Day 26 -- closes with leaving the reservation (and a "chatty Kathy" moment. be warned)

goodbye. it was absolutely awe inspiring, healing, and just a plain dang good thing. the very thing I needed, at the precise moment i needed it.

again for the briefest of moments, I second guess my directions as I broach this narrow dirt road in my departure.

ahh. I make it to the little restaurant in Colchester I spied on an artists' grocery run.

Ahhhh. Red meat how I've missed you! The mushrooms and risotto were fabulous. My red meat...well, how do I politely say this? No way. Trust me this isn't gonna be pretty or polite. I am a Texas carnivore and I expect my cow to xxxxxxx (original content edited to protect my veggie friends). Perhaps this was a Connecticut medium rare? The balsamic drizzle sorta saved it and i am still too timid to return a well done steak when medium rare was ordered...seems wasteful and it makes me uncomfortable to send something back and then actually attempt to enjoy what they do send out (dysfunction i am sure). Bob the chef would be proud of the balsamic drizzle attempted recovery. To top it off, the waiter was wonderful and, perhaps, almost, barely, just 15 (no facial hair yet). He had that borderline still thin and small boned boy look, not quit teen-man yet. He'll do well at whatever he tackles. It's just obvious by his disposition, attentiveness, intelligent eyes and smile. I hope life is good right back to him; i think it will be. I liked my waiter so that probably really saved the meal and his rec of the tomato risotto. Of course the setting was beautiful on an old front porch protected from the light rain that brought a coolness to my evening (and a diverted plane and overnighter for my Dad in the Dulles airport) Ohhh, I am so full.

"chatty Kathy" moment edited away (mostly) for self respect purposes...if you didn't see it, too bad. it happens often with my blog and then it's gone.

Closing thought that opened my morning with some words from Thomas Keating that i have been pondering.

love can release another the obligations of indebtedness from a wounding, love holds nothing against another, but love cannot penetrate the presumption of pride. The false self does not want to be transformed. It wants to hide everything negative about itself and pretend it can run our lives or someone else's.

there are so many ways to think about this text, this idea, to understand it and learn from it. i will try.

Now I am done with my "chatty" Kathy moment...for the moment.

Day 26 -- last morning at the pond

The bullfrogs withhold their dialog with stretched out moments too long to count of silence. The sun is shining but as yet she to holds back her sting of warmth upon my neck and the moon's chill has already dissipated with the dawn. The lilly's have eased out on the pond over the past weeks and near their full encircling of the artists' pier. They litter the lake with their upturned snow white flowered faces in their morning bloom. The faintest residue of pollen spent pushes gently cross the black calm pond riding the softest of breezes. The row boats red belly lays unused. SNAKE. no. One of the as yet still dainty turtles breaks the surface near, long is his pause at my presence. He is gone without a murmur or a whisper. As do I, finally, just as she begins to kiss the nap of my neck with her morning warmth.

Day 26 -- grief released

i haven't finalized/realized the title yet, but i do know what the piece is about. it is a visceral manifestation of the uncontrollable nature of grief, the way in which it is a total reaction of mind, body, and spirit. its overbearing weightiness. its ebb and flow. it cannot be stopped even if others think one has no "right" to grieve. grief does not listen to the rules or expectations of others or even one's own mind. it just has it's way with you, all of you. the only way i know to survive it is to let it flow through me, letting it do its work in me.

i suppose i could try to deny this grief, as apparently is the expectation of some for me. grief is. it will run its course. i do not hold it, though for a time it holds me. it will flow through me if i let it. as it does, the weep holes will open up because it and i can simply not contain its force. the openings make room for relief; they allow in the light, like the dappling tree canopies allowing the light to stream into and onto the soft life filled forest floor; they reopen the soul. they let the grief pass.

i have accepted that this is the nature of it within me. the work is an expression of this.

i was comforted at the piece’s reception at the open studio event. several people quietly came up to me and spoke to me of how they connected to the work and their own lived experience of grieving. that meant a lot to me.

i believe that the nature of my work has historically connected with various visceral experiences not just that manifest in me, but that seem to be true for others. the works connect to the internal non-language based experience of living, knowing, and a depth of being. the work reads very differently in person than as a reproduced image (as is true of all my work, as is true of life).

Day 25 -- any questions

OH YEAH! Ending night celebrating art man style!

Day 25 -- round the beast

Day 25 -- in the round

I can see many things I'd like to add and adjust, but time says,
"done." :)

My favorite part is looking in through the mouths of the piece. And
when the sun comes out, the interaction of the light as it piercesthe
piece.

