Category Archives: Art

Naturally, Reawakening

Posted on by
15

mixed media + textNaturally

Following the steps of Nature, in my time I’ll go to sleep

and slough off my human stature, an appointment I must keep

whether soon or late or sudden, whether willingly or no,

taking nothing, I am bidden, as to dust–beyond–I go,

to a deep cellular cellar, shut from day and gone from night,

simple mote or something stellar, eternally both dark and bright;

I’ve no grief at this my bedding down to death as time requires,

but will go with no regretting to new lands and distant fires–

or to deep chasms’ silent spaces, nothing moving, nothing moved,

nothing touched by ills or graces or by sweetness I once loved,

for my thoughts will too lie resting, speechless, dreamless, all release;

all exemption now from testing, seamlessly wrapped up in peace–

So I’ll leave you, soft, in quiet

naturally inclined to sigh

with something of

relief, a sigh yet

not of sorrow,

when

I diemixed media + textReawakening

Winter now is past, forgotten swiftly as the melting snow,

as the things that children know slip away in quilted cotton

while they sleep: tomorrow, calling, beckons them to newer days

and to pleasures yet a haze on the edge of nighttime’s falling–

sorrow dissipates, as ices rimming rivers melt apace

in spring’s warm return to grace the Earth with all her sweet devices

Love, awake! The gentle keening of the season’s herald bird

is from barren branches heard, calling them to leafy greening,

calling from the snows of death all who have lain sleeping, dormant,

seasoned with dark winter’s torment,

to return to life

and breath

Little Mysteries and Big Adventures

Posted on by
14

graphite on paperIt’s kind of odd, when you think about it, that we readers and writers and storytellers and listeners have such an affinity for mystery and adventure stories. Life itself is so full of both that it could be argued there’s no need to entertain or challenge, frighten or amuse ourselves by inventing yet more. But besides the obvious pleasant aspect of fiction that it remains under our control in ways that real life cannot, there is much more reason that the appeal remains just as strong as it has for ages.

For starters, it gives us a forum for posing questions and answers that can’t always be simplified enough to solve any real-world conundrum puzzling us. It’s both potentially a problem-solving process and a bit of creative play that can lead to greater flexibility and insight when we do get around to solving the problems with which we’re faced. If I can metaphorically bump off the villain that has been making my life such a trial, perhaps the metaphor can be extended to show how I can cope with him or her in actuality in a more legal and humane manner. If not, at the very least (assuming the real person behind the fictional stiff is fully enough disguised so that s/he cannot sue the socks off of me and make my life miserable in new and legal ways) I got the satisfaction of offing said offender in effigy. On paper I can exert all of the cruelty my heart secretly harbors, without ever lifting a physical finger, even that uniquely expressive one, against anyone at all.graphite on paperMostly, in the fictional world it allows a vicarious thrill for both creator and reader or listener that few of us dare or have the wherewithal to experience in three dimensions. Being a very ordinary person, I have little to no likelihood of the kinds of outsized adventures and brilliant insights that would make for a good, cracking read, but I’ll happily devour such stories and envision myself in their midst when it suits me. In fiction, I can do all sorts of athletic and impressive things that there isn’t the remotest chance of my accomplishing with my feeble skills and lethargic attitude, but there’s something rather bracing in even the imagined high-speed sculling through the black waters of a swift river, the steeplechase saddled up on a magnificent pedigreed mare, or the vaulting over crevasses with rime in my eyelashes and ice axe gripped in my gloved hand, when they’re well written.graphite on paperIn fiction, I can commit the perfect crime–or solve it. I can be the heroine of the story or an innocent bystander. I can follow all of the clues, absorb all of the details of the characters’ lives and loves, interests and actions, and guess what comes next or just roll along for the ride and see where it takes me. Sometimes, admittedly, I don’t have complete mastery of the fictional world because a tale becomes so gripping that I can’t put down the book and go to sleep, turn off the television and leave the room, or avoid re-reading parts just to see if I missed any exciting details. I should note that I am also often driven to this latter end by my dyslexic reading and the way it requires frequent repetitions of phrases and paragraphs to ascertain that I’ve kept true to the thread of meaning, so perhaps it’s not exactly a universal approach to reading! That is, as you would guess, a part of my reading process that makes me very slow to finish a book or article, even if in practice I am a reasonably fast reader. A bonus of dyslexia, conversely, is that things I have read before become new to me again almost immediately because the arrangement of words and elements of the tale might become slightly different each time through.graphite on paperWhich, in turn, is a good reminder of one of the other joys of reading: each of us brings filters, viewpoints, experiences, beliefs and interests that flavor each reading, for good or ill. We are so distinct in this that the best of friends and the most like-minded people can easily love or hate quite opposite stories and versions of them. And that makes the mere act of writing or reading a story that much more of a mystery and adventure in and of itself. All the more reason to keep writing and reading and telling . . .

