Wilder Things

Economic downturns

2008-11-21T11:44:00.001-08:00

I've got no temp work. I've got very little free-lance work. But at least I've had time to paint...

Now I hope I can sell some, too.

Leonard Cohen

2008-10-29T14:16:00.000-07:00

Like a bird on the wire,
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.

Do you ever feel like this?

2008-10-17T07:56:00.001-07:00

No?

Maybe it is just me.

Where the mind roams

2008-10-08T15:14:00.000-07:00

So. With a lot of my work up on a wall together this weekend I noticed that there are a couple of unexpected image themes running through my work. One was wings, the other? Octopi.

Goodness only know what that might mean.

And so...

2008-10-02T07:13:00.000-07:00

Quetzlcoatl, again.

New Bedford Open Studios this weekend!

Whew

2008-09-12T09:15:00.001-07:00

Back to art after
way too much of that
"you're doing it right"* life
is weird stuff

*PJ

Who I am Now

2008-08-14T08:32:00.000-07:00

Working on a self portrait

Asking myself almost adolescent questions

Re orienting

6 months ago 7 months ago

The tide turned in my life

Something that I had counted on, someone. Changed.

As if -- with your foot, with your weight, firmly on a stone
the stone turns

And becomes what you didn't know it was
something alive, a turtle, a snake, a rabbit
it moves suddenly and unexpectedly
It can startle you, it can panic you and if you
have believed too strongly in your perception of what was
there as "solid" this discovery of it's truth as a living
moving, changeable thing, can make you doubt yourself.

Have I seen anything clearly? you wonder.
Do I have any fucking idea of what I am doing? you ask yourself

And *crash*
and darkness
and you wash up on shore
and everything is new
and changing
fast, fast, fast

I can't explain it, but something in me broke
Happy as I am
I have been unhappy too.

Trauma can do that to you. I know.
But the tide can turn again.

My own truth
in this new life, shorn of one very important companion
whose passing was sudden and unexpected and recent
but without his small furry self there is not a hole
no void left behind
but a stable arrangement of three
and a light in the trees.

I'm an artist, I can write whatever I want to.

I can draw it and make it true.

As the Fur Flies

2008-08-08T12:43:00.001-07:00

Claude Divine

What I admired most in him was his desire and ability to make friends. He just liked you, that's all. And wanted to get close to you. And thought it was kind of funny that you were so touchy about it...

A wonderful game, from his point of view.

Another Show

2008-08-07T13:15:00.000-07:00

At Gallery X

Public Hanging XIX
The event that started it all !

DATE: August 6 - September 7
RECEPTION: Saturday, August 9
TIME: 7-10pm
LOCATION: Gallery X
Local artists as well as artists
from other states and countries
have submitted over 160 artworks.
Come see the lively display on
both floors of the gallery.
GALLERY HOURS:
Wed. -Fri. 11am - 5pm
Sat. & Sun. 11am - 3pm

Wilder Things

2008-07-25T11:40:00.001-07:00

Yep, that is a blueberry muffin. And, sure, I made it myself but that is not what makes it special.

Every blueberry in that muffin (and the other 11) was hand picked by me... not at a farm, but right in the woods behind my house.

And that is the sort of thing that I get very excited about and that makes me very, very happy.

Simple.

Wild Horses

2008-07-15T08:42:00.001-07:00

Not much to say about last week except that I am undergoing a series of medical pokings and proddings that don't amount to much but annoyance (at least we hope they won't). more today and then I go and sing in front of an audience. We hope. If there is one.

Summerfest

2008-07-09T11:36:00.001-07:00

Summerfest was a blast. This is Pete Morton whom I had never heard of before but now want to hear more of for certain.

Pushing

2008-07-04T08:52:00.001-07:00

Trying something new and not quite getting it... yet.

Variable employment

2008-06-27T08:26:00.000-07:00

OK. I am "out of work" again... in that my latest temp gig has ended and there are no new ones on the horizon... but I am still working every day, nevertheless.

Recession, depression, economic mess. It is a scary time to be starting new ventures. But I am treating this time as an opportunity to self-promote and get my work in front of people. Heh. So my immediate reaction has been to abandon my blog and everything else and hide in a corner. Bare faced to the world I am NOT good at... practice, practice, practice.

To whit... another opening, another show at Gallery X. 3 pieces in although only one is new. A charcoal along the lines of the one I've inserted below. And more ventures/adventures soon to be announced...

Summertime!

Acorn and Tree

2008-06-06T10:39:00.001-07:00

My Mom's piece on the left, mine on the right...

We even made it into the local paper. Which makes me kinda proud, truth to tell.

SouthCoastToday

Back log

2008-06-02T07:43:00.000-07:00

Somewhere along the line I developed a shyness about blogging. So I am going back to some of the things I thought about writing, but didn't, over the last 2 weeks.

