The Interwoven Heart

PRESIDENTS’ DAY BOREDOM

2012-02-20T14:07:00.023-05:00

Dearest Readers,
It’s a pretty dull day when I turn to contemplations of boredom, but over my past twenty-one years of art making, boredom has become a useful friend. On this pre-packaged, two-for-one presidential shopping sale holiday, I thought I’d share some artwork steeped in boredom or its process. Last week I pulled out another of my 89 daily bathroom mirror portraits of feelings. This photo was Day#1–Bored, and with it the embroidered hankie version. Not much life in these two, but a valid lack-of-emotion worthy of depiction. Last week I painted an oil stick portrait of my boring face–a winning trifecta of feeling dull.

When inspiration escapes me, I’ll often use the method of boredom to break through to wild mind. Here’s how it works. 1.Pin up a dozen or more sheets of paper on the wall.
2.Spread out a variety of drawing and painting media at easy reach. 3.Determine a subject to draw and stick to it. 4.Set a timer for a few minutes...maybe 5 or 10, and hit the start button. 5.When the alarm rings, I must move to the second sheet of blank paper, reset the alarm, start a new drawing, and so on until I am thoroughly bored, and frustrated with the short time-frame, and the repetitive subject. What invariably happens is I begin by drawing familiar images, or sometimes small, controlled and logical images. As I am forced to leave each piece when the bell goes off, I grab different media and gradually begin to try new approaches and more daring colors. Usually by the last sheet, I’ve moved out of the area of boring to a bigger field of creativity by just surrendering, and letting it rip. I did not invent this. Someone explained it to me in the early 90’s. I am indebted to their boring brilliance.

Here are eight drawings of holes or tunnels that I drew last summer using my breakthrough boring method. I’ve numbered them 1-8 so you can see the progression of loosening up. It works better than a glass of wine. My question to myself is, do I like the first one, last one or someplace in the middle?

Number one:

Number two:

Number three:

Number four:

Number five:

Number six:

Number seven:

Number eight:

DEAR HEART

2012-02-11T15:09:00.048-05:00

Dearest Readers,
I missed Valentine’s Day for this post, but it's never too late to honor a day devoted to matters of the heart–a symbol that keeps erupting in my artwork. Let’s hear it for love, courage, life, sympathy, compassion, sincerity, strength, hearty, heartfelt, and even heartsick–all straight from the heart.

I’m staying away these days from the Catholic Sacred Heart–symbol of suffering, self-sacrifice, and sadness. Let me not knock on that door today. It resides within, but buried deep inside.

Last week I finished an oil stick self-portrait on paper entitled Loved. It’s me as a heart loved by my family and friends.

This portrait began in 2010 as a photo I shot in my bathroom mirror entitled Day #80, from 89 days of examining my feeling of the moment, and writing it in lipstick on my forehead. Another way of asking...Who Am I?

Later I printed the mirrored-mirror image of my reflected face on one of my vintage hankies that I wore as a kid in the little breast pocket of my Catholic school uniform jumper.

Dear heart, I’ve depicted you in drawings and paintings, embroideries, clothing, dolls, wings and portraits. Thank you for persistently beating.

Heartfelt, ©2008
6 1/2” x 6 1/2”
Embroidery floss on vintage linen

Heart Sick, ©2010
7 1/4” x 7 1/4”
Embroidery floss on vintage linen

The Bravery Jacket, ©2007
Life sized
Acrylic on wool twill, aluminum buttons, braiding, yarn, gauze, nails and threads.

A Joyful Heart, ©2003
8" x 13" x 3"
Fabric, acrylic, found objects and polymer clay

Interwoven Hearts, ©2011
18 1/2 " x 22 1/4"
Charcoal and pastel on paper

Pangea Heart Holes, ©2011
11" x 14"
Charcoal, pastel and conté on paper

See Little Cece's heartbeat at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCg4GBG-bw4&feature=youtu.be

FLYING LESSONS – A TO Z

2012-02-04T20:34:00.020-05:00

ARMS BEATING

ANKLES BRACING

COASTING COLLAPSING

DARTING DIVING

ELEVATED EARTHLING

FLYING FALLING

GRACEFUL GROUNDLING

to the HEIGHTS into a HOLE

INSPIRED INVERTED

JUMP HIGH JUMP DEEP

KICK OUT KNOCK DOWN

LAUNCHING LANDING

MAINTAINING MOMENTUM MISSING THE MARK

out of the NEST into the NIGHT

ORBITING OBSTACLES

PASSING a PLANE

QUESTING QUEEZY

RISING RETURNING

SOARING SINKING

TRANSPORTING TUMBLING

UP UNDER

VAULTING VERTIGO

W I D E S P R E A D
W I N G S P A N
W I N D I N G D O W N

X-P-A-N-D X-H-A-L-E

YES YIKES

to the ZENITH from ground ZERO

DEAR MOTHER

2012-01-30T14:05:00.018-05:00

Dearest Readers,
This is Jan Selman, an artist and women’s political coach who I met this weekend at a dinner party. She lost her 85 year old mother to cancer last year. Jan spoke at length about having hospice in her home, and how positive that experience was for her family and for her mom. Hospice care provided palliative medical treatment, and a compassionate bridge into death. The scenario, she noted, was better than dying in a hospital.

I squirmed as Jan’s story unfolded, realizing at some point that my mom’s hospice in 1997 in her Decatur Georgia nursing home, Harvest Heights, was far from homey. The setting felt like a hospital with nurses, aides, people in wheelchairs, and sanitized hallways flooded in neon. It was not bad, just not as personal.

I took this picture of Mom two months before she passed away. She had fallen, broken a hip and injured her eye. She was incontinent, and had dementia, but often still recognized me and was always cheerful. In the fall of that year she stopped eating and drinking. I initiated hospice care in her room at the nursing home after she was sent twice to The Atlanta Medical Center (formerly Georgia Baptist Hospital) to give her intravenous fluids, and stabilize her body chemistry. I made this tough decision after a meeting with her doctor and nurses, and in accordance with her living will wish for no extraordinary medical interventions.

Nothing much changed as far as the look of Mom’s nursing home room. It was now called hospice. We offered her food and drink, but did not force it. Mom was in a semi-private room with a curtain separating her from a woman with advanced Alzheimer’s. This woman lay in a fetal position by the window moaning or calling out. Her family, who I only saw once, kept a TV next to her that was turned on all day and probably all night–for comfort, I assume. During my mother’s last days on earth we sat with her while football games, commercials and talk shows played just beyond the curtain. It was disconcerting, but Mom did not seem to mind, and eventually slipped into a coma and died on December 6, 1997. For me the atmosphere in that room still feels surreal.

These are two portraits I drew of Mom based on the photograph. I covered her face in one of them, but I left her large eyes open so she could see through.

I took a final picture of Mom's hands while in hospice, and after her death I did a plan drawing for something I called “Helping Hand Wings for Hazel...Who Was Afraid of Death”. I imagined a zip-on winged contraption to enable her to pass fearlessly through the transition.

Two weeks ago I discovered two pictures of Mom as a teenager probably from 1923, and as a young adult around 1929 that touched me with their sweetness. They were pasted inside an old photo album she had stored in a footlocker in my basement. I include them here.

SOMETHING ABOUT A FAMILY-The Story of a Painting

2012-01-22T19:13:00.031-05:00

Dearest Readers,
I’m wrestling with a painting that says something about a family–mom, dad, daughter depicted as hearts curled up in seedpods that rise from the New Jersey wetlands. It took three years of iterations, influences and changes to get to this point. The image at the top of the blog is close to the final.

My artist friend Ruth Schowalter, aka Hallelujah Truth, http://coffeewithhallelujah.blogspot.com/ visited me in my studio on Friday, and suggested I think of the evolving piece as chapters in a novel, with twists and turns of plot, a title, and synopsis on the back cover. The idea of painting as a book gives me some distance, which helps me pull out meaning from this conundrum of a painting. Here’s one possible story...

Title: Something About A Family by Cecelia Kane

Back Cover Synopsis: Something About A Family is a generational story that begins when the grown daughter, Little Cece, arranges three green pears on an enameled metal plate in 2008. She recognizes a similarity with an idyllic family photo of herself, her mother and father from Easter Sunday,1950 in Shrewsbury Vermont. Kane leads us on a journey through the eyes of Cece back to her roots near the industrial wetlands of urban New Jersey, reconstructing something about a family that cacooned itself against a tough gang-oriented cityscape. The family built a boat shaped like a plate, to navigate the canals and alleyways of an inhospitable city. Through birth, death and resurrection Cece, and the vibrant memories of her dead parents, are born again as harlequin hearts of love nestled in seedpods that rise above the swirling tides and dark nights of Cece's ordinary life–saved in the nick of time from sliding off the edge of the painting.

Chapter 1. 2008 Inspiration from a Plate of Pears (photo-recreation)

Chapter 2. 2008 Visual Connection With An Old Photo

Chapter 3. 2008 Hearts in the City, a mixed media drawing on paper created during a residency at the Hambidge Center in Rabun Gap Georgia, December 2008, 11” x 17”

Chapter 4. 2009 Hearts in the Lonely City, a painting based on the drawing.
It’s a colorful but inanimate rendition of Cece and her family afloat on that enamel plate in a flooded city in New Jersey. Some sort of egg-y goo threatens their ability to navigate this stiff, lifeless town. The father doesn’t match Cece’s memory of her dad who was kind, though mostly absent. Their harlequin garb is too perfect, too strange, too arbitrary. Acrylic on canvas, 40" x 32"

Chapter 5. 2009 Hearts at Home in Chaos, The painting now pulls the three family members together as a huddled mass of color into it’s own protected nest within the coiled streets of the city. Father’s eyes are emotionless sentinels. The plate-boat has morphed into a brick pathway and a new heart slides into the scene. Who is this? The buildings are engulfed in flames and flood. The buildings are more transparent in this version, and writhing in motion. This is industrial New Jersey suffering the effects of overcrowding, dirt and eco-devastation.

Chapter 6. 2009 Hate and Intervention, Cece cannot abide this painting. It does not speak the full truth of her family and early life. On another artist retreat to the Hambidge Center in the north Georgia mountains, Cece has a couple of glasses of wine at dinner, returns at night to her studio retreat, and paints big white ovals in circular brush strokes around the four heart forms. (No photo was taken of this phase...This picture is a Photoshop recreation.)

Chapter 7. 2010 More Interventions, Not knowing where to turn, Cece tries to find her family. She creates a large pond for the four hearts to float in. (This is also a rough recreation). The white circles become more egg-like.

Chapter 8. 2011 Dead Hearts Cece obliterates the windows, and changes the transparent buildings into planar boxes hugging the periphery of the family’s lagoon. The fire has mostly subsided, but flood waters encircle the city and form dark canals between the buildings. The night sky merges with the water. Cece makes the images of the family more heart-like, but now the four creatures are lifeless and colorless, cold and isolated, cacooned in their separate eggs, like plucked, naked chicken bodies-still not her family.
How will Cece get out of this mess?

Chapter 9. 2012 The Black Box In despair, Cece seriously contemplates painting the entire canvas a dense field of black.

Chapter 10. 2012 Seedpods Rise out of the Muck. Cece saves the day by having faith in her family. She boldly removes the top heart creature, returning the family to three.
She restores their harlequin costumes, but simpler now, shaded and nestled in three green flower-like pods that rise out of the urban muck, rooted and resurrected on the brink of sliding off the edge of the painting. Muted windows return to the faces of the boxes and new ghostlike buildings inhabit the swale of wetland pond, swaying with the currents like high rise marsh reeds.

Chapter 11. 2012 The End The story concludes in a triple rebirth and a rising, with just a hint that this may not be the end.

The Cosmic Mind

2012-01-16T16:44:00.032-05:00

Dearest Readers,
Meet Elliot, my condo neighbor. He and his wife Dell, treated me to a glass of cabernet and some appetizers at The Marlay, a neighborhood Irish bar. We talked of life and death, spirituality, and the possibility of an afterlife. They are followers of Meher Baba, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meher_Baba

a reincarnated divinity who “dropped his body”, as they described it, back in 1969. They have a condo in India near the teacher’s ashram. Their main home in Myrtle Beach, SC is within walking distance of a Meher Baba spiritual center. They meditate, actively practice diminishing the ego, and consider themselves Buddhists. Dell has had numerous “déjà vu” moments when she felt she was communicating with God or the spirits of the dead. They believe in reincarnation. I had to express my regret on that account. I wish I had certainty, and God encounters, but I really never have.

I’m actually creeped out by the idea of reincarnation. Coming back as a tree or a cat or a god sounds Hindu, not the Western-friendly Shambhala Tibetan Buddhism that I am following. It might be frustrating to inhabit the body of a gnat, and have my old memories intact. Would I be thinking bug thoughts? On the other hand, if I did not carry my mind into my new essence, it would be the same as being dead-dead.

This neighborly conversation spurred me to pull out drawings and spiritual diagrams I had created in the late 1990’s. I imagined visual landscapes for states of consciousness, life-death as places, continuums of being, and states of mind. At that time, I was reading Time, Space and Knowledge, the cosmic musings of the Tibetan thinker and Buddhist, Tarthang Tulku, published in 1977.

Here are fourteen of my essence sketches and philosophical diagrams done in marker on yellow or white tracing paper and one embroidery. Some have a sense of humor–others reduce cosmic conundrums to manageable possibilities through the language of drawing and painting.

1. Heart, Brain and Soul (Feelings, Consciousness, Essence)

2 & 3. Life and Death Rooms (They connect to each other.)

4. The Brain-Plain of Self Awareness

5. The Five Aspects of Self:
5a-Detail 1&2, The Ego and the Social Self
5b-Detail 3&4, The Dualistic Self and Transpersonal Self
5c-Detail 5, Cosmic Consciousness

6. The Bell Phenomenon of Birth and Death as a Continuous Entity

7. Now = The Centerless Center of Time

8. Free Will as a Melange of Interconnected Events and Choice Boxes

9. Logic Boxes of Human Perception

10. The Expanded Self in Tubular Time

11. The Apparent Self in Tubular Time #1 and #2

12. Consciousness and Being as Dimensional Levels

13. Cosmic Forces

14. The Dissolution of Self (embroidery)

January 7, 2012–Resolution Wings

2012-01-07T12:11:00.009-05:00

Dearest Readers,
Friend Sylvia lent me a vintage, though musty, first edition of Taylor Caldwell’s 1938 novel, “Dynasty of Death”, which I am reading early each morning in bed. Yesterday, a pale grey mite the size of a pencil point leapt out of the opened spine and dashed frantically across, and down the page. I tried to read as fast as he was moving, but he launched himself somewhere into my bed covers–no sign of him anywhere, until I felt an itchy welt rising on my forehead over my left eye. I’m a sucker. Buddhism teaches respect for all life. I actually let him get away and this was my reward. He or she is still at large in the bedroom.

Except for my miniscule bedmate, life in the seven days of 2012 has been a quiet turning away from people and a hunkering down. I’m possessed by another pesky bug who turns out to be a flu-ish courier of wisdom and resolve. Sickness fosters thinking while propped up on the couch. I should listen up because I’m beginning to recover.

I walked into the new year with a grim resolution to cut my credit card debt in half. It’s practical and doable, but not easy. Being a former Catholic enables me to grudgingly adopt a Lenten attitude throughout the year. Hazel, my mother, would sometimes spout her mother’s adage, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” This mindset already was feeling like martyrdom.

But something different popped into my head today while bending down to retrieve a failed shot of used Kleenex that had bounced off the rim of the garbage. A lighthearted crack of awareness beamed into my brain. I can save money and it won’t take forever! I can say no to spending for a year or two. This clarity released a tightness across my ribs as quickly as if I had unpopped my bra. A wave of confidence filled my chest. I stood up and tossed the rumpled tissue squarely in the can.

I drew this Resolution as a pair of wings–gull grey against the uncertain density of 2012. A delicate pink spreads around her heart, which is grided and girded for flight. She rises up, spreads her pale feathered arms in a halo of soft light, all the while
pumping really red blood. Happy New Year All!

December 6, 2011–The Hole and Wings

2011-12-06T11:46:00.044-05:00

Dearest Readers,

Apologies to all who have heard this story.

D-Day...Dig the Death Hole Day.
Today, Tuesday December 6th, the anniversary of my mother’s death, was supposed to be the start date of my Hole Project...A 30 minute daily performance dig of a 7-foot deep hole, to be a conduit for asking Mom the nature of death, and a way to confront my own fears.
I was wrong. After all my talk and plans, meetings, hole drawings, paintings and site testing, I don't need to do it anymore. I seem to have resolved many of my issues around death. Here’s what happened:

June 1-September 2, 2011...Drove 11,400 miles across America with the radio and CD player off. I did a lot of thinking behind the wheel, and reading at night. I discovered that I did not want to read the Catholic books I had brought.

Instead, I devoured the daily thoughts of Pema Chodron a Buddhist nun and resident teacher at Gampo Abbey on Cape Breton in Nova Scotia.

Oct. 30th...Met at Mulberry Fields in Candler Park, Atlanta with artist friends left to right- Jesse Harris, Ginger Birdsey, Ruth Schowalter, me in my skull skirt, and Susie Winton (not pictured). We shared ideas about ways to include the community in the hole project.

We stood on the proposed hole site brainstorming ideas. Nothing quite gelled. Left to right, Ginger Birdsey, Susie Winton, me, and Jesse Harris. Thanks to Ruth Schowalter for taking this photograph.

Nov. 5th...Volunteered at a Women’s Retreat at St. Thomas More Church in Decatur. Greeted my friends, helped with dinner and prayed, but when I left the building that night, and walked home in the dark, I knew I had crossed a threshold and closed the door on my struggles with Catholicism. I knew I was “forgiven”. I was free to leave.

Nov. 13th...Took the Vows of Refuge at the Shambhala Meditation Center in Decatur. I am now embarking on the Buddhist path. In a public ceremony I was one of six “refugees”, seeking refuge in the Buddha (not as a savior), Dharma (teachings)and the Sangha (community). I was overjoyed to share this moment with my grandkids Jack and Rosie, my daughter-in-law Linda, and my son, Osman who came out to support me. Thanks to friend and condo neighbor Mary Alma Durrett for taking this shot. Thanks also to Karen and Wayne Phillips and Susie Winton for coming out.

During the ceremony we "refugees" were given names by the visiting Buddhist teacher Arawana Hayashi. These were based on silent interviews she conducted with each of us the previous day. Mine turns out to be Kunga Sheltri, which in Tibetan means All Joy Crystal Sword. This is the joyful, gentle sword of fearlessness. I want to live up to that, but you can still call me Cecelia!

Nov. 22nd...Filled out the Georgia Advance Directive which is a legal medical document describing my death and hospice treatment preferences should I ever be in a terminal vegetative state, and assigning a health care agent and two backups. My three children were in town for Thanksgiving– Osman, Semra and Ayla Ercin. Two artist friends came as witnesses–Susie Winton and Ruth Schowalter (the photographer here). My daughter-in-law Linda was there, and two grandchildren Roman and Rosie who ran around and under the table. When I turned 65 this year, my health provider gave me the forms to complete for them to keep on file. After completing and signing the paperwork, a few of us remained at the table, reviewing my preferences for a “good death” if I’m ever in hospice. This led to a group discussion of our beliefs about death, God and the possibilities of an afterlife. I was exhausted!

Nov. 22nd 9pm...Turning point...Driving home with Ruth after the “death panel”, it dawned on me that I had done it. I had resolved some sort of pressing death issue, and did not need to dig the hole. It would be a waste of artistic energy and time.

Nov. 26th...Sat at the proposed hole site to think.I'm comfortable with my decision not to dig.

Nov. 28th...Finished Return of the Hand to Hand Project. Ready to move on.

Nov. 29th...Woke up with a craving to paint wings.

October 15-17–Georgia-Florida Loop

2011-10-20T20:26:00.038-04:00

Dearest Readers,
It’s not over yet! The Hand to Hand Roadtrip Across America continued last weekend through South Georgia to Thomasville, on to Tallahassee Florida on Saturday; across to Jacksonville, back to Tally Sunday, returning to Decatur on Monday via Milledgeville and Athens. One thousand more miles added to the circuit for a grand total of 11,400 miles delivering H2H artwork around this country. Scion still holding up. Not so good me. Came down with a cold again. Little Etta James stayed home.

From Middle Georgia southward, the earth changed from our hard-as-a-brick red clay to soft sandy soil. I shot this dirt road near Montezuma, then a field of bursting cotton near Vienna, and a stately pecan grove outside of Cordele. Stopped for gas in Sylvester and got snagged among the participants and cars at the annual peanut festival there. Lots of kids were lined up to use the bathroom at the Shell convenience store. The weather is sunny, dry and in the low 90’s.

First stop Thomasville pop. 15,000 near the Florida border. This is Rich and Lori Curtis in their home beneath one of Rich’s paintings. He teaches art at Thomas University in town. Lori works in plantation tourism.

We’re holding one of their six collaborative hand and glove photo close-ups depicting a narrative of hand gestures as they recorded their reactions to the Iraq War events of their week in 2008. This piece became the cover shot for the Hand to Hand catalog.

Rich took me to lunch at Grassroots, a coffee shop and café in historic downtown Thomasville. The town grew up in the 1800’s as a cotton and nut plantation center, and in the 20th century became a tourist town because of its location at the end of the railroad line, before interstate highways changed travel patterns to Florida.

This is Rich with his artwork in the multi-store venue of “Flaunt-25”– a show of 25 artists’ works on 25 local store walls. His wood, paint and zoological assemblages address his opposition to the hunting culture in the area, and the killing of local wildlife for stuffed trophies. I took this picture of an elaborate taxidermy shop downtown selling rugs, lamps, chandeliers and knickknacks made from animal parts.

On the way south out of town I stopped at Pebble Hall Plantation, which is open to visitors.

Twenty minutes outside of Thomasville I crossed into Florida, and then on to charming Tallahassee, the state capitol with its old courthouse and government buildings downtown surrounded by live oaks and lush landscaping. There’s a bird and wildlife sanctuary nearby, accessible by boat, that I did not have time to visit. Turtles, waterfowl, armadillo, heron, hawks, owl, deer and even bears I’m told live near. Tally has a small town feel. Everything is fairly close.

The first thing I did when I arrived in Tallahassee was to meet my artist friend and former Atlantan, Judy Rushin, at a baby shower she was hosting in the neighborhood. This is Judy with Mama Anne and her new little boy Gabriel. Most of the guests are artists or art teachers with Judy and Anne at FSU. Lots of Anne’s work and local art hangs on her walls. I was honored to be a part of the group.

Saturday night Judy took me to an art auction to benefit Space 621, an alternative gallery in the Railroad Square art and theater area. We stopped by Occupy Wall Street/Tallahassee where we talked with a student activist who told us about their march on the capitol earlier. He did not want me to take his picture. We saw a group discussion and a long line of folks waiting for free food donated by a restaurant. Yay 99%!

I returned Sunday morning to find the demonstrators breaking down the encampment. They’ve arranged with the city to stay in the greenspace downtown only on weekends. They will return next Friday night.

Then I took off to Jacksonville along straight-as-an-arrow I-10 – two and a half hours each way. I listened to an early Bob Dylan compilation CD set that my condo neighbor lent me, and “Remarkable Creatures”, an audio book about the life and discoveries of Mary Anning, a young fossil hunter along the English coast who predated Darwin. Good stuff for a monotonous highway.

I arrived around 1:30 pm at the Jacksonville home of glove artist Neha Luhar-Trice and her husband Chris. He just received tenure as a professor of photography at the University of North Florida there. Unlike compact Tallahassee, Jax is a big seaside city that sprawls along the ocean and beaches, across inland waterways, among burgeoning apartment complexes, and a downtown with skyscrapers visible in the distance.

Chris took this picture of Neha and I seating by a shaded pond and fountain near their home. I’m handing her one of her gloves depicting her reaction to an extreme week of civilian killings in Iraq in 2010. This piece addresses the bombing of a textile factory by insurgents, and the death of eighty workers.

Neha made a colorful and very tasty Indian buffet of bhel, a puffed grain mixture (in the foreground), topped with a selection of chopped tomatoes, onion, raspberries and a tamarind chutney with dates and cilantro. Wow!

Then back along I-10 to Tallahassee and a second night as guest of the Rushins.

Meet the whole family-Judy, Rob and their smart, creative kids Anna and Ben. We’re having dinner Sunday night on their deck overlooking a backyard of thick semi-tropical vegetation. Pasta shells with homemade tomato sauce, grated cheese, wine and baby field greens are on the table. Raspberry sorbet and Symphony chocolate squares for dessert.

I snapped this shot of Judy in her studio standing next to some painted and drilled wood studies. Here are two of her paintings...a large green canvas that Rob photographed for an album cover, (He’s a musician in the band Reba-Seger http://www.facebook.com/people/Reba-Seger/100002473126201), and an orange panel diptych from Judy's newer series.

Monday I said goodbye to Judy and Rob and headed back north to Georgia around 10:00 am.

After crossing the border, I headed North and East, cutting diagonally across Georgia. I bypassed Macon, driving further northeast to Milledgeville, the former old capitol city, a pre-civil war town spared by Sherman on his incendiary March to the Sea. My first stop of the day was at the home of glove artist Megan Tiedeman Bowen who I had met in 2006 when she was an art student at Georgia College and State University there. I was a visiting artist.

Here I am at her front door holding two of her six gloves with the dates emblazoned, and slashed with red threads. Megan was not able to meet me when I arrived, so I took the picture, and left the package of artwork on her porch as we had planned.

5:30 pm-Last stop-the sewing studio of Sara Spurlock in Athens. She was finishing making costumes for the Canopy Repertory Company, an aerial dance ensemble performing an adaptation of Shakespeare’s A MidSummer Night's Dream this weekend. We’re holding one of her six little canvases with inked marionette and puppeteer hands connected by embroidered threads. Her sweet, quiet Chihuahua looks on.

Arrived home in Decatur at 7:00 pm, the road still humming in my head.

Miss Mole Climbs Out of Her Hole to Occupy Wall Street in Atlanta

2011-10-08T19:26:00.027-04:00

Miss Mole (me) has been inching her way out of the tunnel of a September virus–slowly creeping upward for over a month. Yesterday she finally poked her head above ground, and jumped on a MARTA train to join the Occupy Atlanta rally in downtown Woodruff Park.

She’s demonstrating her solidarity with the Occupy Wall Streeters in NYC, and with people gathering in over 100 cities across America. This grassroots movement is expressing its anger at the political system for its lack of action in the economic crisis, at the big banks and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few.

When the mortgage bubble burst in 2008, the Wall Street financial institutions were deemed too big to fail. They received taxpayer bailouts, have bounced back and are now enjoying profits,

while the people of America and the world (the 99% who are not the wealthiest) are struggling, with little help from the Washington political parties.

What an evening it was! The demonstration of hundreds of people was more than just a big mix of like-minded folks holding signs. It was real democracy in action.

The gathering was called the General Assembly and the moderator, facilitator and scribe got right down to explaining the process of consensus decision making,introducing the different subgroups dealing with medical, legal issues, and the Demands. There was no sound amplification besides a bull horn, so the crowd repeated the speakers’ words in successive waves, flowing outward to the edges of those straining to hear.

This rough poster is a flow chart showing how agreement or disagreement with the agenda would take place.

People raised a thumb or wiggled fingers to express agreement. The process was cumbersome and time consuming with so many folks there, but I think the subgroups will take up the fine points of developing a list of demands and next steps to be agreed upon.

U.S. Representative John Lewis, a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement, wanted to address the crowd in support of the OWSers. His request was put to the crowd for acceptance, but two attendees felt the agenda should be adhered to first. There was no consensus, so John Lewis was asked to speak after the agenda. Unfortunately he could not stay, and he graciously bowed out. It was the people’s decision or lack of decision that let that happen.

As night fell, Miss Mole went back to her den in Decatur. Some in the crowd agreed by consensus to sleep there in the park and begin to “Occupy Wall Street/Atlanta.” In the shadow of the Equitable Insurance building and Georgia-Pacific tower, owned by the Koch brothers of Kansas City, the people (and a girl-mole) are speaking their truth.

So What? – Observations and Lessons from the Road

2011-10-02T19:33:00.011-04:00

Well. Cecelia’s Big Adventure is done, more or less. So what? Did I discover something about myself, or America along the way? “Hold onto your hat”, as my mother would say. Here comes my laundry list of revelations.

I learned that the Hand to Hand Project is a flowing organism, not an individual work of art, or just an expansive collaborative installation. It’s become an unfolding story. H2H has ceased to be about me, or war, or one more art piece to put on a resume. It’s about communicating with artists and viewers without asking anything in return. It has become a structure for moving deeper into my own life, trusting others, pushing out self-protective walls and reconnecting with relatives, artists and friends. The Return of Hand to Hand seems to be a vehicle for experiencing people within their essential life spaces, beyond the Project’s diverse messages on the gallery walls, or the individual creative juices that spawned them.

I learned on the road that fear comes from somewhere in the mind, and that most of it is a stone rolled out by my little ego to keep supporting its fantasy of control.

I learned that I did not fear aloneness in the wild. Talk of bears on the loose, and two experiences with odd acting humans at campsites was unnerving, but I kept my “street smarts” alert in the forest, and made adjustments for safety whenever I could. I listened to my gut.

