As you know if you’ve read the last several posts, I just spent a week at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina, and what a joy it was. It didn’t even matter that it rained all week. The people were warm and friendly. The teachers, highly skilled craftspeople all, were nevertheless patient and encouraging. The weather, though wet, was warm, and the grounds were beautiful and blooming.

I didn’t have much chance to hike around snapping photos, but here are a few I managed between deluges:

And yes, that is a giant tree in the bottom right photo that fell over due to the soggy soil. Yikes. On the plus side, I got to wear my fab plaid rain boots all week and splash through the muck like a little kid.

Mostly, though, the classes were so interesting, we didn’t mind being inside. If you need more convincing, check out this great video. As well as excellent instruction . . .

. . . there were several demonstrations offered after studio hours, so Wednesday evening Mom and I braved a downpour to check out what went on at the blacksmith shop. Here’s Paul Garrett, resident blacksmith at the Folk School, during a demonstration for those like me who had only a vague image of blacksmithing as just heating stuff up and banging on it with a hammer:

Okay, yes, technically he is banging on hot stuff with a hammer, but of course there’s a lot more to it than that. The temperature of the steel, the timing of the quenching, the tool used for striking, the placement of the strike, the position on the anvil, all come into play. And more, I’m sure. I still know next to nothing about it. I can’t even promise I have the vocabulary right. But check these out. Here’s what he was teaching the blacksmithing class to make:

Exquisite. The evening of the demonstration, in about 45 minutes, he made a simple square-edged nail, a beautiful little hook for hanging on a wall, one of the delicate ginkgo leaves you see above, and then showed us how to fashion the perfect twist you’ll find on a lot of wrought iron railings. Bonus: Here’s part of the building where he gets to work:

So much beauty and excellence everywhere you looked. Once I could take my eyes off myself and my fears and inadequacies, there was so much to admire and appreciate. If you know me at all, you know opportunities for gratitude are some of my favorite things.

So, thank you, Kathy Chastain, for cheering us on, for showing us the same thing multiple times until we got it, and never letting us give up on a painting.

Thank you, Deborah Rossi–book binder, repairer, and conservator extraordinaire–for the fascinating demonstration of limp vellum binding and the intricate hand stitching required.

Thank you, Paul Garrett, for the fun, fiery demonstration on that rainy evening, and for patiently re-explaining, when I accosted you at breakfast, various details I didn’t get the first time around. (And thanks for making us wear safety glasses!)

While I’m thanking people, thank you to my fun housemates, Linda Martin, Sarah and Stuart Lenz, and patient David Frick, who rarely joined us, but never complained if we were up a few minutes past the 10:00 p.m. Quiet Hours deadline.

And, of course, thank you, everyone at JCCFS who makes these weeks possible. We’re not done yet! Next up, Happy Clappy.

Wishing you endless opportunities to appreciate excellence!

My week at John C. Campbell Folk School was about to begin . . . .

Sunday afternoon, the 17th of February, Mom and I left Murphy for Brasstown (a ten-minute drive) and headed to the Folk School. We were still a bit early, so we wandered around Keith House . . .

. . . until we were finally allowed to check in and find our lodging. This was mine for the week:

My room was on the second floor, the one with the shed dormer windows. Super cute, and my housemates were friendly from the start. (It may have helped that the first thing one of them said was, “Oh, good. You brought wine, too.”) Four of us ended up having a nightly glass (plus chocolate, of course) in our common room. It was one of the few times things slowed down enough to have real conversations with anyone, the kind David always loved. I had a disconcerting urge a couple of times to call him to tell him how great it all was. In the fourteen months he’s been gone, that’s never happened before. So . . . weird. At least I didn’t dissolve in weeping. Definite progress.

That first day, though, was just about getting acclimated. Mom, as an assistant teacher, had a complementary room in another building, so after we both settled in, we walked around taking a few pictures, since rain was forecast for most of the rest of the week.

Then back to Keith House for orientation in the Community Room, then dinner in the dining hall, then to our various studios–for me the painting studio–for class orientation and setup. I was taking Watercolor Gouache with Kathy Chastain, and my mom was her assistant.

It was all a bit like sleep-away camp for grown-ups, in a good way.  Make your own bed (optional). Show up to meals or miss them, as you wished. No KP, except to carry your dishes to the window when you were finished. They offered a 7:15 nature walk every morning, weather permitting. So maybe it happened Monday, not that I was ever going to see 7:15 a.m. in public. I barely saw it in the bathroom mirror. Then Morning Song everyday at 7:45 in the Community Room. Never made that either. I did get to breakfast at 8:15 every day. You could sit wherever you wanted, so I had a bit of middle-school angst at every meal, trying to gauge whether I was welcome at a table or was taking a seat someone was hoping would be filled by someone else. Ghaaaaa! It got better as the week went on–everyone was so easygoing–but it was disturbing to see my insecurities raging to such a degree.

