Jim Spaulding-Poetry, photographs, works

Lost words remembered

Words written, lost, and remembered. Memory being what it is, they are of course not all remembered exactly and often get mixed and blended together. Time is a funny thing, it often seems more like an ocean than a road. Things burble and surface and crash and disappear again only to pop up on a beach ten thousand miles away with a rubber o-ring hanging off of a piece of rope wrapped around a corner and maybe, if your lucky, one of those old glass floats in a woven rope bag whispering old sea yarns to the crabs and the sun.

The prophet

Who knows the prophet who stands by the willow

The fountain of prophecy bold in the shadows

Sleep in the shadows their light will unbind you

Sending your spirit sweet deep in your soul

The jester grins loudly

The gypsy grins slow

The fool grins madly at the gathering snow

There are times to come and there are times to go

So savor it, savor it all through the show

“Sweet Dreams”

“Sweet dreams”

Why is it we say this to each other?

Is it merely random habit?

A friendly good night prayer?

Or is it, perhaps, because of some vague memory or unconscious knowing that

Out of a great dream this world was born

and continues to be shaped and molded and recreated constantly

By all of our dreams and the dreams of the stones and the stars,

The oaks and elks and elders now long gone and still the dreaming goes on

Dreaming itself with all of us dreaming ourselves into the dream

So dream sweet dreams people

I beg of you

Dream good sweet dreams

For all of us

Great Sand Dunes NP, CO.

We ran another plate today and were pleased with the results.  The photopolymer plates are really quite enjoyable to work with once the initial learning curve begins to plateau and the kinks are ironed out.  We’ve shelved our contact printing frame and have begun using two sheets of glass and four alligator clips to register our negative and plate for exposure.  This resolved our uneven registration issue and will allow us to continue printing with the plates without the immediate need for a vacuum frame.  This is good news indeed as vacuum frames are quite costly.  I will soon be stocking up on matting supplies and will begin mounting and matting prints in earnest.

Here are a couple of images taken a month or two ago at the Great Sand Dunes National Park with the handy dandy cheapo Polaroid digicam. It’s loads of fun.

Footsteps in the sand

I strive continually

For some sort of balance

Always falling one way or the other

I understand that this is the nature of balance

But it seems too far to mee

Perhaps I am being too hard on myself

But I do not think so

Perhaps I am simply insane

This is possible

But it does not solve my problem

It only provides me with a convenient excuse

I can almost taste the cure

Almost see the vision of my path to a joyful life of meaning

In the silence within me

I can see a light

I know it is that fabled spark that must be stoked and tended

Within my heart I can feel something struggling to bloom

To grow

The child within that is myself

I know the mysteries of the stars

I have seen the glory of creation

Cast in all its dazzling splendor

I have felt the pulse of life within my veins

And understood

And yet I am lost

The sweet, clear cure turns bitter and ashen in my mouth

The spark flares and then dies cold

The flower begins to bloom and quickly clamps closed again

The child begins to sing and dance

But stops and curls in to a painful ball

That breaks my heart and steals my joy

How can a man live such a life

And function day to day

In a world that values only the mundane

The mystic is a stranger indeed

Let me play my drum

Snow in San Luis

Laura and Bodie in our yard in San Luis on a snowy day enjoying the weather.

Still Here

Well I haven’t posted since June and I figured I’d better write something so anyone that is interested knows that this site is still active. I’m hoping to get a computer soon which will allow me to post more often. we’ve been very busy these last few months and are now relocated to San Luis Colorado. We have a great live/work space here and have set up the dog run and the darkroom and are happily printing away here and at the Ventero Open Press, also located here in San Luis. I have not been shooting much, as I have been very busy printing the images that Laura has been making. We have been working with cyanotype, gravure and salted paper. All three of these processes are a lot of fun. I recently set up the matcutter and ran a few mats through it to get it warmed up. Now I just need a good supply of 100% rag 4-ply matboard, some UV protect plexiglass and a bunch of uni-frames and I’m good to go! I’ve written a few things since the last post and will post them as soon as I can figure out which box they are in. Signing off from Studio 116 in San Luis, Colorado on all hallows eve(The kids already came by for their candy). I hope this finds you all well.

JIm

The photographers assistants dream

The photographers dream

So I haven’t been writing much lately…

This image was made in twenty mule team canyon in Death Valley National Park. Twenty mule team is one of my favorite places. The colors, textures and shapes of the eroded hills are really something to see. The place really has a lot of character. This image was made using an unmodified Holga camera, Polaroid back and intant peel-apart color film.