Sightlines

Delights and Challenges

Thursday, June 5, 2008. Having been here in Portland almost two weeks, I figured it was time for a couple of lists: "Delights" and "Challenges."

First the delights:

1. The views from our apartment. On a clear day (we've had one, maybe two!) we've seen Mt Hood, Adams and St. Helens. Maybe Rainier, but it was hard to be sure.
2. Downtown Portland. Pretty, accessible, many trees, available parking. Even better, I can walk there.
3. Walking to Powell's Books. It's about nine blocks.
4. Washington Park (Rose Garden, Japanese Garden, and more). Yesterday my son and I walked up to the Rose Garden and the Holocaust Memorial
5. The staff at the Apple Store in Pioneer Place. As we migrate to Apples we've had nothing but helpful, excellent service.

And the challenges:

1. The kitchen is way small, especially compared to our "old" one.
2. Ditto for my office. I miss my old one, but at least all the hardware--the two monitors, printer and scanner are all set up and arrayed on one surface.
3. Waiting for the elevator. I'm trying to re-frame it from "waiting" to an opportunity to breathe... Mixed results at best...
4. Changing email, phone numbers, addresses for EVERYTHING. Today for example, I discovered I need to reprint my business cards. And for several days I had to write down our new home number because I couldn't remember it.
5. Having LOTS of stuff. (Or maybe we just have too much stuff...?) We have two storage lockers here in the apartment building and two more at Public Storage. I see yet another yard sale in the future.

Adrift?

Saturday, May 31, 2008. My friend Peggy has a wonderful phrase: "Connecting points with the world." In Seattle I had lots of them--job, house, the familiarity of the neighborhood, friends. The well-worn rabbit trails to the grocery store and the dry cleaners.

Here in Portland, there are of course, far fewer of those points. On the way to Cannon Beach a couple of days ago Connie asked me if I felt "adrift." Yes, sort of. I suppose a Buddhist would say that all of us are adrift, all the time. There really is no ground. Yes, and, I still need connecting points; I'm still a novice Buddhist.

One of my connecting points is Daily Sightings--the email-with-photo that I send to about 200 folks each morning. To be offline--as I was post-move--was to be adrift and isolated; to be back online was surprisingly settling. Daily Sightings has become far more than just a daily mailing function. There's a community of folks who frequently comment or just say thanks. Most of the folks I don't know personally, as in, face-to-to-face, but some have been subscribers for several years and I have grown quite fond of them.

So I guess this business of moving, of re-settling has much to do with both maintaining connecting points, and finding new ones. As the explorations unfold, it's reassuring to affirm the existing connections. Cheers.

Rooms with a View

Wed. May 29, 2008. Last Saturday was one looooooong day of moving. First there was the off-load at the apartment. Everything went up 20 floors in the freight elevator.

Then it was off to the Public Storage site to fill a 10’ x 10’ unit, only to discover that it wouldn’t hold everything. So we rented another unit, a 5 x 5. And we stuffed that one too.

Back “home” by 6:30 where we cleared a path to the kitchen and the wine cache. Our reward was a magnificent view of an approaching thunderstorm, complete with rainbow, which of course we took as a omen that we’d made a good decision to come to Portland.

It’s now Day Six and I wonder how many hundreds of pounds of boxes have I lifted, moved, lifted again? Moving is one long series of decisions: where do the CDs go? And it’s one long Search. Where are the CDs? Where is that hammer?

Our apartment has two bathrooms, a large living room / dining room, a small kitchen, and large bedroom and a small office. Total of a 1,000 sq feet, and between a ½ and 1/3 the space of our “old house.”

The building seems a cross between a retirement community and a college dorm. Besides the freight elevator, there are two others to service the 24 floors. Yesterday two cool dudes in black t-shirts sauntered off the elevator just as retired couple—one with a cane—entered gingerly.

One resident with a small dog told me there are “about 40” dogs here. One adjustment that is taking some getting used to: going down and up 20 floors to let Lizzie “do business.”

It takes 35 seconds to descend. Time for a quick meditation? Sure. Cheers.

Follow-up to Farewells

Sunday, May 4, 2008. The "Synchronized Farewells" happening was two weeks ago, and I have no idea how many participated, but Seattle Resa sent along this reflection. I'm sharing it with her permission.

"Thanks for your blog and the memory of my digging. I have been in my house now for 28 years. As you ran past, you may remember the sidewalk plywood and big hole next to my house. It was about 7 years ago when I dug up around the base of a vintage, big cherry tree to access the old plumbing. A new water line was installed and when it came time to fill the huge hole; I had a party!

