Travel Friends

Posted on August 22, 2023 by SusanG

I’m back from my most recent travel adventure. And a fun adventure it was. For a little while on both my trip to Houston and returning from there, I made some travel friends. Which I think is cool. It started at my departing airport with the airline changing my departing gate 5 times or so before settling on the final departure gate.

I was sitting at one of the assigned gates before the final gate when a woman and her two children came over. There was a free seat next to me and one of the kids said in German something about it being a free seat. I responded in German that he should sit there.

For those of you who don’t know, I have been working on learning German for quite some time. I can’t vouch for how good I am as I don’t get to use it much, but this was a small opportunity.

I asked a few questions of the woman, and we talked a while. As it turns out the little group was traveling back from Munich and visiting family. The gate changed and they needed to go do what you do with young kids, so they left. I got some water and then wondered over to the next assigned gate. They were there and the kids were having fun with a gentleman who was on the phone. He was really nice about it all and everything was genial. And then it came time to board.

When I got on board it turned out, one of my seat mates was the woman with the two kids. The boys were one in the row in front of her and one behind.

The little boy in the row in front ended up spending most of the flight with us in our row. At one point he was stretched across the laps of the three of us. Some of what was fun was that because he would talk to his mom in German I got to listen. And I was pleasantly surprised to find I followed most of his conversation. It was also a lot of fun to answer him in German. He didn’t expect it and he would clam up. It was quite comical.

The boy in the row behind made friends with the woman sitting in the window seat and was really quite self-contained especially considering that at four and a half he was the younger of the boys.

They had been traveling for a day or possibly more and were all a bit on the punchy side. The woman was hoping the boys would sleep on the flight, but they didn’t. At least not for most of it. I think they finally fell asleep just before we started our decent.

I know this doesn’t even begin to explain why but for me this was probably one of the most fun flights I’ve taken in a while. I suppose it had to do with how relaxed we all were about it. It didn’t matter that the one boy wanted to sit with us. Or that the other crawled under the seats to visit our row when his brother first came over the seat. It didn’t matter that the one was trying to get a nap but couldn’t get comfortable until we stretched him out. And it didn’t matter or bother anyone that we were talking too much and keeping him awake and he let us know that. It was funny. And for me it was a great flight. Hopefully those couple of hours gave the woman a bit of a respite that made it a little easier to make it through the last leg of their trip home.

My trip home started with some fun as well. Though it didn’t continue on the plane this time. I think much to the relief of one of the other passengers.

These didn’t look real at first.

I was sitting at a bar/food place ordering some breakfast when this gentleman comes up next to me and leans a guitar case against the counter next to me and sits down next to the guitar. I could probably stop the story there and many of you would just figure out that we got to talking. Which would be accurate. But there is a little more fun to this.

So yes, I asked what he had in the case and that started a conversation. We each ordered some breakfast and he asked for “hahm” on his breakfast sandwich. The server didn’t understand him, so I translated, “ham”. Which then prompted the question of where he was from. He’s from Australia. So, more conversation.

We were a fair bit early for the flight, so we chatted while we waited for the flight. And we talked about all kinds of things. It was a great chat. I really enjoyed it. It came time for boarding to start so we continued to chat while we were waiting for the boarding groups. As we were standing around waiting, a guy who’d been sitting the other side of me came up and said something about if we were sitting next to each other on the flight because if we were, it was going to be a long flight. He was sort of amazed about the gamut of topics we’d covered in the hour or so that we were sitting at the bar. We got a good laugh out of that.

We weren’t seated near each other so once I boarded the plane that was the end of the conversation and the fun. The flight was quiet and uneventful. Which is how you want a plane ride to be, uneventful.

The trip was good and covered a good bit of ground. The original purpose was to visit a friend and see the Space Center in Houston. We did that the first day. It was cool to see. I think what was most interesting and disorienting for me was that it was in the city for the most part and as far as I am concerned.

I’m used to Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral in Florida which is an hour or so drive east from Orlando and is part of the Canaveral National Seashore which means there’s not much around the complex. It’s sort of in the middle of nowhere relatively speaking. So that was a big difference with Johnson and Houston Space Center. My friend and I were a bit tired from my late arrival the night before, so we opted for an Uber to and from the Center. We had a great driver on the way back from the Center. Apparently, we got positive marks from the driver for good conversation.

This sat so still I’m still not sure if it was alive or a decoy.

The next day was the Houston Zoo. Yes. It is August. Yes. We went to the Zoo in August. Yes. It was hot. And apparently, I was holding up much better in my jeans and boots than my friend in his shorts and sneakers. I have no explanation. I did get a bunch of great pictures though. That’s what I was hoping for with the trip to the zoo. I was hoping to get photos of animals, and maybe some plants. And I did manage both. I got a lot of animal pictures and a few really cool flower pictures. I’m excited because it means I have more to work from and choose from for some of my next art pieces. Hooray!

The next day, my last day in Houston, was a trip to the Houston Museum of Fine Art. That turned out to be a great treat. It was nice that it was all inside and cool since outside it was hotter than the day before. I found a couple of Van Gogh paintings, a few more Monet’s, a Caillebotte, a Seurat, and a Rousseau. They even had a prime example of a Fauvist painting. That was cool to see. We pretty much spent the whole day in the museum. We got there when it opened and left close to closing time. A day well spent in my books. And I had no idea Houston had such a nice fine art museum.

This was a fun trip and a nice change of pace. And, though it may take me the week to get rested and recovered, I’m excited to get back into all the things I’ve been working on. More soon. Cheers!

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Art and Thoughts

Posted on August 16, 2023 by SusanG

I’ve got a couple of things for this week. Which I guess is good since I didn’t have anything for last week. I wanted to have something for last week and just didn’t. The only thing I really had to share was finishing the Gretsch painting. Which is one of the things I have for this week. So, I guess I’ll start there.

I finished the Gretsch painting last week.  It was a different experience for me in that any previous guitar related paintings have either been stippling with acrylic ink. Still in color, just stippled, and with basically liquid acrylic. And I’ve done one in oil. Yes. Oil paints. I like it. It’s an odd size/shape so it may be interesting framing it or mounting it. I think I’m supposed to varnish it at some point. I’m not sure.

Finished painting

But back to the Gretsch Headstock painting. This one is in watercolor. That was what made it different for me. I wasn’t sure how it was going to work out or really, how I was going to approach it until I got started. I have to say, I am surprised and pleased with the result. The background turned out to be the hardest part because I couldn’t figure out what to do with it for the longest time. I finally settled on the blue. And I filled it out with some variances to make it interesting. Then I worried I’d got it too dark.

This is where, when I realized the wonder and benefit of working in watercolor. Because it is watercolor where I thought it was too dark, I was able to take a clean waterfilled brush and lift out some of the paint and lighten it. I didn’t have to mix colors and worry about how I would get it right or worry about changing the luminescence of the color. I just lifted out the excess pigment. And of course, I got a little heavy handed there too so I worried I got it too light. At which point I realized it wasn’t that it was too light or too dark it was that it needed to not be just blue. So, I added some green. Now I’m happy with it. And I have new respect for working in watercolors.

The next painting, if that’s what we call it, is a stippling of a Koala. I took the picture while I was visiting a conservation area in Australia a few years ago. Because of their fur and its coloring, they are sort of ideal for stippling. Though the long ear hair or fluffiness around the ears is a bit of a challenge. And an interesting one. It should be fun to see this one finish coming together. I worked on it quite a bit over the last few days and while I’d like to get it finished or close to finished this week I don’t see that happening.

I’ve had a couple of interesting experiences around working on the Koala. Both having to do with this being a stippling piece. The first was interesting because I was watching/listening to a concert while I was working on the Koala. I looked up at the screen and the singer on the screen and the lighting and the angle, it was the first time I really considered and thought I could actually do a human portrait in stippling. It’s something I’ve considered before though not with much conviction. Now, it’s something I may explore. Because, why not. Just probably not in the immediate future. I’ve got several other things lined up to work on. Besides the idea needs some time to simmer.

