Interesting to realize how symbols pop up in your life.

Have you noticed how we get into patterns in our lives. How we walk into circles and create patterns that trap us. Those circles can rule us and we can get stuck into routines, into bad habits, into how we view things in the same ways and get to be going back to the same starting point, into hitting the starting point and having a sense of deja viewed too many times. But those can be comfortable, those are what we know, what we can rely on. No escape there. The spiral on the other hand is a more effective way to travel. You start from your core, start working your way from your core into the world growing and growing without coming back to the same pattern with enlarging and here you go, you can look back but find solutions ahead and sideways but do not get trapped in what has been and what did not work. You are free to learn and move on. So with that thought in mind I went on to paint this exact concept. I started with my center core all pure and intact. I made circles around living some room in between to breathe. And then I retraced the path starting to my core and spiraling around it as a twirling dance. This life should be a dance of joy, of learning, of opportunities, of peace and kindness and love and lots of it. Afterward this, was to be preserved and protected and roots growing from top and bottom started to emerged shielding that precious volute. Those are boundaries, those wonderful boundaries that help you respect others and be respected. Your space protection. You can still go through it and reach this life but you have to have the courage, the desire, the interest, the impulse to inspect this closer. Beware of the spiral dance, it might take you beyond your self and send you to your potential.

New Dig

Now is the perfect time to get  back in the bloggisphere. Not a question of loneliness,  a question of figuring out how to get from point A to point B. Does it need to be about traveling or moving into the future, assisted by a torch that can enlighten me of any rock in my path that I end up kicking by accident or on purpose? Such rocks can appear over and over on the road. They want to trip me so I loose my balance, my sense of direction and inflict me with great physical pain. As a collector I can appreciate this unusual hobby and I can get a sadistic pleasure in deciding what rock with be memorable, the one that will set me off course for weeks and then push me to fall heart first and scar me for life. The wise approach would be to stop kicking this rock further so not to trip again on it and not be a continuous subject of pain. I get to see it in the horizon and even sometimes in my pocket, and expect the worse out of it and yet I can't get myself to make myself toss it or, even better,  bury it, without drawing a treasure map to unearth it later. Its cutting edges have become a sensation that I crave and something that helps me go on the trail... but where was I? Ah yes! I wish I knew, I wish I knew. What lays ahead is uncharted, unfriendly, uncomfortable, unloved, undone, unknown and yet it is the hope of what won't be that make it all worthwhile and so, even so dim, I hold the light above my head and pray that the fire won't go out.

Music

We use it to soothe the day, we use it to enhance a good day. We use it on the start of a journey, to remember, to sing along with, to communicate and to get inspired. We want to have a little song to hum as we think of a loved one. Few notes and your universe follows the actions of a different dimension. Sometimes stuck in your mind to take you along and help you forget anything else. Gifts from our Mothers who would gently caress our cries with songs and carry us to sleep on forever etched energy to our heart. Songs are markers to our lives, companions and witnesses of who we were.  Listening to them can change our history. We can be judge for the music we listen to. No matter it is a flow, a vibration that carries us safely to shore.

La Musique

La musique souvent me prend comme une mer!

Vers ma pâle étoile,

Sous un plafond de brume ou dans un vaste éther,

Je mets à la voile;

La poitrine en avant et les poumons gonflés

Comme de la toile

J'escalade le dos des flots amoncelés

Que la nuit me voile;

Je sens vibrer en moi toutes les passions

D'un vaisseau qui souffre;

Le bon vent, la tempête et ses convulsions

Sur l'immense gouffre

Me bercent. D'autres fois, calme plat, grand miroir

De mon désespoir!

— Charles Baudelaire

Music

Music often transports me like a sea!

Toward my pale star,

Under a ceiling of fog or a vast ether, 

I get under sail;

My chest thrust out and my lungs filled

Like the canvas,

I scale the slopes of wave on wave 

That the night obscures;

I feel vibrating within me all the passions 

Of ships in distress;

The good wind and the tempest with its convulsions

Over the vast gulf

Cradle me. At other times, dead calm, great mirror 

Of my despair!

