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Archive for December, 2013

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Posting from sweet Montego Bay, Jamaica.

To ‘post’ something once referred to mailing a missive – it’s ironic  we use the terminology of a technology that the internet has almost replaced  to explain the workings of said internet.  Sort of like how in the early 19th century the workings of the brains were referred to in terms of hydraulics.

Nonetheless, I am sending out these digital postcards  for the passer-byes, the dear ones, the far away ones.

Life is good here …paradise.

It is the end of the year, so today I scheduled all the remaining posts for 2013…all the ones i promised – don’t be overwhelmed;)

Music on my mind. I made a new podcast, an uptempo one this time, and called it Wicked Mojito – for all your wicked nights.

Download the uninterrupted  flow here (technical difficulties) or listen play by play on 8tracks.



Enjoy. Make it a good one tonight ;).
See you in 2014.

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This is the beach I get to go to…and no, I did not take this photo,{courtesy of coming-to-jamaica.com} ..but all the rest, yes:) enjoy….



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My Boxing Day coffee…

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My spot.

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I can’t stop looking at this sculpture on the beach. SO beautiful.

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Leaving Again

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In Search of The Sun.

 

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Above, my Christmas presents from my students.
The ‘one hundred small books’ were a project for the Advanced Presentation course I taught.

To start the conversation on small scale binding, I brought some of my mini books to show.
How did I end up with these? 😛


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My students could choose their own narrative and learned how to bind books using different techniques and materials.
We covered layout through a discussion on portfolio graphics and blog and website design –and used some color palette tools–
so for the final project I wanted to do something different and strange, inspired by an artist in the 70’s who created one hundred little books.

Some of them are portfolios, some poetry, photography…a couple are on love and music 🙂


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There is even Dostoevsky’s novella ‘White Night’ and a book entirely on coffee and quotes, both done by Anastasia, a fellow artist (someone knows me!).

You can follow her beautiful work here.

I will post more pages from the little books once school resumes. I also (shocking, I know) have a little book on coffee quotes at home, bought in Italy few Christmases ago. I’ve been meaning to write a post about it, and now I will share it with you – and Anastasia 🙂

Also there were lots and lots of sketchbooks from my History of Architecture students (!).

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I. love. them.


Before I go (get coffee), some coffee quotes from my little coffee book:

If asked: ‘How do you take your coffee’?
I reply : ‘Very Seriously’

Unknown


Coffee is a language in itself

Jackie Chan


Wake up!

Drink coffee…

Then think.

Unknown


Coffee is the favorite drink

of the civilized world.

Thomas Jefferson


Black as night,

Sweet as sin.

Neil Gaiman ‘Anansi Boys’


Deja Brew:

The feeling you’ve had

this coffee before.

Unknown Coffee


It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to

wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity.

Dave Barry


Black as the Devil,

Hot as Hell,

Pure as an Angel,

Sweet as Love.

Charles Maurice De Talleyrand


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My Bounty. Merry Christmas.

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The Parker. Palm Springs. December 19, 2013.

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The Ace hotel in Palm Springs. December 19, 2013.


We came to Palm Springs
in search of the sun and found desert modern design,

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Desert Springs. The Canal @The Marriott.

perforated walls and floors that become water.
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Making Bracelets [Nights at Bassam's]. Digitally manipulated photographs. December 2013.

Making Bracelets [Nights at Bassam’s]. Digitally manipulated photographs. December 2013.


“We all need someone to look at us.  We can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under.
The first category longs for the look of an infinite number of anonymous eyes, in other words, for the look of the public.  The second category is made up of people who have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes.  They are the tireless hosts of cocktail parties and dinners.  They are happier than the people in the first category, who, when they lose their public, have the feeling that the lights have gone out in the room of their lives.  This happens to nearly all of them sooner or later.  People in the second category, on the other hand, can always come up with the eyes they need.  Then there is the third category, the category of people who need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love.  Their situation is as dangerous as the situation of people in the first category.  One day the eyes of their beloved will close, and the room will go dark.  And finally there is the fourth category, the rarest, the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present.  They are the dreamers.”

Milan Kundera


-the definition of unconditional-


daydreamer
stargazer
we make an unlikely couple
– we sure do –

 

i’ve been in my head
dangerously close to the sun
i don’t have icarus’ wax wings –
mine are made of foil
they will not melt, but burn.

 

turn your journals into songs,
irresponsible happinesses,
stringing beads and giddy smiles…
i always, still, get lost in the immense, dark pools of your eyes
drawn to, swim in, drown.
undeniable whirlpools, deep waters: as far as i am concerned, the whole building tilts towards them.  i can’t escape the pull.
their whites, though, is like the white of clouds
i could stare at them, and calm myself,
like one does with cumuli and strata, cirri.

 

i’ve been making a mixtape –

 

each song was bought and paid for in heart pieces.

 

i have traveled
through winters in fargo,
my freshman years,
nights in Florence,
i have opened lost love letters in california.
for you, it’s always for you.
and if i’m wasting my love
if you are stealing it
I’m a more than willing victim
fake-fainting in the arms of the gentleman thief.
your handling always extracts poetry from me,
you are an expert player – and I am pliant.

 

we don’t live in paris or rome, i know, but i swear on our stolen nights i was walking by the river and looking at the stars —
we are not on park boulevard: we are in heaven.

