O the sun! The sun!
It never ceases to amaze me how light can be so lifting. I just hate it when it rains like it has. The world goes flat and monotone, melancholy dripping off every living thing, stifling dampness in every breath I take...
I woke up this morning in my room, my room that isn't white. It's a colour called Orchid Bloom. Like the inner curve of an orchid where colour blushes up in to the petals. The undertone is blue with a hint of red and when the sun hits it, it becomes lit from within, like I imagine a halo might be. O my, and I can breathe again.
I've been reading Irving Stone's, Lust for Life all week. I can't read a book without absorbing the spirit of it, and Van Gogh in his impassioned artistic fervour was also crazy. But completely rationally crazy, to me. Caught between the line of this world of gravel & dust and the other world of air, wind, colour & the creative spirit. Exquisitely beautiful but also deadly. Van Gogh said of himself,
“I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process."
That is the very problem of this place. It's so near the fire, it's almost impossible to not burn with it.
***
I've also learned this week, it's almost impossible to paint well without being able to draw well. I've been racked in frustration trying to paint my daughter in her prom gown. As hard as I've tried, I haven't been able to get beyond producing something that looks like a painted cartoon.
It's strange when concepts make themselves known. A good painting begins with a good drawing - lack of foundation equals simplicity. It takes layers of light and shadow to create a realistic facial curve - but it takes also understanding and observation of anatomy to get it right. And you can't get it right if you emphasis your bone in the wrong quadrant, or inadvertently shadow a triangle that should be a square. It's friggin geometry.
So now, instead of flinging colour, I'm focusing on learning the basics of drawing. I've cleared away my paints, bought a sketch pad, and spend hours trying to copy, what at first glance, seem like simple lines. But art is not simple, at it's foundation is math. My gosh, can I ever get away from math...?
***
One last thought on my friend, Vincent - as portrayed through my friend Irving...
Van Gogh, at his very centre, was a kind man, finding love, beauty and acceptance among struggling miners, sad prostitutes, lost artists & beloved family. He was misunderstood, ridiculed by most and driven wild by his passion. And yet these insightful words, lay the foundation for his life and work:
'I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”
O starry, starry night.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
This week, I drove my son and two neighborhood brothers to the pool.
These boys are the resourceful kind who will dismantle your fence to use the slats as a ramp for their off road remote control vehicles, or will scale the newly shingled roof of your house simply because they suddenly noticed it, or accidently shift your van out of park, roll it backwards into the neighbor's chain link fence and while sitting in the driver's seat, appear innocently surprised when asked how it happened. The very illogically logical boyness of them is both comical on a good day & difficult on a not so good one.
But it was a good day - the day they tumbled in to my car, all hair, pubescent energy and stories.
'I ate 28 cotton candies at the hardware store open house Sunday!' the younger one proudly annouced.
I'm always looking for a laugh and good story so egged him on. '28 cotton candies?! How long were you there for?' I exclaimed.
Encouraged, he continued, 'All day! From 10-4!'
'Wow!' I responded, trying hard to drive & figure out the math division problem at the same time. 'So, you ate 4 and half cotton candies every hour?'
He thought briefly and corrected himself, 'No, I didn't start til noon, so I ate 7 cotton candies every hour!'
And then concluded somewhat introspectively, 'Ya, I guess that's why I got that bad headache!'
***
Life's little insights come in all flavours, sometimes as finely spun as 28 cotton candies...
These boys are the resourceful kind who will dismantle your fence to use the slats as a ramp for their off road remote control vehicles, or will scale the newly shingled roof of your house simply because they suddenly noticed it, or accidently shift your van out of park, roll it backwards into the neighbor's chain link fence and while sitting in the driver's seat, appear innocently surprised when asked how it happened. The very illogically logical boyness of them is both comical on a good day & difficult on a not so good one.
But it was a good day - the day they tumbled in to my car, all hair, pubescent energy and stories.
'I ate 28 cotton candies at the hardware store open house Sunday!' the younger one proudly annouced.
I'm always looking for a laugh and good story so egged him on. '28 cotton candies?! How long were you there for?' I exclaimed.
Encouraged, he continued, 'All day! From 10-4!'
'Wow!' I responded, trying hard to drive & figure out the math division problem at the same time. 'So, you ate 4 and half cotton candies every hour?'
He thought briefly and corrected himself, 'No, I didn't start til noon, so I ate 7 cotton candies every hour!'
And then concluded somewhat introspectively, 'Ya, I guess that's why I got that bad headache!'
***
Life's little insights come in all flavours, sometimes as finely spun as 28 cotton candies...
