by Diane; Thoughts on a Lunch Box Conversation at the Corrine Woodman Gallery

At the Corine Woodman Gallery in the Corvallis Arts Center the November 12 to December 4th exhibit is called The Woodblock Traditional and Experimental featuring long time artist Jessica Billey and a  recent graduate of OSU, Tim Hartsock. At the Lunch Box Conversation, Tuesday, November 12, Jessica and Tim answered Hester Couck and the audiences' questions..
        Both exhibitors use wood in their work. For Jessica's the prints is the finished art.  Her woodblock is a tool for printing multiple prints. While for Tim the wood becomes the finished piece of art. They talked about their process and how they used their tools.
       After my previous blogs on the ways brushes can be allowed to govern in traditional and creative finished painting, I enjoyed seeing how traditional and high tech tools play in the process of two very different artists.



Traditional V cutter and two U cutters

       Hester Coucke often pairs artists who have contrasting processes. This month is no exception. Both artists share a studio above the Inkwell Home Store in Corvallis but their process comes from different backgrounds.  Jessica has been carving since childhood. Tim is new to wood and fresh out of finishing a degree in art at OSU.
         Jessica carves birch plywood to make prints and then enjoys the block on her walls while Tim considers the manipulated wood block his finished work of art.  His process starts with pencil drawings that he manipulates with Photo Shop and finally burns the image of his handwork into the wood with Oregon State University fancy expensive laser cutter. The look of the lines he originally The same lines character in the end is.from the machines making the manipulations and less from thought and feelings directly made by his own hand. Tim needs to have an exhibit to want to work.  an exhibition goal helps to get permission to use the OSU cutter! For him he does not need to be producing art works to be creative. At present he is living as an artist working to make his home his creation.

      Jessica starts with photos of flowers combining them into a collage. Then she photo digitizes her collage to make a transparency to project on large plywood blocks approximately four foot by three foot. The projected image is penned with a black Sharpy on the painted red wood so when she cuts the wood the lines are lightest. Carving is very physically difficult and painful. When coming back to a work that builds day by day, knowing her journey path must be calming and meditative keeping her wanting to go to the studio to work. She needs to take breaks and get physical therapy and message.  

       Like Tim the goal of having an exhibit in the future is a welcome motive for Jessica.

       Jessica uses traditional tools like mine. These knives are cheaper than laser cutters by far.

       I did wood block prints in the 60's and 70's. My process was to paint the wood block black and carve it freehand while looking at a model. The detail below is example of one of my prints. The lines made by a V cutter. Repeated lines form a gray shape similar to Jessica's favorite method of creating value contrasts.

 

detail of woodcut illustrating mark of the V cutter
mostly cutting in the direction of the grain.
Mostly cut in one hour, my choice was cutting with the grain
 because it was faster than other tools and offered little resistance saving time.
I apologize for not having pictures of Jessica's work
but too busy care giving to go to the CAC to
photo Jessica's prints and Tim's wood blocks.

           Old growth wood like I used is not readily available today so plywood is the wood of choice.  The uneven grain on the wood skins gives Jessica the challenge of adjusting her cuts according to the resistances of working the knives through uneven grains.  These irregularities in the wood start a process of give and take between her and the wood.  The story of her process is visible in the prints taken from the block. Jessica's woodblock prints tell an intimate story. Tim's are to me an expression of the pulse of today's technology's forced power in contrast to the organic growth of the wood.

 

 

Philosophy in a romance???

by Rain Trueax

Since doing a word for word edit with a book from my backlist, I've been thinking more about philosophy in my books. First of all, I should define what I mean by philosophy. I am using it as a way of thinking about the universe, the world, and culture. When we look to philosophy, it is to ask basic questions as to what life is all about.What we find can be taken into our own lives to help us in the future or be discarded if it does not fit.

There are, of course, philosophers, some famous for generations, whose words many generations have looked toward for truth that fits what they know of life. But, philosophy itself is about our own way of thinking as well. It asks the question-- what principles guide your life, your decisions, your view of the world? Do you know? Do you look for books to challenge and help you form your own views?

