hermitage

.


it is a very very very hot day.

i am hiding indoors.

i am trying to solve my puzzles.

rearrange rearrange.








the spider is almost done.

another new week

monday morning. again again again. coffee in the pot, coffee in my cup, and The Almighty Jog awaits. the slow traffic rumbles on the 2 lane highway and the sky is only just-now blue. it was white a few minutes ago, aching and sleepy. breath on a mirror. smiley faces on a window pane. 6 months of the New Year gone already. a flung arrow. my my my. and the burn of so many plans. days stacked upon days. aching and sleepy, yes. but happy too. and excited. and not at all worried about stupidity or perfection. not one bit.

good morning. :)

secrets and Kate Zambreno and DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR DAUGHTERS ARE?

i have now read Kate Zambreno's book O Fallen Angel twice. both times, in one hot shot all the way through. both times out loud. and i'm going to tell you how wonderful it is very soon but i'm still letting it run through me, digest it and see the connections: Wal-mart and Wife Swap and Baudelaire. yes, Baudelaire! because your book finally slung that in to place, it now makes sense, the imaginary land we traverse. yes. "the banality of evil". these pervasive horrors. horrors with a little h. it's like trying to see the air. it's all around you, it's in you. how do you stop gulping it down?

but for now... the best thing i can give you, Kate, by way of endorsement and appreciation, by way of showcasing gratitude is to show you what you've inspired. because isn't that the best testament of how wonderful your work is? that you made me think and you made me feel and you made me laugh and you made me read your book TWICE IN ONE DAMN WEEK and you made me write write write. because it's important to let you know that i know that Mommy too. i've met a lot of Mommies. and i know the horrors that twist through the suburbs, the creeping gross things that are ignored, minimized, squelched, the OH, GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF! IT'S NOT THAT BAD! and all the deceptions that smear a person's face. all the tragedies that get swept away, filed away, because the community's standards of decency will not tolerate such words. because THIS IS THE SUBURBS! NOTHING BAD EVER HAPPENS HERE!

as pervasive as air.


this is an excerpt from The Letter i'm writing... part of what i wrote today. still raw, still running in so many directions at once, but it is a purge. the broken dam. i'm sure you'll see your touch on it. it is my tribute to your ideas and fearlessness. it is a huge, huge THANK YOU!

buy her book.







excerpt:





and they'd say L.A. IS JUST A SHINIER VERSION OF EVERYWHERE ELSE and WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO GO TO SEATTLE? SEATTLE IS A DIRTY HIPPIE MESS! and THERE'S NOTHING TO SEE IN NEW YORK BUT BUMS DYING ON THE SIDEWALK and SAN FRANCISCO IS WHERE ALL THE FAGS ARE! WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO GO THERE? ARE YOU A FAG TOO? FAGS ROT IN HELL!

and so in San Francisco, i saw the films of Sadie Benning. and i wasn't at all impressed. not one bit. none of this was News to me. because i was poor and i already knew all of this. i had already SAID all of this. i had notebooks full of it. and i was poor and in a class that wasn't really built to hold that particular wealth of knowledge, and i knew all the hate all the anger all the injustice all the everything Sadie Benning was talking about. i already knew what it was to be Outside- because poor people burn in hell too, just like a pack of FAGS. especially in high school. HA! HA! HA! YOU'RE WEARING THE WRONG SHOES! HEY EVERYBODY, LOOK AT ANGELA'S SHOES! SHE'S GOT FAKE DOC MARTENS! DID YOU GET THOSE FROM PAY-LESS? HA! HA! HA! and OH MY GOD! IS YOUR SHIRT HOME-MADE? HA! HA! HA! but i looked around the classroom. i looked around at the faces of the other students and the face of the teacher and i saw how taken aback they were that a young girl would say such things, such unpleasant things, so full of spite and resentment and refusal. i saw the sweep of astonishment spread across their faces and their mouths drop down in long O's when she said YEAH, I AM GONNA DITCH SCHOOL AGAIN TOMORROW. WHO'S GONNA STOP ME? and the Horror! the Amazement! and they said there is eloquence and honesty here. and all i could think was but but but. because i had said these same words. i had made identical statements. over and over again. and i assure you, my mother did not think it "eloquent and honest" no. and even though i wasn't lesbian, i sure was accused of it a lot. baggy clothes and combat boots and NO MAKE-UP and NO BOYFRIEND. and they threw food at Jose during lunch time because he was A FUCKING FAGGOT and none of the teachers ever put a stop to it because he was A FUCKING FAGGOT and because he was A FUCKING MEXICAN and this was all going down in a lily-white republican suburb in California. and WHY ARE YOU HANGING OUT WITH HIM? ARE YOU A FAGGOT TOO? ARE YOU A NIGGER LOVER? HE'S A FUCKING SAND NIGGER. ANGELA IS A NIGGER LOVER! ANGELA IS A NIGGER LOVER! HA! HA! HA! and in the suburbs: friends getting fucked by their daddies, friends getting raped by their daddies and their mommies ignoring it, friends getting ignored by their mommies, their mommies deserving a little F-U-N, young girls sleeping with full grown men for small bags of speed, friends stealing other friends TVs for small bags of speed, 15 year old girls getting pregnant and losing their babies at the 8th month because their parents were doing speed too. and the poor girl (god bless and keep you, Jackie) couldn't quit with her parents snorting lines right in front of her scared, sweet face. couldn't quit with those lines those lines those lines stacked up so nicely on a dirty tabloid magazine on the dirty coffee table:

i heard the ambulance coming and it turned up the road and it stopped in front of Jackie's house.

