Symphonic Poems

Jazz Poems

I have been making these drawings since I was three years old. A pencil and paper in the hands of a child usually result in uncontrolled scribbles. I, however, drew horizontal lines, often with curly-cues. It is as if I came into this life ready to write.

 

Before I could read, I would see my mother make a shopping list or write a note and know it was something powerful, something magical ~ it had meaning. Surely, I was imitating her as I drew, hoping myself to create magic and meaning.

 

In one sense, these paintings are about writing a poem ~ the lines are smooth and graceful and musical. In my poetry, no single word draws attention to itself from the others ~ the poetic lines are as unselfconscious as the painted ones.

 

In another sense, these paintings are really about the act of creation ~ drawing art from the experience of the divinity of the world, creating symbols to communicate the incommunicable.

 

While not depicting literal language, these paintings share the Asian aesthetic for appreciation of the graphic quality of writing itself as art. The cycle of paintings depicts the place where pure idea and language mingle, where language forms from an abstract concept. This "pre-language" calligraphy allows the art to access a more universal, primal vocabulary.

 

The process of creating these paintings is an active meditation and maintaining the meditative state is crucial to their execution. And the transference of that meditative state is available to the viewer open to a spark of magic.