Category Archives: artist

club sandwich

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we didn’t go out to restaurants very often when i was growing up.  so on the rare chance that i found myself at a freshly set table staring at the myriad of goodies listed on a menu, i wowed at the chance to order a club sandwich.  something about those layers fascinated me: i’m sure i thought i was getting more than only one persons share of food.  and as someone who eventually became adept at space planning and design, i’m certain that the sheer tidiness and structure of the thing called to me: quartered, stacked, tidy triangles assembled ‘just so’ on the buffalo china place of all restaurants in the 60s and 70s, and finished off with a jaunty festive bedazzled toothpick!

i took my children on an overseas adventure last month, their first. (i don’t know how else to refer to them: they’re not really children any more…2 in college, 1 nearly out of high school…’big kids’ sounds crass and conjures up images of overfed baby goats…)  i’d been to the uk, europe, italy, et al two previous times, quite ages ago, and found that i’d fed my wanderlust and longing for those aged, wonderful cultures through the meals i’ve created; music that has been my personal soundtrack; films whose subtitles we’ve all labored through; stage i’ve set in my quirky house; and most vividly, the sketches that i’ve conjured up.

this morning, i popped over to my europe sketch file and took a long look at this whimsical sketch of the champs elysee.  brimming with busy little cars as they skedaddle up and down the famed boulevard. (all of the cars, of course, are quite small in europe: my friend last month shrieking that a hired hyundai compact suv was ‘gigantic’ as she dodged oncoming motorists and at one point, a cow!).

but like that club sandwich of yore, this little sketch layers so much within it’s tidy frame.

years ago, flash back to my little house in the village, a paris wind blew through my window and sent me imagining on paper.  i’d always wanted to write and illustrate my own children’s book, and this little french vignette was meant to inspire me further in my story development. one thing or another, most likely life with some grade schoolers, a middle schooler, soccer, school performances, earning a living, tending to a series of adopted senior citizen dogs…i never finished the book.

but in between those dashing cars and swaying trees, i hear the back gate swing open and a posse of boys calling through the kitchen window for my son.  i see my two younger daughters tugging their chef hats onto their earnest, lovely little heads to conquer a new baking project in our italian-bistro-esque renovated farmhouse kitchen.  i hear the brakes of the ups truck pull up to our front sidewalk and the thump thump thump of tom’s brown boots trailing down the steps with his arms filled with packed and labeled boxed notes.  the creek, slam of the corner blue postal box interjects most of the day with it’s cymbol-like clang.

accordian music wafting through the air, i’m cuddled on my great big couch in our newly built country barn loft kitschy house, watching my son leap and hide behind the barn and trees outside, chasing his high school friends as they carry on yet another airsoft battle.  next to me are two adolescent gals, getting zippier and more beautiful by the minute, yet never tired, ever, ever, of popping a vhs tape of some of our ‘let’s take a trip for free’ movies:  hip teen favs, “passport to paris” and “what a girl wants”; classics, “charade” and “to catch a thief”; quirky, “8 women” and “the valet”…and i can hear them, their voices slightly higher, half a decade younger, earnestly talking about ‘some day’ when they see paris, london, europe…some day…for the first time.

then, turning away, i look again at this little painting.  i’m in a mercedes taxi, cause that’s what they do in france, racing past the parisian lighted treasures, tucked in tidily between two young women, my view the brilliant and majestic arc de triompe and the back of my son’s head, now a man with a trimmed beard and sparkling, all-seeing eyes…as he and the taxi driver ferry us home after a hilarious and unforgettable night all together along the seine and clambering down the steps of the eiffel tower.

and now, i’m stalling in getting my work day started, caught in this self-imposed reverie of the magic that whirls through me as i sit and stare at a silly sketch that i whipped up, gosh, probably ten years ago.  memory is one powerful sorcerer, it’s mate, imagination.  they’re my constant spirit guides, best co-pilots and sweetest bedtime story tellers.

this is my life, my own club sandwich, impossible to think of something as only being ‘one’ thing with this mind of mine, i see the layers, a game with time travel that costs nothing, and offers everything, happily swirling past, present, future, maybes, what ifs, all together tidily stacked and sandwiched, held together by those brightly colored toothpicks, i pull my chair up to the table, relishing the menu.

to diary?

