Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Progress...

I drove up to Sylva today to collect my work from the show - this Summer's work - and bring some of it home. Sometimes when I take a show down I get a heavy heart. It's sometimes hard to make new work when recent work is still around. And then there is the period of gestation that is a necessary part of this artist's process. So much of the process is internal and interactive with the world. Taking in ideas, images, places, people, silence, ocean, river, rock... and then having something inside that pushes to be embodied in object or word. Today, while driving, I was inspired by the late fall color as I drove over the hills and mountains. Even the kudzu had turned to a splotchy gold and green. Some words came out of this...

COLLECTING THE WORK OF THE SUMMER

Rolling over the hills from Franklin
up toward Dillsboro and on to Sylva,
rusty golden Tulip Poplar, fading yellow American Sycamore
cadmium yellow Hickory, burnt at the edges -
all glowing like short flames
dancing their last breath
over dying embers.
Smoldering ruddy reds
gather above muted green laurels,
and down below, scraggly
ghosts of Hemlock strain to stand,
trunks and limbs giving last life
to moss and lichen.
All go to rest now -
some to wake in Spring,
some to sink to the floor,
soak in next season’s snowfall,
melt into dark soil and forget
only to remember what it’s like
to be a wildflower,
see things from a different vantage
point upwards, facing their grandchildren.

2 comments:

Brooks said...

Your art has always touched me, especially your photographs. Always changing--always getting swirling moving esential parts that allow my mind to add the background or to find peace
Now somewhat gradually but seemingly all of sudden your words are imagination and small trips of places and events that pull at my mind and make me wander.

Laurence Holden said...

rich words Honor! and the way the lines pile one on another so much like the rich humus that is being laid on the ground in the forest this time of year. You're beginning to get gritty in your word play now, and I respond very much to this.

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