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Unremarkable

Posted on by Alexandra Schaefers

This is my first time at Riverview Natural Area. It is like a neglected patch of woods behind someone’s house—growing over with ivy, crisscrossed with ill-planned trails. I expect to see a few tree-houses and forts but they’re absent. At least the city took the time to number the trails and mark them with laminated paper stapled to stakes.

I feel like a neglected patch of woods myself, overgrown with the desire to not feel my own reality after heartlessly severing a six-year friendship because it housed an on-and-off romance that kept me from getting on with life.

It’s nice to be out under the trees even if everything seems unremarkable in the light of my mood. I cross a log so wide I just sit on it and swing my legs over. I stand up to find a big, wet spot of fresh bird poop on my camel-colored corduroy skirt. This would normally be funny. A bird-lover is eventually going to meet with bird excrement, it’s required. But it’s squishy and I feel oddly embarrassed about walking the trails and riding my bike home with a poop spot on my skirt, as if people will know and assume it’s my own.

I pour most of my water bottle out while trying to rub the debris out of the soft ribbing in my skirt then keep walking, unconcerned that I might now look like I peed on myself.

The trail starts to head steeply downward toward Macadam and I consider that I just rode my bike up this same slope through the cemetery, that I had to rest a few times along the way and that I may not be happy arriving at the bottom to have to climb all the way back up again.

I turn around, resigned to an unremarkable walk getting acquainted with a new place. Getting up to date on my requisite encounters with bird poop. Doing the best I can to to reckon with the edges of emptiness around a pain in my heart that will slowly fade in the recognition that the hardest way isn’t always the most noble.

Greeting Card Books Explained

Posted on by Alexandra Schaefers
In The Slough, Greeting Card Book by Alexandra Schaefers

I picked up In the Slough from PaperJam Press yesterday, it is now available in my new WooCommerce shop under the “Books” tab. I’m really excited about making more Greeting Card Books. It seemed like a good way for me to be able to do what I love most—illustrate my own nature poems into little books—while also providing something genuinely useful to others.

These days we are rightfully tired of clutter, wary of collecting and gifting unnecessary junk and we want to reduce our negative impact on the environment. Since Greeting Card Books house heartfelt, intimate poems they can be seen and felt as a special gift while using very little extra resources than a traditional greeting card. They are presents for people we love who really don’t want more stuff. They are for people who love to give gifts but want responsible options.

These are printed on 100% recycled paper. I rode my bike to the shop to look over the proof and took the bus to pick up the finished copies. I even rode my bike to the post-office this morning to send out my first orders. I am going to try my best to keep up the alternative transportation theme so these books can have a hint of environmental stewardship added to their value.

I have a 50% off sale to celebrate the opening of my shop and the completion of my second Greeting Card Book, it runs through May 14th. I’d love to know what you think of this idea!

Delicate

Posted on by Alexandra Schaefers
watercolor illustration of crows flying through spring trees by Alexandra Schaefers

The scent of Magnolia blossoms draws me along the trail into their grove. The blossoms form colored clouds around their trunks and layer against each other and the green adding a murky aliveness to the quivering air as oxygen molecules shift to make room for the bursting buds and rain droplets.

One crow forages alone at the edge of a large grassy slope punctuating the intense green. When I look down the trail I see flashes of other crows slipping between the trees. The cloud cover deepens their black feathers so they drip through the woods like oil.

watercolor illustration of a crow at the edge of a green slope by alexandra Schaefers

I sit on a bench reaching into the lace of bird song for the familiars: scrub jays, yellow warblers, dark-eyed juncos, spotted towhees, crows. A woman walks past so engrossed in her phone her steps seem suspended. I do not exist in her attention even peripherally and for a moment I feel how a forest creature might hiding in its own stillness watching the brash world of humans pass.

The rain drops become larger as I write in my sketchbook so I get on the trail again and head for the picnic shelter.

