Alter ego

If you've followed my blog all along or ventured into a particular gallery devoted to Saabs on this site, you probably recognize this car. I bought it from a Saab mechanic turned aerospace engineer from Rutland, Vermont late in 2009. It is the only one of seven vintage Saabs that (for reasons that took me some time to understand) I bought over the next several months that I haven't let go of.

My 1978 Saab 99 GL is a mechanical entity and 22 years my junior. It can't carry a conversation but it has carried me as far away as Maine and back with very little complaining. It has a 2.0 liter 8 valve engine, (not a turbo), a 4 speed manual gearbox, a manual steering rack out of a sportier Saab EMS, and the suspension is lower and stiffer than it was when it left Sweden for its first American owner. It isn't particularly fast, but it's an absolute screaming delight behind the wheel. A real driver's car.

There are large patches of surface rust scale in several places (but no serious cancer yet) and much of the paint is weathered. Small dents are apparent in several places with one big one under the right rear passenger door, along with a few chips in the windshield, some missing trim strips, and the upholstery is a bit worn although remarkably intact. Big points in its favor. My own interpretation of the Japanese notion of wabi-sabi is in play here. No beauty queen. But it leaves an indelible impression on those who notice it, and it gets noticed a lot.

This morning I picked it up after having the summer tires put on it, just a day after part of a new wiring harness was patched in and an exploded rear muffler replaced. The guy behind the counter and I were talking about how rare it is to see these cars still on the road, and I quipped about how much more special it was because of its dog eared patina. Josh joked, "Yeah, it takes a certain kind of guy to be able to pull that off, kind of like wearing a pink shirt." 

Lately though, the 99 has been showing some age. I've had to have it towed a couple of times in the last year, after many miles of trouble free service. Ignition problems, other parts giving out. But one of the best independent Saab shops in the country is just a mile from my house, and they have a cache of vintage parts both new and used, and an outstanding mechanic who appreciates how attached I am to this sturdy, quirky old car. And when I get it back, it still wants to be driven like a sports car, so that's how I drive it.

I have a 2007 Volvo, but I prefer the Saab to the younger car. The Volvo is air conditioned, has a sunroof and a terrific stereo, airbags and power seats, leather upholstery, sleek styling (for a wagon) all items or qualities of which the Saab has none. It is shiny and still looks almost brand new. It's comfortable and dependable. But so is the 99, with character that even sexy newer cars lack. In some indescribable but compelling way, it still seems and is young. You couldn't even trade me for a Ferrari. Not that I don't admire them - it just isn't who I really am. 

The wabi-sabi 1978 Saab 99GL, 11 1/2 x 8 1/4, Derwent Inktense pencils

Armor

Yesterday afternoon found me in Philadelphia again, with a break between checking progress on a Glasgow kitchen in Glenside and a Sub-Zero/Wolf appliance showroom opening in the Navy yards. Wanting a little time to myself, I thought that a short visit to the Museum of Art would be a good filler. I still had the armor collection on my mind. Mid afternoon parking during the week by the boathouses is easy and convenient, and museum traffic is light, so I was able to quickly get in and out of the galleries.

Working in product development with high end cabinet companies, I'm pretty tuned in to the rigors of craftsmanship. But the level of skill that went into making suits of metal armor like what is on display here is far more impressive when I think about how manufacturing technology has advanced in a few hundred years since these objects were created by hand. Humbling to consider.

Beyond that, I wonder about the appeal that this genre holds for me. Human and animal forms aggressively interpreted in sinister form. Anthropomorphic and alien at the same time. I think of science fiction and fantasy movies, with Imperial storm troopers, Darth Vader, Robocops, Transformers. I can't help wanting to understand this fascination better. But for now, I will have to satisfy my curiousity with these occasional stolen moments gazing like a child at these eerie displays, with a sketchbook and pencils.

17th century armor, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 8 1/4 x 11 1/4, 2B graphite pencil

War horse

My daughter Noble was home from college for the weekend, and knowing that it would likely be the only time I'd get to spend with her, I drove her back to Philadelphia today. As we rolled down the Ben Franklin Parkway verging on school, she mentioned that she'd spent six hours in the Philadelphia Museum of Art last week, drawing armor from the collection. I was impressed.

After dropping her off, I had intended to drive straight back home and get to work. But navigating traffic back up the Parkway, dead on axis with the temple like museum on its high podium, I suddenly thought that I'd take advantage of my rarely used membership, and go in with sketchbook and pencils to do a shorter version of what Noble had done in those medieval armor collections. I wheeled the car around, found a spot to park in the garage, and walked up to the west entrance.

