bones

  on this gloomy, chilly january day, i've been conversing via email back and forth with a fellow artist i've yet to meet in person, but with whom i share similar veins in this life we both walk.  she is a reader of this blog, a collector of my jewelry pieces, and - i've now discovered - is also a very talented and fine artist (painter) herself.  bouncing ideas back and forth as we've done today, i've gone back to look at photographs i took earlier this month of an artist book i created back in july 2005 - a self portrait collaboration which involved art books we'd begun circulating back and forth across the country amongst 25 mixed media artists.  as you can imagine, the project bogged down, as anything involving that many people, that many artists, - is bound to do along the way; but finally one easter weekend several years ago, my book quite suddenly and with no announcement came home to me at last.  i don't have a proper way to display my many art books; my mother has a lovely glass-doored antique piece with lots of shelves and light, and i'm hoping one day this will be mine to use as a home for the books i've created throughout the years.  i miss that part of my creativity, and want to begin making things along these lines again when i have enough space to spread out and let loose with artistic abandon.  as things are now, my little studio, while remaining tidy, is cramped and tight and limited in scope and possibilities. when i look at the cover of this book - one i based on the human hand, and called "Hand Book", one for which i had all those artists feature their own hand as the base for their pages of art, and i can easily see a continuing thread of design that carries onward today in the jewelry pieces i create.   here on this book, made the summer that i moved out here seven years ago,  i see the snippets of old barkcloth, the sticks wrapped in various ribbons and threads.  i see the hand etched ivory piano key, the layered mica, the image of my hand, the rock in the shape of a heart.  i see resin, and embroidery thread, and in all of these things i clearly see my soul, ever evolving but staying the same in the epicenter of it all.  i don't know if this makes any sense at all to say this, but i look at my artwork of things long past and feel a pining for the person that i was at that time, for the sense of self that still felt a little bit ahead of who i had been, a little behind the person i was yet to become.  and i know as i write this that i'll be looking back on what i do now, five and ten years from this time, and will feel the very same poignancy that i'm feeling today for myself, for my heart, for my hands and emotions and art.  i stood in front of the bathroom mirror this morning, in light that seemed milky and bleak with this long winter lull, and spoke directly to myself when i pointed at my reflection and said "change your life.  change it.  now."  and that is what i'm doing as i continue to mull and simmer and percolate through the quiet of these long winter months, through the space that is january solitude, through the stretch that is now, now, and only now.  time seems so fleeting when i sit and glance back, but so sluggish and stagnant when i sit and then stand at the point of no return.  the word "hold" can mean so many things.  here, for this particular book, bound by waxed linen thread to the cover, it was meant to imply the grace of holding something close in the palm of one's hand.  away from here, it might mean something altogether different:  a pattern of stillness, of waiting to see what is on other side, through the window or door.  past that bend in the road.  up over that mountain.  behind the cupboard.  stored in a closet.  swept under the rug.  winter has that effect on me, always - a holding pattern, a time of being quiet and still and alone in this wild and solitary world i've inhabited these past many years.  hold.  a four letter word.  i've used a great many of those little words in my work - succinct, small, quiet, they are a short line of letters that hold a great punch.  there it is again, out of nowhere:  hold.  anyway - just thoughts here, just stream of consciousness thinking, which is what i do best.  a string of randomly reflected musings to share as an open ended book with all of you. later on this afternoon, on into tonight, and over the weekend, i'll be posting some new pieces of jewelry that i've worked on and labored over with great love this past week.  i look at these pieces, after looking at the artist book from seven years ago, and slowly, quietly grin: 
 i'm still here.  i was there, very strongly, i am here with just as much strength as before, i'll be here with more strength than ever a little farther down the road. 
ebb and flow, hope with wings.  a dance poem, a spirit of rain - it's all there inside of me, spilling out and over.  thank goodness that it continues to well up, to gather, to rain down, to flow. xo

(an added note,  upon re-reading what i've written:  yes, i am absolutely familiar with mary oliver's poem The Journey, have done art pages in journals based on her words.  for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of coming across this poem, i share it again with you here today:)

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.

                             - Mary Oliver

Comments

[sandra]

Amen...you spoke to me through presenting Ms. Oliver...
I love this post about "change". yet, at the basic core it is all "one". perhaps these are the threads that keep re-surfacing. it's the oneness of life. each detail in your ornaments represents something that "changes" in meaning although perhaps not in physical substance. it all depends on point of view.
Thank you for being here and there and everywhere.

