lauren – Page 7 – Tales of Creative Compassion

Marqueyssac and Villandry (now say that three times fast)

Today’s art post comes with a discussion question, are you psyched? Today I stumbled upon some fantastical European castle gardens. They are so similar and yet so different, and they reminded me of a principle I’ve encountered in some of my hat designs.

This is the Chateau de Villandry, displaying in the dizzying splendor of precise geometric design. I did not find any pictures that completely captured the sheer vastness of these gardens, but this one is nice.

Here you have the Gardens of Marqueyssac, displaying the magical harmony of of a seemingly random and varied design. This is also only a small part of the whole garden, and if you choose to look up some more images of it, make sure to find some night time ones. They are stunning.

I’ve found that pattern design has a spectrum of precision and spontaneity, and that spectrum is like a lance with two sharp ends. One the one hand, trying to make something perfectly straight, perfectly round, perfectly parallel, perfectly anything, is like a tiny dictatorship you created yourself. In contrast, if you’re going to make something look just slightly off kilter, it HAS to be perfectly precise lest it appear merely sloppy. And there is no turning the crank with a “random” balanced pattern, each piece must be considered and chosen. Which type of design do you prefer? Do you admire one over another? Which kind of patterns do you find in your home, on your clothes, around you accessories?

Twin Cities Women’s Choir

So, I kind of love choral music. One of my favorite developments of late is the MPR Choral Stream, which means I can listen to soaring choral numbers whenever I want. Anne Lamott in “Traveling Mercies” says that “your essential rhythm is your heartbeat; your essential sound, the breath. We’re walking temples of noise.” I think that is why choral music and vocal symphonies are so soul-moving. So today, I will share this soaring piece by the Twin Cities Women’s Choir.

The Twin Cities Women’s Choir is a wonderful local organization that performs for good causes all over the metro. They are really musically impressive (to my completely subjective ear), and I say that because I ran into a few choir performances that were nice, but not high on musicality before I found TCWC and their wonderful sound. I like them especially because they are a non-audition choir, so they make that fantastic sound with whomever joins, which I think is kind of beautiful.

Victor Figol

Today’s artist is Victor Figol, whose work I absolutely love, but who can only be found on the internet in the form of his paintings. The link just now is to the google image page you’ll find under his name. In my totally unprofessional opinion, Figol’s work is modern impressionism which is marked by vivid color palette. I like his work because the world he creates feels so alive to me, you can almost see the picture breathing. It’s a great example of work that the artist has brought to life so it just can’t sit on the page. Enjoy.

Jiri Kylian and David Kracov

Ah, I missed posting on Friday! But hooray for you, because a lazy Friday means bonus Monday, with two amazing pieces of artwork instead of one!

The first is a ballet piece choreographed by Jiri Kylian (his name is supposed to have three different accent marks because he’s Czech, but you can find him online with this spelling. Plus I gave you the link). I can appreciate almost any form of dance, but this particular style I find especially moving. Watching the dancers flow with such liquid movements and express so much with their whole bodies, I am in awe in a way that makes me feel light and full of possibilities. The perfect piece of artwork to inspire more artwork.

Second is a metal sculpture by David Kracov. I love this image so much, and I know it will be one that I return to again and again. It describes how I feel about the vibrancy of literature in such a visceral way. One aspect I love about sculpture is how it gets me outside of my word-driven brain and into a space that is physical and profound.

Frida Kahlo

This is another old favorite. I just love Frida Kahlo, she is my dead celebrity girl crush. Before Pearl was born, when the nursery was briefly my studio space, I had Frida pictures everywhere. I loved all her different faces keeping me steady, challenging me to do more, push harder, to be more vulnerable and less afraid. This is one of my favorite Frida Kahlo paintings.

It is softer and less complicated than most of her self-portraits, but I think it still has all her fierce strength. When I see this image, I feel like Frida is saying, “Yes, it is difficult, but it is not impossible. Nothing is.”

Santigold

Oh, that’s right, I have a blog! Hello blog. As you might guess from the huge amount of prose you’ve seen on this page in recent months, I’ve been having a slow go of it with my writing. There are some great reasons for that (cancer, art auctions, tiny babies, husbands who expect you to talk to them and stuff), but I’ve recently discovered that I can make my writing time a whole lot more productive by consuming a little art beforehand. Artwork is one of those things that needs some of itself to grow, like yogurt, or sourdough bread, or kombucha. All those things need a “mother” to start because they are in some respect, alive.

So yogurt makes yogurt, and art makes art.

Since I’m searching out some easily accessible artwork just about every day, I thought I’d populate my blog a little by sharing it with you. You’re welcome.

Today’s selection is a piece I’ve used for inspiration for a long time, and it still works. It’s the song “Creator” by Santigold. If you were expecting something super hipster and counter-cultural, sorry. This song has appeared in such dark artsy corners as Grey’s Anatomy and Chuck. But long before that, when it was still cool and hipster, my dear friend Alice introduced me to this artist, and I still love this song. Here it is for free on YouTube, but if you’re going to listen to it half as much as I do, you should just buy it. It’s a buck.

Turning it Over

I’m all on top of the new year goals/hopes thing that I do usually sometime in early February. The idea is not exactly to set goals that I can meet on my own steam, it’s more to express hopes that I can do something about, but need a little involvement from above to fully complete. I like to look at last year’s goals/hopes first, to see how they held up.

Take a sabbath every week.
I’ve been more or less successful at this. With the baby, my sabbath looks like about 90 minutes at a diner eating pancakes every Saturday. The weeks I missed going to pancakes were weeks we had company or Ben couldn’t watch the baby. Because of how much company we had this year, I’m now working on going out to pancakes (by myself) even if we do have people over.

