agent of change, Monotype of the Day #705

Day 335 of Year 2 (Actually Day 340)

Touched by an Angel
By Maya Angelou

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight,
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

From Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou https://amzn.to/3ftENJW

through the window and morning warmth, Monotype of the Day #704

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Day 334 of Year 2 (Actually Dya 339)

Today I couldn't decide which one to post. Which do you prefer, the layered print or the ghost print? All of a sudden, I have a deep urge to take these prints bigger, I mean really big. I have plexiglass on my large table. I'm going start experimenting and see if it's possible to print from it. I normally use a gelli plate which is a bit soft and allows you to print without a press. I'll have to see if the hard plexi will work. But, in order to do this, I have to clean my studio. Ack!!! Since I haven't had a studio assistant to help in a few months and I'm not generally focused on tidying, the place is a bit out of control to say the least. It's definitely nice to feel things shifting inside once more, a new adventure is about to begin!

self portrait in quarantine, Monotype of the Day #701

Day 331 of Year 2 (Actually Day 336)

"There is a voice that does not use words. Listen!"
-Rumi

Making a self portrait is an important tool for staying centered and present. So many things come up each day to pull our attention away. Self portrait helps me be with what is rather than escaping into distraction. My studio practice is at its heart, an act of listening and I can't listen deeply if I am distracted. Deep listening is a powerfully transformative act.

through the keyhole, Monotype of the Day #700

Day 330 of Year 2 (Actually Day 335)

Day 700! This feels like an accomplishment and I want to take moment to acknowledge that. It's hard for many people, myself included, to take in accomplishments. We tend to focus on what we've done wrong rather than what we've done right. Taking a more balanced view is profoundly healing. This monotype of the day project has helped me tremendously with being more balanced. Putting something out everyday to be judged slowly washes away my attachment to my own judgements about my work. And, even more, the work has been transformative in ways I do not fully understand. I only know that I am not the same person who started this project 700 days ago and for that I am deeply grateful.

This work is paired with “Termites : An Assay” by Jane Hirshfield

from After Poems https://amzn.to/3hkPNet

windows, Monotype of the Day #697

Day 327 of Year 2 (Actually Day 332)

I haven't been spending as much time in my studio lately between the puppy and just trying to manage a lot of the things I usually have help with. Even though I'm in the studio everyday I still miss it. There are lots of ideas I'd like to explore. So, I'm just being patient and trusting that this limited working time is allowing more energy to cook below the surface. Already I feel the tendrils of new work pushing up through the soil, wanting to see the light.
windows
#monotypeoftheday
Year 2, Day 327
(Total project days 697)

will you unlock?, Monotype of the Day #695

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Day 325 of Year 2 (Actually Day 330)

Poem below the title. I posted this poem before but this image recalled it strongly for me. This print is about the internal work that is necessary to support change in the external world.

Say I Am You
by Rumi, Trans Moyne & Barks

I am dust particles in sunlight.
I am the round sun.

To the bits of dust I say, Stay.
To the sun, Keep moving.

I am morning mist, and the breathing of evening.

I am wind in the top of a grove, and surf on the cliff.

Mast, rudder, helmsman, and keel,
I am also the coral reef they founder on.

I am a tree with a trained parrot in its branches.
Silence, thought, and voice.

The musical air coming through a flute,
a spark of a stone, a flickering in metal.

Both candle and the moth crazy around it.

Rose, and the nightingale lost in the fragrance.

I am all orders of being, the circling galaxy,
the evolutionary intelligence, the lift,

and the falling away. What is, and what isn't.

You who know Jelaluddin, You the one in all,

say who I am. Say I am You.

From Say I am You https://amzn.to/2AaOA8D

emergence & emergence ghost, Monotype of the Day #694

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Day 324 of Year 2 (Actually Day 329)

I put a little too much ink on tonight. I has been raining a lot here and it is very humid. When that happens you definitely have to use less ink. Art materials are very effected by the weather and if you're not paying attention, it can cause a lot of trouble. I liked my first print tonight but everyone else here preferred the ghost. What do you think?

a light in the forest, Monotype of the Day #692

Day 322 of Year 2 (Actually Day 327)

I found it difficult to cooperate with my materials tonight, that happens sometimes and it's ok. I let it go, tomorrow is another day. We are in a period of great change so I've posted one of my favorite poems on the subject. This is a time of listening among other things. Listening is active, not passive and deep listening has the power to transform.

Want the change
By Rilke, Trans. Barrows and Macy

Want the change. Be inspired by the flame
where everything shines as it disappears.
The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much
as the curve of the body as it turns away.

What locks itself in sameness has congealed.
Is it safer to be gray and numb?
What turns hard becomes rigid
and is easily shattered.

Pour yourself out like a fountain.
Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking
finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.

Every happiness is the child of a separation
it did not think it could survive. And Daphne, becoming
a laurel,
dares you to become the wind.

From In Praise of Mortality https://amzn.to/3ctFu4c