11-30-02
Thanksgiving is over, and I am giving thanks that it is. My brother couldn't be there on Turkey day so I made an extra trip down to see him and his family Friday. He is the only other geek in the family, and since I only get the chance to see him once a year when he drives over from Spokane for Thanksgiving, I felt it was worth the effort. Sue stayed home with the kids. One of the advantages of keeping an online journal is the ability to look back over the years to see if ones life is improving. I am better off than two years ago, but I can't compete with one year ago when I was earning seventeen something an hour and working full time. At this time last year I had earned around thirty three thousand. This year I've earned sixteen, not counting a couple thousand from unemployment. Not surprisingly my bills, especially the electricity and water have increased at the same rate my income has decreased.
    The temptation to fall back into the safe and secure world of printing haunts me. Yes, life as a pressman is hell, but the steady, livable paycheck, and the ability to leave the job at the office is priceless.

11-23-02
We went to the new REI store in Tacoma today. It was their first Saturday open. There were a lot of happy looking employees...happy to be working for a company that pays good benefits, although the wages aren't too inspiring. The store was jam packed with people spending money. In fact, everywhere we went near the Tacoma Mall area was packed with shoppers. Are people beginning to feel confident in the economy again? It sure looks like it. I found a new Black Diamond headlamp to replace my 1980 vintage headlamp, which still works, but I wanted something lighter that runs longer and uses rechargeable batteries. These new LCD bulbs are neat. They don't have the horsepower to shine a light 100 feet, but who cares? I usually just need to illuminate a trail, or the picnic table and my backpack. Or, if the power goes out as it did last week, I need to be able to walk outside to get firewood.
    I've been shopping at REI since dad took me up there to buy a backpack in 1968. They were a little hole in the wall store on Pine street possibly, or maybe it was Eleventh in Seattle. They only had the one small store then. As we walked around the store today, I saw young people of the age Sue and I used to be at the beginning of our long involvement with mountaineering. They had that same look of absolute confidence in their ability to survive against all odds. I used to think that way, until a bunch of my friends died, one by one in the high mountains. Some of them died on Rainier, some in South America and a few in the Himalayas.
    I've seen an accident or two now, and while I've not stopped wanting to climb rock, I have learned that no one is immortal. We all make mistakes, and, as the saying on the plaque at Spire Rock reads: "Look well to each step young man, for it may be your last."
      Anyway, as I walked around the bustling store, smiling to myself at the wide variety of hikers, climbers and wannabe hikers and climbers I reflected on how lucky I was to still be "doing it" at my age. Seems like all my friends have given it up. I climb with people young enough to be my sons...with a few exceptions...hey Mark!
    The end of the quarter is coming up. I have a bunch of time off between quarters. It looks like I should be able to do some in depth studying of some software I've been wanting to learn. I can also spend some time working on cars, and possibly even jazz up my web site. I need to begin looking for more freelance work to supplement what I earn teaching. Maybe I'll even do some painting. I've always wanted to do some winterscapes up at the mountain. That'd be cool!

11-18-02
Gave a good lecture today to my drawing class. I know it was good because of the improvement I saw in the drawing session following the lecture. Last week I tried to teach them how to draw shading, but I've learned that a lesson usually takes some time to soak in. Today I talked about their tendency to rely too heavily on the use of line, at the expense of shading. Using a sharp tipped erasable marker, I demonstrated drawing an egg on the whiteboard without any lines whatsoever, just shading strokes, or hatching as it is called.
    For models I draped a sheet over a chair in one corner of the room and thumb tacked a pillowcase sized sheet to a large piece of cardboard. As I was setting up, the students watching me began kidding each other good naturedly about how we were drawing a sheet of cardboard today.

"Hey look! Cardboard today. That's going to be tough drawing those scraps of old duct tape on the corners."

"Yeah, but at least it's not a sheet. I heard we might be drawing a sheet today."

