memory lane can be the road to the Present

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spent the whole day behind the hook and am now enjoying an over-poured glass of Auslese.  this is the very definition of a wonderful day off.

and i've needed it.  the passed week or so has been a bit of an emotional roller-coaster.  a huge box arrived unexpectedly containing my mother's collection of family photos, more than 3 1/2 years after her death.  i opened the box only to be sure of what it was and then closed it again.  i wasn't in the mood for that type of upheaval and i wasn't prepared to slice open a cardboard box and be greeted by my mother's face and the dresses she saved that my sister and i wore as little girls in an Olen Mill's portrait so soooooo many years ago.  kelly must've been 4 or 5.  that would have made me 7 or 8.

a few days later, i reached back inside the box and pulled the dresses out.  i remember hating them as a little girl but, now, they look like art pieces.  something possibly akin to the Kiki Smith piece, Sisters, or the twins in The Shining.  ha!

i gazed at them in between rounds of digging through the 7 portfolios that are stored in my bedroom closet.  it was a strange walk down memory lane.  it's amazing what an accurate barometer of emotion art is.  looking at my work from just a few years ago, i relived the pain and confusion and longing i was entrenched in during those days.  and the sheer MASS of my personal collection is astounding! i've thrown away SO MUCH each time i've moved and i still have such an enormous stockpile of work! it was heartrending to go through it all but there were also moments when i smiled.  and smiled wide like a goofy child, at that.  in the middle of a portfolio that largely houses work i did during the last year i lived in Calistoga, i came across a self-portrait i drew when i was 21 years old.  it was made during one of the happiest times in my life DESPITE the fact that i had yet to leave my hated home town.

 

it was drawn during the time Jose and i lived together in my very first apartment.  we were inseparable and i loved being with him.  we smoked way too many cigarettes and drank blended frappaccinos way too often and squeezed our bellies  and called ourselves fat just like two silly teenagers would.  :)  thinking back on all that makes me so happy.  we listened to Bikini Kill and dreamed of New York together.  what's really special is that sometimes we still do.  it's not at all irregular for Jose and i to refer to each other as Rebel Girl more than 10 years later.  :)

all this made somehow brought me to the realization that for the last several years i needed a deep round of PLAY.  it's no secret that life is hard and it's no secret that my life has been hard.  looking at my own work, my own hand smearing charcoal and graphite, the words i'd scrawl sometimes in the margins or on the back of the paper...  i realized that in the span of 3 short years i lost all three parental figures and the person i considered to be the closest member of my immediate family, my partner for 7 years.  with the exception of my siblings, my entire immediate family basically collapsed.   and all the emotion of those days was right there.  right in my hands, in the black and white smears and screams of my drawings.

it was hard to leave the house that day.  i wanted to hide in bed.  i wanted to be dirty and dumb and lounge around in dingy pajamas.  i wanted to not give a fuck about anything and just spend the day drinking.  i wanted to raise a middle finger to the world and cry my eyes out.  sometimes i hear my voice inside my own head and it sounds so small.  so painfully small. so heartbreaking.  i think of my mother and i think of my father and i think of my siblings and what their pain must be and i whisper inside myself, "this isn't fair"...

but looking at the artwork i made during such a tumultuous era allowed me to see that i have, in fact, healed from a great many pains and that i long to return to a certain type of seriousness again, a particular breed of deep introspection and artistic investigation.  basically, it made me want to draw again.  :)

we'll see.  i sure enjoyed laying in bed all day with my crochet hook and black yarn today, that's for sure.



i'm confident the Future is an interesting place.  

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funnnn!!!!

i had the wonderful opportunity to be interviewed by the amazing poet,Tom Beckett, and he posted the resulting piece over at ASK/TELL today.  yeeeeee!  :D

artist statement

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sometimes...

sometimes sometimes sometimes...

