Landscapes, sketches (art) 2013

I made these drawings in May and June of 2013, ideas for silk art and wet pastels. I like the drawings better than the finished product.

Scratchboard drawings, India ink, 1995-97
Landscapes, wet pastels (art) 2013
Three drawings, Scotland, ca 2006
Mt Diablo from Clayton, drawingBaja, Mulegé, Cabo San Lucas, watercolors
Shells, three drawings, stabillo pencil, 3/95
Shell, charcoal drawing

Landscapes, wet pastels (art) 2013

I'm posting all my 2013 wet pastel landscapes at the end of December, though they were done over the course of a year, most were done during the summer.

Wet chalk and wet construction paper pastels: these are 9x12". I can't go back and finish them when the paper's dry as they're generally far too fragile to re-wet and add details. I usually only have about 10-15 minutes to complete a pastel!

This idea evolved when my after-school art kids at Cleveland Elementary Schools (2007), asked if they could do chalk pastels. I wasn't wild about the idea as I like more painterly colors, etc. But I also love to draw. So we did some pastels and I was disappointed in our results. I noticed that one child developed a cough from inhaling the chalk dust. (It bothers me too). His mother insisted it was only a cold (I think she was afraid I wasn't going to let him participate as he totally loved art). But.... I wondered: how can I reduce the chalk dust? Water. When I worked at a horse training stables, we used to sprinkle the indoor arena sand to keep dust levels down.

I discovered a technique of wetting both paper and chalk and it's akin to painting with sticks of chalk. (I've used both oil sticks and Aquerelle watercolor crayon sticks so it was a natural progression. With the Aquarelles, I weted the stiff morilla board first, or sprayed it with water after the crayon was applied. But I didn't want to use white paper for chalk pastels—besides, morilla board is astronomically expensive to use in the classroom.

So I experimented with all kinds of paper and the ONLY paper that would work was my former school painting/drawing nemesis, construction paper. It has a tooth (texture the chalk needs to adhere to) and the glue that holds the woodpulp together softens and the chalk adheres directly to it. Riverside acid free construction paper works best. Most schools have the worst grade cheap construction paper, but it will work, though it's more fragile and will easily tear.

An added bonus of using chalk wet, the colors are more painterly and vibrant. Cheap kid chalk or hopscotch chalk generally won't work, it's often too hard and will tear the paper, but the heavy teacher white chalkboard chalk is a perfect blending tool with a buttery consistency when wet.

We add black details with the waterbase stabillo pencils at the end of the session. (I also remove black chalk from the pastel sets). Pieces are very fragile until the construction paper dries. I put them on paper towels and in a sunlit window to dry.

Adult pastel sets often have toxic chemicals in them—like vermillion, cadmium and cobalt. Don't use them with kids! make sure the chalks have non-toxic AP labels.

I was nosing around for a silk painting idea and did these instead.

Chalk pastel on construction paper, 6x9" or 9 x 12".

Landscapes, wet pastels (art) 2012
Landscapes, wet pastels (art) 2011
Landscapes, wet pastels (art) 2008
Landscapes, wet pastels (art) 2007
Still life (art) 2007

27th annual ART FROM THE HEART silent auction, silk painting

"Russian River 2" 10x10" habotai silk, gutta, dye batik © Maureen Hurley 2011

Art from the Heart

Founded in 1984, Art from the Heart is one of Sonoma County's premiere fundraising events—an evening of fine art, food, and wine where artists and collectors join to support the University Art Gallery. Art from the Heart is a silent auction featuring original works of art in all media donated by professional artists from Sonoma County and the United States. Stays at local inns and hotels, theater  and museum tickets, unique bottles of wine and VIP tasting at local wineries are also included in the auction.

You may bid on my piece Feb 12th at Sonoma State University.SATURDAY, February 12, 6-9 pm: 27th annual ART FROM THE HEART silent auction to benefit the University Art Gallery at SSU. Free Preview Exhibition Wednesday, 11-8; Thursday, 11-4; and Friday, 11-8. For more information, call (707) 664-2295 or go to http://www.sonoma.edu/artgallery

Feb 13: Great to see Joel Bennett again (and his trips to Cuba) and Joe Jaqua—believe it or not, I've known him since I was 17! Joe, Chester Arnold and me were in Marty Stoelzel's painting class at College of Marin for years and years. And Neil acted with Joe's brother at DVC way back when. Small world. 

