I'm about to gesso a big canvas. I don't know if I have floor space. Pollack had a big studio so he could lay stuff on the floor and he could make a mess. I'm so lucky to have a studio but right now it's too small.
Ive been dreaming a lot. In one dream we were being chased by a bear. We locked ourselves into a triangularly shaped chicken coop. It was very crowded. We were all pressed together. The bear wasn't fierce, just intelligent. He was examining the fastener on the door of the coop, made of chicken wire and bits of wood (pretty flimsy, if you ask me). Then we were running down a steep meadow, brilliant with wild flowers. The bear was chasing us. I felt that we should be quick because the bear might want to eat us so there was a sense of urgency. Then I woke up and thought about bears, how beautiful and strong they are.
I was cooking dinner by the tide line in Glacier Bay, Alaska. We were on a kayaking trip. My companion said very conversationally, "Uh, about 200 feet in front of you is a bear." Indeed. She was sniffing the air and looking about for the cooking smell. I threw dinner into the water, gathered up the rest of the food and backed away. We put stones in the cook pots and banged them together and talked loudly. The bear drifted off into the bushes.
Later that night, as I tried vainly to go to sleep, I thought about the bear, the natural world and what wildness really is. Wildness in the heart of us, wildness with prickers and claws and blood and teeth. Wild wildness.
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