Old Woman of the Sea, 35.5cm x 39.5cm, 14" x 15.5", India ink, conte crayon, oils on 100lb archival paper.

It's not that I paint, but that the painting paints me. It changes me somehow. It's not that I paint something but rather that I paint what's changing in me through the process of creating the painting.

Old Women of the Sea: the old woman is in the ocean; the ocean moves through her; she is the ocean. Like a mother ocean.

A figurative landscape, or, rather, seascape.

I painted her in near darkness last night, in a dimly lit room. The colours looked almost the same on the paper - I only knew which was which because of the names on the tubes, which I could just make out. As I painted, I trusted my intuitive aesthetic senses.

In the midnight air I went to the table I've set up for painting while my children are away (at their Dad's - it's Canadian Thanksgiving and my half of the family wined and dined on Saturday night). I chose a sketch. And began painting, hardly being able to see what I was doing. Doing it by intuitive sense. And I wanted to let go of the naysayers in my head, and paint with an emotional clarity.

And I guess that's perhaps that's why I have to be alone to work. My children's presence or absence has nothing to do with it. I'm learning who I am when I paint. Or being taught by my painting. It's a very intimate, private process - until it's finished, and then you can show the world.


I'm painting some of the sketches I did at a life drawing drop-in session at TSA (Toronto School of Art) in August.

The original sketch as I did it in the life drawing session
that I went to with my niece. If you click on it, you'll go to the album.



Lifedrawing6, 28cm x 35.5cm, 11"x14", India ink, conte crayon, 100lb archival paper.

Ancient Grecian, red ochre of pottery, a Venus on a pedestal, the theatrics of the age.


Theatrics of the Age, 25.5cm x 30.5cm, 10" x 12", India ink, conte crayon, oil on 100lb archival paper. The original sketch all but gone in the painting, what looks like conte crayon sweeps is oil paint swept on a large dry brush.

Today I painted some of the sketches I did at a life drawing drop-in session at TSA (Toronto School of Art) in August.

An earlier version of the painting.




The original sketch as I did it in the life drawing session
that I went to with my niece. You can also view the whole album.



Lifedrawing9, 28cm x 35.5cm, 11"x14", India ink,
conte crayon, 100lb archival paper.

As I painted, I thought of the blue, and of sticks. And it is like she is surrounded by a nest, isn't it.


Old Woman, 2011, 25.5cm x 32cm, 10" x 12.5", oil on archival paper.


Today I painted one of the sketches I did at a life drawing drop-in session at TSA (Toronto School of Art) in August - one I hadn't posted.

direct link: Nik Beat at Free Times Cafe - live and uncut

An evening of Nik Beat and Friends at the Free Times Cafe in Toronto, Canada on September 16, 2011. An uncut set playing in real time, we see Nik at his disarmingly charming best between beautiful songs and poems. This is as close as it gets to being there. We adore you Nik! Enjoy the show!

Nik sings some of his new recorded songs and poetry from his book, "The Tyranny of Love." Joining him are Michael Ratt, Pat Kelly, Michael Marian, Joani Paige, and Willie Anicic .

From Seraphim Editions, the publisher of his book of poetry, "The Tyranny of Love": "Born in 1956, Nik Beat (née Michael Barry) toiled in the rock and roll field for a number of years until he quit and took the moniker Nik Beat. This native Torontonian has for the past 20 years been a writer/poet published in numerous anthologies. He has been profiled on Much Music and TVO's Imprint as well as in an upcoming CBC radio appearance. He currently hosts the HOWL spoken word radio show on CIUT 89.5 FM. He lives in the quiet doldrums of the famous Beaches area, where he not only commandeers a Words and Music show at the Renaissance Café but is also an accomplished collage artist."

The Free Times Cafe performance videoed and edited by me, Brenda Clews.

Nik Beat's voice, to my ear, is softer, richer, more modulated than ever. Perhaps mellowed is the word.  Like the heart beats in the vocal chords, irradiating songs with feelings, feelings that connect us all. In the clip, he's singing emotional textures -that move us the way birdsong in the trees moves us. My video is a set of his atand is uncut, only a filter of strong contrasts added....I love the sound track. He's in top form. Really fine set, so glad I taped it. It's open in another browser window as I listen for the 20th time to the track!

