writtenword

January 1, 2008
Spent New Year's Eve in the studio working. I cannot think of a better way to welcome
in a year. Charting oceans and shorelines... deep, dark waters. It is strangely familiar
standing on these shores. Never afraid. Maybe I dreamt of this place.
Let myself jump off cliffs into wild, blue oceans.
Not about to look for my way back out....(oh the sweet backroads)

January 3, 2008
After another late night in the studio i wake pondering the symbolism of these waters.
The sea and abandon shorelines that are appearing for me.... Very much love looking
up the possible meanings of random symbols the work. I never set out to paint it. Once
it started to appear, I knew exactly what it was. Why it was important.

Sea
In many traditions, the primeval source of life -- formless, limitless, inexhaustable and full of
possibility...The sea is a maternal image even more primary than the earth, but implies also
transformation and rebirth. It is also a symbol of wisdom and, in psychology, the unconscious mind.
Jack Tressidder, Dictionary of Symbols

January 13, 2008
In researching antique maps and my obsession with
old cartographic images, stumbled upon reference
to the first printed books of portulan charts.
"Isolario" (island books) were left quite plain,
embellished with only compass points. Even the
names of places were usually left out so they could
be written later in by those navigating the journey.

(Lost looking down on islands. Shorelines. Looking
down at the deepest of seas. I find myself writing in
the names and places by hand as lands are
discovered. Soaked in with new eyes. These
currents of the breath. And I remain high above
ground...)

January 21, 2008
I am ready to chart this path. Put my thoughts
down. Navigate forward, however terrifying.
Explore these islands...to write in the names of
these places...these new forms....everything is
appearing...jetting out of seas...

"...these islands really are in motion... Jointing and splitting
and rejoining...they constantly crawl over earth's surface, like
scamps or runaways. Land urchins."
Scott Godard

"A ship is safe in a harbor;
but that is not what a ship is for."
Ralph Helverson

February 24, 2008
Below the surface of the sea, creatures are
following an ancient pull of the earth to find their
correct direction. An undercurrent; geomagnetism.
They trust it to guide them around dark waters and
unknown places. To bring them back to the island
of their birth. Why can we not have faith in these
same inner currents to navigate us through the
roughest waves. To understand we do not need
anything else to find our way home. No compass is
needed to locate true north (close your
eyes...remember the faith in the pull)

"I see now my fears are islands...
You see, something happened...some time ago...while you
settled, set down, on track...
For me, the safe continent of my reality fractured...inlets,
outlets, fissures, forces from without and within broke me
apart...
I am left pieces of a former."
Scott Godard

"Disrupt the brown crust of the earth and all the sea will
rise..."
Anais Nin

March 24, 2008

Todas las islas de mundo, reales o imaginadas, forman un
solo y único archipiélago, el del deseo.

"While one sits in the body of the Whale recording the
changing temperature, mapping and charting the inner
dynamism, the great whale itself is plowing through the
deep. We must drop the pen, the pencil, the brush and
become the whale itself. The real experience lies yonder, in
the deep waters through which the whale is swimming. You
think you are nourishing the world--but you are only
nourishing the whale."
Henry Miller (from a letter to Anais Nin)

April 18, 2008

"This place we're flying over now isn't in the atlas, is it?" the pilot said, grinning.
"You're darn right it isn't in the atlas!" cried the Head of the Air Force.
"We've flown clear off the last page!"
"I expect that old giant knows where he's going", the young pilot said.
"He's leading us to disaster!" cried the Head of the Air Force.
He was shaking with fear. In the seat behind him sat the Head of the Army who was even
more terrified.
"You don't mean to tell me we've gone right out of the atlas?" he cried, leaning forward to look.
"That's exactly what I am telling you!" cried the Air Force man. "Look for yourself. Here's
the very last map in the whole flaming atlas! We went off that over an hour ago!" He turned
the page. As in all atlases, there were two completely blank pages at the very end. "So now we
must be somewhere here," he said, putting a finger on one of the blank pages.
"Where's here?" cried the Head of the Army.
The young pilot was still grinning broadly. He said to them, "That's why they always put two
blank pages at the back of the atlas. They're for new countries. You're meant to fill them in
yourself."
Roald Dahl