Proximity and Distance

-  tension and equilibrium . . .  harmony and conflict . . . attraction and repulsion . . . 

I wonder often at our capacity to occupy each state as it comes and, sometimes, all of them concurrently (and there are so many more than the several here named; neither are they dichotomous). 

How do you do it? I don't know where I'd be if I didn't have a garden to dig in and a studio as part of my home space; these are two places I can both enter and exit these different states of being. I get the sense I'm not the only one feeling oddly at the moment, as though I've woken to a landscape called Strange. I'm not sure what to make of it all. One day soon, I'll be back to making paper boats. . . I need to create several hundred (maybe even a thousand) for a film/object installation that's happening at the end of next month. I'll be using the paper proofs from my poetry book to do make the vessels - recycling, you know!

Let's see if together we can coax November into offering herself up as a gentle, meditative month. 

Process

No words tonight. 

Just this charcoal flower
releasing fragrance


and a moment or two's silence. 

Tuesday Poem - Doris Plum

Kathleen Jones has posted Barbara Crooker's poem, Ode to Chocolate, on the Tuesday Poem hub this week. Spurred on by thoughts of chocolate, black beer and sensually alluring food, I thought I'd post a dark foodie poem, too. Doris plums are my 100% guaranteed downfall. . .

Once upon a time, I considered this poem a double haiku. (It has the right number of syllables, but seems in every other way to be a dishonourable imposter.) When it was first published, it was shaped to look like the fruit.

DORIS PLUM 

  

A plain woman's name,

Doris, but when lattice veins

burst and scarlet breaks,

warm mouths close around
her undressed flesh, lingering

in her purple scent.

CB

And here's a link to a Cuisine NZ recipe for Black Doris Plum, Rhubarb and White Chocolate Trifle. . . 

and another one to a Doris Plum and Ginger Honey slice. Yum!

Rock face

What do you see? 

(Matukituki Ewe - with her matching profile, how could I resist?)

The Sound of Spirit

THE SOUND OF SPIRIT

By Arthur Lubow

Published: 15 October 2010 (NY Times) 

"Emigrating from the Soviet Union to the West in January 1980 with his wife, Nora, and their two small sons, the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt was stopped by border police at the Brest railroad station for a luggage search. “We had only seven suitcases, full of my scores, records and tapes,” he recalled recently. “They said, ‘Let’s listen.’ It was a big station. No one else was there. We took my record player and played ‘Cantus.’ It was like liturgy. Then they played another record, ‘Missa Syllabica.’ They were so friendly to us. I think it is the first time in the history of the Soviet Union that the police are friendly.” He was joking, but not entirely. Later, when I asked Nora about that strange scene at the border, she said, “I saw the power of music to transform people.”

Most contemporary composers aim to ravish the ear or to tickle (or boggle) the mind. Pärt is playing for higher stakes. He wants to touch something that he would call the soul, and to a remarkable extent, he is succeeding. When I would mention to friends or acquaintances that I was writing about Pärt, I was surprised at how many responded, “Oh, I love Arvo Pärt!” It’s not something you often hear when you mention a contemporary composer. . . "

For the rest of this article - and to listen to examples of Arvo Pärt's heart-opening music - go  here

Tuesday Poem - Sotto Voce

SOTTO VOCE

Striking, the ambiguity of language – sound

and sound, hold

and hold, birth

and berth.

Sotto voce. Sotto voce.

Our brave boat’s hull

is a dull silver arc

at odds, and at one

with the ocean’s shifting

meniscus, the sky infinite

yet Doubtful as a clenched fist,

a menace of wishful thinking.

Mariners without local knowledge

are advised to exercise caution.

I am no old man of the sea (my stomach

one of two that pitch and turn

in 4m swells), but Lance and the Breaksea Girl

are unperturbed; back and forth she rocks

back and forth, a metronome used, by now,

to holding her own in stormy waters. 

Sotto voce. Sotto voce.

