Katie Winters

driving home.

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 21:33:05 -0400

driving home.

five different colors on, chris bathgate, the five o’clock sunlight trying to stay warm as it...

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 20:23:50 -0400

five different colors on, chris bathgate, the five o’clock sunlight trying to stay warm as it slides down, thin microns, sitting on the floor scraped knee and elbow positioned carefully, chocolate in small piles next to me, the almost feeling of a summer evening, the front door open the back door shut, daylight for an hour longer tonight.

with erin with kind of tears in my eyes with grandpa’s...

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 02:53:53 -0500

with erin with kind of tears in my eyes with grandpa’s flannel on with art being made on the table.

“there is no need to be afraid”, tyler told...

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 02:07:00 -0500

“there is no need to be afraid”, tyler told me.
“you are a daughter of God.
you have good eyes and a good soul and God is using you.
He is going to use you whether you are a world renowned artist or a bagger at trader joes (cause God knows you wouldn’t be a bagger anywhere else)”, he said to me.

there is so much freedom in this.
freedom in knowing that God has caught me and is catching me. He has come through so many many times, there is no reason at all for me to fear if i look at what He’s done in my life. freedom to see and take in and and breathe out and make knowing that all i am seeing, breathing, making is going to be okay with God—- even when i fail.

humility, no fear, grateful for eyes to see such beautiful things.
grateful for such a soul.

Photo

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 01:57:21 -0500

Set out empty and loud;Mind of askings and windListened,...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 03:23:42 -0500

Set out empty and loud;
Mind of askings and wind
Listened, finally
To the sound of nothing human.
My breath lighter than that slanting the rain
My voice adds nothing to the creek
My feet land softer and unnoticed
I learned to hear.

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Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:00:54 -0500

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot...

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 13:34:00 -0500

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

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Sat, 11 Feb 2012 13:09:36 -0500

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Sat, 11 Feb 2012 08:04:05 -0500

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Thu, 09 Feb 2012 23:58:58 -0500

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Thu, 09 Feb 2012 23:51:20 -0500

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Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:06:00 -0500

for my class, i am supposed to be taking one hundred pictures a...

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 01:27:00 -0500

for my class, i am supposed to be taking one hundred pictures a day for a week. before i started this project, i thought it would be simple. three days gone and i have found out just how difficult this is for me. i am scared. of lots of things, but this morning i was scared of taking pictures that were no good. yesterday i was scared of taking pictures of things that people would think were silly. the day before that i was scared to take pictures at night. (so weird.) and so growing. i feel like i am learning to draw again- spending hours of frustration trying to see things that were impossible details until the second or third hour of staring and making marks. i am learning to see outside of the things i see everyday. i am learning to see inside of the things i see everyday. i am learning to be disciplined and not fearful. probably the less fearful i become, the better my art will be.

i let these things fill me this morning, and i took hundreds of pictures no one will ever see in order to get to the ones that i loved; the ones that got it, got what my soul was seeing at that moment. for four more days i will do this. four more days of learning what it means to be restful in what i create- art that does not come from fear, but from a place that is completely and utterly whole. four more days.

This semester I am taking 15 units of classes that terrify...

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:54:20 -0500

This semester I am taking 15 units of classes that terrify me.

This semester I am taking Shannon Leith’s SEEING class.

This semester I am learning to unclench my fists.

This semester I am trying to trust God with every bit of everything.

This semester I am going to eat as healthy as possible.

This semester I am learning to love within boundaries.

This semester I am determined to be a finder.

we didn’t stop until our pile of gathered sticks ran out. (a collaboration by amber johnson...

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:42:43 -0500

we didn’t stop until our pile of gathered sticks ran out.

(a collaboration by amber johnson and myself)

heaven and earth and neither

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:07:14 -0500

heaven and earth and neither

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Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:40:29 -0500

There is something about the past, something about my life before today. I can’t forget it because...

