Let’s continue to explore that smallest thing–the dot, the pixel, the eye mote, the speck of dust, the atom, the cell–that when multiplied “spreads out, encompassing ever vaster horizons, and would end by embracing the entire universe. (Calvino)”

In an old set of geometry tools, I found two compasses: one regular with a point on one end and a place for a pencil on the other, and one with two pointed ends. I’m not exactly sure what this tool was made for, but I find it is perfect for puncturing interesting dot designs in paper filters.

Inspired by the white details in Georgiana Houghton’s paintings (found in the great book World Receivers) and the intricate moving dots in James Whitney’s films Yantra (1957) and Lapis (1966) and the pixels in his brother John Whitney’s film Permutations (1968), I created several filters of dot patterns, and some of random dots.

New Poem

It’s Open Link Night (OLN #322) at dVerse Poets Pub which means anything goes, so I thought I would try a new inspirational tool/form I came up with inspired by Calvino’s “scheme of the network of possibilities” and my net lights.

Here’s my quick sketch of my “net of possibilities” (which I apparently called the net of connections yesterday):

I recently pulled out a bunch of stuff left over from the puzzle company. I found many card-stock labels from the small puzzles with pictures of the artwork on them. I cut these images into circles, cutting slightly different sections from the image for three circles of each image. Then I put all the circles in a bag, and pulled them out without looking and placed them in my net. Here is my net of possibilities now:

Each image can inspire in so many different ways and on multiple levels:

• subject
• setting
• time
• color
• texture
• metaphor / simile
• sensory detail
• a word
• a phrase

And then the net creates connections between the images, and repetitions of images could inspire word or phrase repetition, or other rhythm. I’m exited to see where this goes.

The Net of Connections I.

In the deep shadows under the metal erection
ballerinas spring in sprightly toile, swirling
pastel dots like the spots of spring colors
bouncing off the structure and filling the sky
through a cubist’s window, its shutters
removed to create a unicorn enclosure
in a hotbed of literature where every
captured unicorn sees the world as a jumble
of cubes–inanimate, sleeping, lying upon and around–
while the men of metal erect towers–monuments to
their masculine powers that birds will break
their bills on–while underneath, somewhere
in the shadows, curling and coiling like golden scales
of dragon tails, and ebbing and flowing like the tides,
the ballerinas echo the shapes like a bridge over
a lily pond, the spring flowers floating in patterns
only understood in the abstract, and the mighty
dancers set sail to new worlds like viking conquerors
while the sleepers sleep
the metal erection stands.