Beauty and Worship: Art for Play, part 2

Art for Play, Awe, and Wonder

We are talking about discovering, enjoying, uncovering, celebrating God’s creation, the beauty of the world.

'land of milk and honey'

“Now as Erich Fromm wrote in his meaningful book "The Art of Loving", the earth is always symbolized as a woman (mother earth) and according to the Old Testament, the Promised Land is the land of "Milk and Honey". Here Fromm says that any mother can feed her child with milk, a liquid that gives life and symbolizes the acceptance of life and growth but rarely, truly rarely can one find a mother who feeds her child with honey too, a substance so sweet that bequeaths love for life. What Fromm meant was that a true mother would give her child the ability to accept and then above all to love life.

'Art for play' or 'Art for awe/wonder' are ways of trying to talk about those forms of art making which are primarily about enjoying life and experiencing it more deeply. About getting in the mud and playing with the good materials of the world. The lost art of Alchemy was something like this, engaging in direct and joyful observation of how beautiful the colors, textures, and interactions of elements are. (See James Elkins book, 'What painting is' for a great discussion of the similarities of painting an alchemy.)

The mode of play and experimentation with the materials of creation give us the intimate knowledge necessary for all the other forms of art.



This was an old window frame set up like a table. I places sand in it and let the kids from the valley center draw in the sand while took continuous still images. The images were turned into this video. These 'Sand trap drawings' are an example of art for play. They are low risk and fun giving the kids a means of discovery, and feeling successful. The finished product is not the point as much as the simple pleasure of playing in the sand.

Picasso had a famous long exposure shot where you see him drawing (from when the flash went off) and you see a bull drawn with a light (created during the long exposure in the dark). These are not original but a way of playing with light.

This one was done with the boys on the streets.

This is an image produced by 'KIDS with CAMERAS' Our Sierra Leone Beauty and Brokenness photos were another great example of giving the kids a chance to play and discover what happens when you take pictures. The results may turn into advocacy naturally but there is important reflection that is happening in the process of playing with a camera.

Here are more examples of 'Art for Play' that have appeared on this blog already. Another great example was Caleb Coppock and one of the boys from the boys home playing with the reflections of sunlight in CD’s. I found Ron playing with bubbles with the kids at the center. The question of when does play turn into art is a good question, but maybe we should just start with acknowledging that great art always starts in a celebration of materials, of discovery of textures and colors. Jackson Pollock is a straightforward example. Here are some other art for play examples...


I find the simple structure of the Hiku a liberating low key way to experiment with words and ideas.

Retreat Haiku May 2005

1

Leaflets jump for joy

When through the umbrella comes

Spattering wet joy

2

Grace curving through limb

Raising leaves high to the sun

Gentle bow his hymn

4

Frogs green jokers laugh,

Mountains water gathering

And wind make my bath

5

Straight backed noble grass

Tips its hat in river wind

Roaring green applause

Also, reflective journaling, brainstorming, writing about events of the day are great ways to dig into the raw materials of your life. Other ways to playing in the mud might be working in clay, paint, charcoal, carving, making noises, sounds. All the baby talk of infants is their way of finding their voice, figuring out what combinations of air flow and air stopping makes what kinds of sound. Without this experimentation it is difficult to learn to speak.

In Art for play we are gathering raw materials, learning to enjoy them, use them, delight in them. we play in the sand, clay, and mud learning their inner properties. It is necessary for any artist to 'baby talk', to play in the mud, to be an alchemist wondering at the beauty of the stuff of the world before she can find her voice and articulate a beautiful idea for the love of God and community.

Beauty and Worship: Introduction, part 1

I have debated about how post some of the materials from a talk I gave the the Word Made Flesh staff in the summer of 2007. The workshop included staff from the many different Word Made Flesh Fields, a few have formal art training but most just seemed curious about finding and sharing ways that art may be a part of our lives seeking Christ among the worlds poor. I will try to cover the basic material in a series of blog posts. So here is the "Introduction to Beauty and Worship"...

