Twilight from the Studios

IMG_6926 Twilight from the Studios
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Just as I left the artists' reception on December 3, the sun was going down, and flooding the sky with pastel colors. A gull went past, then a small plane. Neither one made it into the photo.
Whys do people make art? As with the making of poetry there seem to be a lot of makers and not enough takers. Yet the urge to try to pin something to the page, the paper or the canvas is a strong one. Very little of these making will survive, yet we choose archival materials and frame things under expensive glass.
Today a huge new Dick Blick catalog came in the mail. Such gorgeous, plummy smooth colors. Yesterday I read about a new kind of archival colored leads with a special holder. I looked them up on the internet and they cost $150 for a set of 18 colors. They had better be pretty special.
Only a few more shopping days until Christmas.

Cherries

cherries
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

I tried out Polaroid manipulation just before they stopped making the film. I understand why Polaroid film really isn't needed any more, neither are buggy whips, but it makes me sad, because artists had figured out so many interesting things to do with it. These excellent cherries were eaten quite some time ago, on a day I went cherry-picking with my grandsons in Northern Michigan where they grow so many cherries. See how they reflect the beautiful light from their dark smooth skins. This project is brought to you tonight because I wanted to escape from the present day for a short time.
Today, the man who knows how to do everything finished up the bathroom, but found a couple more small things to fix and will come back on Monday. His surgery is a week from today and is very worrisome. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

The Red Bow

IMG_7073
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Just a few more presents, but the cards aren't done yet. Every year I wonder why we are doing this.
Tonight we watched a documentary about Tony Kushner. While I wasn't thinking about him, Maurice Sendak has become almost as old as I am. When I first worked in a library, my boss, Joyce J, was so proud because she had voted FOR Where the Wild Things Are and ordered copies for the Arlington Branch Library (AB, are you still there? in your corner location?) when the head of children's services thought it was stupid and too scary. Then it won the Caldicott that year. Maurice was just a young fellow then, in the early 60's.
After that, there was a riot near the library and I saw mounted police pushing a small crowd back. The horses were those beautiful big chestnuts that police use. Huge. And the people moved back obediently. See how memory works?? And what use are these reminiscences? Good night.

The Markham House

DSCN0132 up
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

The San Jose Poetry Center is making a library upstairs in this historic house in the History Park. It was once the home of Edwin Markham, author of the famous poem :The Man With the Hoe" The library has two rooms, one of which is a small haiku library. Most of the books are now listed on NaomiClarkLibrary on Librarything.com. Take a look! We hope to begin by keeping the library open one day a week and expand from there. The books will not check out, but there are pleasant spaces for reading and there is a copy machine. It's a darling little house, dating from about 1860.

Printing Office

Printing Office
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Just visible in the upper left corner, the replica of the light tower that was put up in San Jose near the Corner where the first branch of Giannini's Bank of America was located. It was supposed to shed light all over downtown, but it wasn't that successful. But I still think of it as San Jose's own teeny-tiny Eiffel Tower, and it makes me smile. I love this Printshop, but am very glad to live in the time of computers and color copy machines. It makes saving information in huge quantities so much more do-able.
Bathroom work almost done:

midwinter rains
the workman kills the shower mold
before regrouting

Sleep tight, Santa comes soon. . .

The Gas Station in History

The Gas Station in History
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

I wish I had the guts to use this for my Christmas card. I think it has that festive holiday touch! No snow, but this is California, after all. This station is in a History Park, so as long as it doesn't fall down, it remains, when most of the people who used to say HOWDY around the pump are gone. When people die, the Ottawa in Northern Michigan say they have walked on. There are a lot of other euphemisms: passed away, gone to Heaven, called back to Heavenly Father, etc. Once in awhile, the newspaper would say died, or died peacefully, (whatever that means) but not often. Merry C!

Jim near Kobo Daishi, Japan

Jim near Kobo Daishi, Japan
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Looking for another picture, I found this one of Jim, who died last month in a motorcycle accident. Tonight we had our annual haiku holiday get-together. We all have little haiku cards or presents to pass out. It has become quite a tradition. Jim's wife came and it was lovely (and terribly sad) to see her. This was the first year Jim was not there to read one of his end-of-the-year haibun. (Haibun are short pieces of prose interspersed with haiku.) One of our poets, Paul, passed out a booklet of his haibun. Everyone read from his or her gift. Paul's haibun was about a pet pig of his acquaintance; it was a delightful story. We always have this potluck dinner and wish each other well as the party season begins. We try to hold the festive occasion on the regular Yuki Teikei meeting day: the second Saturday of each month. I'll try to describe these meetings as we go through the seasons next year; we have a regular sequence of haiku events that go with the seasons.