walking backwards

I saw a tall boy walking down the street backwards today.  I was glad to see he kept turning his head to see what was coming up especially in the intersection.  He reminded me of myself...

ink  bfk rives 11x15

ink  bfk rives 11x15

the old oak

...the old oak that grew next to the house and whose roots unfortunately grew into the basement -has come down.  In one of the stories in Kwaidan a samurai meets an exceedingly lovely charming girl in the forest.  He falls in love with her and she comes to live with him for five wonderful years -but then she dies and in his sorrow he wanders in the forest where he met her.  He realizes he is at the place where they met though it is confusing for the extraordinarily beautiful tree she sat under when he first saw her is cut down and all is gone...

what we see inside the tree  

ink  bfk rives 11x15

the lovely oak is down

ink  bfk rives 11x15

Starin' at pottery

We're working' backward in order to catch up.  Not that anybody's count in' 'cept me.  I kinda like these two...remind me of when I'm starin' at pottery.

ink  bfk rives 11x15

ink  bfk rives 11x15

kwaidan

Well that was a strange swampy nightmare that seemed to last most of the month...but thank god because I was able to read a bunch which I haven't done in a while.  And the best read was to once more pick up Lafcadio Hearn and read Kawidan again.  Have you seen the film of this book?  It is very beautiful. 

 Now every thing is working once again and I will have the blog a'goin' trippin' down the road  and a singin'...

ink  bfk rives 11x15

ink  bfk rives 11x15

clear as mud

An it were lyin there

clear as mud

then it got itself an spit at me

fast as a bug

ink  bfk rives 11x15

ink oil  bfk rives 11x15

the turtle artist

As his health improves he climbs out of his muddy leaf encrusted space and lets his head out, then one foot an then another...opens his eyes and crawls to the kitchen table.  He finds two sheets of unused paper and slowly starts gluing things to it...

collage  bfk rives 11x15

collage  bfk rives 11x15

I'm thinking about mud

I was really sick this week...not throwing up stuff...just that swampy cold muddy sort of stuff and you can barely stay awake.  I thought of those deep holes alligators dig in the mud and put their eggs in and come up from there when the need food...and I thought of a young boy I once knew who realized in one still moment walking into a strange sandy pond that  a single wrong step however slight would be his last...

ink watercolor bfk rives 11x15

ink  bfk rives 11x15

wait a sec

Let us briefly -as before- muddy the waters...this time by discussing subjects that do not deal with these paintings although I must say I like this top one.  It is growing on me.

ink  rives bfk 11x15

ink rives 11x15

ink  rives 11x15

Ah heck I like em all really.   And that happens a bunch.  I review them sitting or standing more likely,  my hand theoretically on my chin.  And I look at them with temporary academic bemusement...you know looking askance, developing theoretical judgements etc., a sort of of hmm coming out of me as if I am partially a bee.  But if I like them I just go -well these I like.  So I put them away and move on.

reality

It is often tempting-though less so these days- to think of "reality" as something of a surface, both concealing and transmitting unacknowledged thoughts, feelings and behaviors...not always a truth but a partial truth...  Lisa Thatcher

ink  rives bfk 11x15

ink rives bfk 11x15

a roof over our head

I like that phrase...a roof over our head...and I like all of them...though I don't think they are called idioms.  Idioms seem to be more the structural makings in a language.  These are simply phrases that last a few years...like maybe 25 years then pass away.  We should make a list of them.  Maybe you can start for us.

ink  rives bfk 11x15

ink  rives bfk 11x15

ink  rives bfk 11x15

these young guys are getting out of hand...I'm finding them everywhere, unsigned, unfinished, just sitting around eating the food, playing video games, etc. etc.  I can't ever remember which I've posted, or put on restriction, or sent outside to leave me alone...