Poem & Print with Jane Lind #3

This is a piece that I did in response to Jane's poem, 'Butterfly Shoes' (which you can find under the post heading, Poem & Print with Jane Lind #2). The above work is a mixed print collage with washi and hand stitching and is titled, 'garden patch adventures'.

It is funny that I don't see the connection as clearly now as I did at first. I think it is the running through the grass and clover and the different journey sections of the poem that I was thinking of and none of the wonderful colour that she describes.  What might carry back and forth between us is more of a mood than a description and it is also our individual interpretations and reactions to each others work. We started this project near the end of 2010 when Jane first saw 'Memento' at Printopolis.  Our writing and printing has gone fairly slowly, fitting itself inbetween other projects, work and bouts of illness and inactivity. Thankfully, the two of us are on the mend and keen to get back to this project and see where it takes us.
Here is Jane's new poem in response to the work above.

ONE BUTTERFLY or LATE-SUMMER GARDEN One lone butterfly at summer's end draws its course around Nerine blossoms and sails between the earth and sky under the crab apple tree in the soft September morning fog. What other gardens will it visit? What blossoms will it find? Buddleja, soft pink Anemones, perhaps, or Purple Emperor Sedums or will it light on Monarda and white Phlox? Whatever its course, drawn by the magnetic pull of the earth, it will find its destination.                                                                       Jane Lind, 2013

Poem & Print with Jane Lind #2

Here is my second work for Jane and my back-and-forth project. This mixed print is titled, 'youth and garden blankets' and is in response to the first poem Jane wrote.

This is her poem in reflection and response to this piece.

Butterfly Shoes

She saw through the window curtain
butterflies lighting on purple cone flowers
opening and closing their wings
in the morning sunshine.
Trembling with excitement,
she put on her butterfly shoes,
ran outside and crouched in the garden,
her face so close to the butterfly wings she could have
touched them.
Instead she opened her arms to the morning sun,
her face to the sky
as the butterflies sailed over the fence.
She followed as fast as she could,
discovered the butterflies
far out in the purple haze of the clover field
disappearing into the sky.
But wait. Just as she collapsed onto the ground,
one butterfly returned, sat on her hand,
pouring into her its orange ecstasy.

Jane Lind, 2012

I had been missing Jane's studio visits and so went round to her house to catch up and have tea. Jane makes her own mint tea, which is wonderful and she has promised me a mint plant to two in the Spring which I will happily plant in our small garden.  Anyhow, while I was visiting Jane brought out her baby shoes that her mother had kept for her. They are just like the ones in the work (above) that we were working on and so precious that I had to take some photos.  When I started walking, I think I had those white hard leather ankle boots that were supposed to be good for young feet... not sure about that but Jane's are much cuter.

Busy Studio

Once in awhile my studio is a busy place with people working on various print projects.  This is a nice change from the usual quiet of just myself and my music, pacing around trying to make decisions and create something I am happy with.  On this particular day, a week or two ago, Jane Lind came up to work on a few of her chine colle monotypes.  Pearl VanGeest came in to finish up her handtinted lithographs with chine colle for the exhibition Papier12 (through KWT Gallery) and Sarah Cordeaux was helping me with a large work on her last day as assistant for her Experiential Learning course.

Jane and Sarah working

one of Jane's completed prints

another of Jane's lovely works

Pearl signing her finished works

i do not have the titles to everyone's work. just love how they all turned out

Poem & Print with Jane Lind

I am a big fan of Jane Lind's writing and want to share here a poem that she gave me during a session of printmaking lessons I was giving her in my studio a couple of weeks ago.  The poem was

inspired by a work of mine she had purchased from my show 'sweet nothings' at AWOL gallery during Printopolis last Autumn.  The work is titled the same as the poem,

"Memento- from when you were small"

She sits on a patterned red and blue quilt

spread on green grass

where Sweet Williams bloom.

Butterflies- Monarchs

light on the blossoms.

She chortles with pleasure,

reaches out her hand

but the bright wings

disappear.

The butterfly returns

lights on her dress,

wings forever etched in her memory

on a pink organza summer dress.

(by Jane Lind,  2011)