Recently someone asked me if I’d taken a break from posting. Definitely not, although I can certainly understand the question. Clearly my goal to post every other day isn’t always reached. Sometimes I’m busy socializing or getting ready for company, or I’m away for an entire day. Case in point: Thursday I drove to Connecticut with a friend to view the show of my dad’s art work again, and to have lunch with my sister and nieces. That took all day, or at least all the mental energy I could muster. By the time I arrived home at 6 in the evening, my day was over!

     But more than a busy day now and then, the sporadic postings are the result of all the other writing I’m doing, mainly the memoir about my mom. Serious writing, such as Very Grateful, takes intense energy; I can do just so much at one sitting and during one day. I write for an hour and then take a break, which includes walking, reading, cooking, working on a jigsaw puzzle, and sometimes visiting a friend. Except for the visiting, my breaks are carried out in silence and solitude. As far as simplicity is concerned, well, I try to create a simple flow to my days, but let’s face it, what I do feels extremely complex. 

I’ve picked up If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit, a gem of a book by Brenda Ueland (1891-1985) that I put down for two months before I went to Scotland and became involved in family and Camp Fisher activities. Now my life is my own again and I’m settling into my home version of solitude, and into my writing..

     I love Ueland’s message, blunt and unconventional. Just listen to this!

     “But the great artists like Michelangelo and Blake and Tolstoi—like Christ whom Blake called an artist because he had one of the most creative imaginations that every was on earth—do not want security, egoistic or materialistic. Why, it never occurs to them….So they dare to be idle, i.e., not to be pressed and duty driven all the time. They dare to love people even when they are very bad, and they dare not to try and dominate others to show them what they must do for their own good. For great and creative men know what is best for every man is his own freedom so that his imagination can grow in it’s own way, even if that way, to you or to me, or to policemen or churchgoers, seems very bad indeed.”

      That’s enough to ponder for the rest of the summer, or year, or a lifetime. Of course we’re not all great artists, but that’s not the point. We all have a creativity, imagination, spirit, whatever you want to call it, to nurture and express, even if only to ourselves.

     What resonates with me is the permission Ueland’s gives me, all of us, to be idle, to be free from the duties that we feel the rest of the world is pressing on us. In that idleness, experienced in solitude, we are free, free to create, but also free to let go of the judgments we have about other people. When I dare take the counter-cultural stance and go to the cottage or travel alone, I satisfy my own good. It may appear selfish, but I think of it as being honest, which is essential for inner peace, and that I dare to assert is the ultimate goal of all of us..

      Where do the memories of my artist dad fit into all of this? As my sister said at the gallery opening of his work, Dad was disciplined. It’s a given that to be good at anything we have to practice. But Dad also took time to be idle.  Again I’m reminded of all those times when I would see him sitting in a chair in the woods. Sometimes he had a sketchbook with him, but my recollection is that he just sat. I wish I could ask him what he was thinking, what his process was. But maybe the memory of him ‘perched’ there as I, absorbed in my play, ran by, is enough. Dad and I, both in our imaginations, working things out. Dad, the grownup, thinking.  Me, the active ten-year old, active, my thoughts and actions working simultaneously. Now, sixty years later, I’m more in my head although I get many of my best thoughts while walking. Regardless, whether sitting or walking,  I am idle and alone.

Finally things are quieting down in my life. I’m looking forward to a couple of weeks of silence, solitude and simplicity. Ha! We’ll see. I’m still reeling with delight over the opening reception for my dad’s art work at the New Canaan Connecticut Library: Perspectives: The Art of Ed Eberman. My sister Alice arranged it all (all the pieces were hers) and my sister Margot wrote the bio.

    Of course, I remember Dad as Dad. I took for granted his talent and the way he sketched, painted, and designed. As Alice mentioned in the little gallery talk, Dad was very disciplined. He retired at age 60 and then, when he wasn’t traveling, or gardening, or attending a church or civic meeting, or socializing with the family, he would retreat to his studio and paint until lunch; then back he would go for another three hour session. His passion and commitment paid off, but then that’s the way it is when we follow our bliss. To be good at anything, you have to want to practice, practice, practice, and then you have to do it.

    Dad could be very gregarious but he also sought solitude. Artists need time alone. It’s part of the process. What we see is the final product, not all that private, solitary time, and yes, even secret time. I think of Dad sitting in a chair out in the back woods, in what he referred to as his perch. Um, he had his own version of a cottage by the sea. I’m more like him that I ever imagined.

Here are some of Dad's works that are not in the exhibit.

    One hundred nine years ago today my dad was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. When he was still a little boy, his family moved to North Carolina, but then years later he returned to the state of his birth to . attend Carnegie Mellon (then called Carnegie Tech). Dad had many jobs before he was thirty, one being Art Director of Look Magazine, where he met my mom who was also working for the magazine. A few years after they were married, he became co-founder and director of Famous Artists Schools, and remained in that position until he retired at age 60 to pursue his interests in painting, gardening and traveling.

    As I sit here on the deck of this cottage by the sea, I am reminded of my dad sitting in the woods near our house, sitting, looking, meditating, ‘being’. He definitely would approve of my quest for silence, solitude and simplicity. But then, all four of us always had our dad’s approval. He was that kind of a father. I wish he were right here with me today.