There was an exhibit of Chinese paintings years ago, at the Houston MFA, that I remember. It was not the paintings that stick in my mind (although the landscapes were lovely) but rather the rectangular signature seals that the artists used to initial their work. It seemed such a designerly approach to a signature, one that appeared so...official, important, secret club-like. To some people it might look little more than a notarized stamp, an insitutionalized seal of authenticity. But for the simple reason of liking them, I decided the kids should have their own simple seals. Plus, the boys like stamps; it has a very satisfactory feel, the stamping of their artwork. I sense that this act makes their work feel more "official" once it's done, too. It's the little satisfactory things. And they're so easy to carve from a piece of linoleum or rubber blocks. Just collect from your artists a pencil-written signature, with letters big enough to carve, and transfer the signature onto the stamp by rubbing the opposite side of the paper. Carve. Stamp. Voila! Repeat as necessary (and in our case, that's quite often, indeed).

Ford is practicing basic board maneuvers. He circumnavigates the driveway in rough squares of measured effort, propelling himself faster each time. His legs are slightly bent and his form conveys assurance and ease, but his arms carry some tension. They coil upwards toward lifted shoulders, bearing fear's weight in two invisible buckets. All the while, joy and satisfaction beams through his proud, young face.

Chas soars above the ground, speeding faster than the sound of his rolling bearnings. He clicks over twigs in the driveway, sometimes rolling over the board as it stops dead beneath him. He laughs, I laugh. His palms are black from asphalt soot and his nubby toes are fearlessly worn smooth and black, too. I can hear him acting out an action scene, his voice trails behind him as he flies across the blacktop, exaggerated cries of help and pleas for mercy, ending with a thud as he slams into the woodpile, throwing himself in a heap onto the ground. He lies spread-eagle beside his skateboard, looking up into the walnut boughs above him, swaying in the hot afternoon breeze.

After a three minute meditation, watching the leaves flutter and sway, he mounts his hovercraft and soars back across the driveway, his own little cosmos

to flail himself into the jasmine, in another utterly romantic gesture of bravado. His heart just couldn't beat any louder.

Ford and I laugh again. We follow no particular path, only minding not to run in to each other. Sometimes we glide just so close, knock knuckles, smile again. There is no two o'clock school traffic on our street to mark our passage through the afternoon. Chas is in his own world but he sometimes shows us where he's been. Sometimes he shows us where he's going. And then, like us, you can catch him just gelling with the afternoon. At that moment you know he's off any agenda and he's just somewhere in the middle of a summer afternoon in the driveway.

There's a riot growing outside my front door and it's slowly moving into the adjacent studio...

I could take this week seriously and try to choreograph a self portrait for the element "air," or I could just dig something up from yesterday's photovault and call it a day. Which is just what I have done, because it has been just that kind of day, so far. I wonder what everyone else has been submitting for the "Earth, Air/Wind and Fire" challenge...

(more SPC.

And then, the Matisse exhibit. For both boys, a treat: nothing but nummies, in all dimensions. Having found our medium, our tether to real life, we were set. All we had to do was circulate smoothly without shouting too many body parts and we'd eventually hit the outdoor mezzanine. It was perfect! Couldn't have dreamed up a better recess.

After knocking out the ya-ya's, we had pizza downstairs.

The MOMA heats up a good pint-sized pepperoni pizza and the kids devoured it. We swilled a few pints of beer and then Damon and Dwight (Damon's brother) took the kids across the street to Yerba Buena Gardens so that I could see the rest of the Matisse exhibit in peace.

I think the kids, mostly Ford, would have appreciated that second half of the exhibit, being a bold departure from the previous body of work. Matisse had begun cutting pieces of paper to rearrange in composition for his larger paintings. And then, down the hall, the "Jazz" series of prints, all laid out on the white table--what have we all come to know better as the work of Matisse?

