WINTER SOLSTICE 2014

Another turn of the season and another turn around the sun concludes. It is with gratitude that I can say it has been a most pleasant, peaceful year. With just a short trip to the mainland to visit family I have gone through all the seasons here in Honolulu and feel very much at home. I am looking forward to the new year, new art, and new friendships.

My major accomplishment this year was completing my "autobiography" in the form of an artists book. A one of a kind gathering of what is "me" that I have been working on for four or five years. Here is a description and text to go along with the photos:

Cover - 11" x 15" metalic silver board with Tibetian Buddhist prayer down both sides; a yin/yang symbol in the center with a quote from a Bob Dylan song - "she's got everything she needs, she's an artist she don't look back." Also the words: synchronicity, serendipity, coincidence, and what if? are interlaced.

Lifting the cover shows a spirial of words, thoughts, rememberances, major and minor occasions starting around the word "Oconomowoc" the town where I was born in Wisconsin, USA. Each corner of the top margin of the page has the infamous black ships of Commodor Perry with Japanese script taken from the box of a gift cake, and "what if?" repeated in the center. When you lift the bottom half of the spirial you find three shadow self portraits and another yin/yang simbol with automatic writing on the right half and the text "a tangle of circumstances brought me here."

When you 'pull down' as directed two more pages open showing double image of me swimming at Lanikai Beach. In the center is a "double happy" stamp. The photo was taken by my friend the photographer Debra Casey. This is bordered by a couple more of my shadow self portraits, topped by my haiku:

a long series of
what if and why not brings me
to this paradise

And below the photo is Edna St. Vincent Millay's
Second Fig

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

The page below has outline map of the eight islands of Hawai'i.

And when you flip up those pages I've put three infinity signs; my haiku:

what if
the endless
possibilities
can be explored
forever -

And my final thought "saving the best for last"

But then I came across this quote by John von Neuman just a couple of weeks ago and had to add it as it really spoke to me.
"If people do not believe that mathematics is simple,
it is because they do not realize how complicated life is."

Signed and dated December, 2014
[But I reserve the right to continue adding to it.]

Summer Solstice 2014

Happy Summer Solstice to everyone! The perfect holiday with no expectations. No one is disappointed or left out; everyone can enjoy the long hours of daylight. Even here a couple of degrees south of the tropic of cancer the days are longer althought the weather is the same. I am in a happy routine of doing my art, reading, swimming, walking, visiting beautiful spots to sketch the flora and fauna as well as people or even statues sometimes. Living on a budget promps me to find the good free/low cost things to do like parades and fireworks, parks and gardens, miles and miles of beaches. When protected sea creatures are up  on  the beach they are roped off and if information is know about them the volunteers who watch to protect them  will share what they know. Which is how I know the sea turtle I drew was named Buster. So small pleasures are bountiful.

Vernal Equinox 2014

A time of balance and harmony, day and night are equal, ambition and procrastination keep the season interesting. I want to post an update, but then its all the same. What needs reporting? I'm hearing "Hey Jude" from neighboring apartment and years disappear. Being here now, is all the same as ever was. So here is my attemp at communicating in a design, a yin-yang reflecting the abundance of Hawai'i, and my gratitude for being here. If you would like an actual hand-printed post card with this design please let me know.

Happy Springtime Everyone!

Life is a Beach

And a pool, and a lagoon; lots of water everywhere. The abundance of Hawaii is inspiration daily. The flora and fauna are outrageous and yet so often delicate and graceful. And lovely scents that turn my head as I'm walking. Of course there is also abundance of people, traffic,  noise; Honolulu is indeed a large city and Waikiki is a huge tourist destination - with good reason.
The last book of the year for me was Amitav Ghosh's "River of Smoke", a remarkable, well researched fiction about  the opium war. An awakening  for me. That old adage about if you don't know history it will keep repeating. Our modern equivalant is the disregard for human life in the 3rd world sweatshops making our clothes, shoes, toys for meager wages in unsafe conditions for the profit of a greedy few. All in the name of free trade. Ah, out with the old! And so it is time for the new resolutions. Happy New Year!