A Poem For Us All

Our Cosmic Blast

is the greatest enigma

the lightflash of love’s beginnings

middles

and endings.

In this cyber driven time the machinations that direct our eyes, our hearts, our feet, our hands, mouths and mind lead us to a new perspective informed by hyper-communal awareness and rampant self obliviousness. We just don’t know what we are really doing.

In our ultimately light filled state- the Cosmic Splendor- the miraculous moment reveals to us a heightened clarity due to letting go of this confusion and we understand our place inside this eternal act of creation. It is always there.

It is a wild dance of living as form and light and love.

before

We sat together in candlelight

our wayward spirits drinking  to unleash our tongues and disarm our darkened hearts

we talked about fixing the furnishings of the broken bits of our lives

we started believing we had found a unifying solution to our loneliness

forgetting that the designs and circumstances we presented

were flawed

after

We saw the light and love and cherished that in the world and in each other.

We drank essential water knowing we are as good as the quality of this compound.

We drew new designs to reflect our time.

We held hands in the community and said thank you, over and over again.

We felt our flaws become the connective tissue in our hearts and souls

and understood the seismological nature of our earthly minds.

 

a  poem by Taintor revised 3/11/18 (original dated 3/30/16)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Open Studios May 3-4, 2014 ! A Call for Exhibitors…

 

Hear ye, hear ye…

Artists, dance, poets, theater,  writers, and other performers! People of good spirit who live to inspire others-

What?

You are hereby invited to participate as an exhibitor at the Artists of Salmon Falls, Spring Open Studio Weekend in Rollinsford, New Hampshire.

Why?

To share your  creativity, vision and passion for art.

When is the event?

Sat.and Sun. May 3, 4 10-5 pm

How?

By beautifying, creating, demonstrating, installing, and/or performing your art in an empty studio for the weekend. Yes, you may collaborate!

Cost?

No Cash Charge.

So, What do you have to give?

Your commitment to create and maintain an inviting, positive and recharging space for visitors to the Open Studio Weekend.

If this sounds like something you’d like to do…Just do it!  Deadline: April 2^nd, 2014.

Limited Spaces are available!

Contact-

Taintor Davis Child

taintorchild@gmail.com

Subject line: Artist Exhibit Open Studio

Include in your message a brief inquiry and/or Proposal and contact information

This is not a solicitation for vendors or sales!

If you are an Interested Vendor- Deadline April 2, 2014.

The cost is a deal… 50$ for the weekend to share a studio space with 3-4 other vendors.

Please contact:

George Emmons

http://www.gre@gremmonsphotography.com

Name(required)

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Website

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Open Studios May 3-4, 2014 ! A Call for Exhibitors…

about new works in her latest collection; Egret Meets Heron

Tags

A Little Something, Open Studios

Egret Meets Heron

Or-When I am looking

12 new works on paper from Taintor Davis Child

 These were gifts; the sighting of two great and delicate birds, the return of a friend in the midst of his own migration, the invitation to exhibit my art here at a Little Something for the month of November.

Early one Sunday morning near the beginning of August 2018, I went to work in the studio and noticed a flutter of white out the window. Upon looking I discovered that a Great White Egret had landed on the rocks in the river below. Seconds later in the early dawn light, a purple figure descended and landed next to the Egret. I was to learn later that it was a Little Blue Heron. The Heron’s wings never folded or settled and it was decided quietly that a prolonged visit would not occur. I watched the Heron disappear downstream and reappear above, having circled back to make a streamlined and westward exit. The Egret paid no attention and spent forty minutes or so wandering around the rocks in pursuit of breakfast. It became apparent that it was young, perhaps on its first solo journey. This Egret was whiter and more luminous than anything I’d ever seen. I watched it gingerly step and occasionally leap/fly around the falls, while taking some pictures with my phone, but mostly I drank in the scene with my eyes and heart. In a new moment, the Egret was alerted by the sound of a Crow’s caw and with a gentle leap into the air, rose to take its heartbreaking beauty to other spots along the river. Thus ended that morning’s meditation from my studio window and began these visual etudes. Enjoy!               –Taintor

The following pieces were documented as viewed and created in her Making Marks Studio #347, Upper Mill, Salmon Falls, Rollinsford, NH. 03869

For the month of November 2018, they are showing at “A Little Something”, 11 Paul St. South Berwick, ME. 03908

1. Heralds of Summer/ ink and watercolor on paper, @13 by 13 inches, 480.00

2. Flying Solo/ watercolor on paper, @11 by 7 inches, 390.00

 

