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This space is a work in progress :). I set up in my garage for the warmer months because I love painting outdoors with the fresh air and natural sunlight. My dog loves to hang out with me while I work. I'm working on this space and will add more images as I go. C  I've been painting for years but I've never had my own studio. I've always painted in temporary spaces, corners of my room, kitchen or porch at a rental house where I had to mind the walls and floor. I couldn't throw paint around the way I do when I'm so deep in the process I don't even remember where I'm at. But now I have my own home and this huge space that is all my own. It's something I've been dreaming of all my life. I have all these huge canvases too and I hardly even know where to start. I've always painted for my own enjoyment, I've exhibited some and done a few commissions but mostly I just paint for me. I've been meaning to set up an online shop for a while but I've been so busy with my YouTube channel I've hardly thought about it. But now with this space I can create anything. It's so exciting. I always get extra creative when the leaves turn and the air cools with the feel of early fall so I imagine I'll have more art to share soon. Here are a few pictures of the first painting in my new space.
Many of my works have a poem to go with them and here is the one inspired by this piece. Up close we'd see for miles The vast empty In between - The layers Of light, of depth, of darkness. Petals falling Feels like rain No question All is here. The way we know It has been All this time And then at once You are beside me And we are (decidedly) Enough. Charity
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I thought it would be fun to do a little behind the scenes of one of my favorite works. I like this painting a lot because I can use it as a profile picture when I’m not in the mood to have a regular photo up. I painted this painting very spontaneously with no reference or real plan. It’s not perfect but I like it. I had painted the background as it’s own piece but didn’t find it super interesting so I painted a face over the original abstract. I sketched it freehand, you can see pencil lines as I didn’t stick to the sketch while painting. I wasn’t thinking about myself or anyone in particular when I created the image or if it even looks like me though I claimed it as a self portrait later. At the time I was painting abstracts in a sketchbook then taking them out in the sun while they were still wet and photographing each piece from all different angles. I’d pick my favorite spot or detail and share the close up with my friends online, usually with a little spontaneous poem that I’d write after choosing the final image. When I was invited to exhibit my work digitally at @m.a.d.s.artgallery I needed high resolution photos that could be shared on a big screen, the original painting was a photographed like most of my others with the old iPhone so I had to get out the painting 3 years later and photograph it again with a real camera. I personally prefer taking pictures with my phone because I can quickly crop and upload to share without a lot of hassle. The real camera means so many extra steps before I can share that I seldom post the pictures I take but I’m getting better about that. The final pics are the photos I took 3years later for the exhibit the painting is dry so it’s not quite the same effect. I included some never before shared images from the original 2015 iPhone shoot in different lighting from other angles. I call this piece both “Self in Blue” and “Charity of Thought” which was the title of a poem one of my best friends Sandy wrote for me when I was 15 or 16. I hope you all enjoy this little peak behind the scenes I’m thinking of sharing a few more of these. Self Exploration Any understanding of the universe outside of ourselves begins with a deep understanding of the divine mystery we hold within.             I shared this message in a post on Instagram exactly one year ago today and I thought it would be nice to share these thoughts here as well.
About 2 or 3 years my daughter pointed out to me that she was pretty sure I had Prosopagnosia, I’d never heard the term but it’s also called “face blindness”. I talked to my mom and found actually it’s inherited. I spent much of my life feeling like kind of an idiot or unkind because I could never recognize people. If I see someone every day in the same location I’ll know who they are but if I run into them some place unexpected I won’t know them at all. I’ve hurt a lot of peoples feelings that way, it was never intended. I remember people by their clothing style, where I usually see them or by their walk, or voice, never by their face. I have trouble following movie plots because I often can’t tell the characters apart. Some people have a mild case but it turns out mine is pretty severe as when I step away from a mirror I don’t even remember my own face. I realized once I made this discovery why I also got a bit obsessed with self portraits when they invented the selfie camera. As I spent most of my life not really remembering what I looked like I never thought much of my looks. When I was able to look at my own face in a camera and take pictures I felt like I was looking at someone else. I went through a phase when I would photograph myself and then try to draw or paint the picture from memory without looking. The images never quite looked like me but they looked like my idea of myself. I don’t know if my life would have been easier if I’d known this sooner or if it even really matters at all. But I try harder now when I meet people to specifically look at details about them that I can remember later if I run into them in a different location so I don’t hurt their feelings. I still don’t really remember what I look like and I got bored with self portraits a few years ago once I felt I’d studied myself from every angle. But I love the little art works that came out of these experiments so I do plan to circle back around to this art style again soon. I have tons of work like this somewhere in my storage space with a lot of other art experiments, but these are among my favorites. #Prosopagnosia #faceblindness #selfportrait #art #experimentalart #self I refuse to fear The me I see In you Or the you I see In me. This painting is called ~ Kundalini Rising Accepting the beauty of unfinished work and calling it done.  One of my favorite recent paintings and poems. Last summer I had a commission I was working on, two paintings featuring the colors of my friends’ wedding for them to hang in their room. I've always worked with my own color inspirations so it was a stretch for me to work with a requested palette. I began by painting in my usual style with the requested colors and I honestly made a big mess. The colors didn't blend well, they were turning to mud, I was getting frustrated and wanting to just quit, but my friends had been generous and spontaneous enough to pay me in advance and I knew I had to find a way to create something cool that I would love and they would hopefully at least like. So I took a huge palette knife and scraped all the paint off the canvas so I could just start all over from scratch and yet the paint I had removed left color on the canvas, color that I liked much better than the painting I had undone. It looked fascinating, not like any of my previous work. I decided that the paint residue would make a fantastic under-layer for the new painting but I wanted to add some more texture to what I thought would be a great background. I put some more paint on the canvas, worked it around with my palette knife into something I hoped would work well enough for the background and took off to do something else. The next day I came back to work, looked with fresh eyes at my unfinished painting, all scraped off and recklessly redone with no thought to how it should look as I expected this to be an unseen layer in a greater work, and I loved it! I loved the unseen layer. I loved what I had begun, accidentally, haphazardly thrown together in all my frustration and hope for something better, it was good as it was. I just couldn't paint over it. I hung it on the wall and moved on to the other canvas thinking I'd come back to this maybe later and rework it... but later I came back and I couldn't. I fell in love with the unfinished work. It was perfect in it's imperfection, it was beautiful in it's incompletion. The part of the painting that I never planned for anyone to see, became one of my favorite works. Charity Here is a little glimpse of my recent solo show at M.A.D.S. Art Gallery : www.madsgallery.art 
