existential silliness

"external" click to view

Deady Eddy click to view

Z page this week "external" was birthed in Guadalajara during the restoration time I shared about in my 6/9/10 post. And as I shared before, it was when I began to paint these faces made of shapes and the lines of negative space in between. Some landed in ZBOOK including this one, created not with paint but instead with white sticker pieces. These pieces made up the borders and framing off an old sheet of stamps which was by this time stampless with only the sticker peripheries remaining. Let no sticker be unrecognized nor unused! As I've proclaimed before, there are stickers all around us in our lives, far beyond the packaged sheets sold at the craft store. The skeleton body came later...
O my goodness it just hit me that this body was drawn in Guadalajara also, but 2 years later when I was living their for 6 months and teaching art an an elementary school. My partner at the time Vinh was going to medical school there (which is why Guadalajara was a frequent spot for me during and after college) and it was a skeleton doll we got during our travels around mexico, in either Guanojuato or San Miguel De Allende, which inspired the drawing that gave the sticker face a body in ZBOOK. O man, what was that skeleton's name?! O yeah! Deady Eddy! ((sigh)) Dead Ed. We loved that that little dead dude. And I didn't even connect that early this week when connecting this page to Dia de los Muertos!

click these to view

ALSO from Guadalajara are these wrappers on the left, that I picked up from the playground at the elementary school I worked at. The top one is for some kind of candy kids eat by scooping out with a little plastic flat spoon. The one below is the top of a sticker package, folded open, you can see the hole in both sides for hanging the package in in the store display. It was Jennifer who later came in and added the middle section that gave a body to the face in the candy wrapper. And after that the dino's body line was extended into the stickers wrapper to excentuate the mirror opposite image in the wrapper, to which I apparently wrote on the side in orange pen " a kind of ying yang" Okay Cec, I suppose :) I'm now teasing myself. And now I'd like to tease myself for teasing myself. O man I did it again. Wait, the date says March 1999 also in orange which would be when I collaged the sticker wrapper in... so Jennifer's dino body came after... so how beautifully did she match up the body line with the "ying yang" line... simple things like this make my day. That is so much of what ZBOOK is about... the magic in simple gestures that meet in perfect timing in the presence of trust and play and availability and receptivity for it all to be revealed and discovered.


So we have bones which are internal yet external in terms of being the matter of the physical... and wrappers that are external and made for for disposal but kept to live on in the internal realm of ZBOOK (look for many other candy wrappers through out ZBOOK too) and on both sides of Z page are the glows of external light of which appear to be auras around these skeleton and dino bodies, also indicating an expression of something internal... or eternal. It tickles me how this page, which is so silly fun to me, also speaks to me of existential awareness. The element that probably set the latter tone, and certainly appeared on the page before the auras did is the cut out quote collaged over Dead Ed:

Cut out from a book that Jennifer sent me color copies of... of the cover and some inside pages, a beautiful book, O man I forgot the name of it again... Hemphill please refresh my memory... and if you feel like, I'd love to hear about how this book came into your hands and how it came to be copied and sent to me... that was late 2000 or early 2001 when Vinh and I were living in New York. And other images and words from those copies of that book appear in other places of ZBOOK. ZBOOK is indeed the search of understanding the mysteries of life... which can never be fully understood of course... thank goodness.


∞ ceci
6

week twenty three >> "touch"

"touch" click to view

In Jennifer's last post she comments on how she feels a struggle between the tittle of Z page this week "veins" and another which seems to stand out as the more authentic expression of Z page "touch." I thought to myself, wow! I though it was just me. Because for a few weeks now as I would gaze upon this page I was not quite at ease with the titled we had agreed on, I mean I am All about veins and it would be odd for me not to jump at the chance to revere them but even still it wasn't quite settling in.

click to view

Turns out Jennifer was feeling this odds as well! Thank you Hemphill for voicing the unease so frankly to disburse any assumptions! I spoke with Jennifer after her post and it was like we had agreed on "Touch" all along, not knowing how it was that "Veins" had made it to our notebooks. After all, the beauty of this page the ability to Touch the very veins of this beautiful leaf from Richmond Virginia. Speaks to all the other tactile moments in ZBOOK, one of it's most wonderful traits. I hope that you all will be able to experience it in person one day.


Please do leave you comments and email us, we want to connect with you! Be in Touch.

∞ ceci
6

week twenty three >> "veins"

"veins" click to view

Welcome Fall, welcome harvest, welcome ripeness and fulfillment and the falling away of all out-moded developments to clear the way for the next season of growth and unfoldment.

We celebrate the Autumn Equinox this week with Z page: "Veins"

words from Autumn in Richmond

It was upon reading the words atop the right, "leaves fall like organic glitter... all around, all around me... puddles of leaves up to my knees" that I remembered that this leaf came from the Church Hill streets of Richmond Virginia, where I lived for some 4 months once upon a time in 1999. It was my first east coast Fall and I lavished in the succulent colors of the season that had always shaken me to my core with renewal and utter aliveness. Perhaps because I was born around this time, at the gateway of the harvest season, when cycles complete into fruitful plenitude of life's abundance... and begin again. For me the Autumn has always been my spring; I am invigorated, ready for action, ripe, prime, and most alive.

leaf from Richmond 1999 click to view

So imagine me in Richmond where my bedroom became succulent orange from the sun lighting up the tree outside my window, or walking down my street sailing through piles of yellow and crimson. Crisp air and even crisper sunlight, like experiencing life through a crystal. I could hardly contain myself. This leaf used to be deep orange, picked up from the walkway in front of the porch of the turn of the 20th century Victorian house I shared with friends, notably our dear friend, and PSL founding father, Hutch. I feel it was Jennifer who gave it the blood red aura that now sets it off. Perhaps with her scented ink?

Beautiful Equinox to you all... happy Fall.



∞ ceci
6

week nineteen>> "5:40 a.m"

5:40 a.m. translates into pieces of the moment.
Here I am, at 7:59 a.m., on a Tuesday – about to explode the day into movement and action and joy – preparing for the days and weeks, and months, as they are knocking at my door. I love to write and read. If I could spend more hours, every so often in the week for writing and reading, I would sit and do it –


Oh my, hey wow, look here, I’m doing it!!! Thank you ZBOOK, I love you,
And thank you dear Ceci for collaborating so amazingly... you are a dynamite
Collaborator – keep it up!! Whoo hooo,
Man I sound like a Coach (shout out!)... and Oh my, goodness sakes,
Here Iam!!!

"5:40 am"    click to view

sliced in Tori      click to view

This beautiful spew spread of words and words, 5:40 am, is possibly the epitome of journaling – of what a journal is to so many people. As I strain to read it, because I have a desire to engulf these pages as we enter them and explore them... it seems to me that much of it is from Ceci, much of the breadth – and I find myself in there too – more like a punch in the arm or a hough of wind. I could relate that experience to this blog for me too – thus far, our discipline has been settling with it – like a yoga or stretching discipline settles in.

I think another title for this spread could be ‘naked’ or ‘naked lighting’. When I sliced in Tori Amos’ back at the piano to this page, it was directly from the white cover cd. Somewhere else in zbook is a spliced in set of lyrics from that same album...it’s a good one – I think I’ll search it out this week and listen! Truth for me says that that image, only comes to inflated speed with the energy of the naked female light bulb moment; and I have no memory for who added that one ... Bueller, Bueller...?? And then, doesn’t the word PLUSH just SING~ ~ ~!!!

This page is like that picture, topsy turvy and playing and searching in naked moments of time. I love the blue waves – Ceci says they are nipples ~~~and, she’s right, look at those mammaries – GORGEOUS!

 So, when I came to this post, I wanted to share a moment of time from this morning ... After my morning mini-walk and airy stretch, I attempted to walk a three-fold walk –
a spacially dynamic charged practice. So, I did a few steps of just the feet walk, to connect with the streams, then turned to add arms, and I went blank. So, I then turned to move a side bend pose, a movement with similarity to yoga stretches, but different! Nothing – So, I decided I was very thankful I took a good page of notes this past Friday when I worked with my Spacial Dynamics mentor – and I ended my morning movement with half a sun salutation – and a push up eploration!


