Because today I wish those stories were here for me
---
Right now all I see are dark frames, crashing waves and souls lost at sea
Yet somehow I know you are there
I know you are listening to me
I know you remember the tales
Just as I too believed
I know you are listening
I know you are there
I know when I see you again
We will turn our beds into boats
And fly upon thin air
I know you'll build a fort with me
Our armies will fight
but we'll set them all free
I know we'll play games again
You'll let me win in the end
When I'm down
You'll swing me back up
A bird resting on your finger
I'll shut my eyes
We'll sail away
There will always be more...
Pleasant places I haven't seen before
----
Inspired by my parents reading Robert Louis Stevenson's "A Child's Garden of Verses" to me and my brother. It has always remained one of my favorite books of poetry, and reading it today, I feel a huge sense of lost youth. I feel the great desire to give my children an easy and magical life, like I had as a child, but I am in the worst possible space, where I can only turn my mattress into a boat by listening to music and dancing on it... I can pretend to fly on my bike... I am the pretender, and I need to make a living.
I want to be in love with life, you, colors, dancing... A simple life well lived can give you so much peace and joy, yet today's version of a simple life still requires money to pay for phones, food, clothes, travel, art supplies. I guess I just want to land in the middle again, financially. I want simplicity, but enough to not feel afraid all the time. I'm sure this is the dream most people struggle with everyday, and why choosing your life's work and partner have to both be something you really love. I lost a lot of time, being with someone I couldn't love, but I learned to love myself.
I really love research, words and writing. I hope I can turn this into a book that helps others see that no matter how old or famous or educated we are, we never have all the answers. Every day is another chance, risk and journey to care for ourselves. If we can help others too, that is wonderful. If we can lift others up with what we do, there is hope.
I still don't have the answer for myself, but I am writing... I still want to write songs. I want to write songs with every cell in my body, like you can't possibly imagine. I don't understand it. I don't know why. It is just is how I feel.
Part of a Creative Writing Project: Letters to Geographer 2015-2016
I enjoyed a partial commute to North Point in San Francisco over the past three months. This new painting is inspired by my favorite part of the ride, the peak of Fort Mason hill, with breathtaking views of the city and bay from either direction.
This painting depicts a morning where the rain had stopped and the sun was warming the trees. The bikes and trees are reflected in the wet pavement. This oil painting is 18" x 36" on a 1.5" deep canvas. $1,500. Please email me to inquire about purchase or prints. Thank you.
The Good, the bad, and the Ugly...
A Day in the Life of...
a completely screwball SF Gal, roaming the North Point of San Francisco on a rainy day,
with her umbrella, an antique watch, and an iPhone.
Picture the girl,
smiling atop the Fort Mason Hill,
as she looks West, the sky opens up over the Golden Gate Bridge...
She beams, decides she must capture this with her iPhone, and removes phone from pocket.
Perhaps this is when she lost her grandmother's gold, engraved, antique watch that her parents recently repaired and gave her for Christmas the first week of December... Truly incredible gift, now MIA after one month. (Anyone on FB here now must swear not to mention this watch to my parents or you will be immediately unfriended, and don't try to be all, "Oh it wasn't me" about it... I'll hunt you down, and my finger knows how to use the checkbox that will send you far, far away, into a galaxy no longer near me on Facebook... But, I digress)
Back to our Mary Tyler Moore character, beaming on the hillside over Fort Mason...
She snaps a few shots of trees, the bikes reflected in the wet pavement, she walks up the hill towards the hostel, then across to the mesa with a military canon. She briefly imagines being shot out of said canon, crosses past it and sees Alcatraz glowing in the distance.
The sky is cloudy and that deep Steele blue with just a dancer's translucent scarf of purple just holding it back from itself. The sun pierces the darkness and warms the wet pines with glistening crystals and light, birds shoot out of nowhere like they've never seen the day before. A patch of blue sky appears, and the cherry red Balcutha schooner peaks through the trees, like a smile of a dreamy toddler holding both legs of his mother and peaking through to cautiously calculate who you are, but tempts you just the same.
She decides at this very moment to love life. She thinks of her family, the past and all the people that lead her to this moment. Born the year after her parents passed through the Summer of Love in San Francisco, she has always believed she was meant to be here, but she wants to live big, explore and travel the world, like her Swedish grandmother did.