 Solo exhibition "EXPLOR-ART" Mad project 36h 4 Charity Janisse Starting Monday, July 16 www.facebook.com/madsmilano/videos/ www.ioarte.org/eventi/Mostre/Explor-art-mostra-personale-di-charity-janisse/ www.gigarte.com/madgallerymilano/news/19399/explorart.html www.evensi.it/explor-art-mostra-personale-charity-janisse-gallery-moda-arte-design www.eventbrite.it/e/biglietti-explor-art-mostra-personale-dellartista-charity-janisse April Design Art 2016 Featuring Paintings "She Wakes" & "Indigo Rising" By Charity Janisse |
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Scott Thomas Outlar: I fortuitously came across the art of Charity Janisse while scrolling through my Twitter feed in early 2016, and I was immediately struck by the power of her abstract work. I quickly realized that her creativity was something to be reckoned with as the colors and images jumped off the screen and attacked my senses. After reaching out in hopes of possibly collaborating on a future project, I was graciously given permission to use one of her paintings for inspiration. The resulting ekphrastic poem which I wrote in response wound up being published alongside her work in an issue of GloMag several months back. At that time, I happily discovered that not only is Charity a wonderful painter, but she is also a photographer and poet (among the many other hats she wears). She also happens to be a genuinely decent human being, which is becoming more rare in this chaotic world we find ourselves living in. Her main website can be accessed here: charityjanisse.com, and I highly recommend navigating through the pages where you’ll find links to all her social media accounts as well as information on her past and future endeavors. I’m proud to present our recent interview, along with a selection of her various modes of expression…
Scott Thomas Outlar: Before diving in to the questions, I'd first like to say thank you, Charity, for taking some of your time to participate in this interview. To begin with, I have to ask about your name. In many ways, it seems that artists provide an invaluable (and oftentimes underappreciated) service to society through the work they create which winds up touching peoples' lives in any number of ways. The name Charity synchronizes with this idea perfectly. Is there a story behind it?
Charity Janisse: Thank you Scott, I truly appreciate the opportunity to be interviewed by you and to have my poetry and artwork featured in The Blue Mountain Review.
In your question you have made a beautiful statement about artists, the arts and my name. I want to thank you for that, because up until just now I have never seen a connection between my name and my art career. I could not agree more about what an artist adds to society and the name Charity stands for love, giving, personal sacrifice and caring, which does represent the true soul of so many artists I know. There is a story behind my name, and it is not a short one but I will try to tell it as simply as I can. Charity is my real name. My parents were Hippies that had just become Christians and I was their first child born after a huge change in their lives and lifestyles. They named me Charity Joy, I’m pretty sure in hopes that I would follow in their newly discovered spiritual path. I took a very different road. I moved out young and because for me my birth name represented everything I felt like my parents had wanted me to be and every religious/parental expectation I’d chosen not to live up to, I changed my name, both legally, among friends, and on social media, multiple times. Over the years I have used several variations of my birth and various legal names to share my art and my poetry. Much of my work has been very provocative and experimental, and the name Charity (for me) felt much too churchy to represent the kind of work I was creating at various points in my life, so I chose different names to better represent myself and my projects.
It was only about a year and a half ago that I made peace with my given name: Charity Joy Janisse. It was a huge personal breakthrough for me to realize that the person I truly am, despite my failure to live up to the expectations of others, is unique and precious in its own right. I made peace with finding a balance between the person I had been raised to be, and who I had chosen to become. I deleted all my social media that I had created under my various pen-names and I made a fresh start writing, painting and publishing books under my given name, Charity Janisse. I have always loved the name Charity and have used it with my closest friends and family of course, but I never felt like it fit with my work as an artist and writer until recently. Now, after reading your question, I see the connection between the name Charity and the life of an artist and I feel even more confident that I have made the right choice in giving up my many pen-names and choosing to use my birth name and simply be exactly Charity.
Outlar: It sounds as if you’ve had an interesting path to reach this point. Art definitely has that power to take us on a spiritual journey. On that note, what are your thoughts on the role/responsibility that an artist has in society today?
Janisse: That for me is rather challenging question because I believe every artist creates from a unique perspective, for different reasons and purposes, with various goals; which means we play a huge variety of roles in society. I can only speak about the reason I create and what I believe to be my own responsibility to others. The role/responsibility I personally take as an artist in society is to be as authentic as possible; to set an example that we as people, artists or not, have the freedom to make our own personal choices about the direction of our lives. My responsibility is to honor my soul, to be my true self, and to inspire others to do the same. I believe it gives people hope to see someone sacrificing the comforts of an average income/ lifestyle to follow a dream. But to be very honest I don’t often think about my role or responsibility as an artist, I mostly make art and write to express my emotions and because I am driven, beyond all reason, to create. When I try to be anything other than a writer or an artist, I am lost and utterly miserable. So I create because I must, in order to be happy, and I share it because on some level I believe expressing my true soul may help others to embrace and express their own authenticity.