So the former (Scottish) mayor of Rohnert Park's wife bid on my piece but it went to the woman who runs J wines! A bidding war. I got to meet both of them. Very cool. Got to visit with Stella Monday, Sylvia Seventy and Marsha Connell too—it's been ages. Didn't see Greer Upton (or her piece!). ;-( Too crowded. A great turnout and a great time was had by all. 

added 2/17 

I made several variations.

 

Russian River, finished drawing 9x12

Outline for silk template

Party of One

Wild Oats                     ©Maureen Hurley

During the 1980s and '90s, I used to live next door, well, a few cabins up, from many blues musicians at Celli's Cabins in Forestville, on the Russian River. The rustic cabins were originally weekend summer rentals, later they were workers' cabins. Then, they became an artist enclave. I was fortunate to have lived there for 20 years among many noted musicians.

What great impromtu BBQs we had at the cabins in various configurations: we were all living in and out of each other's pockets, er, cabins—they were so tiny, you had to go out into the driveway to change your mind. In Cabin Number One, there was Alastair Ingram, saxophonist, and flyfisher, born in Dundee, Scotland, but raised in Wisconsin. His band, Blue Moon, still rises in the sky at night, blue notes and all.

And across from Alastair, in Cabin #10, there was Sonny Lowe, Chicago-style bluesman, one fab mouth harpist (and a right good a good kisser). We always loved to boogie when Sonny Lowe and the Blenders were jammin' at Jasper O'Farrell's. 


Once dubbed the "highest jumpin' white man in the US," before an injury put an end to his hopes of breaking the world high jump record and a shot at the Olympics, that long, tall cool drink of water, AKA Max "Sonny" Lowe, who could jump 7' 2" from a standstill, picked up a harmonica and he never looked back. That man had soul. And he walked with a springboard gizmo in his shoes.

Sonny was also a shade tree mechanic adept at fixing cars. He was the only man who could keep my '81 blue Mitsubishi truck, codenamed Lazarus, running. He had the magic hands. I'd sidle on up to Sonny and say, "Come look under mah hood," ala Sonny Terry and Brownie MacGhee whenever I needed a tune-up or my carburators rebuilt. He'd laugh and say, "Yes ma'am!" and always undercharged me for the work, as I babysat his son Nathan for free. 


We were all cash-strapped. (Some things never change.) Sonny preferred Peach Schnaps to money as a tip. Said it soothed his voice. To this day, the odor of peaches reminds me of him.

Sometimes Sonny's friend Charlie Musselwhite would pull up in his white van. Charlie lived in the town of Sonoma. For a while, I was Nathan's babysitter and odd mother-figure of sorts. I loved helping to raise that kid. He brought out the child in me. We were inseparable. It was love at first sight. 


Sometimes Nathan called me "Dad" even when his own dad was standing there next to him. We'd all laugh and Sonny would look down at his feet and get all uncomfortable. He knew what the kid wanted. Nathan's mother, Cindy, who was trying to straighten herself out after a half-life of heavy partying, and drugs, wanted it too—if only for Nathan's sake. But it was not to be. I regret that life not lived.

Sonny taught me the root meaning of the blues, it took me a long time to recover from that kind of class act. Living next to Sonny fostered a lot of writing on my part—some of it was decent. Most of it, not. 


Even writing about this blogpost makes me squirmy like I was doin' sumptin' wrong. But sometimes I can't help myself. The pieces just write themselves into a corner or wander where they will down a long open road—while I'm unsuccessfully holding onto some sort of a through-thread for dear life.


Ain't nobody that can croon and play that harp and tongue those bent notes like Sonny, except maybe, Charlie Musselwhite, or Norton Buffalo (rest his soul.) Norton lived in Sonoma too, then moved up to Paradise. Then he went to the other paradise. To this day, I can't listen to the lonesome wail of an harmonica without thinking of Norton or Sonny.

