WINTER~SUMMER: Buddhafull

 

 

 

same center in all seasons
the comforting winter stillness
the light touch of summer's
dragonfly



2 views, 1 vantage

for SETH

 

prompted by the mere mention,
i sped off to capture
the snow frosted ARCH.

perhaps "last chance"~

next year, first blizzard,
i vow that i will find it
thickly blanketed, buried.
the hope ... ever present.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A FRAME MAKES

 

 

 

i've always known framing was important to works of art that i'd acquired.
however, being in my sixties before i actually created pieces of my own, and
then taking a looooooooong time to realize i appreciated what i'd done: this was
another story.
so pleased is what i am since i have finally framed and hung some of my own work.
an acceptance, yes, but more than that. seeing. hard to SEE my own. strange, that self-critical voice, it causes objectiveness to depart. you all know that.

it's exciting to walk past things i've created. the first little one greets me in the foyer. and the BIG PODS finally at home at the top of the steps.....
and with the walk-bys, sometimes there's a touch of a memory that the making of the painting holds. the way the breeze felt that day i was outdoors and splashing on shellac. finding the pod that it all came from.
touchstones. personal and pleasing.
good memories, especially today, during the LAST big snow of the year.

SAFE: your voices have been heard!

 

 

 

 

Protected BEE ART
Safe on a sill with the remains
of many past walks and
sweet memories

i listened to all your comments: the don't melt it ones. i really didn't think i would. i feel like i've been made the caretaker of a delicate part of nature here. amazing work. LOOK AT THAT LAST CLOSE UP...mind-boggling.
i first thought that i'd be unwrapping a big clump of yellowish wax, not THIS. i guess the beekeeper cuts off the 'overflow' of cone? and i was astonished to see this. so, i'll just order up some wax. and leave this masterpiece beeeee.

please click on the last photo to enlarge it. such perfect geometry..

OH, HONEY, WHERE ART THOU?

 

 

 

 

yesterday's best gift
delivered with chocolates
from my photographer friend

mary whalen dropped by yesterday with handmade chocolates
for my husband and i...and brought this delicate work to me.
she'd been photographing her neighbor's beehives, and knew
i was beginning to experiment with encaustics...
now.
how
can i possibly melt this?

p.s. it's 16 inches long

FEBRUARY 14TH, reality view, WE ARE OUR OWN BEST KINDLING.

 

A gift of a poem this weekend, titled "God Went Away for the Winter, She Said" written by Renee Gregorio, New Mexico, from The Storm That Tames Us.

"It's hard between two people.
Some days we walk the clouds of these mountains.
Others I hear only complaints, the straight
lines of will. Embracing the ordinary
is wrestling the winter-god. Note the shifting
color of your skin. What is the same
can gather strength, a rolling snowball,
can be ally, mistress, lover.
Yesterday I woke to three rainbows
on the living room floor, your chest
rising and falling under my splayed fingers.
Today you said 'Look at that,' pointing
to the intricate spaces between the piled wood.
'It's an accident,' you said, meaning the beauty
that arrived outside our window, or
that you noticed it. I have a bar of soap
from Mexico with a man and woman kissing.
My friend's gift. 'This brings the man you want
to you,' she said. On the wall there's a photo
of you and me kissing, years ago now, on a patio
in Santa Fe. That alchemy once came to us, will again.
It's hard between two people. In December I wrote:
Dearest love. This is the world we've always wanted,
our breath rising and falling like one hundred magpies
under the dying lilac bush. The sun is hiding.
We are our own best kindling."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

above, my rapt beach glass and twigs, 2x1 inches

exciting times, new beginnings

my husband, jerry, has worked with his sounds on his hollow body jazz guitar for years.
i benefit at home, hearing his music in the next room while working in here.
last friday, a great gathering shared the experience at an art opening for mary whalen's photography!
it's only the beginning!
SHARING THE SOUNDS

a very good year right HERE!

FEBRUARY:

love~

when it's celebrated in
the deep meaning of a message on
a second grader's heart-shaped candy
that melts in the mouth as quickly
as a 'crush' comes and goes.

anniversaries~

when we wed and when we met.
applauding perseverance and patience
and the strength of the heart strings.

another,
the beginning of my postings~

one year ago...an interesting, unpredicted event
that was simply started to join
in the disintegration collaboration.

ONE YEAR LATER, 156 POSTINGS,
COUNTLESS PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN: LOTS OF
JOY, a few INNER
FEARS, MANY HAPPY DISCOVERIES SHARED
AND
REPRESENTED IN THIS COLLAGE* OF
ARCHES~
CIRCLES~
OPENINGS CONNECTING.

(if you're reading this, thank you for being there. i mean here!)

(*a picasa collage of photographs taken by me over the year for this blog)

write, draw, paint: MEDITATION-IN-ACTION

zen drawingII
after writing the post below last week,
gesso and brushes found their way
off the shelf, at last! it's been
six months since i played like this.
memories of the rio grande's waters quietly
keeping the pace ..
i got back to that by writing.

words work for me.
a bridge forms,
and a movement begins.
lines and dots flow~
and i lose myself and self-consciousness.
not quite "the FLOW", but perhaps
more of what is described here:

"Meditation-in-action:.. is to stop the mind's confused obsession with little Me.
In seeing/drawing the entire concentraion--for a change--happens to be what is not-Me...
It is not only meditation, it is meditation-in-action, by eye and hand in unison."
Frederick Franck

"TO KNOW THE EGO IS TO FORGET THE EGO, TO FORGET THE EGO IS TO BE ILLUMINATED BY ALL THINGS" Dogen

'ZEN SEEING, ZEN DRAWING' as Haiku

 

 

 

 

ZEN SEEING, ZEN DRAWING Meditation in Action by Frederick Franck has been an ally in diminishing the voices that formerly told me 'you must learn to draw realistically'.
as a long lover of Haiku and Tanka and eastern sense, grasping the idea proported by the author was a comfort.
Some excerpts from Franck:

looking at one of his drawings, he began:
" 'Ah! But this is a haiku, a wordless haiku written in lines and dots!' Since in Japanese the same verb can mean to draw and to write, I was drawing haiku-legitimately....
In Japanese, haiku are...the rediscovery of seeing, of celebrating the sensitivity of the eye. It converts deadly looking-at into living seeing!

The poet Masaoka Shiki wrote:
'I had a flowering branch placed by my pillow. A I draw faithfully, I feel I am gradually coming to grasp the secrets of creation.'

Basho, the father of haiku, warned his students:
'Jot down your haiku before the heat of perception cools!' "

"An AUTHENTIC HAIKU must, in one breath,
GRASP THE JOY AS IT FLIES,
THE TEAR AS IT TRICKLES DOWN THE CHEEK.
In its seventeen syllables it must catch the unsayable, the mystery of being and non-being: timeless mini-satori in fleeting time:

this dewdrop universe
just a dewdrop
and yet,
and yet...

Issa

A haiku is:

a flash of illumination in which we enter into things...

a minimum of words that grasp a moment of grace,
joyous or heartrending...

an expression of inner feeling totally devoid of ego...

the eye-heart-hand reflex of seeing/drawing the intellect...Seeing and feeling condence themselves into the ink marks a hand jots down.

TO FORGET THE EGO IS TO BE ILLUMINATED BY ALL THINGS."

and above are my 'haiku marks':
*sitting alone at the rio grande's edge and letting my pencil move to the sound of the water you see in the photos,
*sumi ink markings,
*and a page from a book of tanka that i have been altering (tanka has 31 syllables in 5,7,5,7,7 pattern).