heaven...

oh, oh, OH! yesterday was a total apple of a day- crisp and sweet and jui--uuu-cy! it's been about a year and a half since i've had access to a print shop and, even though i've been able to do some printing of my own here at home, there's nothing like turning the wheel of a big french printing press. OH! NOTHING! i have so missed the SMELL of a print shop- the inks in the air, the paper, the soft sweat. and the whole space was given over to us 4. we spread out and made messes and worked, worked, worked and the day flew by so so fast.



jose areanas hard at work.


we were at san francisco university. the art program there is only 6 years old! not just the printmaking program, the ENTIRE art program. wow! i didn't know universities could go without the arts! nevertheless, the space was warm and friendly and, to me, there was no place better in the world to be yesterday.



my set up


i spent the first couple of hours making a painting on an aluminum mono printing plate...



my plate


and then the next few hours making lovely ghost prints that looked like lithographs(which i'll photograph once they're dry and we get some sun). i painted back in to one of the prints and then pulled a print from THAT- paper on paper! experimentation! YUM!

but this is the print i gave the institute-






i wanted to give them something graphic and that had more technical flourish than the more ghostly, conceptual prints i pulled. it's actually the very first print i made yesterday. ha! sometimes you hit the nail squarely on your first swing, i guess. :)



"Lineage"
22" x 15"
mono print
angela simione 2009


(image courtesy of The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art)


and i'd like to extend an extremely appreciative "THANK YOU" to Susan O'Malley who facilitated all this goodness. she swung through yesterday to check on us and make sure we had all the things we needed. she is such a warm and beautiful and happy person, i felt honored just to meet her. i had a wonderful time. there's no better way to spend a drizzly san francisco day. :)

yay!

i'm off to spend the day making work for the san jose institute of contemporary art's mono print marathon! :)

i can't wait to be in a print shop again. it's been about a year and a half since i've had access to a press and i am itching to get to work. i'm bringing my camera with me... here's to hoping i remember to snap some pictures while i'm there.

you don't work, you don't eat...

that's exactly right. exactly. and this painting thing nourishes me in more ways than one. after getting rattled a few days ago and losing a whole bunch of time to feeling inadequate and unsure, i have retrieved my confidence from the toilet and have established a NO SELF-PITY rule when it comes to my practice and to art in general. it's a time waster and it's silly anyhow. i knew when i started that it'd be an uphill battle. i knew it'd be the hardest thing i'd run across yet. i knew there'd be tons of rejection and tons of disappointments along the way. i knew. and i was fine with that. i knew that THIS is what i'm meant to do and meant to be and after 11 years, i STILL know it. however many times i get knocked down, it is for damn sure i will be standing back up. no question about it. whatever pitfall, it's worth it. whatever blow to my ego, it's worth it. whatever karmic slap, it's worth it. this isn't just my "job", it's my life's work and no amount of rejection or struggle or disappointment or attack will change that. ever.

so this morning, i will run and i will work and i will not lose any more time to nursing a bruised ego. i believe in what i'm doing. eventually, others will as well. i'm knee deep in paying dues at this stage in the game and, truth be told, i'm happy to pay them. i am happy to take my knocks. i'm happy to prove myself and my level of dedication. it is a bright beautiful day and i am resolved to not slow down. ever.

the work horse is back on the job.

crunch time...

sorta took a little break from all things internet today. i get sucked in way too easily sometimes. i get lost looking at all the sparkling brilliance of the world and then when i finally pick my head up and look at the clock, HOURS have passed. and i've just got too much to do this week. i'm really trying hard to pull 2 of my canvasses together and call them done by the end of the weekend and that's a hell of a lot of work to be done. they're both in the home stretch but, without a dedicated, daily effort, that home stretch can span weeks. and after receiving two rejection letters back to back (one, i knew to expect and wasn't upset at all by it. the other was quite the shock and led to a tear-filled, self-loathing couple of days. someone call the wha-mbulance!), i feel the need to really turn the fire up and paint as if my life depends upon it... and in a lot of ways, it does. you don't work, you don't eat. and so i'm off to keep painting. there's still a couple of hours of light left in the day. i need to use them wisely.

good morning, tuesday!

the light is coming in the living room windows all yellow and feathery like. a gorgeous morning already. none of my beloved, low-lying fog today which means we'll have to get out to the vineyard for The Jog pretty soon. it's already shaping up to be a hot one here in wine-land.

