Ruth's Visions and Revisions

a strange story

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:41:00 +0000

I haven't mentioned it here because I don't really blog much anymore, but I have started writing a historical novel based on a real person's life. It's going very well, and I'm loving the process. Last week something unusual happened that felt almost like permission from the cosmos to do this.

We took a research trip to Baltimore, which is where my subject was from.My first full day there, I visited the grave of the woman whose life story I'm fictionalizing. It has a high marble slab with carved columns at each corner. Misty rain was falling, and giant crows hopped from gravestone to gravestone cawing. I was weeping. Then I found a violet blooming near her tomb. Decades ago, I wrote a poem that used a violet as a symbol in a way that eerily fits her life.

Not only that, but I've never been able to smell violets. It always disappointed me bitterly as a little girl. The one I picked last week had a powerful scent. After leaving the cemetery, we visited a historic home that had a piece of her furniture on display--a basin for personal hygiene. Later in the gift shop, I found and bought a box of violet-scented powder. When we got back to the inn, I googled her name and the word violet, and I discovered that the flower was associated with her husband's family.

Strange, n'est-ce pas?

November Portrait

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 01:04:00 +0000

No oil painting this month. I have a conflict next week, so I knew I was going to have only two Saturdays with this model. So I did charcoal instead.

October class portrait

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 22:53:00 +0000

September class portrait

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 13:09:00 +0000

The collar bones are too prominent on this, but other than that I'm happy with it

Fatal Impacts

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 13:51:00 +0000

I'm republishing this 9/11 poem, which I wrote in 2005.

FATAL IMPACTS

I. The Fireman
He never knows what wakes him—
the click of the furnace,
the dull scrape of a snowplow in the street,
his wife’s soft sigh—
but once awakened, he hears explosions,
the loud percussive impact of a body hitting street,
bursting in a wet and heavy instant
like a monstrous water balloon
or a dropped melon.

Like a repeating loop of newsreel,
he sees them jump from the towering pyre
and try to keep on running,
arms pumping, legs striding through the smoky sky
as they plummet to eternity.

And he who could not save them,
nor the comrades lost in the Twin Towers’ fall,
keeps faith by living with the burden of memory—
the smell of burning flesh and fuel
the acrid taste of powdered concrete—
and waits for it to crush him
so he can join the others.

II. The Trucker

The snores are loud in a tent of 40 men,
shaking him from sleep
just as the roar of jet engines
must have vibrated the tower windows
right before the impact.

Eighteen hours he drove that day,
hauling steak, detergent, and stacks of mail
to an army base near Fallujah.
As he returned,
a barefoot boy in dirty clothes,
scrambled over the gravel shoulder
and onto the single-lane highway.
The boy held out his hands before him
in the universal gesture for “Stop”
and squeezed shut his eyes.
Following orders,
the convoy neither slowed nor turned
but drove straight forward to avoid ambush.

His was the truck that hit the slender body,
the initial thud of impact
followed by a bump as he ran over a yielding mass,
each set of wheels encountering less and less of a barrier.
Now he lies on his cot, trying not to shudder,
and tells himself the boy would have grown to be a terrorist,
so that killing him was like squashing a baby scorpion.

Above the snores of his tent mates,
comes the high-pitched hum of an overworked heater.
And hearing its whine, he imagines
that somewhere in the desert,
a brother or uncle or cousin
wails over a broken body
and vows jihad.

some summer art

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 14:08:00 +0000

The More Things Change . . .

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 21:36:00 +0000

Let's see. We have massive war-related debt. The wealthy refuse to make concessions or give up privileges. National leaders refuse to make needed reforms. We have vacillation, double dealing, secrecy, conspiracies. We have an ineffective legislative body. We have fear among the general populace.

Think I'm describing Washington? Nope. France in 1789, just before the Revolution.

Not a prediction. Just an observation.

Summer portrait

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 00:21:00 +0000

Just finished a weeklong portrait workshop: five days, 9 to 4 each day. Very intense but so worth it.

Potted Pansies

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 13:22:00 +0000

Did this one on my own outside of class. It's my seventh oil.

June portrait

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 19:56:00 +0000

Did this in class. It's my sixth oil painting and third portrait. Richard (my teacher) did some work on it, but not a lot.

The Economy in Two Minutes

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 14:16:00 +0000

I tried to write a post about this last Sunday, but this economist explains it so much better than I can.

Oil paintings 4 and 5

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 19:42:00 +0000

Both of these were done at home, on my own. I may still make some tweaks to the bottom painting. (Oops. I guess you have to click on the hands painting to see the whole thing because it's horizontal.)

May portrait

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Mon, 23 May 2011 00:05:00 +0000

This is the portrait I did in class this month. We don't meet Memorial Day weekend, so I'm done with this one. A new model in June and then a two-month break.

Haiku of the Incarnation

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:40:00 +0000

This Easter season I've been thinking about this haiku sequence I wrote a few years ago. So I decided to repost it.

Does Jesus ever

wax nostalgic for the taste

of a home-grown fig?

Does he talk about

campfire nights swapping tall tales

with the disciples?

In spring does he long

for the scent of the myrtle

trees on the hillside?