Fifty Six

What happen when you turn an extra year older in one day but you were inching to it slowly and did not notice. The scale is moving down toward the earth and the view gets clearer and clearer from now on. Only so many moments to cherish and so many new things to try, so many books that you will ever be able to read. Life takes on a different perspective. Do not prolongate what has not been done. Do it now. Live for the joy of breathing in and out the essence of life. Those beautiful last days ahead provide a sense of purpose, a calmness of things deserved and coming to fruit. So I walk on this beach of bliss where my toes anchor in its diamonds, the water coming closer as I walk and I will continue on that shore looking at many sunsets and full moon, until the light goes out and I will rest for the long night. 

Oceanside

It had been years since I had gone to Oceanside, WA. A very sad scene was waiting for me. Picture a beautiful ocean waves crashing on the sand but rows of cars parked in front of it on the sand. Hundreds of people there between the car playing, napping, kites flying high, making sand castles, dogs, children, cars driving between those rows on the sand, children having to pay attention to the traffic on the beach. A mad mess and scattered everywhere for miles, feathers of dead seagulls embeded in the sand, rolled over by cars. How can we accept this type of standard and be ok with it. I felt sick. I had to anchor my heart into something else than all this. So I started to shoot some photo allienating the ugly and finding beauty to save this moment and save my soul.

On Hot Days!

On hot days what to do but just wait and see. Lay low and cool off in the shade of the hours. Melting slowly to a state of puddle, one that carry you to the source, the one that sings lullabies and tell stories of long ago winters. It is a shame that now the times are scrambling the seasons into a future inferno. I rest and think and plan my escape to the cool shadow of the night  where the birds sleep and the sun burns the underside of my life.

About Journaling

Feeling a bit nostalgic I was re-reading some old entries and oh it brought me right back to the good old days. I could even taste them and feel the weather sipping into my veins on those days. This is what makes journaling important, that even things for awhile are full of dust in a dark drawer in your brain, the written notes Spring wash those memories Mary Poppins style and zoom voilà you are back there with its myriad of facets. What will happen to all this? I often ask myself and I always come back to this: what does it matter after I am gone. It had only its purpose to record my life for myself, to prove to myself that I lived all those things and that it was primordial to record them so I could live those moments multiple times if I so desired. But... Until I am gone those pages are validating my path. I will encourage any one to start journaling at any age but the younger the better. I wonder sometimes who is this young woman that would walk to work everyday day, singing to herself noticing every cracks on the road and every bird songs in the trees.  She is younger than my daughter is now.  What kind of wisdom would I give her. I would tell her to believe that she could do it all and to not worry so much and to know her heart before following it. I would also tell her that no matter what it is all worth living it and to make a mark on the piece of paper will make her smile in the future. Someday all those women that I've been will dance in a final dance of light and love and the energy will transform in a breath of wind, one last time, and, calm will follow its trail. But not yet...

To Skip a Year!

Well I didn't want to skip a year but it all happened naturally one day at a time and here we are a year + later and how ironic that my last post was already dealing with lost time. I guess I had to make a bigger point. So instead of starting where I left off should I plan out my goal for this coming year? Well that has never been very successful for me. Planning is a sort of spelling out all the things I want to do and will not materialized, as if just saying them aloud would released them into an abyss, never to be seen again. Going back to the missing year for just few lines will show a continuous state of busyness,  where this mode of marathon living leaves you with a permanent breathlessness. One thing or more melds into each other and you wonder a year later why??? Was it all worth the trauma? Well yes of course! The highlights as always were the family and friends visits, my furry companion, the daily photographs, the lovely consumed food, the touches and the scents, the reunion and the travels, the love and the life, the continued protection of the house, the creative challenges, the joy of the blooming garden, the intense feeling of the present, the glorious sun and the gifts of the rain. All this, made this year once again memorable.
I am grateful.