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m wood diaries

i’ve been a bit stymied lately.

somehow i feel wedged between two folds of time: longing for some sepia-esque vintage-shrouded existence not unlike the one conjured up by woody allen in ‘midnight in paris’…or perhaps a decade, two later, and the time-tricking interconnected today world that zips and flips and is just somehow so smart.

i spotted a joint called ‘the coop’ while i was twittering around on twitter, and did some internet stalking, which unveiled this again, cool-o-cool world where creatives, entrepreneurs, free-wheeling people can hang out, rent an office, network (overused word, but fits here), guzzle espresso, tinker at their laptops, all the while surrounded by like fish: inspiration in a neat, coffee-scented human&machine partnership. where was this when i was archaicly starting my little business, tucked into the land of maternity?  the days when i had to wake up little sleeping baby to dash off to the nearby ‘facsimile machine on premises’ copy shop in order to respond to a client?

back in those days, the early 90s, nothing was cool or hip about running a business in ‘the home’….and trust me, with one, two and then three little tots wandering around, thank goodness the cordless phone magically appeared in my world so that i could hide, literally, in a closet, to take a notecard order from a big shot client in new york.  in no way did you want to show ‘what’s behind the curtain’: just wasn’t something to brag about, but rather, to sort of hide!

by the end of the 90s, all of that fuss of running my own business in and around motherhood, a stove, and a pile of laundry, was being embraced.  what a relief and vindication when oprah herself, when talking about my little boxed notes, blasted out her praise of a mom working at home with her children…”and we like that!” she said to wild cheers from the studio audience.

my how time changed.

so this wedged between one world and another hit me tonight as i looked over at my diary, stacked on a pile of other goodies that have been gathered carefully to get popped into a suitcase at months’ end for a trip that my children and i are taking.  i would never  travel without one, especially on the sort of once-in-a-lifetime vacation that we’ve cooked up.  but as a part of me is clearly enamored with tech stuff, especially this iphone that i seemingly can’t live without, i realize i’m about to travel back in time, in just a couple of weeks.  and it’s a struggle.

the issue, of course, starts with roaming charges.  spend time out of your at&t zone and just forget about affording the regular text/phone/linkedin/twitter/fb/etsy/pinterest/huffpost/nyt addictions.  can’t afford to maintain my daily (hourly, minute-by-minute) addiction to invisible, intangible communication once our trip starts.  so what to do?

the phone issue has been resolved, ingeniously, by my youngest.  bring the old, retired 3g’s and zap into wifi and do a bit of the old magic on the cheap and free side of things.  brilliant!  meets the budget, and still lets me post photos on instagram…like a junkie, lining up my next ‘hit’, i instantly felt better with this solution.

but…

it did strike me, looking now at my diary, glancing over at my juiced up digital camera, leaning behind a stack of books to see pens and fresh sketchbooks that hope to make the trip, too: how much have i changed in the way i see the world.

my daily bread, here at my funky cool house, comes to me only because of the gadgets that link me to the rest of the world.  i couldn’t do what i do, and still hang with my kids and work in ridiculously ripped jeans at all hours of the day or night, without all of this interconnectedness.

but…

my trip isn’t about that. and my trips, before all of this gobbledegook arrived on the scene, were never, ever without pens, camera, diary, sketchbook, paper map, guide book, backpack.  silence.  asking for directions.  asking for advice.  striking up chats.  making new friends.  taking a risk.  seeing into someone’s eyes.  wandering without first knowing where i might be going, or where i would end up.  sketching vistas, rooflines, turrets and shores.  flying through ink like oil to a ewing, writing, writing, writing in diary after diary.  my impressions, traveling at the speed of my pen as it matched my mind and my imagination.  inspired, listening, watching, tasting, feeling, learning, longing.

so, there it is. one foot in two worlds, and rather than quarrel with myself over which one lures me more, i’m going to tip my had towards the vintage me this time around.  it suits the destination, stepping over to lands that make me shudder with the wonders of the ages, the history of anglos, the roots of my people, the whispers of all that came before all that i know: yes, decision made.

scratching pen to paper, lugging a bit of extra weight of that long-lens camera, and some fountain pen refills, i’ll be traipsing along, three curious, bright, hilarious offspring as my most wonderful companions, we’ll be going the woody route: step back in time in slow motion and soak up another world.

