Tag Archives: studio

Tiny Obsession: NaPoWriMo 2022, Day 12

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Food
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Tiny Obsession

I like things in miniature—
those things more likely to endure.
Tiny cars to put in pockets,
diamond rings and heart-shaped lockets,
fragile wee ceramic dolls
and buttons pulled off overalls,
game pieces and Sunday school pins—
things to fill up drawers and bins.

Bits of lace and fabric swatches,
antique keys and locks off boxes,
seashells and fossils in small sizes,
plastic Crackerjack surprises,
tiny well-formed souvenirs,
caps off foreign-labelled beers,
swizzle sticks and matchbook covers,
love letters from bygone lovers.

What do I do with all this stuff?
Collecting it is not enough.
Accumulation is a bore
if you don’t know what it is for!
The junk that’s stored in my garage
turns into riches in a collage,
where all of these assorted pieces
unite to form a visual thesis.

In jars and boxes, drawers and bowls,
reside future creative goals.
Pick a watch. Rip it apart
and reunite it into art.
Find a theme and work it out.
That act is what it’s all about.

A nasty rumor I must debunk
is that what I collect is junk.
These things from junk stores or from ditches
may be transformed into riches.
In life it’s not what you may start with.
It’s taking those things you don’t part with
and taking necessary measures
to transform them into treasures.

Anything imbued with heart
becomes, in time, a vital part
of what you make of what you may
come across from day to day.
In short, it’s what you’ve filled a life with
that ends up what you build a life with.

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt today is to write an homage to something small.

Indecision: Cee’s FOTD, Oct 30, 2020

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Click on photos to enlarge

I rescued this hibiscus from a pile Pasiano had clipped from the bush next to the ramp leading down to my studio. I couldn’t decide which photo to use, so created a cluster.

For Cee’s FOTD

Homely Studio

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Homely Studio

My studio is my refuge––a place I’m never hounded.
Safe within my compound walls, its door is never pounded.
There is no telephone at all, no internet or texting.
No sense of what I should have done, no hurrying or “nexting.”

Its drawers are full of little things; its shelves are full of paint.
For when it comes to art supplies, I have little restraint.
Some might call it cluttered and I cannot deny it;
for if it’s miniature and cheap, I cannot help but buy it.

Here I paint, arrange and glue––what some would label “playing,”
and if objects perchance might fall, they stay where they are laying.
Yet I’m at home within it, for I know where each thing goes.
Never quite so happy as when making retablos.

Within my many drawers of flowers and charms and old watch parts,
of animals  and tiny fruits, there is a drawer of hearts.
So if “home is where the heart is,” my studio is my home––
the place that I come back to, wherever else I roam.

Often it’s disorganized–things piled and under feet.
Cruel folks say its cluttered, but the tactful say “replete.”
But, the truth is when I’m busy, the mess soon grows absurd.
and it’s true my studio’s homely in both meanings of the word!

Repleted: 1. filled or well-supplied with something.  synonyms: filled, full, well stocked, well supplied, crammed, packed, jammed, teeming, overflowing, bursting, jam-packed, chockablock, chock-full

Homely: 1. unattractive in appearance. unattractive, plain, unprepossessing, unlovely, ill-favored, 2. (of a place or surroundings) simple but cozy and comfortable, as in one’s own home “a modern hotel with a homely atmosphere”

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The topic “Homely Studio” was generated for me by Jennifer’s Topic Generator.  You can find it here: https://topicgenerator.wordpress.com/submit/

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The Window

opens onto an empty lot.
Guamuchil trees and wild castor beans
rise from its slope to lift toward
where I sit above, hands engaged
in taking me away to a place
far beyond ideas.
It is that destination dreams only point us to–
that place where, perhaps, I’ll float
after the feared moment
when I’ll leave this world for good.

I dread it so, that zone,
and yet if what my fingers have just told is right,
it’s where I choose to go again and again,
escaping to that little house
down in my garden
where I keep my tools and paint
and ten thousand small objects
all of which have a particular place they want to be fastened.

I am just here to help them go where they want to go.
Where they have, perhaps, been created to go–
taking me with them to the zone,

all of us
headed toward
the inevitable.

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“The little house” is my studio, here seen from the garden. The earlier view was of the wild lot next door, seen from the window of my studio.

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A message from the zone. Click to enlarge, then hover over objects and click again to see more detail..

The Prompt: Tell us about your favorite way to get lost in a simple activity — running, chopping vegetables, folding laundry, whatever. What’s it like when you’re in  “The Zone?”