Lynn Digby's new blog of small paintings

My friend Lynn Digby has new blog devoted solely to small paintings. If you crave original art but have a limited budget, this is a way to afford an original Digby. Most of her pieces are on a much larger scale.

Above you can see an image now hanging on the wall of my writing room, and in good company on a narrow bit of wall with a piece by Clive Hicks-Jenkins and a framed catalogue of work by Steve Cieslawki. The lion is in the likeness of a red sandstone lion on the Flagler College gates in St. Augustine, a place Lynn and Paul have often visited. Isn't he soulful-eyed? A regular Aslan.

Lynn's commentary tells the story behind each:

But it's deceptive how working in mostly value pattern can turn into a dance between hitting the temperatures as well as the range of value. What I thought would be a straightforward process quickly got complicated.
It didn't help that I chose cad red for my under painting. I like red under paintings, but in this case, there was so much red in the colors of the stone face, that things got confusing - and wet. Really wet.
Reluctantly, I had to step back with the piece incomplete because I needed it to dry before popping in the lights. This is how I usually work my larger pieces., but the whole idea with these smaller ones was to get in; get out; and get it done.

And here's a small landscape. Lynn says, "The reference was taken a while back after a freezing rain storm. It's actually looking down the alleyway next to our house. Everything was a glare of ice that night with surreal colors reflecting of iced surfaces." When I visited her house, everything was green and lush, but I like this vivid peep at an Ohio winter.

So go! Take a peek, and maybe even drop her a line that you'd like to have a tiny, precious (but affordable) work of art. My precious!

Yo ho for O-hi-o

photo by Paul Digby, July 2014

I had a wonderful time teaching at the Antioch workshops, and then promptly sailed off to Alliance, where I stayed for some days with painter Lynn Digby and composer (and more, as he does everything, I begin to think) Paul Digby. And I had a marvelous time there as well--lots of talk and frolic in their exceptionally lovely garden.

Paul recorded and filmed me reading bits of Glimmerglass, Thaliad, and A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage. He also made recordings of me reading poems from The Foliate Head, the some-day-to-be The Book of the Red King, and some other uncollected poems, including one that will be out in Sienna Latham's Hindsight in September, timed to match the appearance of Glimmerglass, now available as a pre-order. So now Paul is busy writing music, it seems...

Blog hop, bog hlop for Richelle Hawkes

Now in pre-order
Available via Mercer, online shops,
and your favorite indie bookstore

Richelle Hawks of Shipwreck Dandy asked me to participate in her blog hop, and so here goes--

What am I working on?

Right now I have finished up a week at the Antioch Writing Workshops in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where I ran a poetry workshop and also met one-on-one with various people to discuss both poetry and fiction manuscripts. It was great fun, and I met lots of wonderful people, and stayed with writers Robert Wexler and Rebecca Kuder. Now I’m staying with friends-in-the-arts Lynn and Paul Digby, and Paul is taping and filming me reading poems and some fiction. Later on he’ll make some videos (and there will be podcasts) with his own music.

When I go home, I need to finish up some manuscripts that have been lying around, waiting for attention.  I have a poetry manuscript and a novel for children that are in need of some final polish or tweaks here and there. I have a novel forthcoming next year that I mean to revise one more time—occurred to me that I really ought to change the order of a few things, long after it arrived at the publisher's office.

More here

I won’t start a large, new project until those things are done, though I’ll be writing poems and small stories. I’ll be doing some traveling on behalf of my  novel, Glimmerglass, beginning with SIBA in Norfolk in September. I really need to arrange more events at the moment. And I’m still doing some work to help out recent poetry and fiction books—The Throne of Psyche, A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage, Thaliad, and The Foliate Head. (See tabs above for information.)

How does my work differ from others in its genre?

I write lyric poetry, long narrative poetry, short stories, novels of various sorts, and even a few Southern fantasies for young adults, so I find that one a daunting question. Think I’ll leave it for readers to answer!

Ferrol Sams Award,
Silver Award, ForeWord BOTYA
More here

Why do I create what I do?

One of the most beautiful, good, and true acts human beings can perform on planet Earth is to rejoice in the greater Creation by making things. To create art is to live a larger life, one with greater energy and joy and scope.  

I make things in order to speak to and give back to the created world—to make shapeliness and to seek power and truth in words that, once pushed into the right order, may become an experience for another human being. I love the thought that somewhere, someone may be reading one of my books and feel something of what I felt when I was making it.

How does my creative process work?

More here

I might as well say that it falls as a golden waterfall from a distant star. The more I go on, the less I know and the more I feel about the mystery of art. If my writing is moving in its most natural and most potent way (as opposed to my simply doodling with words because, say, I haven't written a poem in a while and want to do so), it simply pours through me like a wave of energy that becomes embodied in words. Words and stories and poems swoop in, and later on I polish them and play with them until they are right. 

All work falls short of the fire that burns in the mind, but approaching that original fever is a constant lure. I love that fay call from within (or perhaps from without?) and the attempt to answer back.

More here.

And who to tag for the Gob Holp, Ogh Bolp, Blog Hop?

Scott G. F. Bailey
Scott's blog hop response here

More to come...

Advice to would-be writers (for R. T.)

Another 2013 book tour picture--
in Cullowhee, NC with Paul and Lynn Digby--
Lynn behind the camera on this one...

 I've been trying to visit and support A Commonplace from Eastrod, the infant blog of R. T., but what a lot of events there are in Advent and before the school Christmas break! Tonight was the high school concert, where I immediately noticed that my youngest wasn't wearing his jeans under the school choir robes and that he had on some spectacular tie-dyed socks. Whee! It's hot under the lights and those big old choir robes...

R. T. aka Tim asks about advice for writers in his latest post, and that is a thing that changes each time one answers, so I thought that maybe it is time I answer that question once again; it's a question one often receives. So I'm going to muse on the e-page and find out what I think at the moment. I hope not to sound like a book-mad Mrs. Polonius. (Feel free to argue, add your own advice in the comments, etc.)

And here I am with painter Lynn Digby,
Paul behind the camera

Come back next year and I'll probably think something different. 

• Be a crazy, obsessed, wild reader at some time in your life, whether childhood or adulthood.
• If you have a tragedy in childhood or a difficult family, you don't have to be happy about it, but you have grit that may become a pearl. The world may not be your oyster, but you might be your own oyster, sooner or later.
• Don't worry about it if you are a woman and have children and can't meet the omnipresent "write every day" demand. 
• Your challenge is to make a thing that holds life in a net of words. This is almost impossible. There is no dishonor in failing, and even a failure may be transformative.
• Just be quiet and do the work. 
• Better yet, don't be a writer! (If you must, you'll do it anyway. And if you don't have to be one, this advice might save the world a lot of pedestrian books and some pernicious bestsellers.)
• And remember that worldly success is not the same thing as making something full of grace and truth. 
• If you believe in your innocence that worldly success must come, you may be destroyed by this belief. I have seen it happen to people, and such bitter change is tragic.
• Do not abuse the dead (particularly historical figures) in the creation of characters.
• The world owes you nothing. Do not expect something. But if it comes, say thank you.
• Listen to your teachers but later on show them that you can do the thing with flair that they said not (no, never!) to do.
• If what you want is worldly success and money, do something else entirely. It's a lot quicker and more sure.
• Read your novel/poem/story/thing-you-made aloud when you think you're done, particularly if you have what is known as a tin ear. Of course, nobody will tell you if you have a tin ear, so do it anyway.
• Grow bigger on the inside as you go along.
• And make your poems/narratives bigger on the inside as you go along.
• Don't apologize for your work.
• Forget about "finding yourself" or finding any other hard-to-pin-down quality. Just make the thing. You'll be making yourself, too.
• If you are a woman and a writer, do not think that you simply must be a superwoman. With hard work, it will be possible for you to do two large things well. (For me, that was first teaching and writing and later on raising three children and writing with a few events now and then on the side.) Be sure you choose the right things. This choice may be costly in a worldly way. Be clear on what you are about when you choose because regret in such situations can be strong.
• If you are a woman and choose to do more than two large things well, know that at least one of your pursuits will suffer. Make sure it is not your children, or you may be raising another generation of poets and writers. (That may happen anyway, but why tempt fate?)
• Do things you suspect you might not be able to do. 
• Push off the edge of the known world.