Fishing Expeditions

Posted on by
19
digitally painted monotype

I *know* I came in here for something . . .

Even those not in my Age Group (i.e., old) have had that irritating experience of going into a room and having no clue on arrival what they intended to do once there. I just have it more often than most. I’ve had it more often than most since (ironically) before I can remember. Thank you, short attention span and daydreaming obsession. But I’m kind of used to it, even if it’s still a little frustrating in the moment. I just have to go on lengthy mental fishing expeditions to try to recapture those slippery thoughts that had swum on through, not stopping quite long enough to satisfy the need of the occasion.

Surely I have mentioned here more than once that I have made many an artwork with fish as topic or, often, as random interjection. The piece above followed my work on a series of icon-like works, so it started out as yet another saint-with-a-halo sort of thing, but then these fish came jumping into the frame and suddenly the whole storyline veered off in a completely different direction. So I guess it could be said to be a perfect self-portrait in that way. Then again, maybe it’s still a good metaphor for a so-called Saint, since from what I’ve read and heard and been told, very few of them ended up doing ‘what they came into the room to do’ in life, but rather got knocked off course and went on other tangents.

That’s reassuring in its way, but it doesn’t fix my problem of forgetfulness or lack of focus, now, does it. There’s certainly no surprise in our forgetting a thing or two over the course of a lifetime. The batik-like little image below (with fish as its subject, in another shocking development) is not only a picture of a sort of trademark type of tale but also has my characteristic style of line, textures, and composition. But darned if I can recollect when, where or for what purpose I made the piece. I would not have known I had made it if it weren’t for finding the photo of it when it was hanging on the office wall of a company for whom I made a salmon-centric exhibition because they had a facilities grand-opening celebration in which they wanted to emphasize their commitment to saving the native Washington salmon runs not protected by similar companies’ practices. Oh, yeah–that was why and when I made the work. What happened to it later is another question, though the company did end up buying a handful of the shown works to keep in their buildings after the exhibition, so maybe it still lives there. But clearly, I’m not the one to ask. I just don’t remember stuff like that. I get a thought; it shoots off into deeper waters.

Hmmm, what was it I was talking to you about? Oh, well, maybe I’ll come back to it later. Maybe . . .

digital painting

I'll be thinking of you . . .

Who are We, Really?

Posted on by
23

digital image + text

Earthen Vessel

Who am I?

Breath captured

in an earthen vessel

Spirit wedded

to primeval soil

Imperfect Mirror of

essential Being

Wrapped in the terrestrial

winding-sheet

of Human clay

Simple creatures, perhaps, we humans–but is there not a mote, a speck, a spark in us of something grander than what we usually appear? Some bit of wonder that belies the humble forms of mortality and speaks of the transcendent? The perpetual questions that pull at us when we regard an existential view must at least spring from something larger than the plain facts of our selves . . . what can it all mean?

