If I Had a Boat. . .

May 14, 2012 by Brenda Roper | Leave a comment

A week ago today I make camp at Bonita Creek in Chiricahua National Monument and hike the Echo Canyon trail among rocky crags and spires and oddly interesting formations.  Scrub oak and gray dust in dry river beds I meander through scorched black tree trunks where purple flowers find footing after the fires of last summer.  A strong wind keeps the temperature comfortably cool.  String on my hat pulled taunt.  My feet carry my imagination away from the scenery before me.  One trail meets another turn left or loop –lost in daydream and a million scenarios.  The solitude like milk.  Two deer.  A hawk soaring on uplifts. Down.  Meander.

Afterwards I sit in my crazy chair with a view, a glass of wine, a copy of the SUN.  A fly.  And then what?  I haven’t camped since my trip down from Alaska over 3 years ago.  I contemplate being unplugged.  Not yet a Smartphone girl.  Still lugging my 17” laptop around.  No Kindle.  The wilderness — urban or wilder –“nature” my go to “church” like the kitchen table.  A place of nourishment and suddenly I am restless though I have everything I need.  Disturbed by this discovery as failure.  I carry the laptop inside the tent to write a few words.  A wifi connection detected.  Campground.  Really?  I guess and type: c h i r i c a h u a.  Feeling brilliant. Nothing happens.  I let it go.  In the night I wake to the  moon out the back door.  The super moon shadows on the ground out the front.  It is cool and I snuggle deeper into the bag.   In the morning I heat water for coffee.  Only 5:30am and already light.  I watch the sun unlock shadows from the top of the rock.  Lower and lower down it falls.  Yellow warmth. The chatter of birds before they scatter to cooler canyons.  Drink it in.  Sip. Fly.

 

It is a long day driving through crazy beautiful high alpine north on Hwy 191 to where Hwy 60 intersects and I turn east into the land of enchantment.  To Pie Town, Datil, Magdalena, Socorro.  Mesmerized by the mining town of Clifton miles behind me.  Oddly beautiful and equally eerie.  Red copper cliffs rising on all sides.  The car navigates through, around, up and down and where am I (Mr. Wizard??) — tunnel and curve into Apache National Forest and 10/mph hairpin curves, up to 20 but never past 35 for miles and miles.  Many Thelma and Louise opportunities.  Horse country and trails beckon.  No traffic.  I am enthralled.  Completely.  One thousand (1000) miles to Pie Town and when I arrive it is closed.  Next time.

Back to work after the road trip reprieve –to clean for the annual Mother’s Day Open House.   A morning thunder storm.  Quiet on Canyon the rain a blessing and then the clearing.  Partial.  People at a steady pace through our apartments from 1-4pm. Sunday.  Umbrella and jackets in tow.  It is cool.  The studio in shadow of the art for the making has been put aside.  Pieces in progress attract a few, like a raven to the shiny, as people want to buy what isn’t for sale.  How funny.  I do sell three artist cards and two women interested in two differnt paintings.  I enjoy sharing the charm of my rented historic home with all the feet passing through.  The ooh & aah over the hot water bottle collection –and then it is over.

I am tired and unfocused and pull on a wool sweater.  Green chile stew.  A glass of wine.   I call my mother.  She is tired and I worry.  Too early for bed I linger in limbo.  Silence.  Broken later by the warmth of a friend watching a distant sunset.  Touching my shoulder.  Warm water rushing up to my chin.  A kiss calms me for sleeping.  If I had a boat. . .

Announcing

Zaguanistas:  Summer ART kick-off at El Zaguan

Opening Reception 5-7pm/Friday May 25, 2012 @545 Canyon Road/Santa Fe

An eclectic exhibition of photography, painting, words and wood

Please stop by –

 

 

 

 

Be Sociable, Share!
Posted in Blog, Brenda Roper, El Zaguan exhibition, Studio Art Tagged , , , , , , , , , |

Who’s gonna build your wall?

