Right to Recompense

28 February 2008, 10:06 AM

The howling cry continues as I realize
that Paradise contains a measure of Hell,
and I cannot have what is goodness and light—
all that might have been the right,
given another set of circumstances,
a lesser set of needs— save I grant
that some darknesses must always remain.

My God, the raw and bleeding wound
that never ceases screaming for want
of the one thing I will never have,
the one thing I cannot give
to the ones who bear no culpability
and every right to recompense.

Interview with a 7 Year Old

Beloved did an interview with our boy. I'm quite taken with it- I swear that child knows everything about everything sometimes.

Art Interpretation

Take a look at this picture. I take part in the Weekend Wordsmith poetry challenge every week, and I read the submissions of other participants, which is how I came across it on a web page called The Ink Pot. I am truly fascinated by this painting, so much so that I wanted to share my thoughts on it. I guess I'm adding an art interpretation facet to my blog:

~~~
The woman in the painting is looking at the child-wraith in the mirror, but the child in the mirror is looking at and reaching for the viewer of the painting. And the viewer is looking at the painting in the same way that the woman is looking at the child. It's as if the painting is attempting to communicate that the woman has lost something (the child), but the viewer has lost more, because he/she has lost both the woman and the child and is the worse off for it, because the woman is not the least bit interested in the viewer, and in order for the viewer to get to the child in the mirror who seems desperate to get to the viewer, he/she would have to get to the woman. That's not likely to happen, given the cobwebs both in the painting and on the frame surrounding it. The viewer, the woman and the child have been in this stalemate for quite some time.

Really, really well done, in my opinion. Fascinating from a psychological perspective.
~~~

So after I wrote the above interpretation, I went and looked at the original site where this was posted by the artist. It was inspired by a movie. So maybe I'm all wet. But the image is very evocative nonetheless, and I still see in it what I stated above. Maybe I'll contact the artist and ask her.

Unwanted Puzzle Piece

26 February 2008, 8:23 AM

I walk by the table, find an edge piece
or something with a bit of blue in the corner,
snap it into place, make the picture more complete.

Yet I have an intuition
there will always be something not quite right,
something askew, or perhaps just missing.
I’ll always feel as if I’ve left my keys
on the coffee table, or set the oven to 350
and walked away, or that there’s something
so very fundamental that I’m forgetting
at the grocery store, like the butter I didn’t write down.

There will be a piece, somewhere so very intriguing,
most likely in the third of the picture to which the eye
is most attracted—composition isn’t everything,
but it’s too much to ignore. I will not call it want—
the piece is gone, I would not have it back. Yet while
others may not readily discern the lack, I have
an artist’s eye; will always perceive the negative space.

Inspired by The Weekend Wordsmith

Instant Communication

Constantly fascinated by this thing that is the internet. Instant communication anywhere on the globe as long as you have a computer and a connection. Absolutely amazing.

I have at least one reader in the Philippines- I think that's dreadfully cool. I lived in Seoul, S. Korea for a couple of years in high school and had a teacher who once took a vacation there with his wife. He brought back glass fishing net floats for all his AP chemistry students, so I have a piece of the Philippines here in my house. Also had a couple of friends, a DoDDs teacher and a student, who moved to Yongsan Army Garrison in Seoul after they were evacuated from a military base in the Philippines because of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption.

Have noticed readers in Kenya (I think I know who that is, as I do know one family there- hope you all are safe and well), South Africa, various places in Europe and Asia, and of course readers right here in the states.

So where are you? Do I know you? Why do you read what you read?

Thank You

23 February 2008, 9:29 PM

For not taking that job in California
or the one in Seattle,
even when ends wouldn’t meet.

For stories, wine and laughter, for telling me
about your home, for bringing mine to me
and holding the door,
walking up and down the stairs
with me, behind and before me,
respectively,
respectfully.

For touching my face,
for holding my hand
in the streets and pill-boxes of Paris.
For open windows and forgotten passports
which in the end really didn’t matter,
because you gazed at me and I at you
over café au lait instead, and it’s not such a loss
to be stranded in the City of Lights.

For flannel and jeans and fine art on the walls,
the long-lost lifesong of your Beloved evident
in every room of the place we call home.

For falling asleep with your hand
on my heart, your breath mingling
with the scent of our bed,
the line between self and other blurred
in a way that does not rob us of our selves
as we find our rest, naked and unashamed.

Another Sculpture

I'm getting better at this, and I'm enjoying every moment. I cannot WAIT to get my hands on soapstone. Or ceramic clay. Or ... whatever.

Beauty of Ashes

My Beloved has updated my other website where I display my artwork. I'm moving toward preparing my paintings to be displayed... somewhere. I've gotten some good ideas- a coffee shop in a nearby town, possibly some galleries downtown. Have been pondering selling some of my original paintings- I will eventually, if I can gauge the interest of my audience. If I have an audience.

