Muse

You are the grit

in my oyster.

You cause ideas

to Pearl.

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.

Work in progress

Trials of leading...

Either I know where I am going, or I don't. This is the first time in living memory that I am at a carrefour for months. Disconcerting.

However, some work is being produced...

Answering my own questions - some...

I realized at least one archetype is dominant in each figure.

Some figures can be construed to reveal more than one archetype...
The spiral in the central configuration is an archetypal symbol...

The shapes that each figure is composed of are abstracted primal symbols – triangular, circular and square.

• 
  

Some hieroglyphics, pictograms, marks representing sacred iconography are in the lines of the figures.

“Archetypes provide the deep structure for human motivation and meaning. When we encounter them in art, literature, sacred texts, advertising—or in individuals or groups—they evoke deep feeling within us.
These imprints, which are hardwired in our psyches, were projected outward by the ancients onto images of gods and goddesses.
Plato disconnected these from religion, seeing them in philosophical terms as "elemental forms."
Twentieth-century psychiatrist C.G. Jung called them archetypes.”

'The Fan Blade is often an archetype reflecting rotating, spinning movement through consciousness, time and dimension. "

Afterthoughts - 'Congregation'

In my opinion, artists create self portraits, no matter what the original intention – the outcome of the work reveals self. Try as we might, we reveal our identity, our uniqueness, a signature of our soul. This is how I view one aspect of my recent installation. I did not consciously set out to do this. Once the work was presented, I was struck by several levels of interpretation the work may be subject to or clarification the sculpture would explain, and especially, how it revealed who I am and how I think of myself.

First I realized at least one archetype was dominant in each figure. Some figures could be construed to reveal more than one archetype – or if I think about it some more, maybe more than two... Even the spiral in the central configuration was an archetypal symbol... And further, the shapes that each figure was composed of were abstracted primal symbols – triangular, circular and square. I even began to see some hieroglyphics, pictograms, marks representing sacred iconography in the lines of the figures.

After digesting that revelation, I realized I was describing life stages. Simplification of life stages - but surely they were there. And more, the stages were equal to the next, none more prominent, as if there was a balance. Each was interconnected with the other, and each was blatantly important as the next. –Interestingly, I did not order them sequentially. What did that mean?

Now my questions for myself...

1. So what does this say about me, how does it portray my character, my personality?



2. Why did I call the work Congregation, when none of the figures actually meet? Why do the figures only connect by the spiral, the whirling...?
   
   

Then I need to understand and explain the shrouding, the emptiness within the figures, the broken fragility of the sculpture, the facelessness.

So what does this say about me, how does it portray my character, my personality?

1. Why did I call the work Congregation, when none of the figures actually meet? Why do the figures only connect by the spiral, the whirling...?
   
   
2. Then I need to understand and explain the shrouding, the emptiness within the figures, the broken fragility of the sculpture, the facelessness.



3. And finally, the cluster of apple branches placed in the middle of the spiral centre must be clarified, which can be described as the only congregated gathering of any kind in this show.
   
   
   
   
   

Kazakhstan Exhibition

Please check out my Flickr account for more photos...

Here is the installation of "Congregation".

ARTIST STATEMENT

30 October – 1 December 2008

National Museum of Art, Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Title: Congregation

This exhibition will be comprised of 5 over life sized abstracted human forms depicting the monumentality of human alliance and our large capacity for responsiveness to each other. This work will be displayed on the 2nd floor, Gallery 11, A. Kasteev State Museum of Arts on 30 October – 1 December 2006. Congregation is inspired by the momentous Kazakhstan historical works displayed in the gallery. More, as the work depicts people convening, the sculpture is about gathering – an assembly of people, a collection of perspectives, exchange.

Canadians are known as travellers. We explore our own nation and love to visit other countries. Kazakhstan has a history of nomadic existence, and some citizens describe themselves as part of a nomadic culture. Whether on a customary journey or because of a particular adventure, meeting new, companionable people is a wonderful opportunity to impart stories, commune, and interconnect. This work will show how amity and fellowship is universal, and how the act of congregating with each other enlarges each person, our communities, and our dimensionality.

Kazakhstan Residency

Getting materials for my work, here in Almay requires going to a construction bazaar. Each vendor is independently competing for your business. Here is where I bought expanded mesh wire. I did not speak, as my host, curator Yuliya Sorokina, asked me to NOT SPEAK, having done so while at the previous vendor... the price was adjusted accordingly.

