You Must Revise Your Life
By William Stafford

My copy of this book is wavy- from when I recovered it from the Chama River
almost ten years ago. That is another story- my car suspended in a tree above the river, my supplies for Ghost Ranch falling into the waters below- but this book continues to be one I can return to and find insights as if for the first time. I think of it as a kind handbook for calligraphers, artists, poets and teachers. It is for anyone who is in the business of loving language. As a teacher and a poet, Stafford demonstrates how our work happens not only in the room we are in, with the skills that we have, but also in the larger context of ideas, our attitude toward the world, and that invisible exchange with the muse. As William Stafford states: “An artist is someone who lets the material talk back.”

Perhaps thinking about calligraphy from the perspective of a poet can be useful, and one need not be a poet to do it. But the love for the circles and turns of language, and how to render that visibly, is essential. Stafford has a daily practice of writing, not for others, but for himself. I love the story of him describing this practice to his students by stating that he gets up each morning and writes a poem. They are incredulous, asking how do you write a poem every morning?
Stafford replies by saying “Lower your standards.” By this he means, just begin. Every piece does not need to be a masterpiece. It is the commitment to showing up for the practice that allows something to happen over time. It reflects his humility (more of his poems were rejected than accepted) and faith in the process. “You have got to get the satisfaction of being harmonious with the material. That is where it is.”

The idea of creating recklessly, without the editor who may or may not be favorable toward your work, is vital. There is no other way to discovery of your voice, of new forms. This approach is not about whether our work is concrete or abstract, traditional or expressive- it is an attitude of openness to surprise and innovation. “...I take my hands off the handlebars and see what happens.”

Stafford talks about taking many pieces of his work, over a period of time, and laying them out on the floor. He describes getting glimpses of relationships by seeing how the pieces respond to each other, suggesting new ideas. This is
a good idea for visual art. It also reminds me of Alberto Manguel’s description of the books in his library coming alive at night, like toys in the nursery. Their proximity allows “one book (to) call to another unexpectedly, creating alliances across different cultures and centuries.” This is how Stafford plays with words in a line, allowing one to suggest another, working from discovery rather than a plan.

“Dawn comes, and it comes for us all, but not on demand.”

 

In the midst of preparing for the exhibit, Five from Four

This Work

My friend, the poet,
asked me
what I was doing.
I said, you know,
the visual form
of mumbling, the verbal
version of stumbling.
Leaving my hands
to their own devices,
closing my eyes,
transforming vices
into color and verse.
Saying this work is my prayer.

My artist statement for the show:

One of the aspects of the creative pattern that is often overlooked is the one of
exchange  or reciprocity. The Greeks speak of the Creator (Zeus) uniting with 
the Goddess of Memory (Mneumosyne) to give birth to the nine muses.
This idea, that memory and creation are intimately related and together give 
birth to inspiration, is intriguing to me. It implies that the creation already exists, 
so that what we are doing as artists is not so much inventing something new as 
tapping deeper into what is already here.
 
Jorge Luis Borges talks about how the words “invent” and “discover” come from the 
same Latin root, invenire; to find, to come upon. To come upon our ideas, our work,
implies a receptivity to the unknown and a sense of discovery that makes our work alive. It is quite different from a solitary mechanical approach that assumes we know the answers, and our job is to hammer something into shape.
 
In some traditions, this process has been described as working from mindfulness 
rather than willfulness, attention to what is showing up, rather than imposing an 
idea upon the paper or canvas. It does not mean that we don’t have ideas, but rather 
that we are finding out about our ideas as we work and the work leads us to discovery, as if it had been there all along. There is a quality of recognition, of remembrance. This process of the creative pattern, of how we make art, is reflected in Creation stories which universally begin in the dark and inherently hold a sense of mystery, of unanswered questions.
 
When we are in “the zone” we do not know what will happen. There is a sense of excitement and mystery. We are caught by a sense of “other”. We are in a process of exchange  with what we are working on- or perhaps, what is working on us. It is when this aspect of exchange begins that I no longer feel a self-consciousness about my work- I have the pleasure of being in it.
 
