Follow that Link

I would like to take the time to draw attention to some of the blogs I follow, and to recommend that you check them out. My favourites are Slushpile Hell, Pub Rants, Motivation for Creation and Iron Bess of the East.

Iron Bess is an old friend of mine, who has recently moved from western Canada to the east coast, and she is chronicling the adventures of home-building, road-building, renovating, and much much more. She writes opinion essays as well, often with a lot of passion and humour, but what I like best are the glimpses into her new life out east. It's almost like a pioneer woman's journal, only more high-tech and smart-assed. It's also incredibly inspiring to witness just how much Iron Bess and her handyman husband accomplish when they get to work. Nothing is going to slow down this hard working pair.

Motivation for Creation is a blog for writers, but I think it has applications for any artist or craftsperson, anyone putting their hand to "creative" work. She often poses questions that help you sort out your own creative issues, and thus creates an interactive blog with lots of discussion among writers and artists. This blog also features a beautiful layout and a really nice little fishtank where you can feed the colourful fish by clicking your mouse button. Try it, it's fun and relaxing.

Pub Rants is a literary agent's blog, and there is a lot to like about it. She is smart, funny, honest, to the point, but always, as she says "a nice Midwestern girl." Meaning respectful and polite. The blog features numerous agent links and resources for writers, and insight into the mysterious world of successful query-letter writing.

Slushpile Hell is a jewel. It is an anonymous blog by a literary agent venting his/her rage and frustration at the stupendously dumbassed queries that show up in the "slush pile" of his/her agency. I'm assuming the blogger is a man from certain statements appearing in past postings, but I'm not committing to that. In any case, it's one of the funniest things I get to see on the internet. Better than Awkward Family Photos. Recently I was going through a depressed phase, and couldn't stop crying and moping. Then I opened up Slushpile Hell and just started scrolling through all the old posts, until I ended up laughing so hard my cheek muscles were like rocks and I almost peed. So there you go, one man's misery is another person's remedy.

Enjoy these blogs while they last, people! And hope you enjoy mine as well.

What's So Great About Eye Contact, Anyway?

Avoiding eye contact is disrespectful. It shows dishonesty. It shows respect. It’s polite. It is defiance of authority. It respects authority, and expresses an appropriate submissive attitude toward authority. Direct eye contact is honest and open, shows you have nothing to hide. It’s aggressive, a challenge to authority, invasive, impolite, a threat.

These statements about eye contact are contradictory because there are so many different things that can be communicated through eye contact, and there are so many different cultural/natural responses to eye contact. For numerous human cultures and animals from baboons to polar bears, direct eye contact is a display of aggression and/or disrespect.

How do you feel when someone is staring at you for a long time, and not trying to hide it? Do you interpret their stare as aggressive, hostile, defiant, invasive, or disrespectful? Or is the person caressing you or adoring you with their eyes? Romantic poetry and pop songs are full of the imagery of drowning in the lover’s eyes, getting lost in his or her gaze. The intimacy of the gaze or stare may be appropriate or inappropriate; neurotypical people seem to have an inborn ability to make that distinction.

There is a point of view that suggests that people with autism are not deficient in empathy but are in fact flooded and overwhelmed with it. It’s too much, and they have to turn away from others, and shut out the barrage of information and emotion. To look into someone’s eyes is far too personal and intense; not only the long, penetrating gaze, but the brief, day-to-day forms of eye contact. Many people on the autism spectrum can learn to tolerate some direct eye contact, which is essential in certain situations such as job interviews. But the interpretation of eye contact is subjective, and most people with autism or Asperger’s Syndrome are not keen on subjectivity; there are no grey areas, just black or white.

With my daughter, I’ve certainly seen a lot of stormy weather around the issue of subjectivity, and we talk a lot about “fact” versus “opinion.” She takes pride in having the skill to point out that something is an opinion rather than a fact. We talk about eye contact as a social skill, a part of good manners, something we use along with other tools like a nice tone of voice or a smile or polite words. It’s something to be learned and practised, but really only used in a limited way. We know it doesn’t come naturally, as for neurotypical kids, and we know it’s uncomfortable. The need to take in and interpret “eye” information also seems to distract from processing verbal information. By insisting that a child look at you when you are speaking, you may actually be shutting off their ability to hear you.

