In Memory Of You

Well, it’s been about a month now of either animals being ill, traveling, scrabbling to recover and repack, more traveling and then a nasty sinus infection from which, though not quiet 100% yet, I am happy to report in recovery. I’ve missed my writing and art making. I’ve missed hearing from all of you and seeing what bits of creativity you all have been up to so I felt it was time to foray back into it if even only a small step. So, how about some creative inspiration already eh? Okay, so get your medium setup and plop down, or stand as you like and get busy painting / drawing / photographing / sculpting, etc. “you”; but here’s the real challenge – from memory; NO mirrors, photos or the ilk simply from memory. Something else I would suggest is DO NOT worry about it being realistic; have fun and be as abstract and colorful as you like and don’t judge. If you will just allow yourself to play and have fun / be creative then you might surprise yourself and you might even discover something new. Remember you don’t have to share it if you don’t want to but if you do, post away because you may just be an inspiration to someone else or even just simply help someone else have the courage to share. 

Imaginary Location-Location

All Things Sonya:

Well it’s that time again, time for another muse to tickle your creative fancy. I sit here drinking a bit of tea and eating an imaginary sheep. Hee-hee I bet you weren’t expecting that. Actually it’s a sugar cookie but it, at one time, looked like what a local baker imagined a sheep to look like. Einstein, one of the most brilliant minds of our time said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Why would such a brilliant man say such a thing? Well, for a number of reasons I suppose: Knowledge can be taught, but imagination can only be fostered and imagination is what lets us learn beyond what we already know. Imagination is what asks the question, “What if . . .?” Imagination is a VERY dynamic tool and the source of something VERY powerful – creative innovation. We are loosing our creative innovation: children don’t “play” they are scheduled, they don’t draw – they color, they don’t run around an make up games and build imaginary forts – they play scheduled sports that they are taught or sit at a computer or TV and play video games. Arts and music, some of the best ways of teaching children how to think outside the box, to be independent through constructive ways of self expression, to build confidence in their accomplishment, to teach vision, to learn that there is more than one way to successfully realize a goal, etcetera are being lost - stripped away in the name of budget. What a steep price to pay and so many don’t even realize yet what in the long run it will cost them and in such devastating ways. So, what does all this soap boxing have to do with the challenge, the weekly muse? The point is to let your inner child come out and play. Time to reawaken your imagination from its slumber and get to work. This week paint, photograph, draw, collage, sculpt, whatever you like – an imaginary place. Let yourself daydream. ANY PLACE. An imaginary island on an imaginary planet, a home among the clouds, or a tree house in a purple tree that has orange leaves, anything that tickles your fancy. Have fun and let your innovation dance. As ever, I look forward to seeing your creations.

'via Blog this'

Found Poem - Shadow of a Black Bird by Sonya Chappelear

I was of three minds, like a tree in, which there are three blackbirds. 
Then I turned toward paradises lost for the shadow of the blackbird. 
I went walking on the roads of yesteryear; 
I went walking through my childhood -
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, 
and sorry I could not travel both, 
the martyrs who do not bear witness; 
the flowers of blood that fade and scatter in the empty wind.  
And both that morning equally lay. 
In leaves no step had trodden black. 
I do not know which to prefer, 
the beauty of inflections or 
the beauty of innuendoes. 
I shall be telling this with a sigh; 
only the unloved know, 
lost in the loose leaves of the weeping cherry tree, 
a man and a woman and a blackbird are one.

Taken from: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird By Wallace Stevens  http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/stevens-13ways.html 02/03/2011The Road Not Taken Robert Frost http://www.bartleby.com/119/1.html  02/03/2011Notebook of a Return to the Native Land [excerpt] by Aimé Césaire translated by Annette Smith and Clayton Eshleman http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15976 02/03/2011Littlefoot, 19, [This is the bird hour] by Charles Wright http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19592 02/03/2011