On Fridays I am going to host a videopoem on my blog that I have found somewhere on the NET - Vimeo, YouTube, Moving Poems, etc. I will try to write something of my reaction to the videopoem in the post. My only rule is one videopoem per 6 months per videopoet (including my own work). Four posts a month is not very much, and there's lots to choose from. I can't aim for the best on the NET because I have no idea what that might be. My aim is simply consistently high quality, and my weekly criteria may change for what that is depending on what angle I'm exploring - ie perhaps the visuals are amazing and the poem ok, or vice versa. Videopoetry is a multi-media art where a number of arts intersect - film, text either on-screen or accompanying, music, voice - so visual art, writing, music and performance. A videopoem is, then, a juggling act. I am planning to begin posting on Fridays as I begin to prepare for setting up a site that will focus on Videopoetry Theory.

Whiteness, a high tide drawn by the moon. Light coiled around and inside her, claiming her. Thoughts passed through like schools of fish. Luminosity opened in the depths and kept opening.


Woman of the Sea, 2011, 12" x 10", 30.5cm x 25.5cm, India ink, conte crayon, oils on [100lb archival] paper.

She got wetted and blotted and re-painted a few times. This is what she became. Below is an earlier moment on the journey towards the final version.



Another Woman of the Sea, mostly oils on [100lb archival] paper. Those white scraping marks, like dots, on her right bother me, yet if I remove them the foreground, where she is, and the background, where the dark ocean is, separate from each other too much to my liking. Those white scrapes anchor her to the swirl of fluidity, the sea.

 .... yet I am still finding my relation to this painting like it was to the drawing, difficult.

But it's quite detailed, isn't it. About 4 layers of different coloured paint. Interesting what can emerge when you prepare for a run. :) The living room/dining room in my tiny apartment is currently set up as a make-shift studio, so it's just a few feet to the work table. But it takes gumption to get there. I did, and I done.

So tuckered out now, after that jaunt of paint, I'll have to have lunch and a rest. [ps It looks better in a large size -click on it -it'll open to a new screen.]

I am seeing the Symbolists here, and the French Surrealists.

Figures, 25.5cm x 34.5cm, 10" x 13.5", India ink, oil on 100lb archival paper.

Freshly painted sketch from the life drawing session I went to in August. Probably two 3 minute poses drawn on the same page, but the imagination runs wild...

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With thanks to Pierre-Marie Coedes for pointing out that the figures look like a couple - which I hadn't seen but did after he mentioned it.

Old Woman of the Sea, 35.5cm x 39.5cm, 14" x 15.5", India ink, conte crayon, oils on 100lb archival paper.

It's not that I paint, but that the painting paints me. It changes me somehow. It's not that I paint something but rather that I paint what's changing in me through the process of creating the painting.

Old Women of the Sea: the old woman is in the ocean; the ocean moves through her; she is the ocean. Like a mother ocean.

A figurative landscape, or, rather, seascape.

I painted her in near darkness last night, in a dimly lit room. The colours looked almost the same on the paper - I only knew which was which because of the names on the tubes, which I could just make out. As I painted, I trusted my intuitive aesthetic senses.

In the midnight air I went to the table I've set up for painting while my children are away (at their Dad's - it's Canadian Thanksgiving and my half of the family wined and dined on Saturday night). I chose a sketch. And began painting, hardly being able to see what I was doing. Doing it by intuitive sense. And I wanted to let go of the naysayers in my head, and paint with an emotional clarity.

And I guess that's perhaps that's why I have to be alone to work. My children's presence or absence has nothing to do with it. I'm learning who I am when I paint. Or being taught by my painting. It's a very intimate, private process - until it's finished, and then you can show the world.


I'm painting some of the sketches I did at a life drawing drop-in session at TSA (Toronto School of Art) in August.

The original sketch as I did it in the life drawing session
that I went to with my niece. If you click on it, you'll go to the album.



Lifedrawing6, 28cm x 35.5cm, 11"x14", India ink, conte crayon, 100lb archival paper.

Ancient Grecian, red ochre of pottery, a Venus on a pedestal, the theatrics of the age.


Theatrics of the Age, 25.5cm x 30.5cm, 10" x 12", India ink, conte crayon, oil on 100lb archival paper. The original sketch all but gone in the painting, what looks like conte crayon sweeps is oil paint swept on a large dry brush.

Today I painted some of the sketches I did at a life drawing drop-in session at TSA (Toronto School of Art) in August.

An earlier version of the painting.




