The Other Side of the Fence

By Ellen Blum Barish
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dream fencePhotographs by Ellen Blum Barish

June was light on blog posts because I was in New Mexico on what was planned as a writing retreat. But the desert, I learned, has other plans.

I was in Abiquiu – Georgia O’Keefe country – with six women artists who came to study and make abstract art with Marianne Mitchell, a dear, longtime friend who is a gifted painter and teacher.  I took the last available room at the casita (where the art was taking place) and helped with studio set up and meal prep. The idea was that I’d listen in, observe the demos and maybe soak up some inspiration and energy from the painters, but that I’d be somewhere with a breeze, under a tree, writing.

Well if you’ve been to the desert, you know that the sun blazes and breezes are few and far between and that what trees are available are used to build fences. I was captivated by them right from the start because the landscape was so vast and overwhelming and the fences represented the human contribution; a clue that human beings not only made their way in the desert but found a way to live in it.

If fence obsession was the first surprise, the second was that strings of words didn’t come to me. I don’t think I ever felt so dried up, word-wise, especially in such a beautiful place. Especially with the gift of time. I simply couldn’t access them. The desert staked its claim.

So I painted and sketched instead.

I decided to focus on the fences. Here are some of the pencil sketches:

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And then, this:

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The third day in the desert, I dreamed of a painting. And so, I tried my hand at oil pastels to capture it and here’s what happened:

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And then, I just played:

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My writing students frequently hear me touting the advantages of cross-pollinating their arts. I urge them to take out their dusty guitars, throw some clay onto a wheel or just make collages with magazine images so that they activate the other side of their brain to shake things up and not get stale. There are advantages to jumping over the fence to the see the other side. But the teacher hadn’t been following her own advice and clearly the desert was saying, “it’s time.”

In one of my workshops this week, I shared my pastels and pencils adventure with my students and I wrote these words on the board: line, shape. color, and value. These are the terms Marianne used to identify aspects of abstract art. I quickly saw that these had a writing connection:

Line: storyline or narrative

Shape: structure or form

Color: details and voice

Value: tension and contrast

I may not have strung words together into sentences while I was in the desert, but I left with four potent ones that express the way I see what painters and writers share: creative process put to paper, with words or without.

A week without words was the desert’s gift to me; wrapped in paper and a glorious bow by the women who illuminate the world with their imaginations, their skill, their insights, emotions and their paint.

If you want to learn more about Marianne’s painting workshops or how to work with her privately, go to www.mariannemitchell.com.

On Getting Published

By Ellen Blum Barish
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Publication isn’t the only goal for a writer. The very idea of getting published can actually get in the way of the process. I’ve seen students derailed by the critical editor in their mind’s eye and stopped in their tracks by rejection.

I urge my students to keep focused on the project at the end of their fingertips and their heart in the story they want to tell. Isn’t that what brought them to the page in the first place? Publication is not the measure of success, just one measure. In fact, lately I’ve been encouraging my students to consider submitting their work to storytelling festivals and spoken word events because more people will be exposed to their work. (A recent slew of literary journal rejections in my own working life has opened this up for me and I’ll be blogging about that soon.)

That said, publication happens. And when it does, it does feel very confirming. Sometimes it’s about the right topic sent to a publication just at the right moment. Sometimes it’s about writing something with a specific publication in mind. Sometimes it’s about sheer determination, sending the piece out again and again until an editor bites.

So I want to acknowledge the writers I’ve worked with —  in my workshops or privately – for whom publication has, indeed, happened. It is very exciting to see one’s work land on the page or screen, or on the radio. But most importantly, I think, is the simple and delicious experience of having one’s words seen and heard, and the magic that can come from a good, dynamic workshopping process.

My congratulations to current and former students for these well-earned bylines:

Jan Stone

“What Needlecraft Gives Me,” More Magazine

http://www.more.com/member-voices/your-stories/what-needlecraft-gives-me

 

Alene Frost

“A Father’s Fourth of July,” WBEZ/Chicago Public Radio

http://www.wbez.org/episode-segments/fathers-fourth-july

 

Whitney Dibo

“Four Down: To Caress. Six Letters. Starting with an S,” Blood Orange Review

http://www.bloodorangereview.com/v5-2/dibo_four.htm

 

Fay Katlin

“It’s Never Too Late: A Northbrook Woman Volunteers for the Israeli Army: At 74”

North Shore Magazine

(published January 2009 – magazine is no longer available online.)

 

Judy Panko Reis

Watch for “Pele and Me,” by

in a forthcoming issue of Shambhala Sun

http://www.shambhalasun.com

Photo by Ellen Blum Barish 

Growing Season

By Ellen Blum Barish
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I’m a late-bloomer gardener, gardener a generous term to call the repotting and repositioning that I do in my backyard with plants purchased from Home Depot.

Each year, I notice that I pay just a little more attention to how well they do in the places I put them. Pre-potted blooms are expensive! I want them to last all summer and perhaps, if brought indoors, through the winter months. And I’m frequently rewarded with lessons on life – and writing – from Mother Nature.

