Is that a Kiwi mask?

Kim G. It's another wild day, indeed.

If you moon-gaze you seem stranger.
That might mean you `angel touched.
Entertain Strangers. They are human.

They may be sent from beyond to teach.
My favorite people are `nice eccentrics.
We all need t know our proper distance.

When Strangers appear hearts will open.
Great-Hearted humans can gather. Love.
People can be resurrected from a`death.
`
Persian`Rumi mentions mystics gather.
Mystics are not odd-eccentrics. Love you.
Ill/ilk beast nature/human say: Shad Up!

I was called stranger too by Jacob Freeze.
This id true. I an hearing a hoot owl now.
I best take a slow walk and View the sunrise

I'm not going to go on about this Amy, but a Kiwi is a flightless bird from NEW ZEALAND. If you persist, I'll delete you. I'll flag you & follow you & run you off OS & then I'll find out where you live & leave prawns in your letterbox & graffiti the side of your car saying Amy is Nutz & write letters to the New York Times about you & you will NEVER work in Vanuatu again.

Sometimes writing makes me lighter, sometimes it makes me feel heavier. Your work lightens me this morning. ~r

You are touching upon the inner life of the artist in a way that resonates with me and is enlightening.

There's a party in the distance. Time to get my mardi gras mask on and my running shoes. I love your images, even the unsettling ones. Getting lost in them describes perfectly. I still think of the barn owl and the pirate...

(The prawns work well tossed up into dropped ceilings too!)

You can come to my party any time. Yp, book a flight now. Virtual cyber hugs to you as I tiptoe 'round enjoying the bits you scatter in your wake.

I'm struggling to keep from Googling "prawns" because I know they are not related in any way to the point of this delightful piece. (I think they're related to shrimp, as is the crayfish to the lobster). I leave a trail of books where I happen to be. I also have several pair of glasses strategically placed in the event of an unplanned catastrophe so's to always be able to focus on words printed in the books.

Oh, and for the sake of all that's sacred to you go easy on Amy. She's still reeling from the sight of Margaret Cho's elaborately tattooed buns. Actually, so am I.

Should be..."wherever I happen to be..."

Lighter indeed. As always, in awe of your art, and in looking at all the small and fine details seeing you in each. Best is you knowing this.

@cheesehead--->'...in the event of an *unplanned catastrophe*...'

What?

@KG excellent post

JPH

I love all your pictures Kim. And sharing makes us see each other. Masks or not. Sending a cyber Hug here and a big thanks.

This made me think of Robert Frost's poem called, "The Road Not Taken."

What a precious insight into the soul of an artist. Thanks.

Sugarloaf Bay--there's a Sugarloaf Mountain near Marquette.

I likewise love that my pictures are living with other people, watching them enjoy their breakfast, fight, vacuum their rugs, etc. Your friend knows your birdman in ways that you the midwife never dreamed. How cool is that?! Ask him/her sometime what they know.

I likewise love how my people accumulate boxes of my droppings. Former hubby moved out with a blanket chest of cards, illustrated notes, and paintings. Cleaning out my mom's closets and drawers these past months, I've discovered fifty year old drawings I don't remember making, all the way up to last year's valentine– now hanging on my fridge. Being a maker of pictures is dreamy. We are so lucky.

It's your unique gift, Kim. Yours alone, and no one else can release this same enchantment. You share it every time you dip a brush in paint.

"It's normal to give away a little of one's life in order not to lose it all." - Camus


Thanks for the beautiful reflections. They change the picture, don't they?

I love the images you scatter about on this site. I spent quite a bit of time on this one trying to figure out how you got the reflection in it and what that meant. Then I read the post. Enchanting picture and enchanting words, however you look at it.

The second picture is like a Corot.

Pure alchemy, this. Your post, pictures, comments!

I do not like pictures that just have a flat meaning. I like depth and mystery. This is one of them. I could sit here for a long while and see different things. Of course that is what we all do in life and no one sees the same things- like this picture.

HUGGGGGGGGGGG

In my poetry, "an image that makes us feel uncomfortable" is so important. When I have that, I know the poem is real. Getting that image from the inside to the outside is the hard work of writing for me.
And what a lovely phone call you got this morning! That scattering about of pictures is really the sharing of pieces of you. Such a gift you give.

Your post and images are perfect with my morning coffee, thank you.
~R~

This piece of your trail of images is as intriguing as anything I have ever seen. There is so much depth and mystery here, it feels like it may reveal the secret of life. So beautiful.
rated with love

Your imagery (visual or verbal)
always takes me somewhere...
miraculously somehow
just where I needed to be...
Misty Blue mystery images
having wrestled their existence
through your mind and heart...

