dreams upon dreams.

self portraits taken yesterday, during a small break from building sets.

new writing & imagery coming within the next few days on here as well. promise.

------

for now, i must say:

if i had long hair...

i'd wear it blowing in the wind...

like a willow tree.

ash | x

the novelty candle & the field.

"Letter 3" | 1.11.2011

"the novelty candle"

Mom swivels her chair w/ the stack of heaping christmas cards, peeling them open like promises, and reads aloud a solstice quote:

“The darkness can show us the light’ and it comes with a candle that someone far away had spun and sent in novelty. It’s the kind you can’t blow out.

The collective sentiment drips from everyone’s wagging, holiday tongues and then washes away with the sherry. Maybe that’s it, though. It’s been falling to dark so early these days; getting harder to see whats gone sleeping ---

And that’s when I knew what had happened.

The jolt hit me hard – dragging me back again - no mistaking the weight of that heavy heart of yours; melding me to the memories with mortar for its grooves…

Back to when I reeled in bed from the heartbreak that Winter; three whole months in the same vacant expression; chapping lips & sleepwalking about a mission bed; a whole season when I only awoke to the toll of those dreams, where all things shook tremendously, in a world crumbling; as I would teeter and dip amidst the burning ruins, deep in the trenches we found; where I held your pretty little forest fingers – vines for limbs, even bolder than mine; and the shifty hearth still churning the ashes of the aftermath; and catching my dress in that torrid wind that sentenced me to forever chase the last few fleeting, burning words, forever - never catching.

And the thought of it leads me to other questions now, like: ‘why do the fireplaces stay standing like that?’ If it was all just meant to burn as it did, why didn’t the whole place just go? Why do the pots still hang from their nothings?

I want flowers in those plots, cuz I could grow them to the moon, but I’ve got those old foundations and their fires just consume.

Are they a novelty candle?... cuz I’ve been sifting so long now and it’s all I can figure.

---

It reminds me of the old man I see when I drive that old backroad; stitched to his chair as he peers from rise to set, span to span, against that massive, lone tree in the oceans of wheat - commanding the winds like a beacon.

Father time wanders so close to his eyes that I bet that old man hears him breathing sometimes, and it always makes me wonder, with intensely heavy sighs as I bite my little lip... Had it happened to him too? Because I know he’d be there now. That man never moves.

If I shut my eyes long enough and revisited that place – where the beams still smolder; where your eyes still reside [and not a day older]… and if I took a trail or two I never had wandered, back when I wandered – would I meet him in a clearing - chasing his own last fleeting, burning words, forever, never catching?

Did he spend his life reeling in bed? Is he sleepwalking now, and brave enough to do it outside? Are these fields his ruins? And were they ever his heyday? Is this the aftermath or a holy consolation?

And my mind begins thinking of abstract things: Is HE a novelty candle? If I ever stopped my car, cracked the door and wandered over, would he be a man or a mannequin? Would he be another trail to the fever? If I stepped from that road and down that ditch, onto that giant heap of blowing wheat where time doesn’t move when the rest passes by it, would he melt into the wind and scream for me to follow?

Would HE be the last few fleeting, burning words, forever, never catching?

******

"The Field"

******

I hope you have been enjoying these letters.

plenty more to come.

- ash

the twelfth dream & the canyon.

~ Letter 2 | 12.5.2010 ~

"the canyon"

I want to say to him that I’m tired tonight in this far away land that he’s come to know so little of;

ask if he remembers the day in the canyon where I didn’t need to talk when I was tired; because I know he’d remember the canyon - all the muddy splendor that ruined his boots, or the way it sounded when he screamed until he woke the ancient grotto, stirring the oldest beasts; how he scaled a mountain without looking back and took less water than he needed; that he was bold in the face of nature and that nobody could ever really tame the eyes of caged lions. He might remember (might) that he married me that day and that I wore a wreath of webs and a simple dress of clay; and that I filled up an entire interval without labels.

I want him to ask if I remember the day in the canyon, so that I could reminisce in the deep end of my heart; those foreign shapes that we wrote on balmy rivers when it was all we could find to write on, and that nobody but the fireflies knew; Full fledged in the echo of 100 foot drips that reached down down down like honey; and that we drank from them all with the invincibility of youthful hearts; two orphaned seeds, we. I’d remember it because the earth never posed visiting hours & because I loved a giant; in that murky place where he grew me an oak that would stay an endless summer through all the winter months – just for me; and that I could keep it in my pocket for days that I needed to sleep beneath my hundred acre woods.

I want to say to him that that was all there really ever was, in any day, and that I walked that trail too; holding his hand as he conquered a land that couldn’t be conquered; that I heard a murmuring symphony played by ghosts & sirens; that we sipped on a tap root that grew us together, as we lingered deep into the dark hours, that committed us there far beyond our bodies; beyond those hours that would lead his feet on and lead me home.

back home.

back home.

------

"The Twelfth Dream"

------

happy holidays everyone. be warm. be safe.

thank you, each, for the endless support in helping me continue to cultivate, create, and realize my dreams...

ash | x

Darkling.

I wanted to post 2 of the 5 images from my lake michigan shoot w/ the beautiful hayley. i will post the other half of this storyboard in the coming days in another post, as well as much higher res. on my website and flickr.

please enjoy.

ash x

*behind the scenes

words & imagery.

painting w/ my camera and a wet filter...

"the task of absence"

"...on a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see him walking now
away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow,
that I had wooed not as I should a creature made of clay -
when the angel woos the clay she'll lose her wings at the dawn of day..."

-----

-excerpt from my favorite poem: "on raglan road" - by one of my favorite poets, Patrick Kavanagh

(much higher res. on my website.)

ash | x

"Summer Hymnal"

friends,

'summer hymnal' (below) is a storyboard i shot over a 4 day period, and a concept that took several months to compose.

this is my bittersweet tribute to summer and to what it represents, metaphorically - as another season comes to a close.

please enjoy.

details below the imagery.

the pieces, above, are intended to be accompanied by a poem i wrote of the same name, which further narrates the storyboard. i plan to release both the words & imagery, together, in a book slated for 2011.

please feel free to click larger, but please be mindful of copyrights. x

***

behind the scenes of this piece:

to create this storyboard, i found a summer kitchen built in 1912.

The woman whos property it sits upon (she was so amazing) allowed me to completely clear out the space and re-stage it with authentic props from the time period i was trying to convey. it took 5 & 1/2 hours of prep to get this tiny kitchen set for the bottom segment.

these pieces are very special to me, not only because of the concept & poem, but also because i was able to work with my sister in creating them. the woman within the storyboard is suppose to be one character, throughout. however, i thought it might be fun to try and see if i could make my sister and myself (two people who couldn't look more different in real life) look like the same person for the shoot. the top piece is a self portrait, while the bottom (summer kitchen) shot is of my sister.

a very heartfelt thank you to:

Sandra for the use of her beautiful space

& to

Hailey for allowing me to require her at sunrise, cover her in mud & flour and sit her on a hard, cold floor, while we froze to our bones.

high res & larger will soon be on my website & flickr.

best always.

ash x

Welcome to The Rendering Well...

friends.

welcome to the pause.

welcome to the rendering well.

the idea to create this blog has been in the works for about two years, and i've finally decided to give it a go & move in.

this little space will be representative, only, of the non business side of my beloved bottle bell.

the soul purpose here, is to provide an escape...

from everything.

through

simplicity. words. imagery. music.

this is my journal.

this is off the beaten path.

please be inspired.

please be respectful.

please stay as long as you'd like.

this blog, these images, these words - are from the heart.

ash | bottle bell