Category Archives: Uncategorized

Helpful Friends

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Click on photos to enlarge.

Melody
Christine

On Monday, I took three friends visiting from La Manzanilla to see my show. After first viewing the pieces at length, Christine and Melody made good use of Eduardo’s dry paint brushes to carefully remove dust from crevices I’d missed. So touching, the care they exercised in restoring my art to its former pristine state.  I love these photos.

Pam expressed her appreciation for the show by buying one of the retablos. Since the gallery doesn’t take credit cards, Christine aided the process by loaning her the cash to buy it, as she can pay her back when they get back to La Manz. What a well-oiled machine. Mind you they asked if they could do this! They are both artists and accustomed to looking at fine details and took great pleasure, they assured me, in routing out those little dust particles.

Jaina Woman II, The Harvest: Art Challenge #2

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 Linda Levy  has challenged me to show one piece of my art per day for ten days. For my second presentation, I’m showing another retablo that has sold during my show which is still up at Jesus Lopez Vega’s Studio Gallery, #1 Rio Zula on Ocampo. There’s still time to see the rest of the show!

Jaina Woman II, The Harvest

Representations of Maya women occur more commonly as Jaina figurines than in any other medium. These Jaina figures represent two kinds of women, both archetypes of female behavior. One is a stately, courtly woman who is sometimes shown weaving; the second is a courtesan who appears with all sorts of mates, from Underworld deities to oversized rabbits. The imagery of both derives from Maya concepts of the moon, perceived as an erratic, inconsistent heavenly body, whose constantly changing character follows the monthly cycle of female menses. This is a Jaina woman of the first category: stately and courtly. I have presented her as representative of the harvest, which also produces the seeds for the next year’s bounty.

Wan Skies NaPoWriMo 2022, Day 6.

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Wan Skies

Why do the clouds obscure the sun
so we must cancel all our fun?
Pale skies are not the stuff of dreams
and contradict our pleasure schemes.
Wan days, dark nights close like a fist—
fond hopes of love and being kissed.
Lover thus fading into mist.

For NaPoWriMo Day 6 we were to write a poem where the first word of each line forms a famous quote or line from a poem. Read the first word of each line to see the quote.

Dance of the Snake Woman (Art Challenge # 1)

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Dance of the Snake Woman

I’ve been nominated by Linda Levy to post a piece of my art each day for ten days. This first selection is one of the pieces in my present show that has been marked SOLD. Unfortunately, I had a terrible time getting a photo of it as it was in a frame with glass over the front and most of the photos had reflected images of other pieces hanging on the wall across from it. In this photo, I managed to get a shot with nothing except myself reflected in the glass. Just for the fun of it, I left my hands. An explanation of the piece is below. With the frame, I believe it was approximately 20 ” square.

Dance of the Snake Woman

In many cultures, the snake functions as a messenger between man and the gods or the conscious and unconscious minds. Number seven is the number of connection as well as the end result of adding numbers 3 and 4, two other numbers of special significance to me. The music box plays “A Little Night Music”—a serenade of sorts.

This piece is about connection to the world as well as one’s own nature. Movement and grounding are of equal importance, as is maintaining a keen eye, creative inspiration and practice, be it in the word of art, dance, music, photography, writing or human interaction. Each of these symbols of the universal truths of the world has a personal significance in my life, as well. My own image was captured in the glass of this piece as I took the picture. It turned out to be appropriate, I think.

The central image is the figure of a woman carved from wood by my husband Bob. It was part of a totem-like carving that had four figures, each standing supported by or supporting another one it a vertical column. In the move to Mexico, it broke into four pieces and although I originally intended to repair it, I later decided to make a collaborative piece out of each figure. Since my husband died shortly before our projected move to Mexico, it has been our last collaboration after 14 years of doing collaborative work together.

The snake extensions and all of the other collage elements were added by me.


Here is a view of the entire piece, reflections and all.

