Getting Ready for the Grottos

faces by Roseanna

Hope to see you there!

after the storytelling

a woman came up and told me how much she liked my story

i said thank you

she said she wouldn't have liked it if i wasn't such an odd person

and i believed her

Art School Teacher: Class Announcement

This week we finished our first bound book, a simple Japanese stitch. Everyone including me felt a bit awkward working with the needle and thread. Except Huachewh! We didn't have quite the right tools, which is my fault, I'm learning right along with you. And that's NOT something to be embarrassed about. That's just the learning process. How about this for homework: How about remaking the bond book. Now that you've done the process once, see what happens when you try it again. Maybe think of what kinds of things you want on your pages. Visualize that. And then start. And see what happens. Our next book will be a free choice micro-biography. Think of someone whose work you admire. It could be someone you know personally, or someone long dead. Do some investigation. A micro-biography reveals a few poignant details which illuminate a person's full character. So don't worry about the whole story. Really, all you need to know about Flannery O'Connor is that she raised peacocks. Search for the most interesting details. My favorite source is wikipedia. And browsing the nonfiction stacks at the library. So, make a second bound book, and think about who you want to make a micro-biography about. Feel free to post an observation about class.

sumo book made by Elyse Mische
Check out what Elyse is up to in Lubbock, Texas!

where is the river song

tad neuhaus, guitar 

joanna dane, vocals

oh dears

i know there's been an endless amount written about this topic already

but have there ever been any satisfactory answers?

can the central dilemma be solved with something as simple as 

a change of perspective, a missive, a bone?

how much help can it be, sitting here breathing?

and if i choose to write about it, to fill these notebooks with this topic

will that solve anything or just make it that much more complicated?

maybe that's the point.

how to understand that my arm is not mine?

how to understand impermanence when i feel so permanent?

river poem #3

a river is a

metaphor

a pinafore

an accord between

now and then

a mess of well stones

pouring forth

from mitochondria

and springs

the life force

the circulation

of ideas

the high tide brings

the sturgeon upstream

where we marvel

at our own

being

a river

a life

always moving

and yet always

at home

river poem #2

where is the river

if the river has no edge?

can a being be a river

can a being have an edge?

where is the line between

water and mud?

wing and air

wave and root?

what is the

definitive truth?

can you see me

when i disappear?

can you feel the

current when it’s calm?

when the river

churns and bellows

when the swallows

flutter at dawn?

is it true

is it true?

have the pelicans

moved on?

On the Long Prairie Highway

tad neuhaus, guitar

joanna dane, vocals and flute

it is gone through the city

late to the broken evening

dreaming of 6 bells chiming

on the long prairie highway

the past looming larger

then every scrap beside you

i never know to never wander

in the long mountains

among pastures in the doorway of heaven scent

over the long vast breath

on the magic carpet ride

finding me turning around turning round

breathing in and out

inside of you

never never wonder

why is love how

it has to be

please

beside you baby oh i

wonder never wander

inside beside child of high sky wide

i’ll be back

back inside

child child child child child

child

oh my my beautiful child

never never never never never

never wonder why

why love is how it has to be

baby

why it has to be

baby please

never never never never never

wonder why love is how it has to be

please

beside you baby

oh i wander

never wonder

inside

beside child of high sky why

i’ll be back back inside

i’ll be back back back back back

i’ll be back back back

i’ll be back inside

child

river poem #1

about rivers

mostly what i know

is imaginary

inventions of mind

tributaries

memories

sensations

mostly what i know

about rivers

is right on the surface

the wild mix of color

and ever changing

reflections

sky and willow

wave and hollow

rereading Siddhartha

it’s quite astonishing

to catch a glimpse

of the essence

of the vastness

but mostly

the river of thought

takes over

drowning out

the river at my feet

River Memories

When I was a child, there was a grand river nearby

on the far side of downtown behind warehouses and train yards 

and fields of junk and thistle.

We only saw the river if we drove the bridge to Iowa 

or hiked through Fontenelle Forest.  The Missouri flowed fast and brown.

We threw rocks we collected from the train bed,

our reward for hiking.  Sometimes a tree limb floated by.

Mostly what I know about rivers comes from books, from Mark Twain

and John Hersey, Edward Abbey, Annie Dillard, Rumer Godden, V.S. Naipaul.

