Any Small Thing

The poets know of morning sun, 

falling snow flake and the things we circle around, 

like the book ends of birth and death 

and the space in between.  

 They write what we remember 

at the half edge of sleep and awake.

The poets have words 

and they have the white space between 

where they leave us room 

to feel the words pierce or comfort, 

room to breathe in and breathe out. 

I have lines, and dots and I draw them. 

These lines and dots form a story or maybe a poem, 

perhaps of the woods and birds and the feelings 

I have for the glorious world and my very temporary place in it. 

Wanting to speak of these things I retreat to the alphabet I know.

Dot. Line. Crossing. 

I love this artistic language of ours. 

On canvas, in wood, with paper, thread, 

clay, twig or found object an artist makes her marks, 

sings in her own voice, dances with the elements.

Any small thing…..

A small color

Texture

Happily exploring my way into the new year 

with small things created in the evenings 

near the warmth of the fire, 

I am inviting awareness, openness, and acceptance. 

These attitudes are meant for my art, 

to see what will come, 

to remove myself from the front of the equation, 

to drop my bucket deep into the well.

This attitude shift, shifting, shifting 

feels like vital work to me, to step back, and back, and back, 

to get very clear that I am not driving the bus, 

but that I am invited to create. 

And that I humbly accept the gift. 

My art. My life.

Do you know words for this?

Dots

Dot and line together

Lines

Lines crossing

Planes

Circles

There are so many kindred spirits in the blogging world. 

And I appreciate you. 

I would like to introduce you to an artist and blogger you may not yet know, 

but she is another kindred spirit, 

living her life with quiet gusto, 

being true and blogging about it.

Here, at “to live poetry” you can find Anca Gray 

who today has blogged some of my thoughts and work. 

I am honored Anca.

Thank you.

Anca is an artist friend of mine from tumblr 

who has graciously included me in her blog post series. 

Anca describes her series as

“a regular friday feature, a series of quick interviews with strong creative confident women that inspire me”.   

I found Anca’s questions enlightening. 

You might answer them for yourself and 

see where they lead you. 

One word rolls across the floor,

Lodging under the slipper

Of the man who has felt uncomfortable

All day.

Now he knows what to say.

~naomi shihab nye

From a poem titled 

Listening to Poetry in a Language I do not Understand

For me, 

I am following the lines and dots to the well. 

It’s probably also sometimes called the rabbit hole……See you there?

Any small thing can save you.

Scraps of Time and Paper

Priceless Gifts

An empty day without events.
And that is why
it grew immense
as space. And suddenly
happiness of being
entered me.

I heard
in my heartbeat
the birth of time
and each instant of life
one after the other
came rushing in
like priceless gifts.

- Anna Swir

Gathering scraps, I pieced together many minuscule bits, arranging, adding, gluing, and tearing apart.

The tiny bits blended with one another, beginning a new whole; a thing, a composition, a space in time born of smallness and insignificant scraps of paper. A picture of my time. 

Time is the music of our being.  

It is to us what water is to fish.

~ Jessica Julian

In this world, there are two times.

There is mechanical time and there is body time. 

The first is as rigid and metallic as a 

massive pendulum of iron that swings 

back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. 

The second squirms and wriggles like a bluefish in a bay. 

The first is unyielding, predetermined. 

The second makes up its mind as it goes along.

~ Alan Lightman

 one moment, one chance

 

She had always felt

that the essence of human experience

lay not primarily in the peak experiences, 

the wedding days and triumphs 

which stood out in the memory like dates

circled in red on old calendars, 

but, rather, in the unself-conscious 

flow of little things--the weekend afternoon

with each member of the family

engaged in his or her own pursuit,

their crossings and connections casual,

dialogues imminently forgettable,

but the sum of such hours creating a synergy

which was important and eternal.

~ Dan Simmons

Happy New Year my friends. 

May 2012 bring us all 

ample creative bluefish times.

Just A Weird Kindergartner!

I learned that you should feel when writing, 

not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, 

but like a child stringing beads in kindergarten 

– happy, absorbed 

and quietly putting one bead on after another.

~Brenda Ueland

Returning to the studio after a long absence,

I found all kinds of art in process. 

Some of it was well under way and I really liked it. 

Some, well not so much. 

I also found I was a tad bored with black and white 

and wanted to try something different. 

Circling around reddish tones yet again, I began. 

Colors, brush, water, paper. 

Time to get in sync with my own weirdness. 

Stringing beads. 

Thoughts accompanied me. 

So weird, I thought. 

I’m so weird.

It was a happy weird.

.

.

.

.

I simply kept on with brush, water, color. 

Stringing those happy beads.

In the end, Brenda said it so well. 

The best of times in the studio are when 

I am a happy weird kindergartner, 

absorbed in stringing my beads 

and letting it happen as it will.

What kind of beads are you stringing in your studio?

Painting Poetry

Another Night

Leslie Avon Miller 

In response to a poem by David Whyte

What to Remember When Waking

Poetry is just the evidence of life.

If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.

~Leonard Cohen

Gravity

Under the weight of air
her flesh forms valleys
and mountains.
Mushrooms sprout
on the surface of her skin.
A mouse sneezes in her left lung
and behind green eyes
John Henry wields his hammer.

The earth whirls
the ground tips, totters
her glasses lost, she fumbles.
In her pocket awaits a key
but where is the lock?

Her heart in its nest sings foolishly.

~Suki Poet

Last line is from Linda Gregg's poem Alma in the Dark.

Mayako Nakamura

Presence

In response to a poem by dawoo

Hardly Noticed Moment

Leslie Avon Miller

In response to a poem by David Whyte

What to Remember When Waking

i believe that poetry at its best is found rather than written. traditionally, and for many people even today, poems have been admired chiefly for their craftsmanship and musicality, the handsomeness of language and the abundance of similes, along with the patterning and rhymes. 

i respect and enjoy all that, but i would not have worked so hard and so long at my poetry if it were primarily the production of well-made objects, just as i would not have sacrificed so much for love if love were mostly about pleasure. what matters to me even more than the shapeliness and the dance of language is what the poem discovers deeper down than gracefulness and pleasures in figures of speech. i respond most to what is found out about the heart and spirit, what we can hear through the language. 

best of all, of course, is when the language and other means of poetry combine with the meaning to make us experience what we understand. we are most likely to find this union by starting with the insides of the poem rather than with its surface, with the content rather than with the packaging. 

too often in workshops and classrooms there is a concentration on the poem’s garments instead of its life’s blood. it may be that the major art in poetry is the art of finding this shining—this luminosity. it is the difference between a publishable poem and one that matters.

Linda Gregg

If you cannot be a poet, be the poem.

~David Carradine

For me, making a piece of art is about the moments of life; being aware of them and being grateful for them. My collage paintings reflect some moment that otherwise might fly by while I am thinking ahead or behind.

I experience poetry in much the same way. Poetry I read and am taken in by is often a window into the life experience of another person. I can resonate with that moment. I think that’s why I like haiku so much.

When I write a moment rather than paint it, I don’t worry about rules, or shoulds, or making something pretty. I try to capture a moment so I can look at it in contemplation.

Here is one of my poems. Although it has a sadness, it also reflects love and honoring the moment, at least in my eye.

last rites

standing beside my mother’s nursing home bed

i stroked her once strong hands

into my memory.

in a few days I would wash her hands

for the last time.

as i gently brushed soft sheer skin,

she looked down

and said “boney old bones”.

~Leslie Avon Miller

More poetry at The Poetry Center

to scratch, scribble, draw, write

Just Emerged

~Leslie Avon Miller

10x10 mixed media collage on paper

Physical Graffiti

It has been my pleasure to work with Pam Farrell over the past months as she brought together a show opening on 9.10.11 at James Oliver Gallery. The show is focused on 

collage and mixed media on paper. I am honored to have my work included.

.

"I became interested in collage way back in my undergrad days 

(I have a BFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers) 

while studying with Geoff Hendricks, a noted Fluxus artist, and after seeing Kurt Schwitters' work in museums.  

I decided I should put a show together of the work by artists 

who  speak the language  fluently." 

~Pam Farrell

Following is a conversation Pam and I had regarding her experience of curating the show.  Interspersed are images from artists participating in the show. 

 

 Putting together this show sounds similar to putting together collage – gather, consider, choose, arrange, reconsider, rearrange – there it is – the sweet spot!

~Leslie

When you first conceived of this show on paper, what was your objective? What did you hope to say about contemporary collage on paper?

