Monday, February 29, 2016

Vernon Mooers writes


In The Cherry Trees        
                         (for Kyung Nam)

She was a natural model
    in the cherry blossoms
the blooming time of trees
April in the park
she, young and beautiful
and life couldn't be any better
      this day
      embedded in my mind
      like photographs
      the captured moments
      of pure happiness
          frozen moments of universe
and she danced
          in the colors
          the purple azalea
          peach and magnolia
this day to remember 
 Cherry blossom path by ilolamai

Cherry Blossom Path -- ilolamai

               

Timothy Spearman presents

Osiris Phallus

http://www94.zippyshare.com/v/yF50Yiy4/file.html

Arlene Corwin writes



Little Poem 
 
The light, the light, 
The Swedish light! 
It’s on till qvart i tolv tonight. 
June sixteen, year ‘ninety-one: 
I must congratulate the sun.
 
 White Night -- Edvard Munch
 

Sunday, February 28, 2016

William H. Drummond writes

The Enlightenment

The Buddhist monk
Was in a funk
With tofu in his gut

Fermenting mass
It turned to gas
And burst out of his butt

The novice choked
The teacher croaked
The nuns were all quite sick

"But that's quite mild"
Said Monk and smiled
"And wasn't even thick"

"Give me a flame
I'll play a game
With tofu gas, you'll see"

"Turn out the light
You'll see a sight
Enlightened I will be"

Saturday, February 27, 2016

A. V. Koshy writes



Brimful of Karuna

You know how long
but not how much I had to
chip away
at marble, your heart

(long walks
bare-headed
braving the sun
hunger & thirst
the desert, raging -
the fevers, getting better
braving...
ignorance, apathy, your cruelty
..lack)

before I carved out this empty goblet
ready, to be filled
brimful, o'erflowing
with
the reddest, sparkling, clear wine

of love

Sculptor, bhikshu
mendicant of pure intentions
master

at the
art of seduction
poet, musician, painter
the greatest & last:
all things I became
just to live, be, the part -

Giver of asha & daya
divine
kama
 & prem
to you; I changed into
the Receptacle

of Bliss
karuna = compassion
asha = hope
daya = kindness, mercy
kama = lust

prem = love
bhikshu = alms seeker, beggar
 The Angel of Death and the Sculptor from the Milmore Memorial -- Daniel Chester French



Abel Iseyen Ancientman writes



WE WERE BORN SAINTS

From our mothers' wombs, we came forth,
Immaculate and impeccable like august shrubs on a 
spacious field.
We were pure, infallible, with genuine smiles
That knew neither friends nor foes

Brothers, we were born saints

We were stainless doves,
The condign replica of the concierge's image -
Amicable, amiable, like summer roses.
We were angels, free from animosity and acerbity
We were the morning ray
The true habiliments of exquisite love.

Sisters, we were born saints.

We were meek, not hamate;
The exemplary simulacrum of perfect beings.
We were the southern wind.
The sacred book of holiness.
We were not vitiated, never, nor sanguinary vampires.
We, like panacea, were the pills of comfort.

Comrades, we were born saints.

Then the earth wooed our consciences and
Raped our innocence with disingenuous philosophies;
He stained our encephalons with rapacious thoughts.
Then we became sanguinary vampires, thieves,
Liars, outlaws, terrorists with temeranous personalities.

This is no longer us!

But comrades, know this for sure, that
From the onset, when we came forth from our mothers' wombs,
We were born saints.

 Triumph of the Innocents -- William Holman Hunt

Paulette Spescha-Montibert writes

Summer


In the orchard
trees and shadow
all day play
leap-frog
            leap-frog
                          leap-frog
come the night
and side by side
they rest
watching the moon
calling the stars

sometimes one comes down
and together
until dawn
they listen to the cricket

and to the frog

 original landscape abstract contemporary painting art acrylic wood valley fall sky blue green tree
Hockley Valley -- Mandy Budan

Friday, February 26, 2016

Mark Antony Rossi writes



Big City Faith

 

if the fruits of our labour 
are retained in our seeds

why are the children 
the first to bleed

hear our plea 
heavenly Lord

plastic saints 
we cannot afford.

 Image result for plastic saint images

Mary

Mary lad a little lamb.
It gave her indigestion.
And everywhere that Mary went
she had to use the restroom.

