bucket kick

“I have broken the yoke.”

~ Jeremiah, 28:2

Enfin! It took over four months for me to retro-convert twelve years of La Vie Graphite, consolidated to this site, and it is thankfully now complete. After a number of server crashes of the photo repository I’d been using, trusting, and paying for, I decided to interrupt my essay-writing and put the time and energy into salvaging all my hard work. This meant systematically editing through more than three hundred essays, removing the “photo bucket” links, repairing tags and all coding errors, followed by uploading each and every photograph directly onto the blog’s server. I did the work in reverse chronological order, since blog sites are presented in that configuration, and in the event of more “bucket” crashes, readers would not be looking at imageless essays with broken links. All of this work was done while this blog continued to be “live,” careful not to lose any existing work- or your much-cherished readership. Behind the scenes, I also had to create a comprehensive photo archive to match each essay. Getting that done meant reviewing thousands of jpg files, organizing and consolidating them, re-editing them as necessary. Even for this full-time archivist, it was a complex and major operation.

The author's interface.
Above: Before- the morass of coding, images, and tags.
Below: After- Clarity.

Below: The Public view.

Like any worthwhile project, this was a learning experience, too. While refining my HTML skills, I saw how the markup tags have evolved through the years. I also saw how the “bucket,” now properly kicked, embedded advertisements for itself within each individual image tag. All such links are water under the bridge, now. Having had the chance to read back through more than twelve years of essays, I learned a few more things- much more useful than the tedium of editing and repair. I was reminded of books I’d read which had left my proximate thoughts. I saw adventures and ideals well worth continuation. I was also reminded about how much I love to write and create photographs. Well, the prow of this ship is pointed forward, good and early for an upcoming season that happens to be my favorite, "winter-into-spring".

Returning to the swing of essay writing is taking some time, even though I’m a daily journal-writer. When I had more time (and a lot less stress), I enjoyed years of what I called my “ten-day writing week.” From sketching a concept into a cohesive theme, accompanying my text with photo illustrations, refining the composite, and publishing tended to happen in ten-day cycles. I even had time to contribute essays to other sites. Getting through some major crises, I considered myself productive to complete one essay per month. I hope to land somewhere in the middle, but it has to begin somewhere. The important thing, as I like to tell my writing students, is to write- and write authentically. Teaching and Doing have always gone together for me. During the latter ten years of my fourteen years in commercial photography, I taught photo in an art college. For nearly three years, I’ve been teaching journaling, and teaching philosophy for nearly four. The latter has helped provide an additional connection with Oxford for me. All the while, studying and writing have continued; simply reading back through chapbooks and daily journals, there are numerous themes for me to cultivate. And photographs.

My new year begins about two months late. Better March than never. Emerging from the “maintenance hiatus” feels a bit like a restart, albeit upon a foundation. There’s still plenty of snow and cold, here in northern New England, but daylight spans are lengthening by the day. That is, simply in itself, a subtle sign of hope. Just as writing across a page is a succession of words, so are paragraphs and essays successions of ideas. Thank you to all of you that read and have been so thoughtful to be in contact. Just as before, there is presently a great need for creative and conscientious artists to continue creating. Even the humblest positive step is still a motion in a constructive direction. I like to think of something I learned from Brother Roger, in the Taizé monastery: “The wellsprings of jubilation will never run dry, when a heart that trusts goes from one beginning to another.”

leaf raking

“It is pleasant to walk over the beds
of these fresh, crisp, and rustling leaves.
How beautifully they go to their graves!
how gently lay themselves down and turn to mould!
--painted of a thousand hues, and fit to make the beds of us living."

~ Henry David Thoreau, Autumnal Tints.


Two months ago, I wrote about the arduous project I needed to take on, to be able to stabilize this blog, preserve more than twelve years of work, and have the peace of mind to continue here. Specifically, it's been the major, systematic process of my retro-conversion of all my photographs from "the 'Bucket," to this server. Essentially, I've been kicking away the 'Bucket! Well, now about nine weeks on, I've completed the recent ten years of work, working backwards from the most recent- leaving me two years' worth of writing still to go. I'm almost done. And so is the autumn season, which is a beautiful time of the year, here in northern New England. Amidst this blog re-con and strenuous fulltime employment, I found bits of time to photograph outdoors- and certainly to journal-write. There are many burgeoning themes, which I've had to hold back during these recent months. But I'll get there, and the accomplishment of stabilizing my work will provide an energy of its own. I'm looking forward to this!

