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.

Can't Breathe

Craters of understanding
Understood?
Walking naked in my memory
Recollecting fine manipulation
In deep pits of consideration
Retreating into cavernous space
Finding wistful triangulation
Strangulation.

Cates Park

http://www.deepcovebc.com/parkscatespark.html

There's a place where daffodils catch the wind in their faces, where they grow wild in abundance in the months of March or April, depending on the temperature that spring will present. Children clad in candy pinks and turquoise will greedily gather armfuls, cooing with glee at their bounty. There were once were tailored beds to display the bobbing canary heads, grassy mounds produce a multitude of yellowed trumpets with egg-yoke centres that dance playfully when the mischievous gusts caresses the slopes where the jaunty jonquils burgeon. Over time, the transition from vivid blooms to narcissus-like paleness has evolved in these flaunting, friendly flushes of seemingly sun-bleached colour that hold fast to the ground when the wind would have them fly away.

The grassy mounds are a meandering distance from the ocean's brine. The ocean is barely in view, and the salty air may have contributed to the erosion of colour. This is a non-scientific hypothesis. Walking towards the shore, a strengthening breeze can be felt and in spring, the rush of callous air is chilling. A treed protection can be found if a bar-b-que is desired. Quiet and solitude is still possible in April.

As May and June erupt into summer's sultry intoxication, the rocky shore becomes populated with a frenzy of watersports, sunbathers, families and couples, even solitary worshipers, meandering or splayed on blankets and mats for the hour or two or day to picnic and create sandcastles in the meagre display of sand, collect the shore's bounty, or play games with balls or rackets. Some will swim, although the effluent from industry is ever-present, and well known to this cove.

There is a singular group, more interested in being on the water than watching it or swimming in it, who will launch a boat for more aggressive entertainment. The boaters will hoist a motored ship into the slapping waves, pile coolers of drinks and snacks, lotion-glistening bodies into the crafts, and geared with hats or not, will charge into the oceanic abyss. Motor boats will flap on the water crests, with or without water-skiers in tow. Speed is always involved, and the faster the boat can skim and the higher it will bounce, the more the passengers are enthralled.

These motorized vehicles are operated by and carry a different mentality than the sail boaters, who wrestle with wind's whim and the cajoling of the water's inconsistency. The beach dwellers will have these graceful multilateral wind-shifters blow across the view, slipping silently throughout the broad wake made by the speed-demons that circle. A gull may caw, the wind will howl while sand whips granules into the potato salad, but the grace of these triangulations that heave over the waterway will entrance the watcher into admiration for the majestic display.

Sometimes, instead of traditionally white sails, billows will form in stark yellow canvas. These brightly clad hoists are seldom without a party of sailboats, sailing in an event. Bouncing and bobbing under a watery sky, there is a chance to think of brazen daffodils, petals enlarged and released to a watery frenzy. Gathering these blooms cannot not take place, but a bouquet of joy's abundance is found in this windy platitude, watching the antics of wind's revelry in that wind... in Cates Park... also known as Whey-Ah-Whichen, which means 'faces the wind'.

Simplicity

Creamy gray skies infuse the temperate understanding. While wishing for wind, a gust tosses the cedar boughs like a slap. Cars drone but no sirens just now; wailing is presently a memory.

Washing dishes has to be done in stages. Every few minutes, as the Dawn gets squeezed, what might be thoughts become an emotional swell as water spills over the plates and splashes the dish rack. Scrubbing initializes the sadness and fear that seemed to be stuck, as stubborn as dried soup around the pot rims.

Wakening

I imagine myself as an impression on a column, an inverse mold impressed into a cylinder. My arms are meager portions, traces from my shoulders. My face is pressed into the centre and the groin of my body is revealed in reverse. I am tall and erect as the pillar.

Tonight, I cannot sleep. For several nights I have been able to release myself to slumber at unusually early times. 9 pm or earlier. Too tired to think. Not wanting to dwell on anything, allowing sleep to resurrect thought.

Tonight, I am restless, dwelling on the past and future; 30 years ago... 30 years from now... The present intertwined by memory. This act of remembering and projecting awakens desire and despair. I conclude and discard, evaluate and rethink the day, the week, the year... Milestones of past events are clouds of memories. This recreates a humidity that is not discomforting but saturated with emotion that has been leisurely ignored for some time.

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?

