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.

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 #32

Tomorrow is Black Friday and I’m a retailer so I’ll be at a show in Palm Springs.  Today is Thanksgiving so I wanted to find something to be thankful for:

The flood got deeper as I continued the setup

This Thanksgiving I am thankful that:

• the rain I set up my tent in was merely heavy rain and not freezing
• that it wasn’t windy so I could put the walls up without having to put the weights on first
• that my booth is on a well drained grassy slope
• that my truck was ignored by Palm Springs finest, alongside the red curb and half in a flood, with the park anywhere lights on
• that my truck has a heater because I was soaked from my head to my hips and my feet to my thighs
• that my truck was able to navigate the floods along Ramon Road
• that there weren’t any crazy fast drivers who caused a crash on the freeway
• that I decided to go for this wet setup so I don’t have to get up at 4 am to set up tomorrow
• that I am writing this listening to the rain on my roof while a turkey cooks

Tales from the field #23

Sometimes life give you just what you need.  On Saturday I was at an art fair at Rainbow Stew in Yucca Valley.  My neighbor, Christine Chase, had brought a project to work on during the day.  She had a number of pieces of upcycled household objects that she assembled into a sculpture.  At the end of the day, we packed up a little early because it had gotten windy and we were starting to get blown away.  I helped Christine with the last few stages of taking down her tent safely.  As she was packing she realized that now that the project was complete, she didn’t have room for the sculpture  and the box that the pieces had been in.  She asked if I needed a box.  I said I didn’t, but had room to take it and recycle it appropriately.

As I disassembled the booth, it got windier.  Because it had been a 1-day show with no chance of rain, I’d put the loose canopy top on.  It’s easier to transport, I put it on the frame at home, but it isn’t waterproof.  As I had intended to leave it on until I returned home, I didn’t bring the bag it goes in.  As I was taking the booth down, it became obvious things would be safer if I removed the ‘sail’ from the top.  I was bemoaning the fact that I hadn’t brought the bag, but then suddenly realized why serendipity had given  me a box….

What do I need a box for? Oh, wait…..

Monthly Newsletter.

Here’s the skyscapes news for March.

Monthly newsletter

Having been doing a lot of catch up (to where I should’ve been if I’d never gone) after returning, I forgot to put up a link to my Monthly Newsletter yesterday.  So now you’re back at the office/gotten over the hangover, you can read it.

Sonnet Challenge #26

Sometimes I think poets go through all the circumstances themselves so they can write about things from a personal perspective.

Inside Prejudice

Outside of prejudice, a place that’s learned
like old wives’ tales, absorbed at parent’s knee
to recognize the ones that should be spurned,
no why, just that’s the way that it should be.
Inside of prejudice, that face is turned,
for reasons I can’t fathom, away from me,
til whispers, giggles stop when I get near
and conversation turns to other things.
I know I am the joke I cannot hear
and my imagination then takes wings
and rises on the heat of latent fear,
the wind that is despair, and all it brings.
Outside of prejudice can see no wrong.
Inside of prejudice I don’t belong.

Veteran Arts Start-up

One of the galleries I work with, Vanguard Gallery in Moreno Valley, is on a mission to create a Veteran Artists Cooperative.  Rick’s ultimate hope is to create a Museum of Veteran Art in Southern California – but the cooperative is a good place to start.  It would be wonderful if you feel you can contribute a few dollars to the project.  Or if you are willing to share this to others who might.

Veteran Voice Project.

Sonnet Challenge #24

My friend and neighbor Bob and I usually get into some kind of philosophical discussion over dinner.  He usually comes to dinner on Mondays but he’s snowbirding at the moment so I get a few months off from trying to cook the healthy stuff he needs to eat.  A few weeks ago he was talking about visiting the graves of friends and relatives who have gone on to the next plane.  He said “I know they’re not there, but it’s like the last place they were, and it helps me to focus on ‘visiting’ with them.”  We both knew a sonnet was inevitable from that conversation.

Standing at your grave
Standing at your grave, you are not here.

Though bone or ash remains, your spirit’s flown;

and yet I came to visit one who’s dear

but taken flight.  This, your departure lounge,

a hollow hall where I can stand and wave

and visit memories you left behind.

It’s mostly when I stand here at your grave

the things you were come easily to mind

for me.  I know you wait ahead

with your side of the story that we are.

I’ll finish mine and see you when I’m dead,

where there’s no time and distances aren’t far

But now, beside your grave, I miss your face

and wish somehow you were here in this place.

Second Place!

Before you get too excited about my achieving second place with my chalk painting last Saturday in Moreno Valley, it was a very small field of competitors.  I also had a small booth at the art fair and my beloved was being the store keeper for me, while I wore off my fingerprints.  I discovered fairly early on that our choice of space to set up (chosen because putting Doug under the tree in the shade would allow me to use the umbrella to keep the blacktop I was working on from melting my fingers), was in front of the band.  The band (there were several during the course of the day) and the between-bands background music was LOUD.  So, to relieve Doug and allow him to walk around and repair his eardrums and sanity, I hurried through my work.

The need for speed was exacerbated by wind which took the umbrella for a tumble and meant I had to chalk with one hand while quickly rubbing the chalk into the now-scorching blacktop with the other.  I finished in 2 hours, and apparently was the only one who completely finished, though other chalkers, intending to take until 4pm created larger compositions.

I had a limited amount of blue, so did the surrounding ‘atmosphere’ in red, rather than follow the original, and created far less clouds than on the mixed media painting this was based on. For this it’s more about the message than the accuracy of the map.

“That the world is round reminds us that we are on the same side.”