An Artist's Review of the ipad Pro and Pencil:

I've been using my ipad for art ever since iPads appeared, but for just as long, I have wished for a bigger art pad. This is now in my hands, the ipad pro. How does it feel? Just even more normal than the one I already have, what I now call in my mind, the little one. It's about time!

 

With the last ipad I designated for just art, I made the mistake of getting the one with a white, rather than black frame, leaving me with the constant distraction of all that light all around when I used it. So now my ipad pro has the black frame, such a relief.

 

I just had to try the stylus pencil thingy because people were insisting it was better than finger painting. I have long felt skeptical of going back to writing and drawing with a stick. I have been cultivating the use of my non dominant hand by drawing on my ipad, in fact, and I have reached the point that I now frequently draw with my non dominant hand at the same time as the other, or even only with it, if the dominant hand is not convenient just then. It is especially easy for Lefty to draw since it did not also have to learn to hold a stylus.

(Above and below, details from the page of doodles in the first picture)

I feel my brain wiring itself in new and fun ways, more integrated. My drawing style has gotten far freer and looser as I have relaxed into infinite canvas and paint. So it is with a bit of trepidation that I approach the do-hickey plug in pencil unit. At first it feels ungentle. I fear scratching my screen. Soon I notice that even a gentle sweep works with some drawing apps and brushes. I carefully compare the detail I can get with my finger drawing using pinch magnifying, with the pencil dealy. I already can get to the resolution of the individual pixel with finger pinch and paint.

 

So what is the benefit of the scratch stick? Well, two things. It turns out, even as I was busy forgetting how to use a paintbrush or carry a pen, my dominant had hand brain retained a fine memory of its previous skills. As soon as the electric pencil was in my eager little boss hand, the old powers begin once again to flow.

 

There is also the massive benefit of actually seeing in real time what I am trying to draw. This is a compromise I hardly remember making way back lo, these not even a handful years but seems like an entire era ago; that is you can't really see under the big stubby finger as you draw. Even though you can pinch it down to the pixel level. I noticed that while it was worth it to get the amazing extra powers contained in art apps like fill, and sample colors, and using photos and even photos of my paper art, I was not drawing at the level of detail in my former paper drawings.

 

And the early stylii were no better, in fact they were worse. They dragged along on bendy felt like tips that weren't very responsive and lagged. But this...

 

This thing I like. It is pointy and easy to see around, and fast. And the detail level is, in fact also better, though just a little bit. Combined with the extra screen size and speed of the pro, the pencil is indeed interesting. I wonder how it would feel to make a pencil sketch on paper compared to "pencil" sketch on "paper". So, I decide to give it a try....

 

“We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.” -G.K. Chesterton

 

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Laundry Yoga

 

"You can do no great things. Only small things with great love" -Mother Therese

What your great grandmother knew was right. Clean living is healthy.

(No I do not mean living in an artificial antiseptic bubble devoid of all microbial life. Do not use antibiotic soaps without a medical reason!) What granny knew was that wearing clean clothes and taking a bath frequently is good for you.

I read in Science News about a study that found polluted air can be absorbed by our skin as much as our lungs! Unless- we are wearing freshly washed clothes, which absorb the pollution like a sponge, until of course they reach some kind of saturation point, when they need to be washed again. In fact, having your clothes all full of air pollution will actually increase your skin's absorption of the air pollution, rubbing it in!

Conversely, granny would have known that if you can't take a bath, you can get a measure of that refreshed feeling by just changing into clean clothes. All of this suggests to me that doing my laundry is a health practice.

I wonder if air drying my clothes outside would be as nice if I lived in a high air pollution area.

 

The Green Tomato Tempura Feast

When the frost is on the pumpkin and more to the point, the frost is on the tomatoes, we say it is time for the annual green tomato tempura celebration. At our house it is the first feast of the harvest, and thus the feasting season, followed by thanksgiving and so on. Everyone brings something from the garden years' harvest, especially their green tomatoes! (Sorry no green tomato photos- oops we ate them already!)

We do not habitually eat deep fried food, so we have one special day each year in which we totally enjoy all we can eat of this delicious treat! The green tomatoes, those that will not ripen any more in the sun of this garden year, are sliced and dipped in batter and fried in a mixture of coconut, canola, and olive oil.

We use all organic oils because pesticides accumulate in fats. Of course we buy all organic food because it is an investment in the gentler world we wish to live in in the future.

We make various dips for the tempura, with things like ginger, garlic, and lemon. We also tempurize sliced broccoli, shiitake and chantrell mushrooms, green beans, and of course, onions. (Onion rings, anyone?)

To balance out all that heavy food, we make gallons of sweet raw carrot veggie juice. It is natural and healthy to periodically go without eating, or fast, and it is also natural and healthy to celebrate the harvest with our loved ones and have a feast. This is the sacred middle way.

I wonder if fasting and feasting can be as fun as one another.

 

"Each bite of food contains the life of the sun and the earth.

The whole universe is in a piece of bread." -Thich Nhat Hanh

 

 

The Fifth Stage

The Omni Art notebook:

 

My greatest project of the year has reached the next stage of completion!

 

Here is what has happened so far:

First came the seed stage, the pre joined yarn ball. Here, many kinds of red yarn have been tied together and balled up.

