today is my brother's birthday and my birthday is on friday.
when we were kids, more often than not, we'd celebrate our birthdays together. two birds, one stone = two kids, one cake. :) and even though i didn't really like that at the time, the memory is very sweet now.
a few weeks ago, my brother started a conversation about the importance of trying, in any small way, to make this week somehow different than all the weeks that have come and gone. the blur of time and routine. and he made a charge to hold that as a weekly goal.
and we talked about how reading a book or taking a walk is very much a political act these days. every choice endorses a particular way of life. how a person chooses to spend their time states a preference about what a person values. and making those choices thoughtfully gives rise to positive action. as a form of Resistance to the deep level of consumerism/greed that our nation currently resides in, taking a walk or sitting on the floor of a used book store and reading some poetry for free is a very good way to begin. while i'm doing these things i'm outside the nagging feeling of Powerlessness. i'm outside that circle of defeat. instead, i begin struggling toward a deeper faith. faith in anything. faith in everything. but faith nonetheless. my conscious comes forward and i can look at the world through a new lens that encompasses compassion and realizes the need to keep sight of what Nietzsche said:
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.
or this statement by Albert Schweitzer:
Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.
these are very hard things to do. very. but the attempt toward maintaining one's honor and personal values in the face of anger and outrage is so so so important. there is a heavy wind of angry blame blowing across our country. maybe it has always been there but, the current level of hate-mongering that seems to have become permissible (if not outright acceptable), is scary to me. it is alarming to me. and it has taken a huge amount of personal strength to not fire back at people who practice hate speech (in whatever form).
it's one reason why i was so quiet on my blog last week. i've been trying to swallow my own advice and apply it.
and so today, in honor of my brother's birthday and the massive triumph he has accomplished in overcoming our personal past, the fact he IS a self-made man who employs an inspiring amount of dedication toward the goals he has chosen for himself, i will undertake the huge 3.5 mile run this morning. when i come home, i will eat a healthy breakfast of fruit and greek yogurt, i will get back to my work, i will draw and write and read and learn something. learn anything. and i will make a conscious sustained effort to not inadvertently practice (and thereby endorse) modes of interaction that i find to be unethical, abusive, and yep immoral.
blame is a superficial emotion. guilt does not require blame in order to exist. and anger is not wrong or bad- it is how a person chooses to express it that is either positive, negative, or of no consequence whatsoever. i will choose to express my anger by focusing my attention on my own morality and see where I missed the mark... find the place where I slipped, look for the site of improvement that exists within myself and take action there.
my brother is 32 today. on friday i'll be 30. :) i am looking forward to this new number in particular. i'm enjoying seeing a grown-up Womanhood take hold of my body and mind. i'm enjoying noticing how i am coming in to my own now. i'm enjoying seeing my brother grow and change and become stronger and more and more dedicated to ethics. i'm enjoying figuring out how to blend lived experience with theory and philosophy and the creative impulse. and, for however hard it is to accomplish, i enjoy the charge to somehow make this week of my life different from all the others. i can start by making myself, my inner world, a bit different. to make my insides match my outsides and vice versa. to live what i believe. and to choose what i believe with care, love, and lots of self-examination.
happy birthday, andy. i love you and i am so proud of you.
Aug 30, 2010
Aug 29, 2010
Aug 27, 2010
today
simple pleasures today. coffee and my cold morning stoop. the forest ahead. the squabbling squirrels. the pen. the notebook.
all these, in their own soft and quiet way, are a confrontation with mortality. and there is a sweep of gratitude in that. a way to secure a deep and abiding thankfulness. i begin to see FAILURE isn't even real. no such thing. except maybe giving up. just that. only that. everything else are steps and branches.
"Even if i knew tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree."
- Martin Luther
or orange tree or pear tree or cherry tree or avocado tree or banana tree or pineapple tree or fig tree or or or or...
write your poems, girls and boys. whatever form they take.
all these, in their own soft and quiet way, are a confrontation with mortality. and there is a sweep of gratitude in that. a way to secure a deep and abiding thankfulness. i begin to see FAILURE isn't even real. no such thing. except maybe giving up. just that. only that. everything else are steps and branches.
"Even if i knew tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree."
- Martin Luther
or orange tree or pear tree or cherry tree or avocado tree or banana tree or pineapple tree or fig tree or or or or...
write your poems, girls and boys. whatever form they take.
Aug 26, 2010
.
ever a new name
if i had been Perfect at birth, i don't remember it.
soap
in my slithering eyes.
or:
soap in my slither-eye.
how opposite of Beautiful.
i have eaten cotton candy
and made my Red-Work angry.
i have been afraid of your desires.
(because they are not like mine)
i have been afraid of my own desires.
don't tell me anything.
don't tell me there is a spider on my earlobe.
capitulating,
faltering grace.
the severity of my body.
and the potential.
poor baby, poor baby.
don't tell me anything.
finding safe hiding places is hard enough. and
a steady black. black cloud of starling. spite
the wintertime. the little lamb's
delicate eye.
i am cupped in her full blue skirt.
the unexpected
walked-through spiderweb.
FUCKING BITCH I HATE YOU
EVERYBODY HATES YOU
and i always believe it
at least a little bit
when someone says something like that.
if i had been Perfect at my birth.
cracked actress. poor baby.
a knot of opposite interests. the ghosts
of so many school girls. heavier now, carrying such hearts.
the sadness and the smells. i lumber
under a vocabulary culled
from dragging silence.
my remembering happened much later.
and what i have done.
ever a new name
if i had been Perfect at birth, i don't remember it.
soap
in my slithering eyes.
or:
soap in my slither-eye.
how opposite of Beautiful.
i have eaten cotton candy
and made my Red-Work angry.
i have been afraid of your desires.
(because they are not like mine)
i have been afraid of my own desires.
don't tell me anything.
don't tell me there is a spider on my earlobe.
capitulating,
faltering grace.
the severity of my body.
and the potential.
poor baby, poor baby.
don't tell me anything.
finding safe hiding places is hard enough. and
a steady black. black cloud of starling. spite
the wintertime. the little lamb's
delicate eye.
i am cupped in her full blue skirt.
the unexpected
walked-through spiderweb.
FUCKING BITCH I HATE YOU
EVERYBODY HATES YOU
and i always believe it
at least a little bit
when someone says something like that.
if i had been Perfect at my birth.
cracked actress. poor baby.
a knot of opposite interests. the ghosts
of so many school girls. heavier now, carrying such hearts.
the sadness and the smells. i lumber
under a vocabulary culled
from dragging silence.
my remembering happened much later.
and what i have done.
,+10x8,+graphite+on+paper,+angela+simione+2010.JPG)
Aug 25, 2010
kitsch???
i've been following this discussion about kitsch and its "poetry roots" for the passed few days and i find it so compelling. totally intriguing. and there is such a huge possibility for this kind of discussion to blow up, morph, twist, writhe, and then maybe create a site for a bit of understanding too.
i went to leave a comment but my comment got so big i decided to just stick it here. :)
-----
mmmmmmm... Greenberg. i have issues with Greenberg.
a lot of his theories are based in class/social systems/beliefs: those who can afford leisure, those who have time to become educated about art vs. those who don't. and he is quite blatant in his theories that poor people are stupid because they can't afford to become un-stupid: they're too busy working and scrubbing and scrimping.
i have deep, angry issues with Greenberg.
and so, based on his theories of Art: rich people have art. poor people have kitsch.
did poetry fall in to the hands of The Poor? did Poverty impoverish poetry? did The Poor infect it with their "bad taste" and lack of education? is it "fraudulent" to be poor? or... is it the social pressures to HIDE poverty that make one's actions (poetry) appear "fraudulent"? is it "evil" to be poor? and therefore, Evil to express poverty? or, by way of lack of access, to function within/expose a language of impoverishment? dirt offends. that's why The Angel of the House never did any cleaning. women are expected to be "pure" and not offensive. and so she had some other Poor Woman to do the cleaning for her, touch the dirt, finger the grime. status in direct connection with one's proximity to dirt. to cleaning. to scrubbing floors.
and so i really like kitsch described as an "ineradicable residue" - dirt that cannot be removed. a grime that does not go away. a stained language. or the language of The Stain.
there are only two choices then: to ignore it (which has been the case) or to reckon with it (war or acceptance).
but, since the era when Greenberg was shoving all this out in to the world, the middle-class has become the biggest class in America. they create(d) a space between the extremes of rich and poor. but... a person of The Middle Class does not ever want to be mistaken for "Poor". if anything, a person of The Middle Class would love to be perceived as "Rich". and so i wonder... is kitsch, now, a sort of keeping-up-with-the-jones's value system? is it a new breed of disdain for The Poor? that we are soooooo taken in and harnessed by the appearance of wealth (not necessarily actual wealth, just the appearance of it) that people who have the means to emulate wealth, do? or at least attempt to? is kitsch a Faux Elite?
if so, would kitsch, then, be an object produced that, through simulating the appearance of wealth, actually makes Greed concrete?
is kitsch, in essence, a representation of envy?
and therefore: shame.
an object or language that feels bad about itself? an object or language that refuses to accept itself as is, and wants to be perceived as something else? a play of pretend? a conscious action of trying to "trick" the sight and perceptions of others? a "poser"?
sight is the most easily tricked of all the senses: if you look like you have money, people will think that you actually do have money. kitsch understands this but somehow manages to miss the mark. there is the "ineradicable residue" of self-loathing (an acceptance of the ideology that "Poor" is a crime) on the surface. it is, somehow, an anti-reality. it doesn't understand The Myth of Photographic Truth.
Bertolt Brecht said, "realism is not what real things are like, but what things are really like"
i have to read that statement out loud most of the time to get it. but once i catch what he's saying, it makes such wonderful sense that it is the only way for me to describe my personal experience of what Kitsch "is". it does not attempt to describe things as they actually are. it describes its own desire to be something it isn't but hopes to be mistaken for. it is Frailty made visible. it is Inferiority-Complex made visible. it announces its complicity with regimes of wealth, power, and desire. it agrees that individual human value can be determined through the appearance of wealth. and, at this stage in the game, the actuality of Poor and the appearance of Poor (in its extremes) line up and therefore have an authenticity that kitsch will never have.
the Language of the Stain has honesty in it. art can be made with such humble materials. it can transcend its physical components. kitsch does not have the power of transcendence because it attempts to mirror what it sees to be art, not what art actually is.
Greenberg had it wrong. poor people are able to see and know art. they make it. they live it.
envious people have a hard time knowing what art is. an envious person spends their time in anger and fear, not learning.
a person becomes a leader by leading. not by making a knock-off of the jacket the leader wears. maybe kitsch is a physical manifestation of a NOW NOW NOW quick-fix culture?
it is an object that wants YOU to believe it has value. and kitsch is conscious of this. it is conscious of its own desires, shame, and motivations. it actively seeks to be perceived as The-Something-Else it admires.
this is not an effect of poverty itself. it is the effect of making being poor a blemish, a crime, something to be ashamed of... and the people who have become complicit with this outlook.
if people were not ashamed of poverty and did not try to hide it...
if people were not ashamed of the struggle they face...
