Lift Thine Eyes

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 10:28:24 -0800

Just yesterday I read a beautiful piece of work from a dear friend entitled Lift Thine Eyes. It prompted me to publish this painting and poem today. We wake.

A poem placed at 3 AM in any smoky place. Lift thine eyes.

The Tavern Closing Down

Under the blurred stars cruel wind is not so cruel.
Cat Fee Fee is drunk in her kitty dish.

I want to steal everything tonight.
That icy car on Twenty-fourth,
The slut’s purse slapping her hip.
I’ll steal your prayers and say them backward.
I’ll drink your piss and say you did it.
I’m stumbling and I’m steel.

Morning opens like a drawbridge.
I fall into day as if it is water.
The water turns to wine and I know Jesus.
There’s a ghoul in His beard who comes out by supper.
It takes me to the upper room but its puppy love.

Real love is at the tavern.
The scuff of the bartender’s shoe
can glean and clean me.
A wheezing bastard blesses us. We drink angels din.

And there’s a roving wild noise almost like nothing.
We sway to it, don’t we?

Then Miss Thang says she owns a private jet.
I find her eyelash on the floor
and paste it to her glass.
First she’ll pee then she’ll smoke and we’ll go.

I’m a hot pink furnace and she’s got the furnished room.
These words collide and go soft like fur.
Our mouths hook.
Blurred stars hook, our swaying hooks.
We’re a net reeling in the nighthawks.

(c)2011 Nancy Kiefer
Painting by Nancy Kiefer Oil on Paper 22 x 30

Mustard Seed Shoes

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 19:54:13 -0800

Wearing the Mustard Seed Shoes.

EXHIBIT Through Mid July

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 12:22:12 -0800

I will have three pieces from my Tales and Parables Album

THE WORLD THROUGH STORY
Interpretations of our world and experiences

Ida Culver House Broadview
12505 Greenwood Avenue N
Seattle, WA 98133
.
Exhibiting Artists:

Kari Berger
Tamalin Soleil Baumgarten
Kimberlie V. Brayman
Cathy Fields
Jenny Fillius
Dionne Hartounian &
Art Expressions Gallery
Nancy Kiefer
Claire Mack
Gustavo Martinez
Katy McFadden
Cheri O’Brien
Stan Raucher
Lee Rentz
Karen Richter
Juli Sipe
Tamara Stephas
edie whitsett

Rapunzel (detail)
Nancy Kiefer
30” x 22”
Mixed Media
Sold

Neruda - A Callarse (Redux)

Fri, 31 Dec 2010 15:41:50 -0800

Happy New Year!

Once again, this poem by Pablo Neruda rings in the New Year for me. Blessing to all!

KEEPING QUIET

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth
let's not speak in any language,
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines,
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victory with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), "Keeping Quiet"
Extravagaria (translated by Alastair Reid)
Jonathan Cape, London, 1972, pp.27-29
(original Estravagario, Editorial Losada, Buenos Aires, 1958)

A Callarse
Ahora contaremos doce
y nos quedamos todos quietos.
Por una vez sobre la tierra
no hablemos en ningun idioma,
por un segundo detengamonos,
no movamos tanto los brazos.

Seria un minuto fragante,
sin prisa, sin locomotoras,
todos estariamos juntos
en una inquietud instantanea.

Los pescadores del mar frio
no harian danio a las ballenas
y el trabajador de la sal
miraria sus manos rotas.

Los que preparan guerras verdes,
guerras de gas, guerras de fuego,
victorias sin sobrevivientes,
se pondrian un traje puro
y andarian con sus hermanos
por la sombra, sin hacer nada.

No se confunda lo que quiero
con la inaccion definitiva:
la vida es solo lo que se hace,
no quiero nada con la muerte.

Si no pudimos ser unanimes
moviendo tanto nuestras vidas,
tal vez no hacer nada una vez,
tal vez un gran silencio pueda
interrumpir esta tristeza,
este no entendernos jamas
y amenazarnos con la muerte,
tal vez la tierra nos ensenie
cuando todo parece muerto
y luego todo estaba vivo.

Ahora contare hasta doce
y tu te callas y me voy.