The original sketch as I did it in the life drawing session
that I went to with my niece. You can also view the whole album.



Lifedrawing9, 28cm x 35.5cm, 11"x14", India ink,
conte crayon, 100lb archival paper.

As I painted, I thought of the blue, and of sticks. And it is like she is surrounded by a nest, isn't it.


Old Woman, 2011, 25.5cm x 32cm, 10" x 12.5", oil on archival paper.


Today I painted one of the sketches I did at a life drawing drop-in session at TSA (Toronto School of Art) in August - one I hadn't posted.

direct link: Nik Beat at Free Times Cafe - live and uncut

An evening of Nik Beat and Friends at the Free Times Cafe in Toronto, Canada on September 16, 2011. An uncut set playing in real time, we see Nik at his disarmingly charming best between beautiful songs and poems. This is as close as it gets to being there. We adore you Nik! Enjoy the show!

Nik sings some of his new recorded songs and poetry from his book, "The Tyranny of Love." Joining him are Michael Ratt, Pat Kelly, Michael Marian, Joani Paige, and Willie Anicic .

From Seraphim Editions, the publisher of his book of poetry, "The Tyranny of Love": "Born in 1956, Nik Beat (née Michael Barry) toiled in the rock and roll field for a number of years until he quit and took the moniker Nik Beat. This native Torontonian has for the past 20 years been a writer/poet published in numerous anthologies. He has been profiled on Much Music and TVO's Imprint as well as in an upcoming CBC radio appearance. He currently hosts the HOWL spoken word radio show on CIUT 89.5 FM. He lives in the quiet doldrums of the famous Beaches area, where he not only commandeers a Words and Music show at the Renaissance Café but is also an accomplished collage artist."

The Free Times Cafe performance videoed and edited by me, Brenda Clews.

Nik Beat's voice, to my ear, is softer, richer, more modulated than ever. Perhaps mellowed is the word.  Like the heart beats in the vocal chords, irradiating songs with feelings, feelings that connect us all. In the clip, he's singing emotional textures -that move us the way birdsong in the trees moves us. My video is a set of his atand is uncut, only a filter of strong contrasts added....I love the sound track. He's in top form. Really fine set, so glad I taped it. It's open in another browser window as I listen for the 20th time to the track!

William Leighton wrote: "Very well done. Loved the simplicity of it and the refrain from constant motion. Nik definitely is a pilgrim on a journey and he invites people to hear from those travels. What we believe is paramount to who we become and where we end up and the heart is the compass of that journey. Truth does lie at the end of the journey for us all though. Travel safely and wisely."

Good Night Girl was awesome, as Willie Anicic said, and many of us mentioned how that song played in our minds for days afterwards. A beautiful paean to his beloved Linda Mercer, who passed away this year.

I wanted Nik to see the set uncut before I did anything (well, except the filter I added), but he liked it and said to go ahead and make it public, which I did. Watch like you're sitting at a table with a drink listening. It's dark and your friends are with you. Enjoy!

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ps I linked Nik to a Google search on his name since he's all over the place. :)

Figurative Notations. Photograph, or still from video.

Working on Tangled Garden, bit by bit, and eventually the videopoem will be done. It's been forever, but forging slowly ahead.


I uploaded a huge version -click on it- very theatrical!

Cool!

You can get it here: widgetsplus/

direct link: Wear White Paint for the Moon (*this video is subtitled* -after you hit play, hover your mouse over the CC in the playbar, when it turns red, the subtitle file is loaded and you can read along with the prosepoem if you wish- red is on; black is off)

This reading of my prosepoem, Wear White Paint for the Moon, took place at the CENtRAL last night, a pub in Mirvish Village in Toronto, and while I wasn't particularly happy with it, I did have enormous fun making the video, and quite like it now.

With tripod on camera, the angle was unchangeable. I layered multiple tracks of the same clip with lots of filters and then pulled in some footage I had shot of the full moon last August. The moon is quite bouncy in parts, and yet matches the words in those parts, which I found delightfully synchronous.

The background of moon and clouds was my wild imagination at home when I was editing the video. While it would have been wonderful to encase the poets that night in a stage set of lunar light and wispy cloud moon veils, alas, no, we stood on a small stage with a screen behind us. The scenery is a product of the magic of film editing.

I spent hours making detailed by-the-second subtitles for this video so you can read the words while you listen, if you like, and have Google translate into another language if that is better for you.

Background music - 'Satellite Two,' by Professor Kliq, from his album on Jamendo, "Athene's Theory of Everything: The Original Soundtrack."