Art Retreat at Home – Day 1

I’m going to try to make this week special by creating art every day, even just a sketch or two.  I’ll treat myself to a mini-retreat at my dining room table!  Let’s see if I can actually do it.  I often don’t take the time to sit down with watercolors and pencils, but whenever I do, I have so much fun.  It makes me wonder why I don’t do this more often.  I’d like sketching to become a daily practice.

Here are yesterday’s efforts:

Watercolor sketch of red buttons

Watercolor sketch of poppy pod

Riding the Light Rail

Stops along the light rail transit system in Seattle

Seattle’s light rail transit system has been in operation for about a year.  In December the service was extended all the way from downtown to the airport.  My husband and I had been meaning to check it out for some time, but never did until this week. 

We started at the underground station at Westlake in downtown Seattle.  The first part of the trip is underground, but then the rails emerge to surface streets and elevated rails.  We got off at the Beacon Hill Station, which is about 16 stories underground, to enjoy the brilliantly colored sculptures suspended from the tunnel ceiling.  The art installation is called “Space Forms,” but some of the shapes resembled amoebas or bacteria.

The light rail trains arrive every 10 minutes, so we didn’t have to wait long to hop back on and resume our trip.  We got off again at the Columbia City Station.  There we walked a couple of blocks to the business district, got coffee at Starbucks, and a pastry at the Columbia City Bakery.   From there we traveled to Sea-Tac Airport.

Now that I’ve ridden it, I think I’d use the light rail instead of a taxi to get to and from the airport if I didn’t have family available to give me a ride.  The light rail would be especially convenient for travelers to Seattle who are staying at a downtown hotel. 

Mural in the Westlake Light Rail Station, downtown Seattle

Riding the light rail

Beacon Hill Light Rail Station with suspended "Space Forms"

One of Dan Corson's "Space Forms"

Trains arrive every 10 minutes or so.

Light rail depot in south Seattle

The Jade Buddha

The Jade Buddha for Universal Peace

Yesterday was the final day for the Jade Buddha for Universal Peace to be on display in Seattle, and I would have missed it completely had not one of my library colleagues called unexpectedly to invite me to see it with her.  We work with a woman who was born in Vietnam, and the Jade Buddha has been on view at her Vietnamese temple, the Co Lam Pagoda, for the past week.  She said it was well worth seeing, and while we were there, to be sure to buy some of the delicious Vietnamese food for sale at the temple.  I’m so glad we followed up on her suggestions!

The Jade Buddha is reportedly the largest jade Buddha statue in the world.  It’s nearly 9-feet tall, and is carved from one large piece of jade that was discovered in British Columbia in 2000.  Since its completion, it has been on tour in Vietnam, Australia, Canada, and now the United States.  Eventually the Jade Buddha will find a permanent home in Australia, so I feel very fortunate to have had an opportunity to see it in my hometown.

The festivities were conducted in Vietnamese, so I missed a lot of what was going on.  But it was such a joyous, welcoming, and colorful crowd, that I enjoyed every minute.  My friend Carol and I treated ourselves to a lunch of com chay, rice with a huge assortment of vegetables — so many exquisite flavors, simply delicious.  It was a wonderfully culture-rich outing.

The Jade Buddha on view at the Vietnamese temple, Co Lam Pagoda in Seattle

The 9-foot Jade Buddha is carved from one large piece of jade.

The Jade Buddha

Burning incense

Mini-Buddha statues made from the same block of jade as the big Jade Buddha

Little Buddhist

Preparing two orders of com chay for Carol and me

Apple Cheese Bread

Apple Cheese Bread

Warm bread with butter -- yum

The apples are falling from the trees, and I like to take advantage of this bounty.  I found this recipe for Apple Cheese Bread in the new September/October issue of Hobby Farm Home magazine.  It’s a good one.

Apple Cheese Bread

1/2 c butter
2 eggs
2/3 c sugar
1-1/2 c peeled, shredded apples (I left the skins on mine)
1/2 c shredded cheddar cheese
2 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 c chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease a 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan.

Mix together the butter and sugar.  Add eggs.  Stir in apples and cheese.  Then add dry ingredients and nuts.

Bake for 55 – 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

The Floor of the Sky

My daughter in Wyoming, 1998

“Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky.”
     — Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop

Stand and Stare

Watching the clouds

 

Leisure
by W. H. Davies 

WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—

No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare. 

It seems like my life just naturally slips into busy-ness.  It requires conscious effort to return to awareness of the present moment.  To slow down.  To stand and stare, as this poem reminds us.

Free Time

The Seattle Public Libraries are closing for one week starting August 30th in a budget-saving effort, and that means a week of unpaid time off work for me.  I don’t have definite plans this year.  I’d like to take a road trip, but the negatives are weighing in — I hate to be amidst the peak summer crowds and traffic, my husband may not be able to get away from his work commitments, and we’re on a tight budget this year.  I usually like to plan trips far ahead of time, because I enjoy the pre-trip reading, planning, and anticipation almost as much as the actual journey!  If we do get away this week, it will be on the spur of the moment.

Thinking about a road trip

 It’s not like I won’t enjoy my week off if we don’t go on a long road trip.  I’ve got plenty of ideas for spending this time:

• Take a shorter loop drive on the scenic North Cascades Highway.
• Take the ferry to Bainbridge Island and have lunch in Winslow.
• Drive the side roads to Tacoma, staying as close as possible to the Sound; have a picnic at Dash Point State Park, a state park in Seattle’s suburbs, but located right on Puget Sound.  I can’t recall ever spending any time there.
• Make it a goal to finish my red Bear Paw quilt.  I’ve pieced enough blocks for a wall quilt.  Now I need to sew them together, add a border of Flying Geese blocks, and hand quilt it.  I haven’t done quilting in a long time.  Using this week for a special project like this might help me overcome my inertia.
• Treat myself to a mini-retreat at home:  sketch and paint every day, and visit museums for inspiration.
• Clean the basement.
• Have a reading marathon at home, and then sell the books at a used book store.
• Edit my archive of online photos

 

What would you do with a week off?

Wheat

“Nobody is qualified to become a statesman who is entirely ignorant of wheat.”
     — Socrates

Swaying stalks of wheat

 

Wheat field and wire fence

Wheat and fence post

Wheat
by Yoshire Ishihara

Let a stalk of wheat
be your witness
to every difficult day.
Since it was a flame
before it was a plant,
since it was courage
before it was grain,
since it was determination
before it was growth,
and, above all, since it was prayer
before it was fruition,
it has nothing to point to
but the sky.
Remember the incredibly gentle wheat stalk
which holds its countless arrows fixed
to shoot from the bowstring –
you, standing in the same position
where the wind holds it.

Sneezeweed Sketches

Sneezeweed, a late summer flower with the colors of fall

This flower photo was the inspiration for a few more sketches and watercolor paintings.

Ink drawing of sneezeweed flower

First watercolor painting of sneezeweed

Second watercolor sketch of sneezeweed

Sneezeweed, August 2010

Gladiolus

Gladiolus in bloom

Cascading blossoms of gladiolus

Glorious gladiolus

Flowers like these seem like they belong in our grandmothers’ flower gardens.  I find it very hard to draw or paint them.

Watercolor painting of gladiolus

My attempts at painting gladioli