William Leighton wrote: "Very well done. Loved the simplicity of it and the refrain from constant motion. Nik definitely is a pilgrim on a journey and he invites people to hear from those travels. What we believe is paramount to who we become and where we end up and the heart is the compass of that journey. Truth does lie at the end of the journey for us all though. Travel safely and wisely."

Good Night Girl was awesome, as Willie Anicic said, and many of us mentioned how that song played in our minds for days afterwards. A beautiful paean to his beloved Linda Mercer, who passed away this year.

I wanted Nik to see the set uncut before I did anything (well, except the filter I added), but he liked it and said to go ahead and make it public, which I did. Watch like you're sitting at a table with a drink listening. It's dark and your friends are with you. Enjoy!

_
ps I linked Nik to a Google search on his name since he's all over the place. :)

Figurative Notations. Photograph, or still from video.

Working on Tangled Garden, bit by bit, and eventually the videopoem will be done. It's been forever, but forging slowly ahead.


I uploaded a huge version -click on it- very theatrical!

Cool!

You can get it here: widgetsplus/

direct link: Wear White Paint for the Moon (*this video is subtitled* -after you hit play, hover your mouse over the CC in the playbar, when it turns red, the subtitle file is loaded and you can read along with the prosepoem if you wish- red is on; black is off)

This reading of my prosepoem, Wear White Paint for the Moon, took place at the CENtRAL last night, a pub in Mirvish Village in Toronto, and while I wasn't particularly happy with it, I did have enormous fun making the video, and quite like it now.

With tripod on camera, the angle was unchangeable. I layered multiple tracks of the same clip with lots of filters and then pulled in some footage I had shot of the full moon last August. The moon is quite bouncy in parts, and yet matches the words in those parts, which I found delightfully synchronous.

The background of moon and clouds was my wild imagination at home when I was editing the video. While it would have been wonderful to encase the poets that night in a stage set of lunar light and wispy cloud moon veils, alas, no, we stood on a small stage with a screen behind us. The scenery is a product of the magic of film editing.

I spent hours making detailed by-the-second subtitles for this video so you can read the words while you listen, if you like, and have Google translate into another language if that is better for you.

Background music - 'Satellite Two,' by Professor Kliq, from his album on Jamendo, "Athene's Theory of Everything: The Original Soundtrack."






                              

Some months ago I created a Google Sites site, Poetry Recordings of Brenda Clews, to host .mp3s of recent poetry recordings. The poems are all available to read as well -that's important.

The hosting site was so that I could post the recordings here, at Rubies in Crystal, as I compose them, and when I have enough I will create an album at Jamendo. While I used to upload recordings-in-progress to SoundClick or SoundCloud, I tired of the limitations of those music sites, and created a website for this purpose instead.

Today I spent some hours creating a usable interface for these recordings of recent poetry at my hosting site. The site is unlisted, invisible to search engines, but is public- and findable, if you have the link.

Below is a screen shot of the site. Click to go to the site.

Thank you, Dave Bonta, for featuring The Wall at Moving Poems on September 7th!

Yes, I embedded his webpage in my blog post. And, not only is the videopoem playable here, but I just left a thank you note for him via this embedded page and it appeared over there simultaneously. Personally, I think it's very cool.

(If you have an email subscription or are on an RSS feed like Google Reader or whatever, you'll have to click in to the post to see this beauty.)

direct link: Joani Paige at Free Times Cafe

Joani Paige, singing "So Fine," with Willie Anicic on harmonica near the end, and Pat Kelly on percussion (not in camera range) at Free Times Cafe on September 16, 2011.

Brenda Clews: camera and video editing. Yes, I took my camera and then spent the greater part of the weekend video editing.

You'll see that around 3:39min, the mask is apparent. The musician leans down out of it and into the light. If you didn't recognize the masking all the way through, you would at that point. It is obvious. I left it in to show the artifice in the art.

Here is a photograph showing my Final Cut filters, and you can see I manually keyed in the lights, their opacities, which took forever. To make sure that you see Joani throughout, I created another layer of her track and masked it. In the photograph, you can see there is yet another track where Willie is also masked.

A theme of masks seems to be running through my work, and this type of masking is yet another dimension to it.

A mask that lets you see the person who is being masked.


click on image for larger size
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Colors courtesy of Free Footage on Vimeo, with thanks.