Page 13 of 25

Posted on

trop jolie … too pretty

trop jolie ... too pretty

Back to the subject of pretty: Even after granting myself the liberty to let go of my need to create things that are at least scraping on the verge of comical, ugly, surreal, infantile I still do get a slight stomach ache looking at these new works. The drawing you see here at least is a bit dark, the creature in the front displaying its rib-cage like an x-ray – but the execution is doubtless pretty, shining dark (Edding marker and Poyurethane) and gold with snippets of legal text incorporated on glass.

I have two large, eight medium and multiple small acrylic plates waiting for me, and I think I will continue drawing in this very calm and slightly upsetting manner of “pretty” even if it is just to find out WHY it matters so much. Maybe it is the surface itself, the ephemeral, light quality of the glass pane rather than the coffee and potato sacks I was layering paints and disposed off objects on before.

The only rule I play by is that there must be no preliminary drawing, no careful execution – and I am thinking about incorporating more precious materials (chocolate wrappers, glitter etc.) to make it even more intolerable to my eyes.

Yes, there is a fun element here, observing myself how much “pretty” I can take.

Interestingly, parallel to these glass drawings I am working on a translation from a small English novel I have published some years ago into German, and I find that this folk-tale that sounded sober enough in English to work for me now has a pretty ring to it in the translation, too, as the words just have different associations (while pointing towards the same thing).

Ideas about that difficult relationship between pretty, sober and ugly, would be very welcome at this moment.

Posted on

How social media changes our reading ability … just a passing thought from a conversation with a fellow writer

contemplation of minor bugsWriting for social media forums is still essentially writing and provides those of us who are not so fortunate to have their writing published in a traditional forum with a most welcome audience but also with the equally welcome company of other writers. I do very much enjoy those (few) who do write/blog well, taking time and effort to polish their work and obviously making it part of their working day to keep their blogs interesting, well researched and engaging. How will social media change our writing? And will it change our reading ability? In my observation it does and I am actually always feeling hesitant to use the opportunity to publish excerpts and ramblings for fear of contributing to something that I see as a competitor to peoples’ traditional reading time. Already, traditional reading is a generational habit, starting to loose the audience under 30 if for no other reason than just a lack of time. Storytelling and reading of traditional stories does take up real time, it also takes a willingness to accept a certain reclusiveness that reading in social media forums never requires – the next diversion always being just one click away. There is something about the whisper of the page, my own breath, the loneliness of reading that I find necessary for engaging in a text whereas I often leave digital reading with the often not followed up upon wish to return to the thought or the writing – later. This is my main reason for still striving to see my work published elsewhere in traditional form.
The 140 characters of a twitter post can be as much of an intellectual challenge as a Haiku. Certainly, the length of a piece does not say much about its quality – and sometimes quite the opposite. But I am tired of hearing that something I have taken time to write is too long to enjoy reading. We have to be careful not to cut down our reader’s ability to process 140 character bits.

Posted on

… consequently there cannot be an edge over which to lean to catch a glimpse of eternity

English version / German translation

Few travelers have ever reached the end of the world, even in the days of the Aelvor, for it is such an awful long way to go and full of obstacles, too. Yet when my grandmother told me about the Willow as I tell you about her now, it had seemed to me that I almost remembered her as if I had seen her with my own eyes and touched her with my own hands but couldn’t quite remember anymore where or when that could have been.

Of course you know that the earth is a ball and that consequently there cannot be an edge over which to lean to catch a glimpse of eternity. And yet, our elders might not have been as naïve as we are told today by believing that the world is located on a disc and that you can walk only so far before reaching an end. In our hearts we are closer related to ways that must end eventually than the Aelvor were who soberly talked about the eternal cyclic renewal of all times and beings.

Wenige Reisende haben jemals das Ende der Welt erreicht, selbst in den Tagen der Aelvor, denn es ist ein furchtbar langer Weg dorthin, wie jeder weiß, und,  wie es die alten Märchen erzählen, voller Hindernisse und Gefahren. Und dennoch, wenn meine Großmutter mir von der Weide am Ende der Welt erzählte, eben so, wie ich Dir jetzt von ihr erzähle, belebte sich ihre sonst oft müde Stimme und sie sprach so lebhaft und anschaulich, als erinnerte sie eine Geschichte aus ihrer eigenen Jugend, und mir, die ich ihr zuhörte, kam es wirklich so vor, als könne ich mich selbst beinahe erinnern, dass ich den Baum einst mit meinen eigenen Augen gesehen und mit meinen eigenen Händen berührt hätte, auch wenn ich, gefragt, nicht mehr zu sagen gewusst hätte, wann oder wo das hätte gewesen sein sollen.