This series, “The Blind Seer”, returns to darkness and the kind of seeing described by Teiresias, the blind prophet in the Odyssey: “I am that voice of wisdom in you, whose eyes are closed to that outer world but are clear and see far and near into the meanings of life.” Or, William Stafford describing when he met his muse: “ ‘I am your own way of looking at things,’ she said. When you allow me to live with you, every glance at the world around you will be a sort of salvation.’ ”
 
 Fall, 2008
Musings
Spring 2008

I was recently in Washington DC where I was teaching a class at the National Museum for Women in the Arts. I had an appointment to see the Director of Correspondence at Cheney's office in the White House. The first poem describes
my experince arriving at the White House (where they continue to build more fences), and the  second one a commentary.

Pledge
  
 Along the way to the White House
a man was making
his home in the bushes, securing
a sheet of plastic over juniper.
 
It was raining at the
iron gate. A guard stood
behind glass, demanding an ID,
silently searching his computer.
 
He returned my license without
words. He did not smile;
he refused me entry and
shut the window.
 
Along the way back a man was
hiding under a pile of blankets on
the top step of the National Museum;
a wheel chair lay on its side.
 
I pledge allegiance to the blind man
tapping his way across New York Avenue,
to the young girl chasing pigeons and
the homeless man singing a hymn.


I Don’t Want To Be Clever
 
I.
 
I don't want to be clever or cunning
With slippery movements
Sliding me into silky places.
 
I don't want to parade false images
like the emperor in his new clothes,
believing the crowd,
having nine crisp answers that
smother the question.
 
I am tired of those who prance about
polished and fastened up.
 
II.
 
This has been going on much too long:
answers all wrapped up in packages
that hide from questions,
refusing imagination.
 
Arranging  arrogance to endow us
with fleeting favors- temporal barricades
barring the door
Legions camouflaged by surgeons against lines
and shifting shadows.
 
Everyday  new arrangements offer
their hand.


On a different note, here is a recent love
poem from my new home:

Euphony


Imagine you deserve his smile
the summer choir of cicadas
tree frogs and birds sighing,
water singing over stone.
 
In winter’s night, open the far door
into the oneiric dark with your
slow uncertain hands, to that
place just out of reach.
 
Imagine that this steady unfastening
after  years of wrong notes
that this all at onceness
is a song for you.


Click here to download a PDF file of
"On Seeing" from Letter Arts Review, Volume XX, Number 4, 2006

“Getting Poems by Chance”
 
Getting poems by chance is a quote from an interview with the artist, Brice Marden.
The context is Brice describing the process he was involved in while developing his
paintings for the Cold Mountain series, and happening upon a poetry book in the bookstore.
 
Some people say:  “There are no accidents.” Others insist: “It was just an accident- pure coincidence.
What is coincidence? It comes from the Latin; incidere: to fall on, cadere: to fall.
There is a sense of having fallen into another world; a collision of apparently
unrelated events that all seem to belong together. The word serendipity comes from the
Arabic word sarandip meaning finding good fortune by accident. Most of us are familiar
with the stories from Arabian Nights and the sense of suspended time and magic.
 
What is magic? Magic is a unique causality. It is the belief that besides the causal relations we know,
there is another causal relation. That relationship may be due to accidents, to a ring, to a lamp.*
 
I tell my students: Each of you has a thread; a particular thread. If you take hold of the end of this thread, and follow the labyrinth you will find yourself at the center of creating your own work. How do you find it? Where is it? You find it most often in the ordinary world of events, and discover it by not
dismissing the most trivial, mundane or unacceptable ideas. By accepting whatever comes.
By taking the attitude for now that whatever or whomever shows up, is important. This outlook in itself creates generosity toward oneself and others, and a heightened awareness of what does happen.
  
*Borges, Seven Nights

“Technique for its own sake will rot your soul.”
 
Technique for its own sake will rot your soul is a quote from William
Stafford. What does he mean? I think for its own sake means that we have
lost any sense of the larger context in which our work exists.
The focus on how to make a Roman B, for example, can be the way into a piece of calligraphy,
and is not to be discounted. But if we stop here, at the mechanism of making a letter,
then form has no companion, and form needs something to interact with
to come alive.


On teaching in Germany:

Leap Before You Look; An Invitation to Landscape and Lettering

 

The German students! When Dankmar picked me up at the airport he said, in his

German accent: “Your students are already perfect.” Indeed, I had a group of accomplished teachers, artists, designers and calligraphers who had studied with the people I most admire: Hans Joachim Burgert, Hermann Zapf, Gottfried Pott and Andre Gurtler.

