The Class of the Lost Week in April

It isn’t because I haven’t been learning! Au contraire…I have taken on a project stemming from a Skillshare class on Vintage artwork and am happily buried in it. That, and getting the plants into the ground now that (hopefully) the overnight frosts are kaput.

But if I had not been underground (or on the ground, so to speak), I would have posted some arty remembrances of these people who contributed their part to the arts (in all its forms) world.

To make up for lost time, I decided to play with a yearbook format. Quick sketches on the iPad, nothing spectacular. There’s more below that you must not miss, so don’t stop here! And the small print is hard to read. Haven’t figured out how to get a Word document into my iPad drawing program in a format that’s not a photo.. Still learning. I did repeat the information you can’t read at the bottom of this post if you’re interested.

April yearbook 4 30 19 blog.JPG

And P.S., if you are an Anne Lamott fan, you must read this sassy piece from the NYTimes. It relates the story of how she had avoided marriage for so long - not necessarily on purpose - and how she fell for and married in a recent wedding Neal Allen, “a really handsome, soulful guy on (the matchmaking site for over 50s) Our Time and he was like me…he was hard-core left wing, an intellectual, spiritual seeker.”

If you’re paying attention and making your own life as beautiful and rich and fun as it can be, you might just attract someone who’s doing the same thing. You can give up on tracking someone down with your butterfly net.” Anne Lamott, when asked if she has any advice for those who might still be looking for their lifelong partner.

O Karma, Dharma, pudding and pie,

gimme a break before I die:

grant me wisdom, will & wit,

purity, probity, pluck, & grit.

Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, kind,

gimme great abs & a steel-trap mind,

and forgive, Ye Gods, some humble advice –

these little blessings would suffice

to beget an earthly paradise:

make the bad people good –

and the good people nice;

and before our world goes over the brink,

teach the believers how to think.

 

Philip Appleman

Header art is hand-carved image from my 2016 “Flowers Through the Year” calendar.

Muir Born:  ScotlandApril 21, 1838

Hobbies:   Keeping journals, hiking

Ambition:  Botanist, naturalist

Favorite quote: “The clearest way into 

     universe is through a forest wilderness.”

Voted Most Likely to: Save the parks.

Shakespear: Born:  England, April 26, 1564

Hobbies: Teasing 7 siblings.

Ambition:  Write a witty play or two.

Favorite quote: “All the world’s a stage.”

Voted Most Likely to:  Be quotable.

Fitzgerald Born:   Virginia, April 25, 1917

Hobbies:  Dance, sing, play jazz

Ambition:  Scat with Louis Armstrong,

   Duke Ellington and Count Basie

Favorite quote: “Music is the universal

    language it brings people closer together.”

Voted Most Likely to: Be the First

    Lady of Song. 

 

Schwartz Born:  Brooklyn,April 25, 1927

Hobbies:  Wisecracking, telling whoppers

Ambition: Author who tells scary stories

Favorite quote: “The sixth sheik’s sixth

   sheep’s sick.”

Voted Most Likely to: Twist a tongue

   and be a witcrack.

 

Audubon Born:  American Haiti, April 26, 1785

Hobbies:  Drawing birds eggs and nests

Ambition:  Be an ornithologist

Favorite quote:  “But hopes are shy birds

  flying at a great distance seldom reached

  by the best of guns. “

Voted Most Likely to: Paint lots of birds.

Rolfe Born:  Paris, April 26, 1914

Hobbies: Playing hide-and-go seek

Ambition:  Spy for the French Resistance

Favorite quote:  “Women were very much

  better than men for undercover work.

  Women have a far greater capacity for

   cool and lonely courage than men. 

           (quoted about  Lilian Rolfe & others.)

Voted Most Likely to: Have a book written

  About me (The Alice Network)

  

Lantz Born:   New York, April 27, 1899

Hobbies: Drawing crazy animals

Ambition:  Draw and animate cartoons

Favorite quote: “I’m just a little old 

    cartoonist, tryin’ to make a buck.”

Voted Most Likely to:  Build a career

   around a woodpecker