Archive for the ‘Art’ Category
“Dance with the Wind — Photo-artistry by kenne
Dance with the Wind
I can’t remember the first time I was asked,
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
I do remember it was not the last,
each time dancing out whom I wanted to be.
Projecting an image,
more than motion,
more than a reflex,
it was a feeling
transformed in the act.
In my freedom of expression,
adults around me loved the movement,
reflecting an awareness of where I was,
often lost in their youth.
With age,
answering the question became more difficult,
movement losing feeling
as I went through the motions,
coming under the influence of a fashion,
unaware of the freedom
evoked by experiencing the feeling.
By way of schooling,
I learned the programmed dance steps.
The more I practiced the steps,
the better I dealt with the known,
ignorant of conventional limitations
being placed in the unknown.
Still, going through the motions
was not without the sound
of Mother’s words,
“always be yourself,”
playing in the background.
The music of these caring words
handing me a string to the kite of life,
without which I would not be able
to dance with the wind.
By hanging on to her lifeline,
I learned the wind was my friend,
forming a rhythm alliance,
enhancing my feeling for the dance.
Each step taping to the music,
dancing in the wonder of life,
gliding in the midst of reality,
the dance always being new,
personal,
alive.
— kenne
(A draft of this poem was first written December 2000.)
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“Solitude” — Photo-Artistry by kenne
“The secret of a good old age
is simply an honorable pact
with solitude.”
. . . from One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez
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Cedar Waxwing — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
— from Dream Work by Mary Oliver
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Greater Roadrunner Photo-Artistry by kenne
What is he thinking
bobbing his tail
up and down
our curiosity shared
not knowing what
the other is thinking.
Conveying a cool air
with an eye on me
only a cocky tease
when his attention
is not me, but
a nearby lizard —
What was I thinking?
— kenne
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Image by kenne (January 15, 2010)
“It was the spring of 1968 and I had taken a week off to join college friends in Daytona Beach, Florida. Our sunburns had not yet turned to tans and we had barely finished the first of several cases of Old Milwaukee beer (with pull tops, a recent innovation) when President Johnson shocked the nation by announcing that he would not seek another term. The Vietnam War had worn him down — and out.
And then four evenings later there was a commotion.
“They killed the nigger! The nigger’s dead!” cried a group of drunken college students as they danced and whooped in the parking lot of the motel adjacent to ours. “They killed the nigger!”
My Old Milwaukee high evaporated in a flash. We turned on the television. Dr. King had been gunned down at a Memphis motel. I wanted to hurt those students. I wanted to throw up.
We drove north the next morning. As we approached Washington, there were huge black clouds of smoke over the city. We overtook a convoy of troop carriers filled with National Guardsmen, rifles slung over their shoulders. The riots following Dr. King’s murder were well underway, and the New York Avenue corridor of tenements, flophouses, liquor stores and churches in Northwest Washington was in flames. It was hard to drive around the city in those days, but we found a detour.
The rioting spread, and the next night. I was again in newspaper reporter’s mufti and took my Daytona tan down to The Valley, a poor neighborhood in Wilmington, Delaware where young blacks were skirmishing with the city police and National Guard. There were fires and intermittent gunfire from snipers atop the row houses. At one point a bullet whizzed over my head. Yes, just like in the movies.
I was still shaking when I got back to my apartment the next morning. I cried over the inhumanity of my fellow man, for my black friends and for Dr. King.”
— from “Remembering Dr. King & The Never Ending Struggle For Civil Rights” by Shaun Mullen (January 16, 2012)
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Visual Artist, Malcolm Alexander — Image by kenne
When we moved to Tanuri Ridge in Tucson in 2010, one of our neighbors on the circle was Malcolm Alexander, soon to become one of my most unforgettable people. He was our neighbor for three years before he moved back to Santa Fe, where he passed away at 89 in 2014.
“What’s the latest gossip?” was a frequent greeting from Malcolm as he set outside his home smoking a cigar. The irony was I never knew him to gossip. He seemed to enjoy the still moments sitting along smoking a cigar, however, he required a lot of social stimulation.
Schooling was difficult for Malcolm, who suffered from dyslexia that so affected his life by providing many challenges he learned to overcome. As a poor reader, he disliked writing and public speaking. Yet, in addition to becoming a successful visual artist, he was a writer and public speaker. Malcolm wrote in his memoir, “To Reason Why:”
“Many dyslexics have not been as fortunate as I have been. Many spend much of their lives in severe depressions, struggling endlessly, like Sisyphus, to roll their stone uphill. Too often they are rolling the wrong stone, as I did, before fulfilling my dream.”
His story was not dissimilar from my own. We are able to overcome our difficulties only by the faith, the kindness and the assistance of exceptional people we have met along the way.
“Being an artist requires enthusiasm more than discipline. Enthusiasm is not an emotional state. It is a spiritual commitment, a loving surrender to our creative process, a loving recognition of all the creativity around us.
I am an inveterate collector, collecting experiences. As a collector, I have come in contact with many remarkable people, which I have come to realize is my great interest in life. It is not art that interests me most, but people.”
I shared more on Malcolm in a September 12, 2013 posting:
https://kenneturner.com/2013/09/12/artist-malcolm-alexander-moves-back-to-santa-fe-continuing-the-march-to-a-different-beat/
— kenne
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Female Phainopepla Photo-Artistry by kenne
It is necessary to run risks.
We only properly understand
the miracle of life when we
allow the unexpected to happen.
— Paulo Coelho
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