Natürlich weißt Du, dass die Erde eine Kugel ist und dass es also keine Kanten geben kann, über die man in einen Abgrund stürzen oder über den man  sich auch nur hinauslehnen könnte, um einen Blick der Unendlichkeit zu erhaschen, wie es in den alten Geschichten heißt. Und dennoch waren die Menschen früher vielleicht nicht so naiv wie wir es mit ein wenig Überheblichkeit heute gerne glauben wollen, nur weil sie annahmen, dass die Welt eine Scheibe sei und man nur so weit gehen konnte, bis man an ihr Ende kam. Wenn wir aufrichtig sind, ist uns auch in unserer Zeit die Vorstellung, dass jeder Weg schließlich endet, immer noch vertrauter, als es die Geschichten der Aelvor sind, die nüchtern von der Unendlichkeit und der zyklischening, Wiederkehr aller Zeiten und Kreaturen zu erzählen verstanden.Bild

Posted on

Art. 1 GG The dignity of a person shall remain untouchable.

Art. 1 GG The dignity of a person shall remain untouchable.

The first article of the German Constitution. Actually the wording in German (“ist unantastbar”, tranlslated: is untouchable) could be read in two different ways, one being “it cannot be touched”, the other “it shall not be touched”. Last week, in my legal class, I started a discussion with my students about whether human dignity can actually be denied or be broken (by the state, an authority, a group etc.), or whether there might be what could maybe be called a core of human dignity that remains untouched no matter which forces are used against it and under which circumstances a person is forced to live. No wrong answers, a strong discussion ensued.
It is a strange reality that humans are bound to such an abstract idea, dignity, something that is expressed in and through circumstances of their lives but also seems to reside deep within them, that they are bound to this in a way that life will seem desirable no longer once “it” – dignity – is effectively denied and that they, we, are incredibly inventive to defend at least a display of individual dignity in the face of even overwhelming adversity.
This illustration seems to lean towards the interpretation of human dignity actually being the unchangeable core of an idea, located in the brain but held by our hands (actions). I do know it can be denied like but I believe that it can’t be broken. The naive quality of the drawing insists on the relevance of the question in the face of a reality that is unforgiving and not as much in need of such contemplative studies and pretty pictures but of real change.

Posted on

no fear

no fear

The title offers itself as an afterthought to the completed drawing. Or: almost completed as these are works in progress. “No fear” seems like a big title for such a pleasing drawing but it actually refers to the relative beauty of the subject – very unusual for me. I do have a deep appreciation for the seemingly ugly, small, cheap, scratchy, discarded quality of objects and ideas, for those scraps and pieces deemed not to measure up. I am deeply suspicious of the superior quality of a single piece of work (not mine), of the brilliance and self-sufficiency that is in no need of a contribution by whoever may chance to look at it because I feel that our visual environment is saturated with ideas that are complete and in no need of further discourse, thereby actively discouraging original creative failure. Seems at times we all live in a society of mad overachievers. So I love the frail, the ugly to the point where I censor my own work when it’s getting too pleasing. But these drawings I have let go uncensored by myself, not even knowing why. Maybe I am in need of some beauty. And far be it from me to think that these are perfect. Maybe quite the opposite. So for a while, I will be like a child at play, drawing and arranging these small characters, without fear that they shall be considered too light. Let there be some light ….

Posted on

Time is but the clockwork of a frightened heart

Time is but the clockwork of a frightened heart

Drawing on acrylic glass panes. It’s been about 6 months that these black and white, sometimes gold drawings keep evolving, taking up a lot of my time recently. Sometimes I almost despair of them because I don’t know where they are going, I don’t understand them the way I would like to and quite honestly they feel like a well disguised vice. Then again I feel they are too beautiful, too blank to be allowed to take up so much of my time. They started, simple enough, as a way to find back from painting to drawing for an illustration project. At first it was plain black marker on white paper. I had chosen marker because it allowed me not to think “small”, not to think “precious”, and as usual I was drawn to the ready availability and comparative cheapness of the technique which seems like a quality in itself to me. Now I am still using marker, but the creatures have freed themselves from paper, have migrated to glass panes, they cast shadows on walls and mirrors, they congregate to create 3 dimensional theatrical settings, and I still don’t know where this may lead me and why I still draw these night after night (instead of now taking up ink and the fine pens and engage in the illustration projects I had been meaning to prepare for). The saying “Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans” seem to perfectly apply here. Some small insignificant but very persistent kind of original thought seems to defend its way against my larger ideas. Art is what happens when you are busy making other plans …