I love them all, you know.

rated and deeply

Working!

i'm just floating here in this warm sea of your painting, your paragraphs and these comments, all making me glad it's an art-y sunday morning. p.s. i especially like that you're partly reflected in the glass of your second photo - another layer of art.

You're so saturated with the hues of life.

Geez, Candace! Will you give us a break? The dude's hat is obviously already too tight and you're just gonna make his head swell up even bigger!

'Sides, sure I'll readily admit that Kiwi Kim is an accomplished artist, writer and poet, but dammit he didn't need to threaten that I'd never work in Vanuatu again just cuz I asked about the national bird of Australia/New Zealand (they ARE the same country, right? I get confused over all them little backwater places)

It's working KG.-/;

So interesting and almost surreal feeling!

shedding discomfort- yes, exactly
worry moulting

When you make pictures you divest yourself, get lighter. Like writing, I hope, for you..
yes pretty much.
divestiture, eh?

the reduction of some kind of asset for
either financial or ethical objectives

A divestment is the opposite of an investment...

needs pondering...


your images need tracking by some Super conscious
version of yerself who will help u understand.

There's pictures everywhere now, & here ~ just looking back at Reading to the moon, I realise : it's what I do.

do it.

Something about this painting ...
this stranger ...
speaks so deeply to me ...
it could be the story of my life ...
somehow gently ...
knowingly ...
told by someone who knows ...
himself ...
even if ...
differently ...
and this is what happens ...
sometimes ...
when someone paints ...
draws ... creates ...
what it is that comes to him ...
as he takes brush in hand and ...
begins ...
allows all he is ... to follow ...
where his brush .. will lead ...
and then ... after time ...
perhaps when time enough has passed ...
he gives us room to ...
see what it is ...
we see ...
feel what it is ...
we feel ...
find ...
know ...
breathe ...
sigh ...

lightness ... perhaps ... of
heartfelt expression ...
inner life ...
deepest life ...
finding ... and ...
being allowed ... its ...
home ...

and honour ...
an honour as well ...
to listen ... to see ...
to ponder ...
your creating ...
your reflections ...
all of them ...
here ...
with you ...

all of your work ...
is a gift ...
as ...
are you ...

Most of the time I'm not writing on OS, I'm vomiting all the words I've never been allowed to speak. It leaves me able to eat good fruit and now I have a good feeling in my stomach. Literally too, I haven't been sick to my stomach in almost a year and now have meat on my bones.

A strange thing has happened, now I'm starting to feel good things and those are coming out in words too. The picture looks like a rich fantasy land to me and I could rest a bit looking at it. He seems more like a friend than a stranger to me. Maybe someday I'll leave lovely words all over the place. If not, it's enough not to hurt all the time.

I hadn't thought of this before so I'm grateful to have read this post. I think even if I stopped blogging or talking, I should never stop writing and letting good and bad things out. Thank you.

I feel the night in this picture/poem

Perhaps...

"Pieces of a whole ... are ... pieces ... not the whole - especially after so much time." (from a comment elsewhere by anna1liese)

"...the Tao wags the dog." (from a comment elsewhere by Jan Sand)

I cannot say it better than they. (and I accept the responsibility for decontextualizing their words and pinning them here.)

Art,
'When Strangers appear hearts will open.
Great-Hearted humans can gather. Love.
People can be resurrected ... ' ~ os itself is a regular procession ~ all with our masks on like a veronese ball, capulets & montagues, not knowing who to trust & in the end not caring as much about that as sunrise. Thank you for reminding me.

Joan I'm glad ~ sometimes I feel heavier too ; angry words are like anchors, to me. When all I really want to do, is catch a breeze & sail.

Thanks, Patrick.
If I can share & you can read & find value I'm more than halfway there.

Linnnn,
Why I put a pathway there. So you could wander, & always find your way back.

Hugs to you too dianaani.

Matt,
I get you about the glasses. I use the 1.5 drugstore kind ~ you can buy them in Asia for $5. It's best to have heaps. Thanks for coming by.

Hi Rita,
best is you reading this.

JPH,
I didn't know what he meant either.
I was afraid to ask.
Thanks, & good to see you.

Hi Mission,
Lovely way to put it ~ thank you.

Patricia,
If poems ever needed illustrating, & I was ever asked, it would be something along these lines to the one you mention, yes. Thanks for reading too.

Thanks John,
& probably named by a British Captain too ~ after the old pointy loaf he was missing, from home.

I love the picture, so sweet, that shy bird person, and I love the reflections in it. But mostly, I love your depiction of the process of making art - that -- possession. I love it. R.

greenheron,
thanks. We are lucky.
I cleaned my mom's house out around Easter ~ the things !
( Why did she keep that ?! ) & the memories like dust-motes in sunbeams with every newly opened box ...
If I asked my friend what she knows, of this picture above, I think she'd smile & say she doesn't know. I like it like that, too.

scupper,
thanks. If there's enchantment it's what we all feel, after the sun goes down, there's music & laughter & tinkling in the distance, & we're not there, yet ... something like that, perhaps ~ something we'll never know.

Thanks, consonants&vowels.
Nice quote.
Interesting, taking pictures of pictures under glass ~ can't help but be back in the picture, too ~ something about Heisenberger ... ;-)

jlsathre, I'm glad you enjoy the pictures too ~ thank you.

Larry,
You spelled his name right this time. That's the main thing. Looky here :
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/corot/
or above your fireplace ~ that's probably Corot. He signed his name bottom right, just 'Corot.' You could buy a Maserati with that.

mhold,
alchemy indeed ~ picture to post to comments ~ fascination by firelight.

Thanks, Linda.
Thank goodness for that.

Good Daughter,
You say it well, the inside/outside ... for me it's when I'm most relaxed, that 'zone,' & it flows. Look at it, & it disappears.

Thank you, M.C.S.

Poetess, I'm glad you like this. I welcome you in, & invite you to make yourself comfortable. You won't find the answer to the secret of life though ~ just a bewildered soul on the thresh-hold ...
Makes me want to put on Van Morrison :-) http://youtu.be/HHuS3-OaLKw
& dance

Persistent Muse,
Thank you. We're here for each other, whenever the need arises, isn't it.

Belinda T. ~ Good !

Here's to laid-back arty Sunday mornings, Candace.
Thanks for coming by. I hadn't seen myself in the reflections but Yes ! Those are definitely my dowdy, pyjama-clad legs :-)

Helvetica
Last night I saturated myself in a Radox bath ... it was so good, & there were candles. My back has been killing me.
I'm all for saturation, & thank you.

Two words, Amy : Google Earth.
7 more words : You will never work in Vanuatu again.
Or Palau.

It's working, tr ig, thanks.

Sheila,
Thanks ~ I'm glad you like it.

Julie,
That's good that worry-moulting. Maybe why we write, or draw, whatever. To get rid of it, even temporarily.

Thanks James,
I'm doing it. Nice comment. Mr Buckley got us all to write 'nice' on a piece of paper then took us out into the playground & he dug a small hole & we all put our pieces of paper in there & he covered it up. Sorry.

Thanks, anna1liese,
That was lovely. I'm glad you receive these as gifts.

Bleue,
The thing is : you do leave lovely words all over the place.
Thank you.

Thank Trig for the unfavoriting too, dude.

Later. Much later. :/

Is that a Kiwi mask?

Amy it's the magic hour, the gloaming, already night in the shadows ...
my favourite time of day. Thanks for coming by.

Thanks, Interrobang :-)

& thanks, Songbird. Lovely to see you.

Amy, check your inbox, please.

I'm not going to go on about this nanatehay, but a Kiwi is a flightless bird from NEW ZEALAND. If you persist, I'll delete you. I'll flag you & follow you & run you off OS & then I'll find out where you live & leave prawns in your letterbox & graffiti the side of your car saying Nanatehay is Nutz & write letters to the New York Times about you & you will NEVER work in Tuvalu again.

I'm done with Tuvalu anyway, the poi there is awful and the Tuvaluan maidens are nowhere near lithe and willowy enough. Most of them can beat me at arm wrestling for cripe's sake!

"Unwittingly, half the time, I leave this trail of images. Some of them I don't know what they mean. I don't know what this one means either, but I can guess."

I haven't read all the comments yet so maybe someone's already asked: what does it mean to you? It fascinates me the way ten people can look at an image and each take away a different meaning from it, and I rarely get a chance to ask an artist what he was trying to convey. I was at the museum a couple weeks ago, pondering Joan Miro and Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko and what-not, and I found myself wishing I could sit down with the perpetrators and pick their brains.

It's the kind of picture you could get lost in. Strange and familiar at the same time, dreamlike but distinct. Like a lucid dream. Love the colors too. And the little guy in the mask.

It's a Kiwi mask.

Kim,
Some pretty magical paintings open to magical interpretations. I can put myself right inside the second one. If I stand at my back door, we have a studio to the right (like the white building shown) and a path in the middle. It doesn't lead to a magical mountain but now that I've seen this, I'll pretend it does.

I've never known a true artist that wants to "bogart" their art. Spreading it around multiples in some way. Lovely work on more than one level.

It is NOT a KIWI MASK!!! Must we drag down Kim's lovely, transcendent post to the same level as mine, which is rapidly sinking in stinking OS ooze? Can't one thing on Open Salon remain true to its origin?

He's explained it too many times already - a Kiwi is a winged fruit. See? I pay attention.

Wish I could just wander into the local gallery & see Miro, Pollock, Rothko ... you need to go to Canberra, here. 6 hours drive away.
There's a tiny Heironymous Bosch in the city my friend above called me from, & I'm tempted ~ it's a Mad Meg ; I've seen it twice.

What does this one mean, to me ?
I forget what I was thinking, at the time. I leaned heavily on the old place in the bush I must have been missing, & romanticised it a bit ... that would be the view from the verandah, but I put a path there, & a party ~ I think it's about being an outsider.
Belonging in a place & not belonging.
About wearing a mask, and not seeing.
It could have been a bird mask, but also it might be a mole, & moles are blind ...
About being exactly where you want to be, but hesitant to take the next step. All narrative, but that's me, the illustrator, the storyteller.
It takes Miro to dispense with the representational elements & go to the core in colour & line, calling a picture Dog Barking At The Moon.
That's the difference.

Margaret,
'lucid dream' sits well, with me. That's what it's like drawing, too. This is a pastel, about 2'x 18" ~ pastels set me free in a way paint doesn't, & I can let things happen ~ this would have begun with the sky & mountains in the distance, hills overlapping forward.
I think the figure in the foreground just wandered in to the picture at the end, out of nowhere, like figures do in dreams.

I think it's a mole.
I think it's Mole from Wind In The Willows, grown up.

Hi Scarlett,
Thanks for that. I'll think of your path when I see this again, & the magical mountain too.

Okay, you are not going to believe this but when I looked at that figure, before I read the post, I thought it looked like a mole. But you said it had a "bird mask" on so I didn't want to insult you. I didn't see a mask, though. Why did you mention the bird mask then?

From the post 'teralba' ( scrolling back ) which features a painting from years ago, of birds, & some people in bird-suits ~ it came from Bosch or Breugel, the masks apothecaries wore in the Plague Years, 'beaks' stuffed with herbs & bergamot etc.
That's why I said bird mask.
Now I say Mole, & probably this is all getting too arcane for the casual browser.
I think who/whatever the figure is should just get on with it. Go down to the party, meet the bird/mole of his dreams, avoid the crowd out the back who really only came to make trouble, & make mad love in the bullrushes.
Wake up the frogs for a change.

Wake up the frogs for a change! Love it!!!

GREAT! I love it...the images, the thoughts. Any time a mask is involved, I perk right up. I love that you added yet another layer with the reflections. And the colors are stunning.

Hi John ;-)

Monkey, thanks.
There's a danger, isn't there, with scenes like/colours like these of going over into chocolate-box-hallmark-land ~ I'm not sure I entirely avoided it here ... but that's ok, I tell myself it's an illustration not a 'work of art.'
Or I could say the whole thing is meant be 'ironic' ;-)
Whichever, I'm glad you like it.
Thanks for coming by Monkey.

How interesting a parallel for me to come out of the forest yesterday, having left a two-week party in the deep woods, a party of laughter and friends and long deeply introspective hikes vs. the hangover kind, having also seen while there two early pieces of batik art of mine scattered, one at a friend's studio, another still gracing the walls of a local B & B, to come home troubled by the transition from forest and wild and 'free' to fences and boundaries and restriction, and then to find this piece of yours that speaks so eloquently and in such a timely fashion to my heart...

Lovely scene you paint. Nice, that feeling that others have loved to look upon one's creation for many years, isn't it?
Do you feel you capture what you wanted to when you paint?
I've always wondered that about the good artists...

Just Thinking,
Amazing how adaptable we are, wild back into town.
Sounds like my idea of freedom, yours. We need it more than we know.
It is a lovely feeling, knowing others are enjoying what we've made, years along.
I think the question of what I wanted to capture when I paint is the same question you could ask of a writer, or a musician with a keyboard ~ on 2 Faces there's a lovely moment where Elton John is sitting at his mom's piano, with a crumpled page of Bernie Taupin's propped up in front of him, talking about the process, the transition ... ok, it's got 'ballerina' in it, so it's not going to be rock, etc. While we watch, he feels out the chords ...

Then, reading, begins to sing ... Blue jean baby, LA lady, seamstress for the band ...

I think we write/paint/play to find out, in Joni's words, who in the world we might be.

I like the pajamas legs and arms without the head, superimposed on the bird masked/ mole person who is almost all head.
Amongst other things.

Beautiful piece

Wind in the Willows is what came to mind for me too.. The mole...

Amy says I am to blame for her un-fav'ing you and I am at a loss

Thanks Rita,
I hadn't noticed, until Candace pointed it out.
I'm liking this idea, of imposing reflections onto pictures ...

Hi messygal, I went & made a typo on your post. You're welcome.

tr igrat,
I don't care about unfav'ing, but I care about our Amy.
It's not like we're freaking mindreaders or anything ~ we're blokes, & blokes can hurt people without even knowing it, half the time ...

Apparently bloke, it's a very fine line between blog comment humor, and insult. There are so many insults thrown around in fun AMY. Right, well.. until later Kiwi breath
::rollseyes::

JT, sorry,
not 2 Faces, 2 Rooms :
http://youtu.be/LkonL4fd2Iw

Later, Dorothy.

If you or anyone clicks that link, take the time to watch Part 7 too !

Doing the block response I figure I'm allowed to cut loose a little on my own, here ...

So there's this teacher, & a little girl they think is probably ADD, but who loves drawing. And they're drawing.
Teacher comes up behind little girl & watches for awhile, then says, What are you drawing ?
Little girl doesn't look up, says I'm drawing a picture of God.
Teacher says, But how do you you know what God looks like ? No-one's ever seen Him.
Little girl says, They will in a minute.
:-)

HA!
Great little artist girl/god story! ↑↑↑

Hey Kim. Late to the party, sorry.

I swear, sometimes I feel like the fella in your picture.

Love the link -- thanks! Love the guitarists hair, hee hee, those Hair God days...
Haven't gotten to part 7 yet...still struggling with the computer screen at all, still working on the adapting back to town, but I'll check it out!
In 1972-ish, I wore OUT that album (with some others), and I was that tiny dancer...
I felt like Levon's kid, and I knew all about that madman across the water....
...okay, most days I still feel like that tiny dancer...
I also appreciate your/Joni's thoughts here: "I think we write/paint/play to find out, in Joni's words, who in the world we might be."
Who in the world, indeed.

Oh, part 7, 'Your Song'...nice.
Now this is music I just don't get tired of.
Even when sung by a duck.

Thanks tr ig, glad you like it.
It was in a book by Ken Robinson (?) about Creativity. I thought it apt.

Well, Bard, looks like it's you & me. I don't think it's the kind of party where they notice you're late, either ...

Thanks Just Thinking,
I'm glad you went there.

& you, Daisy Jane ~ thanks.

It's hard for me to get past your painting to read your words, Kim.
The colours, the content ... well there is just a magical quality to them that invites me to wander off into them.

And then, somehow, the reflection here too presented it's own magical qualities as well ...

I was intrigued with the figure in the foreground ... bird mask? Mole? Yes, Mole of Wind in the Willows is what came to mind for me too ... Mole of Teralba though.

"The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea."
- Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, Ch. 1

I feel a bit like Mole .... bewitched, entranced, fascinated....

Kim, you may feel honoured to have your paintings grace places here and there ... but just imagine how honoured those people and places are to have your paintings grace their days.

♥▬▬●▬▬ஜ۩۞۩ஜ▬▬●▬▬ஜ۩۞۩ஜ▬▬●▬▬ஜ۩۞۩ ஜ▬▬●▬​▬ஜ۩۞۩ஜ▬▬●▬▬♥
* BEAUTIFUL SOUL AWARD!**** Once you have been given this award, you are supposed to paste it on the wall of AT LEAST 5 women/ men who deserve it. If you receive more than 3, you know you are truly special....You rock!! Its just to appreciate each other. It is always sweet to know that someone thinks you're a wonderful and special Person ♥♥♥ you are dont ever forget.
♥▬▬●▬▬ஜ۩۞۩ஜ▬▬●▬▬ஜ۩۞۩ஜ▬▬●▬▬ஜ۩۞۩​ஜ▬▬●▬▬ஜ۩۞۩ஜ▬▬●▬▬♥

all any of us can do, if we=honest, old boy:
"Unwittingly, half the time, I leave this trail of images. Some of them I don't know what they mean. I don't know what this one means either, but I can guess.'

Kim,
Thank you for the comment on my last blog. If I am a beautiful soul then it is because I have walked behind you and followed your footsteps.

HUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

Kate
Algis
James
Linda
Hey, :-)
Thanks for being here.