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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. 

Sonnet Challenge #25

So for a little light bedtime reading, it’s usually a science book or something similar.  I recently bought a science reference book (it’s useful to have a periodic table handy when my mind wanders) and read about the accuracy of Cesium clocks and other (mis-)uses of radioactive materials……

Atomic Time

 

We count the rot of Cesium to mark time;

we are obsessed with measuring the past

as it come at us, from a future cast

quite randomly; yet we strive to align

the whirl of planets circling the stars

above us.  Slicing time up like a pie

in pieces with precise equality

so we can note the passage of the hours.

We watch the atoms split, then split them more,

note and love the difference in decay,

and harness it to blow ourselves away,

then realize we cannot close that door.

We know that action made the world a mess

but that’s one thing we couldn’t second guess.

What is time?

 

I few days ago I saw a post by PZF Photography about the towns abandoned during the Chernobyl disaster, and was inspired to write a poem about the amusement park.  I was also haunted enough to think about reblogging, but then when I went hunting for his link I found he was impressed enough to reblog it.  Follow his link below the photo….

The last few days have been quite amazing for me. I’ve been overwhelmed by the attention my Chernobyl photo essay received, after Krista, an editor at WordPress, selected it for the Discover section. Naturally, when we write or share photographs (or both, in this case) we do it because we believe it’s a story worth […]

via What is time? — PZF Photography