CHASING MATISSE: the right book at the right time

Occasionally, a book comes along that is "the right book at the right time". So it is with Chasing Matisse, A Year in France Living My Dream by James Morgan.

I had been eyeing this book in the library for a number of years, perhaps as many as six or eight, without picking it up. A couple of weeks ago I decided to give it a try. James Morgan, the author, and I are about the same age. He turned roughly sixty when he finished this book. I was almost sixty at the same time. Morgan gave up his livelihood, retired, and he and his wife Beth sold their home and moved to France. But there was a purpose to his journey: to follow somewhat in the footsteps of the painter Henri Matisse. Morgan had always wanted to be a painter (painting has always interested me though I did next to nothing about it, either, until I retired four years ago), and decided that he would start, with very little training, and do so in France while visiting the various places Matisse had lived. (I began taking drawing and painting classes at UNF  about two years ago, and am progressing slowly towards, I hope, respectability as a painter. Be not deceived, I have a long way to go.)

The book is full of anecdotes about Matisse and the places he lived and how they effected his style of painting. And Morgan's reflections about his adventure speak quite strongly to me and what I'm doing. Morgan's idea of retirement is to "Read, write, paint, think, travel: Finally my surface life and my subterranean life had meshed in perfect harmony." That's also my idea of retirement, especially, reading , writing, painting, and thinking. Travel will probably not be much in my retirement, certainly not traveling far from home. But the first four will keep me plenty busy.

This memoir is one that I could have lived, could have written, but...well, it's already been done. But it does have something indirectly to say about retirement and growing older. There is still a lot of adventure for us all, if we only take the chance.

Painting: what it's teaching me about writing

Untitled (Oil pastel on paper) approx. 7.5 x 10.5 inches

I'll make no bones about it. I love drawing and painting. I'm loving it more and more everyday. I feel alive when I'm painting, more so than in most other activities. Even writing. But the desire to write is still within me, and what I'm re-discovering is that like painting--painting what excites and interests me--writing also needs to be based on what excites and interests me. Trying to write for the market just hasn't worked for me. I just cannot write to a formula, at least, not well. I need to return to the way I wrote maybe fifteen years ago, or earlier. Write what moves me and seems important to me, not necessarily what moves and is important to other people, which is most likely a prescription for not getting published. But, I want to be in love with writing again. I want to be passionate about it once again. Hopefully, I'm moving in that direction.

Untitled (Oil pastel on paper) approx. 7.5 x 10.5 inches

Rebirth as an Artist.

I'm excited with my new approach to writing and blogging. Thus far, I'm satisfied, even a bit ecstatic, over my new writing of short stories. I'm finding new inspiration in some of the new blogs I'm following. This reaching out to different blogs focusing on different subjects--philosophy, art, poetry, music, photography, self-discovery--plus my second drawing course, has rejuvenated me. I feel reborn: a new person. I'm happier now than I have been in a long, long time. Stepping out of your old ways into new ways of viewing life and doing things is powerful. I highly recommend it.

It amazes me that, at 66 years old, I can feel this way. It's not a 66-year-old feeling. It's a childlike one.

My drawing courses and my attempt to work with pastels has taken a bit of time out of my days. But, it's a time I'm beginning to look forward to more and more.  My artistic talent is minimal, but it feels huge in my mind. Perhaps it's a delusion. But I'm having fun with it.

Tanya Reimer told me I should write for men, men's stories, which is part of my move to crime fiction. That's a man-thing, isn't it? I know, a lot of females write crime fiction.

I don't know where this fascination with criminal minds comes from. I think it's in part because we know, deep down inside, committing a crime is something we'd all do if the right circumstances came about. Many of us have already committed crimes during our lives. Perhaps they were petty crimes, stealing something from a friend, beating someone up, breaking something that belongs to someone else. Perhaps some of us have committed more serious crimes. There's a dark side to everyone, a shadow side, and to ignore it is to do so at your own peril.

How long and how deeply I'll delve into crime fiction is yet to be determined. All I know for sure is the ideas are swirling, and that's a good thing.

