England 2019 April 22-30.

It's been a long time since my last post - I'm sorry about that, but I intend on rectifying this issue. I'm off for a week+ in London and Brighton, England starting April 22nd!. It was just too tempting as Editor of the Batik Guild Magazine to not-miss the AGM and meet my people. It is my hope that I still have enough creative juice in me to generate some travel-logs.

This trip, I intend on exploring everything by foot, London east of St. Paul's Cathedral, including a tramp along the remains of the Roman and Medieval gates and walls, then across the Thames, to Southwark Cathedral where it turns out, they have quite the music program! I'll provide a knowledgeable review of Mozart's Requiem (by candlelight) at St.-Martin-in-the-Fields, buried deep in a calendar of lingering Easter music, and embraced on both sides by Handel's Messiah, which I can not stand. The Mozart is being sung by the Choirs of Jesus College, Cambridge, who upon review of other works they have recorded, are pitch-perfect. Promises to be a wonderful night! There are 2 organ recitals to chase and I do so because so much of western music's organ and choral works were written with cathedrals in mind, not little pump organs found in the old family home. Just watch the recessional of Diana's funeral and the timing of Sir John Taverner's "Song for Athene" in the Abbey, which accompanied her liberation from her earthly circumstance (though actually composed for someone else). I'm staying in never-disappointing youth hostels, to meet like-minded travelers from around the world. And I have a ticket to a one-woman play.

Traveling light, I start with old clothes and replace them when abroad, thus having new clean threads and souvenirs of my adventure partway through. A self-imposed rule prevents me from buying art books in Toronto, so the Tate shops and the Royal Academy in London are my meccas. I can have 2 carry-on bags, which presumes I can do just that(!) au gratis on the return flight.

This is going to be fun. Happy to have you along!

She Said I'd Thrive (Batik, 2018) (#45 and #47)

Thickened fabric dyes scraped by a credit card, exploring the tentative emotional existence of a surviving artist.

On the floor of the bunk above me in Athens

In the temple of my breast,
At the summit of the triangle of my heart,
The horse which is my mind
flies like the wind...

Milarepa (c. 1052-c. 1135) Tibetan Poet.

No One Told Me it Would Lead to This (Batik series 2015-2016)

 

No One Told Me it Would Lead To This (Batik series 2015-16)

No one told me
it would lead to this.
No one said
there would be secrets
I would not want to know.

No one told me about seeing.
seeing brought me loss and a darkness I could not hold.
No one told me about writing
or speaking.
Speaking and writing poetry
I unsheathed the sharp edge
of experience that led me here.

No one told me
it could not be put away.
I was told once, only
in a whisper,
‘The blade is so sharp-
It cuts together
-not apart’

This is no comfort.
My future is full of blood
from being blindfolded
hands outstretched,
feeling a way along its firm edge.

© David Whyte

Except for a couple of workshops, I’m a self-taught batik artist. Online I hang with the UK Batik Guild and find techniques from the artists represented there. But not knowing any rules per se, I’m free to try the unconventional. I wondered what would and could happen if I applied my process to paper where few batik artists had ventured at that point in time. I was amazed by the result and it changed all of my work. Sales followed with numerous, ongoing shows. No one told me it would lead to this! The guiding poem by David Whyte (above) is dark but it speaks to my belief that art changes people and there are times at the end of a piece, where I do not recognize myself. Even through difficult work, my hands remain outstretched, however, and I firmly feel my way along the edge of adventure. This can not be put away. It is my path.