left click

left click

by | Feb 21, 2019 | Uncategorized

most times we left-click it’s routine, part of a process: editing, deleting, completing a form, maneuvering around the internet.

but every so often we pause before we click, take a deep breath, check with ourself to make sure we’re sure . . . and only then do we click and send our commitment on its way.

yesterday morning I had one of those experiences. today: no regret, no excessive excitement. just a contentedness. I did it. and now, what will be will be.

residencies are a thing that exist in the world of creative arts. time away from home/school/employment, often in a more rural or natural setting, with space and unscheduled opportunity to embrace whatever creative pursuit one has been awarded the time to embrace. some residencies include meals, some include gathering with other resident artists, all include–at a minimum–a place to sleep and work.

popular and often prestigious, all require a formal application. vitals, CV, proposed project, samples of one’s work, references. proper grammar. capitals and periods.

I’ve completed two of these applications in the past ten weeks: one with time slots this coming spring, and the other, next fall.

in 2015 I applied for a residency and crossed my fingers, hoped, worked to let it go . . . when I received word that I’d been awarded a two-week slot as artist in residence, I was shocked.

this time? radical acceptance: I gave my best to the applications, and what will be will be. I actually have tried to keep the goal forefront, but find myself just letting go and moving into that let it be place.

which isn’t to say I don’t want to be awarded a residency. I just am less attached to outcomes in my writing career these days. the writing world in its current form is subjective, confused, and nothing I can predict or control. a “yes” is an amazing gift, a “no” is just that my proposal didn’t click with those in power. I can’t let that stop me from doing me.

so I may be in northern cal this spring, or I may be in oregon next fall. or I may be here typing away on my computer in my own lovely office. or I might create my own residency somewhere, find a space in a place that suits me.

it’s possible I finally have a sense of how to keep moving along with my river, noting spots I’d like to visit, but not becoming anxious when the current doesn’t seem to be within my power . . . trusting that my little raft will take me where I am supposed to go.

where art and literacy meet

where art and literacy meet

by | Jul 28, 2016 | Uncategorized

this coming august 25th I’ll be the featured author at the Literacy Action Center’s annual fundraiser hosted by local Utah artist Pilar Pobil.

I visited her home and gardens last month to introduce myself and spend some time becoming familiar with the setting for the event, which is her gracious home and gardens in the avenues area of salt lake city. Pilar, born and schooled in Spain, chose utah for her home decades ago, and has become one of our communities beloved treasures.

in the presence of a visual artist, I am humbled. my palette consists of only black and white, and is essentially limited to 26 characters. I visualize color, my mind swept with vibrant hues, subtle shades, earthy depths and translucent, tinted waves . . . but on the paper, on the screen, I am limited to recognized configurations of those 26 letters.

however, when I read, I reverse the process I use to write, and words leap into color, shape, form, an explosion of visual creativity inside my mind. the pure pleasure of this process is incredible, almost inexplicable ~ because I can read, my mind is filled with images of people and places, with vistas, with kitchens and barns and great halls and roads, with rivers and mountainsides and a lookout tower in glacier national park, with creatures and mythical beasts, lovers and gnomes, secret gardens and libraries filled with walls of books and hidden passages to foreign lands.

I, too, am a visual artist.

when one learns to read, one is immediately and permanently a visual artist, a painter, a photographer, a designer of scenes and costumes, landscapes and people. an entire world opens, the mind is set afire, and nothing is ever the same.

please join me august 25th at the home of Pilar Pobil, 403 east 8th avenue, in salt lake city.

for more information:  Literacy Action Center 801.265.9081