Mark, originally uploaded by C R Carter.

This is another test to check out the layout template from flickr.

Autumn

Originally uploaded by C R Carter

Inspired by Nicole, I have upgraded my Flickr account and it now allows me to post directly to my wordpress blog. This is a test to see how well that system works.

Kathleen and I have shared a passion for fountain pens beginning in the third grade when we were taught cursive using inexpensive, see-through, Schaeffer fountain pens.  By fifth grade we had graduated to non-cartridge pens.  We had matching “marshmallow leather” handbags with bamboo ring handles that worked to carry our traveling stationery supplies that included paper clips, scotch tape and a bottle of ink.  Neither one of us has lost our passion for fountain pens.

In my early twenties I pinched and saved in order to purchase a Mont blanc pen.  It cost me dearly, in cash, time and frustration.  I doubt that I was able to get even one minute of writing or drawing pleasure from that pen.  Three times it was sent back to the factory and three times it came back to me refusing to let its bellyful of ink flow forth onto a piece of paper.  I hung on to that pen for another decade only because I had spent so much money on it.

Finally, I found the Mont blanc a new home.  During a difficult stage of divorce I was assigned to a middle-aged, male psychiatrist.  Sitting in a high-backed leather chair at his banker style desk he assured me that he could help me become a “normal” wife.  I noticed he wrote notes with an expensive fountain pen.  Having committed to a month of sessions with the gentleman, I continued my visits, striking up a conversation about fountain pens before leaving each time.  At the end of the fourth visit I told him it would be my last visit and that I would like to thank him for his help by giving him a lovely fountain pen that I no longer used.  His face lit up when I presented him with my beautiful Mont blanc.  I have always hoped that it caused him as much trouble as it caused me.

Since then, I have purchased dozens of fountain pens, inexpensive fountain pens, hoping to find one that I love for drawing, one that doesn’t leak, one that flows freely the second, third and fourth time I uncap it.  My search for a satisfying pen continued to be fruitless until two weeks ago when I tested a Phileas Waterman that was in the “pen” drawer at the prop shop where I work part-time.  It was valued at $8.00 and rented for $1.76.  I knew its value was far more than $8.00.  Occasionally props disappear or are not returned at the end of the rental period.  Fountain pens have often vanished.  I knew that the Phileas had a good chance of disappearing and I ended up losing sleep thinking about it.  Reflecting back on my Mont blanc I convinced myself that it didn’t write well anyway.  Finally, I had to have proof that it was a lousy pen, so I tried it out.  Hah!  It didn’t even need to be cleaned!  Linda agreed to an exchange of several of my lousy fountain pens for the Phileas and now it lives with me, dancing across the pages in my sketchbook, happy to be the expressive instrument it was meant to be, in spite of the fact that it is a low end Waterman Fountain Pen.

As a prop, vintage pens and simple black fountain pens are the most in demand.  In addition to the two or three pens of my own that I exchanged for the Phileas, I searched eBay for several vintage pens that were in terrible shape so that I wouldn’t care too much if they vanished.  My passion reared its demanding nature and I ended up deciding to learn how to repair fountain pens and to give new life to some of those old beauties that might still have a lot of expression left in them.  I am still in search for a pen with a much more flexible nib that the ones that are made now.

Though my passion has been alive and thriving for fifty years, I know very little about these pens.  Thanks to the Internet, I can now stay up all night long in the comfort of my own studio, sipping coffee or wine and begin my apprenticeship as one who refurbishes fountain pens.  My copy of The Complete Guide to Repair and Restoration, by Frank Dubiel, commonly known as “da book” is, I hope, in the mail as well as several packages of vintage pens won on eBay last week.

The first package arrived yesterday from England, a small box of Aqua-Pens manufactured by Universal Fountain Pen & Pencil Co., 808 Driggs Avenue, Brooklyn 11, New York, NY.  In the box were five pens along with seven Guarantee papers.  Four of the pens are complete with cartridge and one is missing the cartridge.  All five pens look in very good shape.

I have never seen a cartridge such as the ones in the Aqua-Pens.  The directions state to dip the pen point section in a glass of water, squeeze the clear cartridge, release to allow water to fill the cartridge and viola! start to write with a new flow of blue ink.  Hmmmmmmm.  There is a visible hard lump of dried ink in the tail end of the cartridge.  Strange concept… fill with water and write with ink.  I tried it and it worked!  I guessed that it was like painting with pan watercolors, hard as a rock until water is added.  The paper states that the cartridge is good for ten refills of water, providing 50 hours of enjoyable writing.  I don’t know how many fills are left in my pens.

