Today I am sitting with two of my favorite people in all the world, John and Ann Brantingham. John and Ann are authors of the newly released Kitkitdizzi: A Non-Linear Memoir of the High Sierra (Bamboo Dart Press), a drawn and written memoir of their work in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, where they formerly served as Poet Laureate (John), and Volunteer-in-Parks (Ann). I love their work, and how they have used their retreat from their busy lives as writers, artists, and teachers in the wilds of urban Southern California to find personal balance, and how they are able to work so productively together. They have just conducted readings from home on Zoom and an art exhibit at the Chautauqua Art Gallery, located near their new home.

We met on Zoom today, as the Brantinghams have left their home near me and have moved across the country to Western New York State.

1. John and Ann, what is it that each of you is trying to accomplish in your work?

John: There is a difference between what I am trying to accomplish for myself and for readers, but there’s a good deal of overlap there for me as well. It is so easy to slide into a childishly cynical point of view, and that is dangerous.

It’s dangerous for me because I am just as prone to anxiety and sadness as everyone else. More so I think than a lot of people. If my lens to the world is cynicism, then my reaction is going to be hopelessness. I want to understand the world in terms of wonder. Every moment and every interaction is full of potential wonder and when we move away from that, we can be like a spoiled child or petty tyrant shaking our fists and demanding that the world fulfill our immediate pleasures and desires. However, if I calm myself and really look at what is around me and what is happening, I can be overwhelmed with what is extraordinary.

I suppose then that what I am trying to accomplish for my readers is similar. I would like to open up these moments to them, which is why I generally write about nature or ekphrasis. I don’t write in those two modes exclusively, but they are an important part of my practice. In ekphrasis, I can move away from my own ego to gain the point-of-view of another artist. In nature writing, I can see the world without the pettiness that the modern world engenders in me. If I can do that, then my readers, I hope, gain something.

Gaining hope is a struggle, and I am always working toward that.

Ann: I am forever seeking calm in my life. I use art as a way to feel calm, both in my subject matter (mainly nature, but sometimes still lifes) and in my method of a slow building of layers. I am delighted to find that other people find calm in my work, so my goal now is to spread calm, but I am still learning what that entails.

2. What sort of blocks and battles have/do you contend with, in getting your work where you want it to be?

Ann: I have to constantly remind myself to slow down and let the image come out when it’s ready. I tend to try to do everything fast rather than savor the moment, so the work I show the world is the result of listening to my inner voice telling me to take my time. I deal with chronic pain and a certain amount of internalized ableism, which tells me I am lazy when in reality, sometimes I just need to work slowly.

John: Question to Ann: Do the ableist voices in your head put a premium on speed over quality? Obviously, what you are doing has exceptional quality. Are they telling you that you also need to put out images like an assembly line worker?

Ann: No, not like an assembly line worker, but I do compare myself to other people who have a much larger body of work and I find myself lacking. I realize the answer is to do more work, but I also need to allow myself to go at my own speed and stop comparing myself to others, especially on social media.

John: For so long I had so many restrictions on my time because I was working so many hours teaching. I have recently retired though to move into writing full time. Now, it’s different. Work is addictive. I mean 9-5 jobs are addictive, which, let’s face it, have become 7-9 jobs. They are full of petty problems, little fires that I was constantly putting out. There’s some level of addictive satisfaction in that.

I’m having a bit of a hard time transitioning. I knew that I would. I think most people do. There are no longer minor problems that I can swoop in and fix. But over the last 30 years, I have trained myself to do that. Now, the challenge is in developing the skill of long and sustained concentration, and I am learning to do that well.

That’s the immediate problem. One of my long-term challenges is imposter syndrome and constant feelings of worthlessness. Why would anyone want to read my work? An attitude like that will really shape the way you approach revision. If you feel that you have nothing of value to say, then you’re not going to do what is necessary to revise your work. I think that a lot of people face this difficulty. It’s not so much knowing what to write, how to revise, or when to make changes; it’s pushing through all those negative emotions so that you have a mind clear enough to do that work.

Sitting alone in a quiet office will bring all those voices, and they are the biggest distraction I’ve ever faced.

3. How do you work together and how does your relationship assist you?

John: The thing about life is that you don’t grow up just once, and then suddenly you’re an adult. You keep growing up, keep learning how to approach the next part of your life. I’ve grown up again and again with Ann. Together, we keep learning about what the universe is and what our roles in it are. So with Ann, I have learned how to act, what to write about, how to live. I see her all day every day, and that is a good thing. I don’t think that at this point I could really separate my work from Ann. She is so much a part of my consciousness that whatever insights or wisdom they have come from a mutual growth rather than some kind of individual inspiration.