Al-u-min-ee-ummm

Yes, the 7 - 10 foot expanded mesh aluminium tetrahedrons created as a visual description of the segregation of the insular west coast has now been remembered in song. The Winks (thewinks.net) have just sent me a secret sample of the new song. I must say, the imortalization has been a little disconcerting, as they say I WAS a sculptor. A lesson in artistic life is in order, I believe.

Creation has a life that can endure without physically acting on a thought. It inhabits every encounter and action of daily life. Sometimes years pass without adding to the oeuvre. This dormancy can be misconstrued. There are many artists of note that the hiatus was considered abandonment. Perhaps sometimes this is true. However, miraculously as sunshine after a winter of inclement weather, the muse embodies the artist, and drives a renewed spirit to make something meaningful. One does not make for the sake of making. Art must be about something. And more. It must situate itself in the world for all to see, experience. The strength of the work reflects that disturbing, unspeakable, genuine notion that everyone is sensing, but cannot describe. Sometimes these intangibles take the guise of sculpture. Vancouver is notorious for being a photographic haven, a place where photographic and now digital input thrives. Three dimensional insight, configuration and delivery of precious intricacies of life possible to create only in sculpture do not belong in this part of the world. I doubt I will ever work as a sculptor here again. That doesn't mean I am no longer a sculptor. I just need to move elsewhere. Meanwhile, I gather.

Icelandic

Once, bilingual, I was the family translator, I am told. Our multi-cultured Canadian family needed me to relate the meanings of the words uttered by Ingebjorg and Thorvalder to those who spoke only English. Apparently, from the time I could talk until the age of 9 I was called upon for this role. As Ingebjorg became more articulate in English, my Icelandic waned. Thorvalder suddenly died, and my Icelandic grew less dominant, and eventually faded by lack of use. I am sorry that I cannot remember much of this beautiful, poetic language. The sagas Ingebjorg sang, the verses a-plenty are now only sounds of comfort. Yet, I did spend a few hours with her about eight years ago, a few years before she died and within those hours, I was nearly able to comprehend her scolding!!

However distant that usage is, the power of Icelandic still dominates my soul. I speak with a slight accent, I am told. The poetic sensibility of the language has never left me, and the harsh guttural contrasted with smooth, silky vowels twistable with the tongue drives my English pronunciation into foreign realms unknown to native speakers. I wish I could deliver more vocabulary without having to think. I need to visit Iceland, my heritage to revive this gift of my youth.

Early Memories

I cannot remember the beginning of my life. I do not remember birth.

I remember a blue greyed fence placed in our living room, although at the time I could not differentiate the name of any rooms. It was the faded wood that surrounded my square playpen, apparently built by Avi, my grandfather, for my protection and freedom. All wood used was recycled from a farm house that used to stand where my parents' house now occupied. The house was built from this wood too. The boarder occupied enough space to allow an adult sized lounge position in the confines of this restrictive area. I remember my Avi, Thorvalder, leaning against the wooden wall beside me, his bristling, tobacco stained moustache forming a smile. I assume this memory was lodged in my brain before I could steadily walk.

Another of my early memories was in an October morning, hoisted skyward by my mother. She allowed me to view the golden and crispy leaves she was raking from the fork of a dark, damp oak. I felt the smack of autumn's brilliance enveloping me, the scent of yearning upon me that still wafts in my soul to this day. I can't have been more than 3, as we were still residing at my first residence.

I have held this image as being my earliest memory for some time, until I remembered the coarse boards of my playpen. Memory can be odd. It can dodge, avoiding placement, until suddenly images place themselves conspicuously in the mind of the rememberer. A memory game.

Some flower memories

Hollyhocks in my grandmother's garden wave in silence as their long stamens bob in the quiet afternoon oblivious to noisy bees darting, foraging in yellow stamens weighted for their benefit - my namesakes.

I remember the stupefying scent of lilacs in mid July, shrouding my mother's tears, as incense will penetrate, preserve thoughts in a church during a mass.

Nighttime nicotine, white star shapes, scenting the heavens, heralding the nightlights above.

Spring plenty, daffodils bursting through March grasses; park of child-pickers, armloads of pale yellow heads bobbing as they stooped for more, gleeful.

Yellow lilies, mournful blooms marking my inability to continue to conceive.

Red, the loving rose - a full dozen, baby's breath contrasting the abundance, and a smile of happiness for the unexpected thoughtfulness.

Play

Play was serious. "Let's play," was necessary to survival.

Jump. Hop. Skip. I was never very limber. Do the airplane. No.