I certainly have no expectation of answering any such things, or even approaching their periphery, in my life, but like generations before me, still feel compelled to ask. That in itself is an intrigue, an oddity of being what we so proudly name Homo sapiens. Does this merely prove that we are so self-centered and hubristic that we assume importance in our existence that no other species dares–or bothers–to impute? It may. The idea of a dog, a pig, a horse or elephant, no matter how intelligent it is, bothering to sit around and study itself and its centrality in the universe so intently is amusing but ultimately quite ridiculous; it wouldn’t in fact be an utter shock to discover that they think the same of us, if they could be troubled to notice it at all.

Most particularly I hope that there is much that is far greater than we are, knowing how puny and foolish and improbable and fallible we tend to be even at our finest times. It’s highly reassuring to me that, when I’ve done my puzzling and my contemplation of my place in space, my purpose in appearing here on earth, it’s still quite insignificant; that a real and precious Otherness is more than all of us, more than enough to fill the emptiness of space whether we little creatures stay or grow or cease to exist. This is comfort enough that I can go to sleep at night, content that I am not the sun or the source of anything necessary, that all will go on long, long, long after I have returned to shimmering dust.

Phriendly Phantasms

Posted on by
16

digital artwork + textGhost Images

Grey misty days, indigo nights and wind that whips up suddenly
without a seeming cause, are frights only to those who’d turn and flee
at provocations slim, and slightest hints of something shadowy

But I am not afraid of these faint shades and palely passing things,
instead, I wonder if they freeze in fear at me, these souls whose wings
are clipped, and on whose quaking knees are bent, to hide from mortal stings

We are, it seems, all fearfullest of that unlike what we know most,
what is familiar and best, no matter if it is a ghost
or is a friend at whose behest we once raised up our happy toast

Yet have forgot, when he is dead, and think we ought to fear him now
as though he were a cause for dread whom we once loved and would allow
was more than harmless, bless his head, and still should seek him anyhow

For company, remembered, gone, or living still, or even sheer,
transparent spirit of someone who longs enough to reappear
among us present ought to own our welcome without needless fear

The world we see and what we know are far from all that there can be,
and far from all that’s good, and so we ought to revel joyfully
when spirit friends or living, should seek out our simple company

So as the night begins to fall, or wind kick up, or day grow cold,
and chill our souls, hark to the call of friends quite new or ancient-old;
embrace their spirits one and all, and only happy tales be told

Both of those living or long fled, whether of days in blazing bright
sunshine, or seeming dark as dread, or else the middle of the night,
for all companions should be led to know they fill our hearts with light . . .

Heartfelt

Posted on by
40

 

digital collage + textThe time that passes, like a heart,
ticks on, clicks on with pulsing beat,
and with the future in retreat,
returns our spirits to the start,
reborn; we open up our eyes
and see tomorrow and the past
entwined;
the shadows that we cast
today will fall on ancient skies
and too, on stars not named
as yet—             as distant as
new stars can get
from where the human world
was framed—
All this, because we know, we care
we love and hold deep in our souls
the faintest embers, banked like coals,
of sensing, taking all we share
in lineage, in land, in ties:
ancestry, marriage,
friendship, bonds—in every gene pool
and its ponds,   in seas of learning,
truth and lies—
The last imagined second’s hum,
in passing, will remind us all
that only love
makes evening fall
and makes another morning come . . .

White Velvet and 24 Karat Gold

Posted on by
32

Morning doesn’t always bring peace. Sorrow may linger, grief that is not wiped away by night or sleep or even tears.digitally doctored photo

Beauty, though, can help approximate the sense of peace, help me to recollect a meditative, even if it’s melancholy, calm. This, too, brings some small measure of what I remember as true peace, and lets me know that the capacity remains. In possibility is hope. In hope is rest. In rest, I can let go, if just for now, the troubles of the hour.

