Author: coffeehousejunkie

Searching for lost confessions

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There is so much to confess. A thousand things must be confessed.

Thirteen moons since last I confessed.

What is confession? The admission of guilt? A written or oral disclosure of activity committed that requires reconciliation, restitution, and restoration?

Confessional poetry of the 1950s and 1960s (think of poets like John Berryman, Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell) forever changed the course of American poetry. It was less of a religious expression and more of a psychological therapy for the poet(s).

When I first started posting confessions it was somewhere closer to a Japanese renga meets an American confessional poem meets to-do-list.

But those confessions, those poems, those lists, fell into my beard and the rain washed them down Jefferson Street to the Third Ward. I have tried to locate them…
in coffeeshops…
underpasses…
alleys…
and park lots…

Previous confessions: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]

100 Thousand Poets for Change – Racine

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Two years ago Barbara Gravelle and I helped organize a 100 Thousand Poets for Change event at The Downtown Market Asheville. The evening was memorable on so many levels. Reading poetry with long-time friends and poets, reuniting with other poets and meeting new poets were highlights of that night. It also marked the beginning of a long farewell to my adopted hometown.

A lot has happened in two years. Relocation. New employment. New material written. New material published. And so on.

This year I will join Nick Demske and other Racine, Wisconsin poets at the May’d Ent Buidling for the 2015 100 Thousand Poets for Change global event. The Wisconsin poets and writers in Racine and Milwaukee (and other places in between) are talented and engaged.

Saturday night’s 100 Thousand Poets for Change at the May’d Ent Building (433 Main Street, Racine, WI) should be an exciting event of poetry and more. Doors open 5:30 p.m., but get there early and hangout with new friends.

Leaving the oak grove office

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The summer is at an end. Or at least the American tradition of the start of school and Labor Day signify the end of summer. And so, my work at the oak grove office has also concluded.

From the shade of oak trees, I hand-lettered and hand-painted signs for a Renaissance Faire. An anachronistic skill for these highly digital, automated modern times.

“Sure,” he said, the mastermind and owner of the School of Combat. “I can get these signs printed somewhere. But this isn’t a… video game… This is real combat. Real armor. With real swords. The signs need to be real. Anything fake… and the magic is gone.”

DSCN3912[sqr-tilt-dallas]When tasks around the grounds did not occupy his attention, he would take a pencil and sketch out a drawing of a crane or boar on a wooden shield. All the drawings were based on authentic heraldry. My job was to accurately paint the shields.

“Should only take a few hours,” he said after he assigned projects. “Depending on the details.”

All the shields were painted with a combination of six colors. Attention to detail and quickness of brush were essential to the painting of the shields and signs. Some mornings I would draw a double-headed rooster, unicorn or swan. Before noon, paint filled in the background. Red for the swan and unicorn. White for the double-headed rooster and the crow. Water was used to thin the acrylic paint for some techniques like shadows and highlights.

“I like it,” he said after he inspected my work on the wild boar shield. “You should see kids when they enter the ring. They’ll claim one of these shields… They’ll point at it or whack it with their foil. The painted animal or bestiary becomes their totem.”

DSCN3903[sqr-dallas]He asked for my brush. Loaded it with some black. Mixed in some white. A little blue. Touched up a few details on the belly of the boar. I did not mind. Always yield to the master. Some of his crew have told me that other artists did not last past a day with him. Maybe they were untrainable.

“Yeah, this is great,” he said and handed me back the brush. “You don’t know how happy this makes me.”

He took a seat, smiled, slowly ran is hand over his nearly shaved head. I explained a couple details about the boar and the other shields I had worked on that day.

“You know,” he started. “This is spiritual… very spiritual…”

DSCN3904[sqr-tilt-dallas]The fencing ring is violent, he conceded. But it is necessary, he added. America does not have a rite of passage for boys becoming men or girls becoming women. The ring provides a balance to the scales in some manner. Brothers settle festering scores with each other. Young men humiliated for their arrogance. Families learn about justice when they enter the ring of combat. Daughters win matches and glow with achievement. He told me all manner of stories about the ring.

Then he stood up, “No one has ever been injured in the ring. The armor prevents that. Well, maybe injury to their pride. The armor allows for that.”

He smiled his hallmark smile.

After I returned to the task of painting shields, meditation on his words continued. In that oak grove, there was no artificial broadcast of mechanically distributed musical entertainment. The rhythm of framers hammering out their progress on a building competed with bird song. Every so often a circular saw cuts through the hot summer afternoon.

DSCN3421[...]Boys tend to gauge range first before striking, he told me earlier in the summer. Girls go straight for the prize. If you want to win, he told me. Strike first and fast. And don’t stop until someone pulls you off the target.

My brush paused at that thought. I gauged the next brush stroke. Cursed myself for lack of discipline, and applied the next stroke. And the one after that. On target and fast.

Do not stop until someone pulls you away. Until summer fades to autumn. Until the shields and signs are placed.

Publication of “Mortal Coil”

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Left of the Lake published “Mortal Coil” in the August issue. It is a short story I wrote. A really short story. And now it is almost September.

A prepublication notice was posted. Then I forgot to mention where you can get a copy of the magazine to read the story.

The publisher mailed a copy. I shared it with friends in writers group.

“This is so neat. Congratulations, Matt,” said one of the writers of the Village Ink Writers Group. After looking through the printed copy she pointed at the author bio photo and asked, “Is that you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “That photo was taken a couple years ago… before I moved.”
“You’ve lost weight.”
I laughed. “Poverty has its benefits.”

I failed to consider that friends and fans — who I do not get see me face-to-face every week — may like to read “Mortal Coil.” I will do my best to remedy that.

In the mean time, I continue to collect rejection letters from other publishers regarding other submitted work. Cheers!

I have not weeded, I have not written

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Two authors provided me with food for thought during the last week or so. “Courting the Gargoyle”1 by Sheryl Monks explores the dichotomy many writers experience.

“I’ve taken to describing myself as part cheerleader, part gargoyle. The cheerleader, . . .  is a powerful avatar, . . . . hopeful, peace-broker . . . .  She sees the world democratically; it’s flawed, . . . but it’s not without beauty. . . . the gargoyle is fragile. The gargoyle sets the bar too high, and as a result, the world and the people in it disappoint.”

While you digest that idea, Ann E. Michael confesses that she is too busy to write. Unlike many writers who become jaded and obsessed with lack of discipline and failure, she is hopeful.

“I have not been weeding, as I have not been writing. Other priorities are claiming the be-here-now of my life; but I’m happy to find that the garden, and my writing life, can be sustained through other things and returned to at better times.”2

I confess, I have not weeded the garden either. Yet, providentially, the tomatoes, beans and chard have grown in abundance. I am part gargoyle. The part that never sees the light of social media. I have not written consistently (or as consistently as I planned. . . the gargoyle again.) Midimike commented that there will be time “to write about all those days when you were too busy to write!”3 I am part cheerleader. The brief smile that flickers across the light of social media.

NOTES:
[1] “Courting the Gargoyle” by Sheryl Monks, August 10, 2015. http://changesevenmag.com/portfolio/courting-the-gargoyle/
[2] “Too busy to write (sigh)” by Ann E. Michael, August 13, 2015. https://annemichael.wordpress.com/2015/08/13/too-busy-to-write-sigh/
[3] https://coffeehousejunkie.net/2015/07/22/the-purpose-of-drawing/#comment-4566

From the office in the oak grove

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Two full moons ago, I shared a glimpse at my outdoor office. Yesterday, I asked the boss if I might share few details about the location and the unique job I enjoyed under the shade of red and white oak trees. And he said yes.

The adventure started with a phone call and brisk interview. It was a working interview. The interviewer wore a leather flat cap and showed me wooden shields and signs.

“Can you paint?” he said.

“Yes, I can,” I said. “I brought my own brushes. Should I have brought my own paint?”

He didn’t answer. He was sorting through a stack of shields piled on a wooden table. He explained that some shields required touch up work due to weathering and use while other shields need to be painted — originals, as he put it.

“If I like your work, I can keep you busy all summer,” he said as he produced cans of paint and assigned a place to work. “If I don’t like your work…” Well, suffice it to say he related that my working interview would be concluded and I should not return.

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” he said and assigned two projects for me to complete. Then he got in his truck and drove down a service road to do something somewhere else on the property.

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It took a few moments for me to gauge what to start with. I picked up each shield and sign and weighed where to start. After I opened a couple of paint cans, I searched for a water bucket or anything to keep the brushes clean and for mixing colors. I salvaged a water bottle for a trash bin and began to paint. Long story short, he liked the work I did and told me I should show up the next day. That routine continued for most of the summer.

