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.