A cloudless dawn has its own quiet way of pouring out benevolence that, if not cure, brings respite of a kind and momentarily distracts the heart from its dull void. At the morning’s break, low-lying mist pools, thick and velvety, swirling so slowly in its densely silver gleam, it seems to be a lake–indeed, a mystic lake where it would be no great surprise to see that shimmering arm emerge that bears Excalibur.

Along the horizon creeps that cottony blue, transforming first to palest violet, then rose, then saturated orange, and finally, shooting sun-flares so bright and dazzling they blind when they reflect from glass sky scraper walls, pillars of wholly molten gold blazing beacon-sharp against the now bright-cobalt sky. Silhouetted there, a hawk perches on its lamppost throne, surveying all as if to say, I’m looking out for you. Let go of worry; I will see that all’s as it should be. And with a sweep of his unfolded wings, plunges off the lamp into the broader light of day.digitally doctored photo

What’s in Store

Posted on by
26

Sometimes even a partial notion will do!

mixed media painting

I told you recently that I was preparing to offer some of my work for sale online, and it’s time for the first revelation. I know that so many of you who read and converse with me here are also artists, writers and other creative people, and thus virtually by default are also (a) somewhat challenged by the technology and know-how of operating in businesslike fashion, promoting and marketing and selling your work; and (b) not exceedingly wealthy, as a result. So I did what I know a few of you, and many other people nowadays do, and turned to an existing, established production/marketing mechanism online and am going to let Zazzle help me with the ‘dirty work’. It means I’ve made a few business choices already, and I will share my thinking with you here because we really are all in this together!

First of all, this is far from a get-rich-quick scheme, not only because this is work I’ve spent most of my life learning to do and producing, but because as a business model it’s even less remunerative than the 30%-off-the-top commission that’s fairly typical among artist representing galleries and agents I’ve known in the past. But I am willing to take a very small amount (in many cases, the standard 10% royalty fee) from a company that will cover the grunt work I’m not willing or able to do myself. That is, of course, if they prove they can and will do it. I chose Zazzle because they have a certain established reputation and track record, easy to use interfaces, and while they are not high-end and going to capture for me any exclusive and wealthy clientele, they produce a decent quality range of products and so far have been very responsive in our interactions. This also makes me feel confident in their interactions with anyone who would come to view and buy my work, and that I can price the work as low as possible so that people like me (many being of the aforementioned impecunious creative sort) can choose from a variety of items that they might actually be able to afford without horrific trials.

I have begun posting my designs to the store fairly recently, but have made an effort to put up a reasonable representation from different sorts of my work: photography, drawing, painting and mixed-media images, and a fair range of topics from the abstract to absurdist, from factual to fantastical. There are a small few images with text (prose or poetry) on them, and many of those offered as prints can be purchased not only in different sizes but on different kinds of paper or even as stretched, ‘gallery style’ canvases, that is, with the image wrapping the sides so that the pieces can be framed but do not require a frame for hanging. I have offered a few of the designs as T-shirts, too, because it’s generally considered a good thing to wear clothes, and if we require clothes, then why not wear ones that aren’t terribly expensive? T-shirts are a pretty affordable option. But I’ve never been fond of wearing anything that advertised someone or some Thing (object or cause or concept)–if I want to promote a cause, I’d rather do it with my own words and my actions than with worn signage. So you will find very few slogans or words at all on the T-shirts, just pictures for the most part. I have made a number of them simple black-and-white images, often using my pen-and-ink line drawings, and I would encourage those who like color to consider getting a set of fabric coloring pens and having a good old time coloring the T-shirts like coloring book pages to suit taste and need. Might be a very fun thing to do with children, in fact, as the T-shirts can be ordered not only in a range of adult sizes and styles but many children’s ones as well.

