Paper Cutting In Progress
Feels so good to be doing a little drawing and cutting…
Video art: Solipsist by Andrew Huang
I was reading about mandalas and art therapy this morning and came upon this experimental video by Andrew Huang on the Art Therapy Blog, who describe it as a ‘visual and philosophical journey’. Sounded up my alley. Check it out, it is totally insane.
Poem: William Stafford – A Ritual To Read To Each Other
I consistently go back to William Stafford’s poetry. I’ve posted this before, but here it is again..
A Ritual To Read To Each Other
by William Stafford
If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,
but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider–
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give–yes or no, or maybe–
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
Music: Osborne Brothers – Fair and Tender Ladies
I was listening to my Happy Traum – Relax Your Mind record, and his version of this song is so, so good. But I couldn’t find it on Youtube to post here, so here’s another that is really good too.
Cats Are Good Company, etc.
Major bummer that I can’t have a cat at my rental house. This young feller used to lay on my desk while I worked before I moved to my new abode. We still keep in close contact.
Trying to plow through my to-do list today ‘cus I’ve got a serious itch to make some artwork tomorrow. It’s been way too long.. too many to-do’s slowly but surely getting done.
My “Listen to the Rain” original paper cutting is on it’s way to its new home in North Carolina. I’ve also got a huge box of goods on it’s way to Collector Art Shop in Berkeley, CA, so any folks in that area can find lots of new prints & cards there in the coming days. I’ll be stocking up 1109 Gallery in Lawrence tomorrow. Dundee Gallery in Omaha and The Eclective in Topeka shall be stocked in the next week or so.
Music: Robbie Basho – Night Way
What You Have Tamed/ An old paper cutting
“‘Men have forgotten this truth,’ said the fox. ‘But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.'” -Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I was reading a little Antoine de Saint-Exupery earlier and remembered this paper cutting I did a very long time ago –sometime in 2008, I think. If you can’t tell, it’s supposed to be a fox jumping between two hands. The background was part cut paper, part coffee stains, part photoshop coloring. I wish I could achieve that look using only paper — maybe one of these days I’ll do some experimenting and figure it out. Anyway, “The Little Prince” is one of my all time favorite books. Even though I had my first copy when I was a kid, I didn’t ‘get it’ until I reread it a few years ago. Here’s a few more quotes from Saint-Exupery:
“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
“True love begins when nothing is looked for in return.”
“In giving you are throwing a bridge across the chasm of your solitude.”
“That is the hardest thing of all. It is much harder to judge yourself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself, it’s because you’re truly a wise man.”
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
“What he had yearned to embrace was not the flesh but a down spirit, a spark, the impalpable angel that inhabits the flesh.”
“Behind all seen things lies something vaster; everything is but a path, a portal or a window opening on something other than itself. ”
“I know but one freedom, and that is the freedom of the mind.”
And here’s one more quote, one of my very first paper cuttings that I made when I was still cutting on a piece of wood.. These old ones are some of the most meaningful to me. I still have them.
Light
Neal, St. Louis.
Today I…
Turned my heater on for the first time since last winter.
Sat down on the trail for a few minutes halfway through my morning run to take in the trees & birds (so many birds out this morning).
Did a whole bunch of reading.
Made vegetable split pea soup adding in chick peas, basmati rice, and a tiny bit of cinnamon, caradamom & geera. So thick I ate it with a fork.
Enjoyed visits from a squirrel and a praying mantis.
Fell asleep with my laptop on my lap while trying to write this blog post.
I try to keep the day following an art fair weekend as mellow as possible to regroup. Back to the grindage tomorrow.