African Yellow

African Yellow
Acrylic on paper, photographed, clipped and digitally modified, 2008

A belated entry for Inspire Me Thursday's Yellow.

In the sky - cruising and vacationing

Today's horoscope for the coming week said:

You enjoy being in control, Capricorn, but this week the Universe shows you that it's not always possible for you to be in charge. You may decide you like taking it easy! Mercury turns retrograde on Wednesday. You'll play catch-up with the people and events in your life for the next three weeks. This is a great time to relax and swing in a hammock. On Saturday a new vista opens for you as the Moon in your sector of travel conjuncts your ruler, Saturn. You may embark on a long cruise or sign up for an exotic vacation.

• For a long time I've had the feeling that I'm not very much in control. It's been more like an inescapable road to follow, with some traffic lights and yield or stop signs for guidance.
• Glad to know that the Universe with a capital U is behind it all.
• They guessed right – I like taking it easy. I like things served on a platter, all nicely garnished and ready for the taking. Alas, that's not the way it works, and I'd be very surprised if it did next week.
• Don't have no hammock and don't even like 'em very much, to be honest.
• If it were up to horoscopes, I would have gone on long cruises a lot over the years. Exotic vacation? Perhaps Kazakhstan ... I've been getting interested in it due to infatuation with one of its citizens.
• I'll see, but I'm not holding my breath.
  

Breath from beyond

Breath from beyond

Acrylic and ink on paper, 2006

For Inspire Me Thursday's Breath.
My mother passed away last Friday. Whenever I go
back to look at her, I still expect her to start breathing
again any moment.
This won't happen, of course. If there were any breath,
it would be from beyond, as in the painting. Life,
colors and breathing are underneath the blackness.

Welcome home

The prince is back,
oh princely abode
with your dusting
needs and clothes
strung up to dry.

Go, inhabitor, go
put some music on
and make it some-
what inhabited.

It’s Sunday morning,
someone died Friday,
and you’ve just
taken announcement
letters to the mailbox.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2008)

Largely autobiographical, razor-edge-of-time, so to speak.

This also offers some explanation of my recent writing (and blogging) inactivity.

PS:
I’m using the not very existent* word inhabitor on purpose ... somewhere in between inhibitor and inhabitant.

*On the Internet it mostly exists as a spelling problem.

1st of September fib

It's

calm

in here

with my co-

workers gone. A lull

before the chatty storm returns.

– Leonard Blumfeld

Against the clock with music

Created for Inspire Me Thursday as specified ... against the clock in a way - the timing and mood being provided by a sufi music CD purchased today. Further constraint: colors picked at the beginning ... orange, cinnabar, raw umber, black. Executed in acrylic on Fabriano paper in approx. 40 minutes.

Ruby Bear

Ruby Bear for Ruby Tuesday.

Intimate river waiting

I
know
that an
intimate
river is waiting
somewhere to carry me along
infinitely. Where
is that boat,
that oar
it
takes?

– Leonard Blumfeld ( © 2008 )

Written with intimate, river and waiting as ingredients and inspiration from 3WW in the form of a fibonacci diamond.

Not quite polka

A late polka entry for Inspire Me Thursday. I like the liveliness and lightness of polka dot patterns and thought about creating something with polka dots all along, without ever finding the right combination of spare time and right mood. Today I pulled out the roll of a painting I'd started earlier this year. Noting that it had some round elements that had polka dot potential, I went to work with black for enhancement. The whole painting measures about 100 x 180 cm and is acrylic on orange kraft paper.

Transformation

From the last thoughts of Erica M. Youngblood

At age 45 I'd reached a point where I was willing to try anything to transform my imperfect physique. I'd always thought certain parts needed improvement – my overlong, sharp nose, my receding chin, my sagging bosom and flaring hips –, and when I chanced upon Madam Oryema through an ad in an esoteric magazine, I thought I had things licked. Little did I suspect that her patented blue shrinking pill would turn me into a candy-coated blue peanut. Here I am now, immobile on the floor, waiting for somebody to come in, sweep me up and dump me. Or worse: pick me up, wipe me and munch me.

Faithfully recorded by Leonard Blumfeld

Drawn and written for Inspire Me Thursday and 'Shrink'.