How to Edit a Landscape with Help from Twyla Tharp

How do you decide what elements to include in a landscape? I am regularly challenged by this. I typically want to paint it all... every damn leaf.  I watch other plein air painters include three people, not twenty, move a tree, change a tree shape, omit a building, or add clouds to a clear sky, without a hesitation. Exclusion for me is an inaccuracy, maybe a lie. I think plein air paintings are creating a moment of history. Cave walls tell us about the animals present, and sometimes the dress of the day… Not that I expect my paintings to last millennia.  Yet, I do see merit in editing for the composition especially.

Over the last couple weeks I began savoring a Christmas gift, reading, not too fast, Twyla Tharp’s 2003, The Creative Habit. Her stories of musicians, writers, and artists of all kinds are entertaining in themselves, but the exercises she suggests have inspired me. They are different from many other creativity books I've read. The one I want to wax on about, is led into with a story about Neil Simon, which you'll have to read for yourself.

Back to the challenge of editing a painting. Twyla talks about the power of seeing, you know, like Yogi Berra said, “You can observe a lot by watching.” She recommends watching a couple and making a list of their actions and gestures until you have twenty. He puts his arm around her, she picks a piece of lint from his coat, she crosses her legs, he man splays, she pulls a Kleenex from her pocket, she blows her nose. It’s not hard, to list twenty items in a brief time, Twyla
comments. The second phase of the exercise is to watch another couple and list the actions that please you aesthetically or emotionally. A sign of tenderness in a touch on the arm, the slide of sunglasses onto the head, to see something more clearly, an elbow jab with a laugh, a slight step back at some news. Now judgement is added to powers of observation, and being selective becomes essential. 

Twyla’s point is that what catches your fancy is not as important as the difference between the two lists. What one includes or edits speaks to how you see the world. My thought is that what catches my fancy in a scene are the items I’m going to paint with more intention, might even be my focal point. And, if not my focal point, I will create a relationship to it… place it where it best tells the story I am painting. 

Once again, Twyla danced me into a new way of thinking.

As I wrap up this post, it reminds me of another one, I wrote a while back on making word lists to create a more accurate and interesting piece of writing. That process, coupled with asking yourself, what pleases you emotionally or aesthetically, offers another way to consider what to edit. This link will get you to it Lexicons and Writing. And, "That reminds me of..." is as always another powerful creativity prompt.

Photo: From Twyla Tharp Pinterest Page
Painting: Waiting for the Magic, Mary Longe, 2019, 16x20" Oil on Canvas

Bone of Arc and the Stories that Help Us Understand the World

As a staunch Catholic, when I was eleven, I chose for my confirmation name Joan of Arc, because she had a horse. I've read and watched her story since in many versions, my favorite, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc,  a translation by Jean Francois Alden of the memoirs of Louis de Contes, her page. In fact, Mark Twain wrote Recollections under the Alden pseudonym as a serial story for Harpers, from the perspective of a fictional writer about a fictional character serving Joan of Arc. My second favorite is Bone of Arc starring the famous terrier, Wishbone.

Detail has never been my strong point. History.... I get the gist.

Since that slap on the cheek from the bishop, I've grown to appreciate Jean d'Arc for her leadership, her loyalty and her steadfast faith... all on a horse. When my son did his university junior year abroad in Rouen, as his patron, I packed my valise and along with my sister journeyed to France to visit. We toiled over espresso and croissants in cafes, and wine, baguettes and cheese in other cafes, while he toiled in his oenology class. 

Late, one grey afternoon, sipping a red at a table outside overlooking a church with an imposing cross, out of place with its modern lines, we learned we were actually looking at the exact location my patron saint was burned at the stake. The tight square of buildings surrounding that place, made it easy to imagine the din of the crowds that witnessed and cheered her demise. Last summer, once more astonished at how the dots connect, I sat through a presentation at the Smithsonian in DC, celebrating Julia Child's 100th birthday, I learned that she sat in the window of the cafe a few feet from where we sat then, overlooking the same scene, without the church, and decided to teach women to cook French.

The subtleties are not lost on me. Eight years ago, I wrote a short, fanciful story, Embers,  (posted below in the previous blog) about the person who cleaned up after the pyre that took Jean d’Arc's life. I admit, I did no research for the tale except remembering the books I'd read, the videos I'd watched over the years, what I gleaned from the tour of the jail that held her and that long glass of wine in the square where her execution took place. The story describes my imagination of how they strapped her to a post with leather straps, a reluctant man with a leprous disease sent to deal with the ashes, then freed and cured in a JOA miracle. Though the movies show her eyes toward God, none have shown a montage of logistics. I made them up.  

In the writing group, the number of minutes each person gets to comment on a story is based on the quantity of people reviewing and divided by the quantity of manuscripts. Usually a strident timekeeper metes out the typical 2 or 3 minutes. Reviews cover logic, grammar, word choice and ideas to improve the story. No matter how many times I put mine through the ABC grammar reviews on line, my stories cause battles among grammarians about comma usage… as you might surmise. The evening I submitted Embers for review three people pulled me aside on the way to the Celtic Knot, the usual post-group watering hole, to make a personal comment about my Joan of Arc story.

Jeff, a psychiatrist who wrote world history thrillers, told me the story was about France and England and I needed to add more political intrigue. Rob, a retired geology professor explained that she’d never be bound in leather, it would burn through; they would have used a form of chainmail. He also told me how bone shards might be left under the chainmail. Mindy, who I first met the year before as Seth, told me the story was about a transgender individual and that theme would make my story relevant.  I learned two important lessons from this experience: People use filters when they read, no matter what the writer intends.  And, writing groups are great, but every comment is filtered and a writer must, in the end, be clear and true to their purpose. (OK, I've learned that a million other ways too, but that evening cemented the learning.)

After posting the story in the previous blog, I read the history of burning people at the stake and felt sick and wondered whether I should remove the post. A while later, before I sat down to write this post, I lit a candle. My long-nose lighter wouldn't light, so I struck a match on a box that I'd picked up at a fancy restaurant. The wick of the candle in the jar stood five inches down from the top, and I could barely get my fist into it. I burned my thumb. Oww. I can't imagine the minds that thought up the torture of burning people alive. 

Joan of Arc provokes discussion. Her story is compelling, whether told by historians, theologians, famous comic writers who thought it best to write under a pseudonym or Jack Russel Terriors. I don't think I am cut out to be a martyr, though some may say I already act it.  I've tried to emulate her leadership and commitment to an ideal. As a preteen, the possibilities of leadership excited me. I grew up to lead a company instead of an army, no doubt with some subtle nudge from my patron. In choosing between paint swatches for our offices, there was no doubt, when down to the final choices in selecting "Maid of Orleans" to surround us.

My favorite but long gone gift from confirmation was a statue with Joan in armor, holding the flag, on a white stallion. Back in those days, we were told that only the good die young. I like that she was a bad ass then. My solace is that I heard I should expect to be a badder ass the older I get. 

. 

Embers - A Story of the Remain of Joan of Arc

Embers

by Mary Longe

Dried pus sealed tight my left eye like wax on an advocate’s packet. The socket enveloped a sickness I could only have contracted from the horrid sights within those walls, my pied-à-terre for more than a year. It is without regret my nose long ago blocked the putrid odors of men’s feces and rotting limbs even if blocking the too rare sweet air of spring and blooms. My back,paining, crippled and gnarled like an old tree trunk and my arms and feet shredded raw from lugging jugs and buckets of water from first light to last, up steps and down dark stony passages. Yet today, freedom heals, freedom speaks, freedom brings truth.

My own story, my people, my village provide no insight into this tale.  Where this story starts or where it ends hardly matters.  The meaning… the consequence… the life of this story is in the listening. And, if by chance the story is taken far from here by birds or clouds or drops of rain and even by yourself, this story lives and so shall I.

The very fact that there is an ear to hear this whisper of a tale is a miracle. My patron, whose life is now with God, for God hears prayer in shrieks of agony. It is a story that needs little more than, if you please, a sip of water - precious water for my parched lips, so I may tell the story and air the miracle at last. And, please, please before I begin, tell me the date… is it still May?  Your nod, halleluiah! Your nod allows me the light, warmth and fragrance of freedom. I have no time, no spirit, no need to begrudge or say another word of the lost seasons I spent in the dark.

