Chance encounters...

I am thinking about my trip to New York to meet Lisa at the Met and see Nozze di Figaro.  The Megabus was late, the young girl next to me had ear phones with rap blasting loud enough to make me cringe and squirm.  I was grading papers but could feel myself getting grumpy and unkind, so I stopped, closed my eyes and said my mantra as loud as I could in my head; I tried to meditate for 25 minutes or so.  When I opened my eyes again, the noise had not stopped, but the girl reached over and turned my light back on for me.  For a moment, we looked into each other's eyes, and we both smiled broadly as I said thank you.  She was just a kid, knew no better, and she had shown kindness to me.  And I was grateful.

When I took the Metro back into the city from Park Slope the next morning, I was a little unsure which side of the platform the train would show up, so I came up behind a woman who was standing near a bench.  I didn't realize until I came in front of her that she had JUST taken a big out of a raisin bagel or bun or some such thing that sticks to one's teeth in globs of soft dough.  She grinned apologetically, and I laughed and apologized profusely before she could speak; we both laughed, she answered my question, and as I looked back over my shoulder, I could see that she was still chuckling.  As was I.

When I got to the Megabus line, I noticed my friend Will about 8 people ahead of me.  He was taking the 9:15 and I was taking the 9:45 but decided I'd try to make the earlier bus.  I hung around while the bus became more and more jammed, but there were 3 extra spaces, and after some hesitation, looking around and checking, the woman finally took my $5 for changing my reservation, and I hopped onto the bus.  I skipped up the steps to the second floor and saw that Will in his eternal optimism had sad on an aisle seat with a free one next to him; he looked back and waved me in.  He chattered the whole time back to Philadelphia, and I gleaned more information about tugboats and the waters and hills around New York, so it was an adventure in data that I will probably never be able to call back to mind; however, he did tell me about his wife's dying mother who had become a dominatrix.  Now THAT was a tale about which I can retrieve every, single detail, but I shall have to keep them close to me because his wife is working on a book.

I was only able to have these encounter because dear, sweet Tracy kept Shadow for the night; we painted both Tuesday and Thursday, and she is working on some other little pieces to go with the grand whale.  It still thrills me to see her colors and her light.

Mine is clunky by comparison, but I do like the way the cloth leaves make their presence known even though I've painted over them with purple.  Nicky tells me that it's a tree with water and mud; right on, Nick!

Now we wait for the chance encounter that is Hurricane Sandy.  No public transportation, no school, no orchestra and a case of beer on hand; is this heaven or what?

Turn your computer over on its side...

These images come after a longish run when Tracy and I were singing and dancing as we painted.  BOTH paintings should be standing upright, so you will need to turn your computer over, tilting it on its right side to properly see the paintings.  Tracy, as always, has the simple elegance of line, color and shape that smack of real artistry while mine has the complex frenzy of too much of everything.   I wanted to sing of autumn and the brilliance of leaves and sky and trees and wind and clouds; instead I have sticks and fabric and matte medium and finger painting.  We will work more on Thursday, and I do like the bottom swirls of energy on mine but know it needs focus instead of flurry.

The elegance of Tracy's shape here and the way the light drifts down from the darkness on the top (now the left side) is so watery and lovely that it makes me swim and reminds me of sitting underwater in my parents' pool.  I remember looking at the way the light shimmied through the top of the water, moving through the molecules and making everything sparkle and dance.  I love Tracy's whale-like shape on its side, but I do think it needs perpendicularity for its full effect.

Who knows where these will go by Thursday when we meet at 7:30 A.M. for more.  When we came back from running today, we shared stories of when mentors or teachers had given us negative critiques on our dancing, and I wonder if we felt freed in some ways to "speak" more fluidly with our paints.  I wish I knew how I could make these images move one rotation to the right....

Hmmm.

Hues on Blues

I am moved by brilliance - of mind, of color, of heart.  When I encounter the majesty of leaves, tarrying on their branches until they succumb to the trod of crunch and crush of little feet coming and going, my own heart swells and I pause.  No, I gasp.  The colors, the fragility, the fleetingness of the natural world humming beside us as we plod through walled lives, directed, channeled, focused.  How does one not become distracted by the free show that weaves itself in and out of our routinized existence?  

