Indian Summer Again

 

        Indian Summer Again
                  I
My favorite month of jeweled hue
Crept unnoticed in solemn debut
But homesick summer  meandered by
Visiting long after we said goodbye
Flirting with a show of lush memories
Teasing and soothing with caressing breeze
I couldn't explain the lump in my throat
Resisting some tears as I rigged my boat
The blue and white sail blended with sky
I studied the clouds and let out a sigh
Carillon bells sang a vespers prayer
Notes like golden leaves danced through the air
Sun set too soon past equinox's theft
Trickles of purple faded, then left
Squinting in twilight, approaching land
The vessel now quietly resting in sand
Headed home grateful for time on the lake
Celebrating the last trip this season I'd make
Trying to savor this most splendid day
Wishing October would not fade to grey

           II
Ignoring remaining chores on my list
I dashed out the door; I couldn't resist
The Indian Summer, so tempting and sweet
Invited me to an exclusive retreat
Of sailing at Gifford Pinchot State Park
With just a few hours until it got dark
The surface of lake near-perfectly still
Save for the leaping of bass; yet the thrill
Of setting my sail and tacking away
Knowing how much I needed to play
Glad for the solitude but wishing as well
For someone to share this passionate spell.

Mermaid & Bluebird

Spending a weekend in Newburyport, MA always stirs my love of all things nautical. My college roommates & I toured the Lowell Boat Shop in Amesbury and took a boat ride along the Merrimac River. That was all I needed.
Trips to the many shops in town also sparked my creativity, and since I had my usual art gear with me (as always), a project had to happen.
The local Starbucks there had an art wall with a mermaid theme, thus my inspiration.
Maybe I'll share more pictures and story of her creation later, but it's a gorgeous October day, and I have yard work awaiting.      
She's a work in progress, and the mixed media is on a roughly constructed substrate of ticking fabric- covered cardboard. The background colors were dyed paper towels I had in my emergency art first aid kit. The netting used for her body and the sea were colored burlap-type ribbon I bought in a thrift store. The sequins came from my home stash and had been used to make a dance costume shirt.
Here she is:

1st draft

  I added a pencil drawing of a bluebird made before the mermaid .

with added bling

Bluebird--Prismacolor pencils

Mural Update

   We are making progress...a few more artists have joined the fun, and I'm about ready to step away from the ever-changing landscape. Sorry, but there will be no metaphorical tangents at this point about the ever-changing landscape of my life. Maybe in another blog; later. John Paul & Maria joined Teresa and me to see how they could contribute to the project, and in the hours we worked yesterday, the difference was obvious on the canvas:

   In spite of the challenges of artistic collaboration, the trio worked well, respecting the opinions and suggestions of Teresa who had already spent much time laboring on making the stones three-dimensional.

   At the conclusion of the session, the artists were pleased with the results.

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   A major flaw in the canvas has driven me to distraction. The three flats are joined after they were connected/secured to the viewing area. A fabric tape of some sort joins the pieces in the front while the framing pieces are linked with screwed-in blocks of wood or metal strips. One of these--after years of use and abuse--is warped, so a large gap had created a vertical strip which cannot be obscured. Whatever we try to paint on it still betrays the imperfect substrate. From a distance, the view is painful for those of us who obsess about such things.
  
   My remedy for this took at least an hour of my time when I returned today alone. First, I drilled holes into more metal connectors and scrap wood to pull the warped board in line with its neighbor. Then, I experimented with Plaster of Paris to fill in the gap on the front surface--over the area already painted. I covered about 80% of the offending opening, creating a stark white strip over the masterpiece.  In my experiment, I learned how quickly the powdered plaster sets when added to water and stirred. It took about three minutes before the mixture hardened to stone, requiring I make many small batches until I finished.

   Ouch! The worse part was that the strip ran right through the beautiful masonry the kids had labored to create. Guilt swamped my being. I attempted to paint over the drying plaster, but the instructions said to wait 24 hours before painting, and I didn't want it to be seen by anyone who happened to walk in on it. An hour later, I stripped it bare, and swept the white mess from the floor. I went behind the canvas and filled in the gap between the wooden vertical braces, stuffing it with a strip of black foam insulation with adhesive backing. The re-paint afterwards hid more of the seam as I blended it into the scenery.