??????
what would kitsch be then?
all this is preliminary. i'm just thinking out loud. this is such an interesting topic and i can't wait to see where johannes goes with this.
the language of kitsch is quite compelling and i think it can be harnessed to create tremendous works of art, and maybe even a new language.
i went to leave a comment but my comment got so big i decided to just stick it here. :)
-----
mmmmmmm... Greenberg. i have issues with Greenberg.
a lot of his theories are based in class/social systems/beliefs: those who can afford leisure, those who have time to become educated about art vs. those who don't. and he is quite blatant in his theories that poor people are stupid because they can't afford to become un-stupid: they're too busy working and scrubbing and scrimping.
i have deep, angry issues with Greenberg.
and so, based on his theories of Art: rich people have art. poor people have kitsch.
did poetry fall in to the hands of The Poor? did Poverty impoverish poetry? did The Poor infect it with their "bad taste" and lack of education? is it "fraudulent" to be poor? or... is it the social pressures to HIDE poverty that make one's actions (poetry) appear "fraudulent"? is it "evil" to be poor? and therefore, Evil to express poverty? or, by way of lack of access, to function within/expose a language of impoverishment? dirt offends. that's why The Angel of the House never did any cleaning. women are expected to be "pure" and not offensive. and so she had some other Poor Woman to do the cleaning for her, touch the dirt, finger the grime. status in direct connection with one's proximity to dirt. to cleaning. to scrubbing floors.
and so i really like kitsch described as an "ineradicable residue" - dirt that cannot be removed. a grime that does not go away. a stained language. or the language of The Stain.
there are only two choices then: to ignore it (which has been the case) or to reckon with it (war or acceptance).
but, since the era when Greenberg was shoving all this out in to the world, the middle-class has become the biggest class in America. they create(d) a space between the extremes of rich and poor. but... a person of The Middle Class does not ever want to be mistaken for "Poor". if anything, a person of The Middle Class would love to be perceived as "Rich". and so i wonder... is kitsch, now, a sort of keeping-up-with-the-jones's value system? is it a new breed of disdain for The Poor? that we are soooooo taken in and harnessed by the appearance of wealth (not necessarily actual wealth, just the appearance of it) that people who have the means to emulate wealth, do? or at least attempt to? is kitsch a Faux Elite?
if so, would kitsch, then, be an object produced that, through simulating the appearance of wealth, actually makes Greed concrete?
is kitsch, in essence, a representation of envy?
and therefore: shame.
an object or language that feels bad about itself? an object or language that refuses to accept itself as is, and wants to be perceived as something else? a play of pretend? a conscious action of trying to "trick" the sight and perceptions of others? a "poser"?
sight is the most easily tricked of all the senses: if you look like you have money, people will think that you actually do have money. kitsch understands this but somehow manages to miss the mark. there is the "ineradicable residue" of self-loathing (an acceptance of the ideology that "Poor" is a crime) on the surface. it is, somehow, an anti-reality. it doesn't understand The Myth of Photographic Truth.
Bertolt Brecht said, "realism is not what real things are like, but what things are really like"
i have to read that statement out loud most of the time to get it. but once i catch what he's saying, it makes such wonderful sense that it is the only way for me to describe my personal experience of what Kitsch "is". it does not attempt to describe things as they actually are. it describes its own desire to be something it isn't but hopes to be mistaken for. it is Frailty made visible. it is Inferiority-Complex made visible. it announces its complicity with regimes of wealth, power, and desire. it agrees that individual human value can be determined through the appearance of wealth. and, at this stage in the game, the actuality of Poor and the appearance of Poor (in its extremes) line up and therefore have an authenticity that kitsch will never have.
the Language of the Stain has honesty in it. art can be made with such humble materials. it can transcend its physical components. kitsch does not have the power of transcendence because it attempts to mirror what it sees to be art, not what art actually is.
Greenberg had it wrong. poor people are able to see and know art. they make it. they live it.
envious people have a hard time knowing what art is. an envious person spends their time in anger and fear, not learning.
a person becomes a leader by leading. not by making a knock-off of the jacket the leader wears. maybe kitsch is a physical manifestation of a NOW NOW NOW quick-fix culture?
it is an object that wants YOU to believe it has value. and kitsch is conscious of this. it is conscious of its own desires, shame, and motivations. it actively seeks to be perceived as The-Something-Else it admires.
this is not an effect of poverty itself. it is the effect of making being poor a blemish, a crime, something to be ashamed of... and the people who have become complicit with this outlook.
if people were not ashamed of poverty and did not try to hide it...
if people were not ashamed of the struggle they face...
??????
what would kitsch be then?
all this is preliminary. i'm just thinking out loud. this is such an interesting topic and i can't wait to see where johannes goes with this.
the language of kitsch is quite compelling and i think it can be harnessed to create tremendous works of art, and maybe even a new language.
Aug 24, 2010
the regular fears
my internet connection has been failing off and on for the past week and half and has become totally unreliable. i called customer service and they let me know our modem is bad and so a man is coming out today to check it out and hopefully give us a new one. the upside to this is that yesterday after posting about kate's book, my internet was down all day- effectively hog tying me and keeping me from deleting the post... which i sorta wanted to do and was in a panic all day long, waiting for my phone to ring, and going over and over in my head fear-driven conversations and how to explain the difference between art and life, how to use one to inform the other, and that creative license and honesty are an imperative of our times, etc etc etc. ha!
and then i started thinking about lady gaga. yep. she is a recent fascination of mine. and i thought how a lot of people in this country seem to think she's the spawn of Satan and, looking at her work, listening to her songs, and paying attention to her message of self-acceptance and self-love... i really have no clue where these attacks on her are coming from. it's one thing not to like her work, a totally other to label her as "poison for the minds of our children". and i thought: here's this 24 years old girl that has somehow managed to acquire enough strength and stamina to endure such a massive onslaught of hatred and malice, and here i am, a 29 year old girl, fretting about a "review" i wrote about a book i love and posted on my personal blog. a blog which doesn't get a ton of traffic anyway. at least i don't think it does- i disabled the tracker on it months and months and months ago.
but there it is- the thing every person needs to overcome if they expect to be a writer (in the public sense of the word): getting beyond the fear that you will anger or embarrass your family, and speak from a site of truth and strength. let come what may. this is a very very VERY hard thing to do. very.
i love my family. of course i want them to be proud of me, the work i do, and the person i am. we've been through a lot of shit together and have come out on the other side with a deeper understanding of what it is to be resilient, capable, and how to truly practice forgiveness. still, there are some stories that need to be told. they need to be told because silence seems to have (strangely) become the dominant mode of our era. these stories we have need to be shared. and when i stumble across a piece of writing that i am able to see my own life story in, i feel such a huge comfort. i become stronger. i become more confident, more able to not only stand up for the rights of others, but also for my own. i also become more able to forgive, to see the other side. silence prevents forgiveness.
and so, i must find a way to let my words and work keep their wings. i must find a way to shake off fear, run right through it, and just keep digging digging digging. it is a strange world and a strange life and our stories have such value, such power, such music in them. i want to be strong enough to let that fact sit on high and not apologize for the life i have lived and the life i have found as a result.
and then i started thinking about lady gaga. yep. she is a recent fascination of mine. and i thought how a lot of people in this country seem to think she's the spawn of Satan and, looking at her work, listening to her songs, and paying attention to her message of self-acceptance and self-love... i really have no clue where these attacks on her are coming from. it's one thing not to like her work, a totally other to label her as "poison for the minds of our children". and i thought: here's this 24 years old girl that has somehow managed to acquire enough strength and stamina to endure such a massive onslaught of hatred and malice, and here i am, a 29 year old girl, fretting about a "review" i wrote about a book i love and posted on my personal blog. a blog which doesn't get a ton of traffic anyway. at least i don't think it does- i disabled the tracker on it months and months and months ago.
but there it is- the thing every person needs to overcome if they expect to be a writer (in the public sense of the word): getting beyond the fear that you will anger or embarrass your family, and speak from a site of truth and strength. let come what may. this is a very very VERY hard thing to do. very.
i love my family. of course i want them to be proud of me, the work i do, and the person i am. we've been through a lot of shit together and have come out on the other side with a deeper understanding of what it is to be resilient, capable, and how to truly practice forgiveness. still, there are some stories that need to be told. they need to be told because silence seems to have (strangely) become the dominant mode of our era. these stories we have need to be shared. and when i stumble across a piece of writing that i am able to see my own life story in, i feel such a huge comfort. i become stronger. i become more confident, more able to not only stand up for the rights of others, but also for my own. i also become more able to forgive, to see the other side. silence prevents forgiveness.
and so, i must find a way to let my words and work keep their wings. i must find a way to shake off fear, run right through it, and just keep digging digging digging. it is a strange world and a strange life and our stories have such value, such power, such music in them. i want to be strong enough to let that fact sit on high and not apologize for the life i have lived and the life i have found as a result.
Aug 23, 2010
secrets and Kate Zambreno and DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR DAUGHTERS ARE? part 2
you can read my first response to her book here.
preface:
books =
mirrors and sledgehammers.
when i read Barthes for the first time, The Death of the Author, my mind went angry, flopped out of my body, phished around on the ground, spiked by rocks and nails, until i read it again and understood the romance of it. the relief of it. the permission-slip. the courage and freedom given to artists and writers in that essay: we are not gods and do not have to impale ourselves on false notions of "genius" and "originality", creating suns to spin around... that this act of writing/drawing/mapping/making is a human act, a way of tracing our lineage, a mode of connecting, building, and understanding.
---
i received Kate Zambreno's book O Fallen Angel and Dodie Bellamy's chapbook Barf Manifesto in the same week. i read them back to back. a pairing that drastically (and thankfully) changed how i perceive the act of writing, the action of reading, and as a result, how i actively perceive the world.
and so i put the coffee on and i go to the page to write.
i try to put the events of my life in a line... as IF order is even possible. as IF finding an order will supply relief. as IF forcing my ideas in to some sort of easily managed whole will set this upside-down world right again.
nope.
life is too multi-faceted for that.
a single human being is too multi-faceted for that.
all the splinters a person collects. splinters and scars and treasures and junk. why can't i decide to see that chaotic multitude as Beautiful? the rich warmth and wealth of a single life, caught in the corners of the carpet, the innards of a young woman's notebook, the photos at the bottom of the box, the hair in her eyes and the smell of her blankets, graphite dust coating every inch of her home.
her vacuum cleaner is broken.
the dust stays.
this could be a beautiful thing.
these books become the well-spring of courage. it is where i go to draw faith and steam when my own seems to be running out, stuttering, sighing, exhausted. my keepsakes. my treasures. my Encouragements! my lineage!
this strange and painful coming-of-age.
