nancy wrote that they added a drop of food coloring to the bubble mix for sweet lily. it must have been enchanting…colorful bubbles in way-below-freezing temperatures, crystalizing, transformed by the absolute cold. i know there are bubbles in this house; i just have to find them. and then, next time, i will be out on our back deck, wand in hand.
there really is something about bubbles. in the summer, at the farmer’s market they sell gigantic bubble wands. while browsing one day, there was this little girl….chasing these enormous bubbles. no worries on her mind, just arms outstretched, running, ready to embrace oversized magic. it instantly reminded us of the innocence of a child, the seizing of something simple, the joyous caress of a moment.
this morsel and this not-quite-done-painting CHASING BUBBLES make me want to run into the sunshine or, perhaps, the falling snow, and chase iridescent dreams.
i searched for quotes about risk. there are a plethora of them out there. then i realized that maybe the best one for today was already there – no good adventure is without risk. there are no guarantees in life. we all know that. nothing that says if you do this, that will definitely happen. the ifs-thens are not absolute. the ifs-thens aren’t even, well, iffy on occasion. and sometimes there’s no chance in hell that an adventure, an experiment, an endeavor will work out. we jump anyway.
in this anniversary week of THE MELANGE, we’ve done a great deal of looking back at our jumping. those jumps reach much further back than just this past year. as two artists living together, two artists working together, two artists laughing and breathing and arguing together, we have experienced lots of falling-into-the-water as we’ve gone. our individual artistry output pre-dates this year by decades. epic moments of success are conjoined with moments of missing the next rock in the stream (see CHICKEN MARSALA sketch above to see what that looks like.) but, even knowing that – by reverse-threading now – in looking ahead, at all the mystery of that, we jump anyway.
nothing worth doing comes without hard work. no good adventure is without risk. there are no guarantees. all wise words. all daunting. we jump anyway.
i just re-read the first week of our MELANGE, a calendar-year ago now. words about our little boy CHICKEN MARSALA, words spoken by my sweet momma, words about our community, words about david’s studio and my studio, two artists living together, and our own work-in-the-world. i can feel it. that first week.
we come to this place. one year later. i kind of want to go back and re-read each day. study the images we chose, browse the products we created, watch the arc of changes in design through the year, notice the growth, the things we added, the things we let fall off. somewhere around week 3 i wondered if i would have enough to say, enough words that would be interesting or, at-the-very-least, palatable, inviting for others to read.
i write from my heart, most of it experiential…moments i have netted and captured, written down to hold onto the feeling-of-it. i wondered if that might be too….much…for some. in the middle of living life, i want to remember some of the tiniest morsels of time, layered in the sedimentary layers, bits of shining mica in the middle of ordinary….mica that is celebration, that is eye-opening, that is excruciatingly simple bliss, that is painful, that is full of maturing, that is on-the-edge-of-your-seat-nerve-wracking, that is full of hopes and dreams and regrets…all mica indeed.
“live life, my sweet potato,” my sweet momma said to me. yes, momma. this sweet potato is feeling it.
as you know, we are two artists living together. so everything around our house has meaning of some sort. each rock, each piece of wood, each feather, each vintage suitcase, each peace sign, each wooden box, each old window frame, each peeling screen door, each painting. before david’s paintings also found their way onto the walls, there were several paintings i had painted. well, “painted”. i spattered and brushed black and white paint to the beating of my heart onto large canvases until i knew the paintings were done and then hung them up. they each have a story – a heart narrative that might not be obvious to you, but is something i can feel each time i look at each of these paintings.
david’s work is stunning. although some of them are for sale, we have pieces of his displayed on our walls – stories on canvas, we have chosen to hang paintings that tell part of our story together. you never get tired of looking at something that is a piece of your life, a canvas of an intimate moment here or there. K.DOT & D.DOT SEE AN OWL is one of those. it’s an exquisite collection of color and movement and reaching. in our story, it is about seeing an owl in the big old pine tree in our backyard. on your wall, it could be about any moment in your life that you and your beloved looked forward, pointing into the future, embracing it, excitedly sharing together something inordinately full of meaning and just yours. paintings are like that.
in the 1972 choral piece IT IS GOOD by Jack Normain Kimmell and Adrian Swets, there are these lyrics: “…and the Lord saw the work of His hand and said, “it is good.”
