Today.....

Today I....

Found: My existence

Me looking through my final installation at Baer; "Found: My existence"

I just posted about this installation on my Iceland blog www.eylenda.blogspot.com I recommend visiting the site to see more pictures and information. It is one of my favorite pieces I've ever made!

I'm back in NY. Still swirling. I have lots of work left to complete-mostly writing and photography. I am wondering how do I integrate a life changing experience into the "normal" I had before? Its funny to observe how I am reluctant to open back to my life here, just as I was reluctant to open to the newness of Iceland. I suppose we are always in battle with life's constant: Change. Perhaps with continued experience change will become welcome with every breath. I do still feel madly enchanted and in love with nature and today on my first walk since Iceland, I found magic here as well.

Me during my final studio presentation.

Making it!

Surrender (Installation)
blanket, clothing, dirt, flowers

Surrender (Installation)

Paintings in progress

My new favorite piece of furniture-all hand made little drawers that are turquoise with red metal frame

Why I love tulips so much-as they die they dance a twirling ballet

Sunny's sculpture yesterday

The cool mouse house I found in my art supply's, the mouse harvested much of my husbands hair, lol!!!

First exciting news: I WON A GRANT!!!! That's in big letters because its a big deal-each of these victory's are hugely exciting for me! This is a small grant from NYFA (New York Foundation For The Arts) its called a SOS Grant, which is specific to fund opportunities that will benefit the growth and development of NY state artists. This money was awarded to me to help towards the costs of the Iceland residency. (I still need to raise quite a bit of money for this opportunity and have some fundraising ideas cooking-but if you have any cool thoughts please send me your ideas!)
Second exciting news: I set up my studio today and yesterday I put together an installation in the studio...so much fun! (Even though I jumped the gun and began painting last week before the studio was set up) Now its officially fabulous! I am in love-completely in love! I've decided to try to keep the studio really minimal-no table or shelves, just 3 pieces on wheels with small materials. The rest (the ugly stuff) is in the adjoining crack shack. This way I can have the studio itself be a canvas for ideas, installations, exhibits, disco dance parties, etc.
Whooooo-Hooooooo!!!!!!

Portrait of an Angel

Portrait Of An Angel
Mirror, Shoes, Oil Crayon, Poem by Summer Knight

I originally started working with this piece this spring, and actually it started brewing as far back as last year when I found the poem. I am finding that patience with an idea is amazing, because time is truly a benevolent friend. My first attempt to work this poem, did not feel right. The work was hauntingly beautiful, but it literally felt like being punched in my chest. The feeling wasn't right, it was too personal and painful. I didn't recognize the discomfort correctly at first, I thought it was fear and I wanted to push through fear, but a lucky accident occurred and I was given the chance to cool off and sit with the "finished" piece before showing anyone. The longer I sat with it the more I felt the truth of what wasn't working and in turn saw a clearer vision. Then I put the project on the shelf and haven't touched it in 4+ months.
Today, I decided to take it out.......
I started off with my "idea's" but in the process I let go of form and "saw" what I needed to literally see "You Like Me" and the piece emerged! But what shocks me is that it aligned itself in a way it couldn't possibly have any time sooner, and its meaning and significance to me in this moment is what it was whispering to me all along....ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

I am not certain what to call this work, is it an installation, a sculpture??? The audience is also an integral part of the piece, because it is the viewer reading the poem and looking at himself in the mirror that completes the piece.

I am continuously grateful to my beautiful sister Summer who endlessly inspires me with her beauty, honesty and courage. Everything I do from my heart is with love for her.

I want to share excerpts from another poem, which has been ringing in my soul.

If you put on shoes that are too tight
and walk out across an empty plain,
you will not feel the freedom of the place
unless you take off your shoes.

People at a distance see you walking there
and wish they were out in the open like you,
but as the saying goes, They are not in your shoes.

Your shoe-constriction has you confined.
At night before sleeping, you take off
the tight shoes, and your soul releases
into space it knows. Dream glide deeper.

.............

Normally when a horse gets the scent of a lion,
it keeps a distance. But there are exceptions.
Every now and then a horse comes
that will gallop into the blazing moat.

Do not hold back what you know to say
about your inmost self. Say everything,
no matter how much hypocrisy and hesitation
you sense is here. Don't guard the mystery.

Heat the horse so hot it rises off the track
into the emptiness of the soul.

(The Freedom Of Place by Rumi)


LOVE LOVE LOVE

Beauty in the cracks

cement, silver foil, clover

Today was my second day painting in the studio.
After working some on the painting, I found myself outside searching for broken and cracked concrete. Staring at broken walls.

I had an intense morning, breathing life.

In the midst of it, I was reminded that beauty can be found between the cracks. The courage to continue growing and living between weighted pressure. Delicate Power.

Someone once told me that we draw pressure towards ourselves, that may feel painful, so we may cut facets into the diamond that we are.

There is always beauty in the cracks.

Cure

"There's Nothing Ahead"-Rumi

"Stretch your arms and take hold the cloth of your clothes with both hands.
The cure for the pain is in the pain.
Good and bad are mixed. If you don't have both, you don't belong with us."