Where did it all go?

It is October! Yep, October! Where did it all go? This life of mine has been busy. It has seen and traveled and experienced new and old things, tasted and dined, drank and sipped, argued and loved, cared too much and hurt, conversed and created, walked and trekked and marched and climbed, turned and danced, remembered, missed and didn't, laughed and cried, collected and browsed, embarrassed and reacquainted, flew and soared and came back to starting point. Here I am once more with luggage of few months worth of living. A never ending adventure in progress. May it continue as it is for a while longer. Now the work begins, the long process of making order into this chaotic whirlwind of ideas and senses, this overloaded sensory feast of a busy summer. Rest, in order to work, Mmmm, that is a different concept but one that makes sense to me. Routine, blissful routine in my house of peace, let the calm of the days of Fall create an organised folder of memories to be regarded with clarity for years to come. So I breathe, repeat and begin to see.

Connecting Dots, Revealing a Spiral Dance of Chance

I have been busy these days, busy beyond my comfort zone doing things for the house and others when I am yearning to create. I have been stealing few hours here and there to escape. One of those time when I was successful I was at a lecture introducing "When Women Were Birds". Terry Tempest Williams finally in the flesh, reading her words in person. Her beauty, her presence radiated in this Seattle Library. I was at ease, absorbing her words, transported in a deep part of myself that resonated with truth and essence. When the time came for me to speak to her, the words didn't come, as predicted my fear silenced me, I can be frozen by emotion and this was one moment that I missed my chance to express in words what I was feeling. She was very kind to me and said the right things, did the right things and hugged me, such a comforting gesture, she had understood my needs and struggle.
 I have just finished reading her book. I am digesting slowly but fully what was experienced during that time. It has taken me two weeks to finish this small book. Small but so powerful to me. How can I explain the impact and the symbolics, the strange cross events that have transpired from this experience.For example, just last night, I was browsing "Pilgrimage" the book of Annie Leibovitz and gazing at the spiral image that she took of  Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty. Done in 1970 on the shore of the Great Salt Lake, not to be seen for 30 years has recently resurfaced due to receding water level. This morning taking an hour to finish TTW's book I was astonished to find out that she is talking about going to see this specific earthwork. Coincidence? of course but why doesn't it feel like one?
TTW also refers to an artist that she stumble upon who depicted a spiral tower of flying birds. Mostly sparrows and swallows. Julia Barello's sculpture. I too have been drawn to those species and have had dreams of birds flying in spirals. Conference of the Birds by Peter Sis has been on my mind. They have been circling my psyche since 2004 when I saw so many spiraling above the roof tops in Cannes. The sculptures of Grainger McKoy came to mind also. Seen them in Atlanta in December and was mesmerized by the columns of birds in flight.
The allusion of the Crow eating the young bird was an event witnessed by my friends and I over an after lunch. First we were noticing the very active couple of swallows around a single crow in flight. Then all was calm when a sound of a young baby bird carried across the water in a crow's beak broke the peace and stabbed us. The baby's parents trying frantically to attack the Crow. Then we all were stunned into silence and reverence for this event. One crow probably feeding it's own family. Nature is cruel and we are part of the cruelty. In order to survive this earth has to take and give. And so we move on and give thanks and compassion.
My other escapes deal with painting. My fabrics are calling me though but I need longer time period to devote to them that I don't have right now. I can't even know why I don't have it anymore, but it is just impossible to achieve.
So on with the brushes and pens and the beautiful paints and inks flowing on the paper few minutes at a time. All the outside world Washes away and in those moments I am present.

Travel and Gather

I have been on a Travel Spree. Short little jaunts here and there, no longer than a week, mostly 4 days. In those few days of very different interests, my senses have been on high alert. The "gather" alert. My 'sponge" personality is at its maximum capacity. Saturated by all the new visual and sensory materiel that I am absorbing non stop has not given me much chance to process and squeeze out my overloaded mind I must in the next few days wring out, distill and bottle up the essence of those trips for future recollection. In short I have gone to Sonoma County, Washington DC, Portland on the way to Bend in the last month. Not life exhaustion but a bit much for this mostly recluse person that I have become. I have enjoyed living in my new environment so much that any extraction from it needs to be of great value.