i checked my favorite maid portrait and she's still sorta sticky from all the painting this weekend. as eager as i am to see her finished, i've got to be patient with her. i layed down a ton of black and the black is deep and perfect and not to be disturbed. it's safer (and smarter) to wait until it's completely dry. i've ruined enough paintings will my impatient enthusiasm to know better than to rush the work. and this close to the end- not a painting i want to risk ruining. i will have to find something else to satisfy myself with today in my little crazy studio. i'm so glad i stocked up on canvas and paint at the beginning of the month. i'm set for awhile. i've still got two huge and beautiful blank canvasses waiting to get their first mark and two more that need to be sanded down and attempt to save. R.I.P Grey Girls. :( i had them looking just like an old photograph and then somehow managed to slather so much paint across them that now they look like monsters. seriously, monsters. my sweetie cracked up when i said that to him last week because the description is spot on. monsters. seriously. and i haven't sanded it down yet because i'm kind of using it as a reminder of what not to do with the other canvasses. believe me, it's totally gross. one of the worst. ha! but those are the paintings that you learn the most from so it's alright. stumble, stumble, stumble, eureka! so it goes.

it's nearing 7am. i'm on my third cup of coffee and finally feeling awake enough to begin my day. i have no clue yet what i will use this beautiful yellow morning for but i promise to honor it somehow. the world is awake and the neighbors have returned from their long weekend in the desert. there could be wine this afternoon. i will earn my glass.

awake...

i painted hard this weekend. hard. black and black and sepia and more black. glaze and glaze and polish. and though i am quite pleased with the progress i made across all the canvasses and should feel content with the idea of relaxation, i can hardly sit still. maybe it was that pot of late afternoon coffee. i even took an evening jog to burn this energy down. i avoid my morning vineyard as if it were a hated ex-boyfriend during weekends (especially long weekends) because it isn't so secret and is pretty well known to tourists with rented bicycles. my peace is defiled. i go out with the mosquitoes and drowsy birds when everyone else is sitting down to dinner. the big quiet and my hard breath has become precious. too precious to share almost. for the first time in 4 years, i'm back in the silent, solitary joy of The Jog. i've returned and it feels wonderful. so completely wonderful. i've missed this so much. more than i can say.

getting out of bed tomorrow morning will be dreadful but i will do it. 5am will get here quick. tomorrow is a white paint day with early fog and a morning vineyard just for me.

sweet dreams.

wrestling the sheets...

last night i couldn't fall asleep for the longest time. i couldn't stop thinking about painting and poetry and what to do about a new artist statement and bio, all that professional jazz. worry, worry, worry, and somehow i got around to thinking about haiku and that maybe i should try it out. it's a structure and maybe i need some structure. it's not as easy as it seems, not in the least.

i'm surprised i actually remembered it today. this is the haiku i wrote last night while i lay in bed wishing i could sleep...

domestic scene #1

silly little girl,
keep your mouth and bedroom clean.
be quiet and still.


my sweetie said it's a bit creepy but that it suits what i do. it isn't really enough all on it's own like this. maybe a little collection of domestic scenes would be good. something to tinker with. something to wrestle with at night when i can't get my mind to stop turning or when i've had too much coffee to find rest.

more questioning...

the maids are far enough along at this point (as a series) that it's definitely time to start putting together an artist statement. i've been wracking my brain, coming up with tons of "starts" for a statement but i eventually find myself referencing my own past rather than keeping the statement exclusive to the work itself. the work isn't meant to explain me. it isn't meant to be that kind of vehicle.

drawing from personal experience is a great thing... so long as it is eventually translated in to something more inclusive, wider reaching, encompassing, open. making the work all about me isn't going to leave many doors open for others to have a private experience of their own with the work. it doesn't allow for a wide open narrative or freedom for the viewer to cook up their own narratives. and i want that for the audience. it's why i leave out the faces.

faces are specific. i want the viewer to add the face. the viewer finishes the work. it is a call to memory, the viewer's memories and experiences, that i appreciate and am trying to lure.

and as far as reality is concerned, i am quite anonymous, the audience is anonymous, and the ladies are anonymous... and this anonymity is the site where hope and understanding can spring. it is a place (or state of being) that nurtures a type of fearlessness of approach, a type of acceptance, that labels and class and "perception" don't allow for.

i'm blathering, working out ideas... but it helps to write it out here.

there's something i'm after with this work that goes far beyond my self and what my experiences have been or who/what i am as a person. that's the stuff i need to get to. that's the stuff i want this space to be about- that site of hope where connections are made and understanding is possible. no utopias, just good ol' fashioned human goodness and frailty. a willingness to speak and to hear. embarrassment, brutality, forgiveness, vengeance, poetry and all.

questioning...

what is this place?
what is this blog supposed to be all about?
me? my practice? both?
sometimes its title haunts me. sometimes i fear it pushes me in a direction i shouldn't go.

in school, i became pretty good at separating myself from the work in a sense. i could talk about the work without referencing myself, my life, my history... and, for the most part, that was definitely the best way to go about it. it's hard to find that elusive line between giving enough background and insight in to the work and giving away too much. sometimes, it's much more comfortable to talk about the theoretical premise of the work rather than attempt to define it in terms of my own emotions and experiences. i guess i'm beginning to worry that i've talked too much, been too free with certain bits of information.

the work that i'm most attracted to is work that can play in both fields- at one turn it is all big-brained intellectualism and analytical prowess, at the next it is emotional and romantic, poetic. i want my work to operate that way as well and i think, sometimes, it does... until i open my big mouth.

