March 2021
what dream is this? circling
spiralling into form
slipstreamed fertile reborn
continuous
Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday theme is dreams, so I’ve written a variety of dream poems for March, a dreamy month I think. I’ve interspersed some of my previous March grids.
in March I
ruminate return
remember
rains that be
come sun-dappled spring—shining,
blooming with birdwings
dreams become
part of the landscape
filling in
colors
begin to dance
with waves of light, singing
sun into roots, filling
my nights with dreams
of dawn
Poetic forms are, in order, abhanga, shadorma, haiku, badger’s hexastitch.
Weekend work 2/22/2021
I’m working on a few of these simultaneously. This one started out as a landscape and finished as one too. These have become instinctual as the painting will tell me what to do next. I’m using the gouache in the way it is intended: not straight out of the tube but mixing a few colors together to get a more unusual shade.
I’ll post the others as I finish but mainly paint on the weekends hence the title. Have a good week; although there are mountains of snow here, spring is coming. Nina
The Kick-About #21 ‘The Five Canons Of Rhetoric’
The Kick-About explores rhetoric in a variety of ways.
The Kick-About comes of age today, with Edition No. 21. Let me begin by saying how restorative, ordering and genuinely exciting I find our collective runarounds. Through your emails, comments and conversations, I know you value the Kick-About too, seeing it as an opportunity to make some new stuff, finish some older stuff, get something done, take risks, recreate, and get your hands dirty. It gives me great pleasure to host your work on here. Red’s Kingdom is lucky to have you. Long may we play together.
Last time, we tied ourselves in knots; even so, I suspect this prompt proved knottier.
Vanessa Clegg
“The definition of rhetoric in the little Oxford dictionary is: art of persuasive speaking or writing; inflated or exaggerated language. Based on that (with a bit of Samuel Beckett’s ‘Not I’) I’ve spliced together the opening lines of Barack Obama’s inauguration speech with a selection…
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Weekend work 2/15/2021
I think this one is finished although I just put the last marks on it a minute ago.
Where am I going with these weird little paintings on black paper? One way I think of it is that I want people’s eyes to move around the painting and notice stuff such as color, shape, marks etc.
It’s a view into my brain when I sit down to paint. I honestly don’t know where these are coming from but I’m just going with it. A chilly week here in NJ with a storm coming (possibly). Have a good week, Nina
Weekend work 2/8/2021
Another mini snowstorm yesterday but it stopped snowing later in the day. I’ve been working on this one for a week and not sure it’s done. It looks like two paintings spliced together.
It’s a beautiful day here and maybe some of the three feet of snow will start to melt. Have a great week everyone! Nina
Red Knot/Moonbird (Draw a Bird Day)
Birds need no maps of the earth,
no compass to locate the forces
that pull and repel.
Their geography is larger
than what can be painted, written down.
Their landscape is contained inside
their very bones,
invisible roots woven through
the air.
Birds move on currents
of sun sky wind and water–
alert to the pauses,
the imperfections
in the movement of the light.
They hear the world
as it slumbers, as it awakens,
as it waits.
They have no need to build bridges
for crossing over.
Birds don’t need to mark their path,
to provide proof
of their connection to the cosmos
with signs or constructs.
Who they are
is part of their being.
The way is within
the first cell of
the first song of
the first particle of
dust from the first star.
I recently read an article about the red knot B95, nicknamed Moonbird. B95 is a banded bird that was both trapped and photographed through 20 years of migration between the tip of South America, where it winters, and the Arctic, where it summers and breeds, a distance of 9000 miles each way. B95 traveled enough miles to go to the moon and most of the way back–hence, Moonbird.
Considering the fact that one half of juvenile red knots dies during their first year’s mirgration, that is quite an accomplishment.
Red knots are robin-sized shore birds that have greyish feathers during their southern winters, but grow red feathers for the summer layover in the Arctic. As recently as 1995 there were over 150,000 red knots making the north-south-north trip, but half of the adult red knot population died between 2000-2002 due to climate change and human intrusions on their habitat. Of particular concern was the reduction of the horseshoe crab population in the tidal waters of the Delaware Bay, an important last feeding stopover before the final flight to the Arctic. Red knots time their migrations to coincide with the yearly egg-laying of horseshoe crabs, feeding on the eggs laid on the beaches. Horseshoe crabs are important to many other species in the bay as well, and scientists are working to restore this vital component of the ecosystem, which was dying due to overfishing and overdevelopment.
Red knots fly in acrobatic groups and perform evasive movements in unison meant to confuse predators like hawks. How do they “know” where to go? One theory is that they have an internal genetic flight map, but they are also known to respond to the position of the sun and the movements of the stars as they often fly all night. Red knots may also recognize both landmarks and magnetic fields. No wonder they have been called “a flying compass”
Moonbird was last spotted in 2014, 19 years after he was first caught and banded.
Red knots were the first bird ever listed under the Endangered Species Act.
The Kick-About #20 – The Ashley Book Of Knots
A caravan of knots…
The Kick-About always casts its net very wide. Our last haul, inspired by Ernst Haeckel’s Art Forms In Nature, landed a shimmering catch of creativity. Our nets don’t always require knots, but this week’s edition of the Kick-About is all about the nip!
Francesca Maxwell
“Here I have a painting called ‘Unravel’. Not a knot supposed to hold or anchor, then it will not work, having lost the nip. But I see it as a knot of the heart, which is finally finding a way to disentangle and on its way to separate and free the separate bits and pieces.” Inks on paper 76 X 57 cm.
Phil Cooper
“I was walking through a park near where we live in Berlin recently and I noticed that all the leaves of the hops and traveller’s joy had been stripped away, leaving a seething mass of twisted and knotted stems. Aha…
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Blizzard of 2021 and a painting
Painting I finished this weekend. I like it.
This is a big one here in Northern NJ. Right now it’s still coming down heavily. We got the day off: my husband is doing telemedicine from the dining room table. Daughter printed the NYTimes Monday puzzle (only day I can finish it).
I have another painting started: another circle with drips. So all is well in my world aside from the fact that this snow will be impossible to shovel. Have a great week! Nina
February 2021
are the days
moving on, circling
back, slipping
through? or are
they giving up, slowing down,
following the un
seen astride
the invisible
vibrations
of tidings reaching for shore
lines that aren’t there–echos of
places remembered,
emerging
from folds of pages–
not maps, but
renderings
sparkling against the stardust
of reflected nights–
between here
there and then not now
conclusions
masquerade
as omens—uncaught, eddied
by prevailing winds
For my February grid, another mandala. We are still mired in confusing times. Too many trees, not enough forest.
Sometimes a change of perspective can clarify, or at least calm the stormy seas.
method two madness 
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