Ghosted

I offered you my heart,

plattered. You weren't hungry.

The silver was tarnished.

You bricked it in,

untasted, to your hollow chest,

bloodied and beating,

unconcerned that you

might be killing me.

I chose poorly.

Your vision was narrowed,

blindered and staring,

seeing only the inside

of your own skull.

I carved away my pound of flesh.

I could never slice off enough.

You taste nothing;

your appetite, ravenous.

Can I have my heart back now?

The buffet is closed.

Find it here.

Peeled

My reflection is worn and weary.
I check every day.
She never alters for the better.

The mirror cracks.
Alice stranded on the wrong side.
Impossible Alice,
flushed from her victory
over the Red Queen,
fresh and full of hot tea and cakes,
smoked and delicious.

I peel her apple skin,
round and round and round,
from bottom to top.

I wear her well.
She hangs a little loose.
I can make adjustments.

I left her lying there,
flayed and quiet,
cored and tasteless.

Dig the hole deep.
Six feet.  Twelve feet.
A nail through her forehead,
heart staked.

She will not grope her way out
of her grave.
She will not rise, to walk,
a zombie at rest.

I prefer my pie 
with cinnamon and nutmeg.

Find it here.

Your Monster

My self identity was so many pieces
stitched together on your slab,
an almost person, cold and dead.

You meant nothing to me;
my heart lifeless in your eager hands.

You flipped the switch.
Some monsters are better left dead.

The spark of life flickered.  You fled.
You couldn't face what you created.

Love beating within me was never your intention.

The only way to protect my resurrection of feeling
was to hide its beat behind corpse eyes;
I worked to control the killing urge 
of my fingers, which itched to betray me
and summon their master, their maker,
even  knowing that you would only flee
faster and farther from our grasp.

No matter the distance,
I can feel the waves of horror and hatred
at what you gave life to.  The needle shakes in your hand.
The electric current, a lightning flash, burnt us both.

Undo the stitches.  Throw the pieces back into the grave
you dug them from.  Take back the life you inflicted on me.

Your revulsion only feeds the continued beating of my heart.

Find it here.

The Green Silence

I was runner up to your queen.
You fulfilled all your obligations.
I languished as understudy.

I never learned to be true blue.
Green suited me better.

A black hole to your rising sun,
a whirling pit of negativity,
a weed in shadow
while your rose bloomed.

I lived on leftovers,
the queue of mediocrity,
the rejects, wannabes and never weres,
the Calibans longing for Miranda.

Wearing a leather jacket 
doesn't make you Joey Ramone.

Caliban learned to hate
what he could never possess.
Passion becomes poison
whispering in the dark.

Blue roses never bloom,
stunted in their growth.
My betrayal blossomed
in reptilian silence.
The greenery flourished.

Heartless

Your heart trembled in my hands;
my eyes, blind.
The men were my mirror.
My self work so much
spilled semen on satin sheets.

You left your door open.  
I chose the window.
I thought he was my vision quest,
my knight in the sweat lodge.

He clanked in,
full of answers
to the wrong questions.

I left you; lost you;
your heart so much shrapnel 
beneath my hooves,
charging the wrong way.

Just Be

Everything you ever did wrong
you wanted to fix with me, 
your tweaked rerun.
The casting was all wrong.

A bean sprouted from disappointed dreams,
I went off script, losing 
the pink swirls, the tea parties,
and the porcelain dolls.

Your prototype miscarried 
into gothic horror,
tarot card spreads and spirits
calling from the darkness.

My wings didn't sprout.
The tiara never fit.
My shields failed.

Layers of masks;
the paint is peeling.
Alterations and cuts,
the skin doesn't fit.

I struggle to breathe; to cut;
I'm corseted into the wrong role,
robed as an ill favored caricature.

I'm shedding your skin
into something reptilian and sleek.
Dropping the masks,
I still won't wear pink

Friendship is War

I loved a Botticelli artist,
Medici nosed and sewer deep.
You took him.

Cutting cheekbones
your heavy arsenal.
Victory was inevitable.

Scalps lined your shelves
from Joe Punk
to Evil Personified.

Friendship is war.

We were dolls to be broken
and dropped.

Stand on the pile,
your battle plans to self esteem.

Shredded

I judged your profile,
forgetting Lord Byron was a bastard.

You were a garret in Paris,
a moth in the darkness.

I brought my black bag,
brimming with legs and breasts.
I couldn't cure you.
The infection was too ingrained.

Your pretty words
turned my head 360.
Your hook was barbed.
I swallowed.

The fight was pitiful.
You cut the line,

leaving me numb,
among the splatter,
my faith torn,
my feet shredded,
your cock broken.

Winged Alice and the Keyblade of Doom

Your cigarette blown words
lodge firmly in my back.

Losing a toe or three 
keeps me swaying on the beam.

My fluted mouth stiffens.
I drop more than my shirt 
in the parading maze of dazed revelers
sweating in the Carnival swelter.

Twinned but not;
best friend for never.
Dissected from skin to bone.
The stripes on my pants are all wrong.

The paper mache grizzly,
the Army green ginger,
neither fits.
Your German blonde elevates you
to the balcony scene.

Keeping my mask carefully blank,
I fall into beta position.

In the garbage piled streets,
no one wants to vomit alone.

Keep Your Heart Safe

The older I get, the more guarded I become.  

I think it's inevitable that, over time, we become more wary of sharing our heart and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable.

The caged heart has sustained some damage.  My grimly determined Victorian avatar has opted to place her heart carefully under guard.

She can't risk letting herself be harmed again.

Her heart just couldn't take it.  Another injury and her heart might break beyond repair.

But, just because you are determined to protect yourself, doesn't mean that someone might not try to breach your defenses...

Pardon the overly phallic symbolism, but our guarded Victorian lady just might have to weigh her options....

Is he worth the risk?

Think carefully!

Lord Jaune Dapper and his Magickal Space Unicorn

Some days when I am feeling down and it seems like nothing will go my way ever again, I like to think about Lord Jaune Dapper and remember that he didn't always have such a fantastic sense of style; he didn't always journey with the magnificent beast that currently stands at his side.

Sometimes people cannot see the awesomeness inside themselves.  Lord Jaune Dapper didn't always realize how special he was.

He dressed in dark, somber colors.  He lingered despondently in the shadows, but then, he met the Magickal Space Unicorn.  

The Magickal Space Unicorn helped Lord Jaune to realize his own inner awesomeness.  

Lord Jaune no longer wanted to hide.  He wanted to flaunt his spectacular style and shine.

Huzzah, Lord Jaune Dapper.  Huzzah!

That is how I feel about my art.  

I refuse to slink about the internet, only posting my artwork to a few.  

I want to share it with the world!

The Gator Cycle

Amazing how a single word can send your mind spinning down strange avenues...

Pink...pink..PINK...pink....

I couldn't help but think of the very pink house that I saw a few weeks ago near the edge of the French Quarter.  The one thought I had upon raising the camera was that I didn't know if I had ever seen a house so very pink.

The rest just fell into place.  I've always loved the Victorian ventricle horses and I had just tinkered with a gator so marrying the two into one simply made sense.  

Ride, little girl, ride!  

To the ends of your imagination and beyond!

Some Doors are Better Left Shut

I finished another piece in my French Quarter character series.

Some doors are better left shut!

It was fun to make use of two different photographic series: the ones I took just a few weeks ago in the French Quarter and an image I took a few weeks before that during a tour I took of Lafayette Cemetery with my sister.

I gave the young Civil War era miss one of my folk art Voodoo Goblins to carry and I tucked my recurring character, the Quarter Cat, half in and half out of the door.

The Quarter Cat likes to make an appearance when our world blends briefly with another, something darker, something a little otherworldly

Hopefully, our young miss will chose not to cross the threshold into the darker world.  I cannot think that is a world that she is quite ready for!

I love the theory that we are living in an almost endless universe, with thousands and thousands of similar universes stacked one against another.  Perhaps a door opens between our universe and one of the many others.  Sort of makes everyday life a little more exciting.

Quarter Gator Girl

Missing New Orleans, as I have been of late, I thought it would be fun to work on a series on the French Quarter, making use of some of the 538 pictures I took there a few weeks ago on my birthday outing.  (I turned 39, again, so it was a very special one!)

One of the things that the French Quarter is known for is its eccentric denizens, the quirky characters that live and work there.

Seemed like the perfect subject for a new series!  (don't worry, I am still planning on continuing with my Side Show series as well as the much longer Tarot card series)

Of course, fact is stranger than artistic fiction so I've no doubt that my imaginary cast of characters is no where near as charming or odd as the real residents, but, I think, they are still rather a fun lot!

Beloved New Orleans

Ah, New Orleans, my Beloved, the City that Care Forget, the City that Time Forget.

The first time I ever fell in love with a place was when I first walked the heavily shaded streets of a city the like of which I had never even dreamed existed.  I was a child of the modern suburbs.  I remember a stirring of similar feeling when I had briefly visited Savannah as a child, but I had never truly felt the deep love of a place like I did during the days I lived in New Orleans.

New Orleans has a reach deep history.  The streets are peopled with stories and legends.  You can take historical tour after historical tour and only get a brief taste of what is to be savored.

The architecture is unlike anything that you see in most of modern America.  A local historian once described it to me as the northernmost city in the Caribbean.  The iron wire work of the balconies and galleries is beautifully intricate.  The stonework has a deliciously aged patina.  The colors of the cottages are bright, even garish.

It was something so far outside my experience as a teenager on the brink of adulthood, but something about it just felt like home.

Still, we are talking about a city that is below sea level.  A city that is really little more than a swamp just waiting to happen.  Disaster after disaster have struck the city over the centuries, from devastating fires, to epic plagues, to the fury of monster hurricanes.  The city stands.

"Laissez les bon temps roulez."  Pour me another round.

How can I help but love that irrepressible, unrepentant attitude?

I've lived in Baton Rouge for several years now and I have grown to respect and enjoy the capitol city very much, but every time I get a chance to visit New Orleans, I take it.  I come away with a renewed love, a little bit of heartache, and unstoppable homesickness.

I've been playing a lot recently with mixing contrasting images from my photographs.  The past few days I was scrolling through a series I shot in the Lafayette Cemetery in the Garden District and was struck afresh by the beauty of those centuries old tombs: the patina of the stone, the exposed brickwork, the greenery that cannot be repressed and finds the cracks and crannies and insists on flourishing where there would otherwise only be death.

I juxtaposed a few of those tombs with the vibrancy of the downtown French Quarter but with, "Beloved", I took it in a different direction.

The finished piece almost looks like an odd bit of graffiti on a brick wall but it's pure mixed media showcasing the texture from different tombs in the Lafayette Cemetery.

If you ever do make it to New Orleans, I cannot recommend enough a visit or even a tour of one of our local cemeteries.  Better known as "Cities of the Dead", they are an experience all their own.  The Garden District tours I have taken spent a little too much time on the comings and goings of some of our local Hollywood residents, who move in and move on.  The Garden District itself is amazing with large opulent homes dripping with expensive elegance, but my favorite part of the tour is always the cemetery.

Maybe I'm a little dark.  Maybe.  But life in New Orleans always has that edge of darkness, knowing that disaster can be just around the corner.  Just put on your best party outfit and pour another drink.

Always remember.  "Laissez les bon temps roulez!"

Gather Ye Rosebuds

I've been on a bit of a photography spree of late.  As a birthday treat, I spent a day in the French Quarter photographing all the things.  I really wanted to capture a lot of the amazing residential portion of the French Quarter, but as temperatures inched up toward 90, I definitely started to lose my drive.

I agreed to meet a friend at the St Roch Market for lunch so it seemed like a perfect time for a break.  Walking toward Elysian Fields and beyond, I realized where I really should have been taking photos all day.  The houses are fantastic.  The colors are brilliant and the cottages are classic New Orleans.

I will definitely have to head back to New Orleans for another day of photography.  Hopefully, another day when I am less likely to melt.  

I spent a few hours in the Garden District a few week back.  The houses there are overwhelmingly elegant and grand.  I find I prefer the more modest shotgun cottage in all their gaudy Creole glory.

With my new embarrassingly large largess of photographs, I thought it would be fun to play with some more mixing.  

My initial thought was to take the idea of Gathering Ye Rosebuds to the nth degree and make my young girls actual rosebuds, but as the image evolved, I decided to leave my young misses with their lovely faces intact.

I tinkered with the color scheme from bright to dark.  I even tried a version without any young ladies but finally settled on my favorite.

GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

The Gypsy Connection

Lately, I have been feeling an increasingly strong connection to my past lineage.  My father's mother descends from a Romani background.  While I've always had a streak of mysticism in my nature, reflected in my enduring love of the Tarot, I've also been most comfortable in familiar surroundings.  I like having a stable home base.  I never felt the need to travel or constantly change my environment.

Traditionally, the Romani people live out of a caravan.  They travel, almost constantly, selling and working each new day, and at each new stop, to survive.  I never felt a connection to that type of life.

And, then, I began to market my art.  Almost every weekend, now, I load my car and travel to an art market.  I set up a tent.  I hang up my wares.  I have established that connection.  It's only a mere glimpse, and a weak shadow reflection of their lives, but I can feel that long road of women, traveling, and selling, connected all the way to me, and my new life as a traveling artist.  

Last year, one of my long term project goals was to create my own interpretation of the Major Arcana cards of the Tarot.  I wanted to honor my past in my present vocation.

I started, made the first three cards, and then stopped.  I wasn't satisfied with the images.  I couldn't feel my great love for the Tarot and its mysteries reflected in my work so I stopped.

I've received a lot of positive feedback for my first card of the Tarot, the Magician.  I took a new look at this project, reflecting again on my new found sense of connection with my Romani past and realized that I really just needed to re-visualize my plans for the cards.

With that in mind, I re-approached the High Priestess card and came away with an art piece that I like.  It inspired me to re-boot the whole project.

I'm pleased to be exploring that part of my life and my past even as it reflects who I am now and what I envision as my future as an artist.

Look for more of my Major Arcana pieces as the year unfolds!

Markets Markets Everywhere - Getting my Work SEEN

If you follow my blog, you may remember that I took a class last spring - "Artist as Entrepreneur" through the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge.  I learned a great deal, including that I had been undervaluing my own work and its potential.

I learned about the competitive world of juried art shows.  I learned about taking your work directly to the world through local art markets and juried art festivals.  I discovered that there is a solid series of steps to follow if I want to work to place my work in galleries.  The potential is there.

So, I started walking the steps.  I applied to the Art Market in Baton Rouge and then the Art Market in New Orleans.  My setup for the markets was minimal and less than eye catching, but I started improving and upgrading.  

I had a tent, a few grid walls and some prints.  I soon realized that many potential buyers were walking by my booth without even noticing that it was there.

 I printed up some fabric hangings and a colorful banner and more people started stopping and noticing.  I realized though that, if I wanted to continue down the path of selling at art markets, I needed to upgrade to a more professional set up.

So, I finally broke down and upgraded my tent to my current set up.

It's definitely professional and my work is at the fore front.

As an emerging artist, I share the dream of most such artists, I want to make a living at what I love.  I feel as if I have something interesting, something different, something of significance to say with my work and I can best express that by being able to spend more of my time actually making art.

I am following the steps.  I am working on my website.  I am applying to and being accepted into juried shows.  I haven't been walking down this art path for very long so I know I need to be patient.  Most artists in my age bracket have been working toward success for decades.  Becoming established takes time.

So I making the most of mine!

If you are interested in seeing my work in person, I am currently selling at the Baton Rouge Art Market the first Saturday of every month;  the Lafayette Farmers and Artisans Market at the Horse Farm the third Saturday of every month, and at the New Orleans Art Market in Palmer Park the last Saturday of every month.

I also have work currently on display at the RRAA Depot Gallery in Gonzales as well as at the RRAA gallery at Houmas House.

Finally, I will be participating in an exciting art event in Baton Rouge which opens on the evening of March 7 - more information here!  

French Quarter Black bird- TAW challenge

One of the things I love about the natural world is the wide variety 

of animal life at different locales around the world.

Here is a fabulous example of a black bird from the region of southern Louisiana

pictured in front of her natural habitat in the French Quarter.

Laissez bon temps roulez, little birdie!

I LOVE Halloween - TAW Challenge

Our challenge this week from Take a Word blogspot was Halloween.

I started with a photo that I had taken of Lafayette Cemetery in New Orleans.

I made up this piece but the more I looked at it, the more it felt like two separate pieces.

It seemed as if the two halves don't really belong together or that 

the Victorian bat girl is too far from the Halloween tomb.  

She seems so beautifully framed in the middle of the 

walkway so I hated to try to scoot her closer.

So I decided to break the first artwork into two pieces.

I left the bat girl intact in her walkway, ready to fly up and create Halloween havoc.

I added some elements to my Halloween tomb.

I went back and forth with my tomb poem, finally deciding on a quote from 

Samuel Coleridge's Kubla Khan.  It seemed suitably romantic and eerie.