Jackie and i had met in the 6th grade. both new kids. both poor kids. both unbearably shy and sweet and never ever talking back. and then the day came when all the little children had to line up and get their head checked by the school nurse. LICE OUTBREAK! and one by one, the little children filed out. and one by one, they came back. unless they had been INFESTED WITH LICE! the dirty person's disease! you knew who had it because they didn't come back to class. and Jackie did not come back to class that day. and i wanted to cry. i kept watching the door, hoping to see her, hoping hoping hoping no no no. and she never came back and the refrain began: ANGELA, WHERE'S YOUR FRIEND? HA! HA! HA! ANGELA IS FRIENDS WITH THE DIRTY GIRL! ANGELA IS FRIENDS WITH THE DIRTY GIRL! ANGELA'S DIRTY TOO! POOR GIRL! POOR GIRL! POOR GIRLS GET LICE! SHOW US YOUR LICE, ANGELA! HA! HA! HA! and it was worse for Jackie on Monday when Jackie came back to class. we played together until Christmas break, way out at the far edge of the play ground, by ourselves. Jackie didn't come back to school after Christmas.

i met her again when we were 15 and i was so happy! her smile was just the same. we were 15 and both still so poor, both still so sweet. we were 15 and out came Jackie on a stretcher, oxygen mask over her face. flat on her back. huge pregnant belly. still as a corpse.

no one said a word.

weeks had passed. i saw Jackie on the street. stomach flat. no baby. i waved at her. she waved back and kept walking. she was wearing a blue sun dress with little white flowers on it. no baby. she was heading back home. no baby. no one said a word.

and so- in the suburbs: 15 year old girls getting pregnant and being sent to continuation school. yanked out of regular school because they weren't allowed to be there in their "delicate condition". there was a Clause at the normal High School. WE MUST PROTECT THE IMAGE! WE HAVE PRIDE IN OUR COMMUNITY! WE HAVE PRIDE IN OURSELVES! and so the careless girls were sent to continuation school, yanked out of their classes with their friends and the teachers grown to love and trust. yanked out and hidden, sent to the BAD KIDS SCHOOL, for deciding against abortion. because ABORTION SENDS YOU STRAIGHT TO HELL! but your swollen belly offends! your swollen belly will not be tolerated! your swollen belly is an attack on our good, lily-white, Christian values! and so we will hide you until you look Normal again, until you LOOK All-American again, until you can PASS for being one of US.

and so i was a 16 year old scrunch-face with no one to talk to- talking to my notebook the way Sadie Benning talked to her video camera. only i wasn't tough like Sadie Benning, i only looked like it because of my scrunch-face. i was shy and afraid and i kept to myself, one blue eye risked toward the world, i kept to myself and i planned to go on keeping to myself until the day came where i could finally get the fuck out of this fucking place.

mmmmmmmmm

*

kiki smith's "Lodestar" exhibition:

*

sweet as anything





-the panic first welled up in a train tunnel. i drew a heart-shape on my hand and didn't look at anyone-


when we were little, mama gave us the carrot shaver and we peeled the paper off our crayons in soft, undamaged lengths. we set our nimble papers on the table. we took the naked wax outside.

the curls of their bodies dropped in ribbons, fell sweet as snow as children on a sheet of wax paper held down by our feet. we shaved them down until their thinness made them snap.



-i saw the photograph of her ligature by accident-


-in the photograph, there were bruises everywhere-



periwinkle was my favorite then. burned down to dust-wax clumps on my fingers and dolls. i learned to save it for last. the pointed edge. wished upon waited upon. a star, still possessed of its steeple.



-the skin of her neck, an odd tin blue-



mama laid another sheet of wax paper on top and carried off our anthills to the ironing board.

the iron was ready. you could smell it.

she pressed our curls flat
mottled bleeding blobs, orange flooding green, red
stretching across everything.



-red, stretching across everything-



we couldn't touch them right away. my excitement stippled my pink. burns all over baby fingers. eager as anything.

our curls, ironed out, the wax went hard. we cut out heart shapes. one for you and one for me. these are our pretty things. and mama got out the string.

we put them in the window. mama said kaleidoscope. the shadows centered on our beds. heart shapes scurried from wall to wall to forehead. we held out our hands and grabbed the shadows like butterflies.



-the coroner's report said there was a heart-shape drawn in red ink on the palm of her little hand. she had put it there herself. right in the middle of her left-






-boxes of periwinkle shoved under the bed-







.

the weekend starts now.

i think i'll make it a movie day. reading this post over at Roz's blog made me hungry for film. for the odd shots, the movement of the camera, the focus, the metaphor that resides in vision... eclipsing vision. tis the myth of photographic truth. and the myth is full of beauty and a punch in the gut.

thinking thinking thinking

last night, after an all-day painting session and a little bit of writing at the end, i started thinking about Sylvia Plath. actually, i had thought about her, off and on, all day. about The Bell Jar- what it is. i mean, in terms of genre. it's autobiographical. it's a novel. it is listed as "fiction".

and i started thinking about tags and terms and how every label has a drawback. and it seems like, in spite of their popularity (or because of it), the tag "memoir" or "autobiography" draws a lot of angst from the literary community. it is accused of being "easy" and "lazy". and i think that's really sad and very strange. it presumes that documenting real events, injecting the emotions and fears and anxieties of the time, is an easy task. it also assumes that a person's life has been picturesque, that the problems they faced were no big deal. it's very minimizing. and that's without saying anything about a writer's skill: the dedication required to wrap the reader up in your own history and let them live it as you lived it. the honesty that that requires. and bravery. the whole process is an act of overcoming humiliation. and doing so with beautiful words. or ugly words. whatever is necessary, craft is employed.

but nevertheless, the assumption that memoir and creative non-fiction are some how easier than other forms of writing. i say, skill is skill. and so i wonder... is that why The Bell Jar is in the fiction department? yes, names have been changed to "protect the innocent", but if that's really the only difference between your history and your story, is that a big enough change to call it fiction? i'm sure this is a question that gets wrestled with a lot.

