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FROM ETHEL
Welcome to my Artistic Integrity site! On this page, I
want to chat with you and let you know a little bit about the process
that made me a writer-- and an artist!
I never intended to be a writer! And as a child I knew
I was not an artist. As far as I knew then, artists were people who
drew pictures. Every time I tried to do so, it ended in disaster, so
I reasoned that I was no artist..
Born at the end of the Depression, to a country
butcher/logger/preacher, I grew up in the woods and small towns of
Western Washington. Though, by avocation, both of my parents were
musicians and artists and my mother was a writer, my exposure to the
arts was pretty limited. My father drew cartoons to advertise local
businesses at the auction barn down by the river and we owned some
books with pictures in them. But I’d never heard of an art
gallery, and opportunities to enjoy good music were largely limited
to hymns in church and the classical music on the New York
Philharmonic radio concert every Sunday afternoon.
I dabbled with a few musical instruments, as a child,
and learned early to read music. I mostly enjoyed singing and
discovered my low alto voice and the joys of harmonizing with
whatever song I heard. My mother taught me to love books. She
introduced my brother and me to the quaint stone library in our
little town of Tenino, on the edge of an old stone quarry. She also
wrote short stories in abundance. At about age 10, I tried my hand at
imitating her works. Fortunately those early, anemic experiments with
words on paper got lost in our many family moves.
In high school, when I took the usual battery of
career aptitude tests, the words “Writer” and
“Artist” never showed up on any list of suggested careers.
Doctor! Travel Agent! Social Worker! Missionary! Bible Translator! At
one point I even considered Archeologist or Home Economics Teacher.
But Writer? No way!
I loved writing letters and long school essays. Every
now and then I played with an old urge to write a story. But I never
thought about publication. The only people I knew who were published
were the members of yearbook and school newspaper staffs. And
journalistic writing didn’t excite me a bit. No, I set my sights
on doing something significant with my life. I read biographies about
great people changing the world through scientific discoveries and
acts of spiritual sacrifice. World changers and missionaries were my
heroes. I had no idea how writers might fit that description.
Eventually I married into the Air Force and
encountered an immediate need to write Bible study materials for the
junior high school girls in my Sunday School class. Then, we were
sent to The Netherlands for a three-year tour of military duty. New
reasons to write almost literally screamed at me now. We’d
taken our three preschool children out of reach of doting
grandparents and great-grandparents who yearned to know what was
happening with them. Further, I experienced a growing passion to tell
everybody back home about this fascinating new world where we were
living. I wrote voluminous letters to home and composed a periodic
newsletter we called The Holland Herrier. I cut it on stencils, then
ran it off at a local print shop and sent it to a long list of family
and friends.
Once I’d begun, I couldn’t get
rid of the writing urge. It beckoned my curiosity, then tugged my
whole being to the old portable typewriter I had bought in college
for writing term papers. Back home, I found some Dutch history books
in the library and searched them for background material for a book I
dreamed of writing about our experiences. Instead I discovered some
characters from the sixteenth century that I simply had to tell the
world about. |
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With that goal in mind, over the next ten years, I
studied writing, in correspondence courses, library books, adult
education classes, writers’ conferences. I met editors,
practiced writing, joined a critique group, submitted my efforts to
publishers? Before I knew it, I was selling some of what I
wrote—articles, poems, a book, then another book and another?
One day I made an amazing discovery. I was a writer!
But an artist? That discovery took a little longer. I still couldn’t
paint or draw anything better than rough stick figures. Then, I
learned that an artist is anyone who expresses herself creatively
through painting, music, drama-- even writing was an art!
Maybe I was an artist after all! Elated and freed to
function with my right brain, I shook off a host of lifelong negative self-images
and began to explore all sorts of new nooks and crannies of my inner
self and abilities. I discovered that I could write poetry. I
experimented with story telling—real-life stories and
fictionalized vignettes of women in Bible history.
Still, I dreamed of writing novels about the colorful
characters I’d met in the Dutch history books. In real
life, I went on writing other things more accessible and teaching
aspiring writers to do the same. Often I told my students about the
dream, always concluding with, “Every writer needs a dream
project on their bookshelf!”
Finally, the day came when a young Dutchman named Pieter-Lucas
called to me from my thin research and idea notebook on the shelf. “It’s
my turn. Come work with me,” he coaxed. “I have a story to tell.”