i’m just amazed sometimes, thinking of this zap world and how mind boggling it’s changes really are.

absolution

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i read a little blog post the other day that ramped up my self-confidence.  the topic was freelancers and their tendency to create full-time jobs for themselves.  which of course, is counter-productive to the whole independent “free” aspect of this type of work set up.

when i started my blog, i pledged to both myself and my fledgling ‘audience’ that i would post every single day: both words, and a new sketch.

well, what an idea!

i did keep it up for a really long time, and found the quiet of the morning an ideal time to scribble a little sketch that represented what was on my mind, or on my list of things to do that day…the operative word, of course, is ‘quiet’.

as it turns out, my life is crazy with fits and bursts of constant interruption all of a sudden…all good, all great, all fun, all family, kids, pets or actual work, cooking, movie night, lazy bacon-fused breakfasts, making travel plans, dealing with new college apartments…but these tirades of action come flying at me not unlike the tennis balls being cannoned out of a renegade auto-matic tennis ball shooter machine: fast and furious and non-stop.

so, back to the article.  the nice man explained that he, too, bit off more than he could type when he vowed to post each m, w and f…a mere three days a week and he found it nearly impossible to come up with valuable or intriguing topics to match this schedule.

he told us, his readers, hungrily looking for absolution, that it was okay to slack a bit.  that we creatives are able to be scheduled, but that it’s really in our best interest and our best creations-potential, to create when the spirit moves us, rather than spit out little nothings on a rote basis just to meet the bottom line of that work-a-day world that we’ve all chosen to bypass.

hallelujah! instantly the feeling of guilt, those barnacles of ‘you’re not following through, you’re letting your people down, your blog is stale and totally b-o-r-i-n-g, washed right down my back, down the drain of ‘things that don’t matter that you create yourself to ridiculously stress out!).

and so, when i got back up onto my blog this morning, i felt refreshed, forgiven, and yes, freed.  my best work is that which comes slitheringly floating into my imagination at no one’s bidding, no deadline, no tapping toe of an impatient invisible blog boss: for pleasure, of mine and hopefully of yours, i spring illustrations and silly blathering here on m. wood pen blog in honor of my very own work ethic: make it real, make it good, and make it last.

bagpipes

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engineering + math + science = heartsongs

studying structure, design, architecture and all of that jazz comes in handy when i have to draw a bagpipe.  actually, for that matter, when i have to draw anything.

my scottish friend is celebrating a birthday today.  i love being able to say that, “scottish friend”…as in, a scottish fellow who lives in scotland.

so for today’s facebook special birthday m. wood doodle, it was a compelling task…either that or the loch ness monster.

now the fact that i even know this scottish fellow is because of a pair of john’s: hughes and belushi.  a forever fan of both “ferris bueller” and “the blues brothers”, somehow the windy, gritty city of my backyard compelled this guy to impetuously travel from the glorious green highlands to a grey november weekend in chicago.  fast forward to my being in town to, of all zany things, stand in line for the casting call to my matt damon movie. (notice it’s “my” matt damon movie…).

late that night, after a giddy evening of food and spirits, i wound up, on a dare from my pal, striking up a chat with the tall, dark stranger, smack dab in the middle of the packed crowd of the zebra lounge.  stranger things have happened, and they just keep on happening, in my life, anyway.  but the moment that the rolling vowels and consonants came rolling out of his smiling mug, i was hooked.  ”you have an accent!” was my immediate reply and the start of a great conversation and even greater friendship with this doppelganger-sean connery-sort of a bloke

since he’s a “stewart”, i did a bit of research, meaning, walked over to my mudroom to find my scottish wool scarf, featuring the scottish tartan, a deeply appreciated gift, used daily this past winter to keep me warm and cozy.

my cat watched me stroll past her food dish (set near the lovely display of wine, always at the ready for unexpected guests), and noticed, with a frown, that i didn’t stop to “top off” her kibble.

back at my desk, i took a look at a few photos of bagpipes in my “eyewitness” scotland book…then settled with a pen and paper to do the odd looking thing justice: transforming a blank piece of paper into a black line, color rendered birthday bagpipe sketch.

