by Diane: A visit with both PSU Foundation Associate Director of Development and PSU Arts Development Coordinator

1962 during summer vacation

Friday, February 7, I shared a few of  my memories of the Portland State College's Art Department in the 1960's with Portland State University's Foundation's Kailin Mooney and Ally.  Then they told me about the developing School of Art + Design graduate program.

    I believe for over 55 years there is a strong thread of continuity.


To the left is Issac Allen
Soon after he changed his name to Issac NoMo because his real name and roots were wiped out by slavery. He has come to identify himself as Isaka Shamsud-Din, artist, educator, Black Muslim and activist. His on line resume connects him with the King School Museum of Contemporary Art. The  student run museum brings national artists to the school for student workshops. The museum serves economically under priveledged students who would otherwise have no art exposure.
      In 1963 I felt uncomfortable being the only student being photographed, so I invited Issac to stand in a silly photograher's choreographed pose. Luckily never published in the Oregonian! Obviously not Issac's or my most comfortable moment!

In the photograph to Issac's left are me in the middle and my mother Margaret Widler.
       The photographic session and interview was by The Oregonian newspaper to promote a student sale to benefit art scholarships. The idea of having a student sale to fund student scholarship was  mother's idea.  As president of the Mother's Club she brought about and organized the event for several years.  She was sharing her art entrepreneurship that went way back before she worked her way through college during the depression at the University of California, Berkeley. This was her way of supporting me! She had the best intentions of sharing her enthusiasm for art education: The results were mostly good.
     Being photographed for a featured article in the Oregonian made me giddy.  Not Issac!  Issac also had identity issues searching for who he was.  The art market to him was dominated by white culture, he was unsure if he could survive as an artist because he was black. He was not excited by the student sale.
         Issac already had a mission in life to document his experiences as a West Coast black man and a survivor of the Vanport flood that had destroyed Portland's African American neighborhood. He was a few years older and far more mature than I was.  I remember the figure paintings he did under the instruction of Robert Colescott. Issac was painting the African American experience before his instructor embraced his identity and expressed it. But later after a trip to Egypt Colescott became a renown African American painter who depicted the hypocracy of African American sterrotypes.
       The sale of my painting at the student scholarship sale boosted my ego. But Issac did not sell his heart felt, expressive painting about Vanport; he was very, very discouraged. Not even the sale of his ceramic pot to my mother was compensation.  His pot expressed his soul beaten and scarred on the exterior but soft warm melted chocolate on the inside. 
      After the sale Heidel spoke to our upper division painting class.  He tried to comfort Issac and others who did not sell. Heidel said that it makes no sense what sells and what doesn't. Sales have no bearing on the authenticity and value of our paintings. Heidel's intention was to make art vital to our life as artists and a vital positive force in the Portland community.  In other words PSC art curriculum was not trade school preparation to train us as producers of saleable paintings.

Completed in
Figure drawing and painting class
Instructor Richard Prasch
1964

If not the goal of instructing students on how to make saleable paintings for the art market, what was department head Heidel's vision for Portland State's Art Department and Portland?

        One precious part of my Portland State art studies was mentorship with artists who had a rich creative process. Frederick Heidel, Richard A. Muller, Richard Prasch did not demonstrate how they personally drew or painted. I didn't even go to galleries to see what their work looked like. They shared their process through assignments while allowing me to try different ways of putting down marks and paint where my intuitive voice seeped into my work. Heidel would gently steer me away from my own departures  made for shallow reasons.  He believed I had my own story worth expressing.
       My three mentors didn't have rules or techniques but posted examples of masters of painting from history.  As I was leaving Oregon after finishing at PSC, Heidel told me that he hoped he had not damaged my intuitiveness. I was an intuitive painter when i didn't know what that meant. He said do not make academic paintings. Do not make studies.  Make every painting yours. Do not sell your work because you will need it as references as you develop. Have a rich art development.
      My development in art is now richly satisfying to me despite having sold important pieces. In some cases I arrange to get them back. As I have selectively adopted values of the PSU faculty to my life, my creativity expands to approach life's challenges.
       I thank my mother and faculty at PSC. Basic Design instructor Jean Kendall Glazer asked us to trace our path on how we move through our kitchen. I have expanded her ideas to how I move through life as being an artistic choice. My thinking has evolved to considering my values. And beyond to the opinion that we live in an art creative desert. Creating art is a basic human need. If everyone felt empowered to express their intuitiveness through the arts, the world would be more paeceful. Jealousy, greed, and violance would fade away. 
     