Ours is hardly the first voyage, neither will it be

the last. There are records aplenty

of this coastline, these steep, hard-nosed

mountains, the seductive tongues

of waterfalls.

           

I have scoured the record books,

wondered more about the lines not there

than the many written; nowhere

do we find Cook – or Orton –

writing of love or lust

or loneliness at sea; in the journals, no poetry

to soften the un-yielding years, the reek

of sour beer and unwashed skin,

the loud absence of women.

These men, too, must surely have known

the sudden singe of heat

on heart, the un-confided bruise?

But

who

am

I

to

make

such

assumptions?

On the edge of the clearing weather,

mountain, sky and ocean lean towards

each other with conspiratorial intention.

They are lifetimes ahead of us

the way they know how to sleep

together, dream together, lie awake

in the dark together, rarely - and always - 

alone

with their separate thoughts.

Where are we to drop anchor?

I am reluctant to interrupt this silence.

CB 2008 - Western Fiordland, New Zealand  - written after a waterborne residency on board the conservation yacht, Breaksea Girl.

Leaving Camelot - pastel on paper 2009

Home again. Just. 

It was wonderful to read your words at last night's opening, and to talk about the journey of - and process behind - this exhibition. I'm too tired to write anything even vaguely intelligible now, but this I must say . . . Sharing your words with the community (I wrote them out on cotton paper and invited others to read them out loud) and speaking of the gift of this community - the ethos of trust and generosity that buoys us along - contributed a special something to last night's gathering. It was suggested I read one of my own poems, too; the one I chose was Sotto Voce. 

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For more Tuesday Poems, please click here. 

An ocean of (our) words

I'm in Marlborough where I'm staying in a peaceful little cottage-that-was-once-a-stable; a safe haven set amongst lemon trees, vineyards, flowering wisteria and shoulder-high lavender. Splendid, shimmery chooks scratch about and lay eggs wherever they choose and fallow deer roam freely amongst the orchard and farm outbuildings. The sound of bird-chatter and song this morning was about ten times the volume of what I'm used to at home (which is saying something!). 

There isn't internet coverage down at the cottage, so this is the first time I've been on line since I left home. . . sorry I've not been able to get back onto the blog to update how I got on with our communal piece. . . In the end, I had to reluctantly set my first idea down.  It was rather too ambitious, given the time frame I was working within - - - I think I hadn't anticipated quite so full-some a response from you all! That first piece will be waiting for me to re-enter when I return home. (It's always easier to return to a studio that has something already underway after a period of work like this last one.) 

What I've done with all our texts is create an 'ocean of words' - a piece I've titled Standing in the Heart. Here are a few process pics so that you can get some idea of what I mean. My camera has been playing up so these are the only pics I have of this so far but I will photograph the finished piece in the next day or two; the three pics here show the work in its early stages and were taken in the studio the night before I left. Words that don't yet appear here will be evident in the next set of photographs. . . all souls are on board! 

I very much needed to enter a quiet space before leaving home and this work helped me do that. I created it to Arvo Part's music; music that for me always suggests white and space and calm. You will see that I turned the turtle shell into a continent surrounded by islands then used our words to create tide patterns that wrap around the coastlines and spill into or out of the land forms. I will read your contributions at the opening this evening. I'm not sure I know how to thank you adequately - your words became a still point in a storm; a fulcrum, a holding space,  a stretch of calm. . . 

. . . and here is the exhibition invitation; I would love you to come - - - then again, you will be here and it will be my privilege and joy to share your words with the community here. 

Love, thanks and a healthy gulp of Marlborough wine to you - C x

Breastplates_process_MAPPING

Well, what can I say? You have been completely wonderful in your responses to this spontaneous project. I can't thank you enough. 

It's all go in the studio and I'm going to have work my butt off in the coming hours, but there's nothing I'd rather be doing than this right now. 

Here are two pics showing what I call the 'mapping' process. . . I think the composition's going to take shape around the idea of Northern hemisphere meets Southern, and East meets West. . . 

