Belief in Magic

Frogs dominated a creek near my childhood home. Constantly handling these creatures, I believed the myth that my countless warts resulted from this activity. My grandfather explained that wrapping a hand-spun strand of wool around the warts, and burying the fibre on the south side of the house under my bedroom window would remove the unsightly bumps. I allowed his patient hands to circle each bulge, and caringly plant the contaminated strand in a soft earth mound as I watched. Waking the next morning to wart-free hands, my wonder at the results superseded rational nay saying. My appreciation for the magical power of belief in acts of kindness prevails.

Wants and Needs

One blistery winter storm, I asked my grandfather (Avi), Thorvalder to go to the store for much needed glue to complete a school project. Either his deafness or my poor explanation of what I wanted was the reason for his return with dressmaker’s coloured transfer paper, where you could draw on the back and lines of orange, green, purple, blue, yellow or red would show up on fabric. Having braved the blizzard for my benefit, he handed me this prize with his one yellow tooth brimming with accomplished joy. My 8 –year-old heart didn’t have the will to tell him the packet of drawing sheets was not what I asked for. I am recalling this now, remembering that what you think you want is not necessarily what you need.

Roots

Strolling down an avenue, encountering the billowing roots of aging trees, I think of rooting, embedding myself somewhere, settle, become familiar enough with a locale to burgeon, evolve and become rooted. Yet as I see these roots spill over paths, forced into confined quarters barricaded by sidewalk and curb, I think that the contortion is descriptive of how I would feel. But perhaps I need this squishing to produce new work. Limitations often provide an environment where production is prolific.

Letter Writing

Letter writing, whether on paper or computer screen is a practice that is, in my experience a difficult one for many people. I have acted as ‘ghost’ writer for many individuals, including executives, business managers and physicians, both ESL and those educated with English as a means of communicating. The ability to write words describing what one means to say, a seemingly simple act, is beyond the capacity of countless of those wanting to express themselves with letters.

However, for many that are capable, there is a persistent fear to have thoughts and feelings existing for others to read, and refer to; a letter becomes a testament to their perhaps changeable mind. Permanently existing, a letter, whether a personal or business communication, discloses thoughts and sentiments without the guile of gesture, inference of body language, and cleverness of tone of voice that a personal interaction or phone conversation would enable.

The time consuming undertaking of letter writing seems to continue to dwindle due to the expediency of texting and cellular communication. Although an avid email letter writer, I find myself affected and indulgent. The need or desire for speed supersedes the luxury of an enduring hand written letter. It is a loss I feel compelled to take responsibility for, as I too have succumb to promptness over the thriving grace of a letter that has had thoughts wrought through pen and paper.

Some things that influence me during my formative years...

Formative Years

Birth – Born 5 August after 6 extra weeks gestation, with umbilical cord wrapped around my neck, by Cesarean section; bottle fed with Carnation evaporated milk.

Age 1– Father, aged 32, decapitated when exiting vehicle in a snowstorm at a railway crossing, when confronted by an oncoming train; played in playpen made from wood planks, large enough for an adult to recline in.

Age 2– Daycare provided by grandparents, Icelandic settlers to the Interlake that did not speak English; became bilingual, learned to write with pen and ink – first letter: T.

Age 3 – Companion to my grandfather while planting the garden with potato pieces, sharpening tools in barn, drinking with buddies – was the camouflage to prevent discourse/reprimand on evils of drink by grandmother, singer of sagas; mother remarried.

Age 4 – Moved to small village of 600 people into a white, rented house; played in coal bin – fuel for house. Sister born prematurely; we started being cared for by a Polish nanny. Went to kindergarten, learnt about and delighted in using hands in flour paste to make art. Friends with first love, Ernie.

Age 5 – Moved to newly built house on river in same village; boated in container for mixing plaster on flooded fields. Saw Rodin at Winnipeg Art Gallery, and escorted from premises when found stroking statue’s penis; started making forts in river willows. Fed my sister black chalk, to see what would happen, and waited.

Age 6 – Witnessed step-father, planner, (vodka) and grandfather, builder, (rum) reciting poetry while playing chess, each intoxicated; observer of project development and completion: landscaping, breezeway, interior waterfall, plant conservatory. Saw first movie – ‘Swiss Family Robinson’, with mother - cost: 25 cents; started piano lessons. Constantly ill with 'childhood diseases - mumps, measles, rubella, whooping cough; read Nancy Drew books and learned to love to colour with Crayola crayons.

