“Gen­tle Things”, Mixed media acrylic with lace and stitch­ing, 30“x22”, © 2012 Belinda Chlouber

I recently fin­ished this piece inspired by my Grand­fa­ther Sweet’s poem “I Like Gen­tle Things”. My mother’s poems are far more visual with imagery and my grandfather’s with deep heart­felt feel­ings. It’s an inter­est­ing dif­fer­ence. At first it was hard to find images/inspiration in his poetry but now that I have “tuned” into the poems it seems like it’s flowing!

The translu­cent bird image and the flower on the right have excerpts from a short story my mother wrote “Woman not Born Beau­ti­ful”. Which I hope to get into a book for­mat some­time this year!

The dark cur­tain like form is lace with writ­ten stitch­ing of pieces of the poem. I hope I cap­tured the essence of the poem for it is one of my favorite!

I Like Gen­tle Things

I like gen­tle, stead­fast things,

Stars that twin­kle in the night,

Happy, balmy days of spring,

Moon that sheds a mel­low light,

Gen­tle eyes of heaven’s blue,

The quiet of a calm brow,

A kind heart that’s ever true,

Promises that need no vow,

And love that lingers on

Till life itself is gone.

 by Arthur Car­los Sweet, father to Carla Sweet Chlou­ber and grand­fa­ther to Belinda Chlouber

“Wild & Gaudy”, 15“x14”, Mixed media mono­print, © 2012 Belinda Chlouber

I wanted a bit of inspi­ra­tion so I took a work­shop with Kala press in Berke­ley a cou­ple of weeks ago. I wanted to work with Inez Storer as she’s one of my favorite artists. She’s spunky and can be a bit prickly some­times, but I like that, it adds “zest” to the expe­ri­ence! I have a etch­ing press so look for­ward to see­ing more prints in the future!

I did this piece after the work­shop by tak­ing a print I didn’t feel quite worked but liked parts of and re-worked it into a new mixed media piece. The piece is in a show at The Main Gallery in Red­wood City right now in a show “New Year, New Work”. My grand­fa­ther Sweet’s poem inspired the work and the title! There was no title for the poem, but here it is;

You are like the beauty

of a quiet day in spring,

Like the clear sweet tunes

That nature’s song­sters sing.

Not the wild and gaudy brilliance

of the toss­ing prairie flowers,

But beauty of the violet

Hid­den in the shady bower.

by Arthur Sweet 1934