Said and Done

Collaboration 048

Leave me in stillness

In a field of waving grain

Remember me as motion

Never meant to last

I had my rise

Moments in the sun

And then surrender

When all was said and done

We are beats to one another

Tempos kept in step

Hands grasping hands

Laughing till we wept

The trees were green

But there was more here to be seen 

Beyond color beyond form

The movement of a soul longing to be born

Always there

beyond time

Outside of counting

Your way along a line

Where this you and I 

are more as one

We are the motion when all is said

And all seems done

The wave flows on

The dance is who we are

the swaying fields of grain

to the distant spinning star

jeffkimsey-carroll.com

More thought on the soul

Like a landfill, the un-locatable element I call my soul is filled with layer upon layer of life-expressed debris. In this image I depict two malformed demons who live in my soul and spend their time stomping down all that collects in my soul. So now you're saying to me, "I did not realize anything gathered in the soul." My response is, "look, I just make this stuff up, that's why my soul is so cluttered." For me, my soul is a huge space and it fills constantly with fragments of thought, dream, vision, whimsy, passion, desire, loathing, rage, joy, wonder, shall I go on? My soul is a dump for everything my mind exhales. This is just me, it does not need to be this way for you. Thanks for reading.

Title of Piece:  Tamping Down the Layers of My Soul

 2021 

jeffkimsey-carroll.com

A Whisper

This is a whisper in my head. That means it is not clear. Not a clear thought or idea, just a whisper.

There are these spirits that run across one of the valleys in my soul. They are warriors, hunters, reactors. They react without thought, quickly, so quickly that sometimes their action is complete before the event has begun. I know that is not possible but remember this is not real, I think, just a whisper. There is a deity that watches them from some place that feels not like my soul but more like my head. Okay now I am not saying that this means my soul is some place other than my head, but we are talking about feeling, not knowing. So I really don't need to explain this.

Anyway the deity watches and often sends storms into the valley in order to bring about change. The storm destroys the spirit warriors village and causes them to move and rebuild and keep trying to bring order back to their life. They do all this quickly, so quickly.

One day the deity set a storm that lasted for some time. The warriors hid from it as long as they could, but then chose to war against the storm. As the storm raged on, all they would do would be to run at it and try to pierce it with their spears. The storm simply sent the spears flying back, many warriors were killed. When the storm died out, something strange was left behind. A sphere that spoke of wonders, secrets, and dreams lay on the valley floor. Some listened, but most reacted swiftly and tried to kill the sphere and stop it from speaking.

As the spears struck the sphere they were drawn in and the energy of the spears brought with them the story of each warrior. All the spears gathered in the center of the sphere creating a kind of flower that seemed to amplify the wonderings that continued to emanate outward from the sphere. The sight and the stories slowed the warriors and they stopped their swift reacting and began to think and wonder about everything.
To this day the spirit warriors sit listening and at peace, in one of the valleys of my soul. They listen to the sphere reflecting there stories back to them. The sphere I believe is a fragment of the creative force of the universe. These fragments lodge themselves in many places with in each persons soul. We then spend our entire lives making attempts to hear the stories of existence held with in us.

This has been a whisper, only a whisper, if it had been actual information it would have made sense.

This is the full therapy painting the whispers came from. Just me playing with paint. The colors have been computer enhanced, the original is really quite dull.

Jeff listening to paint

as my soul sees me

"as my soul sees me"

Unaware that I am walking around

My soul thinks I float

unaware that I can produce sound

My soul assumes I'm mute

My soul is just aware of all the spaces with in me

and the struggles they posses

Each space holds one conflict

one dilemma, trying to work itself for me out

or one excitation, one elation 

Burning to express this myself without doubt.

This is just a fragment of the confusion

with which my soul sees me.

I may write more later and then again may not.



The above wood cut sculpture is about four feet tall by two feet wide.
For Sale - Cost $650.00
contact through www.jkcwood.com  

Jeff with his wiggly saw.

  

moment #8

"Soul Lift"

I love this Song and Video. It has nothing to do with the picture and then everything, to do with any picture. Check it out on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXr3CCQPxJY

wait for it

Make no sound

and you might sense me

the noise you make

drives me away

talk and my form

is shaken

move

and I am all

but blown away

I have moved
around you

all the time you have been

alive

you know me as fear

but you deny I exist

I can not be known

only felt

felt in the moment

when beauty peaks
when emotion is
filled to the brim
when the music falls silent
and leaves you alone

make no name for me

to identify me

would make me known

and once something is known

it is harder to feel it

allow me to be

in your stillness

and quiet
with you
still
hold
wait
wait

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

Words on something I am allowing to happen whether I want to or not.

