This month I am celebrating Spring…no matter how long it takes to get here! As part of that celebration I invite you to visit my studio as I participate in the third “Second Saturday Studio Tour” for 2015. The tour is part of the Rural Routes to Main Street Cultural Trail. Visitors are welcome from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. this Saturday, March 14th, 2015.
I’ll have some treats to nibble, something to sip and a small Spring themed “make & take” art project for you to get creative with. As an added bonus I’ll be sharing flower seeds that I harvested last fall for you to take home and plant in your Spring gardens. I hope to see you then!
I am going through and updating, deleting and generally spiffing up my blog. After 800+ posts and seven years, I’m sure this is past due! Thanks to the fabulous Alyson Stanfield and her Art Biz Blog for the prompt! I’m guessing no one needs to see old announcements about upcoming classes and shows that happened years ago so those will be the first things to go. In the meantime I’m revisiting a lot of posts that I’d forgotten about.
When I ran across this one I knew I wanted to share it again and knew exactly what images I wanted to match with it! When I posted this original poem in 2008 I hadn’t yet reach a stage in my blogging adventures to even know how to add images along with the words. Which ended up working perfectly because I hadn’t yet created these digital drawings. I don’t share much of my poetry, this is the only one that made it to the blog and, as perhaps you might notice, I’m not necessarily in my happy place when I write it. I can’t recall ever feeling so happy I just had to write a poem about it! 🙂 During this one I was feeling creatively blocked as well as struggling with some life issues that wanted to overwhelm me. I’m glad I’m not in that place anymore! When I re-read it today I relate it more to the wintertime and all the things laying dormant under the snow waiting to be released into the sunshine to grow and flourish. I’m more than ready for that to happen as I gaze out the window at all the whiteness surrounding us today!
Fragile shoots of creative inspiration creeping from between the cracks
in monotonous everyday life. Some struggle tenaciously for existence
most wither quickly, life choked from them suffocating in the climate
they were born.
Those that endure the harsh beginning required to grow without nourishment,
pushing past smothering layers of daily tedium. Cautiously they proceed,
death waiting, grasping, determined to wedge them under layers
of unimaginativeness.
Scarcely any will survive the journey despite their most valiant efforts.
Their route chaotic with sights & smells. The dead, decaying predecessors
strewn recklessly along the way. A frightening path, even for the resolute.
Struggling to outrun the stench of failure the most resilient push forward,
hoping that the next layer, or perhaps the next, will release them from
this nightmare. Slowly, tentatively they surface, grasping their
hard earned freedom.
Fresh air & sun caresses them and, though they are few, they sprout
and blossom a furious riot of brilliant colors. A kaleidoscope
of leaves and blossoms fed from the flesh of dead ancestors
lying beneath the uncaring layers of life.
Tiny seeds drop working their way slowly down below the tiers
of dullness and predictability, dormant. Waiting in dream-laced limbo.
Flashes of life-giving inspiration ignite them,
beginning another perilous journey upward toward the warm, inviting rays.
A Randomly Creative Blog 