22 June 2009

mourning at night

A very long Sunday yesterday, but beautiful… I spent the whole day preparing, up early and in the studio. Since I’m taking over a class I didn’t plan, there were many things I needed to test – skills to brush up on, formulae to remember, and specific chemistry ordered that I don’t usually use for my own gums. Plus I had brought other paper and old chemistry from my studio. I needed to see if it’d even work.

I certainly took my time about it, of course, sitting outside in the mountain air waiting for paper to dry. The whole classroom needed rearranging, but I hadn’t seen my assistant at all yet, and had in fact heard that the original assistant couldn’t make it. I actually knew nothing about what to expect, having none of the information I usually have well before arriving – supplies lists, class roster and so on – but I wasn’t worried at all. I just had work to do.

A little after three, Mark the studio coordinator arrived, followed closely by my new assistant who turned out to be Betsy, a young woman on staff here who had taken my last workshop in March. I already knew her to be quick, funny and quite talented. (Plus if there’s something most helpful in an assistant, it’s someone who knows the school well…) While I mixed chemistry, Mark and Betsy moved tables and drying racks, hung blackout material and chili-pepper lights*, and together we figured out just what we had in the chemical closets and what we might be needing.

5 o’clock came pretty quickly, then, with the studio mostly arranged but tons yet left to do. But now the session really began, with an all-school orientation, then dinner, an instructor meeting and afterwards – at last – the first meeting with the students, at 8:30. No matter what you plan for your class, it can all change once you know your students. No, even just once you see them. I was a little worried that they’d be disappointed, having signed up for one teacher and getting stuck with another, but I had picked up two more students (fooled by my good reputation, it seems) and I knew I could give them all what was promised, if not more. Right away they seemed like a great group, with the usual mix of skill levels and experience. More importantly they seemed ok with my particular style of teaching – knowledgeable (I think) but chaotic and relaxed to the point of silliness. Absurdity, even. I am aiming for us to have a good time while working like crazy, until they don’t even realize they are learning a lot as we go…

By 9:30 the students were gone to settle in, and I was alone in the studio, testing mixes, paints and papers. I was thinking about the materials they’d need tomorrow when I realized I was using the exact same brush I used twenty years ago when I first learned this process. In fact, I was using some of the exact same orange gouache I’d used for my thesis… I had a sudden flashback to my college years, for here I was, just as then, up late alone in the darkroom, listening to punk rock and printing gums.

*The Official Christopher James’ Alternative Safelight

It was after eleven before Ila and I made it down to the churchyard where John is buried, right next to his father Jack. We had walked the dark road down hardly needing the flashlight, knowing the way as we did. I carried a mason jar of daisies, and Ila carried a box of things – “Sculpture,” I think she said. The fireflies were crazy, and I wished I had brought my camera for… I don’t know what. By John and Jack I set the daisies down and we unpacked the box containing a candle, a book of poems and, yes, a sculpture. It was the last thing John was working on when he died – a laughing jester, I guess, in clay – but his legs had broken when it was fired. Ila tied them on loosely with yellow string I had brought from the photo studio, and set him up on the gravestone. We lit the candle and sat and talked, oddly surprised that we had so much to talk about concerning death and grief. We realized everyone goes through it on their own, even when together. Even when mourning the same person, everyone’s grief is a lonely grief.

We read two e. e. cummings poems that I believe were read at his funeral. The one I read end like this: