Slideshow of Work

http://www.flickr.com/photos/embellish4art/show/

Some Photos of Artwork on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48600079099@N01/sets/

WHAT!

The adages that trace over this quirky pondering about who an artist is amuses, bewilders, annoys and enthrals me simultaneously. Being blessed/cursed with this beloved and derisive existence I can say that the question is what not who is an artist. An artist is an entity, a quality of being. It is not the person but a manifest. I do not blink or wink or itch with any special talent. Nail and hair growing are effortless. 'Artist' is an embodiment of a way of living that occurs because there is no filtering - sensory overload, if you like - art is the filter, what we can manage to capture for articulation of our existence. This process and the result may seem coy or persuasive, banal or exotic, lively or suppressive. It may engage joy or spirituality to awaken. A response is not required, but sincerely feared and appreciated or despised or rockets the doer into a spiral of self-loathing or ecstasy. What can I say... each work I make is a compulsion, a vent to exercise my psyche into another realm of contemplation. Each new idea propels me towards the next, and without a physical explosion of work, I cannot realise the enormity of what was given to me, an ability to incise and perplex or reveal the ambiguity and precision I endure and love. What a gift!

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.

Months, Days, Years

Months are predicted on the days, and the days define the year. What will I remember this year being about?

Stagnation, redefinition, lunging towards and away from dolour...that heartbreaking sorrow, cultivated by the relationship that I need to release.

So far and farther...

Confabulation. Not my style.
Substance, conversation.
It's about understanding...
Talking 'small talk'?
Quirky and vague. I cannot prattle.
Fabricate a memory? Too much work.



Trust. Trust? Dubiety is gone. I no longer have any doubt.
I need a new horizon, fresh stories, suprising escapades, amazing reverie, wonderful opportunies for mysterious and joyful, expansive dimensions...

Strange

Strange how the choices we make do not seem to be choices at all. There is a craft in our sense of development, where leaving things alone will transform a situation, and acting on an impulse will stagnate our hopes. There does not seem to be a balance, only a cosmic humour, toying with our will.

Frenzied fighting freshens
Fear and freedom recoil,
Stirring dreams unrealized into
Pandering.

Crazed remembering
Where no thoughts dwell
Only the feel of a
Forgotten fish
Or stink of recalcitrance
Slither into our possessive
Deliverance.

Breath, lightly, breathe well
Breadth and depth of
Singularity –
There is not a chance
There is change
There is. There is not.
Where is the duck pond?

Can it really exist, or is it just a place
Where I will never go?

Feeding wild ducks seems
Beyond my comprehension.
Weeping willows
Drip
Endless tendrils
Creeping onto my
Memories of mother.

She adored that idea
Left me , wondering why.

And there he stays
Leaping, flapping near that pond
Into a world of
Family and brave assertion.

A broken name
A bereaved heart
But still he chooses that
Betrayal
Needs the comfort of
Regeneration, of a child’s world
To nurture them
To rear himself.

I am only a mirror of his
Luxurious mind.
So he can see himself
So he can be.

He can share nothing
That we are not creating
And there is the flailing truth.
One day
The globe will spin, and I will
Fly away.

That ugly duckling without
A pithy pond.

There will be no musing,
Lose
Elude, escape
and soar.
Instead of feathery caresses
And flight, sight into new dimensions
He will only have the drooping
Strands, stranding
Only hair
Red drippings
To wrap up his thoughts
To tie them up
To keep them in his secret world
Where they will remain
Curled into a reflection
That he can look into
At that stagnant pond.

And mother will say,
To him from some hymn
He will hear
‘Give me some seed
To feed
The ducks.’
And there will be none.

Just the sound of quackery.

As He Lay Sleeping - Introduction

THis is a draft of a collection of poetry and stories I have written for the past 10 years.

As He Lay Sleeping
Introduction

Figuration dominates. A form of a human being shapes itself under the covers, reclining into dreams. There are times when a wink is a sigh, and feigning sleep when none is to be experienced becomes a ritual or habit, of life as a lie. A simple thing as pretending to be sleeping, yet remaining in repose anyway can dissolve away desire for life’s pleasures. Insomnia becomes a sleeping soul.