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:34:00 -0500

There is something about the past, something about my life before today. I can’t forget it because it informs who I am this Thursday, but it is so painfully gone. The whole past, good and bad, is gone and it is daily reminding me that it is growing older and more distant minute by minute. It’s a quandary, truly. And I don’t know how to untangle it. I think we are supposed to remember—that is why we are given brains. Any remembering, though, is remembering the past and the time it takes to do this is time taken away from life now and we are not to live the same life as a twenty one year old as we did when we were nineteen; I am not to live the same life in January as I did in June. So, what? What do I do.

I look at pictures, I recall conversations and play out memories on the back of my eyelids like a film, I flip back through journals; I actively keep certain parts of the past living in my present. I see both the benefit and the harm in this, and I am learning more and more that there is a fine line between remembering and living in the past. There are pasts that are harmful to my present, however sweet they are to remember. There are pasts that are necessary to keep with me, however much pain they cause me.

This time last year, I was preparing to fly away to Italy and for some reason little bits of this trip keep coming up in my day today. I think this is one of the pasts that I benefit from returning to—maybe not to keep with me daily, but certainly not one to forget. Three and something weeks away contained a lot of growth and a lot of beauty, but it also holds what have now become a few painful memories. Funny how a present, so joyous, can change into a different past than you think it will- we really don’t know what today will make us think of in two years. People and places leave parts of themselves behind, purposefully and unintentionally. These remainders are ghosts; some do well to haunt us, others will have to be let in only to be let back out for good. My present, my now, is hardly it’s own. So much of today is yesterday and last month and when I was fifteen. Trying to separate all these parts to examine their beginning would be like trying to untangle endless bits of string to find out which spool they came from. They are fragile and many and impossible.

So, today I am remembering last year’s Thursday and I am letting my heart hurt a bit, but I am sworn to not letting these memories occupy time that belongs to my now. I am looking through pictures and reading my friend’s thoughts—remembering the good that filled that time and the things that moved my soul and made me happy, letting these things inform my being this new year and remembering the change they gave me—but I am choosing to not let the hard parts stay longer than they must. Always having to work against my weaknesses, always having to remind myself that there is a hopeful present and an even more hopeful future.

Branches aligned with pipes, a coincidental beauty that happens every day. We are...

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 02:19:00 -0500

Branches aligned with pipes, a coincidental beauty that happens every day. We are given small miracles—little doses of grace—so many times in any given day: the sun rising pink and warm one minute later every morning, our hands finding the doorknob without looking, the shadows growing large and small as hours pass, thoughts shared over cups of tea warming throats and hands, the piles of leaves painstakingly raked together. These are things that catch at my soul and won’t leave me alone. Every small miracle makes my heart ache thinking of the careful thought put into each; each is a mercy in itself. Knowing this, I am to let these things fill my soul and bring me back to You.

Spending my life as a finder of little mercies is, truly, an act of love. Paying attention to something is a way of letting it know that it is worthy of the time you have given it, and giving away all your time is probably the best way to live. Time kept to myself, only paying attention to me and not opening to see the surrounding world, is very lonely time. I have a suspicion that the act of paying attention is the key to clearing up dim eyes. I also am beginning to think that seeing these mercies daily comes from living a simple life. So, I continue to live a simple life of integrity and I buy disposable cameras. I pray for clear eyes to see my earth and I squinch my eyes shut after good conversations and make mental notes. It is good to be a human, but it requires a lot of energy. There is a lot to see, and there is a lot to feel. A soul is not an easy thing to have, but it must be the best gift I could ever have been given.

I will try to live worthy of this gift. I will fill this soul with as much as possible in the time I am given. I will learn to find meaning in the small things that don’t ask for attention. I will give my devotion to small miracles, and I will let them bring me back to You every time. How can I forget the Maker of these, how can I deny the otherness of these moments? My eyes continually grow less dim; I can see a lot more light now than I ever have before. My life is wrapped around grace and I am able to grow simpler with each passing season. I cannot express my thanks properly, try as I might. But maybe it will be sufficient to say that my life is changed and I grow closer and more akin to You every time the birds take flight at exactly the same moment, every time the rain drops slowly cover my driveway, every time I listen to Bon Iver, and every time the mountains turn blue.