The galleries were unexpectedly crowded - not ideal for undisturbed drawing or unobstructed views, but I was there and wasn't about to quit before starting. For reasons only partly obscure, I found myself transfixed by an armored black horse carrying a fully armored rider. I found myself a spot next to another display, sat cross legged on the terrazzo floor, and tried not to be annoyed by people leaning over me to see what I was doing, or people standing in front of me, posing for photos with the 16th century relics. I managed to crank out one drawing before my back was too sore and my patience worn too thin.

Because of where I began on the page and the relative scale of the sketch, the rider's head is not in the picture. It is a drawing of a war horse, carrying its headless burden.

This evening, back home in my studio, I find that depiction ironically appropriate, as I identify with that black stallion. I can't help wondering if he wouldn't have liked to throw his load and trample it flat before shucking his own coat of armor to run off to freedom, a beast of burden and instrument of rage never again.

horse's armor with headless rider, c.1505, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2B graphite and colored pencils

Easter daffodils

Another disturbingly mild but lingering winter appears to be receding. This morning the weather felt right for Easter – sunny, with the tentative warmth of an early spring day. Most of my family is away, at college or taking time off, and only Gabe and I are at home this weekend. I’d intended to spend both days working, but when a client told me in a phone conversation that it will be another ten days or so before he presents the job I’d intended to complete today, I decided that I’d had enough of sitting at my studio worktable this week, and went outside.

I was reminded of another Easter weekend, twenty six years ago, when I found myself suddenly and similarly at loose ends. I was absorbed in my first architecture studio at the University of New Mexico. The design professor said to us at the end of the week that whether we were Christian or not, he thought it was important that we take a couple of days off to acknowledge the rebirth and perennial hope that comes with spring. He suggested that we do something life affirming. At the time, for me that meant throwing together a change of clothes, grabbing friend and fellow classmate Dave Somoza , and impulsively jumping into my car to make a crazy 36 hour drive from Albuquerque to Syracuse for a brief surprise visit – he to pop in on a cousin at Cornell University, and me to see my parents.

This year, with family responsibilities and work deadlines tying me down, taking to the road is out of the question. Feeling wistful for the freedom I had in 1987, I instead carried rake, shovel, and push broom out into the side yard to sweep winter’s debris from the patio and begin uncovering the flower beds around the house. I carefully raked away the layers of dead leaves the gardens had been protected by over the winter, piling them into a wheelbarrow. I trundled load after load around behind the building to the compost heaps by the stone wall next to the alley, trying not to grumble out loud how much I do not like gardening, and how much I’d rather be driving off on a little adventure.

But by the time I got around to the front of the house, I was noticing the daffodils and crocus. Common flowers that are among the first to bloom every spring. I often take them for granted because I usually don’t tend the gardens. Yet uncovering them by hand, remembering the advice of my studio teacher years ago to do something life affirming, I began to appreciate that I was doing exactly that. I started to enjoy it. After I finished as much as I could do in three and a half hours, I put away the tools and came back out with a pair of flower shears. I took seven stalks with full blossoms, came back inside and found a glass vase. A quick study of them sitting on the dining room table in a patch of late afternoon sun became the first entry in a fresh sketchbook. My first non design work related drawing this spring, appropriately of these mundane and lovely flowers, reminds me that it’s good to be alive.

 Easter daffodils, 11 x 8, Derwent Inktense pencils

notes from the road

Late in January 1992, I set out alone on a month long journey from Seattle, Washington, where I had been in graduate school working on an architecture degree, to Charlottesville, Virginia, where I intended to complete it. Fleeing the site of a failed marriage, I loaded my old VW van, the "Haystack", and hoping that a few solitary weeks driving secondary roads would do me some good, I made my way across the country in a long counterclockwise loop. Many of the routes I drove were so sparsely traveled that I was able to write in my journal as I drove, balancing it on the wide flat steering wheel on stretches of straight empty highway.

As fate would have it, I never did finish that architecture degree. Just a year and a half after arriving in Charlottesville, I was the father of twin girls, relocated again and working full time in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania at what has evolved into an unexpected design career. I've stayed in one place, more or less, for an unprecedented twenty years.

Yet now, as my three children are fledging the nest, I find the road whispering to me across the years, beckoning me to follow. It seems unlikely that I will heed its tantalizing call. But for whatever the reason, the memory of that painful and beautiful journey is strong with me this morning. Forgive my nostalgic mood, but please indulge me as I share a few sketches, and selections from the journal notes of one memorable day on the road.

my 1974 VW in Portland, Oregon, January 1992

6:45AM, Tuesday 28 Jan ‘92

Ely (Nevada) – Showered, fresh jeans and black turtleneck, and I finally get an early start. Read myself to sleep – Least Heat Moon had a home to return to. It makes a journey different from this one.