One, of many, comments he shared with me continues to intrigue me. It involved the idea of hand-painted art versus computer-generated, printed signs.

“There is juju with these things,” he said inspecting one of the shields I painted. “People connect with this stuff, because it was created with human hands. Not some computer.”

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I listened to him. I examined the source material that he shared with me. He sketched bestiary on a wood panel and I watched. He asked for my brush and corrected a shadow and I learned.

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As I drew the typography of a sign for the ring, it became clear to me what he had been telling me and showing me this summer. The clean, manufactured sterility of our culture separates the element of human touch. When I painted the “y” from the word “only” it was similar but not an exact facsimile of the “y” in “beyond” on the line below. Yes. Precision could have improved the exactness of the two letters. My lettering and painting captures my technique as well as foibles. 

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During this summer, I read several books by Ryōkan and Bashō. The historical footnotes and commentary on the calligraphy of the poets were as exciting as the literary work itself. The fact that scholars continue to examine the brushstrokes hundreds of years after the poets passed from this earth testify to the essence of human connectivity. The falter of a stroke — a brush loaded with ink that lacks the energy to complete a long stroke remains a signature of the poet. Was it intentional? Or accidental?

As I examined a finished sign with him one afternoon, I said, “It’s not perfect.”

“Only God is perfect,” he said. “These are magic. When people see these signs, they will know that this is real. This is the real thing. Not a duplicate. This is OS. Original standard. Good stuff. See you tomorrow.”

Forthcoming publication – Mortal Coil

 

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Received notification earlier this month that a piece I wrote earned second place in a writing contest. It will be published in the August 2015 issue.

The contest judge is a faculty member at Columbia College Chicago. So, the acceptance of the prose piece submitted seems to have some merit. Or at least that is what I try to convince myself, because all month I have received notification of other submissions that have all been rejected.

Much gratitude goes to the members of the writers group that meets at the Graham Public Library who saw the first handwritten draft of the story. Their support has been amazing. And special thanks to novelist Justin Grimbol, for encouraging me in the craft of fiction.

Book cover illustration – update

Fear motivates. The paralyzing fear that if I mess up the coloring of this book cover art, I will have to start the whole process over again. And the completion date is fast approaching. But the task needs to be done. So, onward.

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Watercolor washes begin the color process for the book cover illustration.

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Paint to the edges and then let the colors bleed. The basic color palette had already been determined weeks prior to the final execution of the cover art. But once the water and pigment are activated on the surface of the paper, the color palette organically builds to its own organized spontaneity.

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Details. There are always small details that many casual observers may not detect at first glance. For example, the color for the shotgun shell includes multiple wash layers of different pigments — each layer pulling or pushing color from previous layer.

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Once the final art is approved, I finished the design with title bar and a map overlay to texture the collage art.

The pleasure of drawing

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Nearly done with the back cover illustration. A brush is often forgotten in the process of keeping a clean drawing surface.

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Detail of the back cover illustration — a catfish. I have to admit — besides the firewheel flower blossom on the front cover — drawing the catfish was a pleasure.

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Front and back cover pen and ink collage drawing completed. Ready for the next phase — watercolor.

The purpose of drawing

The foundation of a great painting is a solid drawing. At least that was my goal when I worked on this book cover illustration for Orison Books. The collage features a firewheel — sometimes called Indian blanket — blossom, shotgun shell and expansive Texas landscape.

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Nearly completed pen and ink work on the cover.

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Detail of the firewheel flower blossom.

 

 

 

The purpose of thumbnail illustration

The purpose of thumbnail sketches is to advance the concept of artist, art director and editor to a final product. It seems like a lot of busy work, but three elements are essential: brainstorming, mind-mapping and closing the gap. The following images illustrate the process of thumbnail sketches as it relates to a book cover illustration. DSCN3558[sqr-tilt] Three thumbnail cover comps presented to the publisher a couple months back. DSCN3560[sqr-tilt] Full-size book cover sketch to gauge color temperature and composition of elements.

Fourth of July

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Memories and images from Fourth of July 2015 swim in my mind as the day comes to a close. Memories of a parade, a cook out, a game of croquet, homemade lemonade and Southern-style sweet tea will be that soft breeze that sends me to sleep.

