Pieces of paper I drew on, Why?

No, This is Where it All Comes Together

Thoughts:

 I drew on these pieces of paper

and then I glued them on another 

piece of paper and made marks and

colored around them. It's like a travel 

brochure for different mind-scapes.

I keep looking for that place

the place where everything comes

together and it all makes sense.

All the colors, all the lines, where all

ideas join together and it works.

I think it is what all art searches for.

Maybe it's just me, but I think it's why

we keep making images again and

again. We are seeking the harmony

that we think life dose not possess. 

The reality is the harmony is there,

but like the artist we are looking to

closely at life. Pull way back and the

universe has harmony. It has a balance

 and a flow.  The problem is we think it is

all about us. I am looking out of these eyes so it's my perspective. The key is to 

keep looking, but out of all eyes. There is turmoil, destruction, death, birth, joy

celebration, it's all there and it all has its place, when you let go of you and your

isolationist perspective in it.  

Now, Just because I feel this does not mean I know how to put it into practice,

but I am trying. Moment to moment I try to be aware of what I see and how it

impacts me. I am trying not to make others agree with me, but I want to live so

they see I respect who and where they are in this life. 

This place of Harmony is at Hand

I need to Step Back into Everything

in order to see it

I will leave this here for now.

jeffkimsey-carroll.com

Change of Perspective

Turn the world on its side 

and you may see the world looking back at you.

Reflections in a mountain lake

tipped that way

reveals a totem pole of sorts.

I count six or more strange faces.

what do you see?

jeffkimsey-carroll.com

Moment #25

Getting There

jeffkimsey-carroll.com

 

Beauty

I met a flower the other day that asked me if I knew how beautiful I was. I said, Me, beautiful? It's you, flower, you're the beautiful one. I mean, you really caught my eye. Caught your eye, said the flower. I don't even have an eye but I know how beautiful you are. Every time you exhale my whole body absorbs your breath and I am reminded of your beauty. It is the relationship we have that defines your beauty. Beauty is something you offer to another; it is a gift, a moment of awe. The cycle of life that humans and plants share is awesome. It is not a visual thing but is still beautiful. So flowers think you are beautiful! Embrace it and breathe out.

jeffkimsey-carroll.com

Waiting for travelers

 Waiting for travelers

There is this place between the cosmos

yes there is more than one cosmos

there are kazillions 

and in this place wait bodies

bodies waiting for travelers

Vessels waiting to be filled

filled with a fragment of awareness

and then they will be set adrift in one of the cosmos

They will be propelled by desire 

a desire to know from where they came 

and where they are going

This desire will fill so much of their time drifting

That most will fail to be aware of the swirling life around them.

Embrace your drift

Be aware of your vessel's motion

Ride all the waves of light that carry you onward

Spend more time in the awareness on the journey

and less time seeking your destination.

jeffkimsey-carroll.com

Reflections

Reflections often provide us with a look at a different world, one where walls bend in a way that if they did in our world they would fall down. The distortions of light, water, imperfect glass etc. all give the eye a treat, an adventure, a doorway into the imagination. I shot this image as I was passing by in a car, in motion. I then came home and messed it up in the computer.

Within the building

He kept his dream

But the dream was so big

The building burst at the seams

Once on the street

The dream continued expanding

time to back up

and think about where you are standing

                                                                                              

                             Original image

jeffkimsey-carroll.com

You Were

There are moments

where you are not who you are,

and you can accept that it may just be the moment;

but there is the possibility that you never were who you thought you were.
 

A Place

I have found a place

where color holds my gaze

and hands to me a moment

that never truly was

And yet I choose to embrace

the colors in this moment

although not truth

they delight me none the less.

for the world I hold before me

requires of me no real limit

leaving me to slip in and around

all dimension that might please me

thinking that might make sense.

Enhanced photographs of reflections in water.

Jeff reflecting it back.

 

Okay, Been awhile!

I am 
The burning bush
All of life
The flame
It takes
All my strength
To not
Be consumed...


...Perhaps I should not work so hard.





