a new week begins

i am dirt. and sweat. and ice. the roads are not safe out this way. this morning everything is frozen. anti-californian. i put on my freddie fruger sweater and went running down the highway through the slush and leaves. i dreamt of new york and berlin and travelling to all the places i've not yet been. i dreamt of my new painting and all the black roses i've been crocheting, the end of the year and a new year about to born. i dreamt about going blonde and wearing red lipstick. this is something i may actually have to do. i've never been much of a lipstick wearer. suddenly and unexpectedly, i am very interested in becoming one. i have no clue why. just the call. that call to make your outsides mirror your insides. to give shape and shadow to all those twists of soul and spirit. to make the windings of my mind and heart physical somehow. apparent. why this is being translated in to going blonde and wearing red lipstick, i can only say that something about it feels correct. i have no deeper analysis than that. it just feels like it could be the exact right thing to do.

transitions. encouragements. seeking a new lens to look through. the rituals of the new year are finding me. and maybe it's just a result of the life i've been leading the passed few years... the passed few months especially. all this running and working and reading and drawing. this morning i read this interview with William Pope.l and i felt like it was a moment of dumb, amazing, inexplicable luck to have stumbled across it. there are beautiful, gentle, necessary permission slips in there. encouragements and hugs and nudges... things i've been feeling a bit hungry for. but aren't we all? encouragement is a thing that seems to be in very short order in this world. i caught a lucky break today by reading this interview. a new lens, indeed.

my painting is calling from the other side of the room - a commission i'm working on - so i'm off to wrestle the black oil. but first, i've got to melt away all this crazy california ice from my arms and eyes. it is freezing cold here today. sheets of broken ice like panes of glass all along the road. weird.

back!

it feels so good to feel like myself again! :D YAY! it's been an entire week since i did anything that resembled my normal day-to-day life. it feels fantastic to be getting back on track! i spent the evening painting last night, lost in all my luscious black oil, unaware of the passage of time, and feeling totally driven. ecstatic. and today i'm heading off to the city to sit the gallery. i'll work on my textile project while i'm there and just enjoy this gorgeous, sunny day in san francisco. life is good! BURN, BABY, BURN! ;) come by and say hi if you've got some time.

ahhh...

feeling a bit better, ladies and gentlemen. my head no longer feels like it is going to crack in half and i can breathe through my nose again. :) and we had a pretty good thanksgiving. we have no family anywhere around us, in drivable distance anyway, a fact that we luxuriate in routinely. no obligatory dinners to skip off to or devise escape plans from. no distant relatives to hold painfully awkward conversations with. no horrible gossip and saying grace in the same breath. no saying "i love you" to people who are pretty much strangers in spite of their biologic link to you. these are things that i do not miss and am not envious of. please trust me when i say that the whole "oh but it's family!" sentiment does not apply here. we simply don't have that kind of background. but after all we've been through together, we've become a very sweet little family of our own. unconventional but good and warm and full of the best love. i am extremely thankful i met this man. he is a wonder to me. i am a lucky lucky girl. :)

snot nose

i am on the floor.

i have been floored by a very nasty bug.

a very nasty bug bit me and has not let me go.

ugg.

i guess all the excitement of late paired with winter rolling in gave me the ol' one two punch. i have been in bed for two days straight. i feel a lot better this morning than i did yesterday but even now, looking at the computer, my eyes and brain are wobbly. no good. i have a ton of work to do. sickness is never something that is ever timed very well. no one ever gets sick during the boring periods of life when nothing is scheduled and no one counting on them to be a magical (and responsible) person. so it goes. i will battle through. but today is a girl-on-the-couch day. i will not budge. i can at least get some crocheting done while i zone out in front of the TV. sick days are the only days when TV actually sounds rather nice to me. i will answer the call to be lazy and unaccountable to anything or anyone today, because tomorrow is an entirely different story. i took a job (part-time) in a clothing store and it begins tomorrow. hahaha! look at THAT luck! getting sick right in time to gain an actual Boss in my life. geez. wish me well and a speedy recovery, friends! in addition to joining the ranks of retail employees this holiday season, there is the december show at Slingshot i am working on and a new commission i just accepted. i am a busy girl. these sniffles must cease so i can get back to my fast, fearless, no nonsense pace.