"Oooh, look what we have here!" I said, and pulled a couple white sheets out of my backpack. They seem unafraid to tackle anything I throw at them. It's really fun watching them take to drawing like a duck to water. They appear to have total confidence that I won't give them anything they aren't ready for. It helps that a few of them have had drawing before at the college level because they inspire the others with their virtuosity. A couple have never drawn before at all, and watching them discover their immense hidden talent is my favorite part of this job. It simply amazes me that they have never before realized they could draw. I walked up to K today and noticed he had drawn the draped chair as well, or possibly better than I could have drawn it. I asked him if he had always known he could draw like that. He shook his head and said, very simply, no.

11-12-02
Do you ever find yourself wondering how you got so deep into computers? Remember when life didn't revolve around staring into a little screen of colored light plugged into the wall? I've been wondering these things a lot lately. I had some nice breaks over Veterans day weekend, even said to hell with it all when the family was out spending my money and took a couple naps on the couch. I've done a drawing a day out in the garage over the last 2 days. My drawing class has burned through our first book: "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain", so I've been reading some of my other drawing books. "Drawing, the Creative Process" by Simmons and Winer, has an excellent demonstration of drawing drapery. Drapery is the study of how cloth is defined by the shape underneath.
    This weekend I ironed an old sheet, cut out a square of cloth 3 feet square, hemmed the edges (yes, men can sew) on my antique sewing machine and pinned it onto the back wall of my still life box. For about 8 hours I sat on my stool at the easel and painstakingly drew the patterns of light and shadow over the hanging cloth. As usual, the first hour or two were painful as I drew, erased and redrew.
     One of the most important things an artist needs to have is not skill, but patience. Especially for us weekend painters, lack of practice makes the first hour of any drawing a painful experience. I've found that I have to keep reminding myself that it will turn out beautiful, just not any time soon. If I am working out in the garage, a distinctly uninspiring environment, I find I can extend my patience (and give the drawing a better chance of surviving the critic in my head) by listening to music or talking books. The tapes distract the critic, leaving the right side of my brain free to draw. I'm working on a second one now. The drawing book we're using taught me a cool trick for getting very smooth shading in pencil and charcoal. Put the strokes down, then rub them with a paper towel. It works much better than my fingers for spreading the pigment smoothly across the shadows. When I erase, then rub the transition zone between paper and rubbed pigment, the values are seamless.

My network crashed over the weekend, leaving my computers isolated from each other. I downloaded new fimware for my router: smc7004abr, but instead of achieving my goal of allowing me access to the cookie heavy sites, it caused the router to completely crash. During the entire time it was down, my family took turns walking up and asking, "Can we use the computer?" or "Can I get on there for a minute to print something?" etc. "No," I'd say, "The network is down and I don't know when I will have it back up." After giving myself a day to cool down, I called SMC tech support and was told that the updated firmware drivers listed on the web site for my router were wrong. Three minutes later I received the correct drivers in an email from SMC, installed them and (cross fingers here) was happy to see the network come back online.

