OLD Whidbey Life Magazine

Category: Blogs

Minding the Sky | The author and her blue bottle each brave certain stormy seas
JUDITH WALCUTT
March 22, 2013

“Lost and Found on Either Coast”

It’s been two blue bottles tossed and gone since last I wrote. And those days seem a lifetime passed, now. Here and now it is March and the sky is brightening, days are growing longer, the color of the sky and the color of the water are the same shade of pale dove with occasional breaks for golden light to limn the other side of Holmes Harbor with an otherworldly glow.

Back there, in another then, it was the end of October and raining hard from a deep slate sky; it was morning, but it looked like late afternoon, darkening to dusk.

We were on our way to Clearwater, Florida and the first wave of bringing our Agatha Christie show to a bigger place than it had been before. We were full of all the hopes and fears a moment like that could evoke – cold, dank, metaphorical hands clutching my heart and choking my throat with the Fear piece, followed by a hot, electrical fire crackling in my brain, igniting all the Hopes I’d ever had, like fireworks going off in a basement.

During that departing Clinton-Mukilteo Ferry crossing, my witnesses were by my husband and our shuttle’s serendipitous fellow-traveler, playwright Martha Furey, on that very same day off to see her Edith Piaf show brought to vivid life by Joni Takanikos and her son Max, in a Bay-area theatre.

Off on the ferry with my blue bottle prepped for the sea.

I’d prepped my bottle the night before, a darker blue one than the first, into which I dropped the same scrolled poem, “Ontology the Sea and Me,” version #16, signed and dated. I held it in my hands, while the small rains kissed it with a wish for all of us – that our shows would be good work; that they would be seen by people who liked them; and that we would see our artistic visions realized. And then I let it go, like I was throwing a Frisbee hard, backhanded to cut through the wind – a blue bottle of potentials, cast free into the stormy malachite Sound.

I had a certain familiar twinge when it went, an ache and a longing, like when you drop your kid off at kindergarten on the first day of school and feel in your gut that something is beginning and something is ending, and you don’t know the next part of the story yet, so you’re uneasy, but you let go anyway, because it’s the right and natural thing to do – to let go.

In the case of this blue bottle twisting and bobbing so rapidly away in the unwinding wake of the ferry, along with the longing, I felt a little last minute panic as I wondered: Is this one going to make it? Will it get smashed by the next boat out? In short, would we sink or swim, in this time’s crossing of the great waters?

How did we both survive?

In the case of the blue bottle, it took some kind of luck as the weather remained stormy and bleak, with high winds and smashing waves that pounded the Puget Sound shores for most of November.

For us, for the next month, it was moment-by-moment and day-by-day; a difficult climb over treacherous terrain.

We all know that theater is impossible under the best of circumstances – no matter how much rehearsal you have – it’s just never really enough, right? And if there weren’t such a thing as “the last minute,” we’d never get anything done. That’s also true, right? But nonetheless, somehow the show goes on and it opens on opening night, right on time, with a grand “TA DA!” and you’ve done it again! Right.

In our case, total time elapsed from table read to preview night was five days – actor rehearsals, full tech, thousands of light cues, a very complicated, full surround-sound score, a temperamental fog machine, circuits overloaded – both figuratively and literally: Gulp. Did we really do that? Have I lived to tell the tale?

Here I am in Florida with the “BBC Murders” award .

When we got home to the island at the end of November, I put my head down on my kitchen table and cried. I was pretty sure that I had failed at my job miserably, and that if I had to go back as planned on Jan. 3 for an even longer, more demanding process as we moved from a 450-seat house in Clearwater to a 1200 seat house in Fort Lauderdale, I might not make it to the finish line. I might have to stay home, or run away, or take a really long, hot bath and just say “NO!” I felt that bad.

Fortunately, I have a family who knows how to hold me when I feel that frail, providing love and mashed potatoes and gravy, followed by black-and-white movies on demand ‘til the moment of fear and loathing passes.

Just as importantly, I have a spiritual practice that I can turn to and take refuge in – the community of Buddhist practitioners on the South end of the island. I feel fortunate to have that one candle in the dark.

Driving up Highway 525 soon after our return from Fort Lauderdale in February, I took in the reader board of the Trinity Lutheran Church: “Life is hard. Broken people welcome here.”

I felt the message in my solar plexus – I know that feeling; I know the landscape of that state of mind. I felt relief in that moment; was reminded that I am not alone and I live in a place where there is communal acknowledgement of the efficacy of following a spiritual thread in life, in whatever denomination and to whichever door it brings us.

What of the blue bottle of last October’s end, tossed into the wild wind; into waters rough enough to test anyone’s courage – and faith? I received a card in early December. It had been found on the shore of Hat Island on Thanksgiving Day.

Shore of Hat Island where my second message in a blue bottle was found in November 2012.

The finder wrote me back a note, including a picture of where the bottle had been found. It said: “It is surprising that your poem arrived dry and the bottle unbroken after our rough storms and across the rocky shore where I found it.”

But it did survive, as I survived – rough waters, rocky shores, unexpected squalls and strong head winds – we both made it through it all. Yes, I thought, it is surprising just how sturdy a fragile thing can be.

Another message in the bottle; another metaphor to live by.

Island spiritual events:

If you are looking to kindle your own candle in the dark, there are so many ways to go on Whidbey and ample opportunity to deepen your spiritual practice within the community at large.
- Whidbey Institute will host its annual Easter service 11 a.m. Sunday, March 31 at Thomas Berry Hall. A non-sectarian celebration of Spring and rebirth through stories, songs, poetry and music, the service gives the community a chance to gather together, celebrate the return of the light, and commune with the beautiful Chinook land.
- Upcoming within the Buddhist community, we will welcome Lama Tsultrim Allione back to the island to give teachings on Machig Labdron, the 11th century Tibetan yogini and “The Nature of Mind,” from Friday, April 12 to the Sunday, April 14, at the Northwest Language Academy and Cultural Center in Langley. Lama Tsultrim has been a beloved teacher to the community of practicing Buddhists on South Whidbey for many years. She is an author, an international teacher, and the founder/spiritual director of Tara Mandala, a Buddhist retreat center in Pagosa Springs, Colo. For information email shanti1944@gmail.com. For registration, email goodwork@whidbey.com.
Judith Walcutt is an award-winning writer, producer, and director for radio, theatre, and TV. She is a grateful alum of Hedgebrook and is currently working on the absolutely last revision (or almost) of her early novel “Memoirs of a Modern She-Noodle.”
March 22, 2013
Sue the Screenwriter can’t resist the spark of a good story

SUZANNE KELMAN, March 15, 2013

“All Closet Screenwriters – Please Raise Your Hand”

My absolute favorite part of being a storyteller has to be when a story hits you like a slap in the face with a wet kipper. And it can happen just like the 80’s martini commercial … “anytime, anyplace, and anywhere.”

Once I was just reading my way through food labels in the supermarket thinking about having Mexican food for dinner when suddenly I overheard a snippet of a conversation that went something like this….

“So if only she had chopped all that wood they would still be together today!”

Suzanne Kelman’s latest script is “Illusion” and won the best screenplay award for Script-a-thon 2012. (Photo courtesy of Kelman)

That’s all it took. Suddenly the next thing I knew, my mind was whirling off in a million different directions like a terrier chasing a herd of bunnies (or is it a Bobbitt of bunnies or something?) imaginatively checking around every bush, under every piece of sod, tree and stone.

What wood? Why was she chopping? Why was it so pivotal in their relationship?

It was about the time my muddy snout emerged from its third consecutive rabbit hole when I was struck with an idea – a brilliant, non-stick, sparkly, voluptuous idea. And, as is often the case with me, a comedic idea.

At that point, I could hardly breathe as I started checking off all the incredible scenarios that could come out of that one brilliant idea.

Suddenly my shopping basket was tossed asunder as I made my way hastily out of the store saying under my breath, “Out of my way! Pregnant writer coming through.”

I raced to my car, holding that sparkling idea ahead of me like a flaming torch hoping to not lose a fragment of it before I got home to type it on my computer.

So it is, being a passionate storyteller or “concept collector,” as I like to call myself. Some people collect antiques, I collect interesting ideas. And that is how I first became a screenwriter.

A couple of years ago, I took a year off from my theatre work and had a flaming torch of an idea that I thought was a stage play, but something odd happened every time I wrote something down: I saw it as pictures in a movie.

So after about thirty frustrated pages, I decided to look at writing it as a screenplay instead. As I knew nothing about screenwriting, I went to my usual place of learning: Tube University (You Tube) and typed in “how to write a screenplay,” and from a dozen cobbled-together video tutorials from people I could have given birth to, I finished my first screenplay and found my passion in the process.

I had tried the “writing thing” before – novels, short stories, etc. – but always got bored halfway through a story because of all the description. I had to tell the reader how the characters were feeling, how the mother, brother, auntie and dog were feeling.

Screenwriting is so different. It allows me the thrill of telling a story without all the writing; it’s all about pictures. You know what they say about how a picture paints a thousand words? Well, at last I could tell story without a thousand words!

You can start a screenplay with a guy standing on the edge of the Golden Gate Bridge in crumbled clothes, looking down at an old picture of himself and a girl both smiling, and then show him letting go of the picture as he looks down at the water below. You already know what’s going on, right? I admit that was a bit cliché – but that’s the art of screenwriting. It’s all about how to show not tell. This is often how I start a screenplay; through a snippet of gossip that intrigues me or a visual picture that haunts me. In fact, that happened with my latest screenplay.

I was eating a bowl of vegetable soup when suddenly a dramatic picture popped into my head. I saw an odd-looking man in a jumbled apartment, sitting in the one pristine room, painstakingly watching a wall full of ticking clocks as smoke poured under the door of his apartment. I had no idea who he was or why those clocks were more important that being burned to death, but I knew as I worked on it like a jigsaw puzzle, my mind would start gathering together all the parts of the story. The story ended up coming together as the screenplay “Illusion,” which won the Script-a-thon 2012 screenwriting competition.

So, maybe you’re the same way. Maybe you have story ideas, or see pictures. Maybe you’ve tried writing them and, like me, have given up because writing took too much, you know, writing. Maybe your storytelling needs to come out on the screen, and maybe deep inside you there is a screenwriter trying to get out.
Why not give screenwriting a go?

Suzanne Kelman is a multi-award winning screenwriter. Two of her screenplays have been optioned and are in development, while another is in pre-production and due to begin filming in Europe in 2013. Kelman currently enjoys teaching screenwriting classes each month at her home studio in Bayview. If interested, email suzkelman@gmail.com for details.

March 15, 2013
Anne Belov on the indisputable and long-lasting value of art in schools

ANNE BELOV, March 8, 2013

“It’s All in How We See It”

“In the Kitchen” is a monoprint on paper by Anne Belov. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

I’ve been hearing dismaying news about the discontinuation of music and art programs in public schools. I know, I know, shrinking tax base, lack of funds, yadda, yadda, yadda. This is a disturbing trend for so many reasons, and I’m not just talking about loss of arts/music teaching jobs, although that is distressing, as well.

