upon closer inspection

the collapsing and pushing of line into form is not unlike breathing

acknowledging the work as beautiful cages
cracking them open
loosening the grip


these poignant words from the amazing Michael Timmins' Rock and Bird
She captured both Rock and Bird
tied one to the leg of the other
kept them as prisoners
until they knew who was master
then she threw them to the sky

Bird with unbarred wings disappeared
Rock with weighted heart returned
and Rock became her anchor
and Bird became her dream

when I wasn't looking

another version of poetry

what I'm looking at

The light, the flowers, the drawings and the words. And the worn wood desk and the window just outside the framing of this photograph, without which there would be no context to place the rest. Poem excerpt from "Hometown," by Christine Deavel and featured in her book, Box of Little Spruce, published by LitRag Press.

the wonder of the small

Some discussion today about the idea of islands, both physical and metaphorical. I am enchanted with the idea that an isolated land mass or state of being provides ground for witnessing both condensed and expansive versions of life on a larger scale. But in the end, the island is connected to places or beings outside itself; the island always exists in relation.

The last stanza of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's poem Space seems relevant to this:
"A word falls in the silence like a star,
Searing the empty heavens with the scar
Of beautiful and solitary flight
Against the dark and speechless space of night."

riffing

Back in the spring, friend and Seattle poet Melanie Noel and I worked this idea of sculptural poetry. Together we imagined that this kind of hive could be, contain and reveal a poem, much as a real hive might be built by, house and reveal its bees. This sculpture would conceal a small audio recorder and spill the words from within, hanging mostly solitary in a space. I continue to be enchanted with the idea of bringing this piece to live in multiple dimensions: as a linear written piece that wraps itself into volume and then penetrates the aural.

flexing the line

I think I might be blind with infatuation for this process of metal thread embroidery on top of felted metal wire. Still trying to get the relationship right.

What rises to the surface tonight is how the line is growing, taking on more of the form of the fibrous hemisphere. The line activates in space. This work also takes place in other modes.

loosely connected

Brands as surface pattern, cedar branches on a cedar bench. Each element is crafted out of wire, heated and burned by hand onto the wood. This kind of work flexes the drawn line into a sculptural form and flattens it back down.

the aerial view

I've always been inspired by the capacity for the view from a plane to alter my perspective. Today's low sun revealed secrets that stunned me: spiderwebs blanketed the grass at the runway, shallow spots in the topography of the Puget Sound lit up, and the trees etched high contrast ground shadows.

This small sculpture means to suggest an aerial view writ small, the wonder of pattern and tilt, the intuitive form that reveals an order.

abundance

and the presence of mind and body to recognize it.

a little context

A glance at the wall in my studio reveals
a collector of lost objects, of wire, seeds and pods,
a participant observer, a recognizer of pattern,
a lover of deep interlock and ambiguity.

chaos + consistency

Part of my process has to do with taking an existing paradigm or practice and approaching it with the question, "What would happen if I did this?" Standing an assumption off its center creates new perspective. Ideas that might have seemed rigid suddenly expand.

I am interested in ways that patterns degenerate and reconstitute themselves. Gyorgy Doczi's The Power of Limits suggests that there is a kind of latent expansiveness connecting many elements in nature through pattern and proportional relationships. Consistency appears out of chaos.

Exposing this tension was the goal of this proposal sketch for Steen Bomen (Stone Trees): it indicates past labor and persistent growth, along with the improbability and joy of linking them together.

here is the sign

A leaf of rocks on the hand-hewn stone trail from Vernazza to the sanctuary of Nostra Signora di Reggio. This installation was inspired by the first line of Motet VIII, written by Nobel Prize-winner Eugenio Montale who was born in Genoa and spent significant time in this Cinqueterre region of Italy.

a clutch of rock

each element individual and a critical portion of a greater whole
40 earrings and a few more, all in progress
Montana mudstone and sterling silver
stones gathered from the shore of Swan Lake

growth

I have been wanting to do this for a long time: cover the laurel hedge in front of my house in metal leaves. It does get at my need to connect natural and artificial, adornment and necessity, made and manufactured. But I realize putting these on this kind of display is significant because I want to invite others to ask questions about what is going on, or what is growing there. Hanging them, shiny along the road, they are lures for distraction, a deliberate but passive request for slowing down and looking.

Friday, November 16

"How do individual objects, put in a series or into a context which relates them, generate a journal? Can such a series assembled in a completely subjective circumstance inspire associations which resonate on a universal level? Explore condensed and exploded memory of time and place." journal entry, November 16, 1992

and spiraling

1994 sketchbook page

This form of perpetual advance and return provides an apt reminder for this time:
I have been here before.

I fold and unfold, hoping to open.

circling back

Remember to move intuitively through past work or into ideas for the future, while remaining firmly planted in the present day. Food for thought on the first day is Pollen, destined for installation at Redmond Elementary School, along with apt words out of the 11th century Japanese book, Sakuteiki:

"Begin by considering the lay of the land and water. Study the works of past masters, and recall the places of beauty that you know. Then, on your chosen site, let memory speak, and make into your own that which moves you most."