#283: do, undo, redo
“I do, I undo, I redo,” -Louise Bourgeois
Dear reader,
I hope you’re doing alright on this drizzle Monday evening. I’ve been thinking about this Louise Bourgeois quote all day: “I do, I undo, I redo” and it sums up my brain in so many ways. I’m curious if others ascribe to this approach as a creative process or as a life philosophy. (Let me know if you do, undo, redo too!)
My favorite part of putting together this week’s newsletter was selecting the wonderful poems that moved my hard-boiled soul, and the many links that inspired me.
But before you immerse, I’m excited to share a few life updates:
I’m honoured to be selected as one of the Villa Swagatam laureates from India who will be visiting France next year, and working on a poetry project at Maison de la Poésie de Nantes!
My tattoo designs for Anomalie Tattoo Co I made a tattoo sheet in collaboration with Anomalie Tattoo Co. A set of 11 little big doodles, all grinning from ear to ear. Order yours today!
I have an essay up on Hard Copy on the healing act of collaging. An excerpt:
“In my artistic practice as a collage maker and artist, a recurring theme I come back to is an internal investigation of my relationship between mental well-being, nature and words. While writing from scratch can sometimes be daunting, it is fascinating how the act of collaging has become an almost regenerative practice for me. Like in nature, there is a method to madness, a controlled chaos in cutting up words and pictures from old magazines and newspapers, and breathing new life into them by connecting the dots.”
-Rohini Kejriwal, Collage Therapy: an inwards inquiry
Poetry for the soul
We Look With Uncertainty by Anne Hillman
We look with uncertainty
beyond the old choices for
clear-cut answers
to a softer, more permeable aliveness
which is every moment
at the brink of death;
for something new is being born in us
if we but let it.
We stand at a new doorway,
awaiting that which comes…
daring to be human creatures,
vulnerable to the beauty of existence.
Learning to love.Against Panic and Pandemic by Molly Fisk
You recall those times, I know you do, when the sun
lifted its weight over a small rise to warm your face,
when a parched day finally broke open, real rain
sluicing down the sidewalk, rattling city maples
and you so sure the end was here, life a house of cards
tipped over, falling, hope's last breath extinguished
in a bitter wind. Oh, friend, search your memory again ~
beauty and relief are still there, only sleeping.
(via)Remember by Brigit Anna McNeill
Remember who you are.
Not the shape others have put on
you, not the story they handed you,
not the lies or needs that were
pressed into your psyche.
Not even your own imagined ideas
of what you should be.
But the real you, the wild innate you
that is breathing under all those
should be’s, all those untruths.
Remember the feel of it, the shape of
it. Let it inhabit you, like golden
weeds rewilding the concrete.I No Longer Pray by Chelan Harkin
I no longer pray—
now I drink dark chocolate
and let the moon sing to me.
I no longer pray—
I let my ancestors dance
through my hips
at the slightest provocation.
I no longer pray—
I go to the river
and howl my ancient pain
into the current.
I no longer pray—
I ache, I desire,
I say “yes” to my longing.
I no longer pray as I was taught
but as the stars crawl
onto my lap like soft animals at nighttime
and God tucks my hair behind my ears
with the gentle fingers of her wind
and a new intimacy is uncovered in everything,
perhaps it’s that I’m finally learning
how to pray.Zen Poem by Ryokan, translated by John Stevens
Like the little stream
Making its way
Through the mossy crevices
I, too, quietly
Turn clear and transparent.
Links I devoured
I Filmed Plants For 15 years (What a time-lapse!)
“Paying attention to doodles will convert the apparent work of distraction back into attentional currency—and hard gold. This is the real work of making doodles mean.”
-Doodle Nation: Notes on Distracted DrawingLa Sentinelle, a needlepoint project representing scenes from the 1986 video game The Sentinel
Mmmmm. Paper Mushrooms
Dyslexia Typeface, a typeface recreates the feeling of reading with dyslexia
Bella Kemp’s final university project is main character energy at its best
Yowie Deschanel plays an asalato ^ (Whoa!)
I want to build an itty bitty Printing Press
Sending you heaps of hope this August. Stay cozy.
Love,
Rohini