Old School

It keeps coming to my attention over and over again that I am "Old School." I don't feel "Old School," and I hope I don't look "Old School," but there is a corroborating set of evidence that is growing to that effect.

Exhibit "A" would be my typewriter collection.

This is one of my seven old typewriters. This is a L.C. Smith.

Exhibit "B" would be the book.

I read books. Real books. Books that have covers and pages that you turn inside.

I guess Exhibit "C" could be my studio in Seattle.

It looks "Old School." More like "Old Schoolhouse."

There are many more "Exhibits," but I'd be embarrassed to show you my television set with rabbit ears. I watch it in the sense that I watch it collect dust. I prefer those "old books" to the TV any day. There is nothing flat about my television set, in fact it's quite 3D- but that doesn't mean what it does now. It just means that it takes up too darn much space in the room for an object that is hardly used.

There is an "Exhibit" that I'd like to show you, however:

These are my skis.

They are Olin Sierra V's, 180cm, to be exact. I think I bought them new in 1998.

I started skiing when I was eight years old.

This is a photo of me from my high school newspaper. I was a ski instructor in high school. Mostly I taught little kids how to ski. I worked at a small ski area in Tuxedo, New York called Sterling Forest. It seems to have a new name now: Tuxedo Ridge. But it is the very same place and to my "Old School" amazement, the trails are still the same names. You can see that on the map. (wow... this brings back memories... I could write a book. On paper. With a pen.)

But what I want to say is that I have been skiing for (yikes) forty-one years now. When I learned how to ski they made you lift your arm straight over your head and they gave you wooden skis that went to the tip of your middle finger. That's about two feet taller than you are in ski boots. (And by the way, the boots were  hard leather and they had laces. Not buckles. Laces. Never mind about the bindings. They looked like bear traps, and that's what we called them. "Bear Trap bindings.")

I will admit there have been many fabulous advances in skiing equipment since then. In that photo above, I'm skiing on a pair of Rossignol Freestyles. Before that I had K2 Killy Riders. I couldn't find images for them on Google. But I did find a photo of my next pair of skis: Rossignol 4S Kevlars.

I still have these in the basement. They are 195cm long. That's over my head. Which brings up the topic of length. Skis have gotten shorter and shorter over the years. In my lifetime they have gone from almost as long as pole vaulter's pole to practically the length of the average skateboard. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but not by much.

This past week I went skiing at Whistler/Blackcomb in British Columbia, Canada.

This part of the mountain is called 7th Heaven, and it is. Especially when it is sunny and there is a ton of fresh snow. 

I went skiing by myself, which had its advantages: one of which was that I went in the "singles" line and got on the lift much faster than the groups waiting for the high speed quads, or the gondola. I also got to talk with many strangers. Strangers from all over the world. It was enlightening and fascinating. And the one topic that came up the most was: 

My skis.

One gentleman (and he was older than me) called them "Vintage."

I replied, "I guess that makes me "Vintage," too."

Vintage? What is vintage? Here is the online free dictionary definition:

1. Of or relating to a vintage.

2. Characterized by excellence, maturity, and enduring appeal; classic.

3. Old or outmoded.

4.

a. Of the best: played songs that were vintage Cole Porter.

b. Of the most distinctive:

I'm not really sure what he was saying. Could be #2 or #4 a or b... but I actually think it was #3.

My skis are thirteen years old. No, they are not the latest shape, size, or technology, but they work fine. I would go so far as to say that they work excellently. People on the lift rides kept telling me that the new, shorter, more shaped skis "turned for you." That made me laugh. I know how to turn. I have spent years learning and perfecting the sport of skiing. If I'm "Old School" for using these skis, then fine. I'll live with that. Even if I was a little hurt that one man called them "olive skewers." (Skis don't have pointy tips anymore.) Also, it was pointed out that Olin- the company that made them- doesn't exist anymore. (That is also true of my car: a hybrid Saab-Subaru which was only made in 2005 and a few in '06.)

