One with the air

This was a perfect day of reading and relaxing. After taking the car for new tires and doing my workout I sat back to simply enjoy. September has drifted in on a cool soft breeze. The air is clear, like blue cellophane and cool as it brushes over the skin. The weather is sublime and I took the opportunity to just kick back and do very little that is productive. Reading in peace and quiet with no interruptions and no pressure of having somewhere to go or something to do was delightful. I pray for more days like this but that is up to Mother Nature and her foibles and whims. For now--just glorious.

I signed up for an online Japanese poetry writing class from Story Circle Network and taught by Lorraine Mejia-Green who is a fabulous teacher. I am looking forward to creating more art and poetry to bring to you on this blog, always marrying words with pictures in one way or another.

It's been a while since I posted. Sorry about that. But now I am back in action and hoping to be more consistent. In the midst of this summer humidity, as heat waves ripple above the pavement and the air sticks to your skin, I created a cool portrait of a winter sky. Life is full of contrasts, night and day, summer and winter, childhood and adulthood, happiness and grief. It all adds up to a full life well lived. It's what we aspire to and what art and poetry bring to me. Even as the body resists the journey to the desk and the pen, inspiration blooms like a mauve and purple dawn and lines of haiku ripple through the heart like heat waves. Share in the joy. 

Be Free

BE FREE--that's what we all want isn't it? Free to be who we are at our very core. Free to blog or not as we wish. But if I'm to have a blog and store up some devoted readers I need to be more present here. This particular piece is mixed media using acrylics and patterned paper. The process is simple and rewarding with lots of depth. I adhere scraps of patterned paper to a canvas board--in this case a small 5X7 size. Then I brayer several layers of coordinating acrylic paint to create my background. I used paper and paint to create the bouquet and alphabet stamps for the words. Then I just add details to make the piece come alive.

It's a creative way to drag myself out of a slump and perhaps a jumpstart into more regular blogging.

At present I am creating a watercolor book of illustrated haiku that I've written over the years. Some of those pages will surely find their way to this blog. Enjoy.

Would love to see your comments and your artwork and poetry too.

I still find that art and writing are permanently entangled deep in the creativity cells of my brain. Hard to decide each time I sit at my desk which path to travel down. But a new art supply is a sure way to make art the priority--even if I do have to include words in the final product. My newest purchase is a set of 40 Caran D'Ache Neocolor II Watercolor Crayons. These thick waxy rods of luscious color are a joy to work with and quite versatile. You can draw or scribble on watercolor paper and then brush with water to create rich color on the page. You can dip a wet brush to the end of the crayon and then paint. But my favorite way to use these crayons is to create backgrounds for my poetry. I scribble all over the page with several colors and then rub over the page with a baby wipe. Whatever is on those wipes probably shouldn't be placed on a baby's tender skin, but on water color paper coated with the colors from the crayons, I achieve rich vibrant color for backgrounds or to color in drawings.

Give it a try and let me know how it comes out. Would love to see the works you create.

I know, it has been a long while since I posted, but writing for me takes many avenues and recently it has been down the path of fiction. I had a short story published which was a nice reward for years of writing time and energy. It is also an incentive to continue on that path for a while. But at the heart and soul of who I am lies poetry. Reading poems, writing poems and reading about poets. Add that to the goal of incorporating my own poems into my art work and Renee becomes a very busy lady.

But this blog is important to me and so are my readers so I will forge ahead. I am interested in hearing from those of you who write haiku, or haibun or create haiga. I'd like to form a little online group to share our practice.

As spring unfolds and becomes summer I will be more consistent here and hope to find more readers to befriend.

Most people are familiar with haiku, the three line, seventeen syllable Japanese poem that captures a seasonal nature image so sharply it pierces the heart. But another form of Japanese poetry, the tanka, is intriguing me. It is essentially a three line haiku with two more seven syllable lines at the end, making it a five line poem. What I love about it is that those last two lines allow me to add a personal thought connected to the nature image. It expands the heartbeat I can write inside of. And it lends itself so well to illustration and art making it a great form for this new experiment of mine.

National Poetry Month

Okay, so I know it isn't the end of summer, but this is one of my favorite paintings and one of the first I created as a way to join my art and my writing. April is National Poetry Month and I am committed to writing at least a poem a day for this month. I am also challenging myself to finally start submitting poems again for publication. I challenge you to choose a poetry anthology and read a poem a day for this month. Maybe it will become a habit. For those of you who do write poetry, make this the month you amp up your writing output and send out some of your favorites.

I continue to work at weaving my poems into art and am moving toward making the lines of poetry a part of the art piece as opposed to just an attachment to a background or description of an image. The play of paint and poetry intrigues me as I wander deeper into my new creative world.

I'd love to see your comments and perhaps some examples of your own art and poetry.

Happy writing!

After a few days visit with my sons, daughter-in-law and granddaughter I am home and happy, albeit exhausted. Back to work today and wishing I had more time to write and paint. But each day is a gift and I must wrap it in my thoughts and plans and move on until that glorious moment when time is mine. I am trying out some new things--such as focus on poetry and possibly a memoir compiled of poems, haiku, haibun and art. A new approach to the complex challenge of writing a raw and difficult story. But even as gray clouds spread across the sky, crocus are sprouting and creamy yellow forsythia blossoms are dotting bare brown branches along the fence line. As spring approaches I lift my shoulders to the sun and allow the lightness inside me to fill with hope for the future.

I continue to struggle between writing and art, fiction and poetry, but it's coming together inside my chaotic mind. Although I read a chapter from a novel I started a year ago or more when I was at my writers' group yesterday, I didn't wake up this morning with the itch to work on it. Instead my creative mind clamored for poetic lines, reading and writing them. I need the intensity of getting a moment or story into a few brief lines. The brevity of poetry, especially haiku, seems to deepen the reader's response to the thoughts the writer has expressed. But also my fingers itched to hold a brush or watercolor crayon and smear color across a canvas. I need the visual illumination of the words I write to feel complete. And so I journey deeper into the work of poetry and deeper into the process of art journaling. I keep moving ahead, reading more and more poetry and more art books, especially books on art journaling. I collect more poetry collections and more art supplies. As I sit in my craft room playing with color and listening to music I feel free and at peace. Why resist that?

In my journey to connect my writing and my art I have gone from using quotes in my collages and mixed media work, to twining my poetry around my art. In rediscovering the zen-like art of writing haiku I found a perfect match. The brief three lines of haiku, along with the tiny and universal image the words create, make a perfect addition to my mixed media and watercolor art. I have been reading many books on writing haiku, including "The Poetry of Zen" by Sam Hamill, "The Haiku Handbook" by William J. Higginson, and "haiku mind" by Patricia Donegan. These books have given me the skills to write haiku as well as the mindset in which to capture a miniscule moment of my day and put it into words. I add meditation sessions and walks in nature to inspire me and bring me the peace in which haiku may grow and bloom in my art work.

Welcome



Welcome to my new blog, "A Marriage of Poetry and Art." This blog came about because I am always at war between my writing and my art, not to mention the many genres I like to write in or media I like to create art with. I have struggled a few years with ways to do both and I've come to the conclusion that in order to resolve the issue I had to find a way to combine the two. I have been creating new pieces that incorporate my poetry and art together and it's time to share them with you, my friends and readers.

Along the way I will talk about the writing process and the creation of my art pieces. I will share with you and hope you will share your art and poetry with me as well as your comments about the blog. I'd like to build a community of poets and artists who can meet here at my blog so we can marry our ideas the way I will try to marry poetry and art.

Welcome. I am so happy to know you.