catpensandneedles

The Poetry of Clarice Lispector by Sandra Saldanha

2011-03-07T02:18:00.000-08:00

The poetry and mystery of one of the greatest mistresses of Brazilian literature!

She dared to write her soul in inked blood without excuses or pretenses.

She embraced loneliness as her only true friend.

She just followed her heart without fear.

The result is pure magic!

Trechos de Clarice Lispector

(Video by Ventaline Santana)

Text by Sandra Saldanha

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

2010-09-05T05:39:00.000-07:00

"Once upon a time and a very good time it was

there was a moocow coming down along the road

and this moocow that was coming down the road

met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo..."

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

by James Joyce

Photos by Sandra Saldanha

Arachne by Ovid

2010-05-02T08:05:00.000-07:00

"Arachne herself, in indignant pride, denied such a debt.

'let's hold a contest,' she said. 'If I'm beaten, I'll pay any forfeit.'"

Extract taken from Metamorphoses by Ovid

Photo by Sandra Saldanha

Yeats on Seeking God

2010-04-28T14:34:00.000-07:00

To seek God to soon it is not less sinful than to seek God too

late; we must love, man, woman or child, we must exhaust

ambition, intellect, desire, dedicating all things as they pass,

or we come to god with empty hands.

-Yeats-

Photo by Sandra Saldanha

Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood

2010-04-21T02:54:00.000-07:00

" (...) A charred shadow crouches inside.

In pictures like these there are always empty shoes.

It's the shoes that get to me.

Sad, that innocent daily task

- putting your shoes on your feet,

in the firm belief that you'll be going somewhere. (...)"

Extract from Moral Disorder ( The Bad News)

by Margaret Atwood

Photo by Sandra Saldanha

Mithologies by Roland Barthes

2010-03-09T12:56:00.000-08:00

"One can easily see in a object at once a perfection and an absence of origin, a closure and a brilliance, a transformation of life into matter (matter is much more magical than life), and in a word a silence which belongs to realm of fairy-tales."

Roland Barthes, Mythologies (1957)

Photo by Sandra Saldanha (Louise Bourgeois' sculpture)

When Death Comes by Mary Oliver

2010-03-08T15:19:00.000-08:00

" When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn;

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;

when death comes

like the measle-pox;

when death comes

like a iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

what is going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field of daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,

tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

When its over, I want to say:all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms,

When it's over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world."

When Death Comes by Mary Oliver

(from New and Selected Poems)

Photo above by Sandra Saldanha

( Satre and Simone Beauvoir's resting place)

Happy International Women's day!

To a Tree by Elizabeth Bishop

2010-01-27T06:51:00.000-08:00

"Oh, tree outside my window, we are kin,

For you ask nothing of a friend but this:

To lean against the window and peer in

And watch me move about! Sufficient bliss

For me, who stand behind its framework stout,

Full of my tiny tragedies and grotesque grieves,

To lean agains the window and peer out,

Admiring infinites'mal leaves."

To a Tree ( Extract from 'Writen in Youth')

a poem by Elizabeth Bishop

From Elizabeth Bishop Collected Poems

Photos by Sandra Saldanha

Montaigne. - Apology for Raimond Sebond

2010-01-20T03:07:00.000-08:00

" And whereas all the other things, wether beast or vessel,

that enter into the dreadful gulf of his monster's (whale's) mouth,

are immediately lost and swallowed up, the sea-gudgeon retires

into it in a great security, and there sleeps."

Montaigne. - Apology for Raimond Sebond.

Photo and Mixed Media Installation (The Vessel or The Whale) by Sandra Saldanha

Doing and Undoing... by Sandra Saldanha

2010-01-11T02:46:00.000-08:00

The rituals of making...
a constant process of doing and undoing...

, between pain and pleasure...
privacy and disclosure...
fact and fable...

a never end love affair
between the artist and object making.

Poem and Photo ( The Pram - 3D Mixed Media Installation) by Sandra Saldanha

Arachne's Myth by Ovid (continues...)

2010-01-11T02:37:00.000-08:00

Photos by Sandra Saldanha

Arachne's Myth by Ovid

2010-01-08T04:46:00.000-08:00

Arachne

"Minerva, who'd lent an attentive ear to the Muses' narration.

