Topic #46--"Kiss" Entry

a kiss in passing.

"just a random memory i had of a few years ago, i was with a girl at the time that would, at times, be emotionally distant. we had just gotten her tattoos finished and i said okay so what do you want now?

she smiled, pulled me close, kissed me, and said ive got everything that i want.

it was a good time."

Topic #46--"Kiss" Entry

From Tricia!:

7x12----the base is a cover of an old book

"This photograph is one that I have had for years now in a folder, tucked away. It is a copy of the original I restored for an old boyfriend's grandmother years ago. This is the grandmother, Pearl, and her then boyfriend who would later be called PopPop by their many grandchildren. I loved Pearl and when that long relationship ended with me wanting to move back to Virginia, I missed his family more than I did him. Especially Pearl. We would take trips into Atlantic City (the boyfriend and I were in Pt. Pleasant, NJ) and I would watch her play the slot machines. What a fun, spunky woman! I find that as I get older---I have my 35th birthday very soon---and my thoughts turn to aging I think of her and feel encouraged. She was such an amazing woman who didn't let a small thing like age stand in her way.
On the art piece I tore a few pages from an old book and one had the handwritten words "Mary E. Bailey" so I glued it on. I also used wallpaper, acrylic paints and oil pastels. Charcoal pencil. Crepe paper-my first attempt at a rosette. Words clipped from several old books. "She walked between the avenue of young trees for a short distance. "Friendship is not enough," he said."

Topic #46--"Kiss" Entry

From Peggi!

Topic #46--"Kiss" Entry

Welcome to Cheryl! Her entry!:

Topic #46--"Kiss" Entry

Welcome to Sherrie! Her entry!:

the kiss
"sallie and bob find each other"

Topic #46--"Kiss" Entry

From Darcy!:

"Butterfly Kisses" D. Altaville c.2007
Nothing Sweeter! And it can be yours by going to my Art n Joy etsy shop!

Topic #46--"Kiss" Entry

From Carla!:

Kiss the Sky 16" x 20" x 1"
mixed media on wood panel

Purple haze all in my brain
Lately things just don't seem the same
Actin' funny, but I don't know why
'Scuse me while I kiss the sky

Purple haze all around
Don't know if I'm comin' up or down
Am I happy or in misery?
Whatever it is that girl put a spell on me

Purple haze all in my eyes
Don't know if it's day or night
You got me blowin', blowin' my mind
Is it tomorrow, or just the end of time?

- Jimi Hendrix (1942 - 1970)

I've been hearing this song in my head, on the radio, and from Jol's guitar for weeks now, and it inspired me to do this painting. It's not quite finished, but if you look closely, you might spy the song lyrics in the pattern of her dress, along with a few other "hidden" things.

Topic #46--"Kiss" Entry

From Ascenderrisesabove!:

Title: “Kiss The Sky”
Medium: Dry Pastels on Paper

Contact to Purchase a print.

~~~
~~~

’scuse me while I kiss the sky

Purple Haze, Jimi Hendrix

~~~
~~~

Topic #46--"Kiss"

"That Kiss" by Glenn Fry

Topic #45--"Urban" Entry

From Karen!:

"This theme was a bit of a stretch for me ... and yet I've been a city girl for the last 25 years. I was born and raised in a small town ... and hated every minute of it! I found I had no identity in a small town ... but in the city ... well maybe I'm more interesting because I'm eccentric LOL"

Topic #45--"Urban" Entry

From Tricia!:

"As I was going through a box of photos from my collage days in Atlanta I came across a manipulated SX-70 polaroid of one of my classmates. I always thought the shadow from his hair against the blue dumpster near the school looked like wings. Sad that try as I might I can't recall his name. I do however remember well those days of heating the polaroids with a hair dryer and moving the emulsion around with a burnishing tool. Someone mentioned to me that you can't buy the SX-70 film any longer. That's a sad thing cause it was so much fun.
I scanned this image into Photoshop and added some type and gave it a different edge."

