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mermaidcamp

Keeping current in wellness, in and out of the water

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Hawks and Hummers

April 1, 2015 — 2 Comments

hawk and hummer

hawk and hummer

Hawks and hummers build peace on earth in the pine tree

Nesting next to each other for social and security reasons

Flying out at dawn in search of different kinds of sustenance

Flowers gently lift their cups of nectar while mice scatter and hide

The tree takes care of hidden family members not yet prepared to fly

Above our heads and beyond our vision the world revolves and evolves

Peace on Earth

Peace on Earth

NaPoWriMo 2015

NaPoWriMo 2015

For more fun during the month of April, hop on the poetry train, which has just pulled out of the station.

 

Museum Quality Office

March 12, 2015 — 5 Comments

I know why I love museums. They contain great art and beauty not for sale. Taking in an exhibition is different from going to a gallery opening with a possibility of purchasing something to take home.  Botanical gardens and flower conservatories are even more attractive because they are maintained in ways I could never do at home.  The extravagance of collections on display to the public makes me very happy.  I never mind paying a fee to tour a museum because I know the expense for the establishment goes far beyond what they can collect at the door.  Volunteers, donors, patrons and members keep the bills paid and the events continuing.  Plans are made years in advance to show collections and feature artists at special opening galas.  What does this have to do with my regular life at home?

In December I cleared out my bedroom, giving my closet an extreme make over.  I jettisoned mass quantities of clothing to make my surroundings both pleasant and well-organized. This purge of possessions has proven to be very satisfying and easy to maintain.  I am not tempted to over fill my space with objects or delay dusting.  I feel great about my five star hotel style bedroom.  We bought a new bed, new covers and pillows which add to the comfort.  I am sure I don’t miss all the clothes I gave away, and am still loaded with wardrobe items for all occaisions.

I have turned my attention to my office now.  I started to look for something recently and found many useless things stuffed into my office closet.  I began to eliminate, file, move, and generally tidy up my work space finding art, art supplies, sewing, fabric, patterns, and all manner of buttons, remnants and sequin trim.  I also have stored both framed and unfinished art I have created by stuffing it into spaces on the bookshelf.  The place is a mess, but it will not require as much work to reform as my clothing did.  I finished my taxes today and feel I need to do this organizing task. I don’t honestly need to keep papers all over my desk while I organize taxes, but I seem to do that each year.  Now there is no excuse.  Next week I will have a clearly organized office that reflects my highly organized life.  I believe that the space can create more order or more disorder all by itself.  If I have a tiny pile of mail it becomes a big pile just because there is a place to stick envelopes I don’t want to open at the moment.  I will turn this tide of unruly ownership of items into a fabulous collection of art and art supplies that would thrill any muse.  I want to be able to find, use, then easily store everything in its place, just as Maria Montessori wants me to do.  It would have been too shocking to show before and after shots of my clothes, but I am showing you the disgraceful state of my belongings now.  I will impress you next week with the spanking new space.  I am acting in time before they find me and put my office closet on one of those hoarder shows.  Wish me luck on my new museum quality office.

closet in question

closet in question

closet in question

closet in question

Character Development #ROW80

February 1, 2015 — 3 Comments

ROW80

ROW80

By joining the Round of Words in 80 Days writers I have been given the opportunity to peek into the process used by different people. Initially revealing goals, and now following the theme for 80 days of pursuit of those goals, we let each other know how our lives are proceeding. Some have chosen more personal ideals, and others are achieving astonishing numbers of words/outlines/rewrites and characters developed. I am impressed with all of the participants, and have started to think more about character development.  I have not done this, but am now seeing the merit of telling stories of well-developed characters.  From fairy tales to murder mysteries the characters hold our attention, and in some cases can bring about new stories or a series of tales. I live tweeted Downton Abbey last week and find it highly amusing to see how emotional the audience is about the characters.  I also noticed that my own poetry is void of any characters.  I make it all about the cosmos, memory, psyche, all very general and without personality.  I need to work on this aspect of my poems.