Commended their song and their justified anger against the Pieredes,

Then she said to herself: 'Is praising enough? I also need to be praised in turn. No mortal shall scoff at my power

unpunished.' She therefore considered how best to dispose of a Lydian

girl called Arachne, who claimed ( so she'd heard) to equal herself

in working with wool.

Arachne's distinction lay not in her birth

or the place that she hailed from but solely her art. Her father , Idmon

of colophon, practised the trade of dyeing wool in Phocaean

purple;her mother was dead but, like her husband had come

from the people. Their daughter, however had gained a high reputation

throughout the Lydian towns for her work with wool, although

she'd be born in a humble home and lived in a village, Hypaepa.

The nymphs used often to live their haunts, Mount Tmolus' vines

or the banks of the river Pactolus, to gaze on Arachne's amazing

artistry, equally eager to watch her hand in progress

(her skill was so graceful) as much as to look at the finished article.

Perhaps she was forming the first round clumps

from the wool in its crude state,

shaping the stuff in her fingers and steadily teasing the cloud-like

fleece into long soft threads. She might have been deftly applying

her thumb to the polished spindle.

Or esle they would watch embroider

a picture. Whatever she did, you would know Minerva had taught her.

Arachne herself, in indignant pride, denied such a debt.

'Let us hold a contest,' she said. 'If I'm beaten, I'll pay any forfeit.' (...) "

Extract from Metamorphoses by Ovid translated by Denis Feeney

Photos by Sandra Saldanha

Myth and Dream by Joseph Campbell

2010-01-07T04:24:00.000-08:00

" (...) myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation. religions, philosophies, arts, the social forms of primitive and historic man, prime discoveries in science and technology, the very dreams that blister sleep, boil up from the basic, magic ring of myth. (...) "

Extract from The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Myth and Dream) by Joseph Campbell

Photo by Sandra Saldanha

"I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas..."

2009-12-30T01:04:00.000-08:00

"I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas...."

Photos by Sandra Saldanha

The Dry Salvages by T.S.Elliot

2009-12-29T22:24:00.000-08:00

"... And under the oppression of the silent fog

The tolling bell

Measures time not our time, rung by the unhurried

Ground swell, a time

Older than the time chronometers , older

Than time counted by anxious worried women

Lying awake, calculating the future,

Trying to unweave, unwind, unravel

And piece together the past and the future,

Between midnight and dawn, when the past is all deception,

The future futureless, before the morning watch

When time stops and time is never ending;

And the ground swell, that is and was from the beginning,

Clangs

The bell... "

Extract from The Complete Poems and Plays of T.S.Elliot,

Four Quartets, The Dry Salvages

Photo and Installation by Sandra Saldanha

Michael Robartes by W.B.Yeats

2009-12-29T21:57:00.000-08:00

"She. I have heard said

There is great danger in the body.

He. Did God in portioning wine and bread

Give man His thought or his mere body?

She. My wretched dragon is perplexed..."

Extract from W.B.Yeats Collected Poems,

Michael Robartes and The Dancers

Photo and Installation by Sandra Saldanha

Solomon and The Witch by W.B. Yeats

2009-12-29T21:39:00.000-08:00

"And thus declared that Arab lady;

'Last night, where under the wild moon

On grassy mattress I had laid me,

Within my arms great Solomon,

I suddenly cried out in a strange tongue

Not his, not mine.'

Who understood

Whatever has been said, sighed, sung,

Howled, miau-d, barked, brayed, belled, yelled, cried, crowed,..."

Extract from W.B. Yeats Collected Works,

Solomon and The Witch

Photo ( Installation's detail) by Sandra Saldanha

500 Viewers!!! Thank you for visiting my Blog!

2009-12-22T11:05:00.000-08:00

Dear friends,

Thank you all for your support!

I hope to see you again in the next year!

Dance , Music, Art and Poetry

has inspired me to write and create mixed media works,

, but above all they helped me to look closer within my landscape and appreciate the gifts of life

that are around me.

Now half way through my own journey,

I start to understand what really matters during my passage in this world .

I am specially thankful for the love of my family and friends.

I would like to wish you all Happy Holidays

and a Very Creative, Prosperous, Loving New Year!

Photo and Text by Sandra Saldanha

Joseph Campbell's on Heros

2009-12-22T10:30:00.000-08:00

"The hero . . . discovers and assimilates his opposite (his own unsuspected self) either by swallowing it or by being swallowed. One by one the resistances are broken. He must put aside his pride, his virtue, beauty and life, and bow or submit to the absolutely intolerable. Then he finds he and his opposite are not of differing species, but one flesh."

