The Art of Danielle Boodoo-Fortune

pencil sketch #1

2012-02-25T16:09:00.003-08:00

Love and War :-)

2012-02-25T12:17:00.004-08:00

Did this for my boyfriend for Valentine's Day:) I think it's rather romantic myself.

I love doing these game-like renditions. Let me know if you want one.

Blessings.

drown.

2012-02-15T12:57:00.002-08:00

drown.

watercolour and pen.

Heartstrings

2012-02-13T20:00:00.000-08:00

Earrings and other things

2012-02-12T07:51:00.000-08:00

Oh, how I love earrings. They've always been my favourite accessory. It's something about the nearness to the jaw, the way it becomes almost part of the face. I made this pair just before Christmas, with beads, buttons and circles cut from leather. I'm beginning to love making little things by hand, whether they be cardboard cutouts, beaded accessories or people made from clay. There is something intimate, almost secret, about the act of making something with my hands. With each day, each act of making, I feel more myself, a presence more real within my body. Even when it is difficult, there is always this, and it is enough.

Letter

2012-02-11T04:33:00.000-08:00

"I thought I heard you calling,

but it was only the same ebb

of my blood, this same heart

rushing nowhere, just as you

left it."

The Clay Lady

2012-02-04T21:17:00.000-08:00

Today I randomly ended up buying a couple of pounds of clay. I didn't leave home with the intention of getting clay, but it happened along the way, somehow. I've never really dabbled much in clay, save for one misshapen mermaid sculpture in secondary school. I sat in the yard and whacked it about for awhile. It was quite a challenge to keep the dogs from eating it.

So from start to finish, The Clay Lady took about six hours. The act of forcing the shape into being, then honing the finer details, felt so unexpectedly good and satisfying. I took some pics with my phone along the way, because I found the process quite interesting. Glad I did!!

Painting the clay lady red.

And this is the Clay Lady, completed. There are wire hearts blooming from her belly. One of these days I will take her out into the garden and snap some proper pics of her.

~D

On art, and being me.

2012-02-03T17:59:00.000-08:00

You know, I've come to think of myself as both a dear, familiar friend and a slightly unsettling stranger. By the time I was halfway into the collection of poetry I now tentatively consider complete, there was this overwhelming sense of being at sea. I felt reduced to a pair of wide eyes and raw senses. There were these levels of internal dialogue happening, to the point where it was difficult to speak or to interact with others. I am beginning to think I will never quite get beyond this feeling of being unable to speak aloud. But it's okay. I'd always thought that understanding myself would come in a concrete and discernible way, but instead, it has come slowly, strangely, and without words or explanation. I think this shows in the things I make as well. Half-past twenty five, I am realizing how much of myself is bound up in my art and poetry, and I am so grateful for the ability to speak without saying.

Working on these two, now. They're almost done... scans to come soon.

Dani

12 Artists for 2012

2012-01-31T17:35:00.000-08:00

....and this incredibly exciting thing today!! Check the link out... awed to be here, among these fantastic artists. Good omen for the new(ish) year!! :)

http://www.facebook.com/notes/james-hackett/12-artists-for-2012-part-1-of-3/10150563305172904

You are a poem...

2012-01-31T09:22:00.000-08:00

...a sudden song shuddering

among flowers."

‘Half-Broken Things’: the illustrations of Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné

2012-01-30T18:18:00.000-08:00

Dr. Lea Haynes looks at my illustrations, and the result is this lovely, memorable piece. I am awed. I am excited. I feel like a five year old.

Give it a read! :) Link's below:

http://arcthemagazine.com/arc/2012/01/half-broken-things%E2%80%99-the-illustrations-of-danielle-boodoo-fortune/

And randomly here is a magical photo of the new back garden in the evening light. Josh's hand-made (literally) stone walkway seems to be winding into some forgotten world...

Blessings
~D

The Dress

2012-01-29T19:34:00.000-08:00

Pastel, pen and ink, and collage. The skirt is made of tissue paper.

I think these photographs don't really do it justice. But here it is nonetheless.

