Wish list for the hands

[temperance14]

Posting about Pica made me think of ideas she has given me new paths.
And teachings from others, that crossed those paths.


Words written.
Bookbinding Japanese stitching of your own pages, of your own haibun.
Introduced in our Green Tongues poetry class by our teacher Maria Melendez, and her friend, who also taught binding at the Craft Center.

Poetry inspirations and games: Exquisite Corpse. Inspiration, image and rhythm games from poetry teachers Maria, and Sarah Zane of Napa; from authors such as Diane Thiel, Gabriele Rico.

Pica’s walnut sonnet—but it was others who introduced me to the texture and detail of the sonnet, the reason for its structure, and all its permutations. Shakespeare, Frost, e e cummings (the inverted sonnet revealed to me by Judson Jerome)

Colors brushed.
Pica reminds me of old urges I had before I could read. She charges curiosity/urge to make one’s own ink, dyes, paints, brushes/markers/daubers/stamps, papers. The urge to write haiku and calaveras and leave them for others to find.

I’ve remembered, during the past weeks’ shifting of season, weather and light, that I want to sketch. I want to learn how to capture mass of foliage, clouds, water at peace, rolling past, or repeating in waves. Light through time of day, weather, temperature, precipitation. How to see in mass, not the devil in the details.

I want to sketch/contour-travel line, color spots and washes like Chas. Reid. See and paint impressionistic landscapes (without worrying about others’ sneering). Try limited palettes, to focus on the beauty and range of those few colors.

I want to find my old Sierra club sketching book. I want Wong’s out of print books on sketching landscapes/buildings with pencils, ink and markers—the one’s I keep borrowing from Shields. I want to do this in graphite, pen, brush, tones of sumi-e ink, and shades of transparent watercolor washes

Things worth knowing.
Pica’s and Numenius’s viewpoint reminds me that I want to Bird, Flower, Tree, to learn to recognize and name. I want my Nature Guide pocket guides NOW, before Spring starts. Before my friend Mira takes me back to the water, to learn to trust what I fear.

“What You Should Know to be a Poet”—Snyder, excerpt

“all you can know about animals as persons.
the names of trees and flowers and weeds.
the names of stars and the movements of planets
and the moon.
your own six senses, with a watchful elegant mind.
at least one kind of traditional magic:
divinization, astrology, the book of changes, the tarot….”

I want to go live on the fourth floor of Shields.
I want to live in folklore and myths, as I did when a child.
I want to know how ribbin makes knot dolls---I want to make knotted dolls, folded dolls, cornhusk, grain, cloth and papier mache dolls. Little creatures

I want to know how to tie knots and Elizabethan needlework in the guildyard.
I want to crochet my fuglies.

This is devil in the details.

Comments

[battymaiden.livejournal.com]

"I want to live in folklore and myths, as I did when I was a child."

Who says you can't? Grow-ups? Come, come, my dear. Do you not remember the lessons of the Little Prince, or has no one introduced him to you yet?

[temperance14.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was born old...I'm just trying to back up into childhood.

I seem to have gotten as far as puberty.


I'm trying to shift my head, body, and time focus to include my old habits of cartooning, doodling, writing wonderfully bad but fun stories, falling into old folklore (Greek myths, but also indian, native american, and south american). You should read folk tales an mythologies in a way bordering on belief.

Oh yeah. And bicycle. Right.

[whalejudge.livejournal.com]

A good place to stop the aging process...things get duller...