{"id":10482,"date":"2015-01-24T11:45:28","date_gmt":"2015-01-24T19:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/?p=10482"},"modified":"2015-01-24T21:47:01","modified_gmt":"2015-01-25T05:47:01","slug":"pressing-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/2015\/01\/24\/pressing-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Pressing In"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Anne-Toledo-2015\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Anne, at her press,\u00a0in the Oregon studio.<\/h6>\n

Did I tell you? We’re on another of our working vacations. For us, they’re the best kind. We don’t even call them vacations<\/em>. Others do, so it’s okay to use the word. But we don’t vacate anything. Rather we press in.<\/p>\n

We’re in the Oregon hide-away we discovered some years ago. We’re trying to remember, is this our fourth time, or fifth?<\/p>\n

As always, we filled the back of the van with supplies and tools of our work. Even the two days on the road is a stimulation\u2014this time listening to a long audio book on Ulysses Grant.* Now, nestled in the studio, we’re listening to The Italian Renaissance<\/em>.** It’s our third time through, always checking it out from the library here in Toledo. (They’ve finally issued us a card.)<\/p>\n

Lest you think we’re only doing historical\u00a0listening, we also listen to music, to each other, the sound of rain . . . or nothing at all. I suppose that’s when it’s a true vacation. But such moments are short lived. Life is for activity, and self-expressive work is one of its gifts.<\/p>\n

Anne is working eight to ten hours a day on her printmaking. As usual, she\u00a0brought her press, her plates, her inks and paper. She’s got a lot of previously begun\u00a0pieces to finalize. Then there are completely new creations to bring into being.<\/p>\n

I brought three projects to work on. Two are multi-piece painting commissions, the other a writing\/book-design project. I’ve calculated that if I can put about three hours per day into each one, by the time we’re finished here I will have reached my goals.<\/p>\n

That’s for quantity. Quality is another matter, and not always so reachable. But it’s a good challenge.<\/p>\n

Besides all this, the daily rhythms include early mornings with God, evenings with some mystery video (Foyle’s War<\/em>, again!), mid-day walks (rain or shine), an occasional ten-minute drive over to the coast for clam chowder or just a look at the spectacular and untamed elements of Oregon’s winter.<\/p>\n

We’ve been here a week and have a week to go. We’re blessed. Again we’re getting to experience the truth\u00a0that a\u00a0man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work.<\/em>***<\/p>\n

Now, back to it.<\/p>\n

You too, with yours.<\/p>\n

_____________
\n* \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0The Man who Saved the Union, Ulysses Grant in War and Peace<\/em>, by H. W. Brands, 27 hours.
\n** \u00a0 \u00a0by Dr. Kenneth Bartlett, University of Toronto, produced by The Teaching Company, 36 lectures.
\n*** \u00a0Ecclesiastes 2:24 (and repeated five other places in that book)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s a vacation-not, the best kind, when we get to live it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10482"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10482"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10510,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10482\/revisions\/10510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}