When I think back to how I got started making art, I think about my elementary school art teacher, Mr. Cook. He really encouraged me, and in fact, recommended me for some free classes at the Carnegie Art Museum in Pittsburgh, Pa. Ok, so maybe you are thinking, “Well there were some free art classes available, what’s the big deal if there was no art class in your public school?” The big deal is that those classes wouldn’t have been available to me without the endorsement of my grade school art teacher. Without art teachers sending their students to the programs, the programs go away.

Believe it or not, I was painfully shy as a child, and making pictures and having time in a class where it was okay to draw (as opposed to being reprimanded for drawing where and when I wasn’t supposed to) made a huge difference to me, and I bet it does for many other children, as well. In addition to the emotional benefits that I experienced, there have been studies that show that learning to think visually can expand our capacity to solve all kinds of problems, not just visual ones. It enhances critical, decision-making processes. Pretty good return for making a turkey by tracing around your hand and coloring in the feathers, huh?

Have you ever noticed all the visual stuff around you; the colors in your house, the design of your couch, the label on your breakfast cereal? Ever wonder why watching one movie fills you with dread, and another one gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling just from watching the opening credits? Or why you are attracted to one book cover over another? Someone designed those things. Most likely, someone who made a turkey by tracing around their hand in art class in third grade. Someone’s mom put that drawing up on the refrigerator when they brought it home from school. Someone developed pride in their own accomplishments and started noticing the visual world around them.

Yes, going to art school and getting further training may have taught me why one thing is more visually appealing than another, but even to the “untrained” eye, the visuals affect how you perceive something. You can put aside the “educating the next generation of art buyers” debate, but there is still the issue of how even a little bit of awareness of things visual can enhance our enjoyment of life.

Here’s looking at you!

Belov gives a fellow island Kickstarter shout out to the Cook on Clay kiln builders:

For those of you who are followers of Kickstarter, and of all things local, I’d like to give a shout out about a project that is funding now, and has a March 21 deadline. Cook on Clay, as a unique entity, has only been in existence for just over two years, but the combined experience of the artists who make these beautiful pots spans more than half a century. You might think that a casserole made in an old stained Pyrex dish would be just as tasty as one made in a Cook on Clay pot, but I would argue that feeding the eyes is just as important as feeding your hunger. I hope you’ll check out their project and consider supporting it.

Belov became obsessed with Kickstarter after her first successful project, which raised funds to help pay for an egg tempera painting class in Italy last summer. Her second project, also successful, was to publish the first collection of her cartoons, “The Panda Chronicles Book 1: Your Brain on Pandas.” She has written articles about Kickstarter for Funds For Writers, New York Artists Online Blog and for Whidbey Life Magazine.

Anne Belov paints, writes, makes prints, and is the founder of The Institute for Contemporary Panda Satire. You can find her paintings at the Rob Schouten Gallery, her cartoons on The Panda Chronicles, and her new book here. She will be teaching beginning egg tempera at the Whidbey Island Fine Art Studio in April. For more information: contact WIFAS. Find her regularly at Thank Blog It’s Friday here at WLM.

March 8, 2013
Wintering over with Brown’s Cook on Clay local pork chops with purple potatoes
VICKY BROWN, March 1, 2013

One thing I love about the Pacific Northwest weather is the ability to enjoy comforting, warm food all year long.

Another thing I love? Awesome local ingredients!

Winter purplepotatoes with Pheta and rosemary and maple syrup pork chops from Vicky Brown. (Photos by Vicky Brown)

For the sake of disclosure I am a cheesemaker, I am NOT a chef. I have no formal training in anything cooking related. I grew up with army-style cuisine in our home and didn’t even learn about other options until I started cooking for my own daughter. Around that same time my penchant for devouring cookbooks (no not literally) came to light.

What developed was a passion for excellent, preferably seasonal and local food.

Our family is quite busy, so when we prepare meals it needs to be quick, easy, nourishing and delicious.

This meal took a total of 30 minutes from start to serving – about 5-10 minutes of that was actually working, the rest was sampling the lovely bottle of Syrah from Useless Bay Wines that complemented the meal.
- We started with 2 pork chops (from a local farmer, pigs raised on our whey – how cool is that?).
- We added a handful of purple potatoes and carrots from Georgie at Willowood Farm on Ebey’s Prairie.
- We also enjoyed some greens (lettuce) for our salad and rosemary from Anna at Five Acre Farm.
- Of course, some Pheta from Little Brown Farm.
- There were a few spices added, some garlic (also from Georgie), salt, maple syrup, salad dressing, and some olive oil.
The first thing we did was set the pork chops, thawed in the refrigerator overnight, into a shallow pan with room temperature water and maple syrup.

We put our Cook on Clay pots in the oven and started to preheat with our temp set for 400F. If you don’t own Cook on Clay, check out their Kickstarter campaign. He’s your chance to get some of the best cookware ever and support a growing, local business!

Next, we made a quick and easy salad. The greens in winter are so tasty, so you don’t need to dress them up. We added some homemade buttermilk dressing and mixed the beautiful washed and chilled lettuce with some cut carrots, and called it done.

