Baltimore

Posted on March 17, 2008 by ruthek

Saturday morning, Robin, Steve and I drove four and a half hours to Baltimore, a trip with several objectives. Our primary incentive was Charna who was singing in a choral concert on Sunday afternoon. First we checked into our hotel. After all those very spare Japanese hotels, and my monk’s cell in Chicago, this was a stunner.
The lobby wasn’t anything special but the room was amazing. You walked into a kind of sitting room with a small basin, coffee maker and refrigerator opposite a large sofa. Just beyond a sort of divider was the bedroom. I had two double beds, in case we had to stay over Sunday night; Charna could room with me. Opposite the beds was a bathroom with tub and toilet, and next to it, the basin, lots of counter space, and a real closet, also mirrored.
If that wasn’t enough, there was a flat screen, HD TV, 42 inches. You could watch from either the bed or the sitting room. Over the years I’ve had the good fortune to stay at some very fancy hotels, but I don’t think I’ve ever had so much space in one room.

Robin’s best friend, from kindergarten through high school, lives in Baltimore. I haven’t seen her since then so I was very pleased she came to the hotel with her children.
We all walked around the Inner Harbor and it was lovely to catch up with her again. But it was hard to get used to seeing her as an adult. I had only known her when I was an adult and she was a child. I found it different than the few occasions I’ve met my own friends after not seeing them since childhood. We were children together, and now we are elders together.

Sunday, before the concert, we went to the American Visionary Art Museum.
After the Met, in New York, this is my favorite place. Renee and I happened upon it several years ago. We made a special trip to Washington DC to see the, then new, Museum of the American Indian. I had heard so much about it; it seemed like everyone wanted to see it. I joined the museum and made sure we had tickets for the day we wanted to be there.
I wanted to be sure of getting in. We were very disappointed: too much to read; not enough artifacts; too hard to see the ones that were on display. We stopped at the Visionary Art Museum on our way back and it was worth the whole trip. We’ve been raving about it so much, Robin felt she had to see it, also. We all loved it.

Finally, the concert. HaZamir is the International Jewish High School Choir. Each local chapter meets weekly in its own city to rehearse Jewish choral music. Once each year the groups meet, rehearse together for two days and present a concert. There were 250 kids from 17 or 18 groups around the US and from Israel.
It was awesome to hear them sing; those 250 voices have a lot of power. You can listen to them here; there are four selections at the bottom of the list.

Falcons and Skunk Cabbage

Posted on March 14, 2008 by ruthek

This week is spring break, but I’ve had wonderful OLLI provided experiences, all having to do with that additional level of awareness Alice mentions in her comment to the last post. After the geology walk on Wednesday, there was a class about the peregrine falcons that call Pittsburgh home. There are nesting boxes on the Gulf Tower downtown and the Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh,
both evidently look like cliffs to the falcons. You can see a webcam and learn about the Gulf Tower pair here. There is one egg in the nest already. That website from Pittsburgh’s National Aviary has links to the Cathedral of Learning webcam and to a bird blog written by Kate St. John, who was one of the presenters at our class. Our other presenter was Dr. Tony Bledsoe of the Biological Sciences Dept. at Pitt, who did a great job giving us all the facts about falcons.

Yesterday we went on a bus trip to the Powdermill Nature Reserve, the biological research station of Carnegie Museum of Natural History. You have to understand: I am very much a city person. I haven’t had a lot of contact with "nature," and I approach each event with a mixture of curiosity, awe and fear. I wasn’t sure what I was going to see at this time of year, possibly more mud, but I figured I had nothing to lose.

We spent the morning learning about the sustainable facilities development project and the Marsh Machine, their waste water treatment greenhouse. Powdermill Run is one of only a few streams in Pennsylvania considered excellent quality, never having been polluted by mine drainage. Here is an excellent article from the Post Gazette about the new facility, which, incidentally, uses carpeting made from recycled plastic bottles, counter tops made from compressed paper, flooring tiles from recycled tires.

After lunch, we took advantage of the beautiful spring day and walked on some of the trails at the reserve. I got my first good look at skunk cabbage,

loved the little ferns just beginning to grow,

and marveled at the rushing stream filled now with rainwater and melted snow. (Our guide, Theresa, is speaking with one of the members of our group.

My friends in Chicago used to tease me–I was never lost in the city, but take me out where there are no street signs and I’m immediately lost. I need a lot of help learning to see in the natural environment.

Very satisfying day

Posted on March 12, 2008 by ruthek

This is Spring Break, but my geology class met today for a geology walk in Frick Park. It was a little gray and cold, and a lot muddy, but a great experience. This is the park I walk through fairly often. Today was completely different. I always look at the trees, the birds, the flowers. I’ve noticed the rocks, but never given them much thought. So, it was almost magical when Al Kollar,
from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, showed us the evidence of how this area was under water, at least twice, and how the sandstone eroded to create the hollows and ravines in the park.

I was amazed to learn that the stones in the path were formed somewhere else two million years ago and deposited by the water.
Huge boulders I had walked past many times had fossils from sea water creatures. Still hard to see, but who knew! Alongside the path there was a fast moving stream–never there in summer or fall. It was almost like I was in a different park. Here’s an island beginning to form from the sediment in the stream.

There was lots of mud.
You can see all the traffic: bikes, dogs and people. The red mud is from the Pittsburgh red beds. Everything has a name.

Here are my muddy shoes. I haven’t had so much mud on my shoes since I was a kid.

Insomnia

Posted on March 11, 2008 by ruthek

I usually sleep very well, in fact I sleep through highway noises, loud snoring, and one time, a fire alarm. Renee was staying over at my apartment in New Jersey when the alarm went off at 4 am. She had to wake me up; I never heard the alarm. Happily, by the time I was awake enough to start going down the eleven flights of stairs the alarm stopped.

But once in a while I spend the night mostly awake. Usually it’s because I drank coffee or tea late in the day or I have something pressing on my mind. Yesterday was none of that; I was just awake. All I could do was think about what I was experiencing: feeling my heart beating; my legs aching a little; keeping my upside ear covered; what to do with my arms; all that profound stuff. I’m moving slowly this morning, but I’m going to get dressed and go exercise. Maybe that will help.

This and that

Posted on March 8, 2008 by ruthek

I teased Raja this morning; she had snow in Kentucky and I had only rain. Now the snow has arrived in Pittsburgh and I got instant cabin fever. I wanted to go out and buy groceries, actually, fruit and veggies. It’s not like I don’t have food in the house. I even found some Clementine’s I had forgotten in the fridge. I just wanted to go out. I fought with myself for a good part of the morning, finally decided to stay home and maybe get something useful done. First, I made soup. I found a recipe using red lentils and potatoes. Haven’t tasted it yet, but it may need something more. It’s supposed to be finished with lemon juice, which I have, and cilantro, which I don’t have.

Just spent some time looking up info about freezing my credit. Consumer’s Union has a site here. Lots of good info including how to opt out of all those offers. I will definitely do that. I’m tired of shredding all those certificates, and they worry me.

All of this is work avoidance. I have begun working on my paper for Japanese Art History. Love doing the research. Found an amazing amount of stuff on the internet. Now I have to write. Oh well, I’m writing this post instead. The snow is supposed to stop tonight.

Here is my Tulip Tree in Spring. It will happen soon, I hope.

Meeting deadlines

Posted on March 5, 2008 by ruthek

Thank you for your concern Stacie, and all of you who wondered where I’ve been. Just needed to spend time writing other things.

I’ve had two assignments due this week so I’ve been very busy. I decided to write a term paper for my Japanese art class; the topic statement and bibliography were due Tuesday. Since I am only auditing the class doing the work is optional. In fact, in most of the audit classes I’ve taken the profs don’t want me to do the work. It just makes more work for them. But Karen Gerhart is exceptional; she always encourages me to do as much as I can. I came up with a topic that really interests me and which I will post about at a later time.

Thursday, I will give my Emily Carr presentation to the travel writing class. Creating a Powerpoint show with her paintings was simple. Now I’m adding, I hope relevant, quotes from her writing to each slide. I have selected a charming piece about ravens in Sitka to read to the class:

But I do see the barracks flagpole, tall, with a shiny gold ball on its top, and over that ball always, always three or four of Sitka’s great black ravens–circling, hovering, trying again and again, each in turn, to maintain a foot hold on the slithery gilt ball. Generation after generation of ravens has tried; it is a tribal game, old as the flagpole. No resident of Sitka has ever yet seen one raven succeed. Emily Carr, The Heart of a Peacock

Here is the beginning of an outline I will work from as I show the presentation:

Emily Carr was born in 1871 in Victoria, British Columbia, an isolated backwater
Family came from England and maintained English manners and values
Studied art in San Francisco, then England and France
Learned her own bold, colorful, post-impressionist style of painting
Returned to British Columbia in 1908 and for the next 10 years concentrated on nature and native peoples, realizing that their way of life was disappearing
Unable to live by selling her art she spent the next 15 years as the landlord of a small apartment building in Victoria
She wrote many stories about her experiences but was unable to get them published
Resumed painting at the age of 57 after her work was discovered by an ethnologist working in BC and she was invited to participate in a show of Canadian artists
Carr’s reputation today is largely based on work she created after finally receiving this recognition
She continued painting until she suffered the first of several heart attacks, then went back to her writing as being less physically demanding
Her first book was published when she was 71 and was followed by the publication of 4 other books, 2 of them posthumously

Long day–Bad and Good

Posted on February 28, 2008 by ruthek

Before I went to Japan last fall my dentist told me I should have a root canal. Since I had no pain, I decided to ignore it. Last weekend I began having little twinges. By Tuesday afternoon the twinges had become more persistent. At 9:30 this morning I was in the chair. Until about 1 pm my mouth was held open with amazing amounts of stuff in it, but happily I felt nothing. Happier still, I finally got out of the chair, amazed I could still walk, and with a numb jaw went to my afternoon class.

I missed my Pittsburgh geology class, which is too bad; I’ll probably never learn that stuff. The afternoon class is my favorite, this semester: Travel writing from the Margins. I told you about it here. Today we discussed readings by Edward Said, Salman Rushdie and Andrew Lam. All three readings were about returning "home." I enjoyed the Lam and Rushdie, but the Said was too negative. I know you can’t go home again, but you ought to be able to find something positive in the changes.

By the time the class ended the novocaine had worn off and I got something to eat. Maybe I ought to get novocaine all the time. It seems to be the only time I don’t feel like eating even if I’m hungry.

At four I went to a lecture and at six I went to the Japanese Art History class. It’s been a long day.

Almost missed it

Posted on February 24, 2008 by ruthek

I’m very pleased I made it to the last day of an exhibit I wanted to see, but kept forgetting about: Nick Cave at the Society for Contemporary Crafts. I was suffering with February grayness yesterday; it took a lot for me to get out of the house.

The exhibit was splendid. Cave is a Chicago artist whose quirky designs seem to follow somewhat in the tradition of Ed Paschke and the Chicago Imagists. You can see a video of Cave’s work here, and read more about him here (pdf).

Here are some pictures of Cave’s work:

Wonderful, outsize, finely crafted garments

This is a picture of a mask from Papua New Guinea, I took at the Field Museum in Chicago.

Couldn’t help notice some similarities. I love them both.

Resolutions & Distractions

Posted on February 20, 2008 by ruthek

One of my current, most important goals is getting my workroom cleaned up. It is so bad I don’t even want a before picture to see where I’ve come from, and it is really impeding my ability to get any work done. The photographs and fabrics are the worst, so of course, I’m leaving them for last.

This morning I began going through boxes of mementos of my past lives and actually throwing out a bunch of stuff. I really did not need 6 copies of the press kit from a show I had in 1980. Then I found a photo I’ve been thinking about for a long time. This is Robin, age 3, waiting for Mommy on a bench in the Field Museum, while I was busy photographing something in the cases. Note how she is guarding my purse.

She never saw me take the picture. Thanks to the magic of Photoshop I was able to take a tired, faded print and make it look like new. It was a great distraction from my organizing fit.

So many books, so little time

Posted on February 18, 2008 by ruthek

Two books on China, by Peter Hessler, have kept me fascinated for some time. I love his point of view, giving both sides of every issue, with a large dose of irony. I have lots of reading from my Japanese Art class: History of Japanese Art by Penelope Mason, journal articles, chapters from other books.

Thursday I went to a new Osher class: Travel writing from the margins. Unusually for an Osher class, a textbook was assigned–Meeting Faith, by Faith Adiele, now a professor at Pitt, about her experience being ordained as a Buddhist nun in Thailand. The focus of the class is on travel writing done by unusual people, or with unusual points of view. Unfortunately, I missed the first class when I was in Chicago, because I’m really enjoying it. We have an assignment to make a presentation at the last class.

My presentation will be about Emily Carr, a Canadian artist/writer/traveler. I discovered her paintings four years ago in the Vancouver Art Gallery, and fell in love. She’s right up there with Georgia O’Keefe, but doesn’t get the same recognition, at least not in this country. I came back with two books, one of her writing and one with pictures. I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t read much of either book, but I’m enjoying them now for the presentation.

100 Books Before I Die

Ruthe Karlin

Author Archives: ruthek