Thursday, June 10, 2010
On Paperclips, Staples, Scotch Tape & String
I got up this morning to find one of my fav shirts had succumbed to the growing hole I've been monitoring for the past few weeks. With every washing, I've wondered how long it will be til my 5 kidded stomach pokes unceremoniously through the worn spot. Today it finally happened.
I instinctively reached for my basket of repair items, not conventional needle and thread - because that's just too, well, difficult, labour intensive and conventional. Instead, I retrieved a safety pin, turned the shirt inside out and knitted the hole together with a steel rod. The result was less than presentable and I sadly admitted either I'd need to get professional help or turf the thing. I wore the shirt anyhow today, unpinned hole and all - one last time for old times sake.
I can't count how many times I've hemmed pants with scotch tape and staples, paper clipped belts from flopping loosely, or used string as shoelaces. The underside of me isn't nearly as presentable as the outside. I repair my holes, ripped hems and empty shoe grommets with innovative things I'm largely embarrassed to admit to.
I wonder how many of us go through life, literally & figuratively - hiding that we're held together with paper clips, scotch tape, staples & string? Could I possibly be the only one?
Sometimes I look at other people and imagine the stuff they're held together with is tent twine, or bungee cords or at the very least proper mending. And that their insecurities, foibles, or peculiarities are not nearly as likely as mine to bust open at the seams unanticipated. But o, there's something about an occasional busting of the seams that connects us intimately with one another and tears down the walls of social decorum.
Those inadvertent & embarrassed tears that spring up when we talk of hard earned hope. Or the joy that comes with finding an inexpensive figurine with outstretched arms and turned up head, that reflects a new inner freedom.
My dad used to give a daily report on the comical & intriguing ways of a family of birds on our clothesline. My brother became a farmer, sausage maker and spice-ologist this year. Another friend has embarked on a book. I stop my in car in wonder, transfixed by a burning rose bush speaking fire and god.
If you look hard enough, everyone is unique, strange and wonderful. Lovable in spite of their 'coolness' and especially because of their uncoolness. The paperclips, staples, scotch tape and string that hold us together, also bind us together with each other when we feel safe enough to be real...
I instinctively reached for my basket of repair items, not conventional needle and thread - because that's just too, well, difficult, labour intensive and conventional. Instead, I retrieved a safety pin, turned the shirt inside out and knitted the hole together with a steel rod. The result was less than presentable and I sadly admitted either I'd need to get professional help or turf the thing. I wore the shirt anyhow today, unpinned hole and all - one last time for old times sake.
I can't count how many times I've hemmed pants with scotch tape and staples, paper clipped belts from flopping loosely, or used string as shoelaces. The underside of me isn't nearly as presentable as the outside. I repair my holes, ripped hems and empty shoe grommets with innovative things I'm largely embarrassed to admit to.
I wonder how many of us go through life, literally & figuratively - hiding that we're held together with paper clips, scotch tape, staples & string? Could I possibly be the only one?
Sometimes I look at other people and imagine the stuff they're held together with is tent twine, or bungee cords or at the very least proper mending. And that their insecurities, foibles, or peculiarities are not nearly as likely as mine to bust open at the seams unanticipated. But o, there's something about an occasional busting of the seams that connects us intimately with one another and tears down the walls of social decorum.
Those inadvertent & embarrassed tears that spring up when we talk of hard earned hope. Or the joy that comes with finding an inexpensive figurine with outstretched arms and turned up head, that reflects a new inner freedom.
My dad used to give a daily report on the comical & intriguing ways of a family of birds on our clothesline. My brother became a farmer, sausage maker and spice-ologist this year. Another friend has embarked on a book. I stop my in car in wonder, transfixed by a burning rose bush speaking fire and god.
If you look hard enough, everyone is unique, strange and wonderful. Lovable in spite of their 'coolness' and especially because of their uncoolness. The paperclips, staples, scotch tape and string that hold us together, also bind us together with each other when we feel safe enough to be real...
Sunday, June 6, 2010
I went to a funeral for a friend last week.
Going to funerals is a pretty common occurrence for me, unfortunately. I've been to 14 in recent years, and they're always an odd mix of deep loss, inadvertent hilarity, and the wonderful coming home-ness feeling of seeing loved & familiar faces, even under the worst circumstances.
This one was no different. I sat among friends, and we passed watery smiles, meaningful looks and tissues between us, safe in the comfort of each other. Funerals are never welcome, with their bleak reminder of the end line for all of us. With their 'what can never be again-ness' of a concluded life, and with their rolling waves of emotion and grief. Though we speak of continuity in the enduring spirit of a person & in the hope of seeing one another again- there still sits the inpenetrable question of how...
