Meet the artists: Jose Luis Gomez & Solveigh Goett

Jose Luis (doctor de medicina) y Solveigh (doctora de filosofia) en Chite, Granada

José Luis Gómez se sumerge reiteradamente en un universo en tres dimensiones, incitando al espectador a representar en ocasiones el papel de mero observador de volúmenes encerrados en obras estereoscópicas o dioramas, en otras de improvisado performer en volúmenes libres,  instalaciones.

Jose Luis Gomez leads the visitors into the depths of 3d universes, sometimes giving them the role of spectators looking into enclosed worlds contained in stereoscopic works or dioramas, on other occasions making them participants performing in installations.

Solveigh Goett es una artista enamorada del tejido de la vida. Viviendo entre tres culturas, se mueve con facilidad en los espacios fronterizos. Recogiendo hilos de realidades materiales e imaginadas, fabrica redes para captar la imaginación.

Solveigh Goett is an artist in love with the fabric of life. Living in-between three cultures, she moves with ease in the borderlands, re/collecting threads of material and imagined realities, fabricating webs to capture the imagination.

Gomez & Goett crean mundos mágicos para deleitar y confundir los sentidos.

Gomez & Goett create magic worlds to delight and confuse the senses.

El otro - the other

El Otro ¿Por qué decir nombres de dioses, astros, espumas de un océano invisible, polen de los jardines más remotos? Si nos duele la vida, si cada día llega desgarrando la entraña, si cada noche cae convulsa, asesinada. Si nos duele el dolor en alguien, en un hombre al que no conocemos, pero está presente a todas horas y es la víctima y el enemigo y el amor y todo lo que nos falta para ser enteros. Nunca digas que es tuya la tiniebla, no te bebas de un sorbo la alegría. Mira a tu alrededor: hay otro, siempre hay otro. Lo que él respira es lo que a ti te asfixia, lo que come es tu hambre. Muere con la mitad más pura de tu muerte. Rosario Castellanos (1959) The other Why say the names of gods, stars, spray from an invisible ocean or pollen from the farthest gardens? If life hurts us, if every day comes tearing at our innards, if every night falls convulsing, murdered. If someone else’s pain hurts us—a man we don’t know, but who is here at all hours, is victim and enemy and love and everything that’s missing if we want to be whole. Never say that darkness is your lot; don’t swallow joy in one gulp. Look around you: there’s the other, always there’s the other. He breathes what suffocates you, eats your hunger. He dies with the purer portion of your death. Rosario Castellanos (1959) translated by Dave Bonta

Cassandra is back - ha vuelto Casandra

ITHAKA

As you set out for Ithaka

hope your road is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

angry Poseidon - don't be afraid of them:

you'll never find things like that one on your way

as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

as long as a rare excitement

stirs your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

wild Poseidon - you won't encounter them

unless you bring them along inside your soul,

unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.

May there be many summer mornings when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you enter harbours you're seeing for the first time;

may you stop at Phoenician trading stations

to buy fine things,

mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

sensual perfumes of every kind -

as many sensual perfumes as you can;

and may you visit many Egyptian cities

to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you're destined for.

But don't hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you're old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you've gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey.

Without her you wouldn't have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

P.C. Cavafi

Luces

Nature and culture

words and things

'All myth is an enriched pattern,

a two-faced proposition,

allowing its operator to say one thing and mean another, to lead a double life.

Hence the notion found early in ancient thought that all poets are liars.

And from the true lies of poetry

trickled out a question.

What really connects words and things?'

Anne Carson, The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos

Happiness

Happiness, to some, elation;

Is, to others, mere stagnation.

Days of passive somnolence,

At its wildest, indolence.

Hours of empty quietness,

No delight, and no distress.

Happiness to me is wine,

Effervescent, superfine.

Full of tang and fiery pleasure,

Far too hot to leave me leisure

For a single thought beyond it.

Drunk! Forgetful! This the bond: it

Means to give one's soul to gain

Life's quintessence. Even pain

Pricks to livelier living, then

Wakes the nerves to laugh again,

Rapture's self is three parts sorrow.

Although we must die to-morrow,

Losing every thought but this;

Torn, triumphant, drowned in bliss.

Happiness: We rarely feel it.

I would buy it, beg it, steal it,

Pay in coins of dripping blood

For this one transcendent good. 

Amy Lowell

remembering & forgetting

Camino al revés

De vez en cuando

camino al revés:

es mi modo de recordar.

