Collaborate.
Over the last three months, artists who have produced collaborative work have gotten my attention. Top three?
–State by State- a panoramic portrait of America
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White forest.
(Coon Rapids, MN)
As an oil painter, i recognize an ongoing dilemma: are black and white colors or merely shades of color? Well after all these years, I still will not decide. I know I still like to mix appropriate colors for black, instead of ever using the tube labeled ‘black,’ and think that white does not actually lighten a color. An image intended for the subject and viewers’ transition among two, three, and four- dimensional spaces look extremely flat and emotionless if ‘black’ is added into a palette. White mixed in anything cannot correct the accidental results of pale, pastel colors- unless you’re going for that bubble-gum taste. In a black and white painting- or a black and white photograph in this case- the value of colors are still an emphasis but without muddying intentions.
I feel that black describes a dark substance- having ability to absorb surrounding colors. If its elements are made up of a variety of colors, would black, as a whole, become a color? White may reflect the wavelengths of the colors some people see, but the ability to mirror color is exponentially miraculous. An entity first must be before its mirror image is to show?
This leads me to share what i saw while walking on a trail near my parents’ house today. I would have to say the center subject of this image is a shrub presented in the foreground of the photograph. I admire its dark and whimsical being- yet possessing strength to hold the weight of light. The background: black trees lined by white snow, black stream speckled with white light, and black figures supported by white grounds. I’ll leave it up to you, the viewer, to think about how to relay, compare and contrast this information to my self- portrait. It is in the minute details that explain how i’ve been feeling this novembre.
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Ten lives.
Nine months, you said
you wanted to stay.
On the hour, you stay
in the warmth of your health.
Adding second to second
for a joyful framework.
I imagine
you
feel isolated from the outside.
Food nourishes your ear drums
to listen to sounds,
i hope.
My dear, they are melodies for languages.
What you choose to tune into are yours.
You are not alone.
What we long for- I will pray to let go-
to let your choice come back to love
me.
It is painful.
But only because the deep, red thickness of your blood
has been filled with other colors.
Blues, yellows wire through veins and tangle between cells
of red inside an organ as the heart.
If these colors are forced to dilute the depth,
do not be deceived
by the mind trying to lighten the weight
with worthless threads of satisfaction.
Remember that your blood will be mudied- with strokes of gold illuminating your red darkness.
You can filter the collection of the blues, yellows, and reds
as the concentrate
settle
at the bottom of your heart.
The density of these emotions pull and stretch the wires
lined by veins.
Do not cut
this ache- the only connection
you have to the ability to see
meaning of blues, yellows, and reds in the world.
(Helena, MT)
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Steady flight.
After leaving my job in September, i earned back my wings to fly. I jumped from tree to tree to overcome a fear of heights. Today, i have no fear.
A special thanks to the Fors family for their amazing high- flying spirits. Shane, Catherine, and i got a private viewing of the wide Mississippi River at its crest, reflecting southern Minnesota’s colorful glow in its final leaves of the skeleton forests, miniature hay bales among groomed farmland, and houses enclosed by limestone bluffs linking flooded basins. Our entire adventure from the car to the miniature airplane was fantastic.
An extended thanks to everyone who has been flying with me this last month and a half. It has been a blessing to know such loving family and friends. I hope you enjoy today’s view. May we continue to fly together.
(Bay City, Wisconsin – Red Wing, Minnesota)
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Mom let me read the newspaper with Dad ever since i was three. Well news has it i still can’t pronounce all the Vietnamese and French words without him here. Luckily she lets me keep trying.
Every day i play with Pablo Neruda to help me see why it’s not so scary to keep dreaming with Maurice Sendak. We’re real serious when we are conversing with Paul Pimsleur about the blueprint of our treehouse with Pete Nelson and on building kilns with Frederick Olson. All of us end up walking in circles that question our drawings, paintings, sculptures, pottery, plantings, and writings with Joseph Campbell. I guess it’s also not so bad if we just leave these creations be, at least that’s what Roland Barthes is trying to get us to consider. But don’t worry, we are not always this intense because our minds are not constantly on work with Khalil Gibran. It really is a good thing which means we have more time to be a kid with Friedrich Nietzche no matter how old we grow. Sometimes we even take trips with Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway around the world! Everyone realizes what a ride it is to be personally learning how to teach and teaching how to learn with Hermann Hesse. By the time we all visit home we appreciate having a family tree thanks to Louise Erdrich, because we wouldn’t have understood family happiness had we passed on catching up with Leo Tolstoy. We know the perks of spending too much time harvesting from Wendell Berry’s land for mixing lots of ingredients with Jalalu’ddin Rumi for meals. My siblings and i see that our family is crazy when we still gather ‘round at the end of a long day to tell stories that give us as big of goosebumps as R. L. Stine’s. If William Shakespeare’s home, he usually kills the mood with his beautiful tragedies that make us cry to sleep. At least it gets us to go to bed with Sigmund Freud. Before we all fall into a slumber, we pray for the night like Elie Wiesel reminded us, and find the awakening with Kate Chopin to be worth a thousand plus moonrises with Marilynne Robinson. It’s incredible to live one more day in joy with Colin Cote.
When i am with family and friends like these, my Vietnamese and French progresses new experiences from memories of my dad.
(Anoka, MN)
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State Street- Howard
Miss, your elegance is dressed by a long overcoat.
Even though your cuffs are torn
and the front of the black is gray,
i love how that metal jewel shines on your nose.
I could not but see your steady pace-
among
the casual twenty year olds
scurrying on their way.
