an earful, Monotype of the Day #793

Day 61 of year 3

This is a black ink print over an older color print. It's challenging to get the right color on darker prints when editing photo but this is pretty close. I like the mystery of it. It very much captures how I'm feeling right now. There are certain poems that call you back over and over. Tonight's poem by Lynn Ungar is one. If you haven't read her work, a link to her book is at the bottom and she publishes new poems on Facebook regularly.

Salvation
By Lynn Ungar

By what are you saved? And how?
Saved like a bit of string,
tucked away in a drawer?
Saved like a child rushed from
a burning building, already
singed and coughing smoke?
Or are you salvaged
like a car part — the one good door
when the rest is wrecked?

Do you believe me when I say
you are neither salvaged nor saved,
but salved, anointed by gentle hands
where you are most tender?
Haven’t you seen
the way snow curls down
like a fresh sheet, how it
covers everything,
makes everything
beautiful, without exception?

From Bread and Other Miracles https://amzn.to/3bUHvYA

For more information on purchasing this monotype click here or see “Buy Art” in the menu above.

inner world, Monotype of the Day #624

Day 254 of Year 2 (Actually Day 259)

Success! I've gotten back to making my print in the morning, though I'm still posting at night. This will enable me to go to sleep before 3am! What a transformative joy that will be. For those of us at home, this pause can be an opportunity as well as a trial. I am using it to create new healthier habits. That is my intention. Luckily I love the morning anyway. Morning energy is different and my work is changed by it. Somehow early in the day the inner world seems so clear. I am always struck, and particularly so this morning, by how large and spacious this inner world can be. My love and prayers to all those who are sick or suffering. xo

Camas Lilies
By Lynn Ungar

Consider the lilies of the field,
the blue banks of camas
opening into acres of sky along the road.
Would the longing to lie down
and be washed by that beauty
abate if you knew their usefulness,
how the natives ground their bulbs
for flour, how the settlers' hogs
uprooted them, grunting in gleeful
oblivion as the flowers fell?

And you -- what of your rushed
and useful life? Imagine setting it all down --
papers, plans, appointments, everything --
leaving only a note: "Gone
to the fields to be lovely. Be back
when I'm through with blooming." Even now, unneeded and uneaten,
the camas lilies gaze out above the grass
from their tender blue eyes.
Even in sleep your life will shine.
Make no mistake. Of course
your work will always matter.

Yet Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.

From Bread and Other Miracles https://amzn.to/3anSRT6 Ungar has been turning out a lot of new work recently. I encourage to get this amazing book of her poems and find her newer work on her facebook page. She is SO good and her work resonates deeply with this time we are in.

today in keyholes, Monotype of the Day #608

Day 238 of Year 2 (Actually Day 243)

Poet Lynn Ungar posted a beautiful, comforting poem today on Facebook. Many people are scared and disturbed by the corona virus and all the cancellations and potential sickness. There is so much uncertainty and things feel out of control. I am in the high risk category, but I'm trying not to worry too much, just a little 🙂. Over all my years of dealing with illness, I've learned you can't let a possible future steal your present moment. We can’t control what events happen to us, but we can control how we chose to meet them. Ungar’s poem helped me today. I hope you find comfort in it too.

Pandemic
By Lynn Ungar

What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.

And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love--
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live. --Lynn Ungar 3/11/20

This was published on Facebook, but checkout Ungar's book Bread and Other Miracles https://amzn.to/2IDCGov

safe from the storm, Monotype of the Day #580

Day 210 of Year 2 (Actually Day 215)

It's been an intense and wonderful month with all of the activity around my show. I find it helpful to pause every once in a while to integrate, to take a breath and let it all in. So today I paused and read poet Lynn Ungar. So many beautiful poems in her book Bread and Other Miracles it was hard to choose one for tonight! See my choice below the title.
My show is up for a few more weeks. There is a closing party on 2/29 and I hope you can make it! xo

Boundaries
By Lynn Ungar
From Bread and Other Miracles https://amzn.to/2tYx0Ss
The universe does not
revolve around you.
The stars and planets spinning
through the ballroom of space
dance with one another
quite outside of your small life.
You cannot hold gravity
or seasons; even air and water
inevitably evade your grasp.
Why not, then, let go?

You could move through time
like a shark through water,
neither restless nor ceasing,
absorbed in and absorbing
the native element.
Why pretend you can do otherwise?
The world comes in at every pore,
mixes in your blood before
breath releases you into
the world again. Did you think
the fragile boundary of your skin
could build a wall?

Listen. Every molecule is humming
its particular pitch.
Of course you are a symphony.
Whose tune do you think
the planets are singing
as they dance?

salvation, Monotype of the Day #464

Day 98 of Year 2 (Actually Day 99)

I love this poem by Lynn Ungar so much. I marked it months ago and set it aside. Tonight after making my print, I went to the bookshelf and was magnetically drawn to this book (Bread and Other Miracles) and the page of this poem. I've learned to trust these feelings over my thoughts, they are akin to the directions I get in the studio. I am so grateful for poets and their inspiring work.

Salvation
By Lynn Ungar

By what are you saved? And how?
Saved like a bit of string,
tucked away in a drawer?
Saved like a child rushed from
a burning building, already
singed and coughing smoke?
Or are you salvaged
like a car part — the one good door
when the rest is wrecked?
Do you believe me when I say
you are neither salvaged nor saved,
but salved, anointed by gentle hands
where you are most tender?
Haven’t you seen
the way snow curls down
like a fresh sheet, how it
covers everything,
makes everything
beautiful, without exception?

From Bread and Other Miracles: https://amzn.to/2VXBUsd

the experiment, Monotype of the Day #390

Day 25 of Year 2

Today I had another really lovely studio visit. It's always such a pleasure to have people over and get to know them better. During the visit we looked through some monotypes from a particularly difficult time with my health. It was wonderful to see how far I've come and I'm grateful I have moved past that time. But seeing those images again felt like a weight. It's not good to carry that energy around, so I decided to let loose in the studio and play to dispel it. I started experimenting with overlaying images last night and pushed it a little farther tonight. There is a certain excitement that comes when you have absolutely no idea how something will come out and no expectation of creating a "finished" piece. It's strange that something so benign can feel so risky, but it does. Really all of life can be found in the studio, love, grief, joy, pain, adventure, risk, courage, it's all there for the taking.

Hawks
By Lynn Ungar

Surely, you too have longed for this --
to pour yourself out
on the rising circles of the air
to ride, unthinking,
on the flesh of emptiness.

Can you claim, in your civilized life,
that you have never leaned toward
the headlong dive, the snap of bones,
the chance to be so terrible,
so free from evil, beyond choice?

The air that they are riding
is the same breath as your own.
How could you not remember?
That same swift stillness binds
your cells in balance, rushes
through the pulsing circles of your blood.

Each breath proclaims it --
the flash of feathers, the chance to rest
on such a muscled quietness,
to be in that fierce presence,
wholly wind, wholly wild.