Cultivate The Ennead Of Friendship

Ennead. Archival pen and ink on 9"x12" Bristol Board. Click to enlarge, perhaps you may see the ants!

This took forever to finish! I started this on my vacation and I thought I'd finish in a day or two. Instead, I slept, overslept and took naps.

I also wanted to make this drawing interesting since it was starting to bore me. Everything in this drawing is a pattern of 9. I hope you find the 9 ladybugs and 18 leaf-cutting ants!

An ennead is a group of nine. Get this, 9 is one of my lucky numbers! Nine is my dearest friend's favorite number, and actually I just got interested in it because of her, but now I like it.

Anyway, I have been thinking a lot about my friendships especially that some old friends have contacted me lately. These old friendships ran through my mind like newsreels and as they kept running, I kept smiling. I realized that I have so many friends with whom I have lost contact and when we reconnected it was as if we just left each other yesterday. A lot of them were my college classmates and my fellow staff nurses when I was in New Jersey. A few of them were my childhood friends.

I started thinking what made these friendships endure the long absence and separation, only to resume as if we have been together for years. I thought about the characteristics of these relationships and there were two or three traits that always stood out.

The first one certainly is Love. I loved my friends and they loved me. Just because.

Secondly, we admired and respected each other. As a matter of fact, I think this was how we attracted each other's attention, whether it was admiration for knowledge, talents, skills and traits. There was enormous respect for one another.

Thirdly, we celebrated our similarities but accepted each other's differences. I remember very well how my friends and I did together a lot of things that we liked but we discussed, argued, debated everything under the sun. There were varying opinions and sometimes we never agreed.

But we were honest and we were not fawning or sycophantic. In fact if one tried to fawn, we detected it and immediately would be turned off by the gesture. We did not agree to do anything that compromised our virtues just because we were friends. It was important that we remained honest to ourselves and with one another.

We were always kind towards each other. We loved to laugh at ourselves but never at one another.

The caring in our friendship extended to our other friends and families even if there was no direct contact with other friends. There was no competition for attention and no one ever told me not to be friends with someone they did not like. Of course, that was not necessary. Chances were, if they did not like a person, I felt the same way. Even until now, my old friends ask about my family and my other friends. We brought out the best in each other and we encouraged one another to grow and cultivate other friendships. We never took each other away from our families.

We protected one another. Even in their absence we protected each other. We did not tolerate bad things to be said about friends in our presence. We were loyal to one another. We looked out for one another and thought about each other in our absence.

We were generous and giving but not taking. Ever noticed how some "friends" only like you when you have something to offer or when they need something? I remember insisting on my friends to accept my offer and they in turn did the same thing.

We did not use each other.

That's probably why we are still friends after all these years.

I go back to work tomorrow after my vacation. I will be on call!!! Oh my.

The Elephant Forest

Pachyderm Forest. Archival pen and ink on 9"x12" Bristol Board.

On the left, is the Pachyderm Parade drawing I did for Bella more than two years ago. My dearest friend loves elephants. I have come to regard it as her symbol. When I draw elephants, I associate it with tenderness, loyalty, strength and wisdom. I am grateful that she sent them my way so they can play in my forests. Thank you for sharing your elephants, Bella. Tsup!

Do you know who else loves elephants and elephant trees?

Arija said... If there is on thing in this life that I love, it is your elephant trees. How can I possibly have previously existed when I knew them not? It is a puzzlement.

My dearest Arija... Here is an entire forest of elephants for you! Sorry, it took so long. I wanted to surprise you when you woke up this morning but when I press the "publish" button, I believe it will be past 3:57 PM your time. Your today, is my tomorrow, but for now, this is my present for you.

Tsup!

Surrender To Nature - Arija's Sacred Canyon

Arija in Her Sacred Canyon. Archival ink on 9"x12" Arches Watercolor paper. Double Click to enlarge

For years now I have been wanting to draw my beloved friend, Arija. She is an extraordinary woman; beautiful, learned, wise, kind, caring, an avid and peripatetic photographer, aesthetic... are not enough to describe her.

I feel her vibes across time and space. She is a healer, her words soothe an aching heart and energize a weak resolve. I can go on and on but I will just summarize it with how I feel about her: I love Arija.

She reminds me of my sisters and my mother. I think that's the highest compliment I can ever give a friend, if you know my sisters and mother. I have a close-knit family but I consider Arija a sister, my friend, a true sisterfriend.

I could not make up my mind with how to draw her. This past week, I have been drawing trees. I wanted some inspiration and so I went to Arija's blog and found this and this. I almost flipped. I missed these posts, how???

Please visit Arija's blog. You will know what I mean when I say that sometimes we must surrender to nature and let it infuse us with valuable lessons. Beauty is only one of them.

When I see a rose, especially a pink rose, I see Arija, but I don't know how to draw roses. I sort of hid her behind the tree in this sacred canyon. I can only draw trees. I must learn to draw roses...


P.S. Thank you for all your prayers and well wishes for my Father-in-law. He is still in ICU.

Inspired by and surrendering to overwhelming sacred places: South Dakota's Cathedral Spires, North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, Mauldin Tree Farm, Rocky Mountain Aspen Groves, South Dakota's Black Mountains and Wildlife Loop, England's Dell (Click on images to enlarge view)

Farm Logo Drawing Practice

No kidding! I am practicing drawing a commission I agreed to do. My client is very patient... she has been waiting for two years!


I have been struggling to do it. But I got a break today. My friend told me to imagine the children as the people I love, holding the basket of vegetables.
Ooooooh! I needed that!


I came home after a grueling day at the office and actually sat down to draw.
But first I had to listen to music.


I am coughing my lungs out and my eyeballs are bugging out but I am drinking coffee from a white Fiesta mug,


and in half an hour I have a date with a very handsome man with a beautiful chest.
He is taking me to a Don Williams concert.
I just hope I get to hear the music because I am drugging myself with cough suppressant,


I will be so groggy,
I wonder if he will take advantage of me...


Okay, the farm logo will not be of a gigolo and a rhino,
I promise.

The BBB Club - Beautiful Bald Babies!!!

In celebration of the Breast Cancer Awareness Month,
To the memory of our beloved Renee,
To Karin who is bravely waging battle,
To all our friends and family members who have been through cancer,
survived it
and to some we have lost,
To those who dedicate their lives to search for the cure,
Forever we shall celebrate, remember and help:

Bella Sinclair and I collaborated in designing The Beautiful Bald Babies (BBB) Club logo. Further down below, is the original logo in pen and ink. Bella and I also started the idea of the BBB Club when we found out that we were both baldies when we were babies. I first celebrated our bald heritage with the painting of The Ivory Babies.

Two years before bisextile day, bedecked, bedizened, beautiful, bald babies and some bouncy brainiacs, badinage in the leaf mobile while a distant bagatelle play Rock-A-Bye-Baby. Sometimes they are guilty of being boisterous but never being bellicose. There are 31 BBBs in this image (so far) and our beloved Renee as the maple leaf-carrying dove . The Beautiful Bald Babies Club (BBB) is a group of artists, writers, musicians, gardeners, photographers... Pigment ink on 9"x12" smooth Bristol board.

My dearest friends,

This was an overwhelming task. For me, to draw this portrait of pediatric impressions of the BBB was a roller coaster ride of emotions and ideas. I thought what might have been had we all been coetaneous childhood friends. Imagine that! That's a lot of baldies and some of their hirsute friends. We would have had similar experiences and we would be able to assume an easy understanding and have a common bond.

On the other hand, consider the loss of our personal experiences in different times, ages and eras had it been so. Our differences and the understanding thereof, are what makes us special, after all. From Arija's photographic memoirs to Mita's introspective musings; Karin's trials and Tessa's punctuated equilibrium, Amalia's artistic evolution and Deborah's joy. In the midst of all that is happening, we live our individual lives in parallel time line, sometimes intersecting, overlapping, entangling even momentarily yet we are forever changed by the virtue that we gain from our tender, gentle even lighthearted experiences.

This is not social networking, not amassing of fans and superficial friends by the numbers. I think I counted an overwhelming number of thirty babies occupying the leafmobile. Yet, I know I have disappointed some who came late and I have already inked the spaces. Please forgive me. To exclude you is not my intention. You are welcome to join us. I just had to finish my drawing lest it fall victim to disinterest. and I need you to express interest. I can only assume for very few, Arija for one, who has no clue that I had converted her during her leave this week, into a bald toddler sharing space with Shirley in the scout pod. So many babies, surely it will sink or tear the leaf pod, but it won't. Our energy, enthusiasm and a genuine desire to establish an honest virtuous friendship and support one another through our blogs will keep us all afloat and soar.

Without further ado, please read about the origin of the BBB Club here. If you are reading this and was late in heeding the call, take heart. the ring of friendship is expandable. Come and play. Let these artists' blogs speak for themselves (links in progress):

Our beloved Renee is a maple-leaf carrying dove in this recent club picture and also on the first ever BBB Club picture. Above, L to R - bottom row: Uber-talented Vanessa Brantley-Newton (navigator); lovely mental ninja Bella Sinclair with sympathy- right eye patch (president), my favorite everything - friend, artist, brainiac; Ces with left eye patch; beautiful and gentle Deborah the midlife poet, and dancer with security blanket; Linda Cardina, the beautiful painter; Manon Doyle, ever so gorgeous and gifted and Amalia K. the beautiful gentle artist on right lower corner. On the Scout pod: Arija, beloved wise and gifted photographer painter friend and Shirley Ng-Benetiz, master watercolorist!

Clockwise from bottom left: beautiful Silke Powers with scarf, my elegant and sublime friend Janice Heppenstall with camera, fully coiffed handsome gifted Francisco Martins; Andrew Finnie the master story teller-painter-digital art wizard surfing on leaf; Steveroni, Gemini Peep, the symphony fiddle man - looking so naughty!

Left to right: Lakshmita Indira the Enigma, Julia Christie, the beautiful writer-artist being herself; Audrey my lovely quiet artist friend; Buckram and Bembo my beloved Gemini twin sister holding a plate of siopao with faces; behind her is my favorite super gifted French painter MartineAlison, Tessa Edwards, the Regal painter and writer holding a book, the multi-talented K.H. Whitaker and the acrobatic wicked multi-media artist Anne Huskey-Lockard.

On the Tea party pod: prolific artist Diana Evans the beautiful shooing the spider with a spoon; Katelen Tays, the lovely Poetic artist ducking the spider; Faerwillow the mysterious artist contemplating what to do with the spider; Caroline Soer the awesome-wicked master water colorist par excellence and Karin Bartimole, multi-media artist fighter and who inspired me to draw the first leaf mobile.

Top row: Marie Segal, the master clay artist and sisterfriend; Lisa Holtzman, painter and master-calligrapher; Jack Foster, the wonderful digital artist; Jan the fabric artist-nature lover-body builder, all around fun!