On This Carousel

Day 6 What made you laugh this year? #reverb11

Despite the peeling paint all along the midway, we answered the carny’s call, and climbed aboard on New Year’s Night. With a jerk, we started circling quickly counterclockwise.

2011 was a colossal carnival carousel spinning beyond control; faster, and faster, revolution after revolution. Sousa military marches shrieking in quickening 4/4 time; the bursting, blaring calliope sending white hot clouds of steam into the night, exploding the bright blue bulbs above us, darkening, sparking earthquakes and hurricanes, and still it spun faster. The strongest among us wrestled with the snapping wires that tethered the horses to the platform, but as hard as we worked, with arms stretched wide, we could not make the ends meet. No one could stop the whirl and there was only one way off. Brave faces on the verge of breakdown finally gave up and were thrown out into the gravel, where surrounding clowns laughed and left with all the brass rings. Avarice and ignorance watched from atop every spinning painted beast.

As I struggled to make my way through the mayhem to the safe center of the circle, I heard my little girls, out on the edge where the speed was greatest. Out on the edge, laughing loud and enjoying the ride.

When the mind worries, it works up a dreadful scenario and forgets how to laugh on the carousel.

Even when the ride is rough, these two make me laugh.

One Day Like This

#resound11 DEC5: 2011 Theme Song

This month, writers from all over the internet are reflecting on 2011 and thinking ahead to 2012. I decided to join in this time, because I am between projects and know how important it is to work at your craft every day, even if it is only for an hour. In January, I will start a new project, but for this month, you can share in my own story, which at times may not be pretty.

Today, I chose a lighter subject, my 2011 theme song. Every life has a soundtrack playing behind it; a mood music that we hear as we go about our day. Music is an aspect of the arts that has always been of equal importance to any art I make. The photo above is from back in the 80's, when my brother and I formed The All Night Band, a three chord rock and folk outfit that played bars and such. These days, I have many moods and a hundred Pandora stations to reflect each of my personalities. If I’m working on a project, I usually can’t listen to music with lyrics, because the words are distracting, so I’ll listen to something downtempo or classical. My girls are always asking why I listen to sad music so much. I suppose it triggers a deep feeling that helps me find the depth of detail in writing or art. I simply tell the girls that sad music makes me happy; they roll their eyes and off they go. Sometimes, if there is a lot of chaos swirling about, I will go to simplynoise.com, turn up the brown noise and create a cocoon compatible for work.

My theme song for 2011 is not sad at all. One Day Like This by Elbow was introduced to me last spring on Twitter, by either mark Stratton or Brandee Baltzell. It immediately became the song I wanted to hear every morning; a song that starts the day off perfectly. The hook, the lyric, even the video, puts me in a mood to enjoy the world, whatever it brings. It came at an intense time of writing and art, when I was really starting to pay attention to the details of my world; even on chaotic days, I would stop and pay attention to the real world around me, if only for a moment. Real attention is a humbling experience, but also a moment when we can realize that this is all one flow, unfiltered.

Enjoy; it's looking like a beautiful day.

Here is a link to the official video that first attracted me; I love the joy found in this mundane job:

http://youtu.be/SQIdXKz4sE8

Here is a link to the band performing with the BBC Concert Orchestra:

http://youtu.be/OUUASDWrBdc

reverb11: Let it Go

Day4 - Addition through subtraction - What have you let go of this year?

2:24 to 4:32

a.m. every night;

behind my eyes,

a flashing, ever flashing.

A torn retina

of flashing thoughts;

night after night.

Not nightmares;

madness.

A fist of thoughts

grabbing me,

pounding me.

Look at this.

Look at this.

See what you made me do.

There is nowhere,

no way

to look away.

The fist flashes

and grabs another thought;

pounding me.

This is worse;

look at this.

Now you’ve done it;

Look at this.

Behind my eyes,

my fist of failures

flashing.

You will never.

You will never.

You will never.

Until I

take a moment,

take a breath;

you are my mind,

you are not me.

I am this breath;

One breath, two,

three to ten.

I am this breath;

take a breath;

give it back.

Let it go.

Breathe in,

receive;

breathe out,

return;

receive;

return.

Take a moment;

give a moment;

let it go.

Fall away.

I have studied meditation and Buddhism for years, but only understood it intellectually. Only this year, have I learned how to calm my thoughts and let them fall away, thanks to the books and videos of Karen Maezen Miller.   http://www.karenmaezenmiller.com/videos

While meditation has nothing to do with sleep, the calming breath can be used at any time of the day or night. This has added hours to my sleep and, surely, years to my life.

reverb11: A Moment in Time

Day3 - A Moment in Time - one moment that you lived in 2011 that you will never forget.

There is only one moment in time; this one. Books will tell you that; I can tell you that; even the internet, which never lies, can tell you that. Do not, for one moment, believe it; find out on your own if there is only one moment. Don’t listen; live it. Logic is my lantern; I listened, I believed, but I never lived it before this year. This year, I actually stopped.

