escapes

A much-needed vacation in the works, spinning many plates means that getting out of the slabbe gets tres complicated, provided it doesn't rain, as it did the last two days. I'm a creature of habit, comfortably numb locked into routine, five years running now, which has led to a dogged stability that belies the weird artistic impulses and occasional roiling emotions. Or, as the archival collection on immigrants to Clevelandia described my forbears, having "plodding and persevering determination" as befitting a true Slav. A day or two feels kosher, four days in a row with a fill-in for my show something excessive and I wonder how much I've bought into this system out of habit not addiction, like the caffeine that gets my heart beating every morning enough to function.

But there's something wonderful about the swirling green waters, sitting on the breakwall, not having obligations for a small window of time, of the ritual of watching the sun rise and set and the moon burn red over the islands, of making fires, watching stars, playing guitar and reading reading reading.

I need a cleansing and refreshing, a time to get alone and ponder for more than a few minutes at a time, a time to not have to worry about what to say and how to say, to be a speck in the created order and hopefully see some shooting stars this time around.

pattern and movement

Along with all the other madcap schemes of Learning How To Do Stuff that I think is cool, I've got bits and pieces of broken dishes and such that I'd love to take the time to mosaic someday. There is something beautiful to me about the repurposing of broken useless things into work of incredible texture and pattern.

I love the greys and the industrial palette of rust and aged patina, but there is a part of me that's also starved for the color and texture that's not as often seen here in Clevelandia. The closest we get here besides the multiple old churches is the Tiffany-designed chapel at Lake View Cemetery, with its pews made of cedars of Lebanon and the multiple spiritual metaphors pieced together on the walls.

I'm assuming with beauty such as this that Ravenna Italy is a far cry from the Ravenna that I knew from my Kent days as a sad and dreary county seat with a scary Wal-Mart and a Goodwill where I acquired quite a few goth rock cassettes that got much use as a library shelver.

The ancient art section of the art museum, where sadly the art from the Middle East and Asia is still not back on display, I loved the patterns and calligraphy of the art and the cool colors.

Gaudi was a master of this kind of thing in a more abstract yet just as lovingly detailed way, these colored tiles broken and reconfigured.

I stumbled across this place in a Taschen coffeetable book, of this glass studio in Kenya. I may never get to see Kitengela Glass with my own eyes, but at least others have been there and share the magic.