Recently I got notice that my workshops “cannot be accommodated” by a major venue next year. While I do understand the monumental choices the organizers have to make, I do not like being rejected, at all. I am holding my beautiful baby out for inspection and the viewer peeks at it and comments “Hmmm. Not so cute.”

There are times when it is easier to take than others of course. That said, this teaching art thing is not for the thin skinned, ever. The proposals take many hours, the genius wheels spinning, the creativity building steam like a locomotive, and then, smack, hit that old wall of “NO”. It does make room for new teachers. It does make me get back on that horse to ride, searching for the next thing I have to say or do. In other words, rejection is a good motivator, and the long line of rejectees is a pretty impressive crowd to hang with. If one has to look on the bright side, I guess that would be it. Meant to be?  I don’t believe in that line of thinking. I do not believe the Creator has the impetus or motivation to design my schedule, thank you.

How personally should we take it when our best efforts are rejected? This morning I found a really funny post about rejection. It reminded me that nearly everyone out there making an effort to be creative, with words or art, has gone through this. Check out what this post has to say. It is written by a writer, Jerusha Bosarge, who clearly knows how it feels. She rates the levels of rejection, and I like the last one best.

The Disgruntled Editor Rejection:
“You have got to be kidding me. This is so bad, that I wish I had the energy to rip off my own leg just to have a heavy object to throw immediately at your stupid, fat head. Luckily for you, after suffering the torturous review of your horrible manuscript, I feel completely raped of any motivation at all. Never, and I mean NEVER EVER, send me anything of yours again.”

The rejections I receive do not read like this, but they, depending on my mood, do feel like this.

It is all a mystery, that is what it comes down to. Why, oh why oh why. No one in this business seems to know, not even the organizers. What will the attendees flock to?  I had a dream that I came up with the worst class ever and it filled the first minute. Now that is a bit paranoid.

So in 2011 I will be staying home, for the most part, which will be easier, for certain. I may even have time to paint and create my own work. I love teaching, I truly do, and I will be going to Artfest and to Italy, so I do hope to see some of you all at those places. In the meantime I will be polishing up my book and hoping that particular “baby” doesn’t fail to impress.

©2010 Jill Berry Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Across the nightmare
You guided my boy and yours
Gently back to dreams

Last night my mom called, past midnight. That is never good. Sam is with her in California, he has been attending golf camp near her house, and has perfected the chip. He is treating everyone around him with gentile grace. Then last night, he woke up sobbing over a nightmare, and could not be settled. Mom called me, and between us, my voice, her hands, we got the little man back into dreamland.

I am tired this morning, and grateful for my mom. Grandma Jo. sweet Grandma, sweet Mom.

It is Haiku Friday, and Rebecca, I am thinking of you.

©2010 Jill Berry Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Yesterday I waded through old portfolios and found drawings I had done, and actually took the time to ponder and enjoy them. One of my new proposals is a class called “Face the Facts”, which is about the “math” of making portraits. The average face is five eyes wide, did you know that? If you know the rules, it is far easier to draw faces than without these basics in your arsenal. Here are some of my faces.

The two in oils, bottom right and top left, are one hour portraits I did for a year with my very talented friend, Linda Churchill. We had our friends come over for happy hour, then sit for one hour while we painted their mugs. I present to you here Jan and Betty. The sleeping woman’s name I don’t remember, and the little cutie is my girl Sydney, when she was 11 months old, wearing her yellow flowered bathing suit with a stick-out skirt and matching floppy hat. She was a ripe peach of a girl, round and pink. I love this picture of her chubby cheeks.

There are about 20 rules I have learned about faces, and will share if I get to do this class anywhere. Hope so.

Off to see hubby’s band tonight with a room full of friends, then dive into the book tomorrow. My kids are at camp, it is weirdly quiet here and I am not used to that at all. Tomorrow I will work on my book and preparing for my class in Canada, which is going to be an aesthetically wonderful week. Join me!

©2010 Jill Berry Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Today I am praying for my friend Deandra, who is at the end of her journey with ovarian cancer. I am praying for grace to bless her and hold her, and her husband Luke, and her large and loving family. She told me once that she felt like the luckiest of cancer patients because of her family: she told me she was never, ever alone during the three years of treatments she has endured. Deandra is 30 years old. Far too young to have suffered what she has, but she has done it with aplomb. Deandra is a “shero” of the battle against ovarian cancer. She has been a force to be reckoned with, and if I were God, I would expect to hear a few suggestions from her when she reaches the heavenly domain.

