Color or a reflection of confusion

This is a JPEG made in Corel Painter from a photo of an oil pastel of mine using various distortion techniques.

I am looking forward to getting back to the poetry series on Wednesdays. My choir job is seasonal and we have had our last Wednesday rehearsal until Sept. (If they ask me back...) Although I will miss the music, the people and the income, I have missed the poetry and the poets too. I have a lot of catching up to do....

Old magazine drawing test

This is a very old sketched of mine, from childhood. I think it is a drawing I made for a test from one of those "learn to draw" ads which used to appear in many household magazines. The ads offered a drawing correspondence course from the Famous Artist School in Westport.

The Forsythia out back has finally bloomed in full.

The flight for silence

When I lived in Brownfield, ME I had a great apartment on the ground floor, right under the apartment of a woman with three children, who may have also taken in a few kids for day care. I wrote the following vignette about the experience:

Living in the country

I moved from the glittery, clap-trap, honky-tonk enclaves of North Conway, New Hampshire out to the tranquil fens of Brownfield Maine - brown grasses, white birch and white pine...

Imagine my surprise when, unexpectedly, a bowling ball rolls across the floor of the upstairs apartment. Rolled by erratic spastic weight lifters unaware of their deafening strength.The upstairs, I later find, is inhabited by three children. Lovely lively maniacal children. No I am sure there must be 300 children at least. Each weights 500 pounds, no 50,000 pounds. They carry bricks in their pockets and wear lead shoes. They play tackle football for hours on end, scurrying with vibratory clatter and crash through every room. Not one square inch of ceiling is safe. No room is quiet.

My nerves have reached a degree of raw reserved for the uncooked and freshly slaughtered. My cat tears out his hair in clumps. Why did I come here? Oh yes, the tranquil country life....
______

I'd come home from work and have to coax my cat of those years, Jacklee out from under the couch. Other odd things happened. One day I shoveled out the litter box, putting the offending debris into a paper bag and carefully folded the the top down to seal it. I put this bag of treasure  out on the little deck by the front door, meaning to carry it to the dumpster. I forgot to. When I came home from work it was gone. I can only imagine little hands unrolling the bag and well - ick

Apparition of unknown motives

This is a picture from the old gallery blog. It's a pencil sketch from high school. I like it because of the consternation and puzzlement evident in the expression. This world is a confusing place. Often I am not sure why something was said or done. HOWEVER I refuse to spend time thinking about it. If there is a deeper meaning you want to communicate to me - you'd better just tell me..... I think things should be taken at face value.

This philosophy (which I occassionally fail to use...) came about because, once I obsessively spent months trying to figure out the odd statements of a man I was seeing. I had developed a network of alternate explainations in great detail. But when the real explaination came to light - it involved somethings totally unfamiliar - that I had never once considered. What a waste of time!!!!!

New painting underway

It's based on this drawing:

12 by 12 inch, oil painting on a deep cradled masonite panel - sitting here on the mantel. It's from a 2000 sketch that I hadn't yet painted... It's isn't finished and in fact - I bought the panel Tuesday after I mailed my taxes. Poor woman needs a face, the tree needs some leaves etc etc. I am thinking of calling it "Bad Date" or maybe "three fences" or "Witness" or "The Blue Dress" I have to wait and see how it looks when it's done (which could be quite different) The original sketch for the painting at the right, was much more ominous than this currently appears - but there are more layers to add. At the same time I am working on a second painting - which is wild and non-objective.

One thing I like about art - I don't have to wait for 20 people to do it with, or the approval of some perfectionist director / producer / conductor, etc., or of the reigning stars. I don't even have to worry about the kevetching of an audience while or immediately after I am performing. I don't need to perfectly follow a script or score written by someone else, nor do I have to listen to complaints about how awful I am, or intimations that I am not musical. If I make a mistake in paint, I can study it, and fix it, as oils, can be changed and tweaked. I can paint in my room without ever showing it to anyone. It can be a private world. Or I can post it here and reject disparaging or irrelevant comments. Do I sound a little defensive? I have a sore throat on one side and my tinnitus is really loud today. (And was Wednesday night too, when I was just awful.)

Waiting for Experience - a poem from Inverse Origami

Under the canopy of slender lacy trees
sits Shahna, flecked with sun,
feet in hand, flexing
nimble innocent toes.
Her toes are pale and fresh from socks,
dustless and dainty,
without calluses.

She smiles idly,
waiting for experience to drop
ripe from the trees,
Newtonian and unexpectedly revelatory.

She, passive.
She, postulating.
She, perplexing under the trees.
truant to action,
tacit and unmoving.
She winds wisps of hair on spindly fingers,
smiles and sighs,
singing eyesum songs
to no one in particular.

---

from Inverse Origami - the art of unfolding, page 12

from Inverse Origami - the art of unfolding
--- Mar (Mistryel) Walker, © 1998
Puzzled Dragon Press

/

Re-Generations - a poem from Inverse Origami

Kitten, stiff-legged fur frumped up, eyes a-glare
lands on old-man cat who was asleep:

"Hey old papa won't you come and play?
We could chase our tails all day,
We could slide on the rug
and tumble
and jump,
I could bite you on the nose,
I could bite you on the rump,
I could shock myself chewin' on 'lectric cord...

