Zen Tangles
I was just doing some doodling in the manner of zen tangles. This was the second one from this weekend and I added color.
The first one I did. I like it black and white so probably will keep it this way.
This doodling is a good way to get your drawing going, something I don’t do enough of. Just keep going til it looks good. I have a few more drawings started and glad I was productive this weekend.
We also played Scrabble and I got thoroughly beaten as always.
Have a good week!
Nina
I attempt to write a list poem about cars (Thursday Doors)
I have never owned a car.
I have not even driven a car in many years, nor can I any longer tell one kind of car from another.
When I was a child, cars were more distinctive, and I knew who had manufactured each one, and the car’s name too.
Ours were always Chevrolets because my uncle was a mechanic at a car dealership and he got a discount on cars that were used for test drives.
In my city life, as an adult, I would look out my window and draw the cars parked on the street below in front of the building.
They were often the same cars. Humans are habitual.
That window was on the second floor, so I never worried about falling out.
Now that I live on the eighth floor I can’t see the cars on the street at all.
I see my neighbors’ windows and roofs.
I know who is always up late, and who comes up to the roof to smoke while pacing and talking on their cell phone.
But I don’t know what is parked out front, or if it’s the same car every day.
I don’t draw that much any more either, so I probably wouldn’t be drawing the cars, even if I could see them.
But I’m always taking photos of things on the street when I’m out walking.
And every once in awhile, a car catches my eye.
After all, cars have doors too.
The top car is a photo I got from the internet, which looks exactly like my favorite childhood car–a red Impala with tail fins. They don’t make them like that any more. The other red car is one I saw on the street recently.
The vintage car photos were taken when I happened upon a crew setting up for a movie or TV show filming. There were a few of us taking photos and the crew was not too happy about it so we had to be quick about it and move on.
And the car below is a Pagani photographed years ago when I took the train to Boston to visit my daughter. It was parked right by the train station. Both my daughter and I had to photograph it, along with seemingly everyone that walked by. I’m still wondering why and how it came to be there.
The W3 prompt from Lynn this week is to write a list poem incorporating some form of the word fall. I’m actually not sure this is really a list poem, but I’ve been wanting to put those vintage cars into a post, and, remembering my old car drawings, it worked perfectly. And, as I noted, all cars have doors. Even drawings of cars.
As to the aforementioned doors, there are always lots of them at Thursday Doors, hosted by Dan Antion.
Strandbeest
Lots of movement in these works inspired by the wonderful Strandbeests of Theo Jansen.
September 9, 2024
Today is the anniversary of my two lab/German shorthair mix dogs, pictured above. The year was 2009. They would have been 15 today but sadly they are both gone. The photo of Birdy is from the day before he died. Gone but not forgotten; great dogs with a crazy streak.
Jane, my younger sister, peering out the window of a house in France. I used her photo and painted around it. She is also gone-eleven years now. I miss her terribly. I like this small painting I just completed-she looks very happy.
A friend sent me this photo from the Armory Show in NYC. She knew I’d get a kick out of it; I actually think it’s pretty brilliant. You know I love rocks.
Lovely day here in New Jersey and I just got a text that I could take a PTO day as the doctor went home sick. Rearranged my colored pencils and sharpened them. Also worked on a couple of clam shells-not finished.
Have a good week! Nina
Wood Duck (Draw a Bird Day)
Tableau for Wood Ducklings
Duck out of water–
born inside a tree
high above the ground–
no time to prepare–
mother calls below–
the first leap of faith
The Wood Duck is the only species of duck who perch and nest in trees. They do not make their own nest cavities, instead using naturally occurring ones in the forested wetlands they inhabit. Wetland habitat loss has increased the need for nesting boxes to keep populations stable.
Laws such as the Migratory Bird Act of 1918 helped pull this species from near extinction due to hunting and habitat loss in the late 1800s. The wood duck is still the most hunted bird in the US, after the mallard, although hunting is limited in most places. There are also now many efforts to preserve wetland habitats; expanding beaver populations help create ideal forested wetland habitat for these birds.
The male wood duck has a vibrant and distinct coloration, although it becomes more greyish-brown like the female in the fall. Wood ducks have a boxy crested head with a thin neck, short wings, and a broad tail. They are excellent flyers, very comfortable flying through woods.
Surface feeders, they forage with their tail up, head below water, for aquatic plants and animals. They also eat seeds, fruits, flowers, grain, insects, caterpillars, snails and salamanders on land. One of their favorite meals is acorns.
Residents of most of the United States, southern Canada, and Mexico, they are most populous in the Gulf regions. Northern populations migrate south in winter. In Europe and the British Isles they are considered invasive species, having been imported as exotic ducks by collectors and escaped into the wild.
My poem is in the tableau style, as suggested by Laura at dVerse.
