River Journeys Podcast

I had to fight to keep myself as I wanted to be. —William Carlos Williams Wandering through the stacks in the University of Oregon library during a break from tole painting in a study carrel I used once a week, thanks to my husband’s faculty status, a book caught my eye: “The Mirror of True Womanhood: A Book of Instruction for Women in the World.” A new mother, I needed advice. The book, published...

A surfing Madonna appeared just before Easter weekend 2011 in Encinitas, California. Artists disguised as construction workers affixed a striking mosaic of the Virgin of Guadalupe riding a wave to a wall under a train bridge. It technically was graffiti that should be removed under the law. Written by Anne Ayers Koch. Find more of Anne's writing on Substack . Edited and produced by Geoff Koch and...

A New Dance A tarnished brass cup cowers behind other / forgotten relics in the dark cupboard. The faded plaque whispers, “American Legion Essay / contest—first place 1960—“Americanism today.” The girl who won is gone. She doesn’t remember / what convinced the judges. What were we then? She does remember the writing instructions. / How odd. Form, not substance. “Breathe. Feet flat. Relax. Keep too...

For 20 years, I have lived in a house with a laundry room—a big laundry room. Floor-to-ceiling cupboards wrap around three sides. A deep sink interrupts the tile counters that end where they meet the washer and dryer. Nevertheless, doing laundry there is a challenge. Stacks of greeting card supplies are everywhere—rubber stamps, ribbons, buttons, pressed flowers, cutters, reams of paper, strange d...

At age 93, Pablo Casals wrote: "For the past eighty years I have started each day in the same manner. I go to the piano, and I play two preludes and fugues of Bach. It is sort of a benediction on the house, but that’s not its only meaning. It is a rediscovery of the world in which I have the joy of being a part." Morning routines. We all have them though parts change with age. Life with very small...

1971 arrived. I was an expectant mother in a small second-floor apartment behind a gas station in Eugene, Oregon. Our first purchase was a huge desk with a laminated wood top and chrome legs. In front of it, we squeezed a secondhand blond crib, adorned with the teeth marks of its four previous occupants. We figured we didn’t need much else. After all, I first slept in a dresser drawer, so this was...

Something was wrong. I couldn’t put my finger on it. What could it be?  Most of my graduate students were Generation Ys (aka Millennials)… born after 1982, raised in a digital world. Slogging through various credentials and degree programs at the end of their long workdays made it difficult for them to focus. The cares and worries of their days came with them every week. Their commutes, their own...

One Christmas, Jim brought home a set of calligraphy pens, the least wanted item in his office holiday party swap gift exchange. A beheaded fountain pen and collection of odd-looking nibs, they were left behind by the disappointed recipient. I was delighted. Written by Anne Ayers Koch. Find more of Anne's writing on Substack . Edited and produced by Geoff Koch and Amanda Barranco MORE I practiced...

In the 20th century, handwriting was another place where perfection seemed important, in part because people thought one’s character could be improved by working on one’s handwriting. Alfred Binet, who came up with the Stanford-Binet IQ test, believed there was a “science of graphology” that revealed a person’s character in their handwriting. It is an idea still popular in Europe. Written by Anne...

A prose poem: The smooth, suave agent repeatedwhat he had been saying all week.“California prices are difficult.” Written by Anne Ayers Koch. Find more of Anne's writing on Substack . Edited and produced by Geoff Koch and Amanda Barranco MORE Sixty houses later, shirt wrinkled,tie loose, glossy flyers fillinghis luxury car, through clenched teeth, he snapped,“This is the last one in your range.” G...

It was no surprise I paid no attention to running a household or creating a home. In the subtle ways past generations shape future ones, Mother survived a childhood of drudgery compounded by poverty and parents with grade school educations. She wanted neither for her children. She ran the house. I studied. My much younger sister played. When faced with a home of my own, the shock was electric. I h...

Being able to look back is important, but not enough. Old art, whether magnificent or mundane, is always the raw material of new art. The artist’s job is to build on it or transform it, not offer up comforting familiarity as a talisman against the void. That was the problem with my glass project. It was a bridge backward. Much later, painting became a path forward. Written by Anne Ayers Koch. Find...

Could I be more than a caregiver, housekeeper, cook, gardener — important jobs, functional jobs, exhausting in their relentlessness? Jackson Pollock characterized art as an act of “self-discovery,” positioning the experience of the individual, not the work, at the center of the endeavor. I didn’t need to be the center of anything. I needed something else. Tole painting became that something. Writt...

On bookbinding, questioning Plato and poiesis. Written by Anne Ayers Koch. Find more of Anne's writing on Substack . Edited and produced by Geoff Koch and Amanda Barranco EXCERPT But measuring and sewing the bindings of my simple books, I knew I was both working and thinking. Buried in the Greek language is a word, “poiesis.” It is the same word used to describe the work of both mechanic and poet....

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces | Between stars—on stars where no human race is. | I have it in me so much nearer home | To scare myself with my own desert places. —Robert Frost Now what? First house. First job. The house was in an almost new tract miles from charming homes we couldn’t afford around the university. The job matched Jim’s research interests in business and labor relatio...

Part One ***ENERGY UNBRIDLED Every child is an artist. The challenge is to remain an artist when you grow up. —Pablo Picasso Draw. Decorate. Design. All were outside my sturdy middle-class school experience. In a curriculum where memorization and outlining were daily companions, art was an infrequent visitor… and never for a “serious” student. I was a serious student. The Space Age began October 4...

“To create a memorable design, you need to start with a thought that is worth remembering.” —Thomas Manss The small box, with its geometric inlaid light and dark pattern, was a gift from my father after one of his Navy deployments. When he pulled it from his duffel bag, I tried to hide my disappointment. It looked like a decorated wooden rectangle. I had been hoping for a Japanese doll, or maybe a...