Recently, I taught a drawing class in and around the objects of the museum where I work. Today I spent some time teaching a mini-version of that course. 15 minutes in which women were asked to sit down, turn off the voice inside that told them they couldn't draw, and try. Their results were wonderful. Alas, they took 'em home.

I share with you here, the thoughts I sent them home with. Maybe it's preaching to the converted but in the chance that you might need some encouragement to draw, try this the next time you are in a museum or place where beautiful things are. You only need pencil and paper.

I cribbed all the quotes from Robert Genn's Painter's Keys site (ever so handy!)

(before and during)
     Find a place to sit where you see something interesting. 
     Look.
     Draw.
(after)
How did that surprise you? What do you see about this thing now?

When drawing, I suggest you:
• Arm yourself with the courage to try and try again. Acknowledge the frustration of trying to see, trying to draw. Drawing is rarely easy, always a chance to grow.
 "You must do the thing you cannot do," Eleanor Roosevelt

• Keep a sketchbook. I highly suggest you consider your sketchbook a messbook, an idea book, a place where you can write or draw anything, where all honest marks are welcome and all mistakes (there are none!) are forgiven.

• Remember that you are human and as humans we make mistakes. Drawing is a skill, a language, a way of working that takes time to learn and become comfortable with.
As you acquire the language, you become more fluent. Regular practice helps tremendously.

• Concentrate. When in doubt, close your eyes and look again.

• Even a ‘bad’ drawing is a good chance to look carefully.
 “Keep a bad drawing until by study you have found out why it is bad,”  Robert Henri
 “The Sun will not rise, or set, without my notice and thanks,”  Winslow Homer

• Draw when you are calm, have time, and can let your eye wander for a bit before you draw. Drawing works of art has helped artists for ages because it allows us to follow a prepared path.   
 “ The beholder's eye, which moves like an animal grazing,   follows paths prepared for it in the picture,”  Paul Klee

• Approach the objects you are most drawn to, whether or not you feel "ready" to draw them.

• Know that you are not alone, should you seek others with which to draw.

“What do drawings mean to me? I really don't know. The activity absorbs me. I forget everything else in a way that I don't think happens with any other activity...,”  John Berger

and so now, my friends, have fun drawing!

take care,
Rachael

The drawing above is this object. Something I never would have noticed if I hadn't been drawn to draw it.

I have to tell you that it is blissfully Spring-like today. Sunny and 50 and the snow is melting and I have the day off and I can sit at the top of the world (or rather the top of the public library here) and watch the world go by. I've been eavesdopping and daydreaming and right now I can see two mounted policemen walk by. They are down there in the street, strutting along looking to fight crime.
I could send you magic places here but I'll instead send you to these adventures, on line. It's all visual discovery today...

Carolyn's wonderful blog sent me to the New York Public Library to see the picture archives. Amazing but true that all those pictures are available, accessible, ready to inspire.

I am on a list serve (usually full of museum folk talking amongst ourselves about conservation, whether education programs can be photographed, and where to find an internship at a 19th century farm.) Not exactly thrilling but every once in a while something interesting comes along. Today I found that Brian Springer's looking for info about a strange thing in the basement of a library. If anyone should be tracking down lost objects for their strange stories it would be Mr. Springer. In earlier artistic adventures he documented spin and from what I know of Brian (from way back in Buffalo) he is as active an observer as he is a listener.

Ok, so now it looks like it might rain and I'm going to go and find the book I need and the promise of spring which sustains me. Yea today!

take care,
Rachael

Oh this is a lovely thing, this lomographic paper pinhole camera. I want one. But more than that, I want to see more of this town. I wanna wander around other artists studios and make new friends. We are transplants, newly planted in a fertile place and even though I have plenty of days when I feel connected, there are as many times when I lock myself in my studio not so much just to draw but because it is easier than trying new situations, new places, meeting new people. Sure I've met artists (like Carol and more who are not so easy to track online) but there are lots more I've been lazy about approaching...

For years, I've told friends of mine who moved to new places. The first six months are lonely, and then you connect. So, I've started to read the book everyone here is reading. The first story had me roped in, urging me to spend more time looking this weekend.

I'll try if you do. Deal?

See ya,
Rachael

Big white snowy world outside my door makes me even more hungry to see Emile Nolde's watercolors (suggested by my painting teacher), Sam Francis, and Paul Klee. It's cold and I'm onlyinviting old favorites into my head, maybe I ought to be a bit more receptive to new things but I do need bold reds right now.

Oh, and yesterday was town meeting day in Vermont. Maybe the most democratic and impressive thing I ever saw, my friends, was a genuine town meeting. Come to think of it, that too, was a flash of color in a black and white world, in the green state no less.

take care,
Rachael

Why not? The latest Utne Reader has a story about Creative America project which aims to train artists and cultural workers to run for local, state, and national office. It's a beautiful idea and the site has some good links and resources.
When not completely disillusioned or focused entirely on the microcosm that is my studio, I'm hungry for political, social and cultural leaders with passion, creativity, kindness, a committment to feeding, keeping healthy, and educating all Americans... Yep, still looking. But apparently I wasn't the only one who would have voted O.
Oh no, didn't go.
Goodnight, kids,
Rachael