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| Edward Hopper, Eleven AM, 1926 |
The new word: LONG
A good night, last night, although we went a tad late, and everyone was feeling the weight of Week 2 in the Berkeley semester. After seeing your projects for TOUCH, I suggested a double word. Let me revise that. The word to work from is LONG. The notion of OPEN should apply to everything we do. How's that for a clarification?
Welcome to Suok (good comments, bright smile) and to Jorge (look forward to your drawings). Cat and Katia, too. And glad to see the rest of you again--and to learn a little more about each one of you (through your own introductions, and your first projects.) You'll see soon enough, as the course develops, that each person's work becomes a kind of touchstone--one project influencing/reflecting the others... That's a good way to think about work. And remember the notion of letting the work develop "of its own volition"--that is, where the discovery of what you make happens in the making...
Also: Do be shooting a photo record of your projects each week. We'll discuss this next time.
And a poem by Theodore Roethke (American, 1908-1963). I'm sending it because of how he writes as well as the subject. Note that I don't intend it to relate to LONG in any direct way. So read it independently--as something to reflect on--and as a beautiful encouragement...
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
Theodore Roethke, “The Waking” from Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke. Copyright 1953 by Theodore Roethke. Reprinted with the permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.
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