Dream Dust - Illustrations for a Poem

I miss illustrating, so although HELLO EVERY SUNDAY is up and running again and I am drawing daily once more, there is the desire to interpret words into images. I asked my Instagram Followers for a small poem and one of them immediately gave me Dream Dust by Langston Hughes. I wanted to experiment with different techniques and try and simulate the print making effect. Here I used rice paper and graphite powder which I embedded onto the sheet my pressing on it using a small blunt instrument. I had no idea what would emerge but the effect reminds me of lithograph without all the bother. I have a few more small poems which I will try out this technique with.

Gatherers

We are gatherers,

the ones who pick up sticks and stones

and old wasp’s nests fallen by the

door of the barn,

walnuts with holes that look like

eyes of owls,

bits of shells not whole but lovely

in their brokeness,

we are the ones who bring home

empty eggs of birds

and place them on a small glass shelf

to keep for what? How long?

It matters not. What matters

Is the gathering,

the pockets filled with remnants

of a day evaporated, the traces of

certain memory, a lingering smell,

a smile that came with the shell.

~ Nina Bagley

*

You want to know how I spend my time?

I walk through the front lawn, pretending

To be weeding. You ought to know

I am never weeding, on my knees, pulling

clumps of clover from flower beds: in fact

I am looking for courage, for some evidence

my life will change, though

it takes forever, checking

each clump for the symbolic

leaf, and soon the summer is ending, already

the leaves turning, always the sick trees

going first, the dying turning

brilliant yellow, while a few dark birds perform

their curfew of music. You want to see my hands?

As empty now as at the first note.

Or was the point always

to continue without a sign.

                 ~ Louise Gluck

*

I assure my readers I am not clawing at clumps of clover with my bare hands,not yet anyway, but sometimes what you hear from life around you and in the news, makes you wish you could change things.

This interview

This probably hits the nail on the head more than most

editorials would >>>

And this both in my city and elsewhere >>>

To Rise Above

"We forget about the spaciousness

above the clouds

but it’s up there.

The sun’s up there too.

When words we hear don’t fit the day,

when we worry

what we did or didn’t do,

what if we close our eyes,

say any word we love

that makes us feel calm,

slip it into the atmosphere

and rise?

Creamy miles of quiet.

Giant swoop of blue."

~ Naomi Shihab Nye

Our aversion to female success

Out in the Garden

since the thing perhaps is to eat flowers

and not to be afraid.

                           ~ e.e.cummings

*

A lovely rain fell in Bogota

In its drops were lumps of sugar;

But only lovers kissing in the rain

Were aware of this.

                  ~ Juan Diego Passa

Oh the relief and sheer joy of being able to hurl myself into my sketchbook once more and muck around within its pages. Here I tried to make the text a part of the illustration and after a few accidents which I managed to turn into happy accidents, I got what I wanted: an emotion I wanted to evoke. In addition there were nice surprises which I didn’t expect – the lettering fell into place perfectly with a slight upward slant and what is not apparent in these photographs, the textures and nuances of pastel which always delight me when they emerge on paper and which give the illustration its atmosphere and integrity.

I’ve used my White Signo pen here for the raindrops and lettering. The rest is of course done with various shades of pink pastel in my lovely Canson Sketchbook which has the best paper ever.

Mirror

You have no idea how hard I’ve looked 

for a gift to bring You.

Nothing seemed right.

What’s the point of bringing gold to

the gold mine, or water to the ocean?

Everything I came up with was like

taking spices to the Orient.

It’s no good giving my heart and my

soul because you already have these.

So I’ve brought you a mirror.

Look at yourself and remember me.

~ Rumi

Sometimes a Wild God

One cold, dark autumn day in Montreal, I read a poem by Tom Hirons called Sometimes a Wild God which made my heart contract and clench a little. I remember considering the message within that poem in relation to where I was at that moment in my life and mulling over it for a while. I remember feeling very uncomfortable. I remember I shifted my thoughts then to wondering how this poem could be illustrated and whether Tom Hirons' partner, the illustrator Rima Staines had considered doing so.
The answer to that appeared on the Hedgespoken website and by the time I had returned to Bangalore I decided I wanted that book. I didn't think I would get my hands on a copy of the book so soon but I did, thanks to someone from England visiting here.
In this post I present a small glimpse of the book with its unforgettable poem  accompanied by intimate and unique illustrations by the absolutely extraordinary Rima Staines.

When illustrating a poem, especially a descriptive one,it is easy to end up making the images repeat the text, something that good illustration should never do. I feel it not only dilutes the message but creates an unnecessary echo which ends up becoming an irritation. Therefore here, as an illustrator, I have to truly appreciate what Rima has done to illustrate this poem which is a difficult one to illustrate. Her illustrations are not beautiful in the general sense of the term but disturbing, as disturbing as the poem; the images are symbols juxtapositioned together to create strong compositions aptly suited to partner whatever part of the text they are illustrating. 
I have long admired Rima's work. She never disappoints. 

I am glad to be reading and admiring this book at my desk in my studio in beautiful afternoon October light :-)

Secrecy

Secrecy 

Secrecy flows through you,

a different kind of blood.

It's as if you've eaten it

like a bad candy,

taken it into your mouth,

let it melt sweetly on your tongue,

then allowed it to slide down your throat

like the reverse of uttering,

a word dissolved

into its glottals and sibilants,

a slow intake of breath --

And now it's in you, secrecy.

Ancient and vicious, luscious

as dark velvet.