Starting here.

MPiL threw me a party... a real party. This is a very rare event in my life, but not germane to what happened in any way except for context.

We had hung this painting

on the porch above a door and I showed it to a number of guest during the course of the party. At one point I was asked "why blue?" Rather than answering the question directly I asked back "why yellow?" and then directed the conversation towards banter about artists and explanations of their work. Not so neatly avoiding explaining this particular piece of mine.

This is any easy piece for me to talk about... at least as easy as any work I have done. It is about walking in the woods and the relationship I feel with life and energy when I do so... the lifting hands are blue because that is how I saw them when I felt the feeling that I tried to capture here. They are blue because "spirit" and "god" and "that place that is not here but is only a step away" are so often portrayed and thought of as blue in so many cultures in the world.

The feet and legs are yellow because I am a synesthete (mildly) and my own name is a golden-y yellow whenever I see it/think it/hear it.

The trees are multi-colored, again, because that is how I experience them, at times.

Like any artist this painting is "about" my view of the world.

***

There now, baby, was that so hard?

---

Lady slippers

2008-05-28T07:03:00.000-07:00

Open Mic

2008-05-23T08:46:00.000-07:00

Trio

Defending Territory

2008-05-21T07:27:00.000-07:00

On the pond, a Canadian goose couple.

From the cattails a male red winged blackbird wheeling up and diving down at the geese, harassing them, trying to get them to leave.

It would take a while to explain why this is so funny. Things like the fact that blackbirds and geese don't compete for food and geese don't eat blackbirds make me wonder why the blackbirds are bothering with the geese at all...

Target practice? Maybe.

Or just that, like me, they find Canadian geese generally annoying and would prefer not to have them as neighbors.

Gong Show

2008-05-12T12:20:00.000-07:00

Addendum

Read what the show was really about here: http://hmsimpossible.blogspot.com/

A "good show" all around...

----

Wow.

It hurts to be gonged. Even when you thought your were prepared for it, even when you knew it could happen and, really, what does it matter?

It was for a good cause, we helped fill out a bill so that people who payed money to see someone gonged or not gonged got to see someone gonged.

But I am new here and I have been running all my life. When things get tough I leave... well, maybe not entirely, but, I've always moved on. I didn't have to be uncomfortable anywhere for very long. But I have made a decision to stay here. Period.

So, that means being known here. For all the things that I am... and I am going to have to learn how to live with being uncomfortable sometimes. To live with people who have "seen me when." When I have succeeded, when I have failed. People who will know me not as an enigmatic stranger -- I could be anything, anyone -- but the person who I actually am.

I wonder what that will be like.

Fishy

2008-04-23T13:53:00.001-07:00

In a small pond
the fish swim
lazily

In the sun
the artist
contemplates

Balance

2008-04-22T11:32:00.000-07:00

Oh boy.

I am seriously falling down in my resolve to write here. It is part of the struggle I am having right now with balance in my life.

So much happened so quickly and I am

a) trying to catch up
b) learning to live my new life
c) still trying to do the things I do

I have almost stopped making art. I am struggling with some bizarre health issue. I am in love.

I got a piece in a show at a gallery. Good. When I tried to submit another piece that I had handy for another show, I broke the glass in the frame and had no time to fix it. I went digging through the still-not-unpacked artwork stacked up around me and the piece that I went to grab had big scratches on its frame.

Perhaps I am trying to hold on to too many things right now. I've got to put something down, put something aside, in order to get a few things done so that I can get other things done.

Balance.

Held in Change

2008-04-08T13:01:00.000-07:00

Sweet

2008-03-31T13:21:00.000-07:00

Sweet. I get called "sweet" often. Things that I do or say can be sweet.... My designs and drawings and paintings can be sweet, too.

This word has often bothered me. When people use it to describe me or my doings I think they are simplifying the complex. That they don't take me seriously. That they can't appreciate the depth of feeling that goes into my expressions and efforts

The other night I passed along a message of greeting from one friend to another, as in "Soandso says "Hi." The person to whom I passed the greeting to said "Oh, Soandso is a sweetheart."

And I thought "Aha." Here is one man speaking of another and using a version of "sweet." I know Soandso. He is funny and warm and supportive but can also be sarcastic and even biting under certain circumstances. He is honest. He is smart. He seems to know who he is but perhaps does not admire himself and lacks a little confidence and that lack of confidence doesn't seem justified.

I found myself a little upset that he had been described as a sweetheart. I wanted him to be described, especially by another man, as something tougher than that.

On the other hand, if I must be sweet I am happy to be part of a club that includes Soandso. I admire and like him. However, I know that people are not quite getting us when they think of us as sweet...

sax and no violins

2008-03-20T11:42:00.000-07:00

You probably shouldn't play your saxophone when you have a cold, but I am doing it anyway... I'll disinfect, really I will (wonder what that will do to the reed?).