3. Landing Spot/ watercolor on paper, @13 by 15 inches, 480.00

 

4. Dusk Gathers/ ink and watercolor on paper, @ 12 by 16 inches, 480.00

 

5.  Visitor to the Falls/ ink and watercolor on paper, 11.5 by 25 inches, 480.00

 

6. Dream Flight/ ink and watercolor, graphite on paper, @13 by 20 inches, 390.00

 

7. From the Marsh/ graphite, color pencil and watercolor, @ 12 by15 inches, 390.00

8. Little Blue’s Arrival/ ink on paper with ornamental paper and beeswax, 13 by 23 inches, 720.00

9. Soul in Flight/ ink on paper, 12.5 by 12.5 inches, 570.00

10. Gathering Air/ ink, watercolor, yasutomo paints, 12 by16.5 inches, 480.00

11. A Greeting/ gouache, ink, yasutomo paints, 18 by 15.5 inches, 480.00

 

 

12. A Thin Veil/ graphite, ink, yasutomo paints, 480.00

 

 

 

 

 

 

when doubt tries to take a walk

It was over coffee that she nearly dispersed

took her little doubtful face and trepidatious feet right on out that summer cafe’s slapping screen door

she did implore – gave a twisted look back through the dripping old glass paned window

and I shook her off

took a second sip and looked at you

her keys jingled in my pocket

and listened for those familiar fearful feet

always wanting more.

7.27.18

next edition…

It was over coffee that she nearly dispersed
took her little doubtful face and trepidatious feet right on out that summer cafe’s slapping screen door

oh yeah, she did implore – gave a twisted look back through the dripping old glass paned window
I shook her off, took a second sip
and looked at you

her keys jingled in my pocket
we listened to those familiar fearful feet returning for more. 7.27.18

 

 

 

 

What Connects Us All

A life thread that connects All of us

Making Oceans from rain and rivers

Melting from Mountaintops and coursing as

Primal roads, linking people, power and commerce

We taste of it in courage and fear-

Our blood, and paint are made of water.

_ TDC

The finished mural is on the 3rd floor of the Upper Mill, 1 Front St. Rollinsford, NH. 03869

Unspoken

She hadn’t always been an unhappy wife,

miserable from subservience

and the constraints of a pumpkin shell life.

She wasn’t always exhausted from trying and not trying and pushing and pulling away.

or- Wretched from the stale belief, “this is destiny”.

or- Terrified from suspecting and imagining the worst over and over and over again.

When his call did not come on another late night turned morning.

When he returned without apology his arms crossed and jaw tight.

She hadn’t always been an unhappy wife.

 

4/14/18

Belief and Borders

this place opens daily from a kitchen door to long or short gazes

upon pigeons settled in formation on roof ridges and a lone bell tower

it’s human architecture- assembled from bricks, granite, iron, wood and sweat – stands above a dammed river

that runs between two political states, one flanking the left bank, the other guarding the right, their naming only ephemera in proximity to rocks and water-

such southbound waters and spiraling pigeons flow and circuit unencumbered by the naming of people’s ideals and commercial exploits

glacial history has no use for illusory namings, “vacationland” and “live free or die” garnish license plates and embed some fantastical illogic

today we walk and drive freely across the bridges for work and for play

both sides are home to many

both sides are home to many

both sides are home to many

 

no one more correct or incorrect

no one more tenuous and fleeting

4/12/18

 

 

 

 

 

Ascending in thought-

 

Today began with sleeping in to 7:01am. The Cats, officially dismissed from their wake up duties prowled the outer ranges of my bedroom for the night. We greeted each other with mutually restored appreciation, pats and purrs. It is Sunday, and any rest is good rest. This day marks a pause before the work week, a time to chat with friends, meditate, take a walk, read a book, do some stuff around the house.

The collage is paired with this posts’ title, it was begun on a trip to Monhegan Island and finished in Rollinsford, NH at Making Marks Studio. The left side (viewer point of view) of the work represents an arduous and epic journey, involving the descent into a private hell marked by confusion, imprisonment, powerlessness and smoldering rage. The right side of the work articulates an ascent from that darkened place where the heart and soul were held captive, where clear thinking was nearly impossible.

Sometimes visual works can speak truths before we are ready to say them out loud.

