Speaking of Inuit art...here are some beauties, full of life and character and poise.

words become visible.

Climbing hands

happy hands

sanna annuka

I have harboured an ancient fascination with the magic, playfulness and aesthetic curiosity of finnish folk art. So of course I was delighted to discover

Sanna Annukka.

She is half Finnish, half English,
and is heavily inspired by her dreamy childhood in Finland,
in which she explored the forests of Paltaniemi,
and loved to swim and fish in Oulujarvi.

She has even wandered the wild, Arctic lands of Lapland!
Recently, she illustrated the Kalevala,
which is a magical collection of Finnish songs of folklore.
I love the bold colors and lines in her craftily stylized collection of icons.

I have lately been shying away from bold colors,
but hopefully she will help me overcome my shyness and indulge such vibrant strokes! :)

Critter-friendly County Commissioner

Yay for Mark Campden--here's a Knox county commissoner who refuses to mow his yard!

.wate.com&activePane=info&LaunchPageAdTag=homepage&clipFormat=flv&rnd=24657763http://www.wate.com/global/video/flash/popupplayer.asp?clipId1=2678961&at1=News&vt1=v&h1=County+commissioner+getting+complaints+about+overgrown+yard&d1=138333&redirUrl=www

vulgar, vulgaris—"of the people"

Let us procure a style that reeks of populism.

That meshes the masses. That is borne on the back of "bad taste."

Last night,
I dreamt that
every poor thing
I had ever said
about my step mother
returned to her.

April show me grace...

Sea Port

Last weekend,
I was reconnected with a part of myself long since unrecognized.

It was only as I approached the open water that I realized how long it had been since I visited the ocean. It spoke to me and I was enamored, enchanted. I wanted to be consumed and to float, free and weightless.

And yet, my worldly limits kept me timid. The enormous waves were choked with young teenage boys anxious to make the courageous fight. They swam out as far as they could make it and dove, head first, into the menacing waves just as they reached their largest form. They wore neon green and blue, tattoos and braids. They were proud of their dexterity.

Women and young children stayed on the shore, laughing, toppling, and yelping as the crests broke and foam washed over them. Noses were plugged and swimsuit wedgies swiftly picked after each crash. Laughter was everywhere. They wore ribbons and magenta, hoop earrings and smiles, children's bikinis and hair bobbles.

I felt suddenly young and awkward in my own form. I wondered at my hesitation. My friends lay on the beach soaking up the sun. I smiled in the crowd, wading and floating, lifting my toes and letting the salt water wash over my head, but never breaking the man barrier.

I thought of my trip to Utah the weeks preceding. I envisioned the aerial view I'd soaked in (not only of nyc harbor, but of the entire country) and saw myself now as a point in that enormous sky born landscape. Past the kelp, I knew the city buildings waited. I pictured the storms brewing out in the vast blue, manifesting itself here on shore. The sky was grey, the temperatures mild, the ocean energized, brimming full.

Driving home, I enjoyed the sun kissed, salty, windswept feeling forgotten from childhood vacations. My hair was wild with curls and my skin felt fresh. I kept the window down and enjoyed the smells, watching the landscape change, until finally we stepped out of the car on 42nd street in midtown manhattan.

The next day, I put on my adult shoes and attended two work events of almost diametrically opposed purposes: the Fancy Food Show, and the New Amsterdam Market. These experiences are more than I can write about. Every detail of my life and the lives of those around me percolated all week, trying to find its way to this space: subway experiences and neighbors, gardens and sewing, fresh flowers and new offices. But I couldn't listen and quiet the voices. Here I am now, evening approaching the day after Independence Day festivities.

Tomorrow I will be preparing cherry-ginger pie and bringing it to an afternoon house party at my dear friend's out in Bed-Stuy. They are special women who make craft and art out of each day. They weave life with thick threads of love, bits of trial, pieces of anger, confusion. And it is beauty. Meanwhile, I work each day to remember the grace and power of a smile.

I heard someone say,

"I want to take April as my personal savior."

art-craft

Seeing how my last post was so unforgivably wordy, I thought I'd give some examples of this kind of "art-craft" that I have mentioned. Art-craft can be found almost anywhere. Indeed, as anyone who has done even the most rudimentary investigating into the philosophy of art and aesthetics goes, there are "cultures who don't even have a word for art." Straight up. This, I can dig. Why not do everything as art? Why not see your own life as a piece of ongoing art - one's ultimate work of art?

Anyway back to the tangible.

First, a video of a fiddle solo by a member of one of my very most cherished bands, Frigg. The ease and the grace with which this man plays his instrument is really, really inspiring to me. Having tried to play the fiddle, I know how difficult it is to simply draw the bow across the strings without making demonic screeches that run shivers down your spine. But this guy moves his bow across the strings like a fish through water, like a calligraphy brush on the page.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpSmyS7javw

Secondly, another music-type craft. Along with Sami joiking and Balinese gamelan orchestra, I think Tuvan throat singing is one of the world's most interesting musical traditions. I think it's incredibly exciting the way that they have differentiated between the five types of singing, and how they've described them in terms of their resemblance to an ecological phenomenon.

http://www.alashensemble.com/about_tts.htm

Just people doing what they do — really, really well.

color and pigment and albino fawns

pardon the fragmented thoughts. i'm caught up amidst a day that is cut up into tiny little peices by a pair tiny time scissors that i've asked kindly to hunt jobs for me.

See at left a fawn, albino. How curious that the pigment is missing, but where follicles are concerned the absence of pigment creates a gentle snowy white (or rather, in the case of the fawn it is gentle and snowy).

I realize that follicles are composed of some sort of lines of proteins or some kind of particles that appear white, but it is strange to think of something lacking pigment and being white, when those of the art/science persuasion tend to point out that the absence of color creates a void of darkness.

i guess i'm merely pointing out the difference between a pigment which is a material that fills a plane or material, and a color, which refers to the way our eyes perceive, with pixel and rod, the frequency of light in an object. i just think that the idea of color and the way we perceive and talk about it is so wild.