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River crossings can be a challenge with a dog, even a strong swimmer. Jim Greenway, an avid hiker and top dog at the Traildogs group on Yahoo, provided these strategies for fording rivers, streams and swamps with your dog.

• Get your dog comfortable wading and swimming before leaving for the big trip.

• If your dog doesn’t like water, stream fords are going to be a challenge. That’s particularly true if the crossing involves hip-deep water in which the dog has no other choice than to swim for it. I would omit the previous sentence as being patently obvious if it weren’t for the fact that I ran into at least one hiking party that was stuck with carrying a dog because he wouldn’t swim. Try that in places such as north Georgia’s Jacks River Trail, with almost three-dozen river crossings, and you won’t soon forget it.

• Carrying a dog isn’t a viable option. Most river crossings involve riverbeds with slick rocks. It may be difficult enough to keep your footing with only a pack. Carrying a dog raises your body’s center of gravity and makes it harder to balance on the rocks. A slip and fall could injure both of you and frighten the dog so much that he or she doesn’t want to be carried again. If carrying is a must, consider leaving your pack and taking your dog across first. Leash the dog to a tree, and then make a return trip to retrieve your pack.

• Learn to appreciate the power and hazards in water. Hikers often lack any experience with gauging a river’s hazards. They look upriver to see the current, without realizing it’s what’s downriver that can really hurt them. What only looks like a fallen tree in the river may also be a deadly “strainer.” Many people don’t realize that river current tends to suck dogs (and hikers) down and into the strainer, rather than over or around them. Large rocks are both a collision hazard as well as a danger for “undercuts,” or pockets of recirculating current that can trap dogs. Dogs and most people tend to try to swim away from hydraulics at the surface. It’s difficult enough to even figure out where the surface is. The best escape route is to try to swim out of the bottom of the hydraulic. It’s tough explaining that to the dog.

• How close to keep your dog? This is a toss-up, especially if it’s just you and the dog. A panicked dog may try to climb onto your back. That’s a bad move. The only preventative is to get your dog comfortable in swimming before the trip. Don’t tie on the dog. If he gets into trouble, he may pull you down with him.

• Look for the calmest spot to cross. That may or may not be the prescribed crossing. It may also mean that you both have to swim because the river is deep there.

• Gauge the current. Remember, most land managers select river crossings with the idea that humans are walking across. Current has a relatively minor effect on that. Your dog, however, is probably going to float downstream—and fast. Launching your dog from the prescribed crossing point may mean that your dog will be pushed downstream to a bank or cliff that’s too steep for an exit. Once a dog misses a safe exit point, he may be washed downstream for some distance. If he panics at missing the exit point, the dog may become so exhausted he can’t escape the water.

• Throw in a stick and watch how fast it moves downstream. Use your experience with your dog’s swimming speed to figure out where you must launch your dog upstream in order for him to swim to a safe exit point downstream. Trust your gut. If a crossing looks “iffy,” don’t try it

• Remove the dense stuff from the dog backpack. A dog pack can provide a lot of flotation and take some of the work out of the swim. An overstuffed can create resistance.

• Beware gators in swamp crossings. There are areas, such as the Florida Trail, where big sections are waded or forded. These areas usually have alligators. Alligators eat dogs. I’d be very reluctant to let a dog swim in those areas. This might be the only instance when I recommend carrying the dog over the shoulders and around the neck.

While Greenway says a leash may cause trouble for humans in a crossing, other hikers told me a leash is a necessity. A Portland-based packer uses harnesses on her dogs and leads them across with a long line tied to her horses. "The dog can slip out of a collar from the drag of the water,” she warns. Also, Justin Lichter rarely keeps Yoni's pack on for a tough crossing. With more than 20,000 trail miles under his belt, he removes her backpack and attaches it to his, then holds her leash and collar with his downstream hand, and walks with her close to him.

We'll continue the conversation about dogs in streams and on trails tomorrow at 2 p.m. at the Outdoor Classroom at Rattlesnake Lake near North Bend, Washington. Maybe I'll see you there.

