Before settling in with Dana for yet another disappointing Oscars telecast, I finished my first concepts for the Ian/Robin duogram and sent it off by email. A severe winter storm is on the way, but I cannot help but think that it may be over-hyped for our area. Nevertheless, somebody out there is going to get smacked upside the head. My daily posting of collage is under way, but I still have not given enough attention to the overall checklist. Must not think, being this accustomed to the March ritual, that I can just “wing it.”
Archive for the ‘Priorities’ Category
March Exercise IX ~ day two
Sunday, March 2nd, 2014Gaps Not Bridged
Saturday, April 13th, 2013“Never lose sight of love and kindness for family, Clan, and friends. Family comes first and many times we make or seem to make it last.”
— Grandybo
Why is the sweetness and sorrow so ever-present, tipping this way and that, like the child’s teeter-totter of oldenday?
Dana’s splendid birthday celebration with friends has been bookended for me by the deaths of my Uncle Jack and Jonathan Winters. That both of these men departed within a week of each other feels strange to me, because I always associated one to the other in my mind. They were close in years lived, went to high school in the Dayton area, and both reached the prime of youth wanting to be cartoonists, just as I had done. Saying farewell to Uncle Jack comes, of course, with a deeper sense of loss, but I shall miss the unique, zany humor that made Winters so famous. Both men had a zest for life so characteristic of their great generation. I’m not aware that they knew each other, or had ever met, or that any of the Seitz brothers had met Winters, for that matter. It’s just that I had him linked to my uncle for my own odd reasons. Perhaps I was picking up on something that transcends coincidence, if such a thing even exists, but that is the substance of another journal entry, is it not?
Pop Seitz delayed giving his name, John, until the last of eleven children. (An act of humility?) When each had a first-born son, neither Uncle Jack nor my own dad would wait. (An act of pride?) Although Aunt Betty always called her husband by the name ‘John,’ he was always called ‘Jack’ within his family. In much the same way, the Dixons called the namesake of John by a different name— ‘Ed’ or ‘Eddie,’ the diminutive of his middle name. You may find it peculiar that I focus on these aspects, but it just happens to be the way in which I think.
Although I can empathize with Aunt Betty’s family as they endure the loss of a father, I cannot begin to comprehend how Mombo must feel to lose her “kid brother” and the only sibling who had remained among the original eleven. Art, Ginny, and Jack had always been a trio, and her early memories never fail to tie the threesome closely together. When I think of Uncle Jack, I think of his enthusiasm. If a subject was worthy of his attention, he was never half-hearted about it. We shared more than a name, but also talents and interests. Nonetheless, he was someone with whom I spent precious little time, as was so true with all my Seitz uncles. No matter how much one of my mom’s brothers seemed to like me, I could never make the proper effort to correspond or really connect. A generation should not be such a difficult gap to bridge, especially when there is respect, admiration, and affection. I’ve been blessed with more fine uncles than anyone could ever expect to have in one life. Studying and appreciating them from afar, I have squandered nearly every opportunity to discover the true man and to know him as a mentor or friend. This is the path of least resistance, I suppose. It’s probably what Grandybo was trying to impart in so many of his Clandestiny writings.
I once had an idea to create a gift— a strip of panels in the style of Milton Caniff called “Jack and the Renegades.” It always seemed too frivolous or too ambitious, depending on my state of mind. Today I realize that undoubtedly my time and effort was spent instead on something ambitious or frivolous that means nothing to me now. And yet, the cartoonist in me still lives, and has probably been kicking inside since I first found out that Uncle Jack was a cartoonist, too.
My heart is with him today, with his descendants, with my mother, and with everyone who loved him.
Mar/X Six
Wednesday, March 6th, 2013Confirmation! Last night’s winter storm means that spring-like weather will arrive by month’s end. A good time to focus my attention indoors before the fever to be outside strikes. I’ve achieved a good rhythm with the miniatures and personal regimen, but I need to add more balls to the juggling pattern. Introduce more strategic planning. Develop a checklist for the “Open Studio” countdown. Establish priorities and schedule blocks of time. If I see it, feel it, know it, accept it, it can become my reality— just the same as a failure to break through, a repetition of worn-out habits, or an inability to grow. A positive, constructive, transformational outcome is just as likely as “more of the same.”
