DONKEYS AND RED

 

 

 

maxwell equipment

by tj worthington

 

Justin came by today on his day off to pick up five bales of hay from the barn and bring them up to the fence where I feed the donkeys. I could get my car into where the barn is, but couldn't get it out. The barn stands on a flat place at the bottom of a pretty good hill. Water washes down the hill in rain and snow and settles in the bottom. Most of the time it is dry, but seldom in winter. A heavy four-wheel drive pickup with big tires can do it easily. Justin visited with the donkeys across the fence, noting how gentle they are and easy to be with. He said, "You spoiled em." Maybe so. I hope so. When Vada wants to come see the donkeys, I want them so I won't have to be afraid they'll hurt her. I want her to be able to walk around their legs freely in the meadow and them be happy to see her. A day or two ago the grown daughter of my friend Lynn Brooks, Erica, stopped here on the way to the waterfall to meet the donkeys. I took her inside the meadow to be in there with them. I told her they don't like being touched and they'll be cautious of her hands. They just don't like hands all over their faces like people tend to do with horses. It gives the donkeys the creeps to have hands rubbing their faces. I was struck by how gentle Jenny was with Erica. She ran her upper lip over Erica's hand and jacket feeling the textures. I told Erica that's what Jenny was doing so she wouldn't be alarmed that Jenny might be wanting to bite her. Jenny took to her. Never threatened the first time to bite. I feel like Jenny recognized the feminine. Her previous human caretaker was a woman. That's my own projection. I don't really know. Jenny kept Jack away. So I petted on Jack and talked to him while Jenny and Erica had their communication. I like the donkeys to meet my friends. I want them to meet gentle people who don't regard them as stock. They like everybody I've taken to them. They love connecting with humans who appreciate that they are conscious.

maxwell equipment

by tj worthington

During the visit with Jack I put my forefinger inside Jack's mouth to see what he'd do, just under the teeth. He bit down gently holding the finger like with pliers, then he started gently squeezing, very gently, bearing down to see where he could make me yelp. I yelped and he let go. It tickled him. He was checking me out. It was like the time he ran at me full speed and stopped with his nose a few inches from my chest. He wanted to make me jump. I didn't jump and it bewildered him. I like them to pull tricks on me. It tells me they are comfortable with me, comfortable as with another donkey. I connect with them, consciousness to consciousness, and it doesn't matter that they can't talk and don't understand my language. We communicate by paying attention to one another. I feel both Jack and Jenny are comfortable here and comfortable with each other. They don't kick so much anymore, and when they do kick it's a symbolic gesture that doesn't even connect, like saying, Don't make me have to kick you. Jenny appears to be content with Jack, even acts like she likes him ok. They spend all their time together, so they surely get bored with each other from time to time, but their focus is on each other at all times. They might be as much as a hundred feet apart grazing, aware at all times where the other is. The farthest I've seen them apart is when one walks to the creek to get a drink. Mostly, I see them just outside kicking distance of each other. Most of their issues are around Jack's libido. Jenny is on rape alert at all times. Jenny appears to have Jack more under control as time goes by. She's not a controlling woman by nature, it's just that she has to control him in self defense. He's a serial rapist. She has to kick the shit out of him to stop him, and he doesn't feel a thing. They are much calmer together than ever before, though all Jenny has to do is go pee, Jack goes and sniffs of it, then he's ready to get his jaws kicked some more. Pain is no distraction when Jack's focus is zoomed in on his curly-haired baby doll.

 

maxwell equipment

by tj worthington

 

All week I've had colors on my mind from the question Monday about favorite color. It's not something I think about. I wrote in one sitting that I was partial to all three primary colors, red, yellow and blue equally. That didn't feel completely right. I felt a leaning toward one, but couldn't find it. Reading what my facebook friend Darlene wrote, she was saying her favorite color has changed along the way between red, yellow and blue, I realized then that mine had changed too. This may be why I have not taken the question seriously, never thinking about it changing. I can see in my early years a clear preference for blue. Then it switched to yellow and stayed yellow for several years. It seemed a while before I caught on yellow was coming forward. I see now it has changed to red. This is why I said I like all three equally. Each one has held the title of favorite in its time. I find myself drawn to red in color selection often in this time. In the West, in Christendom, red is a brazen color, scarlet, and it symbolizes blood. In the East, red is an important color. Chinese artists use red consciously. Red also is the color of the base, the "lowest," chakra, thus not considered a spiritual color. Red is the color of Mars, anger and aggression, both of which are frowned upon by ones on their own spiritual path. There is a self-consciousness about liking red, an underlying belief that red is not a spiritual color. I entertained that notion for a time, until I saw there was nothing to it. None of that is my concern in terms of visual art. Red is a dynamic, bold color that makes its own statement. It has its own vibration that I prefer to see without Christian symbolism, the blood of the lamb, sacrificing sheep, Jesus on the cross. I refuse to let that symbolism have a place in my head. I am free now to see red for itself, it's embracing vibration, its ability to stand out in front of other colors and hold its place indisputably. The Jet Li of colors.

 

 

 

maxwell equipment

by tj worthington

 

I use color for depth in everything I paint. Kandinsky's book, Concerning The Spiritual In Art, approaches colors scientifically. He discovered wonderful things like red, yellow and high-contrast juxtapositions come forward; blue, green and low-contrast juxtapositions recede. I've found I'd rather give the illusion of depth by way of colors than by perspective. I can counter perspective with colors too. It's more challenging and more fun. I've been with this Daily Creative Practice bunch over a month, having turned my attention away from politics and bogus news to the people involved in the DCP group. Everything that appears there is true, from an individual's imagination. No deception going on. No propaganda. No coercion. Plenty of support, flowing with support. I've connected with some awfully interesting people there. The writing is my primary art form in this time, though I like to do some visual art as well. I'm letting the influence of these people actively working on art projects of whatever sort stir up inspiration inside self to search for something new in my own painting, something totally new, something more in line with my present aesthetic. One's aesthetic sense changes all the time. Not fast, but it's constantly including something new or letting go of something old that didn't work. One thing I'll do soon and document with photographs: take a spray can to the tunnel where Air Bellows Gap Road goes under the Blue Ridge Parkway. Two cement walls covered in spray can graffiti by local teenagers. I call it the Air Bellows Outdoor Art Museum. It constantly changes. No addition is ever put on with the thought of its relation to the whole, in color or placement. The two walls are covered up in words, colors and shapes placed randomly that have nothing to do with each other, but the whole makes a mosaic of colors flowing in and out of each other in layers over time and unpredictable compositions. I want to add something to it, now that the temperature is warming. Next week is looking like reasonable temperature every day.    

 

maxwell equipment

by tj worthington

 

 

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