...the wind whispers ice, waves of snow blow, a few streaks of fragile light. These old lovers, a poetics of winter.

-
A River
of Stones

Secrets, 20.5cm x 25.5cm, 8"x10", India inks, archival pen inks, graphite, coffee spill, and some digitally drawn lines as well as text, January, 2011.

A voice recording (2:48min) as I was writing the words (you can hear the pen scratching on paper in some of it, my flipping through pages looking for written images, and the slowness of the process of writing). The speaking follows the writing fingers. I'm discovering the story of the drawing, the poetry of it as I write the words which are a mostly unreadable pictorial element around one of the characters like a cloud or veil or tree of words. But I didn't want a drawing of only dream words: words that are inaccessible because the viewer cannot read them.

It is an invisible intersection, where the words are slowly voiced as they are being written, created enroute, without knowing where they'll go, and the viewer/listener's responses which are evoked by the slow reading that allows time for meditation, for the meandering of thought.

And, these words are interconnected with thoughts and feelings that occurred during the drawing, which was done in three sessions over a month.

In the recording, which is 'real time' (mostly, I did stop and start my iPhone's voice memo a few times, and I cut out some dead space in editing), I'm reading what's being written rather than composing out loud. Unable to post as is, the flat voice, so I had to. Bamboo Music, a background.

Moi, words, voice, mix; background music, Bamboo Music's 'Last Flute,' a free mp3 download on http://music.download.com.

Raw drawing; raw recording. No performance or finesse here. As it was happening.



transcribed:

a cloud of light
swept over the land
across the expanse

bare branches of trees
against a winter sky

    ocean drifting overhead

            dark minnow streaks

                     my mug of sand

                               roots, sky, solid

                     tense, open, terrible,
     
                              told
 

             birdwing

       cross hatching of ink lines


secrets,
secrets, secrets,
          secrets, secrets


secrets of women

secrets
              of women

secrets   secrets   secrets 
secrets

there are no secrets


and then the veil descended
like a cloud of light

sea curls, foam

what is the moment of belief?

how long does it last?

does it matter?


and then,
     and then…

and then.

the chunks of snow that fly off needles, like bits of coconut meat flying from whitened fir trees in a northern oasis

-
A River
of Stones

scooped white dragon fruit, grated and tossed, swirling the night wind, and the black seeds, invisible, smacking my face, coat, hands

_
A River
of Stones

                                          

Keesha, a Springer Spaniel (field dog type, bred to run all day, a high energy dog), and Tigger, who is Tiggy, or sometimes Tiggles, a black cat with some white markings (a thin and long cat with a tail long enough for him to catch).

Keesha was born August 25, 1999. Tiggy was born March 4, 1997. Some dates are too important to forget.

Keesha's bed blanket is many layers thick. Because it's snowy outside, it's even more layered than usual - beginning with a waterproof crib blanket, maybe 4 layers of fleece, a down baby comforter, a halofil comforter, and 2 or 3 towels. Don't ask. She likes it soft. An aging dog.

Tiggy *never* sits near Keesha, and *never* has anything to do with her. Yet he came, and slept like this, on Keesha's dog bed (that's on the bed, yes, yes, I know) for a long time.

Snap, snap with the iPhone.


                                          

Secrets, 20.5cm x 25.5cm, 8"x10", India inks, archival pen inks, graphite, coffee spill, uploaded January 11, 2011 - a doodle, though I did make a stop and start voice recording as I was writing the words (you can hear the pen scratching on paper in some of it). I'll see about hosting the recording somewhere, and transcribing it I guess. I don't think this piece is finished yet, though maybe it is.

If you click on the drawing, it'll open to a larger size in a new window. It's later, and I've made an .mp3. You can listen. The words are in the drawing, all of them and I'm reading them to you via a 'voice memo' on my iPhone as I'm writing them.

Raw drawing; raw recording. No performance or finesse here. I had to try this once, and once is enough truly.



Not sure how listenable... recorded while composing the writing in the drawing, and you can hear the pen scratching, me flipping pages to look for written images, and the slowness. Voice following the fingers. Reading what's being written, rather than composing out loud. Unable to post as is, the flat voice, so I had to. Bamboo Music, a background.

Brenda Clews, words, voice, mix; background music, Bamboo Music's 'Last Flute,' a free mp3 download on http://music.download.com.

                                          

the green wing of an angel, olive lines cross-hatching into branches, the slush of salted sidewalks

_



[the image came first]

A River
of Stones

                                          

                                          

Last night, in -17C wind chill, I walked some of my dog's favourite routes - a fairly large off-leash park with small hills, a school that's deserted late on winter nights, and took photos with my iPhone.

When I came home, I played in Photoshop. What new aspects to the shot can appear with various filters and colour manipulation intrigues me, and often triggers poetic response.

I offer more-or-less 'before' (with a little license since the originals were dark and grainy) with 'after.' All images evoke their own stories. Click on each for larger versions.

Of the two above, the one on the left looks like an empty, closed building late at night. The same image manipulated makes it seems alive, perhaps the location of a party event, or at least some kind of prophetic vision happening in the night.

The two images of the tree by the road, its boughs lined with snow, a tiny waning crescent of a moon in the sky, surprised me. Firstly, how the snow looks like a river flowing by the tree with the shadow of the trunk appearing as if a reflection in flowing icy water, and then the green and blue image which fit strangely to my image for River of Stones yesterday. What amazed me, working in the midnight air at my computer, was that the tree, though bare in winter nakedness, with different colour manipulations suddenly bloomed as if in richer seasons of leaf.

...it was a dawn of phosphorescent algae, coming in from the ocean, drifting overland,


a green sun
hung in icicles.





A River
of Stones