the work is, will always be, more important than my self. of course my experiences are largely responsible for the aesthetic i cater to and the images i'm attracted to, but does that really matter? do i need to explain where my defaults come from? do i need to situate my technique in my own psychology? hmmmmmm. one of my mentors would issue an angry and annoyed 'NO!'.

what do you think? should an artist wear their heart on their sleeve or should they let some things remain silent and unseen? is the work somehow enriched by receiving insider information or does it detract from it?

it is the awkward dance between public and private selves.

so far...

painting last night, painting this morning. the sun's out and all the tourists must be off barbecuing somewhere because it is so unexpectedly peaceful outside. a beautiful day.

i'm at a pretty critical point in one of the maid portraits where i can see it finished in my mind and how beautiful these ladies will be if i just keep moving slowly and listen to what they're whispering. my sweetheart and i discuss them all the time. today we talked about my family history and my days spend scrubbing toilets and being sneered at and my days spent as a cocktail waitress and how when i brought this up once in a class discussion, the whole room went silent and the other students had a hard time looking me in the eye. it was a private school after all, how did i manage to infiltrate they're ranks? a great many of them had had maids and nannys and all that. their mother's never worked as bartenders or paid for groceries with food stamps. and i'm not saying i'm any better than anyone else. like a great many things, struggle is also relative. but history and experience isn't relative... it's just what we choose to record is what gets remembered and esteemed... what is normal... and my history was definitely not the norm at my alma mater. i made them a bit uncomfortable. and i wasn't the only one with that kind of background but we were definitely in the minority and apparently our stories weren't welcome. once, outside a class, a girl actually said to me, "i'm so tired of listening to everybody's fucking poverty rants". stunning, huh? she hadn't realized who she was talking to. i hadn't shared any stories with her at that point and she'd just ensured that i never would. never.

and the more i work on these paintings, the more i realize how unspoken these histories are when they're told by the people who have actually lived them. we want out poverty beautified- Dorthea Lang style. i love that photograph as much as anybody else, and the era it was taken in makes it okay i suppose, but sometimes it just seems a little like poaching, a little like imperialism, a little like "slumming it". and that's the other thing about this work- it's helping me figure out where to stand.

CONVERSE love...

repair #3:



yes, duck tape. i love duck tape. i love converse. put them together and what do you got? punk rock. :) some people sneer, some people smile, but i am completely pleased. the poor kid chip on my shoulder is satisfied. i walk with my head held high, flying my blue-collar flag. this particular pair of chuck's are at least 6 years old... maybe more. they've been ridden hard. this is the 2nd layer of duck tape and the third round of sewing. next time i'll have to get some crazy glue involved. i'm gonna hold on to these forever. they've got a cool history and, truth be told, the more beat up a pair of converse are, the better. love, love, love! necessity is the mother. and what a big, warm, wonderful mother she is.

a sentence we've all used... a sentence we've all heard...

the 3rd banner is finished!



this banner is actually a re-vamp of an earlier version i'd done in school- minus all the kinks and flaws in the design. :)

i'd become attracted to cliches- their importance within our culture... how they could be used to identify members of a culture...
how a cliche could actually function as "common ground"... a statement that could cross the divide of difference and bring people closer together... offer a place where real discussion could take place because, with the help of a cliche, we might actually feel understood by The Other...

and i've been thinking about cliches ever since...



Dear John, Dear Jane
Crocheted LED Banner
angela simione, 2009


we've all heard these words. we've all used them.
this banner asks the viewer to finish the sentence, make the cliche specific, personal... fill it up with your own heartache, your own losses, your own wishes.

just a thought...

do you ever sometimes think how much easier life would be if socks were like jeans and you could wear them more than once before having to wash them? this is, of course, not the case and i don't suggest it. i know because i've attempted it a few times when i was too lazy to look around for clean socks in the pile of clean clothes that i was too lazy to put away. an unfortunate and lowly decision because, should you try this at home, it will also just so happen to be the day you go to someone's house for the first time and there's a "no shoes on the carpet" policy or some other strange experience that forces you to remove your shoes. it is embarrassing and disgusting and you pity your lazy self for quite some time afterward. but you learn your lesson... but i still can't help but sometimes wonder how much easier life would be if socks were more like jeans...

:)

the jog...

i am still snuggled up in my big ol' adult-sized fleece footie pajamas and i am not at all anxious to get myself out of them. i'm drinking coffee and i plan on drinking more coffee. there's fog this morning and a cool breeze coming through the open windows. inga's sleeping in my big red chair. there are small birds and squirrels chasing each other outside and i feel so content right now that even the thought of wrestling myself out of the house is painful. but the jog awaits.