I learned that direct experience within the world is the most vital form of learning.

I learned I can push out my limits, but I was never eager to do so.

I learned I’m a running water kind of girl. On the road, I usually wanted to spend the night in a cushy motel or a cozy cottage...not camping – but I did it anyway. It saved me a lot of money. I stayed in a motel only once when the temperature in the sand hills of West Texas was too much for me to bear.

I learned I can make choices to live within my means, and still create an adventure.

I learned I’m a seeker...some may say a navel-gazer...bent on a quest to figure out my purpose on this planet. The Hand to Hand Road Trip Across America was just a nice excuse to extend that path horizontally.

I learned I’m braver than I was when starting out. I can face the unknown a bit better, but I’ m still most comfortable when I can arrange my future necessities–especially where I will sleep the next night, how much money I have in my pocket, or how far to the next gas station in the middle of the desert. Let’s say I had 10,000 miles of practice becoming comfortable with uncertainty, and I’ve still got more miles in that direction to go.

I learned I’m afraid to sleep in the car by the side of the road...at least not alone. I’d need a lover to hold and protect me in order to surrender to that much insubstantiality of existence.

I learned I hate hot weather...thoroughly and throughout my body, from its core to the outer pores and hairs of my physical being. My face erupts after enduring days of sun through the windshield, and explodes in a relentless flush of red cheeks and miserable rosy splotches blooming across my neck. My body refuses to sweat in enough quantity to keep itself balanced with the punishing, endless daylight. This body ran down after a week of intense, blistering climate across the South and Southwest, even with AC in the car.

I know why the prophets went to the desert for enlightenment and transformation. It is a place stripped of security and comfort, ripe for fostering existential questions about the nature of life and death. The intense sun, lack of water and absence of people, shelter and shade left me feeling exposed and alone. The desert sky is huge. Etta and I were specs beneath its giant dome.

I learned that in empty landscapes and on long, lonely highways, “The Unknown” gathers force and personality. I gave this depressive emotion the name The Road Demon. Sometimes he sent me into little panic spells as I gripped the wheel and hoped to find a town or gas station around the bend.

I learned I can roll with the rules and the housekeeping styles of my hosts. I was always treated to a comfortable bed, fresh, beautifully presented meals, and conversations about art and life. Some of the folks I stayed with put flowers on the table, had elaborate kitchen appliances to figure out, and special rules for loading the dishwasher. Sometimes Etta was allowed to jump up on the couch, in other homes she had to stay in a separate room (with difficulty and lots of whining.) In some places I stepped around the hairs in the shower drain, and ignored the dirt behind the commode. In others, shoes were removed at the door. It all seemed to work.

I learned that after traveling four time zones west, and then four time zones east in three months, my body’s preferred active time is rising with the dawn, and sacking out by 9:00 pm. This explains why in winter, when it’s dark after dinner, I have such a hard time motivating my body to get off the couch. My circadian rhythm would suit a Vermont farmer.

I learned that I can push through loneliness, continue moving, and that the feeling will change, especially when I make the effort to connect with strangers.

I learned to stop trying to identify every river I crossed, or mountain in the distance and to enjoy the flow.

I learned on Puget Sound that I can unleash Etta and she will return. She disappeared along the coast, I held my breath, but she answered my calls. I learned I can let her meet other dogs and she will be OK. She herself is opening to more diverse experiences. Each travel day she would jump onto her passenger seat perch, and wait enthusiastically for take off. Etta gradually relaxed into each new day, and the new people we encountered, particularly their pets. She set her boundaries with other dogs by a low growl and a snap in the air if they did not get the message. Then most of the time, all canine/feline parties understood how the territory would be divided–who gets the pillow or couch. Most of the cats chose to disappear.

I learned that I love the cooler northern summer weather, and its deep green forests. Places without tall trees, and too much dust or desert comprise the first rings of the inferno for me. Vermont became the Emerald Kingdom quest in my mental mists. The downside of course, is the long cold winter and all that restrictive snow, but no worries about that in July.

I learned I can eat simply---cereal in the morning with a small can of juice. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with sliced cheese and baby green spinach for dinner with fruit for filler. I ate only ten times in restaurants the entire three months of summer (not counting my daily search for coffee shops with wi-fi each morning and the elusive great cup a joe.)

I learned that America and I have a love/hate relationship with coffee. Small town cafes and gas stations usually serve weak, over-cooked coffee. No one seems to mind. Convenience stores sell elaborately flavored hot brown stuff in big thermos pumps with over-sweetened half and half substitutes. On the other hand, college towns all across the USA support at least one local coffee shop serving delicious, well-tended brews and home-made pastries. Starbucks is a reliable source of flavorful, fresh coffee whenever I could find one. I stumbled upon a Starbucks in small-town Spencer Iowa inside the Spencer Dream Center, a city social services building opened by a welfare group, and manned by students–excellent coffee in a welcoming atmosphere.

I learned I can travel light, without a camp stove and all the cooking utensils and fuel. Space was at a premium, especially in the beginning when my compact Scion XB was filled with boxes of artwork to return.

I learned that oranges and apples stay fresher longer in a hot car than soft skinned fruits like plums or peaches. I craved bananas, but they did not survive the intense heat of the car. I learned to buy only two or three at a time, and stop at stores more frequently. America offers an abundance of foods, with small stores along the highways that cater to the travelers needs.

I learned I can store all my perishables within a 6-pack sized cooler, and simply buy a couple of “Big Slurp” sized cups of ice each day. Inside it I packed a block of cheese to fancy up my evening peanut butter and jelly sandwich, one bottle of beer for the evening wind-down, and a vacuum box of soymilk which kept longer than cow’s milk. Bread in the cooler invariably got soggy no matter how well I ziplocked its plastic bag. I stashed non-perishables like dry cereal, bread, raisins, nuts, individual pop-top canned juices, and my multivitamins in one grocery store fabric totebag. I regularly bought a gallon of spring water, or the shrink-wrapped 24 pack of individual bottled waters. Etta lived on available brands of dry dog food.

I learned I am not a loner-survivalist. Throughout the journey I went out of my way to connect with shopkeepers, fellow campers, cousins, and friends scattered around the country. I used talking, camping, and eating as vehicles for deeper connection.

I learned that my car is my friend. I took good care of her along the route with regular oil changes and gentle driving. I went the speed limit, and on step roads I did not push or rev the rpms. I usually let her find her comfortable speed uphill, even if it meant she dropped below the postedlimit. Her engine became shrill if I pushed too hard.

I learned that camping in state and national parks is an ephemeral community act. In mid-summer, these places, carved out of the forests, deserts, and lakesides are gathering spots for local families and friends staying for a week or so of down time. Campsites are close. Conversations, songs, game-playing, cooking smells, truck doors slamming, headlights at night sweeping across my tent reinforced my awareness of being a part of a bigger body of vacationers.

I learned that a tent is a thin-skinned interface between inside and out. In a crowded camp ground, neighbors can be loud and intrusive, but also they will share food and resources, like my fellow campers on Grand Isle, LA who drove around in a golf cart offering fresh cooked shrimp, crab and veggies from a beach low-country style boil. They showed me how to crack open the shellfish, and offered three types of home-made sauces.

I learned to always say “yes” when someone offered help. In Santa Fe at Black Canyon campground, a young woman from a group of Oklahoma girlfriends on a mini-vacation came to my site to help me set up my tent. She was genuinely disappointed when I turned her down. Later I visited their area. We talked about our lives, and I shared my story about the return of the Hand to Hand Project. The next morning they gave me a breakfast soup made of grains and chick peas, and I showed them the actual Hand to Hand glove artworks. By saying” no” to help in the beginning, I almost blew the opportunity that developed to get deeper.

I learned that I like the feeling of being encompassed by something bigger than myself, like waking up inside a misty cloud at dawn camped by a riverside, or being contained within a forest surrounded by the density of trees. It is a humbling, exhilarating, existential experience to look up at midnight under a dome of stars, or to travel an endless road in the merciless desert. I am a spec within this mysterious bigness of being.

As an easterner, I learned that I had no concept of the vastness of space and land and the hugeness of the sky in the western desert landscape. Small plants and scruffy trees reveal the heavens, and lay bare the body and mind to the relentless drilling of the sun. I felt afraid sometimes. At other times I experienced the joy of freedom running down the highway.

I learned to turn off the music and the talk radio. The landscape, signs, and the craft of thinking drew my razor sharp attention. My eyes sucked in the world beyond the windshield. My mind and memories seemed to be expanding. This ultra focus was exhausting, but I’m sure I was creating new synapses with each mile. It had to be better than a crossword puzzle as a brain builder.

I learned I love talking about art with artists. It is so easy. Having a conversation with a well-meaning person who might not be into art about what kind of work I do elicits a silent sigh from my soul, and a begrudgingly difficult response. Polite smiles and gaps in their understanding is a drag, but I’ll always try.

I learned I miss my grandkids–Jack from my bones, Rosie from my head and Roman from my heart. I hate saying goodbye to my own children and kids-in-law. I love sharing their lives and being pulled into their circle of fun, friends and experiences.

I learned that I had no inclination to meditate or pray the rosary. That seems to be a function of staying in one place and being with the stationary moment. On the road I’m in a heightened state of observation and movement. I suppose if I did this constant motion thing for a living, I’d be praying more. I gravitated to the Buddhist readings that I brought, rather than my Catholic books.

I learned that “land” is no longer an abstraction to this city-raised girl, but is an ally that supplies life and livelihood, or can take it away. I physically experienced the elements of weather, sun, rain, water supply, plant life, wild animals, time changes, and earth formations.

I learned that some friends and artists along the way are also seeking, like Kevin Maher in Silver Spring, MD who wants to know, “What is my purpose?”, or Andy Faith in Charlottsville, VA who is retired, and feels like a free spirit in her art. She told me that she would not let anyone say she couldn’t do this.

I learned that I do not realize when I’m stressed or exhausted or pushing myself too much, until my body gets sick. It happened over and over on the road. I was fine. It seemed the world was out of whack. Is this learning?

I learned that I have two homes. Vermont is where the memories and deep heart connection with friends, relatives, the land, the mountains, trees, rivers and liberal, local, back-to-nature lifestyle live. And Georgia is where my children grew up, where my son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren reside, where I keep my possessions, and where I have an expansive network of artist friends and collaborators.

I learned that my dog Etta is a comforting companion. I could not go into museums for fear of frying her in the summer heat of a parked car, but I adjusted the trip so we could follow trails and walk in nature instead.

I learned that Americans like big cars¬–lots of SUVs. It amazed me to see an elderly gentleman in West Virginia clamber down out of a monster pickup truck. He had trouble walking, but had power behind the wheel. I observed that in Southeastern and Southwestern USA, white is the predominant color for pickups.

I learned that Subway and McDonalds restaurants can be found all over the country, and that Dollar General stores favor locations in much of small town America.

I learned that all the truck weigh stations I encountered on major highways were closed except for Virginia. I’m not sure why.

I learned that one could study the animal life of America by observing road kill. Alligators on the side of the road in Louisiana. Prairie dogs, weasels, pheasants and locusts on the grillwork in the Midwest. Jack rabbits in the Southwest. Pikas in the Northwest. Skunks in the northeast. Armadillos in the South. Raccoons, deer and squirrels almost everywhere.

I learned (tried) to be a considerate driver. It was more relaxing to drive long distances this way.

I learned that friends on the route wanted to give me traveling directions. I accepted this verbal help, but generally ignored most of it. It was less stressful in traffic to simply let the voice of my GPS instruct me in real time.

I learned that the Clean Water Act is working. A friend asked me to stop by his hometown of Covington, VA, which was on my way. He asked if the Jackson River was as polluted and full of paper mill foam as it was in the early ‘70s. I was happy to report that it ran clean and clear.

I have a sneaking suspicion that over time these lessons may fade in importance. Right now they are vivid. Perhaps I will forget. Times will change, and make my observations simply chronicles of one path in America at one time in the universe. I guess that’s OK. What I did exists in a big soup pot of events and experiences. This realization is humbling. I do suspect, however, that I’ve turned some sort of corner in personal expansiveness, and gentle abiding with whatever happens next.

September 2-Decatur Georgia-Home Again

2011-09-03T14:10:00.020-04:00

Dearest Readers,
I have come home! My neighbor Anne came over with my extra keys, and snapped this picture of the two of us at the threshold.

Etta dashed out of the car, ran right to the correct outside door, and sniffed around. I don’t think she believed we’d ever return.

I am thankful for little things today, like the immaculate refrigerator scrubbed and cleaned by my summer student tenant, and my humble, sturdy bed. What a joy to find the place in tip-top shape.

Etta and I woke this morning to a misty pink sunrise over our Asheville campsite on the French Broad River. No problem finding a café with hearty roasted coffee in this artsy town. By noon we were on the last leg of our circumnavigation of the USA, heading home. The heat and humidity on the road cranked up to the 90’s by early afternoon. I’m in the deep south when the ice cubes in the six-pack cooler melt in a couple of hours.

South Carolina greeted us with red clay hills, fireworks for sale, peaches and hot boiled peanuts, the Stars and Bars, deep fried funnel cakes and snicker bars, BBQ ribs, big Baptist churches with parking lots in front mall-style, Dixie Republic tourist shop, a University of Georgia bulldog football pickup at a rest stop on i-85, and the first road sign for Atlanta.

Welcome to Georgia. Thanks to everyone who called me on the road, or made a comment to the blog, or sent me an email in response. Thanks, Susie for helping me unpack my car. Glad to be home near my Georgia family and circle of friends.

September 1-Asheville NC-Appalachian Tale

2011-09-02T10:55:00.016-04:00

Dearest Readers,
Etta and I are at our last campsite on this Grand Roadtrip Across America. I’ve pitched the tent tonight along the banks of the French Broad River in Asheville, North Carolina. Water level is low–dry and dusty on shore.

The little red Scion tobogganed her way down i-64 West and 77 South, slaloming us around the green domed mountains, and pleated valleys of West Virginia. Cousin Julie calls the landscape there a series of bulbous megaliths as far as the eye can see.

The highway went up and down. We banked at the curves, accelerated and descended in sharp, drawn out, twisty drops. The road was a story of gravity won and lost and won again. I did not push my trusty red toaster-car. As the going got tough, I let her fall back to her natural mph for the incline. Her heart is strong and I’m in no rush.

Virginia greeted us again as we crossed her southwestern finger that slides between WVA and the corner of Tennessee, and tickles Kentucky on its eastern side.

We bored through solid rock at Big Walker Mountain Tunnel and the East River Mountain Tunnel.

Cascades of Virginia kudzu draped down from the bones of roadside trees cannibalized by this voracious non-native southern weed.

Tennessee welcomed us, and so did North Carolina further down the road. Etta and I were treated again and again to sweeping vistas, and layers of blue misty mountains, like promised lands beyond the horizon.

