“Remake Your World With Words”

— from a poem by Gregory Orr

Remake Your World With Words | 42”x 36” | oil on canvas | on display in the gallery at Louisville Visual Art and for sale here:

Winter Solstice, the darkest night of the year, returns me to the theme of stars, night, silence and time. This painting was inspired by Gregory Orr, from one of his many untitled poems in Concerning the Book Which is the Body of the Beloved. Any of you, if you have written for long periods of time, know the power of words to create a spell.

Let’s remake the world with words.
Not frivolously, nor
To hide from what we fear,
But with a purpose.

Let’s,
As Wordsworth said, remove
“The dust of custom” so things
Shine again, each object arrayed
In its robe of original light.

And then we’ll see the world
As if for the first time.
As once we gazed at the beloved
Who was gazing at us.
— Gregory Orr |

The combination of darkness, winter and the new year creates reflection of all the time before. In his epic poem The Prelude, William Wordsworth records “spots of time” — which are not to be confused with nostalgia, with a longing for some lost moment — but rather the timeless quality of a moment that has never left, a moment when time stopped. These are anchors of intense meaning that — when revisited and folded into the present — create new understanding, solace and insight in times of need. Recalling a spot of time in this present moment, and committing it to writing, has the power to renew scattered energy, to recalibrate my view, and to hold and settle chaos and confusion in a bigger context:

And then we’ll see the world
As if for the first time.
As once we gazed at the beloved
Who was gazing at us.

This is what happened after a long time of working on the painting above. It is what happens to anyone willing to work for however long it takes to make something visible in uninterrupted night-silence. There is a recognition or faith that fulfillment of a dream begins by a seed planted one night in winter.

The life dream waits to awaken fully — quote from Michael Meade (left) | Dream of dark chocolate bluebirds coming to life (right)
Images © Laurie Doctor pocket sketchbook

Bringing back a spot of time invites me to drop my action-ambition and feel what is beneath. It’s a time of dream-time, a time of seeing what wants to come and what needs to go. Below is a short excerpt from Bill Viola, recalling his time at night, alone in the Great Hall of the Durham Catherdral when “the materiality of the church momentarily parted, revealing a deeper structure embedded in its form. I saw another space, a second architecture, lying beneath the surface that had so affected me.”

If you want to experience the essential mystery or the secret life of “things”
then be there with them, awake when the rest of the world is sleeping.
— Bill Viola, about his work at the Durham Cathedral

Gregory Orr, who describes himself as a secular humanist, does not know how many poems he has written to the beloved. He talks about his book on poems to the beloved as one that has no ending. He refers to “The Book” as an invisible anthology that contains all the songs and poems ever written — that it’s purpose is praise and it is here, always, to sustain us. What happens if I act as if what I am reaching for is here? It’s an old and invigorating idea — that your creation already exists and your task is to reveal it. Jorge Luis Borges broke through his blocks in creating by pretending the book or poem or essay he was struggling with already exists. Borges was a friend of imagination — a faculty that withers with too much information and not enough wisdom.

This taps into the idea of awakening a spot of time, of engaging creative imagination, of remaking your world with words.

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What are your stories about awakening a spot of time? I’d love to hear from you.

In addition to our featured artist this month, Lois Rossiter, I will also feature the three exceptional women who honored me by asking for a private class in Germany: Dagmar Möller , Lily Stöber and Andrea Weber.

Let me introduce you to the inventive and elegant work of this month’s featured artist, Lois Rossiter. See more of her work here:

© Lois Rossiter

Below is just a small sampling of the work from in our class in Germany. It is impossible to put into words the joy of teaching here (and therefore learning) even with my inability to speak German.

‍ ‍ Rubbing, marks and woven binding © Andrea Weber

‍ ‍ Book cover & book page © Dagmar Möller

‍ ‍ Woven binding, front & back cover © Lily Stöber