Aubergine

C

Camera
I have fallen into being a photographer somewhat unintentially.  True, I made a few attempts at it over the years with an old Canon film camera that used to be my mom's, but I just never could get the hang of film.  It wasn't until I got a digital camera that I really fell in love.  The instant feedback of the captured shot allowed me to adjust and experiment until I saw what I was feeling in the moment reflected on the screen.  The freedom to shoot many many frames has allowed me to hone my skill and my eye (really, practice does equal improvement).  I have gone from years of not even owning a camera to having my big black beast nearly always with me, and always, always when I travel.

I'll never not be a painter first, but I've learned to recognize that I don't always have the time or attention or energy to make the kinds of paintings I want to make, and taking pictures is a good alternative creative outlet for those times.  Painting is much like going diving for sunken treasure.  It is hard work, and requires preparation, time, and recovery afterwords.  Taking pictures is more like going on a scavenger hunt.  Fun, easier, a much lower level of commitment.  All I have to do is have my eyes open to the possibility of beauty, and then catch it.  And chucking the bad pictures is so much easier than disposing of my bad drawings or failed painting.

I have also started exploring the ways that I can use the camera to catch things that I never would attempt on canvas.  I'm not a portrait artist - I have no desire to paint people other than the occasional abstract nude.  But I love taking pictures of people I love and catching some part of their personality in an image.

Cats
I'm a cat lady.  I've lived with dogs that came atteched to other people, and loved them, but I have no desire to add a dog to my life on purpose.  I like living with cats.  I love their individual personalities, and how I'm never really sure if they're the boss or I am.  I love their sensuality, their love of sunbeams and naps, their rumbling purring, and their intent focus on play, or sleep, or clean, or whatever the current task at hand happens to be.  I think I may have been a cat in some previous life.  I can very contentedly stretch out in a sunbeam on the floor and spend an entire afternoon there, moving only when the light shifts.

Children
Many of my friends are having children, and I'm starting to feel left behind.  I didn't feel that when my friends were getting married and I wasn't, but this feels different.  I thought I would be a parent by now.  I wanted to be raising my children together with some of my closest friends.  I imagined us having kids all the same age, running around in our yards, in and out of each other's homes.  It isn't really unfolding quite the way I had imagined it would.  This picture is of Cash, and he's a "c" too.

Clouds
I don't know if it is a difference in our weather patterns here, or just a difference in my attention, but it seems like we have had the most beautiful clouds here the last couple of winters.  After a storm, sometimes, I will drive down to the ocean just to look at them hanging out there, heavy in the sky.

Color
A am an artist, so it probably is fairly obvious that I would love color.  But really, I love color.  I'm very uncomfortable in spaces where there is not enough of it.  Beige rooms makes me frantic.  But I feel very alive where there is color everywhere (India and Italy come immediately to mind).  I create color everywhere around me.  Flowers, photographs, colorful fabric or candles or other accents.  I love to find new combinations, and have had a lot of fun planting containers for the garden that pair and mix unusually colored plants.  Oddly, for all of this color, an entire language of it, I often return to the same ones over and over.  In my wardrobe, plum and red (with black, always black).  There is a particular shade of plum that a friend of mine calls "the Doña color," and vivid blue-based claret red will catch my eye and my hand every time.  If I had to chose a favorite color, this red would be it.  In my paintings, deep gold and orange show up over and over and over.  I'm trying to bust out, and have recently been exploring some green and blue watercolor paints in my journal.  Eventually, I want to paint all the walls in this house different colors, but I'm having so much trouble identifying exactly the right ones.  So far, we have oregano green kitchen cabinets, and an eggplant purple hall bath.  But I can't find quite the right sun-kissed yellow for the living room, or just the shade of raw sienna orange for the dining room.  So many colors, so little time.

