Haiga 5: vlug (flight)

Thought 1: I still have titanium on my mind. Light as aluminium, strong as steel..

Thought 2: how do you say red without saying red?

Thought 3: how do I chisel my words so that the poem is short enough for a tweet of 150 characters?

Thought 4: have you read NP Van Wyk Louw's famous poem "byteltjie" (chisel) - about the power of language?

Thought 5: ploughing is a form of cultivating, creating, penetrating...

Thought 6: is it possible to capture in words, the heights and depths, the highs and lows, of a relationship of 25 years?

Haiga 4: water

Haiga 3: fire

Haiga 2: Titan

This delicately knotted titanium dragonfly caused me to go off on a tangent...researching this metal, and associations with the word titan.

Saturn's sixth and largest moon is named Titan. It has a dense atmosphere. The haiku references a future research project which aims to place an air balloon in Titan's orbit. Imagine...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(moon)

A table full of conversations

Wait for it to load and then click on the thumbnails on the right for close-ups...

 According to an online etymological dictionary, criminal conversation is a legal term for adultery from the late 18th Century...

Haiga 1: Suikerbos

click on the image for a full view
We celebrate Heritage Day in South Africa on 24 September. The World Poetry Organisation declared the same day World Poetry Day.

I chose this day to post my first response in this collaboration with artist-jewellers Chris and Marlene de Beer. Thank you Chris and Marlene for inviting me to interact with your work which I love.

The artist-jewellers invited me to write short, haiku-type poems. (A haiku consists of seventeen syllables). In researching haiku, I discovered haiga. Traditionally the haiga unites a (haiku) poem, written in calligraphy, with a simple painting. We intend to create 21st century haiga, by uniting jewellery artworks with short poems, tweeted out on Twitter.


{Traditional haiga = artwork+poem+calligraphy}
{21st century haiga = artwork+poem+twitter}

In line with the haiga tradition, mine is an independent poetic response, rather than a description of the artwork. A description would imply that the artwork is incomplete. In this project some of my poetic responses will be actual haiku, others merely short poems.

More about haiga on poets.org: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5940

You are invited to bring your own meaning to the haiga.

["Fynbos": fine bush; "Suikerbos": sugar bush (Afrikaans) -- indigenous shrubland in the Western Cape of South Africa]

To end, treat yourself to this sultry version of the Afrikaans folk song, Suikerbos (performed by the Radio Kalahari Orkes): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfvSVWt3mLE It is essentially a song of love and longing for someone called Suikerbos.

*
Mari Pete

Twitter: mari_pete
Poetry: http://maripete.co.za

Sonder Winsbejag

The aim of the animated gif is to show how the light reflects off the gold foil.

'Sonder winsbejag' means 'non-profit' and is intended to comment on the selflessness of women ... in this case it is even worse, as she is kind-of in bits and pieces as well!



Cameos

The next word in the glossary  ... it initially referred to cameo brooches and pendants that were carved from shell. Eventually the other meaning i.e. that of a 'brief appearance by a known person' became significant, alluding to the way that the same person plays the different roles of mother/lover/friend/servant/etc... in quick succesion... and always beautifully!

'Gedienstig' means 'subservient'....!

Naaldekoker

see from my canoe -

blue chase green, mating mid-air,

 red mud on my shoes

MariPete

Birds

An installation featuring gold and silver bird pendants and metallic prints.

The prints are done on pages from Jane Eyre.

a golden bird with red (sanguine) cotton...

Bird

..........

As he shows how he shaped

between finger and thumb

this small gold bird

leaving lines on its wings, I say,

did you know that our fingerprints

fade as we age – they cross over first?

Mari Pete

Silver birds morphing into fleur-de-lis type coupling devices... you know, the little bits that hold the bigger bits together... all displayed on logarithmic tables.



Glossary

We felt that it was necessary to include a Glossary to explain some of the concepts that influence our work. That is it on the right...

 and here is a close-up.

These terms (that are too small to see properly here, but click on the pic for a better view) will be explained as we go along...

The terms are, in alphabetic order: bird, cameo, charge, couple, cross potent, crusader cross, decoration, fleur-de-lis/lus/libido, kiepersol, naaldekoker, pattern, sanguine, sine, sinister, subjection, tangent...

Panorama

For a better view of the exhibtion browse the photosynth below...