Happy first Friday of April, my very dears, and welcome to the Open Mic! If you’re new here, on Fridays we get together here for some chat. (Sometimes there’s a guest artist instead.) The topic varies from week to week, but everyone is welcome to participate in the comments.
Gesture
Let’s play a word association game — I’m curious how this will work, since I suspect everyone’s brain operates a little differently and therefore our answers might vary greatly. Earlier this week I responded to Chelsea‘s comment on one of my artist statement posts, explaining what I think of when I hear the word “resonant.” I told Erik about it, and he offered another word, “gesture.” I said that makes me think of dancing as an active demonstration of gesture; of gesture poses in life drawing; of my own body standing at an easel; and of the reciprocity between my painting/drawing (making marks with my body) and the models’ gestures (making shapes with their bodies). In other words: say “gesture” to me and you open up a rich web of individual memory and sensation and association.
Want to play? Let’s try it! I’ll give a word, and you tell me what it makes you think of. Then you give a word to the next person. (If you forget to give a word, I’ll pop in and add one.) Feel free to jump in as many times as you wish — the mic stays open all weekend.
Here’s the first word: reciprocity. Remember: (1) Tell what it makes you think of, (2) Offer a new word to the next player.
See you in the comments!
satsumabug.com | Lisa Hsia 
Reciprocity makes me think of emotions and love, and simple things like going to see a kind of movie you don’t like so much, because last week you’re friend or significant other went to see the kind you like. And you both still enjoy each experience because you’re together.
Finding a way to live with emotional reciprocity is so important to human relationships. I think the ability to give and take is like ocean tides coming in and going out, a fluidity that keeps relationships going. Because if it only goes in one direction… well if you think of it in terms of the tides, you see that it wouldn’t work (or it only works for babies and very young children until they learn.) Yet it isn’t always about making the choice. I’m no expert, but I know some forms of autism mute the ability to understand reciprocity as a choice one can make.
I offer the word ‘fascination’.
“Fascination” to me is a mixture of emotions and reactions. Awe, wonder, intrigue, disbelief. Something almost beyond holding and understanding.
Let me suggest “abstract” .
Ooh, fun. “Abstract” makes me think first of the short blurb at the start of academic papers — maybe because I recently read a blog post about Easter egg-dyeing that was formatted ilke an academic paper. Then it brings to mind abstract art, a term I first remember learning in a children’s story in which someone suggested going to a costume party draped in a paint-splattered sheet “and call yourself an abstract painting.”
Thank you for playing, you two! Weekend’s over, but if anyone else wants to play, why don’t you take “espresso.”
You rang?! Did somebody say ES…PRESSSSO?
Espresso, how do I love you, let me count the ways
I crave you, on the regular, with the jitters of a first-timer
Just past the fourteenth hour.
While the sun still sits up high, and there’s still time on the clock
To pick up, drop off, make dinner, assist with homework, fold laundry, and nurse boo-boos.
You’ve been a good kind of friend to me that way.
At the steady, when I need you,
Giving me just the pick up that I need.
Reciprocity? You bet!
Far from “abstract”, you “fascinate” me with your dark, hot, sultry power.
If nothing else, I hope I made someone smile today. 🙂
I’m smiling. 🙂
It’s monday and the mic is closed but I was gone all week. My grand daughter in England got her first fascinator. That’s a little well rather big feather attached to a headband or a comb and worn in the hair. I wonder, does it fascinate the boys?
Ooh, I’m fascinated with fascinators, I have to say.
Reciprocity. Reciprocal. First, the churning of the “re,” around and around, in a circle. A washing machine, the circular arrow used to represent recycling. The word needs two feet to stand on and it moves from one to the other in a little dance. But there’s something very mental about it, too, very latinate and cerebral– a tit for tat, the cutting of the “sc” in the middle, the hard c–it’s somewhat hypothetical, perhaps mythological. Is a symbiosis ever completely equal?
Love it, Anna! I’m now imagining a washing machine filled with words and syllables, churning around. Thunka-thunka-thunk. An appropriate image for a day filled with laundry, which is what my afternoon has been. 😉
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