August 31-Charleston, West Virginia-Mountain Grandeur

2011-09-01T09:06:00.018-04:00

Dearest Readers,
Meet Trolley and Beauty–rescue greyhounds, trying to get to know Miss Etta James, who is sniffing their turf, ignoring them. We have arrived at the home of my cousin Julie and husband Jay Margolis, nestled in the hills above Charleston, West Virginia. The air is hot and muggy. Temperatures were in the 90s today. The dogs, by the way, are getting along famously. Etta darts around their long legs, and has commandeered Trolley’s green blanket as a munching station for a gift of a rawhide chew.

And meet Julie and Jay with me in the middle, clustered around a colorful dinner table setting. That’s green tomato gazpacho soup in our bowls. Chef Jay created a hearty tossed salad with apples and bounty from the garden, red bean burritos with guacamole and salsa, corn on the cob and Chardonnay from Otter Creek Vineyard in Brandon, Vermont. I am blessed to receive such loving food, and to connect with my relatives over a home-cooked meal.

Etta James and I departed our Virginia campsite earlier in the day mid-morning-ish, heading south and west. We picked up the Blue Ridge Parkway almost immediately, cruising its sharp turns and switchbacks at 35 miles per hour or less. Like the Pacific Coast Highway, this two-lane scenic parkway requires a slow ride. She paid us back in layered mountain overlooks, and distant vistas fading into misty blue. She’s an aging beauty of a highway, crumbling at the shoulders, sparsely traveled in this area.

We made our way to I-64, an engineering wonder cut through the Virginia and West Virginia Appalachians. The little red toaster Scion huffed over steep mountain ascents, and braced herself for twisting multi-mile drops at 6-7% grades. Semis roared past on the downside. We overtook them on the uptake.

West Virginia in her wildness welcomed us across the mountains.

I made a detour earlier, at the Covington Virginia exit, to take pictures for my friend Mitch Lindsey of the neighborhood where he grew up in the 70’s. He was curious about his former home, the Jackson River and the cave he cautiously explored as a kid. Here they are today. Donnie Bowker owns the place now. He was outside doing yardwork when I pulled alongside the curb, but demurred when I asked to take his picture. Thank you, Mitch for consistently calling me throughout this journey to check in, and see how I was doing, and where I was at that moment. His was a welcome voice in the deserts of the southwest, and along the northwestern wilderness roads.

August 30-Charlottsville Virginia-Almost the Last Delivery

2011-08-31T11:47:00.019-04:00

Dearest Readers,
Etta and I are camping tonight on Sherando Lake in the George Washington National Forest, near Charlottsville, Virginia. It’s serene, and nearly empty of campers. But it’s also black bear country, no kidding! The rangers said there have been sightings every night in camp for several days. I hate this part. It is worrisome, but I will pack all food and toiletries in the car and hope the tree climbing behemoths trudge on by my tent.

Left Kate Kretz' Maryland home around noon today, drove back around Washington, circling DC via the beltway once again.

I snapped this white Disney-esque apparition nestled in the trees over the highway. It reminds me of the Emerald City or a science fiction Magic Kingdom. There’s an angel trumpeter on top of the middle tower. Must be a mega-church of some sort.

Virginia greeted us at a clean, compact welcome center, with a delicious greasy donut that Etta found in the grass. Saw my first kudzu patch, a sure sign of the Deep South.

On to Charlottsville, Virginia today and the home, studio and assemblage installation space of Hand to Hand glove artist Andy Faith. She’s on her porch holding her pug, Baby.

This is a momentous moment, people. Here I am handing the last Hand to Hand glove artwork that I brought with me on the Roadtrip Across America. I’m tired and pleased just thinking of all the “hand-overs”. Andy's gloves are stained and pained American Flag patterned hands stuck all over with small hatpins, like Iraq War voodoo dolls.

There are a few more Atlanta artists who need to receive their work when I return (this weekend!) On Sept. 10-11th I’ll drive one short road voyage to South and Middle Georgia, Tallahassee and Jacksonville Florida for some final hand and glove artwork returns. I need to throw a done-deal party after H2H is all wrapped up.

Thanks to Andy Faith and Kate Kretz for the care packages of food for the road, and to Helen and Pam yesterday for snacks and beverages to go. I feel sometimes like the Pony Express traveling along a post road, dropping off the mail and picking up provisions from kind artists and friends along the trail.

Thanks also to Andy for the gift of her book “Home Altars of Mexico” that I admired at her house. Such a treat!

I’ll end this blog with a selection of assemblages and combines that fill Andy Faith’s home. Her place is an artistic, claustrophobic (in a good way) collection of found-object-creatures, homages to significant people, and decorative things with an end-of-the world, faded glory sense of the beautiful.

August 29-Silver Spring MD-On The Road Again

2011-08-30T09:48:00.028-04:00

Dearest Readers,
I’m in Silver Spring, Maryland at the home of artist friend Kate Kretz, her beautiful daughter Ilaria, and husband Kevin Maher. He works for the FDA as a regulatory scientist. We’re on the back porch eating dinner, talking about our Catholic childhoods and listening to the cicadas ricochet their calls from the pin oaks in the blackness beyond our circle of light. A few dots of starlight prick the cloud cover. Etta scurries at our feet searching for crumbs, barking now and then at a deer or perhaps a fox in the stand of trees.

This was the main course...baked cod with carrot puree, ginger spinach, and roasted shitake mushrooms on a bed of brown rice. Wine and cheeses at the start of the feast. Yellow cake with lemon curd filling, and a lavender cream topping. Health to your hands, Kate!

At the start of this day, I kissed my sleeping grandson Roman on the cheek, packed the Scion toaster-car, and drove out of beloved Brooklyn for the road again. And roads plus bridges and tunnels were the extent of the sights on the day’s journey. Verrazano Narrows Bridge, Goethels bridge, Delaware Memorial Bridge, NJ Turnpike, Delaware Turnpike, I-95, Fort McHenry Tunnels, Maryland Turnpike, the DC beltway.

New Jersey greeted my descent from the Goethels Bridge with 18 wheelers and oil refinery pill boxes beside the marshlands. I goofed and sailed through the EZ-Pass toll booth. The trucks would not let me back up, so without a ticket for the NJ Turnpike I had to pay the fee for the entire stretch of highway...$9.05...not too bad.
The Verrazano Bridge alone was $13.00 to cross.

Delaware flashed a digi-dotted welcome sign as I spilled off the Delaware Memorial Bridge at New Castle, surging forward with the tide of fellow cars and trucks. I snapped a quick windshield pic in response.

Maryland welcomed me to the beauty of the Chesapeake, with a reminder to keep her clean. The Lumix camera and I recorded this moment as another crossing point on the journey out of Georgia, around America, and now back down toward home.

This is Helen Zughaib, a Lebanese artist-refugee who was evacuated from her country in the mid-1970s during the civil wars. I am in her home and studio in the Columbia Plaza Apartments in Washington, DC near Watergate. From her sixth floor balcony we can see the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts across the street, and a bend of the Potomac running full and green two days after Hurricane Irene.

I’m handing Helen one of her six flowered gloves from the Hand to Hand Project, referencing the Bush administration’s early claim that the citizens of Iraq would welcome the American troops with garlands of flowers. We are standing in front of her gouache painting of the Washington Monument. Helen has covered the Memorial in Middle Eastern patterns and positioned a row of American flags at the base. Hillary Clinton gave her George Washington Memorial painting to the King of Morocco.

Obama gave her piece MIDNIGHT PRAYERS, shown here, to Prime Minister Maliki of Iraq.

See more of her work such as the "Weeping Women", and “Stories From My Father” series at http://hzughaib.com

Then on to Bethesda, Maryland to the home of Pam Rogers. She was working on some experimental watercolors on canvas when I arrived.

Here’s a sampling of two of her nature based paintings. There’s a wild, visceral connection here between plants and human relationships. See more at http://www.pamrogersart.com/

We’re standing in Pam’s dining room in front of one of her bleached cyanotype prints with a Turkish decorative ceramic plate on the table. Pam stitched her six gloves into a tangle of days and events from her war week in 2009.

I leave you, readers with a selection of Kate Kretz’ paintings on the walls of her home including an angel mural in Ilaria's bedroom. Kate is also a textile artist, whose full spectrum of work, including her hair embroideries can be seen at her website http://www.katekretz.com/

August 22-28-Brooklyn NY-Family, Earthquake and Hurricane Irene

2011-08-27T16:07:00.028-04:00

Dearest Readers,
What a week in Brooklyn! Drove across the Manhattan bridge last Monday into the DUMBO section of town and on to my daughter's apartment in Clinton Hill. Crisp, sunny days at the start of the week. Not much art on my agenda, but plenty of fun with my grandson Roman, and plenty of excitement from Mother Nature along the way.

This is the hanging plant in my daughter’s apartment that swung back and forth along with the whole brownstone during Tuesday’s earthquake. The epicenter was in Richmond, VA, but we felt it gently rocking up here. The effect was confusing, then a bit nauseating as it continued in slower and slower cycles for perhaps 45 seconds. Nothing fell off of shelves or hit us on the head.

This is my precious family out for lunch at Anima Italian restaurant in the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn. Daughter Semra, me, Daddy Erik, and grandson Roman.
The area is close to Pratt Institute and Fort Greene Park. More pictures follow of their house, and Roman with his friends Ava and Dominick at Fort Greene Playground, Dad and Roman at Graziella’s (best pizza in Brooklyn), and Roman flying the ride-em plane on DeKalb Avenue next to a sidewalk café.

It’s crowded in the apartment. Semra, Erik, Roman, me, Etta, Destro the rottweiler, and Neptune the indoor cat share about 800 square feet–two bedrooms, a living room, galley kitchen, foyer and cozy bathroom. Etta searches relentlessly for the kitty who has found a hiding spot in the apartment. Etta has claimed one couch and the air mattress as her territory, growling at Destro when he approaches her Etta-Zones. All’s well.

Meet my University of Vermont college roommate, Syrette Dym. We walked the High Line Park, a very cool public landscaping project on an old elevated industrial rail line in the meat-packing district and Chelsea areas. We overlooked the city and New Jersey, then descended a stairway for lunch. It was dead city on the ground around Chelsea.
The galleries are closed for installation of new shows for the Fall after the August hiatus. I had planned to subway into Manhattan this weekend to museum hop, but all buses and subways are shut down as of noon Saturday because of possible flooding during Hurricane Irene. She hit us at high tide, which was bad timing on her part.

So, my family and I survived Irene. It turned out to be a windy wet mess, with lots of downed tree limbs, but not as disastrous as predicted. Here's what she looked like around 6AM this morning when the eye was drawing near. Not bad!

Yesterday we battened down the house hatches...Erik taped big Xs on the windows to hold any shattered glass during the expected high winds.

We stocked up on essentials like coffee, wine, beer, milk, water, toilet paper and Chef Boy-ar-dee. We’re located in Evac Zone B, second in line after Evacuation Zone A, but we were able to stay at home, and the power stayed on. The only problem was a roof leak in a corner of the living room.

Tomorrow (Monday) morning, inshallah, if the roads are passable out of NYC, I’ll set sail in the red Scion to deliver glove art to H2H artists in DC and Bethesda, with a sleep over at artist Kate Kretz’ house in Silver Spring MD.

Cheers all...I’m headed home.

August 21- Rutland Vermont-My Big Art Week in VT MA & Upstate NY

2011-08-21T19:11:00.052-04:00

Dearest Readers,
Meet Susan Farrow, Vermont artist and friend. Wife of sculptor Patrick Farrow who was the brother of the actress Mia. We are at the Salem Art Works (SAW) Summer Gala in tiny historic Salem, NY. An exhibition and performance events marked the end of a group residency for her at this art enclave near the Vermont border.

Sculptures dot the meadow. An old livestock barn serves as the gallery space.

Susan stands beside her series of small, contained black and rust assemblages that ask the viewer impossible questions. They are titled “The Farrow Museum of Perplexing Thoughts”. One of them asks, “Why are tears of joy the same color as tears of sorrow?” The image is a shower of tear-shaped rusted metal droplets.

Outside the gallery a sculptor and musician named Justin performed a piece with original music and found objects called Rock Chair. He bluesily exhorts the old throne-like wicker chair to get up and rock. He crawls under the chassis, lies on his back and tries to fix the mock chariot auto-repair style, but the stubborn piece of furniture refuses to budge.

The week started with a two hour drive Sunday to the Karme Choling Shambhala Buddhist Retreat Center in Barnet, Vermont. I walked around the grounds, meditated at the site of a future stupa (a mound-like structure containing Buddhist relics), while Etta rolled in the grass. I explored the rooms inside the main building (without Miss Etta). No one paid a bit of attention to me. I arrived at the moment a week-long family camp session was coming to a close. Backpacks and sleeping bags dotted the porch and front lawn. Small groups of staff and kids were hugging and saying their good-byes. I slipped among them virtually unseen.

On the road to the Center, Etta and I stopped at Quechee Gorge, a deep ravine near the site of a former woolen mill store. We walked all the way down to the Ottauquechee river below, and played around on the rocks. It was a cardio-climb for both of us coming back out.

Monday Michael Beale and I drove an hour and a half in the rain to Mass MOCA in North Adams Mass–a Dickinsonian 19th century brick mill complex re-purposed for monumental installations, big group projects, and extensive artist retrospectives. I love this place. It’s a laboratory for inspirational, edgy work. Every year when I visit I am not disappointed.

Here are two sculptural installations by the Jamaican born artist Nari Ward–“NuColassus” and “Mango Tourists” that moved me. Both pieces incorporate Jamaican inspired media with objects found at MASS MOCA from its previous life as a cotton printing factory, and later an electric supply-making company.

Readers...are you still with me on this week of art adventures?

Tuesday Michael and I visited sculptor, glass artist and digital painter Paedra Bramhall who lives beyond the electrical grid in Center Bridgewater, VT. Michael is about to go inside Paedra’s hand-built home and studio in the first shot.

And here we are inside, deep in conversation about the economy and the state of the arts in Vermont.

Paedra has captured the hydro-power from the Bridgewater Hollow Creek that surges past her home and crosses through the 350 acres inherited from her Mom and Dad. A telephone line is her only nod to the utility companies. Inside is a clean composting toilet and water diverted from the creek.

Paedra took us on a tour of some of her bronze sculptures, her woodlands, and a second studio where she keeps her big digital canvases. There’s a third studio housing just glass and bronze pieces not on the tour today.

Thursday and Friday I finished my painting and drawing work at the Granary Studios in Brandon. It’s sad to leave, but I had a fruitful month exploring the notion of holes, wells and boats with holes, abstracted and imagined from multiple angles, under water, within the sky, deep inside the earth and below the skin. I’m happy with them. They are prep pieces for a daily digging performance...to be announced December 6th. Here are the images.

