you can still see Garbo on the postage stamp 

 

 

Notes of a Notebook

 

inset is my favorite Rossetti drawing, torn off a psychology book that wasn’t as good as its cover. This notebook was given to me by the office staff manager st “Pearle(Art Supplies” in East Meadow, NY), the Waterhouse to the left and my mangas have been stuck on there for years—since I took it home; and it has traveled everywhere with me, starting with NY, then MI, Oregon, MD and back to NY….and I just can’t stop staring at the stars 

*Another personal note on PRB

So upon considering why I had first been pulled under the poetry of the PreRaphaelites, the tragic loss I’d suffered, I could never fully embrace Dante Gabriel Rossetti —even as he was the driving force of the brotherhood I was disturbed by his sense of ethics. Especially as it felt to me hypocritical of what he claimed for their vision as artists, but deep down —a poet who digs up his wife’s grave to retrieve his poetry which he claimed he wrote for her….coupled with stealing William Morris’ wife around this time just is not garden variety immorality but something near a supreme sense of self importance and it comes across in his art 

while I love his use of red and his earliest drawings of Elizabeth Siddal, I find his inability to get his perspective right (Ecce Ancilla Domini to name one instance) gives me motion sickness —but his peer John Everett Millais was a most brilliant member; his work has always been among my favorites, especially ‘the Order of Release’ which I had framed and always hung everywhere I lived but got lost somewhere in the ruins I long left

Branded; howl at the moon

….and so, it is a long time that I stare at the wall. I sit down on the floor and look up 

 and I think about his words 

         how does he do this to me?

     just when I think ….no, I was just dreaming…. he proves himself ….and another one of his—some kind of mind blower moments

     like a moth to a flame …. that is the magnetic pull to him 

          his strange innate proclivities are at the exact polar place of all mine that in the middle it is like some exact balance 

I almost fall off the earth and it seems there is ….

      I stare at the wall and think 

        

             I think about all the paintings he has put there…. and his quiet …. silent …. way ….of reading me —memorizing my in between the lines that I only attest to as poetry but still my utmost ethically true ….but there he follows ….behind the doorways and I guess if it is worth the tedious but intended misdirections to him then I am more than glad to entertain whatever ideas he has in mind 

So I sit on the floor and consider his suggestion

        they are all elan …. the same story…. 

    

         I look at the celves and think about the fossil I found that day 

how it triggered weird new directions, as had the entire Elizabethan trip ….the trip in the wheat field(our school stayed at a youth hostel) that alerted my wheat allergy causing a serious infection, but seeing Shakespeare’s house after I’d already read and loved the Tempest then seeing it performed then the Taming of the Shrew at Stratford upon Avon 

there was something weird I felt being all around in these places, like previous times  

     After awhile I get up 

I go over to the work desk. He has a hand written note. In his odd but very neat and unique hand writing he has written: 

     

       ~The Time travel story— what if besides the visit to the Industrial Revolution and et Al there is the Vampire and the Dove story?

      What if they are all meant as one?~

There is a chair there by the desk. 

Convenient. I sit down.

Just when I think he doesn’t see me he ….

 He is such a wolf 

Branded or Beth

There is a sense, a fear, a moment when it seems as though I start to fear that maybe I was wrong to come here, and that maybe the feeling that he truly does see me was just wishful thinking— is it the reminder now of seeing the reality child he’d had with Clair during our relationship or the reality of the time we lost that has kept me so detached?

…. our intimacy —though intense…. it was like being caught up in a dream which ….

   in my pursuit of meaning, it feels bewildering 

Bran leaves early in the morning to take Ioan to his mother’s but he says I should get to work on the new ideas he has been working on with my images. 

He says,

“the password to the computer in the office is ‘ElectraComplexX2,” and hands me the key to the door. 

I don’t go to look right away. Instead I go to the garden to think.

By the time I decide to go to the office, my mind is in a state of deep thought that I hardly notice what I see.

In fact I am standing there awhile staring at a wall without comprehending for awhile what I am looking at. 

The office. I see it is arranged for two people. Two desks and a big work table with chairs. 

But it is what is pinned to the wall. The main wall. The one where you have to look first at. 

It is arranged like a crime detective. The way they put clippings, or photos, or documents or any bits of memorabilia associated with “the case” and as such, red pinned in neat chronological order as they emerged. 

There is an almost life sized reproduction of Wavegirl; of the reflection in the water horse painting; of the faery in chains; and finally of the Viking carrying off Elan painting/The Pirate and the Dove —prints of photo images of my paintings all laid across the long wall in the order I painted them….

I walk over slowly to the wall to read the sticky yellow note above the prints. It says: “What if all the paintings go together, as they all came from the subconscious mind or came about from dreams?”

