Morning.  You made it!

Steps:

1.  Outer space.

2.  Inner space.

3.  What is one of your favorite memories from this school year?  Draw that.

4.  Title: “What an Experience!”

5.  Date it.

6.  Send it to me.

See you at 10:00!

Welcome back.

Steps:

1.  Go here.

Scroll down a little until you see the audio bar for “Jill Lepore On How a Pandemic Ends” – not the first one, but the second one: it’s a audio track that is 9:27 in length.

Before you do your index card drawing, listen to historian Jill Lepore talk about the dark years of the polio virus and how it affected the lives of children.  I’ll ask you to share your thoughts at Class Meeting (but if you are only coming to this post just before the meeting, wait until after to listen and to do your ICD). If you need to take notes or draw in order to maintain focus, do that!

Clear your mind, remove any external distractions, and press play.

Nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds later:

2.  Outer space.

3.   Inner space.

4.  While you listen to Dolly Parton sing about the “Light of a Clear Blue Morning,” draw this:

You receiving the news that the COVID-19 vaccine works.  What are you doing?  What are you thinking? What are you feeling?

5.  Title: “Hear Ye, Hear Ye!  The Vaccine Works!”

6.  Date it.

7.  Send it to me.

See you at 10:00!  Please have your Wagamese writing open on your computer!

Morning.  It’s Friday!

Steps:

1.  Outer space.

2.  Inner space.

3.  You know those summer days that are really hot and the sky is cloudless and blue, and all the sprinklers are out, and all your friends are either busy or away, and the day seems to stretch on forever and you’re super bored but as soon it’s over you want another one just like it?  Draw that.

4.  Title: “Joni Mitchell – ‘The Hissing of Summer Lawns’.” (I had to slip at least one more in: it was beyond my control.) (You can see the video Joni directed of the song here, and read about the song itself here.)

5.  Date it.

6.  Send it to me.

See you at 10:00!

Morning. Almost there.

Almost.

Steps:

1.  Outer space.

2.  Inner space.

3.  Think back to the NewsHour segment we watched about Gen-Z.

If you were in charge, what changes would Gen-Z make to the world to make it a better, more fair, just, safe, and beautiful place to live?  For reals.

4.  Title: “Gen-Z to the Rescue!”

5.  Date it.

6.  Send it to me.

See you at 10:00!

Morning.  Welcome to Wednesday.

Steps:

1.  Outer space.

2.  Inner space.

3.  What is one of the central images in your Wagamese-inspired story?  Draw that – paying attention to the details – while you listen to the awe-inspiring Brandi Carlile sing about being “Forever Young.”

4.  Give your drawing a title that makes sense of the image.

5.  Date it.

6.  Bring it to class meeting!  See you at 10:00

ps: If you haven’t heard of Brandi Carlile yet, do your life a favor and get on it! (I was at this concert two years ago – beyond amazing.) (And of course this.) (Oh, heck, just do the whole mix.)

Welcome back.

That’s the attitude, Osaka!

Steps (remind yourself that it makes a difference if you do these for reals):

1.  Outer space.

2.  Inner space.

3.  As we head into the final stretch, let’s place Richard Wagamese very firmly in our minds: remember that the writing you are calling into being is a celebration and acknowledgement of this great man and what he taught us about ourselves and about the world around us.

You might recall that in the video we watched of Wagamese’s “chosen sister,” Shelagh Rogers, speaking of him after his death, she mentioned how he had said that hearing Rostropovich play the Dvořák Cello Concerto changed his life:

“When I first heard it, I ached.  It was the most sublime music I had ever heard; it made me crave more for myself.”

You job is to copy this photograph of Wagamese with as much precision and detail as you can muster – keeping in mind Lynda Barry’s incredible advice about images being like maps: a collection of lines with spatial relationships – while you listen to the “Adagio” from the concerto.

Put your heart into it.

4.  Title: “For Richard.”

5.  Date it.

6.  Send it to me.

See you at 10:00!

Morning.  Happy Friday.

Relate much?

Buckle your seatbelts, kids.  It’s the end of our second round of Joni-Fest, and things are going to get deep.

A few things you need to know:

Amelia Earhart.  She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, in 1932.  She then upped the ante by flying from Hawaii to California in 1935.  And finally, in 1937, she set out to fly around the world.  Two-thirds of the way through, somewhere near the International Date Line, her plane disappeared, and she was never seen or heard from again.

Icarus: in Greek mythology, Icarus, son of Daedalus, was the first human to break the laws of gravity by using the wings his father crafted out of osier branches, bird feathers, and wax to soar into the sky.  Young, enthusiastic, and thrilled by the feeling that flying gave him, he ignored his father’s warning about flying too close to the sun: the wax melted, and Icarus crashed into the sea and drowned.

Steps:

1.  Outer Space

• what do you need to do to prepare the space around you?

2.  Inner Space

• what do you need to do to prepare the space within you?

3.  This is an interpretive drawing.

We’re going back to Hejira, and one of its most famous tracks, “Amelia.”  Just like you did 1,000 years ago (by which I mean April), your job is to listen closely and to draw what you hear.

