My vocation is writing, but my avocation is painting, mostly portraits. I belong to a Facebook group dedicated to showing the work of artists who are trying to create loose watercolor paintings. Members range from people whose pieces could be displayed at a prestigious museum to beginners who are asking for comments and helpful tips on their first attempts. A self-avowed beginner posted several portraits online. Using vivid colors and bold strokes, her paintings portrayed purple bruises, blood flowing, and anguished expressions. Each portrait revealed the artist’s compassion for the difficult lives of her subjects, … Continue reading Don’t Let Anyone Break Your Creative Heart by Deborah M. Prum→
Autumn is officially over, leaves finally cleared, trees naked, winter sky a show of planets that begins early with Venus glazing the western sky. It’s time to dwell briefly at the door between the old year and new one, beginning with the month (January) named after the Roman god Janus. In mythology, Janus is depicted with two faces, one looking forward into the future, the other looking back into the past. Often shown holding a key, he is the protector of thresholds, gates, and openings. I spend New Year’s Day flipping back through my calendar, … Continue reading New Year by Sharon Perkins Ackerman→
If I do a search for poems with the word light in the title, I get 12,600 hits. For dark, I get 6,000. This doesn’t scratch the surface of how many times “light” appears buried within stanzas. Can it be that we poets, blackly contemplative as we’re perceived, are at least twice as obsessed with light as darkness? After the leaves fall and days shorten, we begin to make our own light. Red and green and blue twinkle up and down my road, colored stars sprinkle rooftops of barns. We offer this glow to the … Continue reading Mehr Licht by Sharon Perkins Ackerman→
Through a dimly lit haze, I see myself in my adult son’s psych ward room, gathering his things into a paper bag so we can check out. I place his clothes, extra pair of shoes, personal items into a grocery sack because the beautiful twilight iridescent duffle bag (mine) that they arrived in seven days prior has now gone missing according to the nursing staff. On the flat wooden rail atop the half wall separating the wash sink from his sleeping area is a tiled, rectangular trivet sort of thing. “Nick,” I say, “is this … Continue reading The Trivet by Nancy Halgren→
“It is true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality.” —George Orwell “Why I Write” (1947) Several months ago (23 September 2024) Miles Fowler wrote a Street Talk blog titled “The Thinly Disguised Autobiography” which provoked me to reflect on this “courageous or foolhardy” activity. Naturally, many writers entertain the notion of writing about themselves; personal experience being a writer’s primary resource. Autobiography differs from biography in that the author is still alive! I say this flippantly as biography can be of a person alive … Continue reading A Bragging Humility by Fred Wilbur→
When have you been convinced to change your mind? How did it happen? By negotiation? By beauty? By lament? By shock or threat? By what? The question and poem prompt by the Irish poet Padraig O Tuama from Poetry Unbound intrigued me. But nothing came to mind. Certainly not any dramatic on-the-road-to-Damascus, ‘see the light,’ kind of thinking. Until last night. But first let me set the stage. Nov. 6 I was in Memphis with my daughter to attend my godson’s wedding and visit old friends. Outside the Peabody Hotel the sky was overcast, low … Continue reading On the Edge by Trudy Hale→
My photography employs minimalist classical shooting techniques which offer a throwback alternative to computer driven modern photography. This approach carries the label Forensic Foraging in a nod to the plodding techniques of early crime scene pictorial work. Forensic Foraging is not in direct competition with any other shooting approach. It is only a carefully considered recognition that the basic techniques which made photography great in the first place can still have considerable relevance in today’s digital world. I seek to lift everyday subjects up into pleasing eye candy by recording them in a visual … Continue reading William Crawford’s New Photography→
I LOVE shoes. I have loved shoes for as long as I can remember, but it wasn’t until I became an adult that I had the disposable income to explore what that really meant. Growing up as the daughter of a pastor at a small midwestern church, there wasn’t a lot of money for anything that wasn’t a necessity. Expensive, sparkly shoes did not fit the criteria. I’ll be honest, my favorite shoes these days are my Converse . . . solid, comfortable, and easy to wear. My six-year-old daughter shares my love for them, … Continue reading Shoe Story by J. Tara Scott→
Photo by Yucel Moran on Unsplash . My website recently asked if I’d like some assistance composing a blog post. As I’m hopelessly behind in the book marketing department for Allegiance (promoting myself ranks right up there with a colonoscopy prep), I think: God, yes! I’ll take any help I can get! AI generously provided a menu of topics to choose from (crafting quirky characters, laughter as a writing tool, secrets revealed.) I clicked on humor as a theme. Before getting started though, I found myself glancing around for Mrs. Goode—my 4th grade teacher. … Continue reading The Art Of Unconventional Wit — With An AI Assist by Erika Raskin→
As writers, artists, creators, we can sometimes lose sight of our purpose in the struggle to generate our work. Our culture, certainly, adds to the belief that art is not valuable—we are rarely rewarded financially or honored socially. And the existential threat of AI seems to mock us saying that the work is easy, cheap, impersonal, disposable. Like fast food, fast fashion, we suddenly have “fast art.” Is it satisfying? Is it nutritious? Does it sustain us as artists? Does it sustain our audience? This idea of fast art has always been around. AI is … Continue reading Fast Art by Kate Bennis→
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