Book-tour-and-collaboration friends--

Marly with Nathan Ballingrud at Malaprop's. Photo by Paul Digby.

Here are a few of the promised pictures from the August book tour--one from my reading with Nathan Balingrud at Malaprop's in Asheville, and several with the Digbys in front of my family home in Cullowhee. My mother made a splendid lunch for us all.

Lynn Digby and Marly. Photo by Paul Digby.

Lynn and Paul drove all the way from Alliance, Ohio to go to the reading and meet in person. We ate at an Indian restaurant with Nathan and then moseyed over to Malaprop's. A great stop, especially reading with the hometown boy! 

Paul Digby and Marly. Photo by Lynn Digby.

I've been e-friends with composer (and more--what doesn't he do?) Paul and painter Lynn quite a while, and I'm grateful to Paul for the lovely youtube videos he has done (and will do) of my poems--so grateful that I dedicated Thaliad to him (and to one other who has also been a friend to my work, John Wilson.)

Paul, Lynn, and I are collaborating on a work called Requiem (well, my part I'm currently calling The Gold Requiem) that will culminate in a gallery show with paintings, music, and poems. I'm looking forward to more music and paintings!

Paul took a picture of his plate! The small empty one at left
was a cold, lemony eggplant salad with Indigo Rose tomatoes.
Here he has onion tart, fresh creamed corn, butter beans,
corn bread with cracklin', white acre peas, and okra and tomatoes.
Very Southern. And much from my mother's garden.

Art magic & "Requiem"

"Angel in the Graveyard," courtesy of sxc.hu and Lesley Mackin
of Bournemouth, Dorset, UK.

One of the strange aspects to art is how it draws all things to its net--or so it feels to the maker.  All large works seem to have some sort of magnetic power to draw what is needed, but I suppose it is just simply that the world is full of many things, and when turning to a new pursuit, some suddenly stand out as if lit from below.  As I work on the text to Requiem, the collaborative piece to be done with composer Paul Digby and painter Lynn Digby, the world seems to offer the particular jog I need--a photograph of 11th century graves cut in stone and gilded by the sun, a certain poem by Cavafy, the frost on the windowpane... Too, this long sequence with its traditional structure reaches out to embrace the closing of two lives in the past two months--a suicide, a death from cancer--two events that meant so much not just to me but to the entire community where I now live. Small as a fleck or word or as large as a generous life:  each thing leaps into place. Perhaps it is as close to magic as I can come through words.

Collaborations with artists, 2012

A foliate head by Clive Hicks-Jenkins...

With painter Clive Hicks-Jenkins and designer Andrew Wakelin of Wales:

Clive is giving me three foliate heads for division pages and painting a head for the cover of The Foliate Head (UK: Stanza Press), and Andrew will be working with us on book design.

With painter Graham Ward of England:

I'm writing poems for Graham's opening in June--and having lots of fun doing so and getting first peek at his new paintings.

With the English-born transplant to Ohio, composer-and-much-more Paul Digby, and his wife, painter Lynn Digby:

We'll be doing what appears to be a fairly ambitious collaborative project, but right now it's barely getting started. More on that one later. This one is a sort of outgrowth of Paul's curation, music composition, and paintings joined with work by Lynn Digby and four other painters in "Into the Light" at Anderson Creative (November, 2011)--at least, doing such a large collaborative project seems to have fired the desire to do another.

Also with Paul Digby:
Paul is going to be matching more of my poems with music and film. Five are already up at youtube.  Rather saintly of him, I think!

Into the Light

I would dearly love to see this show at Anderson Creative, and send hearty congratulations to Paul Digby, who acted as curator, composed music for each of the three gallery rooms, and even contributed a pair of paintings. Paul, as you may know, has made videos for five of my poems, all on youtube, and he has a fascinating history in the arts--he is fearless and has tried many modes.  Lynn Digby is also in this show with nine paintings, as are five other area artists. Since all the works were commissioned to go with the the themes and movements of the music, this one is a special and unusual show. If you're anywhere near Canton, Ohio, go see it! And come back and tell me about it afterward.