So what do I say to them? Here you are, having signed up with a stranger telling you to leap before you look! I have never had a class so willing to do so, or one that laughed as much. There was a kindness between them that fostered diversity. Teaching great students has led me to many discoveries. Teaching in English with a translator, Manfred Blum, meant there were pauses built in to the conversation. After a while I realized- as I first said a phrase in English- and then he translated into German- and then the students thought about it- that there developed a profound level of listening. Each sentence was carefully chosen and heard twice. In the end they understood some things that are difficult for my American students.

To set the context for the possible relationships between landscape and lettering, I spoke about the horizon line, the meeting between earth and sky. The nature of the artist is to look toward the next horizon, to have a vision that is always ahead of where we are. I pointed out the window of our fourteenth century monastery to the mountains beyond. We could all see the horizon line. It is something that we universally know as humans, that we can point to in the physical world- and yet it is not a place that exists on any map. No matter how far we walk, we never reach the horizon- with each step it recedes a bit further. What is this thing that is known to each one of us, and yet is unique to each person’s view? It represents the interface between the visible and invisible worlds, our longing and the necessary striving toward the unknown.*

So what do I say to them? Here you are, having signed up with a stranger telling you to leap before you look! I have never had a class so willing to do so, or one that laughed as much.

Ernst Schneidler said in the 1940’s: If you want to judge a calligraphic work you have to look at it, and if you can see a landscape in it, it is a good calligraphy. I have been spending time with this idea, exploring the relationships between writing, drawing and painting. It all comes back to seeing, and the awareness that vision is heightened by incorporating the other senses, by writing, for example, through touch, through sound and rhythm. And so I have developed some exercises for writing that come out of drawing.

*I want to thank Bill Viola for his inspiration on this topic.

There is something about immersing oneself in a different culture, a foreign language, that is renewing.Kindness to strangers, travelers, new smells and sounds, away from the habitual demands of daily life.

We were cloistered in a monastery in Salmunster, a small town outside Frankfurt with cottages from the 1300’s, and sitting next to a field of freshly mown hay. In the evenings we would walk there, sometimes all the way across the field to the next town. The sound of the song birds and the old church bells at dusk was something that always stopped me. Outside our monastery there was a courtyard with a fountain in the center. Every afternoon at tea break we would take our cake and coffee out there, and take off our shoes and sit with our feet in the water. Meals were at a precise time each day, and delicious. The evening meal was light, and afterward we would go back into the workshop- a light airy room with big windows looking across the valley to the mountains- until about 9:00. Then people would begin gathering to go down to the “cellar” where there was beer and wine and conversation. The students would then work late into the night.

 

Laurie Doctor

Summer 2005

 

 

 Here are some examples of what I have named “blind contour writing”:

Moon & Basket Series
These paintings and poetry came out of a retreat that I did from Thanksgiving until New Year's. I decided to paint and write from 5 am until noon each day. I spent a lot of time under the night sky, knowing that I did not have the time or the resources from any practical viewpoint, to do so. The first shift I noticed was that the busyness of linear time stretched out in all directions until it was only a small dot on the horizon. This was the first poem:

Squandering Time

Here I am, squandering time.
The more I squander it,
the more generous it becomes.
Only last night I went out
to watch sliver moon
undress over the mountains while
inside the dirty dishes devoured the sink and
the bills tumbled off the counter.

The night deepened and I heard your voice,
a music welling from long ago:
"I am becoming more full",
you said, showing your new crescent-
Rising up as if you've never before revealed
your sensuous curves,
as if you never tire of shouting:
"Behold! Don't you see how
in millions of moons
I have not failed you?
How I return each time,
after days of total darkness,
to shed my soft light
on your blossoming heart?"
The following poem came from the dark of the moon, the times when we cannot see the light:
Dark of the Moon

Now it is the dark of the moon.
Some terrible sadness devours movement,
making my feet heavy with dread.

Still, I wander out into the night-
remembering how the swallows
migrate for thousands of miles,
without a guide.

I see the morning star
a golden jewel beside the darkness
that holds the memory of new moon
The last poem that I recited at my exhibit is one about the question:
What have I done with what I have been given? As Gandalf says, it is not how much time we have left, but what will we do with the time we have been given? Or Antonio Machado says: What have I done with the garden that was entrusted to me?
Raiment

The moon, hearing my cry,
called me outside.

What have you done with the moonbeams
I have given you?
she said, eyeing my empty basket.

