Jelisava

Out and about at the cafes / Ljubljana, Slovenia / May 2005

Today's temperature is 98 degrees. The hourly news on the radio repeatedly mentions a meeting in the friendly, walkable city with the name that sings — Ljubljana (loub-lee-yan-ah). I sit in the heat beneath the roar of my ceiling fan and recall Ljubljana's lively outdoor cafes next to the river Ljubljanica. The ice cream carts at Prešeren Square. The Robba fountain of the three rivers with its constant flow of water. There. I feel cooler already.

Suspended somewhere between my past and my future worrying that my bridge is in need of some serious maintenance . . . I wonder is my bridge made of hand-cut stone or the latest hi-tech materials? / A bridge between Camden and Philadelphia / March 2008

“ . . . every single person constitutes within himself a bridge between the past and the future . . . ”

~ Daniel Mendelsohn in The Lost, A Search for Six of Six Million

Out our seaside window on the Adriatic / Opatija, Croatia / May 2005

“Empower the doves
Declaw the hawks”

~ A Suggestion Box suggestion

Hey, would you like to make a suggestion? With that simple question and an enormous white Suggestion Box, Illegal Art canvassed the five boroughs of New York City, collecting suggestions from passersby. Suggestion Box is a project of the New York City based public art group, Illegal Art (a collaboration of artists whose goal is to create interactive public art that inspires self-reflection, thought and human connection).

Liberty and Prosperity / New Jersey / June 2007

Last year in a fit of frustration and creativity, and inspired and intoxicated by the color Majorelle blue in the Majorelle Gardens in Marrakech, I painted a design in the center of my terracotta courtyard. Having no glorious Majorelle blue paint, I used cobalt and painted like a madman. When I finished I stood over my design and expressed a desire for something. Two days later I heard a musician on the radio talking about creating a piece of art as a symbol and then imbuing it with a wish or desire. He was describing exactly what I had done in my courtyard. He called it a sigil — in essence, the words of a statement of desire or intent are channeled into an abstract design, and then this sigil is charged with fulfilling the will of the creator. A few weeks later I realized that my expressed desire was being fulfilled.