Archive for the ‘Inspiration’ Category
Where I Work or Scenes from Home
Posted in Inspiration on May 25, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Dover Publications “Little Books”
Posted in Books I Love, Inspiration on May 24, 2009| Leave a Comment »
My love affair with Dover Little Books began with stickers. Over the years I have purchased 4-page booklets of butterflies, dragons, frogs, and even Victorian kittens. Eventually I branched out to buy art stickers and postcard booklets as a way of introducing myself and young friends to fine art from around the world. The cost: $1.50 each. My most recent $3 splurge:
If you can’t find Dover little books in your local bookstore or stationary shop, the Dover website is worth a visit, especially the Books Under $10 page.
http://store.doverpublications.com/by-subject-books-under–10.html
Inspiring Words: Langston Hughes
Posted in Inspiration on May 16, 2009| Leave a Comment »
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world
and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathe in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
Inspiring Words: Mary Oliver
Posted in Inspiration on May 16, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.
— Mary Oliver, an excerpt from the poem “It Was Early”
By the Hudson River
Posted in Branches, Inspiration, Nature Notes, On the Road on April 27, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Near the Hudson River, I sit beneath a tree that has flowers like a dogwood, pale, soft lit by the sun, a creamy golden white. They waver in what can only be called a gentle breeze. Bird cries fill the air, harsh and pointed. It is spring. The birds search for mates and want to have babies. A biological imperative I suppose.
*
Time passes. I still sit beneath the tree, staring up into the branches weighed down by blossoms. The breeze reveals the sheer lengths of spiders’ webs weaving throughout the canopy. Of the spiders I can see nothing, only their work.
*
A woodchuck, of all creatures, bounds by with baby in tow. A light golden brown shading darker in places. It could be a beaver but the tail seems too wrong. Earlier I saw squirrels, quite fat, and birds in all sizes and colors. But of deer I have seen nothing though they were the creatures I had been told to watch for.
*
And so there it is. The deer. A female, white tailed. As it ambles by I am reminded to practice what I preach to a dear friend: Patience and all will be revealed.
Traveling Light
Posted in Books I Love, Inspiration, On the Road on April 22, 2009| Leave a Comment »
If I were to travel light, for a day, I would pack:
1 sketch pad
2 pens
1 pencil (plus sharpener)
Trail Mix
a bottle of water
Funny that I do not immediately think to pack my camera. What would you pack?
A Childhood Memory
Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes on April 21, 2009| Leave a Comment »
… a spider’s web dotted with rain, stretched between the porch column and roof. The balls of moisture catch light, like neon bulbs, highlighting the web in sunlight and moonlight, streetlight and flashlight. The adults around us don’t notice or at least they say nothing. But all of us children, we just stare up in awe.
Finding Calm: Mary Oliver’s Thirst
Posted in Books I Love, Inspiration, Nature Notes on April 7, 2009| 1 Comment »
Mary Oliver is one of America’s most prolific and successful living poets. In 2006 she produced a 71-page book of poetry that changed my life. Thirst, like many of her previous works celebrates nature, but the poems also give voice to her love and loss of her partner, Mary Malone Cook. When I first read Thirst, it did not inspire me artistically; i’m not sure that I was in a space to be inspired. Instead, the words brought me calm during an aggressively reflective time in my life. The poems were spare of word and rich with imagery. They made me pause. Even in the middle of a busy book store, reading her words felt like sitting beneath a tree watching a river flow past. And in the quiet that was created, I began to acknowledge, for the first time perhaps, how grief need not be a burden but it does need to be acknowledged.
Southern Comfort: The Art of Jonathan Green
Posted in Inspiration on April 6, 2009| Leave a Comment »
I did not discover the bright images of southern artist Jonathan Green until I moved to Boston. I was walking through Bob Slate’s in Harvard Square. The images spoke to me in a deep and familiar way, depicting southern people in all their varied hues and body shapes, adorned in big broad hats and voluminous skirts.
I have such skirts and hats. When I see a Green image I remember the heat that beats down in the deep south and surrounds you. For now I purchase his postcards and notecards to send to friends. One day I hope to see his actual paintings in a gallery. To learn more about the artist, you can visit his website here: http://www.jonathangreenstudios.com/
The Blue Frog
Posted in Inspiration, Nature Notes on March 24, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Last night I dreamed of a blue frog. A tiny fingertipped size creature of the brightest hue, and splotched with darkest black. It stuck to my finger and wouldn’t let go no matter how hard I tried to fling it away. Finally, all I could do was accept that it was there on my finger — the brightest most beautiful thing in the world.
I like to assume it was not a poison dart frog.
Words + Images 