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It’s that time of year again, when the German sun sets at 4 p.m. in a blanket of gray, and even a candlelight lunch doesn’t seem like a ridiculous idea.
In this season I always think of a poem by my friend Etta, and today she’s agreed to share it with us. Thanks so much, Etta.
MOON SHINE
I.
There is never enough light in winter.
Even in the room you chose
for its double window,
the sun barely gives enough
to read by.
*
I imagine you at your desk
scrambling to catch
what morning light there is.
II.
You have made me think about winter.
how the sun is closer to us
but its light is less:
an inverse, illogical proportion
that my science can explain but not excuse.
A tilting on the axis,
a simple change of wavelength,
hardly seems enough to cause
a melancholy season.
*
Winter’s saving grace
is cloudless night,
each star a perfect prick
in blue; midnight’s moonlight
compensates for gray noon,
bleeding cold life
through your thick curtains.
*
Etta Jensen-Barnes
Etta and I have been friends since first semester of our freshman year, when we took poetry with the late, great Robert Kirkpatrick. After that class, I became an English major and never looked back.
With so little light, I’m grateful to have the tree up and the advent wreath to light each day. Did you know German tree stands hold no water? We learned that this week. It’s traditional to get your tree on December 24th and to keep it up until January 6. Trees are cut much closer to the time of sale, so they don’t really need watering during that short period, I guess. We brought our American tree stand, so we’re watering ours anyway. Some habits die hard.
I love this idea for a children’s Christmas tree over at elsiemarley, and also check out her list of Christmas activities to do with the kids. I especially like this woven ornament idea from the crafty crow.
Also, randomly:
An editorial about amazon’s sneaky new promotion. But hey, hardcover book sales in stores are up!
Also, I’m making progress on the sleeves for this. Maybe, maybe it’ll be done in time for Christmas. But I’m not above wrapping it up in pieces. Watch me.
Also making progress on my novel and trying to get an old nonfiction writing project restarted. Back to work.
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while listening to Ganesh Baba on my iPod...
Some notes and thoughts, October 12, 2008
Some editing and additions, December 4, 2010
We must become more familiar with the essence and structure of consciousness, because it is out of consciousness we come and to consciousness we return. Ganesh Baba, “The Rochester Raps,” recorded by Ira Landgarten, 1981.The cosmos is created out of consciousness vibrating at different frequencies, visible to our limited senses as a fractal world created from rainbows and scales:
The eight broad categories, matter, energy, space, time, life, mind, intelligence and consciousness, all operate within the human psyche, but the physical body operates only in the first three dimensions: matter, energy and space. The fourth dimension, time, we can barely conceive; it is like a baby moving around in the womb trying to understand the outside world. GB
Intelligence = Divine Wisdom, Sophia,
BuddhiThe subtle world creates the material world. As Swami Armitananda once said, "It is obvious that mind controls matter every time you lift your arm," and science has long shown that the material world disassembles as our understanding of it becomes subtler and subtler.
We misunderstand the subtler worlds when the mind claims greater wisdom than it has, and it sees exactly the opposite of what is. The infinite fractal world of scales and rainbows is reduced to limited patterns conditioned by experience. Consciousness appears to flip and become its opposite: Mercury, in flight between worlds.
The möbius twist.
Thoughts, inhabitants of the world beyond space and time, take on a life of their own whenever they get the chance. Potential archetypes, progenitors of the world in which we live, arise with every word we say, with every intention, with every mood, with every thought we have (conceive: give birth to, create), whether conscious or unconscious. Some thoughts, conceived in the unconscious, take on the dark aspect of things not understood; and others, born in the light of consciousness, bring wisdom and understanding.
We fear what we don't understand - and we project our fear outward onto others and into the future.
Jung knew. The darkness is coming into the light now, willy-nilly. GB
How relevant this is now - during the darkest days of the year, as we near the Winter Solstice. In fact, these are the darkest days of darkest times in my lifetime, in most of our lives, if not in the life of our civilization, and possibly our planet.
