not a bird but a man

soon to remove the 50-70' pine that precariously leans toward the hermitage--lop the top then chop chop. thud crunch down it's coming.

www.kathrynkelley.blogspot.com

the smell of rain drifts with the rumble

the moist breeze cools and the hawk glides touching down. the sky ladened with gray, dips low, heavy with unreleased relief, and the cardinals ignore the predator who watches for something different. the deer already scampered from view results of my clunking and banging about with my additional unloads. the pack of all of two dogs yelp, one high, one low, and carry on as they do everyday this time. you'd think these country pups would figure out that their ruckus is for not. the breeze cools further with each rumble as I ponder the ikea household trinkets with each flip of page the old fashion way as the topography of my hermitage supports but a wee digital signal with ma bell's lines too old to carry more than a dial up. my studio footprint dwindles with each venture south as I downsize my part of the BOX as I dream of finishes for my soon surfaced subfloor (soon in terms of geological movement kind of soon). the sky rumbles and pushes the sun lower still.

flows

Love says, "I am everything."
Wisdom says, "I am nothing."
Between these two my life flows.
-- Nisagradatta Maharaj

bye bye my big beauties

I will miss your brittle leaved and needled canopies

a few of my students human dot comps

from yesterday (these are pics of pics...so some quality issues). paper, rock, scissors was most startling and provoking image concept of the day. more images coming.

when the big ones hit the ground, it's a bit unnerving

because of fire hazard, the electric co agreed to come take some of my big ones that have died due to the drought. so today I am listening to some of my 50-60 foot tall trees hit the ground with their deep earth shaking thuds. I'll miss this dozen or so but will sleep a little more soundly when the wind is rustling my trees.

chop chop ouchy.

starry night

would like to flip out every light, interior and exterior, so that I can see the twinkle from my window more clearly as I fade. but got to leave at least one exterior light on so neighbors know I am at the hermitage of my microforest. I've let them know, but if I don't have any lights on the place literally dissappars. I want them to come a knocking if a blaze should flame up. we're on an official alert due to weather and such...so light trumps beautiful starry night. weird. fires are never something I considered having to really worry about or trees falling on casa and squish squish. don't worry to much though since for most part I have no control or say if it were to happen.

ha. a little teaser for tomorrow's dot comps

thank you Jordan, a whole new meaning to the little black dress.

a drizzle plus one good branch dropping thunderstorm and the frequency of my Bambis visible presence

in my microforest and mini meadow expands temporally. they do tend to ignore me with the exception of the young male snorter. they even lay in, relative to drought crunchies, my lush mini meadow a mere 40 feet from where I perch on the hermitage's porch rail, late afternoon. another load hauled hither from my BOX that brought no rain, but I was hopeful with the Houston low hung sky early morn. mostly books which to my discovery, outside of tools, are my main possession...well and tubes. I never noticed before. I do have slews of pictures but at this point they no longer hold meaning that should continue to be pondered; so those are stored I suppose til I have the gumption to toss twenty five years of history and memories. the hawk glides and watches.

watch it happen with humans

when the woodpecker arrives clutching and swaying the entire feeder and dangling from the underneath side, all the other species that alight gently, fly off. pecking order? well they are bigger and appear, though balanced, clumsy in their landing, but I witnessed no bullying. bullying seems more indicative of other species and, well of course, humans. bullying or bulldozing seems a function of fear not strength. like the smaller birds, i think there is wisdom in avoiding standing in the path of bulldozing. smart birds return quickly to the feeder and humans to the path. flitting aside is neither weak nor strong, just a cautious weariness (redundant but I like the words together).

and i must not be a woodpecker because as i sit here under the pine trees on their litter, i see for deer gracing and pulling leaves from trees; they've seen but ignore as i am not much of a threat. well except the one male yearling is running back and forth snorting, but i can't tell if he's showing of for the 3 females or actually feels threatened. i think strutting. the cat 15 feet behind me, was surprised to see me and unsure, but then i am not much of a cat person so i don't send out come hither kitty vibes. i like dogs!

