Thoughts on Spirituality
Spirituality exists wherever we struggle with the issue of how our lives fit into the greater cosmic scheme of things. This is true even when our questions never give way to specific answers or give rise to specific practices such as prayer or meditation. We encounter spiritual issues every time we wonder where the universe comes from, why we are here, or what happens when we die. We also become spiritual when we become moved by values such as beauty, love, or creativity that seem to reveal a meaning or power beyond our visible world. An idea or practice is “spiritual” when it reveals our personal desire to establish a felt-relationship with the deepest meanings or powers governing life…” unknown author
Carrie Iverson Invokes the Memory of Emmit Till in Prints
Human Rights/ Rain Intro Clip
Kara's Mammie Sugar Baby
My body is the prison
Keeping me held within the power of Captivity
Through the ages
Through the senses
Throughout history
My body is a prison
Held captive to my body
Held captive in my body
Now she brings forth my body for all to behold
My woman-ness, my beauty,
Raw and primitive like I am
A part of my body
That which I own
Which brings forth life
Which brings forth pleasure
My body is a prison
My body is my refuge
My body is a vessel
My body is temporary
Like the crumbling of the sugar baby Mammie
My body too will crumble into dust
Endless Talking
Endless Talking
In street cafes and coffeehouses
I sit talking endlessly about the mysteries of the universe
I, who know almost nothing
Risk exposure by the ones who think they know all
They who know nothing ask me
I give my impressions
They tell me theirs
I beg to differ sir,
I say
It is in each one of us to be
God
Spoken Word RAIN Just Words II
A Conversation with Victorine
Converational Poetry Art As Writing
“Olympia”
“The Street Singer”
“The Matador”
Olympia
I so darkly hidden in the painting, “Olympia”
Have come to introduce you
To the many faces, of Victorine
She was only 17 years old
When she came into acquaintance with the painter
He favored her because of her unusual appearance
She was a fantastic character
She played guitar
And she could also paint
She exhibited at the salon
When Manet was rejected
Manet painted the new modern man
He painted the new modern woman,
He painted me
Exposed
As I really am
You say he owes his style to Courbet
What you say may be true
I say the style was all his own
He gave us the modern woman
Exposed as she really is
No longer hidden
From the parlors
And drawing rooms
Of the respectable citizens of Paris
He painted paintings of his town time
“Art is a circle, he said,
you’re either in or out
By accident of birth”
He never wanted to make a protest of his painting
He never wanted to overthrow the past
He never wanted to create a new order
He wanted to be of his own time
“To paint what one really sees”,
He painted me as I really am
The Street Singer
It is late one night
He was walking alone
He saw her from afar
Who is that beautiful girl he thought
Where on earth did she come from?
He could hear her voice fading away in the distance
Her beauty was haunting to him
She represented the beauty
Of the street, and it’s music
I must find her he thought
Oh! Beautiful girl,
Singer, lady on the street,
That is what I will call her, he thought out loud
The Street Singer!
He tried to get the girl to pose for him
But she laughed at him and disappeared
Manet rushed to find me, Victorine
He told me of the beautiful girl
The singer on the street
The girl with the guitar
He told me a woman with such beauty
Must be painted
It was the inner beauty that Manet captured in me
He was not so interested in my physical body
As he was interested in capturing
The spirit of me, of the people
The people of his time
He captured that spirit
By painting
My body,
My face
He saw
My inner beauty
The Matador
Her I am
Gazing at you
When I should be concentrating
On the bull
Here I am
Disguised as a bull fighter
This context of me
Only heightens my femininity
Is this not
An unusual Costume
An unusual occupation
For a woman?
This painting was one of the first paintings
I posed for
In the painting I am wearing a Spanish Costume
Zola had told Manet
About some fantastic costumes
He brought them to Paris
Zola’s influence brought the Matador to life
But if I had my choice I would rather pursue more tender conquests
If I had to choose between
A companion excelled at making jam
Or another at killing bulls
It is the first
I would pick
I was his constant model for 13 years
I could change my appearance
Like a great actor
Manet capturing the bohemian through my eyes
He could explore the hidden faces of reality
He could explore the other side
Of the grand gesture, the lie, the bluff, the travesty
I introduced him to other mores, views, and values
In a culture designed by men for men
I represented a break from false morals
I was the incarnation of truth
He never tried to make me beautiful
He made me real
He challenged the traditions of the great salon paintings
Particularly the female nude
He tried to paint the truth, the real truth
RainBow Girls; A Work In Progress
Rainbow Girls
I saw her walking the street one day
Not too long ago
One of my Rainbow Girls
My! My! Did she grow!
