This is the poster for the Stage Design course I am teaching this summer in collaboration with Opera Lirica Italiana. Intake is on-going. This workshop is located in the Sheppard and Yonge area. Please email or call to book a space!
Showing posts with label Embellishart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Embellishart. Show all posts
Friday, July 24, 2009
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Crafting Memory
http://www.flickr.com/photos/embellish4art/show/
Crafting memories, prying them from the jumble of images that dart and skip, viscous fluid of blinking eyes brings sounds and smells that tingle and tremble ears and nostrils. Lateral sequences can be extracted from 'global thinking', but the curse of ordering excerpts in time and space directs mindful censorship to edit out discomfort, where flashing imagery allows generous dwelling on lost and found syncopated feelings; all.
Bashing. Crescendoing recollections of touches forced to join with word phrases, waiting, vacant spaces of time to calibrate the emptiness with feelings... there is an attempt to push or playfully awaken associations. When coherency forms, new perceptions can emerge. Sometimes new images are created, not what existed, but what might have happened -should, could, would. Desires. Regrets. There, pictorial scenarios can be more powerful than what has transpired.
Backwards and forwards, those meanderings flow. Future probabilities, presence, presumption, peace intermingled with exasperation, exasperates the creation of memory.
Most importantly, for me, is the vast omnipresence of spirit that occupies me, charging up to shape and form structural dimensionality through this 'crafting' process. Sometimes, time and circumstance allows me to explain this loveliness in to sculpture, and I am grateful.
Crafting memories, prying them from the jumble of images that dart and skip, viscous fluid of blinking eyes brings sounds and smells that tingle and tremble ears and nostrils. Lateral sequences can be extracted from 'global thinking', but the curse of ordering excerpts in time and space directs mindful censorship to edit out discomfort, where flashing imagery allows generous dwelling on lost and found syncopated feelings; all.
Bashing. Crescendoing recollections of touches forced to join with word phrases, waiting, vacant spaces of time to calibrate the emptiness with feelings... there is an attempt to push or playfully awaken associations. When coherency forms, new perceptions can emerge. Sometimes new images are created, not what existed, but what might have happened -should, could, would. Desires. Regrets. There, pictorial scenarios can be more powerful than what has transpired.
Backwards and forwards, those meanderings flow. Future probabilities, presence, presumption, peace intermingled with exasperation, exasperates the creation of memory.
Most importantly, for me, is the vast omnipresence of spirit that occupies me, charging up to shape and form structural dimensionality through this 'crafting' process. Sometimes, time and circumstance allows me to explain this loveliness in to sculpture, and I am grateful.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Frumpy Mood
I now remember why I am not a painter. Having to 'waterproof' my work for the show tomorrow is a nightmare. First, the original colour I chose, the colour of Texas cream limestone, I thought, dried differently than the swatch in the store. So back to the store to get marine white.
Just waiting for paint to dry, when a very heavy object fell. One of the pieces mysteriously found its way to the floor. Emergency repair job. Spray some white into the centres, where the brush wouldn't go in the first coat. Now I can't breath in the room - and waiting for the second misting. Still have to measure/design the stands... for the 2 architects coming a 8pm to help me cut wet wood, donated to me by the gallery because- they were going to throw it out anyway.
Very tired - working from 6 or 7 to 22 or 23. And tomorrow I have to cook for the invitees - still don't know how many to cook for. First come - will have a taste... More painting now... Harumph.
Just waiting for paint to dry, when a very heavy object fell. One of the pieces mysteriously found its way to the floor. Emergency repair job. Spray some white into the centres, where the brush wouldn't go in the first coat. Now I can't breath in the room - and waiting for the second misting. Still have to measure/design the stands... for the 2 architects coming a 8pm to help me cut wet wood, donated to me by the gallery because- they were going to throw it out anyway.
Very tired - working from 6 or 7 to 22 or 23. And tomorrow I have to cook for the invitees - still don't know how many to cook for. First come - will have a taste... More painting now... Harumph.
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Sick
Cough. Sniffle, blow.
