The Only Thing That Matters

When I studied with [D], 

he’d offer close critiques of what I’d written 

and then put my story aside and say, 

“But I might be wrong. 

And it really doesn’t matter. 

The only thing that matters 

is that you write your ass off.”

—Brian Morton, Tasha: A Son’s Memoir

And so it is with any creative pursuit, I think.

Even having come to understand that learning to paint happens by painting, and that the more I paint the more I learn, I can never get enough reminders and encouragement to just paint 'my ass off.'

Blue Skies for Days
3 x 3"; acrylic and collage on watercolor paper
abstract design
2023

Now You See It, Now You Don't

On my nightstand:

Cape Cod is a place

where buried things

surface and disappear again:

wooden lobster pots,

the vertebrae of humpback whales,

chunks of frosted sea glass.

One day there’s nothing; the next

the cyclical forces of nature—

erosion, wind, and tide—

unearth something 

that has been there all along.

A day later, it’s gone.

—Adrienne Brodeur, Wild Game

On my easel:

What has been there all along?

What is gone?

Where's the ebb?

The flow?

Nautical Nod
3 x 3"; acrylic and collage on watercolor paper
abstract design
2023

Leapfrogging

I notice myself jumping from one thing to another of late, leapfrogging over work in progress to start something new, and not reliably bringing any one set of tasks to full completion.

Oh, well! 

Sure am having fun!

One project I leapt over was a second series of bookmarks in development from a start on my afternoon of Bo's Arts in March. The shiny object distracting me was the Collage Kickstart! class offered by Catherine Rains. What a great kickstart! I went into production, I tell ya!

Then Bo called, and we got together for Bo's Arts Afternoon II at which time I leapt back to some of my starts from our earlier afternoon, picked up one of them, leapt with it over to some of the treasures I'd assembled for my kickstart class, and fused energy from both endeavors to make a collage.

It did not escape my notice, as I reported to a friend after the fact that, in the wake of having rustled up umpteen square feet of papers in minutes, I spent well over a thoroughly contented HOUR crafting a single 3-inch square collage! Hahaha!

Tea and Toast
3 x 3"; acrylic, ink, and collage on watercolor paper
abstract design
2023

On My Nightstand, On My Easel 4/1/23

 On my nightstand:

A human being

blessedly

is endowed with a dual capacity:

to experience our

oh-so-mortal physicality

and simultaneously to attune, 

in the stillness of the now,

to the timeless reality of which we partake.

To be incarnate

is to inhabit a body,

even as we can detect—

very nearly feel, 

in a palpable way—

a larger truth enfolding and saturating

our temporal existence.

This means than in addition 

to attuning us to the sensory world,

the body is the ‘vehicle’ 

through which we know

the timeless now.

—Jan Frazier, from a forthcoming book

On my easel:

I look at the letters appearing on the 'page' on my laptop screen as I type, little black marks that represent the Latin alphabetic writing system. They are nothing more than little black marks. Visible to my eye. Visible to yours. 

But what takes place when our very human eyes take in these codified symbols is vast beyond measure. This writing/reading thing, if you'll stop right here right now to be still enough to listen, speaks in its own way to something larger that enfolds and saturates our temporal existence. I type these letters, you read these letters, and we are given to tap into—we are given to know—more than words can ever say.

A Larger Truth
1.5 x 6" bookmark; acrylic, ink, and Stabilo pencil
on watercolor paper
abstract
2023

On My Nightstand, On My Easel 3/31/23

On my nightstand:

Somewhere, between the breeze

and the faraway sound of a train,

comes a line of birdsong, lightly

threading the heavy cloth of dream.

Joyce Sutphen, excerpted from "Soundings"

On my easel:

As I paint, the simple pleasures of homefront soundings, indoors and out, thread my work—Dave's footsteps going up and down the stairs to the basement to get carpentry tools, the banging away of a patch of sheetrock in the family room ceiling and, between those footsteps and that banging, the industry on a sparrow, pecking against the inside wall of a birdhouse as some part of the process of constructing a nest for imminent occupancy.

A Line of Birdsong
1.5 x 6" bookmark; acrylic, ink, and Stabilo pencil
on watercolor paper
abstract
2023

On My Nightstand, On My Easel 3/30/23

On my nightstand:

It is not that suffering will end. As far as I can tell, the one thing we can count on is that everything we are counting on is going to fall through under us. I will never welcome the feeling of falling through the floor. But I believe we are falling through into God or something—but not nothing.

—Polly Berrien Berends, Coming to Life

On my easel:

OMG, I am so well practiced in suffering! 

But I know the reason I paint is that painting offers me practice in finding ways to go along with this process of falling through into God.

I get considerable practice.

I need considerably more.

Not Nothing
1.5 x 6" bookmark; acrylic, ink, and Stabilo pencil
on watercolor paper
abstract
2023

On My Nightstand, On My Easel 3/29/23

On my nightstand:

Geese appear high over us,

pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,

as love or sleep, holds

them to their way, clear

in the ancient faith: what we need

is here. And we pray, not

for new earth or heaven, but to be

quiet in heart, and in eye,

clear. What we need is here.

    —Wendell Berry

On my easel:

I'm having so much fun playing with faux calligraphy!

What We Need Is Here
1.5 x 6" bookmark; acrylic, ink, and Stabilo pencil
on watercolor paper
abstract
2023

On My Nightstand, On My Easel 3/28/23

On my nightstand:

To look for the good in some other circumstance than the one in which we find ourselves is to trash the only happiness we will ever have: now. Whether it pleases us or not, each moment is a gift. No matter how unpleasant the wrapping, inside is something wonderful that life wants to give us. If we let it pass without opening it, we have missed something priceless.

—Polly Berrien Berends, Coming to Life

On my easel:

A second bookmark, another visual poem, emerges from the Bo's Arts starts created last week. I use Stabilo pencils for the first time. I try my hand at asemic writing of a sort I bumped into somewhere on Instagram, writing that may in part be actual language. Gifts abound: energy! play! invention!

In Your Life Just as It Is Happening Right Now
1.5 x 6" bookmark; acrylic, ink, and Stabilo pencil
on watercolor paper
abstract
2023

Poems: One. At. A. Time.

I can fly through a 400-page novel in a matter of a few days.

Poems, on the other hand, need to be surrounded by time. They need to be framed with long, slow, deep breaths. Absorbed and received in an entirely different and more spacious way than story.*

So it is with visual poems as well.

I present you with the first in a series.

An Invitation to Walk Through Some of Your Doors
1.5 x 6" bookmark; acrylic, ink, and Stabilo pencil
on watercolor paper
abstract
2023

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*And, yes, since you ask, it might take me over a year to read 400 poems!