Nancy Berry ~ For the Dance of the Light





Nancy Berry: For the Dance of the Light – Friday, May 18
·         Posted By: Kathy M.Y. Pyon
·         Posted On: 8:32 a.m. | May 12, 2012
·         VENUE:
Pacific Design Center
·         VENUE LINK:
http://www.pacificdesigncenter.com/
·         VENUE LOCATION:
8687 Melrose Avenue, Suite B315- 3rd Floor
, West Hollywood, CA 90069


·         VENUE TIMES:
10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
·         VENUE DATES:
Friday
·         VENUE ADMISSION:
Free
"Nancy Berry was a highly successful music industry executive who only began making photographs six years ago. Completely self-taught, she has turned her sense of style and exploration into a visual journey of experimentation. The body of work presented for this one-day show at the Pacific Design Center was created with natural light and her creative sense — and all in camera, rather than by manipulation after the image is made. The craziest process that Berry applies is what makes me screech with delight. By her sheer confidence and boldness, she actually destroys whatever element she has utilized to create the lighting effects. I don’t know if I could do such a thing.
The pieces are beautiful and whimsical. And some are haunting while being beautiful and whimsical."
Caption: Have You Seen the Saucers, 2012 by Nancy Berry

Courtesy of the LA Times.
It was an esteemed honor to be invited to Nancy's opening last night.  Beautifully located at the PDC commonly known as the "Blue Whale," nestled in the heart of West Hollywood.  I arrived only minutes late and unfashionably early for LA. meeting a beautiful friend there not wanting to keep her waiting.  We were guided to the terrace offering gorgeous views of Cesar Pelli's 14 acre design planked against an amazing LA sunset.

I've always been a fan of Nancy's work exchanging thoughts with her on Flickr for the past three years but I wasn't prepared for the immense feeling that came over me when I entered through the glass doors.  You first see "After Midnight"  a gorgeous and explicably grand 60x44 archival Giclee print framed to perfection.  Because I was so unfashionable this allowed Jane and I to walk throughout the gallery before most of the guests arrived.  167 flawless prints on canvas and archival giclee of a mermaid like goddess of un-mistakable courageousness. Each displayed in 7 rooms and one side room.



I first saw Nancy in the Yellow Room filled with canvas's of "In Rainbow Shadowed Trees," with her shoes kicked off beside her.  I was struck by her beautiful humility and her warm radiance. I resisted the urge to hug too tightly as I was swept by the energy and excitement in the room.

While in the Blue Room I had an ethereal urge to smell the salt of the sea once again.  The boldness and romantic feel, the intricate and flawless use of light left me astonished that these were the images I once saw on Flickr.

The party began to fill with the art world from actors to writers to painters to musicians and photographers.   I had to pinch myself to see if I was dreaming for surreal was the atmosphere and the vibe.

The Black Room in which Nancy's "Koln Diaries," were displayed - my favorite series from her trip abroad last year, over flowed with a sea of brilliant people mostly dressed in their best trendy blacks all there to give their loving support of her.Their backdrop a menagerie of vivid and sensuous black and whites.  It was a pleasure meeting some of them, an experience I'm not likely to forget.

After saying goodnight to my lovely friend Jane and buzzing from the magic of the evening I began my decent home.  Getting a little turned around, around San Vicente Blvd.  I looked for my familiar spot of La Brea turning down a side street, a car erratically turned in front of me crashing into a tree.  Before I could reach for my iPhone they sped off leaving their bumper and debris behind them.  Any other night this would have been the event I suppose but I rarely breathed a word of it today reeling from Nancy Berry's extraordinary event.

Her exhibit has been extended to Sunday and if you are in the LA area I highly recommend you take a trip to the Pacific Design Center on Melrose Ave. to soak in the astonishing visions of this remarkable woman.



Thank you Nancy for generously sharing your art!









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love pure
"love pure" by Nancy Berry

fragile connectivity



A Broken Appointment


BY THOMAS HARDY

         You did not come,

And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb,—

Yet less for loss of your dear presence there

Than that I thus found lacking in your make

That high compassion which can overbear

Reluctance for pure lovingkindness’ sake

Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,

         You did not come.


         You love not me,

And love alone can lend you loyalty;

–I know and knew it. But, unto the store

Of human deeds divine in all but name,

Was it not worth a little hour or more

To add yet this: Once you, a woman, came

To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be

         You love not me?



Kirchherr and Carver

self portrait

This Room

This room for instance:
is that an empty coach
that waits below?
       
        Promises, promises,
        tell them nothing
        for my sake.

I remember parasols,
an esplanade beside the sea,
yet these flowers...

        Must I ever remain behind-
        listening, smoking,
        scribbling down the next far thing?

I light a cigarette
and adjust the window shade.
There is a noise in the street
growing fainter, fainter.


Raymond Carver


Astrid and Stu

Photography by Astrid Kirchherr

Vesna - Poet


Words are not just words
they are kisses
on the lips of silence
that speak of your essence
~Vesna~

magaziny language of a magaziny mind

Perhaps a bit sappy.  No, really sappy!   
But this line...


"I found you aimless in London I gave you direction,
 I found you smiless I gave you joy,
 Not eternal joy or even joy for a month but immediate, particular, bright little minutes of joy,
 which is all we ever get or should expect." 

 so close to perfection, don't you think?


of paths






Odes
RICARDO REIS
TRANSLATED BY EDOUARD RODITI


1.
Of the gardens of Adonis, Lydia, I love
Most of all those fugitive roses
That on the day they are born,
That very day, must also die.
Eternal, for them, the light of day:
They're born when the sun is already high
And die before Apollo's course


Across the visible sky is run.
We too, of our lives, must make one day:
We never know, my Lydia, nor want
To know of nights before or after
The little while that we may last.
2.
To be great, be whole: nothing that's you
Should you exaggerate or exclude.
In each thing, be all. Give all you are
In the least you ever do.
The whole moon, because it rides so high,
Is reflected in each pool.





Charles Baudelaire - Poet

The Fountain

BY CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
TRANSLATED BY ANTHONY HECHT

My dear, your eyes are weary;
Rest them a little while.
Assume the languid posture
Of pleasure mixed with guile.
Outside the talkative fountain
Continues night and day
Repeating my warm passion
In whatever it has to say.

             The sheer luminous gown
                           The fountain wears
             Where Phoebe’s very own
                           Color appears
             Falls like a summer rain
                           Or shawl of tears.

Thus your soul ignited
By pleasure’s lusts and needs
Sprays into heaven’s reaches
And dreams of fiery deeds.
Then it brims over, dying,
And languorous, apart,
Drains down some slope and enters
The dark well of my heart.

             The sheer luminous gown
                           The fountain wears
             Where Phoebe’s very own
                           Color appears
             Falls like a summer rain
                           Or shawl of tears.

O you, whom night enhances,
How sweet here at your breasts
To hear the eternal sadness
Of water that never rests.
O moon, o singing fountain,
O leaf-thronged night above,
You are the faultless mirrors
Of my sweet, bitter love.

             The sheer luminous gown
                           The fountain wears
             Where Phoebe’s very own
                           Color appears
             Falls like a summer rain
                           Or shawl of tears.


Source: Poetry (September 2011).



This poem originally appeared in the September 2011 issue of Poetry magazine.

The Breather






"Just as in the horror movies
when someone discovers that the phone calls
are coming from inside the house


so too, I realized   
that our tender overlapping
has been taking place only inside me.


All that sweetness, the love and desire—
it’s just been me dialing myself
then following the ringing to another room


to find no one on the line,
well, sometimes a little breathing
but more often than not, nothing.


To think that all this time—
which would include the boat rides,
the airport embraces, and all the drinks—


it’s been only me and the two telephones,
the one on the wall in the kitchen
and the extension in the darkened guest room upstairs."

Source: Poetry (July/August 2008).