My friends came with shovels and helped toss the dirt back in. Each had an opportunity to place something in the hole and say "goodbye". My friend, Darci, put in the old junk, paper litter, old music tapes that her "ex" had left in her car and she was delighted. Some friends were very private and did not share stories about what they put in the hole. We filled it.
That hole has an old picture of Jack. My divorce attorney really wanted to come and contribute. Since she couldn't make it that day,  she encouraged me to I cut off a huge stem with big thorns from my roses near the hole. She asked that I place the rose stem deep and lenghtwise into the hole. The rose stem thorns represented the "ouch" and the beautiful green stem, a symbol of my continued growth and metamorphosis.

My recent home project is new windows! There is even more quiet, calm, warmth and energy efficiency in my house. When I want, I can open a window and feel the breeze. This summer I will smell the roses. Thanks for inspiration."

What happened at the Happening?

Sunday, April 20, 2008. Yesterday, at exactly 12 noon, Pacific Time, I dug a shovel into the ground in the backyard to launch the Happening called, "Synchronized Farewells." My mission: to bury something, to say farewell to it. I invited others to do the same at exactly noon. Several of you wrote last week to say it was a great idea, but I have no idea how many actually broke ground.

Frankly, I wasn't sure how personal I wanted to get. I tinkered with the idea of burying something funny, or emotionally neutral, but decided in the end, to bury a small box with a two teaspoons of my parents ashes. Mom on the left, dad on the right.

I've lived in this house over 24 years, and there are reverberations of my parents in the furniture, in pictures, in letters, in silverware and vases. And in me. And when the time comes to move, I want to leave something of them behind.  The thing is, there is really no single farewell. Saying good-bye is not an event. And come to think of it, I don't want to say good-bye to them. I want them to be part of me forever. And they will.

Nonetheless, there was something about shoveling dirt onto that little box, covering it, filling the hole and smoothing it over, that got the farewell and still-here parts all jumbled up inside. I'm OK with that.

If I hear from others I will post the details here. Cheers.

Happenings, then and now

Sunday, April 13, 2008. I love it when I find odd connections between things. Take today: in the New York Times Arts section there's an article about the revival of "Happenings." They are happening again.

Back in mid- to late 60s they were a big thing in the art world. Allan Kaprow was one of the Happening heavies back then, and one of his pieces--"Fluid"--is being re-created later this month at three art institutions in LA, including the Getty.  "Fluid" entails building a large room-like structure out of 50-lb blocks of ice, then letting them melt.

Mr. Kaprow is quoted as saying, "The line between art and life should be kept as fluid, and perhaps indistinct, as possible."

Other Happenings in bygone days included cleaning a car with q-tips and saliva. And there was a "Trading Dirt" project that involved exchanging buckets of dirt with other people. Kaprow called one of his buckets, "Heavy-duty Buddhist dirt" because it came from the Zen Center in San Diego.

So why am I telling you all this? Because today we were at a friend's house and they had a pile of old magazines, including Life and Look. There was a Look from 1938, and one of the Life editions was from 1967 and featured "Happenings" on the cover. Now how's that for a coincidence? When I saw that cover I knew immediately: gotta blog about this.

Now it's my turn--actually--your turn too, if you want to--to create a happening. Here's my idea: next Saturday, the 19th, at precisely 12 noon, Pacific time, I invite you to bury in the ground, an idea, a feeling, or an object that you want to say farewell to. And I invite you to have someone photograph you as you place the object or idea or feeling (if it's on paper) in the ground. Or you could just photograph the burial site. Or whatever. Then email the photo to me at: mstabe@qwest.net. I will post a sampling of comments and photos on this blog on the following Saturday, 26th.

The Happening will be called, "Synchronized Farewells." Cheers.

Gathering with the Dalai Lama

Sunday, April 13, 2008. Yesterday, Qwest Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks,  turned into the gathering place for the Seeds of Compassion--an event featuring the Dalai Lama. And I was one of the 50,000-ish attendees. Frankly I didn't really care about the music, or hearing other speakers, I just wanted to hear The Man speak. Or should I say, His Holiness--which is how all the speakers referred to him.

What impressed me most was not his words, impressive though they were, but his energy, his straightforwardness, his vigor... and his humor. He wasn't preach-y in the least.  Just clear and resonant as a Tibetan singing bowl.

His talk was punctuated with enthusiastic applause. He called for the 21st century to become the "Century of Dialogue" and urged all of us to engage in "internal disarmament" along with nuclear disarmament. By internal disarmament he meant reducing anger, fear, prejudice.

He said there really is no "we" and they"; we're all "We." How could we not agree?

Actually, I went to the gathering as much to see him and to be a witness as to hear his message. I thought it was important just to show up.

