Love Quatraine

Photography and Digital Manipulation. March 6, 2011.

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Drawn on Coffee

Ink and coffee on paper.

One more post before the month is over. I still have a lot of sketches to share and  am working on finding time to do some more collages (wow, the previous sentence needs to have more conviction to it!). Lots of changes going on around the world…. I am just sitting and seeing it all turn.

Wanted to share some words I received today:

Events of these past weeks remind us that as designers, faculty, engineers, authors, landscape architects, students, and architects we build landscapes and cities that fuel revolutions. Of knowledge and of hope…..Act of civil disobedience in Tunis and in Cairo are fueled by the spark of indignity. And in their Main Squares, we are reminded that Cities are embodied energy too. Below are words on cities. There are many.
 
Come, let yourself fall with me into the lunar scar of our city, scratched by sewers, crystal city of vapor and mineral frost, city witness to all we forget, city of carnivorous cliffs, city of immobile pain, city of immense brevity, city of the motionless sun, city of the long burning, city of the slow fires, city up to its neck in water, city of playful lethargy, city of black nerves, city of three umbilical scars, city of yellow laughter, city of twisted stink, city between air and worms, city of ancient lights ,old city nested among birds of omen, new city next to sculpture dust, city reflection of gigantic heaven, city of dark varnish and stonework, city beneath glistening mud, city of guts and tendons, city of violated defeat, city of submissive markets, city reflecting fury city of anxious failure, city woven with amnesia….

 

Carlos Fuentes

See you in February!

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Calling all the Archangels

The Archangel Michael leads the Army of God. According to Wikipedia, {argh}. Michael is an Archangel in the Christian, Islamic, and Hebrew traditions.
He is the patron of the warrior.
I love the power of iconic images, the symbolism of the Catholic faith I have left behind yet respect in its ability to give visual comfort to the afflicted.

Justice is represented by the sword. How do we define it? I found these thoughts of comfort, as I have been slaying dragons and cutting the last of the hydra-heads. I am a woman who knows evil, yet art in the form of protective, powerful imagery gives solace, hope for deliverance and, of course, just retribution (hell hath no fury…etc. etc.).

Someday some abstract rendition will come out of this; I will be able to process it all and turn it into art, or in one of Ghadah’s women/girls..but today I am literal like a church fresco, I tell my story as if to pheasants, through illustrated stained- glass windows. The via crucis is made not by twelve stops, but more like one hundred and nine, or seventy-seven – a year-long Lent. I am a cathedral of crutches* and all the lessons are learned on my skin.

So, on Justice:

The great American trial lawyer, Gerry Spence, wrote, “There is no power like the power of justice”.
British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, in a speech to the House of Commons in 1853, stated, “Justice is truth in action”. 

The above picture represents the “power of justice”.

The shield protects, the sword destroys. The power is strong, like the young warrior. The power comes quickly, as if on wings, out of the heavens.

[ source here]

Here’s to shining fingernails, the female version of swords.

* more on this and local art happenings in the next post.

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Fading to Cheshire: An Art Exorcise

"How fine you look when dressed in rage. Your enemies are fortunate your condition is not permanent. You're lucky, too. Red eyes suit so few. " Cheshire Cat 2.1. Ink on tracing paper. June 30, 2010

From Disney’s Alice in Wonderland (1951).

Cheshire Cat: Oh, by the way, if you’d really like to know, he went that way. 

Alice: Who did? 

Cheshire Cat: The White  Rabbit. 

Alice: He did?

Cheshire Cat: He did what? 

Alice: Went that way. 

 Cheshire Cat: Who did? 

 Alice: The White Rabbit. 

 Cheshire Cat: What rabbit? 

 Alice: But didn’t you just say – I mean – Oh, dear. 

Cheshire Cat: Can you stand on your head? 

 Alice: Oh! 

 

  

It must be Halloween in July (seriously, wasn’t it Christmas?).   

I have material for three new posts and some serious  retroactive editing to do; have been drawing, reading short fiction, poetry, and fascinating stories about forensic art curating- all of which I will share with related art.  But let me start with saying that at times intense reading  (input) for the ambitious –or obsession-prone– designer/visual artist can be considered a passive-aggressive behavior, when so much needs to be in output mode, expressed, exorcised. Indeed, Julia Cameron in her Artist’s Way asks us to refrain from reading for one week, as we need to temporarily pause others’ voices and opinions to recognize  and strengthen our own.   

Lately my work, alas,  has been hindered: I had to hunt (and was haunted[1] by) a ghost with sixty-four  teeth. The wheels of karma turned and I , who once called someone-undeservedly- a ghost, have had to suffer one.     