Sometimes the thinking comes from poets and a phrase will leap out. I have always been a collector of such words. The one by Robert Frost didn't make it into Luck of the Draw, but it fits the story. "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." It has been a guiding principle for my own life that I not follow what everyone else does-- unless it fits my life.

serendipity and a sculpture

by Rain Trueax

Now and again, I talk about serendipity and how I welcome such times. Well, everybody welcomes such times since it means an occurrence or series of events that play out in a beneficial way. Kind of a lucky chance. Serendipitous times are nothing I can predict, nor will I have done anything to make them happen. Often they are little things.

by Diane, Difficulty sticking to my painting goal for the summer

Difficulties of farming in the city:
In the photograph the tractor is near the middle just above the band of sun lit grass. In the alpine-glow mowing continues until the last light of evening.
         City government doesn't make allowances or subsididies to a small farm within the city. A failed city farm has to abide by the city's laws. The grass has to be cut before July 1st.

Never appreciated the neighbor's barn as much as I do now knowing either next year or the following year our back yard country view could be lost to development. Thankfully the property has not been sold yet.


       The farm was once an orchard, then horse and sheep ranch, Christmas tree farm, cow pasture, and wood lot. A number of neighbors would like to own a part of it to preserve the country life here. Not feasible to the owner! To come out of the deal economically, the owner needs cash payment in total. Banks would not carry loans to multiple parties so the land cannot be broken up into too many parts. Another question is would the place still have a farm referral after the failure of the wood lot due to the loss of diseased, climate change stressed fur timber. City taxes and regulations are set to aid developers at the expense of small farms within the city limits.

        Last week I painted with the usual interferences of the changing lighting plus color changes over the couple of weeks I worked on the painting. Then there was the wild life that entertained me. Fox kits playing tag, fox guarding their territory from cats, the hawks and vultures searching for tractor kill.

        Then I became aware of an article about my swashbuckler great uncle. I do not mind that it is a compilation of specially selecting stories to characterize him as a "Charming Gangster".  The author, a New York best seller novelist qualified his article by saying these are stories circulating. Stories could be tall tales.  Being his admirer, I know much more about his generous deeds. Yes, I know I am biased and he may well have been shady. I am not heavily into defending him.

        What was upsetting to me is to learn a theory about the family surname was spun to make my great uncle seem worse than he was. Furthermore there was no drastic change of our name. Apparently the author spoke to one of my cousins who unknowingly passed my theory on as very likely. Since I circulated my wrong ideas to relatives in 2012,  new information puts considerable doubt on my past theory.  Our name did not have any more of a change than different spellings translated to different languages. Weidler to Widler!

        So in a later blog, maybe this Fall after my painting spree, I plan to write a blog about how my theory spread outside the family and was applied to the wrong family member. Maybe I will succeed at tracing the trail of how my utterance became twisted into a supposed fact.

       The process of spin in retelling stories is important in our age of fake news. This little incident of past history where nobody is nolonger emotionally invested, could be more readily absorbed.

Bound for the Hills

by Rain Trueax

There was a time when I never wrote about my books in this blog. There was a reason for that. I thought if I mentioned them, readers would take it as me trying to sell them. I also thought-- those that do-- do. Those that don't, talk/write about it. Silly reasoning but for years, I didn't talk about my writing even to friends. A few knew I wrote but most probably did not. None of my friends at the time wrote or had interest in writing. Most didn't read romances if they read books of other sorts.

Eventually, that changed some with this blog but still not nearly to the level writing/marketing encompasses my life and thinking. Conversations in the middle of the day with Ranch Boss often revolve around a marketing aspect, which makes sense as he's the main marketer behind my books and has been for several years (one reason more books are sold today than back then). When I wake in the morning, it's often with dreams that revolved around some aspect of writing.

A dream example was this week: I find a page where I can look at how much money each of the writers I know have already made that month. It turns out to be in the many thousands (and it probably is the case, given what they've revealed other places). In the dream, I feel a mix of pressure to do more to get my books seen and jealousy that they made so much. 

Finding a page like that would not make me happy, and there might even be one. IF so, I won't be reading it. *fingers crossed*. Well, I might, but it'd be happier if I didn't as comparing yourself to others, in anything, is always a lose/lose.

