Art on retreat

I wrote last week about the clipping, sorting and filing that I did on my retreat, but it would have been a dreary week if that had been all I did.  Fortunately I also found time to start catching up on my art review haikus.

A few years ago I started to look in the New York Times art section for reviews that included a small picture of one of the artworks.  When I found one, I would cut out the picture, paste it in my little book and then make a haiku from the text of the review.  My rule was that the haiku had to fairly represent the sense of the review -- for instance, if the reviewer loved the show, I couldn't cherry-pick negative phrases, out of context, for the haiku.

This process is more time-consuming than you might think.  I have worked on these haikus on previous retreats and enjoyed the ability to concentrate on the poetry, so I've gotten into the habit of stashing the Friday art sections from the Times and saving them for the retreat.  This may not be a good idea, as the Fridays come faster than the retreats and I still have two file boxes full of reviews that haven't yet been dealt with.

But I did get 32 haikus finished last week, a substantial accomplishment.  And resolved that I need to keep working on this project at home, not just wait till the next retreat.