Transformed.

Dear Lucy,

Enjoy your song for today!

Farewell-to-Spring

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From their rooms.

Dear You,

Are you in your room right now?  I am in mine, and there are two pots boiling in the room to the right, and to the left, the porch lamp holds the House Finch nest and eggs again.  This room, is nowhere near, and it is not now, but it is great, and it is your song(s) for the day.  I love this series of performances called In my Room, brought to you by Rolling Stone.  I hope it inspires you to play in your family band, because I am playing in mine.

Valuable Time

Dear Valuable Time,

Heaven knows you're miserable now.  Enjoy your song for today, with all the double entendres, subtexts, and significance thrown in for free. 

A rubber biscuit.

Dear Gumby,

I think I want to say something positive, and not because I don't want to say anything negative.  I want to say something positive because I am actually thinking and feeling it:  you are so flexible, my dear humanity!  You are capable of such remarkable pliancy! 

I applaud you and I wish you decisions that bring you joy.  Here is a song for today.





PS
A bonus feature from the same year: 1956.

On flight.

Dear Winged,

Here are two fine songs for today that share lyrical directions.

Fly into the Mystery

Fly into the Sun

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A hurry.

 

Untitled (doll's shoe & drupe), 2019



Dear Little Ones,

I must break my pattern to send you this right away!  You have probably noticed lo these many years, that I like to send you something every few days, maybe twice a week, with a kind of flexible reliability.  I don't want to leave you so long that you get lonely, but I also don't want to crowd or overwhelm you.

I was sent this beautiful bit of writing from a valued & treasured pal, which is what makes up so much of my substance in this venue.

I know you will love it as I do!

Love & Envy

Stop Looking Like a Sweater,

wool, 142 x 65 x 5cm, 2013,

Celia Pym

Dear Dying of Envy,

Oh I know how you feel!  You plod along for years, you think you are getting somewhere, you feel, 'yes, this little square of felt with threads through it is really saying things, this is it, I have made something relevant!' 

And then.  You find someone like Celia Pym and you know that you have wasted your efforts, because here is a her that is really making beautiful, poignant, elegant, expressive objects.  The kind you have always wished to make.

Well, tough cookies.  There is nothing you can do but try to bury your hurt and soldier on making things that are not as clearly distilled as these.  A better one made by someone else is just that; a better one made by someone else, and our job here it to minimize the suffering we cause, and that includes our endless, whingeing self-suffering.  So let's rewind, and re-phrase this post:


Dear Looking Out for Beauty,

Here it is, an artist and maker who is sending me over the moon with the wonderful things she has made!  I know you will love them too.  Let's run and get our needles right now, and start to stitch together the beautiful old broken and tattered scraps.  Let's not worry about it coming out good, let's just let each stich come like a drop of rain, with only gravity to guide it where to fall.  Let's just make little marks until we have daubed out a poem of plenty, an elegant pile of eraser rubbings, a page of smudges that mean that time happened here, and it was.









PS
Be sure you investigate a piece titled Blue Knitting.

Seven Hundred

Dear Skates,

Thank you for the days.  Which is also your song for today.

Yes, it is time again to note my total consecutive days of roller skating, today at 700.  It also signals me to invite you again to try it, to take a chance on eight wheels.  If you want to start out right, you could take this thorough and helpful lesson online. 

I really feel that you want to roller skate, and if there is a time that I could convince you, let it be now.

Oh, and let's have Petula Clark, too.  And why not have Los Imposibles also?

Chance Encounters with Fragile Materials

Dear Would-Be Gallery-Goers,


      I have made these objects, dear viewers, primarily out of leftovers, scraps, and found materials.  My mind as I am making these objects is open- I try to let the materials tell me what they would like to be paired with, or attached to.  It is a kind of visual listening.  I am thinking of how lovely these little bits are in their own right: this short stubby worn stick, this little bit of watercolor sea, this calligraphic rusted and run over wire, and how perfect this little square of dark linen is with the small pink oil paint stain on it.  I would like these to feel like they grew, or accumulated, more than they were pushed or crafted into existence.

     Transitory and temporary materials are used in building these objects: branches, powdered graphite, wool batting, string.  Many of the works will change over time:  tape will unloose, grasses will shatter, threads will break.  Some pieces may go to ground entirely over the years.
    
     These funny little objects seem right to me now, during this time.  They feel like the imperfect offering in Leonard Cohen’s song “Anthem.”  I hope you will find poetry and love in them.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in
-Leonard Cohen