Seduced by a bad idea

Seduced by a Bad Idea

I didn’t see it coming

She snuck up from behind

Temptation so great

I was out of my mind.

She tapped on my shoulder

And tugged at my heart

I should have seen it coming:

bad news from the start.

Persistent, petite, and smiling,

She wouldn’t let it rest

And the way she talked

She made perfect sense.

She insisted that all would be well,

My decision I wouldn’t regret

I had to have been touched in the head

Indeed, this no one would soon forget.

She pushed all the right buttons

I should have declined

But she still seemed to be

a good idea at the time.

                                                                           Artist/Author's note: the drawing came first, with the title, then the  poem came to be.  This picture was taken out of my sketch book, and only now I'm considering painting this in oils.  I think I've decided I don't like acrylics since I'm more of a planner.

The Sound of our Words

   Writers take pen in hand and write on paper - or they key their words on a computer screen.  Then the words are there in black and white right where they belong.  But sometimes we as writers forget the realm of words intersects our daily lives.  Words kept on paper alone lead a solitary existence when they are meant to be spoken and brought to life.

   Too often we focus on punctuation and the placement of periods in our writing - picayune stuff - when we need to focus on the life of the writing.  Two things jump out at me when thinking about this.

ONE: I was helping to judge a poetry contest this past summer and the main judge was (rightly) being critical of form and eliminating poetry that wasn't up to snuff.  At one point there was a disagreement about a piece of writing and I suggested that since the winning entry was to be read out loud that we read the final selections aloud and find out how they sounded when spoken. We forget sometimes that our ears will also judge.  What looks good on paper sometimes just doesn't make the grade when spoken.

TWO: I recently shared one of my more recent poems with a poet friend ( who absolutely adores her thesaurus) and being helpful, she suggested that since my poem was "ethereal" (her word, of course), I should substitute the word 'clothed' for 'attired'.  I thoughtfully considered that, but in the end decided to use the common word I originally had.  In my opinion, the spoken word 'attired' sounded too much like 'tired' and made me think 'worn out and exhausted'.  It also has a hard sound to it. Most often words with T's, D's and K's, when spoken, have harder sounds to them.  The softer sounding words have W's, H's, L's, TH's, R's, and SH's.

   When you look up a word in the thesaurus to make creative choices and substitute ordinary words (that we all use) for others, one must also need to consider the sound of those words when spoken.  I chose to stick with my softer sounding word choice 'clothed' because I felt it was a better fit.

                  Falling Gold

                 The North wind has come calling

                 Trees nod their acquiescence

                 Leaves bristle on Pointe

                Awaiting their dances.

               Caught up in the whirlwind

               Limbs bend and bow            

               Leaves rustle with the wind

               Needing to go.

              One by one

              For each whose time has come                                     

              To jump, dance and pirouette                     

              Under the setting sun.

              Clothed in gilded colors

              They tumble, turn, and fly

              Sparkling, glistening, filtering sunlight

              Dancing in the crisp blue sky.

             Winds buffet, trees billow

             Falling gold: amber skies

             Gathered by the whirlwind

             Dancing their last goodbyes.

                                                         ~Mela Saylor

National Novel Writing Month

November is National Novel Writing Month, commonly called NaNoWriMo by its participants. This is a month dedicated to writing a novel – 50,000 words. As this is gearing up, thousands of writers are getting ready by laying out their stories in their heads and gathering reams of paper and ink for their computers.  And most of the women who are mothers and wives, are trying to get done what they can possibly do ahead of time. 

The premise of this is to get your entire story laid out in writing – just get everything that comes into your head on paper.  Editing is not allowed.  I believe March is when rewrites are encouraged.  The goal is to write 50k words in one month. That comes to around 1700 words a day. Not a problem if one is a prolific writer.  My inner editor is rebellious and she’s always on duty. More often than not I fight with her when I try to write. For every sentence I write, she wants to rewrite it. I often see my pen refusing to touch down on paper for fear of not using the right word, and auto-correcting when I do.  Is that a neurosis?

I attempted to do Nanowrimo several years ago.  I started our like gangbusters raking up leaves and throwing down words, but sadly, I didn’t make it past day two. Why? It was November, silly. Let’s see, two teenage boys, a yard filled with trees and a high-maintenance husband. What could go wrong?  I couldn’t delegate a darn thing.  And let’s not forget Thanksgiving also falls during this time frame. 

When I originally described this national event to a writer friend, she was silent trying to digest this new information. I could hear her thinking on the other end of the telephone. She finally spoke up “No editing allowed?”

“Nope – just continuous writing, getting everything out and on paper”

“so, what you’re telling me is they just want you to verbally ’throw up on paper’ that first month?

            “Pretty much.”

            “huh.”

