Friendship
Nina and I started this blog in 2014 as a way to share our art with each other. We unexpectedly acquired followers and connected, first, with a group of fellow artists–many like us, trying to encourage each other to return to a regular creative practice. The blog changed over the years to include more than just visual art, and many of our fellow bloggers became not just followers but friends.
Twelve years is a cycle, and after careful deliberation, we have decided that this one has reached its ending. We want to thank all the many people who have read, commented on, and supported our work through the years.
I will still be visiting blogs, though perhaps not quite as frequently, and I will still be consulting the Oracle at kblog. I’m not sure what else I’ll be doing there—it’s a different place than memadtwo. You can also find my art every two weeks, along with lots of other wonderful stuff, at The Kick-About.
every friend
remains a presence
inside each
creation–
inhabiting countless threads
woven into years
“A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself.”
–Jim Morrison
(this quote is the first thing I posted)
Fighting for good cheer.
Returning to warmth, friends, home.
Setting voices free.
Making sense without despair:
choosing with hope. And singing.
“Now ain’t it good to know that you’ve got a friend
When people can be so cold?
They’ll hurt you, yes and desert you
And take your soul if you let them
Oh, but don’t you let them“
They are trying their hardest, but don’t let them. Keep connecting with and supporting what is good and being a friend.
Greater Sage Grouse (Draw a Bird Day)
expansive,
this clinquant carpet–
roots capture
water, feed
both animal and plant life–
keep the land intact
The greater sage grouse is the largest grouse in North America. Its only habitat is the plains, foot hills, and mountain slopes where sagebrush grows. This makes it extremely vulnerable to habitat loss; the population of sixteen million 100 years ago is now estimated to be less than 500,000. This decline is due to the usual issues: clearing of land, overgrazing, residential and energy development, herbicides, wildfires, and non-native invasive species. Despite these issues, Congress declined to list these birds as endangered.
Both males and females have brownish grey mottled feathers, but the males are distinguished by yellow patches above their eyes and yellow air sacs on their neck which they inflate during their elaborate courtship rituals. As they puff out their chests, they fan their tails into starbursts and emit pops and whistles.
Each spring up to seventy males gather in a group called a lek to perform for several hours in the morning and evening while the females watch. Only one or two dominant males win the contest to mate with the females. Males do not participate in chick-rearing.
Seventy percent of the sage grouse diet consists of sage. They also eat dandelion, legumes, yarrow and wild lettuces. Insects are the primary food for chicks. Sage grouse nest on the ground and adequate cover is crucial for nesting. Predators include coyotes, bobcats, badgers, falcons, and eagles. Crows, ravens, and magpies feed on juveniles and prey on nests.
My poem is a shadorma for Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday, using a word from the uncommon fall words list she provided. I chose “clinquant”, which means glittering with gold and silver, to describe the sagebrush ecosystem which can look both silvery, from the sagebrush vegetation, and golden, from the pale yellow flowers that appear in late summer.
Sagebrush is the foundation for this ecosystem which supports many native species besides the sage grouse, including burrowing owls, pygmy rabbits, mule deer, pronghorn, and bighorn sheep. The Audubon website says “Nearly 100 bird species depend on sagebrush country for their habitat needs.” It is a beautiful landscape, well worth preserving.
Murmuration (Draw a Bird Day)
the way excess
thought leads
to starlings
a geometry
taking wing
–Peter Gizzi, “Suddenly”
I’ve done posts about both starlings and their murmurations before, but I never really did much research about either one.
Starlings are an introduced species to the United States. One story has it that they were released in Central Park in the late 1800s in an attempt to populate it with all the birds mentioned by Shakespeare, but that has never been definitively proven. Another theory is that they were brought here in an effort to reduce insect pests, which they are very effective at doing.
However they arrived, being adaptable birds, they now number in the millions across the North American continent. Starlings are considered an invasive species and are reputed to compete with and displace many native birds, although the Cornell Bird website said that a study done in 2003 shows little effect on other bird populations. Despite the beauty of their murmurations, they can be pests, both because of the sheer size of their flocks, ant the fact that grain crops are a favorite meal.
Social and gregarious, starlings often forage with other birds, including, as I know from my own observations, sparrows, pigeons, robins, grackles, and crows. They are great mimics, as I also know from experience. One of my apartments had a kitchen window right above the roof next door, and every morning they would serenade me with their repertoire of songs. Evidently they can also recognize other individuals by their calls.
A few other things I learned:
–The males build and decorate nests with ornaments including flowers and trash to attract females. They also add herbs to repel insects. Once mated, pairs are monogamous, devoted parents, with both incubating the blue eggs. They nest in cavities–tree hollows or man-made structures.
–They grow new feathers every fall with white tips that make them appear spotted. Over the winter the tips wear away and in spring their plumages appears darker and more iridescent and the reflected colors intensify. Their beaks also become brighter yellow.