Black Tortoise shell glasses
Camouflage Converse Shoe
Mini Skirt
And a T-Shirt that says;
“Fuck You”
She’s my Silver Girl
Hard Life
Strong
Brilliant
But the sunshine yellow girl
That sunshine yellow girl
Now we got the purple girl
She was all smiles and curls
Big Ambitions
Wanted to see the world
Mmmmmm
Hiding her identity
From the authority
My purple girl…
She came from south of the border town…
She was hidin’ in my classroom
She brightened up my day
My Purple Girl
But that yellow sunshine girl
That Sunshine Girl
mmmmmmmm-
She changed my….
Pure As a Goddess
Dressed in White
Heavy laden with Pearls and Jewels
On her wedding night
So brave and so beautiful
And poor as can be
For the rest of her life,
My Pakistani White girl,
She gonna live in luxury
She was determined never to live poor
Since she was a little girl…
And sister RED
That Pakistani Twin
With the smile that goes ear to ear
And a heart that beats deep within
Living in the shadow of the Goddess
Hard to be a twin
These two little rays of sunshine
Mmmmmm
That brought us….JOY
But that Sunshine Yellow Girl
My Sunshine Yellow Girl
Mmmm …She changed my world
Mmmmmmmmmmm
And that Blue Girl
That Bosnian beauty
She got a story to tell
Vicitimized as a child…
It took her a little linger to grow
But she went off on her own
That Blue Girl
So many children in her family
And her Daddy
Man he kept her down
(I would counsel her about that)
She finally released herself
A teacher
My Blue Girl is a teacher
That silver girl is a dancer
My white girl
she lives in the medical land of the pharmacy
she educated herself
And now she’s living in luxury
With her mmmmmmmMan……
Who loves her so
But that Sunshine Girl
That sunshine Girl
From Mexico…
Mmmmm
Since she was a child
She changed me everyday day
She listens
To every word
And yes she did learn
Sunshine girl
She’s in the Art world…..
Yeah
These are my Rainbow Girls
But they changed my world
And the days go by
The student becomes the teacher
The teacher becomes the student
The child becomes the mother
The mother becomes the child
My Rainbow Girls
They’ll be here for .
…….awhile
They live in my heart………..
Poetry Project 2 Piano, Poetry, Voice
In the previously recorded sound piece, “Empty & Willin'”, produced and mixed in a recording studio, the thickness of the recording techniques is quite apparent.
Here the raw poetry is revisited, I am using the program called GarageBand, as a way to create a quick sketch, experimenting with new tools to in making sound.
The series continues with the second poem; “In The Sky”, and begins to merge with the focus of my paintings right now.
I am thinking about a question that Gauguin asked long ago;
Who are WE? Where did we come from? Where are we going?
EMPTY & WILLIN’
The SYMPTOMS were evident
In the Arts, In the Political Structure, the church, and the Family
It was the calm before the storm
The CRISIS before the TRANSFORMATION of an entire civilization
Doomsday speakers had their say
There is always a place in this world for the negative
It was the ones who thought positively
They were the TARGET!
To THEM we represented the PAST
The CONFRONTATION between the YOUNG and the OLD
FREEDOM and CONFORMITY
TRUTH and DECEPTION
But even as we grew, and became more a part of the system
They didn’t see us for who we really were
If they had listened to the voices in the sky who had inspired our minds
PERHAPS we would have spared the world such pain
But our world was set up
From the START our PLANET was involved in a CONSPIRACY in HEAVEN
That SHE took no part in
THAT WAS THE ANGEL’S BATTLE!
Those were Cosmic consequences that the planet had grown up with
EMPTY & WILLIN’
In The Sky
This round sphere spinning
Traveling around the great sun
Older than we realize
Hiding truths yet be revealed
In this time of man
The long history of earth
So Many stories and legends
Each one a part of the truth
Revealed over centuries
Millenniums
We think we know the story
We only know parts of the story
We have forgotten
Or lost
Most of the truth…
Buried and forgotten
Under the sands
Hidden from view
Lay the history of our planet
Under the sea
A world still so deep
Unknown to us
The hidden caves
Over time we discover
Bits and pieces of Ancient Texts
Cracked and dried out skulls
Traces of lives lived and lost to time
Mummies that reveal strangely shaped heads
And the Art
Everywhere
In every culture
Revealing something
Out there in the Sky
Patricia RAIN Gianneschi 