Play

Years ago, I read Ray Bradbury’s book Zen in the Art of Writing and nothing else by him. The other day, by chance, I listened to a speech of his from 2001, and then contrasted it with one he gave in 1968. I tried listening to The Martian Chronicles, but relaxed a little better when I switched to Dandelion Wine. In a way, this latter book is like the drink - bottled up thoughts from faraway.

Bradbury in 2001 has strong opinions: “don’t live on your computers” he says. And “don’t let them flim flam you into buying all these devices.” In 1968, to a graduating class, he says: “We all know when we’re getting sick. Don’t you? I think we do. And when we ignore the signals over a period of years, we wind up with a sick individual, or a sick society.” It’s a speech in which he talks about loving what you do and protecting it from the twin temptations of money and academic pretension. There’s a glimpse of idealism. But it gives way to Bradbury’s emphasis on fun. He has a lot of fun writing, he says. “I had plenty of memories and sense impressions to play with, not work with, no, play with” he writes in the introduction to Dandelion Wine.

I think it’s his idea of “play” that is infectious… it sounds wholesome, his prescription for reading and writing… And sure, a writer shouldn’t take themselves too seriously. But play becomes a bit of an escape in its own way, when old ladies die full of dignity and grace for example. It’s riddles and fantasy as off ramps from whatever is irresolute in life. That’s what I feel, anyways, listening to Dandelion Wine.

Collage

If writing is work, hobbies are play, and even more fun than drawing (for me), is collage. I started earlier this year and have continued to pursue the practice over weekend evenings. I bought tools for greater precision in cutting, glueing, and placing images and I’ve been having fun catching magazines and flyers for a quick look-through before they go into the recycling bin. The other day I rescued an abandoned children’s book from the ground where it had settled over a few days, its pages blown about and spattered with a few rain drops. In it was a perfectly useful drawing of a seagull! Here’s a handful of tiny “artworks”:

Baking

This week I made Chewy Earl Grey Cookies. Here’s a picture:

Here’s the dog under the plate, wishing one would fall…

Dust

Thursday was an especially windy day… Driving, you could see a haze of dust.

In the evening it was worse.

Walking the dog

These waves are deceiving… they don’t look like much but for the Red River they are impressive.

This is the forest of fallen-down trees. They’ve been fallen-down for a number of seasons already. They are the regular, mundane, part of our walks.

These are the trees still trying to push out their leaves. It’s been very slow this year.

To end, a picture of the green grass coming through amidst the gold… The sunlight is lovely.

Wishing you… a Happy Sunday!

Intro

This week, quotes and links related to creativity… It’s where my mind is leaning at present, and I’ll tell you why in a minute. But first, a documentary.

David Hockney: A Bigger Picture

About 12 minutes in to the above titled film available on Kanopy, Hockney says this:

I got a little sketchbook, a Japanese one, like a concertina and I would draw a certain kind of grass. I filled the book in about two hours with all these different kinds of grass. To most people, it looks like a jumble - because it is - but because you’ve done that, looked into the hedgerows, seen all the variety, then you draw it. When you’ve drawn it, when you then look again at the hedgerow, your seeing becomes clearer and you know you understand what’s going on more. And you realize there’s a fabulous lot to look at. If you want to replenish a visual thing, you’re gonna have to go back to nature, ‘cause there’s the infinite there, meaning you can’t think it up, I don’t think.

I like how he shares a tip, a little practice he’s used himself that I can use too, and the subsequent appreciation for nature that comes from it. It makes me feel like drawing should have a place in education. Not a prescriptive kind of place, but a “freedom of exploration” kind of place. (I found this documentary from a book Sandi Hester recommended on her Youtube channel here. The library here doesn’t carry the book, but does have the documentary and I enjoyed it.)

A few more quotes on the subject

I like how Kristen Vardanega begins her first video of the year with a phrase to contradict the other well-known one… She says “I would like to ‘move slow and make things’.” Me too! In that vein, I appreciate the encouragement such as Orla Stevens offers it:

You don’t need to know why you’re doing something. You don’t need to know where it’s going to take you. You just need to listen to your curiosity and let it take you where you’re meant to be going.

And her reflection that comes from pursuing that curiosity:

One of the main life lessons I think have been as a kind of byproduct of making and working in sketchbooks it’s not even really the art that’s the most important bit. It’s like the way that it lets you see the world more creatively and lets you appreciate the little things.

House upgrades and Mr. Enzo (the dog)

One day last week and two days this week, a little team of workers ascended ladders to replace the original eaves troughs on our house. Until then, we didn’t know it could be a winter project. It seems especially productive to transform a bit of our house when the yard is in hibernation, so that spring runoff will have a brand new highway.

As nice as that is, our dog was acting as if the fortress was under siege and I would have reached the end of our Tupperware of treats before he would agree to settle. Eventually, he seemed most comfortable in his cage, but at risk of teasing the poor boy, let’s just say his anxiety was still manifest:

As soon as the workers left and order was restored to his little universe, all he wanted was a peaceful stay in his new bean bag.

Hardly less rattled than our poor dog, I eventually dedicated a few hours to playing around with collage. Collage feels like almost childish fun to me, and in my imagination it has even fewer rules than drawing does… collage, in the end, doesn’t need to look like anything. You stop when you feel like it. You arrange at will.

To trick myself into doing collage, I’ve given myself an appropriately small mission… Having been accidentally gifted the game “Cards Against Humanity”, I’ve been covering the inappropriate phrases with visuals I like better. “Cat pee in a water gun”? How about a floral sticker with a tiny animal-piloted plane flying overhead?

And who knew that India ink roughly brushed onto Kraft paper could make for such interesting textures! I call this series of tiny collages, my “cards for humanity”.

After making ten, cortisol levels were indeed lowered just like Amie McNee says here.

Reading online

I really liked the point made in this essay by Owen Kellogg who opens with the following

Phones do matter, but their role is often misunderstood. Instead of operating as a primary source of distress, heavy phone use appears to function as a compensatory behavior. When young people lack reliable sources of support or connection, they turn to tools that provide stimulation or regulation. Heavy screen use fills gaps left by unmet material and psychological needs.

This came via The Marginal Revolution who quoted a line from the conclusion: “The most reliable way to improve youth well-being is to meet individual needs through connection instead of control.”

One of the things about December is that it’s a busy month, always and forever will be, meaning that I didn’t have the chance to sit down and peruse all the great year-end type posts that are so fun to read. It’s mid January, and I’m only now delving in… Thus did I come across… (thus did I? Alas, I am reading Smollett’s translation of Don Quixote and it is full of fancy language, so now I write in fancy language too… I’m about 170 pages in, since January 6th, and, yes, had to remind myself why I should be patient with all Quixote’s useless scrapes, and so read the first link served up to me… this by a Mr. Nick Senger back in 2018. Fine. Back to where I was going…)

As I was saying… Kottke linked to this list of Best Video Essays, and I enjoyed listening through Josh’s “You are a better writer than AI. (Yes, you.)”. Anything about writing and A.I. is like catnip to me, and Josh’s comments about “beauty in recombinance” (at the 7:38 mark) makes me think of collage. His class syllabus has me nod with recognition, because yes, I find myself ”writing because you feel like you need to” (at 28:12). Literature that feels impenetrable? Another bit reminding me of the purpose of the self-imposed reading list!

Postcard

This week the temperature has fluctuated dramatically in Winnipeg, from melt to freeze, and one morning, the changing conditions during my walk lead to capturing some dramatic lighting. This dark slate sky and orange willow branches reminds me of summer evenings after a storm, when the sky is dark blue and the foreground is gold.

Happy Sunday!