Too-da-loo my friends. Tomorrow I head south to Brooklyn, NY for a week with my beautiful daughter, her partner Erik, and my cute grandson Roman.

August 13-Birthdays, Friends, the Sky and A Well-Rutland Vermont

2011-08-13T21:11:00.024-04:00

Dearest Readers,

This is what my lunch and dinner looked like on my birthday–two meals of non-nutritiously delicious Dunkin chocolate-chocolate donuts and coffee. Breakfast was coffee and a short stack of blueberry pancakes with real maple syrup. I had a sugar/caffeine buzz most of the day, so I stayed in bed reading Rebecca Solnit’s “A Field Guide to Getting Lost”, recommended by Atlanta photographer Laura Noel as a must for the rest of my road trip.

The big Ah-ha on this journey around the country has been how uncomfortable I am with really letting go, and daring to be lost. Alone, I am often like a boat beyond the shore, especially in the Southwest and Northwest USA. So big, so empty. So few signs posts. Trusting the map, letting go of the need to identify the river I am crossing, or what might be around the bend. No one except Etta James is in the passenger seat. No one can read the map for me. I drift through landscapes in the general direction of my next location. The GPS makes mistakes. I will not travel the fastest route. She speaks the truth as best she can. Mostly she is right.

Today, cousins once, twice, three times removed converged on Rutland Vermont to celebrate my first cousin Moira’s 90th birthday. This is a shot I took of the family picture in disarray before the pro-photographer ushered me onto the altar at Christ the King Church to join the group. Moira is front and center in the light blue dress. I am honored to be a part of the gene pool. We are a smart, creative, humorous bunch of New Englanders who have migrated all over the nation, pulled back to this town to celebrate a generous life well lived.

On Thursday I took a short drive over the Green Mountains on paved and dirt roads to Ripton, VT to visit Atlanta friends Ginger and Ralph Birdsey who have a summer place there. Robert Frost lived in Ripton too. This is their house designed and built on the footprint of a previous barn. They have created an artist and writer’s heart cave inside, carved out of the woods. It’s a joyful refuge for thinking, writing, painting and conversation.

Here we sit in the center of the space upstairs. (Downstairs is the studio.)
We are Ralph, Ginger, Etta, myself and Renee Wells on the couch. Renee is an arts advocate for the disabled who consults with the likes of the Smithsonian, MOMA, the Whitney Museum and others from her phone in this town.

Here are three paintings Ginger did the previous day. She is working on images of carnivalesque winged beings with the heads of barn owls who haunt her imagination.

I have become aware of the mostly turbulent sky in Vermont. The Great Lakes affect the weather here. They send us streams of clouds that spend the day forming and reforming above our heads. Sky is a living being in this state, not a backdrop.

Conversely, I visited a hand made well, discovered beneath the Town Hall Center in Middlebury, the former site of a family home. The hole is deep, and narrow, and lined in cobblestones with a collar of brick at the top. A black pool of water is visible in the profundity of its depth.

Finally, I learned that Christina Viscu of Nashville has relocated to Europe and will not be in Nashville when I arrive in early September. So, here I am handing her Hand-to-Hand glove artwork to the postal attendant at the Brandon Vermont post office. Her only comment as the picture was taken was “bizarre”. The customer in line ahead of me snapped the pic.

Summer unwinds. School in Vermont begins August 22nd in most places. I will resume the road trip that day.

August 7-Parties, Post Office, Painting-Rutland Vermont

2011-08-07T10:49:00.022-04:00

Dearest Readers,

Meet my friend–the incredible, obsessively artistic Michael Beale cooking me dinner last night in his bulging-with-art condo. I’m wedged in a side chair at the dining table. The whole place is an art installation of gazing balls, glass and stone spheres, lava lamps, sculptures and paintings everywhere including the couch and most of the walking areas.

In the first picture of the living room by day, you get a glimpse of the only two open chairs on the right. The end tables have no space to put a drinking glass on. I bumped into a few objects and learned to keep my elbows in and weave slowly through the maze.
Obviously Etta cannot come into this house!

Here are some pics from different rooms and angles by day and night.
On the menu was a butter and milk based soup with fresh-that-day baby peas, heritage Italian zucchini bits and new corn shaved off the cob. Salad made of diced greens, tomato and cubes of untoasted sourdough with dark balsamic dressing. Dessert was the decadent dark chocolate flour-less “cake” from Brandon’s Café Provence.

Friday night Michael took me to an artist party called “Vino and Vinyl” hosted by Linda and Ron Evans who live in Clarendon, VT in an old mill that they have been renovating for 30 years. The soaring structure hovers on a rock ledge overlooking the low flowing Mill River near the Kingsley Covered Bridge. Good food, drink and dancing to Ron’s extensive record collection.

Michael is on the left, Linda and Ron, center, and John and Stephanie from Tampa.

This is the postman at the Rutland Vermont PO accepting Eric Hancock’s Hand to Hand glove art. I had to mail them to him since he will not be in New York when I arrive later this month. Eric took a position teaching art in Austin. I already drove through there in June in the early stages of this journey. Initially the postman said I was not allowed to photograph him because of security reasons. Then he changed his mind, and let the man in line in front of me shoot this pic. I’m smiling about that.

Studio Report...I’m continuing the intuitive drawings of holes in my studio. Here’s one of sky holes.

I’m learning imovie and Flash through tutorials and a session with my very smart web guy, Andrew Christie. Here’s a link to my first test movie from scratch with Etta as my 21-second star. http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=CeceliaKane#grid/uploads
I FINALLY learned how to import film from my Flip camera to the application. That basic step had been my stumbling block. (Sorry Apple...that first step was not intuitive.)

I began the week last Sunday by helping Glenn, my friend in front in the turquoise dress where I’m staying, host a “Lia Sophia” costume jewelry party (like a Tupperware party). We vacuumed the house, prepared a selection of brunch foods, and entertained a group of her church friends last Sunday. Michelle, the young jewelry salesperson, conducted the show-and-sell event. I didn’t buy anything, but others did, and Glenn said it was a success. This “direct sales” type of shopping is alive and well despite the economic downturn.

Rainy and gray today (Sunday). Decided to rest and read and write to you!

July 31-Settling In-Rutland Vermont

2011-07-31T10:46:00.023-04:00

Dearest Readers,

THE SUMMER NEST
Miss Mole continues to dig
Into the darkness
With perspicacious claws
And blind eyes.

She settles on a cul de sac
That’s comfortable and roomy-
A nesting place
For rest and rumination.

Outside-Inside she drags and pulls
Rolls and pushes the ordinary objects
That will occupy the space,
Removing the detritus.
Clearing the way.

She begins her summer life
With big circular arm movements
That pivot at her shoulder blades.
She drags an ample chair
With deep cushions and a footrest
Down to her thought box
And her vision screen.
This is enough for now.

Miss Mole (me) is settling into my Rutland Routines and loving it. Are you bored yet? (Routine sounds so...routine).

I walk to the “Gymnasium” (its real name), to work out every other morning.

Most afternoons I’m in my studio at the Brandon Granary working on small charcoal, ink or pastel drawings of holes. I’m preparing for my extensive daily digging performance beginning December 6th.

There’s a train that chugs past my studio window every afternoon around 4:00 Railroad bells clang at the point where the tracks cross the small street in front of the building. The Blue Seal Feed Company is across the road and usually loads up the train cars with sweet molasses-smelling livestock feeds.

I drove north to Burlington, VT this week, home of my alma mater the University of Vermont, to buy more art supplies. I did not bring enough drawing materials, and Rutland only offers only a small, standard selection of media.

Etta and I checked out Burlington’s waterfront on lake Champlain. It was a clear day. The Adirondacks are barely visible in the distance on the New York side. Loved this embracing stainless steel sculpture with French and English alphabet flowers at the top--a gift of friendship and communication from Canada to her USA neighbors on the occasion of the quadra-centennial of Samuel de Champlain’s discovery of his namesake lake in 1609.

Here I am with Marie Weaver and her husband Steve at the Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester Vermont for printmaker Sabra Field’s opening reception last Saturday. Marie is a Hand to Hand artist and lives in Atlanta. She studied in Italy with Sabra in the 70s and made the trip to Vermont for the show (small world). It was a feeding frenzy with gobs of well-dressed people in attendance. They ran out of champagne and food in the first 30 minutes!

David turned 77 Thursday. Glenn prepared a lobster feast with lemon, butter and all the appropriate tools for sucking, pulling, and picking lobster flesh from the crustaceans’ innards. (I was conveniently not around when the doomed green beasts were tossed into the cauldron of boiling water.) The tasty creatures were accompanied by a fresh tossed salad, and same-day farm-fresh corn on the cob from Woods Farm about ½ hour up the road.

Glenn made a dark chocolate cake with butter cream frosting from scratch that was shared by the neighbors Paul, Susan and kids Daniel and Anna. Glenn stuck a full-sized candlestick in the cake.

Today I toured Rutland’s Sidewalk Sales and the weekly Farmer’s Market downtown on closed off Merchants’ Row. This folk dance group I believe is from the Twelve Tribes Christian hippie commune in town. Their band played old-timey bluegrass-ish music with violin, trumpet, guitar, and reed recorder–all with a strong hint of an old English medieval sort-of-Greensleeves-y tempo.

Meet Carol Tashie and Dennis Duhaime of Radical Roots Farm. They offer a colorful summer spread of unique fresh veggies, and now they are selling their produce to a new local food restaurant in town. Dennis’ brother Walter lives in Decatur, Georgia, is a friend of mine, and a regular at my Dancing Goats neighborhood coffee shop back home . (Small world again). Here I am at their farm stand with Sharon Nimtz, the food critic of the Rutland Herald. Sharon’s a big proponent of locally grown food, but says most of the area restaurants still get their meat and produce from the big corporate (not necessarily organic or local) food distributors.

Finally, I’d like to share the view from my feet as I take daily walks along North Main Street in Rutland. Here’s an assortment of big, eclectic period homes probably built in the mid to late 1800’s or turn of the 20th century. Many are now law or accounting firms.

Talk to you all next weekend. Eat healthy, and “Buy Local” as the signs around town say.

July 23-Emergence-Rutland Vermont

2011-07-23T13:27:00.008-04:00

Dearest Readers,

REENTRY
Miss Mole raised the hem of her morning gown,
Extending a tentative toe to the floor
Below her bed.
The water had receded.
The mud tiles stretched hard packed and dry
All the way up to the circular door.

She smelled sunshine and predictions of more summer
That tempted her to slide her rounded self
Out from under the quilted cloths of recuperation.

Miss Mole (me) is reemerging from the blues. She climbed up the ladder and out of the mole-hole.

I went to church last Sunday at Christ the King, my old parish, and marveled at its beauty with new eyes.

I met my cousins Moira (first) and her daughter Julie (first once removed) after mass, and went to their house for a home-made waffle brunch with pecans and berries. Cousin Elaine took this picture of us enjoying the food out on the sun porch. Etta came too and was a good girl. So I’m relaxing...reading and have now established a routine, which has helped to give me purpose and joy.

1. Walk in the early AM, leaving Etta with my friends Glenn and David.
2. Cardio/weight train on alternate mornings at a health club I joined for one month
3. Draw in the afternoon at an artist studio complex in Brandon (1/2 hour away by car). I rented ½ a studio for a month. Etta comes along.
4. Visit friends, relatives, art shows occasionally
5. Help with the chores here in the house, like planting/weeding in the garden.
6. Mix all that up and go with the flow of a month to rest

Here are some pictures of events of the past week:

Planted some late tomatoes with David in the garden.

Girls’ sleepover at Glenn’s house on Wednesday. This is Toryn, me, Kerry and Glenn in the kitchen.

Dinner in Dummerston Vermont at Gordon Faison (with ear of corn in the ear), and Eleanora Patterson’s house. I’m in the middle. Etta is under the table. We’re enjoying grilled tuna, (Etta isn't), fresh local corn and green beans, even locally made vanilla frozen yoghurt on sliced peaches swirled with a drizzle of an expensive Italian balsamic vinegar reduction that tasted like sweet grape syrup with a tinge of piquant. Bravo!

July 16-Depression and Reading-Rutland Vermont

2011-07-18T08:54:00.023-04:00

Dearest Readers,

Miss Mole (me) has slipped down her tunnel and fallen into a slump. I’m struggling with a depression and a disoriented head. Blame it on the let down from the end of Phase One of the journey...Blame it on traveling four time zones one way, and then reversing back. Blame it on Etta James who hates to be left alone, or the surprisingly hot weather here in Vermont.

OK. Now that that’s off my chest, you should know I’m burying myself in book reading and hiding away–kind of.
Folks in Atlanta and along the road lent or gave me books for the journey. What a collection! Here are my bedtime companions, with Etta and I hunkered down underground.

Book 1-Living on Wilderness Time (Melissa Walker). Lent by Susie Winton in Atlanta. I thank the author for the term “Hurry Sickness”, and the evocative title and mystical cover photo, but the book did not grab me by the throat and shake me. Sometimes in my tent I was going through what Ms Walker had experienced. That was nice.

Book 2. Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami). Lent by Ruth Schowalter in Decatur from her Japan tsunami party last spring. Not the author’s best. It felt like the training bra for The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, which is on my list of all time favorites. The familiar elements were there of the well (briefly mentioned), suburban Tokyo life, vivid descriptions of apparel, lots of smoking, drinking, subway rides, youthful debauchery and relationships that never gel, and a dreamy lack of a purpose.

Book 3. At Knit’s End–Meditations for Women Who Knit too Much (Stephanie Pearl-McPhee). Lent by Charlotte Wegrzynowski on Day 1 of the journey in Tuscaloosa Alabama. She’s a knitter and I’m a beginner. I read a few of these cute little knitter jokes a day. I’m not finished. I understand the mind that delights in artistic predicaments and creative conundrums.

Book 4. Shambhala–The Sacred Path of the Warrior (Chogyam Trungpa). Given by Vince Whitlock in Chicago. What a gem of Buddhist wisdom! The author jumps into heavy stuff about the “cosmic mirror”, ones place in the hierarchy of reality, the vastness of space before thinking began, and the idea of egolessness (no self). My mind kept drifting. I probably read most chapters twice. Logic doesn’t work here...only surrender to the idea that an awakened life in service to others can happen without striving.

Book 5. The Savage Detectives (Roberto Bolano). Given by Joel Adams in Portland OR. Great stuff. I’m half way through this high-speed fictional documentary written in interview style about two youthful poets, founders of the Visceral Realists, an attempt to establish a Mexican poetic revolution in the late 70’s. A raft of characters reminisce about their desperate, rejoicing, creative encounters with the two dissolute kids who live on the edge with little money, lots of sex, drinking, and wild discussions about writing a new world.

