boy, oh boy. am i sure excited to be writing for The Laurel!
this week, i got to interview Kitty Love and talk to her about her vision for the arts community in Asheville. she's quite the powerhouse and as Executive Director of the The Asheville Area Arts Council, she's in a position to help so many people.
i also got to interview Stina Anderson, the amazingly creative renegade seamstress at The ARTery Fashion and Sewing Studio.
if you've seen my facebook profile this week, you know i've been shamelessly blah-blah-blah-ing about this. well, in my defense, it's not everyday that powerful people sit down with me to talk about their passions. and if they do, it's not like i can . . . you know, do anything about it.
until i can.
as i consider this opportunity and the problems and travails of writing for other people, many concerns and excitements flit about. i guess if these excitements and concerns were fused together, they might become something resembling . . . hope.
this work is an act of hope. it is more than information. it is my love letter to what is meaningful about people, their dreams, efforts, and convictions. behind every success story (and they are all works-in-progress) is a vision. i hope that each piece conveys some bit of truth and meaning, in the subject's eyes. i think, if i can manage that, then the reader will willingly walk in their world, for a very brief moment.
then, this work is also an opportunity to "see." i get to sit down and really "see" something or someone. and then, i get to share what i see. our world is against seeing. media, more often than not, reflects this. real seeing is an act of hope and optimism.
i confess: i am obsessed. with who we are, how we create, how we "see," how and why we gather together, how we isolate ourselves. i am obsessed with our passions, what disappoints us . . . and how we lie to one another. i am obsessed with our work, what we do, what our work-spaces say about who we are and what we love. i am obsessed with it all because i am a poet. in my mind everything is symbolic, and to that end, I exhaust myself. i am a fetish-hunter, a symbol-maker, a story-teller. i can't help it; it's just what i do.
what i am not obsessed with are things like correct comma placement, formatting, and editing for overly complex sentence structures. yeah, and i adore sentence fragments, too. sometimes i like wordiness just because. and screw capitalization . . .
i am debuting a new series called "Gathering Places" in February which i think might satisfy my obsession a bit. more on that to come.
and speaking of Brazil, i am going to play with my angel and devil rubber duckies now.