glowing and motivated

things are busy and wonderful and i'm just rolling along with it, feeling so satisfied and happy and encouraged. more than i've felt in a long time. i really can't stress enough how absolutely wonderful it feels to work with people who trust the ins and outs of my practice, who want me to do what feels right and just be myself. it's amazing and i am absolutely grateful for this experience. and we've been reviewed twice more! DANG! and DOUBLE DANG! ha! Artbusiness.com covered it the other day. scroll down til you find Slingshot. and Content at Fecal Face too! beautiful photographs! and tons of them! and i'm in one of them! see if you can spot me. i'm wearing a black shirt that says THE END in big white letters but the END is blocked by someones arm so it just says THE. :) but YAY!!!!! i'm blown away the opening got so much attention! it's so exciting! and we're already working working working on the december show which could prove to be our last exhibition in the space (we're only guaranteed our spot until january).

i'll be sitting the gallery again today. please do come down and say hi. 890 valencia @ 20th. i'll be there from noon - 5pm. maybe even a bit later today. people seemed to be really streaming in around 4:30 last week so i might keep the space open a bit later today if it ends up being the same.

in other news, i've finished the admissions paperwork for my local JC so that i can learn a new language in the new year. :) it's been on my TO-DO list for a very long time and, as i thought about new year's resolutions, i decided it was time to take a run at it. i can't enroll until the middle of next month but the first step has been taken and i am looking forward to wandering around on a college campus again. i love college. i always have. i highly recommend it. :) and also, if i take a second class (which i definitely will. probably something like screen printing or ceramics. fun classes!), it defers my student loan which is awesome. two birds, one stone. survival at its finest. :)

last one for awhile...

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Lineage 5
48" x 36"
oil on canvas, 2010


she's been waiting patiently for months while i moved off to work on other things. a few weeks ago, i looked at her hanging in the hallway, so close to being done, and felt like a total asshole. so i took her off her nail and put shadows in the aprons, deepened the black, and gave her a name. she is happy and soft and beautiful. she's the last one for awhile. the maid series is definitely one i'll come back to. i can feel it and it feels like such a right and true image for me to work with, but i think i put too much pressure on them and on myself. i want to back away from them for a bit and just let them be. love them on their own terms: without expectation.

remember...

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oh yeah!

in the midst of all this fanfare, i totally forgot that yesterday was my one month anniversary of being a non-smoker! AHHHHHHHHHH! i am making myself some 'congratulations!' blueberry muffins as we speak. :)

awesome!

so many people came through Slingshot yesterday! it was amazing! and here i was, all set to spend the day quietly crocheting, greeting the few people who might come in to look around, drink tea from the coffee shop next door, and just kick back in such a beautiful space for the day. nope! my retail you-had-better-greet-every-single-person-who-walks-in-that-door experience kicked in and i did not get much crocheting done at all! there was a constant flow of people all day long. so many people from the neighborhood came in to wish us well on our venture and express their hope that we'll get to stay in this space for a long, long, LONG time. i can't tell you how many people told me that it was wonderful to see a gallery pop up that shows this kind of art. awesome!!! :D i can't even tell you how good that makes me feel.

we are already busy planning the december show. it is the last month we are guaranteed to have the space so we want to do the best job we possible can. it's such a wonderful opportunity and just so rewarding. the beautiful artist Meagan Donegan is at the gallery today. i love her drawings of sheep. LOVE! if you're in the are, pop on in and say hello!

sunday afternoon (2-6pm) is the reception for 'tiny' at Studio Gallery which i am very much looking forward to. i love just being in jen abd rab's space. it just plain ol' feels good to be there.

i tell ya... the last few weeks it has felt so amazingly wonderful to be a working artist. :) i am so so so thankful.

come on down! :)

i'll be at Slingshot all day today. well, most of the day anyway. 12 - 5pm. you are more than welcome to come down and hang out with me. i'm bringing my crochet projects to work on and some pencils and paper too. if you're in the area and looking for something to do, swing through!

890 valencia @ 20th, san francisco.

busy busy busy

i am neck deep in applications this week. both in terms of my epic job hunt and a few artist residencies i've been drooling over. with the new year just around the corner, my fire is stoked high to get a few things wrapped up and set in motion. burn, baby, burn!!!! and then i can move on to the lovely task of choosing a whole new batch of new year's resolutions. :) it's a tradition i definitely enjoy taking part in but, now that i've quit smoking (can you believe it's already been 4 weeks!), i'm having trouble coming up with them. ha! what about you? have you started thinking about the new year yet or are you dreading it, pushing back the thought of the holidays as far as you can? maybe i'm pushing back the thought of the holidays by leaping right over them and going straight to january?

