One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Short Circuit

For no reason,
all at once,

a dove and a jay
swerve the land

at oppposite ends
of the clothesline,

and the clothes-mine,
all mine!-commence

to dance with reckless
love and joy.

Daniel Hall

"It is difficult to know at what moment love begins; it is less difficult to know it has begun. A thousand heralds proclaim it to the listening air, a thousand messengers betray it to the eye. Tone, act, attitude and look, the signals upon the countenance, the electric telegraph of touch - all these betray the yielding citadel before the word itself is uttered, which, like the key surrendered, opens every avenue and gate of entrance, and renders retreat impossible."

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882).

Two seperate divided silences,
Which, brought together, would find loving voice;
Two glances which together would rejoice
In love, now lost like stars beyond dark trees;
Two hands apart, whose touch alone gives ease;
Two bosoms which, heart-shrined with mutual flame,
Would, meeting in one clasp, be made the same;

-Severed Selves- Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Sun Raven

Experiments with Common Ravens, on the other hand, have demonstrated that they can show true insight when solving problems, without prior trial-and-error learning. Ravens faced with a novel task, such as getting food that is dangling on the end of a string, were able to assess the problem and then use their feet to hold the string and pull the food up.


-Kevin J. McGowan in The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior

Cold Fuschia

But there was another truth she was now fully aware of. Something had created in her a state of perpetual defense against the very possibilities of experience,an urge for flight which took her away from the scenes of pleasure and expansion. She had stood many times on the very edge, and then had run away. She herself was to blame for what she had lost, ignored.

-Anais Nin

Sneaker Tree

Then Iris came as messenger to white-armed Helen,
taking on the image of her sister-in-law,
wife of Antenor's son, fine Helicaon.
Her name was Laodice, of all Priam's daughters the most beautiful.
She found Helen in her room,
weaving a large cloth, a double purple cloak,
creating pictures of the many battle scenes
between horse-taming Trojans and bronze-clad Achaeans,
wars they suffered for her sake at the hands of Ares.
Standing near by, swift-footed Iris said:

"Come here, dear girl.
Look at the amazing things going on.
Horse-taming Trojans and bronze-clad Achaeans,
men who earlier were fighting one another
in wretched war out there on the plain,
both keen for war's destruction, are sitting still.
Alexander and war-loving Menelaus
are going to fight for you with their long spears.
The man who triumphs will call you his dear wife."

-Homer's Iliad, translation by Ian Johnston

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind

-Shakespeare from a Midsummer Night's Dream

Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape
Who dost in every country change thy shape!

-Abraham Cowley

the morning after

Let's just say mother nature decided to limit my blogging over the last few days.
I am now back online with power and internet, which makes for warmer evenings.
It is extremely difficult to paint by candlelight.
I am rather glad I was able to make it home Thursday night as it was a dicey ride home and a tractor trailer was determined to run me off the road, he was not successful and Subaru's rock in deep snow.

The road home

To my little Arthur

The room is silent
even the doves do not coo
your little body
lays prone
wings outstretched
this last flight is long
I imagine you crossing
over distant places
to some home
beyond your wire cage
an expanse of trees
filled with yellow-green
copies of you
in a constant chirping
conversation
my hand only warms your edges
and closes your unseeing eyes.

-by the Corby herself
goodnight little Arthur you have been a loyal companion for many years and will be missed

#42

At this institute of higher learning I attend there was an interesting conversation. A fellow artist said that he "would rather not make anything at all." This was in regards to making work vs. hiring someone else to make the work.

Call me old fashioned but I was rather horrified by the thought of not making anything myself. It would sort of defeat the purpose of learning any usable art skills at all. If that is the case then why even bother attending such an institute of higher learning in the first place?

If you have never made a good painting, how would you really know what one was? Or do you rely on the skills of the crafters to create what is good? Of course all of the art historians will be crawling on my back, but to me looking at a painting is a kinesthetic experience born of doing.

So I should just hire someone to create the work to earn my degree and claim it is about the experiences of capitalism. Perhaps I can even hire someone to write my thesis as well. Brilliant and why do I even work at all?