Text by Joseph Campbell

The Pram ( details ) by Sandra Saldanha

2009-12-13T15:11:00.000-08:00

" Ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown out of the heart at a stroke, with immense velocity."

John Hunter's account of the dissection of a Whale. ( A small sized one.)

From Moby Dick or The Whale by Herman Melville, Extracts xxxi

Photo and Intallation The Pram ( detail ) by Sandra Saldanha

THE Wooden Horse (detail)

2009-11-24T14:23:00.000-08:00

"Quick, give me some horsehair."

She scoured the key,

but it would not stop bleeding.

Drop after drop

of pure red blood

issued from the tiny key.

From 'Bluebeard'

-Women Who Run With the Wolves

by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Photo & Installation by Sandra Saldanha

The Wardrobe ( detail ) by Sandra Saldanha

2009-11-24T11:24:00.000-08:00

"How cold I grew", (says Dante) how faint with fearfulness

Ask me not, Reader; I shall not waste breath

Telling what words are powerless to express;

This was not life , and yet it was not death;

(Ibid., lines 22-25)

From Dante's The Divine Comedy - Hell

Photo & Installation by Sandra Saldanha

The Wardrobe ( detail ) by Sandra Saldanha

2009-11-23T14:59:00.000-08:00

Afterlife

"Like oranges we roll right off the table.
I am lost like a goldfish stuck in sky.
No news of you, but I cry out
and you appear, carrying a photograph

of life tormented trees - how glad we are
to see our old stiff selves released
sucked down, and melting at the seams.
We'll make the mistakes we wished we'd made.

They say the soul might have some choice -
I could for instance be a taste or smell,
something sharp curled on the tongue.
You and I as leopard breath or song.

From ' Split World'

Poems 1990 - 2005

by Moniza Alvi

Photo e Installation by Sandra Saldanha

The Locket (details) by Sandra Saldanha

2009-11-23T04:29:00.000-08:00

"... in those abyss places that are preverbal and primal,

where psyche and body meet on the borderline,

where all is timeless and spaceless

and the patterns of the magical level of consciousness hold."

Text by Sylvia Brinton Perera

3D Mixed Media Installation by Sandra Saldanha

Domain

2009-10-18T10:35:00.000-07:00

Domain

Within me lies a stone

like the one that tries

to fill the mango

Inside it is the essence

of another continent.

I fear its removal -

but how much better

it could be

to take it in my arms

and race away with it!

Poem by Moniza Alvi

Photo by Sandra Saldanha

Despedida

2009-10-18T02:32:00.000-07:00

Despedida

Por mim, e por vós, e por mais aquilo
que está onde as outras coisas nunca estão,
deixo o mar bravo e o céu tranqüilo:
quero solidão.

Meu caminho é sem marcos nem paisagens.
E como o conheces? - me perguntarão.
- Por não ter palavras, por não ter imagens.
Nenhum inimigo e nenhum irmão.

Que procuras? Tudo. Que desejas? - Nada.
Viajo sozinha com o meu coração.
Não ando perdida, mas desencontrada.
Levo o meu rumo na minha mão.

A memória voou da minha fronte.
Voou meu amor, minha imaginação...
Talvez eu morra antes do horizonte.
Memória, amor e o resto onde estarão?

Deixo aqui meu corpo, entre o sol e a terra.
(Beijo-te, corpo meu, todo desilusão!
Estandarte triste de uma estranha guerra...)
Quero solidão.

Poem byCecília Meireles Photo by Sandra Saldanha

Gracias a la Vida (lyrics) ...one of the great hits by the Argentine Folk singer Mercedes Sosa who died today at the age of 74....

