so, i was recently nudged in the direction of a short intentions workshop the day before it started. just a small commitment of two hour and a half long group coaching on articulating and setting intentions.
it was the very perfect thing at the very perfect time and it made my eyes tear up several times it was that powerful and that power instilling.
and i say power here in the way you wouldn't expect
because it's really about going in the opposite direction that the word power implies
it was about giving up, not taking
letting go, not clinging to
and here i am.
the first of many audacious intentions checked off the list:
this week i set to increase this pay period's commission rate by about 25% more than i have made in any pay period to date. and today, a mere four hours before the pay period closed, i made it. and to put it into a little perspective, in the past three days, i had to make as half much in those three days (including one where i wouldn't be working at all) as i had made in the past thirteen days of the pay period. suffice it to say, it was a lot, but somehow i never once felt discouraged or particularly even pressured about whether or not it would happen, but every time i would look at the numbers i would think: hmm, still a ways to go to make it but it's out of my hands. and......thanks to suddenly out of nowhere having my best day of in hospital sales ever and then another day of great online sales including two families i photographed over a month ago, i made it.
it was a gift.
but it was also my doing.
so thanks to all the things in and out of my control that made it happen.
and this is just the beginning.
1.31.2010
leave a light on
my daily posts have disappeared
to the same black hole
my free time has been sucked into
but i'm finding a way
to defy physics
and pull myself out
again
and in the meantime
thanks for checking back here daily
it's a nice encouragement
and a reminder
to leave a light on
in the dark
1.27.2010
notes from the introduction
i'm done the introduction of the poetics of space and it's far denser than the first few pages of the book, thankfully.
as i gear up to research a grant to allow me to travel to {remember}, photograph {take} and write {create} in my hometown of bayou la batre, alabama, i am becoming clearer on my purpose in going down there through bachelard's words.
a few moments that stand out from the introduction:
not only our memories, but the things we have forgotten are "housed." our soul is an abode. and by remembering "houses" and "rooms," we learn to "abide" within ourselves...[the houses] are in us as much as we are in them.
on whatever theoretical horizon we examine it, the house image would appaer to have become the topography of our intimate being.
art, then, is an increase of life, a sort of competition of surprises that stimulates our consciousness and keeps it from becoming somnolent.
and that's what i have for now.
as i gear up to research a grant to allow me to travel to {remember}, photograph {take} and write {create} in my hometown of bayou la batre, alabama, i am becoming clearer on my purpose in going down there through bachelard's words.
a few moments that stand out from the introduction:
not only our memories, but the things we have forgotten are "housed." our soul is an abode. and by remembering "houses" and "rooms," we learn to "abide" within ourselves...[the houses] are in us as much as we are in them.
on whatever theoretical horizon we examine it, the house image would appaer to have become the topography of our intimate being.
art, then, is an increase of life, a sort of competition of surprises that stimulates our consciousness and keeps it from becoming somnolent.
and that's what i have for now.
a little bit of color inspiration
there are a few things i've strolled across in the past month or so that use color in a particularly delightful way.
this blog, a wee bit simpler, is one:
littlebrownpen
and this book, which is out of print and $150, makes me wish i had thought of it first.
i send you this cadmium red is a correspondence between two artists and friends that began with a swatch of red being sent across the english channel from england to france.
that marked the beginning of an entire story of letters and colors traveling back and forth across years i gather. it challenges me to find other ways besides pre-made postcards to communicate as well as opening up new possibilities for inviting color into stories and not just using it as the backbone for my paintings.
what a great idea. sigh.
this blog, a wee bit simpler, is one:
littlebrownpen
and this book, which is out of print and $150, makes me wish i had thought of it first.
i send you this cadmium red is a correspondence between two artists and friends that began with a swatch of red being sent across the english channel from england to france.
that marked the beginning of an entire story of letters and colors traveling back and forth across years i gather. it challenges me to find other ways besides pre-made postcards to communicate as well as opening up new possibilities for inviting color into stories and not just using it as the backbone for my paintings.
what a great idea. sigh.
a perfectly landed postcard
i recently purchased some lovely postcards from alicia bock's etsy shop with the intent of adding some flavor to my postcard collection i draw from any time i want to send a dose of fun and beauty to a friend. what i didn't count on was how much i would love the images on this set of postcards which made it very hard part with them.
but, send them out i did and just yesterday i received this image in return along with a wonderful note about it's timely receipt.
zip-a-dee-do-dah!
and, if you are reading this and haven't received a postcard from me recently, or even gasp! ever, you should send me a little nudge as a comment and/or an email with your address if you don't think i have it.
i adore sending them out and always need another excuse to do so.
but, send them out i did and just yesterday i received this image in return along with a wonderful note about it's timely receipt.
zip-a-dee-do-dah!
and, if you are reading this and haven't received a postcard from me recently, or even gasp! ever, you should send me a little nudge as a comment and/or an email with your address if you don't think i have it.
i adore sending them out and always need another excuse to do so.
1.20.2010
monday's sun
photograph. lots of gloomy days and peekaboo suns so far this year.
1.17.2010
resonance and reverberation
i have started a bit of heavy reading. reading that requires my full attention and often a re-read of a paragraph here and there. the book is the poetics of space by gaston bachelard initially recommended to me in november 2008 by the most influential mentor of my academic career. it only took me nine months to go about finding it at one of my local bookstore haunts {purchased 8.05.09 - twice sold tales} and another five months to move it to the top of my towering pile of books to read. i probably would have procrastinated a little longer {another three to four months} but it's been staring me down these past few weeks after the pile took a topple and all my neglected intentions to improve my mind and understanding of poetic imagination sulked at me any time i passed.
the final push to pick up the book came from an entirely different direction. in the process of an exam i took this week {which is something i will go into more at a later time}, i took a personality test which was fairly unsurprising and accurate for the most part. there was one moment however, where the psychologist* defined me as someone who is less driven toward specific goals and more invested in the things along the way. i know i'm losing a little specificity here that she had when she initially said it, but the point is essentially the same and in fact, articulates a major point of dissatisfaction i have with my life:
i have big dreams. i have big ambitions. i have big goals. and underlying it all is a certainty about the kind of life i will live, the role that creativity will have, and the scope to which my work will reach. and for some reason, despite all of this reason-defying confidence that patiently rides out each storm of fears and hits to the self-confidence, i never seem to get anywhere. i don't actually go in the direction i have so clearly envisioned for myself.
and so, since thursday i have been asking myself again and again and again how exactly have i held myself up? i have prayed to the part of me that has seemed to dig it's heels into the ground and keep me static in this place of relative risk-free comfort. i have thanked it. i have forgiven it. i have loved it.
but now i am done and i find myself believing that this is the year. for what? i'm not so sure yet, but i am saturated in questions of how to move forward and how to remain authentic to the part of me that delights in finishing another knitting, sewing, painting, bookbinding, blogging, {insert any/all of the other creative interests i pursuit}, project without diluting my energy so much i don't move on the big things i want to do.
so, how do i start to make work that matters, not just fun hobby-ish sorts of projects here and there?
skip back to tonight and i'm exhausted from a non-stop day beginning at 9am and day number six of work. all i can think of is the desire to take time for myself and all i can come up with is a bath. so, i scooped up committed by elizabeth gilbert {of the eat pray love fame}, which is the more predictable comfort/bath read and then also grabbed the poetics of space on my way to my tropical smelling bubbles and hot water.
and i started slugging. and slugging and slugging. and immediately the critical voice that always seems to have a lot to say whenever i read anything academic suddenly perched on my shoulder to scoff at my efforts {aside: this voice was a major problem in the 2nd half of my college career. it was absolutely certain i was in over my head and couldn't come up with meaningful interpretations, ect}.
gradually meaning started to sink into my bath-addled, overworked and under-slept brain and things started to stand out with stunning clarity and my mind would sit up and take notice and sense would suddenly come easily from the convoluted and contorted sentence structure.
the moment i really took notice was when he defined the ideas of resonance and reverberation. resonance, particularly as a response to something expressive or beautiful, is a term very familiar to me. i even have a label in my blog for posts that particularly address moments when i am so moved i feel as though i'm a tuning fork freshly struck. it's a familiar and sought after experience of my life. it's a moment of living on the edge, but it's most always in appreciation of someone else's work. here, he describes the step after the resonance:
the resonances are dispersed on the different planes of our life in the world, while the repercussions invite us to give greater depth to our own existence. in the resonance we hear the poem, in the reverberations we speak it, it is our own. the reverberations bring about a change of being. it is as though the poet's being were our being...this is an impression all impassioned poetry-lovers know well: the poem possess us entirely.
yes, yes and yes. i am no stranger to this phenomena of becoming more alive through art. and while bachelard uses the word poem, of course any means of creativity can bear the poetic image. so what next? what does one do with this heightened sense of aliveness?
needless to say, the reverberation, in spite of its derivative name, has a simple phenomenological nature in the domain of poetic imagination. for it involves bringing about a veritable awakening of poetic creation, even in the soul of the reader, through the reverberations of a single poetic image. by its novelty, a poetic image sets in motion the entire linguistic mechanism. the poetic image places us at the origin of the speaking being.