It blooms in you,

a poppy made of ink.

You can think of nothing else.

Once you have it, you want more.

What power it give's you!

Power of knowing without being known,

power of the stone door,

power of the iron veil,

power of the crushed fingers,

power of the drowned bones

crying out from the bottom of the well.

                                   ~ a poem by Margaret Atwood

Perhaps it is about time I finally posted these illustrations here. If it hadn't been for Robyn's email that I send them to her, they would never have seen the light of day. 

I did these illustrations many many years ago after being stunned by reading Margaret Atwood's poem Secrecy. I felt the illustrations needed an abstract approach and I did that. But as sometimes happens, I was unsure about their effectiveness in partnering Atwood's intense and powerful poem so I kept them away. Until that is, I left a comment on Robyn's inspiring blog ArtPropelled for her fabulous post on Book of Secrets that I had happened to make these drawings. Now these illustrations are up there on her blog too, along with those other stunning works of art. 

As Robyn said, 'it was serendipity at work'.

*

The Remains

*

Look it Over

I leave behind even

my walking stick. My knife

is in my pocket, but that

I have forgot. I bring

no car, no cell phone,

no computer, no camera,

no CD player, no fax, no

TV, not even a book. I go

into the woods. I sit on

a log provided at no cost.

It is the earth I’ve come to,

the earth itself, sadly

abused by the stupidity

only humans are capable of

but, as ever, itself. Free.

A bargain! Get it while it lasts.

                                        ~Wendell Berry

                                                      via Keri Smith’s blog

Depth

Over the weekend I was talking to P who like Paula Abdul in American Idol tries to find something good to say about everyone's paintings. She was enchanted by a certain watercolourist’s work much to my annoyance. The certain watercolourist’s work is superficial, I declared. It lacks depth!

What is depth? asked P

I found the meaning that Dictionary reference.com gives for depth in relation to art:

depth  (dɛpθ): intensity or profundity of emotion or feeling

Still, in spite of the nice technical definition of depth, I’d like to think ‘depth’ is something which is better experienced than described. The art needs to have a certain amount of darkness in it to bring out its beauty.

Here are three works of art which for me are the very essence of depth:

*  Vladimir Horowitz playing Traumerei in the video posted above
Or anything played by Horowitz for that matter.

* OdilonRedon’s Shell in Musee d’Orsay in Paris < click here >
We often forget that what we see on our screens is but a pale shadow of the actual picture itself.
In real life Redon’s work sparkles like a jewel.

*  Jean Giono’s small story The Man Who Planted Trees < click here>
What can I say except read it.

These days we are bombarded every single minute by hundreds of thousands of images hurtling towards us. Thanks to the blog world the amount of art we see is so plentiful that for me it becomes a blur. I space out. I have to confess that the more I see, the less I like. I keep going back instead to my three eternal favourites. And I regain my equilibrium once more.

“The outward work
will never be puny
if the inward work
is great.
And the outward work
can never be great or even good
if the inward one is puny or of little worth.
The inward work invariably
includes in itself
all expansiveness,
all breadth,
all length,
all depth.
Such a work
receives and draws all its being
from nowhere else except
from and in the heart of God.”

- Meister Eckhart 


I know there are Latvians, Ukraines and Finns silently looking at my blog. Hi there!

*

Long ago I decided I wasn't a person who liked poetry too much because I couldn’t understand the strange jumble of words that was supposed to constitute poetry. But recently a couple of journalist friends of mine confessed that they too had the same problem. Poetry (at least most of what I come across) is rather like Contemporary Art, both have a bizarre mishmash of elements. I am glad I am an illustrator.
In case you are wondering what the *  this strange book with its cut up images is about, it is an illustration of what Poetry means to me.

Just sit there and stare and wonder what the heck is going on. Then go browse something else.


There are some poems I do like very much though :)

*

HAPPINESS

 ~ by Paisley Rekdal

I have been taught never to brag but now

I cannot help it: I keep

a beautiful garden, all abundance,

indiscriminate, pulling itself

from the stubborn earth. Does it offend you

to watch me working in it,

touching my hands to the greening tips or

tearing the yellow stalks back, so wild

the living and the dead both

snap off in my hands?

The neighbor with his stuttering

fingers, the neighbor with his broken

love: each comes up my drive

to receive his pitying,

accustomed consolations, watches me

work in silence a while, rises in anger,

walks back. Does it offend them to watch me

not mourning with them but working

fitfully, fruitlessly, working

the way the bees work, which is to say

by instinct alone, which looks

like pleasure? I can stand for hours among

the sweet narcissus, silent as a point of bone.

I can wait longer than sadness. I can wait longer

than your grief. 
It is such a small thing to be proud of this garden...

- for complete poem click here >

                         

At a Certain Age

We wanted to confess our sins but there were no takers.

White clouds refused to accept them, and the win

Was too busy visiting sea after sea.

We did not succeed in interesting the animals.

Dogs, disappointed, expected an order,

A cat, as always immoral, was falling asleep.

A person seemingly very close

Did not care to hear of things long past.

Conversations with friends over vodka or coffee

Ought not be prolonged beyond the first sign of boredom.

It would be humiliating to pay by the hour

A man with a diploma, just for listening.

Churches. Perhaps churches. But to confess there what?

That we used to see ourselves as handsome and noble

Yet later in our place an ugly toad

Half-opens its thick eyelid

And one sees clearly: “That’s me.”

                                                                       ~ by Czeslaw Milosz