Central Park Carousel/Thursday Doors
I don’t often walk across Central Park in its southern sections. I walk across where I live, uptown, or walk down on the West Side if I’m going to Midtown. So even though I had visited the carousel with my children when they were young (a long time ago…) I needed to consult a map to figure out its location. But instead of walking along Central Park West, where I could easily locate 65th Street, I rambled through the center of the park.
It was a nice day for a walk. And I had no schedule to keep.
Despite looking at one of the maps posted in the park near the Dairy, I ended up turned around, walking for ten minutes in the wrong direction. When I realized my mistake, I retraced my steps and went the opposite way. There were no signs for the carousel, which I thought strange, but the music finally guided me to my destination.
the journey from there
follows a circle to here
but does not stay here—
we spin our years and try to
balance—neither here nor there
The first Central Park Carousel opened in 1871. There was some controversy about having a commercial enterprise within the park, but it proved so popular that it both remained and thrived. The original carousel was powered by a horse and a mule who walked on a treadmill in an underground pit. I don’t know which version this is; it was the only old photo of the carousel I could find.
Versions two and three were steam-powered. Both were destroyed by fire, the third in 1950. Its replacement was relocated from Coney Island. Number four, the current carousel, was crafted in 1908 by Solomon Stein and Harry Goldstein. It had been abandoned in the 1940s and was found in a warehouse.
The current carousel has 57 carved horses and two decorative chariots, which have been carefully restored. A new structure was built to house the horses in 1982, and the grounds around it were redone as well. It has lovely details.
Interestingly, the carousel was managed by The Trump Organization from 2010-2021. Mayor de Blasio voided all the city’s contracts with Trump in 2021 because of January 6 and the storming of the US Capitol. The carousel was closed at the time due to the pandemic; it reopened that October under the new management of Central Amusement International.
One of the largest carousels in the US, it carries 250,000 riders each year. Open 7 days a week, weather permitting, a ride costs $3.50, with discounts for multiple rides.
The Daytonian has a story about the carousel, a girl, and her lost doll, and also, as usual, a bit of history.
I wrote the tanka as a kind of golden shovel with the refrain from W3 PoW Sally’s poem, inspired also by the painting she provided by Winslow Homer, below. I then attached it to my prose for Colleen’s tanka prose prompt.
And find more doors, as always, at Thursday Doors, hosted by Dan Antion.
And of course this song by Joni Mitchell came immediately to mind.
Joni suffered a brain aneurysm in 2015, and only started performing again in 2022. So inspiring to discover her performance at this year’s Gershwin Prize Tribute.
There’ll be new dreams maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through
Labor Day weekend
We went up to Milton, NY in Ulster County where our friends have a house. I did an address stone for the front.
Messed around painting some shells and rocks for around places.
Some rocks just look like faces.
And some pieces of wood look like alligators.
Some rocks ended up in the rock garden.
September 2024
Milky Way–
river of transmigration–
celestial birds reach
across the seasons–
a conduit
between worlds
mackerel
clouds constellated of light,
harvested from growing
darkness, shorter days–
nets of wonder
pull me in
brevity
overtakes me—remaining
heat lingers, dissipates–
skies unfold as stars,
crystallized with
clarity
A seox sequence for Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday, where she provided kigo words Milky Way, mackerel clouds, and remaining heat. It does not look or feel like autumn here yet, but the city does seem to be holding it’s breath, waiting.
Both my parents were born in September, and my father died a few months after September 11, so the month always has a melancholy tinge for me. Rosanne Cash captures the feeling well in her last duet with her father.
Tree of Life/Green Man/Thursday Doors
The tree of life grows as it turns–
its fruit must be experienced,
its seeds released to be nurtured
by the earth, air, water and light,
opening in all directions–
the tree of life grows as it turns–
each season a new patterning
on the rim of the yearly wheel
of abundance and scarcity–
we must navigate between them
as the tree of life grows, then turns,
expanding both branches and roots–
path-changing continuously,
balancing on uncertainty,
shimmered with mysterious songs–
the tree of life grows as it turns
I’ve done Green Man guardians before, but it seems there are always more. Once again, I’ve taken unlabeled photos from my archives. These guardians appear also as window ornaments.
Green Man is a forest spirit, Gaia’s protector, who connects humans with the natural world. I think of him first as Irish, but he is an ancient god, seen throughout Europe, the Middle East, and in parts of Asia as well.
Here’s another door with Green Man guarding the threshold.
This house’s guardians are at the bottom of the staircase.
Each side is different, with different faces as well.
I wonder if the staircase itself was originally more elaborate.
My poem is a quatern, for Suzanne’s W3 prompt on the subject of transformation. You know I can never resist a poetic form with repetition.
The Tree of Life collage is another in my Niki de Saint Phalle-inspired Tarot series. She included the Tree of Life in her Tarot Garden, so I thought I would make it into an additional card.
And, as always, look for more doors from all over the world at Thursday Doors, hosted by Dan Antion.
method two madness 
Recent Comments