through this reverberation, but going immediately beyond all psychology or psychoanalysis, we feel a poetic power rising naively within us. after the original reverberation, we are able to experience resonances, sentimental repercussion, reminders of our past. but the image has touched the depths before it stirs the surface...it takes root in us. it has been given us by another, but we begin to have the impression that we could have created it, that we should have created it. it becomes a new being in our language, expressing us by making us what it expresses; in other words, it is at once a becoming of expression, and a becoming of our being. here expression creates being.
for the past decade or so i have been infatuated with the process of resonance without being able to necessarily articulate the reality of reverberating. by articulating the process in which i take in all that inspires me from sorbet colored sunsets to the symphony to thom yorke, and then, the crucial bit of transformation, i now feel as though i know where to direction my energy: the reverberation portion of this transformative process.
i'm still a little hazy on the questions that i want to ask myself beyond: what do i do with it beyond collecting these experiences of resonance/reverberation like baubles on a charm bracelet? how do i in turn, create work that will turn around and inspire me and others? how do i make art that is lasting, and not necessarily for a wider audience, but for me? not just something to pass off as yet another hand-made gift {not that i think they lack value, just not a value i want to build my life's work around}.
so, that's all my deep thoughts for tonight.
*no, nothing to be worried about here, folks, i promise. :)
the final push to pick up the book came from an entirely different direction. in the process of an exam i took this week {which is something i will go into more at a later time}, i took a personality test which was fairly unsurprising and accurate for the most part. there was one moment however, where the psychologist* defined me as someone who is less driven toward specific goals and more invested in the things along the way. i know i'm losing a little specificity here that she had when she initially said it, but the point is essentially the same and in fact, articulates a major point of dissatisfaction i have with my life:
i have big dreams. i have big ambitions. i have big goals. and underlying it all is a certainty about the kind of life i will live, the role that creativity will have, and the scope to which my work will reach. and for some reason, despite all of this reason-defying confidence that patiently rides out each storm of fears and hits to the self-confidence, i never seem to get anywhere. i don't actually go in the direction i have so clearly envisioned for myself.
and so, since thursday i have been asking myself again and again and again how exactly have i held myself up? i have prayed to the part of me that has seemed to dig it's heels into the ground and keep me static in this place of relative risk-free comfort. i have thanked it. i have forgiven it. i have loved it.
but now i am done and i find myself believing that this is the year. for what? i'm not so sure yet, but i am saturated in questions of how to move forward and how to remain authentic to the part of me that delights in finishing another knitting, sewing, painting, bookbinding, blogging, {insert any/all of the other creative interests i pursuit}, project without diluting my energy so much i don't move on the big things i want to do.
so, how do i start to make work that matters, not just fun hobby-ish sorts of projects here and there?
skip back to tonight and i'm exhausted from a non-stop day beginning at 9am and day number six of work. all i can think of is the desire to take time for myself and all i can come up with is a bath. so, i scooped up committed by elizabeth gilbert {of the eat pray love fame}, which is the more predictable comfort/bath read and then also grabbed the poetics of space on my way to my tropical smelling bubbles and hot water.
and i started slugging. and slugging and slugging. and immediately the critical voice that always seems to have a lot to say whenever i read anything academic suddenly perched on my shoulder to scoff at my efforts {aside: this voice was a major problem in the 2nd half of my college career. it was absolutely certain i was in over my head and couldn't come up with meaningful interpretations, ect}.
gradually meaning started to sink into my bath-addled, overworked and under-slept brain and things started to stand out with stunning clarity and my mind would sit up and take notice and sense would suddenly come easily from the convoluted and contorted sentence structure.
the moment i really took notice was when he defined the ideas of resonance and reverberation. resonance, particularly as a response to something expressive or beautiful, is a term very familiar to me. i even have a label in my blog for posts that particularly address moments when i am so moved i feel as though i'm a tuning fork freshly struck. it's a familiar and sought after experience of my life. it's a moment of living on the edge, but it's most always in appreciation of someone else's work. here, he describes the step after the resonance:
the resonances are dispersed on the different planes of our life in the world, while the repercussions invite us to give greater depth to our own existence. in the resonance we hear the poem, in the reverberations we speak it, it is our own. the reverberations bring about a change of being. it is as though the poet's being were our being...this is an impression all impassioned poetry-lovers know well: the poem possess us entirely.
