Comments on: River Bed, Exposed

By: Deborah Barlow

Deborah Barlow — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:23:44 +0000

You make it easy to consider, E!

By: Elatia Harris

Elatia Harris — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 18:03:14 +0000

Oh, you could put it back the way it was in a few weeks. It just feels so deeply symbolic — if you want the energy to shift, then it seems worth trying to alter something in the vast continuous spectrum of electromagnetic radiation that is Light. There’s a ritual component here that could answer your purpose, as well.
Know what? If they can take the famous Black Virgin in the South of France off the alter, remove her from her garments and ritually bathe her each year, then it’s probably okay to do what I’m proposing, too. You could arrange all the vases on the gallery floor in a labyrinth pattern — I’m not suggesting you do anything unceremonious with them. However! If something tells you not to do this, then please don’t!

By: Deborah Barlow

Deborah Barlow — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 14:49:52 +0000

And MadSilence, thank you for reminding me of those quotes from Art and Fear. I think I’m feeling more of the blood on the forehead these days.

By: Deborah Barlow

Deborah Barlow — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 14:48:49 +0000

E, I gulped when I read your suggestion. I have so much faith in you and your intuitive read on me that I have to pay attention. OK. I’ll consider it! But you know how transformed I am by golden green light…!

By: Elatia Harris

Elatia Harris — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 03:01:12 +0000

Gloria, in my most productive years as a painter, I got very dressed up to go into the studio. Leonardo in the Penguin Edition of the _Notebooks_ wrote amusingly about painting compared to sculpture, how the painter could show up to work in his finest raiment, the sculptor in lowliest hop-sacking. I think doing whatever enhances your sense of occasion is best. David Hockney said he started off the day stripping the flesh from cold roast quail, standing in the studio doorway, chewing.

Deborah, I know! Take all the lime green glass away from the big clerestory in the studio. Everyone’s eye is always attracted to that window — yours too? Perhaps changing the quality of the light coming through it?

By: madsilence

madsilence — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:50:40 +0000

Apropos of nothing:

Writing is easy: all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead. –Gene Fowler

Artists don’t get down to work until the pain of working is exceeded by the pain of not working. –Stephen DeStaebler

As quoted in Art & fear by Bayles & Orland

By: Deborah Barlow

Deborah Barlow — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:22:04 +0000

G, I think it was you who turned me on to the Midnight Disease in the first place. Thank you for that. As for the clothes, I’m all about trying anything that might shift my energy.

By: Gloria, Writer Reading

Gloria, Writer Reading — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:25:41 +0000

Getting dressed in your best clothes might work for a writer, but a painter? Best clothes would quickly deteriorate to worst, I imagine. I wrote a few posts on Alice Flaherty as her work fascinates me as well.

By: Deborah Barlow

Deborah Barlow — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:05:43 +0000

E, Thanks for that image. It reminds me of an image Anne Truitt uses in Day Book–of riding a wild horse through a rainstorm even though you have no idea of where you are galloping. But you do it, time and time again. It’s the willingness to be open, to surrender to the process.

By: Elatia Harris

Elatia Harris — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:43:10 +0000

My late writing teacher, Art Edelstein, used to quote Willa Cather about the state of preparedness a writer must commit to, even when she doubts anything will pan out on a given day. Being a writer, Cather said, is like being a lightning rod — it may be that lightning won’t strike, but if it does, you will be in place to conduct it.