Bird of prey stirring up some trouble outside my window

While I was thinking about working on the Koala, I realized that stippling art projects are very much the epidemy of one of my philosophies(?), if you want to call it that. The phrase, and explanation I often share is ‘Baby steps. Baby steps all in the same direction will still get you there.’ With painting, and even drawing, you can lay down big swaths of color or lines and cover a lot of canvas, or paper, pretty quickly and start to get form and color also fairly quickly. With stippling your best and fastest indication of what a piece is going to look like, at least as I do it, is the sketch outline and rough in that I work on top of before erasing it in the end. It takes a lot of dots to start to see if the piece is going to come together as envisioned or hoped. A stippling project requires patience and persistence. And trust in the process. Normally, I work on art a couple of days during the week and then quite a bit more on the weekend. With the day job, I have to keep in mind that working late into the night is not a good idea during the week. So I do a lot more at the weekends. This weekend, however, I’m traveling so I won’t be working on any art. Well, not directly. Which means it will take a little longer to get the Koala finished and up on the store. I’m hoping that I can get some photos for future projects while I’m traveling. And maybe I’ll have something to share as a blog post or two. If not, it’s all good. My trip is primarily to hang out with a friend and see a few sites anything else is bonus. That’s all I’ve got for now. More soon. Cheers.

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Nothin’ to Say

Posted on August 4, 2023 by SusanG

Yes, the post is “late” this week. Not for lack of trying. I started it a couple of times. I was going to write about a lesson from years ago that I’ve recently had an opportunity to benefit from again. And then I realized, I didn’t really want to write about that. So, I did a step back to figure out what I wanted to write about and discovered, I don’t really have much to say this week.

Though as I thought of that, as often happens, a line from a song popped into my head and I had to mentally sing along. The song, ‘Angel From Montgomery’ the line, ‘How can a person, go to work in the morning, come home in the evening, have nothin’ to say?’ Welcome to my brain.

So. Since I don’t have much to say this week, I’ll share what I’m working on.

My current painting is of the headstock of a Gretsch. A day job colleague has a few guitars and several years ago, he was gracious enough to spend a couple of hours one afternoon letting me take pictures of them. In a life previous to being in technology, he was a working musician. Many, if not all of his guitars are from that time and are decades old, so they have great history baked into them. The fretboard wear, the aged metal, the dings and scratches, and aged wood, all combine to tell a cool story. They have lived a life.

One of the things I’ve been wanting to do has been to share my guitar affection through my art. I’ve completed, or started a few different paintings of guitars, well, parts of guitars, over the years. A couple of those have been using acrylic ink to have color for the stippling. One, I painted in oils. The first real oil painting I’ve done. And it still needs to be signed and sealed, (varnished).  When I decided to paint a guitar after I finished the last piece, I thought about choosing one of those styles, methods, to do this piece because I wanted it to be in color. Then, since I’ve been working in watercolor and colored pencil, I decided I’d give that a go. I am pleasantly surprised to find it working out better than I expected. And it’s not the fight I thought it might be.

I am always fascinated to watch as a painting comes together. There is the initial sketch for reference and layout. It is often the first bit that surprises me. When I get it just right on the paper to the point that I could finish it out as a pencil drawing and it would be just as impactful, then I know it has real potential as a painting. Then there is starting to add the color. The biggest part of the color for me is getting the shade right. That’s when I can really start to see the possibilities.

This piece as been a treat to watch come together. At each step, each day I work on it, at the end of the session I step back hopeful it’s progressing in the right direction. And then I look at it a little stunned and amazed. Stunned and amazed because all the little bits, small touches, and tweaks, as well as the big strokes are coming together to build the image I hoped for when I started.

I am very detail oriented and working in watercolor versus pencil is really challenging to me because once I put color to the paper, I’m mostly committed to the layout, dimensions, placement, and shapes, fixing it if it’s off isn’t an easy option. I’ve had to learn to accept that this is art and may not be exacting with every detail being in the exact place, or even size. That has been a very interesting learning experience with this piece, as well as previous watercolor pieces. It’s a learning to let go and trust.

