STELLA MARIS freewrite

STELLA MARIS

It's 5 am, Venus and Jupiter in conjunction with Jupiter,

someone says the star of Bethlehem

on the eastern horizon, new crescent moon

in the old moon's arms star of the sea.

I remember  sleepwalking to the front door

awakening to find a configuration like this

celestial bodies, the planets are aligning themselves

venus in the moon's halo appears to be holding the new moon

and holding the old moon in her arms

Venus Stella Maris I awoke naming the planet by its Latin name

where did that come from? I was baptized at the Star of the Sea

church. Some say it's really 1993 years since the birth of Christ

some priest or another got it all wrong way back when

the millennium is approaching at lightning speed

how many time since the year zero, or 3 ad

have Venus and Jupiter crossed paths

of course, everything's relative

it's what we see from here, this place.

that we designate as the most auspicious of signs

above me, Orion's belt suddenly i remember

a pictograph I'd seen somewhere

was it New Mexico, Hawaii

the small man dancing on the horizon

I recognized Orion. The names of stars

arabic and greek interpretations

thousands of years after the naming

what were the Hawaiian names

or the Indian names for the constellations?

The Pleiades directly overhead

the Celtic new year. The night sky takes on a significance

in my subconscious

I am recognizing a passage of time

our creators were more finely aattuned

to the movements of the stars

now we're lucky if we can even see them;

 the lights of the cities

a common denomonator for the madness

that sits within the absence of ritual

biological clock finely attuned to the measurements of seasons

the equinox another rare celestial event full moon equinox

and hunter's moon in one Paleolithic beginnings

haang from that orange orb

is it merely pollution that makes it orange?

I remember the August eclipse moon over Kiev

not knowing it was an eclipse

I watched the moon bleed in to the evening sky, 1989

In less than a week I'll be  traveling to Kiev again,

my 3rd trip to the USSR in as many years

this morning I'm off to Montana

listening to Tracy Chapman singing Mountains of Pain.

October 4/1991

Uh-oh a lot of ascii at the bottom—never a good sign

Making Things: Artist Raymond Barnhart 10/5/91

 Assemblages by Sebastopol Artist Raymond Barnhart

THE SUM OF ITS PARTS— Barnhart outside his Sebastopol work space with one of his "relief constructions," Consummation. "I want to please the work. I want it to please itself."
  

We asked the captain what course of action to take toward a beast so large, terrifying, and unpredictable. He hesitated to answer, and then said judiciously: "I think I shall praise it."   —Robert Hass, Praise

BY MAUREEN HURLEY

I recalled the twist on reality and an unexpected visit from poet Bob Hass' poem, Praise while viewing Sebastopol artist Raymond Barnhardt's latest exhibit, "Recent Constructions" at the California Museum of Art in Santa Rosa, California.

Because everyone's response to my queries about Raymond Barnhart and his work was the inevitable raised eyebrow, followed by an incredulous: "You mean you don't KNOW about Raymond Barnhart's illustrious career?" I gulped, and found that the best recourse was to praise it. Taking the beast by the horns—by asking Barnhart niggling details about his second career as an assemblage artist (painting was his first career) seemed sacreligiously inane and so unintelligent. Excuse me, your slip is showing...

And so, at a recent artist's lecture at the California Museum of Art (CMA), when the venerable artist himself was introduced by museum director Duane Jones as "Someone who needs no introduction," I thought, aww feck, the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was right: "You can only ask questions and die." Luckily, the lecture was a quorum of questions ranging from "How do you name your art?" to "What kind of power tools do you use?" The questions were all answered by Barnhart, age 88, with such thoughtfulness, verve and wit, I was in love with love itself.

Artists know firsthand that one of the challenges in art and poetry is to create something that is profound, but with a sense of humor. One who can accomplish both—without lessening the impact of the statement—is a Master. Barnhart's elegant, formal masterful assemblages are intentionally playful, they delight the eye, they make you want to laugh. 

Conceptual artists make us look at ordinary things in a new way, they redefine our limited perameters of "definition." It comes down to rearranging concrete nouns into metaphor—Plato's nemesis. The metaphor of Picasso's bicycle seat and handlebars as a bull's skull. Man Ray's steam iron with nails, and Christo's running fence—all share that spirited kinship to challenge the senses and reality. How we see the world.