Introduction to "Beauty and Worship Workshop"

1.Working Definitions for "Beauty" and of "Worship"


I am not a theologian primarily but an artist. I do believe in relying on the wisdom of great theologians, so I hope that my best guesses are informed ones.

Beauty = Diversity in Unity

Maximum Beauty = Maximum diversity in Unity

Worship = Gathering and offering back to God a transfigured creation

These are obviously short and over simplified definitions, so lets look into Chutnification to clear up some other issues before we start...

2. Chutnification and Aesthetic experience

“What is required for chutnification? Raw materials, obviously—fruit, vegetables, fish, vinegar, spices. Daily visits from Koli women with their saris hitched up between their legs. Cucumbers aubergines mint. But also: eyes, blue as ice, which are undeceived by the superficial blandishments of fruit-- which can see corruption beneath citris-skin; fingers which, with feathriest touch, can probe the secret inconstant hearts of green tomatoes; and above all a nose capable of discerning the hidden languages of what-must-be-pickled, its humors and messages and emotions. . . at Bragzana Pickles, I supervise the production of Mary's legendary recipes; but there are also my special blends, in which thanks to the powers of my drained nasal passages, I am able to include memories, dreams, ideas, so that once they enter mass-production all who consume them will know what pepperpots achieved in Pakistan, or how it felt to be in the Sundarbans. . . believe don't believe but its true. Thirty jars stand upon a shelf, waiting to be unleashed upon the amnesiac nation”. –Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children p530

What we find here in the genius of Salmon Rushdie's novel is a great example of the role of the work of art in social life, of gathering and offering back something transformed, and possibly even of worship itself as I conceive of it.

Gathering Raw Materials(fruit, vegetables, fish, vinegar, spices)

+ Focused attention (eyes/nose)

= empathy/insight/compassion( ‘how it felt to be’)

& a sense identity/vision (‘amnesiac nation’, collective memory)

3.The unexperienced experience...

It is often not until we journal that we realize the significance of the events. We are gathering the 'raw materials' of our day and adding focused attention. It is often not until we talk with some one about an experience that we realize its full significance. Again, the dialogue happening with another person is the result of collecting experiences within ourselves, sorting them, reframing them into a new form and making coherent conversation with them. We only then become aware often of the significance of the experience.

We only really experience our experience by processing it. We need a pickle processing plant! To process all the ingredients of our life and to integrate them into a meaningful whole. By ‘pickling it’ the experience changes into a form that transcends time, and can nourish us whenever we have need.

People spend 2-3 seconds per painting at an art museum. By never processing a painting with great concentrated attention, and by not suspending judgment in order to understand the work on its own terms, we manage to pass by hundreds of works of art without ever really experiencing a single one!

In a figure drawing session during college my Prof played Arvo Part’s Te Deum. At the end of the thirty minute piece he and one of the student were crying? I was unaffected at the time. How did I not have the same experience of the piece as they did? I was jealous of whatever it was they heard. There are ways we can prepare ourselves to be able to experience more fully art as well as life itself.

This is what happens on a broader scale when we never take time to reflect, contemplate, pause, to be present in the moment or to reflect on the days experience. We pass through life really experiencing very little. This is possibly scandalous for those claiming to possess passionate love for the Creator of the planet and all the life it possesses.

4.How aesthetic experience works...

It is also important to recognize how aesthetic experience works. This is generalized and applies to approaching a work of literature, a painting, or the beauty of a person. The elements are the same.

letting go (of control of the experience)

+ concentrated attention

=Aesthetic Experience (contemplative experience)

The process of experiencing a work of art and the process of creating a meaningful work of art use the same processes. To create a great jar of pickled chutney and to be able to enjoy it both involve this same gathering and focused surrendered attention.

5.Missing pieces...

It seems clear that much of the world has the absence of consciousness of the plight of the poor. We live as if poverty does not exist, ‘the experience of suffering destitute poor’ is not experienced.

I want to give a wide range of ideas or ways we can engage life, ‘suck the marrow out of life’ as Henry David Thoreau said, really experience life among the poor, survive it, and find the Kingdom of God among the poor.



