Monthly Newsletter

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  “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. 

Monthly Newsletter

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#1451 “New Wave” 8×10 acrylic on canvas.

I have a tree painted on the back of my garage with leaves made from pieces of soda cans, stapled loosely so that they rustle delightfully in the breeze.  Against the trunk is painted ‘The wind of change may not blow you someplace different but it might shape you into something more beautiful’. 
I write this on the cusp between the Covid shutdowns and the George Floyd riots.  Many businesses have been shuttered so long they may not survive.  Some have been so impacted by the new health restrictions imposed on reopening, they have given up.  Now we see others burned or looted out of existence and yet others may be unwilling to continue in some neighborhoods. 
I have a friend who has been through several careers.  She describes the changes as getting to a point where she needed to reinvent herself.  This year it seems many will need to reinvent themselves or make adjustments to how they live or work. 
One of the adjustments I’ve been considering is to make some work more easily shippable, so it is less prohibitive to sell online.  I decided to experiment a little with refractured acrylics on canvas; lighter weight than panels, but also a different medium for the refractured part.  The first experiment (above) was relatively successful. 
Another couple items that came out of spending time at home was an update to ‘Busting the Bard’.  This is now available in paperback and kindle from Amazon.  And the fourth poetry and painting book ‘My Next Breath’ is close to being complete. (Click here for links.)  It is available as a paperback but my proofreader and the person writing an intro on the back have yet to have time to do this, so there will be an update hopefully by the end of this week and I’ll create the kindle version then.    I’ll order hard copies once art fairs restart or other outlets need restocking, but if you’d like to get a signed copy let me know.
 
I will have work in two online shows:
Jun 6-Jul 12: 6x6x2020 Online fundraiser for Rochester Contemporary Art Center
Jun 2^nd-Aug 30^th (approx) The Planet of Joy at Lark Gallery Online.  This may develop into a physical gallery show next month and I should be on a Q&A Virtual Art Talk on Zoom soon.  I’ll send another email when this is set.

Freeverse

Something else that fell out of the end of the pen…..

Childs play

Play with time.
Play with time and mold it
like a consequence of childhood,
a wrong turn in family, leading to
raising more of a hellcat than a child.

Play with time
and fold the horror back into itself
until it is no more than a streak
as inconsequential as a minute
you only remember when reading your diary.

Play with time
until the book falls out of the window
when you move out
and life becomes a Play-Doh landscape
that is finally your own.

Sonnet Challenge #39

Some things just fall out of the end of the pen…..

When I’m dead

You’ll be the first I’ll visit when I’m dead.
I guess that you’ll be waiting there for me
and we can say all that we’ve left unsaid
about things that were never meant to be.
You’ll get the joke I never did tell right,
unless we’re in a place jokes can’t be told.
You’ll know that fuss I made was not a fight,
and love that would have stayed as we grow old –
because it did, despite lives that diverged
for reasons that need never be explained.
Each time I thought of death, my feelings surged
that it would be when I see you again.
You’ll be the first I’ll visit when I’m through
and then you’ll know I wrote this one for you.

Sonnet Challenge #38

I decided to spent some of my new free time to call people I haven’t seen in a while, or have stopped seeing in the course of life because of the social distancing.  I also decided to use the time for some more poetry.  On Sunday afternoon I sat down to write a poem but didn’t find any inspiration, so I decided to call someone.  I got voicemail.  So I called someone else.  Ditto.  Eight voicemails later, I had my inspiration.

Voicemail

A quiet day with little going on,
in Covid times the schedule is quite bare.
I miss my friends, hope they have not become
statistics with what’s going on out there.
I guess they also won’t have much to do
so thought I’d be the one that would reach out,
pick up the phone and say “Hey, how are you?”
not leave our friendship’s worth to me in doubt.
But all I got was voicemails! Every one!
Had I missed out on something? Checked the news…
there’s really nothing different going on!
I guess just me that’s sat here with the blues.
They’ll all call back at once, that’s what they’ll do
And get my outgoing voicemail message too!

