A Future
Puttering, plotting, and expecting growth.
posted by jm at 4:49 AM
Friday, August 17, 2007
About Me
- Name: jm
I am a brilliant creation of the universe formed from the cosmic protoplasm sailing into eternity. I have two hands, two feet, a couple of great ears, and I'm clipping through life at a moderate pace; minding my p*s and q*s, crossing my t*s, dotting every i.
Previous Posts
- Bridges everywhere. In the news, over water, ac...
- Water and stone.
- Silent trumpets
- The New Expanded Jazzrap Library
- It Keeps Coming
- I go places at midnitemany light years from here
- Hmmmm ......... B#
- Dinner at ?
- Another light.
- A Light
84 Comments:
"The point of all true puttering is that you're doing things that need to be done--and you're not doing them on a schedule or to achieve some larger goal. You're doing them because doing them satisfies your soul, because they are worth doing for their own sake, and mostly because you've been able to let go of the rush to achieve, step back, and contemplate your special place in peace."
Sounds like NN Taurus to me.
Perfectly said and completely accurate.
Investment potting?
makes me laugh
Certainly is "gold" in working in the dirt.
love your definition of puttering Analysa. Puttering sure does feed the soul and sometimes the belly.
~~~~~
The book has arrived.
Now i can exhale.
Signed by our Sami poet
and an inscription to Washington (state)
Carry me home
in more ways than one.
I wait to hear your art-insights.
blowing a kiss and i'm off to read and look at photos of the ancestors, reindeer and tundra.
Wonderful news!!!
Got the kiss and will be back to hear word from the old timers.
I'm at a crossroads with my music and things are taking unexpected turns. I use to have a line to success visualized that was pretty simple, and now things look different.
In performance, my biggest problem is boredom. So rehearsed presentation by the book is very difficult for me, following the same patterns night after night. When I learn a song I like, it's enjoyable a few times and then I lose interest.
When I wrote my own, I was focused more on other things and not much on melody, so they bore me too. I thought I needed to write better melodies.
So. I got a notion to go through my entire body of work and edit it. The curious thing that developed was the instinctive breakup of the original melody lines and repatterning, and it suddenly dawned on me the other day how similar this is to your cutting of the original painting. I see it exactly.
I feel the impulse to break up the confining predictable lines into what? I don't want to know. This is what I came up with.
In the process of fracturing all the songs, I don't want to replace them with new melodies. I want to leave them completely open to repositioning on the spot in performance, thus defeating the boredom. This is a mental thing too, which could spill over into my life in general. It requires mindfulness.
The idea changes things. In some ways it removes me from the audience if I'm immersed in the pattern forming. So this probably also indictates success along nontraditional lines. Instead of lining up one performance after another, drawing crowds and creating a buzz, I thought I should pay attention to the unknown primarily, via the spontaneous pattern formation, and let the other things follow if they so choose.
It's really a whole philosophy of living. Either I direct my life with preformed patterns to a specific visualized outcome, or I dance with the unknown and see where it takes me. With all the Capricorn coming, and the urge to create structure, I'm not sure. Pluto, on the other hand, could be mysterious structuring from the unknown.
So the next big experiment is the freedom in performance, working with nervousness which tends to go for the predictable patterns and then I don't want to be there anymore. Nervousness is the big thing to drop.
Years ago I used to make up songs on the spot, and I loved it. I was communicating with the moment.
This approach changes the predictable line to success as well. The "eye" isn't really looking out at the approval primarily, and the result, but looking in for freedom of expression. I don't know if I can pull it off.
I'd like to know a little about your cutting up process.
I know we need predictability to function, and maybe it works in some activities but not needed so much in others. Maybe the artist's job is to reposition patterns in unusal ways. To generate a feeling of aliveness.
So in breaking up the patterns of my songs, I hope to learn how to free myself in my life.
I always run the risk of the audience being with me, and entirely lost or gone the next. Perhaps this is the way I really want it. Unpredictable. Creating patterns, then breaking them up and letting them reposition spontaneously.