I doubt that many people work that way. I don’t recommend it for everyone. For me, it’s right. I need the conversation and the closeness. I don’t know that it’s the same for Ann because my work is all about words and philosophy, and I don’t know how that translates to the visual arts. I have no visual imagination myself so that’s always a mystery to me.

Ann: I wouldn’t be an artist if I hadn’t met John. From the first day I met him, he has been my biggest fan and supporter. He has always encouraged me without making me feel like a failure if I changed my mind about something. I didn’t spend much time in nature before I met John and now camping is second nature to me. We both find a lot of joy and relaxation in nature, and our dog Lizzy makes sure that we walk in nature often. Without John’s encouragement, I wouldn’t have become a nature artist, or any type of artist.

4. What are your hopes for yourselves and the world over the next ten years?

Ann: I just hope that we survive. I had a lot of hopes for humanity when I was young. I have been disappointed by so many things politically and in a few other areas too, but I know tuning out won’t help. I’ll amend my answer to say that I hope people can become engaged in the world around them and be open to seeing other people and the environment as vital to our own lives.

For myself, I want to be the best version of myself that I can. I would like to continue to grow as a human and an artist. And I would like to spend as much time as possible with John and Lizzy.

John: For the world, I just hope that we move toward sanity. Part of what has happened in the last few years should give us hope. That we got together and developed a COVID vaccine so quickly and well should tell us something about what we could accomplish if we moved away from pettiness and hatred. If the goal were to simply make our lives better, we could cure disease and generally make life’s pointless miseries go away. Instead, we seem to be engaged in an endless multinational child’s game of king of the hill. On top of that, I would love to see us move to the point where we all recognize that all humans are simply one species. Homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, ableism, antisemitism, and a host of other nightmares come at least in part to the attitude that we are all essentially different from each other, and nothing could be less true.

I have a lot of personal goals. I’d like to be a better poet, teacher, writer, and reader, and I have markers for those things. However, all of this comes down to that I would like to be a better, more empathetic, more sympathetic human being. The literary arts are simply my route to that goal.

5. How do you best care for yourselves and each other?

John: We made a commitment when we married that we would put each other and our relationship above everything else. Whatever else we do, it is in support of that. Yes, I worked hard for years, but not for the love of the job as much as the love of and support of each other. Ann knows that if she needs anything, I will drop what I am doing and put her first. I know that she would do the same. When we see ourselves going down a self-destructive road, we help each other.

Ann: We also have become each other’s biggest advocate. If I see John pushing himself too hard, I encourage him to take a break with me or go for a walk. If he sees me in pain, he’ll suggest a couch day before I realize how much I need the break. At the same time, we both know how important certain milestones are to each other and when one of us achieves one, the other is just as happy and excited as the one who accomplished the goal. I think this has come from us being together for such a long time, starting when we were forming who we wanted to be for the rest of our lives.

6. Any words of encouragement to creatives trying to move forward with their work during these very uncertain times?

Ann: Do the work. Set a goal for yourself to get your work to the next level. Make a kit so it’s easy to sit down and create. A few years ago, John challenged me to draw 100 leaf drawings in three months. I did it and it truly changed the quality of my artwork. I made up a kit of paper cut to a certain size, a certain pencil, and a certain frame for the finished pieces. I recommend this to anyone who is wanting to get their work to a higher level.

John: My life is narrow. My ability to understand the world is narrow. For me to accomplish the goal stated above, to be a better person, I need the perspective of other people. The work of other creatives ennobles me. It makes me better. What you have to say or draw or express is different from everyone else, and we absolutely need what you have to say. I really love Ira Glass, and if someone is starting out, I would encourage that person to watch this short video: Ira Glass on the Creative Process.^[1]

7. A Question just for Ann: Why is this a memoir for you? John used the traditional method for his part of the memoir, but you used drawings. What differentiates a set of drawings from a memoir?

Ann: Like John with his written narrative, I have a spiritual and intellectual progression documented with my images that’s completely nonlinear. Instead, I bounce around in my thoughts and emotions through the collection. When I first came to Sequoia, I was thinking about what goes overlooked, and I drew images of what we often call weeds. There is no significant distinction between a weed and any other plant other than our relationship with it. It became a metaphor to me for how so many people in our society are viewed, women as they age, disabled people, and people of color just to name a few. There is no distinction in their value as humans aside from the way that they are treated by others.

