Remeiating Loss

A friend, an old high school classmate e-mailed me recently for help in coping with the loss of one of our clasmates. Romeo VenturA died last week after a terrible battle with diabetes which involved amputations and eventually infection and organ failure There have been many such losses in my high school class so far, about 50 out of a class of about 150. We graduated in 1963 from Merchantville High School (gone since about 1965) and had our 60th reunion recently at Maritsa's in Maple Shade. Romeo was there in a wheelchair after his leg amuputation and he was doing well, brave, cheerful and optimistic.

The loss that hurt me the most was my best and oldest friend Christine Borget (Gilbreath) who had been my friend since we were both in junior high school and she was also my role model and the best human being other than my mother that I have ever known. She was a truly good person and brave. She died of gall bladder cancer just a couplo of weeks after we had had lunch together also at Maritsa's. Maritsa's is in Maple Shade on the main street and centrally located for many of us so it hss become our place to meet up. Chris's death was so devastating to me that none of my lifelong tried and true methods for rising up from sorrow were effective and I resorted to cannabis gummies for about two weeks. I can't say if they worked or if I just got over it like an illness.

First, the reason I am writing this blog post is to share my tried and true urvival techniques (even though they don't work for everything).

First of all, since my earliest childhood I have had three passions and they have been my life rafts through many disasters of the kind not uncommon in a long life. I began to read at an early age and I have turned to books for diversion and for advice and understanding That has always been my first refuge.

Sedondly, it was a natural flow from reading to writing and I keep a daily journal and have since my early twenties and in there I pour out my sorrows, my complaints, my fears and my pain. It is both therapeutic and helps you clarify things. The third diversio is painting because it is such a thorough concentration demanding activity. When you paint, you can't really drift off into a cycle of despair, or at least I can't, I have to keep my eyes on the canvas and what I am doing - focus. I have known of similar activities used by others - my father turned to stained glass and also to doll house making , also activities demanding full concentration so you can't be led astray by undproductive and diminishing thought traps.

When I am so down in the dumps that I can't even do those activities, I have turned to tv series and to audio books, both excellent and requiring little of us. Audio books are also my go to sleep therapy. Of course there have been losses that nothing but time could help to relieve, the loss of my mother and father which will always leave an indelible scar and sore place in my heart. In fact today I was thinking what a beautiful day when I let the dog out and I had a memory of our home on Roland Ave. when I was a kid and my mother hanging up the laundry which flapped in the breeze sending off whiffs of laundry soap, and dad working in the vegetable garden on top of the hill behind he house, our dog sniffing around, cat napping in a sunny patch watching us. It was a puff of sorrow for all this lost world that now exists only in my memory, those real people I loved in all their physical force, vanished forever. But I am leaving now to walk the dog, having resolrted to my number two therapy which is writing.

I do't want to forget two other immensely helpful divrsions from depair: DRIVIGNG and WALKING.

Best and Happiest Days

A New York Times article a few years back recommended that for your New Year's resolution, you make a habit to take note of those times when you are really happy! I do. It is like the gratitudes - it changes your life. Today was one of those happiest days.

My day began with my dog walk which today was to the Post Office to mail some postcards I'd had made of my latest paintings, but that wasn't the happiest part, maybe it was for my dog, Uma though.

When I got home, I laid out her dog bones and biscuits, her treats for when I go somewhere without her, then I set off for my Chair Yoga class at The Station in Merchantville. I have written about The Station, also known as Eiland Arts Center on 10 E. Chestnut St. in Merchantville, NJ before. It is a cafe' with excellent food, the most delicious soups imaginable, and it is an Art Gallery. Sometimes, they also have live music!

In the upstairs Gallery, they have Yoga classes, and my class, Seated Chair Yoga, is at 10:15 which is the perfect time for me to get up, wash and dress, walk the dog and get to class without stress. Seated yoga is also the only yoga I can still do with my declining joints. Today, however, there was a bit of stress because on the way, there was a trash truck, a Fed Ex truck, a public service bus and I caught EVERY red light between my town and Merchantville, but I did get there close to on time. I always try to be perfectly punctual. I think I was 5 minutes late. I tried not to let it stress me out too much, though, because it is YOGA! The practice is all about relaxing. The motto is "Do no harm to others or to yourself." I love that thought.,

I have made it my special practice to forget time and concentrate all my mind on the motions, my breathing, my body, make it meditative, not an exercise class. It works. I no longer think about time when I am there. I am in the FLOW! And when I get up to leave, I am so loose and relaxed that I feel very different from the person who walked in. Today I was musing on my way in, that it used to cost about $150 for me to get my hair colored: highlights, low lights, ash blonde color, washed, cut and styled and blow dried. That would last about 2 months or so. That same amount of money bought me 8 weeks of Seated Yoga once a week! I stopped getting my hair done the year of the pandemic and I am saving a lot of money which I can now use on paying my sister to help clean and on yoga classes

After Yoga, down in the cafe' I buy the soup of the day; today it was herbed potato soup, to take home for lunch. And I bought my favorite coffee treat: pumpkin spice latte' which gives me a nice gentle energy push to get some art work done.

For the past couple of weeks, I have been working on 6 x 6 inch canveses for a Fundraising effort at the Station. Artists are picking up the free canveses and painting on it and donating the work. All money raised goes directly to Fishtails Animal Rescue. So far I have done five: 1-Girl with jumping cat 2-Man with jumping dog 3-Luna moth 4-Lucy the Elephant in Margate 5-a 3 dimensional shark advertising miniature golf at the seashore. Next I am going to do a rabbit from the back yard and maybe the T-Rex outside the Museum of Natural Science, or maybe a snowy owl, or maybe my cat Lucky on the fence like a tightrope walker. could even decide to do a cow or a chicken. Don't know yet.

