Today...

...is National Poetry Day...here's the website.  There are events all over the place, if you're quick, you might get to one!  So...I thought I'd share a poem.  The artists among us might appreciate it.  It's new, so probably subject to change, and it hasn't got a title yet.  Maybe it doesn't want one.

Please, do not ask
How many hours it took:
Think days and weeks and
Long, long years, think lifetimes
Thought and practice, reflect
On observations,
All those sketches, notes and plans,
That led us to this moment, this
Construction, this depiction.
Ask, instead, its story,
I will tell you what I know of it
It may not match your viewpoint
But it's mine.

 Quilters in particular seem to be very keen on knowing how long something took.  To me, that's irrelevant, as are the technical considerations they usually ask about.  To me, it's all about the meaning, and even that may not be shared by all.  And that, to me, is the beauty of it.  Happy National Poetry Day!

The image is 'Losing My Religion'.  It has it's own story, but I won't bore you with it now.  See what story you find in it, instead.

Distracting Myself...

...from the thought of hospital tomorrow, I picked up this book, which you read about here.    I wrote a poem for it at the time, which has been sitting in my sketchbook...today, I edited it.  So...it went from

Dreaming the landscape
a blur of colour and
movement
a rickle o' stanes
glinting in the light.

to

dreaming landscape
blur of colour
and movement
rickle o' stanes
glint in  the light.

I'm happier with that, it's more condensed, more direct.  I'm not a poet, not really.  I know bits and pieces about how things are supposed to work, but really, I just write it down, and then take away all the bits that don't seem to belong.  It's reminiscent of sculpture; the sculptor works with a whole piece, and takes away the bits that don't belong, to find the form within. 

So...what to do with it?  My original thought was to have words on every page, but that didn't seem right...plus, I was worried about the pen bleeding through to the other side, as the paper is quite thin.  It didn't, as it happens, but I'm glad I made the decision I did, a word on the first and every second page.  I've spread out the first few pages (just as well they're not attached yet), to let you see what that looks like.

Looking at that second image, it would be interesting to make a stepped book like this, showing the whole poem at a glance...one for the sketchbook...  But I digress.  I had intended to stitch this piece: looking at it now, I don't think it needs it.  I only stitch when stitch would add something to the work.  I know that's not the fashion, and probably hasn't ever been...but it's right for this piece.  The other book I made at the same time will, I suspect, need stitch, as well as a poem.  First, though it needs a good trim; looking at it, I realise that some of the pages are smaller than others, and I'd rather they were the same. 

The last thing to do for this book, though, is to fasten the pages together, a simple three hole binding. Not sure what yarn I'll use, or if I'll plait some threads together, so that's for another day.  Perhaps a heavy gold thread, to relate back to that last line of the poem.   Meanwhile, though,  I've made a template, a simple piece of paper cut to size and folded to work out where the holes should be.  When I'm feeling better, I'll use a hammer and nail to make the holes, using the template to show me where to put them.  For now, though, it'll need to wait.

High Exposure.

I'm in bed again today; other than reading a trashy novel and playing the occasional silly game on FB, I'm not doing anything, other than think.  So...what to write today...?   Well...the closest I've come to work is a bit of light editing.  I found some poems I wrote several years ago, and have been rereading and amending, somewhat.  Most of them focus on my childhood.  I make no secret that I had the childhood from hell, but I rarely share the details.  These poems, though, look at that.  I've been debating in my head whether or not to share any of them.  I have a profound dislike of work that pretends to be art, when what it really is, is therapy. That said, I think that I have enough distance now, that I can look back on my childhood and see it for what it was, and hopefully, to describe it without histrionics.  So, today's creative act is a poem.

Remembrance.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.  Omar Khayyam

The worst of it is hidden in the dark,

Where nobody at all can ever find it;

The bad things, (like the fights, the slaps, the sobbing

On the bedspread til I slept still sitting up,

Chastised for some infringement

That I cannot now remember, and would not have been

That much), all those bad things I have brought into the open, understood, accepted,

Shrunk to their proper size.    The randomness of it all

Is like my childhood, rule today,  reverse tomorrow,

Punishment inevitable as Mister Frost in winter, icing

up the windows from inside.  At the time, my sister

was so sure that he was real, wanted to make him pay

For every sharp waking, frozen, in the night...

