COMBAT PAPER
ON THE COAST OF MAINE  2.

EARLY ROCK-BOUND BLUES

     Almost the end of the first day . . .
     should be a happy day,
     twelfth anniversary and
     beautiful, rock-bound coast . . .
     I left my love in the lurch:
     for the best of reasons, maybe . . .
     to maybe make a difference
     and make a new life . . .
     but doing my duty seems
     like summer vacation and
     my aged soul's anguished
     and lost and alone . . .

     When I get back gotta get a job, 
     make some dough, make some bread,
     take somethin' home to my wife 
     an keep on workin' till I'm dead . . .


AFTER THE SECOND DAY
(MANDATORY FUN DAY)

     So we hiked the Great Head Trail
     and plunged into the Atlantic at
     Sand Beach, mixed copious sweat
     and salt and sand, to look off
     the edge of America to find,
     on the side of a rocky slope with
     the sea all around, that it was
     Sarah's birthday:  we proceeded
     to act goofy, take pictures on 
     the edge of a cliff, and marvel,
     what a cool place to be
     on your birthday . . .
     strenuous Tuesday:
     turned to quiet time with
     intermittent community reflection,
     revelation and celebration,
     Eli's chile and birthday cake
     and mosquitos . . .


WORKING WANDERING WEDNESDAY

     The beater in action and
     outdoors, pulling sheets, including
     a batch of Wayne Erb's 1950's green fatigues.
     Pressing sheets under a truck tire
     then loading the dry box:  all
     the nitty-gritty of papermaking.
     Meanwhile, interviews have begun
     for film/fundraising, who knows
     what . . . I'm just an artist clueless
     to fate, the possible, the inevitable . . .

     Cooked dinner:  maybe not
     the worst burritos in the world,
     but among friends who are both
     kind and hungry . . .
     Then to Bar Harbor:
     for a meeting and ice cream
     and a stroll with the tourists,
     bought cigars  and a root beer float . . .
     
     
     

     

COMBAT PAPER

ON THE COAST OF MAINE  I.

     This is the story of a week in Maine.  Seven people

came together in a beautiful house overlooking the Narrows

between Trenton, Maine and Mount Desert Island.  On the

tip of a peninsula, we gazed upon vistas of islands and headlands 

and sky.  Dead center, passage out to the Atlantic, nature beat all 

around us and we gave ourselves up . . .

     We came to make Combat Paper, to hone skills we'd learned

over the past year and a half.  We were rededicating ourselves

to the task of Deconstruction:  our military uniforms that we cut

to postage stamp-sized pieces.  Then to Reclamation:  into our beater,

our rag would be turned to pulp, to be pulled from water with

deckle and mold, formed into paper.  For the purpose of

Communication: on that paper, we would tell our stories 

in pictures, prints and words . . . we would make art. 

A GIFT

     What do I do with an

     undeserved gift . . .?

     Through my truck stop shades

     the sky's as blue as robin's eggs

     an' stretchin' from east to west . . .

     big wide sky, with the sun, a bullet

     burnin' way up straight over my head . . . 

     wide, deep lawn, bright green and

     out beyond still waters, the Narrows,

     between two bays, isles an' jutting

     land between this deckside idyll

     and the mightyAtlantic . . .

     lookin' southeast towards

     low peaks of Acadia National Park an'

     listenin' west to the hollow thrum

     of bullfrogs lolling in the pond . . .

FIRST WORKSHOP

     I've always felt that creativity was the most

important thing in life.  The making of art, which 

I first learned from my mother, has been integral

to my survival.

     As such, I've always loved the tools of art

whether pencils or pens, paints and pastels, 

typewriters and notebooks and paper.  Paper to 

write on, to draw on, to paint on . . . and when

I first held a piece of Combat Paper in my hands,

I was overcome by the power and meaning .

     Sometimes it blows my mind when I think . . .

once I was a Marine and I served in the Vietnam

War.  As one who believes that art tells a truer

story than anything written or told by historian

or journalist, then Combat Paper is the perfect

medium for my story, for my artistic expression.

I have been given a gift, that if I wish to keep,

I must give away.

NOTE FROM N.M. WALT

     "The First Animals", 1913,was one of Franz Marc's many luscious canvases
featuring his magnificent blue horses.  These paintings, along with an earlier, much
less remarkable blue horse painting by Wassily Kandinsky, gave the name  to the 
journal and the artistic group known as the Blue Riders.  
     Despite Marc's progression into cubist and increasingly abstract forms, his vivid
palette and lush images are considered early manifestations of the Expressionist 
movement that dominated German art following World War One. 
     In addition to Kandinsky, artists associated with the Blue Riders include Paul Klee,
the German-Americans Albert Bloch and Lyonel Feininger, the composer/artist
Arthur Schoenberg, the Russian grandniece of Alexander Pushkin, Natalia Goncharova.
     Franz Marc's closest friend and Blue Rider artist, August Macke, was killed in action
in the Champagne sector of France, August, 1914.  Marc was killed at Verdun in 1916.

BLUE RIDERS

For Auguste Macke and Franz Marc

On my desk, in the sun,
mess of papers, things undone, 
not yet started, half begun,
an aged clock that doesn't run . . . 
lost to who it is is me,
poet an' thinker of history,
adolescent man of mystery,  
unfinished as I'm s'posed to be . . .

The papers are random, some related,
lists an' memos doomed, ill-fated, 
Blick Art coupons, most outdated, 
menu from a joint I hated . . .
an' on my desktop top position,
a picture from an exhibition,
an ad so bold in composition,
primitive, modern, world in transition . . .

Blue an' violet horses, 1913,
auburn colts, trees emerald green,
first animals livin' in a world that's clean, 
in peace, in colors only the artist's seen.
Now the gallery's open, the show's begun, 
'nother hundred years of art's been done, 
since Macke an' Marc felt their last sun 
over Champagne an' at Verdun . . .

On my desk, in the sun,
mess of papers, things half begun, 
the gift of years not for everyone, 
I lift my pen to the noble Hun . . .