My driver, Shokan, is a stunt driver, when not driving me around for materials. His driving on the streets of Almaty makes me feel like I am driving in a movie scene, like that in the Bourne trilogy... It was suggested, that because he has been driving with such confidence, the chances of an accident are greatly reduced.

Here is the 'store' where plaster was procured. Here, they call it gyps, and as I was requiring the material for sculpture, they assured us it was just for that purpose. Using it, I found it to be full of sand and rocks, as well as a match-book. Not ideal.

This is the gallery space at the State Museum of Art in Almaty Kazakhstan, where my work will live from 30 October - 11 November 2008.

Sand People

Sand People
Dwell on the beach
Each day wallowing
In granules of thought.
Rooted in shifting drifts
Piling high with godly gusts of bluster
Raging mounds of dusty irritation
Collects about them.
Stuck to malicious pandering
Sand people hold handfuls of
Scorn
Speckled slurs that desiccate
Blister in the searing sun of
Feigned saintliness...
Scourge decency of those
That get sand
Whipped
In the eye;
Blinding cruelty
Blown By sand people.

New Residency

Just waiting for my Visa to Kazakhstan...


View Larger Map

New residency, new thoughts and feelings to aquire, new work to be done... New show to produce... new friend to make. ADVENTURE!

The Word of the Day:

peregrination \pehr-uh-gruh-NAY-shun\, noun:
A traveling from place to place; a wandering.

Peregrination comes from Latin peregrinatio, from peregrinari, "to stay or travel in foreign countries," from peregre, "in a foreign country, abroad," from per, "through" + ager, "land."

http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2008/08/26.html

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.

Past Reviews - Some Published - Some Not

Hello readers of Embellish4art blog.

I have decided to post some of my art criticism - some articles were kindly published, others live here only. The published reviews' publishers are noted. All work is copywrite protected. If you want to use anything, please write me first for permission: d_alanna@yahoo.ca
If you would like to refer to them, kindly post my URL in your work. Thank you.

Debora Alanna.



The National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) Sculpture Retrospective 1996
Published in Asian Sculpture News 1996, Editor – Ian Findlay-Brown. http://www.iht.com/articles/1995/06/26/magcon.php
http://www.worldsculpturenews.net/


By Debora K-M (aka Debora Alanna/ Miss Debora)


PLEASE NOTE: The links below seldom refer to the specific work described in this review.


The National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) http://www.ngmaindia.gov.in/about_ngma.asp invited Latikat Katt http://www.dosco.org/news/2006/02/lalita_katt_holds_art_exhibiti.html#more , professor at the Jamia Millia Islamia University Jamia Nagar, New Delhi to curate an ambitious show of sculpture with work from the HGMA dating from 1833 to the present. The exhibition has revealed an extensive sculpture collection. The last comprehensive sculpture show the NGMA presented was in 1953 when the museum was inaugurated. Professor Katt, an instructor at the Jamil University successfully shows she understands the importance of revitalizing the public’s awareness of its modern sculptural heritage.


Intrinsically steeped in tradition, the consistent theme of this show as revealed in the sculpture is the artists’ experience that they are part of society that can draw from tradition but also must create something new for the world. This show is an overview of work from the last 50 years, produced in various materials and genres. The artists evoke pride in the crafts of the past, traditional materials, as well as show an evolution of sensibilities that sculptors are concerned with this century.


There are some stars in this show.


Abanindranath Tagor carved Personage in wood in 1940. http://www.sciy.org/blog/_archives/2005/10/3/1275976.html His playful yet austere miniature is an icon that pays homage to the complexity of the Indian character.
The wistful harlequinade-like work called Musical Construction (’67) by Dhanraj Bhagat combines the understanding of an Indian musical heritage with that of the experimentation of the 60’s international analytical musical musings.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1422/14220980.htm


Balbir Singh Katt’s (’67) piece When Man and Woman Perverted from His Glory (wood and stone) is the first work in the collection that used two disparate materials. The strength of this juxtaposition indicates the lead given to the blunt inception of the idea of self consciousness. http://www.lalitkala.gov.in/golden_jubilee/arties/view_large.asp


Several sculptures in the show exemplify India’s concern with the animal world. The carved Animal by Nagi Patel (’74) attends to India’s devotional ancestry to the animal realm. In Memory of the Lost Cow by Rajinder Tikki (’91) is most poignant; it is a testament to the future of India.