Cardboard Fairies

2012-01-27T06:10:00.000-08:00

I made these small pretties last night. The shapes are made from cardboard, cut from old appliance boxes. The butterflies are attached, and they do flutter just a bit :). I detailed the silhouettes, and tagged with a little line of my poetry. I think they're lovely to hang from doorknobs, or just whimsically around the room, like visiting fairies.

This year, I'm going to go, artistically, wherever my feeling leads me... to grasp each little glimmer, and to run with it. This is a good start, I think.

If anyone feels these are particularly special, email or message me... I'm thinking of mailing them out into the world:)

Until,

Dani <3

Postal Art

2012-01-22T12:51:00.000-08:00

Have you checked the Postal Art project out?

http://postal-art.tumblr.com/
http://www.postalarttrinidad.com/

Here are my submissions: two little bird ladies.

Floweriness

2012-01-17T07:38:00.000-08:00

Can't hate on flowers, right? :)

The Year the Tree Stopped Bearing

2012-01-11T06:52:00.000-08:00

...then the trees

you thought so

innocent

shed all their leaves

in mourning

blew in

skeletal

beneath my bed

that sixteenth year

a warning.

too many hands

2012-01-07T12:25:00.000-08:00

I'm craving simplicity. Clean, bold lines. I love this drawing for that same reason, and also because of the strong, simple idea. Too many hands round your neck, round your decisions. Pretty hands, hands that love and mean well, but suffocate nonetheless. It's a reminder of the need to be free, and to be creatively true to myself, in art and in life.

I am not finished with my bird ladies yet, but taking a necessary break to work on some paying projects. (yay for those!) I'm still learning the importance of giving ideas room to breathe and grow, and not strangling them with fear or enthusiasm. I'm prone to that, yup.

Growth is good, and it's just the right season for it. So here's this drawing, and a bit of poem I've been working on.

Be well.

I am trying to write a new poem

one that will not read

like a drawn out sigh

one that needn’t be worn

on my chest like a handprint, slow-

blooming bruise, long, feral cry

a new poem,

one that will not chase me

further from my home

...

a january day...

2012-01-03T16:52:00.000-08:00

Today I wandered about my yard with the camera. The house was eerily quiet in the aftermath of the Christmas/ New Year chaos. My mother was puttering about in the garden, and we joined her. I snapped these throughout the day, for no specific reason that I can think of, except that I wanted to.

My Kev on the roof against the wide open sky. The sun is blazing overhead.

My odd blue toes, and the remains of missiles that flew into the yard on Old Years' night. There were at least four or five of them. We even found one of our dogs with half a rocket in his mouth. Sigh.

All kindsa life forms in mommy's plant pot.

A lovely dead thing, a few hours before it was uprooted.

An exceptionally beautiful cluster on the Crown of Thorns.

A spot on the wall that was just plain pretty:)

One of my brother Joshua's interesting twist-tie warriors hanging from the candelabra.

An afternoon of small flowers <3

There are sharp things in the ground

and her hands are soft

yet she never wears gloves.

Kev and the dead tree. I realize now that there is a sense of mourning about this.

The light is starting to fade by now.

His hands, when he does not realize I am looking <3

The fir tree illuminated in the last flare of evening's light

Rain beneath the streetlight. It comes suddenly and fiercely.

and the last of the light is gone.

To many more days like this.

Have a lovely January.

Blessings,

gratitude and small blessings :)

2012-01-02T19:07:00.000-08:00

Happy 2012!!
I've declared this the year of gratitude and small blessings. :)

This pair of wee, dreamy collages I made for my mumsy for Christmas. They are custom made for her bright green and turquoise walls. They are meant to bring plain joy and contentment on days when she may need it. I have two others in the works for my mother-in-law, in warm orangey and yellow shades.

More soon,
Dani
xoxo

Year-end thoughts

2011-12-28T18:53:00.000-08:00

I love Christmas. It brings so much of that sense of wonder that I treasure, crave, and stockpile as healing for the inevitable rough patches. But this Christmas has been a rough one, mainly because of that dreaded social nicety called entertaining. Being a good hostess is fairly impossible for me, as entertaining requires much of that grace and ease of conversation that I so openly lack. I am awkward, confusing, temperamental, stubborn, and a great lover of solitude... all the things that I am told I shouldn't be.

