Sophie Lumen

L'avenue du sommeil

2010-06-26T09:01:00.001-07:00

l'avenue du sommeil
Originally uploaded by christing-O-

Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.

Alan Alda (1936-) Actor, Director, Screenwriter

Sophie Lumen Has Moved:

2010-04-09T20:47:00.000-07:00

Feed the Beauty

Meanwhile, beauty feeding continues...

2010-03-30T10:35:00.000-07:00

“To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, to think quietly, talk gently, act grandly; to listen to the stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden, and unconscious grow up through the common.”

William Ellery Channing

Two blogs under transition

2010-03-20T10:41:00.000-07:00

It feels like I'm changing offices, shuffling papers, files, desks, art on the walls-- you get it. By next week I'll be settled in. I am starting to work on a new project, an ebook:

Feed the Beauty~The Art of Aging.

The text at the upper right corner of this blog gives an overview of what we will be creating--this is a collaboration of women. I want to know and see how you are thinking, feeling, creating the space in which you are aging. I want to listen, staring with myself.

One of the Listening Women from Feed the Beauty~White Rose

Lotus

Tarab and the voice of Umm Kulthum

2010-03-16T13:31:00.000-07:00

I have listened to Umm's voice many times in my studio. But I did not know about tarab until I listened to a recent NPR show (links and quotes below-emphasis mine).

Tarab is "a unique quality of Arab music that translates best to the word enchantment.

Part of tarab is the idea that listeners are as important as singers; that there's a powerful, spiritual exchange between them that is crucial to the performance."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124612595
More on "The Voice of Egypt" on NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90326836

"For words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the Soul within."

2010-03-12T08:04:00.000-08:00

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
In Memoriam A.H.H., V

Feeding the Muse

2010-03-09T09:28:00.000-08:00

An hour after I spoke to a Hospice volunteer group on Thursday, we drove to SeaTac and flew to the Southwest to visit dear friends. We listened to a different set of birds and looked at rock formations. And the sky, it is big and pink with sand, infused with fine, dry air.

I feed the beauty of my art muse in the Northwest where I live like a monk, a cave dweller of sorts.
I create out of my inner life and visions, pulling inspiration from what I look at, read, listen to and pray for here. In my studio cave under big cedars and firs.

This weekend I experienced why artists and other creatives travel to feed their beauty. I did not think I needed to do this, but now I believe otherwise.

RedRock NV, Sophie

Music is a science of love relating to harmony and rhythm. Plato

2010-03-04T08:35:00.000-08:00

Firesky

2005

Mixed media on masonite

Write Yourself

2010-03-01T21:35:00.000-08:00

"Censor the body and you censor breath and speech at the same time. Write yourself. Your body must be heard."

from The Laugh of the Medusa
Helene Cixous

right-16th century woodcut -sophie style

It's Friday; Here's Miss Kissi

2010-02-26T18:55:00.000-08:00

Au silence leger des nuits pres de la mer*

2010-02-24T12:36:00.000-08:00

Poetry! I brought you to my lips
Like a cool pebble for my thirst
I kept you in my dark and dry mouth
Like a little pebble one takes
And chews with blood on the lips!

Poetry, oh! I gave you love,
Love with her face like a silver dawn
On the sea-and my soul with the sea in it,
And the tempest with the sky of the daybreak
Pale and fresh like a shining shell.

Jean Dominique translated by Regis Aubert
*To the gentle silence of nights close to the sea
(with apologies for omitted accents on French title.)
photo: NW Saline

Identity

2010-02-19T09:30:00.000-08:00

"How does one seek union with God?"
"The harder you seek, the more distance you create between Him and you."
"So what does one do about the distance?"
"Understand that it isn't there."
"Does that mean that God and I are one?"
"Not one. Not two."
"How is that possible?"
"The sun and its light, the ocean and the wave, the singer and the song-not one. Not two."

From One Minute Wisdom by Anthony de Mello

Fat Tuesday: Making Visible Your Inner Self

2010-02-16T13:21:00.000-08:00

Sitting around in sweats I couldn't wait to make a blog post about an excellent article on The Style Imperative by Hara Estroff Marano in Psychology Today.

But I thought about Lent: how shallow to be focusing on Style in any way shape or form. And then I remembered:

It's Fat Tuesday

"Style is more character than clothes, more attitude than affluence. It's you making visible your inner self.

Whatever else it is, style is optimism made visible.

Style presumes that you are a person of interest, that the world is a place of interest, that life is worth making the effort for.

