As hubby and I drove the last few yards towards our driveway coming home from an outing the other day, the soundless swoosh of a hawk made its dramatic landing by the side of the road. Just as suddenly, it took flight to who-knows-where.
In those few moments, the raw heft of this bird of prey left a palpable presence. Bringing to mind my friend Anna’s novel, The Hawk.
I’ve been reading it on Smashwords, where she has self-published many of her other novels. I respect the fact that as a creative (he)artist, she does the work necessary to get her work out there for others to enjoy.
She believes her novels are examples of faith in action. As she says: “And this is where faith comes into the process; it’s trusting your instincts as a creative force to just let the words, or whatever artistic tools you choose, go where they will.”
Thank you Anna for that reminder. Continue reading
Tag: artistic reflection (Page 7 of 8)
“Music is a place” Philip Glass
The Carina Nebula (photo credit: NASA Hubble Heritage Team)
I’ve been nominated by Geralyn of Where My Feet Are to take part in the 3 days, 3 quotes challenge. This is my first ever nomination for anything ‘blog’ related, so I’m tickled pink to participate. Thank you Geralyn!
I thought it appropriate to end the official ‘3 days, 3 quotes’ challenge with this gem from a favorite 20th/21st century composer. Short and to the point, consider it my way of saying: If you visit my site and find I’ve been absent for awhile, you’ll know where I’ve gone!
The rules of the challenge are:
1) Thank the person who nominated you.
2) Post a quote each day for 3 days.
3) Each day nominate 3 new bloggers to take part.
My nominees are:
granmalin
Liz Fountain
Natalie
(Hope you can participate but no worries if you can’t)
My Swimming with Swans project.
Imagine a single sunflower blossom, filling the mind-canvas in O’Keefe fashion.
The center, filled with potential protein tidbits to be harvested after the bloom has died, is the current focus of my Swimming with Swans project. It is the source from which all else emanates.
It’s All About The Music.
Prose, dance/animation, fiber art and documentary infuse individual project-petals emerging from that sunflower center.
My Swimming with Swans project-petals emerging from its music-center
It’s All About The Music.
Recently, I awoke with that O’Keefe-esque visual imprint in my mind’s eye. Often, the Lord speaks to me through such visuals.
It’s All About The Music.
How that basic fact escaped me during the early days of organizing Swimming with Swans: vignettes of our three-year journey between homes can be understood in the reading of its working title. In reigning in the scope of my Swimming with Swans project, first steps were found in the Kevin Powers article I read and wrote about sometime last year. Still, it only addressed the written aspect of my project.
It’s All About The Music.
From the very start of our Between Homes journey and on through to the bittersweet end, music was my calling card. Wherever the work sent us, whatever job opportunity hubby pursued – performing opened doors, initiated relationships and provided supplementary income. The Music also served as a precious tether connection with my true self amidst the current Reality we were navigating.
Early on, a colleague jokingly spoke of our Between Homes lifestyle as my personal sabbatical. While I was certainly immersed in composing, playing, performing and practicing, the circumstance of our journey was not something I’d label as a sabbatical.*
But truly, output gleaned from that Between Homes time resulted in a large body of work. A large body of quality work, some of which has been presented in bits and pieces on this blog in the form of ‘individual prose-project-petals’ as re-edited vignettes, reflections of re-entry into the mainstream, photos of fiber art created as a result of that experience, and the desire to Give Voice to the experiences of others in similar situations across the country.
All to the exclusion of its core element: The Music.
It’s All About The Music.
To be fair,** the sharing of musical projects on a blog is not easily achieved. Posting mp3 audio snippets or pdf score excerpts of works in progress is problematic on many fronts. Copyright protection just doesn’t seem to count for much of anything in this digital age. Aside from that, there is this old timey view of discussing current projects and ideas that I hold as truth. Any creative (he)artist knows what I’m talking about: the dreaded speak it, talk it, discuss it, and it will disappear! In other words, don’t share all the details of a current project or idea during the creating of it or the energy will just vaporize; just do it!
And that’s exactly what I have been doing since the beginning of the New Year…
It’s All About The Music.