(manchmal...
quelquefois...    )



sometimes art is only about your own ridiculousness...



sometimes art is only about how lonely you feel, how separate, how insecure. sometimes art is only about the text message that went unanswered.  sometimes art is only about the pain that sweeps through you silently and unseen on the train as you careen home, alone, wishing there was someone to hug on the other side of your own front door.  sometimes art is sentimental and sticky.  sometimes art doesn't give two shits if it's pretty or not or if it's got a red face when it cries.  sometimes art is only about the fact that it's fucking 2am and you're drunk and tired of feeling alone and separate and insecure and that's exactly why you're drunk in the first fucking place.  sometimes art isn't about any of the fucking theories.  sometimes it's about your dead mother and sometimes it's about your absent father and sometimes it's about how estranged you've become in this wide world of christian morals and families holding hands on sundays.  sometimes art is about all those nameless regrets...  because what is it to regret something that was never really even a choice or a deed, simply an event...  like childhood.  sometimes art is only about that deep ache to be touched.  sometimes art is only about the need for a good, hard slap on the ass and the fact you have to find a way to go on living tonight without it. sometimes it is so fucking Freudian there's no way around it: we want what we want.  and sometimes that's all art is.  sometimes that's all it possibly can be. sometimes art is just a girl, alone in her room, drunk on vodka at 2am, wanting what she wants and yet barred from it all, staring wide-eyed at her own desires and crying over their absence.  sometimes art is only about longing.  sometimes art is only about desperation.  sometimes art is only about finding a way to believe life is worth it.  sometimes art is only a way to convince yourself that your own life might actually matter, somehow, to someone else, somewhere.  sometimes art is only a way to remind yourself you have a sister and you have a brother and, if not for yourself, then for them.  keep drawing (breathing, working, trying, aching, striving, smiling) for them.  sometimes art is only a way to keep yourself sane.  sometimes art is simply a reaching toward faith.  a way to build faith.  a way to believe in something other than your own solitary breaths, exhaled in white puffs in a cold, empty room.  sometimes art is simply the life-preserver you throw to yourself.  sometimes art is the only window you've got.  the only friend you've got.  the only mother you've got.  the only god you've got.

sometimes art is another way to pray.




sometimes i'm 8 years old again, alone and afraid of the dark, and dreaming of a savior...



i reach for my pencil.  i reach for my pen.  i reach for my hook.  i make a drawing.  i make a poem.  i make a blanket.  i take care of my fucking self.

sometimes that's all art is.


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this morning...

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...counting my many blessings.   

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MORE MORE MORE

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a new day, a new notebook.  it's always a fantastic feeling.  but for the passed three days i've been locked inside a NyQuil stupor, stoned as hell on over-the-counter cold medicine, trying to shake whatever bad bug this is that bit me.  yesterday and the day before all i did was sleep.  today, i was at least able to sit and write for awhile before needing to head back to bed.  i won't be making in to class tonight.  

and so i lay down in my warm bed and medication and twist black yarn around my hook.  stitch by stitch, i go.  how soothing it is.  how familiar, how comforting.  it is a balm and a deep, good therapy.  maybe it is how i mother myself?  making all these blankets and sweaters?  i fashion sites of warmth and emblems of safety for myself. i wrap myself up in my tiny poems emblazoned in wool.  i leave them on street in the hope that those who need a bit of comfort may stumble across my little offerings.  i begin to dream of the future again...  a future self and who that might be.

it occurred to me in the wee hours of the morning that i have occupied my white room for almost a year.  may 1st is the anniversary.  look at all these important markers of time all lined up in a row!  it catches my attention in such a serious way.  it's been an entire year now that i have been completely on my own, no hand to hold, paying all my bills myself, buying plane tickets and red lipstick as often as i felt need to, and never for one second letting the reigns slip from my fist.  every time i've maintained control over my own life, day, and destiny the results have always been good.  i've been happier, not to mention more successful.  and likewise, every time i handed over control of my life to someone else the results have been atrocious.  unhappiness followed quickly on the heels of such a horrible decision.  i can't ever imagine making such a decision again.  i can't ever see a day when i will sacrifice my financial Independence.  being able to choose the terms and conditions of my own life is the greatest gift i've ever given myself and i will never give it up.  my daily existence is so free, so respectful of my being and loves.  now, more than anything, i simply want to be more and more my Self.

i've been crocheting a new round of yarn bombs the passed week.  they read "cry harder".  that's what i aspire to.  that's what i want for all of us.  to cry harder, cry louder.  to be ourselves without reservation or apology.  i hope to drop a few in san francisco and oakland in a few days once this sickness has passed through me and left me stronger as a result.  in so many ways, street art is the pinnacle of artistic production because it doesn't seek permission or reassurance.  it simply IS, and it is up to US to reckon with IT.  i love it.  i'm not very good at it yet but i'm thankful to take part to the small extent i do. it makes my life feel poetic.  it makes me feel alive inside my own body, inside my spirit, inside the night and this world and all my unnameable desires.

relocation is Prime.

and in the art realm of things, i've got some work online at Darger HQ and more coming soon.  i also updated my White Columns account.   take a peek!

WORDS WORDS WORDS

my Talent of the Room finds me and every morning i spend a solid 2 hours writing in my diary at the kitchen table as i sip my coffee.  i look out the window onto my busy street.  i listen to the cars and people rambling by.  i feel the sun on my legs and the pen in my hand.  soft pleasures.  necessities.  i can't imagine ever being without this little waking ritual of mine.  i can't imagine ever giving this up.  these hours behind the pen, inside language, inside the inexplicable twists of dreams and memories.  there's nothing "little" about it.

i've fallen back in to a phase of self-investigation and exploration.  i doubt one's need for such things ever really goes away and that's probably a good thing.  as i gain insight and information, i recalibrate.  as i pick up moments of confusion and wonder - or even doubt and fear - i use them to look a bit closer at my own motives and desires.  everyday i seem to be learning more about myself.  i feel like i'm growing up in a totally new way.

i finished reading the second volume of my 2012 diary yesterday on my train to work.  going through these pages is an integral part of my current round of investigation.  i feel so lucky to have such a tool at my disposal.  i can't explain how amazingly valuable it is to be able to read exactly what i was thinking about and wrestling with on THIS DAY one year ago.  it's a fantastic was to measure change.  but also, i return to the idea that to keep a diary is more than simply recording one's thoughts and activities.  it is a life's work.  i've said so many times here that words make the world and i truly believe that.  language is a living, nebulous thing and our use of it impacts how we see ourselves and the world we inhabit.  it determines the world we create.  my attractions all have a root in Language.  from the look of a person's handwriting to the particularities and lilt of speech to the a person's command over poetics or even just the maintenance of a deep, strong vocabulary, my interest is ensnared.  i have deep attraction to people who have big vocabularies and can use them effortlessly, who don't sound pompous and puffed-up.  even the sound of someone's sigh is attractive to me and a good laugh is a very strong aphrodisiac.

all this to say- language, in all its forms, the very act of and desire to communicate with another human being is something i've always been attracted to and is a basic building block of my own personality.  as i look back and re-live certain experiences through the lens of my diary, i see how necessary certain types of connection are to me.  i need conversation, intellectual engagement, philosophic enterprise, and poetic experience.  simply put, i need passion.  i am not a simple person who can be satisfied by simple relationships.  i'm not difficult either but "difficult" is not the only opposite of "simple".  complexity is also an antonym.  i like complex people.  i like the mysteries they contain.  i like not knowing the next thing that might shoot out of a person's mouth and i appreciate people who know how to hold up their end of a conversation. 

sounds simple enough until i look deeper at the statements that i just put forth.  it is romantic to say that i want a passionate life.  but in accepting a passionate life, one also accepts the necessity of pain.  one must accept certain risks and that sometimes the gamble will be lost.  i won't always come out on top but, thankfully, i'm the type of person that can turn almost any negative in to a positive.  i'm not thankful that other people have mistreated me and i would probably never thank someone for their atrocious behavior regardless of the good that may have ended up flowing from it later on.  but i am thankful to be the kind of person that can take that hurt and allow it to polish me rather than become embittered against others.  it's not so much a point of forgiving others as it is a matter of forgiving myself.  i'm not exactly sure what that means or how to accomplish such a thing other than learning from my own mistakes and not allowing myself to slide back in to familiar, yet harmful, patterns. 

it's difficult to know, though, when i'm being smart or when i'm running scared.  certain emotions make me feel foolish now and i've noticed lately that i run from them.  i play it cool and not a single ripple of embarrassment or heartache will show on my surface if i can help it.  i have no problem showcasing pain in art or writing or even here on the blog but i do not put that shit on display in front of many other people.  there is a very small handful of people that i am close enough with to really lay my emotions out in front of and, within that group, still fewer that i would actually allow to see or hear me cry.  but i suppose that feeling foolish (or even actually being foolish from time to time) is going to be part of the ride.  necessarily so.  but i don't know how to uproot this idea that seems to have grown in me that others will find my emotions to be repulsive.  i don't know how to counteract my experience that people run away from the darkness a human being contains.  i don't know how to stop believing that most people are fair-weather friends.  somehow i must unlearn these things and manage to become brave enough to risk feeling foolish. it's the next step in becoming a better friend and a better artist.  risk is mandatory. especially for someone like me who wants to know about the world and establish meaning in life.  especially for someone who doesn't think before she writes and puts all this shit out on to the internet for anyone to read. ;)

letter to a friend

dear KATE,

most of the time i'm not really sure what i'm doing.  what The Work is and is not.  it all feels like The Work to me.  it all feels like a world i'm creating, like a world i'm mustering-  me and my spills of ink.