The neurotypical world assumes so much about a person and about the nature of the interaction, based on a narrow view of “eye contact.” Fortunately we live in a diverse culture that demands tolerance and acceptance of difference; and families affected by autism are at the forefront of challenging narrow views about thought processes, communication, and relationships.

Boo!

Fridge installation view

Elephant Shopping

Pencil drawing by Emma Maki

Kissed Off

mixed media collage by Lori Gilbert

(india ink, pencil, lipstick, acrylic paint on paper)

Kissed Off

detail

Just in time for Halloween, La Galerie Kenmore presents drawing-based works that combine the treat with the trick. "Kissed Off" was originally an artist's bookwork, which I later took apart and culled down to the best pages. It features lipstick kisses on translucent paper, concealing hostile mouths in black ink on white paper. I remember applying lipstick and creating 32 different imprints, then drawing a small mouth image in ink to complement the shape of each lip-print. Then I produced ANOTHER 32 lip prints on pastel-coloured lined notebook paper. Then I wrote little personal, diary-like statements in and around the lip prints on lined paper. I bound the bookwork so that the prints on coloured paper were facing or "kissing" the prints on translucent paper. Each print on translucent paper was laid over an ink drawing of a nasty mouth, so that you could lift the "kiss" and see the teeth or sneer or venomous tongue underneath. It was all about passive-aggressive hostility of course, but I really dug the whole process, you know?

My daughter's drawing of an elephant shopping for clothes needs little explanation. I'm sure we've all felt a similar frustration when stampeding into a dimly lit fitting room with a dozen hangers full of garments clutched in our trunks.

La Galerie Kenmore Goes All Goddess-y

Art on the fridge today focuses primarily on figures rendered in Prismacolour pencil, and modelled on  primitive goddess images morphing into insect-like creatures. This is an ongoing theme in my artwork, there may be more to come at La Galerie Kenmore. Also currently on display, a black and white drawing by my daughter, illustrating the activities of Fairies in the landscape. These hard-working, feminine spirits of nature should be familiar to anyone with a girl in the ten-and-under age group. They are responsible for our rainbows, sunrises, blooming of wild flowers, the addition of sparkliness to the landscape, and many other woodland tasks. I think these little cuties should be unionized.

 

Slipping out of the nursery now, my etching and aquatint piece "Spider Moon" hints at the dark and swollen underbelly of female spirituality. I see this small piece as the visual baby sister of such Robyn Hitchcock songs as "Madonna of the Wasps" and "Antwoman."

http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/r/robyn_hitchcock/antwoman.html for lyrics to "Antwoman"  ... with her audrey hepburn feelers, indeed.

http://youtu.be/QzMchIA6WQI for performance of "Madonna of the Wasps"

Asperger's Corner

I feel a long and disjointed rant bubbling beneath the surface lately. What's inciting my outrage and indignation these days, is the horrible, depressing, violence-inducing topic of children's birthday parties. My kid will be turning 10 in December; I suppose I should be feeling joy and delight as I attempt to plan some sort of social gathering to celebrate the event.

For the past several years, we've gone in for the currently popular practise of booking a venue such as a swimming pool or indoor play-park, which in itself provides the entertainment and eases the kids into their social interactions. Other examples might be a party at a bowling alley, or a McDonald's that has one of those "play-places." I help my kid do up the invitations, and encourage her to invite this one and that one, and do up the loot bags, and buy all kinds of snacks. If it's at a pool, I squeeze myself into my *!#$ bathing suit and supervise the little splashers for 2 hours or whatever it is.

This is all well and good, and it would absolutely be worth all the time and expense, IF any of my child's party guests had the good graces to return the favour. Last year, she invited 5 or 6 kids, 3 of them attended, and NOT ONE invited her to their birthday party as the year unfolded. I don't blame the kids, I blame the parents. Why aren't they teaching appropriate social skills? or just plain manners? How can I manage to smile my way through another one of these nightmares, providing an afternoon of child care, cake and entertainment and thanking them all as they leave, knowing that my daughter won't be bringing any invitations home in her backpack?

That's my rant. Next time on Asperger's Corner: What's so great about eye contact anyway?

