tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27690793847755034062024-02-22T14:38:30.390-08:00thin placesErinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.comBlogger169125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-403453214094921162024-02-22T14:37:00.000-08:002024-02-22T14:37:33.087-08:00free flowers<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjrolYUxm-nv3wetN-lTVUeoCrJqskdWSxHuPu7RmNEHGitRSzVy539DMCjGrKhzW-VlBGgHASMLdmemoohqFZRbxgu9ym4FdSLtw6ZrLJVAJGFVrocieBQRUZviqfAZZi_KZ5fdnlNPbHeXFwoC2cXvNNewvT2BOw-ISI8V2DF207g6aQyhHfp_fZ2-_8" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjrolYUxm-nv3wetN-lTVUeoCrJqskdWSxHuPu7RmNEHGitRSzVy539DMCjGrKhzW-VlBGgHASMLdmemoohqFZRbxgu9ym4FdSLtw6ZrLJVAJGFVrocieBQRUZviqfAZZi_KZ5fdnlNPbHeXFwoC2cXvNNewvT2BOw-ISI8V2DF207g6aQyhHfp_fZ2-_8" width="180" /></a></div>Were I Ross Gay, I would say,<p></p><p>my delight of the day: a jar of flowers upon my kitchen table, found "Free" item from a neighbor's curb, a few blocks away. Flowers I know not the name of, taken from a bush, I discerned upon a second walk-by within the week. Labelled "free" with a sign --one of two jars, Sunday early afternoon. I am not want to take free sidewalk goods, but <i>flowers</i>. </p><p><i>Free</i>, I realize as they are sitting, jarred, cut off from their life source, in fact the least free in fact they have ever been. Fated with their clipping. Their date to decay ticking from that point onward. Free? Jarred, not growing--subsisting, now, only, on a 3rd floor kitchen table, far from the earth from which they came.</p><p><i>Free</i>: Without cost, the meaning of the sign, the indicator that they were mine for the taking. Though I saw, during the second passing, the second free-flower-picker left the glass there on the curb. I took mine: a roasted red pepper and artichoke tapenade stout jar--headed for the recycling anyhow, I gathered.</p><p><i>Free</i>: without cost they were given to the homeowner, without cost given to me. Fragranced my rooms this week, of unknown name, from unknown person. Free. Emancipated? Liberated? No, but made or given spontaneously. Not bound by force. Having no trade restrictions, yes. Not fastened, except nesting in the jar. Frank and open in their own way, yes, their fragrance having something to say. Licentious? Favorable. Not allowing slavery? They are captured, now--but their open nameless buds' scent speaking of something not easily captured.</p><p> </p>Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-20250234723415520002024-02-10T14:19:00.000-08:002024-02-10T14:19:35.720-08:00Solitude is fine, but you need someone to tell solitude is fine (-Honore de Balzac): aloneness, togetherness & authenticity<p>Reading Patricia Hampl's <i>The Art of the Wasted Day</i> includes her courting of solitude; solitude's courting of her. Makes me think of the deep desire for aloneness, for togetherness, how one holds the seed of the other. How Jesus going offshore, away from the crowds, is a confirmation to artists: the desire to be alone to be true. Rilke: "a lot that consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other." Authenticity, true voice, necessarily born out of aloneness -- yet language, Hampl says, "More than a painter, much more than a composer, a writer can never be alone. Our very medium is held in common, the language we are born into...Language is a shared resource, not individual, not unique, not self-made." Typography references: ~Mind your p's and q's --because those letters can easily get interchanged; "out of sorts" --sorts being the individual letters; to make sure they are all in their correct places. Why can a writer never be alone more than a painter? Isn't color and looking also a shared medium, and more immediate, making it easier to grasp, immediately? A writer can remain more insulated, inside. A stranger can catch a fleeting glimpse of a visual artist's work and have a response.</p><p>This flux: quiet/chatter; dilation/pointed fixation, need to receive and listen/need to share. Jesus on the boat getting away, amidst all the crowds. A retreat of artists: a common gathering; one punctuated by times to ourselves. We are not ourselves except who we are in relation to other people; a necessarily enkindling spark to ourselves not achieved except in communion, in relationship. When in a crowd, we are aware of our particular reactions to a scene. When alone, we are reflecting on a scene its significance --for ourselves, but do so in a medium understandable to others--calling them to see it, too, for what it is.</p><p>There's a quote out there I think that communicates eloquently the idea: that we are not ourselves except who we are in relationship with other people. Desmond Tutu: "We need other human beings in order to be human. I am because other people are." Ubuntu: "I am because we are." is true. The flux. The inward/outward. Exercise/sleep. Listening/talking. Sitting/walking. Nothing new.</p><p>I'm unfamiliar with Balzac, but find other quotes by him: </p><p>"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Ubuntu; font-size: calc((var(--blog-item-title-font-font-size-value) - 1) * 1.2vw + 1rem); font-weight: var(--blog-item-title-font-font-weight); text-align: center;">No man should marry until he has studied anatomy and dissected at least one woman." </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Ubuntu; font-size: calc((var(--blog-item-title-font-font-size-value) - 1) * 1.2vw + 1rem); font-weight: var(--blog-item-title-font-font-weight); text-align: center;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Ubuntu; font-size: calc((var(--blog-item-title-font-font-size-value) - 1) * 1.2vw + 1rem); font-weight: var(--blog-item-title-font-font-weight); text-align: center;">Nobody loves a woman because she is handsome or ugly, stupid or intelligent. We love because we love." </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Ubuntu; font-size: calc((var(--blog-item-title-font-font-size-value) - 1) * 1.2vw + 1rem); font-weight: var(--blog-item-title-font-font-weight); text-align: center;">"When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues."</span></p><p>"The heart of a mother is deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness."</p>Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-86798891469494228252023-03-25T03:59:00.001-07:002023-03-25T03:59:32.123-07:00A Thigmophilic being<p> I put small bookmarks in pages of books where I want to remember one line--one reference to another book, one word. Usually by the time I am finished reading and ready to return the book to the library, I do not have the patience to go back, take each slip of paper out, and reread the two pages it was marking--to try to elucidate what, exactly, I was trying to mark for myself.