Blackland

a way to write:

2012-01-26T20:24:00.000-08:00

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untitled
bleach on kingsize bedspread
angela simione, 2012

franny, i got delayed!

2012-01-08T23:24:00.000-08:00

i've always been a bit of a tease

2012-01-05T12:31:00.001-08:00

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guess who's going to the LA Art Show.

...i wanted a language of my own...

2012-01-03T00:11:00.000-08:00

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each and every one, in order, from first to last

2012-01-01T11:34:00.000-08:00

my 2011 notebook self-portrait. herein lies the remains of one very strange, aching year:

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X

2011-12-30T18:06:00.000-08:00

i begin to think at times that i might be one of the worst people on the planet. i know this isn't true. one of those strange fears left over from childhood. the bad habit of self-hate. there are plenty of people out there who are way worse than i could ever be but, still, i think it. i feel it. some sort of cold nausea of the heart. the pounding of such a sad organ. round and round we go, all this aching blood looking for an outlet, an outcry, some sort of solace from what the world is and what life has been.

i am such a fucking downer here. tis the season in so many ways. this white rectangle is my repository for all the bad little things i hide in real life. it is the precious receptacle of everything dirty and mean and whiny. i can be totally unattractive and completely loathsome here and the only punishment i can count on is that no one will read these words which, in this age, is a big blessing. who knows what the hell i'm trying to say anyway. this has become a death blog and i really don't know what that means or entails. i finished reading Close to the Knives and it was all so painful and beautiful and i thought that if i can at least outfit my friends in black sweaters and black banners and leave them with some interesting things to read before i die i will have done alright.

he writes: "i want to be untouchable and without need."

i writhe beneath such a sentence. i know exactly what he means and it makes my heart hurt. i want to feel such a deep, inconsolable void that pain doubles over itself like a somersault and spits out something beautiful and necessary. something beyond all this whining, all this conjecture, and hungry hands searching in the dark blankets for some amount of security.

i can't name the things i wrestle with. nouns have no power over them. still, i lean in toward the future with hopeful eyes like a child. such a big hope that i am blistered by it, radiant and expectant and willing to go on trying and working and struggling.

i stood in a coffee shop and i listened to the christmas music and i thought: this orchestration in no way represents a thing about my life.

2011-12-26T06:45:00.001-08:00

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a sentence and a landscape:

2011-12-25T19:52:00.000-08:00

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daily

2011-12-21T15:04:00.000-08:00

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i long for you without end
crochet
angela simione, 2011

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2011-12-17T22:51:00.000-08:00

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yessirie

2011-12-12T23:33:00.000-08:00

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my favorite part is when the polish chips and the dry cuticle splits

2011-12-06T11:44:00.000-08:00

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...a soldier to my own emptiness...

2011-12-06T11:34:00.000-08:00

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a motor or a compass

2011-12-01T09:58:00.000-08:00

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2011-11-30T19:04:00.000-08:00

in reference to all that needs to be referenced

2011-11-25T18:34:00.000-08:00

i am not interested in spelling anything out or defining a fucking thing.

the meaning i make is my own. the meaning you make is your own. if the meaning you make comes from the meaning i make then our meanings are siblings. sometimes they will love each other. sometimes they will pull each other's hair. sometimes they will grow to become sworn enemies. the cycle is the cycle and as i proceed i see that reason fails. reason fails but the effort toward it is noble, as is the effort toward passion.

these are observations.

the year is winding down.

today on the train i started reading my diary from a year ago. it is absolutely amazing and glaring how different i am today than i was a year ago. a parent burned to ash will do that to you.

so much has changed. so much has remained the same. so much needs to take root and so much needs to be rooted out.

you have no idea how badly i want to caress the side of your face. my cold hand aches to move gently against your warm cheek.

"cold hands, warm heart" becca reminds me.

perfect timing

2011-11-20T16:59:00.000-08:00

all of a sudden, the light of evening shifts.

all of a sudden, so heartbroken and small.

we worry our hands and tap our feet.

or i do.

but my face is calm. i do not shiver or sneer.

you don't know a thing.

my lipstick is perfect.

church goers

2011-11-15T22:51:00.000-08:00

me and my friend becca call going to the museum "going to church". our faith blossoms. our strength is restored. we leave feeling so much lighter than when we came in. affirmed. dedicated. courageous. committed.

we also have a fun little habit of turning any art piece that incorporates a mirror into an opportunity to make self-portraits. the MOCA was rife with said opportunity. :)

me

my beautiful friend and amazing artist, rebecca schillinger

mirrors

becca smiling. so pretty!!!

silly girls.

more silly girls.

homeboy in the back taking pictures of us taking pictures of ourselves. hmmmm.

yours truly. :)

plan a museum trip with a friend.

these days

2011-11-08T15:09:00.000-08:00

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just drive

2011-11-06T09:00:00.000-08:00

i finished reading The Female Eunuch and i think everyone needs to read it or re-read it as the case may be. especially the section LOVE. and especially the section HATE. and then definitely especially the section REVOLUTION. there is a difference, germaine greer states, between Reaction and Revolution which i think is a very important distinction to make. and very important now. very important in our time, all these changes and ideas, all these plans, all these wings on hinges, all these words floating around or being cast across vast distances like arrows. i have arrows in my eyes these days. reading all the time. it's the best thing for me and i feel so glad that words matter as much as they do. i'm so glad that poetry still exists even after all the damage that's been done. i'm glad to know that art and poetry and music can all be made out of anything, even ruins and left-overs.

words make the world. i'm glad to know that language changes, morphs, slides perversely against itself and births itself anew.

it is such a cold morning. and quiet. soon i'll need to get dressed, get myself on the train, and get my ass to work. in a few days i'll be driving down the I-5 to southern california to attend the show at Craftswoman House. there is so much to do between now and then and i'm trying not to think about it, just do it, just get it done, so i can get in the car with a clear heart and DRIVE DRIVE DRIVE. i'm looking forward to the length of the drive, all those hours by myself behind the wheel in the isolated desolate plain of central california. the heat and the wind. the closed rest stops. the horrible cattle farms. but space. endless blue above. the road itself an arrow of purpose. images in my eyes and heart and hands, a song on my tongue. i will listen to music loud. i will pull off the road to write.

(half the time i wish to be incredibly beautiful. the other half of the time, i wish for incredible ugliness. i think after a certain point, everything becomes Amazing and labels like Beautiful and Ugly fall flat but, for now, i am in this land and on this dirt and it is what i am attracted to.)

i am anxious for coffee. let's get some lipstick on this mug and get this show on the road.

give the murdered girl some space

2011-10-31T16:02:00.000-07:00

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someone in oakland is using nancy spungen's last name as their tag and i absolutely love that. whoever you are, keep going! i want to follow your lead! i want to write the names of murdered girls everywhere. i want to keep their names alive and in front of all our eyes. maybe we could all do this? let's all buy paint pens on payday.

my ill-defined, unknowable need

2011-10-29T10:23:00.000-07:00

my ballerina feet

2011-10-27T15:15:00.000-07:00

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MANDATORY

2011-10-24T12:50:00.000-07:00

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red text

2011-10-22T10:00:00.000-07:00

the sweaters make me think i should start thinking about performance. they are very performative, no? i love seeing them all together like this. you can see them all together too in just a few weeks at the Stemma Cell show at Craftswoman House in Pasadena. mark your calenders. a big red X (kiss).

i found this on the street in san rafael, california

2011-10-18T15:28:00.000-07:00

yesterday. i read it aloud to my friend, her brother and mother, and shivered over the words, below the touch of facts, the music of pain and hope. i folded it up and put it in my back pocket and took it home.