Topic #45--"Urban" Entry

From Carla!:

"Downtown NY in the mid 70's was an exciting place to be if you were into music. In fact, it was an exciting place to be if you were in your 20's and feeling ready for just about anything. It was before the gentrification of the lower east side, before the city got cleaned up and polished, and it was gritty, scary, full of characters and full of possibilities. The "Summer of Sam" might have been a horror show for many, but for me... it was a pageant of energy and people and music.

A place that figured largely in my experiences in NY at that time was CBGB. I saw lots of great - and not so great - bands play there, but it was really the atmosphere that made it all happen. I remember when I saw The Ramones play there; I had never seen them play live, and I was over the top excited about it. I waited with a couple of friends for a few hours just so we could get front row seats. We ended up second in line, behind some hippie chick whose t-shirt was festooned with all kinds of punk buttons, including the requisite "Disco Sucks." Our patience was rewarded with up-front seats next to Legs McNeill and some other person from Punk Magazine and an unobstructed view up Joey Ramone's nose. The music was beyond loud and so relentlessly fast that it impossible to resist the urge to pogo. We even left with a door prize: ringing in our ears that persisted for days. There was no doubt about it...It was an awesome show!

So I got out the step ladder and rummaged through my old journals on the top shelf in my office closet (yep...they're in the "out of circulation" section), and found an entry about that show and some people I knew who were into the scene downtown at the time. Above is a picture of me and a girl named Alison that I sketched to go with the following entry written January 24, 1978. I did alter it by adding the background after I scanned it from my journal.

Alison is a nice girl, but she looks like a scolded mole. Big nose, long bleached blonde shag, terrible posture, and a perpetual apologetic expression. I ran into her in the florist's the other day. I was buying flowers to enhance a sit-down dinner for ten, and she was buying flowers for Joey Ramone's quick recovery. A teapot blew up in his face. Very strange. I can't picture him drinking tea."

Topic #45--"Urban" Entry

From Ian!:

urban : ink, crayon & ink wash

"what do I remember about London? the buildings bearing down, the homeless big issue sellers, big mac packages strewn about, the sodium streetlight glow, and you're never more than eight feet from a rat!

I'd been doing a bit of diy today and wasn't intending on doing much else afterwards yet I had this pad of (cheapo cheapo) memo paper in front of me on the desk and I thought I'd sketch out a few ideas for the prompt this sunday, and this is what came out of the flow. The paper's thin and it cockled like crazy under the wash but I didn't mind this time. I resisted the huge temptation to crop and give it a tidy border; rough around the edges is how I see urban."

Topic #45--Urban

Topic #44--"Paper" Entry

From Patrick!:

i was thinking about how much of myself ive put onto paper in my life, each blank page filled with parts of me.

that and how i love buying new sketchbooks, the thrill of a new start, new possibilities, wondering what im going to fill it with. and then, go back to ones that ive filled years ago and read what i wrote and look at the art and remember things that i had been going through at the time.

Topic #44--"Paper" Entry

From Ian!:

same old story : photo montage/photoshop

Learn some real skills, it says. (is that Sean Connery?)
Draw back from extreme jobs... It's an omen!

Topic #44--"Paper" Entry

From Patri!:

Paper Planes.
"When I was young I was fascinated by the paper planes others made, not being so very succesful at them myself. The sleek and fine ones that flew and the clumsy heavy ones that divebombed immediately. Normally they were always white made of scrap paper, some would decorate the wings with biro. This is how I would imagine they´d looked nowdays with all the coloured paper we have.
This was a small acrylic painting that I eventually scanned and changed a little."

Available to buy as a limited print.

