Photo by Katherine Henry
On the farm growing up, I had been doing stream of consciousness, automatic writing to music in the ’70’s. I had also been practicing automatic drawing well into the ’90’s. I was unaware at the time that there was a prior history dating back to the mid-1800’s in writing, and in visual arts among the 20th century Surrealists with a blind drawing game we had played as children called Exquisite Corpse. To my surprise, my automatic drawings bore a striking resemblance to those of Austin Osman Spare from the 1920’s.
I started using a blind writing technique introduced to me by my sister. We had done compelling work with it together, but as I embarked on a solo exploration I quickly began to feel a different perspective than my own was being revealed, as if other voices were emerging in the work.
Who then is the author…? The conscious mind, or unconscious? Is it guidance? A private dream, or a gift of insight meant to be shared?
I began to wonder aloud, and one day asked, “Whose words…?” The blind response that followed: “–rain, staining the paper.”
This link below will open to my YouTube video “The Barest Rain” featuring these writings, music, and paintings with Rain as muse.
http://youtu.be/fUW4PeF8hh0 12:34 minutes
Am I asking too much…?
––before the sun, a thousand branches, a million arcs
What Love is this…?
––the knothole now a window
Tell me again about the one who waits…
––ripples of the creek focusing the sun
Do we grow old because we must or because we choose to…?
––footprints on the moon
In their suffering, do we learn too…?
––still now, the bird greeting the sun
What is water to these ghosts…?
––fish falling everywhere like rain
What is there in the nest…?
––dreams, there is nothing else
How many leaves to make a tree?
––at the edge of the battlefield, a sky both blue and gray
There has been an error.
We apologize for any inconvenience, please return to the home page or use the search form below.