Mar/X Five
Tuesday, March 5th, 2013My participation in the local Chamber’s Young Entrepreneur (YEA) program touched a bit too much on my growing ambivalence about being the traditional businessman. Why do I yearn so much for the life of the fine artist? Yes, I know it requires practical marketing and sales activities, but I can take what I already know and apply it to a new venture of self-promotion, in contrast to the same 30-odd year challenge of pushing my graphic design capability. I keep saying how much the profession has changed, and indeed it has been profoundly transformed, but I suspect the real issue facing me is that I’ve changed even more.
A tribute . . .
Saturday, February 16th, 2013(Delivered today at the memorial service for S B Clark, Lexington Avenue Baptist Church, Danville, Kentucky.)
When Dana and I arrived from Ohio nearly 25 years ago, we set about finding a building in downtown Danville. After the memorable experience of our first Kentucky real estate auction, the next thing on our list was to join the Chamber of Commerce. That was the day we met Shirley B. Clark.
She did more than just welcome us. She did more than reassure us that we had chosen an exceptional city. Shirley cultivated in both of us a strong belief that the community needed us as much as we needed Danville. She fanned a flame that would grow and merge with a spirit of community involvement. She had that special capacity, because she knew that the vitality of a community was more than making things happen and getting things done. She understood deeply that the spirit of a community was about people — especially people who believed in achieving something new, whether they got the credit or not, and who thrived on the pleasure of working with others who felt the same way. We saw this in the way she went about her own activities and how she made a catalytic effort on behalf of one organization or project after another — quietly, persistently, with her characteristic unflappable manner, and with her distinctive good cheer.
I’ll always remember her professional introduction to our adopted home town, but I don’t recall a time when I didn’t feel that she was my friend. It was clear from the beginning that she cared about my success as an entrepreneur, as an artist, and as a person who aspired to do well by others and the community. I would not be surprised to learn that she made everyone with whom she collaborated feel the same way.
As the years passed, we locked arms on many volunteer efforts — at the Chamber, for the Band Festival, as members of the Rotary Club, or with what would become, perhaps, our most meaningful shared cause, the Salvation Army. Whenever we put our imaginations and heads together, I came to appreciate even more how much Shirley loved her community, how she could foster that same devotion in others by her example — by how she got results with a steady, practical approach — and by her positive spirit of always trying to do the most good she could in any situation in which she gave of herself.
Shirley and I often shared similar concerns about community issues. Even when the stakes were high, she had a much better way of seeing the amusing side of it all, and this would help me keep things in perspective. I remember lots of comfortable laughter, even if the details have faded, as they usually do.
I remember times, years later, when we would ride back downtown together after a Friday Rotary lunch, discussing current initiatives at the Salvation Army. Then we would sit and talk in my driveway far too long, and, eventually, we’d stop and laugh, because I think we both realized that we’d become pals, and, if left to our own devices, we might gab the afternoon away. Although both of us were clearly out of the loop on weighty matters by then, we enjoyed being together to unravel all the challenges that faced our local economy.
I came to value Shirley’s sound priorities and keen insight, and to respect her as both a caring heart and a very savvy individual. She understood the dynamics of all the types of personalities that make a community tick. She was a marvelously thoughtful person, always full of encouragement, and she had that important trait required of all good ambassadors — diplomacy. In my opinion, her role in paving the way, with executive finesse, for so many constructive accomplishments, is largely unsung. Danville has lost one of its great champions.
Shirley’s regard for our community was rooted in her love of people. We all shall miss her presence. I shall miss her friendship.
Shirley B. Clark
1935 – 2013
Resolved . . .
Tuesday, January 1st, 2013For those who go out of their way to sow seeds of disdain for the customary list of New Year’s resolutions: it’s not about now long it stays viable, or about the resulting success rate, or whether it retains meaning in a culture where overt self-improvement carries a tinge of “fuddy-duddy-ness.” For me it’s about one’s mindset at the cyclical cusp. Is it merely “the thought that counts”? No, it’s more than that. The thought becomes a renewal of self-belief, expressed in line-items of striving. It requires introspection, evaluation, and discernment—hardly fashionable, to be sure. All I know is that they have worked for me at some level, so I’m not sheepish about continuing the practice. I don’t feel the need to broadcast my aims for the year, and listing some of them here hardly constitutes that, since I seriously doubt if a half dozen people still pay any attention to this worn-out log.
