A Contemporary “Canticle of the Creatures”

A Contemporary “Canticle of the Creatures”

This is my contemporary version of the Medieval “Canticle of the Creatures”

With joy we greet you Brother Sun and Blue Sky! 

You brighten and enliven all.

Ah, Sister Moon, such a comfort, 

your soft glow companions us, and with the stars twinkling by your side,

you give us hope when life is darkest.

While the Weathers, fierce creatures that you are, 

swirling rain and snow, winds and heat, 

swaddle us in your wild caresses.

Ah, Sister Water, so soothing, refreshing, invigorating, playful,

and Brother Fire, cozy, bright, enlightening, ardent,

both of you so useful.

You teach us how to be truly helpful

singing and dancing and making merry even as you serve.

O dear Earth, you are surely our Mother, 

nourishing us with every good and delicious thing, 

surrounding us with beautiful and engaging things, 

providing us with furred and finned and feathered ones,  

friends to enrich and enchant us.

But you are also most surely our Sister, 

created by the hand of the same Mother/Father God; 

we are born of the same with destinies linked.

Having been cared for all this time by you, our older Sister,

we now recognize that to go forward, we must walk hand-in-hand, conscious of each other’s needs.

And most fondly of all, we embrace the humanity of all humanity…the whole of what it means to be a human creature, spirit-embodied, both beautiful and disfigured, both charming and crude, both creatively  boundless and yet utterly limited,  

And we rejoice most especially when we can clasp the reality of all of that, and become a source of forgiveness and pardon and love to ourselves and others.

Finally, deeply encoded in our humanity, our continuing companion, Death, we call you Sister as well

…even as we name the nurturing creatures of Earth herself and Water and the Moon… 

who, in your way, completes each of our bodily lives as we know them and frees our spirit from those confines.

Ruminating about Tools…

Ruminating about Tools…

You know the saying, “to do a job well, you need the right tool.” 

After searching for a number of years for just that ‘right tool’ for one specific studio process, something unique to my way of hanging my tiles and moveable sculpture, I ordered one that looked very different from the one I have just about worn out.  I only had half a hope it would fill the bill. It looked quite different on line from the one I always used.  

It came the other day…and Wow! it is not only ‘perfect’ but better than the one I’ve been using for decades. The tip is angled to make the work easier; the handle is thicker to make it more comfortable for my somewhat arthritic hands to hold and manipulate.  What a delight!

I didn’t realize how improved my process would be until I had the courage to purchase that rather expensive, new, seemingly different object. But now I rejoice in the way the designer of that tool has improved my life in the studio.

It’s the little things, right?

Getting that tool made me realize how we are all sculpting away at our individual lives, each of us pretty much using tools that may have worked splendidly early on…but may have gotten worn down and are no longer really useful. 

COVID has and continues to bring all of us to re-assessing the way much of our lives work, but to actually make the change, that’s what takes the real courage…even in little things.  

The Maturing Artist, Part 1/2

The Maturing Artist, Part 1/2

My interest in the arts began very early; going back to my single digit years and my parents’ amazement at my ability to draw “freehand,” in the phrase of the day. In elementary school if art contests were had, they often resulted in prizes for me. In one notorious year when ‘art’ meant coloring in a pre-drawn page, I was given the page Thursday afternoon and assigned to do the coloring; then Friday afternoon the class was directed to ‘color as Linda did.’ Ahh, art it wasn’t, and while embarrassing, it did build my confidence.

High School brought the possibility of really studying art. One of my fondest memories comes from sophomore year and my sweet-talking the registrar to change my schedule from business math to junior-senior art. That was a coup! Of course there was an art club, and senior year I was president and devised all kinds of new activities to engage and enliven the group. 

Music, theater, dance, poetry, all of the arts were very alive in that all girls high school in Baltimore in the early ’60’s, and so performance covers, drawings for poetry magazines, posters, stage scenery, even yearbook ‘end sheets’ in addition to regular art class assignments filled my four years. 

I was in love with the ability to create, found it a useful and much valued skill and knew by then it would always be a major part of my life. Art was about creating beauty, a useful kind of beauty and I believe that simple reality remains at the root of my understanding of art. And the words on the art room bulletin board (never changed in four years and so I remember it to this day), “Art is Right Making,” underscored that. 

The Maturing Artist

The Maturing Artist

When Nancy Ori invited me into a collaboration with her, I was very skeptical. I truly did not see how we could collaborate in any meaningful way. But continued conversation over several months developed into an idea about which I am genuinely excited.

The review of my own journey in art, beginning at the very beginning, was quite shocking. It opened up to me the reality of just how firmly rooted my work has been in my earliest approaches and understanding of art. As each of the installments are published, I invite you to consider your own life’s journey through art, if that is appropriate, or through some other specific focus.

Even as we will have a link to Google Docs with the entire presentation from both of us in the Newsletter, and I will feature Nancy’s reflection in each of my newsletter, my Journal, for each subsequent month, will include my own installment for that month with a few additional comments.

I hope this conversation proves insightful and beneficial for your own beginning to this year.