And …. 

        realize …. 

 

with oils you are part chemist

 

You have to wait days till it dries to see how it sets. But do you see the gloss of the water? That is the difference of oil and acrylic and the scale of detail and how different oils will change this; but you have to be patient and wait and look at it

I had an art professor at school who forbid short handled paint brushes 

He made us stand several feet away from our work. And squint to obscure our eyes. 

But then, he only allowed primary color paint as we had to create every nuance of hue from this 

The point was, well, a painter is not an illustrator so the long handle is old school meant to not fall under the photographer syndrome of duplication 

 

Samuel de Champlain Monument

     Samuel de Champlain and Mohawk Chief 

               Overlooking Lake Champlain 

 

n'as-tu pas remarqué que c'est moi qui t'entends réellement ?

it all matters

People are a work in progress,

Today the beach is deserted ….all the yachts and the summer people have left ….it belongs to the locals again

but I am glad of it as it suits my needs 

the chill too has scared everyone inside but I like having the beach to myself 

I was walking along here thinking of how in the mountains on the water makes, it like a fortress in my mind; why I like it. I love the mountains, it is so different, even the seagulls are different. There were two that were soaring above me, as if showing off. Then one swooped down and looked right at me! It was surfing the wind and it stayed there just making eye contact looking at me! Then it took off. I walked along. Then the second one came to me and did exactly the same!!! The other was waiting and watching! Then the second joined the first and they soared away. It was such an exciting sight, one even seemed to understand when I thanked it for the show. 

I needed it after a fake coffee time.

When I reached the nearby local town past Mickeys where it gets seedy I saw an out of shape man on a bike holding his phone in the crook of his shoulder while smoking a cigarette and drinking a latte through a straw 

and then had an actual seedy encounter. 

People are a work in progress, I say—put them back in the oven because they’re not fully cooked 

 

I am caught within the seaweed of familiar arms as though the web that captures me, holds me

“No, it’s me,” Beth, he says to me but I’m still not sure who that is. “It’s me Beth …. “ he says again 

thoughts of magik

people discus ideas of magic or magik or otherworldliness or occult 

My experience with it has been accidental and instinctive so when I look at the books it seems like the cart before the horse 

I think it’s energy. 

I almost called it emotional energy. It sort is that way for me. But it’s not emotion in use as device more emotion called it to occur 

but it’s raw emotion in the honest blunt purest form that I don’t realize is there. Soon after john and I broke up years ago, it happened to me. It was after midnight, awoke from a nightmare— devastated, and was still calling his name,  but I was still saying it over and over even after when I woke up

The next morning he called me and asked what I was doing around midnight. 

He said all the window shutters went up in the place where we used to live, he said he saw an image of me come into the room and say his name as it woke him up 

When I was in the first grade my teacher was cruel to me because I couldn’t read and shamed me often in front of the classroom (early life as a dyslexic). One day I was so humiliated and angry with it, when she climbed up on a chair, which she did often, this day I kept thinking “fall!” with all my heart and rage. And I felt this energy flow out of me towards her. And she fell 

It scared me. Because I knew I did it. I never thought thoughts like that about living things again 

And now Davi is back 

    what fresh new hell to unleash 

and  mr cranberry

 how to get out of the clause 

 and claws of ….. 

upon the scrying

One has the sense one is burnt on emotions, I find myself trying to block the demand for empathy and sympathy from people who weren’t there and were actually who caused the nightmares I ran from~ what am I doing…. right now I come here because I had to say that not as marker but, to acknowledge that I know I didn’t turn to stone —that’s the wall that was forced up for these very reasons; first the Trojan horse 

it is just easier to not care than to give it energy like blood feuds do. but there is nothing in me letting me swallow the fake idea all is forgiven when the wreckage prevails 

no I come here to let it go 

    let it go here — just as a reminder ….this is the longest length of peace I’ve known so I don’t want trespassers or prisoners  

why the need of romantic tragic poets?

I never write about Pete. As it is still too horrible even now. 

I mean, I still strain to— still struggle to — find the words. but I still can’t. 

The shift that spring loaded me out — the final departure through and the trail of breadcrumbs where I trod past that elfin grot down the hallways of mirrors and rhyme …. 

