Inspiration – dornbusch.ca

October 5, 2018October 7, 2018

Lake Henry’s Glow

A Chromatic Life continues at Westland Gallery until October 13. During the span of the show, I’m sharing images and prose around some of my works.

You can view the full collection of A Chromatic Life online here.

Lake Henry’s Glow

A late summer sun is pressing down on the day

the same one that beckoned us from our first waking breaths
to leap fully into its light; brightly painting
madcap shadows of us run-dancing along the lane,

Now pulls on our tails sweetly
Signals us to temper our pace

We drop our voices
and take our bench seats,
agog at the set
all has been edged with gilt

a burnished copper water surface billows and
bows back to the marsh grasses’
pink feathery flouncing

Next a gracious choir of blackbirds enters,
staging the evening
jostling gently
demure about their red epaulettes

evening velvet drops
on a rope
imperceptibly
at first
its music all around us

A Chromatic Life
Anna Clarey & Erica Dornbusch

September 18th – October 13th
Artist Talk: Wednesday, Oct. 3rd at 7 pm

Westland Gallery
156 Wortley Road
London, ON

Related Images:

October 2, 2018

Way Finder’s Meander

A Chromatic Life continues at Westland Gallery until October 13. During the span of the show, I’m sharing images and prose around some of my works.

You can view the full collection of A Chromatic Life online here.

Way Finder’s Meander

What if the fullest way home is best found
while looking around at other things?
Meandering, following a stream.

What if the truest destination is inside this;
in how the everything of your living has come to be met
and rests here, quiet; so that the whispering of leaves together
brings you to a standstill in your own heart?

What if you attended that, even as an aside, while you look
through your eyes at what needs – has, to be done?

What if, without your knowing,
the music of water and leaves
goes home in your soul’s pocket
and tempers the rush in your veins?

What if we met in the field to walk?

A Chromatic Life
Anna Clarey & Erica Dornbusch

September 18th – October 13th
Artist Talk: Wednesday, Oct. 3rd at 7 pm

Westland Gallery
156 Wortley Road
London, ON

Related Images:

September 30, 2018September 30, 2018

Golden Hour

A Chromatic Life continues at Westland Gallery until October 13. During the span of the show, I’m sharing images and prose around some of my works.

You can view the full collection of A Chromatic Life online here.

Golden Hour

Unnumbered mornings have I arrived by measured meditation to the centre of a labyrinth or the turnaround point of some other foot journey; to lift my face just as the holy signal of a rising sun spills over the horizon. I have leaned ardently into that 8° wedge of Golden Hour, peering mightily, straining to seize the exact augenblick when the veil breathes out and the invisible becomes tangible.

Rarely, I have caught it and oh, briefly belonged, not to myself but to the space between the second and third note of a songbird’s lyrical strand. And then tumbled out, bathed in a particular elixir of heirloom light. Dew on my worshipping knees

A Chromatic Life
Anna Clarey & Erica Dornbusch

September 18th – October 13th
Artist Talk: Wednesday, Oct. 3rd at 7 pm

Westland Gallery
156 Wortley Road
London, ON

Related Images:

August 9, 2016August 18, 2016

Listening to Crows

We headed out together, to run

Him; an hour, training at tempo

me, 45 relaxed; if I felt it…

Up to the highway in company;

jostling, chatting, planning.

Then he hit pace And turned right

Where the limo with the antler mount is parked

I followed, briefly entertaining the idea of trying to catch him

just to see what was in my legs, and his smile.

But a sudden caw-caw-phany

Stopped me in my tracks,

and on he flew away

on his own course.

Here, a murder of crows was talking insistently

in the trees above this sign.

Can you believe it?

Continue reading “Listening to Crows”

Related Images:

July 14, 2015July 14, 2015

Other Landscapes

I’m just back from a deeply shifting trip to Southern California. We spent most of our time there away from the urban centers, hiking and exploring mountain lake regions and the Mojave desert.

I took this photo along the Hidden Valley Trail, Joshua Tree National Park. This is a short and easy hike that allows you to explore the enclosed valley that received a lot more rain in the 20th century. The huge boulders protected a large untouched grassland. Now you hike in through the entrance that rancher William Keys blasted for the benefit of his cattle to see Joshua Trees, pines, oaks and yucca along the loop trail.

What a landscape. I’m still processing my response to the whole adventure and I’ve been sitting with something that photographer Ansel Adams said around it all:

“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”