Can he still feel the

weight of a bone-tired body

sinking into bed?

Does he ever sit

and daydream about the days

when he was human?

Second oil painting

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:06:00 +0000

Did this one at home on my own. The photo cuts off the top a bit, but such is life.

First oil painting

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 14:55:00 +0000

This is incomplete and doomed to remain that way because our model could not complete the month. But still, it shows my first attempt at oil painting. In honesty, I just say that my teacher did a lot of work around the eye and the hair.

Snapshot of Modern Life #2

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 03:09:00 +0000

In the last two months, I finally joined the ranks of both Facebook users and smartphone owners. So we were coming back home from the family Easter dinner, and I was playing with my phone, juggling email, Facebook, and hockey playoff updates, while Michael drove. It made for a rather disjointed coversation.

R: The Blackhawks are tied 2-2.

M: Where in the game are they?

R: End of 2nd period.

click, click, click

R: Oh, M walked into a door at church today and needed 4 stitches in her eyebrow.

M: Really, when did that happen? She seemed fine when I saw her.

R: I don't know. Maybe after we left. She says the mimosas helped with the pain. . . . Listen to this. Some guy wants to know if we really serve mimosas at church, and if so, where is it located? I'm tempted to say that we only serve mimosas at Easter, but it's not really my place to comment on her thread.

click, click, click

R: Third period's started. It's already 3-3.

M: Who scored first, and who answered?

R: Canucks, then Blackhawks.

click, click, click

R: T wants to read my novel. Do you think I should let her?

M: Why not?

R: What happens to Max might upset her because of her recent situation.

M. I don't think you need to worry about that.

click, click, click

R: 13 minutes left. Score's still tied.

click, click, click

R: I decided to email T and tell her there's something in the novel that might bother her.

M: If you think that's necessary.

R: I'd just feel better about it. Here this is what I wrote. (reads email)

M: Ok.

click, click, click

R: Score's still tied.

click, click, click

R: Wow, the Canucks didn't start Luongo tonight. . . . Score's still tied. Eight minutes left. You know, if this was football, we could find out who had the ball, but the puck changes too fast in hockey to do that.

M: Basketball's like that too.

R: Baseball's the easiest to find out who has the ball.

M: Yeah.

R: I wonder how the Flubs did.

click, click, click

R. They lost to the Dodgers. 7-3

click, click, click

R: Six minutes left. The two book clubs at church are having a combined potluck. It's the 11th. Ok?

M: Yeah, I think so.

R: I think I'll take my Swedish meatballs.

M: They'll like that.

click, click, click

R: Four minutes left. We might get home in time to see the last minute of the game.

M: I doubt it.

R: You never know. There might be time outs. But hockey doesn't drag out as much as football, does it?

M: No. But basketball's the worst. The last two minutes take forever. It drives me crazy.

R: Fourteen seconds left. Still tied. Thirteen seconds.

M and R: 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

(hit refresh)

R: Still 13 seconds. They must be on time out.

(hit refresh)

R: Ok, the third period's over. Still 3-3. We'll get home in time to see OT. Good timing.

M: Yeah

click, click, click

R: My grand-nephew's house was hit by lightning

M: (uncontrollable laugher)

snapshot of modern life

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 15:37:00 +0000

Monday night we were in the city (Chicago), and on our way into the restaurant, I passed a man in a wheelchair shaking a plastic cup of coins. He was also talking on a cell phone, and as I went by him, I heard him say, "Not now, man, I'm at my job."

I have no way of knowing what personal, societal, and economic forces brought him to that place. But is it judgmental for me to wish we lived in a world where that kind of diligence could be funneled into something more productive?

March portrait from class

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 01:23:00 +0000

Discovery

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 14:17:00 +0000

It is challenging for both of us to live as freelance writers and at the same time to invest so much money in the film project and in art classes / supplies. So I constantly pray for provision and work. The other day as I was praying, I sensed the Lord telling me that he wants me to lead a life of discovery, not a life of security. That's about as good a definition of a life in the arts as I've ever heard. Now to actually live it . . .

The Spirit Is Willing But . . .

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 15:55:00 +0000

Since November, I've been trying to reacquire the habit of meditating. Too often, I quit meditation time early to get to work . . . so I can finish work earlier and have down time. Why is it so hard for me to realize that when I shorten my meditation, I'm rushing away from the very thing I crave?

unfinished portrait from February

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 17:25:00 +0000

I meant to complete this at home but lost interest. :-(

Casualties

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 16:07:00 +0000

This time in the world that I call my life,
I too often view as a private estate
with established boundaries and landmarks
and a landscape designed to express my aesthetic.
I claim ownership, entitlement of inherited acres
and spend countless hours devoted to defense.
Death recognizes no such holdings
but with pinpoint accuracy
dive bombs our land,
felling oaks in the forest
and pocking the meadow with craters,
irreparable damage that for the rest of our sojourn,
we all must learn to navigate.

an interpretation of the Chicago Botanic Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 17:13:00 +0000

january's class assignment

noreply@blogger.com (Ruth Hull Chatlien) — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 19:46:00 +0000

I loved drawing this young woman. I thought she had a very Renaissance face.