This is not a Wolf Poem...

Last week, I went along to a local writing group meeting, catching up with old friends and meeting some new.  I brought some 'wolf poems' along to read, but then wasn't sure if they would make sense to anyone who hadn't seen 'The Wolf Bride' and I didn't want to spend ten minutes explaining.  So I pulled another poem out, nothing to do with wolves at all, and said, "I'll read this one, this is not a wolf poem."  And another wonderful writer present, Renee Pettit-Schipp, thought that was the title!  And we had a chuckle, and Renee said she still wanted to hear the poem called "This Is Not a Wolf Poem", because it was a great title.  So it's been on my mind the last few days, and early yesterday morning (about 2:30am, as it usual!), words started to come.  Of course, it IS a wolf poem.  This time it's the girl speaking...oh dear, is that now going to be the next part...it never ends!  It's still not quite there yet, but I like where it's going.

This is Not a Wolf Poem

This is not a wolf poem.

For there are no words that I can bring to heel

To make you hear

The pulsing of his heart

Beneath my ear 

As we lie skin to skin.

I have no spelling skill

To fetch the smell of him,

Mouth bloodied with a winter kill

Each hair on his back frost-kissed in white

Breath hanging in cloud

Each silent footfall

Falling soft,

Into this small closed space

As you sit

Book balanced on knee, half-empty

Cup at your side.

I have no consummate tricks of the tongue

That you might lie back

And rest your head upon

His warm and gently undulating flank,

As eyes and thoughts drift lazily up

To seek blue nothingness between

New green-gold leaves in Spring.

This is not a wolf poem.

For I can no more easily conjure him,

Captured and pinned

To white page with sharp, black marks,

Than I can sing an ocean

In a line of wet, blue ink.

© Christina Cairns 2018

There are a few lines I'm still not happy with, so more tinkering will ensue.

There are also new pictures and experiments, but time is flying on fast and I've got to get everything sorted because I've got less than a month and a half before this happens!  And I'm squeezing in a new song and a new bit of story, so I have to learn that off by heart as well.

I took the drawing I posted last time, and turned it into a pen and ink painting.

Then I thought it might be an interesting experiment to add the text of the poem to it.

Then I thought this might be a nice style to use for illustrations for a little 'Wolf Poems' book.  I made a book a few months ago, in a very different style with only one illustration, but I don't think that style sat well with the rest of the 'project'.  I think this works better.  Just need to do a whole bunch more now!

Some poem editing, and drawing ideas.  I think quite a few of the Wolf Poems need to be edited and reworked before I make the book.

Another illustration...without text.

And with text.

Playing with paper stock ideas.  I think a heavy off-white will suit best, somewhere between the top two.

Simple, very rough, set ideas.  But I don't know if this will work, and I'm not sure where/how much space I will have in the venue yet, so all a bit up in the air at the moment.

Thought it might be interesting to show the paper cut-out, without the light, to show how it's constructed.  Again, very rough idea, using old cardboard.  

Working on the large visual journal which I will have on display.  I'd got to the point where I was feeling more and more restricted and was over-thinking far too much, so a couple days ago, I decided I needed to have a few pages of just pure play.

And then that very afternoon, my biggest munchkin (who recently turned 17...how did that happen!?), who is also my 'wolf bride' model, came home with a self portrait scribbled in the corner of her History homework (I think the teachers are well used to my girls drawing on EVERYTHING they do), and it's an almost perfect fit!  How amazing!

School holidays are coming up, so it will be very crowded in the shed all day, everyday, so I imagine there will be lots of cries of, "Mum!  Can you move your STUFF please, I've got homework!"  So I may not get a whole lot of painting/drawing done.........

Hounds and trees and the Wolf Bride.

A quick pop-in post on latest bits and bobs.  Been doing some more scribbling and writing.  I'm at the stage now where I need to find a space where I can actually fool about with my vague set ideas to see if they actually will look/work like they do in my head (and as this is almost always a 'No', or at best a 'Not exactly', it's an important step).  I'm also beginning to practice running through the story and adding in some movement/mime and possibly some other more 'theatre-y' bits.  Nothing too complicated, I don't want it to become a piece of theatre and no longer an act of storytelling, but a few little things to enhance the experience would be nice.  Especially things that are simple, easy, and do not require a lot of complicated tech, or other people, because I would like this to become something that can travel without too much difficulty.

