Guest Photographer: Ivy Bean, Age Three

We were outside, sitting on the front deck, when Ivy decided to steal my camera and take some photos. Most were of the grass or cement walk, but a few... well, I think they kind of speak to the day and Ivy herself.

This first one is of me, writing poetry for National Poetry Month. Stay tuned. By the end of the post, I might build up enough nerve to share it.
This is her brother, walking, it looks like or running. In his dinosaur pajama pants. I like the way it's kind of crooked, and the way the path divides, almost like an abstract painting, with boy's legs.
And here is me, examining sticks for a project I did not get done, but still might. Who knows.

Okay, here's my poem. Forgive my nerves. I've got this issue about showing anyone my poems. And it might just be the first poem I've written since last National Poetry Month. I should do some more, whether or not I show them. It feels right to get that sort of creative flow going.

Maybe I'll use my miniature notebook and write some miniature, minute long poems. Those always turn out in surprising ways.

Okay, no stalling, and no apologizing. (I never want any of you to apologize for your work, either.)

CHASING BUTTERFLIES

5 years old, eyes like open
air, we run in the fields chasing little bits of
life above us
chasing the words, the worlds, we are just
beginning to understand. Words like
"flight" "desire"
"solitude".

The sun warms the grass. Bare toes
flexing in the dirt. The pinch of
gravel in the drive. We are
discovering these feet on this ground,
learning the treasures of stones, sometimes, or ladybugs,
or wildflowers, or scuttling clouds. The treasures
of holding something, or letting it go.

5 years old, sky meets earth, and we
so taut
in between.

Pink Dawning Traveling and Carelessly, Now

Pink Dawning Traveling
48/100 in 100 Creative Challenge
Golden Fluid Acrylic on paper, 5x8"

Sometimes, when I sit down here to write I feel like it's the only time I can take a breath and think about my life.

I feel like I am always on the run, even if I am not going somewhere. I'm not even that active a parent, taking kids on outings and all. I just feel like the very day has me on the run. The very day is a whirlwind of averting disaster and kissing booboos and getting everybody fed and cleaned and picking up and putting to bed and playing games and getting them to calm down.

And then there's my To Do list, which is still somewhat spotty in its achievements. I'm always trying to multi task my day and be so productive.

Sometimes I feel caught between my to do list and my living.

Do you have ways to live in the moment without letting your moments take over? Ways of getting things done without letting your To Do list make you into a future machine?

I guess I want to start living in the moment again. It feels so hard.

I'm finding this Wreck This Journal by Keri Smith and Jamie Ridler's bookclub to be a big help in living in the moment. I used to write in my journal like I was mainlining ink and paper. Now I have the blog, but it's a different thing.

Even my paintings are less about my thoughts about life and more about an abstract idea and the application of the paint on the paper. I enjoy it, but it's not the same as the personal tidbits I put into my journals and even Flying Girl. Right now I have pages of paintings and drawings in WTJ that I'd like to share, but the boy is dropping his nap and my time to organize it all is getting shorter. Sigh.

Yesterday, I wrote a poem on the WTJ page with the direction to "WRITE CARELESSLY. NOW"

Here's my poem
Carelessly, Now

carelessly, now
as days shock by in a never ending
cycle of tears and tantrums, cheerios
and milk
the dirty diapers and demands, the
hunger and small soft kisses, carelessly
now we follow the sighs .

carelessly, now. carelessly, now
grasping too tight to that relentless
motion trying to gain control of the
mommy mommy mommy never ending.

carelessly, now
rushing past the very things
that make my heart beat.

carelessly, now
just trying to get through the day
carelessly holding in my own
tears.

carelessly
carelessly
this aching precious life
slipping
by.

bedtime calls
carelessly, now.

waiting to be roused too early
by children and their cuddles
that morph into shrieks. carelessly
now

don't

let go.

Flying Girl and Her Interior Landscape, or Can't Take the Bronx out of the Girl

Flying Girl and Her Interior Landscape, or Can't Take the Bronx out of the Girl
23/100 in 100 creative challenge, 6/25/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic, Prismacolor watercolor pencils, Pitt Artist Pens, and gel pens

Trying to catch up to my 100 in 100 posts. I still have two more to post, but I want to give them their own posts. Phew. This is a lot of work.

I would like to say though, the it seems this painting is also part of this poem/post inspired by Marta.

Flying Girl Remembers Nights of Grass and Sky, or Markings

Flying Girl Remembers Nights of Grass and Sky, or Markings
022/100 in 100 Creative Challenge, 6/23/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic, watercolor pencil, pitt artist pen on watercolor paper, 5"x8"

Where are you and your crazy stories from, anyway? asks my friend Marta.

Such a long story.

I am from a city of cement and flame. The Bronx is burning in abandoned tenements and poetry.

I am from the pictures that won't stay in my head, won't stay in my father's head and need to come out on the page.

I am from hard times and walk up flats in soon to be condemned buildings. I am from slums where cats scream in the alley and empty lots grow forests off cool breath. Where grandmothers cook rice and beans and read cards for people who don't pay.

I am from reading at night under the covers and behind curtains and in cars and at the dinner table and beneath the school lockers. From dragons and magic, from universes untold. I am from painting and singing, and the smooth feel of an empty page beneath my fingers.

I am from chanting in Japanese. And rooms full of sound and incense, like blood pulsing through everyone.

I am from summers on the farm and cool hills dusted with buttercups and indian paintbrush and snap dragons. Forests of mint leaves and blackberries and fairy rings.

I am from the crocheted beret my mother wore, and her long long hair, cut short in independence when she finally left my father for his madness.

I am from the subways taking me away and bringing me back and the finding of lessons in the way the tree branches shadowed the hilly street.

I am from still looking for meaning.

I am from penstrokes and brushstrokes like train tracks and ancient calligraphy.

I am from the layers of what has past and from and the destruction of gentrification. The possibility. The dreams.

I am from the words. And the paint. The sound and the dust.

Girls of Flowers, of Words, of Stars

ACEO goddess girls
(l-r) Girl of the Wildflower, Poetess, or Girl of the Words, and Girl of the First Star
Mixed media paintings, acrylic, newspaper, watercolor pencil, marker on 2.5x3.5" watercolor paper.

Maybe there's a reason why I am having such trouble connecting with the Flying Girls lately, and only seem to be able to create these Goddess Girls.

I have a lot more on my plate right now, and my time is divided into even smaller parcels. I have less brain space for focus, for larger paintings (which is funny, since they're only 7"x10") or for more complicated concepts. So, the simpler girls and their simpler backgrounds and smaller size. Although the detail is quite precise, there's less of everything.

Anyway, these girls are all inspired by color. The poetess, in the middle, is inspired by National Poetry Month. I like to think of her as a kind of Anais Nin character, wild and free, exploring new boundaries of culture and art. Me, I'm a different kind of poet. I steal moments before a child can interrupt, trying to find poetry again. I've taken on the challenge of writing a poem a day for the month of April, in hopes that I can get back to her... poetry, I mean. Maybe this goddess girl is meant to inspire me?

Wildflower is my hippie girl. I like her. I like her simplicity, the wild flowers and pony tails. That's all we need sometimes, wildflowers, blue skies, and barefeet running through a field. Sounds good no?

And then there's First Star. She reminds me of dreams. Wish I may, wish I might have the wish I wish tonight. And her blue eyes are swooningly deep. What is with that little crooked smile, though? Perhaps she knows that what we wish for will never quite turn out like we imagine?

I'm going to close these disjointed thoughts and maybe work a little more on a Flying Girl I have going on. Maybe I'll manage to post some of these Goddess Girls in the shop tonight. Keep your eyes open, I sold 4 this past weekend! Some of my favorites.

Eat and Breathe

"Eat"
3/30/09 Daily Sketch
Mixed Media drawing on Vintage Book page

Oh my ears and whiskers, I'm late, I'm late, and I'm a bit confused.

I think this is what life is like. You just can't have a handle on it all the time. Sometimes it's going to be about change and transition and adjustment and confusion. And that's okay.

And someone tell me why I am drawing sketches every day on top of painting every night and guess what... I think I'm going to try to write a poem a day for the month of April, because, hey! it's National Poetry month.

I think I'm frickin' crazy. Because this is on top of figuring out my etsy shop and starting new ventures to support my etsy shop and longing to write my novel and planning bigger ventures for the future. And of course taking care of my cherubic children and cooking and keeping house (badly.)

Oh, well, I'm noticing the sketches are something I can do with kids around, or when I get kicked off the computer for a while or when everyone is out in the garden hanging out. Plus, I really am trying to find balance between always working and enjoying life. I'm remembering that I like to paint, and it's turning into a break from the computer and the marketing and the writing and the researching. So that's a good thing.

And I'm remembering how I like my journal... the hard copy, pen and ink one, where I can doodle and sketch and write poems and plan things and draw grids and swirls while something else is going on. I am not just a blog. :)

And here's something else, the poem I wrote a couple of days ago ties directly to the painting I posted yesterday about Flying Girl and the storm and the breathing.