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2011-10-17T22:52:00.000-07:00

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here today

2011-10-16T17:10:00.000-07:00

there is never going to be enough time.
i am trying to accept that fact.

it's a hard one.

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i don't want anything from you.

i want everything from you.

i want to not be afraid of anything at all.

fake bravery is something i am very good at.

i wish i was as good at making art as i am at making fake bravery.

part of me is so desperately in love with jean genet's work that i want to go live in my car. some days i actually have to talk myself out of going and doing just that. i research artist residencies instead and study german grammar.

i bought a t-shirt that says DON'T GIVE UP on the front. i love it because that's exactly what i tell myself almost every day.

you don't give up either.

there is that part of me that still kicks and screams. there is that little girl who used to lay herself down on her mama's lap and her mama would scratch her back softly. there is a part of me who is still that little girl, still looking for that same deep level of safety and warmth. i don't think it lives anywhere else. that safety is gone forever. i don't give a shit if other people think i am sentimental. they obviously don't think about their own death very much. and they should because it's coming.

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bruise violet

2011-10-11T15:44:00.000-07:00

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in the rain

2011-10-10T18:09:00.000-07:00

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chip away

2011-10-03T16:33:00.000-07:00

2011-10-02T11:42:00.000-07:00

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sick girl

2011-09-23T16:35:00.000-07:00

1. this is day 2 stuck at home. yesterday i was so exhausted i didn't do anything really but sleep and blow my nose. seriously. even walking down the hall to the bathroom exhausted me entirely. today, i have a bit more strength and am really hoping i'm over the worst of this, whatever this is. i have promised myself and others that i will show up for work tomorrow. my sinuses are so congested that i can't concentrate on reading or get any studying done. also, i am eating Popsicles like crazy. it is one of the few comforts i've found. that and looking at pictures of Katharina Fritsch's artwork. i want to runaway to germany and study under her. i'm serious. and maybe one day that could be a possibility. another year of german and i should be fluent enough to at least be able to find myself a meal and a roof. this grad school thing might need to happen sooner than later. i begin to feel the itch for serious critique and heavy theory and being immersed in art in a way that you just don't get many places outside of school. i want to hang out with other artists everyday and talk about art nerd stuff. i want to have all those conversations that other people roll their eyes over when eavesdropping. but before that, travel has become imperative. i've actually started putting money in my savings account.

2. repat says they all wanted to talk about death and i am no different. no different at all. last night i watched Little Women with winona ryder and susan sarandon and claire danes. and when the part came when beth (claire danes) was dying and she said "why does everyone always want to go away? i love being home. but i don't like being left behind... and now it is i who is going ahead", her eyes so full of tears in spite of her smile and she said "i can be brave too." i absolutely lost it. in my mind i saw my mom's face. the way she looked when i walked in to her room and the morphine was so heavy on her small frame. all i could she was her face and in my ear was this voice saying "now it is i who is going ahead".

i cried for a long time.

3. i found out my sweaters were accepted in to a show! yay!!! more about that in a few weeks when everything is official official but, for now, i'm happy to just ride high on this tide of support. that the sweaters are seen as ART by more people than just me and my friends is a wonderfully deep and meaningful encouragement. especially today as i feel so ill and defenseless, deflated, and weak. in so many ways it is an encouragement of who i am becoming... who i need to become and have been trying to become for awhile now. it is hard work following one's heart.

4.i read kate's blog and feel less alone.

2011-09-19T10:26:00.000-07:00

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2011-09-18T07:55:00.000-07:00

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i have no days off! everyday is GO GO GO! it's good for me but it makes me miss you LIKE CRAZY!

2011-09-17T22:15:00.000-07:00

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2011-09-12T14:13:00.000-07:00

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2011-09-06T13:33:00.000-07:00

neurosis/romanticism/just make art

2011-08-31T13:29:00.000-07:00

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read

2011-08-31T13:26:00.000-07:00

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Adrienne Rich's "Claiming an Education" here.

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lucky

2011-08-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

there are particular bits of wisdom i always run to. lately i have snuggled down in to the quilts other women have made. i burrow down deep with my thoughts and projects and books. it is there that i mend my heart.

i've been crocheting like crazy. 2 new sweaters have been completed but i want to keep them all to myself for a little while longer. i want to keep my images off the internet for a bit and just see where i end up. i've needed a bit of time away from the digital world. i've needed to recoil from its immediacy and curl in to myself instead. the world of flesh and touch and words spoken aloud. i've needed the privacy of my own bed and notebook and to keep my words and images for myself. a cocoon. i'm still drawing skulls, still faithfully following these impulses. i wake with so many images and ideas swirling around inside my sleepy brain. i make tea and sit down to write.

i have the day off from work today but it is the first day of a new semester and i will be counted at roll call later this evening. a new day. a new week. a new class. a new semester. and i love the way it times my life. not too short, not too long, and always building toward something better. and so i can be languid this morning. i can be easy and slow. soon, a run around the lake but i've spent the morning writing and reading and before i do anything else i wanted to transcribe something here. one of those bits of wisdom i cling to. a mother's warm hand:

What has kept me going and still keeps me going is the knowledge that being an artist is a privilege. And the second thing- which is a consequence of the first - is that one must not ask too much. Well, what do I mean by that? Simply that the pursuit of happiness is fine - we all want to believe in it - but most of the time it is just that, a pursuit. Now the privilege of being an artist consists of three things. First, to have something of your own to say. And then - and this is a fight to the finish - to be able to communicate that to people. At best a school can help you with the second part, but it is obviously up to you what you are going to say, what spark you have, what subject. Now what does this all have to do with making a living?I do not know. When you start to define being an artist in those terms - as a profession like any other profession - you place yourself on a downward spiral. You begin to think: "How am I going to survive?" "I hate my job." "I am a prisoner of the people who depend on me, of people's expectations for my success." "I know that there is loads of money out there but the system is so crooked none of it is going to come my way." "I know there are hundreds of galleries in New York and I have a right to be in one of them - or I'm not in the one I want to be in." The important thing about all these statements is that they are all true - or could be true. But the mistake is to confuse art with a "right" at all. One has no birthright to be an artist. One is lucky to be one and that is all. So why have I mentioned these pessimistic things? Well, in fact, it is to say - as I have said - that things really are not so bad all the same. You are privileged to be what you are, and you have your whole life - fifty years - to figure out how it will be. But if this seems to general, all I can say is that after fifty years as an artist it is my privilege to say it just the same. That is all.