Still, what's best for the boys is plenty or room in the schedule for freeform fun. And fortunately, what's best for them worked out to be best for me, too. Thanks, D :)

We’re a little culture starved around here, snug within the benign mycelium of silicon valley. Granted, if I’d just know where to look around here, I’d find something interesting on exhibit. But the truth is that I’m just acheing to go to a fussy art museum where I can feel the music of terrazzo under my feet and experience air conditioning without a trace of retail and ride that fabulous chase from security guard to security guard, close behind Chas, always on the fringe of expulsion as he tries to weave fast arcs around freestanding sculptures. Art is, after all, mostly about the personal experience one has with the piece, and with Chas there is no exception. He loves sculpture, it FASCINATES him to discover giant colorful pillars shooting from the ground or brushed-steel geometry shining in the sun. OH! The joy! Must scream and run circles around them all!

There’s one exhibit in particular that I’m planning on taking them to see sometime soon, the Matisse exhibit at the SFMOMA. Ford is a collage guru and I figure it might provide a springboard for translating some of his 2D work into a new dimension; specifically, creating something 3-dimensional that his younger brother might be tempted to play with (especially if it’s made of paper or papier-mache). But again, really, I’m just sad that we haven’t been able to go for so long, for fear that we might die during the struggle to patiently corral our children politely through a quiet space for art.

I think it’s more important that they experience art from a very young age for several reasons. First, I think it’s fun for them to see how some people have translated emotions or themes into art. Secondly, I like for them to understand the value and purpose behind the art process. Thirdly, I want them to grow to respect the work of others as well as their own art, because the enduring value of art is that it has the power to change the future in many ways: it can alter a person’s perspective, create controversy, quiet a restless mind, you get the idea. Lastly, I want them to evolve quickly within the rigid confines of the art museum institution so that they naturally respect that paticular environment as they would a shrine, an that is mostly because I’d LIKE TO ENJOY THE MUSEUM, TOO.

So, this weekend I’ve requested we pay the MOMA a visit, take our chances, hope for the best. There’s a book I heard about that recommends certain tips for taking 5 year-olds and older children to the museum, How to talk to children about art: is the title. As an art teacher, I feel qualified enough to come up with my own suggestions (which, in all it’s conceit, is actually true) but I’m still curious about what it has to say and am ordering it anyway.

Wish us luck! Double that for the MOMA.

So here we are. I'm sure you wanted more details, but here we ARE:
and watch out!

Summer is here, so very here. Each afternoon the hot winds off the valley blow through the garden on the way to Santa Cruz or wherever they go. Judging by the weary droop of the Lady’s Mantle, the Huecheras, the zucchini—I’d say an inch or two more compost would buffer tender roots from heatstroke. But the deer lop it all off and solve the problem instantly. Genius! Here's Chas, clearly offended by the marauding:

The deer. The wait until the tomatoes have sprung three tall feet and sprouted yellow flowers along the vine like christmas lights. Then they mow down the vines and pluck the hard green tomatoes, dropping them to the ground to rot at the bitemarks:

But the evening, it’s so summery. In the city, I have to wear fleece to dinner. In my backyard, however, I wear a tank top and feel nothing as the evening blues. The quail, scampering down along the fenceline, shepherd a new clutch of chicks. There must be twenty! I can’t see details without my glasses, but my eyes register fleeting puffs of down, left, right, then left, and the parents zig left then right, alerting the other of the dog by my side. Seti, mouthwatering, tenses and tracks their path.

When I water the zuchinni, it sounds like the heavy rain that I haven’t heard in months. A few weeks ago, the water pattered the mulch and the seedlings bowed under strain. Today, tall and turgid, the large uneaten leaves bat back at the downpour, an audible splattering, a hollow summer sound that I miss from Texas (and everywhere else I’ve lived in summers past, for that matter). I miss the moody days, shrouded in gray clouds, rain that evaporated off hot concrete, lightening that awoke a summer midnight. Puddles. Rainbows. Clouds.

Oh, screw it. Sunny days and starry nights rock!

I spent the entire morning searching for my sleeping bag. In the end, where would I find it? In the garage, in a tall box with the words written on the side in a black Marks-A-Lot:

WELDING JACKET
+
WEDDING DRESS

Of course!

Have a wonderful weekend, everybody. And may your clutter be so happily married!

I can't stand Pokemon. I don't understand Pokemon. And I don't know when Ford turned on the tv one day and turned himself on to Pokemon. But it happened quite naturally. And it happened just as naturally for you. Today I asked, flat out,
Chas, why do you like Pokemon?
You grinned sideways and replied,
Because they have nummies.
And nummies, being our slang for nipples, are an enduring delight. In fact, you wants some of your own. See?

One of the best things about having you around all the time is that you have a lot of energy and zeal, which rubs off on me. I try to remember being such an effervescent wellspring but I can't. I can only remember as far back as big wheels and stubbed toes. Was I ever this rowdy? I don't know. Probably not.

What's amazing is that, at the other end of the spectrum, you are able to focus for such long periods of time now on a drawing, or at play, or on a bug. Today the dry carapace of a ladybug fell to the ground when I opened your car door. Last week, you found this very ladybug on the beach and showed it to me, squealing in the strange context of your discovery, cradling it in your wonder. When I looked back at you, sleeping on the car ride home from Half Moon Bay, I noticed the ladybug between your fingers. You must have held onto it for two hours.
Was it intense focus, or was it the very toddler need to fill an empty hand? You do both equally well. I'm just glad I wasn't that ladybug, even though I'd have been flattered.

xoxo
*mom

An early morning trek to Santa Cruz, but we were still too late for swapmeet. The omen walked past as we were unlatching the children from the carseats: a teenage guy carrying a shiny aluminum tricycle. You just know the good stuff is going, going, gone. And for the most part, it was. But the garlic fries bufed the bitter edge, and we still managed to have fun poking around atticfuls of yesterday. Alis and I flirted with two cute plant geeks hawking boutique perennials from their watsonville nursery, and I selected a naughty little eggplant penstemon and another plant I still can't pronounce.

We lunched at the Saturn diner, bouncing on the vinyl seats and throwing quarters at the pinball machine, downing yummy amber pints and and more garlic fries.

Afterwards: Derby park. Just before the big kids started to file in, some of them hungover and sobering up atop sunny expanse of a wide blanket. Ford is getting more confident, now sliding down the bowls and taking turns with the highschoolers. Wide boards are the fashion here, with small wheels (not too Penskey!). They stand on the edge of the concrete and smile at Chas, who is playing with a notaLego skateboard (HELO, made in Mexico, bought for small change at swapmeet) atop his deck. I'm drawing in my sketchbook and Alis is chasing Seth. Jim is reading a magazine and getting very sleepy. Damon is with Ford. I'm heavy with satisfaction.

We are chomping through granny smiths at Moss Beach, watching the tide slip back over the reef, watching a school group return to their bus up the hill. I ask Ford if he is excited about starting school in the fall. He is. But he hesitates, then continues that he is going to miss coming to the beach as often as we do.

Then I start to daydream about having a boat in Santa Cruz for the weekends, a swaying slumberpad, beach hub, newhaven.

More SPC.

After a day-long playdate, when we are pooped and our eyes are closing and our tummies are falling asleep, one picture can say it all, as we quietly drift off into slumberland. Goodnight! I hope your day was as fun as ours!

A Saturday afternoon and we're walking through the sweaty corridor of Haight street in San Francisco. We are passing a man who wants money for weed. I smell nothing but incense and urine and pizza and sweat, and I wonder if Haight will ever grow up out of its Tibetan-American phase, whether Chas will ever grow out of his nipple fascination.
No, and probably not.

See more street photography at SPC.