Circle 12.10

This evening we checked-in as usual, and then discussed the insidiousness of resistance, how it creeps into our lives, and also some brought up portions of the book that particularly struck them as useful for them at the time: for instance, some feel the tug of the call of love and duty to family, others mentioned the trouble of having so many ideas, and I particularly loved the sections discussing heirarchies vs. territories, how the artist need not compete so much as contribute to his or her "artistic bank account" from which no one can initiate withdrawals.

Pressfield thinks the professional artist rightly sees his art as a "territory" that he/she visits and in which he operates alone and exerts full control over his growth and progress and in which there is no possibility of sabotage, if the artist just does the work--the question of recognition being a separate issue and not one that deserves concern, since it is usually not something one has any control over and has little to do with the art itself.

In the exercise portion we worked in pairs, one member adopting the voice of Resistance specific to the individual in the pair, and the other talking back from the perspective of the creative soul on its path. Each person had his or her own experience of what that conversation signified, and overall there appeared to be a common theme that we tend to deprioritize our art at times.

Circle 11.25

During this evening we checked-in and covered lots of issues related to resistance and things that get in the way of doing our creative "stuff," ranging from thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, including issues of self-sabotage. We talked about creative expressions that aren't necessarily fine art, but other things we do or have done that express our creativity, like cooking or home renovation.

In the discussion of the book topic, we shared a variety of thoughts on the ideas presented, some not liking the idea of an "impersonal outside" force that works against you, but most agreeing that we ourselves sometimes aren't on our own pages about our creative endeavors and get distracted. Plainly stated--some people like the book and some don't.

For the art activity, we created collages for the most part, some with charcoal, that express our ideas on Resistance and what it means to overcome it.

Some of the Art on Resistance 11.25

Men/Women at ... Play 11.25

Road Trip Anyone?

From Ode Magazine - Artists Sleep Free at the Creators Inn

Circle 11.18

After check-ins this week, we talked about the first few pages in The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (those aren't numbered since they function as a preface to the next part of the book which covers the topic of Resistance). The topics were What I Do, What I Know, and The Unlived Life.

The art portion began with the intention of painting in an abstract way the Inner Being or that energy that inspires us as artists (but rules are meant be broken, etc.). The prompt for the activity came from a line in the book (on one of those not numbered pages), "A writer writes with his genius; an artist paints with hers; everyone who creates operates from this sacramental center. It is our soul's seat, the vessel that holds our being-in-potential, our star's beacon and Polaris."

On Tuesday, the 2nd, we'll cover pages 5-30 of Book One, RESISTANCE: Defining the Enemy.

The opening quotation for this first section is by the Dalai Lama:

"The enemy is a very good teacher."

Just a few notes about the schedule. We won't meet Nov. 25th on account of Thanksgiving unless some of you want to alter that (we can discuss via email) and then we are scheduled for the evening of Tuesday, Dec. 2, and then Wednesday evenings, 6:30-8:00, beginning Dec. 10.
Finally, welcome to Brynne and Dot--we are happy to meet you! Some of us are planning to meet at the DMA this Friday evening for Late Night at the DMA (around 7:30 at the front desk). So join us if you are so inclined.

Circle Gathering 11.18

Paintings from 11.18

The painter of the first image wants it noted that the painting is not finished.

Carol's poster

Serendipity

Last week, I was hanging this painting done about twenty-five years ago by a painter who lives in San Gimignano, Italy, a small town in the Tuscan hills. He is named Massimo Pantani. He had a shop and painted in the back. My momma gave me one of his original works as a birthday gift that summer while we were on vacation, and he framed it for me. I was utterly delighted by the whole experience. For years it hung on a wall in a wood frame, and then last week the frame sort of hopped off the wall. Well, maybe not hopped but definitely fell off seemingly of its own initiative, while the painting and its matting remained on the wall. I looked at the painting and thought, "With that thick wood frame it looked really woodsy and natural, and in the matting by itself the country road looks just magical. I am loving the scenic road sans the wood frame and with just that silvery matte for a trim.

Massimo's current work can be viewed at http://www.pantanipaola.com/

Sarah

Inner Being (Abstract)

I played around a bit with paints yesterday and today and this is what I came up with as far as doing an abstraction of the energy I would interpret as my Inner Being. I am kind of thinking I will use a silver, bronzy, or gold matte to go with it and it will hang on my orange wall.

