STUDIO QUANDARY
Not what I thought I’d paint this day
Not at all, the dizzying colors and
figures from last night’s dream
I tossed the covers
Stirred the maid from her rest
Even woke my wife in the next room
A dragon gave chase and I
was naked screaming running
Bare and barely missing his fiery, explosive tongue
Now the dream is slowing settling on wood
The creature and my whirling flaccid flesh
And a phrase I still don’t understand: Barney & Friends
© 2015 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Imaginary Garden of Real Toads gave us this Rembrandt, “Artist in His Studio.” I put myself in his cobbled boots and decided to give him a little scare… and myself a chuckle! Amy
NOW! (with Sid the Kid)
Now is the time
to sing our songs
while we’ve breath in our bodies and
souls that speak out loud
those thoughts that were heretofore
only whispered
Now is the time
to sing our songs
Our collective outpouring
of grand illusions
grander delusions
of elusive goals that never
leave our sights
“If not now, when?”
We don’t do ‘then’
We won’t surrender
the immediacy of this impulse
We want it now
We sing it now
We create it now
© 2015 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
About time I introduced you to Sid the Kid, previously known as A Guy (and usually accompanied by His Ancestor, who shall remain hidden for the moment!). Sid has morphed over the years into an androgynous kid, always full of fun and optimism. I’ve been drawing him for years, much to the delight of my dear friend Sidnie, for whom I have named my little buddy… even though Sidnie is about as cis-gender a woman as I have ever met, lol.
For ABC Wednesday, the letter N… where our fearless leader, Mrs. Nesbitt, quotes John Donne and we all bring our best alphabetically minded selves to the table! An homage to the eternal liveliness of spring. May the season stir us all from our winter lairs of mind and spirit… if indeed that is where we are stuck at the moment. I know I was, but this prompt helped me break out. Woot!
Peace, Amy
#art #poetry #spring #now #sketches #coloredpencil #abcwednesday
Zentangled
Doodlers delight in empty margins
Empty spaces need a bit of this and that
My teachers hounded me for scribbling
Riley suffered the same fate in school
Only difference: She became a bone fide artist
while her mom still doodles oodles of oddities
© 2015 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
ABC Wednesday is on Z, and I am into Zen tangles just before sleep. Such a calming pursuit, helping me to let go of the day, simply allowing my mind to follow my pencil as it meanders.
I know serious Zen Tanglers work in pen, but you know me… This blog ain’t called Sharp Little Pencil for nothing! Happy New Year and peace, Amy
Scherzo (acrylic poured on canvas) by Suzanne LaFleur, used by permission of artist
Awash
Sprawling surface awaits her first pour
Thirsty for colors to caress
Thick acrylic syrup on parched canvas
Today is a lively melange
Cobalt and crimson, a bit of honey
In her mind, they crackle with life
Red tastes of ripest berries…
That lovely boulangerie last fall
as she lounged by the Seine
Blue, that glass sculpture, sheer perfection
She spent an hour gazing at the world
through its evening light
To be inside her head as she creates…
She is Artiste (Personified)
Effortless, this, while others bend over backwards to
pursue The Image
Her chiffon scarf danced between us
as we glided arm in arm down Julia Street
searching for abstracts, finding
last-minute Basquiats
Too much art, not enough time
New Yorker and European
by taste and by temperament
Awards are nice
but she thrives among others
who, too, hold art as sacred
Glamorous
Glittering
Glorious
Suzanne the Abstract
(c) 2014 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Suzanne LaFleur (yes, do click and see her work!) is another force of nature I met during my stay in New Orleans. She is an award-winning artist specializing in abstract art (like I said, click the link!), a classy-as-hell dame, and possesses that extra oomph one needs to succeed in the arts. I know we will stay in touch, and I look forward to seeing her continue to blossom. I am linking this to ABC Wednesday for X (X-quisite!) and to the sidebar at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads.
Folks, I regret not posting this sooner and perusing your blogs, but the Perfect Storm of computer changeover, malware on new computer, and That Old Gray Magic That I Know So Well (winter depression) converged and quite blew me out to sea.
Better days are coming. I look at Suzanne’s art, all your blogs, and know smoother seas are ahead. Peace, Amy
Virginia Deep
Bittersweet days and
sleepless nights
Days spent on park benches
regarding passersby
as butterflies
tethered to their lives
Wings pinned down by convention
Nights in her convent
the room of her own:
Smoke, coffee, tension
The quill stung with her blood
No control and again
voices voices voices
No rest, no cure
No choice, save the obvious
Stop the voices
Drown them
Condemn them to
watery oblivion
© 2014 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Imaginary Garden With Real Toads’ Mama Zen gave us a challenge: Write about Virginia Woolf. I have not been posting much lately, but this was inspiring to the nth degree. Thanks, Mama, I knew you could raise me from my slumber! Peace, Amy
GET TO THE GIG, GIRL!
Take the A train? Hell, no
I’ve faster ways to go
Head south on Amsterdam
Keep low and lively, ma’am
I filter through the fog
and gusting city smog
The traffic’s fierce, you see
I keep it high and free
Some pieces of the News
Fly by in folded twos
Through bitter cold and then
I spring balloon to end
And climb on up and out
the fountain’s water spout
The cries of “Viva! Viva!”
when I arrive, La Diva
Enough to warm my heart
And now my gig I start
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
The “B” on the balloon is for Barlow, my former stage name. At dverse Poets Pub, we were challenged to an ekphrastic prompt – writing to an image; I used words from The Sunday Whirl. The brill artist is Judith Clay, and you can see more of her fantastic fantasies and read other poets HERE, as well as check out what other poets did with the Whirl Wordle HERE.
Fun prompt. Was ready for one. It was a long week, but things are looking up! Peace, Amy
ROOTED (dedicated to Miss Forward)
Mama never got over being on the road with bands.
“Keep your roots shallow,” she said,
“so you can pull up and move on when it’s time.”
Yet, after wandering for many years,
I find myself grounded, firmly rooted.
Maybe it’s the friendships we’ve forged.
My innate knack for blooming in any new
place I was transplanted (quite often) from coast
to coast, and sometimes in the ocean, small isles.
Relentless in my search for home, the
perfect church… a city with a full spectrum
of cultures, history, creativity (plus a few vultures)
Some artists of delicate mien, others rampant,
unrepentant rowdies, all with eyes and voices meant
to rejuvenate others, if only for art’s own sake.
Madison. Never bland; blooming flowers or snow banks,
it’s all good, as long as the local microbrew beer
and the silk long johns hold out.
Grounded, circles of friends interconnect, grapevines
forming beneath the surface of simple kinship.
Home isn’t where I hang my hat.
It’s where I have planted my soul, patting down soil
in this haven of lefties, young and old, rippin’ good worship, and
a golden lady on the capital dome, wearing a badger helmet.*
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
My first posting since hearing my brain MRI was negative… I mean, I still have a brain, but it’s tumor, clot, and stroke-free. This poem, for Sunday Scribblings (Grounded) and The Sunday Whirl (see Wordle HERE), is a celebration of sorts, as well as a love song for our adopted home, Madison, WI. This is also posted at my poetic home, Poets United.
*The “golden lady” is called Miss Forward, and she shines at the peak of the dome. She can be seen from a mile away. She does indeed wear a helmet with the shape of a badger, our state mammal, on top. Everything here is Badger: basketball, local football, everyone wears red. BADGER red. Me? I’m more of a ‘honeybadger.’ (wink) Peace, Amy
Sharp Little Pencil 