Day 24 -- almost done. a couple of hours in the morning

and then i'll be as done as i am going to be on this trip.

Day 24 -- laying under the belly of the beast

The view from down under. Think I should do a serious tick check tonight after laying in the pretty meadow under the hood of this piece. Just because the little mini meadow in the glade is pretty, doesn't mean I didn't roll around with the bugs and a bit of poison ivy.

Day 24 -- working. really!!

Day 24 -- working.

Day 23 -- yes i will be done! (enough)

I love the patina of the fleshy surfaces of the tubes.

Day 23 -- ohhhh it was time

They took my man toy back to do its real job...oh darkness!

Just kidding. I think. :)

Oh goodbye my sweet blue, blue, but now gone, man toy!

Day 23 -- dangling

Wrapping and interweaving my legs round the outside bars of the cage, just as the monkey bars of years long gone by, I dangle out pseudo-freely...and sew, paying attention to not get to cocky since there is no back up system but my legs. And to facilitate Mason not being trapped up here while i stay suspended to sew from my temporary man toy, we have dragged a ladder up, up, with us. So off (or down) he scampered to get his work done. Now back to mine, which currently is sewing the neck of the fluted, sieved funnel-like suspended object back into a single unit from its move to this location. Just what every woman should be doing twenty five feet up in a forest glade...absolutely!

In my opinion of course!

Day 22 -- will finish enough by sunday but...

I can just imagine a series of extension like the fluted section here spilling out a number of the orifices... OOo-awe. OK well at least for me. The parts you are looking at aren't finished yet so there are still awkward and incomplete sections. Should all be resolved end of day Saturday.

Day 22 -- vacation or work?

Does an artist's residency count as work or vacation? I suppose it depends on how you classify that big French bike road race thingy Lance Armstrong rides in? Work or vacation? Or perhaps just a job he loves and has a few awesome perks. Hmmm a job I love with this nice I-Park perk. Oh yea!

i am not sure i can go back to a regular camera. i love just touching the screen on the object image i want the phone to focus on...it just jumps to macro, balances the light for that area. the no zoom is problematic. as a phone, iffy, but as a camera, gps, dictionary, blogging utensil, googling, and even a level (really, it even has the little bubble...you calibrate it with a real level and then wa-la), it rocks

Day 22 -- still inside the belly of the beast

Day 21 -- the messy, limp, as yet to be completed, end

Day 21 -- aaah a kazillion feet of number 9

Just makes the mind race with possibilities. Ok well maybe not race but definitely ooo-la-la. Number 9 is a new discovery this month and boy will it make my hands tough!

And freshly bloomed today between my morning down at the pond and return. It seems a different strains bloom each day. Even the birds change. When I first got here there were robins out the wazoo. I rarely see them now but in their place are an assortment of much more petite birds--vivid yellow, I am looking at one now that is a soft brown with some muted red around its eyes and a dark crew top dew on top. All interesting.

My time at the pond never gets old. It also varies from day to day. As today, though the sun was out in fullness this morning there was a nip of chill and no morning kiss of warmth as there was yesterday. But beautiful as always. Wonder what it all looks like blanketed with snow--perhaps magical in a totally different way.

No Diana, the picture is right side up. :) That sky is but a mirror reflection in the still quiet waters.

I think i like me skewed view because it moves the image away from landscape and toward abstraction...in that unique place between the poles of representational and abstraction I find I notice more deeply the things of nature I might normally passby in my routine rightside up world. I see what is really there instead of seeing what I assume.

Day 21 -- I will find my way

It just will look and feel so very different than I could possibly expect or imagine. Look i am here at i-park in Connecticut, have had 5 or so solo shows in the last two years, secured a visiting professorship, am making new friends, rekindling existing friendships. I am doing the necessary things to move forward, with the help of friends, my brothers, mom and dad, and that powers that may be. I know I am moving. Sometimes my process is so slow I feel stuck, but I know I am not stuck. Good things are happening. I need to continue doing the things that open me to life. I will and am.



Today I will find my way in art.

Yesterday I was working toward finishing out my piece more tear droppish. I saw last night that it wasn't working. So this morning I will reevaluate. I am thinking I will go back to finishing it more flute/funnel like...creating a pooring out. That is my plan at the moment. The tear drop thing is nice and the idea and method will be saved for another day and project.