Outlar: Have you always been drawn toward artistic pursuits? Or was there a specific moment in your life that propelled you into the creative mindset?
Janisse: Yes & Yes. I have always been drawn towards artistic pursuits. I come from a family of artists. My mother is a professional artist as are several other family members. I spent my childhood traveling to art shows, galleries and art museums. I have adored the arts my whole life. Finding my own place in the world of arts was admittedly more challenging for me though. In my childhood and teen years I created a tremendous amount of art and participated / won awards in multiple youth art exhibits. Once I had children of my own, I changed my life direction considerably. I had been raised by an artist and knew well the ups and downs of an artist's lifestyle. There were times we had it all and there were times we truly struggled tremendously. I wanted to give my kids more consistency, so while I continued to write poetry, create art and make and sell jewelry, I also held several cooperate jobs over the years, up until about 4 years ago. In 2012 I had... a breakdown; I was overwhelmed working outside the home 40 hours a week, being a single parent and staying up late night after night working on my creative pursuits, which were always on the side! It was taking a toll on my health and my family life. I had no peace, I was miserable in the cooperate world, and I was exhausted all the time. So I took a huge leap of faith, quit my office job and began traveling and pursuing a completely different / much more creative life style. It took a major breakdown for me to have my creative breakthrough, but in my heart I knew it had to happen, and I know I made the right choice. It has not been easy, there have been some major personal and financial challenges, but I am so much happier than I was 4 years ago. Now I am self-employed, I have published two books and I write and/or create art daily. I exhibit my artwork, but I am not sure I will ever choose to sell art. My books and my small business pay the rent... my painting and photography (for me) is a break from it all. My artwork is a release, it is emotional expression, it is relaxation. I'm not sure that if I tried to sell my art whether I would continue to find the joy that I do in my work; but who knows what the future holds. As you can see though, I have always had the creative mindset, but there was definitely a moment in my life that propelled me towards making that mindset a priority and sincerely pursuing a creative lifestyle.
Outlar: You've just recently published a new book, We Are The Artists, which includes your poetry, prose, and paintings. Would you like to share a bit about the process of bringing this project to fruition and what the book means to you? How do you feel now that it's been released out into the world?
Janisse: This is hard for me to talk about, as the creation of a book is a deeply personal experience, but I will do my best. Writing the content of the book was relatively effortless and I felt very inspired as I worked. I have been writing my whole life. I have mountains of poetry and short stories, blogs, etc. I easily have the material on hand to create 10 books right now, if I had the time and self-discipline to do the work and the editing. So I had most of the content already finished before I even began to put the book together. The challenge for me was deciding a theme for the book, a cover design, which of my poems to include, if I would add artwork, would I include prose or not, and then of course the editing. I felt very inspired, very guided, once I began writing and choosing content for the book. The theme and title came to me in moments of spontaneous inspiration. I then added the already written poetry and the book in many ways felt as if it was writing itself. The majority of the work I did over a four day weekend and though it was rather exhausting work, I enjoyed it very much. The most difficult part came in the months to follow. The editing was so challenging... it took several months to complete. I am a writer, I am not an editor. I had three people help with the editing and yet I continued to find small errors even months after publishing the book! I went back and forth on cover choices (even after the initial publication) which mostly just confused my readers, but I had to get it just right. I launched the book at the end of March, but it was not truly complete until the end of July. Now that it is done, I am extremely happy with the finished product. I have published two books, one independently and one through a publishing company. The book I published with help was a wonderful experience and it is selling beautifully. The book We Are The Artists that I published on my own was more difficult and time consuming than any other project I have ever taken on. Ultimately though I love the way the book came together. I am thankful for the support I have received and the sales I have made, and I am thrilled that I had total creative control, which to me is the greatest perk of self-publication.
How do I feel now that the book is released into the world...? Relieved! I am just so happy to have it done! I am working on self-publishing three separate books at present, and I am so glad to have published one of them! At the same time I feel incredibly vulnerable. I shared my heart in that book, and now I feel like a piece of my heart is out in the world for anyone to read... that is both comforting and frightening all at once.
Outlar: I certainly wish you much success with this latest book as well as the others you have lined up for the future. Thank you again, Charity, for taking some of your time to speak with me. Are there any final thoughts you'd like to express concerning future projects or your art in general? I'll leave the last word to you, and will urge the readers to hang around afterwards to read one of your poems.
Janisse: Thanks Scott! It's my pleasure and I wish you much success with your present and future projects as well. As for the future of my art, absolutely anything is possible. I work as I am inspired. I have some goals of course, but I find my best poetry and artwork comes to me when I don't plan... and when I least expect it. At this present moment I have recently accomplished a few of my greatest goals as an artist and writer, so now I am simply looking forward to unexpected, spontaneous moments of artistic creation, and when the next inspiration comes to me I will let it flow from my heart and mind, through my hands, and out into the world. Thank you again for asking these questions, you have helped me to step back and see my name and my work as an artist from a new perspective and that is always a good thing!
Scott Thomas Outlar: Before diving in to the questions, I'd first like to say thank you, Charity, for taking some of your time to participate in this interview. To begin with, I have to ask about your name. In many ways, it seems that artists provide an invaluable (and oftentimes underappreciated) service to society through the work they create which winds up touching peoples' lives in any number of ways. The name Charity synchronizes with this idea perfectly. Is there a story behind it?