Addiction to attention and the audience happens to everyone and this is what I hope to prevent, if possible. I want them to be as free as I want to be. Sounds impossible, but maybe not.
tseka, that wasn´t my definition of puttering, found it somewhere. Hadn´t heard the word for years, looked it up, then I remembered.But I know what it is.
my biggest problem is boredom. So rehearsed presentation by the book is very difficult for me, following the same patterns night after night.
Yes, this is not natural. The audience who asks for this wants to participate superficially, skim the surface.
The curious thing that developed was the instinctive breakup of the original melody lines and repatterning, and it suddenly dawned on me the other day how similar this is to your cutting of the original painting. I see it exactly.
Indeed. A pattern entrains us, this is good up to a point but it traps us as we begin to anticipate what is certain to come. We need just enough to be carried from one point to the next.
Cutting apart is an invitation: Here are spaces to fill in with your own experience, memory, etc.
As i was reading your thoughts my mind shifted to Nils-Aslak's work. The poems are really yoiks. Bringing what-is-but-not into form. This is what draws me to his work. It is just enough.
I can see, in this book, some of the original work that was created for his fellow Sami. Pages and pages of scored music in native language with drawings of birds, animals mix with poetry above the music.
Words flow in the score (the poetry)followed by no words just notes (the drawings of the animal he is yoiking) the voice, the only instrument becomes the wind, a plover or a rough legged buzzard, words resume.
Just absorbing it through my eyes mesmerizes me.
---
It takes no imagination at all to hear you doing something similar with your songs.
I can almost hear your open throat singing words then sounds of the muddy waters lapping along the bank as the voice continues weaving in and out of english words.
The invitation to the listener is participate. NOT sing along but hear to their core. Emotion.
The deep connection.
In my art i say the reassembled piece creates a smooth amalgam of abstract shape with traditional imagery. The spaces are just enough. Easy leaps into the void.
It has become frequent that people stand before my work and tear up.
Perhaps fragmentation becomes the healing similimum in a psychically fragmented world?
Nils-Aslak had a vision to bring the disappearing yoik back to his people. Their language is dying, nearly dead. So he created jazz-yoiks. I think i will have to buy a CD. In some way the yoik reminds me of Tibetan chants. Reverence for ALL-life.
I heard the joiks in Vancouver when i was in my twenties. So much disappears but these echo still. If you remember the Winter Olympics in Norway a few years ago a skier soared into the center of the night-circle and with only his voice opened the heart of the cosmos and my heart flew into the stars. This was Valkeapaa.
I did not know the language but it spoke to me. Universal.
This authentic deep connection is what i see and sense among many artists now. A still-point has been found.
When i paint i let the wind take my heart by my hand i do not know where i am going, nor care, wandering outside time mostly.
It's really a whole philosophy of living. Either I direct my life with preformed patterns to a specific visualized outcome, or I dance with the unknown and see where it takes me.
ja seems so...
Pluto, on the other hand, could be mysterious structuring from the unknown.
or deconstructing, me thinks
You have said it yourself before, it is the space, the pause, the spacious open place, not forced...
I always run the risk of the audience being with me, and entirely lost or gone the next. Perhaps this is the way I really want it. Unpredictable.
Ahhhhhh, the million points of Uranus.
Sounds perfect.
The guides:
The spaces between raindrops.
The frost who curls into the Alders
Frogs singing
Birds whispering before dawn
A large brown Maple leaf who mischievously tips a chill of water down the nape of my neck
Watery deer eyes
Me reflected in a bobcat's eyes
They are all in my paintings
obscured.
But they are there, a fidelity to the landscape.
the reassembled piece creates a smooth amalgam of abstract shape with traditional imagery.
Exactly. I love the abstract in your work.
Perhaps fragmentation becomes the healing similimum in a psychically fragmented world?
Very interesting thought. Very. Maybe the pressure to not-fragment in ordinary life finds release in your paintings.
