random acts of thought . . .

This past week I finished the book 1984 written by George Orwell (Eric Blair). Winston, the main character of the story has finally learned to love Big Brother. Certainly not the ending I was expecting. It always fascinates me to read , or in this case listen to, books that are written by people who use pen names. What is it with the pen names? Do people think that their own name doesn't sound fluid enough to sell their stories? Is there a question about the meaning of their name that hinders them from using it in the first place? Whether it is a writer, singer, or actor, it seems that those that use pen names, or stage names, eventually revert to using their given names to credit their work. If they are eventually going to use their given name, why don't they just start out using it in the first place.

In talking about names, I have found it quite interesting that ART is included in my name. G art H is my given name, which means keeper of the garden, and it dawned on me years ago when I started teaching art that it was included in the middle of my name. Of what great magnitude is it that that occurs? None. It is just an interesting detail, among many, that are a part of my life.

We will be celebrating Thanksgiving with my family this year. It will be the first time we will have a Thanksgiving meal together in that most of our lives we lived several thousands of miles away.

too close to home . . .

Winston now finds himself in the middle of a cell, surrounded by others who have been arrested by the Thought Police for crimes against the inner party of Big Brother. His situation, being exacerbated by his recent discovery of his own thoughts and feelings, is a dismal , one-way street to the inevitable vaporization that happens to all who dare to "live" life outside the view of the telescreen.
The telescreen . . . I feel like I too have the telescreen where big brother watches my every move. My actions, words, thoughts, are all scrutinized by big brother. My philosphy, my reasoning, my rationale for teaching is constantly questioned. The overlooking of "Big Brother" has gotten to the point where every action and reaction from me or my students is becoming an exercise in psychology and sociology.
On a lighter note, Saturday morning I am taking the boys hunting for the first time. Deer season is in, I have borrowed a shotgun, we have the licenses, and I went and bought the "hunter safety orange" vests to wear. It should be fun sitting in the woods, quietly, motionless, faintly breathing waiting to see if a deer happens to walk our way. I am a little nervous about what to do with it afterwards though. I am sure I'll figure it out. You know, "I'll cross that bridge when I get there."

war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength . . .

Having grown up in Ohio and attended a somewhat country school system, not much reading was required through my high school years. In fact, the only book I remember being forced to read through was Lord of the Flies in my sophomore year honors English class. (the only year I took an honors class :) In fact, I remember only partially reading it and feeling somewhat lost when we were discussing it in class. (and then there was the term paper that followed. I butchered it.) I am saying this all to admit my failure as a reader in my early days, and have now gained a pleasure for written work and am on a mission to read, or listen to, works that I missed while going to school.

For the past several years, I have had to travel around thirty minutes to get to my work as a teacher. This gave me uninterrupted time to listen to books on tape that I wanted to listen too. I have gone through several of the classic literature novels, and now find myself listening to George Orwell's 1984. OH MY GOODNESS! I am so excited to get in the van and travel to and from work. It is an outrageous story filled with parallel for today's situation, and the narrator uses his voice to literary "paint" the scenes for me to see. In reflection, I am sure that the purpose of the work would have went over my head if I had read it so many years ago, and I am quite glad now that I have the resources, time, and desire to read the work that is considered to be classics in the literary world.

in a safe direction . . .

This past Saturday and Sunday I did something that a few years ago I never would have imagined doing. Let me paint a picture with words.

Eight o'clock Saturday morning, Ildi and the others drop Nolan, Asher, and I off at the McGuffy Conservation Club. Before I get too far, let me go back to the night before . . . I tried to Google to find the address of the place, and I even called 411 information, and there was no record of MCC anywhere in the village of Alger, Ohio. So, I "phoned a friend," and found out the place was right across the road from their house! Back to the picture.

So Ildi drops us off while she and the others go to the Amish to pick up our 10 gallon stainless steel jug of milk (it is like living in the 1950's) and then do some shopping. We walk into the "club" which is set up like a 70's lounge full of deer trophies, Stroble and Budweiser lamps, and card tables. It's early, cold, and everyone looks like they just got up and threw the same clothes on that they wore for the week before. Not to mention the rectangle radiator that hangs from the ceiling! The place looked like it had never seen the light of day. Not even once. So we three sit down at some tables they have set up in the back room for our class. The class you ask? What class? We are to embark on the two day, twelve hour session of the HUNTER SAFETY COURSE required before you get a hunting license in Ohio.

The day, and the following day, was filled with information about gun equipment, gun procedures, safety while using a gun, along with thousands of dollars of guns for us to look at. Hunting stories and hunting experiences also came as part of the class. The first day it seemed we were like fish on bikes. Just didn't seemed to fit in with all the others that were taking the class. However, after a few hours of listening to the men talk, Nolan and I started asking questions and interacting with the instructors. Both men were short, stout, home grown hunters that knew their stuff when it came to hunting. After several questions, and the fact that none of the other participants asked questions, it seemed like a personal class with both men mostly teaching Nolan and I. Asher was trying his hardest to follow along with the fast pace, slightly country accent, and the jumping from book information to side stories.

