Birth, School, Work, Death

The concept of "work" has become so distorted from the relentless marketing push that drives modern commerce (which requires the constant ringing of cash machines to stay afloat as an economy), that many individuals maintain someone cannot be "normal" if they don't suffer through another meaningless day at an office, working at a dully repetitive job in a big company run by faceless people with money. That's what they call "life". Think about that for a moment; about how you spend most of your time. I have a vocation: a rich, passionate fulfilling one that is sometimes driven by the necessity for money, but take away the "job", and I'm still an artist and designer who writes, and I always will be, regardless of a whether or not a company pays me for my expertise. In fact, I will continue to develop my skills throughout my life, until the end of my time here on earth. It's a stance and a reality that puts jobs exactly where they belong: not the whole story of who we are. I couldn't fit my entire life into a 9-5 cubicle. Could you?

Instead of being driven in a panicked fashion from one place of employment to another, stop to think about what you would do, and who you would be without a corporation to define you. Is there anything of real value left? If not, why is that? Trust me, when you ponder those questions closely, you'd be surprised how much more respect drives your choices and decisions, in business and in life. Being able to rely on one's instincts (no matter how stressful or difficult life sometimes is) comes from a sense of self-worth that is the real American Dream, not the pre-packaged version sold to you by someone looking to profit from your hands, your mind, and your hard-fought for (and difficultly won) successes. I make work every day, whether or not someone pays me, because that's who I am, and that's what I do, which kind of obliterates old-fashioned concepts like vacations and desk jobs. Think about it, the next time you face an important life decision. Enjoy your time off, laborer.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lany1mze4V1qbl9u7o1_500.gif

Nature: Hungry Squirrles and Intense Rabbits

Hankering for a hunk of Italian bread.

I was walking home from the library one afternoon to be startled by a squirrel with a huge hunk of Italian bread in its' mouth, dexterously climbing a bush's branches with it locked down in its' mouth. 

Intensely chewing and staring...at you!

I must have had extra special magnetic rays radiating out from me that day, because later on, the local bunny rabbit decided to stand right outside the window of the room where I stay, surprisingly intense in it's stare, chewing vigorously and intently looking at me with a gaze that didn't break after I walked across the room to take a picture. 

"A bird ran into my giant freak-head."

Sometimes having The Patron Saint of Animals (St. Francis) as your main "go-to guy" is a bit unnerving, like Elaine from Seinfeld's bird phobia, provoked by a kamikaze pigeon flight at her "big head" while walking through Central Park. Sometimes I need to dial my pheromones down a bit. What do you attract?

My wolf pack grew by two that day.

Street Art: Beauty

You are beautiful.

Random art happens, and sometimes it's there just when you need it, like say, your local bus stop. Every day I fight the good fight to stay in an industry that could care less about whether I live or die, because a business isn't an actual person with a soul, a conscience, or however you define the human experience. Cruel? Perhaps, but I also come loaded with some very powerful weapons of my own: my history, my life stories, my background, my expertise, and a strong portfolio. 

Weapon of choice for the day's errand.

Still, every little bit helps when you're meeting for the umpteenth time a rich, white man with more privileges, advantages and money than you, smug in their role, trying to make you feel that they hold your fate in your hands. The Hunger Game can be a really powerful head trip, and like any other business, publishing comes fully loaded with a lot of huge egos, of people who let it go to their head. So when I see a little shining sign that reminds me who I am, of who I can still choose be (and so can you), it helps. Thanks.

I need all the help I can get, thank you.

A Walk in the Park: Playgrounds

 The city in the country.

There's something creepy to me about empty playgrounds. Most of the scariest bully attacks happened to me on playgrounds as a kid. Me and my cousins were surrounded and hassled by a big group of tormentors, on a family visit to their hometown, when our parents urged us out the door to "go out and play". Some fun. I whispered to my cousins to make a run for it at my sign when the older kids were distracted by some other young kids coming to play in "their yard", and they did. Nothing like running for your life, being chased by several very large punk ass kids, jeering and making threats at your heels, to give wings to your feet. Never have I run so fast for so long without getting winded. It remains my example to that very basic question: fight, or flight?

Getaway ride? I think not.