There are those that give us solace, and resistance to their power is futile. That comfort and acceptance will drive us to accept ourselves, believe in ourselves, and work miracles with our talents. Ignoring our gifts creates weight of frustrating circumstances. Lying to ourselves and to others covers our feelings of inadequacy. On-going deceit generates a need to doze, to lie down and sink into the console of a sofa or bed. The stories need consistency, plausibility, and especially, a degree of excitement to grab the listener, a story to convince the listener, which benefits the teller by releasing doubt. When these lies are told for years, the succour that was once found in a willing, kind believer is desecrated. Laying down a friendship to support a habit of deceit is a tragedy.

Here, is a tale, a story of transition and love, of worship chained to greed, and affection transformed. Questions are unanswerable, as the questions are vague transitory emotions that explode into events. The questioned becomes inventive in order to answer with élan, leading with a lie, preventing a truth from holding him, imprisoning him.

Somnambulist? No. The sleeper is conscious. But as he lay sleeping...

Getting there and back...

ANGEL - 3D Scan - Raw

• Comforting, is the knowledge that once an idea is born, there is hope that it will come to some form of existence.

You have to have an idea of what you are going to do, but it should be a vague idea. ~Pablo Picasso

If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it. ~Albert Einstein

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy to be called an idea at all. ~Elbert Hubbard

Unforgiven

Blank
Pages of unwritten sadness...
Words have no meaning
Because everything you said
Are lies.
Lie in your beach
Bungalow wallowing
In the slink of Chanel and Ferrari
United with the allure
From those Louis Vuitton and other
Assorted chattels
A jewelled chimera
Sliding over your prevarication
Snug as the sand cuddling waves
Of salted truths
Whisking the winded chimes
Into dulcet paltering
Your tides of emotion wax and wane
Through the pulverized sincerity,
Tergiversate.
What you have
Is not a foundation
Only the fantasy
Of felicity
Pounding and powdered
Are your claims of love
Your devotion
To expend a presence
A charisma built on
Shadow and promise
Let the fog dwell
In the house of your golden ring
As there you will find a love that can be bought
And it is not mine.

A brief overview of this past year...

2007 was a concerted effort to delve into my soul and scrape away what I could of extraneous forces, reveal what I could, and find further inspiration in destinations that had called to me for some time.

It was a success in that I was able to create 3 solo shows of my sculpture, and participate in another group show. What I have been doing, what I will continue to do, is to fortify my art oeuvre, and proceed to discover new possibilites for myself, for my work and present them to the world.

From there to here...

The last time I wrote here, I was struggling with producing a show. Now, having produced and exhibited 3 solo shows and been in one group show this year, I needed to decompress. Can Serrat is a residency near El Bruc, around 40 km from Barcelona. It seems to an ideal place to get reaquainted with myself, rest, and get spiritually centred. I feel that next year will be a gargantuan whirlwind of activity, although I have no idea why I say this.

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.

Venice Show

http://www.spiazzi.info/

http://www.spiazzi.info/documenti/2007_10_%20debora_alanna.htm


Here is the listing for my show in Venice.

Venice Show

23/10/2007 -

Canal – Ebb and Flow, is a sculpture installation at Associazione Culturale Spiazzi by Debora Alanna. The work is about a concept of passage, and the oscillation between waning energy and fluidity in uninterrupted movement of conscious and unconscious thought. Inspired by the wake from the vapporetti, and gondolas on the canals of Venice, the movement of the boats breaking the water‘s stillness, unrelenting, moving forward distorting surfaces; the water remains unchallenged. The canal holds all surface warps and entwining penetrations, and remains an unaffected system, a way to and from somewhere. Coming or going, the surface is thrust into undulating forms. The work is a steadfast concentration on forms that do not fluctuate, that are statuesque, in that they impose stillness upon the viewer, requiring concerted enquiry. There is no geography or architecture to give it reference. This work is about movement, but does not move. It is ceremonious as a meditative offering, discovering form and content, allowing the undulations of ebbs and flows to be still for sustained viewing. The canal is the emotional space that is created by the expectant forms that have optimistically emerged as sculpture. d_alanna@yahoo.caper saperne di più sul lavoro di Debora AlannaGli eventi sono organizzati in collaborazione con il Comune di Venezia – Assessorato alla Produzione Culturale/ Cultura e Spettaco Associazione Culturale Spiazzi Castello 386530122 Venezia infospiazzi@libero.itwww.spiazzi.info Tel. +39 041 5239711

Creating Quality of Being... d_alanna@yahoo.ca

Embellish4art Canal: Ebb and Flow
Exhibition of Sculpture Friday, 26th of October, 2007 6pm
Debora Alanna



