscientious and gracious teacher.  I remember that for my final crit he had someone come in especially for me, and as I recall her insights were great.  I remember I got a serious talking to by Seth when he found out I was not going anywhere for spring break.  He felt students should get away to clear their heads, and he made no bones about telling me to get out of town.  I used to live vicariously through this man who drove in every day with a windsurfer strapped on the roof of his car.  It was comforting to know that someone in Rhode Island was getting enough exercise and enjoying the great outdoors while the rest of us were stuck in gloomy Providence.

The drawings that struck me as most interesting upon re earthing were sketches of shoes.  Perhaps it was because prior to this I had only seen compressed charcoal and pencil drawings, but whatever the reason I saved lots of them.  These were from Bob Oneal’s shoe class.  Bob was the teacher that I think I had the most in common with from a sensibility perspective.  However, I don’t think we got along very well personally.  I was then and am now head strong.  I have learned overtime to channel my opinions but I’m sure I was a handful back then.

Bob had us do lots of interesting conceptual projects.  I found a whole folder of drawings of this little piece of plastic.  I think we were supposed to animate it in some way.  Below are paintings of the landscape we created out of found objects.  My landscape was a forest made of rusty nails with all sorts of other items in it (I don’t remember what) in among them.

Random.

There were some landscape architecture  drawings and universal kitchen sketches mixed in.  I definitely was not cut out to do either of these things.  Come to think of it I really am not cut out to do any of the things I learned in ID.  By the time I graduated I’d given my college try and knew that none of the physical skills I had learned would be used again, but that the conceptual and organizational skills were invaluable.  I was unequivocally sure that I was going to design information as my career.  So far I have not veered from that path…again head strong.

The other thing that struck me about the drawings I found was that many of them were sort of about inner peace, and finding order in chaos.  This is part an parcel how I make my living.  I make complex data and concepts easy to understand.  It is nice to look back and see continuity in your life.  At least in your drawings.  I have 4 tubs of sketch books to tackle next, curious to see what those reveal.

Dear Seth,

You started this year off at the tail end of 4,  a big bundle of emotions.  You had the desire to be a “big boy”, but hyper moments and raw energy kept getting in the way.  As the year progressed I have watched the infant in you wane as the child in you waxes.  The manic play and first time ever moments are giving way to the known, the refined the real – less blocks, more Legos.  You no longer accept what I give you with enthusiasm, you seek out what you want with purpose.

This school year has been characterized by very specific play cycles that seem to illustrate your progress toward little boy hood.  We started the year at the height of your dragon fixation.  Autumn was all about dragons.  I drew outline after outline for you.  You filled in the colors with wild energy, spinning tales as you drew and describing the characteristics of each dragon the instant the thought came into your head.

By Thanksgiving you were close to the end of the dragon run, and laying the groundwork for the great  “store room”.  You became mildly obsessed with the book Friendship Valley by Wolo which features an escape from a forest fire and a re settlement in a fertile valley.  Part of the story is that the creatures who re settle there create a store room and store food for the winter.  The concept of the store room served for many an intense hour of construction play.  You would build elaborate store room islands complete with boats, fairy guards and endless types of food.  One of the staples of store room construction was your hoard of ornamental corn kernels.  I loved the way we made restaurants and served corn kernels nestled in acorn caps to the fairies.  And how we categorized and organized endless piles of wooden food, seeds from the garden and fairy stones.  I thought that this play seemed sort of primal in a way, and felt naturally connected to the season.  I don’t want to forget it as the primal you slips away and the conscious you emerges.

By January you had the store room out of your system and had moved on to “farm”.  We came across an old mismatched set of farm and safari animals at a garage sale, along with more blocks to augment our supply.  I would have thought very little of the animals, but to you they were gold.  You set up elaborate farms with attached zoos.  Every time you came to my house you set up a new farm and worked on it during you entire stay.  Each type of animal had an appropriate environment structured for them.  We spent a lot of time delivering food and making sure the animals were fed.  Yellow blocks for the grass eaters, red blocks for the meat eaters, and blue blocks for the seafood eaters.  My favorite little touch was “crazy chicken”.  Crazy chicken was a particular rooster that would get loose and take joy rides in the green farm truck that delivered the hay.  It happened several times day.  A little foray into mania, a moment of wild abandon, a bit of the old you that was a welcomed diversion from the intense focus of the farm.