Have a date night every week.
This one didn’t go as well. We did go on many dates, and probably a lot more than a typical couple with a new baby, but we’ll try to do better next year.

Exercise at least three times a week.
Nailed it. I went through Power 90 after my surgery, did about a month of P90X, and now I workout five or six days a week at the YWCA (which is awesome).

Write 500 new words five days a week.
I’ve averaged 565 words every weekday since March 21st, which is when I started writing again after the baby was born.

Sell 10,000 books.
Not even close. Sad, sad day. So far, none of my ideas to sell books have sold very many books, but luckily, I’m not out of ideas just yet. Onward ho.

So, kinda mixed results last year, but I’m still pretty proud of myself considering I was dealing a new baby and a small case of cancer. We’ll call it a win. Here’s what I’d like to try next year.

Finish the book I’m working on. I have a workable draft, and if I make good on Pearl’s naps, I think it might be doable.

Be able to play “Boston” by Augustana on the piano. Right now I’m working hard to pick out “twinkle twinkle,” so this is a big goal. But I have an awesome keyboard to practice on, and an even awesomer mother-in-law who I think might help me out.

Finish the YWCA indoor triathlon. For this I must learn how to swim a lap with some kind of efficiency or at least an itty bit of dignity. I don’t think my dog-paddle laps are going to cut it.

I will also be declining to weigh myself at all this year outside of the doctor’s office. Since it’s hard for me not to care about how much I weigh, I can help myself care less by not knowing how much I weigh. I want to stay in tune with my body and judge my health and fitness by how my body feels.

Sell some freakin’ books.

Spend as much time as I can with the most beautiful little girl in the world, who just happens to be my daughter. See the picture below for undeniable proof.

Sabbaths, date nights, and daily exercise are still a thing, they are just incorporated enough into my regular life that I don’t feel like they need a resolution of their own.

Lies in Mental Illness

A new video blog! Answering the eternal question, “what is interesting, thought-provoking, and only four minutes long?” Take a break, watch the video, click the like button, read the book!

Cutting for Stone

I’ve decided to do book reviews again. Today, I’ll review Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. This book was commended to me by my dear friend Erin, who is uncompromising with her reading standards and so can always be trusted for a good recommendation. By the way, she loved The Other Side of Silence.

Cutting for Stone is a historical fiction that takes place in Ethiopia (and later in in New York) and is centered on a missionary hospital. It follows the lives of conjoined twins born in scandal, and raised by the doctors who surrounded them at their birth. The introduction looks back at the story from the endpoint, and felt like it gave me some information about the way things play out. Instead, it managed to only add tension and suspense at all the critical moments. As a writer, that truly impressed me.

Each character in the book is believably flawed, and ascends to their own moment of beauty at some point in the novel. Secondary and minor characters are often illuminated with a few artful phrases, so the world Verhese creates is full and rich without wasting words. I was also very impressed at how the two main characters are written so well as to stand completely on their own, and yet also exhibit a blend of qualities inherited from their birth and adopted parents. Those qualities flesh out and lead them in ways that are totally separate from their parentage, which seems consummately realistic to me.

The only caveat to my admiration for Verghese’s characters would be Genet. She enters the story inexplicably, exits in infamy, and seems to do nothing but harm on her way through the world. In fact, she brings out the absolute worst in all the characters she comes in contact with, and in the end her very blood is a deadly poison. She can’t even be described as a destructive force of nature, because destruction in nature is almost always renewing in some way. Because the rest of the book is so precise and masterful, I would really love to hear the author talk about that character and what was behind her creation.

Since I loved this book so much, I will tell you about my very favorite part, which actually made a significant impact on the way I see the world. One of the characters dies of cancer, and he dies so well and so happily that I return to the imagery of his death quite frequently in my mind. To him, the best thing in the world was to be surrounded by the family that he loved, the ragtag home he’d built up around himself, being served with the compassion and care he’d shown to others his whole life. For most of my life I’ve talked about where I want to be when I’m 50, but this was the first time I really thought about what will be important to me at the end of my life. Verghese brings an end to one of the most beloved characters with a total lack of morbidity or pathos, and that alone makes it inspiring.

I highly recommend this book, and it has the notable honor of being one of twenty-four books I’ve given a five-star rating.

I keep meticulous track of what I read on Shelfari, so if you’d like to know more about the books I enjoy, check out my shelf.

A Hollow Space

In May of this year I had surgery on my throat. Just a pesky case of thyroid cancer. I was not informed that this surgery would steal my voice away, but I was barely able to speak for two or three months. Thankfully, my speaking voice has returned and I’ve even done a couple of spoken word performances post-surgery.

My singing voice, on the other hand, is still AWOL. I can kind of muddle through a tune, but there are hiccups and cracks and sudden descents into notes I had no designs on. There’s not a lot of control involved in my singing, and after two or three songs I get the very strange sensation that my vocal chords are tired. I still sing almost every day, when I play my guitar and worship God while my baby scoots around the living room floor. Despite the rasping unpredictability of my voice, I still find that I feel the presence of God while I play and sing. It reminds me of the first few times I plucked out a tune on the guitar. I only knew four chords, and my abilities extended far enough to do one strum for each chord change, after a few seconds of meticulous finger-placement. I found that God was willing to show up to that stuttery song too. He really doesn’t seem very particular, at least when I’m alone (or only in the presence of un-critical infants).

There is a kind of freedom in knowing that my singing voice sucks. I spend no time wondering if my voice is any good, because I know for sure that it isn’t. So I can just sing, and I can just worship, and I don’t worry about it. I think of my voice singing this song as a kind of placeholder for music; it creates a hollow space that other people can fill with their voices, that the guitar can fill with its chords, that God can fill with his love.