Ass.ne Culturale Spiazzi, VeneziaCanal - Ebb and Flow - Canale - Flusso e Riflusso Istallazione dell‘artista canadese Debora Alanna nella corte interna di SpiazziDal 26 Ottobre al 21 Novembre - Vernissage venerdì 26 Ottobre alle 18.30Un’installazione dell’artista canadese Debora Alanna. Il lavoro esplora il concetto di passaggio, e l’oscillazione fra il descrescere dell’energia e la fluidità in un ininterrotto movimento fra pensiero conscio ed inconscio. Tutto prende ispirazione dalla scia che le barche lasciano sui canali veneziani, quel movimento che provoca una “rottura” nell’immobilità dell’acqua, che sposta e distorce la sua superficie; un’acqua che anche se provocata non accetta la sfida. Il canale trattiene tutto l’intreccio simile ad un ordito che vi si specchia mantenendo però la sua pura inalterabilità, una via per e da qualche parte. Da o verso la superficie viene spinta nella direzione delle forme ondulate.Il lavoro è una concentrazione costante di forme non fluttuanti, statuarie, in questo esse svelano a colui che le guarda nella loro immobilità.Non c’è alcun riferimento alla geografia o all’architettura. Questo è un lavoro sul movimento ma non si muove. E’ come se scaturisse da un’offerta cerimoniale, che scopre forma e contenuto e che permette alle ondulazioni del flusso e riflusso di placarsi davanti ad un intenso sguardo. Il canale può considerarsi lo spazio emozionale che si crea dalle speranzose forme che ottimisticamente emergono e diventano scultura.

Canal

This is some work in progress for my show at Spiazzi (Associazione Culturale Spiazzi) in Venice, Italy. It will likely take place on the 26th, a Friday. I am calling the work Canal - Ebb and Flow.

The reason for this title, besides the obvious geographical reference, is the concept of passage, and the oscillation between waning energy and fluidity in uninterrupted movement of conscious and unconscious thought. The wake from the vapporetti, the movement of the gondolas breaking the water's stillness, unrelenting, moving forward with surfaces changed, but the water remains unchallenged.

The canal contains all penetration, and remains a way to and from somewhere. Coming or going, the surface is thrust with undulating forms. This is where the inspiration for my series here comes from.

But this is more than living in Venice, and observing its functionality. The work demands a steadfast concentration on forms that do not fluctuate, that are statuesque, in that they impose upon the viewer, requiring concentrated evaluation. In the video barrage of contemporary culture, this act of concentrated viewing may be unfamiliar. There are no buildings to give it reference, such as the statues on cathedrals or cherubs on ceilingwork.

This work is about movement, but does not move. It is ceremonious as a meditative offering, discovering form and content, allowing the undulations of ebbs and flows to be still for sustained viewing.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/canal

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ebb

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/flow

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.

Verrocchio show

Verrocchio Art Centre - Casole d'Elsa, Italy

Looking through the wisteria aperture to the hills of Tuscany from Casole d'Elsa's Verrocchio Art Centre.

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.

Listless

When I returned to Vancouver, just 6 weeks ago, sitting on this waterway seemed an appropriate reacquainting act. The restlessness of hands occupied with the tasks of everyday living are not yet finding materials that make this artist functional.

A studio is secured, and is currently housing remnants of other's lives; sorting, discarding and repacking are the daily activities. I can see the floor, now, and am hopeful that by months' end I shall resume my work.

Beginnings and endings. Begin again.

End with a new beginning.

Mediteranian Musings

This is a picture of a rumsteak dinner with truffles that I had in the neighbourhood restaurant a few days ago. I thought my
computer 'ate' the photo.


I have a few snaps of scenic jaunts around where my residency takes place I thought I would share.





To the left is a close-up of a cork tree. As I have been consuming wine with the stoppers primarily made from this tree, it seems appropriate to include this picture, taken en route to a quest for sculpture materials and tools. The harvesting of the cork bark may or may not be bad for the tree. I broke off a piece, as a memento - I doubt the tree will miss the bit I would like to bring back with me. Maybe customs will prevent that?


Departing from the harbour at Cannes...




A passenger on the boat to the L'isle de Lerins...



















On the edge of the Mediterranean Sea... off the L'isle de Lerins



A few picture of the Fort Royal - Saint Marguerite...

















En route to the rampart...

A view of Cannes from the gun-hold...



++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Raku my World

Inserting ceramics

Creating fire bed

Ceramics ready for the fire

Firing up the bed

Water cooled ceramic

Removing burnt sawdust

This is was Raku day...