In February we moved to the new house.  That week you started to draw.  Hither to then your drawings had been abstracted with some sense of outline, but mostly blocks of color.  As soon as we moved they became drawings.  You were drawing your own dragons, hedge hogs, beavers, people, space events, and all of it with defined and recognizable form.  This shift in drawing was profound, because with it your energy changed.  As soon as you could really draw, everything in your life became more deliberate, considered and planned.  No longer is your modus operandi to run about man handling things and people till you figure out what you want to do.  You already know what you want to do.  You have purpose and you operate against it.  I am less in love with the new you, but I must say it is easier on me.  I don’t have to figure out your craziness and help you cope.  I am now able to follow along with some semblance of coherent understanding.

I find myself  letting go of your infancy at an alarming rate.  Every time you come back you are more and more grown up.  Your words are calculated, you are aware of media and violence and you are fascinated by gaming.  Part of you has changed, but I still see your marks of joy, your enthusiasm and your imagination. My role now is different,  I find myself teaching less and sheparding more.  I can’t stand in your way, I have to let you grow up into the man you are destined to be.  I have to do this gracefully and compassionately – Wish me luck, but above all wish me patience!

Love + Mommy

The predominant AM sound track at our new home is “cock-a-doodle-do”.    We love the chickens down the hill.  In fact we are so enamored with them that we bought weekly deliveries of their eggs from our preschool auction.  A few weeks ago these eggs arrived.  Big and little, a perfect salute to the joyful inconsistency of nature.  Thanks down hill chickens and neighbors.

Stephanie brought several dozen quail eggs on our trip to Tahoe.  Since we were the last to leave, we got to take home the remaining unboiled eggs.  I explained to Seth about blowing out the yolk and insides of an egg so the shell can be preserved.  He loved this idea.  He spent about three hours of his life this spring happily blowing  quail eggs.  He was so patient.  Whenever  one would crack mid blow,  he would swish out his mouth with water (he kept a glass nearby for this common occurrence), wipe his face with a with a paper towel and carry on.

The morning after Seth finished his egg blowing marathon he announced that he was going to paint the eggs.  Ryder handed over some water colors and Seth got to it.  I forget from year to year how memorizing egg coloring really is.  By the time he was half way through I couldn’t hold myself back, I had to get in on the action too.  The pinks and greens were particularly spectacular.  I don’t know why color is so appealing on eggs, there is something about the form that lends itself to hue.

My springs are very busy.  Every year we have a big egg hunt.  This year we had a small egg hunt that was preceded by a big school auction, that took my time instead.  For some reason these eggs remind me of spring break in college.  All I can remember is sleet out side my window in Providence, and quail eggs.  I don’t know why we would have had these eggs but the speckles make me feel so introspective.  Back then I wanted the life I have now.  It’s funny that I knew someday I would get to make art and crafts with my own kid, all I had to do was bide my time and work through all the things that happened between then and now.

Today was our last official day of Mountain School at the little red school house.  In honor of this transition I thought I would document some of my favorite preschool phenomena, starting with community paintings.  I love the way the children gather around a shared canvas.  This is such a great way to start out the collaborative path of learning.  My own childhood and education were singular, there was little in the way of group projects.  I don’t want this for Seth.  I want him to enjoy a lifetime of social connection and exponential productivity.  There is so much joy to be found in collaborating with others, it is a fundamental part of being human.

Seth has brought beets that he grew in his own garden all three years we have been at Mountain School.  In those years life was a bit transitory, but we managed to plant beets where ever we were.  Planting beets twice a year helps us hold on to the importance of the growing cycle, and keeps us rooted in what is real.  I guess most of all, it’s  the continuity of one plant.  There is one plant that, come hell or global warming, Seth knows how to grow to sustain himself.

Mountain School above all is about stewardship.  A. rescued this snail from the beet greens.  She must have carried it around for 20 minutes, showing it to friends and faithfully caring for it.  Eventually she let it go in the garden where it could munch on our flowering kale.  It struck me that a child like A. who is usually spearheading the more human-centered activities would take the time to engage with this snail.  It’s not so unusual in the larger context of our school.  The philosophy is so rich in natural experience and observation, that even for the most “social” of children this act of stewardship was undertaken with the least bit of pretense.    She picked up the snail and took care of it because when you go to Mountain School that is what you do – without a second thought.

This year’s auction was an undisputed success.  The decorations team did a great  job.  Everyone contributed loads of fabulous ideas.  The end result was relatively easy to accomplish, and was nothing short of magical!

THANK YOU

Aimee

Julie

Jamie

Melissa

Dorice

THE LIVE AUCTION!

THE PARTY!

Many of the class and individual projects were amazing.  Vilma’s hand made redwood bench was spectacular.  Thanks to the Franks the 4/5s chair was embellished with some wonderful illustrations.  Teacher Marie’s quilts were wildly popular.  I may be biased, but I think Seth’s square rocked!

