Solilogy

This is a 9 x 9 section of a 20 x 20 work I am currently working upon, which is part of the Communication series. I have spent several intermittent days building up layers and sanding them back down again. I find I am out of my rhythm with the break for Christmas. I spent the afternoon getting reacquainted with my materials, tools and the current series. Because the new camera isn’t here yet, I put this 16 inch square on the scanner. It’s awkward, but at least you can see something new. Since the scanner is only 9 inches wide, I can only get a bit of the piece. Tomorrow we have another day of family holiday festivities. I hope to be able to work on this piece again on Sunday. This portion has good contrast despite the very limited color pallet. I want to increase the contrast in the rest of the piece.

My friend Jo Reimer has just written a new post on her blog describing when we first met, about 1996 or so. We were in Taos to take a work shop with Sas Colby. It was a Masters class, and I was a beginner. I didn’t let that stop me! I wanted to take a work shop and I wanted to go to New Mexico. So off I went, and met Jo. She kindly helped me all week to figure out what to do, art wise. We also did some sight seeing, taking photos of old doors and adobes. We looked at a lot of art. I would love to get back to Taos. It is a most magical art community and environment. We were at the Mabel Dodge Luan House. We stayed there, ate there and created art there. The keys to our rooms opened the studio door, so we could work anytime of the day or night. Sas read the greatest poetry to us every day, as part of the ambiance. It was heaven.

For anyone who wanted directions to make the little folded art book in my last post , the link is here.

Savory Day

A Happy Birthday

This evening I sat by an open window
and read till the light was gone and the book
was no more than a part of the darkness.
I could easily have switched on a lamp,
but I wanted to ride this day down into the night,
to sit alone and smooth the unreadable page
with the pale gray ghost of my hand.

~Ted Kooser

I love the savoriness of this birthday poem.

Pray for Peace

What could you create in a world at peace?

Make the brushing of your hair a prayer, every strand its own voice, singing in the choir on your head. As you wash your face, the water slipping through your fingers, a prayer: Water, softest thing on earth, gentleness that wears away rock.
Making love, of course, is already prayer. Skin, and open mouths worshipping that skin, the fragile cases we are poured into.
Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for peace, feed the birds, each shiny seed that spills onto the earth, another second of peace. Wash your dishes, call your mother, drink wine.

Ellen Bass's fourth book of poems, The Human Line, was published by Copper Canyon Press in June 2007.

I found Ellen's poetry on line today. I asked her if I could share some with you. She was happy to have you read her work. These are just a few stanzas of her poem which is avaliable in its entirety at her web site, along with a few others.

So I have been thinking about this poem today. Yes, the Zen of feeding the birds, making love, or washing our hair is a prayer, so certainly the movement of a brush across our canvas is a prayer, as is the thought behind it. Make art, make a prayer for Peace. It’s all good.

This piece is another of my collages from last year’s International Collage Exchange.