Charity Janisse: Thank you Scott, I truly appreciate the opportunity to be interviewed by you and to have my poetry and artwork featured in The Blue Mountain Review.
In your question you have made a beautiful statement about artists, the arts and my name. I want to thank you for that, because up until just now I have never seen a connection between my name and my art career. I could not agree more about what an artist adds to society and the name Charity stands for love, giving, personal sacrifice and caring, which does represent the true soul of so many artists I know. There is a story behind my name, and it is not a short one but I will try to tell it as simply as I can. Charity is my real name. My parents were Hippies that had just become Christians and I was their first child born after a huge change in their lives and lifestyles. They named me Charity Joy, I’m pretty sure in hopes that I would follow in their newly discovered spiritual path. I took a very different road. I moved out young and because for me my birth name represented everything I felt like my parents had wanted me to be and every religious/parental expectation I’d chosen not to live up to, I changed my name, both legally, among friends, and on social media, multiple times. Over the years I have used several variations of my birth and various legal names to share my art and my poetry. Much of my work has been very provocative and experimental, and the name Charity (for me) felt much too churchy to represent the kind of work I was creating at various points in my life, so I chose different names to better represent myself and my projects.
It was only about a year and a half ago that I made peace with my given name: Charity Joy Janisse. It was a huge personal breakthrough for me to realize that the person I truly am, despite my failure to live up to the expectations of others, is unique and precious in its own right. I made peace with finding a balance between the person I had been raised to be, and who I had chosen to become. I deleted all my social media that I had created under my various pen-names and I made a fresh start writing, painting and publishing books under my given name, Charity Janisse. I have always loved the name Charity and have used it with my closest friends and family of course, but I never felt like it fit with my work as an artist and writer until recently. Now, after reading your question, I see the connection between the name Charity and the life of an artist and I feel even more confident that I have made the right choice in giving up my many pen-names and choosing to use my birth name and simply be exactly Charity.
Outlar: It sounds as if you’ve had an interesting path to reach this point. Art definitely has that power to take us on a spiritual journey. On that note, what are your thoughts on the role/responsibility that an artist has in society today?
Janisse: That for me is rather challenging question because I believe every artist creates from a unique perspective, for different reasons and purposes, with various goals; which means we play a huge variety of roles in society. I can only speak about the reason I create and what I believe to be my own responsibility to others. The role/responsibility I personally take as an artist in society is to be as authentic as possible; to set an example that we as people, artists or not, have the freedom to make our own personal choices about the direction of our lives. My responsibility is to honor my soul, to be my true self, and to inspire others to do the same. I believe it gives people hope to see someone sacrificing the comforts of an average income/ lifestyle to follow a dream. But to be very honest I don’t often think about my role or responsibility as an artist, I mostly make art and write to express my emotions and because I am driven, beyond all reason, to create. When I try to be anything other than a writer or an artist, I am lost and utterly miserable. So I create because I must, in order to be happy, and I share it because on some level I believe expressing my true soul may help others to embrace and express their own authenticity.
Outlar: Have you always been drawn toward artistic pursuits? Or was there a specific moment in your life that propelled you into the creative mindset?
Janisse: Yes & Yes. I have always been drawn towards artistic pursuits. I come from a family of artists. My mother is a professional artist as are several other family members. I spent my childhood traveling to art shows, galleries and art museums. I have adored the arts my whole life. Finding my own place in the world of arts was admittedly more challenging for me though. In my childhood and teen years I created a tremendous amount of art and participated / won awards in multiple youth art exhibits. Once I had children of my own, I changed my life direction considerably. I had been raised by an artist and knew well the ups and downs of an artist's lifestyle. There were times we had it all and there were times we truly struggled tremendously. I wanted to give my kids more consistency, so while I continued to write poetry, create art and make and sell jewelry, I also held several cooperate jobs over the years, up until about 4 years ago. In 2012 I had... a breakdown; I was overwhelmed working outside the home 40 hours a week, being a single parent and staying up late night after night working on my creative pursuits, which were always on the side! It was taking a toll on my health and my family life. I had no peace, I was miserable in the cooperate world, and I was exhausted all the time. So I took a huge leap of faith, quit my office job and began traveling and pursuing a completely different / much more creative life style. It took a major breakdown for me to have my creative breakthrough, but in my heart I knew it had to happen, and I know I made the right choice. It has not been easy, there have been some major personal and financial challenges, but I am so much happier than I was 4 years ago. Now I am self-employed, I have published two books and I write and/or create art daily. I exhibit my artwork, but I am not sure I will ever choose to sell art. My books and my small business pay the rent... my painting and photography (for me) is a break from it all. My artwork is a release, it is emotional expression, it is relaxation. I'm not sure that if I tried to sell my art whether I would continue to find the joy that I do in my work; but who knows what the future holds. As you can see though, I have always had the creative mindset, but there was definitely a moment in my life that propelled me towards making that mindset a priority and sincerely pursuing a creative lifestyle.
Outlar: You've just recently published a new book, We Are The Artists, which includes your poetry, prose, and paintings. Would you like to share a bit about the process of bringing this project to fruition and what the book means to you? How do you feel now that it's been released out into the world?
