Re-Entry….

So it has been over a year since I have posted in this space.  There has been a lot going on since then and I tend to hang out on instagram more, but since some of the work I am/will be doing will be more written as well as visual, I decided that being in this space is one way to get at it.  Besides there are so many of you who are still following this space and I appreciate you “hanging in there” as a result.  I can also say more than what I can say on other platforms.  So I will try to have more of a presence back here.

Writing is really a way of thinking–not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet.” – Toni Morrison

The biggest announcement that as of last month (July 2019), I have made the decision to write my first chapbook of poetry.  I started writing last spring and found myself writing more and more and more….until I realized that I was writing through a story that began over 40 some years ago which culmulated last January of 2018.   I have never officially written poetry before, I wrote song lyrics that came to me when I was child and a teen, but never shared them in a public space.  Heck, I don’t know what I have been writing is even considered “poetry” by the literary experts.  But alas, whatever it is and showing up as will be a  chapbook, tentatively titled “Moon Rising in Capricorn”.  I  expected to publish it  by Christmas of this year.  Watch this space to see some of the work and I will share more of the story as I go

“If one has courage, nothing can dim the light which shines from within.” Maya Angelou

As we are experiencing so much strife and division in the last few years, I have been looking into the past for answers. As a GenXer, I am finding ways to deal with some of my own emotions over what I am seeing and hearing as well as opening myself up to others for some honest, real dialogue. It’s not easy…at all. I am also searching for answers to how to cope…as an empath who is sensitive to other’s energy, it can be especially difficult.

One way is to look to my ancestors and family members as well as others, and ask myself, what did resilience look like for them, in even darker times? What did joy and preserverance look like for them? How can that inform me and others today?

My new mixed media and collage series will take a look at what I loosely call “joy as resilience”…..with the focus that people of color did not take “joy” of being in what many of us consider an “oppressive” condition but actually experienced it as a way to cope and protect themselves from forces that could be described under extreme circumstances as violent and deadly. I also will be adding more to the ongoing Legacy series, the wooden church fans I begun a few years ago.

No matter what…..keep going with your creative expression….we have a lot to share as artists as well as learn from each other. I look forward to sharing my self expression more here with these and other projects in the future. -sjb