Artaware's Blog

Wagahai Wa Neko de Aru* 072614

What’s the idea?
You don’t think the rooms in our house are big enough
with the windows open and shut,
depending upon the season?

I don’t need to go outside to see more.
C. was born outside, a child (kitten) of the wild.
What makes you think we’re the same?
You put me high in that tree this morning.

I thought I’d die, then that sharp tug on the leash and
tumbling off the branch into your arms.
No fun. Why do I have to measure up to C.?
Some of us are meant to be protected, with

subliminal contact with the world.
The view is fine through the windows –
open for three seasons, shut for the winter.
I can learn fine from a distance.

And I surely learned about you this morning,
so insistant in your way – pulling roughly
to keep me from climbing that branch
twenty-five feet to the top.

True, even with the collar and leash,
it would have been a problem
getting me down from up there, but
why, I ask, did you subject me to the torture

on this 24th day of July, 2014? Nothing better to do?
Why not let me be an insider cat?
Why compare me to my tree climbing species?
Some of us do, some of us don’t.

Why after three years of bliss, eating and cuddling at will,
do you suddenly think it’s time for adventure?
Is it mine or yours? You think you’re the boss?
A nice feeling, isn’t it! I’ve been my own boss

since childhood (kittenhood). Why the sudden change?
Do you enjoy your power? Are you
thinking – Oh this would be a good story to
write about for your Monday Circle Club?

Please spare me. Write about C.’s adventure
this morning. From the window I
saw you carrying out the same test
which she passed far better than I.

I saw her run up the tree limbs and
back down and then laying on the ground
wiggling and stretching in the pine needles
so happy to be in touch with the land.

Well, don’t think I’ll ever be like that.
I’m warning you, if you force this adventure
on me again, our relationship will change.
No more wiggling and stretching in comfort and

confidence in your lap watching videos as an inside cat.
I will become withdrawn and fearful that
at any moment – I’ve noticed just on a nice day –
you will drag me outside with C. to experience the universe.

Some of us have inquiring minds. Some of us don’t!

I’m one of the ones who don’t. I
don’t want to see the universe,
to venture outside my three-story high rise,
to interact with others of my species,

to say nothing of those who don’t even look like me.
I’m my own person. Nothing can change me and
certainly, not you, who has suddenly become
my challenger – my Ms.-Know-It-All, who

thinks she knows what’s best for me.
I like to eat, to chase flies and, in the winter,
a mouse or two between our three floors. I
sleep. I play superior to the dogs, I sleep again,

and that’s it. Who are you to prescribe my
chasing outside mice, stalking birds, even
hobnobbing with male cats I’ve never met before.
I’m happy being inside with you. And I know you love

me as I am. So why push for more?
It’s that C., that beautiful C. Skinny,
athletic, sexy with a stranger I saw on
her first day free outside. Outlandish!

So now you have C. stuck inside that outside cage,
teasing her after her first short stretching of freedom
in three years. So I know you know the
danger of our freedom, scraping our dead bodies

off Camden streets where cars careen
and the two-legged drunks throw
bottles for fun and their
children try to catch us for play.

But this combination of trying to make me an inside
AND outside cat will not do. It might work for C. but
not for me. Do not try to apply your
human psychology to the cat species.

You see how your human grandchildren respond
to directives. They’re ecstatic at learning
new things. You feel good at introducing them and
controlling the human kiddies with grown-up rules.

That might work with C. but not with me.
I have my own rules that do not
include what normal members of
my species do – like climbing trees and

eating birds. That alone should convince you
to lay off me! You love birds. Now
you want to train me to go outside
in the world and not stalk and kill them? Crazy!
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* influenced by Natsume Soseki: “I Am A Cat.”

Life in Camden is difficult.

The past month the rear end of my car, parked in a “safe” place, was reduced to rubble by an intoxicated (?) driver in the middle of the night. (It gave me the opportunity to patch it up lovingly with pre-school manipulatives.)

In another incident, a drunk(?) addict (?) hit-and-run man-child(?) abandoned his car which caught fire behind my row house and ignited trees (which are making a fast recovery). Had the police and fire department not come immediately, I might not be writing this post.

And finally, Camden Iron and Metal, a business that has no respect for Camden City and her inhabitants, has been operating  heavy metal crushing machinery 24/7 causing many residents sleepless nights.  I think (HOPE) that Zoning Enforcement disciplined them with BIG fines – because last night was quiet and the first full night of shut-eye for many in South Camden for the whole week.

And so I “face everything and rise” and give thanks to those who haven’t “run” from Modacius, the most dangerous city in the U.S.!

Here is the first very personal post to my blog.  It’s about art but, this time, not kids’ art, my own art describing my own thoughts…

Modacius II – July 11, 2014 Most dangerous city in the U.S. The city is starting to stir. A shout of “What the fuck’s the matter with you?” drifts from open windows of a neighbor’s house not fifty feet away – a mother probably talking to her child.

I have “my cat child” of sixteen on my lap in a collapsible, canvas arm chair under a weeping cherry tree I transplanted from across the street a decade ago – which was planted by a Sacred Heart Church neighbor a decade before that.