It's a little frightening to get into sharing one's work with strangers. One hopes that one's self-image and self-definitions are not entirely dependent upon the affirmation of total strangers. But I do find that I want to know my artwork connects with people, and I also begin to understand that, at least for me, this is one of the measures of artistic achievement: Does my work connect on some level with the experiences and emotions of others? Does it communicate, even if what it communicates is abstract and intangible- perhaps profoundly so?

I'm beginning to see that I'm moving out of a particular phase of imagery and into a new one. I have, of late, been more interested in form than in pure imagery, in portraying the body rather than symbols that represent inner realities. Interested to see what comes out next.

I'll have to be patient- I'm running out of supplies. I have recently learned, though, from perusing the website of another artist that I can use acrylic paint on corrugated cardboard... ! Who knew?

Seeing Red

New project- painting in primary colors. I painted this image like a black and white, only I substituted red for black and yellow for white. I'm really happy with it.

Sometime soon, when I have more paints, I'll do a blue & yellow and a red & blue. I have some other combinations in mind as well, but thought I'd get through the primaries first.

Six-Word Memoir

So the weekend wordsmith challenge was to write a 6 word memoir. I came up with a couple:

Left passports in a French hotel.

Mystery solved: I am an artist.

Inspired by the Weekend Wordsmith

Pinewood Pequod

My son's Pinewood Derby entry. It was a last minute creation, as his first car he made with his dad wasn't made from a kit, and we found out this week he'd be disqualified if he didn't make it from a kit. Live and learn.

For the record, I'm aware 1) that Ahab wasn't really a pirate, in strict terms, and 2) that he hunted a white sperm whale. But my son was quite insistent that he wanted a baleen whale, and more specifically a blue whale. So there you have it. We took artistic/poetic license.

So we made this car with a hacksaw and a dremel. Lots of fun, folks. Lots of fun. If you want to see it from another angle, here's the flickr link.

Untitled, Sestina #2

7 February 2008, 8:25 AM
I didn't post sestina #1- it was too personal. But here's my second go at it. This is, by the way, another installment of the poetry class. I'm liking this form. She said no one can write just one. I didn't believe her. Now I do.

Water swiftly evaporates
from my skin. The ocean pulses
beneath my tears—
they roll toward the waves
which swallow
my body, slowly carry

me from land, though they cannot carry
my memory, as it is evaporating
into the sky. I mustn’t swallow
the salt water, pulsing
within the waves.
But what about my tears?

If I don’t swallow my tears,
they will join the sea, carry
and bury my mind in the sky as the waves
slowly evaporate
the frantic pulsing
of my thoughts, if I don’t swallow…

But I don’t. I don’t swallow.
As my eyes flow, the tears
fall in rhythm with my pulse,
in rhythm with the waters which carry
me, and I do not evaporate,
nor my thoughts within the waves.

Tears cease, rain falls, clouds waver
and dissipate. A swallow-
tailed kite skims an azure sky evaporated
from the ocean of my tears—
salty residue remains upon my skin. Carried
softly on the waves which pulse

with rhythms of the deep, my pulse
finds rhythm against the waves
which still carry
my sorrows. Yet I taste, I swallow
the water, turned sweet. My tears
have evaporated.

Pulsing slows, the Swallow-tailed kite tells me
that beyond the waves which carried me,
my tears evaporated, I have found land.

POS

4 May 2007, 11:21 PM

The next time I say the drama has passed,
even momentarily, I hope you'll promise
to spit in my eye. I was thinking this tonight
as the cold rain blinded me and my brother,
and we tapped and wrenched and ratcheted
the battery terminal on my POS. Really,
Beloved, is the drama ever really spent?
Is there such a thing as a day not torn
and bent by happenings which drain
the body, mind and soul of strength
to choose to take another step; keep on
hoping the car will start, as it sits
silent in the listless tears of solitary night?

Villanelle

Again with the poetry class- my husband's assignment this weekend was to write a villanelle. This is an atrocious form. I've been sick this weekend, and in between naps and hacks, I took a stab at it. Just finished it up. (Anyone who knows me well knows also that I'm not a big fan of rum. But it had to rhyme 'cause, ya know, it's a form.)

Villanelle
2 February 2008, 10:07 PM

This villanelle’s a task that’s got me beat.
I’ve racked my brain all day but it won’t come—
a masochistic, unrelenting feat.

I leave the effort for a bite to eat
and find myself a gorgeous little crumb.
This villanelle’s a task that’s got me beat.

Before I sit down with my new-found treat,
my poem and this cake could use some rum,
a masochistic, unrelenting feat

Procrastination’s futile—my defeat
inevitable—man do I feel dumb.
This villanelle’s a task that’s got me beat.

This form could drive a man into complete
insanity—I'm gonna need more rum—
a masochistic, unrelenting feat.

I don’t know why I try, I can’t complete
the rhyme and meter—where the hell’s my rum?
This villanelle’s a task that’s got me beat.

I lay ashide my pen and prop my feet—
thish villandelle can kish my shiny bum.
A mashochishtic, unlerenting feat—
Thish villanelle’sh a tashk that’sh got me beat.

Sculpting

My first attempt at sculpting a face. The medium is Sculpey Clay.