Posted on

She seemed to be right out of a historical reenactment society

 

I was so completely startled by this sudden change in behavior that I wasn’t even shocked to feel a hand grabbing my shoulder and yanking me down from my boulder and back to shore.
The hand was firm and muscular. It dragged me away from the shore a few steps, beyond the tree line and I had to oblige, stumbling backwards. When we reached the shelter of the tree, the hand let go. I turned around. The strong and determined grip had been misleading. Standing in front of me, inspecting me gravely with birdlike, black eyes, was a tiny, old woman. She wore a long rough shirt with an apron over a grey flannel shirt. Snow white hair done up in a tidy bun, her narrow shoulders wrapped in a grey woolen, triangular shawl, she seemed to be right out of a historical reenactment society. “And what did you think you were doing there, laddie,” she inquired with an authoritative voice. Apparently she mistook me for a boy, addressing me as laddie. “Speak up,” she demanded, quite clearly being used to be obeyed immediately and not one prone to put up with any nonsense. I shivered. She stepped closer again, then reached out and pushed my tangled hair out of my face. Taking a sharp look at my face she murmured to herself: “In a bad shape we are, aren’t we.” And inspecting me a few more moments she added: “A girl in a lad’s clothes, if I ever saw such a thing, lost too, I take it.” She put her hand on my forehead. I started shaking violently. “You are burning up,” she observed, again more to herself than to me. If I had had any more strength left in me, I might have inquired right there and then why she had yanked me away from the boulder. If I had been in my own time and place, I would have protested most decidedly about being ordered about by a woman who was a complete stranger to me. But here I was, meek, shivering with fever and cold and lost. The tiny lady took off her shawl and wrapped it around my shoulders. “That’s more like it,” she stated grimly, referring to my state of clothing, I am sure. Then she simply took my hand and pulled me along.

Posted on

Woe to the unfortunate stranger who should come upon the gate they were keeping

For a brief moment also I did wonder now whether I was still dreaming. Yet the wet sand, the sea gulls of the lake circling overhead, the light on the water, the dark blue reflections of the two adjacent Mountains, Mount Hor and Mount Pisgah, in the misty mirror of the lake on the distant Southern shore, everything had a coherence that was not dreamlike. And yet the situation was surreal, not only because I had fallen asleep on my bed and woken up on a wet, cold beach hundreds of miles away from home. The sun, for example, was incredibly small, too small for our planet, planet earth. In the east the sharp crescent of a waxing moon, greeting the morning with disdain, was accompanied by a second crescent, a twin moon. And the surface underneath me was still breathing. And yet I knew the silhouettes of the twin peaks by heart. My mother used to tell us on warm summer nights, when the sun had already left the sky and only the patient outlines of the rock formations on both sides of the lake were still cutting into the advancing darkness, that the mountains were ancient guardians who were forgotten by their masters and not having been relieved of their duty had decided to keep their post to the edge of doom. Woe to the unfortunate stranger who should come upon the gate they were keeping. Lake Willoughby was an incredibly deep, glacial, water filled ravine, and there was some sparse folk lore about creatures living in the dark, about a connecting underground acquifer between the lake and its twin lake, Crystal Lake, to the West behind Mount Hor. It was a strange place, but being as remote had kept all stories at bay.

I sat still for a while, waiting for the scenery to change or disappear like dream images do, especially if you pay too much attention to the details, but the situation was as real as you can imagine, and not prone to change any more than Ms. Havenshire’s classroom during an especially tedious lecture on a philosophical concept that excited her. I stared around for a while, bravely ignoring the piercing cold, trying to take an inventory of everything. Except for the strange planetary constellations, the lake seemed real. I had never been up here in fall but I imagined it to look as lonely and cold as it did now. It is not exactly a lively place even in summer. And in winter, once the snow started, it would be one of those places that were cut off from the outside world for weeks on end, alas with the local people being prepared for it and not disconcerted by a few inches more or less of snow or even by massive boulders coming thundering down the mountains just like every winter. There was no skiing and therefore no seasonal dwellers in winter. Both, Mount Hor and Mount Pisgah were too steep and fully covered with trees.

