things to come. | recording - 2.1.2011

Update: 2.9.2011 -- (see original post below)

my time in studio was amazingly fun & we wrote some prrrrty muse-ic. i'm planning on going back over there a few times in the coming week(s) to polish up what we wrote. it was a blast & we hope to share it here & a few other places by months end. i went to bed after recording into the earliest of morning's hours, totally immersed in new ideas. the only image i took from my weekend is this very low quality cell phone snap (since the big cam. is still in the shop). leave it to me to drive out of state, in -15 degree weather with ballerina flats & no socks... and the studio was very cold, so i had to borrow someone elses. ;)

in the meantime i'm writing like mad & awaiting the moment spring comes & wakes me from this slumber.

new words & imagery blog(s) here in the coming days. -ash

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2.1.2011

an old friend of mine is a musician & has a studio in the basement of his st. croix falls (wi) home; a pretty little home i use to live in that sits nearly on the banks of a giant, gorgeous river & backs up to a giant, gorgeous park. there is a giant dam that crashes now where the falls use to be & i use to be able to hear it in the mornings from my bedroom, with my window cracked.

he sings & plays every single instrument these days, it seems. and i thought, since i also sing quite a bit (and barely play guitar & piano, but own both) that we'd get together & record somethin' pretty, since we've been chatting about that idea for a spell, and since it's a good excuse to get out while my camera is in for repairs. not to mention, what girl doesn't feel amazing with a pick between her lips or fingertips.

so this weekend, we are giving that a go if the weather holds. it'll be a nice excuse to get out into the fresh air of a new place & into a small little artist town.

in the meantime, thought i'd post something beautiful in the style that i love just so much & probably along the route that i'll be recording in. you can be sure if we come up with anything pretty and get it down, i'll post it.

this is a cover of a dylan song that i adore. i love how these two collaborate, and this song is so sensual & moving & heavy & beautiful.

lyrics below the vid, with two of the most potent lines, ever. i'll let you find them.

ash | x

"boots of spanish leather"

Oh I'm sailin' away my own true love
I'm sailin' away in the morning
Is there something I can send you from across the sea
From the place that I'll be landing ?

No, there's nothin' you can send me, my own true love
There's nothin' I wish to be ownin'
Just carry yourself back to me unspoiled
From across that lonesome ocean.

Oh, but I just thought you might want something fine
Made of silver or of golden
Either from the mountains of Madrid
Or from the coast of Barcelona ?

Oh, but if I had the stars from the darkest night
And the diamonds from the deepest ocean
I'd forsake them all for your sweet kiss
For that's all I'm wishin' to be ownin'.

That I might be gone a long time
And it's only that I'm askin'
Is there something I can send you to remember me by
To make your time more easy passin' ?

Oh, how can, how can you ask me again
It only brings me sorrow
The same thing I want from you today
I would want again tomorrow.

I got a letter on a lonesome day
It was from her ship a-sailin'
Saying I don't know when I'll be comin' back again
It depends on how I'm a-feelin'.

Well, if you, my love, must think that-a-way
I'm sure your mind is roamin'
I'm sure your thoughts are not with me
But with the country to where you're goin'.

So take heed, take heed of the western wind
Take heed of the stormy weather
And yes, there's something you can send back to me
Spanish boots of Spanish leather.

summer's last rain & the blizzard.

friends,

please find below three simple things i wanted to pair & share with you...

*thunderstorm.

- recorded from my porch on the 12 acre farmstead upon which i reside, during the last days of summer. i've listened to this cut about 1000 times from then until now to meditate or fall asleep at night, especially while i'm on the road.

*scribblings.