More from me as things take shape. Back to my turtle shells, paper tape, strings 'n things. . . 

Humble beginnings

An invitation from me and the sea

Dear friends 

I am nearing a comma - a place of pause - in what I'd have to name one of the most prolongedly challenging chapters of my life. For now, I will stick to the steadying process this maelstrom has called me to in my studio.

I cannot help but see you as mysteriously and powerfully linked to the way my work's unfolded during recent weeks and I want to thank you for this and for the countless ways in which you open my eyes to new ways of seeing and perceiving.     

This coming Monday, my exhibition titled Waters I have Known opens at The Diversion gallery in Marlborough. Marlborough is a watery region at the tip of our South Island that's perhaps best known for its delicious wines (carbon-zero, some of these ; )) and for its magnificent, moody Sounds. You may - actually, how could you; it's ages ago! - recall my posting a few entries from the Sounds when I was there on a writing retreat in August last year (a more-or-less unexpected treat after Questions of Balance opened at The Arthouse in Christchurch).

Anyway, yesterday afternoon I popped the bigger paintings for this show into the back end of a freight truck which means I have a wee bit of space now to complete the final few small images. These I'll carry underarm when I fly North this weekend. 

This body of work explores a number of different themes, perhaps the two primary ones being (1) the power, wonder and fragility of our world's oceans and (2) this blogging community. These may at first seem worlds apart but I don't believe they are. We are water; our different countries and cultures are linked by water.  . .

I'd like to extend an invitation to you all. . . It seems there's (at least) one more work that wants making and I'd love to make it a 'communal composite'. (You'll be able to get a good sense of the journey of this work by visiting the new blog I've been building specifically to accompany this series. I have yet to write up the background story/exhibition statement and will do that before the exhibition opens on Monday 18th.)

What I'm proposing is this . . . please consider the subjects of ocean and community (specifically, but not exclusively our blog community) and send me a few lines that encapsulate what they mean to you? You will notice in the attached painting that I have already quasi-/metaphorically painted you all into some of this work (this one's titled Group Dynamic and you can see the process of its making here). . .

Group Dynamic (detail)
Oil on board - 2010 -  910 x 910MM

It occurred to me once I'd finished this painting that these 'featureless' web-style portraits are as they are because this is a place where the ego resides 'elsewhere/outside', so long as we turn up here and meet each other openly, with warmth and curiosity and without judgement or expectation. . .  There's a particular energy inherent in this modus operandi that enables us to take our place as individuals and as equals at our virtual, communal table. The portraits (each one tinged with light from its interaction with whomever happens to pull up a chair beside him/her) become keyholes to rooms and worlds we might ordinarily not have access to. To my mind, this is a facilitative process, one that has all the elements of privileged encounter.

The web is an extraordinary tool for communication. As a portal, it offers us so much more than first meets the eye. Each time we enter this space - this curiously intimate, electronic space - we open doors to unexpected new places. Something mysterious happens whether or not we intend it, I think. I acknowledge your generosity in this - and, too, appreciate the vast wealth of complex material and layered landscapes that continue to beckon with your invitations to ponder, research, engage and explore. How much of life enacts itself beyond the eye, beyond the ear, beyond our rational comprehension, and yet there can be little doubt that despite our various dramas and our different realities, worlds of wonder and glory are out here, ready and waiting to meet us.

With your permission, I would like to incorporate the lines you send me in a composite image (part painting, part text) that'll say something about us all and take its place as a kind of communal breastplate. . . I'm not sure what follows on from this, only that this work will carry all your names and if it finds a home somewhere, you will all receive a piece of it, somehow or other. . . (this is about as far as I've got to date. . . does this make sense/sound okay?)

More from me as more arises. Meantime, if you would like to participate in this spontaneous and possibly (but hopefully not too) hair-brained project, please write, reflect and write some more. . . ?! We have just three days to make this work and I'd dearly love it to be a part of this show. . . time is of the essence!