i had no idea that there were three alternating length wooden sort of handles, each stretch of wood clustered together by a toggle…that all of these moveable arms were tied together with a braided rope, gaily tasseled at the end.  how clever is that???

the fittings remind me of detailed working drawings when, back in the day, i was drafting elevations and sections of custom designed millwork for architectural projects: everything that is built by hand has to be fitted together somehow, and i love learning the ‘how’ of it all.

so, the cutest part of this bagpipe, which just suddenly occurred to be named aptly, as it is a bag with a bunch of pipes, is the little mouthpiece.  in a reverse trumpet sort of shape, the rounded end is fitted into the wool bag with, of course, a nice round fitting, and the tapered end is the little bit that the musician blows into.

in a reverse shape appears to be the actual horn.  i could be making this up, but i just drew the identical shape, only the tapered end is fitted to the bag (beneath a lovely fringe of wool), leaving the horn-like end unencumbered.  yes, i think that is where the shrill, ages-old, unworldly bagpipe cry escapes from.

that old argument, nature or nurture, comes to mind.  but i think the wordsmiths who came up with these catchy sayings left out one important factor: add in spirit, or ancestral genes to that and i will, one hundred percent of the time, vote on the side of the ethereal inheritence that, by nature of our stone soup dna, as having the strongest vote in how our heart sings.

i’ve spent my life loving the hypnotic strains and sounds, notes and chants, tunes and ballads from the portion of my ancestry that hotbed of history in the united kingdom.  great britain, for my history has taught me that, and ireland. yes, the french part of me swoons along to edith piaf and the accordian sounds of a parisian street cafe, but deep in my lungs, blood and soul, i’ve felt a yearning connection to the other side of the channel.

the little flute thingy, is that a flute or tin whistle?  a fiddle, stomping feet, angelic sweet voiced enya, clannad, the march of the constant single drum to carry the melodic scream of a lone bagpipe, the floaty waves of voices that conjure ghosts and centuries of life, stacked up one by one, layers of tradition, jigs, tartan, green, sheep, twinkles in the eye and a solid, sleepy march from one tried and true century to the next.  simple, unfussy, digging in the soil, loving in the technicolor green grass, fable upon fable, wink with a side of smile.

years ago, i was set to meet my waiter boyfriend in london and then discover all of england, scotland and ireland on a backpacking adventure.  the maps and plans were set, the british air tickets tucked safely beside my very first passport.  before our initial parting, whereby later i’d meet him for the start of our monthlong trip, we made the fatal decision to see “room with a view”….

strike the uk, give me italy!  helena bonham carter, dame judi dench, firenze, italy, italy, italy!

yes, my life has indeed had it’s share of distractions, and i’m a bonafide impetuous elf, time and time again.

after meeting in rainy, cold london (it was january….), we set off for the south, following the sun as it showered us with a roman holiday of our own, and a lifelong love of all things italian…saving england and it’s sisters for another day.

that day has taken twenty five years to come.

so the best of all, in this morning bit of side-tracked research, is that not only is my friend having a birthday today, but that, in a matter of a couple of short, busy, summer months, my children and i will be trekking to the mysteriously beautiful land of scotland itself to buy our pal a belated stout ale, wax and visit at the pub, and enjoy a personally guided tour of his beloved country, castles and all.

and on our list?  check out a highland game with the haunting soundtrack of a gathering of bagpipes, of course!  with a side of soul-nourishing everything else.

something’s coming

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i’d like to think i’ve planned out everything.  and then i take a look at any of my 39 years worth of diaries, and realize that whatever plans i may have conjured up, they’ve all gone whistling in the wind.

i do, however, feel, just like the gang sings in ‘west side story’, that something’s coming…something good.

not that i don’t have plenty of good over in my neck in the woods…but there’s definitely a shift in energy & focus (sounding all free and easy california right about now…) that’s hovering and swirling around me these days.

i don’t know if the planets have shifted (more guru talk), or if my focus has tightened after the years, but i feel like i’m hitting a plateau of creativity that has spiraled into a nonstop frenzy of constant inspiration.

to creative folks like me, this is really good news.

we may make it look easy…but you can’t conjure up all of this stuff.  i imagine writers have that thing that they call a ‘block’.  i know that turf well.  the old brain whips this stuff out of nothing or it’s refracted from some prismatic bouncing of ideas and inspiration that isn’t planned.  (now i sound like something else altogether).  maybe it’s more like finally finding my groove.