On an impulse, Charlie gave Sonny his big white gig van, packed full of stuff destined for Goodwill, and that gig van doubled an extra spare bedroom for various visiting folks. We had a great time unpacking that treasure trove of a van stuffed with antique furniture, musical instruments, clothes, and two dark tabby kittens. I used to wear one of Georgina's vintage black dresses at many of my poetry readings. It brought me luck.

 Celli's Cabins                           ©Maureen Hurley

Evan Morgan lived in Cabin #2. Evan's an acoustic guitarist, ukelele and mandolin picker of New Riders of the Purple Sage fame. Evan's NRPS bandmates and many other musicians rarely came to visit... mainly because Evan was usually on the road with them. He'd come back full of stories. When Evan played bluegrass and Celtic music—whether on his Martin, mandolin or on a fiddle, he was at his finest. I couldn't get enough of that music. 

At the time, Evan was touring with Lost Highway Band (not the movie), but Forestville was his base camp. I remember the buzz going round the cabins when Evan auditioned for NRPS. I'm sure we all celebrated that night. Not that I was a NRPS fan, but I proudly displayed a NRPS sticker on my rear truck window for Evan's sake. 

We saw a whole lot less of Evan when he hooked up with a French blonde welfare mom who was the daughter of a friend of mine. With a cheshire cat smile, she devoured him from the rooster up. It ran in the family. He no sooner looked, then he loved, and when he loved, it was an all-consuming once in a lifetime kind of love. Now, Evan was right fine to look at, but he just sort of wasted away when he found out she was lip-synching band members while he was on the road.

Evan and Sonny shared Charlie Musselwhite's two cats, brother tabbys, Hucky and Mucky. Hucky—short for Huckleberry—who was more dog, than cat, was a people cat. He was smarter than his brother, he could open doors, and deduce things, but Mucky, a recluse by nature, was more interested in sucking his own balls than cozying up to folks. Neutering put a stop to that vice. Couldn't suggest that option to Evan. But it might have saved him some grief. Some things just need to play themselves out. 

Hucky decided Evan wasn't around much and one day he went out to Mirabel Road to find him (he recognized all our cars when we pulled up the driveway) but he thumbed a ride with death instead. Maybe someone drove by in a car that sounded like Evan's. Maybe Hucky was terminally lonesome. Or maybe he just committed suicide. It wasn't like him to go out onto the highway. We all mourned that cat. Mucky was devastated without his brother. It was about that time that he became more people friendly.

Former NRPS band member, Grateful Dead drummer, Micky Hart, lived across the way from us, off Mirable Road, so there were infinite musical party permutations possible on any given night. I don't recall ever meeting the NRPS guy whose death spawned this particular piece of memoir, Marmaduke, aka John Dawson, but I was pretty oblivious to names, so anything was possible. 

 The road across the way         ©Maureen Hurley

I never officially went over to Micky Hart's place across the way, I was too shy, but I did stand outside in his driveway to listen when most of the remaining Grateful Dead showed up one night to play. But it was cold standing there in the dark alone, so I went home. Alone.

Come to think of it, the Grateful Dead and NRPS connection, is probably why one member of It's a Beautiful Day, David LaFlamme of White Bird fame, was living on the River, working at the Guerneville gas pump. There's not many who can clam to have David LaFlamme—a world class violin virtuoso—pump gas into their car. His infinitely sad eyes were as blue as my VW Bug, and his hair, white blond as sunlight on the river. 


I should have just given Evan my dad's indigo blue Jaguar coupe way back then when he asked for it, when it was still running, now the carbs are frozen up and the wirings shot—but I was too unresolved and conflicted over my dad's death. Now it sits abandoned in the driveway, reduced to rust by the elements, junkyard bound in the slow lane.


Across the creek from me, ceramicist-musician Joel Bennett played salsa chord progression riffs on a not-so-baby grand piano that dominated the living room like a shiny volcano. On weekends, with artists and art lovers dropping in for Open Studio, it was like Little Havana at Joel's joint.

Italian pine   ©Maureen Hurley

In Cabin #7 there was Paul Ellis, painter and a regular Jeckyl & Hyde fiddler-classical violinist. Paul could change from classical pieces to bluegrass at the drop of a hat. Sometimes even in the middle of the same tune. He had a running classical chamber duo gig with Ron Jones and/or Don Coffin at local restaurants on Sunday afternoons, but Paul could break out into some serious barnstorming fiddling come Friday night. AKA Redwood String Trio, The Hot Frittatas, etc. (Pix of Paul & Don at the Kate Wolf Festival).