THE JOG.

yesterday, i caught myself starting to compile a silly list of excuses for why it was okay to take the day off from running. when i noticed myself doing this, i put my shoes on and left the house and drove straight to the vineyard. we jogged and it felt wonderful. well, it feels wonderful at the start and then it feels wonderful again once it's done. the sense of accomplishment is amazing and it is quite the cure-all. jogging is wonderful for a person's body but also for their heart and mind. i feel clear, in all sorts of ways, when the jog is done. i feel lighter and calmer and more focused- not at all distracted or wound-up about whatever little thing that might give me trouble or heartache. it keeps me sane. that, in itself, is the best reason to keep going out to the vineyard- my own little field of dreams where the clarity i need finds me. i come home and i paint and the hours roll by easily and i don't worry so much about all the things that are out of my control. i breathe. i move oil. i watch inga bounce around and eat sticks. i watch her sleep. i write and i twist yarn and i feel good about myself and my practice.

i feel like i'm on a good road, an important road that could actually lead somewhere, for the first time in a long time.

lazy, yellow afternoon...

yesterday i swam in black oil for hours and hours. i built shadows and wove dark dresses for my ladies. today, i am twisting black string- yes, the banner project. i'm nearing the end of a new banner, getting a ton of inspiration from the work of embroidery artist extraordinaire joetta maue, and practicing stillness and patience today. maybe it was my early morning rant that wore me out or maybe the morning jog. i clocked it today with the truck. 1.7 miles. dang. super dang. and then i walk for a while afterward to stretch back out and cool down so my total distance is probably an even 2 miles each morning. whatever the cause, i feel sleepy and lazy and content to crochet the remaining hours of the afternoon away.

"new" poem...

been in the birthing process for months with this one. i'm not sure if she's done. could be premature... still too early to tell. but putting these little babies out in to the world, for however scary it is, seems to do them - and me - a bit of good. i am still learning. i've got a long way to go. critique is always welcome. an afternoon of re-arranging is emminent.



renewing



she crouches at the reddening
hinge of mama's hope chest, shoving
out the unwanted: hated
sunday dresses.
disdain at the ruffle-
my other.

that girl.
that daughter. that
black.

she points and i reach.
skirts she'll not finger
silks she'll not admire-
i only ever wanted to be pleasing.
lace
ripped and reeling

i clean
down to the white
beyond bone and passed
the collected fat, i shove
myself
tight inside
the Goodwill bag.

she points and i pull
a new braid hiding

this girl.
this non-daughter.
and blackless.
possibly

bitch of no father.




-angela simione, 2009

smiling again...

good morning everybody! i woke up feeling great and full of energy today. the despondent lethargy of yesterday has left me, thank goodness. seriously. because i've got a lot to tend to and those odd, out of nowhere moods slow me down.

it's a grey morning but i'm thankful for it. it's been horribly hot the past 5 or so days which makes jogging extra torturous. inga actually laid down in the car yesterday when we finished. poor little girl dog. and i felt a bit nauseated too. too much heat and hot and horrible unforgiving sun. i left southern california for a variety of reasons, 100+ degree weather being one of them. gross.

today's a day for black paint. today's a day for building strong shadows. today's a day for slow dancing and a careful hand. now that i'm solely working on large-scale canvasses, precision has strangely become even more important. you'd think a large canvas would be a bit more forgiving, increase the forgiveness for errors but no. they are less forgiving. the visibility of a mistake increases with the size of the canvas and brush you're using, for sure. i'm used to buzzing through canvasses at such a rapid fire pace that it's taking some time to get used to the slow(er) moving nature of making big paintings. i'm having to practice patience. i'm having to let go and lose myself in the process and not think about how long it takes. i got too accustomed to my little square paintings- all 10" x 10" or 12" x 12". i finished a few paintings a week working that small and i do miss the feeling of being so highly, annoyingly prolific. but that work was about intimacy and smallness. and though this work definitely has an intimate element to it, it's not at all about smallness. it's about people being silenced, forced to be unseen, a strict, unwanted anonymity, histories that were excluded and untold... and those issues are anything but small.

i don't know...

i've started working on the poems again... which could account for the strange breed of sadness i'm feeling. i woke up with it pulling at me. not even the jog and the shower and the long drive i took today helped shake it's claws out of me. i can't place what's wrong. if i could, i'd feel better. i'd write it down. this is the shape of secrets after all and i'd like to always tell the truth. sometimes the poems do this to me... i have to dig up all sorts of harmful skeletons in order to work on them. it's a necessity. part of the recipe. i haven't figured out how to shield myself from certain memories yet. maybe they're still too new...

sisters...

i've been saving a big stack of drawings and mixed media work that i had cut down in to small, irregular squares just waiting for a bright idea to come along. but more and more, the idea of storing stuff for some far-off rainy day that might not ever show up has got me not only in the mood to start letting go of the unused items in my life but, also, to start putting some of these little gems to good use. so the other night, i got the big stack out and noticed that a ton of them function beautifully as formal abstractions in their own right and a boat-load more of little pieces that seemed ideal as a backdrop for something more realistic- environments with potential. i decided to just play and see where i'd end up.


