The book is full of personal vignettes � stories from her own experience that she uses to illustrate one aspect or another of being an artist and trying to make a living while trying to have a life. I�ve skimmed through most of the book, reading it in bits and pieces, and there is one aspect of her character that really stands out for me:

Courage.

An example: She tells the story of the year she lived in Santa Fe to establish herself as an artist with the galleries there. She was working at home one day when her mother called excitedly to say, �Gloria, you won�t believe who is here in Wild Oats Market, having a salad for lunch. James Taylor!� (Yes, that James Taylor.)

So Gloria throws off her studio apron, rushes down to Wild Oats and meets her mother, who takes her back to the deli section where, indeed, Sweet Baby James Himself is sitting alone quietly eating his lunch. Taking a deep breath (she admits to almost paralyzing nervousness), Gloria walks up to him, interrupts his lunch, tells him in very simple terms how much his music has meant to her, and thanks him for it. To his great credit, he listens and then thanks her in return instead of being annoyed at being interrupted.

What struck me in reading that story was the difference between the way she approached him and the way I would have handled it. I�d have recognized him if I�d been in the market, no question. If someone had called me and said, “He�s down here and you just gotta come see!” I might have gone, but I�d have been damned sure to stay out of his way, make sure he never was aware of me. I can�t imagine having the courage � or chutzpah � to insert myself even temporarily into the life of someone like that, to call attention to me, even if it were to thank him for the joy he�d brought into my life.

(Although I did do that once, by email. I wrote to the contact address on Jeff Lorber�s website to ask a question about sheet music, taking a moment to say how much his music meant to me. And he answered personally.)

And yet… is what she did so much different than what I�m doing, putting my own thoughts and stuff out here for you, the faithful 2.7, to read every day? I�ve often thought that if I get through this life without leaving any trace I�d be happy. Completely anonymous; no photographs, nothing that a future genealogist could find out about me.

I don�t think I�ve succeeded very well at the leaving no trace thing, so maybe I have a form of courage too.

Somewhere.

I bought this book a couple of years ago, the last time the subject came around on QA, thinking that it would be helpful in both the exploring-the-inner-self and how-to-do-collage areas that I was learning about at the time.

Have you ever read a book that everyone else was delighted with, only to find that it leaves you totally cold? That was my reaction, when I got my copy and read through it. Frost takes a well-known concept, Jungian archetypes, renames it to Neter which rhymes with better (why not spell it “Netter,” then?), and proceeds to muddle the entire idea into something that really doesn’t resemble Jung at all.

That’s her prerogative, of course. I think she would have been better off to start out with a fresh concept instead of trying to tie it to an established and well-known pattern of thought.

She also uses the Tarot as a jumping-off point in setting up her SoulCollageâ„¢ cards, only to immediately throw everything about the Tarot out the window. You know, I do this with my kids sometimes when talking about two similar things, but it’s completely tongue-in-cheek: “They’re exactly alike, only totally different.”

She does it quite seriously.

Okay… well, what about the how-to-do-collage part of the book?

One chapter. Seven pages, of which one full page and half of three other pages are pictures of cards that her students have created, leaving four and a half pages of how-to-do-it.

“Death/Rebirth”
Kylea Taylor

At least the pictures are good, right?

I’ll just say they are not my style and they do not appeal to me. The cards shown in the book are of the cut-out-magazine-pictures-and-glue-them-together style. Visually very jumbled and unattractive.

Seena Frost has a website, www.soulcollage.com, which offers a “reading” based on four randomly-chosen cards featured in the book. There are other resources available on the website, too, including book reviews and articles, a discussion board, and more photographs submitted by readers.

In keeping with my own spiritual journey toward cleanliness in my studio, I have placed my copy of the book for sale on Amazon at $15.00.

Enjoy.

I’m making some headway against the chaos. We took three big boxes o’ stuff to Goodwill yesterday, and I am currently filling another box with books and magazines for the library sale.

Does anyone read mysteries? I have some nice hardback Richard Lockridge (Inspector Heimrich), Ellis Peters (Inspector George Felse), Wendy Hornsby (Maggie MacGowan), Carole Nelson Douglas (Midnight Louie), and Colin Dexter (Inspector Morse) in the box waiting for a new home. If you are interested, drop me an email (link in upper right corner) and I’ll send ‘em off to you.

Titles after the jump.