6.Conclusion

• We need to learn the process of chutnification, of taking the raw materials of our life, our experience among the poor, and of the beauty of the world and offering them back, food for our amnesic selves and our amnesic world.

we need to see that...

• Beauty is gathering together many parts into a meaningful whole.

and that...

• Worship is the uniquely Christian act of gathering in symbolic ways all of creation into a meaningful whole and offering it back to God.

In the future posts I will build on this foundation into...

1. Art for Play (or Awe)
2. Art for Contemplation
3. Art for Therapy
4. Art for Community
5. Art for Advocacy
   

Bach and At Risk Youth



A few days ago we had a little show for the children at risk at the drop in center. From kids trying to survive school on top of life itself to street youth who have recently seen another friend get killed, this time being hit by a car, we had a diverse group. The high light was John Koon playing for us a couple Bach pieces on his cello. The main sound on this clip is him playing Bach's 3rd Suite for Cello in C Major, Movement #6, "Gigue" and of course our group screaming at the end.

I heard an essay titled, Music as Healer, Music as Teacher, written by William Harvey a freshman Julliard violin student who played at a 9-11 Armory shelter in New York city just after the tragedy. He describes how there is something important about music which expresses the inexpressible experiences we all share together.

Though there is horror and even death, beauty gives us the taste of the new heavens and new earth where God overcomes the mess.

Our Valley House kids have been starting on parts of the face. Here was the results of our eye project. This one looked as if it could have been taken off of a thousand year old urn in the archeological museum in Greece. Giving the kids vibrant acrylic colors turned a boring drawing session into an exciting alchemical experience. These are fun to look at large where you can see the brush strokes more easily.

This is another photo taken by Robin Fowler on their trip into Moldova. Below is a poem written by April Folkertsma on the ride.


I Can't Do Anything with this Dark

It's a quarter to 4 a.m.
And I can't do anything with this dark,
sleep, read, pray.
I can see only as far as the bus headlights illuminate,
along a bumpy Moldovan road,
On my way to Chisinau for clarification
or further vision.

My fellow travelers sleep
and I am asleep-awake in the twilight
world of jetlag.
This road leads past the lives of the living poor
whose barren vineyards are eery shadows-
appartitions who trail us, me, mile after mile
in this dark,
and I can't do anything

A fog settles in and not even headlights
are enought to cut through what I cannot see,
along a bumpy Moldovan road
on my way to Chisinau.
The fog breaks
The bumps increase,
We turn a corner
and I find I still can't do anything with this dark.

We pass a man walking in the night
and I wonder where he is going all alone,
so late, so early, without a light.
Perhaps he knows what to do with the dark,
and that is nothing more than go straight.
"Go straight," I hear him say as we speed by,
Our lights catching his eyes reflection,
illuminating. "Go straight," he whispers.
I catch a gleam of his life, and
breathe deeply the beauty of this,
a night when I could do nothing.

A project at our day center with children at risk took photos of jumping taken by Caleb Coppock, traced them cut them out pasted and painted them and this is what was left. The audio is John Coon playing scales and me being his latin metronome.

Reading through some of Wendel Berry's short Novels and his non fiction work called the Unsettling of America, has stirred up lots of childhood memories. Berry's novels just have a goodness about them. They honor hard work, the nurturing of people, for land, and animals alike. The old idea of husbandry, the care for the life of the farm in order to preserve it as a legacy for future generations, comes through as a counter paradigm to our popular anti culture culture of quick profits at the expense of the poor and of our children. He see's the true beauty of an America which lives for the next generation, loves life, and God, and has a great respect for all of creation.

When I was a little boy we rented a farm house and fed the horses to pay a little less rent each month. This painting stirred up by reading Berry's novels was from memory, really of hearing the story of dad destroying the television in the garden. It reminded me of my own struggles with how to live in balance with technology and mass media culture. These stories have stirred a renewed respect for my parents and the deep sense of love and commitment to family they have always nurtured.