language is a crazy thing.  and writing.  and poetry.  i'm not even sure if poetry is what i write.  what are these snippets that come out of me?  these fragments of a life, of a human being, of wishes and dreams.

sometimes i feel like maybe i'm doing something wrong by giving away so much of my writing here on the BLOG.  i worry that i'm going about all this the wrong way and that i should actively try for "real" publication, that i'm somehow selling myself short by not trying to be published.  i'm just too impatient for all that at this point in my life.  i like the instant connection.  i like the rush of blood. 

i kinda hate the word BLOG too.  i definitely hate the word BLOGGER.  i do not title myself as such.  i tend not to think of this space in those terms.  like you, i see it as a notebook.  or better yet, as the white cube.  i see it as a gallery space that is entirely open to hosting any performance, any image i want to display.  in some ways, this is definitely where the real work is done.  or, at least, begins.  some of the best writing i've ever done is nestled here, in electric light, lost in the backward reaching scroll of the blog format.  i don't know if i will ever go back and fish them out from the messy wad of text i've coughed up here.  maybe one day i'll be strong enough for that.  maybe one day i'll be Writer enough for that.  i'm so impressed with you for being able to do it and i can't wait to read Heroines.

but for all my worry and ambivalence, i'm delighted by this little playground of mine.  these games of identity.  the shifting nature of the Self reinforced by the shifting nature of language.  words make the world.  we build our own images.  we erect our own mirrors, our own temples, our own sloppy signs.  not everything is accurate and maybe it doesn't need to be? 

for a long time i was obsessed by the idea of accuracy.  i wanted to be as accurate as possible.  needed to be. otherwise, i felt like a liar.  then one day, i noticed the difference between accuracy and honesty and i chose to move in the direction of honesty instead.  sometimes fogginess, sloppiness, sketchiness is the most honest expression there is.  the diary.  there's something about it that is so barbed, so dangerous.  the potential for danger, the potential for making a mess, the probability that a mess will be made is so attractive...  the taboo of keeping secrets, the danger inherent to teaching females how to read and write.  who knows what the bitch might say?  i don't want to be calm.  i don't want to be measured.  at least not when it comes to writing and not when it comes to art and definitely not when it comes to my own life.  sometimes i think my diary is the best work i have ever done.  it is where everything begins.  all my work starts there, on the cool blue lines of my private notebook.  it is my life's work.  daily, i reach for my pen and, daily, i tell the truth.  it isn't an easy thing to do.  to tell the truth, i mean.  especially about myself.  there are times when the mirror i create in the pages of my diary is quite brutal.  i have felt such massive shame.  but it is a necessary and good thing. i could only watch myself write the same words over and over for so long before i had to act, before i had to cry out against the life i had allowed to spring up all around me, before i had to cut it down.  i cut it down with my pen.  i cut it down with your books by my bedside.

anais nin's diary changed my life.  it's still changing my life.  we've talked about her so many times-  her undeniable courage and dedication.  i think of her when i get afraid.  i think of her when i don't feel equal to the challenges in front of me.  i think of her laying in bed with her diary, the same way i lay with mine, scribbling a world in to existence.  a world she needed, a world she preferred.  i think you're right that she would've kept a blog.

it is brave work you do.  your example has helped me become capable of my own bravery.  and not just bravery on the page either.  if it has been your Work this year, i am thankful to have had access to it.   the world you are building encourages my faith.  i read your words and gather strength.

all my love,
angela

friday night bullshit

listening to The Smiths and enjoying a spectacularly poured greyhound here in my white room (zum wohl!) with a burning shoulder from spending the last several hours hunched over a painting.  these text pieces look so simple but a tremendous amount of labor actually goes in to them.  all my work seems to be that way.  my friend Lea once said "your work is so devotional".  her comment has stuck with me.

