Paradise Coveted

I would be Milton, that well-versed
poet, who commenced his obsession over words of others -- and
intently so -- prior to his practical life’s
inception, and never forsook
his flame. I covet
the choices of his driven father, who afforded his son
the luxury of becoming book-bound. If only
my own father had been less poet,
himself, and more provider...

I would be Milton, who made such casual
references to classic facts, assuming
he’d be understood, whose pool of truths
was perhaps less wide, yet
far less shallow than that from which we dip
today -- who could well afford
to reference Hector
and not be trashed as a pretentious hack,
to draw from Virgil
and be taken for sincere, not quaint,
to cite comparisons of old
without the gaze askance
from a differently educated peerage
with no sympathy
for Clytemnestra,
to type the names of kings of old with no
arguments from a spell-checker that had no record
of their monikers till I showed up at the keyboard.

I would be Milton, despite his failed love
life, his latter pragmatic partnering, his unruly
daughters, his failures to keep mute
when silence would likely have served best his public stature.
I, too, would press onward
against principalities and powers, known
for a quick tongue and rambling pen
that by its very lucidity breaks
the back of vociferous opponents,
deliberate defiance marking my path, even when passing
through friendly hosting lands.
I would profane the pompous with brute force
of learned mind, and cause the critics to lament the waste
of my talent, as a cheap
and imprudent pamphleteer. I would broaden
my reputation with propaganda most impassioned, lauded
in tomes not once, but threefold in the same century.

I would cast in my lot
with king-slayers, then bemoan how monarchy
prevails -- even in the guise of populists -- and rue
the rashness of my
impolitic endorsements. I would reap
the seeds of discontent sown
and fly in the face of advancing night
with such a deluge of vitriol
channeled hard against the advancing tide -- so hard
that none
could make light of my drive.

I would be Milton, who thought better
of telling only tales of woe, who saw
that most grievous loss could prompt a bit of gaining, and knew
full well to whom credit for the brighter song
should be attributed.
I would seek out the company of others
well-read, and spar with princes
in their courts.
I would parry the fumbling advances
of “modern” usage, slice off
that custom blade at the hilt, and send it
scuttling across the flags to dark corners
where the hounds repose,
and brandish my older, sharper, more
tempered blade
in victory.

I would trust the cadence of scriptures
and not be put off
by their popularly suspect intent,
seeking infamy’s father in the illiterate judgment of ob-
scured truth.
I would seek -- and find -- God
on my own terms, regardless of king and country.

Would that I were Milton. True --
his bloodline, for all we know, ended
eventually, with no modern men to pen
“M” as their second initial, quite the way
he did.
True -- his escapades into love and friendship ended
tragically. Perhaps
too much so.
True -- his were viral times, fraught with
danger and early death.
True -- there were events so crushing even he of boundless expression
could neither articulate nor eulogize, so
deeply did they slice into his heart. But
still...

For ever so brief a second, would that I
could esteem myself as learned,
as linguistic, as treasured in syllable
by a knowing crowd who turn no
deaf ear to these ancient rumblings.
For the most fleeing of instance, would that
I could lust openly for Rubens’ curves,
and not be accused
of base lechery.... would that I could dwell at
length upon the conceits of Olympians, rant
contrary to hubris-driven posers, invoke Uther’s bloodline
and cry to Queen of Heaven
in unison with a host of readers
who themselves would claim
Milton’s glory
as their own. And shrink
not from it as conceit.

Let us all be Milton.

Copyright (c) 2009 by Kay Stoner
All Rights Reserved

I am neither painter... nor poet...

I am an adventurer who ranges far and wide to see what life has to offer, and then records my experiences in color and words. If color happens to use paint and canvas as its medium, or even pen and paper, then so be it. But it can just as easily find expression in wood, stone, clay, marker, colored pencil, graphite, oil pastel, watercolor... or on the monitor in front of you.

Acrylic paint on heavy canvas suits me better than the more refined "professional" supplies that promise to make a work of art an "investment" for the collector. And it gives me a broader, wider, deeper "vocabulary" to work with.

Just as written words, spoken words, felt words shaped and plied in solitude feed and sustain me far more than public performances or "poetry slams" (heaven help us).

These media give me a way to record/express/memorialize/archive my adventures in a shareable and (I think) exciting way. Through the use of color and light and texture... through the sing-song lilt of vowel and consonant... the nuances of not only what I've experienced, but also how I've experienced it, can be captured and expressed.

Through the eye and ear -- and through touch as well -- the full range of human experience can reach into the deepest centers of the brain and tickle the mind to new knowledge, new understanding, new appreciation, new experience, and renewed humanity.

I don't "think" art should ennoble us. I know it should.

Okay, so I've got all this art...

It's pretty wild, how much of it I have. I mean, tens upon tens of works, in a variety of media. It's like my poetry -- I have a lot of it, and it comes very naturally to me, so I end up not thinking much of it -- I mean, I do think much of it, but it doesn't make as much of an impression on me, while I'm creating it, as, say, coding up a web app or something like that.

For some reason, if it comes easily to me, it just rolls out, and I forget about it -- sometimes -- almost as soon as I've created it.

And since I often (usually) work in solitude, frankly, not many people know about it.

So, I'm working to change that. The web is full of social networking opportunities, so I need to just avail myself of them, I guess.

For starters, I've uploaded a whole bunch of my artwork to my Flickr account at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaystoner/. I haven't gone in and created a whole bunch of descriptions (yet). I just got them up there.

There's plenty more where that all came from, and I'll eventually get to it.... But what I wouldn't do for an intern, or someone to help me organize myself...! Or someone who has a real knack for marketing... and who knows about art... Oh, hell - whatever.

I'm just glad I'm able to do this, and that I'm able to share all these pieces.

Maybe someday I'll find a benefactor who can help me get this out to the world. But in the meantime, at least I've got Flickr. And my blogs.

New poetry from Provincetown

It has been way too long, since I last posted... I've been busy, I guess ;) Studying this and that, reading this and that, writing this and that, and drawing/painting this and that.

Funny, I hadn't realized until lately, how remiss I've been with my blogging. Oh, well.

A funny thing happened the other day. I was talking to someone about my writing, especially my poetry. I was showing him all the poetry books I've written, and he asked if I'd written anything recently. I said -- off the top of my head -- "Oh, no... I really haven't written much at all for a few years. I just haven't been in the mood."

Then I decided to double-check, and lo and behold, I actually have tens of poems I've written over the past three years -- since 2006. I have a real sheaf of paper filled with words, some of them pretty good (I think, anyway).

I don't know what got into me, but I was convinced that I haven't written any poetry, lately. Odd.

I think I've just been so wrapped up in a lot of work-related stuff... stuff I'm doing for others... that I've shut off the part of my brain that keeps track of what I do for myself. Hermetically sealed, as it were. I think I've been too stressed over job transitions and just keeping my life on track, to delegate attention to my poetry.

Because my poetry is something I don't have to work really, really hard at. It just comes. I don't know how or why, but it comes. I have my theories about sound and vocalizations and the sight of letters and words on paper, but the bottom line is, poetry comes very naturally to me. So naturally, it almost seems like second nature. And it doesn't capture -- or hold -- my workaday attention the same way that work-work-work-harder-harder-harder activities do.

Strangely, it seems like, if something comes easily to me, it must not be that big of a deal. I know it's a big deal for others -- they like what I've written, and they want to read more. But somewhere in my mind, I have it stuck that if it's not really, really hard, it must not deserve a great deal of attention.

Well, that's changing. I'm changing it. I'm going to publish my poetry here, as I type up the different pieces. There's a lot of it, so I should have plenty to post... for the next several years.

And I won't need to be this delinquent again.