The quality of each individual's consciousness, whether receptive or resistant, high or low, subtle or dense, with which we receive and respond to the darkness determines our experience. Our experience, in turn, creates the lens through which we focus our consciousness.
The focusing mechanism of the lens of experience is attention. We can choose what we pay attention to, what we shed the light of consciousness on.
Life,
By:
Gigi Moore,
on 10/5/2010
Blog:
Gigi's Studio
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Finally finished my Winter Observation illustration.
Working on the illos for my son's short story has been quite educational. While it's not a "real" illustration commission, it's given me a sense of what working on a job might be like. I've completed a few drawings in pen/ink. One of them is shown here (critiques welcome):
Suddenly the laughter at the table stopped for everyone was curious about what Jake had to say.
I'm not 100% thrilled about this picture. I started with this one and it's probably the most difficult of the 5. There are several people of different ages - requiring different proportions. They are all seated around a dinner table - requiring lots of "clutter" among the people and lots of legs beneath. I didn't have anything to look at, so I just had to work it out in my head (I did have my son model the hands for "Jake").
This has been very eye-opening, and I've learned many things about the whole process. Such as...
1) Make sure you have lots of time before the deadline to do - and redo - and redo - until you're totally satisfied.
2) This will be the final product for his assignment, but it's really just a 1st draft (after those sketchbook studies) of the entire composition. Now, I see all kinds of issues that I would change if I were to be doing this for a publisher.
3) I have a tendency to shorten legs - one of those proportion issues - but I've dealt with that a little better in drawings 2 and 3 (to be shown later).
4) Lighting is a bit of a mystery to me - I would have liked to enhance this image with effects of the lighting they would have had during that era (candles). But, I didn't have time to explore that and I would prefer to have something to directly observe.
5) Historical fiction is not my 1st choice of genre to illustrate - certainly not with a 1 week deadline! It's another layer added to the illustration - having to think of period correctness of costumes and props. More to think about and research.
Even in despair
there is
light
It's Wednesday and I'm quickly losing hope of being able to post my Illustration Friday painting before the theme changes. I did a color study last night that was absolutely horrid. I worked on one tonight with a little improvement. But, my time seems to be limited to after 8:00 p.m. when the baby goes to bed. By then, I have little steam.
Oh well...At least I'm solving a technical riddle (for me anyway). That is, figuring out color and value for an interior, low-light setting. This would be a wonderful moment to have a mentor, but since I'm short one, I've been searching the web for visual aids. They haven't been easy to find. Any search for interior paint/light seems to take me to interior decorating info. I already painted the living room and have no plans to do it again.
I did come across a couple of illustrations that I do admire. I will post them here with full credit and links to the artists in hopes that they don't mind (if so, I'll promptly remove this post).
Anyway, I really enjoy the work of the artist known on the web as
Samuel123 (shown above) - he has several images involving interiors with a directed light source and unique characters. What struck me about his work is the warmth - I tend to gravitate toward cool blues when thinking "shadow."
This image was a nice example of backlighting for me - the glow that happens around figures and objects when lit from behind. I also like the color palette - much different combo of warm and cool than the work above. It just goes to show that there are different options. The artist,
Maryam, has a style that I appreciate as well.
I don't mind missing the Illustration Friday deadline since this is one of those learning moments. It reminds me of when I did the "Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road" drawing last year - it became big project during which I learned a lot about color and light in an outdoor evening scene with neon and twinkling lights (not that it's perfect or anything - probably not enough contrast and shadow to qualify as a night scene, and I don't use photoshop or anything.).
I found a character sketch in my sketchbook that I thought would work for this weeks
Illustration Friday theme "unfold" - as in, "how will this scenario unfold?" I want to keep on with the painting practice, so that's my intended medium.
As I drew out the scene, I realized that this would be best as an interior setting in dim light.
Some of my favorite works that others have done have been set in low light - either outdoors or indoors. But, I've never really done one of my own before. Of course, that means approaching light and color in a way that is new to me. Therefore...research and color studies. And, if you've never stopped by
James Gurney's blog, he's an outstanding artist and a regular wealth of technical art instruction. I did find some great
images of light and color (albeit outdoor scenes) that have inspired me.