Colour. Yes, Crayolas. The pack of 64 were the best. It had gold and silver. Bronze. Magenta. Crimson. So many greens. Hours and days and crayons. Sometimes when I was sick, my mother would buy a set of Paint by Numbers. I met those lines with trepidation. I could not easily follow the recommended colours. I tried. Jon Nagy showed my how to draw. His TV show was my favourite program. I ordered his drawing package, and it arrived, not like the free treasure chest I ordered with coupons from the Captain Crunch cereal boxtops. It arrived without disappointment at its contents.

Then there's blocks. Sometimes just tongue and groove wood scraps are a world of possibilities. Fitting, piling, criss-crossing; right angles rising to towers. I built cities and a giant fort to house my little sister. But she moved and the fort tumbled. She cried because the edges of wood scratched her as she climbed out of the wreck. I was angry because she ruined my efforts. I should have nailed her in.

And sand. A pile dumped from a half-ton, centered in a grove of venerable oak. From sand there's roads, and architecture. Winding treads where 'Dinky Toys' plough through to newly furrowed, honed to perfect depths and widths, made smooth with puddle water, creasing the sand with wheel turns, curving to the monoliths, stones piled to mark a destination between the lengths of road. Sticks stuck upright, devoid of leaves, and some with hunks of foliage for trees to shade the highways. As summers passed, the sand pile flattened. The country of origin simply changed.

Indoors, there was 'Post Office'. Deliberating over the plethora of junk mail my father received was a great incentive to engage in this occupation. The game was one of several played in sequence in our playroom, the kid's side of the basement. Dolls, School, complete with a real green chalk board and rows of desks purchased from a catholic school that transformed into a seniors' home allowed a surreal world to be investigated with abandon, spontaneously.

The play room was large, for a child. Approximately 10' by 20', we could enter from the left of the wrought iron stairwell, and enclose ourselves by the sliding mahogany doors. A double bed, and various doll beds were the features of the entrance; wooden table, chairs and dishes for dolls' entertainment completed the first play area. Next was the school area, where Post Office often took place in the north west corner atop a large square storage box covered in black and white plaid vinyl. Somehow, the opening lid for 'posting' made this furniture especially attractive.

We did not play 'House' in the basement. This activity was saved for summer, when we could use the playhouse our grandfather built, first for me, and eventually for my sister. It was a real house, complete with glass panes and a window box, a door that latched, and wooden furniture he had constructed that a 3-8 year old could utilize. The roof was peaked; my grandfather's bald head just fit inside. Every spring the entire house was given a coat of white paint with chocolate trim. Pink honeysuckles graced the doorway, sweeter than honey begun from this bush.

At one point, a swing was installed in the rafters, rope separated by a solid board strung through each side. This was a remarkable swing. Such boundaries were broken. Swinging INSIDE!!! I remember swinging high. How small was I?! Thin hemp ropes, pink dress, my grandfathers hands around my waist. Months, years, passed. Eventually, swinging would encourage kicking of the door, and the swing disappeared; furniture miraculously appeared. Everything was exactly my size.

Different swings. Swinging beside the sand pile in the neighbours yard, swings held by planks supported between the giant oaks made swinging a joy. I was old enough to hold on by myself. I loved smell and prickly stoutness of the rope, the speed and flaying sky as the wind pressed on my cheeks, my flapping skirt, free. Wheee.


Later, when neighbours - kids, congregated, we played more complex games. The Beatles, Ponderosa. I was either George or Hoss. I never liked these characters, but I was not assertive enough to be anyone else. But I got to play guitar and ride a horse. We flew all around the world as rock stars, and stabled our horses between the poplar rows. The neighbour kids got to camp out at night in the poplar wood. The imagination of childeren become especially involved when there is only imagination to play with. I was never allowed to stay out past 10. Who knew what may happen? Especially because there were no guitars or horses. Play may become reality. Innocence would be lost. 'They' were right.

Living Memory

I have taken my memory for granted. I like to remember. I can remember many precise details from the binging of my youth. My memory is my solace, my connection to the past and and a history lesson for my present endeavors. Not everyone remembers the same things, but collectively, memory can enhance all events, when shared.

I have a sister that does not remember her childhood. My father cannot remember past today. I have relatives that cannot remember significant actions. I have friends that do not remember anything negative. Others will not remember the positive component of a memory. Most bizarre are the memories that are constructed. People I known will draw on an event and develop a memory that never existed.

