Rock, Paper, Scissors - The Art of the Commonplace

Hand series #2 - Rock

Hand series #2 - Paper

Hand series #2 - Scissiors

Hand series #1 My hand

The hand as art. Hand game. Or, this series could be an ode to Andy Warhol. For me, it's more along the lines of figuring out what it means, other than a pedestrian kitchen accident.

Since I sliced through the last two fingers of my right hand Christmas Eve, 2010 has been a year of learning to pay attention and relearn how to use to my right hand. The scar is still hard, and the tip of my little finger will not bend of its own volition.

In case you've never heard of this selection game, here's a post from wikipedia:
The players count aloud to three, or speak the name of the game (e.g. "Rock! Paper! Scissors!" or "Ro! Cham! Beau!"), each time raising one hand in a fist and swinging it down on the count. On the third count (saying "scissors!" or "Beau!"), the players change their hands into one of three gestures, which they then "throw" by extending it towards their opponent. Variations include a version where players use a fourth count — "Shoot!" — before throwing their gesture, or a version where they only shake their hands twice before "throwing." Others prefer a five count cadence by saying "Says Shoot!" before throwing their gesture. The gestures are:

Rock, represented by a clenched fist.
Scissors, represented by the index and middle fingers extended and separated.
Paper, represented by an open hand, with the fingers connected (horizontal).
The objective is to select a gesture which defeats that of the opponent. Gestures are resolved as follows:

Rock blunts or breaks scissors: that is, rock defeats scissors
Scissors cut paper: scissors defeats paper
Paper covers or captures rock: paper defeats rock
If both players choose the same gesture, the game is tied and the players throw again.

Poem Therapy at 1:00 P.M.

The Archaeologist
Hester Knibbe

In one who doesn’t speak the story petrifies,
gets stumbled over, causes hurt. Then,

says the man who should know about the past, then
is a word you need to learn now. Then

lived lives had has
a name a body, sacrificial hands

so god might help us. Feel with your hands and feet
back along these countless steps and hear

the incessant bloodrush, its dark red

presence. That was what the man insisted,
in so many words, pointing to the ornate

temple corridor, an altar
conjured at its vanishing point.

Then is a word we must learn now, since we live, have lived it countless times. So strange the past appears so distant on the horizon, yet it's set up shop in our bones, lurks about in our DNA, waiting for the appropriate time to jump out and shout, hahaha!

then is an adverb, an innocuous little word that means at that time. It implies a time other than the present. Then is the understory, what lies beneath the words. Left unsaid, it can turn to stone, be chiseled into a razor obsidian shard and plunged deep into the abdomen.

Yes, a story turned to stone through silence can do damage.

This Moment - May 26 12:08 P.M.

Flower series #22

Ash hued cloud cover and the sound of metal racheting up emotion coming from the studio. I have ducked into my office for a brief respite from talking, instructing, emoting. I have closed the door and claimed sanctuary. It is a fleeting refuge.

This Moment - May 24, 2:07

Flower series #1

Snow. A burst of sunshine. Heavy cloud cover.
Annoyance. Bliss. Despair

Collages - May 24, 2010

Civilization series #7

I love the Photoshop's cutout feature!

Floral series #1

A reworking of a collage using Photoshop's paint daub feature.

Goddess series #1

Photoshop's cutout feature.

Goddess series #2

Photoshop's pointillate & poster edges feature.

Goddess series #3

A reworking of a collage using the watercolor feature.

This Moment - May 23 7:01 A.M.

The world waited patiently for me to awake this morning and make it real again. I turn my head and paint the trees vivid green. Decide it is too quiet for a Sunday morning and a cacophony of birdsong appeases my dissatisfaction. And yet, without my command, Cindy and her girlfriends have been pouting in short shorts for at least half an hour. We make our own reality, don't we? Isn't this the imperative of the age, to design our days? make up our lives moment by moment? Isn't it possible that we, meaning each individual mass of cells and awareness, are not the center of his or her post modern reality? Is it not possible that we are ants in a colony, drones in a hive with a finite number of days looming before us? And to our amusement, the carnival construct of a heaven or hell afterlife is crumbling like old bones. And still this beautiful world foists itself upon us, upon me. And there is the same pine tree outside my window, spreading its branches like fingers. There, the trees and branches shaking the morning rain from their leaves. And here, my dog is sniffing the newly washed sheets and whining to be let out for an adventure. Yes, it goes on, it all goes on. With or without us.

Poem Therapy at 6:55 A.M. - January Gill O'Neil

Early Memory
January Gill O'Neil

I remember picking up a fistful
of sand, smooth crystals, like hourglass sand
and throwing it into the eyes of a boy. Johnny
or Danny or Kevin—he was not important.
I was five and I knew he would cry.

I remember everything about it—
the sandbox in the corner of the room
at Cinderella Day Care; Ms. Lee,
who ran over after the boy wailed for his mother,
her stern look as the words No snack formed on her lips.
My hands with their gritty, half-mooned fingernails
I hid in the pockets of my blue and white dress.
How she found them and uncurled small sandy fists.

There must have been such rage in me, to give such pain
to another person. This afternoon,
I saw a man pull a gold chain off the neck
of a woman as she crossed the street.
She cried out with a sound that bleached me.
I walked on, unable to help,
knowing that fire in childhood
clenched deep in my pockets all the way home.

I've had Ellie, a blue healer/border collie mix for over sixteen years. We got her from the pound when my daughter begged and I relented. She's been a good dog: good natured, active, playful, (although a deeply committed digger and uprooter of flower beds). Until recently. Enter Harley, a shorky - half shitzu, half Yorkie. Ellie now snarls, bites, pees on the dining room hardwood, and most surprising, she exhibits premeditated cruelty. She teases the puppy, sometimes viciously. Harley thinks Ellie is playing with him. I know Ellie well enough to know it's not a game.

Perhaps it's a Darwinian reaction in which she senses it is possible to be replaced in the social hierarchical food chain. Or, could it be possible that cruelty is encoded in our DNA? Science is beginning to show that our brains are hardwired emotionally, that we are predispositioned to certain emotions.

The speaker in the poem feels guilt as a reflective adult, and wonders at the rage she must have felt. The girl in the sand pile probably just wanted to see what happened when she threw the sand, wanted to feel the power of provoking pain. Power over is always a tenuous position, provoking pain to feel powerful is the refuge of cowards and the weak. Unless there's a method, it's merely madness. Shakespeare or Machiavelli would tell you this.