So what does this all mean? Personally, I think it means that "if it works, don't fix it." "If the shoe fits, wear it." "If it's "Old School" be proud of it."

I will keep skiing on my old, vintage Olins... but I will confess that several men on the lift- older men- shamed me for not wearing a ski helmet. I've never owned a ski helmet. I wear fleece or knit caps. That's very "Old School" now.

Okay. I caved. I bought a helmet. Call me "Old School," but I'm not a dummy. I know it's smart to protect your head.

What do you do that's "Old School?"
With Love,
Nina

Love Me Tender

This is not a valentine. Okay, well maybe it is, but not in the traditional sense. How many of you have ever been disappointed by Valentine's Day? Come on, raise your hands. I can see them. What is up with this culture of sappy cards, cheesy chocolates shaped like roses on stems, butt-ugly baubles bought under the auspices of "maybe I'll get lucky tonight?" And the flowers... that are half-way dead and smell that way.

Last week I was in Portland, Oregon speaking at the Oregon Reading Association. The conference was great. It took place in the Lloyd Center Doubletree Hotel. I have stayed there before for other conferences, but this time things had improved. The hotel went through a major renovation and upgrade. I also think I went through some kind of upgrade. Sometimes I am somewhat unaware of the total picture of my surroundings. I'm good at blocking things out, which can come in handy in certain circumstances. For example, I had never realized that the Doubletree was across the street from the Lloyd Center. The Lloyd Center is a mall. 

Malls. I hate malls. I worked in malls when I was a teenager. I was a salesclerk in Chess King in the Nanuet Mall when I was fifteen and sixteen. I was also a salesclerk in Foxmoor Casuals in the Paramus Park Mall when I was sixteen. I do have "mall memories" like double-piercing my ear when I was fifteen without asking permission. Drinking with my co-workers from Chess King after work when I was fifteen. (My fake ID said I was twenty-one and no one questioned it. Scary.) Buying fuzzy velvet black light posters at Spencer's Gifts.

But now I hate malls. I avoid them like I avoid greasy fried junk food. However I saw online that the Lloyd Center had a Verizon store, and I was about to receive my new iPhone 4. Yes. I caved. I've been using a six year old Samsung that does nothing except work like a phone, and I had to get the contacts off of it. I figured that a walk into the mall wouldn't kill me, and Verizon could get the contacts off my phone for me. 

Walking into the mall, which involved crossing one street and entering through Macy's took maybe all of five minutes, but it was like I had walked backwards into some time warp. Not only that, but I walked straight into a balcony overlooking a skating rink. Apparently the very skating rink that Tonya Harding cut her first figure eights, and probably clubbed her first shins. 

There were little girls twirling, a Tiger Mother chasing her perfectly poised daughter and giving her constant critiques. Then there was the mall itself- a behemoth of teen-oriented retail sturm und drang now blazing red and pink in its full Valentine glory. In shock, I made my way in the general direction of Verizon's store while salesclerks tried to put products in my hair and sell me bad jewelry. 

Post Verizon, as I headed back towards the relative Zen peacefulness of the Doubletree Hotel, I was visually assaulted by three lingerie stores in a row. One was Victoria's Secret. I had never heard of the other. But the third was none-other-than Frederick's of Hollywood. In the Lloyd Center Mall. Lured by the site of lace, fur, pleather, rhinestones and skimpy pieces of polyester, I entered the premises. Me: dressed in faded jeans, puffy black parka, black baseball cap with a pirate skull and cross bones courtesy of Archie McPhee's... the saleswoman must have been seriously disappointed, but she did her best to point out the crotchless panties and the French Maid's outfit. Re: the French Maid outfit: I told her that I hated cleaning on a regular basis; why would I want to dress as a maid as a fantasy?

