Dendrite Food: Art-Making, Nature, & Children

Ask Esther James, a Whidbey Island resident, about her work and she will tell you she is a virtuoso potter. Trained as an art therapist, she prefers the title "art doula." Doula provides a clearer definition of the process of birthing-through-art one's experiences and knowing. "Art making and relationship to Nature is dendrite food, stimulating brain growth," Esther says. Her organizing questions are about how Nature teaches, how we can insure that children have access to nature and art, and why this access is a requirement for humanity. http://www.gfone.biz/gfone1/gft/GFT6Y.html

Art therapists in America usually attribute their lineage to Margaret Nauman or Edith Kramer, but Esther told me the story of Edith Kramer's teacher, Freidl Dicker-Brandeis. Freidl was part of the Bauhaus school, and studied with artists like Klee and Kadinsky. During the war, Freidl was taken from the ghetto and then moved to the concentration camps. Being an artist, she brought along a suitcase of art supplies. She was permitted to work with the children of the camps to restore hope. Just before she and the children were whisked away to the gas chambers of Auschwitz, she gathered all the children's art work and hid the two suitcases of 5000 drawings to be found later.

Esther James is now in the midst of writing two books and working on her legacy project. As she approaches her 82nd birthday, she is working on "The Flowering of Death."

Intention

Digital images by Ann Johnson

I figure that I am one of the maybe . . . what? . . . 5%? 10% of the world's population that lives on an island. And in the United States, one of the 1%, maybe? I take a certain pride in this fact (though I may be stretching the numbers a bit.)

What is it like to live on an island? To be an "Island Woman"? I think one thing that has come about from my quarter century on this island is that I can feel the boundaries of my world in my body. I can feel where the water meets the land. I can sense north, south, east, west with my eyes closed. As I've gotten older, I notice the light more and how it moves across the days, months, and seasons.

My felt sense of being on the island is one of being contained. Sometimes this feels safe, nurturing, nestling - like I just want to hunker down, dig in, pull the blankets up, and sit tight. Other times it is claustrophobic and I feel like I can't move big enough, can't move far enough, can't move fast enough because the island wouldn't be able to hold all of it.

I think, too, that it depends on which island one lives. Whidbey Island, in the Puget Sound, in the Pacific Northwest. This has been my home for more than half my life. I know it intimately, its beaches, its forests, its lakes, its few mountaintops, and its bogs and valleys. I am visited by Deer (three does and two bucks just yesterday), Crow, Rabbit, Raccoon, Heron, Eagle, and if I'm lucky, Coyote. I can look out my kitchen window and see Possession Point, and beyond that the mainland town of Mukilteo with its traffic lights changing from red to green to yellow and back to red and yet beyond that I can see the Cascade mountain range. The world extends and is held - a Grace given.

Michaelmas, St. Francis and Nurse Logs

Digital images by Ann Johnson.

At a forest retreat in October, we move our bodies in a line over moss-covered paths, in silence. Not minding rain. The sloping path to the Wetlands Trail allows for alignment with our seasonal descent following Autumn Equinox and Michaelmas.

We bring balance

and courage

and light.

The Feast of St. Francis opens the door to this week. Our lives are that "instrument of peace."

Make me and instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

I note the many forms of moss and lichen, the mushrooms, the Nurse Logs. Renewal is evident as new plants emerge from the decaying logs. The air is cool. At the bottom of the trail, the land levels out at the swamp. My body relaxes into the lowland, weight supported by the cushioning ground in all its richness. Out of this deep dark comes new life.

In another season I walk this same trail.

A glow catches my eye

and I turn toward the light.

In the dark marsh, I hear trickles of water.

On the surface of a small puddle

light is reflected from a break in the overshadowing cedars.

Here in the darkness

is the blue sky looking up

clouds traveling across the watery surface of blue

- a bright shimmer raises out of the ground.

Bioluminescence of deep places.

The season of rains has come. It reconstitutes my life and work. I want the deepest parts of myself to flow to the outer edges of my life - to nourish that place where I touch the world.

Today sounds like spring.

Clouds have parted and the song sparrows

insist

on a celebration!

I'm grateful for the invitation.

Mary McLeod: Beautiful Writing of an Island Scribe

Calligraphy Wall Collage by Mary McLeod. Digital image by Ann Johnson.

I have been a calligrapher for over thirty years, having been hooked during a materials of art class in college. My first teacher, in 1976, was master calligrapher Lloyd Reynolds, and I have continued my studies with many inspiring teachers since that time.

My husband Doug and I have lived in Langley for thirty one years. I grew up on or near the east shores of Lake Washington, with mountain views, so the move to Whidbey in 1977 was a perfect place to live and raise our family. With children grown, I enjoy more time to pursue my art. I teach part time as an art teacher at South Whidbey Intermediate School. This teaching position has given me the desire to integrate my calligraphy with other medium. It also affords me the opportunity to work in my studio when I am not teaching.

I love my studio. It almost feels like a treehouse. Lush bushes fill the windows on one wall of my studio, and the window over my work table looks towards the water and Mt. Baker. I feel truly blessed to be able to work in this lovely spot. I can go up there some evenings for what I first believe will be an hour or less, and before long four hours has gone by. Pictured on this blog is the far wall of my studio. Written on this wall are inspiring words by Julia Cameron (The Artist Way)which affirm me each day as I work in my studio.