Paul painted a lovely canvas of my cabin, with all its cow skulls and art accretions, the Shasta daisies out front were in full tilt. (A pdf that mentions Paul & Kate Wolf). His friend, Don Coffin (Kate Wolf's ex-husband), who drove a vintage green caddie convertible, often came to visit. That's how I met Don, he came cruising up in this drop-dead gorgeous car and I ran out to see what all the fuss was about. 

I later realized I'd met Don years earlier when he was living in Sebastopol, so it was a reunion of sorts. Kate and Don had long since split up. I remember all of us going over to his house after a poetry reading and playing music into the wee hours, the potbelly stove belching smoke. Paul was probably there too. It was a small world.

And in the other cabins, lived various itinerant cabinmates—Cabin #4 got a real workout. George rented it for a while, then an ex-boyfriend, Jim Byrd moved some of his furniture in, but stayed with me. It mostly stood empty for ages. The last tenant was Steve DuBois, a fine drummer, who was my good buddy. Weekends, Steve played for Tommy Castro, at The Saloon in North Beach. (See Steve with The Doorslammers Johnny Nitro Salute). Sometimes I'd drive into the city to hear them play, but I was partial to Sonny's blues style. And the city was more than a long ways from Forestville.

Cabin 6                                      ©Maureen Hurley

Another shortlived cabin-mate (Cabin #6) was an official Marboro Man, Bill Dutra, who was a friend of Leonard Matlovich's, of Time Magazine fame. Ironically, Bill didn't smoke at all, but KS ravaged his beautiful sculpted face. Ironic also, that the iconic face of the manly man of the American West was a gay roving blade. 

A decorated Vietnam war veteran who served three tours of duty and awarded a Purple Heart, Leonard Matlovich made the cover of Time Magazine in 1975 when he broke cover and "came out" while serving in the Air Force. 

Come to think of it, Bill Dutra was probably plastered on the back cover of that same Time Magazine, riding a horse into the Marlboro country sunset, a filtered ciggie dangling from his lips.


Bill told me Leonard who was buried in the same row as J. Edgar Hoover—was poetic justice. His tombstone reads: “When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.” Bill told me a funny story about "Jedgar's" penchant for cross-dressing like a girl and how the FBI had to scramble to cover it up from the press.

Steve the banjo player moved into Cabin #2 when Evan left. I can't remember his last name. Maybe Wharton? Starts with a hwa-hwa sound. But I can remember the names of all his cats. Rounder used to bring us fresh kill. Nothing quite like finding crunchy little gopher feet on your doorstep in the morning—with your bare feet, Steve playing "Cripple Creek" in the distance.

Then there's New Englander, Rob Harrison who moved into Bill's cabin (#6) after he died. Rob worked with Sonny as a counselor at halfway homes. He carried on ordinary conversation at 80 decibels. No need for a phone, you could hear Rob clear in the next county. Rob was from Woodstock. Must have been from listening to all that good music up close and personal.

The orchard                              ©Maureen Hurley

In Cabin #9 was Persian rug restorer and emphysemic storyteller George Howell, George was one of the original dharma bums who really lived a legendary life of Dharma Bums fame, having 'balled' Janis Joplin in the back seat of Jack Kerouac's car as it made that famous cross-country run in the late 1950s—I can't remember his Beat name in the book. Gary Snyder's name in the book was Japhy Ryder. 

Violet-eyed George, with the beard of a wild Armenian, who also happened to be half-Armenian, stood well over six feet, was overfond of Robitussen and speed in his youth, and so, was near toothless. He wheezed like a Wurlitzer when we washed hand woven antique Persian rugs—worth more than all our collective incomes—in the orchard. Wildness ran in the family. In Hana, stories still circulate about George's Welsh haole uncle, Dr. Howell who had a thirst as prodigious as that of Dylan Thomas. When I was in Hana, Dr. Howell was fondly remembered. 