But she grew out of it.  Eventually, I learned

That every pleasant moment had its darkness,

A word, a slap, a scratch, until I cried,

Then, 'something to be cried about'...so

I grew up convinced that all the good things

Do not last, may be stripped away by anyone

At any given moment,  while happiness,

Like Jack Frost, lived in books.

Pleasant moments rarely come to mind:

So linked to darkness, little is remembered.

Snippets of my past, all coalescing. Adam

And his pandrops, Auntie Bell, high tea (with more

than one bit of cake).  More pandrops in the kirk

From Auntie Ebbie on a Sunday, purloined

From her brother, a surreptitious sharing, with

No crunching.  I really don't remember

Any more.  There must be something.  Surely

There must be something.  Clouds have silver linings,

Sun with rain brings rainbows: surely there were more?

I think every artist aims to share something of themselves with every piece of work. This feels like the ultimate in exposure in comparison with visual art, where meanings are cloaked in metaphor and subtlety. Words are much harder to work with for just that reason; give me a paintbrush any time.

Small Things And Coincidences.

often lead our minds to remember significant things, and by that, I mean things that are significant to us.  We have no garden in this new house; the garden space is under dispute, and we can't do anything with it until that is resolved.  There are no plants to admire, and I had not been aware of how much I rely on plants for inspiration.  Given that this is a new estate, there are no established gardens to enjoy, either, just a couple of cherry trees that have been planted either side of our house by the builders.  To my surprise, though, I found this leaf the other day.  I have no idea where it came from, blown in on the high winds we had last week, no doubt.

I find it beautiful.  A small thing, but it carries the memory of the plant it came from.  I'm not a gardener, so I have no idea what that might be, but it doesn't really matter.  It reminded me, though, of a poem I found while looking for something else (which is the way of these things, really).

The Vine Leaf
I know these lovely yellows and these greens,
These blues and all the moments in between;
Summer is full of them.  This, though, is the tipping point
Where green begins to turn to browns and golds, crimsons,
Aubergines, all the rich and fruitful tones of autumn. I find them
In a single leaf, a newly gifted vine, growing
Fair and unfettered in my Norfolk garden.  No grapes this year
(the plant is far too new); its tender leaves suffice
To capture this single brightly balanced moment
Between burgeoning and the slow slide into sleep.
For now it is enough, for both of us.

And when I read it, I remembered standing by that vine, admiring the colour of the leaves as they turned, taking photographs (I'm pretty sure I probably still have them somewhere), feeling that change in the weather that presages the shift to autumn.  Here's an image of the vine taken a couple of years later, in the early summer.

I'm not much of a poet, really: I'll never be published, certainly.  I don't write often enough, and I'm not terribly disciplined about it, either, as you need to be if you take it seriously, just like any other form of art.  And I've always thought of it as completely separate from the visual art...but this poem shows just how silly that is.  It is full of visual imagery.  In some ways, it is a better aide memoire than any photograph could be.  A photograph is a record of the way something looked in a particular moment; a good photograph suggests emotion.  This poem, though, contains a miniature universe of emotions, sights, smells, textures.  There's at least one textile book in there...perhaps an entire series.  All that, from a moment, a leaf and a handful of words.  Isn't that wonderful?

Working Things Out.

I'm currently working on a book (surprise, surprise).  It's a folded book, made from a single piece of material, and it has a secret.  Here's an image.

The paper is quite highly textured; here's a close up...

Interesting, isn't it?  I'll be adding more stitch, I suspect, to the two side areas, more horizontal lines, probably.  I like the loose ends of the thread.  I remember submitting a quilt to Hever (I think it was),  many years ago.  I had deliberately not trimmed away excess thread in several specific areas, because it represented broken connections between people; apparently, I was told later, two women had stood in front of the quilt and loudly discussed it in critical terms, including the line 'these art quilters are so lazy, they can't even be bothered trimming the thread...'.  Sigh.  The thread ends here have no particular meaning; I just like that way it looks.  I know I could add beads (for instance), but that would give the whole thing way more significance than it actually has, or than I want it to have.  

So... can you see from the image, what the book's secret might be?  Here it is.

That central section opens out, and contains rust dyed silk.  In texture terms, it both complements and contrasts with the texture of the paper.  I like rust....but of course, it can't really be neutralised, and will continue to work on the fabric.  I have had some rust dyed fabric for over ten years, and see no deterioration in it, but it's not archival in the true sense of the word.  That doesn't bother me in the slightest.  I make to create meaning; sometimes that meaning is fleeting, and the use of rust dyed fabric is important in work that explores impermanence or uncertainty.