11-11-02
As soon as I took the case off dad's computer and saw the burnt wires I knew my day was shot. I sometimes wonder why I work on it. He could easily afford to buy a new one. Hell, he and mom are flying to a family reunion in England next year. A computer is nothing compared to what that will cost them. Perhaps my free labor is penance for all the heartache I caused them back in my teens. A more plausible reason would be that I talked him into buying this used computer, after the old one died. I wanted him to buy a new one 4 months ago, but he resisted spending the $500. This used one has been reliable until now.
    When he called me up to complain that it wouldn't start he didn't mention smoke, but from the bits of burnt wiring scattered around the inside of his case, there must have been smoke. It turned out to be a single wire on one side of the on off switch. The power supply was still sending power through the charred wire, but I suspected it might be unsafe. I had an extra newer used power supply with me, but it was built differently. His had the switch wires coming out of the power supply. Mine had the big multiplug going to the motherboard and relied on a separate set of wires going from the motherboard to the power switch.
    When I pulled the burnt wire off the switch, the switch broke away from the cheap, overheated plastic mounts built into the face of the computer. I'd been told that the reset button could be configured into an alternate power button, but when I touched the tiny switch, it broke also. Now, both switches were broken. Unlike my old Pentium 2 case, this case had very little metal in the front, everything screwed into plastic mounts....and they had all broken.
    I sat there staring at it with my head in my hands. I'd talked him into buying the darn thing. It had cost him $270 and I didn't think I could persuade him to walk away from the money. For $400 he could buy a brand new Compac at Radio Shack but I knew his penny pinching nature and thought that unlikely. I wandered out into his old garage...the garage of my teenage years, and pawed around, looking for some scraps of bridging material. I needed something strong enough to act like the metal frame he didn't have so I could build a bridge on which I could mount the switch. Finally I found an old spoon and began cutting and drilling the spoon and the case until I had the power button semi secure again.
    I re-configured the reset button to be an on off button by cutting it away from the broken reset switch and wiring it into the non-burnt side of the old power switch. This allowed me to use the newer power supply that I'd taken out of my main system when I rebuilt it 2 months ago.
    Amazingly it started up. He couldn't believe I'd pulled it off and I was surprised myself, although whether it continues to run is anybodies guess. I have no idea why it shorted out in the first place.
     I figured out how to change the air filter on our Windstar. In the past I have had to remove the battery to get enough access to rotate the lid to the point where I can close the snaps. I found that the secret to changing the air filter is in the flexibility of the hose going from the air filter to the fuel injector unit. I had to lift the pleated 3 inch rubber hose up about 1 full inch or more to get the angle necessary to hook the front lid hook under the bottom front lip. Lifting the pleated rubber hose took every bit of strength I had. I don't know what these car designers are thinking when they squeeze stuff into the engine compartment like this. With the trouble light shining on the back of the lid, I was able to see where there are two guide prongs on the back of the case that must be outside the bottom. These prongs are easily visible on the sides, but very hard to see on the back side. It had 139,304 miles today at the filter change. I suspect it went a good 30,000 miles on the filter which was way too long.
    I did a nice drawing of a draped sheet yesterday. I'll post the pictures when I've finished the series. I plan to do a few more.

11-6-02
Woke up with a head full of sand this morning. I don't know if I can write anything worth reading. In my long study of the creative mind, I've come across many references to the need for creative people to "blow off" the blues and simply get to work. I have a book somewhere on creative writing...I'd like to quote it directly but I can' find it so I'll paraphrase: If you need to write, whether it is for your livelihood or simply because you are feeling out of sorts and don't know why, just begin. Yes, you will very likely write trash in the beginning, but that trash is covering the good stuff. It's kind of like a coconut. You have to get the shell out of the way before you get to the sweet stuff inside. It'd be nice to start with the sweet stuff, but life doesn't work that way.
    Even before I read that book on the oddities of creative writing, I noticed way back in my teens that I could wake up with a bad attitude, utterly convinced that the day was going to be a bomb, and yet after a one hour bicycle ride out into the rainy landscape, the clouds would open up, the sun would shine across the fields and I'd sit down on a rock and do a lovely drawing.
    We had a staff meeting yesterday to talk about the direction our department is heading. Among the many things discussed is how pleased the other instructors are with the results they are seeing from my drawing class. I only have these students for drawing...and while I have noticed some huge improvements in their drawing ability, I wasn't aware it was improving their work in their main program classes. I did hear from their main instructor that some of them have become constant sketchers. They've gotten the drawing bug and carry their sketchbooks wherever they go. He was pleased because his program (animation) requires drawing ability.
    What surprised me at the staff meeting was the growing support for making basic drawing a required core class for all students in the media program, not just the animation students. Our three full time instructors have all had drawing classes and feel that an understanding of light and perspective is needed for all media programs. They also talked about how we need to get our students into that creative space where they can think out of the box, and how a drawing class that emphasizes access to the "right" side of the brain is essential to bringing out their creative side in any endeavor.
   The book I am using: "The New, Drawing on the right side of the brain" - by Betty Edwards, asserts the value of right brain access even for people who are not in the visual arts. She does corporate drawing seminars with groups of professionals as unlikely as software engineers and doctors because a need has been found for these white collar types to approach problem solving from new and creative directions. Drawing, as unlikely as it seems, appears to allow them access to new ways of thinking.
    I'm no psychologist. I'm not even sure I can spell the word (thank god for spell check). I'm just a geeky guy who enjoys drawing, and sharing my love for cool things with other people. As far as all the psycho babble about right brain, creative problem solving, thinking out of the box...I think they're all just buzzwords. Drawing is as natural to me as breathing. I like it for a long list of reasons but at the top is the undeniable fact that life is short, and art is long. Drawing gives me a small, but real slice of immortality. Long after I am gone, my great grand kids will still be treasuring my art.
      I have a painting above the fireplace done by the last artist in my family: Florence Carpenter. She was born around 1840 and was a favorite great Aunt of my grandmother through whom many of my cousins and relatives inherited one of her watercolors. She achieved some moderate fame, but what is more important is that she lives on through her work and inspires us to carry the torch forward. Life can be such a bitch at times, but when I look at her painting I can almost see her standing at her easel, smiling to herself as she captures the loveliness of the day, fully aware of the past, and looking into the future at me. "Life will get better", she murmurs, "look at this beauty I found today".