The developmental change in social history is perceived by S.G. Vidya Saakar in Mgail (’89) where an ornamental metal tree supports a woman on a swing. The hands of the swinger are dismembered.


The Pink Marble by Ramesh Pateria is a vertically positioned stone that is gouged, sawn, worn – evident is the pain of technological penetration, the affects mechanism has on traditional material and philosophy of art practise. http://www.lalitkala.gov.in/golden_jubilee/arties/view_large.asp


1994 Emerging by Gyan Singh adeptly addresses the theme of autonomy. http://www.lalitkala.gov.in/golden_jubilee/arties/view_large.asp


Deity by J. Swarminathan elegantly and poetically discloses spiritual wisdom. http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Everlasting-Beauty-of-Sculptures&id=1229436


View Through Emotion (’95) explicitly orders the chaos that this emerging national character is experiencing. Mrigendra Pratap Singh, with objectivity and gentility puts a rational matrix on intense disorder. http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Art-Of-Our-Times-Cheaper-And-Better/102786/


Madan Lal’s untitled marble and Brij Mohan Sharma’s untitled work acknowledges the consistent Indian capacity for sensuality and exoticism.


Professor Katt’s vision of India’s contemporary sculptural astuteness is not only evident from work chosen from the NGMA but is revealed in her own work, also part of the collection. Growth (’80) signifies the struggle and frustration of independence from preconceptions is experience, a challenge to all artists of the 21st century. A stunning, wood and leather bound catalogue, designed by Professor Katt, accompanies this show.


I highly recommend this exhibition.
*********************************************************************************


1996 Thiruvananthapuram, India

Sculptor Aryanad Rajendram is a 35-year-old Thiruvananthapuram artist that has recently carved a meticulously realistic portrait of the father of Greek medicine, Herodotus for the Medical College of Thiruvananthapuram. He has an additional commission there to carve another portrait, which he has begun with a more geometric panache than the highly graphic Herodotus bust. The second work is organized with exactitude, the rectangularity is precise. Yet this diversion of style cannot prepare the viewer for Rajendram’s contribution to the group show at the Thiruvananthapuram Museum Auditorium this past November. The transformation, a sculpture titled We, Leaders and Money is 3 feet of green coloured plaster of Paris, and exorcized tirade on the artist’s relationship to those artists that have (the money).

The murky green of this piece is the colour of resent, of jealousy. The leaders are watchful of their bounty, ‘We’ are resentful of their spoils.

The colour of the work can also be interpreted as the raw greenness that the work also projects – the easily deceived, inexperienced public, the unprepared, culturally untrained politicians, the artist’s new practice of emoting.

‘We’ (that don’t have the money) are heads squashed by a hierarchy of totemically arranged leaders. The totem also extends to protrusions that effectively look like an orthodox crucifix. An upwards growth and extension of power of the leaders is an affliction to be borne.

A moneybag, larger than any head, balances on the contorted upper most head of the ‘leaders’. The features of the leaders become more gargoyle-like as they move up to the top. The head directly under the money is almost unrecognizable in its twisting out from human shape. Money is in their domain, high above ‘we’, and the weight of it distorts their vision, their intelligence. Justification has influenced and depressed the attributes the leaders once had.

The thrust of the manipulation of the contorted faces, the abandon of craft and precision for volatile expressiveness makes the viewer wonder whether the same sculptor produced the stone and the plasterwork. There is no dispute that he did. The question is, is the subject of the plaster the reason the stone sculpture does not render more exuberance? The stone carving is of the utmost sincerity, the control exercised is not ridged – the features are exquisite.

There is an obvious restraint in the artist’s stone output. He surges to embody his frustrations, such as those exhibited in We the Leaders and Money. For example, although the work visually describes the significance of money, poised at the top of the sculpture, the artists’ anger prohibits a consistent fluidity of spirit in his work. Yet knowing the sculpture this artist has previously executed, one can only applaud the vivacity he has allowed himself to display and hope the lively energy will extend to his carving endeavours.

We, Leaders and Money is currently on display at the Salyan Art Gallery, Thiruvananthapuram.

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.
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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...



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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.
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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.


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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.
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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.

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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