 "I am the burning bush"
Wood cut 17"x 8" paint and ink

This style of sculpture is a product of play. I do not always enter into their creation with an idea. I actually allow the shapes to tell me what they will become. I cut random shapes, sometimes paint them and then move them around on and among each other until I find their story or relationship. The ink line drawing is to symbolize the complexity, it is a non definable  emotional language. I just like lines and shapes.
 
       Jeff trying to get back to blogging

Notion #18

Where are we now?

It took too long to know the flower

She spread her wings and flew away

It was not supposed to be that way

Flight was never to be the flower's gift

but she took it

pulled the roots out and leapt

dirt falling as she rose

I reach out, but she was quick

That was the moment I first asked

where are we now?

If things are going to change

how will we know

where we are?

Fear will overtake me

I will find it difficult to function

Will I find rocks that speak of dreams

 ants that live to dance,

trees that take long walks? 

If this kind of thing is allowed 

the world, no, the universe

will need a rewrite.

We always assume we know where we are

and where every thing is supposed to be

but there is no real "supposed to be"

life is an illusion 

in fact most of the world's inhabitants believe

that the universe was made by a higher force or being 

which means we are "made up"

and if it was not made by a divine being

that would also imply there is no supposed to be

everything is up for grabs, including the flying flowers.  

so where are we now? 

----------------------------------------------------

Just me tripping on my Digital Photography

Jeff wondering

Notion #16

There is a point where you stop talking and listen

There is also a point where you stop looking and see

I think it maybe that just past that point is where we begin to feel

At that point there is no turning back

Keep on going


Photo: Acadia  National Park, Maine
A link to my photos of Acadia and Maine
Acadia Photos 2012 
 

New Obsession

My new obsession are these four panel graphics. I have been doing them for some time now, but I continue to enjoy making them. I started in this case with paint out in the garage. Then I photographed the painting like I explained in my last post and enhanced the images digitally. I like this pin wheel effect cause it creates a sense of motion as well as allows the abstract image to be viewed from four different perspectives. If you are looking for meaning here your guess is as good as mine. These are explorations in emotion, there is nothing here to be known only felt. I will surly make more.

Jeff Stuck

notion #15

Dance is not about movement.

It's about putting together a whole bunch of stillness

and then showing it or watching it

all at once.

Image Title: "Lift off"

Jeff - not sure why I was thinking about this. oh well?

Building Dinosaurs Our Way

                     Up under the skeleton of plywood

Every now and then I get to do a project that is outside the box. In other words I am not building a cabinet for someone, I'm building a dinosaur skeleton. Working with Mark Orleans, Exhibit Manager of the Garden State Discovery Museum, I am assisting in building a life size Tyrannosaurs Rex skeleton. We are not creating and exact scientific replica just and artistic representation. I find that in this process to much thought about what we are doing tends to slow us down. This is because thought always calls for precision or exactness where as just going with feeling requires leaps of faith. In other words just give it a try, draw the pelvis bone the way it looks, cut it out, hold it up to the rest of the skeleton and if it looks right you got it, if not try it another way. Now you could argue that if we just made a plan and did all the calculating ahead of time we could save ourselve all that trial and error, but that would requier Mark and I to be different people. You see both of us are tactile hands-on types. We do a quick sketch and start to build. It's just the way we are wired. I am not saying any way is better than the other. I am just saying this is how it works for me. So if you need to plan, do it and if you just want to dive in go for it. Just make sure it's your way or you'll drive yourself nuts.
Jeff Jumping in

To see more picturs of our work follow this Link

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.215938435101527.66130.150455301649841&l=aa62dcab13

Here is a link for the museum http://www.discoverymuseum.com/

moment #6

                            " when all the colors bleed into one"

sharing an idea

A few weeks ago I got an idea. So I wrote it down in my idea book. Here is what the idea looked like in the book. This idea involved me cutting out random shapes and attaching two of the shapes together to create these free standing figures. I then was going to give them all to a painter friend to paint. In the process of getting them to the painter friend other people saw the cutouts and asked about them. This led to me making them for a variety of

Priming the figures

creative people. This will result in the making of about eight free standing figures who will be cut out given to a variety of people  to paint any way they want and then all come back together to become a single piece representing diversity.