This would work well with the colleague educator who feels that we will be soon teaching virtually and no teachers will have to physically be in school. Why suffer from human contact?

My last but not least rant of today, is if you hit an animal on the road, stop your so busy life for a minute and grant it the courtesy of moving it off of the road. This is especially true if it is a pet animal, such as a cat. Take some responsibility, so that when the owner comes home they at least think the person cared enough after they destroyed a beloved pet to move it and give it some dignity.

So to the unmentionable person who swerved purposely to further mutilate the animal when I went to cover the other insensitive (edited for content)'s backside. Thanks alot for the lovely visual that I and the owner now have to suffer because you are a clueless idiot.

Ok, I feel better now.

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.”

-Edward Abbey

sigh...

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/column?oid=oid%3A406104

trying to earn a living as an artist...

memory

Jasper Park in Canada

Pretend your happy when your blue
It isnt very hard to do
And you'll find happiness without an end
Whenever you pretend

Remember anyone can dream
And nothings bad as it may seem
The little things you havent got
Could be a lot if you pretend

Youll find a love you can share
One you can call all your own
Just close your eyes, he'll be there
You'll never be alone

And if you sing this melody
Youll be pretending just like me
The world is mine, it can be yours, my friend
So why dont you pretend?

And if you sing this melody
Youll be pretending just like me
The world is mine, it can be yours, my friend
So why dont you pretend?

sung by Nat King Cole words by Lew Douglas, Cliff Parman, and Frank Lavere

They set up rival looms across
The room, stretching the weblike threads from beam
To beam and, where the reeds divided them,
Flashing their shuttles through with ardent fingers
While the toothed heddles beat the nap in place.
Stoles tight across their breasts, their bare arms weaving,
They took delight in speed and craftsmanship;
And there upon the looms Tyrian purple
Shaded to lavender and violet-rose,
As though one saw the sun strike passing rain,
Its rainbow ribbon across the sky,
A thousand colors streaming light within it,
Each melting into each where no eye sees
One fade into the other, yet both far ends
Colors of distant hue-gold thread to bind them,
To weave a story of long years ago.

-Ovid -Metamorphoses

from the local art gallery off of a sign describing the work:

...sports related paintings the artist has chosen to paint, not because he is a sports fan but he considers sports to be a contemporary American vehicle to explore the human condition.

really in high art darling you don't want to be associated with the sport loving types.

Chrysantemum
For you I am a chrysantemum
Supernova, urgent star
Astera Compositae
For you I'll be a dandelion
a thousand flowerettes in the sky
Or just a drop in the ocean
If you know my name
don't speak it out
it holds a power - as before
Liliacea
A lily of the valley
a flower of saron
Helianthus annus
For you I even be a sunflower
Do you hear my enlightening laughter?
another reason to cut off an ear
You know my name, do you not?
don't say it
For it's a sacred, immovable - frozen
Rosa, Anemone etNymphea alba
I'll even be a waterlily, a marygold, a rose
or a little thistle
Euphorbiaa blue dahlia,
a black tulip
that's where opinions differ
the scholars disagree
My name, should you know it
remains unspeakable
and it's spoken - malediction


-Einstuerzende Neubauten Blume

red in morning

beauty still exists and tonight all the work can wait
it is my night to dream in


the rest of these words are my own

A bath

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"

-The Shining by Stephen King

"All work and no play makes Corby a dull girl"

O Bonny Portmore I am sorry to see
Such a woeful destruction of your ornament tree
For it stood on your shore for many's the long day
Till the long boats from Antrim came to float it away.

O Bonny Portmore you shine where you stand
And the more I think on you the more I think long
If I had you now as I had once before
All the Lords in Old England would not purchase Portmore.

All the Birds in the forest they bitterly weep
Saying "where shall we shelter or where shall we sleep?"
For the Oak and the Ash they all cutten down
And the walls of Bonny Portmore are all down to the ground.

O Bonny Portmore you shine where you stand
And the more I think on you the more I think long
If I had you now as I had once before
All the Lords in Old England would not purchase Portmore.

-traditional