Finally, we washed and cut up the potatoes. We cut them so they are all about the same size which helps to ensure they get done at the same time. I pick purple because they are pretty; they also taste delicious and hold together well for a dish like this. You want about the equivalent of 1 medium potato per person. A “medium potato” is literally a handful; for small, you can fit two in your fist; for large, the potato protrudes out of your fist. We tend to cook more because the leftovers are wonderful and reheat well.

Cube about 1/2 ounce per serving of Pheta cheese for your potatoes (any extra could be thrown in your salad). Mix the potatoes with olive oil, garlic and rosemary, then mix in the cheese. If you’re using Cook on Clay you can really skimp on the olive oil, there is no need to overdo it and end up with fried potatoes. We used about 1-2 tablespoons for this entire pot.

Put the mixture in your heated pot and put it in the oven. (We are using a round Cook on Clay pot here, but a casserole pot works great too.)

After the potatoes have been in the oven for 5 minutes take your pork from the brine and place it on the heated pot (we used the flat
one for this but a casserole would be excellent for this as well). Put the pork in the oven.

In about 5 minutes you’ll want to flip your pork. After 5 more minutes you can flip it again and check to see if it is done. If your meat cuts are thin, you may want to shorten those times, if you have a thicker cut cook it for longer. The clay cooks fast and hot, searing in all the juices so your food doesn’t get dry. It will also continue cooking in the pot so use caution to not overcook your meat after removing it from the oven.

Thank you for joining me for dinner. Happy eating!
March 1, 2013
The Free Range Reader delves into the Japanese custom of ‘furoshiki’

ZIA GIPSON, Feb. 22, 2013

Forty-four years ago I spent the summer in Japan. I vividly remember shopping in tiny stationery stores along crowded Yokohama streets, where the stores wrapped my purchases of delicate paper and envelopes in colored, patterned paper—different in every shop—and tied them with colored string to take home. At each stop I placed my packages into a furoshiki, or wrapping cloth, and tied the top into handles to make a portable bundle. Returning home at the end of the day, I untied the furoshiki to find a pile of elegantly attired packages, each one an artwork in itself. I noticed that each store had its own unique wrapping paper, much the way our shopping bags today carry a company logo.

Zia Gipson’s personal Furoshiki used for wrapping packages to carry home. (Photo courtesy of Zia Gipson)

Later that summer, my family spent a few nights in a Japanese inn, or ryokan. Upon arrival, we changed into yakata, the cool summer cotton kimonos provided by the inn. As we walked through town, it seemed that everyone wore a different, lightweight kimono patterned in indigo blue and white. Had we lost our way, a resident would have been able to tell us where we were staying by the design we wore! This summer feast of design-in-use was the beginning of my lifelong fascination with color and pattern, a minor obsession that has found expression in much of my artistic work.
Today’s blog covers two books about the furoshiki wrapping cloths from Japan that I learned to appreciate so long ago. Still in use, furoshiki are a beautiful and practical alternative to the environmentally disastrous plastic bag. While Americans in some parts of the U.S. have gone back to reusable bags, the Japanese seem to be going back to an older tradition—if indeed they ever left it.
A typical furoshiki is around 17 inches square. The two I have, each 20-inch squares, are printed with depictions of kimono-wearing women. My two cloths have images of old Japan, but many furoshiki I’ve seen on the Web recently are elaborately patterned with images of the natural world, images from domestic life, or abstract patterns.
Sno-Isle Libraries has two very different books on the subject. The first, “Furoshiki Fabric Wraps” by Pixeladies (Deb Cashatt and Kris Sazaki, 2012) tells us that these wrapping cloths were first used to wrap the clothes of nobility. Later, when public baths became popular, the fabric squares were used to carry clothing to and from the baths. “Furoshiki Fabric Wraps” contains how-to-wrap diagrams much like those in origami (paper-folding) manuals. The illustrations take us through basic knots and twists and the various shapes that can be folded or tied for different purposes. For example, there is the hand-carry wrap (a two-handled shape), the watermelon wrap (for long, oval shapes), and several varieties tied especially for carrying books. The authors provide instruction for some surface design techniques for those who wish to make custom wrapping cloths. I especially liked the inclusion of five pages of pull-out how-to-fold cards.
An entirely different type of book on the same topic, Furoshiki “The Art of Japanese Wrapping Fabric” by Kanako Hamasaki (2011) was produced in Japan. Its white-clad cover with minimalist black lettering sets the tone for 244 pages of photographs of the traditional carrying cloths. The photography by Hiroshi Yoda and design by Kazuya Takaoka make the book a visual feast. Limited Japanese and English text appears opposite each image of the cloths, reading something like a koan or haiku. For example, the text for the cloth titled “Fukusa” on page 218 reads:

A crane and a tortoise at the lakeshore.
At the beginning of each seasonal ceremony
the emperor views the sun and the moon.
Court music is played
and danced to for entertainment.
A cup of sake celebrates longevity.

Books like this one always prompt me to wonder whatever possessed the acquisitions staff to purchase such a lovely book. It’s certainly not a predictable addition, making it all the more precious when the reader stumbles across it. That’s the magic of libraries: They bring you gifts you didn’t even know existed and allow you to fall in love with something beautiful and rare.

My “Catches of the Day” are “100 Diagrams that Changed the World: From the Earliest Cave Paintings to the Innovation of the iPod” by Scott Christianson and “My Cool Caravan: An Inspirational Guide to Retro-Style Caravans” by Jane Field-Lewis.

Next time I’ll take a look at two books about color, but in an historical and anthropological context.

Coming up:
Clinton Library Book Sale from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, March 2 at Clinton Community Hall.

In the meantime, don’t forget to put libraries and librarians in your bedtime prayers. I love my library!

Zia Gipson is a mixed-media artist who is working on a series of collages that incorporate printmaking, stamping, drawing, painting, and other forms of mark-making. She’s active in the artists’ groups, Whidbey Island Surface Design and Northwest Designer Craftsmen.

February 22, 2013
Belov on creating histories for the characters in her cartoon

ANNE BELOV, Feb. 15, 2013

“Panda Therapy” from Anne Belov’s Panda Chronicles. (Copyright Anne Belov)

“Character Matters or The Play(ing)’s the Thing”

Writing and drawing a cartoon with continuing story lines and recurring characters is a little like writing a play. Well, a very short play, but nevertheless …

I’ve been a painter since I was young, went to art school and did the whole nine yards; art school, grad school, crappy, menial job, until the day when I threw off the day job yoke of oppression to paint full time. Through years of making art, I discovered the value of “cross training” or working in different mediums. I find that things that apply to one medium can also be used in another, often in a way that gives you more than the expected results.

When my movement into more narrative subjects in painting led me to think about sequential storytelling, I naturally started thinking about picture books, but also cartooning. Now, I have drawn cartoons all my life, but it is only in the past five years that I have found my subject, my obsession some might say, in pandas. I’ll save my story of my ‘pandapiphany’ for some other time. Let’s just say that five years ago, I reawakened a childhood love of the silly black and white bears and they started speaking to me and, of course, I had to listen.

Before you call in the men in white coats brandishing a strait jacket, let’s go back to my idea of ‘cross training.’ One of the joys of reading a really good book is getting to know well-developed characters. Any great writer develops back-stories for their characters to determine actions and explain the ‘whys,’ not just the ‘whats,’ of a characters’ behavior. Even though these details may never appear in full in the book or play, they are crucial to the story.

Now, if you are a “one off” gag cartoonist, this issue is probably not going to come up. But if you have a recurring cast of characters, they need a back-story. At its heart, a comic is as much a written work as a visual one.

Babette de Panda longs for admiration in “Your Brain on Pandas” by Anne Belov. (Copyright Anne Belov)

My cartoon, “The Panda Chronicles: Your Brain on Pandas,” (YBOP ) has several main, named characters. Bob T. Panda, Mehitabel the cat (named after my actual cat, who was named after the character from the classic Don Marquis story, Archie and Mehitabel), Babette de Panda, and the young panda collective known as The Panda Kindergarten make up the regular cast. I didn’t start out to write a back-story for each character, but they slowly began to emerge, at which point I started taking note of who they seemed to be, and then made sure that they were all staying in character.

Babette de Panda, while she has become a cartoon character in YBOP, is not my invention. Since the beginning of my panda obsession, I have acquired quite a number of pandas: stuffed, notepads, bags, you name it. My good friend Victory Schouten bought a small stuffed panda while on a trip, with the intention of gifting it to me. Unfortunately, by the time she got home, Victory had named the panda, (Babette de Panda), they had bonded, and Babette quickly acquired a back-story. (For the record, Babette is French, a bit of a fashion plate, not to mention a terrible flirt, but with a good heart. She is the founding philanthropist of the Hospital for indigent Pandas in Greenbank, Wash.) All of Babette’s further appearances in YBOP are informed by this back-story.

Bob, Mehitabel, and the panda kindergarten all have their stories too. If you are thinking of or are already doing a comic with recurring characters, you owe it to them to sit down with them and get to know them. Have a couple of beers with them and find out their story; ask them about their hopes and dreams. They might surprise you, and your comic series will be all the richer for this.

Anne Belov paints, writes, makes prints, and is the founder of The Institute for Contemporary Panda Satire. You can find her paintings at the Rob Schouten Gallery, her cartoons on The Panda Chronicles, and her new book here. She will be teaching beginning egg tempera at the Whidbey Island Fine Art Studio in April. for more information: contact WIFAS She also writes regularly for Whidbey Life Magazine, an online journal of art and culture on Whidbey island.

February 15, 2013
A theater artist passes the torch of creative power to others

ERIC MULHOLLAND, Feb. 8, 2013

“Social Artistry: Using theatre to make a difference”

When I was a first year theatre major at the University of LaVerne, I took a class during the January inter-term in Children’s Theatre. There were 15 students enrolled and we spent a month acting out wild tales and singing songs for children. I remember in one story about changing seasons, we contorted our bodies to form a large tree shedding and re-growing its leaves to the hit song “Back to Life” by Soul II Soul. We enacted stories that featured brave lions and a funny twist on a popular tale called, “Little Red Riding Chicken.” We chanted kid friendly cheers and danced fun little jigs. And so it went for four glorious fun filled weeks – storytelling, dancing, game playing and singing.

When the inter-term class ended I knew I had found my calling. I promptly asked the professor to mentor me for the duration of my actor training and was pleased when she said yes. I worked closely with her for four years, forming a troupe that traveled to local schools to teach creative drama techniques to teachers and students. One of my favorite projects was working with third graders to act out stories told to them by senior citizens, who were writing their autobiographies. On another occasion, we were asked to coach teenage boys who were writing and performing their personal stories in a monologue project. The theme of their stories was about what led to their incarceration at the juvenile detention center where they were all living at the time.

Working in a detention center with teens who had committed serious crimes was a far cry from playing theatre games with third graders. I was frightened at first and I wondered whether I would be of any help. I worried that my relatively sheltered life experience would seem privileged to them and that we’d discover we had nothing in common. And I confess to having had a fair amount of fear about potential violence erupting behind barred doors. All these judgments swirled around inside of me as I took up my role as acting coach.

