- scape

Water color and gouache on paper
to purchase a print or card click HERE

What is it?

A landscape? Maybe

Cityscape? Hmmm

Wait, a desertscape?

What if standing
Upside down? A seascape!

Sigh!

The mind sees

Dots, lines, colors.

Buildings or

Pillars or rock?

Sky and earth,

Water and sand,

Night and day?

A quiet voice

Suggests

Close the eyes,

Now look.

Aha!

It is an E

Scape.

Celebrating the life of a dear heart with a little water color combined with gouache.  What began as an abstract exercise with dots and lines developed a life of its own, poking at the need to make meaning from what is seen. 

Chaotic Grace

(the first moments when learning to skate)

Collect the coat

Cover the head

Circle the scarf

Cinch the laces

Clean the blades 

Clatter to the edge 

Clasp the other 

Creep and tilt 

Collapse 

CAN’T 

Compassion’s hand 

Cotton-like voice 

Corrals hope 

Compels to try 

Chaotic grace. 

(First Skate – water color, gouache and ink on paper
to purchase reprints or cards click HERE)

To see the entire work (prose and additional poetry) for which this poem was created, click HERE.

Soul

(Autumn Memories - water color on paper
click HERE to purchase reprints or cards)

You are more than what you expect to be

more than all the fears of others combined

greater than the need to conquer

or fix

or do.

There is no need to win 

nor win others who need you.

One job:

wake and open your eyes

do what you can so

you can do the same

tomorrow.

In between be kind,

show up.

No gauge of 

big or small.

Be there, just be

there.

If no one else sees it,

over and over and over

please know that

what will shine

is your

soul.

Martin Luther King, Jr. – I Have A Dream Speech Anniversary

(oil on canvas)

On the 50th anniversary of the Martin Luther King, JR. speech, I listened to a recording from Youtube  while reading the National Archives transcript.  It was the first time I listened to the speech in its entirety.  I was struck by the weight of the context and equally by the beauty of his words such as:

Lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity … the fierce urgency of now … sunlit path of racial justice … soul force over physical force … veterans of creative suffering … the content of their character … every valley shall be exulted, every hill and mountain will be made low. 

From these words I was motivated to paint.

The Circle



(water color and ink on paper)

Some say that life

Is a connection of dots

First one then another

Creating straight angles.

I think an alternate shade,

Where each moment

Rests upon a curve,

A collection of arcs.

Circles, wheels, globes.

The initial blends with

Each finale.

In time the sight

Reveals the truth

Not from without,

To see it is the center.

Sit and run 

Live and turn, 

We fall apart then

Fall within the circle.

An inspiration when creating a card for Rob Arkes, his birthday and passionate cyclist.  Sitting down with a blank piece of paper, I saw a collection of bicycle wheels that soon evolved into a collaboration of circles.  After the paint and ink were dry the mental imagery of “showing up each day” and the “arcs of each moment” spilled out, which lead to the poem.  How we struggle to live a life laden with linear language (the straight and narrow … toe the line … make a bee line) perpetuating conformity to social norms or that success requires speed and a singular straight approach.  I know that circles include lines, yet they curve and lack terminal points (beginning or ending).  They also have a space within and a center, which feels like growth of self.  So, inspired by a bicycle wheel  the creation evolved to a metaphor for living (besides, I doubt many bees ever fly  in a straight line).

Through the Window Pane, From a Red Green Chair

(water color on paper)

There, the corner of the sky float little birds.

Behind gray grids

Tall oak fans wide

She grasps one brittle leaf

Below, its siblings

Swirl root to root.

Above, a crown of crows

Heads pulled inward, mute eyes scanning.

Fragments of car and truck

Pass the gaps ‘tween

Pale wooden slats,

Boundary for the outer world

All seen by one

Anchored to a red green chair.

Body limited by his brittle heart

Buoyed by pyrotechnic pills,

Lungs once a multiverse of bellows

Now air locked catacombs.

Pancreas enslaved to needles,

Joints injured, inflamed, in need

Of repair.

Yearn,

Dream,

Dab the eyes

Wish the arms would grow

And grow

Stretch through the panes

Beyond the oak

Push back the gate

To breath, to walk to

Live easily

Away from the red green chair.

All in a moment

His mind blinks …

Melancholy pulls all back

To darkness.

In blackness color dashes

Scatters, settles in.

What use is hope?

Damn the damage done.

Accept the seat.

What’s left of time?

This stew that is his parts,

Once lid rattling,

Rests cold upon the counter

By the red green chair.

There, upon the knee

Two tiny eyes graced with passion

Coiled from nostril to bristled tail.

Up, blur of fur

Across the lap

White bridge with

Blue and purple shadows.

Hand under ear,

Gentle little rub

Away the outer world

With purrs

One smile bears a second.

Lungs expand,

Inner space expands, there

In the corner of his sky float little birds

Around old oak

Crowns of boasting crows

Call to those below

Adorned in the red green chair.

A painting that led to a poem, so far my pattern (one leads to the next).   Partially inspired while looking out the back window on a cold winter day and the many furry souls that help connect my daily dots.

Twelve

(water color on paper)

On the Twelfth part

Of the Twelfth month

In the Twelfth year

Do I feel as a

One or a Two?

Should I stand in a

Dodecagon?

Is this a day to

Enjoy, emote, express?

Depress, dissolve, dismay?

Or shall I paint

Twelve lines

And call it just

Another day.

On 12.12.12 I wondered about the power of numbers, how they move us in so many directions.  On the one hand a construct of human kind and on the other hand the magic of nature’s symmetry.  A little tribute to the last such date in the Gregorian Calendar during my life time.