Always have fun reading the Cloud Appreciation Society newsletter but this one is extra special – the Cloud of the Month for August is amazing. Check it out!
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4th Annual Skies Exhibition
It’s my pleasure to announce that one of my paintings was accepted into the 4th Annual Skies Exhibition with Fusion Arts. I guess I have been working with Fusion for quite a while as I was accepted in the 3rd Annual also. And further joy, as they’re local to me, I was able to meet them a couple years ago – back when we met people IRL!
Anyway, enjoy the virtual exhibition HERE.
Monthly Newsletter
“It’s about time”, Mixed media on panel, 17.5×10″ $180
The other day I responded to a question on Facebook by Renee Phillips of Manhattan Arts International. She asked artists to comment on the post “Dear Artist, What’s a favorite art supply, material or medium you love to use most and why.” People mentioned the richness of certain watercolors, the quick drying advantages of acrylics, the feel of wet clay among others.
I was in the process of designing a piece of art in response to the Collage Artists of America’s themed online show ‘It’s about Time’. We had been asked to interpret the phrase any way we chose. Bearing in mind the timeline on which this show was announced, I anticipated they expected may entries about the timeliness of the recent changes brought on by the #BLM movement. My thoughts however went to the words of a friend who is currently on a journey with cancer. She has progress and setbacks. Some things held in check, new things popping up. Extraneous issues like being self employed so ineligible for disability, annual changes in carrier by her spouse’s employer, who provides the health insurance, and of course the threat of covid.
The artwork incorporates some of her steps in the numbers on a handless clock, the extraneous issues in surrounding teardrops, and on the rods of the pendulums, her quote that inspired me: “I know that the cancer will take me, I just want some more time.”
So back to the question on Facebook. My response was that my favorite material was my imagination, it allowed me to create art in response to such inspirations and challenges as the one mentioned. Serendipitously in today’s reading from 365 Tao (Deng Ming Dao) is the paragraph: “Why concern yourself exclusively with the mechanics of a situation? That is like seeking an artist’s genius in the brushes; it is the mind of the artist, not the tools, that is responsible for the beauty of a painting.”
When I went back to find whether anyone else had posted an answer similar to mine, I found my comment had been removed.
I guess I think a little too far outside the box.
Aside from the fact that I’m slowly putting a lot of art up on my Etsy site (it’s amazing how much time it takes to pull everything out, photograph it in various poses and edit the results) I’ve been working on a fun book-length poem about hognose snakes, with illustrations. I can complete this amount of work because, it may not surprise you to learn, everything else is cancelled.
Cloud Appreciation Society
I loved this quote from the beginning of the Cloud Appreciation Society’s Newsletter.
“You have to regard yourself as a cloud because, you see, clouds never make mistakes. Did you ever see a cloud that was misshapen? Did you ever see a badly designed wave? No, they always do the right thing… But if you will treat yourself for a while as a cloud or wave, and realize that you can’t make a mistake whatever you do. Because even if you do something that seems to be totally disastrous it’ll all come out in the wash somehow or other. Then, through this capacity you will develop a kind of confidence, and through confidence you will be able to trust your own intuition.”
From the lecture ‘Way Beyond Seeking’ by Alan Watts (1915-1973).
Newer work #117
Contains the poem:
Do not be afraid
to build castles in the clouds,
the sky is where we live.
Newer work #116
Look up to the sky –
the sun lights the clouds on fire
at the edge of day.
Zoom.
This Sunday I will be participating in a Zoom meeting with other artists who are showing work in the Lark Gallery‘s ‘Planet of Joy’ show. Please Join us on Sunday 07/12/2020 at Noon – 1:30 PDT for The Planet of Joy virtual art talk / art sale.
Planet of Joy Zoom meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3901588938
Sonnets keep flowing..
Place as secret
Your presence is a mirror, taut and round,
a love letter from a time I can’t recall,
so much of me, it’s hardly there at all,
the surface of a depth far more profound
than space. You are the wind with which I run,
the movement in the sky, that which I breath,
the essence of the soul that I believe
conjoins us all, the shining of the sun
without being the sun itself. Mute voice
reciting all the poetry I write,
inverse dark matter cradling me in light.
We look into each other and rejoice.
We never knew that we would find a twin.
We reach our arms out and then step within.
Newer work #115
The following poem is written for and painted into the painting:
Love the clouds above
Nothing else will bring the rain
That brings earth to life.
Newer work #116
The following poem is written for and painted into the painting:
Look up to the sky –
the sun lights the clouds on fire
at the edge of day.
