All Imperfect Things

I'm not afraid...

(Image source unknown)

"I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday, and I love today."

-william allen white

 

Perfect Day

"Some things don't last forever, but some things do. Like a good song, or a good book, or a good memory you can take out and unfold in your darkest times, pressing down on the corners and peering in close, hoping you still recognize the person you see there."
— Sarah Dessen

One of my favorite songs that I haven't heard in quite awhile, I was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled upon it on YouTube. I use to watch this show all the time as a kid!

Full version of the song, here

Happy Easter

(photo credit unknown, this has been in my reference folders for awhile)

"Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. Remember, O Lord, your great mercy and love, for they are from old. Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love and remember me, for you are good, O Lord."

-Psalm 25:4-7

Nature is not human hearted

“In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful.”
-Alice Walker

"I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath of pine and fir and cedar and poplar trees.  The trail has strung upon it, as upon a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets.  It has given me blessed release from care and worry and the troubled thinking of our modern day.  It has been a return to the primitive and the peaceful.  Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and benumbs my brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the coyote wailing to the yellow dawn, my cares fall from me - I am happy."
- Hamlin Garland

By the way, the title quote is by Lao Tzu

Only something...

(photo from tomo908us on Flickr)

"I do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses"
- e.e. cummings

The Night and The Dawn

 

 

 

 

 

"No man knows till he has suffered from the night, how sweet and dear to his heart and eye the morning can be." --Bram Stoker 

Just some late night shots. One of my new years resolutions has been to get on a better sleeping schedule, going to bed around 4am is getting tough. But I love the night and early hours of the morning, it's when I feel most productive creatively and it's also a wonderful time to explore and learn by means of good books and of course the internet. Even though what originally led me to be such a night owl was undesirable and had nothing to do with creativity or learning; I feel like everything I've ever drawn or written, that has been the most meaningful to me, has been created late at night and in the early hours of the morning. Within the stillness and the silence of these hours, it's so easy to drift off deeply into thoughts and emotions, dwell upon ideas, with the absence of distractions. I feel like there is so much more to it, though, than just the stillness and the silence, that makes the night so compelling and entrancing.

However I'd like to know what it feels like again to create as the sun rises and everything quietly awakens. Who knows how long this will last, old habits are hard to break sometimes, but I'm looking forward to spending this spring waking up to and enjoying many sunrises.
Perhaps making up for some of those that I've missed, but can you truly make up for such a thing.

Also speaking of waking up and this is rather random...however, I was reading a blog somewhere and someone mentioned how human and vulnerable faces can look first thing in the morning after waking up, when they're rosy, puffy, and slightly swollen. It was kind of neat to see someone bring this up, since this is something I love about faces, the different changes they go through throughout the day and under different conditions. That rosy, puffy, look is something I've been working towards perfecting in my paintings, skin can be so tricky to paint sometimes though. I've been busy working on glazing and wash techniques in oil paints, so I am getting somewhere with this, slowly but surely.
There is indeed something so beautiful, vulnerable, and delicate about the face in that state that I absolutely love.

Scent of the Earth

(photo origin unknown, I think I found this on DeviantArt)

"It is not that we should try for flawlessness, but that we try. Always forgive, because the human spirit is easily splintered by grudges.  Speak tenderly, lovingly. Allow the fluency of routine be interrupted, at times, by impulsiveness.  And pray, never clip the wings of hope, for with them, you can rise above despair.

Life is far less in memory, and spirit, though if we do not stop and savor in all that is tender and warmhearted: The intimacy of a kiss, of breathless desire.  The winded laughter of friends, echoing into long emptied coffee mugs and lamp lit rooms.  The vivacious feeling, of an affectionate embrace.  The stretching smile of unadulterated delight, from someone dear, someone cherished.

We live, and this world we live in is satiated in splendor, in daily miracles of magnificence, only waiting for one to lift the blinders of materialism and observe: The silken yawn of dawn and dusk.  Sun beams fragmented, like a kaleidoscope, by leafy tree tops.  The scent of the earth after a summer rain.  The sea, with all its elegance and vigor.  Misty mornings, blades of grass crowned with dew.  Fireflies winking in the melodious twilight of summer. The serenity of earth laden with the pale powder of snow. The tiny pin-pricks of stars in the ebony mantle of sky. And then there is, the sacred rhythms of your heartbeat, the delicate whistle of your own breath.  The intricate, mystifying ways in which the human body survives.  That we are here, that we are alive."
- Unknown (anyone know?)

The past few days I've had the deepest longing to go on a long walk somewhere, in the middle of nowhere...anywhere...away from everything. I'm missing random road trips and long walks. To be surrounded by nothing but the sky, the ground, the trees, the tranquility of nature with it's unceasing ability to calm and soothe a restless mind and anxious soul.

The most important things are the hardest things to say...

They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out." - - Stephen King

(photo from christian's photography on Flickr)

I've been thinking about all the different ways people communicate and express themselves, and have realized that although I can be quite talkative, hard to shut up sometimes, and enjoy deep conversations, I don't really consider myself to be a very good talker. I've always found it easier expressing myself through creativity more so than actually sitting down and talking. In conversation, I often feel like I can't find the right words, at the right moment, to really express what I want to say when I'm talking to someone in person. I'm not sure where this comes from, perhaps it's the odd mix of growing up a very shy only child who, barely spoke to people I didn't know very well, as well as being a very visual person in many ways, and a highly sensitive person at that. Probably a number of other things play into this as well, who knows, however I find this to be extremely frustrating at times. Especially when you have so much to say, to contribute, and to talk about, but it doesn't seem to make it's way out, at least not in the way you intend for it to.

But when I'm doing something creative, whether it's writing, painting, acting, filming, or whatever, it's totally different; I feel like I can be lucid as I want. And in a sense it is almost absolutely effortless to get across what I want to get across, without worry or doubt. For example, I often do not let onto how personal many of my paintings actually are. However aside from their somewhat ambiguous nature and behind the all of the symbolism within them, they probably in many ways tell more about me than most people will ever learn directly from me (however with that said, I'm not an extremely secretive person and will most likely have no problem unveiling their truths, as best as I can, to those who know me well and sincerely want to know). I find it interesting the way things like this work though, how sometimes it can be so much easier and feel so much more natural to open up and express or explain something through nonverbal means of communication.

Anyway, didn't really want to ramble on too much about this and I can only hope this made some sense, but this is once again a 3am post. However I guess I felt like bringing this up because I often get the feeling that I sometimes give off the wrong impression. Even to some of those who have known me for years, still seem to find me to be somewhat hard to understand sometimes. Yes, I do have my quiet moments, but I'm really not nearly as aloof, shy, or antisocial as I may sometimes appear to be.

"We think too much...

and feel too little"
-Charlie Chaplin

Love this photo!
I have a folder on my computer full of photos and such to use as reference for painting and drawing etc. While going through it today looking for something, I stumbled upon this photo. I can't remember where I found it as I've had it awhile, but it's one of my favorites.

Autumn

"Autumn wins you best by this, its mute Appeal to sympathy for its decay."
- Robert Browning Hamilton

Happy belated first day of Fall, my favorite time of the year. I'm very much looking forward to cooler weather, breaking out the scarves, cozy sweaters, and fingerless gloves. Enjoying the colorful leaves, farmers markets and so on. I bought a big gorgeous pumpkin the weekend before last, I hope it holds out through October.