It was the boy on the motor bike who got killed. No, I never say; never write if it, never speak of it, never could—not ever but he is a love story I never told anyone because it only happened the night before he died but it didn’t happen; he wanted it to but —I was with the captain of the rugby team who was an egoist. There was jealousy. They raced across the busy road instead of using the underpass meant for bikes; it was a dare ….one did not make it 

I relived that scene a million times …. I know I was on suicide watch there by the faculty as some kind of Ophelia but ….they saved me ….i walked through that doorway and never looked back 

a moral malaise

 

new views from nowhere 

& notes for a purpose 

 

het heeft alleen jou nodig

out of wonderland another Lewis

‘Mica’ is a tattoo artist, one of the groupies who watches Davi paint as they schmooze him—he said to me, “you have no tattoos! That’s what I love about you! You’re so pure, like a blank canvas—creamy ready” what does that mean? But he says, “I want to do a python on you— you are perfect! You’re whole entire alabaster body, toe to throat, wrapped in s green scaly python! I told Davi—he seems cool about it,” he says all this as if we ever talked before 

gross. this is what he thinks when I’m there. If he likes that I am pure why muck it up? As, Davi is weird but he’s slightly more subtle so you don’t notice till it’s too late and like Will and Grace watch me walk right into that obvious column 

Purpose again

Left early. I had to get out of there 

They call “Coffee Catch up time with the gals” — but there is never any coffee and there are no ‘gals’ there but me and the maid cleaner girl. Instead of coffee it is more like happy hour cocktail time; wheeling dealing and Alphonso showing the latest messages he has received from Davi (Alphonso is Davi’s ‘assistant’ or—no one is sure what Alphonso does actually but—it was he who asked me to show up today….why….? )

Davi returns next week at some mysterious soon to be disclosed time, but I feel a century has passed since he left and I am not sure how to get clear of ….some contract as this isn’t really my gig —what is it? 

Anyway 

 I had considered not going. It has been so good to get back to myself and ….ive been in a weird mood.life.purpose.meaning.often I do things that go against my ethics when I am angry at myself; like I rationalize the bullshit but either way it is anger 

They do this thing in Davi’s world—they make you hand over your phone 

Why? I think it is power. At first I had thought it was because I was being driven to his personal property and I thought maybe they just don’t want any information of their headquarters getting out? I didn’t want to question it

Wealthy people don’t make sense. They are crazy with how they got their money and it makes them insane. They make everyone else around them insane 

I feel like it’s a boring merry go round ride but with an embarrassment of excess of riches. It makes me feel surreal. I feel uncomfortable. Why am I there? 

So you hand over your phone and it’s like this feeling like, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But it is also intimidation. It is control. How do I call for help, how do I get back, where am I ….snd all the vultures have moved in with Davi away. The heir to the cranberry empire has made his move on me. But it isn’t me. It isn’t me at all. It is only the Barbie doll they want to dress up; it is one thing to exploit oneself but another to be yet another’s more weirder interpretation of their object needs.How boring to listen to him wine and say, “I should just lay back and live off my family’s old money, sell my football team….” (Like these are his worst worries, I’m sewing up socks all winter, can I ever go back to that world again?)I mean, this is sadly very unexciting when I’d rather be staring at a Rossetti, studying as long as I can the color usage until it made me faint 

What will I decide to go was what Alphonso wanted to feel out and so I just left walking right up to ‘Bruno’ yes, that’s what he goes by, and asked for my phone and could he Zelle me money to uber back ….

I can’t waste any more time letting others take up and waste my time ….i need more out of life, I think it is at the point with them, I’m bored; I want to call the shots and if they don’t like it —? I honestly don’t actually care

the start of Sunflower season in the mountains

lovely August gifts for me everywhere 

 

more about La Belle*

When I’d first read the Keats poem my thoughts veered into another direction. Because I really thought—personally I really thought ….the ‘knight’ was a metaphor 

so I thought ….Keats was using this as a way to describe himself as a fallen knight not as an actual knight —but one held up by armor. As though he battled in that great Arthur code of love as an honorable knight and was pierced in the battle. some hint as to where and when I first put on the armor and how the concept arrived to me (and indication of what an impact this poem had on me and remains)

survivor’s guilt 

those things you know, shrug off and ignore ….be tough and never look back?and there’s me….always pondering on the road even as I can only catch my breath running from the demons behind me; I know I’m tough; can be a bitch~but if I let my walls all the way down?all those things matter.more.than the trivial mundane —those are just the bearings your soul journeys on so you do the work of life so that when you are at the gate you know you ….as you ….and the maker; I’m flung in this catacomb examining scrolls of a map I recently dropped and the scars still burn bright but sorry more for all the human that I feel for the souls and the ones who refuse to see and the effort of trying and losing and exhausting my own faith ….i step up from the catacombs with a slow backward departure and watch the black roses rise into morning puce

*footnote

clear other hints

‘wight’ which could suggest a kind of ghostly human

the withered sedge on the lake and the squirrels full granary— a squirrel as it prepares for winter; the harvest being done, no birds sing—they have flown for the winter; are woeful and impending deathlike references 