</p><p>This one I knew I would want to go back for: <i>thigmotaxic</i>--an animal who likes to walk along walls, touching something as it goes. Its cousin: <i>thigmophilic</i>--touch loving animal.</p><p>I pictured myself on my walk down the long corridor to my office in the hospital. If I arrive a few minutes early for work, per my preference, I go to kneel in the chapel for a few minutes. Then, I walk toward my office. I've noticed as I do so, I skirt the wall, almost keeping touch with it through my jacket. The corridor is dark--not yet fully illuminated for the day--and quiet: the hallways have yet to shepherd the bustling crowd. In this darker and quiet walk, on my way to start the day, I hug the wall. It is a perforated wall; I assume some kind of sound barrier. My jacket sleeve graces it.</p><p>I am someone who likes touching things. I do not always love to be touched. But I can remember myself younger, in a Dollar Tree, exploring things by picking up each, feeling their textures.</p><p><i>Thigmotaxic </i>in Alexandra Horowitz's On Looking describes rat behavior. "They feel most comfortable keeping in contact with something as they travel." Mice, cockroaches, caterpillars share the quality. Perhaps I'm one more animal, drowsy and weary, starting my daily march, making my way along in the dark, desiring this posture of humility--kneeling--then quietly scraping along the wall, as some sort of electrical grounding before the bright lights and bustle of the workday begins.</p>Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-88698495466271991382023-03-12T05:11:00.008-07:002023-03-12T05:17:31.634-07:00Walking and Mindfulness and the Synesthesias of Childhood<p>I am thinking about the opportunity I have had to publish essays, the comment "where do you come up with your ideas?" Coming up with ideas seems a gifting of life itself, life as infinitely interesting to one who is interested, which is what I hope to always be. Moreover, the subject matter for an essay seems a simple exercise in mindfulness. Attentiveness paid to the present moment, aware of its sensory offerings: sight, touch, taste, smell, sound-- and its interior emotional landscape. At any moment, our motives and our movements are multifactorial. At any moment, they are interesting. The essay as an opportunity to dwell in the current moment, to mull in it, to move around in it, to loll about, to receive it as one's job to to do--as one's calling--listening as one's mission, paying attention as one's calling--seems a magnanimous opportunity. It has made me feel affirmed like Frederick the Mouse in Leo Leonni's tale, that listening and watching and gathering stories is its own type of usefulness, like gathering grain (details as pertaining to story might not be accurate). Mindfulness is perhaps a luxury--to have the quiet, the luxury, the attentiveness, the opportunities for solitude, the time after solitude to write about one's experience of solitude. </p><p>I am reading two books about walking: <i>On Looking, Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes </i>by Alexandra Horowitz and <i>The Old Way</i>s by Robert MacFarlane. I hope I have the endurance to finish the walks with both. I love walking, and their books seem practices of mindful exploration. Alexandra Horowitz, who teaches in the areas of psychology, animal behavior and canine cognition, shares a reflection about how synesthesia is actually the default for children. William James called it " aboriginal sensible muchness." "There is good reason to believe that this kind of synesthesia is the normal experience of infants," says Horowitz. Synesthesia being the overlaying of one sensory experience with another (taste with sound, sound with color). Noting her son's seemingly nonsensical connection of triangle shapes with the characteristics of green and bubbly, Horowitz affirms him. She says, "Who am I to snip that synapse?"</p><p>Which makes me wonder, in their revolutionary synesthetic synapse collapsing associations, if poets are getting us back to childhood: our original state. When they layer this word and this color and this feeling, if that feeling of connectedness of our original state feels like home, because it's our first experience of the world.</p><p><br /></p>Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-58598631396766804062022-11-05T09:41:00.002-07:002022-11-05T09:41:51.663-07:00Edges / Boundaries / Shape-shifters<p> I like taking on art projects. When I am trying to complete what I perceive as someone else's vision of a project, sometimes I think, what if I am bringing it away from their vision, but in a way I think will look better? You'd think it would be good to go that way, but a lot of times, people like their own visions, so I try to respect that.</p><p>These changes are subtle, they happen physically, with a brushstroke, a momentary inspiration.</p><p>Sometimes we have to try to talk about what is difficult to talk about: fluffier, bigger, smaller, not so dark, more like this.... It's hard to communicate an aesthetic vision in words, which is why other examples are helpful. You translate your word thoughts into picture thoughts. Then I can work from the translation.</p><p>I try to help complete the vision. But what about when the picture, coming to life, wants to go a different way?</p><p><br /></p>Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-86225688059198051232022-02-20T07:34:00.001-08:002022-02-20T07:34:25.228-08:00the longer I live the more I realize that the answer to that question is probably: totally<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT-dub5v4YA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT-dub5v4YA</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">A post!!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I've been away, living and writing.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">But sometimes I come back to this interview by S. Heaney and want to capture 2 minutes of it here:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhOEUlvhAeVi_qAPsQk3NO6ZkuQLTRT4yX-o4h8WW4eRZWhuHPpcPe0Vf3PIeTmvISrn_OERU0_UhdXfUVvaxOLsk_WQdBlv0p7vViIpvt1y6PdS7Cc4bUIBJEIsEj8E_Wmf6RXxGfwSl37EZa8RWovOsQtA24Q6_NInUs5_8b-0Sbq6XAT2vxp1q3e" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="850" data-original-width="936" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhOEUlvhAeVi_qAPsQk3NO6ZkuQLTRT4yX-o4h8WW4eRZWhuHPpcPe0Vf3PIeTmvISrn_OERU0_UhdXfUVvaxOLsk_WQdBlv0p7vViIpvt1y6PdS7Cc4bUIBJEIsEj8E_Wmf6RXxGfwSl37EZa8RWovOsQtA24Q6_NInUs5_8b-0Sbq6XAT2vxp1q3e=w528-h480" width="528" /></a></div><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-21346742393833421392020-08-01T04:27:00.003-07:002020-08-01T04:36:48.521-07:00Signs<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font size="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeh0AYuvEzHbTlPpw-YU3NXPsbVwhhvFm85nxyb8tAeaAF475K1eAsvyT6_bffDTx2Q_BSoljHASAUenud9k1zIAWG69Tifmmt39hyphenhyphenlYxCd-OLqznJeF8elPqszrE7H2h3Z_bN2A-fisc/s2048/IMG_4905.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeh0AYuvEzHbTlPpw-YU3NXPsbVwhhvFm85nxyb8tAeaAF475K1eAsvyT6_bffDTx2Q_BSoljHASAUenud9k1zIAWG69Tifmmt39hyphenhyphenlYxCd-OLqznJeF8elPqszrE7H2h3Z_bN2A-fisc/s640/IMG_4905.jpg" /></a></font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I am starting Andrew Solomon's <i>Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity </i>and finding it illuminating. As an OT who interfaces with disability regularly, I realize there are worlds of experience I barely touch. The book centers around what Solomon terms "horizontal" identities. Rather than vertical identities we share with our parents (race, religion), horizontal identities require peer groups for integration/support/empathy/understanding.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The chapter I just finished is about the Deaf community. Solomon illuminates complexities and contradictions inherent in disability. He takes the view of disability as illness and identity. He explores the difficulty of moral decision making about something such as cochlear implants - a medicalized "solution" imposed by parents and chosen by parents for their children; versus embracing deafness in a child as an identity that can be lived out fully using ASL. He highlights the vibrancy of the Deaf community, which often is a community found and delighted upon in a Deaf person's life. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Eye-opening was the negative effect the well-intended 1990 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) had on the Deaf community. With a directive to provide the least restrictive, most integrated learning environments for children with disabilities, Deaf schools floundered as Deaf children were herded into "hearing" classrooms -- their education suffered. Mainstreaming may appear good, but in reality specialized education is required. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Children who are taught Sign (manualism) often can excel at higher academic rates earlier; learning to hear for a deaf person imposes a significant learning curve during crucial years of early neuroplasticity. Yet the decision to "teach" a person to hear is a way parents can integrate the child into their family, when their own capacity to learn new language (at age 30) is diminished. To what extent should each be required to accommodate the other, to nurture familial bonds?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Psychologist Neil Glickman identifies 4 stages of Deaf identity: 1) pretending to be hearing 2) marginality (feeling excluded from deaf and hearing life), 3) falling in love with in Deaf culture; 4) an integrated perspective of the strengths of hearing and Deaf culture. Some Deaf individuals, whose cochlear implants were chosen for them by their parents, decide to switch them off when they discover a complete and full world within Deaf culture.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Disability has deleterious effects on physical and mental health in families; abuse is perpetrated at higher rates against those with disabilities. At the same time, difference offers enormous opportunities for meaning and purpose for some parents as they meet the challenges of serving and loving their child. Deafness, like other disabilities, is viewed as a deficit - yet the vibrancy, meaning and fullness Deaf individuals feel within a like community challenges that. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Among the poignant lines:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"Though many of us take pride in how different we are from our parents, we are endlessly sad at how different our children are from us." </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Helen Keller: "Blindness cuts us off from things, but deafness cuts us off from people."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Regarding the effectualness of Sign: "To this day if I sign, 'milk,' I feel more milky than if I say the word. Signing is like speech set to dance."</div>Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-70087458209986576722020-06-21T07:54:00.003-07:002020-06-21T07:55:56.453-07:00Fringes<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An-PQEAxsF8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An-PQEAxsF8</a><br />
Video: Josh Turner & Allison Young "Crazy" - beautiful, professional voices that are fringed by casual interactions<br />
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In current culture, there is a tendency to include unscripted, rough edges of otherwise final, professional grade products. Audiences crave the personal, and we have certainly always been celebrity-obsessed, with the internet providing infinitely more information about intimacies of people's lives. I've reflected on this in photography staging--beautiful kitchen scenes of products, leaning in all the dust of the flour on the counter and a few spare berries. If we had the sculpted, final product, it would seem insincere. Therefore we leave the fringes in. Maybe given all the tech interface, this helps to make us feel warmer, more homey.<br />
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<img alt="Step-By-Step Guide On How To Style Food For Food Photography" height="400" src="https://flourandfloral.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/How-To-Style-Food-For-Food-Photography-food-styling-4.jpg" width="280" /><br />
(Credit: <a href="https://flourandfloral.com/how-to-style-food-for-food-photography/">https://flourandfloral.com/how-to-style-food-for-food-photography/</a>)<br />
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None of us need fool ourselves that the "mess" has not been as carefully curated (really, more carefully curated) than the main event.<br />
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But something I read recently also made me wonder if there is a sense of protectiveness that we have that allows us to put this input into. It was an article about irony in our society.<br />