and so i got out of bed and got my copy of The Bell Jar (it's always out on the shelf, not tucked in a row) so i could remind myself how the story begins.

first-person narrative. personal emotional response to an impending execution of criminals. and then the narrator gives us her name. that's the shift. that's what makes it fiction. the name has been changed. and i'm sure certain details have been left out... which assures that other details are (intentionally or not) magnified, brought to the fore-front, drawn more clearly. bias is embraced. and maybe that's the big difference too. The Bell Jar tells a story from one person's perspective and that perspective is embraced with totality. it is not compromised by the charge to explain the emotions or decisions of the other characters. it does not worry itself with ideas of "fair". it tells one story, not all stories, and it does not get sheepish about it.

and that brings up a question i've had for awhile. issues of fairness in art... especially writing.

it's common knowledge that writers end up angering their families. they are accused of not being "fair" to their families within the work. but our families are the first sphere in which we hear the dreadful truth, "Life isn't fair"... so why then is a work of art expected to be? religion, politics, finance, popularity, body issues, disorders of every shape and size and mode: all unfair. and so art should harness this unfairness as well. it is authentic to do so. and honest. or rather, ideas of attempting fairness should be left behind. is this what great writers know?

we know that when The Bell Jar was first published, it was published under a pseudonym. we know that this was done as an attempt to protect Sylvia Plath's mother, save her from mortification and judgement. but those are her own fears talking- the mother's. because i never felt judgemental toward the mother in the story. and granted it all took place in a different era where decorum was expected and dirty laundry was not aired and secrets, even the slightest and smallest, were kept. what a horror to end up having a writer in the family!

all this to say is i am unsure of what specifically divides fiction from creative non-fiction. because creative non-fiction is not the same thing as journalism- a mode of writing where the real names are used and the facts line up and the chronology of events is clear. and a journalist is usually recording someone else's fact and figures, not their own. they have a critical distance between them self and the life they describe. when telling one's own story, that critical distance is gone. it is obliterated. and maybe that's what makes The Bell Jar such a wonderful read- the diary quality of it.

there are so many famous, deeply loved diaries that have been published. and loved for the skill of the writing! the nuance that rises to the surface when censorship and intention fall away... when the audience is gone. some say Sylvia Plath's Journals are her best work. and they'd be just as interesting and compelling even if she wasn't also a "real" writer because the journals themselves are "real" writing. such craft and lyric and fierce desire to pin down a life in words. to make a map. to know something of the self. and diaries are totally biased. one perspective, one story, one idiosyncratic arrangement of fears and hopes and fuck-ups and achievements and struggles.

anyway. i've lost my own question. or answered it.

it's interesting though- these tags we use to describe a literary work. and when someone wants to call a spade and spade and get away with it, ANONYMOUS gets employed. or a pen-name. because we don't want to hurt our families. because we don't want to be "cruel" or "selfish". we want to be fair because the world isn't. and these are wonderful ethical concerns that i think are really important to wrestle with and so i'm glad i'm wrestling with them now, trying to clarify and expand my ideas about what are can be. and be made with. and i think there's a big difference between being honest and being a victim, and it comes down to intention. is there an intention of blame?

to my eye, there is no blame in The Bell Jar. there is the honest addition of self-blame within it - a true portrait of inner turmoil - but still not falling in to sentimentality or romanticising pain or seeking some sort of excuse. it is a crushingly beautiful example of the difference between accuracy and honesty. and i think that when a work focuses on achieving honesty, it falls outside all these useful tags (when wondering what shelf something is found on) and just swims in the big pool of Art.

the sun is up

yesterday, after i wrote that big beast of a post below, i got lost in a word document for the rest of the day. what began as a letter, morphed in to an odd twisty curly memoir-ish sort of thing that just kept rolling and rolling and rolling. i'd write for awhile and then stand up and walk around the house and go outside with my dog for a minute and then come back in and get another cup of coffee and look at my paintings for a minute and then the next line would pop in my head so i'd sit right back down in front of the glowing rectangle and write some more. back and forth like that over and over again. and before i knew it, my sweetheart was walking back in the door from work and the sun was beginning to drop and 4,000 words were sitting in front of me. 4,000 words is not a ton but all inside a single day it sort of is and its been happening like that more and more frequently lately. the last few months, my stamina for The Work in general has steadily increased and i find myself coming up on the end of the day so quickly lately. and i find myself worn out when i get in to bed. and excited to go to bed so that i can wake up early and get back to it the next morning.

maybe it's because the sun comes up so much earlier now? maybe it's because i have to obey The Almighty Jog so much earlier now that summer is here? maybe it's because i have finally learned how to obey a Bed Time? maybe it's all the books i'm reading? maybe it's learning how to just fucking relax a bit and not worry so much about what all this might add up to or what it means? maybe it's because i type out all this weird self-exploration here on a public blog where anybody who wants to see it can?

whatever it is, a surge had resulted. and this letter i started writing is to a person i don't even know. it's in response to something they wrote, something that touched a bad memory and i saw something of myself, some of my regrets and fears in their work, i wanted to tell somebody i suppose about the time i feel i've lost...

and so this letter curves all around, runs in 4 directions at once, goes wild and sad and strange. and i realize while i write it that i haven't lost any time at all. that everything that came before leads up to Right Now and Right Now is full of excitement and enthusiasm and commitment. Right Now i have a story to tell. and so it's a letter that will never be "sent" because it's no longer a letter. it's this whole other thing and my mind and heart are wrapped up in it and there's some huge wind of honest exposure and acceptance that flows out of it already- the undoing of secrecy, the unraveling of expectation. and my long-windedness unleashed a bright wind of hope yesterday. rambling, stuttering, striving. a search taking place. a map being made. bad teeth being removed. the ugly bed being made. yesterday was a good day.