Syncopated Poesy

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Syncopated Poesy

An iamb becomes a trochee and an anapest a dactyl.
Spondees get less pointed and  the pyrrhics turn more tactile.
Syncopated Poetry turns everything around.
Loud words get hushed down and the quiet words pick up sound.
“By the shores of Gitcheegoomie” loses all its zing.
That’s what comes from meddling with a verse’s swing.

 

The Daily Spur post for the day is syncopate. In case you’ve forgotten, below are the metrical feet of poetry: iamb ul, trochee lu, dactyl luu, anapest uul, spondee //, pyrrhic uu

Syn·co·pate:to displace the beats or accents in (music or a rhythm) so that strong beats become weak and vice versa. Or, to shorten (a word) by dropping sounds or letters in the middle, as in symbology for symbolology, or Gloster for Gloucester.

The Confessions of Catwoman: NaPoWriMo 2022, Day 5

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The Confessions of Catwoman

What’s happening tomorrow?
the same thing that happens every Friday
since I was forced into retirement last year.
I’m going to go make my collections.
It will be my first day off the diet
I’ve been on for a week––
and my leathers aren’t at all as close-fitting
as they were before,
so I deserve a small reward.

That diet was low-protein, low carb and low fat,
which left nothing but grass, right?
And the problem with that was that everyone thought I was sick
and so tried to trick me into a dose of this or that.
The cod liver oil wasn’t bad,
but I’ve never developed a taste for Pepto Bismol.
A neighbor lady once sneaked some into my cream
and I gagged so hard I coughed up a hare-ball—
just the nose and whiskers, actually, but it created a sensation, nonetheless.
I was at a party and no one was yet drunk enough
to take it in their stride.

I’ve washed my hair—
Well, no surprise. I do every day.
A bit OCD on that activity,
but today I washed all of me.
Every inch.
Ears, too.

I can’t remember when I first thought
of the lucrative business
I’ve been opurrrrrrrating since my retirement;
but I do remember that tomorrow is the day
I go from door-to-door doing collections.

I usually dress in leathers,
which I look pretty good in for a mature sex-kitten.
No, not a biker chick.
I am more of a femme fatale
with a haunting and mesmerizing voice
everyone says sends chills down their back—
a sort of backyard Les Mis.

I’m a night person.
I sleep for most of the day
and go out every night.
I park my Catmobile,
then take shortcuts: leaping over walls,
soft-toeing it along the top edges of fences.

Sometimes I crouch in the bushes,
waiting for strangers to pass.
As I do, I sharpen my fingernails—
a weapon no one can take away from me.
Anyway, what good would a gun be
for a woman with no opposable thumbs?
Hey. Don’t feel sorry for me, okay?
I’m puurrrrrfectly happy with my lot in life.
I’m puurrrrfect without them.

I am sexy, fit and nimble.
I fill out my leathers in all the right places.
I can jump to the ground from a rooftop,
land on my feet and be off before you see
any more of me than a shadow.
I am a thief by birth and inclination, and I
I pre”fur” my daily fare to be purrrrrrloined.

I can take swift revenge and kill mercilessly,
or curl up and enjoy
a long petting session,
as docile as you please.

Actually, I don’t know why I’m giving you this sales pitch.
I usually ignore people,
so when I actually notice them,
they are honored.

Anyway, I’ve gotten distracted.
I’m just going to smooth my hair a bit
and then go to bed and get rested up
for tomorrow’s collections.
What kind of brilliant feline was I to create a job for myself like this?
“Cat Woman Pest Disposal––You trap them, we collect them.”

I actually get paid for going from door to door,
collecting a course here and a course there.
No of course, no matter how hungry I am after my week’s fast,
I will not reward myself in my client’s presence.
I always wait until I get to my catmobile to have my first nibble.
After all, even a retired superheroine has to watch her image.

The prompt in day 5 of NaPoWriMo is to write a poem about a mythical person or creature doing something unusual – or at least something that seems unusual in relation to that person/creature. 

How to Write a Poem

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How to Write a Poem

Only a fool waits for a poem to come to him.
You have to call for it like a proper blind date,
knocking on its door
and seeing beauty in whatever opens it.

