fine.here.

stay.really.

I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love, put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
A taper in a rushing wind.

Sara Teasdale, American Lyrical Poet (1884-1933)

oh.myheart.

More Beethoven, if you'd like -- two sonatas I've enjoyed sightreading (maybe not quite at tempo...)

Sonata No. 27, Op. 90,
I. Mit Lebhaftigkeit und durchaus mit Empfindung und Ausdruck (With liveliness and with feeling and expression throughout)

Sonata No. 32, Op. 111,
I. Maestoso

sigh.

I am free of love as a bird flying south in the autumn,
Swift and intent, asking no joy from another,
Glad to forget all of the passion of April
Ere it was love-free.

I am free of love, and I listen to music lightly,
But if he returned, if he should look at me deeply,
I should awake, I should awake and remember
I am my lover’s.

Sara Teasdale, American Lyrical Poet (1884-1933)

just.goaway.

This set is an updated continuation of seventy.eight-.nine.

suffering

Currently reading Walking on Water by Madeleine L'Engle. This section regarding suffering particularly spoke to me this week:

"We are tempted to try to avoid not only our own suffering but also that of our fellow human beings, the suffering of the world, which is part of our own suffering. ...The artist cannot hold back; it is impossible, because writing, or any other discipline of art, involves participation in suffering, in the ills and the occasional stabbing joys that come from being part of the human drama. We are hurt; we are lonely; and we turn to music or words, and as compensation beyond all price we are given glimpses of the world on the other side of time and space."

Suffering brings depth... affliction gives us a different perspective on life and provides a glimpse into another world, if we choose to allow it. I've been drawn to much of Beethoven's music lately. There is an artist who fully understood suffering -- Beethoven battled with painful inexplicable illness, alienation from normal relationships, a devastating loss of hearing... Yet all of that terrible suffering greatly deepened his compositions. One only needs to compare an early piano sonata (any from Opus 2, for example) with a late piano sonata (Opus 111) to hear the difference. His late piano sonatas are profound and other-worldly. The fifth movement from Beethoven's String Quartet 13 (in B-flat, Opus 130 - Cavatina: Adagio molto espressivo) is an intimate glimpse into Beethoven's personl suffering. Beethoven had been almost completely deaf for 10 years before he wrote Opus 130. He said of this particular movement: "When I think of the Cavatina, it still brings a tear to my eye." Almost 200 years later, Beethoven's composition still brings a tear to my eye - Beethoven addressed universal human suffering when he wrote Cavatina and thus provided a passage into another world.

So. All of this to challenge myself - to not hold back, to participate fully in my own and the world's suffering, to give generously of my art, musings, and heart, to care for other's pain before my own, to just live abundantly in suffering, joy, loneliness, love, heartache, pleasure, and pain.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort."
(2 Corinthians 1:3-7)

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Experimentation with translucent and thick acrylic.
The images are derived from a series of small graphite sketches I completed years ago. Actual size of each canvas = 12" x 16".

coming soon...

Finally! I started working on a series of paintings this evening. The technique is more messy // less controlling than usual, so they're coming along quickly. The six canvases are already about 90% finished. Creating something has been therapeutic in contrast to life which has been . . confusing, to say the least.

One reason I haven't painted or posted much lately is because I've been sight reading music voraciously. . . tonight the sudden, gloomy downpour created the perfect mood for a dark Rachmaninov etude -- Op. 39 No. 2, in A minor.

Tragedy, poignancy, heartbreak... the gentle theme speaks to secret pain. Triplets and displaced rhythm emphasize an ethereal, "lost in a mist" feeling... until the più vivo (devilishly difficult section). Subsequently, a shimmer of hope is heard in the brief E major section, but Rachmaninov then fully succumbs to despair, returning to the theme - rendered all the more tragic in contrast to the major section. The etude ends with a lovely dissonance - novel chords for this time. Incredible that a piece written nearly 100 years ago could still speak so intensely.