I’ve been working lately to exercise the other half of my brain.

Words. The beautiful sounds of words. The expressive quality of words. How words are like pictures. How they flow together in musical ways.

I’m not much of a scientist, but somewhere in my world understanding I came to grasp that energy forms are interchangeable: light, electricity, sound are all forms of energy and can be converted from one to another. I think words and images are like that. They form one another. Complete on another. Enrich one another.

I am so grateful that several friends and I have been gathering together since June in a weekly writing group. Already I can tell how much it means to each of us. As with visual artmaking groups, it’s great to have a group of art(writing) buddies for camaraderie and encouragement. And, by its nature, writing encourages deeper sharing and meaningful friendships.

If you have thought you’d like to write – or write more, or dig deeper – but don’t know how to start, I recommend Natalie Goldberg’s book “Writing Down the Bones.” She’s a great motivator and teacher. (I enjoy her poetry very much too.) We use her method. In short, we draw a topic from a bowl and write flat-out for ten minutes. Ding! Time’s up. Read aloud and share. The idea is to let the writing spill, not to worry about punctuation and grammar or constructing a prose piece. Just fill up pages for ten minutes.

This is still a pretty new experience for me. But, already, I am discovering how the journals filled with writing are like sketchbooks filled with idea drawings and compositions. I have relied on visual sketchbooks for years, and sometimes just set aside time to go back through them again. “Oh, I remember that idea.” The writing journals capture raw ideas. Refining into well-crafted prose or poetry can come later.

The artists that I find I admire most are artists who are thoughtful – in the sense of having thoughts. Their art is about something. The something may be social commentary or philosophy, or may be purely aesthetic considerations. But the thought adds to the depth of the visual artwork.

Words deepen thought. I have had the experience of not even knowing that I possessed a given idea or perspective till I wrote it down. The writing actually helps to give order to the thoughts and deepen them.

The Museum of Art DeLand sponsored a poetry project this summer. Writers were asked to respond to one of a number of works from the Museum’s permanent collection. There will be an exhibit later this month of the artworks with the selected poems next to them. I was pleased to have a poem selected. (After the public event has taken place, I’ll share my poem and the artwork here.)

JUST FOR FUN 1 - Another brain exercise… Lately I’ve become obsessed with completing the daily word jumble in the newspaper. I love rearranging letters in words to find new words, and these jumbles are a variation on that.

I wondered yesterday, “How hard is it to come up with those jumbles?” So, just for fun, I created one and put it together. Have fun playing!

JUST FOR FUN 2 – I discovered some printed fabric and rice paper I created some time ago. Purple, mauve and pink. Not my usual palette. But I had created a stencil of a giant bee that I really like. I’ve put together two collages. If you’d like to see the finished works, they are on my website HERE.

Thank you for reading.
I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi
bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

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