On giving and generosity...

On giving and generosity...
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

Even after all this time
The sun never says to the earth,
"You owe Me."

Look what happens with
A love like that,
It lights the Whole Sky.

Perhaps love is not as complicated a thing as we make it. Perhaps it's not the modern 50-50 proposition it has become... Where each does his share to make the whole.

What if I gave all that I had? What if I gave 100% not the half I thought was my obligation?

Is that the point of this poem? That giving isn't attached to the outcome? In any way? That if I am giving a dollar to someone on the street it doesn't matter what the person does with the dollar; what matters is the giving... And I don't give a dollar because of what I anticipate the person will do with it than it's me that needs to reorder my thoughts on giving?

And in a relationship if I am withholding because I feel the other person is withholding is that just a justification? Is that just a way for me to be 'right'? And so what? What will being right get me?

Perhaps you can only stand in warmth and brightness when you fully give of yourself first.


Hafez (or Hafiz) was a great Persian mystic and poet. He influenced many Western poets including Emerson who said "Hafiz is a poet for poets"

This is a photograph I took in Cape May, NJ, Winter 2008. I went to the beach at night and waited until dawn to take the picture. It was cold, so cold that night. Until the sun came over the horizon and lit the sky.

Fading to black...

Fading to black...
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

I haven't talked much about this in any specific way but I wanted to because I have no place do it.

I have asthma and once, sometimes twice, a year I end up on steroids... This last time something happened to my vision.

Around the time I was done with with the prednesone, my vision changed. I didn't attribute it to the steroids and didn't call my ophthalmologist for a few weeks.

I wasn't exactly ignoring it... exactly....more like wishing it would go away. But it kept getting worse. In the few weeks I waited I stopped being able to drive at night and stopped being able to read without difficulty. I had worn contacts in the past and it was now like looking at everything from behind a very dirty pair.

When I finally did go (In November) he told me I had cataracts. "Bad cataracts". And my near vision was "just awful". Something he didn't have to tell me because I could no longer read with out holding a magnifying glass over the print.

He said it was a combination of genetics (my father had them at a fairly young age) and the meds I take regularly and the steroids I took semi-regularly. I guess that last time pushed me over the edge....

He told me to come back in February to see how they were progressing but he thought being an artist I wouldn't be able to tolerate them very long.

I went back in December because it seemed to be getting even worse. Driving during the day was even getting difficult. Photography was getting very difficult and I switched to painting simply because it was larger... And reading had become such a chore I stopped doing it. One of my favorite things to do used to be to go to a bookstore and read. I went one morning, got a stack of books, sat down and realized I couldn't read any of them.

My doctor told me "the cataracts were getting worse by the month". I have an appointment with him next week to schedule the surgery. But because they were getting so bad so fast he sent me to a retina specialist to make sure I wasn't having something else going on. That, at least, went well.

So I'm faced with this surgery. And while many many many people have told me how safe it is... and I know that on an intellectual level... I also know that you sign a consent form for a reason. And that things happen. And also my sight will not be the same as it was before. My near vision will require glasses which it didn't only a few months ago. And near vision with glasses is not the same as near vision without glasses...

So while chances are that things will go well there is this nagging feeling and fear that my eyesight will not be the same as it was only a few months ago. And if it's not the same how will the difference effect what I see....and what I can do? Or not do?

Be right? Or be kind?

Be right? Or be kind?
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

"When you have a choice between being right and being kind, just choose kind." ~ Dr. Wayne Dyer

You have those choices everyday. Why is it so hard to let 'right' go? Why must people draw a line in the sand about everything?

And for that matter what is so bad about being wrong? What does it really mean about you? To you?

Could you spend a day letting everything go? Every look? Every eye roll? Every person who cuts you off on the highway?

I don't mean ignoring them and internally seething but really making these things non-issues. Perhaps be observers to them and nothing more... Make them a part of your life but just a passing part -- like a clock ticking. And than tocking to the next second.

Make these things entirely about the other people? Let them say nothing about you? Just see them? Watch them? But not feel them? Not clench when they happen?

If you can do this kind of thing for a day... or an hour... or even one time it will impove you're life. It will empower you.

Right feels mighty but it is brittle where kindness has a flexible endurance -- Like water against stone or branches in a wind.