sisters
7 1/4" x 7 1/4" (irregular)
mixed media on paper
angela simione, 2009

this is the third time i've used this image and the more i use it the more i love it. it helps me revisit my own childhood, my sister's and my past, being alone together so often and finding ways to get by, play, feel happy, and scrape something together that could resemble dinner. i feel so close to this image and this won't be the last time i use it. not even close.


sisters detail

available at black fence.

ha!

yesterday, i painted outside - such a lovely, bright morning - and got the next Siblings.Shadows. painting well under way. unfortunately, i now have 30 mosquito bites. i itch all over and the bites are humongous welts. i've even got 5 across my forehead! those damned blood-suckers love me. i need to buy some bug-off. sometimes, nature sucks.

busy, busy, busy...

up early, answering emails, and taking care of the more businessy end of the art thing. i actually really like this part- it's when i can really feel progress being made. i don't mind it in the least and i'm of the mind that, when it comes to business, emails should always be answered in a timely manner without fail. there's only been a few occasions in life where i've been so busy that i can't write back for 5 days. now, i'd rather lose sleep than wait that long to respond to someone. i'll end up losing sleep over it anyway. the longer i do this and the more people i meet, the importance of professionalism becomes undeniable. and i must say, i am a huge fan at this point of professionalism. all it really is is practicing good-manners. if your not a natural born jerk, professionalism comes easy. the golden rule is really the only thing to remember... and don't show up covered in mud or whisky.

with that being said, i've got to get me and inga out to the vineyard for a quick jog. no hour-long jaunt this morning. 25 minutes will have to suffice. there's too much to do and i'd like to be walking in to my little studio by 9. i've got 3 maid portraits going, a solid and beautiful plan for Siblings.Shadows.(2), and a fourth maid portrait to get started on too. lots in the works and i'd like to get this all wrapped up within the next two weeks: the old college work horse schedule.

just wondering...

why is it that people who are supposed to like you routinely upload the WORST pictures they can find of you? it's a strange phenomenon.

this day...

a vulture circling, it's wide wings casting a shadow larger than an airplane... canadian geese in their fright-filled flying V... jack rabbits running from the sounds of us: our morning jog in the vineyard.

home. coffee. painting.

ahhhhh.... painting. one pair of ladies faces forward, arms crossed, foreboding, faceless but i can feel they're definitely not smiling. another pair wrapped up in an ear-whispering embrace- the secret-sharers. a third pair... one halfway hidden behind the other, their limbs tired and limp and their sides. i am surrounded and i dance back and forth between them all...

i will spend the next few hours in a different gear. it is my sweetheart's birthday today. there is a massive love letter waiting to be written and a steak dinner to prepare. :)

relief and gratitude...

man o man,i must've stressed myself out more than i realized yesterday. i slept for a full 12 hours last night and didn't manage to drag myself out of bed until 9:30 this morning- a good 4 hours behind schedule. oops. but obviously i needed the zzzs. i had all sorts of strange and vivid dreams. even my very first apocalypse dream which really wasn't all that scary since no zombies ever showed up but i spent the entire dream worried that i wouldn't get to have sex one last time before the world ended. ha! priorities!

anyway, the interview couldn't have went better. before i knew it, an hour had passed and i was still there giggling with the VP who was such a wonderful, warm, wholesome woman. there were never any of those awkward lulls in the conversation and we seemed to establish an amazingly comfortable re pore right from the start. i'll definitely take The Storialist's advice and send a thank you note to her today. a real thank you note, snail mail style. :)

so now the waiting game begins. there's a second round next week but after having such a perfect first meeting i don't think i'll lose another day to feeling inadequate, reading and re-reading my favorite blogs 20 times over, checking and re-checking the fridge all day, attempting to find small avenues of distraction. i'm feeling hopeful and confident again. the experience was actually pleasant. dare i say fun. how cool is that!

thank you all so much for sending positive thoughts my way. i definitely needed the vote of confidence and a shot of faith. i appreciate your warm wishes so much! kind words go so far.

the blog-space is a strange space, for sure. when i first started this thing, i didn't take it very seriously at all and didn't enforce any type of regularity on it whatsoever. when i finished a painting, i'd post a picture of it but that'd be it. since deciding to try to make the blog live up to it's name, i've really started valuing having a place to write my thoughts and ambivilances, and i no longer feel like i'm just sending words out in to the dark. i know that we're all strangers but i'm glad we've bumped in to one another, no matter how mediated that bump may in fact be.

yikes!