Take it dancing.
Twirl it around the floor,
letting words fly off in all directions.

Leave what flutters off alone.
Someone else will pick it up
and dance with it.
No word is a wallflower,
although some are chosen more frequently to dance.
Those are the words to avoid.
 
Do not always choose the prettiest words.
In the dance of the poem,
the ugliest of words acquire a charm.

Do not insist that you yourself lead.
Let the poem, instead, draw you
off the dance floor,
out the door
and down the path
to deep woods
where all the wild words live.

Gather them in bouquets
or weave them into chains
to crown your head––
that head of the poet
who follows where the poems go
and collects them by armfuls to share with the world.

Our Day 4 NaPoWriMo assignment was to write a poem in the form of a prompt.

Shy Lover

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Shy Lover

Express the volume of my love? My dear, I cannot wait,
for I have pined for these long years just to elucidate
how my pulse rate elevates when you enter the room.
I’ve kept love in a reservoir, here in passion’s womb,

but now it’s time for it to swell and burst the gates of love.
The soaring of the arrow, the cooing of the dove,
the flowers and the chocolate will convey, perhaps
what has gone unsaid so long—a necessary lapse

for lips that do not know the way to say the things they long for—
what some men say in poetry or perhaps compose a song for—
I carry in my hands for you, hoping you’ll catch my drift
that my passion for you is expressed in every gift.

Prompt words are elucidate, pulse, reservoir, express and volume. The photo was taken by me at in kissing alley in Guanajuato. The legend is of lovers who could lean out from their balconies and kiss. Her father found out and there was a sad ending. If you want to read the supposed “true” story of this balcony, go HERE.

Teenage Lotharios at the Dance: NaPoWriMo 2022, Day 3: The Glosa

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they speak whatever’s on their mind
they do whatever’s in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance.
*– e. e. cummings

Teenage Lotharios at the Dance

Along the gym wall they are lined.
These young men of the teen-aged kind
are young and beautifully designed,
but they aren’t subtle, and they aren’t kind.
They speak whatever’s on their mind.

They pose, they preen, they strut, they prance.
They walk by girls and joke and glance,
at intermission make their advance 
and if they score a date, perchance,
they do whatever’s in their pants

For them, romance is a slow grind.
For years, they’ve plotted and they’ve pined.
so after  girls are wooed and wined,
it’s very likely they will find
the boys I mean are not refined.

But, if girls can put up with their rants,
beguile the knight, repel his lance,
 stay firm in their “wont’s” and “cant’s.”
and get them back inside, by chance,
they shake the mountains when they dance.

 

 

 

The prompt for NaPoWriMo today is to write a Glose or Glosa Poem.The glose or glosa is an interesting Spanish form. The basic premise is that you quote four lines of poetry as an epigraph from another poem or poet. These four lines act as a refrain in the final line of the four stanzas written by the poet. So the first line of the epigraph would be the final line of the first stanza, the second line ends the second stanza, etc.

The most common convention is for each of these stanzas to be ten lines in length, but NaPoWriMo is not holding us to this rule. There are no other hard and fast rules for rhymes or syllables, though line length is usually consistent within the poem (so the epigraph kind of sets the line length).

*From “the boys i mean are not refined” by e. e. cummings:

Sargasso Sea: Wordle 547

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Sargasso Sea

Your fingertips trace patterns on my open palms,
moons on my forearms, stars on my shoulders.
You void the aches and tensions of a stressful day,
unconsciously skim over borders where no lesser traveler
would be allowed to go. Remote places become your territory.

Strong lines develop where you’ve lightly traced.
The Captain Cook of seduction,
you have skirted my boundaries, charted my seas.
Now my waters part before you and welcome you in—
complicit prisoner of my Sargasso Sea.

 

 

The Sunday Whirl Wordle prompts today are: remote unconsciously cook tracing moon patterns strong star void over fingertips lines, Photos by Birmingham Muse and Nick Moore on Unsplash.