lately, late

last week disappeared somehow, maybe under all the snowdrifts, and all that is left of it is some ticket stubs and change at the bottom of my purse.  And a few photos. I love snowdrift/light photos because I think it makes the lights look even more bright when they are surrounded by a cushion of snow. They become softer. It makes me want to sleep on the snow.

small little drawers and paper foldings

One day I started playing with book pages- staining them with tea, cutting them up with an exacto knife, making origami and folding paper swirls. I had just got this jewelery box at a rummage sale and it was waiting to be transformed by something and, viola, suddenly it was spilling with small bits of paper everywhere! Next time I am going to try with colored paper, like one of my favorite Cornell boxes (above)

the thing with feathers

(birds by kiki smith)

Found! Judy Pfaff's potential inspiration for one of her works entitled "the thing with feathers"! 

"Hope" is the thing with feathers

by Emily Dickinson

"Hope" is the thing with feathers--
That perches in the soul--
And sings the tune without the words--
And never stops--at all--

And sweetest--in the Gale--is heard--
And sore must be the storm--
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm

I've heard it in the chillest land--
And on the strangest Sea--
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb--of Me.

dust of snow

These swirling snow sands are actually a frozen over lake-desert. My small and remote Europe Lake freezes thick enough to walk out and different snows have left beautiful patterns on the ice. Some years the ice freezes so clear that you can see fish moving underneath, but this year the snow makes a perfect sheet of white, and the wind conjures the white grains around as if guided by some magnetic force.

if i had a room

I would fill it with wonders like Judy Pfaff.

Judy Pfaff has been a huge inspiration to me. I'm obsessed. Her way of working with materials to create space is magical. I love her craft and attention to detail. If I had a room, a blank studio, I would probably doubt myself. I would assume that paint could be no more than paint and charcoal charcoal. But when I look at Judy Pfaff's work I see the malleability of material and its power to create worlds. Wire and steel, wood and string, paper and glue transform into this familiar yet unexplored place.

Her most recent exhibition was "Paper", held at Ameringer & Yohe Fine Art in New York. This is an excerpt from the press release:

"Previous exhibitions at Ameringer & Yohe, Neither Here nor There and Buckets of Rain, illustrated her command of a wide array of media ranging from wire to neon, from blackened tinfoil to entire tree systems stripped bare of bark, all reinvented for her own creative purpose. In much the same way, Paper rewards us with Pfaff's talent for concoction and repurposing. While it is tempting to term her newest efforts "collage", the word leaves too much out. Judy Pfaff creates worlds with paper Small delicate drawings celebrate unfolding, expansive ideas. Large works (8'x8') wrestle to compress entire Pfaff installations into low relief. The viewer is invited to journey through a myriad of creative suppositions and baroque space"

Here are some images from the show!

The colors and textures are so rich and beautiful and I love the way that everything quietly but poignantly unfolds. Its a sort of gentle explosion. I also especially like the name of the last one, "I dwell in possibility".

"nature does not knock"

"the thing with feathers"

"konya"

"I dwell in possibility"

clarity, perhaps

(reflections in our front door. the only editing I did was to color correct or enhance, it really looked like that with the fog!)

fresh year. new planner. goal lists. blank pages.
and yet here I am again, starting out the year with....blurry edges.

Its one of those times when art tendencies reflect life tendencies. Ah, those moments.

People sometimes ask me why I like blurry pictures. Aren't they imperfect? Out of focus?

In the pages of my mind, blurry pictures are like the underlined paragraphs with dog eared pages and correlating ideas written in the margains. They are the aha moments when you feel assured in your gifts of discernment and decision making that last just long enough. See, and even those two sentences didn't make much sense.

They are the moment your eyes fog up, but never quite let the tears out. And everything sort of swims fiercely around in your head and in and out of this smudgy scene, whatever it may be. Usually a road at night for me. The headlights just sort of melt past. Life seems so simple and so complicated at the same time.

Juxtaposition. One of my favorite words. When you put two things together for a contrasting effect. They really seem endless. Nature and Machine. Motion and Stillness. Organic and Geometric. Sacred and Profane. Tension tension tension. Its what makes life interesting, what makes it worth exploring, what keeps me seeking.

Well, welcome welcome two thousand and ten. I shall use this rare moment in time to look back and reflect, learn, and put all of this positive motivation into color coding my new planner and being a better email responder. For this moment, yes, I will put my life into resolutions. But though they may seem clear cut, I know me better. The edges melt into each other and drip off the page.