“Mom Sees You”

I considered posting an image titled “Mom Sees You” on this blog the week before Mothers Day.  Although I’ve previously deployed unabashed semi-irreverent sales pitches at anyone who reads this blog, I decided it was good to wait until the official holiday was over.

So here’s “Mom Sees You” and a link for info about the lowbrow art piece:  http://www.zeorlinart.com/BSMomSeesYou.html.

This bumper sticker generates amusing facial expressions from those viewing it stuck on the back bumper while stopped in traffic.  Or don’t stick it on anything and write a note on the backside of the bumper sticker and mail like a note card.  And that concludes my blatant sales pitch.   Only $3.99 for my heartfelt, waterproof and road tested confession.

“Mom Sees You” is an image of a woman making an ambiguous expression that seems to fit somewhere between happiness and being harried  The title of the bumper sticker art card is closely tied to that time in a kid’s life when saying those three words served as a warning about the power of mothers.

And mothers protect their babies even when we are grown up. Such comfort and love is not taken for granted.  And shame on those who do.  In return for her comfort and love we babies must try to please them.  Those who don’t try get the harsh glare and stare down from a mother that is impossible to escape.

We should love and honor mothers more than once a year.

 

 

Pulling Weeds (a poem)

 

Pulling Weeds

 

I’m not sure which is preferred,

writing poetry or pulling weeds.

There’s something satisfying

about looking at the roots of either,

of tugging on something that resists.

 

I’m sure the roots from poems

or those of weeds can never be

completely removed from an earthen bed.

Weed-free for a day or two

before new shoots emerge

through dirt in my head.

 

Once again I pause,

stooping to pull out

these persistent weeds.

Tossing them into piles

sorted on this page to dry.

 

There are tangled and incomplete roots

delicate and interconnected roots

or coarse ones with pungent sticky sap

guarded by thorns and spines,

all originating from this soil.

 

5/2/2013   7:52am

(Read more poems:  http://www.zeorlinart.com/poempage.html)

 

Artistic Perspective Based on Scents

The other morning a neighbor’s dog was in my front yard contentedly rolling on the dew covered lawn.  It rolled on its back, stood up to smell the grass again, and repeated this ritual several times.  Nothing was visible on the grass and weeds so I assume the dog was applying an earthly scent to her body.

As I watched her it reminded me how my perspective on what’s around me is based upon many senses.  Yet my experience of a place is often described only visually.  Being able to smell also creates a perspective about the surroundings.  As an artist, the scent of a place psychologically influences the colors I choose to create a work of art.  A scent can become a texture or pattern in a sculpture I make.

That dog in my yard reminded me how many people are not connected with the earth.  Many live in apartments and have not put their hands in soil for decades.  And many with homes and yards use lawn services so they are as dislocated from the earth as apartment dwellers.  There’s something about digging up the earth and smelling it that can’t be duplicated by a cologne or perfume.  And lying on your back in fresh grass with your eyes closed is magical and transcending.  Of course, chiggers and fire ants can also transport your body to another experience.

During a eulogy for a friend who died recently, the minister spoke about how this man in his upper 70’s still made time to connect to the natural world.  This friend knew how important it was to go into the woods and smell the soul of nature.  He took his grandkids into the woods so their young souls would know to seek out the soul of nature regardless of their age.  He never got too old to breathe in the natural world and I will attempt to do the same.

I use to sleep outdoors at least once a month regardless of where I lived.  Sometimes it meant sleeping on a football field in the middle of a city, or sleeping on the roof, or the porch, in a backyard or in a park.  In all those places an awareness of the scents also affected my perspective as much as vision or sound could.  But why do I not account the scents of a location as easily as the other senses?  It takes practice.

It’s never too late to let the perfumes of life enhance our perspective of the world.  Such scents identify the presence of a spouse, our children, a pizza baking, wildflowers blooming, specific trees in a forest…..and on and on.

Next time you begin refining your artistic perspective…(of describing a specific experience or place), how could it be enhanced by acknowledging the presence of life’s perfume?  It’s questions like this that help an artist refine their work…Of course, you could just stick with the easy questions.

Perspective Shaped by Time

When I was younger I assumed someone who looks like me was old.  Or at least they were very close to being old.  But now with time and experience I’m able to see aging as a matter of perspective.  For example,  the hair loss I once dreaded is now more of a convenience.  I don’t blow money on the barber and use it on the pleasures of life….good food, music, wine.