She descends the staircase in high heeled boots like a model on the runway, only to ponder how the small red fire extinguisher she saw 25ft to the left yesterday is now on the right at the bottom of the staircase. She reaches the bottom of the second flight to a blanket of green nasturtium leaves, tickled with light rain. Imagining the fire of reds and oranges that will soon come, she turns South towards the office and heads back to work. A black crow on the wire reminds her of #MikeDeni of #Geographer, staring down at her while she had the audacity to order a Cosmopolitan at the Big One. She spoke to the female bartender and smiled, as she noticed Mike, barely visible in the wall of black that was stage right. Originally, she thought he was smiling at her, but she no longer can tell. He was wondering about her, as she too was wondering about him. Perhaps that was enough for now. Shaking hands with the keyboard player and quickly returning to the dance floor, she disappeared into the night...
Oh, right, the watch.. the waterfront, the Bad and Ugly? Sure, sure...
Back in the office, a young bearded co-worker is refilling the Xyron machine at the comp table near her desk. It's close to 6pm, and most people have left. He turns his phone on with music. She is just about to realize the Bad news that her grandmother's watch is missing from her left wrist, but then, the second song on his playlist is "Awake" by Tycho. She can not help but start swaying her body to this trance music that she heard live on New Year's Eve... She has to duck down below her computer screen to keep him from seeing her moving and revealing a brush of ecstasy across her lips. She then returns to the realization that the timepiece is lost, and she struggles to look for it against previous desires to go introduce herself to her co-worker and tell him how much she loves Tycho....
The search brings her upstairs to the lobby of Williams-Sonoma and the bathroom, where she decides it's possible that the watch fell off when she came in from her walk and had to use the restroom. removing her gloves and coat may have caused the watch to fall off. then she sees the caution tape across two sinks. Peering through the tape she sees rocks mud dirt both sinks. She wonders if the watch was flushed down the toilet causing the sinks to back up. Ugly and sad it would be, if the watch was now sitting in a P trap at the office, costing her employers extra money as the stock market tumbles. Wondering if she'll still have a job or a watch tomorrow, she heads out into the darkness and light rain to make the commute back to the North. Exuberance, time and money, now lost or flushed down the toilet, she remembers holding hands with her grandmother at the art museum, and feeling like all was right in the world.
What a busy and fun Summer. I can not thank the folks at DDW.com enough for letting me work as a Production Designer under direction of Shin Eguchi. Shin is a master at Packaging Production and I learned so much from him while freelancing this past summer. Slugging dielines and creating packaging mechanicals for the Senior Designers was a highly detailed and meticulous craft. Shin really does it with finesse. I also spent many days photographing, cleaning up imagery and creating graphics for major account packaging audits and presentations in Keynote and Powerpoint. Oh, and the mockups and comps, how could I forget those. : ) The best part about DDW was that they are a highly professional but very laid back agency. I respected everyone who worked there and the Presido location can not be beat. I spent many days, taking in the history and great vistas of the Presidio, learning about the cafes and restaurants there, the George Lucas Campus, Crissy Field and the Disney Museum. I even attended a couple "Off the Grid" events. I highly recommend the DDW team if you are looking for sustainable packaging and branding updates.
I went on to work for a smaller agency in SOMA, designing two Powerpoint templates for a CEO Summit that took place at the beginning of October. I enjoyed biking to the ferry and biking to SOMA for a few days.
In September, Clif Bar put on an amazing event in Marin at the Marin County Fairgrounds. It was an obstacle race course for bike teams, aptly named "CykelScramble".
I really wished I had entered the races with a team of 4, but this year, my sons and I rode the 6 miles there by bike to enjoy the day as spectators. They had two bands at the event, and one of them was San Francisco-based, Geographer. I had never heard of this band, so I checked them out online and pretty much fell in love with their music right away. Their current album is "Ghost Modern". I was so excited by this band that I followed them on Instagram and created a graphic of the lead singer from one of his Instagram posts.
Michael Deni's voice is so beautiful there is no way to truly describe it but to tell you to just listen. I tried to describe it as a cross between the Icelandic band, Sigur Ros and the coyotes howling in the hills of Marin at night... there is an amazing sense of longing in the music. The lyrics are poetic and inspired me to swim in Bolinas with out a wetsuit recently, which was awesome, and to get back to my painting. (actually, that was also because of the book Mike recommended by Herman Hesse, "Journey to the East". Upon reading this, I took the message to heart, that artists must create their imaginations). Truly, I am so grateful for Mike's amazing ability to share teaching moments with their fans. Not only a Geographer, but a fine teacher.