A sneak peek at the office

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The challenge with working outdoors is no internet connectivity and barely a mobile device signal. It makes checking emails and updating social media status and blog posts nearly impossible. But, really, the technological detox is quite rewarding.

The contract job orders are nearly complete. Word of mouth has lined up another job in the… well… I cannot really disclose the location at this point. But I will say that the red and white oak trees provide wonderful shade and an orchestra of bird song. Or is a symphony of bird song?

Another day at the office

20150619-134401.jpgThe office. Outdoors. Clear skies. For the last couple weeks I’ve been contracted to paint… well, I cannot disclose what I paint at this point. Not where. But it is a beautiful day to paint some art.

[Reprint] Typewriters are not smartphones

Typewriters are not smartphones; no autocorrect, no spellcheck, no batteries, completely analog

Note: originally POSTED ON JULY 6, 2011

Paint until the light fades

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Last Friday night. Using natural light, I worked on an illustration until sunset. Without a formal art studio, the best place to draw with pen and ink and to paint with watercolor is at the east window. As the time grows close to the longest day of the year, this allowed for more time spent doing art work. But when the light fades it is time to switch tasks and clean brushes and pens.

Box of Poetry

A challenge motivates me to think of solutions. In this case, the challenge was inspired by a reader of this blog who commented: “It would be lovely to cover a little box with beautiful words…” Great idea!

After a couple concepts and a couple drafts of what I hope are “beautiful words” here is a custom origami box of poetry. The reward is to watch the user/reader pick up the box and decipher the order of the poem.

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[Front] “Box of poetry”
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[Left flap] “In a land where/the blind lead the/blind/the poets are the seers/the judges/the priests/the relics of a religious/age… It amuses the/people to hear their words/but few convert/and see the word/written/or
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[Right flap] “spoken/on the wings of/pages/on the winds of the east/or across the western/prairie… Spoken to the/scribes and bound into/the souls of the faithful/the few illuminated by a package/of poetry/written on a scrap/of grocery bag/folded into/a cipher and/left on a/window/sill”
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[Back] “this is your box of poetry to light your way in the land of the blind/after reading these lines eat the words and burn the box”

Pens and Inks

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Poem: There’s a place

Poem: Theres A Place

NOTE: Originally published April 12, 2011, https://coffeehousejunkie.net/2011/04/12/poem-theres-a-place/

How to write a book in 15 minutes

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“Give me I subject to write about,” I challenged the oldest kindlinger. It was lunch break and I was home for tea and toast.

After a few moments, the kidlinger offered a subject — a writing prompt, if you will.

DSCN3177webGrabbing a sheet of paper from the recycled bin, I feed the sheet into an old manual typewriter and began composing a manuscript on the spot. The kidlingers watched at a distance and then approached to watch the keys striking the paper. Their amusement fueled the writing and from time to time I would ask them for a color or word choice.

Within fifteen minutes I had composed a draft of a book custom tailored to the chosen subject. There is no trick here. No spell check. No slight of hand. No editing. And no kidding. Handmade mini-books are very easy to manufacture [see my post on the topic here]. Writing a handmade mini book may be more of a challenge. But for writers and parents, it is a lovely experience.

The oldest kidlinger was dubious of the handmade mini-book. The younger kidlinger was all smiles. Their mother read it aloud. The request to sign and date it was meet and the book was carefully examined by the kidlingers as I returned to the afternoon’s labors.

Book bundles available at the book fair

 

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Who doesn’t like a deal? This weekend only at the Racine & Kenosha Authors Book Fair (Saturday, May 23, 2015, 2-5 p.m., Rhode Center for The Arts), you can purchase copies of my books for special book fair price: four books for $16. Limited quantities are available. So come early. See you there.

[Reprint] Poem: Foggy Sunday morning

Poem: Foggy Sunday Morning

NOTE: Originally published April 11, 2011, https://coffeehousejunkie.net/2011/04/11/poem-foggy-sunday-morning/

Late Night Writing – second edition – third printing

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Late Night Writing is now in its third printing and the new edition features a foreword by the poet Pasckie Pascua. Copies of Late Night Writing will be available the Racine & Kenosha Authors Book Fair is this weekend, Saturday, May 23, 2015 at Rhode Center for The Arts. A special book fair price makes it very affordable to purchase and I will personally sign your copy (and if you ask nicely, I may even add a quick drawing/sketch).

Goolrick’s Pharmacy

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