Anyhow I was really happy today, really joyful which felt like sunshine inside beaming out, an uplift like being buoyed on an under tide of warmth and goodness, a kind of effervescence. And this blog post is me "taking note of when I feel happy!" Hope you find your happiness too! Jo Ann wright45@yahoo.com

Art Opportunities this Spring and Summer 2024

There is a lot going on in the local Art World and in my world in particular. My favorite Art Gallery has always been Eiland Arts Center at The Station on 10 East Chestnut Ave., Merchantvile, NJ 08109. It is a vegetarian cafe' and coffee shop too. I first found this gallery and cafe' years ago when I was searching out old Train stations. I have a soft spot in my heart for them because I am of the generation that in our childhood rode in passenger trains and it was a great adventure. It marked me forever. Also, in my childhood, trains had a major role in most black and white movies and even up into the color era, for example in White Christmas, which my family watched every Christmas for decades.

So, when I got on the mailing list and began to be included in the call for artists for juried group shows, I signed up with enthusiasm and I have been showing in that gallery in every group show to which I have been invited ever since. The next one in which I will be showing celebrates the 150th anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Merchantville, which is also where I went to high school and graduated in 1963.

For that show I have done three paintings, one of the old pharmacy on Centre and Maple which is now a photography studio, and two from old news articles about the history of the train station from the early 1960's which I used as resources for two paintings roughly 2 feet by 3 feet framed. I love the way they turned out and I liked them so much, I had postcards made of them at BELLIA Copy and Print Center in Woodbury. By the way, this is a great copy/print center. For many years, I had a wish to have my work in postcard form. I didn't know how much it would cost and I feared it might be expensive. It isn't.

For anyone who has read my blog before, you know of my passion for postcards. It stems from my childhood when my Great Uncle Yock, who worked at the post office in Ocean City, would put our home address in Philadelphia, on any postcards that came through with postage, message, but no address. So we got postcards from strangers all the time. It felt like good wishes from the Universe. I got 50 made each of two paintings, scanned, sized and printed on card stock, glossy for $60! Now I can share those railroad paintings with everyone.

EILAND ART CENTER at The Station in Merchantville - two shows coming up. 1 - Artists who wish to participate in a fundraising effort can pick up a 6x6 inch canvas at the Station and make a painting on it of any kind of animal picture to donate. The money from All paintings sold will go directly to Fishtails Animal Rescue. I have done 5 paintings and I had a ball! I did a painting based on an old photo from the 1970's of my sister and her cat, Chance, who did the trick of jumping from one brick pillar in front of our house on Linwood Ave. to the other about 5 feet away.

For that show I have also done a jumping dog painting based on an old photo from the 1980's of my dad and his favorite dog, Wonder Dog, another jumper. Also for that show I did a painting of a Luna Moth which entranced me as a young woman visiting my family in West Virginia where, often, huge and luminous Luna moths came to die on the veranda. And for fun, I did two paintings from old photogaphs of mine of a shark in a miniature golf avertisement on the boardwalk in Ocean City, New Jersey, and Lucy the Elephant from Margate. If I'd had time, I would have done the huge gorilla from Kongo Golf, and Mighty Joe Young from the Pine Barrens.

So that's two shows coming up - the Fundraiser for the animal rescue is due May 1st, and the paintings of the train station will be delivered on May 29th for a show that will run through July and August. I am really excited about this show.

The third and final show is ARTS in Bloom in Cherry Hill to be held at Croft Farm. That show will run from May 5 through 16th and the Art is to be dropped off on the 1st. It is juried, so you pay your entrance fee and drop off the work then pick up whatever isn't accepted.

For that show, I plan to do a painting of Bercham's dyked farm on the Maurice River in Millville, the last operating dyked farm in New Jersey. It is a famous farm and the popular subject of many paintings by South Jersey artists. I have photos from so many trips on the Maurice River with Captain Dave's excursion boat. Also I have a photo of a Rail bird hunters' shack that I thought I might paint.

To be able to do all this painting takes a great deal of free time, free from housework, from errands, from lunch out, from all the other demands on time in the ordinary day. It takes me about a week and a half of 5 hour stints of painting to complete a larger painting. To do a smaller one usually takes two days of 5 hour stints.

My phases run: 1-Choose my inspiration, print out a resource. 2-draw the picture on the canvas 3-paint in the large areas of background colors 4-start detailing 5-refinement and correction after studying the painting for awhile, usually overnight 6-finishing touches 7-framing and hook and wiring DONE

I should add, finally, that painting days make me very very happy. The meditative quality of it eases my natural running stream of anxiety. Aside from the relief of anxiety due to the meditative quality of my style of painting, there is the joy in the accomplishment that I experience. I am always happy with the work - rarely disappinted in it. It closes a circuit of LOVE from my love of the look of something in the natural world to an acted out appreciation of it through translating it via my brain and hands and skill.

Right now, I can add that to my daily gratitudes and say I am grateful for the desire to paint and the ability to paint that has been a gift to me since childhood, along with my ability to write. These gifts are truly gifts. The three graces for me are Reading, Writing and Painting!

Before I close, I need to add that Woobury Friends Meeting has given me permission to open an Art Gallery in the Reception Area of the now empty Underwood Building. Jerome Barton and Susan Hagan have their Stained Glass Studio there, and now, right next door, I have the Friendship Art Gallery! There are 30 works by 6 artiss on display there and our opening day was March 10th. This show will be up until I feel like changing it. We have a Gallery Committee of 6 (the ones whose Art is on display - (the founders of the Gallery) but they pretty much leave the decision making in my hands. This is thrilling beyond my wildest dreams! I could at some point, have a solo show if I wanted! there are so many possibilites for this Gallery!

Happy Trails my Friends! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com