• Complete the Barrett portrait.
• Do some form of vision therapy each day.
• Resurrect a more impressive fitness regimen.
• Restore my practice of stretching and meditation.
• Elevate my profile as a collage artist.
• Launch the handmade card biz with Cliff.
• Complete home improvements for an open house.
• Create our first knob-land walking trails at Blue Bank.
• Outperform the market with rules-based trading.
• Produce the first digital version of a Clan Map.
• Boost participation in caring for my mother.
Various & Sundry, part eighty-seven
Monday, December 31st, 2012Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?
—Ecclesiastes 3:22
— Year of 2012 workout totals: Swim-13; Bike-48; Powerwalk-3; Run-0; Lift-12; Pilates-0; Yoga-0; Lupus Drills-2
— Meeting my goal of a minimum of 48 bicycle workouts seems to have had a disastrous effect on my swimming this past year—a near reversal of 2011. Does that make any sense? I was able to do my sixty-mile bike + sixty-lap swim on April 30th without a lot of pool preparation, and then the swimming totally fell apart during the summer. Perhaps it was because I wasn’t looking ahead to my annual channel swims in the Les Cheneaux, because I had already decided to skip the trip to Michigan and spend my 30th wedding anniversary with Dana.
— A series of aggravations over the past few months has resulted in daily knee pain as I head into a new year. It’s hard to say how that will affect my fitness routines. I need to find a way around it until healing takes hold. Here are the factors that must have contributed: 1) Hauling nearly a ton of free sand by wheelbarrow from the parking lot construction site across the street to the back yard. 2) Too much time hunting in a stressful, Japanese-type posture with stretched knees. 3) Moving Terie’s stuff from South Carolina. 4) Slipping on a rug and sprawling forward onto my knees. 5) Additional activity that made things worse (instead of rest), such as trimming branches and cleaning the gutters up on the roof, hauling brush to the farm and dumping it, crawling around in the attic to find squirrel holes, plus raking all the autumn leaves. It feels better than it did at first, but a return to normal could take a long time.
— Highlights of the year? Well, now that the disruption has settled and I’m used to a new dog (Ru, the Shih Tzu), it really is nice to have Terie with us, as opposed to the constant worry over her previous circumstances. Mombo’s unexpected improvement over the year is an important development. Best GABBF of all? Perhaps so. Dana and I observed decade-turning birthdays and our milestone anniversary. The 2nd Veep Debate at Centre was huge for our community (plus a great time with James and Susan). My six-oh event was extremely satisfying, as were memorable bicycle outings with Simpson, Hoover, and Hower. I shall always remember 2012 as the Centennial of Collage—the year I formalized my creation of the small collage, started my new blog, The Collage Miniaturist (catalyzed by the “Tribal Monday” sessions with Kathleen), and re-discovered wheat paste as an adhesive. The local trails summit that I helped organized was a key achievement, as well as the “Uncle Bones” graphics for Lucas, even though I disappointed myself with ridiculous delays on projects for GAB and Last Adventure. A wonderful party to follow the Johnson wedding resulted in some of the coolest pictures ever for Dana and me. And, of course, the weekend in November with another Clan wedding and the Ohio trip to install a sign with Dan and Bill was one of the best experiences of any year.
— It’s time to look forward and raise the bar for a new cycle. It may seem as though negatives outnumber the positives, but it’s just a matter of attention. Nurture—Affirm—Forgive—Inhale! There is no permanent status, because each day is a new page with the same challenges and pitfalls, but also the same opportunities for self-investment, accomplishment, practice, and constructive change. Pick one problem each day and heal it in some way. Nothing is beyond me, in and of itself, but, if I let inaction coalesce to a critical mass, it has the potential to crush. Make each day count. Eliminate the obstacles, brick by brick. Nothing new added without processing something over-ripe. Set realistic goals and re-invent the checklist. Believe that all will be fulfilled as never before.
Two More Lost from Cast of OHIOANS . . .