Here’s the lesson, so far, of this growing season:

The plants that I fuss over, like the hibiscus in the sunniest spot in my yard, whose dirt I keep moist and brown-edged leaves I clip, hasn’t bloomed since I brought it home.  I know it’s a tropical plant and here in the midwest, it hasn’t been very hot and moist. It’s just a lovely pot of thick, healthy green leaves at the moment.

But the plants I have not fussed over at all, like this one that I forget to water, that hangs by the hammock under an umbrella of tree branches:

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is doing just fine, thank you.

And check this out: See this little green growing thing?

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Guess where I found it and at least eight others like it?

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When I opened my shed door, the little red wagon filled with potting dirt that lives there in the dark with an assortment of varmints and only the tiniest bit of light coming through a broken window.

I suspect someone with botanic brawn will let me know the science of this – I’m sure there there’s an explanation – but what interests me at the moment is how well things grow; how much things want to grow, without any human help at all. Nature is … extremely self sufficient.

You might be asking how does my excuse for a real garden relate to writing process?

As a gentle reminder not to over-water, over-feed, over-fret and over-work our creations. To first give them a chance to find their own place in the sun and intervene, if necessary, later.

I’ll keep you posted.

Photos by Ellen Blum Barish

 

 

Still Life

By Ellen Blum Barish
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Like everyone I know with a high-resolution, smart phone camera, I’m taking pictures. I’ve always taken them –  I have two bookcases full of fat, metal-ringed bound albums covering the first half of my life, especially when my daughters were young.

But now, like everyone else, most of the shots I take live in my iPhoto app or on Facebook or as blog images. But that’s where I am these days so, oddly, even though my photographs are mere shadows and light on my electronic devices, I’m actually spending more time with them than ever before. I’m inspecting them at closer range. And I’m seeing how the good ones – not necessarily the pretty ones but the ones that I tend to linger on, contain so much story. Stories that appear bent on telling themselves. They simply come to the surface, effortlessly.

Something makes me want to still the moment, but the moment ends up showing itself in a surprising way. It’s a reminder to me that to be human is to have that desire to tell, capture, to facilitate story telling.

Some images to help make my point:

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Photo by Ellen Blum Barish

So on one of those glorious late afternoons last week, spring actually showing itself as pure spring, I wandered into my backyard toward my very aging shed. It’s in dire need of a new roof, some window adjustments and paint. As I drew in closer, I noted the double window image. That cool way you can look through one window into another for two distinct views. Looking in and out at the same time. I pulled out my iphone, which, these days, is always at hand, and snapped that moment. It wasn’t until I sent it to my iPhoto folder and looked at it later that night that I saw the my reflection in the glass. Not just two views, but three.

 

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Photo by Ellen Blum Barish

And just yesterday – one of the wilder weather patterns whipped through Chicago. Temperatures in the upper 70s, high humidity moved into a strong rain, the kind that wets you down in the 10 seconds it took you to get to your car and then stopped after 20 minutes. The temps stayed high, the sun came out and it the cycle repeated once again. I was driving west, into all of this, to take my daughter to a doctor appointment. Thirty minutes later, the clouds went all cottony and that arch of color appeared in the sky and out came my iphone (yes while on the road but only when I came to a full stop!). The rainbow took its bow, after its atmospheric drama.

Like the adage, it does appear to be true, that a picture can do so much …  saying. But I just love the surprises that can come when we trust the telling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summer Isn’t Just for Reading

By Ellen Blum Barish
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Photo by Ellen Blum Barish

With its flood of light, summer may be time to read, but for those of us who like to write, it is, most definitively, writing season. Time to curl up on your favorite armchair with your laptop on your knees or sprawl on a café table with a Sharpie and a yellow legal pad. Pick your position and your tools. Read something well written. Add a well-selected prompt. Claim 20 minutes (30 if you can!) Mix in a deadline, some friendly feedback and you have, most definitively, impetus to write.

If you are looking to rouse slackened writing muscles or just keep them from atrophying, let me help facilitate. I’m teaching two writing workshops this summer – a six-week Tuesday evening workshop and an eight-week Wednesday afternoon workshop to accommodate all schedules.

Identify the stories that are circling around you, stalking you, or taunting you to write them, and transform them into personal essays, memoir, or even short fiction in my Tuesday evening workshop titled “Find Your Story” at StoryStudio Chicago beginning on June 4th.

If you can’t get enough of personal essays, then consider my Wednesday afternoon workshop at New Trier Extension that starts June 5. In this eight-week workshop, “A Close Look at Personal Essay,” we’ll read essays that fall into themes and write our own based on our discussions. You can find the online catalogue here (go to page 38 for the workshop description and details), and fill out the online form or register by phone at (847) 446-6600.

It’s easy to keep that picture of yourself writing in your head. This summer, commit to taking it from your imagination to the page. Feel free to email me with questions or if you’d like me to direct to one of my former or ongoing students. You can learn more about my background and teaching style here.

Or, if you’re thinking you’d rather do this without a group – one-to-one –  I’m scheduling private coaching sessions this summer utilizing my workshop readings and assignments so you can join in from the comfort of home via screen or phone receiver.

May the words you read this summer be your own!