---
the following is an "essay" in the Barf Manifesto sense of the word. a form that is very much a conjoined twin. individual meats breathing under the same skin. a deformity that shouldn't occur if you really do believe in Jesus. a grotesque tragedy that shouldn't find any good Christian.
or so it is believed in America.
as it is personified in Kate's book.
ranting essay:
AND GOD CREATED THE GODLESS WHORE:
(morals pillaged from under the bell jar of a suburban strip club on the way to art school-
one daughter's dutiful response to Kate Zambreno's O Fallen Angel)
O Fallen Angel, is that me?
am i Maggie?
lost in the spin of an upside-down world, reaching out for something real to hold on to amid the swirl of trendy desires, this eat eat eat and suck and swallow consumerism: our Pop-Religiosity.
Maggie won't wear the flowered dress because the flowered dress feels wrong on her skin. the hand of a creepy uncle. a kinder, gentler molestation.
it goes unnoticed. what's the big deal?
---
daughters who do not smile, daughters who are sad, daughters who are lost and don't hide it, are ugly.
Maggie is ugly.
i am Maggie.
i am ugly.
simple math.
the flowered dress feels wrong to me too.
and i know my sadness hurts my mother.
---
Maggie and i make the awkward jerk toward short-lived moments of feeling understood, of feeling safe, of feeling some sense of belonging. frenzied hands pushing through wild hair, hoping for an armature, an armor, that fits this body. the BAD DAUGHTER body: sadness on the surface, sadness in the eyes, sadness made evident.
they call this look Haunted.
my mother said it's like the light has gone out in you.
---
to not smile is the thorn.
sadness is offensive. it is an accusation. an indication that something is wrong.
sadness is an Indictment.
i think of Sylvia Plath agreeing to publish The Bell Jar under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, spare Mommy some embarrassment, just like the Mommy in her book, just like the Mommy is Kate's book- the daughter's sadness seen as an attack on what a wonderful mommy she really is. i was so good to you! how can you behave like this? you are so selfish!
a daughter's dissatisfaction with the ways of the world, the modes of the home, the call to docile silence and acceptance is seen as an attack, seen as ego, seen as a snobby up-turned spoiled-rotten nose, seen as ungrateful, seen as UGLY. our inability to slide in comfortably to the 50s, the 50s that are alive and well, is offensive. it is UGLY. you are UGLY. i am UGLY. i am UGLY Maggie.
and in addition to UGLY, we are CRAZY too.
just as i see myself peering out from behind the lines of The Bell Jar as Esther Greenwood, i see myself writhing in the sticky sheets Maggie cries in.
---
like Maggie, i know my status as Other.
like Maggie, i know my sadness is repulsive.
i know my discontent is an Abomination.
but am incapable of hiding it.
like Maggie, i went to the doctor to get a referral to a psychiatrist and the doctor said oh! you're sad? you don't need a psychiatrist for that! i can give you pills! want 'em?
and Maggie and i go to the doctor because suburbia is a Brave New World, full of soma, a place where sadness is unacceptable, one small step away from being criminal.
and i was afraid, had been afraid for a very long time, afraid that my sadness was symptomatic of insanity. the insanity of WOMAN that we hear so much about. the female mind that snaps and twists. you can see it! just look at her! she isn't SMILING! she must be CRAZY! sadness as Hysteria. to be dissatisfied by the expectations of the Status Quo, to express that dissatisfaction, to not hide discontent is a SYMPTOM OF INSANITY and has always been labeled as such.
unless you are male. then your discontent is REVOLUTIONARY.
there is the duty, still, to be pretty and pink. to smile. to say please. to keep your voice low. even and calm. watch your tone. can't you smile just a little? just a little? and give us just a little more leg, a little more cleavage while you're at it.
we must keep up appearances.
---
Maggie is an After School Special.
i am an After School Special too.
and the thing about After School Specials: they aren't supposed to come true. they are stories of Prevention.
don't be like this BAD GIRL!
don't be like this BAD DAUGHTER!
OR ELSE!
girls dressed up in the red whore robes of The Cautionary Tale. their stories are Preventative Measures:
---
i am Maggie: looking for something to love and be loved by.
i am Maggie: wondering if the doctors and the Mommies are right.
i am Maggie: twisting in blankets for a solid year, innumerable days spent in the same greasy pajamas, remote control in hand, chain smoking, not working, not holding down a job, art is not a job, writing is not a job, where's your big pay check? show us the green so we can know what you do has meaning!
i am Maggie: alone and afraid and lost, wishing i were dead, wishing i could fit in and be happy, wishing there really was a magic pill that could set my mind and heart at ease, ease me in to the swampy malaise of shopping sprees and idiot TV.
i am Maggie: wearing all black and saving up the pills, wanting to live and not knowing how to do that or what Living even is.
"Maggie is currently low-functioning"
isn't it more than just breathing? it has to be! isn't it more than work work work for a new dress, marry a man who ignores you, marry a man who goes to the strip club because it's just entertainment, you shouldn't be offended! all men do it. what's the big deal?
but i worked as a cocktail waitress in a strip club when i was 22, locked in "suburbia", afraid to crawl back home, afraid to admit failure to my step-father, the man who told me i was "property" until i turned 18 and therefore he was entitled to read my diary. the man who told me that even if he received a signed statement from GOD that i would go on to become a rich and famous artist, there was NO WAY IN HELL he'd help me go to art school. i could not crawl back to that. i could not bring myself to say you're right, i'm a failure. i'll do what you tell me to do and i won't talk back. my pride. my resolve. my short life, so filled with abuse and dominion and struggle and compromise. my short life.
but i had an apartment of my own where i could hang pictures of things i loved and stay up late if i wanted to and leave my clothes on the floor if i wanted to and there were no rules about how much milk i was allowed to drink and no time limits on how long i could stay in the shower and no one to explain myself to or fight with or be called names by...
unless you consider my dick-head boyfriend at the time who liked to wake me up in the middle of the night to tell me all the reasons why he couldn't marry me, all the things that were wrong with me, all the things i must correct in order to make it possible for him to continue loving me.
and then he told me he "didn't like bills" and left.
ran home to Mommy 2 months after taking the apartment.
there was no way i could crawl back. i was a line cook at Pizza Hut and going to school part-time at the local community college. there was no way to pay the rent with that. i was Maggie. and so i went to the man in town that knows how to make a pretty girl some money quick. i sold my morality in order to protect myself from the ethics of a southern-born step-father and a mother who was too lost herself at the time to stand up for me. there was no Help to ask for.
and so i waited tables in a strip club.
i know what the fuck goes down there.
i know what the fuck you go there for.
and NO not all men are broken down, hateful, sniveling, whining, conspiring scum.
the only men i saw in that place that had even a semblance of a right to be there were amputees and elderly widowers. even the dancing girls thought so. even the dancing girls said YOU GUYS ARE SCUM! and they laughed in your face and you sat there, stupid as Adam, taking it, forking over the grocery money to a woman you don't know and who will never let you touch her. and you know it and you don't care because all you want is to get your dick up and Wifey doesn't cut it anymore. ever since she became Mommy, you've gotten bored.
and so they took your money and i took your money. i accepted the bills laid on my tray to keep me there, pinned in the smoking room, just to listen to your sad-sac existence. for a while i pitied you. for a while i felt sad and motherly. for awhile i thought that maybe The Women were to blame. the wives and mothers that you went home to. that maybe if they shook their asses in your face, maybe if they crawled like a cat, maybe if they donned the attire of The Godless Whore every now and then, you'd be happy. not so broken down. not so low. for a while i blamed The Women too. for a while.
until my ass had been pinched one time too many. and that man tried to slide his hand between my legs. went right for the gravy, there in the center of the club with all his friends around. that chuckle head who thought that, simply because i was there, in a place like that, that i was there to be fondled and touched and compromised. simply by my being there i was asking for it.
and i have relatives who would agree.
this "agreeing" that women deserve violence has infected me. it has effectively kept me quiet, kept me in the house, kept me zippered and buttoned and flailing in silence. it has made me Maggie. Maggie, who slices her own skin. Maggie, who looks in the mirror and only sees UGLY.
---
Preventative Measures Must Be Taken.
We Must Keep Up Appearances.
The Image.
The Image.
IT MUST BE PROTECTED AT ALL COSTS.
---
in the strip club, the black-light erased the stretch-marks. the black-light erased the scars of the cutter. black-light foists the white, makes it glow, makes an Ugly Girl beautiful for the length of a song or two. and the strange thing is i can't tell you how many times i was asked what's a good girl like you doing in a place like this? and i can't tell you how many times the regulars said i'd rather watch you walk back and forth carrying drinks than look at the stage and i'd better never walk in here and see YOU up there!
they were not diluted about what went down there either.
they were not unaware of the milieu we were creating. everyday. all day. and all night. with a free lunch too if you came in before 2pm.
it is one of the saddest places i've ever been.
in a town classified as a suburb.
---
where is "suburbia"?
California is quickly becoming one litter-filled out-door mall.
suburb to what? where?
San Francisco? LA?
shall we say that only locations with respected names count? that only in these locales does crime arise? big fat NO. almost every female i know has been molested or raped or hit in the face in a place called a suburb.
and then the mothers, the mothers, who say Oh, chin up! it isn't that bad! the mothers, the mothers, who just like the women on Wife-Swap, beat in the Agenda of Beauty, that landing a husband is STILL Priority Number 1, that dressing up in pink and smelling pretty and making sure every inch of skin is hairless and supple and enticing is All Important and will make Jesus love you, that when you rip your unseemly hair out the angel sing.
in Walnut Creek, California, i saw a man walking down the street holding the hand of his tiny daughter. blonde and sweet, maybe only 2 years old, wearing those damn "jogging" pants, rhinestones stretched across her diapered bottom. JUICY on the ass of an infant.
and i am "crazy" for saying THAT is immoral. THAT is unacceptable.
the Trend Chorus sings: oh, you take things way too seriously!
this is the Banality of Evil that Kate Zambreno puts on center stage to pole dance for us.
---
in a strip club, the expectations are on the surface. the tatters of Jesus' robe aren't thrown on top in there. for all the fantasy involved, there is no cloak that covers The Real there. in the strip club, there are no minced words. no minced oaths. no hidden agendas. no hidden contempt. the contempt is on the surface:
"jokes" i heard in the strip club-
what's the best thing about showering with an 18 year old?
with her hair slicked back, she looks 15.
what do you say to a woman with two black eyes?
nothing. you already told her twice.
why would you never buy a woman a watch?
there's a clock on the stove.
how is a woman like dog shit?
the older they are, the easier they are to pick up.
i really can't see any difference between these jokes and the lessons i learned growing up in a somewhat Christian home. one is said crudely, the other has the glitter of the gospel on top. just like the sprinkles on one of Mommy's cupcakes: made with LOVE.