--Duane Vorhees

Adesola Oladoja writes



Wilderness
   
She knows no fertility
Left in futility
Empty
 
Barreness caresses it
Licks its rusty face
Unkempt
Unmanaged
 
Its path as laid
One to tread
The barracks of conquerors
The test of the best
The victory victors must view
To arrive and thrive
 
The way for the wise
Left for those that will rise
 
The paradox all runs from
Only few can view its future glee
Only those with insights
Will face the frights
 
The home of frontliners
 
 Rust Face 3 -- Hey-Em

Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox responds



KBF:  I grew up on my parent's grain farm on the flat treeless Pirrinuan Plain, outside Dalby on the fertile Darling Downs, Queensland, Australia. The distance of my childhood landscape has influenced my work as an artist. Night skies, endless horizons, relentless mirages and more have, I am sure, helped stimulate my interest in the spatial and temporal distances of the Universe. My interests in cosmology, technology and science stem from parental and environmental influences. My father, whilst a farmer, is also a keen HAM radio enthusiast. Thus, I grew up surrounded by technology eg: we always had communication devices in our vehicles, we learnt about world news before others due to the HAM international network and more. My mother who has tertiary degrees B.A., B.Ed St., and a Masters [research] all from the Univeristy of Queensland, provided inspiration to extend interests, particularly cultural ones. She writes and paints also. I attended schools in Dalby. I also attended boarding school in Toowoomba where I held leadership positions, debated and studied hard. After school, I competed a B.A [double major Art History] at the University of Queensland. Upon graduation I successfully applied for a curatorial assistant position at the National Gallery, in Canberra. After marrying quite young I lived in Goondiwindi, on the border of Queensland and New South Wales, where my husband practiced law in his own firm. I lived in Goondiwindi  for 18 years before moving to Brisbane with my children. In Goondiwindi I was active in a variety of community activities from cultural, sporting and educational. As a farmer's daughter I was also keenly interested in rural business and the impacts of various government policies on farm success. The complexity of rural life and business is real. I am interested in issues dealing with water, soil sustainability, mining and sustainable farm practices. These issues also enter and influence my work as an artist. Since moving to Brisbane I have continued with my visual art practice, exhibiting in Australia and overseas, mainly the UAE, but also London and Korea.


DV: When did you know that you were going to be an artist? Did you ever have any other ambitions?


KBF: I always had an impression of myself as an artist. My mother encouraged all kinds of cultural and artistic pursuits, so I grew up in an environment that was very supportive. I remember painting as a small child and people responding with enthusiasm to my work. This meant I had a positive view of myself as an artist, unlike a lot of people who remember people saying negative things to them. Those early encounters with positive people are really important for a child’s burgeoning self concept and esteem. I received lots of art awards from when I was very young to my late teens, so that helped keep the positivity alive. After secondary school I completed a B.A majoring in Art History at the University of Queensland. My dream was to be the director of a major institutional art gallery. This possibly could have happened, as straight out of university I got a job at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. However, I moved to Goondiwindi with my then-husband. Whilst there were no opportunities for major gallery work in Goondiwindi, it did see me focus on my painting. I had held my first exhibition at age 17, but my second one was at age 29. If I had stayed in the gallery system I may not have been able to sustain a studio practice as well. In Goondiwindi I had a couple of studios over many years. One was an old church and the other an old shearers’ quarters, both moved into the gardens I had at the time. I exhibited in Brisbane, but it was a huge effort – almost like exhibiting in another country, which I did a few times, once I had moved to Brisbane in 2000. I have exhibited in London, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Seoul. My previous curatorial work has come in very handy with regards to organising and managing my own exhibitions. I love painting and have a studio [aka my garage] which is set up so that I can start work at any time. I also blog www.kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com and have been posting once a week for nine years. I see my blog as an intrinsic part of my art practice. In late 2014 the Queensland State Library, out of the blue, nominated my blog to be archived in perpetuity on PANDORA, Australia’s national archive for online sites of significance and ongoing research value. Needless to say I was delighted!

DV: For those of us who are uninitiated to the workings of the art world, what are the differences between gallery and studio practice that would have made it difficult for you to do both?