I was a soldier, in the siege of Orleans with our God given leader Jeanne d’Arc from Domremy. God bless her soul. You’ve heard tales of her? Yes? When she took up the sword of France, she took up the sword of our Lord, gave up the hair of a maiden and donned the armor of a nobleman’s son. Despite the despair in each man’s breath in that fight, only she breathed hope.  In victory, she mended our country torn by sixty years of war with English dogs. In that victory over them, she mended and strengthened France. She is our Maid of Orleans. May her soul rest in peace. Today she is dead, la morte. She is with God. Why you ask?

Celebration didn’t last. Weak old men, close to the French throne sold her to the English. They feared her army’s love for her. They feared a girl would overshadow the people’s loyalty to France. The English wanted to be rid of her more than the Crown wanted her gone. They saw that in only months she brought fractured France together after lifetimes of war. Now, no one, French or English wants her story told.

Putain de merde! In my heart she is a saint with miracles to prove it. I am her living miracle.

When she was seized, those near her were taken prisoner as well. For months I was condemned to a life spent as Sisyphus climbing not a mountain but steps made from ochre earth on the battered backs of previous prisoners in Philippe Auguste’s castle. I carried pots of water to the cooks with fingers burned and blistered. I hauled water in skins across my back like a mountain ass to the scrubbers whose own skin was obliterated from lye wash. I lugged water to quench the thirst of guards high in the rafters, though I must admit, I added a bit of my own piss to cleanse their souls, heh, heh.  And, as I could, I collected rags - pieces of shirts from bodies stacked for Saint-Ouen cemetery, and soaked them for my brothers long kenneled in their cells to suck dry.  I tossed them between the bars onto the withered shit-filled grasses so no guard would hear a splat on stone. I thank mon Dieu for my back breaking task. It gave me water to drink. It gave me life. It gave me strength for more drudgery.

My miracle comes from rising before the cock crows, before the cooks can make their gruel, before the matins bells call the monks of the monastery to prayer.  Being half blind, unable to smell and no longer able to stand straight from the months of hauling water, was not nearly enough to protect my senses from the task that bartered my freedom from the prison walls.  Such great joy, such hope I grasped as Rousset, the night guard who laughed at my funny faces and jokes took pity on me, or so I thought, for a task beyond the prison walls, and a promise of being set free. My elation was short lived as the chore became clear.

Gaillard and I, yoked together like oxen, pulled a wood cart creaking at the weight of four barrels of water, through crooked cobbled streets to Place du Vieux-Marché, the market square in the center of Rouen. It was slow going. Words of venom spat in our direction silenced as the throng around us recognized our petit battalion led by Rousset. He, dressed in war-tattered armor, waved a farmer’s-sword, a rake, dripping with fresh blood from the arms and calves of those who didn’t move in time. Gaillard and I followed, dressed in the rags you see, each wearing a scarf with the King’s colors draped on us before we left the castle by the gravedigger returning from burying soldiers. A tidy band were we, heh, heh.

The streets widened as we rounded the corner, screams of agony bounced from side to side off stonewalls surrounding the marché. A massive, smoky, smoldering pyre came into view and Rousset revealed in full our chore. Air escaped my lungs as I gasped the horror of the job that lay before us. Gaillard and I were to sift through the embers of the pyre to locate all remains of the Maid of Orleans, Jeanne d’Arc - the one to whom I pledged my allegiance, the one whom I followed and for whom I was incarcerated. The One, with whom I wished I could change places.

Weeks before, the Maid and our band were taken to the castle where she remained with us for a time. I happily took water to where I believe she was imprisoned, though I was only allowed in an outer chamber where brocade hung and guards in armor stood at doors. Early on in my imprisonment, I learned to embody a dog. Can you just see me? I hung my head and hugged the walls as I went throughout the castle. From that canine view, I saw priests and judicials in rich vetements and jewels watchfully waiting, wringing their hands and pacing. Then, just a few mornings ago, in my first climb of the day, I found the chamber closed off and the people gone. I heard gossip that our Maid was removed.

As our band of three approached the death circle we heard whispers from the crowd of the days since she was taken away.  A sentence of burning at the stake came after Jeane d’Arc was tricked by those who wanted her out of the way. Rousset, a soldier, from a country village was as much awed by the noise and crowds we encountered as Gaillard and me. Like a guide he pointed out the Cardinal of Winchester, the man who sentenced the Maid, sitting high on a dais across the square to observe the egregious deed.  

People wailing, praying, screaming infused the execution place. Those that designed this torture selected a piece of oak for the stake. The hard, dense wood burned slower and lasted longer than the tinder that was Jeanne d’Arc. They bound and chained her to allow no escape. The Maid’s brothers and father were held back by swords as they begged the guards for her life and then her remains. I looked directly at her face for the first time since we were taken into custody. I am grateful only one eye is etched with the sight of her flesh scorched and rolled like the skin of a bird. Not having eaten more than mouthfuls of gruel for months, my nose so long blocked by the stench from within the walls, forgive me Lord, for conjuring for one second the smell of succulent meat and in the next second for my shame at the thought. Voracious flames ate her clothing, a remnant of an alb glued by sweat or blood clung to her shoulders and saved under her arms where her limbs bound to the post.  A la merci de mon Dieu. Jeanne D’arc’s howling prayers subsided as she left consciousness to earth.  

Rousset drew us close to say that all traces of the Maid would be considered relics by her followers. They knew that death would keep her alive. This 19 year old girl-boy, saint-witch brought new life to France. Her voices, her graces make her more powerful than those she fought for – and so they turned on her, killed her yet failed miserably at destroying her. The authorities declared every morsel of her must be gathered and secured immediately at any cost. I realized, at any cost meant-our lives. 

Gaillard and I were instructed to collect every hair, every thread of clothing, every shard of bone or fabric of flesh. We were promised to be set free after we gathered all parts of her from the tops of the pyre. Piss dripped down my legs as I realized that Rousset spoke of being set free into the arms of mon Dieu.

Flesh gone, her bones crumpled. Soldiers stoked the fire to finish the deed. We waited. Once the flames ceased, soldiers prodded our task. The slightest raking brought the fire alive and screams from the crowd. Taking a step on the coals, my own feet stung, I bellowed for water. The crowd closed in and the guards pushed back. I knew right then, I would see mon Dieu too soon if I could not complete this task. I sought calm.

Worn thin from months on the battlefield and grinding on the prison stone floors my boots offered little to protect my feet. I took the scarf from my neck and wound it around the largest hole where my foot met earth.  I inhaled. I gritted my teeth and exhaled and stared at the living embers. The crowd took pity on me. Someone tossed an unburnt log for me to place my foot.  A kind soul placed a cool stone for me to climb closer. My weight on one step shifted, sparks flew, like sand the embers sunk rolled. The hair on my calves caught fire.

Rousset reached across the heat to hand me a sharp knife with a deer antler handle. With one swipe I set what was left of her free. I placed the knife into the shreds of my uniform britches. Still on the embers, I pulled on scraps of material near her neck. One arm flung around like milkweed torn from its root. Her fists gnarled and intertwined separated with a thump and clobbered me. I stood stunned. Only I could see that imprinted the image of Jesus on what was left of her hand. It was more perfect than any likeness I had seen in cathedrals. Jesus stood, as if walking away from the cross, harms raised but in his martyrdom. They were instead a welcome embrace. A sign from mon Dieu.  Hope refilled my heart as my legs burned.

With a poke from a soldier, Gaiillard tossed a log where he could step and removed his shirt to use it to proteck his and reached for the Maid’s on the Maid’s other side, Rousset reached up with the shroud to use like a cook’s rag to touch the still hot places on her torso.  I smelled new flesh burning and felt my heels seering. Raising what little that remained of her in my arms away from the stake, away from the heat, the crowd and guards became quiet. Dizziness overcame my body, I lost my balance and fell to one knee. The crowd screamed as I did, a soldier nearby jeered. Gaillard pulled the body to him and tossed the shroud for me to regain my footing.  