Anyway, rather than simply being able to sit down and start creating, I've had to do samples of different color mixtures, mainly in the blue and purple range mixed with black and umber (I already have studies of complements). Sometimes there's a sort of glow that can come from whatever the light source is, so I've also done a few mixtures with yellow.
I don't usually post my prelim sketches and studies for an IF theme, but then this is much more involved than usual (nothing's ever simple). But, I now have a nice reference sheet, although I can't say exactly which color I'm going to use in which part. I guess I'll just dive in and we'll see how this all "unfolds..."
By: Anita Mejía,
on 3/14/2009
Blog:
Sugar Frosted Goodness
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I made this illustration for a gazette of my town.
Mixed Media
Things are looking up - several work and teaching responsibilities have been set aside, projects around the house are near completion, and it's almost baby time. Could be any day I guess, but I'm hoping to get a little closer to the due date. I have my bags packed for the hospital, including my sketchbook and pencils.
In the meantime, I visited
Kathleen Rietz's blog and saw a posting of a glass mosaic that she'd done. That reminded me that in the past I had enjoyed making stained glass panels. HEY! At last, something art-related for me to post about!
These are a few panels I did over 10 years ago, but I've never posted (not the best pictures - poor light - I'll try to remedy that soon). The kids designs (Humpty Dumpty and Counting Sheep) were in their bedroom windows until we moved here - now they're in my kitchen, helping to keep the neighbors from peering straight in.
I always loved glass projects - there was a certain amount of mystery as to how it would actually look once completed. Unless you have a light table (which I don't), you really can't see the full effect until the pieces are soldered together and you can lift the panel off the board. Then, you catch a first glimpse of the colors illuminated.
I always enjoyed the different textures and patterns of glass that you can get, too. Hopefully someday I'll be able to dive into another glass project. However, right now is just tooooooooo busy!
By:
Anita Mejía,
on 3/10/2009
Blog:
Monday Artday
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A kappa is a pretty disgusting creature in Japanese literature, whose head is hollow like a bowl on top. It attacks human beings in a rather rude way and has a fondness for cucumbers. One can trick it by bowing to it; when it returns the bow, it spills the water in the bowl that is its head, and therefore loses its power and becomes harmless. This
kappa has had even more bad luck and lost its body entirely. His head is now used for storing light. This drawing was made with graphite on coquille paper.
By:
Steve Novak,
on 4/29/2008
Blog:
Steve Draws Stuff
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Since I'm going to be gone for pretty much the whole of this week, I thought I would keep things short and sweet.
Here's a logo I recently did for someone.
There, I'm done.
Okay, so maybe it wasn't that sweet, but you can't argue the short part.
Steve~
On this day in 1879, Thomas Edison demonstrated the electric light successfully. Celebrate with this poem.
Poem to Be Read at 3 A.M.
by Donald Justice
(excerpted from American Sketches)
Excepting the diner
On the outskirts
The town of Ladora
At 3 A.M.
Was dark but
For my headlights
And up in
One second-story room
A single light
Where someone
Was sick or
Perhaps reading
As I drove past
At seventy
Not thinking
This poem
Is for whoever
Had the light on
For more poems about light, look for Joan Bransfield Graham’s collection, Flicker Flash (Houghton Mifflin, 2003). Joan Bransfield Graham’s poetry books are wonderful examples of shape or concrete poetry in which the words of the poems are laid out on the page to suggest the subject of the poem. In both Splish Splash (Houghton Mifflin, 2001) and Flicker Flash, the graphic illustrations combine with the verbal descriptions of water or light in their many, varied forms.
The rhyming shape poems of Flicker Flash explore the different ways that light appears in our world, from the flicker of birthday candles to a flash of lightning. The ingenious illustrations by Nancy Davis feature bold graphic images that play with shape and type in creative ways and add to the impact of each poem. These are perfect selections to incorporate into science or art lessons. Read them aloud by flashlight for added effect. In particular, read “Lamp” seated with the book near lamplight to demonstrate the poem’s “lamp-shine.”