I dragged a few musicians home from time to time. After a private party at The Top of the Mark in SF—I was a flower girl in medieval costume heralding the way for Scottish bagpiper, Peter Kapp—we held a moonlit ceili right in the driveway, with Peter piping and skirling and everyone dancing up and down the driveway until we were breathless and covered in dust.

Then there was the Love Choir's unstrung guitar hero Trygve Tryggestad, an old high school flame who could play the guitar like he was at the crossroads with the devil himself. But he had a regular woman stashed somewhere in the woodwork, I wasn't into playing second fiddle—and that was that. Another life I regret not having lived.

 River Road, flood                     ©Maureen Hurley

On hot summer nights, the crickets seethed, a chorus of mosquitoes hummed in unison, liquor freely flowed, two kinds of smoke rose, and George made a wicked raita & a baba ghanoosh to die for. Ah, yes, those were the days...in Celli's Cabins, in Forestville, by the river, the wild moon rising over the orchard. 

There was not much need to go into town to hear live music. We had it all at Celli's Cabins. Except for when Sonny and the boys were blending tasty treats up at Jasper O'Farrell's Pub. Besides, the dance floor at Jasper's was better than groovin' alone in the gravel driveway as the boys were all playing music. 


Party of one? 


I had to leave Forestville in order to get a life. But I miss those good old days, never realizing how good we really had it. We all moved on, got married, shacked up, settled down. End of an era.

Sometimes, I still dream of Sonny crooning the classic, Yes Miss Bessie, You Sure Got a Good BBQ! in a smoky voice that planted the blues deep down into my soul. And I wonder about Nathan, of course, that almost-child of mine by mutual adoption. Did he grow up to be a musician following his daddy's footprints? Or did he become an artist like me? This child I never had.

Forestville                                ©Maureen Hurley

When I began this piece, there was nothing on the internet about Bill Dutra as the Marlboro Man, but a cousin forwarded this link for The Marlboro Cowboy, March 2009.

Stitching Together Memory

My old Singer sewing machine pulley belt is in tatters and shreds and no longer adequately drives the wheel. The canvas belt is separating from the rubber and has shredded so as to interfere with the wheel pulley. I trimmed the belt with a nail scissors and got a little more life out of it but now the old belt's literally hanging by a thread.

I haven't been able to properly use my Singer for years. Last time I used it was five years ago to mend Neil's 1920s military kilt. It's literally falling apart again and the polyester thread I used to hand-stitch its myriad pleats back into place, doesn't hold up to the considerable weight of the fabric. The kilt must weigh 7-10 pounds so that's a lot of strain on the thread and the buckle fastenings.

Hard to find the old Coates and Clarke thread these days. "The best thread in the world," my grandmother always said. "Good sturdy stuff," she'd say, pulling on the thread, making it taut until it twanged and sang like a harp string. "Made in Scotland too." Little did I know that my domestic destiny would be caught up in that bobbin of thread manufactured in the cotton factories along the Clydebank.

I haven't been able to use my old Singer for years. The little motor spins and moans when the belt slips and I have to coax it along by hand.  At this point, I'd be better off with a treadle sewing machine. I really need a replacement belt. But when I look for belts, I can't seem to find one for that model.

Sure, I could get a new sewing machine. Lord knows they're cheap enough new. I could even get one for nothing on Freecycle. But I have a fierce loyalty to my old outdated Singer sewing machine. Sure it'd be lovely to be able to zig-zag or embroider or make button holes, or even have a reverse option.

My grandmother had a similar model Singer bought used from a peddler during the Depression in San Francisco. She gave him five bucks a week until it was paid off. She sewed all the clothes for 8 of her own children (4 boys and 4 girls), and also for my brother and me (she raised us) on that old Singer.

She also sewed generations of curtains and bedsheets on that Singer. When the sheets got worn out down the middle, she ripped them apart and sewed the relatively unworn outside ends together. I even had a set of summer sheets pieced together from old flour sacks. I loved their fresh laundered line dried stiff scratchy feel. It heralded summer.

My brother and I, we both learned how to sew on that old Singer. He became an auto upholsterer. During the hippie era, I even sewed leather skirts, vests and purses on it—not to mention rather, er, inventive dressed and tops! My mom once sewed up a multicolored red and blue canvas panel tepee on that Singer.