Firstly though, and most importantly, here's a Fergus photo.  As it's been winter here, and we only have a little fire, my poor boy does something feel the cold.  It's quite amazing how small he can make himself when he curls up.  I'm not even sure which bit is which in this photo, but he's got his blankie on, so he's happy!

Pics of a tree.  Because trees are cool and wonderful, and this is an especially cool and wonderful tree.  I think it's an old fig tree.  I just loved the structure of it, the gorgeous intertwining branches.  It looks like something out of Fangorn.  I might try and draw it, when I'm feeling particularly patient.

New scribbles in my "Wolf Bride' exhibition journal, and some more simple experiments with light and paper cutouts.  Still not sure if I will use this idea or not, perhaps it's just adding unnecessary fancy stuff in that only complicates...I will keep playing for bit longer and see.

A different 'Beauty'! The Wolf Bride...and Other Tales...Tails?!

I've been busy scribbling, drawing, writing...and painting too.  'Brave New Works' happens on the first weekend of November, and I'm in for the extended, deeper, richer version of 'The Wolf Bride', and decided that while I was at it, I might sneak in some other fairytale bits and bobs, and call it 'The Wolf Bride and Other Tales.'  I've also been experimenting with set/installation ideas, and refining what/how I want to perform this time.  Definitely not stuck in a chair, I want to be up and moving, though I'll have to sit down for the songs.  So I'll need to 'choreograph' movements and mime, and work out how to move from 'singer in chair' to 'actor on stage' fluidly and gracefully!  I recently had the great good fortune to be invited to join a wonderful bunch of creative local women, with arts practices eclectic and wide ranging, in a week long workshop with award winning dancer and choreographer, Clare Dyson.  What a brilliant time we had, with serious play, improvising and nutting out performance ideas around the notion of 'Object as Metaphor'.  And what a joy to spend a whole week with my head in that creative place.  So I've got ideas brewing!  And in the meantime, new paintings!

'Sleeping Beauty' is emerging.

She was going to have bare feet, but then I decided I needed some more red in there 

(and I'm not so great at toes!)

She's a very flexible 'Sleeping Beauty'!  I'm really pleased with the climbing rose twisting out of her hair, creating the thorns that envelope the castle.

I decided it was high time Oberon got his Titania back, as I sold the first one.  I also decided it was high time he stopped looking at younger women, and had a mature Titania more suited to his own age!  

Base drawing (found a photo of a lovely older woman on the web for reference, then changed it around a bit, but it always ends up evolving and morphing in the creation anyway).

Base drawing completed, graphite on canvas.

Acrylic over-painting, face almost complete.

Almost done, bit more detail to do on her hair.

Titania (II) complete.  I don't think she's going to take any nonsense from Oberon!

My Wolf is still speaking, new poems still coming.  I'm not sure how/if I'm going to incorporate these into the performance in November, it may be better to leave them as something the audience can read independently of the performance, in hand lettered poems on the walls, or little books of wolf poems for sale, perhaps.  Here's a new one:

In soft black earth

her heel's imprint,

a fallen shard of sky

in bright spring rain.

One paw on either side

I stoop to drink

the white clouds drifting

in her wake.

I think I will also have some of my little 'Snow White to the Woodsman' booklets in the exhibition, so the next painting might be Snow White.  But I still have lots of 'Wolf Bride' things to do, including one more big painting, a possible new song, and extended narrative, so we'll see.  I shall be busy!

Please remember that everything on this blog is © Christina Cairns, unless otherwise credited.

Post Fables...

As in 'after', not that I'm posting fables, on walls or through the mail.  Though I did receive a small marvel, a heartbreakingly beautiful treasure through the mail this morning.  This.

I've been a Karine Polwart fan for a while, due to Terri Windling, who has opened my ears to many marvellous singers and musicians through her regular 'Tunes for a Monday Morning' posts.  A recent Monday post featured Karine, and information about her one-woman music/theatre/storytelling show Wind Resistance, and the subsequent CD/Book package.  I found a couple of Youtube snippets, and fell in love with the whole idea, so I treated myself.  It arrived this morning, and what a beautiful, heart-rending thing it is too.

