11-30-03
Everyone has the flu but Lisa. Clint got it first the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Lisa and I drove down to see the family on turkey day while Sue stayed home to nurse Clint. Friday I put on Clint's work rain gear and replaced the front brake ads on the van. It was terribly muddy out in the driveway with the rain pelting down all day, but I stayed warm.
       Saturday Sue and I caught the flu at the same time.We spent the night together on the couch, coughing our guts out This is Sunday and it feels like their is a tomahawk buried in my skull. I have a regular cough that seems to bring up my entire lung cavity. I haven't been this sick with the flue in over 5 years. It feels like death is just around the corner. The way it took our family by force, I have a feeling this flu will be creating some news headlines. I expect that many of my students will be out next week.

11-23-03
Went to Jocelyn Dohm's memorial service yesterday. She died on Monday, November 17th and I heard about it when I got a letter from dad with her obituary and a brief note about how it was a "good way to go"...although I don't know if there is anything good about suddenly dying when one is still hale and hearty at 85.
       When I walked into the funeral service with dad I was handed the funeral announcement by a very sad, red faced young girl of around 17 who turned out later to be one of Jocelyn's current printer's devils. I asked her later whether Jocelyn had been ill for a while, and she said that Jocelyn had been at work as normal on Thursday. I immediately began to see familiar faces, among them Greg Y and his mother Bernice, who owns one of my paintings. Greg is one of Jocelyn's most well known printer's devils; having gone on to a distinguished career as a professor of music (and perhaps composer?) at a prestigious local private college.
       When I was in high school, and working as a printer's devil for Jocelyn after school, there was a gang of us teenagers who would pedal from the West side of Olympia across town to high school; a journey of perhaps 8 miles. We did it for a couple years, in all weather and became close friends. This is a brief list of the members of the gang...but this goes back 33 years, so it may not be accurate: Greg Y, his sister Margo Y, Devi U, her brothers Kraig and Reagan U, Mark Y, Ted W (my oldest buddy), and myself.
       On the way home, I'd stop at the Sherwood Press where I worked a couple hours every day as Jocelyn's printer's devil putting away type from the funeral announcements which were her main business. The rest of the gang would stop off to use the bathroom and sometimes stay for conversation. Jocelyn was a political activist from way back, and in our young and impressionable minds she found a fertile and willing audience.
       It was the era of the Vietnam war, and people were marching in the streets in protest against what we saw as a government that wasn't listening to the will of the people.
       4 members of the old bicycle gang were there, and it was heartwarming to see their aging faces again and feel the warmth of their personalities after so many years. Devi U wasn't their, having died in a mountain climbing accident back around 1977. Marc Y is in Switzerland, and Margo Y is in California.
       It's a tangled web of friendships that tied us all together, but the hinge pin was the Sherwood Press where about 4 of the gang ended up serving as printer's devils. Ted W was first, and he served from 67 to 68. When Ted left for a higher paying job, he told me I should apply and I worked their from 68 to 71, at which point I handed the job off to Marc Y. Marc worked their for at least a year before handing the job off to Greg Y. At some point around 73 I returned as printers devil and worked there for a couple more years.
        Jocelyn trusted my integrity enough to leave me in charge for up to a month at a time while she traveled Europe and the South America continent with her lifelong partner Marjory. She'd call me once a week to see if everything was OK. I'd given up on my tipi by that time and was living in Jocelyn's mother's house next door to the print shop, living rent free in exchange for running the print shop several hours a day and serving as a live-in companion for her 90 year old wheel chair bound mother.
       Jocelyn was renting out the house to several Evergreen College students at the time, one of which was Margo Y, who was dating Marc Yg, so the gang was still in touch, even though high school was long over. I eventually began slipping into some bad habits, typical of teenagers of that time period and delivered some funeral announcements late.
       Jocelyn returned from Europe and called me onto the carpet, quite rightly asking what had happened to the reliable young man she had hired as live-in caretaker and printer. I was only 19 at the time, but I knew better and was disgusted with how low I had sunk. Overnight I turned my life around and stopped hanging out with the wild crowd that had led me (quite willingly) astray.
       At the service yesterday Marjory asked people from the audience to come up and talk about Jocelyn. The room was packed, with people overflowing out into the hallway. After about 7 people had spoken about their connection with Jocelyn, I realized no one had talked about her craftsmanship from the perspective of a working pressman and I made my way toward the front of the room. With a pounding heart, and tears still drying on my cheeks I stepped up the microphone:

"My name is Mark Webster, and I am one of Jocelyn's former printer's devils. I see quite a few familiar faces out there, several of you are also former printer's devils. Ted W, Greg Y, Kraig U and Reagan U...although I'm not sure if Reagan worked there...I think he might have just stopped by to talk. (laughter).
       One example of the effect Jocelyn had on me was that I was a firm Presbyterian when I began working there, but three years later I was living in a tipi. (more laughter)      
        Of the many printer's devils who worked for Jocelyn over the years, I think I am one of only 2 who went on to careers as press operators. I worked for 25 years as a press operator, and Jocelyn was very proud of my having taken up the trade. I used to drop in to see her every couple of years, or whenever I was in town during the work week to talk with her.
       In a couple shops, I ran the same printing Heidelberg press that she had at the Sherwood Press, and several times she was able to explain how to fix problems I was having on the job.
       We would talk about inks and paper, roller settings, basically shop talk you hear in any printshop between a couple pressmen. Most of what was special about Jocelyn's shop has already been talked about here by previous speakers (the salon atmosphere, the political discussions, etc.) but what hasn't been mentioned was the special gift she shared with me.
        Jocelyn had an amazing amount of skill at her trade. What she shared with me was the pride in her craftsmanship. When you print something, like a business card, or a stack of letterheads, you can hold it in your hands at the end of the day and say, "I did this! This is my work. The skills and craftsmanship in my hands created this beautiful card". It makes you feel good to hold your work in your hands.
       Many of the jobs we work at these days are much harder to define. There is no concrete product you can physically touch with your hands and say, "I did this!. These hands created this product". The product that we create has become elusive. For example; many of us work on computers these days...I do myself now for the last few years and the job satisfaction isn't so easily come by when there is nothing one can hold up and say, "I did this".
        Jocelyn and I would talk about this during my visits over the years and I realized her greatest gift to me was her pride in craftsmanship: the satisfaction one gets from a difficult job well done.
       Craftsmanship is a rare thing these days", I said, looking out over the huge crowd of white collar workers. "Printing is somewhat of a dying trade, with many of the jobs being taken over by computer. People who take great pride in the skills in their hands are hard to find.
        But now she is gone. I used to drive up that steep hill on my many visits to see my old friend, and, as many of you know, if the green truck was there outside the shop, you knew she would be standing there by the old letterpress, putting away type, or printing another wedding announcement, perhaps throwing wood in the fireplace.
        I'll never be able to do that again," I said, my voice breaking, valiantly holding back the tears, "I miss that, and...I miss Jocelyn."

I don't believe in spirits and the afterlife, but for Jocelyn I'll make an exception. Jocelyn, if you are out there, I never told you while you were alive, but you were like a surrogate parent for me during a very turbulent period in my life. I loved you, I miss you, and I mourn your passing.

11-14-03
Had some fun in Flash today. I've not taught it for a couple quarters, and I miss the program. It's not your ordinary software program. If I had to come up with an analogy that accurately compared Flash to something more mainstream, I'd compare it with oil painting. Imagine that you were an excellent oil painter. However, this was not your ordinary oil paint. Once you painted your masterpiece, you pulled out some special brushes and made the figures on the canvas come to life. Your figures danced and morphed around on the canvas, following your custom written script.
       Make it pretty, then make it move...that's Flash in a nutshell. One of my students (from an ImageReady class) had taken a picture of himself standing up in the mountains on a clear day and created a very realistic snowstorm using Flash animation. He had the air filled with tiny white snowflakes drifting down in random patterns. It was brilliant work for a first quarter Flash student, but he didn't know how to fix some timing issues with the snowstorm. He also needed to be able to stop the snowstorm with a button. Then, as soon as we got it to stop, we realized we needed another button to start the snowstorm.
       It was all quite do-able, but his eyes were glazing over by the time we finished an hour later. Still, he is a brilliant student, and I could tell he had hit a brick wall with the program and was about to give up. I'm hoping that I've inspired him to continue studying the program. I threw a lot of high end effects into his file, and I could tell from the wide grin that he was seeing the light.
       I hope to be able to teach it again at some point in the future. I could dive back into it at home, but my schedule simply doesn't allow it right now. Every spare minute is taken with lesson plans for my 4 classes, not to mention a couple ongoing freelance clients.