Myself a transplant to this place twenty-five years ago after I had already lived one half a century… What possessed me? Perhaps the intimations of things to come: this cat on my lap, the distraught mother and child next door, the weeping cherry tree grown tall,

the thousands of images of kids’ drawings, the dozens of rescued stray animals, the generations of robins, and less distinguished others living and dying before my eyes, the drunk driver crashing behind my row house causing his car, and almost my house, to burn

the “good and the bad” mixing together in the pot of my life which has been stirring for seventy-five years with not enough time to observe, as I’m doing now, the weeping cherry tree, which just dropped some caterpillars and a spider on my lap.

I had moved my cat, Beebee, inside but not before taking photos of her face with wide eyes experiencing for the first time with me on the collapsible chair a glorious summer day surrounded by bridal wreath, ivy, honey locust,

weeds, shade behind my Camden row house.

There are five photos – the first, her head twisted to the left, whiskers splayed, showing cautious interest, the second, her head twisted to the right, the third, she’s safe on my lap, the fourth and fifth, so calm with her “Mom,” her first time outside in sixteen years but

she’s cool with it, having seen and heard for four seasons every year of her sixteen years from the open and closed windows inside our corner row house variations of what she experienced on my lap just a while ago –

I see in her eyes our deep, deep bond.

Look at what Leap Academy art teacher, Jeffrey Phillips, did with his classes last year!  And look at the 440 students he inspired to get fantastic results.  Go to  http://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=109149 to see ALL the artwork. I especially like the Pumpkins with Personality collages!

57 2nd graders designed Dia de los Muertos Skulls. (this is by Isaiah)  50 1st graders drew  Kandinsky Geometric Shapes (by Adrian)  51 kindergarteners did Butterfly Symmetry (by Lillyana)58 kindergarteners did Ugly Bunnies in watercolor (by Elijah)56 1st graders did Line Varieties (by Joel) 37 kindergarteners did Paperline Collages (by Evan)52 kindergarteners did collages of Pumpkins with Personality (by Jordan) 56 1st graders did The Landscape: Beautifully Basic (by Sherine)

Back to my blog after a hiatus.

Life is so full – so busy. Mostly full doing things I love to do. Not busy doing stuff I should do, like paying bills, house cleaning…

I’m still collecting artwork from elementary school classrooms, but just from one school, Leap Academy, not schools city wide. This past spring I photographed and posted online to “artsonia.com” over 1,000 images of student work initiated by art teachers Jeff Phillips and Nina Speart. Check it out. Go to the website, then click on Camden City, NJ and you’ll see it.

I know by printing out and sharing these images from K to 5th grade throughout the city that the spirit of Camden can be uplifted. Such talented teachers and students.

Volunteering in a Rutgers Early Learning Research Academy pre-K class this summer has been an experience. It has caused me to think about children who are fearful to pick up a crayon and put their marks on a page. One five-year old in particular, is behind the others in learning his alphabet. It seems the only time he puts pencil to paper is when a teacher asks him to trace the dots of alphabet letters on an exercise sheet. It appears he has no experience at home with fooling around with pencil and paper.

I take out my Japanese Language Writing primer that I’ve often referred to for the past five decades* and look at the characters first graders must learn for school. The characters are so much more interesting (to me) than the twenty-six letters of the alphabet.

I try to steer this five-year old away from the drudgery of tracing alphabet letters to keep up with his peers, to the fun of just making his own marks – just drawing stuff on a page. When I fool around myself with abstract shapes on my paper, he becomes more interested with working his crayons on his own page.

It seems like such a simple way to get him ready for kindergarten. But the problem is there is NO ONE else in his life who wants, or feels it necessary, to do one-on-one playing with colors and shapes on his page. No one to celebrate his individuality.

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*I taught English as a Second Language at Futaba Gakuen in Tokyo in the 60’s

Koson Birds on the Wing

I had a second grade class in Cherry Hill last week – one of about ten Art Goes to School classes I will give this spring. How I love showing reproductions of famous paintings to kids in Camden (for Art Aware) and in Cherry (for AGTS). One bright young man looked at this Koson painting and commented: “Ducks don’t fly so close to the moon.” We looked at the birds again and determined that they were geese and even they don’t fly that high and that wasn’t it great how Koson used his imagination!

It has been too, too long since my last blog. A dry spell on the blog, but not in Art Aware activity.

During the whole of 2012 over 1,500 pieces of artwork by current and past Camden City elementary school students was displayed. Art teachers Ms. Sassano and Ms. Savarese contributed current work while Ms. Watkins contributed murals from 2011 to the computer room at the library.

I have been bringing reproductions of famous art into Camden elementary school classrooms since I moved to Camden in 1986 and have put most of the student work I initiated into large murals for display. I love kids’ art so much I can’t throw any of it away. I like opportunities to display it which is a way of celebrating the children and educating the adults who see it.

So the Ferry Avenue Library exhibit was an Art Aware retrospective as well as a showcase for current work intiated by Camden art teachers. Every year Art Aware makes up a poster of Camden Students at Peace Doing Art. The 2012 poster included work from twenty-five schools.

Soon Art Aware will bring reproductions of African American artist, Romare Bearden, to the Ferry Avenue library. It will be a chance for library patrons to see in the Conference Room the lesson plans on this great artist which are detailed in our website: http://www.artaware.org

Please stay tuned for the upcoming 2013 poster of Camden Students at Peace Doing Art!

We love visiting the Camden City elementary schools at this time and taking digital photos to represent the school work initiated by Camden art teachers.
The teacher is Mr. Williams. The student is Wisdom, a sixth grader.  The drawing is Pencil.
Stay tuned for previews of more artwork for next year.