and so The Almighty Jog awaits. and the letter. and the curling road. and oil on the wall and graphite on the palm and dog's ears to scratch and hope to have and coffee coffee coffee and word words words. the bang of keys and the scratch of things and today i think i'll spend a little time singing.

how are you?

education and "education" and love:

the risk of yesterday proved to be beneficial and worthwhile and happy-making. :)

i have put the piece away again but it will be back one day. thank you. (((HUG)))

and last night before bed, i thought of Anne Sexton. opened The Complete Poems at random and read "Suicide Note". then this morning, another random ruffling of pages, and i read "That Day". and so caught by her, her story, her persona (?), the cape that swirls around her, i read the introduction by Maxine Kumin, with my coffee, aloud on the floor of the bathroom.

i knew the neighbor kids could hear me as they walked off giggling to school.

but i read the entire thing out loud, unembarrassed, and by the time i got to the end where Maxine - a friend to Anne, so close a friend that maybe, if we ignore ideas about tradition and location and gender, their friendship could be described more accurately as Marriage - speaks of Anne's threat to never send a telegram of her death plan ever again and then succeeds in her attempt just 6 months after making that assertion. and my eyes teared. teared so badly, i couldn't make out the text. i felt overcome with loss and gratitude and awe and just plain ol' love...


she did not start writing poetry (in terms of words on a page, at least) until she was 28.


Maxine writes: Untrammeled by a traditional education in Donne, Milton, Yeats, Eliot, and Pound, Anne was able to strike out alone, like Conrad's secret sharer, for a new destiny. She was grim about her lost years, her lack of a college degree; she read omnivorously and quite innocently whatever came to hand and enticed her, forming her own independent, quirky, and incisive judgments.


and this passage caught my eye and heart. more and more, i think of the education i am receiving right now, currently, today, this minute, all the minutes stacked one on top of the other, self-governed, fueled by private loves, private interests, private fears - my self and body and history as the manual for such a nebulous, hungry, fiery education - and how lucky i am to have it. to have a site, no matter how small or humble, of fearlessness. to read what i want, to not apologise for my attractions, to think, and breathe, and give myself over to an entire day of reading if need be and not feel bad about it. to play and struggle and dance and sing and yell and cry and cry and cry sometimes...

and that it is a gift too, for as embarrassing or strange as it may seem to some, to tear up in the bathroom over the death of a person i never knew some 30 years ago.

and if empathy is an acquired "skill", should that not be one of the pursuits of education, traditional or un?

and i think of the amazing WAVE of hatred for education that seems to be sweeping through the U.S. lately. a tide that continues to rise and rise and rise. and the false definitions and call for "credentials" that come along for the ride, in this, the Land of the Free. this, in a place that looooooves stories of triumph and beating the odds and rooting for the underdog. and this wave spills on to Art too. the definitions and rejection of lived experience as if LIFE has no relevance. really? then what are you making Art for? what are you reading for?

education only "counts" in this country if it is "formal". and the "formality" of an education is decided by whether or not one might be able to win a paycheck of substance once said education is complete (by that defintion, my BFA is NOT a formal education). but the notions of "completion" and "education", to me, seem completely inharmonious. to the point of sad ridiculousness. when does education complete itself? is there really a day when learning ends? i mean, other than death? doctors, surgeons, lawyers, whomevers continue to study their areas of interests. they write and research and explore. at least the good ones do. the ones whom i would trust to cut me open if i needed to be.

and so too, it should be with Art. and the "best" artists and writers have a wide open definition of what art is, how to make it, what tools can be used. the answer is : EVERYTHING. including your life. especially your life. because perspective, perception, ideas are reality. and so why this limit placed on which education is valuable and which is not? look at the work. the work signifies who has wrestled and who has not. who cares and who doesn't. who is blowing steam and who is a steam engine.

i love critical discourse. it is an area in which art is really wrestled with. explored and fought with and cried over and yelled about. it's exciting! the excitement is infectious and wild and important. but critical discourse is an aid to education, not an end.

Anne Sexton's work was loved and hated in equal measure. it still is today, hated and loved. who's right? will that debate really be won by taking a look at credentials? and what credentials does one need to become an artist, to be an artist, other than the extreme hunger and love of the thing? Mr. Wonderful (our lovely Roland Barthes) knew this. he wrote an entire book, all in fragments, about love... what it is to love. an emotion that, at every turn, shatters reason, thwarts logic, and compels the lover to continue beyond the event of heart-break and humiliation. a critic and philosopher shouting PRAISE for the human spirit. and NO ONE, no critic, has yet to say a word back against that book.

because it cannot be refuted.

because the love of knowledge, of ideas, of exploration, of continuing to learn and grow, is LOVE in action. it is a necessary ingredient to becoming "educated", regardless of how one might define that word or go about attaining it.

it is my love that pushes me. and it is my love that quickens me, spurs me on to learn as much as i can, where i am, with the tools available to me. that allow me to see the circumstances of my own life and history as a rich, valuable site of learning and exploration in and of itself. that the books i read, the images that flash in front of my face, provide a new mirror, a new pick-axe with which i can excavate my own experiences and hopefully, maybe, at least try, to provide that same moment of self-recognition in another human being. that unexpected scorch. that moment that throttles my heart and brain and allows me to dig deeper this time, this time, next time, and to create meaning within my own life. that is what artists do. that is what art is good for. that is what an education truly supplies: the ability to make meaning.

