space...

today: a little painting, a little crochet, a few more things tossed in the goodwill bag. i'm trying, TRYING, to make myself be pretty cut throat about the whole cleaning/weeding/sorting streak i'm on. i'm picking up every single thing i own and asking myself, "if the house caught on fire, would i grab this?" well... the answer is no, of course, to most of what anybody owns... but i'm in a place where my style and aesthetic approach to living is in extreme transition. i feel this overwhelming (and good) urge to sort of begin again in a lot of ways. maybe it's the long-awaiting, highly anticipated, hungered for arrival of spring? maybe it's the economy craziness, who knows? but i know i'm not the only one wanting a more "back to basics" lifestyle. the majority of people i know are going through pretty much the same thing- deciding what "value" truly is. and it's an individual thing. i am pleased to have so much more space for painting and making and books and art. SO pleased! later tonight i'll stretch a new, great big canvas and hopefully get some paint laid down on it tomorrow morning. i started another new painting today so i'm in a pretty good place. excited and eager and inspired. nice.

good morning, monday...

been painting since 6:30 this morning- started a new canvas, which is nice, but i'll admit it feels a bit lonely now in my studio without my ladies there to keep me company. i would've loved to keep them around a bit longer but i've gotta keep the art train moving and make space for new things. i've got 6 canvasses going at this point and i'm really pleased with the majority of them. 2 are pretty much "practice" pieces but you never know- could morph in to something worth showing.

and i'm back on track with the whole cleaning, sorting, weeding extravaganza of my home that i started a month ago: round two. the consignment shop ended up being a fairly worthless idea so i'm lugging everything down to the goodwill. i'd rather donate the stuff than suffer some snooty woman critiquing all my lovely things that i'm only getting rid of to make room for myself. jerk.

i hope everyone had a lovely weekend and is excited to start a new week. i sure am. i'm full of caffeine and feeling ready to work hard.

the banner project moves forward... again

anonymous
angela simione, 2009


a crocheted L.E.D. sign in honor of the Anonymous Girl(s) series of paintings and drawings...
and sorta autobiographical as well.

today...

evening already... my sweetie and i, both wiped out from driving around all day in the sun, are content to enjoy the rest of our waking hours quietly and simply and indoors. we dropped the new painting off at the gallery this afternoon, swung through the art store for paint and canvas and stretcher bars, pit-stopped for philly cheese steaks, and then rounded out the day with a bit of grocery shopping. now, i'm drinking coffee in anticipation of another wine-soaked night at the neighbor's house. there's gossip apparently. ha! just a sweet and simple night at home.

territories 13

7.5" x 5.5" (paper size)
embroidery on paper
angela simione, 2009

available at black fence

loss...

back on the painting train this morning. i've got another big canvas following close behind and can hopefully get it wrapped up within the next 2 weeks or so. i'm so happy to have so many things to work on right now. between painting, drawing, writing, and crocheting, i should never find myself with nothing to do and feeling bored that's for sure.

after working for a while on the next big canvas first thing, i finished this little painting that's been floating around the studio for a couple months:


untitled
12" x 12"
oil on canvas
angela simione, 2009

i can't quite figure out what the hell i like about this particular painting but i do. i really do. it's a bit nostalgic, a bit creepy, and hey, it's even got some color in it! :) whatever. ha! but the more i look at it, the more i like it. i may end up hating it by next week but for now i'm enjoying it. i've got it tucked in my bookcase. these twins are busy watching over my poetry collection... definitely something guard-doggish about this piece... in a "The Shining" sort of way.

maybe because of my own high level of happiness lately, the news about nicholas hughes' death the other day really threw me off balance. i had actually just been thinking about him a few days prior- about his reclusive lifestyle and how hard that must be... the fact that he lives a life of semi-anonymity... not quite a regular guy, not quite a celebrity, but infamous because of all the death and trauma that exists in his family... and the horror of having that trauma play out in public. i was thinking that i didn't know what he looks like... if he favored his mother or father in appearance... what color his hair is and if he and his sister resemble one another... how i know who he is but that i don't know a single thing about him...

and then two or three days go by and i read that he committed suicide. gone. and his sister is now the only living member of the plath/hughes family. she is alone. and she hates us. and i think she's right to hate us even though it hurts. and again- one more person there's not much any of us can do for... except leave her alone. i'm glad she's an artist and writer. i'm glad she has a husband to wrap herself up in right now. i'm glad she has places to go, corners to hide in, words to get lost in...

awful.

no no no! it just gets worse and worse! i don't want this to be true but it is.