Book 6. Magnificat (June 2011)-a monthly pamphlet of Catholic daily prayers and meditations. Given by Aileen Barreca of Decatur Georgia. I could not fit this regimen into my traveling schedule. Now I’m reading the daily contemplations, concentrating on simplicity and humility.

Still Unread:

Book 7. Undaunted Courage–Merriweather Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West (Stephen Ambrose). Given by Carolyn Terkla in Monroe Wisconsin. Can’t wait to start this historical novel. I unwittingly traveled some of the Lewis and Clark Trail (1834-ish) in reverse, driving from Washington through Idaho and across the Missouri River at Chamberlain South Dakota. Want to learn more about their journey.

Book 8. Locus Solus (Raymond Roussel). Salvaged from the trash in Olympia Washington. Joel tossed out the soggy paperback after it fell into Puget Sound. It took three weeks to dry out in the back of the Scion. I turned signatures of moist, gritty pages each day, splaying them out across a suitcase in the back to dry.

Book 9. The Gift of Faith (Father Tadeusz Dajczer) Lent by Aileen Barreca of Decatur Georgia

Book 10. Shorter Christian Prayer–A Four Week Psalter of the Liturgy of the Hours. Lent by Aileen Barreca. I probably won’t delve into this compilation of Bible readings, designed to be read throughout the day.

Book 11. Rosary Meditation Companion. Given by Aileen Barreca of Decatur Georgia. This will remain a good reference for contemplations while reciting the rosary...something I've reinstated in my life.

Day 43-July 13, 2011- Rutland Vermont Phase 1–Hand to Hand Roadtrip Across America–Complete

2011-07-14T09:00:00.013-04:00

Dearest Readers,
8,900 miles. Relief. I am here in my own “private Idaho” of Rutland Vermont (pop. 17,000)–town of half my immediate ancestors, and the place where I spent much of my growing up. Phase one of the return of H2H national artists’ gloves and hands is finished. I’m taking a five-week respite at the idyllic home of my gracious hosts and friends, Glenn and David Horgan on Church Street. Etta and I will resume the trek, returning art to east coast artists in mid August.

This is the view this morning of their sunny backyard from my upstairs bedroom window...my nest of recovery and reflection.

We enjoyed dinner last night in the Florida room. David grilled hamburgers (local beef), and Glenn and I fixed a tossed salad with produce from the Rutland Co-op Market. Even the aged balsamic vinegar is a locally made product.

The God of this journey put a lid on the trip with a display of extreme exaltation. Hints of nature’s impending excitement showed itself in the tempestuous skies above Amsterdam NY on i-90 as I headed eastward yesterday afternoon across New York state. I snapped the Welcome to Vermont sign as a few big drops plinked on my head and shoulders.

I jumped in the car, and the skies opened up. The Green Mountains appear gray in the mists and driving rain, as I traveled the final few miles to Rutland. Traffic slowed because of slush on Route 4. That white stuff along the edge of the road in the last picture is hail!
Ha-ha-hee-hee-ho-ho.

Day 42-July 12, 2011- Cayuga Lake, Seneca Falls NY

2011-07-13T09:30:00.013-04:00

Dearest Readers,

Etta and I (really just me) started the day with a delicious coffee and a muffin at Tim Horton’s in Angola New York, a Dunkin Donuts clone and very poplar in northwestern New York. Howard Salzman, my camp buddy from Buffalo couldn’t believe I’d never heard of the chain. “They have stores in Boston,” he exclaimed! He was right about the good coffee. I drove five miles in the wrong direction to get a refill. (Silly, happy me). We drove north and then east along i-90, skirting the southern shore of Lake Ontario, until we arrived at the Finger Lakes area southeast of Rochester, NY–just west of Syracuse.

We are now camped on the shores of Lake Cayuga, one of eleven “Finger Lakes”, formed like claw gouges in the earth some 10,000 years ago when glaciers receded from the area. Etta and I strolled along the lakeside, and are now relaxing at our campsite. She’s got her fuzzy green frog (ignoring it), and a new rawhide “bone” to whittle on (enjoying it). She stayed in the car while I sampled some wine at Montezuma Winery nearby.

I bought a few bottles to share with friends and family. The crew at the wine tasting place were not too friendly, so no pictures of them.

I’m also sampling at my picnic table a local IPA called “Caged Alpha Monkey”, with the subhead, “A Big, Bold, East Coast Animal That Throws Hops At You.” It’s made by Custom Brew Crafters of Honeoye, NY. Sorry, chimp, it’s too bold and “hoppy” for my taste. I’ll finish it, but I’m holding my nose!

After setting up the tent, Etta and I toured historic Seneca Falls NY founded in 1831. The downtown area is a model of well-preserved 19th century storefront architecture.

The Erie Canal flows through town, near a now renovated waterfront area with restaurants and shops along the old barge mule path.

The key marker in town is the sign commemorating the First Convention for Women’s Rights that took place here in 1848, spearheaded by local women’s activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Three hundred people attended, including Fredrick Douglass, Quakers Lucretia and James Mott, Mary Ann and Thomas M’Clintock, and human rights philanthropists Jane and Richard Hunt.

This nearly life-sized bronze sculpture by Lloyd Lillie of twenty of the convention participants dominates the lobby of the Visitor Center.

Driving back to the campsite this evening I snapped this picture of a roadside sign about another human rights struggle unfolding today between some area business people, and the Cayuga Indians who appear to be petitioning for a reservation and return of ancestral lands.

I shot this movie poster in ZuZu'z Cafe, a really good coffee shop downtown. Seneca Falls is where "It's A Wonderful Life" was filmed. How perfect is that for a perfect looking town with a lot of American history.

Day 41-July 11, 2011- Lake Erie-Irving NY

2011-07-12T10:16:00.020-04:00

Dearest Readers,

Meet the joking Salzman family from Buffalo, my camp neighbors. From left to right, Joyce+Howard, granddaughter Lulu+her mother Randi (who is their daughter), and second daughter Rhonda. Rhonda’s husband Tim did not want to be in the picture.
They are having a great time lovingly poking fun at each others foibles. Howard, the patriarch of the little clan helped me set up my tent in a hurry. The wind was whipping, the sky dark. I thought rain was imminent, but for the moment we’ve dodged the bullet.

Etta and I have camped at Evangola State Park right on Lake Erie in Irving NY, about 25 miles south of Buffalo. Our tent is next to a wooded area and immediately behind that is the lake, so wide it is impossible to see across.

Etta chased a seagull and dodged the waves. It’s hard to believe that in the 70s I think Lake Erie was declared a dead lake. What a change anti-pollution laws can make!

We started the day in Michigan heading south and east alongside miles of corn again, and several small railroad towns like Tecumseh, founded in 1824. I snapped a picture of a historic columned home on Chicago Street (the main drag), and one of the former train depot conveniently situated across from The Daily Grind, Tecumseh’s local coffee shop. Yay!

Did you catch that sign in the soggy picture, readers?..the smudge of writing in the upper right through my windshield in a driving rain? It says, “Welcome to Ohio”. The Great Lakers got some of their needed downpour today.
Most of my trip hugged Lake Erie, and was a who’s who of rust belt cities, as I continued south-east, then east and then northeast along the shoreline. I whizzed by Toledo, Sandusky, and Cleveland in the rain.

I grabbed this shot of Cleveland under a roiling sky. I’m getting pretty good at snap and go driving.

The next bad shot is the Welcome to Pennsylvania sign. I’m on unforgiving i-90 under construction, in a single line of trucks and speed-happy automobiles. I zipped past Erie PA, and finally crossed New York State in another blur of shutter speed signage, continuing northeast now along the Lake Erie coast.

I stood inside the rows of a New York State vinyard near lake Erie–much humbler digs here than the high tech supports and rolling miles of grapes in California. Maybe I can sample some of their wines tomorrow.

I saw my first Vermont license plate in Michigan this morning, and another on an 18-wheeler in Pennsylvania. I’m closing in on the end of Phase 1 of this journey. Phase 2 will be going down the east coast delivering Hand to Hand art in August, after a five week stopover in Vermont. Such an Odyssey! :)

Day 40-July 10, 2011- Onsted Michigan

2011-07-11T09:04:00.010-04:00

Dearest Readers,
Etta and I crossed into the Eastern Time zone in Indiana. We will not change our clocks for the rest of the trip...sort of feels a little like home already.

We left Chicago around 9 in the morning. It was already cooking up to be a hot and muggy day, with thunderheads blossoming out of the whitewashed sky. “Bye big, creative city, I’ll miss your energy, but not your traffic.”

We drove south around the tip of Lake Michigan, a heavy industrialized area with corridors of high-tension electrical towers, refinery pillboxes, steel mills and factories along the coast. I shot this picture from the car near Gary. As the highway straightened out we headed due east just below the border with Michigan. The landscape morphed into the familiar flatness of the heartland with acres of cornfields and big-scale farms.

We turned north at the eastern edge of Indiana, crossing into Michigan and then traveled east across the lower middle of the state. We discovered 40-mile-per-hour towns with one main street, and smaller farms in a gently rolling terrain. Dollar General stores have returned to the highway. Subway never left it.

We’ve set up our tent at Walter J. Hayes state park campsite in a mixed hardwood forest by a lake and scummy swamp. It’s 95 degrees. The ground is baked, dry, and dusty. They’re having a summer drought up here. Etta rests by the tent, and rolls in the dirt. She sniffed at the edge of the lake, and slopped herself into the green slime hunting smelly water-critters. The lack of trash cans at the campsite probably reflects the budget crunch. There's one dumpster 1/4 mile away for 100-campsites.
All across America the truck weigh stations are closed. I don't think I saw one that was open. States saving money?

I’m relaxed tonight, surrounded by the now familiar mix of campers and RVs at state parks. There are a few tents set up with an RV, but none solo. I arrived early (gained an unexpected hour with the time change). I’ll be able to read some...maybe see a night sky full of stars. It won’t be particularly quiet. Country music and some 80's glam rock wafts in the air. Voices, laughter, barking and truck doors slam. A pickup crunches gravel as it sweeps its headlights across my tent.

Day 38+9-July 8+9, 2011- Chicago Illinois

2011-07-09T18:22:00.020-04:00

Dearest Readers,

Etta and I are inching our way back East. Yesterday we traveled southeast from Wisconsin across the Illinois border, and down to the windy city of Chicago. Traffic Friday afternoon was a snarly mess on I-90, but I’ll forgive them for it. I learned quickly how to dash and dodge my way into lane changes. The day was actually breezy, sunny and dry...the place to be in the summer with festivals of all kinds happening in the neighborhoods. There’s a Burger Fest going on now in the Roscoe Village area where I’m staying two nights with Vince Whitlock, a Shambhala Buddhist friend of former Atlanta artist Rhonda Reno, and poet/musician Debbie Hiers. A Roots-Folk festival is taking place this weekend in Rhonda and Deb’s Lincoln Square section of town. Today they took part in a 5K run and tour of Chicago's famous disaster sites.

I’m here for two days. Etta, by the way is in seventh heaven with a big rolled rawhide bone that Debbie gave her. Etta even ignored their cats in favor of maligning the big “bone”. I’ll remember that.

This is Rhonda and Debbie in front of their house, plus a picture of me returning Rhonda’s Hand to Hand Iraq War prayer /surrender flags with printed hands. We're on the steps of her home in the Lincoln Square section of Chicago. One flag records her conversation with a frustrated soldier, John Francis, seated next to her on a plane. He was off to Iraq for his third tour in August last year, when combat troops were supposed to be pulling out, not going in again.

Later we walked their dog Trixie, and Miss Etta around the neighborhood park, shops and eateries.

We had dinner at a Lincoln Square brewpub called The Fountainhead to celebrate Rhonda’s promotion and raise at her marketing company. Left to right we are: Celeste a friend from Atlanta, Rhonda, me, Debbie, and Vince. Thanks for treating, Rhonda!

Today is Saturday. I drove into South Chicago to deliver Patrick Holbrook’s paper hands for his six Iraq War dates in 2006. They are printed in ASCII code for each news story and picture. He could not be at home today, so I slipped them under his door. It looks like he lives in an artist/warehouse area.

Next stop was downtown Chicago and the comedy club, Second City, where the Hand to Hand artist Kathleen Rapp works. She accepted her first week of six gloves from 2007. They spell out "Help Me" in American Sign Language. We're standing near the box office to that famous improv club.

Then I formally returned her six small vignette shadowboxes with miniature gloves inside, depicting a collaged war story for each day. We're again standing at the entrance to Second City.

Etta and I are now relaxing. We’re staying at Vince Whitlock and his wife Barbara’s house in the Roscoe Village neighborhood, not far from Rhonda and Debbie. Both areas are an eclectic mix of early 20th century residential architecture with alleyways and private backyards. This is Vince on his sunny deck in front of Tibetan prayer flags and pots of fat tomato plants. I snuck this final picture of Etta in Vince and Barbara’s Buddhist library, altar and meditation space.

Day 37-July 7, 2011- Monroe, Wisconsin

2011-07-08T11:29:00.020-04:00

Dearest Readers,

Etta and I have arrived in the picturesque town of Monroe Wisconsin (pop. 11,000), in the “Driftless Area” of hills and farmland in the southwestern part of the state.

This is my cousin Carolyn Terkla who works at Café Claudeen downtown on the square.
I’m staying one night in her early 20th century brick home with she and her children Madeline and Jacob.

I’m impressed by the community spirit of this town, and its dedication to funding the arts. Originally founded by Swiss immigrants, the downtown area maintains its heritage in Alpine designs on local stores and architecture. Large, sturdy brick churches like St Victor’s Catholic Church, and the imposing central Old Courthouse dominate the landscape and provide meeting places for social interaction.

This is Bob, a happily retired regular at Claudeens in front of the courthouse. Last night the Jamie Campbell Band played country western music to a crowd of all ages in the square.

Carolyn and I walked easily from her house to the concert. She showed me the new Monroe Arts Center, a former Methodist-Episcopal Church,

and the Monroe Theatre Guild, an empty department store building being renovated for its new incarnation. This is the black box stage, currently showing the play “Noises Off”. Carolyn’s a member of both groups, and an active participant in the Theater Guild.

As the stage manager for the earlier prouction "Godspell," she’s pictured having a good time with the cast in Leonardo da Vinci’s altered Last Supper.(See white arrow.)

Last night we enjoyed a home-made dinner of beet risotto with leeks, salad greens and aged, sweet and sour balsamic salad dressing. In the picture, I’m seated with Carolyn and artist-actress daughter Madeline. Thanks Carolyn for your hospitality, and the chance to reconnect.

Day 36-July 6, 2011- Iowa City, Iowa

2011-07-07T10:11:00.014-04:00

Dearest Readers,

Today is a story of the road and corn. Etta and I zig-zagged at right angles south and east, south and east, south and east across a good part of Iowa on two lane state roads, straight- as-a-bent-arrow right angle turns again and again stair stepping our way to east-central Iowa City. So here are a few of the highway sights.