It can get a bit addictive and obsessive, building a piece of art. I find I easily lose time once I get started. I’ve lost so much sleep because I’ve thought, one more tiny bit and then I’ll stop, and the next thing I know it’s two or three hours later. I’ve had more than a couple of nights like that working on this piece. I’ll probably have one or two more as I work to finish it. And I can’t wait to see the final painting.

Now, for those of you who might be wondering, and might be newer readers. Yes, I do play guitar. As well as make art. I’ve had a guitar for most of my life and played off and on over the years. I try to play with friends on occasion. It has made me a better musician, playing with people. And playing with random, not set groups of people has been a lot of fun. Getting up on stage with a bunch of musicians, some that I’ve never played with before, and calling a key, and a tempo, and coming together to play a song is a lot like the experience I have with creating my art. There is a requirement to just take care of what you’re doing, pay attention to each other, and then trust. Trust that each person will do their part to make the song work and hopefully sound good, while having fun.

And here I thought I had ‘nothin’ to say’. Enjoy the pictures. I’ll have the final piece up on the store as soon as I finish it. Cheers!

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A Couple of Things and AI

Posted on July 17, 2023 by SusanG

First things first. No. You didn’t miss last week’s post. I did. I could offer several reasons or excuses except I don’t know that they would matter. Yes, I had been on holiday from the day job and last week was the return. Yes, I have a friend going through some health issues and I am hopefully being supportive. Yes, I’m working on art projects. Yes, I have music I’m working on, and I have Taekwondo, and it’s summer here in the northern hemisphere. That’s life. 

I also backed off on several things because I didn’t think the post was long enough. They were only a page long but as I’m accustomed to writing longer posts, and the algorithms say posts need to be at least a certain length that meant that they were too short. I think I’m going to set a new standard. I’ll post. Sometimes they will be short, even if they aren’t an announcement. Sometimes they will be long. Somethings don’t require a long dissertation. I just feel they need to be mentioned or observed. So, with that let’s get to this week’s topic. 

patch of pink purple flowers

It was a toss-up this week. I thought about telling you about some new music I have and have listened to. And I thought about talking about the AI thing with Hollywood. I’ve decided to tell you about both, because, why not.

I have two things to share on the music. Both are women singer/songwriters, that I came across because they each did a duet with Olivia Newton-John 20 or so years ago. One was released then, the other was just released in May. Both are outstanding. 

The artist on the song released in May is Vanessa Amorosi. They song is a duet of ‘True to Yourself’ that was released on the Olivia Newton-John duets compilation ‘Just the Two of Us’. I recommend that CD as there are some great tracks, including a great rendition of ‘Jolene’ with Dolly Parton. But back to Vanessa Amorosi. When I listened to that track, ‘True to Yourself’, I was expecting something completely different from her vocal. It’s rich and textured and wow. So, I did a little YouTube and Google search and the first thing I came across was her incredible performance of ‘I Am Woman’ at the ARIA Hall of Fame induction of Helen Reddy. I was floored. What an incredible voice and performance. The second thing I found was her performing ‘Still Got the Blues’ with Orianthi. Yes. I had to forward links of both those videos to at least two music friends because, as I said, wow. She’s on most of the streaming platforms. Her cd ‘City of Angels’ is the latest and it’s great. She has also done some great work with Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics. 

The artist on the song that was released 20 some years ago is Tina Arena. That song ‘I’ll Come Running’ is a Diane Warren song and it’s also on the new duets complication cd. I could write a lot about Tina Arena. She also has a stunning voice. She’s written some great music as well. During the pandemic when we were all being encouraged to stay home and flatten the curve, she helped to entertain followers with her Instagram episodes of QuaranTina.  She has a new cd out called ‘Love Saves’. This one is brand new as in this week. It fits with a lot of her earlier work. There’s a lot of great tracks on it. I’m looking forward to building a new playlist and adding everything to it. 