---
you know that Baudrillard essay, the one The Matrix movie is inspired by, the one that says the world we see is false, imagined, made up, a figment of our collective desires, an illusion, an apparition? when i read it in school, i felt really fucking angry about it. i thought:
fuck you, dude! i dreamt up my father's broken neck? i imagined the crack against the floor of that black bottomed pool? i imagined the halo bolted to his skull? and all this on Father's Day when i was a nine year old girl. i imagined the destruction of my family? the complete separation. the division. the splintering. our blood dissolving in the pool. my father's body floating limp. crushed hands holding on at the rim. the gasp for breath. the gasp for forgiveness. the instant wish for time to move backward. just a second. just a second. and all my pain is "made up"? everything i've cried for, struggled against, been tortured by, is a figment of my own imagination? these sidewalks and school yards where i was teased for being Ugly and teased for being Poor and teased for having Divorced Parent aren't real? fuck you! think the dean will buy it if i tell him "hey guess what, the world is imagined therefore my tuition isn't real and i don't have to pay it" ? think my father would be pleased if i came to him and said, "good news, old man! the world is imagined therefore your injury is not real! stand up and walk, Ye Are Healed!"
i took it pretty personally.
---
when i'm painting outside, sometimes a person will come by and ask about whatever it is i'm working on. lately i've been working on a portrait of Elsie Paroubek.
i tell them her name.
i tell them about Henry Darger
and how Elsie was murdered in Chicago
and her killer was never caught.
i tell them and they walk away.
fast.
but not before giving me The Look.
The Look that lets me know painting pictures of little dead girls whose killers were never brought to justice is BAD and WRONG and WEIRD.
and seeing my father come toward you in his wheelchair down an aisle in Wal-Mart makes people feel WEIRD and BAD too. makes people look at the ceiling, look at the floor, look anywhere other than The Display of Pain that is his body. Pain, Injury, Breakage that can't be hidden. his body, a signifier of Loss. his body, a cage.
as a culture, we like our sad stories locked away, glowing inside the rectangle of the television. my father's body, our destroyed family, the Reality of our history makes dominant culture "feel bad"... even our extended family looked away.
and so my dad stopped going out in public.
but shows like Wife-Swap are totally alright and not weird at all- trading one's wife for another, severing her from her children, placing her children in the care of some other psychopath who thinks prostituting the life and well-being of her own family is A-OKAY cuz LOOK HON! I'M ON TV!!!!! YAY ME!!!!
(side-note: i really hope the children who have appeared on this show become writers and artists one day)
and so i look at the TV and i look at the sprawl and i remember the disintegration of my own family, a disintegration that was not scripted or edited or cut for the most effect and i think:
is this real?
is this what we value?
this is what the world is?
it is our collective love of excess and contempt for ideas, for learning, for art, that makes "Real Tragedy" WRONG and WEIRD and BAD. it is our decaying ethics, decaying in service of entertainment, that relegates personal tragedy to the realm of Shame and Secrecy.
we must keep up appearances.
---
the art collector joke goes: you want Van Gogh hanging on your wall, not sitting on your couch.
" ...Mommy is in a way secretly glad that Maggie doesn't call anymore, because all Maggie does is bring up unpleasant things like war and drugs and the painfilled past, and Mommy feels like she wants to wash her brain out afterwards, because Maggie stirs up such unpleasant unnecessary things."
Tragedy offends. it isn't supposed to happen here. not in America. that's stuff for the Third World to deal with. and so Sadness, home-grown, right here in the back-yards of the good ol' U S of A, is hidden. especially when that Sadness sits on the face of the female. throw a tarp over it (powder and gloss) and forget all about that ugly mess (your ethical dilemmas) and let's get back to the BBQ.
sadness puts you Outside.
---
i am Outside.
---
i am Maggie: floundering and stretching and realizing that trusting the hands of the status quo has only done me deep harm. that i have swallowed and swallowed the call for Silence. here are your pills, miss. because still it is ugly for a woman to speak up and it is still ugly for a woman to cry out. it is ugly for a female to express discontent. it is ugly for a female to be anything other than happy. Kathleen Hannah: because no one likes a girl with a red face.
---
i twist away from The Mommy. The Mommy who would so readily go to a casting-call for Wife-Swap. the mommy who would see it as a Divine Call, an opportunity to teach that other BAD MOMMY how to be a GOOD MOMMY just like her. The Mommy who rejects her own child, the daughter, the daughter who is not dutiful (happy). duty laid out like a dress on the bed. The Mommy-Hand that stretches to feed-shove the ideals of middle-class malaise: drive a new car that the neighbors will sigh over, get a mani-pedi, swindle that poor sap in to marriage, shop at Wal-Mart it's good to save money, don't talk back, sit your ass on the couch and swallow swallow swallow! why aren't you smiling? you're so much prettier when you smile!
and so...
---
Our Fallen Angel shows more than just a little leg. she is The Godless Whore, smoking cigarettes and gaining weight anyway, cast in black, disowned by her mother. she can no longer read and no longer think, just like Esther Greenwood. she reaches for the stored up pills, just like Esther Greenwood. she lays down after the big swallow, just like Esther Greenwood. she closes herself, absorbs The Real, falls to the deep red and
lands in a hospital bed. her Mommy is offended. her Mommy thinks how could this have HAPPENED! i am such a GOOD MOTHER! this can't be REAL!
---
Maggie (i) doesn't fit in to the landscape. the sprawl. the concrete boxes with names written on them. the Ruscha pictorials that we call REAL.
this inability to slide seamlessly in to the landscape makes Maggie (me) a "judgmental ingrate". this makes Maggie (me) a "judgmental fuck". this names Maggie (me) HEATHEN. BAD DAUGHTER. GODLESS WHORE.
---
in a car, on the freeway, i gaze at the deep landscape of Forever 21s. i think of the song by Ladytron: they only want you when you're seventeen. when you're 21, you're no fun.
i notice bums outside the Taco Bells. the bums notice all the young girls. i pass the SUVs, Mommies behind the wheel with stickers of their cartoon family pasted to the back window, and remember the footage of all that oil erupting from the pipeline under the sea. under the sea... another song. a Disney reality. Ariel walking on knives just to get the guy. just to get the perfect wedding. just to get the Happily Ever After. i notice all the young girls too- smiling bright and pretty in all that pink, walking on knives between Edwards Cinemas and RV storage parks just to get the guys.
and...
the mother bought her daughter a boob job as a wedding present.
self-esteem with which to go to the alter, the union, the promise, the covenant.
big titties with which to kneel at the feet of Christ.
big titties to carry with you in to the role of Good Wife.
---
in a car, on the freeway, i notice the sprawl. i look at the landscape and think of Maggie, think of Mommy, watch the spectacle unfold unnoticed, and the Baudrillard essay begins to make sense.
---
Maggie twists in her sheets, alone, because she can't figure out how to make herself fall in line. she can't figure out how to put on the flowered dress and like it, she doesn't know how to be the pretty pink daughter her Mommy always wanted.
the unhappy daughter is Contrary.
a Girls Gone Wild commercial frolics in the background as we bow our heads at the table and pray to Jesus to bless the hands that prepared this meal.
---
i see how often i have kept myself silent.
and Why.
preface:
books =
mirrors and sledgehammers.
when i read Barthes for the first time, The Death of the Author, my mind went angry, flopped out of my body, phished around on the ground, spiked by rocks and nails, until i read it again and understood the romance of it. the relief of it. the permission-slip. the courage and freedom given to artists and writers in that essay: we are not gods and do not have to impale ourselves on false notions of "genius" and "originality", creating suns to spin around... that this act of writing/drawing/mapping/making is a human act, a way of tracing our lineage, a mode of connecting, building, and understanding.
---
i received Kate Zambreno's book O Fallen Angel and Dodie Bellamy's chapbook Barf Manifesto in the same week. i read them back to back. a pairing that drastically (and thankfully) changed how i perceive the act of writing, the action of reading, and as a result, how i actively perceive the world.
and so i put the coffee on and i go to the page to write.
i try to put the events of my life in a line... as IF order is even possible. as IF finding an order will supply relief. as IF forcing my ideas in to some sort of easily managed whole will set this upside-down world right again.
nope.
life is too multi-faceted for that.
a single human being is too multi-faceted for that.
all the splinters a person collects. splinters and scars and treasures and junk. why can't i decide to see that chaotic multitude as Beautiful? the rich warmth and wealth of a single life, caught in the corners of the carpet, the innards of a young woman's notebook, the photos at the bottom of the box, the hair in her eyes and the smell of her blankets, graphite dust coating every inch of her home.
her vacuum cleaner is broken.
the dust stays.
this could be a beautiful thing.
these books become the well-spring of courage. it is where i go to draw faith and steam when my own seems to be running out, stuttering, sighing, exhausted. my keepsakes. my treasures. my Encouragements! my lineage!
this strange and painful coming-of-age.
---
the following is an "essay" in the Barf Manifesto sense of the word. a form that is very much a conjoined twin. individual meats breathing under the same skin. a deformity that shouldn't occur if you really do believe in Jesus. a grotesque tragedy that shouldn't find any good Christian.
or so it is believed in America.
as it is personified in Kate's book.
ranting essay:
AND GOD CREATED THE GODLESS WHORE:
(morals pillaged from under the bell jar of a suburban strip club on the way to art school-
one daughter's dutiful response to Kate Zambreno's O Fallen Angel)
O Fallen Angel, is that me?
am i Maggie?
lost in the spin of an upside-down world, reaching out for something real to hold on to amid the swirl of trendy desires, this eat eat eat and suck and swallow consumerism: our Pop-Religiosity.
Maggie won't wear the flowered dress because the flowered dress feels wrong on her skin. the hand of a creepy uncle. a kinder, gentler molestation.
it goes unnoticed. what's the big deal?
---
daughters who do not smile, daughters who are sad, daughters who are lost and don't hide it, are ugly.
Maggie is ugly.
i am Maggie.
i am ugly.
simple math.
the flowered dress feels wrong to me too.
and i know my sadness hurts my mother.
---
Maggie and i make the awkward jerk toward short-lived moments of feeling understood, of feeling safe, of feeling some sense of belonging. frenzied hands pushing through wild hair, hoping for an armature, an armor, that fits this body. the BAD DAUGHTER body: sadness on the surface, sadness in the eyes, sadness made evident.
they call this look Haunted.
my mother said it's like the light has gone out in you.
---
to not smile is the thorn.
sadness is offensive. it is an accusation. an indication that something is wrong.
sadness is an Indictment.
i think of Sylvia Plath agreeing to publish The Bell Jar under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, spare Mommy some embarrassment, just like the Mommy in her book, just like the Mommy is Kate's book- the daughter's sadness seen as an attack on what a wonderful mommy she really is. i was so good to you! how can you behave like this? you are so selfish!
a daughter's dissatisfaction with the ways of the world, the modes of the home, the call to docile silence and acceptance is seen as an attack, seen as ego, seen as a snobby up-turned spoiled-rotten nose, seen as ungrateful, seen as UGLY. our inability to slide in comfortably to the 50s, the 50s that are alive and well, is offensive. it is UGLY. you are UGLY. i am UGLY. i am UGLY Maggie.
and in addition to UGLY, we are CRAZY too.
just as i see myself peering out from behind the lines of The Bell Jar as Esther Greenwood, i see myself writhing in the sticky sheets Maggie cries in.
