Rubies In Crystal

Lady of the Moon. I sewed this simple robe from a swath of beautiful lilac shantung silk for my private Goddess worship rituals in the 90s. I'd surround myself with a circle of pebbles from my cottage, and candles. I had an altar with spirals and sacred stones and Green and White Tara figurines, and the four elements - sand, incense, water in a shell, a burning candle in a 5-pointed star holder - behind which I hung my painting of the Sri Yantra. I followed rituals from books, both Western and Eastern, and I'd meditate and commune with the angelic forces... Bringing the robe out from the back of the cupboard flooded me with memories today. Perhaps we all pass through spiritual currents of one sort or another in our lives. This robe saw me through a particularly spiritually rich time. The memories make me smile inwardly.

I took the photo to show my fellow poets at our Performance Poetry evening tomorrow night as a possibility for a costume for some minimalist dance/creative mo…

Featuring: Luciano Iacobelli, John Oughton and Brenda Clews.

Luciano is a poet, visual artist and publisher. His work transgresses borders, edges, finds places where definition is bare. While his pared-down poetry is rich with literary and philosophical reflections and echoes for those who wish to delve into layers and meanings, it is always passionate.

Luciano is performing a piece entitled THE STUTTER NOTEBOOK: The piece employs a stylized stutter to reinforce the idea that all communication is stutter, all language is an attempt at arriving at fluid communication, but the attempt is destined to fail. Language itself is a faulty tool, unstable and full of hesitations. The best anyone can do is stumble to their meanings. The stumble has its own peculiarities, it's own beauty and rhythm. and the determination and drive behind the stumble is poetry.

John has worked as writer, musician, photographer, and performer. He was part of Toronto's improvisational dance/performance art…

Winter Snow Ball, Jan 2014. An evening of Queer poetry/Music/Performance hosted by Philip Cairns. A wonderful line-up of extremely talented folks. TOPoet.ca (Duncan Armstrong) has written an article - http://topoet.ca/2014/01/23/winters-no-ball/ - describing the Poetry Salon at Urban Gallery. Do read it to get a sense of what the readers and performers that you see in these photos were sharing with the audience. Thank you to all the features, and to everyone who came out to the salon!

Please check out the Picasa Album (of all the photos for the duration of my show) for who is who.




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First, I had an image of a mask. Then I went in search of a base and found something perfect at the art store. I began to make it. Took a small series of photos. Wrote a poem inspired by the mask. The painting, Split Mask, was inspired by imagery in the poem. I have spent the last few days paper-mâché-ing, sanding and painting the mask white. The mask is nearly finished. I will be performing in it on Wed Jan 29th at Urban Gallery from 7-9pm, 400 Queen St E (bet Parliament and River), John Oughton is going to accompany me on guitar; Luciano Iacobelli, the big name on the bill, is having actors perform his poetry too.


And... it's done! So glad! It fits perfectly, and is very comfortable to wear - spent hours glueing soft white cotton flannel on the inside and carefully razor blading it at the edges. Now I have to work on memorizing the poem since I will be performing in it at the Performance Poetry Salon next week!


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Ah well, I tried, I did. Blog, website, Facebook event page -it was a free dance event- and only a few friends came, John Oughton and Jennifer Hosein, along with two musicians, Nik Beat and John Charles Daly. Josef Hochleitner came for a short while and kindly took photographs and then said he was going to Downtown Camera to burn a disc for me, which was extraordinarily generous. I thank all those who came out - despite our intimate numbers, it was a fun afternoon of dance and jokes, photographs and giggles.

Jenn and I at the dance jam 18 Jan 2014 at Urban Gallery. Thanks Nik for taking the photo! — Brenda Clews and Jennifer Hosein at Urban Gallery.

Allan Clews, my dear brother, wrote: "The man who saw meaning in the movement of a cup in the wind; the one who attended the opening of the show and claimed he was led there by the Dali Lama and the Queen just to see that picture because doing so would set in motion certain energies... would love this picture.

He said the little figur…