I know the space needs I have. That's rather easy. The rhythm and phrasing are my areas of expertise. It's the melody line I'm concerned with, and that has to do with my dislike of too much sentimentality. The abstract is the relief from this for me. But you're right. Traditional feeling blended with abstract is a good idea.
I still was wondering how you came across the idea of cutting the originals.
A lot of my lyrics are not poetry in the traditional sense, although some are. They are often philosophical snippets, social commentary, and psychological insight. These are the ones I like the most as they create an odd sort of poetry.
Sentimental type poetry works very well to capture audience attention, but it's the lazy way for me. The odd, the obscure, and the intriguing are what I like, without being phony pretentious "art".
My singing at its best is more like speaking. That's why I call it jazzrap. I think I should stick to this primarily.
How i found the cutting process
i honestly can't remember in the way you mean. I have been doing this process for at least 34 years.
Many people have asked and i have given different answers.
-I grew up sewing my own clothes. Designing the patterns when i was older. I didn't fear cutting.
-In university i remember feeling blocked in a life drawing class, part of the drawing i liked, part i didn't, the pose was too stiff in full. I cut a window in the page above to show the area i liked, an abstraction, to the professor who would not accept anything but the full drawing.
-Pottery was my first love. Raku. The fire has it's say. You build a pot and surrender it. I like how you never know the outcome.
-Watercolour by its nature is exciting, flowing, for those of us who like to follow what shows itself.
But the answer is really what i said above. I have my whole life slipped out of this realm into some other. I see things in this world differently and it has lots of spaces between....or not depending on how i look.
So, the true answer is, i listen to the wind and allow it to take my heart by my hand. I am just a tool for something in the wind.
I was singing all day and I just thought of something. Ths reason I like music and words.
The repatterning is done not only among the words and spaces, but within the word.
Each word is elastic like pulling taffy on the boardwalk. It can be bent and stretched with music. I think I'll be singer after all. Can't wait to do this again.
This curve, the stretch, is what I seek most of all in sensation. Asian music does this.
My singing at its best is more like speaking. That's why I call it jazzrap. I think I should stick to this primarily.
This is how is reads to me as well -not rap more the beat generation with something more from the blues.
I didn't fear cutting.
That's such an interesting statement. Movie editors know this. All editors. The cutting out is the most important part. That's what I'm getting at. What I'm doin now, both in my work and my life.
I cut a window in the page above to show the area i liked
This is great and I know it well.
I do not know much about Asian music but the art! The negative space is what i love the most....
maybe it's as simple as that.
Your capricorn saturnian elder on RU's' last post what an example.
I identify completely with the beat generation. I've been compared to Mose Allison, I don't know if you know him.
I also can do beautiful tear inducing dreamy songs, but they lose me sooner than the blues beat. So far the audience has nudged me away from the sad songs.
Not many people can do not-sad songs, so it's probably a good idea for me to pursue it and fill the space.
I love love love that guy on the Capricorn post. It's a great drawing. I think he's speaking clearly and this is my direction.
The negative space is what i love the most....
maybe it's as simple as that.
I know it is. And you know, tseka, I'm great at it. So that's that. It's easy to leave out. I was just afraid the audience would leave me, too, but you know what? So what? We're all free as the wind
The Capricorn post got through to the bone in the others. I felt it. I think it had something to do with our Asian man. Very very interesting. maybe with Capricorn they will get a little more austere and spacious. Oh I hope. Too much claptrap and crying. Enough is too much.
That's what I loved about the Jesus painting. With all the agony of his religious upbringing he could have portrayed a suffering, bleeding, head hanging Jesus like the rest, but he chose to put a menu in his hands. You should have seen Jesus' facial expression. Not revealing of any namable emotion. Great art.
The trees, i do while still very abstract, read as trees universally understandable. They are my lure into the forest of new perception.
I think we are meant to offer our talent in more than one strict style.
I love your stretch and curve like taffy. Yes.
Little bit, little bit.
I read recently that the word for image in Finnish has its root in decoy - as in bird decoy. From a hunting society..
We attract in images that stand in for something else.