Monthly newsletter

My schedule has been so free recently I’ve actually had time to post my monthly newsletter to WordPress in advance.  Enjoy the fun I had with this scammer!

Sonnet Challenge #37

Got the inspiration for this one while doing a little clean up for my absent neighbor.  I was working early in the morning before it got way to hot, even for the acclimated desert rat, to be doing yardwork.  I decided to turn the inspiration into a kid’s summer day because the first line had a bit better ring than ‘I caught the sun while grubbing in the yard…..’

Catching the sun

You caught the sun, you held it like a ball
in two-year hands – a shining rounded joy
so newly given, a perfect rolling toy
and never thought that it would burn at all.
Your retina was blotched from gazing up,
your shoulders burned, your face, your arms, your knees
from summer’s day your heart demand you sieze
to dance beneath the heated turquoise cup
of sky. And as earth rolled round to sunset
you played your heart out, flew it like a kite
upon the solar wind, til it grew night
and tiredness told you it was time for bed.
Your red face says you caught the sun today.
Your smile, that it was worth it just to play.

Waking up with a poem.

Holy Ground

As light rises
My eyes fall
Upon his temple
Arm raised to ease the pain
Of the damage of an old storm,
Lips pursed against
A dream he won’t remember
Reminding me
Of last night’s worship
With the temple of my own soul’s abode
Happy that these buildings
Are now anchored together
And hoping to join against
The weather of life times
As long as they stand.

55+ show

Having gotten to the point in life where I can order from the senior menu, I was eligible to enter the 55+ show “Visions: A gathering of Elders”, and this was it turned out the last time I was able to go to a gathering before the world imploded.  True that people were observing precautions such as elbow bumps vs. handshakes, but otherwise it seems that the elder wisdom was the same as for having a bad cold.  Don’t cough on people, and go home and feel sorry for yourself for two weeks.

Otherwise it was a normal art show.  This was hosted at the Walter N. Marks art gallery at UC Riverside Palm Desert.

I recognized the work of Gary Borgstedt – far right – though I didn’t see him at the opening.

Diane Morgan was also there, she too had a painting in the show.

That scuplture in the middle was very intersting.

One of the two fabric entries

Intersection of the virtual and real worlds.

Such a variety of mediums, subjects and styles with an open-themed show.

I think I had the physically smallest entry in the show.

This lamp was my second favorite entry.

The orange Bee painting to the right of the door is Diane’s.

Donna Miller-Haggerty and I took pics of each other in front of our paintings.

And this one was my absolute favorite.  So sorry, don’t remember the artist’s name at this point. 

 

Tales from the field #31

A few years back I was travelling from Southern California for a show in Bellevue – right next door to Seattle.  It’s a two day drive, pretty much up the entire west coast of the US.  I had kinda planned on stopping just north of the Oregon border, but didn’t make firm plans as I figured I wasn’t sure if my tiredness would get me that far, or my awakeness would let me press on further.  I’d actually spotted a well-priced motel in my aim area, and sure enough, just as California disappeared in the rear view mirror, the eyelids started to droop.

I pulled off the road at what appeared to be a motel-bearing town in this rural stretch of Interstate 5.  Miraculously I passed the very motel I’d seen on the internet.  The parking lot was only half full. It was late, though.  The office only had a dim light on.  I knocked on the door.  In a few moments the motel clerk appeared.

In fairness to the man, he was obviously of Indian origin – India Indian, not Native American.  Different culture.  I asked ‘Is there room at the inn?’  ‘No,’ he replied.  Oh, ok, nevermind, I thanked him and turned to leave.  I’d gotten as far as the truck when he came out after me.  ‘I have room at the other end!’  Huh?

Turns out he’d misheard me as ‘Is there room at the end?’ and had completely missed the Christmas reference!  In his further defense, he’d only been in the US about 5 months.