Dear Reader: It’s been one 90 degree day, one fabulous First Friday Art exhibit, one front lawn mowed (already) and gas over three and a half bucks since my last confession.
The weather has been typical Missouri. Cold one day and hot the next and you guessed it, cold again. Mark Twain used to say if you don’t like the weather in Missouri then stick around, it will change. I confess I like the concept of changing of seasons but I really like weather that is between upper sixties to mid-seventies. This schizophrenic a/c one day and heat the next is not my favorite thing.
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I confess that I was surprised how many of my friends came out to see the Jennifer Rivera Synesthesia Exhibition at the Apex Art Space on Friday. I confess that I was completely overwhelmed that my son purchased one of the two paintings that Jennifer did in response to poetry I had written. I really enjoyed seeing the art work and could easily become a First Friday Addict.
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My Giants have dropped three games of a four game series to the Dodgers – winning only one game – 10 to 0 and I confess that I am disappointed but not freaking out. The beauty of baseball is that it’s a long season and you can’t let successes get you too high or losses too low. A new series starts tonight!
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My fantasy baseball team is at that stage that I am obsessing about it. I readily confess that I am aware of this – and it usually starts out that way until things shake out a bit and then I can just let it ride and do my best to manage it well.
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It seems like I had something else on my mind earlier for I confess it has escaped me for the time being so I guess this confession has sputtered to its conclusion. Till next week, be safe – be happy!
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Sunday, April 03, 2011
Picture Perfect Night
When I left work on Friday I was greeted by a picture perfect spring afternoon. The clouds were large and surreal in the blight blue sky - against the backdrop of the the downtown skyline they looked as though they were from a Norman Rockwell painting.
I met up with other family members and headed to the Crossroads Arts District for First Friday. For those outside the metropolitan area, in Kansas City on First Friday people sort of caravan through the various different gallery showings throughout the area.
While I would love to have spent the night checking out other places as well, I was glued to the Apex Art Space where abstract artist Jennifer Rivera had 37 pieces of art that were created in response to various poems chosen by her to work with. Two poems I had written were among those that were used to prompt her work.
The crowd was especially pulled into to Jennifer's work. At almost any moment and any direction you could find multiple groupings of onlookers engaged in conversation over the canvasses and poems before them. Jennifer reports that over 1200 people came through the Gallery and I have no doubt. The stream of traffic was constant.
I'm very indebted to the many of my own friends and family who came to see the work and spending time chatting with each was important to me. I do plan to make a more leisurely look at the exhibit soon as I want to give each the same kind of attention I would normally afford a new poem I am reading.
The two that were connected to my own poems both indulged my mind in ways that was particularly drawn to. The smaller of the two was titled titled Anchored and the texture and tone created a very earthy atmosphere that was easy to get lost in. A central portion of the picture almost had a hologram feel to it. In the larger painting I was drawn to the feeling of dissonance that seemed to emulate from it. I like this because in spite of a very peaceful aspect of the poem, there really is an unresolved aspect of it and I feel this captured within this painting.
There were many pictures I really loved from their visual appeal but like I said, I really want to walk through and take in each one with the poems as well.
To the left - Dangling which was painted in response to my poem Dangling Thoughts.
Below - Anchored - in response to my poem titled Dream - Part Two. Jennifer and I below right.
I hope to get some better shots to post, but these are what I have for now.
Oh, and least I forget - great music by Karim Memi & Beau Bledsoe!
I met up with other family members and headed to the Crossroads Arts District for First Friday. For those outside the metropolitan area, in Kansas City on First Friday people sort of caravan through the various different gallery showings throughout the area.
While I would love to have spent the night checking out other places as well, I was glued to the Apex Art Space where abstract artist Jennifer Rivera had 37 pieces of art that were created in response to various poems chosen by her to work with. Two poems I had written were among those that were used to prompt her work.
The crowd was especially pulled into to Jennifer's work. At almost any moment and any direction you could find multiple groupings of onlookers engaged in conversation over the canvasses and poems before them. Jennifer reports that over 1200 people came through the Gallery and I have no doubt. The stream of traffic was constant.