Extravagaria
Pablo Neruda
1958

Painting Red Stripe by Nancy Kiefer

The Arrival of the Bread

Sat, 25 Dec 2010 10:36:33 -0800

The bread has arrived. Here it is on the table. I have to leave now and answer the door. There is someone out there on the steps. They will have the wine.

Basket of Bread
Salvador Dali
Oil on panel
1945

The Parable of Departure

Sat, 18 Dec 2010 10:51:11 -0800

A woman sounded out the word departure. She understood the concept depart but she was not clear about ure. Did it require a suitcase? A certain tiptoeing across lawns, a heavy clomp clomp down a marble set of stairs? Or should she sit still, hands in her pockets until she was lifted off the ground by something unseen? She liked these questions more than life itself. Was it possible to pack a suitcase full of questions but never leave with it?

A man had a similar difficulty. He understood ure but depart was hazy. The more he thought about it the more the ceiling seemed to lower in his room, until, at one point, it reached the level of his nipples. He studied Geology, preferring the plate tectonics theory best: things rose up in one place and sunk in another. He trimmed his nails, polished his glasses, eating small but nutritious sandwiches, waiting for the fissure in the ground to open and take him.

These two never met, of course. I add the words of course. Now I have entered the picture. Is it true, then, that when one writes about departing one keeps entering?

As if I knew the course of anything. As if I knew the meaning of navigation. I who write this from my chair that may be some kind of boat but is perhaps not.

Nancy Kiefer

Tacita Dean
From The Roaring Forties
Chalk on masonite

http://www.tate.org.uk/research/tateresearch/tatepapers/10autumn/krcma.shtm

GRAVY Raymond Carver

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 10:29:09 -0800

Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Gravy--Gracious-Gratitude
Love those GRA words on a gray day

GRAVY

No other word will do. For that’s what it was. Gravy.
Gravy these past ten years.
Alive, sober, working, loving and
being loved by a good woman. Eleven years
ago he was told he had six months to live
at the rate he was going. And he was going
nowhere but down. So he changed his ways
somehow. He quit drinking! And the rest?
After that it was all gravy, every minute
of it, up to and including when he was told about,
well, some things that were breaking down and
building up inside his head. “Don’t weep for me,”
he said to his friends. “Im a lucky man.
I’ve had ten years longer than I or anyone
expected. Pure gravy. And don’t you forget it.”

Raymond Carver

Poet and writer Raymond Carver was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1988. He died in August of the same year. This poem comes from A New Path to the Waterfall and I took it from All of Us: Raymond Carver: The Collected Poems published by Knoph, 1996.

When I visit Yakima, Washington I think of Raymond living there as a kid. And when I forget to be grateful the Gravy poem seems to remember me.

Photo of Raymond Carver, taken in NYC , is by Marion Ettlinger.

The Last Dahlia of the Season

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 07:27:00 -0800

Drawing a Dahlia

One would think you would begin at its center. Yet, it is better to sketch the outer petals first, the ones falling away. Then slowly work to the middle, the place where it all began and yet hasn’t wholly opened yet.

Giantess

Sun, 7 Nov 2010 14:22:19 -0800

Giantess

Counter to sparrows, she moved slowly.

Her stillness was terrain.

Men gathered with saws, wetting their tiny teeth.

Inside they found a prehistoric gleam where two sides met to make her.

A trembling set their jaws when they tried to name her.

But she knew who she was.

And so do you.

NKiefer

An Artist Makes a List

Sat, 16 Oct 2010 10:13:11 -0700

List of Paintings on a July Day

Woman and man:
She’s smoking, he’s submerged in water.

Man turns towards viewer,
French ultramarine shirt,
Hole for mouth.

Girl holds orange sunflower,
Wears a cornflower dress.

Rag doll of boy in hat,
Two blue dots for eyes.

Woman coifed,
Stares at a stone archway in fog.

Straddling two hills,
A cadmium blonde covers one eye.