I lived at the mouth of a river once, during the months I worked in Livingston, Guatemala 

where every few days I'd slip into a kayak and roll upriver to explore jungle creeks.

And when I got to missing Andrew, I'd hop a boat

that motored up the gorge to Rio Dulce where I'd catch the bus back to El Estor.

Preparing for Take Me to the River

halfway between rain and sea i know the river is

Art School Teacher: Book Making Class, An Encounter with Man Ray

Assignment #2 - Make an Accordion Book 
(using an image from assignment #1's ABC book)

*****

I overhear Britta talking about Man Ray

and ask
"The Dada artist?"

and she says
"No, the stingray.  From Sponge Bob."

I remember once writing something about Man Ray the artist

so I search and find the post

and think to use it to make an accordion book

since I haven't yet done assignment #1

so have no ABC book from which to fish for images.

M is for Man Ray!

How to start?  

How about with some old scraps

like the remains of those acrylics on watercolor paper

painted when the kids were babies?

How about cropping to fit the envelopes Strathmore gave away at the park this summer?

How about making two line drawings of Man Ray to add to the two I already drew of Lee Miller?

And needing one more to make an odd number

why not a drawing of an assemblage Man Ray called "self-portrait"? 

Scan, print, trim.

With my nondominant hand
I write the words for the portraits on other cards
planning to glue them together
(a little trick one learns)
making the cards more durable and
decreasing the possibility of ruining what I've already made. 

But something isn't right.

The white against white?

I paint a border on the back of each portrait. 

Still not right.

So I rewrite the words in black ink.

Again, no good.

What is right is the brown painting 

I'm planning on using 

as the strip to join the envelopes together.

What is right is the thin refined line of the portraits.

Why not machine print the text and then trim

making rectangular compositions on the brown painting?

Much better!

This process lasts all week

working on it for an hour or two at a time 

taking a break when the Mod Podge needs to dry

learning once again

that the art is in the process

folding the paper

for example

before gluing on the envelopes

or making the title page last

or knowing to follow your instincts

until you sense it's right.

Still

near the end

I screw up

accidentally gluing the envelopes closed

when attaching them to the brown paper. 

I pry them open with a knife

but it looks like crap.

Luckily 

I don't panic 

realizing there's another pack of envelopes

which I glue right onto the first

this time making sure to not seal them shut

though what I should have used

was two-sided tape

which doesn't leave wavy marks.

But my kids devour two-sided tape so I never have it when I want it.

And I'm not patient enough to wait until I get it

being eager to add a string and. . . . voila!

merci

where do you noodle?

noodle: to think about something in a way that is not very serious

where do you noodle

after a long doodle

dabbling all along the way?

with a pocket full of waggle

and a snuggle in a rocket

while we noodle with the littles

along the Old Tucson trail

where i sometimes dream

i'm noodling
the mariachis 
playing the blues

and the sun shines

blindingly bright

try as i might

i can only 

noodle with my doodle

if i dabble while i noodle

noodle i while dabble i if

doodle my with noodle

only can i

might i as try

bright blindingly

shines sun the and

blues the playing 
mariachis the

noodling am i

dream sometimes i where

trail Tucson Old the along

littles the with noodle we while

rocket in a snuggle and a

waggle of full pocket a with

way the along all dabbling

doodle long a while

noodle you do where

Opinion Poll

Why do we modify opinion with "my", when our opinions are never our own?

Because isn't every opinion formed by things that don't really belong to us: language, culture, class, governance, genes, wealth, poverty, family, health, allegiances, prejudices?

And isn't it true that opinions can change with a song, a commercial, a kind word, a strong conviction, a strange smell?

Don't our opinions of others speak louder about ourselves than of those we speak about?

do you doodle?

doodle: to draw something without thinking about what you are drawing

do you doodle with a brush or a pencil?

a noodle or a strudel?

do you dream of your doodles on the walls of the Pompidou?

or imagine a passerby noticing your doodle and exclaiming,

"that's the most fantastic doodle I have ever seen!"

is a doodle a dabble or a dabble a doodle?

is there such a thing as a doodle that's a drawing?

a noodle that's a novel?

a dabble that's a song?

do you doodle in the dictionary, the phone book, the funnies?

or do you doodle on the table top with ball point pen and honey?

do you doodle while talking, while walking, while sexting?

do you doodle while out on a noodle?