A last thought image – one I shared with Ceci last Thursday when we met to make opening marks on our new sketchbook project....!
I’m reading EAT, PRAY, LOVE, it’s my bathroom and late night book; a hand me down from my Grandma’s friend, Hearty, to my Grandma and now to me.   An old Balinese medicine-man shares a picture he woke from a dream to draw – it’s an image of a body rooted to the ground on four legs, with torso uplifted and ferns sprouting from the shoulders...this is one of my meditations this week / month, and it’s reflecting in so many places already!

Now to kids and house and in a way, my last day of summer freedom – with adult obligations and commitments – oh to be a kid – without those time boundaries, don’t we all wish that for our youngins in the summer (and more of course!)
Be well and see you soon per chance!
-Jennifer

week sixteen >> "good witch"

Jennifer once brought me a sarong from Maui, a gift from one of her many family trips to her beloved island.  It came with instructions, not in words but rather in pictures, suggestions really on ways to use the sarong, pointers to the fabric's versatility, an invitation to be creative.   I cut out these drawings of the sarong sportin' ladies one by one and collaged them into ZBOOK here on this page.  One day, maybe years later, maybe less, I opened up this page to find these ladies had been dipped in pink and had become their very own ensemble... with one swipe of the scissors and another of glue, the words "hot skillet lickers" made these ladies into super stars. 

[ click images to view ]

"good witch"

It must have been the work of the good witch!.. who appeared a bit later below at the center seam of the page.  She dresses in pink herself... maybe she made the sarong maidens into her backup singers, or maybe they are her projection of her multiple personas, or maybe she's an awesome sticker that Jennifer stuck in here to give the page more pink, and more magic.  

∞ ceci

6

Collecting Stories

"lush"    click to view

On the upper right of Z page "lush"  is an excerpt from a now long gone magazine article that Jennifer cut out and collaged into ZBOOK.  These words are like a sound bite of a story, a voice from an experience. Reminds me of the "partial glimpse" that artist and computer scientist Jonathan Harris mentions in his TED talk about collecting stories.  Jonathan has always been interested in stories, using all kinds of mediums to capture them, and now is using the tools of computer and internet to create living documents about current human kind through collecting their on going stories.  This is from his FAQs on his website:

The intersection of storytelling and computer science is unusual — how did you arrive at it?
I have always been interested in storytelling, which I see as the soul of human life. As a kid, this meant writing my own comic books. As a teenager this meant keeping sketchbooks. In college, this meant starting a magazine of personal travel stories. After studying computer science, this meant finding a way to use the web to re-imagine what storytelling can be. At each step, I try to use whatever tools are available to me. When the tools change, I change.

In this TED talk (below), Jonathan talks about the sketchbooks he has always carried with him that he fills with his paintings, writings, documentation, and found artifacts from his days.... sound familiar?  He then began collecting found objects from which he became interested in the "partial glimpse" of people's stories, rather than the whole, because with a partial glimpse one can then fill in the rest with their imaginations.  Much like what I've been exploring with my recent art.  He goes on to more recent work also in which he now uses a camera to snap up stories, frame by frame, moment by moment, glimpse by glimpse.

It became clear to me about 5 years ago, that ZBOOK is a story of stories.  It is essentially a collection of glimpses from our lives -traces of our thoughts, experiences, creative whims- mixed with glimpses from the lives around us, via found objects and gleaned pieces of print, stickers, tags, and other "junk" (treasures).  As a forever kid who loves to find things, it has been so fun to have a place to play with and re-activate these found items of life.  For whichever stories unfold, even if created from a bundle of "partial glimpses," are a source for personal reflection and thus a potential opportunity to gain some fresh perspective on my own narrative.  Stories, "real" or imagined, are bridges for our communing with others and ultimately ourselves.

∞ ceci
6


ps(l): check out Jonathan Harris' sketchbooks ! ...exquisite.

renegations

click these to view!

