Concept of The Frame

So lately I discovered the concept of the Frame.

The reason is the Dia de los Muertos show at Lawndale. They give you a retablo tin upon which to paint. The tin measures 8 by 10 inches, and for me that’s really small. But they let you cheat! As long as you use the tin, you can add stuff. I decided to add a frame because then it would be bigger.

This presented a cool new set of visual problems to solve. 1. The frame is part of the picture and not part of the picture. 2. The frame makes the work…. 3D. As someone whose favorite dimension is definitely the second one, I saw this mad crazy wild stuff.

Traditionally in Mexico retablos seem to portray a disaster or misfortune that was survived by intercession of a saint, Jesus or Mary. I painted a memory of being in New York during September 11, a disaster that was not averted. (Lawndale lets you change the rules a bit).

September 11 was ten years ago. The painting is the event, but the frame is the space of memory, ten years. It is the space where I contemplate that memory. The prayer is taken from a chant from the Greek Orthodox Church. Because my photograph is a bit blurry, I will type the words here:

Who is weak, and I am not weak? Say who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is scandalized? Who is scandalized, and I am not on fire? And I am not on fire? And I am not on fire?

Underneath, are two prayers: Christe Eleison is Greek for Christ give me mercy (The Jesus prayer of the heart). Ar-Rahim is one of the 99 names of Allah, it means Allah is merciful.

I think the frame must also represent a space beyond time. The birds escape the picture’s calamity, but the people do not.

A surprise gift the frame gave me was the duality of space: inside, outside. I could really create a strong movement with this, a movement from left to right. You read the words from left to right. The fire pushes to the right. The birds break out of the frame in a diagonal, going faster, free.

The person falls out of that left to right movement. The person drops out of sight.

(Well, that’s how I saw it, anyway…)

Well, do you know what? I had been so excited buying that lovely large frame at Hobby Lobby among the glitter and stickers and beads, I failed to notice the fine print of my Lawndale rules: the entire work can’t exceed 12 by 14 inches. Mine was too big and they couldn’t take it. So I made a new frame really fast before the deadline; it’s a bit smaller and not the one pictured here. I don’t think it’s that different, though.

The Dia de los Muertos show is at Lawndale from October 17 through November 5. I got a sneak peek when I turned my piece in and all the works were so beautiful, I wish I had a million dollars to attend the auction with! For more information on Lawndale and how to get there and stuff, go to www.lawndaleartcenter.org.

Plum Village and the Moon

Summer in Houston is wearing me out. I’m so sorry Houston. I try very hard to love you in your most difficult times no matter what people say about you. In the beginning of the summer I rode my bike everywhere. I loved the magnolias, the haunted sounds of music coming from Herman Park not far away, the black grackles at Empire café with their blue sheen and their evil dinosaur eyes.

But now it’s August. There’s not much rain. It’s dusty all around Montrose and smells like car exhaust and dried cat poo. It’s okay. It’s also the time of nothing to break the light of the sun. If you go to the rose garden it’s copper needles drying in the heat, little flames of roses, cicada’s sad tambourines, blonde grass, and sunsets so heavy with color they are pressing honey and melted butter through the black trees at dusk.

At this time one year ago I was in such a different place and as they days get hotter, drier, and longer and longer and longer, I like to remember that time. I stayed two weeks at Plum Village, the monastery of the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, in the countryside outside Bordeaux, France. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, there was “nowhere to go and nothing to do,” so I spent a lot of time wandering through tall grasses, watching sheep bleat to each other, watching a nun throw back her head and sing the moon up. I wrote so many moon poems there and I wasn’t the only one! Lots of people were into the moon… it’s so different when you can really see it. I so miss the moon and I miss the insect sounds in the field and I miss Plum Village, so I will share some of my journal from that time.

Plum Village Moon Poem

Half moon:

parts itself

pushing out

like the breasts on a young girl growing

giving birth

or the sky is giving birth to her pale form.

You are growing, like me

you’re giving birth to yourself,

like me.

The moon was a sharp half piece

like the chip off a diamond.

Yellow was soaked all around it.

Fresh as a shot of sun

inside the water, this moon.

If you see a stone under flowing water flashing

It seems to be waving.

That’s the way the stars tremble.

Waxing moon:

a rose kiss

a rose eye

an opening eye.

pink moon playing

bobbing in a rainbow

rolling in the trees.

Full moon:

now you turn towards us your full face.

Now you show up, you open your eyes wide.

You are awake.

I and the corn and the flute insects wait for your voice.

A mother is come home.

Full Moon Festival

Down by the lotus pond the children

are holding rushing sparklers.

What’s that immense silent firework

showering sparks behind the trees?

Plum Village Insect Poem

The insects are earth’s singers.

I hear tambourines. The night is full of a thousand tiny bells.

And reedy flutes, rattling grass.

But a bird’s song is sweet as a baby laughing,

a brook in the forest,

a surprise of bright flower.

If I find you, smaller creature,

in the shower or the hallway,

you are green and glazed with gold.

Your legs are blue. Your eyes are soft.

Your legs catch at my finger like the bow catches a violin string.

I have to carry you out into the soft blue night

And lay you on the first leaf I can reach

A leaf in a darkening linden tree

So you won’t die.

Spiders in the shower

you ride so high

you weigh nothing on your eight airy stilts.

Even a drop of water

will crush you high world

but I’m careful

***

The point of Plum Village Buddhist teachings though, is to live in the present moment, which right now means H-town. So I will try to have some nice poems about shiny, trembling, plenteous roaches and fluffy feral cats as soon as possible.

Learn more about Plum Village here:

http://www.plumvillage.org/