Reflecting

If She Only Had One Minute

by Kay Ryan

What would she put in it?

She wouldn't put

she thinks; she would take,

suck it up

like a deep lake --

bloat indiscriminate

on her last instant --

feast on everything she

had released, dismissed, or

pushed away; she would make

room and room as though

her whole life of resistance

had been for this one purpose:

on the last minute of the last day

she would drink and have it; ballooning

like a gravid salmon or the moon.

Another of my favorite poems of Kay Ryan's. *sigh* This is a mixed media piece I did a while back. I'm still digging through some of my older pieces looking for inspiration. I expect that with the coming Fall things will pick up. I am already beginning to feel the stir of excitement in anticipation of the new season. That's when I begin to come alive artistically. For now, I'm just being a little quiet; taking it all in.  ;-)

Heavy

Heavy

by Mary Oliver

That time

I thought I could not

go any closer to grief

without dying

I went closer,

and I did not die.

Surely God

had His hand in this

as well as friends.

Still, I was bent,

and my laughter,

as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found.

Then my friend Daniel

(brave even among the lions),

"It's not the weight you carry

but how you carry it --

books, bricks, grief --

it's all in the way

you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not,

put it down."

So I went practicing.

Have you noticed?

Have you heard

the laughter

that comes, now and again,

out of my startled mouth?

How I linger

to admire, admire, admire,

the things of this world

that are kind, and maybe

also troubled --

roses in the wind,

the sea geese on the steep waves,

a love

to which there is no reply?

Working Through It

This Gentle Surgery



Once more the black blade of a morning breeze

glides almost too easily through me,

and from the scuffle I've been sutured to

some flap of me is freed: I am severed

like a simile: an honest tenor

trembling toward the vehicle I mean

to be: a blackbird licking half notes

from the muscled, sap-damp branches

of the sugar maple tree... though I am still

a part of any part of every particle

of me, though I'll be softly reconstructed

by the white gloves of metonymy,

I grieve: there is no feeling in a cut

that doesn't heal a bit too much.

by Malachi Black

Just doing a bit more journal work. I can't seem to do much to please some people this week. Trying to work through it.  ;)

Wild Geese: A Journal Page

I've been working a lot more in my art journal lately. This morning I opened to this background that I had painted yesterday. If you could look into my soul right now, these would be the colors you'd see. When I woke up, I had this poem on my mind. It's one of my all time favorites: "Wild Geese," by Mary Oliver. I remember the first time I read it. It was like someone literally woke me up from a stupor. The first five lines really hit home. After being raised with quite the opposite message, this was a lifesaver. I adore this poem and have it posted above my art table. If you click on the photo you can get a better view of the poem. This is just where I am today...

Fuzzy Feelings

I was really drawn to a couple of digital kits that I saw recently at Deviant Scrap. They can both be found there at Holliewood Studios. One was called Stark and the other was called Void. Today I started playing with the all-white images of the Stark kit.

The title for this piece came from a poem by Alice Fulton called Fuzzy Feelings and goes with my mood today. Here is the part of the poem that inspired this piece:

"Does grace mean alive and lucky

to be not writhing?

Or the ability to hide it

when you writhe?

The fissures == vacancies inside."

Some days you just go through the motions and do what you have to do. You're lucky not be writhing; or, at least you can hide it. But you do go on. I am fortunate that I have my husband, my art and my volumes of poetry and fiction to turn to in the dark times. And the dark times are not all bad. And they aren't really sad for me, just reflective right now. I'm okay with that.

So these fuzzy feelings are floating in the back of my head and I'm even doing some writing of my own. I used to write fiction and poetry years ago. I'm starting to dabble in fiction again. I went back and read some old stories I had started and never finished. I felt a little tug when I revisited the old characters and plots I had created. Now I'm playing around with their worlds again. I see it as just another form of creativity; another outlet.

I even used to write stories when I was in junior high school. My sisters would read them and then show them to their friends. They would then come back asking for more and I found myself writing mini soap operas because these girls were so involved with the characters I created. It was fun and even now one of my sisters still writes her stories. So maybe when she comes to visit again next month I will have some to trade with her!