I got the kids drawing dragons, picked my favorite, simplified it, xeroxed it and gave it back to the kids to color in. Then I picked the background drawing I liked the best, scanned the dragons back into photoshop cut them out arranged them in image ready and made a movie clip with movie maker out of the slides. I am still not sure what the story should be. I wonder if any of you could provide a text for this coffee pot inspired 2 cent animation?

"The children from "The Valley" House painted, cut and arranged these mosaic Christmas cards. You can now order them! The cost per card is just 50 cents plus shipping, with discounts for large orders. Orders can be placed through email at info@cuvantulintrupat.com or by telephone at 0236 411 695."

Here are the Christmas cards I made with our kids. I had them paint large pieces of thin paper with different colors, Eric Carl style. Then we cut them into squares and glue the mosaics together until we had glue everywhere. The actual mosaics are about 2x3 feet. Usually we had 4-6 people around one at a time. Then came painting in black lines around the paper pieces. I am so happy to see these done and ready to sell. Here is a link to the Christmas Cards if you are interested in sending some. There are four models. Merry Christmas!

Straight line is a box

A period confining a tiger

In a pen too small

It is a dividing point

Like a fence in the ocean

Or a sword through a woman

In a magic show

The hard straight line

Is an attempt at power over life

To contain and quantify the sublime

The holy, the beautiful

The line may be drawn

But only tolerated in our

Sense of mystery is

Obliterated and we are content

With caricatures of life

The straight line is an idol

Blocking journey into God

I recently found this watercolor and poem in a stack on a shelf in my studio. It is made with slow blind contours of grape vines and blind water color splotches over it making the pen bleed all over. The bleeding pen irritated me but now it is a nice reminder of the experience of that day.

These insightful photos were taken by Robin Fowler now on staff in Romania. Usually photography is a wreck of unwanted colors, lines, and other distracting visual information. These are great examples of economy of information for the sake of an image that makes a whole and then draws you into the space it has created for you. Looking at most photos is like climbing into a dumpster, Robin has created sanctuaries for rest and reflection. Thanks Robin!

like daphne, i was really challenged by Joel's talk at the retreat. so i'm diving in and posting something that has been hatching in my mind & heart for a while.

i have been fascinated by the idea of the way redemption plays itself out in the material world. specifically in the way that things normally thrown away can be made into something beautiful. with this in mind i started collecting the bus tickets that are usually strewn all over the streets. indvidually they are nothing really, but when they are all together its a neat splash of color and a great reminder to me. many friends & community members have begun to collect for me so we'll see what else comes of it. the canvas i posted is one of the first few i have put together.

This long exposure shot of our camp fire at summer camp with the kids revealed these strange little sparks whirling around the tube of sparks. I think it was a 10 second exposure and someone had just adjusted the wood on the fire.

Creating a New Planet

I asked the four groups at camp to create a planet and then to describe its inhabitants and name them...

I was really inspired by Joel's workshop at the staff retreat and have been writing some haiku as he recommended. it's been a really fun way to relax and practice writing for the pure no-pressure enjoyment of it:

ouch
sprain iced with veggies
pebbly potatoes dig in
wish for peas instead

street cleaner
municipal brush
roves, picks up roadkill, rocks, butts;
stop following me

from where i sit
expired light strings
cobra-choke iron railing;
dead footrest cools skin

this morning, i wrote a pageful of any word that came to mind, then tried to use as many of the words as i could in a poem:

Ramshakle rickshaws sit,
Scarecrowed outside Anousha’s bistro
A table of tourists—patsies—bow their shorn, bulbed craniums,
ponder a succulent crumb underfoot
and count the seconds until it is pummeled by
her squatty, asterisk broom.

--and--

Blistered stitches of rug
attempt to dry in the storm
Shorn edges coagulate,
Bulbed with strems of rain

the rug poem made 'sense' to me because i am drying rugs on my balcony and it rained last night. i've found that because i usually journal/read/write on my fire escape, much writing content takes place in that setting. the first poem would have never come out without my from-within word prompts, providing a change of scenery that i wouldn't have imagined otherwise.

incidentally, quite a few of the words that came out on my brainstorm page were nonsensical or combinations of other words: bulbed, prantalot, strem, rixal, agrizement. could be fun to incorporate made up words into poetry, huh?

