The Farm

Following a week on the road the bus brings us back to the farm. Ths 300 acre Twitchell Farm is my opportunity to discover that something serene exists in the world beyond the chaos.

For the first few days I wander. I hike the land until tired and then find a tree to lean against. I sit for hours watching whatever happens by...a snail, spider, butterfly, rabbit, hawk or doe.

Morning and evening are linked by my work of collecting a portion of the eggs laid by a flock of 1500 Rhode Island Reds.

Days flow with a nourishing rhythm.

This is an artist's memoir chapter 2
The graphic's done using Sumo

Traveling

I was invited to climb aboard the bus. The band was ready to travel for a week of playing clubs.

Sam who was older and more settled than the other guys in the group gave me a paperback book to read. I became entranced as we moved on down the road. Titled The Way of Life according to Lao Tzu, this book had a similar affect on my mind as the sugar cube...it made a huge space.

I don't recall much of the week on the road, but the book, also know as the Tao Te Ching, has stayed with me for all the years since.

From Wonder into Wonder

Being in the altered state of the sugar cube has its merit.

48 hours later I remain insulated and blissfully unaware of recent events. My mind is spacious and soft. I have been gently placed into a world of nature and wonder.

In the farmhouse I meet the group of rock musicians. My traveling companion dances around her boyfriend. The mood is festive. There is a lot of cheer. One of their tunes is played repeatedly on the radio.

The next morning, out on the front porch, Sam, who is from Hawaii, silently fashions me a pair of sandals from leather scraps...they lace up past my ankles. On the wooden step beside him the fluteplayer sends a silky sound drifting out over the cool grasses like smoke.

The old school bus outside the front door is being packed with sound systems and band equipment. They are readying to depart to the next string of performances.

This is chapter 2 of my memoir on early art influences...a sweet turn.

Quick graphics created using Sumo

I Remember

Eventually he turns left onto a dirt path that winds back and back and back through the blackness. Not so much as a firefly glow pierces the dark.
Dense walls formed by fields of corn rise up on either side of the path. We all laugh. The leaves are slapping against the car doors and coming in through the open windows as we pass.

I'm directed to a flannel sleeping bag already rolled out on the wide plank floor.

In the morning I step outdoors onto the front porch of this ancient farm house.

I see lush open meadows, gently rolling fields surrounded by forest in all directions. I'm standing in the middle of a huge natural bowl. A large flock of sheep wanders close enough that I can hear the sound of the grass being ripped away from the earth as they graze. Listen.

A new sound. A new world....


...to be continued.


This memoir began with the June 8 post and chronicles early influences in this 'Art Life'...that is loved so dearly.

This closes the chapter on a particular rite of passage.
Thank you for your kind emails and inquiries. The three 'Angels from Hell' (as I came to think of them) were killed in the coming year. Two of them by police during a raid the other in a gang fight.

After Midnight

We arrive at a bus station. Stepping off the Greyhound I notice a country store and a place for horses to be tied to a rail in front of it.

A little car is waiting.

A fellow, very friendly and happy to see us, drives us into the deep dark countryside.


This is a memoir tracing early art influences. The quick graphics are done using Sumo.
On August 21 this chapter will close.

My First Trip

We travel into the night.

No Where to Run to

As the day winds down I realize I have nowhere to go. No home to return to. No sense of direction.

On the beach I see a familiar face. A girl that I know from the clubs still lingering at the shore.

We talk for a while and we agree that I will accompany her.

She's getting a ride downtown to the Greyhound Bus station.

Everything Returns to the Sea

Inner Space travel takes place throughout the night. As morning approaches I am still oozing and melding and merging with the micro and the macro. We are one.

At the predawn I pull the natural world across the yard as I make my way to my parents's house. I want to listen to music. I need to hear Jefferson Airplane. I lean my ear against the built-in speaker of the Hi-Fi with the volume set at 1. Like a whisper I hear, "One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small..."

Now while mother is making breakfast sister Lori looks at me and exclaims, "Donna, what's the matter with your eyes?! Mom look at Donna's eyes!!"

Mother can no longer look at me. I am lost to her. Gone.

I find a ride to the beach with a long breakwall that juts out into the Great Lake Erie.

My battered body rocks backward and forward and side to side as the frothing waters crash over me and the boulders. We becoming one with the seaweed and the waves. We/one.

With Diamonds

Half way across town the highway begins to swirl and shift. Reflections shimmer in bright neon. Patterns everywhere. Nothing solid. Street lamps arch to the pavement and where they touch the ground fireworks of color explode in all directions.

I make it back to my parent's driveway. I park my mother's car. It's still Sunday. Just barely. The houses are dark.

I am out of my body in an altogether unfathomable way. I am melting into the summer landscape. The most astounding beauty pulses through my cells. The magnificence of it all oozes out onto the dew damp lawn. The grass appears waist high and it's symphonic. A stereophonic chorus of night insect sounds turn my ears into speakers. I am broadcasting the event. Earth's vibration snake up through my legs and blast out the top of my head like the colored ribbon's of Aurora Borealis. Brightly pigmented trees and street lamps undulate wildly dipping toward the ground. A firefly's flash is a sunburst. Again and again and again in all directions. Asphalt rises and falls in cresting waves lapping my feet and swirling into them.


