Brilliant Sugar

In keeping with the porch-and-fall-leaves theme I have been doing at work, here is one of its precursors: an ink and watercolor picture from my 1984 sketchbook, dated October 11. This is a grand old house on Garfield Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In those days, the house was not in such good repair (it has been renovated now) but the architectural details were very sketchworthy. And in the fall the sugar maples on this street put on an eye-blasting display of color. I did not enhance the colors here, I tried to make them as accurate as I could. 

Back in Massachusetts my father seems to be recovering, though his mental state is still "iffy." He was able to hold a lucid conversation with me though after a while he started to ramble. I don't know how to care for an old person and what is "normal" and what is not. I hope he gets some sort of professional care. My mother is looking into it but cost, and my father's resistance, is an ongoing problem.

Come Home to Advertisement

Here's the announcement I made for the Thanksgiving promo booklet, the "Pilgrimager Flyer." The theme as I conceived it for this ad campaign is "Home for the Holidays," with the white carved wood porch railings and ornaments as the visual identification. There are now signs with these logos up all over the store indicating "flyer items." 

The white porch and the autumn leaves are part of my attempt to market comfort food to the already eager customers of Trader Joe's. Affluent or not, they have seen their finances go "splat" in the last half of this year, and even with the election madness over, their lives are uncertain. They can't buy any luxuries, but they can at least buy good food.

The "Home for the Holidays" ad campaign once again illustrates my belief that much of what we see and think is made-up. Not "fake," but mythic and story-like. Even though those small towns where everyone helps each other do exist, it is the idea and the story which really move us. Very few of us urban folk really venture into the country for rugged outdoor adventures, and yet we wear clothes and carry gear originally created for mountaineers and explorers. When I look outdoors at a beautiful autumn gold tree against dark clouds, I see a calendar scene, in which a country road leads to the porch of the home where an imaginary unreal family - who are NOT orcs - waits to welcome me.                   

Portrait of the Artist

Most of the people who read this Blog know what I look like, but for the people who happen by this place and don't, here is a fairly accurate self-portrait. I am an orc. Most orcs are fighters, but I am stuck being an artist instead of a maker of mayhem. Instead, I turn to cheap wine and mind-numbing artwork about pastries and pretty landscapes. Don't believe those game illustrations showing sexy female orcs. Every female in fantasy is young, half-naked, and always sexy. Real female orcs look like me. Don't bother me in my studio. You won't like my orc-ish reaction. 

Iconic Pastries

This is the last of the four signs I am doing for "Natalia's Elegant Creations." It will go in the window of the shop in not-so-elegant downtown Falls Church. When the world is in distress, there will still be mini-cheesecakes and marzipan apricot bars and double chocolate cupcakes. 

I didn't call the parents on Friday and didn't get a call, so perhaps no news is good news. I will be checking them again Saturday. I hope my mother can get some sort of professional care for my father, but I doubt whether it will happen given my father's attitude. The normal rational things of the "real world" don't connect with the world my parents live in. 

Italian Hillside Memories

I did this watercolor in 1975, while I was in Italy. I was the guest of some rich friends who were renting a villa in Port'Ercole, a resort town on the central west coast of the peninsula. I had my art materials with me then as I do now, and I remember sitting on the terrace of their villa doing this view. I did a drawing in water-soluble pencil first and then put watercolor over it. Over the years the paper has turned yellow. You can see the Mediterranean in the upper right of the picture, but I didn't color it blue, because I was called away for some other activity and never finished the picture. I also did the same view in colored pencils and that sketch is still in my archives somewhere. 

My father is home from the hospital and on antibiotics. My mother is trying to take care of him as best she can but he is still too weak to move around and he really needs to be in a convalescent home. He is angry and nasty (as always), and with treatment and rest he seems to be more coherent and alert. There's not much I can say to him, though I still try. 

Monument to Something

There's a spherical monument to something, placed on a planetary wasteland somewhere in the galaxy. Who built it? What does it commemorate? How old is it? No one knows. It shows no sign of age or wear, and so far has not been seen to move, despite its apparent lack of anchoring to the ground surface. Speculations are that it is an atom from an alternate universe, even though it is three meters in diameter. Image created in almighty Photoshop on a pretentious iMac.

My father is home from the hospital and my mother has to take care of him. But he is so weak he can hardly get out of his chair. He snarls at my mother and refuses her help. He continues to be mentally confused. My mother spent a morning attempting to arrange some in-house help from service agencies. They are not poor enough to get state services for free. But father refuses any service that has to be paid for. The story is ongoing. Thanks commenters for your kind remarks. 

Home for the Holidays

It's "flyer" time at Trader Joe's again, where we distribute a leaflet with written paragraphs about our featured goods. The sign crew designs a "flyer indicator" which is placed all over the store where the flyer items are. We put the number of the page where it is written, in the area in the lower right corner. My theme for this indicator is taken from the porch woodwork of an historic house in the center of Falls Church.

I went home for a holiday (Halloween) but my father's condition deteriorated after I left. He is in the hospital now, with what the doctors say is pneumonia. I called him at the hospital and he wasn't doing well mentally. He needs home care when they release him, but he won't pay for it. I am wondering whether I will have to make a quick return to Boston should there be more serious developments.