I was shivering violently now, my clothes were as damp as if I had actually spent the night unprotected on the beach. When I finally stumbled up to my feet, it took me a moment to find my balance just as it would have on a big gym mat. I tried to disregard the breathing of the surface and made a few gingerly placed steps towards the water. What to do next? What to do if you are suddenly stranded in a place without any preparation or at least warning? Why was I here? In a dream, typically, events keep unfolding and you keep reacting but the lake was quiet with quick shadows dancing over the surface. I stopped at the water’s edge. Little waves arrived at the shore with a sweet sound. Light was dancing silver on the ripples. I was getting colder by the second, shaking most convincingly.

I had to find shelter. There was a colony of summer cottages at the North Beach, they would be boarded up for the winter, but maybe I could find a way in all the same to warm up and think. It seemed a reasonable plan, if you can at all call it reasonable that you have to think about finding shelter in a dream. Again I asked myself what I would do once I got inside. Maybe there would be a phone but even if there was, it probably would be disconnected for winter. Would it even make sense to call home and ask for someone to please come and rescue me? How ever to explain how I got here? And would it be possible to call home even if I found a working phone? I turned around to scan the tidy row of vacation cottages at the North Shore to find one that would suit my improvised plan and I faced an impenetrable row of trees. The cottages were gone.

Posted on

Without opening my eyes, I carefully and with a sense of controlled terror extended my other hand…

I lay curled up like a cat and I could feel the curve of my spine, I could feel my knees against my chest and my hand underneath my cheek. Without opening my eyes, I carefully and with a sense of controlled terror extended my other hand to feel the surface of my quilt. I would know the stitching of its pattern, the softness of the filling having long since relaxed against the fabric. My fingers gently touched the surface. I hesitated. It felt grainy. Not grainy like cookie crumbles. Grainy, like sand. When I thought “sand”, I shoved my fingers deeper into the surface. They did not meet much resistance. I pushed easily into the sand like I would, aimlessly, on a beautiful day on the beach. All the while the surface underneath me was breathing. I had to open my eyes to find myself. I wondered whether I was still dreaming, and for a moment considered trying to drift back into nothingness, but I felt wide awake, too awake.

So I did. I opened my eyes. It was not dark at all as I had fully expected, yet the sun was pale, far away in the winter sky, just so illuminating the grey mists rising up from the water. I knew where I was. I was most definitely not on my bed in Summerville, NJ. I was curled up, like the sole survivor of a ship wreck, on the shore of a lake. I sat up, stunned, on the wet sand, numb with cold as much as with surprise. I knew the beach. It was small. I had spent many summers here with my family. I was sitting on the North Shore Beach of Lake Willoughby.

All things considered, it was strange that my mind accepted this truth so readily. I didn’t think: I must be dreaming. I didn’t look for an explanation.

Posted on

the earth itself, underneath my body, was a breathing organism, like a gigantic whale you find yourself stranded on

How hard my mind had to work to keep control, to still try to make sense out of a wealth on information that had long stopped to be apprehensible by any rules I had been led to understand applied. But only submission to the world of grown-ups would have you believe that they were – in general – truthful about the world. I didn’t believe this anymore but tried to rely on my own senses instead. It was treacherous ground.

For example that night. As I lay in the dark, eyes closed though wide awake, the surface of my bed felt soft as was to be expected, but it felt soft in the way I had experienced and shied away from before. It seemed to be soft in an organic, breathing way. I tried to distinguish between my own breathing pattern and the breathing of that soft, pliable surface I felt underneath my body.  It was an uncanny feeling – but just ask yourself how many sensations you can really clearly distinguish besides soft and hard, warm and cold, pain and pleasure. Truth is, you constantly rely on additional sensations and context to tell you about the thing you are experiencing through just one of your senses to make sense of something.

What was it that I was feeling? Something that I feared, but I didn’t know why I feared it or whether I had reason to fear it in the first place as I was completely unaware of its nature. All I knew was that last time I checked my bed had not been breathing. As before it felt actually – and it made perfect sense to think those words as irrational as they might seem – that the earth itself, underneath my feet, my body, was a breathing organism, like a gigantic whale you find yourself stranded on. It didn’t make sense and I couldn’t explain to myself where that strange idea actually orginated. Nothing I had read or talked about lately had pointed in that direction. Remember, there was no internet and but little TV. None in our house, by the way.

And yet, I just felt it, right there and then, the surface underneath me belonged to something alive, and I knew I had to open my eyes to find out what was going on, but I was entirely too scared to live up to my own imaginative ability. All I could manage to do, pathetically,  was to continue breathing slowly just as I had done during those long ago nights when I had led some non-existing intruder to believe that I was asleep. And with each moment the sensation of a sighing, breathing surface underneath my body was getting stronger.