I decided all this paper from all these sources indeed would have been Emily Dickinson's friends. I still believe she was (and is!) highly misunderstood!
I have often referred to writing as my “anchor art.” It is
the artform I turn to first most of the time.
In fact, I learned through writing not only to love
language, but to love the silences between the writing. (Tomorrow’s post will
get more deeply into that!)
These two pieces I played with – and yes, one is absolutely
finished and the second is still a question mark.
The first one, the Emily Dickinson Collage – is complete.
The poem of hers is inside the heart and the other paper are from a variety of
books in my collection: an atlas, an old music book, a textbook and a novel.
There are times when I will just paste strips from a variety of paper sources
onto backgrounds for hours.
I also realized via Art Every Day Month 2013 how much of my
art also serves as meditation practice. I don’t usually have a plan on much of
my artworks’ earliest stages, I am following the lead of the Unknown. In both
cases today, that was where I started. I find taking the hand of the Unknown
and agreeing to follow usually births my best work.
I need to get out of the way in order for the best work to
be done. I make me laugh, but the truth is right there!
When I take control over a work, not so great – which is why
the second collage remains unfinished – I was using a preface page from an old
Random House Dictionary. I loved the language so much… yet I didn’t ever completely
let go. Now I am waiting to get word from the work where it wants me to focus
next.
I’m having WAYYYY too much fun this month!
What is happening along your adventures in Art Every Day land?
Julie
Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media
artist. Her word-love themed art will be for sale at First Friday each
month in Downtown Bakersfield. Check out the links below to follow her
on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find
the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.
How does this image inspire your writing? What do you see? What memories does it invoke?
Each day, a quote, an image, several questions and a writing prompt are offered to you to use for Your Blogging, Writing & Creative Inspiration in order to increase your creative thinking as well as your personal and soulful development.
= = =
Quote: "My bursting heart must find vent at my pen."
Abigail Adams
I looked up "vent" in the way Abigail Adams meant it. Here is the definition:
the expression or release of a strong emotion, energy, etc.
How often do you allow yourself to "vent" on the page?
What would happen if you gave yourself permission to "vent" about the good stuff, not only the whiney stuff?
Think about recent conversations with others. When was the last time someone you knew vented to you negatively? What was the story?
How about the last time someone you knew vented to you positively and passionately? What was the story?
Lists:
Make a list of 5 to 10 things you are looking forward to in the next twelve months. If you can't think of that many, use your imagination and perhaps set some intentions. Don't limit yourself just let it go!
Imagine, for a moment, you are a tea kettle that needs to vent about 3 to 5 experiences in the last twelve months.
Now, make a list of those three to five experiences. If you can't come up with any ideas, just tuck the tea kettle thought in the back of your mind and before you go to sleep ask yourself again. When you wake up (or as soon as you are sitting in a place where you are able), write down whatever flows off your fingers.
Traditional Writing Prompt:
If I allowed myself to vent completely about what I want to vent about, it would sound something like this:
Choose one of the items off your list above and write about it as if it has happened and you are reporting back to your best friend. Allow yourself to imagine it with all your senses and emotions. Vent vent vent vent vent in your biggest most luxuious way.
Image Inspiration
Spend three to five minutes simply gazing at the photo. Next, free flow write for at least five minutes about what you noticed, felt, recognized in yourself while gazing at the photo.
(and/or)
Gaze at the image while meditating on one of the questions or prompts. Next, free flow write for five minutes without forethought or planning.
>> ---<<
One helpful strategy is to read the quote, questions, prompt and list and not to "take them on" all at once, but to allow them to simmer in the back of your mind throughout the day. Sure, you may "write" one immediately, but don't call it "done" until you have allowed your powerful subconscious mind to bring up some unexpected responses for your conscious mind to create within.
Remember, though - there are no rights and wrongs, there is only showing up for your life and your creativity. Brava for being here!!
= = = = = =
Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her word-love themed art will be for sale at First Friday each month in Downtown Bakersfield. Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.
I spent my afternoon at a Soul Collage retreat which was
both restful, refreshing and inspiring. I knew my intention was to focus on
honoring women whose presence on the planet has influenced me both creatively
and also as a woman overall.
Here are the outcomes, including a little collage humor at
the bottom.
I included information for you in the captions, in case you
are curious who some of these women were/are. Can you see which collage has a pointillism
version of me within it?