Janisse: This is hard for me to talk about, as the creation of a book is a deeply personal experience, but I will do my best. Writing the content of the book was relatively effortless and I felt very inspired as I worked. I have been writing my whole life. I have mountains of poetry and short stories, blogs, etc. I easily have the material on hand to create 10 books right now, if I had the time and self-discipline to do the work and the editing. So I had most of the content already finished before I even began to put the book together. The challenge for me was deciding a theme for the book, a cover design, which of my poems to include, if I would add artwork, would I include prose or not, and then of course the editing. I felt very inspired, very guided, once I began writing and choosing content for the book. The theme and title came to me in moments of spontaneous inspiration. I then added the already written poetry and the book in many ways felt as if it was writing itself. The majority of the work I did over a four day weekend and though it was rather exhausting work, I enjoyed it very much. The most difficult part came in the months to follow. The editing was so challenging... it took several months to complete. I am a writer, I am not an editor. I had three people help with the editing and yet I continued to find small errors even months after publishing the book! I went back and forth on cover choices (even after the initial publication) which mostly just confused my readers, but I had to get it just right. I launched the book at the end of March, but it was not truly complete until the end of July. Now that it is done, I am extremely happy with the finished product. I have published two books, one independently and one through a publishing company. The book I published with help was a wonderful experience and it is selling beautifully. The book We Are The Artists that I published on my own was more difficult and time consuming than any other project I have ever taken on. Ultimately though I love the way the book came together. I am thankful for the support I have received and the sales I have made, and I am thrilled that I had total creative control, which to me is the greatest perk of self-publication.
How do I feel now that the book is released into the world...? Relieved! I am just so happy to have it done! I am working on self-publishing three separate books at present, and I am so glad to have published one of them! At the same time I feel incredibly vulnerable. I shared my heart in that book, and now I feel like a piece of my heart is out in the world for anyone to read... that is both comforting and frightening all at once.
Outlar: I certainly wish you much success with this latest book as well as the others you have lined up for the future. Thank you again, Charity, for taking some of your time to speak with me. Are there any final thoughts you'd like to express concerning future projects or your art in general? I'll leave the last word to you, and will urge the readers to hang around afterwards to read one of your poems.
Janisse: Thanks Scott! It's my pleasure and I wish you much success with your present and future projects as well. As for the future of my art, absolutely anything is possible. I work as I am inspired. I have some goals of course, but I find my best poetry and artwork comes to me when I don't plan... and when I least expect it. At this present moment I have recently accomplished a few of my greatest goals as an artist and writer, so now I am simply looking forward to unexpected, spontaneous moments of artistic creation, and when the next inspiration comes to me I will let it flow from my heart and mind, through my hands, and out into the world. Thank you again for asking these questions, you have helped me to step back and see my name and my work as an artist from a new perspective and that is always a good thing!
This Screen
To show my art
Is to show my madness
To let it be revealed
For what it is
The depth
The need that gnaws at us
Am I alone in this?
Emily Dickinson hid in white dresses and lived in a quiet room
Away from anyone
Who would seek to know her more...
And me
I hide
Behind this electric screen
The walls are the same
Life goes on outside
And I swear to join it again
But what am I to do
What am I to bring when I leave this place
If not my words
If not my art
I have nothing to offer.
And yet to share my art is to share my madness
My passion
My need
And this unusual world that I see
Where ancient trees wave and smile at me
Surrounded in shimmering colors of life
And brilliant energy
As I walk
Alone
Unknown
Through the street
Emily Dickinson hid out
In a white dress
And an upstairs bedroom
And me
Well I have this screen.
To show my art
Is to show my madness
To let it be revealed
For what it is
The depth
The need that gnaws at us
Am I alone in this?
Emily Dickinson hid in white dresses and lived in a quiet room
Away from anyone
Who would seek to know her more...
And me
I hide
Behind this electric screen
The walls are the same
Life goes on outside
And I swear to join it again
But what am I to do
What am I to bring when I leave this place
If not my words
If not my art
I have nothing to offer.
And yet to share my art is to share my madness
My passion
My need
And this unusual world that I see
Where ancient trees wave and smile at me
Surrounded in shimmering colors of life
And brilliant energy
As I walk
Alone
Unknown
Through the street
Emily Dickinson hid out
In a white dress
And an upstairs bedroom
And me
Well I have this screen.
____________________________________________________________________________________
This is a fantastic interview I had with Scott Thomas Outlar. It was originally published In The Blue Mountain review, Then later on Novelmasters. This is one of my favorite interviews because Scott's questions caused me to explore and share some truths about my life, art and book in a way I had not done before. Scott is an extremely talented poet and author, I highly recommend reading his work. He continually amazes me with all his dedication to supporting others in the Art and Literature Community. I feel honored to know him and to have had the opportunity t collaborate with him on some great projects!
Read more of Scott's work at 17numa.wordpress.com - twitter.com/17numa
This is a fantastic interview I had with Scott Thomas Outlar. It was originally published In The Blue Mountain review, Then later on Novelmasters. This is one of my favorite interviews because Scott's questions caused me to explore and share some truths about my life, art and book in a way I had not done before. Scott is an extremely talented poet and author, I highly recommend reading his work. He continually amazes me with all his dedication to supporting others in the Art and Literature Community. I feel honored to know him and to have had the opportunity t collaborate with him on some great projects!