- some of you who've been kind enough to follow my work over the years may have seen here or there: 'photographer and writer' behind my name in certain features or bios. and while this isn't typically what I compose (i'm a poetry girl - think 'keats' or 'neruda' ;) i really wanted this piece to be a part of this post -- a selection nabbed from a recent journal. i plan to make this a very regular part of the rendering well, if you guys dig it. 'the well' is all about opening up behind the lens, so to speak, and i really hope you enjoy getting to know me a bit better through my life beyond the camera, and through these writings and rambles. while my imagery is something that might be considered works of fiction, drawing upon a memory, ideal, or fantasies, my writing definitely isn't -- at least not the journals, of which this is a part. x

*imagery.

- from late summer - of a spiderweb i photographed in the boundary waters, near the canadian border (1 of so many giant webs I sat within to grab this panorama) in the very early morning hours when the light was just exquisite and dripped all over us.

thank you, each, for stopping in and i hope you enjoy. if you love it, link it. that's what i've tried to do with this storm by sharing it with you, and that's what i will continue to do in future posts. the rendering well is meant to be a place for simple inspiration through words, sounds and imagery. :)

please stay as long as you'd like.

ashtree.

12.3.2010 -- "The Blizzard -- Letter 1

Sometimes early in the morning, just upon waking, I catch my thoughts saying things to me like: “I’m thankful for the wind today. Be sure to be thankful for the wind, Ash… “

In the moments that follow, the possibility of so much more arises. As my eyes adjust to the wakefulness, I find great comfort in knowing the first things I get to look at are sites of my dogs anticipatory faces, hinting in their expressions that I’m the creator of their next great adventure; or at the great snowscapes that will inevitably blanket this little farmstead without anyone’s permission for the next 3-5 months - no matter which window I glance beyond; The forgotten little farm that only the trees remember. Here I am inside of today.

The yard beyond my bedroom window holds a sleeping apple tree & I remember softer months - like April with its momentous greens in waves of nostalgia that stick like pits in my stomach, churning memories of when she bore bright red blooms that have long since blown away. Many other things have blown away, but this symbolizes all of them. I’ve got all of their pits in my stomach; big apples and little apples; And that’s just the red bloom tree. I haven’t even seen the white bloom tree. I’m not at that window.

I find slow breaths from deep inside that linger within these moments as I wake, warm beneath a netted canopy, under temples of antique quilts in this giant room painted in palettes of ivory white and eggplant- colors I painted years ago when the fashion in my heart was to be very sad. I am quieter now, but that eggplant is hard to wash off.

I stand from my bed in the ambient winter light and notice the radiating warmth my skin carries with it in the morning hours. Everything on me is spun of heated silk. Nothing bears marks of the season. I’ve always called this ‘the side of effect of dreaming’.

I’m three days home from 30 days on the road, again. All my clothes reside on chairs as reminders that this is temporary; this whole thing. They seep from suitcases whose origin will never be remembered. “Where did you get that old suitcase, ash?” “The closet gave it to me, and before that, the barn” “and before that, I wasn’t born”.

I grab from the top pile, the first thing that looks beautiful: solid antique white; a combed cotton shirt that billows so freely when I walk and falls so sheer and tattered across my frame that I feel inspired and intent and alive when I wear it. I only wear things that could mean nothing anymore; things that don’t wear me. Simple linens & sun bleached colors that could mean here or there. My eyes can tell the rest and they usually do.

I know a storm is coming. The leaves are clapping their warnings – from as far out as the aspen grove; this plot of land invisibly stitched to greater fields and a stretch of country that leads on to forever. Fields that blew 100 acres of sun-spun golden wheat; I remember the site of it at sunset from my oak tree– my god; Or the faithful plots of green soybeans that blew beyond the red cedars that somebody planted before this time; And over there, fields of endless corn cathedrals led me in with soils so soft I didn’t wear shoes that whole season.

I wait for the snow to come, heavy like December, from the big bay window as I trace my toes with one of the stray eagle feathers that hide about this house. I prop the window open to hear the sound of nothing with its intermittent crackle. It gasps across me eating my skin of warm silks until I quake, and then nothing. I live for this moment; the storms that sound like nothing. I might just do this always.

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"summer spun"