Perspiration draws down the temple, neck, spotting upon the now damp nightgown. Hack. Drip. Nose is stuffed. Kleenex is not to be had. Roll of toilet paper is drawn by handfuls, over and over until an ample wad is released, quickly shoved under nose, and moistened... deposited in the waste.
Thirst. Juice. Water. Water, juice.
Have to get up - glasses are empty. Wobble to the sink. Draw water. Fridge is near. Pull out the jug of juice. Pour more. Carry two heavy glasses to the coffee table.
Drop to the make-shift bed on the floor in front of the TV. Take the remote to my chest, and let my thumb numbly, weakly skip between channels. Up and down. Commercials are always too loud. Find a movie. Don't remember it. Supposed to be funny. What was it? Decongestant never worked, except to impair my memory.
Pillows don't prevent clogged noses. Sit up, and scramble for more crumpled balls of white paper roll. Eyes are watering, blurry, need to close them. Where is that pillow?
Perspiration draws down the temple, neck, spotting upon the now damp nightgown. Hack. Drip. Nose is stuffed. Kleenex is not to be had. Roll of toilet paper is drawn by handfuls, over and over until an ample wad is released, quickly shoved under nose, and moistened... deposited in the waste.
Thirst. Juice. Water. Water, juice.
Have to get up - glasses are empty. Wobble to the sink. Draw water. Fridge is near. Pull out the jug of juice. Pour more. Carry two heavy glasses to the coffee table.
Drop to the make-shift bed on the floor in front of the TV. Take the remote to my chest, and let my thumb numbly, weakly skip between channels. Up and down. Commercials are always too loud. Find a movie. Don't remember it. Supposed to be funny. What was it? Decongestant never worked, except to impair my memory.
Pillows don't prevent clogged noses. Sit up, and scramble for more crumpled balls of white paper roll. Eyes are watering, blurry, need to close them. Where is that pillow?
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
An adjunct to Twinkle...
I need to remember. Every day, a living memory must remain. No telling when memory will fail. If I don't tell, my memories will vanish. They are mine to remember.
Memories are a wonder, zealous and a confounding phenomena. I like mine. I remember when others don't. Others remember, but my memories are mine. I cherish my memories.
There was a time, summer time, perhaps July, around 11, after the sun had reverted to a sky of miraculous colour cascading between magenta, orange and cerulean oscillations, the depth of the frog bleating subsided to allow the stars to divert my concentration. I snuggled up to the grass on the south facing lawn. Facing skyward, I could barely see sky for stars. I would always seek out the 'Big Dipper', "Little Dipper'. I began to stare at the throbbing dazzle. The enchantment of the heavens was overpowering. No streetlight in this country garden. Just vistas of the other worlds' diamonds twinkling in my eyes.
I remember the length of the grass, stark growth between my fingers, the blades stroking my toes, dewed and delicate. I needed the deep, weighted heat of the earth beneath my skirt, the scent of the nicotine from the sequestered flowerbed, white fragrance stirring the night's sensations to calm grounding, sensations preventing my heart from exploding with confusion. I knew nothing of astronomy. I don't understand completely why that wasn't important. I needed to look, to absorb the vision before me, not analyse it.
The evening star shone for me.
Memories are a wonder, zealous and a confounding phenomena. I like mine. I remember when others don't. Others remember, but my memories are mine. I cherish my memories.
There was a time, summer time, perhaps July, around 11, after the sun had reverted to a sky of miraculous colour cascading between magenta, orange and cerulean oscillations, the depth of the frog bleating subsided to allow the stars to divert my concentration. I snuggled up to the grass on the south facing lawn. Facing skyward, I could barely see sky for stars. I would always seek out the 'Big Dipper', "Little Dipper'. I began to stare at the throbbing dazzle. The enchantment of the heavens was overpowering. No streetlight in this country garden. Just vistas of the other worlds' diamonds twinkling in my eyes.
I remember the length of the grass, stark growth between my fingers, the blades stroking my toes, dewed and delicate. I needed the deep, weighted heat of the earth beneath my skirt, the scent of the nicotine from the sequestered flowerbed, white fragrance stirring the night's sensations to calm grounding, sensations preventing my heart from exploding with confusion. I knew nothing of astronomy. I don't understand completely why that wasn't important. I needed to look, to absorb the vision before me, not analyse it.