Read more of Scott's work at 17numa.wordpress.com - twitter.com/17numa
When I was growing up my family moved often. My Mom is an artist and so she could paint anywhere and we spent the summers traveling all over the country to art shows and galleries where my mom would sell her work and we would make it through the rest of the year on the summer's income. Sometimes we lived on prayers and pocket change, other times we had it all. It's the life of an artist it seems. But home was not a necessary place for our livelihood the way it is for many who commute to nearby jobs. Our commute was all over the country in an old motorhome with my sisters and usually a cat or a dog. We would stop at museums all over the U.S. I loved the Art Museums best and my mother and I would spend hours wandering through them drinking in the work of the great artists. Art is not just something I enjoy - it is my heritage, it is my family, it is how we got by and the reason for so many unique experiences in my life - Art is what I love and an intricate part of who I am. My Grandfather was an artist, I love and miss him dearly and my Aunt Suzi M Mather, as well all my sisters and a string of others throughout my family and history. I love the smell of paint and sitting in my Mom or Grandfather's studio just quietly watching worlds unfold on the canvas have been some of my favorite childhood memories. It will never cease to be a miracle to me the way our imagination can take solid form in a painting or a sculpture, a dance or a song, a book and of course one of my favorite art forms - a poem.
Now as I have mentioned in the past I have strict religious parents and this is true also. Another reason we moved often and easily is because my Father's commute was all over the country and world as well. My Dad is a Military Man and a Missionary Preacher. My Dad's Air Force Career and interest in the missions is how I was able to live in Korea among other places as a small child and I love that experience. I do not agree with my parents fundamental religious views but I also cannot complain too much about the way that I was raised as Art, culture, travel and exploration were a part my daily life. I recently created a Pinterest board just for kicks displaying pictures of many of the places I have been and was amazed at what an incredible life I have lived thus far.
https://www.pinterest.com/charityjanisse/places-i-have-been/
The arts and travel is everything to me and exploring various cultures and art forms fascinates me to no end and has since I was a small child :). Despite my various disagreements with my parents I will always, always be thankful for this.
Anyway my point of writing this particular blog is to explain not only my attraction to all the various art forms but to talk about the day I fell madly in love with poetry. My parents moved so often I went to 4 different high schools and one of them was called Mariemont. It had been built in the late sixties or early seventies and was an experimental school where there were no walls or halls; there were all these big circular rooms where back in the day kids had sat on bean bags in circles instead of rows of desks. The arts were a strong focus, so the art classroom was giant with all sorts of creative options (I loved it there), the theater for drama was the center of the school, the band was excellent and the library, oh my god the library... It was this big beautiful library with books like I had never seen in any other school. Someone with a passion for the arts had seriously stocked that library with rare and unusual poetry books, art books, travel books like you would never find in a traditional school library. Now by the time I had gone to that school much had changed - there were partition walls for various classrooms in what had once been open circles and there were lines of desks within them. Apparently it had been decided at some point in the 80's that kids actually learned better that way. I don't know as I have never experienced the previous option, I believe we all have different ways of learning though. But the one thing that had been left relatively untouched was that brilliant library.
I often poke fun at myself for being shy and somewhat socially awkward but the thing is, it is true, I am. I have always preferred my own company or the company of one very close friend to a large group. I read people’s emotions quite easily and in large groups there are so many mixed feelings and messages, it tires me. So naturally as I don't care for groups and all of my family's various moves made it challenging for me to get too close to any one friend for very long I spent most of my high school career skipping lunch and hanging out by myself in the library.
And this is when we come to my first true meeting with some of the most powerful poetry I have ever read in my life. In that amazing library, in that wonderfully artsy school was a little poetry book called "I Am a Black Woman" by Mari Evans
The book was small with no flat binding, almost like a pamphlet, if I had not been so antisocial and lonely I would never have spent enough time in the library to discover it at all. I was reading some of my favorite poets - Frost, Keats, Lord Byron and then I pulled out an old Shakespeare book from the shelf and there fell that little poetry book by Mari, right into my hands and I began to read it. I remember just sort of sitting down right there on the floor in the aisle of books as I could not take my eyes off of the words. I think I was even late to my next class. I was about 15 years old, I had been writing poems since I was 9 or 10 but I had always thought there were rules to follow, like I needed stanzas, phrases, lines, perfect rhymes and here I was reading this woman’s poetry that flowed like music through my mind and there wasn't any particular order to it at all. I read the whole book but I did not check it out and I did not purchase a copy for myself. I never wanted to accidentally copy another poet's style, not even at that young age, so I never wanted to get to know one poet very well, not even my favorite. There is a style of poetry that flows freely from me and it is my own and I never wanted that style to be affected by rules or influenced by my desire to be like any single artist.
But reading that woman's poetry changed my life. I realized I could ignore the rules, I could write about pain and distasteful subjects, I could write about love even if I did not understand it, even if I had been hurt by it, perhaps especially then.
I have realized over the years when I have looked for more work by Mari Evans that sometimes it is hard to find and any one I have ever mentioned her poetry to has not known who I was talking about. This may just be the case among people I know but anyway this is the poetry that awoke my writer's spirit and taught me exactly what I wanted to do with my life and that is why I want to share it with you. Writing is my passion and my purpose and if some day in the future a tiny poem book of mine could fall off a shelf into the hands of a lonely young girl and give her life meaning and purpose, then I have served mine.
Blessings, Charity
Now as I have mentioned in the past I have strict religious parents and this is true also. Another reason we moved often and easily is because my Father's commute was all over the country and world as well. My Dad is a Military Man and a Missionary Preacher. My Dad's Air Force Career and interest in the missions is how I was able to live in Korea among other places as a small child and I love that experience. I do not agree with my parents fundamental religious views but I also cannot complain too much about the way that I was raised as Art, culture, travel and exploration were a part my daily life. I recently created a Pinterest board just for kicks displaying pictures of many of the places I have been and was amazed at what an incredible life I have lived thus far.
https://www.pinterest.com/charityjanisse/places-i-have-been/
The arts and travel is everything to me and exploring various cultures and art forms fascinates me to no end and has since I was a small child :). Despite my various disagreements with my parents I will always, always be thankful for this.