this painting morsel – and the painting WEEPING MAN in its entirety – make me think of this piece of music. the universe. this earth. this country. this community. this family. this life of yours. this life of mine.
regardless of what you believe about how THIS all came to be, regardless of your view of THIS – in an historic way or a spiritual way or even regarding the contemporary state of affairs, THIS all exists. for each of us. it isn’t always good. it isn’t always not-good.
there are those moments. the moments you weep openly, the moments you cover your face to cry, the moments of overwhelm, the moments of absolute weariness that, despite all evidence to the contrary in your tired mind and body, actually do lead to Next. times you feel alone, times of sorting, times of grief, times of fragile vulnerability, times of regret. the times you put your face in your hands and weep…
and there are those moments. the moments you weep openly, the moments you cover your face to cry, the moments of stunning awe, the moments of sheer exhaustion at your goal-line, moments that actually do lead to Next. times you feel enamored of life itself, times of incredulity, times of unquestionable good fortune, times of serendipity, times of simple all-consuming sweet love. the times you put your face in your hands and weep…
AND SO HE WEEPS – we recognize it. we can feel it. and we know that in another moment he -or she, for there is no pronoun-hogging here- will slowly raise his head out of his hands and Next will have arrived.
often, david has a signature in his paintings. not his initials or his name, but these petals…they bring an element of the organic into a piece that may not speak to nature in any other way. they are a breath, sneaking their way into a painting to remind you that your relationship with this very canvas is a living, changing, ever-evolving thing. the gift of art in its every form: we grow by it, through it, with it.
there are small pieces, corners, smidges of david’s paintings that stand out for me. a slice of color or pattern, the morsel, like THE SHADOW OF DIVISION, catches my eye. no less than the painting in its entirety, just differently.
earth interrupted IV and the words he penned on the canvas: let what you seek catch up to you…stand still, stand still… earth, suspended in the midst of a color palette.
the people of this good earth – ever-seekers…surrounded by color…choices…in a moving river…vulnerable…standing still…rotating, rotating. are we mindful?
this good earth – this fragile fragmented globe…its colors…its rivers…its steadiness…its rotation…its vulnerability. are we mindful?
a couple of early summers ago The Girl called to tell me she had gotten her summer job -common for snowboard coaches and instructors – lined up. she sounded excited and i asked her what it was. “i’m going to be a white water rafting guide!!” she exclaimed. it took me a few seconds to digest this, as i couldn’t remember her ever being ON a white water raft. moments later i asked her that question, to which she replied “nope! but they’ll teach me everything i need to know.” wow. wow. wow.
and so she underwent intensive training, not only on the river but in safety, first aid, teamwork. weeks later she was out on the river, grit and determination her partners as well as some really great rafting colleagues. she would send pictures of the churning water and waterfalls and mountain views and i was stunned by all of it. the journey from landlubber to river bum is exponentially shorter at 26 than 50-something, i suspect.
i will always remember the day she called to tell us about a terrible accident on the river that had happened to a different company. she, like all the river rafting personnel, was devastated to learn of a death on the river. there was nothing like that event to add humble deference to a healthy respect of the water. no matter what, water is more powerful than you think.
this morsel -waterfall dreams- (from the painting HOT SPRINGS that just made its way back to david) made me think of the magical moments she had on that river weaving its way through the mountains. rich color, robust movement, spray from the rapids catching the sunlight…a playground in the hills.
in the bins in the basement (and scattered in places around the house) are child-drawings and paintings, ornaments made of paper and glue and sparkly glitter, painted rocks of various sizes, necklaces of beads and shells, framed little scraps of paper with things like “goodnight mom” written in pencil and surrounded by hearts. The Girl and The Boy have marked time through their artwork (and also through their writings) and i cherish each saved piece. this morsel – the field in early october – makes me think of such pieces.
in the corner of a new piece on david’s easel i found this morsel. extracted from the painting it is so childlike in feel. such simplicity and innocence. it immediately brought me to open fields we have walked…where sunflowers gaze for just a bit longer and grass is still verdant and lush and there are wild red berries on the bushes along the trail. the sun is in our eyes and everything takes on a muted hue. i can smell the leaves burning from the farmer’s field far off to our west.
what is more heavenly than remembering an early october day from a reality-fantasy visual perspective? what is more treasured than the artwork of a child? what a delicious combination. just ask picasso.