And because it's the first day of April and that's poetry month and why not act the fool a little, I'll post the poem. (I am fully aware that I have deep insecurities around my poetry. Thanks Kuusisto [the traumatizing professor])

Breathe

Storm front coming in
the sky is breathing
for me
filling lungs with air.
day to night could come any second.
dry to wet. no to
yes.

Sun shining on my face
leaves swirl in the
wind.

I am ready for whatever comes
I am
waiting for the rain.


by moi.

Isn't it funny how it fits with the painting, totally unintentionally.

What other medias are you using that you find show up in strange ways? Do your different projects over lap or feed each other?

Flying Girl On the Ocean Deep, or Poetry

Flying Girl On the Ocean Deep, or Poetry
2/1/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic, white gel pen on paper

This flying girl was done in layers. I started with a wash of transparent spring green, and then a deep turquoise and everything went kelly on me Kelly green, I mean. That was the first thing that went wrong with my painting. But then, what I've been learning is that there is no "wrong" in painting. There is only something that needs to be worked on.

I had an image in my head, but it wasn't long before that image went cockeyed. I could have fought with my kelly green sea to get it back to my vision, or I could have given up on it completely. The first would have been an unhappy place to be, for me anyway, especially since it is almost impossible to paint what is in your head exactly, and the second would make me feel bad about myself. I don't like giving up... although there is a place for letting go of your attachment to a piece. In the end, I went with the kelly green and the piece ended up being far more complex than I had planned. While it is true that the more facility you have with the medium the more control you have... there are also fewer happy accidents to follow and discover something new. Unless of course, you seek out the unexpected and allow them to take you where they will.

Writing is the same way. That novel, that poem, that essay is rarely exactly the same as the impulse that got you started. Maybe it's because art, in all its forms, is the way we interpret and make sense of the wide world. And the world is so much wider and deeper than we can comprehend. As mysterious and powerful as the sea, is our experience in the world. And whatever we put on paper or canvas or into movement or music is never going to equal the world around it. It can be moving and transformative, deep or enlightening, but it's not life. Although the more we let our subconscious take the lead, the more we follow the unexpected, the more passes we make with our tools at hand, the more depth our work will take on.

But here's another thing. The journey of art, of poetry or music or writing or whatever, is also the journey of life. Yes, I said art is not life, but the journey is the same.

As I struggle to understand my own creative process, as I struggle to learn my media, as I struggle with my inner demons that try to keep me from creating, as I struggle to be a better and deeper artist, I am also learning about who I am, how I get along in the world, how I can be happier, how I can appreciate life more and more fully.

I think different media have served to help me grow in different ways. Poetry helped me let go of my past and my sadness. Writing helped me gain self confidence and focus. Now art is helping me to live in the moment and gain spiritual strength.

For instance, I keep wanting this post to be cohesive and I want to be able to go deep for my connections. I want to be able to go over it and revise. I want to be able to search my twisty brain for just the right word (which is out of reach right now) but a little girl keeps coming up to me and-- oops! she got a boo boo. Oops! Now the boy got a boo boo.

My life right now is not the way I would write it if i had the opportunity. But it is what it is. And I need to go with the medium of my days, rather than fight against it, wishing I hadn't added that green, or wishing I had uninterrupted days to focus on work. Or giving up on my goal of being a writer and an artist.

Paying attention to my process helps me pay attention to my life, in all its boo boos and its sunny days. Watching what comes out of it, the pictures I paint, in particular, helps me understand the messages that come from my subconscious about my life.

What is that Flying Girl doing in that little boat? Looking for her words? Fishing for poetry? It's all around her, isn't it, some deeper than she can see? All she has to do is reach out to find it, even if what she catches is not what she thought she would find.

The Diver, or Memory

The Diver, or Memory
11/11/08 AEDM #11
Golden Fluid Acrylic

This is The Diver. She plunges into the depth of our past, our dreams, our subconscious, our memories and recovers our lost loves. The things that we have lost, the things that have slipped through the cracks. The things that we tried to hold on to but were unable to as we traveled the road that is our lives.

She recovers these things so that we can remember what is the real treasure. It is not the things, it is the experience. Not the details, but the emotion. Not even necessarily this person or that person, but the relationship you created together, the connection forged.

When we recover these things, we can create a more meaningful life. This is where poetry is born, from the detritus of living. This is where traditions are created, from habits of the past. This is where meaning and identity is solidified. Share your old loves with the world and allow them to live again in their new form.

But beware of being too caught up in the past. If the Diver stays too long in the land of things lost, she herself will be lost. This is not a place for living. If we hold on too tightly to things past, instead of living in the reality of the present,then we can be drowned by them. Regrets, grudges, grievances must be released in order to breathe deeply and walk strong.

Also, do not become too fixated on the treasures of the past... your glory days, a relationship that does not serve anyone any longer, a way of looking at the world that is now outdated as the world has changed. If you continue to hold onto outmoded ideas, you are in danger of being drowned as the past rises like the sea.

This very idea is one of the ideas that has led me to creating these images. It is one of those things that would not stay buried as time past, and continued to resurface again and again. So when I felt Flying Girl becoming a stale and a little rote, I decided it was time to release it and follow the fluidity of change. It is interesting how the ideas of the past and the actions of the present combine to become something entirely new.

Perhaps also my fear of not being good enough, that past fear, that old way of doing things is no longer quite as apt. I do see this project as going into the future. Coming from the past, going into the future. I wonder what an image representing the future would look like? I must consider that. I have already begun to collect ideas for more Flying Oracles, without knowing which will really resonate and which will have to be thrown back into the soup for recycling into better ideas, later.

nanowrimo total: 27062
bad day of writing. only 953 words. I have met NOBODY'S minimum. But that's okay. I was ahead. Now, if only the kidlets would stay asleep long enough for me to write. Of course, that also means I have to not procrastinate, gambling on a long nap, like yesterday. I lost that bet.
Oh well.

Two Flying Girls and A Warrior Girl in Space

Flying Girl in a Strange Land, or "Hey there what ya doin'?"
10/25/08
Golden Acrylic

I have no idea what this means. None. I know I'd been seeing circles and polka dots all day.. from the ripening grapefruits on the tree in my garden, to many spreads in the new Domino magazine that I just got. Also inspired by chalkboards and chalk and graphic numbers/letters. So I know where it comes from but have no idea what is going on. Maybe nothing.Flying Girl Made of Stars, or Constellation
writing: I still believe we are the heavens. Stars in our hot little lives fires. Stories in the Sky.
10/25/08
Golden Fluid Acrylics.

This was leftover paint from the first painting. Too much, couldn't waste it. Had time after number 1 was done while watching SNL. So I kept going. This is based on an old poem I wrote back after 9/11. Oh gosh. Do I have to go find it now and post it?

Oh, all right. I found it. Here it is. I think this is a rougher poem than the one I shared a couple days ago. The ideas have always captured me, but I've never really felt I got it in the poem... not the way I wanted to.

I've Been Searching These Empty Skies

I finally found the constellations
in Manhattan. On the riverside
skyline. Lights burning in windows, burning in hot little lives, fires,
infections.
"goddamn it you bitch!"

connecting the dots between the myths in parchment thin skin
walking around on Broadway, telling the stories brighter.

Big Bear, the Hunter. The Lost Little Girl.

This is a black sky
colder still night
glowing cigarette tip chilled
by the open sky
lips on a fevered neck damped
out by air waves
riverbreeze the peace
between molecules between
wake and dream
one breath
and the next between
breath and breath
breath

and breath.

Stars fly from my mouth like
condensation.

I am not alone.

Fall 2001

Goodness. I am slightly in awe of the way what I am working on now has roots in this poem. I even have a character in my novel whose nick name is "The Hunter." And her real name means "Star Maiden." Oh, yeah. And the working title is "Mythos." Curious.

Brainstorming my nanowrimo novel. Only a week to go!

When you're brainless and confused and you don't know what to do... do a mindmap/spiderweb and figure out what really is in those twisting and turning corridors of your head. Then you can follow different threads of the web and come up with new ideas or note down things that need to be addressed, or go deeper with plot development.

Alien Flora
10/25/08 The Big Draw #25
Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens

Another way to get my head into the story. Drawing illustrations of some of the strange things I might find on my alien planet. Science Fiction is fun!

I wanted to not spend a lot of time blogging this weekend, but I'm finding I need my process.

I am watching the way I am gearing up for my novel. I can't start nanowrimo on November 1st all cold. It's like jumping into an icy pool. Over my head. Exhilarating, but shocking and possibly dangerous. I work my way up to it. Often in ways that are not visible. My brain starts casting out and about for bits and pieces to feed into my creativity. I struggle with not knowing what to do. I try old techniques that I have used in the past for my creative roadblocks.