Here's a link for more information on his visit to Seattle: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dalailama/.  Cheers.

"Chased by the Light"

Sunday, March 16, 2008. Imagine that you are professional photographer with decades of experience. You're burned out, your creative juices are drying up. What to do? What if you set a project for yourself: take just one picture a day for 90 days? That's just what Jim Brandenburg did. He lives near the Boundary Waters in Northern Minnesota and his project ran from the autumnal equinox to the winter solstice in 2003 (?).

No second shots, no second chances.
 

The result is a stunning body of work  called, "Chased by the Light." It's in both book and movie form. We watched the film the other night.

He described his project as both "arbitrary and rigid." He also said, "My work would be stripped to the bones, bringing together whatever photographic and woods skills I have."  Watching the film was an almost meditative experience.

This was a weekend of film-watching, and it was a very diverse foursome: Besides "Chased by the  Light," we watched "The Brave One" with Jodie Foster; Ang Lee's Lust, Caution (I recommend both!). Then I caught the second episode of the Yatra Trilogy, about Buddhism in SE Asia. The word "Yatra" is the Sanskirt word for pilgrimage or spiritual journey.

Jim Bush, the film-maker of the Trilogy was on a Yatra, and it occurs to me that Jim Brandenburg was as well.

The Seattle Asian Art Museum is screening the Trilogy, and the final one will be next Sunday. Cheers.

Roundup, from Salem to Seattle

Sunday, March 9, 2008. Last weekend, Salem; this weekend, Seattle and the NW Film Forum. Last Saturday Dave (Bro) suggested we motor down to Salem to catch the James Lavadour show at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University. The show is called, "The Properties of Paint," and among the many quotes next the paintings, this one caught my eye:

"Like a river or a cloud, a painting is a moving, dimensional moment. A painting does not happen in one sitting. There are many layers, twists and turns as it develops through time, just as a river continually takes new tributaries into its current. Turbulent and smooth, it flows forward. A river starts in the mountains and finds its path over great distances. A painting is a destination of many forces."

Is he talking just about painting...? Maybe life...?"

Anyway, the Ford was a delight find, an inviting and intimate sort of place. And just an hour south of Portland. Incidentally, there are several Lavadour pieces at Swedish Medical Center, on the main floor, just off the lobby, as I recall.

Yesterday what caught my eye was an event at the NW Film Forum called, Seattle Moves. It was part of an annual series, BYDESIGN, and it featured "motion designers" ( new term to me) showing their videos  and talking about their processes. The designers work for niche c0mpanies like Digital Kitchen, World Famous and Superfad, and their clients range from Target to Playstation to Microsoft to US Air and Pioneer.

Superfad's work includes slow motion video that was originally captured using a camera that can record at 2,000 frames/second!

I learned that Seattle is an up and coming place for motion design work. LA and New York are the real hot spots, but Seattle is growing talent and the work I saw yesterday blew me away. 3-D, animation, all kinds of fancy graphics, and stuff I can't even describe.

My video work is a tricycle compared to their Ferraris.  Actually it was a bit of an education to hear them talk. Some of it I couldn't even follow. It was like watching/listening to the next generation taking over...

This image is from Superfad's site. Cheers.

Recent Sightings

Sunday, Feb. 24, 2008. "River of No Return" is the title of Laura McPhee's show at the Gibson Gallery. Yesterday afternoon she talked to us about her show. For two years she lived in Custer County in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho and used an 8 x 10 view camera to photograph the landscape and ranchers and field biologists who were tracking the re-emergence of a wolf population.

Her large prints (50 x 60) are gorgeous. Interestingly, she made a point of saying she hasn't moved into the digital world--yet. Before her talk I had a chance to tell her how much I admired not only her work, but her father's writing. I said I'd been a fan of his work ever since reading "Survival of the Bark Canoe" back in 1975.

From the Gibson to the Western Bridge Gallery...quite a change...  At the Bridge we caught several videos, all part of the show, "Multiplex." Fortunately most of the videos were  accessible, understandable and engaging, in contrast to many "art videos" that completely baffle or annoy me.

In the evening, we checked into the Northwest Film Forum to catch "The Cool School." No, not a film about my high school, but a fast-paced, very informative documentary about the art movement in LA that began in the 50's. The Ferus Gallery became the focal point for artists like Frank Gehry, Robert Irwin (whose work, "Nine Spaces Nine Trees" I blogged about recently), Ed Ruscha and Ed Kienholtz.

A flyer describes the film: it..."shares the untold story of a group of scrappy artists that shook up the dull tastemakers, got arrested for obscenity, and ultimately established the importance of West Coast art."

The show runs through the 28th. Cheers.