The Cheryl Penn Dilemma

[David Stafford]

The Cheryl Penn Dilemma What are we to do with Cheryl Penn? Her art, always masterful, always protean (look it up, I did) always dreamlike in its complexity or complex in its dreamworld evocations. Shifting beneath your feet as you reach out to its varied meanings and tangled up in the dreamworlds of others, mingling at some height high above the earth. The Penn-o-sphere. The air up there is rarified (Esoterically distant from the lives and concerns of ordinary people) but not hard to breathe. Somebody asked Van Morrison what he meant when he said, (in his song Dreams of You) that “Ray Charles was shot down but he got up to do his very best” and he said, quite obviously, he dreamed it. He dreamed it and put it into the song whole, undigested by his mind, trusting the listener to frame it in their own world of Ray and Van and whatever other poles of light illuminated its meanings. And so it is with Cheryl. She lays it out there and you dive in at whatever level you want to. It’s difficult for me. I am not a natural inhabitant of the dreamworld. I live in the world of pranks and wordplay, the day to day dust, not the stardust. But I’m getting there. Above all else one hears from Cheryl the best advice to would be improvisers, be they Second City comedians or artists juggling form and content: say Yes. Always say Yes. Keep on saying yes...yes....yes...yes...

 

 And my favorite formula....

 Thank you, Cheryl...sorry it took so long to blog...I'm way behind in every way....

 

[Nancy Bell Scott]

These are a WOW, up there or down here. Extra wonderful work from Cheryl--beautiful and wild. And I love how you put your dilemma, David; you state it so eloquently that you may belong in the world of stardust more than you think. You certainly at least visited it here! Well done, and so honestly.

[cheryl penn]

Dear David Stafford,

This letter serves to release you from all said blogging  dilemmas of Penn-o-shere protean evocations. This release form is necessary as time appears to be an increasingly valuable commodity in the day to day dust of life. Nor can one bid for it on the stock exchange. So as a finale, this is grand.

With fondest regards,

The Genki Committee.  

[Marie Wintzer]

The genkis are back!!

[David Stafford]

I forgot to say how much I loved the colors in both of these. 

[Carina]

Well written David, Cheryl seems to always know where she is going, no matter which world she staying in...

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

"Kindness"...beautiful Cheryl Penn art...beautiful blog, David, thank you for sharing. Diving in and loving it!

"Messages and Meaning"...perfect!