In Yellow Grass

In the yellow grass
each gathers with its own kind-
and the lion-beauty cuts that invisible pen,
the bright wires trampled or leapt.

So, love, it will be with us, both
lion and prey- our mouths so deep in richness
only the wild scent of earth will be left
to tremble, after.

-Jane Hirshfield

singing amazon

from Antonia's blog, apparently I am a:




Take the test yourself

Into the night of the heart
your name drops slowly
and moves in silence and falls
and breaks and spreads its water.

-Pablo Neruda

A link to a delicious but controversial Jesus
apparently people are offended that he is nude (sigh). So the body is still not seen as beautiful but profane. Speaking of the body, I met Carolee Schneeman tonight and shook her hand. It was cool...

"I wanted my actual body to be combined with the work as an integral material-a further dimension of the construction...I am both image maker and image"
-Carolee Schneeman

Liberty

Liberty, I got outside as evening was coming today. I walked on a familiar path that has been shaded with a sinister tone since a killer had been hanging out there. Supposedly the man in question has been caught but the place still has an aura of the event. I hate that, I have to avoid a familiar place of escape because of a human predator. So, today was the first I time in a long time that I was willing to return.

I love the small feeling of wildness I get when I am surrounded by nature. I reconnect to myself, that I am for a moment unconventional, unbound, and not so domesticated.

The air was thick with the smell of tannin, the decay of oak leaves in the small pond tingeing a deep brown. The yellow willow wands were glowing against the dark water. The frogs were making their loud resonant cries. It was a warm beautiful evening as clouds rolled in over the sunset.

I left before it became too dark, still thinking of safety. As I left I was thinking of myself in the future, fit and tall walking two giant dogs with my blonde hair streaked with white, formidable. That is how I choose to be, not this meek thing sissing around like a mouse. Wild as it should be, stewing my plants to make things as I had once so loved to do. Knowing their names, properties and colors when cooked. Today I felt so much like those early spring plants peeking out from the leaves, anemic from the lack of light but pushing upwards.

2 weeks of only 1 set of work = a slice of heaven.

Eureka!! So the obvious for me has been finally made visible-phew-. I got there with the gaze reflection (yes I can really brood over a theme). I had a conversation today that lead me to it, as in a dance back and forth until my mind clasped it. Dear reader do you wonder what I am referring to? It is an intensely important element in my work that I was overlooking in its significance. I was not listening so well to my own self and what I need from what I am doing. It is a silly aspiration, but can I stop time? Like a memorized gaze that repeats in your minds eye? I take them like mental photographs to thwart the eventuality of endings and dwell there in those little frozen spaces. I have touched it again and again with my eyes.

so pallid that our pupils could as soon
make out a pearl upon a milk-white brow-
so I saw many eager faces to speak,
and fell to the error opposite the one
that kindled love for a pool in the smitten Greek.
And thinking the pale traces I saw there
were reflected images, I turned around
to face the source-but my eyes met empty air.

-Dante Alighieri The Divine Comedy, Paradiso, Canto III

Swan Gaze

I wonder at the gaze, it has struck me twice with such clarity today.

The first time was when I was avoiding work and enjoying some above 40 degree weather, by doing one of my favorite activities, watching birds. I love to witness moments of behavior that seem particular and momentary. I noticed two swans, a male and a female gesturing to each other. In order to truly look at one and other they have to twist their heads a bit due to the location of their eyes. They were moving their necks up and down twisting their heads to see into each others eyes. I could not distinguish which one initiated the dance but I was struck by the intimacy of their gazes towards each other.

Then as I attended a wake tonight I saw some old movies from the 1940s. As I watched the light filled images dance, I was witness to the cameraman's fondness for his sweetheart. He idled the camera over her face and her soft gaze looked up at him. A look, the little thing we remember and hold with us, to be noticed and made special by another.

Thinking, tangling shadows in the deep solitude.
You are far away too, oh farther then anyone.
Thinking, freeing birds,dissolving images,
burying lamps.

-Pablo Neruda

Bird Snow Angel Reprise

XVII

Here I love you.
In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.
The moon glows like phosphorus on the vagrant waters.
Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.

The snow unfurls in dancing figures.
A silver gull slips down from the west.
Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.

Oh the black cross of a ship.
Alone.
Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.
Far away the sea sounds and resounds.
This is a port.
Here I love you.

Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among the cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.
The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.
My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me.

The moon turns its clockwork dream.
The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.

-Pablo Neruda translated by W.S. Merwin

A meme I am borrowing from a blogger named udge
Typed in my recent birthday sans the year into Wikipedia

Events on the day that are of interest:

1739- Nadir Shah occupies Delhi in India and sacks the city, stealing the jewels of the Peacock Throne.
1815 - Napoleon enters Paris after escaping from Elba with a regular army of 140,000 and a volunteer force of around 200,000, beginning his "Hundred Days" rule.
1899 - At Sing Sing prison, Martha M. Place is sentenced to become the first woman executed in an electric chair.
1916 - Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity.
1985 - Libby Riddles becomes the first woman to win the 1,135-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

Other Birthdays

43 BC - Ovid, Roman poet
1741 - Jean Antoine Houdon, French sculptor
1836 - Sir Edward Poynter, British painter
1951 - Jimmie Vaughan, American blues guitarist

A few deaths

1727 O.S. - Sir Isaac Newton, English physicist
1619 - Mathias, Holy Roman Emperor
1865 - Keisuke Yamanami, Japanese samurai

Holidays

The vernal equinox usually occurs on this day.
The second day of Quinquatria in ancient Rome, held in honor of Minerva.
New Year of Iranian Calendar: Norouz occurs on the vernal equinox.

happy birthday to me- sisss boooom bah,

rock out to a dear friend of mine who is here

Andrew Wyeth-Crows (Study for Woodshed) 1944 Gouache and ink on paper

Ah, I wish I had more time to really consider my paintings. I am always grabbing time for them here and there. I am usually so tired when I get to them that I miss simple considerations. I am still to static, my color utilitarian and the nuances within it simply descriptive and not constructive. I am still a simple repeater, a mimic creating a language but not fully understanding its every nuance. To get that I need to look more, spend blocks of time with the work unencumbered by the buzzing of deadlines in my head. I am playing it safe, not breaking out beyond my comfort zone for the pure reason of my fear of not being successful with the work. Fear seems to be the worn refrain, fear, fear, fear, fear....

Bird Snow Angel

The hardest part of artmaking is living your life in such a way that your work gets done, over and over- and that means, among other things, finding a host of practices that are just plain useful. A piece of art is the surface expression of a life lived within productive patterns. ... Once you have found the work you are meant to do, the particulars of any single piece don't matter all that much.

-Art and Fear Observations on the Perils and Rewards of Artmaking -David Bayles and Ted Orland

Last night I attended this exhibit, filled with people I mostly do not know and if I do know them not well enough to have any conversation of merit. So I circulated looking at the work and pretending to be more interested in it then I really was.

I wound up speaking to someone I rather loathe, he is a pompous arrogant ass. It was an exercise in self-control to smile and ask demure flattering questions. He prattled on about himself arms crossed over his large frame. He smiled down through his small glasses that covered his heavy brow. Oh well this and this and this... on and on as if I cared so much to listen.

I do poorly in crowds, self-conscious and wanting more from words then trying to invent some common ground. Give me meaning instead, but I shy away realizing as I hugged my friend that she has somehow been a snake to me. I could feel it, somehow she has done damage and again another quiet bite leaves a numbness.

I left as soon as I could filled with that familiar heavy sadness that so often catches me lately. How can I possibly shine so bright? I hate my own weakness and I cannot solve it by hiding in my work.