I revisited one of my bike paintings I started when I had Google Glass as a beta tester, and was able to finally finish this painting this week. It is for sale, so email me if you are interested.
Although I always have plenty of my own projects going on at home, I am still looking for great work in the Bay Area. Have a 1 or 2 month need in Production Art during the holidays, or need a full-time Packaging Production Artist indefinitely? Give me a call. Thanks so much, and don't forget to check out Geographer !
This is a compilation of excerpts of piano music and people enjoying San Francisco Botanical Garden during the Flower Piano exhibit
July 19, 2015
*Please change settings to HD 720 for best viewing!*
Thank you to the SF Botanical Garden for this wonderful, interactive exhibit. Sorry about adds. My sons and I chose a piece by Philip Glass and Chick Corea Tri to use for Intro and a segway here, and because these are copyright songs, you may have to click the X to turn off an add during this video. We bought the songs on iTunes, and you can find them here:
In the spirit of free pianos in the garden, we hope that Mr. Glass and Mr. Corea will approve our video to be shared freely. We also hope many more people get out to the Botanical Garden and become members there. It is an amazing place that my sons appreciate every time we visit. Enjoy the music!
As most of you know, I am a cycling advocate and love bicycles. I am not fast nor do I race anymore, but I love everything about bicycles that allows us to be independent, healthy and see life a little slower. Hearing a woodpecker as you ride through dense trees on Lucas Valley Road, or getting to soar along the road at China Camp while a bird soars right along with you... these are vivid moments of true bliss and being in tune with nature. This past weekend, I rode in the Tour de Marin ride to support Marin County Bike Coalition. Prior to this, I volunteered at the Calpark Tunnel for Bike to Work Day. During both of these events, I photographed and shared my photos on Twitter from my accounts @sfbikegal and @cproppe .
Someone from the Bike Council asked me what it was I had... Do you have a blog? "No", I said. "It is just a Twitter account." Which brought me to realize that over the past year, I share more media on Twitter and Facebook than I really do by blog. Why is this? What is the difference? What do we get from the immediacy of social media that we do not get from a blog, and what benefits do blogs have that we do not have from Tweeting? To answer this, I have to explain the different channels I Tweet from and why.
These four different channels on Twitter work to make me happy
and give back to my communities in different ways, but I am passionate
about each of these topics.
@sfbikegal is a place where I share my love of bikes, cycling, and my art that features bikes
@cproppe is my personal Twitter account, where I share a mix of everything I see online and in life, much related to art, photography, education, my kids and my outings and Marin and Bay Area news
@greenpitcher is an account and blog called "The Green Pitcher" where I share what I read and learn about sustainability, green living, green art and sometimes cycling because it is a form of green transportation. Some of my organic posts from "Art on the Farm" also overlap into this category, as do posts about my art if if supports Marin Organic.
Equisetum is a "living fossil". It's class dominated Late Paleozoic forests for more than 100 million yrs. #greenpic.twitter.com/SC6O4qivqX
@artonthefarm is the account for a plein air and photography art group that I have participated with since 2005. They were started by a Marin Organic farmer in Bolinas, Alan Mart, who wanted to have a place where everyone could get out and be inspired on the land and create something while also giving back a percentage to Marin Organic. I started assisting with their blog in 2007. Currently only an active Twitter account, I post updates that support Marin Organic, organic farming and living. There is a hope that this group will start up again in the future, but we are taking a break at the moment.
Since we Tweet short bits frequently, it is much easier to only share about a single topic in a channel than to share everything, all the time. It allows people who enjoy cycling to only follow me on the bike account and not have to hear about my entire life on another Twitter account. It allows me to create lists of people that care about cycling and direct my messages only to that group. I will be more likely to get responses from a group of 400 cycling advocates about a cycling question than I would on my own personal account. The key is to follow all the cycling enthusiasts and groups on that one account and begin to engage and respond to them. This is where you find you will learn more about cycling yourself, and find out what you need to know from other advocates. It also allows me to share my bike related art with people who will more likely appreciate it. I learned about the group "Art Crank" and the Bike Art Poster Show they do each year.
You can also win contests online, just by tweeting a favorite photo on Instagram and Twitter. I won a bike from Clif Bar's contest by sharing a photo hiking with my son while we were eating Clif Mojo Bars. @ClifBar and @PublicBikes are great on Twitter and Instagram for cycling inspiration in the Bay Area and beyond.