The evening star shone for me.
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Dichotomy
I live in disparate worlds.
The working tangent entails thinking, functioning, operating in an organized, precise world, structuring other lives while attended to by physicians. I organize patients' and doctor's documents. I am the swinging door where private concerns get maximum follow-up through referrals and lab tests. I temporarily enter an office where I must adapt immediately to the office culture and function methodically, directly and efficiently. Stress makes mess. When the order exists, calm prevails. When the doctors' expectations are not explicit, disaster ensues. I seldom know where or when I work next. I like the opportunity to meet new challenges. I miss the continuity of my own organization. I don't need to stay in one place. I think I would be too bored, fast.
My creative world, currently on hiatus, is a gaping vortex of time waiting to be bridged. Still and quiet, my attention towards creation of sculpture, although not waning, is not waxing. As the space between action and inaction widens, I will eventually fall into the act of creating or be drowned by my own inattentiveness.
Creating demands content. Content demands new experiences. My work world brings me to the diversity of lives without emotional participation in their intricacies. I love the opportunity of being involved yet separate, solemnizing and respecting, while segregating my psyche from these other lives.
Am I able to completely divide myself? Can I disassociate myself from the immediacy of pain and suffering of these people? Can I create while I disunite myself from these healing rituals? Will propitious omens soon wake me into understanding how these world will draw me into art creation. I am still wondering where the sculpture is.
BIFURCATION; I am divided. I am being divided.
The working tangent entails thinking, functioning, operating in an organized, precise world, structuring other lives while attended to by physicians. I organize patients' and doctor's documents. I am the swinging door where private concerns get maximum follow-up through referrals and lab tests. I temporarily enter an office where I must adapt immediately to the office culture and function methodically, directly and efficiently. Stress makes mess. When the order exists, calm prevails. When the doctors' expectations are not explicit, disaster ensues. I seldom know where or when I work next. I like the opportunity to meet new challenges. I miss the continuity of my own organization. I don't need to stay in one place. I think I would be too bored, fast.
My creative world, currently on hiatus, is a gaping vortex of time waiting to be bridged. Still and quiet, my attention towards creation of sculpture, although not waning, is not waxing. As the space between action and inaction widens, I will eventually fall into the act of creating or be drowned by my own inattentiveness.
Creating demands content. Content demands new experiences. My work world brings me to the diversity of lives without emotional participation in their intricacies. I love the opportunity of being involved yet separate, solemnizing and respecting, while segregating my psyche from these other lives.
Am I able to completely divide myself? Can I disassociate myself from the immediacy of pain and suffering of these people? Can I create while I disunite myself from these healing rituals? Will propitious omens soon wake me into understanding how these world will draw me into art creation. I am still wondering where the sculpture is.
BIFURCATION; I am divided. I am being divided.
Sunday, July 25, 2004
Backyard Hour
This evening, having no real place to hang out outside (living in a balcony-less apartment), I ventured into the next door neighbours' backyard where the rooming house landlord, also owner of my building, had cemented a patio recently, complete with wobbly plastic lawn chairs. Three were grouped invitingly around a chipped, circular white plastic table. A green and white striped umbrella, secured in place with a cinder block and braced against the grey-green of the wall shingles completed this inviting spot for a read. Book in hand, I wedged myself against the building, a forest green plastic chair for a seat, and the surface of the unpopulated table served to support my novel.
This is an odd little place. Facing morning sun and shaded in the late afternoon, created adjacent to a rare urban vegetable garden flanked by cobalt blue fencing, a collection of 10 patio chairs lean against the wooden boarder wait for occupants. Often the rooming house residents will eat outside at this enclave, usually after six. I was able to have an hour of relative solace in this communal patio before any intruders decided to join me.
The eastern rear of this house is a gravel driveway. The corner of the drive, between the garden and a walkway on the north side of the house is the nexus of this spare space. People do walk through, entering or exiting the residence, or just to conveniently access the alley beyond. A few such meanderers did pass by, nodding hello. I was grateful the usual week-end 'garage sale' was not taking place today. The drive serves as a stall space for neighbours to sell used wares most weekends. The lack of merchandise was strange, but welcome.