Work in progress... Your still voice

Work in progress... Your still voice
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

his is something I'm working on. Its one idea on two canvases (each 16 x 20) based on a quote I recently heard by Sogyal Rinpoche. He said:

Two people have been living in you all your life. One is the ego, garrulous, demanding, hysterical, calculating; the other is the hidden spiritual being, whose still voice of wisdom you have only rarely heard or attended to.

It got me thinking in a non-linear way.... about how sad and true his words were... about how inside of all of us there is this light that rarely shines... about how many of us don't even know it's there anymore... about the people I find frustrating and how if I'd look deeper I might see that the problem is with me....about how we all have this bipolar nature.

This one isn't done and the picture isn't very good. There is more variation in the color and it's a bit off. It's a bit brighter in real life and the purple is much less violet and sharp. And the black isn't such a black hole... There are blues over it. Perhaps when the paintings are done I'll have worked out the photography issues but I didn't want to forget my thoughts about it... how I felt when I was painting it so I wanted to post it as a work in progress.

For today I will try to attend to my still voice.
Tracy

Kindness vs. rightness

Kindness vs. rightness
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

"When given the choice between being right
or being kind,
always choose kind."
--Dr. Wayne Dyer

It's true you know. Being right most days gets you no where. You can be right and still be unhappy and alone. How caught up we are in our need to be right... Winning the fight. Making that point that will get the other person to say '' Oh, now I see. You were right"

But think about that person you always fight with... If you really think about it can you ever imagine them saying "OH! Now I get it... Thanks so much for pointing that out! Your right"

Is it your boss? Your mom? Your child?

You really can't imagine them saying that, can you?

Be kind instead... don't live with the kindness still inside you

I took this photo in the summer and it wasn't very good...probably still isnt... but I've been sitting here using digital mumbo jumbo on it -- I don't normally use so much digital stuff that the photo looks nothing like it started out to be... but this one... Well, it's entirely different. And I so love the colors! Sometimes its more about the colors I guess....

Prosperity

Prosperity
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

"Prosperity in the form of wealth works exactly the same as everything else. You will see it coming into your life when you are unattached to needing it. " Wayne Dyer

Ah Wayne -- thats a hard one. Perhaps I am making my own fence? You could be correct...

It's just so hard not to need when what you need seems so reasonable. When your refrigerator has been making strange noises for quite some time... and you know one day you will open it and it will be warmer in there than in the kitchen.... When the last time you used your dryer you had to shut it off because it smelled like it was on fire and so you have been hanging your clothes to dry... When you don't even know what it's like to buy what you want anymore... Only what's on sale... I can't remember what wanting feels like... When ....

Well, I guess it is me than. I guess justification is my fence. Perhaps like this image an ocean is beyond it...

Maybe even closer to the truth -- I am the fence.

Safe spaces aceo

Safe spaces aceo
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

I find empty space relaxing. When everything is full... When there is no where to rest my eyes... When visual clutter is everywhere all I want to do is run.
I find the spaces between things to be like breathing room.

Whether the space is under a quiet tree or in my mind it's the blank spaces that give me room to think... It's those spaces that allow my mind to breathe. To be quiet... To be peaceful... to be as it was meant to be,

Energy series -- Lava 2 (16 x 20 acrylic on canvas)

Energy series -- Lava 2 (16 x 20 acrylic on canvas)
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

This is the second lava painting in the energy series.

There is a layer of paper on the gallery wrapped canvas that lends wrinkles and folds to the painting. It almost looks like a leather surface.

I'm very happy with the way these have come out.

not for sale

Panic button 16 x 20 acrylic on canvas

Panic button 16 x 20 acrylic on canvas
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

Did you ever want a button that would get you out of whatever was happening? A fix me button? A help me button? A get me out of here button?

Me too.

I painted one the other day.

It sort of looks like a minimal modern art thing... but its actually a button. A panic button.

Falling down yesterday -- 16 x 20 acrylic on canvas

Falling down yesterday -- 16 x 20 acrylic on canvas
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

his is a brand new painting ... and a brand new style for me.

Honestly I'm not sure about it and I'm just playing around with paint. I was trying to use black and white and red and get the feeling of movement with very little actual movement clues....

I haven't been feeling all that well. I guess in some ways I feel like I'm falling.