I am aware of the need to be perfectly silent as I meld and flow into the neighbor's house. I become the stairs, my hand passes through the wood door as I move toward the little bed in the corner of the tiny room they let me use. Sliding down to make contact with the white sheets I sink into and disappear into a marshmellow of softness.


This quick graphic done using Sumo
This memoir began with the June 8 post and this chapter will conclude by August 21.

Lucy in the Sky

He can tell immediately that I am in trouble; injured. Traumatized.

He is kind. Places his arm about me.

There is no concept of time.

He helps me.

I clean myself up.

After a while he opens a briefcase that he placed inside the door when he entered. He finds what he's looking for and extends his hand offering me a cube of sugar.

I am exhausted and scared.

He says, "This will help you to forget everything."

I ask, "What is it?"

He says, "Trust me, it will help."

He smiles softly and says, "Take it. You have two hours before you'll feel the wave. You will be so grateful to me."

The sweetness dissolves into my swollen, burning tongue.

Someone is Approaching

This memoir began with the June 8 post and this chapter will conclude August 21.

As I sit at the table giving myself time to prepare for the long drive home I hear footsteps approaching the back door.

I sit stock still.

The door opens.

A man walks in.

I don't know him.

This drawing done using Sumo.

Further Down the Rabbit Hole

This is a brief memoir about early art's education/influences:

Time has no meaning.

Eventually I make my way slowly down the two dark flights of stairs.

I turn to the left at the bottom moving into the silent kitchen.

I ease down onto the long wooden bench at the kitchen/picnic table.

My eye is drawn upward.

Huge wet black letters fill the ceiling space. The three have left their calling card: Circus, Bouncer, Chains.


This quick sketch done using Sumo.
This memoir chapter that started with the June 8 post will conclude on August 21.

I'm no angel

Being raised Catholic I now know that I will be burning in hellfire for all eternity.

I am clearly no angel. I have been dragged into the bowels of darkness and am lying in the aftermath.

Deeply damaged.

Changed in all ways.

It's still Sunday.

There are no sounds rising up from the floors below.

It seems I am alone.

This quick graphic done using Sumo.

This memoir began June 8 and this chapter will conclude August 21.

Seeing in the Dark

You know when you're exhausted and you pass out and when you wake up you're disoriented... not sure what day it is or what time of day it is?

It was like that with a lot of burning. Pain.

I lay still. Listening.

There is no sound.



this graphic done using Sumo.
This memoir began with the June 8 post and this chapter will conclude August 21.

When the Birds Sing

I can use encouragement.

While I'm a child mom's sweet voice often sings me awake.
Her voice rises up through the heating column that runs next to the stove and culminates in my attic bedroom.

Her favorite wake up call is:
When the Red Red Robin Comes Bob Bob Bobbin' Along:

When the red, red robin comes bob, bob, bobbin' along, along
There'll be no more sobbin' when he starts throbbin' his old sweet song

Wake up, wake up you sleepy head
Get up, get out of bed
Cheer up, cheer up the sun is red
Live, love, laugh and be happy

What if I were blue, now I'm walking through fields of flowers
Rain may glisten but still I listen for hours and hours

I'm just a kid again doing what I did again, singing a song
When the red, red robin comes bob, bob, bobbin' along

Funny how at the oddest times (when I most need mothering I guess) this melody and message filters up out of the ethers.

This graphic done using Sumo
This memoir started with the June 8 post. This chapter will conclude August 21.

This Little Light of Mine...

Angel's Surround

Mother calls me angel. I am her angel baby. She protects me. She worries for me. We cry together when my baby boy is given to Catholic Charities on June 9. Her first grand. My one and only.

Life is changing rapidly and it's still Sunday afternoon. I don't know the date. I don't know the time. It's sunny. It's bright. Summer. July.

The coin is tossed by three large demons wearing leather. They turn and maneuver up and down the attic stairs. Large embroidered patches on their broad leathered backs read HELLS ANGEL.

Dragged bodily into the underworld the soul of what matters floats out into the trees and beyond the beyond.

This quick graphic drawn using Sumo

This memoir began rising up spontaneously with the June 8 post.

Mama Said

I am often too ill to go to school. Mom nestels me into my bed. She lays my sketch book by my knees. She reads me The Ugly Duckling or The Princess and the Pea or The Little Engine That Could. She reminds me to draw. She says, "You know you always feel better when you make a drawing." She says, "This too shall pass."

This quick graphic done using Sumo.
This memoir began with the June 8 post and this chapter will be complete by August 21.

Life Lesson 101

Mom adored me. She encouraged me. She helped me every step of the way. She taught me a special lesson when I was young.

One day she asked me to do something and I said, "I can't."

Hearing the words she softens and calmly instructs me to bring her a piece of paper. She draws the letters C A N ' T.

Taking paper in hand she carefully tears away the ' T. As the scrap floats to the floor she smiles gently saying: "Donna, no matter what happens remember that you can always cut the T off can't...then what do you have left?"

I whisper: "I can."

Now on this particular Sunday afternoon I am floating out beyond the three small attic windows. I am floating above the trees and the Mourning Doves call. I am floating high above the locked attic door.

My body is being changed forever.

I can see my life passing before my eyes.

This quick graphic drawn using Sumo.

This memoir began with the June 8 post and this 'defining moment' chapter will be completed by August 21.