*Followed a slow pokey truck pulling one of those big jellyroll bales of hay near Dickens
*Stopped to stand at the edge of a sea of corn ad infinitum, and feel the bio-heat in front of me
*Big corn depots in Emmetsburg
*Old-timey downtown of Cylinder dominated by its grain silos
*Lunch with Etta in a roadside park in Clear Lake
*Wind farm aliens near Waterloo

We arrived in historic Iowa City, home of the University of Iowa around 4pm and immediately met Dana Haugaard, formerly of Atlanta and now getting his MFA in sculpture at the University here. We’re standing in front of his professor, Jim Snitzer’s home who took this picture. I returned Dana’s six Hand to Hand gloves and hands. This one is made of dollar bills, hand stitched and softened into a comfortable Iraq War glove. I like college towns like this. It reminds me of a prairie version of Bozeman, MT (U of MT) and Starkville, MS (Miss State). Mid-sized towns with cool shops, coffee houses, well-kept Victorian historical areas, socially conscious, creative minds in full bloom.

Etta and I pitched our tent at the Coralville Lake Dam a few miles outside of Iowa City. We face a massive pile of rip-rap rubble which is part of the dam itself. The Coralville lake water is on the opposite side, innocently slurping against this wall of stone.

A roaring tailwater pours through a tunnel in the dam from the lake right next to the campsite, creating a blast of whitewater sound. Unfortunately I did not stay here long. I loved the weirdness of the site, but I did not feel safe. The area was empty of other tenters. Cars with solo men would park in a lot nearby, drink by themselves, or make long phone calls. I felt exposed and vulnerable. So I moved uphill to the lakeside where I found the familiar RVs and families with kids and grandkids, electricity and showers.

Day 35-July 5, 2011- Lake Okoboji, Milford Iowa

2011-07-06T10:19:00.013-04:00

Dearest Readers,

Meet the Ellsworths–owners since 1959 of Mac’s Corner near Stephan, South Dakota. I filled up the tank and went inside to buy a cup of coffee. There was none, but Mrs. Ellsworth asked me to wait while she brewed a fresh pot. She said OK to having me take this picture, but she would not tell me her husband or her first names. I told her my name is Cecelia. A customer chatting at the register told me that I looked like a Cecelia.

I nearly cried this morning at my good fortune driving down this isolated road...just me, the dog, a car full of dwindling artwork, and the breathtaking beauty of prairie land. Wheat and corn, and grass for miles. Tiny towns with proud names like Winner and Reliance. Indian place names like Pukwana, and Oacoma and more from the Crow, Creek, Sioux and Kiowa people. We crossed the Missouri another two times today. What a vista at Chamberlain SD for Lewis and Clark to behold from the bluffs back in 1804!

Welcome to Minnesota the sign read, but this was not the case. All campgrounds in state parks, rest areas, weigh stations and all state services are non-operational since July 1 because of a budget impasse in their senate.

I cut short my visit to that state (sorry Garrison Keillor), saw great stretches of ankle and knee high corn from I-90, then turned south into north-western Iowa for a campsite and another welcome sign.

I found a quiet forest campground at Gull Point State Park on the banks of Lake Ojokobi near Milford Iowa. It’s just my style. The sites are amply spaced out, deeply set in groves of oaks, and the lake is an easy walk from our tent.

The temperature has moderated after a heavy morning rain that I missed. Etta loves the place. She’s discovered fearless rabbits munching out in the open in the grass, and loves the fishy smells at the shoreline. The mosquitoes have found me too, and are plunging their proboscises (probosci?) for a dinner feast.

Day 34-July 4, 2011- West Bend of the Missouri-Harrold South Dakota

2011-07-05T10:35:00.016-04:00

Dearest Readers,

Happy birthday America! The day started with a 4th of July parade through downtown Sundance Wyoming. Several high school graduating classes made pick-up truck, car and tractor floats honoring their year.

This is Ken and Joyce, class of 47. She’s wearing a nametag around her neck. The name and date is correct she said, but the picture from her yearbook is the wrong girl.

Etta and I entered South Dakota early in the day, traveling through the Black Hills that stretch across both the Wyoming and South Dakota borders. We passed a road to Mount Rushmore and a turnoff to the sad site of the massacre of Sioux families at Wounded Knee.

I whizzed by an exit to the badlands too. I glimpsed the desolate, grand canyon-like terrain and figured “bad” did not mean good. I learned my lesson at the sand hills of West Texas. Camping under trees is critical for me.

The South Dakota hills rolled out and gradually flattened as I traveled east. I exited I-90 and drove through tiny towns with straightforward names like Quinn (pop.6) Philip (pop. 880), Midland and the lovely Cottonwood, SD (pop. 4).

It was 98 degrees in Philip at 4pm when I stopped for a precious fill-up, and a windshield scrub. Locusts and grasshoppers are stuck to my grill, headlights and front window.

America’s landscape is its bounty. We drove by grain silos with wheat fields in the background, miles and miles of grasslands, some with jellyroll bales of hay. I saw a tractor pulling a device that chopped the grass and left it in flat rows. Another tractor pulled a boxy trailer that sucked up the rows of grass, and seemed to swirl the stalks on the spin cycle and plopped an occasional rolled bale out the back.

We crossed the Missouri at the state capitol, Pierre, and entered Central Time. I am still somewhat following the Lewis and Clark trail, but in the opposite direction.

Etta and I and half of South Dakota are camped at a family beachside, (but buggy site) at the West Bend of the Missouri in Harrold, SD tonight. I’m slathered in Cutters and it’s working thank God. Another campground up the river is underwater from the recent spring floods. This place is fine.

In our tent picture, the river is in the distance behind the pickups.

I'm happy with the simplicity and efficiency of my tent camping, sandwiched between RVs, boats, trailers, big pick ups, SUVs, jet-skies and all terrain 3-wheeled dirt bikes. Tonight I’m enjoying the electricity, flush toilets, a wide river view, and glorious hot showers that do not require quarters. The place even his wi-fi. All I'd like now is a laundry for my sweaty, dusty clothes.

A baby grackle tumbled down from the tree near my picnic table a few minutes ago. It’s dazed, unable to fly, totters with wings fluttering. Mom and Dad in the branches above are helplessly squawking. I shooed it away from Etta who didn’t seem very interested. Life can be harsh and cruel in the midst of so much celebration and fun.

Big thunderstorm tonight around midnight. Not too much rain, but big gusts of wind, thunder and lightening that shook Etta pants and the little tent. This is the view at dusk before the storm.

Day 33-July 3, 2011- Black Hills National Park, Sundance Wyoming

2011-07-04T11:01:00.014-04:00

Dearest Readers,

Had the “hurry sickness” today. I hightailed it out of my high mountain Montana campsite (near Yellowstone), and headed East-South-East for the Black Hills of Sundance Wyoming, pop.-1200, churches-9. (Not the town in Utah of independent film festival fame, but it is the place that the Sundance Kid came from.) There's a preponderance of older men and women with a gritty, no-nonsense demeanor in the Aero restaurant on Main Street where I'm sitting with a bad coffee and a great buttermilk biscuit, but I digress.

When I descended from the Rockies into South-Central Montana, the temperature soared. The landscape widened and the blue sky formed a 360-degree dome down to the horizon. The earth was cliché Western again, with sagebrush and scruffy spiny bushes. The area is blessed with rivers and fields of grass with a yellow flower blooming all over the hills and dusty bluffs, and an occasional stand of blue bells.

We traveled through rolling hills in the Big Horn and Crow Indian country turning southeast towards Wyoming. This is the place sadly famous for Custer’s Last Stand at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. You can barely see the Big Horn Range of the Rockies in the distance...through my buggy windshield.

We crossed into Wyoming near the Bighorn Range. This land is big and wide and barely inhabited. I filled up whenever the gas tank hit half-full, if I could find a gas station. There are miles between towns with services, even on I-90.

We crossed Wyoming’s comical bit of landscape called the Red Hills (God’s answer to the wavy hillocks of Idaho’s Palouse?). These large dollops of red earth with raggedy grass sides resemble pimples popping out of the surface. Some look like breasts with pointy red nipples.

Reuter Campsite near Sundance was worth the drive, despite no showers and the now familiar pit toilet. I washed my feet and hair at a cold pump. The site is in a pristine pine forest. There was a brief gust of wind in the night, the starry sky clouded for about an hour and let loose a gentle rain and lightning that scared Etta stiff. Then it passed. I am at peace here tonight.

The people I meet at the tent camping and RV sites are usually locals, taking a weekend with family near home. America has such a wealth of communities and loving parents. I long for my little nook in Decatur, my family in Atlanta, Portland, Brooklyn, my friends, artists,the natural beauty and cool temps of the Green Mountains of Vermont, and the red clay hills and decent winters of Georgia.

Day 32-July 2, 2011- Yellowstone Park Wyoming

2011-07-03T11:31:00.019-04:00

Dearest Readers,

I started the day in Gardiner Montana at the “Yellowstone Perk”. This is Francie who made sure I was adequately caffeinated for the day, and had my dose of daily Wi-Fi.

Fortified, I made my way through the ominous Roosevelt Arch at the north entrance to Yellowstone Park. Etta and I drove the big loop–about 125 miles of stop and go traffic, photo ops at every curve in the road, and lots and lots of tourists like me. It is the 4th of July weekend after all. Gorgeous sunny blue-sky day in the upper 70’s I’d guess. To be honest, Yellowstone was work. I wanted to see the famous sights, but the one road around was often reduced to pileups when someone thought they spied a bear spec in a tree across a meadow and would literally leave their car in the lane to snap the picture.

I asked a fellow visitor to take the requisite picture of me in front of Old Faithful. This is “down time”. The famous periodic squirt of hot steam wasn’t due for a while, so I settled for the regular puffing mode. Etta was in the car in the sun, so I cut this part short. This is half the parking lot at Old Faithful and some of the crowds.

Despite the car and human traffic, Yellowstone is a magnificent and humbling place. It is expansive, pristine and wild with animals like bear and bison roaming free. The place has it all...desert bluffs and scrub brush desert, mountains and canyons, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, meadows, evergreen forests (I did not see one hardwood deciduous tree), gorges and snow fields in the higher elevations across Craig’s Pass and the Continental Divide.

A big part of Yellowstone is a caldera. That’s geo-speak for a tea-pot dome of earth covering a cauldron of geo-thermal activity below the surface. The land spurts steam from cracks and blow holes in the ground, bubbles scalding water into pools and lagoons and down the sides of drippy hills frosted in mineral deposits from within. There’s a fire below our touristy feet, deep inside, sending messages to the world above, or so it seems to me.

I captured small corners of this place and managed not to snap a single vista. My bad! There were plenty of breathtaking views, as well as the wild and wooly show put on by nature from above and below ground.

Day 31-July 1, 2011- Yellowstone WY/Livingston MT

2011-07-02T11:34:00.015-04:00

Dearest Readers,

Etta and I are situated for two days at Pine Creek Campground on the outskirts of Yellowstone Park in a high and deep pine forest in the Absaroka Range of the Rockies. We’re beside our tent, warned earlier by the forest ranger that a bear was sighted on the grounds this morning. This is unsettling, but we’ll hide our food in the car and put away the trash in the bear-proof bins. Its in the 40's again at daybreak.

This is Nancy and Ed from Bozeman who are camped at site #19, near my site #25. Nancy was a travel agent and gave me some tips on what to see in Yellowstone tomorrow. They suggested I leave at 6AM (that won't happen), and beat the 4th of July crowds that will be at the park (groan). They gave me some guide books, a Montana map and Ed helped me set up my tent. They offered me some food, but I’m sticking with the pp&J.

I’ve been sampling the beers along the way. Today I picked up a 6-pack of Big Hole Brewery’s Headstrong Pale Ale out of Belgrade MT. In Portland I tried a selection of 4 local beers/ales from Widmer Brothers Brewery.

The landscape here at the campsite is chest-thumping. Black Mountain, at 10,941 feet looms behind Etta and I. Mountain snow is melting and feeding the Pine Creek that runs near my campsite.

Etta investigated its white water rapids. The sound is a pure, surging white noise mixed with bird calls. Pine Creek feeds into the Yellowstone River, and that too is swelling its banks.

In this picture it is roiling towards Yellowstone Park, flooding a few low-lying homes.

I shot this vista of the Absaroka Mountains on the road up to the campground.

It’s been a day for relaxation from “the Road”. Etta and I said goodbye to the mosquitoes at Lewis and Clark Caverns around 9 am. We bypassed the 2 hour cave tour, and headed toward our rustic campsite at Pine Creek...only 1-1/2 hours away.

I made a tiny detour, and discovered the Leaf and Bean coffee shop in downtown Bozeman MT, supposedly once owned by Glenn Close. It has Wi-Fi and good brew. Bozeman is the home of the University of Montana, and of course, has coffee places and neat shops, book stores, restaurants, a food co-op, and free parking downtown on its historic Main Street.

I poked around the town at a leisurely pace, had a picnic lunch with Etta on one of the tables in the backyard of the Emerson Center for Arts and Culture, and recognized Ted’s (Turner) Montana Grill. It makes sense that his restaurant would be here in Montana, its namesake, as well as at its location in downtown Decatur Georgia, near Atlanta where Ted lives.

That's it folks for my R&R day. Tomorrow I enter the big Y-Park and am prepared to have my eyes popped, and my jaw drop if all I hear is true.

Day 30-June 30, 2011- Whitehall Montana

2011-07-01T13:26:00.018-04:00

Dearest Readers,

Etta and I have made it to Montana. We're now in the Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park near Whitehall, MT in the south western part of the state.

This is Ian and Bonnie the cheery campground hosts. My tent is in the background under two cottonwood trees. I call this the good and bad campground. It was bad when I first saw the place from the road...pretty flat, congested area with no electricity (of course) and not much shade.

Our tent looks pretty lonely in the hayfield. (cottonwood trees are not visible in pic.) It's a good campsite however, because it has showers...but bad because it costs $2.00 in quarters for 4 minutes of water. (I did it anyway and sped through in 2 minutes out of fear of having a soapy head.) It's a good place at dusk when groups of deer meandered fearlessly across the campground to munch on the meadow. It was bad because at dusk giant mosquitoes attacked both Etta and I. I had to inflate the air mattress fast, toss the sleeping bag and pillow in the tent, and zip it up before the bugs figured out what I was doing. It was good at night to see the dome of infinite stars, but bad because the temperature plummeted to the 40s and I shivered all night. Etta tunneled under a heavy sweater of mine. It was a good place when the wind blew and gently shook the leaves of the cottonwoods trees near the tent. It sounded like a soft rain lulling us to sleep.