and i really cannot emphasize enough what a wonderful education i am acquiring right now! there are so so so many exciting, dedicated, passionate people from all walks of life maintaining such exciting, driven, forward-moving blogs right now. i have a book list that spans pages and pages in my sketch book that is completely derived from reading other artist's and writer's blogs. the discussions that take place in this electronic landscape, in the comment box, are so fertile and interesting! and it's open to anyone and everyone that has an inclination to learn and a computer to borrow! it's amazing! and then, running through a wide vineyard and drawing pictures and making silly little paper dolls, paintings of icebergs and x-rays, trips to the used book store, walking around in the sun and mosquitoes, listening to music, writing my own weirdo poetry, day dreaming and thinking and embracing all that results- the shine and the sour, the whole shebang.

and speaking of the whole shebang, please please PLEASE read Dodie Bellamy's "Barf Manifesto". two lectures transcibed about what writing and art can do and be, the furious "vomit" that may transpire- the aesthetic of the 'good' and the 'bad' swirling together in the same bowl, the multiple temporalities of memory, how they get all mixed-up and overlap, past experience and right-now-this-minute all mixed up, and what a wonderful, insightful, necessary enterprise to allow the "messiness" of human existence to come in to view. it is benevolent. and expands the definition of art, of education, of skill, craft, and knowledge. it gives "permission" to view one's life as valuable, full of meaning, full of spark; and encourages bravery... risk taking, the flowering of one's own mind and life.

affirm

.

slowly slowly

and in the present tense.

i scribbled 15 minutes on my forearm this morning. a reminder of how to take the day: small increments. focused. lovingly. do not skip ahead. do not let a foot slip in to the past. keep your eyes here. both of them. 15 minutes at a time if the day feels too wide, too tall.

it works.

and now, fresh from a long shower, already in polka dot pajamas even though the sun is still up, i will head off to the bedroom. turn the fan on. get under a thin quilt. put a book on my lap. stay just like that until it is time to drift off.



i want to pay attention
and not fall to distraction.

such sugar

i have put the eggs on to boil for sunday dinner with the neighbors. there will be a massive pile of deviled eggs and i want to let them chill for a few hours before hand. they are better that way. and country fried chicken and i'm not sure what else but it will be country-style too and very delicious. country cooking is one of my most beloved. comfort food in the truest sense.

and yesterday, my sweetheart surprised me with a sudden change of course and we ended up in Bodega Bay, eating spicy clam chowder and fish & chips. huge seagulls sitting on top of the crab shack and a small boy running toward the pier, father chasing close behind, scooping him up where the guard rail ended.

and then the long, beautiful drive back through Jenner and Guernville, watching the shore lands morph to wine lands, loud music in the car and laughing laughing laughing and remembering our weekend in San Luis Obispo, the sulfur springs, perfuming the water with rosy oil and black night all around.

and this morning i talked his ear off about writing, about art, about practice, about letting go of worry and expectation and just letting it all swirl and breathe. this is a good morning to pay attention to our fair leige, our much loved, deeply loved Radish King.

stamina for the struggle. and she is right: if anyone ever tells you it will be easy, they're lying. at very least, i have never been lied to about that. i've known from the very start that this was going to be terrifying and hard and that every inch gained was going to be hard won.

but it is an amazing course of life.

go.

reacquaint

it is saturday and we are going out in to the world. we are going out in to the sun, coffee in hand, and brightness inside and out.

persevere, friends, to enjoy this beautiful day.

the world contains such amazing people

.






this little video makes me reconsider so many things about how we perceive "living well" in this country. this woman is adorable because she's smart, savvy, kind, ethical, and knows how to wield a hammer. her name is Dee Williams.

i really want to know what book she is reading.

mmmmmmmm

i've been at the canvas since 9. i am present and don't care about the clock. there was something i was going to do today but decided painting all day is a much better decision. i am young today. i am brewing a half pot of coffee. i am thinking about evelyn hampton. this piece in particular. it has a familiar light in it. there is a reverie that swells up, all achy and maroon, from the the repetition of words. and somewhere in there is a piece of my childhood too.

hello beautiful!

i love the way mornings look and feel out here this time of year. it'll be hot hot hot in a couple hours but, right now, it is cool and bright and beautiful. the heat of summer is arriving and so my day gets rearranged a little bit. The Almighty Jog must be obeyed much earlier if i want to bring inga with me. jogging in a thick black coat isn't fun for her, i'm sure. so we're out the door and off to the vineyard by 8am at the latest these days. it's actually really wonderful to get it done so early. the vineyard is completely empty, totally silent except the for the birds waking up, and i am cured of worry right at the beginning of the day. that alone is a good reason to go run as early as i can.

worry is my biggest saboteur. it stalls me almost entirely when i give in to it and that's LAME. worry doesn't fix anything, it does not provide solutions or resolve or happiness or motivation. in fact, it saps me of those things and obscures my ability to see my own life and goals with clarity and intelligence. worry is a horrible bastard. one i've lived with my entire life.

at the beginning of the year, i decided to try to shake myself lose of its grip and The Almighty Jog (which has now accelerated in to a fun blown run) has been the best antidote i could've hoped for. not only does my body feel good, the work feels good, and the ideas i'm working with get clearer and clear, more and more focused, whittled down to something more cohesive and less chaotic. this is a very good thing since my major resolution for this year is to get an entire body of work together for a solo show. cohesion is extra important.

so today, after a bit more coffee and our morning run, i'll lug a canvas outside and use this beautiful light to my advantage. nothing beats natural light for oil painting. nothing. i can see every color and shade and nuance as it truly is. warm and cool, light and dark, nebulous greys and milky vs. transparent white. the gorgeousness of oil becomes so readily apparent, so beautifully obvious that i can work for hours and not run out of steam. it's wonderful. and if i just focus on that, allow myself to be absorbed in the pleasure and search of the work, all my worries abate- fall away in to tiny piles of nothing. and that's when i can feel myself moving forward. :)



"Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow; it only saps today of its strength."
- A.J. Cronin


the point is to be present, open, and engaged. a hard thing for a lot of artists (and doesn't that seem weird?) but worth the effort. i'm at my best when i stop feeling pressure over The Future and all the things that are entirely out of my control. it's a hamster wheel of bullshit.

good morning!