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An article, "How to Live without Irony," part of The Stone column in the NYT, Christy Wampole reflects on the hipster as an "archetype of ironic living." Ironic living allows one to dodge responsibility for his/her choices. It is a defensive, reactionary posture that acknowledges everything has already been done. Ironic living minimizes risk, since everything is a joke. It is a mantle to hide behind. These glasses, these large and ill-fitting clothes are clearly not meant to make me look more beautiful, clearly. So if you were wondering if I was beautiful, that's not even my intent. I mean, if you tell me I'm beautiful and somehow you've seen that beyond all this get-up, then I must be <span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">especially strikingly beautiful, because that's not what I'm going for.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Of the ironic, Wampole says: <span style="background-color: white;">"It pre-emptively acknowledges its own failure to accomplish anything meaningful. No attack can be set against it, as it has already conquered itself."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">I wonder what else this age of irony could be symptomatic of (inertia, bombardment with information, unwillingness to take risks, new ability to cultivate online presences?). </span></span><br />
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If we think these unscripted fringes allow us (allow us to see a person laugh, say somethi</span>ng before or after a song), we should be aware that these "fringes" are no less carefully curated before broadcast to millions. I have been aware of this, posting on Instagram, including borders in my photography.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ1bVNr9w-D6CMH9GUuqUJ_BfPHopCr_CdC1_7IRWmPT175Nzo0vIk1pgO0pcDb7kNtAzHM-0VLuV6CVOyCJXIAg-uxt98C7AiXEY8Wz3a-JGmhKFNNObvTPdXvDSAfPOoE9zzG0Cu55c/s1600/IMG_4864.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ1bVNr9w-D6CMH9GUuqUJ_BfPHopCr_CdC1_7IRWmPT175Nzo0vIk1pgO0pcDb7kNtAzHM-0VLuV6CVOyCJXIAg-uxt98C7AiXEY8Wz3a-JGmhKFNNObvTPdXvDSAfPOoE9zzG0Cu55c/s320/IMG_4864.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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Wampole that irony is a luxury, and often harder to find among those who have suffered, and those in general less self-aware of culture (the very young and very old).Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-13479499978264442972020-05-23T14:45:00.000-07:002020-05-23T14:45:01.232-07:00wall art<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhMEJJqC40FzDoEUewT6XOgWD9zjkcrkDbjfmnkUvq8SrVMRKd9qefkHwA2jsBKoSJ1sKkfwk4eyZ9sM2amNerMLkJRB-i2Z_0f2E09NyttApGotLKKyo6vLDuh69Q-SKkzp24fyBTY-c/s1600/IMG_4769.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhMEJJqC40FzDoEUewT6XOgWD9zjkcrkDbjfmnkUvq8SrVMRKd9qefkHwA2jsBKoSJ1sKkfwk4eyZ9sM2amNerMLkJRB-i2Z_0f2E09NyttApGotLKKyo6vLDuh69Q-SKkzp24fyBTY-c/s400/IMG_4769.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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I took the Enneagram within the last year and was labelled the Perfectionist. Although not eager to accept the title, I could relate to parts of the description. I think that may be one reason I don't necessarily like to keep art I've done hanging around where I live -- I can see the imperfections in it, I remember my fluctuating mood doing it, I remember feeling annoyed have to finish it in longer than 1 sitting (!). I'd rather let those hidden things hang on someone else's wall. :)</div>
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Abstract art seems easier for me to stomach in my own space, because it's more transparent what I was trying or not trying to do (?), because it's clear I didn't really know what I was doing when I did it and perhaps don't now. </div>
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"Artwork is not thought up in consciousness and then, as a separate phase, executed by the hand. The hand surprises us, creates and solves problems on its own." - Stephen Nachmanovitch</div>
Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-52308493780911204892020-05-17T03:41:00.003-07:002020-05-17T03:43:36.007-07:00Age of AbstractionIt's been a while. I've dropped the blog in favor of the cheap thrill of posting on Instagram. There is something (I prefer to think it childlike rather than egomaniac) that in me is still immediately driven to share art after immediately producing it. It is like it is not real until it has had at least 1 observer outside me. Or maybe I'm just looking for validation. Regardless.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZOm_vCqsxSmIKwgAMJFpwb6JxuPGDD2GRTrzz5srGmYds80Q2yB4gyVPeV15azGsIAZUh2mJoy1vvcQR0OMTMrCZDYpWJfzfIpzPAZL9RV4334nJpWoJvAe_uo4RVEpPVV2bTU-cXcgc/s1600/IMG_4679.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZOm_vCqsxSmIKwgAMJFpwb6JxuPGDD2GRTrzz5srGmYds80Q2yB4gyVPeV15azGsIAZUh2mJoy1vvcQR0OMTMrCZDYpWJfzfIpzPAZL9RV4334nJpWoJvAe_uo4RVEpPVV2bTU-cXcgc/s320/IMG_4679.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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Something about doing art before breakfast on a Saturday morning is thrilling to me. Maybe it's sending a signal that art is more important than food, or just delight in the fact that I have a free morning that I can be driven by aesthetic impulses rather than clock time.</div>
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These sketches are done on notebook paper - nothing fancy. I was complimented that someone reached out to me inquiring about one, but realized I had already marred it by sketching beside it, also it was not done on durable material, also I think you spray oil pastels to seal them, spray which I don't have.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig2kzx8b930nRm7LOljmqjrl0rRXTOBA2eNogP7j6mTwQNWDHG2EYigfJrtm5OzxoLt2SY9w4FHDM6DfTf9qNtMFKvljXRCDmXmFnUIsBalisHWPsHvFTgaAXFNMgzaYRgQRuW7iX1znI/s1600/IMG_4729.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="973" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig2kzx8b930nRm7LOljmqjrl0rRXTOBA2eNogP7j6mTwQNWDHG2EYigfJrtm5OzxoLt2SY9w4FHDM6DfTf9qNtMFKvljXRCDmXmFnUIsBalisHWPsHvFTgaAXFNMgzaYRgQRuW7iX1znI/s320/IMG_4729.jpg" width="194" /></a></div>
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just a weed and its backdrop</div>
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The inspiration for all this was a box of broken fragments of oil pastels a woman gave me a few years ago when I spent a retreat day at Richmond Hill. I composed a pastel scene there over the course of the art retreat, and she was the moderator. I don't know, but guessing by the advertising I'd guess these are at least 30 years old. </div>
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This one looks to me sort of like an American Indian design. </div>
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Posting on Instagram, I am at once aware that I can channel a childhood inspiration (being an author and illustrator - voila!), also feeling like an egoist, but also thinking, well people don't have to follow me if they don't want to! As in art, as in all things, I wonder, who is my audience? Who am I potentially offending? Who thinks I am developing mental illness? But then I prefer to think, this is for me and let people like or walk by or think what they will.</div>
