by ruralpearl | Aug 26, 2012 | Inspiration
I took a little road trip Saturday & Sunday to visit one of my oldest friends. We picked vegetables straight from her garden and cooked them up for dinner. She spends lots of time canning things, and I had to snap a pic since I love how they look on the shelf (I came home with a few of those). I’m jealous since I can’t even seem to keep my aloe plant alive. One of these days, my thumb will turn green.. Luckily some of the people closest to me have mastered this art, and I’m ready to burden them with my ignorance and eagerness to learn.
Busy week ahead trying to get on top of things. Art fair prep, emails, making paper cuttings, etc. A weekend getaway is always good to stoke the coming week’s fire.
by ruralpearl | Aug 26, 2012 | Inspiration
Marysville windmill – Instagram photo by my friend Sandra Wenger.
¡EL CERRO ES NUESTRO!
by Michael McClure (a Beat poet born in Marysville, KS, in 1932)
THE FLAME IS OURS!
We are the candle
that holds itself
aloft.
We are the Andes
among creatures
and our hands are soft
and our cotex
is a beacon
as are our toes.
You and I
are a river of light
that pours
and gleams
in
the
blue-black
snows.
We are perfect
as the tooth
of a squirrel!
–Lima-Huancayo railroad, Peru
by ruralpearl | Aug 25, 2012 | Inspiration, Photos
“I take photographs with love, so I try to make them art objects. But I make them for myself first and foremost – that is important.” -Jacques-Henri Lartigue
I’m sitting in my old bedroom at my mom’s house listening to the welcome sound of rain beating down, and I’m scrapping any plans for going out with my camera this morning (lest it lets up and I can run outside with my magnifying glass and scare the neighbors as I lay on the ground or in the bushes doing weird things with my camera). The cracks in the dry earth around here were beginning to open wide enough to fall through (not literally, but…) and this rain is like a huge sigh of relief for all life. I might just go and run through it for kicks. When I get stuck out in the rain, I like to throw my hands up in the sky and yell in my head, “Universe, baptize me!” I welcome it all.
Anyway, there are a few times that I’m doing something where I feel most present, including making a paper cutting and hitting the outdoors with my camera. I love the desolation of gravel roads, but there’s also plenty to look at even in my backyard. Having my camera allows me without effort to be totally in the now and observant, constantly searching for things to look at more closely and to record. It also gives me another avenue to be creative.
It lets me become part of my environment. I don’t feel like an outsider taking a picture. I feel like I’m inside, connecting with everything around me.
I feel like when I’m looking as closely as I do with my camera, I can really connect to the spirit of the trees or flowers or rocks or animals or whatever it is I’m photographing.
The more closely and deeply I look, the more there is to find..
“Where there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.” -Dorthea Lange
by ruralpearl | Aug 25, 2012 | Inspiration
THE RAINMAKER shared by Carl Jung as told to him by Richard Wilhelm
There was a great drought where Wilhelm lived; for months there had not been a drop of rain and the situation became catastrophic. The Catholics made processions, the Protestants made prayers, and the Chinese burned joss sticks and shot off guns to frighten away the demons of the drought, but with no result. Finally the Chinese said: We will fetch the rain maker. And from another province, a dried up old man appeared. The only thing he asked for was a quiet little house somewhere, and there he locked himself in for three days. On the fourth day clouds gathered and there was a great snowstorm at the time of the year when no snow was expected, an unusual amount, and the town was so full of rumors about the wonderful rain maker that Wilhelm went to ask the man how he did it. In rue European fashion he said: “They call you the rain maker, will you tell me how you made the snow?” And the little Chinaman said: “I did not make the snow, I am not responsible.” “But what have you dont these three days?” Oh, I can explain that. I come from another country where things are in order. Here they are out of order, they are not as they should be by the ordnance of heaven. Therefore, the whole country is not in Tao, and I am also not in the natural order of things because I am in a discorded country. So I had to wait three days until I was back in Tao, and then naturally the rain came.”
by ruralpearl | Aug 24, 2012 | Inspiration
I’m experimenting with layered tissue paper on top of black paper (rather than behind the cuttings in the black paper). All my ideas lately seem to have black negative space rather than white. It may be because I’m brainstorming in the dark hours of the morning most of the time. I feel most connected and clear-headed at that time.
Heading yonder to the country with my camera and an empty stomach. Looking forward to dinner with family & friends. Going to propose a larger scale art installation plan to my nature guru who also happens to be a carpenter and get her good advice (this stems from thinking about public art). Otherwise, I’m hoping to snag some good inspiration on the camera.
I went out for a run this morning and it felt and looked like autumn (which I love). My mantra while I run is “this is MY dream” (as in, I perceive things the way I want to and move in the direction I want to, as much uninfluenced by the masses as I can be. And it holds a lot of other meaning, but I’ll spare ye). I repeat that a few times to transport myself beyond the physical part of the run and really connect to the environment around me. Maybe that’s that runner’s high people talk about. Or maybe it’s the artist in me (I find that’s always a good excuse). Til next time..
by ruralpearl | Aug 21, 2012 | Inspiration
“Let yourself be open and life will be easier…” -Buddha
by ruralpearl | Aug 19, 2012 | Inspiration
This little dragonfly type insect (I’m not sure if dragonfly is the correct term for these– but they’re similar to the larger dragonflies) is hanging out on my deck.. and probably til it sleeps it’s final sleep. It’s wings are all tangled with some sort of web and it can’t fly. I tried to help untangle it to no avail.. but I couldn’t pass up the photo op with my magnifying lens. The circle in the second photo is the head of a nail, to give you a better idea of the actual size.
“With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.” -William Wordsworth
by ruralpearl | Aug 16, 2012 | Inspiration
“What you seek is seeking you.” -Rumi
by ruralpearl | Aug 15, 2012 | Inspiration
I sat on my deck this morning eating oranges and looking through one of my old sketchbooks that I started while I lived in NYC and finished after I moved back to Kansas. The first half of it is filled with notes about what I needed to do to start getting my artwork out there to potentially be able to do it full-time, plus lots of life-affirming statements and notes about where I wanted to be (at some unknown point in time), advice to myself, etc. The second half is filled with rough sketches, jotted down ideas for new works, and notes about how to keep my work progressing to where it really felt right.
I’ve gotten lots of emails and even had a couple meetings over the past year or two with folks asking for a word or two about how to get their own art off the ground.. I never feel like I have a very good answer that makes sense, but my response is usually something along the lines of ‘be brutally honest with yourself, be patient, work hard, learn to trust that things will be as they’re supposed to be, and when something feels right, don’t let go of it’. All these things are easier said than done, but I try to follow them as closely as possible. And I keep following them. And everything just keeps unfolding in amazing ways.
I’ll be sitting down with my current sketchbook tomorrow, because it’s been awhile, to see what unravels. Til next time. -Jack Handy
by ruralpearl | Aug 14, 2012 | Inspiration
I have a small but slowly growing collection of art that I’ve purchased from artists at shows or from artists that I’ve ‘met’ online. I just picked this up from the post office today and I’m really excited about it: a sewn work by Seattle artist Danny Mansmith made on his sewing machine. I’m acquainted with Danny through Flickr, initially because he also does a bit of paper cutting which he often incorporates into his sewn works. When I saw this piece, I had to have it. I love the colors against the black, which you’ve seen more often than not in my own work lately.. I’m a bit obsessed with nighttime and how colors and objects and people (including myself) appear and transform and come alive when it’s dark. I love the tiny, organic details in the stitching. So great. I can’t wait to frame it in a shadow box and hang it on my wall. Check out Danny’s shop here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/DannyMansmith
