Drawing Class

We finished Susan Shie's online drawing class last week. This was the second class I took this winter, and it was so enjoyable, mainly because of the quality of the students. They were talented, creative and witty.
These classes are not instructional; that is, Susan doesn't tell you how to draw, or critique your work. She does some videos demonstrating how she goes about her own work, as well as showing different media. We have specific assignments, specific as to topic, but allowing each student to develop her own interpretation of that topic. Aside from these assignments, there are various "Special Eventsr,"  which arise as things that may dominate the media. One can choose to participate or not in these events. My previous drawing of Emma was related to the death of Harper Lee.
We have a private Facebook page,  available only to the students in each class, where we make our own albums and add our drawings. You can see everyone's work and comment on it. Everyone is supportive and encouraging, so that creates an atmosphere in which you can experiment and have fun. Participants are from all over the country, and occasionally from Europe.
The above drawing was my response to the assignment called "Blues." I thought of the Blue Man Group, while most of the others did musicians. It all worked, of course.
I'm going to take a break, but will get back to the class later. They run for four weeks, and are offered frequently. It helps to keep me from my IPad addiction. Almost.

Francine Petrou

I have two great-grand cats who live in Germany. I have never met them, but there are photos emailed or on Facebook from time to time. One is pictured on this post. Her name is Francine. The other is named Izzy, and I'll write about her another time.
I did the painting above about three or four years ago. It is from a photo taken by Elena, one of my granddaughters, who is a very good photographer. I loved the colors in the photo, especially the twilight blue outside the window, the bright red chair, the dark red wine and the general yellow glow of the whole thing. It was very Gabrielle  Munter.
Like most cats in our family, Francine is loved and spoiled. We are cat crazies, all of us. We like dogs, too, but appreciate the feline ability to take care of themselves better than canines do. Ours have always been people oriented and not  aloof, although females do seem to have that attitude more than males. (As I type this, there's a sleeping cat curled up on my lap.)
Francine is a tortoise shell cat, prefers the indoors to outside, is a little plump, and loves to do cute
poses on the stairs, which requires caution on the part of the humans who live with her. She and Izzy do not get along. These things I only know from hearsay.
The picture below is another, quite recent photo by Ellie, who was trying to read at the time. I was struck by the similarity of her face to the look in the earlier photo. She gives one a straightforward look, confident, and in charge of the moment, a sense of entitlement.
Cats! What good are they?

Maple Syrup Time

This past Sunday was the last pancake breakfast day this year. Because Lent was so early this year, there were only three Sunday's available before Easter. The fish fry Frudays had the same problem. We only got to one of each this year. Both are down home, community doings  in very small local villages, with people coming from far and wide to experience that Norman Rockwell ambience. (I've written previous posts about both in the past, including one fish fry during which I managed to break my left hip.i proceed cautiously at such events these days.)
The Shalersville pancake breakfast is presided over by Mrs.  Goodall, a slow art 90 something retired teacher, newspaper columnist and doyenne of Goodell Maple Orchard and farm. She is quite tall and motions people to their seats. Young students attend the tables, filling coffe cupe, offering refills on pancakes and sausage. Everything runs like clockwork, but there is never a feeling of being rushed.
It is a thoroughly satisfying experience.
The fish fry is held in a little town called St. Joseph, founded in the late 19th century by German Catholics. There's a scattering of houses and farms surrounding an umpressuvely large church and school. The dinners are held in the huge gym, which is filled with crowds of fish lovers, served by  dozens of elementary school students. Again, it is extremely efficient, and the food is excellent  - cod, shrimp, Mac and cheese, green beans, potatoes baked or fried, slaw and homemade desserts. No seconds, but you don't need anything else.
Well, both these events are over for the year, but we still have a couple of church spaghetti dinners left. One must eat, after all.