Tuesday, September 25th, 2012It was 31 years ago that I finished the OHIOANS painting that would become a poster for Wright State University and a milestone artwork for me. David R sent me an image of the wall in his new office/showroom, and it’s flattering to see how he configured the wall display. Hard to believe that OHIOANS has been around for this long. We still have the original painting hanging in our Danville studio. I thought about the artwork when Neil Armstrong died. Quite a few of those depicted were living when I created the original, and I can’t help but experience a certain sadness each time one is lost (Owens right after completion, and then, over the years: Hope, Lynde, Rogers, Bombeck, Newman, and just recently, Diller, as well as Armstrong). At the beginning, I had the wild idea of trying to circulate a poster through celebrity representatives and build a master copy with multiple signatures, but never followed through. Then I thought of just getting a poster into the hands of each one alive, but I didn’t have enough to spare. I think the University did present some to a few, such as Erma Bombeck, who made some witty remark about her beehive hair-do.
There is a space above Grant’s head that I’ve used to draw an additional portrait once or twice. The one I remember most was Daytonian Allan W. Eckert. I gave it to him the first time we met during a book signing in Ohio. Years later I talked to him in Kentucky and he told me that he had included the poster with his manuscripts and “papers” that would be turned over to an institution after his demise. That was the last time I saw him. The most memorable encounter with respect to the poster was the time Jamie Farr performed in Kentucky (he played George Burns in a one-man show), and we had the good fortune to greet him backstage afterward to personally present a poster. After a demanding stage performance that must have been totally exhausting, he couldn’t have been nicer to us and joked about Corporal Klinger and his tiara.
I realize now that I was young when I pulled this off. I felt mature at the time, having just created the most challenging piece of my early career. I was 29 years old, engaged to be married, and fully ensconced in my own independent studio. In many ways, I had already achieved nearly all the goals I had set in my youth.
OHIOANS hangs in David’s new office and showroom
(Click to view a larger image.)
Tribal Monday the First
Monday, May 7th, 2012Kathleen and I inaugurated our two-person discussion group this afternoon. The first thing I noticed was how tranquil a space she has created as a “shrine” for her artistic dedication. One can truly listen to the heart in such a studio, and I appreciate her willingness to share it for a couple hours. For me the sense of place at Sunwise Farm is inseparable from Kathleen’s mixed media collage. The fullness of her artwork is about energy, and this energy—with the powerful intention it carries—is tied in some significant way to a field of Light that is carefully nurtured for optimum receptivity and intuition. I have long admired the way in which she maintains the uplifting focus of her art, an essence that is recognizable at fifty paces, and how her respect for the process is embodied in her bright, organized, efficient studio. What an inspiration for someone who seems caught in a perpetual struggle to concentrate, prioritize, and decisively press forward with a more streamlined vision.
Book of Light, page 171 by Kathleen O’Brien
www.kathleen-obrien.com
March-Ex VI: thought about the future on day five
Monday, March 5th, 2012Life is no straight and easy corridor along which we travel free and unhampered, but a maze of passages, through which we must seek our way, lost and confused, now and again checked in a blind alley. But always, if we have faith, a door will open for us, not perhaps one that we ourselves would ever have thought of, but one that will ultimately prove good for us.
—A.J. Cronin
It was a shock to confirm that March had indeed come in like a Lion, with Lexington getting even more snow than Danville. Crossing the Kentucky River on the Bluegrass Parkway offered a striking scene in the early morning light. Dana and I spent our day in the city, learning new skills in preparation for long life. When somebody moves our “cheese,” we have to shift outside the zone of comfort and make choices about what to change. Donald Draper asked, “Where do you want me to start?”
Agenda Items
Clan Valley ~ the place to go . . .
Sunday, November 27th, 2011Out of the blue — a rare eagle-eye view!
Recently I had the great fortune to enjoy a flight in a small plane with a pilot who is a fellow bicyclist. Earlier in the summer he mentioned that I should go up with him, but I forgot about it until I received his invitation by email. I was excited to join him, and I was prepared to share whatever he wanted to do. Unexpectedly, as soon as we departed the airport vicinity above Junction City, he asked me what I wanted to see. And so I happily guided him to a destination in the Casey County knobs — for any red-blooded member of the Dixon Clan, it was unquestionably the “place to go.”
This is the part of the story where clearly I should provide some kind of apt description of just how magnificent that experience proved to be. Instead, I hope that a few pictures will capture the perspective better than anything I might write. I hadn’t been in a position to do any aerial photography for at least 15 years or more. At that time, I had borrowed superior camera equipment and was in an aircraft which enabled me to hang out an open window with Dana clutching my belt. Because I was on the clock for a client that day, the idea of heading toward Blue Bank Road wasn’t in the cards. This time around, I only had our inadequate digital, and the plane windows were picking up a lot of glare, so I did my best to grab some decent angles in the time available, falling short of the desired “full coverage.”