For a few minutes I fondled some fur trimmed negligee wondering how you would launder it or if my cat would attack it. I made a joke or two about surprising my husband, but mostly I got the heck out of there, leaving the mall with phone contacts waiting in cyberspace and some bad hair product in my pony tail. ("It's ceramic," the girl said. Great. Now I can use my hair as a coffee cup.)

What I did take home from the mall was a bad feeling about what Valentine's Day has meant in my past. We build ourselves up on this romantic notion of what love should be, but it really has nothing to do with the poorly written cards, the flowers that will pollinate your dining table, or the French Maid outfit that as my husband put it, "is much better lying on the floor in a pile." 

My husband and I will cook dinner for each other this Valentine's Day. This is something we do all the time. There may be good dark chocolate involved at some point. We are lucky to live near the Theo Chocolate factory, so we get amazing chocolate no matter what time of year it is. We neither glorify nor put the kibosh on Valentine's Day. 

But as I've gotten older, what I realize is that Valentine's Day is an opportunity to remind yourself that you love YOU- in all your imperfect beauty. Treat yourself lovingly. Make the vow to love yourself tender, partner or no partner. Buy yourself chocolate anytime. Don't wait for someone else to do it. Paint flowers on your toenails. They last longer and smell about the same as those commercial roses. And if you really need the French Maid outfit, I bet it will be half-price next month.

So this is my card to you. (apologies to Elvis)

Love you tender,

Love you sweet,

Never let you go.

You have made your life complete,

And you should love you so.

With Love,

Nina

The Unbearable Impatience of Incompleteness

Do you ever find yourself in a place where you feel like nothing will ever get done?

Do you ever wonder why you start so many things and abandon them hoping that the next thing will actually work its way to total success?

Do you ever wish that some genie would wave her magic wand and finish everything for you?

I have those thoughts. Usually at 2am, up and wondering if my studio will ever be done and if I will ever work in it. Wondering if I will ever sell another book, and why do I have so many ideas, so many partial texts/sketches/dummies. Wishing someone would just finish them. Make them look perfect. Make them sell bazillions of copies. Win awards. Take me on a whirlwind tour of warm sunny places where people love to come to author/illustrator events and buy multiple copies for all of their relatives and relatives still not born yet.

LOL.

I can actually hear my college professor Roger DeMuth laughing at me right now. He loved to tell me, (in a painfully slow, steady cadence) "Nina.  Patience.  Is.  A.  Virtue." 

And I would reply," noit'snotIcan'twaittogetstartedrightnowIwanttobepublishedandseemyworkinstoresandlibrariesandschoolsallovertheworldandwinawardsandtraveltoexoticplacesandbuildthestudioofmydreamsandhaveahappyfamilyandahappylifeandlivehappilyeverafter."

Okay, maybe I didn't say all that in college, but I did think it. And truth be told, if you put the spaces in between the words, all of those things did happen, although not perfectly and definitely not quickly.

It's true that all good things take time. It's also true that all good things require patience. I've been a student of patience all of my life.

I now find myself at a strange crossroads of impatience, though. On the physical level, I have a studio that just keeps taking longer and longer to get done. It seems that every month there is another month to go before we can get that all important certificate of occupancy. Of course it's going to be gorgeous, amazing, and beyond my dreams. But do you remember that song, "No One is To Blame" by Howard Jones? One of the lines is: "You can build a mansion but you just can't live in it." Right now it feels like I'm never going to get there.

On the mental/emotional level I've been so ready to get out of the hole that I've been in creatively. I went through some very rough years dealing with intense family issues of health, and then issues of family members and addiction. It put all of my work on a huge metaphoric back burner. But now I'm ready to get going. I have a YA novel that came out of all of that torment. It's called "Jacked." I'll write about it soon. For now, though, I have to do a final revision so it can make its' way out to editors.