I also am thinking of Judy Wise, my friend and fellow teacher, who is on a very interesting and challenging journey, learning a new way with her physical self, and likely, spiritual self.  Judy has had a long and interesting life, and has a similar manner to Deandra. Both are positive, energetic and hopeful people.

This is a poem by Wendell Berry, that is new, and speaks to the issues that occupy my mind today. It reminds me of Judy, and I offer it to her today for healing.

I know I am getting old and I say so,
but I don’t think of myself as an old man.
I think of myself as a young man
with unforeseen debilities. Time is neither
young or old, but simply new, always
counting, the only apocalypse. And the clouds
—no mere measure or geometry, no cubism,
can account for clouds, or satisfactorily, for bodies.
There is no science for this, or art either.
Even the old body is new—who has known it
before?—and no sooner new than gone, to be
replaced by a body yet older and again new.
The clouds are rarely absent from our sky
in this humid valley, and there is a sycamore
that I watch as, growing on the riverbank,
It forecloses the horizon, like the years
of an old man. And you, who are as old
almost, as I am, I love as I loved you
young, except that, old, I am astonished
at such a possibility, and am duly grateful.

Wendell Berry

©2010 Jill Berry Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Last week I had a very last minute change of plans, which has historically been not a situation that brings out the best in me, control issues and all. This time I decided to take care of myself, lose the stress and turn the day into something even better than it would have been. And guess what? It worked.

That day I ended up at the beach with my new gal pal, Melanie Testa. You all probably know her, but if you don’t, head on over to her blog. She is a writer, a quilter, and a journaler, so we were a great combo on the beach, sitting in the bottom of a life guard stand drawing in our journals. We have a similar take on lots of things, and never ran out of things to chat about. After hanging out there in our play house, we took a long sunny walk along the James River pier, and talked to the folks that were fishing there. One kind crab guy gave us the entire run down on the life cycle of blue crabs, something I knew nothing about. I learned a lot, I laughed a lot and it was the perfect slow arty interesting day. It was like miso soup: will cure anything that ails you. So there it is. When plans blow up in your face, head to the beach with Melly and draw. I recommend it.

Any of you who have taken my journaling classes will see the techniques here: attending to the day, the surroundings, making it simple. I did all of the drawing at the beach, and penciled in the words. Later, out of the sun, I finished the text and added contour lines, and a the diagram of the pier. This is how I journal most of the time. The advantages are: no preparation of pages, super simple supply list (two pens and a pencil, plus my journal), finishing with three colors of Pitt markers. Voila! Can’t be much easier than that, and I needed easy.

It was a day of good medicine, and one of the very few days of no plans I have had in ages. Even took a nap. Made a friend too, which was the bonus round. Get to it!

©2010 Jill Berry Blog. All Rights Reserved.

My view at 40,000 feet.

Here is my day, yesterday.

Eastern Standard Time

6 am: Wake up, make coffee, prepare for class. Pack suitcases since I have to check out of the hotel before my class is over.

7:30 am: Breakfast in the lobby. Say goodbye to lots of friends who are leaving.

8:30: Go to assigned classroom, which is locked. Walk to other side of convention building to report this. Return to classroom, where students are now gathering around locked door. Wait.

8:45: Go back to report that no one has come to unlock room. Return to locked doorway, full of more students.

8:55: Door is unlocked. Rush in, unpack art supplies for class, hand out kit.

9:00: Start class, teach darling people until lunch.

12:00: Eat lunch and mentally review the rest of the day

1:30 pm:  Teach wonderful students my process, and hope they really like me, and my process.

4:30 pm: class ends. Pack up all supplies, which are now dispersed far and wide. Carla, dear friend, arrives to help. Thank you, Carla.

5:30 pm: call for taxi to go to Airport. Say goodbye to rest of friends in lobby.

5:45 pm: taxi arrives, takes me to airport. Arrive at airport and bags are too heavy. Rearrange contents on floor of airport until the weight is right. Hand over bags, head to gate.

7:00 pm: Head to city that is not in the direction of home state, but the only connection now available. Don’t sleep on plane.

9:05 pm: Arrive in Atlanta. Connecting flight is delayed, and gate changes three times. Wander the entire airport keeping up with this. Finally leave Atlanta at 11:05 EST.

Mountain Standard Time

12:15 am MST (2:15 am EST) Arrive in Denver, not having slept on entirely full plane. Take train to baggage claim. Drag 50lb bags to bus stop outside. Take bus to remote parking. Load up car.

12:30 am: Leave airport. Get on toll road to Boulder.

1:00 am: Get off toll road for gas. Wander around to find a gas station open at that hour.

1:15 am: Back on toll road. Finally arrive home.

