rebecca coleman visual studies notebook

My drawing this week is of some roses that caught my eye in south Berkeley on the way back from a trail run with some friends this past weekend. Below is a picture that I took of the rose bush. Rose Bush, South Berkeley, CA, April 2017 My drawing is on newsprint and I used colored pencil, markers, and pen. The yellow background and light blue leaves match my late grandfather's bedspread. I don't know what this means except that we spent a lot of time with him earlier this spring and this experience has of course stayed with me. Quilt, Carmel, CA March 2017 When I think about something that is "centering," I think about the Grateful Dead. I grew up listening to their music and still listen to it, probably too much. Related to my drawing, a lot of artwork made for the band incorporates roses, and a lot of the lyrics of their songs do, too.  In particular, there is a Jerry Garcia Band song call...

My drawing this week is of irises in the rain at the Free House, the brewery across from campus on Bancroft. I think it relates to the last line of the stanza from the Theodore Roethke poem for this week (I Knew a Woman): Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:    I’m martyr to a motion not my own; What’s freedom for? To know eternity. I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.    But who would count eternity in days? These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:    (I measure time by how a body sways).

My drawing this week is of the blossoming California poppies that I saw when I walked along the Ballona Creek over spring break when I was home in LA. The drawing was made with colored pencil, marker, and gold pen on newsprint. Thanks Tony for posting this Robinson Jeffers poem in connection with the word for this week that mentions a beautiful, unbroken field of poppies in Carmel. I am re-posting it here. Robinson Jeffers Carmel Point  The extraordinary patience of things!  This beautiful place defaced with a crop of suburban houses— How beautiful when we first beheld it, Unbroken field of poppy and lupin walled with clean cliffs; No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing, Or a few milch cows rubbing their flanks on the outcrop rockheads— Now the spoiler has come: does it care? Not faintly. It has all time. It knows the people are a tide That swells and in time will ebb, and all Their works dissolve. Meanwhile the image of the pristine beauty Lives in the very gra...

Wildflowers in the Grapevine, CA (March 2017) I took a bus back to Berkeley from Los Angeles on Friday. I had spent spring break in Los Angeles with my family. The bus was a double-decker Megabus that I got on at Union Station in downtown LA. I got to the station early enough that I was able to get a seat on the second floor of the bus. There were windows that were probably four feet long and there was also a skylight, so I had a good view of the wildflowers blooming in the Grapevine heading north on I-5. The Grapevine is that pass that you travel through right before hitting the Central Valley. I've driven through the Grapevine so many times, either on the way to Berkeley, or Monterey, or Yosemite, and the hills have never looked like the pictures above. To be honest I've probably never really looked closely at these hills. I thought the Grapevine would be a good subject for the word this week because they are so easy to overlook. I also did a drawing of some ...