Hello Hello!
Two weeks zipped by since my last from San Francisco and I have been reveling in summer outdoor activities, traveling, and getting ready for the new summer quarter. California blooms in this season, and the living is easy.
Days with art-dates, writing, and regularly producing and posting new work, though, always make me feel on purpose and less as if I am swimming in that Great-Gasbyesque ennui and stasis that permeates Southern California. Manana Syndrome.
In that famous ‘graduation speech’, not Kurt Vonnegut, but Mary Schmich wrote:
” Live in California once, but leave before it makes you soft”
The more I live here, the more I find myself contemplating the gravity of this advice, its sweet cruelty. It is easy to lose oneself in perfection. We must continue to fight those windmills, rage against the dying of the light…
I have kept my eyes and mind open and have been compiling my findings and urban adventures…in other words…I am back. But I don’t think I will be up for trying the one-post-a-day Nablopomo contest just yet, it is the sea-beach-sun-plenair-art season after all…
This summer is all about Drawing, as I am teaching Freehand Drawing and Rendering and Delineation, along with the Summer Architecture Studio, which this year is dedicated to Visual Communication. Let the shading begin.
During the break I was fortunate enough to steal few days in Yosemite, and I wanted to share what I saw. I sneaked in a charcoal sketch [above] and few shots -but next time I intend to bring easel and watercolor and devote more time to drawing and painting. The novelty of being in a tent, hiking and roughing it (I tend to enjoy the great indoors) was delightful but left little energy and time for art. That said, the hike to May Lake and the sights I saw (a field filled with butterflies, tall grass dancing gently in the wind ) will forever sing of a time and of innocence not lost as long as Yosemite is there.
Here is the first batch of photos I processed. Check back soon.
Not to make excuses, but I have also been held captive by a delicious seventies’ paperback, which involved an architect and a cursed house ( I know, architecture seems to follow everywhere I go). This was a perfect summer read, extremely well written, and an un-put-downable book. I highly recommend it. It goes well with another mystery novel featuring an architect, Death By Design.
For all the architecture aficionados and aspiring literati, though, the sublime Fountainhead is a prerequisite, as the Architect’s story par excellence and the foundation of all literary and social myth about what an architect is, does, and thinks. Is it still mandatory reading for all architecture students? I hope so.
Curling up with ‘The House Next Door’ brought back the pure joy of reading, and had a calming effect. I vowed to read more this summer and spend less time on the computer. Unfortunately, during the three days it took me to finish ‘The House Next Door’, the deadline for an (online) contest I meant to participate eluded me by few hours. [More of that later]. But isn’t what a good book is supposed to do, steal you away from the world? No regrets, then.
There is always next summer.
I enjoyed this post so much Miti! almost felt like I was in Yosemite with you! as for the ” Live in California once, but leave before it makes you soft” ….so true, although if you think about it what’s wrong with going with the flow and becoming ‘soft’? sometimes and increasingly more often I regret leaving.. lots of love from across the pond.
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Perhaps soft as in ‘lazy’? The manana syndrome is known here in SoCal. There is a general sense of stasis and complacency that must be fought to accomplish anything, perhaps it has to do with the lack of clearly defined seasons….nothing against going with the flow though 🙂 I read a review on ‘The Kids Are Alright’ which pointed out that the sun of South California can become a cruel noontide.
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I forgot to say… I am so happy you enjoyed the post!
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