Rickenbacher 12 string guitar

Before I get to the AI topic, I want to mention how you can already see the impact of the pandemic and the lock downs and restrictions in our art of the time. So, Tina Arena wasn’t the only one entertaining people from home during the lock downs. Sam Neil from Jurassic Park was posting regularly on Instagram and Twitter. Sometimes they were short musings sometimes little sketches. If you can find it, the one with Helena Bonham Carter as his needy iPhone is quite humorous. Patrick Stewart read us Shakespeare’s sonnets. Jimmy Barnes and his family, a very talented crowd, regaled us with daily performances of whatever song. Those were always a great thing to see first thing in the morning. All of that was great and a lovely treat during a very uncertain time. But there are other things that I’ve seen that reflect the time as well and they will be a bit less fleeting.

Those are the videos of performances and music videos that were made as things were tentatively opening up. Restrictions were lifting and people, performers in particular, were trying to get back to doing what they do. The music video for ‘Jolene’ with Dolly Parton and Olivia Newton-John is a good example. The part of the video of Dolly in the control room with the engineers shows them wearing their masks. Dolly’s of course matches her top. There is also the Orianthi concert dvd, and videos from it, for ‘Live From Hollywood’. One of the musicians playing with her wears his mask for most of the performance, and if you look at her right wrist, you can see her mask looped around it the same way many people would during that time. These are signs of the times we have just come through. And they are preserved now for the sake of history. And I find it really interesting.

Band trio guitar player drummer bass player

Now to the AI thing. I could say a lot on this topic. I could give both sides equal weight and try to go really in depth. Truth is I can’t. I can admit that there are some good uses for it, and that it might even be helpful as a tool for brainstorming ideas, even for creatives, and it might be faster at sorting through some scientific results. That’s all the good press I’m going to give it right now. When they first started openly touting what they could do with it, like the artistic mash ups and some of the writing stuff, it came to light that what they did with the bots that fed it was they stole. They scraped the internet and stole the works of artists and writers and musicians. And now the movie studios are wanting to use it to basically steal again. Only they want the actors and writers to sign a contract telling them they can do it. Legal theft. Yes. I am being simplistic in my assessment and explanation. You can read about why the actors walked out. You can read about why the writers walked out. And I would encourage you to. Because after you do, you might think about that show you’re so upset about missing out on because the actors are striking, a little differently. The big names are striking for not just themselves, also for the little names. The bit part actors that make their living appearing in the background as the person at the bar, or in line at a check out, etc. The studios want them to agree to scans that are taken of them during that filming to be owned by the studio so they can use it whenever they want, without paying for another performance. 

There is a lot of that happening all over, but it doesn’t usually consist of you signing over the rights to your own likeness. Businesses are using bots to ‘streamline’ repetitive activities and to automate those things. And while one could argue about the jobs it eliminates for that as well, in general those are processes being appropriated, not likeness and creation or creativity. 

The writer’s complaint is equally compelling. They are fighting the studios using AI to write stories and scripts that then the writers have to clean up because the studios pay less for re-writes than for new ideas. 

Green guitar being looked at

I was discussing this with my mother the other night. She’s an anthropologist. And she is very curious to see the music that AI creates. Because she sees the AI that scrapes the internet and then compiles from that as a reflection, a mirror, of our times. That’s what music, art, film, stories, creativity in general ultimately are. They are a reflection of the time in which it was created, and the reality of the person creating it. It is our humanity. And what bothers me is that what we will find, when AI is creating music, and anything else, that what it reflects back to us is how much we have lost our humanity. How much we have sacrificed of what makes us human for what. For efficiency to save the studios some money so they can pay their CEO’s and shareholders even more money?

As an artist and a musician, the idea of AI art or music ‘taking over’ nauseates me. It disturbs me. I’m not against progress if it is truly progress. I’m against losing our humanity. I’m against being treated as automatons. I’m against being treated as our feelings, our fears, our joys, our accomplishments, our failures, our triumphs are an inefficient waste of time or energy. And by letting AI take over the creating that we do as part of expressing those things I think we lose just one more part of who we are as humans. So, I absolutely support the writers and the actors on strike right now. They are standing up for all of us regardless of which creative endeavor we are a part of.

And no, I won’t be giving up creating art or music because of AI. I will continue to do it because that is what I do. And I hope you will too. If you create, create with abandon. Share it with abandon. And if you want to change it up, do it. Share your humanity. Cheers.

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