2009-10-04T14:38:00.000-07:00

"Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto
me dio dos luceros que cuando los abro
perfecto distingo lo negro del blanco
y en el alto cielo su fondo estrellado
y en las multitudes el hombre que yo amo

Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto
me ha dado el oído que en todo su ancho
graba noche y día grillos y canarios
martirios, turbinas, ladridos, chubascos
y la voz tan tierna de mi bien amado

Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto
me ha dado el sonido y el abecedario
con él, las palabras que pienso y declaro
madre, amigo, hermano
y luz alumbrando la ruta del alma del que estoy amando

Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto
me ha dado la marcha de mis pies cansados
con ellos anduve ciudades y charcos
playas y desiertos, montañas y llanos
y la casa tuya, tu calle y tu patio

Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto
me dio el corazón que agita su marco
cuando miro el fruto del cerebro humano
cuando miro el bueno tan lejos del malo
cuando miro el fondo de tus ojos claros

Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto
me ha dado la risa y me ha dado el llanto
así yo distingo dicha de quebranto
los dos materiales que forman mi canto
y el canto de ustedes que es el mismo canto
y el canto de todos que es mi propio canto

Gracias a la vida, gracias a la vida "

Dogus @ The British Museum

2009-10-02T14:50:00.000-07:00

"Breaking the silence

Of an ancient pond

A frog jumped into water _

A deep resonance."

Haiku by Matsuo Basho

From 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches

Photos by Sandra Saldanha

Survival International

2009-09-27T14:31:00.000-07:00

Survival International is the Movement for Tribal People

Totem Poles from the Vancouver Islands @ The British Museum

2009-09-26T12:24:00.000-07:00

From the ground,

its startling colour stopped people dead in their tracks,

from the air, it stood like a beacon and was visible from miles away.

Like much of the surrounding landscape, the tree was incorporated

into the Haida's vast repertoire of stories, but as far as anyone knows ,

its the only tree, in what was then an infinity of trees,

ever to be given a name by the Haida's people.

From The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant

Photos by Sandra Saldanha

The wanderer

2009-09-25T15:32:00.000-07:00

"between two worlds, one dead,

the other powerless to be born."

From Poetry and Criticism of Matthew Arnold

Photos by Sandra Saldanha

The Music Box (details) @ Central Saint Martin Window Gallery

2009-09-23T08:02:00.000-07:00

(...) She took the keys outdoors, and from the oven she pressed ashes

onto it, and scrubbed some more. She held it to the heat to sear it.

She laid cobweb over it to staunch the flow, but nothing could make

the weeping blood subside.

"Oh, what am I to do?" she cried. "I know, I'll put the little key

away. I'll put it in the wardrobe. I'll close the door. This is a bad

dream. All will be aright. " And this she did do. (...)

From Women Who Run With the Wolves:

Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

'Bluebeard' by Clarissa P. Estes

Mixed Media Installation by Sandra Saldanha

The Music Box (the wardrobe's detail) @ Central Saint Martin Window Gallery

2009-09-23T06:08:00.000-07:00

Midway this way of life we're bound upon,

I woke to find myself in a dark wood,

Where the right road was wholly lost and gone.

Ay me! how hard to speak of it - that rude

And rough and stubborn forest! the mere breath

Of memory stirs the old fear in the blood

It is so bitter, it goes nigh to death;

Yet there I gained such good, that to convey

The tale, I'll write what else I found therewith.

Poem by Dante from The Divine Comedy I: Hell

Translated by D.L. Sayers

Photo and Mixed Media Installation by Sandra Saldanha

Timeless... childhood

2009-09-22T05:48:00.000-07:00

"Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me

Up to the swallow-thronged loft by the shadow of my hand.

In the moon that is always rising,

Nor that riding to sleep

I should hear him fly with high fields

And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land,

Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,Time held me green and dying

Though i sang in my chains like the sea."

Poem by Dylan Thomas "Fern Hill" in Collected Poems

Photo by Sandra Saldanha

Telling Tales @ The V&A

2009-09-21T11:12:00.000-07:00

Photo by Sandra Saldanha

Untitled (detail) Book Collage

2009-09-21T11:05:00.000-07:00

Photo and Book Collage by Sandra Saldanha

Untitled (detail) Book Collage

2009-09-21T10:54:00.000-07:00

Photo and Book Collage by Sandra Saldanha

Untitled (detail) Book Collage

2009-09-21T10:48:00.000-07:00

Photo and Book Collage by Sandra Saldanha

The Music Box ( detail ) @ Central Saint Martins Window Gallery

2009-09-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

3D Mixed Media Installation by Sandra Saldanha

The Patchwork

2009-09-19T14:07:00.000-07:00

Pieces of cotton pierced together

Squares, triangles, circles...

in passion red, bloody red , blooming red.

Needles cutting through the padded layers,

forming a patchwork of life experiences.

3D Mixed Media Installation by Sandra Saldanha