Category Archives: Uncategorized

:Magnetic Boots Dream

Magnetic Boots 
…comes from a dream of August 22, 2014

I am in a  beautiful, spacious gallery. I am working as a staff member that day with two other women. I realize there is someplace else that I urgently need to be. I ask them if they will cover for me. They agree and I leave quickly.

Next I am walking with a young man. He is over 7 feet tall. He has very black hair and white skin. He tells me he is only 20 and that the Guinness Book of Records will not yet give him the tallest man in the world status because he is still growing. There is another man somewhere in the world and they are in competition for the title.

He and I come to a yellow art studio in the woods. It has many open windows and he easily steps in through a window. I am too short to easily lift myself up to get through the window. I think he might lend me a hand and he finally does offer a hand but he is not really any help. I finally am able to get into the studio but with difficulty.

I wonder why I feel so heavy. I look down at the my feet. I am wearing my leather Red Wing work boots. They are covered with screws, nuts, bolts – bits of metal and one of them is sticking me in the foot, hurting me. I think, these are magnetic boots and they are attracting all kinds of heavy shit. 

–Cheryl R.Long

End
Since I had this dream I have resigned from my gallery and taken a year off from producing retreats. I have completed four paintings so far this month. My two classes are full. Two other classes simply went away. Space in consciousness. I guess I just need a lot of room. 

Flag of Me

 I created this mirror photograph in response to a challenge to create a “visual palindrome.” A commenter on Flickr said I should make it the flag of my country. I love that idea –what does it mean? What would the flag of YOUR country look like?

Full Moon Lantern Festival – Travel Journal

The Full Moon Lantern Festival in Chaing Mai, November 2013. 

Thousands of people in the streets near the Ping River on this full moon night. Each individual, man, woman and child released a large 2-1/2 foot tall white paper lantern into the moonlit night with little competing light to spoil the effect. Each lantern gently filled with heat as the candle caught the flame. It slowly rises to join myriad of others in the night sky. A soft breeze moved the lights slowly across my line of vision, each rising –  a disappearing pinpoint of light.

Not an orchestrated show but joyful event created by everyone, tourists included. I very much felt a part of this awe inspiring Thai festival.

Fields of Lake Cle Elum Gold

October 24, 2013 found me visiting Seattle to go to a conference. I came a day early so Cheryl and I would have an Art Play Day–and what a day it was! We planned for one destination, but as the sun got lower in the sky, we instead stopped in the surreal basin of the lowered reservoir.

I loved the strong bones of this place, awash in shadows and sun, drenched with the colors of the changing season,
I put my photos into a slide show to the music of the immortal Eva Cassidy, “Fields of Gold.”
http://vimeo.com/77906325

“Painting en Plein Air”: Let the Poetry Begin!

Nightfall View From a Kayak, Watercolor by Cheryl R. Long

Painting en Plein Air

My turquoise tangerine
washes cerise chartreuse
in the frangible
orange
new gamboge
light
of the pear-shaped afternoon.

–Sandy Brown Jensen
_________________________________________________________________

 
Welcome!
Inspired by +Beth Camp, who is doing the October One Poem a Day 
Writing Month, I am teaching a creative writing class in poetry 
Winter 2014 for Lane Community College, so I am beginning to blog 
more poetry to get back into practice.
I follow a website called The Daily Create, and today the creative 
challenge is:

“Find a website with descriptive names for colors; write a story
or poem using at least 5 of those names.”

 
My poem is drawn from looking at my sister +Cheryl Renee Long's
favorite painting practice, which is outdoors--a practice 
called painting en plein air.
 
She and I both love a color called New Gamboge, which looks 
like this:
New Gamboge
You can see her effective use of it in the painting above, 
"Nightfall View From a Kayak."

Internet Flow

Today’s Daily Create

Draw the Internet! 12 Oct 2013
Give us an illustration of what the Internet looks like you.
Created with Flowpaper.
At first I tried a random network scribble drawing, but that didn’t express my sense of the Internet with all its major hubs. Flowpaper provides a geat sense of visual complexity.

Tatoosh Range: Watercolor series fall 2013

In Pacific Northwest the fall colors are often soft shades of gray, blue and inky darks. These paintings are available at www.CherylRLong.com.

 I viewed the Tatoosh Range from the hiking trails above Paradise Lodge, Mt. Rainier. WA. Sandy and I watched dense white clouds rolled, in knowing that a massive thunder and lightning storm was predicted. With a careful eye on the sky, we stayed up in the blooming mountain meadows until the last possible minute. As the first rain threatened we scurried on down the trail to the warmth and safety of Paradise lodge, and a before dinner toast to the day.