---
like Maggie, i know my status as Other.
like Maggie, i know my sadness is repulsive.
i know my discontent is an Abomination.
but am incapable of hiding it.
like Maggie, i went to the doctor to get a referral to a psychiatrist and the doctor said oh! you're sad? you don't need a psychiatrist for that! i can give you pills! want 'em?
and Maggie and i go to the doctor because suburbia is a Brave New World, full of soma, a place where sadness is unacceptable, one small step away from being criminal.
and i was afraid, had been afraid for a very long time, afraid that my sadness was symptomatic of insanity. the insanity of WOMAN that we hear so much about. the female mind that snaps and twists. you can see it! just look at her! she isn't SMILING! she must be CRAZY! sadness as Hysteria. to be dissatisfied by the expectations of the Status Quo, to express that dissatisfaction, to not hide discontent is a SYMPTOM OF INSANITY and has always been labeled as such.
unless you are male. then your discontent is REVOLUTIONARY.
there is the duty, still, to be pretty and pink. to smile. to say please. to keep your voice low. even and calm. watch your tone. can't you smile just a little? just a little? and give us just a little more leg, a little more cleavage while you're at it.
we must keep up appearances.
---
Maggie is an After School Special.
i am an After School Special too.
and the thing about After School Specials: they aren't supposed to come true. they are stories of Prevention.
don't be like this BAD GIRL!
don't be like this BAD DAUGHTER!
OR ELSE!
girls dressed up in the red whore robes of The Cautionary Tale. their stories are Preventative Measures:
---
i am Maggie: looking for something to love and be loved by.
i am Maggie: wondering if the doctors and the Mommies are right.
i am Maggie: twisting in blankets for a solid year, innumerable days spent in the same greasy pajamas, remote control in hand, chain smoking, not working, not holding down a job, art is not a job, writing is not a job, where's your big pay check? show us the green so we can know what you do has meaning!
i am Maggie: alone and afraid and lost, wishing i were dead, wishing i could fit in and be happy, wishing there really was a magic pill that could set my mind and heart at ease, ease me in to the swampy malaise of shopping sprees and idiot TV.
i am Maggie: wearing all black and saving up the pills, wanting to live and not knowing how to do that or what Living even is.
"Maggie is currently low-functioning"
isn't it more than just breathing? it has to be! isn't it more than work work work for a new dress, marry a man who ignores you, marry a man who goes to the strip club because it's just entertainment, you shouldn't be offended! all men do it. what's the big deal?
but i worked as a cocktail waitress in a strip club when i was 22, locked in "suburbia", afraid to crawl back home, afraid to admit failure to my step-father, the man who told me i was "property" until i turned 18 and therefore he was entitled to read my diary. the man who told me that even if he received a signed statement from GOD that i would go on to become a rich and famous artist, there was NO WAY IN HELL he'd help me go to art school. i could not crawl back to that. i could not bring myself to say you're right, i'm a failure. i'll do what you tell me to do and i won't talk back. my pride. my resolve. my short life, so filled with abuse and dominion and struggle and compromise. my short life.
but i had an apartment of my own where i could hang pictures of things i loved and stay up late if i wanted to and leave my clothes on the floor if i wanted to and there were no rules about how much milk i was allowed to drink and no time limits on how long i could stay in the shower and no one to explain myself to or fight with or be called names by...
unless you consider my dick-head boyfriend at the time who liked to wake me up in the middle of the night to tell me all the reasons why he couldn't marry me, all the things that were wrong with me, all the things i must correct in order to make it possible for him to continue loving me.
and then he told me he "didn't like bills" and left.
ran home to Mommy 2 months after taking the apartment.
there was no way i could crawl back. i was a line cook at Pizza Hut and going to school part-time at the local community college. there was no way to pay the rent with that. i was Maggie. and so i went to the man in town that knows how to make a pretty girl some money quick. i sold my morality in order to protect myself from the ethics of a southern-born step-father and a mother who was too lost herself at the time to stand up for me. there was no Help to ask for.
and so i waited tables in a strip club.
i know what the fuck goes down there.
i know what the fuck you go there for.
and NO not all men are broken down, hateful, sniveling, whining, conspiring scum.
the only men i saw in that place that had even a semblance of a right to be there were amputees and elderly widowers. even the dancing girls thought so. even the dancing girls said YOU GUYS ARE SCUM! and they laughed in your face and you sat there, stupid as Adam, taking it, forking over the grocery money to a woman you don't know and who will never let you touch her. and you know it and you don't care because all you want is to get your dick up and Wifey doesn't cut it anymore. ever since she became Mommy, you've gotten bored.
and so they took your money and i took your money. i accepted the bills laid on my tray to keep me there, pinned in the smoking room, just to listen to your sad-sac existence. for a while i pitied you. for a while i felt sad and motherly. for awhile i thought that maybe The Women were to blame. the wives and mothers that you went home to. that maybe if they shook their asses in your face, maybe if they crawled like a cat, maybe if they donned the attire of The Godless Whore every now and then, you'd be happy. not so broken down. not so low. for a while i blamed The Women too. for a while.
until my ass had been pinched one time too many. and that man tried to slide his hand between my legs. went right for the gravy, there in the center of the club with all his friends around. that chuckle head who thought that, simply because i was there, in a place like that, that i was there to be fondled and touched and compromised. simply by my being there i was asking for it.
and i have relatives who would agree.
this "agreeing" that women deserve violence has infected me. it has effectively kept me quiet, kept me in the house, kept me zippered and buttoned and flailing in silence. it has made me Maggie. Maggie, who slices her own skin. Maggie, who looks in the mirror and only sees UGLY.
---
Preventative Measures Must Be Taken.
We Must Keep Up Appearances.
The Image.
The Image.
IT MUST BE PROTECTED AT ALL COSTS.
---
in the strip club, the black-light erased the stretch-marks. the black-light erased the scars of the cutter. black-light foists the white, makes it glow, makes an Ugly Girl beautiful for the length of a song or two. and the strange thing is i can't tell you how many times i was asked what's a good girl like you doing in a place like this? and i can't tell you how many times the regulars said i'd rather watch you walk back and forth carrying drinks than look at the stage and i'd better never walk in here and see YOU up there!
they were not diluted about what went down there either.
they were not unaware of the milieu we were creating. everyday. all day. and all night. with a free lunch too if you came in before 2pm.
it is one of the saddest places i've ever been.
in a town classified as a suburb.
---
where is "suburbia"?
California is quickly becoming one litter-filled out-door mall.
suburb to what? where?
San Francisco? LA?
shall we say that only locations with respected names count? that only in these locales does crime arise? big fat NO. almost every female i know has been molested or raped or hit in the face in a place called a suburb.
and then the mothers, the mothers, who say Oh, chin up! it isn't that bad! the mothers, the mothers, who just like the women on Wife-Swap, beat in the Agenda of Beauty, that landing a husband is STILL Priority Number 1, that dressing up in pink and smelling pretty and making sure every inch of skin is hairless and supple and enticing is All Important and will make Jesus love you, that when you rip your unseemly hair out the angel sing.
in Walnut Creek, California, i saw a man walking down the street holding the hand of his tiny daughter. blonde and sweet, maybe only 2 years old, wearing those damn "jogging" pants, rhinestones stretched across her diapered bottom. JUICY on the ass of an infant.
and i am "crazy" for saying THAT is immoral. THAT is unacceptable.
the Trend Chorus sings: oh, you take things way too seriously!
this is the Banality of Evil that Kate Zambreno puts on center stage to pole dance for us.
---
in a strip club, the expectations are on the surface. the tatters of Jesus' robe aren't thrown on top in there. for all the fantasy involved, there is no cloak that covers The Real there. in the strip club, there are no minced words. no minced oaths. no hidden agendas. no hidden contempt. the contempt is on the surface:
"jokes" i heard in the strip club-
what's the best thing about showering with an 18 year old?
with her hair slicked back, she looks 15.
what do you say to a woman with two black eyes?
nothing. you already told her twice.
why would you never buy a woman a watch?
there's a clock on the stove.
how is a woman like dog shit?
the older they are, the easier they are to pick up.
i really can't see any difference between these jokes and the lessons i learned growing up in a somewhat Christian home. one is said crudely, the other has the glitter of the gospel on top. just like the sprinkles on one of Mommy's cupcakes: made with LOVE.
---
you know that Baudrillard essay, the one The Matrix movie is inspired by, the one that says the world we see is false, imagined, made up, a figment of our collective desires, an illusion, an apparition? when i read it in school, i felt really fucking angry about it. i thought:
fuck you, dude! i dreamt up my father's broken neck? i imagined the crack against the floor of that black bottomed pool? i imagined the halo bolted to his skull? and all this on Father's Day when i was a nine year old girl. i imagined the destruction of my family? the complete separation. the division. the splintering. our blood dissolving in the pool. my father's body floating limp. crushed hands holding on at the rim. the gasp for breath. the gasp for forgiveness. the instant wish for time to move backward. just a second. just a second. and all my pain is "made up"? everything i've cried for, struggled against, been tortured by, is a figment of my own imagination? these sidewalks and school yards where i was teased for being Ugly and teased for being Poor and teased for having Divorced Parent aren't real? fuck you! think the dean will buy it if i tell him "hey guess what, the world is imagined therefore my tuition isn't real and i don't have to pay it" ? think my father would be pleased if i came to him and said, "good news, old man! the world is imagined therefore your injury is not real! stand up and walk, Ye Are Healed!"
i took it pretty personally.
---
when i'm painting outside, sometimes a person will come by and ask about whatever it is i'm working on. lately i've been working on a portrait of Elsie Paroubek.
i tell them her name.
i tell them about Henry Darger
and how Elsie was murdered in Chicago
and her killer was never caught.
i tell them and they walk away.
fast.
but not before giving me The Look.
The Look that lets me know painting pictures of little dead girls whose killers were never brought to justice is BAD and WRONG and WEIRD.
and seeing my father come toward you in his wheelchair down an aisle in Wal-Mart makes people feel WEIRD and BAD too. makes people look at the ceiling, look at the floor, look anywhere other than The Display of Pain that is his body. Pain, Injury, Breakage that can't be hidden. his body, a signifier of Loss. his body, a cage.
as a culture, we like our sad stories locked away, glowing inside the rectangle of the television. my father's body, our destroyed family, the Reality of our history makes dominant culture "feel bad"... even our extended family looked away.
and so my dad stopped going out in public.
but shows like Wife-Swap are totally alright and not weird at all- trading one's wife for another, severing her from her children, placing her children in the care of some other psychopath who thinks prostituting the life and well-being of her own family is A-OKAY cuz LOOK HON! I'M ON TV!!!!! YAY ME!!!!
(side-note: i really hope the children who have appeared on this show become writers and artists one day)
and so i look at the TV and i look at the sprawl and i remember the disintegration of my own family, a disintegration that was not scripted or edited or cut for the most effect and i think:
is this real?
is this what we value?
this is what the world is?
it is our collective love of excess and contempt for ideas, for learning, for art, that makes "Real Tragedy" WRONG and WEIRD and BAD. it is our decaying ethics, decaying in service of entertainment, that relegates personal tragedy to the realm of Shame and Secrecy.
we must keep up appearances.