Jack bemused by notes.

Andy with his Euro-cut.

The lovely Kim Schlossberg.

Parking Lot Autumn

I was really interested in this leaf in the parking lot just in front of the house where we meet.

Guess Whose Happy Birthday?

Birthday moment!

Can You Find Two Kayaks?

These guys are hard to find but they are there! (You have to double-click on the image to see them.)

Sunset at White Rock Lake

This sunset was lovely and I happened to have my camera!

Morning Pages (August 30)

...I walk first through the ordinary world, the world of my neighborhood, past sprinklers and mailmen and neighbors in conversation on their lawns, towards the lake, where the world turns at first sporty and energetic, but sometimes frenetic, and hear snippets of conversation...He's black so he must be a Democrat...words that make me laugh or feel depressed...towards the water, where people are speaking less. I walk along the water's edge, breathing ions and peacefulness. I notice the color of the water, it's shape, the wind, how the light affects it. I notice the birds near or far, and a dog, sniffing, happy, and unfenced.

My Nasher assignment :-)

My maiden voyage into the uncharted seas of this blog

From the endless, impromptu auto show at Keller's Hamburgers on NW Hwy

A gorgeously decaying structure on Main St in Ft Worth.

Last week I needed to get on some train tracks, so I hit the road with my camera. As the evening progressed I became more and more bold, pulling the car over, or stopping in the middle of the road (no cars were coming) for any shot that looked interesting. This was on the side of a paint shop. It was a huge mural that continued to the right, but with this amazing excerpt of a Ralph Waldo Emerson poem, all going unnoticed on the side of this wall, off the main road. Read it if you can.

Texas Cowboys came from Bavaria???

This week I took another step toward becoming Bavarian - purchasing Lederhosen and attending Oktoberfest! As I was strapping on my "leather-pants" and strapping is really the right word, and tieing my "scarf" around my neck, I realized this outfit was not so far from our texas cowboys...leather pants (chaps), and the bandana. Perhaps not such an American novelty after all.







Although I do think we might be abit smarter, certainly strapped on leather trousers are much better for riding horses than drinking lots of beer...especially as it took me an extra five minutes to "break loose" of my trousers when heading to the 'lou' and this is not a time when you wish to be having to wait!

As we say in Oktoberfest....PROST!!!

TA DA

I just wrote song number 50- The challenge ends Oct. 1st, which means I finished a little before the deadline. Big for me.
Yay for me!!!

Kerri

Dinner after circle can be very interesting...

Sarah wants to honk less at others and Michael is quitting smoking and Kerri's lesbian dog eats her panties.

Walking in this whirl

One of our meetings a long time ago. :-)

Single Gun Theory and Sam

Today I was thinking about Sam. In 1994, R.R. Donnelley contracted with Ernst & Young to produce print material. I was hired on the night shift, initially to type financial statements, with the promise of the proofreading gig after a few months. It seemed like three or four months of typing. I typed in a room with people who had been typing, some for decades, eight hours a day. Three out of four typed over a 100 words a minute, and Sam, a new-hire like me, typed over 110 words a minute. (I figured out that part of the key to it was 'spaghetti' fingers, not tense fingers. Anyway. I think I went from 60 to 70 words a minute.)

Sam was not only an excellent typist, but generally brilliant. I thought he could probably run Ernst & Young with his hands tied behind his back. I found out what he really wanted to do was to perform in drag and he did that part-time.

Sam listened to Single Gun Theory when he worked. I bought the CD, "Flow, River of My Soul." Now I know there was not just one album. The lyrics and sound were so unforgettable and hauntingly beautiful; the following link will play "Fall," a song from that album, but you have to wait a moment for it to start http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-AuKsiGbQ4.

The night shift is such an unexpected alternate reality. Everyone sleeps when you work and vice-versa. If you aren't big on noise or having to talk to anyone much, it's great. It was actually just what I needed in 1994.

We ordinarily worked from about 8 at night to about 4 in the morning. It was a strange life. On breaks, I would look out on the silent city from 12 stories high on the corner of Ross and San Jacinto, feeling like an astronaut. Always dark, twinkling lights, nothing doing. Me in a capsule. Sometimes my friend, who booked hotel conference rooms at another skyscraper downtown during the day, would drop by at midnight for a chat in the capsule.