As we kept coming back, I became more aware of the people and the fauna who are treated in this way. The titular plant, Kitkitdizzi, also known as bear clover or mountain misery, dominates the landscape of certain parts of the park, and it is so aromatic that it is about all that people can smell on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. However, most people will not recognize that they see or smell it because they have been told that in the mountains they are supposed to see and smell only pine trees.

The forest and the world is full of the unseen and forgotten and so is my work in this book, plants, little gray snakes, and fallen leaves. As I felt unseen, I was able to celebrate those things that I thought of as fellow travelers, and the narrative progression is how I was able to see them and myself as both unique and a part of the larger biosphere that formed the forest and ultimately the world.

8. A Question just for John: Now that you have retired from your day job of teaching, I understand you have become involved in the New Voices Project. How satisfying is this for you?

John: The New Voices Project is a way of continuing our conversation about the Holocaust. It begins with the book New Voices. The editors compiled photographs and asked current Jewish poets and writers to respond to them. The point of this is not only that we never forget about the Holocaust, but that we draw lessons and meaning from how they interact with our world today. It’s not enough simply to keep remembering it, but we need to keep active learning about it so that we know how to see and understand new instances of racism, antisemitism, homophobia, ableism, and all of the other various ways we have for hatred in this world.

I am not one of the writers who has responded to these images. Instead, I am trying to help them promote the book through articles, reviews, and interviews with the authors. This is one of the ways that I have brought my life meaning since I stopped teaching full time. I have always felt that the writing of essays and reviews to be just as spiritually and creatively important as fiction or poetry. I am able to both help the writers and poets with their vision and to work through the meaning of their work and the Holocaust in general on my own.

I think this kind of journey is vital for all people. I think we are all capable of evil, and it is the job of responsible adults to question themselves and their actions. Horrors keep coming back to us again and again. That eternal game of king of the hill has turned us into monsters sometimes. Thankfully, there is hope. Thankfully, if we watch ourselves, we can take Carl Sagan’s attitude as well. I watch this religiously: The Pale Blue Dot. If you haven’t seen it lately, I recommend it.

Kendall: And I recommend viewing more of Ann’s work at her website, https://www.annbrantingham.com, and John’s books at his, https://www.johnbrantingham.com.

Thank you both for sharing your thoughts with us today on the very important question of how we can work productively, effectively, and safely as creatives in this tumultuous and uncertain world.

 

See also Kendall Johnson’s review of Kitkitdizzi here in Issue 16 of MacQ: “A Walk Among Giants”

Footnote:

1. The two-minute video “Ira Glass on the Creative Process” is distilled from “Ira Glass on Storytelling: Part 3” (link retrieved on 5 December 2022): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHrmKL2XKcE

Kendall Johnson

grew up in the lemon groves in Southern California, raised by assorted coyotes and bobcats. A former firefighter with military experience, he served as traumatic stress therapist and crisis consultant—often in the field. A nationally certified teacher, he taught art and writing, served as a gallery director, and still serves on the board of the Sasse Museum of Art, for whom he authored the museum books Fragments: An Archeology of Memory (2017), an attempt to use art and writing to retrieve lost memories of combat, and Dear Vincent: A Psychologist Turned Artist Writes Back to Van Gogh (2020). He holds national board certification as an art teacher for adolescent to young adults.

Recently, Dr. Johnson retired from teaching and clinical work to pursue painting, photography, and writing full time. In that capacity he has written five literary books of artwork and poetry, and one in art history. His shorter work has appeared in Literary Hub, Chiron Review, Shark Reef, Cultural Weekly, and Quarks Ediciones Digitales, and was translated into Chinese by Poetry Hall: A Chinese and English Bi-Lingual Journal. His memoir collection, Chaos & Ash, was released from Pelekinesis in 2020, his Black Box Poetics from Bamboo Dart Press in 2021, The Stardust Mirage from Cholla Needles Press in 2022, and his Fireflies Against Darkness and More Fireflies series from Arroyo Seco Press in 2021 and 2022. He serves as contributing editor for the Journal of Radical Wonder.

Author’s website: www.layeredmeaning.com

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Kendall Johnson’s Black Box Poetics is out today on Bamboo Dart Press, an interview by Dennis Callaci in Shrimper Records blog (10 June 2021)

⚡ Self Portraits: A Review of Kendall Johnson’s Dear Vincent, by Trevor Losh-Johnson in The Ekphrastic Review (6 March 2020)

⚡ On the Ground Fighting a New American Wildfire by Kendall Johnson at Literary Hub (12 August 2020), a selection from his book Chaos & Ash (Pelekinesis, 2020)

⚡ A review of Chaos & Ash by John Brantingham in Tears in the Fence (2 January 2021)