week twenty two >> "howl"

Week 22 finds me back in los angeles after two blessed weeks visiting my Grandma Tata in Cartagena... plus 3 wonderful days in south florida on way back to visit a slew of cousins, aunts and uncles that all moved there from Cartagena as of 10 years now for most of them.  It was so great to reconnect with my family so many of whom I haven't seen for years.  My primos and I grew up playing together during my Cartagena summers and now we are all grown up stepping into being the adults of the family. Wowzers.  Even after all these years, even through all of our changes since we were kids, it is so beautiful the love that we share and has even grown deeper now.

"hidden"

click these for large view

"love bomb

"howl"

 Z page for this week, "Howl," first took shape in in response to the bleed through from Z page before it, "love bomb."  Just as Z page "hidden" was initiated via the bleed trough from "love bomb" on the other side.  As if impregnated by the breathe seeped through from the other page, "howl" speaks in bellows and plumes, the straight lines of it's "genes" fast becoming swollen and mailable into wafts of color and space.  ...I remember Jennifer telling me a story once that led to words written on this page... 

and through my breath I will impregnate you

perhaps you will recount this story in a post this week dear Hemphill... I would love would that so... 
...please tell me a story :)




∞ ceci
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"hidden" context

As we were feeling out the page for this week Jennifer and I could sense it but could not see it until finally our eyes focused in on what is after all "hidden."  This page, quite pale, translucent even, does not live in the forefront, it does not cry out loud... it waits backstage, patient and equinanimous, for subtle moments to express... in whispers.  "Hidden" is a place we haven't returned to visit as very often, unlike other boldly seductive pages, and so this week we re-discover it and it's secrets.

"love bomb"     click to view

"hidden"     click to view

One of the more flamboyant pages in its contrast is actually responsible for the birth of"hidden": "love bomb"  The pastel markers that formed the force field in "love bomb" did bleed over creating the mid right section of "hidden." Thus the initial mark on "hidden," the impetus for the entire page, was in fact no mark at all, at least not from the surface, it came up from the depths below.  This bleed-through was left untouched and only extended by lines that formed a completion via mutation inspired by the form on the other page it mirrors. 

Another page connection lies within these added lines, the metalic purple diamond like shapes... when turn ZBOOK on its side you may be able to detect that it is a series of identical figures with the arms up and legs apart, and that btwn each  is another figure and another btwn each of those and so on.

"hidden" detail : burning man pattern     click to view

"good-witch" detail : burning man pattern in circle   click to view

To my surprise this exact pattern with the same pen was included in Z page from last week, "good-witch"!  If you look closely to the circle in of the middle right side, going round are these infinite dudes again.  This pattern was inspired by Burning Man and it's symbol of a man spread wide open.  I had initially come up with this pattern of forever burning men as a possible design for jewelry at at that time was drawing it every, as I now remember. the fact that we chose the pages back to back is just another wonderful moment is the life that ZBOOK, and all our co-creating, most certainly including Z Blog, has all of it's own.  Getting out of our own ways and allowing this ZBOOK creature to unfold and mutate and create into what it IS to become has been not only thrilling, but seriously healing, as an artist and thus a human.  This "hidden" page seems to exemplified this with all it's cryptic messages and deeply embedded stories.

"it's my intension

it's like even when

it's not my aim

it iS" 

is what came forth from my pen onto this page on day years ago,

intention misspelled respectively, and a size small sticker

peeled from a garment used for the "s" in "iS."

  I guess I knew then what I didn't know now.

∞ ceci

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Love Bomb Contractions

Hot page expand,

     now take me there

Oh yes, oh please, I'll show no fear.

Our hero here,

        he enters fair

and makes his way down Sodom's stair.

He flaps his foot,

     he flips his press

He mingles downward toward my chest.

click for larger view

Light bright, thine eyes beware

peel, squeal, pastel-curtained underwear.

Watch out, loves test

sharp blades inject thy bold request.

Flesh wet, squeezed in

pink caverns, endometrium.

shiver, quiver,

   loves touch

breathe, heave, too much.

Sparkle seen,

   lining green

kiss, lick, flower queen.

Squish, squeeze,

    Oh, please

splish, splash, drip, teaze.