:)

i have been crocheting roses for the better part of a week and switching back and forth between reading jean genet and simone weil. is that an odd combo? polar mysticisms, for sure. and i bend under the weight and steam of both their writings, come to some sort of faithful ground where exploration as such becomes the best and only beauty. philosophy has always turned me inside out in such wonderful ways. it is a grand art. it always makes me sad to see it flailing, unnoticed, in the background of culture at large: shining and ignored. still, i become more and more thankful for it. i ensure myself some much coveted moments alone with it daily now; the rain finding us so often.

today the sun is high and bright but it is freezing cold. the chill bit my face on the Mighty Run and made my nostrils hurt. the heater on and am wearing a huge sweater, thankful for walls and a roof and the water boiling for cherry tea.

and my head is still not screwed on entirely straight, still lop-sided and dangling (happily!) from the radiating joy of the weekend. a moment of satisfaction??? it was so wonderful to see my school friends again! their smiling faces and warm hugs. it felt like no time had gone by at all and it was just a few weeks ago that we were all crammed in to the studios together, worrying about the meaning of painting and things like Relevance and Historic Reference. hahaha! and of course those things are important but, now, 2 1/2 years later the story has changed: those concerns become tempered, cut down to size by struggling alone with your own practice, your own ideas, picking out books to read on your own, and holding them under your own microscope. my school friends all said "your work is so different now". :) and i suppose it is.

and so i feel quiet and happy today. spinning, but pleased. i will be watching Slingshot Gallery on thursdays so come on down! draw with me! talk to me about books or art or whatever shenanigans you may be up too. it would be wonderful to hang out! i'll be there from 12-5pm at least. i'll keep the doors open longer some days when i don't have to rush right off.

i am smiling so much my face hurts!

i am still reeling from the opening at Slingshot last night. it was amazing! simply, totally amazing. i had such a wonderful time. and it was PACKED! the turn-out was unbelievable and i am joyfully overwhelmed by the amount of support we received last night. incredible and humbling and so beautiful. and we've even been reviewed already! thank you Arteaser! AHHHHHHHH! :D

the end

the end
39" x 51"
graphite and gouache on paper, 2010

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warning (2)
30" x 22"
mixed media on paper
2010

reading Simone Weil's Gravity & Grace

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the chapter "Attention and Will" has got me by the hair. in fistfuls. i cannot look away. i cannot look away from my own face in the mirror. the indictment. the lesson.

"We have to cure our faults by attention and not by will." (p.169)

"Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love." (p.170)

"Love is the teacher of gods and men, for no one learned anything without desiring to learn. Truth is sought not because it is truth, but because it is good.
Attention is bound up with desire. Not with the will but with desire. Or, more exactly, with consent." (p.171)

like 3 gunshots right in a row. boom. boom. boom. or my face slapped. or maybe kissed? 3 kisses on the cheek. and then that fist in the hair that holds my head immobile and forces me to take a better, closer, longer look at what i assumed Attention and Will (and Love) are.

i have known that place. i have been there. that place, akin to prayer, that raises itself up (and my self along with it) when i am truly attentive. when i am absolutely engaged. the wonderment that courses through a body. i have experienced this while reading, drawing, running. i have felt it while singing in the shower. i have felt it in so many classrooms and while scribbling away in my notebooks.

but also: the result of heart break. the result of brutality. the result of devastation. just as wonderment has coursed through my body, so has an amazing despair. not all exaltation is pleasurable.

good does not always equal fun.

i say that to myself and see that there have been so many times when i have been a spoiled brat, kicking a screaming, because the Good Work i needed to do was also Hard Work and not fun at all. and i only see that, now, that i have been questioned about Attention and Will. i see that i have not been as attentive to myself as i thought. it is not the same thing as self-indulgence and it is not the same thing as self-abasement.

how to turn that focus, that attentiveness, toward myself in the way it is called for in the first quote?

thinking along these lines, this switch in lingo, gives me a new perspective on how to think of struggle and learning. i must pay attention to myself, see exactly what i am focusing on, discern if it is "good" and, if it isn't, (if it is horrible for me, wounding me, if i am only beating myself up) to refocus (attend) to the Good. the good i haven't given myself because it comes in a package i do not recognize or do not like. the good that finds me only through hard work. the good that is hard work itself. i must somehow love myself enough to learn how to do this... how to break the old, bitter habits.

i think that even something as horrible as self-hate is a habit. that malicious routine of pick pick pick and point point point: berating the self, attacking, snarling. as routine as brushing your teeth. it signals a corrupt notion of love.

maybe practicing Attention can teach me a new notion of love? a new notion of faith? maybe i have not yet truly "consented" to learning certain things? i have feared the lesson. maybe i have been afraid of looking at particular realities? seeing them, as they truly are and without any consolation, the realities alive in me.