May 6, 2012 by Brenda Roper | Leave a comment

Sunday in the High Road House above Bisbee.  The super moon risen and roosted. The sun shines all the way to Mexico.  I awake refreshed from pondering and fall down too much in my own head surprised it is only 7am (that one hour time difference — but in my favor).  The wind blows but not in alarm.  I think, to no one beside me but many in particular, that when I write my first poetry book or perhaps a new blog it will be entitled “What Keeps me Afraid?” –What keeps me afraid of taking chances, of driving to (fill in the blank), of booking an airline ticket from here to there –of using all my cell phone minutes? What keeps me afraid from quitting my job, from moving to the ocean, from taking all day to sit and read?  What keeps me afraid of  success/happiness?

I decide it already a good day (these are the choices we’re given) and then I read about Erasure poetry.  Who knew?  How do I miss these things so relevant to my own life?  And well now I know and isn’t that the gift?  Of course.  Duh.  Gwarlingo again.  Mary Ruefle. Jen Bervin. Brenda Roper (ha ha. . .).   Mine likely more mixed media and collage than fully erasure since I can’t even follow a recipe but I love this. . .excited to get to those old books at my day job (thanks Portia) and work with thread and yarn and taking away and adding to.  Travel hurts so good for creative inspiration.  And yes justifying the money spent, the time away, the pleasures of this glorious High Road view to all those ghosts still watching from the cobwebs of my judgment days. . .and I’m such a good girl. Yeah right.  Who cares.  I know.  Babbling.

I make an amazing ravioli frittata –in the big cast iron skillet provided.  I know you’re thinking what?  Ravioli frittata –but amazing.  With olive bread toasted and spread with peach preserves.  Groovy yum. Afterwards the walk down the Rose stair to the historic P.O. (attached to the library) –don’t get confused and send happy snippets on artful postcards to the stacks.  I pause on the stair climb oh my lungs please sing yes I can like the little choo choo. Yes I can.  Do.  The drive to Tombstone to look see and then wonderment at the why?  Really.  Even the Bank of America is “for sale”.  Hmmm.  Fat people wait in line to watch the shoot-out at the Ok Corral while costumed cowboys lack enthusiasm in getting me to buy a ticket.  On a side street people target-shoot paper silhouettes as if that is “okay” because it’s just pretend.  Let us not condone the freedom of load and shoot.  People?  I wonder the thrill of such entertainment.  And if  I want I can drive to view the wall being build to celebrate the separation of borders.  Only one mile.  One mile to Mexico.  A thin line.  And white trucks with green lettering.  I didn’t even think to bring my passport.  and I love Mexico.

And all the while the Tom Russell refrain runs ’round . . .who’s gonna build your wall. . .who’s gonna mow your lawn. . .who’s gonna cook your Mexican food when the Mexican maid is gone. . .who’s gonna build your wall? and God Bless America but I do and I don’t.  Glad I went on the two second tour.  Bought a post card for mom and dad, but really this is why people travel across the country on vacation? the anti-creative or curious and aren’t we all sometimes.  Holsters, hats, a stagecoach –dull  dry brown– wind geysers sweep up in the distance.  No hiking in the Dragoon Mountains today though that would be lovely.  Lovely to retrace this trip with friends.  To hike and meander and bird.  Share wine on the porch.  Climb all the up down staircases,  pizza at the Screaming Banshee, and night cap at the Stock Exchange.

Why am I afraid of doing too much and not enough and stillness, when stillness is what I’m after.  Of opening too wide inside out so colorful for there is art to do the talking.  To tell the tale.  Clarity slowdown meander like a lazy river played hooky in High School 35 years ago.  May –from study hall.  Wow that was pushing the envelope.  Good for me.  Authenticity does not play games.  I was baptized by my boyfriend at the lake when I was 14.  I was told to do this.  Parents go to church for a few years phase. People were watching.  I still feel them watching.  Always watching.  As if I need to ask permission.  Still.  No one is here.  I turn around but I’m all by myself.  So what happened to the map?

