painting

the studio inside – rhythm

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All the while of la vie suspendue en l’air and la vie revenue à terre, I have been maintaining, more or less, my studio rhythm – piano, writing, documentation. So then something is going on in the studio inside, but to me, there is a kind of absence. An absence of expression. There is something about painting in particular that releases me into some kind of inner depth, while, mysteriously, materialising this depth into a visible form.

Is something preventing me from getting there?

Sometimes I just need to insist.

But as I write a recognise, yes, I’ve been doing immense works. Inner ones, in most cases, but also material ones of another sort – organising, unpacking, tending.

Perhaps now is time to try another intensity of insistence. Maybe I have a week before I leave for traveling to insist this into reality, to come home to water and colour, and to see what I find there…

persevering

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It’s more than a week now since I left the studio. To hold a place for the studio inside continues to be a work.

However, I am persevering with the studio rhythm. Even though I am not making it all the way to to the kind of things I was doing in the studio, I am making a perseverance in the first steps. Surely soon I will break through to a new depth?

An assessment of the current state:

Most days:
Piano (Divenire is sounding more and more beautiful)
Writing: journal, blog, documentation

Absent:
Photoing
Painting and poems (I am writing some but they feel less fluid than the ones from painting)
Collage and found poetry (the most lighthearted work, which counter-intuitively needs more time; also I don’t have access to a photocopier, I’ve just noticed)

My bag of artist things (paints, pencils, brushes, photographs, camera) lies neglected in the corner of a cupboard.

On the other hand, a lot of productive things have been done in the realm of chores and catching up with people after crazy work. And I’ve helped a friend surprisingly move house.

In times like this I need to remember to treasure and nurture the times there are and not fret (note to self).

So then now I continue on my way with persevering.

unfinished

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It’s three o’clock in the afternoon, Central European Summer Time.

I have had a beautiful time in the studio today, the last day, but it feels unfinished.

My contemplations of two more large works, finishing triumphantly and emphatically, have not materialised. Maybe I should blame the hush?

A visitor came to see my work and she stayed longer than I expected. Longer in a good way, but it meant that my last hours are curtailed.

Perhaps I would not have painted triumphant works anyway.

There is always a pull in me to pour everything out to the last drop, to the death.

But what happens when it’s a moment for birth?

I am swooshing a bit in my own uncertainty, in my own interrupted cadence.

I think this is where I am meant to be.

So then I will start to clear up.

hush

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Hush, a calm descends
Twilight blossoms its stillness
into night

I heard you breathing
Or did I dream
I heard you, sure
I heard you

pooled serenities
stars, songs, sea, storm
still a stillness
sovereignty

shh suspension
whisper not
a movement
lulls me, lulls

Peace amidst a glimmer
is it night?
it shines
certainty

Hush into this
vast birthfulness
cradled child
we are a oneness

Note: this is the last (I think) poem written from the Divenire series, painted to the backdrop of a performance (to myself!) of Einaudi’s work. The work for this poem is created in the same colours as before, but resulting in a work of profound peace, although there is a sense that in the depths, something new is already stirring.

breath, breathless

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stumble through the doorway
running, it seems I was
though now the old reality
seems distant, though yesterday

catch a breath
a gasp slow motion
exhalation, panic,
gulp another moment
sigh, disordered in
my being,
restless still

racing rat, fraught
thought, fought,
forlåt, what was that?
a tale, though how
you chased it

welcome
you are my guest
arrive, draw in deep,
what’s mine is yours
inhale hopefuless and wonder

my sighs pursue me,
echo the space alarmed
what happened to you?
life

a sweetness as a breeze
rose, orange blossom, peony,
fresh rain on gentled grass
far seas

I am arriving
I am born alive

Note: This is from the studio series inspired by paintings in my studio. The later paintings were written to the tune Divenire by Ludvico Einaudi. I can no longer remember if this one was. This is painted in Rose Madder, Permanent Rose, Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Orange (all Windsor and Newton Professional) and Light Gold (Rembrandt). In my work these specific orange and yellow paints are indicative of the presence of a kind of fire, an element of the warrior nature. This first painting is the only one to use the fire colours. As if the arrival in the studio was a last breath of fire before the inhale and exhale of a more tender and touching reality.