So for Saturday blogs, for a while, I am going to write about writing/marketing.  I hope it will be of interest to those who come, but understand it might not. I won't be doing this hoping more books will be sold from here (links are all listed alongside lol) but instead with the hope that it might inspire others to give writing a try or if they already write, ideas on how they could get their books out there and what that involves. I've learned a thing or two after getting into this in 2012-- some from my own experiences and some from what others have shared (writers who I looked up in the dream). It will also be because this is something important in my life.

Spring and the Crow Moon

by Rain Trueax
 

We spent this week still waiting on the carport permit. This is so frustrating as it's about length of nails, amongst other things, a not understanding all the rules before getting into the game, and a city that doesn't appear to have enough employees to cover those needing permits getting them in a timely manner. If we were in the county, as we had been when we bought this place, the contractor would already have the carport built. As it is, process puts him and us on hold and not a thing we can do about it as any rushing the gun and starting to build without a permit and inspections would lead to a $500 fine and maybe having to undo what had been done. The power is in the hands of those who have no reason to worry about our schedule. 

Enough whining on that. We had two things interesting-- to us-- happen this week. One happened to everybody. The other was just for us.

a work in progress

by Rain Trueax

Do you think about how the world is doing? When you read the papers do you lose hope or feel more optimistic? I do a little of both with articles that make me feel positive and those that cause me to lose faith and see instead a future for humans that might be dystopian. 

Except, in our daily living, for most of us, our world goes along smoothly. Not to say, we don't know pain or dissension. But we don't suffer what the people did in Paradise or the ones who went to a restaurant/bar for a nice evening and found a nutcase with a gun because his life hadn't gone as he had hoped (I know it could be a her but normally it's not).

Beauty, Truth and Love

by Rain Trueax

Denton Lund giclee, Echoes of the Old Ones, now hanging in the bedroom

While I don't generally discuss politics here, the US has just been through one of the most brutal election seasons I can remember-- and that goes back a long way. For many, the attacks weren't based on issues so much as evil vs. good; Nazi vs. Communist; stupid vs. smart; and on it went. The attacks were not just against a candidate but against anyone who voted for him.

Those of us in the middle tried to keep our heads down to avoid being hit by the shrapnel as it flew from both directions...

A catalyst

 by Rain Trueax

Spirit of Tatanka by Denton Lund - giclée

There might have been more divisive times in history-- we already know there have been, but they have not been in my lifetime. What has been going on felt bad when we were in Tucson; then, we had a little break (for us) as we drove north. Being on the road takes a person away from news or anything but road conditions and how the park will be for the night. 

Back up here, at first, there were things to get done-- sheep shearing, getting in the hay, concern over how low the creek is (lowest we have ever seen it in 40 years), family stuff-- and that all distracts from what is going on in the country.

Now though... Yeah, we can't avoid it and don't like it. So the question for here is-- what can we do about it? How do we take enough deep breaths to feel better even though stuff is happening we don't like. Frankly, that happens on either side of the partisan divide. 

My Artist Life While Aging

One of the boxes of my mother's creative sculpting and her automated doll's violin.
Her display dolls from the 50’s are represented and documented in the Rosalie Whyel Doll Museum in Belleview, Washington.
 I also wrote an article in Doll Reader Magazine about how my mother made me feel growing up as her doll creating partner.
 I am humbled by how well she made doll making a shared family involvement. She even extending her sharing her skills in an leading a Girl Scout interest group in which we casted our own clay sculpted puppets for Jack and the Bean Stock characters.
 She introduce me to plein air painting as a group activity with other children in the Big Sur Camp Ground.

At age 75, as a result of my mother's nurturing and my continued involvement in art, I am grateful to her for my now having the most productive and creative period in my life. I am filled with joy and thankfulness. Yet, I am aware that my elderly years are precious, much more than the selling of the art I make. So I am immersing myself in the process of creating as opposed to marketing.

The paintings accumulate.

 My priority to do lists includes making an illustrated Power Point catalog containing all the work  ready to be exhibited or sold. Will it be enough for my heirs to have my art well documented with catalog numbers and my statements?  Maybe at some point I should seek on line painting sales and gallery representation taking a load off my heirs? Or finding more places to donate it?

My husband and I do less and less of the things we used to do. We no longer belong to a roller skating club,  or a mountain rescue club. We do not snowshoe, or camp in a tent while backpacking to name a few of the ever growing list of things we no longer want to do. So my husband is home with me more with all our toys taking up space. Even when we got rid of a few toys like a couple of Model A's, my art encroaches on  my husband's shop area.

 I am looking for another artist who can use some of my unneeded art paraphernalia. Some of  the art media I have been fortunate enough to have experienced recently is paper making. Paper making was a short lived family activity. Other remnants of media that I am giving away include bookmaking, ceramics, batik, mosaics and cement garden sculptures. I am having difficulty thinking about giving up oil painting. I am starting to paint in oils now that the weather is nice but this might be the last season of oils if the watercolors without glass becomes my primary medium.

Years ago faced with a full shed of her decades old disintegrating latex dolls, I selected a few more permanent tools that reflected her creative process.   I kept a plaster mold for casting  and her books that instructed her hoping they would become family heirlooms. Maybe some family member will want to use Margaret Widler Doll heirlooms in making installations or even videos or what can be imagined.

As an artist I see my life in phases. When I was a very young child painting was all about the doing of it. The result did not hold my interest. In the in between years I saw myself as the maker of a product that would please a teacher, or someone who might buy it. Now I still care about how the work looks when finished. Caring is central to the process. I care that my paintings satisfy me. I hope  to involve the viewers of my paintings in the process seeding their creative drive as well. I've come full circle doing art for the sake of the experience of being in the present, always learning and really seeing.

Paper making paraphernalia in my husband's shop.
 I want to give away all the paper making stuff plus cotton paper pulp I have used to strengthen recycled paper.
 

Process II

by Rain Trueax

An example of how process works in my life. In 1999, when we bought the Tucson house, the patio off the dining room had a sandy area, bricked area, and covered concrete patio. We painted the concrete a brick red, added a fence to keep in cats, lawn furniture, and a barbecue but pretty much left the patio area alone. It is separated from the pool area by a gate. 

When we arrived this year, the sandy area was immediately adopted by the four cats to roll in and, well, you can imagine what else. We would sit on the patio and watch the birds, enjoying the fact that the cats couldn't kill them, while the cats could be with us. Win/win for us-- if not for the cats.

Then I got the idea-- what if we used some of the sandy area and created an herb garden, which would be nicely off the kitchen for cooking. If we end up renting the house again, others might enjoy them. We began buying the herbs we'd most often use.

They looked quite nice with the tiles between them. Then I thought, in the storage room, I had some of my sculptures, too big for the house. We brought them out, moved them around the herbs and now had a herb and sculpture garden. It was done... or so I thought.

Due to an ad at Facebook, I learned of a store in Tucson that specialized in fountains, Zona Fountains. I loved the designs in their photos. Not at all sure we could afford any, we headed there at least to enjoy the beauty. Then, there it was-- the perfect fountain to work with the sculptures, herbs, and in our price range. Farm Boss installed it. 

We enjoy watching and hearing the water-- and, of course, also the birds, who are outside the fence. I can sit out there for two hours and think only a few minutes have gone by. 

We took what had been kind of wasted space and created a second reason to enjoy the patio. This all happened with no plan beyond one step at a time-- and no idea there'd be another step. I do think it's done now...
 

I worried some that the birds might be attracted to it but so far it's only drawn this hummingbird, who was high enough to avoid any attacks.  

It's about process

by Rain Trueax

For me, my life and writing tend to be about process more than conclusion. The process begins often with no clue where it's heading. Recently, I had a good example of that in my life, where something evolved with no idea where it'd end (writing about that next Saturday). I also recently saw it with my writing of the most recent book, where it took getting to Tucson to see its end (after months of not having any idea what was missing).