It’s good for a perspective to change over time.  Imagine keeping a perspective about the world that didn’t change for decades.  So much would be missed.  Many great foods would be avoided and certain friendships would have been foregone.  It’s the willingness to poke around and grind on the daily stuff that keeps sharp edges from going too far into the soul.  Seems like our soul is so perplexing that if often goes ignored   The soul becomes troubled when the quest for power clouds all the reasons we dwell on earth.  And the dwell on earth is a limited time offer.  I still find the term “unlimited lifetime warranty” a challenge to comprehend.

Time lets the stuff of life become more entertaining in an offbeat way.  I now realize many politicians are comedians that take their own jokes too seriously.  Their public dramas often do not align with the words they rehearsed to gain their parts from our votes.  But somehow the show continues and the comedic politicians receive perks the normal working world cannot afford to offer the average citizen.  But the deals and land grabs that politicians carry out have been going on since the dawn of government.

Here’s an image I created to visually summarize what I’ve expressed in this newest blog post.  It’s part of project I call “The Sticky Philosopher.”  You should visit the website:  www.stickyphilosopher.com.  (Please note the website is not endorsed by any political parties and no lobbyists have offered me a dime to  distort my perspective).

 

Building a Perspective

As an artist, I’m occasionally asked where ideas for my art and poetry writing come from.  It’s as if there might be a tap-root going from my brain to a well of ideas that get pumped up like spring water.  If that was the case, my well would go dry and I’d have periods without having ideas which compel me to make art or write.

I trip up over many ideas for art and writing while taking care of the mostly mundane chores of daily living.  I am certain there’s always something waiting to be noticed right in front of me.  If I don’t notice anything it’s because I’ve become complacent.

In order to work as an artist I must also be a marketer, website builder, studio maintenance man, shipping expert and accountant. (Even with doing all of this I would not be able to continue without a remarkable spouse).  So I use various website tools with the goal of letting others learn about my work.  I blog and have several websites for various projects (Zeorlinart.com for my mixed media art, StickyPhilosopher.com for my social commentary art and  http://gzeorlin.wix.com/stickyphilosopher  for other social commentary art).  I have a Face Book page (rarely used), recently joined Pinterest and occasionally send content to “StumbleUpon.com” when I remember to do it.  I’m a late joiner for using various website tools that must be used carefully so my ideas are not poisoned.  Of course, what’s poison to me might be cake to another.

Through my art and poetry I’m slowly building the perspective I offer to others as an artist.  Most of the time this work is challenging as I think about the ways I can experiment.  There are moments when unexpected comments from others reaffirm my work as an artist.  When you put it all together, it’s similar to picking up one brick at a time to build a structure which exceeds what I imagined it could be.  And this is the joy of being an artist.

Superimposing Fiction on Reality

No doubt my imaginary readership has waited for the next exciting addition to the Sticky Philosopher blog.  My last post was about how stories happen in daily life.  As a visual artist who likes to write, I’m often creating situations where my visual art tells some type of abstracted story.  I use to avoid reading fiction as I thought my life as an artist had enough fiction in it.  After all, my ideas develop from responses to the world as well as the awareness of what goes on in my imaginary world.  A healthy imagination is not something to take for granted.

I have included an image in this post which superimposes my imaginative artist world with reality.  I’ll not explain the photograph and leave much up to your imagination.  Perhaps you’ll tell me a story about this image.  Or I’ll just imagine a pretend blog reader posting a comment about this photograph.

Click to see more mergers of fiction and reality

How Stories Begin

We have stories about our lives that we tell later in time.  When they begin happening they may not even be recognized as stories.  We make choices to get a story going and are its characters and not the author.   It’s not that we don’t have some control over what we do.  But these are not stories we rehearse for a play.  We incorporate ourselves into our stories until the plot is almost instinctual.

Once the story of some event or situation has concluded we might not even realize it is over for a while.  But the story debuts at some unforeseen moment.  Then we stop being a character in the story but are still not the author.  We transition into editors of our life stories.

As we account for what we did, the details provided as well as left out, shapes the story.  Some details change in priority based upon how we deliver the story.  A written account of a story often differs from a verbal rendition.  For example, the responses from listeners could queue different details being included in a verbal delivery of a story.  So these stories continue being edited and revised over time.

Does the story eventually change enough that it is nothing like the original?  This often happens and the story becomes part truth and part fiction.  Such stories have the potential to become familiar within a given group who often create other versions.

But most of our life stories start in unassuming ways.  We are going somewhere or have something to get done.  Most of what we do each day is straight forward.  And within all these days that often seem so similar, a story begins that makes life an evolving mystery.