Part of the problem was likely my complete lack of experience with watercolor gouache. I had done a little painting with watercolors, with mixed results, but never with gouache, so I had a baseline anxiety percolating, anticipating epic art failure. The classes weren’t really about that, though. Don’t get me wrong. There was a LOT of excellence going on, especially from the instructors, as you’ll see in my next post, but the students were accepted and encouraged whatever their level of experience or talent. It took me a while to really let that sink in, though.

So the first few days were about finding my feet (not literally–that was only a 7 a.m. challenge 😉 ) Those days were about accepting myself where I was in my learning process, enough to let it go so I could look around and marvel at the talent and expertise of others without reservation. Stay tuned for that!

Here’s wishing you sufficient confidence to forget about yourself long enough to celebrate the accomplishments of those around you!

I’m just back from a week at the John C. Campbell Folk School.

LOVED it! But there’s way too much to tell to fit in one blog, so here’s part one:

I flew into Chattanooga, Tennessee, on a balmy Saturday afternoon. Half an hour later I was in my rental car, driving along the Ocoee Scenic Byway, struggling to keep my eyes on the road as flashes of waterfalls rushing down the steep green walls of the Ocoee River Gorge kept grabbing my attention. It was only mid-February, but here spring had definitely sprung. I was on my way to Murphy, North Carolina. I would move into my lodging at the Folk School in neighboring Brasstown on Sunday afternoon, but Saturday night I was in Murphy, where my mom and her husband, Dick, have a little place to get away from the worst of the Indiana winters. They met me at my hotel, and we headed to Parson’s Pub for an early dinner.

Well, we thought it would be early, but an hour after ordering we were still waiting for our food. The place was hopping and the kitchen couldn’t keep up. It didn’t matter to me. I was still on Colorado time. The bartender and his wife, our server, were apologetic, but we were fine. We had wine, live music and plenty to talk about until the food arrived.

Mom told me the church on the hill above my hotel had some tie to the pub, which piqued my curiosity. So the next morning, since Mom couldn’t meet me until about 12:30 and I had to be out of the hotel by 11:00, I thought maybe I’d check out the church. I don’t love new situations, especially walking into rooms full of people I don’t know, so I was still undecided as I drove slowly up the steep drive and parked on the far edge of the parking lot, facing away from the front doors, hoping the tinted windows rendered me at least sort of invisible. I turned off the engine, but then just sat there in the car. I almost bailed, but what else was I going to do? Finally, I had a little mini-conversation with God: Okay, fine, I’ll go in, but I’m only doing this for You. And immediately heard back: Actually, I’m doing this for you.

Okay, then. I may not always slow down enough to hear it, but when I do, I try not to argue with that still, small voice. I went in. And it was great. There were a few appraising looks, but a number of people introduced themselves and didn’t seem at all fazed that I was a one-time drop-in and would likely never be back. Before I had been there long, in walked the pub guy and his wife. He turned out to be the “Parson” himself and the former pastor of Shepherd Church. They immediately started telling everyone how patient we had been at the pub the night before. There went my hide-in-a-corner plan, but at least they were saying nice things. Never mind that I didn’t really deserve such lavish praise simply for not being rude. Anyway, they insisted they wanted to sit with me if I didn’t mind, even though I was lurking in the back row. So much for my quick getaway, but I didn’t really want to leave anymore.

Then the current pastor, Chris West, got up and said something I hope I never forget, “If all your prayers were answered tonight, would it change the world or just your world?”

Excellent question. He went on to introduce a new outreach the church was going to be undertaking, fundraising and giving to Charity: Water, which funds wells to provide clean water in developing countries. The whole morning was thought-provoking and motivating.

I came out of there warmed by the human connection, cheered by this unexpected gift from God, and inspired by a possible avenue toward making a difference. I’ll be looking into Charity: Water. You may want to, too. Either way, I promise going in was way better than sitting alone in a rental car at the edge of a random parking lot.

So here’s wishing you boldness to go where the still small voice of God may be inviting you. May the experience warm you, cheer you, inspire you, and provide you with a way to make a difference.

I’m still stretching my creative wings as much as possible. It seems to be how God is leading me most fully into engagement with life. I’m doing a bit of piano improv (sort of). It’s really more writing music over a given chord progression, which I don’t think is quite the same thing. Improvisation, in my opinion, should be natural and spur-of-the-moment. And what I’m doing is only spur-of-the-moment for a hot second; then I figure out what part of it I like and write it down. Lexi says this is completely acceptable and in fact is how you learn patterns and motifs you’d like to use and build on. I’m choosing to believe her!