 

Then the egg forms on the knitting loom, and then winds into a ball.

This grows into the squiggle, which forms around a strong but posable copper wire armature. The squiggle then roams around the house feeding on pillows...

 

The next thing to appear are the spheres, which I call the pollen.

 

 

 

And now, the entire body of the piece is complete, ready for the next stage. I have not counted, but there are about thirty five pieces in this one work of art. It is as large as a good sized couch.

 

The most amazing and avant garde aspect of this unit of art is this: it is a sculpture that has no set or definite shape. It is also interactive, so you must form it into the shape you want! It is like a sensual sculptural box of crayons. Now, to consider how and where to share and show this unit of art. Stay tuned!

 

I wonder what will happen next.....

"I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think."― Rumi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Pond is Frozen

I'm sure the ice is not thick enough to walk on, but the grass on the way makes a satisfying crunch. You would never guess that at least a hundred little fish live under that ice!

The young deer who live here are big enough to hang out in the field now. One of this years' crop seems to be the blackish kind. Especially in certain light and angles of view, it looks black all over its blanket, the area from head to tail, on top, where the deer would get wet if rain fell.

It may be a lot of long coarse guard hairs I see, or a lack of downy undercoat. I have seen this type of deer with clumps of fur falling out in patches. I wonder if the black top kind of deer is more vulnerable to this condition, or if it is the result. I watch these deer grow from this teenage size to full grown and sometimes this color thing seems to shift, with the deer looking ragged for a while, then recovering after a few months.

Alura the neighbor cat checks out the field and pond in her daily rounds. Today she sits for a while, peering into the pond. Her long and fluffy fur colors are this exquisite mix of white like the frost, blond like the dead grass of November, and grey like the trees. Her reflection in the clear ice is mirror sharp against blue sky in the full midday sun without a cloud in the sky. Despite the sun, the pond stays frozen all day.

Night falls early up north and I hear a fox cry out in the dark nearby. It is a chilling combination of a bark and a shriek.

"Astonishment is the proper response to reality."— Terence McKenna

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sacred Tree Harvest Dance Meditation

(From the Be Like a Tree Sacred Movement Meditation book):

This is the joyous time of the harvest, when you bring out the fruits of the growing season to share and offer. As the wild and wonderful dance of summer becomes a mere smile of memory, one day you stand and proudly hold up your work.

You may reflect on the way this particular cycle of growing and alchemy of love and effort and learning has unfolded for your perfect experience.

Offer this fruit of experience now, standing tall with both hands cupped together in front holding your fruit symbolically up to the infinite sky at the level of your throat, the level of sound, vibration, music, and creative power.

Behold the beauty of your creation even as you offer it first to your own divine source, and even also then, in love, to all life everywhere forever. This is the most holy moment of the entire tree movement meditation, the offering of the fruit. Bring your hands together at the heart level for one more loving hug.

 

As the tree freely offers the ripened fruit, even as the tree releases its leaves at the end of the cycle of the year, now, in a final movement of gifting and love, allow the gift, your creation, to gently float to the earth. Perhaps it will feed or inspire someone; perhaps it will plant a seed for later. Follow in the dance and allow your hands to curve and flow also down, down to come to rest, palms down, on the bit of earth upon which you stand. Linger, and feel that you and the gift, and earth, and the infinite universe cradling you now, are all one vibration, one song, one love.

 

"Do whatever you may do, but always do it for me" -God, in the Gita

 

 

Dozens of Goldfish

 

 

"Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left. That is to say, you cannot love game and hate predators... The land is one organism."

― Aldo Leopold

I accidentally leave the hose running into the pond, and instead of a few minutes, it ran for a few hours. The result is a very full pond, like after a big rain. Wow! All of the goldfish come out to explore the newly underwater places. For the the first time since putting them in, I count all of the original goldfish. All have survived! None missing!

What an elegant little whorl of life the pond has given rise to! With the fish, the little world of the pond feels complete now. I decorate the pond some more with pretty rocks, driftwood, shells and crystals.

 

Pearly and Grey, the pond pearls, are separated for the moment. Pearly is getting deflated and no longer floats freely, so I bring her up to a resting place on the sandy beach.

 

As the person of the pond I feel a little taste of the joy and responsibility of creation. I am about to feel the down side, too. The flood has revealed the finger long babies from the first spawn, dozens of them, at least fifty. Only about one out of four has its bright orange, white and black coloration coming in, the rest are still in fish camo. But this count doesn't even include the more numerous tiny fry, the ones from the second spawn, which are now about an inch long.

 

Whew! Even I know that many fish can't fit in the tiny pond. So I wish for the heron and the ducks to come visit. Sure enough the heron, and a wood duck do come. I see a dark shadow out of the corner of my eye and look up to behold the huge wingspan of the great blue heron as it descends upon the pond.

 

I happen to be looking as it catches one of the big, hand sized, bright orange, original goldfish, and gulps it down in a second. Hey! You were supposed to eat the little ones! I do not know if the heron got Orangey, or Minny-olla, or tang-Irene, or sat-Sue-ma. It stays for an hour, and I think it does get a few little ones too.

"Remove the predators and the whole ecosystem begins to crash like a deck of cards" - Brian Skerry