Monday Mixtape: 8 creators and cultivators inspiring me to make new work

Each week, usually on Monday, I compile a metaphorical mixtape, a few "tracks" of art I can't wait to share with you.  It might help you to know that tracks are loosely related by theme and very much influenced by whim.

This week I've curated for you a collection of projects my creative friends have been cultivating.  Their commitment to making new work inspires me to make new work.  I hope you'll feel the same.

I offer you this week's mixtape. Won't you take off your shoes and stay awhile?

track 1:  Phaedra Taylor (encaustic prints)

                                                                               Source: etsy.com via Phaedra on Pinterest

Holy Spirit Fire Celtic Cross Collage Print with Gold and Layered Paper Encaustic

giclee print of an original encaustic painting

I love seeing all of the new prints Phaedra is stocking at The Ambrosium, her lovely Etsy shop.  Each  8.5 x 11 giclee print of an encaustic painting is $19.50 and printed with archival ink on acid free, 100% cotton rag. 

 Phaedra's work at The Ambrosium features Celtic crosses and liturgical art.  We own several pieces of Phaedra's artwork, including this Scripture Bird Print with Small Celtic Cross.  I've framed it and hung it over my writing desk so that I might have beautiful images to capture my daydreaming attention each day.

We love Phaedra Taylor's work and we love Phaedra Taylor.  You should, too.

track 2: The Welcome Wagon (new album)

If the Reverand and Mrs. Aiuto (eye-you-toe) were to walk into my house right now they wouldn't know me, so including them in this week's mixtape is a bit of a stretch.  It is true, though, that when you spend a weekend together at a Laity Lodge retreat you feel like you're forever friends.  Plus, I'm too excited about their new album release to wait another week to share it with you here.

Listen through and see if they don't win you over also.  Keep in mind that unlike their first album, Welcome to the Welcome Wagon, that was produced with Sufjan Stevens over eight years, Precious Remedies... was recorded over five days in the library of an abandoned Brooklyn rectory.  Also, keep in mind that Monique and Vito only began playing and singing pretty much anything a few short years before their first album.  Their songs -- from the triumphant Lo He Comes With Clouds Descending to the lament of Rice and Beans -- are made with love.  

For all my musician friends, reading this post check out the work that worship director Bruce Benedict makes available at Cardiphonia to transpose The Welcome Wagon's songs into chord charts, leadsheets and mp3 demos.  Bruce adds his pastoral perspective for the liturgical possibilities for the songs, as well.   Although, I did notice that Rice and Beans didn't make the liturgical cut?

track 3:  Bulrup: the mystical card game of abstract agriculture (Kickstarter campaign)

I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've included a board game on a Monday Mixtape post, and I'm totally excited my friend Brett's ingenious invention gets that coveted first-time slot.  Now, I haven't played this game yet myself, but most of my nerdy game-playing friends in New York have and I've been hearing about it all over facebook.  If only we could host a Bulrup dinner party here in Austin.

One of the things I love most about this project is that Brett accomplished something most of us have dreamed about at one time or another -- making up our own game with our own rules and sharing it with our friends.  If you love games, gardening, mystical creatures or just plain old encouraging creative endeavors, get on the Kickstarter page and pick a pledge level to back the project.  

track 3:  links to more creating and cultivating friends

• Jason and the Draconauts by Paul Smith: Over the past year and a half my friend Paul has been diligently churning out chapters for a youth fantasy fiction novel.  You can every single word on his blog.  Don't miss his eight-year-old son's pithy reviews.  Here's to a successful publishing, Paul!

• Mama:Monk on Patheos: I've told you about my writer friend, Micha.  And I've mentioned her blog, but I don't think I've mentioned yet that Patheos invited Mama:Monk to join their network as a featured blogger on their family channel.  Way to go, Micha! 

• Twenty Two Photography by Andrew Shipman:  My friend Andrew has generously allowed me to use his photography so many times at this blog that he's got his own category over there in my category cloud on the sidebar (although, it needs updating!).  Andrew's work keeps getting better and better and I'm especially enjoying his black and white images from Manhattan on his new photography website.  Keep making, Andrew!

  track 4: Atlas Arrows (Kickstarter campaign)

Once upon a time, five guys released two albums as the band Where's Ulysses.  Not much later two of the guys moved to Austin, TX leaving the band to re-imagine themselves.  Not much longer after that the band Atlas Arrows was born.  Now Atlas Arrows is making their first album and they're raising money for recording.  It's been fun to watch them reach their Kickstarter goal, but I'm pretty sure they'd take more backers.  Listen to their EP  and then go to their Kickstarter page and pre-order an album or select another pledge level to back the project.

Listen to the EP here.

track 5: Muscle Men by Andrew Shipman  (photography) 

Just had to post this photo.  It's my favorite from Andrew's last trip to NYC.  There's a whole story going on here that pretty much fascinates me.  And you?

