Artist and urban chicken farmer Janet Barocco lives in Santa Rosa, California. She submitted this delightful image and haiku as a celebration of early spring.
The Mystery of Behind the Eyelids Images
The Mystery of Behind the Eyelids Images
By Cheryl Renee Long
It is not unusual for me to see full blown images behind my eyelids just as I wake up in the morning.
I am not sure if this has to do with the strong light that comes through my window, filtered by our Broad Leaf Maple. Maybe it has to do with an overactive imagination wanting to get to the colored pencils. Are these images teasers to push me toward my black pages and my idea book?
I do not know, but Salvador Dali said that he would not mind solitary confinement because he could spend his life painting the images behind his eyeballs. We share this odd phenomena.
“Acid Green and Manganese Blue” appeared to me as a fabric or woven disc, backlit with brilliant blue. Black Pears hearkens back 15 years to my “black things” series. Art has an uncanny life of its own, and it am amazed when it asserts itself. “Paint Me! Paint me now!!”
The Synthesis of Memory
Many artists notice that their best work emerges long after a visit or an experience. Two paintings above are a synthesis of my memories. I did not use a photo reference, preferring instead to see what colors, what shapes emerged just from remembering. I did not use just one scene, Junipers is a composite. The landscape shows a repeating pattern of dotted sagebrush, always a good element for a composition. I have many Juniper stories. I remember the Pariah Canyon country; a juniper loaded with opalescent pale blue berries fluoresced in the starlight. I see junipers as sacred trees and possibly sentient in some way.
Cliff Swallows continue to be a persistent image for many years. We call these long term pictures in our minds Source Imagery. I seem to have a thing for repeating dot patterns. I have seen these nests in Colorado, Utah, Oregon, and Washington. I am not sure why they hold such appeal for me. Cliff Swallows are free and beautiful birds. Their flight pattern is fascinating and they build nests from permanent materials, and high on the cliffs, far from predators. I resonate with that.
A Return to the Mysterious Night Vision Field Journal
Welcome Back!
Cheryl and I took a year-long hiatus from the Mysterious Night Vision Field Journal art, blog, and classes, but now we’re back.
Starting Jan. 2, 2018, Cheryl will teach a two week class The Mysterious Night Vision Field Journal. It is a two week online course in drawing memories, dreams, and reflections on black paper using gel pens or Prismacolor pencils.
In love with vivid color, we pursue the soul’s uncensored purpose.
To get back in the groove, we are each returning to our black journals and sharpening up our Prismacolors.
Sandy got started this morning with a drawing that began with a dream and then went from there. She wrote a poem that “explains” each step of the drawing.
A Return to the Mysterious Night Vision Field Journal
Now we return to teach and be taught
by The Mysterious Journal of Dreams.
Bright colors and a black field—
the gate between worlds swings wide.
As I drew the distant mountains,
I thought, ” A faraway friend.”
As I colored in the layered cliffs,
I thought, “Banded agate.”
As the petroglyphs emerged,
I thought, “Return to a seed, a star, a tree.”
A boat blew her sails into the wind,
And I said, “Now we’re on the water.”
The surf first, and then the wind,
and two swimmers, you and me,
The earth, the sky, the sea.
–Sandy Brown Jensen
Have YOU been dreaming or drawing or writing lately?
Rumi said,
“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.”
What has been drawing YOU? Let us know in the comment field–it’s above, just under the headline where it says “Leave a comment.”
We’d love to hear from everyone!
Receiving Love From All Over The World and Beyond
Post by Cheryl Renee Long
prayers,
attunements,
reiki,
shamanic healing and
enfolding good thoughts
I consciously switch my energy to Receive.
I bask in the healing love of my friends, my family and possibly entities unknown to me.
Will She Come To Me Now?
–Sandy Brown Jensen
(This poem is about my unusual muse, who is a ten foot tall hominid who survived the Ice Age and still roams the Pacific Northwest. She is not to be confused with Sasquatch of urban legend fame or Dzonoquah of the sacred Kwakwakawak tribal pantheon except that in Dreamtime, she is both of those. I am working on a book of poems called Giantess.)
Will she come to me now when
the little creek of grief is nothing
but dark water in an old ditch
inching upward with the swell
of winter rain?
She is a creature
of the far North. All winter
She sleeps as the bears sleep.
She lets her dream body loose
to roam, held to her sleeping
bulk by the thinnest of silks.
When the winter nights
are tin cold and the stars
so far away that I may as well
have my head in a bucket
punched with holes, I look
for her between fir trees. I listen
for her in the gunshot snap
of a frozen limb. I try
to find her thread
and lead her to me here.
Now the March thaw
is breaking up the rivers
the way, long after a death,
the heart begins to rise again.
I know she is traveling
toward me now, the long
southward beaches still roaring
with open mouths their storm
surge songs.
She is finding
cockles among the seaweed,
and her eyes, if you could see them,
have twin catchlights
like inverted crescent moons.
Nude with Blue Birds
Healing Has Its Own Schedule
Post by Cheryl Renee Long:
Today is February 26, 2017. Thirteen days ago I had a mastectomy of the right breast. I am healing but it seems like a very long process. Some days I hurt enough to take pain medication, some days I think I can clean the entire house. Well I cannot, it doesn’t matter who is coming over to see me. The house has to wait.
Healing has its own schedule.
You Mustn’t Be Frightened
“You mustn’t be frightened
if a sadness rises in front of you,
larger than any you have ever seen;
if an anxiety – like light and cloud-shadows,
moves over your hands and everything you do.
You must realize that something is happening to you,
that life has not forgotten you,
that it holds you in the palm of its hand
and will not let you fall.”
–Rilke
This is from Sandy Brown Jensen’s current art journal. It is being featured this week on Tumblr’s Journal-Inspirations site.
Mermaid Feet
A recent Daily Create asked us to video “where our feet go.” I couldn’t face the cliched video-pointing-down-at-feet-walking, so I put on a bathing suit, grabbed my Go Pro and sank into my hot tub for both still and video photography.
I was surprised at how dreamy the resulting images were.