Ellis Peters (1951) Fallen into the Pit, the first Inspector George Felse mystery
Ellis Peters (1964) Flight of a Witch, the second Inspector George Felse mystery

Richard Lockridge (1973) Not I, Said the Sparrow
Richard Lockridge (1976) Dead Run

Wendy Hornsby (1992) Telling Lies, Maggie McGowan Book 1
Wendy Hornsby (1993) Midnight Baby, Maggie McGowan Book 2
Wendy Hornsby (1994) Bad Intent, Maggie McGowan Book 3
Wendy Hornsby (1995) 77th Street Requiem, Maggie McGowan Book 4 (2 copies)
Wendy Hornsby (1997) A Hard Light, Maggie McGowan Book 5

Carole Nelson Douglas (1999) Cat in an Indigo Mood
Carole Nelson Douglas (1992) Catnap (paperback)

Colin Dexter (1986) The Secret of Annexe 3 (paperback)
Colin Dexter (1991) The Jewel That Was Ours (paperback)

By late afternoon, I decided I needed a book. A lightweight book: something that would take my mind off the miserables but not require deep critical thinking. I got up and headed to The Upper Library, which in most houses would be called the living room and dining room.

There are two more tall cases out of sight to the left in the second photo. The Lower Library, downstairs in my studio, has at least this many books as well.

You know what? There’s nothing to read in this house.

I’d better feel like working today.

A note about comments on the blog: I’m getting hit pretty hard by spammers posting comments linking to offshore casinos and card games, so for the nonce I am requiring all comments to be approved before they appear on the blog. This may last a week or so, which is about how long the last attack lasted. I’ll let you know when it’s over. I appreciate your patience. :)

SueUn of What’s Up??? asked me to write about books, since I don’t watch television.

The most recent fiction book I finished was Something In the Water by Charlotte MacLeod, a Peter Shandy mystery sent to me by a friend who enjoyed it. The Shandy mysteries are uneven – I loved the first in the series, Rest You Merry, but the next several entries were rather silly and flat, full of indistinguishable cardboard characters who are never developed yet seem to have strings of highly improbable adventures resulting in all the good guys reaping great rewards and all the bad guys being severely punished. Reminds me at times of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. This book was better, as though MacLeod actually spent some time on plot and character development. It may not be coincidence that this is the first Shandy in a while that harkens back to the people and events of the first one.

Fiction in my house is shelved into two major categories: “Reread Someday” and “Don’t Bother.” (If it’s really bad, it goes in the “send to the library sale” pile.) This one goes in the “reread” section.

Last nonfiction book read: Urgent 2nd Class: Creating Curious Collage, Dubious Documents, And Other Art From Ephemera by Nick Bantock.

WARNING: If you read this book, take precautions. Freeze all your credit cards in ice cubes and bury them at the back of the freezer. Add eBay to your list of banned sites under Parental Controls. Otherwise you will spend way too much money buying weird paper ephemera like old banknotes and foreign stamps from countries that no longer exist, newspaper clippings from somebody’s wedding in Nebraska in 1948, old magazines and photographs, calendars from the Liberty National Life Insurance Company, and sheet music for songs popular during the Spanish-American War. Then you will spread all this stuff out on your work table, ask yourself “What in the world am I going to do with all this???,” bundle it back into a box, and file it in the storeroom with all the Other Stuff.

This book is Highly Recommended. :D

Enjoy your day!

One of the good things about living in the midst of this patchwork collection of cities is that there are so many excellent libraries within just a few miles of my house. The two closest ones both have active Friends of the Library groups with permanent book sale rooms and annual Enormous BlowOut Book Sales to raise money for new book purchases. (Unfortunately, every time I go to donate books, I seem to come home with twice as much as I donate. I’m losing ground.)

Last week I found this treasure from 1904 at the Vestavia library sale room on the neglected shelf marked “old books.” For a dollar!

I am a sucker for old books. I buy them for their graphics, for the typography, for the illustrations.

This one is a century-old romance tale (a remarkably saccharine one at that), full of strapping, brave Puritan youths and dusky Indian maids “whose robe of ornamented skins confined by a jewelled girdle proclaimed the rank of chieftain’s daughter.” Despite the title, it seems to have nothing to do with knitting.  Sigh.

But isn’t the cover absolutely stunning? I love it. Where else could you find Dellia Robbia swags, hearts, and arrows in the same graphic?