I've written a poem as part of this book.

Metal ourubos

Consuming its host

Til nothing remains

That, to me, is the nature of rust.  It consumes and consumes, until the host is gone, and nothing remains but dust.  The poem reflects the nature of the rust, and by extension, the nature of the piece.  It is made to self destruct; it's really only a matter of time.

The question I'm debating internally is what to do with the text.  Same poem on both sides?  Or write another poem on the same theme?  Or spread the words over both sides, and make the viewer piece the poem together?  Write them, stitch them or applique them?  Write them on a luggage label and attach it somewhere (I like that one)? The jury's out.  And it may stay out for quite a while.  It's unusual for me to have no idea how to progress, but here we are...so I'll put it aside and let my unconscious do its work.  

I think the issue I have is that the book is not for the poem, or the poem for the book; they have equal weight, with the fabric, in terms of expressing meaning.  I don't want the poem to dominate the materials, or vice versa.  It's a question of finding an appropriate balance, and that may take time.

Reverting To Words...

,,,because sometimes, only words will do.  This week is ME awareness week; read more about it here.  There are a lot of events happening across the country, across the world, in fact, including Millions Missing, where shoes are set out, labelled with their owners' stories, to indicate the way in which they are missing from the event, and indeed, to some extent, from their own lives.  I can't go to the Edinburgh event (at the Mound, if you want to go along), so I thought I'd mark it with a poem.

Wasting My Energy : A Poem For ME Awareness

You. Yes, you. You who can dance

Whenever you want.  Stroll

Unconcerned wherever you

Wish, run for a mile, or a

Bus without thinking.  Work, laugh or play

Without consequence.  

You really don’t get it, now do you?

Here sit I, wheels for feet,

Buses a distant memory.  Oh yes,

My legs work, and the rest of me: I can

Stand up, point a toe, take a few

Careful steps, then sit down hard

Gasping for breath.

And that will make me

A fraud in your eyes;  that is,

If you see me at all.  Invisible,

That’s me.  (It’s got something to do

With the chair).

Humour me, just for a moment.

Imagine a world filled with pain,

Every action carefully planned, consequences

Weighed up and measured, that is

If just rising from bed can be managed..

Imagine your life without action,

Interaction, meaning: you’re imagining

Mine.  Nobody asks for ME; it just

Happens one day, irreversible,

Misunderstood.  No testing,

Diagnosis or cure.  No treatment.

No sympathy.  Just judgement,

And the shaking of heads. It’s no

Way to live. It’s all there is.

You still don’t get it, do you?

I really tried.

Writing...

is something I have felt I ought to be able to do, but somehow couldn't.  I trained as a linguist; if anyone could write, you would think that I would be able to. I thought that I was condemned to translating other peoples' work, other peoples' ideas...that I had none of my own.  Recently, though, I've been writing a lot, mainly haiku, but some poems, and the tentative beginnings of a novel.  Very tentative.

I've been quite disturbed by the way in which the recent suicide of the truly gifted Robin Williams has been reported, so I wanted to share this.  Those of you who have followed the blog for a while, know that I suffer from chronic depression, and that some of my work is around that.  This is by way of an attempt to explain to people who just don't 'get it' for one reason or another, just what depression is like.

To Those Who Don't Believe In Depression.
I know you don’t believe that we’re in pain. Mostly because you cannot see we’re broken, The things that we keep hidden because we feelAshamed, inadequate, insufficient, lostIn a darkness you don’t seem to see,Mostly because you don’t know how to look.Or perhaps, you’ve never thought that it was possibleTo seem to be one thing, yet feel another,Both at the same time. And yet, it is.We can’t explain it to you; hell, we can’t explain it to ourselves.But it is as real as you are, to us, and though our bodiesAre not broken, we are in pain.How can we explain it? Did you, when you were young,Lose a cat, a dog, or even, perhaps, a person? RememberHow it hurt? Remember being told that the cared for oneHad gone away to heaven? And thinking that you didn’tUnderstand? Such pain, such confusion…but gradually, youFelt less and less, remembered less and less, and returnedTo your usually happy state… and life went on.Imagine that pain, intensified, confusion combined with the feelingThat it is all your fault, the way you feel, that this thing should be happening.Imagine it going on and on, for years and years, without improving; ratherIt just gets worse. And it is never forgotten, not for a nanosecond. 
Perhaps, if you can imagine that, you can beginTo understand, to accept, above all, not to judge.That is all we ask for, we who suffer. It doesn't seem like much.