Driving home around 4:15 a.m., you see the raccoons crossing the streets. That was cool. I would pop in Single Gun Theory on the drive home--down the tollway all by myself to Carrollton (except for the night that guy in the red Maserati ran into the car in front of me at the Mockingbird exit.)

Sam was great company, and some nights it was just us two--him typing and me proofing, eventually. I don't know where he is today, but I hope he is somewhere on the stage in high heels or running things at some big company.

Stefan Bucher's Daily Monster, as promised

I shared tonight about Stefan Bucher's fabulous Daily Monster blog. Carol's inkblot drawings reminded me of these a little bit. 

I'm glad I checked back in on this blog because a lot has changed. Stefan did 200 short videos of his wonderful, creative inkblot drawings (the series has closed out, but they are still up there for your enjoyment), published a book of them, and now has made inkblots available for us to try our own! See the little monsters here. 

"Almost Good" and "The Green Door"

I was thinking of this 45 I had when I was about six. It came from a garage sale, and on one side was "Almost Good" and on the other was "The Green Door." I love both of those songs. "Almost Good" was jazzy and mainly instrumental but at the end of a measure a guy who sounded like Ray Charles (to me) would say, in a speaking voice, "Hey, that's almost good!" and he would say it a different way each time he came to the end of a measure (or whatever that musical unit is called). Sometimes it would seem like encouragement, sometimes like a Beat Poet line, and sometimes like an exclamation. I enjoyed the fun the singer was having with the concept of 'the critic,' even though I couldn't think conceptually at that point. It might have been almost good but it was definitely enjoyable.

And "The Green Door" was such a mystery. "Who's that knockin' on the green door? Sure a lot of fun goin' on behind the Green Door! etc." I imagined the "green door" and knew that whatever it was, it was kind of a secret and a lot of fun. What a great question for a kid. Who is knocking on the green door?

So today I tried to trace these tunes because I don't have the 45 anymore and I came up with this! There WAS a real green door! Who knew?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2006/sep/08/popandrock1

#38

I just posted the title of my 38th song for the "50 songs in 90 days" online challenge. When I look at the list of all my titles, I can't even remember writing at least 1/2 of them, or what they sound like...Fortunately, I've recorded them all and I plan on going back and editing thru the best ones. Hopefully, this will be the next content for my NEXT cd, which I want to call "90 days". It sounds like I've been off to a 3 month rehab center or something. And in a way, maybe I HAVE!!!

Here's a link to check my progress.
The "contest" ends on Oct. 1st. 38 down, 12 to go!


Well, it doesn't seem to be hyperlinking. In case you can't see the link, it is:
5090.fawn.org/writers.php?id=1773


Kerri

First Post

Well, this is an AMAZING blog, and the only one I have ever felt the need to be part of (I know, I need to get out more. Or should I say, less?)

Lots of good words and images, which I've just started to delve into.

So I will post a short poem of mine, the one whose 1st few lines came to me in that special hypnopompic stupor we call "waking up" :


Remembering to Sing.
- By Jack C. Ritter.

If every deaf mute fell at once
into the singing seas,

what rhyming tremolos they'd plumb
from whales and anemones!

We'd fetch their choral catch with nets
of woven unforgetfulness.

And to this deaf and dreamless Earth,
restore Her songs and memories.

Where's Waldo?

I thought I would post this entry because I was touched by my experience earlier today. I will call the person who lived in my house before me "Waldo." Since I moved I seem to run across his name all the time.

Today I went to Half Price to get a new Julia book. She appeals to me for so many reasons. I was directed to the Creativity section and was staring at The Sound of Paper and The Vein of Gold, unsure which one to add to my collection (which includes The Artist's Way, Walking in This World, and Floor Sample). I was about to pick The Sound of Paper but then I opened The Vein of Gold. There was a beautiful note inside to Waldo. It made me laugh to see Waldo emerging again. I get his mail every now and then almost 10 years later.

It read:

September 1999

For Waldo,

An invitation to remove the obstacles of the indifferent ordinary to uncover the exhiliration of miracles emerging from your creative heart!

Best Wishes,

"Dad"

Sketchtravel!