Be Sociable, Share!
Posted in Blog, Brenda Roper, Poetry, Studio Art Tagged , , , |

I Love Lucy. . .a night in T or C

May 5, 2012 by Brenda Roper | Leave a comment

Road-tripping to hot springs, up the down stairs and a rattlesnake across the road on the east side of the Chiricahuas thick and yellow (ish) –me in flip flops decides not to hike the nearby trail though the sycamores beckon.  Not today but later.  A made from Cane Sugar root beer in front of the Portal Cafe.  Windows down music blasting road-tripping to 80 degrees down Hwy 80 and if anyone wants to “adopt” a highway it’s available all the way from Rodeo to Bisbee–why the department of Homeland Security/Border Patrol in their dog catching truck mobiles don’t volunteer is beyond me since they are prowling, parked and lurking the entire route once you get off the I-10 West– but I’m getting ahead of myself.

First stop Truth or Consequences “c’mon down. . .” –Blackstone Hot Springs a lovely oasis in an interesting place 3 hours south of Santa Fe.  Thank you Linda for tuning me in.  Retro renovated motor court motel done good.  I love Lucy is the room I choose.  And she sends her vitameatavegamin love from the red table.  Desi looks on but honestly I never liked him much.

I dance  “into the mystic” giddy in retro heaven.  Happily away from all things known and redundant and worrisome (if only self-induced).  Peace of mind and peace on earth.   Grateful for time.  Travel is good.

In a room where a pink clock keeps time with joyful nostalgia and the possibility of new beginnings.  Wash all your sins away in the deeply organic tub (in the privacy of your own room –yes!!) where healing waters are piped in with a simple flick of the handle.  All the way on or all the way off.  Swoosh and up the wall and everywhere hot water heaven.  Climb in.  Robes provided.  Aesthetic in a most artful way.  Light filters through the thick wooden slats on the window blocking out the Napa Auto garage.  Super moon on the rise.  Private and personal and perfect.  Oddly interesting T or C.  Here are a few images in case you’ve not been.

On the art front. . . I have a thing for these old fashioned chairs one finds all over New Mexico.   I love taking their portraits.  All colorful and fresh, or beaten and battered.  Wide-eyed and witness from Truchas to El Rito to T or C and roundabout this Land of Enchantment.  Watch for a new series of cards at the annual Mother’s Day Open House at 545 Canyon Road.  Santa Fe.  Sunday May 13th from 1 to 4pm.  Sponsored by the Historic Santa Fe Foundation. A self-guided fun filled afternoon.  Please mark your calendars.  I’m in El Zaguan #6 but stop by and say hello to all the Zaguanistas.  Be there or be square.  Though nothing about Santa Fe is straight or level.  Square it is not.  A bit arched but not a perfect circle.  Nothing is exact.   I think this is good.

The wind blows me fresh where I sit today in a turret with views to the beyond.  Somewhere near the borderlands.  Rich with Imagine and Writing by Women of New Mexico.  Two issues of the SUN so far behind.  See you out there on the porch.  In the chair kind of Saturday reading and thinking, and taking photos to mark my path.  Times are changing.  500 miles by car and 1246 miles to love.  It’s a numbers thing.  I request one day less to give me something more –like filling your freezer with tears.  Not the kind of math you find on Wall Street.  Portfolio in the making.  Stay tuned for 1000 steps and how I got lost in the roundabout of Bisbee.  

 

 

Be Sociable, Share!
Posted in Blog, Brenda Roper, Studio Art Tagged , , , , , , |

Roots and community and everything in bloom

April 28, 2012 by Brenda Roper | Leave a comment

The company has come and gone.  The studio empty of bed and family.  Missing and stillness.  Projects placed and silent.  Time passing quickly and fully and not enough.  April is poetry month and this weekend I go to two readings.  Joan Kane, Inupiaq born in the modern world.  Raised in Anchorage.  Schooled at Harvard and Columbia.  Still a King Islander.  Her voice breathes forth the language of her tribe.  Her ancestors.  Her rootedness to a culture though she was not born among the cliffs, and King Island only rock.  Contemporary telling of myth and memoir and spirit passed on and down and recorded.  She is wife and mother.  Poet. Read at IAIA.  The night of the hard rain.  The Cormorant Hunter’s Wife in its 2nd edition.  Backstory enriched. Wonderful.

