Poetic Journey - My Spot in the Sun

Was going through photographs of my aspect of finishing the studio after I let the contractor go and found this from the summer of 2008. The three plants in the corner have gotten larger and now share their space with more plants. The tomatoes on the right were a noble experiment but blocked too much of my sun. That is in a huge part what the studio is about - Sun and the warmth it provides as passive solar to the rest of my house.

This poem is about the sun in the studio on a winter afternoon.

That Spot

In the midst of winter

Seeking that spot

Vying with the cats

And dogs

For that treasured warmth

The fleeting spot in the sun.

The angling sun

Still low on the snow-capped horizon

Shines coolly outside my windows

But graces our winter days

With illumination and warmth

Sun Spots on the tile

Pools of warmth on the chairs

Plants hugging window sills

For their spot in the sun.

The circles of light move

As the sun traverses the treetops

Dogs inch across the floor

The cats change chairs

I inch mine around

Unwilling to relinquish

The warmth of its touch on my shoulders

A gentle mid-winter's day

Of chasing sunspots

Across the room

Warming chilled bones and muscles.

Oh, to be a gecko

On a sun-baked outcrop of sandstone

With naught to do but bask

In that so warm spot

Of winter sun.

(c) Jacqui Binford-Bell
January 2010

If you have a poem to share for this week's poetic journey please leave a comment here or on Facebook with your url. We are a multi-blog event.

Nicholas V - Epiphany

Shameless Self Promotion

 

One of the concepts (epiphany moments) which came out of the New Year's Eve meeting of creative minds I blogged about was self-promotion and how that varied from marketing. Up to now I have centered my efforts (never as extensive as my creative ones) on marketing. This I did largely through participation in higher and higher end shows. As they are also the ones which cost the most money, last year's economy brought a lot of that to a screeching halt. I had finished and opened the studio and I thought it would take up the slack of the three fairs I dropped. NOT.

I had not totally grasped consciously that I had to also replace the promotion those fairs gave me for the cost of entry. Fairs are not just an exposure to a market but they also have websites and brochures and postcards and advertising which promotes not merely the event but the artists juryed into the event.

I did spend a lot of effort last year with networking and posting blogs and links that got me high up on the list of mentions in Google. But blogs and websites are still not as effective promoting yourself as articles in magazines. And here comes the Catch 22. I have worked as a freelance writer and am master of the query letter but magazines don't want article written by the subject. Pen name? I do have one which I have not used in a while. Or do I ghost for someone willing to submit in their name? Or do we as artists promote each other? Or do I approach my friends in the media on a personal level and say, "Hey, how about me?"

Yesterday, while still mulling over those questions, I sat down and developed a "game plan" for 2010 to promote my studio. Obviously I am going to have to spend some money on advertisements. The art tour I belong to is set up to do out of my immediate neck of the woods but is that enough in the height of the art season? I win prizes for my work and I need to really capitalize on that.

How have other artistic readers of this blog dealt with these issues? How do you shamelessly self-promote?

Creative Conversation

 

I spent New Year's Eve in the company of creative people with very creative minds. And it made me realize how very special the salons and academies of France must have been to the Impressionists like Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Cezanne, and Matisse. The synergy and movement that was created by sharing a meal, an idea, a goal, a technique.

Oh, I am sure it was not always wine and roses. Perhaps often entirely too much wine. And the lead used in paints at the time may well have been a contributor to Van Gogh's madness. But would they all be so outstanding had they painted in isolation scattered across Europe? Do we know them all because they belonged to a school of art? The same salon in Paris?

Katherine McDermott, painter and owner of Artspace Gallery and Jessica Duke, jeweler, and myself were there with "support staff" and emerging artisans in their own right. It was not the wild and crazy party we were more familiar with in our youth. It was more like Monet's Luncheon on the Grass and less like Manet's Luncheon on the Grass. We spent time talking about the sixth anniversary of Artspace Gallery just celebrated and the original ten artists that were first exhibited there. The five which have gone the distance thus far and the changes (progress) we have all made in our own personal creative journey.

It all began with trying to form a guild of artists to work toward having a coop gallery or venue to display our work. That group, Northern New Mexico Artists' Guild, ultimately failed. We got bogged down with personalities and the business side of trying to put together a non-profit organization that could apply for grants. But friendships were formed and ideas hatched which have lasted. Recently, one of the original people in that group, suggested that perhaps our mistake was trying to be too organized and what we needed, and should look at getting started, was just an informal group that met once or twice a month for Luncheon on the Grass or in our studios and seek only creative conversation.

I would say it sounds like a plan but artists don't do well with plans per se but we love the spark of a good idea nurtured over a table of good food.

Poetic Journey - Winter of My Dismay

What is it about the final days of a year that seem so without hope at times? As if the new year will not belong to us but to others. And the woes of the previous year will follow us wherever we go.

The Winter of My Dismay

The blankets all tangled strangle my sleep

I fight to stay abed and put off the day

My pets hold me down

To keep me from flying away

Escaping the reality that waits

Please let me sleep.