6:57 on Rtes 6/50/93 – the ridge of mostly wooded peaks to my right is catching the first delicate pink of the sun, sliding in under a blue grey belly of blurred clouds. The landscape is dormant and waiting for the day to bloom.

I find that I enjoy this writing as I drive. I couldn’t do this on most roads in most places. A hawk cruises by, flying at telephone pole height, and a few hundred yards later, a crow, on the right. It’s cold this morning – precipitation will be snow. I want a cup of coffee, but I want it in a little mom & pop, not one of these big commercial truck stops. I’ll wait. A copper colored Ford pickup passes – in 40 miles, I’ve seen only 4 cars. I opted to go south on 93 to avoid the mountains. I don’t want to push the Haystack too hard. It is really cold in here – I have a coat covering my legs and I’m wearing gloves. This is all basin land – to the east, a shroud of haze hangs over Lake Valley, and I see irrigation equipment, tiny in the long shallow trough between the parallel mountain ranges. Pioche is now 26 miles ahead. My stomach rumbles.

9:30AM, 11 miles south of Pioche – Sitting on a padded stool at a polyurethaned particle board counter in the Skittles’n’Vittles restaurant, slurping black coffee and waiting for my heart attack plate – the woman back at the Chevron in Pioche steered me away from the Mexican café there and towards this place back out on the open highway. I’m the only customer, but the radio is playing country & western, the woman doing the cooking is quiet but friendly, and it’s warm in here.

It’s impossible to get a feel for a place on the road without stopping to spend a little time with the people who live there. I don’t at all begrudge the dollars that I spend in these roadside cafes – they make real milkshakes!

journal pages from a day on the road in Nevada, Utah, and Arizona, January 28 1992

10:33AM – Full of eggs, sausage, pancakes, toast and black coffee, I pour a half quart of oil into the Haystack’s motor, fire it up and head south three miles before I realize that 319 to Cedar City was back just outside the café. Now a few miles east of Panaca, I pass a sign that tells me I’m traveling through wild horse country. We chug towards the hills under a pearl grey sky. – a long stack of hay bales interrupted by an old well drilling truck in a huge field –

Down the eastern slope from Panaca summit pass we coast on the rolling reddish grey pavement. Pinon and juniper outnumber, or at least dominate over the sagebrush now. We break out of the trees and a sign says “Welcome to Utah”, and reminds me to set the clocks for Mountain Standard Time. The highway parallels a railroad, and I yearn to see a freight train pass.

12:33PM, east of Modena, Utah – straight, flat road, a purple brown mountain barrier in the distance, the Gipsy Kings my companions as the Haystack and I roll towards Cedar City and the canyon country of the Colorado Plateau.

We wheel around past a brilliant burst of raw red dirt bank – broken columnar rock outcroppings begin to emerge, and now the mountains ahead show folded rustyfringe through the snow and trees. I draw a deep breath and feel something unlock in my chest. We are headed into the land that I love, the Haystack and I. The northwest and the tragic coastline fade to a distant memory. Four miles from Cedar City, a bald eagle flaps powerfully across the highway.

1:49PM – I gas up in Cedar City, cross I-15 onto Rte 14, and abruptly we are enfolded in a new landscape of broken cliffs and exposed rock strata.

2:26PM – Up and up, we are now in an alpine forest of spruce and aspen, the road winds along meekly where the canyon pushes it, and I catch only glimpses now of the snow mantled red cliffs.

The climb was hard on the car – we need a tuneup and an oil change. We stop on a downhill grade to refill the pen and listen to the wind.

3:50PM – Across a jumbled landscape, the Kaibab Plateau stretches endlessly in front of me along the horizon, beyond which lies the Grand Canyon.

5:12PM – The light is fading as the horizon nears the sun. We just dove out of the pines and plummeted into a broad plain with the stunning wall of Vermillion Cliffs stopping the grassy bowl like a bloody sword thrust cleanly, edge first, out of the crust. A quick stop on a muddy track to snap a photo of the haystack and its amazing backdrop. There is an unearthly glow reflecting off the bleached grass, the red dirt, even the gray green road, and I feel like I’m a traveler in an alien land. State road 67 was closed from Jacob Lake to the North Rim, but the disappointment was brief. I pass a boulder strewn cliff dwelling site – house sized boulders perched on eroded little necks. Marble Canyon is just a few miles ahead, and I still have light – wonderful, subtle, magical light –

6:00PM – The other side – driving – heart stopping – the color singing soulful, somber tunes, still at great volume, though now the details of the desert plain disappear and my headlights pool pale orange on the road ahead – the moment is enough – I weep tears of gratitude – clinging snow on the west facing wall goes bluish, dusky, like the sky, like the page that I write on that is full of the sky – signs glow up out of the roadside in my headlamps – out of the mysterious cloak – the sun ignites the distant clouds for a few minutes, then the color departs –