    The trunk of the tree to the right of center follows the track of the former gully. The image is blurry, but it's difficult to detect the flaw in the backdrop.

   



When viewed through French doors leading out the the balcony, the landscape is not overpowering, but lends itself to the air of elegance I was attempting to re-create.

       
   A small stream has been added to the left side of the scene, and a barely noticeable line of trees on the horizon line.



   I may put in a few more highlights tomorrow (and take a better camera)--then I will walk away and declare it finished. I am quite confident I would make changes to it on a daily basis if it were here in my home studio, but since it is not, and because it was commissioned---so technically I cannot claim ownership, I will abandon it to its new home, allowing the imperfections to remain. The artistic process matters more than the (un)finished product, and I feel so fortunate to have been able to create a landscape that I'd surely enjoy if it was outside of my veranda.  

Ozone Studio on the Road

   Sometimes it's more fun to play at a friend's house than make a mess in my own studio. I can't say yet where the "friend" is to be found, as I think the artwork is supposed to be held in secret until a later date. I can only give a hint: the name Agatha....

   Teresa, my youngest child, has taken a brief break from her passion for American Girl dolls: sewing their clothing, and crafting every possible accessory for them. She does her research online at a favorite crafting site.  A few days ago, she accompanied me on a journey to create a large piece of creative expression. Some of our collaborations in the past have ended badly...sad to say, she's not always comfortable sharing adjoining pages in one of my art journals side by side on my bed. It leads to comparison, and all my attempts to remind her that art is for fun, that I've had four decades more to experiment with it, and whatever other psychology I can pull from remnants of my college days---falls short. She's left those sessions in tears, leaving me to wallow in needless guilt. Perhaps I should avoid doing art with her when it's past both our bedtimes.

   In spite of my concerns, she's coming along for the ride on this one. The subject in question is a rather large mural with a stone wall, meadow, woods, and sky in the background. The medium is acrylic paint. The location is a secret. For a few weeks. I am hoping I can give a peek without ruining the fun for others who will get to see the results. It is possible the finished result will be viewed by 1,000 people. (That's more than a little scary!)

   For research, I drove around, looking for old stone walls. Teresa actually pointed this one out to me, and it's one I've passed several times a week for years, but hardly noticed. I used it as my model to practice drawing the subject. It's on Market Street in Camp Hill, PA:

    I suspect it has been painted often by plein air enthusiasts, as we have some talented artists sketch during festivals in the area.

   Before finding the wall, I sketched out a rough idea of what the whole picture might look like. I tried one in  pastels and another in oils. The second one was an evening view, but too dark and in the wrong orientation for the person who commissioned the work. I'm still using my cellphone camera, so the colors don't translate very well, but it's the idea of the process I'm trying to convey here:

   When we started on the large canvas, I suggested how we might try to make the stones look realistic--but let Teresa discover how that would work. She quickly got a handle on it.

   The three stones to the left of her hand were her first attempts at creating a 3-dimensional view.  From a distance, they really popped!  Maria came today and added some green tints to the grout--which may have aged with the help of moss and other organic agents. She spent an hour working before she headed off to another activity. Over two days (not counting many hours of research and preliminary sketching) and more than 10 hours with Teresa, the picture is emerging:

   The grout appears yellow--but that's my camera's exaggeration. It's more of a baby-poop green. I added the upright stones to the ledge, trying to incorporate shadow and depth, ignoring the fact that I never paid attention when studying perspective in the classes I took and the myriad of drawing books I've used in self-study for more than three decades of art exploration. I wasn't able to get a good photo of the meadows and trees because we had to leave before others invaded our space. I'll do that the next time we get in.

   So far, Teresa is doing marvelous work! I keep standing back to admire it, and taking photos as the magic unfolds. She, in turn, scolds me to to stop playing and get back to painting. She suggests which areas I should be focusing on. The best part is watching her lose herself in the effort, and chip away at the self-conscious worries about the imperfections. Several people have been around while we're at the project, and all have commented on her part. It couldn't make me happier.

   We have to keep bopping our own little critics like Whack-a-Mole critters at an arcade as they surface from their burrows, but so far, we're winning.