yes, yes and yes. i am no stranger to this phenomena of becoming more alive through art. and while bachelard uses the word poem, of course any means of creativity can bear the poetic image. so what next? what does one do with this heightened sense of aliveness?
needless to say, the reverberation, in spite of its derivative name, has a simple phenomenological nature in the domain of poetic imagination. for it involves bringing about a veritable awakening of poetic creation, even in the soul of the reader, through the reverberations of a single poetic image. by its novelty, a poetic image sets in motion the entire linguistic mechanism. the poetic image places us at the origin of the speaking being.
through this reverberation, but going immediately beyond all psychology or psychoanalysis, we feel a poetic power rising naively within us. after the original reverberation, we are able to experience resonances, sentimental repercussion, reminders of our past. but the image has touched the depths before it stirs the surface...it takes root in us. it has been given us by another, but we begin to have the impression that we could have created it, that we should have created it. it becomes a new being in our language, expressing us by making us what it expresses; in other words, it is at once a becoming of expression, and a becoming of our being. here expression creates being.
for the past decade or so i have been infatuated with the process of resonance without being able to necessarily articulate the reality of reverberating. by articulating the process in which i take in all that inspires me from sorbet colored sunsets to the symphony to thom yorke, and then, the crucial bit of transformation, i now feel as though i know where to direction my energy: the reverberation portion of this transformative process.
i'm still a little hazy on the questions that i want to ask myself beyond: what do i do with it beyond collecting these experiences of resonance/reverberation like baubles on a charm bracelet? how do i in turn, create work that will turn around and inspire me and others? how do i make art that is lasting, and not necessarily for a wider audience, but for me? not just something to pass off as yet another hand-made gift {not that i think they lack value, just not a value i want to build my life's work around}.
so, that's all my deep thoughts for tonight.
*no, nothing to be worried about here, folks, i promise. :)
1.14.2010
an anniversary
on this very day a year ago while on my way to work
i spent a good portion of the drive admiring the sun
burning it's way through the fog.
let's pretend i was riding the bus
{though i know for a fact i was driving my car}
as a pulled out my phone and snapped these photos:
.jpg)
but, it didn't stop there.
i turned around and immediately sent four of them to two of my friends,
and, in particular, the two people responsible for turning my lens toward the sky.
within days i had received pictures of their skies in my inbox
which multiplied themselves over days, and weeks, and months.
and now finally, a year later.
so i think it fitting that i received a postcard from one of them today with a photograph he took of a sun and then hear that my other friend, on the other side of the world finally received a postcard from me today, on this very anniversary {postal workers on strike caused extra delay}.
so, thank you two for playing throughout the year
and thank you everyone else for watching.
i spent a good portion of the drive admiring the sun
burning it's way through the fog.
let's pretend i was riding the bus
{though i know for a fact i was driving my car}
as a pulled out my phone and snapped these photos:
.jpg)
but, it didn't stop there.
i turned around and immediately sent four of them to two of my friends,
and, in particular, the two people responsible for turning my lens toward the sky.
within days i had received pictures of their skies in my inbox
which multiplied themselves over days, and weeks, and months.
and now finally, a year later.
so i think it fitting that i received a postcard from one of them today with a photograph he took of a sun and then hear that my other friend, on the other side of the world finally received a postcard from me today, on this very anniversary {postal workers on strike caused extra delay}.
so, thank you two for playing throughout the year
and thank you everyone else for watching.
1.10.2010
1.05.2010
snail mail
i was far more than pleasantly surprised today when i was greeted not by the usual stack of junk mail and bills, but rather just one patient little envelope waiting in my mail box. as delightful as a hand-addressed envelope containing personal mail usually is, this one took me to a whole new level with it's charming address and mysteriously rattling package.
it had quirky notes to the postal workers {see below}, one poetry/free form/meandering letter of infinite charm and a crunch of cacao beans that had a hint of banana flavor that might also have been influenced by it's journey wrapped up in an envelope.
all in all a delightful addition to my week.
it had quirky notes to the postal workers {see below}, one poetry/free form/meandering letter of infinite charm and a crunch of cacao beans that had a hint of banana flavor that might also have been influenced by it's journey wrapped up in an envelope.
all in all a delightful addition to my week.
1.04.2010
on the way to whole foods...