Twenty five continues to be a bittersweet and odd year... I seem to be teetering between states, pulling hard against the pressure to clothe myself in grownupness. With each year that passes, I begin to suspect with increasing conviction that holding on to childlikeness is the best thing one can do for one's soul.

Friends and relatives, God bless them, are far too close. There is little room for individuality and honesty where such relationships are concerned. That odd patina of familiarity prevents us from seeing each other's underlying selves. And it's incredibly sad. Being able to see my mother as a remarkable, resilient girl-woman underneath the layers of motherness and wifeness has been one of the greatest revelations of my life thus far. It has inspired many of my poems, and quite honestly, I am still getting over the shock of the nearness of it all. In many ways, we're all just grown-up children, fumbling about in our private worlds, convincing ourselves that we know some things to be true.

How strange and startling it is that we aren't able to see each other beyond the titles we've been given. I want to reshape these titles in my mind. I've started to do it through my poetry and art, I think. These two lovely ladies came into being the past week, and I think a lot of my thoughtshapes ended up in there somehow.

I am realizing that my girls, with their gazes, defiant, thoughtful, absorbed and intense, are all me. They are me, and all the women I've ever known. Each one utterly herself, each one beautiful.

Happy end of 2011 to all of you. Wishing you only beautiful, true things in the New Year.

~Dani

Jolie Art:)

2011-12-26T22:09:00.000-08:00

My siblings are some of the most creative people I've ever met. These pieces are by my fourteen year old sister Jolie. She does things that I've really never seen anyone else do. These are made up of text, clippings, and all sorts of her interesting, Jolie-eque patterning.

...and other endangered species

2011-12-24T11:32:00.000-08:00

Here is the most recent addition to the Bird Lady images. It's the largest and most detailed, I think, to date. The bird is a Hyacinth macaw, and is the world's largest flying parrot. It's also endangered, due to habitat loss and capture for the pet trade. I am thinking here, through this image, of the ways such things come to bear upon the person. There are many things at play in here, but as always, it only matters to me how it echoes in someone else. I am trying to say things without saying them, really.

People keep asking me what's up with all these bird thingies, but I suppose I'm getting it out of my system in the most productive way possible! I love this small collection, it's deeply personal, and very special. I'm fairly sure there will be more Bird Ladies in the new year, among mountains of other things. Give thanks for the good as the year draws to a close:)

Season's Greetings,
Dani

to be a small fish in a big pond...

2011-12-19T10:42:00.000-08:00

As the year draws to a close, I'm a bit overwhelmed by the tremendous changes that have taken place, and just a bit proud of myself, that I found the courage somehow to make that huge leap back into doing what I love.

It's scary, not knowing what's next. But I remind myself that we never do, even when we are in the most stable of positions. No one really does know what's next. And I've been surprised, so many times,by the unexpected and lovely opportunities that have come my way this year.

I'm a stubborn believer in fate.

This mermaid in the fishbowl is actually an unplanned drawing I did at my desk in work last year. I can't remember where the idea came from, or what made me decide to run out at lunch break to find a sketch pad and cheap colour pencils.

But it's funny, because looking at this drawing, I realize that it's a pretty good representation of how I felt, last year. Like a very strange fish in a very small bowl. No room to breathe or move, no sense of who or what I was.

How different it all is now.

I am a tiny fish, and the pond is so wide, but God is good to me.

Give thanks,

Blackbird Sorrow, Blackbird Joy

2011-12-13T14:50:00.000-08:00

Hey there,

These are two new pieces I've done... Blackbird Sorrow and Blackbird Joy. I love them both equally :) Blackbirds are incredibly interesting. A couple of weeks ago, one kept coming into the house and puzzling over the mirror, oscillating between singing and dancing for his/ her reflection and then violently lunging at it. I suppose that's where the idea first came from to do these two pieces. In my mind, blackbird sorrow and joy are distinct, almost tangible emotions. The words conjure up something made out of memories, childhood rhymes, and then something far more glimmering and immaterial. I know I've felt both. Here they are:)

Blackbird Sorrow, Watercolour and Pen&Ink

Closeup

Blackbird Joy, Watercolour and Pen& Ink

Closeup

Hummingbird

2011-12-10T15:13:00.000-08:00

Here's a peek at what I'm working on! More soon.