A spotted towhee darts across the trail from one brushy cover to another. It is so funny to watch birds run even in situations where flight would be unwieldy. I feel as though my whole life is the same sort of comic but necessary dash so I stop to photograph the rusty hues of dead salal leaves and draw a few buds from the spray of spring twigs along the trail.

sketchbook drawing of spring maple buds by Alexandra Schaefers

A loud truck rumbles down Burnside and I feel aquatic in this dense atmosphere, snuggled on all sides by the viscosity of ions exchanging—green things sending ripples of freshness across the air as they turn light and water into fiber.

I came here to admire magnolia blossoms. What do I remember about them anyway? How delicate and soft the petals were even on blossoms larger than my hands.

watercolor painting of a magnolia blossom by Alexandra Schaefers

I get to the shelter but it’s almost time to go.

I want every moment to be this good and decide there’s no reason today can’t be the day everything changes. All I have to do is stop minding my frustrations—to let them fuss like small children while I dwell in beauty unimpressed with their complaints.

A junco flies in and hops around the rivets of the shelter support. Another lands on the trash and peers into its dark opening. He sees nothing of interest and flies off.

Innocence and Intimacy

Posted on by Alexandra Schaefers
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I’ve been researching the phenomena of Instagram influencers lately after developing a fascination with the reality that women can make a lot of money just posting photos of themselves online. I’m sort of a curmudgeon when it comes to fashion and beauty. I love clothes and a little make-up but I feel like it’s supposed to be a fun, light-hearted thing, not something that takes over one’s life unless it is one’s livelihood, financial or otherwise. What I found in my research is that women are in fact, making a livelihood of it.

I felt judgemental of people going to locations just to take photos of themselves without actually enjoying the place. Now I realize they are modeling. They aren’t going there to pretend it’s part of their life, they are going there because it’s a good place to take a photo shoot and they are, or want to be, fashion models. This may be obvious to all of you. To me it was a revelation. I could not figure out why anyone would follow an account of photos of one person in different outfits. It turns to be the latest version of looking through the Sears and Robuck catalog which I loved to do when I was a kid.

I feel it’s neat that women have greater access to make a living being stylists, art-directors and photographers. I do wish our culture could move to deeper places of creativity where it’s not about creating the appearance of a perfectly styled, trendy life but about living a deeply passionate, interior-guided life, but this is an antique problem.

My hope on Instagram is to connect with anyone who might enjoy my art, I don’t really need to do fashion shoots for that. I do get wound up more than I’d like to admit about how to best use my account. Sometimes I want to post only finished work. Sometimes I want to post photos of the adventures I have going about my life as an artist. Sometimes I want to post everything I make even if it sucks and has nothing to do with my current body of work.

The photo album I posted above are photos I took when I lived and worked in a tiny studio apartment on NW 20th in Portland when I was in my mid 30’s. This was before Instagram. I in no way considered myself a photographer. I was just enamored with having a little camera on my Nokia blackberry and I was enamored with the vintage charm of my apartment. Being a painter, it was fun to make compositions with the phone screen and no resources were wasted as they were when we used film.

When I look at them now I am struck with the inadvertent intimacy they create as a body of work. I feel nostalgic for the innocence of taking pictures solely for my own pleasure. I never arranged things for the pictures, I just recorded what was already there if it struck my fancy. It never occurred to me to change the decor of my home to improve my photos. I never even edited the photos. I don’t know if I will ever experience that again. It is challenging in the age of social media to celebrate the beauty of our lives without wanting to improve them, without seeing them through the eyes of a judging audience.

I want to do more research on how advertising usurps art and our experience of beauty. I would love to hear of any articles or resources you know of on the subject.


Neighborhood Trees

Posted on by Alexandra Schaefers
watercolor painting of neighborhood trees in Sabin, Portland, Oregon by Alexandra Schaefers

Today is a warm, blossoming day. The first day of spring, in fact. I am lounging outdoors on my friend’s porch in Sabin. My ankle is a bit sprained but this porch—surrounded by neighborhood trees and blue skies—is so decadent I don’t feel bad about it.