The alley is well travelled. Garbage and recycling containers inhabit the edge of a 10 meter laurel hedge on the south boarder of the yard, which allows easy access for the souls that make a few cents per bottle, when rummaging through the debris. No bottle seekers came today while I was reading. Quiet for an hour.
The cedar across the alley, rusty above its top third, was the loud harbinger of the sun's relentlessness of the past weeks. This observation was a slight diversion of thought as I momentarily looked up from my book. No wind blew. The inner city chatter on the streets was a peaceful din.
A treasured hour.
This is an odd little place. Facing morning sun and shaded in the late afternoon, created adjacent to a rare urban vegetable garden flanked by cobalt blue fencing, a collection of 10 patio chairs lean against the wooden boarder wait for occupants. Often the rooming house residents will eat outside at this enclave, usually after six. I was able to have an hour of relative solace in this communal patio before any intruders decided to join me.
The eastern rear of this house is a gravel driveway. The corner of the drive, between the garden and a walkway on the north side of the house is the nexus of this spare space. People do walk through, entering or exiting the residence, or just to conveniently access the alley beyond. A few such meanderers did pass by, nodding hello. I was grateful the usual week-end 'garage sale' was not taking place today. The drive serves as a stall space for neighbours to sell used wares most weekends. The lack of merchandise was strange, but welcome.
The alley is well travelled. Garbage and recycling containers inhabit the edge of a 10 meter laurel hedge on the south boarder of the yard, which allows easy access for the souls that make a few cents per bottle, when rummaging through the debris. No bottle seekers came today while I was reading. Quiet for an hour.
The cedar across the alley, rusty above its top third, was the loud harbinger of the sun's relentlessness of the past weeks. This observation was a slight diversion of thought as I momentarily looked up from my book. No wind blew. The inner city chatter on the streets was a peaceful din.
A treasured hour.
Saturday, July 24, 2004
People
People I know and like, and like me generally can be considered my family.
These people are not necessarily blood relatives, although some of my relations are very close to me. Friends, if they stick around, eventually become related. Few stick.
Acquaintances can be more annoying than strangers. Sometimes strangers will interact with me more honestly than acquaintances. Those people that think I am their friend because I think and do things they admire or wish they could do are deceiving themselves because if I acknowledge their persistent attention with cordiality; they mistake this for friendship.
I choose friends with great discretion. I will hold back a relationship for years, waiting for the hole from which the blood will flow. You have to be tough on yourself to be my friend. You have to have undivided concern and care, enough to share. You have to be willing to take risks, defy conventionality, and be interested in the unknown, a kind of explorer.
And you have to be able to laugh; cosmic laughter, belly laughs at themselves, their inanity, at the beauty of existence, at the misdirection of life's well planned impossibilities. They must love well. They must believe in dreams and live their own, integral to a creative, intelligent life and precious newness - this especially warms my heart .
Some people I like fit this criteria, but think that being with me is too much work. They don't know how happy I am that their perception is revealed. Their resistance is the beginning of the blood flow.
I see it spilling like spilt water from an overturned glass. And I am relieved. I am not that thirsty.
These people are not necessarily blood relatives, although some of my relations are very close to me. Friends, if they stick around, eventually become related. Few stick.
Acquaintances can be more annoying than strangers. Sometimes strangers will interact with me more honestly than acquaintances. Those people that think I am their friend because I think and do things they admire or wish they could do are deceiving themselves because if I acknowledge their persistent attention with cordiality; they mistake this for friendship.
I choose friends with great discretion. I will hold back a relationship for years, waiting for the hole from which the blood will flow. You have to be tough on yourself to be my friend. You have to have undivided concern and care, enough to share. You have to be willing to take risks, defy conventionality, and be interested in the unknown, a kind of explorer.
And you have to be able to laugh; cosmic laughter, belly laughs at themselves, their inanity, at the beauty of existence, at the misdirection of life's well planned impossibilities. They must love well. They must believe in dreams and live their own, integral to a creative, intelligent life and precious newness - this especially warms my heart .