and i watched the beaver last night and concluded, i am not a beaver and i certainly hope i never cut my arm off with a miter saw. oh my. but i did cry throughout the movie, hadn't expected a tear-jerker; i even cried with the whale music video that was prelim to the movie...i though for sure it was going to be an add for pharmaceuticals so i was really relieved when it wasn't.

so i am not woodpecker, cat, bulldozer, beaver. i may be a bit whale. for now i am ok with that...

nice. it's because my truck bed Is full; guess i should have moved my dry goods sooner to bring on the rains :)

upon arrival at microforest the forest bed was dry. darn. at least distant neighbors got some beautiful rain.
 amen.

yes!

just barely but the sky has opened up and is currently spitting down on my microforest

one big selfish amen! I went for a walk with no umbrella hoping to double dog dare it to pour. nope. didn't work, but even a drip drip splat is a good thing.

back to larger than life some student highlights

Mitch

 

Michelle

Rana

Kayliegh

George

Araceli

  
Keyton

Justine

Erika

Caitlyn

Cullen

i think vs i am, are not similar at all.

"i think i should..." do something is significantly different than saying, "i am..." doing something. these are extremely different. night and day. open and closed. when talking with someone, one is a definitive, the other leaves room for the other. so when the other takes legal action the very next day, within 24 hours, the other has clearly given their definitive response to the "thinking"...

sometimes when we are the other, we hear "i am..." because our fear and anger mistranslates "i think..."

set at least 2 of the 3 or 4 balls down for the weekend

three nights in a row in one bed! amen. haven't done that since thinktank in early June and not for months on end even before that...maybe not since summer 2010 i-park residency. my brain and everything else within me needed to stay in one place badly! NO DRIVING for anything beyond 15 minutes. it's the problem of working in two cities and navigating an additional city weekly to include family, whom I love and need, well plus an artist residency, home renovations and start of new school year. none of these are bad things. except the monthly gas bill. no way to spin that as good. ok well I can try--here goes, I didn't go into debt because of it (that's the only thing good I can say about my gas bill) and my truck still runs beautifully at 186,xxx miles. i actually count myself as fortunate to have each of these many good things sans the gas bill. yet with all the driving, trans- and dis-locating, and juggling my hats, my stress level has been through the roof, all three or four of them. so this weekend I stayed in one spot and only focused on one thing. no home reno and no planning for it, no studio down sizing or thinking about it, no art making, just a bit of school work, walks in my new hood and, OMGosh, I actually cooked (electric wok--stove gaslines not installed yet, and no grilling because of wildfire hazards). and I think three nights seeing the moon and stars from a single gps coordinate is working, a bit of calmness seems to be surfacing which leaves more room to experience the things for which I am grateful--like my hermitage and neighboring hood, my microforest, career(s), friends and my special grand friends, bros, and steadfast parental units. probably more but I am too tired to think that hard. as I walked today, it felt much like it did when I was a little girl--going outdoors in amongst the quiet loudness of the trees (no creeks currently--all dried up) on a slow moving rambling adventure, dragging a stick in the dirt behind me because it's fun and experiencing that same sense of awe at the overwhelming comfort I find at being outdoors under canopies of trees that whisper to me (no not in English--they speak lithely in breezish and rustlings. I have no idea what they speak, I just know it is good and gracious). a bit of road warrioring begins again next week for studio downsizing process.

strolling my hermitage hood

awe-some!

I learn a lot from others insight! well and any art review is ego nice.

Douglas Britt (Houston Chronicle blog) September 10, 2011

To provide a platform for more experimental work than usually finds eager buyers at a commercial gallery, Darke Gallery recently invited Houston sculptor and writer Kathryn Kelley for a summer artist residency.

She had about six weeks to make work in the space and another five weeks to exhibit the results.

Kelley makes tough, forbidding-looking assemblages with baling wire and remnants of tire tubes, doorframes, mattresses and other castoffs, but pairs them with poetic titles shot through with pain and vulnerability.

As in the past, Kelley’s process-oriented sculptures are ripe with bodily references. The pieces with doorframes are evocative of camera bellows, television sets and computer monitors — technologies that extend our sensory capacities and furthering both our connectedness to and alienation from the world.

Kathryn Kelley: the edge of my unreadiness continues through Oct. 8 at Darke Gallery.

I found Douglas' idea about "our connectedness to and alienation from" hitting me dead on, profoundly insightful with word images I had not before considered but experience internally. Also his reference to "camera bellows" provokes me for future ways I may play in my work with the ambiguity of the word, bellows. I really like that word.

happy truck at the hermitage embedded

in the microforest. happy truck.

one end of my block

I live at the edge of the paved world, if you bump past my drive you will arrive here. the microforest opens up at the end with a field, home to about five young colts freshly hatched late spring along with their parental units. it doesn't get much more beautiful. i think this was a gift; when things are rough even now, even on subfloor and relatively furnitureless, i sit still at the windowed (to hot for outdoors) edge of my hermitage and just soak in the view, smells, sounds, and life

i am looking forward to fully landing here. from HW 45 you have to drive west through about 17-20 miles of national forest to arrive. i love to drive this at night [well during the day to but i like the dream likeness of night] because there are only my headlights bouncing through the dark limbs, stars, road reflectors, the occasional eying by bambi and clan and the quiet for about twenty minutes. then i pop out in to a lightly populated area, turn on my drive and head back into my microforested hermitage.

landing is close...my to do list.
CHECK. exhibition fully installed at Darke Gallery .
NEXT. downsize houston based studio [helpers needed] at BOX.
____. prep subfloor at hermitage.
____. finish bathroom [fatherly supervision required].
____. finish bedroom floor.
____. resolve outdoor art space usage [helpers needed].
____. move houston courtyard based works;
          install in microforest [helpers needed].
____. figure out the rest of which there is a good bit.
____. rain. burn banned lifted. invites extended. grilling resumes.

oh yes and continue making work for upcoming exhibitions (collaborative BOXer exhibition at Texas State next on slate), pushing/developing WASH program, figuring out how professional collaboration really works, facilitating/refining/impassioning young artist/designers in their practice...the fall will be full

thank you Douglas Britt and the H-Chronicle

Galleries debuting dynamic exhibits
 
Art-viewing options, always plentiful in Houston, are about to explode. Soon museums and other nonprofits will roll out their fall exhibits, and two art fairs - one in mid-September, the other in late October - will try their luck in Houston for the first time.

Amid such high-profile programming, it would be easy but unfortunate to lose track of developments in the city's lively commercial gallery scene. Use this cheat sheet to catch some of the next couple of weeks' most promising exhibits.

Kathryn Kelley: the edge of my unreadiness features the Houston sculptor's hulking assemblages made from such cast-off materials as tractor inner-tube tires measuring up to 10 feet in diameter. Reception 6-9 tonight (9/2), through Oct. 8 at Darke Gallery, 320 B Detering; 713-542-3802.

last piece i think i am ready for the edge of my unreadiness

Opening reception Friday, Sept 2, 6-9 pm, Darke Gallery
320B Detering, Houston 77007 (valet parking available)

(also tonight is last Thursday night as open studio 4-7, meaning it may still be a little messy)

smallest piece ever and last one for show opening on Friday.

there is still wall space, haven't totally overwhelmed space as is my habit, but...

if i had more time, i would.

now it is time to title works. if you know me, then you know it will be a bit cumbersome, but no, it isn't in me to name them untitled #47. though meaning/title of work may not be self evident in work, it is what emerged in my soul during the making. when the title exists first, it is usually a separate entity and at some point the words and making just kind of become one internally.

smallest piece ever [26" tall x 22" wide x 12" deep] which wont pull walls down with its weight, and last one for show opening on Friday. would it be wrong of me if this should have highest price, since even though people want my other works my typical scale is a limiting factor in having?

like with this piece in the show...

the glancing blows that strike deep

i speak of my hermitage for months on end
he speaks of himself as hermit

right
why would either brave the waters
let alone seek any form of tribe
right as usual
in that stark painful way

perhaps to glance across
the surface and submerged of other
seeing their beauty and wounds
but the primitive intimacy
of belonging with another

there were no sharks
only the glancing blows
that strike deep
cutting rivers of red
seeping out across
the barren plains of
back turned could have beens