I have begun to stop for birds, for leaves, for slivers of a world that is just as focused, channeled and directed as our own; the theater of living, struggling, soaring, and dying is all just within our reach.  And yet, who can afford to slow the stride and slip inside the natural world of glitter and gray?  It takes such time to tarry and invite into our lives the splendor and the horror of nature that it is a wonder and luxury that I do i at all.  I am an addict, poking my nose, squinting my eyes, slowing my pace, dallying down just to feel its presence, just to be in IT for a moment of splendor and joy.  My world is bigger and richer for that moment.  

Sometimes I can even fly.

Whenever I get the urge to live in the city...

Whenever I get the urge to move back into the city, I just go down to the meadow with Shadow and realize that I could never leave the grass, the creek and creases of sunlight streaming through the trees and splashing across the grass, the mists rising above the water and the dewy early morning quiet.  If I am sitting on my sofa and grading endless essays, I have only to glance out into the trees to see the birds, the sky and the natural world that has begun to embrace my whole being; I will get out there with my clippers soon, but while I am within this womb of tree leaves, branches, vines, bird call and squirrels, I will wallow in it and feel cradled in its sanctity.  What is this next to concrete buildings, gum-stained sidewalks and the hubbub of the city life?  This is my respite and my haven.  I know God is close at hand when I am here.

Acrylics by finger - new method

Tracy  and I began to really ROCK today as we plied our boards with thick paints and began moving the paints around with our fingers, blending, adding water, white and swirling, moving across the picture plane with gestures of energy and dance.  We were thrilled with the nuances, the shapes and the shades of color as we worked on the surfaces of our paintings.  Tracy's changed over and over, moving from texture to texture, line to line and color to color.  She, in typically self-effacing fashion, prefers the "old" paintings, the ones she has covered up and moved beyond, but I see a richer surface each time she works it.  I love the way this yellow-green dances in the right edge of the painting, and I love the sturdiness of her ball and egg.  She will, of course, completely change it next week, but we will have to wait and SEE!

My painting hasn't changed all that much, but I did begin to mess with the sky.  When I did, the whole texture and colors changed.  I added blue in the bowl, much to my glee, and tried to make the coffee cup hold some coffee.  Once we began with fingers, I added pink to the cup, blended the yellow around it and added pink around the sun, which I know I will change next week or this week; it looks too much like a lollipop in the water, which is meant to be sky, reminding me of "clouds in my coffee," which I've NEVER understood because it always seemed to me to be more like sour milk blobbing in clumps inside one's coffee.  And who the hell would want THAT?

Stylin'

As I walked to the train station from school, a man wearing about 5 crosses in various materials dangling from his neck, a nice wool jacket and a brilliant green scarf around his neck said, "Hiya, Mama," as he passed me on the sidewalk.  I thought I recognized him as the homeless man who used to "live" on the corner of  17th Street and Callowhill, so I slowed down and responded cheerily, "Hey, how are you doing?"  He began to bounce along with me, making a total u-turn and heading in my direction.  I looked at his coat and his jaunty green scarf and noticed that one of his crosses was a large glass cross.  I told him he was looking quite spiffy today, and he looked down at my pink stockings and then at my red shirt (I dress in the dark of the morning and sometimes don't get it quite right...).  He grinned that decidedly high but compelling grin and said, "You are looking pretty nice yourself!"  We bounced a few more steps and then he looked straight at me and said, "Oh, yea, we be stylin' today!"

I laughed and kept on my way, knowing what was coming next.  When he asked if I had a little money for him, I said lightly, "Nope, but I'll bring you a sandwich tomorrow."

He smiled, turned around and began to walk away; He turned around, looked at me and said earnestly, "You be around here then?"

"You betcha!" I said, already planning what kind of bread I would use for his sandwich tomorrow.  I almost skipped to the train, the little encounter with my new friend filling me with joy, not that he was probably homeless and hungry, but that he was so spectacular.  His glee, his costume and his forthrightness made me spin.  I knew he probably wanted money for all sorts of nefarious activities, or at least I was supposed to know that.  But I didn't care.  I could bring him a sandwich tomorrow, and we'd be stylin' again.  I looked forward to that.

Not afraid of WHITE...

