Picking a book because of its cover

Artist Paintbox
from a visit to an open studio

There's a reason for cover art and that's to entice us to pick the book up and give it a closer look. How did they do it in the old days when all the books were bound in leather with gold tooling on the spine one looking pretty much like every other one? I imagine the quintessential Englishmen's library as featured in movies and design magazines.  I love strolling among the shelves looking for something that peaks my interest.

There are other methods to searching cover art for inspiration like flipping through BookPage: America's Book Review so thoughtfully left in the teacher's workspace by our wonderful school librarian. Her ploy is to get teachers to help with providing suggestions for the school catalogue, but I use it for my personal reading gain. There it was on the page, a cover featuring an open watercolor palette and brush, Julia Glass's A House Among the Trees.

Mort Lear, famous illustrator and children's book author, has foolishly, especially at his advancing age, climbed up onto the roof to clean away some debris left by a storm, only to fall to his death. His long time, live-in personal assistant Tomasina (Tommy) Daulair has inherited the house along with the responsibility of managing his literary/artistic estate. Enter a small cast of characters whose lives have been touch some way or another by Mort and his artwork. There is Meredith a museum curator to whom Mort as promised to donate a large portion of his work upon his death; Franklin his lawyer; Nick the actor who is to play Mort in a biopic movie; and Dani, Tommy's younger brother, who unwittingly served as the model for Mort's breakout work. It is through these people that we learn about Mort's character and his past. He presented a different face to each of them as he worked hard to hide his real self.

Mort, like many, suffered a trauma in his childhood which he never spoke about and kept hidden. The keeping of secrets leads one to develop mechanisms to protect the self, and prevent the rest of the world from knowing the truth. We are afraid that the world will not understand. They will judge us harshly regardless of the fact that we are a victim and not the perpetrator. As a result we become stunted. It is only by Mort's death and the coming together of this small group of characters that we can come to know the real Mort, and the truth is the real Mort lost out on a lot of life by holding onto his secrets. Finding the courage to voice our secrets allows us to be freed of them thereby giving us the opportunity to use all the energy that was dissipated in keeping those secrets and channel it into living more fully.

LFL Find - how i became stupid

Be Yourself - collage of magazine
and decorative paper scraps

As promised from my earlier post regarding Little Free Libraries,  here is a quick review of the book I chose - Martin Page's how i became stupid.

Twenty-five year old Antoine thinks to much. He goes through life examining each choice he makes. In fact he couldn't decide what to study in college so he has an eclectic assortment of skills by which he ekes out a meager living. Luckily, he has a posse of equally unique friends, all trying to make their way through life living in Paris.

Problem is Antoine thinks he's pretty unhappy with the way his life is going so he writes a manifesto regarding his issue - "The process of thought is not a natural one, it hurts; it's as if I were uncovering pieces of broken glass and lengths of barbed wire in the air. I can't seem to stop my brain or to slow it down.... Everything I see, feel, and hear throws itself into the furnace of my mind, fires it up and makes it charge on full steam ahead" (p. 56).  Over-thinker that he is he sets out to become more happy and his first attempt is to become an alcoholic. Never in my life, or that of the drunk in the bar that Antoine encounters, have I read of someone who diligently studies up on the subject before setting out to become an alcoholic. Turns out even with all his researching, that Antoine is super sensitive to alcohol and a mere half a glass of beer puts him into a coma.

Antoine, if anything, is persistent in trying to become happy. He finally resorts to prescription antidepressants and ringing up an old classmate who has become a wildly successful stockbroker. Like everything else Antoine throws himself into learning about the buying and selling of shares and with the help of decaffeinated coffee (I'll let you read to find out how this was done) becomes a millionaire. Of course now Antoine must pursue the life of a millionaire, and like many a millionaire he is doomed to lose it all.

At twice Antoine's age I have to laugh at his antics. Antoine thinks he's unhappy because he isn't like everyone else - he's unique. What he doesn't realize at the beginning of the book is that being unique may be hard in our world, but it makes us truly happy people. For most people they strive all their lives to be like everyone else. No where is it more apparent than in the halls of the high school I teach in. Girls who all have the same color hair (whether it is natural or not) cut in the same style, wearing the same black yoga pants and Ugg boots. Or boys with their basketball shorts and neon colored sneakers. It's the kids on the fringe who don't fit in you sometimes worry about, but they may actually have achieved what the others have not - self awareness. They already may know that following the pack is not going to make them happy. For other people it takes years, or they may never discover, that trying to keep up with the Joneses will never make them happy.

A trip to the far East - Murder at the House of Rooster Happiness

Gardening Happiness - art journal page
acrylic and magazine scraps 

Once again, a shout out to my public library for the many wonderful services they provide. This time it's the downloadable audiobooks, which I can access through the Overdrive App. Looking through the new additions list, filtered for mysteries, I discovered David Casarett's Murder at the House of Rooster Happiness set in Thailand. At the center of this story is Ladarat Patalang, a nurse who has traveled to the US to study at the University of Chicago in order to serve back in her native country as a nurse ethicist for the Sriphat Hospital. It is because of her training that a police detective comes to her with an issue regarding a man who had been brought to the hospital's ER by his wife - the man was dead, but an observant police officer on duty at the hospital recognized the wife except he recalled seeing her in another hospital with a dead husband in tow. Ladarat will be torn between her new found interest in being a detective on the trail of this woman, and her duties to the hospital which includes dealing with the family of an injured American man.

Casarett has peppered the book with loads of Thai language (little did I know how many different smiles we humans have), delicious sounding foods, description of the countryside, Eastern philosophy, and view points on ethics. As I listened I was reminded of another female character who became a detective - Precious Ramotswe of Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies Detective series, set in the African nation of Botswana. Like Precious who refers to her detective's bible, The Principles of Private Detection by Clovis Andersen, Ladarat has her textbook by Professor Dalrymple, of Yale University who has written The Fundamentals of Ethics. Ladarat often refers to the wise words of Professor Dalrymple as she makes her way through the quagmire of actions, emotions and beliefs held by people in order to make ethical decisions to solve the problems set before her.

The story does present us with a medical ethical question regarding a gravely injured man who appears to be brain dead. What should the family and medical staff do to care for this man? The issue is exacerbated by the fact that this man is American and the Thais are well aware of how the family may perceive the medical care that can be received in a country not as developed as the US. As the reader, it was refreshing to see that issue handled and how another culture perceives us Americans. Once again we are reminded that we don't all see the world through the same lens.

The other major issue centers around prostitution. The sex trade is big business in Thailand as it is here in the U.S. Casarett presents two very different brothel owners and how they handle their business and treat their employees. We are challenged to see that in a culture different than ours that sending a daughter to work in the sex trade can be a way to support a family living in poverty. Does it make it right? As with many ethical questions there may be no right answer, but we must struggle to find the best answer for ourselves in a given situation.

Other's opinions about why reading is so good for you!

Art Journal - collage with buttons

My dear librarian friend is always looking for ways to get people reading; she has installed a Little Free Library (LFL) in her front yard. I stopped by this morning for my first visit. If you are not familiar with this idea, it is an opportunity for people to create a free book exchange program - take one, leave one - so I grabbed a title and will bring one the next time I drive by. What a wonderful way to discover a new author - Martin Page and his first novel how i became stupid. I will report back to you about this work after I've had a chance to read it, but be honest how could I resist such a title?

The other goodie in the LFL, was a url to a thoughtful TedTalk video by Lisa Bu, "How books can open your mind." I particularly liked her thoughts on how books can be a "magic portal" to connect us with people, the past, the present, and the future. They are also conduits for helping us to discover our passions. She presents the concept of comparative reading and several ways in which to choose companion pieces to do so. Lisa challenge accepted.

A word about today's art journal piece. When I was a kid I had a lovely yellow bike with a wire basket on the front, which I would ride to the library when the weather was good. It was a wonderful freedom and empowering to be able to head off and supply myself with reading material whenever I wanted. I didn't have to wait for an adult to take me to the library. How awesome was that. I hope you too have wonderful memories of childhood reading adventures, which live on into your present life.

A way of looking at obituaries - The Good Byline

Art Journal Pages - magazine scraps and
sympathy card pieces (from my grandfather's passing)

Sooner or later we all find ourselves in the position to clean out our loved ones homes and we need to decide on what to keep and what to get rid of. Some of the material we take home with us to sort through at a later date because often it's to difficult to do at the time. Recently, while visiting with my mom she was going through one such box filled with the sympathy cards from her father's passing. Knowing that I was collecting scraps for my art journaling projects she offered to let me take what I wanted. That's how this piece started - with the irises from one of those cards.

The Good Byline, by Jill Orr, features Riley Ellison a young twenty something whose life is on hold after her long-time boyfriend has dumped her and left town. She's under-employed at a job that doesn't fully use her skills or talents, lives in a house inherited from her grandfather, and hasn't moved on from the break-up. "I was living a life I'd lost control over somehow, treading water in a self-designed purgatory." (p.95) She is rocked by the news that a childhood friend has committed suicide, and this girl's parents want her to write their daughter's obituary. Riley has experience with writing obituaries as her grandfather was a well known writer of them. The difficulty for Riley is that the police ruled her grandfather's death a suicide and she has always struggled to believe he was capable of taking his own life. She can't come to grips that her friend has done the same, and she would be right - she didn't. I'll let you read about how Riley manages to unravel the mystery.