Old-man cat raises his head
slowly opens one green eye,
spits and hisses in reply:

"Go away. Don't you bother me .
Stop hoppiní ëround, all crazy
like some hot-foot flea.
I want to eat and sleep.
That's MY wish.
Calm down little fool,
and STAY OUT OF MY DISH.
I want to lay in the lady's lap and purr all day.
Silly little fur-ball won't you go away?"

Now, it's old-man cat who's gone
permanently sleeping under the lawn,
become one with an azalea.
The kitten has grown lap-lazy with years.
has hairballs now and one ripped ear,
and outside, mewling on the front porch steps
is another kitten:

"Hey old mama, won't you come and play?"

---

10/21/91 written at Zum Zum's Cafe
North Conway, New Hampshire, 1995 rewrite

from Inverse Origami - the art of unfolding
--- Mar (Mistryel) Walker, © 1998
Puzzled Dragon Press

/

Alien - a poem from Inverse Origami

Alien

This world is humming and busy
but i am alone,
apart,
vapor,
a trick of light.

People chat easily on balmy earth
while I sit condensating,
turning to ice crystals
out here on Neptune.

I try to speak, to make contact
but my protective helmet
takes up too much space
calls attention to itself
with its enormous nest
of convoluted filtration hoses.
The compressor
roars in my ears.

- October 1996

- a poem by Mar Walker

The picture, a custom digital drawing by the poet appeared with the poem in the book..both appear on page 16 of Inverse Origami...

from Inverse Origami - the art of unfolding

--- Mar (Mistryel) Walker, © 1998

Puzzled Dragon Press

/

Crafts to tea tasting & hiking Candlewood dam

At  Brookfield Craft Center's current show - Jump - The Synergy of Connection - which has to do with the substance of links - some of glass, clay, metal or mesh - you can find a vest made entirely of soda pop rings. Who would have guessed?

While there last Saturday, a friend, Anne Marie Marra and I struck up a conversation with a fellow craft admirer. She told us she had just come from Simpson and Vail - the tea company, and had tasted a tea or two. It was less than a mile away - so naturarlly that was our next stop.

Simpson and Vail sits on the quiet bank of an old quarry pond - so the tea contemplation begins before you enter. The atmosphere within is friendly, and heavily scented with exotic teas. Many of the tea pots on display are works of art.

Newly caffinated by this visit, we were still in need of a trek, and drove north to take a hike down to the Candlewood Dam. This earth dam was constructed in the 1920's. It was far longer a trek than I remembered - (though I am rather whimmpy!!) When we finally walked out onto the dam, my friend was stunned to see streams of water shooting out of the pipe that leads down to the power station below. The first time I noticed this, it was winter and these min-geysers had created a lattice of ice sculpture around the the pipe. I was so concerned - I went home and called up the Candlewood Lake Authority to inform them the pipe had leaks.

The man who answered the phone laughed as he assured me that was the normal condition. The water cascading out serves to dampen the pipe and keep it moist for - amazingly - this section is not made of metal, but of thick staves of wood - like a giant barrel or oak cask who's sections can not be allowed to dry out and separate.

After our trek, we went to a little restaurant for supper. After ordering, we were surprised to see Mia Farrow and several family members stroll in, and sit down for a meal just one table away. We didn't look, nor comment as everyone is entitled to have quiet meal without being gawked at.

All in all it was a pretty interesting day. Got some great video of the dam which I may post after a while.

A different sad eye (singular)

One digital eye, which I made sometime ago in the old saw, mspaint. It was originally a bmp file. Don't stare... The eye is a potent symbol, peers forth even from the dollar bill where it eyes the world from a pyramid. This post is from the old Gallery blog.

Maisey at the Sun

Since Maisey doesn't ride the bus that far, and doesn't drive on the highway, my Christmas gift to her last year was to drive her to the casino this year. Now I am not a gambler - at all - I simply don't have the dough to lose. Also - I really don't "get" it. Should I be in possession of a dollar in change I am thinking I about getting a cup of coffee... not finding some burbling slot machine to feed.


So yesterday I brought a newspaper, and my camera. The rules say that you can take pictures but not right in the gambling areas on the floor of the casino. The leaves the walkways, the restaurants, shopping concourse, hotel lobby, the foyers for the various entrances..... The photo above is from the hotel lobby. The shot to the right is the waterfall that flows in between the the escalators to to the lobby. There is eye candy everywhere in this establishment.

Ethanol - more short-sighted foolishness

Think Ethanol will save us from big oil? Ethanol IS big oil and big money.

Naturally our All-Cronies-All-The-Time government gives conservation credits to energy businesses that BURN UP a crop that used to provide cheap food for people around the world. Plans for several proposed Ethanol plants by U.S. campanys have been put on hold in the last month because the rising cost of corn is now making Ethanol untenable as an alternative fuel.

It wasn't so long ago that vegetarian argument against eating beef was that it used up too much of the world's corn. Science says you can grow more pounds of human being per bushel of corn, than you can grow from that same corn, if the cattle eat it, and then the humans eat the cattle. Or course how many miles per gallon does a human being get exactly? Haha. Yikes what a world.

I heard there is a plant going in in New Milford, or proposed for that town, that would create energy out of weeds. Not sure what to make of that yet.