The fellow behind me, who I recognized as someone who had performed at the Bad Dog, proceeded to the front to pay his musical tribute to John. Maybe it was the vulnerability of him singing accapello, or maybe it was simply his deep grief, but I was moved as I never have been at a funeral. He broke down mid song in tears, regathered himself and finished strongly. But as he returned back down the aisle to his seat behind me, he cracked, and his grief spilled loudly and uncontained. He sat down, leaned forward and quaked in emotion. I think it's safe to say no one really knew what to do & so ignored him - though not really. He was alone. He was overcome. And my only recourse was pass him a tissue through the thick emotional haze. We shared a brief embarrassed glance and I turned back to the ceremony.
Funerals always seem to come to a staccato end. Too sudden, too final - and we all return to our lives, changed but unable to really grasp what's happened. From my comfortable group, I was suddenly drawn to another familiar face from the restaurant, contorted in pain and tears. She's an odd girl, a wild card outside of her world in a restrained funeral setting. I went to her, we held hands uncomfortably long, while her friend nervously looked away. She blew water and snot everywhere, then thanked me sincerely & graciously through her pain for coming to see her. I walked away more humbled than I think I ever have been.
Sitting in the back alone, was a black sheep that everyone feared may show up drunk at the ceremony. Funnily, I understand why people come drunk to funerals. It's an ending. A violent, conclusive stop to friendship & love. I think perhaps the Irish with their wakes, understand the need for some of us to blur the reality of that. Our eyes met, and he fell into my arms, hanging on for dear life. He wasn't drunk at all. Not that it would have made a difference.
***
As I've reflected on this, this week, I can only say my heart has pained. Pained at the death of John, pained as I've realized how very easy it is to remain within the safety of friends never seeing beyond, and pained how very much I might have missed...
My mom once wrote a poem that began:
The wind has a tale to me
As it whispers through the trees
The voices I hear are the lost ones
Bending the boughs in the breeze.
My hope is that somehow the voices of the lost ones will be the voices i always hear the loudest.
Perhaps I hear them because I am one myself.
Going to funerals is a pretty common occurrence for me, unfortunately. I've been to 14 in recent years, and they're always an odd mix of deep loss, inadvertent hilarity, and the wonderful coming home-ness feeling of seeing loved & familiar faces, even under the worst circumstances.
This one was no different. I sat among friends, and we passed watery smiles, meaningful looks and tissues between us, safe in the comfort of each other. Funerals are never welcome, with their bleak reminder of the end line for all of us. With their 'what can never be again-ness' of a concluded life, and with their rolling waves of emotion and grief. Though we speak of continuity in the enduring spirit of a person & in the hope of seeing one another again- there still sits the inpenetrable question of how...
The fellow behind me, who I recognized as someone who had performed at the Bad Dog, proceeded to the front to pay his musical tribute to John. Maybe it was the vulnerability of him singing accapello, or maybe it was simply his deep grief, but I was moved as I never have been at a funeral. He broke down mid song in tears, regathered himself and finished strongly. But as he returned back down the aisle to his seat behind me, he cracked, and his grief spilled loudly and uncontained. He sat down, leaned forward and quaked in emotion. I think it's safe to say no one really knew what to do & so ignored him - though not really. He was alone. He was overcome. And my only recourse was pass him a tissue through the thick emotional haze. We shared a brief embarrassed glance and I turned back to the ceremony.
Funerals always seem to come to a staccato end. Too sudden, too final - and we all return to our lives, changed but unable to really grasp what's happened. From my comfortable group, I was suddenly drawn to another familiar face from the restaurant, contorted in pain and tears. She's an odd girl, a wild card outside of her world in a restrained funeral setting. I went to her, we held hands uncomfortably long, while her friend nervously looked away. She blew water and snot everywhere, then thanked me sincerely & graciously through her pain for coming to see her. I walked away more humbled than I think I ever have been.
Sitting in the back alone, was a black sheep that everyone feared may show up drunk at the ceremony. Funnily, I understand why people come drunk to funerals. It's an ending. A violent, conclusive stop to friendship & love. I think perhaps the Irish with their wakes, understand the need for some of us to blur the reality of that. Our eyes met, and he fell into my arms, hanging on for dear life. He wasn't drunk at all. Not that it would have made a difference.
***
As I've reflected on this, this week, I can only say my heart has pained. Pained at the death of John, pained as I've realized how very easy it is to remain within the safety of friends never seeing beyond, and pained how very much I might have missed...
My mom once wrote a poem that began:
The wind has a tale to me
As it whispers through the trees
The voices I hear are the lost ones
Bending the boughs in the breeze.
My hope is that somehow the voices of the lost ones will be the voices i always hear the loudest.
Perhaps I hear them because I am one myself.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Back in the 70's, the Bee Gees wrote a song called 'Words' that pretty much captured the heart of every teenage girl. Well, at least the ones I knew. Ok, fine - mine. I've never forgotten that song, and like most unforgettable things, I've altered the lyrics in my mind, to fit my own ideas. This morning I've been thinking about the Gibb Brothers crooning,
'It's only words, and words are all i have - to take your breath away.'
