Month: May 2023

Lost in the Beauty Full Mysteries of Attraction

How many billions of leaves lay on the forest floor?
I’m attracted to one of them. Why?
I pick it up. Gingerly. It’s dry and fragile. I put it in my pocket.
And hope that it does not turn to dust there.
It joins other found objects brought home to ponder.
Bones, bark, stones… attracted to their hue, texture, form, hidden stories…
Over days, weeks, months, years, I watch them.
They seem to my eyes as songs to my ears.
We change together. I see them differently. As I hear songs differently.
As the light changes, or the point of view changes.
As I change.
Do they continue to attract my attention? Why? Just me? or You too?
Universally attractive?


(click images for larger view)

No time like the present to yield to desire…

For reasons unknown
I’ve wanted to creatively engage with a “bonsai tree”
most of my adult life.
I’ve been gifted with 2 or 3 over the decades.
The little super market varieties. Pretty much destined to die.
Sooner rather than later.
I did manage to nurture a wonderful bonsai box elder
which seeded itself in a beautiful, ancient, landscape rock, at the Mequon Road House.
I moved that rock and little bonsai tree to the Wasaukee Road House in 2014.
But was unable to move it; or remove the tree from its rock; when forced to sell that home in 2022.

Today. My final attempt, to engage in a creative encounter with a bonsai, arrived in the mail;
along with instructions, proper soil, pruning shears, shaping wire, fertilizer, and an $8, on-line, video class, access code.
This Juniper is old enough to withstand some minor mistakes on my part.
Yet not so old as to be unaffordable.
So. Repotted as instructed. A bit of minor wiring and trimming… and we’re in a relationship.
Sort of like my new “adopted” bird friends:

(click images for larger view)

A peek at my “process” for Poetry as Art for Rahr-West Art Museum Exhibition:

ART AS POETRY/POETRY AS ART

Rahr-West Art Museum, Manitowoc, WI
May 14 – June 18, 2023
Art as Poetry/Poetry as Art is a collaborative effort
where the written word stimulates the creation of visual art and
visual art acts as a muse for the written word.
Poets are invited to submit a poem to spark new artwork.
Artists are invited to provide an image of an existing work to evoke new poetry.
Each artist and poet selects the poem or artwork that excites them
and then the creative juices flow.

My selected poem and poet: Misreading Chinese Poetry by Jenna Rindo

On February 14th I put my thoughts into a thumbnail plan in my journal:


By April 1st I’d roughed out the ground on which the encaustic painting would occur:
and here’s a detail of the finished piece:(to see the whole piece you’ll have to come see the show)(you can click on images for larger view)

Sometimes we find ourselves asking…

“Y” did I weep
while watching the well produced Daisy Jones and The Six,
E5, last evening, when one of the characters said,
“…it was obvious that they made each other better; …until they didn’t”?
“Y” did that line of dialogue strike me so personally?
words on a screen?
triggering such deep heartfelt emotions?
“Y”

image: Memorial Drive, Manitowoc, WI, Leica D-Lux 4

Been a Long Time Coming…

A whole lot of sand
has poured through the hourglass of my life
since last I posted here

I’ve lost people, places and things
over the past many years
and now find myself alone

Near the western shores
of the Great Lake Michigan
“home of the good spirit”

In the days before settlement,
our area was named Manitowoc
by the Native Americans
who called this area their home.
Manitowoc, meaning home of the good spirit,
was regarded as a magical place
for the mixed bands of Ottowa,
Potawatomi, Menominee and Ojibwa people.

And from here, and now,
I hope to renew my self
as well as this imagist/blog

image: Mariner Trail, Manitowoc, WI, iPhone 6s Plus