Me? I'm a fighter. I stand my ground. But my younger cousins from upstate would never had made it out alive using their fists with these toughs from the city,  who came with the flight families made to what they thought harbored safer grounds in the suburbs. See that empty horsey ride? Yeah, I don't like the looks of it either. What do some things remind you about childhood? Night lights, for a fear of the dark? Open closets, to foil those horrible nightmarish monsters? Tell me. Mommy understands.

Fly away home.

Around the Way: Bye, Bye Brooklyn

Cool like that.

My stuff may still live in Brooklyn, but I've moved on. This was the view from the back of a storage building, and I couldn't help but find it representing that Brooklyn flavor: the neon Kentile sign that many a weary subway commuter has looked at from their window seat, wishing they were already home. It was a great home to me, and I'll always remember my time there: funky, fabulous, freshness.  
Brooklyn rocks the house. Always.

Down like that.

Nature lovers, my blog made the news again on Nature Daily. Check it out, yo: http://paper.li/GoodBlogPosts2/1309689915.

Nature: Loud Bark

An exceptional variety of bark coloration.

Any good painter or textile artist or designer will tell you that the study of nature is essential for divining patterns. R.I.S.D. (The Rhode Island School of Design) has a Nature Lab devoted specifically for that purpose: chiefly, to school young artists in the ways of observation as it exists naturally. 

The Edna Lawrence nature Lab at RISD.

It was one of the places on campus that I loved best as a student, because it called to those interests already begun at my mother's knee (herself with degrees in Botany and Biology). Whenever I see a great pattern, I'm already thinking about its' inspirational uses, whether as a background texture or a beautiful photo or a funky fabric, such is the diversity of a well trained creative thinker. What inspires you?

Are you also a fan or flora and/or fauna? The follow me here: http://pinterest.com/mariedoucette/nature/.

Type: Everyday, People.

Exit, stage left.

Every day you see intelligent typography and sophisticated typesetting, from the lowly sign to the most rarefied art book in a museums' collection. If you can read text, you're looking at graphic design. Well done!

If you also enjoy type and typesetting, from the rare and divine, to the humble and working class, join me in my quest on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/mariedoucette/type/.

The Joy of Movement: Taking a Nature Walk

Little trail in some nearby woods.

Before I moved out west to Colorado, I considered myself a hiker, but that was before I knew I was supposed to buy thousands of dollars worth of flashy gear to go roughing it in the mountains, insulting the lesser mortals who dared to go without my flashy walking sticks as I passed them by on the trails, bragging about how many "14er" (peaks over 14,000 ft) climbs I had under my very expensive, hand-tooled leather belt from the flagship REI store in Denver, complete with rock climbing wall for weekend warriors and their brats, er kids. 

Woods!

Oh, so that what it is! I guess me and my Dad's banged up metal Boy Scout canteen could just go elsewhere, and that's just what I did, following his old adage to vote using my feet. I grew up with the lower Catskills, Adirondacks, and portions of the famous Appalachian trail at my feet, so clearly I was the douche bag for attaching enough shitty attitude to that fact. My bad. 

Gorgeous green ferns.

Let's correct the facts today. I am a hiker, but I'm also a naturalist who loves looking at scenery. Not every walk has to be a grueling, painful death march of endurance that you brag about on Monday at the water cooler, with your latest "good for you for showing up" medal. Sometimes I just go to smell the roses so to speak, or whatever wild flowers are growing at the time. 

Fallen tree to climb over. Yay!

It's enough for me to feel the leaves under my feet, beneath a forest canopy, maybe take some beautiful pictures, relishing the sounds of birds and the feeling of "aloneness" while surrounded by nature. Sometimes it's that small, and also that significant. Don't let someone else's hang ups dull your experiences or cloud the enjoyment you feel in the woods. Get to it!

No fancy gear, just me.

For those of you who also enjoying moving your feet (along with other body parts), I have a Pinterest board for that: http://pinterest.com/mariedoucette/the-joy-of-movement/.

Food: Wild Grapes

Wild grapes.

After walking past these vines for weeks, I finally picked some ripe wild grapes last week, which was a bold move on my part. You never know what people do by the side of a road, but these were on a small hill that I had to climb to pick them, so I figured they were about as organic as you're going to get outside of a expensive organic market.

Wild grapes growing by the side of a road.

I tossed them in with some small sour apples I picked up from a nearby park into a warm steak salad, and it turned out to be the right thing to do: the apples became sweeter upon cooking and so did the grapes, plus they gave off a beautiful red wine color when they sweated with some onions. I love it when a dish all comes together on the fly like that, because I've cracked enough eggs to make a very big omelet. What do you find growing in the wild?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grape 

Small Town America: Walking to Town

Up the hill from the library...