I also have a stack of picture book that I want to work on. I had to pick ONE to start with, and I picked this one:

It's not my typical humorous picture book. It's different. It also required doing a full dummy, which I just finished. I also have to present two sketches and one painting in order to sell it. That is what I wish the genie would do while I was sleeping... well, I won't be sleeping. I'll be revising my YA novel. You see I have a split personality: I'm an author. I'm an illustrator. What that does is this: when I'm illustrating I want to be writing. When I'm writing I want to be illustrating. Not always, though. 

Sometimes I just want things to be done. And there is a lot to do. I want to make things happen fast, but then I realize that is just unrealistic. My totem animal is the turtle for many reasons. One of them is that slowly and steadily I do eventually get there. The sweater that is still undone ten years plus after I started it will someday be worn. (even it it's sleeveless) The sketches and painting will be done. (hopefully by the deadline) I will then have the time for the revisions on the novel. And then...

Somehow I have to figure out when I can go pack up my dad and his things and move him in with us.

It's never over. It's never done.

We just have to learn to love being incompletely complete.

How do you deal with the unbearable impatience of incompleteness?

I am your student. 

Enlighten me, please.

With Love,

Nina

Poetry in Motion: flying home from Atlanta

I just returned home from visiting schools in Roswell, Georgia. I spoke in Cogburn Woods, Roswell North and Mountain Park elementary schools. The students, teachers and parents that I met were terrific. Here is a special shout-out to Media Specialists Martha Powell and Jody Brooks, who made my days run so smoothly. I wish I had photos to show you, but this was a working trip and there was very little time for fun. I stayed with an old friend, artist Rae Broyles, and drew pictures with her kids, Britta* (third grade) and Kristof (second grade) one day after school. Kristof made the drawing above for me.

*Britta just asked me to add this.

I used to live in Atlanta from 1984 until January of 1998, so it was wild to drive around and see what had changed (more big buildings, much more traffic) and what was still the same. (my old house is still the same paint job I did- and my sassafras porch swing is still there.) I ate at an old favorite restaurant, Canoe- my friends Rae and Matt pointed out the waterline inside the restaurant where the Chattahoochee River flooded, turning the dining room into a lagoon. If you go, eat this: Slow Roasted Carolina Rabbit with Swiss Chard – Bacon Ravioli, Sweet Potato Hash and Candied Garlic Sauce  It was amazing.


The time in Atlanta was over too quickly. Rae handed me off to my friend Yvonne in the Target parking lot, and Yvonne and I grabbed a late lunch before she took me to Hartsfield airport. We ate blue plate specials in Star Provisions near the Waterworks. Full of meatloaf, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes and collard greens I headed through airport security and into the "transportation zone" which really translates into "The Twilight Zone."


What is it about flying that turns people into zombies? It is really fascinating to me how some of the worst character traits seem to magnify themselves in airplanes.


I won't go into detail about my flight home here. But what I will do is post the poem that I wrote on the plane. I think it is self-explanatory.

THE REAL DELTA BLUES

 (©Nina Laden 2011)

Flying through the air

Turbulence in the chair

Coming from a child

Kicking my seat.

My ears, they are plugged

By earphones tightly snugged

Playing the blues

To mask the shrieks.

The parents don’t seem to care

That there is anyone there

Who paid to take this flight.

Torture for five hours

I wish I had magic powers

To make the time quickly pass.

Yet in my bubble I fret

And try to forget

That others are flying first class.

So I’m stuck in this tube

No empty seats to move

With a pressurized cabin

Too many people gabbing

A seatmate who is quite obese.

They charge you for bags

You come home with jet lag

Is it too much to ask for peace?

Sure I could have driven

No kids would be kicking

But it would take a week.

Now someone’s passing gas

This, too, shall pass

Like the turbulence at

Thirty thousand feet.

There’s something about this altitude

That puts me in a very bad mood

Landing and baggage claim

Is the only relief.

Okay, what do you think? And what do you do to cope with flying?