I never knew my grandparents on my father’s side having just met my father.  And only my maternal grandmother Grace.  I beg for photos and have them now.  All the grandparents and great grandparents.  Cake and celebration. Artful project and forever.  Thank you.  So much unknown.  No tribe to carry us forward.  No shared history that formed us on the wings of ravens.  No name given at the death of one to the birth of the next.  I am adrift  — thinking of rootedness and community.  At the 2nd reading this is the context.  Three (3) Santa Fe poet laureates read at the NM History Museum auditorium on Friday:  Arthur Sze, Valerie Martinez, and Joan Logghe.  Very different styles yet all uniquely exceptional.  Excellent presenters and poets.  Humor and myth and abstract well-crafted.  The Palace Press.   It was lovely and during that hour I felt a kinship with Santa Fe.  My community though I often phrase it  “a place of transition” –still it grows on me.  The balloon man on the Plaza, the fall of light across adobe.  Shadows.  The mix of culture and tourism and sunshine.  Turquoise and drought and sunset. 

 

But place for me is internal.  It comes with me.  I unpack it from apartment 5 to apartment 6.  From Alaska to Baltimore to Santa Fe.  From Michigan to Colorado to Montana, and maybe back.  To a month in Mexico.  To a weekend away.  I’ve written about this before, in the letter poems.  It resides in the imagination of dreams and the comfy white chair where I watch movies and read books and contemplate.  In the dance across the studio.  Tom Russell and Leonard Cohen.  Pause.  For lately I am cracking open. April.  That month of wind and weather unpredicted and blossoms.  Of sun and dust and wet and dry.  This is a good thing.  Joyful –though sometimes I am besieged by the day job.  The squelching of spirit.  Bad attitude and a loss of perspective. 

A friend speaks of being rooted 30 years or so, and I understand how those roots dig in deep and spread and stay and split and sprout and I am adrift.  A steady slow current to nowhere known.  I contemplate that friendship is a reason to take root.  To travel to and across the country and visit and make plans and imagine a dream.  To set priorities and take chances and believe because what else do we have if not the love of others?  It may be time to set my fears aside and plant my toes awhile.  To test the waters.  To dive in and swim.  Hmmm. 

The studio is silent as I contemplate the distractions of poetry and family and a margarita at the Coyote Cantina sunset between the geraniums.  A friend to walk home with through the darkness along the river.  A Maypole neighborhood annual event.  I celebrate the birthday of a friend in our garden at El Zaguan.  Wine and flowers and conversation.  Nibbles and chocolate and reminisce. She brings me maps of places I will soon travel. Chiricahua National Monument where I will hike among the formations of rocks I only realized existed in southeast, Arizona.  To Bisbee where I can see into the mountains of Mexico from my bed on High Road and walk a thousand steps back and forth to the town below.  I am borrowing a tent and taking the stove.  Travel is good for the soul.  Mine.  Ripe with possibility and everything in bloom.  Candles flower showy in the yucca, Valerian, fragrance and birdsong.  Chirp.  Kiss. 

 

Be Sociable, Share!
Posted in Blog, Dreams, Poetry, Studio Art Tagged , , , |

The art of collage and the collage of art: words and such

April 15, 2012 by Brenda Roper | 1 Comment

I have company coming this week.  Family.  A sister who loves Santa Fe and me and a good time will be enjoyed.  Wine tasting and green chile and Ten Thousand Waves.  She is easy and fun and I love her too.  In my efforts to prepare I put off the deep cleaning for the art of collage.  A trip to Michaels 40% coupon in hand.  A trip through words from friends important enough to print.  A glance at a journal entry from 2004.  A glance around the room.  A meander across my thoughts.  Christmas lights burnt out except for one edge still tacked to the wall.  “To Do” ironing and hand washing draped over a chair.  Green chile stew warming on the stove.  An invitation an obligation and an RSVP. . .waffles remind me of Montana.  I will, and maybe, and yes, later by phone but I have a birthday party on the same day.  Still I thank you.  Would love to.  How to admit I am scared of the phone.  Of conversation. Don’t want to bother.  You or anyone. When is the best time –is there a best time or better than now?  Will I catch you off guard?  Will you be happy to hear from me?  Are you eating dinner?  Making love?  Out in the garden?  Busy?  Silly.  I’ve always been this way.  Who knew?  I take after my mother.  The first sentence apology.  Better now.  Really.  Email is good.  –but I long to hear your voice.  What will you whisper? 