One of the best aspects about having a defined town center with an actual main street is that it makes life easier for humans. You'd be surprised how many people do not know this simple, easy fact about their own existence. 

...past the stone wall...

If you can walk to everything you need, you'll be healthier, feel better, and waste less time on weekends running errands and shopping because stores are accessible to you, but don't take it just from me. Try it for yourself.

...and the Methodist Church.

Faith: The Assumption of Mary

Birds in flight, on Assumption Thursday 2013.

Mary is THE Mother figure in our Catholic faith, because she represents all women, the one woman who, above all others, understands the most a woman's particular pains: they begin at labor and continue as she suffers and cares for her family until the end of her life. Women don't get a lot of help in the Old Testament (the book that is the Torah in Judaism), but the New Testament casts us in a slightly better light. We still have to be sacrificial virgins, but the good news is it's an angel who gives the news to Mary that the Almighty Force of the Universe is the baby daddy, and that instead of a bloody sacrifice, Mary is risen body and soul into His Arms in Heaven. Oh. 

Plane in flight, on Assumption Thursday.

It kinda makes our every day pains seems trivial, right? But that's what the really big myths do. They cast our woes into perspective by showing us that throughout human time, women have always had big burdens to bear, because we bear the entire human race. That's a big deal, and we have the holidays to honor this essential truth: the most important thing we have in this world (and the next) is love, because love is the answer, and the power of a mother's love is the love that drives this whole ship called Earth. Honor her well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assumption_of_Mary

Nature: Meets Pavement

A Maple leaf print.

A helicopter lands.

You see different things in the country. Pavement marks in the city usually say that someone loves someone else, or they were here; desperate signatures from a place teeming with people seeking to make their mark, though more often frustrated, alone, and unheard.


Here, it's nature that does the louder talking in a much gentler way: a leaf falls from a tree, and a helicopter lands on the ground, quietly but powerfully, making the same impact on cement.

It reminded me that a yell and a whisper both say volumes if we learn to listen better. What do you hear?

Design: Heading in the Right Direction

"This Way!"

Design can be made to seem like it's a rarefied thing that other (richer) people do, some where out there in T.V. Land, like decorating large pricey penthouse suites, or making fancy, elaborate wedding cakes for expensive affairs, instead of the much more mundane reality: we do street signs, too. 

"Stop Now!"

In fact, almost everything we have in our human world was (and is now) designed specifically for you to use, by every day (but not average) people just like me, to help you live better (and more). 

Sometimes it's just so humble and simple, we fail to see the signs that are placed right before our eyes. Take a good look around this weekend. What do see?

Toys: Angry Birds

Why so angry, bird?

My mom has this big blue chair decorated with stuffed animals, relics from our family's past: some were gifts for her, some toys for her grand kids, and others are...who knows? All of the bird toys make actual bird calls, which lends them a charming authenticity. 

Rocking chair zoo.

I grew up surrounded by bird calls over traffic noise, and I've heard more than one native New Yorker from the city complain about the raucous splendor of crickets, cicadas and birds. Personally, I'll take that over screams of terror coming from the sidewalk, cries of pain in the night followed by desperate shrieks for help, multiple car alarms during storms, and siren sounds any day. It's way more friendly.

Me and birdie friend.

Gardens: Dr. Henry V. Borst Park

I found this tiny park walking to and from the library. It's the perfect bucolic spot for my tai chi chuan practice, nicely hidden by a small stand of beautiful little sour apple trees, but I was curious about it. Something about it seemed random and at the same time, very well designed. Turns out, it is. A local told me she remembered the dentist who lived there when she was a little girl. The kids were so scared of him, she never took apples from his trees. 

Didn't you have a crazy old person on your street who lived in a scary old house, too? Alice told me Dr. Borst deeded the land to the town out of spite, so as to cheat his only living heir, a niece, from inheriting it all. I have no idea if that's real or colorful folklore, but somehow it makes me love this tucked away spot more. Where do you go to get away from it all?

  

Cottages: Pearl River

I've always hated huge houses, and I cannot lie. What's with all the space? I get not wanting to bump your elbows into tiny bathroom walls, or bang your knees against tables tucked into tight corners, not to mention bunk bedding with a sibling, but the sprawling, quickly made, cheaply thrown up stucco McMansion as a design style totally eludes me in its' ugliness. 

