fire pony

And here it is, burning magnificently:

the Pony

The fire sculpture I mentioned before. The Pony is the equivalent of the Burning Man on the east coast, built to be set ablaze at a Delaware festival called Playa del Fuego this weekend. It's cleverly made to evolve as it burns, as different thicknesses of string and rope burn at different speeds, allowing the outer skin of the giant pink My Little Pony to peel off and reveal the awesome black skeleton horse inside, with moving wings. Other fine details include yellow daisies applied with hot glue, which melt and fall away from the skulls underneath. Photos from the last weekend of the build by the Connecticut Oak Burners group.

slither

For this week's Illustration Friday.

in the details

The arch murals at Kaia Yoga in Westport I've been working on with a bunch of my former roller derby team mates (oddly enough), are nearing completion. Some photos Slim Fast took of me on metallic duty. Last photo, Jen, the designer and yoga teacher, and handstand expert.

horse spirit

Horse energy continues swirling into all my cracks and crevices, sweeping out the cobwebs and dusting off old atlases. Including an invitation to help an artists collective build a giant fire pony (more on that later), and an illustration of a mysterious horse spirit for that same group (above). And I ended up here last week (below). I can't wait to see where this is going.

 

sacred circles

photo Adrian Oxbrow

Chiru of the High Tibet was picked by the Junior Library Guild for their fall book club list, which means a few thousand libraries will be getting a copy. That's pretty awesome. They asked me to write something about my connection to the book, which made me remember an incident that happened in college, one of those that probably informed more of my life after that then I realized till I sat down and thought about it.

Many years ago when I was studying illustration at Rhode Island School of Design I started seeing strange men in long red and yellow robes around campus. I followed them and found them in the museum, sitting cross-legged on a platform, carefully tapping colored sand out of metal pipes to make intricate patterns in a very large circle. I went every day to watch them, and learned that they were Tibetan monks making a sand mandala. After days and days of this work, they cheerfully swept it all into a pile and threw it in the river. This was when I first heard of Tibet, and where I fell in love with the culture, the art, and the landscape, which I soon began studying. Painting those landscapes and making mandalas for Chiru, alongside the magnificent words of Jacqueline Briggs Martin, was a tremendous experience.

Video of a similar mandala-making event at UVM, and beautiful photos in the Adrian Oxbrow link above.

The Making of a Mandala from UVMVermont on Vimeo.

Dark Heavens

I've been collecting links to extraordinary things here on the blog to the right. Including the website of Hamid Sardar who has a most unbelievable exhibition of photographs of Mongolian nomads and shamans at the Tibet House in NYC. A few of his images here to make you go see it.

my kingdom for one horse

An intense horse nostalgia is creeping into me. It's been something like 18 years since my family sold off the last of our horses. We had a big herd. I was literally soaked in horse as a teenager. A tragic end to my gelding, Scott, and some other rough incidents snuffed out my horse craze. And my mum's. 

I took care of a friend's farm in the summer for a few years, and got to ride their Clydesdale once in a while, and that was extremely satisfying. But I never had the desire to go back to the kind of backbreak and heartbreak horses can give you.

This week though, at the oddest times, I'll suddenly smell horses, or hear and feel the sensation of Scott's breathing on the right side of my head. At any moment I can close my eyes and remember swimming with him on the lake as if it was real, and I can put my arms around his neck and feel the dander on my fingers. I scratch his cheek then reach up to his ear, which he hates, and he swings his head away with a very un-horse-like grunt he'd make when I was irritating him. And then I miss him so intensely it's nearly unbearable. 

And as I write a fierce lightening is splitting over my roof, and birds are singing from the soffets next door. Wood smoke is coming from somewhere.

ancestral echoes

I've been working with some friends on an intricate mural job for a new yoga studio. I found myself delegated to this arched niche, which I was on top of that scaffolding to work on tonight. It seemed vaguely familiar. (My grandfather Francis makes his third appearance in my blog):

harvest

I've got beans! I only just noticed. Plus the surviving worms of the worm tragedy that occurred a few weeks ago are doing really good.

earthquake

On Tuesday a big quake hit Yushu in the Tibetan autonomous region. 90% of structures in the town of Jyekundo were leveled, with 740 casualties counted so far, many missing, and thousands injured. A dam cracked, and 100,000 people are in jeopardy.

Jyekundo is populated mostly by nomadic Tibetans who have been pushed from their herding grounds and into a sedentary life in poorly built public housing. Many of the dead and injured are children of migrant workers housed in boarding schools.

Aid is hindered by the remote and elevated location, but the Huffington Post has a list of organizations taking donations. I am posting this since lack of video seems to exclude this disaster from major media coverage.

Photo from Reuters article here.

travelers

By wagon, by horse, by boat, by cities that swim.

Live Before You Die from Dreamtime Film on Vimeo.

ROLLING THUNDER trailer from Dreamtime Film on Vimeo.

Swimming Cities of the Switchback Sea from ekai on Vimeo.

linked

For Illustration Friday. Blogger doesn't love a vertical, click on full picture below for a bigger view. 

doppelgangers

So for a year I've held the prestigious position of "Yale Costume Stock Manager" at the Yale School of Drama. I have a real day job now. I check out and restock costumes in a big basement warehouse 4 days a week. I complain a lot about the stinky thousand or so pairs of shoes to be kept in order, the messy students, and the stagnant air, but I freakin love it. The nicest part is I get to see the Yale Rep shows for free, and hang around the productions in some pretty spectacular theatrical spaces. 

The best thing I've seen in a long time was the commedia dell'arte The Servant of Two Masters. It was gorgeously made, and so well performed. Partly I loved it because of eery similarities to a tiny 6 minute vaudeville act I did a few months ago for the Forgot to Laugh Festival, including an illuminated moon for a finale and a musical saw cameo. I mean, obviously there's no way anyone at Yale saw my show, which was slapped together and silly- it's just one of those amazing sort of synchronicities that made me love the Yale show in a way my mind will set on for a long time. 

Photos from my act for Forgot to Laugh with fantastic dance, juggling, and puppet help from Nicholas Ridiculous, Lisa Anamasi, Pam Terror and Dot Mitzvah. And below, a video from The Servant of Two Masters.

rescue

For Illustration Friday.

nature boy

My tub was full of dirt from cleaning plant pots. Letting the water seep out slow so the sediment would dry left a topographical landscape that I was taking photos of when Wilson got interested. A usual calm and collected checking out of the situation turned into a rare frenzy. He squirmed and rolled in the dirt and licked it passionately. He's been an indoor cat all his life, but it was obvious he instinctively wanted to burrow down into nature, too. Then he suddenly jumped out, bored, leaving new interesting marks.

Wilson Cat's latest installation: Tub.

dormant

The daffodils have come up again as they have faithfully for 9 years since I first planted them, but I remain a cold wet bulb beneath the earth. The mono is making a long exit with a train of fatigue sweeping the floor on its way out. I'm still waking around noon and seeing only a few hours of sunlight before I go to work in the Yale basement. Were I less tired I'd be frustrated by limited daily consciousness and a weakened body, but instead I embrace the darkness and spend the nights making rivers of black ink on pine boards, which is endlessly fascinating to me. It's the first time I've really enjoyed drawing probably since I planted  those daffodils. I like the solitude of night to be alone with the lines. I like speaking only in pictures. I would burrow even deeper underground if I could. 

You, darkness, that I come from,

I love you more than all the fires

that fence in the world,

for the fire makes 

a circle of light for everyone,

and then no one outside learns of you.

But the dark pulls in everything;

shapes and fires, animals and myself,

how easily it gathers them,

powers and people.

And it is possible a great energy

is moving towards me.

I have faith in nights.

-Rilke

expired

For Illustration Friday.

subterranean

This week's Illustration Friday. Or, technically, last week's.