Kindling

Never Show a Work in Progress

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Fri, 17 May 2013 00:11:00 +0000

Being a literary artist is so hard . . .

Amos Lee on Taking Time

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Fri, 10 May 2013 17:58:00 +0000

I love it when artists remind me not to be in such a hurry. Amos Lee, one of my favorite singer-songwriters, has some great things to say about the creative process.

Portland Center Stage: Clybourne Park

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Fri, 03 May 2013 20:09:00 +0000

Honest. Real. Foreign. Disturbing. Embarrassing. Ironic. Opposite. Poignant. Heartbreaking.

These were the words audience members used to describe Clybourne Park, a play which extends the story of A Raisin in the Sun to show us Lena Younger's new neighborhood. At Raisin's conclusion, Lena and her family discover with trepidation they will be the first black family in an all-white neighborhood.

Clybourne Park opens with an inside look at the house Lena will move into. The current residents, Russ and Bev, have lost their only son to suicide and hope that selling this place of sad memories will help them start over.

Bev is ditzy and clueless, thrusting a chafing dish upon her black maid in a useless show of gratitude to say goodbye.

Sharonlee Mclean creates a fabulously layered character in Bev, a wife and mom with all the fifties trappings of Leave It to Beaver. Somehow--I have no idea how she does it--Mclean gives us a character who is at once predictable yet rounded, sensitive, human and oh, so funny.

She is trying desperately to navigate her husband's depression, neighborhood tensions, her own grief, and her longings for a more humane world. And she keeps trying to give away that chafing dish.

The entire first act is peppered with hilarious moments, even as we become aware of the potential disasters awaiting the house's new residents.

I was completely in love with the first act, and with Mclean's performance as well as that of Sal Viscuso as Russ, the apathetic-angry father trying to make sense of the world. Kelley Curran's performance as Betsy, a deaf family friend, is an added delight, respectful and authentic.

The second act races fifty years into the future. Suddenly you get the eerie feeling that you could be one of the people in this meeting of neighborhood planners, realtor, and home buyers. All are trying to avoid the obvious: the fact of blacks and whites, still separate from each other, still battling issues of living in a community side by side.

A monied white couple is moving into the now black neighborhood, the home that Lena Younger strove and succeeded to make all those years ago. Brianna Horne, as Lena's niece and namesake, gives a brilliant performance as a poised, noncommittal young woman who keeps her sarcasm and anger at a low simmer. When she is challenged, though, that anger scalds.

It's a fascinating "elephant-in-the-room" experience, and as you would expect, there are fewer guffaws in the second act, and more nervous titters. Yet the humor and intelligence breaks through to a deeper level.

It's a brilliant script, well-played, and the back story of the suicidal son is breathtaking.

Afterward, we, the mostly-white audience in a mostly-white city, are still ringing with self-revelation. As an audience member said after the show, "In almost every heart, there is reservation and prejudice."

Photos by Patrick Weishampel. Tickets and info at www.pcs.org and 503-445-3700.

Writing Prompt: Stairs

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Fri, 03 May 2013 18:29:00 +0000

What stairs do you encounter on your journey? What do you expect at the top of those stairs? What do you leave behind you? What surprises do you find when you reach the top?

Photo: Silver Creek Falls steps, by Christi Krug

Where Art Begins

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Wed, 01 May 2013 15:44:00 +0000

"It all begins when you have an idea . . . "

Art by Breanna Suguitan

Go to Nature for a Creative Breakthrough

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Wed, 01 May 2013 15:20:00 +0000

It's amazing how my mind clears when I spend a few days in the woods or by the water. Self-doubt and second-guessing fall away.

I touched on this in Burn Wild, and took my own advice this weekend, letting nature fill my mind instead of my own "thinks."

Can you think of a time when nature helped you find your highest creativity? Write about what you saw, felt, and experienced.

Whatever happened to "Dear Reader"?

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:35:00 +0000

Old days, old books. Remember being addressed as "reader?" Sometimes, the narrator even took your hand. . . .