Bird Lady:)

2011-12-08T18:55:00.000-08:00

Hallow:)

I am so totally a bird lady at heart. And it has nothing to do with keeping birds, really. The older I get, the more I feel as though my heart is winged and birdlike, if that makes any sense to you. I've started my Bird Lady collection of small paintings, and oh how I love it. This is perhaps one of the most engaging and lovely experiences I've had while making something. This is a little bit of one of the first images. I've also included "Blu" in this post, after a bit of indecisive fidgeting. *Eep!* I'm both terribly eager and terribly afraid to post what I've completed so far! Anyway, I hope you love. There will be more, I promise!

Bananaquit Love, Watercolour, Pen and Ink

Blu, Watercolour, pen and ink

shine hard

2011-12-07T16:26:00.000-08:00

A quick drawing I did over the weekend. I love the girl's expression, though it's utterly unplanned <3

Girl with the flowers

2011-12-02T12:22:00.000-08:00

Sharing a new piece I did earlier this week. I haven't had the time draw in awhile. Commissions and projects are lovely, but every now and then you need to time to feel out the shapes and textures in your own heart. This one I enjoyed doing so much... and I am excited to share. Hope you like <3

Dani

When the Fire Comes

2011-12-01T21:21:00.000-08:00

excerpt from When the Fire Comes

Now my smile will not be washed pretty.

There is ash in my throat

from the last lie I lit.

Who shall I be now?

I’ve run out of clean faces to wear,

this skin hurts when I dream.

All my wings won’t fit in this room,

bones must be broken,

cries must be bundled in sheets,

a match will be struck in my sleep.

When the fire comes, who knows what will burn?

....

Mother in the Morning

2011-11-26T08:37:00.000-08:00

Was recently re-reading Mother in the Morning. The impact this little poem had always startles me, when I really think about it. It was my first piece accepted for publication (Bim, May '09) and was a contender for Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul. I love it so dearly because it reminds me of those early days of writing, the sense of discovery, that tremulous feeling of being just on the edge of something. Thought I'd share it here, along with a drawing.

Much love.
Dani

Mother in the Morning

Mother sips tea in her garden on mornings,

abandoning the kitchen that echoes with breakfast,

lunch kits, laces untied, and the dripping faucet.

She sits on a cracked footstool in complete silence

as the heat from the teacup rises up

whispering warm, comforting secrets

only she can understand.

There are sharp things in the ground

and her hands are soft

yet she never wears gloves.

She is not afraid of the damp, dark earth

with its shards of buried glass and crawling creatures.

She has planted hope with her own hands,

seen it grow tall, and bright with butterflies.

When my mother’s hands are in the dew- damp dirt

and she is fragile in the quiet morning light

I can see the shapes of sharp things buried in her.

I realize how the fluorescent kitchen light dims her,

hides that secret flower she is growing

That can only be seen in morning light,

and blooms only when she does.

Shape and Blindness

2011-11-03T10:43:00.000-07:00

This piece is currently for sale, already framed. If you're interested, give me a shout nah? dboodoofortune@live.com. Feel free to share this with others who may dig it too.

Blessings,
~D

Running

2011-11-02T18:25:00.000-07:00

...

I dreamt we ran across the world

barefoot, belly full of joy

our feet like wings

bearing us on concrete clouds.

You showed me the vastness of space,

whispered in my ear

"Run..."

Then the same ground fell away

beneath our feet

and there was water,

vast and dark

filled with one eyed creatures

leaping and wailing.

Still we ran,

our legs like cannons

shooting into the wet, deep earth

like violent stars

Till we reached its end.

We stood at the silent, trembling edge

every breath an explosion in the stillness

and I woke, shocked by air and space,

your whispered words still on my skin.

...

2004

Detail, Watercolour Portrait of Kevin

We're still running, love.

Happy Birthday.

~Dani

Four Faces

2011-10-19T10:15:00.000-07:00

Something bright for a rainy day:)

I started working on a series of small pieces, each one about the size of a paperback novel. I wanted these to be bright and eye-catching little pieces with interesting details. There are four so far... hoping to add a few more to the collection soon.

One Little Detail...

2011-10-09T17:00:00.000-07:00

The razor in hand is a small detail, and is easy to miss. And it does seem like a pretty, fairly simple piece. But there is the cutting of the hair, which can be read in so many different ways. I wanted to leave it wide open.

Playing With Thread, Part 2

2011-10-08T23:49:00.000-07:00

So this is part two of my thread-playing series...( I really do need to find a more appropriate name than that! :P )

In this piece she is bound by thread in a way that might seem beautiful. Making this, the repetitive winding and layering of embroidery thread was particularly interesting. The tangling of the strung beads around her neck was added afterwards.

More to come...

Not-so-still life

2011-10-06T07:46:00.000-07:00

Just a fun post: :D... Was doing some practice with watercolour in still life, and Gigi insisted on getting in on it. She even tried to climb up onto the paper. I think some water was spilled on the rug too. The end product is below, unfortunately I didn't paint the live model into it. But Gigi still gets her 15 mins of fame. :)

Dryad in Stages

2011-10-06T07:40:00.000-07:00

I like taking pics of my pieces while in progress. Mostly it's just an odd quirk, but it does give me perspective. I've been going through my files, and realize that there are a lot of progress shots in there. I think they're fun, and exciting. To see something becoming is always remarkable. I've added a few here.

1) Dryad. The pencil/ pen/ marker framework is already in place here. Starting to work on the shading of the face. Love this stage, when the faces come into themselves.

2) Most of the face and body is done in the second image. The skin on this one involved a lot of different textures and strokes. I'd just started the hair as well.

3) And the final thing:)

Alma and the Wind

2011-10-05T12:44:00.000-07:00

This is my newest painting, done in acrylic. It was one of those things that just wasn't thought out at all. There was just the hunger for strong, sweeping, satisfying lines. The end result is Alma and the Wind, and it's one of my favourite pieces I've done.

30 x 12", acrylic

Playing with Thread, part one

2011-09-30T18:36:00.000-07:00

I've been playing with thread lately... all of a sudden I find it incredibly fascinating. While working on this little piece, I found myself thinking of all the things we are bound by, the things we tie to ourselves. And thread...all the threads of each day that must be kept in the right order, woven just so.

I cut notches into her neck and face, then slipped the thread through these spaces. I kept thinking of how painful such a thing would be, as I was wrapping the thread. But then, it is painful. There are moments when you pause at the sink, the taxi stand, your desk, and you acknowledge the ache where you've been cut, where you've been bound too tight by your own threads. The gaze, criscrossed with thread, affects me in a way that would be far easier to hammer into poetry than to explain here.

So as I said, I'm playing with thread these days. It feels, somehow, like a very indirect way of testing everyday tensions. At the very least, it's interesting, and that in itself is enough.

Will post progress as I work on the other pieces.

Blessings :)

Fern

2011-09-26T04:58:00.000-07:00

I named her "Fern"... I imagine her occupying the damp, mossy corners of the garden, the places where small things grow unnoticed. (Now that I think of it, she's just waiting to be written into a short story!)

Fern, graphite pencil

Doodle:)

2011-09-23T10:48:00.001-07:00

Thunder and the Bird Lady~

2011-09-23T02:16:00.000-07:00

So much thunder. I am afraid to walk about the house, in case my movement may somehow crack the earth. It is one of those fragile, easily broken mornings, and the world is so filled with wild things I do not understand. I don't pretend to. There is too much. The more I read, the more I sit in on talks of theories and ideas, the more I chatter, is the more I feel as though I am floundering some how, being suffocated in words and words and nothing. It is dense and unsatisfying, and I am still so often thirsty. And then there is all this thunder. Ah to be half-wild, to be as beautiful and as unexplainable and as real as the Bird Lady, with her storm-tossed eyes...

This is only her first incarnation. She's far too interesting for just one piece.

Go be half-wild,

Michaela

2011-09-11T22:16:00.000-07:00

This is first in a series of paintings I've started. While painting her, I thought of her vaguely as the little known patroness of too-late things. I'm very excited about the progress of this collection. I'll be posting the pieces one by one as they are ready.

