Dancing in the Flames

The progression in the studio over the last two days. Small watercolor sketch translated onto larger canvas and now I am dancing with fire

in the studio! I love this dance with paint, everything else goes away and there is just the dance of colors and swirls and movement! I am

right inside the painting and letting it spin me and spit me out when it's done! Today I l was listening to Coleman Barks reading/singing from

the Persian Ecstatic poets as I worked, these poems enter on a nonverbal level and dance their way into "a place where language is inside seeing."

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Three Muses

These are three small studies (9" x 12") done on panel board. Washi paper collage w/ acrylic paint & graphite...a fun process that feels more like building and sculpting than painting at times. I have donated the 3 Muses to tomorrow's Montreal exhibition entitled: "Un Don, Une Oeuvre pour Haiti" Montreal artists have joined w/ the Haitian community to create an evening of art and music to raise funds for relief efforts in Haiti. 

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Help Haiti Blog Challenge

Feeling overwhelmed by the suffering in Haiti, I was inspired by Kelly Diels "Help Haiti Blog Challenge" and realized the best way to give of myself was to donate the full proceeds of a painting to the Red Cross. "Rushing River" is an acrylic painting 30" x 24" value: $950 Please start offers at $200 You can contact me at hollyfriesen@gmail.com

If you feel you would like to contribute to this collective blog effort in coming to the aid of Haiti please check out Kelly's blog for more info.

Road Running Through Forest and Hills

I have become obsessed with this road. I travel it back and forth every week, in and out of two different lives, two different worlds.

It brings me home and takes me away again. I head south, I head north; like a swinging pendulum finding it's equilibrium. Forest/road,

country/city, return/leave, north/south, in/out; are these not just poles of the same thing? In between are infinite shades of gray that slowly return me

to one side or the other. By moving between black and white so often, slowly the whole becomes an ambiguous gray that envelopes and 

absorbs the harsher, sharp definitions of opposites. Merging with the landscape and becoming both the road and the forest, I find 

somewhere to rest. As within, so without.

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RIver Running Road

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Imaginary World

Sometimes the roaring inside flares into chattering,

Chattering wild birds gather into a flock of

forest fire reds, oranges and flames of yellow.

Bird's scorched feathers, hot beating breasts

spit sparks of mental heat

into a curtain of 

steady 

falling 

snow.

Breath inhales silence.

Breath exhales burnt ghosts.

A portal is suspended in the 

dripping stillness of the air.

Wild mind clears as

dark river gods 

penetrate the orchestra

of birds and fire and trees.

With a singular finger a

dark opening is carved 

into the earth

and we surrender our

bodies fully to an

inner landscape.

Time folds open 

to expose our 

own beautiful sadness.

Spirals of deep blue rivers

swirl in intricate patterns

as earth spins on 

her axis and 

welcomes

us home.

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