Age 7 – Spent school year with teacher that was cruel; spent many hours at principal’s office after being ‘strapped’. Grandparents were care givers during holidays when parents went on exotic holidays; given loose change to placate spirit. Learned to skate, and participated in winter carnivals with hair coiffed with rags into ringlets – got first ‘Barbie’, a clone – Oleg Cassini doll. Witnessed mother’s desolation after after death of 4th child, a brother who died hours after birth – saved from immediate death by breathing device designed and employed by step-father.

Age 8 – Was tortured in school with yardstick smacks, writing ‘lines’ and holding encyclopedias with arms outstretched - always had name in ‘black book’; “Strapping” was abolished; watched grandfather save house during brush fire. Played in mountain of sand dropped on neighbour’s yard. Watched mother ‘Roto-till’ and plant garden, feed it fertilizer; watched kingfishers and sandpipers on the riverbed flats; crossed footbridge over river. Drew murals of the Amazon.

Age 9 – Grandfather died of tetanus after amputating toe in lawnmower (he laughed walking to the hospital across the lawn for treatment) – nurse did not administer tetanus shot; grandmother sold house and moved to apartment above a store; started organ and ballet lessons; saved from step-father’s belt beatings at home by dog, an overweight golden lab named Bunsy; started to be administered Dial soap after swearing at parents.

Aged 10 – Learned to love science. Wanted to be a nuclear physicist; bought taxidermy animals from teacher. Won public speaking prize; won 4-H photography demonstration prize. Learned to volunteer through mother’s activities – Women’s Hospital Auxiliary, School Board trustee. Caught on fire while burning garbage in the incinerator – rolled to stifle fire. Began to cut grass for 3 hours a day every summer on a Toro sit-down mower.

Age 11 – Suffered loss of hearing from multiple ear infections while learning to swim off docks where boats dumped raw sewage. Wrote poems on top of parents’ roof, at the riverside while sitting on concrete slaps that were dumped to prevent flooding of the river – trees along the embankment had been removed to ‘beautify’ the village. Wrote a poem for the teacher at the end of school – he cried.

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.

Italy... Residency

The Venetian light was slow in appearing. Rain soaked bags up and down campos, after a ferry ride to Rialto, lugging heavy luggage up and down stairs, nearly into a canal, up narrow dead-ends and back over cobbled streets, finding 'Planet Bar', a rendezvous for the landlord... finally.


The 10 hours of travel from Casole d'Elsa

with 3 transfers prior to setting foot in this watery city proved to be eventful.

Trains changed platforms of departure continuously - while waiting for one train at #5 - it was changed to #3 and #1 within 15 minutes. One station - Pisa - had elevators. Florence, and the station on the mainland before Venice did not. Kind strangers felt inclined to assist with hoisting the heavy suitcases with me some of the time - up & down stairs, and onto and off trains, sometimes. Being a working artist, and carrying garments for 2-3 season and tools is a daunting journey, especially when there is any distance to be made en route to the destination.


The crisp autumnal air pervades, and sitting with an espresso dopio and vino rosso, there is some solace knowing where my designation is. After a 3 hr. search or the address, I found the gallery/residency/workspace, SPIAZZI.





Situated near Campo San Martino, at the end of a bridge on an estuary of a canal, it is an inauspicious doorway, signified by a fading print of its name on the side of the ancient door. The door number refers to a whole area of the Arsenale district.

Large felt curtains greet the visitor before entering the gallery.
*************************************************





Sitting in a plaza opposite a naval museum, one cannot help wondering if the patio this cafe is situated on was reclaimed from the canal. Porticoes seem eroded by the former waterways. A water taxi passes under a re-articulated bridge made of wood and metal steps, easing to the plaza with rounded stone steps. Cafe dwellers shoe away the birds, which seem to b uninhibited enough to light on tables and would perch on glasses, if allowed. Vegetation is scarce in Venice. A sad tree, some pots of flowers is all that is seen of any natural foliage, and habitation for the flying creatures.

Corroded and encrusted doorways, the smell of stagnation, giant lions and shlepers of boxes, creates, pictures and bags jostle between tourists hoisting cameras and knapsacks.

A parade of people looking upward - onward, staring unabashedly, drinking in history - the marvel that this place exists at all - and I am one of these.

Restless Night

This is a view of what I see as I drive towards my studio. The Vancouver docks are a bustling place, and trains, seagulls, vehicular traffic create the cacophonous night. Sometimes there are people heard, but not to the extent heard in the 'West End', otherwise known as downtown Vancouver. This is an industrial zone, as opposed to a residential and commerical area.