I’ve configured most designs as the largest print version for which I think they’re suited, but most can be scaled smaller for your smaller space or to be more affordable. As it is, there are a great many prints under $20 a piece, and quite a few under $10, so I hope that a larger number of people can afford them without feeling a terrible pinch. There are a whole lot of other designers and artists represented in Zazzle stores, and a really wide array of objects and items that can be customized with your, my, or others’ designs and images, and I will see if and when I’m ready to branch out further with my own. For now, you should know that there is lots of work posted to Zazzle by someone under the name of ‘artspark’–pretty nice stuff, from the look of it–that’s not mine; I tried a huge number of store name options before finding one Zazzle accepted as not already in use, so I’ll just stick with this one even if it’s a bit close. I titled each of my designs KIW Sparks: [Title] to differentiate a little, hoping that helps.

ArtSparks

Even if you have no interest in–or money for–buying anything, I invite you to spend a little time visiting my work at Zazzle. It can serve, in part, as my online gallery for now, where you can see many of the works I’ve used to illustrate my blog posts, as well as a few artworks you’ve not seen here before, and I am eager to share them all with you. I hope that you, too, are finding the courage to ‘put yourself out there’ artistically and creatively because we have this fine forum among friends in the blog-world and online businesses, because even though it’s generally a tough way to make a living, financially speaking, it’s a glorious way to make a Life.

graphite drawing

I don't know if I can claim to have accomplished anything yet, but I'm at least underway in the process of taming the dragon that is my fear of the business side of the creative life. Hopefully, having chosen Zazzle as my squire, I'll figure out how to battle my way through the whole process more successfully over time!

As the Evening Blooms

Posted on by
18

There are moments when one simple thing–the appearance of its shadow under a boat in a clear lake, kids on the playground chanting a silly song, the smell of potatoes roasting in the oven as you walk in the door at the end of the day–stops you in your tracks with a pang of intense gratitude. You’re filled with wonder that something you may have seen or heard or felt a thousand times before can suddenly arrest you and fill you with such an unmitigated thrill. Your internal sky clears, and you remember how it felt to believe without question in today, in tomorrow.

digital imageOne of the situations that is most able to evoke such potent magic for me is that sweet transitional time when dusk is just about to fall. I’ll be going along the road on the way home, and the peculiar slant of the light makes every color twice as brilliant and saturated as it ought to be, and the clarity of the view seems to intensify so that I feel certain if I looked I could see individual grass-leaves at a hundred yards, maybe even the gossamer lacewing perched on a single blade. I open the window of the car and think that the robin warbling its evensong could be two miles distant and I would hear it just as sharply in its unimpeded clarity, maybe even a hundred miles. Have I fallen into a miracle myself? Become some sort of supernal being?digital painting

No, but at this hour and in this light, the new, dense tapestry of wild spring greens lining the side of the road becomes a moment closer to the perfection of heaven’s glow and I feel as though I myself might just take wing. As the evening starts to fall, this glow is rich with grace and filled with dreams of coming good and present hope. And along with every little else, I know that this beautiful glorious nothing of a thing will happen another time, and not when it will come or what it means, only that life is loaded up with marvelous moments of sweet and poignant joy.

Fantasia on Color Theory

Posted on by
29

digitally doctored acrylic on canvas painting

Color Infusions

Velour of the lawn is deep, deep green,

sun breaking sideways grey

or silvery-white, like the moon of night

pulled over the edge of day–

The mirroring water Caribbean blue

on the patio table and chair

to reflect the sky or the azure eye

of a hoverer in the air–

So winter to spring is giving ground

by violet margins and rose,

to erase from sight the black and white

of the season’s reticent clothes.digitally doctored acrylic on canvas painting

Flying Colors

On the horizon I spotted a kite

That swung in the wind to the left and the right

And splashed all its colors, exuberant paint

To swirl in the sky with a dip and a feint

Toward the grass, toward the sun, to a hill, to a tree,

A brilliant kaleidoscope there just for me

And the child whose hand guided the string of the kite

As it painted our world with new colors and light