American Robin

OUT DEEP

We are a boat without love. Love

Works a way through the current,

Headed for us, waving. It is

Unclear to whom she speaks;

It is even possible

Something behind us

Moves her. We came

All this way for the unbroken

Water and such light I can no longer see

Where we are. You must

Guide me: nothing more can be done

If we are to get to shore. In return

I will keep your story,

The one you will tell the others

When we get home.

-Sophie Cabot Black

Hirst a rich brit

ok, I should really be working, but read about the most (wealthy) successful artist in the world here -someone told me a story about how one of his pickled animals spilled at Soethby's and they had to evacuated because of the toxicity of it. It was re-filled and sold for some ungodly amount of money.

Cooties

I have taken this one from Antonia on Flowerville, since I am really in the mood to procrastinate on my massive workload. Like she and her predecessor I am skipping the omitted questions and not procrastinating enough to invent new ones.

1.Do you like cheese?
Yes, but I cannot eat it since I am not supposed to eat dairy-but I like all different kinds

2.Have you ever smoked heroin?
No I take my crazy straight

3. Do you own a gun?
No

5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments?
(ok the stupid italic button is causing all kinds of mayhem so I apologize dear reader, this will henceforth be in italics)
It depends on what they plan on doing to me

6. What do you think of hot dogs?
no, thanks not my kind of wiener

7. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
Diet Pepsi

9. Can you do push ups?
yes

10. Is your bathroom clean?
cluttered, but sanitary

11. What is your favorite piece of jewelry?
the amber necklace my mother got me

13. What is your secret weapon to lure in the opposite sex?
hmmm, secret to me as well perhaps

14. Do you have friends?
yep

16. Middle Name
Kateri

17. Name3 thoughts at this exact moment
I have work I should be doing instead
I hope I get everything done tonight
I don't want to work tomorrow

19. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink:
diet pepsi
water
tea

20. Current worry?
How much I worry

21. Current Hate?
How much I worry

22. Favorite place to be?
In my studio

23. How did you bring in the new year?
In bed asleep-yes I am a live one folks

24. Where would you like to go?
To New York City

27. Do you own slippers?
why on earth would anyone care-but yes- I should get steel toed ones for the amount of times my constantly under the feet dogs step on my toes

28. What shirt are you wearing?
something ultra glam and sexy, use your imagination reader

29. Do you burn or tan?
I am so pale I reflect the sun and stay ivory all year long

30. Favorite Color?
Red Ochre

31. Would you be a pirate?
Yes but I would have to have a parrot and a fast ship, with a cutlass

32. What songs do you sing in the shower?
I invent my own

35. What is in your pocket right now?
nothing

36. Last thing that made you laugh?
Joking about being covered in plaster today with fellow workers

37. Best bed sheets as a child?
Ones with old fashioned pictures on them of landscapes, I would feel like I was sleeping in a million different places

38. Worst injury you've ever had?
My hip slipped out when I was in grade school and my gym teacher made me try to run the relay anyway. I collapsed on the grass and was laughed at, and had to have surgery.

39. What is your biggest pet peeve?
hmmm.... false people- how long these things take

40. How many TV's do you have in your home?
2

41. Who is your loudest friend?
M she is a big flirt

42. Who is your most silent friend?
most of them since I am too busy to see them (...I should be working....guilt)

44. Do you wish on shooting stars?
yes but it never comes true

45. What is your favorite book?
In the interest of not causing a book revolt in my library I will not choose one

46. What is your favorite sweet?
honey

47. What song do/did you want played at your wedding?
too much effort right now, so I will skip it

48. What song do you want played at your funeral?
Kate Wolf -an Unfinished Life

49. What were you doing at 12AM last night?
Trying to sleep and not think of yesterday

50. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up?
I was having a nice little dream and how rude the alarm is.

there I have successfully wasted a ton of time. Off to get all my paperwork in order etc etc etc ...........

damn, there is trouble with the gallery show and I am not sure they will show both my father and I. Damn. I wonder if I can get him a show on his own, or somehow fix it. I will have to call tomorrow. Apparently I am counting chickens instead of eggs.
ugh.

