Jenny Mendes

An exerpt from the Patti Smith interview I shared the other day on loss and a painting of mine on the same subject..... PAUL HOLDENGRÄBER: And, you know, how important it was to arrive at the greatest amount of silence a city could arrive at. We were talking about loss, and there’s a line, as we slowly wind down, there’s a line in Rilke that I very much love about loss, where he says, “Loss however cruel is powerless against possession, which it completes or even affirms. Loss is in fact nothing else than a second acquisition but now completely interiorized and just as intense.” PATTI SMITH: Rilke. PAUL HOLDENGRÄBER: It’s extraordinary, no? PATTI SMITH: I’m not going to say awesome, because it’s not an awesome enough word. But yes, he’s so beautiful. PAUL HOLDENGRÄBER: “A second form of acquisition.” PATTI SMITH: Yes, I believe in that. I know it to be true. PAUL HOLDENGRÄBER: We carry around our libraries. We carry around our quotations. I

PATTI SMITH in conversation with Paul Holdengräber

 A few highlights from last night.... we had a big party, lots of family, new friends and old friends....speeches... (i'm trying to figure out how to get that up here if it might be entertaining but couldn't do it this morning) good conversation, abundant food.... a good night.  it might be the last one at my parents house wth everyone all together, so i was very grateful for all of it and to be there. And i had the great honor to wear the turkey apron, which I did with the greatest of pleasure.....

“There is no emotion that you cannot be rid of, because emotions are simply thoughts, and thoughts are just like the wind moving through the empty sky. There is nothing to them.” ~ H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

a meditation on the eve of Thanksgiving as we all gather together... THE ROAD TO FORGIVENESS .. after the pilgrim lanes, and the ruined chapel, the gull cries and the sea-hush  at the back of the island, it was the way, standing still or looking out or walking, or even talking with others in the evening bar, holding your drink or laughing with the rest, that you realized part of you had already dropped to its knees, to pray, to sing, to look, to fall in love with everything and everyone again, that someone from far inside you had walked out into the sea light and the great embracing quiet to raise its hands and forgive everyone in your short life you thought you hadn’t, and that all along you had been singing your quiet way through the rosary of silence that held their names…. ... Excerpted from LEAVING THE ISLAND : From THE SEA IN YOU: Twenty Poems of Requited and Unrequited Love’ © David Whyte and Many Rivers Press

This is an image of an old piece of mine at the center of a 3-D digitizing setup.  About 30 years ago I traded this piece to photographer Dan Baily for the only professional slides I have of my work from that time... He shared this photo with me recently adn  I'm guessing it is for a project he was doing with his college students.  So very cool... A future no one could have imagined back then when she left me and began her life with him....  Dan was always doing the most interesting things with a camera and still is.  I always loved his playful and imagintive spirit with this medium.    

A beautiful conversation http://bit.ly/1ka8gJF http://bit.ly/1ka8gJF

Revelation Must Be Terrible Revelation must be    terrible with no time left to say goodbye. Imagine that moment    staring at the still waters with only the brief tremor of your body to say    you are leaving everything and everyone you know behind. Being far from home is hard, but you know,    at least we are exiled together. When you open your eyes to the world you are on your own for    the first time. No one is even interested in saving you now and the world steps in    to test the calm fluidity of your body from moment to moment as if it believed you could join    its vibrant dance of fire and calmness and final stillness. As if you were meant to be exactly    where you are, as if like the dark branch of a desert river you could flow on without a speck    of guilt and everything everywhere would still be just as it should be. As if your place in the world mattered    and the world could neither speak nor hear the fullness of its own bitter and beautiful cr

went out last night to a lecture and had so much stuff swirling around in my head afterwards that i couldn't sleep and woke up early.  this had a special benefit this morning when i took claude out for a walk.  it was really dark.  i could barely see as i walked across the bridge to the back....then i looked up at the sky and saw a million stars.  the sillouette of the dark trees against the blue black sky dotted with sparkling little stars was magnificent.  too dark to photograph, so i can only describe.  this is the start to a wonderful day.... hopefully I will finish this off this morning as it's nearly done (i think).  I started it, unfocused at a workshop a month ago...now things have changed in my life and so it will change to from whatever it started off to be.  that's ok.  c'est la vie.  

What a great thing when someone takes a chance to make their dream a reality.  My brother has always wanted to own and run a summer camp.... he tried for years and wasn't able to make it happen.... But by a strange twist of fate, an opportunity presented itself to him, and he jumped, quitting his teaching job after 22 years or so and going for it with an amazing ammount of trust and faith that this was the right direction for his life to take.  He'd been waiting and was so ready for change as fate crossed his path and he embraced it.  I'm really excited for him and I know he is going to continue in the tradition of this beloved summer camp and rebuild it into something wonderful!  It is incredible to see someone so happy doing what they were born to do. Camp Roosevelt and Firebird (for boys and girls) in Ohio You can see more about his journey here: A new facebook page for the camp: https://www.facebook.com/Camps-Firebird-Roosevelt-270670676412/?notif_t=fbpage_f

a new cup painted after friday 13, 2015 memories of a lovely day.... simplicity, peace, crispness in the air, conversations with two friends, uneventful perfection planning ahead for a warm winter my dear sweet Claude nearly five years old... i can't even believe this new business cards i used an image close to my heart an unplanned suprise was the way they could interweave with each other

Dalai Lama on Fighting Back At the end of the talk someone from the audience ...asked the Dalai Lama: "Why didn't you fight back against the Chinese?" The Dalai Lama looked down, swung his feet just a bit, then looked back up at us and said with a gentle smile, "Well, war is obsolete, you know." Then, after a few moments, his face grave, he said, "Of course the mind can rationalize fighting back... but the heart, the heart would never understand. Then you would be divided in yourself... the heart and the mind ...and the war would be inside you."

"Kissing Lessons" as part of her solo exhibtion showing at Copro Gallery right now!  I wish I could see it..... More here:   http://www.copronason.com/jana15/ and a poem.... by Mary Ruelfe

Kindness Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever. Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness, you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive. Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense any

Exquisitely delicate and detailed, the sculptures created by  Hitomi Hosono  are as intricate as lace. ”I sculpted a leaf that I found in the garden at home.  It was a simple leaf, not particularly special amongst other leaves.  However, when I started sculpting its shape with clay, I was drawn into its intricacy; the manner in which the veins were branching, how the margins ended. I found many details that I admired in this small leaf. It is my intention to transfer the leaf’s beauty and detail into my ceramic work, using it as my own language to weave new stories for objects.” Hitomi Hosono. Hosono had trained in Japan, Denmark and London before going on to win awards such as Homes & Gardens Designer Award and Graphic Art on Ceramics at the Museum of Modern Ceramic Art, Tajimi, Japan.  Her works are found in Porcelain Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, Wedgwood Museum and The Oriental Museum in the University of Durham, UK.

I heard Cecile interviewed last week on the radio.... What an incredible voice and interpretation of this song!  Enjoy!!

Celebrating dogs today from Nepal to Cleveland Ohio!! Hello my dearests wherever you are..... thank you beloved dogs for being in our lives. I will never forget my first morning visiting Nepal when I was hurriedly called upstairs to see this little dog getting his tika.  I don't think he was very happy, but I was, and I hold this image as a lovely first memory. Missing my Nepali friend and planning a trip to visit sometime soon.