"caution"   click to view

In the upper left of "caution" we see a snag of caution tape from a renegade mission accomplished by Jennifer in february 1999, in which she traversed the construction zone of the new UCSB art museum.  We have long fancied such impromptu expeditions, as upon our many walkabouts we encounter such zones of construction or the unseen that beckon our exploration.  Z page this week got us reminiscing about our renegations from the last 14 years, via "chat"

ceci (10:49 AM):  hi! I was vaccuming    hemphill (10:47 AM):  Me too!!!     ceci (10:49 AM):  lol   

hemphill (10:49 AM):  wow, - what does that mean?... about us both sucking up dust and bugs and other particles, before coming to this session... interesting, especially for me because of the dust factor, dirt, which comes with going into a construction zone. You don't go in new, clean clothes, ya know.

ceci (10:52 AM):  right!    ceci (10:52 AM):  renegades often are in camouflage of their terrain     

hemphill (10:53 AM):  yes, color blending...my favorite memory

ceci (10:54 AM):  so let's see... we would be on adventures at night on campus... off hours...no man's land ...ours for the taking

hemphill (10:54 AM):  ...remember when we went ontop of the new humanities building - and scaled the thin disk, record like escapements?

ceci (10:54 AM):  that was the BEST, way high   up like treading on a saturn ring ...way beyond imaginings    

hemphill (10:55 AM):  I think Hesse or McLaughlin were with us on that one?    

ceci (10:55 AM):  Hesse for sure    hemphill (10:55 AM):  I thought so   ceci (10:55 AM):  after us breaking into a classroom!

ceci (10:59 AM):  so the first I remember, is the new admin building being built in like spring of 1996 I guess, yeah, 'cause when I got back to school the next year it was finished and in use by then... it was night, of course, we were walking by and we both looked at each other like.. we just knew what was next

ceci (11:03 AM):  in that moment I was remembering that back in high school Vinh and I snuk into construction zones of new homes being built and had romantic evenings in the wooden skeletons of homes to be, complete with candle lit dinner.

ceci (11:04 AM):  and I think you also shared with me at the time some memories of your past construction zone fun too...   what did we do, climb the fence, or find a gap to enter through?

hemphill (11:06 AM):  I'm pretty sure, we wiggled through something - a gap or whatnot... we may have needed to climb fence to get out.

ceci (11:06 AM):  I think a dumpster was involved... for helping boost us... and we went to the structure's upper levels, right?

hemphill (11:07 AM):  quick sideflash - the first time I ever climbed a fence, was with my dad, after we broke into my moms school and office to decorate her room for her 40th birthday, I think I was - um, 12?    

ceci (11:08 AM):  that is RAD.... another school!.... afterhours baby

hemphill (11:08 AM):  Ok, a dumpster, I do not recall that... ha ha ha....  And, if we went to the second floor, you may be thinking of another entry besides what i'm thinking of, though I don't think you are... I remember very skeletal - and lots of holes, and cement.

hemphill (11:10 AM):  That was the first I remember too though - and it was awesome! it was a possibly a greater turning point in our friendship... like, no turning back, ever!

hemphill (11:11 AM):  do you think that was pre- zbook? i'd guess pre for sure.

hemphill (11:12 AM):  I was so bummed by that whole new stretch of buildings and reconstructions, which that admin building seemed to be the first... because of the loss of z perfect tunnel.

hemphill (11:12 AM):  where else?    hemphill (11:13 AM):  I remember a disc hucking session on a big construction zone in Vegas - like a parking lot in construction - do you have that memory?

ceci (11:14 AM):  yes, in the back lot of the Venician, 1999...may...  we somehow, only Hemphill and cec, got out a random backdoor...

hemphill (11:15 AM):  p.s.l. that's the first time I've heard about yours and Vinh's exploits into off- limits - coolio - nice picture

ceci (11:15 AM):  .....and ended up where no one ever goes, total behind the scenes..... behind the sets....   where the garbage and dirty golf carts live....

hemphill (11:16 AM):  yes, that was a great trip too - minus the loss of the genie - somewhere out there, on the road to Vegas!

ceci (11:16 AM):  alleys and dumpsters and nthing painted pretty...   

