Granted that members of the Bush family can act childish at times. But, no, I saw in my mind’s eye an adult. The thought was that you would commune, hand in or over hand, with a peer, but one of a manageable size.

Jer might fit the size requirement but I’m afraid that the product of your mutual efforts might be a cross between a cityscape and a Wickipedia article.

If I am making the correct leaps of imagination, it seems you are saying maybe I should be painting with a kid, guiding lightly, etc.

Nope, can’t do it. Kids are too high maintenance for me. I’m sure there are teachers who can take them in their stride and also do some work of their own, but I have been trained too seriously in the art of being on-call to be able to paint seriously with someone who can’t be treated as an absolute peer (ie –able to find the bathroom, retrieve the water, clean the brushes and bat at the wasps without my aid). I did paint and draw with the grandchild around Portland when she was younger and we had fun. But it was clear that I was a) not teaching her to paint and b) acting grandmotherly unit at all times.

Of course, I could try to get Jer to paint — he’s pretty self-reliant. But I think he might not like the wasps!

Thanks for the idea. One of the difficulties with getting artist-in-residency posts is that they always want you to spend some time teaching children. My muttered mantra is, “I don’t teach!” And that’s in part because I have too much respect for the art of teaching to try to mix it with my arty painting.

As you are appearing in your hamlets so too will my son Adam be appearing this summer in Hamlet at Stan Hywet Hall. He’ll likely be wielding a big thespian brush.

Your notion, to me, of painting those settlements in the far Oregon is, indeed, a shining example of your impulse to connect. Bringing comfort to the stranger through the painted image is a fine idea and one to surely bear fruit, as it has so borne in examples that you have shared.

Did you see George Bush Sr.sky dive? He was attached to an expert and it seemed cozy withal. You might adopt a method from his example. What better commonality than to literally paint Hand-in-glove with another. I can see a big glove in which two hands could fit overlapping. Yours could be upon the other’s as it might be with you and your computer mouse. Best the other person be relatively small as you might have to wrap around like a golf pro correcting a duffer’s swing. What say?

Jay’s comment about “affiliative” impulse feels quite right to me. I don’t think the quilted art and the “affiliative” are necessarily joined, at least not for me, as I always disliked getting pegged into traditional notions about quilting bees and (women’s) communal work.

But it’s true that something about my nature wants more than the solitary processes. I like working beside other people, sharing a common language and common goals, common jokes and common experiences. Because I like that in the rest of my life, I bring that pleasure to my art life, also.

I was thinking about a project that I may be embarked upon, painting bits of the little hamlets that make up the sparsely settled eastern 2/3 of Oregon. The thought of painting the habitats of those people who may feel a bit isolated and ignored seems part of the commonality that I hope will resonate between myself and others.

I’m reading Suzi Gablik’s “Conversations Before the End of Time,” in which she speaks of art as a communal activity. She hopes her conversations (in the form of interviews) will entice people to talk rather than argue and find common ground rather than differences. I can’t go as far as she does in optimism, but it is something I would hope would be part of my art.

So “affiliative” is a compliment (and like many a virtue, it is also a vice.) But I won’t speak to that tonight.

Thank you for sharing your adventures!
Today was a tough day. It helps having friends.

I was going through an extended period of doubting authority : I still suffer from this condition. Actually, it is more than doubting, in many cases, it is laughing at.

That term ‘rebellious’ is going around in my head. Was I rebellious? More offish maybe. I encountered art at a time of personal turmoil over religion and I was going through an extended period of doubting authority. This led to a habit of hearing the teacher talk, but at arms length.

It appears to me that one of the things that you brought over from quilts to painting is an affiliative impulse. It’s dangerous to generalize, but some might see something congregate about quilting. There’s a ‘we’ sense in it that I don’t find so much in painting. I would think that this sense of unity in purpose is for keeping and carrying forward in whatever form it can take. And the form here is the didactic environment. It may be hard to find mutually supportive relationships within the student/teacher dynamic.