[Andrew Thornton]

If ever you want to start up an artist book exchange, let me know and we'll conjure up a... smaller, more manageable... group.

[Judy H.]

Loved this post. Loved the poem. :)

[Lee]

LOVE LOVE the hand idea- I don[t know if you rmemeber in an email I mentioned I'd love to do a coffee table book all on hands. Isee the most interesting hands out and about. It's one of the first thing s I look at. Even my husband has noticed it. One of the doctor's I work with has the most elegant hands, surgeon's hands, beautiful. xo

[Lee]

PS- sorry for the typos. I would love to see the HAND book someday. Drive north woman, drive north!!

[Molly Vollmer]

This post and poem was so moving it caused a pain in my chest. I think the reason my art disappoints me is because it's so difficult to express the deepest feelings.

[Tina in McLeansville]

my favorite poem in all the world, that one. little sets of words, flying thru my head, around in circles and back again.....
rise up
be ready
and i smile, because i know
exactly.
"i'll be here with more strength than ever, a little farther down the road."
don't you just know it! hugs...xo

[Loretta]

I don't know if you will think this very strange, but I often think of you sitting in your studio, under your branches filled with fairy lights, and it brings me a sense of stability. It's almost as if you represent my creativity, waiting quietly in the background, as always, waiting for me to have the time to tend to it. So keep on steadily working away through the cold winter and know that I am thinking of you and sending you warm thoughts.

[Erin Perry]

That poem literally changed my life - "determined to save the only life you could save" - so 10 years ago I did, and they've been the best years of my life. I still don't know where I found the courage - but I'm wondrously glad that I did.
Erin in Morro Bay

[Sophie]

This is a beautiful and moving post, Nina, (well, all your posts are). I am slowly coming to see change less as making things (or myself) different than letting my true self emerge from things I thought were me. Thank you for sharing the poem. I will treasure it.

Sophie

[Lorraine]

You are so gifted in so many ways sweet Nina! Love this beautiful post!

[susan]

Thank you for this touching post, Nina. It's interesting how we slow down and reflect on the past during the long winter months. The ebb and flow of life, I guess. Your words capture my own feelings so well. And thank you for introducing me to Mary Oliver's poetry (years ago) - The Journey has always been my favorite.

xo dusan

[V-Grrrl @ Compost Studios]

Besides soothing me with your beautiful, evocative words and images, you've made think of whether I pine for a former SELF or a former TIME when I'm filled with longing for something in the past.

I don't love my old SELF more than my current SELF, but while all the optimists speak of doors opening to you later in life, I have this sense of them closing. It is this that drives my imagination backwards to the days when I "dwelled in possibility" with ease.

[Ramona Gault]

Nina dear, you wrote: "i look at my artwork of things long past and feel a pining for the person that i was at that time, for the sense of self that still felt a little bit ahead of who i had been, a little behind the person i was yet to become. and i know as i write this that i'll be looking back on what i do now, five and ten years from this time, and will feel the very same poignancy that i'm feeling today for myself, for my heart, for my hands and emotions and art." I know exactly what you mean, except that I look at earlier creations, including stories I wrote, and think, "Who was/is that woman? Why don't I know her better? Why do I always put her off and instead puruse the easy things?"
Once again, you strike home with your heartfelt words. Thank you for the timely lesson.

[gayle]

Before I ever saw your jewelry, I saw your books. Love at first sight!! I hope your journey takes you down that path again.

[Sharron]

'pocket full of dreams' was the first Nina-made treasure to grab hold of my heart... It would appear that I'm not alone in wanting (needing?) you to be a book maker, a book teacher, again.... xoxo sharron

[Seth]

I would LOVE to see that book in person -- one day!

[liza]

I have lived every moment of that poem. It is a difficult journey that took place for over 10 yrs and concerned the ones who loved me. But in the end a good result and maturing that I never would have had. I finally feel like my own person now.

[Deryn Mentock]

Your "Hope" piece turned out beautifully. Someone will be blessed to wear it...

[Rachelle Toimata]

Deep, deep, deep, deep. I discovered Mary Oliver here at Firefly Road. I discovered that sometimes beauty is right at my feet. I discovered hands. I discovered a voice that articulated how complicated life could be. I recognised the angst, the confusion and the desire to be honest about it all, not just the 'proper' bits. You're books were my first glimpse of you, like a wood nymph in life's forest. In a wee magazine that was so elusive called 'Cloth Paper Scissors' here in Aotearoa. It might even have been this book. What a journey. Another breathtakingly evocative post Nina. x