–Starlings migrate. I did not realized that as, like robins, many hang around the city all year.
The murmurations are truly wondrous things of beauty. As Wikipedia notes “the flock moves as each individual synchronizes with its nearest group”–thousands of wings creating patterns that appear both random and choreographed.
I’ve written several starling poems of my own–here’s one.
wings scatter in light,
a mystery, their mission
illegible to
human eyes–tantalizing
visions of layered
complexity, a mirror
reflecting the wind–
following a rising path
toward the Seven Sisters
September 2025
September is complicated with ends and beginnings. It’s not always clear which is which. The year has accumulated, and there is so much left undone. I always mean to simplify, but instead of subtracting, everything seems to multiply. Again, again.
Crow is back, spending his mornings standing his chosen ground as high as he can perch on the water tower two buildings over. He complains and proclaims his right to call the neighborhood to attention with the first hint of dawn. Wake up! Wise up!
Too soon the trees will lose their green and their foliage and the branches will make their beautiful winter patterns against the sky.
I puzzle out a grid
while my mind wanders the crossroads
looking for lost time
This is another grid I created by cutting up some of my old textile print designs. The pieces were irregular, which made it like putting together a puzzle. It’s not at all a perfect fit, which is pretty much how life unwinds, at least for me
Self Portrait #23 and #24 (after Jawlensky)
My identity is sometimes a no opposing yes and sometimes a yes opposing no. I can’t discern from its past positions which will show up—the untamed glare or the subdued darkness. Even the meanings of the meanings sing differently when they are lingering in the wide spaces between a brief certainty and an indefinite ambiguity. Night provides no refuge from contradiction—dreams only confuse the boundaries further, blurring both my body and my mind.
color changes form
as light questions what is real–
face or mask? or both?
The Kick-About this week provided a painting by Alexej von Jawlensky, “The Girl with the Green Face”, as inspiration. You may recall that I used this artist for one of my self-portraits for KA #124 as part of my long-abandoned 100 Self Portraits series. Hoping to continue with it, I selected Jawlensky’s “Mystical Head”, above, to make another one. And of course, the Kick-About provided an opportunity to do a third portrait for the series. Now I need to move on to a new artist.
All of these self-portraits bear a certain resemblance to me which makes me wonder: what do I really look like?
For some reason WP would not let me reblog this Kick-About, but to see everyone’s wonderful responses, I’ve provided a link to the post, here.
Inca Jay (Draw a Bird Day)
I swim inside a cloud sea, surrounded by color and sound, under a canopy of mossy green. All my senses are awake. Red, yellow and purple orchids emerge from the ferns that line the winding path. Flashes of iridescence appear and disappear in patterns that remember lost dreams. The air is alive.
voices intersect
in layered complexity–
wings flash silver skies
The Inca Jay, like all corvids, is an intelligent and social bird. Native to the cloud forests of the Andes, it has proven adaptable to diverse ecosystems, and so has not yet become endangered like a large number of other cloud forest species have because of deforestation and habitat destruction.
Living in flocks of up to 30 birds, Inca jays have developed complex vocalizations which they use to communicate while foraging. Their diet consists of fruits, insects and small reptiles–they are integral to the control of pests in the forest and also play a key role in seed distribution.
Although breeding pairs are monogamous and mate for life, they practice cooperative breeding, where non-breeding birds assist in raising the group’s chicks.
My haibun was inspired by Frank’s dVerse subject of silver. The International Cloud Atlas classifies the fog of the Cloud Forest as stratus silvagenitus–“created from forest”.
Blue Footed Booby (Draw a Bird Day)
Blue feet dance
quixotic love songs
sky pointing
The blue footed booby lives on the western coasts of Central and South America. Its name comes from the Spanish word for foolish or clown-like, bobo, and its vivid turquoise blue feet.
Boobies are curious and tame around people, and many of the photos I found showed them seemingly posing somewhat goofily for the camera. They are often photographed doing their mating dance, in which they flaunt their blue feet, and raise wings, tail, and beak to the sky–“sky pointing”.
Boobies are monogamous and mated birds can recognize each other by their calls. They lay their eggs on bare ground, nesting in large colonies. Half of the breeding pairs nest on the Galapagos Islands.
The female turns constantly to face the sun while sitting on the eggs, forming a circle of guano around them. This helps disguise the eggs from predators such as hawks. Boobies are quite passive when confronted by potential threats.
Outside of breeding season, boobies spend almost all their time in the water. Agile flyers, they plunge-dive from heights up to 100 feet to capture and eat their prey underwater. Because of this behavior, they breathe through the corners of their mouth–their nostrils are permanently closed. Their diet consists almost entirely of fish.
Their yellow eyes are oriented to the front, giving them excellent binocular vision.
The present booby population is around 6,000 and declining, mainly because of the decline in fish populations, especially sardines.