Nicholas Hughes, son of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes killed himself.

article.

lineage...

got up at 5:20 this morning and was in the studio working by 6:30. the day is off to a wonderful, happy, exciting start and here's why:


lineage
44" x 38"
oil on canvas
angela simione, 2009

she's done! YAY! she's so damn pretty! excuse me while i toot my own tarnished horn but, i love this painting! love, love, LOVE! i'm going to spend the rest of the morning sipping coffee and staring at this canvas.

when i started it - always thinking of anonymity and loss, ya know - i thought about my own history... the history of all the women in my family, really... and realized that "cleaning women" are pretty much invisible. they have no voice, no real power... at least not when they're on the job. i've worked as a maid before. very few of the people whose homes i cleaned even looked at me, let alone spoke to me. you are required to be silent, a ghost moving unseen and unheard through the house... and don't make the client uncomfortable by highlighting your humanity at all...

this painting is made to honor such a lineage- a long, undocumented, "uncomfortable" history that isn't spoken of, the women who handle the messes, who have a relationship with dirt... it isn't polite to speak of such things.

the joys of redaction...

it's a great way to build a poem:


redacted book page
angela simione, 2009

click to enlarge image.

i'm thinking about making a book out of my huge collection of these - a single poem. a while back i made a long scroll out of these; so long that photographing it was pretty pointless because it just looked like a huge, white stripe. one of those things you gotta see in person to appreciate, i suppose. at any rate, it's a nice little marriage between the written and visual arts. and scratching out the printed words feels nice too.

play...

untitled
6" x 6"
mixed media on paper
2009

just something sweet.

early...

running on about 4 hours of sleep... sorta messed up my early morning schedule during the weekend by staying up a bit late and waking up a bit late so getting up at 5am today was a bit of a struggle. but thank the lord for hot, caffeinated, brown beverages and canvas to screw around with. i was feeling awake by 6 and started painting right away. i sure am gonna miss these canvasses when i finally drag them down to the gallery. i love them. i don't know exactly why but, looking at them, just being in the same room with them, makes me feel safe and that life isn't all bad.

the sun is back, the rain is gone, and it's definitely warm enough to forget my jacket today.

quietly...

we drove out to sebastopol today just to see a new place, but the rain started up an hour after we got there so we headed on back home. i'm drinking coffee and my sweetie's playing video games. inga is resigned to being trapped inside. :) but the book i ordered showed up today: the dead and the living by sharon olds. i've been slinking around with it, ducking into the bedroom to read it alone. it feels like the most perfect thing in the world today, her poems. these poems. it's my brand new bible. i hope my sister reads this work one day... and my mother... and i hope that maybe one day, a decade from now, when she might be able to stomach it, the austrian monster's daughter will find them too.

ahhhhh saturday.

i slept in. :) felt good. i plan to leave all art-related goodness for the evening if i get to it at all. today, i want to clean my house and do the laundry and dishes and handle all the regular stuff that happens in a life. i want to enjoy the sunshine, go hiking with my sweetie and my dog, and look around at the big ol' world. besides, the paintings are still wet and i'm in the mood for something sweet and quiet and unassuming. maybe i'll crochet in bed... maybe i'll draw in bed... maybe i'll just make the bed. :)

the banner project moves forward...

detail

i started this project during my senior year in college when i slipped one of the disks in my back (twice) and was laid up, flat on my back, for a solid month: no walking, no painting, nothing. but, in my prescribed vicodan stupor, i was more than able to lay back on the couch and twist yarn.

everybody at school loved these and, though i think of them as banners to be hung on the wall (big ol' L.E.D. signs), a great many people ohhed and ahhed at the prospect of wearing them. i'm still not sure how i feel about that... i mean, these guys take an awfully long time to make.

anyway, a few weeks back when i was getting completely depressed by the onslaught of dreary, grey, rainy, winter days, i picked the project back up. i had been reading sylvia plath's Ariel, again (HA!), and was totally taken in by the last line of her poem Sheep in Fog:

"Starless and fatherless, a dark water."

yes, yes, yes... that's me too.

i had originally planned to embroider the entire sentence on the banner but i got stuck on that word 'fatherless'. such an odd word, rarely heard, and entirely, intensely sad. autobiographical in more ways than one...