The next two hours were spent hunting on the Internet for information on the Aqua-Pen.  All I could come up with was an advertisement in a 1959 magazine announcing the new Aqua-Pen…. just add water …..

I love them.  All five work well, responsive and flawless.  No repair needed on these beauties.  I experimented by adding walnut ink rather than water to see if I can extend the use of the pens after the hard lump of ink has been used up.  I doubt that it will be easy to find new cartridges for these pens. The experiment was a success.

Already the memory of my painful Mont blanc experience is fading.

In early September I spent several days along the banks of the Micomico River in Maryland.  I began painting as the sun rose.  As the sun set I indulged in a glass of wine followed by delicious food and delightful conversation with two long-time friends.

My first experience painting Anita’s meadow garden resulted in a 2′ x 4′ oil painting garnished with dozens of gnats.  It currently hangs in the bedroom, no worse for the extra texture.  I was tougher back then.  Gnats are one thing, mosquitoes are quite a different story.  The screened porch allowed me to focus on painting rather than swatting.

It is a challenge to break old habits.  My focus was on capturing the time of day and the weather conditions, spending no more than an hour or so on each painting.  The sunrise light changed so rapidly that I could spend no more than fifteen minutes on a painting.  Limiting my palette and keeping my brushes and my palette meticulously clean helped to maintain better control of my colors and values.  I am not used to wiping my palette off so often and I find it a habit that is well worth reinforcing.

The path through Anita's garden of grasses

Val's Yoga Belly dance Fusion

I am about to sort through several hundred paintings and, hopefully, toss more than half of them into the green dumpster that sits in the driveway, hungry for art.   My home studio is one sixth the size of the studio I moved out of in January and is not large enough to store the mediocre strokes of line and dashes of color that are taking up valuable space on the shelves and in boxes on the floor.  More importantly, I don’t want to spend the time evaluating the work that doesn’t excite me, hoping that next time around I will find it worthy of a mat or a frame to dress it up for a gallery wall.  If the work doesn’t thrill me the way that Val’s Yoga/Belly Dance Fusion does, out it goes.

Tonight I will sleep well, having made room for new work.

Five hours later ……..  the dumpster is full.

Detail of 3' x 7.5' three panel oil painting

There is a good chance that I will complete Sue’s painting today.  It has been a long, wonderful journey for both of us.  Last weekend, as I worked into both the sneaker she holds in her hand and the two pair of hiking boots, I laughed at how much fun I have drawing and painting shoes.

I have a great deal of respect for a well designed, well made shoe.  Had it not been for my EB’s and my green Chouinard climbing shoes I would not have seen the world from the vantage point of standing on little crystals on the side of a cliff.  Had it not been for my dance shoes I would not have spent so many hours of delight dancing to the music of my fiddling friends.  Had it not been for my Dansko clogs I could not spend the entire day on my feet painting without being in pain.  My Naot sandals were as wonderful as my cargo paints for traveling in France, even walking on the uneven cobblestone streets.  Without great shoes, my life would be sedentary.  Pondering a sedentary life was heavy on my mind during the last two months when a pain in my right hip prevented me from walking faster than a snail.  Thanks to Dr. Jeff Marrongelle, as of a week ago, I am out of pain.  Perhaps part of that relief and joy has been infused into Sue and Dale’s hiking boots.

Plane Trees in Chalon-sur-Saone, France, pruned into cubes

Upon the completion of Sue’s painting I will turn to both plein air painting and developing paintings from the reference photos and sketches of France.  The multi-layered images of the window reflections will be my winter project on days that I am too wimpy to paint outdoors.  When I am out and about, my mindset will be that of a tourist in Hunterdon County, in an attempt to uncover the shapes and patterns and subject matter that is so familiar to me that I no longer see it.

During the past two weeks I was given the opportunity to experience two very different experiences of Zakar Art. The first was a result of painting during the Zumba fundraising event benefiting The Butterfly Project. At the benefit I met Dorian, a wonderful energetic woman who is opening a center for Gyrotonic Exercise in Flemington, NJ. She asked me to visit her studio and paint her clients working out on the Gyrotonic equipment. The second experience was painting during a Kirtan Yoga session at Easton Yoga in Easton, PA. The Wild Lotus Band, based in New Orleans returned to Easton Yoga, offering us an incredible opportunity to experience the energy and balance of their rhythms and vocal chants.

What continues to delight, amuse and amaze me is the different strokes and flows that come out of me with different music, movement, people and environment. I was like a newborn heading into the Gyrotonic experience. How would I incorporate a machine with a body and be happy with the balance of the flow? How little I trust my instincts and the thirty odd years that I have held a brush in my hand. How little I trust the forty three years of meditating. Perhaps I will learn to trust that it will pour out of me as long as let the energy of others pour into me.

Thank you, Dorian. Thank you Sean and the Wild Lotus Band. What a privilege to have been asked to paint to your dedicated energy.

"Mosquitoes" performed by Busterman, choreographed by Christian Von Howard

Twice within a week I experienced the disconnect between my eye and my hand as my brain searched for a familiar pattern solution and came up empty.  I felt myself shift from free flow to confusion as my brain searched for enough information to create a new pattern.  Instead of sending Mosquito moves or Zumba moves to my hand, it sent odd fragments of ballet, bar dancing and jazz.   My arm and fingers drew the sweep of a Pat Sonne move rather than the wonderfully angular shapes of the two dancers performing “Praying Mantis”.  My brain was at a loss, but my body kept moving, grasping at images from the now distant past.

I recall the evening, several years ago, when I paintied Pat without ever looking at her, though she moved beautifully across the dance floor to the original compositions of jazz.  Tuesday night was practice night at Indulge for the 16 piece orchestra.  I began to paint the music rather than the movement, tapping into my memory of the movements I knew so well from having painted Pat three nights a week for a couple of years.  The need for new body movements led me to painting at dress rehearsals and performances of the Roxey Ballet and Wings Conservatory.  The difficulty in capturing the essence of the new style of movement surprised me.  I thought the connection was strong between my eye and my hand.  I didn’t realize that the middleman, the brain, had to create a new set of directions to send to my hand.

Zumba Event in Califon, New Jersey

In addition to unfamiliar movements, I found myself confounded by a new form of energy driving the movements of the women at last Friday evening’s Zumba event.  I had no prior knowledge of the phenomena, Zumba.  As the Zumba website defines it, it is ” … a fusion of Latin and International music that creates a dynamic, exciting, and effective fitness system.”  I thought that my belly dance class was incredible, bonding women of all ages, sizes and levels of experience.  Even that experience didn’t prepare me for the energy of the wild, sneakered, women last Friday night. The auditorium of the Presbyterian Church in Califon, NJ was transformed into a mutation of a gymnasium, dance floor, ritualistic bonfire and a “Freeing of the Spirit” workshop.  The music started; Deirdre took to the stage and led the 100+ women on an hour long journey of stretches, gyrations, shimmies, shakes and giggles, stopping only for water breaks to keep the sweating, smiling, delightfully happy women hydrated.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  I will need at least two more sessions of painting during a Zumba class before my brain will come up with a good set of directions to send to my hand.  I look forward to that opportunity!

Every now and then all of the necessary forces are present; the music, the movement, my body, my focus and the energy of the moment.  The result is a stroke of the pen that leaves a mark upon the paper that thrills me in a way I cannot describe.   My reflection in a mirror feels more alien to me than the mark that made its way from deep inside, up through my heart, across my chest, down my arm, through my fingertips to the flexible point of the dip pen that released the flow of ink onto the paper.

As an artist, I live for these moments.  These scribbles are more precious to me than all of my studio paintings.  It is for these moments that I paint during live performances of music and dance.  It is for these moments that I continue to learn all I can about drawing, painting, color, anatomy and materials.  Without the skills of the studio at my fingertips, the path would be blocked and the portrait of my spirit would remain hidden, unexpressed and silent.

Nicole dressing for performance of Rag Tag Tribal at Hafla

I watched Nicole prepare for her performance with Rag Tag Tribal at Studio 1831 in Philadelphia, wrapping her scarf this way and that, looking fabulous and confident and exotic.  I marveled that this was my daughter, a behind the scenes woman, shy of the open stage.

So many doors she has opened for me.  I can’t imagine having not stepped into the world of belly dancing, of the connection and bond between women of so many walks of life unlike my own.

Dance has always been a part of the fiber of my life.  Whenever I strayed too far from it beckoned me back to it.  How I wish I had been exposed to belly dancing, tribal belly dancing, at an earlier age.  But then, I would have devoted myself to dancing and not to painting.  Now I have a bit of both.  I dance, not as a performer, and I paint.  I have the joy of painting dancers and I have the thrill of watching Nicole dance.  I doubt I will ever be able to express what that means to me to watch the flow of the fabric around her body, the movement, the rhythm, the expression of her hands.  She is a part of me and she is totally herself.

I love the striped socks beneath the flowing skirt.  If I ever get lost in this world I will find my way back because Nicole will have tied one of her striped socks somewhere as a sign to guide me  home.