January 1, 2010
The Junk Mail Project and I, having survived yet another Hellbent Holiday season, stand before the New Year, look it square in the face and tell it to move along it if it knows what’s good for it. I’ve got work to do and classes to teach and books to write and pictures to paint! I won’t have it standing around gawking at its own dewy freshness while its arteries start to harden and vision begins to fail and nothing gets done. Dance, I say, and make me look back 12 months from now and think “What a Heckuva Year! Hate to see ya go!” None of this muttering about what might have been and wished it was.
Why, I’ve got my Words and Pictures: Drawing Literature From Art class to teach through UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. We’ll be exploring visual art as a prompt for creative writing, whether it’s essay, memoir or fiction. If it’s anything like last semester I taught it, we’ll have a lively collection of writers AND visual artists who’ve come for some cross inspiration. The eight saturdays beginning January 23 will include trips to the Getty and Hammer Museums, where we’ll enjoy special gallery talks designed just for us and there will be a visit to the Brewery Art Complex studio of acclaimed L.A. artist and Claremont MFA program head emeritus, Roland Reiss, to discuss his sculptures and paintings and narrative in contemporary art.
As I prep for that, I’m also doing another illustrated text piece for Arroyo Magazine, this time on the science of love, for the February issue. I promise surprising information about what makes us fall into it and why we stick around for more. I’ve also been asked to paint the cover, a first for me and the magazine. Arroyo is big and glossy and goes to only the best east side homes and businesses and personally,I can’t wait to see how that turns out! Previous Arroyo topics have included the Rose Bowl Flea Market, Forest Lawn and the critters who made entertaining in my Glendale home such a delightful challenge all those years.
And did I mention the second novel I’m working on, dealing with domestic issues other than entertaining, and my Venice Running Project which I hope will culminate in a text and photo exhibit this October? Whew.
Oh, and somewhere in between it all, Somebody and I are thinking we might finally get that walk in across England. But we won’t be trekking across the Upson Downs June 5, as I’ve got to be in L.A. to teach The Writer’s Banquet: A One Day Workshop Exploring Food and Memory.
If I hadn’t finally figured out that Somebody liked to cook and could do it (with supervision), and if Somebody hadn’t gifted me with Bose Noise Canceling headphones for Christmas so I can’t hear him rattling those pots and pans, I wouldn’t have time to do much of anything this year. But look at me, I’m even blogging, and we’ve only just begun.
Have a happy and healthy one, and do come back soon for more, cause I know I plan to. But right now, me and the New Year have got to move along…
P.S. If you’d like to hear the lively Los Angeles Times Festival of Books panel discussion titled “The Page Turner” I did this past April with Karen Joy Fowler, Gigi Levangie Grazer, and Debra Ginsberg, moderated by Bernadette Murphy, it can now be downloaded at Audible.com. You can find it under “The Page Turner:(2009) Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.” Enjoy–I know I did!