The look on my dad's face was pure happiness. He was trying to act cool about it but he couldn't hide a childlike mirth that seemed to radiate out of him. You have work to do, I chided him with humor. I have accomplished my goal of getting a show for us this coming October. It was so good to see his obvious delight. For a moment he was moved as I commented on all of the people we could invite. He fought back some tears, as he has since his cancer at times. It is as if life touches him more since these days almost feel stolen from death that was so close before. It felt good to give this back to him.

twa corbies

Fallen into
Fall in love
Fall out of favor
Fallen
Falling
Fall
Fall down
wind Fall
Fall over
Falling down drunk
Falling off a log
Falling head over heels
Falling into a trap
Falling water
water fall
free fall
...

I do not want to wind up becoming a technician in my painting and I think that is what I should come out of that discussion with. That there should be places of effortless disregard in the painting that are intentional and much more profound then endless perfection of technique. That of course takes confidence and the ability to know when to stop trying to create a sense of realism. I need to have a greater reliance on my own translation of what I am seeing and create a sense of poetry of expression. That is what great painters have, above and beyond technicians, a method of emotional painting that evokes the same response within the viewer. I think I began to understand this the other night when I was at the local gallery. I was immersed in the paintings, while the gallery itself was filled with life. It was a celebration and I was moved by the art becoming alive as it was surrounded by its human family. Of course, this connection is what really makes a masterpiece, the artist speaking with their human family.

Sweet Ophelia
forced here in shadow
I hear him- far away muffled
the loss stings
Ophelia share your madness
bring out your wines
of bitter head
let's dance on the
river bottom
and throw life
like pansies
into the wind

by the Corbyhawk herself

Trumpet of the Swans

a true story:
Someone I know is getting a divorce, to prevent it she decided to attend a counseling session for people with "control issues". She did not return after the first meeting because -she did not like how it was run and she could do a much better job of running it herself.

Birds sing like we do read here

A drawing of mine, it is ok, rare that I actually put any work on this but why not throw caution to the wind tonight.

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,
love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.


-Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet

But what did he see there in the clear water? He saw his own reflection, and he was no longer a clumsy, grey, ugly bird- he was a swan himself.

It makes no difference where you are born, even in a poultry yard, if you have hatched out of a swan's egg!

-Hans Christian Anderson- The Ugly Duckling

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries

And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,

Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least; Shakespeare from Sonnet 29

I must tell you bloggers that I want very much to be a great painter someday
and I work and work at it as much as I can
it is slow progress and I find myself losing my faith in it
but what I cannot express well is that I need to do it
as a redemption as a means to creating some reason to be

I think I find being misunderstood the most disappointing thing
I use you as a mirror and lament my own mediocrity
The sadness of standing behind you and knowing that we can only fight our own battle
wishing somehow you would respect me and see the lengths I have gone to earn it from you
after I have championed you to so many, these are words you do not hear
songs you think unsung
what I see is your own anger and sadness
and even after we have danced in a sour tongue
I still will sing them for you have more merit then one off note

Our greatest glory is not in never falling,
but rising every time we fall.

-Confucius

1 and 2

Little Gray

This little squirrel has taken up residence in a bird house in my yard. He has it all, two exits for safety, all the food he could ever want with some variety to it, and a warm dry house. Red squirrels are not the most common squirrel here, mostly I have the larger gray squirrels, but this little guy chases them away. He is not even afraid of the crows that steal the suet cakes from the feeder (they fly away with the entire suet cage). He used to be more gray brown but he is turning the more customary red ochre. He sometimes will run around the snow piles in a seemingly random pattern and it never fails to amuse me.