The artist is still shaman.
Some times just call for a sweet and dance-able melody.
No less authentic.
where we fail is when we try to please.
Walk on my NN companion on the bridge.
The story of that painting is going to make the rounds.
I love it start to the amazing finish.
I think we are meant to offer our talent in more than one strict style.
Agreed.
Trees do the bend I'm referring to. They bend without bending. Some core fixed quality but repsonsive to every nuance in the wind. No wonder I love them, and yes, they are universally understandable.
I just read that certain birds nourish growth in trees in ways they haven't figured out yet. They just know that the trees with the birds grow more than those without.
And a resonding yes on the bridge with my NN companion. If I can do this, I will perform and add to the world.
I thought about that painting and the whole thing. He was an angry man and expressed his rage fully except when confronted with a canvas. There was reverence there that was unique. Got me to thinking about art.
It's amazing how easily he could have done the anger and sickness in his artistic statements but he didn't. He incorporated the feelings into a greater whole statement.
Isn't it interesting how the other (south node 7th) is now invited by the empty spaces to fill with their own experiences now?
We create but we leave them the opening to share.
mmmmmm
A lot of his brutality found gentle expression on the canvas.
OMG, what a statement on our SNs. I will think about this. It does speak of what I've always said. Leave them be to act on their own accord. Does it not work?
A lot of his brutality found gentle expression on the canvas
I know others like this.
shiver.
I am grateful to the canvas.
What world would we be if creativity were more repressed than it is currently.
inhuman
We create but we leave them the opening to share.
OMG. OMG. Could this be the flaw that allows entrance?
Does it not work?
perfectly
This was what i could see in the work but not achieve in the presence of the public. My practice silence lesson that turned the corner for me recently.
What world would we be if creativity were more repressed than it is currently.
inhuman
What a thought. And just think if it were even given more expression. Arts in the schools need to come back. In the workplace too.
That's why I want to see artisits circulate their creations in the real world everywhere they can, not in museums and galleries exclusively.
Really it goes back to what was said earlier.
Only enough to move point to next.
Whispers.
This was what i could see in the work but not achieve in the presence of the public. My practice silence lesson that turned the corner for me recently.
Are you still practicing this? How did you do it? You mentioned talking to yourself on the journey up.
Only enough to move point to next.
Whispers.
I know this is truth.
That's why I want to see artisits circulate their creations in the real world everywhere they can, not in museums and galleries exclusively.
same here.
i keep coming up to an idea about something new, can't quite see it. A merging of art forms in one location which share some thread of similarity. This way the spaces between do not end in just my painting but between my painting and another's dance or song or sculpture. Not a theme more an underlying correlation.
The Art Train still comes close.
A merging of art forms in one location which share some thread of similarity.
I think a lot of us share this feeling. I've always felt that artists were collectively inclined by nature, easily given to collaboration.
There are people trying to have spaces with food and drink, music, theater, dance, etc, and visual arts. I envision sort of round the clock happenings in well appointed public rooms. A heart, a center of the community.
I'd like to see a room with a stage that had a variety of performances, something different all the time. Opening receptions for visual arts included. It just takes planning and investment backing. That's the good thing about this country. They'll try just about anything. Put a lot of money into it.
The main thing is the energy draw. I read about a women who has opened a couple of hotels with unusual restaurants in a city, I forget which one. In Texas, I believe. She has a lot of musician and actor friends, and they hang out there all the time. It's become a central place for creative people to gather. It's not hard to create this.
I might do that here. A man once wanted to open a club for me, but it was premature and he wasn't the one. It could very well happen. A good use of my Sun in Cancer in the 4th when Pluto opposes in the 10th.
You might be interested in this
Journey to the Copper Age
My son called earlier suggesting we meet in San Diego. He knows my interest in copper and the ancient nordic peoples of the Northwind. He thinks the conclusions may "pushed to fit" and thinks we ought to go see what we make of it all. Not to mention how cool and lovely a day in San Diego will be...Balboa Park and art. Not bad.