Desert dust gathers every 5 minutes anyway but she doesn’t like spiders so I sweep beneath the radiators.  Twice.  And reach toward that dark corner where the claw foot tub bends away from the wall.  I’ve seen them there.  Below the soap dish.  No bother.  I wish to go to the place where the spiders spin philosophy, to sleep with Henry’s letter beneath my pillow.  We are children who have lost our freedoms, disassembled by an installation of men with guns at the International Airport. Emotion and logic are at odds. I feel the weight of solitude.  A collage poem from long ago.  It sounded wistful and everyone wondered “who is Henry” –?  But I am obsessed with the possibility of love and the arrival of spring and all that pungent longing like pregnancy.  Nature’s pink blossoms cause me to trip over the buzzing bees who have not arrived.  Swollen with the fragrance of pollen.  Ripe.  From yesterday.

My mother is in the hospital.  Again. Her artery clogged at 95% — we gather hope  like clouds.  Soft and buoyant to keep her afloat.  To keep her longer.  Longer.  Even a little bit.  Longer.  Like a ruler one upon the other the lengths suspended across the map.  One inch legend.  A strong blue line.  A river.  Meanders.  No one is ever ready for that kind of departure.  So I check for updates — keep the phone on through the night.  All is quiet.  Love gathers in places not visible. 

The studio hovers.  In the background. Tin and blue foam and wedding paraphernalia.  Papers and glue and cake stanchions (of all things) but it seems important.  I will make my mark.  It is Sunday.  Collage somehow seems cheap and shabby.  No matter the sun shines and the pansies did not freeze.  Flat line daydreaming rocks me to sleep.  The photos too flat send me to Michael’s where I feel more crafty than conceptual though I surrender myself to believe in my abilities.  That I will shine in the end.  Chaos will prevail in that way creativity tumbles forth to protect me from shame.  Like a waterfall.  Pour-over and plunge.  No diving.  White chiffon and game pieces bring it back to perspective.  No dust gathers at the kitchen sink.  And a journal entry as I rummage and reminisce from Baltimore:  . . .trying to plan my life around an arrival that may not happen. . .or a departure.  Not my mother’s but my own.  Beyond the border of permission.  This crab is poking outside her shell and no beach has she found.  

Be Sociable, Share!
Posted in Blog, Brenda Roper, Poetry, Studio Art Tagged , , , , |

Easter on the High Road: Chimayo, Taos and walking the Rio Grande Gorge

April 9, 2012 by Brenda Roper | 2 Comments

On Easter morning I wander past the blue gate framed in shadow and solitude to the cemetery at the top of the road near our Bed & Breakfast.  A glow of 7am dawning sun over the mountain that cannot be confused as resurrection though it is spring and isn’t that the symbolism really?  The birth of blossoms after the dead of winter? The rising of idea and possibility and friendship road trip  rich with ripeness.  Kumguat burst of citrus opens conversation like song and sometimes politics slow us down and send us running from borders we did not mean to cross or offend with opinion.  Yet it is all necessary.

It was beautiful.  The quiet morning before the walk across the gorge into vertigo and sage.   Impromptu picnic along the Rio Grande on that lovely stretch between the bridge and Pilar –with ants and a lazy river meander dip the toe in the water April Sunday without consequence except for that ant hill –rosebud blanket could not contain. In the end given over to beer and cheese and organic beef jerky.  A fly fisherman in the shallow water.  Afterwards  a poem by Tony Hoagland published in the SUN April 2012:

The Best Moment of the Night

You had a moment with the dog,

down near the base of the butcher-block table

just as the party was getting started.

Just as the guests were bringing in

their potluck salads and vegetarian lasagna,

you had an unforeseeable exchange of warmth setting them down on the buffet,

with this scruffy, bug-eyed creature

who let you scratch his ears.

 He lives down there, among the high heels

and the cowboy boots, below the human roar

rising to its boil up above. Like his, your evening

 is just beginning –but you

are lonelier than him.  You think

that if you disappeared tonight,

 you would not be missed for years;

yet here, the licking of the hands and face;

and here, the baring of the vulnerable belly.

