Daily Poetics

In literature and art memory is a synonym for invention. It is the life-blood of imagination, which faints and dies when the veins are empty.

Link: Somersaults Life Archives.

Somersaults™ Life Archives
your life – full circle

"The genuine little details of everyday experiences when collected and curated add up to the eternal essence of our loved ones’ lives. Hand-me-down moments with the click of a shutter become frozen in time and our hearts. Sand between our toes. Tears of joy at the alter. That certain aroma from the back seat three days into the trip. The impossibly soft strip of satin on that tiny blanket. Fresh cut grass filling our every breath. The nervous first kiss and lingering last dance. Our dreams, loves, fears, triumphs and defeats captured in sights, sounds and words to be relived for generations. Somersaults™ Life Archives collects and protects all of your moments and memories in artfully produced products designed to make sure your loved ones’ lives come full circle." -somersaults

Design by Eric Kass, Funnel
Title Quote: Robert Aris Willmott

Another world is not only possible, She is on her way. And on a quiet day, if you really listen, you can hear her breathing.

Link: Daydreamer: Couture et Bricolage.

Title Quote: Arundhati Roy

Poetry has been to me its own exceeding great reward; it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the good and beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me

Link: raumge stalt.

"Wishes – the ring Right from our childhood, the power of making wishes is familiar to us: be it Aladdin rubbing his magic lamp, reciting magical poems to banish frightening nightmares, or the major or minor yearnings in our lives –the power of our wishes always seems to influence the way things work out. The plain ring invites you to listen to your wishes, irrespective of whether it is with words made available by others or self-created magical words - the wishes will be with you from now on."

Title Quote: Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful. And in the end, the poem is not a thing we see-it is, rather, a light by which we may see-and what we see is life.

Link: It's Nice That.

"The results of an extensive exploration with shadows, the One Day Poem Pavilion demonstrates the poetic, transitory, site-sensitive and time-based nature of light and shadow. Using a complex array of perforations, the pavilion’s surface allows light to pass through creating shifting patterns, which–during specific times of the year–transform into the legible text of a poem. The specific arrangements of the perforations reveal different shadow-poems according to the solar calendar: a theme of new-life during the summer solstice, a reflection on the passing of time at the period of the winter solstice. The time-based nature of the poem–and the visitor’s time-based encounters with it–allow viewers to have different experiences either seeing a stanza of the poem or getting the whole poem. All of these possible experiences are equally valuable and have meanings unique to the individual. This technique has the potential for producing particular effects and meanings within an architectural environment. Without the use of a source of power other than the sun, this project uses light and shadow to push the boundaries of communication and experiential delight." -One Day Poem Pavilion by Jiyeon Song

Title Quote: Robert Penn Warren

What would happen if there were a glad acceptance of the sensuous in all forms? If we could rediscover our hands, eyes and ears, our tongues and noses, and then enjoy them without embarrassment.

Link: Aspen no. 4, item 7: The Braille Trail.

"A self-guiding nature trail for the blind — both seeing and non-seeing — teaches us to comprehend the natural world through the purest form of communication — touch, smell, hearing — without first filtering it through sight.

The Aspen Braille Trail was built high up in the Independence Pass wilderness, at 10,400 feet, by a small band of Aspenites and White River Forest Service personnel. Robert B. Lewis, scientist, idealist and prime instigator of the trail, hopes that it will serve as an experimental trail that other communities can emulate — maybe some day there'll be "a network of such trails across the country in woodlands, along streams, in the mountains and even the deserts!"

We are informed at the outset that no poisonous plants, insects or reptiles inhabit this tract of land, which is to say that there are only good vibrations. Touch, taste and smell! Our sight has blinded us to many of the marvels of the natural world, since it has anesthetized our other senses. Oddly, the wonders of the natural world are even more wondrous when experienced without sight.

The 23 trail markers were written by Dr. Alfred Etter, naturalist and conservationist, and our picture captions are excerpted from them."

Quote:  Ben Thompson

There is nothing ugly in art except that which is without character, that is to say, without inner or outer truth. -Auguste Rodin

Link: Urban Curators.

"The goal of the Urban Curators project is to engage the public in the celebration of the decaying urban environment, recog- nizing its inherent aesthetic qualities as well as the important role that it plays within our cultural habitat. The project achieves its goal by elevating common, overlooked objects and spaces within the city of Providence, Rhode Island to the level of high art.