With the gruesome remains in our arms, Gaillard and I jumped from the pyre, placed the Maid’s body gently in the cart and wrapped her in the scorched shroud. The crowd swarmed the cart like vicious bees, Rousset swatting them away to little avail and separating Gaillard and me too. The mass pushed me back toward the embers. I crouched low like the dog form I took in the castle. A glint in the embers caught my eye. Risking the heat, I picked it up and without further thought, I ran into the crowd.  

Along the way, I draped a flag that a reveler dropped over my shoulders to cover the dregs of tattered uniform, soot and prison garb. I walked with crowds that diminished at each road we crossed and followed the first path into the forest that no one else claimed as their own, in order to stay off the road. With one step, I prayed for the soul of my Maid and with the next that my family remained safe.

It’s here, that you found me madame, resting on a fallen tree trunk too tired yet to take a drink from the river just beyond. Thank you for your care in listening to my tale. I’m still much aggrieved in and horrified at losing my little Maid of Orleans.  I’m eternally grateful to you for sharing a bite of cheese and a taste of bread. I feel like a new man. You have saved me, given me the sustenance to go on. Indeed, madame, a new man. Tears of joy let me now see clearly from both eyes, the pus is gone. Look, my feet have no signs of burned flesh, yet they sunk into the embers as we freed the Maid of Orleans. For the first time in months, the fragrance of the trees and the musty earth fill my nose and chest.  Only this searing pain in my palm is the slightest reminder of what she suffered as she was devoured by the embers. Oh, madame, please look at my hand. Here is the same opened arm Jesus, I saw on my Maid’s hand.  Here is the very cross she held to her death. It’s given me new life on my path home.

Webster - 400,000 Words that Frustrate My Word-Finding

I'm  unhinged by the magnitude and efficiency of the 1968 Unabridged, Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary. Did you know that there are twentysix columns of Un-words. One merely needs to look up what follows un and know that it's not that… Bam! Words that start with water fill more than two pages. Whoa. It's too bad the earth is running out of water when there are so many words associated with it. Will they be extinct?

I remember hearing on NPR that the word take has more meanings than any other. Unless I look at every page in Webster’s, I can’t say whether the comparison is true, so, I looked it up…online. Take indeed tops the list followed by break, turn and set. For take, the first entry in the ’68 dictionary is a verb that includes 55 meanings plus another column of terms used, such as, to take care or to take it lying down.  There’s a second take-verb relating to getting possession with 12 meanings, followed by a noun with six, relating to the process of taking. The 2015 online list indicates 127 meanings suggesting that in the ensuing years creativity in word making is down. By the way, only the game of Bridge used the term "take out" in '68. No chicken nor synonyms for murder, I guess. 

What a turn in vision Noah Webster took when he set the foundation for this book. It includes 157 pages of supplements including practical business mathematics and terms, air distances between cities, the history of the English language, forms of address, abbreviations, pages of signs and symbols and the history of Canada. It even spells out the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence.

In an attempt to speed the user's interface, (1968 interface, n, a surface that lies between two parts of matter or space and forms their common boundary); the book is constructed with black wells with letters along the edges. I learned from a brochure I found tucked between pages that these features are “stamped in gold” and called “thumb indexed.” They claim and I don’t disagree, that the book is “richly appointed throughout.” The paper is fine, thin and yellowed... both on purpose and now with its 47 years of age. The book is heavy with so many pages and so much information to offer. The description on the insert says its “Monumental- 2.304 pages”, and “Massive- weighs 11 pounds, 4 ounces, 11 inches high x 8 ½ inches wide”. It includes “400,000 word definitions, 2,132 illustrations, many in full color bound in handsome sturdy, buckram”. (I had to look it up. A coarse cotton, hemp, or linen cloth, stiffened with glue or a gluelike substance.)  

The insert includes, in the purchasers hand writing, a curly fine style that reminds me of my grandmother’s, that says, “ordered, 10/28/68 4.65/mo. 13.95 Total.  Seems a bargain now for this massive, monumental resource. That was fall of our senior year.  I remember chipping in coins from fifty or seventy-five cent an hour babysitting jobs to fill up our dad's cars to go to football games, Blazo’s or Big Boy. The gas at the Sunoco station cost around twenty-nine cents per gallon. I never would have purchased something so extravagant. It would take 28 hours of babysitting for me, and I had more critical purchases like 45s, Villager outfits, Sebago Mocs, Bonnie Bell and Monet earrings.