You walk in the center of their shadows
and winds
created by what seem to be a flock
of birds clearing the platform for
one
dime- sized piece of bread,
only to sit down again on the bench
and wait for the next train to stop.
The humility is worthy like the tattered pieces
of writing in your plastic bag-
next to the ones in your canvas bag-
and the ones in the bag inside your jacket
front.
Miss,
i don’t intend to offend you if i do
but these dollars are for you
to tatter.
I said not one word, made no eye contact,
offered all i had between her important papers
and walked onto the train
coming and going the opposite direction.
(Chicago, IL)
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Dare Nike
4 september 2010
“I can’t decide if i should say, ‘No,’ or, ‘Just do it!’ Ah- fifth grade and pop culture got me confused!”
“It’s so hard to understand society sometimes and what you are supposed to learn from it. How do you be responsible when Dare tells you to say, ‘No,’ and Nike tells you to, ‘Just do it!?'”- Aremy
it is amazing when people can read your mind- when they read in between the silences of what was already said days, weeks, or months ago. When i’m not very good at my verbal communication skills- i am so thankful for the people who know exactly what my scatterbrain intends to say.
(St. Joseph, MN)
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Restrepo
18 august 2010
Check this out: http://restrepothemovie.com/
I spent the night watching trailers/documentaries with my friend, Josh, who trained with Restrepo before they both went to separate locations for missions. I have a lot of respect for Josh in his insights about the war and combat, and i appreciate his view of medicine, art, and people around the globe. At one point in the night, he commented on the trailer corresponding to a personal experience, “There are people who are paid to go around and make sure all of the uniform is worn properly at all times. Once while driving, we were told to pull over and stop because our gloves were off. You know it’s serious combat when you see footage of soldiers out of uniform in sandals and artillery vests. They don’t waste time on things that do not matter.”
We continued to watch Sebastian Junger’s interview and book reading of his Sundance winning film. It was one of the most honest and life changing learning moments i have ever experienced. After Junger spent time interviewing and filming on site at a post in Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, he spoke about the project on how soldiers in combat find it hard to go back to civilian life. I am particularly interested in this topic because i have family and friends who are affected by combat in Afghanistan or Iraq. Junger mentions it is not the adrenaline they perceive as the main difficulty in the transition, as some studies have reasoned, but it is that they don’t want to be in a society where people unknown to life and death situations are ruling those who need to make those decisions every second over a long stretch of time. People don’t understand what it means to die for one another, even if they absolutely hate their brother. When soldiers go up to the remote combat areas they lose connection to everything and they only have each other to keep sane. But when they go back to civilian life, where there is no need for them, they feel the need to re-sign, to feel like they need to be useful for a sole purpose: to help their brothers. That is how they control one thing: fear. Fear is constructed when someone is not trained to handle their subconscious. Now i am not an advocate of war or any political developments nonetheless, I only hope my summary will be of some help to get whoever reading to a theater and catch a showing to respond.
Unfortunately, Josh and i couldn’t find a showing near us… we know there’s a visual aspect missing from the powerful, arduous message.
(Collegeville, MN)
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Attractive versus attracted
14 August 2010
After being in a long distance relationship for only three months, it is fascinating (and scary) to see how certain qualities of local friendships become attractive. One of the things that could be happening is that i see the person who i love in everyone else, which casts a shadow on minute details of other individuals. I read into a person by means to have allowed myself to become misplaced by ornate personalities. But luckily it has helped me sort the difference and connection between the attractiveness of an individual and being attracted to someone.
It is not to say that i don’t love every quality of my friends, because i do. My friends have ways to unwrap responses, dialogue, questions, and meandering reminiscences that make it possible for that inner lining of the fabrication of our human beings to select layers of fibers. These fibers are to weave together a colorful sheet to wrap our exterior beings from being damaged and preserved from the harsh world. These moments create a collection of attractive components which keep me intrigued and in search for other layers within a person’s personalities. There is an exchange in excitement, joy, anger, fear, and sadness which endeared me to each friend’s spirit. So i would say that my friends are attractive in this way. But then i create a fear for my sense of their attractiveness possibly mutating into a question of being attracted to them.
I am human and believe this fear will spontaneously linger yet doesn’t actualize until a choice corresponds in an action. So it is not to say that i don’t love a particular person in an intimate relationship, because i do. I have (formerly) chosen to be attracted to a single person’s attractive codes of conduct which (presently) places me in a series of other curiosities. It’s like being able to share those wrapping sheets of color by taking time to internally and externally create impressionable patterns which circulate the layers…
(St. Joseph, MN)
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She shares
12 August 2010
My best friend is a good listener and someone who gives challenges when we have those days of frustration, anxiety, happiness, love, and doubt in the never ending series of questions. In such a light, whiffle tone- she reminded me today, “When you look up at the stars, the light is beautiful. But it is in the dark spaces in between that are terrifying. It’s the endless spaces which causes anxiety.”
I replied only to agree that the light surrounding the spaces is kind enough to be guardians in time of darkness. But there was something intriguing about the endless spaces being present that did not cause anxiety once we did recognize the existing anxieties.
“There’s something else in the atmosphere tonight. I wonder if it’s the electricity from all the lightning storms and new breezes passing by that trigger something in the soul to move and dance, in a way it never has before.”
And i thought she was damn spot on. Lighting strikes in one spot- but its currents move around. Moving around for us to feel something tonight. And boy did i feel like dancing, stomping, turning on the music, yelling, crying, laughing, and breathing.
You should really get to know her. She shares beautiful things.
(St. Joseph, MN)
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the eventide 