Home & Hearth, Suffragists - Millworkers... You and I are all a part of the Women's Movement
I was concerned my painting of a woman's unclothed torso might get me "in trouble" with online censorship. So far, so good. I posted this on instagram as a test. No problems yet at all!
We love our Literary Grannies: still have edits to do on Anais collage and Vincent collage... oh, for realistic red hair...
I am a writer who respects my writing lineage. Too many literary studies only focus upon the male side of our creative lineage. One of my aims is to bring our Literary Grannies back into our consciousness. I'm Vincent's hair looks ridiculous, but I wanted to bring out that famous black and white photo of her with the magnolias. I learned last Spring that this particular magnolia breed was planted as far north as possible - in Upstate New York and Western Massachusetts - by landscape architect Frederick Olmstead who designed Central Park in New York City and other notable places. Now you know the amount of (not very useful) facts rumbling about my head!
Be alert for Billboard Man - Coming to Save an Artform in Your City!
This is an example of my flavor of art humor. I collaged my friend, Cameron Brian, into a broken billboard frame I photographed a while ago. I didn't know how or where I would use that photo and while collaging I couldn't help myself. :~)
What is happening along your adventures in Art Every Day land?
This is me, writing in a Baltimore Park. I am sitting across the street from an apartment building where Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald once lived.
Julie Jordan Scott is a writer,
performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her word-love themed art
will be for sale at First Friday each month in Downtown Bakersfield.
Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social
media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus
particularly enticing.
Finally, finally I have a moment to catch my breath.
October has been such a month. One of the experiences I have had is a surgery to remove basal cell carcinoma from my back. It's my second bout of skin cancer and much less to deal with than the melanoma on my face from last Autumn.
It did bring about a lot of inner reflection as well as creative reflection.
My productivity as far as visual art has zoomed while my productivity in terms of writing in my usual style of life writing has diminished somewhat. I know I ebb and flow with all my creative practices so I find the best thing is to keep moving along, trusting it will all balance out at the end.
This morning - what feels like days ago - I put together a really simple collage but I adore it. You can see it above, on the right. It is the simplest sort of art I put together. Al it requires is a piece to collage upon. In this case, I bought a square decor at a thrift store for 45 cents. Usually I tear a page from my used book collection and ad an image from, yes, my used book collection. If this sort of creativity interests you but you don't know where to find used books, check your local thrift store or at your library there is more than likely a section where they sell books that have been donated to them or are overstocks.
One of the bits of healing I have had this month is realizing my art doesn't have to be more, more, more - as I remember the "less is more" contingent and just one image is all that is needed sometimes.
The one I show here is a meet-up between words I wrote about kindergarten several years ago coupled with an illustration from a 1960's vintage children's book I found recently at an estate sale. I didn't ever have blonde hair as a child - though my sister and many of my cousins did.
I love the colors here. They make me breath more gently as I look at the 5 X 5 inch collage which is now on my mantel amidst some other simple vintage children's book art I have created lately.
Mixed Media: Dying Artist Mother and Little Women by Julie Jordan Scott
Finally, this is a bit of the taste of what I intend to experience and share in Art Everyday Month 2013. My intention is to create simply and on a smaller scale than I have, perhaps, in the past. I will be staying with something vintage and something about the feminine perspective in each piece. Here is another preview that completely stirs me:
The face is of an older woman from a canvas I bought at an estate sale. I almost felt guilty cutting into this painting I bought for one dollar - one dollar! Where is the artist's family? Why didn't one of them swoop in for this piece? My piece is a bit of lament and grief for both the painter and her family. The origami dressed coupled with it comes from a page from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women which I painted with acrylics. For those of you who are familiar with the width and breadth of Louisa May Alcott's life, you know there was a lot of grief and suffering there, too.
What you can't see is the collage is in the middle of a serving dish - most likely for bread. I have made several works of art in serving dishes and platters, all of which focus on some aspect of womanhood, usually a paradoxical combination of love and loss.
May the healing of our physical aches and our emotional aches continue.
My prayer is to bring 2014 in with a shift to an entirely different level of wholeness. The spiral moves up and I am smiling as I swing along.
I look forward to getting to know you via Art Every Day Month, 2013.
>> = = = = = = <<
Julie
Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her
word-love themed art will be for sale at First Friday each month in Downtown
Bakersfield. Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different
social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus
particularly enticing.