Writing and Drawing "In The Zone"

I'm nearing the end of my first course in drawing. Yesterday, I did something I hadn't done before except in a sketch book. I did a drawing en plein aire. I took my easel, flimsy as it is, and my large drawing pad and other supplies to a cemetery and drew a picture of the trees and tombstones and vases of flowers. Being the first time, it was enchanting indeed. In fact, after a while, I realized I was in a zone, a drawing zone. I was so wrapped up in drawing, time was not a factor. The goings on around me were not a factor. I was one with my craft.

That got me to thinking about writing. Do you ever get in a zone? Do you ever become so at-one with your writing that you zone out on everything else? The writing flows, writes itself, and you're just a medium for putting words on paper.

This is a quality of all creative work, I think--zoning out. The idea of being in a zone is not original with me. I've read a book on writing that talks about getting in a zone, the way basketball players get in a zone and they hit every shot. I did a Google search for writing in a zone and found a couple of websites incorporating the word: readwritezone and buffys write zone. I'm sure musicians and potters and painters and computer program designers and, well, almost anyone in any type of work can get into a zone.

And what occurs to me is that it is almost a spiritual experience. What do you think about all of this?

Art: It's About the Journey

I'm currently taking a drawing course--the first I've ever taken, a basic course.

Last night I was talking with my teacher (Hillary Hogue) about the drawing I was working on in class--a self-portrait (all the students were doing self-portraits)--and I had a few questions. She could tell I was focusing on the outcome of the drawing. She explained that drawing is about the journey. When you go on a journey, it's not about the photographs you bring home, it's about the journey. Drawing is about the journey, the getting there, not the final product. Drawing is being in the moment. It's the experience along the way that counts.

I took what she said to heart, using it the best way I could. Low and behold, my self-portrait turned out to be a pretty fair likeness of myself. From now on, I'll try to be in the moment when drawing. It's about the experience. That's the joy of drawing.

Isn't that also the joy of writing? It's the experience along the way, the being in the moment, that matters.

Author As Visual Artist

This weekend I came across the art book Doubly Gifted: The AUTHOR As VISUAL ARTIST by Kathleen G Hjerter. It's a collection of art work by writers. There were many represented: Goethe, Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde, T.S. Eliot, and Hart Crane among others.

I was particularly impressed by Hart Crane's "Trees", an oil on canvas featuring strong blues and blacks. Even more impressive was August Strindberg's wonderful oil painting of a stormy sky over a bay, "The Town". E.E. Cummings was quite the watercolor artist. Hermann Hesse made a strong showing too. Among the more popular writers was James Michener, Colleen McCullough (acrylics), and John Updike.

I was uplifted by the collection. Many writers have also been painters, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, William Faulkner, and Dylan Thomas. Some of the quots by the authors indicated strongly that painting helped them in their writing.

I was beginning to have some self-doubts about beginning drawing and painting courses (although, for this first course I plan on just taking drawing). But seeing this book has given me new confidence.

Following Your Dreams

I'm beginning a new adventure in August. I've wanted to be a painter off-and-on for years. While I've practiced drawing, I've never attempted a painting. Now I'm going to start on my artistic adventure. I'm signing up for the classes that senior citizens can audit at the University of North Florida. Classes start in August. I intend to take drawing and painting--the basic level courses.

I've always been reticent about drawing and painting. I'm such a dedicated writer that I've been afraid that painting would take over my mind so that I would stop writing. I've been afraid I'd stop writing and be a poor painter. I know that many writers have also been painters. And vice versa. But the time is right to try doing both.

My plan is to continue writing as I have in the past, but to add in drawing and painting in odd hours. Maybe I'll give x number of hours a day to writing and x number to painting.

I love looking at art books and visiting art galleries. My imagination races when I go into an art supply store. It's almost overwhelming, but I feel a connection with what I see. I want that connection to come alive.

I like reading about painters' lives. I enjoy fictional versions of their lives, too. They seem to have the most interesting of lives. Right now I'm reading The Bauhaus Group. I've enjoyed reading about the impressionists and many of the modern painters. I find Kandinsky fascinating, as well as Jackson Pollock, and many others.

I'm a dreamer. Always have been. I'll continue to dream for as long as I can.