in the lab

This from yesterday.

Such a little design that the English Society used. I don't know the originator of it. I eyeballed the original and created my own version of it in pencil.

The H.A. Fowler manuscript grows.

gray smudges on knuckles

The country drive last Sunday began "the stir........"  
Monday after running errands, I stopped by Lincoln Lakes "to stand ...... and be. listen. feel the sharp air on my face. silent, hoping for a response."
I began a checklist. Dug out my padded overalls. Would my body still fit in them?? Pulled the heavy backpack with paints and supplies out of storage.
Tuesday I checked off the overalls. It was a squeeze with my tummy, but I fit. Went out with the hand saw and for my new past time, hand sawing tree trunks that lie out in the yard. Each in various stages of being cut. It is more of an exercise for me to do, rather than a task to accomplish. An exertion to keep my mind sharp.
Wednesday the paint kit was moved into the cab. The easel in the back. For a time to come.
Friday the sun remained out long enough for me to "go look. pull out the backpack, set up the easel, hunt and locate the bungee cords. telescope the legs out. stand and observe. locate the graphite.. and sketch."

Orange road cones are stationed around me as I draw from the creek bridge on South Ely Street. Sunshine. Nip in the air. Clear sky. November. And the promise of an overcast afternoon. ... An hour passes. I regard the creek on the west side of the bridge. Another day for that, another time.

Today it goes well. How will my body respond tomorrow? ...to this stretching and lifting, bending and moving, climbing up and down out of the cab. Another check off the list, taking down the easel, carrying supplies back into the cab, lifting, placing. Gathering the cones. Off down the street.

  
Ely street meets West Lincoln Street and I stop by a green field with trees aflutter and a house nestled beneath its boughs. At last I find a fallen branch and mark the place I want to come back to. No sketch. Jotted thoughts on a paper squatch in my pocket to remember by.

On the shore the easel and drawing pad secured with bungee cord around back. All set.
A sullen monument of bleached tree ascends to my right. A far tree bank across the lake. Two houses peeking out from behind way up there. The breeze cold, the sunshine bright, the sky still clear blue. Bright yellow green algae. This place I hope to return to and paint.
Less than an hour I am satisfied.

Piling all into the cab. Easel hoisted. Graphite retired. The smudges removed with a clean moist baby wipe towel. I return home. My eyes roam through the passing tree trunks to backyards and houses tucked away in the wood. The spark bursts. Houses tucked away in the wood. A concept to come back to.

Here, I have finished posting the photos and typing the text, and the weather report proves to be true. The clouds have rolled in and the sunshine has left.

Thanks for reading it. It's time for lunch.

North central Missouri, central United States, North America, planet earth.


 

softened for him

 

This is me, caught in the act of running away.
Scared to death,
wanting nothing to do with THAT MAN.     

Inspite of my actions,
digging in my heels and saying: "NO, I DON'T WANT ANY PART OF THAT, "













 --------- he STILL BREAKS into my awareness.

Me, typing a conversation, thinking about the wonderful progress I am enjoying.

While in the back of my mind, I am fearing my hospital appointment today, having my ankle numbed and an infected wound scraped away.

Then HE startles me and I come undone.

The Jesus Wind reminds me: "he has my back, he's here for me today, it's going to be okay."

Tears fall, the defenses drop, I cry,
he comforts and quiets my concerns, softened for him. 

THAT MAN faced hostility under the cover of night,

took the rage and the hatred and the cruel punishment,

was humiliated and killed,

before writing a whole new chapter for his disciples in time and space.

He doesn't stop,
he pursues and wins me over.

(Artwork)
The Disciple That Fled
by Karl Marxhausen, 1999,
Litho Crayon and Ink on paper, 13.5 x 16.25 inches




Reprint from March 25, 2015 
After a whole year of treatments, my ankle wounds were completely healed on January 26, 2016. Blessed be the name of Jesus.


 

m-r-s-j-a-n

poster marker for elem art teacher mrs. jan by mr.k

de mi corazon

       The boy was staying home from school ill. I told him I was hoping we could look at a special book I had brought with me. But, I went on, I wasn't going to fight about it. He could ask me about it when he was ready. If I were home ill at his age, I'd probably be watching TV cartoons also. I remember him coming in to join me at the dining room table.
      I always brought something along with me when it was my turn to watch him. Sometimes we played Stratego or UNO. Sometimes we assembled plastic straws and connectors. Thursday morning he opened the green box, and gave us each six cards to start with. He drew a card off the middle stack and placed a Flat Tire on my pile. I drew a card and I placed a Spare Tire on my pile when it was my turn. Soon the mileage cards were being counted. He was very good at adding numbers, especially hundreds. We played Mille Bornes twice. A card game my brother Paul and I used to enjoy. ( See link 1 and link 2 ) During one game he had dealt himself all four of the Safety or accidents-free cards. So I was unable to give him a Flat Tire, an Out-Of-Gas, an Speed Limit, a Stop, or an Accident.