There are three levels of character development I can identify in this challenge:

  • Public commitment as well as confession of failures.  This unifying act makes us responsible to our goals and the shared experience. This builds character of the core personal kind. It is needed to build a foundation of discipline and high standards.
  • Players in a fictional story, or historical figures in biography must be “fleshed out” in order to hold the interest of the gentle reader.  I think it is also helpful to imagine the gentle reader as a character to encourage a bond between the two. This kind of development is needed to give writing more substance, dimension and detail.
  • The genre in which one creates has a character that is distinct from others.  I notice some writers in this group write in more than one genre, which I admire.  Expanding beyond one to another is a creative stretch that requires practice and consideration.  I am, and have been, in the scribe mode, writing just the facts.  Now that I am making poetry I need to add emotional and artistic value to it.  I need to develop the character of my poems.

These three have all been at work in my life this week.  I have been reading about Dorothy Parker, her life and times. Her character has been made larger than life since the internet.  It dawned on me that Mrs Parker was a feminist in the early 20th century.  She was a contemporary of my grandmother Olga, who got a masters in education and taught shorthand and typing.  I was thinking about how odd it must have been to have no vote and be better educated than your husband.  I wondered if Olga read Dorothy in Vanity Fair.  I still prefer Mrs. Parker as my muse in poetry, but I must admit my grandmother was a feminist in a different part of the country.  They were both strong characters, but I have real memories of Olga.  I did write a poem about my grandmother, although it is short and sweet.  This whole process has brought me to think it is very wise for me to use these characters in my family tree about whom I know so much.  They inhabit my dreams and imagination, so I might as well use them as characters in my poems.  I have written plenty about the facts in their lives, but I could focus on a more essential theme.

I gave myself two poetry days off this week, which I regret.  I took a birthday holiday.  This aspect goes back to number one on the list above, discipline and character.  It is actually pleasurable to write a poem each day.  The mindset that tells me I deserve a day off from this grueling task is quite bogus. I don’t plan to make up in penance for the lapse, or enhance guilt over this.  I do notice that some silly side of my psyche wants to claim that poetry is hard and working on it is, oh my, such a burden on my important schedule.  This is obviously rubbish made by some shadow character.  I reject the claims of this looser.  That character will not be developed. I will write about this poetic couple on the left in the photo below:

My grandparents on a double date

My grandparents on a double date

Coffee Break at the MoMA #Weekendcoffeeshare

January 24, 2015 — 8 Comments

Today our teleporting cloaks will be hung in the cloak room of the spacious light filled Museum of Modern Art in New York City. I want to go to this cafe for our weekend chat because it is the perfect place to ponder modernism.  After some time with the art let us gather to talk over coffee and a snack.  I like to stay at museums much longer than most people.   Taking a break for social time and tasty treats gives me a second wind to examine more of the collections.  Surrounded by what is considered to be modern art we are also surrounded by the city of New York.  The stately gothic St Patrick’s Cathedral is right around the corner, a few blocks down Fifth Avenue.  In the museum light is abundant, structure is open. The design of the building brings us into connection with nature and the sculpture garden patio.  In St. Patrick’s the light is all filtered through ornate, colorful stained glass.  It has a very blue feeling from the window placement.  The gothic ceiling implies lofty access, but we are enclosed and encircled by religion.  Heaven is a formula to be achieved by following ritual.  It is a beautiful eternal ritual.

I invited you to meet me here today because I wonder if you have some of the same questions I have about history, philosophy, art, and communication.  While I study my family tree and the poets in it I have noticed that I enjoy their works much better when I hear them.  Reading the old English style, along with the heavy religious tone, is not my cup of tea.  The sound of the words as they are spoken, however, reveals to me the art and skill of these poetic ancestors.  When they wrote, 1500s and 1600s, I think most poetry would be read aloud or recited more that individuals reading from books.  Literacy was limited.  These poets were lucky enough to read and write because of their social status. The views, the philosophy, the relationship with God which they explain in writing are a wonderful way to really know them.     I keep thinking about the fact that when they were alive they were modern, progressive, and Mistress Bradstreet was something of a feminist, for publishing poetry.  Bibles, priests and vicars were the order of the day.  Reading and writing were not for everyone.  It was a walk on the wild side, especially for a Pilgrim woman.