I was paired with a young man who was having a hard time reciting his monologue loud enough for people to hear it. I remember that he was a shy, but a tough kind of person, not much younger than me. He wanted to do a good job at the performance and so he was willing to try some acting exercises to connect to the power of his voice. And so with a fair amount of uneasiness coming from each of us, I asked him to lie on his back on the cold hard linoleum and begin with some simple breathing techniques.

I was so nervous. It was the first time I had coached a person on solo performance and the stakes seemed so high. He closed his eyes and followed my instructions – breathe in one, two, three, and out two, three. As he lay there breathing, I followed him. We slipped into deep a breathing pattern together, the kind of breathing pattern I imagine dolphins or whales share. When we were through with that part of our warm up, I could tell that we both felt more at ease. Something happened during our shared breathing that I found transcended dialogue. I don’t know what it was, but somehow after we finished that simple exercise I learned in my acting class, we were more connected.

We did a few more warm ups and then tackled his monologue. I put him through his paces with acting exercises derived from improvisation and method acting. I taught him the importance of dramatic pauses and how to allow the audience to really see him. He bristled at that suggestion and I could tell he was uncomfortable with idea of people looking at him in that way. I suggested that he practice the breathing exercises every day before and on the day of performance. I don’t remember the details of his story, but I do remember the sparkle in his eye when he told it. And his voice was strong and clear. At the end of our time, I thanked him and we shook hands and said goodbye. It was only one session, but I felt totally exhausted.

I never found out how it went for him during the performance. Our troupe received a brief word from the detention center organizer after the fact saying the boys sent their thanks for helping them and that overall the event was a success. I remember thinking at the time that maybe the acting process had a higher purpose than that of making one a great performer. I didn’t need to know how my ‘student’ did in performance, that wasn’t the point of it for me. I was satisfied that I had made an authentic connection using my tools and understanding of acting technique. Sure I had helped him with his voice and performance, but he also helped me. He helped me to understand in those early days of my training that my skills as an actor and a teacher have a profound effect on people. And that perhaps those skills are meant to help a person feel more connected and present.

It’s been 22 years since that first class and I am still at it; still acting, still teaching and still traveling around to schools and youth centers around the world. It’s a pleasure to meet people from all walks of life who come and experience a theatre class with me and leave with a similar sparkle in their eye. To me, I feel like I get to witness people waking up to the power of their creativity. What can be better than that?

Children’s theater on the island:

Disney’s “Aladdin” opens at Whidbey Children’s Theater in Langley on March 1 and closes March 10. To find out more about this production or to get you or your children involved, visit WCT Website for information.

Whidbey Playhouse in Oak Harbor has plenty of opportunities for children to become involved in theater, including upcoming auditions for William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Find out more at the website.

Eric Mulholland is an actor, teacher and writer living on Whidbey Island.

February 8, 2013
Combat the gray days with pussywillows, love songs and a Valentine to the pending spring
SIRI BARDARSON, Feb. 8, 2013

“Love in the Time of Polypro”

Valentines Day is upon us. Love doesn’t seem possible when the mercury hovers around freezing but driving around Whidbey Island on your way to Island Recycling, have you noticed the tips of the willow and the alder? You haven’t? Hmm, yes I know. You are chewing your bottom lip in a worrying, percolating and wintery way; hunched over the steering wheel as the car’s heater hasn’t kicked in, and is it really your turn to do the recycle, you ponder? The radio is tuned to something radical and you are way to crabby to be anything but irritated by what you are listening to. Hey, I’m with you, separate out the plastic, stomp on the corrugated cardboard, be good, do it right and so what?

The “dailyness” of the daily and the grayness of the gray can rut us out. Like the ponies on the pony ride at the fair: around and around on the little path. You know that is not the pony’s true nature to have a day dictated by the constructs of habit rather than spontaneous combustion. I know this from an experience when I was ten and a friend’s family boarded a team of ponies on their property. The ponies looked so damn cute and manageable and little. Believe me, nothing is what it seems. I have never been on an animal that bolted so fast to the nearest stretch of barbed wire just to rub me off and leave me in the grass to cry. The look in that pony’s eye from under her poofy forelock as she wrenched a tuft of green grass was nothing short of mischievous payback.

The good news is that everything is changing for you. On your next trek up to the recycle, open your eyes. Actually, open your eyes and then squint and blur them a little as you gaze at the stand of alder and willow; the tips of the willow are yellow and the tips of the alder are red. Yes, the sap is rising and you need to get tuned in because, like I said earlier, Valentines Day is just around the corner. As always, Mother Nature is on top of it and Valentines Day is her seasonal kick-off party, the re-statement of her vision for us. It is an exceptionally simple mission statement;

“More!” she commands to her brood of flora and fauna.

Mother Nature has major, undeniable love mojo! Baby it’s cold outside in February but she stands there grinning in a heavy coat with a box of Diamond wood stick matches and she is about to light the fuse of spring. If you unbuttoned the top button of her winter coat you’d bump into some pretty steep lingerie or more smooth skin than you could handle. I’m mean really! What do you think is going on underneath her ground? It’s not plain dirt, it’s not plain dirt packed down in the rut of the pony ride, there is stuff down there and everything is heating up again. Soon it will be Spring’s big glorious blue-sky chance to give it all another go.

