just do that thing that you do, in a perverse hue

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when she sings a hybrid can withstand these things, my heart can beat with bricks and strings i swear to whatever absent or present Christ that might hover above me, wishing me well or feeding the dark cloud that follows my bloodline, that my tears well up something awful and beautiful in my eyes and, in this moment i want to lay your body down and crawl above you like a demon, with enough space between us so that my awful beautiful tears fall and find their way in to the crevice where your arm lays against your side, in to the well of your collar bone, and leak down to fill the millimeter of flesh between your toes.  let me cloak you, bathe you with my tears.  i promise, i won't make an ugly face when i cry.  i cry with a straight face.  every now and then, a trembling chin.  and that's if you're lucky.  like Caesar, no one gets to watch me die.  my betrayers will remain unsatisfied.

she sings brushes with darkness will not help you create your destiny of self  but i think i disagree.  i disagree because my whole life has been one brush with darkness after the next and it has been absolutely not of my choosing.  and in the midst of such ugliness i tended to my own face and my own soul: i scraped together whatever breakfast i could managed and i choked down whatever hope i could find.  in these moments, when the world turned away from the squalor of my birth, i loved the world anyway.  in these moments, i dreampt of your corners and promised myself that, one day, i would find a way to reach out and explore the shadow that marries your thigh to your hip.  no matter how many plane tickets or tears it may take to find it.

my imperfections are glaring but i don't give a fuck.  my love is perfect and complete and so is my lust.  i paint my eyes and my lips and crash into myself with the total fervor of your aching, confused heart.  lift up my skirts, lift up my sheets, bury your face in, bury your face in, bury your face in, bury your cock in, shove your faith and pain into whatever opening you find first.


put your headphones on and ignore the phone calls.




walking through crowds, all i see is myself-  my own hands swaying next to my hips, my feet pounding the concrete, and all the plane tickets i've bought myself.  i look to no one for the realization of my dreams.  just myself.  i look to no one.  no one.  just the darkness that brushes up against my cheek, parts my hair, paints my lips, my eyes, and puts a strong stride in my step.


keep it tight.  sometimes the simplest move is right.
the melody that you choose can rescue you.

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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. ;)

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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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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also...

i've been very attracted to religious paintings lately. especially the work of Hans Memling. it's just so sad and romantic, dark and beautiful. compelling. there is music in it. and i want to lay on the floor below these paintings, let the vermilion shine and spill on to my hands, my face, soak my shirt. this is color done right! i want to be haunted by that strange, tiny angel in black at the nativity. i want Mary to rub my face with that cloth that has absorbed Christ's image. i want her to wrap me up like a baby, let the wind catch in the corners of the linen and flap like a crow against my body. these paintings are churches unto themselves. these are rooms. these are prayers and hymns made physical.

the painting at the bottom is "Christ Giving His Blessing" and is housed inside the Norton Simon in Pasadena, Ca. it is my favorite painting in their collection. i have a small postcard of it. if you have a chance to go see it, do.

awesome!

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

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

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

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

HUG

yesterday i spent my time crinkling up large sheets of white paper and dunking them scrunching them in a big yellow jug full of warm water with a squirt of silver paint in it. i made shimmering wrinkly paper, a new background to play upon, we'll see, we'll see. and when i was done i knocked the yellow jug over and its top and handle broke cleanly off. this is the yellow jug my mother gave me. i didn't throw it away. i plan on buying super glue or some kind of epoxy to put it back together again. i will keep the jug and let it have its history, let its cracks show, put the fracture on display. shall i do the same with myself? am i already? the thought of it makes me smile- waving scars, eager pink flags, a call to gaze at the broken places, girls who fall down but not apart. and i stumble across you, one by one, and i say your books and poems and pictures are FORTS. i will jump on your bed with you and hide underneath with you too. i will write love letters, fold them up like an airplane, sail them down the hall to your hands. it is a long practice of mine. i did this for my mother. GO TO YOUR ROOM for doing something stupid and i would sit in the doorway of my bedroom and write her a love letter, fold it up, make an airplane of it, sail it in to the living room, and wait to be called out to collect my new hug. she still has a few saved inside her big trunk.

this is the metaphor maybe that hugs all my work.

this road

i ran out of my delicious hazelnut and walked down to the market to buy more. on the way, i saw a hand painted sign in the window of a boarded up (papered up? sheets of white butcher paper on the inside of the windows) storefront that read closed for renovations in quite a lovely, humble, careful script. the letters were a dusty red on a flat white background. it looked like whoever painted it really took their time- no drips, no sloppy edges with the brush. and it reminded me of margaret kilgallen's work- her fascination with the signs people make for their small business, hand-made cultures, the beauty that follows actions of necessity. and i stopped to look at the sign again on my way back home. it's very simple but something in it spoke very loudly to me about my own life and struggle and pursuits at the moment.

closed for renovation.

i guess that's how i feel right now.

especially about oil painting. as a mode, it just seems so final, so serious, so declarative. and i'm not trying to make any declarations whatsoever in my work right now. i'm searching, hunting, excavating, mapping. and these modes are curious, exploratory. definitely not FINAL. not ABSOLUTE. and oil painting feels like that to me right now. maybe it's the history of oil painting flooding over? maybe it's the grand authority of oil? a confrontation with expectation? maybe maybe maybe...

but pencil, paper... their common attributes. humble, easy to access, the materials of map making. these things call me. they encourage me. i reach for these materials and it feels right. it feels authentic and honest. the right tool for the job.

i'm at a new beginning in life in a whole lot of ways.

i am on my own right now in a whole lot of ways.

simultaneously scary and exciting.

but freedom isn't an easy thing and it doesn't quickly line up with "happiness". there is struggle in those fiesty veins. and more and more i think that the work we make decides for us what type of artists we are, what type of life, what type of "career", what type of happiness we come to. my only choice in the matter is to hold on to the things i value and to stand with my ethics when the world breathes its confusion in my face. the only choice i have is to not crumble, to keep digging, to keep running, one day at a time, 15 minutes at a time, further and further down the harrowing highway.

i worry too much about things that are totally out of my control. a common human frailty, for sure. and i'm really trying to release myself from that shit right now. i'm trying very hard to trust The Work, trust The Process, trust The Materials, trust The Impulse. i've been carrying around one of my many Kiki Smith books again for days and days. again and again, i turn to her because she trusts her own work. she doesn't second guess the impulse. she just goes. and i have paired that book with Sylvia Plath's Ariel. they are laying together right now on the floor next to me. two bibles. two hymnals. two treasures. two books of hope and persistence. gems.

i see the mortality that surrounds us. how short, how small a day is.

i want my outsides to mirror my insides. i do not want to "live one way and pray another". i want my expressions to be as honest as possible. i want to whittle away at whatever hypocrisy exists in me.

and so i excavate. i writhe. i push the dirt aside.

i am trying to ignore fear.

i trust the pencil's scratch so completely. i trust it like i trust poetry. i trust it like a mother. i climb in to bed with my papers and all my blankets smell like graphite dust. they smell beautiful. my intimate "renovations".

maybe i'll make my own hand-painted sign? hang it on the wall in the living room. or maybe in the big window.

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.

ed ruscha, you give me hope.

mmmmmmmmm

*

kiki smith's "Lodestar" exhibition:

philosophies

such a quiet.

and a moment of stillness.

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

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

behavior that lines up with belief.

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

the big WHY.

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

self-portrait after self-portrait.

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

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

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

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

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

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

rewards are not always shiny and warm.

behavior that lines up with belief.