Hopefully, when it is time to start going, I will be ready.

This is how I started doing my Flying Girl series, too. I talked about doing the 100 days of sacred art weeks before I really had anything to do. I thought about what it meant. Had discussions with people about it. Scanned blogs and the internet and magazines and life. Started a painting project with a "Hands" series that, really, when I think about it, just served as a warm-up. A dead end, but necessary. I was doing a prompt for Inspire Me Thursday when I think she came alive. And then, there I was in my 100 days.

My next challenge is actually to find a way to write my 50k words in November and still keep my painting going. Perhaps the real challenge is to find a working balance, so I don't burn out and stop writing in December, again. I wonder what it would be like to alternate a day of painting and a day of writing. Would that stave off the burnout?

Flying Girl Just Says "Pooh Pooh!" or Tigerness

Flying Girl Just Says "Pooh Pooh!" or Tigerness
10/23//08
Golden Fluid Acrylic

This painting was inspired by Madeline, written and illustrated by Ludwig Bemelmans, about our plucky little French girl who is not afraid of anything and loves to frighten Miss Clavel.

It took me FOREVER. First, I drew FG, then the tiger, and it was SO all wrong that I had to go into the kids' room after bedtime and risk waking them to get the illustration for reference. I'm glad I did, because I love that tiger, as you can see by my sketch and statement, below.
Tiger from Madeline
10/22/08 The Big Draw #22
Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pen

But even after I got my reference, I had to stop and take a break before I could go back with fresh eyes and figure out what to do with the background. Sometimes, when the figures/foreground are working and I don't want to mess them up, the whole painting gets harder to do. The Fear sets in. Oh, and this is such the good topic for today's post. The fear of the tiger, the fear of myself, the fear of messing up, the fear of being exposed as a fraud or as simply mediocre.

In the end, I just painted the background flat green, then added the yellow ground. Then changed the colors of FG's outfit, then all of a sudden, wanting to give the feeling of the trees/jungle in the background of the illustration, but not wanting the clutter of actual trees, I decided a swirl pattern would do. Only reminiscent of foliage, and in a color only a shade lighter than the flat green, although I did bring the scroll down into the yellow. I didn't want too much contrast, because that would draw attention away from the foreground, and I do so love the tiger and the proper, fearless grown up Madeline/FG in her gloves and envelope purse. She should have had a hat, too, but I think she really liked her kicky bob and decided to forgo the hat, probably horrifying Miss Clavel in the process.


But back to the fear. Did I go off topic?

For some reason, this FG really reminded me of a collage I did almost ten years ago. It was probably one of the first successes I had with collage and began my journey with mixed media.Tigerness
Mixed media
Jan 1999 (?)

There is a poem in that there collage, one about not being afraid of my own tigerness. I would post it for you, but I can't read it behind the paint. I thought I would go through my folders and find a copy and post that one, but I couldn't find it there, either. I think it is in my files in storage, way up in Brooklyn.

This poem is so hidden. I can't find it. I think I meant to hide it. I think that's why it is so layered with paint. I think I was afraid of it, or perhaps afraid that it was bad. It is ironic, that in a piece about not being afraid, I was hiding my words.

But while I was looking for that one little poem, I went through a bunch of others and came to the conclusion... I'm a poet!

Gosh. I haven't written poetry in so long. I think I have come to think that I am not good at it. But while I was reading my old words, without the weight of being so close to them, I actually gasped a couple of times. "Damn girl!" I told myself.

So, you know what? I am going to face one of my fears... the fear of being a public poet... and I am going to post a poem, even if it doesn't fit completely with the post or with where I am in my life right now. To top it off, that will achieve one of the things on my list of things to do before I turn 38 in less than a month.

So here's the one I'm picking. It's about fear, kind of, and it's short enough not to be annoying. If you're not into poetry, just skip it. :)

First Spark

The smudge of you
like unidentified smoke filling the house.
I wake up one night
hands grasping the bed.
what is this I feel?
Joy and fear leapfrog each other,
clang up and down my fire escape.
Alarms and thrills go off, flashing lights and bells pulse
through my veins.

My heart and hands, shudder and shake.
They are supposed to know better-- They are the fools
in big hats and rubber boots-- come to save the day?
Crash and burn, destroy my house, drown my art
Bumble and bump in the crazy mostly dark inside my head.

I fall on my ass in this suddenly upside down room
this suddenly un-safe place.
The night is full of this sudden fire
and I am struck dumb
in its unexpectedness.

1/01 (Oh what a year that was.)