Story Book

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Whatisbeautifulremains

If you are thinking it must have been a lot of fun taking the vintage wallpaper book apart, you are one hundred percent correct.

Long before the 1940s wallpaper catalog came into my life, another artist had torn pages of green stripes and calico tulips away from the half-inch long binding staples, leaving stacks of cup shaped scraps clinging to the edge of the book. Naturally, I wonder what those missing samples looked like. They were probably the prettiest ones. What I wouldn’t give know how she used those squares of thick, ink coated paper? Did her children take them to school to make Valentines or birthday cards? Did she cover a notebook or line the walls of a doll house? Or maybe she carried them in her purse as she shopped for perfectly matching carpets and paint, and then, when her decorating was done, laid them on the basement shelf with the leftover cans of paint, and forgot about them? That’s what I would do.

I started taking the catalog apart as a distraction from making a photograph. As usual, I was scared, hiding. If I had known they held a picture, I probably never would have started picking the last little shreds away from the staples. Isn’t that strange? Maybe I’m more afraid of finding the picture I want, than not finding one at all, so I mislead myself into thinking I don’t want to make one. Now that sounds like something I would do.

Further Heartness – 14 Matters of the Heart + 1

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Whatisbeautifulremains

You don’t mind if Valentines goes on a little longer, do you? Hearts like these are too good to pass up. When they throw themselves at my feet, who am I to argue?

Here and Now – 14 Matters of the Heart

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Whatisbeautifulremains

I don’t know what you want for Valentine’s Day, but I think I can guess.

No matter how I turn things over in my mind, when it comes down to this minute, this very minute, I want to be heard. I don’t know any better way to be heard than this: look for what is beautiful, and bring it to you. There is only one letter difference between “hearD” and the word we have been concerned with these last 14 days – “hearT.”

Hear. Heart. Heard.

I think you know what I want to say. I hope you can hear me.

Looking Pastwards – 14 Matters of the Heart

Posted on February 13, 2014 by Whatisbeautifulremains

Happy Valentine’s Day, Mom and Dad.

Self Evidence – 14 Matters of the Heart

Posted on February 12, 2014 by Whatisbeautifulremains

Some hearts do not require explanation or need any complications. Love happens without words. It might even be best that way.

Leap of Heart – 14 Matters of the Heart

Posted on February 11, 2014 by Whatisbeautifulremains

Making a leap of the heart is by far my greatest challenge. I probably ask all the wrong questions. I ask, “Will things work out? Will I get hurt? Will I make a mistake?” Everyone knows you can’t answer these questions, but it is the curse of adulthood to believe they are relevant to living into what you want.

Instead, I wish I could hear that tender center beating, and comprehend its language, rippling out in shards of life and budding branches. “Life” is a typo there – I meant to type “light.” I think I’ll leave it. Maybe it is just the sign I am looking for.

Heart Colored Lens – 14 Matters of the Heart

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Whatisbeautifulremains

You might mistake this for a worn out plastic pin box, just like the one your Aunt kept in her sewing basket. In fact, it is a magic lens which lets you see through scratches to where treasures of the heart are hidden. It took some patience for my eyes to adjust, but once they did, I saw hearts everywhere.

Why don’t you try it for yourself? Don’t let the dull surface worry you; hearts are more likely to show themselves when things aren’t all perfect and shiny. That’s when they glow most strongly.

Heart Maker – 14 Matters of the Heart

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Whatisbeautifulremains

Of course, hearts can be made out of anything. But should you?

It seemed to me that love could be created – in fact, that it might be the only path by which there was any hope of me finding it. In earnest, with sincerity, I took every action I could to demonstrate “I love you.” Step by step, I negotiated a staircase as torturous and rickety as anything Borges ever dreamt. The further I climbed away from my feeling heart, the farther I fell into self-loathing.

Dorothy has to find out for herself. The power isn’t in her red shoes, it is in her quest. Dorothy chooses to become a seeker, of her own free will. Maybe that is the moral of my story. To experience my heart, I had to fall away from love, and live to tell myself another tale.

Heart Felt – 14 Matters of the Heart

Posted on February 6, 2014 by Whatisbeautifulremains

Well, I just wanted to make you some Valentines, floating hearts of thought and chirps of love across the beyond. Things aren’t different and I know that, but the wish doesn’t go away. It’s like having a drunken relative who thinks another cocktail will improve the party. You can take away the car keys so they don’t hurt anything (harm reduction), but it isn’t your job to argue. It only makes you both sad.

Well Loved -14 Matters of the Heart

Posted on February 5, 2014 by Whatisbeautifulremains

I try to decipher their stories – unthreaded dots and dashes, dust motes glimpsed in the sunshine beyond a photographer’s shoulder.

Is their business here finished? I don’t think so. A shirt lies in a mending basket, waiting to be repaired. This little girl needed a button in her hair.

What they tell is this: My heart becomes fuller in the very use by which it exhausts itself. Her story is still being written.