I'm very indebted to the many of my own friends and family who came to see the work and spending time chatting with each was important to me. I do plan to make a more leisurely look at the exhibit soon as I want to give each the same kind of attention I would normally afford a new poem I am reading.
The two that were connected to my own poems both indulged my mind in ways that was particularly drawn to. The smaller of the two was titled titled Anchored and the texture and tone created a very earthy atmosphere that was easy to get lost in. A central portion of the picture almost had a hologram feel to it. In the larger painting I was drawn to the feeling of dissonance that seemed to emulate from it. I like this because in spite of a very peaceful aspect of the poem, there really is an unresolved aspect of it and I feel this captured within this painting.
There were many pictures I really loved from their visual appeal but like I said, I really want to walk through and take in each one with the poems as well.
To the left - Dangling which was painted in response to my poem Dangling Thoughts.
Below - Anchored - in response to my poem titled Dream - Part Two. Jennifer and I below right.
I hope to get some better shots to post, but these are what I have for now.
Oh, and least I forget - great music by Karim Memi & Beau Bledsoe!
Friday, April 01, 2011
Synesthesia - Poetry and Painting Exhibit Tonight
Abstract artist JENNIFER RIVERA will be showing work starting at tonight's opening at the Apex Art Space 1819 Wyandotte - Kansas City, Missouri. The exhibition will feature poetry inspired painting - some 30 works will be on display along with the poetry.
An artist reception from 6-9 pm and you are welcome to view the works and enjoy the music of Karim Memi & Beau Bledsoe from 6:30-8:30.
Two of my own poetry works will be among the selected works that Jennifer used to inspire her paintings.
Hope to see you there!
An artist reception from 6-9 pm and you are welcome to view the works and enjoy the music of Karim Memi & Beau Bledsoe from 6:30-8:30.
Two of my own poetry works will be among the selected works that Jennifer used to inspire her paintings.
Hope to see you there!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
A Tolstoy Moment
One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature
shall not be broken. ~ Leo Tolstoy
Sunday, March 27, 2011
On Spring
Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night. ~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke
Journal Bits 2-13-11 to 3-26-11
- Sunday 2-13-11: Reasing in Ariel's Gift
there were a couple of things [that] caught my attention. One is the difference between the ordering of the poems in the origional Plath manuscript and they way they first appeared in print. The Plath order of the poems begins with Morning Song and ends with Wintering. This makes the first and the last words of the manuscript love and spring. For all the edginess of Plath's more notorious poetry, this ordering of the manuscript has a positive upward movement that is not generally associated with these poems the way they were ordered in its first publication.
- Saturday 2-20-11: Yesterday I has a rejection letter Rattle.
- Wednesday 2-23-11: The envelope is closed / to outside influences / sealed like the tamper proofing / of nuclear material / in an unreliable foreign nation
- Monday 2-28-11: There across my lap covering / my left hand is an RPT25 / I've come to view it as and extension / of my soul. Feeling its leather / smelling the earthy sent / swell in my nostrils / invites memories of games played / of my son throwing heat... my daughter who was more apt to toss lazy flys for me / to camp under like falling starts.
- Monday 3-7-11: consider - metaphor is for things you can't say... are your images ornamental or do they have broader vision? "Poems are not read, they are reread." Terrance Hayes [source for all this was Terrance Hayes Master Class]
- Friday 3-11-11: His God had volume / his God embodied totality / fundamentally his God / was the word in all its plurality / all that is named and all / that remains to name / his God was living, growing / his God was language
- Sunday 3-20-11: "Each time of life has its own kind of love." ~ Leo Tolstoy
- Friday 3-25-11: "The world today doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?" Pablo Picasso
- Saturday 3-26-11: It's cold - I mean Burr Cold outside... I paid $3.44 for gas today - my God this is insane.
- Saturday 3-26-11: Darkness follows / the headlights eat / white hash marks....
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