With Love,

Nina

A New Year's Card for You

Sometimes I feel like I am always behind. Yet most of the time I'm just trying to do too many things at once. I am also cursed by the "you have to make everything yourself" mantra. That was a bigger curse before computers because it involved a lot of cutting, pasting, printing- sometimes by hand, stamping... and then wondering if it was even worth the effort.

At least now I can use my scanner and a couple of Adobe products and then voila: instant creativity that I can display in cyberspace. This, by the way, is not replacing all of the cards I just printed, and still have to fold and write on, then stick in envelopes and mail. I still believe in old-fashioned mail. Every day I hope that there is something in my mailbox besides catalogs, bills and magazines that I have no time to read anymore.

There are those of you who will receive those cards. There may be folks I forgot. You may get the card in more than one way, which is also a by-product of us being too social these days. I'm using Facebook and my blog to wish everyone a happy new year. I guess the only thing I'm not doing is Twittering. I don't Twitter. I won't Twitter. Actually my New Year's resolutions- which I did not write down, are to get back to basics. Basics being: drawing, painting and writing. Yes, technology will creep in there no doubt. But... I'm going to focus on the solid stuff. I hope you have a solid year. Thank you for stopping by. Please visit often, and say "hey" when you can.

Full Circle: beginnings, endings, beginnings again...

We all begin somewhere. Stories all begin somewhere. I began with my mom. She had me in January almost forty-nine years ago. It was not an easy birth. I was born too soon. They didn't know my mom had a chemical imbalance. She didn't do well, but we both survived somehow.

My parents were both artists, and even if they didn't stick together like glue, they provided the materials that inspired me to become the artist, the author, the illustrator, the creative woman I have become.

When I was little, I had decided that I wanted to be a children's book author and illustrator and kept that goal in mind despite many side trips down other roads. As an illustration student I still kept looking back to that sense of wonder that kept me alive and enchanted despite obstacles and difficulties.

My mom never lived to see my books get published. In fact she died six days after my twenty-fourth birthday in January almost twenty-five years ago. Ten days later the space shuttle Challenger exploded. Somehow that expressed my grief at the time- it was universal, galactic, unfathomable.

We didn't have much growing up, especially after my father left my mother for my brother's first grade teacher. My mother couldn't afford to pay our taxes or our heating bills. She didn't have health insurance, and she had been diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, a cancer of the red blood cells. When she died, all that was left was the old, rundown farmhouse and barn we lived in, and she had sold it for less than the land was worth just before she died. We had to keep that sale going just to pay her medical bills.

What little was left was put into some stock for my younger brother and me to inherit when we turned twenty-five. Now I could have used that money to buy a car. A nice car for back then. But I didn't. I didn't touch it. Not for almost twenty-four years. I didn't know why. Partially it was because I wanted to prove I could build a life on my own and by myself. And I did.

This is the little studio that we restored. It used to be a work shed. It's over a hundred years old, and for the past fourteen years, this little building has been where I've created the art for the books I've written.

My mom always wanted a huge barn to paint in. She had a barn, but you could see through the floor boards to the old cement stalls below. The pot belly stove barely kept it warm in winter, and then one night a crazy kid in the neighborhood set it on fire and she lost four hundred of her paintings. It was the beginning of the end for her. I was the first one to see the flames from our kitchen window and had to tell her that the firemen were at our door.

But the other reason I think I didn't spend the inheritance is that I thought it was the last bit of "her" that I had left. If that money was gone, she would be gone. So I didn't touch it, and it grew. Just before the economy fell I was lucky to pull it out of the stock it had been sitting in all those years...

Now I'm skipping over a bunch of parts now, because they are not as relevant, but one day my beloved husband made me realize that if I used that money to build the studio I had always dreamed of, wouldn't my mother think that was better than it sitting in a bank account?

So. You know what? I used it all. I built that studio. It's almost done.