After our visit I plan to spend a long time with Gustav Klimt, an Austrian artist I love.  I have visited Vienna to see many of his works in person.  His use of gold and highly decorative style is recognizable by those who don’t know his name.  His images are popular.  A painting of his patron, Adele Bloch-Baeur II, is on display now at the MoMa.  I have not seen this one. I saved it for after the break because I look forward to a close inspection, and deeply serious interaction.  I hope to write an ekphrastic poem about her life, her fortune, and her painting that was stolen by Nazis.  You can join me if you like.  I do want to hear about your week and projects you are creating.  Do you ever link what you do now with centuries past in order to define modern for yourself?  Modern when this museum was constructed is already different from modern today.  Do you think of yourself as modern, gentle reader?

#Weekendcoffeeshare

#Weekendcoffeeshare

Equal Opportunity Profession, Poet

January 18, 2015 — 12 Comments

ROW80

ROW80

My adventure into poetry continues, and the plot thickens. I learn about the lives of poets from my podcasts and reading. I am highly encouraged by the diversity found in the population. Any and every kind of person has written poetry in the past, and the platform only expands now. There were people who worked in mundane industry who took up writing after retirement and found smashing success. There are prisoners, idealists, and students working diligently to create verse and other written art forms. Many of my fellow writers involved in #ROW80 have years of experience and much more instruction under their belts as poets. This feels like a good place to learn from those who have already mastered and shared words carefully placed and edited, intended to express something beyond what the reader can see.  I notice that I might be better instructed by poems that do not suit my fancy than by those I instantly like. I also notice my subject matter is similar every time I work on my poetry.  I am like Claude Monet and the water lilies, just can’t stop.

I see merit in making series or building on a theme, but in a couple of weeks of daily poetic practice I seemed to be pleasantly slipping into a rut.  My drawings are mostly stylized butterflies, and the poems related dream images and psyche flying around the world bringing messages to daytime consciousness.  I did say I was not entering this practice to be self critical, but I did need to nudge myself to move beyond the butterflies and tell some kind of poetic story.  All the poems I hear and read show contrast and variety, while mine are running flat in a straight line, going nowhere.  I aspire to be like Monty Python and Dorothy Parker, yet my current offerings look like rorschach tests with  brief captions in explanation of my personality. I do hope we can improve on that.

I made an attempt to write a witty little ditty about the execution of my famous poet ancestor as a story.  This truly haunted my dreams and daily life for a couple of days after I learned about the incident in history.  We know details of his life and death because he was an aristocrat.  We even have several portraits of him.  Reading his work and imagining his last 6 days in the Tower of London in January freaked me out to the bone.  I skipped a day of poetry writing because I could not come up with any angle from which to create this story.  I know I dreamed about him, and developed sympathy for his plight, but nothing carried over into my writing.  I found that my boundaries restrict my creative muse.  My desire to capture emotions was not as great as my will to make a statement and be done.  I finally wrote a short  poem with him in mind, but it was not the big leap I wanted to take.  I have decided to keep Henry Howard with me as my ancestral muse.  I will confer with him before and after I write.  I think that by reading more of his work and keeping his memory alive in my dreams I have a chance of expanding beyond my comfort zone as it is now.

I am grateful to all the writers in the #ROW80 challenge for showing me that all of us have similar issues, both helpful and obstructive to our process.  The support and sharing within the group is a great incentive to keep the faith.  Thanks to all who check in on Sundays and Wednesdays on this adventure of ours.  I appreciate knowing we are in this as a team.  I have high hopes for all of us.

 

 

Meeting Expectations

January 8, 2015 — 8 Comments

cocktail that wants to be a poem

cocktail that wants to be a poem

People walk through the doors of your expectations.  This has been my belief for most of my life, and has proven to be a valid one.  I have high standards, but notice how I am much more likely to apply them to others than to myself.  I do set goals and make commitments, but not usually in a public way.  This is why the #ROW80 challenge is perfect for me.  I have set myself an expectation of working more creatively and do a daily bit to achieve that goal.  I want to practice being more poetic in all aspects of life, so the drawing, photography and poetry are intended to build on themselves .  I expect to become more observant in all aspects of my habitual life. There are already a few good results:

  • I have kept my dream diary daily, concentrating on the words I associate with my dreams
  • My daily drawing practice (digitally assisted) is enjoyable. I warm up for the day by making visual art
  • I have written short poems to go with the art, inspired by the experience of creating it
  • My attention has expanded to include all kinds of subjects for poetry that I had not considered

