Picasso . . . because

Because

you saw something different

so long ago, a collection of African masks

at an exhibit in Paris,

art slid sideways

into the new.

All your classical training,

the blue period, the rose period, 

transformed.

You challenged yourself

to make images

never before seen.

Called decadent, the scribblings of a child,

you did not care.

You made art.

After the bombing of civilians at Guernica,

you made art.

Pablo Picasso, "Guernica" (1937, Wikipedia)

Sometimes we see something or understand something without knowing how or what is involved. The painting "Guernica" with its call to protest and to remember that bombing of a civilian town by the Germans in 1937 was my first introduction to Picasso. 

So when we spent a month in Paris already ten years ago, we visited a small studio on the Left Bank where Picasso once lived. We saw for ourselves where he painted "Guernica," the very room not quite big enough for the scale of this painting; the canvas so large it had to be tilted at an angle to fit into his studio.

Picasso's studio is now a tiny museum filled with paintings, drawings, and sculptures, even including his clay cups, created in amazingly diverse forms. We also visited the larger Picasso Museum with a very formal array of paintings from every period. Even today, I marvel at his creativity and his growth as an artist.

Read more about Picasso's studio and the Picasso Museum or visit the Picasso Museum in Paris at Wikipedia

We'll always have Paris . . .

We spent a month here
wandering along the Seine,
cobblestone streets in the old districts,
Montmartre, standing in awe
outside the house where Van Gogh 
discovered color.
We fell in love with crisp croissants, 
crepes made before our eyes at roadside stalls,
iconic museums, street art, 
gargoyles, church spires, stone mansions,
and then we took the elevator up the Eiffel Tower
to stare at the Seine shimmering in the sunset:
Ah, Paris, we remember you!

A blogger, writing in My Creative Wings, talked about writing a list of twenty things you love. Something or someone or an event that brings you joy. As I went through this busy day today, I found myself thinking of  that month in Paris.  

One moment reverberated. We had taken the elevator up the Eiffel Tower and stopped briefly at the first platform (190 feet above the ground). We decided not to continue on to the third platform (nearly 900 feet above the ground), because we could see this platform at the very top of the Tower swaying in the wind. Yes, I am a little uncomfortable standing on a chair, let alone ascending to the second platform. But this was unforgettable Paris. 

A View of the Seine from the Eiffel Tower

We stayed a long while at this second highest platform (376 feet above the ground) to watch the Seine shimmering as the sun set and the lights of Paris spread before us.

Tired, we descended, more than ready to go back to our apartment, when the crowd began to ooh and aah. We turned around to see a surprise of lights as the entire Eiffel Tower lit up before us. I remain grateful for this memory, captured in a 16-second video.

Seeking blue . . .

I could fall into your blue squares,

pieced together stitch by stitch. 

The tea pots promise reflection, 

the curling leaves thread across the quilt's 

perfectly shaded, soft yellow squares;

these background colors fade,

and I don't quite recognize 

the precision of each square, 

I'm lost in blue, 

the choices we make.   

A quilter knows her design,

what fabrics to choose,

when to sew, and

 when to rip away

to create that 

balance between 

being

and becoming.

This poem comes sideways and a day late from a trip to Sisters, Oregon, for their annual quilt show, several years ago. Quilts are hung everywhere throughout this small town, in every store and restaurant, gallery and fabric shop. We wandered through crowds of really thousands of people, but it's still a quilter's dream for a perfect summer day.

I dream of making this hand-appliqué quilt one day, the pattern is by Maggie Walker Design and called "The Blue Collection."

 

Afternoon in Lerwick . . .

One rainy, gray afternoon, we walked
along the narrow, cobbled streets of Lerwick,
to find a knitting shop 
tucked around a corner,
The Spider's Web, 
the sign did not invite us in.

Instead we stopped for ginger beer,
and as the sun collapsed
into the sea, we took the ferry
back to the Mainland,
knowing without saying
we would never return.

I still remember this ginger beer for it hints at my second book, Years of Stone, set in Australia, then just a glimmering of an idea that began on this trip to Scotland. We had spent hours at the museum in Lerwick. More about that tomorrow!

A crofter's cottage . . .

A crofter's cottage made of stone,
its roof of grasses tied down with rope,
a heap of peat stacked neatly nearby,
A boat upended becomes the roof of a storage shed;
a few sheep in the field overlooking a gray sea,
empty fields marked by stones.

We step inside this small two-room cottage
to find darkness leavened by tiny windows bringing light
to whitewashed walls of stone.
In the fireplace, peat smokes and burns,
banked for a slow fire, soot marks above the fireplace
where a fiddle hangs next to the gun, its powder horn nearby.

I see hard work here:  
this family had a grinder for making flour,
a pestle for pounding grains into food
no stove, food cooked at the hearth 
in heavy iron kettles,
bread rising atop the wooden lids,
the bed a wooden box to the side of the central room,
with doors to close those inside, a patched quilt, 
squares uneven to keep them warm,
no precise pattern, found fabrics not needed elsewhere,
the chair for Grandsir 
almost a coffin 
with box like sides 
to keep the draft away,
the churn nearby, 
a basket of knitting, 
another of raw wool 
to spin into thread.








Hands were never still in this house,
even the men sat of an evening making rope, 
their hands twisting and knotting, 
traps for fish, halters for horses,
baskets for carrying, 
repairing the tools used every day,
for in these old ways,
they could survive the cold times,
the hungry times.

We took these pictures at the Crofters' Museum near Lerwick, northern Scotland. I know from reading about the Clearances that these crofters were displaced by sheep during the Industrial Revolution. Everywhere you still can see empty fields marked by stone fences and the remnants of abandoned stone cottages, a sad history of struggle, survival, and loss, part of the story I wrote about in my book, Standing Stones.

Lake Titicaca once again . . .

I remember most stepping
onto those islands made
of woven grass, and then I learned
of the constant work to
weave those grasses into land,
for the water, peaceful on the day we visited,
is insidious, its natural inclination
rots the woven land we stood upon.
But all of what we see and do
is somehow constructed reality,
our houses, foods, the daily routine,
'tis natural to see growth and decay
practically in the same breath,
to lose and then recover those treasured bits 
we surround ourselves with, a grandmother's quilt, 
a tiny alabaster elephant, an African violet,
photos of long ago and far away.


One of my dreams when we planned our tour of South America was to visit Lake Titicaca. I had read of the floating islands but knew little more.

But as we crossed the border from Chile into Peru, my computer and journal (with pictures, writing and drawings) was stolen. What meant the most to me would not be of value to anyone else.  So I have lost those pictures of our visit to the Uros Islands and the friendly people there. Here I'm relying on the kindness of people sharing their work on Flickr to recreate some of what we experienced.


  
Joe Marx, Flicker, Totora reed boat, Lake Titicaca

CLICK on the picture above to see other images of Lake Titicaca and the people who live there. Read more of Lake Titicaca and the Quechuan culture HERE.

A murder of crows . . .

"Crow on a Branch" by Kawanabe Kyosai (Wikipedia)

My eyes follow a murder of crows
as they browse along 
the carefully watered lawns
in my neighborhood. 
They lift into the sky, 
calling each to each,
warning of some thing I cannot see.
Sometimes the new
outpaces our ability to take it all in,
to make some sense of order or harmony.
I'm left behind, remembering 
crows are more intelligent than we know,
and I wonder what bird-like wisdom
I fail to see. 

Today's entry began as a reflection on a photo of some lovely Shetland ponies I saw in Lerwick, Scotland, on a trip there. The green, green grass they grazed reminded me of the crows I saw this morning, and so I shifted closer to home with this poem.