To be honest, I am not much of a planner and more of a pantser whether it's taking a vacation or writing a book. There are drawbacks to living or writing that way. You can't take some vacations without long distance planning. I am told that having a firm outline makes writing go faster, but in all cases, I keep thinking-- but what would I miss along the way? Well, whatever the case, it is what it is; and in my 70s, it isn't likely to change-- although since I am a 'let's see what happens' kind of person, can't say that for sure either.

As an example in writing: Most of my life, I wrote books without a place for them to go. I had no plan for whether i'd ever market them. For the most part, I didn't have anyone read them. One exception was working with a professional, consulting writer for a year on one book-- expensive but so worthwhile for what I learned. Then in the '90s, I queried and then sent off a couple of the books to a corporate publishing house. Although I got them read, the things they wanted changed went against what I wanted my characters to be. I didn't fit the zeitgeist of the times and wasn't willing to change my ideas to get published.

With the exception of the wagon train story (first written in my 20s), the first books were contemporary romances. Something would interest me that I wanted to explore, and it would find its way into a book. Sometimes I had books connected through secondary characters where one might intrigue me enough to want to write their romance next. To put it simply, these books unfolded. Once in a while, music played a role. Phantom of the Opera soundtrack helped me get through one of them and nail a missing element. Mostly, when I use music, it's a soundtrack-- without words. Phantom was an exception.

Eventually, process changed direction when I learned about indie publishing. I saw an opportunity to bring these books out and in the form I wanted. I began that process in 2011. There was a lot of work ahead. 

The basics of people and complications of relationships hadn't changes so much; but in the twenty years since most had been written, communications had changed our world. Remember doing research before the internet. If you are old enough you do and it involved library card catalogs with lots of note taking. And to communicate, with someone, when not from home there were payphones. You had to find one and then hope the phone book hadn't been ripped off-- most often they had been. Today, we are so spoiled with information at a click or swipe. It was not that way in the '90s. I wanted these books to be contemporary, in the 21st Century. Changes had to be made.

Then, there was the need for a timeline. Since some of these characters knew each other, what year must each story have happened. This is where having earlier been a planner and out-liner would have saved me a lot of time. 

My eight contemporary romances were the first books I brought out in 2012, and frankly, of course, with no plan for how to get them seen. I went with the flow, no advertising, and the end result is most have rankings that put them in Amazon's black hole. They are my backlist, books I am proud of having written, and I haven't given up on them-- even if Amazon might.

Only two of the contemporaries were set in states other than Oregon. None of these early books were paranormals. Contemporary paranormals came years later. These books, the ones I call Romances with an Edge, all have elements of danger, often a villain (they are such fun to write).

From Here to There-- Montana, where the story begins in Boston with a bride  realizing she has made a terrible mistake. On the way to the reception, she tells the groom that he's just not the man for her. She has realized too late that she wants a cowboy and an annulment. As a man, who has pulled himself up from his bootstraps, not that he wore boots as a rich financier, he is understandably shocked as he thought he had a trophy wife and now he's being made a fool. She heads for her uncle's Montana ranch, not knowing her uncle has invited her jilted groom to come and prove her wrong. This book has two romances, one revealed in the journal her deceased aunt had left her. It was fun to write since a lot of the ranch life i have lived found its way into the book.

Desert Inferno-- Southern Arizona, she's a rancher's daughter, a successful

landscape painter, who finds a dead man on the desert. The border patrolman, who comes to check it out, is tired after an all-night stakeout. The last thing he wants is a beautiful woman, especially, not one who has decided she has just seen the one man she wants for her own. Having experienced a difficult childhood, considering himself an ugly man, he's avoided anything but casual relationships that didn't involve the heart. She has to convince him to risk his, while they both deal with a dangerous enemy. This one has a lot of my beloved desert as well as a smuggling campaign that is bringing in prehistoric art objects from Mexico.

The next six books mostly happen in Oregon. They are urban for their settings. The guys are a principal, truck driver, cop, architect/builder, mechanic, and an investigator. The heroines are a decorator, psychologist, lawyer, stay at home mom, teacher of art and sculptor, and photojournalist.