But it is not the sound of the streetscape or dockside that keeps me awake. It is the dread, regret and projection of future confrontation, unresolved issues and deceit - most of all deceit, that keeps me from sleeping.

John

John reaches a carrefour, a crossroad in his life. He cocks his head, pivots and peers to see where there may be concealed harm - or receptive faces. He comes to a place, like a wide, cobblestoned plaza or forest clearing; there may be ambient sounds. Slowly, there is silence and precise action taken.

John is of an age where he can be suspicious of the innocuous. His slight and muscular build is accentuated by a well-shaved head. There is no affectation here. Eyes betray distress and consequences of choices made, of regret, but glisten with mirth. This agile mind dwells on incongruity. He can engineer witticisms because of adroit insight, presenting the world with a jeu d'esprit to divert himself from the possibility of consternation. His grace displays the joy of bizarre outcomes. Life designs askew, John can dwell on precise descriptions of space and time to meliorate pain. A gifted speaker, his rubicund stories punctuate the air as an opera delving into wistful ideas that disrupts mundane existences with arias.

John shrouds infliction with insightful jocularity and a passion for discovery. Mock, he does. He can make rascally caricatures of heroes. Playful derision creates a game of hide and seek with observations and conclusions that can frighten and entertain. John's vocalizations are succinct and mischievous, bursting with impish gusto. The ambiguity between story, storyteller and frustration will bring those that participate to tears of laughter.

Now, John is choosing a direction, devising a new approach to his life. Expediency...? Will his future be a cambered road and can pinnacles of friendly havens be found? Will craggy, impetuous storms continue to saturate his existence with cacophonous improbability? Or will he dwell on the past that he fights to reinvent in spite of well-planned changes? Which way? What choices will he make, can he make?

Looking up and around - there are signs. A call to the universe produces much. All the guideposts are clear, direct, if you can understand the language of those concepts. Some signs may be noble rules. Others may direct a path of folly. The opportune moment usually enjoins decision.

Beware. The light of any moment can be overridden by a wakefulness that has been born of the understanding of one's own nature, natural desires, longings that are riddled with nature's laws and quirks. Will destiny elect the path incised with vexatious cataclysm? Can John practically solve universal enigmas that colour the mystery of his existence? Does he want to? Does he need to?

One only hopes his scintillating joie de vivre will prevail.

Hugs.

Secret

Eyes averted, he spoke in vague, one syllable statements. Sometimes the shrug was enough to rotate the unspoken scenario into a new view of his situation. Unseen and unheard, but as visible and loud as a drummer beating fury on the street, the heart pounds while absorbing the selected, untold responses with the heat of the unknown memory burning through her quietude.

Tear this tear from these eyes. A soul has been peppered with secrecy and the blast of degradation. Where can a drop of loves fluidity be found? What use are the sobs where the bark of that isolation echos this night?

These sinking rebukes will loosen the skin to age.

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.

Tooth ache

For years I have been nursing the promise of a healed tooth. A dentist botched a filling, allowing a chip of the newly hardened material covering a back molar to catch every food particle pressing into the space between my two back teeth until floss broke the nuisance off. However, by this time, a cavity had developed between the crevice, and spread to the bone under my gum. I thought that the little bit of sharp protrusion of filling that finally disappeared would let me floss properly. How was I to know that all those days of insufficient flossing had corroded my tooth. I am devoted to my dental hygiene, and loosing a molar is disturbing. I will get the crumbling tooth pulled, but not without mourning its loss.

Locked

There are few days when I don't feel that I am under-utilizing my potential. I expect that the more I live the less I think that I have done enough. Days are not filled with the best use of time. This realization disturbs me. My 'day job' has only one redeeming factor - I am allowed a window into the intimacy of human frailty. I find this informs my art and I store these experiences in a memory vault, waiting for the release.

I especially have a great respect for the human demise, and I witness this process in a small way every week. I am especially moved by the change in colouration, physique modulations, the temperament alterations. People that face their death with courage or fear and all combinations in between are a source of inspiration. We all have this journey. From my artistic sensibility, I acknowledge that the visualization of these beings can bring universal truths to be experienced.

Many may not have the opportunity to face this presence where I can assimilate and relate these journeys for others. I am grateful... I believe a studio is near at hand to finally materialize the art that will result from these insights.

