Pages 5 and 6 of altered book, So Much to See  and There is No Door, by Tammy Vitale

Another pre-post to cover AEM while I’m away.

So Much to See‘s verse says:  Open your eyes/see what you are become//move if you wish/but first you must open your eyes//there is so much to see.  There are also hand written notes arond the page, but the more I add, the less it makes sense to write it all here.  It’s turning into stream of consciousness, which was my intent both in gatherin the collage pieces, assembling them and then choosing a verse.  I don’t think, I just do, much the way I create in clay.  Much fun, great play, very open and what comes through informs what is to come somehow.  I find myself repeating lines as I go along – and become as curious as the next person to see what will happen next!

There is No Door is based around a 5×7 piece I made in photoshop a long time ago using a verse snippet (which I’ve been doing forever – that’s not new.  I long ago discovered that in addition to a poem being itself, it contains miniature stand-alone worlds that can be used with paintings).  That verse reads:  The secret/to unlocking the door,//remember//there is no door/there is not key. I was after a refrigerator door feeling for this page – at least my refrigerator door, which, prior to cleaning up to sell the house, always was covered front and side with photos and other good things.  Right now it is depressingly clean.  I should fix that.  Especially since I have learned, finally, how to print out nice photos from the myriads of pictures I snap.

Aside:  For many years I collected favorite pictures on the fridge as they came back in their packages.  I have about 20 years of photos organized and 5 years not.  But at the end of the year I would collect the photos and make a photo montage to hang in the hall.  Yes, they got so numerous that I had started moving them into bedrooms, but they are great to go back and look at.  Then I got a digital camera, and now everything is in cyberspace.  For a long time I didn’t have the means to print (old printer), but now I have printers and the new computer  with great software and everything is easy.  One of my month’s off projects (Jan and Feb) might be to get some printed out and catch up with the photo montages which I haven’t done for two years now.

Back to today’s AEM art, I have to say much of this is informed by browsing the other AEM participants’ sites and seeing what they’re doing.  Unfortunately I cannot keep them straight in my mind.  Suffice it to say there is much talent and creativity out there and I am so happy I happened on to this little project!  Do visit  Kat’s Paws, which is the mother site of AEM, and scroll through all the participants when you get a chance.

Perhaps in the last pages of the altered book I will include the full versions of the poems which go with the verses. I have quite a few pages to go before I get there!

thought for the day:  networking is good, cyberspace or otherwise.