Monday, March 13, 2023

Challenges --> Incendiary Fuel --> F***ing Amazing

Fri, Mar 10, 8:40 PM 

Hi Jeff -

Thanks for sharing your accounting for time. 5-Year Projects. 20 Summers. Very focused ways to make time real. And for the personal and family health heritage that makes this important to you.

All the best on this amazing adventure,

Larry 


Sun, Mar 12, 9:41 AM 

Larry,

Great to see you on Friday.  I’m glad you were at the opening ....  I am grateful that you are part of our community.

Thanks for sharing the drawings you’re making.  Please keep making them!  I love the ideas you have for sharing your talents and wisdom through your ... crew.

Use the near-term challenges you face as incendiary fuel for making something f***ing amazing.  When you’re free and clear of all of this, you’ll have a body of amazing work that can help others in ways you never imagined.

Best,

Jeff


The Drawings


Monday, February 27, 2023

Discoveries - John Daido Loori - 1971 - 72

John Daido Loori (1971?)
Mountain Record
May 28, 1971

Learning how to turn the conscious thinking mind off and let the inner mind, the feelings, work free and open seems to be one of the major keys to heightened awareness.

July 9, 1971

I must continue to allow the “inner self” or “inner mind” to lead and let happen what may.

July 14, 1971

I have learned to be quiet with myself, and thus have discovered camera. Camera has shown me light making love, from this I learned that I no longer need to “take” pictures for I now know how to make Images. My Images have opened my inner self and thus I find my Images are becoming spirit.

Now I wish to discover how to make my Images disappear.

I am seeking Imageless Images.

August 1, 1971

My Images are an act of discovery not creation. Much the same kind of creativity as I used in science.

The subjects of my Images no longer make the picture. The viewer makes the picture by the combination of his inner self and my image.

August 9, 1971

Is-ness and else-ness direct themselves to the rational thinking mind.

Nothingness speaks to the spirit.

September 6, 1971

Today I photographed a feeling that I did not understand for which I received a gift of a place I’ve never been. 

April 19, 1972

I think the searching is over now, for awhile. There seems to be a path to follow. What’s needed now is time to work and patience to wait.

Source

Selections from John Daido Loori Journal Entries 1971-1974, Mountain Record, Zen Mountain Monastery Archives

Saturday, February 25, 2023

the library roof magically expanded

Larry Wolf, Currently On Loan from the Chicago Public Library (2023)

From The New York Times - A Love Letter To Libraries, Long Overdue

It’s easy to romanticize libraries. But, the fact is, they’re not “just” about the written word. Were they ever? As local safety nets shriveled, the library roof magically expanded from umbrella to tarp to circus tent to airplane hangar. The modern library keeps its citizens warm, safe, healthy, entertained, educated, hydrated and, above all, connected.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/14/books/review/library-public-local.html

 

Monday, February 6, 2023

Crucible x 2

Larry Wolf, Crucible of Attention - Cool (2023)


Larry Wolf, Crucible of Attention - Hot (2023)

A crucible that holds our attention protects and nurtures fresh modes of being.

Our attention is the energy that transforms and extracts essential elements.

Thursday, February 2, 2023

What the Living Do

Marie Howe, What the Living Do (1998)
Photo Credit: Bill Jacobson


Poems and Fragments


For Three Days

For three days now I've been trying to think of another word for gratitude 
because my brother could have died and didn't

 

Rochester, New York, July 1989

music would sometimes drift up through the floorboards,

and he might doze or wake a little or sleep, 
and whoever was with him might lean back in the chair beside the bed 
 
and not know it was Chopin, 
but something soft and pretty -- maybe not even hear it, 
 
not really, until it stopped 
-- the way you know a scent from a flowering tree once you've passed it. 

 

 The Last Time


The last time we had dinner together in a restaurant
with white tablecloths, he leaned forward 
 
and took my two hands in his hands and said,
I'm going to die soon. I want you to know that.

 

And I said, I think I do. 
And he said, What surprises me is that you don't.

And I said, I do. And he said, What?
And I said, Know that you're going to die.

 And he said, No, I mean know that you are.

 

The Cold Outside


Soon I will die, he said, and then 
what everyone has been so afraid of for so long will have finally happened,

and then everyone can rest. 

 

The Kiss 


When he finally put 
his mouth on me -- on 

 

my shoulder -- the world 
shifted a little on the tilted

 

axis of itself. The minutes
since my brother died

 

stopped marching ahead like
dumb soldiers and

 

the stars rested.
His mouth on my shoulder and

 

then on my throat
and the world started up again

 

for me,
some machine deep inside it

 

recalibrating, 
all the little wheels

 

slowly reeling then speeding up,
the massive dawn lifting on the other 

 

side of the turning world.
And when his mouth 

 

pressed against my 
mouth, I

 

opened my mouth 
and the world's chord

  

played at once
a large, ordinary music rising

from a hand neither one of us could see.

Monday, January 23, 2023

Untitled x 2

Larry Wolf (2023)
[at Wrightwood 659]


Larry Wolf (2023)
[at Wrightwood 659]

Monday, January 9, 2023

Crucible of Attention - a mindful viewing group

This will be offered through Latitude starting February 5, 2023

A crucible is a container of energy within which substances can be transformed. We bring our attention, our awareness, into this group with a commitment to be present for each other, to allow for the possibility of change in how we perceive art and, for those who are artists, how we make our art. 

What happens as you spend time with a work of art? When you discuss that art with a trusted circle of other people? 

Participants in this workshop will: 

  • Meet every other week to discuss an image of their choice. This image can be a part of a personal project, an image they have encountered in a book, or one from social media.
  • Learn to talk about their own artworks and respond to the work of others.
  • Get feedback from peers.
  • Be provided readings to expand on ideas brought to the workshop by the instructor and peers. 

This is an experiential, participatory program. It builds on approaches of slow looking and appreciative inquiry. We’ll begin each session by establishing our container, welcoming each other, and then take a few minutes to further settle, to be present to our minds and our bodies. There will be a short teaching segment about looking at art and how we interpret it. Each of us will bring art, whether created by us or by others. During each session, we will spend fifteen minutes with each artwork.

We each offer the gift of our attention. From this place of not-knowing and discovering, surprises of all kinds may arise.

This class will be meeting on Zoom on February 5th, February 19th, March 5th, and March 19th from 2:00pm-5:00pm!

Space is limited to 10 participants total so grab your spot!

Questions? Contact us at education@latitudechicago.org

Register at Latitude