A Bifurcated Goddess of Spring

Spring is the time of year when I’m most content with just sitting and staring dumbly at nature’s exuberances. My Piscean March birthday makes me particularly vulnerable to wanting to weep at the beauty of it all.

But this year is particularly poignant because we are about to leave this gorgeous home of ours for the north country. The house sale is pending, and I’m off next week to find our next home in the south Puget Sound area of Washington.

For weeks now I’ve been living in two worlds in my imagination. Were I a more experienced shaman, perhaps I would move more gracefully between the imaginal realms without the upheaval of loss and dislocation alternating with expectation and exhilaration. But maybe not. 

rorschach with ink and gesso, collage and acrylics on w/c paper

Two sides of the same coin

Doppelgangers

Me in two places

North and South

East and West

Sun and Rain

or

A split personality

A here today there tomorrow

A bifurcated goddess of Spring

Dwelling in two regions at once

Traveling the sensory tapestry

Of the be here/there now

A shaman riding the dragon’s tail

Landing softly in two places to

Be ready

        for both

Gaze

      Touch

             Listen

                   Sniff and

Taste!

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Illustrated Adventure?

People keep asking if I’m excited about moving. And if I shrug they might add, but you’re in for an adventure. But honestly, adventure of this sort often looks more enticing from the outside. And we all have some element of restlessness, especially after a year of pandemic shut downs. So I get it. Sure, I guess I’m excited

For most of us adventure is sweetest when you’ve planned it out first, like an exotic vacation, and maybe a good friend told you about how fabulous it was, and how safe, and you’ve poured over pictures to prepare yourself.

Anticipation of adventure applies only theoretically to a move. Nevertheless I am trying, and this piece today bears witness to that. I want something to look back on once the boxes are packed and unpacked on the other side in the mythical new home. Then there will be stories to tell and hopefully the audience to hear.

For now I steal moments away from the near constant cleaning and clearing to paint and paste the adventure, which I’ve not yet fully embraced!

inks and gesso rorschach with deconstructed book, etc. collage

Suspended in my own frenzy

an echo of springtime

riot of

bird-buzz

bud-burst

bee-bloom

as Easter bunny makes her way through

oxalis and I at the ready

to hop with her 

Enemy Combatants

When you want to know what a rorschach is trying to tell you, just pick up a pen and take dictation as it begins to talk. It’s usually nonsense at first, but just keep going and you might be surprised! The rorschach painting I demo-ed in a quick video a couple weeks ago (see here ) talked to me and here’s what it said.

fluid acrylics and gesso on w/c paper

Enemy Combatants

They didn’t know how ridiculous they looked

these strutting enemy combatants

nor how much alike they were

. . . twins really

Passionately they cared for their towering headwear

their voluminous feathered capes which

simultaneously raised to reveal

chests with medals won in [internet-only] battles.

Little did they realize (giggle giggle)

that their precious manly parts would

thus spill out for all to see

and measure and compare and

(much worse) to snigger

These combatants, trapped on the paper as they are

pose no threat to readers here

Yet we are reminded of those who

in their manly posturing

do great injury to innocent souls

Remind you of anyone?

Rorschach

I hadn’t done a rorschach blot painting in a long time. You know, the proverbial inkblot that psychologists have used to diagnose patients by listening to their answers about what they see in the inkblot. Rorschachs are a great way to project your imagination onto the screen of your paper. In more abstract, expressive painting sometimes it’s hard to get started. Not so, when you start with rorschach play. I always find my mind kicking into high gear with hallucinations, ideas, stories, and occasional wisdom. Here’s the latest.

India ink, acrylic, screen and paper collage on w/c paper

They were doing a little dance, like children do, or maybe there were playing hopscotch. I don’t know. And as the sidewalk heaved up between them, a golden light escaped from below. A veil had lifted from their eyes, and they gazed down bewildered, and maybe a bit bewitched, but in a good way.

Meanwhile wise ones, taking their measure of the children, sent their emissaries, in readiness to draw the veil again if some mischief arose.

But the two tiny characters became fearful. Are we allowed? they asked. And there was at first no answer.

Then they heard it, a crackle and a hiss, a snap and a pop. That was it! They ran away shrieking, leaving the pots of treasure untouched.

And so it is for us all, that we fear those treasures which wait for us to find them, meanwhile searching in all the wrong places.

Would you like to try a rorschach of your own? I recorded a three minute demo today to show you how.

To watch the demo click here.

Gone Aerial

acrylic inks on w/c paper, 10 X 11″

Believe it or not, this started out as a demonstration of an inks and gesso “rorschach”. I folded the white paper over along the “zipper line” of the bird, creased it, then squirted ink and gesso on one side a bit randomly.  Next I folded the paper over again and smooshed the paint so it transferred to the other side. All the rest is the outcome of whatever nuttiness possessed me at the moment as I charged ink from the dropper into lines of water.

Not surprising, this tapestry of fields (the vineyards on the flatlands below my home) or the mountains (which separate us from Calistoga and the Napa Valley). Also not surprising that I would try to go airborn, but feel the weight of my somewhat leaden human body weighing me down!