This costume rack is genius!  I mean what kid doesn’t want access to any costume 24/7, and with a banana slug on the rack to boot!  The birdhouse replica of the school was quite sweet, and made me feel a little sad that this is our last year ~ sigh…

I think this quote by our school founder Betty Peck pretty much sums it up…

So this is it our new house!  As you can tell it’s mostly kitchen.  This open plan is what really “rented” us on the place   There is lots of room for cooking, drawing, painting, working and doing “homework”,  all of it bright and cheerful.

As you can tell from the photo below the house has few even surfaces – just the way I like it.  It’s worn around the edges with the occasional pleasant creek indicative of anything over the age of 100.  The living room has plenty of open space for our various farm scenarios, pillow fights and shenanigans involving match box cars.

The bedroom is mostly bed, and it’s really too cozy for productivity.  It’s all I can do to pry myself from the covers in the morning.  I can’t remember the last time I slept so well.

It’s charming to move somewhere and have all your ideal pets already living there.  Cleo the cat is a fierce hunter and consummate lover.  Onyx the dog is a fabulous pile of warm black fur always lounging in the sun.  It’s reassuring to know she is asleep on the driveway whenever I need my dog fix.  Remi, Ace and Cherokee are all quite charming horses (and I am not a horse person).  Seth goes out to the horses every morning, because the first skill he has to master is learning how to make a connection with a horse.

This house is a gardener’s dream.  The back yard is nicely fenced off from the dear.  There is not a gopher in site (thanks to Cleo).  The manure is piled, aged and ready to be hauled up and turned in.  What more could one ask for?

Dear Seth,

My new years resolution was to make sure that I documented your impressive dragon preoccupation.   I draw the outline and you fill in the colors.  Sometimes I help with the colors too, it’s something we do together.  It started on the day of the ALS fund raiser.  You were anxious and fidgety waiting for our “performance” were we spoke to the guests about Grandma Belle.  This was our first stab at dragon therapy.  It evolved from there as a sort of transition activity.  The tradition of coloring dragons on legal pad in sharpie emerged from a moment where we were waiting for our carpool, and you suggested we draw a dragon using the materials floating around in the car.  After that, dragon drawing morphed into an an activity indicative of transition times.  Times when you had too much unfocused energy, or times when you were tired and scattered and needed a bit of paper to lay it all out on.

The wall above your bed is covered in dragons, each of them a little slice of your emotional being.  We tried new techniques of coloring the dragons.  In the photo below “Elbowy” and “Closey7″ are partly colored with flower petals.  And of course every one’s favorite “Scratchy” the scratch board dragon.  Scratch-boarding was incredibly appealing to you.  I guess you liked the process of coloring really hard with a big black crayon, then taking a letter opener to the canvas and undoing what you had just done with equal intensity.  When you found out that I was planning on working on a Boy’s Almanac header you politely insisted that we do it in scratch board.  You then proceeded to art direct the entire project from start to finish.  It was neat to see you take creative initiative.  Partly because you have seamlessly picked up the art of creative leadership, but mostly because not in a million years would I have been motivated to come up with these wonderful creatures on my own.

The day that you found the giant piece of Ikea cardboard and announced that it was high time we start making the  “pin the fire on the dragon” dragon was simply the best.  We must have worked on it off and on for at least a week.  Me coloring a bit haphazardly, and you directing me with gentle specificity.  As usual you started planning your fire party well in advance this year.  The dragon was finished at least a month before the party.  You were quite diligent about taking me to Affordable Treasures  and Michael’s to make sure we had just the right party favors.  You were even flexible when we went to the Nob Hill last minute and brought home a blank frozen cake.  You rose to the occasion and art directed Ryder in the process of squeezing out a frosting dragon, complete with fire truck and ladder to douse the flames.

I may never remember any of the imaginary dragon play scenarios from the last 4 months, but I will always remember your legal pad dragons.  Thank you for the fabulous “Autumn of the Dragon”.

Love + Mommy

Time to yourself is precious when you are a parent.  Especially stolen hours in nature on a Christmas afternoon.  There is nothing like clearing your head of the city and all it’s various stimulus.  This time of year is all about willow.  We are wallowing in it, at the beaver dam, on the coast and in our secret sag ponds.  The low winter sun brings out the willow color spectrum in a manner that takes my breath away.  If I were to be a plant the willow would be a tempting incarnation.  Not to mention that if I were lucky enough I might even be immortalized as a basket.