Spellbound

I draw the Wheel of Fortune. My seasons are indeed turning.  I open maps, searching for a solid place to land.  Dazzled by paths that keep shifting, I am transported with a velocity that blurs the threads that have held me in the landscape my feet have raveled in the circles of my years.  The unknown spills across my limitations, beyond the boundaries traced by time.

Randomness and change
growing wings in transcendence–
radiant shadows

A haibun for Colleen’s #Poetry Challenge #92, using synonyms for bewitch and treasure.

 

Map

the map forms
a circle, rhythmic
labyrinth
synchronized
with the tides, the turning of
the moon in earth’s night

the passage
reflected as fire
on water,
as air, wind
beginning in clouds of stars–
an endless return

For Sue Vincent’s prompt this week, “Horizon”.

 

Poem in Your Pocket Day

Moon and stars, big and blue the sky–
sleep coming, sleep is coming soon–
wings drift close, shadowing the light.
I wish for wings so I could fly–
touch the stars, touch the shining moon–
map the sky by scattering dreams,
catching the stars to say good night,
sky covered with magic moon beams.

The elementary school my daughters attended celebrated National Poetry Month in a big way.  The children read and wrote a lot of verse, and Poem in Your Pocket Day was always fun, as they would pull out favorites to read to their classmates.  Last year in April I posted a few of the bookmarks the school made one year with poems and artwork from the students.  Both poem and artwork above were inspired by the bookmark below.

I love the images both Kenisha and Keanu used to represent the dreamworld of the night.  Both would be in their early 20s now; I hope they are still writing and drawing their worlds.  And producing poems from their pockets!

My poem is in the form of a san san, the challenge by Jane Dougherty this week.  NaPoWriMo used this form for a prompt too, and I’ve wanted to try it, so thanks Jane for the push!

National Read A Road Map Day

Another day worth celebrating–I love maps.  Useful, yet full of abstract and often mysterious beauty.

A few years ago I did a stitched map Sketchbook Project of Main Streets based on Google Maps.  Google Maps are a mainstay of any traveling I do into unfamiliar territory.  That softball field in Queens?  It’s right there, along with the nearest subway stop.

There actually is a Main Street in NYC, and I stitched it (above right), but it’s on Roosevelt Island, the entirety of which has always seemed to me to be superimposed onto the five boroughs.  The Real Main Street of New York City?  For almost 40 years, I’ve lived on or steps from Broadway, which travels from the bottom of Manhattan to the Bronx and 18 miles north to Sleepy Hollow.

That’s my Main Street.

They’re digging up Broadway
at night the clatter of wheels over metal plates
provides a rhythmic accompaniment to music from car stereos
double-parked outside the 24-hour deli on the corner

Sunday mornings the finery of congregants mingles with
the dog walkers
and the finery of the refugees from Saturday night

Headlines announcing Politics As Usual
step into the street dance
the Daily News of space and Times

“They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway…”
blinking red hand
“They say there’s always magic in the air…”
neon green walk

crossing Broadway

Lyrics borrowed from “On Broadway” by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil in collaboration with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.  (The Drifters, 1963)

Thanks to Charlie at Doodlewash for inviting everyone to share his “month of days”.

More Stitched Maps

When I did my sketchbook project “Main Street”, I drew many more maps than actually fit in the sketchbook.  So I’ve been mounting and stitching the ones I didn’t use in the book.  Above are the first three I’ve finished.

How did I decide which cities to use?  It was really random.  I would go to google maps and type in “Main Street” and then the name of a state, and a few suggestions for cities would pop up.  Then I would randomly choose from that list, and fool around with the map until I had a layout that I liked.

This will be a project with no end, which is fine.  I love maps and I love embroidery.

You can see my other stitched maps here:  https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/category/maps/

 

Country Roads…

My first stitched map of country, as opposed to city, roads.   I like the irregularity of it.

Main Street

 

Main Street
Paterson, New Jersey

Maps are something else I really love.  Nina has done house portraits for friends (https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/victorian-house/); I’ve been working on some map portraits to give as holiday gifts.  I won’t post those right now, but in honor of our home states, New Jersey and New York, here are two from my sketchbook project of stitched maps called “Main Street”.

Main Street
New York, New York

Main Street is not the most common street name in the United States (that honor belongs to Second Street), but comes in a respectable seventh.  I typed “main street” and then a state name into google maps and got all kinds of interesting results.  It was fun to look at the different maps, which I then abstracted and resized to fit my artistic vision.  I traced them in color and stitched them.

Many artists use maps as a point of reference, and many maps are beautiful pieces of art.  It’s a subject that generates no end of ideas for me.

You can see the rest of my sketchbook project here:  https://www.sketchbookproject.com/library/13745