The same is true for @greenpitcher and my other accounts. By filtering what I share and who I follow, I can learn a lot about this topic from online media very quickly and with precision.
I can do a Twitter Search for "organic" and post things I find that day that are interesting on @artonthefarm. I can follow organic companies and share their tweets of interest. I can search for "bike art" and Retweet those findings to the bike channel. The one thing I always do is research things and read them before I retweet them. I won't retweet things I have not read myself. What is the downside to all this online tweeting and filtering and having different channels?
Well, to be honest, there is less writing going on. I haven't spent time on my blogs as much because I am online all the time with Twitter accounts. However, it has been a more connected time. I have actually gotten to meet and interact with so many more people on Twitter than I ever did from my blogs. There is a group of us in Marin that go to "tweetups", which are really just a night out for dinner or a Birthday celebration for one of our local friends. We have really become friends online, from Twitter. It's extremely gratifying. This is not something I found from my blog writing. The blog is more of a diary and tool for writing longer pieces about life. Truly, a wonderful writer's tool. I am here today, writing about Twitter and why I haven't blogged as much. Obviously, this longer explanation on a blog is here because the format of a blog allows for a longer explanation and moment of deeper thought.
Are Blogger and Twitter both needed?
Absolutely. I find all of these tools incredibly useful. My art and life has been archived on a blog for almost a decade now. If I ever want to write a book or turn this into a book for my kids, it will be doable.
What am I doing now?
My goals have changed in my life over the past two years, and I will say I learned a lot online to help me get here. My career has moved back into digital design(which I have done since 1990) and Production Art for Organic Foods. I have studied packaging design at Academy of Art University, How University, Lynda.com and am updating my skills as needed with Typography on Skillshare. The online tools out there for an artist or designer are truly incredible.
Life is possible online, but we still need to learn how to "be" in the real world. How to work with people and communicate with others. This is important too. On the fine art side, I have been working on a children's book about Mt. Tam and Coyotes, and it is still in progress, but I hope to finish it by the end of the year.
It's not the prime focus now, but I plan to complete it for my sons. I am enjoying co-parenting my sons with their father. We have learned how to work together by being with our sons apart. Although we still reside in the same home, we split up and don't do things together as a family. Their father will take them one weekend, I will have them the next, and so on. It works better this way, with very little drama, and we both feel good about who we share our time with, although these are very different groups of people.
In general, living my life online opened me up to many different people and places I could go outside of my relationship that had value, even when my own relationship did not. I believe the online path to real world change is significant, and truly a miracle for many of us who perhaps saw no other path out of our difficult lives. Being online actually does open up more paths than you can imagine. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn have saved me over these passed years, as has Blogger. Each avenue has allowed me to travel, learn, grow and meet just the right people I needed to.
What a difference a couple years can make. Who knows what we will see in 2020? I am keeping my mind wide open for the possibilities.
Georgia's life was full, as she was a Nurse, Teacher, Architect and Painter. (Read more here via Marin IJ )Georgia's memorial was well attended and speakers included her dear friends, Kevin Hassell, Dallas Mathers, Lynn Harris, Velda Draper, many nurses she worked with, church members and artists. Velda read from Georgia's writing, and I want to share her thoughts here, as they truly speak to me at this point in my art career, where I am trying to move away from copying reality and add emotion and individual character to my work. Georgia wrote:
"Great art challenges not only the viewer, but also the artists who create it. Most artists paint what they know and do it to the best of their ability. A few artists take on creative work that challenges their knowledge and reveals their inabilities. However, when they do overcome this kind of challenge, they realize that the rewards are huge. Artists who need ongoing reassurance that they are on the right track may miss the opportunity to reach past their comfort zone to experience the thrill of pleasing themselves with a painting that shares the truth of their view of the world."
- Georgia Anwell
Georgia & Mesa dressed in circus attire for Open Studios at AWD 2012
When I get to a place where I can paint again, I endeavor to work towards this goal of challenging myself by expressing and sharing my thoughts through paint, not just what I see. I want to thank Georgia for her kindness and the legacy she left of senior artists of Marin. I left tonight witnessing the most colorful sunset, that only a painter could have dreamed up. What a fitting natural expression of a creative life that reminds us all to keep learning, growing and painting. Thank you, Georgia!