fatherless
6" x 74"
crochet
angela simione, 2009


it's realized in the bastard stitch, my favorite stitch, also known as the afghan stitch- a cross between crocheting and knitting- and another fine level of conceptualism. :) the reverse is completely backed so that the beauty of the stitch itself can be fully appreciated and adored. my sweetie thinks i should sell these but i honestly have no clue what i'd even charge for something like this. it takes a super diligent week and a half to make just one.

p.s. that's my big, green backyard. :)

crowded...

just passed 7:30 in the morning and i've already slapped enough paint down to make moving forward with any my canvasses fairly impossible. they're all just too wet to be worked any further. bummer. i'm really in the mood to paint but i'm running out of space and don't necessarily want to begin a new painting just yet. although... maybe i should just roll with it. the frenzied, GO GO GO painting mode should always be exploited. and i can tolerate being cramped by art. worse things have happened. besides, my house is generally overrun by artwork and artmess. nothing new there.

yesterday, i took some time out to go poke around in an uncharted antique shop and my hot little hands wanted to bring so many half-broken and unusable wonders home with me! a huge, beautiful, folk, table top vanity, big dusty trunks with busted hinges, victorian photos, old-fashioned wash basins... i am a greedy, greedy girl when it comes to stuff like that. antiques shops and junk shops are dangerous places for a girl like me. i want to give a home to all the busted and broken objects of the world. my home is a strange orphanage, i'll tell ya. but until i clear out some more of the stuff that has been following me around the last few years, i can't allow myself to bring anything else in the door. i found a consignment store to take some stuff but just haven't found the motivation to do it yet. been too busy and in love with painting to allow for any distraction- even the good, helpful, practical kind. could this be the reason why artists generally end up divorced? not allowing themselves to be troubled by practical matters? :) i'm sure it's one of the reasons. ha!

heart-broken rant...

upon waking, i immediately started thinking about the news... probably because the last thing i read last night on AOL was the death of natasha richardson. very, very horribly sad. what a loss for us all. i loved her work and i love her husband's work and it just made me so so sad for her children.

and so all morning i've been having a hard (unsuccessful) time getting certain horrors out of my head: the woman who had her lips, eyelids, and HANDS ripped off by her best friend's chimpanzee. oh my god. OH MY GOD! the horrific image i've got in my head of this poor woman is breaking my heart.

and then, there's the monster in austria who kept his daughter in a windowless rape dungeon for 27 years, impregnated her 7 times, let one child die, and raped her in front of her children- 3 of which never saw sunlight until they were rescued. i mean... WHAT! HOW! a mental disorder isn't a good enough explanation for that type of sustained torture and unimaginable cruelty. it just isn't. your ass is fucking evil. EVIL! and i can't stop thinking about the daughter... this isn't an experience a person will ever be able to bounce back from. ever. some lawyer involved with the case referred to her as a "broken woman". how the hell could she not be? she's a walking murder victim. there's nothing any of us can do to heal her from something like this. not one thing.

and maybe that's why my mind is so wrapped up in all this- the tremendous sense of helplessness i feel when i learn of someone who's been so totally humiliated, brutalized, tortured... i can't really even describe my reaction to this. i just feel so separate from the world. the world seems enormously, inexplicably gross. i have to make a huge effort to remind myself that good does, in fact, exist. i have to remind myself that, hopefully, and with enough diligence and stubborn perseverance, ART can combat these horrors... that this woman might, MIGHT, be able to find some small comfort in a poem or a piece of music or a painting... that she will hopefully pick up a paintbrush or a pen... what else is there to hope for?

this afternoon...

while waiting for paint to dry...



untitled (sisters 6)
15" x 11"
graphite and masking tape on paper
angela simione, 2009




detail

listening...

it's nice to be left all alone with my paintings. i feel like i can finally hear them: they are all whispering, black and white and sometimes yellow, asking for contrast, asking for blur... asking for anything they want and in this quiet, empty house i can finally make out the sounds.

happy...

coffee in hand, my brain buzzing with ideas and, even though it's still dark outside, there are no sounds of rain... a great day already.

yesterday, i worked on the big canvas all day long- lots of looking, lots of scrutinizing, and laying paint down at a slow and finicky pace. today, she gets to just sit there and look pretty while i wait for her to dry so i can attend to her wishes and whimsies tomorrow. i've got plenty of other canvasses to wrestle with anyhow... it's just that she's the one i like best. :) i'm anxious to see her finished. effing need for patience!

and yesterday, i also received my thank you letter from artists space for donating two drawings to their annual benefit, night of 1000 drawings, and found out that both works sold! yay! big ol' feather in my cap and goofy grin on my face! it always makes me so happy when a stranger takes a piece of my work home with them...

so as a treat, i bought myself a collection of sharon olds poetry and a new pair of black gemstone studs. :) i know i shouldn't have but i was happy and couldn't resist!

and oh! the sale at the shop has been going pretty well but it ends this friday so get on it if you want something kids!

slowly, slowly...

the final stages of a painting are the hardest...
put down a single mark, back up 15 feet and look at it; really try to see what that one mark is doing, what the painting needs or doesn't. this is when things like nuance, subtlety become the most important factor in the application of paint. i'm already on my second pot of coffee. i'll be doing this back and forth dance all day.

opps... :)

yesterday, my sweetie and i spent the entire day at a barbecue one of his good friends was hosting; a cook-off competition sorta thingamajig where we both drank way too much and are both paying for it dearly today. not fun but hey- you pay to play and we had a really great time: the tri-tip was delicious, the conversations we found ourselves in were hilarious, i narrowly avoided being thrown in the middle of a lover's quarrel (yikes!), and had my ears stuffed full of crazy gossip about people i don't even know. fun and funny! :) and today it's raining again anyway so i'd be stuck inside regardless. tomorrow, i'll pick back up where i left off... i'll wake up early and get in the studio by 7am for a long, happy day of art making.

progress...

yay for saturday! all week, i got up at 5am with my sweetie. that's how early he gets up for his job. my thought was that (1) it's always easier to wake up when there's someone else banging around in the kitchen and getting ready for the day and (2) i'd have the whole house to myself for a solid 9 hours and could use that time toward much better things than catching zees. and, in a lot of ways, waking up that early feeds productivity. ever since i graduated, it's been somewhat of a struggle figuring out how best to manage my time and energy. i mean, i'd been in school my entire life and so my class schedule was what kept me in line, kept me moving, kept me productive. and it isn't that i've necessarily been any less productive since finishing school, i just haven't felt as serious as i used to. i figured i'd try out an early morning schedule again and see how i fared...

i got so much done! oh my god! like, by NOON! amazing! i've got 6 canvasses going and a huge collection of headless paper dolls floating through the whole house. i'll have pics soon, i'm just stunned by how much i got done. i even painted wet in to wet on one of the canvasses which is something i never do... but i sorta like it. partnered with the more photographic, realist work, there's a definite charm to that painting approach. i still buffed out all the brush strokes but the "painterliness" of the method is still super prominent in spite of that. we'll see if i end up keeping it or making it as realistic as i possibly can... the thing i usually strive for in oil paintings which is why it's taking me so long to get them wrapped up.

today, i got up at 8:45 but come monday morning, i'll get back on my new early morning schedule and will definitely get the big canvas finished. i can't wait. i'm going to have to stop myself from working on it soon it's just that with each new layer of paint i put down, the more realistic and complete it appears. it's hard to stop when you notice that happening but i don't want to end up overworking this piece. normally, i'm nervous about posting in-progress shots but here's what i mean:


layer 1


layer 4


layer 6


layer 7

see what i mean. but i've really got to make myself get this one wrapped up. i need to put the buttons back on her dress and work out some of the highlights and fix her hand... other than that, it's almost done. :) it's pretty big- 44" x 38" so it takes a couple hours to get a single layer of paint down across the entire surface and i'm trying to be really careful at this point too... i really don't want to mess this one up. i like it too much. :)

guess what...

eff you winter! spring is here! YAY!

weak stomach...

i am becoming less and less able to handle any type of gore in movies. my sweetie and i just finished watching The Flock and i pretty much spent the majority of the film in the other room; which sucks because it really did seem like a great movie and i love claire danes (what girl doesn't?), but after researching the deaths of sylvia likens and jon benet ramsey this week, i just couldn't handle it at all.

i'm usually pretty squeamish when it comes to blood, in real life or not, but today i felt like i might actually throw up. i had to run out of the room with my ears plugged so i couldn't hear the movie either. it just no longer seems like fiction once you've read real-life torture and murder stories which, sadly, is part of the job at this point in my practice. luckily, the research hasn't desensitized me... something i was initially afraid would happen. if anything, it's made me more compassionate, more understanding, and more ethical in my daily dealings with people... which is the whole point of the work in the first place.