Day 20 -- view from inside the belly of the beast

Day 20 -- I've shown up

...somedays that is as good as it gets. At moments like these I am daunted by the physical exertion that, is evident, will be required. I fidget about in preparation. Then get a bit overwhelmed and diverted...a walk to get a snack, a return trip to the house to get my keys to move my truck so i don't have to carry the tubes so far, then a blog and a book. Another diet coke. And again have a moment of grief. I just feel physically and emotionally spent. I know. I know. There is only one person who is responsible for choosing such a medium and feels compelled to work at such scales. It does make me question the why. Where does this compulsion or need come from to work this way? Almost every artist I know has certain compulsions, or rules they hold to in terms of their medium, process, or concepts. Even teachers have a compulsion (or preference) for their medium (p-k, elementary, junior or senior high, college, or adult) and method (subject)...as do doctors, lawyers and sales men. So this artist compulsion is not out of the ordinary, really, it just manifests quite differently than other jobs.

But I divert from the topic of why do I work at such a scale with such dang weighty materials. Why do I call it a compulsion? I suppose i classify it as compulsion because I do not fully know or understand the internal place from which it comes and because it requires a serious degree of physical umph that often results in real aches and pains.

Initially I thought I understood the source of my work, but I think that was a combination of denial and arrogance in thinking I actually comprehend the complexities of my life and the way it connected to others. It is obvious that this is not so.

But I do know that I don't want to return to Houston. I have discovered that since I have been here. I don't want my ruby red slippers (they don't work anyway). I just want my steel tip boots bearing themselves across the soft loam of the forest floor and clunking across an artist made peer. Making, writing, walking, basking, healing in this solitude.


---

Dead battery. Time passes. Lunch acquired. Consumed. Work accomplished. Blog post posted. Progress visible. Direction good. Maintain!

Phone left indoors ti charge with the bird. Nesting in my studio. Guess I should not hVe left the door open so many days in a row.

Location:Hopyard Rd,East Haddam,United States

Day 20 -- I've shown up

Day 20 -- laddened with a glimmering dew thickened blanket

It is my first in many days for the sun to again kiss the nap of my neck so early in the morn with her heat. Summer in Connecticut has re-emerge at the start of this day. She is much welcome and she is greeted with the perfect glimmer of thickly laddened liquid dew crystals sliding viscously with their weight towards the earth.

"because you are human, you are privileged and burden with the task of knowing. Our desire to know is the deepest longing of our soul; it is a call to intimacy and belonging...knowing calls you out of yourself. Discovery delights the heart. This is the natural joy of childhood and the earned joy of the artist. The child and the artist are pilgrims of discovery. When you limit your life to one frame of thinking, you close out the mystery. When you fence in the desires of your heart fixed walls... you dishonour the call to discovery. You create fields of "quiet desperation."... When you open your heart to discovery, you will be called to step outside the comfort barriers within which you fortified your life. You will be called to risk old views and thoughts and to step off the circle of routine and image. This will bring turbulence. The pendulum will fix at times on one extreme, and you will be out of balance. But your soul loves the danger of growth. In it's own wise trust, your soul will always return you to a place of real and vital equilibrium...either we are in the universe to inhabit the lovely eternity of our souls and grow real, or else we might as well dedicate our days to shopping and kill time watching talk shows..."
--John O'Donahue

Day 19 -- the shakes started about the time we reached the beach for dinner

Which was delightfully hosted by Patricia and KevIn. It must be a new London/Lyme thing, but Patricia, in the most agreeable way shortened each of our names. Nathaniel became Nat, Kathy, Kat, Kevin, kev...and of course Bob became Bob:) anyway, it was done in that special friendly way, as when a close friend gives you a nickname as a term of endearment.

Oh back to the shakes, as I shut the little green Canadian chevy's backdoor and buckled my belt, double dog dang (polite verbiage for oh crap), I forgot my phone upstairs on the charger. Aaah I must exercise self discipline and not run to retrieve it. But it means no gps, no dictionary, no email, no vicarious social network, no google, and NO CAMERA PHONE! it was a good but distressing exercise. I missed my camera. I've grown use to it and rather dependent on it. Word without image...aaaagh!

Oh and I have been sewing thin rebar I've bent into rings into my piece. That is helping me create the tension I desire in the work. Though the work is meant to have a fleshy sense it is not meant to look flacide. So thin curves of rebar sewn in seem to be doing the trick.

Day 19 -- I am not really happy about this!!!

Freshly pealed and slithered out of directly where I just had my bum
sitting there on the ground.

Day 19 -- talk about chatty

The sun is shining, the first time in days, and the birds seriously have been deprived of all that they would sing and say, til now at this moment in the midst of this fabulously weathered day.

Day 19 -- tension beginning to reestablish