I understand it's cool to be "that girl" with a veil of gift bows on top of your head at the swankiest place you know (that's right, I said 'swanky'), but I'm sure you would look equally cool with a Daniel Boone hat on your head.  And that dignity-buster comes marriage-free. 

Now, now.  I'm not advocating that all jewelry-lovers refrain from ever consenting to their urges, because marriage can be pretty cool.  After all, it's the only way babies can be born, right?  I'm merely suggesting that you look at what life after college is like before bringing another individual into the picture.

Read On For Worst Analogy Ever:

Here's person A right after college, wondering if he should have a big, demonic bonfire for his textbooks or clutch tightly to them, whispering sweet nothings about how much he misses his classes. 

Either way, he's standing in a metaphoric pile of mud (where'd that come from?!), unsure where steady ground is.  (But perhaps he's standing in real mud too, in which case, he should probably step to the side.)

And if we do a simple math problem and add another, equally clueless person B to stand in a pile of mud (people really need to learn where to walk...), then we just have two very muddy people.

One of two things can go down:  Either both of the mud piles harden at the same time, and both A & B are standing on solid ground (here's hoping for all those people's wedding albums that keep popping up on my Facebook newsfeed). 

Or A & B become even muddier individuals. 

So why not wait until the ground hardens under your own feet before bringing a jewelry-bedazzled hand into the picture?  And let's face it, standing on solid ground is far more alluring to other people than standing in a pile of mud.

But then again, what do I know?  For better information, go ask the 5% of married people that make it to their 50th wedding anniversary.  If they can hear you above their selective listening, as my grandma likes to say.

-The Boxcar Children

As I have already mentioned I'm painting koi these days.  And the koi painting is a very abstract and free image since the fish are moving and their precise shape and anatomy is not visible.  My koi sometimes won't even come to the surface to greet me.  Then at other times they fly out of the water as though they've momentarily forgotten that they're fish.  Consequently I see them as fluid distortions that blend with the water in which they live, and their presence reveals both surface and depths.

So it seems odd that I should be thinking about little squares, but I am.  For a long time, I've had a complicated emotional relationship to the works of another artist, American contemporary painter Jennifer Bartlett.  (More about her later.)  While she certainly did not invent the square, to which delight I think we owe thanks to someone among the ancient Greeks, she did give the square rather more of a high profile than it had enjoyed in a long time.  Even there, of course, she borrows (whether knowingly or not) from a famous precursor Pierre Bonnard -- who saw squares everywhere, even in the foliage of the trees.

Perhaps it is not strange then that I look at my koi paintings with an eye to discerning the grid that possibly overlays their pond.  If I sought a very precise rendering of the image that I'm painting, as I translate from a reference photo to the canvas, I might impose a grid over the photo and block it in square by square.  Since it's interpretation I seek and not a photographic idea, I have no motive to desire such precision.  However, the idea of the grid still beguiles me.  I think of each square as a window that opens up a more intimate view of that section of the picture as though we might open a door onto some little corridor of reality.  I want to peer into those squares to see what each one holds. 

But the grid that overlays reality, conceals as much as it reveals.  Ce que tu montre et que tu cache ... there is this elusiveness, this ineluctable something, this je ne sais quoi that persists.  It is the mystique.

[Top of the post:  Photograph of a shower curtain (with a design in blue squares behind which can be seen parts of a paper mache fish), photo by Aletha Kuschan]

I have been listening to music I hear coming from inside a small shell.  It seems to sing me advice concerning the painting of my koi fish.  Its music comes from a great distance, whispering from far inside its small architecture, and it winds round chamber upon chamber to reach the outer air of the world.  Yet the delight it produces is commensurate with something much louder and grander.  It's really quite an amazing little shell.

[Top of the post: drawing of a lonely shell, by Aletha Kuschan, ballpoint pen]

All my preoccupation with the koi is making me half fish myself.  This is not a dream from which one wishes to awake.  Here is a dream one wants to dream.

I'd like to go to the beach for real.  Or I'd like to dive into a pond somewhere with my friends the koi.  Can't do either of these things right now.  Well, actually I can't try door number two ever -- unless I'm willing to get arrested by the National Park Service.  But I am up to my eyeballs in water.  And I'm not referring to my afternoon at the pool. 