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Sometimes I craft my word pairings with my artwork, labor over them and prepare them, edit them, condense them. Sometimes they come out more impulsively, which I actually think might be more sincere. Although it takes a more dedicated writer to write something pithy, I wonder if some of the immediate urges/thoughts/less formulated things that are more natural and easier to digest.</div>
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I think the abstract images recently were empowered by a photographer who has turned to some watercolor abstract images recently, feeling herself somewhat limp towards photography. She described herself, during difficult times, pivoting creatively. When she cannot make photos, she draws, when she cannot draws, she sings.... I liked this concept and think I may relate, somewhat. </div>
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RECENTLY I have been trying to incorporate more fiction (read an article about the empathy it evokes, and the way it sends connections through all parts of our brain in a way that nonfiction doesn't). Also, as kind of part of this mission, I have tried to skip over the biographical parts of the authors--for example, in the Norton Anthology of English Lit. I think I often read a fictional work psychoanalyzing the author, which I think the works are never composed to do. If I know something about the author, it is is like I am seeking the book for traces of it. So instead I'm trying to look at the work as the work as the work. Most assuredly as it is intended. </div>
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Oh, and the other things about oil pastels + abstraction: it's all about the process. It's fun. </div>
Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-58578761183670916842020-02-27T15:24:00.001-08:002020-02-29T15:01:04.559-08:00Medical MusingsI recently read that "arthritis" shares the same root as "art." The Greek word for joint. An artist joins two things that have not been joined before. <br />
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Arthritis, in the medical world, elicits a general sense of resignation. There is much that can be fixed, improved, healed, cured in medicine. Indeed, potential for healing is the basis of medicine. But when the word arthritis enters a room, it is accompanied by a sigh from patients and providers alike. <br />
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I am familiar with the general concept of arthritis -- wearing away of the cartilage protecting joint. However, only more recently have I understood the second component of the disease: the laying down of calcium deposits in the damaged area. <br />
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It's as if the body, recognizing that something is missing, is eager to repair it but the workers have run out of the right materials. Indeed, as people age, osteoporosis-- loss of bone density-- may also occur. It's as if the body's miners have found their source in the bones and are exporting the goods elsewhere. So instead of pliable, supple cartilage comes little deposits of bone. <br />
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When too does our flexible, cushioning support worn thin, and due to age we replace it with something more fail-proof, more certain? Stability and mobility are two ends of a see-saw: the shoulder, the joint complex with the most range of motion in the body, is the least stable and for that reason most prone to injury. <br />
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The specific area in the body most prone to arthritis is the basal joint -- the base of the thumb. Thinking of how many ways we use our hands during the day, you can see why this wear and tear might occur in such an area.<br />
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I think of the political climate, paired with an understanding of terms of human functional movement. Opposition in the hand means the ability of the thumb and pinky to move towards each other: "opposable thumb." When did opposition in the political or business arena consist of moving towards each other? Yet it's what allows the hand to function as a hand, to hold a mug, a cup. <br />
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Arthur Ashe on Monument Avenue,</div>
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using his arthritic shoulders to raise a racquet and book. </div>
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Uniquely stable shoulders. </div>
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<br />Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-26140471014481134462019-11-18T14:49:00.000-08:002019-11-18T14:50:00.531-08:00spring and fall<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_jc2-D4eLrDdBPQgJ3Dby-ri239eQpDJUwek1TlNhKAHTIlzDp1yAw3Z0iKy5DHLVERHHy0SjofAaTqA2UEgYLwNXrvFeA9y8bza0rEHRqoy7oeYJeB0OZySrPf2mOwVs8DZ3Pxw-EAk/s1600/IMG_4159.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_jc2-D4eLrDdBPQgJ3Dby-ri239eQpDJUwek1TlNhKAHTIlzDp1yAw3Z0iKy5DHLVERHHy0SjofAaTqA2UEgYLwNXrvFeA9y8bza0rEHRqoy7oeYJeB0OZySrPf2mOwVs8DZ3Pxw-EAk/s400/IMG_4159.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Márgarét, áre you gríeving</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Over Goldengrove unleaving?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Leáves like the things of man, you</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Ah! ás the heart grows older</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">It will come to such sights colder</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">By and by, nor spare a sigh</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">And yet you wíll weep and know why.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Now no matter, child, the name:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">What heart heard of, ghost guessed:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">It ís the blight man was born for,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">It is Margaret you mourn for.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"> - Gerard Manley Hopkins</span></div>
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I almost missed the ginkgos on Monument this season, but not quite. Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-3601155417641135942019-11-16T12:25:00.002-08:002019-11-16T12:25:34.771-08:00Thoreau<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-85168745681180583862019-10-27T16:14:00.000-07:002019-10-27T16:16:40.270-07:00Summer's End<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dyxTnPtpt0DvfpjT9xpTro5m55TdmXAUu9el_ZcX--weDbbaeL52LnQmvEjBj7QmRrbnkG8k9xK8fR0LTo3CA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-82390064079442543742019-09-15T13:57:00.002-07:002019-09-15T14:04:03.225-07:00like a griddle cooling<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Mossbawn: Two Poems in Dedication<br />
