Capturing a childhood moment (throwing rocks)

We take Bean to a small stream burbling under the shade of pine trees. The pebbles are smooth and round, bits of fossilized choral, quartz, granite sparkling in the sunlight. All three of us are barefoot at the water’s edge, mud pressing between our toes. We show Bean how to toss in rocks; this primal […]

In constant motion

Five minutes to write is all I seem to be able to scrounge up amidst the hubbub of spring—renovations are now in full throttle, every day, every hour one of us is there. Marathon training is also ratcheting up—and it’s awesome to feel the effects of training: yesterday I went for a nine mile run, […]

The heartbeat of spring

My life feels like an EKG lately. Moments of intense sweetness followed with moments of such sheer exhaustion. Moments of joy followed by quickly settling depression.
If winter was the season for introspection, for a quiet reservation, brooding, reflection, spring is the season for change. For all things chaotic; growth, willy nilly. For upheaval.
Migrating […]

Chiaroscuro of the heart

I sit at the dining room table with a good mechanical pencil and some soft lead. The house hums with the regular quiet of evening. Into the corners of my mind the hubbub of the day still seeps, like spilled ink soaking into a paper towel. I give myself a task: focus wholly on these […]

Illustration Friday: E is for…

Equality

Working on this painting I thought of an exerpt from The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother, by James McBride. When I picked up the book, with paint still on my fingers, the first page I turned to contained the text I wanted. I love moments when the universe […]

Illustration Friday: Flavor

I use Indian ink waterproof pens in my notebook, following the contours my hand chooses randomly, letting the day’s weight fall away from me. I let crazy whirling color happen. A mosaic of possibilities is always waiting to unfold. Every possible outcome awaits.

Illustration Friday: Imagine

Sometimes painting is like this: moments of clear, vivid emptiness where imagination takes hold and wanders. Then, it is about allowing something that already exists to be. About being open.
I know all things are like this: parenting, writing, making love, communicating. And I know that most of the time I make it more […]

Illustration Friday: Blue

Early winter before the snow starts falling, when everything is cold and grey, and darkness swallows up the world, always makes me sad.
Today I just can’t seem to shake it. All the giddiness of yesterday, evaporated like the almost-snow in the air. The immenseness of the fact that we moved here just over a […]

Illustration Friday: Escape

Fall is officially here today, on quiet feet like a cat. Flame colored leaves gathering in numbers on the trees; the sun setting earlier over the lake. During the day, intense heat still in the sun, shivers almost, in the shade. Pumpkins in the fields now are round full orange moons; the corn–higher than our […]

Illustration Friday: Depth

Too often, we pull ourselves apart, seeing in our reflections a mosaic of discontent. We compare ourselves, compete, yet the starting and the ending point for each is vastly different. More than skin deep, beauty is a thing of wonder, of words, of intellect. The grace we bring to our work, the courage, the mess […]