Hello,  setbacks.    

So for today’s art, folks, this page is my canvas and my collage. This is where the work is done.  

Let me tell you about the Cheshire cat. He appears to di-sappear only to re-appear!    

All this to say (and yes, Art is process, it is a filter, it exorcises…it is a strainer, a sieve.  She is a savior):   

Ink on Paper and digital collage. June 29, 2010

I have been walking under a black cloud for three months   

Holding my breath   

Only it was not a cloud   

-though it hung like a pale, hungry moon-   

It was the Cheshire smile of a ghost   

Useless, hideous ghost that would not go away   

Spoke maddening riddles, multiplied hydra-like,   

Says I…. I….I….   

    

That single grin is fading again   

Waning   

And I, tethered, am starting to exhale.   

    

Thank you. How about how good it feels to finally forget forgive you.

   

 [1] Definitions from  The Free Dictionary:  

haunt // (hônt, hnt)   

v. haunt·ed, haunt·ing, haunts   

v.tr. 1. To inhabit, visit, or appear to in the form of a ghost or other supernatural being.   

2. To visit often; frequent: haunted the movie theaters.3. To come to the mind of continually; obsess: a riddle that haunted me all morning.4. To be continually present in; pervade: the melancholy that haunts the composer’s music.   

v.intr. To recur or visit often, especially as a ghost.   

haunt   

vb 1. (Myth & Legend / European Myth & Legend) to visit (a person or place) in the form of a ghost   

2. (tr) to intrude upon or recur to (the memory, thoughts, etc.) he was haunted by the fear of insanity3. to visit (a place) frequently4. to associate with (someone) frequently   

n 1. (often plural) a place visited frequently an old haunt of hers.   

 

 

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Henna Tattoo [a first]

“I have a strong will to love you for eternity.” Milan Kundera. Earth Henna, Eucalyptus Oil. May 2, 2010.

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Words…Words…Words…..Swords

Words are Swords. May 9 2010. Ink on paper.

It is said that the tragedy of Hamlet is consumed between ‘words’ and ‘swords’. Words, words, words murmur the duelling characters…

Some may say words are swords, of the most insidious kind, and that that which is uttered – or written- has a potential for far more damage than a weapon meant to plunge in an enemy’s body. In Italian there is a saying, its origins in the Gospel, ‘ Chi di spada ferisce, di spada perisce’ [Qui gladio ferit gladio perit] . In English it is translated as ‘He who lives by the sword, perishes by the sword’.  As for those who live by the words, we also (must) suffer by words.

As a writer, a wordsmith, a poet – and more importantly, as a sentient human being - I have pondered today the reach of words, their lasting impact as means of communication in the analog and digital age.

Wounds are healed yet words remain. It is a theme that I will continue to explore, as more images are conjured up on the topic as I am posting this.

Thoughts in the alley:
Can you stop a bud from blossoming?
No.
You can only marvel at its perseverance.
You can choose to admire its beauty,
while contemplating the poignancy of its helplessness.

Word Machine. May 9,2010. Ink on paper.

WordBombs. May 9, 2010. Ink on paper.

The scene of the crime. May 9, 2010. Ink on paper.

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Old Time Radio

image via amoeblog.com. click on the image for more on Old Time Radio.

While I work, I sometimes listen to my ipod, my Pandora Channel or NPR.

I recently embraced the gospel of the Flylady, as I have to seriously declutter and organize my living quarters, and audiobooks keep me company during my chores, i mean, my ’27 Fling Boogies’…

But my favorite audiocandy is stories: I am seriously into Old Time Radio and  Sherlock Holmes/Noir Suspense shows of the 50′s.

Recently, I have compiled a list of all my storytellers:

Twilight Zone

Theather of the Imagination

Sherlock Holmes

Suspense

Crime Classics

CBS Radio Mistery Theather

Audiobooks on Archive.org

Old Time Radio on Archive.org

[NO IMAGE = IMAGINE]

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A Missed Anniversary

Yours Truly, 1977, Mestre, Italia

It has been a year and a month (almost) since I started Sketchbloom, and five months since it bloomed.
So happy 1st yr. Birthday to me.

It’s also been about a year since I gave up my physical studio @ Brokers Building in Gaslamp; miss the extra space but, ironically I produce way more creative output (even though I never finished  The Artist’s Way) and am proud, proud, proud to be a card carrying…

Thank you for this beautiful badge, artists @Brokers. I wear it with pride. I wish you all the best, Compañeros.

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Healing Art

Turning into pattern/abstract thoughts. Digital collage. Original mixed media on glass. 2008/2010

Art is a wound turned into light.

Georges Braque

(Thank You Lamees)

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