A Memory

In our online drawing class, we were asked to do a piece in homage to the late Harper Lee. One reason I loved "To Kill a Mockingbird" is that it is so evocative of my own childhood, which was during the same period as that in the book. In this picture, I am 9 years old. It is 1936 and we are in Atlanta, Georgia. The other person is Emma, and she is in her 70s, and was born into slavery around the time of the Civil War This did not seem remarkable to me, because in the South in those days, that war was about two weeks ago.
I am reading Emma's favorite comic strip in the Atlanta Journal. The strip is about a young woman named Pam, whom Emma calls "Pom." I am reading to her because she has forgotten her glasses, which happens every day. When I asked my mother about  this, she said that Emma probably could not read, but that I was not to say anything to her about this, ever.
Emma came to work after my mother gave birth to her fifth child, who was born about 18 months after the fourth one. Emma did the washing and ironing, and once in a while, the cooking. She made fried bread, and cooked greens in salt pork, and insisted that I drink the "pot likker" a bit of folk wisdom in that that's where all the vitamins ended up. I was the skinniest shie'd she'd ever seen and needed fattening up.
The only clue I ever had about her history was that during the Halloween season she was frightened by people wearing masks, which she called "dough faces," and also by kids wearing sheets to play ghosts. She told my mother that it all reminded her of the night riders, those terrorists who rode into Black settlements, torching cabins and burning churches.
It wasn't until many years later, when I read "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," a fictional, but well-researched account of a woman born about the same time as Emma, who lived through  those awful times, and lived long enough to vote in her nineties. (It was made into a terrific TV movie with the magnificent Cicely Tyson.)  I immediately thought of Emma, and wondered if that gentle old lady had lived long enough to vote. I wondered if she had gone through some of the trials Miss Pittman had endured, especially as a child and young woman. Something had helped her survive into her seventies, still strong enough to go to work every day. I would never have thought to ask her about her life, which would have been rude, but I wish I knew more about her. 

The View From the Throne

I strive not to be indelicate. However, this post nay be considered thus.
Sixto loves the bathroom. When John takes his shower, he is joined by the black cat, who strolls around the rim of the tub between the curtains. If the door is closed before he hears the running water, he sits at the door and demands entry.
When I go in to, uh, use the facility, he comes running in, throws himself flat on the floor in front of my feet and stretches out on his back, requesting a belly rub. I have never had a cat that interested in that particular human activity, or assuming that I cannot function without him.
'Tis  a puzzlement. He has no respect for privacy.

Romantic Me

When my favorite radio station, WCLV, the best classical music venue, goes into its fund raising mode, I send in my contribution and then switch to WQXR until the money talk is  over. This usually lasts about a week. WQXR had previously asked listeners to send in their most romantic classical music choices. The top twelve were played yesterday in celebration of Valentine's Day.
It was a trip down memory lane to my adolescence and my obsession for the Romantic era  of music, and it's still beautiful to hear,  the old favorites, plus some I didn't discover until I was older.
My young choices, things I heard on the radio, which in those days had many classical music programs, and of which I bought those heavy 78 rpm albums  or singles were what I heard yesterday: Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet Overture," Debussy's "Clair de Lune," Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," liszt's "Liebenstraum," and Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concero. That last was also the soundtrack to one of the most romantic ( and saddest) movies ever made, "Brief Encouner."
A little later came the Liebestod from "Tristan and Isolde," the love/ death aria of their tragic love story. Somehow love and death were very appealing concepts to me.
Another on the list, which came into my life later, was that gorgeous second movement of Mozart's Piano Cocerto 21, which  became known for its use in the movie "Elvira Madigan," a story of two beautiful young lovers who end up committing suicide....more love/death themed associations. By the time I saw that movie I was pretty much over with that obsession, but I do love that piece.
Another one on the list that I discovered about twenty years ago was the adagio movement from Mahler's 5th Symphony, which is probably the most gorgeous piece of music ever written. It was used as the soundtrack to "Death in Venice," so there you are again.
As soon as I heard this program yesterday, I flashed back to that skinny adolescent sitting by the record pkayer, which one had to do in those says if you didn't have a record changer, so you could flip the record or  put the next one on as quickly as you could in order not to break the mood. TodAy, you have access to almost every piece of music ever composed with a tap of a finger on a device you can carry with you. Today's young people are probably a lot less inclined toward the old fashioned romantic fantasies of my era. I think I would be labeled "emo" today. Whatever. It was a rich phase to me

Iowa. What Good Is It?

It is still early in the day. I do not know what portends. A couple of weeks ago, on "The Good Wife," they only did the Democrat side, and  Hilary came in first, and Chris Noth, the raftink husband, came in last, thus dashing his hopes for the presidency.
I am already sick of the whole thing, tired of the media fascination with the Big Jerk, and worried about the state of intelligence in this country.
This is the last drawing of the online drawing class and it was fun drawing all those red faced, angry white men promoting their guy, aiming to vote against their own self-interest. Since the "American Dream" seems to be mainly about getting rich, I guess they think some of his wealth will somehow rub off on them. Oy!
I included a Miss Universe on the Far Right side. She only wants World Peace.