11-4-02
My drawing class drew eggs today. Everywhere I looked I saw eggs. Pen and ink eggs, charcoal eggs, pastel eggs and pencil eggs. We did them all. I had also brought along some bowls, cups and a porcelain swan. Today was my day to teach shadows and it went well. I think they were relieved to be out from under the faces and perspective classes. Their mid-term was a portrait. About 6 of them pulled it off reasonably well. One student, who has been struggling all quarter did a wonderful portrait, his best drawing of anything, ever. It blew me away that someone who basically couldn't draw at all could suddenly pull off a portrait. You might wonder whether someone did it for him, but I've learned his style, and this was definitely his work.
    I think we'll do drapery next week. I have a wonderful drawing of a draped chair that I've never posted here. I framed it 10 years ago before I knew how to turn a computer on and have resisted taking it out of the frame simply for a photograph.
    Sunday we were supposed to have a department bike ride, but everyone bailed. I worked until 1, then hopped on my trusty old 1973 ten speed and pedaled out into the country. I'd never taken this particular back road route before, but figured that if I started heading North from the house, all I would have to do is turn West when I was tired and do a big counter-clockwise circle. Well, after 2 hours of pedaling I had only found one road going West, and no roads whatsoever going South.
    I pedaled on and on, up the long hills and down, hoping for a road to the left without a dead end sign. The problem is the 8 mile wide power line road that bisects our peninsula and the public land surrounding it. Each time I would crest the top of a long hill, I'd see the road vanishing off in the distance, straight as an arrow with nothing but dead end dirt roads leading West. The sun was beginning to cast some long shadows by the time I finally found a Westward heading road. I'd not brought a cell phone, and the old knees were beginning to complain as I pedaled valiantly on, cursing my lack of foresight in not bringing a map.
     Around 3:30 I passed a lake I recognized, and finally saw a road whose name I recognized. Another 5 miles and I was on the pole line road, pedaling my skinny tires along the garbage strewn gravel road to the back door into our development. A great ride, but more drama than I needed.

11-2-02
Drove 5 paintings down to my Olympia Gallery today. Hugh was there working and shook his head sadly when I asked him how things were going. He said his patrons have stopped buying art. They are are either unemployed, or worried about becoming so. In hard times like these, with 7 million people out of work, art is a luxury purchase.They sell affordable art to normal working Joe's, versus the high end galleries whose clients are rich enough to not be touched by hard times.
    Stopped at mom's afterward to chat for a while and showed her some of the pencil drawings I've been doing as lesson plans for my drawing class. Dad was out practicing for another choir concert. Mom has about 7 of my paintings and drawings around the house. She has managed to acquire some of my best pieces by loaning me money that I was unable to repay. She outright bought the last painting, and still believes it is of the Nisqually, even though I told her it is of Belfair. She's a great lady, aging rapidly, but gracefully and reminds me of what is ahead for all of us.
   You can fight the aging process with the best lotions, potions, workouts and plastic surgery, but it is out there waiting for each of us in the end. The gradual decline into doddering around with a cane.

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