Today, I bandaged a broken skateboard, gilded a bone and a shoe heel, bought a bunch of helium balloons and someones wedding dress, watered my paintings, picked up 22 of the most horribly painted canvas from some unknown artist...and contemplated my next creative endeavors.
As I looked around at my current projects, and ideas...I heard myself saying:

"I bet all your blog and art followers are thinking what happened to this girl? "Where are her beautiful abstract landscape paintings? Looks like she had a head injury or something? All she does are these weird non-sensical things."

You know one of those really encouraging voices we have inside ourselves. But, then I thought about it, and there is some truth to it. The death of my beloved sister was and is an incredibly traumatic blow to my heart, and in turn my mind.
As a result my life and my art(heart) are affected.

The work I have been making lately has been alchemical in its properties. It has been more about the changing affects of perspective's...it has been about not being fully in control...it has been about seeing, living, loving, sharing, forgiving....

And as I read in this poem by Rumi today; "The cure for the pain is in the pain"

ALCHEMY- seemingly magical power or process of transmuting: "He wondered by what alchemy it was changed, so that what sickened him one hour, maddened him with hunger the next" (Marjorie K. Rawlings).

Growing

Last week, I held the painting to the window and I could see roots growing

This week the bean has sprouted!!!!

This week the bean was so strong it opened the top of the painting, and is growing out two openings.

This is the little lentil sprout:) Growing straight out of the painting!

Amazingly, the paintings have begun to grow!!! I made three, and two of them have sprouted. They both are totally different. One has huge bean sprouts, and the other has a minuscule lentil. (Both were pantry foods!)

This has been such an amazing project, witnessing the incredible growth of these tiny seeds. It is refreshing in these dark and cold days, when all seems still; to know that something is growing...

.

Golden Blessings

GOLDEN BLESSINGS

Daniel Seward

why are my keys covered in milk?why is my shampoo "for women of color"?where did my new hat go?what is that noise coming from the carrot?
(A small rubber toy carrot)

James Meadows

Son jumps on chest" I gotcha you ...i hug you baby sad...'
(a child safe lock)

Noavakay Knight

Come with me....
(A bouncy ball)

These are a few "Golden Blessings". It is a new project that is interactive and was inspired by a personal experience with heartbreak over black and blue parsnips. Yes, parsnips. I literally was in tears about the poor quality of parsnips offered at Hannaford Market. The disgusting quality of packaged parsnips spoke to me of the larger picture. How little love and care and nurture was given to these "tender n' sweet" (that's what the package said) parsnips. How can we live in a society that doesn't love and nurture what we consume and create. After a mini breakdown in the parking lot....I began to imagine how could I transform this, like alchemy...and I imagined that my tears were turning these parsnips in to little golden blessings. Like a fairy tale. I felt better, even though I had no idea what the blessing would be for?

A few days later I read an amazing passage in my book; 'Love Poems to God' by Rainer Maria Rilke

It said:

'No thing is too small for me to cherish and paint in gold, as if it were an icon that could bless us, though I'll not know who else among us will feel this blessing'

This reading was like reading my own mind, and it vocalized that I didn't need to know what the blessing was for.

So, I began my golden blessing project which is; I find these small discarded items when I walk...and then I match them to a person on Facebook, and sometimes I find the blessing first, and sometimes the person is in my head first that day..and what that person writes as their 'status' at that moment on Facebook becomes what the blessing is for or about. The person has no knowledge of these blessings, (until now).
I am thinking of these little golden blessings as little icons, or little magic things with alchemical properties of love and power to bless....

Along with this, I just made three little paintings that I planted seeds in. They are based on the same inspiration. that nothing is too small to cherish. Each day I will water these paintings, with love and we shall see....they are a bit of a meditation, reminding me of this principle that nothing is too small to cherish.

I am excited buy both of these projects as they both are interactive between me and nature, chance, and time.

The three little "planted" paintings with my eyedropper for watering

These 'planted' paintings are postcard size and the are made with encaustic, lentils, beans, gold leaf, paper towel, and transferred images of Haeckel's radiolarians.
(single cell marine life)

Sharing

Free Now (at night) by Jess Puglisi

Thank you friends who have shared your beautiful words and images with me this week...its amazing to be adorned with your gifts. I am honored and encouraged by your interest and enthusiasm in my art.

I often look skyward too.

To the clouds when they are there.

To the pure colors of the air when they are not.

To experience the ever-changing nature heavenward.

The sky does not remain still.

Not even one fragment of a second.

Even in its quieter moments, turmoil.

It is always on the move.

And to the river.

There is never the same river.

Moment to moment it renews.

Every particle, branch, wave, current.

Sometimes flowing up.

Sometimes down.

Sometimes stalled.

Choked with ice chunks.

Often serene, so still, glass-like.

Reflective of the sky especially at sunset.

It catches fire around twilight even in winter.

Earth, river and sky too all ember-lit.

Like hearts.

Yours, mine, all of ours.

Churning, burning, icy, reflective.

Always on the move.

And its ships.

Silly, colorful, laden, determined.

Gliding up, sliding back down.

Heading to all kinds of places in the world.