In the meantime, this is Michaela:)

Michaela, acrylic

closer look at Michaela, acrylic

Old Portraits

2011-09-11T20:08:00.000-07:00

An old self-portrait, done in 2002.

Flawed and imperfect, but I suppose all things are in one way or another.

Half-Light Gaze...

2011-09-06T19:47:00.000-07:00

I am fiercely fond of this piece. I am all too familiar with all these half-lovely, half-fearsome (half-broken) things... Hope you whole like it! :p

Half Light Gaze. Pencil

... and the eyes

2011-09-05T10:53:00.000-07:00

Women Writers' Series

2011-09-05T07:38:00.000-07:00

I'm being featured this month in Charmaine Valere's Caribbean Women Writers' Series :)
Here is the link! And do check out the other installments... it's all good stuff.

http://signifyinguyana.typepad.com/charmainevalere/2011/09/caribbean-women-writers-series-love-is-poetry-poems-by-danielle-boodoo-fortun%C3%A9.html

Face and Bright Heart

2011-09-02T09:02:00.000-07:00

another piece from the sketchbook...

Pen Tuh Paper

2011-09-01T00:11:00.000-07:00

Aye

Check out the newish poem Untame Things, on "Pen tuh Paper" a very cool poetry blog:) And submit, why don't you?

On Portraits

2011-08-31T14:54:00.000-07:00

Portraits frighten me a little, if that makes any sense. There is something uncanny and unsettling about seeing a face, particularly a loved one's face, emerging from the seemingly random splotches of colour on the page. It is eerily intense to sit and stare at the contours of someone's mouth, someone's eyes. And to render truthfully is devastating... but it is even more difficult to render while imparting some of one's own energy. Difficult, and a bit frightening, yes. And when it fails... agonizing. But, as I've rediscovered, it can also be sensuous and quieting and therapeutic.

I started with my own face, I suppose, because it's mine to ruin and make an unflattering mess of, if it came to that. But I feel as though I ended up somehow capturing the slightly lost and half-wild energy that is masked so easily in photos.

Strange.

Staring at my own rendition of myself is doubly strange. I experienced this remarkable sense of confrontation. I am not sure whether to run from it or be thrilled by it.

The funny thing is, I continue my 'portraiting' with images of my boyfriend and others near to me, and each one possesses such a strikingly different energy to it.

I intend to keep working on portraits throughout the following weeks, it is actually all practice for a commissioned project in watercolours that's coming up. There is spilled paintwater everywhere, and I couldn't be happier.

Be well,

Wondering, and the Water Woman

2011-08-29T14:44:00.000-07:00

There is an immense quiet about this that I swear I did not put there myself.

I was browsing through an album of recent pieces, and this one really stopped me up short, got me thinking about so many things. What control do we have of these things in the first place, these things of our own hands that startle us and bring us face to face with our most secret of selves? What are we doing, what drives us when we feel the need to create? And if we knew just what we were doing, would it still be such a thing of mystery and depth?

I don't mind the unknowing though. It's beautiful. :)

Surprise yourself.

all our crossings...

2011-08-24T16:51:00.000-07:00

http://031a9f6.netsolhost.com/WordPress/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/in-the-spirit-catalogue.pdf

I was just revisiting the catalogue for the In The Spirit Exhibition held in June (link to catalogue above) which one of my poems was featured at. This is far too interesting not to share.

The poem itself is below:

Crossing

Tell me, what do you keep

in your green glass heart?

What salvaged ice from forgotten moons,

what rusted joints thrown up

from the wrecked night

of your wanting?

And when the tides of your sleep ebb,

what masks permit you

to cross the continent of waking?

Whose arboreal arms will bear you

beyond these highways of stolen sand

and purpling death?

Ours is a dwelling you have found

too broken for words.

You must plant this poem

slowly

when you find home.

Alchemy of Consent

2011-08-22T10:59:00.000-07:00

http://womenspeak.tumblr.com/post/9120613294/danielle-boodoo-fortune-is-a-poet-and-artist-from#en

Was thrilled to have the opportunity to be part of the WomenSpeak Project's Sex and Consent Series!
Check it out, nah.

Rediscovering Pieces...

