It's true. When I paint I don't write. When I write I don't paint. At least I'm doing something which is grand. Have finished the Triumvirate of Crows which actually looks more like the Triumvirate of Gannets but who's judging. It's okay. It's a little weird, I've morphed one of the wings into a hand and the birds flying over the sea play tricks with perspective a bit (intentional) but it works. At least for me and I'm the only one who has to be pleased.
The current work is a face made of feathers with very large eyes. Large staring eyes. It's eerie as I drew the eyes first and have been working outward so this face emerges from the page without an outline as such. I've considered attempting a tromp d' loeil of the face being framed by torn paper. Saw an example somewhere. Really brilliant. Then again, the original idea was having this face transmogrifying from bird into woman or woman into bird. No, that's not quite true. I wanted to work on feathers. Unfortunately although I've the patience to do a sort of overlapping shell I haven't the patience to do individual feathers. While I was preening Marvin's head last night I studied his feathers. They are so complicated yet simpler than what I've been drawing but as I've drawn 3/4 of the face I'll continue with the effect I've started with. It will turn out to be something. No art work I've completed has ever turned out the way I envisioned it. I wonder if that's true for all artists. It's because I haven't the technique but also because the vision is always more complete yet more ephemeral than the actualization.
Rearranged the verandah and Dimitri's abode yet again. A few nights ago, with no provocation that I knew of, Dimitri fell off his perch 3 times. It was dark. We hadn't gone onto the verandah. I heard no unusual noises outside, yet he fell. That was it. Despite the pillows and padding surrounding his perch falling off three times is just too much. Even if he wasn't hurt, and he wasn't, it's a blow to his confidence to keep falling and heaven knows the boy lacks confidence. The next day I removed the tree perch, the food table, the chair and all the pillows, blankets and padding. He has two large and chewable branches, one about 7 feet long, the other probably about 5 feet. The shorter one is before the screen doors to outside propped on a short log with another slimmer branch stuck inside it. This morning I sawed off about 6" of that one because he was launching himself from it and landing awkwardly. He's most disappointed because although he can climb the branches and run along them he is now a floor ornament. But an unbreakable floor ornament.
This morning, for the first time in months, I did some clicker training with him but without the clicker which he doesn't like. Not the noise but the association as I used it when I was pressuring him to 'be friends'. I'm only using my voice. I suppose I'm clicker training each time I reward him with a millet sprig when he steps nearer but this morning I reintroduced the clicker for target training. First with Tachimedes, who remembered what he was supposed to do almost instantly. I ignored Dimitri while working with Tach which had the desired effect of bringing him over to investigate. He beaked it the first time and hung on for the next two times, trying to pull it away. That was good enough for a start. Our worktable will be the floor. I'm quite excited again. Naturally once he was confined to the floor he became worried again. We've taken a few steps backwards. No way would he take anything from my fingers. Yet this morning, as he came within inches of my leg while I worked with Tach, and ignored him, illustrated conclusively that he will come around. Perhaps we'll even get to the point where we can learn parlor tricks together (retrieve, ring on a post etc.)
As much as I'd like this to be a true repository for thoughts, feelings and observations it isn't. There is no way that I can write in here like I do in a handwritten journal. I cleaned this office a couple of days ago and found empty journals of all shapes and sizes, journals I'd collected over the years for future use. They seemed somewhat sad as they are like friends I'll never meet. I may go back to handwriting for awhile as I miss the intimacy and the freedom of journal writing. Even though I have no followers nor am I likely to get any I write in here as though someone was looking over my shoulder - which keeps it inane and boring. Odd at my age to fear the opinion of others but I am still that well brought up girl who was chastised for saying the word 'guts'. And the words of mom still ring in my ears, 'don't ever write down what the whole world can't read'. Words of wisdom she may have learned the hard way. She burned reams and reams of paper in the front of the Sparta house. What were they? fledgling novels, journals, letters, essays? I'll never know but I have a feeling that something she'd written was used against her somehow as she was always very secretive about her writings. I only found bits and pieces after she'd died. I know she was an inveterate writer of something, sometimes had The Writer magazine, had a few books on writing plus Strunk and White but I think her own teacher was her constant practice and inherent talent. The bits I've read have always intrigued me as they were unfinished and I wanted to know what happened to the characters I'd come to know. But the characters died with Mom.