for Mary Heaney<br />
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1. Sunlight<br />
<br />
There was a sunlit absence.<br />
The helmeted pump in the yard<br />
heated its iron,<br />
water honeyed<br />
<br />
in the slung bucket<br />
and the sun stood<br />
like a griddle cooling<br />
against the wall<br />
<br />
of each long afternoon.<br />
So, her hands scuffled<br />
over the backboard,<br />
the reddening stove<br />
<br />
sent its plaque of heat<br />
against her where she stood<br />
in a floury apron<br />
by the window.<br />
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Now she dusts the board<br />
with a goose's wing,<br />
now sits, broad-lapped,<br />
with whitened nails<br />
<br />
and measling shins:<br />
here is a space<br />
again, the scone rising<br />
to the tick of two clocks.<br />
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And here is love<br />
like a tinsmith's scoop<br />
sunk past its gleam<br />
in the meal-bin.<br />
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I have loved this Seamus Heaney poem for a long time: its portrays an everydayness yet is evocative of warmth, home, and hidden daily rituals of love. Mary Heaney, whom the poem is dedicated to, was Seamus's aunt who lived with his family.<br />
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At the New Yorker festival, Heaney gives a minute or two of introduction to the poem at 19:42, and the poem starts at 21:58. It's worth listening to any of his poems read in his own voice. <br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HWurkQ1ao4&list=PLHFpn5CtGS959SiwZad59seGiV52dOlBG&index=2">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HWurkQ1ao4&list=PLHFpn5CtGS959SiwZad59seGiV52dOlBG&index=2</a><br />
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Afterwards, the interviewer Paul Muldoon reflects on the tension present in the poem regarding the tick of 2 clocks, and attributes it to the tension born by two adult females in the household. Heaney says, somewhat jokingly, that is a revelation; however, the viewer gets the sense that this interpretation may indeed be something he has not considered.<br />
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I think a wonder of art--poetric or visual--is its ability to bear multiple interpretations; and that indeed there exist possibilities of deeper, truer meanings than the creator even intended. <br />
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Einstein: "The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science."<br />
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Iris Murdoch: "There is much more symbolism in ordinary life than some critics seem to realize."<br />
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Ray Bradbury: "...I never consciously place symbolism in my writing. That would be a self-conscious exercise and self-consciousness is defeating to the creative act. Better to let the subconscious do the work for you, and get out of the way. The best symbolism is always unsuspected and natural."<br />
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<br />Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-73129503793752735072019-09-08T09:58:00.000-07:002019-09-08T10:02:11.084-07:00color matching nature<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Trying to color match nature. </div>
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I enjoyed listening to an interview on "The Big Tree" podcast called "Falling Asleep in Mordor--Tolkien's Eschatology." Among other things he talks about myth, art for art's sake, and story. </div>
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"The basic question that we have to ask ourselves as modern people is, is the basic character of reality enchanted and exciting and beautiful? Or is it just a big soulless machine? "– Dr. Adrian Walker<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-46553649054934619312019-08-25T04:29:00.002-07:002019-08-25T04:47:06.211-07:00only a few become tadpoles<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxoVdPRjK1V1MgwJfk9nNkVINYI9T9oucXRz_c4xutI36sipGsZ9cSGzdOXh3bXyyXrIKessXgw9OZmLOIgK-IDEkqxtTC9bO_qxDgTayCIkiTVv9FRNQSL2QIjT-VePDMfXZmKowHW_U/s1600/IMG_3866.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxoVdPRjK1V1MgwJfk9nNkVINYI9T9oucXRz_c4xutI36sipGsZ9cSGzdOXh3bXyyXrIKessXgw9OZmLOIgK-IDEkqxtTC9bO_qxDgTayCIkiTVv9FRNQSL2QIjT-VePDMfXZmKowHW_U/s400/IMG_3866.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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"Brahms once remarked that the mark of an artist is how much he throws away. Nature, the great creator, is always throwing things away. A frog lays several million eggs at one sitting. Only a few dozen of these become tadpoles, and only a few of those become frogs. We can let imagination and practice be as profligate as nature." - Stephen Nachmanovitch</div>
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"The easiest way to do art is to dispense with success and failure altogether and just get on with it." - Stephen Nachmanovitch</div>
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I finished my intermediate ceramics class this weekend. Although I should have been in a beginner's class, I was fearful of being constrained to make pinch pots for weeks (in retrospect I don't think this would have happened), and also the timing for the intermediate class was convenient.</div>
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Things I learned: thicker pieces have less possibility of cracking, using the Clay press in the middle clay room was easier, covering clay while it dries helps it dry more evenly, dipping clay in glaze you shouldn't let the glaze linger for more than 2-3 seconds on the piece before dumping it off, painting on glaze is going to go on pretty thin so in that case you should put multiple layers.</div>
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This was my second attempt at a lobster-themed dish. My modus operandi: putting some organic form on a piece so as to distract from the non-symmetry and other blips in the piece. </div>
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It is always fun to be in a shared creative space. I could tell getting there on Saturday mornings that this could well be people's favorite spot/time of the week, the thing their minds had been dreaming about and dwelling on their projects during the week. It is rare to be in a room of 5+ middle aged women, none talking yet all focused and happy. You could tell the room would enter its just-right challenge/flow state. It reminded me of a Benedictine monastery: "In a flood of words you will not avoid sin" (Prov 10:19). Silence was typical, and when words were spoken they were more purposeful, revolving around the work itself. There was not a lot of idle chit-chat. </div>