November 22, 1963,  I remember Professor Richard Muller deeply shaken when he arrived late to our art history class. He announced the shocking news that President Kennedy was shot and most likely dead.  He feared  his optomistic hopes were destroyed for an enlightened future for our country. He was worried that the support of education and especially art education had just received a death blow.
         Optimism had been high.  Portland State College had its first graduate school - the School of Social Work headed by Dean Dr. Gordon Hearn as well as an idealistic Art and Architecture department headed by Professor Frederick Heidel. Optomism soared with the presidency of Robert F. Kennedy's support for education and the arts. PSC President Branford Millar declared that we are Portland State College now but soon to be Portland State University. Our belief in our exceptional goodness in the United States was cracked by the assasination of President Kennedy.

Never the less the hope continued.
         The day President Kennedy was shot Professor Muller returned our term papers on the topic - a record of involvement in a piece of art. I believe a few days later in the next class session some of us were invited to participate in what Muller thought would be an important bridge to us becoming art citizens in our life beyond our college experience - a student run gallery. Six of us including Issac Allen and a psychology major started The White Gallery. A mission statement was our first task. Next weeks blog will be more about Muller's project that relates to the thread that continues today. 





A painting could sell a ranch : A fantasy that emerged as I overcame painter's block

 
Initially I overcame inertia  by just mixing colors and painting without a plan. I decided  I did not have to paint a meaningful painting. Some vague notion of landscape would be a starting point. I didn't know what kind of landscape I would make -  maybe a seascape, alpine meadows, water reflections or near non-objective abstract.  Internal or external type was not decided. As I brushed on the acrylic paint covering about two thirds of the canvas,  new thoughts of possible meanings flashed across my mind.

When the four foot by five foot canvas was almost completely covered,  I thought it was good. The painting was a nice backdrop to holiday clutter being  decorative and calming.   But if it was done in just three hours, it was void of a possible ricer involvement. So I took courage ignoring fears of spoiling the painting.

New directions 

My paintings are a pictorial journal of my life with some even becoming solutions to problems I have encountered. Time to paint when changes are near. The beautiful wood lot and ranch in back of our property is going to be subdivided. The view will be gone forever, but I will have a sentimental memory painting. For awhile I thought I would paint a deer jumping over the foreground fence out at the viewer, which shortly occurred to me was merely an exercise to see how good I was as a painter - a short lived shallow reward for me.

Once a painting solved a problem I had. I used to sign my maiden name to my paintings in hopes that I would find a long lost cousin when all the usual means of searching failed for a decade. A painting of a common ancestor published on a blog did result in one child of the lost cousin calling me.  Then I  visitited the cousins I never knew as a child.

Though it is a long stretch, maybe a want to be ranching family will read this blog and  buy all 13 acres and continue ranching while rearing their children like my painting reminisces.

The flow was strong with purpose for a couple of weeks



 

After blocking in  the atmosphere and colors, each day I added a small pictures of my heart warming memories like the house decorated with Christmas wreath, along with the barn and horse arena. I have more memories that could be added like the chipmunks, rabbits, humming birds, robins, peacocks  and steers. There were quail, China pheasant, owls, raccoon, coyote and skunk, shrews, mice and rats, hawks, woodpeckers and more. My husband giving a neighborly assistance in the falling of trees, and cutting wood, the tractor added too. The small family farm opens up the continuation of fundamental values upon which our greatness as a nation was built - neighborly caring for each other sharing our labors and bounty with one another. Urbanization of most of us is at the heart of our loss of empathy. saving this life style is important.

 Because in this season I was overwhelmed by adding so much, I placed the painting with the front to the wall in my studio out of sight until next year.

 The  view outdoors had changed from being autumn to wintry frost.  I was mesmerized by the pastels as the sun started to melt away the whites. When the sun set behind the trees at 3:30 PM, the purples and greens died in my painting, only coming back to excite me in the early mornings when the sun glow peeped through the window.