Monsters in the attic

I noticed this before but especially the last three years as I watch people construct monsters in their mental attics. Why do most of us do this? Actually I haven't met anyone who does not do this to some degree. We take the non-monsters from our lives and if a day comes when a wound runs deep...MONSTER! But I think when the wound runs deep and we lash out with words, actions and fears, when we exaggerate histories, ascribe imagined meanings, attribute evil where there is none, excommunicate in the name of god, get lost in blame, THEN the only way we can hold on to our identity as a good person, in spite of cruelties done from our own pain and flailing, we must make that other into a monster. If we recall them as monster, distorting our own histories and memory with exaggerations and falsehoods buried deep in our fears, then we have the illusion that our shame doesn't reveal our heart's course. Many monsters in our attics manifest from our shame. to admit that, blame would have to be set aside--both of oneself and other [the monster].

so what monsters lay in wait in my attic? i definitely have some but worse than the monsters in my attic is the fact that i can't (meaning i don't have the heart to) really play with children any more. there is no monster there. i just look at them and it hurts too much. children really can't play with a weeping woman. so i don't even try. i don't think i have the energy or heart to try now or again...far too tattered, the grief great.

i can't really be a part any more either. again it hurts too much. i suppose there are monsters there. i have my own new monsters and sharks...they swim in the mind of my constantly dredged histories...daily, when i wake up, when i try to close my eyes at night. in my mind i keep trying to console and comfort the monsters and sharks, but as in life they are deaf and mute and blind. i do what i can to drown these fictional monsters and sharks of their sting.

what monsters creep in your attic? do you really want to leave people you love donned in your man-made monster masks? eventually, though the monster stays on, while the person shoved behind the fear laden mask withers away. combine shunning with your group's artificial man-made monster masks and they can actually kill all that is and was real. It is the nature of some divorces.

she promises to cleanup for friday, SEPT 2 (labor day weekend) opening at Darke gallery, 6-9

but on Thursday you'll see here as is and enjoy some pizza (4-7 pm). she does clean up pretty well but wears her tire skid marks beautifully. but for now, today, she is done and time to review prep again for tomorrow's emerging artist guidance (teaching/mentoring).

The insanity of it photos by art slave Dean Liscum

Freshly dragged to Darke Gallery. They look fabulous on Linda's corner!

Exhibition opening Friday, August 2, 6-9 pm
Darke Gallery
320 B Detering @ Feagan, Houston, TX 77007
Regular gallery hours:
Wed - Fri | noon to 5 PM | Sat | noon to 3 PM and by appointment

below DEAN LISCUM art slave (and writer) extraordinaire, he can leap installations in a single bound and install stupid heavy ones on only sweat, tubes and Mexican food! thank you thank you Dean.

my insane teaching philosophy that I absolutely believe and that truly represents part of my core.

Mania of making, mania of the mind, both are worth harvesting, directing and releasing. As artist and educator it is my goal to facilitate explorations, both in my own work and that of the students as makers, as thinkers—to learn to hear what we do not yet hear, to see what we do not yet see, to move from being informed to being formed. It is my task to come alongside the students in developing their ability to dwell inside and alongside of things and thinking so that making becomes a reflection of the listening, whether it be to self or culture, art or science, poetry or prose, inside or out, spirit or rationality, or even a more letting go than hanging on. Yes, I design my courses so that students are equipped with technique, expanding their visual vocabulary through research, collective critical analysis, emergent forms from making, as well as working to enhance their ability to communicate verbally and in written form, but most importantly my mission is to facilitate their ability to listen for that source. For each that source or mania is different, but to create meaningful work each of us must learn to hear and to act upon what it is that we hear.

a work in progress:: open studio tonight at Darke Gallery, Jouston, TX

in preparation for exhibition, the edge of my unreadiness, come and see works in progress as part of artist's residency each Thursday in August from 4-7pm. show opens Friday, Sept 2, 6-9 at Darke Gallery.

early phase of current work in process.

final prep for first day between watching the grass trying to grow

oh rainmaker, please come my way with a good drench--my microforest and mini-meadow desperately need you. amen.

how come I can blog via my smart phone from this seat but can't make an old fashioned, you know, phone call. hope I can text 911 if I ever need them :)