---
the art collector joke goes: you want Van Gogh hanging on your wall, not sitting on your couch.
" ...Mommy is in a way secretly glad that Maggie doesn't call anymore, because all Maggie does is bring up unpleasant things like war and drugs and the painfilled past, and Mommy feels like she wants to wash her brain out afterwards, because Maggie stirs up such unpleasant unnecessary things."
Tragedy offends. it isn't supposed to happen here. not in America. that's stuff for the Third World to deal with. and so Sadness, home-grown, right here in the back-yards of the good ol' U S of A, is hidden. especially when that Sadness sits on the face of the female. throw a tarp over it (powder and gloss) and forget all about that ugly mess (your ethical dilemmas) and let's get back to the BBQ.
sadness puts you Outside.
---
i am Outside.
---
i am Maggie: floundering and stretching and realizing that trusting the hands of the status quo has only done me deep harm. that i have swallowed and swallowed the call for Silence. here are your pills, miss. because still it is ugly for a woman to speak up and it is still ugly for a woman to cry out. it is ugly for a female to express discontent. it is ugly for a female to be anything other than happy. Kathleen Hannah: because no one likes a girl with a red face.
---
i twist away from The Mommy. The Mommy who would so readily go to a casting-call for Wife-Swap. the mommy who would see it as a Divine Call, an opportunity to teach that other BAD MOMMY how to be a GOOD MOMMY just like her. The Mommy who rejects her own child, the daughter, the daughter who is not dutiful (happy). duty laid out like a dress on the bed. The Mommy-Hand that stretches to feed-shove the ideals of middle-class malaise: drive a new car that the neighbors will sigh over, get a mani-pedi, swindle that poor sap in to marriage, shop at Wal-Mart it's good to save money, don't talk back, sit your ass on the couch and swallow swallow swallow! why aren't you smiling? you're so much prettier when you smile!
and so...
---
Our Fallen Angel shows more than just a little leg. she is The Godless Whore, smoking cigarettes and gaining weight anyway, cast in black, disowned by her mother. she can no longer read and no longer think, just like Esther Greenwood. she reaches for the stored up pills, just like Esther Greenwood. she lays down after the big swallow, just like Esther Greenwood. she closes herself, absorbs The Real, falls to the deep red and
lands in a hospital bed. her Mommy is offended. her Mommy thinks how could this have HAPPENED! i am such a GOOD MOTHER! this can't be REAL!
---
Maggie (i) doesn't fit in to the landscape. the sprawl. the concrete boxes with names written on them. the Ruscha pictorials that we call REAL.
this inability to slide seamlessly in to the landscape makes Maggie (me) a "judgmental ingrate". this makes Maggie (me) a "judgmental fuck". this names Maggie (me) HEATHEN. BAD DAUGHTER. GODLESS WHORE.
---
in a car, on the freeway, i gaze at the deep landscape of Forever 21s. i think of the song by Ladytron: they only want you when you're seventeen. when you're 21, you're no fun.
i notice bums outside the Taco Bells. the bums notice all the young girls. i pass the SUVs, Mommies behind the wheel with stickers of their cartoon family pasted to the back window, and remember the footage of all that oil erupting from the pipeline under the sea. under the sea... another song. a Disney reality. Ariel walking on knives just to get the guy. just to get the perfect wedding. just to get the Happily Ever After. i notice all the young girls too- smiling bright and pretty in all that pink, walking on knives between Edwards Cinemas and RV storage parks just to get the guys.
and...
the mother bought her daughter a boob job as a wedding present.
self-esteem with which to go to the alter, the union, the promise, the covenant.
big titties with which to kneel at the feet of Christ.
big titties to carry with you in to the role of Good Wife.
---
in a car, on the freeway, i notice the sprawl. i look at the landscape and think of Maggie, think of Mommy, watch the spectacle unfold unnoticed, and the Baudrillard essay begins to make sense.
---
Maggie twists in her sheets, alone, because she can't figure out how to make herself fall in line. she can't figure out how to put on the flowered dress and like it, she doesn't know how to be the pretty pink daughter her Mommy always wanted.
the unhappy daughter is Contrary.
a Girls Gone Wild commercial frolics in the background as we bow our heads at the table and pray to Jesus to bless the hands that prepared this meal.
---
i see how often i have kept myself silent.
and Why.
Aug 22, 2010
2 things
it would behove me (and every artist on the planet) to remember:
"The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time."
~John Stuart Mill
and
we have fallen to a strange era, it seems, where politicking has replaced integrity. the affiliation, the cord between names is king.
silence quickly follows.
if artists don't risk being laughed at, shunned, who will? if artists don't speak frankly about injustices, large and small, who will? if artists don't stick to their guns, who will? who will inspire others to investigate this world, unearth the abandoned ethics, search for meaning, create meaning, give us all a reason to fight, and believe that life isn't pointless? if artists can't be brave, who can be?
since the time of the renaissance, it has ceased to be in the job description for an artist to do what they are told. we work for no king other than King Art itself.
i've said it once and i'll say it again because I need to hear it and maybe other artists do to:
integrity is NOT a rear-guard notion.
"The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time."
~John Stuart Mill
and
we have fallen to a strange era, it seems, where politicking has replaced integrity. the affiliation, the cord between names is king.
silence quickly follows.
if artists don't risk being laughed at, shunned, who will? if artists don't speak frankly about injustices, large and small, who will? if artists don't stick to their guns, who will? who will inspire others to investigate this world, unearth the abandoned ethics, search for meaning, create meaning, give us all a reason to fight, and believe that life isn't pointless? if artists can't be brave, who can be?
since the time of the renaissance, it has ceased to be in the job description for an artist to do what they are told. we work for no king other than King Art itself.
i've said it once and i'll say it again because I need to hear it and maybe other artists do to:
integrity is NOT a rear-guard notion.
self
last week was a weird week. a weird week rife with weird feelings and weird dreams and weird weird weird.
i filed away the drawings that have returned to me and that was weird. i left them out for a few days when i first brought them home, wrapped up in plastic sheets, gleaming, lying on their backs. a big oil painting and a fence in a frame are leaning against my bookcase. weird weird weird. to see this work again... some of which i haven't seen in the flesh in a year. weird to have it in my hands. and, that big distance of time sweeps something out of eyes and i can look at them as if i didn't make them... as if it isn't my work. and i can see how good and true they are. but it's a weird, slightly sick feeling to have them here: like i'm a bad mama who failed at finding them their new, perfect home. filing them away in one of the many huge portfolios here at home was a sad moment. i took my time about it, looked at each one, loved each one, slid them in with their sisters and clicked off the light.
weird.
but it's alright. i'm in one of those "transitional" phases and i need time with the work. time to sit with them and see them all rounded up together. see the line they draw. the lineage, the path. see the direction they point. it's no good to rush work out of the house. it really isn't. it's all anxiety and fear and perfectionism and that is definitely definitely definitely bad for an art practice. definitely. i've learned it the hard way.
the lesson isn't a fun one but it is bitterly, beautifully necessary: the value of patience and dedication and not getting in the horrible pattern of RUSH RUSH RUSH. the result is such a terrible loneliness. such a terrible wandering in the dark. such a terrible blinding wind. this time last year i sat in this exact same spot and wondered (in a very painful way) who the hell i am as an artist and as a person. i believed that these titles should be separate, individual, split. and now, a year later, i know there is no way to separate these things. like Popeye, "i am what i am and that's all that i am". and i've chosen to embrace that. i've chosen to let myself flourish and flounder and flail and fail if i need to. especially in the Beckett sense of the word:
FAIL BETTER.
i filed away the drawings that have returned to me and that was weird. i left them out for a few days when i first brought them home, wrapped up in plastic sheets, gleaming, lying on their backs. a big oil painting and a fence in a frame are leaning against my bookcase. weird weird weird. to see this work again... some of which i haven't seen in the flesh in a year. weird to have it in my hands. and, that big distance of time sweeps something out of eyes and i can look at them as if i didn't make them... as if it isn't my work. and i can see how good and true they are. but it's a weird, slightly sick feeling to have them here: like i'm a bad mama who failed at finding them their new, perfect home. filing them away in one of the many huge portfolios here at home was a sad moment. i took my time about it, looked at each one, loved each one, slid them in with their sisters and clicked off the light.
weird.
but it's alright. i'm in one of those "transitional" phases and i need time with the work. time to sit with them and see them all rounded up together. see the line they draw. the lineage, the path. see the direction they point. it's no good to rush work out of the house. it really isn't. it's all anxiety and fear and perfectionism and that is definitely definitely definitely bad for an art practice. definitely. i've learned it the hard way.
the lesson isn't a fun one but it is bitterly, beautifully necessary: the value of patience and dedication and not getting in the horrible pattern of RUSH RUSH RUSH. the result is such a terrible loneliness. such a terrible wandering in the dark. such a terrible blinding wind. this time last year i sat in this exact same spot and wondered (in a very painful way) who the hell i am as an artist and as a person. i believed that these titles should be separate, individual, split. and now, a year later, i know there is no way to separate these things. like Popeye, "i am what i am and that's all that i am". and i've chosen to embrace that. i've chosen to let myself flourish and flounder and flail and fail if i need to. especially in the Beckett sense of the word:
FAIL BETTER.
Aug 20, 2010
draft #2
.
it wasn't good enough.
or maybe it was just forgotten.
the white that folds down.
the envelope. the ceiling.
the wide eyelet curtains.
.
degrees accumulate.
sometimes rescind
like a promise.
sand in the sheets.
.
she lays under the big windows. there are two of them.
two windows in the same wall. a diptych. perpendicular
to the south sky. the light is good. the light falls
down. open mouths. warm as breath. and soft. she lays
on the floor. the curtains do not sway- she trembles,
lights a cigarette, and quietly closes the door.
.
i know sea glass was once nothing more than regular glass.
still, i want to be polished just the same.
.
on the other side of the windows are stars.
blue marks in the sky big as fists.
she stands close to the door.
she listens for feet.
.
we've hated each other for as long as i can remember.
.
it wasn't good enough.
or maybe it was just forgotten.
the white that folds down.
the envelope. the ceiling.
the wide eyelet curtains.
.
degrees accumulate.
sometimes rescind
like a promise.
sand in the sheets.
.
she lays under the big windows. there are two of them.
two windows in the same wall. a diptych. perpendicular
to the south sky. the light is good. the light falls
down. open mouths. warm as breath. and soft. she lays
on the floor. the curtains do not sway- she trembles,
lights a cigarette, and quietly closes the door.
.
i know sea glass was once nothing more than regular glass.
still, i want to be polished just the same.
.
on the other side of the windows are stars.
blue marks in the sky big as fists.
she stands close to the door.
she listens for feet.
.
we've hated each other for as long as i can remember.
.
Aug 18, 2010
and so it begins...
stumbled across this first thing.