I feel estranged by those that were part of my memory and refuse to continue to keep the memory safe and alive. Living memory is vital to ensure a moment, a celebration, a pivotal transformation is never forfeited. Lost memory saddens me. I enjoy rekindling and renewing memories. I need my memory.

My grandmother had the best memory of anyone I have known. She could remember at least 20 stanzas of sagas that she sang until her death at 103. I aspire to develop my memory. I need to be part of her legacy.

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.

Twist my arm

I saw an 'employment facilitator' today. Now, people are hired to ease one into an employable state, including resume review, interview technique critique, assessment of dress etc. According to Greg, my facilitator, my resume did not reveal my nature.

Somehow, I doubt that my employability in my chosen niche would be possible if I was truly honest about my strengths. I am attempting to be a chameleon. Obviously, my persona does not match my resume. The job counselor repeatedly asked me what I wanted. He urged me to ask for what I want, to divulge my wants; my successes must be revealed in my resume. This 'sales pitch' is supposed to reap an interview, cultivate a match between employer and me. I have doubts.

I am supposed to type. I can type, except when I have carpal tension. I type what others say; perhaps this is the reason for my growing resistance to this 'skill'. This is indeed a dilemma.


For some reason, I am becoming nostalgic.

I remember writing on top of my parents roof. I would climb the television tower erected to the east side of the house. The country village where I grew up was not within the appropriate range for a signal to allow multiple channels without this construction. I remember the excitement of climbing the metal ladder up the tower level to the middle of the roof peak. I held my notebook and pen in my mouth as I endured vertigo. I had to swing to the roof leaving one foot on the ladder, reach to the gritty shingles, and push off from the ascent with the tip of my toes of my left foot while reaching the edge of the precipice with my left, corduroyed knee. A forced roll into the hot ,sticky surface, scrunching my 'scribbler' completed this deft acrobatic technique. I loved writing from this perch, which gave me an expansive view of our acres.

I also have a vivid memory of writing on the river's edge I 'discovered' a short walk from our home.

Our street was a gravel road. Walking east to the far end near the bridge to Main Street, I veered to the dirt trail that took me to the railway crossing that transversed the Icelandic River. The village had dumped huge slabs of concrete, discarded sidewalk broken into chunks to fortify the river's edge. Beautifying the waterfront entailed ripping out all the willows that had secured the flow of the river. As a make-shift solution, these masses lined the area that held the trestles supporting the railway. I would sit in this secluded spot, dismayed at the corruption, the dissemination of the beauty that once enlivened the water's edge. Here, I wrote poetry.

Now I write using a word processor. Yet, poetry is best when writing by hand.

The spell of morning light

Somehow, I was remembering a bowl of oranges that were placed on a wholly wooden table, a table bought at the Salvation Army store, an expandable, rectangular, scarred, yellowing table. The oranges were large, and the morning light bathed those oranges, suffused them with a pale intensity, marking the beginning or an end or a transition.

Even now, 30 years later, I am not sure what to call that mark. The initiation into adulthood seems an appropriate designation of this distinguished realization. The window was never able to emit more than a glimpse of morning, and light never shone in except at early mid-day. The table was handsome in this caress of sunshine, made comforting by the roundness and purity of the hue of that copious pile of fruit.

I had walked into the frail apartment, alone. The scratched, phalo-green tiles surrounding the electric grill of the dormant fire-place to my left was a reminder of the attempt at remodelling that had taken place in this home.

We had conducted an alteration of our spirit, of sensation, of cognition - awareness and judgement of ourselves that had passed now to another phase in our lives. We had created independent pathways to our existence.

What was most startling in my new sensible awareness was the absence of presence; the gift of interaction was gone. The impelling forces we experienced, the moral poise, the emissions of fundamental physical forces between our bodies had affected us, made us part of each other's existent whole. There was seldom tranquility between us. I experience freedom from turmoil, of discomposure that morning.

The fruit had been a gift. Giving someone fruit, a product of growth, the maturing of a consequence of nature's productivity seems portentous now. Then, I just wondered, "Why oranges?". I remember asking myself the question as I stared at the present. I was confused by the beauty of the enchanted daylight.

My oranges compelled me to peel.

Moronic Monday

A PRAYER FOR A TORTURED SOUL

Twisting a yarn, a willy ditty -
Answering anonymity
with precise dictums...
The seeker seeks and sights the nasty.
Nervous, she sloppily speaks.

Waking to a mirror of indecision -
Leading to the slaughtered dreams
with precise doldrums...
Fostering lives; she know so little.
Wounded, she recklessly hides.