There was also a significant degree of turbulence that morning, and when my friend offered me the controls, I declined, believing that the constant bumpiness would deprive me of any true “feel” for whatever modest adjustments I would be brave enough to make. Nevertheless, one can’t ascend in a small craft without being gripped by the wonder of flight. We were soaring with the land, just as pioneering aviators had done. As we circled through Marion County, past Forkland and into the Boyle County I had crisscrossed on a bike for nearly 20 years, my “sense of place” shifted abruptly from a ground-based familiarity to an eagle-eye awareness. I was struck with the thought of my father leaving behind his life as a pilot, giving up flying after he had known these same awesome perceptions far more profoundly than me. Why? Was it the unpleasant “baggage” from too many wartime hours in the air? Was it the power of youth’s love for field, river bottom, and the woodland creatures of a surface world? Or was it something else entirely?
For John Edward, there must surely have been times during that first decade after the Pacific tour when he faced an opportunity to reclaim the sky. A different vision must have taken hold not long after he came home—a vision of family and fatherhood that had no meaningful role for skills he had learned, taught, and then relied upon to survive a hazardous duty. Perhaps he had read Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the famous French writer and pioneer of flight who was lost over the Mediterranean in 1944. Of Saint-Exupéry, David McCullough says it best for me:
Central to all he wrote was the theme of responsibility. In The Little Prince, it is the fox, finally, that tells the Little Prince what really matters in life, by reminding him of the flower, the single rose, he had cared for at home… “Men have forgotten this truth,” says the fox. “But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose.” Writing of his friend Guillaumet, an intrepid mail pilot, in Wind, Sand and Stars, Saint-Exupéry said that moral greatness derives more from a sense of responsibility than from courage or honesty. “To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible.”
Responsibility. Any of us would be challenged to find another word that better fit the man we knew as Grandy-bo, Dadbo, Eddie … that handsome young man of the open sky who would return to earth and become the founder of our Clan.
Aerials taken on Sunday morning, November 6, 2011.
Click photos to enlarge.
This is Clan Valley — the place to go . . .
The heartland of our Clan, the vision of a man . . .
The Blue Bank Farm and family cemetery . . .
The “Heartyard” and home to our Clan mother . . .
The Realm of Greystone includes Knob End . . .
The former Cabinhood recently changed hands . . .
The Shire — newest addition to Clan holdings . . .
Not the only one
Thursday, June 2nd, 2011In this article, a blogger has come closer to describing one of my March exercises than I have been able to do. He explains that “batching requires more work than not batching. This is why, I now understand, most people are quick to abandon their good-natured attempts to enforce more focus in their day: once it becomes non-obvious how to continue, they toss the goal.” His account of a single day spent with total focus is a better illustration of self-imposed intensity than I ever could put down in this log. Of course, this kind of regimen is not the only exercise that constitutes the ritualized month of March, but it captures something that I never found a way to successfully describe. I should also point out that I find this to be a short-term aid to the reinforcement of more realistic ongoing practices. All hail the mighty ones who can sustain this level of concentration!
The New Cheese
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011
March Exercise —day nine— There is much for me to learn about adapting to the evolving field of graphic design. I simply don’t know yet what it will be like to make a living as a designer during this decade of the twenty-teens. I’ve given most of my creative life to that profession. There are things that I will do to keep pace with changes in the communication arts, but there are other things that I will watch pass by, with no intent to chase. On the other hand, I’ve determined to accept the challenge of learning entirely new skills and frames of reference for an emerging phase of life. I’m not prepared to disclose more about this now, but suffice it to say that I’m currently a couple years into a learning curve that will enable me to generate income in a completely different way. It’s something of which I’ve always been capable, and in which I’ve always held a strong interest, but advances in technology now make it feasible for me to follow my enthusiasm for developing such a new kind of expertise. I should be able to apply these new skills in earnest by the time I turn 60 years old. I expect it to become a vital part of my work-style into later years, and, when fully successful, to provide new levels of creative freedom. In actuality, there is no summer and autumn of life. There is only the promise of perpetual springtime.