The addition of the art has made this exercise natural and easy for me. I have written poetry before, and even looked for art to use as inspiration.  Making the art myself  is a new and interesting way to tie my attention to a written project.  Usually I write the prose, then add the visuals.  Starting with color and form is a good way for me to see action and hue within the emotional tone I want to set.  I have not attempted to draw anything realistic.   My best work is not representational, but based on geometry and color.  I am not afraid to try, and am considering going to the botanical garden and trying to do a depiction of the cactus section.  Words to go with the cactus poem have been rattling around in my brain as a think about the idea.  Although I do publish my work, the purpose of this venture outside my normal writing style is completely personal.  I am not seeking adulation or followers.  I am curious to see if my writing practice can expand and include more comedy, enlightenment, and beauty.   So far, so good!! Now, for the poetry of others:

  • I adore Dorothy Parker, and would love to emulate her style of poetry
  • The U of A Poetry Center is holding a reading tomorrow night, and I may attend
  • I discovered I like reading the Kindle on the exercise bike, so I plan to collect poets to read while I ride
  • I will shop Amazon to discover the work of poets I do not know, and make a stop at the library

In general the poetic life is off to a fine start here.  I have also started a food preparation calendar, which I think of as an extension of poetic thinking. I want my home life, my cuisine, and my fitness regime to reflect creativity and artful planning.   The food preparation trip is actually a very good foundation because it concentrates kitchen time and frees me to wander off into the world of visual art and poetry.  I have had some funny thoughts about food and drink poems I want to write.  I think a cocktail series could be pretty funny.  Asking “What would Dorothy Parker say?” is a fabulous prompt I am using. In my heart of hearts I want the ROW80 to turn me into a glib, sophisticated observer of the details of living.  I don’t think that is too much to expect in 80 days.

cornbread that wants to be a poem

cornbread that wants to be a poem

Image and Imagination

December 30, 2014 — 3 Comments

psyche

psyche

psyche

psyche

Each night our psyche brings us images in dreams. We connect with them and live within the dream during our sleep. Upon awakening we sometimes lose the dream images as we file that  dream  somewhere within our unconscious and decide it is not part of our true reality.  Notice that we are within the dream while asleep, and then the images are considered to be unreal when we are awake.  We live within a gallery of art and image, dramas with set and costume, in our sleeping world.  Our awakened ego is concerned with gathering information and meaning rather than absorbing art for art’s sake.  We wake up and enter the world with an explanation for everything.  By dismissing the power of the imagination we loose the opportunity to individuate.  We diminish our own imagination by interpreting our dream images rather than interacting with them.

We run two systems in our awakened world, an economic system and a therapeutic system.  All of our activities are divided into economic obligations and challenges or curing our ills.  We are concerned with “growth” of our personal economy or “healing” our wounds.  It is easy to see the connections that contribute to the cyclical nature of this limited spiral.  What is not so simple is to break these cycles.  If our addictions are fed by information, image is converted by the mind into interpretation. The ego prides itself on its ability to interpret everything.  Since the ego determines that it alone is conscious, all the rest of reality can be fit into the unconscious basket.  The ego explains the image and then its importance is belittled.  We cease to interact with it once it has an explanation.  Imagery has no explanation.  Art and image are animate and inherently charged with insight.

I intend to respect the imagery inside of me by embracing a more poetic view of life.  By bringing focus to imagination and imagery I want to contribute to my own creativity.    I will investigate how I can interact with my psychic and artistic life through practice.  This intention can only be controlled to a certain extent, and it is not my hope to contain my psyche, but to explore it.  It has a lot to say.

Travel and Arrival

December 2, 2014 — 2 Comments

“Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.”
Robert Louis Stevenson
“El Dorado” (essay)

Thanksgiving is a celebration of the travel, arrival, and survival of the Pilgrims.  The Mayflower voyage in 1620 set the precedent for many more European travelers to venture across the Atlantic to the New World.  Desire and curiosity are the two eyes, Robert Louis Stevenson says in this essay, of  human nature.  It took a great deal of both to decide to sail to America to practice religion.  They had aspirations to convert the locals to their way of worship in the same way the Crusaders thought they needed to conquer the Holy Land.  They were invaders who, like the Spanish Conquistadores, saw themselves as saviors rather than brutal destroyers of culture.  The believed in the superiority of their own orthopraxy, and set about building a hierarchy to enforce religious orthodoxy as they saw fit.