JM you are the perfect one to do just this. RU is shining as an example of your skill...luminous.
I've heard wonderful things about San Diego and it sounds like a place I would like. A perfect day that would be. If I flew, I would come, if I had some spare change.
Oh, this sounds so good. You should go and see what's there for us. Must be something. My love of copper is finding grounding. You know I still cook in a copper bottom steel pan, my mother's. I need the sensation. Part of my nourishment.
I would very much like to know the place of copper in the cultural progression.
This is amazing I just got a strong feeling about the club.
Earlier today I had a headache and was extremely exhausted. As we started talking it all lifted and a feeling of well being has arrived.
This is one of the career things I've been pondering as I realize I don't want to run round the world chasing fame and audience. I want to stay centered and relaxed. A club here, and you are so right about RU, would be ideal. Maybe that's why RU came into being. Wow.
Omg, this is wonderful. The whole concept just like RU. I would do my offbeat creative stuff, and others would gather to chat, learn, absorb, and express as well. This sounds so very good. The live beat of humanity moving together. I would enjoy this more than a formal and stiff show in the spotlight all the time. Omg, what ideas. I need the freedom of movement. A grand night club. Heavens. I hope you'll have some paintings for sale then!
I think I'll do it. OMG.
OMG, tseka, it's all coming in. Art on the walls. And I could do projected images onstage with music, so I could have the visuals I love so much. Beautiful lighting with gels like the sunset. Just like RU with the pictures and words. I could do images and poetry as well, and bring in the theater people. This is incredible. You will be here, I know it.
This is the the new moon in Leo full moon eclipse in Pisces. My dream theater. Thank you O Wise One. You are so deep in the know.
It was a pleasure to spend time with you last night.
Others drew me away until late.
I would love to see your vision come to life. RU does seem like it could provide the model.
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tell us more KJ
Is the healing similimum in our psychically fragmented world fragmenting our work to allow others to participate? The little "wound" or opening that allows others to see into themselves though us/our work?
I am listening
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Great conversation last night. They're getting better and better. Friendships and trust are building. Rhythm too-- taking slightly higher, deeper, and slower curves.
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
"Omg, this is wonderful. The whole concept just like RU."
Beautiful vision. :-)
I was just out talking about it. Wait till you hear the plans. This is so incredible. You never know what really is happening and what will lead to what. I don't think I've been this excited about anything in a long time. I lost interest in being famous years ago. Too dull.
One of the plans. Thurday nights -- Jazzrap Cafe. Jazz, blues, avant-garde music, poetry, philosophy. It will be combination bar and old fashioned beat coffee house with a painted backdrop like a stage set.
I can see it all clearly. It could be the draw of the century. Always life unfolding and people coming and going, some staying.
I think it just created itself. I wonder if I should simply call it Raging Universe. Or maybe JM's Raging Universe. Or The Raging Universe.
I am so excited.
Usually my cockamamie schemes lose steam the next day, but this one isn't.
I love the concept. And also the idea of it creating itself.
Something like this sounds like a great vision of creative leadership.
"You never know what really is happening and what will lead to what."
Agreed. It's a nonlinear progression. :-)
I feel that a few things have come full circle. Or spiral, whatever. :-)
There are so many things that appeal to me about this. And the idea of RU becoming 3D and on, taking on life like a birth and then rebirth into broader dimensions. I will be talking about the concept and what's so good about it. The way it came is one of the best things.
I'm all ears about the full cicle. Very very intersted. Maybe on the new post? What do you think.
Full circle. Hard to trace all the threads of the tapestry. :-) Everyone who's visited RU is somehow part of it.
You're pulling together things that you've been feeling for years. Moving from abstract sensing to emergent creation.
Also, the club concept reminds me a little of the little memory experience you created for youself a few weeks ago, involving the photo of Santa Fe, that physical and psychic nexus of artists.
The circle is something I've talked about all along. The concentric circle theory I have of gathering together, staying in the center, and attracting to. RU does seem to be circular or elliptical and my music is as well. Not too many right angles!
