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Kwan Yin, wall sculpture, hand built and decorated, slab rolled by Tammy Vitale

Browsing at Luann Udell’s Durable Goods website today and ran across her posting of the Lascaux Cave Axial gallery.  Luann asks:  "What ancient, yearning dreams of beauty made these haunting images?"  Great question.

I have always loved these cave paintings and had never gone to the Lascaux website so went off in search of the site and stayed there for a long time.  Somehow I want to work this into what I’m going to be doing.  Wouldn’t a torso finished with some of these images be lovely?  But it shouldn’t be smooth.  It should be rough, like a cave wall.  I’m going to have to think on this.  Better yet, I should just get down into the studio and get my hands in the mud.  But wait!  I have to do a load in/out at Heron’s Way Gallery today.  Well, I have the afternoon and evening.  (there are two voices in my head.  One is on vacation.  One is seriously blocked artistically, I just realized last night.  What we hide from ourselves is very interesting…and usually visible to a lot of people around us; however, no one has pointed out to me that I’ve been avoiding the studio, not on vacation.  So maybe the vacation voice is right).

I spent a great deal of time wedged behind the amps at 9:30 club last night waiting for Husband to be done with a production meeting.  I tagged along simply because it got me out of the house and I had nothing better planned (see above.  I’m either on vacation or seriously blocked artistically).  I had along The Artists Way by Julia Cameron and the latest Ceramics Monthly which lists many fellowships and summer camp teaching positions and juried shows and galleries and workshops.  All make for great vacations, or, hey, networking oppotunities.  I do believe I need to get out of the house and find more places to sell my work.  Which isn’t even vacation, it’s working.  Yes, indeed, it’s marketing and being "out there" and sociable.  And yes (little nagging voice), I have enough work that I could fill up a new place or two.  Especially once I load out of my show at Joie de Vivre in Cambridge which will happen late January or early February, one fine Monday when Husband can help me do the Bay Bridge traversing.

I will leave the little voices to argue and present something much more fun snatched from Caro’s Lines (Jan 4 – I can’t find the permalink).  It’s a meme on books!  Oh, the best ever, I think (no, little voices, it is networking…see, you share something of yourself with others and that’s how you form relationships.  This is not procrastination.  This is a good thing).  Here it is, completed by me:

First, grab the nearest book, post the book’s name and author’s name on your blog:

When Things Fall Apart:  Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodorn [if you must know, I was using it for my thought for the day over at myspace.  It has absolutely nothing to do with the little voices in my head.]

Next, turn to page 123, go to the fifth sentence on that page, now post the following three sentences to your blog:

We do this with the wish that all of us could be free of suffering.  Then we breathe out, sending out a sense of big space, a sense of ventilation or freshness.  We do this with the wish that all of us could relax and experience the innermost essence of our mind.

Last, tag three others.  Ok  Jana [because she loves being tagged], Dianne [because she didn’t make it onto my original W LIst and because I still haven’t updated my side list to include her which is at the very top of my todo list which I’m not doing because:  I am on vacation]; Taexalia [because I’m nosey and want to see what she’s reading].

You can leave your answers in the comment section since I’m always looking for good books – after the meme, say why you like this book.

thought for the day: Like the point of a spear, I walk at the head of this procession.  I walk with the energy of all my experience, all my realtions, pushing me.  I walk on a trail I have laid out in words, over and over again, teaching, writing, saying I would be willing to take this path.  Saying to others, you, too, must be willing.  I walk toward the drum, toward the precipice.  There is no more meandering.  There is no more escape – not one more errand to run, not one more load of laundry to wash and fold, not one more phone call to answer, not one more letter to type, not one more word I can write until I take the next step. Until I am wiling to fall.

Standing at the very edge of the cliff I shout as god/us, "Are you sure I’m ready for this?  It seems we’ve been moving awfully fast these past few years….How do You know I’m ready?….the angel leans forward, kissed me on the lips.  "love is all that is real," she says, "good-bye."  She turns my shoulders around.  I face the edge.  I do not jump.  It is more subtle than that.  I simple let go.

Christina Baldwin Calling the Circle:  The First and Future Culture

p.s.  In finding a link for Christina Baldwin, I read this: "the theme that weaves through all her wok and writing:  her utter belief in the pwoer of story to renew how we are in the world on an individual to collective level."  It knocks the breath out of me because I believe that too.  Is this a sign?  I’m off (and this has nothing to do with either vacation or black, it just feels like what’s next). Peace.