you have to step forth

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Things lately:

Lent has been a reminder of how little I actually live the way I profess to want to live. Mainly, that I want to live simpler, less attached to things. I want to be more generous, to give more away, to have fewer clothes in my closet, to be less concerned about cleanliness, more concerned about the way my actions effect the earth, most of all concerned about love. I want to want the pearl of great price.

If I had a kitchen, I would make this today. 

The most important thing is to show up. You have to step forth. Being an artist is not about the perfect environment or inspiration, it is about showing up.

Best combination: good bread, fig jam, goat's cheese, prosciutto, thyme, and ground pepper.

This article about photography in the digital age.

Poet of the week: Susanna Childress. (Might have been reading Jagged With Love during chapel every day this week. Also, her husband's music.)

Photographer of the week: Sophie Calle. 

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. (Matthew 13:45-46)
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ten good things

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February is for some reason (uh, winter) always a hard month. But here's to attention to grace:

01. sunday afternoons at this coffeeshop in geneva
02. words as instruments of thinking
03. my gracious and forgiving physics professor
04. the baby white orchid on my desk reminding me that spring will (must) come
05. scottcairnsscottcairnsscottcairns (might have just ordered every interlibrary loan poetry book by him)
06. coming back to my room yesterday and finding a vintage thermos on my desk from a dear friend
07. saturday morning prayer with brie on the white couch
08. things to look forward to, like california in a month (oh my soul)
09. that conversation with sally the other day
10. these words: "the law of the lord is perfect, reviving the soul" (psalm 19.7)
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many other things

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Now there were also
many other things that Jesus did.
Were every one of them to be written
I suppose that the world itself could not
contain the books that would be written.
[John 21:25]
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swings upon the hours

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Last month Derek and I went to NYC for the day and visited Ann Hamilton's installation The Event of a Thread at the Park Avenue Armory. It was like an indoor playground for both children and child-like adults, the type of place where there is no guilt for being happy. And it reminded me that this is the kind of art I want to make: art that presents strange new worlds.

"The Soul has moments of escape--
When bursting all the doors--
She dances like a Bomb, abroad,
And swings upon the Hours."
[Emily Dickinson]

[pictures from the armory, last one by derek]
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