The wind rushes through the tall fir with the spray of ocean sounds then rattles the branches of the blossoming deciduous trees on the other side of the block, then rushes through the fir again.

Dead leaves scitter across the driveway. Crows pass over now and again calling to each other. The traffic, the chirp of sparrows and goldfinches, clatter of a cyclist, a man shushing a baby while pushing a stroller down the sidewalk.

watercolor illustration of crows flying by Alexandra Schaefers

A soda can cracks open in the house. My friend comes out to check on me. I show him my sketches. He talks about mini computers, knobs, switches and 3D printed brackets for LED lights. I absorb every twelfth word and feel bad for my poor friendship skills.

Meanwhile finches sing in the treetops while people rearrange things in their backyards and kids holler at a nearby park invoking the sound of violent death.

Car doors. Shadows flit back and forth across the porch, the old green couch, my lap. A bird shaped shadow sails across the light. I look up to see two sparrows hopping about in last year’s wisteria plucking bits of twigs before flying off.

watercolor illustration of a bird shadow by Alexandra Schaefers

A breeze cools my face and carries a dry leaf down the sidewalk. An insect passes; I look up and see their light bodies hovering here and there in the open air. Crows again. The screen door creaks on its own volition. Wind chimes tinker. A car.

A little hair blows in front of my face and I remember myself separate from the warmth, the peaceful goings-on of eternity as it tends to its everyday chores on the block. Its clear I have been doing everything wrong; thinking myself into a person, into a purpose, a quest to find beauty even though it is exactly where I left it.

The chimes pick up again as the ocean sings through the fir while car stereos add beats from two different directions.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying One’s Studio

Posted on by Alexandra Schaefers
painting by Alexandra Schaefers in fluid acrylic of a sketch made at Jackson-Frazier Wetlands in Corvallis Oregon
from a sketch at Jackson-Frazier Wetlands in Corvallis, Oregon

I watched a few episodes of “Tidying up with Marie Kondo” with my mom and sister a month or two ago and when I came home I was beside myself with the desire to pile all my clothing on the bed and sift through it based on what sparked joy. I must admit if I had followed Kondo’s advice literally I would not own any pants. Nor would I have any clothes suitable for work.

I would have 12 pairs of socks, 3 dresses, 2 dressy winter coats, 2 flannel shirts, hiking shoes and no underwear what-so-ever. The idealist in me would love to take everything else to the thrift store to experience the reality of only owning things that spark joy. The part of me that hates shopping and would rather buy art supplies than apparel nixed the idea.

I did get rid of some things I know I don’t like or need and I bought Kondo’s book, The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up, hoping it would shed light on this tangible spark of joy that is to guide one’s selection. It didn’t but I went through all my health and beauty products and appliances next anyway and was quite impressed with how lovely and spacious my bathroom was after-the-fact.

I tackled some other categories, all the while dreading what it would be like to Konmari my studio. I questioned whether or not that was even a good idea. Kondo believes one should have as few papers as possible and my art practice believes one should fill up as many pieces of paper as possible.

I know she isn’t talking about art when she says, strive to get rid of all papers. But I’ve always had an urge to dump all my past unsaleable work and trust my present art-making abilities to function without any history shoring me up. I do cull my studio regularly because I’m sensitive to clutter but I find it hard to let go of things I’ve created even if it’s just a loose sketch of a crow on copy paper.

In addition to all the other categories of miscellaneous stuff I used to guide my sorting I had: studio tools, art mediums, notebooks and journals, sketches and experiments, framed paintings, loose paintings, installations and artist books.

I mostly used common sense with my tools and mediums since holding these items all had the same sense of familiarity and appreciation that didn’t make a big emotional splash. There were things I know I don’t like to use that I am afraid to get rid of for no sensible reason, tools that are similar that I don’t need two of, tools I used to use and imagine I may use again someday. These are the things I got rid of, occasionally something would present an emotional attachment and I’d save it for the sentimental category Kondo recommends people tackle last. Her question, do I want this moving forward? was more useful to me than joy sparks.