KBF: An institutional gallery is a place for the exhibition of artwork, with accompanying educational, public and academic programmes. It’s often government funded or funded by some kind of benefactor. There’s normally a Board of Directors or a Trustee Committee, with a range of professional and support staff. It is not a place for artists to work, except possibly if they have been invited to participate in a children’s program or another kind of educational one. So, when I worked at an institutional gallery, like any full time job, there were difficulties in finding the time to concentrate on my painting. A studio practice is where the artist has a designated place to work, where paints and other materials can be normally kept without having to be put away. If materials can be left out, an artist can return to the studio, after being out or away, without needing to set up again.

DV: From your paintings I am familiar with, you seem to favor geometric abstraction. (I don't mean in the Kandinsky mode, but that they are not photographic representations of reality,  they are often but not always isometric designs). What is it that attracts you artistically to that style? Do you dabble in other styles as well?

KBF: I am not sure what style you would ascribe to my paintings. Sometimes my paintings are very detailed and then at other times they are not. I think expressionism is one term you could use though. I am drawn to working in a style that is not illustrative, graphic, super-realist, or representativo in a traditional sense. I try to provide the viewer with launch pads for their own imaginations.

DV: How do you get on with it? Do you have some sort of image in your mind ahead of time that you work from or is it more spontaneous than that? Do you go through a long preparatory process, with sketches and so forth?

KBF: When I am painting every day or nearly every day, the ideas flow – they flow from one painting to the next. Often I get many ideas as I work on a painting. When I have not painted for awhile, I need time to get back into a flow. So, this normally means many more torn up or scrubbed out paintings than normal. Yes, normally there is some tearing up or wiping out. I’ve learnt to see these, not as failures, but as opportunities. Sometimes, the accident can work beautifully. Sometimes, there’s a recognition that I am over-working the image. I get most of my ideas from thinking about things like symbols, landscape, the cosmos, existential risk, cosmology. When I go to a talk or lecture, or read a book or an article, I ‘see’ images in my head. They are not illustrations, but amalgams of various inspirations. As far as preparation goes, I’d say that the ongoing practice is always a constant ‘preparation’. Sometimes a painting can take a long time and sometimes a short time. But, in each case they cannot be separated from the hours, days, weeks and years an artist devotes to their practice.

DV: I know some poets who claim that they work spontaneously, without revision. I've had a handful of poems that came into existence that way, or with rather minor adjustment, but in general that hasn't been my experience. Usually, the vision emerges from the revision.  I'm intrigued by your phrase, "amalgams of inspirations." I wonder if you could tell us what you mean by that, in some depth?
 
KBF: When I wrote " amalgams of inspirations" I was thinking about how I combine ideas. I ‘see’ links between things, often many more than two things too. Sometimes, I represent these ideas symbolically and sometimes not. Each painting is both a revision and a vision in a sense, because each one builds on another. This building does not have to be from the most immediately recent work either. As ideas come, they may link with paintings that maybe years old. When I start a painting, working my background up, I am constantly re-working, wiping, manipulating.

DV: What projects are you interested in pursuing these days?
KBF: Currently I am really interested in working around ideas that come from my research at the University of Queensland. I am doing a research M. Phil degree. The degree does not include my own work, but as I read and think about my thesis topic, ideas are sparked for my own paintings. However, these ideas stem from interests that lead me to the university research in the first place. These interests were already stimulants for my paintings. They include cosmology, space, age-old symbols, untethering landscape from Earth-bound horizons, exodus to exo-planets, existential risk. My thesis topic revolves around a contrary and novel intersection I am proposing  between existential risk posed by emerging technologies research and the hands-on painting practices of two Australian artists. One of the emerging technologies that existential risk researchers are concerned about is artificial intelligence. Research aims are to ensure its development is for the benefit of humanity. However, it does spark ideas about transhumanism and posthumanism, which may occur from necessity, desire, insidiousness or even accident. I have started using some binary code in my work, to ‘play’ with it. I have a perverse joy in painting it and visually deploying it with other things I see as ‘codes’ too...like the age-old transcultural/religious tree-of-life. By the time I have finished my M. Phil I will have a good body of work that reflects upon my research. At the moment I am sticking to works on paper, as the first six months of study has been hectic.

DV: Thank you for your time. I know you have been particularly busy over these past few months. From our conversation I have learned a lot about the visual-art process, and I'm sure our readers have as well. I certainly hope you will share many more of your works with us.