Julie
Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Creative Life Coach, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her
word-love themed art will be for sale at First Friday each month in Downtown
Bakersfield. Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different
social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus
particularly enticing.
Here I am, Hanging out with Literary Granny Anne Morrow Lindbergh and her husband at the Smithsonian's Air and Science Museum
I love to travel so much more than I ever confessed in the
past. The week I spent in the DC area for the past seven days cemented I am
heavily addicted to visiting new to me places, especially those with a women’s
history, literary history or social justice flavor. In fact, I can go nearly
anyplace and discover the women’s history, literary history or social justice
flavor that no one else had uncovered yet.
I also love scooting around in the ordinary, the mundane “oh,
that’s no big deal” places in the neighborhoods where the locals go and the
tourists usually don’t.
I have started a top ten list of surprisingly wonderful
places to go in the DC area that might be a new spot for you as well as a list
of places to visit with children and/or how to approach such places with
special needs children.
What surprised and delighted me the most, though, was my own
ability to roll with the punches during this trip. I didn’t have a single melt
down or need to stand up for myself, most likely because I was primarily on my
own. There were several times my plans were thwarted because my primary
responsibility was to be the almost invisible support for Emma who was
attending a high school leadership forum which was the reason we went at all.
My daughter, Katherine, stayed home to be with Samuel all
week.
One of her comments to me has continued to resound through
me: “That’s one of the qualities that is so good about you. When things don’t
go your way, you just pick another way and manage to enjoy it as much as what
you wanted to do in the first place.”
It is a beneficial quality whose origins were not
necessarily the best. I became one of the best “lemonade maker from lemons” I
know because I never expect things to work out in my favor.
What I was reminded this week that while things may not work
out in my favor or according to my plan, when I nestle myself deeply into the
moment, the moment was what I wanted in the first place – not the activity that
filled the moment.
An example: I tried to get to Baltimore on three separate
occasions. I was so excited to go on the afternoon Emma and her group were
taking a field trip away from the conference center. I bought a bunch of snacks
for them earlier and put them in a purple, polka dot bag for her to share with
her friends and within moments realized my rental car keys were on their way to
Emma’s field trip in the purple bag.
I could have stomped my feet and shaken my fist at the sky
and barked at the
You just don't see this in the desert I live in here in California: seedings growing from the hollow of a fallen tree......
housekeeping staff to just go away instead of waking me from
a nice, deep, restorative nap “because I am trapped here at the hotel!”
Instead, I thought, “What a gift. A chance to take a break instead of rush,
rush, rush.”
I did things like nap. I took a bubble bath. I wrote a blog
post. I went to the hotel restaurant and had some chicken noodle soup better
than I’ve ever had and a seasonal beer. I sat on the patio and wrote the
sunset.
When you travel next, please remember this:
1.Make a wild, crazy, absolutely out of this world
list of things you would like to do on your vacation or trip.
2.Start doing those items one at a time without concerning
yourself with the ‘what’s next’ on your list.
3.Stay alert to the surprising places that call to
you. I found my favorite new park and a very intriguing, hidden cemetery this
way.
4.Take some time off intentionally in the middle
of your trip and treat yourself to a “spa day.” Not with a ridiculous price tag
or anything, simply take a day of rest where you can take a bath or drink a
glass of wine or simply let the kids play on the lawn at sunset while you sit
on a picnic basket and eat fresh fruit, veggies and maybe one sweet craving and
call it dinner.
5.Document with images on your camera and bits and
pieces of writing on the way without worrying about telling the whole story “now”.
It will ripen as you go. It always has and it always will, as long as you are
willing to allow it to be so.
Love Your Literary Grannies: Today, we feature a tiny snippet about Harriet Monroe!
The name “Harriet Monroe” probably means nothing to you.
I knew I needed to feature her as a literary granny after reading her name over and over again and then realizing the impact she had on the rising popularity of new poetry, especially new and cutting edge poetry, is unmatched by anyone of either gender.
Harriet Monroe was the founding editor of Poetry Magazine. In a time of slumping subscriptions, her magazine continues to thrive and recently celebrated its 100th anniversary.
Miss Monroe worked for two years with no salary and continued to work during those two years as an art critic for the Chicago Tribune. When her work load became too heavy, she spent many years working for a minimal salary simply because she felt her work – and the importance of sharing poetic voices which might not have been heard without Poetry Magazine was of utmost importance.