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Art that does something! (holds potato salad*!) *not mine</div>
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<br />Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-22049472498627365742019-08-08T13:55:00.001-07:002019-08-08T13:55:36.305-07:00precisely where<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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art that does stuff</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(75, 75, 75); color: #4b4b4b; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start;">You have to be really aware of the difference between fruitfulness and success because the world is always talking to you about your success. Society keeps asking you: “Show me your trophies. Show me, how many books have you written? Show me, how many games did you win? Show me, how much money did you make? Show me. . . .” And there is nothing wrong with any of that. I am saying that finally that’s not the question. The question is: “Are you going to bear fruit?” And the amazing thing is that our fruitfulness comes out of our vulnerability and not just out of our power. Actually it comes out of our powerlessness. If the ground wants to be fruitful, you have to break it open a little bit. The hard ground cannot bear fruit; it has to be raked open. And the mystery is that our illness and our weakness and our many ways of dying are often the ways that we get in touch with our vulnerabilities. You and I have to trust that they will allow us to be more fruitful if lived faithfully. Precisely where we are weakest and often most broken and most needy, precisely there can be the ground of our fruitfulness. That is the vision that means that death can indeed be the final healing—because it becomes the way to be so vulnerable that we can bear fruit in a whole new way. Like trees that die and become fuel, and like leaves that die and become fertilizer, in nature something new comes out from death all the time. So you have to realize that you are part of that beautiful process, that your death is not the end but in fact it is the source of your fruitfulness beyond you in new generations, in new centuries.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(75, 75, 75); color: #4b4b4b; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start;">-Henri Nouwen</span></div>
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It's nice to be in a space with so many adults and so many mistakes. </div>
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<br />Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-10428822182851903042019-07-21T06:07:00.001-07:002019-07-22T15:59:26.875-07:00Zeigarnik <br />
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I recently heard that unfinished work takes up a larger space in our minds. It's called the Zeigarnik effect. It's the reason T.V. has cliffhangers. It's no doubt a benefit in the workplace. <br />
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In college, I took a ceramics class and created slab-built pieces which featured images of a shrimp boil, other seafood and organic forms. When I returned after the Christmas break, all the pieces--many of which I never saw to completion--were gone. They have taken up residence in my mind since.<br />
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Yesterday, thanks to a summer class I'm taking at a Visual Arts Center, I got to see a final manifestation. <br />
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Memories of Dauphin Island have been emerging in my mind in a special way this year. Our long road trip, with an extra carrier on top for boogie boards. Digging holes in the cool sand under houses on stilts. Riding the waves in. Sand in swimsuits. Outdoor showers. Sand crabs. Playing poker with cousins. The Candy house. Luau. The rough deck under our feet. Snow cones. Blueberry pancakes. Peaches. Fun with aunts and uncles. Cousins. A cauldron of shrimp boil, stirred with an oar. <br />
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At Nana's funeral this spring, I reminisced with siblings and cousins about these times. These now-adults sprinkled across the U.S. -- Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Virginia--carry in some nugget of their brains this common place and all it encapsulates. <br />
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Interesting to think about the ways memory are gathered, and scatter, or are stored, and the ways we can consciously or unconsciously collect them, years later. <br />
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<br />Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-87228803033879596002019-07-05T17:18:00.001-07:002019-07-06T03:32:18.162-07:00yards<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It is interesting to me that in painting home portraits, the discussions I usually end up having are over the yard--what's in bloom, what colors to include. I am often given the artistic license to put everything in bloom! The house is obviously the focal point, but the yard is important.</div>
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When my grandparents came to visit a few weekends ago, my parents got to provide a walking tour of their yard. We smelled and looked. A lot of activities these days don't call for such sensory engagement. Nature is clearly not of human making. Yet, we can foster it. </div>
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Commentary from my grandfather after the visit: "[They] have a wonderful variety of beautiful plantings which they were kind enough to show and explain to us. You'll have to guess what they are since I wouldn't be able to spell them. I didn't see any weeds or dandelions which I am very familiar with and can spell."</div>
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Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-8371742524932445712019-06-05T13:09:00.000-07:002019-06-05T13:09:07.473-07:00this time I am going to speak to you about the flowers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"In my previous letters, I have often shared my wonder for the birds, but this time I am going to speak to you about the flowers." </div>
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This quote is the way Jean Vanier's last letter (May 2018) to his community, found on his organization's website, begins. <a href="https://www.jean-vanier.org/en">https://www.jean-vanier.org/en</a></div>
