Month: June 2014

Pages in a pile, left with a smile.

June 30, 2014 — Leave a comment

Sometimes It would seem, the words I want to write are buried by drawings. Much like the leaf piles in my youth. I cherish the fall time in the Great Lakes. Raking the leaves or sketching the form allows me to briefly move past to the next. Some of the words get clearer but there are always more leaves and images. This realization could drive one mad if it weren’t for a children’s perspective kept intact. And I do take delight in diving into the pile of inspiration I gathered in the yard of my imagination. If only to show it to you tomorrow and again.

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Another night, wood grained black and white.

June 25, 2014 — Leave a comment

I owe you something with color in it. I know, it’s been some time. Well, another night will pass without watercolor. I finished my fourth flying hawk on plywood. This is a Broad-winged Hawk. Found east of the Rockies.

There is a story that ties me to every bird I draw, sometimes it requires 6 degrees of separation, sometimes it’s tied into the very tail feathers. With my time pen in hand I’ve been working on writing all these connections down. So that I might better illustrate everything better.

Call it a self portrait in words and birds.

Broadwingedhawk.jpg

 

Ain’t it just like the night…

June 17, 2014 — Leave a comment

We create and destroy. I walked to the bookstore at dusk. Everybody I passed had their eyes on a screen. Disconnected. It brought me back to an afternoon.

She was putting her coat on in the hallway, annoyed by something but no intent to share with me what was the root. It was February and snowing. I didn’t speak a word and she walked out every door.  All I could do was turn the blinds.

Tonight walking home from the bookstore, my eyes trapped by the pages of the book I had found. A series of photographs of Barn Owls, I walked right into a telephone pole. Hard enough to drop the book and laugh out loud. I hope somebody saw that and got a laugh too. We owe the earth that much maybe. To drop your book to the ground and laugh.

I’ve been laying out more drawings on 1/8″ craft plywood. A Red-shouldered Hawk and a Zone-tailed Hawk.

Not new subject species here but a real fine thing to put to page so why on earth or sky not?

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From my own night, I can see theirs.

June 12, 2014 — Leave a comment

It wasn’t Black Muddy River sounds that reached my ears there.

She was like a driftwood Skelton, drinking from the empty plastic night.

I fit into place like a bag of nails on a long car ride.

I began to believe I forgot my ribcage at home the way she looked through me.

The view from the balcony was beautiful but to have to look through my eyes was painful.

With chlorine swimming pool eyes.

This constant contact with concrete I’d rather for go.

So bounce a bottle cap off the sliding door and into an open cooler, think of something clever to say…

“I’ve got business here like a sea captain in the desert”.

Words find me while I look for a raven in a crowded sketchbook.

Words find me while I look for a raven in a crowded sketchbook.

 

Afternoon dust and a crow’s personal opinion.

June 6, 2014 — 2 Comments

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Watching hawks at the dirtjumps by the railroad tracks. A great deal of beauty flying over my head. A group of crows in the scrub brush near by exclaim their disapproval of what I see as a flying painting. There will always be that bird that disagrees with you it seems.

When the sun sets I head inside and sit at the desk. look onto the page and develop the film from my memories right there in my own darkroom with lights on bright.