Our Bodies Store Memories

FRIDAY, JANUARY 12
Our bodies store memories. While swimming on Wednesday afternoon, I had not gone far when I felt as if floundering. Staying in my lane was difficult and I felt lost, in another world, one without boundaries. Feeling something was wrong with my routine, I stopped early. Although I have not been sick in eight years, I wondered if I was falling ill. I fantasized I had a brain tumor. Driving home, any bright light zinged my brain, and I fought off a headache. At home, weakness forced me to rest in bed. After a half hour, my stubbornness got me up to go out for dinner, and then join the figure drawing group I attend weekly.
Thursday, when I woke I felt the same rolling waves of unreality and dreaminess, tinged with remorse and loss. It is my daughter Naomi’s birthday, January 11. If she were alive, she would be 27. Even though I feel I have become more adjusted to her death at nineteen, I realize just how little control I have over the profound influence and effect her dying has had on my life. At the cemetery, while I stood in the snow at her grave, her spirit came, more expansive and loving than ever. She expects me to be happy, and shown brightly in my mind the promise of a joyous future.
Today, normality for the most part returned, and I wonder at my “episode ” which I mistook for illness.
The picture here is of Naomi when she was fifteen, two years before her diagnosis of cancer, and four years before her death.
For more, go to: A Heart Traced in Sand

Beautiful Places to Paint

SUNDAY, JANUARY 7
I could not finish listening to the audio book, "Madame Bovary." Gustave Flaubert's writing is superb, with exquisite descriptions of characters, physical settings, and the minutiae of life. For me, following Emma Bovary’s pent up inner yearnings while she has affairs, dismissing her marriage and fortune as too provincial and not up to snuff . . . well, if it were not one of the great works of literature, my listening would not have continued until almost the end, (which I know ends in suicide.)
Plans for Sicily are becoming solid. I will arrive in the second week of March and rent a house on the Northwest side, near Trapani, on the Mediterranean. I want to paint sunsets over the water. There are great towns everywhere nearby, like Erice, a historical city with ancient Greek ruins that sits on a mountain top overlooking the sea. Two weeks later I will go to the other side of the island, nearer to the active volcano Mt. Etna . Taormina sits on a bluff above the Ionian sea, at the foot of Mount Tauro. For centuries it has been Sicily’s most famous tourist spot, dating from the time of the Greeks. The town has preserved its medieval layout. It will be easy to find beautiful places to paint.
Afterwards Venice beckons . . .
The image above is a new work created from a photo of a Rodin sculpture I saw in Frankfurt, Germany combined and manipulated in Photoshop with an image of painted glass.

Anticipate Happiness

TUESDAY, JANUARY 2
It is the New Year and I anticipate happiness. My heart connection with the world is strong, so that every situation is positive in some way. New forms of creative expression are developing. Photographic and digital modalities are coming to the fore. Now, I am creating large photo based collages and painting on them. In the spring I travel for three months, painting, photographing, and absorbing life in other lands.
Sometimes I feel guilty at my pleasure, especially at this time when I am separated from Jean. But why feel guilty at being happy? My heart is pure as I can make it, although God knows I have more work to do, and I ask for His mercy and guidance. Certainly, I pray that Jean be happy and strong in herself, and likewise look with eager anticipation to the future.
So much of my new art has to do with naked bodies, and I wonder how people perceive this. I am an artist and the world is my canvas. The human form is sublime and I am held enthralled. I work to exalt it.

Deep and Silent Snow

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 29
Deep and silent snow covers everything. It fell all last night and most of today. Many offices and businesses closed due to the weather. I like it! It is beautiful how the extreme conditions cause life to slow almost to a standstill. Driving is risky, and about as fast as walking. I took pictures from my truck.
I am working on myself this way: to accept what comes to me and always be content. Happiness is within, no matter what life looks like outside. My dear Naomi said, "Show up and be lovingly present, no matter what it looks like out there or inside yourself. Always speak the truth of your heart."
To learn more of Naomi's life, read my book, A Heart Traced in Sand

Blessings To You

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 27
This Christmas has been simpler, less cluttered and more peaceful. I made a charitable contribution that replaced most of my usual gift giving to family. On the 25th, I arrived at my old home around noon and exchanged presents with Jean and Sarah. It was unhurried and thoughtful. Later, we visited the neighbors for a celebratory gathering, then went for a walk in the snow covered fields as the sun set. Christmas dinner followed with just the three of us in good humor. I left around 8:30 PM. A nice day.
The painting I have been working on is done, and I’ve already received compliments. The colors are vivid, and it is a strong contrast: the setting sun in the fiery sky, above cold, snow covered forested plains.
For you who might read this, I pray for your well being and happiness. May your coming days be light filled and wonderful. Blessings to you.

