"This work is unlike any other, in its range of rich, conjuring imagery and its dexterity, its smart voice. Carroll-Hackett doesn’t spare us—but doesn’t save us—she draws a blueprint of power and class with her unflinching pivot: matter-of-fact and tender." —Jan Beatty
“The falling leaves, all over the forest, are protecting the roots of my plants. Only look at what is to be seen, and you will have garden enough, without deepening the soil in your yard. We have only to elevate our view a little to see the whole forest as a garden.” ~Thoreau
Make art about ‘garden enough.’
10/2/2016
Driving back from WV, I stopped for gas, and Road Angel Louise tells me her story of trying to recover from the recent flooding, what it’s like to lose so much. “Just go from here, I reckon,” she said.
Make art about rebounding from tragedy, about how we ‘just go from here.’
10/3/2016
Dreamt someone I love brought me apples, Honey Crisp and Red Delicious, Granny Smith and Winesap, even a couple of Arkansas Black. He sliced one with his sharp knife, and smiling, said, Here you go, Missy. A taste of what’s to come.
Make art about the taste of autumn. Or about what’s to come.
The most recent book from one of my always favorite poets, Pattiann Rogers.
Ms. Rogershas published eleven books of poetry; two book-length essay collections, The Dream of the Marsh Wrenand The Grand Array; and A Covenant of Seasons, poems and monotypes, in collaboration with Joellyn Duesberry. She is the recipient of two NEA grants, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Lannan Literary Award for poetry. She lives in Colorado.
“I believe Pattiann Rogers walks the world at night when we are sleeping. Her poems are translations of our dreaming life—what we know to be true but fail to remember. We read her words, sentence by sentence, image by image, and return to all that is beautiful, mysterious, and erotic.” —Terry Tempest Williams
“Pattiann Rogers is a visionary of reality, perceiving the material world with such intensity of response that impulse, intention, meaning, interconnections beyond the skin of appearance are revealed. Her language, unmarred by clichés, springs up out of a sense of how various and endlessly amazing are the forms of life and the human ability to notice them.” —Denise Levertov
“How the densely detailed, thickly textured, imaged stanzas of Pattiann Rogers result in so much light-as-air wonderment is surely one of the greater questions—one of the greater magics—of contemporary poetry. But however it happens, we must be thankful—for both the science text and the psalter of her work, for both the physical abundance and for the spirit flimmering over it.” —Albert Goldbarth
Dreamt I sat by a river, stacking stones, gray pebbles, that I built into a small curved wall, then dismantled, piece by piece, the stones smooth and slick in my hands.
Rocks act as the memory for our planet. By examining their elemental makeup and physical structure, scientists can understand the history of the earth. The fossil records left in rock formations literally describe our planet’s journey through time. Seen in this light, even the stones and pebbles we find in our backyards are pieces of the ancient past and the secrets of how we came to be in this vast universe.
“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”– T.E. Lawrence
It’s my oldest son’s birthday today. I never could have know, twenty-eight years ago, that I wasn’t just having a baby: I was meeting one of my best ever friends.
Make art about adult children. Or about best friends.
With my oldest son J, early 1989
9/21/2016
Make art about lighting a candle for someone you Love.
9/22/2016
Been thinking all day about living in other times. I would have made a terrible Victorian woman 🙂
Make art imagining yourself in another time, another era.
Spent a lot of time the last two days in traffic jams.
Make art about something unexpectedly positive arising from being stuck in a traffic jam.
8/25/2016
Make art about ceremony.
8/26/2016
Make art about grandmothers.
8/27/2016
Make art about spirituality or faith as a spectator sport.
8/28/2016
Make art about realizing you already had what you though your were looking for.
8/29/2016
Make art about finding family, or about the family you choose, rather than the one you were born to.
8/30/2016
Mercury goes into a three week retrograde, starting today. Careful with communication and travel plans.
Make art about something spinning backwards, or about a snafu in communication or travel.
8/31/2016
Make art about taking a shortcut.
9/1/2016
Make art about coming back home.
9/2/2016
Make art about a specific request from a child.
9/3/2016
Make art about dragons.
9/4/2016
Interestingly, the word dragon derives from two separate Greek words. One word means “a huge serpent or snake” and the other means “I see clearly”.
Make art about seeing the panoramic view, the big picture.
9/5/2016
Make art about getting your wings.
9/6/2016
Recently witnessed a young man in line at the grocery store pay for the purchases of the stranger behind him, just as an act of kindness.
Make art about an act of kindness toward a stranger.
9/7/2016
In that same grocery store line, the woman behind me, even after having witnessed the young man’s spontaneous act of kindness, ranted on about how awful young ones are.
Make art about being blind to what’s right before you.
9/8/2016
Soundtrack for the day: R.E.M.
Make art about losing your religion.
9/9/2016
Whoever the next man in my life turns out to be, he’s gonna need to love onions 🙂 or at least be tolerant of how much I love em.
Make art about loving someone in spite of themselves 🙂
9/10/2016
I have been diagnosed with Complicated Grief Based PTSD. PTSD is so misunderstood.
Make art about PTSD, about the echoes and scars of trauma.
9/11/2016
The sky was so blue that day.
Make art about the tension of beauty set against tragedy.
9/12/2016
“Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy.” (Proverbs 14:10).
Make art about healing bitterness. Or about finding compassion for a bitter person.
9/13/2016
“Where is a woman, there is magic. If there is a moon falling from her mouth, she is a woman who knows her magic, who can share or not share her powers. A woman with a moon falling from her mouth, roses between her legs, and tiaras of Spanish moss, this woman is a consort with the spirits.”~Nzotake Shange. Ms. Shange has inspired me since my teen years. She still does, every day.
Pick a line from a writer who has inspired you for years, and use it to inspire art.
9/14/2016
Make art about the Harvest Moon. Or about an eclipse. Use either as a metaphor in a new and different way.
9/15/2016
Make art about stitches, something sewn together, or something coming apart at the seams.
9/16/2016
Make art about a late night visitor.
9/17/2016
We managed to surprise my oldest son with a birthday celebration today 🙂 Not an easy task to catch him off guard that way 🙂
Make art about surprising someone.
9/18/2016
Came home from my walk to find The Fisher King on TV, one of my favorite movies.
Make art inspired by a scene from a favorite film.
9/19/2016
Writing today about a particularly tough lesson I learned.
Ms. Rogers
Mary Carroll-Hackett: Poetry and Prose 
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