2011-08-08T18:39:00.000-07:00

I've been sorting through some old pieces lately. It's interesting... feels almost like rediscovering something missed and treasured, like bouncing up dear old friends:).

It strikes me now that I had a bit of an obsession with strong, fierce female characters, like those in the pieces below. The idea is definitely something I've been playing with all along, but now approach in a subtler way. I think of myself in my secondary school days, scribbling away absently in some corner, and wonder if perhaps that type of strength and determination wasn't something I was trying to create for myself through these characters. Or perhaps each one of these characters is really one of my inside selves:)... I think I like that possibility.

In any case, they are interesting pieces. Even now, almost ten years later, they still resonate with me quite strongly.

Hope they speak to you too!!

This last piece in charcoal now belongs to Tisha Marajh... hope she will bring quiet strength and a fighting spirit....

Go cut your heart out...

2011-08-04T18:28:00.000-07:00

Admit it.

You understand this all too well....

Cut your heart out... July 2011, pastels

The Sum of Your Parts....

2011-08-02T18:24:00.000-07:00

Just this image here. I think it says enough.

Ordinariest of Angels

2011-08-01T12:19:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, I loved pencil. In my secondary school art years, the BIC mechanical pencil was the ting self. I was hesitant with paint, intimidated by pastels... but with that particular type of pencil, I felt freest to draw what I needed to.

I hadn't done anything with a mechanical pencil (except make frantic notes and draw trees and eyes in margins) in years. So a couple of days ago, when I picked one up and began to doodle, I was a bit startled by how comfortable, how easy and how right it was. It seems like a small revelation, but the best ones are always small:)

Anyway, here is my newest mechanical pencil piece: Ordinariest of Angels. I seriously dig this one, folks.

Lesson learnt: do what you like. it's funner that way ;)

"Ordinariest of Angels" July 2011

Two Poems on Tongues of the Ocean

2011-07-27T12:54:00.000-07:00

Two of my poems from Tongues of the Ocean's June 2011 issue.

Evening in the Room Built from Words
http://tonguesoftheocean.org/2011/06/evening-in-the-room-built-from-words/

and

The Poem is Already...
http://tonguesoftheocean.org/2011/07/the-poem-is-already/

Lady with the beads

2011-07-27T10:31:00.000-07:00

"she keeps rocks beneath her tongue

and beads round her neck

to remind her
...."

always a believer...

2011-07-25T20:12:00.000-07:00

This one was done with a CD marker before dawn one morning... the lovely, secret hours of heavy rain, purple air and infinite possibilities. I think the most remarkable thing about this image is the wee thing with the dreamy eyes. I think I know him/her. It's not hard to make myself believe that he/she is real.

I turned 25 this year, and with it came a weight of expectation that surprised me... I refuse to believe that the years are meant to feel like rocks in the pocket, like harsh bleaching light. So I choose to remain a believer in all that grows, and all that catches fire, and everything small and unnoticed that is waiting to be heard.

It may not be coincidence then, that those are my hands in the drawing :)

Blessings and wings,
~D

Untameness

2011-07-16T13:15:00.000-07:00

"She fears I’ve grown too wild

to be kept indoors..."

"so just this once

I let her scald the feathers

from my body, anoint me,

wrap me in gauze."

" ...but while she sleeps

I will forage

for dying things,

sprout slim bones from my spine

that will arch into wings."

...

On not being Beautiful....

2011-07-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

It's so hard to explain to people why every piece can't be Super-beautiful.

I'll get questions from disturbed friends and relatives like... "But why she bleeding!?" or "But why she face so serious?" and the inevitable... "But you think people will want to see that?"
The what-people-want-to-see business is iffy for me. Some of the paintings, poems, movies etc that have truly affected me were those that unsettled me, troubled me, hurt me.... those that I did not want to see.

So, I usually smile, and tell the person that the subject of the piece (usually, some large-eyed woman) doesn't have to be beautiful in order for the piece itself to be beautiful. But then, that doesn't work for me either. Because I usually think that my big-eyed girls are fascinating, and gorgeous.

The word "Beautiful" with a capital "Bee" gets so tiring.

