Today's prompt? Pictures. Below are your characters.
These are encaustic portraits by Serena Barton. I'm not telling you any more about them.
Give them names. Place them in a setting you've always wanted to visit; or perhaps you have visited and to which you'd like to return. The story line can be whatever you want, but there has been a death recently. How are these people related? Or are they? What is their relationship to the being who has died? At least one of them is an outsider. Which one? And why have they come?
Go. Write for 10 minutes.
Click on the artist's name to read more about these portraits after you've completed your writing.
I interrupt the posting of student work from Art is...You and Art and Soul to announce my upcoming encaustic workshop for beginning and intermediate students.
When: Saturday, October 29, 2011 1-5 PM
Tuition: 85. Supplies provided.
Fall in love with the aromatic, luminous, and versatile properties of beeswax in the form of encaustic painting! Learn how to build up layers, add color, and add collage elements. No previous art experience needed—just lively curiosity and willingness to risk addiction to painting with wax!
We'll play with fire (safely) as we wax lyrical over this wonderful medium.
These are some of the attributes of this time of the year: transitioning from the summer and headed toward winter. It is time to gather in the the results of what we've sown. To cleanse the field in preparation for the period ahead. To appreciate all that we've done, what the earth and our communities have given us. To reflect on the changes we have undergone and witnessed and to look around for what we need to do for the times ahead.
Today's theme is transition in the time of harvest.
First, watch the video and listen to this song. It is a pagan music group singing "Harvest Song."
THE MUSIC:
Answer these questions; skip the ones that don't fit for you. There are some photographs at the end which may help give you focus while you write. If you feel pulled in one direction by your answers to a question or thoughts that come up as you write, follow them. The goal for this week is to look at what you've sown, offer gratitude for whatever or whoever has helped you achieve these things, and follow the flow of the story your heart wants to write right now.
THE QUESTIONS:
Today I am grateful for . . . .
Today I know that I accomplished . . . .
Today I am glad that I . . . .
Today I feel hopeful for . . . .
For today I want to remember . . . .
For tomorrow I want to start . . . .
For my future or the future of those I care about I hope . . . .
I am ...
I know ...
I feel ...
I need ...
I am ...
Bottom three encaustic paintings are all by Serena Barton (the center painting is the back of an altered book).
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There is a bi-coastal encaustic project, The Diptych Project - A Collaboration in Wax, with artists from Portland, OR and Portland, ME which will be showing in April. This has been in process for several months between members of the International Encaustic Artists Guild on the west coast and New England Was members on the east coast. The members were randomly paired. Each artist made one original work, which was mailed with a blank foundation of the same size to her partner. So the original pieces crossed mid-country and arrived at their destinations, where the partner's project was to make a companion piece. The meaning of companion was left to the individual artists. Some of them are mates or a second half; some are more call and response. The next step will be for each coastal group to show the diptychs in their possession at a local gallery. The diptychs here are the originals from Portland, ME, and the response from Portland, OR, and they will be on display and for sale at the Brian Marki gallery April 4 - 30.
Writers often take ideas from somewhere or someone else and build on them. Or we write in response to something we see or hear or smell. But what if we found another writer with whom to create a written diptych? Each person write the beginning of a story, exchange them, and then the other person finishes it up. Or two poems, or the first 5 minutes of a 10-minute stage script. There are several variations on this for writing. One example - which can be really fun, especially with a medium size group (around 10 people) - is the "exquisite corpse" exercise : each person writes down an opening sentence from the same word prompt. Then all the paper is passed to the right (or left, doesn't matter) and the second person adds a line. Then person two folds the paper backwards just so the first sentence is not visible and the paper is passed to the next person. This continues until you are back at the beginning (one group I did this with, each person put a symbol they would recognize in the bottom right corner of the paper so they'd know, since the first line is no longer visible). Each person turns the paper down so that only their sentence is available for the next person to work with. When it is done, go around the group and read the creations from beginning to end. This is a great group cohesion exercise and can be a lot of fun with lively and wild stories.
Diptych by Serena Barton, IEA (top) + Dawna Bemis, NEW (bottom, "What If They Find Out", 36" x 18"