Don’t let a crocus beat you to it. Apply some chap stick and stand up straight. Turn off the radical radio and start listening to some love songs. I mean like the Temptations or Sam and Dave. For 99 cents you can go out to bleeptunes and download your favorite song from ninth grade. For me that would be the Zombies and “Time of the Season”:

It’s the time of the season, when love runs high
In this time, give it to me easy,
And let me share with pleasured hands….
To take you and the sun to
Promised lands
To show you every one
It’s the time of the season for loving

Mother Nature is never credited with co-writing any of these songs, but she is responsible for many major hits.

I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day.
When it’s cold outside I’ve got the month of May….
I’ve got so much honey the bees envy me.
I’ve got a sweeter song than the birds in the trees.
I guess you’d say
What can make me feel this way?
My girl (my girl, my girl)
Talkin’ ’bout my girl (my girl).

Well, you catch my drift.

Love is so much better for our creative selves than being gray and good. Can we really afford not to pay attention, not to listen to a good song, not to squint our eyes and catch the subtle change in color and hear the strike of the match and the hiss of the lit fuse? However you get down – alone, with many, with one – just do it. Don’t be down; get down! The wise one with the burnt match is grinning; she has plans for you.

Happy Valentines Day!

Siri Bardarson is a musician devoting this year to creative projects that synthesize her classical and popular music backgrounds via her new electric cello. She is ecstatically happy!

Valentine’s Day week music and wine on on Whidbey:
- The annual Sweetheart Big Band Dance with live music by the SWHS and LMS jazz bands is at 7 to 9 p.m. tonight (Feb. 8) at South Whidbey High School New Commons, a fundraiser to enable their participation in the Bellevue College Jazz Festival and the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in February. Tickets are $10 per person or $30 for families of 4 or more; Fancy desserts, refreshments, a raffle and door prizes included! Also, enjoy some Swing-dance Instruction with Walter and Celina Dill. For tickets call (360) 321-825 or get them at the door.
- Red Wine and Chocolate Tour, hosted by the Whidbey Island Vintners Association is Saturday, Feb. 9 and Sunday, Feb. 10/ Saturday, Feb. 16, Sunday, Feb. 17, and Monday, Feb. 18 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, with a tour of local winery tasting rooms at Comforts of Whidbey, Spoiled Dog Winery, Blooms Winery, Taste for Wine & Art, and Holmes Harbor Cellars. Tickets are $20 advance /$25 day of and are available at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/316256 (or at the venues) For more info call: (360) 321-0515. Visit www.whidbeyislandvintners.org.
- Live electric cello and vocals with Siri Bardarson and guitarist, Steve Trembley from 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 10 at Blooms Taste for Wine and Art at the Bayview Cash Store in Langley.
- Singer, songwriter Eric Christensen plays the Front Street Grill in Coupeville from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 13.
- Prima Bistro in Langley hosts a romantic Valentines Day evening with dinner and love songs et vous! Trio Nouveau will play starting at 6 p.m. with classic swing, love songs to create a romantic ambiance for a lovely Valentine’s evening. Savor Prima Bistro’s French inspired cuisine, special Valentine’s desserts and fine wine. C’est magnifique! Reservations: 360-221-4060.
February 8, 2013
Sue the Screenwriter on sending her work off the cliff of judgement

SUZANNE KELMAN, Feb. 1, 2013

“Jumping off a Cliff and Shouting Wheeee!”

When I was in my 20s, I had an incredible experience while I was working and living in Spain. I drove out to the lakes in mountains of southern Spain and leapt from a high cliff into the clear blue waters 20 feet below.

Now you are probably thinking, so what? But for me, a confirmed acrophobic, who likes her feet planted firmly on the ground at all times, it took a couple of glasses of wine and a lot of coaxing from my dare-devil friends on that trip.

I still remember as I stepped out into absolutely nothingness, the sheer fear that raced through my entire body, only to be followed by acute feeling of exhilaration and the need to scream “wheeeee” about halfway down.

Being a writer can sometimes feel a bit like that. I think one of a writer’s greatest thrills is to have the work read aloud to them, and one of a writer’s greatest fears is to have their work read aloud to them.

I have had exactly that very experience in a darkened black box theatre on a Sunday afternoon in December in North Hollywood.

It had been just about a month before when I had received the exciting news, that my current script “Illusion” had not only placed in the top three in comedy category, but it had been judged by Scott Rosenfelt (producer, “Home Alone”) as the best overall script of the competition.

To say I was ecstatic is an understatement, there was dancing and hooting and hollering as I read the email titled “congratulations.” It outlined in great detail the girth of exciting prizes that I would now be receiving including my main prize, a staged reading of my script by professional actors in a theatre in LA. My husband was practically packing before I finished reading out the sentence to him.

As the weekend of the reading approached, all I could think about was a nice sunny weekend break in California in December with my family and my writing partner who was joining me for moral support.

And to be honest I didn’t give the actual read through an awful lot of thought, until the morning of the event.

It was about the time I was staring down out my California breakfast that I realized a group of strangers were about to read my script, out loud, to people. What if it wasn’t funny? Or the story was flat, or it didn’t make any sense!

It didn’t seem to occur to me during this inner dialogue that if the producer of “Home Alone,’ one of the most successful Christmas movies of all time, liked it, and then maybe it wasn’t so bad. This thought didn’t occur to me because the dreaded writer’s curse of self-doubt had leapt up at me from my scrambled eggs like Jaws and wasn’t about to let me go.