I didn’t want to write a profile without reading more in depth of her life.
Harriet Monroe - today's lovely literary granny early in her career.
I discovered she wrote an autobiography. I discovered it was out of print. I discovered it on a used book website. I bought a first edition for a very low price and was rarely as excited to get a book in the mail as I was for this one.
I am reading it slowly, many parts aloud, so I can get a feeling for the sound of her voice. There are few activities I enjoy as much as reading aloud and being read to, aloud. I don’t want to wait to introduce her to you, my dear readers. Just know there will be more coming in the future.
She was a poet herself, but her greatest contribution to the literary world was her magazine.
Laura Ingram in the Dictionary of Literary Biography wrote this of Miss Monroe’s legacy: "The abundant richness of this movement might well have been less spectacular without the encouragement and vitality which Poetry offered in those years when young poets were seeking to break the bonds of traditionalism and to create a new poetic voice for the modern age."
Her editorial policy was quoted in the second edition: “"Open Door will be the policy of this magazine—may the great poet we are looking for never find it shut, or half-shut, against his ample genius! To this end the editors . . . desire to print the best English verse which is being written today, regardless of where, by whom, or under what theory of art it is written."
Pages from the First Volume of "Poetry" magazine
Without Harriet Monroe, poetry was dwindling in popularity. I am sure it would delight her to see poetry continues to be alive and well and hopefully will become even more alive and even more well known as we get to know our literary grannies, poetic and prosody and all other forms of writing as well.
I’ve barely started her memoir and yesterday I giggled about her correspondence with Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of Treasure Island and others. Usually I am all about literary grannies in April during A to Z, but since I got sidetracked then, I’m writing some additional profiles this July.
It’s important we know who came before us in the writing world – for all creative people, including you!
Enjoy this meandering throughout July – please let me know of any Grannies I should research and build a relationship with as well. I’m grateful, always, for your input.
It would be very obvious to say I was named for my Aunt
Julie, but that is not exactly directly the truth. She was actually named Juliet
and my parents almost didn’t name me Julie for fear I would get teased because
of the character Julie Jordan in the musical Carousel. I didn’t get teased as a child, but when I was
younger I regularly got sung to by teachers with the opening line of the song.
Historically and literarily speaking, most Julies were Julia
or Juliette or Juliet I suppose.
I am glad to claim Julia Ward Howe as a Julie in my literary
lineage.
She was known mostly for her song, The Battle Hymn of the
Republic, but besides this
Literary Granny Julia Ward Howe
accomplishment she was a poet, abolitionist, and
activist. She also wrote plays and creative non-fiction, including a work about
Margaret Fuller, another woman I claim in my literary lineage.
The story of Battle Hymn of the Republic goes like this:
Mrs. Howe was visiting, along with the Secretary of War for the Union, some of
the army camps. The soldiers were busily singing “John Brown’s Body” and that
tune must have entered into her poet’s mind because she was awakened with the
first stanza of the famous poem written and complete in her mind.
By the time dawn arrived, the entire poem had been written
by candlelightand started its life as a song sung to the tune of John
Brown’s Body.
Mine eyes have seen the glory
of the coming of the lord,
He is trampling out the vintage
where the grapes of wrath are stored,
He hath loosed his fateful lightning
of His terrible swift sword,
His truth is marching on
Glory! Glory ! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah
Glory! Glory ! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on
I have seen Him in the watch fires
of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar
in the evening dews and damps,
I can read his righteous sentence
in the dim and daring lamps,
His day is marching on
Glory! Glory ! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah
Glory! Glory ! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on
I have read a fiery Gospel
writ in burnished rows of steel,
"As ye deal with My contemners
so with you My grace shall deal,"
Let the Hero born of woman
crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on
Glory! Glory ! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah
Glory! Glory ! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on
He has sounded forth the
trumpet
that shall never call retreat,
He is sitting out the hearts of men
before His judgment seat,
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him!
Be jubilant, my feet,
Our God is marching on
Glory! Glory ! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah
Glory! Glory ! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on
The following stanzas are presented
as sung by The Mormon Tabernacle Choir in 1960
In the beauty of the lilies
Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom
that transfigures you and me,
As He died to make men holy
let us live to make men free,
His truth is marching on
Glory! Glory ! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah
Glory! Glory ! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on
He is coming like the glory
of the morning on the wave,
He is wisdom to the mighty
He is honor to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool
and the soul of wrong His slave,
Our God is marching on
Glory! Glory ! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah
Glory! Glory ! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on
There is creative fire in friendships, just as there was between Elinor Wylie and Edna St. Vincent Millay
It has taken me longer than I thought to this experience on paper.