Watching TV one night, I sat Webster’s on my lap, leafed through and noticed an illustration of a zorapteran. Bored, I pulled out markers and colored it, then found other bugs in nearly every letter of the alphabet. I colored from back to front until an acarida. Since '68, publishers replaced engravings, the little pictures with photographic processes, (I learned from Wikipedia), but, it made me wonder how editors determined which words to represent. Pictures aid in understanding a concept. I could never conjure a halberd without the drawing. The little engravings aren't on every page making the information dense... intimidating… so much to know. The illustrations are a relief, a resting place for the eyes and the brain. I wonder whether the priority came from a layout decision or the information? By the way, the first illustration in the book is of an aardvark, already a cool word with its double-a beginning, the last a zoospore balancing out coolness with its double-o middle.

Though I access Thesaurus.com much more than the dictionary, I don’t learn nearly as much using it. I find my word, you know… the one… right… on the tip… of my tongue. I copy the word, X the webpage and edit my Word doc. Done. Each time, I am reminded that at this point in my life, words are precious. They don’t reliably show up for me. Use of Thesaurus.com is increasing. I get as frustrated with myself as I did with my mom when words don’t emerge when I need them. Word finding. It’s part of aging, I’m told. It must be a modern term, because it’s not in the ’68. It, however, doesn’t make me feel modern.

I so love this dictionary for helping me mind my Ps and Qs. 

Word. (as in, to flatter in 1968.)

em'-u-lous-ly, adv. with desire of equaling or excelling.

To remember it, use a word in three sentences. What would you say?

emulously, adv. with desire of equaling or excelling. 

1. At the top of page 596 of my 1968 Unabridged, Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary, Dictionary I found the word emulously, which I never knew before, but felt it's adverbialness to my bones.
2. Though dashboards are nouns and sit and look pretty, the metrics, also nouns, are set to emulously improve them.
3. Does opening a Word document or taping a blank piece of watercolor paper to a board imply emulously producing a masterpiece?

p.s., Why is there only one L in equaling and two in excelling? A one l lama is a priest, a two l llama is a beast, a three l llama does not exist. (Ogden Nash)

Missing a Paper Dictionary - Moslem, Mosque and Moses on the Same Page

In 2013, I purchased for $2 at a garage sale, a 2500 page Unabridged Webster's New 20th Century Dictionary with a 1968 copyright. Randomly exploring on this rainy day that interrupted my usual busy Saturday morning,  I learned that mosaic, Moslem and mosque are on the same page, as is, ironically, moses, though in this case, it's defined as a boat having a flat bottom, used for carrying sugar to vessels. So is mot, n. (Fr.) 1. Literally, a word;  hence a motto. [Obs] 2. a witticism; a pithy remark; a bon mot.

(Which, ironically, this is supposed to be.)

And moth ball, where, in the plural,  I have metaphorically stored my dictionary.

I discovered, I miss a paper dictionary a place where co existence of unlikely items is possible. 

Dabbling Is My Creative Process

Dabble. Onomatopoeia? I think so. I like that… a term that blends writing and the sound of painting. Not having thought about this for more than it takes to brew a Moka pot of espresso, I declare I am a serial dabbler. And, I am good with that.

To dabble for me follows in a vein like the stages of grief... only different. I try something like, non work-related writing at a class at Taos Summer Writers Conference.  I deny talent. I write more stuff, get workshopped and then get frustrated… I am not as good,

as creative, nor as grammatically correct. I take a class, try a different style, a different length, a different genre. I chafe (more onomatopoeia?). I cycle back to frustration and take another class, join another group. A couple people respond to an odd piece that resembles a poem but, in my mind needs an illustration. I try something – plein air watercolor painting at Madeline Island School of Art in Lake Superior. I deny talent. I paint more stuff, get workshopped and frustrated… I am not as good, as creative, nor realistically correct. I take a class at the Palette and Chisel and on line at Sketch Book Skool. I try a different style, a different medium, a different process and chafe some more. I stop and blog about my process. I put words to my painting. I paint scenes to my words.  I'm blogging... while the paint dries.

I declare acceptance of my process - Dabbling.