ah, the pleasures of the artist ego...
i'm suddenly having one of those "maybe i shouldn't have said that" days when you second-guess yourself (or at least how you've presented yourself) at every turn. one of those days when i worry that i've stuck my foot in my mouth somehow, or that i didn't respond to an email quickly enough, or that i didn't use the correct lingo, or that i've over-looked something important and will spend the rest of the day walking around feeling embarrassed of myself. it's probably due to the fact that i've got a job interview later today and, for however charming and confident i appear, those things are nerve-wracking. interviews are scary. i always end up thinking i wore the wrong dress, said the wrong thing, giggled when i shouldn't have, or that i somehow managed to offend the person i'm supposed to be trying to impress. i end up cringing at myself as i make the long, self-conscious walk back to the car. this interview is particularly daunting because i really, really, really want this job. it's in my field, it's a prestigious place, and the fact that (if i get it) i'd be working in an environment where my degree would be appreciated has got my guts tied up in knots. i mean, there's not many jobs in the world where a degree in painting earns respect and having a job like that would be amazing. so... i'm on edge and feeling a bit over-sensitive, i suppose. things that wouldn't usually worry me, are. good thing i've got a couple hours to go. i need a long, hot shower and maybe even a quick jog around the block.

now...

my new ladies are leaning side by side in my little studio and i dance back and forth between them, trading partners based on which tube of paint i pick up. it's a lovely little dance- me, canvas two, and canvas 3. i got straight to work today after inga and i had our morning jog. my wake-up ritual is growing, encompassing much more these days than a pot of coffee and scribbling in my notebook. it's good. very good. for as much as i sometimes loathe them, turns out i'm a person who does well with a routine. i've finally stumbled across a rhythm that works and nourishes my practice AND my mood. i can't believe how much i get done in a single day. a single hour. maybe i'll start canvas 4 today? hmmmmm. tempting. i completely over-worked the grey girls canvas and need to take it outside and spend an hour or so sanding off layers of unnecessary paint. if i can bring the canvas back to an earlier stage, it might actually be something i can save. if not, well... at least now i know to be on-guard against the tendency toward not knowing when to stop.

little miss helpful gets offended...

between too much wine last night, 6 hours of painting today (a new maid portrait begun! that makes #3), dishes, laundry, sweeping, and favors for my neighbor, i'm pretty much sold on the idea that i've done enough for today. the clincher was that rather than just accepting my kindness, an offer of payment was made. over and over and over again. i can't stand that. we're friends! AH! JUST LET ME BE NICE! i like being nice and doing nice- it makes me feel good about myself. where's the problem? free for you, good for me. it's a win/win.

i forget what a callous, gluttonous place the world can be sometimes and that people are actually caught off guard by generosity and helpfulness. sad.

hello monday!

ah.... what a great weekend. wonderful.
saturday we spent more money than we planned at the art supply store on canvas, stretcher bars, and paint but the deals were just too good to pass up. on the way home, we took the long way and pit-stopped for cheese steak sandwiches with garlic and everything else crammed inside. by the time we made it back to our humble home, we were completely worn out from the sun and shopping and food but somehow found the energy to go drink wine with the neighbor (of course).

sunday, my sweetie stretched all the new canvas and i gessoed them- assembly line style. i've got 5 huge and beautiful canvasses purring for attention now and i can't wait to jump in to the studio today. my mind is spinning with ideas.

also, one of the resumes i sent out landed me an interview. quick! it's tomorrow afternoon and i am so excited! i'd love to have this job. more about that later if i get it. keep your fingers crossed for me!

i feel happy and brave... like the world is opening up again... or maybe it's me that's more open? whichever, however, i feel tough and ready and full of giggles. inga and i have even been jogging in the morning. she bounces along at my side and we take full advantage of having a huge vineyard all to ourselves. she's going in to heat though which means my sweet little girl will soon make the change to horrible bitch... and it lasts for a solid month. i'm going to have to get over my fear of inflicting surgery on her. i know there's a ton of good things that come along with fixing your dog but i just can't stand the idea of forcing a hysterectomy on her. i just can't. i know it's the responsible thing to do, it just breaks my heart to have to do this to her. she's so little and playful... i'm afraid how it'll alter her personality. everyone says that it really calms them down. i love inga just the way she is.

a stranger...

just in the door: met a very sweet and interesting woman tonight and she told me all about her love affair- 20 years in the making and the best lover she's ever known... and all while she's married to someone else.

it's strange... listening to all the reasons a marriage falls apart. alcoholism usually finds it's way in to the story (it's more prevalent than we americans like to admit)... and verbal and mental abuse of every variety and scale... and absence... and the friends that always came first or the job or the dream or anything one can put ahead of their spouse. i make no judgement. after a certain amount of time, no one is blameless. we've all got a claim to an equal share of the shit, the fault, the fuck-up. i watched her eyes light up when she talked about the re-birth of her libido, her growing confidence, and finally feeling beautiful and appreciated... "he makes time for me", she said and it broke my heart. it broke my heart right in half. i remember how special a thing that small act seemed to me too when i first met my sweetheart because i had grown so accustomed to it's opposite. i remember. i remember sweet lady. i know. i know. but i'll never know the far corner of your heart where all the hurt and secrets and dreams reside that you once shared with your husband.... i'll never know what has really transpired between them...

i come home happy, to a man sleeping safely and virtuously in our shared bed and i can watch his eyes move beneath the lids and kiss his hands without disturbing him one bit. i can curl up next to him and know, confidently, we have never hurt each other on purpose and never ever would. i can curl up next to him and know that any hurt we have caused one another has been minimal at best, that respect is necessary in order to have love, and that courtesy and compassion can carry a union through the extremes...

my heart longs for you to be happy, sweet lady.