-Remarks prepared for art students at Rutgers University, Louise Bourgeios

this statement, paired with the poverty anais nin lived in during her 30s and 40s (which i am currently reading all about - the horror of it and how absolutely defeated one can feel at times) is a great comfort to me, a great and steady encouragement to continue. i have enough money for supplies. i have enough money for books and food. i have enough money for paper. i'm not sleeping on the street and i will not go hungry. i am learning and making my way through the world and it is a privilege in deed to be able to write and make art all along the way. if there is any time when i feel the value of pain it is when it has been transmuted in to a piece of art. it keeps my feet moving. one foot in front of the other. always forward. to be reminded that i am privileged to be what i am is a humbling thing. i am a lucky girl.

something beautiful and curious

2011-08-12T08:32:00.001-07:00

have you seen these photographs of frances bean cobain?

2011-08-12T08:29:00.000-07:00

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crux

2011-08-11T14:20:00.000-07:00

the fact is that the 6 month mark of losing my mother undid me in ways i couldn't have expected. there is no way to know how this thing will manifest in me. how it will spill and slide. my life has become a strange, winding thing. daily, i can change. shift. one glance, a breath, can change the entire world.

tomorrow marks month 7 and only now is the angry, confused fog i've been living in for the past month beginning to lift. no one would guess it had they bumped in to me on the street. i've become quite good at ignoring myself until i am entirely alone. i have become quite good at limiting the ripples that belie the chaos of my interiority. i am straight-faced. i am smiling. i am a happy person. i wear dark glasses and water-proof mascara. no one is the wiser that i'm crying while driving down the freeway. i have been on a hamster wheel for an entire month chasing the same horrible vapors, the same unnameable longing. i haven't returned the concerned emails people have sent. i haven't had the stomach for it. i contain my vomit to my diary. i put my sorrow in the stitches of my sweaters. i store my massive, unyielding anxiety and fear in the Worry Roses. i am making a new garden.

i put on my ripped jeans and note the date. i've been without cigarettes for 10 months today. i stumble toward this new animal, this new person i'm becoming, this new girl. whoever she is.

yep!

2011-08-03T10:11:00.000-07:00

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(from the break room at work)

snippet

2011-08-02T12:54:00.000-07:00

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a good thing to hold on to

2011-07-28T19:57:00.000-07:00

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We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.

-Anais Nin

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writing and life and my writing-life

2011-07-24T12:14:00.000-07:00

funny... now that i'm not tucked away in the countryside and spend most days at work in san francisco, i am a bit more aware of this space, this blog. i log in to my account and stare at the white rectangle where i am supposed to type, the space i've laid down so many words before, so much yearning and confusion, so many attempts at self-knowledge, and feel such a heavy ambivalence. key-stroke after key-stroke, in the hope of unearthing even the smallest clue as to what direction i should be moving in, some sort of clarity, some sort of assurance, and now this... this streak of days where i just stare stare stare at the white or, worse, fill it up with text and then log out without posting it when i like having the document of my struggle. i like that that's pretty much what this blog is all about now. it's just weird, i guess... by moving back to a more populated place where i run in to friends and acquaintances, both personal and professional, on a regular basis my blog actually comes up in conversation. it's sort of weird. like my alter-ego just had her "true" identity exposed. very much like looking under batman's mask (not that i'm performing any sort of heroism here), ripping away the warm black shield of relative anonymity. it's been interesting. i mentioned it to my friend freya (who reads my blog and we discuss it's contents sometimes and i feel really thankful for that and the massive presence of art/lit/meaning in our friendship) and told her that in some very deep , very serious ways i feel like the people who read my blog know me infinitely better than people who don't. there are people in my flesh-based reality who can't stand the blog. they do not read it. they've tried and it either makes them uncomfortable or sad or they simply don't want to see this side of me. i am reminded of another anais nin quote right now as i am typing this:

The truly faithless one is the one who makes love to only a fraction of you. And denies the rest.

i haven't made up my mind how i feel about that statement yet but something about it caught my attention in a very forceful way. maybe i feel that i am also guilty of this? maybe i feel there are people around me who are guilty of this and it hurts me? and also, getting to know someone in a meaningful way takes time... and sometimes i wonder if/fear that this blog might do a disservice to that meandering road of friendship; the nebulous curiosity and intrigue that is so much fun and integral to a relationship of substance. but then another Nin quote comes to mind:

The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.

in so many ways, this blog lays a lot of my cards out on the table. i've chosen to live that way. i've chosen to be this honest. but maybe providing "knowledge" only increases my "mystery", as it were?

i'm being a big fraidy cat, i know. and i'm letting my fear of saying too much or saying the wrong thing hold too much sway lately. i've been writing like crazy in my journal. every day, every day, every day. and i still magically find that inner zone of devilish trance-like fluidity where poetry becomes possible and i am able to bang out a few sentences, sometimes a few paragraphs, and write with the full comfort of no one standing over my shoulder.

i read this late last night (thanks for the link, rebecca!) and it calmed me so much. i read it and i thought: just work. fuck it.

if i end up embarrassing myself here it definitely won't be because i expressed myself badly. or suppose did? so what? i'd rather risk saying too much than never enough. "never enough" is not where art lives, not where meaning lives, not where passion lives and those 3 things are the 3 most important things in my current world-view. i'd rather be here and give you this crazy shit to read. you honor me by spending time with all these words. feel free to mention this blog when you run in to me if you feel like it. this world and the other are not separate. i'd like to see them gel.

art and pain

2011-07-20T22:44:00.000-07:00

the man said Art doesn't work without pain.

i have been taught to disregard statements like that but, sometimes, when i look at my own work, the painful origins of my images are too stark and strong to deny. i read his statement again and see that it is honest, accurate in a way that makes me uncomfortable. uncomfortable maybe because i am an american and i want to seem tough, cool, collected, unshakable. then i remember i have a blog and i remember the things i've written on this blog and the reality of the situation dawns on me: OH SHIT! MY BLOG IS ON THE INTERNET! EVERYONE CAN SEE IT! hahahaha! silly, i know, but i try not to think about it. i've actually been pretty successful at convincing myself that no one reads this thing and that all my words here are really just skipping stones across a quiet lake. it's better for me to think that way about this practice because otherwise i might not say anything at all. i might become too embarrassed, too ashamed of my own life, my own lived experiences and expressions of pain. i might hide instead and cry where no one can see.

but where would be the benefit in that? where would be the art?

it is more than pain, something beyond pain, but pain nevertheless, in each contour, in every shimmer... because life is like that too. some things must be alchemised if we expect to be able to look at them. some types of pain has to be romanticized in order to even be carried. some pains are just that great, just that crushing. a conversion must take place. we develop new eyes, new words, new hands that are capable of holding new pain. we must, if we must continue.

Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terror, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.