A.I.R. Vallauris - The beginning of the residency

Seems like another world has embraced me - a time where plagues were rampant, Napoleon landed, a time where tampanade and truffles are ordinary fare. Only the olive spread and dark aromatic culinary delight are the norm, as is the well-worn architecture.

A labyrinth-like geography, this town has four corners, a plaza on each. Cloistered in one of the towering houses, I share an Ikea furnished living space with two other artists, one American, another Irish. We each have a separate studio, and mine is shown above (exterior). I have only visited my converted donkey stable, and wonder what kind of work will be produced in this stone chamber.

Extreme sensory perceptions are rampant as I walk up the cobbled, steep hill to the place where I can concentrate on sculpture again. The heavy stones calm me from my mysterious angst. History presses on this West Coast inhabitant. I need to dig deep into my ancestral past to find the sculpture within me.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Deception's Wake

Le songe d'un promeneur (The dream of a wanderer).

Awakening to the dream
Of convolution,
Responding
The wanderer in me sings.

An aria?
It’s not revelry
Or recitative.
My song stills.

Where is time thwarted?
On my journey
Wandering resolute
To candour’s concord.

Captivated by presumption
By reverie
I form a vast rapport
Of deception’s wake.

Simply wandering
Between forms
Between terrain’s contour and firmament
I dream of impossibilities.

Neither up nor down
Junctures of meanderings
Create new beginnings.
Simply, there is a caress.

Stressing the Weak - Loss of Consciousness

Noun 1. syncope - a spontaneous loss of consciousness caused by insufficient blood to the brain
deliquium, faint, swoon
loss of consciousness - the occurrence of a loss of the ability to perceive and respond

2. syncope - (phonology) the loss of sounds in the interior of a word (as in `fo'c'sle' for `forecastle')

syncopation

phonemics, phonology - the study of the sound system of a given language and the analysis and classification of its phonemes
articulation - the aspect of pronunciation that involves bringing articulatory organs together so as to shape the sounds of speech


syn·co·pa·tion (sngk-pshn, sn-)
n.

1. Music A shift of accent in a passage or composition that occurs when a normally weak beat is stressed.
2. Something, such as rhythm, that is syncopated.
3. Grammar Syncope.
syncopation
from Mozart's Symphony no. 25

Past

I am ever awake for you.
Ever wakeful
Ever awakening.

Even as your voice betrays
Your doubt
Your reticence
Your confusion
I am, for you awakened
To your need
Your call
Your need for me.

I am aching in your agony
Your ecstasy
Your rancour
Your resolve.

I am awake
And you remember me.
____________________________

I mourn for you, my beloved
A body I do not see.

I am a widow
That had no husband
But a husband you were to me.

I bury my grief, my lover.

I want no one to see
My desolation.

Your friends are now your family,
Comfort,
But not one friend did I see.

I was a wife without secrets,
But secrets you kept from me.

I was not prized -A shame in your life.

I was the best kept secret
I was a source of your strife.
Those years of growth and compassion
Of intimacy
Is now fear.

Forgotten promises
Are plans we held so dear?

The price of misunderstanding
Is grave shadows haunting the day.

Your cherished darkness
Is my shadowed life -
Betrayed.

Your darkness was enlightening.
Your solace was as near
As 'never', a word I hate to hear.

Our laughter, love and dreams
Were all dissolved away.

For your needs, my beloved
A price was paid.

I mourn for you;
You were a husband to me.

I mourn for my lover -
That memory
Shadows my life.

My heart aches for your touch -
Not that knife that
Sliced morality...
Not ambiguity.

You are dead to me.


***********************************
Somehow
a poem is in your eyes
when I see your face
in your picture.

It stares me down with
kaliadascope colours,
enlightened space.

Eternity is in your candid grace.

Your pure heart
has sung
a guarded tune.

That song is a spell
that
drowns my hope
dry -
compels me to cry.

Your longing,
yearning
burning desires
determined parting.

A cavern dark
a retreat, yours alone
and not alone
left me lonely -
emptied my soul.

Like a slow drip
water falling
drop by drop
dropping from that cloud
slowly love's light
seems replenished
with every word
you speak to me.

I want you to sing
a contented air
breath lightly,
abandon dispair.

Here is my song,
for you.
_________________________________

Rain

http://vancouver.weatherpage.ca/


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vancouver-westend.jpg

Today, after weeks of sun, the rain pours. Its a day when the deceit of the past is getting washed away from my soul. A day of reflection. A day of decisions about the future. A day of mourning. A day to beleive in myself. A day to replenish my joy in living. Rain, cleans my heart.

***********************************************************************************

For my own part, I don't believe in a partial liar--this art does not deal in veneer; a liar is a liar right through.
The Lair of the White Worm by Stoker, Bram View in context
A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth.
Fables by Aesop View in context
This fellow is either a lunatic or merely a liar--just a plain, every-day liar whom Yountsey has no call to kill.
Can Such Things Be? by Bierce, Ambrose View in context

More resultshttp://www.thefreedictionary.com/liar

Cariboo

Somewhere in Burnaby, BC, a family lives. Home to each other's spirits, they love and thrive on the untold peace of quietude. There is trust and friendship, understanding and joy.

********************************************
Exasperation and deviation from this kind of life is my experience at this time. I trudge in a wilderness where walking in heaving footsteps, clouds of doubt destroys companionship. Restrictions are suspect. There is foreboding in the dreariness of a decayed relationship. I wish there was someone that might fix this hole in my heart, as a dentist extracts the action of tooth decomposition and can fill the gap with solidity. Would my wounded heart be my rotting teeth.

Tiresome

Jericho Park, Vancouver, BC
Used to be a wonderous place, for me.

Now, I am driven to despise
this playground for the
enterprising liars
that populate that shore.

They feign morality.

The lies are as numerous
as the grains of mutilated rock
shipped to the beachside.

I hate lies. They are sand in my eyes.

http://www.jericho.bc.ca/webcam/webcam.html

Atelier Silex and beyond

Its been almost 2 weeks since I completed my residency at the Atelier Silex. I spent four weeks creating 6 sculptures, with the intention of digitizing this work.

Through multiple layers of contacts, I was able to spend a few hours in the FormLab and the University of Montreal. However, at this time I am still searching for a means to this end. My intention is to digitize this work, and create stereolithographs that can be then utilized as molds for sculptural embellishment for architectural use. Here are two views of the same work.

The 3D digitizing studio at the Concordia University (Hexagram C) uses equipment that cannot have any metal in the original object. My work has a metal armature. I would need to make a polymer mould to facilitate any digitizing of this work. Every step taken away from the original will compromise the final outcome of the work.

This work has other challenges, which I intentionally created after previously digitizing work at Cyberware. Voids are not read by digitizing software that I have used. A trial run at the FormLab indicated that the voids or holes in the work would need to be covered by paper to be read, and the file later edited to recreate the voids. Also, a limit of 12 inches for any digitized object to be sent to a stereolithograph machine would mean most of theses pieces, which are just a little over that dimension, would be scanned in separate entities and each stereolithograph would later have to be reconnected into the work as a whole.

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'.

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.

Brain Function

Your Brain's Pattern

Your mind is a firestorm - full of intensity and drama. Your thoughts may seem scattered to you most of the time... But they often seem strong and passionate to those around you. You are a natural influencer. The thoughts you share are very powerful and persuading.

What Pattern Is Your Brain?

Paper Doll

This duo creates - with multiple notions; a multiplex of messages, transmitted simultaneously; multitudinous elements, including, jostling and melodious sound; coincident fabric; startling paint; superposed make-up... using enamored actors; winking models; fascinated and compliant audiences; noisy machines... This design of congruence - all aspects of theatre jumbled and sculpted into performance... Numerous continuities; countless values - worthiness, strength, utility, importance - frivolity as an estimable trait; innumerable calculations; uncountable diversions, untold degrees of intensity; several speculations about life, learning and paths of delight; mixed media, where mixing results in various projected plays of enormous proportions; divers proclamations that result in multifarious perceptions, which extol toleration and glory; manifold operations that combine expertise of their natural ability to invent and present. Truly, Paperdoll is a myriad of presentations, made generously, offered without expectation, a tribute to largess - simply, variations of complexities that reward us with the Paperdoll oeuvre.

Using the premise that their real and imagined experience is a resource, forming an inspired and fertile world where their impression can transform, they seek to develop an opinion that seriously but playfully dances through stability into invention, where envisaging becomes reality. The result is fabrication, imbued with archetypal concepts, which are chaotic, and as messy as reality; charged emotionally, somewhat humbling as the confidence from the colour and pageantry erupt with a maelstrom of activity - the centre of conception is spared to allow the participant, viewer, creator space to contemplate in awe.