 What is slowing the flow now? Wanting to paint a winter scene?  Indecision? Would more additions  take away from the pony ride?  Or have the holidays called me to do some baking and shopping that I have been avoiding? Time to put it away until next year. I am too close to it to make a decision.

 

I have successfully kept a flow going but not the holiday preparations.  Enough is enough. Time to hide the painting away until next year when with fresh eyes I will determine if it is complete. Time for undivided time with family. Next year I will be ready to do more paintings of the neighboring ranch.

I hope my Jewish friends are concluding their last day of a happy Hanukkah celebration and to my Christian friends a Merry meaningful Christmas with hope for peace for all faiths and beliefs in 2018.

Starting over

As I get started on my next book, which will take me back into historical times, the political season is almost over but probably not the fall-out-- whoever wins. I've never had a year this difficult for me. I envy those who had a candidate who they believe is good for the country. I don't want either of them, and yet one will be our next president. I have to vote because I believe it's the right thing to do, but I am voting for someone I don't believe in only because the other choice, to me, is worse. Ugh! One way or another my country changes leadership and starts over in January-- like it or not.

On a more upbeat note, the series I hope to begin writing in January is of great interest to me. The first one is out but has kind of met the fate of my contemporary paranormals-- which is not finding many readers.

The new series is interesting to me on levels that go beyond ratings. I have never written chick (in this case crone) lit. It just hasn't come to me, but this idea of women starting over is closer to women's fiction than my previous books. There is romance and will be in all of them, but the main thing these women will be facing is-- starting over at an age they never expected that to happen.  The stories will be about what they do to make it work. No supernatural solutions in any of them.

What will make them challenging to write is to come up with different reasons why women might find themselves in that situation. Death and divorce are the obvious ones, but while I am writing two different books through the next months, I am hoping to come up with some other possibilities-- like maybe a woman totally into her career with no intention to ever be married and then along comes that one man who eventually overthrows all her prejudices against marriage (Gloria Steinem found that). I haven't decided how many there will be in the series and not all the women might be in mid-life with some maybe younger or even older. 

I got a review on Red Hawk Christmas that made me feel good. 

This was the best kind of Christmas story!!! I LOVED the way Dianna had the COURAGE, and determination to not only follow her dream, but to find that she was able to follow her HEART too. This book was one of those books that you just can't put down. The characters were very likeable, and this author REALLY knows how to make the reader feel as if they are right there, seeing the beauty of the scenery, as well as feeling that they know the characters. I highly recommend this book to anyone that loves just the right amount of romance!!!! It is a story set at Christmas time, but it is more about finding contentment about starting over. Thank You Rain Trueax for a heartwarming, and beautiful story! I LOVED it!!!!  

Reviews like that are why writers write. My books may not reach the large numbers of some writers. I get it that they don't follow the 'formula' so many love. If you write something different, you can't expect everybody will give it a try. Still when a book reaches even one reader like that one, then it's all worthwhile and its own reward.

who's behind it?

This next issue is one that has concerned me a LOT this year. It has not been in a debate and often someone who brings it up can find their post censored in comments. It's the issue of where we get our news-- television, cable, print, radio, and social media. It is where supposedly we get our information. Specifically, this is about news dissemination in the United States.

Before this election, I thought we had so many places to get news that we could always find both sides of an issue. I thought where some sites presented one perspective, there'd be another with another side. I thought news meant journalism.

That was naive taking into account the history of news where the media has often driven public opinion to suit its own agenda. Yellow journalism is a way to get attention by sensationalism-- often to distract from real purposes. An example is when the Hearst newspaper empire wanted the Spanish-American War and created headlines that stirred up the populace-- especially using a ship destroyed in an explosion. Remember the Maine! became the battle cry. Who cared what actually caused that explosion. It was how it could be used. 

Through time humans have been manipulated by those who supposedly give them the information they need for intelligent decision making. It probably was true in tribal living also. Today though, didn't many of us think we were beyond that, and both sides would be presented?

When Hillary Clinton ran against Bernie Sanders, the DNC wanted her, and they did what they could to make it happen. I get that. It's the establishment protecting itself. Someone else though worked on Hillary's behalf, while they barely covered Bernie's speeches or his large crowds. Media glossed over or ignored that she couldn't fill even a small auditorium. Where she got constant positive coverage, he was ignored. 

The fix had been in to such a level that the head of the DNC had to resign in the middle of the convention. She was immediately added to the Clinton campaign and will doubtless be rewarded in a Clinton administration. But whether we should trust a party to be fair, shouldn't we have been able to trust the media to cover the full story and let Americans know both sides? Well, whatever we should have expected, it was not what happened.

At the same time, we had Trump who proved to be a showy candidate in positive and negative ways. His large crowds excited interest, and he got more media coverage than the other Republican candidates-- much of it often negative, but coverage is coverage. But the media often twisted headlines to mislead as to what Trump had actually said. Sensationalism stirs people up. Yellow Journalism does sell papers-- but it also directs the reader/viewer to a desired conclusion.

Then came the conventions, and two major candidates were left. Coverage on the two minor candidates, who would appear on most ballots, was minimal to non-existent. They were forced out of the debates because the polls said they didn't have the requisite number of followers.

For someone like me, who is not a leftie or rightie, as a writer, observing what came next was interesting in terms of human nature. As a citizen, it left me cold. The media bias became so obvious that eventually they admitted they were trying to direct voters to vote for Clinton. Probably for a leftie this seemed good. Can we trust Americans to sift through all that is out there? Why don't we make it easy for them by only giving them what we consider good for them!  Someone had to stop a dangerous candidate. So the headlines became even more distorted, and the fear talk covered with more vigor.

Along came the hot mic video followed immediately by women who said yep, he did it to me. Salacious details followed, and they were covered without question. Where Bill Clinton had the same accusations against him, those women didn't make the mainstream media's news shows. There was no alleged in the Trump headlines. Even though these incidents happened twenty or more years ago, you'd think they were today. It allowed the 'press' to wallow in sensationalism as if it was news. Trump had made it easy for them with his loose, boorish talk on the video.

And that might even be fair-- except when Wikileaks brought out unflattering things about the Clintons, it was treated as stolen words and not worthy of even telling viewers or readers. If someone got all their news from mainstream media, they would be told it was all about Russia trying to sabotage our election. Don't confuse your little heads with trying to find out what had been in those emails. We'd tell you if it mattered... So they ignore the Enquirer story but if it was against Trump, we know they would not.

News media people not only donated to Clinton but also slanted their headlines to make Trump look even more dastardly. Now he does help them out with his loose talk and lack of focus, but even when he doesn't, they make those headlines look as bigoted, misogynist, etc. as they can. How many people bother to read the actual stories?

What's going on? We have a media that seems determined to only tell Americans what they think they should know. Often they go off on a story like kneeling for the Anthem to cover up other stories that might actually matter. I think they managed to divert attention to something like Benghazi when the real story of interest, in terms of a leader, is why the US became involved in the Libyan civil war, why the Obama administration, encouraged by Hillary as Secretary of State, backed rebels to destabilize a sovereign nation. Another question has been raised as to whether it involved guns to Syrian rebels that ended up in the hands of ISIS? Benghazi was a tragic event, but the whole issue of our involvement in Libya is a question of judgment, not bad luck. Sometimes it looks like Republicans also like to divert attention from the real issues, but should the media be helping either major party do this?

Mainstream media outlets have more or less ignored [Standing Rock and the Native American protests]. The few reporters who have tried to cover the story have been arrested and threatened with long jail sentences. On the other hand, the Malheur takeover got a lot of coverage. Anyone who thinks about it a bit can probably figure out why. The thing is for me it's led to less trust of the mainstream media.

There is an agenda in the news today, and it's not to tell us what happened. It's to indoctrinate and manipulate us to think what they want us to think. With major mergers like AT&T buying Time Warner, fewer and fewer people control not only the news but entertainment. Universities, through lucrative grants, are often indoctrinated also with the 'proper' view on like economics. Who is behind this? Not likely the Clintons, as they obey their masters, who pay them handsomely and remain in the shadows. Hillary didn't get paid those big bucks for speeches without some expectation of return.

The following is a thoughtful link on what has been stirred up; but unlike its author, I wouldn't blame this all on Trump. It's been here since Obama got elected-- and before. Media thrives on anger and fear. Never forget that when you give it time in your life. The problem is-- how do we keep track of what is actually happening and more importantly find out why?

this isn't going away  

What disturbs me is what can we do about it? It's not like we get to vote on fair and balanced news coverage. When the news says what we want to hear, is that all we care about? Just remember-- next time it might go against our interests (frankly, it already does) and we won't be so happy at the manipulation and limited coverage when it's our ox being gored.