The project achieves this elevation by literally hanging gold, gallery-style frames in derelict spaces within the city, framing objects and views that are of aesthetic or cultural value. By utilizing frames that one might expect to find in an art museum or gallery, viewers are forced to make connections between the urban landscape and the museum environment. Viewers are likewise encouraged to reconsider their prior conceptions of beauty and worth, understanding that the spontaneity of decay offers an alternative aesthetic to excessive design.

Humans have for centuries sought after the grandeur of ruins that were once the glory of ancient cultures, recognizing them as windows into the lives of past civilizations. The Urban Curators project proposes that we should likewise cherish those ruins that reflect modern-day consumerism and industr- ialization, realizing them as vehicles by which we can gain insight into our own society.

The frames themselves are hung with double-sided hardware tape and are easily removed without harm to the spaces in which they are placed. While this is a necessary component of the project, it likewise means that each frame will hang only temporarily. Due to the transient nature of the project, its success requires time and effort from not only the Urban Curators team, but from the community as a whole. While the project was originally born by six Rhode Island School of Design students, it cannot continue without input and partic- ipation from others. We hope that the community will interact with the project – finding our frames, removing them, relocating them, and installing their own."  -UC

The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites. -Eli Siegel

Link: Aesthetic Realism Foundation International Periodical.

Aesthetic Realism is based on these principles, stated by Eli Siegel:

1.  The deepest desire of every person is to like the world on an honest or accurate basis.

2.  The greatest danger for a person is to have contempt for the world and what is in it .... Contempt can be defined as the lessening of what is different from oneself as a means of self-increase as one sees it.

3.  All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.

Link: MENU - Dumbbells.

Menu's highly polished, »intertwined« dumbbells – each weighing one kilo – are simply a beautiful sculpture. Pick them up and they immediately become a fitness aid and a natural element in your training programme. They enhance the effectiveness of a great many fitness exercises for strengthening and toning the upper body and arms without over-dimensioning the muscles.

Design: Henriette Melchiorsen
Use: Fitness/decoration
Material: Stainless steel

In war there is no prize for runner-up. Seneca

Link: Foundation33.

Hope (war protest in London) / Sam Solhaug 2003

Velvet Davinci
Anti War Medals & WORDS FOR PEACE a collaborative installation by Thomas Ingmire, Betsy Raymond, and Kazumi Atsuta In March of this year, dismayed by both the imminent war in Iraq and ongoing U.S. defiance of the global community, Thomas Ingmire invited approximately eighty friends and colleagues to participate in a collective calligraphic project on the subjects of war, fear, and peace. Each person was asked to write out a statement on a 5" x 20" sheet of paper and send it to Thomas, who would then arrange these pieces into a work that would be shown as part of the Friends of Calligraphy exhibit, Kalligraphia X, at the San Francisco Public Library. Thomas also requested that the participants invite their friends, families, and colleagues to contribute statements; children, in particular, were encouraged to take part. To date, more than 750 people from twenty-eight nations have responded. With the invitations issued and pieces arriving daily in the mail, Thomas set about exploring various formats he might use as the unifying structure for the project. It soon became clear that creating a work whose "whole was greater than the sum of its parts" was going to be a challenge. Meanwhile, something unexpected was happening: Thomas began to realize that the participants' statements were raising questions for him which often felt as provocative as the statements themselves. One such question was if a war is already in progress--or, in the case of Iraq, is about to begin--then no matter how eloquent or heartfelt the protests against that war, do they come too late? A war does not simply start on one day and stop on another; its roots run wide and deep. If we truly want peace, Thomas reasoned, we must do more than protest against war at the eleventh hour. Instead, our day-to-day lives must reflect that desire. Thus the question "how do we achieve peace?" became for Thomas the more encompassing question "how are we to live ...as individuals, as nations, as fellow inhabitants of the Earth?" and from that one question, not surprisingly, sprang many others. Thomas decided to incorporate these questions into the work with the hope that they would prove thought provoking and even, perhaps, inspirational. In the end, he chose lanterns to serve as the structural heart of a sizeable installation. The lantern--a symbol not only of the desire to bring light into a world which seems so increasingly dark but also of the challenge which faces us to become more enlightened in and about the world--was a perfect choice. This installation at Velvet Da Vinci is the second showing of the project and includes about one half of the statements received to date. WORDS FOR PEACE is an ongoing project to which you are encouraged to submit your own words. For additional information, see the Words for Peace web site at Words for Peace.org ThomasIngmire.com.

Marie Howe, Poet.

...We want the spring to come and the winter to pass.  We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss -- we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say the window of the corner video store, and I’m gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless.
I am living...