The point is about the obituary. If you've read some of the more popular self-help books, they advise writing your own obituary as a way to set goals for your life. Riley's grandfather often told her that obituaries were about life and not death. Sprinkled throughout the book are quotes from obituary writers such as this one from Jim Sheeler, "What can I learn from this life that will impact my own life?" (p.111) I thought that was a powerful question. In our grief we are often blinded by the loss of life and forget to remember the joy of the life lived. That consolation comes with time. When I work on an art journaling piece, I pour through the clips of words and phrases that appeal to me and begin to put them together with images. Little did I know that I would take pieces of a sympathy card and weave them into a piece that encourages the choice of living life to the fullest when you find yourself in a dark place (just when all hope seems lost). As Riley and I both learned, you have to live life to the fullest in order to provide lots of great material for your obituary.

This summer's trip to France - The Templar's Last Secret

Bruno's St. Denis - art journal collage
Magazine and Vintage book scraps 

If you have been following my blog for a while you may have notice the shift from using photos of the books I've read to photos of my art journaling. Often I find pieces which represent the theme of the book I was blogging about. Perhaps that is because my artwork is influence by my choice of reading or vice versa. Today I needed to create a piece specifically for this blog's book title - Martin Walker's newest, Bruno Chief of Police novel, The Templar's Last Secret. 

I began by imagine what Bruno's village of St. Denis and it surrounds would look like. One of the home decorating magazines I recently purchased featured French cottages. Prefect! Add to that a vintage book of French stories and another about the Impressionists and I was ready to get to work with my scissors and glue stick.

This novel centers around an ancient castle believed to have once been a Templar strong hold. A woman has fallen to her death following an attempt to deface the property with spray paint, but where is her climbing equipment and the can of paint? This isn't an accident and Bruno is now on the hunt. Before the reader knows it Bruno and his colleagues are tracking a small band of terrorists and trying to determine their target. One possible target is the treasured Lascaux caves in the region. Found by four boys in 1940, the caves are filled with paintings created over 20,000 years ago by the inhabitants of the region. The caves were closed eventually to the public to prevent their destruction due to the humidity created by visitors' respiration. A replica has since been created on the site of the original caves.

To the inhabitants of St. Denis the idea that their sleepy village is threatened by terrorists seems absurd. Doesn't that only happen in the big city? As one character states, there is no where we can be safe now. That was a chilly reminder for me. Here in the United States the increasing gun violence is an issue that we have all come to face. This new reality was never more apparent to me as when I sat in an auditorium with my colleagues - all of us school teachers - learning from our local law enforcement how to deal with an active shooting situation. Frightening though it may be, I will not allow this to paralyze me and prevent me from going about my business. I'm saddened that this is the new world we live in, but I know that I can work to be a source of peace.

Reading to see the other side of life - Domestic Violets

Flower Family - acrylic paint, magazine
scraps, vintage card and children's book
scraps, and a piece of Wordsworth. 

Reading is one of those ways that we escape from our lives and look to learn about how the other half lives. If we are poor we dream of being rich; live in a city read about village life; and if we are female to understand how men think. We humans use language to convey our thoughts, but does what I see on the page and comprehend the same as what you see? For an excellent explanation about vision and the concept of qualia, watch this Vsauce Video.

I had been in a bit of a rut reading books about women who woke up one day and found that they were pursuing the wrong career, in the wrong relationship, or challenged by some major loss - loved one's death, job termination, etc. I was most likely drawn to those books because I was wondering about my own life and the path that I was on. Lo and behold I found Matthew Norman's Domestic Violets, the story of thirty-five year old Tom Violet - corporate flunky, husband, father, and son.  He and his wife have hit a rough patch in their marriage and both of them end up being attracted to other people. He works for one of the nebulous corporations that don't seem to do anything important but must keep the profits rolling in, he's attracted to his younger co-worker and in combat with a rule following competitor for the next big promotion. Tom dreams of becoming a major author, but he has one major stumbling block - his father - famed author Curtis Violet who has just won the Pulitzer.

Tom has written a novel, but he submits it to his friend a literary agent under a nom de plume, "A family can only support one writer, right?" (p. 157) Tom's belief in this statement prevents him from finding his own voice (my reoccurring theme this summer), from separating himself from who his father is. Turns out Tom discovers that he is more like his father than he would like to be, and finds out that his father isn't so bad after all, "Being your father has always been one of his favorite things to be. He was afraid to admit that when he was younger." (p. 259) Of course isn't that one of our biggest challenges in life - finding our own voice, but learning that it has been shaped by who our parents are. Nature and nurture play a key role in who we become and no matter how much we want to deny it in the end it is always there.

I never thought I would be an artist. In fact, I resist calling myself that mostly because don't you have to sell your work or be recognized by the establishment to use that title? No, you don't. I've come to realize, that if I make art, I must be an artist. My mother is an accomplished artist, and growing up I too had the strange notion that there could only be one artist in the family. Now I know that belief is just not true.