It's been thin and quiet around this blog but I've been day-jobbing and re-prioritizing family and reading and writing. It's enough to get up in the morning, get showered and out into the world with my to do list in tow and my sketchbook in hand. I draw, I dream, I listen and I wonder when the news of good people dying too young is going to stop. The untimely death of my kind and caring, warm and wonderful aunt-in-law (mirroring as it does the untimely death a few years back of my caring, warm and smart aunt) has me thinking anew about the true uncertain of live. How we could go at any moment. It's a true truth and a scary one and I'm not suggesting that you stop what you are doing and get all morbid.
I am wondering how we go from the quick silly wit of kids (think knock-knock
jokes) to the way poets think about death ( knock knocks get mortality in this essay by Donald Hall).
And you know how we never have enough time, never have enough money, never have enough ideas to make art? We make the best we can in the time allotted sometimes and othertimes, we (and this is the royal pronoun have you, when I say we, I really mean me...maybe you, too?) make nothing for days on end until it kind of hurts. And then the art burts out and some of it stinks and much of it makes no sense but we remember that the making matters and the truth is in the living and we have to go on living.
So we do.
Thank goodness, meanwhile, for poets, for painters, for Cezanne's Apples , for my wonderful husband and for good mail lately. And because Mark asked nicely a while back, below is a glimpse of my coffee shop show...


That's about it for now my friends, we march on...
Rachael

Our niece is a very talented young artist and she left behind a fabulous unfinished drawing of a pufferfish.



We love you, Nora!

best all,
Rachael

Looking up Scott Miller in time to hate the fact that I can't see him at Smith's Olde Bar next week, but I can order up the new album. He's the best of the crop of singer songwriters me and Allison and Wendy used to catch in Atlanta all the time.
Baking cookies.
Taking care of my amazing neice as she comes to visit. Learning to play skip-bo.
Trying to keep my mind off the black cloud of this month.
Vaccumming.
Drawing in the tiny but wonderful sketchbook I have going right now.
Glowing in the thought of the wonderful reception we had on Sunday for my starbucks show. I loved seeing everyone and answering questions on how things were made and knowing that what I love to do is paint and other people like to look at them...
ah yes and counting snowflakes.
On to more busy...
take care,
Rachael

Sad story this week of a young man, very creative, very kind who had volunteered in the art program I help run. Last week he died. Apparently it was a suicide. This young man had made an impression this summer and I'd been thinking about him. His application was on my desk and had I wanted to call him to see if he would help teachers and children and clean up the clay on the floor. I wanted to know if he'd applied to art schools. I wanted to find out if he was still wearing all black (it contrasted with his smile). I only really knew him for a two week period in which he came everyday, regular as can be, and habitually made the kids laugh. 17. Good kid. Smart kid. Creative kid. All the teachers liked him. The kids teased him. He teased back. He fit in our little world but something must have happened between then and last week that made him feel like there wasn't any other option. (There are always a million options.) Brain chemistry is a scary scary thing and I simply hate that this young man didn't make it out of his adolescence.

My palette is a little muted and my hope is that more kids won't confuse hurting themsleves (drinking, drugs, all sorts of self destructive behavior) with being an artist. Now, I don't really know what happened in this young man's life but so many people (many teens) I've known in creative contexts have had demons (depression, addiction, you name it). Making art really can help with that stuff. Or it can isolate, and frustrate, and aggrevate and saturate the maker with the thought that they are alone. Stink, I tell ya. And it isn't enough for me to feel sad. I want to help. So I remind you as I was abruptly and horribly reminded of the problem of teen suicide, of the problem of depression, of the need we all have for community. Now for a few weeks, I've been reading Diane Ackerman's A Slender Thread. She was a suicide prevention-line answer-erand writes in her clear, nature connected way about how she tried to help by answering the phone.

So, then, what can I tell you except to keep making art, keep listening (particularly for those who need a little extra help), look for signs and help when you can, and keep up the good fight for advocacy for mental illness, programs to mentor and connect teens, and peace...
I'll help.
goodnight,
Rachael

ps, New Orleans needs books as I discovered on nyfa...

Seeking Book Donations
The New Orleans Public Library
(New Orleans LA)


The New Orleans Public Library is asking for any and all hardcover and paperback books for people of all ages in an effort to restock the shelves after Katrina.  The staff will assess which titles will be designated for its collections.  The rest will be distributed to destitute famil! ies or sold for library fundraising.  Please send your books to:  

Rica A. Trigs, Public Relations
New Orleans Public Library
219 Loyola Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70112  

If you tell the post office that they are for the library in New Orleans, they will give you the library rate which is slightly less than the book rate.

Well I simply forgot to include theimage. And then I've forgoten to and gotten lazy with the links at the left there so I just fixed the links to Mark's,Anna's and added Katie'sblogs. I check them all the time but just haven't done much about sharing that.
I'm going up to my attic to paint. See ya...
Rachael