I've been working on koi paintings.  Will be making drawings of koi, too, because painting takes too long and I need instant gratification.  I remember how much I enjoyed making the drawing above, which is fairly large, made on two sheets measuring 60 x 88 inches overall.  I have an idea for a new koi drawing so I'm beside myself with eagerness to get started.  At some future time, I'll post them.  But for now I present these little teasers!

Work of this sort has its own frustrations, of course.  "Painting" with crayons means having to scribble or rub colors into shapes.  The upside is that it's very energetic and provides good exercise for the forearms.  Whatever frustrations to instant gratification exist, however, are more than made up by the delight in making lines.  Lots of 'em -- over very large sheets of paper.  It's great to be an adult and still have so much rationalization for long episodes of play.

[Top of the post:  Last year's Koi drawing, by Aletha Kuschan, crayon on Canson paper]

Today artists go to university. That has certain obvious advantages. You learn to become technologically savvy. You make the acquaintance of professors who expect you to read a lot of books (these are usually professors in other departments). And if you stay on the straight and narrow, they give you official recognition in the form of a degree (something the old masters never had).

Whether the university art department has something valuable to offer: that's another question and varies greatly from place to place. We could call it the Rembrandt factor.

Today art is supposed to be about what's hip and happening now. Press this idea a little and you see that many artists fully embrace the concept of planned obsolescence. Let's face it, if the old masters have as their over-riding fault the fact that they are old, then certainly one's own art (regardless how hip it was in its moment) will someday (perhaps in a week or so) be old too. What's the point?

Or, art is supposed to be about doing something no one has ever done before (to accept this notion it does help to have been born yesterday, quite literally). We'll call this the Guinness Book of World Records approach. Guy who has eaten the most worms. (Yuk) First artist to make a picture out of styrofoam. First artist to paint with ketchup, and so on through many heady firsts!

The problem with the Guinness artist is that it's hard to see exactly why the young art student's parents should be paying all that hefty tuition just so that junior can do what cannot be taught. If, after all, you are boldly going where no one has ever gone before -- how is someone to teach you? Isn't the thing that can be taught, by definition, academic? And isn't the academic approach the icky route to be assiduously avoided?

What the young artist needs clearly, and this is especially true for the hipster crowd, is a garret. But garrets are lonely places and if you're making stuff out of old car parts the last thing you want is solitude. It helps to have a few fellow enthusiasts around to cheer you on -- especially with the obsolescence thing biting at your heels.

[Top of the post:  An Artist at his Easel, by Rembrandt.  This post originally appeared at Art Writing Bold Drawing.]

Here are some basic strategies for creating effective, profitable ads.

1. Give Your Customers a Benefit

One of the best ways to grab the reader's attention is to tell him - in the headline of your ad - how you can help him. You can do this is a variety of ways, but one good idea is to use a "how to" tagline in your headline. For example, have your brochure printing headline read, "How to Increase Profits in 10 Days." Telling the customer how your product can benefit him is a very good advertising strategy.

2. Ask a Thought Provoking Question

Another good strategy is to ask a question that will grab the reader's attention. Something like, "Are You Sick of Living Paycheck to Paycheck?" might entice the reader to look into your ad a bit more closely. Try to ask questions that pertain to your target customers.

3. Keep it Short and to the Point

Do not try to say too much in your ads. Often (especially in the case of classified ads) just one or two lines will be enough. Decide who you are targeting (your target customers) and how you are going to attract them (your headline). Then say in the most direct, straightforward way you can think of. Not only is this more effective (customers usually have short attention spans) but it saves you money, too.

4. Provide some useful or intriguing information

Offering up some free advice or information is a good way to get the attention of readers. For instance, your ad might start with the sentence, "5 Ways to Reduce Energy Costs". Then proceed to tell them how they can get this information. If you use a provocative enough question, many customers will contact you just to find out more.

5. Give Something Away

You could also try giving something to your readers for free. This does not have to be anything big or costly. Design some full color brochures and offer a free brochure to anyone interested in your ad. Or do a color printing of a booklet, and offer that as the bait. Just the fact that you are willing to give something away for free is usually very attractive to customers.

