Creative Play

APRIl 2020  Chapter One:  The Beginning Back in the 1980's I attended an exhibit at the Oakland Museum. There was a woman who painted in oil, adding words to her pieces. But you could not read her words because she scribbled them. I liked the overall paintings but wished I could read her words. Later, I attended College of the Sequoia's to take a Calligraphy class. I did not think of myself as an artist, but I did write in journals every morning, and out of those writings came stories of my growing up. I dreamt of a quilt. At close range, I realized it was not made of cloth, but of collages, each illustrating chapters that I'd been writing. The next morning I began to make what I call Ink Quilts. I was doing art, just not thinking of myself as an artist.  At some point I re-married, and we bought a home in Three Rivers. A studio was built in what as a garage type room outside of our house. It became my home away from home. Eventually, I made friends with l...

For years, I have awakened before dawn to write. I scratch black ink on white paper with a special fountain pen. The only rule, keep pen moving. In a half dream state I write, starting with the mundane of yesterday. Layers unfold. I find my own mind. I started this after 20 years of living in Synanon, as a wife, to living alone in one room. It was an avenue to explore where I had been, where I was now, and what kind of future to design. It served me well.  Change is in the wind. I am now an artist. I work in clay, creating masks. Not sure why I obsess with faces, but I don't question, just make them. I do less writing than I used to. The first draft of the memoir has been waiting to be attended to. Does it need a rewrite or is it ready to be sent out? I do not know. But it calls me. And the Ink Quilts, an art form I invented, one for every chapter of the memoir, to be completed. They illustrate in collages of images, drawings, and "ink" quilting, instead of cloth and thre...