Most of my art has so much happening. So much going on... lots of colors and textures. It takes so much time and effort and paint.... I paint standing up at the kitchen counter and hold up the paintings while I do them..... But yesterday I had nothing. No energy. No color... maybe just red.

I don't know. For whatever reason this suited yesterday.

sold

Forgiveness

Forgiveness
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

"Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. " Mark Twain

I could never match the beauty of these words with an image.... I'll settle for the sky the color of violets.

Namaste,
Tracy

Energy series ( Focus ) 9 x 12 acrylic

Energy series ( Focus ) 9 x 12 acrylic
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

've been trying to concentrate on energy as a theme.

FOCUS.

I understand that at first glance this painting doesn't look especially energetic in the traditional sense (Like, for example, the Lava paintings) however let me explain.

Focus is energy. The ability to hone in on something, to narrow down... to remain on a task... to really look inside and decide what you want... That all not only takes energy; it is energy. Focus is a powerful magnetic-type energy that draws what you want to you as opposed the the kind of energy you expend... or a visible energy like waves or wind...

Focus is the energy you use when you look to the horizons of your wants and thoughts and needs to bring them close. Into focus. Into your life....

Perhaps focus is your strongest energy. Or perhaps it's the strongest energy in people who get what they need...

Im not sure what I'm going to do with this painting yet. I need paintings for a show in the summer...or I might keep this one... I don't know. I might also sell this one....

Tangled up in Blue Acrylic Painting -- For sale make offer

Tangled up in Blue Acrylic Painting -- For sale make offer
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

This is a 16 x 20 painting I did in the summer 2008.

In the song Tangled up in Blue, Bob Dylan sings:

And when finally the bottom fell out
I became withdrawn,
The only thing I knew how to do
Was to keep on keepin' on like a bird that flew,
Tangled up in blue.

I don't know what he meant to say when he wrote those words. I've read a lot of interpretations and everyone seems to have their own thoughts... I only know what tangled up in blue means to me....

Depression is like being tangled. Tangled up in a life that's yours but not yours... Day after day laying on the couch watching everyone's life go by you like it was a television show -- aware of it all -- yet unable to move out of your own sweet, sticky now.

I've had both depression and mania.... and depression is blue. And black. Colder than mania. Sucking and sweet in a way. Cold, the way freezing lulls you... Numbs you... Until you want to move and realize you can't... it's too late.

This is a 16 x 20 inch acrylic painting on gallery wrapped canvas. Before I painted I added layers of paper for the wrinkles and kinks (of life). You can especially see this in the close up. The whole thing was painted black first with the blue added on top -- because under the blue of depression is that black hole. That's a given.
I'd like to sell this painting. Please take into consideration that I ship UPS and that costs me about $20 and MAKE ME AN OFFER.

I hemmed and hawed a long time about the whole pricing issue in general about 6 months ago....but the truth is ... and this is the truth....I listen to a lot of Wayne Dyer CD's and his general philosophy is you get back from the Universe what you throw out there... To give is to get back.. to give more is to get back more.

If you want to feel connected to your own purpose, know this for certain: Your purpose will only be found in service to others. W. Dyer

I've let galleries price my work and have gotten letters from people who have been priced out... and from their letters I know they were meant to have the work. And so I've done painting for people who could not buy them in galleries...

So I'm putting this painting out there. Make me an offer and if I am able to accept it, I will.
Tracy (me.parler@gmail.com -- put offer in subject line. ... I will list on ebay in a few days if I don't get any offers here)

Blue Hawaii 16 x 20 acrylic on canvas

Blue Hawaii 16 x 20 acrylic on canvas
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

So my Hawaii thing rears its head again.... I know it's only my experience and in the real world bad things happen in Hawaii but in my life nothing bad every happens in Hawaii ... so given an hour to muse my thoughts frequently default to Hawaii.

I do a lot of blues and greens and aquas... This one was all aqua with just the smallest edge of black.

The gallery wrapped canvas was covered before painting with thick mulberry paper so the surface is nubby all over. The whole canvas was painting back at first and more black shows through that you can see in this photograph.

It's hanging across from my bed so I see it when I wake up everyday and I can remember... Nothing bad happens in Hawaii and it's the first place I see every morning.

not for sale