11-8-03
This journal has become more like a weekly newsletter than a daily journal. Still, at least I haven't totally given up. I had another printing nightmare last night. There wasn't much logic to it, other than the usual feeling of not being good enough which dogged me throughout my 25 year printing career. In the dream:
       I was back at the Silverdale Press running an old duplicator for Gary B. I'd not run a press in so long that I'd forgotten all the finer points, such as remembering to set the ink fountain to measure out the appropriate amount of ink for the job being printed. This led to the ink becoming contaminated with water, which in turn watered down the ink to the point where it was printing a very light gray, instead of the required black ink.
       In the dream, I was so focused on the fact that I was PRINTING again that I couldn't see the junk coming out of my press. I kept thinking:, Wow! I have a real job! I'm out of computers and back at a real, honest to goodness job again; one with stability that pays the bills; a real job with benefits like medical coverage and a retirement pension.
       In the dream, the press kept churning out junk, and I stood there like a dummy uneasily watching it run and marveling at the fantastic job I had fallen into. Then Gary, the boss, came down the stairs into the press room (even in real life it had been the basement of his house) and looked at the junk I had spend the day printing. "What's this?" he asked. I stopped daydreaming and noticed that the ink was black on the first side of the stack of printed sheets, but very light gray on the second side, which meant that the whole job would have to be thrown out.
       My blowing the job on the first day also meant that I'd probably be fired for incompetence. Gary went upstairs to do whatever bosses do, and I stood there, cursing myself for my stupidity: something I had done many times in my long and not so glorious printing career.
       I was actually quite a good press operator, with a very low error rate. Unfortunately that low rate came at the expense of speed, and I was regularly called onto the carpet for the "stroke 'em and poke 'em" lecture: "Mark, we are very happy with the consistent high quality of your work, however, we need to talk about how you can increase your productivity".
       Despite not having run a press in 3 years, the feeling of panic was overpowering when I woke up from the dream this morning. I lay there, stunned by my incompetence. I kept telling myself that I was awake now, there was nothing to worry about...I didn't even work in that industry anymore. Still, the panic lingered on as I lay there half way between sleep and wakefulness, trying to think of a way to fix the badly printed stack of paper and keep my job.
       I went and asked the Dean yesterday if she thought it would be ok if I showed the drawing class a video on life drawing. I explained to her how I knew the college wasn't ready for live nude models, but that I needed to demonstrate gesture drawing with a live model, and no one but me knew how the models move. I explained to the Dean how the last time I taught this, I did the modeling for the first hour and she looked at me sharply and asked, "Ah, you did have your clothes on when you modeled didn't you?"
       I laughed and told her that she would have heard about it if I had modeled nude. She said the college might be able to find the funds for a real model if it was essential for the students learning, but that they would have to model in a leotard. I said that I thought I might be able to find an instructional video on life drawing featuring models in leotards. That would solve the problem of me being unable to teach because I was modeling.
       Other than the upcoming figure lessons, the classes are going well. We drew drapery this week, and both days my demonstration drawings went well. I demonstrated in vine charcoal and white conte, and many students were inspired to try this touchy medium.
        About half of those who tried the charcoal and conte medium were able to produce a good rendering of the drapery. I tried to explain how the white is meant to more of an accent, rather than the major player in the drawing, but many fell into the trap of using the white before finishing the charcoal work. This led them down a tricky road where the highlights were in place before the shadows.
       Still, the drawings were some of the best they've done so far. A few of the students are getting very good indeed at drawing any subject I hand them. They are consistently drawing as good, or better than my demo drawings.

