Entering a New Country

Experiencing a new culture can be an interesting experience. There are so many new elements to observe and absorb. The language is new and the natives speak so fluently (and so quickly) it is hard to grasp the content while struggling over the vocabulary. The mind and memory soon fall far behind trying to isolate individual new terms and translate them into more familiar words. New ideas and concepts require new levels of understanding. The newcomer must cope with unfamiliar styles, and different worldviews, and sometimes great contrast in personalities. Sorting and organizing the almost overwhelming input of impressions and information offered by the helpful individuals who are "at home here" is still a bit intimidating. At the same time, so much in the "new country" is fascinating and appealing.

Sights and sounds compete when you first arrive in unfamiliar territory, but it is the visual which wins a visitor's initial attention. Color and form and motion stand out in creative and unique patterns. While the eye is busy cataloguing and comparing and sometimes just identifying what is seen, the ear is filled with incomprehensible conversations about this subject or that viewpoint as the natives compare their own preferences and behaviors with one another. The "locals" and even fellow travelers may assume at first that you speak the lingo or grasp what is going on. One needs a translator quickly and eagerly accepts anyone's offer to explain the scene and serve it up in understandable and digestable portions. And fortunately, in the crowd are willing helpers who see or sense a newcomer's bewilderment. These guides are welcome.

Overall, one striking impression dominates: amid all of the newness, and in the midst of the intrigue, this visitor is finding an unexpected emotion nearly universal among the insiders. In this place there is passion.

Twice I have visited a monthly meeting of the Northwest Oil Painter's Guild. Once I joined an outing in the field and observed artists actually creating paintings, outdoors, on their easels, using the stuff they squeezed from those little metal tubes. (Could this be what I have been seeking?) Today Betty and I visited an Art Show the group presented in a restaurant in Woodland. More than a hundred paintings by over a dozen members were on display in the banquet room. Helpers stood by to answer questions and offer commentary on the paintings and the artists. It was a neat experience. And it was not so intimidating this time. Some of the explanations began to make some sense. (Is my reading paying off?) Comments on the individual techniques pointed out and compared actually seemed understandable. Some of the vocabulary began to register. Names of colors were not as foreign. My weeks of sorting through supplies collected in years of garage sales and art store visits gave me a foundation for watching a demonstrating artist as he painted from his kit of materials. My little Russian easel and what I have put into it now begins to look reasonable. Even some of the colors I selected from among 35 or 40 old, used tubes have received some tacit approval. (Am I nearly ready?)

That I have had the urge for some years to sometime dabble in plein air painting has been mentioned in a previous entry. Somehow the idea just never found expression. Now I think I have found a way - with potential mentors and occasional opportunities - to try my own hand. (Am I really motivated? or is this just the thrill of gathering stuff for a new hobby?) It seems time to find out. Now it is time to cope with "painter's block". Just as the aspiring writers in my family mention their confronting the blank page without a clue of how to begin, I am already conjuring in my mind that blank canvas, and I do not have a plan. The picture in my mind is as blank as the canvas. Before I set things up and ACTUALLY begin, I've got to capture a muse.

Anyone got an idea where to start? or How?