Week 8: How’s the view from there?
“be, open and”
Collage, cut New Yorker Magazine paper, 9" x 12"
Two lunar months down, eleven to go!
I’m still having fun, and I’m so grateful to YOU for reading. As we say in the theatre, without an audience it’s just another rehearsal.
I would like to think that I would be making art right now even without you as an audience to my self-inflicted 52-week challenge. But let’s face it. I’m 52 years old (poetic, right?), and visual art has been nagging at me for years. It took a pandemic for me to finally commit to something. SO—thanks again for being my inspiration and keeping me honest.
This week I had one less day to focus on this project. I usually take all day on Sunday to read a new (to me) New Yorker issue, but this past Sunday I was attending a virtual seminar with my spiritual family. It was an amazingly magnificent experience. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. And I knew that I was gonna have to reconfigure my plan.
I figured I would probably still need three nights to make the collage, so I decided to cut back on my reading time. I searched for an issue that I could feel okay about not reading.
“Grand Central Terminal” by Eric Drooker @drooker_artist
The New Yorker, March 30, 2020
May I tickle your memory all the way back to the end of March? I don’t know about you, but I was two weeks into working from home. New York was in the throes of COVID. The cover art from this March 30, 2020 issue, “Grand Central Terminal” by Eric Drooker, gave me a big clue as to what would be inside. I checked the table of contents and thumbed through. Yes. I could comfortably skip the reading. No need to relive what is still very present.
Then I came across a series of black-and-white photos—pandemic snapshots from New York. And I got a vision for the collage.
Last week I zoomed in on the pixels. This week I wanted to zoom out. I wanted to take those black-and-white pandemic images and transmute them. I wanted to remind myself that things are rarely just black-and-white; they’re so many shades of gray. I wanted to remind myself there is always a bigger picture beyond the scope of my human perception. I wanted to remind myself to pull back, pull back, pull back the focus. And observe.
I’ve never been in a hot-air balloon, but my sister has. We’ll call her Seestew. Because I actually call her that. My other sister is Sista. Not to be confused with my sister-in-law (of blessed memory), Sustuh.
Seestew spent a fair amount of her young adulthood in hot-air balloons. I asked her what is the greatest thing about being up there. The silence, she said. Just being up there with the birds. She said you can control a balloon to go up and down, but otherwise, you’re at the whim of the wind.
I can get in the balloon to see a bigger picture. I have a certain amount of control over my journey, but I also have to trust in the invisible-to-me forces that are helping to steer.
Can I get that balloon high enough to enjoy the silence and just observe? Do I have to get hooked in emotionally to everything I see? If I do, are those emotions running me? Can I observe without judgment and still have compassion? Can I have compassion without getting stuck in it, overwhelmed by the suffering in the world?
These are the questions I’m balancing in my balloon right now. I want to observe with an open heart. I want to trust in the bigger picture. I want to serve with Love. I want to “be, open and”… let Love steer my next move. And the next. And the next. And.
Inner Critic Ursula tried to tell me that this collage was not as pretty as the others because there was less color. I told her we are working with what we are given. And sometimes less is more—go back to sleep.
Detail—“be, open and”
From the poem “I Won’t Live Long” by Jorie Graham
In an effort to save some time, I tried to simplify the background. It is comprised primarily of one full poem. I chose it for how it would look on the page, not necessarily for the poem itself. I wanted it to evoke the horizon. It wasn’t until I was almost done with the piece that I found my title words. I am grateful for, and in awe of, the synchronicities that come during the creative process.
This week’s cartoon shares the spirit of pulling back the focus too. I hope you enjoy!
I always love to hear your thoughts. And I always LOVE YOU! Thanks for reading!
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED CARTOON:
