Three Tenacious Woman and Their Lifelong Work

Plus, an art gallery of YOUR art!

Breaking news: The Women’s March is tomorrow. Tell everyone.

Back to our regular programming: I keep a running list of wonderful and remarkable things to share with you all. This week, I realized that I had three things to share that all involve women who spent their lives doing one thing, over and over. The results, in each case, are amazing.

Helen Hays, Ornithologist

Helen Hays died recently at the age of 94, and I’m sorry to say that this obituary was the first I’d ever heard of her. In 1969 she began a project to help to save a colony of birds on a neglected island in Long Island Sound, and this became her life’s work. The obit describes the hats festooned with fake flowers that everyone on the island has to wear to keep the gulls from dive-bombing them. Of course I had to know more.

It turns out to be a much bigger story that’s international in scope and inspiring in so many ways. I was delighted to find the documentary Full Circle, which you can watch on some streaming platforms and also on YouTube for a few bucks. Please go watch it! It will make you feel better about the world.

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Evie Riski, Diarist

I was delighted to read this profile of Evie Riski, on the occasion of her 100th birthday. She has kept a five-year diary (kind of like this one) for NINETY YEARS. That’s right, she started when she was ten, which, according to math, would’ve been around 1935. Every day she jotted down just a couple lines about where she was, what she did, who she saw—just a couple lines! That’s all!

She took it with her when she traveled. If she had to miss a day—maybe because she was in the hospital giving birth—she caught up when she got home.

It’s such a small, seemingly trivial act, but look what it amounted to! The events of an entire lifetime, faithfully recorded. How much would you give to have this kind of simple record of your own life?

I just recently drove through a town I lived in about thirty years ago. I was trying to guess where my apartment was, and I had no idea. I realized that almost every detail of that apartment is lost to me. I don’t remember what grocery store I shopped at. I don’t remember what restaurants I might’ve gone to. Nothing—it’s all gone. Apart from a few details about the job I had, and a couple of significant holidays, I just don’t remember a thing about that little era in my life. I’d be fascinated today to read the most mundane details!

Evie, of course, can also settle all sorts of family arguments with her vast trove of diaries, which sounds like an old woman’s superpower.

Mostly, though, it must feel immensely satisfying to open a five-year diary, write down a mundane report for the day, and see all the other mundane reports from the previous year right on that page, a little greeting from one’s past self to one’s present self. I’d love to know the books I read, the movies I watched, the people I saw, what I bought, where I went, what I ate—any of it and all of it is worth writing down.

I know what I should take away from this: Start now! Maybe I will.

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Anne Tyler, Novelist

I’m always delighted to see a new Anne Tyler novel. They all take place in the same world—a slightly shabby, hand-to-mouth version of Baltimore—and they all concern the domestic affairs of befuddled, flawed humans trying to make sense of one another.

She’s written twenty-five such novels, starting in 1964, at the rate of a book every two or three years. She’s 83 now and seems to be working away steadily, as she always has, avoiding media interviews, book tours, and social media. She doesn’t even have a website—her publisher made one for her. What a badass.

This week I sank into her latest, Three Days in June, with a great deal of gratitude for the comforting escape it offered. If you’ve never read her books, there are a couple dozen more waiting for you. Savor them slowly.

And if you’d like to see more such comforting, escapist reads and other books I’ve recommended in this newsletter, go here for some lists.

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And now for an art gallery!

I asked readers of this newsletter to share their self-appointed artist residencies with me, and I asked supporters, who get a weekly art tutorial emailed to them, to share the art they’re making right now. I’m delighted to see what everyone’s working on! Here’s a round-up:

Amy Prentice at Toad and Sage is the self-appointed artist in residence of her own garden and she is making some beautiful things:

Josephine Pendergast has appointed herself artist-in-residence of her hometown of Brisbane, Australia, and she’s making some cool drawings:

Susan Nash said that she is so inspired by our recent series on drawing birds that she might make a 100-day project out of it.

More colorful birds from Carol Shenold!

People are doing lots of other interesting and varied work. Writer and artist Sue Parman says, “The Uig sands on the west side of the island of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides are so large they're visible from space. A lone house sits at the edge of the sands. This is a quick notebook watercolor of the house from a visit in 2011.”

Artist and illustrator Michelle Shain says, “As the Uunofficial Artist in Residence from 30,000’ . . . I present: Sir Oppenheimer / Delta Flight 444.”

Carmen McCullough at Strange Farm Girl has been making delightful mixed media collages like this one:

So much good stuff! I wasn’t able to get to everyone this week, but I’ll do another round-up soon.

Supporters are mixing colors

If you’d like to join us, now’s a good time! We’re working our way through the basics of watercolor and color-mixing right now, and making SO MANY COLORS from just a few tubes of paint.

If you’re interested in picking up a sketchbook, I’ve posted over 70 art tutorials and a new one comes out every week, plus we do some live zooms and other stuff. Get the full archive and everything that’s coming next, right here:

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The Bit at the End

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