I should like to sit down on the window sill next to this scrub brush, rest my arm around its waist, and let the sun warm my hair.

I am learning to draw, and I love to draw, and sometimes when I should be doing something else, I draw because I feel like I just “need” to do a little drawing.  The more I draw, the more I feel comfortable doing it (i.e., getting “better” at it), and I know that it helps my painting so there is a great feedback loop going on here.

However.

The feedback is often delayed.  And sometimes I don’t want delay, I want instant.  I feel that I cannot wait a month for the useful revelation.  I want the drawing to be beautiful RIGHT NOW.   Ahahaha!   Even though I need to add more shadows and put her hands beside her neck, I feel impatient.

So, what is the lesson here?

It is an opportunity to practice patience.

Or, perhaps the lesson is that sometimes it is good to take a break.   Even from something I love doing. This seems like a contradiction to me.

I was mad at myself momentarily, but then I simply relaxed, and actually STOPPED thinking about it.  I put my fingers on the lock, and began turning, and viola! it opened.

How did that happen?  Was the memory in my fingers, but not in my brain?

I love my brain, even though I do not understand it very well.  Where things are stored, and how we retrieve information.

Here is a lovely map of the brain drawn by Leigh Wells:

Maybe the combination had been stored in my muscle-action section, rather than in the number-sequence section.  So when I tried to think of the numbers as if they were a math problem, it could not be located.   But then when I called on my fingers to do their thing….boink!  Out it came.

I believe in the idea that if we exercise our brain it keeps it agile.  I have been loving learning to paint, which has really been about learning to see, which exercises my brain in a whole new way.  I also love thinking about how to do a familiar thing better, like printing, which never gets old for me.  I also think it is very helpful to remember to keep an “open” mind because it prevents the ruts that the mind-wheels seem to easily get caught in.

I think smiling is good for the brain too.  It makes my ears move up and back, and I think this gives the brain more room to do its thing.     Just kidding.     But I do like the idea of that.  And, more often than not, smiling evokes smiling. And seeing that instant, positive feedback does seem to do good things in the brain.

Last week I was lucky enough to be with a group using a map and a compass to determine where we were and where we were going.   This was exciting, and very satisfying when we ended up where we had planned.

I love maps.  I love accurate, “real” maps, and I love maps of imaginary places.

Here is a beautiful map by the artist Karey Kessler.  I saw a map of hers in the book “The Map as Art”, and also found this one on line:

I also have been thinking about true north and magnetic north.  I am not concerned about this on a day-to-day basis, but if I am relying on a topographic map to get around – and not located at the 0-degree line of declination – I must take into account the difference between magnetic north and true north.  Magnetic north varies in different parts of the world, and is constantly changing!  Although it is “constantly changing”, it is not swinging around so wildly that you cannot estimate it for effective map-reading purposes.  There are maps that show the approximate magnetic declination, such as this one:

The earth is a giant magnet!

Lost

David Wagoner

I have mixed feelings about the axes (irrelevant), but a phrase in the article did stick in my imagination.  He said “…It was like an invitation to this world I wanted to create.”

The world I want to create.

Look at the world that Edmund de Waal is creating:

I think this is beautiful.

My office is perpetually a mess, and I let this distress me.  I seem to forget sometimes that I can (within limits) create my world.  Or, maybe it is not only someTIMES that I forget, but in somePLACES I tend to forget.

I have (with the help of Nature), created this burst in our window boxes:

This makes me very happy every time I walk in or out of our house.

So why do I do this to my desk:

It is somewhat of a mystery to me.  This is NOT the world that I want to sit down to each morning.  I have a little teeny tiny space of clearness (just only barely big enough for the mouse…), surrounded by stuff that should be elsewhere.

Now look at this!  Look at what you and Mr. Buchanan-Smith and Mr. de Waal inspired me to do!

Much better.  I created my desk-world!   What power I have over my own messiness.  Very satisfying.

How’s that for positive feedback!?

Terry Gross interviewed writer William Maxwell on NPR’s Fresh Air in 1995. (you can listen to the interview on  NPR.org )  They spoke about his story, “What He Was Like”, and in response to one of Terry’s questions, he said:

“People have an idea of who you are, and you’re rather confined within that idea.  Meanwhile, in your inner life, you’re perfectly free to think anything you want to.”

“Tell your own story, and you will be interesting.  Don’t get the green disease of envy.  Don’t be fooled by success and money.  Don’t let anything come between you and your work.”

- Louise Bourgeois

(Thank you to Catherine Kehoe who posted this quote on her blog about painting:  Painting: Powers of Observation )