Backward to face front

10 years of re-directing my energy, taking a hiatus from my work has allowed me the insight and power to re-initiate my professional goals. Yes. I no longer look at the mirrored imaginings. I can face myself.

Swirl and swivel...

I get beyond myself, sometimes.

Study and test. Test. Sometimes I dwell on the outside parameters of my life. Why I do what I do is often beyond my comprehension. Fit in to society's norm of the work-world. Where are my ideals, where is the work that I am good at, not just mediocre... I feel like I am paddling upstream, and my canoe leaks.

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?

INEVITABLE

There are a few 'things' I need to address, occurring simultaneously, some trying and discouraging, others welcome and interesting.

Completing a payment to a school I attended this year that does not deserve the money is one task that requires attention. A stretch financially, and irritating, considering their (owners) false earnestness and smugly irresponsible persona's, as well as paying for supplies not supplied, instruction not given... Smarmy people will others into submission as they mirror our unease with evil. We can face the underworld we fear existing in our presence, thriving, and we can be lulled into inaction by the uncanny presence. They disguise calculation and contrivance with monetary stability, enabling false hope to satiate the senses. This is especially troublesome because I think that I am somehow endowed with a big label attached to my forehead that indicates that I am a target for these predators. The partners have written me, calling me disingenuous because I did not complain fast enough. Certainly, I am not quick enough to complain about problems, relying on others probity instead, which is not forthcoming. Complaining people get more for their money. I am considering paying them off in a truckload of pennies, which would be inconvenient for them. They wouldn't like pennies. I like this idea.

Secondly, I am curious about a sequence of circumstances that enabled a telephone conversation with someone from my distant past. This is especially abstruse as I cannot comprehend the meaning of this intersection of our lives. A website was found. "How did I find the website?", is a good question... " I find things" , was my reply. True. I can find information that seems impossible for others to discover. I can. This is not an ostensible fact. It is a demonstrated truth. However, there was an opportunity to reconnect with this person, many months after finding the site, and I liked reconnecting. Maybe there is no meaning, no purpose, just fun. Fun is fine.

Yet I do get muddled, unable to coherently speak; wavering words and strayed sentence structure force the conversation into stiltedness. There seemed to be more to say. He does not tell much, no personal stories, or even less private conversational reciprocation. Not now. Not for some time. I like to reveal. I love to impart stories. I enjoy communicating. There was a restless spirit met on the phone. He was not at ease. Yet... I loved the surprise I created. I need to address this event because he has twice previously - not exactly heralded, but symbolized a foreshadowing, a change in my life's direction. I like to think another transitional phase for me exists, and new beginnings are about to transpire. I need change, and I want to believe that a change is about to take place. Inevitable?

Time

Wandering between present and future allows me to evaluate the past. Funny how the timeline in one's life seems saturated with one of those three segregations. Past/ present... Present/ future. Past/ Future... and all the degrees between. Or just past, present and future. Strange.

Sometimes, just living doesn't necessarily have a desgination, until after the moment, the afternoon, or day... week - month - year... decade and suddenly, in retrospect, time becomes that period of wonderful achievement, the day where I became aware... the year when I struggled, those happy occasions, my querulous youth, my disconcerting thirties...

Future imaginings can be just as indubitable and clear as any memory, sometimes more distinct than the present. Preceding, previous, current, prospective, erst-while, foregoing, forthwith, now... define time. Instantly, momentarily, sometime... Ever! Shedding these segregation of experience seems important to progress, learn, yet the need to define time is satisfying, to ignore the delineations, disruptive. I need the comparison to thrive.

Trial

This is a test. NO. This is not a test. Pick one. Real, not real. If every experience is a prelude to the next event in one's life, how can each encounter, every conscious act be purposeful and not ambiguous, be the ultimate action of its kind? Everything counts. Everything is a learning experience. Everything must be chosen well. Everything cannot be chosen. There is no choice, only destiny. There is always a choice to direct one's destiny. I am not convinced of any truism. I just keep moving, and sometimes not.


I want direction where I am utilized by the best possible environment. And I am not now. I fear the worst consequences as I am not a numbers person. I do not thrive where numbers are concerned. IF I can delegate that responsibility, I can concentrate on my strengths. Why not?! WHY should I have to numerate?! AND be responsible for other's money?! This makes no sense. I am ridiculously unprepared for this responsibility. I don't want to do it. I must challenge this, resist this power of confusion which draws me to a vortex of poor judgement and stress. I have the power to say no. I know I do. I must remember this simple syllable. NO.