-J. Gould

p.s.l. update on my post, 7-2-10: GGmas doing better, still in hopital in Maui.  She's working hard, through pain to endure physical therapy so she can come home to LA, possibly next week!

the moment

"The Moment"                       click to view

A month ago I shared about my live painting experience at the Lighting in a Bottle Festival (see June 10 post) and about how the process helped me wake up to where I am growing as an artist.  Also I shared how the painting, for me, was not complete... I had not treated the edges, signed and dated it, or even titled it.  Most importantly, it was missing the final touch, an element that would bring it closure so that it could truly commence.  As I mentioned in that prior post, it is the element of STORY that most excites me right now, which I feel deepens a piece/painting from symbolic to experiential.  Fortunately I was able to get in touch with the top bidders of the painting and ask them if they'd be open to my bringing closure to the piece. Nicole and Chad graciously welcomed me to their home in San Luis Obispo to do what I needed to do.  I treated the edges, fine tuned the tundra, and then gave this "place" a reason for being... 

click these to view

click these to view
below, Nicole & Chad & Guinness

enter two little figures who are traveling this terrain.  A pilgrimage? A walkabout?  Is this the place they are in, or is this place in them, in their minds, projected into their world.  Who's dreaming who?  The dialogue between the duo on the land, the interplay between them and and the large peaceful figure in the distance, their relationships with each other and with the other elements in the atmosphere... untold stories are to be conceived of and mused over by you, the viewer, and ultimately by the owners who have this piece hanging in their living room.  Thank you Nicole and Chad for your warm welcome and open hearts.  It was such a pleasure to have the opportunity to bring this piece "home" right with you in your home. I am grateful and honored.  

The title is The Moment. 

Everyone, please share any impressions and stories you feel through this piece, in comments below.  I'd love to hear your feedback.  This piece marks yet another new beginning for me and my art. My experience of its process and myself, from the live painting at LIB to the finishing touches at its home, is even more significant to me than how the piece resulted.  A shift occurred in me, a vital one. Not only in my creative process, also in my human process.

"love bomb"   click to view

I am tickled that this week's page from ZBOOK reflects a similar elemental sythesis as in The Moment. "Love Bomb" consists of mostly abstract imagery, starting with the middle black ink drawing, then radiating pastel aura layers, onto the what started as a flower and mutated over time into an eruption of color, and then the cell like growths that nestled in beneath.  A pretty picture indeed. And then BAM!  I opened up ZBOOK one day to find our hero taking his place in the sky and revealing the reason for the color-shed.  It was his doing, all along! Thanks to Jennifer, he finally revealed himself!  One of the bold moves, out of many, that she has made with collage in ZBOOK, each time surprising and delighting me, inspiring what is possible.  These bold moves are simple, for even just one personal element, such as the hero in "Love Bomb" and the duo in The Moment, can activate a scene into a scenario, into a STORY.  Or many, as may be the case, the wonderful head case that is, that IS your imagination.  A case packed with mystery and curiosity and risk taking and story breaking, live and uninterrupted, full coverage, behind the scenes, and all the in-betweens, nothing is what is seems and it's the nothing that means everything!  Or at least what you deem, this time around. Let's now take another look for a moment.... :)

∞ ceci

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week twelve>> "love bomb" - JULY: HOT pages!

It's July, it's summer, and it' hot, so all month we bring you HOT pages from ZBOOK! These steamy pages are HOT for all their own unique reasons.

This week we debut with "Love Bomb"

"love bomb" click to view

In the light, or dark, of all the fully engaged weapons, in this current day, being used to assert "power" over people and claim their very lives, I look at this page and remember that our greatest power is still yet untapped... the most potent energy source is harnessed inside of us, and it involves no external machine nor target to destroy, in order to prosper. Power over others is a false "power." It is truly a denial of self power for it depends on the demise of others in order to "be" "powerful." Proper power is not control, for control NEEDS something/ someones to control, and proper power needs nothing to power it, it IS power... power simply IS. It stands alone and is regenerative. True power does not plug in to anything, though it may be plugged into. So maybe then power can truly be found in the strength and endurance of the people, such as the people who are at the mercy of the "powers" that be, or should we say "controllers" that be. They are being tapped into, plugged into to "supply" the so-called "power" of the controllers. This strength and endurance, this fortitude, this courage and perseverance... call it heart, call it spirit, call it love, call it god even or divine life force... it is ENERGY, the energy that makes the matter of us and the energy that enlivens this matter into being. Our BEING alone IS power.

Okay, so this is what we are discovering/remembering... but as far as actually tapping into the renewable source of energy that WE are, well we haven't even scratched the surface. Most of us follow the models of "power" shown to us by the controllers that be, unfortunately led the way by our own very government and corporations, and thus still seek power from an external source and usually at the expense of others. I feel that if and when we open ourselves to an expanded awareness of our true nature, we will find that we can move objects, communicate wirelessly without any external devise, and send direct forces of our energy to each other. In many ways we already do, we're just not "seeing" it so we not "believing" it, and thus we cannot know it... yet. This power, this energy, this ISness... let's call it love... let us begin to own it, harness it, and set it off! I am turned ON.

We are on the brink of unearthing our super powers, we ALL can be heroes.

∞ ceci

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