I have scattered the moonbeams
on hopes and dreams. My basket
holds only broken songs
and all that has not begun.

And so I gave her my basket.

Then, all night we wandered together,
listening to the stars. The
dark lengthened into dawn,
and I woke up remembering my dream:

The moon stood in her white gown
on the other side of the door-
speaking softly.
She handed my basket
across the threshold.

I saw it
covered in white cloth,
shining as if woven from moonlight.
 
thoughts about my life and work...

Saturday, April 13, 2002

Dream House*

It is the time of year when the robins return to my garden. I
first know this by their song. They begin singing before dawn
when the morning star is just rising, and sing the sun all the
way up. Then they begin again at dusk, not stopping until the sun
is down. It is also the time when the faeries come back into the
house and garden. You can hear a faint tinkling sound at dusk,
out among the tangle of last year's wildflowers. They begin
tidying things up and planting new seeds. The next morning
you can see faint imprints of their silver slippers in the dirt.

Late at night, when everyone is asleep they come into the house,
and if you wake up and are still as still can be, you will hear
their saccadic song following their lithe movements. They are
dusting, and lining up pairs of shoes. In the morning the glasses
sparkle, as if stardust was left behind. They are not bothered by
how the garden is still dead from winter and the house is messy.
They are like Matisse, and want to echo beauty. (Matisse said he
wanted to make paintings so beautiful that when you came upon
them all your troubles would subside).

Before they leave, the faeries add some marks to my painting
and carefully wash my brushes.

Sending you wishes for the new beginnings of spring,

Laurie Doctor
*written for Jill Berry
laurie doctor | 9:58 AM |

Monday, April 15, 2002

Forsythia Spring

Walking downtown
past Barbara's forsythia
intoxicated with lemon yellow

impossible blossoms reaching
into a deliciously long
afternoon of Bommarito red

sumptuous sips
of Frank Sinatra,
aureolus blooms and friendship.

Warm regards,

Laurie

Monday, December 31, 2001
Fall In

Write without reason.
Go too far. Fall in, fall in.
Say I am here, my palms are open
even though you are lost and don't know
who you are.

My hands are empty. I have forgotten my name
and the sound of it on his tongue. All I have left
is the scent of something I once touched. Memory
of the sound of color streaming from the stars
singing.

So now I am praying and writing to remember back
my name. Praying that this gloom laden night becomes
music to the stars and your great remembering
happens to me.
Wishing you a surprising, renewing and joyful New Year.

Warm regards,

Laurie


laurie doctor | 2:00 PM |

Monday, November 19, 2001

Found Morning

This morning I woke up to the sun sparkling on the snow and pine trees. Finally a winter visit after a strikingly mild fall. I have been teaching for almost two weeks: the teenagers at my son's school, all 22 of them at once, in Denver for the Calligrapher's Guild, and my series here in Boulder called *Absence and Presence*, which I just finished yesterday.

I arrived to teach at Naropa University at sunrise yesterday morning, wanting to gather myself together before class. I was deeply moved by how long I have been coming to this place. I remembered when I first came as a student, thinking I would continue my studies in Buddhism. That is another story, but my formal studies in Buddhism ended and the study of calligraphy, painting and bookmaking began. I could not have imagined myself here now, teaching. When I first came here I knew nothing about calligraphy or art of any kind.

Before my class yesterday I sat down and wrote:

This morning I returned
to the same place.
The crow is hopping and croaking.
The clouds in the east are colored
with the pink newness
of the day.

Now I see that this place
remembers me,
is tending to me.

Blind for so long
my eyes are opened
in tears and sunrise.

The crow calls in fours
Yes yes yes yes

Here here here here.

 

I found myself talking to my students about the reciprocal relationship that develops with a place that is tended to. That paying attention and being found belong together. That we could give ourselves permission to say yes, I have something to offer back to this world.

Wishing you all a warm Thanksgiving.

Best regards,

Laurie
laurie doctor | 12:12 PM |

Thursday, May 03, 2001

Dear Readers,

It is snowing on the crabapple blossoms and lilacs. The green leaves are frosted in white. The robin is singing as she does each day of spring, from just before dawn all the way through twilight. Even with the snow dusting her feathers.