Si caminara sólo hacia delante,

te podría contar

cómo es el olvido.

Humberto Ak'abal

I Journey Backwards

From time to time

I journey backwards

It is my way of remembering.

If I walked forward alone,

I would be able to tell you

What oblivion is like.

Translated from Spanish to English by Andres Alfaro

sombra

Sombra:

noche pequeña

al pie de cualquier árbol.

Humberto Ak-Abal

clairvoyance

'Sólo la poesía es clarividente.'

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

future - silence - nothing

When I pronounce the word Future,

the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,

I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word Nothing,

I make something no nonbeing can hold. 

Wislawa Szymborska: Three oddest words

bleeding hearts

Dainty bleeding hearts

Flower in shady gardens

An ode to lost loves 

Haiku Bleeding Hearts

by 

A Poet Who Loves To Sing ….AlvesHolmes

Carpet

 

Carpet

Each colour expands and stretches out
into the other colours
To be the more alone if you look at it.

Giuseppe Ungaretti  

'one wild and precious life'

 

'Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean-

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

With your one wild and precious life?'

Mary Oliver, The Summer Day

New and Selected poems (1992)

Beacon Press, Boston/MA

men who want to love women

Gioconda Belli:

 

Reglas del juego para los hombres que quieren amar a mujeres

I
El hombre que me ame
deberá saber descorrer las cortinas de la piel,
encontrar la profundidad de mis ojos
y conocer la que anida en mí,
la golondrina
transparente de la ternura.
 

II
El hombre que me ame
no querrá poseerme como una mercancía,
ni exhibirme como un trofeo de caza,
sabrá estar a mi lado
con el mismo amor
con que yo estaré al lado suyo.
 

III
El amor del hombre que me ame
será fuerte como los árboles de ceibo,
protector y seguro como ellos,
limpio como una mañana de diciembre.
 

IV
El hombre que me ame
no dudará de mi sonrisa
ni temerá la abundancia de mi pelo
respetará la tristeza, el silencio
y con caricias tocará mi vientre como guitarra
para que brote música y alegría
desde el fondo de mi cuerpo.
 

V
El hombre que me ame
podrá encontrar en mí
la hamaca para descansar
el pesado fardo de sus preocupaciones
la amiga con quien compartir sus íntimos secretos,
el lago donde flotar
sin miedo de que el ancla del compromiso
le impida volar cuando se le ocurra ser pájaro.
 

VI
El hombre que me ame
hará poesía con su vida,
construyendo cada día
con la mirada puesta en el futuro.
 

VII
Por sobre todas las cosas,
el hombre que me ame
deberá amar al pueblo
no como una abstracta palabra
sacada de la manga,
sino como algo real, concreto,
ante quien rendir homenaje con acciones
y dar la vida si necesario.
 

VIII
El hombre que me ame
reconocerá mi rostro en la trinchera
rodilla en tierra me amará
mientras los dos disparamos juntos
contra el enemigo.
 

IX
El amor de mi hombre
no conocerá el miedo a la entrega,
ni temerá descubrirse ante la magia del
enamoramiento
en una plaza pública llena de multitudes
Podra gritar —te quiero—
o hacer rótulos en lo alto de los edificios
proclamando su derecho a sentir
el más hermoso y humano de los sentimientos.
 

X
El amor de mi hombre
no le huirá a las cocinas
ni a los pañales del hijo,
será como un viento fresco
llevándose entre nubes de sueño y de pasado
las debilidades que, por siglos, nos mantuvieron
separados
como seres de distinta estatura
 

XI
El amor de mi hombre
no querrá rotularme o etiquetarme,
me dará aire, espacio,
alimento para crecer y ser mejor,
como una Revolución
que hace de cada día
el comienzo de una nueva victoria.
 

New departures

desires and sensations - deseos y sensaciones

'I sit in a mood of reverie.
I brought to Art desires and sensations:
things half-glimpsed,
faces or lines, certain indistinct memories
of unfulfilled love affairs. Let me submit to Art:
Art knows how to shape forms of Beauty,
almost imperceptibly completing life,
blending impressions, blending day with day.'

C.P. Cavafy:  I’ve Brought to Art

 

Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard

C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Edited by George Savidis. Revised Edition. Princeton University Press, 1992

Me siento y medito.

He dado al Arte deseos, sensaciones, 

ciertos entrevistos
rostros o líneas, la insegura imagen
de amores incompletos. Dejad que a él me entregue.
El Arte sabe dar forma a la Belleza,
con toque imperceptible completando la vida
combinando impresiones, combinando los días.