11-5-03
Looking across my art class today from my easel, I realized that the students had become very quiet. They had either all fallen asleep or I had finally managed to totally capture their attention. I took one of my many walks around the classroom to see which it was, and I was pleased to see they had all, without exception become fascinated by the act of drawing. At easel after easel I found accurately drawn, carefully shaded renderings of the 4 sheets I had posed around the classroom.
       I had started the class with a brief demonstration drawing of the sheet in the largest box, which is the old box I used to keep at home for my own still life set ups. As shown below, I had a sheet pinned up in the back of the box and demonstrated, for about 15 minutes, how I draw the outlines of the big shapes first, then gradually add shading, trying to capture at least some of the subtle reflected light before I bring in the white conte crayon. I was working on my usual sheet of brown Mi Tientes pastel paper, which allows me to start with the neutral value and work both lighter and darker at the same time.
       I'm not sure why they did so well on this lesson. We've been gradually covering the basics as we move through the weeks. Just last week I finally spent some time talking about the three kinds of shadows and light. Perhaps that lesson made everything click for them. This week, when I tasked them with drawing a draped white sheet on a stage, they had all the tools they needed and simply ran with it. Whatever the reason, it was an awesome feeling to look around the room and realize that I had been a part of their discovering that they could draw.

11-1-03
Another rough week is over. As I said to one of the other teachers on Thursday: "This is a tough job, but then again, if it was easy, every Tom, Dick and Harry would be doing it." My drawing class is usually my hardest subject. Wednesday went fairly well. I did a 15 minute demonstration drawing of an egg with vine charcoal and white conte crayon. I had 4 stages positioned around the room with controlled lighting illuminating a still life in each stage.
       The still lifes were styrofoam cubes, cones and eggs on a white sheet of paper. In my demo drawing I talked about the four kinds of light and shadow: highlight, reflected light, crown shadow and cast shadow. 
       That drawing went well both days. I've drawn enough eggs to be able to do it in my sleep. Usually I can't talk and draw at the same time, but I was able to put my hand eye coordination on auto-pilot and describe the process of drawing the roundness of the egg using the four types of light and shadow. Afterward I turned them loose for 45 minutes and went around giving advice.
       Thursday I repeated the same lesson for my larger group, but after the break decided to demonstrate the play of light and shadow on a full face portrait. The first person to raise their hand when I asked for volunteer models was a friend of a student who was visiting the classroom. He had an extremely unusual face for this side of the equator, with lips twice the size I am accustomed to drawing, and very challenging cornrows in his hair.
       Still, he was a volunteer, and one should never look a gift horse in the mouth. I tried to talk as I drew this incredibly challenging face, speaking about getting the measurements in place, then blocking in the larger shadow areas before getting overly precious with details. After about 10 minutes, I was totally disgusted with my drawing, and looking out over the sea of faces (18 students) I could tell they were amused at my lack of talent. What the hell, I figured; at least I tried.
       There were only 20 minutes left in the class, and I realized we didn't have time to set up a model. I told them to continue working on their white cones and cubes and looked for a hole where I could crawl inside and hide my embarrassment. I know I shouldn't feel too bad about my reclusive muse. They all know I can draw...but faces take a level of concentration that precludes using words as one draws...unless one has mastered the subject and can work on auto-pilot.
       Tuesday and Fridays I teach two different classes in web design, both based primarily in Photoshop and Dreamweaver. Both classes suffer from the same problem of the students refusing to return for the lab. We have lectures in the morning, then the students are supposed to return for the lab after lunch and work independently, with us teachers up front available for questions. Sadly, the only students who return for the lab are the ones who are so smart they could actually skip it. The ones who skip the lab are, almost without exception, the very students who most desperately need to be there.
       This is a dilemma that has no easy answers. We are not a prison, and can't lock them inside the room. One is reminded of the old saying: "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink." As a caring teacher, I find myself still worrying over it on a Saturday when I should be giving my mind a rest.
        Last night was Halloween. We didn't have a pumpkin out, and only had a few trick or treaters. It's turned very cold. I should spend some time working on a freelance project. I'm thinking I'll turn my computers off tomorrow. I have too much work, both school and freelance, to have a normal Saturday off.

click here to go to the previous month

home  |  journal  |  landscapes  |  seascapes  |  structures  |  still lifes  |  climbing
web design  |  art statement  |  pricing  |  easel places  |  site index  |  photos  |  email