i am a devotee, to be sure, but devoted to what?  the rules change quicker than i can name them.  it's gotten to the point where i no longer care about rules at all.  this damn inner compass of mine gives me enough trouble.  i've made a point of ignoring it lately and just leaving myself open to the strange throes of exploration.  how else will i know what i'm made of?  how else will i know anything?  how else will make art?  risk, as such, is a definite necessity.  i've felt so scared of so much for so long.  i've felt afraid of being myself.  but i'm at the point now where feeling afraid of something actually becomes the reason to explore that particular something or do that particular something or cultivate an environment where i have to somehow explore the fear.  fear becomes the reason for a lot of things these days but never not to do something.

funny enough, the result is that one begins to be afraid of very little.  maybe i am devoted to the questions?  maybe i am devoted to the attempt?  to understand anything.  to understand one's self.

am i getting too philosophic?  is it too late for that?  wait, it's friday night/saturday morning.  it's not too late for anything!  and aside from that, it's never too late for philosophy!  philosophy is a necessity.  it's right up there with food and air.  so let's get philosophic.  tell me your secrets and what the fuck you expect out of this life.  the clock is ticking, friend.  get on it.  fear is a reason to DO IT.  i look at this body of mine and i watch it dying.  people think i'm so much younger than i am.  in some ways, they're right.  in some ways i am much younger than i actually am.  but i am watching this body age, for however imperceptible that may be to others, and it is a huge motivating force in my life.  i look at myself and i see my mama somewhere under this skin.  her genetics, her softness, her absolute kindness...

fuck.

talking about her makes me want to cry and marry the first person who will ask me.  our fairy tales are hard at work in me too, i promise, i've just decided to ignore that shit and hold out for the best.  or atleast the most honest expression of self i can manage.

but my mother...  she's dead. and i feel her beauty everyday.  it is such a deep pain.  i try to think of my life along the same lines of hers.  i ask myself "what if you die at 55, kid?"

and so: i bought a ticket back to new york.  7 weeks to go, friends.  7 weeks.  and this time i plan to go all alone.  i will walk and walk and walk and see as much art as i can.  i will write in the bars and cafes.  i'll do things that i am afraid of doing.  it matters.   i plan to move there in the spring.  i have 6 months to save as much money as i can but, regardless, i'm going.  even if i end up arriving penniless, i'm going.  this next trip back is more about exploring what daily life would be like rather than being on vacation.  i re-read my NY diary tonight over sushi at my favorite oaktown sushi bar and recalled how instantly at home i felt in that city.  god, it overtook me.  i loved it the second i saw it.  i loved it the entire time i was there.  i was heartbroken at the thought of leaving.  my last day in NY was a rough one.  i really didn't want to leave.  it took all i had not to cancel my flight.  it really did.  i have to go back and let her have her way with me.  i have to follow my own trembling, romantic, boisterous heart.  our time is too short.

but let's not get too serious.  the brevity of our moment is also a reason to participate in exquisite simplicities and sensual pleasures.  i'd like to offer a very loud and public THANK YOU to Lady Gaga for making my life infinitely better by making me smell this fucking fantastic!  her perfume is amazing.  seriously.  i test drove it at Lord & Taylor in manhattan but waited til i got home to buy it.  i've already spritzed an inch of the stuff and i've only had it a week.  good thing i bought the big bottle.

and speaking of Lady Gaga, there's this really special thing i keep resisting making mention of here:  jack halberstam's new book GAGA FEMINISM.  oh looky, looky! whose image is that on the cover?  awwww shit!!!  yep, you guessed it!  yours truly!  and i am absolutely honored!  SO HONORED to have been asked by such a thoughtful and exciting theorist as Jack to use one of my drawings on the cover of this book! and also SO HONORED to participate in the feminist/queer discussions of our age.  it's a major feather in my cap that jack liked this drawing.  period.  and i am absolutely honored to, by proxy, engage with Gaga's discussion of identity.  i am a lucky bitch, to say the least.

and if you are at all wavering on whether or not to buy this book, don't!  it is spectacularly written!  i'm only about half way through and i am IN LOVE!  GET IT! GET IT! GET IT!!!!!  you definitely won't regret it.

and now back to painting and drinking greyhounds.

all my love,
angela.


