Monday June 21, 2010

It is Monday, the first day of the work week. I am again amazed, it is the 21st and the month of June, is passing fast. I am here, and I am working as hard as I can, but time seems to move ahead of me.

I worked on the two oil paintings yesterday. I had to scrape one down, but came back and painted and was pleased with the work for the day. These pieces will be a part of the Poems of the Desert series.

I had planned to put on my "secretary hat" today, and catch up on the office work, but it seems I have someone coming to help me with house keeping. I will be very grateful. Of course, I can't keep up with house keeping, as I spend all my time in the studio....there just isn't enough time. Not enough time to investigate all that I want to and not enough time to keep up with housekeeping, especially when you live in the desert. I try to keep the windows shut as much as possible, as I live on a dirt road and I find the dust of the outside world constantly seeks a place in my house. But to live in Taos is to live without air conditioning and the outside is the inside. But of course I think it is better for us and for the environment, just dustier.

One of my favorite writers is Susan Griffin, and in Eros she says, "It is only those who listen for the speech of birds who know we have all come from the dark, and that darkness, as Rilke writes, "pulls in everything?' Vast as a single life is vast, filled with moments that expand infinitely. Or as a single detail that can speak to us of everything."

This morning when I came into the studio I turned on the computer player, to hear the music that was given me, by my friend Kathleen. It is a mixed tape, labeled Spice, and the music is incredible. But to read Susan Griffin again, I am reminded how much I like to hear the birds sing in the morning, I turn off the player, I can listen later. The door to the studio is open, it is already breathless. I don't know, but it seems hotter this summer. There is smoke in the air from the fire in the Jemiz Mountians, south of Taos. I hope they will be able to put that out soon.

When she says,"we all come from the dark, and darkness pulls everything in." I think of the disaster in the Gulf. And one time in our distant past, we all crawled out of the "dark" salty deep. We know that place, and we suffer because of the suffering there. All is dead or dying. Will it ever end? And then can we start the long climb to reclaim what was?

And yes, a single life is vast, and I think of Elizabeth Browning, who's world was small, and yet she wrote in a "vast" way. It is what is going on in our heads that is "vast." And we can reach out and touch another. And with the communication of art, we only have to touch one, it isn't about touching everyone, and yet I think when we paint from the heart, there is the possibility that the viewer can see from the heart.

I have always thought we don't try to paint the universe in a painting, but perhaps a single detail can speak to us of the universe,... everything. This is about being aware, it is about seeing, and it is about translating what we have experienced.