 

change is inevitable

 South Dakota Christmas 1901-- my grandmother is second from the right.

August on this farm was about the garden, heat, irrigation, smoke, hoped for rain, and computer problems. Since 2010, I had happily done all my writing on a laptop-- Windows Premium7. It's a great work machine or I should say was. I don't need a lot of frills. The important one for me was Corel Photo-Paint7 which did everything I needed to make covers. Corel is why I didn't update the machine to 8.1. None of the later Windows would let me use that program.

I have been through the computer rodeo enough times to know nothing lasts forever. So last summer, we bought a Win 8.1, with the idea I could eventually use it when my 7 failed. I left it though to Ranch Boss to do the adding of my stuff to it. Then it'd be ready when the day came.

For those who love every new technology, my Luddite attitude, toward keeping whatever I have as long as possible, probably makes little sense; but I am that way with everything. If I like something and works for me, I don't want to get rid of it, which explains 10+ year old jeans and sweaters.

What I didn't expect is that Microsoft itself would destroy my 7. They did it with their latest updates and the warning that they would no longer support 7. When I had one of their insisted necessary updates, and it caused the machine to fail, I looked toward what used to be my fail-safe program-- system restore. It no longer existed. By their planning, the crash took it out.

Grandpa is standing on the stump and grandma has that coy look on the front. Her mother with the silver hair is right behind her.

Although I had hoped we could find a fix for 7, it was looking like it was done. First though my rescue machine, the Windows 8.1, had to be updated to 10. For awhile, we tried simultaneously to fix the 7, but I am editing a manuscript and when 7 failed that-- I gave up. I had fortunately spent one week-end saving everything important to two new 128GB jump drives. It was tedious work, but with all of our photos preserved (my manuscripts were always updated regularly to the small drives), I was more sanguine about 7 failing. 

There are things I don't like as well with the Win10. I've had to get used to how it saves as it would be easy to over-write, but one of my big concerns was eased when I was able to buy a Corel Photo-Paint 7x and found it had most of the features I used. 

We ran into one final (I hope) problem, when in the midst of going to one of the photo places where I buy cover images, our Internet server refused me connection. Ranch Boss spent a lot of hours trying to get it back up. He finally resorted to calling our server. It turned out the technician there had been getting a lot of these calls in the weeks since 10 came out. He walked the computer through what needed to be done and for now, the Internet is back.

Frustrating to say the least especially since Microsoft could have told those with Windows 7-- don't update again even when we say you should for security. I am sure those with Macs are smirking about now-- but your day may also come. It's the nature of the Internet world that change is one constant.

My grandmother and great grandmother with no idea what year

My awareness that life is also that way was enhanced when I was saving those photos and saw again those of my grandmother, my father's mother. Mary's mother and father were born in Germany and immigrated. She was born August 22, 1887 in South Dakota. They were farmers and did well as her engagement and wedding photos seem to indicate. My other grandparents had no wedding photos at all let alone engagement photos. 

Mary and John were married August 23, 1903. I know more about her life after my father was born through his stories, but almost nothing about the girl she had been, what she wanted from life, what she experienced before she married. She was such a girl when she married. Was she crazy about him? I know she was after they married.

They had five children; lost one as an infant during a terrible South Dakota thunderstorm. I know that her reputation for a clean home was that you could eat off her kitchen floor. My father remembers watching her and his father at a barn dance, where the children were in the loft to supposedly sleep. She left her home in South Dakota to come to Oregon because of my grandfather's health.

They came first to an area not far from where I live today, but I never knew any of that until we moved here. I know when they were in Falls City, she nearly died from sleeping sickness, and had all her long hair cut off as evidently that was what they did in those days. When she finally woke, she cried over the hair loss-- or that's how my father remembered it. She later got breast cancer and survived it. She lost her husband with a stroke and wept on his casket. 

The thing that gets me now is I don't think I ever knew the woman she was, and I wish I had. She died April 1976 before I thought much about asking questions of her, before it seemed important to me, while I was very involved with raising my own children, and a year and a half before we moved to this farm.

my grandmother, uncle, grandfather and two relatives but not sure who

Much of the joy and fun I saw in her earlier photos, ones I only inherited when one of my younger cousins died, I can't say I knew. I did know her to always have long hair that she braided into a coronet around her head-- and if she ever wore a pair of pants, I never saw it. 