Today’s sight bite— The brave blooms of March —c-l-i-c-k— that rear their purple heads when nothing else looks like spring.
Tomorrow— An important observance . . .
An Inner Calibration
Saturday, March 5th, 2011
March Exercise —day five— I’ve used this log before to mention the elusive Max Organ. My perennial effort to categorize priorities and fashion an improved outline of unfinished projects takes on a new importance during the month of March. Some of these line items carry over from life’s earlier creative phases, but eventually they must be reconciled with short- and intermediate-term goals or be lost in the evolving mix of allocations. I’ve come to realize that old, festering objectives need to be “lanced” for psychological healing— either to resurrect them to some meaningful level of attention, or to commit them to hearth’s flame. Some deserve a restored impetus of creativity. More often, they’re just clogging the catalytic pipeline for new ideas.
Today’s sight bite— Enclosed by walls of book-packed shelves, —c-l-i-c-k— the familiar warmth of wood, brass and cork provide a framework for internal clarification.
Tomorrow— Make the transition from Dana’s current work station to a more powerful system . . .
Various & Sundry, part eighty-five
Thursday, December 30th, 2010I do not write regularly in my journal… I see no reason why I should. I see no reason why any one should have the slightest sense of duty in such a matter.
—Occupant of The Hall Bedroom
— Year of 2010 workout totals: Swim-35; Bike-40; Powerwalk-3; Run-0; Lift-0; Pilates-0; Lupus Drills-0
— There is no good justification for having any of these annual numbers come in under 48. I managed to preserve some level of basic fitness this year, thanks only to continued pool access and my fondness for being on a bicycle, but I can’t kid myself—if I don’t reverse this slow decline in vigorous activity, I shall pay a price over time, and it will be a price I can’t afford. My hope for 2011: a new momentum of exercise that will result in a more balanced routine, with 7-10 pounds of weight loss by my birthday.
— The best exhibitions I’ve experienced this year? The ones that occur to me now are the Surrealism show at the Cincinnati Art Museum, the California Impressionists show at the Dayton Art Institute, and the Collage show at Northern Kentucky University. I shall not soon forget seeing my first original Schwitters collage or Cornell box. I am challenged to learn more about Louise Nevelson, Hannah Höch, Alfred Mitchell, William Wendt, Percy Gray, Matthew Rose, David Wallace, Cecil Touchon Janet Jones, Dennis Parlante, and Stephanie Dalton Cowan.
— One of these days I’ll start to fully comprehend what mobile technologies portend for my creative work style. Believe it or not, I still don’t know what to make of these changes in communications. They seem to be touching everything, even my annual experience at Barefoot’s Resort. Being able to have a MacBook Pro and access to a wireless broadband connection changes everything about staying on top of project priorities while out of the studio. Bullets showed me his Kindle and I liked it. I didn’t expect to. Everybody around me seems to have an iPhone. How can I stay abreast? How can I hope to remain a communication designer amid all these transformations?
— Dana’s blunder with the non-existent gas line sent me into a bit of a tailspin, until I realized that tearing apart my work space in the basement would probably result in a better situation after the dust settled. Lesson: disruptions can be opportunities. I need to embrace change more, as I used to do. Look at how Dana has taken on a new discipline with Bruce’s in-home dialysis. We all tend to make room for what we consider the most important things, and that includes procrastination.
— Very well . . . here I am at the close of another year. I can’t change a single thing about the past. In hindsight, the preceding weeks look like some type of malaise. Not that there haven’t been a few highlights, such as the Safariland Doe with my solo harvest at Blue Bank Farm, or the recent push to restore our conference room, but overall it has been a dismal quarter. Enough with the negative. I have the new-year opportunity to shake off the “humbug” and get it together. There’s always the historically strong motivator of Resolutions, to reboot my priorities and catalyze a new momentum that would carry me toward my 60th birthday in 16 months. Time to plot a systematic, gradient escalation to full engagement— physically and mentally —to balance professional, financial, and artistic activity. Reclaim it!
Oldenday XIII
Friday, August 27th, 2010Teachers and school boards should embrace comic books and graphic novels as a “gateway” literature, helping children transition towards more complex narratives and helping boys catch up with girls in reading achievement, according to a new study.