Personally, I thought Robin Williams was immortal, a touchstone, a miracle.  Through his work, perhaps he truly is.  His death is a reminder that all of us have demons.  Some of us deny them, some ignore them.  Some grapple with them and lose.  Some gain temporary respite... but they don't often go away entirely.  We don't know each others' demons... but we should try to remember that they are there.

Those Of You...

who follow me on Facebook will know that I've been writing a lot of poetry, recently.  And that I've been experimenting for a series called 'Linescapes'.  Here, though, the two meet.

The poem was written specifically for the piece, an accordian book made from transfer dyed Lutradur XL.  The front and back both represent Highland landscapes in Spring and Autumn, respectively (you are looking at autumn).  I stitched the yarn onto it to suggest the mountains...and then got stuck in an almighty fashion, for about three weeks.  I couldn't decide what to do next.  Then came the poem.

Rewriting The Landscape.

It might be somewhere, it might be nowhere,
A marriage of memory and imagination
A composite landscape, distilled
Like finest malt, from the high places, the colour
and the light.  A moment in spring,
Another in autumn.  A rush of names;
Strathpeffer.  Skye.  Lochinver.  Oban. Nairn.
Strathcarron.  Plockton.  Dornoch.  Cromarty.
Captured in colour, held in cloth, a fragment,
An amalgam,  aide memoire.  As if
I needed one; as if I could forget
The majesty of it, the grandeur of the high lands.
I lived there once; it lives within me still.
Unforgettable, burned into the bone.

I considered collageing the words onto the book, but it seemed fiddly to do, and not really suitable for a small book...so I wrote them on in a toning pen.  My husband grumbles that he can't read my writing...but I figure it's fairly straightforward to decipher.  I plan to do more work like this, combining the two disciplines; it seems somehow fitting.

Sometimes...

things fall into place.  I write a daily haiku.  Well, okay, sometimes I don't, but then sometimes six arrive on one day...so it all balances out.  I was driving to see a friend this morning, and noticed a red poppy in the verge.  I thought that its petals, moving in the wind, looked like skirts...reminiscent of the famous Marilyn Munroe pose with the air vent.  And then, later, in my friend's garden, I found this flower... and it all fell into place...

Frilly, flirty skirts

Falling out from a green heart

With pink tinged crown.

These poppies look nothing like the wild poppies... here's a view of one in full flower... but the skirt comparison is even better here.  Nature is wonderful.

Grrrrrrrrr

If you were listening, you probably heard me screaming at the other side of the world. When the power failed for the fourth time, this time in the middle of saving an important document, you just know that I was less than impressed. Murderous, really. Grrrrrrrrrr. You don't know how much you rely on electricity until it isn't there...

I talked about the workshop I attended last weekend, but didn't supply the promised image, so here you are. The print on the left was the first I made, and the second, the last. In between, there was an interesting journey.

One of the tasks we had in the poetry writing session was to go look around and write down words that described ... something. The exhibit that was ongoing, how we felt, whatever. When we came back, we were tasked with writing a haiku using only a selection of those words. This is mine;

Unexpected dance
Imagine starfish texture
Remember delight.

We wrote all sorts of other poetry, too, most of it in Japanese forms. I really did write more that morning than I have done for the past five years, I think, poetry, at least. Then, we had to make a print based on one of the poems; I chose the one above, and worked with a human form, though it seemed to have nothing much to do with the poem, really. It did chime with 'unexpected dance', however, as you can see. By the time I'd made the last one, I was still playing in my head with the idea of image and text...but had left the poem somewhere behind, other than that theme of unexpected dance. Two figures, and the idea of drawing, both towards and away. Which is doing what? I don't really know. I'm not really sure how I got there, to be honest, but it was a good place to reach, and I could happily have continued making prints for hours.

Credit where credit is due; the workshop leaders were amazing. Lisa D'Onofrio and Annette Rolston work together as InPrint If you get the chance to work with them, run, don't walk, and prepare to be amazed!