journal
August 20, 2010
January 08, 2010
Frozen Lull
All afternoon
the tree shadows, accelerating,
lengthened
till
sunset
shot them black into infinity:
next morning
darkness
returned from the other
infinity and the
shadows caught ground
and through the morning, slowing,
hardened into noon. - "Recovery" by A.R. Ammons
Winter is the frozen lull, a time of suspended animation and stillness, a time when the sun flashes briefly from east to west, "a spark hung thin between the dark and dark" (John Updike).
journal page - 1/4/10
January 01, 2010
Mindful Balance
Blue Moon Lunar Eclipse. Fireworks cracking the silence of the forest at midnight. Goodbye to one decade that held so much change, and hello to whatever comes next. The New Year started with a cosmic and literal bang.
Last January 1, I set my intentions for the year by choosing two defining words. I wrote: "First, I want to learn to Listen more deeply and fully, both to my inner voice and to the unspoken words of others. I want to turn off the static that surrounds me and tune into the messages that come in silence. Then I want to Reach - reach within, reach out, reach for, reach above, reach below, reach beyond the limits I have intentionally and unintentionally set for myself. Listen ~ Reach... my mantra for 2009. It makes me feel that anything is possible." Good words, good intentions... and I do feel that I've held true to them throughout the course of this very challenging year. Sometimes what I learned while listening was tough to take in and sometimes the reaching stretched me thin, but all in all... it's been a worthwhile and enlightening journey.
This year, my intention is to continue to listen and to reach, using what I learn to bring myself closer and closer to real integrity. I'm talking about stepping fully into the process of being authentically myself in all parts in my life. I know what it looks like, but what it means in practice is something I will have to discover as the year unfolds.
So, in addition to listening and reaching, 2010 will be all about mindful balance. I am sometimes impatient for change, and that impatience often leads me to feelings of discouragement. That's a path I want to avoid this year. It has too many ruts to trap my spirit and low hanging branches to snag my resolve. Instead, I want to follow the higher path, always mindful that “a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step” (Lao Tzu). Big changes often come through evolution.
Mindful Balance... my mantra for 2010. It makes me feel that anything is possible.
What word would you choose?
February 26, 2009
Thursday Afternoon Play Date
I had some practical plans for this afternoon; paperwork and the like, but then I looked at my brand new, totally blank journal (a larger one this time - 9" x 12") and here I am... hands covered with paint and nothing practical accomplished.
But so what? I have been feeling such unrest inside, a need to let things out, loosen up, play more. This feeling has as much to do with my life as it has to do with my art... an insistent nudge to get away from precision and just allow things to happen as they will. Be freer, give myself permission to explore and enjoy.
Can you tell how much I'm pining for Spring? To see fresh green shoots break through the tired remnants of snow... to hear the sounds of the creatures waking from their winter sleep... to watch the bluster of March clear the sand from the roads... to see the sun rise earlier in the morning and set later in the day... to wash clean to dreary dregs of winter.
I'm sure I'm not the only one. Happy Thursday!
(p.s. Have you visited my new etsy shop?)
October 18, 2008
Late for the Sky
journal page - 10/18/08
October is the month of small migrations, when the air moves with restless, nervous energy. The wind picks up, sending down a tumbling shower of ochre, carnelian, and diarylide yellow that collects on the ground like a richly-woven Persian carpet. The sky, now broader through the thinning canopy, changes face hourly; misty in the morning, baby blue with streaks of clouds by midday, searing acid blue in the afternoon, pink-tinged charcoal near evening. Even on still days, some leaves (they know it's time) let go and drift earthward on gentle currents.
Grackles in great noisy flocks populate the land beneath the trees, conversing loudly with one another as they pick berries and seeds from among the leaves. Suddenly spooked by a movement, they rise in a flapping cacophony of screeches into the trees and wait warily as I pass along the path, silhouetted against the sky like black-cloaked beadles. Geese move overhead in v-formations and sparrow flocks dance through the air in brown waves before landing in a line along a wire. Clinging and falling, noise and silence, movement and waiting, formation and breaking rank...
