Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Spinning Circles: November to November

---- MEASURING THE BREADTH OF A YEAR ----
CREATIVE IMAGERY IN RANDOM FREEFALL, 2015-2016

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AUTUMN 2015
Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel...
Flowers sampled from my mother's garden

Was the sound of distant drumming just the fingers on your hand?
Deceased squirrel with lavender sprigs (supplied by me)

And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space...
"Golden hour" pre-sunset colors cast against the side of a church vestry

WINTER 2015
Half-remembered names and faces, but to whom do they belong?
Self-portrait in cashmere turban & faux-fur

Keys that jingle in your pocket, words that jangle in your head...
Peanut's doppleganger (a surprise stuffed "twin" for the Pomeranian I dogwalk -- I furnished both with the red holiday bows)

Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own...
Handmade Christmas cards -- two different versions (front & back)

Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon...
New Year's Eve along East 8th Street, NYC (above my head)

Like a door that keeps revolving in a half-forgotten dream...
New Year's Eve along East 8th Street, NYC (below my feet)

SPRING 2016
Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone...
"The Real O'Neals" debuts on ABC -- worth acknowledging because it features a rare male character, Jimmy, who proclaims to suffer from an eating disorder -- a detail abandoned after the premiere episode (above, a magazine promo page bathed in sunlight)

"It's important to acknowledge how the performance of manhood can be restrictive, and in many cases, harmful. Jimmy feels constrained by his role as a champion wrestler, so he wants out. This would've been the perfect time to revisit his anorexia, but once again, there was no mention of it. It's safe to say that detail has been abandoned — Eileen cured him with Jesus pancakes or something [by the end of the pilot] — and that is a missed opportunity. It's tough to make light of an eating disorder, so maybe it's best that it was abandoned. Nevertheless, it would've fit perfectly with Jimmy confronting the idea of what a man is supposed to look like."
- blurb from a Vulture.com recap of a later episode

Never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel... 
VIDEO, may not play on all systems -- "Stir of Shadows" (agitated branches cast their movements against our home's exterior)

Lovers walk along a shore and leave their footprints in the sand...
Collage box with ModPodge glaze for my sister, themed around her screenplay "Ye Deep", set on Nantucket Island

SUMMER 2016
Like the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream...
Photograph by Erica Shires of me on the rocks of coastal Maine at sunrise (vintage prom dress chosen &  procured by me)

Pictures hanging in a hallway and the fragment of a song...
Another portrait by Erica, in a '40s-era antique nightgown with my mother's globe thistle

When you knew that it was over you were suddenly aware...
A fallen finch, laid to rest with morning/mourning glories

AUTUMN 2016
 That the autumn leaves were turning to the color of his hair?
Treeline "halo" bordering one side of our Maine property

Why did summer go so quickly?   Was it something that you said?
"Ayam Cemani" (black glossy enamel over chalkboard paint base with sequins, smashed sunglasses lenses affixed with ModPodge on 26" x 36" antique canvas)

 As the images unwind...
(Untitled on 11" x 13" canvas, with same materials as first work)

(Detail from mixed-media art shown above)

Like the circles that you find...
Errant pompom blossom, in swirls of shadows on concrete -- an effective punctuation until my next entry

 ...in the windmills of your mind.
Songwriters: Alan Bergman / Marilyn Bergman / Michel Legrand © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC