Outside and In, Inside and Out

April 17, 2026

Outside and In, Inside and Out

i caress the pearl
placeholder i wear—endless
rain and clouds be damned,
i know luminous lunar
magnificence will return

—dotty seiter

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*No Need to Knock —Come In, Come In*!
3 x 4″; acrylic, ink, pencil, and collage on paper
*Make Yourself at Home* series
2026

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Notes about art and poem:
• “i caress” is a tanka about the coexistence of outer and inner life.
• As I worked on No Need, I had an inner dialogue going on that went something like this: “I thought I wanted to do a house series, but now I don’t think I do,” while outwardly my hands had a conversation taking place with some other part of my brain that directed the construction of several new houses.

artist at play

inward—outward, make yourself at home series, scraps collage

Posted by:

Dotty Seiter

8 responses to “Outside and In, Inside and Out”

carol lee

April 17, 2026 at 4:29 am

Would love to visit ! Don’t know which house to choose. Guess there is something right about the saying that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing ! Guess you have lots of square, triangles and other geometric collage pieces: they all make houses 🏘️.

Love the short tanka. Could have lots of interpretations, literal and subjective. The weather always changes, and a pearl is everlasting!

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1. Dotty Seiter
  
  April 17, 2026 at 5:53 am
  
  Carol, I want to thank you again for drawing my attention to that MOOC poetry class last June. Although I had mixed feelings about various aspects of the class at times, I was committed to doing the coursework thoughtfully and I have tapped into learnings ever since. I’m grateful!
  
  It is fun to imagine the interiors of these houses—I like the roof of the one in the bottom right corner, and I’d like to see the layout of the tall skinny one bottom left : )
  
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  1. carol lee
    
    April 17, 2026 at 7:56 am
    
    I wasn’t the best student, think I got bogged down on the conceit poem. I may go and do it again.
    
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    1. Dotty Seiter
      
      April 17, 2026 at 9:09 am
      
      Keep me posted if you do the Coursera class again. Even though it presented what to me were challenging abstractions, it also imparted a bunch of concrete information that I’ve carried forward and valued and put into practice.
      
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Joyful Puttering

April 17, 2026 at 7:27 am

Love this little poem. The joy…and the light will always return.

I’m finding it kind of delightful that your head might have been done with the house series…but your heart and hands were not. What a wonderful and wonky little neighborhood you’ve created.

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1. Dotty Seiter
  
  April 17, 2026 at 9:13 am
  
  Joy and light do persist, even when temporarily out of sight!
  
  Thank you for celebrating the wonky little neighborhood that my heart and hands (endless rain and clouds be damned!) knew enough to create, despite my obscuring thoughts.
  
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lolajovan

April 18, 2026 at 2:04 pm

luminous lunar magnificance AND the hands doing other than what the mind is contemplating! What kind of outrageous magic is THIS? Love love LOVE this series. Not surprised the hands want to keep building homes… xo

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1. Dotty Seiter
  
  April 18, 2026 at 2:39 pm
  
  I do miss seeing the moon when skies are cloud-covered but am grateful to know, as with SO many things in life, there is much that the eye cannot see but which nonetheless is extant!
  
  And, oh, indeed, what kind of outrageous magic when the hands are doing other than what the mind is contemplating hahaha!
  
  Thank you for the affirmation of this series. My wish going in is that I’d bump into something the way I bumped into my color swatches last summer and just kept going and going with such engagement each and every time. BUT that is not the way this series has played out, and I am grateful for the adventure just as it is!
  
  xoxo
  
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My Story

In 2014, I grab an unexpected opportunity to paint.

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In 2015 I start a blog—a diary of my life as an artist.

I post my paintings and their stories. The good, the bad, the ugly.

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