Sunset on the Night of Georgia's memorial 1/11/15 (photo: C.Proppé)
Observations on a walk with my sons in Sausalito, three days after Christmas
Walked a couple miles with sons today... Bay Model to Barrel Tavern and back, all along the bay in Sausalito: pic.twitter.com/WMkxjruvHs
— Colleen Proppé (@cproppe) December 29, 2014
If you want to hear many languages being spoken, see families smiling, taking group photos and walking together, go to Sausalito. If you have a beautiful, friendly dog, walk the downtown street in Sausalito and see how many children and families are happy to stop and pet your dog. Mesa was tied by a decorative wrought iron gate while we picked out chocolates and I saw she was being photographed by tourists passing by.
Almost 20 years ago now, I visited Sausalito as a tourist with my then boyfriend, for the first time. Back then, it was a shiny, colorful dream town, a romantic place full of winding hills and infinite possibilities. Today, walking with my sons, we all saw industry, poverty, smelled lots of cigarettes and saw many cigarette butts, tourist filled shops and so many docked boats, seemingly not in use on a glorious, 58 degree, sunny winter day. It was definitely not the place I launched my dreams at in 1995, as a cute, MFA student with the handsome Icelandic boy, the love of my life, who I'd convinced to come cross-country with me because Northern California was so wonderful and we must go and apply to graduate schools together.
Today, after a wonderful and messy adult life I've lived here in California, now unmarried, yet with my young twin boys- young men (almost teenagers!)... we stopped at some of the shops, bought organic chocolates, toy cars and hot cocoa. They liked The Barrel House Tavern best of all, Aidan loved their bathrooms. The sure sign of a great restaurant in his mind is fancy plumbing. We had ventured out today to see the Gingerbread houses, a contest they do in Sausalito every year, but forgot our maps in the car back by the Bay Model. By the time we'd reached town, there wasn't much light left in the day to track down the hand-made houses. We decided to go back another day if we found the energy.
As we walked back, I watched a little girl with braided hair chase a seagull off the railing by the ferry. My sons walked together quite a ways in front of me, and even when I could not see them, they still made it back to the car on their own, with out my guidance. I could occasionally see the green from Blake's jacket and the blue from Aidan's sweatshirt, disappear in the trees well ahead. I thought, "how wonderful it is to have a twin brother". They always have someone to walk with, and talk with, and they are always in the moment.
As we rode home, we talked about being positive each day, and trying to see the positive things about today. It is definitely very hard for my sons to do right now. I am not sure if it is from YouTube, or the things they hear at school (they know about school shootings, and had a lock down drill at their school recently) but there is unrest in the boys. They worry about violence, grades, college and not having enough money already. I definitely did not worry about these things when I was their age. Is it boys? Are they worried about these things more than girls at this age? Is it the time we are in? Is it Marin County? The cost of living in the Bay Area and how much pressure it puts on families? Most likely, it is the fact their mother has had only contract work for over a year now, and she is constantly moving from company to company, very frustrated with not having true employment. I see they have adopted my worries and my stress. This is not ok. I think about how I will try to make them understand. I will try not to be so stressed out about work. They need me to be more present.
As we drove home, I thought about how we'd arrived today, listening to Anne Lamott and Jack Kornfield at 1 PM speaking on the radio via KQED City Arts and Lectures. They are both old souls who have seen so many grow up here and change over time. Anne mentioned how life is messy. Grace we see in others is sometimes amazing, yet sad. I thought of how my simple act of getting my sons out for a walk today, and sharing my loving dog with many foreigners visiting with out pets was somehow healing for them. It helped me connect with strangers too. Talking about how my dogs lint gathers in the corners of my home and how easy it is to sweep up was somehow soothing for all of us. Jack's story of the woman who adopted the juvenile who murdered her son and raised him as her own had sent tears streaming down my face behind my sunglasses as I drove onto the 101 towards today's adventure. Their reminders that life is messy and still miraculous helped me get through today, and I hope my sons were able to absorb even a small bit of their wisdom. If all they remember is the cool bathrooms and that Mom said it would be a nice place to bring their girlfriends someday... Well, that's okay too. We move forward like this, one day at a time. Twenty years ago, I had a boy in California that I loved. Now, I have two. Maybe Sausalito isn't as exciting, but the adventures my sons will have in their lifetime surely will be for them. Hopefully, their mom will get a few more chances at colorful, romantic dreams again too.