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freedoms, large and small

in spite of the heat, my summer is done.  a new semester has found me and i return to my previous loves.  i return to German with such an open, bleeding heart.  i've missed her sounds, her sharp corners, her purrs and rumbles.  she is such a gorgeous mystery.  and infuriating.

the summer was spent in a mad swirl of work, work, work, and late nights dancing and drinking.  i needed the reprieve of sweat and music.  i needed the thump of dance beats to set my heart right.  i needed the greyhounds.  i needed to back away from even the smallest public expression of my self and what my days are like.  i needed to confine my emotions and thoughts to my diary.  i needed the freedom to be crass and unruly, mean even.  i needed the privacy of blue lined pages.  i needed to be alone with my ink. it's been good to take a step back from my online life.  it's actually already been 6 months since i kept up this blog in any type of regular way.   i once had so many rules about writing here.  it was a Practice.  but then i came to a place where i just couldn't live below the weight of rules.  i needed some sort of buffer between myself and my expectations of what an artist is, what a writer is, and who gets to carry such titles.  i needed to figure out for myself what i was okay with inserting into the public sphere and what i wanted to keep private.  i'm still unsure about what i want to offer up but joining the dialogue is a necessity.  i had to cocoon myself for awhile.  i've been deeply engaged with building an entirely new life for myself.  but 6 months in, i crave the company of certain work i was doing before i threw my life in to the air.  i crave a return to the activy and buzz of art and communication.  i don't want to spend long nights at the bar, i long for late nights spent alone with my books.  i long for late nights spent basking in the glow of this white rectangle, typing typing typing and sending up my little flags of hope.  maybe even tremendous flags of rage.

because i exiled myself from the internet for so long, i didn't learn of Pussy Riot until a few short weeks ago.  i read the three women's closing statements last night after i got home from work.  they are currently sitting in jail cells, sentenced to 2 years in prison, for making an anti-Putin art action in Russia.  they have been made an example of.  it is heinous and i tremble with anger.  i don't even know how to articulate my feelings about this yet.  i am shocked.  i am disgusted.  i am totally disappointed and abhorred.  but i am also totally inspired by these women.  i am inspired as an artist and as a feminist.  it is so sad to see such brave innocents stripped of their freedom this way and to be punished for making art that matters.  but i am encouraged by their bravery.  i am so grateful for the example that ideas and words and art really can change the world.  art and words can still cause the corrupt powers to sweat fearfully and i fucking love that.  art can still be an impetus.  art can still be a the strongest weapon one can wield.  art can still be a shelter for the oppressed.  art can still enrage everyone.  art can still awaken an unknowable passion in each one of us.  i will need to read and re-read the statements again.  they are gorgeous and brave and necessary.  i must ingest the words again and again until i am able to regurgitate some sort of understanding of this insanity and formulate a response.  because no matter how obscure an artist may be, this is an attack on each one of us and we all must make some sort of response.   and let us also not pretend that this isn't an attack on feminism and woman-kind in general.  bad girls who talk back do not go unpunished.  take note.

6 months ago i chose a very particular form of freedom, a very particular independance.  it was more frightening than i can say but it has also been the greatest gift.  i am entirely different now.  stronger than i thought i was and happier as a result of this knowledge.  i literally have a room of my own and it is a space that i cherish above all others.  it is my Freedom.  here, i make whatever art i choose.  i write and write and write.  i can dance and i can cry.  i do not have to edit anything.  i do not have to quell my emotion.  i can once again be openly passionate.  i am never silenced here.  i am never afraid of my own self or my own expressions.  the "inner freedom" that Pussy Riot speaks of is something that stings my heart.  my love of this freedom is beyond words as is my love for these women.

the closing statements are here.  beautiful and entirely necessary.

change:

lately i have tucked all of myself in to my notebook and twists of yarn. there are no left overs.