 So, seeing our long time friends from Germany was one, Visiting another dear friend in Washington DC even with potential thunder storms upon arrival was another, and visiting my daughter and her husband was a must.
 Next of being in good company, he walks were really the highlights of the trips. If it is in ancient forests, the beach, the big city, the museum browsing, the getting from point a to b, it is a thrill to me to use my feet and legs. As the body moves so does the mind and the speed at which I move is conducive to communion with what is around me (people, place and things). Spirituality  of the soul of some sort.  I will not advertise how many picture taking is involved into this as it might bore you or disgust you or even do nothing for you. For me I have those countless photos as point of reference, a lot more accurate than my memory and such fun to do. I can now leisurely relive the past in my present and future. I can even find the fine tune details that I have miss on first looks. I can now study at length and understand what I saw. I have a library of images that I can reference to when needed. I am also in this "Let's process all this" time do some background research, some serious magnifying thoughts and how could that be useful in any way or form. My creative energy is about to burst right now and need to come out in some way. The next few weeks should bring some colors in my little world and fill my life with intense passion for what I do, which is: to create.

Figure Drawing, Long Pose.

4 Sessions long with the same model holding the same pose has come to an end last night. It has been an interesting experience in learning someones' body. Observing so closely the model so you can point out her beauty marks or wrinkles or special features is a strange thing. You become pretty intimate with this stranger as this person is still a stranger to me even though I know more of her body lines as I know my own. I might want to draw myself to better be visual acquainted with "me" but then again I might not want to know myself in that level... Anyway here is the progression that has happened in these four weeks.
Week one. Charcoal study. She has a very specific mouth that has a lighter line around and finish at each corner into a little fold from the cheek. I was determined to learn how to draw that and capture a very elegant neck line. Obviously it didn't happen here just quite yet... lots to learn. It is not a class by the way so you have to learn on your own as you go. Lots of fun, lots of errors. I do like her chest and her right shoulder, arm and hip.

Week two: Charcoal study again. the face, lips, head, neck are improving. She is more recognizable. She had gotten a hair cut so her neck and brow were more open.  I did not get her torso very well as there is too much distance between the bottom of breast to the navel. Her legs are more to proportion as she has long legs and I am always running out of space to fit them in the page so I cheat and shorten them.

 I didn't spend as much time with the shading as I should have but I made other sketches to familiarize with the pose in at different angles and draw some of her features.

Week three: I started to draw the model from the head and added more details before moving on down to the rest of the body. A very different approach and didn't know if she was going to look proportionate when arriving to her feet. Well I never made it to the feet and decided it was OK.

Week four: I still worked on the same drawing. I had upgraded to drawing paper instead of newsprint by the way and used 6HB pencil very very soft instead of charcoal and then added that week some lines and shading with an HB. I also used kneeded eraser to work on the small areas cutting small pieces of it and twisting it around a pencil blender so it have a fine point of eraser to work with . It worked really well . Her right arm now doesn't seem to belong to the same body. it is a bit weak in my opinion. I also got tired of working on it. I wanted to draw from scratch again but didn't feel I had enough time. So I just decided to draw her head once more.

I had fun with that. It was a bit challenging because our model is quite a talker and I had to work fast when she was quiet to draw her mouth. She was a delight though and liked much better her talks than being about to draw her mouth.

I do like that bird like head of hers, especially seen through my eyes as she is more human in reality.

Anyway,I had brought some fabric to see if I could do something very fast and with no pre-plan... Very much my style, just wing it and see what comes out of it.

Well to show you that I don't embarrass easily anymore here it is . Who knows if that is going to go on to anything. Here it is...

Well that was a lot of fun, that I hope will continue.