“Not now,” I retorted. “I’m
busy writing practical things-- a textbook for writers and another
for would-be Bible students, and I have a long line of other ideas
waiting for me to dig in. You would take forever. Besides, how do I
know I can write a novel?”
But Pieter-Lucas and the Dutch heroes persisted.
“Just take a peek,” they urged again and again.
Finally, I took the notebook down. My heart pounding
with a mixture of fear, excitement and reverential timidity, I opened
its pages. I never returned it to the shelf. From that point on, I
bore a new identity tag—novelist! I was right. It took
forever—ten long years from the day I peeked into the notebook
until I held The Dove and the Rose in my hands and babbled
about it to my stunned UPS delivery man.
Today, with Pieter-Lucas and his friends launched and
circulating around the world, I dream again of writing more novels.
First, I must finish something totally different that has engaged my
soul for years. And alongside that, God has given me a wide and
fascinating array of classes to teach in writers conferences, women’s
retreats and a local Fine Arts Academy.
After all these years, I no longer question whether I
am an artist. Instead the question is, “Am I a writer who
teaches or a teacher who writes?”
One thing is certain. All I do, in whatever art form I
am practising, I do it as an act of worship offered to the God of the
universe. After all, He created me with the gifts and talents and
provided me with the training and encouragement to do what I do.
I pray daily that through each word I write, each
story I tell, each lesson I teach, one more door or window will swing
wide open so that others can see some new and life-giving rays of the
glory of God that they have never seen before.
P.S. Recently, my husband and I took an all-day
drawing class. Can you guess what I discovered this time? Yes, even I
can learn to draw! Maybe someday, if I want to, I might even paint a
picture. Wow! |
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WHO IS ETHEL HERR?
A Background Sketch
PERSONAL INFORMATION
Born in Washington state in 1936. I have lived in
California most of the time since 1948.
Attended LeGrand High School (Le Grand CA) for five
years (grades 7-11), then graduated from Turlock High School (Turlock
CA), Class of 1954.
Attended Multnomah School of the Bible (Portland
OR)—1954-1956 and Modesto Junior College (Modesto CA)—1956-1958
Married Walt Herr in Turlock CA in 1958. In 1999, Walt
retired as Supervisor of Calibration and Electronic Maintenance for Hewlett-Packard,
after working in California’s Silicon Valley for 30 years.
Before that, he served in the US Air Force for 12 years. He now
works, only when he feels like it, for Happy Journey Systems doing
computer programming analysis.
Mother of three—Martha Doolittle, Tim Herr, and
Mary Stajduhar—and grandmother of six.
In our married years, we have lived in two countries
(US and Netherlands), five states (California, Mississippi, New
Jersey, Texas and Massachussetts), and fifteen houses. In addition,
Walt lived for one year in Korat, Thailand on an isolated tour of
military duty.
My Life Bible Verse: “One thing have I desired of
the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of
the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord
and to inquire in His temple.? Psalm 27:4
Member of The Valley Church, Cupertino CA since 1977.
CAREER/MINISTRY IDENTITIES
Freelance author, teacher, speaker and historian. I
have taught writing, art, research techniques and Bible to all ages,
in schools, writers’ workshops and conferences and in
church settings of various kinds around the country and in India and
the Caribbean. I am eager to speak wherever I am invited and have
addressed a wide variety of church and community groups. These
include reading groups, librarian’s groups, school
classes at all age levels, many kinds of writing and women’s
groups. For list of my books, see “Book
Gallery” page.
For upcoming teaching schedule, see “Home”
page.
Associated with History Department at Multnomah Bible
College, Portland OR, as an alumnus, through annual “Ethel Herr
Prize In History” award program, since 1998.
SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS
Color: Blue (my eyes are blue, accent colors in my
kitchen are blue, much of my wardrobe is blue, my favorite skies are blue)
Food: Tostada salad, ripe peaches, and prime rib
Season: Fall (colors and crunch of dried leaves excite me!)
Vacation spots: Yosemite National Park, Pt. Lobos
State Park, Zion National Park, Grand Tetons—oh dear, must I
really choose?
Music composers: Dvorak, Bach, and a host of others,
mostly classical
Authors/Poets: Chaim Potok, Rosamund Pilcher, John
Piper, Leland Ryken, C. S. Lewis, Luci Shaw, Calvin Miller--and more!
Artists/Painters: Rien Poortvliet, Pieter Bruegel the
Elder, Timothy Botts (calligrapher par excellence)—the page is
too small!
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