I pulled out old Snakes and Ladders tunes to play... and along with remembering more than I thought I would, I remembered that I actually like to play. Sadly my lips are woefully out of shape and can't keep up with my joy...

Scars

2008-03-17T09:06:00.000-07:00

Last night we talked about scars and the situations that created them.

Yours are mostly external. Obvious. Frightening.

Mine are mostly internal. No one ever needs to know about them, unless I choose to tell.

I think I tried to make an equivalence between us, to match you in scar tissue. Like it was some kind of brand that proved my worth. I found myself doing this and decided to shut up.

And just listen.

To your story and your experience. Nothing like mine, of course, I knew it couldn't be. But I was impressed, always impressed, by your strength and courage.

Our scars are different. Our stories are very different. There is no place to meet in this except to acknowledge what we can't imagine in each other.

Simple

2008-03-14T08:41:00.001-07:00

As simple as leaning into the wind...

Rain

2008-03-12T12:11:00.001-07:00

But it does, kitty. All day long.

Cafe Arpeggio Open Mic

2008-03-07T06:12:00.000-08:00

He was waiting to go on and he was tense and focused and white.

Fear

2008-03-06T06:56:00.001-08:00

"So what is so scary about being happy?'

"The things that make me happy are the things that make me shine, that make me visible to the forces of evil."

"What, do you live in a comic book world?"

"Don't you?"

Coming Soon

2008-03-05T09:46:00.000-08:00

Backin' In

2008-03-05T09:38:00.000-08:00

Hey. I started this and then dropped it, like so many before me... then, I remembered that I had started it and went to take a look.

Last post I was on the move. This post I have landed, pretty much. I'm living in a strange new place suddenly surrounded by stangers who are becoming my people. I keep hearing - don't I know you from somewhere? Haven't I seen you before? No. I've never been here. But it looks like my kind of place. Maybe I look familiar because I belong here.

Make art make music make life.

Terrified

2007-07-05T17:06:00.000-07:00

Yup. I'm terrified. I've got waaay too much going on. I'm overwhelmed. And now I've decided to move. To a place where I only know 1 person. Where I don't have a job. And I have to find someone to sublet my place for 1 month. I'm nuts, I tell you.

What happens when you follow your heart? Where do you go when you listen to the answers you hear when you pray?

a baleen whale

2007-07-01T17:11:00.001-07:00

living like an artist

2007-07-01T16:55:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I drove to Pawtucket, RI to see something called the "Hope Artist(e) Village"... I'm on the hunt for a living/working space, you see. Well, this was truly (or will be) a village. The complex used to be the Hope Webbing Co. and it is a sprawling set of old mill buildings - many blocks in breadth and depth. Their plan is to house light industry, retail shops, a restaurant, a movie theater, apartments and studios all in this complex. And although it is pretty obvious they are in it for the dough they've come up with a really cool way to recycle this property. Not only will it provide spaces for artists/crafters and other producers, you can see the selling point from the consumer point of view - drop Junior off at the Dojo, Dad can hang out in the sports bar and Mom can shop for chatchkas... and all meet at the restaurant for dinner. Much better than the mall. It remains to be seen if actual artists could live in that atmosphere....

I live in artist housing right now and whenever open studios roll around I can't help but think of myself as an exotic display. See the artist at work in her studio! See how she lives with nothing that resembles your life except for her microwave and refrigerator! She doesn't even have a sofa! (Well, she does now, but, you get the point). I would think that living in a place like the Hope Artist Village would be a little like that all the time - kind of a Disneyland of art.

But maybe you could keep some of those ideas and create an intentional community that would serve a public need and make it livable for the artist too... There is something there, I just haven't teased it out yet.

2007-06-30T07:50:00.000-07:00

City Life

2007-06-30T07:39:00.000-07:00

City girl, country girl, suburban girl, city girl. I’ve come around that circle a few times in my life—I’m on the city girl portion of the loop right now. But at every stop along the way there are wild things. In this bright and bustling city, as I walk along the sidewalk, leaping gloriously from the cracks, is mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) bringing its sunny disposition and personable ways to the junkiest, trashiest alleys and byways. Striding quickly past at my city pace, I hear them singing in chorus, so glad to be alive and green and waving in the wind.

On my walk to work I also watch the maples put on leaves and the lilacs bloom. Then I ride the bus and watch as people shake off winter with lighter clothes, lighter shoes and hair out from under their hats and brushed by the breezes.

Am I in a forest or a standing-room-only bus, wall to wall with commuters? What is the difference? We stand swaying, our arms out to catch a pole or strap. The trees stand, swaying, their arms out to catch a ray of the sun. I can feel our spirits, every one, wild.