On the fused glass front, my second version of the fall trees piece was slightly improved, but not enough, so I’ve added a bit more and it will go in for another firing this week. After that, no matter what, I’m calling it done. It is only my first effort, after all. I have also put together my Ile de Ré inspired piece, so here it is with all the frit (smashed glass bits) piled on approximately where I want it . . .

. . . so that will also be fired this week. This one is much more a mixture of opaques and translucents, so guess we’ll see. It’s all a learning process. I’ll take a photo with the light behind it when it’s done.

I haven’t done a lot of writing lately, but thought I’d share with you one of the final assignments for the last session of the writers workshop, the end of September.  We were instructed to write a portrait, or rather to describe an actual portrait or self-portrait, so I decided to do both. You can probably guess what I chose first:

David at the Anchorage

              It was a quick snap across the table as we waited for our drinks at the Anchorage bar in the harbor. He’s grinning, flashing his dimples, looking off to the side, out at the boats, maybe, so you can’t quite see the changeable blue of his deep-set eyes, but fish are teeming across his shirt in shades of aqua and azure, cobalt and cerulean. There’s a chunky silver chain at his neck that gleams against his sun-kissed skin, echoed by tiny highlights in his eyes and on his slightly uneven top teeth. His hair is still mostly dark, but there are hints of grey at his temples and on his unshaven chin.

            He is completely still and sharp, caught in this moment of perfect contentment, but the background is strangely distorted, not out of focus exactly, more like a double exposure, giving a sense of movement to everything but him. And if you look closely, you can see the faintly golden reflection of a Windsor chair just above and to the left of his head, oddly seeming almost a sort of Byzantine halo, and beyond that the dim red glow of the word EXIT. If this were an album cover, there would be endless discussions of the symbolism of these images, in light of his death a few years later, but there was no awareness of any of this at the time.   

              When I took this shot, I had no idea how important it would be, how ubiquitous it would be. He’s not even looking at the camera, and yet it turned out to be everyone’s favorite shot of David. It was first on public view in my blog post wishing him a happy 64^th birthday. Less than a month later his cancer was diagnosed, and I chose it as his profile picture for the CaringBridge website updates. Since I was on the site so often, Google kept a thumbnail photo icon on my Chrome homepage, that I saw every day until suddenly new graphic icons replaced the screen shots a few days ago. I felt strangely robbed and maddeningly impotent in the face of this unwanted update. But I also used this photo for the celebration of David’s life and I have a stack of extra programs on his bedside table and the 18 x 24 foamboard poster on an easel in the vestibule, so it’s not as if I can’t see it whenever I want. 

              But he’s looking away. He’s happy, but he’s not quite with me completely. At the time he was, but now forevermore he’s looking away, beyond the blue.

And this:

Sunny at the Rio

              Of course, it’s not an actual self-portrait. These were the days before selfies were hourly occurrences. David took this shot, trying out my new phone’s camera. A quick snap and it has been my favorite picture of myself for years. I love the way the afternoon light is streaming down at just the right angle, make Sunny seem even sunnier somehow. And although I am not especially happy to have my picture taken, I’m obviously happy to be with David, happy with my new phone, happy with the margarita almost out of frame, but ready and waiting.

              If you look closely, you can sort of see the large graft on the side of my nose where the cancer was removed, and you can certainly see that my nose is a bit cockeyed as a result. “Picasso-esque” David and I called it. But that’s not what draws my eye. I see the glint in the green eyes and a smile so big, I can almost pretend I have dimples.

             Mostly I see joy. And sunshine. And I know I am still that person.

********

True. I absolutely do know that, but by this time last year, David was on hospice, so those memories are a bit more on my mind than usual. Also, tomorrow (Sunday the 18th) is the 40th anniversary of the day we were wed, so that’s got some emotional weight as well. I’m trying to learn to let go of random markers like that, at least as a source of regret. I’m choosing instead to be grateful that we did have almost 40 years together, even if it was almost. 

And I’m looking forward to lots of time with family and friends coming up over the holidays. We ALL miss David so much, but he is a part of all of us, so when we’re together and reminiscing, somehow he’s present and it is good.

Also: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HELEN! Forty years ago, she let us co-opt her birthday for our wedding day. Thanks again, Helen! She turns 91 tomorrow and is still going strong. The rest of us can barely keep up! If you don’t have her contact info to send a birthday wish, leave it in the comments and I’ll be sure she sees them.

Wishing all of you rich times with your dear ones! Bless you!