:)

could it have been the waves? or reading Art & Fear, there, at the edge of the world? a shore where the water is too cold for humans but just right for dogs. and i made a pile of river rocks, beautiful grey stones flat as pancakes. and another pile of soft-looking, impeccably white stones with the intention of bringing them home and putting them in glass jars on the window sill. but i left the piles there. smiled, as i walked away, that a child would probably be the person to notice the piles and think it an act of magic. :) i was that kind of little kid, for sure.

and so this sweep lately- bits of my childhood-self beginning to show up again in my daily life. innocent, trusting actions. simple and sweet and so endlessly enjoyable. the warm lure of the potential that exists inside a regular day. maybe this is the One Day at a Time philosophy in action. i've been trying to harness it for months and i finally feel like i've got my hand in the mane of that particular horse. it is soft and exciting and today i woke with such a pleasant sense of possibility.

this morning, i will run as if i am already a marathon winner. and i will write as if i've already published a novel. and i will paint as if i am already welcomed in to a museum. because it relieves the pressure to look at those things. to get back in to the single moment, be present in the action, and not look outside for encouragement. what could we accomplish if we did not worry about markers of success? such greatness! such happiness and capacity for joy. such long, hefty laughter.

looking back, i see that the last year of my life has been a kind of process of elimination. moving things out of the way so that i could move forward. so that i could see. clear out the clutter. the world begins to brighten again. i have painted and read and wrote more since january than i have since i was in school. my life gets fuller and fuller, built with (and on) only the things i truly care about. art, writing, laughing, running, reading, dancing, singing, dreaming, digging.

some days, i have to live in 15 minute increments in order to not become daunted by the task (or dream) in front of me. it works. i feel like i've finally cleared out enough clutter, swept out enough confusion, to really be able to identify the road i'm on. it's a good road. one that has brought such wonderful people in to my life (you and you and you and you and). and all the ideas you bring. all the toys we share. who would've thought that the seemingly geeky act of blogging would have dumped such a strong feeling of gratitude and connection in to my life! it is amazing and i learn so much from this community of people who, like me, deeply believe that art and words and ideas matter. that they are powerful and necessary.

it is an odd time in life. but also rife with wonder and possibility. it is a creative time. i'm happy to be here to share in it and offer whatever small kernel i can.

good morning. :)

happy saturday!

soon, we are heading out to go sit by the cold cold water at the coast. the wind and waves. that crush of sound. i am bringing my notebook. i will sit on the little stones. maybe i'll bring some home. i will look for sea glass and heart-shapes on the shore. inga will romp and bounce and wear herself out. we will return a fuzzy mess.

love

kiki smith is the artist i go to most when i need a hug, comfort to continue. she is a mother for me, and has been since the very first time i saw her work. the loud astonishment that flooded in while i sat in a quiet, dusty aisle at the library- amazement. and the quick "permission" that came to speak about your own life, your own perceptions of what it is to be female, to be conflicted about the world, your own needs and desires.

yesterday, i carried a book of her work around with me- the catalogue for HER MEMORY. and all this morning too. back and forth between coffee and the spider and then flipping through her images: tattooed women with heart shapes and birds and lightning bolts, paper mache light bulbs, wreaths made from hand carved rubber stamps of child-like leaves, coffins, and chairs with wobbly legs. huge collaged prints, all in black and white, attacthed sheets of paper so that the image occupies an irregular ground. the crinkliness of the work, the scratchy lines, dried flowers, flowers leaning toward death.

there are images in her work that feel so familiar to me. flowers and windows, especially. two images i used to repeat myself with all the time but that i haven't really worked with in years now until recently. a few months ago they started popping back up in the work. roses again. all in black and white and silver. and i keep my book of redoute's prints near. and i remember how, when i was little, i'd flip through books in our humble bookcase looking for pictures and i'd come across pressed flowers- the passage of my mother. actions of preserving some small joy. some small beauty.

i've been thinking about my childhood a lot for the passed several months. little memories of books and drawings and picking flowers, bringing home stray cats, hiding in bushes so no one would hear me sing, making sure to be outside when the first star appeared so i could get my wish...

and my love for paper, for laying down marks with ink or graphite has roots in these things. the common nature of it. humble. adorable. easy. within reach. the substrate for secrets- diaries and hidden poems, snippets of songs, notes passed in class, letters that were never sent, letters that were never meant to be sent. paper is a signifier of The Personal- private thoughts and actions. and lately, i've been thinking of the drawings (all the work, really) as a form of writing. the diary aspect of these images. the collection/excavation of memory. hope, fear, need, desire, love, hate, recuperation, reckoning.

and at the back of the book, gone unnoticed until last night, there are two poems she wrote. and this knowledge - kiki smith cares about poetry enough to write it - overwhelmed me with such a sense of gladness and confidence:


Landing




when the bird flew in and without
apprehension she could say yes
dreams in corners out of range sitting at
the kitchen table when you came in and
spoke there had been a chance and she saw
for a moment

all pressed and close and then it dissipated

you could just sit there and the bird could
come in and you could succumb maybe she
hesitated when called

how do you feel when the bird touched
some birds touch anyone some girls are
shared

holy holy night she had her back turned
stomach to bed the rays came in first
she didn't have a first inclination that the
bird had been there but the song lingered

she waited the flutter passed but still she
had been touched

old habits are slow ones and she is not a
quitter not sitting waiting for the bird's
breath scratching pecking she goes
excavating into the shadows touching dark.



