these texts are an archive of my life in the San Francisco Bay Area from march 2007 - march 2015. it stands as a record of close to a decade of my life, charting the struggles i faced as an artist, daughter, and lover. messy and chaotic at times, eloquent and poetic at others, these texts are an index i am proud of. it was here in this electric box that i learned how to be honest about my experiences and the person i needed to become. it was here that i first learned the truism that words make the world and how to trust such a beautiful, rife, hard fact.

thank you for meeting me here in such tall grass.


my artist website is here.

May 24, 2010

potential

the other day, i was talking to my friend mike about painting- what it means and what it is. and mostly i was just thinking out-loud and i heard myself say: there's a huge difference between maintaining a practice and maintaining a business. i flabbergasted myself with that tidbit. and i am not knocking business. it is a component of all this that can actually be pretty joyful. but that's just the point- it's a component, not the whole. and then i go back and i watch all the videos i posted the other day and i realize that all these people are absolutely right. and it's stuff i already know but it helps to hear it again... especially in low moments when you begin to wonder if you have anything of value to offer. that horrible self-questioning, self-persecution, that i think all artists fall prey too every now and again. but maintaining the practice is what saves me. grounds me. brings me back to a site of such large hope and fiery, self-assured resistance. it isn't supposed to be easy. this is a very hard road to walk sometimes, in spite of how fun and freeing it can be. but when i'm in a painting or drawing or poem, really inside, i have no sadness. i have no doubts. i'm in a land of such sweeping grace where taking the good with the bad is absolutely possible... and is even experienced as beautiful too. and the work is rolling along gorgeously. i'm brewing coffee right now and when it's done i'm heading outside in to the bright, cold morning to paint in the good light. i woke up with such a warm assurance in my bones. and my neighbor who had stayed up all night listening to music (got bit by that bug and just could not turn it off) came down to talk about music and art and ideas and the greeks. a very nice way to begin the day, begin the new week. a week full of potential and hard (but fun) work.

No comments: