Portland Art Museum

The Portland Art Museum is provocative at every turn, in every room, on every image-filled sheet. Through cold, bare spaces, huge canvases of messy paint project myriad emotions so intensely that I am barely able to breathe as I trip all over the stories in my cream and white-gold heels. I am inspired to write.

Twists of copper, iron, and other metals stand jagged on the floor. They almost look like dangerous benches, pianos, and even a swing set. I want to sit on them, but I feel afraid the communicative curators will shoot me with a 1957 rifle or just whip one of those statues of the head of Jean Baptiste off its rocker and whack me with it. Ideas, though, are what I pull from the complicated, detailed, and technical pieces, the ones that I can move if only I was allowed to touch them, like a giant chess set.

I can’t wait to finish some sketch pieces as inspiration consumes me. I like black and white, and I learn how bare minimalism is. Previously, I had guessed that minimalism was tiny drawings full of detail. But no, actually, it is big and uses the least of “items,” if you will, on the canvas to portray what I think is emotion. Think beautiful pink dots on white mixed with yellow; a long, shiny red board leaning; or a cohesive parody of Divinci's and others' famous works complete with an upturned mustache and a dollhouse sized men's toilet hanging from a board.

As I am making my way out, I learn from a security guard that a collection of abstract pottery coils were juxtaposed for the reason that it represents the unity and diversity of the museum itself. I swear I saw a green banana peel hanging from that board earlier (in fact, it's still there). I begin to grasp that a little bit of clay intertwined from the base is all woman, to appreciate femininity from someone else. I think it is a dancing representation.

Geometric structures can also be organic.

Book Signing with John Lawton

I met John Lawton this evening in Portland at a book signing event. Through his British accent both on paper and in speaking, he communicates passion for his writing. "I don't write murder mysteries," he rather forcefully told the intimate gathering, "I write straight novels in which crime is the driving force."

All of John Lawton's novels are about sex, crime, and politics. The chronological order of his series belies the fact that each was written as a stand alone book, and written in a random order. The latest of these, in hardcover, is A Lily of the Fields. Tonight he told us that he cares more about the main character's relationship with his girlfriend than he does about the crime.

Obviously, the creative process for John Lawton is typical of an artist. His highly controversial work speaks for itself. I took home a personalized, signed copy of Flesh Wounds after a marvelous evening.

Dean's List

Dear Jana Gifford,


On behalf of the faculty and staff at Ashford University, congratulations on being named to the Dean's list for summer 2010. Your appointment to the Dean's List is published on the Ashford University website under the Academic Superstars link. (If you have submitted a request not to release or publish information about you, your name is not included.)
Your dedication and commitment to your studies make you a great role model for others to emulate. You and your family should feel quite proud of your accomplishment. All of us at Ashford University share in this pride as well and believe that students like you help make Ashford University the quality learning institution it is.


Again, congratulations for a job well done!
Sincerely,

Dr. Elizabeth Tice
Provost, etc.

Mummy

I both feel and think that
I look on the flesh of an
old, old messenger with
some kingly news of history to bear.

Still, my eyes are uncertain
of what they see in this
crumbling human stock of one decayed,
decaying.

He gapes at me,
with a three-thousand-year-old eye socket,
wonders what I'm thinking of
this strange new palace
and his own glass throne.

Book Signing

One of my publishers, Dallas Woodburn of Write On! Books, is scheduling a book signing this Fall! My poetry will appear in Dancing With The Pen, an anthology being released sometime before Christmas. I am looking forward to visting Powell's Books again. =)

http://writeonbooks.org/writeonbooks.aspx

Another Publication!

Dear Jana,

Congrats! Your article "The Pine Tree" was chosen to be published in Teen Ink's print magazine! As such, it will be viewed by an estimated half-million readers of this issue.

Teen Ink
Box 30, Newton MA 02461
(617) 964-6800
editor@teenink.com

Our website: www.teenink.com
Submit Your Work: www.teenink.com/Submissions

Please consider a subscription to Teen Ink's monthly print magazine for yourself, or as a gift for a friend. The annual cost is just $35 (for 10 monthly issues) and your subscription helps support Teen Ink's nonprofit foundation. We need your help, so please subscribe today! www.teenink.com/subscription.

It Hurts To Write

I wish I could contract hypergraphia, a mental illness in which the victim suffers (or enjoys) an uncontrollable desire to write.

In her book The Midnight Disease, Alice W. Flaherty writes that she experienced hypergraphia during postpartum depression. Her twin boys, so small that one who wrapped his hand around her finger couldn't cover it, had died. After her ten days of pain (what?!) the scientist woke up to "tendrils of words coiling around her." (Flaherty, 2004, p. 6)

Writing is a lonely business, writes someone whose name I forgot. I believe it. In our sharpest heartache, our deepest, most refined and intellectual desire is to produce the art of writing. Julia Cameron says that artists suffer when they don't make art. Is that saying I suffer because I don't write? Because I don't write because I suffer.

Writing is a stretchy business, too. I sit for hours, which keeeeeeeeps stretching into time as I pour out little ink marks, remembering myself on the pages of a stranger's story. And by then I need to stretch. Flaherty said, "But it disturbed me that writing, which seems one of the most refined, even transcendent talants, should be so influenced by biology." (Flaherty, 2004, p. 13)

I, too, am addicted to writing.


Flaherty, Alice W. (2004). The Midnight Disease. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin.

Recognizing Subtle Sabotage

Subtle sabotage occurs when a well-meaning friend offers criticism he or she considers helpful or constructive, but is not wise or relevant.

"When a negative thought concerning your personal power comes to mind, deliberately voice a positive thought to cancel it out" (Peale, 1952, p. 13).

Artists deserve to know the truth about their work. But the beginnings of creativity are delicate. We must protect them. Criticism is truly destructive when it is not met within the artist with a response of relief and surprise over the accuracy of the sudden light. Ms. Julie Cameron, author of seventeen books, including Finding Water and The Artist's Way, said on the subject of identifying those moments when a legitimate correction must be made: "As a rule, it [negative criticism] is withering and shaming in tone; ambiguous in content; personal, inaccurate, or blanket in its condemnations. There is nothing to be gained from irresponsible criticism" (Cameron, 1992, p. 72).

Don't ask for criticism. Let the Universe, if you will, bring feedback to you. If worried about the grammer or style, consult The Gregg Reference Manual.



Cameron, Julie. (1992). The Artist's Way. New York, NY: Penguin Putnam Inc.

Peale, N. (1952). The Power of Positive Thinking. New York, NY: Ballentine.

Great News!

Dear Jana,

Thanks so much for sending your manuscript Cherry Blossoms Bloom in March to me. I love your use of imagery and language, and the way you organized the poems was lovely.

At this time, I regret that I cannot accept your entire manuscript for publication, as I am only publishing anthologies of work by young writers. I would however love to publish your poems "Letting Go" and "Unmask" in the first Write On! Books anthology. More than fifty writers from all across the United States and even other countries including Canada, Singapore, New Zealand are having their work featured in the book, so I am expecting distribution to not just be limited to the U.S. but in fact to be worldwide, guaranteeing fantastic exposure for our young writers. I am also thrilled that acclaimed 23-year-old writer Jessica Burkhart, author of the popular YA series Canterwood Crest with Simon & Schuster, is writing a foreword to the book.
 
Best wishes,
 
Dallas Woodburn
Write On! Books
author, speaker, freelance writer
founder of "Write On! For Literacy"

Absorbing Art

I enjoyed a concert tonight at Aladdin Theatre to raise money for digging community wells in Africa.

Several bands performed, the most memorable being Loveness Wesa, a Swahili vocals and drums band with South African tribal dancing. Three Leg Torso played skillfully with cello, violin, drums, and a singer named Courtney. They seem Russian in style with American rock beat influence and eclectic if not eccentric themes.

Aladdin Theatre is an old fashioned building. Gold and blue molding decorate the walls, as do green panels. Worn wooden and red-upholstered seats fold out and do not automatically snap back into place. Beneath these seats the soft, green paint on the cement floor is fading in spots. I felt like I was a living prop on a 1920's wedding cake.

Wide banners to my right and left proclaim the worthy purpose of our entertainment for the evening: Give African Communities Pure Water. An African woman from Loveness Wesa remembers carrying water as a child. "Eet eez 'ard to look back and think, How did I survive? Water eez part ov life. Sometimes one jug of water our family shared until we could get to the next well." Stell Co. and Portland Roasting Coffee brought the bands and people together for a noble cause.

It was a great night. I got that oxygen.

Snapshots of Portland

Portland is definitely the place to become exposed to art. From antique architecture to the green and flourishing environment to a diverse people's culture, this ancient city is a piece of art itself. Today I strolled the downtown quarter with high expectations--and I was thoroughly inspired.

Each building is uniquely sculpted with neutral-colored bricks and dark steel. An Irish pub and thousands of high-end shops fill the structures; the upper stories are apartments. I am most astonished by the bridges. Who designed and manufactured such huge steel beams over which cars rush and trains thunder? I even walked across one of these magnificant structures near the Saturday Markets Tents, stopping to stare up at the rusty bottom of a road. Far out to my left and right, before and behind me, buildings squat and stretch according to their height.

Along the beach where bridges begin, cherry trees flaunt voluptuous pink and white blossoms. The green grass behind and the misty sky remind me of a fairy tale I always dreamed of being part of: Thumbelina. I can breath the clean air here; are you surprised? In spite of the industry of Portland, the rain cleans the air and refreshes the life of nature. The environment here is healthy and beautiful for all the people.

The people! The people! I see fat, bearded men wrapped in sleeping bags under many bridges, moms and daughters smiling at each other as they walk the river's beach, and men with dogs and cellphones and lovers. I can blend in and stand out at the same time because diversity is the flavor of Portland.

I love Portland because the art is found in every corner and open space. Seeing ancient construction, watching nature burst forth into life, and becoming me in the community are powerful idea-starters. My walk downtown moved me as a writer.

Writing as a Child

As a child, I wrote creatively because I wanted to. No one made me do it; I just picked up my pen and wrote. My mother can tell about the first attempt I made at creative writing, or writing just for fun. All of nine years old, I sat down at our kitchen table with a pile of papers and a sharpened pencil . . .

"Bears," I read to her, "Some are brown, black, or white/ and most of them have a big appetite."

She burst into laughter as I pronounced this long word.

"They roll down hills and climb up trees/ and some of them just sit in the breeze."

Years later, I realize that writing is a natural expression and propensity. Like all journeys, constructing correct papers, stories, poems, books, and articles requires increasing knowledge and willingness to fix mistakes. To me, my children's debut novel being published and my persistence in spite of some mediocre and therefore unacceptable work proves that I am a writer.

A few books that inspire me . . .

A reader of my blog recently asked me what I was inspired by. Good question, I thought. Here is a list of writings that pierce my heart and challenge my thinking into fresh inspiration.


Out of The Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis

Ransom is a bumbling English man with big dreams and a pocket full of nothing. His chivalry demands that, one starry night on the walk of a homeless man, he check on a neighbor who lives in the country. Accidentally discovering a secret experiment in two professors' backyard, Ransom is drugged and stowed away on a miraculous spaceship. He wakes up in burning space as a primary component in the mad men's idea of human progression.


Byzantium by Stephen R. Lawhead
It's the Dark Ages for more than just religious people.
A dutiful monk named Aidan is chosen to be part of a pilgrimage that carries a jewel-embedded, hand-scribed manuscript known as The Book of Kells to give to Byzantium's new emperor. Despite the backstabbing greed of some treacherous monks who desire to steal the book, this humble man makes it to the sea with the manuscript, where the group is attacked by Vikings who take Aidan as a slave. After years of service, Aidan devises his way to Byzantium, where he is first cast into the mines as a slave, then escapes to become a royal servant. His wealthy master later offers his mesmerizing daughter to Aidan in marriage. Pressured to adopt the Islamic religion, Aidan thirsts for one goal: to free his Brothers who also languish in the mines. Through a well-crafted political plot, he approaches the Emperor with the remains of The Book of Kells.
Based on the true story of St. Aidan, Byzantium explores the faiths of Christianity and Islam, and the complex culture of a magnificent city through the eyes of man not yet well-experienced, but as shrewd and relentless as an eagle.

The Monk Downstairs by Tim Farrington
Rebecca is so lonely after her divorce from the wild surfer her child calls Dad. But Rebecca will not compromise her standard of intellectual abilities, something she can't seem to find in her workplace or social groups. When she rents out the basement to an outdated sort of man who says he is an ex-monk, Rebecca begins to realize she has an opinion of her own. And she wants to sleep with the monk downstairs.

The Story of Rich, Red Whine

When I was 17, I went through a clumsy phase. I literally broke things, like myself, that I didn't mean to destroy. My parents went through a disciplinary stage at that time. Although I have exaggerated their behavior in this story for the sake of fiction, I remember one night of not being able to handle the stress. I sat down at our computer and got into one of my favorite social-networks: old-fashioned email. In my inbox was the announcement that Write On! Books was hosting a short story contest. The prompt was "What would you do if you inherited five-million dollars tomorrow?" This was my story; I won an award for Most Original.

Rich, Red Whine

If I inherited five-million dollars tomorrow, the first thing I would do is press my hand to my heart and faint. And since I would be standing on the front porch by the mailbox, I would fall and hit my head on the rough concrete, causing me to crash into my mother's prize roses, bump and roll down the steps into the driveway. My dad would be coming home about that time, see me hurtling toward his moving vehicle, swerve, and drive right through our front window! At the sound of our beautiful stained glass window spraying into the living room as it shreds imported leather furniture, knocks antiques to the floor, and slices into a three-and-a-half-million dollar original painting, my mother would come running in her slippers down the hall.

"JANA," she would shriek,"WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY DISHES?! YOU ARE SO CLUMSY! YOU ARE GOING TO PAY FOR EVERY LAST ITEM YOU'VE BROKEN THIS YEAR! AND I MEANT IT!!!"

Mothers do have a way about them. Of course, dad couldn't take the blame. He couldn't kill his daughter, could he? And then the cracked skull, broken knee, and yard of skin I left stuck to the gravel would be added to my list of "careless actions for which there are consequences." Add getting the truck back out through the window, a shrink for the trauma, and I think I've spent my 5M. Thanks, but I think I'll pass on that one.

My Evil, Inner Editor

I am studying The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron as a way to challenge writer's block. One exercise is to draw a picture of what she calls "the inner critic," that self-criticiser that stems from roots of negativity we may have collected and held onto during childhood.

My "monster" is a sharp-chinned woman with a dark unibrow and tiny eyes. She dominates her way into the position of Executive Editor. Daily I have to tell her, "You're fired! Go wax your eyebrow!" because she seems to show up with a leaky red pen whenever I open my notebook.

"In my own case, I have found that my Inner Critic's most scathing comments are often reserved for what will later appear to be my strongest work." (Cameron, 2006, p. 96) Be secure enough to try something new in your writing. Or be secure enough to stick to what you're doing.

References

Cameron, Julia. (2006) Finding water. Penguin Group: USA.

The Pine Tree

The lavender-gray sky
is sprinkled with stars.
The huge, dark outline of
a pine tree
blotches this view,
a streak of sunlight
spreading almost to its tip.
I see a car
coming along the road
beneath it
and I move forward until
I am under the tree's strange
shelter.
As the fingers of a
piney bough drop down
to touch my head,
I realize I need not
fear the shadows:
they shelter me from that which I foolishly do not
fear.

Spectrums of Light

please, love, let's make
no impartial vow
--Jewel

Humans experience Life by five, arguably six, senses. But are our senses 100% accurate and complete? Examine this. Some sunlight appears white, but there is no wavelength of light that is white (http://www.thinkquest.org/). This phenomena is a combination of colors translated by our eyes. All the information gathered by our senses and organized by our brains could logically be false or, at best, misinterpreted. And how much relevant information to each nugget of knowledge is lost and therefore cannot be considered as a total exposition by our intelligent minds?

I believe this is why cutting edge universities teach that knowledge is not necessarily truth.

A Wordy Investigation

I have realized as I progress in my courses at Ashford University that I need not necessarily accept the negative criticism of individuals who lack credentials, full understanding through knowledge, or experience in the area addressed.

How can I determine which feedback is applicable for my use, especially in analyzation of my writing for editorial purposes? The answer is dialectic reasoning, a fifth stage of cognitive development conjectured by Klaus F. Riegel. Riegal was a researcher in the field of psychology; he intensley studied and published his very passion: "the effect of aging on intelligence." (https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl)

Dialectic means pertaining to logical argumentation. So dialectic reasoning involves questions and arguments over the knowledge that was discovered by critical thinking. Editors, whether professional or informal, will use the critical process of analyzing, synthesizing, evaluating, and applying to edit fiction and especially nonfiction writing. The writer would prosper by using dialectic reasoning to analyze the suggestions offered by the editor. In other words, it is your story.