I enjoyed getting caught up with everyone tonight! Here's the link to the sketchtravel website I mentioned. Great idea, and I really enjoy the new drawings. You can follow the blog, too.

Enjoy!

It gets messy in the ICU waiting room

"Believe"

(This assemblage piece includes a doll by Serena Mann, whose works are available at The Ole Moon on Greenville Avenue in Dallas.)

Play

I was sitting at my computer feeling so "in touch" because I have visited web sites this morning and communicated, instead of just holing up at the house...and I was thinking about how my kitten, Lyle, had been sitting on the monitor grabbing at letters and how cute it was. Then it occurred to me that he was doing that because he wants attention and to play.

So it was fun to realize I could do something to summon him from another room without even actually moving very much...I wadded it up a piece of paper, threw it on the floor, knowing he would hear the "shhh" sound of it hitting the tile, and that he would find that sound provocative and come running...which he did...and then he grabbed the paper triumphantly and scampered off and has been shredding it...and then with extra energy came spizzing around in the room for a minute. He has since decided that jumping up on the wall to grab at a broom I have nailed up next to a painting would also be fun.

The Intifada Begins

I was riding in the back of the truck
we were just five minutes from Gibor
David and I
we had made love in an orchard of lemon trees
and I was thinking just how lovely life could be in spite of everything
and I was looking at the hair on the back of David’s neck
how it curls upward like a stream running backward
in One Hundred Years of Solitude

we are like salmon too I guess
everyone of us
things like that were coming to mind and I was feeling safe
forgetting about the fighting
for a second
maybe that is why it happened
I forgot
to be watchful
that I carried
who “sitteth on the right hand of God the father almighty”*
the pistol

and I breathed in and noticed the sun in my eyes
and across the windshield
and then blood
on both of us
and the windshield too**

*from the The Apostle’s Creed
**This is an entirely fictional account of one of the events of the “Night of the Gliders” attack on an Israeli army camp two miles east of Kiryat Shmona, in November of 1987. After writing the poem, I found an article that mentioned that the driver was the woman soldier’s boyfriend, and she is referred to as Corporal Tami in the news article, although when I wrote the poem I just imagined such a relationship. A Syrian-based guerrilla group took responsibility for the attack.

Missing Michael

A tribute to our friend in Germany. :-)

More on Locks and Keys

I was at a thrift store yesterday and decided on a visit to the Ladies Room and when I opened the door, discovered a rather lengthy hall, much to my surprise, and a nice lock on the door I had just opened. I assumed the stall was around the corner and locked the door. When I turned the corner I saw three stalls, and realized I had locked the door unnecessarily, but went about my business anyway. Soon someone began pounding on the outer door and I felt frightened . The person kept pounding, which sent me into a realization that the person meant to control and intimidate me into opening the door. I decided to take my time and just wash my hands at the normal rate since this person meant to intimidate me. When I opened the door, a large woman who seemed to be in withdrawl from some drug looked at me menacingly and asked, "Why did you lock the door?" It was more of an outburst. I replied to her face, though it wasn't the exact truth, "Because I could," which really jerked the already jerked chain, to which she replied, "*ITCH!"

So my friend and I ended all our comments to one anther yesterday with "*ITCH!" and that was fun. I am not sure why I wasn't going to let that woman control my behavior just because she was scary; I guess I figured she had probably gotten away with a lot of that already that day. And maybe I should have let her.

Kerri!

Goodbye Elemore

One of my all time favorite teachers just passed away. You can read my goodbye letter to him here.

Wicked Invader 1102

I know a woman with a set of keys
but I have mostly locks
there are keys tucked away
that don’t fit anything
a little Alice in the palace
remember that insomniac Goldilocks
I guess the other question is
where are the other locks

In the Christmas tin full of nails
its a combination lock
with a happy solution
visible as a fortune cookie riddle

Q: Why does a woman lose track of locks and keys

A: Because she knows intruders

wicked intruders wicked invaders wicked invader

*Not to be confused with the Harlequin romance Wicked Invader by the author Sara Wood who bears no relation to the poet.

"It Flings"

I thought I would share my painting from the church auction. I really enjoyed the process of painting and using other media, as well. You can see the square corner in one of the polka dots that I left as a form of practice in accepting imperfection. Right now "It Flings" is hanging over my computer.