Anyway my point of writing this particular blog is to explain not only my attraction to all the various art forms but to talk about the day I fell madly in love with poetry. My parents moved so often I went to 4 different high schools and one of them was called Mariemont. It had been built in the late sixties or early seventies and was an experimental school where there were no walls or halls; there were all these big circular rooms where back in the day kids had sat on bean bags in circles instead of rows of desks. The arts were a strong focus, so the art classroom was giant with all sorts of creative options (I loved it there), the theater for drama was the center of the school, the band was excellent and the library, oh my god the library... It was this big beautiful library with books like I had never seen in any other school. Someone with a passion for the arts had seriously stocked that library with rare and unusual poetry books, art books, travel books like you would never find in a traditional school library. Now by the time I had gone to that school much had changed - there were partition walls for various classrooms in what had once been open circles and there were lines of desks within them. Apparently it had been decided at some point in the 80's that kids actually learned better that way. I don't know as I have never experienced the previous option, I believe we all have different ways of learning though. But the one thing that had been left relatively untouched was that brilliant library.
I often poke fun at myself for being shy and somewhat socially awkward but the thing is, it is true, I am. I have always preferred my own company or the company of one very close friend to a large group. I read people’s emotions quite easily and in large groups there are so many mixed feelings and messages, it tires me. So naturally as I don't care for groups and all of my family's various moves made it challenging for me to get too close to any one friend for very long I spent most of my high school career skipping lunch and hanging out by myself in the library.
And this is when we come to my first true meeting with some of the most powerful poetry I have ever read in my life. In that amazing library, in that wonderfully artsy school was a little poetry book called "I Am a Black Woman" by Mari Evans
The book was small with no flat binding, almost like a pamphlet, if I had not been so antisocial and lonely I would never have spent enough time in the library to discover it at all. I was reading some of my favorite poets - Frost, Keats, Lord Byron and then I pulled out an old Shakespeare book from the shelf and there fell that little poetry book by Mari, right into my hands and I began to read it. I remember just sort of sitting down right there on the floor in the aisle of books as I could not take my eyes off of the words. I think I was even late to my next class. I was about 15 years old, I had been writing poems since I was 9 or 10 but I had always thought there were rules to follow, like I needed stanzas, phrases, lines, perfect rhymes and here I was reading this woman’s poetry that flowed like music through my mind and there wasn't any particular order to it at all. I read the whole book but I did not check it out and I did not purchase a copy for myself. I never wanted to accidentally copy another poet's style, not even at that young age, so I never wanted to get to know one poet very well, not even my favorite. There is a style of poetry that flows freely from me and it is my own and I never wanted that style to be affected by rules or influenced by my desire to be like any single artist.
But reading that woman's poetry changed my life. I realized I could ignore the rules, I could write about pain and distasteful subjects, I could write about love even if I did not understand it, even if I had been hurt by it, perhaps especially then.
I have realized over the years when I have looked for more work by Mari Evans that sometimes it is hard to find and any one I have ever mentioned her poetry to has not known who I was talking about. This may just be the case among people I know but anyway this is the poetry that awoke my writer's spirit and taught me exactly what I wanted to do with my life and that is why I want to share it with you. Writing is my passion and my purpose and if some day in the future a tiny poem book of mine could fall off a shelf into the hands of a lonely young girl and give her life meaning and purpose, then I have served mine.
Blessings, Charity
Where Have You Gone
Where have you gone
with your confident
walk with
your crooked smile
why did you leave
me
when you took your
laughter
and departed
are you aware that
with you
went the sun
all light
and what few stars
there were?
where have you gone
with your confident
walk your
crooked smile the
rent money
in one pocket and
my heart
in another . . .
Written by Mari Evans
If There Be Sorrow
If there be sorrow
let it be
for things undone . . .
undreamed
unrealized
unattained
to these add one;
Love withheld . . .
. . . restrained
Written by Mari Evans
A really fun interview about my project: Punk Rock Girl Art in Morpheus Magazine
See the Original Article Here: The Art of a Punk Rock GIrl
That punk rock girl you see hopping the fence and slogging through mud in order to snap a photograph of rusted metal– that’s Charity Janisse of Punk Rock Girl Art. She has a passion for all things creative: art, photography, poetry, and music. Grab your flyer and your combat boots and head for the stage because up next is the art of a punk rock girl.
Morpheus // What happens when punk rock meets art?
Charity // One of my favorite quotes about punk rock is this one from Patti Smith: “To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom to not be successful, freedom to be who you are. It’s freedom.”
Basically that’s how I feel about my artwork. I don’t care if people like it or not. I don’t care if people buy it or not, I make what I make for me, to express myself, to express my individuality and my perspective, that’s all. I began taking pictures of rusty dumpsters and presenting them as abstract art because I saw a unique beauty there and I wanted to show it to other people and also because I was sick to death of pictures of palm trees and skies. I wanted to do something different and I wanted to show others that art can be found anywhere, I wanted to make people question their own idea about what true art should be.
Another favorite quote is by Henry Rollins: “Questioning anything and everything, to me, is punk rock.”
Is it art, is it not art, can art truly be found on the side of a dumpster…? Questions. I like to push boundaries, raise questions, but mostly just express myself even if people hate what I do, I love it and that’s how punk rock and art together as far I’m concerned.
FLAME
Morpheus // If your art was a punk rock song, what song would it be?