A natural complement is Anna Grossnickle Hines poetry book, Winter Lights (Greenwillow, 2005) or Marilyn Singer’s Central Heating: Poems About Fire and Warmth (Knopf, 2005). Her poem “Lights Out” is ideal for sharing with Graham’s “Lamp” poem—both about reading by the light of a lamp or flashlight. One note: several of Graham’s poems in Flicker Flash deal with fire, including candles, matches, campfires and fireworks. Each is beautifully described and illustrated and can lead to a helpful discussion of both metaphors as well as fire safety! Be very clear about proper procedures for handling fire-related objects like matches and candles, of course.
Here are a few more poetry collections that feature poems about light in its various incarnations, either directly or indirectly.
Bruchac, Joseph. 1996. Between Earth and Sky: Legends of Native American Sacred Places. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace.
Bruchac, Joseph. 1992. Thirteen Moons on Turtle’s Back: A Native American Year of Moons. New York: Philomel Books.
Dotlich, Rebecca Kai. 1998. Lemonade Sun and Other Summer Poems. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.
Esbensen, Barbara Juster. 1984. Cold Stars and Fireflies: Poems of the Four Seasons. New York: Crowell.
Fisher, Aileen. 1980. Out in the Dark and Daylight. New York: Harper & Row.
Graham, Joan Bransfield. 1999. Flicker Flash. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Hines, Anna Grossnickle. 2005. Winter Lights: A Season in Poems & Quilts. New York: Greenwillow.
Hopkins, Lee Bennett, comp. 1983. The Sky is Full of Song. New York: Harper & Row.
Levy, Constance. 1998. A Crack in the Clouds. New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books.
Lewis, Richard, comp. 1988. In the Night Still Dark. New York: Atheneum.
Livingston, Myra Cohn. 1984. Sky Songs. New York: Holiday House.
McCord, David. 1962. Take Sky: More Rhymes of the Never Was and Always Is. Boston: Little Brown.
Merriam, Eve. 1986. A Sky Full of Poems. New York: Dell.
Moore, Lilian, comp. 1992. Sunflakes: Poems for Children. New York: Clarion Books.
Moore, Lilian. 1980. Think of Shadows. New York: Atheneum.
Mora, Pat. 1998. This Big Sky. New York: Scholastic.
Ochoa, Annette Piña, Betsy Franco, and Traci L. Gourdine, Eds. 2003. Night is Gone, Day is Still Coming; Stories and Poems by American Indian Teens and Young Adults. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick.
O’Neill, Mary. 2003. The Sound of Day; The Sound of Night. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Rosenberg, Liz, ed. Light-gathering Poems. New York: Henry Holt.
Singer, Marilyn. 2005. Central Heating: Poems about Fire and Warmth. New York: Knopf.
Singer, Marilyn. 2000. Fireflies at Midnight. New York: Atheneum.
Kelly Fineman has more gems at the Poetry Friday Roundup this week.
Picture credit: home.cogeco.ca
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Emily, when you Mother was very young, we lived in a house that had no fireplace, so I built one. I used thin pieces of scrap lumber to make the frame, cover it with crdboard and then then applied crepe paper with a full size red brick pattern. It looked remarkably real and the childen hung their stockings there. Afterwards the fire place was partially dismantled and stored in the attic for another year’s use.
GD Bob
I love this post because the poetry is beautiful and so expressive and also because it is so informative for me and my WIP. Having visited Germany in spring and summer I need to hear that the sun sets at 4:00 in winter. I need to feel the grayness that the poem and your prose communicate so eloquently.
Hi Joyce–So glad you enjoyed it. I thought of you. And I directed Etta to your comment so she could read it herself
Have your German friends told you about gemuetlichkeit? Loosely translated “cozy time” in the winter but your friends could describe it better than I. Also, randomly, have they told you about the symbolism of shoelace colors among young people in the GDR? Interesting I heard about lately, but I think, again, that your German friends could describe it better.
Merry Christmas Emily! My husband lived in Germany for a year when he was about 10 and he keeps saying he wants to go back to show me the Christmas markets. I would love that.