Love Coming in Digital Format

What is it about that feeling of extensive love that I have when I take photographs? I want to capture a certain angle or mood or color or shape or moment into that long lasting image. Is it because I love the present so much that I want to keep it forever alive? If it is, it is mostly working because when I am back looking at those shots I am instantly time traveling back listening to what was happening around me , what I was feeling, what it smelled like, what I was thinking. Does it mean that the present can be the past? Does it mean that to write, draw, sing, taste, create present time helps you to preserve it and keep it fresh like a frozen micro second in your psyche? I think so and I also think that it might be a reason why so many of us want to express those moments. It might also be a way to share our present with others and try to put them in our shoes not being so successful at this because each experience is unique but then if it is unique it is still worth the share, as the outsiders will transform, morph your experience into theirs. You will have change that person's present and brought some of yours in theirs and enlarged it's life. Wow.

Sharing your bliss with others could be double the bliss.
I like that! as a matter of fact, I love that!

Around the Studio and Beyond

Un petit tour d'atelier cela ne fait pas de mal. It can but one would have to look where to step and be careful of what to touch. Needles can make their way onto the floor and  travel so easily onto the surface of the tables. There are some obstacles like piles of fabric or work in progress that need to be stepped over. The occasional book piles and art supplies left on the floor. But please come in, now that you have been warned...

A lifetime of hording, that is sizable if  horded in one room, or one level, or one house. Add the same amount of years of patina over (dust some would say) and you have a pretty good idea of my space. A place to let one's imagination loose.

Where the visitor feels free to make a mess and not worry about it. Work on what one fancies. It has everything one would need, and more, much, too much more. It feels perfect to "this person".

You have the  children's projects hanging on the window's corner, the stacks of yarns, the inspiration board with multiple must do projects, the collections of whatever this person collects, the large amount of books on shelves and close at hand on the floor, the gifts from loved ones, and then of course the memories.

Sit, take a time out from the World, come and rest in meditation and listen to the soft music from the wind blowing through the trees,the birds nesting and the gentle rain landing on the roof.

Will Spring Ever Come?

I have had a bad case of the Winter's End. I feel stuck in a grey scale again. I know there are really some other colors in the yard and trees but this lead color sky and stagnating air is just bringing me dowwwwwnnnn.

Off for a walk today (last weekend), by the water, should have done the trick, but, nope. The air is so cold still and people wear too many clothes. Gloomy!. It was busy on the trail, dogs taking their owners on a walk. Those were happy beasts, all ears in the wind, nose pushing ahead, having a purpose. Well I was dragging. I did take some pictures. So inspiring to see all that grey scale around.

 Even the birds were in tone, black birds, cormorants, crows, ravens, eagles. Gloomy! I also felt cheated because the weather man had said we would have some sun showing up. Well, nope. There was also a strange sound coming from under the pier.

 Like a ghost sound done by the wind. At first I took it for a barking seal, but it was stranger than that and pretty daunting. Something that would send chills up your spine. My fertile imagination doesn't need much to activate the sensory buttons. I had already few scenario of how this sounds could have it's origin. Hello Tana French would you like some help for the next murder mystery case...

Oh I was on the edge of Chambers Bay. It is an old sand pit turned into a golf paradise. Very challenging course from what everyone is saying. It will host the 2015 US Open Championship. Are you impressed yet? Well you would not think so right now just coming out of Winter, it looks in need of Vitamin. There is a nice paved trail all around the golf course and it is hilly. I was feeling on the last 1/3 meandering through the up and down terrain. Someone designing it must have had a sense of humor and a golf cart!!!

The beach is a dream for the photographer. The birds, the weathered logs on shore, the rusty shacks, the railway, old gravel factory like ancient vestige. A pretty random mess ending up being interesting and sad, at least worthy of being captured on SD.

And here we go, I have managed to drag myself out of a mire depressed state and turned it into a memorable energized time. Who says that life is boring even if your World is grey?