Visit Me at My New Blog

I decided to set up shop over at my new blog, at HelenWebberArtTalk.com... be sure to visit!

ALICE'S PALACE

Aside from cats and horses, Alice, like
many wild women out there, is a fan
of dancing in the street and in department stores,
Possibly in delicatessens or on the Brooklyn Bridge.

She likes to dance with partners, but is pleased
to dance alone…to show her stuff.


There are many kinds of Palaces in her mind, and some
are real. She knows that you don’t have to be part of any
royal family to dwell in a palace of your own concoction.

More to come about Alice.

If you are an Alice type or know of others, feel free to
describe her. I’d like some of your thoughts.

PS She is ageless.



© Helen Webber 2010

TIME & TIDES

At this point in my life the tides of memory
come rolling in full speed and then slowly retreat
and fade away.

And then a new set of waves sweep in and again
disappear.

What do we remember the most of our childhood?

Do older folks really have a second childhood, or do we
really have three or four or five or six? Maybe we have
so many that we lose count.

How many childhoods are living in you?

I’d love to hear your answers.


Helen



© Helen Webber

THE BIRD IS THE SINGER

Here is the second in my doodle series.
A friend looked at it and said this artwork
is a pointed message about the oil eruption
in the Gulf of Mexico

It might be a visual letter to BP and their associates
and all the Drill Baby Drillers.


What affects the ocean goes beyond the shoreline.
It reaches beyond, to the whole Earth.

Don’t let oil destroy this Earth song.

© Helen Webber

Don't Tell me

This is the beginning of a new series from my collection of Doodles.
A mix of fantasy and froth mixed in with words.

Doodles are emanations from the subconscious, because you are
creating images while your thinking of something else.
They simply emerge as if by magic. The tell-tale signs are inky fingers.

And by the way, The doodle collection will be available as prints.
Details of sizes and prices to follow.

© Helen Webber

Trees Need Not Walk The Earth

This is a segment from a poem written in 1920 by my father David Ross. For most of my life I only knew the first four lines, and finally found the entire poem on good old Google.

Over the years I have created many tree themed tapestries, and so, inspired by my Dad’s poem, I combined some tree elements with his words.

Here is the entire poem:

Trees need not walk the earth
For beauty or for bread;
Beauty will come to them
Where they stand.
Here among the children of the sap
Is no pride of ancestry:
A birch may wear no less the morning
Than an oak.
Here are no heirlooms
Save those of loveliness,
In which each tree
Is kingly in its heritage of grace.
Here is but beauty’s wisdom
In which all trees are wise.

Trees need not walk the earth
For beauty or for bread;
Beauty will come to them
where they stand
In the rainbow—
The sunlight—
And the lilac-haunted rain;
And bread will come to them
As beauty came:
In the rainbow—
In the sunlight—
In the rain.


Trees Need Not Walk The Earth, will be released as an open edition print, 13” x 19”.

© Helen Webber, 2010

AN E-BOOKLET FOR MOTHERS DAY

GOSSAMER WINGS


Could I leave this mess of dishes
and crumpled clothes?
Could I resist wiping spills and a runny nose?

Could I unworry myself
From preparing the proper food,

Could I, the mother of this wild and restless brood
change my earthbound creeping caterpillar self
and take my childhood dreams off the shelf,


and shed the cocoon and fly far away
over golden hills and silvery streams
melting my children’s magic into my dreams---
with these gossamer wings, who’s to say

where this flight of our imagination
will take us some day?


from THE FOUR SEASONS OF MOTHERHOOD
an 8 page e-boolet celebrating the four stages
of motherhood from infant to adult. Available to send
as an on linebooklet to elebrate mothers.


© Helen Webber, 2010

THE FOUR SEASONS OF MOTHERHOOD

© Helen Webber 2010

Here’s a sample from an e-booklet just introduced

showing the stages of motherhood relating to

a baby, a child, a teen, and adult.

The four sesons of Motherhood is a celebration of the

invincible ties between mother and child

at any age, and any stage
It’s an 8 page on line booklet that you can e-mail to all the mothers

you know, and even the mothers of mothers. No sealing envelopes,

licking stamps, or rushes to the post office.