I have recently returned from the other side of the world, New Zealand. I had the uncertainty of traveling standby, then the unexpected pleasure of getting on Business Class. Champagne, mimosa, wine, gourmet food, and a spacious, cushy seat with a massager for my back. I decided to ignore the good advice on how to prevent jet lag, and tasted everything. I had never been across the International Date Line.

When I arrived in Auckland, I had no sense of jet lag, or of having crossed that imaginary line through the Pacific Ocean at about 180 degrees longitude, which means in one moment it's one day later. It was just a new morning in a different place. I had expectations about how exotic it must be, this far away. So on the first day when I was walking around Brown's Bay, through the neighborhoods, I thought there must be some mistake. In front of each person's house were the same green plastic ecocycle containers that we have in Boulder. And when I found the bookstore and coffee shop, the music that greeted me was Shaggy singing "Angel". But even in the city the bird sounds were new. The Fantails were abundant, and willing to come quite close.

One of the reasons for coming to New Zealand was my invitation to teach in Auckland. I was given the top floor of Jan Leonard's house, where I had my own bedroom, bath, kitchenette, studio and porch overlooking Torbay Harbor. It was a twenty minute walk along the shore and through the woods to Brown's Bay, where I could have coffee and write. I stayed here for a week, giving a slide show of my current exhibit and teaching a bookmaking class. The dinners at Jan's house included two young women from China who were on the North Island to finish high school and go on to University. One of the women could speak English well enough for me to get some stories from her. I heard Chinese tales of Creation, Good and Evil, and about her grandmother who is a healer and lives in the Chinese countryside. She tells a story of her grandmother curing her of nightmares and making an egg move and stand up vertically without being touched, as if this is nothing special. When I ask her about the Chinese money papers we brought back from the Asian market her expression becomes alarmed. She tells me I must not use these gold and silver papers in my art, and goes into detail about how to burn them. She warns Jan and I against leaving our chopsticks apart, and places hers close together on her bowl.

At the end of this week my son, Garrison, arrives to join me. Our plan is to explore the wild west coast of the South Island. He has his fly fishing rod and the New Zealand Guide to birds. Also camping equipment. And we both have our journals. He has just finished being the lead in his high school play "Guys and Dolls," and has fallen in love with the female lead, Erin Rose, whom he has practiced kissing a lot. At the Auckland Airport it is pouring rain when I pick him up, and we head out to Lake Taupo to look for birds and trout on the Hinemaiaia River. Our first go at traveling on the left side of the road.

Now it is beginning to feel like the other side of the world. In Taupo the Maori chief has just died, and there is a big funeral. The Maori words are like music. I paint the title page in my journal with a Maori tatoo pattern and the seven kinds of night they list in their creation story: Te Po-nui, Te Po-roa, Te Po-uriuri, Te Po-kerekere, Te Po-tiwha, Te Po-tangotango, Te Po-te-kitea. The Great Night, The Long Night, The Dark Night, The Intensely Dark Night, The Gloom-laden Night, The Night to be Felt, The Night Unseen.

We take the ferry Arahura (Maori for "Pathway to Dawn") to the South Island. Cook Strait is full of dolphins and stories. It has only been a few hundred years since Captain Cook landed and Europeans began to arrive on this island. Garrison and I see our first Albatross and three hours later arrive in the harbor at Picton. I am considering the many names he has for me. Genius, Killer and Captain top the list, descending to Noodle-Brain, Poodle-Brain, Chump Bucket, and more affectionately, Munchkers.

I drink in the rivers and deserted beaches of the South Island, the words and sounds. The Bellbirds flock the rain forest and fill the kauri trees with a symphony of flutes and bells and water. There are keas and kakas. Karaka, kutuku, kaikomaiko, kahikatoa, kuripaka, kopuwai, kaiamio, kotuku. At Lake Moeraki ("to dream by day") there is a path through the rain forest and tree ferns to the Pacific. This is where the Fjordland Crested Penguins come in from the Tasman Sea. We take a walk after dark to see the glow worms, which light up the trees like stars.

Later, on the east coast, we watch the Yellow-Eyed Penguins come in from the sea before sunset, to waddle up the sand cliffs in pairs to their nests. Running to each other, calling out, holding out their flippers, moving slowly and stopping often on their awkward uphill climb. The sunset surrounding us in a full circle.

By the time we got to Christchurch we were ready to come home. We arrived back in Boulder the same evening that we left Auckland.

Warm regards in spring,

laurie
laurie doctor | 10:25 AM





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