— Anaïs Nin

today, tomorrow, and the next

2011-07-16T09:59:00.000-07:00

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Aus den Wolken tropft ein Chor

2011-07-14T21:30:00.000-07:00

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first half

2011-07-12T11:41:00.000-07:00

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The Runaway Game:

2011-07-09T20:18:00.000-07:00

I would go around and around my little bedroom that I shared with my sister and I would pick out the things that could not be left behind. I had a cardboard suitcase with tiny flowers printed all over it. I would open it up in the middle of the room and fold my underwear and socks in to it. My Bible for Children lay beneath the small, white garments. I packed my favorite stuffed animal and a coloring book and a box of used up crayons. Back and forth, back and forth, picking up every item in my little room, weighing the consequences of leaving each thing behind: Would this doll’s feelings be hurt? Would this teddy bear survive without me? Who would love them for me when I was gone?

Sorrowful. Round and round. Each horrible choice. But the suitcase needed to be ready. This game could go on for hours.

HAPPY 104th BIRTHDAY, FRIDA!!!!

2011-07-06T10:54:00.000-07:00

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yesterday at 5:29pm

2011-07-06T10:22:00.000-07:00

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me and my beautiful friend, Becca Schillinger, in Tobias Wong's mirror/clock.

rest in peace, sweet boy.

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today, try again.

2011-07-05T10:08:00.000-07:00

last night i was editing a few poems when i heard the BOOM BOOM BOOM of fireworks. instantly, i stood up, pulled my jeans and shoes on, and raced up 3 flights of stairs to the roof of my building. silence, save for the orchestra of thunder. there were two couples snuggling in the dark. a soft evening and so lovely. i thought how wonderful it is that new year's day and independance day are 6 months apart... each, an opportunity to take a closer look at one's self and life, to discern the dreams and ethics that must be fought for, and who to be amid the swirl, the chaos, the collision. i don't mean any of this in the national sense (though it can and should extend there), but the personal. i have learned (and am still learning) that all change begins within the individual. it is a hard fact to look at sometimes but, barring any biological reason to the contrary, completely true. this fact kicks my ass every time it gets the chance. afterward, i think less of Success, and more about what it means to Overcome.

i lucked out and got to see the Balenciaga and Spain exhibition at the De Young the other day right before it came down. earlier in the day, a friend and i walked through corridors of old paintings and entire rooms of french palaces re-installed within the Legion of Honor. elaborate couches and desks, mirrored walls, trinkets, figurines, lamps... gilt on everything. and then arriving in the evening at the Balenciaga exhibition and seeing so clearly the influence of painting and art history alive inside the clothing Cristobal Balenciaga designed. the rituals and ornamentation of catholicism were everywhere. the somber beauty of monks robes, the grandiose drapery of popes, the fascinating spectacle of religion itself installed on a catwalk. for as new to fashion as i am, the exhibition brought tears to my eyes. and reading about this man's life... the shit he had to overcome... it just really touched me. i thought of Coco Chanel and all that she overcame. talk about having the cards stacked against you!

and then i think of myself. the recent horrors and the not so recent. the roof i was born under and the great distance i've travelled from it to rest under the roof where i am now. i think of my childhood and feel so far away from it. i feel like such a different person. it feels like a completely different life. even what my life was 3 or 4 years ago seems like a completely different life... maybe it is.

there are moments when i look in the mirror and think who the hell are you? what the hell are you doing? what do you need? be honest! we all do it, i know, in one way or the other.

and if i have a religion at all, it is Art. it takes a lot of faith to be an artist. it takes a lot of sacrifice. but it is beautiful and a privilege. it is a privilege every step of the way. last night, watching six different fireworks displays from my roof, i realized there is no way i will ever be able to see it all, do it all. i snapped my head back and forth like an excited little kid trying to watch all the fireworks at once. hahahaha! impossible. but the attempt made me smile. the attempt was a human thing to do, a human moment.

i remind myself that the point is to try.

don't you give up either.

mid-way

2011-07-03T19:48:00.000-07:00

resolutions for the next 6 months:

1. finish reading Anais Nin's diary (3 volumes to go)

2. buy two tickets to new york. it doesn't matter when the flight is scheduled but the tickets must be bought and paid for by december 31st.

3. german II

4. make more art*

5. look at more art*

*let the definition of art be as loose, wide, wild, scary, and unexpected as possible.

greenery

2011-06-30T10:08:00.000-07:00

the light this morning is beautiful.

i stumble around, undressed, enjoying the simple fact of where i am: the hard wood floor under my feet and the empty stretcher bars leaning against the wall, a huge drawing in its infancy laying on the living room floor. the only furniture we have are two huge bookcases - one in the living room and one in the bedroom - and the chest of drawers and hope chest i inherited from my mom a few years ago when she was first thinning out her possessions in preparation for her move to tennessee. other than our massive collection of books and all the art and art supplies that follow me around, it is pretty spare here. i must say i rather enjoy it. i like having less.

yesterday, i ran a round The Lake again. 3+ miles of sweat and hard breath, hopscotching around and over huge piles of goose shit. i had no idea canada geese were so filthy but they are. canine sized shits only green from all the horrible algae they slurp up. and EVERYWHERE. my god. nevertheless, a beautiful place and an amazing run. it is the perfect distance. it is just a bit longer than what my endurance likes and that's a good thing. i have to push myself to finish and i feel happy as i make my way back around to my starting place. i feel happy as i run, lost in all my daydreams and plans, turning over each thought like a stone. i will run again this afternoon. this morning is for crocheting roses and drinking lady grey tea.

i sit here with kate's postcard from scandinavia next to me. the smooth design of the postage stamps make me yearn for an adventure of my own. new languages in my ear and new fruit in my stomach, dusty museums to wander through, words i can't understand and a train ticket in my hand. ahhhh... one day soon, i hope. i am so horribly un-traveled. this must be remedied.

it is the last day of june. we have lived through, miraculously, the first 6 months of this year. we have 6 more to go. i found my notebook from last december and looked at my list of new year's resolutions. i've accomplished a good number of them but most no longer fit who i've become. rather than scratch them off the list, i'll make a new one. a new list for the second half of the year. it'll help me know where i am, where i've come from, where i need to go.

i read kate's book and see myself tucked in the corners of so many words. maybe not as green, but green nonetheless. i'm not ashamed, just surprised. how could it be that i am still a bit naive? still wondering who i am and who i should be? still trying to darken my own outline and distinguish myself from what i was taught to be.

last night i sat and read her book in public when i probably should've been making eye contact and smiling and being approachable. it might've been rather rude of me to sit there with my nose stuck in a book but how does one tear oneself away when they are reading the curve of their own story?

i bounce back and forth between it and volume 3 of anais nin's diary. my lineage flowers in front of my eyes and it is a gorgeous, angry, swirling thing. magical and fantastic, romantic, inspired, and just so damn smart!

where are you, now, 6 months in? are you a list maker too? what do you want to do?

see you soon!

2011-06-29T14:55:00.001-07:00

i will be here tonight. you should be there too. i will premiere my newest SWEATER OF DEATH (see photograph a few posts below) so you'll know which one is me. i will have some of the i will not die in front of you prints available and seahorse skeletons too. maybe even some drawings. :)

bundle up and come out tonight!

<3

rainy day

2011-06-28T13:53:00.000-07:00

tap tap tap on the roof and windows, i pace back and forth. i crochet black roses and pray the sky will clear. i want to get out and run around the lake. i want to sweat and breathe hard and feel my feet pounding against the dirt. i go through my german flashcards (yes, i am totally so nerdy as to have flashcards), and listen to the angles of this beautiful language. the tones and foreign lilts coming out of my own mouth. it adds a new breed of romance to my life. a new shape and desire. and kate's book is here next to me. it came in the mail the other day and i am loving every second of it, every page. all her writing reaches into me and pulls out so many hidden things. her writing makes me write. her work makes me want my own even more than i already do. the work of others has always amplified and accelerated my drive. i go back and forth between reading and writing, turning her pages and turning out my own. tap tap tap on the keys and the rain on the windows.

not a contest.

2011-06-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

stare at me. i'll stare at you. there's something to it.

THOU SHALT DIE
hand-crocheted sweater
angela simione, 2011

ma mere

2011-06-20T17:54:00.000-07:00

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ma mere
36" x 36"
oil on canvas
angela simione, 2011

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the way it is

2011-06-18T11:49:00.000-07:00

ever read your own work and think "what a fucking psychopath"? ha! yeah... one of those days. or weeks. still, it feels good to be writing. moving the pen and hitting the keys. i was up so late last night bouncing between Word Documents, adding and subtracting sentences, sometimes spilling entire paragraphs, and i think 2 pieces might actually be the same piece... might need to be combined. i think of anais nin writing the hard stuff first, the passages that were bound to take the most out of her, and then sewing them together later. so much of writing seem to be about building bridges, about making patchworks. i've been cutting up pages and pages of printed prose lately and taping them back together in different arrangements. it's been good to work that way.

i found louise bourgeios' Destruction of the Father at the CCA library the other day and sat down in one of the big leather chairs and read for a few hours.

on page 49:

...You can stand anything if you write it down. You must do it to get hold of yourself.

yes.

RULE 7

2011-06-18T10:55:00.000-07:00

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love

2011-06-17T11:31:00.000-07:00

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one of my closest friends gave birth to her first child yesterday morning.

700 miles between us and i feel so overcome.

when i spoke to her yesterday, i started crying and choking all over my emotions. so silly... i don't know how it is that i became the sort of person that gets so choked up at births and weddings but i do. i cried at her wedding and now at the birth of her son. even thinking of it now my eyes sting. and blubbering on the phone with her i told her how proud i was of her, how much i love her and that i'll get there as soon as i can. i told her that if she's half as good a mother as she is a friend, the kid is immeasurably blessed. she's an amazing mother already. and we marvelled together at the word: mother. i can't believe it. she has a son. i have a nephew.

i am overcome. so grateful and astounded and rocked to the core by such a deep, abiding love for too many things to name... by things i don't have the language yet to name.

i can't wait to see her and hug her.

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lead me

2011-06-16T15:25:00.000-07:00

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read his letters

2011-06-14T22:45:00.000-07:00

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the luck of the thing

2011-06-13T15:48:00.001-07:00

strangeness twined inside this light. suddenly she comes in her robes and curls, lip-sticked and smiling, that image that i've always had of her: full and bright and tall.

one of my aunts, one of my mother's sisters, had a heart attack and, though she is okay, it shakes us all so violently and the recent death we've all just seen comes flying up to face us again. we all become the mirror of it. we all walk around, mirrors on legs, shining the horror of it, the quickness and inexplicability of this damn life. too motherfucking short. should i be thankful to have learned this so early in life? or waste even more time than i already have on feeling cheated?

i make the sweaters. i work them like diaries. twist twist knot and turn. you will all at least have these peculiar objects to snuggle in and warm yourselves with when my day finally comes and i am gone. the sweaters and every image and every word i can muster. everything.

promise

2011-06-11T14:04:00.000-07:00

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sweetheart

2011-06-10T11:40:00.000-07:00

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i ended up scoring two of the coolest...

2011-06-09T13:13:00.000-07:00

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Alpha

2011-06-08T14:52:00.000-07:00

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Alpha
51" x 39"
graphite on paper
angela simione, 2011

this piece was commissioned by someone i know and love and respect so so so much! single handedly the best commission i've ever done, both in terms of subject and experience. elsie, our beloved. a strange angel that hovers around our heads and homes and lives. i feel connected to her in a way that i do not have the language with which to name. but the poet who commissioned this portrait does and i am excited for the fields of tall grass she swirls up, in line and breath, for us to hide and seek in. perfect.

return

2011-06-07T12:15:00.000-07:00

ahhhh...

i love it here. LOVE!

we are by no means settled in in regards to books being in the case and paintings hung on the wall (there are boxes everywhere), but my heart and brain has settled in swiftly. the switch was flipped instantly. as soon as i stepped across the threshold here i was at home and it felt as if the last 3 years in the country were only a dream, never happened at all. it feels like no time has passed since i last lived in this city.

yesterday, i began my new job hunt and am keeping my focus limited to jobs i actually want and feel inspired to try for. i went driving around this morning to drop off a few resumes and locate the closest Bart Station. I also realized that the first tuesday of the month is free admission day at SFMOMA so that's where i'll be hustling off to next. :)

i can't tell you how excited, relieved, hopeful, ecstatic, motivated, inspired, and happy i am to be back in the east bay. a tremendous sense of possibility greets me each morning and i feel so thoroughly hopeful. it makes me aware that i am still young and still strong. it's a very good feeling. there's been far too much despair the last few years. and though i agree that there are definite benefits from having experienced despair and surviving the torture of it, it feels damn good to be on the other side of it today.

there's so much to catch y'all up but i don't know how or where to begin. maybe all the back-tracking is unnecessary anyway. Here and Now is so good and bright! all i want to do is be outside. i just want to walk up and down the avenues of my hilly neighborhood and see all there is to see. it renews me to see the skyline of downtown oakland and san francisco. a new life must be built and i am so excited to have the opportunity to do so.

stand by

2011-06-03T15:09:00.001-07:00

moving. hang tight. here's a sweet little shout out our show got over at Hi-Fructose. YAY!!!!

in case you missed it...

2011-06-01T09:22:00.000-07:00

the show at Project One:

yours truly (reflection and art) :)

angela simione

angela simione

angela simione

charmaine olivia

charmaine olivia and angela simione

megan wolfe

chelsea brown

the show runs for 2 more weeks so if you're in the neighborhood (or close to it) please go see!!!!