Pam: At the moment, I feel that collage is especially present out there, and along with mm/paper, rarely gets the spotlight. My interest was piqued (or should I say re-piqued) when I participated in the Book About Death show at Emily Harvey Foundation a few years ago, and became familiar with the work of Cecil Touchon and Matthew Rose, as well as many others who contributed to the exhibit. I guess the idea for the show has been gestating since then. 

Recently, Picasso's Guitars were up at the Met, and I heard the curator speaking recently about the shock (1914?) of his use of objects in the paintings and how collage is really truly a modern art form. In terms of mm/paper, one of my heroes is Cy Twombly...the mystery, the inter-play with occult and revelation....

 (B)ramble On

48 x 60

oil on canvas 2010
Pam Farrell

What was your process of selection? Did anything about your process surprise you?

Pam: I’d been “collecting” artists in my head.... When I pitched the idea to James at James Oliver Gallery, the husband and wife team of spencer + imler were at the top of our list.

Once I started really looking around, I was a bit overwhelmed by the breadth of work on paper that I found online...the range of styles and materials. My first surprise was that this was not going to be as easy as I thought. A good challenge, to be sure. I started by making a list of artists whose work I’d seen, then started to look around online. I made a huge list—far more artists than I could possibly include—and started to contact a few at a time. When I found your blog, I felt that I’d found the motherlode!

Though this project was not meant to be historical in nature, nor to be truly representative of the media, I did want to show a range of process, techniques, and styles.

 Nee Nej

Deborah Barlow

 Two Figures

Jose Camacho

What role do you see the sculpture playing in this setting?

Pam: When we discussed the show, James generously gave me free reign over the whole creative process of selection of work—a wonderful show of faith on his part for my nascent curatorial skills. The only request he had was that he would like to somehow include sculpture in the show.  I’d met David Meyer the summer before when we both showed work at LG Tripp in a group show and was immediately intrigued with his work. He employs a range of materials—from flour to books—and sometimes includes text. I found that much of his work has a sense of immediacy to it that I thought would relate in spirit to the works on paper. Susan Maguire, David’s wife, had some small 3-D pieces that encapsulate image and object in a way that I thought might serve as a bridge from the 2-D works on paper.

Eternal Egypt Series

Astrid Fritzgerald

wd4491
mixed media on folded paper
8.5 x 9.75"

M P Landis

How do you see the works selected for this show complementing one another and coalescing into an interesting collection?

Pam: I think this is where the intuitive process comes into play. 

The idea of creating a cohesive exhibit was foremost in my mind from the start,

and I did make some selections based on size and presentation. 

But until the show is hung, 

I guess it all remains to be seen:

the viewer completes the experience.

 Air Into Breath

David Meyer

Foolsosophy
Susan Maguire

Crazy Compass Rose

Laura Moriarty

How has your experience been different than your vision of what 

your experience would be?

Pam: I’m not sure I had any real sense of what the experience would be...

but aside from the unavailability 

of a couple of artists whose work 

I very much wanted to include, 

the process has been very smooth.

Ageless Lines

Dennis Parlante

Pam, what are your plans and hopes for the final presentation in the gallery setting?

Pam: For all the work to be hung straight and level! 

That there be a flow to the exhibit, that it make “sense” to the viewer. That we’ve managed to show each artists’ work 

in the best light. That there be a relationship from one work to the next 

that evokes new thoughts and ideas, 

inspiration, a sense of discovery for the viewer. 

That the space can accommodate the amount of work that I have selected. 

And these are all the things that swirl around in my head 

when I’m trying to fall asleep.

even chance 7

spencer + imler

How did the show title evolve and how does that “name” this collection in your opinion?

Pam: Admittedly, I’ve taken a bit of liberty with the title. 

Appearing to me in a flash—I was immersed in painting at the time, 

listening to music, (and I have no idea what was playing at the time) 

“Physical Graffiti“ just seemed right. 
Some will recognize this as the title of the fabled fifth Led Zeppelin album, 

but really there’s no direct connection to the band or its music. 

The words have a bit of a “pop” and familiarity. 

The idea of graffiti in its etymology (to scratch, scribble, draw, write) 

suggested to me a relationship to the broad range of approaches 

to mark making I was seeing in the work.

 Saskatchewan

Ward Schumaker

Other artists in the show include

Janet Filomeno

Congratulations to all the artists in the show, 

to Pam for putting a cohesive and 

  intriguing show together 

and to the folks 

at James Oliver Gallery 

for providing this opportunity.