I was recently invited to join Alessandro Berni gallery for representation in their online gallery. In the last few days we dotted the is and crossed the ts and this morning I was one of the new artists introduced in their mailing.
I was pleased to be accepted into the Grey Cube Gallery Skies show recently, with my refractured watercolor ‘Crimson Thread’. One of the things I’m enjoying about so many online shows is that it’s really practical for me to enter them! Enjoy the show!
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.
Of course I’m going to create a painting involving meteorites when there’s a meteorite shower in the offing, and of course as a poet I’m going to romanticize it.
Finally got the last edits done to allow my latest poetry and painting book ‘My Next Breath’ to be available in Kindle as well as in print.
Here’s the link to the books page on my website which will show you all the books without having to hunt them down on Amazon – or you can just search for me on Amazon if you wish. I’ll be ordering physical copies soon for the studio so let me know if you’d like a signed copy directly from me.
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’.Â
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.Â
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.Â
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.Â
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.
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I will have work in two online shows:
Jun 6-Jul 12:Â 6x6x2020Â Online fundraiser for Rochester Contemporary Art Center
Jun 2nd-Aug 30th (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.
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.
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.
Skyscapes for the Soul - Jeni Bate 