Edit:  I found a link to Colorstrology on a new (to me) blog I was reading yesterday.  I don't have a whole lot of faith in the world of astrology, but I find it entertaining.  Fascinating, then, to read that according to this site, the color for my birth month is none other than Claret Red: "The color for the month of November is Claret Red.  Intense and passionate, this color inspires depth, strength and love.  People born during this month can see beyond the mundane and into the hearts of others.  This is a great month to integrate your qualities of perception with a more light-hearted detachment.  Claret Red helps you stay inspired as you build your dreams and ambitions.  You can wear, meditate or surround yourself with Claret Red when you want to increase your perception, persistence and drive."  Well, no wonder I'm always drawn to that color.  And for my birth day, Lavender Violet: "You are capable of making magic.  Your intuitive insights coupled with your ability to manifest your ambitions are some of your greatest assets both to yourself and others.  Try not to juggle too much or be pulled toward indecision.  Your personal color inspires vision and confidence.  Wearing ,  meditating or surrounding yourself with Lavender Violet reminds you to build your dreams one step at a time."  And here I was going to paint my studio ferny green.  Perhaps I should re-think.

B

Baking
I don't think of myself as a very accomplished cook, but I do like to bake.  Bread, cookies, tarts and muffins.  I'm starting to experiment with pizza dough and pasta.  All those carb-loaded things that my body doesn't process very well, but I love them anyway.  I love the way a house smells when bread is baking.  I love cookies fresh from the oven, still warm and gooey.  Somehow making baked goods is more like cooking for love to me than just cooking meals, which are more pedestrian, more about substenance.  Baked goods are extra, more special.

Ironically, I struggle with regular cooking because I'm kind of slap-dash about it.  I'm not disciplined about following recipes, and I tend to experiment even from the first attempt.  This is ironic because baking is much more of a science than other kinds of cooking.  A small difference in the ratio of ingredients, cooking time or temperature will make or break many recipes.  I suppose this is why I tend to stick to the bread-based items, and don't often make the fancy stuff - pastries, pies, etc.  I'm pretty good at bread and cookies, though, and my pie doughs are improving.  I make a pretty delicious beer bread.

I've long had a fantasy about working at a bakery, learning cake decorating, getting good at the fancy stuff, expanding my arsenal of recipes, really making a study of it.

Bisexual
I really don't like this word, though I've yet to find another one to replace it in identification of myself.  I hate the "bi" prefix, that limits the idea of gender expression to just two, when I have met and experienced so many more than that.  I hate the connotation of promiscuity that has become associated with bisexuality, at least in some circles.  The idea that it means "not picky" rather than "open-minded."  For me, the reality is just that gender is not one of the things I consider when choosing a partner, or feeling attraction.  Gender is mostly irrelevant in that equation.  It is more important to me what kind of human this person is.

Books
I am a book person.  From way back.  I think that there are book people and not-book people.  Not-book people might read and enjoy books, but they don't have the passion about it that book people have.  I could easily become one of those old ladies who have so many books that you can barely get into their house.  I have a hard time going in a bookstore and leaving without buying something.  I love the way I can get swept up in a story and be transported entirely.  I love words.  I love the nuances of language and dialect.  I love how characters can be created in a writer's imagination and be so incredibly real to me that I almost believe they truly exist somewhere in the world, and I just haven't had the opportunity to meet them in person.  I love how they stay with me long after I've finished the story.  I love non-fiction books, too, and the sharing of ideas and theories.  I love to learn new things, and I love to research an idea across several books and different perspectives.  I love libraries - the hush that seems to come from a respect for all of those words, all that knowledge under one roof.  I love children's books, and the way they bring images and words together to tell a story.  I love the warm weight of a small child in my lap, relaxed against my chest, while we explore a storybook together.  I love the idea that I could impress on this small mind my own love of words and ideas and learning, and that I might make a new book person for the world.

Blogging
I had no idea when I starting keeping a blog how much I would grow attached to it, or what an influence it would have on my art and my writing.  It is kind of a strange thing, isn't it?  Sending my words out into the wild world.  I have no idea who reads this, really. Occassionally I'll see a hit from a Google search on my name and I wonder who is looking for me.  Researching me.  And what they think of what they find.  If it is someone from work, are they surprised?  Early this year, I got the last two years of this blog printed and bound, as a sort of back-up, but also because I'm sort of attached to the idea of an actual book vs. data on a screen.  It was pretty amazing to read back through those old entries.  To see how far I've come, how much has changed in my life, and how I look at it.  How much stronger my writing has become, from the practice of doing it often.  How much my photography has improved.  And also, how much I return to the same themes over and over, often at the same time of year.