The Snow

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 20
The snow is piling up, and I feel joyful. The driving is hazardous and slow, as snow keeps falling and visibility is bad. But it is so good! I had fun driving around, taking pictures through my front windshield while the defroster melted and dripped the snow on the pane.
In my studio, I am painting a big sunset, 52” x 66”. It is exciting to work with colors that are intense and fiery, especially when it is cold and gray outdoors.
Here is a picture I took from my truck, late in the day. It gives me ideas for a painting.

Prisoner or King

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15
The computer world swallowed me whole this week. My photography and digital images have taken several big steps forward, especially online. 
It seems there is a strong consensus among close friends and acquaintances that when I go to Europe in March, I might as well stay three months. So this is what I am planning. I have contacts in Paris, London, Barcelona, Berlin, Amsterdam and Venice. Certainly, I will begin in Sicily for a month. I am tempted to be a vagabond, blown by capricious winds, at least for part of the time.
On a personal level, I am further exploring the power, beauty and grace that live within, and letting go of expectations for happiness outside. I feel a fullness that is self-sufficient. The ever-present joy in my heart is always close. I can be equally happy a prisoner or king.

Human Form in Movement

MONDAY, DECEMBER 11
It's that time of year, and as in the past the home will be decorated with fresh cut sprigs from mountain trees. Jean and I will trudge into the snow covered hills and clip branches to spruce up the house with holiday cheer. Maybe there will be enough left over to put some up around my house.
Lately, I have been listening to audio books while driving or in my studio. Currently I am enjoying a fine reading of Madame Bovary first published in 1856 by the French author Gustave Flaubert. It seems it caused a scandal then.

Recent days have been spent working my digital images. It is really fascinating to layer photos together and work with light. My current subject is the human form in movement. Steven Boone digital work can be seen now on Flickr

True Spirit

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9
This year, instead of hours spent shopping, a charitable donation will be made in the name of my relations. Christmas is way overdone . . . and much of the true spirit has been lost. People camp out in the cold in front of retail stores to be the first ones in the door. If you look at the life of Jesus, his offerings were not material ones. Furthermore, he did not need or want gifts, except those of the Spirit.
I like my little house except that it is cold and I can’t get warm. Occasionally, I get a feeling of being punished living alone. I am aware of being circumscribed, like a prisoner. The funny thing is, I can feel like a prisoner even when I am in a group, and at times felt that way at home with Jean. Maybe it is my curse. I never feel that way while I am doing my creative work. Perhaps my soul is an adventurer and loves to be on it's own, seeking new terrain and discovery.
Once a week I go to a drawing group that hires a model to pose. The artists sit in a semi-circle while the model stands on a short platform, unveils and poses in various postures for three hours. It is delicious studying the human form and drawing it on paper. In this group, there is relaxed, free association, with intellectual, humorous, and sometimes bawdy conversation. Most drawing groups are very serious, with no talking.
After two great months of painting sales, I hit bottom in November. Too bad, because I have made some of my strongest work ever lately and I can’t show it.
Steven Boone

Being Fully Grounded

MONDAY, DECEMBER 4
I have been experiencing joyful moments of being fully grounded. It is enough just to be alive within my own body, accepting my past, at ease with my present and eager for the future.
Today, marvelous, fun moments came in a steady stream. Especially when Sergi and Macarena, two Spaniards who are in Santa Fe came to my studio to do a photo shoot with me. I had set up a black backdrop beforehand and also collected some props. My concept was to have their moving bodies blurring together with streaming transparent cloth, all lit from the skylight above. At first they were wrapped in cloth, then naked and twirling around. Finally, we walked to a costume shop just a block away, and got costumes. Sergi pranced about in a huge rabbit’s head as Macarena danced in a white dress, streaming transparent cloth through the air. Three hours flew by in fluid, continuous moments full of laughter and fun.


Click to see more Steven Boone artistic photography

Howl with the Dogs

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2
My preferred method of exercise is swimming, which I try and accomplish 3 - 4 times weekly. Usually, I don't get in the "trance" state that a friend of mine aims for when he is swimming. I am not such a good swimmer, and I am aware of my efforts in the water. Furthermore, I am thinking as I swim. For some reason today as I swam, I remembered an episode from my youth. I was about fourteen years old, and it was a balmy summer evening in my Washington DC neighborhood. There was an empty lot I liked to go to, and this night, I decided to climb a tree. After I climbed way up to the top branches, a dog belonging to a neighbor I knew, Mr. Sedgewick, bounded over and began barking up the tree. He barked relentlessly and soon Mr. Sedgewick came out to see what all the ruckus was about, shining a flashlight up the tree while the dog barked. I was embarassed, so stayed still. This went on for some time . . . until Mr. Sedgwick decided he had had enough, retrieved his dog and marched home. I waited and then timidly climbed back down and crept away. Looking back, the whole situation is humorous.
Why did I remember that passage of my life today? Do I find myself happy on some lonely treetop under the moon, with the wind blowing, but with dogs barking and being examined by a nosy conscience aiming it's flashlight at me? I can be happier without as much self-criticism. Just climb to the treetop and howl with the dogs.