Topic #44--"Paper" Entry

From Laura!:

"Paper Dreams", journal, mixed media collage 12x12

An idea that I hastily jotted down earlier this week when I seen the topic for this week paper, came to life this morning in my journal. It's been a while since I felt like *playing* in it and it was so fun & quick to do, everything flowed intuitively which doesn't happen all the time for me. What made me think of a paper plane? I have no idea - but I do know that they're fun, whimsical, easy to make and who doesn't want to fly one now & then? =)

Also, I've been thinking a lot about dreams lately, how things manifest themselves in our lives and how powerful our thoughts and words are. At the beginning of this year when I started on my artistic journey, I came across this quote and it resonated with me very much - I thought of it as I finished this piece:

"Imagination is stronger than knowledge. Myth is more potent than history. Dreams are more powerful than fact. Hope always triumphs over experience. Love is stronger than death. It’s been said that each of us can influence up to 250 people in our lifetimes. How will you be influential? Be bold, and mighty unseen forces will come to your aid.” -- Robert Fulgham

Topic #44--"Paper" Entry

From Johnnynorms!:

"You won't see anything new on my blog if I keep getting irate with it and tearing it up. This one is barely salvaged with a bit of scanning treatment. Oh well...perhaps there'll be something tomorrow. Now I'm going to be very cheeky and submit this to ArtWords, for the week's PAPER theme. Note: This wasn't a set up!"

Topic #44--"Paper" Entry

From Peggi!:

Paper Moon

What works best with a paper moon? Why a paper doll of course!

I never feel a thing is real
When I'm away from you
Out of your embrace
The world's a temporary parking place
Mmm, mm, mm, mm
A bubble for a minute
Mmm, mm, mm, mm
You smile, the bubble has a rainbow in it
Say, its only a paper moon
Sailing over a cardboard sea
But it wouldn't be make-believe
If you believed in me
Yes, it's only a canvas sky
Hanging over a muslin tree
But it wouldn't be make-believe
If you believed in me
Without your love
It's a honky-tonk parade
Without your love
It's a melody played in a penny arcade
It's a Barnum and Bailey world
Just as phony as it can be
But it wouldn't be make-believe
If you believed in me

Words by Billy Rose, Yip Harburg, and Harold Arlen, 1933...(silly old song =)

Topic #44--"Paper" Entry

From Aileen!:

"Finally some play time! I created my "Bug" piece using glossy photo paper, color mists and chalk inks...a bit different for me but it was nice to finally get my hands dirty and play."

Topic #44--"Paper" Entry

From AscenderRisesAbove! Be sure to check out her blog for the full post (click on her link in the participant's list):

Title: “The Yellow Wallpaper” Inspiration
Medium: Colored Pencil on Hand Marbeled (by Tom West) paper

Purchase Print in Ascender’s Etsy Store. Now accepting PayPal.
More Ascender’s Collage and Mixed Media

Topic #44--"Paper" Entry

A big, warm welcome to my friend Rande! Her entry!:

"I chose to only use patterned paper, with the exception of the eggs. It reminded me of the kind of art we used to do grade school. And believe it or not, it was a lot of fun!"

Topic #44--"Paper" Entry

From Christine!:

Topic #44--Paper

Topic #43--"Passage" Entry

Here is my entry, an ATC entitled "Mausoleum." The doorway is a photo transfer.

Topic #43--"Passage" Entry

From Palasandra!:

"This picture is for the artwords theme Having just recently been operated on my twilight thoughts were the light and tunnel that people talk about, Is it the same as when you are first going under anesthetic I wonder. I always have a problem because of my asthma, this occasion memories of my life flashed before me, only for a few seconds or who knows how long. But I was considering these things and wondered if it because the brain is becoming inactive and works backwards in time. Is it only a passage into the unknown from which we return? One of life´s great mysteries."

Topic #43--"Passage" Entry

From Patri:!

"This painting represents the voyage or passage into the subconscious through mediation or visualisation in search of inspiration.
The imagage is part acrylic on paper, then manipulated on the computer."

Topic #43--"Passage" Entry

From Patrick!:

"this prompt is one of those few that dovetail so well with whats going on in my life.

i was cleaning the other day and found some old writings and photos. the pics were from the late ninties and early oughts.

in the ones depicted i was 19 and 22.

my mother has this saying:

time passes wether you make good use of it or not... so you might as well make good use of it.

i hadnt, i didnt for awhile after highschool, i just drifted from 97 to 01 and then finally got my act together.

and i did well despite blow after blow.
for the longest time i let the fear of the future hold me back, and the i finally made a decision to make a plan, to choose a path, and it was, well, a mistake.

it failed.

ive never been good with change or the unknown, and so i fell apart again/

and i let time pass despite some feeble attempts to hold my life together.

and then i remembered something i paraphrased once...