Going through my drawings and experiments was the most challenging and rewarding part of the process. For this I got rid of things that weren’t exciting to look at which was as close as I got to experiencing sorting things by joy. What was left I sorted into piles: drawings that would make good paintings, studies I can still learn from, artifacts–aka experiments and paintings not good enough to sell but too good to throw away, historical pieces that I am attached to just because they show what I was doing way-back-when.

I put most of these into separate notebooks. I then made two paintings from old sketches, (one pictures above and one below) which seemed to immediately validate the worth of this tidying project.

I put all the studies I could still learn from into a portfolio which I’m using to inform my new painting journal, sometimes by painting them into the journal and then recycling them. Or sometimes by pasting them into the journal. This has been super fun and gives me a nice break from my endeavor to make good art.

I haven’t finished the entire Konmari method yet but I do think it was useful to apply it to my studio. It feels great to have a work space with only the tools I need and to have all my papers organized into collections that are useful to my creative process. I’d like to think I’ve been more productive.

Today I am laid up with what appears to be a sprained ankle. It didn’t seem like my rolled ankle was going to be an actual injury until I went to work at the restaurant and it gradually became very uncomfortable to walk on. Today is day two of resting and elevating it as much as possible. Tomorrow I hope to get back to some normal activity.

In the meantime I tinkered with my web-site a lot, revised my post about creative responsibility after a friend told me the original was heavy handed to say the least. Now I’ve written this post which I’ve been thinking about for a while. I know I should post pictures of my “new” studio space but the internet is so saturated with things like that I’d rather just post these paintings I made post-Konmari.

If you Konmari your studio I’d love to hear your thoughts about it!

watercolor painting of a Northern Harrier flying over Bald Hill Natural Area in spring by artist Alexandra Schaefers
Harrier at Bald Hill in Corvallis, OR


Creative Responsibility

Posted on by Alexandra Schaefers

I’m having a lot of complicated thoughts about art and creativity today while being depressed about the shooting at Christchurch. That the killer used a GoPro to film his acts adds a whole new layer of disturb to the violence.

I love documenting my work and sharing it on the internet and somehow I feel that all of us who obsessively post our accomplishments online need to consider our responsibility when someone uses the same platforms and technologies to perform and share a really brutal and violent version of this shared obsession.

I’m not trying to imply we are responsible for what happened, but that we are responsible to consider what we might do moving forward to create a social media climate with no room for hate.

The platforms themselves need to be better at preventing content like that from spreading and from allowing hate-groups to organize on their sites. We need to think about how it was that this shooting was discussed in a chatroom ahead of time and didn’t get reported, how a violent person is able to get a hold of such powerful weapons and why we have a president who endorses racism and xenophobia.

But also, what have we created? So much of social media is divisive or a grand feedback loop inciting envy about how glamorous and charming everyone else’s lives are. It is a tool to connect and has been used to do some amazingly positive things but is the overwhelming reality is that it creates alienation? What else could spur such violence besides a very deep seated sense of alienation?

Culture follows creatives. We have an opportunity to have a profound impact on how people use social media. It is easy to get bogged down in how to earn a living in a society that doesn’t do a great job of making opportunity for artists but we can make some space to consider what direction we want to set for culture.

Do we really want to spend an hour setting up the perfect scene to photograph so that it looks like our morning coffee and laptop session is a Paris vacation? Or do we want to spend that time creating a beauty people can relate to, that they can find and celebrate in their own lives?

I’m not saying we shouldn’t share the beauty of a morning coffee if we are so inspired but there is a big difference between sharing the beauty we find in our lives versus staging a glamor we want other people to imagine we have and envy.

I may be off-base here, perhaps it is all the coaches and would-be influencers that are filling social media spaces with manicured lives. But they’re taking their cues from creatives so we still have an opportunity to make glamor passe and authenticity actually authentic.