and my one big complaint with google- please don't let autopsy photographs pop up in an image search. those images are supposed to be housed in the 18 and older section of crime websites and the like. not good. not good at all. by the time i paged passed the fifth one i was ready to lock myself in the bathroom and cry until i passed out.

speaking of anonymity...

photo courtesy of the Mercury News:
afghan women wear blue scarves on their heads in honor of international women's day

this photo both fills me with pride and breaks my heart. read the article here.

a very good morning...

i dyed my hair today- my long-loved soft black. now that my hair has grown longer and the curls have gotten smoother, i am happy to take care of it again. i am currently wrapped up tight in two towels, fresh from the shower. legs clean-shaven and lotioned too. next, comes my new black dress and i suppose i'll have to hunt down my lavender studs. i think i remember seeing them somewhere in the bookcase. i leave my parts everywhere. :)

this morning, i wrote a new poem while my sweetheart woke himself in the shower. i've revised some of the older ones as well and am feeling happy with where they are going. i am feeling light and poetic today. maybe it's the hair dye. maybe the lack of sleep. but there's a familiar cast to the light today that reminds me of when we first arrived here in our little cottage... i feel the way i did in summer, on a good day, when i'd fill pages and pages, breezing through a composition book in 15 days tops, jobless but not all that worried about it, crocheting flowers and reading Anne Sexton and turning out poems at an Ariel pace. then, it didn't matter if they were any good or not- the quantity had to get out. i was beyond caring about academic quality, the ink had to fly and spatter wherever it wanted. it was my job to let it. it was all i could do and it felt honest. a different tongue took over my mouth and it was merely a technicality that it was my hand doing the scribbling.

sometimes a poem is very much like a photograph- it's hard to take credit for it turning out well.

sketchbook...

...one of the big reasons behind why i've never really kept one: i get something nice and then realize it's stuck between the covers of a book.

horror...

been reading alot about the torture-murder of sylvia likens again the passed few days... and i feel so sad and sickened by it all. i was thinking about trying to do something artful, something thoughtful, something painful with her story but now i'm thinking i might not have the stomach for it. the facts are just too bad and there is absolutely no light at the end of the tunnel. it's so bad, in fact, that i'm currently thinking it was not only tacky for a movie to have been made about this, but morally abhorrent... yet another movie i won't be watching. my buddy mike watched it and said he immediately wanted those 2 hours of his life back and that, months later, he's still trying to shake the filth off. this is the large reason why, try as i might, i just can't watch horror films: i don't find torture to be entertaining. it breaks my heart. and the story of sylvia likens is basically evil incarnate. i feel wounded just from reading the journalism on the subject and the coroner's report. horrible. i don't think there's a word that accurately describes how horrific and debased this story actually is.

somewhere around 4am and after more coffee than i should've allowed myself...

lineage study
15" x 11"
graphite and erasure on paper
angela simione
2009

a study of the painting i'm working on... you know, the one i keep talking about. :)

brewing...

just about 1 in the morning... a pot of coffee brewing and a whole bunch of ideas swirling in my head. i think it's safe to say my health has returned. enough at least to dive back in to my beloved night-owling. i missed my nights of smudging graphite and spilling ink and smearing oil. what's not to love about an art studio? room of one's own, indeed! and i am thankful every day to have it. just sitting in my own space surrounded by my own tools and my own books and my own stupid little nic-naks feels great and precious and miraculous even. and above all else, it is safe. a protected space where i am king. i can do what i want and there's no apologies necessary. it's been a big help the last couple days while i've struggled to get over this sickness and start doing some more hard-hitting, risky work. the drawing i posted last was fairly difficult even though i've had the idea to do it for quite some time. it's hard work to do... to literally tape a small child's mouth shut is no easy task even if it is "just" a drawing...

there have been plenty of images that i feel a bit damaged by, haunted by, sickened by... and i'm not just talking about art. there have been tons of advertisements that have offended me to such a deep degree that sometimes it's taken quite a bit of work (and time) on my part to shake it off and get back to my own life. images have power. and images can do violence. in the case of this last drawing, the role was reversed and i did violence to the image. i spent some time drawing a lovely, academic rendering and then pulled out a roll of duct tape and destroyed it. i shut it up. i made it a victim. not an easy thing to do to the image of a someone who died a horribly violent death. not easy at all and i still feel a bit fucked up by the experience. i wanted to highlight the loss of HER. she was silenced in such a hateful, violent, unspeakable way that i guess that's what i wanted to get at... somehow... the unspeakable loss of her... the quick violence done to something cherished and beautiful and admired... silenced... undone... without all the drama and media frenzy and judgemental spectacle, the sensationalism... just the loss of a child, a daughter... and what a horror it is.

