(Parenthetical Project) 10

I find myself reflecting on the art of correspondence as I engage in the art of creating a postcard this morning, on the sacred and enduring place that written co-respondence with others holds in my life.

Two sentences embedded in Jane McCafferty’s novel One Heart catch my one heart and my notice. I parse them into a smile of a poem.

And I like checking 

the mail each day 

because it turns out 

Gladys is a letter writer. 

She doesn’t write so often, 

but the letters she does write, 

it’s worth the wait, 

if you can read the penmanship.

Clean and Sharp as Pepper
4 x 5.5" postcard, acrylic, ink, and collage
abstract
2021

(Parenthetical Project) 9

Each morning

a walking meditation

before dawn.

A mind-viewing

a moon-viewing

a sniffing of washed air.

A tasting of sharp wind-refreshment

a trickle of whisper in a storm drain

a stretching of calf muscles 

an aligning of spine

a striking of foot on street.

An attunement, 

an opening,

a flow.

Before the Agitations of the Day
4 x 5" postcard; acrylic, ink, and collage
abstract
2021

 

Faces 11

“Knucklehead.”

He said the word out loud

and saw a young boy

on the wharf close by

turn to look at him, startled.

This meant he was an old man

who was talking to himself

on a wharf in Portland, Maine,

and he could not—

Jack Kennison, 

with his two PhDs—

he could not

figure out 

how this had happened.

—Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again 

The Friend Who Is an Exquisite Wordsmith
9 x 12"; acrylic, ink, and pastel on drawing paper
abstract face
2021
$45

Faces 10

Offsetting some of the loneliness and isolation of precautionary COVID-19 constraints, I make new friends in my studio—even if I have to conjure them myself from paint!

The Friend Who Isn't Afraid of My Pain
9 x 12"; acrylic, ink, and collage on drawing paper
abstract face
2021
$45

(Parenthetical Project) 8

Here's my Inauguration Day story. 

We have Dan the Man, a trusty tile guy (same guy who did a bathroom renovation for us), installing tile in our mudroom which directly abuts the kitchen where I usually eat. Because I want to watch/hear inauguration proceedings without tile-installation noise, I set up my lunch on a tray and take it to my study. 

I place the tray on the table there and start to reach for my laptop to get it set for inauguration viewing. The tray slides off whatever I perched it on, and almost everything on the tray slides off the tray, making more cacophony than any tile installation. 

Homemade soup (broccoli, chicken, kale, carrots, olive oil, bone broth, snow peas, and spinach) in a 20-ounce handpainted bowl; half an avocado; a serving of homemade cole slaw on a favorite ceramic plate; a small bowl of dried pumpkin seeds; a 16-ounce glass of water.

Onto a fabric-covered chair, an open heating grate, a pine floor with spaces between boards, and a decorative metal bowl filled with river stones and three votive candles.

Soup bowl loses a big fragment; plate breaks into pieces.

A peaceful transition of power. Go, Joe! Go, Kamala!

No Other World but This One
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, and collage
abstract
2021

Turn Me Into Song, Sing Me Awake
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, and collage
abstract
2021

(Parenthetical Project) 7

It can be, and often is, tremendously difficult for me to get past my own defenses to discover, identify, and fully own what I'm thinking, and then to let go as indicated of either resistance or clinging.

How is it that this difficulty, this resistance, this clinging can still surprise me?

How is it that I can still hide from myself so capably?

I Hear the Children in the Yard
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, and collage
abstract
2021

(Parenthetical Project) 6

Coming up empty today—nothing to write.

Let go. 

Let in.

Downy Woodpecker Percusses an Improv Solo
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, and collage
abstract
2021

 

After Flinging My Coat on a Chair
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, and collage
abstract
2021