Question

How will it be

to lie in the sky

without roof or door

and wind for an eye

With cloud for shift

how will I hide?

from Question by May Swenson

I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Pablo Neruda - Love Sonnet XVII

"Memory is both a truth serum and embalming medium"
from NY Times Keith Edmier Art Review - Personal History, Captured in Plastic by Holland Carter

William Butler Yeats

"lins" . . . a commenter on Gronks myspace page posted a Spanish translation of the poem "Cloths of Heaven" by Yeats...I was curious about the original English wording, so a tracked down the original and along the way had the chance to look at some literary criticism on Yeats love poems. The criticism suggests that for Yeats "love is both the subject and stuff of the poems, the genre closest to the psychological base of the poetic process... a poet cannot possibly achieve both forms of "love": possession of the woman and of the poem are mutually exclusive, if the poet must lose the beloved to gain the desire that sustains his poetry. The implication is that the object of affection must be absent, incapable of reciprocating or receiving his desire, so that he may work up the poetry's desire in language."

"A Little Space": The Psychic Economy of Yeasts' Love Poems
Journal article by Jahan Ramazani; Criticism, Vol. 35, 1993

I cannot attribute the Spanish translation, but here it is as posted:

Si tuviese yo las telas bordadas del cielo,
Recamadas con luz dorada y plateada,
Las telas azules y las tenues y las oscuras
De la noche y la luz y la media luz,
Extendería las telas bajo tus pies:
Pero, siendo pobre, sólo tengo mis sueños;
He extendido mis sueños bajo tus pies;
Pisa suavemente, pues pisas mis sueños.

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

back to collage

Spring In Doors

NIGHT THOUGHTS

"I have reflected many times upon our rigid search. It has shown me that everything is illuminated in the light of the past. It is always along the side of us, on the inside, looking out. Like you say, inside out. ... in this way, I will always be along the side of your life. And you will always be along the side of mine." from the film Everything Is Illuminated, 2005 directed by Liev Schreiber

"What's done can't be undone"

William Shakespeare

"Entre lo que veo y digo,
Entre lo que digo y callo,
Entre lo que callo y sueño,
Entre lo que sueño y olvido"

Octavio Paz

"Absence cools moderate passions, and inflames violent ones; just as the wind blows out candles, but kindles fires."

François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)

"It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love. . . his most sympathetic opponent in chess, had escaped the torments of memory with the aromatic fumes of gold cyanide."

Love in the Time of Cholera ~
Gabriel Garica Marquez

I have always been fascinated with dictionary pictures . . . the hard dark lines that image language. I am especially fond of the accompanying notations that flit about the drawing; (a) e. See. . . References to parts of a whole (1 - 7 with a legend below). Black and White/Stark and Bold; clear delineation. But there is also the vivid flush and hue; cream atop the milk; blush on the cheek.

el ángel caído - Sueño de una tarde dominical en la Alameda Central

Sueño de una tarde dominical en la Alameda Central or A Dream of a Sunday afternoon in Alameda Park...is a wonderful video created by members of el ángel caído collective. The piece combines images from Diego Rivera's mural, Sueño de una tarde . . . . with the Amparo Ochoa's song "La maldición de Malinche" or Curse of Malinche.

The hotel where the mural was house was damaged during the earthquakes that struck Mexico City 15 months ago, killing thousands of people and destroying hundreds of buildings. The hotel came close to collapsing and has been closed ever since, but the mural survived with only a few tiny cracks. Mural Moved 100 Yards. Efforts are currently underway to move the mural.

"Adoration is a form of face to face. When the compulsion to adoration grows less, or merely changes, unless the change is complete, the face changes and, in the case of a face at which one has looked for a long time, changes that are slight may appear to the observer to be melodramatic. We struggle with the face, see it everywhere & try to express the changes. In the depths of concentration the whole thing disappears. '' Wallace Stevens

The end suddenly arrived; unnoticed and unsolicited. It brought with it the usual mourning of what was...or wasn't. By coincidence, a friend sent the above lines from Stevens that provided no solace, but some understanding.

My work leans towards the autobiographical. My camera provides the raw material which I process with drawing, paint, and collage. I love collage because it allows randomness. I begin with an image or object and react to it with paint, pencil, or glue. I pause, rework, cut, glue again, more paint, re-photograph, re-collage, scan and rework. I peel and sandwich. The image lies on top of its arrangement, not behind in its conception.

Luis Buñuel in his autobiography, My Last Sigh, recalls a visit with his aged mother who no longer recognizes him. He ruminates about memory “…You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all, just as intelligence without the possibility of expression is not really intelligence. Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling even our action. Without it we are nothing.”