I am still in California and it is still grey. At least it’s not the fire-roasted smoky grey of Boston or New York.
Sometimes in my double collage play with the Paris Collage visual prompt, the prompt gets lost. When it disappears, I don’t post to instagram, even though sometimes I like them better. Today I’ll share a bunch here.
It just occurred to me that making these double/triple/quadruple images might be my version of Hazel’s watercolors. I find her daily practice inspiring and the paintings expressive, sometimes beyond what her words say. I guess that’s one of the points of the practice.
As a writer friend announces after every read: THE END.
The debt bill just passed the house. Ugh. The process. Certainly, some mastery at work by Biden.
In this house tonight, Jeopardy is competing with a soccer game. I think Jeopardy will win. I don’t want Ted Lasso to end — I really don’t— but we’ll watch that later.
Ready for a month’s worth of haiku tomorrow? Is a month all at once too much? Would weekly round ups be more digestible?
Lying on the couch after dinner, half-asleep and wondering when all the shows about WWII will finally dry up, I suddenly remembered the dead robin in my bag. Eek! I’d picked it up on our walk yesterday with the intention of burying her here and then forgotten.
Still in my bag? Sleeved in a newspaper plastic but still. I’m going to California in the morning. Imagine if I’d forgotten it altogether.
I found that butterfly tag in my carryon laptop bag. “Riot is the language of the unheard.” Where did I hear that? A slightly haunting relic of the summer of George Floyd? Does anyone know who said it? [thank you Deb and Nancy. This was said by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.]
And, to pick up on Grace’s blog about creative endeavor, there is that question that thrums through the life of a maker. Why? Why do you do it? In particular, what is the point of all these collages, many of which exist purely in ones and zeroes on a screen?
This one is paper, but uses a print out of a digital collage in the background (me, peeking out above the book).
One thing I said in the comments is that there are very few things I do in life that don’t require overcoming resistance. Ugh. This again? Working with pattern in cloth and collage is not like that. I just find myself doing it. For that reason alone it’s a valuable, ongoing exercise.
There’s more to say about this, but as Jude recently noted on her blog, maybe the saying matters a whole lot less than simply continuing.
Right now, I’m “getting” scenes about some characters living in Boulder during the pandemic. I have no idea yet whether this is a viable project. There are ecstatic dancers who appear and disappear (all women) and no one knows what to make of them. There is a feral boy who lives deep in the woods. There’s a mom and her three kids, one of who is decompensating (again). Her middle child is a lawyer working for a social justice group that objects to decisions being made about the former bomb factory at Rocky Flats (turn plutonium-contaminated land into a public park? Really?)
I share this because, like the collages, the scenes keep coming whether I want them to or not. I’m sure Deb can speak to this.
Okay. Off to give Ken a tour of recently planted perennials so he knows what to water in my absence. Mostly divided hosta. Oh those reliable and prodigious hosta!
First the components: the B&W profile supplied by Paris Collage Club as this week’s prompt; the paper collage using the prompt and magazine cutouts; a photo of K on Mt. Washington in Los Angeles, full size and cropped.
Variations made using dianaphotoapp as usual. I also used the app called Grungetastic for the third image. A number of older collages (both paper and digital) got layered into a couple. Usually I like selections that keep the week’s prompt very distinct and central. But then again, the combos where the prompt nearly disappears can also intrigue me.
You’ll notice in one collage the National Geographic image of an Egyptian man dragging a net. I have riffed off of this photo for two years now (from Acey’s challenge and before). I’m not sure why it compels me so, but writing this post I now see (duh) how my photo of K echoes that silhouette.
I’ve printed out a couple of these and will go back to paper and see what comes up.
But first, we are off the buy compost and a few flowers (it’s almost Mother’s Day after all!)
In a matter of days, K flies to India, which just happens to be where a new highly contagious variant of Covid is running rampant. Arcturus. The last time my husband traveled, he came home with Covid.
So I’m worried. About his heath. And mine. And since I fly to visit my brother within days of his return, also about my brother’s. We may live in separate rooms when K gets back just to be careful.
When I told my brother, he was pretty cavalier about it. For some reason it took me a full twenty-four hours to remember how much risk he lives with week-to-week. His partner is an emergency room doctor.
Not related to any of that, please find a new digital collage above.
As I wrote on Instagram:
Speaking of my manuscript, I deleted another 1,000 words yesterday. I’m officially under 130,000 now!
And speaking some more about writing, Deb Lacativa and I are critical reading partners (more involved than say, a beta reader) and she has begun feeding me new scenes. Completely captivating new scenes, need I add?
In all my noodling last night, a paragraph from Prophets Tango showed up. I loved reading this passage the first time. And the second. And third. You get the idea.
I can’t share an Amazon link because I’m on my phone (?) but if you just search the title in books, all three volumes come up.
