I did my first podcast interview for the lovely and intuitive Jamie Ridler…I was so nervous and sound a bit geeky but you can hear the interview here. I have to say though, Jamie is profoundly intuitive ~ so much so that by the end I was quite at ease. She has a way of drawing you out and making you think it was all your idea:)
I brought home some flowers today to plant in the garden pictured above in that sweet brown paper bag. Don’t you just love Springtime?
my bedroom ~ I’m loving the light that streams in all day long ~
I am so pleased with the mood of this photo I created for ‘words to shoot by’ ~ the word this week was ‘ripple’ and once I shot my images I was quite delighted to find a little unintentional narrative ‘ribboning‘ through my work. This is my very first week creating for this wonderful ‘gallery’ but already I am feeling so enthused over the notion of creating three images for one word. It allows me to ‘lean’ into the work and feels like a thoughtful, deep ‘breath’ somehow, if that makes any sense at all. Hopefully it will inspire some strong, beautiful work. I don’t like saying that out loud but sometimes you have to put it all out on the line to nudge yourself to grow in your art.
Yesterday morning I was driving along and saw a little black triumph car zipping along, dotted all over with pink cherry blossoms that had perhaps fallen off a tree while it was parked through the night. Since there was a sprinkling of rain, all the little blossoms clung very romantically to the car ~ it was incredibly beautiful, magical even, and a perfect ‘unphotographable’ moment.
Today I am sad to say I will not be offering my ‘open to exposure’ on line course for children for a while. I am in the midst of negotiations for a book of this project and I am not all allowed to teach it online at present. But don’t worry, I will be offering ‘the art of living cheerfully’ in the next few weeks which is a playful, romantic and happy inducing course promising to lift your spirits:)
Oh! and by the way, lucky me, I found a wonderful record at Zulu records ~ the Staple Singers who sing with such spiritual elation, I feel positively anthemic.
The pendulum of spring welcomes azure skies today. A lovely Sunday to spend at Aphrodite’s Pie shop for breakfast on West 4th followed by an hour or so getting lost in my favorite book shop which is just across the street ~ ‘Banyen books‘ (where I buy all my bumper stickers for my car, the most recent being ‘make love not war’ in bold happy graphics) and thennnnnnnn poking about Zulu records where there will be lots of back and forthness trying to decide which records to buy I am sure. (I am also looking for a new turntable so who knows that may be a topic of consideration today as well)
I seriously don’t think I could be any happier ~ it’s Sunday after all, a perfect day for coffee and people watching. My beautifully talented friend Meredith has opened an etsy shop ~ I am so in love with this delightful print ~ go see!
This morning I awoke to the sound of soft pattering rain which I love as it infuses the air with the scent of white lilacs (in my garden) and seaweed. I have a little porch off my studio that nestles right into the topmost branches of the apple tree, and so I made myself a cup of green tea and sat in a quite meditation lulled with the sound of this gentle spring rain.
I have been thinking about putting up a shelf in my studio to place small flotsam and jetsam I collect on the beach, (seaglass, shells, driftwood, feathers) the tiny perfume bottle you see pictured above with a wildflower and perhaps a favorite polaroid ~ but have not been at all inspired with shelving I see in the shops. In my heart of hearts I imagine a piece of flat driftwood, tumbled by the sea and bleached by the sun would be exactly perfect.
‘looking…..’
So, on my morning beach walk my dog and I kept an eye out for that very special piece of driftwood that would become a shelf in my studio, in my house by the sea. We did not find it on this walk but we found many other things…an eagles feather, a starfish stranded on the beach after the tide withdrew (so we carefully put it back in the water) an abandoned blue plastic shovel for scooping sand and a little red baby crab.
‘waiting….’
when I returned home I curled up with tea and toast and read from a book I just purchased recently and love to bits. ‘Absence and Presence’ is a beautiful book filled with writings, poetry and remembrances of Pablo Neruda as well as a treasure trove of incredible black and white photo’s taken in his home at Isla Negra. If I haven’t mentioned it a least a zillion times I have quite the crush on this man with his vivid intellect, passion and deep love of his country and humanity. This book is rich with intimacy and these photo’s of his home he shared with Matilde are wonderfully revealing to me.
But I digress:)
As I was glancing through images of his home (oh my! he loved little ships in glass bottles just like me!) I stumbled upon a small remembrance by Mario Toral and it read….
‘In Isla Negra, just when his new workroom had been built, he said to Matilde, “I need a desk, a special desk….I don’t know what, but it has to be special.”
Matilde made various suggestions ~ windows, old doors ~ which he waved aside. One day, looking out to sea from the almost finished room, he saw something that caught his attention.
“Matilde! Matilde! My desk! My desk!”
They both went down to the beach and sat on the sand, waiting for a wave to wash up the wood that was to be Neruda’s desk.
a little meandering trail of bleached seashells i found on a piece of driftwood this morning
This morning….
listening to a gorgeous cd by the lovely Andreaand Malcolm that I met at the ‘instant magic’ art opening on friday evening and it is sublime (smiling to myself because they traded chocolate for studio time which makes all the sense in the world to me)
feeling rather pleased with myself as i found a heart shaped piece of sea glass on my morning beach walk
enjoying the splashes of light dancing on my sunburnished walls
looking forward to summer peaches, midnight walks and folk festivals ~ oh and figs and pomengranites and paintbrushes as well
marveling at the simple beauty of the purple pansies ready to be planted in my garden under the apple tree (festooned with green and blue paper lanterns no less)
wanting to share with you a lovely shop i found (that has inspired me also to offer giveaways that will appear monthly in my etsy shop)
thinking boccaccini salad with pita is a perfect breakfast
LOVE!!! new painting gracing my home by my sublimely gifted friend misty mawn
today ~
~ tweaking details for the instant magic show (if you live in vancouver please do come!)
~ collected such beautiful driftwood this morning on the beach, tying it with a green satin ribbon as a gift for a friend
~ visiting a second hand bookshop looking for this book
~ pondering making a marmalade cake
~ traded these ethereal glass windchimes for some of my photography
~ found an astonishingly rare and beautiful artwork on etsy as I slowly unearth affordable and poetic art for my beach house
~ feeling such a wonderful ache of newborn spring in my chest which i cannot for the life of me decide whether to cry, laugh or sing (It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want – oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! ~Mark Twain)
~ wondering if it might be time for a bowl of lemon yogurt and raspberries?
“If a poet is anybody, he is somebody to whom things ‘made’ matter very little — somebody who is obsessed with the Making. Like all obsessions, the Making has advantages: for instance, my only interest in making money would be to make it. Fortunately, however, I should prefer to make almost anything else, including locomotives and roses. It is with locomotives, not to mention acrobats, spring electricity, Coney Island, the 4th of July, the eyes of mice and Niagara Falls that my poems are competing. They are also competing with each other, with elephants and El Greco.”
~e. e. cummings ~
When I am in the midst of “the making,” my soul literally vibrates, time is timeless and I have not a thought nor a dream of the “sky-aiming” outcome. I am so in the moment and I am here, I am present in a way that is so beautifully alive and beguiling for, oh, all sorts of reasons. Really, even when I have the most stunning photo or lyrical piece of writing as proof of my creative outburst, it can never replace the wonder of creation. After all, my makings also compete with each other, elephants and El Greco.
Creativity for me is a foray of wandering, wondering, gathering and bringing home different things — my ways of beholding the invisible dragons or chimera around me. It is intensely spiritual, and my rooted connection to nature (where would I be without the sea?) is a vast wellspring of poetic figments and inspiration.
Each evening at twilight I walk along the crescent-shaped beach where I live by the sea. At a beautiful curve of land near the old pier is a home, large and opulent in its design — often filled with people when I glimpse through the windows. Outside this home on its property facing the sea, is a small one room glass studio. Inside is a piano, a large comfortable chair, stacks of records, books and CDs on an old oak desk. Often I glimpse by the solitary glow of a very faint lamp in this room, a man playing the piano in a reverie of solitude while his large opulent house buzzes with generous activity close by.
Make room, I am reminded, make space, gather time for yourself and your art. It is necessary.
“Contradictions.”
I have a newfound passion for Polaroid film, and my foray into this old fashioned analog expression is changing my photography as I transition into a closer resemblance of the poetry I wish to express. I have never been happier with my work, and yet, these images are less popular with viewers than my previous work. I feel art is a dialogue once it has been birthed, and we all desire affirmation and love for our work as well as ourselves. So how do I reconcile these polarities of feeling? Art is to be shared, there is room enough in the universe for all of us to support and give one another our time and assistance. I believe with all my heart and soul that every single person alive on this planet is an artist, whether they realize this or not. We all have a story to share, an intimate and beautifully unique way of seeing. I have discovered it is so true that when you teach, you learn.