Sometimes it works like that for me: I find something too evocative to put into words, so I don’t. I wait for the right words to come. I wait longer. What I have discovered about myself is sometimes I never get to writing them down. I wait and then forget.
Slowly and meanderingly, the memory and the core feeling it brings up in my belly stops itching like it once did.
It was several weeks ago I sniffed out a place that has haunted me for at least eight years. Since the first time I “got to know” Edna St. Vincent Millay – because she haunted me and wouldn’t let go – I have had a yearning to visit her home at Steepletop.
The Home at Steepletop
In 2008 I wrote of her haunting:
“Someone from history will start tapping on my shoulder and over time I hear the name enough times that it becomes like a familiar song on the radio, the one you didn't know but all of a sudden could sing along quite well without even thinking about it. Edna St. Vincent Millay comes to mind as another woman who haunted me, as did Martha Graham for a time.”
I noted back then there was an artist’s colony there, but no tours of the home or grounds for literary travelers such as I. I tabled the thought, although the idea of an artist’s colony stuck with me. I still haven’t responded to that yearning: an artist’s colony for multi-generations so that parents and/or grandparents and caretakers who are responsible for their children could come and so could the children.
This is how my writing camp idea was initially born and now has been thriving for several years both virtually and in person.
So Lovely! The office across the street from Steepletop.
I also became a fan of Elinor Wylie via my series on Literary Grannies from 2012. I noted her friendship with Millay and I bought her poetry collection Trivial Breath. I was fascinated by her history as a mother and then, her many children that never came to be. I felt an odd kinship with her as I suppose was her haunting.
I literally stumbled and then tenaciously stalked Steepletop that day in April. I was so close I simply could not leave the Berkshires without a visit.
What I got was better than a visit.
I backtracked after reaching Auesterlitz and couldn’t find my way to Steepletop. I drove back to the hamlet and telephoned, expecting to get an answering machine. Instead, I got the warm voice of Peter Bergman, the Executive Director of the Edna St. Vincent Millay Society, although I didn’t know at the time to whom I was speaking. He gave me simple directions and invited me to tour the grounds “anytime”. With my heart pounding and my passion guiding the car’s forward movement, I found myself able to experience the grandeur and silent wonder of a place I have dreamed of visiting not on my own or with a crowd. I was blessed to experience Millay’s home on a one-on-one tour with the curator. When I found more of Elinor Wylie’s work on the shelves in the store I literally shouted, “Elinor!” as the reality of their friendship wasn’t at the forefront of my mind until I took her book off the shelf.
Millay was the more famous of the two women, but she loved Elinor with a strength beyond what many ever come to know. In the home at Steepletop there is a bottle of wine meant to be shared with Elinor but instead shared by her widowed husband and Millay shortly after Wylie’s death. It has been left empty on the mantel ever since as a forever altar in honor of their friendship.
I cried several times during the tour. There were times my feet seemed to be glued to the floorboards as I didn’t think I could take another step. When we arrived at the doorstep of Millay’s library, I literally thought I couldn’t go inside.
I’m not sure when you are reading this, but I am writing to you on Mother’s Day. It seems fitting I share this poem written by a woman who was never a mother – Millay, and her friend – who left her three-year-old son with his father and only faced stillbirth, miscarriage and infant loss after she left.
Mr. Bergman recited this poem as he stood next to the spot Millay was found dead on October 19, 1950.
“The courage my mother had," by Edna St. Vincent Millay from Collected Poems (Harper Collins).
The courage that my mother had
The courage that my mother had Went with her, and is with her still: Rock from New England quarried; Now granite in a granite hill.
The golden brooch my mother wore She left behind for me to wear; I have no thing I treasure more: Yet, it is something I could spare.
Oh, if instead she'd left to me The thing she took into the grave!- That courage like a rock, which she Has no more need of, and I have.
Motherhood and friendship, friendship and motherhood weave through the lives of women whether their art form is poetry or mommying or quilting or being a book keeper.
May we all have courage like a rock – to remember our literary grannies and our sisters, mothers and friends of today with a similar passion as these remarkable women shared.
Recent Comments