Sunday, February 27, 2022

Ukraine and the persistence of war


A song, written during the Vietnam War, came to mind this morning.  Turns out that the narrator for this YouTube video of a CBS show from 1967 is Leonard Bernstein.

The sorrow of war continues to haunt our world, as it has from time out of mind, intensified by the existence of nuclear weapons, thanks to the efforts of the United States to win a war.  In war, there are no winners.

The insanity of those who consider using nuclear weapons, including the United States, has never been more apparent.  The Ukraine is one of the countries that no longer has nuclear weapons but does have 15 nuclear power plants. 

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"To put it simply, nuclear power plants are not designed for war zones," he added. "It seems exceedingly unlikely that Moscow would authorize deliberate attacks on these facilities, but they could nonetheless become targets in a war that will, in any case, disrupt their operations."

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It Should Be Visible

If from Space not only sapphire continents,

swirling oceans, were visible, but the wars --

like bonfires, wildfires, forest conflagrations,

flame and smoky smoulder -- the Earth would seem

a bitter pomander ball bristling with poison cloves.

And each war fuelled with weapons: it should be visible

that great sums of money have been exchanged, 

great profits made, workers gainfully employed

to construct destruction, national economies distorted

so that these fires, these wars, may burn

and consume the joy of this one planet

which, seen from outside its transparent tender shell,

is so serene, so fortunate, with its water, air

and myriad forms of 'life that wants to live.'

It should be visible that this bluegreen globe

suffers a canker which is devouring it.

-- Denise Levertov

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May there be peace for the people of Ukraine and all sentient beings.  Against all odds.


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Saturday, February 12, 2022

Jason Brown / Portrait of an Artist

Click to watch on YouTube

“Art comes first for him,” said Tara Lipinsky, NBC’s other commentator, and also an Olympic medalist. “Every artist has a canvas. Michelangelo used the ceiling of a chapel, Shakespeare a page. Jason Brown uses the ice.”

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It has been years and years since I had a television and could watch the Olympics, but Jason Brown was brought to my attention and YouTube gave me the opportunity to see this performance.  

Wednesday, February 9, 2022

Mandala #66: Talking Tom Wood


In reading about Tom Wood's life in the various tributes, I learned that he had bouts of insomnia and would use those times for drawing.  On the night before last, I woke up after a few hours of sleep and could not get back to sleep.  When I remembered what Tom Wood did when he couldn't sleep, I got up and sat down at my drawing table and was able to finish the mandala that I started on November 10, 2021, at which time I had simply made the red circle.   On January 5, 2022, I had begun working on the mandala again, using my non-dominant left hand and drawing the images of animals and one star outside the red circle.  Early in the morning on February 8, using my non-dominant left hand, I added many many letters and a few words to fill in the spaces around my drawings, and Mandala #66 was complete, clearly inspired by the spirit of Tom Wood.

Monday, February 7, 2022

Tom Wood / Deeply missed / The place where looking in and looking out meet


 Tom Wood is a Bellingham artist who died on January 5, 2022, at age 70.   His art has been a vital part of my life since the 1970s when he and his beloved wife, Pam Brownell, had a booth at the Point Roberts Arts and Crafts Fair where they were selling his earliest etchings and aquatints.  I bought an aquatint in which he conveyed what I understood as three views of reality, using the image of three birds with the heads of men (or maybe three men with the bodies of birds) -- one looking in, one looking out and one looking at the place where looking in and looking out meet. 

Over the years, I bought several other prints and one oil painting and even traded one of my paintings for one of his monoprints along with a tiny painting in gouache by Pam Brownell. A few years ago, under financial duress, I sold all of them except the first one I bought and Pam Brownell's gouache.

"In all his work he kept an eye toward beauty. Tom will be deeply missed ..."

"Thomas Wood’s works are included in countless collections of private individuals and in institutions such as the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, Philadelphia Art Museum, Tacoma Art Museum, Microsoft, University of Washington Medical Center, Whatcom Museum of Art and History, Stanford University, New York Public Library, and the Museum of Northwest Art among others. Over the last decade Wood was commissioned by Nawakum Press to create a series of etchings that accompanied publications of short stories by Jorge Luis Borges and Bruno Schulz. A large-scale mural by the artist graces the Timber Park Pavilion performance stage at Boulevard Park in Bellingham, Washington. Though living with inoperable cancer for the past few years, he enjoyed making art on an almost daily basis and continued to embrace his local community of artists, transitioning his studio into a space for visiting artists to experiment with the printmaking medium he so loved."

