[stylist] Happy New Year to all

Tue Jan 3 00:40:33 UTC 2017

Jackie, I am deeply touched by your comment.
I love helping other people in any way I can - but you have always been one 
of my most treasured friends in writing. You have the ability to explicate a 
poem like no other person I know.

As part of my tenure project at the college, I wrote a book titled, "The 
Power of Memory." This was the written piece of the 2 part project. The 
other half of the piece was a collaboration I did with a Prof. Ben Frank 
Moss, Dartmouth  University - we curated an exhibition that traveled across 
the US for 3 years. Each work for that exhibition had as a focus the notion 
of "memory."  When I sent out an essay from my book to my fellow profs. one 
wrote me a note to say that my work was so much like Annie Dillard.  At that 
time, I had never read anything by her. Of course, this made me curious, and 
I have now read many of her pieces and some of them numerous times. 
Certainly, I can see the power of memory in my own work and hers as well. I 
saw why he had made the comparison between us. Memory has always been at my 
core in my writing and my art making.

Here is an excerpt from an exhibition catalogue which describes what  Ben 
Frank Moss does in his art. I think you can easily translate these ideas 
into our writing life. I would echo these ideas in my own creative life.
***

Quote:
Hood Quarterly, autumn 2008
Joshua Chuang (Class of 1998), Assistant Curator of Photographs, Yale 
University Art Gallery
The following is an excerpt from Joshua Chuang’s introductory essay to the 
forthcoming exhibition catalogue Immanence and Revelation: The Art of Ben 
Frank Moss, titled “Call and Response: The Life and Work of Ben Frank Moss.”
To behold the work of Ben Frank Moss is to encounter a fiercely personal 
approach to the visual life—one taken up in response to the call of private 
revelation rather than for popular acclaim. For this reason, the paintings, 
drawings, prints, and collages Moss has steadfastly produced during his 
career as an artist cannot be traced conveniently within the general 
narrative of art history over the past forty years. His distinctive efforts 
to find form for the ineffable are not hidebound by any particular school or 
ideology; they are rooted instead in a more fundamental pursuit shared by a 
long and diverse genealogy of artists, poets, and composers: “a longing to 
be held, captivated by a spiritual force— something unseen but sensed.”(1)
Robert Henri once remarked that “for an artist to be interesting to us, he 
must be interesting to himself,” a notion to which Moss has duly 
subscribed.(2) Although he engages in the vocabulary of abstraction, his 
compositions originate in specific memory and concrete experience. Moss is 
fond of relating anecdotes from a life keenly observed, citing them as 
evidence that enduring truths can come from the most unexpected sources. One 
such story involves his wife Jean’s first-time encounter with a precocious 
seven-year-old neighbor who proceeded to introduce herself unprompted and 
show a rock she had been using to chip away at another rock. Curious, Jean 
inquired if she planned to shape the rock into an arrowhead, to which the 
young girl replied: “No, I let the rocks decide what they should be.”
The story seems an apt metaphor for the way Moss has carried out his own 
life and work. At the core of his evolving practice lies a fervent regard 
for the mystery of creation. He is careful not to rely too heavily on his 
obvious facility for drawing, opting to approach each blank surface without 
preconception and with the anticipation of unexpected adventure. To this end 
he has produced compositions that lay bare the process of their making. 
Scrutiny of their richly textured surfaces may reveal evidence of entire 
areas erased or scraped away and then reworked, but seldom does a finished 
piece feel belabored. For Moss, artmaking is an endeavor that requires the 
courage to hold still enough to reflect on life’s vicissitudes and the 
willingness to work on the edge of failure. Because of this, whether endowed 
with the deep, lush tones of charcoal or the luminous hues and sensuous 
texture of oil paint, his art carries the layered history of a palimpsest 
and the distilled intensity of personal revelation. His most successful 
pieces exhibit the startling immediacy of a “held dream . . . a poetic 
gateway to an inner experience.”(3) (End Quote)

Thank you, Jackie,
from Lynda Lambert

-----Original Message----- 
From: Jackie Williams via stylist
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2017 3:22 PM
To: 'Writers' Division Mailing List'
Cc: Jackie Williams
Subject: Re: [stylist] Happy New Year to all

Lynda,
My writing books are too much for me to make reference to anymore.
It might surprise you to know that your blogs, your shared writing of 
intentions, and your multiple accomplishments, are the primary inspiration 
to me in my writing now. I have saved so much of what you have shared with 
us on this list. It is a treasure trope.
Other than that, I think of "Bird by Bird," by Annie Dillard.

Jackie Lee

Time is the school in which we learn.
Time is the fire in which we burn.
Delmore Schwartz

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda Lambert 
via stylist
Sent: Sunday, January 01, 2017 7:03 AM
To: Jackie Williams via stylist
Cc: Lynda Lambert
Subject: Re: [stylist] Happy New Year to all

Sending out warmest greetings to  writers on the first day of 2017.
This is a time of new beginnings for us all. I’ve been working on my own 
writing intentions for the upcoming year.
I like Depak Chopra’s   chapter,  “Intentions & Desires,” in the little 
book, “Seven Spiritual Laws for Success.”  This very little book was given 
to me shortly after it was published. My friend signed and dated her gift to 
me on my birthday in August 1995.
The book is never far from my computer in my office and it is a constant 
reference for me as well as a guide for living and working in my writing and 
my art.
Do you also have that one special book that you refer to as you center your 
writing life and set your own intentions?  I’d lilke to hear about what 
others consider indispensible in their writing life, too.

Lynda Lambert
www.lyndalambert.com

Author of:
    Concerti: Psalms for the Pilgrimage (Kota Press)
    Walking by Inner Vision: Stories of Light and Dreams (to be released in 
early 2017)
Vision Aware Peer Advisor, AFB
Blogger – Author – Visual Artist
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