On Sunday, we met and asked the Game Warden some questions and after a small review, took the 100 question test on gun safety. Both Nolan and I scored above 95 % and and Asher got the chance to retake the ones that he had missed. He and several other younger students had one of the instructors read them the questions and help them to understand what they were asking for. In the end, he got 99 % right.

The part that was really fun for me was what we did after taking the test. Ildi was to pick us up at 2:00, and we finished the test by 1:00, so we were going to be waiting there for an hour until she came. Some of the time was taken up by Asher retaking his test, and during that time, Nolan and I talked with one of the instructors. Come to find out, he was the Mayor of the village. When Asher was finished, we listened to stories they told about hunting, about the club, about growing up and living in the area, and a man even took Asher outside to show him how to shoot targets. One of the men gave me his number and said if I ever wanted to shoot a gun, I could call him and he would meet me at the club with one of his guns. Just a great big bunch of locals enjoying what they do and wanting to share their life (and stories :) with others.

Sunday night I picked up a hunting license for all three of us, and I also bought deer tags for the boys. The dear tags gives them permission to shoot the "bag limit" of deer for the year. For those of you who are not familiar with hunting . . .maybe you can sign up for the Hunter Safety Course so you will be in the know with terms like "bag limit." :)

it's beginning to look . . .

The past couple of days it has been psychotically cold! I am talking like 29 degrees in the morning. I had to scrape the ice off the windows of the van before I drive away. I am sometimes nervous thinking that the van won't start because it has never had to endure this type of cold before. I think I'll will shortly take it in to get it "winterized" so that I don't run into trouble later.

New information on the house hunt. I am in talking negotiations with a realtor on a property south of the city I am working in. Here's the rundown . . . 20 acres of BEAUTIFUL rolling land, in the country with NO major highways or freeways in sight. Across the road is a huge plot of land that the owner is keeping as a nature preserve. It has an acre of woods in the back, several outbuildings, and the house is 3000 square foot. 7 bedrooms. There is a small house (500 sq.. ft) on the property as well. Here's the kicker . . . it's an Amish home that has NO plumbing, No electricity, and NO bathrooms. :) It does however have a 3-seater outhouse that works! We are working to try to buy it on an all cash offer and then we will not have to take even a small loan out for the purchase.

All of us have vision for the place. We have talked about this house more than any other we have seen. It seems like it will be TONS and TONS of work but in the end we will have almost EXACTLY what we were thinking a house should be.

~large living and dining areas
~large kitchen
~enough bedrooms to house visitors
~lot's of land to work on
~a guest house for grandma (or anyone else)
~a place for a fireplace and a wood cook stove
~a place for animals
~relatively close to work
~and we would be able to buy it CASH.

We are excited to see if this is the place that God has for us. I talked with the realtor again today and told him our story of getting out of debt and wanting to stay out even with a house purchase. We will see how it goes. :)

on a sad note . . .

Death is inevitable. And it is always untimely. Not by God's planning, but in our understanding. A week ago Thursday morning, my brother showed up a my school to visit. I had a strange feeling that something was not right but dismissed it as I finished up the last few minutes of my sixth grade class. When the students left my room, I had a 1/2 free to visit, and to find out what warranted his coming to school. As I had anticipated, he told me that my father had died a few minutes earlier that morning. :(

He had been having a few minor problems with health over the last few years, and just a month or so ago went in to get checked. The doctors found a cancer spot in his bowels and decided they would operate to remove it. Long story short, they removed his bladder, the external sack gave him problems, and two weeks after surgery he was unable to hang on. It was sudden, and quite unexpected.

Not being close to my father leaves me with mixed emotions about his death. It also brings me closer to those that I love. I am grateful that I was able to visit with him more this last year than I have in twenty years, that I was able to be with my family during this time, and that my children were able to meet some of the extended family members they have never seen before. Death sure does remind me that we are only visitors of this world, and that our true eternal home is with Christ in heaven.

fixing things . . .

The other day Nolan was closing one of the windows I had open on the laptop to pull an image to the front. When I closed a couple of the programs, the computer froze. "No big deal" I thought, in that I have shut the computer down on many occasions using the ctrl/alt/delete trick. This time, the computer went into the DOS mode and gave me some options. Of course I chose the easiest, fastest option. That was the F1 key. The computer flashed a couple of times then gave me a rectangular blue field asking for a password. "WHAT" went on I my head as well as a few "not so nice words". I tried several different passwords that I thought might work, but in the back of my mind, knew that I was not going to get anywhere with my futile attempts.

