Winter Melt
Letting go of the valley
last year’s plowridges are found
winter returns to the mountains
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valley of the wind
Earthquakes, dry wind, spring floods all leave their mark as they form a desert valley between granite ranges.
imperfect perfection
I was having dinner with a friend who asked me why I cut my paintings apart. It is a common question I receive about my work. The answer went something like this:
Running my finger around the porcelain tea bowl, I asked him, “Do you see this? It is perfect.”
I held the cup up to the light, “So thin, so smooth, it fits comfortably in the hands, it is a pleasure to drink from. And when i walk away from here I will not think of it again.”
I told him of how at University, I had begun as a pottery student in Art school. I haunted the museums around Seattle which have many collections of Asian pottery. There, I discovered ceremonial tea bowls. A tea bowl for ceremony has a rustic charm, you can almost sense the presence of the potter, see his prints in the clay, feel the rhythm of it being formed, catch fragrances of the raw earth and traces of fire and ash. All of these rush into the heart. Linger.
The smooth surface perfection of other vessels did not hold me, my eye slid off the surface too fast to register, a brief moment in the mind, then gone. My eye would return to the rough tea bowls, there was a place for me, time to explore beyond the moment. It was a stunning revelation, a small shock. I saw the similar truth in my work. Ever a perfectionist, I would polish the life right out of it.
So it began then in the early 70s, painting, cutting apart, abstracting, reassembling, leaving empty spaces for others to fill. Small imperfections slow the eye, invite.
It has been a gradual process finding the right balance; subtle not destructive. It is like listening in a conversation instead of filling up all the silences with meaningless words.
It is the Flaw that is the invitation that asks the eye to slow, the heart to open. A bridge to cross. A Welcome.
The flaw is the invitation
The Flaw is the Invitation
(click image to enlarge)
Empty spaces left
to be filled
with experiences and memories
stored in another’s heart.
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The fragments are from the lower right corner of the painting.
Icicle Creek (collection of the artist)
Death’s Door | Holy Door
Zamma and I have been camping on death’s door, the holy door. Up, down, sliding, recovering, it has been two weeks at the threshold, waiting in uncertainty. Zamma will decide.
We are two old friends.
Zamma is ancient approaching her twenty-third year. My wee girlie of the feral clans is not much bigger than two handfuls, yet she takes up a large space in my heart. I wonder at her presence, even the male bobcats drop on their bellies and shimmy backwards for Zamma. As Kadimiros the wise reminds, each of us is precious to the whole, our importance in holding down a corner of the universe is beyond knowing, even a cat.
Today there is a skip in Zamma’s step. So, we continue our daily habit of rising before dawn to watch Eos sweep away the stars and open the gate for the Sun, Zamma will drink out of the bird’s water. Star elixir, we tease, is what keeps her alive. And after a day of work we will sit again in the dark and watch Sirius and Regulus and all the others transit the deep ocean of night. One day we will both be sparks flying among them, perhaps.
Abuzz - grand opening
BEES
wildones
honeybees
woodbees
Hummingbirds
all arrived today just as the first Apricot blossoms unfurled.
Such hard workers these
What a wonderful embrace
Frog Singing Season
Now, as the earth begins to warm, an odd music tumbles from the forest.
Listen…along the banks of ponds and creeks, under wet leafmold, you can hear them; the frog chorus:
“Six weeks, six weeks,” they sing.
In six weeks the Salmon will run back to the Pacific.
So says the Salish story, and so it is year after year.
In this interconnected world where all things taste each other, we do not need calendars, we need only to listen. It is the Frog Singing Season
February Light
There is something about the light in February that slides into my heart and unlocks an inner flow. I wonder if this is how my Ash feels, her little catkins are forming, soft chartreuse and deep rose. As they fill out against the sky I marvel at the communication between trees and earth and sky. It has been snowing and cold. Frost still visits every night and still my Ash knows just when the right moment is to set her buds.
Sunrise