Cool poem I found http://www.spiritisup.com/spiritdancerbl.html

Jeff holding

Pulling on Pictures

I really like to take photos and pump up there color levels and then smear them up. You can do this with the computer. The computer is not about order and structure. It is about being able to make a mess of a photograph  and make it totally different evry time you do it. It's a picture wreckers paradise.

This first one was a very pretty flower.  The next one was a bunch of leaves in the grass, but I fixed that.

Below I mixed another flower picture with a  old photo of a woman. I then allowed my mind to look deep into the photo and write the first thing that came into my mind.


I just wrote words, I didn't use punctuation. Read it how ever you want. Not sure what it means, but I like where it's going.

I am Looking at you

Sometimes I am looking at you

but I feel like I am walking
through you
not past you
but within you
never reaching the other side
for your soul is so vast
it would take
more than a thousand life times
to cross it
I am looking at you
and I want to be there on that journey
within you
I do not know you
but my life is about wondering
through your soul
I gather pieces of stone and wood
I call them feelings
I carry them with me
and I talk to you
I saw you on the train

in 1981

we did not speak

but I was drawn into your soul then

I named you Madeline

others call you God
I am looking at you
through every stone and stick I gather

we will talk one day

when I reach the other side of your soul.

I'm good here for now.

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

Jeff looking

just notion #3

Climbing up from my soul

I came to a place

Where my fire met the sky

Here

Where the heat was not so great

I knew

The flame might die

And I would be vulnerable

To the living

And yet

In that moment

That vulnerability

I met living at its most vibrant

I drew last breath

And let go

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

I do not write to share meaning but to explore it. These are words I put together, but I don't know what they mean. That's okay.

Jeff thunked dis

turn it around

Sometimes reversing your thinking can help creativity. I just posted a free write on my “just notions” blog (this blog is now closed. See May 26th post on this blog for reprint) that begins with the phrase, “Climbing up from my soul”. So often we search for the soul with in, so in this moment I imaged the soul as something I was in and needed or wanted to come out from. Perhaps we are in the soul instead of the soul being in us. This will allow me to write or create from a different perspective.

Instead of writing about the things you see, be the things you see and write about them looking at you. It’s also fun to think and then write totally out of your character. Try it you don’t have to share it with the world but it will stretch you.
I reached one of the walls of my soul today
It was in a state of decay
The lines on the fungus spoke to me
Of how long it would be
Before I could break through
“Not long now!”
“Soon it will crumble”
“Then you can push through”
I tapped the wood
Still firm
I would wait
For the fungus
To do more damage
Before I push
---------

The work of decay is complicated.
It seems to me like fungus would get a lot more done
If it paid a little more attention to the work
And spent a little less time on appearance.
Pretty don’t get’er done.
Jeff Not Me

Why Build a Ladder?

Photo Titled "construction"

I am building a ladder to reach my soul

It is not made of wood or steel

But something much stronger

It is made of all the emotions

I have the courage to claim as mine.

I have been building all my life. First with toys and then scraps of wood in the backyard with hammers, nails and lots of band-aids. I also build with words, sounds, pictures, pencils, paper, etc. I like combining materials sometimes with a vision and other times just to see what comes out of combining different materials or media. This I guess is the job of the artist.

I think this is what we all do.The cook puts different ingredients together with different temperatures and time to create a new recipe. Those who combine numbers, space and time to seek understanding or organization we call mathematicians. Teachers bring together resources, tools and a joy of learning to inspire their students. We are always building, changing and hopefully growing.

One day when contemplating purchase of a software to allow me to do even more combining of materials, and lacking the funds to make such a purchase, I came to the age old question of, why. Why am I doing all this combining? So I mused poetically into one of my journals the short phrase above. Yes I asked why and jumped right away to my soul. Do you have a visual of your soul? The place or non-place that supposedly houses your very being. I've heard said that Leonardo da Vinci and comrades did all their dissections and drawings of the human body to identify the location of the soul. Okay I'll add that to Wikipedia. I'm sure it's real.

I am trying to get an image of the soul here but I need this ladder to get up or down to get a handle on it. For me the road (or ladder) to this is in emotion. So I go forward combining what ever I can to evoke as many different feelings as I can to add to the rungs of my ladder.

Enough for the moment!

Jeff building one rung at a time.

On the origin of the soul - From the notebook of Leonardo da Vinci http://www.fromoldbooks.org/Richter-NotebooksOfLeonardo/section-14/item-837.html