ceci (11:16 AM):  O yeah!  sacrafice to the gods    hemphill (11:16 AM):  oooh, I didn't recall dirty golf carts.    ceci (11:17 AM):  ...yeah, just so not "Vegas"....  ...but what makes it all run you know...

hemphill (11:17 AM):  what do you remember about sacrificing to the gods? - I must have been imbibing something.

ceci (11:17 AM):  ...leave it to us to discover the real deal...   ceci (11:17 AM):  the genie    hemphill (11:18 AM):  I'd be paranoid to day, I've seen to many CSI episodes.

ceci (11:18 AM):  DUDE and it's VEGAS, where there is a cmaera in every crack and cranny!... although we were doing nothing wrong at all, just tooling around and hucking disc

hemphill (11:19 AM):  yeah, but still, Vegas seems, run by people...who don't play frisbee!

and, O yes, and let it be known that we adore hucking disc, or tossing the frisbee as it is commonly known, and play as we walk and travel as we huck, the disc always leading us to new terrains to trespass...

∞ ceci

6

this too shall trespass

"caution"

Both an ode and an exposé, "caution" is a cautionary tale about 

our modern world, the world we love and hate... of conveniences, 

standards, regulations, technologies, structures, communications, 

test markets, commercial branding, warnings, liabilities, and 

messages, messages, messages.  All with a good chuckle, of 

course, at all the hoopla and conditioned frameworks we create.

 * click all images to view large *

This page is comprised of mostly an assemblage of the daily stuff of our lives, gleaned from the stuff we consume, cut out tags and peeled off stickers with messages of some kind of warning or commercial agenda.  Messages that tell us or sell us what to do and what to not do. Or messages that "feel good" but are manufactured for the sole purpose to sell a product; we consume the message, we consume the product... in other words, we "buy it."  

But "caution," in the very act of identifying each object and placing it on this page, is also a revelry in being AWARE... of being a target, being a market group, being conditioned, being hooked on "convenience," and being a willing participant in it all.  It is a wake up call to our own part of the game and a kick in the pants for being hip to it.  It's a chance to call ourselves out and confess that these things that give us "security" and "freedom" actually keep us captive... 

 

...like the car that makes us feel free to go anywhere but is ruled by the viscous animal which is oil that holds the keys.  Huh, funny, I just now made that specific coloration, with oil.  This cut out image has always, for years now, signified to me the irony of our dependence on technology, as well as the nature vs. nurture debate, And now, in 2010, my thinking goes beyond technology, for it is painfully clear that our dependence is truly on what fuels our technology and the fuel that it is all manufactured with... for thAt is the true gate keeper and key master.  I could wallow in disgust and animosity but that is a loop hole keeps us in the muck where there is no hope or possibilities. It is our expanding AWARENESS and release of our shame that gets us present and in position to make actual changes.  For me, that is what this page is about, the moment of honestly looking myself in the face, and instead of crying, have a good laugh at our unthinkable state, and begin to trespass our trespassers, change the game, make new choices, cross the boundary lines of the regulations that regulate our minds.  Laughter may just be our first step over the barrier.

∞ ceci

6

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

6

elements of infinity

"infinity"   click

This page "infinity,"  during all 14 years of its transforming life in ZBOOK, was created with only 7 elements.  3 of which laid the foundation, which I shared about in the week eleven intro post: my ink flower, Jennifer's felt ink female in shapes, and the colors I painted to dance with both, while painting faces in Guadalajara in 1997.  In all these years of constant adding to and recreating Z pages, this page received only 4 more elements:

 The ring of gold twisted into infinity and landed into her hands...

The gold sign of infinity that the dancer (as I feel her to be) is beholding came during the same Guad visit in 1997.  The paint is not painted on, it is in fact applied.  From a cheap bottle of gold acrylic, the kind you find at a craft store, I had unscrewed the top and peeled off the ring of dried paint that had formed at its neck. In my hand this remnant became object and I had to find its use and place in the world.  Enter ZBOOK, this place where all beloved objects (and ideas, and observations, and experiments...) could find possible refuge and purpose.  The ring of gold twisted into infinity and landed into her hands.  hmm... like that.  And it didn't even need to be glued, I pressed the dried yet still gummy object into place and there it has stayed, wonderfully tactile, infinitely intact.

