Jamestown (1/28/2016)

I drove the Colonial Parkway on the way back home today and snapped this picture of Jamestown Island and the calm James River today.  The water was like glass, the sky was grey, and it was very peaceful until a van with high school students stopped who were obviously on a school project. 

Took the day off today to go to a workshop at the Jamestown Settlement today.  It was a four hour course on"Nature Journaling."  While it was not exactly what I was hoping for, I did have a lot of fun and I did learn quit a bit.

The course was put on by the Jamestown/Yorktown Foundation and was part of a special antiques native plant botany exhibit that they have.  If you are a regular reader of my blog, that's right up my alley.  Yes, I was hoping to learn some tricks of the trade that I could use here in these blog entries, and I guess maybe I will some day.  Maybe I have entered the instant electronic gratification era with my digital photographs and the blog, and am I lost (forever) from the more elegant note taking of the past.

The 4 hour course was given by Betty Gatewood.  Betty is an absolutely delightful person with an energy that is enviable.  She is an amateur naturalist/water colorist; one of those renaissance people.  If you ever have a chance to take a class of her, don't hesitate!

What did I learn?  Journaling is not a crazy hobby or a way to pass time.  It can be beautiful and the way Betty does illustrates it, in particular with her quick drawings and small water colors, it is even very nice; a keepsake for future generations.  I asked her why she does it.  Things like this are very personal, you hope your children read it, and maybe you hope to ever get it published.  I think a lot of people I know are closet authors that hope to write their book and this is one overt way.  Some do however.  Journals from Thoreau, Leopold, McPhee, Hoagland, Ehrlich among others have had a huge influence on me, or the book that resulted from their (nature) journals.  This and some of the blogs I read are journals entries in their own way.  Somehow and for some reason I put them out there for the world to read.  My lame excuse is education and information.

Nature journals reflect your personal relationships with nature, I learned today.  It also chronicles changes over millenia and can document global warming.  So yes, I had a wonderful time, and I even learned how to tie die my journal (or paper) with shaving cream and food coloring!

I do write a lot about nature.  I think half my entries relate to it in one way or another.  It's precious and we need to protect it.  Betty taught us that by journaling, writing about it or drawing it, you observe it more closely and you become one with it:

I have learned that what I have not drawn, 

I have never really seen.

(F. Franck, arts and author of Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation)

I think the same hold true when you really describe it and write about it.  But one thing is for sure, get out there and enjoy nature!

New year's resolution in Norfolk(1/3/2016)

Happy New Year everyone!

This year I personally resolve  to be more culturally open; to get a life, to get out more, and to have fun!   I know that I often take myself too serious and get easily upset by what I perceive to be criticism.  I think I've gotten better over the years but as Mark Mason describes in a blog post, it is like trying to stop the Titanic and avoid the damn iceberg, it is so imprinted in you by your past and difficult to change.

Yes, we need to have more fun in life.  Like this little guy, he seems to have a load of fun riding his horn made by a Central American Indian tribe, a long time ago,  It survived all the centuries and he still has that mischievous grin on his face!  But then it helps when you are cast in clay.  I wonder what he has seen all that time.  It's kind of a pity that he is locked up in a museum case, his journey appears to be over, but he's still grinning.

We visited the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk on Sunday where he was locked up and that made me realize what I've missed for a while now.

The entrance to the Chrysler Museum

I can almost not remember when the last time was that I visited a museum.  The Chrysler is a great place to start if you want to see a good museum for the first time or for the first time in a long time.  It has a little bit of everything.  From ancient Greek and Egyptian artifacts to a Picasso and more modern paintings.  It also has one of the best glass art collections in the world.  On top of that it's free!

Looking at the Picasso through the doorway 

This is actually a glass sculpture.
There is so darn much symbolism here!

I really believe art enriches our lives, whether you make it, perform it, watch it, or just look at it.  Don't forget, in it's purest form art is the most perfect expression of the artist's free will.  Nobody tells the artist what to paint, what to compose or what to make (may be not some of the commercial stuff).  At least four of the five photographs show pieces of art that to me appear to be the artist's ultimate expression of free will.  Art is even an expression of our own free will as the public, we can interpret art the way we want to, regardless of what the little piece of paper next to the art work says about it.  What a novel concept!

To me art is like listening to a good concert (which is art) or sailing (sometimes an art too): you can only be in the moment when looking at art and you cannot think of anything else; all the troubles and worries are forgotten at that moment.

This year, resolve to visit more museums, to broaden your horizon and to talk to people who think differently than you.  There is plenty of superficial interactions between people but when was the last time you had a deep intelligent discussion with someone else?  You actually might learn something. Life is becoming too much like the brothers in the movie Nebraska while watching the football game.

I will do the same.  One thing I realized this weekend was that I really need more culture, arts, philosophy, or just fun intelligent interaction between intelligent human beings.  That is the way I want to grow!  Maybe less self improvement books and more philosophy books and deep thinking.  As a nomad who travels and often lives in motel rooms I will have some alone time to think as well, I will use that time wisely, I will read, write, hopefully find interesting people to talk to, but like in the past I will also still hike and enjoy nature.