 

perhaps it was just need that brought us together
we wanted fire
and it was provided.
I am convinced we are each others’ figments of the imagination.
because nothing is ever real when we are together: it’s vivid, surreal pura vida, and exists in air chambers.
or, perhaps what i have with you is reality, only feeling, only present, only now –
the rest is a filler.
time is relative under the bell, we are forever kissing – every action continues in perpetuity.
months go by, but i just held you.
the silence is absolute, and you can’t hear my screams.  I know better now.

 

i wake up with sentences fully formed,
i have not left your eyes or your chest where I slept.
where you let me sleep for the first time.
i am still there.
i am letting the days go by
as one gazes, mesmerized, at colorful and bland socks
tumbling in the dryer.

 

this is what i really want to do,
tell you that i replay your words in my mind,
that i am happy you feel my eyes on your
[caressing] eyes.

 

that you kissed me with lips of pillows and petals
and that i slept in them.
that your skin is made of the most exquisite silk
and that each kiss i gave you was my blessing.

 

i wanted to use our bodies as instruments
make love, no, a symphony.
the words that part us will never come from my lips
or my fingers.
we both know that i am unable.

 

there is an overlap between
freedom and loneliness.
i’m perhaps utterly lost,
but finally at peace.

 

i want you to know,
i would never take a single touch or word
for granted. or your soulheartbody.
the night dissolved in your arms
faded
devotion made touch, flesh, verb, breath-
you are the definition of unconditional.

 

more paper trails for me to burn on,
Love is not warm milk.
i want to
adorn you in precious metals and words
last night’s embers are still glowing.

 

when i die, i will be made into fireworks.





San Diego, December 16, 2013

………


We want what we want.
We love what we love.

From ‘ Beautiful Ruins.’


songlist:

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Collage. Graphite, Ink, found printed material. December 2013

Collage + Digital manipulation. Graphite, Ink, found printed material. December 2013


These are visual notes of a different kind.

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Steel. Digital manipulation, text brush. December 2013.


Movement Song

By Audre Lorde


I have studied the tight curls on the back of your neck
moving away from me
beyond anger or failure
your face in the evening schools of longing
through mornings of wish and ripen
we were always saying goodbye
in the blood in the bone over coffee
before dashing for elevators going
in opposite directions
without goodbyes.

Do not remember me as a bridge nor a roof
as the maker of legends
nor as a trap
door to that world
where black and white clericals
hang on the edge of beauty in five oclock elevators
twitching their shoulders to avoid other flesh
and now
there is someone to speak for them
moving away from me into tomorrows
morning of wish and ripen
your goodbye is a promise of lightning
in the last angels hand
unwelcome and warning
the sands have run out against us
we were rewarded by journeys
away from each other
into desire
into mornings alone
where excuse and endurance mingle
conceiving decision.
Do not remember me
as disaster
nor as the keeper of secrets
I am a fellow rider in the cattle cars
watching
you move slowly out of my bed
saying we cannot waste time
only ourselves.




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I found and lost myself inside of that night. Collage. Graphite, fountain ink, found objects. San Diego. December 9, 2013.

I found and lost myself inside of that night. Collage. Graphite, fountain ink, found objects. San Diego. December 9, 2013.



These collages are starting to need a change of byline for SketchBloom: Art Therapy. Oh well;)

Above, a work in progress (and, darling aren’t we all?)..not sure which way it will go.

In the midst of nude painting to be done from memory (and I have started sketching, too bad the final product won’t be posted here), there’s been art and feelings on fire.

In the quest for ASCII hearts ( yes, lots of hearts are needed ) I found these lovely images.

All credits to benjscott.com

All credits to benjscott.com

The image above is from http://www.benjscott.com/artscii/. Click to be taken to more exquisite ASCII art images and his program.

The ascii art images above are from http://www.benjscott.com/artscii/. Click to be taken to his program.

This is a program called ASCIIART – which goes beyond recreating images in characters to delving into typography…and…this had me at hello.

I cannot wait to experiment with some black and white art.


Also, a return to poetry, literature and tender music. Maybe a new poem will blossom soon…the ingredients are there once again.

Some quotes from a book I am finally finishing (quotes that became a poem): The Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter.
Freedom and loneliness overlap, look in the mirror, my face, these words reversed.


Hearing his name caused him to turn back again

looking into her eyes was like standing by a door slightly ajar

how could you not push open the door

see what lay inside?

And that door seemed to open a little.

and the glimpse he had beyond the door tortured him

he wanted to say more, to say everything on his mind, but he couldn’t.

It wasn’t a question of language.

He doubted the words existed in any language.

He  forced himself to look away from her then.

It was like prying a magnet off steel.

It was as though, outside of that room, there could be such a thing as ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.

And then there was her.

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Found material and quotes from Tolstoi's Anna Karenina. Collage. San Diego. December 2013.

Found material and quotes from Tolstoi’s Anna Karenina. Collage. San Diego. December 2013.

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Collage part I.

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Collage Part II.

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before…

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after…

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still waiting after three days for the glue to dry on the rosebuds ….

“We will never walk along the river again,
So walk with me in this poem.”
Eric Jirek

The night shift belongs to the poets.

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