Studio Progress

I am happy to report that the studio is evolving and will one day be open to visitors. I spend more time there than I should--including wee hours when insomnia robs me of pillow slumber.  As I am trying to organize, new projects sneak into view and cannot be ignored.

Neglecting studio play-time often means supplies retire before they get put into use. Tubes of watercolor paints, destined to capture my vision of the ocean on a recent beach day--were dry beyond use, thwarting my attempt at a lovely Atlantic seascape.  A collection of porcelain and glass paints were headed for the same fate after living in a small cedar chest for more than 8 years. They were dragged out of hiding, and sacrificed to any surfaces they might adhere to. This included plastic photo frames, freezer paper, and a trio of vintage wine bottles rescued from a neighbor's recycling bin. The paint is goopy, and the drier it gets, the harder it is to manipulate. I poured it into the bottles, slowly turning and creating interesting visual patterns.

The bottles have found a new home in the foyer on a beverage cart I found at a thrift shop when hunting for props for Oyster Mill Playhouse. After the play ended, the cart followed me home, but suffered the loss of the lower glass shelf in a moving mishap. I love the person who was involved in this accident, and will not name her, but I am hoping when she sees this, she will be happy that the cart has been salvaged.

A piece of plywood--also abandoned by its owner--was easily cut with my jigsaw, and sanded to replace the missing glass. It will need to remain unfinished until the muse moves me to enhance its beauty.

The remainder of the poured-out glass paints are drying in small circular compartments in a salvaged plastic container that lived its previous life as a holder of medical specimen jars. I can attest to the fact that no biological specimens of human or animal origin ever came in contact with the plastic now in my studio.  The disks created by the paints will become elements in future projects.

Perhaps a prohibition on creating art should be imposed in the studio space until it is cleaned and de-junked...but then again, if I'm in charge, that's not likely to happen. 

A Job to be Envied

           Although I am not "gainfully employed" at the present moment, I do have a job. Well, actually, I have several: I am a full-time wife, mom/Grandmum, home maker, business mentor, driving instructor, unlicensed plumber (with 4 fixed toilets & a sink faucet replacement to my credit), rookie sailor, autism expert, public speaker, lifelong learner, scanner, home-school supervisor on break,  mediocre cook (but decent yogurt-maker), writer, mixed media/ upcycling artist, kayak queen, sporadic runner, cyclist, Irish dancer, athlete, standardized patient & clinical skills instructor, actress, props mistress, chauffeur, bicycle repairman, photographer, carpenter, and poet; the list implies I don't do any of the above well.  This is not intended to be an apology.

          I don't do a good job keeping the house neat or clean.  I try. Really. But I live with seven people, and an eighth who spends a great deal of time here--except for sleeping. And I've never been neat. Ask any of my siblings or former roommates. I am organizationally challenged. But that's not the topic of this entry.

          My employment status is rather uncategorizable. (Sorry, Spellcheck.)  I recognize this period of my life as valuable, although the IRS may rank 2013 as one of my lowest income years. I have survived 19 years of diapering babies and toddlers, and 7 years as caregiver to an elderly parent. Perhaps this is my only chance to catch my breath and take stock of where I've been and where I am meant to be.
      
       The following poem describes my kayak trip this week--when I finally got to see a bald eagle while on the water after years of searching them out. It is justification for my role as unpaid poet & lover of nature.
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Cicadas roar
Drowning out the din
Of vehicles rushing
Over the highway bridges
Mourning the demise 
Of the weekend gone by.

Birds on tiny islands chant
Prayers to dawn they've yet to see
From their western vantage point
Where shadows of night linger
Oblivious to the fact
That Monday is here.

Egrets, white as the sparse clouds
Swallow sunlight and emit it 
From their pure feathers
Their graceful movement celebrates
The epitome of their beauty.

Slow river carries us
Above its shallow basin
Green weeds dance like hula dancer skirts
Tickling our boats as we glide over them
Warm water drips off our paddles
Onto our arms
Splashing its way back in.

Our trio of paddlers
Immensely grateful
That we travel here beneath the Rat Race
Appearing subdued and serene
Masking our exuberance
For our meanderings
On this utterly perfect summer day.