2011-05-31T12:14:00.000-07:00

hannah, yes, i think you are right (see comment box of post below). i read through what was available online at the amazon link you sent and i nodded and nodded and nodded. i came to that word - that horribly popular word - and thought yep, that's exactly where i am. the word is liminal.

in-between. that's how i've been living for so long it seems. in a mist or in a tantrum, it's hard to say. i swing back and forth between knowing, for sure, which road i need to take, and having absolutely no clue who i am or what i'm doing. lost.

there are days when i feel so angry. angry to the point of hatefulness. so angry i go cold.

i suppose a death will do that to you. i spoke with a friend this weekend and, of his father's death, he said for two years straight i was moving in ten different directions. such a sense of relief swept over me. a cool hand on a fevered forehead. see, i'm not crazy i thought. but maybe my problem is that i'm not crazy enough? that i am so afraid of Shame that i do not allow myself certain expressions, certain risks of emotion and behavior. i'm afraid of "being bad". i'm afraid of being a bad daughter. my horrible lessons are surfacing and the anger i feel, the sense of being cheated, is so strong that it is hard to feel any sense of security or stability. i need an environment of stability in order to work, in order to wrestle with all the chaos that births these images and words. i need a safe home so that i can be unsafe in another: my practice.

the past 5 months have been odd. especially the last three. living between towers of cardboard, all our books packed away and book cases broken down, knowing that an exit was on the horizon but not when. unsettled and afraid of so many things, i took to smaller modes of work. the diary and the sweaters. i made a few paintings and a few drawings but no where near the usual amount. it felt true, honest, to work on the sweaters and scribble in secret. it felt true to not worry about oil painting and that grand history of art. it felt honest to just look at the installations and sculpture of louise bourgeios and read anais nin's diary. it felt right to to work in these tiny loops: the loops of my cursive, the loops of yarn on my hook. black ink and black wool and the slip of graphite every now and then...

maybe my practice is changing? how could it not?

and now this change in location, a change i've wanted for so long. still, there is something hard about packing one's life and history (self) in to boxes. it is sad and sentimental and heartrending. handling the old objects and wondering why i even have them. they are here because they've always been here. i give them to The Goodwill. i must. there is such a tremendous need in me to crawl out from under the weight of my family, the weight of our Past, yet it is so hard for me to toss out certain scraps from that Past. of course, i save the photo albums and heirlooms... but the trash that has followed me must be let go of.

most of it is gone.

next to me there is a pile of old drawings that i need to go through today. j is washing the tops of the walls where i couldn't reach. there is the small pile of books i kept with me just so i could feel safe, feel like myself in the middle of this chaos, and my diary is almost filled. only a few pages from the end but, even if i don't fill them before we leave, i will buy a new notebook to begin the first morning i wake in the new place.

memorial day

2011-05-30T12:40:00.000-07:00

there is a horrible sadness on me today... growing in my sleep the passed few days and during recent rounds of somnambulism too. i have been caught in that state of walking reverie and fantasy. that state where i am only half present, only half listening, standing with one foot only in the current physical reality and the other in my inner reality, far from the horrors and obligations of the later. the moments when physical reality calls me back to tend to it are so sorrowful and painful. the simplest chore becomes a lengthy exercise in tremendous self-control. an exercise in how to not scream, how to not crumble, how to hold one's self together and stand silently while rage and confusion clash like rams beneath one's skin. i can't tell you what it is. it's never just one thing. all this change, all this chaos gets to me sometimes. there are days when nothing is right and i have no clue what to do about it. there are days when i just want to run, days when i just want to cry.

the last time i did this - the big CLEAN - i was alone in the house for three days attempting to convince myself that as i lifted stains from the carpet i also rid myself of stain and corruption... that as i erased the traces of the family who lived there, maybe i could erase the traces of that family within me.

today, we wash the walls and put our odds and ends in the last boxes.

wear it, swear it.

2011-05-26T19:08:00.000-07:00

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forward...

or backward, you wouldn't believe the looks one gets for wearing this to the grocery store. hahahaha!

body as billboard. sweater as art form. fashion = announcement, pronouncement, provocation, an embrace of the filthy word. this sweater robs those jerks of the ability to shame a girl in to silence by throwing this little slur out. so common. so horribly common. fuck that. crazy like my mother? you have no idea.

forward

2011-05-24T14:16:00.000-07:00

i woke up and wrote for an hour, drinking irish breakfast tea all the while, and then began filling a box full of our dishes wrapped up in my clothes to keep my beloved blue willow intact while they are transported from the country to the city.

i can't tell you how anxious and joyful i am. how ready. how absolutely ready i am to move. i keep wondering about the images i will make once this is all over. once i'm out of this place and back to something that feels more like myself, my life. i'm eager to find the shadows i will roll up in next.

i took my German final yesterday and worked my last shift at my retail gig. my life here is winding down quickly. we moved the majority of our stuff to the new digs this passed weekend and now there's just the strangler possessions to deal with and the obligatory deep-cleaning to muscle through. i want to be done. i want to be moved. i want to wake up in a new room, in a new square of sunlight, with a new life budding all around me.

hope

2011-05-21T08:41:00.000-07:00

we took a truck-load of books over to the new place yesterday. easily a thousand pounds of paper weight. GEEZ! hahahaha! and this morning i loaded as many paintings as i could in to the truck and j will cart them all over later this afternoon while i get in some study time in preparation for my German final and go to my second-to-last shift at my retail gig. the end of things... the slowing of the old cycle yet still racing to the finish. there are things that i must finalize and be responsible to for just a little bit longer. walking outside yesterday evening in the beautiful yellow light in oakland and having a new set of keys in my hand woke up a firey hope. it was hard to drive away and come back up here to the cabin. and looking at j across the restaurant table yesterday as we celebrated with philly cheesesteaks, i realized that nothing is broken and that we are completely beautiful, wiser than we were at the beginning of this little detour out to the country, and stronger for having gone down this road. i stayed up late drinking mint tea and finished Just Kids. i'm not going to spoil it for you, just read it. especially if you're an artist. especially if you need a dose of courage and an art-related pep talk. i think it's required reading for all artists or anyone caught in a struggle. it's a very encouraging, inspiring document. patti smith's honesty in this memoir is so generous, so beautiful. the book, in so many ways, functions as a guide and a warm hug. it was definitely the right thing for me to read as my life here winds down and a new one springs up in the east bay, right next door to my beloved san francisco.

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studying and casting spells

2011-05-20T11:41:00.000-07:00

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tomorrow night we get the keys

2011-05-19T12:12:00.000-07:00

i stumble across collections of words, phrases, and fall in to them like a tar pit, screaming THAT'S WHAT I WAS TRYING TO SAY! and loving the feeling of being stuck (so crazily, inexplicably comfortably stuck!) in someone else's writing.

i have been thinking about (fearing) homelessness for months as we searched and searched fruitlessly for new digs, always coming up empty handed, making phone calls that were never returned, making appointments that the other person always forgot, running face first in to rules that i could not wrap around my life, could not endure the strangulation, could not abide by just to end up being stuck in place i wasn't all that happy about being anyway. we began planning to put all our boxed possessions in storage and living in cars, surfing couches, buying a gym membership just to be able to take showers. i'm serious. and i thought of Genet and i thought i have no real home anyway and i thought no, wait, my real home is my notebook, my real home is this Blackland, these images i create.

these thoughts have been present and potent. they originated when my mom leaned in to death and the threat of homelessness surfaced the moment i returned home from her funeral. too much at once. and it has been too-much-at-once for months now. it was so impossibly hard to find a new apartment in santa rosa that i really did start thinking maybe God doesn't want me to live in the north bay? the fates really have seemed pretty opposed to the idea. and so we start looking in our beloved east bay again, in good ol' Oakland, and the very first place we submit an application to becomes ours. we pick up the keys tomorrow evening. we will load our boxes of books in to the truck tonight.

