Day: June 30, 2010

Lenore and Izzy and I lay down in the field and waited for the sun to swoop down and kiss this flower and light it up.

Lots of discussions about art, culture, money and creativity. Artists and creative people are struggling to figure out how to survive in an economy that is in trouble, and that also seems to value money much more than art and culture. I argued the other day that some artists have become disconnected from the people they need to sell their work to, and some bristled at that. One suggested to me that it’s an easy thing for me to say, as I make money selling books and am established.

I thought of the years I spent driving around the country with Orson talking my way into dog food shows and agility trials passing out flyers for my first dog book “A Dog Year.” I believe we all have to enter the marketplace, talking to the people who buy our work and understand what it is they want and need. Until it became unwieldy I put my e-mail in all of my books and then began the blog to interact. I think a writer and/or artist needs to change constantly and listen. This is one reason Maria and I are pushing the Creative Union Art Show on July 24 (1 to 4 p.m.) at the Redux Gallery in Dorset, Vt. She will be selling her fiber art – potholders, glass cases, cell cases and I will be selling my photographic/notecards. None of our work will cost more than $15. The other work in the gallery – there is a lot of great work by Vermont and regional artists – will be priced and sold as normal.

It will be nice to give everyone who comes an opportunity to buy something, take something home. Also to see our work. Perhaps when things recover and if the work touches them, they will want to buy books, quilts, photographs, e-book bags. I don’t know. It seems to me a much better approach than sitting around lamenting the death of civilization. And it might even be fun, something I don’t usually associate with art shows.

The donkeys love getting their ears brushed and rubbed. Rose is puzzled. When we will get to real work?

When animals die, I think of people. Of the people who loved them, and whose lives they touched. If our treatment of animals is a measure of our humanity, so is our treatment of people. Animals don’t live in a vacuum, especially dogs and cats and other companion animals. And when we mourn and grieve them, it might be helpful to think as well of the people whose lives they touched, whose emotions they stirred and who themselves face the travails of life. When an animal of mine dies, I think of them. And of some of the people I lost in my life. My mother. A friend. The people who loved my animals. It helps.