WOW!

wow. wow. wow.

all i can say is WOW!

i got invited to participate in the San Jose Institute for Contemporary Art's Mono-Marathon today! oh-my-lord! someone up there is definitely smiling down on me. what a huge honor. WOW!
AND, as if that wasn't good enough, my sweet ladies sold at AAF in New York yesterday. whoever you are, thank you so much! it's one of my favorite works and i adore it. you've encouraged me to keep at it and make this series shine as hard and bright as it possibly can. thank you for giving them a new home. :)

i am floating....

this one's for you...

dear sweet radish king.


8" x 10"
ink on paper
angela simione, 2009


reminded me of you and yours. :)

a new road opens...

so now that my odd anniversary is officially over, i feel resolved and ready to take on the world once more. for the past several weeks, more and more, i've been feeling a very strong pull to get myself back out in to life in a more day-to-day kind of way... i.e. getting a day job. for as wonderful as being able to stay home and paint everyday may sound, it actually begins to get a bit suffocating. the walls start closing in and lonliness begins to set in. i'm a people person and i like having a reason to leave the house and join in the fun. and, truth be told, i've managed to have fun at pretty much every job i've ever held. maybe not so much when i worked as a maid, but even then i at least found joy in being around the people i worked with. i am sincere in my love and appreciation for humanity and i thrive when i have ample amounts of human contact. i really like people. i've never been one of those grouchy, tortured, hateful artist-types who love confining themselves to the solitude of the studio. never. even in school, i'd grab whatever it was i was working on and drag it to one of my buddy's studios and work there. i like being a part of a community. it makes me feel good and, i think, adds something a bit more insightful and delicate to the work in general. all this to say, i've made up my mind to be a worker-bee again. i'm just happier that was. i like being involved with more than the inner workings of my own mind and desires.

yum

well, i woke up early and honored my wake-up rituals - coffee, writing, dog walking - and then headed off to the gallery to drop off the new painting. between tourist traffic and the storm that is still slowly finding its way outta here, it took almost 3 times longer to get there than it usually does. gross. and then once i finally made it to the city, i spent a half hour looking for parking before i finally gave up and parked in a garage. good thing i know where a cheap one is and don't have to spend 20 big ones for each hour i'm parked there. eventually, i make it to the gallery and spent the next hour or so having a wonderful time telling stories and talking trash with piero, andrew, and erika (super sweet and totally suave people) before hopping back in the car and braving the weather and tourists once more.

unlike most people that live out my way, i actually kinda like the tourists. most of the people i bump in to who come here on a little get-away are from europe and, like most americans, i am a sucker for an attractive accent. yum. i can listen to europeans talk for hours. i never get tired of listening... even if i can't understand a thing they're saying. it doesn't matter. i haven't had the opportunity to do as much traveling as i'd like - not nearly - and, as a result, i find everyone with a foreign accent to be mysterious and exotic which equals attractive. so i like having tourists around. their excitement and desire to explore makes me feel happy and it reminds me to look at my surroundings with wonder... the way i did when i was new to this landscape too. besides, i've found quite a few out of the way spots that tourists don't know of if i end up getting tired of the congestion, but i don't think i'll be trading attractive accents for silence any time soon.

i made good time on my drive back home and spent the evening drinking chardonnay with my neighbor again. i finally realized that this much wine consumption could possibly have a negative effect on my waist-line so i came home and compounded the issue by making myself a huge bowl of chili with cheese and onion on top. :) calorie counting, shmalorie counting. who needs it. life's too great and too short to get wrapped up in things like that when you could be listening to attractive accents, drinking wine, and eating chili with your dog curled up at your feet. quite a day indeed.

done!

Sunday 3 (Sheep in Fog)
30" x 40"
oil on canvas
angela simione, 2009

hello monday!

back to my early morning schedule of writing and coffee and it feels great! the funk of the past few days is gone and i've got a better perspective on life (my life) because of it. sometimes a person needs those low days in order to see what greatness they have in their life... and i feel thankful and hopeful and ready to begin a new week. the Sheep in Fog painting is done but i can't take a picture of it until the fog lifts. it's not raining right now but still tremendously grey outside- bad day for photography and i think it's super unethical to doctor photos of art. they need to be as true to life as possible and i achieve that the old fashioned way- natural light.

but in spite of being grey and damp, inga and i will be taking a longer than normal hike this morning. the poor little girl has been locked inside by the rain (because i don't own an umbrella or raincoat) and so she's got a lot of energy to burn. and if there's one thing i know for sure, a rottweiler needs to work and be worked. an energetic rottie, for however cute and funny, isn't necessarily good for the furniture and anything breakable. bull in a china shop. she's a bouncy little thing as it is. we even jump on the bed together some mornings. :) she's goofy and sweet and it's so hard to understand why people are afraid of the breed. who couldn't love this scrunchy face!