I like old Victorians with wide porches, pretty little brick cottages, and old stone farmhouses. Since its' me who usually cleans any space I'm in, I'm only too happy not to be able to afford the ugly new American Dream. I'm glad the housing bubble burst in America. Let's bring back the small, quaint, and beautiful.

Street Art: Sticker Faces

Pearl River Bus Stop: Face 1.

Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do waiting for the slow country bus going to the city (http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2013/05/around-town-hitchin-ride.html). 

Pearl River Bus Stop: Face 2.

These artists had the right idea: let's make funny faces from post office labels and stick 'em up for other people to see. It gets you through the tough times. What do you do when you're impatient?

This is you caring

Fellow book designer and talent extraordinaire Judy Abbate is 

battling cancer and a loss of income. She needs our help! 

http://www.youcaring.com/medical-fundraiser/big-surgery-for-my-love/71246

Small Town America: Malls

Grassy mound, at The Nanuet Mall.

One of the worst experiences about country life are the malls. They kinda suck the life out of people and places through the merciless sell sell sell of things. A lesser mind can get turned around in this fake Shangri La, a tempting NeverLand of beautiful objects priced just high enough to drain your wallet, making someone else rich. I'm not going to say malls destroy the environment, because that's easy and they provide jobs, but calling them blights on the landscape is justified.

Up.

Where the grassy mound sat was the last hold out from the early 70s boom in Rockland's economy, a time when young families from the city moved on up, and there one old lady sat in her old house as a reminder of our rural past, a real life version of the animated movie "Up". When she died, the developers finally moved in, and I found this mound where her house was a fitting tribute to her courage against the forces of Capitalism, the green earth not unlike a burial mound, some of the things I contemplated sitting at a red light.

How do you do honor the past in the present?

http://www.rocklandtimes.com/2012/11/29/simon-group-guts-ferrettis-home/ 

Nature: The Tree Man

A face grows in a Rockland tree.

Toys: Childhood Past (and Present)

"Winnie the Pooh, I love you!"

Staying in the country with my mom, surrounded by the people, places, and things I grew up with, I can't help the sentiments experienced by revisiting one's home. I see the edits my mom has made in her home, selecting which precious objects from our past to include, like the small, charming table lamp that also functions as a nightlight, resting on an antique wood table that sits under portraits of her as a child, her children when young, and now her grandchildren. I grew up in a bedroom that was decorated by a tiny watercolor painting she made for me of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet, both of them floating on a watery backdrop of green that stands in for a landscape. 

It's so charming, and I remember staring at that cute picture for hours as a little girl. I still love A.A. Milne's* stories and art, so much so that years later I named a special little Mal cub TeddyBear, who grew to enormous height, so lovable an animal was he (http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/search?q=TeddyBear), plus a photo series from an adorable doll that my ex gave me from that time period, as a gift in celebration of sharing our home with this very beautiful animal (http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2011/10/ted-12901-102011.html).

The lamp has two modes: the tummy casts a small, cheery orange glow that babies (and little Acadian girls) can go to sleep to, or a more adult setting with an actual bulb. Now, as I go to sleep near it as an adult, I can't help but connect the objects from my past to this very real version of me as an adult who breathes art, design, and literature, so closely have they grown and interwoven together, that it makes me smile, just like it did then.  

What precious objects from your past have you saved?

 

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._A._Milne

Sacred Spaces: St. Margaret's

Saint Margaret's of Pearl River, NY.

I have another Pinterest board that's called Street Art and Sacred Spaces for a reason: both are intimate communal places that give us very specific experiences. One very late night, my mind racing from an unfortunately timed evening cup of very strong tea that I shouldn't have had, I condensed my boards into groupings, thinking about what I wanted to say to my audience.

Street sign in Pearl River, NY.

It's a carefully culled selection of images, whose pairings are designed for pondering. What do our public spaces say? Sometimes it's as simple (and wonderfully complex) as a stand of beautiful tress that inspired the original cathedral builders who sought to draw our eyes upwards towards the heavens, or a sticker on a bus stop links together the creator and the viewer in a bonding experience that's just as intelligently (and sublimely) developed. Enjoy the view.

Street Art and Sacred Spaces: http://pinterest.com/mariedoucette/street-art-sacred-spaces/