True style, in addition to being irrevocably social, is even morally responsible. Consumption isn't promiscuous or random, at the whim of the marketplace or the urging of marketers. Rather, it is focused on what is personally suitable and expressive."

From 'The Style Imperative' by Hara Estroff Marano

above: A person of interest, Mardi Gras 1977

Kaleidoscopes and Lent

2010-02-15T12:16:00.000-08:00

Kaleidoscopes found their way into my active imagination recently. When an image sticks around for more than a day, I know I need to pay attention. What this time? Lens, colors, bits of glass or plastic,mirrors, tubes, changing patterns...nothing resonated for days.

contemporary kaleidoscope circa 1980

Today I found a stunning quote by Luci Shaw. It says when we are created in the image of God,
“... we participate in creative intelligence, giftedness, originality. We each have the faculty of imagination deep within us, waiting, like a seed, to be watered and fertilized.”

Immediately after I read this a kaleidoscope popped into my mind. And looking through a lens at little colored bits of plastic seeds trapped in a tube making patterns over and over.

And then I thought of Lent.

Like seeds, my ideas of myself and the world rattle around inside, repeating mandelas that are not always colorful or pretty. My imagination is not always intelligent, gifted or original.

This Lent is asking me- is it time to look through a new lens? Or get rid of lenses altogether for 40 days?

What about you?

Interview: Laura Cococcia with Cultural Antropologist Ann Armbrecht

2010-02-12T12:18:00.000-08:00

I want to know how women from other cultures deal with their own health and healing.

I can guess that the drive women have to focus on others is universal. The differences between us may be in how we take care of ourselves.

I know I need all the ideas and clues I can get. I'm going to be sharing what I find with you.

To begin this journey: an interview from Laura Cococcia's excellent site:

Laura: For those of us who are interested in learning more about other cultures, but may not have a career that’s aligned with that passion, what are some ideas you have for us to become more engaged and active in the learning process? Perhaps we can become “mini” anthropologists?

Ann: Robert Murphy’s book, The Body Silent, is the only book I read in graduate school that made that connection between other cultures and our own experiences/understandings. And so I don’t think we have to go far to do anthropology – I think it’s really about listening, listening for what is and isn’t said.

It’s about paying attention. It’s about making room for another person’s life. Anthropology offers tools for doing that with more depth, for understanding the larger context, that sort of thing. But it can start with paying more attention to the world around you, being curious.

http://www.thejcconline.com/portrait-of-a-cultural-explorer-ann-armbrecht-interview/

How do you make room for the life stories of women from other cultures?

Dear Vacation

2010-02-09T12:32:00.000-08:00

Layered collage and laminate. It started with paper towels I brought back from a trip to England.

I had a pretend company in the 1980's called LamaNama. I made pins, misc, and Elvis mirrors that Ruby Montana took pity upon me and purchased for her downtown Seattle store.

Today I use the scanner the same way sorta kinda.

ScannaNama!

Studio table to the right: Monday

2010-02-08T12:44:00.000-08:00

This is how it really looks no tricks. I have 4 or five tables, each with a focus. Exception this one: its Monday.

Art Thought of the Day

2010-02-03T10:10:00.000-08:00

Random Art Thought Ball: I remember looking at catalogs in the early-mid 60's as a child. Very few pages were in color back then, but they were bigtime eye candy for me. Those colors left a tattoo on my retina I think. 60's images appear like neighbor kids over and over in my digital work.

detail from 'Pingwater' mixed media

Backyard color

2010-02-02T12:25:00.000-08:00

Morning photo-a balancing point between winter decay and almost spring.

I ran this photo though an effects-toy called Timeline, which displays an image viewed from the technology of different zones in the development of the camera. Top circa 1960's, below circa 1910.

2010: I take this in my backyard at 9am today, in the Pacific Northwest. You are looking at them in colors interpreted by your browser.

FTB

2010-01-29T15:52:00.000-08:00

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. ... As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Nelson Mandela 1994

Horizons watercrayon on paper 2009

It's Friday

2010-01-29T09:33:00.000-08:00

Jaipur Literary Festival

2010-01-26T18:41:00.000-08:00

Thousands of people converged on a palace in the city of Jaipur, in the desert state of Rajasthan, from January 21-25for an event that is rapidly gaining a reputation as

one of the most exotic gatherings of writers and thinkers in Asia, if not beyond.

The Jaipur Literature Festival, billed as "The Greatest Literary Show on Earth," attracted visitors from as far afield as Africa, Britain and the United States,

as well as large numbers from across India.