At this writing, autumn has but a few hours remaining, with the winter solstice at the doorstep. Green leaves steadily gave way to red and bright yellows.






Then, in a few rapid weeks, the progressively colder winds between inland mountains and the Atlantic loosened the leaves. I watched a great many feather their ways into local streams and rivers.







Leaves I saw wafting into nearby rivers- the Presumpscot, the Kennebec, the Saco, and the Androscoggin, along with shortened days and snows bring me to turning the leaves of books indoors. There are always new studies to find in well-forested libraries.




Along the journey, reading and writing are ever in tandem. Occasionally, I'll make my own notebooks- just to my tastes: about an A5 size and paper without lines.



Words continue to waft, even through complex and time-consuming projects. Liminal seasons, such as autumn, generate quiet energy reminiscent of the dormant woods in winter.

Persevering with notebook and camera, a new year awaits. The only appealing direction is to go forward.



Thanks so very much to all who have been faithfully reading. The rebuilt sections are gradually outnumbering the portions I still must rebuild. I'm raking plenty of leaves, preparing the ground for new growth. A blessed Advent and New Year to one and all.

triage

"It's gonna take time;
A whole lot of precious time.
It's gonna take patience and time,
To do it right."

~ George Harrison, "Got My Mind Set on You."


As if the tribulations of maintaining sustenance and sanity weren't enough, the server site upon which I'd been storing 12 years of La Vie Graphite photographs has been crashing. The photo site is a pay service (famously using the nickname, "bucket"), and has ceased to be dependable. At the same time, I could see that Blogspot's image upload feature has vastly improved in recent years. Therefore, being intensely committed to continuing my writing, several weeks ago I decided to systematically migrate all photos from all my illustrated essays directly onto this blog page. The process is painstaking, and will take at least another month- but it's well worthwhile. This is how I'll be able stabilize this site, so that I can continue writing.

I haven't been able to post anywhere as much as I'd prefer, but need to urgently get the "house" in order. My journal writing indeed continues daily, and I have numerous essay concepts under construction, even during this triage. As it's been throughout my turbulent work life, my thirst forces me to hunt and work harder. I'm grateful for the stability of this site, on Blogspot (this URL will stay the same), and am very much looking forward to completing the full transition of the photo illustrations. But it's taking time.

Many thanks, and a fine autumn season to you.

twelve

“Lucio: I believe thee; for I think thou never wast where grace was said.
2nd Gentleman: No? A dozen times at least.”

~ William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, act I.

This summer is surely conducive to writing outdoors, and on a fine day aperch it occurred to me that La Vie Graphite is now twelve years a work in progress. Noticing this reminds me of how I fill a journal book and set it on my bookshelves as I begin another. A filled notebook always feels somehow heavier than a blank one. In 2006, I hadn’t yet purchased a digital camera, and began with writing short paragraphs in a blog application easily available on MySpace. With the development of Blogspot shortly after, I moved some of the original blog to this venue, and began the exploration of reflective essays and poetry. Adding digital photography to the still-film media with which I had made a career since high school, along with scanning typed and handwritten pages, the blog’s ambience formed. The title I gave to the blog is my longtime nickname for idea-jotting in pocket notebooks. Holding a thought and recording it begins with a few words scribed in pencil on a palm-sized page. Subsequently, as time permits, those graphite sparks of life become essay elements.

The little books of pencilled ideas are in a parallel continuum with two other strands of journals I maintain- one in fountain pen ink (the “full-dress” Journal), and the other by typewriter. Indeed, creative processes are essay themes in themselves! Separately from these, a small box of index cards is reserved for “BTs,” known as Big Themes. There’s still plenty to write about; surely more ideas than time permits these days. The essays continue, and albeit at a slower pace than I’d prefer, the commitment remains. Recent years have required some additional and major commitments involving basic economic sustenance, housing, and caregiving. As a writer and artist, it’s been all the more vital for creative pursuits to continue- even in smaller measures.