The other night dear, as I lay sleeping,
I dreamed I held you in my arms,
but when I woke dear, I was mistaken,
and I hung my head and cried.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
you make me happy when skies are gray
you'll never know dear, how much I love you,
please don't take my sunshine away.

Words and Music by
Jimmie Davis and Charles Mitchell

ghost hawk

a pale red-shouldered hawk

My First Memory of Her Face

Warm little destiny in my arms
silent at the dawn of day,
watching closely to memorize me
Soft you nuzzle in
like the light floating from the window
Encompassing us
in the quiet air
I sing to you, my old voice often catching
as you look unashamedly at my face
Who are you?
So serene in this place
in my arms, as if you know the future
something in the eyes
following nothing but my soul
as we rock back and forth
greeting time.

-for Florence, my grandmother who 13 years ago tonight left this world, my first memory is of her rocking me by an open window.

Shake your thing

Snow Dog

So I have seem to have a bit of trouble with the tendons in my right hand. This is problematic for all the work I have to do this weekend. I will do my writing work tonight and then hopefully it will not be so painful tomorrow. As it is my brush grip is weak which for an artist is utterly crippling, but I will work anyway if I have to push through it.

The Lost Dances of Cranes by Juliet Wilson

Your fields are empty now.

Only your ghosts dance

while cranes of another kind

dance cities into being.



All that remain of you are

a fading crackle of your energy

and some grainy video footage



that people in the new cities

will watch to marvel

at the wonders the world



once held.

Feathers "shingle" over one and another within each feather tract and this overlap may vary from tract to tract, such as the middle versus greater wing coverts.
-Don Eckelberry The Art of Bird Painting

First and most important, if you are serious in developing your talent in this direction, you should (indeed you must) get to know your subjects in life through observation. Naturalists know in an instant when an artist is inspired by field experience, and they are not fooled by a lot of detail which often bespeaks a dependence on mounted birds or photographs...

-Don Eckelberry From the Art of Bird Painting

More deformities

I am not sure why this local population of alien mute swans (they are European in origin and should not be here) are having bill deformities. Perhaps they are inbreeding-and a recessive trait is showing up, or there is a nutritional deficit. I originally thought they were injuries but they seem more like deformities. Hmmm....

what's cooking

A good lentil and rice recipe

6 cups of water
1 cup of rice
2 cups of lentils (I like the dark green-they taste a bit nuttier)
salt
add to pot and start it boiling
turn it down and simmer for 40 minutes

in another pan soften
1 cup of onions
3 garlic cloves (less if you are not a garlic fan)

add the onions and garlic to the lentils when they are done
add
two pinches of cumin
two pinches of corriander (ground)
some soy sauce
black pepper
drizzle some lemon on it
-a dash of hot sauce *not for the light palette

I like to serve it over a flat bread surrounded by greens with a bit of red wine vinegar on them and olive oil. It helps to have some good blues music playing while you cook to add some flavor.

~yum~ makes enough for 6 or lunches all week and it is preservative free!

Beautiful Deformity

The More Loving One
by W. H. Auden
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell, But on earth indifference is the least We have to dread from man or beast. How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me. Admirer as I think I am Of stars that do not give a damn, I cannot, now I see them, say I missed one terribly all day. Were all stars to disappear or die, I should learn to look at an empty sky And feel its total dark sublime, Though this might take me a little time.

O bless me.
Am I going silent now?
O have I overnight been emptied?
If I could call these thoughts to come,
to stand on this paper
I could read what I mean
May I? May I?

O bless me.
Now I seem to come apart,
to sink
inside this overwhelming, What can I do?
What have I made of all of these new days?
And forgive my despair.

Where is color this hour?
Where is music this hour?
Are they still going on somewhere?
But where now, in this hush?
Where are words in this hush?
And what am I?