Like my dreams.

Effortlessly hard at work.

Chugging along.

Horizon-bound.

I enjoy my daily doses of you.

Thank You For The Sky-Peter Barton 11/3/09

Fate

Mongolian Shaman Tent

Free Now

"...no experience has been too unimportant, and the smallest event unfolds like a fate, and fate itself is like a wonderful, wide fabric in which every thread is guided by an infinitely tender hand and supported by a hundred others."-Rilke

I tend to think of life as both a scavenger/treasure hunt...where you run and find a clue then run to the next, I also imagine that we are a giant puzzle, and we don't know what our picture is. We go about trying out pieces, and slowly putting our lives together. As we go along we realize that something from the past now fits, and we make progress and put that piece in its place, we also realize that our puzzle is only part of the larger puzzle, of life, and that we are all connected to the same game. Our ancestors contributed their pieces that lay the ground for ours....so, I guess "knowing" what we are going to be forever is the same as being stuck, completely faithless....because every day presents another piece or clue to our game. The "Unknowing" is our challenge, but it is also the fun and the space to find the next clue and adventure. Personal fate that I am tremendously excited about is a similarity between my most recent works, ( Free Now and Shrine of Summers Shells) and their connection to Mongolian Shamanic Shrines (ovoo's). A good friend recently suggested I see the movie, "The Horse Boy" because she felt their was a similarity between my sculpture and the shamans in the movie. I am so grateful to her, for being so attentive to my sculpture and so considerate to pass this recommendation on to me. The movie was incredibly moving and inspiring, for many reasons and I highly recommend it!

I am soooo excited about this connection.....where am I going next?

Mongolian Ovoo

Pictures of Free Now

I have taken down Free Now. These are a few pictures taken at different times, different days.
(I am looking forward to seeing other peoples pictures)

This was a tremendous experience artistically and personally for many reasons.
I loved working outdoors, I loved working with these materials, I loved doing something so new, I loved having a dialogue with the farmer who loaned me his land.

I loved following the inspiration.

I love and miss my sister who continues to be my guiding muse and teacher.

Free Now

F r e e N o w
Please Visit in Person at 1300 rt. 8 Germantown, NY 12526 (Between rt9 & 9G)
(It will only be at this location until this Thursday!)

“Free Now” a sculpture/movable environmental installation. Free Now is created using discarded clothing, step ladders and feather wings. The sculpture stands about 20ft high and is approximately 30ft in diameter. Free Now is inspired by my sister Summer's courage to live here on earth, as well as her courage to leave this earth. The sculpture is also inspired by the Greek myth of Icarus, and all the many bird girls who painfully struggle to walk this earth out of love, but eventually return to the sky and sun where their spirits can freely fly. The piece is made so it can be easily dismantled and re-mantled allowing me to put it in different environments and public spaces both indoors and out ( the beach, a field, an empty building as well as a traditional gallery). Thus sharing the piece freely with the public.
This is the first public viewing!


Free at last
by Antony and the Johnson

Way down yonder in the graveyard walk
I thank God I'm free at last
Me and my Jesus going to meet and talk
I thank God I'm free at last

On my knees when the light pass'd by
I thank God I'm free at last
Tho't my soul would rise and fly
I thank God I'm free at last

Some of these mornings, bright and fair
I thank God I'm free at last
Goin' meet my Jesus
In the middle of the air
I thank God I'm free at last



In addition to my work, I encourage you to visit the Icarus Project online.

" The Icarus Project envisions a new culture and language that resonates with our actual experiences of 'mental illness' rather than trying to fit our lives into a conventional framework."-Icarus Project

"He cares no more for warnings, he rushes through the sky,
Braving the crags of ether, daring the gods on high,

Black 'gainst the crimson sunset, golden o'er cloudy snows,
With all Adventure in his heart the first winged man arose.

Dropping gold, dropping gold, where the mists of morning rolled,

On he kept his way undaunted, though his breaths were stabs of cold,
Through the mystery of dawning that no mortal may behold.

Now he shouts, now he sings in the rapture of his wings,
And his great heart burns intenser with the strength of his desire,

As he circles like a swallow, wheeling, flaming, gyre on gyre.

Gazing straight at the sun, half his pilgrimage is done,

And he staggers for a moment, hurries on, reels backward, swerves
In a rain of scattered feathers as he falls in broken curves.

Icarus, Icarus, though the end is piteous,
Yet forever, yea, forever we shall see thee rising thus,

See the first supernal glory, not the ruin hideous.

You were Man, you who ran farther than our eyes can scan,
Man absurd, gigantic, eager for impossible Romance,
Overthrowing all Hell's legions with one warped and broken lance."


A passage from the poem-"Winged Man" by Stephen Vincent Benet 1907






Swim with me my mama when I dive in the ocean of death

I will cry if I am not with my family

You could be my friend eternally




Swim with me my sister when I dive in the great white ocean

We must try, try to find a way that we can see

See each others faces in the sea



Swim with me my sister when I dive in the great white ocean


We must try, try to find a way that we can see

See each others faces in the sea

The Great Ocean of Time-Antony and the Johnsons