Creativity

Zoo

It’s fun to get out and experiment. Today I went to the zoo to sketch whatever animals I could find. The pelicans were standing around after eating, the bear dug itself a nest and fell asleep. And just as I was drawing a profile of the elephant, she turned her back to me and sauntered off.

dreams and old clothes

Made a flag by sewing the legs of old martial arts uniforms. Here’s both sides.

From the Drawing Board

I’ve kept notebooks to write ideas, scribble in, and well…scribble more in. Keeping them handy has helped me create my poems, stories, and art. Looking through my old notebooks is like going back in time and discovering who I was. Here’s a few drawings from the past year.

Trigger Warning: I draw my cat a lot. Cuteness overload may occur.

Nekko the Cat looking out the window. Confession: I made many more than that.

I don’t know why this guy appeared in my living room.

Grace

Placid waves

wash warm

Over toes, knees,

belly to breasts.

Drink in sun.

Float

cotton-candy clouds

framing

rose,

lemon,

sapphire

sky.

After the Storm, 6 A.M. East 7th Street

Pale silver sky
reflects on black iron.
Fire escape raindrops
slowly illuminate
this visceral world.
Birds’ babble,
laughter
rises with mist
from the street below.
I smile and
close my eyes
in calm satisfaction.

I lie still
between soft, worn
cotton sheets,
above spring verdant trees,
mahogany branches,
as lemon glimmers
among
sapphire clouds.
I know the secret
of tiny mosaics
and that
magical
pink metal
laundry box
in the bathroom.
The fire escape ladder,
is my tree house
framed by wet-dark branches
and cobalt curtains.
The rain-bejeweled
fire escape
will take me
directly
to heaven.

Community and Creative Process

I have lived in artistic communities since early adulthood. I love the energy, feel it even when I am alone in my room. There is affirmation of the value of creating within an art community. There is knowledge that process is important. The energy in a community where people participate in the creative process helps generate ideas, even as we disagree about the relative value of specific pieces or particular forms of art.
Art for me has been a means of keeping an even keel in a crazy world.
Often when I create, whether a poem, a painting or a song, I don’t fully understand the symbols and juxtapositions of ideas until much later. Art is not a way to recreate reality, but distorts reality in order to fully portray it, like a curved glass will focus the sun’s rays on a single point, and result in a fire.

photo of Baltimore rapper Wealth making a music video in Savage, Maryland.

Protection

Holding babies,
Making art,
Singing loudly
In the rain.

Transition: July 25, 2016

Dark night,

sea seeps into sky.

I make footprints,

sand soft against my soles,

soft against my soul,

dipping my feet

at the ocean’s edge.

First light fills the sea.

Sable brushes

against sky.

Ebony ripples

topped

by pale whitecaps.

Still,

the sea is monotonously calm.

One small wave

lands at my feet.

Clouds fall into horizon.

Sky grows lavender

and pale azure,

flaunts charcoal clouds.

Rain

comes.

walk.

East,

stirring of orange glow.

By my right shoulder,

moon peers through clouds.

Sandpipers descend

from

wherever they spend the night.

Feast on

tiny shoreline organisms.

Nimbly avoid

the sweep of waves.

Race forward

and back

from water’s edge.

Skim across the sand

in a motley crew,

in a ballet of

choice

fate.

Now,

Bach’s major chords.

Lemon, rose, violet commingle,

create

a path to the horizon.

Clouds consume rising mist.

West light expands.

Sun capers

in cloud mountain peaks,

rises from the sea.

Indigo clouds stretch,

unveil coral cumulous,

so fluffy

I could eat them.

Cloud column rises from sea,

lays against green sky.

Thunder crashes,

booms.

Lightening cracks open sky.

Heat leaps from sand.

Moist

heat

rises,

cocoons me.

North turquoise sky,

dusky blue ocean.

I turn south,

purple horizon,

salmon undercoat,

azure and lemon overlay.

Creation

every day.

Start

Start writing before the words of the day impose themselves on you. Start while you’re still asleep, just poured the first coffee. While the dream world still holds you in sway, while your conscious mind and worries haven’t yet had time to plant themselves firmly in your mind. Start before you start playing out the arguments you might use with your boss or husband that day. Start in the dark of winter mornings, when the ghosts of the past are still present, when the darkness hasn’t yet faded, as the sun slowly spreads shadows and light and the fall leaves shake in the morning breeze, casting prisms on the floor.