And the older I get, the less it seems to matter. I find people most appealing when they are least fancied up, least posed. And I find my big-eyed girls beautiful when they are broken, growing trees from their bellies, and bleeding streams of colour.

Because, honestly, show me someone real who isn't broken, growing trees, or bleeding colour in one way or another.

It's all beautiful. :)

~D

The Mango Fairy

2011-06-23T17:50:00.000-07:00

I just liked the idea:)... It's been a tough mango season thus far... our starch tree has produced a grand total of three gnarled ones, and the julie trees are just putting out little ones. My grandmother grieves for mangoes, reveres them almost. She watches the growing Julies every day, cups them, talks to them, warns the dogs against interfering with them. This is where the idea first came from.

If I squint up at the tall mango tree by the back fence, I can just picture Mango fairy sitting on a branch, legs dangling among the leaves. I like the expression on her face... almost caught in the act. And I think she's so beautiful too... Feel free to comment if you like.

Blessings,
~D

Hope is a thing that grows....

2011-06-18T16:29:00.000-07:00

This painting occupies a wall in my mother's classroom. (She trust me, eh?) It started as a small thing, a feeling of uncertainty. I didn't really want a concept, I just wanted an idea, a flash, a shape to build around.

So she isn't lost, although she looks it. She comes back to the hope tree to reassure herself that hope keeps growing, no matter what doubt, what change waits in the distance.

Painting this was a comfort, a light... hope someone else finds it something of warmth too.

~D

Mermaidy Poem for my Sister

2011-06-15T10:37:00.000-07:00

I am thinking of all the mermaid poetry I have read now, and running my mind over all the different textures there are. I can think of a few Goodison poems, and Neruda's Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks. And then there is this... a small teardrop of a poem for my mermaidy sister:)...

Seagazing

for Jolie

the

need to

be broken

and fixed

unravels

before you like

infinite blue thread.

you are casting questions

into the ocean, questions

it cannot answer

without first

claiming

your silence.

The wind howls

on the open

bottle

your throat,

your soles are shredded

by broken sea-

stars.

Naiad,

go hide your

treasures

now

the

nets

are waiting

to carry you

home.

On Mermaids, Real and Imagined

2011-06-15T09:01:00.000-07:00

On Mermaids, Real and Imagined

If mermaids exist at all, they can't be happy all the time. There must be enough sadness under the sea to reach them. I think my sister might have been a mermaid in another life, there is something sea-green, wild and translucent about her when she is at the sea. She always seems, somehow, like she is about to walk right into the ocean, to slip beneath the waves and to disappear, of her own free will... not to drown, but to become something different entirely. There is a mermaidy look about her that I can't quite define. I wonder if this is how mermaids are made. Reminds me of Lorna Goodison and the "don't care girl" becoming a mermaid in From Harvey River.

Anyway, this one with the drowned eyes is reckless. She is tired of having to be lovely, to turn the corners of her mouth up, to sing to fishermen and divers in their deepest dreams. She plans to leave the Sea-kingdom of her birth to wander all the dark, light-less parts of the ocean, to lock eyes with blind things, to get lost for a time. She is done with brushing her long blue hair and penning songs about sunshine. She plots her course using fishbones and sea-stars. I, too am curious about her.

~D

Dreamer

2011-06-13T21:05:00.000-07:00

Dreamer
drawing featured in Anansesem May 2011 issue

Maybe every person has a dreamer... a beautiful little winged thing that curls inside your sleep and paints behind closed eyes the secret land of your dreaming:)

Wanderer in Blue

2011-06-13T18:45:00.000-07:00

Wanderer in Blue
drawing featured in Anansesem May 2011

Some nights you dreamt of forests. Oceans of trees and tangled little fears… the things mothers know all too well, but do not speak of, especially not to their little girls. (We pretend that little girls are not wild, feral creatures from birth, but really we fool no one.)

At first, you panicked, but then… but then it drew you in. What would happen if you wandered a little further? The leafy whispers and the blueness spoke to you softly, brushed against your cheek, promised you an inner world that would remain unscratched, untarnished by the day’s small tragedies.

Sometimes, on the edge of sleep, you willed yourself to fall headfirst into the cracked blue sky, to remain so still you could feel the glow of the very moment you entered the dream...
....

~D