"If there is a constructive way forward for Christians in the midst of our broken but also beautiful cultures, it will require us to recover these two biblical postures of cultivation and creation."
-- Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling

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Before I go, I should tell you that I love to hear what poems, pictures, songs and reasonable words you are enjoying.  Please do stop by the comment box and share a bit with me.  

Hoping that  you find your common days aflame

 with good books, pictures, poems, songs, words and ideas!

Monday Mixtape: [secret trees edition]

Each week, usually on Monday, I compile a metaphorical mixtape, a few "tracks" of art I can't keep to myself and am very excited to share with you.  It might help you to know that tracks are loosely related by theme and very much influenced by whim.

This week I'm giving you a collection I've been hoarding for months and months, waiting for just the right moment to break out of the mixtape vault.  Since I'm a day late for this week's mixtape, would you please consider this an extra special gift from me to you?

I read Luci Shaw's The Secret Trees several months ago and the title poem, "Behind the walls", especially, embedded itself in my imagination.  I began looking at trees and houses and construction sites with new eyes.  The idea of the habitats cultivated from the life-giving source of trees holds layers of meaning rooting themselves into so many of my everyday observations.   Try it for yourself and let me know what you see.

Won't you take off your shoes and stay awhile?

track 1:  visual art

Source: Uploaded by user via Tamara on Pinterest

Scene ,1997

Michael Raedecker

Acrylic and Thread on Linen

track 2: music

track 3:  poetry

Behind the walls

Along the street a new house

is going up among the trees.

The open air of Wheaton 

is being boxed in there, closed off

from rain, birds, light, leaves,

Day by day another kind of space

is being defined

by upright beams of pine, narrow

yellow in the morning's sun,

sentenced to the long darkness.

Months from now, when it is all done,

I shall walk by. Where others

notice siding, shutters, paint,

I shall see behind the walls

the secret trees

standing straight and strong

as pines in the free groves outside.

                 -- Luci Shaw, The Secret Trees

track 4: film

Source: blog.fnac.ch via Tamara on Pinterest

Most likely, many of you have already seen this Oscar-nominated film.  We watched it several months ago and my only regret is that I wasn't able to view it in a theatre.  The visual aesthetic is gorgeous (a pivotal scene shot at Barton Springs pool even!), storyline compelling and acting on-target.  (especially loved Jessica Chastain)  

So how could I not include The Tree of Life in the Secret Trees mixtape?!?

And, just in case you were hiding under a rock last year and never saw the film trailer, I'm including that here for you.

Source: youtube.com via Tamara on Pinterest

track 5: links

• My essay on the meaning of land, water and a very special tree: On the Subject of a Place

• My friend Andrew Shipman's beautiful photograph of a tree called Life and Death + an Easter poem conceptualized on the subject of a tree:  Monday Mixtape - Easter Monday

• The secret treehouse in which I climbed in flip-flops and played with words: Playing At Words

bonus track:  visual art

Source: jonathanandersonpaintings.com via Tamara on Pinterest

Construction (no.6), 2009, 

Jonathan Anderson

oil on oak panel, 48" x 72"

Look through Anderson's entire Constructions gallery.  It feels to me as if he's read Luci Shaw's poem, too.

Grateful to the life-giving connections all around us today.

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Before I go, I should tell you that I love to hear what poems, pictures, songs and reasonable words you are enjoying.  Please do stop by the comment box and share a bit with me.  

Hoping that  you find your common days aflame with good books, pictures, poems, songs, words and ideas!

Wednesday is for Words (& sometimes pictures): dillard, shipman, plath

A certain minor light, the poetess says.  I think maybe the gentleness of our God does not always wish to blind us with his glory, but shimmer incandescent for those who have eyes to see.

1.  Annie Dillard

"…beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them.

 The least we can do is try to be there."   Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

2.  Andrew Shipman

photo credit:  Andrew Shipman
Fly

3.  Sylvia Plath

Black Rook in Rainy Weather

On the stiff twig up there

Hunches a wet black rook

Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.

I do not expect miracle

Or an accident.

To set the sight on fire

In my eye, nor seek

Any more in the desultory weather some design,

But let spotted leaves fall as they fall,

Without ceremony, or portent.

Although, I admit, I desire,

Occasionally, some backtalk

From the mute sky, I can't honestly complain:

A certain minor light may still

Leap incandescent

Out of the kitchen table or chair

As if a celestial burning took

Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then --

Thus hallowing an interval

Otherwise inconsequent

By bestowing largesse, honour,

One might say love. At any rate, I now walk

Wary (for it could happen

Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); sceptical,

Yet politic; ignorant

Of whatever angel may choose to flare

Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook

Ordering its black feathers can so shine

As to seize my senses, haul

My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear

Of total neutrality. With luck

Trekking stubborn through this season

Of fatigue, I shall

Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur,

If you care to call those spasmodic

Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait's begun again,

The long wait for the angel,

For that rare, random descent.