.jpg)
.jpg)
we were just running to the grocery store for the week's supply of eggs and bread and potato chips and kettle corn and soy yogurt and luna bars {the last two for my lazy day lunches}. that's all we were meant to be doing.
but then i had a hunch to swing by a new stationary and pretty things store outside of whole foods. and amidst the 75% off christmas cards, the letter pressed posters of the alphabet and numbers 1-9 was this box.
and it was just so perfect my neck got all warm and the rather expensive {but still under-priced} number written on it's tag was not more than a moment's discouragement from sweeping it up and taking it home with me.
it measures 14.5" tall, 9.5" deep and 20" across and i violently shook my head no when she suggested i replace the fading green felt.
the bottom drawer says:
built by
h. gerstner & sons
dayton, o. u.s.a.
model -042
.jpg){kind=link}
1.01.2010
the new year
each year opens with the illusion of tabula rasa,
but in reality a shape has already begun to softly suggest itself.
the last suns of 2009
these made me so happy, particularly because the past few days here in seattle have by greygreygrey.
from sahra, down under:
.jpg)
from cam, in canada:
from sahra, down under:
.jpg)
from cam, in canada:
the turning over of the year
we had a quiet new year's eve to ourselves.
some food. a drink or two. a little eddie izzard.
a few hours to sprawl out to ourselves and remember the past year together.
it was a good end to a good year.
a few notes in review of the past 365 days:
-the use of the word favorite shouldn't be taken too literally.
favorite song of the year - all for the best by thom yorke {listen here}
favorite crazy moment of the year - francis ford coppola singing to me.
favorite inspirational moment - working through meisner with my friends and teacher who i miss very much.
favorite tough moment of the year - losing my job.
other favorite tough moment of the year - agreeing with my ex that we weren't meant to be.
favorite single week of the year - well, it was more like 10 days and it was the week of weeding i spent on the farm in chelan.
favorite book/s i read this year {complete list of books below} - eat pray love by elizabeth gilbert, housekeeping by robinson & the perks of being a wallflower by chobsky.
places i traveled {geeze, i have to travel more} - ashland, oregon; portland, oregon; eugene, oregon; chelan, washington
for the sake of documenting...the books i've read this year {with the help of months of unemployment albeit busybusybusy unemployment}:
some food. a drink or two. a little eddie izzard.
a few hours to sprawl out to ourselves and remember the past year together.
it was a good end to a good year.
a few notes in review of the past 365 days:
-the use of the word favorite shouldn't be taken too literally.
favorite song of the year - all for the best by thom yorke {listen here}
favorite crazy moment of the year - francis ford coppola singing to me.
favorite inspirational moment - working through meisner with my friends and teacher who i miss very much.
favorite tough moment of the year - losing my job.
other favorite tough moment of the year - agreeing with my ex that we weren't meant to be.
favorite single week of the year - well, it was more like 10 days and it was the week of weeding i spent on the farm in chelan.
favorite book/s i read this year {complete list of books below} - eat pray love by elizabeth gilbert, housekeeping by robinson & the perks of being a wallflower by chobsky.
places i traveled {geeze, i have to travel more} - ashland, oregon; portland, oregon; eugene, oregon; chelan, washington
for the sake of documenting...the books i've read this year {with the help of months of unemployment albeit busybusybusy unemployment}:
- her fearful symmetry - niffenegger
- the sookie stackhouse series {1-8 so far} - harris
- wildwood dancing - marillier
- water for elephants - gruen
- eat pray love - gilbert
- strong poison - sayers
- extremely loud and incredibly close - foer
- einstein's dreams - lightman
- after dark - murakami
- olive kitteridge - strout
- housekeeping - robinson
- heroes of the valley - stroud
- chalice - mckinley
- the outlaws of sherwood - mckinley
- the dragon who liked to spit fire - varga
- the arrival - shuan tan
- proof - auburn
- hedda gabler - ibsen
- sunshine - mckinley
- deerskin - mckinley
- the blue sword - mckinley
- the hero & the crown - mckinley
- on beauty - smith
- franny & zooey - salinger
- miss julie - strindberg
- hello & goodbye - fugard
- the absolutely true diary of a part-time indian - alexie
- the elegance of the hedgehog - barbery
- the perks of being a wallflower - chbosky
- the seven year itch
- the fantastic mr. fox
- eddie izzard: circle & glorious
- dr. strangelove
- shawshank redemption
- the age of stupid
- a bug's life
- district 9 {which i kind of wish i hadn't seen as i spent so much of the movie averting my eyes or holding back tears}
- ponyo
- city of lost children
- coraline
- howl's moving castle
- who's afraid of virginia wolf
- the international
- kung fu hustle
- vicky christina barelona
- up
- ......................................................
- seattle international film festival:
- tetro
- shorts fest opening night encore
- carmo, hit the road {murilo pasta}
- ......................................................
- inside man
- iron man
- secretary
- sunshine cleaning
- slumdog millionaire
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