Swans on a Misty Lake, by Alex Saberi
With the music in its proper place, Swimming with Swans is fleshing out naturally. It is beginning to glide effortlessly across the lake of completion with strokes of fluid motion, like the swans themselves.
*Definitely something worth writing about more deeply in another post/vignette.
**and in the spirit of full disclosure: the last few months of our three year journey, I walked away from the deepest part of my self-the music- which took longer to heal after our reentry. That time to the beginning of this year represents a period of restoration and reconciliation that is relevant but not appropriate to recount in this post. Possibly open to dialogue further in another one, though.
A short while ago, I reread this classic novel. It’s one of the greats. What surprised me this time around was that amidst the storyline and lyrical prose, its message speaks to the heart of what I’ve been presenting within my blog series, Giving Voice.
Very timely as the quotes I’ve pulled from within its pages read better than anything I could attempt to pen.
Meant to be read as a single ‘blog post’ the following quotes are from “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn” by Betty Smith.
Since her father’s death, Francie had stopped writing about birds and trees and My Impressions. Because she missed him so, she had taken to writing little stories about him. She tried to show that, in spite of his shortcomings, he had been a good father and a kindly man. She had written three such stories which were marked ‘C’ instead of the usual ‘A.’ The fourth came back with a line telling her to remain after school… Continue reading
I am so pleased to present to you the following post written by Deborah J. Brasket.
Deborah’s blog is one that enriches all who visit. Her writing is beautifully embellished with artwork, quotes, thought provoking prose/poetry, and peppered with passion. I appreciate her intuitive ability to integrate the arts, nature, facts and her own life experiences into expressive pieces on a variety of subjects.
To my surprise and delight, when I asked if she’d consider being a guest blogger for my new Giving Voice series, she said, “I’d be thrilled to do so!” Wow. Thank-you, Deborah.
Too often we are tempted to turn away from images, people, situations, that seem too horrible, too hopeless, that make us feel too helpless to even think about it, let alone do something ourselves to help. Like extreme poverty, hunger, homelessness, addiction, rape, human trafficking, mass murder, mental illness . . . the list goes on.
It’s human nature to do so, to turn away from the ugly faces that our human condition sometimes shows us. To pretend it’s not there, or doesn’t affect us, or isn’t us, or won’t be us, or someone we care about, some day. But it’s important to resist that urge to turn away, even if we have no way to address it.
It has to do with what I’ve come to think of as “bearing witness.” Continue reading
Observe the fine crumb of this loaf. The inviting chew of its crust. Such a gorgeously perfect specimen of my ‘true sourdough’ … or is it?
All is not as it seems … my ‘true sourdough’ bread
The aroma emitted during its time of baking signal salivary glands to sweat in anticipation of a heavenly tasting loaf … or is it?
Finally ready for slicing, the crunch of the knife sounds divine. The slithering of slathered butter slides into warm nooks and crannies of perfectly baked bread … or is it?
Raising the staff-of-life slice to consume, first bite is a bit salty.
Could it be a ‘salt pocket’ … some vestige of incomplete integration of all dry ingredients before adding to wet ingredients? Continue reading
One of the fun things about doing NaNoWriMo (besides being a month devoted to writing and a great excuse to down gallons of coffee) is all the geeky stuff that’s available for use during the event. There are word count widgets (yep, got that!), banners and badge buttons (done those, too) to install on one’s website/blog. On-site, there’s even push-button access to upload images for use as one’s novel cover (pretty cool, but haven’t done that yet; maybe this year) … just to name a few techie toys.
Then there’s the personalization of one’s NaNo presence. Along with the usual profile set up, there are numerous ways one can do this. Over these three years of participating in this creative endeavor, I’ve pretty much kept my moniker (desertmountain) and gravatar (a photo of me and Leggy Lady on the compound, sized-down real teeny tiny) the same. Mostly just to maintain a sense of continuity within and between each year’s NaNoWriMo.
However, each year’s signature quote has been different.
Interestingly, they reveal something about that year’s novel/project while not specifically chosen as such…a sort of foreshadowing of whatever wanted to be written/worked on during that year’s NaNo.
For NaNo 2012 I pulled a favorite quote from a snippet of Carl Sandburg’s poem, Lesson. 