-Kiki Smith





i experience this poem as such a huge hug. and also a call to action. or maybe, more specifically, a call to confidence...

i am okay with the fact that i need to roll around in the shadows for awhile. i need to reach in to the dark stuff and leave my hand in long enough to know its shape by feel alone. collect the little glittering bits of childhood, of those unsent letters, and make wreaths of my own. press them like mama's flowers. hide them in books. let them scratch and scratch and give them a window of their own.




(this is a weird, but good, artist statement maybe?)

here we are at thursday and i feel happy.

there is a nice, warm calm i've been hoarding for myself lately. lots of writing and reading and drawing and crocheting. soft days. the week has been good to me: ideas, ideas, ideas and coffee and poems and taking my friend to the dentist to get a tooth yanked out. the stuff that makes a life.

i've been practicing being present. not anguishing over the future, just letting the joy flood back in to my practice and letting go of rules and definitions. isn't that what art's supposed to be about anyway? ha! and i must laugh at myself. i must and i do. everyday. and i've also re-invested in the good habit of dancing in the living room. blasting music in the morning and even singing in to a hair brush. silliness! and happy laughter!

and so today i have absolutely no plan for the hours to come. let them come however they want. it's bright and beautiful here. the curtains are open and i've still got a half pot of coffee to get through. there are blackberries in the fridge and bagels in the cupboard. the big spider i'm drawing for louise bourgeois is lording over my bedroom, tacked to the wall, beautiful and creeping.

i think i'll take my coffee to bed and sit with the big spider for awhile. eat breakfast with it and enjoy the calm of this beautiful morning.

envy


i walk around with her name on. a sock on the hand. i say 'i'm blonde'. i say 'look at my dress." i collect the tiny tatters turned to glitter against the baseboards. the dust of bodies so old it sparkles. our feet have polished all the crumbs. she wakes up slowly. scratches her eyelashes. i find one on my breakfast plate. i pluck it from the egg. wear it on my cheek. snatch the wish that accompanies such things.

day

it was a hot day but i still spent quite some time crocheting- black stitch black stitch black stitch, the hidden escapades and longings protected inside the twist. and also reading Wonderful, Wonderful Times by Elfrieda Jelinek in a hot, parked car, stopping to write my own flood, my own fumbling search for who knows what and then i wrote:

i feel like i am finally beginning to learn how to speak. and to let these things become documents. other people can decide for themselves what kind of documents they are. everyone will need them differently. everyone will let them be different things.

at least those who find them. my precious few. entirely precious and held dear.

i learned today and it burned away the internal, convinced-of pressures. the heat of these things lessening my anxious load. some steam released. locating new valves.

GOLD on top of GOLD

Rebecca Loudon, our fair Radish King, has a whole bunch of new poems dealing with Henry Darger and The Vivian Girls up at PEEP/SHOW. GOOD LORD!!!!!! DO NOT MISS!!!!!!

art (life)

the weather has been odd for months. and so too, maybe, the weather in me.

i see it in other people too. the link between emotion and environment.

i said "it seems like such an odd time in life, lately." to my neighbor and he said "i'm glad i'm not the only one who's noticed that. it is very odd."

the fog is thick and low. on our jog we were covered in mist. everything green and grey and white.

we're all just trying to make sense of the world.

and meaning within our own lives.

what helps and what doesn't seems to be largely contingent on where a person happens to be standing at any given point in time. preference... maybe even necessity... ruled by vantage point. this accounts for all the different art in the world. all the different modes and forms too. it cancels out notions of Good and Bad, replacing those terms with words that are more compassionate: useful, not useful. beneficial, not beneficial. purposeful, not purposeful. and that definition of "purposeful" is malleable. changing and fluid. and maybe it relates to joy and sadness... the pleasure principle... the death of certain expectations. expectations, especially, titled as 'hope' and 'belief'. their death is a hard and painful and frightening thing. but so is forcing something to live that is only suffering.

let it go.

let a new hope show itself. the children's maps no longer work.

there is a fragile green shooting up through the toppled steeple and broken houses. there is a warmth running below the fear- an underground stream.

everything is an act of mining, maybe. everything is excavation.

and if memory originates in the brain, why this pressure in my chest? let's unearth the thing and see. let's brush the dust off. and if we must, let's pin it down by the wings and take a closer look at the mechanism of the thing.

i want to use the tools equally. analysis and emotion, married.

the brain is a body part just like the heart.

beautiful drawings

pity party in the bathroom





the little girl voice begins its refrain:
i just want everything to be okay.

on and on and i get sick.
the endless list of I deserve
tacked like a cataract to the insipid eye.
the stupid face
in the stupid mirror
in the goddamn bathroom
in the goddamn half-light.

the mirror is Collapse.
the sour shine of ridiculous dreams.
the little girl
clinging
tight, red faced,
to the shangri la of the un-had.

she begs: stick a diamond on me
so i'll know which one i am.

but the diamond fell.
went down the toilet tubes. my arm
went in after it, got stuck
in the stinking hole.

and ever since, just shit

glittering in my eye lashes,
freckled across my nose.

start the day off right!

good morning! :D

in dreams

this morning, i woke up because i spoke in my dream.

i was on the phone with someone who was yelling horrible things at me about someone i love. i kept trying to hang up the phone but each time i tried to turn it off, the voice on the other end got louder and louder. i resigned myself to listening to things i knew would hurt me. and the very first sentence that flew in to my ears was one of such malice that my courage flared up and i yelled back. my yelling, in the dream, woke me up.