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Jean's simplicity and desire for connection is also symbolized by the oranges held high during his funeral procession. "When we've had oranges for dessert at L'Arche, we sometimes start chucking the peel about at the end of the meal. Everyone gets into it. An Englishman once asked me if this was a traditional French custom. I don't know about that! But I do know that it is one way to bring people out of their isolation to express themselves joyfully--especially if they can't communicate with words."</div>
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In 1964, after witnessing the institutionalized life of people with intellectual disabilities, Jean invited two men to live with him. Today, L'Arche communities are home to people with disabilities and those without, in 35 countries. </div>
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I was familiar with Jean Vanier and had read some of his writings. I think these past couple of weeks were the first time I'd heard his spoken voice, and seen so many photos of him. His eyebrows capture some of his essence: extravagance in unexpected places, veering upward and downward at once, arching toward the other. </div>
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Jean said, "We shouldn't seek the ideal community. It is a question of loving those whom God has set beside us today. They are signs of God. We might have chosen different people, people who were more cheerful and intelligent. But these are the ones God has given us...It is with them that we are called to create unity and live a covenant."</div>
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I keep wanting to say, "Jean Valjean," the protagonist from Les Mis, when thinking about Jean Vanier. The two men undoubtedly share magnanimity of character. And I think Victor Hugo's aphorism, "To love another person is to see the face of God," are words Jean Vanier would wholeheartedly agree with. </div>
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<br />Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-84980041336663139852019-05-12T12:05:00.003-07:002019-05-12T12:05:57.206-07:00An Egg-cellent Mother's Day!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The VMFA holds the largest collection of Faberge eggs outside of Russia. In 1885, Tsar Alexander III commissioned the first imperial egg as a gift to his wife. She liked it so much he continued to bestow her with the gift of an egg each year, a tradition continued by his son Nicholas II. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68);">“Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall. A mother’s secret hope outlives them all.”</span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-style: italic;">—Oliver Wendell Holmes</span></span>Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-87918036324023460832019-04-22T03:52:00.001-07:002019-04-22T03:56:15.452-07:00Happy Easter<div style="text-align: center;">
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgscdpGeBSfpHId3M_-TCwhbj1v38yhhQcgQBqiqn4n5zXNh1bmTs9_dDwatxtMQ8GA7VZ8eIz_FGCovTsrsFtYLxSyPJHXL3_GD4NUae-zTn5fw3bTqEgDT7pGxpAYKskx1aHswD6moqc/s1600/IMG_2905.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgscdpGeBSfpHId3M_-TCwhbj1v38yhhQcgQBqiqn4n5zXNh1bmTs9_dDwatxtMQ8GA7VZ8eIz_FGCovTsrsFtYLxSyPJHXL3_GD4NUae-zTn5fw3bTqEgDT7pGxpAYKskx1aHswD6moqc/s320/IMG_2905.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem<br />
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<span style="font-size: small; text-align: center;">On a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in February, I walked the Via Dolorosa, "The Way of Sorrow," early one Sunday morning. To the right in this photo, you can see the cross my group carried through the streets. To the left, merchants carry bread overhead. You can see our divided attention: to the hustle and bustle on the morning streets, and to the carrying of the cross. John 6:35: "I am the bread of life." Our trip, too was full of the everyday--on/off the tour bus, stopping for meals--interspersed with stopping at places significant to our faith. It was not all spiritual or mystical, but it was meaningful in ways I will continue to unpack. <br /><br />Mystagogy, the period after Easter, means leading into the mystery. It is not something we solve or answer, but instead something we live in. </span>Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-3348747148102071212019-04-02T17:52:00.002-07:002019-04-22T03:56:24.090-07:00Buckley Old-Fashioned<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS18OMpAaXH4oUa5i2fjRfm_5fE8rTQR6f1CqqkZFzd1YjzcTbz6RVgEBoXwDgmlc3kUKnCzE-BZLYBWNyVB9NXC0H9Rv4ExmRzjxV2O6X9_Op4QbdI0JqS-inhxQMHR8k7wWKyO2jvbs/s1600/IMG_2277.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS18OMpAaXH4oUa5i2fjRfm_5fE8rTQR6f1CqqkZFzd1YjzcTbz6RVgEBoXwDgmlc3kUKnCzE-BZLYBWNyVB9NXC0H9Rv4ExmRzjxV2O6X9_Op4QbdI0JqS-inhxQMHR8k7wWKyO2jvbs/s400/IMG_2277.jpg" width="298" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12pt;"> Add 1 whole maraschino cherry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12pt;">The Classic, enjoyed by many at my grandparents' 90th birthday bash last year. </span></div>
Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2769079384775503406.post-86761031710033913022019-01-28T15:33:00.000-08:002019-04-22T03:56:36.497-07:00Peripheral<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">In Praise of Being Peripheral</span><br />
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Without philosophy,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />tragedy,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />history,</div>
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a grey squirrel<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />looks<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />very busy.</div>
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Light as a soul<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />released<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />from a painting by Bosch,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />its greens<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />and vermilions stripped off it.</div>
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He climbs a tree<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />that is equally ahistoric.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "PT Serif", agp, "Adobe Garamond Pro", "Adobe Garamond", Garamond, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 22px;">His heart works harder.</span><span style="font-family: "PT Serif", agp, "Adobe Garamond Pro", "Adobe Garamond", Garamond, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;"> </span></h3>
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by Jane Hirshfield </div>
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<br />Erinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12133080745505811167noreply@blogger.com0