Many of you that reflect and write know how even the most peripheral memories stick to our thoughts. My elementary school is called P.S.13 (New York City public schools are numbered), and our school newspaper was called The Baker’s Dozen Review. Well then, my baker’s dozen year of essay blogging is now underway. On this embarkation, the number 12 does need its due. Twelves and dozens are identifiable across literature, history, and measurement. If it makes little difference to you, you’ll take six of one or a half-dozen of the other. The philosopher Cassiodorus liked how the number 12 referenced twelve tribes of Israel, twelve Disciples, wind directions, signs of the zodiac, hours of the day, to name a few. He also famously said, “He is invited to do great things who receives small things greatly.” And with this, I return to the expressive potential of the written word and the photographic image. These are the still, small elements that are needed to compose and communicate thematic works. The small things to be greatly received are the nascent ideas, the inspiring glimpses, the graphite jots that can be built into the greater things. With time, the journey becomes increasingly unique as well as voluminous, and thus the value of our narrative is able to intensify.

As the days proceed, so must the writing. A faithfulness to journal writing opens paths in a number of ways. Though I cannot claim major successes as a writer (at least not yet), I can speak for profound satisfaction. Expanding my journal writing into web-published essays began as a way to “bring out” the work to the public, as many of my fellow visual artists seek to do. Some of the consequent fruits of this work have manifested as published pieces in print, lecturing, reading to audiences at events, travels such as an extraordinary invitation to sojourn at the home of my lifelong favorite poet, a writing and study fellowship at Oxford, along with a continuing string of retreats and residencies, and the grace that I continue to love to write. Without the practice of the written word, these doors would not have opened for me. I’m certainly grateful for the milestone efforts, but more importantly there remain ideas to formulate and the will to carry on.

Artists, generally speaking, dedicate their energies to their art media for the purpose of expression. We create because we want to explore. I’m among those that has always needed artistic exploration, even since childhood. With these forays into words and images, there is the parallel line of exhibiting the work to be received by others. During an online interview, I was asked about what is essential to personal writing. My answer was that writing must be honest writing, no matter the emotion, recollection, or subject. I recalled this comment while teaching a journaling class- something I’ve been doing for two years. The latter is another grateful outworking of writing and exploring, and it has coincided with having begun teaching philosophy three years ago. The two intertwine, and occasionally the lesson plans affect each other. Regarding philosophy, I want everyone to consider and articulate, discovering their sources of inspiring thought. With writing, I want the burgeoning writers to observe and write with the fluidity of the spoken word. These are all things I want to do myself. And get the writing out. It’s very important. As for me, I’ll add here’s to more. I’m still looking for the audience that is looking for what I’m writing. There are many ideas and angles to flex with my aspirations.

Above: Sad Clock Face;
Below: Happy Clock Face.

soon

“Your mind is also blocked.
Yet the right road awaits you still.
Cast out your doubts, your fears and your desires,
let go of grief and of hope as well,
for where these rule the mind is their subject.”

~ Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy.

Hoping to do justice to my years of conscientious work on this site, I’ll begin the year with this short note. My recent three months of exhaustion have brought my creative pursuits to a detrimental silence. Along with tireless full-time employment, I’ve taken on the role of caregiving and advocating family member. Between these two spheres, journal writing has been thinly inserted during short breaks and in places such as waiting-rooms, kitchen counters, and surgical units. On most nights, after work, my appetite has intuitively gravitated toward reading- reading consoling words. I intend to explore the latter theme with an essay. Added to these trying times, northern New England remains in the throes of winter weather which has exceeded most recorded statistics.

Today, I reminded myself of an employment burnout experience- years ago- when I drove to an ocean cove, rather than back to my apartment. I needed to interrupt the breakneck pace, and clear my thoughts. Looking at the crags, the vast sky, and the waves, it occurred to me that I hadn’t been making any new photographs. Possessing the tools and the vernacular was not sufficient; these instruments and the mind needed to be put to greater use than to merely punch the time-clock. The following weekend, I began developing film and printing my own work again. Needless to say, this led to several shows. But the important thing was the retaking of my own creative threads.

This past week I gave a lecture, and referred to my concept of the archives of the soul. Each one of us collect, curate, and organize our own preserved thoughts, images, and “recordings.” We bring life to our archives as we share them. Later that night, I thought of how I must continue practicing what I preach. Vigilant daily journal-writing, in and around participating in life, will surely lead to something. Just that small shred of hope, albeit beneath some eighty inches of snow, is enough to record these words and post them. More to follow, as I persevere.

after eight

“Eight days a week
is not enough to show I care.”