Versión de José Ángel Valente

glimpses

'imagine immensities'

'We begin by worrying we aren’t good enough, smart enough or talented enough to get what we want, then we voluntarily live in this paralyzing mental framework, rather than confront our own role in this paralysis. Just the possibility of failing turns into a dutiful self-fulfilling prophecy. We begin to believe that these personal restrictions are, in fact, the fixed limitations of the world. We go on to live our lives, all the while wondering what we can change and how we can change it, and we calculate and re-calculate when we will be ready to do the things we want to do. And we dream. If only. If only. One day. Some day.

Every once in a while — often when we least expect it — we encounter someone more courageous, someone who chooses to strive for that which (to us) seemed unrealistically unattainable, even elusive. And we marvel. We swoon. We gape. Often, we are in awe. I think we look at these people as lucky, when in fact, luck has nothing to do with it. It is really about the strength of their imagination; it is about how they constructed the possibilities for their life. In short, unlike me, they didn’t determine what was impossible before it was even possible.

[…]

If you imagine less, less will be what you undoubtedly deserve. Do what you love, and don’t stop until you get what you love. Work as hard as you can, imagine immensities, don’t compromise, and don’t waste time. Start now. Not 20 years from now, not two weeks from now. Now.'
 

Millman, Debbie (2009).  Look Both Ways: Illustrated Essays on the Intersection of Life and Design

red heart - corazon rojo

To own the Art within the Soul

To own the Art within the Soul
The Soul to entertain
With Silence as a Company
And Festival maintain

Is an unfurnished Circumstance
Possession is to One
As an Estate perpetual
Or a reduceless Mine.

Emily Dickinson

The reflection of the sky in the water - el reflejo del cielo en el agua

Song of the spirits over the waters

 

Gesang der Geister über den Wassern

Des Menschen Seele
Gleicht dem Wasser:
Vom Himmel kommt es,
Zum Himmel steigt es,
Und wieder nieder
Zur Erde muß es,
Ewig wechselnd.

Strömt von der hohen,
Steilen Felswand
Der reine Strahl,
Dann stäubt er lieblich
In Wolkenwellen
Zum glatten Fels,
Und leicht empfangen
Wallt er verschleiernd,
Leisrauschend
Zur Tiefe nieder.

Ragen Klippen
Dem Sturz entgegen,
Schäumt er unmutig
Stufenweise
Zum Abgrund.

Im flachen Bette
Schleicht er das Wiesental hin,
Und in dem glatten See
Weiden ihr Antlitz
Alle Gestirne.

Wind ist der Welle
Lieblicher Buhler;
Wind mischt vom Grund aus
Schäumende Wogen.

Seele des Menschen,
Wie gleichst du dem Wasser!
Schicksal des Menschen,
Wie gleichst du dem Wind!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1779)

Song of the spirits over the waters
The soul of man
Is like the water:
It comes from heaven,
It returns to heaven,
And down again
To earth must go,
Ever changing.

When from the high,
Sheer wall of rock
The pure stream gushes,
It sprays its lovely vapor
In billowing clouds
Towards the smooth rock,
And lightly received,
It goes enshrouded,
Softly hissing
Down to the deep.

Cliffs tower,
Opposing its fall.
Annoyed, it foams
Step by step
Into the abyss.

In a flat bed
It slinks down the grassy vale,
And in the waveless lake
All the stars
Feast on their likeness.

Wind is the wave's
Handsome suitor;
Wind stirs up from the depths
Foaming billows.

Soul of man,
How like to the water!
Fate of man,
How like to the wind!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1779)

image: 'Traumfaenger' fountain by Norbert Then, Fuerst Leopold Zeche, Dorsten

Everything flows

a visitor - un visitante

Un Visitante

Alguien abrió con el mayor sigilo
mi puerta, de seguro mal cerrada.
Le vio, sin forma apenas, mi almohada,
el paso muelle y la palabra en vilo.

No, no era nadie que buscara asilo
ni que quisiera demandarme nada.
Con la primera luz de la alborada,
salió en silencio y me dejó intranquilo.

Eso fue todo. ¡Nada más! No espero
saber la causa ni atisbar los fines
de esa visita inesperada. Pero

esta mañana oí sonar violines.
Nada tampoco… ¡Amaneció mi alero
cubierto de hojas rubias y jazmines!

Raúl Contreras