last day of february, a stormy miserable day

Krokus Vakansie

i know not what

Who said " What's in me and what I'm putting on the canvas haven't gotten together yet"?
I can think around corners and imagine. I can see a final product, yet...yet...
Is it possible to really see a creation in your mind yet not at all be able to put it on canvas?
It is actually the process of putting paint on the brush then on the canvas that interferes.
Some say, don't think, just paint. Thinking too much about what I do fills me with hesitation which becomes fear of failure. A classic dilemma for some.

A Coetzee Dialogue

John: Do you really believe that books give meaning to our lives?

Julia: Yes. A book should be an axe to chop open the frozen sea inside us. What else should it be?

A Gesture of refusal in the face of time. A bid for immortality.

You want people to read you after you are dead.

It affords me some consolation to cling to that prospect.

But why should people of the future bother to read the book you write if it doesn't help them to find meaning in their lives?

Perhaps they will still like to read books that are well written?

for john coetzee

you disturb, you make islands of people
just when i think i can manage, i end up reading another of your creations,
reading another provocative j m coetzee
and i am an island again, thinking again about every word,
every meaning
too isolating
but then i would rather read you than not read at all
even if you make me lose meaning

group production

One of the drawings done by all of us in the life drawing class. Alan has us do this to destroy the preciousness, the fear of "going at it". We started a drawing and then moved on to the next to fix, change, improve, re-draw, until eventually we got back to where we started. This drawing is the one I really liked; it is brave, has gravitas. My own drawings turned out disappointing. Too timid, too nothing, too frightened.

yellow nude

When I try to develop a painting from a life drawing, I have issues. Do I try to be realistic? Can I be brave and just paint? Dare I? How can I be loose with the paint? Do I have to make hard edges? So insecure, so inexperienced. They say to just paint, I'll get there.

Do catch yourself drawing

See the image enter from the backdoor and proceed to the foyer, to the main living area. Make it part of the new day. Make it count and breathe. Be sure to sharpen the pencils, get the heat on, switch the light on, get the cobwebs off the eye. Let the dog's breathless begging for a walk in the park not interfere. Teatime too can wait.

La Caravane de la Poésie

Anjie Krog traveled from Cape Town to Dakar, to Goree Island, then on to Kaolock, Kita, Segou, Mopti and finally she reached Timbuktu. Her journey is described in A Change of Tongue.

The poems come tumbling from the poets' lips and hips. They dance and speak in tongues, african style. One says:

we are the carpenters of memory
we plane words
we are the masters - not of creation
but of the transmission of the soul
to see the word pass in the foyer of language
with breath in its ribs

Another:
words create
other light
we work with light

Antjie:
my ears feather from peace and heat
not of being
but of becoming
many becomings
past lost and drifting spaces
many many becomings

Yet another poet speaks:
I write because I have learned to read sand and water
shadows clouds and the flight of birds
I write to catch myself on the edge of the world
to get my breath pause behold listen
I write because it is my way of being free

where we going man? don't know but we gotta go man

Marlene Dumas says i am what i art.
ia mwh ati art
iamwhatiart
traitahwmai

am i what i art
what art i, i am
art i what i am
am i art i what

art rat tar tra rta