One of the things I have been most grateful for in my life is having had two such different grandmothers as examples of how women can be. I knew my mother's mother far better and heard her stories of her youth, her courtship, but the grandmother whose wedding photos I now have, well I don't think I really knew more than the image of her. It's a regret I can't undo now. 

I am not one to think often about my past or what has been. There is a reason for that. When I do, I feel sad and even teary as I miss what was. My growing up was good, and I am glad I knew it was good back then. The same with my years of raising children. I can't live there though and dwelling on the past just makes me feel bad in the present.

For this blog, I didn't know what I'd write and it seems ironic to me that it ended up being about the most modern of technologies and the oldest of mythologies-- who our ancestors really were.

Aging and 70s

Because I am going to be very busy the next month, I decided to try out the video discussion format for Wednesdays with maybe photos and something written for Saturdays.

So far learning to use videos to discuss a topic in a few minutes (four or under) is an up and down experience. I ordered a sharper webcam and am hoping it also gets better color without so much tweaking. I like the wider format where it sets the talker into an environment. I've noticed sometimes YouTube is not as sharp as my copy where I have it set to maximum sharpness and am guessing that is based on whether it is fully buffered and maybe time of day and their traffic level.

If anyone else is into creating videos-- has been brave enough to dare the new frontier-- I'd be happy to show theirs here also. Wednesday is aimed at being a discussion on any topic where it feels like friends sitting down with coffee or tea. This isn't the TED talk for experts but for friends sharing something they're thinking about. It doesn't have to be 'important'. I will be posting these also into Videos and Discussions. Maybe you have yet to do a blog but might find this is your medium-- give it a try.

Someone, who has a nice garden, could do a four minute survey of it with some explanation (send it to my email which is under my profile).  This is not a place where everything has to be weighty and deep. Sometimes it's nice to take a break from pathos and paranoia and just have some fun or enjoy someone else's piece of life. But if paranoia is on your mind, I'm open to considering a video where you explain the why of that.

For my other blog, Videos and Discussion, if you are into this and we have a similar view of life (not necessarily same or agreeing but not virulently opposed-- for instance if you think gay marriage is evil, we aren't a good match or if you want to justify bigotry, you need to find another forum), otherwise though I'd be delighted to make you a co-author there which means you could directly post to Videos and Discussions. It would be one way to keep it booming.

Farm Boss took a few videos at the beach last time there; and if he gets time to put them together, they might make it here, there or somewhere. He said he might do one of the discussion videos, as he thinks I'm not making mine long enough. That's be fun, as once you start doing this, it's not as easy as some might think-- as in him :).

The discussion below is on the topic of aging and physical beauty-- or not. Oh I know, it's soooooooo lightweight, but it also is something men and women face as they age and feel their looks deteriorate. Can we admit that or must we pretend? The video isn't a solution to it, just an acknowledgement (if I come up with a solution, I'll be sure and post that too someday).

I have to say doing a video discussion goes a lot faster than trying to write something-- after the explanation this time anyway. It also has the advantage of illustrating the words with the visual aspect. I could see someone doing it for a book review, a hobby or pretty much anything that can make a short discussion as I am not sure how willing people are to listen to long speeches. I don't know how it'd go with politics. A grimace, growl, whine? How would that work? Might let off steam that way. I'll definitely be giving that a try next Wednesday!

Not everyone has the speed for watching videos; but sometimes if you let it totally load, then replay it, it will play smoother the second try. I gave Vimeo a try to see how it works but it has a limited usage of 500 mb before it's $10 a month. That doesn't sound good although YouTube may not remain free either. That's why we need to jump on things when they are possible. They might not be around later-- kind of like us.

Does money corrupt?

There have been several studies recently indicating that rich people are more corrupt than average folks. This take by Andrew Sullivan has some good links as to why money might insulate us from other people, make us less apt to understand how it is for those without money, and more into the addiction of getting more and more of it. We have all seen the corporate heads who did something unethical to get more money when they already had a lot. Jesus warned about it in his talks. Anyway it's a good article.

Does money corrupt?