I can't wait to start writing, drawing, painting, dreaming, singing, dancing, creating... and the best part is that in the end, it came from my mother. It's her gift to me. Sometimes we have to take what seems like an ending and make it a beginning. It's true in writing, and in life, and you never know where it will lead you...

Have an amazing and inspirational 2011...
Here's to great beginnings, and middles and endings, too.
With Love,
Nina

Inspiration: Friends, Stones, Stories...

My friend, children's book author/illustrator Paul Owen Lewis took this photo. That dark silhouette of a human being is me, hunting for agates. Paul and I went on a long walk the other day, working off Thanksgiving meals, and talking about writing, creating books, and being artists. We walked on the beach and discussed the differences between those who are compelled to create "art" and those who are more "family-oriented." Now, I'm not saying that artists are not family oriented. Not saying that at all. We both just happen to have a lot in common - we came from less-than-ideal family circumstances, we both write and illustrate, and neither of us has had biological children. This is no formula for being creative, by the way. There are as many stories behind the stories of authors and illustrators who have been "inner directed" to bring their inspirations to life.

Here we are, cold and happy. Hand-held portrait by Paul. We both love to find things on the beach. I hunt mostly for agates, but I also find petrified wood, jade, jasper, "zen" rocks, which are just stones that I respond to, and the occasional seal's tooth. Paul likes sea glass and perfectly spherical stones. As much as we have in common, we are just as different. Non-artist friends used to ask me how I could be friends with other authors and illustrators. "Aren't they your competition?" they would ask. "Not at all," I always answered. "Their ideas and their ways of doing things are completely different from mine." Just like Paul and I live in the same neighborhood, on the same hill, we have different views. When we walk the beach, he also sees things that I don't, and visa versa. Actually, that's not true. I find sea glass and give it to him. But there is comfort there in the fact that we are not wired the same. We share the same space, but we bring our own original perspectives to what we experience. That comes out in our stories and our art, as well. It is our fingerprint... or mental print, or something like that.

What I've discovered is that friendship with my fellow creative folks is inspirational, not competitive. We need someone else who understands the strange world we inhabit. A world where ideas sometimes envelope us in a fog that makes us seem "not present" to our spouses or significant others. We find ourselves laughing, or crying at something we've read, or heard in song lyrics, and we feel things sometimes too deeply, or we find ourselves in weird synchronicity with our little world when the iPod chooses the perfect song to play with the story we are reading or writing, or just the thought that has gone through our head. 

So friends play a role in my creative process and keep me out of isolation, which I can easily slide into especially in the claws of winter. 

The stones also play a role for me. (and I don't mean the Rolling Stones, although I do love the sound of both that band and the sound the real stones make on the beach as the tide massages them in and out.)

I mean these stones. While I am out there, lost in my fog, searching for these little treasures on the beach, I am writing in my head. I am talking to my characters. I am singing song lyrics. I am telling myself subconscious stories. The agates sparkle and glow at me and ask me to take them home. They are my inspiration on my walking meditations. I bring them home and polish them, just like you would write down your ideas and then start polishing them. Over time, when I collect hundreds of agates, all polished, and waiting... I turn them into this:

...an agate luminaria candle holder. I have these all around my home, and they not only light up the dark nights, and make meals elegant, but they warm my soul. Each one of those little beach finds have found their potential. I hope that I can do that with stories, too. The pieces gradually come together to create a whole that is more powerful than the individual parts. It takes polishing, patience, and time.

Another thing that Paul and I both have in common is this love of natural objects. I know this is true for so many artists. 

Give me a beautiful bone, or a fabulous feather. 

Show me a root ball or a field of heather. 

Take me to the beach and leave me alone. 

Don't buy me an iPad or a new cell phone. 

I don't want a fancy vacation.

Just natural beauty and sweet inspiration.

You can sing that in the key of E, kinda bluesy.

I'd love to know what inspires you.

With love,

Nina