Anonymous Girl 5

15" x 11"
graphite and duct tape on paper
angela simione
2009

it felt violent laying the duct tape down across her mouth. it felt horrible and monstrous and unforgivable... exactly like what was done to her.

hanging in there...

my prayers for a bit of sunshine were answered! me and inga have already gone for a hike and the fresh air definitely did me some good. my spirit is starting to lighten and i think i've met with the worst of my sickness. i'm on the upswing and feeling ready to dive back in to my work. i put quite a few art pieces on sale in the shop today. i need to make room for a few things i've got in the works and scale back on the type of items i'm going to offer. and i need to make more room for myself. i am getting over-run by my projects at this point and need to find good homes for all my little babies... and i can only pile so much work on my mama for safe keeping.

blah...

well, i got a couple good hours of painting in today and some crochet work too... but at this point in the day, the sickness and resulting depression are definitely winning. time to wrap it up and try again for greatness tomorrow. my head hurts and my brain is foggy and i feel sad... inevitable after being sick for this many days in a row. :( hopefully, the sun will be out tomorrow. for now, i'll curl up in my big, white quilt and day-dream of sunshine and my dream house... escape my dire thoughts and get some reprieve. soon, i should be back to my normal, silly self and full of weird obsessions to talk your ears off about.

this...

i love photography. i especially love what fashion photography looks like nowadays - all gritty and polaroid-ish. i love the photographs in the urban outfitters' catalogue. good thing for me my neighbor didn't forward her subscription when she moved and now they are mine all mine. all the pretty pretty pictures of pretty pretty girls in pretty pretty dresses with dirty hair and dirty feet and dirty looks on their faces. yum. a new one came in the mail today.

what is work?

is it this moment when, instead of feeling bright and satisfied, i think everything i've laid my hand to is stupid and useless?
is it this moment when, rather than get needed sleep, i stay up and dream of distant goals - days when satisfaction is plenty?
is it this moment when, up at 3am, listening to the rain, eating oranges, typing toward something or someone, i look at my half-finished paintings and half-crocheted flowers and half-read books and know that i can't help but finish all the half-way-theres... even though i've already decided that my hands do stupid things and that my dreams just keep me awake and get in the way?
is it this moment?
or is it tomorrow
when i head back to the studio to fight my finicky canvas... when i decide to read one more chapter, write one more silly line, stitch one more petal in my black garden?
is it both?
is this the ego we've read about?
fragile and sorta annoying...
punishing.

survey says...

bronchitis. yick. i suffered from chronic bronchitis as a child and all the way through my teenage years. once a year, i'd be laid up for a minimum of a week due to this damn thing but i haven't had this bad a battle with it in at least 5 years. i'm at war right now guys and am only resurfacing from my self-induced NyQuil coma long enough to write this blog, take a shower, and snuggle with inga for a bit. for the past two days i've only managed to stay awake for about three hours at a stretch, sleep for four, wake up and drink more medicine and crash back out once the delirium takes hold. bear with me if i'm not making much sense right or if my grammar takes a trip to bizarro land.

in spite of this health horror, i have managed to get a bit of drawing done while i wait for enough sanity to work on the big painting:


missing (1)
7 1/2" x 5 1/2"
water-soluble graphite and gesso on paper
2009


missing (2)
water-soluble graphite, gouache, and gesso on paper
2009


together on my paint covered desk...


...they fill me with a strange happiness whenever i look at them. i stand at stare at them while i drink my morning coffee... a brew i should be avoiding right now but hey, i rarely make decisions based on shoulds. quite a few of my influences are evident in these two little darlings - Ellen Gallagher and the photographer Laurent Askienazy are probably the two most obvious. i'm always happy to see a touch of those whom i admire cropping up in my work. it makes me feel like i finally have a lineage to cling to, to call upon, to learn.