Except the real lyrics say 'heart' instead of 'breath'. I like breath better though. It's bigger and less about fantasized romantic love - more about encompassing and universal thought.
I've been reading words all week that have literally taken my breath away. I feel like I've both discovered and come home to a world where I'm already fluent in the language. But it's a language I've found so rarely outside my own head, I thought i was basically a solitary freak.
I've started reading about artists and writers, and haven't nearly begun. Their tortured psyches mirror my own. I've never understood that somewhat crazed part of me, outside of well, latent psychiatric issues, ok, fine - they're not latent, or having killed off too many brain cells from enjoying too many psychotropic recreational drugs as a teenager...
I'm also reading the philosophy of Nietzsche, and have only just begun. And to think I ditched Philosophy 101 because I was so uninspired with the wannabe hippie professor. He unfortunately, had me thinking that philosophy is only about arguing the existence of an orange based on it's invisible molecular structure. My gosh, I was done before i ever started. Granted, I was pretty smug too - I'd had my head immersed in great poetry and was writing and asking questions about the meaning of life, death, fate, chance, god, illusions and truth at 17. And if that prof was a philosopher, I was having nothing to do with him...
My best friend Grace & I, instead pondered how to translate of the 'deep meaning' of the poster on the back of her bedroom door, to our unenlightened group of friends.
'We the seeing, led by the knowing are doing the impossible for the ungrateful.
We have done so much with so little for so long, we are now capable of doing anything with nothing...'
(It was the acid that made us think we could do anything with nothing. None of those kids ever enlightened. Some went to jail though.)
Following those erratic years of musing, I stumbled in to the world of EST & self actualization for more of the same. And then in to religion. And then into self expression through painting. Expression through painting is almost the same as expression through poetry, which meant getting as close to the fire as possible without burning up . Ok fine - i did burn up. But every one of those places has added to my collective perspective and I wouldn't dispute their value.
And now, here again, full circle - Philosophy 101. Literature 101. Art History 101. Well, not real classes - cuz I still think I'm too smart for them.
But oooooooo, I love this place.
'It's only words, and words are all i have - to take your breath away.'
Except the real lyrics say 'heart' instead of 'breath'. I like breath better though. It's bigger and less about fantasized romantic love - more about encompassing and universal thought.
I've been reading words all week that have literally taken my breath away. I feel like I've both discovered and come home to a world where I'm already fluent in the language. But it's a language I've found so rarely outside my own head, I thought i was basically a solitary freak.
I've started reading about artists and writers, and haven't nearly begun. Their tortured psyches mirror my own. I've never understood that somewhat crazed part of me, outside of well, latent psychiatric issues, ok, fine - they're not latent, or having killed off too many brain cells from enjoying too many psychotropic recreational drugs as a teenager...
I'm also reading the philosophy of Nietzsche, and have only just begun. And to think I ditched Philosophy 101 because I was so uninspired with the wannabe hippie professor. He unfortunately, had me thinking that philosophy is only about arguing the existence of an orange based on it's invisible molecular structure. My gosh, I was done before i ever started. Granted, I was pretty smug too - I'd had my head immersed in great poetry and was writing and asking questions about the meaning of life, death, fate, chance, god, illusions and truth at 17. And if that prof was a philosopher, I was having nothing to do with him...
My best friend Grace & I, instead pondered how to translate of the 'deep meaning' of the poster on the back of her bedroom door, to our unenlightened group of friends.
'We the seeing, led by the knowing are doing the impossible for the ungrateful.
We have done so much with so little for so long, we are now capable of doing anything with nothing...'
(It was the acid that made us think we could do anything with nothing. None of those kids ever enlightened. Some went to jail though.)
Following those erratic years of musing, I stumbled in to the world of EST & self actualization for more of the same. And then in to religion. And then into self expression through painting. Expression through painting is almost the same as expression through poetry, which meant getting as close to the fire as possible without burning up . Ok fine - i did burn up. But every one of those places has added to my collective perspective and I wouldn't dispute their value.
And now, here again, full circle - Philosophy 101. Literature 101. Art History 101. Well, not real classes - cuz I still think I'm too smart for them.
But oooooooo, I love this place.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Lis!
Omgosh - she was the first to walk the aisle of the MSS Graduating Class of 2010. Pomp & Circumstance was playing the background - and I was undone...
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Today's Word
beweechgelickhijt
This was Rembrandt's artistic purpose. To achieve beweechgelickhijt in his work. Meaning the 'greatest and most natural movement, emotion or motive.'
Wouldn't be such a bad purpose for everyday life either.
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