Styles have changed immensely, but we can still appreciate and be warmed by favorite books and dear old voices.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

The Creative Process and the Unknown

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:12:00 +0000

"The creative process happens along the border of an unknown country. This unexplored place is what scares and exhilarates a creator." --Burn Wild, "The Art of Inkling."

How to Move Creation

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:07:00 +0000

"When we move out on faith into the act of creation, the universe is able to advance."
--Julia Cameron

Image by Christi Krug

Imagination

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 21:39:00 +0000

Earth's music

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 21:10:00 +0000

Glorious Mistakes

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 20:54:00 +0000

I Use a Dinosaur Cell Phone

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 18:17:00 +0000

Last night at a gathering of people, I heard someone mention that her low-tech cell phone couldn't receive group texts. I flashed my own cell phone, showing off.

My phone is about ten years old. It has a screen. It rings when someone calls. I carry it for emergencies. Mostly I use a real land line.

I know, I know. Isn't that quaint?

But I have a sense of pride about it. I know what is important for my creativity, and what isn't. Being comfortable with my tools hearkens back to an earlier time, like this lovely ad I came across.

Burn Wild: A Writer's Guide to Creative Breakthrough

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:29:00 +0000

What is a creative breakthrough? In writing or art, it's finding your authentic voice, overcoming the critic, and discovering exciting new ideas.

Here's a guide to the process: Burn Wild: A Writer's Guide to Creative Breakthrough

Burn Wild - a mini book release trailer!

What's Your Creative Process?

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:44:00 +0000

My creative process resembles the turtle. I'm tough. I can't be easily crushed because of my hard shell. I'm grounded yet flexible, surviving on land or in water. But I move oh-so-slowly.

This was a huge frustration for me for many years.

Until I realized: My creative process isn't about just one turtle. It's about multiple turtles. Here is an image of My Brain On Ideas.

I have several different creative projects happening all at once. I may be working on short and long forms of fiction and nonfiction while also putting together poems and dreaming up ideas for workshops and classes; all the while I'm parenting, painting, doodling, coaching, and learning.

What is Most Excellent is this. Several of my turtles are reaching the finish line at just about the same time.

So, although they're slow: they're cute, they're tough, and eventually--eventually! They do get where they need to go.

How about you? What is your pace and style of working? Are you learning to honor it, or does it frustrate you?

Neurotica! Creating a new genre, with Yuvi Zalkow

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 17:55:00 +0000

Now that I'm done with my latest book, I mosey over to Yuvi Zalkow's site so I can:

1) loosen up
2) stop taking myself so seriously
3) get insights about the writing process
4) remember there are kind, funny writers out there
5) laugh

His latest Scribbling Bucket video makes a very good point.

And with his book, A Brilliant Novel in the Works, Yuvi goes to outlandish (and some would say, off-color) places, meta-fictional zones where we aren't sure what is happening in real-time and what is fiction.

He totally breaks through tired norms of what a novel should look like.

In fact, I'd say Yuvi Zalkow has invented his own genre. As the neurotic hero struggles with hangups of communication, sex, and shame, the novel enters new territory.

I'm calling it neurotica.

Yuvi, thanks for not trying to be anybody else.

You Don't See the Ghost At First: A Chapbook

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 02:41:00 +0000

There comes a time when you're ready to follow through, complete, publish, finish. After decades of compiling dozens of files and piles of poems, I'm finally creating books. Here's the first, a chapbook, You Don't See the Ghost At First.

This is a collection of flash-autobiographical pieces and poems, a tiny montage of images surrounding the child I once was.

Here is "Happy Baby" from the collection.

Happy Baby

Lie on your back, she says.
Breathe big with your belly.
With each hand, grab a big toe:
This is our final pose

But I’m no puppy, I think
Ridiculous, exposed
Unsafe, to open to the sky, to anybody
Mother always said, Keep your legs closed

I lie down in the cold
Hold big silly toes
Break grip, fall out
Roll, smoothing a kinked spine

I can drop anything, let go, hold on
Gigantic belly looming, laughing
Limbs loosed from all they carry—
A cradle I never knew.

Portland Center Stage's The Whipping Man

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 04:37:00 +0000

Who gets to keep the faith?

You know, after a divorce, how possessions get sorted out? The confusion centers around who gets to keep what. There's a sorting out of furniture, cars, even friends. Immediately after the Civil War, there was this kind of feeling in households of newly freed slaves.

A divorce was taking place - and rightly so. These slaves who had been forced to go along with things and put on a happy face were now free to live their own lives. Their resentments and hurts boiled to the surface.

For the DeLeon household of Virginia, the question that hung in the balance was: Who gets to keep the faith?

This confusion and bitterness is depicted beautifully in Portland Center Stage's production of The Whipping Man. Caleb, the master's son, played by Carter Hudson, crawls home from the battlefield on hands and knees after a gunshot wound to the leg, and immediately after the defeat of the Confederate army.

Caleb's family mansion is charred and in shambles, a set convincingly created by Tony Cisek. The once-loyal slave, Simon, chooses to do a good turn and try to save Caleb's life. But Simon has to remind Caleb that his actions are by choice. As Caleb mindlessly barks orders, Simon tells him he needs to stop ordering and start asking.

John, the ne'er-do-well younger slave, newly free, has little compassion to offer, and a whole lot of comic relief, as played by the animated Christopher Livingston. Livingston brought this ruffian to life and gave us a hint of the confused, tortured young man behind the careless exterior.

When Simon decides to lead them all in a traditional Passover Seder meal, the question remains of who truly can own this faith they all grew up with. In light of all the betrayals and bitterness, who can claim he has any faith left at all?

This is an extraordinary story, provocative and well-crafted by Matthew Lopez, who garnered a John Gassner New Play Award for the script. There are many surprises and aha! moments, and I'm loathe to give any of them away. The takeaway is a sense of understanding and sympathy for those who lived these horrors, especially men like Simon and John, whose deep losses we learn about as the play continues. And we feel compassion for Caleb, too, as his illusions are shattered along with his body.

One of Carter Hudson's fine moments is a monologue in a brief war scene.

Gavin Gregory, as Simon, so beautifully delivers the line: "War isn't proof of God's absence. It's proof of God's absence from men's hearts."

Gavin Gregory's Simon was a blend of wisdom, loyalty, truth, and a wounded sense of justice. "It will never be like it was before," he tells the disillusioned Caleb, who just wants things to go back to the way they were.

I felt the first part of the show was weaker, when main characters faced away from the audience. But as the story continued, the many, many strengths were evident. This is a story that shines, and these artists honored all the pain and honesty and questions of this remarkable situation. As Simon tells us, you don't lose your faith by asking questions. "You lose your faith by not asking any questions at all."

Photo credits: Patrick Weishampel for Portland Center Stage

A Writer's Hikes

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 21:14:00 +0000

What fuels your creativity? For me, it's hiking in beautiful places . . .

One more reason why it's so important to make time to do the things we love.

Create with Me!

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 17:15:00 +0000

A New Room

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 23:32:00 +0000

Just as I enjoy working in different mediums, in different rooms of the house, I'm going to be working on this site as well as another. Welcome, to my new website!

(And here's a recent painting by me, "Wildfire.")

Finding Your Voice

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 16:47:00 +0000

"What exactly is voice?" and "How do I find my voice?" are questions often asked in Wildfire Writing class.

I've been writing for so long that mostly I don't think about my writing voice anymore. However, I stopped creating art for many years, and this is a fresh area where I experience confusion. For a while, I thought my doodles and drawings didn't matter to the world. Slowly, I let them disappear. I've learned I cannot do this, for when you stop creating, it is equal to letting your voice be silenced.

The first step in finding your voice is to decide your voice is worth using. Listen to yourself speak; pay attention to your yearning to create, paint, dance or build sand castles. In visual art, this means to start playing with images that you enjoy. In literary art, it means putting down one word, line or sentence at a time, experiencing your idea and how it sounds.

It is vital that you air that voice before you start trying to do anything else with it. You can't cultivate something you're not using--and the more you experiment with your voice, the more you can enjoy, appreciate and develop who you are on the canvas or on the page.

I like the way I've drawn this in today's doodle.

Yes. Be yourself, and keep being.

What part of your voice are you silencing? How might you be stifling your creativity?

First Vote

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 18:02:00 +0000

It was this special way of making decisions. It had to do with being democratic. It had to do with the United States of America. Mostly, it had to do with Jenny Prendergast, Michael How, and Steffanie Greenling. They were nominated. They had real haircuts and more than one pair of shoes and could kick the kickball instead of standing frozen, heart thumping, while twenty-three kids stared at a kid with clumsy feet and broken shoelaces and a yellow shirt that smelled like mold because Mother used it to sop up plant water from a dead fern.

Jenny Prendergast sat in the front row with her pink and green wrist bangles, and Michael How was kickball captain, and Steffanie Greenling had about fifty girls who sat by her at lunch.

"Heads down," said Mr. Slew. "Time to vote for class president."

It was quiet, with only Peter LaCrosse's sneakers tapping a rhythm that make me think of "Five Hundred Miles Away from Home." My nose pressed against my shirt, the mold scent drowning out pencil shavings, chalk dust, and the sharpness of Mr. Slew's cologne.

I was thinking very hard about who I should raise my hand for. Whoever we chose, they wouldn't talk to me. What did class president do, anyway? Lead the line to P.E. and lunch and take messages to the office and pick the A.V. helper. It had been a long time since we watched an A.V. film, in the dark with the whirring projector where nobody noticed a crooked ponytail.

You could tell by the way Mr. Slew clasped his pencil and clipboard that voting was serious business and this was why we were Americans.

"Jenny Prendergast," Mr. Slew called out, for the first vote. I rolled my head to one elbow and peeked around the room. There were a lot of hands up.

I closed my eyes and Mr. Slew called out, "Michael How," and I hesitated because Michael How smiled at me during Library when we both were reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, but now that I thought about it, he probably smiled because he could finally read.

"Steffanie Greenling," called Mr. Slew. I remembered one time when Steffanie came to school with her little brother who was retarded, and how Steffanie bent down and buttoned up his coat when it was time to go. Yes, I thought. A class president should be kind.

So I raised my hand which always felt weird with the back of your neck pulled in one direction and your head in the other. I waited, my arm straight as I could get it, because of this democratic thing. I held my breath.

When Mr. Slew said, "Steffanie Greenling wins!" I let out my breath and raised my head and Jenny looked like she was about to cry and Michael was picking apart his eraser. And I was so surprised to know something: in a little way, I had won, I nailed the kickball. I was an American.

Dangerous Living. Sort of.

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 18:34:00 +0000

I get nervous about breaking rules, even small ones. More and more, I've been learning to laugh at myself over my fussiness.

I'm not alone, I know. Many sensitive, creative people are cautious about getting hurt, or hurting others. Sometimes I worry that I'm making mistakes that I don't even know about. Now that I am getting ready to publish a book on the creative process, I'm even more paranoid.

I'm freaking out about mistakes big and small, from typos, to the possibility of misquoting a writer, to the idea of offending someone. (As if a book about the creative process would offend anybody!)

The other day I read another writer's essay about how she often felt stressed that she was overlooking some important task. Like me, she wondered if she had disobeyed a rule without even knowing it.

For years I had a recurring dream that I was back in high school. It was my senior year, and I had just found out that I missed an entire year-long class: typing. I had never been able to find the classroom. Now I wasn't going to graduate.

I would love to be a daring, dashing person who doesn't fret about details. Author Marc Acito is this kind of person. Some years ago he did a blog series recording one new zany experiment every day for 365 days: from trying out a new fruit to experimenting with spa treatments, to riding in a hot air balloon.