Nancy Kiefer

OIl on Wood
9” x 5”
Sold

Black Drawings

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 22:27:06 -0700

Rural Summer Retablo

Sun, 19 Sep 2010 07:16:39 -0700

which
is the
patron
saint
of juicy
limes
and
cool air twisting across the soles of bared feet? and to
whom shall i send my slipping and sighs: for these summer
bits and for that train whistle calling from somewhere
to my
dreamless
night?
with my
windows
open
to the
other
wise
quiet
other
wise
alone
other
wise
dark
ness
.

Poem by suzanne stratmann.

Read more at http://stardustandrust.blogspot.com/

Painting “RED DAHLIAS” by Lisa Mellinger
Oil on Canvas 20” x 20”
Lisa will be having an exhibit in Seattle during October. Stay turned for details. More of her work at www.lisamellinger.com

Brian’s Blue Sky

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 19:26:11 -0700

A Poem by one of my favorite persons--A true blue genuine article of a man--my brother-in-law. Brian’s Revision (December 5th)

BLUE SKY 2

CLEAR OF CLOUDS,
NO THUNDERS ALOUD

DEEP SEA BLUE,
VAST HUES,
I CHERISH YOU!

THROUGH THEE, ENDLESS SPACE
LURKS ITS FACE

THE SUN SHINES BRIGHT,
BRINGING LIFE LIGHT

WHERE IT GLOWS,
OUR SUBSTANCE GROWS

I PRAISE GOD FOR YOU ABOVE,
AND ALL THE LOVE

YOU ALLOW ME TO SEE,
IN THE WONDERFUL TREES

THAT REACH TOWARD HEAVEN;

THERE IS HOPE FOR ALL MANKIND

BRIAN REILLY
DECEMBER 5, 2010

BLUE SKY

Brian Reilly
September 12, 2010

I cannot hold you, yet you fill my heart with life
In light I see not through you, but into you
By night, you seem gone, except for the space between the stars and US
Hues alter your shade, richest in the pure air of peace
The tears of our land can cloud your vision
Nourish our lives so that we grow toward you
Help me to realize that wind nor rain, snow nor sleet will bid you farewell
And that once again you will show your face

Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas

Circus Ordinario

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 07:53:12 -0700

Mixed media on wood
To see Album, hit link below.

http://www.nancykiefer.com/site/Albums/Pages/Circus_Ordinario.html

Studio Life and Works in Progress

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 07:45:47 -0700

I have been enjoying my newly remodeled studio. The light is lucious thanks to the sky light and windows ,and the French doors leading to the ramshackle robust garden give me joy. A few studio pieces here. Works in progress. Oil on Wood 22” x 30”

6 Cherries for Family of 6

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:49:03 -0700

This piece is sold but if you want to see lots more go to this link under Albums-

http://www.nancykiefer.com/site/Albums/Pages/Cupcakes_.html

Mixed Media on Paper
22” x 30”

Davenport, Iowa

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 10:57:41 -0700

ROYAL AMERICAN SHOW

A poem I wrote for Visible Cites Project

http://visibleqc.blogspot.com/2009/10/poem-by-nancy-kiefer-royal-american.html

Must have been payday because Lila packed up the Cadillac and drove us over the Centennial Bridge to the carnival then gave us each a fat roll of tickets. Bruce had a broken arm but that didn’t stop him from getting in the rocket ship with me and there were no belts so we slipped all over and his cast came down and hit us both on our heads. The Mississippi Levee smelled of tar the hawkers sweaty and swearing and yelled hurry up buy this cinnamon treat and Lila said sure why not so we all got one and it was a piece of red glass wrapped around an apple something from a fairy tale it almost broke our teeth. Cotton Candy on a humid day in June doesn’t last you have to eat it fast before you go into the Fun House so we did and on that day it was hot like an attic in there and someone had peed on the slide the one you need to exit so we had to make our way backward out of that dark crooked unfun house in the chaos someone slammed me against a wall with their body then in the dimness one kind-voiced boy wearing a robin hood hat with a tall feather walked me out saying I was going to be okay. Wasn’t that me crying when we came out into daylight? Evidently because Lila said honey let’s take you home But Please Lila not before we see the woman with no head I begged and she said okay baby. I loved Lila that day and every day after because this lady neighbor with Jane Mansfield platinum hair and cat blue glasses called me baby on such a June afternoon while the woman with no head turned out to be fake an optical illusion I knew because I looked close and could tell.

