east coast west coast pistoletteo: longing: NY rant #2

me and michelangelo pistoletto at MOMA in NY

 

and SFMOMA just yesterday.

what of my bleeding heart?  what of all these dreams?  except that i plan to make no excuses for myself.  except i plan to make no excuses for my desires and the longing i feel in my fingers to trace the line of foreign hipbones and poems found in used bookstores.  my romantic heart will not be made to feel embarrassed.  my romantic heart will not accept limits.  if they want to laugh, let them laugh.  i will take pictures and write poems and paint pictures for you for you for you.  

tonight, i am listening to the favorite band of a long ago ex-boyfriend.  the one who dashed me to pieces so many years ago.  i am able to do this, finally, because of new york and the experiences i had there.  the smashing pumpkins were playing in the background as i scratched a man's back, as i smelled his hair and felt his hands. 

 and now i can't stop listening to this music.

this is what it is to feel connected.  even if the connection is fueled by loneliness.  this horrible ache.  i know i am heard.  at such unexpected and beautiful intervals, i am given the sweetest encouragements.  finally, i can tolerate being at home.  california, i love you and i always will but i need the staten island ferry and the dead pigeons on the sidewalks of the lower east side.  i will take my teddy bear with me, the only remaining relic of my childhood, and cross this wide country.  i will empty my storage unit of its contents.  my mother would tell me, "little girl, you're too sweet!  it's only stuff!  it's just hunks of wood!  give it to the goodwill and get going!"  this is her hope chest we're talking about.  this is the only reason i have a storage unit in the first place.  to keep hold of my mother's possessions while i welcomed quasi-homelessness 7 months ago.  and in the stillness of such loneliness, within the chaotic swell of such uncertainty i redacted book-pages and made sweaters and backdrops to pose in front of.  scenes that make me out to be a heartbroken whore.  and maybe i am a heartbroken whore. maybe we all are.  all i know is that, suddenly, i felt understood and connected to my status as Human on a dance floor and in the shadow of the statue of liberty and in the arms of a stranger and in the humidity of manhattan. 

somehow, i will return in november.  plans are in motion.  it is a certainty.  until then, i push the paint and pull the stitch.  until then, i listen to the smashing pumpkins and dream away of all manner of inappropriate enterprise.  until then, i write in my diary and sing a song of rebellion all night long.

franny, i got delayed!

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me and louise

my buddy rebecca snapped this of me, scruffy and make-up-less, at SFMOMA and i'm so grateful for the token, for the archive of this experience. it serves as a reminder that i truly do need to follow my own heart and do this thing my way, a way that feels right for me.

it's about honesty.

when i look at louise bourgeois' work, her honesty and bravery radiate right of the surface of her objects. it radiates from the core on out. and standing so close to one of her sculptures, i felt the deep buzz of her love for her work and it was very hard not to touch it. in fact, i should have touched it. the only reason i didn't is the security team at SFMOMA are fanatical and watch every move you make so that they can tell you NO PENS ALLOWED! ONLY PENCIL!





and since the beginning of the year, i've been crawling deeper and deeper in to my own values and ethics when it comes to art and life. and the two subjects are so connected that they are basically the same thing. i want to be a smart artist. i want to be a brave artist. and honorable too.

the passed few days i've been trying to photograph finished drawings that have been hiding in one portfolio or another for quite some time. the grunt work of documentation, but also a very necessary step in the process of curation. because i live with the work and it isn't caged away in a separate studio space, i can easily lose track of what i've made. and this experience of going through the work piece by piece, laying it across every inch of my small cottage, crowding myself with all the black and white and nebulous greys is such an inspiring thing. i can see the lines that connect one work to another. i can see how far back these fault lines run. that i've always made portraits of some kind. the only thing that has changed is my idea of what a portrait is.

in a nut shell, each piece of mine is a portrait- of loss, of desire, of anger, confusion, longing, struggle, failure, and love.

the work is personal and the work exposes things that even i am surprised by sometimes. even the work i consider to be not "good enough" for public consumption, has such a steep value to it. the pieces that i struggled hard with, the work that never came easy and never really became what i wanted it to be, is the work that supplied the best learning curve. it's the work that taught me the most, showed me the most, and, like a good teacher, kicked my ass all over the place when i needed it. my Learning is evident in those pieces and, because of that, they are Good.

it's interesting how one's eyes change.

and i feel lucky that those pieces can have a voice every now and then here on the blog. there's really no such thing as "failure". it's a false construct. it's a lie. Learning is not failure.

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i'm learning a lot these days... and sometimes i get tired, sometimes i get mad, sometimes i am totally frustrated and confused. and then the next morning arrives and i scribble away in my notebook and some sort of answer or brightness falls out of my pen and i find a way to proceed. when i feel especially lost, i spend time with the work of artists i admire. louise is at the top of the list. i am currently trying to leech some of her bravery, some of her gnarly french fuck-off attitude. i love the way she lived her life. i love the way she never gave her power away. i love how she stood, secure and strong, on the foundation of her beliefs- the things she believed to be important about art and life. she was unshakable and didn't give a shit if anyone agreed with her.

talk about faith.
talk about courage.

what a gift that woman is.