till it shines in the sun like gold leaf

So we have these fabulous gunnera plants in our garden

and sometimes I make bundles - the two above are from 2007

this post is about these things

and about PK Page's poem,  Planet Earth

It has to be loved like a laundress loves her linens

the way she moves her hands caressing the fine muslins

like a  lover coaxing or a mother praising

It has to be loved as if it were embroidered with flowers

and birds and two joined hearts upon it

it has to be stretched and stroked

it has to be celebrated

O this great beloved world and all the creatures in it

It has to be spread out, the skin of this planet

the trees must be washed, and the grasses and mosses

they have to be polished as if made of green brass

the sheets of lake water smoothed with the hand

 smoothing the holy surfaces

and the light poured in

I look around me and
everything seems , what's the word I seek,
ephemeral?
beautiful? 

 spiritual?

I've been alone for a few days, not quite a week. 
The empty spaces became filled with green
and my needle kept going in and out, in and out

I made things in the evenings that I had not even considered when I woke up
My fabrics piled up around me and the light poured into the house

it poured in

it revealed  beauty I hadn't noticed
and also that unnamable something....

I've gone back and forth to my studio in town,
making making making

looking at the water and the sky

writing and unwriting journals

 a kind of transformation is going on inside me

a shifting

When you make something you have proof that something has been accomplished, something is different.  It's proof that there has been a change.  You have made a physical change. You have made a thing.  It's through the physical world that you can have a spiritual life.  It is about transendence.  Something has moved from one state to another.  Art is proof.  Art moves your insides into the physical world.  It doesn't rob you of your insides, it;'s just a representation and it's always different.  It's like a mystery and you're trying to rein it in or something. 

Kiki Smith speaks this way