  ….how could I not have fallen in love with Keats by his tragic heartbreak?

to note of codes

The most important hint that his poem was speaking in poetic language is the reference to the lily—the lily on thy brow 

and then the rose 

the lily indicates the knight is still a young man —but fast wither….means dying untimely in youth 

the rose indicates in the language of poetry, the heart and love or in this case, a broken heart 

Of course ~Wordsworth —as his name would suggest, requires an entire code book 

La Belle Dame Sans Merci is a word in my dictionary

It all really began for me with this one poem—this whole secret language that evoked a doorway to a realm that I forever was a citizen of 

This one poem by Keats in my tenth grade English Literature class as I was desperately searching for meaning those words pulled me under his spell 

But then there was this …. which is my favorite painting Waterhouse’s style is often grouped with PreRaphaelite~his style and principles would be of the genre but he was not in the ‘Brotherhood’ 

La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John William Waterhouse 1849-1917

Here is the Poem that inspired the painting 

La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats 1795-1821

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
  Alone and palely loitering;
The sedge is withered from the lake, 
  And no birds sing.

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
  So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full, 
  And the harvest's done.

I see a lilly on thy brow,
  With anguish moist and fever dew;
And on thy cheek a fading rose
  Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads
  Full beautiful, a faery's child; 
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
  And her eyes were wild.

I set her on my pacing steed,
  And nothing else saw all day long;
For sideways would she lean, and sing 
  A faery's song.

I made a garland for her head, 
  And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love, 
  And made sweet moan.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
  And honey wild, and manna dew;
And sure in language strange she said,
  I love thee true.

She took me to her elfin grot,
  And there she gazed and sighed deep,
And there I shut her wild sad eyes—
  So kissed to sleep.

And there we slumbered on the moss,
  And there I dreamed, ah woe betide,
The latest dream I ever dreamed 
  On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings, and princes too,
  Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cried—"La belle Dame sans merci 
  Hath thee in thrall!"

I saw their starved lips in the gloam 
  With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke, and found me here 
  On the cold hill side.

And this is why I sojourn here 
  Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
  And no birds sing.

 

today’s progress

removed other ships, then filled in the ocean to make perspective make better sense—shoreline foam by sand will be added when I start the green hues (the planned finer details mentioned will occur down the road; laying out the field)

I am the waves when I paint the water; I flow and move inside the currents. I want to be the water, and flow on and on, and move upon the waves and crash upon the shore 

that is what I feel
 when I paint this and what I feel when I look into the water —is this why I paint water so much ….i don’t know, it is more the magic of the scrying that is the actual destination 

would you like to know my thoughts ….? They are not like ordinary thoughts at all but they are much happier than the other things out there 

yes, I’ve changed this

there will be detail added to this section

 

modern Dutch master still life idea

I want to do a still life of cabbage roses and need to find how to find a seller. I need an excuse to have fresh flowers all the time 

 

a space of one’s own

that it should have taken so long to find my way back to ….me which only comes when I can lose myself in who I really am; an artist ….i do my best thinking when I paint 

it is a peace that is mine and only mine and where I belong utterly; the world is irrelevant to me 

you can be lonely in a crowded room. I have been. Often. you can be lonely sitting next to your own family or husband 

I’m never lonely when I paint ….

it isn’t that I do not wish for company; not invasion, which seems an oxymoron 

     I think the key is …. just an ability to 

know how not to trip a wire —if the entry door seems shut but to know the elven word for friend also helps to anyone who wouldn’t trespass. 

to have a Room of One’s Own— like Virginia said ….the “room” for me is more like —having—room …. to be me ….there in that concept of “room” all restrictions go

that is the place and moment that I Create in—it is a completely separate world and I love being there —but it is a luxury (violent husband; escaping stalkers, exes etc)  —clearly, as it’s taken till now to achieve it ….why would I invite disaster now?

working on the massive ocean system; dark blues

finally back in the groove, and hitting the areas I’ve ached to work on—see how much more detail I can do over with six feet of canvas—

 

working out the nuances of the pallet

sometimes this is the best way to test and document

…. now for color mixing madness, I’ll update here

 

a quick note

 Just arrived, perfect timing; crazy week closing up shop for the summer….and the weekend 

Obviously the model “muse” I worked from 

(above as Skorpa; Swedish actor Jonas Malmsjö, inspiration for Jörn)

Can do so much more in detail with oils which —will take forever …. gladly; what a muse 

                     what thrills of possibilities they evoke; aren’t they beautiful?

 

now ready for oils; the Vampire and the Dove

 

threading created unplanned texture 

color matching

blending to hide the damage repair and prepare for covering the canvases in oil painting which was planned work on the detail and shading 

And now ready for oils