Grant that the nocturnal wrestler -
Fandango is thwarted and found
with precise justice...
Friendly cavorting saves her make up
Leaving the pain to memory.

Woa! BE GONE ye of little IMAGINATION!!!

Yep.

"The time has come, the walrus said, to speak of many things.
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings. And tho the sea be boiling hot and ..."

I wish I could remember the entire Lewis Carol poem, but the spirit this line evokes is so power producing. Speaking up, letting go of fortunes' follies. Challenge the known and make the unlikely possible. Rivers of surging ideas. Must learn to wait. All previous presumptions to be abandoned. 'let's go 'xploring', as my daughters' said as children when looking for adventure.

I do miss the girls, now firmly embedded in life's mysterious curiosities, their own paths established. I miss the wonder of their first discoveries and the joy of their embrace of newness I was privy to during their youth. Now they have meandered from me, throwing back occasional shouts of 'eureka!' so I can vicariously warm myself with their lovely fulfillment. One remains silent and I continue to wait.

I think about the girls' youth and my mind immediately becomes riddled with ditties of play songs. 'Skidamringkydink', 'Baby Beluga in the deep blue Sea', 'Buckle Shoes, Bow Shoes, Pretty Pointed Toes, Like Some, So would I!', Zoon zoon, cuddle and croon, over the wrinkling sea', ... oh so many. And I dream, lusting for the past closeness, but understanding that without that past knittedness, their bold journeys would not have been possible. Hooray!

Birth of a Girl

She was a blue light, nay a haze
Hovering above a Toronto cross-section
Before she was conceived.

There were tendrils of her need to be in this world
Saturating the space between
Wisps of knowingness
Urging the collaborators to parent her body.

At birth she was observant of her lust for survival,
A spirited gusto for life.
Guzzle and sleep, she saw all, listened well and
Stored the memories for future burgeoning.

Frighteningly early she spoke her name.
She could enjoy the mirth of the ages,
Laughing well, she exploded with the joy of the small,
Largely a wondrous gift to behold.

Walking was a necessity, not an interesting activity.
Her pleasure was the poetry of the Rhyme Time,
Colours and the taste.
Music concentrated her concentric mind.

Within a year of life, she insisted
On sitting on laps...
To see sewing,
To hear reading,
To feel sounds of talking.

And now, in the second decade of her life,
The opera continues,
Moving herself to the foray of sensational places
Where sights, sounds and sensations are plentiful
Where new memories are possible
And pink is passion transitionalized,
Azure sublimates carefulness,
Emerald secures the growth and
Nary is there a day
When the buds do not bloom
Into a canopy of wonder.

Wednesday Morning

Somehow, I have written this before.

Coffee and a view out the window to the neighbourhood is a ritual. News reports revolve around a 15 minute schedule and are never what I want to hear.

Yesterday's conversations repeat in my memory like a newscast. Resolves for the day, week, lifetime occur with healiners to remember, and disolve to clouded dreams.

People to call, appointments to make, employment to secure. All of the new ventures of contact enable a fresh perspective into what I want to do. I am awakening and the sun is not likely to shine today.

June 7th

Good Morning, World.

This post originates from the west coast of Canada. This place is a conundrum to me, and I am marooned here for the time being. As I have something to say, usually, I want to share these thoughts with you.

Today is a sunny scorcher. Hot numbness, as today is the anniversary of my mother's death. I awoke with the memories of the last look, the pale blueness, inarticulate acknowledgement of camaraderie dwelling in a shocked awakening, knowing that I am still hearing what couldn't be said those years ago. I am driven to remember the sweat and stillness of a life fulfilled by loving. A rare gift.

Today is a waxy wane. Facing myself, the nub of my search to rekindle the art in me has brought me to this public revelation. And this act is much more frightening than solo travelling in a country far away, or exhibiting work to the cloister of the art aficionados. Organs are pressed into upright alignment, poised for the keyboard to flow. I walk away (mentally) as I would from a work in progress on the bench, tool in hand, and expecting to know how to proceed.

There is a 'leap of faith' that occurs with the greatest of joy when the muse guides and all is proceeding. Yet writing has been a latent development.

Poetry was the first love, and a discarded love. Prose revived itself from necessity. Art critic became a title, and a means of propelling myself into the nebulous intricacies of other's creative forces. This was mode endured an abrupt conclusion. Recently, writing for others has been the form of need. I want to rekindle the gentle art of self expression.