Here is an article written about the exhibit putting cameras in the hand of some of the kids Word Made Flesh is working with in Sierra Leonne...

Beauty and brokenness

A photo exhibit shows the way young people in Seal Beach and Sierra Leone view their worlds.

By SCOTT MARTINDALE

The Orange County Register

For the 12 teenagers in war-ravaged Sierra Leone who were asked to capture their daily lives with a disposable camera, the exercise was about finding beauty in their broken, hurting world.

read the rest of the article and see more photos...

article on Broken and Beautiful Photo Exhibit

Homeless


"This is a collaborative project with a class of underprivileged teen aged girls. We developed the story and animation together around an eaten apple and the seeds that remained.

In the story the apple is eaten, the two seeds run from the scene and one cries about loosing its home while the other is comforting. They are thrown in the trash where they find a new home, a rotten apple. Then they feel an earthquake and are tossed through the air onto the soil."

By the end of our months in a row of Tuesday classes spent on the parts of the animation the girls finally said, 'enough let's finish it already!'

art for therapy

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I sat down in an empty parking lot. Three little boys, two were 4 and the other 8, approached me as I wrote in my journal and asked what I was writing. I evaded the question, handed them colored pencils and a 4x8 inch piece of paper to draw on together. I happened to had a good recording device with me and I hit record as it sat in my open bag away from their view. I later recorded the guitar track to go with the original voices of the boys. The video slowly fades into the drawing and back out to white. I saw the red haired four year old again yesterday playing on the streets around the fence of a condemned coliseum.

There are the trained marks of a fine artist on paper or canvas which can be beautiful and attuned to the subject and insightful. These authentic marks of little children have the simple beauty of the human person, our vitality, life, gentleness, and hope.

i am what you would call a struggling artist...because it struggle to actually create the space to put the images that come to my heart on paper. sometimes space happens and i get a few things out. here a few sketches from series of painting that i want to do: three parts...slavery, exodus, freedom. not sure where exactly these will fit in but i hope by posting them it will push me to keep going...i have maybe 5 images all together and i want to have 4 for each word.

We had a psychotherapist sharing with the community this week. In part he dealt with clinical attachment styles. One of which is Anxious Ambivalent Attachment. This is the case when the child distances herself as a way of coping with the insecurity of the environment. The mother may well be loving and well intentioned but just isn't able to or doesn't know how to give the child a base of love and consistency. Often there is an alcoholic in the mix creating instability. It reminded me of this strange painting I did a while ago and gave as collateral to the local gallery for showing in their space. At the time it reminded me of Dostoevsky's salad bowl mix of persons disorders working off each other. Now I just think it rings true to the deprivation many of us live in and live as if there were no other reality.

art for therapy

Rodica and Rosalinda were born into the world a few days ago around a table of kids pushing pulling and rolling 'plastalina' into eyes mouths and whatever else they thought to do. These had a little extra personality as do their creators. Rodica's creator is quiet, and thoughtful but rarely lets her thoughts known unless she can't help her curiosity. Her homemaker with a plate of food and apron on shows some of the mothering she has experienced with or without electricity. Rosalinda is more of a fairy tale name, high heels, and short skirt, this girl is not just going to survive but will survive with dignity and have some fun along the way, so with her 10 year old creator.

A Reading Of Ezekiel

I tried to leave my place but again I found myself
caught in the chill of the night behind my desk, reading,
taking a trip through the Lebanese trees—making my way
through the midnight fog and cooled sand of Ezekiel's poems,
through the forgotten language of laments and prophets,
shepherds and ancient cities. This somehow made my mind
burst into flame for hours until I had to shut off the lamp
and walk to bed. Yet even while I took off my clothes and slid in
under the sheets, I inhaled the thought of a life to come
that would not only be observed but smelled and heard,
becoming more than it ever has been,
bones becoming flesh.

recent poem by Josh Fowler now living in Romania

The Deposition

“The police are giving us an apartment!" Are you coming or not?" Each of us hop into the police van and see the grinning cops joking with us. They usually swear at us and look at us like we are rats, but never are they happy to see us.