Some people I like fit this criteria, but think that being with me is too much work. They don't know how happy I am that their perception is revealed. Their resistance is the beginning of the blood flow.
I see it spilling like spilt water from an overturned glass. And I am relieved. I am not that thirsty.
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
New Horizon
Dry is the river where secrets tread
Dark is the limb where fears are led
Bristle when the words are spared
Know well the impression...
Know what?
I don't know
How I know what I know
I know without telling
I know without sound
Sometimes the eyes crease and colour the news
Sometimes the skin will reveal the deed
Sometimes the message just lingers like scent
I know the message and dread the clues.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Crypticness has never been my strength.
I am not mysterious or secretive.
I have difficulty lying.
I appreciate private conversations, if I am privy to the information.
I like defined shadows, if I create the distinct forms that deliver the interception of light. I like to play with the visibility, the light on material... creation of sensations that arise from the juxtaposition of different light on surface and form.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Yank the sky forward... Oh how I miss the expanse of a prairie sky... Full, unobstructed vision. I am always looking around corners to see the light.
Dark is the limb where fears are led
Bristle when the words are spared
Know well the impression...
Know what?
I don't know
How I know what I know
I know without telling
I know without sound
Sometimes the eyes crease and colour the news
Sometimes the skin will reveal the deed
Sometimes the message just lingers like scent
I know the message and dread the clues.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Crypticness has never been my strength.
I am not mysterious or secretive.
I have difficulty lying.
I appreciate private conversations, if I am privy to the information.
I like defined shadows, if I create the distinct forms that deliver the interception of light. I like to play with the visibility, the light on material... creation of sensations that arise from the juxtaposition of different light on surface and form.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Yank the sky forward... Oh how I miss the expanse of a prairie sky... Full, unobstructed vision. I am always looking around corners to see the light.
Thursday, September 18, 2003
Delete
Whence comes the lies?
Memory gets fuddled; incisive
Deleting goes far...
Recoverable to a point; trenchant
Deleted and found
Disturbing.
Memory gets fuddled; incisive
Deleting goes far...
Recoverable to a point; trenchant
Deleted and found
Disturbing.
Saturday, June 07, 2003
Publishing
Seeing my words in print on the web is humbling. Craving acuity, I meander in my word bank with a hungry anticipation, and traffic noise is all that come to mind. A wisp of cold morning air from between trees enters a slight aperture to the towering cedars outside the window and caressess my cheek, lingering with the presumption that a day will be lived with some smiles.
I think of the piano lesson I will teach this afternoon to the cellist of 'THE WINKS'. A furtive act of obtaining a studio in the Academy will compel the student and myself to relish the hour or so of musical collaberation. Timing, titilations and brash key crashing will forge a new level of understanding of the instruments' requirements, and redress the need for parental and filial bonding. Memories are bound to infiltrate, reminding us of the kinder experiences we share. The meeting can be a trial of frustrated technique and yet there has always been a yearning for new discovery. I look forward to this event.
Breathing in the background was a subject of a story sequence I once wrote: While He Was Sleeping. The bound leather booklet has been hiding from me. The stored volume was dispersed with other books from my library, and this book was not found. I know it exists. Perhaps there will be a need for its return when I have it again in hand. I miss this place of description.
I think of the piano lesson I will teach this afternoon to the cellist of 'THE WINKS'. A furtive act of obtaining a studio in the Academy will compel the student and myself to relish the hour or so of musical collaberation. Timing, titilations and brash key crashing will forge a new level of understanding of the instruments' requirements, and redress the need for parental and filial bonding. Memories are bound to infiltrate, reminding us of the kinder experiences we share. The meeting can be a trial of frustrated technique and yet there has always been a yearning for new discovery. I look forward to this event.
Breathing in the background was a subject of a story sequence I once wrote: While He Was Sleeping. The bound leather booklet has been hiding from me. The stored volume was dispersed with other books from my library, and this book was not found. I know it exists. Perhaps there will be a need for its return when I have it again in hand. I miss this place of description.
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