Charity // “Punk Rock Girl” by The Dead Milkmen of course. One of the reasons I call my art “Punk Rock Girl Art” is because that’s me. I spent the 90’s with a Mohawk, thigh high black boots and fishnets – working in a coffee shop, marching for Green Peace, dancing on the table at Goth Warehouse Clubs, making outwith my blue haired girlfriend on street corners and generally causing a scene wherever I went. I saw Blondie with The Ramones, 7 Seconds, Social Distortion etc. Slam danced at the G.B.H., Agnostic Front show and spent the hours after school crammed into my best friends Gold Mustang with 8 other punks, blasting Suicidal Tendencies as we were cruising downtown Cincinnati and Over the Rhine simply because our parents told us not to go there. As I grew up I did not give up the punk rock life style and continued to live exactly as I chose… I refused to work a standard 40 hour a week job and instead chose a career in the arts even though it has been a tough as hell way to go. Self expression and individuality have always been more important to me than a secure, cushy life or living by anyone else’s standards or expectations. My work has gotten pretty popular which is awesome and people seem to like what I do even if they don’t always get it and when people see the name of my art biz and quote lyrics from “Punk Rock Girl” to me I smile and the tune runs through my head all day. So yep that’s the song.
Morpheus // How do you find this shit?
Charity // That’s the best part of my job, I get to travel all over the place looking for abstract art in the most unusual places. It started out when I was living on a couple acres of property and my landlord had a bunch of weird industrial equipment on one part of the lot. On the other side there was the most beautiful field of grass and trees everywhere. I had just signed up for Instagram and I wanted to take some cool pictures. I looked at the pretty field, the sky, the trees and thought of all the millions of pictures of nature and was bored to death before I even snapped my first shot… So instead I turned to the old industrial equipment rusting away on the other side of the lot and started taking pictures of it from various angles. Rusted chain, bolts, gears what have you… and then suddenly I noticed that the rust itself created the most amazing designs!! I was amazed! I am a child of an artist, I grew up running around art shows and in art museums, studying modern art, history and the masters all my life. We made our living from art, my Mother’s an artist as well as my Grandfather, Grandmother and Aunt.
I began creating art and doing art shows myself when I was ten. I know art, it’s my life and there I was seeing it on the side of a piece of an old mechanical equipment. I photographed it, cropped it, high-lighted the texture, posted it and people couldn’t believe it when I told them what it was. I fell in love with rust from that day on and after that rusty old cars, fire hydrants, junk yards, abandoned warehouses, old train stations have been my favorite haunts and subjects to photograph. I trespass, I get covered in mud, I get in trouble… I actually got kicked out of a train yard once but it was so worth it for the shots I got. I confuse people when I pull over to the side of the road just to take pictures of the bottom of a telephone pole or the side of a dumpster… but that’s where I find my art, it’s fucking everywhere.
Abstract Perfect
Morpheus // For a lot of your work, you have to either discover or seek out your material. What would be a “holy grail” for you? Is there anything you haven’t found yet that you would be psyched about?
Charity // I often go out driving looking for cool shit to photograph but my eyes are always open whenever I’m out anywhere. I’ll pull my car over for any subject that catches my eye and seems like it might have potential. So I suppose I often seek material but I get lucky and discover it randomly very often as well.
And as for my “Holy Grail” I actually felt like I found my it one day, it was the luckiest thing! I am obsessed with street art, trains and rust and there was this train with the most amazing street art stuck on the tracks. I had to pull my car over, jump a ditch and climb a really steep hill but there was rust, street art, everything! I got one of my favorite photographs that day!
The one thing I would like to photograph that I haven’t found yet but would absolutely love – is a junk yard full of old cars. I’ve snuck into junk yards with industrial equipment but not cars. I adore old cards and the rust would be everywhere. So yep that’s on my list!
To see more of Charity’s work visit her site.CULTUREINTERVIEW
Charity // I often go out driving looking for cool shit to photograph but my eyes are always open whenever I’m out anywhere. I’ll pull my car over for any subject that catches my eye and seems like it might have potential. So I suppose I often seek material but I get lucky and discover it randomly very often as well.
And as for my “Holy Grail” I actually felt like I found my it one day, it was the luckiest thing! I am obsessed with street art, trains and rust and there was this train with the most amazing street art stuck on the tracks. I had to pull my car over, jump a ditch and climb a really steep hill but there was rust, street art, everything! I got one of my favorite photographs that day!
The one thing I would like to photograph that I haven’t found yet but would absolutely love – is a junk yard full of old cars. I’ve snuck into junk yards with industrial equipment but not cars. I adore old cards and the rust would be everywhere. So yep that’s on my list!
To see more of Charity’s work visit her site.CULTUREINTERVIEW
Chasing Train
There must be some way to make peace with that which we are. To accept our depth, our needs, our love without question and without excuse. To feel deeply without being ashamed of our desperation, to love passionately without making apologies for loving.
I have found the greatest peace I have ever known in the acceptance of my own longing, the acceptance of my truth and my reality as I choose to view it. This is my life, this is my world, if I choose to love with a depth of passion that is so powerful it can hardly be communicated that is my choice.
And if I spend my whole life writing my thoughts and emotions in an attempt to describe clearly what this love means to me then it is enough and I have lived well because although I may never have been understood or even accepted - at least I have expressed myself.
Charity
I have found the greatest peace I have ever known in the acceptance of my own longing, the acceptance of my truth and my reality as I choose to view it. This is my life, this is my world, if I choose to love with a depth of passion that is so powerful it can hardly be communicated that is my choice.
And if I spend my whole life writing my thoughts and emotions in an attempt to describe clearly what this love means to me then it is enough and I have lived well because although I may never have been understood or even accepted - at least I have expressed myself.
Charity
Charity
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