~ John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Eight Days a Week.

La Vie Graphite, the blog you presently see before you, is eight years in progress, and now into its ninth year. The actual anniversary is in June, but this past year has been an unusual one. Among the many adventures documented among these essays, my long sojourn at Oxford- combined with a return to Wales- led to the recent string of fourteen essays. My determination to complete the cycle of writing delayed the annual recognition of my online writing continuum. Dreamlike and dream-fulfilling as the experience was, the time of exploration, substantial study, and expression was highly concentrated and not easy to describe. After returning, I’ve been trying to regather my forces through intense exhaustion. The usual output has curtailed, but I have every intention to resume my pace.

As always, gratitude is at the forefront with each milestone. I am grateful for the reading audience- especially considering the autobiographical nature of most of the content in my essays. My thankfulness also continues for the opportunities thus far in my adventures with the written word, the life of pilgrimage, and simply for the ability to write. Amidst eight years of essays, I’ve written from various countries, many retreats, countless indoor and outdoor perches, and during a couple thousand workday lunch breaks. This format is almost as portable as the always-handy pencil and notebook.

For me, blogging began as an outward version of my written journals. I wanted to reach beyond a blank bound book, composing some completed, more polished thoughts as essays, using photography- which for many years was my livelihood and career. And thus the production has proceeded, through travels and motifs, with readers and fellow writers, gratefully as somehow part of an ethereal fellowship in the blogosphere- even the Typosphere. Indeed, I continue with my daily handwritten journals. About ten years ago, I began the pattern of maintaining two journals: one that has structured observations written in ink, and another that is simply a place for fast jottings in pencil- which I’ve long referred to as la vie graphite. The latter tends to be a pocket-sized notebook which accompanies me as easily as a wallet. Pencilled observations, like charcoal sketches, can be smudged, drawn-over, and redrawn, due to the amenable nature of graphite. Blogging adds yet another useful dimension, aside from online presentation: a commitment to production. The “date stamp” of blogging is a constant reminder to continue. I can’t sit on my hands- or lean on my elbows- if I want to be a writer. At the same time, I must live the experience as a participant in life and as a practitioner, and write, if I want to be a writer. Commitment and authenticity help to counteract ignorance. In some memorable words of written correspondence, Flaubert described this passion very well, invoking Pierre de Ronsard:

“Ronsard advises the poet ‘to become well versed in the arts and crafts- to frequent blacksmiths, goldsmiths, locksmiths, etc.- in order to enrich his stock of metaphors. And indeed that is the sort of thing that makes for rich and varied language. The sentences in a book must quiver like the leaves in a forest, all dissimilar in their similarity.’”

Flaubert quoted the 16th century poet, in a letter he wrote in 1854, and here I have added this to the blogosphere in 2014. It is wonderful advice, and I have found such perspective extremely useful in my observations and reflective writing. Listening for the vocabularies of mechanics, scientists, and engineers- as examples- has opened descriptive doors I might not have found otherwise. In this way, journal-writing is something of a journalistic adventure. Returning to my gratitude, observing and writing seem to continue for me quite naturally.

Above: Portland Road, in Oxford, England.
Below: Portland, Maine.

Now to look forward. Even after having traversed these years, there are still many words and themes yet to assemble. There is much more writing to do than there is time available. It is as though a very lengthy path has a very short span of daylight. A personal journal is an ever-unfurling manuscript, mirroring the places and times of the writer. From the point of writing- the present- we can exercise our forecasting, while producing an archival record for our future reference. The recorded word represents a quest, and in such cultivated pursuits we may find our applicable philosophy. In his commentary upon the works of Saint Bonaventure, John F. Quinn observed how the intention of moral philosophy centers on the practice of compassion. Revolving around that intention, our moral action consists in

“...an unremitting search for beatitude, or happiness, founded on a general knowledge or innate awareness of the principles of natural law and on a natural or instinctive desire for the one and only good that can satisfy a human’s proper longing for spiritual fulfilment.”