Here's a fresh start -- please, note, there's profanity in it, so you may want to cover your ears ;)

Echoes of Hell Town*

It's easy to forget, this was
an artists' colony long, long, long before
anyone thought of charging
nine dollars and change for a salad. But
its true. Crazy
motherfuckers have wandered the streets
of this only-recently-straitlaced place
since time first thought of building up
a spit of livable land out of
nothing
more than sand and seeds scattered
by birdshit.
Only an idiot would set up house
on a dune more than fifty miles out to sea... but
still
we came -- all we crazy mother-
fuckers, bags packed for Hell Town,
ranting and railing against The Man, ever
a source of entertainment
or outrage for those stuffed-
shirts of Barnstable, Hyannis or Boston.
Sands shift, though.
Roads get closed off in high winds,
escape routes blocked, right-
of-ways impassable, except
by expensive four-wheeler.
Grain by grain, dune by dune,
it gets easier to forget this place
was ever an artists' colony.

26. Jan. 06

* Back in the day, when polite people stayed in Truro, and only "sinners" crossed over to Provincetown, they called the place "Hell Town". In a way, it's a pity they can't (don't dare) to still do that...

Engineering co-creation

It's the day of a Total Solar Eclipse, and I've been painting since about 5 a.m. I woke around 4:04, when the eclipse started (on the East Coast), and I tried to get back to sleep, but it was nothing-doing. So, I got up and went to my studio to see what was becoming of the pieces I've been working on.

I had given some thought to modeling some figures for friends of mine, to capture the spirit of the day, but I got caught up in painting.

I've been wanting to paint for some time -- with brushes, I mean. I do that type of work periodically, when I want to hone my brushwork. But honestly, it's just not me. I don't have that kind of dexterity to manipulate the brush pressure and direction, and my lines end up being more blobby than I want.

A whole lot more blobby.

Not good.

Now I'm presented with several choices that I can see:

Either keep at the brushwork and try like the dickens to sharpen that skill, running the risk of developing a skill that really isn't "me"... and losing valuable time in the meantime, when I could be creating works that are much more in line with what I'm like, and my orientation to the world. I figure I stand a pretty good chance of becoming a middlin' brush gal, if I keep at it.

Or I can cut my losses and limit my brushwork to occasions where I'm not as dependent on precision as my smaller works are... and develop ways to "engineer around" the blobbiness that tends to emerge from my attempts at straight lines. And let the paint do the actual work.

I choose the second option. Already, I'm coming up with ways I can not only have the precision that I want, but also work with the media I have in ways that are totally appropriate to them... and in ways that let them "do the work," using their very qualities to achieve the effects I'm seeking, rather than trying to impose my will on them.

It's an interesting concept I'm working with here -- how do I relate to my media? How do I work with them? How do I honor them as equal partners in the art I create, while still bringing my own vision through?

I think it's a new approach whose time has come -- a new approach for a new time.

The "standard issue" approach to creating art (and being respected as an artist) appears to be all about "mastering your medium/-ia"... putting in long years of work in your preferred media and then showing that you've got total control of it.

It seems (to me) to be the way folks go from art aspirations to art school to art vocation out in the world. And it seems to be what folks look for when they're considering the skills of artists in question.

But my approach is not to "master" the media, but collaborate with it. Learn its ways, its temperament, its moods, its inclinations... and then blend it with my own vision and bring forth something that is not all me, not all the paint/pastels/gouache/watercolor, but rather an amalgam of us all, equal partners in the creative process.

It sounds a little hokey to me, talking about "co-creating" artwork with the media themselves. A sort of "media animist" approach. But I am essentially an animist at heart, and I do believe that all things have spirit within them.

I'd much rather work with the media, as the media, and allow it to "do its thing" in the creative process.

Ultimately, what comes out of it is an exponentially greater expression than I could achieve on my own, by exerting my own "mastery" over the colors and textures I choose to work with.