Thank you all v much - Claire
(otherwise known as A Relic)

detail

(PS. Words can be posted on either blog - I will be sure to check both places ~~~ and here's my email address ~ clarab@earthlight.co.nz )

Tuesday Poem - Krill Watching

Lisa Roberts is a Sydney-based dancer and animator with whom I hope to work on a series of Antarctica-based collaborations next year (together with geologist/musician Rupert Summerson from Canberra).  

Earlier this year, Lisa, Rupert and I spent an afternoon in the krill nursery at the Australian Antarctic Division in Hobart, Tasmania. So much has happened between then and now that it sometimes feels as though a hundred years have passed, when in fact it's 'only' been four months. 

Yesterday, Lisa sent me a link to her most recent animation titled Krill Watching. I immediately thought, 'This is a poem; it's witty, tender, lyrical, balletic, playful and profound... ' I asked her if I could post her her krill piece as my Tuesday Poem this week - and here it is.  

If you would like be transported, enchanted and uplifted, I would encourage you to visit Lisa's website where you can explore her sensitively drawn image-scapes.  

Thank you, Lisa. 

Krill, drawing - Tasmania 2010 - CB

For more Tuesday Poems, please click here.

(We can) trust the sea

We can trust the sea

to wrap haloes around hard places

trust it to organize what sometimes seems too much or too brittle 

into patterns of intricacy, intention and beauty.

See how these infant barnacles have colonized the rock's 
deep cracks, transforming them into mooring places 
where new life burgeons? 

The sea knows what to hold
what to release 
and when 

it relies on the tides' insistence

and assistance

And sometimes. . . well, sometimes it seems we have to stand 

on our heads and do flick-flacks before we see - or can recognize - 

there's a small flinty continent inside each and every one of us 

that's all things at once; breastplate, boat, ancient instrument, stepping stone, ocean, heart. . .

Blessings and love to you all during these mystifying times. 

Candle portraits

Ever feel like these bewildered fellows? 

Hmm. Me, too.

These candle portraits are far more articulate than I am able to be right now. 

I'm somewhere between blind mole rat and Lammergeier eagle; I burrow then soar, find my way then lose it. I seem to have zero insight one minute and sharp, telescopic vision the next. My face is lit with laughter one moment, a crumpled mish-mash of sweat and tears the next. I grimace and am at peace; am at peace then grimace. It's all rather chaotic to be honest. 

How are you all faring? Well, I hope. . .  


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(My apologies for being a silent labyrinthine bird lately. This too shall pass. It must. It will.) 

Tuesday Poem - Difference

It is my pleasure to post this poem by Martha Morseth today. . .

DIFFERENCE

There is always a turning

and a difference

a landscape where southerlies push fists of clouds

down long harbours

or a land where winds claw autumn foil

from branches

in either, friends will be lost from the never meeting

the never knowing

and we come back to the question of how the choice was made

            in a fit of passion

            a chance remark

            matters of circumstance

            of priority?

no matter

roads end

some dissolving into paddock grass

where there’s fruit to gather

some at the sea with fish to catch

and sometimes the flit of a thought

circling above

that a different road would have made no difference. 

Martha Morseth

Dunedin writer, Martha Morseth, has had poems published in anthologies, literary and popular journals including The Listener, Landfall, Sport, Takahe, JAAM, Poetry New Zealand, and in on-line journals as well as in her collection, Staying Inside the Lines (Inkweed 2002).

She has written three books for teenagers, published by Pearson: two short story collections --- Yeah! and EDGE/a cut of unreal --- and a book of one-act plays, Let’s Hear It for the Winner!

A group of her poems and images can be found on http://www.otago.ac.nz/deepsouth/2007/index.html (University of Otago, Deep South literary journal)

Biographical information can be found in the Writers Profiles of the NZ Society of Authors pages,

www.authors.org.nz.  

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