There is no right or wrong: you can interpret the beautiful, complex lyrics; you can interpret the amazingly intricate music; just images, images and words – totally up to you.

Before you begin, though – have you actually done Steps 1 and 2 above?  If not, please do so now.

If you wish, you can read the lyrics before you begin – this is not required.

Like “Hejira,” Joni wrote this song in Joan Black mode, travelling solo in a borrowed Cadillac across America – without a drivers license.

“I wrote the album while traveling cross-country by myself and there is this restless feeling throughout it… the sweet loneliness of solitary travel. In this song, I was thinking of Amelia Earhart and addressing it from one solo pilot to another, sort of reflecting on the cost of being a woman and having something you must do . . . I don’t know how many hotel rooms later, the song was complete.”

Deep breath.  Do your best to allow what happens to happen.  Go.

4.  Title: “Joni Mitchell – ‘Amelia’.”

5.  Date it.

6.  Send it to me.

If you’d like to see a live version of the song, go here.

If you’d like to hear Joni sing it several decades later (and several octaves lower) with the London Symphony orchestra, go here.

If you’d like to see how various artists have represented the Icarus myth, go here.

See you at 10:00!

Morning.

Please read this entire post before beginning. This will help you understand the steps.

As broadcast in yesterday’s class meeting, we’re returning to an old favourite today (by old, I mean from April; and by favourite I mean a couple of people said they really enjoyed it): Draw Like Joni!

As with last time, it will take a little longer than usual.  As with last time, I’d like you to invest in it. And as with last time, please make sure you read these instructions slowly, purposefully, and carefully.  Try to do each step in order.

You’ll need time, so if you are seeing this just before class meeting, wait until after.

Choose your own adventure: choose a painting and choose some music.

“I have always thought of myself as a painter derailed by circumstance.” ~ Joni

Steps:

1.  Outer Space

• materials (a sharp pencil is your friend) (but don’t tell your bed: it may get jealous)
• remove or turn off distractions
• clear workspace

2.  Inner Space

• body relaxed but aware (this takes a little time)
• connect to breath (so does this)
• clear head

3.  Choose your painting.

Either:

Right-click or control-click here to open a new tab or window, and then take a look until you find an image that calls to you.  You can use the expand tool in the top right of each image to make it larger.

Or:

Right-click or control-click here and choose one of the paintings Joni made for her album covers. If you want a larger version of the art to work with, google the name of the album + “Joni Mitchell cover art.”

Your job is to copy this image with as much detail and precision as you can – slowly and calmly, remembering Lynda Barry’s advice about images as maps, with one line connected to the other, focusing on spatial relationships.

If you wish, you can add color – that is optional.

When you’ve chosen your painting, you’ll come back to this tab/window and select your music.

4.  Choose your music.

Choose one song and play it on a loop, or go through two, three, or all four of these masterpieces of lyric and sound one after the other.

When you are ready, press “Play.”

Take your time – allow yourself to get lost in the work.

5.  Title: “Draw Like Joni.”

6.  Date it.

7.  Send it to me. I can’t wait to see it!

See you at 10:00!

Morning.  Welcome to Wednesday.

Yep.

Steps:

1.  Outer space.

2.  Inner space.

3.  What makes you mad?  Not peeved.  Not miffed,  Not annoyed.  Not bothered.  But mad – or, as Joni sings in “The Sire of Sorrow (Job’s Sad Song),” what makes you want to “spit out [your] bitterness”?  Draw that.

Keep those pencils in motion!

4.  Title: “Joni Mitchell – ‘The Sire of Sorrow’.”

5.  Date it.

6.  Send it to me.

If you want to read about the Book of Job – the ancient text examining the struggle to maintain faith in times of extreme suffering that Joni used as an inspirational structure for the song, go here.

If you want to read a brief comparison of the Book of Job with Joni’s song, go here.

If you want to read about polio, the virus Joni suffered from as a child and perhaps informed this song, go here.  If you want to read about the strange condition she has suffered from in later life, go here.

And if you want to here her redo of the song with the London Symphony Orchestra, go here.

Regardless, see you at 10:00!

ps:  Extra Credit: What do the janitors of Shadowland look like?  Draw that in a new frame, title it “The Janitors of Shadowland,” and send it to me, too!

Morning.

Oh, come on: it’s only Tuesday!

Steps:

1.  Outer space.

2.  Inner space.

3.  Draw yourself at the worst party ever, while you listen to Joni sing about going to “People’s Parties,” from her 1974 album, Court and Spark, which wove folk, jazz, and electric rock into a sound that nobody had ever heard before and radically shifted the direction of pop music–forever!

4.  Title: “Joni Mitchell – ‘People’s Parties’.”

5.  Date it.

6.  Send it to me.

See you at 10:00!

(I don’t know about you, but listening to Court and Spark in its entirety while working on Mind Maps seems like the perfect way to spend a rainy Tuesday to me…)

ps: “Joni Mitchell.”