7 Before 7 Feature Artist - Sher Fick & Writing/Marking Workshop = ART

I was so lucky to be invited as a Feature Artist in Jules Sterp's 7 Before 7 Blog Review http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/?p=1461#comment-61390

It was quite an honor and the page turned out beautifully - thanks so much! 

MY ART WEEK:

This has been a busy "art" week with last Friday's opening at the Renaissance Center in Dickson, TN for their Regional Exhibition, plus electrician in the studio working on the new lighting and expanded outlets (encaustic work uses A LOT of electricity), and to cap off the week, I attended a great workshop with my art buddy, Aletha Carr (www.alethacarr.com) at the Nashville Public Library.  It was co-taught by Ellen Rust (a poet/educator www.awakeningthewriter.com ) and visual artist Sue Mulcahy (whose work/series "Open To The Night" is now on exhibit at the library gallery). 

We began with responsive mark making using graphite.  We learned to express, through marks, the sound of music and the smell of ginger, lemon, banana.  It was enlightening to view the similarities of another artist's expression of the same sense. 

At left is my exercise, directions were: beginning with graphite mark, create a lifeline without lifting the graphite from the surface. 

I began in the lower right hand corner, dragging and twisting the graphite to create "blooms" which represent my children and other major relationships, as I near the end at the upper left, my line becomes stronger and more focused - a direct correlation to my life.

Following a lovely lunch from the Provence Cafe, we began the writing responses, writing free-style about objects provided (roots/pine cone/antler, of which we chose one) and a word ticket drawn from an envelope (I used root and the word "good").

Here is my response to the visual image of the ROOT and my word ticket/GOOD:

Roots can be good.

Roots can be bad.

Fed from the well where I am found.

Layers upon layers,

filtered through time.

Good for cleansing or poisoning the vine.

Good for growth - spreading wide,

Infiltration,

rooted in time.

Knotted and twisted,

grasping for air -

held in the hands of earth's mellow fair.

Tangled and battered,

growing and spreading -

tripping me up, trials above.

Roots condescend and fed with bile,

cutting them out can take quite a while.

Pulling and digging,

Cutting, then mending,

Roots can be good, but mine are offending.

Offending the nurture needed and expected,

tainting the cord of mother to child.

Uprooting the past to discard in time.

Toxic.  Burning.  Poisonous vine.

Uprooted now,

seeking new earth,

re-birthed and replanted - unrooted divine

Free now to spread, to grow and to grasp.

Now unencumbered of poisonous past.

Growing inward and outward,

Good has been summoned,

sweetness of new water erasing the past.

Antidote found.

Time will allow,

roots will hold onto good things

that last.

Roots will refine,

no longer confine.

After several responses we adjourned to the gallery and wrote responses to various of Sue Mulcahy's Exhibit http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080921/ENTERTAINMENT0507/809210326/1069/ENTERTAINMENT05 and then shared with one another.

Here is my response to Sue Mulcahy's "Close Is Not Enough" drawing:

Internal scapes

Chasms divide

Peering at memories

Revealing and reveling

Veering forward

Pulled from the past

Grasping transcendence

Clasping remnants.

Traversing

Dissolving

Signposts and markers

misleading, benign.

Sequence chaotic

Silhouetted and open

deluge divine

Unbalanced, then broken

Sutured and knifed

Evoking wholeness

bound by time.

I attempted another response to "Open To The Night":

Veiled in the darkness

Formless and thick.

Coating the earth

Clinging and clawing.

Queries are spoken

Descending and dim

Near far

remembrance

echo and utterance

Filtering bright

sky meets earth

horizon enlighten

breaking the dearth

the spirits

soaring and sighing

Upward and outward

absorbing moments

cradling time

unseen, unspoken

protected from site

needless emotions

bound and unbroken

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It was an amazing day shared by all.