So there we were an hour later, in this lovely black box called “The Rose Theatre” in Burbank. We walked inside, and as we did I overheard the actors talking to each other about their characters, my characters, discussing them at great length as if they were real. And it was right then I had that leap in my consciousness.

I had created something that was about to become real; brought to life by these actors, and the rush was intoxicating.

So, I just couldn’t help myself as we settled into to the darkened theater and the stage manager read the words, “fade in…” and started the first line of my script; my 5-year-old self couldn’t help but gather herself for a story. So what if it was mine, this experience was exciting.

I did the expected “writer” thing as they read for 90 minutes. I took notes and outlined text that didn’t work in my copy of the script, but honestly all I could think the whole time was about the amazing journey I was on with a group of people who seemed to actually like the story, they laughed, they cried, and at the end they clapped and then I cried.

Yes, it was intimidating, and yes it was incredible, but more than anything it was real, and it was my work and now as the actors claimed their characters it was their’s too.

And as I watched the audience react and enjoy it, I found myself thinking there is nothing more exhilarating then leaping off a cliff with absolute fear and half way down finding yourself needing to shout wheee!!!!

Suzanne Kelman is a multi-award winning screenwriter. Two of her screenplays have been optioned and are in development, while another is in pre-production and due to begin filming in Europe in 2013. Kelman currently enjoys teaching screenwriting classes each month at her home studio in Bayview. If interested, email suzkelman@gmail.com for details.

February 1, 2013
Free-Range Reader recommends opening that Pandora’s Box of photos and using them

ZIA GIPSON, Jan. 25, 2013

“Using Your Photos Creatively”

In this day of Iphoneology and Instagram many of us end up with thousands of images. Instead of relegating them to permanent storage, books on image and photo transfer give us ways to use images for personal expression or in making one-of-a-kind gifts. Today’s Free-Range Reader looks at library resources that help the image-overloaded move images from one surface (usually paper or a transparency) to another. If you can’t get that piece of cloth, thick paper, or piece of wood into your printer, photo transfers might be just the thing.

Start with some exotic paper and add one or more layers of photographic imagery. Start with a piece of wood you’ve sanded smooth and add photos of trees. Start with a beautiful handmade book and transfer photos of your kids, or use an image from the Internet’s Wikimedia Commons, with it’s a database of 15,266, 845 freely usable media files. (Be sure to read the rules for using these mostly free pictures.) Image transfer makes for a fun art-as-science-with-technology process to pass a rainy day.

Sno-Isle Libraries has a number of good references (search “photo transfer” or “image transfer”). Two books I’ve used that are in the library system are “Image Transfer Workshop-Mixed Media Techniques for Successful Transfers” by Darlene Olivia McElroy and Sandra Duran Wilson 2009 and “Image Transfer-Creating Art with Your Photography” by Ellen Horovitz 2011.

Horovitz’ book has one significant advantage over the earlier volume: her informational grid, “Transfer Summary for Papers and Solvents,” which organizes the complex options for method name, paper type, printer type, and process into an easy-to-use chart that helps you compare your options and avoid flipping back and forth in the book.

I’ve had the most success getting recognizable deep black images by printing my pictures onto transparencies and transferring them to moistened paper using hand sanitizer. The active ingredient in the sanitizer is alcohol, and the alcohol gel releases a film coating from the plastic transfer sheet. Pressure with a burnishing tool moves the gooey film image to the receiving surface of the paper. (Of course, this method works only if you can get your printer to load and print a transparency. I suggest making an offering to Ganeesh the Hindu god, who removes impediments. Light some incense. Throw some salt over your left shoulder. Or throw the incense and torch the salt. Whatever works.) If all else fails, check the Internet for tips on how to print on transparencies without endangering your printer.

Horovitz is somewhat cavalier in her advice about using the concentrated house-cleaning product Citrasolv as a release agent when using transparencies. While she cautions the reader to use acetone in a well-ventilated area, her observation that super-concentrated CitraSolve has “a lovely orange scent” implies that it is exempt from safety precautions. Yikes! Just because it doesn’t smell bad doesn’t mean it should be inhaled. Be good to your body. Use good ventilation, a respirator, and eye protection, especially if you plan on spraying liquids.

Sno-Isle has several other photo and transfer books. “Mixed Emulsions: Altered Art Techniques for Photographic Imagery” by actress Angela Cartwright (Brigitta in the film “The Sound of Music”) and Karen Michel’s “The Complete Guide to Altered Imagery: Mixed Media Techniques for Collage, Altered Books, Artists Journals, and More” are two more resources.

I urge you to choose a book and experiment until you end up with something you find interesting. Start small and don’t worry about what you’re going to do with the results.

Time’s a’wastin’! Let’s get to the studio, basement, dining room table, or garage and get all those pictures out of the phone and into the light of day!

Catches of the Day at Sno-Isle Libraries: “Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain” by Maryanne Wolf; “Eyewitness Handbooks: Butterflies and Moths” by David Carter; and “Shapeshifting: Transformations in Native American Art” by Karen Kramer Russell.

Next Up: A trip to Japan via furoshiki, the art of wrapping with fabric.

In the meantime, don’t forget to put libraries and librarians in your bedtime prayers. I love my library!

Coming up:

Freeland Library Book Sale: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 2 at the library.
Clinton Library Book Sale: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 16, at Clinton Progressive Hall.

Zia Gipson is a mixed-media artist working on a series of 108 collages that incorporate printmaking, stamping, drawing, painting, and other forms of mark-making. She’s active in the artists’ groups Whidbey Island Surface Design and Northwest Designer Craftsmen.

January 25, 2013