If Adam Picked the Apple
There would be a parade,
a celebration,
a holiday to commemorate
the day he sought enlightenment.
We would not speak of
temptation by the devil, rather,
we would laud Adam’s curiosity,
his desire for adventure
and knowing.
We would feast
on apple-inspired fare:
tortes, chutneys, pancakes, pies.
There would be plays and songs
reenacting his courage.


But it was Eve who grew bored,
weary of her captivity in Eden.
And a woman’s desire
for freedom is rarely a cause
for celebration.  - Danielle Coffyn
​

Try as I may, I cannot stop the world at large from encroaching on my peace of mind.  And perhaps that peace should be disturbed given, well, everything.

The number of women (and, honestly, men of reason and knowledge and general humanness) who are raising their voices, eyebrows and hands over the growing marginalizing of females (not just females, no no no!  But women are my focus here today) is a growing cacophony to which I add my own voice and art.  

I have been learning to fully experience and express the grief of my own experiences recently, and serendipitously it is not just my own personal grief now, but the world at large.  And it is more than grief - there is a simmering cauldron of anger.

​We are a seething mass of probability.  And probably I love you.

Stone's words just grab me by the shoulders and beg me to STOP! LOOK! FEEL!  The very thing which I find so challenging to do when the world around is groaning.  But I am doing it, moment by moment.

 "Feeling is to be avoided!" my inner defenses shout.  Feeling will heal you and help others is the whisper from the wiser parts of me.  And so I am sitting in a heavy-bottomed way, a Weeble (remember those?), wobbling in the feelings but I won't fall down.

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​"Remember Everything" - oil on linen-wrapped canvas, 26 x 32 x 1.5 inches.  This is unframed but ready to hang. (click on the image to purchase)


​“I don’t want to lose a single thread
from the intricate brocade of this happiness.  
I want to remember everything.”― Mary Oliver, FELICITY


There are many of us who are leaning toward becoming unraveled right now.  The temptation to lose the thread of our happiness is palpable.  

It's easy to understand.  I confess there are days I watch the metaphorical spool of thread rolling down the sidewalk, twisting and tangling in flotsam and jetsam until I feel discouraged - it is so much work to untangle and rewind the threads of our connections and beliefs.

​And yet...underneath this roiling maelstrom of dystopian events is a growing undercurrent of connectedness, compassion, feisty rebellion and hutzpah.  The intricate brocade of this happiness​ will not be so easily unraveled!  There is Kelly with her blue bracelets of safety, Helaine with her megaphone of DANGER WILL ROBINSON and Thea with her bottomless well of encouragement.  There's Liz with her community of rebellious artists, Erica the queen of crow memes, Sara of the tender heart and also my own husband's optimism and intellectual parsing that keeps my inner Calamity Jane at bay.  Dotty who asks "what if" and keeps her own blog readers curious and asking questions, Carl whose Herculean work ethic reminds us there are things to be done - no time for wallowing!  All of these and so many more who are glimmering, sparkling and glowing in the world, lighting up the exits and pointing the way forward.

I have the feeling my ball of twine is no longer at risk of unraveling completely.  Thank you, dear readers!

​
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"Crow Conspiracy" - oil on cradled wood panel, 16 x 20 x 2 inches.  This is unframed but ready to hang.  Click on the image to purchase.
​
"The crow cawed again overhead, and a strong sea wind came in and burst through the trees, making the green pine needles shake themselves all over the place. That sound always gave me goose bumps, the good kind. It was the sound an orphan governess hears in a book, before a mad woman sets the bed curtains on fire."
- April Genevieve Tucholke

Our little crow family is becoming feral again - less friendly, more raucous, ready to rumble in the big flocks.  They conspire, caw, whisper and chortle.

The seasonal gathering of crows (a murder) is sometimes considered a symbol of death, but I prefer the alternate theme: change, or the death of something to make way for something new.

And those of you who know me know that murder season in the studio means buckets of gesso or oil paint and the destruction of my own creations.  To make way for the new.
​
​Normally I wait until January to begin murdering canvases.  This year, the upheaval in the larger world spilled over into the studio and one artist with murderous intent is already on the loose.  We're all mad here at malarkey central.  Muwahaha.

And so the annual event in my shop begins today.  Grab them while you can! I am channeling Brian Rutenberg big time - "A brush is not a sacred implement that makes precious marks, it is an extension of my fist. Anything precious is self-conscious, and that kills creativity. "   Creativity will not be killed here.  But preciousness?  It's history.

This land and I are rewilding.
A bird I don’t know, but follow with my still living eye. 
The day before me undresses in the wet Southern heat:
flower mouth, 
pollen burn, 
wing sweat.
I don’t want to be only the landscape: the bone’s buried.
Let the subject be
the movement of the goldenrod, the mustard,
the cardinal, the jay, the generosity.
I don’t want anything,
not even to show it to you--

the beakgrass, bottlebrush, dandelion seed head,
parachute and crown,
all the intention of wishes, forgiveness,
this day’s singular existence in time,
the native field flourishing selfishly, only for itself.

