loving all these glorious things ~

I let go of something huge today, something I never expected to leave; but it did, it finally left. And so, out of joy, I share this expanded, slightly modified paragraph from my Facebook "About" section:

A floating engagement with love-light-beauty-joy and the special opening quality of life these days; how nothing sticks or holds like it used to, and how there is no Next (after a lifetime of nexts and Running), just this moment this moment raining down; breathing fully, learning to breathe; is this something approaching transcendence or my own personal mythology which I have finally slowed down enough to listen to and maybe embody for many a hopefully golden moment? But even transcendence is not a goal anymore ~ rather, art through Life; the all-encompassing feeling of being alive, sensing everything, the full spectrum, from light to dark and beyond, and then simply being ... for it will not last and I want to experience great joy while here. I so want to be a good dolphin in the frolic of truth, virtue, magnificent conversations, other dolphins, dogs, horses, all animals pretty much; myth; magnificent people; the apostles of ordinary life; Armenian coffee and cloves; glamour in a deep sense; paintings like couture, talismans conveying sweeping emotion; glorious friends, clients with their amazing, beautiful lives; every true moment in every film, large or small; Cassavetes, Gena Rowlands, this morning Fanny Ardant; Persepolis and Cinque Terra, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Malta and its Hypogeum. I am an immense fan of Courbet, Delacroix, Rembrandt, Goya, Balthus, Bonnard, Peanuts, the smiley happy face, Beethoven, Rilke, Rimbaud, Wim Wenders and his angels, Schubert, Rivette, Herzog, Jeanne d'Arc, Carole Lombard, Marilyn Monroe, Woolf, Balanchine, Dodie Smith, Hergé, Ruffian, Secretariat, my dogs Tintin and Chocolat, and...you! All of you, to whom I am most grateful...

Oh, I almost forgot Redford's Ordinary People and Krzysztof Kieslowski's Blue. And Brian May and Freddie Mercury.

xx always and happiest Springtime wishes ~ May all your dreams come true,

kat

New Work, New Hat

Man in Gold ~ Oil on canvas, 2004 - 2012

Dear Friends ~ I spent the better part of this afternoon listening to an interview with screenwriter Paul Attanasio (Donnie Brasco, Quiz Show) and soaking in John Cassavetes' The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (both versions). I have been working on, or I should say listening to, a new book that came through a while ago, essentially writing itself. A book that, chapter by chapter, makes me smile. I've had film and scripts on the brain too, nothing new there. Sitting in the theater watching Magnolia all those years ago, I was remembering this week, it seemed to me then and now that some amazing truth was loosed, and not just for me personally but ... that that film somehow seemed to change the direction of truth-telling in film. All the gems came tumbling out of the bag, or something like that. 

Earlier this week, I was moving around my studio, touching brush to canvas, Clueless, which is streamable on Netflix now, in case you'd like to catch it, running in the background. That movie always reminds me of something Marianne Williamson once quoted, about how the holiest people don't look holy. Amazingly true, isn't it.

If you enjoy the new art I am making and would like to see more, I would be delighted if you would kindly visit my site at www.katayoonart.com ~

Yours in delicious langour and great good Holiday cheer, 

Kat

Escape Velocity ~ Oil on canvas, 2004 - 2012

Untitled ~ Oil on canvas, 2004 - 2012

kat in the hat ~ December 2012

Going Down to Mexico (with Ben Wade on My Arm) ~ Oil on linen, 2012
Three ~ Oil on linen, 2012

Probably My Most Favorite Poem in the World, Ever ~ for M.J.

Song of a Man Who Has Come Through

Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me!
A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time.
If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me!
If only I am sensitive, subtle, oh, delicate, a winged gift!
If only, most lovely of all, I yield myself and am borrowed
By the fine, fine wind that takes its course through the chaos of the world
Like a fine, an exquisite chisel, a wedge-blade inserted;

If only I am keen and hard like the sheer tip of a wedge
Driven by invisible blows,
The rock will split, we shall come at the wonder, we shall find the Hesperides.

Oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul,
I would be a good fountain, a good well-head,
Would blur no whisper, spoil no expression.

What is the knocking?
What is the knocking at the door in the night?
It is somebody wants to do us harm.

No, no, it is the three strange angels.
Admit them, admit them.

—D.H. Lawrence

Thanksgiving

A feeling of expansiveness, deep warmth, being and knowing we are connected, without trying to do a thing about it.  No more proving.  I feel so happy and grateful this morning, for the sun, the birds in my yard, all this joyous space, these fabulous openings—animals and people, manuscripts, scripts, paintings all over the house, the sea and hills, Chanel ads that spur scenes, even striped index cards (grr...), and that one red candle that burns brightly…, Armenian coffee and my gorgeous completion ring (merci, C.G.!), and you to write to.  I have spent the past ten months in a sort of self-imposed rehab that was not about alcohol or drugs but my false belief in oh other things, and am walking away vulnerable, without defenses now (defenses I didn’t even know I had) … having let go of so much that it feels like I’m stepping into air all the time—wobbly at first, still wobbly often, and then I go, “Who am I?” which grows into, takes me to my favorite English word, “limitless”.  Oh yeah....

With great thanks to Peter Staatz and his beautiful horse ~  

xx KZ

A Rowing Poem

In the late afternoon, (I don’t have much control these days / dissolving like a sugar cube in hot water)
this is what comes through when I paint
:  A male figure
in a tree, embraced by a female. 
Gods like two stars they spill over.
(Remember the dream of us as two whitenesses walking, making our way over a gold boulder like at the beginning of the world. But you aren’t here.)
White gold light sweeps with the wind into the garage, it frees my ponytail—
you are and you aren’t
here—my heart conjures you, or you leap; there is a bridge between us—this coveted more* (it is no dark garden, simple knowing boots out fear)
Like when a light crackles in your bedroom late at night, and you know it’s a visitation
So you shut your eyes super-hard.
It plays [in my hair], the light,
Along to the song on the radio. 
The stray cats, they come and go,
beautiful as the sun and lanky, now that I’ve figured out their favorite food: Whiskas.