creating happiness

Saturday I went to a great event at a local school. Just sitting in a gym full of well-meaning, anxious parents was strangely comforting. I felt part of a community trying to get it right. The keynote speaker was Christine Carter of the Greater Good Center talking about childhood keys to adult happiness. It helped me with another thing I struggle with, despair for my kids future and confusion about what I need to be giving them . Should I be teaching them survival skills, how to spin wool and eat acorns, or indulging them with ipods and cool sneakers now, since the future looks so bleak? Her research based emphasis on happiness as a teachable skill made me rethink my task. Maybe helping them create the habit of gratitude and happiness will serve them in whatever predicaments and difficulties they find themselved in the unpredictable future. Anyway it's worth a try!

remembering my dad

This is one of the cabins my dad built back in the 70's. I didn't live in this cabin but remember a later one he build really well. It had large windows looking over a meadow and a big deck. It was a beautiful spot, something that always mattered to him. From Florence, Italy to Bellfountain, Oregon he was always one to choose a pretty spot. I'm grateful to him for teaching me the power of place. January 17th, 2004 was his 67th birthday and the last time I saw him.

Caro babbo, ti voglio bene.

sketch book

I'm thinking this year about, how do I put it, noticing, noticing my creative actions. The gestures I make that make me feel alive and like I'm really seeing the world. This is often not the work I show anyone...Lynda Barry said in an interview I read that she makes art all the time and some of it she chooses to share with others. I felt so freed by that.

In my current state as artist, writer, mom, teacher etc etc my creative moments may occur during a staff meeting as this drawing of the molding and shadow on the wall of the meeting room did....

nostalgia

The new year brings a feeling of nostalgia, pronounced in the Italian way, nos-tal-jee-uh. It has a different feeling than the English word... a deep longing for past places and people, maybe a longing for the person one was then. My sister sent me links to youtubes of songs that were popular when we lived in Italy 30 years ago. The one that brought tears to my eyes was this one by Lucio Dalla. It's a song about the new year and when I was 15 I knew all the words. Hearing it again they all came back.

Yesterday I dashed to San Francisco in the rain to see the Joseph Cornell show before it closed. It fit perfectly with this mood of longing. His sensitive worlds of collage and assemblage were breathtaking. So much collage can turn into pastiche and sentimentality whereas his are exquisite portals into the imagination. One thing I was particularly struck by was how he allowed each element plenty of space to breathe and relied on the juxtaposition to create the the magic. Ineffable, lovely nostalgia.