The Rewilding,  ADA LIMÓN
​

Here at Malarkey Central, we've got a thing for rocks and for bones.  Hunting for, gathering, oohing and aahing, cleaning, polishing and displaying these treasures in rather large quantities.  And for climbing on the ancient bones of mountains where we find so many of these relics.

But this affection for the spines of things is also personal for me.  My own bones are no longer  the strong inner framework they once were.  I sometimes wonder if it is my own tenacious living skin​ holding me together.

And so, while some folks may have spirit animals or celestial guides, my own talismans are stony and bony - oozing strength, resilience, solidity and groundedness.  Some of those stones, the agates, are also translucent.  A symbol of my becoming more worn with time so the light shines through (a Mark Nepo-ism which I embrace).  Because there is a silver lining to most everything, in my rose-colored lenses.  Even the slow eroding of the mountains of our own bones.

I don't know about you, dear reader, but much of my life has (in many ways) been all about unwilding.  Becoming civilized is kind of the task we undertake in growing up and taking charge of our lives.

Becoming conscious of the calendar, the clock, the responsibilities, the discipline, the routine, the right things to do.  And it has (and does) serve me well - I can juggle a few plates with aplomb.

But the older I am, the more I desire to be rewilded.  I want to forget the clock and the alerts on my phone.  I want to be lost in the day, lose  track of time and tasks and just flow.​

I want to reignite the untamed Lola.  To reclaim both delight and outrage, to follow the wandering path and also to speak my mind and heart.  More and more,   I am drawn to those who embrace their own wildness and flaunt it and spread it around.  The more I want to join in the chorus of that universal songline.  

There is only so much time in one lifetime.  I think I can walk away from the plates, leave the beautiful broken pieces on the ground and wander across the way.  Is the grass greener on the wild side?  Let's go there and see!

In wildness, truth.  ​oh yes.

If you've never read any Cormac McCarthy, maybe pick up one of his novels and crack it open on a rainy, dismal day.

It's heady reading - exquisite prose, heavy symbolism and themes that make your heart ache.  Sometimes it leaves me weeping.  It always leaves me thinking.  And surprisingly, it  leaves me wanting to be a better painter.  To capture deeper emotions, to reach deep into the viewer and touch something hidden. 

And so the vacant eyes of these silent sentinels under an alien sky remind me to listen, look and feel all around me. Life is never like what you expected - ​the crows remind me to meet life where it is, not where I thought it should be.

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​"Song and Sadness" - oil on canvas, 18 x 36 x 1.5 inches.  This is unframed but ready to hang. (click on the image to purchase)

​...we all turn out to be a rather weak watery solution of salts and carbon compounds, more or less jellified. You and I, with all that we eat and the various bacteria, fungi and viruses that live so happily within us, are a mingling of the wind and water and dust that constitute the surface of the earth. The miracle is that such stuff as we are made of should walk and talk and know such things as song and sadness.  - N.J. BERRILL

The boundary between my self and the natural world around me feels more porous when we're hiking in the mountains or when we're rockhounding in the ocean.  The wind and water and dust are part of me - I can feel it.  And the more I am around and in the ocean (and jellyfish), the more the barrier between my self and the jellified salts and carbon compounds erodes.

The miraculous part, as Berrill says so eloquently, is that this stuff we're made of has the ability to move and think and feel. 

And this becomes more manifestly obvious when the things we count on to move us (our bodies) or to think and feel with (brains and hearts) are glitchy or injured or off.  As a person who struggles with panic attacks, I can tell you there are times when I wonder if jellified me is melting back into the primordial ooze, flickering and softening at the edges.

At some point, we all return to the wind and water and dust  and that's ok, that's expected, that's the cycle we're born into.  But I think I'll enjoy the miracles that come along with my jellified self for as long as possible.

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"A Certain Interior Expansion" - oil on paper, 14 x 21 inches.  This item is unmounted and unframed.  (click on the image to purchase)


The venture into space is meaningless unless it coincides with a certain interior expansion, an ever growing universe within, to correspond with the far flight of the galaxies our telescopes follow from without… That inward world… can be more volatile and mobile, more terrible and impoverished, yet withal more ennobling in its self-consciousness, than the universe that gave it birth. - LOREN EISELEY

Eiseley's words grabbed me by both shoulders, shook me, looked me in the eye and said SEE? YOUR INWARD WORLD IS JUST LIKE A SCI-FI ADVENTURE!  Whoa!  Where's my spacesuit?  Let's gear up and GO!

​I don't know about you, dear reader, but as an anxious and introverted creative being I spend a lot of time looking inward.  It's not like I choose that particular adventure, it is just where my moon boots go.  They have a mind of their own.  And that inner world can, indeed, be volatile, mobile, terrible and impoverished.  But it can also be beautiful, vast, surprising and adventure-filled.  

Maybe that's what we're doing here, sharing paintings and words and things that inspire interior expansion.  Because it is quite challenging to share an interior view with those on the outside.  Yet art and words (and music and dance and photos and theater and and and!) allow us to get a glimpse of that galaxy of wonder in another that we may never otherwise see.  And once in a while, that glimpse informs and expands our own inner landscape and propels us to venture further.  Oh!!!