—Giuseppe Valiante, Postmedia News
I was thinking it might be about time to add another entry about “The Legend” to this neglected series, but then Joan passed along a link from the Vancouver Sun that forced me to ask a question: Were comics a key aspect of my own progress toward literacy?
It’s gettin’ kinda hazy, but I recall being heavily into the Hardy Boys as a pre-teen, and comic books were a treat, like the Saturday morning “Treasure Chest.” (Remember Chuck White, or This Godless Communism?“) As readers, we used to add little summary cards to our handmade “books pocket” —until junior high years and the move to Tipp City, and then the comics craze struck with a vengeance. We even managed to scrounge funds for subscriptions! (Jimmy Olsen? What were we thinking?) I recall few youthful activities as pleasurable as absconding with an “80-Page Giant” of Bob Kane Batman stories after school (on a day that I’d made a midday trip to “Jointer’s” lunch counter). DC reigned supreme, but we still liked Casper, Wendy, and Hot Stuff, too. We couldn’t get our fill, so we hunkered down with Superman whenever we made a visit to Pam and Lottie’s. “Superman Red and Superman Blue” was the pinnacle experience. Sadly, for me, everything was downhill from there. And when someone let that litter of kittens make a stink of our comics box, the era came to a ignominious close. I moved on to Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jules Verne, and Raphael Sabatini.
Should I be marked down as a statistic?
Inward seeding
Sunday, March 28th, 2010March Exercise V —day twenty-eight— The early group ride was rained out, so my morning moved at a slower pace than I was expecting. I began to get the sense that the regimen had lost its momentum. This impression soon gave way to a more accurate assessment. So many of the desired habits of thought and focus have been internalized to the point that I no longer sustain the perception of an imposed discipline. This is a good development. It was never about a progression of time, was it? I’m prepared to think that I’ve reached a successful conclusion to the exercise a few days ahead of schedule, but why not make the most of the month’s remainder?
Today’s sight bite— Black soil under an overcast sky —c-l-i-c-k— sprinkled with grass seed until the fork hoe has its say.
Previously on M-Ex— A bad habit can die a hard death. (3/28/06)
Tomorrow— More vision therapy . . .
Beyond sorrow
Friday, March 19th, 2010March Exercise V —day nineteen— We finally “pulled the trigger” and hired a roofer, ending years of distress that stemmed from our inability to afford the kind of roof we truly wanted. Someday, perhaps, this bungalow will once again wear a clay tile roof, as it did in the 1920s, but, sadly, we won’t be the ones to provide it. We can’t even swing the metal simulation, so we’ll do the best thing we can— restore the original terracotta color with a premium asphalt shingle. We’re tired of the indecision and just can’t attempt another rainy season with buckets throughout the attic. It’s time to press on.
Today’s sight bite— Low shafts of morning light —c-l-i-c-k— as they wrap around the ancient maple’s gnarled bark.
Previously on M-Ex— Our favorite hoops-gril finishes her high school career. (3/19/09)
Tomorrow— Our first visit to the Kentucky Artisan Center…
Gathering promise
Saturday, March 6th, 2010March Exercise V —day six— After an evening with the Clan Night Owls, I needed to sleep in a bit. When I was outside collecting rain water from our big receptacles, I was moved by the look of the library facade against a blue sky. I was longing for mild weather, but the wind was still too brisk for comfort. My main feeling today was pride in how well Marty is handling all his recent changes. Very few young guys understand that it’s really not about the big stuff, but about stringing together a whole series of small, consistently smart decisions. This is a prerequisite for the desire to seek advice, and to learn from the experiences and mistakes of others—which many people never manage to do. I believe this lad is determined to avoid the wasted effort of aimless folly. He has already been witness to enough of it.
Today’s sight bite— The warmth of brilliant sunlight against brick —c-l-i-c-k— in contrast to a deep and deceptive azure backdrop.
Previously on M-Ex— I learn about safeguarding the inertia. (3/6/06)
Tomorrow— Full “to do” slate…
A Visual Journey — chapter the second
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010A strabismic’s eyes are not aimed at the same point in space. The difference between the left- and right-eye views is too great for the brain to combine the images into a single picture. A person with non-aligned eyes is confronted with a serious perceptual problem; she must somehow create a single, coherent worldview from conflicting input from the two eyes. To solve this problem, many strabismics suppress the information from one eye and look through the other. Some always use the same eye, while others continually switch between the two eyes, but in either case, they may never see normally through the two eyes together. As a result, most strabismics have reduced or absent stereovision.
