fervently living

 

"a room of one's own." -Woolf

 

   As the end of summer approaches I am swirling in the creative vortex, as it were.  This is always a bittersweet and exciting time.  Hot summer sun relentless during the day and nights grow cooler.  These are the weeks when change comes swiftly with the wind.  We begin to hunt for long sleeves.  It is a slow metamorphosis, one that we do each year, looking forward, looking back.

   I find myself jumping from wet canvas to collage. Excited digits tap swiftly on the keyboard or dig for my favorite pen and journal from the bottom of my backpack; fingernails scratching chunks of beach left in the bottom.  Long moments spent on benches beneath trees relishing the warmth, watching jogging tan bodies and long pink tongues bouncing from the mouths of furry faces.

   Ideas come as they do, often like lightning strike explosions to the skull, or in a gentle wave rolling into my being, all thoughts nodding in agreement.  I ponder all the summers well loved and felt way down to the the heat calloused soles of my feet.  I search my memory for summers long forgotten and taken for granted.  Where have those moments gone, the exact time in which joy and peace was felt streaking across my soul like a sunset?  They do not exist anymore, but today, right now I will create them again.

   The romantic in me draws intricate designs spider-webbing their way across my heart, up to my throat, behind my eyes, crisscrossing a long braid down my spine and winding around my guts, splitting me in two.  A magician's trick.  The sorcery of chemistry combined with time.  The season's elixir drinking me under the table.  I'm drunk in the sun.  I'm swimming in the sea.  I'm looking for you looking for me.  I'm drawing a map.  I'm unearthing a time capsule.  I'm burying your bones.  I'm biting your flesh.  I'm watching bees.  I'm kissing you.  I'm writing a poem.  I'm quiet.  I'm screaming.  I'm aflame.  I'm naked.  I'm alive.

This Saturday evening at

 

Bleicher Gallery 

 

I will be exhibiting some of my original collages on paper

along with other artists at the "Farewell Sweet Summer" show.