The ancient maple behind the house creaks in the breeze as if to say... you want to stay, but it's time to go.
I see my own soul in Nature, every day, every season.
How long have I been sleeping
How long have I been drifting alone through the night
How long have I been running for that morning flight
Through the whispered promises and the changing light
Of the bed where we both lie
Late for the sky
The 8" x 10" journal page above - which is part of a special Autumn book I've been working on - was done with oil paint-sticks and acrylics. The background contains some collage elements and the nature printing technique I recently learned in a workshop with my friend Lenna Andrews.
September 23, 2008
A Story of Abundance
Vegetable-Life
Where the pulp lifts its germ and the sludge of beauty sighs,
where the leaf pulls the branch to the breathy earth,
where the rind cracks and buds rust into petals,
where the clove steams and cinnamon bark spits out cinnamon air,
where roots sweat and the earth boils in curds of steaming mud,
where the stem draws up the seed and holds it like a lamb to the sun,
where flowers rest their animal heads,
there, full throated, limp with seed, lush and smiling is
Vegetable-Life.
To come upon her you must journey through the rains,
and sleep through a night of fish smells;
there must be a dead man in a hot room,
there must be a basket of figs and plums on the pier,
there must be no new ship in the harbor,
there must be the sound of flowers falling upon flowers,
there must be no children swimming in the salt pools.
Where the Flamboyant spills into the vulcan dust,
where the wild pig chews up the door frames,
where the leper kneads his bones,
where the sun is stuffed with guns,
where the water flows like honey from the tap,
where black flies swell in the gecko's translucent belly,
where these are, there is
Vegetable-Life: The Sultana of the Vine,
The Goddess of the Harvest Gone Bad, The Spectrum Swallower.
In an ointment of wild saps, ripe fronds and mosses, tumid wheat,
and bareley, Abundance pours down over the head, heavy with pollen
and in the puce interrogation of the harvest
the intellect sprouts leaves.
- Ned Gorman (1929 - )
September 16, 2008
Another Day
- Joseph Campbell
August 14, 2008
Back in the Day
Although I have nothing new to share, this week's Inspire Me Thursday prompt reminded me of two very, very old journal drawings that feature period-correct clothing styles (and bad habits...). Can you guess the year of these drawings?
May 30, 2008
Still to Be
Last night
the rain
spoke to me
slowly, saying,
what joy
to come falling
out of the brisk cloud,
to be happy again
in a new way
on the earth!
That’s what it said
as it dropped,
smelling of iron,
and vanished
like a dream of the ocean
into the branches
and the grass below.
Then it was over.
The sky cleared.
I was standing
under a tree.
The tree was a tree
with happy leaves,
and I was myself,
and there were stars in the sky
that were also themselves
at the moment
at which moment
my right hand
was holding my left hand
which was holding the tree
which was filled with stars
and the soft rain –
imagine! imagine!
the long and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.
- Mary Oliver (1935 - )
May 17, 2008
Wide-Eyed
...a quick break from big paintings to do another journal page. This one was inspired by Illustration Friday's topic "wide," and Inspire Me Thursday's challenge to use crayons to make art. I made this with acrylics, Caran d'Ache Neocolor II artist's crayons, and ink. And... two finished paintings.. finally!
It's all I have to bring today –
This, and my heart beside –
This, and my heart, and all the fields –
And all the meadows wide –
Be sure you count – should I forget
Some one the sum could tell –
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.
- Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886)
Well, I also have great news! I am excited to announce an interview at my Wings 4 You Coaching blog with Susan Tuttle in celebration of her new book, Exhibition 36: A Gallery of Mixed-Media Inspiration . I am honored to have contributed a painting and article to her book, available for preorder prior to its release in November 2008. Please stop by and read about Susan's inspiring creative journey!
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