You can send it to anyone who cares about the bonding of mother

and child as well as the bonding of poetry and art.

Celebrating EARTHDAY with a tapestry

The Tapestry Around us

Be it a golden moon
shining on a velvet river

Or a forest of animals
sheltered by brocaded trees

Or birds streaming through
a silken sky

Be it mountains of woven wool
and hillsides covered with
tall grasses of tweed

It is all a tapestry,
a reminder
of the song the Earth
is singing to us

© Helen Webber
Poppies, fabric collage tapestry
from the Earthsong Collection
also available as fine art print

Be sure to check out my Earthday Flickr gallery.

SWEET & SOUR WORD SOUP

So what’s in a word? Well. lots. The word social and all its manifestations including words and phrases such as socialism, socialize, social network, socializing content, going social…make a tasty sweet and sour soup.

The stigmatized political “socialized “ word, shouted about to repress socially progressive programs, and to defeat those who advocate for such programs, well that’s the sour part. That fear word started in the 30’s and still is being used to frighten the public into a knee jerk reaction against positive social change.

The sweet part of the word soup is coming from those who were children when the cold war ended. Somehow they aren’t frightened by the word “socialized”. These social dare- devils have used these words to beckon us into a sweetened life using social networks to enhance everything including our businesses, and every aspect of our social lives.

Such is the sweet and sour word soup of today… a mixture of words that sound alike but with very different flavors.

Bloggers Lament

Some of you who swim in the sea of social networking
may occasionally sink into a swamp of despond.

Here’s my homage to your despair.

Even if you are an Olympic swimmer
you may recognize, out of the corner of your eye,
a rogue wave of frustration that occasionally comes
your way.

This is for you, too.
(click on image to enlarge)

PASSOVER FOR ALL OF US

Part the sea
and lead us to freedom.
We find our way through pain
and turbulence.
Always we remember
salty tears
and above all
hope.



© Helen Webber, Passover,
fabric collage tapestry 4’x5’
also available as a fine art print,16”x18”

Lower Ninth Rhythm

© Nina Ryser. "Lower Ninth Rhythm", awarded Scholastic's NYC regional Silver Key Award for art

Nina Ryser, my grand daughter, i6 years old when she took this prize winning photo, last summer, went to New Orleans with a group of teen age volunteers to help clean up the mess in the famous lower ninth ward.

Playing The Dream

He’s playing that drum again.
This kid from the lower ninth,
his legs just about long enough to straddle
that big white drum.

He’s doing his beat
with his bright white sneakers.

Leaning against the plywood slats
slapped up in syncopated blues;
There’s the blue chewing gum
peeking out of his mouth
to pierce the sky.

He’s playing his dreams.
Will he play in a soft whisper
or in a roar like the winds of Katrina?

Behind his closed eyes
does he see the
shadows of possibility?

© Helen Webber




The photo is a dramatic reminder of one of the ten Rights of The Child: the right of a child to develop his talents and special abilities, described in art and poetry in the book CATCH A DREAMER. www.dovetailpublications.org

PASSOVER, The festival of Freedom

why you don’t have to be Jewish to celebrate Passover


Gathered together,
many of us and them,
old and young
people of all persuasions
celebrating our human kinship
and becoming us
together

learning the story
from a book read backwards,
the Hagaddah
ancient tales of
slavery and suffering
and plagues sent down to
vanquish the oppressors,

and discovering the world of slavery today

Moses pleading with Pharoah to
let my people go

And the miraculous escape from
slavery through the
parted Red Sea,
a pathway to a new life in a new
desert land, to freedom at last.

Free at last!

The dream of Martin Luther King
The jubilant proclamation of Nelson Mandela

The table with eggs dipped in the salty tears of the oppressed
bitter herbs, and unleavened bread
baked in the desert,
apples chopped with honey,
the cement of bricks that Jewish slaves
lifted for an eternity of suffering.

And now in 2010,
we together,
of many beliefs
and many ways of praying
and many ways of wishing and hoping
lament the slaves of now,
of 2010,
27 million throughout the world
more than any time in history
half of whom are children
children dragged from their childhood
into prisons of pain and horror
in fields and factories,
and brothels…

We raise our glasses
to toast those who fearlessly
work together to create
paths to freedom,
for all.
Everywhere.
We break unleavened bread
together
for renewed strength
and hope…

Our Passover, together.

Children's right to play

A child’s right to Play

My book CATCH A DREAMER, began when I created ten tapestries celebrating the ten rights of the child. The very first tapestry I created in this series related to a child’s right to play, the essence of childhood.

Maybe it was the child within me, (possibly an overused phrase, but still valid nevertheless), that drew me first to that particular right.

Childhood is play. That some kids don’t have a chance
to play is beyond belief. Play is so much part of being
a child it seems that denying the experience of play
to a child is close to denying a child her life. That children
find a way to play when they have almost nothing, gives
testimony to the miracle of a child’s spirit.


Play is the soul of childhood.
It is magic and imagination
mixed together in a fairy tale brew.

It is chalking lines on a sidewalk
and hopping between them.
It is running in a field or a park
and thinking you are a super being
who can fly,and swim in a cloud.
even if you’re running in a field of garbage.

Play is when you are the queen of the whole wide world
and the world is wider than the street, the house
the back yard, wider than the sky, bigger than all the school rooms all put together..
even if you haven’t ever been in a schoolroom because you have to work in a field or a factory



Play is when you are the magician, you are the doctor,
you are the teacher. Play is when you swish your wand and all bad things disappear.
even if your mother is so sick she can’t take care of you and you are afraid she will die and leave you.

Play is tumbling and wrestling,
and skipping and throwing a ball higher than the highest mountain
and battling the monster with your
silver sword which is a stick you found
in the street,
even if there are soldiers with real guns all around you, and you are afraid of them.

Play makes dreams become real.
Play is the game of I win, I am strong
I am brave, I can ride an elephant
Play is the game of who can giggle
the most,
and who can laugh the loudest.
even if I am homeless.

Play is jumping rope with a rainbow.
Play is the jump rope game of life.


click here for information about an organization
that takes play seriously:

http://www.ipausa.org/index.html

special holiday offer for my book

There's no time like holiday time to celebrate the world's children.

CATCH A DREAMER is a unique gift of art and poetry, a tribute to the spirit of children.

This book is for both children and adults to enjoy on many levels: from the colors and bold shapes to the message of hope for all children everywhere.

A very special book
Now with a special offer:

Buy one copy of CATCH A DREAMER for $25

and get each additional copy for $15.

Just add $5 for shipping no matter the quantity!

This offer available through December 31, 2009

Click here for more information.
Or click here to place your order for CATCH A DREAMER now.

Publishing on demand: a new world of freedom!

Newsflash: 100 CATCH A DREAMER books are now resting peacefully on my studio table.
They have been printed packaged and delivered to my door... and are waiting to be delivered to the first 100 folks who have been eagerly awaiting a chance to buy this book.( I have a rich fantasy life) For the hard (and soft ) facts check out: http://www.dovetailpublications

Publishing on demand means that you can actually demand to be published. That really appeals to me, who, on a few but rare occasions has been called a demanding person. This accusation has been asserted when I, hoped for, wished for, and yes demanded control of how my art got printed, posted, pictured, and presented.

Were these demands met? Sometimes, but never enough times.

But now I FIND MYSELF IN THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF PRINTING ON DEMAND. I have escaped the necessity of ordering what the overseas printers decide are minimum orders...would you believe 2500? Yes, the price per book is cheap, but the outlay is out of reach for ordinary private citizens like me.

Hurray for digital printing which permits me to be the actual publisher. What power trip!
I choose the size, the layout, the colors, the number of pages, and above all THE CONTENT
OF MY OWN BOOK.

No more censorship from the movers and shakers in the publishing world:

" Not everyone loves the UN, Helen. Possibly could you not emphasize the role of the UN in regard to children's rights?"

" I have some questions about the use of tapestries as illustrations in this book. People don't really understand that medium."

" The book is too arty for most people. More realism is needed in your art"

" Jim's words ( Jim Petersen wrote the poetry) are lovely but the meanings might be obscure for some. "

"The colors are a bit too bright. Bright is out. Too sixties"

And finally:

"Most people really don't care about the rights of children, at least not enough to buy a book about it. We sell to the masses."

So for all you demanding folks out there, who demand to be respected as individuals and not jammed into a box of mass ideas , tastes and beliefs or what others perceive as the values of the masses, I say to you support the efforts of the out of the box writers, artists, musicians and other non conforming idealists.

All of this springs from the wonders of the digital world which allows some
folks to to do their thing, without being thinged by the gate keepers.

August 6th, 1945, 64 years ago

It was August 1945, 64 years ago, I was 17. I had a summer job at Schrafts restaurant near Grand Central station. NYC. The waitresses wore black uniforms with white aprons and white collars. Schrafts: a lady like tea room environment where the sanwhiches didn't have crusts.

I was mostly terrified during the month I worked there…terrified of the angry cooks dishing out insults to the waitresses. I was singled out for my “Chink” handwriting, which was actually a printing style I learned in a private “progressive school”, where cursive writing was deemed to be inferior to printing.

I was intimidated by the head waitress, who watched me with an eagle eye, observing my nervousness and general ineptitude. The first day I was there I spilled a bowl of peas (canned) onto the lap of a navy officer. My first tip was one penny.

But that was the tip of the iceberg,
Underneath the icy attitude of the head waitress, was the fact that I was the only Jew among the throng of Irish Catholic waitresses.

“Don’t tell anyone your Jewish”.
“You don’t look Jewish.”
“No one will know.”
Advice from the waitresses after I casually, and naively, announced my religion.

But when a Negro ( that was the proper term for African Americans in the 40’s) school mate from Music and Art High School sat down at a table to visit me, the ice grew thicker. The fact that he was a male made my alienation complete.

Every day when walking through the doors of Schrafts, my stomach clenched.
On August 6th I showed up for work, and while slipping into my uniform, saw the headline announcing that the U.S had dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima. About 80,000 people died instantly, and 60,000 more would die from their injuries in the coming months.

“That’ll show those Japs”. Everyone nodded in agreement, and hustled off to wait on tables.

I left my first job as a waitress 3 weeks later.

.

My new book coming soon!

The new book is called CATCH A DREAMER. Just saw the final proof and in two weeks it will be listed in Amazon.
If you dig color and poetry, and a message about the rights of children I think
you'll enjoy this book. It's based on my ten tapestries created to celebrate the UN's declaration of the Rights of the Child.

So what is art anyway

Is it canvass wrapped around
a wooden rectangle
painted trees from a certain angle,

a crowded dusty city scene
or memories from
a shadowy dream?

Is the paint stroked on
or is it scrubbed?
Is it nameless
or can it be dubbed?
where is it in this vast world of art?
if you want to know
just click on the cart.

And when she’s done
that’s when she’s just begun.
And when she’s done
that’s when she’s done in.
Does her art get thrown
in the veritable dust bin?

Is she special?
Did she say anything new?
Or is it the same age old stew
of potted plants in a still life?
Or does the bowl of fruit
represent the artist’s strife?

She goes on line
to dig in the mine,
to find her place in a very long line.
Everyone wants to get in
to the inter net.
It’s a place to be, and yet
it's a very iffy bet.

It’s a mind game.
but it’s her game
and she’s lame
because she won’t follow the rules
and let herself be measured by fools.
Is it dough?
I don’t know.
Did I get into the show?

Who makes the rules of the game?
Who decides she’s a Name?
Who is the ruler
of an artists success?
who says what good is?
It’s anyone’s guess.

It's late in the game
for her to ask this stuff.
It’s a lame game
in scene that’s so rough
asking: "hey baby are you in style?"
"Maybe baby, just for a while."

But she still wants to know
Did I get into the show?