after i got my coffee and sat down to write this morning, i realized that i don't talk in my dreams. if i do, it isn't often, and generally seems to be more along the line of telekinesis. but in this dream, not only did i speak, i yelled. and it startled me awake.

i've had a calm, slightly eerie but nevertheless good, feeling on me all day. maybe something else has been startled awake too?

i started reading some Carl Jung (work i think contemporary art theory should take a dip in) and learned about The Archetypes. especially the Animus. and how dreams factor in to our ideas about the world... all those low-lying, hidden systems of belief and accepted expectations...

generally, i'm not very interested in dream interpretation. most of the time it seems like a horoscope- stretch it enough and you can make it fit. but there's just something about this dream, this speaking, that has held my attention today.

i've also been experiencing an accelerated recall on memories lately. all sorts of things that i haven't thought about in years. and all so clear. i've been writing them down. and the more i write them down, the more i remember. the more details i find. it's both interesting and disquieting. there's a strangeness in it... an over-lapping of time: that i can be here, now, who i am in this present moment, and then a memory sweeps through and i remember exactly who i was and how it felt to be that person... and experience these two states at the same time because i'm writing it down.

anybody else ever experience this as a result of writing or making anything? a surge in memory or a drastic shift in dream environment/behavior? or have i only outed myself as the freak of the week?

philosophies

such a quiet.

and a moment of stillness.

and i am less and less concerned with right and wrong.

just effective and ineffective, warranted and unwarranted, what works for me and what doesn't work for me. a stoic philosophy- knowing myself and then living in accordance with what that is/means.

behavior that lines up with belief.

and i acknowledge that this harmony may not always be pleasant or appear beautiful. "beauty" is as subjective as "right". morality is relative. ethics are individual. and i mean that in terms of application. i mean to say that my ethics are for me to apply to myself. that's who they exist for. it is my code, my way, my walking stick.

the big WHY.

these pictures are a document of that wrestling: a catalogue of my attempt to make meaning. accuracy is important. it takes courage and patience. but accuracy about what? my life and what it has meant. it may mean something different in a year, in a month, tomorrow. and so... some sort of exorcism. some sort of reckoning.

self-portrait after self-portrait.

aren't we all just talking about ourselves? giving light to our loves, hates, losses, and concerns.

i don't think a person can make ART about shit they don't care about. captivation is mandatory. the subject must be relevant to the artist dealing with it. it has to be. and it IS if it is any good at all.

when i am captivated i can work all day. when i find the right form, the right image, when everything is married and conjoined and aligned in a way that makes sense to me, that is true to the mess of things or the beauty of things, i will work until my hand locks up in a huge, painful cramp. i do not abandon it. i stay and stay and stay because something honest is going on. and that site of honesty, for however idiosyncratic it may be, is where the reckoning occurs. it is where ART is made.

i can be honest about my own impulses toward blame or self-pity if i dig deep enough to actually see where they come from, if i find the hidden kernel that gives rise to those feelings. but merely to offer an expression of blame, an expression of self-pity, adds nothing to the conversation. it shuts conversation down. all it is is lashing out. it is not courageous. the results are not ART.

but that doesn't mean an artist can't be angry or ugly. you can be. is it warranted? and if it is- don't excuse yourself, don't blame anyone else, keep the responsibility and guilt of it for yourself, let it be ugly and don't try to cover it up or run from the aftermath. stand there. own up. that might be ART: to not run. to not make excuses.

to make a statement and stand by it even if the statement is ugly or offensive is an act of courage that has the capability of causing a reckoning, a fracture, a tear, a split in the seam. "ugly" is relative too. and sometimes, it is warranted. sometimes an ugly expression causes us to notice an overlooked beauty- a situational contingency or symbiosis that supplies knowledge and an avenue to compassion... and those things are rewards.

rewards are not always shiny and warm.

behavior that lines up with belief.

i am changing my attitudes about certain things. effective, ineffective. acceptable, unacceptable. necessary, unnecessary. and only as they apply to me, my practice, my life, my ins and outs and daily grind.

and so this catalogue is only a catalogue. it is not an argument for why i might be right and another person is wrong. it is not a case i am building against anyone or anything. and if i have indited anyone, it is myself. it is either effective or it isn't. and if i can get to that site of honesty where the reckoning occurs than i can steadfastly believe in what i'm doing because i have achieved an amount of courage, i have achieved an amount of clarity, i have done something relevant for my own life. and of course i want the looker to be effected. of course i want to catch their eye and keep it. but i can't dictate that. my tastes, my desires, my needs are my own to satisfy. just as i walk passed paintings, others will walk passed mine. it is no strike against me. the other person has an entire life inside them that i know nothing about. we are not all cut from the same cloth and we do not all share the same beliefs or have the same needs. especially not when it comes to art. i'm more than okay with this and am not beaten down by it. and increasingly, i am thankful for those who do stop to look. who stay a minute and look at the lines and shadows and (hopefully) see a bit of their own biography in the shape and twist.

repair

i am still thinking of louise bourgeois. i have become warm and still, comforted by her face, her smile, and the awesome fortitude and courage she showcased in her work and life. i think of the fact she was 70 before critical attention and acclaim found her. late recognition but she kept going going going and, by the time her due came, it was beyond earned, beyond deserved, and her fire was charged, endless, heartbreaking, and something so tremendously special that our language has not yet birthed words to describe.

my tribute today is that i will not beat myself up with the things i have yet to accomplish. i will enjoy the pace of this day. i will draw and be present and not torture myself with worry and fear and uncertainty, those assassins of aspiration and joy. i will relish in the fact that my hands are black with graphite. that my scent is covered by the dust of the pencil. that the scribbles and scratches have meaning.

her work is here.
the comfort of it.
she left us with such a strong, capable cradle.

i am drawing a huge spider today. all day. for her. for myself.