            This must be a difficult concept for a precise writer. Her strong suit is Haiku, the short-hand of poetry. 

So this year I will attempt to do my own month of intense writing - and it won’t be around the holiday season.  I’m thinking either February or March when the winds are blowing and I’m relegated to staying inside the house and waiting out the cold weather on my couch for the first signs of Spring, the buds, the birds, and the blooms, to come around.

I had been looking for this painting for a while - just to look at the colors.  This was painted in 1987 and is a whopping 24" x 36".

I've been 'stuck' for the last few months with a painting.  I like the design but I don't care for the colors I used - even though they were meant to be underpainting.  I've finally figured that my problem is that I've been trying to be someone I'm not - artistically speaking.  Plus I've been using acrylics.  I'm going back to oils. 

Illusions

Life is the greatest illusion

For what is heard and seen

Is nothing compared

To what remains unseen.

And as eternity rushes toward us

upon this spinning globe

there are forces at work around us

unheard, unseen, unknown.

Layers of Meaning. 

This is what happens when I let the drawing I'm doing tell me where it wants to go. Some things have a mind of their own.  This was one of them.  It's called "Vessel". Oil on canvas, 18" x 24".

One Flesh

Swimming with Sharks

 

 

The Subjectivity of the arts

The Beholder

Art speaks to each one of us in different ways. When we view a painting, listen to music, or read something, how we perceive it, read into it, and what we take away from it depends on our background. It depends upon who we are. It is subjective.  And the reason it is subjective is because everyone has an opinion on it whether or not they know anything about it.

Subjective -vs. – Standards

One of the very first things I learned during my practice teaching was that one should have a very good reason for assigning letter grades to each student’s art assignment.  It was very easy to “eyeball” it as each paper was put into a category (stack on the floor) – “Wonderful” (A), “eh-Ok” (C), and “Yikes!” (D and under), but when that student asks me the day those were passed back why they received the grade they did, I couldn’t just say “Well, LOOK at it!” I needed to point out exactly where they went wrong, be it composition, center of interest, perspective, line, light source, and show them how it could be improved upon.

Subjective: Adj. placing excessive emphasis on one's own moods, attitudes, opinions, in relation, relative, in comparison.

If we use those words, then the next logical question is: Compared to what?  My college roommate and I were, in our own way, competitive. We were education majors, she in mathematics, I in art. One quarter we took the very same class with the same professor, only at different times of the day. At the end of the grading system we found that Rose, my roommate, was ahead by only a handful of points. But, since she was in a different class with a different group of students, her grade turned out to be a “B”.  I must have been in a dumb class, for I ended up with an “A”.  That is what grading on the curve does –it does away with absolute standards and there is no longer a “plumb line” for comparison.  What we are left with is each other to for comparison.  That is a slippery slope. We now have what we have in the arts.  

subjective = personal

Fact: no one ever takes up math or science as a hobby. Creating art can be personal and it makes us feel good to create something.  Note here that I didn’t say copy. The words create and copy mean two entirely different things. To create an image from the recesses of one’s mind is nothing short of magical. Art expresses who we are as individuals. Art is also used in therapy.  But we must also keep in mind that “therapy art” is not on par with a Chagall and perhaps it is best not to be displayed in public.

I believe the term artist has been used loosely in reference to Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock.  I will admit that perhaps their contribution to art has been to open the publics eye to new concepts, perhaps even usher in a new era of art, but at the same time I ask, are the principles of art being suspended for them? Where is the composition, rhythm, movement? Please, someone, tell me where it is in the middle of that mess?  I’m referring to Pollock.  As my mother was often quoted as saying “a monkey could have done that”. Honestly, Pollock’s work looks like someone just threw paint all over the place.  To be kind, it’s a great START.  But a background does not make a painting.  I feel it’s just hoopla – another version of the Emperor’s New Clothes.

The principles of design still need to be there, but I can say that I do understand what Kandinsky was trying to do, having read his book “Point and Line to Plane”. Still, I may be simplistic in my view, but I feel there is something inherently wrong if an artist needs to write a book to explain their art work.

Why Artists Create

When I was in high school, the art teacher would begin every year with reading this list of “Why Artists Create”.  I’d like to end this blog with that list.

12.  To paint a pretty picture
11.. To make extra money by selling trite objects at craft shows.
10.. For decorating a room.
  9.  To get attention by shocking viewers.
  8.  To show their skill in duplicating nature.
  7.  To make a statement about a political or moral situation.
  6.  To express emotions through art forms.
  5.  To see the world in a different way.
  4  To make the invisible visible.
  3.  Therapeutic quality - the working process is more important than the end result.
  2.  To manifest their inner being.
  1.  The inner urge to create which cannot be suppressed.