the reception at Project One last night was beautiful and felt like a homecoming, like a longing satisfied, like a return. art on the walls, my Worry Roses for my mom installed, friends all around, happy to hear that we are moving back after three long years out here in the countryside. three years... it doesn't seem real. it doesn't seem possible that it's been that long. a long, strange dream... not a Home.

and i needed the connection. i needed the tall white walls and people milling around with wine glasses in their hand. i needed the air, the space, the breath of these things.

i'm reading Just Kids by patti smith right now and it's the most perfect thing i could be reading. my friends freya and doug read it, one right after the other, a week or so ago and lent it to me the second they finished reading it. it's the perfect follow-up to volume 2 of anais nin's diary and the perfect preface to our move back to oakland. my fear about homelessness lifted instantly and i thought well, patti smith slept on a stoop in new york... i could sleep in my car in san francisco. what's the big deal? and then of course, the very next day, we get an apartment. God approved. hahaha!

the week i didn't write here i was dealing with all these things and a long-time friend of the family who has known me since i was about 7 years old or so that we lost track of a few years back tracked me down on facebook. still thinking of us as family, still thinking of my mother as her best friend, still thinking of my mother as her sister, she sent me an excited message asking about my mom and how to get a hold of her, she called me mija just like always, and then in her happy hunt for connection she stumbled across my blog. she read, here, about my mother's death. her best friend, her sister. and another message was sent. she left her phone number and i called her the second i got in the door from work. hearing her stunned horror was painful. hearing her voice, a voice i've heard all my life since i was just a little girl, felt like Home. she looked at my work online and felt proud of me.

and a few days ago i read this post at repat blues' blog.

"There is no such thing as home. Home becomes art, the creation of art. Turning to art, working the wound. Stew's play. Passing Strange. I've always been passing strange. I'd rather be bad at this (writing, acting, fucking) than good at X (Selling air conditioners. Public relations. Saying Good Morning. Making eye contact)."

these are the words that i am happily stuck in. all of it. each word, a bell ringing. a knock on the head reminding me of what i must do. i got out of class yesterday (my last day of instruction before two rounds of finals next week) and immediately got in the truck and got on the freeway and went to san francisco. i left this life behind and picked up another 70 miles away in a beautiful room in a beautiful city. i hugged friends and i met strangers and i had champagne.

freya brought me roses and her children painted me a little picture of a rainbow which will go on the refrigerator in our new kitchen tomorrow evening. i turned in my almost-two-week notice at my retail gig and will be back on a crazy, meandering job-hunt in no time. i think of Genet and patti smith and repat blues and my friends. i think of the struggle and i think it's so completely fucking worth it when i think of what an artist's life is. if it ever comes down to it, the roof of a car is still a roof and i can totally live there because my Home is in my notebook and the graphite on the page, the paintings on the wall, and the words that women write.

portrait

2011-05-17T13:23:00.000-07:00

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Lamb
42" x 35"
oil on canvas, 2010

i finished this painting late last year. it is leaning against the wall in the living room. i've been sitting next to it a lot lately. while i read or scribble in my notebook in the evenings after my sweetie has gone off to bed, i sit by sylvia's portrait. there is something about her smile that comforts me. she is a rare beauty indeed and i feel protective of her image, her memory. when i look at her smile, i smile. this will be the first painting i take to the new place.

the apartment hunt is finally over and so many hopeful things have arrived

2011-05-16T08:14:00.000-07:00

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this day and every day:

2011-05-07T15:13:00.000-07:00

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bedroom wall

2011-05-06T10:39:00.001-07:00

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note to self/world on a computer printout of a work by barbara kruger hung on my bedroom wall directly opposite my bed.

anais nin and judas and the world a diary makes:

2011-05-05T22:11:00.000-07:00

i just read this passage in volume 2 of her diary a few days ago and copied so many of these sentences into my own notebook. what a gift to stumble across this reading. a gift to hear her voice, to hear her read and giggle.

and there's something about this, most obviously that last bit, that pairs so well with lady gaga's new video JUDAS that was released today. listening to anais read her ideas about women's creations needing to be made with their own blood, nourished by their own milk, but with the acknowledgement that she did not come to this act of creation alone (a very post-modern notion, nicht wahr?) and is not turned away from Creating by this fact, is important to hold on to when engaging with today's art, no matter what form the art takes. i think gaga is a grand example of this. she is helping to create a language which embraces the feminine, the bloodiness of being female, of Becoming a woman, Becoming a human, Becoming an artist. it is a bloody job. i listen and i look and i see that her mirror is familiar to me. there is something in this that calls to something very basic within my construction as Female. her words! confession. the honest onslaught of hidden desire, the secrets that must be kept, the truth that must be squelched... these are things a diary would contain. could a pop song be a diary entry? could it be an extension of that mode of private practice, an outcropping of a totally private world? yes. and her make-up! and when my mother died all i wanted was bright red lipstick and luscious perfumes. i wanted beauty around me. i wanted the reverie of gorgeous smells. we are called Whore for wanting such things. we are called Whore for having Wants. i watch and i listen. her luxurious references! her fake fingernails pointing, pointing, pointing! the weaponry of them, bejewelled skewers. she is a golden thesaurus! she becomes her own judas, betraying her king, betraying herself, but not shying from the work of Creation... not shying from the language that women must create for themselves. still. the awful silence will be born again tomorrow. we must scratch and scribble every day.

as i read anais nin's diaries i wonder if men read them too? do they respond to the language that is made. the caress contained within each turn of phrase, the glory and horror and beauty of exposure.

i wonder if the diaries have, again, become dangerous books? silence is thick these days and i am guilty at times of it as well. i'm trying to become less guilty. with everything i've got and it is hard, i am trying to Become less silent. i scratch and scribble and maybe i am making a world too. notebook as tool.

what if???

2011-05-03T10:29:00.001-07:00

a few nights ago i watched Coco Avant Chanel and i've been thinking of it ever since. this orphan girl and her sister, both making their ways through the world, equal turns of generosity and brutality... the steep ups and downs that always seem to follow people with a creative mind. i found myself wondering as i went through my long day of school and work yesterday... is it harder for us? artists, i mean. is life harder for us? is it somehow more brutal? more affecting? i guess it is. i suppose it must to be. it must be and we must let it be if we expect to be able to do this Work. we have to be sensitive and open. we have to roll on the ground and expect to get splinters. we have to allow affliction, maybe even infection. there's no way around it. and, when i think about it, i'd want it no other way. if i turn my back and drop my eyes, i am no longer really living. i no longer have anything to say. yes, it sounds so dramatic and obnoxious and romantic, i know, but i think in this climate of strange silence and strangulation of ideas, suffocation of education, and the rampant acts of Stifling i see it becomes even more important for artists to NOT RUN. i have to risk being called "dramatic". i have to risk being called "romantic" and "obnoxious" if i am to get over the threshold, if i am to stumble in to a territory that is honest and brave. as i turned on to the freeway yesterday to head to work, i thought of my mom and i wondered if she knew it was coming so soon. death. i wondered what that would feel like to know in 3 weeks i'll be dead. would i be panicked? or would i be assured of what was right for me to to do? would i know exactly how to spend those final 21 days doing? i asked myself: what would i do if i knew i only had 3 weeks to live. i'd write and i'd draw with every fucking thing i've got.

so i guess i've got my compass.

i've been drawing since 8am and only stopped to eat a bowl of oatmeal and write this. i am in the drawing today. in love. when i've got a show on the horizon, my fire and hope really start to blaze.