We feel in our bones
How vital it is
For us to connect to nature's beauty
Instead of losing our souls
In pursuit of passing material gain
In some God-forsaken cubicle.

We take our coffee break
Drinking from a steaming thermos
Blue kayaks nestled in a muddy bank
Of an island rookery
We savor the sweetness of blueberry scones
Watching the everyday lives
Of egrets, herons, and cormorants
And discussing politics
Out of earshot of supervisors
Not envying those of our species
Showering for work at home.

 As we paddle along 
The shady groves between the islands
Soothed by the breeze 
On our suntanned skin
We caught sight
Of a lone bald eagle
Wingspan as wide as our boats
Soaring to a perch above us
Studying our fleet from his vantage point.

We paused in awe to admire him
In his regal majesty 
Marveling at our fortune
For finally finding him
The illusive symbol
Of our nation
After years of hoping
To catch just a glimpse of one of his breed
On our river sojourns.

I brush aside my twinge of guilt
For indulging in
What some might regard
As truancy from my domestic duties
And thank God for my youthful sense of adventure
And my current state of mid-life physical fitness
While many of my age-peers
Show signs of decline
Trapped inside their vehicles
 On their way to Friday's paycheck.

Art Ventures

       SuzyOzone Art Studio is not open for guests...not yet, at least.  But for the curious among my friends, I'm willing to give a peek. As a mixed-media/up-cycle artist, my collection of supplies takes up more space than it merits.  Last week, I took a trip to the Habitat Re-Store & Creative Re-Use shops in Lancaster and came home with an abundance of treasures. I should put it in my will that if I pass away before using up all my creative resources, I bequeath the remainder back to those two wonderful businesses. I'm hoping my family won't turn me over the the reality TV show about hoarders in the meantime.

    Some of my more organized friends who have succeeded at de-junking, Feng shui, and removing all clutter a la St. Francis of Assisi, would have to sit me down to a serious lecture. That's why I keep earplugs on hand. Of course, they are right, and change is necessary--but the one principle they suggest is not bringing anything into the house without an immediate use or a place to live. And put your toys away when you are done playing...don't they know I'm NEVER done??!!

    Anyway, I feel I must give evidence that I am trying. I re-purposed an old box spring into an upright wall storage unit for some of my art supplies. I stripped it down to the wooden frame, stapled in 18 cardboard envelope boxes (salvaged from my brief stint working at an insurance agency), and decorated it. I do more art if I can see where I put my things.  Using hot glue, I connected wood chess pieces up and down the front sides of the frame--you can see my assortment of scissors displayed on them:

It may be hard to see in the photo, but a set of vintage building blocks spells out the name of the studio down the center post. The two middle-left shelves have white popsicle molds holding paint markers.
 
In order to prove there was a good reason to save empty prescription bottles--I connected a bunch of them onto a backboard, covered them with red satin ribbon and fabric trim, and sorted out my collection of Sharpie markers.

There are always multiple projects in process simultaneously. I steal a few minutes here and there to work on them. Several have been completed recently: a miniature blanket box and a sculpture of  house cleaning fairies..

                    This is on the back of the fairies sculpture: "I wish the cleaning fairies believed in us like we believe in them."

    Oil on canvas (yes, I occasionally work in traditional media) of a seascape. You have to squint really hard to see me in my sailboat near the horizon.

 I didn't do the drawing: it's from a gift bag used for European postcards (I think). Looks like Old Amsterdam, and it may have come from the gift shop of the Van Gogh Museum. It is colored with brush markers and some color has bled through from a food-dye stained paper towel decoupaged underneath it.

   Mixed media from an altered book titled: My Life as a Trapeze Artist. I started many years ago. The photo of the wooden puppets was taken in Austria in a toyshop window.

 

  More mixed media from the same book; the images are of Kabuki dancers from an old book about Japan.  

 Acrylic paint and iridescent medium on leather.  This is a work in progress. Waiting for ideas to strike.
That's all for now. Bug me and I'll post more.

"iPod is disabled. Try again in 22,718,572 minutes."

