I loved hanging out with the master carvers. They were there from before-god-gets-up early until 5pm, when they promptly took off their newspaper hats and scuttled home. They were incredibly skilled, and so fast! They spent most of their time carving replicas of famous works, like the David, and on enormous commissioned pieces and public […]
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STONE CARVER, Part II
The Quarry In 1989, I was thrilled to be invited to go carve marble in a weeks-long workshop in Lucca, Italy, under the instruction of a bona fide marble-carving maestro, Professore Roberto Bertola. I was excited because up until that point, I had only carved the softer stones like soapstone and softer varieties of alabaster. […]
STONE CARVER, Part I
I’m a self-taught stone carver. I had been a studio potter for 15 years when, in late 1981, my car was struck right behind my driver seat by a guy running a red light through an intersection as I attempted to cross. My car did a 180 into a parked car, which slammed into my […]
GIVE IT UP!
Since my parents took me sailing almost before I could walk, being able to sail is like being able to breathe. It’s more than second nature — maybe more like a second set of senses. I can tell right away if someone is a sailor — there’s just something about them — the way they […]
MAKE ART, NOT WORRY!
I was stunned when the first lockdown was announced. Like most, my first thought was, “I can’t go OUT?” But then I realized – I hardly go out anyway! I’m an old fart, so I don’t walk well, and I’m deaf as a post with failing hearing aids, so interactions are difficult to start with. […]
SHE’S NOT THERE!
You’re writing a book! That’s great! You’re going to help people, entertain them, introduce them to something new and/or innovative, or even change the world with your ideas. Let’s say you’re a therapist or health or emotions specialist, and you want to help a person get past unwanted memories of trauma. You’ve gone to school, […]
PRACTICING PEACE
Many years ago in the mid-80s when I lived in Honolulu, I had a psychic reading with a gal named Alice Anne, who was well-known and very popular. At the time, I had a fairly large house with a living room that had enough space to seat 20 or so people. I hosted classes and […]
THE ANCIENTS
When T and I moved into the little one-BR house on Maui near the beach, no one thought to mention it had been built over an ancient Hawaiian burial ground. It had been covered up in the late 1800s to make room for a white-man’s housing development, rows of little plantation houses for the cane-field […]
UNDER THE ORDERLY NIGHT SKIES
We finally got to Huntington Beach, and stayed with T’s mom for a couple weeks. After our snowy misery back east, the good weather seemed just this side of paradise. T got to bliss out surfing every day, while I filled drawing pads and played in the sand. But soon it was obvious we were […]
THE CORNER THAT ALMOST KILLED US
The rest of our visit with my folks was blah-normal. At last it was time to go back to California. After about a nano-second of deliberation, T and I decided that finding a hire-car to deliver to the west coast for someone was a much preferable idea over hitching back. We had had enough of […]
A HARD-WON PEACE
Our drive from Des Moines to Long Island was flawless. I was almost shocked at how easy and fun it was, after our two almost-fatal encounters with truckers. Our ride, Harley, was a delightful man who, instead of leaving us off in Des Moines as we had planned, invited us to stick with him all […]
BILLY’S 18-WHEELER
We left the thrift store wearing every single thing we’d bought. They may have been new-old clothes, but it was beyond description how heavenly it was to be warm again. Now we were seriously hungry. Good fortune was ours — there was a diner close by, so we trudged over, lugging our heavy back packs […]
DONNER PASS
T and I came back to California in the middle of January. Being used to the weather in Hawaii, I forgot all about how wet and cold San Francisco was, and was wearing short-shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops. By the time I got off the plane and over to the baggage claim area, I felt as […]
LET’S GO TO MAUI, HE SAID…
Hurrying, stumbling, trying to get our packs and jackets out of the car as fast as we could, we knew our Ride would drive off without even waiting for us to close his precious bright turquoise 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air’s thick, heavy doors. And he did, the doors swinging shut with a clomph as his […]
MAKING LOVE UNDER THE SLINKY STARS
I met my second hubby in Big Sur. I had been working at Dancer, Fitzgerald and Sample in San Francisco as a junior art director. My very conservative boss, Sam, had a firm hold on the department. Despite the restraints, my co-workers and I spent our days rocking out to the Beatles, the Stones, Van […]
ALIENS OVER MY NEIGHBORHOOD
1966. I was living in a flop house with ten other hippies in Santa Cruz, California, with my brand new boyfriend, T, who would eventually father my children. I woke up when the morning paper slammed to the porch. I went outside, picked it up, and read: ALIENS TO GET GREEN CARDS The article went […]