Moon Dust-- when a man has been abused as a child, how does it impact him as an adult? What does it do to his marriage if he's tried to bury the secret instead of dealing with the emotional cost? He's a high school principal, who is dealing with his wife's desire for a divorce as he also confronts a militia leader who doesn't appreciate the principal's ideas about education.

Second Chance-- He was a troubled youth  (Moon Dust), and it's years later where he's tried to make his life into something that matters by beginning a wildlife rehab center, keeping it going by a truck driving job. He has had a crush on a woman he could never have. She is divorced, arguing with her ex-husband over how their daughter should be raised. She doesn't want a younger lover, especially someone who takes on the world's problems as his to solve.

Evening Star-- She has suffered losses and now fears caring too much. She thought she had her life protected with a successful career, friends, and a temperamental cat. Challenges to the heart can't always be avoided. The new police officer in Portland has a different idea, but he has his own problems. This is the only book where I wrote it all from her point of view and that of the villain. The reader sees the hero only through eyes other than his own.

Hidden Pearl-- His busy life is disrupted when his Navajo mother lets him know his sister is missing. It turns out her last contacts were with a cult, painting itself as a saving religion. A female photo journalist has come to Portland to do a photo series on powerful young men. The cult leader is one, this Portland architect builder is the other. Investigating the cult, where danger awaits, architect and photojournalist are brought together; but if there is to be any sort of happily ever after, they have to get past those who don't mind murdering to get what they want. The secondary characters interested me in the writing, especially the heroine's buddy.

Her Dark Angel-- Her husband was murdered by a cult leader (Hidden Pearl) and she is left to raise her two daughters and deal with an invasive mother. She heads for Reno to help her uncle and meets the kind of guy her mother would have warned her about if she'd had any idea he'd appeal to her. It's a bit of a beauty and the beast story as she's the perfect lady, while he's been anything but the gentleman she should want. Worse, he's been forced into undercover work that is potentially deadly to him or anyone around him.

Bannister's Way-- Earlier, he was in Desert Inferno; now, he's going undercover to solve a murder in a small liberal arts college. His ex-wife teaches life drawing and creates sculptures for commissions, and he hopes to get her back. He didn't plan that undercover would mean no cover. The murderer in this book is one of the teachers in the school, leading to a cat and mouse game. It also involves art forgeries. There were several old ladies to help the hero and heroine with one thing or another-- not to mention a home on the Tualatin River that I'd much love to own :).

$$$$

What I have to figure out is how to get these books seen by readers who would enjoy my kinds of stories. I owe doing what i can to the characters and the stories. Writing brief advertising copy, as I did above, is part of that process. 

Then, there is allocating my time. I learned something that was beneficial to me last week with the giveaway. It affirmed what I felt about the blog in terms of writing about writing here. If you are a pantser, you learn as you go and are willing to change directions. 

Lucky for me I am a glass is half full kind of gal. I am practical and face facts. I started into the publishing determined the books would pay for whatever I put out. Advertising though is important-- targeted even better. Books have to be seen if they are to be sold. I am going to dip my toe into that water (actually Ranch Boss is as he manages and gets the last word on the editing, publishing and marketing-- we're a partnership not only with our ranch but these books. I write the copy and he will edit it and sometimes frustrate me with what he thinks should be said, but we've survived almost 54 years of marriage and we are surviving this process lol). Writers can put a lot of money into advertising that still doesn't help the books be seen by the right potential reader. So we'll go slow with it. 

All my life, I've been a creative person with painting, sculpture, photography, and most of all writing. You can create your entire life and never have to turn it commercial. It's called a hobby. Hobbies are valuable in a lot of ways, but if you want to consider it a business, want to deduct your expenses, then the needs change. The IRS lets people deduct business expenses, not expenses related to hobbies. Paying taxes on what you have earned is a good reminder to be responsible with those deductions. Since 2012, i have considered my writing to be a business, where for years it was a hobby. That means I have to put my effort into places where it is likely to be successful. 

One thing though-- I still only write what comes to me, not what I am told would sell better. Can't let the Muse down. It is after all what it's all about.

I haven't been regular in doing what some call vlogs, but did one on the topic of being an indie writer and making choices. It's on YouTube-- Video 15.