     Back on a soft cushion in the living room, we flipped through a large scrapbook of mine. I pointed out family photos and he was soon able to figure out which boy was me Karl and which was my brother Paul. There was a room with kangaroos kicking over barrels, a laughing monkey with a pitcher of water, a janitor's dust mop, and a train roaring through the library. The typed piece was called "The Library Caper," written by a character I called "Sam." Double click on images to enlarge.

.
Three minute video.

    There were early drawings by my brother and me that my father saved and that I added to this special collection.

 

I read to him the deep sea adventure I had before I was thirteen. A poem about a yellow cat and a skunk that stunk. And a page about Jan Jan called "No One Is Like Jan" after I was grownup and married.

     The back of the book had felt scraps glued down willy-nilly. The front of the book was stitched carefully together by me. My mother Dorris had taught me to stitch with needle and thread when I was growing up. I love bright colors and textures.

 

The letters spell out "El Es Senor De Mi Corazon," which is Spanish for "He Is Lord Of My Heart." My nephew was able to match the scrap shapes on the back with the cut-out letters on the front.

It was important for my nephew to see the stuff I drew and made up when I was in grade school and even later. I believe the boy will have stories and pictures of his own to make and to treasure as he grows up. Thank you God for parents who stitched books and encouraged me to write stories. I used mom's manual typewriter to click clack on.

One other note: During one visit I took my cassette tape recorder. The boy was interested in the technical aspects of this foreign-looking device. He learned how to start and stop and change the tape cassettes. But more important to me was sharing the Rootabaga Stories as told by Carl Sandburg. (A vinyl LP of Carl Sandburg reading some of the stories, Rootabaga Stories as told by Carl Sandburg was released on Caedmon (TC 1089) in 1958, courtesy of Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootabaga_Stories, accessed October 25, 2015) I listened to this LP record when I was young myself. Then, after college, I checked out the record from Link Library, at Concordia, and taped it on cassette for myself. Sandburg has a comforting grandfather's voice. I know about the Babylonian Babboons. "All hairy all over, with their bangs hanging down their foreheads." 

Twice now, the boy has enjoyed drawing and listening to the cassette. The stories are full of imagination. Its prose are a perpetual delight to me, at 60 years old. And now, enjoyed by this fellow too.

(Mille Bornes courtesy of http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/371458725396?ul_noapp=true&chn=ps&lpid=82 and http://www.hasbro.com/common/instruct/MilleBornes.PDF  accessed 10.19.2015. Black and white family photos by Reinhold Marxhausen. Drawings and poems by Karl Marxhausen are copyrighted and may not be reprinted without written permission from the artist.)

out on the rocks

   In June, the summer of 1948, a handful of art students from East Lansing were spread out over the village.

Sally Chadwick was working on a watercolor of the Leland city post office. It was all sparkly. But it wasn't going the way she wanted. Just her luck, the roaming paint instructor showed up. What to do? Ralf Henriksen stood quietly beside her, taking in every detail. Finally he pointed and said, "That's a nice sign there." The placard on the building in her watercolor drew his compliment.

The summer program had been just like that. There was lots of work to be sure. But when they all met at the end of the day, the instructor from East Lansing was there to make comments, maybe a suggestion or two. He appreciated all their effort, their willingness to go after it, their fortitude to push themselves. Growth had its own reward.

   Michigan State had an art school in Leland.
The six week program was held in the summertime.  
When Sally heard about it she talked with her mother, who said she could go. The next school year she would graduate, and she wanted to take part before she did. She told her sorority sister and fellow classmate, Helen Galoff, about the painting class, and asked if she was going. Helen told her parents about it, and found out she could go as well. 

Sally had known her friend from the big high school both went to in Detroit, and kept bumping into each other when they had art classes at Michigan State. Since she had no car of her own, Sally's parents drove the two of them up and got the lodging settled. Meals were provided through the college like usual. Fees were paid with the tuition, and students received lunch and dinner meals at the Blue Bird in Leland. On the map, Leland was on the upper northwest peninsula in Leelanau County. A five hour drive from the city of Detroit.

     It was one day, when they were out doing their assignments, that they noticed
someone out on the breaker rocks that lined the Leland cove. Out, beyond the end of the long wooden pier. Out on the big white rocks, somebody was sitting. All quiet. Focused on painting. He wore a light rimmed hat. He had his shirt off. He had a deep tan. He looked good. He kept on working. He wasn't with their class. Who was this mysterious person?

       The second day they noticed him, he was painting closer to the shore, at a location closer to the group.  They saw him walk by. Little by little they got to know him. He made them laugh. He was older than the guys in the class. He was right out of the service. He was an itinerant painter. They called him Reiny.  
 

                            #         #         #         #


(Drawings of students by Sally Chadwick Mc Kenzie, photos of Fish Town and students beside MSU art exhibit sign, photo of Reiny seated, courtesy of the artist, Harbor Springs, Michigan.)

(Photo of Ralf Henrikson with student, courtesy of Michigan State University, Department of Art and Art History, and Leelaneau Community Cultural Center, www.oldartbuilding.com, accessed March 4, 2015)

(Story by Karl Marxhausen, copyright 2015. Narrative was based on conversations with Ms. Mckenzie in February and March 2015)