I'm busy painting koi these days, doing my own version of Monet's Nympheas idea, living as it were in imaginary pools of water, becoming it sometimes seems a fish myself, so immersed I am in a world of blue.  So, it's intriguing to reencounter a work like this drawing of flowers and to find so many similarities in it to the fishes and the pool. 

Though the colors are entirely different and the associations are quite opposite, this picture bears a mirror likeness to the koi ponds.  This similarity is made all the more mysterious by their oppositions.  One takes place outdoors, the other inside the house.  One is natural, the other is civilized and artificial.  One is vertical, the other horizontal.  But inside both pictures are formal means of ordering the visual idea.  Both images have a "swirl" of sorts as its schematic center.  The implicit visual movement of the flowers in their design, both the flowers in the vase and the ones arranged on the design of the cloth, echo the swimming motions of the fish in their pond. 

I've noticed this kind of visual metaphor before in my paintings.  I have no idea what it means.  Beneath the subject matter lies a process of ordering and arranging that is as much the subject of the painting as are the objects depicted.  Somehow in the precise ways I order things, my personality lies hidden. 

It might seem that a person's way of ordering ideas would be the last thing about themselves that they would "hide," and yet I only discover these facts of self-hood for myself by this very indirect means.  And without even realizing I was doing so, naturally I reveal something of myself to others also by these tacit devices.

We project ourselves outwards upon the world in myriad ways.  Just that sense one has of knowing people, of taking the measure of them, even of people that we just meet when we make those crucial "first impression" judgements -- all these effects are signs of the self that is foisted out.  Even a shy self is thrust onto the stage of life despite one's efforts to seek shelter. 

We are all actors on the stage as William Shakespeare once keenly observed.  For the artist the picture is but another kind of garment one wears to demonstrate and manifest the self to the world.

A picture is a strange mirror because it distorts as much as it reveals, pressing ideas outward into the world in a thousand disguises.  Yet behind all forms of concealment, one person peeks through.  Paint.  Do paint, and I guarantee you'll gain self-knowledge though you may not always recognize the face you see in painting's strange mirror.

[Top of the post:  Drawing of Flowers in a Vase, by Aletha Kuschan, Caran d'ache on Canson paper]

The upclose of first marks on a canvas can be kind of exciting.  When everything is possible still...

[Top of the post:  detail of a Koi picture (see Anne Sophie Mutter and her Opposite) by Aletha Kuschan]

Searching for the answer to the riddle Kitsune offered, I doodled a bunch of trials that make nice hieroglyphics.  Looks like the Rosetta stone for space alien languages!

[Top of the post:  Cheat Sheet for solving a riddle, by Aletha Kuschan]

There's an episode of Seinfeld called "The Understudy" where one of Jerry's many girl friends gets her big break in a Broadway musical only to flub her opening number.  The very whiny girl friend turns to the audience and pleads with them to let her start over.  Violinist Anne Sophie Mutter would be the opposite of that.  I had a chance to watch Mutter perform once at the Kennedy Center in Washington thanks to the generosity of a friend (artists are way too poor to afford tickets to Mutter's recitals).  Anne Sophie Mutter's performance was so perfect, it's hard to believe she's human.  She is angelic or something. Oddly enough, she gets a certain amount of flak for her virtuosity.  Her performance is so perfect that people imagine her music lacks emotion.  The music is full of emotion!  It's just that we've almost come to equate emotion with imperfection!

I have a violin and started "fiddling around" with it some years ago, and when I'm very well warmed up I can play some jazz by ear that's not too shabby.  (It helps if all the planets are perfectly aligned.)  I doubt I could ever have been a performer even if, like Mutter, I had begun at age four.  In that area of life where I have the most freedom and fluency, I make mistakes all the time.  Big ones!

Maybe artists are just clumsy people.  One artist here at wordpress has the picture of a Julian easel toppling over in a stream as a kind of logo.  And I'll bet that WR Jones has some stories he could tell you.  I have painted things en plein air, thought my picture magnificient, stood back for the better view, and watched the whole thing go SMACK face down in the dirt by an ill-timed gust of wind.  I cannot count the unfortunate bugs I've picked out of other en plein air productions.  And I'm always dropping stuff, brushes and whatnot.  Or losing things (the precise photo, drawing, whatever, that I need for the project at hand).