1:30 am: The house is locked tight. Remember that my son has my key, inside the house, for reasons I cannot remember.  Try all windows and doors. Cannot find Hide-a-key. Ring doorbell. No one answers.

1:45 am: Out of ideas. Cell phone dead. Consider sleeping in the car. Start pounding on front door, which resonates quite loudly through entire neighborhood.

1:47 am: Entire family appears at door. Put them all back to bed.

2 am (4am EST): Get in bed.

Wide awake.

©2010 Jill Berry Blog. All Rights Reserved.

I am excited to be a part of their journey, and hope you can check out their site and take a listen here. This group has been convening here for years, every Thursday night for practice. They just scored their biggest deal gig ever at Nissi’s, a great bar and music hall in Boulder County, June 23. Be there! After all these years this bunch is still having fun, and it is fun to watch them and listen.

My kids take this for granted. They think it is perfectly normal to have a dad who plays and sings in a band. Sydney once performed with them on the Pearl Street Mall, a small six year old singing her heart out. You bet that stopped the crowds, it stopped them dead in their tracks: the protesters, the shoppers, the couples out for dinner, anyone with a heart.  She sang a heartbreaker too, a ballad of death and dying that she loved at the time. Currently she is on to spunkier tunes, thank goodness.

It is a good day, full of friends and sunshine, and one project complete! Now I have the hundreds left on the table.

©2010 Jill Berry Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Anne and Pete have been together since high school. They have a daughter they call “Littles”. They smile at each other and laugh a lot. We all want to be them. This is a song Anne wrote, inspired by the words of poet/farmer Wendell Berry, who I also appreciate (some of you have his work in the handouts that I share in my classes). It is my fond wish that Wendell is related to the branch of the Berry family that I married into. Is is not unlikely, since he comes from Kentucky like my father-in-law, Horace. Don’t they at least sound like cousins?

Here is a poem by Wendell Berry that I use to inspire students. Sometimes we abstract it, into a visual expression of written words.

What We Need is Here

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

by Wendell Berry, who is hopefully my distant cousin

©2010 Jill Berry Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Posies from my garden

This morning my girl and I went out to breakfast, as we often do on Wednesday, which is late start day at her school. I always enjoy this time with her, this girly time. We go to Panera and order the same exact thing every time. Then we settle in by the fire and chat. I almost want to take a recorder, because for some reason, this is when everything out of her mouth is profound.

For example, we are talking about Greek and Roman mythology, which we both love, and she likes me to quiz her. I ask her, who was the angriest goddess, and why?

Immediately she responds, “Hera, for sure. Because she was married to Zeus, and he was just like Tiger Woods, only worse.”

Today she forgot something at home that she needed at school. She said “Everyday I have to remember this, that and the other thing. I am pretty good at this and that, but not so good at the other thing.”

I just LOVE this girl. This amazing wild girl with the grin and the mind that I adore.

We are making a map of the lunchroom at her school. It has all the tables labeled with who sits there and why, and all the rules and regs that middle schoolers have in the lunchroom. Remember that? The cool kids sit here, the nerds sit there. There is one table where no one sits, and no one knows why. Ah, middle school. The raw pain and wonder of it is not forgotten. I wish I could spare my children from the brutal edge of adolescence, but then, they would not have the tools they need to go on to high school. But as a HSP (highly sensitive person) myself, my heart hurts with every snub, every party missed, every love interested that goes unrequited.

Speaking of love, my boy is learning about sex education in his class. They use the actual words for body parts. In my day, we were shown pictures of cows mating, which my kids think is hilarious. Sam totally cracked up, and said “they showed you BEEF?” This is the funny part, the fresh and wonderful innocence of this time that we are moving through.

The art I hardly have time for is secret, since the publisher does not want me to show it here. The balance is way on the mother side of the scale, and the art side is dangling up in the air. I feel it, and I need it to even out a bit. In the meantime, I will try to remember the “other thing”.

©2010 Jill Berry Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Beautiful is the word on this pendant, that arrived in the mail to me on Friday, along with a beautiful card.

Beautiful is when this kind of thing happens at just the right, and unexpected time.

Beautiful is the heart of someone who would do this for someone they hardly know, because their heart moves them to do so.

Beautiful is the community of people who believe that kindness makes a difference, and practice that belief.

Beautiful is that this pendant has a “k” on it, which is my middle initial, and one of my favorite letters.

Beautiful is the grace, style, and translucent magic of this piece.

Beautiful is that I get to keep this necklace, and this experience, forever.

©2010 Jill Berry Blog. All Rights Reserved.