and i also no longer have internet at home. this is a scary thing and very inconvenient but also fantastic. i get so much more done in a day now that i cannot run to check my email every 15 minutes when i am at home. i am forced to sit with the work in an old way, the way i used to before all this technology became the norm. i used to pace in the living room while i wrote. i used to wait and wait and wait to have the house to myself so that i could be crazy in it, pace around in it, take my clothes off, be naked in it, cry a little, or maybe cry alot. it is a way of working that i haven't enjoyed in so long it seems and i feel lucky to have it back. i wrote 500 words today in between rounds of German vocabulary and grammar. also, i have an excuse now to go to the library at CCA and look through the fancy art periodicals and fashion magazines from other countries. i am given the gift of Another Reason to Leave the House. still, i miss the blogs i used to frequent daily. i miss the electric words of others. other women typing their magnificent Love Letters To Self in to the glowing white rectangle. our own tiny art galleries, these spaces. our own surging, unapologetic diaries.

i can't stop thinking of francesca woodman. i know this might make me obnoxious but i don't care. she matters. i keep her book in my bed. i want to be near her images all the time. the world she was making. today i thought that at a certain point the line of our lives and the line of our work converge and become one. our art starts building a new world for us to inhabit somewhere over there, off to the side of the reality we know, and little by little we get closer to it, are pulled by its magnets and hooks. i wake every morning eager for my notebook and coffee. i am working every day and i can tell you honestly i haven't felt this much like myself in years. it is a beautiful and exciting feeling.

yesterday at 5:29pm

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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.

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.

see you soon!

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

RULE 7

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the luck of the thing

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.

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

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what if???

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!

what it is to Make Art:

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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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beauty

it is a grey and drizzly morning here but i will not be stopped. soon, i will head off to the city and open the doors of the gallery. freya managed to wrangle one last magical week for us. do come by if you're able. it's been such an amazing, unexpected, joyful experience and the more people i can share it with, the better. besides, the space itself is just so gorgeous. it's been awesome to have a room of our own this way. the white cube is a crazy, wonderful place. to have had one extended to us so generously is a gift beyond compare. i know that it has saved me these passed few months. it really has. and i know that one day when i look back on this moment, i will see just how well-timed it all was. if not for this... who knows where i might have slid off to. i'm glad to have had such a beautiful anchor. or crutch. or stilt. or cathedral.

(when i'm alone in the space, i sing. the acoustics are fantastic. it makes me sound beautiful. i can't describe the massive wave of happy pain that finds me. is it Exaltation? or Honesty? either way, a gorgeous sensation. tears in my eyes. maybe it's just good ol' Freedom.)

today i'll be there from 2-6pm, crocheting another sweater and studying my German and reading Bataille like a good girl. ha! and sunday will be our last day. there will be cheese and wine and ME and freya and launa. come by and collect some hugs.

i am smiling at you.

work work work work work. and with it, a return to my true self. an embrace of a previous piece. something i lost or was stolen or slipped away without my notice or was just plain ol' beat the fuck out of me during the passed few rough years. because haven't the passed few years been exceptionally rough for all of us? it sure seems like it. and there was some damage to acquire and then some damage to repair... and now, such a deep, soothing sigh in my day. and elation! i wake up and make myself a super hot english breakfast tea and head back to bed with my notebook. i wake up early just to luxuriate in the divinity of The Long Morning. i write and write and write.

there, on the page, is where i catch myself. it is where i create myself. those crisp blue lines have held me for years. ever since i learned to write. and even before that! as a very small child i use to scribble loops across the lines of my father's yellow legal pads. i'd pretend i was writing a magnificent novel. i'd daydream of waterfalls and falling stars and all those romantic things children daydream about as i scribbled my way across line after line, page after page.

paper is my birth place. it is my origin. and so i minimize the role The Long Morning plays by calling it a luxury. it is, in fact, a necessity. i need it and appreciate in ways i cannot even begin to describe. it is one of the few things i can simply not go without at this point in my life. and now, this season of busy labor and steep activity finds me, but i have not lost the pleasure/necessity of The Long Morning. i make time for it. always. i wake up as early as i need to. and that's where i am on days when i have nothing to say publicly here. on days when i put up a photo or video, know that i am still smiling at you and that these images are themselves an extension of my exploration. this Return i am experiencing... this Renewal (?????) is full of unknown corners and foreign sounds, songs, images, whispers, echos. my fingers are flying across pages and strings of yarn and sticks of graphite. i feel like i am in love with so many things. ecstatic and curious and unapologetic. it feels so damn good- this high level of freedom inside my practice. scribbling my way toward something better than what i've had. maybe... better than what i've allowed myself?


busy is good. i find a piece of myself that i haven't had in years. like a hug from an old friend, i rush toward this Return, this girl, this life. this! this! this!