inga's nic-names: inga binga, ingaborg, little buns, little girl, crazy bone, dinga berry, jones, quizzicalitese, proclivities, little one, little lamb, little bear, little deer, little ewe, little kid, etc, etc, etc... :)

yawn...

i can't sleep. maybe it's because i'm wearing a t-shirt that says "if i want to hear from an asshole, i'll fart". who knows... could be. i just can't seem to get my brain to simmer down. i'm super tired and my eyes are heavy but the second my head hits the pillow all sorts of thoughts and dreams start spinning and i am kept wide awake. this has been a pretty regular thing in my life but lately it hasn't been happening. the result of my odd anniversary, i suppose.


redacted book page
angela simione, 2008

rainy day...

the storm that rolled in yesterday morning is still going strong. it is grey and cold and the rain shows no signs of letting up. the weather channel says i can expect some sunshine on thursday. and even though i'd love to take inga on a walk, i don't own an umbrella. seems four years of living in the bay area has yet to break my southern california lifestyle training. i'm always surprised when it rains.

and so i've got the heater going, wishing i had a stoked fire to sit in front of with hot chocolate on a big bear skin rug like they do in the movies, or a claw foot bathtub piled high and soft with mountains of white, romantic bubbles and lather. i'll do what i can to create a semblance of these things and a big bowl of italian wedding soup is definitely in order. i will not wash dishes today or do anything that qualifies as a responsibility. nope, nope, nope. my sweetie is off for the day in sacramento and so i've got the house all to myself. the tv is off and will remain so. it's a quiet day without demands or the pressing red of my many goals. i'll cross my fingers that the weather forecast was wrong and that a bright day will find me tomorrow.

not quite full disclosure...

sigh.

the past couple days have been alternately great and gruesome, fueled by live music and gin and wine and food and rain. i am worn out, not sad, but have been feeling a bit anxious for the last 3 or 4 days. i've been having strange, sad dreams that leave me feeling guilty and full of regret when i wake up. i've even been feeling the urge to pray lately (which is something exceedingly rare for me). and then i realized that i'm right smack dab in the middle of a very strange anniversary of mine- my college graduation. it is the day i became disowned.

i'd made a statement once that if anybody ever tried to get in the way of my art practice, i'd cut them out of my life quick and sure and without any regret...
and i found myself in a situation where i had to do just that.

i'd need to write a memoir in order to explain what happened... suffice to say that my resolve to become an artist had been tested in the most extreme and unbelievable ways that, at that point, all i wanted was to graduate. i no longer cared about grades or honors or anything other than getting the damn piece of paper. i was hanging on by a very thin string and was living in constant fear that a complete mental break would seize me at any moment. i'd begun having panic attacks... something i was not at all familiar with and it took me awhile to identify that that's what was going on. they'd hit, one right after the other, as i sat quietly on the BART train on my way to campus each morning. it felt like i was about to have a heart attack. the uphill walk from the BART station to campus would work to calm me down but the panic would find me in short order once i was sitting in class. i couldn't even keep track of how many bouts of this crap i'd suffer in a single day.

12 hours later, i'd fall asleep on the train on my way back home and, surprisingly, i never missed my stop.

i was preparing myself to become homeless. i actually wanted to be homeless because it meant i'd be out of the situation i was in. walking in the door to death threats and hunger strikes isn't a happy experience.

so i walked across the stage and got my little scroll and was almost immediately carted off 500 miles away to my mother's house. it was hard to be without jared but i didn't want him to see me lose my mind. he was in a very painful, angry place as well. the situation had re-opened so many things and ghosts and traumas for the both of us... so i made sure he and inga had a new place to live and then i left. they were safe and knowing they were safe was such a huge comfort. and i felt safely hidden from anything and everything that could hurt me at my mother's house. i slept and slept and slept and cried and cried and cried. i woke up to fresh coffee and i'd sit out on the back porch with my mom and we'd talk for as long as it took. my brother and sister stayed by my side and the full weight of the family history was dealt with... together.

all that talking and crying kept my mental slip at bay and i've been working ever since to bring normalcy and regularity and truth in to my life. it has definitely been a hard, confusing year but at least there's been no yelling, no death threats, no hunger strikes, and no deception. there's been lots of writing, lots of walking the dog, lots of painting and drawing and crocheting and reading and talking and (lately) wine with the neighbor.

and so i've been feeling a bit wild, a bit out of sorts, but also extremely thankful for the fact that my life today is nothing like what it was on this day a year ago. i'm in a much better place. i'm safe and healthy and generally happy. i no longer fear for my sanity and i feel optimistic and strong and capable. jared and i are happy and in love. both our careers are moving forward and our home is warm and safe and full of art and honesty.