We decided this morning that we were not going to fear the color white, and as Tracy whitewashed her balloon and then added an egg and "a road," she scrubbed at the surface of the board, making the wonderfully misty, foggy, ethereal texture in her delicate painting of blues and greens.  I love the way the green balloon still hovers over the left side of the piece, and her "road" pulls the whole thing together.  Before she left, we stood in front of the piece and I saw a large hand behind the ball and egg, a kind of spirit holding the clearly material things in the picture, both here and not here; the hand suggested to me something bigger than the picture plane and bigger than the material world, and I wondered if my Education for Ministry is making me think about the spiritual world a little too often!

I did try to put some ethereal qualities in my rather sturdy, straightforward coffee cup and bowl with egg, but instead I messed with the "sun" and sky and created a beautiful blue hue but wrecked the sun enough so that Tracy "read" it as a peach half, which it very well could be.  That makes me rethink the whole piece, which I had anticipated being a celebration of morning sunshine, morning coffee and sustenance, but I can certainly embrace a peach half in the sky just as easily as a sun.  It just doesn't quite resonate as much for me - at least with my newly released spiritual side that sees the spirit in everything, God lover that I am...

Tracy took a hot shower when we finished our run, and her hair was such a funny nest of curls and fuff (I made up that word, but it really did have fuff! that I had to take her picture; however, she was a little embarrassed and began to pose, which was much more interesting that the fuzzy hair photos.  At least here we get the spirit of venture - a very silly, singy, sort of play that sometimes results in sparkling art.  Today we were singing about not being afraid of using white, and the harmony was actually quite lovely there for awhile as I sang a made up rendition of some white-girl, Jewish-girl spiritual and she chimed in at just the right harmonic pitch.  I wonder if perhaps we have missed our TRUE CALLING!  La, la, la tra, la, la...

My camping buddies...

Saturday night these two fellas are coming over for a sleepover, and we are planning to sleep outside in a tent.  I look into these faces, and I sometimes wonder what's on their minds; this was at their dad's birthday party last night, before or during ice cream cake servings.  What wasn't to smile for?  And these are genuine smiles - Nicky's on the verge of a big giggle.  Their emotional ranges are so vast at these ages that I wonder what will happen when they hit their teens, but I am trying to stay grounded and focused on the glorious moment of the now and enjoy the little steps of the day: walking barefoot in my pajamas down the steps and out the stone walkway to get the paper in the mornings that I don't leave at the crack of dawn, grinding the coffee beans and dumping them into the filter after I smack the grinder onto the counter top.  Dipping into the Fage yogurt container to fill my shallow blue bowl and then digging out some frozen orange-pineapple juice concentrate and plopping it on top of the plan yogurt.  Ready for breakfast, I drink black coffee from a bright orange mug, wait for the concentrated juice to melt just a tad and then eat the sweet syrup covered, cold yogurt as I drink my bitter, hot coffee.  And life is good.

Art is funny like that...

This morning as we painted with acrylics, I watched Tracy lather the colors onto her board, blending rich blue with a green, moving the brush around as though she were really a part of the colors themselves; meanwhile, I stood over my board and tried in my most meticulous method to recreate an image of the delicate little egg that her chicken lay, an egg she presented to me as a present.  It ended up looking more like a fig than an egg, and the other end of my board has beautiful knots that I wanted to use as part of my schema, but how?

As we worked side by side, Tracy muttering about not giving up and both of us intensely invested in our painting and not our weightless conversation that floated in and out of the space, I watched her piece become artistic while mine because Kindergarten.  She cooed and urged me on, saying, "You really DO have a style."  I thought to myself, "Yea, some style to have like a 6 year old's!"  The magic of working together, though, is that her movements and her process inspire me to move beyond the familiarly domestic, but then I realize that if I cannot do something as fundamental as an egg and a cup, I have no business exploring the abstract and the ephemeral.

I like these two pieces together because we began with different colors, moved in completely different directions and then ended our session in strangely disparate states of completion.  Mine feels incomplete, and I think she overworked hers with white so that she lost some of the very richness with which she began. I like that about both pieces because when we come back to them, I will have to pick up presumably where I left off, moving where I think I am going, and Tracy will have to go somewhere new because she cannot go back; in other words, she is building something magical, and I am plodding towards the familiar.

Maybe I shall throw coffee grounds on it next week and see just where that takes me~ !