I called Toshiba help center and Mujibar answered. That's not his real name. :) He mentioned that my warranty was expired and there would be a $35. fee for helping me with the issue. He stressed that if he walked me through the whole process that he would charge me. So after a few minutes, noting that if he did not go through the whole process with me and actually fix it that I would not pay him, I agreed to the help and the fee. By question number two, he referred me to the nearest Toshiba Service Center. 1 1/2 HOURS AWAY!

I called and left a message and I got no response, So this morning, I called and talked with James, the service technician. Helpful young man . . . the kind of people I like to work with. I told him the situation and he said that it was an easy fix and would only take 15 minutes. Knowing that I did not want to drive for 3 hours to have something fixed that would only take minutes, I asked him to walk me through the process on the phone, and that I would pay him for his time and expertise. Long story shorter, he emailed me the directions, I tried it a couple of times, and it didn't work. I called him back and he said he would walk me through it over the phone. I got my Mcguiver equipment (foil and a paper clip) and jump started the Bios avoiding the password issue. I love times like this. I love asking people to help me and having them just help. I love not having to do the traditional 'bring it in' things. I love getting things fixed and it not costing me anything but time. I asked for his full name and the store address because I am sending him a Starbucks gift card!

the message . . .

On and earlier post I mentioned that I was making some new art for a show. This is the second piece that I have done for that show that is coming up this next week. In addition, I mentioned that I had a message for this series of pieces. The title of this one is Make Good Choices. It is 18 x 24 watercolor with flies. REAL FLIES. They are dead of course. I have an idea of what I want to communicate, and possible responses to it, and I am excited to get some feedback on what people think. I am planning to make the frames for it as well. Instead of framing it traditionally in a nice glassed frame, I am building the frame out of old barn wood and leaving the rustic, weatherbeaten wood to add texture, dimension, and message to the piece. I am also posting the two other pieces on my Drawspace.com site as well as my teaching art blog at theartroomarchives.blogspot.com.

something to say . . .

Back when I was in school studying art I really never "felt" like an artist. I'm not sure what it was that artists were supposed to feel that made them an artist, but I knew then, that I did not feel like one. Was I good at making art? Sure. Actually, I frequently had students collect my work because they thought one day when I made it famous, they would have an original from when I was still unnoticed. Still, I was plagued with not feeling like an artist.

For me the turning point for feeling like an artist came when I started enjoying the art that I produced. I no longer wished my art to look like other's work. I no longer cared if it came out "right." I started making things I wanted to make. You know, art for garth's sake! :)

As well, I never did understand artists that had messages they wanted to communicate to the larger population, society, or the world. I thought most of it (you know the way artists talk about their work) was just a farce. It was a pretend way to make their work seem more important than it really was. I never pretended mine was more than ink, pencil or paint on a background. It didn't have any hidden meaning. It was just art. This "having a message" has begun to change for me now.

On October 17th, some of the Lima City School's art teachers will be displaying their work around the city. It is a night that the small city has set aside for the local High Schools bands to play, people to walk around and visit the local business, and the art teachers to display some of their work. It's sort-of the small town's way of being "cultural" I guess to bring people up a notch or two in the appreciation of the arts. On that night, I am going to be one of the artists showing my work.

Instead of using pieces of art that I have made before, I am creating a theme around a technique that I enjoy, and for the first time, a message that I have. This will be the first time where I am displaying my work with the intent of having something to say.

giving credit where credit is due . . .

On several occasions we have had the opportunity to meet, and become friends with people from all over the world; people from Korea, South Africa, Australia, and many other far away places. Living in Los Angeles, the melting pot of America, gave us the chance to come into contact with so many different people and I am so glad to have lived there and came into contact with others with diverse backgrounds, cultural experiences, and fascinating lifestyles.

Here in Ohio, it doesn't seem to be as diverse as our experience living in California. But what Ohio has, that is equally rich in experience, is people who care, share, and lend a hand when others are in need. Patrick and Deb Allen have been those types of people for us as we have made our move "back" to my roots.

On previous posts, I made mention of staying "with friends" while we were looking for jobs, homes, or just visiting. The Allen family is the family that we stayed with the most on our seemingly monthly trip to Ohio. On each trip, they hosted us with gladness, and took time to ensure that our stay went well. Deb graciously provided meals for us throughout the day and we spent most evenings eating a desert, drinking coffee, and sharing our lives together. Both Patrick and Deb have gone far and above in hosting us on our trips up here and were always eager to invite us up to stay again and again. It is great to have people like the Allens help in the transition moving fromm the South, back to the North.

Thank you Patrick and Deb for your giving attitude, your hospitality, your endless provision (the stove came from their basement) and most of all your friendship.