"iPod is disabled. Try again in 22,718,572 minutes."

 by Susan Oscilowski

published in Youth Advocate Program  Autism Spectrum Disorders Newsletter May/June 2013 

copyright 2013

Color me clueless when it comes to technology, so if this message appeared on my device, I'd shriek and then calmly hand it over to one of my sons.  As my personal tech-support team, Robert and John Paul know what to do, just as I know which articles of clothing should never go in a washer or dryer.  I have learned to delegate any task involving gadgets, knowing that I'd sooner put defective items into electronic recycling than even consider repairing them.

But the ominous-sounding warning struck my friend Anne's device, and we laughed about the message as we both took a rare afternoon together for coffee.  When I mentioned it to Robert, he explained something I couldn't repeat here if I tried-and John Paul chimed in, attempting to translate the solution into a language he thought I might understand...at 15, he's still too naïve to know it's hopeless to expect I'll ever get it. But I think they were confident the iPod could be reset electronically-I was able to comprehend at least that much.

Anne's teen son Billy, wanting to use his younger brother's iPod, apparently entered every mathematical algorithm he knows to find the password to allow him access. It's in their genes to unlock hidden code, and our sons share a similar knack for knowing how to operate machinery equipped with a motherboard, chip, or other magical widget. Tommy thought his cleverness would prevent Billy from using his iPod, but although Billy didn't get in, he made it nearly impossible for either of them to be able to use it.

Just how long will it take before Anne's boys will be able to try to get back in? Using an app that converts minutes to years, she discovered that 22.7 million minutes is about 43 years. The brothers will be in their 50's, and the device would have been obsolete for nearly 42 years, based on my observations. Anne will be quite elderly by then, and if I'm alive, I'll be approaching the century mark.

My intention for this article was to share some advice, hope, ideas, or stories with others who like Anne and me, are blessed to raise children on the autism spectrum. The topic wasn't supposed to be about devices, but there's a reason I am redirecting my thoughts into that realm. As a student in a Communication Mentor course, one of my assignments was to assist individuals with verbal challenges--- and their parents or supporters---in experimenting with a variety of devices designed to overcome deficits in spoken language. I brought an iPad to Billy, and because of his amazing capacity to operate computers, it was a near-perfect fit. (They just had to figure how to lock him out of Angry Birds.)

Youth Advocate Programs' philosophy of presuming intellect applies here: even though we can't understand what Billy tries to communicate to us on a daily basis, he is always trying. For more than a year, he has been using Proloquo on his iPad, and has made great advances in speech and expressive language. Three of my sons have a diagnosis of ASD, and like Billy and Tommy, they have genius oozing out of their pores. Although my boys have not had impairment in expressive language, it's easy to see why outsiders might not view them as intellectually gifted. And artistically gifted. If I didn't have a space limit on my writing, I'd happily go into more details about them.

We are living in an age unlike any other because we have tools at our disposal to break silences and dispel stereotypes which have left so many people with harmful and downright wrong labels and assessments. We had the fortune to meet many people in the Communication Mentor course who have much to teach the rest of us about their hidden gifts.

At a conference on the West Coast, 6 of my kids and I met one great example of this. Peyton Goddard of San Diego sheds powerful light on breaking silence. As someone trapped without capacity for speech for two decades, she harbored deep insights and profound comprehension about the world around and inside of her. At the conference, her mother read Peyton's poetry; her presentation knocked my socks off.  Our presentation of Irish dance that evening had a similar effect on her, as she needed strong persuasion by her father to leave us after we finished our show and took time to meet her and her family.

Until the bonds were broken as a young adult, she was thought to be severely intellectually disabled, and faced a life I wouldn't wish on my worse enemies. In her book, I am Intelligent, co-authored by her mother Dianne Goddard, Peyton chronicles an interior life and incredible journey filled with despair and hope. Her breakthrough came, when at age 22, she typed "i am intlgnt" on an electronic device offered by Dr. Robert Friedman-who, like her parents, knew that Peyton had much to share with the world after being dismissed. She is the first person in the US to graduate as valedictorian from college using facilitated communication. Her book is not for the faint of heart, but I couldn't put it down as I laughed, cried, and gasped through the contents.

Billy won't have to wait 22.7 million minutes to try to gain access to his brother's disabled iPod. Someone will figure out how to fix it. This energetic teen is already proving what Anne and other family members knew all along: that he possesses gifts which need to be unwrapped and enjoyed. We all do.