All of us have built rigid obstacles into our lives without intending to do so.  For many people nationalism contains beliefs that our own superior country is infallible.  This creates national enemies of whom we know little, but are encouraged to conquer for the good of mankind.  These beliefs enflame emotions and distract us from contentment.  They also overshadow our own mortality and our individual mission and talent.  We must follow our desire and curiosity to develop our skills while we are alive because our time as humans is limited.  Our journey is individual because each of us creates our own version of El Dorado, the mythical place of great abundance.  We also actively create our own hellish conditions, both real and imaginary.  If you have traveled or had visitors from out of town during the holiday week you joined in a mutual vision of never-ending abundance. Some of you endured hardship on the journey, perhaps not like the Mayflower Pilgrims, but unpleasant nonetheless.

“There is only one wish realisable on the earth; only one thing that can be perfectly attained: Death. And from a variety of circumstances we have no one to tell us whether it be worth attaining.” Mr Stevenson concludes in his essay praising the pursuit of ultimate land of plenty.

A wishlist for travelers:

  • Comfort
  • Joy
  • Generosity
  • Discernment
  • Peace
  • Love

Bon Voyage, gentle readers.  May your trip be merry and bright.

Trading Places at The Sonoran Glass School

November 21, 2014 — 2 Comments

Last week I attended a very special event at The Sonoran Glass School in Tucson.  The auction and live art in the making was designed as a fundraiser for the non-profit school.  By inviting artists and others to design a piece of glass art to be executed by the students and faculty of the school they added an extra layer of creativity to the pieces.  Lupin Murillo, a local broadcaster, designed a high heeled shoe with fancy trimmings.  The fun really heats up when they auction the piece off before it is finished.  The shoe was well received and fetched a nice price in the auction.  The next live creation was done by a well-known photographer in Tucson, Bill Lesch.  I had an excellent seat to see the forming of Bill’s globe.  It was blown and shaped by the glass artists, with manipulations and creative decisions made by Bill.  The collaboration had 4 people involved full-time in the making of the piece.  Non-stop action and careful choreography was a real thrill to watch.  I was sitting so close that I had to remove a layer of my outfit because I was right in the hot seat near the fire.  It was exciting and unlike any event I have attended in the past.  I will go again if they hold it next year.  The food was catered by Blu, and was out of this world good. The items for auction were diverse examples of the breadth of glass art.  I enjoyed seeing all of the work and meeting some of the artists.  I am now interested in joining and taking some classes.  The school is a great asset to our community.  Our next flaming glass art event will be the Flame Off at the Fox Theater, the high point of Gem Show.  If you have not seen a live glass event, I urge you to try one.

Copper Art Museum in Clarkdale, AZ

October 7, 2014 — 1 Comment

One highlight of my recent trip to the historic and supposedly spooky Historic 89A from Cottonwood to Jerome was the new museum housed in the old Clarkdale high school. This old building with giant windows lets in an abundance of natural light. This is really the perfect place to display copper. Jerome, the mining town up the hill, is a famous ghost destination and artist colony. There was a very large copper mine that brought wealth to the town. The family that has started the museum owns a copper shop in Jerome. They rent the ground floor of the high school building, and rent the upstairs to residential tenants who serve as security at night. I think it is a great gig to live upstairs because the view, the location, and the fact that the copper art is always downstairs make it uniquely attractive.

The very extensive military and kitchen collections are on permanent loan from private collectors. There is a temporary collection of antique tin cookie forms, mostly Santas, but bunnys and other holiday shapes as well. I learned a lot from the extensive charts and informative posters. The museum covers the history, the myth and meaning, the mining, and the art that resulted. I love the look of copper, but appreciate the other qualities it has, such as antibacterial. Everything is covered well and the staff (owner) checks in frequently to see if the patrons have questions about the exhibits. I saw him take great care and a lot of time when kids were visiting with parents. There is no formal tour, but the space is small and the guest is invited to ask for more guidance. I normally spend an extra long time in museums, and this was no exception. I was fascinated and needed to look at all the detail. I noticed other patrons were also sitting down and spending time looking deeply at the displays. One of my favorite rooms contains spent artillery shells from WWI that were turned into “trench art” by soldiers. I believe anyone would enjoy seeing this museum. It has artistic and historic value displayed in a place that makes it shine. If you are in the Clarkdale area to ride the train, don’t miss this awesome museum just around the corner from the train station.