Well, I'm not Marc Acito. I'm not doing these daily daring things. But as I start making fun of myself, I notice tiny leaps I'm taking every day. They're absurd in their smallness.

I've been recording these micro dares. They make me smile. They remind me to keep stretching. Whatever I do, I can learn to accept myself and my cautious ways.

What are you doing that is daring, even if it is a microscopic-sized dare?

Horror on the Menu: Sweeney Todd at Portland Center Stage

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 18:20:00 +0000

What's the point of horror? Well, for one thing, it allows you to see the world differently. You sit up and shudder, as if waking from a nightmare, taking stock of what is real and unreal. The Portland Center Stage incarnation of Sweeney Todd gives us horror in tasty, devilish measure.

Directed by Chris Coleman, the play opens with the despairing wail of sirens as homeless people shuffle about in their rags. A chorus puts us on edge, warning us about the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. It doesn’t seem likely that he will be anything but repellent.

Yet Aloysius Gigl’s portrayal of Sweeney Todd captures our sympathy. Returning to London after wrongful exile, he sings his heartbreak over the woman he loved. “And she was beautiful,” he tells us, in his richly textured bass-baritone. We agonize to hear how Judge Turbin abused his power to destroy what Sweeney treasured.

This distracted, disconnected character is subtly crafted, as Sweeney Todd ignores everything but his own pain. Bit by bit, his need for revenge devours his soul and sanity.

Matthew Alan Smith is a wonderfully disgusting Judge Turbin. The lecherous Judge has taken Sweeney Todd’s daughter into his possession and now plans to marry her. As for Johanna, she is a lovely soprano, endearingly ditsy, played by Rita Markova. The tension is thick as we count down the minutes until she can escape, or Sweeney can cut the Judge’s throat.

Because, yes, we start to root for throat-cutting. Discriminately, at least. The audience gasps, but also applauds, when blood spatters the clean, white, barber’s apron and Sweeney Todd dispatches Londoners, starting with a quack remedy salesman. The barbershop death chute is great fun to watch, and there is a sigh of relief when Sweeney spares an unsuspecting family man with wife and baby in tow. We see how precarious life is, and what a dreadful thing it is to stop believing in humanity.

At some level, we know we should be appalled by Sweeney, and that’s what makes things so interesting. We, too, feel we might sharpen our blades at such injustice. Sweeney Todd is a sort of demented Robin Hood of the Industrial Revolution, resonating with the commoner who finds himself powerless against corrupt lawmakers.

Lighting designer Diane Ferry Williams and her expert crew bring out the ghoulish shadows in the faces of the ensemble. The voices are clear and strong, as the dissonant music unsettles us and Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics work their magic.

“The history of the world, my pet, is to learn forgiveness and try to forget,” sings Sweeney to his accomplice, the raucous Mrs. Lovett (Gretchen Rumbaugh).

But forgiveness is not his forte.

He refines his philosophy thusly: “The history of the world, my sweet, is who gets eaten and who gets to eat!”

Because when you’ve lost everything as Sweeney Todd has, you may yet keep a sense of humor. The song, “A Little Priest,” has the audience in stitches as Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett expound on the various pie flavors and textures ascribed to butler, grocer, locksmith, clerk or priest. Utterly delightful.

The kind, naïve souls seem to be the only ones who still believe in the world. Anthony (Louis Hobson), the sailor who strives to rescue Johanna, marvels at the world’s wonders, clueless that his friend Sweeney is a murderer. Kitchen boy Toby (Eric Little) stands by Mrs. Lovett, ignorant that she is baking pies from dead bodies ejected from the barber chair upstairs. In their tender, haunting duet, Toby points out that while he may not be smart, “being clever ain’t like being true.”

Faith and loyalty run thinner than beggar’s blood. The authorities have a skewed view of morality that sickens Sweeney Todd. “We all deserve to die,” he says. Is this the reality? We wake from the nightmare, shaky, mesmerized, and facing our own choices about how to live.

Images: Art by Michael Buchino, photos by Patrick Weishampel.