 

The band took root in infinity, where their music was already abloom...

The little Japanese band of musicians... also came from Guadalajara, this time in 1999 while I was living there teaching art at the elementary school for 6 months.  The newspaper in Guad so often had a plethora of great images to cut out and collage with.  These little dudes wanted to play another venue so after gleaning them from the newspaper we toured the pages of ZBOOK for their next residency.  The band took root in infinity, where their music was already abloom, and in fact has always been playing.  

 

Infinity humbly received a silver lining...

In 2002 a gel pen of silver at my local art shop surpassed in quality any gel pen I had since tried and left such a truly metallic silver trace that it eclipsed the mess of the classic metalic ink pens I grew up with, you know the ones you have to shake up, press the felt tip down often leaking out a bubble of ink, and are potent with fumes.  With my new pen I left silver traces, with delightful ease, where ever I could. Infinity humbly received a silver lining.

 

The dancer paints infinity...

This collaged piece is from Jennifer.  ~J, I had always seen the figure you drew as a dancer, and ever since you put this paintbrush in her hand I love to correlate dancer with painter, feeling that if you could trace the movements of dancers into lines you would see the most enthralling images, making them painters after-all.  Do you recall this element's origins?  If so, would love hear about it... I invite you to enter into this post and add its story here:
Jennifer insert: 
" Yes, the painting of dancing and the dancing of painting; Modes I am most in tune with - in both venues... Blessings on this hula dancer!
The paintbrush slice is gleened from a Huntington Gardens (Pasadena) newsletter.  When Hallie was 2 or 3, we bought a year membership and would enjoy the splendor of those grounds and also the images and stories from their monthly newsletter - thus that was in 2003/2004, roughly."
-J.

I look at this page now and am fascinated that it has stood stoic 

while a whirlwind of transmutation was ravishing all Z pages around it.  

With only 7 elements, versus the 100s that touched other pages, 

Infinity stands as a presence of grace, quite bare, baring witness 

to ZBOOK and our lives.

∞ ceci

6

Journey from the Ocean to the Sky

click for larger view

What breath I inhale when I think on this place I am in, this Maui home in Makena. Our family has held sacred moments here on many occasions. We have been married, we have baptized our children and perhaps conceived one of them on this island we love. For me, this place has a fifteen year memory, including time space when my Grandfather walked on the sands of Polo Beach and sat on the stone bench outlooking toward Wailea Bay. On the "Horizon" spread, there is imagery cut and paste from one special trip I'd like to reflect on for the first time here.
In 1996, I was in Maui, awaiting the arrival of my family, before my husband and children. My dear housemate Kim was with me, and Morris was staying at 101. I remember elements of the stay, we were having fun!

Then, I received a phone call from my dad with news that my Grandpa had gone into a comma with a brain aneurysm while packing, my Grandma had found him and he was in the hospital unconscious and dying. Then, he died and my family went into mourning and calling on all our family to gather in LA.

I prepared to return for the funeral in a few days, and mourned in Maui.

I dove deeply into the waves
and spoke to the sunsets as I waded in the ocean colors.

I listened and offered many prayers to many
and thanked those around me for sharing the rainy space.

dancers pasted in from Maui

When I look at HORIZON JoURNEY, I am aware of that connected space
and I dive once again into the melting colors of ocean and sky and word.

I pasted many things during that time I feel
and I cut a few here and there with my sharp razor blade.

these dancers they laid to protect something sweet,
and I let in their graceful, calm gestures with a lulling dark sleep.

When I returned by plane carrying long maile
and wearing flowing blue, I joined my family from all relations.

I held my grandmothers hand
and heard my uncle cry one huge sob.

Later, my grandmother told me the lei
over casket was a caressing soft hug for her eyes.

And now, in zbook,I have once again found time to reflect
and collect and dive into a space beyond my everyday knowing.

I am grateful beyond senses out
to come into this place, now again, with my grandma and whole family.

to soak in the ocean salt
and laugh loud with my children,

and hold hands with my husband
and walk in the sand with my grandma.

Blessings on your days,
ALoha, -J. Gould