This is Peeko’s back to school photo, ‘tho he should be in focus…He loves literature and poetry, esp. the playful childrens’ rhyme kind. But he also doesn’t have a set class time, and he may walk out when he wants to.
Happy to dive into the box and pretend to spook the viewer! I wasn’t up for this series though over the weekend and sent them back…Oh well. 😮 😉
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Today was a great, very filled book and idea day for the mind, and I am moving into fully physical yoga (mind just focuses on body in poses, a break from planning or creative imagination, wind down toward the body’s needs for sleep and eating). But before I put away the screen for the evening, I’d like to tell about the book day…
First, it was good my charcoal pencil art supplies to come…did not come today, my heart needed to be nourished as I found myself greatly worried and occupied with my portrait drawings. I drew a dear poet of my heart and literary salon host, May Ziadeh, b. 11 Feb 1886.
I was delighted when I first drew her with pencil to see her looking to me like she could step off the page that night into earth-life with me; there was an aliveness.
But sharing her portrait as art on social media created some questionings about my talent and my respect for her, or viewers as well:
Is it rude that the paper is creased in my pocket sketchbook on her face in the portrait because I’d shaded some spots maybe in a way the thinner page couldn’t hold up? That I sketched her with a regular pencil, and not a museum, more popular media like charcoal or pastel?
I was nervous that day when I enjoyed the portrait completed after a few days; I’d found words placed gently in my heart that were warm with appreciation, honored and a wise kindness, as if from May Ziadeh saying, “Remember that I’m not the portrait…Not a portrait you could close up in a book and place on the shelf,” and with an equally warm humor that made me feel comforted like ‘I’m bigger than that and you are too, not so fragile, able to be kept and cherished.’
But there was doubt when I drew her again with new charcoal and thought, Is it wrong to her and others that I drew the same portrait? Should I try to guess and vary everything I do? Will people notice I’d not had the darkest tone to make it as realistic?
This portrait looks like fantasy when I look at it, I love it, is it rude to make my respected poet depicted in a likeness not true to her life?
Well, I was thinking more of possible aversions…And I say to that, I will draw and write whatever I feel like…that is the greatest art, the art you want to do, the subjects you are naturally very interested in, and the appreciators come naturally, you cannot please the whole world in one. So I feel better that I will share what I’d like, and I wanted to draw a charcoal portrait of my husband Dan, but he’s requested no portrait and we respect that on Blush of Dawn. 😉
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I read Book 1 of Meet Kirsten, my favorite doll I’d had as a child that had come to mind somehow (but not as dear as the bunnies, but…) I took the bus to the library today and read there part of the afternoon; I loved the book and after I completed it, I requested Book 2 as a hold on the library site, as I ate my lunch at home, this way I could see the different formats of that series. It comes as updated paperback and a more traditional hardcover version that looked most like the doll herself that I had. I was thrilled to find out the author Janet Shaw is a poet too and wrote poetry before she wrote the Kirsten series. This author is celebrating her birthday coming up on September 30th, the same day long-enjoyed poet Rumi celebrates his 815th! It looks like Ms. Janet Shaw had lived in Illinois and Montana, and she may now be at home in North Carolina, from the Poets & Writers site.
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I received a copy of eagerly anticipated author Luanne Castle’s poetry book Rooted and Winged early this morning, and I will save my full review for the Book Tour to be posted on my blog to come, but it was the kind of poetry book in which the poems in their sections all wove seamlessly so one could read the book in one day…and also revisit them with plenty to uncover; I’ll share some more to come.
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At the library, I picked a book from the children’s book section while hoping to recognize a title from my own childhood to take home…I didn’t, but I found a wonderful book I read back at home after lunch called One Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes; it really sparked my heart in a way that let me let go of my thinking mind and move into meditative yoga of the body poses I will begin now…It is really best read ‘til the end, and no spoilers, but it gave a line that helped me not worry who’s unhappy with my pencil and charcoal drawings inc. my own inner critic: we often create because we love, and drawing someone can be a way of showing love to them, an honor, which is always felt in some way, does good.
A great place to end the day creatively, as the charcoal pencils I planned to draw with may arrive tmrw…I also feel more of a draw towards my writing notebooks now, which I’ve not written since I’ve been in a long, but well-loving stretch of sketches, drawings, and paintings…After that, it has been nice to feel myself more drawn toward the fiction notebook to write a story.
I’d also learned that when poets would include their name in a poem to refer to the poem’s author, Poet Rumi picked ‘Silence.’
Blush of Dawn 