The mornings are so dark

Matching my mood these days

Even the stars are wrapped in blankets of clouds

To stay warm and snug just a little longer

I wrap myself in comforter before my computer

One dim light and a mug of hot coffee.

The darkness and cold outside that circle

Are chilling to the soul

Prospects damp my spirit even more

Hope, when I can find it

Is warming for but a moment

The light so far away.

Spring seems impossible

In this my winter of dismay

Light and hope so very remote

I am not sure I want to make the journey

Just curl up in some snug corner of this endless maze

And sleep forever.

(c) J. Binford-Bell - December 29, 2009

And so begins this week's poetic journey. Hopefully you have something to offer us travelers which will lead us to the light. Your own or a favorite you wish to share. Just leave a comment with your web address (url). We are a multi-blog poetic journey.

NicholasV on Intelliblog

Meeting of Minds

Artists are frequently solitary creatures. Much like the ravens pictured above they often fly solo but when they meet there is a great deal of chatter that takes place. I am not sure what information Ravens impart to each other when they meet in a venue, but with artists the conversation can be difficult to track if you are an outsider.

My jeweler friend, Jessica, invited me to Christmas dinner and some studio time. I am a newbee with jewelry as painting is my current focus. I say current because any artist seems to leave a trail of bread crumbs, previous artistic loves, behind them. The common denominators are there in all arts - design, composition, seeking the limits, colors, balance, etc. And what changes are the techniques used. The more you explore your particular art the more you know the limits. This can be good and bad. The good is you are always seeking that edge. The bad part is that it can make you a bit stale.

So artists of my acquaintance are workshop junkies or collectors of books on arts, visitors of galleries, etc. Yesterday's invitation by Jessica was a wonderful Christmas present. I got to pop into her world and learn something outside my "field of vision," and through my innocent questions give her peeks into "why not's." After we covered the basics of metal folding she went to one area of the studio and I to another and "created" but a certain energy or synergy began to develop.

In to this mix came Ethan who also does jewelry and wood work with more questions and ideas. By the time the Christmas repast was served, excellently cooked by Ronnie, I should have been exhausted but I was high as a kite. Dinner conversation bounced around from wood to metal to cooking. After dinner wood dominated the conversation with the men and us women talked of opening new gallery platforms for our work, new directions we wanted to explore, and the glory of "lab time" or tithing which is possible in the depth of winter. Time to refuel our creative juices.

What amazes me often is how far forward I can go in my particular chosen art of the moment by stepping into the art of another for a recess as it were. How wonderful it is for solitary birds to meet up on a patch of snow and chatter. Do you think Ravens fly differently after they meet?

Note: to see a folded metal pendant previously made by Jessica Duke.

In the Beginning

I was looking recently for pictures of arches for new paintings. This search usually begins in my own archives of photographs taken during my travels about the Colorado Plateau. But as I was looking for arches I had never painted I found myself in Google Images and pulled up the above watercolor of Window Rock. Sadly I can not give credit to the artist because it was found on a blog which also did not give credit. I think it is a great rendition of the arch in question without all the park service stuff in front of it, so it went into my art ideas folder on my computer. And was forgotten.

If indeed artists forget anything beyond where they put that new paintbrush. We're spacey because some segment of the brain is always involved with ideas. So when I began to tackle the problems of a "self-portrait" (boy, has this been on the back burner percolating away for a long time) this arch came to mind. You are probably reminded of those black and white episodes of Lost in Space that waved his arms and shouted, "Does not compute." (Which, of course, I also had to Google.)

Who knows how an artist's mind works. Or doesn't work as I found out this morning when I was sure it was Saturday. But I digress.

Back to the self-portrait and its relationship with the opening photograph of Window Rock. Yes, there is some artistic license with the image. I am not as honest as Van Gogh.

All of which brings me to the subject of self-portraits. Why have artists through the ages been compelled to paint them? Lack of funds for a model to pose? Maybe. Self-absorption? Possibly. Traditional? Could be.

This could devolve into merely a face in the rock. Speaking of which I have a photograph I took which has five faces in the rocks. That should be quite interesting to do.

Poetic Journey - Night Before Christmas

The Night Before Christmas
By Clement Clarke Moore

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled down for a long winter's nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

"Now, DASHER! now, DANCER! now, PRANCER and VIXEN! On, COMET! on CUPID! on, DONNER and BLITZEN!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall! Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew, With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my hand, and was turning around, Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back, And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.

His eyes -- how they twinkled! his dimples how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly, That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head, Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
"HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT!"

When I was a kid my father used to recite this poem to us every night around Christmas. When I got older I would recite it to my kid sister. It seemed appropriate to feature it here on Poetic Journey for the week.

If you have a favorite poem or an original you have written and wish to join the poetic journey for this week please leave a comment with your url. And a Happy Christmas to all.

Nicholas V on Intelliblog 

We have a new participant to Poetic Journey this week Svetlana

Note: The information I found on Wikipedia about this poem was very interesting so I recommend a visit. Also when I was Googling I found quite a "Christian" backlash to this family favorite. Following a link on Wiki I was delighted to learn more about the illustrator of one of the first editions of the poem, Jessie Wilcox Smith.