Goals, Goalies, Getting One in the Net

This year, I set a couple of goals for myself (well, more than a couple actually). To start submitting short stories to contests and publications. To become more involved in the local writers' community. To learn to drive. Two out of three ain't bad. I am driving around now with a driving instructor, or my husband as a co-driver when I'm not taking a lesson. It's coming along very well, and my instructor says the road test should be no problem. So the driving goal may actually be achieved before my fifty-first birthday this year. I've submitted stories to the Writer's Digest Annual Competition. This is my second attempt at submitting work, and my short story "Lights Out" actually squeaked under the line and made it into the top one hundred for the Genre category. Very pleased with myself about this; at the rate I'm going, I might even make money in this racket by my eleventy-first birthday.

Now, about the getting-more-involved goal... maybe I just don't do "social." Shamefully, I continue to miss meetings of the local Writer's Circle, would like to get out to events but can't be bothered to arrange child care, and so on.... But I'm not quite giving up on that one yet.

In terms of setting and achieving goals, you may notice a theme of "late bloomer" in my life. Learning to drive and just beginning to submit stories at the age of fifty and so on. I'm also a middle-aged woman with a pre-teen child. Not that there wasn't the opportunity; babies and parenthood were early desires of mine, yet I remained childless throughout a lengthy common-law relationship. When that was over, and I found myself single in the big city, the goal of parenthood waited on the shelf until I reached about 37 or 38. Then, the baby hunger hit hard, and I ruthlessly strategized to get pregnant. But no matter how hard I played, I never scored. Finally, I gave up the game and took to enjoying warm summer evenings on the porch with a glass of red wine and Bridget Jones.

Just as I was about to turn forty, I found myself in a relationship with a guy my age who liked a lot of the same things. We had a lot of fun, you might say. I remember warning him one night (or was it morning?) that if we continued  to play without a goalie, we were bound to get one in the net eventually. He gave me his sly smile and said "Better keep working on my slapshot." And so, shortly after my forty-first birthday, and on the exact date of his forty-first birthday, our daughter was born.

When we set goals for ourselves, we plan all the steps leading up to their accomplishment. But I think the most important step is to look for the goalie blocking our way. Whoever, or whatever, that goalie is, you need to remove him from the game. Then, just take your best shot.

Swimming Across the Page

Installation view, several fish in various media

Happy Fish, mixed media, Emma Maki

Trout, aquatint/etching, Lori Gilbert

Jackfish, pencil drawing, Lori Gilbert

Welcome to another fridge-opening reception at La Galerie Kenmore. As you can see, there are a number of fish involved. Generally, my daughter and I tend to have our fish swimming from left to right, and I think this is an expression of our nature(s) as extremely avid readers. I grew up with my nose in a book, and never thought I'd be telling my kid to "Put that book down! Stop reading!" Yet it happens all the time. So, the directional movement of most other activities will naturally follow the course of the left-to-right flow of our primary characteristic activity. Why swim against the current?

You'll note the trout gliding through a set of quotation marks. This was an ongoing theme of mine for several years; I just loved quotation marks, and explored that curvy shape in all its permutations as paisley, leaves, flames, snails, embryos, ripe fruit, and so on. The open-and-close quotes are in the correct position for reading left to right, but notice the fish appears to be moving in the wrong direction (for an embodiment of the physicality of reading). I was puzzled by this today, but then realized I didn't reverse my original drawing when transfering it to the etching plate. Printmaking is like that, you have to think backwards, like Alice through the looking glass.

The jackfish drawing is very simple, but I think I succeeded in capturing the fishy shape of its body as it curves toward the viewer on its way through the water. The jackfish, or pike as it is also known, is swimming cautiously into the picture plane from the left. The trout would have been just entering the image from the left as well, in the original drawing. This contrasts with the placement of my daughter Emma's fish, which has joyfully motored across the page without a care in the world, and is swimming eagerly toward the edge of the page. This compositional difference in the placement of fish in our artworks points to differences in our reading styles and in our motivation for reading. I enjoy a good page-turner as much as anyone, but I especially like a book I can wade into gradually, going over paragraphs several times to make sure I'm absorbing everything the author intends. My kid, on the other hand, likes to jump right in with a big splash, and zoom forward in a straight line toward whatever is going to happen next.

Please enjoy these pictures and words, and help yourself to some wine & cheese. It's on the house.