The city spins outside the van a few times and we pull up. "5th floor", we traipse up the stairs one after another. 'Who can bust in the door?" We all jump up and start pounding in the door. There are no sounds inside, just echoes of beating on the door. John falls in on his side on top of the mangled door and there she is.

In the kitchen lies an old woman. She must have been dead for a while now. The kitchen is moldy and smells like the bottom of a garbage can. The woman’s face is an old spotted bleached house shirt.

“The granddaughter was sent to the orphanage there is no one left to carry her out boys', Here is a bag, lets get her down to the van, we'll talk about the apartment later.

It is one of those houses, where there are no corners, only worn edges and solidified gum in every corner filling in until the home rounds till it looks like the underground tunnels we sleep in for now.

Dark, damp collections of clothes, shag strip on the bathroom floor, split toilet seat, scraps of wood, broken furniture, hear the echoes in the walls, neighbors gargling through the bathroom wall.

We all find places around the body and carry her over the broken door spiraling down together like the 'Lord’s Cow' bug with each of us as a leg.

We carry the black bag down the five flights of stairs and each of us knows what to do with death. Laugh in its face. (Except when we carried Mike out of the sewer last year after he got beat up and drank himself till he choked on his own vomit in the sewer, nobody looked at anybody, we all hated him anyway and you don’t want him haunting you just because you laughed). So we tell jokes the whole time, we joke that the body would ride nicely on the top of the van and we could aim and drop it down quite easily. The police are quiet for once, those two hate us and love us at the same time. We all know it.

We scuffle out the back of the van stopped at the morgue entrance at the back of the hospital. Placing her body on the hospital stretcher for a minute I remember my grandmother. Her smell, the way she always touched my ear and couldn't get me to eat enough. The way her bare feet looked in those jelly slippers in the summer. Blackened toe nails, And I thought of my mother, and hell, the last time I saw my dad, my brother fishing, and my mother. I feel that nameless black blob coming up my chest and say, 'so do we get to use the apartment or not?'

“We'll see what the mayors office works out and we'll let you know. I am not sure it will do any good, you'll still be back at the corner smearing your dirty rags on car windows pestering good people for change”

(a short story based an experience of the kids we meet with regularly on the streets)

art for therapy

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I pulled out a couple bricks of terra cota clay and I got, 'I am not doing anything today!' from one of the girls. The others were sceptical and silent. I showed them some examples of claymations and explained the process a little. One girl decided to do something when she heard that she could sing for the clay figure. She is the amazing pop voice in the video. I think we learned together and have some more ideas of what we might do next together. There is something magic about pulling out a brick of dark terra cotta clay, it makes us all kids again.

As part of a project with the kids I had them cutting out people from magazines. Later as I went through the cuttings I found this on the back of a cut out of a little boy. It is now pinned to my studio wall reminding me of how meaningful 'accidents' can be. "Reality can have metaphorical content; that does not make it less real" --Salman Rushdie, from Midnight's Children

Here is our line up of buses. Tonight we will meet under the street light that lights the parking lot and have some food together. Last week during our art time on the streets we drew the busses that park in the huge parking lot next to where we meet. There is a soccer stadium to one side, Mc Doodles, and the hospital on another, and an abandoned sports arena. Buses park to wait to take workers back to their villages in the late afternoon. Some street kids traveled the whole country before they were 15, some barely leave their corner. We'll stay here with them while the buses, cars and trams come and go. We'll keep praying for an empty parking lot and miracle stories of by gone days.

This was an encore in Galati, Romania at the Teatru Muzical, of a performance given by a Romanian violinist. The piece is the 3rd movement, Andante, of the 2nd Sonata for Violin Solo by Johann Sebastian Bach. The streets are on the way to the corner store and near our neighborhood church. The rug is a good representation of the throw rugs in all the main traffic areas of our neighborhood church. It is a typical Romanian hand made rag rug.

