fig tree

we had a fig tree.
and parties.
and when I  came home each night
i’d look to the moon
and recall how it shone so bright
across the sea,
where we lived.
you and me.

and now it’s gone.
and they’re gone.
and the moon is dimmed
by the warehouse lights
across the street.

keeping it [fill in the blank]

As a Portlander I have a responsibility to KEEP PORTLAND WEIRD, and I haven’t been doing my part. For those of you who truly know me, you’d think I’d have no problem with this simple task. (You can stop laughing now.) But in a weird place like Portland, weird becomes normal and it’s an uphill climb to outdo everyone else. As you can see, it’s quite exhausting to even think about keeping it weird, let alone doing it. So, I’ve decided to start pulling my own weight, in my own way, by creating new slogans for my beloved, albeit strange, city:

Keep Portland Beard(ed).
Ladies, you know that’s why we all moved here.

Keep Portland Geared.
We’re bike-friendly after all.

Keep Portland Cleared.
I’m not talking trees. Just talking tidy. 

Keep Portland Tiered.
In case the steps of Pioneer Square are ever threatened. 

Keep Portland Feared.
We’re bad-ass. And the rest of you know it.

Keep Portland Mirrored.
There must be a home decor shop that will eat this one up. 

Keep Portland Cheered.
Okay, if you read this one and nodded then you are definitely not from Portland. You should stay in your sunshiny city and not threaten our gloom with your positive rays.

I’m kidding. Kind of.

[Please note: I have no plans to embody the first of these slogans, but I'll stand up for awesome brick amphitheaters any day.]

daffodils

Today, I felt little faith in humanity. So I did what people who have little faith in humanity do. I made art.

Daffodils
Linocut, 6×8

like a russian doll

I feel like I stumbled

down a hill of years, only

to land in a pile of my books.

Along the way, I cracked

like a Russian doll; finding

something smaller and more

essential inside every version

I’ve known as me.

And now, when all I know

bursts into flame each time

I try to give it away, I’m asked

what matters.

There’s something perfect

in how we’re worn; like sculptures

left for Spirit and wind to finish, the

film taken from our eye just as

our heart is exposed, one

crumbling into the other.

- Mark Nepo

dear blog

Oh me oh my. It has been a mighty long time, Blog. How have you been? You’re looking a little thin. Have you not been eating well?

Many times I’ve thought of you. So many times I’ve written you in my mind – in the shower, on the freeway, in the line at Ikea.

I thought of you the other day when I was berry picking. I pictured you enjoying the cool morning with me as together we saved as many juicy morsels as we could before the harsh steel of the arborist felled the vines.

We could have laughed and cried together when the brambles caught my laces and knocked out half of our hard work – and after all we did for them! And I’m sure we would have smiled at each other with our eyes when my son mistook his berry covered oatmeal for pie.

I can’t explain why I’ve been so distant. It’s not just you, Blog. I have a habit of keeping one foot in relationships and the other out. I plan to find out why.

But until then, I’ll try harder to be a friend to you. I can only hope you’ll forgive me and do the same.

Your previously distant friend,
Cara

your shed is rubbish

“An artist is someone who has completed an art work, not a person who merely intended to.”

Okay, Joseph Campbell. You got me. I have a closet full of things I fully intended to complete: batiks, monoprints, acrylic paintings, cut paper, and at least half a dozen half-woven scarves.

This must be why I never considered myself an artist until my first block print. I looked at it and thought – now I am an artist.

My work sort of took a back seat while Margaret was here visiting from Malawi. But I have three concepts that have been sitting with me and I am excited to get back in the swing of things.

Below is a piece by David Fullarton which  I found posted on my friend Cara’s blog. I wish I had the original.

I’m nearly finished reading Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion. The last section is entitled “Living in the Sacred.” There are so many pieces I would like to share with you that it’s probably better for you to get the book yourself… But I’ll leave you with this:

“Imperfection is life. All forms in life are imperfect, but the function of art is to see the radiance through the imperfection.”

Yes.

Build the shed.

there’s more God down the road

Margaret was praying at the Grotto and Moses was very curious.  He was very eager to understand who/what/where God was. I recorded some of the things he said for posterity:

I want to see God!

I can’t find you God. Where are you God? (Looking behind the statues)

Wait for me, God!

Are you God? (To the man walking by)

There’s more God up here! (Referring to the Stations of the Cross)

There’s more God down the road!

I see God in the tree.

God is in the top of the tree and there’s a baby up there.

I want more God!

Thank you God. Amen.

poem

I loved my friend.

He went away from me.

There’s nothing more to say.

The poem ends,

Soft as it began —

I loved my friend.

-Langston Hughes

i am a rock. i am an island.

Harriet Genevieve was my great-grandmother and a wonderful storyteller and poet. One of her works hung on the wall of my childhood home, embroidered on an oval cloth. I committed it to memory:

Uncut and unpolished your life is a stone.

It is yours to carve and yours alone.

Life’s weather may scar it, time wear it away,

But you are the artist of what to portray.

Be sure of your image. Engrave the lines deep.

Your life is a jewel God gave you to keep.

No disrespect to my kinfolk, but I feel less like a jewel these days and more like a sedimentary rock.

Tiny grains of random experience build in me, one upon the other, forming colorful strata I could never carve or create.

Sometimes I feel like a big crumbly mess. A big crumbly beautiful mess.

the path

The Path
Linocut, 6×9