I thought I was the one who used too many ellipses…but I need them! And no, there cannot be too many, Jonny, that’s like saying “too many breaths”, too many birds, too many snakes and leaves and rivulets, no, and in fact I would say that when I am painting and writing poetry I am well, avowing myself, my life, to these worlds and worldlings I love so much. Like the birds, here, I sometimes whistle and sometimes feel-imagine touching them and its so vivid, I can actually feel the florious intricate texture of feathers, a living bird intelligence, all the energy of a star, singing…other times I get very anthro and breathe out “I love you”. Yes, I am saying I love you in pigments to the water and sending it onto the paper to take shape, and later I might find hundreds of miles inside that painting, might find canyons and waterfalls, or wildly, an eye in the sky, whose eye, I have no idea, and it doesn’t matter, or rather it matters as much as everything else, as a single dot, as a hairline crack or crystal of sand, the tiny worlds that are everywhere, as Robin Kimmerer says of moss forests, where a single drop of rain is a planet…
Oh, and I love pastels, too, though I don’t have any at the moment. Decades ago I painted with them and it was their luminosity and willingness to merge that I found so enchanting. I think I’d like to try using water color and chalk together and see what’s possible. I’m also wanting to do collages because that’s how I paint anyway, and write too, bringing things that aren’t usually together, together.…and discovering what happens.
By the way, I’ve been meaning to say that I give my writings/paintings away, don’t sell them, so because I know you dig and delve Shakespeare, I thought of sending you something, if you are interested! In the middle of my spec fic novel which has many Shakespeare references throughout, there is a fictitious play inside the novel based around various aspects/pieces of Shakespeare. It’s performed for the “Wedding” of the last two, still separate, giant corporations in the 2050s. Put on by an underground performance group, that does five minute versions of S.'s plays, called Fish Wives (men, too). They’ve been chosen among contenders by corp-goons (because their bid was lowest) to entertain (and act out) the lustful gov-corp “King” and Queen" , while also sub-textually “speaking to” the resisters who are in the audience. It’s called Shakespeare’s Diana: meant to be a slightly bawdy, subversive, somewhat silly (ancient and modern meansings here) play, and it’s written with stage directions, et al. I wonder if you’d like to see it It’s about nine pages. No obligations, of course! Just thought of this now, and am curious if The Play would “play” for someone who hasn’t read the book. By the way, in the book, pastels are the material of choice for Teri, an off-line artist who is trying and re-trying to represent a mysterious entity communicating via Dreams…
…okay, sorry, got carried away! I am so close to getting this book published after, let’s see, 16 years of working on it, off and on, since just before my partner died. I painted the cover for it in my twenties from a Dream I dreamed when I was seven. I publically predicted in a Bio that it would be out by 2020, and I did that on purpose to prod myself away from the fear it also generates to imagine anyone reading (and maybe disliking!!) the book.
Forgive me for the ridiculous length of this email, but you inspired me into it! 