Books

R O Y G B I V
R A I N B O W

excerpts & lines & lists
from 'prismatic utopia'
poetry manuscript

edited with Heather MacKay Young

begrudge doilies
 
 
oval boxes
begrudge doilies
flame red colors
venus east sky
 
 
neon yellow
blue dotted
purple violet
 
 
wrangled lines
noting nothing
onto paper
thoughts
 
cantankerous 
qualities of things
collide
 
.
.
from prismatic utopia, my poetry manuscript

so thankful to poet & editor Heather MacKay Young
for the opportunity to work together on this manuscript

circles
circumferences
hibiscus & morning glories


coffee filters
rusted washers
butterflies & moths

silk threads
palest blue scissors
indigo & black walnut

. . . 

summer studio worktable

( of )     Newton and Optiks
                                      of mystics and mysteries maintained	
                                      of gravity graced and rippled radiuses
                                      of faceted prisms and rainbows realized
                                      of colour continuums and countless confections
 
( of )     vistas and visionaries
                                      of ricocheting and reflecting
                                      of timelessness and tinsel strands
                                      of stars and fourth floor staircases
                                      of simple sincerity and quickenings
                                      of thin redlines and economy of means
 


Tomorrow begins the Dublin Seminar held at Historic Deerfield.  I’ll be giving a paper on Saturday, ‘building Harmony | constructing Color.’ Positing ideas about Shakers early use of architectural color predating 21st century color consultants’ and theorists.

And, this paper wouldn’t have happened without the Historic Deerfield Library Fellowship where I read so many books in the Wolf Collection—1200 books of color! Thanks Mr. Wolf and Historic Deerfield Library.

[excerpt from ‘emanations’ from my upcoming poetry book, ‘prismatic utopia’]

[images all from books in the Wolf Collection at Historic Deerfield Library]

Munsell & Faber Birren
Burris-Meyer & Vanderwalker

old horizons
become new buildings
historical
becomes contemporary

building Harmony | constructing Color
at the upcoming Dublin Seminar
 
[books from Historic Deerfield Library, 
objects from Shaker collections at Pleasant Hill Shaker Village & Shaker Museum]

orange & yellow
yellow & orange
 
book covers and oval boxes
balls of deep orange chair tape
glowing orange doors
chrome yellow carriers and yarn swifts
mustard yellow chair tape
chrome yellow wall peg and chairrails
 
 
rereading books by Faber Birren, Elizabeth Burris-Meyer
Jane Betsy Welling 
on color and industry and harmony
preparing for my talk
building Harmony | constructing Color
at the upcoming Dublin Seminar
 
[books from Historic Deerfield Library, 
objects from Shaker collections at Fruitlands,
Shaker Museum, and glowing orange door at South
Union Shaker Village]

sky blue azure cobalt
night twilight blue periwinkle
forget me not blue
a blue for the clouds to set against
a theory of blue
blueness happiness elation
a view to another realm
blue sky was early born
blue azure turquoise cobalt cereulean
blue was brought of sea crushed stone
worth more than gold
blue sky mirrors matters
blueness azure cobalt blue sky
upturned sky gaze
seen from space sky
globe of sky blue
blue sky blue


A response to Lucy Ive’s prompt, ‘chroma no. 242’ written on Sunday at The Clark Art Institute. 

If you follow along here, you well know I adore the sky and blue.  Clouds or not. Sunrise and sunsets.  

Thanks Lucy and congratulations! 

today I’m setting the table for
my friend’s indigo dyeing class
studio visit
 
walking around the table so many to thank,
including--
-india flint at haystack for her ecoprinting class 
-norte maar & Jason Andrew for showing ‘a year’s worth’
-and later bewilder work with catalog
-everyone that taught & talked to me about natural dyes
-working at Naumkeag with their amazing flower gardens
-being a TA for Kathy Hattori at Haystack and dyeing with
            so many talented dyers
-learning that Shakers wore ‘any color they could dye’ as 
            an artist in residence at Hancock with Smp
-showing not once but twice with like-minded artists
            interested in the Shakers, organized by Albany airport & Eric
-performing meetinghouse with miram at a moonbow event
and later eal publishing it and then adding a podcast
-working with curator Christie Jackson & all at Fruitlands on
‘anything but drab’
 
often one thing leads to another
oftentimes it's just someone’s faith in your work
or just willing to say yes to something never done
but always, I am filled with so much gratitude to all.
Thank you. 

what is poetry?
how does one revise?
how does one make a manuscript?

emily dickinson said, “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.  These are the only ways I know it.  Is there another way.”
[letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson]

i’m playing a poetry game
rearranging words
moving about sentences
reading chanting aloud
working with Heather McKay Young is serious &fun
color charts the way

reading and writing with mrs merrifield


a full bloom bestowed

like rust of salt

yellow past like amber

froth from the sea

blew dry smalt


.

On Saturday 21 March, please join me at 
The Slade School of Art’s 
Colour & Poetry: A Symposium VIII
free registration HERE

I’ll be reading three new poems
gleaned from recent research at
Historic Deerfield Memorial Library--
works/translations of Mrs Merrifield, 
Isaac Newton and other colour writers.
.

[images from Syme’s “Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours’ found in the Stephen L. Wolf Collection at Historic Deerfield Library]

[Brece Honeycutt, reading & writing with mrs merrifield {graphite, tea, gouache, watercolor on paper}, featured in the online exhibition, The Nomenclature of Colours, The Slade School of Art]

[listen  here via Soundcloud to hear me read,  ‘reading & writing with mrs merrifield']

“a book is a small building”*
 
 
 
within
folds
structures
 
a village
unfolds
 
utopian
colors
collide
 
into a
spectrum

book spines at Historic Deerfield during color research Fellowship using the Stephen L. Wolf Collection. 

grids
graininess
bursts of color

books bound in
libraries
color found on
crepe paper folds

excerpts from yearly
visit with friend

Yale Center for British Art: Painters Ports & Profits
Yale University Art Gallery
Beinicke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Chirimen Books