For me this is an exercise in sharing, starting an idea and letting it go where it will. I can't wait, but will, to see them all come back together as a family of self expression. Stay tuned for pictures! 

Jeff cutting

moment #5

"getting out of line"

Jeff smearing photos again!

Up late again!

Sometimes when I stay up late it's because I am drawing. I've been doing abstract sketches in pencil. I then take the sketches or drawings and scan them into the computer. I can then layer them with my abstract light photos and change colors and run them through filters and have all kinds of fun. These are the same idea as the faces a few posts back.

These drawings come from internal image. I will often just start drawing and let the lines go where they will until defined image begins to creep in. I have no way to tell you what this is that your looking at, it's just a feeling given form. The feeling depends on your perspective and life experiences. Take from it what you will. These two images began with the same sketch.

"You people wouldn't believe the images trapped in my head waiting to come out". Wait!

Jeff Abstracted

More Digital Doings

Now I'm not sure what the rules are in the photography world, I am hoping there are none, but because I am really a carpenter with a camera I can do whatever I want. So I use filters to enhance my photos. Not every shot turns out that great, but with a little color tweaking and a filter or two, you can make a flat picture jump. If you are taking digital pictures and not playing with all the computer gadgets to enhance your photos, you are missing out. There are real complicated programs that will take you years to master, but there are also easy programs as well. So get your pictures out of your camera and into the computer and play. Just make sure you always back up your originals. That way you can use the same picture again and again and make it different every time. Have fun!

Click on the pictures to make them larger.

Here is a link to a review of 11 free editors http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pixelbasedwin/tp/freephotoedw.htm

Jeff tweaking

Crouch Down

This happens to me from time-to-time. I’ll start feeling small and insignificant when I look out across a valley to distant mountains or gaze up into the heavens at night. We somehow tend to look outward and disconnect ourselves from being a part of the vastness and the beauty of it all. Here is a grounding activity, or something I do to gain perspective. I take out my camera, set it on macro and wander around in the backyard. I like to find an area where it feels like not much is going on. This time of year with the end of winter and spring just beginning to pop everything seems a little bland. Just set your camera close to the earth and click away. You should find little worlds that remind you that the universe is under your feet as well as out beyond the stars and that you are a part of someone’s distant vista.
In my blog of January 27th, 2010 I linked to a Native American story called Jumping Mouse. In that story the hero, the mouse, is told to “crouch as low as he can and then leap as high as he can”. I often spend too much of my time leaping to see what is out there, up ahead, down the road, I forget to be and express what I feel right where I am. This is ancient wisdom; I hope some day to make it mine.
Let me take this further and share a few images from the past few weeks as the snow has melted. I’ll add a little writing exercise to the images. What I did here was to look at the images I took out in the yard and write my first line from observations or thoughts that the image gave me. I then put the image aside and tried to quickly continue the phrase with sense or nonsense, whichever came first.

-Looking down into an abandoned flower pot.

Dry and dead at the bottom of a clay pot
I will lay here until the gardener acts
Then I’ll slide free into the compost
To give the power I have left
To a story with out end
I am not just a part of it
I am a part of everything




Green are the bottles that hold spring
I want that to rhyme again with everything
The every and the thing or the thing and the every
Separate they work but together they’re heavy

Now back to the bottles holding spring
Green is the color of so many things
Every of course is black and or white
Based on reflection or absorption of light

The bottles, the bottles holding spring
Break them open let’s get it going
Everything hangs just out of reach
But as soon as it’s done we can head for the beach.

Needles and twigs stuck in ice
Makes me think of beetles and pigs playing dice
And if you were thinking the same
Be sure and leave me your name
For those who think like we do
Know reality not to be true.

I’ll stop there.

For those of you who like to leap real high visit NASAs image of the day.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/iotd.html

Jumping Jeff