3 weeks to go. BURN! BURN! BURN!

2011-05-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

monday, and i am glad for the solace a busy week provides. it is hard to get too stressed out by looking too far down the road when you've got a lot to do. Und ich habe viel zu tun. still, i'd love to be able to stay home and paint today. i spent my entire sunday with the work. i got lost in a big graphite piece and a big oil painting for most of the day and spend a few hours reading anais nin's diary (volume 2). i drank tea and practiced my german and then went back to the canvas. on may 16th, we install "May Fairs" at Project One in San Francisco. me, megan woolfe (YAY!!!! hi megan!), charmaine olivia, and chelsea brown have teamed up to bring you one brilliant and beautiful collection of work, that's for sure. the show opens wednesday, may 18th, and i definitely want to see you. do come by and give me hugs. i get to install my Worry Roses (for my mother, for myself) again and I am OVERJOYED that so many people like the peice. i am absolutely honored to get a new wall to show it on. the more air-time this piece gets, the better. huh, mama? :)

and then june 2nd... another group show in huntington beach. GO! GO! GO! and i'm praying that, between these two shows, much of the work will find their new and perfect homes. there's a wide, dark threshold i need to cross inside The Work and i want to make sure as many of my babies are in safe hands and working their magic out in the world as possible before i cross it. but i guess that's not really something i can do much about. all i can do is put the work up on a wall. all i can do is trust it. all i can do is keep going, keep pushing, and keep sliding the graphite across the page.

for as much fun as i'm having being back in school and learning new things and having a more concrete daily schedule, i'm really looking forward to summer when i can spend entire days reading and writing again, drawing and crocheting, no homework to worry over, just the freedom of Practice. 3 weeks to go. but honestly, it is a pleasure to have this much art to care for and think about and worry over. a pleasure and an honor. absolutely.

and now- back to back school and work.

have a wonderful day!

dang!

2011-04-30T11:37:00.000-07:00

oh, crazy life, crazy morning, crazy mourning, crazy minutes speeding by so fast! 3 weeks until finals. 3 weeks and then it is summer vacation. this first semester back on a college campus sped by at an unbelievably quick pace. between studying and working and working and looking for an apartment (still! though i think we may have finally found something this passed thursday. fingers crossed!) my head is reeling. i begin to stretch out the length of my long mornings on days i am able. days like today. the man is out and about and i am here, still in my polka dot pajamas, still sipping tea, still jumping back in bed with my notebook and pen, over and over again, refusing to let this part of the day come to a close, refusing to think about going to my retail gig this evening, keeping anais nin's diary within easy reach.

for as bad of a blogger as i've been, i've been an excellent writer in private. every morning i wake hungry for my notebook. every morning i move my pen along. and every night i've been curling up with anais' diary, turning page after page, copying entire passages in to my notebook to ingest, digest, roll around with as i sleep and dream and wake, as i become whatever it is i'm becoming. this Next, this Now.

there is a threshold waiting, breathing against my cheek, a crossing of sorts that needs to be made... and i have no clue how to do it or where this crossing even is. all i can think is that i must read as if my life depended on it. i must turn pages pages pages and be the best disciple i can be. all i can think is that i must become smarter, i must learn more, engage with words and textures and the wind on the other side of my window. i must be brazen and learn to stop caring so much about certain things- certain pleasantries, niceties, polite blah blah blahs that just get in the way, hurdles made of fear of abandonment, fear of hurting someone else, fear of being a disappointment, all the fears i was taught to have. i think of it more and more and it sickens me: the fears that get plugged in to children. but it is from this place of repulsion that i must jump forward in The Work. somehow i must catapult myself to the next level with The Work. all i can think is READ READ READ.

and in a little under 3 weeks i'll be installing a bit of work in a group show at Project One in the city. more on that in a few days but i'm super excited about it! i'm telling ya, life is nuts right now!

ich muss zeihnen! ich muss schrieben! Und ich muss den ganzen Tag studieren! ich habe ein Prufung am Mittwoch und ich habe veil zu tun! es ist verruckt!

dream sequence:

2011-04-28T09:57:00.000-07:00

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There was a knock at the door. I opened it and she was standing on the other side, tall and thin and smiling under her long wild pile of frizz and curls. She held out a yellow bottle of mustard and, giggling, said “I just thought I’d better return this”. I leaped right out of the house, laughing wildly, and hugged her with such hunger. We swung back and forth, laughing and hugging. We fell over in our joy and hugged and giggled on the floor of the wooden porch. We laughed and held on to each other so tightly. So much love. I was deep in happiness in spite of knowing in the dream that she was dead and none of this was real. I didn’t care. I kept laughing and hugging her. Just one more minute. Just one more minute. I didn’t care that this moment was imaginary, I needed it. One more minute. We were both wearing a dark pink lipstick. I looked at our feet and we were both wearing dark pink high heels to match. I laughed even harder at the sight of this and hugged her tighter, tighter, tighter. My aunt stepped into the doorway from inside the dark of the house and with a straight-laced seriousness said, “Angela, no. You need to stop right now. That is not your mother, that is a demon”. My head tilted back and my arms went slack with annoyance. Her words and my despair pulled me from my dream. My mother’s body went limp below my embrace and I was so fucking pissed that my moment of joy was stolen from me. I knew none of it was real and yet here she came with her religious nonsense. That malicious conspiracy of hoogabooga bullshit.

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a thousand flowers could bloom

2011-04-25T08:21:00.000-07:00

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token

2011-04-24T13:56:00.000-07:00

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red

2011-04-23T13:25:00.000-07:00

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lately, to go to The World Outside i wear red lipstick. i've bought a second tube so that i have a bit of a choice in the morning. both are bright and alive.

the attention a red mouth brings can be very disconcerting. it's very strange. people approach me like they do SALE signs in store windows: with hunger. and yet it feels like the most natural, true face i have, the most honest face i've ever worn. without it, i feel naked. like a naked liar.

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what it is to Make Art:

2011-04-22T15:00:00.000-07:00

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Henry states in seventy-eight pages of his book the most tragic of all truths: "Life does not interest me, what interests me is what I am doing right now (this book) which is parallel to it, of it, and yet beyond it."

-Anais Nin, Diary Vol. 2, p. 89

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just a holy fool

2011-04-20T08:15:00.000-07:00

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judas

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"art is the guarantee of sanity"

2011-04-18T08:27:00.000-07:00

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remember

2011-04-14T09:30:00.000-07:00

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I am not what I am... I am what I do with my hands.

-Louise Bourgeois

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reading Barthes, 3 month mark:

2011-04-12T11:14:00.000-07:00

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*the text referenced here is Roland Barthes' Mourning Diary.

2011-04-11T08:11:00.000-07:00

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