I like how I can be inspired by poetry or music or even other images. It's funny how you don't even realize that something is inside you waiting to come forth until you see an image and it breathes life into it or a song moves you and wakes it up. Or maybe a poem evokes a fuzzy feeling that eventually manifests itself into a piece of art that is exactly what your soul would say if it had a voice.

Where I Hide

This is a digital piece I did this morning. It may seem sad but it's really not to me. Again, I was inspired by another poem of Matthew Zapruder's called, "The Artist Must Incline His Head Just So". The complete verse I quote from this piece reads:

"There is of course the question of fate,

and whether it can be angered.

Example: when not overpowered by grief

there are proper and improper ways to mourn.

In such cases my gestures are shadows

cast far from myself..."

I call this piece, "Where I Hide" because I tend to retreat into this dark area of myself when I want to think or just be alone. I like to put the ear buds in, crank up the music on the iPod and just let my imagination go. I've been getting a lot of ideas for this darker art lately. I like it and that's where my mind wants to be right now.

When I first read the complete poem it just took my breath away. So many of the verses struck a chord with me. Another one: "...Some art may be good, some dishonest." and another: "...My lack of compassion astounds me, and must not come to know itself." I've said before how much I love the poetry of Matthew Zapruder. I love it more every time I read it.

It's funny how the poetry I'm reading lately has fallen right along with my dark theme. Or maybe it's just that the poems I notice are those with this theme. Regardless, I'm loving the synchronicity. It just feeds the creative cycle.

I look at this piece and I feel like the fairy. I'm in a dark place but there's this swirling pool of mystery. I think I'll just jump in and see where it takes me...

Prelude

I think I mentioned in the last post that I've been reading a lot of poetry lately. I have found some new (to me) awesome poets out there! My favorite poet right now is Matthew Zapruder. His new book of poems is called Come On All You Ghosts. Right up my alley, huh? Of course the title alone grabbed me, with my current obsession on all things dark and ghostly, etc.

I ordered his last two books and just devoured them. There is not one bad poem in the lot. I just love his style, his words, his imagery, everything. This is why I haven't been making any art! I've been swimming in poetry; drowning in it. Here's one example of a verse that made me swoon:
It's from his poem called Poem (yes, that's the title).

"... I love your love,

it feels dispensed from a metal tap

attached to a big vat gleaming

in a giant room full of shiny whispers."

Gah! I love this verse!! So I've been dancing around reading this guy's poetry books, filling my head with his imagery. Drunk on poetry with a goofy grin on my face. Hubby thinks I'm crazy.

BUT I did manage to take another of my many favorite poems of his and make the digital piece at the top of this post. It's from his poem The Prelude. Did I say it's another of my favorites?

Here's the part of a verse that really stuck with me and inspired this piece:

"... Come to the edge

the edge beckoned softly. Take

this cup full of darkness and stay as long

as you want and maybe a little longer."

The whole poem is like that. The entire BOOK is like that. So I'm making notes and filling an entire notebook of images and ideas for my encaustics, art journal, and paintings. My class with Sharon Tomlinson and Deryn Mentock just started (the first video went up yesterday) and Monica Zuniga's class is still in the early stages. I've been slow to get back in the swing but I'm feeling the stirrings.

I've said before that, unlike most people, I feel alive in the Fall and Winter. Summer is my blah time. Heat and humidity zap me and leave me feeling down. Leaves are starting to fall a little bit here. School has started again, football is starting up...the Fall will be right around the corner. I'm awakening little by little. The temperature won't stay near 90 much longer (thank God!) and then I'll be on track.

So, this is just a prelude to the things that are to come. I can't wait to see the rest!

Here are the covers of Matthew Zapruder's last two books. If you get a chance, and are a poetry lover, they are definitely worth it:

Changes

I've been trying to stay balanced with all of the changes that are taking place right now. A lot of things are going on behind the scenes here that I'm not ready to talk about yet. But I have had a little down time to soak it all in.