I also believe strongly we need to avoid reproducing violent images in the name of drawing attention to a problem. I know it’s heavy-handed and judgemental to say so, but I think that’s the easy way out in most cases. I believe it is better to take the time to develop a body of work that states powerfully what we want it to without feeding more violent images into the minds of humanity. One artist who does this brilliantly is Nina Chanel Abney.

I’m not trying to be a Pollyanna. Beauty, as I understand it, can encompass all types of human experience and aesthetics but it doesn’t create alienation. It is a shared experience we all have access too if we aren’t side-tracked by a constant invalidation of our worth.

Even as an artist who paints trees and birds I get to choose whether I create with an intention to share or to aggrandize my own ego. I don’t expect that in one day I can revamp my entire personality but I do intend to pay more attention to my intentions, to try to connect to beauty more and worry about status less.

Studio Update

Posted on by Alexandra Schaefers
Painting Journal

When I was visiting Corvallis for the last art walk I got to see one of my favorite artists Carrie Tasman. I talked to her about how I wanted to develop a looser illustration style but I also missed my old neat and tidy illustrations and she suggested in this delightfully matter-of-fact tone to experiment with new styles in my sketchbook. That is really what sketchbooks are for. Somehow I get overly pragmatic with my sketchbook, all studies and story boards, loose drawings of ideas but very little experimenting. I started a new painting journal with the hope that it would help me be looser and more creative.

In other news I’ve decided my experiment in making art a hobby is complete. I don’t know how to make art into an actual livelihood financially but I can’t deny that it is my livelihood in terms of purpose and meaning and fulfillment.

I feel very fortunate to be able to wait tables and have plenty of time to immerse myself in my art. I’ve started doing a little research into the idea of book publishing. I don’t really think of my poem books as children’s books but other people do, maybe that would be a more natural fit for me.


Finding a Lost Trail

Posted on by Alexandra Schaefers

When I arrive at Marshall park three varied thrushes scatter from the trail-head into the trees. I walk down to the bridge, over the creek, past the playground and up the trail—hopefully on my way to Tryon Creek State Park. Last time I got lost and wandered entirely too far on a deer trail with the absurd notion that this trail on a map of walking routes put out by the city, is simply not well used.

As I descend toward the creek I see a trail on the other side I hadn’t noticed before. I realize that this was the spot where the path became thin and unreliable so I cross the wide log over the creek and follow this new trail along the water and up the bank to the intersection at Boones Ferry.

A couple blocks away I find the trail-head into Tryon. The woods feel open where the creek winds through a wide marshy area, especially without the leaves of the deciduous trees filling in the space.

I walk through the park admiring the maple blossoms and budding leaves springing up right next to the remnants of fall: old seedpods still hanging on the branches, leaves stuck in the cruxes.

Above me chestnut backed chickadees sing to each other in a cloud of high-pitched chatter. One peeks over a mossy branch before darting off into the high branches. Down the trail a ways I find a sunny bench to have lunch on. Behind me a barred owl sings occasionally as I watch people walk their dogs past and I eat the two bread heels out of a bread bag identical to the one my sandwich is in at home in the fridge.

On the way back I startle several more groups of varied thrushes, the bold black and white stripes on the underside of their wings striking as they fly through the deep greens. A female perches next to a broken branch right above the trail, her lovely orange breast the exact same color as the inside of a tree before it weathers. I stay very still, watching until she flies off.

I cross the log again and head up the hill, noticing this part of the trail is in a process of erosion which makes it seem unlikely to be a city-sanctioned trail. I pass an unmarked fork farther up and get out my map to check my route. This was actually my wrong turn. I was supposed to take the narrower trail to the street.

I’m a little sad to have just discovered this enchanting path only to realize I should take a boring street route next time since it’s not good for the creek and all the life it supports to have the bank wash down.

I walk the rest of the way home and eat my sandwich finally. It tastes all the better for having been missed.

…

here’s a really great article about one effort to add more nature back to cities!