With prow to the waterways, Year Nine proceeds with hopes for more octaves to follow. I also hope to find more new recommendations for blogs to read, as well as more readers with whom to interact. The pursuit remains worthwhile. Some of you have asked me about the writing process and about the materials of our craft. I’ll try to balance some of these practitioner’s notes, alongside the journeys and observations. Here’s to eight going on nine!

six of one

“I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed,
debriefed, classified, or numbered.
I am not a number; I am a person.”

~ Number Six, The Prisoner

With the occasion of this entry, I gratefully acknowledge the 6th anniversary of La Vie Graphite, and its embarkation upon year 7. The development and direction of this blog has been quite unexpected, yet much as it is with personal writing, ideas and words meander with the moment. Today, I wrote a bit about this blog, in my handwritten journal, and observed how it seems to continue- and gratefully so. Among typecasts, photo-essays, travels, monastic despatches, and the varied ordinary times of the long pilgrim road of a life of days, there remains a unifying continuum. The pace of publication fluctuates with the slices of time I can devote to these essays, but it hasn’t been for lack of interest. Blogging continues to be as much a worthwhile project as it is an enjoyable challenge. Because entries are date-stamped, there is an inherent motivation to follow through with additional and newer observations. Thus, as with journaling, thought processes, and steps in a long journey, there is continuity.

Six years, and just over three hundred essays along, there are enough reasons to keep going. Reflective writing can generate a sense of creative satisfaction. The encouragement of readers is something I’ve cherished very much. The blogosphere, however, is both ocean and desert. In the elusive vastness of web-based media, readers must forage for writing that speaks to them. That has been my continuing experience, as both reader and writer. Abundance and scarcity intertwine. Yet, somehow, many of us are able to make connections through these electronic means. In addition, digitized words and images can be formed and tailored into ways of transmitting personal ideas, yearnings of the soul, and methods of writing done by hand. As always and ever, my gratitude for readers of this blog continues. My hopes also continue that more readers seeking encouragement and the fellowship of written narrative will find this blog.

Seasons in transition provide an opportunity to reflect upon the adventure of writing. My days and years are trails trimmed in graphite lines. The many written marks and jottings loop and wind into responses, projections, and explorations that evolve with the advance of time. But then, as I’ve found, a writer’s present voice can venture into visitations of the past- as needed. Surely, my preference is to look forward, though I have known the discreet benefits of tracing steps from times long ago. Writing the grand voyage is both documentation and discovery. With conscientious writing comes learning. Thomas Merton acknowledged how writing brought depth to his monastic vocation, teaching him “to let go of my idea of myself, to take myself with more than one grain of salt.” He was certain of his vocation as a writer, affirming that writing was a spiritual gift given to him that he might in turn give it back through his work.

It is easy for me to coincide this 6th anniversary essay with my all-time favorite television serial The Prisoner. I’d have made the reference anyway with the protagonist’s name, “Citizen Number Six” in mind, but now can add photographs I recently took in Portmeirion, Wales. Patrick McGoohan chose to film The Prisoner in the Italianate peninsula village on the northwest coast of Wales, to add to the surrealism of his futuristic science-fiction drama. It was impossible not to recognize the sites of so many location shots when I finally saw the village in person.

The stories stem from a first episode that shows how Number Six had been abducted to a strange island of people with numbers as names, speaking in suspicious monotones, and dressing alike. The leadership (we never know if there is indeed a Number One) relentlessly tries to mentally break Number Six, but he is more than a match for the successions of Number Twos.

Above: This photo, bought at Cinemabilia in Greenwich Village, was framed over my desk when I was in high school.
Below: A few of the artifacts I brought back from Portmeirion.

The writing and filming are brilliant, as is McGoohan’s portrayal of a man who asserts his individuality, refuses to be confined, and repeats that he is not a number, but is a free man. When I first saw these episodes- repeatedly- as a fifteen-year-old, I was immediately captivated. The scenarios gave me plenty to think about, regarding the strength of an individual’s spirit. Number Six is just the sort of hero I’ve most preferred: wit and integrity defeating enemies, instead of cruelty and violence. Corporate tactlessness tends to live at the shallow end, and it does not last. Number Six, like Ray Bradbury’s Guy Montag, and other similar characters, must navigate higher roads- treacherous as they consistently are. And now comes year seven, with number six in its wake.