NPR story:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122941003

http://jaipurliteraturefestival.org/

Spunky Little Puppet

2010-01-25T17:47:00.000-08:00

This is Miss Kissi, a cupcake dolly that makes me smile

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNSP7urjgFw

Now is the Time

2010-01-20T17:01:00.000-08:00

Now is the time to know

That all that you do is sacred.

Now, why not consider

A lasting truce with yourself and God.

Now is the time to understand

That all your ideas of right and wrong

Were just a child's training wheels

To be laid aside

When you finally live

With veracity

And love.

Hafiz is a divine envoy

Whom the Beloved

Has written a holy message upon.

My dear, please tell me,

Why do you still

Throw sticks at your heart

And God?

What is it in that sweet voice inside

That incites you to fear?

Now is the time for the world to know

That every thought and action is sacred.

This is the time for you to compute the impossibility

That there is anything

But Grace.

Now is the season to know

That everything you do

Is sacred.

'The Gift - Poems by Hafiz the Great Sufi Master'

translations by Daniel Ladinsky

image (above) adapted from 'White Rose Bird' Feed the Beauty by Sophie

Prayers for the people of Haiti

2010-01-13T12:20:00.000-08:00

The worlds hearts ache for the people of Haiti today. Above is a votive image that is special to the Haitians. Many prayers go up now and in the days to come.

2010-01-12T18:23:00.000-08:00

Eternity isn't some later time. Eternity isn't a long time. Eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now which thinking and time cuts out. This is it. And if you don't get it here, you won't get it anywhere. And the experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life.

Joseph Campbell

Slow Planet Post

2010-01-05T13:35:00.000-08:00

Carl Honore will be interviewed on NPR tonight at 8pm on KUOW FM.
A post from one of my favorites is on his blog re: Bad Art Thingies.

http://www.slowplanet.com/blog/2010/01/05/bad-art-thingies-and-the-inner-snick/

Authenticity

2010-01-04T12:50:00.000-08:00

I'm in discovery mode for the new year, this fine Monday.
Here's one: lots of clear thinking going on about authenticity at Jen Louden's blog:

http://www.comfortqueen.com/static-free-authenticity-2#comments

To me authenticity is what comes out of 'The Three Pearls', which is in the first book of the Feed The Beauty series, White Rose.

First Pearl: Show up.

Show up for yourself.
above: TinselTime
2009 Sophie

Ebb and Lull Week

2009-12-29T11:22:00.000-08:00

The day after Christmas the neighbor who had the best Xmas decorations in his yard took his lights down and put it all in boxes marked Free at the end of his driveway. Remnants of such effort of splendor, effortlessly tossed to the curb.

I wanted to share these dear little gifts tags with you (right), and thoughts about...

...the ebb of symbols from the week before
flows into the lull of
detoxing from sugar and shopping
a workspace not normal yet
the end-of-the-decade stories on tv at the gym
and the tiny lightbulb going off in my head
shining on resolutions.

Christmas in Eaton Rapids

2009-12-22T15:08:00.000-08:00

Cousins Dance 1967

Dear creature!--you'd swear When her delicate feet in the dance twinkle round, That her steps are of light, that her home is the air, And she only par complaisance touches the ground.

Thomas Moore

Going Skimming

2009-12-17T11:16:00.000-08:00

I love the internet. I admire the youthful focus I see running through it like a mixed colorful bundle of ropes, threads, tinsel, twisties yarn and cords.

But sometimes I wish that the writing was more condensed. No matter how much I admire those clever darn well carefully chosen words--

Unless it's techie stuff I need to know, if I see a big fat paragraph, I'm going skimming.

It's how I use the web, shop and go through a bookstore. I'm thinking, "Do I really want to have the time to read this?"

I prefer the thought of 'having' rather than 'making' the time. Slow down for your soul and all.

When I gave myself permission to make this bloggie brief and mostly visual it made me happy to post regularly, glad to be here with you. It is a joyous tight little splat of creativity, like paint on a...never mind this paragraph is growing to skimming pool size.

If Fun is the Big Top of the Soul--

2009-12-16T11:38:00.000-08:00

"...Stretching out the sky as a tent-cloth,
covering your lofty halls with water.
You make the clouds your chariot,
You surge on the wings of the wind.

...the earth is filled with your creatures,
even the wide and open sea itself..
upon it are ships a-sailing,
and that great beast you made to have fun!"

from Psalm 103/104

Mr. PotatoHead Creepy Crawlers: the Dangerous things I used to do in 1964

2009-12-12T11:12:00.000-08:00

In the 1960's a Mr. Potato Head set came with a myriad of plastic parts tipped with dagger-like points made for jabbing into real vegatables. Did I get stabbed--yes! Did I care? No! Who cared about a little pain when I could make my potaoto anyway I wanted, even adding dagger ended objects that did not come with the kit. Mom's Christmas tree pin covered with rhinestones...toothpicks with fabric flags...yarn and pipecleaners on thumbtacks for hair!

And Creepy Crawlers: a kit that came with a hotplate, plastic goo and metal molds so you could cast your own blueheaded green legged orange bodied fly or beetle or butterfly. Did I get burned? Yes...and I would ice it and go back to create new bugthings.

Would I let my kids play with these toys now? Yes, with supervision--I was left alone with my experiments probably too often as Mom watched soap operas and took care of the mountain of ironing that erupted from 60's styles and fabrics.

Below is a link to a Good News Network posting about a new book by Gever Tulley about children being allowed to experience a world full of danger...and creative potential.

http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/most-popular/general/50-dangerous-things-book.html

Fun is the Big Top of the soul

2009-12-08T10:10:00.000-08:00

Slow Art and Kittens: a visit to Slow Planet

2009-12-04T10:28:00.000-08:00

Earlier in the week I posted to Carl Honore's Slow Planet Blog. You will find Kittens below in the November 23 post.

http://www.slowplanet.com/blog/2009/11/30/slow-art-and-kittens/

Three Bathers

2009-11-30T09:45:00.000-08:00

In 1936 Matisse gifted the city of Paris at the Petit Palais with his beloved "Three Bathers" by Cezanne (right) purchased in 1896. Matisse felt this to be one of Cezanne's most important works.

"His series of paintings showing bathers present one of the great dreams of mankind, the dream of union with Nature, the longing for an earthly paradise."
from 'Cezanne' by Hajo Duchting, Tachen 1999.

Matisse refused to sell the piece through periods of financial challenges.
"In the thirty-seven years I have owned this canvas...in the critical moments of my venture as an artist it has restored my spirit; it has been the source of my belief and my endurance."

Scan Art

2009-11-23T09:27:00.000-08:00

A scanner is a camera I can boss around. It is accessible. I can work backwards... how often can you say that about art?

Scanning opens a window into projects I started with love and stopped, thinking them too close to the surface; images from childhood, remnants of dresses I wish I could wear, secrets.

"Kittens" 2006

Happy Birthday

2009-11-18T08:14:00.000-08:00

You are still that child inside

The one with the silly hat feet too big for the body

Wearing moms wig/shoes/red lipstick

Giggling everyday often

Wet from too much ocean/rain/mud and you are not cold

Dizzy with Halloween candy and easter basket chocolate

Giving away paintings and putting on ‘free’plays

Singing cowboy songs to the record player in the basement

And dancing dancing dancing.

The Gateless Gate

2009-11-15T21:58:00.000-08:00

"The great path has no gates,
Thousands of roads enter it.
When one passes through this gateless gate
He walks freely between heaven and earth."

Mumon Ekai (1183 - 1260)

http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/zen/mumonkan.htm

goosebumps and happy tears

2009-11-12T22:18:00.000-08:00

A response from Sheila Berger to November 4 post~

"...I was struck by your last name--the painting you chose and have felt compelled to write you.

When I began the blue series, I spent many hours at the Natural History museum in NYC. I would look endlessly at the bioluminescent
creatures that lived deep in the ocean. Nature is so incredible-living things adapting to darkness by lighting themselves up became a metaphor to attempt to find the light within myself and others.

Finding clarity and light are what we all seek, I believe--so in that spirit, I thank you for your blog and believe it was not an accident that the Lumen found the BioLuminescence...."

http://www.sheilaberger.com/
pictured above Aquatic Dreams on Land, 2006, 14'' x 18''

Pond at San Juan Capistrano Mission

2009-11-11T22:42:00.000-08:00

“When we do things with only a part of the mind, we are just skimming the surface of life. Nothing sinks in; nothing has real impact. It leads to an empty feeling inside. Unfortunately, it is this very emptiness that drives us to pack in even more, seeking desperately to fill the void in our hearts. What we need to do is just the opposite: to slow down and live completely in the present. Then every moment will be full.” —
Eknath Easwaran

Bad Art Thingies & the Inner Snick

2009-11-09T19:36:00.000-08:00

About a decade ago I read an article about building community through making ‘bad art thingies’ together. The idea: A neighborhood host volunteers his home and kitchen table, and participants bring potluck food and recyclable materials -- empty cereal boxes, fabric scraps, sequins, wrapping paper, old birthday cards, toilet paper tubes, etc.

The host provides basics like scissors, crayons and markers, construction paper, glue and staples, and decides whether to open up the creative possibilities by including hot glue guns and paint.

The process: Sit down at the table and make something out of the stuff. It could be an oatmeal container with glitter, two straws and sections of the comics taped to the side. No rules, except talk, eat, share supplies and techniques. Then take home your thingie. Or swap thingies. Toss thingie.

This made me unexplainably, wildly happy. I ran to the garage and pulled out an empty laundry soap holder. I brought it into the studio and started covering the sides, using old wallpaper, stamped cardboard, scraps of old paintings I never liked, postcards, spiraled pipe cleaners, etc.
Breathless with the complete absence of the ‘inner snick’—I was in kindergarten again, smiling and singing away. The humble nature of the materials freed me up. The only part missing was that thick paste with a paddle attached to the lid that smelled like wintergreen lifesavers.
My husband who didn’t read the article, saw my thingie and said, “Uh, honey, where are you going to sell that?”

I still have it. I invite you to make one. Feed the Beauty.
If anyone knows where I can find the article mentioned above, please let me know.<

Crystal Cove, Laguna Beach, CA

2009-11-07T11:40:00.000-08:00

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”

The encaustic work of Sheila Berger

2009-11-04T18:11:00.000-08:00

Falling and Floating, 2006, 30'' x 45'' triptych

"Influenced by a lifetime of travel to some of the most remote parts of the globe, Berger's paintings are both a reflection of the visual richness of these experiences and a space to pause. Here, the world's fecundity is both marked yet stilled. As Berger's process is a slow and ritualistic one, the work likewise demands the viewer's quiet concentration, gift of time, and a willingness to listen to their silence.

Part of Berger's pleasure in crafting these paintings is the celebration of a technique unchanged for thousands of years: the melting of encaustic, repeatedly painting her special custom-made wooden panels until they have the desired texture.

The result is a tabula rasa awaiting Berger's impressions. With the introduction of pigments, and the use of wood-block patterns some centuries old--Berger, like an exacting alchemist, builds each painting into a palimpsest of memories, moods and emotion, welcome emptiness incised, such varied signs of life.

...Growth, change, creation – Berger's work is a hopeful and fertile present to us all."

By Adrian Dannat, for Paul Kasmin Gallery, 2009 www.paulkasmingallery.com

Sheila's work can also be seen at www.sheilaberger.com

"We find what is funny"

2009-10-30T09:20:00.000-07:00

I recently met 'Isabel', a lovely woman who is rapidly approaching her 90th birthday, and her daughter 'Rhea' at my day job. Isabel is an intelligent, alert lady who despite a serious heart condition displays an active interest in others and her environment. Rhea has a good natured, healthy, fresh-air feel about her, and clearly enjoys her mothers company. Isabel proudly told me that Rhea works out every day, walks and bikes on a trail nearby their home...and that she has had MS for 30 years.

They asked questions, told stories and laughed. While they were laughing Isabel piped in, "We laugh all the time. We think so much is funny--we find what is funny. That's what we do."

from The Quiet Eye by Sylvia Shaw Judson

2009-10-28T22:07:00.000-07:00

"When you love someone, you love him as he is."

Charles Peguy, French (1873-1914)

Cloth Napkins

2009-10-26T16:16:00.000-07:00

We decided a few years ago that we would commit to using cloth napkins instead of paper. My daughter protested at first when she realized it would be her ongoing chore to fold clean napkins and put them away. Then one summer she went to a day camp for homemaking skills. Besides menu planning and a field trip to the grocery store, lo and behold there was a unit on napkin folding. There she learned to fold napkins in the shape of a rose, a bishop's hat, a pyramid, and a flute for champagne glasses. She was taught where to place the creation on a table setting. It changed everything. Now if a friend is at the house on a 'napkin day,' he or she will be brought into the ritual, and patiently taught to fold a rose.

Sunday Afternoon

2009-10-25T17:03:00.000-07:00

"We apprehend Him in the alternate voids and fullness of a cathedral; in the space that separates the salient features of a picture; in the living geometry of a flower, a seashell, an animal; in the pauses and intervals between the notes of music, in their difference of tones and sonority; and finally, on the plane of conduct, in the love and gentleness, the confidence and humility, which give beauty to the relationships between human beings."

Aldous Huxley