It could be that RU is symbolic of the center and the club would be an outer circle in the world, another attracting center.
As my life goes, I could just add circles like a tree growing.
What I'm learning from Raging U, which is an entity of its own, are lessons I can use from now on everywhere I go. Primary to me is the drawing of the good people, and this seems to be written in the deed.
There is some agreement I made somewhere and now I am intrigued, since the whole creation has been such a surprise and the future of it promises to be more of that.
I agree. The Santa fe memory is connected. That was one of my most creative times. This is a continuation but completely different in that I was alone at the start of RU for the first time in one of these grand creative schemes I've been involved in.
In santa Fe we had a specific thing envisioned with a name and plans, so this is the circle but with no distraction.
The psychic nexus of artists has always been part of my path. I've known they were all there and that they would come one by one. The club could be a great thing, since I would do it just that way.
"Thurday nights -- Jazzrap Cafe. Jazz, blues, avant-garde music, poetry, philosophy."
And it might be fun to have a bit of astrology and tarot in there somewhere.
"There is some agreement I made somewhere and now I am intrigued, since the whole creation has been such a surprise and the future of it promises to be more of that."
An agreement -- that's a fascinating idea. I have always felt that RU is a bit like a lovely woods with crisscrossing paths, a "let's just see where this trail leads us" kind of place.
Yes, astrology and tarot. Oh what a great gathering. I also want games going on like chess and scrabble all the time.
I was wondering what I was doing, putting all my life and soul into RU, when finances have been crashing down and my career hanging out in left field. But I don't question these things seriously. I always do things this way. I put everything into whatever it is just because I'm doing it. I never really see a future that I think will materialize. It's all about spinning one dream after another. It will be happenstance if-when it comes into the material plane.
The financing and building of a club would be great fun, though. It's opened up a whole new vein, one with much more freedom and scope. Live theater is my goal in life, but this is much more exciting than a traditional stage show. The theater of life, my favorite.
It's all about the magnetic thing we were talking about. The thing attracts me in the spirit-fantasy realm, and then the real place attracts others with the natural magnetism.
Yes, an agreement. I think in terms of contractual arrangements in everything. I give to life creatively and life grants me freedom, for one.
have always felt that RU is a bit like a lovely woods with crisscrossing paths, a "let's just see where this trail leads us" kind of place.
Beautiful. That perfectly describes my life.
I'm a great musician but it's always been a speck in my entire creative output. I do it when I do it and then I do something else. I can always light up the keyboards and play since I never cared about technique and proving, just making music. Music is only a symbol of the coursing of life through me and there are so many ways to articulate my awe, none of them the one that captures it, but all of them touching on it.
There's a certain sparkle and effervescence in experience that I seek, along with a feeling that this is exactly where I want to be. Not that complictaed and easily recognizable as most events fill in the blanks and I don't mind them ending. Welcome it, actually.
I was hoping to express that at RU because of the the way the realtime factor and group communication lends itself to this life quality. Recorded music and staged productions are usually dead to me. Here life is tapped out spontaneously on the universal teletype and fantasies are created around the clock.
I've wanted to transcend all the interpersonal agonies, fears, etc., in exchange for more important things. Allow these pains to be completely tiny and insignificant. If I can achieve this, I will be ready for the broader circles.
"The theater of life, my favorite."
It does sound like you're making a breakthrough in your thinking. I can't visualize it all as well as you -- all the ways in which the essential energies can be materialized -- but the gist of it sounds excellent. I'm delighted.
"...Music is only a symbol of the coursing of life through me and there are so many ways to articulate my awe, none of them the one that captures it, but all of them touching on it."
Well said. I know what you mean.
"I've wanted to transcend all the interpersonal agonies, fears, etc., in exchange for more important things. Allow these pains to be completely tiny and insignificant. If I can achieve this, I will be ready for the broader circles."
You've made a lot of progress. :-)
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Kj, the club won't be for 10 years. Plenty of time to relax!
This comment has been removed by the author.
<< Home