 Stop.

 Wait.

 Do not move.

 Be mindful. Eye full. Ear full. There is the moment in all its beauty, or banality. Just because we savor a moment never makes it nirvana; it is what it is, which is you, in a moment, a universe in a universe, ad infinitum.

This was the year I started to stop, savor, and set to paper every seemingly insignificant aspect of a moment. 2012 is the year I will do that every day, at least once a day; it will make all the difference in my art, my outlook, my life. It will change my world completely. You can believe it. I never lie.

reverb11: It Will Be Different

If you could choose one thing that your children experience in a different way than you have, what would it be?

When I was ten, I slept with a loud old wooden box fan at the head of my bed, pretending it was a rumbling old truck that, every night, kidnapped me, taking me far away from my father. It was a two-ton Reo, green, like the ones I saw across the road at the Army base. Miles away it took me as I slept, but when I woke, I was still there in that bed, in that house of pain. Morning brought the light and I could go outside, away from the house to ease the fear.

By the time I was 13, I could maneuver the night; a quick cat, in kid's clothes, scaling walls and trees in quiet escape. No matter how late at night, as soon as the front door knob clicked open, I was up and gone; in winter weather, I had a ready place inside the closet, beneath a blanket, knees to chin, quiet breath. Not my first choice, closets are inferior hideouts, there’s only one way out. Many nights, I crawled out the window and slept on the flat roof, safe above the ground. There were too many other nights that I had to run to the field beside the Boys’ Club, within a copse of trees, away from cruising police cars, waiting, waiting for dawn to bring light to my world. I could not sleep out there; there might be monsters, but they were less dangerous than my father when he came home drunk, angry, and looking for a fight.

I still sleep with a fan beside my bed, a habit now, but necessary to sleep at all. The slightest noise wakes me and I do a check around the house. My family is sound in sleep, and I will sit for a moment, listening to a child’s breath; a child asleep in a dream with no trucks; simply sleep as it should be; so very different than mine. It’s not much, but it’s everything I wish for them.




.

reverb11: one word

one word.  

encapsulate the year 2011 in one word. 

explain why you're choosing that word. 

now, imagine it's one year from today.  

what would you like the word to be that captures 2012 for you?

WRITE

Write. Right? Writing is what we do much of the time, but never think much about it. We write; we’re not writers. It’s a means to an end, a narrative that gets our point across. I, seriously, never thought about it until this year. This year I wrote a book. It didn’t mean to be a book; it started as a blog about an art exhibit, a narrative to get a point across, a sketchbook of words about art without drawings. That’s the way I’ve always worked; a visual artist that sketches in words, and then illustrates those words, discarding the writing once the visual is finished. This year changed that system, changed my thinking, changed my art.

I have noticed that, every ten years, my art changes dramatically. This is not a conscious effort; it happens, and then I discover it in hindsight. I won’t go into the centuries before 1990, because my memory fails me, but I didn’t consider myself an artist until 1992 when I had my first solo show of trompe-l'œil still life oil paintings. Before that I was a student of art, a dilettante, dabbling in every medium I could find, trying to find the one, the serious one, because I was a serious artist. Of course, being serious meant that I made up so many rules to paint by, that I painted myself into a corner with rules and lost the joy of the art.

To find the joy, I started working in mixed media in 2000. This method was very similar to how I had worked before; write down the narrative, and then set up the props; only now, I wasn’t spending another 300 hours painstakingly painting an exact replica of the scene; the props were the art. The academic oil painting was no longer necessary.

It is only now that I see that writing is the thread that runs through the art. Every ten years, I seem to simplify, to pare down the excess of the art; maybe that is wisdom of age, or losing the muscle to carry it all. Either way, coming into 2011, the words had become the joy of the art, while the actual visual piece had become the accompaniment.  Was it even necessary?

That is where I find myself as we end 2011. Write. That is the word that I discovered this year; that is the word that completely encapsulates this year. I write; that is the root of my art. I’m not ready to call myself a writer; I am still an artist, perhaps a writist. Maybe my 2012 word will be writer.

The Courier Journals

   Now that the UNION exhibit has opened, I will photograph all of the finished pieces and post them here as soon as I can.  The book, UNION, The Courier Journals 1861~1865 is now available in paperback. This contains all of the journal entries and letters contained on this blog with revisions and a new beginning entry. If you would like to preview the entire book, please visit this link: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2577711.

   The book can be ordered on the Blurb website, if that is convenient, though the signed paperback can be ordered on my ArtFire site, for less: http://goo.gl/MDJls  The signed book is also available at The Delaplaine Gift Gallery in Frederick, Maryland.

   The UNION exhibit continues at The Delaplaine Visual Arts Center through November 27, 2011, and then travels to Nora Roberts’ Gifts Inn Boonsboro in February 2012.