Take a look these slides that show the murals Tom Wood painted for the Timber Park Pavilion here in Bellingham.

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Coincidentally, it was on the day that Tom Wood died that I sat down at my drawing table in despair at having lost all motivation to draw and found myself prompted to pick up a 6B drawing pencil and draw my right hand with my non-dominant left hand and found to my delight that something new had entered my life as an artist.  It was only yesterday that I learned that Tom Wood had died on the 5th of January.  It doesn't seem all that long ago that I saw him in our local art supply store where we talked for a few moments about making art.

Dear blog friends, near and far, I hope you will take the time to look at some of Thomas Wood's lifetime work of prints and paintings that can be easily found with some internet searches and that you will be inspired by his art which shows an "honest and inquiring mind, a playful spirit quick to make a joke, a deep appreciation of the natural world, and an endless imagination."




Sunday, February 6, 2022

Song / "... Let me walk down the highway with my brother in peace ..."


Earlier today this photo was brought to my attention here, where I read these words of James Baldwin:

One discovers the light in darkness, that is what darkness is for; but everything in our lives depends on how we bear the light. It is necessary, while in darkness, to know that there is a light somewhere, to know that in oneself, waiting to be found, there is a light.

 The photo of James Baldwin reminded me of another photo,


which prompted me to look for the photo of this moment:



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Young people carrying a 60-year-old song forward:


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"... Let me drink from the waters where the mountain streams flood
Let the smell of wildflowers flow free through my blood
Let me sleep in your meadows with the green grassy leaves
Let me walk down the highway with my brother in peace
Let me die in my footsteps
Before I go down under the ground ..."

-- Lyrics from "Let Me Die in My Footsteps," written by Bob Dylan in March 1962

Saturday, February 5, 2022

Language of the heart that I need to hear today

 

The following is from the YouTube channel where I found the above video:

Written by John as an expression of his love for Yoko Ono, the song is heartfelt and passionate. As John told Rolling Stone magazine in 1970, “When it gets down to it, when you’re drowning, you don’t say, ‘I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,’ you just scream.”

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Yesterday while driving up the steep hill that leads to my home, I saw a dead deer lying on the sidewalk and found myself screaming in anger and grief through my KN95 mask.  When I got home a few minutes later, I called 911 who then contacted those who could remove the deer's body from the side of the road.  I am fortunate to have the help I need today and always.  The Beatles are part of that.



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Thursday, February 3, 2022

More of one thing leading to another / Meditation




While doing a genealogy search in hopes of finding out how I am related to a DNA cousin who lives in Canada, I found this beautiful image by Maria Nguyen that was used in an article in which a DNA cousin's daughter was mentioned as a student at the University of Saskatchewan.

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Spring is coming.  Some days are foggy.  Some are sunny.  Yesterday there were a few snowflakes.  Do you see the heart in the tree?






Wednesday, February 2, 2022

He's an artist, he don't look back / Groundhog Day


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Last night I dreamed that I was at the Pacific Ocean again.  This is that recurring dream where the ocean isn't far from where I live now.  It was as if I had just forgotten how close it was.  I never forget how good it feels to be at the ocean.  It's been some time since I had that dream.  It's a reassuring dream.

Later in the dream there was a long low bridge over a tranquil body of water.  There was about three feet of packed snow and ice covering the roadway.  We were busy shoveling the snow off the bridge.  It was going to take a while, but we were making significant progress.  There were enough of us working together to get the job done.  We weren't expecting any more snow.  It wasn't all that cold outside.

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Today I got a call from the autoharp repair shop, letting me know that they had begun working on my autoharp and had noted that the autoharp is beginning to warp and needs reinforcement, which will cost another $50.  I'm excited in a way I haven't been excited in a long time, knowing that it won't be long before I have an autoharp that is optimally playable.  

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