— Susan R. Barry, Fixing my Gaze
Spending time with the View-Master as a child was a deeply moving experience. But, after all, it was just a toy, and I was embarrassed enough about my strong emotional responses that I kept them to myself. I recall being so affected by the Flash Gordon reel that knowing there was a finite limit of images nearly brought me to tears. What was it about seeing those 3D impressions that was so profound? Was it because my natural depth perception was already deficient or in decline? I knew I wasn’t very good at hitting or catching a ball. Did I simply lack an athletic reflex, or could it have had more to do with an inability to place objects in space, a known characteristic of monocular vision? How flat has my world been all along?
Yesterday I went to the Vision and Learning Center for a battery of diagnostics that measured and benchmarked the current state of the eye disorder. I’m starting to get more comfortable with phrases like a) Vertical Strabismus (eyeballs out of alignment), b) Oculomotor Pursuits (something to do with how cognitive function enables the eye to move smoothly), and c) Binocular Fusional Disfunction (inability of brain neurons to coordinate dual-eye vision). Actually, it’s wrong to think of it as an eye problem. A “brain glitch” is probably a more accurate way to understand it. Some of the tests seemed ridiculously easy, while others were very difficult and exhausting for me to perform. At the end of my session came a discussion about the details of therapy, timetable, and costs. Once-a-week sessions at the Center for 30 consecutive weeks, plus daily home practice, 30 minutes minimum. For some reason, I wasn’t expecting such a long program, and the sticker price knocked me for a loop. I left with doubts about whether I could take on the economic commitment, even though I knew I had enough discipline to make the approach work. Dana and I had a long discussion. We kept arriving at the same conclusion: I simply had to get this fixed, and somehow we would manage our finances to pay for it out of pocket.
Various & Sundry, part eighty-four
Thursday, December 31st, 2009— Year of 2009 workout totals: Swim-43; Bike-38; Run-1; Lift-3; Pilates-16; Lupus Drill-3
— Back spasms and muscle injuries shut down my gym time early in the year, and I never could recapture the momentum. Eventually had to curtail the Pilates work, too, but assigned myself an improved swimming and cycling pattern. Running played no part in the annual effort. My new hope is that 2010 will take on a more balanced character, otherwise my long-held exercise habit could turn into a flab-it.
— An even more regular fitness regimen is on my list of New Year’s resolutions. I also need to:
• Partake of the great writers—
Conrad, Hugo, Dickens, plus more Hemingway, Kipling, Tolstoy
• Gain new levels of skill with hand, eye, and mind—
Brush Stroke, Graver Line, Digital Effect, Options Trade, Chess Move
• Spend more time in the knobs with Marty
• Take Dana to the west coast — somehow . . .
— Another year has passed, and it is ever gratifying to create things which satisfy one’s own artistic urge, while promoting commercial activity that helps provide abundance and livelihoods to others. But, as always, it is never pleasant to continually justify the role of the design professional in an environment of declining visual literacy, where everyone can stand their uninformed, subjective ground to affirm the inappropriate, or declare that mediocrity is “good enough.”
— An unexpected viral assault has threatened my long-anticipated year-end participation in Louisville, but a counter-barrage of immune system boosters is under way, and, so far, I successfully made it to the city intact for the wonderful rehearsal dinner last night. The final day of the year is a bedridden affair, with fifteen back-to-back Twilight Zone episodes to suitably infuse the atmosphere with surreality.
To Caitlan and Kyle— Happy New Year!
Model regimen
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009March exercise—day seventeen— From a walk at daybreak to my street-front work at dusk, today was as close to an ideal cycle as I am likely to achieve during this annual re-examination of conscious behavior. A disciplined, productive day of creative activity (organic pork branding), professional networking (gift shop consignments), and physical fitness (Dana’s first Pilates workout) fulfilled all the expectations of the M-X, including the need to internally defuse an unexpected, emotion-laden challenge that in the past might have thrown me out of balance for at least the remainder of the day.
Today’s sight bite— The dough men and assorted pastry makers dressed in rumpled white —c-l-i-c-k— visible from the Main Street window before dawn, arched intently over flour-dusted surfaces.
Tomorrow— A team-building mission to Frankfort…