-Now in this Hush -Innocence Mission

Bird with unbarred wings disappeared
Rock with weighted heart returned
And rock became her anchor
And bird became her dream

-Rock and Bird- Cowboy Junkies

to love:

Edited for content -too personal to leave up for long

My kind of heart shape

I give you one loud, huge, warm and inviting smile.

Good news, good news!!!

I am braced and ready for any news. My heart is heavy as the things around me break apart with steady efficiency. This time I do not have as many resources to draw upon, this time I have seen the panic greeting your stare, this time I hear a different catch in your breath as you speak of it. All those who should hold me are fading away, so I have to pull myself up.

How can I be strong enough? I will not whine, I will not fall into a stupor of grief, I am made from stronger stock then that.

I can only push for your unrealized dreams and clasp a steady hand over yours. We will fight this again my father, I will not flinch away.

To shoulder this burden
while waiting in vain,again
Your strength is the weakness
On which your enemies prey
Then bury your conscience
let memories fade, away

Given the choice, I'd rather be anyone else
Given the chance, I'd rather be anywhere else

Let all your misgivings whither and fade
our humble possessions remain

Could all be forgotten
if nobody cared?
The weight you have carried
will crumble and fall, today

Given the choice I'd rather be anyone else
Given the chance I'd rather be anywhere else
Let all your misgivings whither and fade
our humble possessions remain

let all your misgivings whither and fade
Our humble possessions remain.

-I am Cuba -Finalyson Maize from Dark Hollow

Sunday Couch Potatoes

The vultures in India and Pakistan are disappearing, read a good article on it here

"But these wild vultures are disappearing so fast-up to 99 percent of the population is now gone.."Just 15 years ago Gyps vultures were thought to be the most numerous large raptors on the planet," Cuthbert says in a single decade they've undergone the most rapid population collapse of any animal in recorded history."

-Susan McGrath Feb. 2007 Smithsonian Magazine

I have been a bad blogger lately, mostly I am in an odd limbo. My painting looked good at the gallery tonight. They hung it well and it had a nice placement in the gallery. I felt secretly proud of it for a moment.

Now here I am just confused and horribly smitten. I am trying to remain rational and good, really I am... but then there is a BIG part of me that wants to well...

I wonder what would happen if he knew how attracted I am to him?
Ah, but how can I possibly even begin?

Stars may always guide our way~From desert sands where the winds blow harsh and long
Here's where, where our hearts will pray~And all our loves will slumber with a song

So now, if our hearts be true~And like a pool of truth reflect the sun
We will find right honour there~ And keep us safe and lead us from all harm

So come love, let us dance all night~Until the birds they waken at the dawn
Then come love, let us sing all night~And all our loves will slumber with a song

-The Gates of Istanbul -Loreena McKennitt

Retreating Glacier

"Sweetness is a desire that starts on the tongue with the sense of taste, but doesn't end there. Or at least it didn't end there, back when the experience of sweetness was so special that the word served as a metaphor for a certain kind of perfection. "

-oh so sweet....

-From The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan

At once a voice arose among
    The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
    Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
    In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
    Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
    Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
    Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
    His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
    And I was unaware.

-From The Darkling Thrush -Thomas Hardy

-from Wikipedia

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.


-If You Forget Me- Pablo Neruda

bridge

A sad day for Whooping Cranes, 18 known losses-potentially more...
The ones I saw may have been affected by the tornadoes last night.

The day is bitter~sweet, good news on a grant and I am in a show next weekend. The gallery owner was excited about my painting. So it is a mixed bag, because I hate to think something has happened to those magnificent birds I was lucky enough to spend time with. They are so few in number, and bad luck could mean the end of them. What a tragedy that would be, they are just so utterly magical.

Unflinching eye to which I have hands to grab at hawks and eagles without trepidation-by no means a wallflower-iron core-sharp taloned foot-gold eye-hooked beak-sliver tongue
I miss it more then air-in this so conventional-lost nerve-flighted soul

how can I be patient enough?