CROCOSMIA

Crocosmia, home flower bed.

TIPSOO LAKE

Tipsoo Lake, Chinook Pass, Mount Rainier National Park.

RILKEAN HOARE

Detail of "Eider Duck," plate 246 of Birds of America, published 1827–1838, by John James Audubon.

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"Perhaps it is those eyes. Yes, it's those eyes. It always is. They take in the whole of the world, even as they ignore it."

—page 39, RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR by Philip Hoare

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"Animals see the open with their whole eyes."

"Or maybe an animal, incapable of speech, lifts its head / and quietly sees right through us."

—from "The Eighth Elegy" by Rainer Maria Rilke, as translated by Gary Miranda

AMOS

I'm working on multiple reading projects right now. I'm still in the midst of my yearlong "Homer" project and reading a wonderful book on Homeric Moments. I'm preparing for "Read a Classic Book Club" for my local library's adult summer reading program and researching both Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart. I'm reading a couple of books of poetry and prose for my own summer reading pleasure. And, finally, tonight, I was visiting a university library to learn a bit more about the prophet Amos for a work-related Bible study on Interrupting Silence.

I'm loving every minute of all of this time between the pages of books.

RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR

Time, tides, tempest. Sea, wind, storm. Shakespeare, Melville, Conrad, Eliot, Auden. Headless avocet, body-less deer.

RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR by Philip Hoare is poetic prose of the highest order. I've made it through the first chapter, THERISINGSEA, but at a glacial pace because the sentences are meant to be savored and I'm doing just that.

COSMIC OCTOPUS

"The Cosmic Octopus" by Troy's Work Table.

Watercolor ink, India ink, gouache,and pigment-based iridescent calligraphy ink on 12” x 16” watercolor paper.

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This is the "Cosmic Octopus," the source which gives birth to all of the other Inktopodes. This is the "Big Bang" version of her. This is #0 of The Grand Armada.

(This is the largest piece I've done to date, and it's creation included a few new techniques.)

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"Cosmic Octopus (Big Bang)" was a gift for my dad on Father's Day. It includes a few references to my mother, since I use to joke with her that she was an avatar of the Cosmic Octopus and that her Parkinson's disease was actually this divine being trying to figure out how to use her body. (My mother informed that this was *not* funny.)

My mother's dates of birth and death are worked in to the Cosmic Octopus's chromataphore camouflage. Likewise, the constellations (gold) in the silver star field refer to the night sky in the months of my mother's birth and death.

Her coloring is Fauvist in background, with the nebulae that flow from her providing the richness and saturation of pinks, magentas, purples, blue, and a bit of yellow and green that appear as her skin.

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The model for this painting is a giant North Pacific octopus named Melanie. I had the privilege of visiting Melanie for a number of hours over a few visits to the Highline MaST Center and Aquarium. Every time I visited, Melanie came out of hiding and interacted with me from the other side of her aquarium glass.

ODYSSEUS

"Athena Protects Odysseus" by Troy's Work Table. Deep dreamed by artificial intelligence.

Photo source: “Head of Odysseus,” marble, circa 1st century AD, Greek. From the "Blinding of Polyphemus" sculptural group as found at the villa of Tiberius at Sperlonga.

Style source: "Pallas Athena," oil on canvas, circa 1920, by Frantisek Xaver Naske.

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[Odysseus] is the embodiment of a truth obscured in our infantilistic age: Learning begins when development ends, for growing into oneself absorbs all the cognitive energies which, once “identity” is achieved, are free to turn to the world. For how can we learn if it is not we who are there to learn? We either change or grow wiser, but not both. A man who has visited Hades and is thus “twice-dead when other men die once” will see things in a new light. A man who has dealt with crafty, experienced witches and virginal princesses will have shown adaptability, “flexibility” as we say, and the attendant features of wiliness, tact, ingeniousness, ready charm, and occasional formidableness.
—page 51, Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading The Odyssey and The Iliad by Eva Brann

ORION

"Orion," plate 29, of The Box of Stars by Catherine Tennant, resting on a light box. Plates originally published in 1825 as Urania's Mirror.