that silent e

Where did this beautiful belief in life come from? Where did it go? I sit here on the precipice of endless tomorrows... even if they end. Leo's in trouble... sinking down into the muck without much luck of the golden sun to save him. I ask myself how could he get himself into such a predicament? Did he trust too much? He did it for the child within himself... the one that knew right from wrong. As we grow old right and wrong take different paths. Suddenly the "law"... the "righteous" step in to protect the "wrong", the "unlawful"... and they seem to do it with more fervor as time passes. We uphold the law for those who know how to use it and manipulate it to their purpose. I see Leo sink and I wonder how this one will play out... when the world loses it's sun.. will it care? I ask with sadness and heaviness of heart for Leo. I would love to see the sun again, natural fires playing on natural earths... but I fear these days are gone and long forgotten... long roads, paths... labyrinths in the woods destroyed.... I fear they've been bulldozed by malice. If energy follows thought... my thoughts would bring about some different sort of energy. Take a dark thunder... a dark day you've brought... with gale force winds... with snapping branches. Take that and remember that although you sink Leo into the mud.. in his naive trust of you... you also create your own prison of remembering... this is now YOUR energy following YOUR thought. And it will run it's course.

skulls, death, magick, books, moons, trees, coffins

Images of the mind extend into the artworks of late. I have begun a creation around six by six inches on canvas of a skull with his forehead in a book. Trees, death and the invocation of that time I wish to recreate within my artworks. I can effectively hide in there. The space between the paint, the clay, the paper. I have found a firmament on canvas. A place to go when there is no way to travel, no way to get out. Iced over in the housecave. Drums begin in my brain, over my grave. I haven't heard a beat so far but a long distant echo of once running drums, long hair... circles of stars. It's created within me a need to belong within that story... if only to share it and keep it alive. As with the beat, the dance... a deep swim within. I dive for the flame of the ordinary light. Keep me safe and sane as I balance this cusp of wherever. Heavy screams and fades. This is the time for urgency and force of sound... some music I can not ignore struggles to break free. ~ k

surreal feel

within each new experience there is a new space for growth. I have found within my new studio a calling I never knew I had... to bring people together to work artistically. I found art relatively early in life. I never had to worry after that. I wasn't alone. I believe it is within everyone's grasp. I feel the space telling me the goal is to share. To see them sitting there has helped my psyche. The space is allowing things to happen and grow. My art watches while I sleep. It guards and protects. Surrounding spirits of those I've known. I have brought spirits through my art as well as allowed others to find themselves within the art spiritually. It goes on in circles. I don't let it end with one singular definition. My father visited me in a painting. My husband left his mark. My flame fire spire absorbed my canvas and from a wilted photograph, Lucille looked at me with my eyes, my face, my hair. I must've run around before not long ago... and found myself back here after meeting death five years after school. The dead are the stones of my foundation and do burst forth from my pen again and again. Keep your eyes keen on this thinning veil. You will see through moonlight and mist the deepening essence of those around us. ~ k (penh) w

and in the routes leading in each direction

Deciding to be a person of action is difficult. I've found my mind seeing these things intensely. Vivid pictures of places and people.. .of stories. Whether or not I adhere to the rules... I've found a break and want to go for it. But where to go? The arrow points in each direction. Tells me which way leads where... but no warning of the ditches. We've seen these ways our entire lives but haven't searched them through. Haven't come back to talk of the war of activity. Why does it take me so long to move from this squeaky chair everyday? I guess I'm rooted to the spot of myself. Unable to unhinge my brain from my want of things... to do things. I'm going to try to be it and not wish it to be. I don't like flying stars overhead because I long to hitch a ride on one. At least see it closer... or feel a real orbit. So my head is my freedom and my cage. I can't seem to escape it. Once upon a time I felt I had a place... it seems that place has been rearranged and set for someone else.... like they invited me to tea and then decided I should sit on the floor. I don't mind. I haven't the mind for talking their small talk. I like tea in any old chair... in any old place. It seems my fountains are running and my hands aren't working fast enough. The cup will overflow again and those friends and faces will wash away over the silt. I'll rummage around for it... the little snap bean. I'm searching for it still. My inner curmudgeon... desperate to find herself a lovely spot on a current or wave. She wants to curl inside the pod... for a greedy feast of ideas.

Tru's 'schnitte!

Working on a scherenschnitte piece for cousin Tru! Scherenschnitte is the art of cutting paper and although the piece she wanted from the website was unavailable, I was able to produce a similar piece that she's pretty excited about. I am very happy to be moving the image. Especially to such a talented artist herself! Thanks Tru!

Projection of Opinion

Here we reach an uncomfortable place in which we place on the wall a picture. Then the crowd leans in and begins to verbally rip and tear the image to shreads disregarding it's place. I found, my first year in art school, this to be the most barbaric of acts against the artist and the piece presented. The "wall" was but a peg board. The "critics" a bunch of students. The room, a simple concrete classroom, nothing more. I found this place empty of knowledge, void of depth and increasingly anti-art. I left the department, even with a professor hounding me across campus. It's only mid-term. You could pass this class. Did I really want to "pass"? I would have rather failed it. So I dropped it. I dropped the entire department and moved on. It wasn't working, I walked away. I met Jacey that year. I remembered Jacey because she had the same earrings and was incredibly talented. I never found out what happened to her but I wished her the best. She deserved it. Remember your feet when faced with critics. What do they really know? These so-called experts of the aesthetic. They go by formula. Art is not formulaic. If it is, it's not art. I would rather exist on the periphery of this thing we call art than suffer formula, acceptance by a conditioned crowd or passing a class. This is your life hanging on the wall. How do you judge it? How do you critique it? The lines and colors, the days and the experiences. The texture, the inspiration. No, I'd rather exist completely outside of art than deal with this. I sat across from Karenina, drawing her as she drew me. Her drawing was delicate and wonderful, mine looked a little flat. Karenina smiled. She took the picture and we swapped movies. Her Santa Sangre vs. my Nosferatu. I must say I enjoyed Santa Sangre as much as anything. I sat alone watching it and wishing it were yet another existence. I suddenly wanted to jump into that film or into her drawing. Another connection made, another memory added, yet another lovely venture into art and the making. I was cradled from beginning to end by the memories of sweet faces and working hands. This is th e way I wish to remember it. The impression. Bringing any critique from the land of the lost I will say that another artist recommended "one color". I choose them all.

co-create

As it seems the shapes will change in front of my open eyes and move to something recognizable. Then the shapes will change and the hands will move. The image becomes obvious, the path clear. I have found a new direction a million times over and it never wants to stop. I enjoy these journeys. A million journeys a month into oblivion, pulling out by the hair in a rather neanderthal scene an image from my psyche. Then the delicate dance of creation begins. Popping the pages with razor sharp edges. Crystallizing the air. This is my little creation dance. My fire dance within that abyss. Tools work, hands move and suddenly a face emerges. Hello to you friend! Where have you been? Well these things would tell me their story had they the time, but mostly they choose to move within their own realm leaving me in mystery for some time before the break in the dam begins again. Movement. I detect movement just up ahead. Running like blood, the pen acting as a hatchet carving out the space, the ink gushes. Hold it up and move again. It won't be happy until it's unleashed on the page.