What I absolutely love about painting, the reason why I know it was meant for me, is that painting is a performance that takes place in utter secrecy and the only notes that count are the ones visible on the top layer.  You can make a tangled mess of the bottom, you can change your mind a thousand times, you can miss your cue, falter on the first note, sing out of key, forget the words -- as long as you recover in that thin top layer -- you win!

[Top of the post:  First layers (learning the riff) of the latest project, by Aletha Kuschan, oil on canvas]

I solved the riddle! (Whew.)  The solution occurred while I was drinking coffee this morning at a McDonald's restaurant after having fiddled with numerous trials and erroneous attempts.  I guess insight played a role in my solving it since I had "found" the solution without realizing it the night before and had rejected it -- by which I mean that I had discovered the correct shape (thinking of this as a drawing exercise) but had the scale wrong (a common problem in drawing)  Thus a slight attitude adjustment was needed to capture the solution, requiring several hours of sleep as well as relaxing distractions plus a fresh morning perspective.  (No doubt the coffee was helpful, too.)

The work of solving the riddle presented many intriguing corollary questions.  While solving it feels nifty, I wonder who created the puzzle and what questions lead someone to an invention like this.  Discovering a puzzle requires a higher and brighter curiosity, I think, than solving a puzzle that is already well received.  While artists complain of the difficulties they face in the market place, imagine the plight of a riddle inventor!  Certainly one must have very pure motives to spend one's days in devising riddles and puzzles knowing that one's reception is so marginal. 

Other ideas passed through my mind as I toiled away at the puzzle.  I was aware of having seen its solution once, but recollection did not come very handily to my aid.  Even knowing that the lines had to meet somewhere outside the figure did not help much psychologically.  I still felt compelled to try various ways of connecting the edges of the box.  Finally, I realized that an element of trust was required.  Could Kitsune have tricked me?  Was there a solution?  And another kind of trust was needed, too.  I have counseled various persons about confidence in regard to their drawing.  Drawing in art, making "mistakes," can be discouraging and I have told people many times that you must go through the problem and not give up on it.  It is the passage through self-criticizing thoughts that leads ultimately to the promised land of art.  Here I was with a knotty problem -- a drawing problem, I decided to think of it in those terms -- and I could have given up, but I decided to follow my own advice and press on.

I am still not convinced that it is not more math than art, though I chose to use art as much as I could to solve it.  But unlike most the art I do, I did not know what the thing I was drawing looked like.  The reasoning here was exactly opposite what I typically do.  Usually I look at something and from a massive wall of perceptions, I am choosing certain ones and ignoring the rest.  Here I had very limited means, four lines, and with them I had to discover something I could not see, trying to bring it into visibility by following a set of instructions.

As I was leaving McDonald's backing my car out of a parking space, perhaps it was then I had what felt like a real "insight" moment.  As often happens in art, drawing something or looking at other artists' drawings will change the way we view the world.  It struck me as more than a little ironic the number of arrows that seemed to be everywhere around me after I had found the figure that solves the riddle.  A big arrow painted on the asphalt pointed the direction out of the parking lot and as soon as I noticed that big arrow, why it seemed that the world was littered with arrows!  They might have been like hints (unless of course there's more than one solution!).

[Top of the post:  photograph of a McDonald's restaurant napkin upon which I solved a riddle posed by a reader, Kitsune, on the post Alice Drew a Maze, photo by Aletha Kuschan]

Sorry I haven't posted any art today.  Of late, I've tried to post something everyday.  However, today the frogs have taken up all my time.  They're quite unruly. 

[Top of the post:  the frogs at home]

Pixel swims into so many of my pictures.  Here he is all colored with crayon.  He usually lives and swims in this painting.  "Il faut refaire la meme chose, dix fois, cents fois ...." Degas said.  I took it very much to heart.  I've lost count how many times I've drawn Pixel.  ("You must redraw the same thing, ten times, a hundred times....")