Rewinding to the morning, Etta and I drove out of our secluded canyon valley campsite at the previous Dworshak State park, and headed East toward Orofino Idaho, a "gem" of a town. It deserved the gem award given by the state for its cuteness alone. (Orofino also has a big dam and is a logging town).

We traveled on Idaho Scenic Highway 12 that crosses the skinny stovetop of Idaho, hugging the riverbanks of the South and Middle forks of the Clearwater River and the "wild" whitewater Lochsa river.

Route 12 is the historic Lewis and Clark Trail and the Nez Perce trail. Idaho in this area is so beautiful I could cry with joy.

The landscape opened up as Etta and I crossed the border and the continental divide. I left the primeval forests of Idaho for Montana's wider, rockier, and more barren border landscape. I'm on mountain time now, heading for the Rockies visible in the distance near Butte.

The Jefferson River full to the brim with melting snow flows through the Lewis and Clark State Park area at the end of a long day of driving.

Day 29-June 29, 2011- Moscow Idaho

2011-06-30T17:41:00.018-04:00

Dearest Readers.
Etta and I have made it to the beautiful state of Idaho.

I delivered Io Palmer's Hand to Hand gloves to her boyfriend John at their home in Moscow Idaho. She teaches art just over the border at Washington State University in Pullman, WA. Io is in Greece on her way to India for an artist residency, so John is accepting them for her. We're holding her 7'H x 2"W ladder made of twisted newspaper Iraq war stories and bobby pin rungs. The white gloves are chopped up and intended to be in a heap on the floor. We're in front of two of Io's Dad's carved wood sculptures.

After the delivery of Io's gloves, and a coffee with John, Etta and I drove through the undulating hills of Idaho to our peaceful campground at Dworshak State Park.

This hilly area is called "The Palouse" and reminds John of Mongolia, or perhaps Teletubby Land. The landscape is very wierd. To me the hills seem like huge ocean waves.

Our campsite on the edge of The Palouse was tucked down a deep canyon road with 10 mph switchbacks that went on for 3 steeply descending miles, eventually dead-ending in the park. The campsites are tucked around a lovely mountain lake inhabited by little squeeky squirrel-like short tailed rodents, deer, rabbits, pheasants, owls and singing birds. Etta went wild diving into critter holes.

The day began at 9AM with beautiful weather in Seattle. I'm traveling East for the first time on this journey–heading in the direction of home. Miss Etta and I are going solo again, camping rustic style until I reach Iowa City where the next glove artist, Dana Haugaard lives. We hit a misty rain driving over the mountains of the steep Snoqualmi National Forest.

This quickly changed on the other side of the peaks. The temporate, rainy coastal zone gave way to scrub brush, windy desert areas, irrigated farm and grazing lands and rugged outcroppings of basalt from prehistoric lava flows. The landscape of Central Washington was a surprise. It resembled the semi-desert areas of Arizona and New Mexico, minus the heat. The temps were pleasantly 70-ish.

After crossing the Columbia River near Ellenberg WA, I picked up the two lane state road 26 and first encountered the wavy, grassy, tree-less hills and holes of The Palouse. The depth and drama of the dips and rises of the landscape slowly increased as I crossed Washington and entered into Idaho.

Evening arrived in a flaming palette of orange sky splattered against a silhouette of dark green pines.

Day 28-June 28, 2011- Final Day in Seattle Washington

2011-06-28T22:37:00.031-04:00

Dearest Readers,

Etta and I went canoeing in Seattle today. It was thrilling. The weather was in the 70s and overcast–perfect for paddling throughout the channels, lagoons, and inlets of Union Bay. Hand to Hand artist Scott Schuldt guided my paddling style, and lead us on a water tour of the city. (I hadn’t set foot in a canoe since a seventh grade girl scout trip.) My hand is blistered, my shoulders and back ache, but I’m invigorated.

Etta jumped twice from the canoe trying to chase some ducks and a turtle. She was shocked to find it was water with no earth under her feet. I believe she thought the lily pads and the dark vegetation filled water were solid ground. The first time, we could not catch Etta’s leash, but she quickly swam around with real fear in her eyes. The second time Scott had her leash tied to the canoe, so he yanked her quickly back in the boat when Etta realized she could not catch a duck. The dog now smells like a marsh!

Scott started our adventure this morning by pushing the canoe a mile downhill from his house to the west side of the bay on an ancient Indian portage route. He crafted a super-light, collapsible, wheeled dolly for the canoe to rest upon. Etta and I followed.

We canoed through marshes and hidden lagoons, through lily pads and lotus, alongside State Highway 520, through downtown, past houseboats, factories, dry docks, under drawbridges and even had to duck to slide under an abandoned, unfinished highway bridge.

We saw the Space Needle from the water this time. At one point earlier in the day, a fallen log crossed our water path. I had to get out and balance on a part of the log while Scott carefully eased the canoe over a low point. Then I climbed back in as gracefully as possible–(Not!)

Scott has the eyes of a hawk. He pointed out bald eagles, a blue heron next to a beaver lodge, hummingbirds, blackbirds, turtles, various kinds of ducks, a marsh wren and its woven nest, coots, several beaver scent mounds of dirt impregnated with musky castorium, and gnaw marks on downed birch and alder trees.

After circling Union Bay we went through “The Cut” at Montlake under an open-weave metal drawbridge with traffic high above us.

We crossed Portage Bay by the University of Washington, and then paddled south across Lake Union where we saw Dale Chihuly’s gray waterfront warehouse home with some of his fanciful pieces in a grided glass wall.

The houseboats along the shoreline of the lake are a playful mix of serious and humorous architecture.

We took the canoe out near the dry dock industrial area and then hiked two miles home up the hills, with Scott pulling the canoe on its dolly in tow. Much harder coming up and out! A super day.

If you would like to see Scott Schuldt's latest "View From The Canoe" art project, please visit his website at http://scottschuldt.com/VTFcanoe.html

Day 27-June 27, 2011- Day 1 in Seattle, Washington

2011-06-28T11:08:00.019-04:00

Dearest Readers,

I’ve arrived in Seattle along with a gentle off-and-on-again rain–the first precip since beginning this journey nearly a month ago. This is Scott Schuldt in front of his home in the Capitol Hill District. It’s an area rich in history and old money, spiced up with a hip influence, young residents and creative offerings in the neighborhood shops and eateries. Coffee here is king and queen, prince and princess. I’m staying here two nights with Scott and his wife Sarah Rosner. Scott has figured out a way to cordon off the interior of the house so Etta and the cats are separated. I can breathe easier. Etta is just hard-wired to chase critters.

I returned Scott’s six etched copper and kevlar armored Iraq War gloves from 2007. We're standing in his home beneath "The Re-education of Smedley Butler", one in his intricately hand-beaded flag series pieces. This flag addresses America's military involvement in the "Banana Wars" in the early part of the 20th century, supporting governments that allowed American corporations, like United Fruit Company to operate freely in third world countries. See more of his interdisciplinary and socially conscious art in media as diverse as beadwork, photography and map-making at http://scottschuldt.com/

Scott and I had pizza and beer for lunch at Palermo’s in his district, then off we went on a brisk walking tour of the area.

We traveled past imposing mansions on the hill on our way to Volunteer Park, and the 75-1/2 foot old Water Tower.

Scott, Etta, and I climbed the 106 steps inside to the top of the tower, and viewed the city from several angles. I tried to interest Etta in being in the picture, but no dice.

The menu for dinner was broiled, seasoned chicken, sweet potato soup with a dollop of goat cheese, broasted fingerling potatoes, baby field green salad, and homemade rhubarb crisp, topped with vanilla rice cream. Yum!

Day 26-June 26, 2011-Olympia, Washington-Last Day with Family

2011-06-27T11:49:00.012-04:00

Dearest Readers,

This is Joel, his Dad Bob Adams, and my daughter Ayla, with Puget Sound and a faint Mount Rainier in the distance. We’re in the back yard of the Adams’ summer place near Olympia Washington.

The front of the funky house sits down from a secluded gravel road. The back overlooks the water.

Another day of rest, mid-70s weather and quiet pleasure. Ayla snapped me writing this blog on the front deck, and I took a picture of Bob and Etta James watching a Pidgeon Guillemot swim and dive for fish in the rising tidal waters below. http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/sea/pugetsound/species/pigeon.html
A burping seal swims by. We only glimpse its head. A screeching seagull chases a bald eagle across the water back to his aerie in the pines.

We share a final meal on this last day before I resume my solo journey. Hamburgers,salad and cooked greens from the Portland garden, and ESB brew in a mason jar from Amnesia Brewery back on Mississippi Avenue.

Mount Rainier seen from the deck, dissolves across Puget Sound in the fading light of dusk.

Goodbye to Joel and Ayla. On to Seattle in the morning.

Day 25-June 25, 2011-Last Day in Portland, OR

2011-06-25T22:06:00.007-04:00

Dearest Readers,

Please excuse my woodsy digression from the job of returning the Hand to Hand artwork.
This is my final day of rest and play in Portland. Perfect weather. Time on our hands. Etta and I explored the Columbia River Gorge area from Historic Scenic Highway 30, an easy half-hour drive from the city.

We stopped at Vista House atop a rocky promontory called Crown Point, built by Samuel Lancaster, a highway engineer in the first decade of the twentieth century. http://vistahouse.com/history/the-vista-house-story/
Etta is surveying the vast expanse of the Columbia River Gorge with Oregon on the right, and Washington on the left side.

We hiked through the surrounding woods. Did some easy rock climbing. Investigated a white-water brook. Climbed trails and bridges to marvel at the secluded elegance of the sheer slip of Latourell Falls, and the splashy gush of double-dipping Bridal Veil Falls further down the road.

Chicken on the backyard grill, and salad from the garden are on the menu tonight.

Day 24-June 24, 2011-Portland, OR

2011-06-24T21:47:00.010-04:00

Dearest Readers,

This is Mr. Bob in front of a colorful built-out entrance to a house he says is in the Jamaican-style. It’s close to my daughter Ayla and boyfriend Joel’s home. Etta disappeared inside the little semi-circular rabbit hole to the lower left of the painted door. Luckily she came back out...no critters were home.

Etta James Pooch and I explored Portland’s Historic Mississippi Avenue neighborhood, nearby. It’s described as hip, with a culturally diverse spirit and unique independent retail establishments, pubs and restaurants. That describes a big chunk of Portland.

The playful architecture of Pistil's Nursery, a frilly Victorian mansion, and the tree-formed entrance to Portland’s famous Rebuilding Center (for one-of-a-kind salvaged architectural elements) caught my eye.

We drove through the larger NE Alberta Street district with its hip and hippy stores, vintage clothes, co-op grocery, bars, eateries, and unique shops. Time for a nap, or more coffee and a Portland micro-brew perhaps. The weather is cooperating...mostly sunny, dry, temperate days with big clouds that roll in and out, and sweater-cool nights. I feel alive in it!

I had lunch with my smart, cute daughter Ayla. Here she is in downtown Portland with the Fox Tower where she works in the background. I got a shot of her in her office in the law firm of White and Lee on the 24th floor, with a striking view of the city and the Willamette River below. I’m happy to be retired, though.

Day 22-23 June 22-23, 2011-Portland, OR

2011-06-24T11:36:00.020-04:00

Dearest Readers,

Still relaxing in Portland. Wednesday night my daughter Ayla, and her boyfriend Joel and I cooked dinner for my second cousin Elizabeth, and husband Jim Bowe who live in a nearby suburb, are expecting their first child and both work in the school system. We had never met. She’s the daughter of my cousin Kathie and husband Oz in Santa Rosa. Connecting with my far-off relatives and their friends has become another thread on this journey across America.

Dinner was a sesame-ginger pasta salad, a medley of greens from the garden, a thick, creamy squash soup, and a selection of lime, butter and fleur de sel macaroons from PIX bakery in the neighborhood.

Macaroons might be the new trendy “cupcake”. They have a crunchy meringue consistency with various fillings and flavorings–not the chewy sweet coconut cookies I used to call “macaroons”.

Etta and I have been taking self-walking tours of the North-NorthEast residential areas around Mallory–Joel and Ayla’s street. I love the colorful Victorian houses and modern ones too. Unusual flowers and roses are a specialty here.

I checked out some galleries and the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland’s downtown Pearl District today. My favorite work was Millee Tibbs then and now spooky-realistic-photo self-portraits at Blue Sky Gallery http://www.blueskygallery.org/

Wendy Franklund Miller’s encaustic abstract paintings at Augen Gallery http://www.augengallery.com/Exhibition/exhibition.html

and the weavings of Laurie Herrick from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. http://www.museumofcontemporarycraft.org/

Last night was “Parents’ Night”. Ayla and Joel’s neighborhood friend Peter Field came over with his parents Jane and John visiting from Putney, Vermont. We actually knew people in common in Putney, like Gordon Faison, and John and River from the old Glen Maples commune on the mountain from back in the late 70’s. Here we are surrounding one of the vegetable beds in the backyard, looking like happy aliens pointing at the nighttime curiosities growing on earth.

Peter brought two chickens marinated in olive oil, sharp black pepper and coriander, and sliced eggplant and zucchini to grill on Joel’s behemoth barbecue. We end the day eating again, gathered around the table, sharing the joy of human interaction.

Day 21. June 21, 2011-Portland, OR

2011-06-22T14:02:00.012-04:00

Dearest Readers,

I returned Hand to Hand gloves to former Atlantan, now Portland area artist Christine Hogg in the International Rose Test Gardens here in Washington Park. We’re holding one of her six yellow rubber dishwashing gloves turned inside out from December 2007. Each one is printed with the image of Michelangelo’s Pieta, the sculpture of the Virgin Mary with the draped body of her dead son Jesus across her lap. The text on the hands relays the number of U.S. soldiers who had died at that point in the Iraq War. The gloves are a testament to all the mothers and families who mourn the loss of their loved ones in war.

Christine took a picture of Etta and I with Mt Hood in the background. I snapped one from the park hills overlooking Portland below and snow-covered Mt Hood again in the distance. The Willamette River runs below the hills and flows right through the city. Portland is a place of many bridges, has a comfortably sized downtown area, lots of bicyclists, and a moderate amount of traffic–welcome relief from the highway congestion I encountered Friday afternoon near San Francisco and Oakland.

Please don’t be bored readers, the rest of the day I dedicated to car and self-improvement. I worked out as a “guest” at Ayla and Joel’s Rock Climbing Health Club last night, and this morning I exercised in the Weight Room in my daughter's office building. After three weeks of sitting and driving, just moving my right foot from the gas pedal to the brake and back again, it was time to tone up.

I gave the “toaster” car a hand wash, had the oil changed and the dirty transmission fluid flushed out.

I relaxed tonight with pork loin cooked by Joel on the grill, a pot of home-grown greens, and salad from the garden.