tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70020588507015244222024-03-18T17:42:07.060-04:00Jamie Cat CallanArtist and Author, living a creative life.
Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.comBlogger533125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-5474645496615645912024-03-16T09:41:00.001-04:002024-03-16T09:41:36.193-04:00The Never Ending Birthday Party
My birthday took place on January 26th. It’s now the middle of March, but the birthday decorations are still up in our house. No, I have not taken them down. My excuse is that the balloons simply refuse to deflate. Also, they're obviously a little magical. Purple, blue, red and also orange and pink. My husband bought them for me Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-84923436656372629482024-03-09T08:38:00.001-05:002024-03-09T08:38:52.558-05:00And the Winner Is...And the winner goes to...the cross-eyed Siamese cat with the bump on his tail!And why not? He worked hard. He scratched his way to the top of the Cat Show Ladder.In 1964, my cat Gato won this award at the Nutmeg Cat Fanciers of America annual cat show in Cranston, Rhode Island. Oh, and he also took a swipe at the judge (otherwise, we're convinced he would have won First Best Premier). I’ll admit,Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-314665955775813582024-03-02T09:55:00.001-05:002024-03-02T09:55:44.258-05:00The Re-entryAfter nearly three weeks at The Vermont Studio Center working on my novel--I've returned home. I was wildly productive at my artist residency. Truly. I wrote three or four hours every morning and again in the afternoon--three or four hours.And when I wasn't clocking in hours at the laptop, I was walking and dreaming about my book. I might encounter another artist or writer on the path and we Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-50231694280862625472024-02-24T08:55:00.001-05:002024-02-24T08:55:41.250-05:00The Town that Disappeared
This is a view from the Pearl Street Bridge here at the Vermont Studio
Center where I'm an artist-in-residence for the remainder of the month. There's
a small sign on the bridge that says it's "dedicated to the Gihon and
Lamoille Rivers which brought Johnson Life."
The last time I was in Johnson was during the summer of 2021. A few of us
from the Vermont Studio Center Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-50073583221384362882024-02-17T10:59:00.001-05:002024-02-17T10:59:07.330-05:00A Lion in Winter I am writing to you from my residency at The Vermont Studio Center. The last time I was here was in 2001 and I was forty-seven years old. Not young, exactly, but not old. Today, I am the oldest artist here. Okay, maybe not the very oldest. There may be a one or two of fellows here who are a couple of months older that me, but at seventy--I am old. I am still negotiating how to be this age, Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-50961344304579050982024-02-10T09:43:00.000-05:002024-02-10T09:43:05.142-05:00A State of Yearning Twenty years ago, I was published in Margo Perin's wonderful anthology. My story about my late mother sat alongside the essays of some truly brilliant writers including Paula Fox, Jamaica Kincaid, Vivian Gornick, Joyce Maynard, and Alice Walker.I stood at the precipice of literary stardom as I imagined this would lead to a big book deal and all the rich rewards of working hard and never, Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-17742983985974416502024-02-03T09:50:00.003-05:002024-02-03T09:50:37.231-05:00Paint by NumbersVintage Paint-by-Number of Paris by AnonymousDo remember paint-by-numbers? These handy-dandy kits provide you with everything you need to paint a masterpiece: a blank canvas with the outlines already in place, along with numbers that correspond to the little vials of paint, and an array of paintbrushes. Yes, a masterpiece. True--it'll be somebody else's masterpiece. And there's that whole Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-84195549392444053252024-01-27T10:19:00.002-05:002024-01-27T10:19:11.412-05:00What Turning 70 Feels Like See this look on my face. Is it joy? Or an expression of sheer terror? It's 2004 and I'm in San Francisco visiting my writer friend, Jim Frey. He had taken me across the Bay in his sail boat and on the way back to Berkeley, he said, I think I'll take a nap. Here. You take the wheel.This is what turning 70 feels like. I have no idea what I'm doing in this territory. First of all, I’m Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-33283311824474704922024-01-20T08:44:00.002-05:002024-01-20T08:44:23.874-05:00Get Down on your Knees If you want to photograph a cat, get down on your knees. The same goes for photographing a child, or actually any person or object that's low to the ground. Yes, this is important when it comes to perspective but it's also about humility and the art of seeing life from someone else's point of view. True art involves shaking yourself out of your own complacency and experiencing the Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-39743803123759189172024-01-13T09:56:00.000-05:002024-01-13T09:56:00.797-05:00Lesser Gods I like to think of coffee as a lesser god in the pantheon of addictions. Oh, actually a goddess, since I do think of coffee as a female. She is the not the pushy one who will muscle up to you at a bar and say, can I buy you a drink? And she’s not the guy slithering up to you at the party in the shiny suit and paper hat, saying, hey want a snort?Coffee arrives in the early hours. She Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-91356782030696445422024-01-06T15:46:00.000-05:002024-01-06T15:46:11.024-05:00My Angel Turns Forty Today I took this photograph of my daughter, Callan Silver, back in 1994 when she was ten years old. We had just moved from Los Angeles to Fairfield, Connecticut. Around this time, she began wearing fairy wings. All the time. As you can imagine--in preppy-proper Fairfield County--this was quite the statement.Still under the influence of her SoCal childhood, steeped in Hollywood and film Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-16650974781596911612023-12-30T16:32:00.002-05:002023-12-30T16:32:15.906-05:00It's the End of the World as We Know It...New Year's Eve, 1998, the clock is striking midnight and I've arrived at the Eastover Resort in Lenox, Massachusetts with my good friend, Laurie.We waited in line at the dining room on our first night, and suddenly these two guys appeared and introduced themselves, saying they’re from Boston. They were really fun and flirty. Laurie and I noticed that they were dragging a rope behind them with Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-57196908966251293442023-12-23T09:46:00.002-05:002023-12-23T09:46:25.263-05:00Performance Art t Ocean State I took this photo of Papa Callan during a Christmas Past at Ocean State Job Lot. I'll say this--the man knew how to have fun. He never forgot the fact that he survived World War II, while many of his cohorts did not make it home. He was forever grateful for simply being alive. As his daughter, I saw how the simplist things—the things we often take for granted—were a source of wonder and joyJamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-51021490597646189342023-12-16T10:41:00.004-05:002023-12-16T10:41:46.116-05:00Teaching an Old Cat New Tricks From Michael Snow's film Little Walk, 1964I will turn seventy in a matter of weeks. It's quite a number when you think about it. Seventy is Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-11100498401491851422023-12-09T10:04:00.001-05:002023-12-09T10:04:53.123-05:00Give Peace a ChancePerhaps you've never heard of the The War of the Leaves (also known as The Great Girl Fight of 1964.)But, before I tell you about the days of strife, I want to tell you about the days of peace. It began with the discovery of The Memory Rock. While the boys were playing war in the woods, hunting and skirmishing through the swampy bogs, fake rifles at the ready, my best friend and I discovered a Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-88559731465563696002023-12-02T09:48:00.002-05:002023-12-02T09:48:36.617-05:00On the Second Year Anniversary of my Father's Death Papa Callan shuffled off this mortal coil on this very day, two years ago. This is a photo of him just a month before he left us. We had just returned from the eye doctor's office that day where he had his eyes checked to make sure an earlier cataract removal healed properly. Indeed, all was well with Papa Callan's eyes and he passed his eye exam with flying colors. And then, Papa Callan Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-46073106647989577352023-11-25T09:42:00.001-05:002023-11-25T09:42:11.976-05:00Creative Games and Exercises Good morning, Creative Friends--We're entering gift-giving season and so I would like to recommend my creation, The Writers Toolbox: Creative Games and Exercises for Inspiring the "Write" Side of your Brain.The Writers Toolbox is a box filled with all sorts of creative prompts—sentence sticks, nonsequiturs, cards, spiny dials, a little instruction booklet and an egg timer. It’s excellent Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-84270349359592671522023-11-18T10:53:00.000-05:002023-11-18T10:53:03.617-05:00Nine LivesWhen I was a girl, my parents took me to the Disney movie, Thomasina. It's the story of a girl and her cat, but it's also a movie about death and rebirth, magic and mystery. And faith. When Thomasina dies, she arrives at an ancient palace filled with hundreds of Siamese cats. From there, she ascends the steps upward until she comes upon the ancient cat goddess, Bastet--the golden cat-headed womanJamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-37045836597619385712023-11-11T10:21:00.002-05:002023-11-11T10:21:23.864-05:00Organizing Principles This is my daughter’s collection of vintage cameras. She majored in photography at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) and before that she attended an arts high school where she studied visual arts and specifically photography. She was the kind of gal who never went anywhere without her camera in tow. Her camera became emblematic of who she was and how she navigated her world--as an Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-90988789592231290762023-11-04T11:08:00.004-04:002023-11-04T11:08:21.193-04:00What is your imprint? During my younger years, I worked as an assistant to Mrs. Spectorsky. She
was the director of public relations at Norwalk Community College. And to my
delight, I soon learned that Mrs. Spectorsky had written the
Goings-on-about-Town column for The New Yorker. So, she was a real
writer!
Oh, and she had style—she wore dramatic black cat's eyeglasses, her silver
hair cut in a chic bob Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-63903664548396268312023-10-31T18:01:00.000-04:002023-10-31T18:01:47.614-04:00Playing Pretend in a Dirty City@font-face
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mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-85953082681675266402023-10-21T08:48:00.001-04:002023-10-21T08:48:34.891-04:00When you get that sinking feeling. Imagine this. You wake up in the middle of the night. You get out of bed and walk to the bathroom. You stand outside the door and you stop short of entering the room.Imagine this. You wake up in the middle of the night. You get out of bed and walk to the bathroom. You stand outside the door and you stop short of entering the room.Where there was once a bathroom, there is now a gaping hole, Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-2963354247161263402023-10-14T10:27:00.003-04:002023-10-14T10:27:46.895-04:00My Israeli FriendThis is Henrietta Berman, my good friend from Israel. In 1965, she arrived at Belltown Elementary School in Stamford, Connecticut. I fell in love with Henni immediately--in the way only an eleven year old girl falls in love with another girl. Henni was a year older and more mature and she was the prettiest girl I had ever seen.The teacher placed us next to each other where we immediately began Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-36549944454618280102023-10-07T09:38:00.002-04:002023-10-07T09:38:54.722-04:00Good morning, Sadness, Part TwoLast week, I wrote about sadness and loss. So many people wrote to me, concerned. I am grateful to all of you. In case, you were worried, please know that my husband is fine. I am fine. Our home is fine. The farm is fine.However, our five year old tuxedo cat, Monsieur Mustache, is not fine. He is dying. He has terminal cancer and has a a few months to live. Maybe a little more. Maybe a Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7002058850701524422.post-38945238354366930222023-09-30T10:53:00.000-04:002023-09-30T10:53:09.920-04:00Good morning, Sadness Yesterday, I received some sad news. After the wave of shock receded, I was newly reminded of the fact that you can make plans and do everything right, follow a step-by-step program, a schedule, and a system--but still, you can't be prepared for everything. The world doesn't work that way. One day, a mighty wind will blow through your house, tearing down the walls, overturning Jamie Cat Callanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15255345752308852041noreply@blogger.com0