I've been thinking on the 'next project' (apart from the visual The Wolf Bride that I'm currently working on), and wondering about the possibility of doing something more personal, more local, still with stories and myth and folklore, because I can't let that go, but something more grounded in the 'here' of my life.  But as ever, I wonder if I'm brave enough.  My songs and performance work always, I suppose, have an element of the autobiographical, because how can they not?  But it's not really about me, it's the old stories, reimagined and universal, more the macro view than the micro view.  I'm always hiding behind a mask, so to speak.

So I wonder, have I got a story that's interesting enough, and am I brave enough to tell it without the mask to hide behind?  I don't know, and I don't know how to go about it.  But hearing/seeing Karine's beautiful work, and the marvellous way she has seamlessly created this organic and fluid piece, sliding effortlessly between personal story, local history (recent and ancient), scientific observation, political commentary and more, has inspired me to at least think seriously about giving it a go.  It will probably be a long time coming, and I don't know what shape it might take, but I think I might try.  If nothing else, I might create a body of work that I can leave to my daughters, and granddaughters, that will tell them who I was.  And maybe I might find out along the way too.

*            *            *

But, leaving that aside for now.  Fables went well, and I discovered some useful things that will improve (I hope) future work.  I had lovely, and very appreciative audiences, and again was asked, "will there be a cd?" more than once, so I suppose I'd better seriously plan how to go about that.  I was terribly nervous the first morning (and first show in the venue at 10am is not the best for me, I'm better a bit later in the day), but I remembered everything, didn't falter or stop or lose where I was up to.  So I know when I know it, and I know I can do it, even if I'm not feeling relaxed and in control.  A very useful thing to know!  The second show was much better, even with a couple of minor line 'fluffs' which I recovered easily from because I knew it well enough the find my way back.  Performing when you're relaxed enough to enjoy it, and not stress about minor mistakes, is a beautiful thing.  I like that feeling.  I should perform more!  And I definitely sang better on the second day.

An interesting thing that I discovered, is that I think I prefer performing a single story narrative, like The Wolf Bride, to a series of tales like Fables.  This was echoed by something a friend who came said, that she'd just relax into one story, only to be dragged reluctantly out and into another.  I carefully planned my 'segues' to avoid obvious ends and beginnings, to hopefully blend one story into another and avoid any uncomfortable jolts or shifts between them.  But even so, each was only a snippet of a tale (I must have cut at least half of my original script to get it down to 50mins), and there was so much detail and richness that I had to leave out.  And so, subsequently, I was not as 'attached' to this show as to The Wolf Bride.  I know this was also due to the fact that I'd been working on (and living with) The Wolf Bride for several years, and it was on a theme that I'm personally quite attached to (and I've had some more insight into what attracts me to it, but that's for another post), but with 50mins with one story, you can really get 'into' it, dive in and immerse yourself, and really enjoy the more gradual unfolding of the story, the depth and the richness of a single tale.  So I may stick with that for future shows.

But for the moment, I'm in R&D mode for a 'new and improved' The Wolf Bride, experimenting with ideas that will bring a more theatrical feel to the show, without making it so complicated that I need a stage crew to produce it.  I'm playing about with paper models and simple lighting effects using everyday, cheap electric candles and small battery fairy lights.  Very simple stuff that I can do myself onstage, but which will enrich the experience for an audience.  And without losing the simple 'storytelling' aspect in a welter of fancy things to look at.  I've always been a fan of very simple stage/set designs (though I must admit I adore marvellous lighting).  Something that enhances, rather than overwhelms, the beauty of a person standing/sitting in front of an audience and telling a story.

A few 'baby steps' experiments!

Electric candles inside plain paper printed on inside with text/pictures (so it appears plain white until the light is on).

Fairy lights and leaves cut from plastic milk bottles.

Can I make my drum into a moon?

Yes, it looks like I can.

IKEA battery lights and tissue paper.

And a plastic yogurt container.

A 'loo roll' castle.  VERY simple, I can expand on this greatly.

A stone wall pattern printed on inside of paper...makes a stone tower!

A fire and curling smoke around a tea light.  The flame cut paper is red, but it doesn't show as such when the candle is lit in complete darkness, so perhaps a 'stained glass' effect with red cellophane might be the go?!

And someone doesn't like it when mummy's attention is all on the computer and NOT on him!