i didn’t set out to be an artist.  i had other plans.  (see first sentence above, documentation available upon request).  quick, i have to say that i just had an epiphany the other day: i realized that i actually may not always (or often) know what’s best for me!

here are the paths i had planned to travel: hollywood big wig, producer, writer, director, casting agent, all that stuff.  in a bungalow of course. okay, then i was going to be a major magazine editor with an outrageously gorgeous office in new york, predominant color: white. walking distance to the village.  then i almost set off to an archaeological dig in cairo, thought that sounded fun.  tried to land a job in advertising, i was way more interested in them then they were in me.  but i knew i’d have a super cool office with a view of the chicago river.  i fancied myself a novelist, envisioned the whole thing, but could never figure out what to write (though i had sketched up several great cover designs).  the novelist job also had me living on a cool european barge/houseboat sort of a rig.  actually, maybe the novelist job was set in italy…or france…or the english countryside.  now i can’t remember!  setting the stage was always a part of all of my professional aspirations.

which then, of course, rocketed me into getting a graduate degree in interior design.  in all of this career confusion, i may as well design gorgeous spaces for all of the lucky ones who landed the jobs that i longed for!  somehow the connection made sense, and as i’ve evolved from one place to the next, the itchy fingers just started spending more time sketching.  and it turned out, i was pretty good at it. who knew?

this stuff i do now?  totally unplanned, it sort of snuck up on me.  happenstance, compromise, a baby, a couple more, some pin money while raising the cutie pies, and the next thing i knew, i owned a note card company that really caught on.

a note card company?  when did that come into my plans?  like, if i dug open my 8th grade diary, would there be a notation that read, “dear diary.  today i had my first ‘aha’ moment:  when i grow up, i’m 100% convinced that i want to design a line of notecards, set up a warehouse in my basement, and greet the nice ups man every day at 2:30 when he’d come by to pick up scads of outgoing orders.”  not a chance.  and yet, there it was, right in front of me and a part of every day for the next 18 years.  that plus navigating three terrific kids from infancy to high school and then college.  it’s all a blur, and somehow, the creative gig and running a business out of my house fit into a cozy life for our little family.

well, what happened next?  a few years ago, i realized that i really liked to draw,  as in, the only part of that whole business that gave me any pleasure was just: drawing. that’s pretty much all i wanted to do. it made sense to just knock off the note card part, and draw for other people.  omg!  i had a plan.  and that’s actually the first plan that i really made. and it appears to be working.

so about this new plateau.  now that i’ve ironed out the clinks, which i realize is not an expression that even fits into this sentence, i have hit that special curl of the wave (surfers, please help: what is that called?).  i’m on a roll, i’ve found my niche, i’ve landed i believe, exactly where i was supposed to, all of those unplanned years (or should i say, decades?) of meandering about, following a step in one direction which lead to the next place, so out of sight from earlier lives that i had envisioned but frankly, didn’t pursue with much effort.

the path that did hold my interest, and the one that gives me a heart so big it could just burst wide open, is this gig of raising those amazing kids.  not that they’re perfect (sorry, guys, if you’re reading this…sometimes there’s a snafu!), but it’s such a privilege watching them form their own personalities, their own passions, and their own paths.  and with that choice, i made other choices.  oh, i forgot: i also really wanted to audition for saturday night live, i’m a natural improv…..!  but, that’s the thing: my kids come first and with absolute satisfaction i know that for me, i’m doing exactly what makes me happiest.

and, as with each year, they step a bit more outside of my constant orbit, as those crazy teens+ will do, i find that i’m filling the time with this zestful energized creative burst that shows no sign of slowing down.  it’s incredibly satisfying, all of it, and as i said earlier in this blather-fest, there’s no formula for making yourself be inspired.  it is or it isn’t going to happen.

i tell them all the time: pick a life, pick a career, one that makes you happy.  look at each part of your day, and pay attention to what your gut is telling you. passion matters.  the things that matter the most to you now, the things that make your spirit sour: pay attention.  then aim yourself in that very direction.  make a career out of it. wake up each day grateful and soaring because you know you get to do the thing that puts a smile on your face and a song in your heart.

yes, something’s coming.  something good.