The tourist's shirt

Moved from the Metaphoratorium blog

It's a dark touring madness, all curled and twisting.

finding my way

I heard today that when wind chimes shimmer their bright bells on the wind, that the sound chases out the old stagnant fears.  Well, I have no idea but one left untried. It's not so much happiness I seek, as that is in the moments. It is sustaining income without the loss of sanity as a trade-off. I feel like this old pup - constrained by a panel of glass I am only dimly aware of, and looking sadly into the distance.

The argument takes a surprising turn

This seems very French to me. It's all digital and I think that most people will not like it, as it is not very realistic. It depicts the inner not the outer color of this fictional event. One crazy frilly oddball is getting ready to shoot another crazy frilly oddball. Go figure.

Electric sea of Turmoil

This item was moved from the Metaphoratorium Gallery. It was created in Corel Painter 9.5. I think it reflects the inner termoil I felt on this date, as I was stressed out working full-time for a newspaper as a land use reporter.

Things might settle down, not sure just yet.

Billowing bright life

After a day of heartburn and stomach knots, being asked to rethink something difficult - something I thought was settled - I wanted it all to be over. (I was trying to quit my job.... and my declaration was not taken seriously... and like so many other things I had said at work, was ignored.)

But circumstances required that I re-decide, re-agonize all over again. Just then in the inbox for Bent Pin, I got a piece of writing made me relax. The central metaphor was a box of puzzle pieces, the writing was experimental.

It was about not having a solution, about there being no perfect solution, no exactly right life, but making it up and just being instead of searching.

So I had chamomile tea, and made this wild bright billow of life in Corel Painter (the work to the left).

My puzzle, and wonderfully alive any way I choose to arrange it. So be it.

and thank you Danny Bernardi. Thanks very much.

Caprice #4 Balance in blue and a decision carried out

Sometimes it takes a couple of tries to get a version I like. Morning pages, morning palette. Yes this is right. I got a really sound night's sleep last night for the first time in months. Something that has been wrong is right.**

(I quit my reporting job, finally....)

The maze of days

Moved from the Metaphoratorium Gallery:

The twists and turns of daily plot and plan, the chagrin, the mistakes, the dismay, interwoven with joy, contorted by ambient energy. How do we live day to day? What twist next? Hush Mar, and go to work.... So here is the morning page or I guess the morning palette...

Red storm, still contained

Oh a sky full of storm and building and unseen wind, a disturbed feeling, unease.

This has been a very productive weekend. Productive but pensive. It seems I have begun a furious period of frantic work starting with putting out the first edition of my new lit mag which took every free minute for a while. Now that hepped need to do, the need to do in the face of news I do not want is keeping me fiddling at a frantic pace. I am rearranging my living space today too. What mess. Or is that my life, or the lives around me?

Well here is the new painting fresh and crazed from this morning.... Fiddling with layers and cutting out sections and moving sections played a big part here in the first stages of this piece. I also did some arbitrary rotations which bumped up the canvas size. Didn't know it would do that.  Or how about in blue....

Where petals fade, fragrance lingers

Eventually , the plants the blooming plants will drop their petals. I remember my one and only stay on Nantucket. I stayed a week, slept on the floor of some couple's living room. There was a giant wooden bowl on an old table by the window filled with petals that had fallen off various flowers. They dried but still retained so much color, still retained so much fragrance. I had never seen that done before. And Nantucket has so many roses. I was thinking of that bowl when I made this.

Caprice 3 in greens

Here is another caprice I just made in Corel Painter. I love the moody darkness and roiling multicolored patterns. It seems full of furious foreboding!

Caprice #2 - Blue vigor on a fine day

Another crazy bit I made in Corel Painter. Today has been a very good day. Interesting morning seminar at work on iMove and on Google Analytics. Quiet afternoon, boss away. And a three day weekend is coming!!! Also, I am pleased with the leads on my P1 stories as well. Here's one:

Tufted ears barely rotating. A sleepy look, a stretch. The slight movement of a dangling paw. All cats seem to nap once in a while, even bobcats. Recently one was seen snoozing right here in Redding. 

and here's the other:

Rebuilding the stone wall out front? Considering the addition of imposing entrance pillars? Repaving your driveway apron? If you live on an officially declared “scenic road,” a commissioner with a digital camera and a notebook may be watching. 

First issue of Bent Pin Quarterly Vol 1 No 1 !

   

Check out the wonderful titles and authors - view the table of contents with page links:

http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com/2007/04/april-2007-contents-with-links.html

brain center for metaphor found?

Is metaphor an unfathomable enigma to you or to anyone you know? According to research at the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego, a small region of our brains may either equip us for metaphor or limit us to literal narration.

According to researcher V. S. Ramachandran, director at the center, a region of the brain dubbed the angular gyrus is most likely partly responsible for the human ability to understand metaphor, according to a May 2005 article that appeared in Science Daily, an online science magazine.

The photo is detail of a mixed media oil painting of mine from long ago. It has hunks of broken  mirror glued on to the canvas board