A final thought: The heart is what matters most of all ~ creativity is an act of love. Amen.
Oh today is already perfect and it has barely begun. The sun is shining ever so beautifully, birds are conducting choirs outside my window (in the blossoming apple trees no less) and i have an entire morning to play in my studio with a fountain of inspiration to motivate me. (feeling slightly less than earthbound) Yesterday I was so honored to answer some wonderful and provocative questions in a podcast interview for the lovely Jamie Ridler which has me thinking today about creative rituals. My ritual today included a cup of jasmine green tea, a bowl of Irish porridge and a beet, carrot and ginger smoothie. I also went for an early morning walk, read some poetry (naomi shihab nye) and visited this site which moved me to tears.
Shortly I will go through my final selection of polaroids for the ‘instant magic’ exhibit I am participating in next Friday and clean up my studio which always makes me feel happy ~ somehow creating literal space invites more room for fresh ideas and imaginings.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand….because I seem to have food on the brain today, I think I will poke through my favorite cookbook and create a new dish after yoga this afternoon. A nourishing dish that makes your taste buds dance is completely soothing for the soul and a whole realm of art in it’s own right in my humble opinion.
Speaking of creative rituals, I would love to hear some of yours ~ listening to Jamie’s podcasts, I am always most curious how artist’s move their inner muse into action.
instant magic ~ the polaroid show ~ pop by here to see the selection of polaroids I have selected to put in the exhibit
I am most pleased to invite anyone who might be available to join Vivienne, Suvarna and myself for our first polaroid exhibit together. “Instant magic ~ the polaraoid show’ will be held on Friday, April 16 at the ‘Our Town Cafe’ in Vancouver and will begin at 7:30.
Not to sound like we need to bribe you or anything but there will be a most fabulous door prize of a polaroid camera. And excellent coffee and polaroids of course.
This weekend has been so beautifully restorative for me, after such an overwhelmingly busy week which became busy in a wonderful way when I finally decided to ‘surrender’ and ask for help. So many articles were overdue, my mind was feverishly gestating creative ideas I wanted to rush out and manifest, not to mention requests for three proposals in relation to my new polaroid project, ‘open to exposure’ for children. Surrendering took the form of hiring my lovely friend Jennifer, who is a brilliantly gifted writer and asking her for help which she undertook with grace and humor on very short notice.
Pop by her website and you will be seduced with her charm I promise you ~ Jennifer ‘curated’ a stunning collection of essay’s in a book called ‘Lanterns’ which you can order off her website, several of my friends penned luminous stories for Lanterns and the photograph’s are sooo gorgeous!
Have a peek as well at the little film clip I took this weekend at the Aquarium of the moon jelly fish ~ they are by far my favorite sea creature as their effervescent beauty is gorgeously hypnotic to me. I could spend the entire day just staring at them and was so happy to capture a bit of their magic on film.
Later this same day I visited the Buddhist temple for a meditation class and had a most lively conversation afterwards over jasmine tea in the caffeteria. My Dharma practice is incredibly personal to me so I tend to tiptoe gently through spiritual conversations if only because in the end it is so incredibly ordinary. It truly has nothing to do with ‘identity’ and like my deepest personal relationships I find that sheltering this ‘wheel of becoming’ allows my lens to become ever more generous.
Wandering through life’s experiences I am learning to simply be natural, to venture beyond a point of view to insight and understanding, and perhaps the biggest of all to ‘learn how to listen so others will speak, and how to speak so others will listen’ ( a big one for a chatterbox like me:) Somehow all of these facets help me penetrate more deeper into intimacy which I guess in the end is where I am continuously trying to make my way.
The sky is a most lovely blue today and I am heading out further exploring my new passion for the px 100 silvershade film by the impossible project ~ you can peek at photo’s of my learning curve here. This film has the most beyond~gorgeous magical shimmering sparkles that I am over the moon with. It’s so cool because they have little ‘quotes’ on the cards that the polaroid camera spits out ~ my last one read ‘catch a falling star and put it in your pocket.’ Needless to say I was quite charmed:)
Have a fabulous week, I hope you had a relaxing and peaceful Easter weekend.
