Split Mask, face close-up

Split Mask, 5'x5', mixed media on canvas. It is almost impossible to photograph either in daylight or with lights at night (the latter here) - the lines of the hair are dark like the shadows in the upper right, which are a charcoal grey-black, for instance. The photo is not too bad, but the painting is better weighted in reality. Yes, I've left a lot of canvas bare. It works.

Up top, a close-up.

Unfortunately, I had to spray the painting with a fine art fixative in my small apartment. It's too big to take outside easily, and there is snow, slush and salt everywhere. I opened the two small windows and had a fan. My chest hurt for quite awhile, but it's ok now. My pets hung out right by the open windows, wisely. The metal leaf is 85% copper and 15% zinc and will eventually oxidize unless sealed properly, which I have done since taking the photo. The sealant has evened out the lustre of the metal leaf to a flatter, brighter hue that, frankly, I'm not as in love with as the richer tones of the unsealed metal leaf. But, sealing it is very important, so that's that.

A coat of Gamvar tomorrow is the final stage. Oh, and two sides, which I am simply painting with gesso - I had picked up some 'Goldfinger' - a metallic substance in a tube that you can rub on frames to 'antique' them - to perhaps do the sides with, but decided that the hunk of gold with a little silver in the middle is like the luminist sun shining on a snowbank and ought to be the only gold in the painting.

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Split Mask, 3rd session, work-in-progress

Split Mask, 3rd session, work-in-progress, 2014, mixed media.

Since it's largely charcoal, I need to go out to try to find a fixative you can spray indoors. It's almost finished, though I'm not quite sure where I'm taking it (what I'm going to do next).


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Split Mask painting in-process

No idea if I'll get it finished by 9am Monday morning, in time for the pick-up of my paintings and the installation of my show at Urban Gallery, but I am working on a painting I've been thinking of doing for 4 months or so. There have been so many intervening crises that I was not able to get to it before New Year's Day. Floods, and family upheavals, and the power failure resulting from the ice storm (I had power and was refuge for family members along with an extra cat and a bunny) kept me busy and only staring at the empty canvas. I'm rushing through it now, no idea if I'll make it.

This is an iPhone pic, shot at night, not good quality, but posting gives it a reality I'm not feeling working away listening to a piano music channel (can't get into the wireless external hard drive with Glen Gould, which is who I would like to be listening to nonstop tonight). Never mind. Back to work.

I had begun a loose prosepoem called Split Mask last Summer, but it hasn't quite come together either. Still, the poem and the painting are part of the same creative process, the same concepts, just different vantages or mediums.

Later in the evening:

Here's the Opening Invitation, too, which I will no doubt be posting at least one more time. The show opens one week from now!

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Happy New Year's!

Love y'all! Love ON!

 Whether you're with family, friends, lovers, strangers, or alone (I've done them all) - and every New Year's is beautiful. Wishing you reflection and anticipation, reappraisal and accomplishment in the coming year. With a heap o' inspiration and fruition!

     

DANCEONLOVEONDANCEONLOVEONDANCEONLOVEONDANCEONLOVEON

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It was a year of...

It was a year of tender beauties and fragile fires of becoming. Of being ravaged by torn things, by facing duplicity and seeing clearly the multiplicities of truth. It was a year of floods and sinkholes. Of shows and learning to withstand jealousy and pettiness without caving. I hung my work in public twice, a tremendous amount of work and perhaps a fearful act. I learnt to brace myself against those who trivialize others, their work, their lives. I didn't hide. I got a used clip-on mic and start dance performing during poetry events where I was featured. I masqued myself so that I could reveal myself. It was a year where I found myself dealing with what is inessential by relegating it to the margins. I distanced myself from insincerity and understood more preciously those who are clear with the truth of loving impartially and generously. I made my way gingerly through seething places of anger, sadness, remorse, pity, retribution and survived. I was of help to those I love. It was a year when I learned to hold fast to my values and not waver. I think it was a break-out year. Inner strength manifested. There were milestones. LyricalMyrical Press published my chapbook, ‘the luminist poems,’ and I signed a contract with Guernica Editions for a full-length book of poetry, ‘Tidal Fury,’ which was gratifying after the years of writing and re-writing as I honed my craft and vision. As I became less of a recluse and more of a public poet and artist, I found a voice I didn’t know I had. It was a watershed year, tumultuous, just when I thought I landed it all broke apart and then I landed somewhere else and it was good. I remain in awe of existence, the way our lives manifest through the years, our interconnections with each other, the way we share who we are through what we give of our knowledge and talents and how we all grow through this process, of the creativity of our very being. May 2014 be not a meek but a strong year for each of us.

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The Butter Trick

Too cute not to share. My cat, Aria, 1½, sure loves her doggy, Keesha, 14½. Keesha is so gentle with her little cat, letting her sleep on her 'n all.

Keesha has lived with a number of cats in her 14 years and none of them were friendly.  Little Aria, who came from Willie Anicic out near Niagara Falls, was thought to be half Siamese and half tabby but who looks exactly like an Egyptian Abyssinian, doesn't she. She is all of 6 lbs fully grown. I wanted Keesha to have a feline pal, and so I worked on 'their relationship.' Aria hissed/spit at her doggy the first week or so, as all the cats do. But, instead of allowing their natural distrust of each other to determine their relationship, I used the butter trick.

What is the butter trick? A lady in a store told me that a friend of hers had heard about the butter trick - she covered her kitten in butter and her dog licked it off and they were sleeping together within weeks.

With Aria's hissing and Keesha's barking back at her, it was a bit scary putting butter on the little 2½ month-old kitten and holding her for the dog to lick for sure! I only put a small pat of butter on her side, and held her in my lap while I sat cross-legged on the floor. Keesha was called over and I pointed to the butter. She delightedly licked it off the tiny kitten who, when I let her go, ran off as quick as she could to a high perch to wash herself with dignity.

After another session or so of the 'butter trick,' when Keesha and I came home from a walk, our wee kitten was waiting on the stairs for us. She rubbed herself under her dog, and against her dog, purring loudly. I was flabbergasted. It was amazing to see after all the hissing and growling and scratching she has endured from our other cats over the years.

Here is a little cell phone video of Aria as a young kitten playing with an origami ball. Keesha wants to play with her, but doesn't know how to without hurting her (listen, I know my dog - not all dogs would be like this, but my old Springer Spaniel has a wonderful disposition).



June 15, 2012 - two days after Willie dropped her off. She'd be about 9 or 10 weeks old in this family video.


A month or so ago. My kids are tired of all the pics and videos of these two, but I never tire of being amazed at how close they are. Unfortunately, my doggy has an inner ear problem, behind the eardrum. She can't be operated on due to her age - vet says she wouldn't survive the anaesthetic - and because the area is too close to the brain. I've spent two grand on treatment for her ear, and at this point, I am keeping it as clean as possible, medicated drops, flushing with saline, and she is on gravol, which helps with the motion sickness and is enabling her to eat more easily again. She still energetically drags me through the streets on our walks, is loving and happy, so she's doing alright, the sweet old lady.

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Lady of Mystery

Lady of Mystery 

- Tara Clews - 

photos by Brenda Clews from our photo shoot on Christmas Eve 2013

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