My brother and I, we both accidentally sewed up the tips of our fingers on that Singer. We sang and howled with pain but it made us much more careful sewers.

Apparently it was a family right of passage. My mom also sewed up the tip of her finger several times over on that old Singer. She later did a lot of theatre and costume designing on it. One costuming stint at the Cal Neva casino for Sinatra's fan dancing show girls—not a whole lot of material involved on that job—mostly feathers and beads.

I remember another sewing stint of hers with the famous Hollywood designer Ruben Panis (she married him so he could get his Green Card; he was later brutally murdered by a jealous lover) making Miss World costumes—I did the seed pearl beading on Miss Korea's pageant gown. The point is, that old Singer was running 12-16 hours a day under deadline and it never once faltered.

My cousin Kate has my grandmother's Singer now and it's still working fine (it's on its 2nd or 3rd motor), but she needs a belt as well. (BTW, she too has sewed up the tip of her finger. A good thing we have fingernails. It usually stops the needle from traveling up to the tip of the metatarsal finger bone.)

When I moved away from home, I bought my Singer in 1972 for a whopping $40 on 2nd Street between C and D Streets in San Rafael, CA. A neighbor had given me a gorgeous similar vintage White model but it didn't work as well as the Singer. After about 6 months using it, I was ready for a better sewing machine. So one morning when I was driving down 2nd street saw this old black and gold Singer exactly like my grannie's in the window, I slammed on the brakes, jumped out of the car and ran into the used appliance store.

The owner tried to dissuade me from buying that old Singer, saying, "what-aya want that old thing for? I got some real nice Kenmores here. How 'bout a White? They're better than that old Singer. More features. It's old. Won't last long. Won't be able to find parts for it. You'll want the newer features" He really wanted to sell me a more modern 1960s sewing machine. But I had my heart set on that Singer.

Besides, the old White, though it was truly magnificent to behold, with its plethora of dizzying gold foil and colored enamel scroll work to admire, it was a real Jezebel. Despite its fancy inlaid walnut cabinet and painted beauty, it was really a lousy machine. The spindle bobbin was always jamming and balling up into a tight knot of thread (I. M. Singer improved the old bobbin and tension assembly) and I never got used to using the pressure foot pedal. There were gas and brake pedals more accurate than that pedal. I missed the much more accurate and precise knee pressure pedal on my grannie's Singer.

I wanted that old Singer. I wanted the best. You might say I was destined to own that old Singer. I emptied my wallet on the counter, but I was about a dollar short of $20 so I ran out to my car and scrounged for lost coins in the ash tray but I was still a few cents short, so I looked under the car seat: a nickel, a penny a dime. I had the down payment! I had an old hand-me-down '58 Volvo panel van from my uncle John—are you ready for this?—originally imported as a Singer delivery van, and thanks to its coin swallowing crevices managed to scrape up the $20 down on it.

Unbeknownst to me, I had entered into the original innovative Singer Hire-Purchase process—put a little money down, pay in installments—precursor to the credit card. It took me a few months to earn the rest of the money for the Singer. When I finally came to claim it, the shopkeeper, shaking his head doubtfully at my folly, he thought the Singer was a more modern 1939 model than my Grannie's.

So did I—until today when I stumbled upon the Singer website. Looking up specs on another machine being offered for free on Freecycle, I was shocked to discover that AC515997 was a 1929 model. I don't know how many motors it had from 1929 to 1972, but I've only had the one motor for nearly 35 years. I have used it for 30 years... until the belt shredded about 5 years ago.....

Well, suffice to say, nearly 35 years later, I still don't need any parts for my Singer but I do need a new pulley belt. My machine was never quite  as robust as my grandmother's Singer, it can't sew through thick material like a tepee with French seams, or leather without a lot of coaxing, but it usually did the job. I miss it. I really don't want a new machine.

ADDENDUM 9/6/08: After hauling my Singer into several sewing stores in Oakland and after calling almost every quilting store in Alameda County during the 3-digit heat heat wave in June, I resorted to trial and error, trying every sewing machine and vacuum cleaner belt I could find that was around 13 inches long. Nothing worked. Most belts are far too short.

