Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Debby Downer Does Haiku


I worked on this photo for hours last night. A great shot I got walking Jasper around the neighborhood yesterday morning... there it was, the lone bloom on its bush, and I shot it just seconds before the rain came and I had to pull the camera under my sweatshirt to keep it from getting wet.

Hmm... side thought:  Interesting wordage... the verb, to shoot... you can shoot a deer or a bird or a person and end its life, yet shooting something with a camera preserves it forever.

I must have been feeling pretty good last night, not like this morning, with the sick knot in my belly, the free-floating anxiety, the sour, dour, the who do you think you are you're no artist look at the art all these other people create that you try and fail to emulate why do you even bother you'll never be them you'll never be an artist blah blah blah running laps in my brain. I wonder as I write how it is that my own mind, housed inside my own body, fed as it is by my own heart, can unleash itself so unmercifully onto its own being?  How is it I can go to bed thinking I'd created something pretty cool, then wake up this morning, take one look at it, and decide it's a piece of shit? Or that I wake up to the sun shining for the first day in many, and feel worse than I've felt in weeks?

I'm thinking none of it makes sense. I mean none of it. Ever. I'm thinking it's all random, happenstance, meaningless. I'm thinking there's no rhyme, no reason. Oh! and speaking of rhyme, I've been thinking about trying some haiku. Wouldn't haiku be great set to some images? And perfect for this particular double Gemini with greater than usual concentration issues... all those words to play with, but short, sweet, over quickly, then on to the next. Hmm... (and by the way, I know pretty much nothing about Haiku except that it's three lines, 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables, PLUS I don't know if I even remember how to count syllables)...

... but let's see:

senseless random world
we wander we float we cry
each moment born new

Or

double gemini
explodes with heartache and grief
plays with words and sounds

Or

energy shifting
magical words fill the air
peace for weary souls

Though I just read that traditional Haiku is supposed to be about nature (plus, non-rhyming, so never mind "speaking of rhyming..."). Okay, I can do that...  Here's a snapshot I took the other day up in my old neighborhood in Sonora. Dogwood, probably my favorite spring tree, all the more because we so rarely see them here in the bay area. This one a small tree, just beginning to bloom the prettiest, most exquisite shade of yellow. Then in post processing, doing what I think I'm going to end up loving most, transforming it with a nice "painterly" effect. (And funny, I still like this one this morning... )

Okay, here goes~



Innocent blossom
greets the tender sun-filled day
selflessly giving


Aloha nui,
Debby

Monday, April 18, 2011

Words and Images


I've sat and tried to write many times since celebrating One Hundred and the only result has been a blank page. And a lot of discouragement. Though on the other hand, some days, I am sitting for hours working on my photos. I mean hours, absorbed, lost, in the best way possible. More lately, I'm noticing that the words that aren't appearing in Microsoft Word are instead showing up in my art. Since I'm a firm believer that we can trust not only wherever we are, but whatever springs from within (decisions, movement, creative output), I'm going to stop resisting (at least for a bit) and go with what is. In that spirit, here are some of the images and words that have shown up in the past couple of weeks. And just like with writing, or with collage or any other creative process, none of it is an accident, it all reflects in one way or another the inner landscape. So, here are bits and pieces of this particular interior. I want to say that I'll be back to writing... indeed, I hope to be back to writing, but we never actually really know, do we? I certainly didn't know that flying off on my own would lead to such darkness... or that in the midst of said darkness the occasional blinding brightness would appear, often to disappear just as quickly; or that the sweet stuff of romanticism, of wanting and desire, would surprise me by its sudden appearance, that tenderness and the hunger for serious self love would float up and fix itself so firmly on my horizon...

We just never know... and all we can ever do is honor, tolerate, laugh through, accept, rail against, breath with, relax into, cry about, be with, go for each and every moment as it comes along...

and p.s., if the impulse is there, you can click on the photos to make them larger.







All the best,
Debby