Banishing Loneliness/ Inviting Love to Play

I had a book to return to the town library here in the neighborhood, it was on the counter by the door. My son was coming over for dinner in a couple hours, and I was just getting home from work. The cats hoped to convince me to stay and feed them early, but this book that was not grabbing me from it’s written pages was begging me to take it back for someone else to try. An umbrella afternoon and 3.5 minute walk brought us to the Mill entrance, where water was pooling in a ditch precariously sipping it’s way to the granite sills of the first floor windows. Down two flights of stairs to the lowest active level of the Mill and the hallway filled with free magazines and donated books for resale outside the library entrance found me still alone. Not a word had been exchanged with another since I left my door. Inside the children’s room door was closed; a couple of two and three foot tall tow heads played while an older pair read and kept an eye out. Straight ahead a young man sat enclosed by a hooded carhart jacket, stray strands of his goatee peeked out from the silent silhouette.  I returned the book to a soft spoken and bright smiling librarian, found one new book by the checkout that had information I might be better served by, and another book of one poem. I was going home tonight with “The Line Becomes the River /Dispatches from the Border” by Francisco Cantu and “A Leaf and A Cloud” by Mary Oliver.  On the exit path way a magazine rack required a last minute perusal. This month’s Psychology Today’s cover, “The Loneliness Cure”,” How to make Connections that Count,” got me putting the books and umbrella down to sit and read that lead article. Forgetting my reading glasses, I read anyway, beside a good light before going home.

What I found most compelling in the article, is that when the brain is being scanned it reads similarly from a subject that has lonely feelings to one experiencing pain. Conversely, when the brain is under the influence of opiates or pain killers the lonely place in the brain does not get fired up.  So killing the sensation of pain also quiets the feeling of loneliness.  This really stirred up my thinking about loneliness as well as the varied ways I have tried alcohol, food, drugs and relationships to quell painful experiences of disconnection as well as “real” physical pain. I wonder if loneliness can create pain and/or painful ailments? Implicit in the article is that a chronic state of loneliness will adversely effect physical and mental health.  When I think about a healthier, connected life, I imagine warm daily exchanges in a community, groups in meditation and at work for a creative solution, being loved and valued by a tribe, playing together in the outdoors and having real, true engagement in this abundant world. To my great relief,  today I am on a path of healing from pain-filled lonely nights and days. Connecting with others who are waking up to love and the kindness in their hearts is a blessed antidote to the destructive cycle of loneliness and anesthetizing pain.  – TDC

 

Friday, March 23, 2018

It is Friday and some planning, paper shredding and office tidying awaits. I am blessed with a job, a weekend ahead and  a local March for Our Lives event on Saturday. There may be some finishing touches ahead for this new work below, I am thinking about adding a tiny bit of glow from under the black and white filigreed edge. 6 big panels are waiting to prep for paintings, the ingredients for gesso and a recipe are lined up in the studio.  One smaller painting of an eagle wants to be continued and life has given me some creative purpose in these deeply disturbing times. Social Media has become a thrill ride, with emotions  taken high into love and sweetness, the most beautiful stuff- then  crashed into the rocks of menacing and cold Catalpan to see and hear societal truths that break the heart into a million pieces. And I watch, and I keep looking and I don’t really do a thing because I am a sitting duck. I am so deeply disturbed by this and the only thing I know to do, is pray and pay attention to the time I am spending on this social media amusement park ride. I am so grateful for the uplifting posts and the information I might otherwise never hear. Black and White, rich and poor, winners and losers, sugar and salt, skin and steel, tears and laughter are some of the the bookends to a wide array of potential experience, I don’t seek to be emotionally seduced by these polarizing extremes and pray to have my wits guided into the wider expanse of  human experiences. I think Mother Earth is demonstrating that we must find a middle ground as she melts her poles and quickens our hearts. I think we must love bravely and do something good and outrageous every day.

Inside and of Creation

This work belongs to my son who selected it to live with when he was 19. It is a piece I composed in response to the Sandy Hook Massacre and titled “AKA Sitting Duck”, it hurts. My son brought forth many valuable lessons to me as his charge when he was growing and continues to open up my eyes to the creative energy in the world that effects him. I am extremely grateful to have him in my life.  When he’s not working, he enjoys using very complex, high energy drumming as a form of creative expression and I can see why this particular art work gets to him.

My take on the calling to create is that we are creators in an ongoing process of creation. The choices are always there, to create with love or not create with love. To be or not to be. As this human reality is a fractal manifestation of our minds and as we give form to our creations we have a huge responsibility to the love that we are and the creation that it desires to make. -TDC 3/19/18

 

Imagine this; You are in a poem- words from Naomi Shihab Nye

I am listening to an interview with the Poet  Naomi Shihab Nye, on March 15th for the podcast ON Being with Krista Tippett. The interview opens up with Naomi reading this following work-

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. 
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.