Davenport Levee
Ink on Wood
2” x 1”
From Circus Ordinario
http://www.nancykiefer.com/site/Albums/Pages/Circus_Ordinario.html

July

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

A day on the San Juan Islands. A serene day on Cypress Island, a day the Madronas appear red in the late afternoon, a day calm yet filled with the fire of wild poppies. That kind of day.

Oil on Wood
22” x 30”

To The Water

Tue, 6 Jul 2010 23:13:54 -0700

Please stop by and check out my new work.

http://www.nancykiefer.com/site/Albums/Pages/To_the_Water.html

Tent
Mixed Media on Kitikata Paper
18” x 23”
Nancy Kiefer 2010

Tales and Parables

Fri, 2 Jul 2010 22:07:50 -0700

Please stop by at the “ALBUMS” to see this new work.

Link:

http://www.nancykiefer.com/site/Albums/Pages/_Tales_and_Parables_.html

Thanks A Poem by W.S. Merwin

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 23:37:55 -0700

Congratulations to W.S. Merwin,
Poet Laureate of the United States 2010

Listen with the night falling we are saying thank you we are stopping on the bridges to bow for the railings we are running out of the glass rooms with our mouths full of food to look at the sky and say thank you we are standing by the water looking out in different directions.
back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging after funerals we are saying thank you after the news of the dead  whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you looking up from tables we are saying thank you in a culture up to its chin in shame living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you over telephones we are saying thank you in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators remembering wars and the police at the back door and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you in the banks that use us we are saying thank you with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you
with the animals dying around us our lost feelings we are saying thank you with the forests falling faster than the minutes  of our lives we are saying thank you  with the words going out like cells of a brain  with the cities growing over us like the earth  we are saying thank you faster and faster  with nobody listening we are saying thank you we are saying thank you and waving dark though it is

From The Rain in the Trees by W.S. Merwin

Painting
BREAD
30”x 22”
Mixed Media
Nancy kiefer

Poppies

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 07:11:03 -0700

XVI

And what did the rubies say
standing before the pomegranates?

Why doesn’t Thursday talk itself
into coming after Friday?

Who shouted with glee
when the color blue was born?

Why does the earth grieve
when the violets appear?

XVII

Have you noticed that autumn
is like a yellow cow?

And how later the autumnal beast
is a dark skeleton?

And how winter collects
so many layers of blue?

And who asked springtime
For its kingdom of clean air?

From The Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda; translated by William O’Daly.

Ana Mendieta Speaks

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 20:13:12 -0700

From Artist Ana Mendieta

“The Spanish philosopher Ortega Garret once said: “To be a hero, to be heroic, is to be oneself.” This, I believe, is particularly relevant in regard to the attitude an artist should have within society. HOW CAN SOMEONE WHO IS ENDOWED WITH FEELING REMAIN INDIFFERENT? ONLY AS THE RESULT OF A FAR-REAChING AWAKENING WILL A PERSON BE MADE AWARE OF HIMSELF AND ONLY WITH THIS AWARENESS WILL THAT PERSON START TO LIVE AS A HUMAN BEING. Yet, paradoxically, it is also a form of exile from the world. It is this awareness of myself, this knowledge of myself, that leads me to engage in dialogue with the world around me through my art.”
Personal Writings
1982

Ana Mendieta (18 November 1948 – 8 September 1985) was a Cuban-American artist famous for her performance art and "earth-body" sculptural, photographic, and video work.

http://www.miamiartmuseum.org/exhibitions-pastt-mendieta.asp

A Title for the next book (2)

Tue, 25 May 2010 17:51:52 -0700

What about a title without words?

Title For My Next Book

Sun, 23 May 2010 14:46:23 -0700

Recently someone asked me what I will be writing next.
Today it came to me as I was driving away from an estate sale.
It’s kind of long. But works.

TITLE OF MY NEXT BOOK

The brokenheartedness of estate sales.
On a Sunday afternoon.
After a stint of writing.
Hungry, and desiring a drink.
But declining.
Then buying a piece of driftwood.
With little plastic eyes.