raw

my son was accepted into the visual arts section of a county-wide art program this spring... last night was their gala... it struck me as he laughed and smiled that he had been riding the bus with, had become friends with kids from all of the different disciplines... he showed me his work, but then we sat in on the improv jazz band, theater, musical theater, dance segments of the night... 

this is one of his pieces - everyone had to adapt a picture into a mer-type person... alex had the only male figure... i told him i found his choice to be interesting - to which he replied 'everyone else used women'... i was happy he had thought outside of the box instead of doing what 'everyone else' was doing... 


as we sat in on the jazz band playing some myles davis, watching the passion in the teacher's face, i was struck visually by what i feel when i sit by myself and work... intensity of emotion... you could see in each discipline, which child and adult felt the work... 

'music is the shorthand of emotion.'

~ tolstoy

'movement never lies. it is a barometer telling the state

of the soul's weather to all who can read it.'

~ martha graham

'if you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy 

himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable.

(you must) reach the emotional and intellectual level

of ability where you can go out stark naked,

emotionally, in front of an audience.'

~ jack lemon

'poor faulkner.

does he really think big emotions come from big words?

he thinks i don't know the ten-dollar words.

i know them all right.

but there are older and simpler and better words,

and those are the ones i use.'

~ ernest hemingway

'the artist is a receptacle for the emotions that come 

from all over the place:

from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, 

from a passing shape from a spider's web.'

~ pablo picasso

did i hit them all? music, dance, theater, literature, visual art... i was overcome by the universality... i know this fact intellectually - maybe it was overwhelming to be surrounded by all of the disciplines at once... not maybe, it was... 

i have been feeling raw - pared down to the simplest of emotions - yet functioning with all of the mom hats... kind of contradictory - it is a bit like acting... maintaining the superficial day to dayness of things, yet feeling anything but... 

the woman who loves words for all of their powers... has been only able to identify with this:

'i found i could say things with colors and shapes 

that i couldn't say any other way -

things i had no words for.'

~ georgia o'keefe

 i would only add techniques and textures to her quote... when i do shibuichi, it is like pure emotion... it is not something i can explain... 'forest floor' earrings are meant to be evocative of  the mystery and wonder of all that life entails - growth and decay, joy and sorrow, how everything exists at once together... it is how we feel about it and process it... on the forest floor one finds bright green mosses and red berries mixed in with all that nature composts itself... 

life is like that too... 

tonight is the elementary school variety show... more performances to be savored...