Our family is beginning the process of building a house with our good friends. I am going to have studio space in the attic. Monica has laughed at me a few times saying that I am really building a studio with a house under it to support it, and that it is nice of me to building living space as well. Here is Lau the guy I am building with cutting the metal bars we are using to support our wood fence.

Here is an oil painting on the theme of triangles. The solid triangle seemed too dominant so I started sanding back into the canvas.

This painting was done when Monica was in her last month with Simeon. Below is an article she just had published in 'In Communion' titled "Peace with my Body".

"On April 20, 2006, just a few minutes past seven in the morning, I held my new- born son, Abram. As I gazed into his beautiful face, deep gratefulness welled up within for the wonderful pregnancy and childbirth I had experienced. And at that moment, I made peace with my body. I had always been healthy and had a pretty uneventful medical history until 2001 when my husband and I were expecting our first child. At about four months into the pregnancy, just when I thought I was out of the danger zone, I miscarried. It was the most emotionally devastating event either of us had gone through. For months we cried and wrestled with God about the injustice of our loss. A weight descended on us as we saw the world as a place where bad things happen, even to good people, with little or no explanation. I began to see myself and my body as defective, unable to carry a child as it was created to. I had no health problems related to the miscarriage, yet I felt scarred and broken..." Read the rest of the article 'Peace with my Body" written by Monica.

Six months ago I had the honor of spending time with a beautiful soul named Jean. Jean had spent her life caring for many with her tough love and kind words. As Jean lay in a clinic near the end of a long battle with the cancer that was deteriorating her organs she taught me many things. Here are a few.

- Appreciate the rain. Take a drive or stroll and watch how it fills the low places.

-Celebrate your birthday. If you don't, few will.

-Live each day to its fullest. Not a single one is promised.

-Respect yourself. Others will do likewise.

-Remember. The memories can be difficult, but they are so worth it.

-Listen. It is a Holy act that can usher us into the Divine.

My friend Stuart and I interviewed Jean 5 times before her death. The audio has been edited down into a 6 minute narrative for her family about her life and the wisdom she held. As I listen to her voice still fresh in my head, I am reminded that simply living life intentionally is an act of beauty.

One night a few weeks ago I dreamed a triangle. I have been avoiding straight lines, hard geometry, or anything that seems mechanical in the least. We are human, why not have an art that reflects our flesh and blood, pulsing, shaking, breathing existance. So for me a triangle is something new. It started out as a posative black shape with a biomorphic form inside, then I realized the triangle is too strong to be posative,ie black, so I made it a negative shape. I cut out a triangle and did a wash on the handmade paper to start. Then gold biomorphic form inside and black outside. It seemed to work as a poetic representation of the universe.

I couple of these are now showing at our local art gallery in the 'under 35's' show. For a review of the show and a photo of the couple of us that dared show up look here at our local newspaper . Sorry, it is only in Romanian. I also had a 1.5ft x6ft oil painting on board I posted earlier of a sunflower. The line about my work was quoting our local city art critic Mrs. Cocos, "mă bucur că expune din nou Joel Klepac, care are un potenţial divers şi o sensibilitate deosebită", Which very generously says, "I am glad that Joel Klepac is showing work again, he has diverse potential and an unusual sensativity". The art critic has liked my work in the past especially the Sarcina series and I think was a little bit disapointed that the work I showed now was abstract and tightly tied to nature.

How to make paper...find some girls who think you know what you are doing...tear up used paper and place it in a blender with water...

Then take out the blender with the burned out motor and use a drill to jimmy spin the blades using a bench to hold the contents still...

Listen to the descriptions of this beautiful goop you have just made...'it is just like the wash water before you throw it down the drain...

get some kind of frame, cheese cloth, and a bunch of hands to hold things...

Dump two buckets full of paper pulp mixture into the box quickly...and...

Ooops, well, maybe it didn't work out so great the first time. We pulled the pulp back together, mixed the pulp back in with new water, held the cheese cloth tighter to the bow, and added another sac under the cheese cloth to get the pulp to flow slower...

It did work better. We ironed for a good 20 minutes and got a nice hunk of unique paper.