I'll be without a computer for about a week - but of course will be on-line via 'devices' - a cell phone, a tablet. I'm trading in my 6 year old iMac and a laptop. I'm presently in the process of stripping them. The format option in Disk Utility simply is not working, so I am deleting everything manually -which is hard. Even though I have everything backed up, I am manually deleting files, deleting years.

And something I have been wanting to do for 10 years and finally did today: I submitted four poems to a journal.

A day of endings and beginnings, then. And beautiful Summer has at last arrived in Toronto - finally!

Have a lovely week!
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Another Sunday Morning Self-Portrait

Between first and second cup of coffee this morning. Another self-portrait done looking into a turned-off computer screen, so not a real mirror, lol. Last Sunday I did one, and now this Sunday - maybe it's a Sunday Morning thing. Anyway, I never seem to make it out to life-drawing sessions, and I will sit still for myself. (c) Brenda Clews. It's on 130lb archival paper, 15" x 11", Lamy fountain pen with Noodler's Black Ink.

I photographed this in direct sun, which I find best for white balance, and then I darkened the lines a bit - and yet I am not seeing the same full scope of the detail in the drawing as I did in last week's self-portrait that was scanned. This one is too large for my scanner.

detail

full-size

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A Victoria Day self-portrait

With a Lamy fountain pen that was scratchy and then would ink but was mostly a lovely scratchy.

A Victoria Day self-portrait done while enjoying a cup of strong coffee. Since I never seem to make it out to life-drawings sessions, I thought I should simply draw the shadow in the computer screen (which was the 'mirror' for this one - rather indistinct and very grey). I don't mind if I don't resemble myself. :)} (Eyes a bit larger than they should be because I had reading glasses on and didn't put the frames in.)

©Brenda Clews, 2014, 11" x 8.5", Noodler's black ink, Lamy fountain pen, archival 130lb Pentalic paper.

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'Clay Lady' (1:29min) is too risqué? Issue with YouTube's rules? Oh, my.

A figurative clay sculpture without any discernable 'details' is considered too risqué? YouTube wants to classify this videopoem as 'adult content'??? She might as well have been wearing a body stocking for all the detail there is. I seem to be running into a few problems with YouTube and mysterious 'violations' of their policies. Since when is figurative art considered porn? Am I supposed to clothe a fairly indistinct clay sculpture (in terms of details of anatomy and the forbidden parts - heck, she doesn't even have nipples) and that is mostly torso? I've been laughing all morning. They threatened to pull it from public viewing but it's still there, for now at least. Though they do appear to have frozen the view counts, something I have requested a review of.

direct link: Clay Lady - short time-lapse

A multi-media production, with subtitles. -- I did the sculpture at the Toronto School of Art. The background is part of my painting, 'Split Mask.' A section of my poem, 'Clay Lady,' is a voiceover with subtitles in the latter half of the video. I shot the video, turned it into .jpgs with SnapMotion, and edited it as stop motion. That's my voice, and I created the music with a cheap keyboard in GarageBand - a musical tone poem. Brenda Clews ©2014. http://brendaclews.com

Perhaps YouTube should offer a fig leaf cover-up in their video enhancement options for rogue artists like me so we can cover up the shame.

I guarantee that Clay Lady does not seek to incite or sell sex.

I refuse to categorize this multimedia art video as 'Adult Content.' And not only that, two more videopoems with similar footage are in production.



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(same) tree outside my window

Noodler's Black Ink and a dip pen, and tubes of decades old watercolour that I found in the bottom of a drawer. (Same) tree outside my window, ©Brenda Clews, 2014, 10" x 8.5", 130lb archival paper.
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A lovely Mother's Day

Lol! A lovely Mother's Day - a video call with my daughter for an hour, and my son kindly raked and cleaned up my patio and then we went to Lizzie Violet's Cabaret Noir - the best!

That's me reading a complexly constructed piece that will become the opening in a voiceover prose poem in a videopoem - I compacted three different pieces of writing (that I dragged out of the tangles in my mind) over months to create an intricate piece that was edited and re-written a few times and yet it was thought to be stream-of-consciousness writing... which struck me as quite funny (it had been a lot of literal fret-work). But, I suppose, the thing is to make the final version look effortless and a bit bumpy, as if it had been dashed off in a moment of inspiration.

Or maybe it was reading from a Moleskine journal - the place where you usually write the first draft as it comes out. I had written all over the place in a number of different apps and programs on my computer and tablet and actually hand wrote the final edited version from all the computer ones!

I need to write a few more pages before it will work with the clip that I have already edited. If the body of the piece takes as long as the beginning did, it could be many months before it's done!
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Inscribe Directly on the Field

'Inscribe Directly on the Field,' 2014, ©Brenda Clews, 7"x6", watercolour and Lamy fountain pen. In the shadows of the evening. (Title after a line in a Larkin poem.)
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