Bumgarner
There's something about my last name that just seems so serious to me.  It gets mis-spelled almost always, and although it is completely phonetic, it is most often mis-pronounced.  I guess I identify with those people who just use one name.  Prince, Madonna, etc.  I have an unusual first name, and have never met another who shared it (though I've rumors of them...).  I don't need the extra identification of having two names.  At the same time, though, I was completely unwilling to give it up or change it when I got married.  What do two women do when they get married?  Who takes whose name?  Do you pick a new one altogether?  We went around and around about it, and in the end, neither of us changed our names.  I needed to record a new voicemail message on my new phone recently, and recorded the greeting at least 5 times, trying to not sound like I was announcing a death. "You've reached Doña Bumgarner, please leave a message."  The next two messages I got mentioned how very very serious my outgoing message was, so I gave up on the whole name thing and went back to casual. "Hi, this is Doña, I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

A

Ani DiFranco
A friend of mine recently wrote a review of a Patty Griffin performance that we saw together, and made a comment about how Patty's lyrics have meant so much to her, have often felt like her own thoughts and feelings.  I feel the same way about songs that Ani DiFranco has written.  While I do have many life experiences that parallel Ani's, I still find it eerie that her words so often describe exactly something I have felt, or am feeling.  I suppose this is what makes her a folk singer, and not a pop singer.  There is something about folk music that really taps in to the collective experience of a generation, and articulates it.

Apple
I've been working at Apple, Inc. (formerly Apple Computer) for 9.5 years.  In that time, I've been a tester, a manager of a testing team, a project manager, and a manager of a project management team.  4 roles, though the focus of each position shifted about once a year so that in the end, I actually feel as if I've had something like 9 different jobs.  This is the only tech company I've ever worked for, the only one I've ever wanted to work for.  I'm not one of those people who have a long list of semi-related technical companies on their resume.  I was a paralegal, then I came to Apple.  I wasn't looking for a job in any computer company, I just wanted to work for Apple.  When I leave Apple, as I expect I will some day, I will likely go on to something else entirely different. 

Working here is taxing.  I work long hours, under high stress.  Our project cycles always feel too short, and there never seem to be enough people to do the work at hand.  Every day is a balancing act of figuring out which tasks are critical and which can be delayed or delegated.  On the other hand, I work with the smartest, most creative people I've ever met, and this company produces products that I'm extremely proud of and use in my everyday life, and would even if I didn't work here.  What really keeps me engaged in this job isn't really the work itself (though I do love what I do), but a fascination with the magic.  Sometimes it feels like we make stuff that people didn't even know they needed until we offer it.  We solve problems that customers weren't even aware were a problem yet, until we made it easier.  Such obvious, simple solutions.  Even from the inside where I can see the machine at work, it still feels like some kind of magic trick, and I'm endlessly fascinated, watching it, trying to figure out the secret to the success.

Artist
When I was little, and other kids dreamed of being firefighters, or lawyers, or president, all I ever wanted to be was an artist.  I've been drawing, painting, and making things for as long as I can remember.  Always.  I took painting lessons in grade school.  I took art classes in high school. When I got to college, I registered as an art major from the first semester.  I wavered a few times when I was feeling broke, or frustrated with my instructors' styles, or realistic about the fact that I wasn't amassing a portfolio that was going to get me shows upon graduation.  But when I surveyed the other options, there was nothing else I wanted to do more than to study art.  So I stuck it out.  By the end of college, though, I was burnt out.  I had learned to make art to please my teachers, but didn't know how to make art that pleased me, or that was personal.  I hadn't found my voice.  I had all the technical skills, but I didn't know what to use them for.  They don't actually teach that part in art school.  So I stopped painting for a while.  I got an office job.  I cut my long hair and stopped wearing boots with my dresses.  I stopped identifying myself as "artist," and decided it was time to grow up and get serious.  Get a career, fit in.

Except that I never really could stop making things, just because I stopped making things with paint.  I started kniting.  I learned to spin, then to weave.  I took some ceramics classes, then silversmithing.  I read somewhere about altered books, and then taught myself how to bind books myself.  Finally, I started painting again, in fits and starts.  I snuck in sideways to it, so as not to scare myself off.  Slowly, I got more and more comfortable, and realized I did have some things to say - I had a voice, though it was still quiet and tentative.  It still is, now, though I'm getting more confident.  I'm growing my hair out a bit, too, and starting to wear boots again.  I missed her, the artist girl.  And I find that I'm much more grown up, confident and serious when I'm being true to myself than when I'm trying to fit in.