Heather Jephcott writes



Raw Silence

Silence waited 
brooding along the path
all the way ruminating, 
the future, a shadowy way

Silence was the interval 
the downtime  
where waiting happened
full of grey indistinct thought

Silence sang with soft grief 
wondering despondently 
the hidden unknown 
quietly creaking 
 
Silence spoke with eyes
red, raw, downcast 
the gloom of noiselessness
hushed, mute and dumb

Silence was dead-air 
a vacuum fully reserved 
uncommunicative 
sitting, going no where 
 

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Ajarn Wu Hsih writes



"Veiled Being"

Not a settler but a cosmic stream I am,

A process in progress of feeling the ideal love.
I come and I go from sight to site
In search of You, Maharliiná,
To taste the surge of honeyed passion
In the banks of temporal cyclic flow
And to sniff the flowers of life
That decorate Y....our Being
Veiled with beauteous adjectives.


Christine Russell writes

I know exactly who I am
 I am the mother of the earth 
Who was once a lost little lamb 
Following sheep in order to survive 
I knew I had a greater purpose in life 
I have found my faith once again 
In Our Lord Saviour Jesus Christ 
He has always walked with us 
Right here beside us 
He has heard our prayers for change 
Through the long hours of the night 
He has seen our tears shed 
He has seen all our sins 
He said he would rise again 
He is now a she 
Now our world can rebuild 
I am the mother of the earth 
Chosen to be from birth 
Now the healing for all 
Can begin.

  
Venus von Willendorf,  24,000–22,000 BCE

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Alicja Kuberska writes



Fate of the Artist

Art requires patience.
Hordes of artists stand in the waiting room for fame.
Everyone believes that Fortuna will open her horn of plenty
and muses will adorn his temple with a laurel wreath.

Volumes with the words plaited in garlands,
pictures full of unexpected colors and composition,
silent notes on the  staves
are waiting for years.

At times
with much fanfare the name of a lucky winner is announced.
It happens he does not come for the trophy won.
Everyone around whispers –“ It is a pity he is not alive”.
 File:Tadeusz Kuntze 001.jpg
Fortuna -- Tadeusz Kuntze

Jennifer Sage writes

Let it Burn

And so it’s dropped, the proverbial shoe...
And I wish that I could say it hurt more, that it shattered me more....
Because I know that would feed your need to be so vindictively adored,
But, you cannot pretend with shallow words to love a being such as I, and for me in response to your degradation, to comply.


No, it sits as something that dreams are made of,
Silver wisps and candlesticks and far reaching shadowed hands on turbulent rising flesh,
It could not be love, so it is this,
A dream escaping parted, quivering lips.... And then easily, gone.


And then, as dusk falls on lust filled lies, new dreams arise...
More beautiful, in reality, than a dream ever could be ....
It is silken honey on the soul, warm and melted sweet...
Licked off by the deserving tongue of suitors yet to be seen, but oh, they do exist.


So many things unsaid, drift like silver, twinkling stars into the heavens....
Jilted words unheard, unspoken and unredeemed....
But it is just me, that doesn’t sleep.... the rustling feathers pricking at my skin,

Eyes closed, love goes....into a beauty, unrecognized.

Letters burn with purple flame, regained by the soul that poured so sweetly from the pen,
Up in smoke, sentiment goes, rising, utterly disturbed....unnoticed....
A being undeserving of the heartfelt, quivering words....
Could not recognize the actions for what they were. Pure. Beautiful. Love. Now gone.


Then, it awakens again....to the world....
And the world, will take it gladly...
Spin it new...
And consume it with a passion that you never knew.


Because I am me. And you, are you.
Only tragic, because you’re blind to gifts,
So lovely, so immense...
That even God sheds a tear for your loss.


But you...never will. True love, beneath you.

 Image result for burning love images

Allison Grayhurst writes


My hands,

your muscle-toned thighs
and the ways between us
that unlock the wonder of
the thin stones tucked under my pillow.
You are glorious like the sun and
a river that curls its breath with
primal speed. At peace with these
broken bones, and even with
things felt, but unimagined.
You are late October in my arms. Everything
is ours. I touch you and know the end, all means
of luscious renewal.

 Image result for hands images