 You are still panting, and alive, and seeking love;

yet no one who knows you

knows,  somehow,

 about your wet, black nose,

or that you can wag your tail.

and doesn’t that about sum it up?

I have mixed feelings about the Kit Carson memorabilia park and cemetery and museum but such is history.  Selective and recorded and repeated.

Three little girls in white Easter bonnets and Ughs pass us on the patio courtyard outside our rooms and the youngest cheerfully bellows “happy Easter Bunny” and I love that.  Happy Easter through the lips of a 4 year old.  Bless her and a weekend with friends on the High Road from Santa Fe to Chimayo.  Holy dirt and Indian dancers.

The Millicent Rogers Museum and “art of the dress” to margaritas at the Taos Inn and Agnes Martin at the Harwood to dinner at the Love Apple –a highlight for us all.  Earthy French wine with a peppery finish and local cheeses with baguette.  Funky aprons and farm-to-table food served by beautiful young women that remind me of myself 30 years ago.  Wholesome idealism and possibility dancing up mountains far above the elevation where I can breathe today –though I try sometimes.  Or not at all when I think about it.  Joyful projection eventually beaten down with the marshmallow bow and arrow.  No chocolate.  The ” l  o  v  e”  not written at the end of a letter.  The email that comes without intimacy.  Only obligatory “send”.  And a voice thick and already an arm’s length away from the phone without “hello” as he hands it to another.  No manners on that side of the tracks.  Now or in the beginning.  No happily ever after.  No interest these men in their daughters.  Our father who art in heaven. . .right.

The day after Easter I walk up Abeyta straight onto the Merry-Go-Round of redundancy.  That hamster wheel circles past the Easter bunny and all those wrappings I found in the garbage behind the trailer when I was 9.  A loss greater than Santa Claus.  What is it about sugar that brings joy?  About secrets that bring pain?  Jesus tortured on the cross does not answer despite his resurrection.  As we pass another cross upon a mountain a stranger recites the rosary and  Kate packs the holy dirt in her eyeglass case.  Hallelujah!  I dump a little in an Altoid tin –for what I wonder?  Still in my purse.  Today grateful for the rain.  A gathering of clouds to release the storm.  Brief and fresh and sunshine everlasting in the mind of the believers.  A ray into the hearts of the truth tellers.  A crack in the armor.  A vision of hope.  The wisteria awakening at the edge of the roof.  Not even May.  A purple haze whispers seductively to those who lean closer.  Do not fear to go to that place where angels venture freely and only fools fear to tread –or is it the other way around?

 

Be Sociable, Share!
Posted in Blog, Brenda Roper, Poetry, Studio Art Tagged , , , , , , , , |

Through the window to happiness

April 2, 2012 by Brenda Roper | Leave a comment

I climbed through the window of happiness this weekend — into the blooms of peach and apricot trees so brilliant and soft.  White and pink like lace and innocence.  Straight into fragrance rich with light and joy, and affection without consequence.  That incredible lightness of being.  Present.  Time out on park benches with Venus, Jupiter and a $5 ice cream cone x 2.  Hmmm.  There was a catalyst of course though that will not be mentioned.  It doesn’t matter how these revelations come, but that they come at all.  And timeliness of course because they do come, more often than the time we pay attention.  Because we –too occupied or distracted or too focused on a path with best intention that is not our path at all –albeit temporary.  Thank goodness and thank you.

It has been a week of death and resurrection and memorial.  My neighbor  gone to somewhere beyond the gates of El Zaguan. Good bye Greg.  And god bless Max for all the photos and filtering and other neighborly pursuits I have passed between.  My baby brother into a program to help him find his way.  And may he find the path.  Winter put to rest for another spring in blossom.  Returns. Adrienne Rich passing into whatever art of the possible awaits.  My Alaskan friend running nowhere happily healing in Santa Fe sunshine.  And the farm-to-table ambiance of a Sunday lunch at Pasqual’s.  Best seat in the house mimosas x 3 with mole and beans on the side.  Gourmet cupcakes and library books not on the shelf bring Saturday back to the studio.  To portraits in miniature and experiment.

 

After the openings of last weekend I find myself creativity engaged.  To be married (metaphorically) as I jump into “A Vintage Affair” with estate sale rings and wedding dress of old.  Not my own and never but a celebration just the same of those women, all of them, who vowed and disavowed and babied and bubbled over with joy and sorrow and sweetness and unhappy endings and tribulation and oppression and independence and what ifs and happy birthday, Merry Christmas, I’m sorry and what’s for dinner, laundry on the line 4th of July BBQ and porch swing kisses sealed in I do and now I don’t and children born and died and found again in joyful reunion.  Sepia aunts and uncles and grandparents and greater grandparents in chairs hold a cake, and how to print and sew and stick and shimmer –no ribbon strong enough to tell the story though I’ll try.  Am.  Brainstorming aloud. . .

 

If in Santa Fe please be sure to stop by the Santa Fe Community Gallery on Marcy, and GVG Contemporary (202 Canyon Road) to catch Odes & Offerings.  Upcoming May events include the annual Historic Santa Fe Foundation Mother’s Day Open House, Sunday May 13 www.historicsantafe.org and the summer art kick off of the Zaguanistas at 545 Canyon Road, Friday May 25 –art and spring and spring into art.

Be Sociable, Share!
Posted in Studio Art

About the evening . . .

March 23, 2012 by Brenda Roper | Leave a comment

Santa Fe Community Gallery/Odes & Offerings

great opening tonight –!!  great crowd and what a beautiful day. . .

and tomorrow (3.24) @ GVG Contemporary 202 Canyon

Odes & Offerings, deconstructed 5-7pm


before the opening –cheers!

the artist

 

and to all a good night. . .

Be Sociable, Share!
Posted in Brenda Roper, Poetry Tagged , , |

Nibbles & Bits (of inspiration)

March 18, 2012 by Brenda Roper | Leave a comment

 


We become attached to our own words, of course, in the poetic sense of poetry as a poet –of what they mean to us.  What they say.  What we hear.  And to others something else.  Not enough or sometimes redundant.  I appreciate editors.  It makes me look more closely to “as” or repetition as a hammer to the head pounding meaning in and again.  Or perfectly –to make a point.  Poetic license and perspective may resonate with some.  A few or even many, but never everyone.  And perhaps not those we wish to notice.  Who we are.

I had a poem published this week.  the Night Heron.  Inspired by watching a heron all day stalking the high tide line at Sin Duda Villas outside Xcalak in the Yucatan and a thought while dusting a dresser, and other miscellaneous nibbles & bits that reside in the mysterious card catalog of the brain.  In Other Words:  Merida.  Great new on line zine.  Check it out www.inotherwordsmerida.com   Other artful endeavors of note included delivering two pieces to local Santa Fe galleries in preparation of two openings next weekend.  Thank you universe.

Odes & Offerings

Spent 3 hours in the emergency room on Friday morning for a non-emergency pain no doctor can seem to diagnose.  Not my own.  I feel her frustration.  But mostly I am aghast at the lack of communication or compassion while waiting in limbo.  On a bed in a nice room where I could easily have stolen all the blue rubber gloves and created havoc with the machinery if so inclined.  No one would notice.  No one did (notice) though I didn’t.  Create havoc.  I am well practiced in the art of patience but now I question that perseverance.   No one bothered to pop in and give updates.  For the result of the x-ray,  to ask if she were comfortable  or would she like a glass of water (or a large dose of Maalox as it turns out) –no one stopped by for anything at all except the two characters rolling by with the cleaning cart like a circus.  Who brought me two empty cups when I asked for something to hold water and with a generous heart I thought to also offer two sizes and directions to the bano.  Likely they are paid the least of all those I encountered.  They pass again and again.   I had just watched “Like Water for Elephants” –the cruelty of desperation.  And the kindness of those with the least to lose. . .

 Aqua Fria lady of long agoAfter three hours a nurse popped in to “her room” –said she didn’t know anyone was in here.  Did she really say that?  Out loud.  “Did you just arrive?” she asked.  Really?  Very energetic and friendly.  In fairness she had just arrived but doesn’t anyone communicate?  Then not a peep.  Understaffed or something else?  The doctor when he came, at the end of it all, had a nice bedside manner but no panacea.  For this we pay the big bucks.  Going through the motions.  A script of rote because they must offer something.  We expect it but don’t they understand how far placebo goes?  A kind inquiry.  A thoughtful hello how are you.  A moment –At least once every 30 minutes would not pass unnoticed. 

The wind is wicked today though now the sun is back.  I ran outside the third time the shutter slammed against the window but too late.  It lay flat on the ground.  Torn from the hinge.  I felt bad but nothing broken that can’t be repaired.  Yesterday I find bits and pieces of inspiration not from the wind or spring cleaning of dust and spiders from a winter of corners but from a yard sale up the block.  Creative ponderings.  A bride and groom cake top and an oval frame with a faded portrait of a woman who lived in Aqua Fria.  More possibilities for the Vintage Affair.  Ideas for photographs and celebrations and dresses and such.

magic in Canyon Road treeLast night I flew in my dream.  At the end of the chaos with the travel agents, the car accident and waiting for a trolley.  I walk into restricted space.   To the head of the queue and out the door.  And I realize it is the moment that I recognize I can.  Fly.  that brings the most magic.  That moment of self awareness and testing.  One leap and another and the possibility of flight.  Of lift off and letting go.  Like magic.  Into this day at home when I was planning to drive to Taos for the opening of “the Art of the Dress” but did not.  Another time.  And next time perhaps a blog of more concrete ponderings:  the 40 hour/week paradigm and how that system is not my model though to more degree than I’d like to admit I’m on that track though the one without a pension or 401K.  Perhaps more  on the art of marketing –ecommerce, etsy, ebay, and others that comes so easily to some yet feels too exposed for me.  At the moment.  But if anyone is interested.  The art on this site is for sale.  I welcome email inquiries or a studio visit or a wink and a nod.  Wine and chocolate also accepted. 

 underpinningsbride/groomunderpinnings

Brenda Roper is currently an artist in residence at El Zaguan in Santa Fe.  Her work can be seen in the Odes & Offerings Exhibitions at the Santa Fe Community Gallery on Marcy Street  and GVG Contemporary @ 202 Canyon Road.  Open receptions on March 23  & March 24 from 5-7pm respectively.  Stay tuned for details about the Zaguanistas summer art kick off at the Historic Santa Fe Foundation gallery Friday May 25, @545 Canyon Road. 

 

 

Be Sociable, Share!
Posted in Blog, Brenda Roper, Dreams, El Zaguan exhibition, Poetry, Studio Art Tagged , , , , , , |

Spring and violence

March 10, 2012 by Brenda Roper | Leave a comment

Hard to disentangle myself from too long a sleep this Saturday morning snow on the ground already melting.  March.  Spring blows in and stalls.  Quietude of clouds more unusual than normal and already tonight we “spring forward” into light longer by evening.  I read where taser guns are allowed in prisons now to subdue the unarmed –and the mentally ill, who really shouldn’t be there in the first place.  But where else to go? In America? –where mental institutions no longer exist except on the streets or underfunded programs or prison.  Where are their families? Part of the problem I imagine or if willing unable to help for a variety of reasons.  Were we ever a compassionate country?  Violence begets violence and all that.  Not to mention the pharmaceutical evangelists flaunting taser by pill to those hungry and affluent enough to subdue uncomfortable feelings from a scripted bottle in the guise of betterment.  And for some perhaps this is a good thing though bipolar is the new depression apparently.  And Bradley Manning in solitude for telling the truth while the criminal continue to criminal.  And still the violence.  The downtrodden.  Those barely holding on to their homes or their Budweiser or their Veuve.  It is all relative and not really what I want to write about today but I needed to vent my way up from a low place.  Like the new shoots of daffodils and crocus.  Poking slowly.  Lapping in the snowmelt.  Thirsty for life.

 

Disclaimer:  of course this is one feeling at one moment from frustration or anger or some sense of not being responsible (enough) for my own happiness –financial, emotional, etc.  I realize that this is a very small window into a very big issue.  Laws and institutions and boards and powers that be use that very mode of operandi to create what they think is the best choice at the time. . .and many more sides to this coin.  Of course.  As with everything.

 

Be Sociable, Share!
Posted in Blog, Brenda Roper, Studio Art Tagged , , |