Women stopped to admire my black and gold Singer strapped to the wheelie luggage rack like a lovely child in a pram, they, with their modern sewing machines, couldn't believe their eyes. A mirage. I felt like I'd stepped out of a living history museum time warp. We swapped stories on the longivity and sheer sewing power of the old Singers that could sew through most anything.

One rather toney sewing store owner on Piedmont Avenue (my last hope), haughtily rendered a suburban sniff at my machine as if it was something dragged in from the gutter, wanted to know when's the last time I got it serviced. I said never, I did it myself. She looked at me as if I was deranged. "But you can't do that," she said. Of course I can. I replied. Dead simple to lube and tune it. Like a Volkswagon Bug. An idiot could do it. I resorted to special ordering a motor pulley belt that never arrived.

After three months of waiting for the Singer pulley belt, when Costco had a special sale on Singers, I broke down and bought a newfangled machine for $150 that makes buttonholes, embroiders & zizzags too. But though it has 51 stitches, and it even self threads, it's more cumbersome and bothersome to use than my old Singer. it's claketty as a train, sounds like it needs a valve job and a lube. Too many levers in the way. Little plastic knobs come off at the slightest touch.

I can't see what I'm doing without hunching down for fear of sewing up my nose. I hate the micro LED light. No pulley belt in sight. Everything's locked away behind a bulky white plastic case. Even the thread guys. The thread spool now lays sideways, you need a toy wheel to keep it on. A piece guaranteed to get lost sooner rather than later around kids. How hard would it have been to put a hinge on the spool holder rod and let gravity keep it in place? Like the old days? No room for oversized industrial spools here. Just the weenie expensive spools of thread with exotic names. No Coates and Clarks. Alas, I've entered into the realm where one gets one's machine annually "serviced" for the price I originally paid for it.

I miss the knee pedal. I wound up dragging the foot pedal onto the bed and sitting cross-legged, I could lean on it and approximate the knee pedal action by using the foot pedal as a knee pedal. One woman said it's easy to use the foot pedal, like driving a car. I'm from the four-on-the-floor, pedal-to-the-metal driving school. Not easy to switch when you've learned to sew with your knee for 45 years! Programming's utterly different. Like comparing dressage to drag racing. The slow stitch finger button makes up for it. Maybe I'll adjust to it in time. Meanwhile, an mountain of sewing repairs, in some cases, dating back five years, awaits.

This summer, I did stand at the falls on the River Cart in Paisley, Scotland, and took photos of the old Coates & Clarkes building, now renovated into fancy loft offices. All the cotton mills and thread factories are being torn down for condos in Johnstone, Elderslie, and the other industrial towns that sprung into being during the 1800s. I couldn't even find a sewing machine belt there either, for love or money.

-----------------

I loved the story of how the modern sewing machine was invented and perfected via a dream. Whether or not it's true, it was a flash of inspiration. I can't find the reference, but I.M. Singer couldn't resolve the thread breaking, he dreamed of two swordsmen fighting with needles with eyes on the tips...and that's how the solution to create a needle tension mechanism came to him.

I was also once tight friends with Sonoma County poet Pam Singer Raphael, distantly related to Isaac Merritt Singer. God only knows what branch she descends from, there are many. I never asked. She was a real New Jersey girl, talked kinda funny, with a heart of gold and in those halcyon daze we had a strong taste for Humboldt Heaven, Acapulco Gold and Maui Wowie.

Pam was a real waterdog, she was once a champion water skater back in Jersey. We spent many a summer day swimming hidden pools along the Russian River and the Gualala River. Back in 1979, we apprenticed together under Lee Perron and trained to become poet-teachers for California Poets in the Schools, teaching poetry (and art ) to kids—a job which became my lifelong calling. I never thought to ask if Pam was also related to Isaac Bashievs Singer, I think she was... I'd met his literary agent Sylvia Tota on a Hungarian train one summer. (See blog: Budapest Nights).

Pam's father was a chemist who invented Sensodyne and Qwell! After the Summer of Love, Pam said a lot of her hippie friends used to profusely thank her father for inventing Quell when they met him. her boyfriend Michael Yesbik said he shook Pam's father's hand for inventing Quell.

Having read a bit of Pam's paternal ancestor's somewhat philanderous ways (I. M. Singer had several simultaneous wives and more than a Baker's dozen of children), it's an aptly fitting invention! Singer, escaping a matrimonial scandal in New York, fled to Glasgow with his new bride, set up a Singer factory and built a residence on Clydebank.

One time she told her father how much I liked Sensodyne but it was so hard to find in Sonoma County. He sent me a care package, a whole box full of Sensodyne toothpaste. I didn't dare mention to her that I was i also intimate with Qwell as I picked up lice that summer while trying on clothes in Waikiki stores. I was completely hysterical when I found out, but that's another story...

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My partner Neil's hard working chain smoking aunties and mum were all employed by Clydebank Singer (Coates and Clarke) factories. The old brick and glass walled factories still stand along the River Cart in Paisley, Scotland. Their myriad window panes glint in the sunlight. In the afternoon, the sun shines right through the building so the vast banks of windows light up like vast cathedrals of prisms. Now the buildings have been converted into modern malls.

My grandmother would tell me that the thread was made in Scotland. I still have some old Scottish Coates & Clarke wooden thread spools, once a prime toy find. It rolled, it made a fine a building block and it even made for a crude yo-yo or necklace of sorts. I even made a flute out of several thread spools. It didn't work. I didn't know about reeds.

Little did I know I would actually wind up with a man whose family worked in those same factories. Now his auntie Cathie, the woman who delivered him, is dead. The funeral was held day before yesterday. She was a grand old lady nicknamed Lazarus because she had been at death's door so many times and defied his debt. She gave up her ciggies (coffin fags) at 70. Her grave site overlooks the old mill factories on the River Cart. Come midsummer, we'll be visiting her grave. I have a half a mind to bring along a necklace made of those old Coates and Clarke thread spools and lay them at her grave. Fitting afterlife booty for the barrow.

Scratchboard drawings, India ink, 1995-97

Wim Hoffman's garden, Vlissingen, Nederlands 1995?

Road Not Taken 1995 (Michael Carey sent me a woodcut by Carl Homestad)

Orchard, Forestville 1995

Celli's Cabins & Redwoods, Forestville 1995

Mucky the Cat Bathing After the Storm, 1995

Plant detail, Building an Ark, prose-poem, 1995

Mt. St. Helena, Sun & Sumi Hills 1995

Mt. St. Helena, Sun & Sumi Hills II, 1995

Oat Grasses, Forestville, 1995

Suicide Rock, Idlewild 1995

Lily (Tahquitz) Rock, Idlewild, II 1995

Russian River Basin, Ukiah Pass 1995

Pine & Russian River, Monte Rio, 1995

Driveway & Michael Celli's Italian Pine, 1995

Cypress & Field, Mayacamas Range 1996 (after a woodcut by B. Bramant)

Mark West Creek meets the Russian River I 1996?

Mt. St. Helena, Flowers 1996 (after Teresa MacLean's April Wind)

Drowned Vineyards, Wholer Bridge 1996?

Submerged Trees in the Russian River, near Monte Rio, 1996

Forestville, after a painting by Fred Meyer, 1996

Mark West Creek & Russian River II, 1996

Oak & Boulder, II, Alexander Valley School, 1996

Oak & Boulder, Alexander Valley School, 1996

Russian River Mouth, After 40 Days of Rain, 1996 (after Tony King's Estero)

Drowned vineyards

Mt. St. Helena

Redwood Reflections, Forestville, 1996

Wohler, & River Road's New Shore, Russian River, 1997

India ink scratchboard painting/drawings from 1995-1997, The first drawing was from the Netherlands, ca. 1995? when Wim Hoffman stuck a blank white scratchboard in my hands and I drew his garden. I was enchanted. The last piece was of Wohler Road during the floods of 1996-1997.

Almost all the drawings were done in situ in Sonoma and Mendocino counties, a few were drawn at Idylwild. Some were modeled after other artists' work. We had a couple of record flood winters. I was housebound and stir-crazy and couldn't get out of Forestville, marooned due to the severity of the floods. It rained for 40 days!

During that time I was also working on a long prose poem, Building an Arc (1995), that kept on growing, so some of these pieces were used to illustrate it. I later had a show at the California Museum of Art at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, Santa Rosa, and another show and reading at The French Quarter, in Rohnert Park, where we used lines from the long poem under the artwork.