... that life invariabily bears its own cost, and that it is up to each and every one of us to make sure that we live in such a matter that it is worth the price."

Topic #43--"Passage"

From Izabella!:

Time passes through the endless mazes,
shapes of life, assorted phases.
Adding, subtracting. With countless
measures of love we welcome the newly born.
With endless accounts of sorrow
we bury death, and then we mourn.
We laugh, we weep, we sigh,
But still we don't understand what it is to die.
Time passages, tunneled deep within the womb.
Hallowed by the mere existance of natures tomb.
Beginning to end to begin again
Living to be loved and forgotten in the end.
~Daneen Dustin

Topic #43--"Passage"

From Peggi!:

"For Artwords this week, "Passages" ... My husband recently visited San Francisco and took a couple of photos (with his cell phone) while he was there ... anyway, I combined, collaged and PaintShopped them, and ended up with this digital/mixed media collage ... I like the idea of "passages" even though I know that sometimes in themselves they can be sad ... Arrivals, departures...Hellos and good-byes...Our lives are continually made up of these things...The process, I suppose, sums up our lives and it is through these "passages" we grow - hopefully stronger than we were before ..."

Topic #43--"Passage"

From Tricia!:

"The passage of time is what first came to mind. I knew that whatever I made had to either use tape or sewing since I don't have glue. Or staples. In the end I didn't use either. I printed out a photo onto a sheet of 8.5 x 11 paper that I had previously aged using this cool coffee technique. I wrote in pencil a quote by Ishikawa Takuboku---"Like a kite cut from a string Lightly the soul of my youth has taken flight." I added a bit of white charcoal and some pencil doodles. A very simple piece."

Be sure to visit Tricia's blog for more information on the coffee technique.

Topic #43--"Passage" Entry

From Zenmomma!:

"My piece is a mixed media collage that I made for my daughter's Rite of Passage ceremony a few weeks ago. It was a very special event and this was "art from the heart" about her passage from childhood to the next part of her life's journey."

Topic #43--"Passage" Entry

From Carla!:

Untitled
16" x 16" x 1" mixed media on cradled wood panel
'Tis but hide and seek we play
In and out the courts of time.
- George William Russell (1867 - 1935)

This is the painting I am showing in an upcoming exhibit called "Word-Art," which explores the synergy between writing and the visuals arts. When I received the prospectus for the show, I immediately thought of how wonderful it would be to work with a poet whose work resonates with me in a very real and meaningful way. This poem, which inspired the painting, so beautifully explores something I think about often - "the irregular circle of life" and finding the way home.

The Irregular Circle of Life

You’d have to say the beginning
starts when you
first notice light,
squinting your eyes
strained in the first minutes to make
sense of voices and shapes
set in those bobbing circles
that want you to know,
and try to reach you from within.

From the beginning your turns are
every which way,depending
on how hard you hit the walls
and how softly you bounce off them.
The same circles and shapes protect
or abandon you during those bounces.
It makes a difference
because the hardest bounces don’t heal well
and the soft ones push you forward.

Those bounces spiral
and build upon eachother
until maybe when you are twelve
you smoke a cigarette or
sneak that candy bar in your backpack
and that’s another beginning
because you have begun
little deceptions you can call your own.

In those moments you know
but can’t describe the sweetness and light
you will revisit for all of your life.
In those moments
you decide
the shape of the circle--
the vessel really—
that will carry you home

Some of your turns
are as wide as every possible outcome
and others so narrow
you squeeze by,
your breath compacted so tightly,
that when it cannot expand
you know you just have to move
or you will be in that space forever.

The day your boundaries blur
and you find yourself drifting--
on that day another beginning
carries you to the spot where
destiny meets opportunity.
And there you are,
wondering again
who wants you to know,
and why it matters.

