A new lexical entry for self-confidence

and the various forms of art that sustain it

A collage poem

assembled from the preface’s first page of the book The Blue Rider, In the Lenbachhaus, Munich, by Helmut Friedel & Annegret Hoberg, Prestel, 2000

	
self-confidence

beyond doubt Art—moving
towards new potentials,
	striving after openness
in search of inner necessity
	

& a cyanotype print

When words refuse to dance with my pen I read books instead. When photos fail to show in front of my lens I shuffle magazines and books and surf the web. When I make crappy prints I start all over again ignoring books and rules, stubbornly making the same mistakes until I finally learn what works for me. But when I feel unhinged I go outside for a walk, for the inside craves the openness of the world. What do you see when you look at the world?

Cyanotype print on aquarelle paper, © Fotini Masika

… the rock face speaks vividly to my senses, attesting to an uncanny depth of time—to a packed density of experience anciently undergone by matter itself, a density that now underlies and quietly supports our brief life in this open moment.

David Abram, Becoming Animal, An Eartly Cosmology, Vintage, 2011