Steller’s Sea Eagle (Draw a Bird Day)
black
wings stretch
wide–
taloned
predators
swoop down
fast,
capture
fish, bird, fox–
what can stop them?
pollution,
climate
change,
loss of
habitat–
sepul
chral
human
greed
Steller’s Sea Eagle is one of the largest eagles in the world, and the heaviest, at up to 22 pounds, with a wingspan that can be close to nine feet. A resident of coastal northeast Asia, it breeds in Russia and migrates south to Korea, Japan, China and Taiwan. Occasionally a vagrant will be found elsewhere–one has been traveling around North America since 2020 and seems to have settled in Newfoundland.
Their feathers are dark brownish black with white shoulders, tails, and foot tufts, although occasional dark morphs have no white on their shoulders. Their beaks and talons stand out, being a bright yellow-orange.
Most of the sea eagle’s diet consists of fish, caught by diving in shallow water. Aggressive raptors, they also eat waterbirds–ducks, geese, swans, cranes, herons and gulls–and will steal mammals such as fox and mink from hunters’ traps, and scavenge carcasses of animals such as deer. They have also been known to prey on domestic dogs.
Steller’s sea eagles are monogamous and mate for life. They build and look after up to four nests in their territory, on large rocky outcroppings or in the tops of large coastal trees, moving between them to lay different clutches. Agile flyers, they have a complex spiral mating dance.
Although they have no natural predators when fully grown, their eggs are often eaten by arboreal mammals and corvids. They are endangered, as so many species are, because of human activities. The current population is around 5000.
For this month’s art, I tried doing blind contour drawings and then the same pose in a contour drawing while looking at the photo. It was an interesting exercise.
My poem is a waltz wave, incorporating black (sepulchral) for Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday prompt to use our Astrological Colors (appropriately shades of black for Capricorn). The waltz wave is the poetic form from Suzanne’s W3 prompt on the theme of strength and vulnerability.
The Steller’s Sea Eagle is named after German explorer Georg Wilhelm Steller, who first noted the bird during his Russian expeditions in the 1700s. He is also the namesake of the Steller’s Jay.
Guardians (Thursday Doors)
These sculptures, these faces–
are they constructs,
ideas? or merely solid objects–
just images, representations?
How do we define their existence?
Do they include something
we cannot name?
Do they have a spirit?
Can we attach identity
to these visages–so still,
so seemingly inert?
Stone, clay–the earth’s matter
is full of stories. Where
are those stories located when
the essence of the land itself
is given human form?
Are these faces really
unchanging? Or do they
transform to fit the eyes
that meet their gaze?
What is a life but a narrative,
a placement of presence
in a building
we call time?
Is the universe a construct?
Is a season? A lifetime?
How do we find and set
the boundaries of between,
the neither and the both?
or is everything connected
by a substance that is defined
only by what it is not?
“rough edges,” by Elise Siegel
My poem was inspired by Lisa’s dVerse prompt to respond to one of the sculptural images she posted from an exhibit of busts at the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park–I chose the one above by Elise Siegel–and by Ooko’s W3 prompt to give voice to what is usually left unsaid.
And of course it made me think of all the guardians I’m always photographing for Thursday Doors.
I’ve also included some drawings I made of medieval sculpture (third image) and the above drawing I made of a ventriloquist’s dummy from the Vent Haven Museum. When you draw something, it reveals to you its life.
And be sure to check out all the doors at Thursday Doors, hosted by Dan Antion.
Great Kiskadee (draw a bird day)
Full of attitude–
predators learn to steer clear
of your boisterous wings
Opportunistic–
constantly on the lookout–
full of attitude
Kis-ka-dee you call–
declaration and warning–
predators learn to steer clear
Out in the open
you display your yellow crown
and your boisterous wings
Colleen asked me to investigate the kiskadee as that is the bird her street is named after. I wonder what inspired them to use that bird name–the only place in the United States the kiskadee resides is in south Texas along the Mexican border. 99% of the 200 million kiskadees live in Central and South America.
In Texas their habitat includes thornscrub, cactus, and elm-ash forests, but in most places they live in tropical forests near clearings and water, or in urban areas and near farms. Kiskadees avoid dense unbroken forests and are not afraid of humans.
Kiskadees are aggressive and boisterous, and will defend their territory even from larger predators. Omnivorous, their feeding behavior is opportunistic. They hunt in the open, catching insects from the air, diving for small fish, tadpoles and water snails, and foraging on land for insects, small rodents, lizards, and snakes. They frequent bird feeders and will steal dog and cat food from dishes left outdoors. They also eat fruit from bushes and trees.
Kiskadees are monogamous and build tall bulky nests, often in the forks of trees. When excited, they show off their yellow crown and often raise their wings. Hard to keep in captivity, they are rarely poached.
My poem, for Muri’s Chimera Scavenger Hunt, is a haiku cascade.
I have a few things to take care of this week, so will be offline for a little while. Hope to be back soon.
method two madness 
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