When you grow up,
by some standard anyway,
your circle may be closed shut
so your community and beliefs
are safe and firm.
Or by then you have had
the misfortune, if it is that,
where little point a and little point b
fail to reach each other.

When that happens
you are born again,
again noticing light,
and squinting your eyes,
straining in the first minutes to make
sense of voices and shapes
that want you to know,
that want to reach you from within.

And at that moment,
if you are lucky enough,
the irregular circle that lacks a beginning
and lacks an end
and fails to protect,
this circle that is broken —
this irregular circle--
becomes a portal for
every step you will now take,
for every mystery and
every vision
that every person
who ever loved you
will tell you
if they could
is the truest straightest way
to guide your way home.

- Karen Jasper

Topic #43--"Passage" Entry

From Ascenderrisesabove!:

Title: “Help Yourself ”
Medium: Collage, Mixed Media, Altered Art

Contact Ascender for purchase info.

“The human body experiences a powerful gravitational pull in the direction of hope. That is why the patient’s hopes are the physician’s secret weapon. They are the hidden ingredients in any prescription.”

Norman Cousins

Topic #43--Passage

"Blue Door" by Dan Heller

Topic #42--"Poetry" Entry

From Wendy!:

Orange: I'm not quite certain if this journal quilt is totally finished but will try to squeeze it in yet for artwords whose theme for this week has been poetry. Though some of the words to "what a wonderful world" are on the quilt I was spending a lot of time thinking about the poem I wrote called "Orange" as I was making it.
The photos are of my Dad, my Mom and brother, and then my brother and me. Family is very important to me, for those of you not yet aware of that. Though I grew up with "Orange", I never would have been able to get to the place I am without the love and support of my wonderful family.


When I was a child
With diabetes,
I grew to hate
The colour orange.
The sugar in my body
Needed testing.
Orange
Meant sugar,
Too much Sugar.

And now -
I envision lines,
And lines,
And lines,
In the record book,
Lines of orange.

As a child with Diabetes
What
Went through my mind
About these lines of orange
In the Record Book?
They were always present.

I probably did not even recognize
Any interspersal of beautiful blue,
Or calming green.
Striving For perfection?
Who Me?
Striving to erase all those lines,
Of orange,
Which could never
Be erased.
Striving to erase the lines
Of imperfection
Which would be
Forever
Part of me.

Today -
I can truly appreciate
The colour orange.
Now I understand
It represents joy.
I work towards Joy.
I strive for it.
I strive
For more imperfection.
The striving
Is not easy.

Forever will live in me -
Those lines and lines
Of the colour orange.

Topic #42--"Poetry" Entry

From Darcy!:

This is what I get
when I try to paint my love to you
Overflowing color
with the light peeking through.
There is no beginning
as there is no end
You won't see any order
just the feelings of a friend.
You see, my love
takes many shapes and forms.
The lines are sometimes broken
as sometimes hearts are torn.
It may seem chaotic
as life can often be
You see, my love
won't fit neatly on the page,
it has no boundaries.
It may seem naive,
not a fine piece of art.
The technique might be slightly off
as are matters of the heart.
But please take it as a token,
a reminder of a friend,
who holds you close
within her soul
until the very end.
D. Altaville c.2000

This is a from a card I made for my hub way back in 2000. I came across it recently, in the archives and thought it fit well with the Artwords Poetry theme.

Topic #42--"Poetry" Entry

From Peggi!:

"My favorite all-time poet is Robert Louis Stevenson - I loved having his poems read to me when I was a child; and later, when I grew up, I enjoyed reading them again - to my own children (and yes, sometimes even to myself late at night when I can't sleep =) ... This poem in particular, entitled "To Any Reader" is my very favorite. In my very old copy of "A Child's Garden of Verses" this one is the poem I would ask my mom to read to me over and over again ... very sentimental, I know, but Stevenson's poetry does do that to me ... Oh well =) Anyway, I've included a pic of my childhood home in St. Louis and a copy of pictures of me when I was little and being happily spoiled rotten in the Lou (the handsome young man behind me in the photo on the sliding board is my wonderful big bro)."