:)
yesterday, with all my pictures back in my care, piled in to the car, i drove back across the golden gate bridge in to the wide green of the countryside. the light, all yellow. the light, all golden. tunnels to honk a horn in. and still, the heavy sadness. again, the heavy sadness. strange how that emotion staples itself to even good decisions.
i have not lost sight of the positivity of this action. my words and my face and my name and all the things that pour out of my hands are mine. mine alone. and maybe it's the alone part i don't like. it is scary sometimes. but i am reaching toward it and trying to be fearless, trying to look at nothing else but THE FACTS and THE FACTS are that i love what i do, i believe in it and i want to live inside it every single day and i want to see where these tangled roads lead. i want to find a deep courage within myself and i want to hold tight to integrity and love and honor. there will be sacrifices. yes yes yes there will be. lots. and lots of times when i feel afraid and incapable of rising to the challenge in front of me.
our fair elisabeth left a comment yesterday about the need for space. i readily agreed with her because i felt deep in my heart that it is true. and her comment stuck with me for the rest of the day. it followed me to bed. and as i lay there, wrapped in a black quilt, smelling the graphite in its pocks and dimples, under the black of eyelids, i realized i'm afraid of having lots of space. i'm afraid of claiming something i desperately need. my tendency/training kicks in and i feel i am being selfish. or just plain lonely.
it is a lonely road at times, but here i am. and i will allow myself the privileged/necessity to scream in my new wide-open space if i need to. i will allow myself the luxury of making an ass of myself if i need to. and i will roll around in all these words and images and fears until the heat of my struggle and flailing makes them congeal, gives them form, sends sparks off my body and burns my eyes from their bright glare.
my friend said to me: i am so interested to see where you will go from here.
me too. i am summoning the courage for that battle right now.
crochet hook? check.
paint brush? check.
pencil? check.
punk rock? check.
and this day will awake with my two Miss Smiths: Patti and Kiki, side by side, hugs and middle fingers aimed at the world, poems tumbling and a winning smile. :)
the new road opens.
:)
yesterday, with all my pictures back in my care, piled in to the car, i drove back across the golden gate bridge in to the wide green of the countryside. the light, all yellow. the light, all golden. tunnels to honk a horn in. and still, the heavy sadness. again, the heavy sadness. strange how that emotion staples itself to even good decisions.
i have not lost sight of the positivity of this action. my words and my face and my name and all the things that pour out of my hands are mine. mine alone. and maybe it's the alone part i don't like. it is scary sometimes. but i am reaching toward it and trying to be fearless, trying to look at nothing else but THE FACTS and THE FACTS are that i love what i do, i believe in it and i want to live inside it every single day and i want to see where these tangled roads lead. i want to find a deep courage within myself and i want to hold tight to integrity and love and honor. there will be sacrifices. yes yes yes there will be. lots. and lots of times when i feel afraid and incapable of rising to the challenge in front of me.
our fair elisabeth left a comment yesterday about the need for space. i readily agreed with her because i felt deep in my heart that it is true. and her comment stuck with me for the rest of the day. it followed me to bed. and as i lay there, wrapped in a black quilt, smelling the graphite in its pocks and dimples, under the black of eyelids, i realized i'm afraid of having lots of space. i'm afraid of claiming something i desperately need. my tendency/training kicks in and i feel i am being selfish. or just plain lonely.
it is a lonely road at times, but here i am. and i will allow myself the privileged/necessity to scream in my new wide-open space if i need to. i will allow myself the luxury of making an ass of myself if i need to. and i will roll around in all these words and images and fears until the heat of my struggle and flailing makes them congeal, gives them form, sends sparks off my body and burns my eyes from their bright glare.
my friend said to me: i am so interested to see where you will go from here.
me too. i am summoning the courage for that battle right now.
crochet hook? check.
paint brush? check.
pencil? check.
punk rock? check.
and this day will awake with my two Miss Smiths: Patti and Kiki, side by side, hugs and middle fingers aimed at the world, poems tumbling and a winning smile. :)
the new road opens.
Aug 16, 2010
hee hee
i should talk shit about oil painting more often! thwarted by a flat tire and the nearest patching service 2o+ miles away, i've been on a painting spree all day. images to revere came flooding in. unexpected. welcome even. slather slather and smear. :)
HUG
yesterday i spent my time crinkling up large sheets of white paper and dunking them scrunching them in a big yellow jug full of warm water with a squirt of silver paint in it. i made shimmering wrinkly paper, a new background to play upon, we'll see, we'll see. and when i was done i knocked the yellow jug over and its top and handle broke cleanly off. this is the yellow jug my mother gave me. i didn't throw it away. i plan on buying super glue or some kind of epoxy to put it back together again. i will keep the jug and let it have its history, let its cracks show, put the fracture on display. shall i do the same with myself? am i already? the thought of it makes me smile- waving scars, eager pink flags, a call to gaze at the broken places, girls who fall down but not apart. and i stumble across you, one by one, and i say your books and poems and pictures are FORTS. i will jump on your bed with you and hide underneath with you too. i will write love letters, fold them up like an airplane, sail them down the hall to your hands. it is a long practice of mine. i did this for my mother. GO TO YOUR ROOM for doing something stupid and i would sit in the doorway of my bedroom and write her a love letter, fold it up, make an airplane of it, sail it in to the living room, and wait to be called out to collect my new hug. she still has a few saved inside her big trunk.
this is the metaphor maybe that hugs all my work.
this is the metaphor maybe that hugs all my work.
Aug 15, 2010
EXACTLY!!!!!!
stumbled across this piece by Keri Smith, part of her Artist's Survival Kit project. wonderful! wonderful!! wonderful!!!
signify
the little icon i use as my "picture" here - the severed rope of braided hair - is my hair hung on a lonesome nail. i chopped it off three and a half years ago.
i caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror the other day. my old self. the self i know. the self i remember and feel lonely for. slender from The Almighty Jog, not skinny. and my hair, already grown long and wild with curls again. a fast growth. a fast return. perhaps my hair missed me too. :)
and what a happy glimpse it was. a moment of safety. security. something true. i am returning to myself- ideas i had been discouraged away from, fallen beliefs, poems. they sweep in like dust, like glitter, like hair across the eyes. it is a welcome warmth. a deep quilt full of ink stains and promise.
i know the face in the mirror again. i know the direction of the eyes. i know the lines at the edge of the smile.
i've been crocheting again. making new banners. messages. preparing for winter when i can use my body as a billboard. i will don the signs and signifiers. a quiet(er) performance. a true performance. drape my form in the ideas and modes i cling to. use the structure of skeleton and muscle as if it were a gallery wall. it seems honest. it seems necessary.
and as i twist the yarn through my fingers, over the hook, i return to my previous wide-open definition of ART. i return to the deep knowledge that a painting is no more important than a quilt or poem or necklace. it is all ART. the differences between are just a preference of form. a way to capture the signifiers, harness them, bend them to desire and need.
it is a cold day here. a day for doing the laundry and then returning to bed with my coffee and crochet hook. a day for a quiet(er) happiness.
i caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror the other day. my old self. the self i know. the self i remember and feel lonely for. slender from The Almighty Jog, not skinny. and my hair, already grown long and wild with curls again. a fast growth. a fast return. perhaps my hair missed me too. :)
and what a happy glimpse it was. a moment of safety. security. something true. i am returning to myself- ideas i had been discouraged away from, fallen beliefs, poems. they sweep in like dust, like glitter, like hair across the eyes. it is a welcome warmth. a deep quilt full of ink stains and promise.
i know the face in the mirror again. i know the direction of the eyes. i know the lines at the edge of the smile.
i've been crocheting again. making new banners. messages. preparing for winter when i can use my body as a billboard. i will don the signs and signifiers. a quiet(er) performance. a true performance. drape my form in the ideas and modes i cling to. use the structure of skeleton and muscle as if it were a gallery wall. it seems honest. it seems necessary.
and as i twist the yarn through my fingers, over the hook, i return to my previous wide-open definition of ART. i return to the deep knowledge that a painting is no more important than a quilt or poem or necklace. it is all ART. the differences between are just a preference of form. a way to capture the signifiers, harness them, bend them to desire and need.
it is a cold day here. a day for doing the laundry and then returning to bed with my coffee and crochet hook. a day for a quiet(er) happiness.
Aug 13, 2010
this road
i ran out of my delicious hazelnut and walked down to the market to buy more. on the way, i saw a hand painted sign in the window of a boarded up (papered up? sheets of white butcher paper on the inside of the windows) storefront that read closed for renovations in quite a lovely, humble, careful script. the letters were a dusty red on a flat white background. it looked like whoever painted it really took their time- no drips, no sloppy edges with the brush. and it reminded me of margaret kilgallen's work- her fascination with the signs people make for their small business, hand-made cultures, the beauty that follows actions of necessity. and i stopped to look at the sign again on my way back home. it's very simple but something in it spoke very loudly to me about my own life and struggle and pursuits at the moment.
closed for renovation.
i guess that's how i feel right now.
especially about oil painting. as a mode, it just seems so final, so serious, so declarative. and i'm not trying to make any declarations whatsoever in my work right now. i'm searching, hunting, excavating, mapping. and these modes are curious, exploratory. definitely not FINAL. not ABSOLUTE. and oil painting feels like that to me right now. maybe it's the history of oil painting flooding over? maybe it's the grand authority of oil? a confrontation with expectation? maybe maybe maybe...
but pencil, paper... their common attributes. humble, easy to access, the materials of map making. these things call me. they encourage me. i reach for these materials and it feels right. it feels authentic and honest. the right tool for the job.
i'm at a new beginning in life in a whole lot of ways.
i am on my own right now in a whole lot of ways.
simultaneously scary and exciting.
but freedom isn't an easy thing and it doesn't quickly line up with "happiness". there is struggle in those fiesty veins. and more and more i think that the work we make decides for us what type of artists we are, what type of life, what type of "career", what type of happiness we come to. my only choice in the matter is to hold on to the things i value and to stand with my ethics when the world breathes its confusion in my face. the only choice i have is to not crumble, to keep digging, to keep running, one day at a time, 15 minutes at a time, further and further down the harrowing highway.
i worry too much about things that are totally out of my control. a common human frailty, for sure. and i'm really trying to release myself from that shit right now. i'm trying very hard to trust The Work, trust The Process, trust The Materials, trust The Impulse. i've been carrying around one of my many Kiki Smith books again for days and days. again and again, i turn to her because she trusts her own work. she doesn't second guess the impulse. she just goes. and i have paired that book with Sylvia Plath's Ariel. they are laying together right now on the floor next to me. two bibles. two hymnals. two treasures. two books of hope and persistence. gems.
i see the mortality that surrounds us. how short, how small a day is.
i want my outsides to mirror my insides. i do not want to "live one way and pray another". i want my expressions to be as honest as possible. i want to whittle away at whatever hypocrisy exists in me.
and so i excavate. i writhe. i push the dirt aside.
i am trying to ignore fear.
i trust the pencil's scratch so completely. i trust it like i trust poetry. i trust it like a mother. i climb in to bed with my papers and all my blankets smell like graphite dust. they smell beautiful. my intimate "renovations".
maybe i'll make my own hand-painted sign? hang it on the wall in the living room. or maybe in the big window.
closed for renovation.
i guess that's how i feel right now.
