Lost by David Wagoner

Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

A Magical Shadowbox

Seldom do I tout my own work but occassionally I grow attached to a piece and find it difficult to part with. This shadowbox is one of those pieces. But I've kept it to myself long enough so I listed it today on ETSY. It does inspire me to get busy and create more shadowbox pieces. I was also deeply touched by the print here that I hand colored with colored pencil. The scene of the little boy, although from a much earlier time period, probably medieval, moved me with the couriosity of little boys - and girls - of the birth of exploration and discovery throughout the ages and the lamblike innocence of children.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/66128425/the-nest-collage-shadowbox

Mindful by Mary Oliver

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight, 
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen, 
to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy, 
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional, 
the fearful, the dreadful, 
the very extravagant - 
but of the ordinary, 
the common, the very drab, 
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar, 
I say to myself, 
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light
of the world, 
the ocean's shine, 
the prayers that are made
out of grass? 

Reaching for White by Lisa Shields

The sun rose on fields

snow blown and misted

ghostly swirls and dervishes.

No fog this---

for fog simply lies.

No---this was living

as it arched and twisted,

fingering out to the road

and reaching for me

like the shade of a beloved friend.

There was white inside,

trying to seep out of pores,

I felt it strain

trying to mesh and meld

with this sentient wraith

fingers touching

joining

and suddenly

I am the morning mist

dancing in the crystal air.

Tragedy in Tucson

Blessing the Boats
by Lucille Clifton
(at St. Mary's)
may the tide that is entering even now the lip of our understanding carry you out beyond the face of fear may you kiss the wind then turn from it certain that it will love your back   may you open your eyes to water water waving forever and may you in your innocence sail through this to that

In memory of Christina Taylor Green, born Sept.11, 2001, a day of tragedy in America, and murdered Jan. 8, 2011 tragically in Tucson, Aizona, USA. At 9 years of age, she was already interested in politics and went to the "Congress on the Corner" event in Tucson to see how our political system works at a grassroots level.

William Holman Hunt, Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Co-Founder

William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) was an English painter and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848. He gained admission to the Royal Academy art school on his third attempt and there he met artists Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais with whom he formed the brotherhood. They sought to revitalize English art focusing on detailed observations of nature along with a religious devotion to the truth as influenced by the spiritual qualities of earlier medieval art. Of the three, Hunt remained the most faithful to the Pre-Raphaelite ideals and techniques; as he put it he held an uncompromising dedication to the principles of truth in preference to beauty. His paintings were mostly  religious or moralistic and executed in exacting detail. His use of light was considered by some to be inordinately bright almost to the point of being harsh. His work was created painstakingly, laboriously, with an intense devotion to symbolism and metaphor, gaining him a reputation and worthiness of much respect. However, his work was not often considered typically pleasant or beautiful to look at by critics.

                                   Photograph by Lewis Carroll

In 1851 Hunt began one of his best known works, The Light of the World which Hunt did to symbolize his religious conversion or salvation coming to a sinful world. Hunt came to describe his style as "symbolic realism"and with it he hoped to bring religious painting into the post-industrial world and thus give present day churchgoers their own modern iconography.

Many art critics of the period took exception to Hunt's devotion to extreme detail or his religious naturalism and considered it distasteful. Some even found it shocking that Hunt would attempt to show scriptual history with such complete accuracy and material truth. Others were concerned that the artist would risk the emotional expression that was essential for success in favor of ornamentation and pure surface detail. Critics felt such a method worked for lesser works but not for any ambitious or high art. To the contrary Hunt believed that the best of contemporary high religious art required this naturalistic technique to challenge the great artists of the past. Conservative art critics of the British Academic tradition found any naturalistic detail to be distracting and showed a lack of imagination. But to Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelite principles truth and accuracy were most important. There were however, some critics of his time who considered Hunt's work extraordinary and of crucial importance to Victorian art. He considered himself to be an art pioneer or even an art prophet. In time  many art critics came to accept Hunt's work because it found favor with his Victorian audience.

The above painting, "The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple", exemplifies Hunt's belief that it was the artisit's responsibility to accurately portray many physical details of a scene because such details generated essential atmosphere and meaning. This painting came to represent the epitome of a new school of religious naturalism to English art critics of the time. 

                                   Isabella and the Pot of Basil

                            

Hunt's position toward naturalistic detail was the catalyst in his many trips to the Middle East which he found to be a land of wonder, fantasy and exotic life. He believed artists should go and see for themselves and depict what they saw so they could bring back to England the records of man and place with which most were unfamilier. He insisted his travels and immersion into Orientalism permitted him to confront nature more directly and more truthfully in a simpler, less sophisticated way, place and time as yet uncontaminated by convention. Hunt made four extended journeys to the Holy Land over his career following his desire to find and paint locations where Biblical events occured in his naturalistic representation of Bible history.

                                           Hunt's Uffizi Self-Portrait

Hunt married twice. First to Fanny Waugh who later modeled for the above Isabella. Fanny died on December 20, 1866 in childbirth in Florence, Italy where the couple was forced to stop on their journey to the Holy Land when an outbreak of cholera halted their expedtition. Hunt painted his portrait of Fanny as a companion piece to his self-portrait so his infant son, Cyril, would have both mother and father likenesses in the future. The devastated widower sculpted her tomb and had it brought back to England where she was buried beside the tomb of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

                                                                 Fanny

Hunt's second wife was Edith, Fanny's sister, whom he was forced to travel abroad to marry since it was illegal at that time in England to marry one's deceased wife's sister.  This led to an unfortunate breach with other family members including his Pre-Raphaelite colleague Thomas Woolner who had married Fanny and Edith's other sister Alice.

                                                                 Edith

                             Miss Gladys M. Holman Hunt (daughter)

William Holman Hunt died on September 7, 1910 in Sonning-on-Thames, England.