breath

we are losing day light. the season is robbing me of my beloved early mornings. i noticed today how dark it still was today at 6am. absolute black here at the forest's edge.

it's been freezing in the morning too. i will need to get a ski mask so that i can keep running in the winter.

running has become a ritual. breath and blood- pounding pounding, surging. a necessity. and my mind travels through time, through branches, through fog toward early light and shade while i leap across the two-lane highway, barrel down the lane along vineyards, orchards, tenements, and the wide, unkempt fields littered with rotting walnut husks.

stray dogs. squirrels. signs for who to vote for.

i am making a big cup of tea with honey in it. after i enjoy it, i will go vote. exercise my rights and then come home, dive back in to my black graphite, scratch scratch scratch the page, and sit in bed with my Mr. Wonderful- Roland Barthes. it is high on my To-Do List today to re-read Camera Lucida. it's been years. i don't remember a thing about it and that makes me feel too silly to not do anything about it. besides, as i go along, i seem to crave more and more time with Barthes' writing... believing, in a way akin to faith, that dealing with his work truly does make me a better artist. i am sure of this. and in becoming a better artist, also a better person.

i've been singing lately while i work. yesterday, i sang almost all day long while i sat on the living room floor working on a huge drawing. the day moved so quickly. and i felt such a deep stir of emotion while i worked. the swell and release that only the act of singing seems to bring. an exorcism of sorts, i suppose. a reckoning. and i felt like i accomplished something good and true just sitting here on the floor, singing and drawing, all day long.

november will be an awesome month!

i cannot believe it is november already. the 2nd to the last month in the year. geez. doesn't it seem like it was new year's eve just a couple of months ago? doesn't it feel like we should only be in april? don't you feel like we should have a bit more time to get rolling on all those straggling new year's resolutions we made? ha! but maybe this is how i know we really are gearing up for winter: joining the chorus of people talking about how quickly the year went and how each year seems to go by faster than the last. this one sure did! and next year will too! AHHHHHHH! remember how long a day seemed when we were little? how large time felt, how expansive summer break was? summer break felt like an entire year.

but november is actually quite an amazing month for me and i am looking forward to each and every minute of it. the install on saturday at Slingshot went amazingly well. the space looks absolutely gorgeous. it really does. the funny thing about art exhibitions is that once everything is curated and set in place, it always looks better than you could have imagined. always. and there is this wonderful moment that comes where you are actually impressed with yourself. :) it's a great feeling! and i pretty much spent the entire weekend feeling pretty impressed with not only myself but with the other artists i'm showing with. it feels fucking fantastic to have your work in the same space as the work of other artists you respect. i've wanted to show with freya for 3 years and now it's happening and i am ecstatic! if you are around, please come down and share the joy! the whole thing is quite an experiment - we are the people actually physically running the space for the next few months. it's our gallery for a time. the space has been lent to us temporarily and we are turning the magic on. i'm not sure what day is mine to sit the gallery but i'll let you know as soon as i find out. the opening reception is this saturday november 6th from 6-8pm at 890 Valencia. come on down and bring a friend and make some new friend too!


cell phone pic sneak peek!


after setting up, i went across town to Studio Gallery and dropped off 5 pieces for their annual "tiny" exhibition, a show that is definitely a san francisco favorite. all the work in the show must be 7" x 7" and under and is price capped at $400. it is the place to be if you want to give art as a gift for the holidays or if you want to start a collection of your own. it's an amazing show that i'm so happy to be a part of again. i think it is so important to encourage people to see the arts as a very human activity, not something rooted in elitism and removed from daily life. this show helps to bring art in to the home, to make it accessible and comfortable to acquire. the first reception for the show is sunday november 14th from 2-6pm. here's a little preview of the work i've got in the show, priced at $200:



fall (2)
6" x 6"
oil on canvas, 2010


and the afternoon/night before the reception at Studio, from 4-9:30pm there is the reception and live action benefiting Visual Aid, the annual Big Blue Deal, to attend. i have a piece on the auction block again this year (Visual Aid is one of my absolute favorite benefits and deserves its own blog post!)


Private Romance (Angela, age 19)
42" x 35"
oil on canvas, 2010

and i hope that you can make it out or, if you are an artist in the greater san francisco area, donate a great piece of work to their cause. it is such a fantastic and important way for artists to help support their own community. it really is. please click the link above and check them out. Visual Aid is am amazing foundation and i feel absolutely honored to be able to do something that may help other artists in need. this auction in particular hits very close to home.


LOTS of great stuff this month! and i hope if you're willing and able to make it out to any of these events, that you will introduce yourself! it would be so amazing to meet you! sincerely!!!! :)