“Come clean with a child heart. Laugh as peaches in the summer wind. Let rain on a house roof be a song. Let the writing on your face be a smell of apple orchards in late June.” – Carl Sandburg
Little did I realize my novel for that premier year would revolve around the lessons and seasons of life within The Peach Orchard Project or My Life as a Peach.
My second NaNoWriMo, I found a quote revealing the effectiveness of fiction as a form of literary social commentary from a favorite author.
“A book, too, can be a star, ‘explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly,’ a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.” – Madeleine L’Engle
I plunged deep into the realm of my characters. They cried out for justice in an unjust world while I grieved the passing of the ugliest and hardest of my street people characters who died a hero, defending The Woman Who Didn’t Belong.
This year’s signature quote jumped out at me while reading, When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams. It gives me hope that the creation of (he)art as truth is an important endeavor; one which compels me to soldier-on in doing.
“To withhold words is power. But to share our words with others openly and honestly is also power.” – Terry Tempest Williams
Me & Leggy Lady on the compound ~November 2010
Honesty is an undeniable foil, it flashes whether bidden or not. In order to be true to myself, I have to speak. I must share my words, my music, my (he)art, my Musical Non-Fiction, regardless of whether or not it is seen, heard or read.
Look what I found!
Roaming about the unpacked boxes in my studio space, I came across this unfinished, but not forgotten WIP. Carefully set aside to be finished at a later date, this Mother-Daughter Quilt Project was started when my middle daughter was in High School. We worked on it through her first two years of college getting the entire quilt top center finished, with only the borders and binding left to sew. It got put on hold as our business of over 17 years was going through bankruptcy and major changes were shaping the course of our lives. Once we packed up stuff to go into storage a few years later, it was definitely a WIP that I figured would never get done.
Borders, Backing & Thread: Ready to Go!
What’s so cool is that in its recent re-discovery, I know that now is the time to finish it.
Moreover, packed alongside the rolled-up quilt top were the materials needed to complete the project; all cut and ready to go.
My Michelle’s favorite color is no longer pink. She has grown up, become a confident, professional woman and married a fine young man. But our Mother-Daughter Quilt still speaks of the ties that bind: times past, present and future; the good times and the bad; what it means to love and be loved; forever and always…Amen.
Thought I’d spice this up a bit with some of my good ole Italian…besides, a picture is worth a thousand words, so if there’s any question of what that title means, just take a gander at this:
Partial view of quilt back with label signed and dated
Yep, Coffee Beans Means Love to Me is no longer a WIP, but a completed project.
Last seen on the table ready to be basted a few posts ago, I experimented with using large quilter safety pins. In general, I liked the way they held the 3-layered sandwich together while I machine quilted. However, the holes they left in the fabric after being removed left me wondering why I didn’t just do it the way I’ve always done it.
Basting together pieces of (he)art*
Live and learn.
Perfectionist that I am, I feared I’d wrecked the whole thing. Then I remembered: part of our between homes experience was embracing the ‘strange life path’ He had for us. So what’s a few microscopic pin pricks?
Still living. Still learning.
Finishing Coffee Beans has been freeing. A sort-of final transition stage where our between homes past has been pieced together into something beautiful to be seen in the ‘now’ as a reminder while we proceed into the ‘next’…
The road between homes has ended for now, but the creative journey has not.
*creative confluence: Coffee Beans Means Love to Me (2014), my NaNo Novel, ‘The Woman Who Didn’t Belong’ (2013), my hand scored original arrangement of ‘Mo Giolla Mear’ written while I was ‘Swimming with Swans’ in IN (2010), favorite guitar strings and an old photo of me with an anonymous horse in Montana during Spring Break (circa 1977).
Bengal Tiger Nashville Zoo, Amiee Stubbs Photography 2012
That gaze is arresting; so peaceful yet focused and in the moment. What a glorious creation; breathed forth into existence by the imagination of my Lord.
Reaching out to me from the image; that gaze. The earthy balance of body, pattern and color palette; eye – candy ‘au naturale.’ It fills me.
The glow of the glimmering candles cast orange upon my workspace. Against a grey backdrop day, I am surrounded by supportive stuff; bits of inspiration, all within view of that gaze.