Clare Morin
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On Building Artistic Community

11/18/2014

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I first met Mei at a dim sum restaurant in Portland, Maine.

She came dressed in a funky Tibetan wool hat and handed me a photograph of one of her artworks, 
Tao Seeker (below). ​I was struck by this work, its searching, its journeying. 

It was October 2013 and Suzanne Fox and I had put on an event with the curator and translator Valerie Doran. A quiet legend, Valerie has worked alongside the likes of Johnson Chang Tsong-zung and played a seminal role in the emergence of the Chinese avant garde to the world in the early 90s. I had lured her up to this New England sea port to speak about 5,000 years of Chinese art history. 

At this lunch event, Mei Selvage appeared, her eyes wide with inspiration, telling me that she was an artist based here in Portland. It was almost like we had generated the entire event for her - so intensely did she respond to the themes of the talk. The two of us exchanged phone numbers and met up again the following month.

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Pay Attention

4/7/2014

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I heard the news tonight as I stood in the kitchen of our tiny apartment in the West End of Portland, cleaning pots.

Terry Gross's voice cutting through the din of aluminum pans clanging, through the ceaseless flow of thoughts. She caught me mid-air as I moved to grab another one off the counter: "... Peter Matthiessen, who died this weekend." 

Time freezes. Like a bell cutting through the forest.

That feeling when you're out in the woods and you sense a great being in your midst. You sense his passing footsteps.

And because of this, you must stop. 

I pull up a stool at the kitchen table, slowly sink down and hold my face to the speakers. And the obituary plays out. 

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How to be Open to Inspiration

5/26/2013

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Spring is an extraordinary season to be in New England. Blossoms are dropping off trees. The roads are covered in dazzling red and pink. Petals in all directions.

The sun has come out and warmed all of us, and life has leapt into this dizzying action. Nature launches it's immense season of fertility — and it affects us all. We go crazy busy. 

​My most recent new development is that I have started to work with an array of New England poets, painters and visionaries. Some very artistic karma is ripening and it's occurring as naturally as the buds coming to the trees.  

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Snake Lessons

2/11/2013

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There is the ringing sound of possibility in the air. It's the same every Lunar New Year, whether I'm deep in the flower markets of Hong Kong or in the polar ice plains of Portland. The planet feels like it is entering a new phase. The new animal rises to meet us; a snake with a playful game. 

I am told, via my friend Alison on Facebook and the person who took the photo above of a print-out from Man Mo Temple (click on it to read the marvelously wacky predictions), that this will be a "wonderful year" for the horse. You may also spot the interesting mention of my "lucky accessory" of a Kirin unicorn. 

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Giving thanks

11/21/2012

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Today's blog is dedicated to my Mum, Jenny Tyrrell I have been thinking of her a lot lately. She's been going through some difficult times and my mind has been moving to the rocky walls of her French farmhouse. I wish I could teleport myself to her kitchen for a cup of tea. 

It has been dawning on me lately, how blessed I was to be born to this woman. In Buddhist teachings, we hear of karma. We hear how we planted seeds of actions way back across many past lives and how these now ripen as experiences, as appearances, as the content of our lives. To have appeared in Jenny Tyrrell's life, I had extraordinary karma ripening. 

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On Headless Men and the Creative Process

6/18/2012

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A carpet was the topic of an inspired conversation this week. It lies on my living room floor (above) and sometimes visitors will pause and stare into the thing.

It is a curious creation that emits a strange power. This carpet, or Gabbeh to be more precise, is of an indeterminate age and originally harks from an Iranian village. I know this because I found a little piece of material sewn onto the back of the thing. 

The carpet found me ten years ago. It materialized one rainy afternoon with a boyfriend who, soon after meeting me, decided to move back to the States. He proceeded to offload most of his possessions into my apartment Soho, Hong Kong - and this delightful item was amid the second elevator-load. 

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Setting the story straight

1/19/2012

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We are getting close to the Year of the Black Water Dragon, and I can feel the resolutions coming upon me.

I am an East-West amalgamation, so am entirely used to having two sets of New Years. The first one was spent with candlelight and prayers to Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Compassion. It was a quiet and moving way to usher in 2012. The full focus of resolutions were aimed at my mind: this year, I will try to deepen my meditation practice, I will try to dislodge negative habits of mind, and start to sees others as supremely important.

Earlier this week, I could sense another beginning about to hit.

It was subconscious at first, the sudden need to fill the flat with fresh flowers. A desire to bring spring into my world, in the midst of tundra Maine and frigid January. The lunar new year means misty mornings in a silent city as everyone finally gets home, gets feasting, gives red packets, sets off firecrackers and smiles. It means the moisture wrapping its fingers around the bulbs of spring.

It means space, breath, pause.

I celebrate it by bringing the writer out of the closet. She was starting to get dusty in there. The move from my hermit cabin in the woods to citylife in September ushered in a lot of work, and meetings, and deadlines. And the writing screeched to a halt.

Fortunately, the scent from a newly-bought bunch of white lillies has awoken the seasonal mind-shift. The letting go of raggy old skin and pulling on new clothes. Hope and conspiring and creating.

So here's the resolution: A blog a week, at the very minimum. It's not a lot to ask, and it's a weekly reminder that the magic of writing is not in sitting around and feeling bad about not doing it, but plugging away as the music plays and the fingers take on this wonderful dance and I can just sit back and smile.

How will you celebrate the dragon?



(Photo credit: By Sky dancer 2000 via Wikimedia Commons)


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    Peace Blog

    Where I contemplate my meditation practice and how it aligns with daily life. Sometimes these take the form of poems.  

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