One thing I keep noticing: the image of hearts keeps appearing. This digital piece has the same "dissolving heart" that I have in my encaustic piece (see last post). Here, I've changed the color (one of the advantages of digital art). I love the poetry of Mary Oliver and recently came across a poem that I couldn't get out of my head. It was after I'd made the encaustic. The poem is called, simply, "Heart Poem".

These were the verses that really spoke to me:

"My heart, that used to pump along so pleasantly,
has come now to a different sort of music.

There is someone inside those red walls, irritated
and even, occasionally, irrational...

...Now again it is the wild man..."

I'm cleaning out my art studio (again). But this time I'm getting rid of everything that doesn't speak to me anymore. For example, I've accumulated a lot of scrapbook materials and all of the things that go along with that. None of that interests me anymore. My sister is coming to visit on Monday and staying for a week. She is really into scrapbooking now and I plan to load all of this into her car and send it home with her.

This will help me clear my studio and my head for what I really want to do and to move on. I think I hold on too long to objects for sentimental reasons. That's not a bad thing. But now that I realize that holding on is exactly the thing that holds me back...it's time to let go.

So, hopefully these changes will bring about the "different sort of music" I'm hearing. Something is trying to break through the cracks...let's see if it succeeds.

Letting Go

When I set out to make this digital piece, I was thinking about how much I miss my Mom and my bout with grief. It's a long journey that I'm working through in my journals and my art. Today I came upon this poem that really spoke to me. It's not about grief, specifically, but about letting go of the past. It made me feel a little better and I love the words:

You Must Let It Go

You cannot erase the past; you must let it go.
You cannot change yesterday; you must accept the lessons learned.
You cannot stop time or stand still in a world racing around in circles,
you must dance with the wind and sing with the songs that are playing.
Let whatever mistakes you have made remain in the shadows of time gone by,
and let love be the answer to the mysteries of life.

~~ Author Unknown ~~

Sweetness: A Mixed Media Journal Page

This is the first double-page spread in my Goddess and Poet Moleskine journal. The idea is to shabbify (is that a word?) the background with layers of mixed media while still enhancing your goddess. Then you write a little poetry to accompany the mood of the piece.

I started out with a color palette of lime and raspberry, taken from the rub-on on the goddess' neck. Then it varied between pinks and greens and golds. I ended up having to paint her hair with Dr. Ph. Martin's Bombay White India Ink (love that stuff!). It started out a pale lime green which was cool at first but then it blended too much into the background. Then I added heavy layers of Clear Gesso to give a lot of texture to the hair (and the background, too, while I was at it). Next I tried painting the hair with Silver Lumiere paint and a fine brush. I didn't like that so I just painted over it all with the India Ink. I did like this. Ooh, I have a whole set of these inks... must do more painting with these!

Next, I wanted her eyes to be luminescent. I used Golden's Fluid Acrylics in the color Interference Violet. I am sold on the Interference colors by Golden; I'm getting them all. This photo below was taken at an angle to try and capture the iridescence of her eyes and the texture in the two pages from the Clear Gesso. You can click on the photo to get a better view of these effects:

So I'm playing in Photoshop to figure out where to place the poetry on the page. When I decide on a final verse I'll write that in with something, either a gel pen or one of the inks. I WISH I knew how to do Calligraphy! I have a how-to book and a beginner's set but have never really sat down with it and applied myself.

This workshop of Suzi Blu's is so much fun! All of the experimentation with the layers and layers and more layers of paint, papers, inks, ribbons, etc. really motivates me to start more pages and drawings and expand the journal even further. So I'll be working on these for awhile. I won't post all of them all of the time but wanted to give you a peek at the journal work from the class. Today's lesson, when posted, will cover working on the graphite drawing that we adhered to a birch plywood base. I'm really looking forward to this one. I want to start working more with wood. I talked hubby into buying a 36" x 36" piece of birch plywood and he's been cutting it up into 6" x 12", 9"x 12" and 12" x 12" pieces for all of the art I've yet to make. ;)

Now I've really got to get serious about the faux encaustic workshop canvasses I've started. The process looks so cool! I haven't forgotten about it... just been giving all of my time to these little goddesses! I hope to have something to post by the weekend.