especially about oil painting. as a mode, it just seems so final, so serious, so declarative. and i'm not trying to make any declarations whatsoever in my work right now. i'm searching, hunting, excavating, mapping. and these modes are curious, exploratory. definitely not FINAL. not ABSOLUTE. and oil painting feels like that to me right now. maybe it's the history of oil painting flooding over? maybe it's the grand authority of oil? a confrontation with expectation? maybe maybe maybe...
but pencil, paper... their common attributes. humble, easy to access, the materials of map making. these things call me. they encourage me. i reach for these materials and it feels right. it feels authentic and honest. the right tool for the job.
i'm at a new beginning in life in a whole lot of ways.
i am on my own right now in a whole lot of ways.
simultaneously scary and exciting.
but freedom isn't an easy thing and it doesn't quickly line up with "happiness". there is struggle in those fiesty veins. and more and more i think that the work we make decides for us what type of artists we are, what type of life, what type of "career", what type of happiness we come to. my only choice in the matter is to hold on to the things i value and to stand with my ethics when the world breathes its confusion in my face. the only choice i have is to not crumble, to keep digging, to keep running, one day at a time, 15 minutes at a time, further and further down the harrowing highway.
i worry too much about things that are totally out of my control. a common human frailty, for sure. and i'm really trying to release myself from that shit right now. i'm trying very hard to trust The Work, trust The Process, trust The Materials, trust The Impulse. i've been carrying around one of my many Kiki Smith books again for days and days. again and again, i turn to her because she trusts her own work. she doesn't second guess the impulse. she just goes. and i have paired that book with Sylvia Plath's Ariel. they are laying together right now on the floor next to me. two bibles. two hymnals. two treasures. two books of hope and persistence. gems.
i see the mortality that surrounds us. how short, how small a day is.
i want my outsides to mirror my insides. i do not want to "live one way and pray another". i want my expressions to be as honest as possible. i want to whittle away at whatever hypocrisy exists in me.
and so i excavate. i writhe. i push the dirt aside.
i am trying to ignore fear.
i trust the pencil's scratch so completely. i trust it like i trust poetry. i trust it like a mother. i climb in to bed with my papers and all my blankets smell like graphite dust. they smell beautiful. my intimate "renovations".
maybe i'll make my own hand-painted sign? hang it on the wall in the living room. or maybe in the big window.
Aug 12, 2010
LOVELY!
received these AMAZING images from my friend jose today. 19th century tribesmen from tierra del fuego. absolutely beautiful! bask in the gorgeousness!!!!
Aug 11, 2010
yup uh huh that's right!
this week i bumped up the The Almighty Jog to 3.4 miles and even tried out a new location that includes more inclines than the vineyard does. to be dramatic and self-congratulating about it, I FEEL LIKE A WARRIOR! YAY! strong, capable, and not so easily defeated after all. SASSY!
:)
:)
Aug 10, 2010
need
still thinking of Kusama- her "Art Medicine". art as cure. art as protection. art as health. art as talisman, amulet, proof of life, act of sadness, act of sanity, a savior, a quest, a means of survival, a means of investigation, of knowing, of coming to terms, a reckoning, a decision, a question.
art as breath. a voice. a call. a need.
food. shelter. water.
art as a basic necessity.
humans make meaning because they need it.
food. shelter. water.
beauty? clarity? direction?
something honest. something basic. something irrefutable.
today i am making wreaths. an ouroborus made of moths. a way of making a prayer. an attempt toward understanding. maybe protection. maybe just an act of simple honesty.
humans make meaning (art) because they need it.
art as breath. a voice. a call. a need.
food. shelter. water.
art as a basic necessity.
humans make meaning because they need it.
food. shelter. water.
beauty? clarity? direction?
something honest. something basic. something irrefutable.
today i am making wreaths. an ouroborus made of moths. a way of making a prayer. an attempt toward understanding. maybe protection. maybe just an act of simple honesty.
humans make meaning (art) because they need it.
Aug 9, 2010
here i am
hello! good morning! i missed you! :)
i missed the click of the keys below my fingers and this time in the morning to ramble on and on. but it was wonderful to have a friend here. especially daniela. we've been friends since we were 14. we met walking home from school one day and have been close ever since. she brought pictures taken when we were ditching school one day, trying on the clothes in the Scottish Shop. hahaha! kilts and jackets and hats! hilarious! and, though we look the same to each other, we look like total babies in the photographs. and the entire time she was here we laughed hard! just picked right back up from where we left off like not a day had passed since the last time we saw each other. we also had a lot of heart-to-hearts too. though our circumstances are different, we are in the same place of transition- realizing our own adulthood, considering ethics and values and trying to choose a path through life rather than having the path choose us. that stage. that scary, daunting stage full of uncertainty and anxiety. the fear. and so fate brings us together just at the right time when we can talk and explore and wrestle together for a week- laugh at ourselves and help each other along. having my longest friend here in my home all to myself was so encouraging and just plain joyful.
and now- coffee and the early fog and scribbling in my notebook. the meandering of my morning routine. the chill and the quiet. i wrote for a solid 2 hours this morning. my path becoming clearer and clearer. integrity as necessity. ethics as a MUST. courage. courage. courage. and, as elisabeth relayed, "the continual TRY".
all of a sudden, so many people bought work down at the gallery. THANK YOU! i can't even tell you what security you have provided! what encouragement and faith! and right in time! just what i needed, just what i was craving! the grand NUDGE to keep moving forward. ((((HUGE HUG)))) you lend me such bravery.
as my pencil scratches, i become more and more self-assured, more rooted in the relevance of the work, the necessity of my practice. i begin to feel like Kusama- that my work is "art medicine". i need it. i cherish it. i believe in it. i will follow it wherever it leads.
and last week, we just played. i started crocheting a new banner and painted some more little alices that need to be adorned with glitter and stamped out some hearts to be cut out and hung on the wall. :) fun and healing and playful. that stuff is so necessary within my practice- doing something light-hearted gives me strength to continue exploring Loss and what it means, how it effects us, and what benefits it can provide... that ruined landscape is also the site where hope springs... and how to locate that hope, that flowering, that incentive to continue. the grand NUDGE again and again. HOPE as a call to brave, compassionate action.
i'm happy to be back inside the Blackland. happy to ramble on and wrestle. i didn't get on the computer at all really while daniela was here. there's a lot to read and write back about, a lot to catch up on, a lot of research to continue, a lot to learn. but it was wonderful to have a little vacation here at home. i am recharged and resolved and reassured, and i'm very happy to see you! good morning! :)
i missed the click of the keys below my fingers and this time in the morning to ramble on and on. but it was wonderful to have a friend here. especially daniela. we've been friends since we were 14. we met walking home from school one day and have been close ever since. she brought pictures taken when we were ditching school one day, trying on the clothes in the Scottish Shop. hahaha! kilts and jackets and hats! hilarious! and, though we look the same to each other, we look like total babies in the photographs. and the entire time she was here we laughed hard! just picked right back up from where we left off like not a day had passed since the last time we saw each other. we also had a lot of heart-to-hearts too. though our circumstances are different, we are in the same place of transition- realizing our own adulthood, considering ethics and values and trying to choose a path through life rather than having the path choose us. that stage. that scary, daunting stage full of uncertainty and anxiety. the fear. and so fate brings us together just at the right time when we can talk and explore and wrestle together for a week- laugh at ourselves and help each other along. having my longest friend here in my home all to myself was so encouraging and just plain joyful.
and now- coffee and the early fog and scribbling in my notebook. the meandering of my morning routine. the chill and the quiet. i wrote for a solid 2 hours this morning. my path becoming clearer and clearer. integrity as necessity. ethics as a MUST. courage. courage. courage. and, as elisabeth relayed, "the continual TRY".
all of a sudden, so many people bought work down at the gallery. THANK YOU! i can't even tell you what security you have provided! what encouragement and faith! and right in time! just what i needed, just what i was craving! the grand NUDGE to keep moving forward. ((((HUGE HUG)))) you lend me such bravery.
as my pencil scratches, i become more and more self-assured, more rooted in the relevance of the work, the necessity of my practice. i begin to feel like Kusama- that my work is "art medicine". i need it. i cherish it. i believe in it. i will follow it wherever it leads.
and last week, we just played. i started crocheting a new banner and painted some more little alices that need to be adorned with glitter and stamped out some hearts to be cut out and hung on the wall. :) fun and healing and playful. that stuff is so necessary within my practice- doing something light-hearted gives me strength to continue exploring Loss and what it means, how it effects us, and what benefits it can provide... that ruined landscape is also the site where hope springs... and how to locate that hope, that flowering, that incentive to continue. the grand NUDGE again and again. HOPE as a call to brave, compassionate action.
i'm happy to be back inside the Blackland. happy to ramble on and wrestle. i didn't get on the computer at all really while daniela was here. there's a lot to read and write back about, a lot to catch up on, a lot of research to continue, a lot to learn. but it was wonderful to have a little vacation here at home. i am recharged and resolved and reassured, and i'm very happy to see you! good morning! :)
Aug 6, 2010
real quick...
earl grey tea with cream. william kentridge exhibit last night in the city. art day today. laughter laughter laughter! warmth of every and all varieties. non-stop giggling. happiness and feeling totally at home. :)
good friends make the world go round, for sure.
(i'm having too much fun- total joy! i will resume our regularly scheduled program on monday. until then, have fun and hug your friends. )
good friends make the world go round, for sure.
(i'm having too much fun- total joy! i will resume our regularly scheduled program on monday. until then, have fun and hug your friends. )
Aug 1, 2010
YAY!!!!!!
my house SPARKLES! i don't think it's ever been this clean and well organized! i even washed the walls! hahahaha! i pick my friend up today at 2 and i am so happy and excited to see her. we haven't seen each other in 2 years! and last night i stayed up late crocheting, too excited to sleep. one of my goals in life is to make myself a blanket. i've attempted it a whole bunch of times and have had no success. none. i finished an afghan once but when i finished it and held it up in front of me it wasn't even close to being square. it was totally triangulated and horrible. i still have it as a time-capsule type thing but i want to try it again. i've been working on it, here and there, for months and made some major headway last night while i was over-run with excitement... in spite of my aching back after a full day of frenzied scouring. :)
my friend is an artist too and we'll have an entire week of drawing and laughing and making funky little things. i can't wait to hear what she thinks of the new drawings and paintings and i can't wait to see what we'll create while she's here. on her last visit we worked on the same canvas together. made a swirling, fantastic painting that encompassed both our outlooks and styles. HAPPINESS!
my posts will probably be pretty sporadic this week but know that i am having a wonderful time and lots of laughter. i wish the same for you. :)
my friend is an artist too and we'll have an entire week of drawing and laughing and making funky little things. i can't wait to hear what she thinks of the new drawings and paintings and i can't wait to see what we'll create while she's here. on her last visit we worked on the same canvas together. made a swirling, fantastic painting that encompassed both our outlooks and styles. HAPPINESS!
my posts will probably be pretty sporadic this week but know that i am having a wonderful time and lots of laughter. i wish the same for you. :)
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