[Top of the post:  Pixel with Colors, by Aletha Kuschan, pencil and crayon]

I had a dream of three fish once.  I had driven a long way on the highway to a large building with a tall wall with no windows.  It was beside a pond.  And I got out of my car and unaccountably threw my keys into the pond!

Realizing I wouldn't be able to drive my car further, I rushed to the water's edge to fish out my keys.  I threw in a line and pulled out three bright fish that looked at me with their eyes.

[Top of the post: Drawing of Three Fish, by Aletha Kuschan, ballpoint pen]

This fish is all line and light, blue and white with a grid to keep him from leaping off the page and out of sight.  He looks at you.  The world is mostly water, you know.

[Top of the post:  Pen drawing of a Fish, by Aletha Kuschan, ballpoint pen]

Alice the Cat drew a maze (on her favorite tool, the Magic Doodle), and it amazed everyone who looked at it. 

You start at the bottom right and finish at the upper left.  (I think you're supposed to print it out and color it too -- if you choose -- if it pleases you -- Alice would be pleased!)

How is it that when we are amazed we get momentarily lost?  But then we find what we were looking for too, after thoughts wandered.  It is magic!

[Top of the post:  Alice's Maze, by Alice the Cat, Magic Doodle]

To make this photo, I took two collages and set them at 90 degree angles, one lying flat on the floor, the other propped on the wall, and I photographed them from the center.  The result is the dimensional blending of the two. 

The wonderful thing for artists living today is that modern technology offers up so many new avenues for getting ideas.  I take things like this and paint them.  I still pursue my thought in direct and traditional tools, but I use the new gadgets to produce ideas.

When I look at something like this, it's like trying to enter a dream.  This is my way of looking for the doorway that opens onto thought.

[Top of the post:  Two collages photographed together, by Aletha Kuschan]

Here's another shot of the "Heirloom Apples" collage, a detail of two apples first posted June 22.  This kind of collage is similar in character to what Henri Matisse made in the latter part of his career.  The paper is painted with tempera and then cut into shapes.  Streaks from the application of the paint show in the cuttings and become accidental elements of the work, giving it additional texture and interest.

This is like drawing with scissors.

[Top of the post:  Detail of a Study of Apples, by Aletha Kuschan, collage]

Every once in a while here, I post a collage or a "cartoon."  This cartoon (large compositional study for a painting) belongs to the Big Tree idea that I posted in mid-June.

Other collages I've posted include this abstract image, this idea for a child's mural, and this study of a detail of a painting.  It's fun to organize them so that they can be compared.  I've never seen them together except here on line.

For almost every subject I undertake, I do studies.  Some of these studies take the form of collage. Collage is such a free and expressive media.  You can organize large areas of a picture in one swoop.

I like to explore the possibilities and details of the images I design.  Often these studies vary enough from the original to suggest new projects.  This particular collage was supposed to help me figure out the tree idea, but became more about the fish.  It takes on a new interest for me now as I embark on a new round of paintings of fish swimming.  Meanwhile the fish in this collage have found themselves quite a nice little pond where they bob up and down like corks.

[Top of the post: Cartoon for the painting "Big Tree," by Aletha Kuschan, Xeroxed pictures glued to paper with crayon drawing]

Look very closely to see why this is Fireworks. (See the landscape, the little house and trees on the dark horizon of this sunset scene with floral fireworks.)  I saw this wonderful painting by Donna Phipps Stout this past spring where it was still available for sale.  Can't vouch for its availability now, but interested parties should contact the Jerald Melberg Gallery in Charlotte, NC.  Please mention that you saw Stout's painting here!  I think her fireworks are lovely for celebrating this Fourth of July.  Our hot dogs (actually "Good Dogs by Yves" -- we're vegetarians) are heating up right now.  To all Americans finding this post, Happy Independence Day to you!  To visitor's from other countries, wish you could be here for our party!  Please consider yourself a virtual guest!  And welcome!

[Top of the post:  Fireworks, by Donna Phipps Stout, oil on panel, 48 x 50 inches, Jerald Melberg Gallery, Charlotte, North Carolina]