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

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

repair

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

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

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

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

love

in spite of the hardships that have come, in spite of the hardships that remain, in spite of loneliness, heartache, distance, collapse, hopelessness, frailty, and pathetic groveling, i have never, not once, regret the decision to be an artist. it is the one thing in my life that has been consistently available, open, and welcoming. if it be a picture in a book or a simple, lucky photograph or a blog or a heartfelt word that floated in to my ear at exactly the right time, i love it all and remain forever faithful. i stumble and i cry sometimes. i yell and feel a failure sometimes. i go to the page or the canvas in those moments especially, and find myself there all over again: not only worthy, but privileged, to paint and read and write and think.

thankful

it is 10:30 on a saturday night. my sweetheart is in bed. i just finished reading The Land of Green Plums by Herta Muller. and from the first sentence of the book, she got her hook in deep. at times, her prose so dazzling and painful, i had to put it down. and not just the heart ache of it. not just the documentation she has lay down. but the honest expression, so direct and beautiful, that eventually led my thought of "oh, what writing!" to "oh, what reading!"

that this book was even in my hands is such a gift. that the freedom for it to arrive here in my home, to be read, to be experienced, to be handled and smelled and wrestled with is a gift. the book chronicles the state's deadly hand reaching toward poets and artists and thinkers and dreamers. young people, in love with ideas and going to college in eastern Europe shortly after World War II. it spells out, in such heart breaking, despairing, but completely unsentimental language, how dangerous ideas are seen to be in times of political fear...

that by simply having read a poem, one becomes marked.

and of course, by the time i got to the end of the book, my paranoia was showing- oh shit. i bought this on amazon. i felt much the way i felt 11 years ago when i first read 1984. i was 18 and in my first semester in college and with every page i turned i thought my god, it's already happening. but the small conspiracy theorist inside me is pretty quiet these days. i no longer get so worked up about these things. i guess i just felt so profoundly blessed that freedom of speech is still protected in this country... that i can own a book and not worry that simply by owning it, i am some how an enemy, that i can love ideas without shame and read as widely as i want to and never have to fear that someone will pound on my door and come get me all for having read a book.

it's no wonder to me at all that this work won the Nobel Prize. not only is it written in such a rich and gorgeous speech, it is necessary. more important than i can say. an act of witnessing. beyond reproach. out of everyones league.

(BIG SMILE)

back on my good grey horse this morning. already already.

it's funny how quickly perspectives shift.

yesterday, a miraculous thing happened: i began a new oil painting. something about priming and sanding and smoothing new canvas made me hungry for it... to revere something. and oil painting is a very reverential thing- the history of portrait painting bleeding through... no matter the subject... it's always a portrait... and they say, in some way, always a self-portrait. i tend to agree with that. all work is, to some degree, autobiographical. even if only in terms of aesthetics. and this is a perfect way to perceive it. a perfect way to proceed. why work on something you're not at all attracted to? that doesn't speak to you? why spend hours deep in the wrestling if you aren't captivated by the image itself?

and this outlook i've given myself permission to cling to - of recognizing, day by day, what image or form or material speaks loudest to me - has unleashed such a rapid love. a quick-moving, diligent, reverential love. and so i slid the black oil all over and kept going, kept going, kept going. and i realized that maybe the thing that has been bugging me specifically about oil painting isn't the material and isn't the image, but rather my handling of it. specifically, my technique. it needed to change a bit. evolve. i had locked myself in to a procedure.

but all the drawing i've been doing has refreshed me... let me see images in a different way... let me see materials in a different way. how painting is an act of honoring. a mode through which we (i) esteem something. and drawing can be that way too, but it's more intimate... full of traces and stains and the sweep of the human hand throughout its entirety. if you look close enough, you will find a finger print. and that's why i am so attracted to drawing lately. the intimacy of it. the imperfections and explorations that are inherent to the media itself.

but yesterday, something shook loose and i remembered that i do in fact know how to paint. that i know how to paint wet-into-wet. that i don't have to stick to the procedure if the procedure no longer aids the exploration as a whole. it was a fast, hard, happy realization and i worked late in to the evening.

it's funny... the things a person forgets. and how frail my ego gets some days. days when i say the worst things possible to myself, convinced everything i've ever done is stupid and pointless and that i'll never get it right. haha! all artists do it. and it feels like hell at the time. but i have to laugh at myself and just keep going.

it is bright and beautiful and green green green outside. maybe i'll paint outdoors today in the good light.

i'll be back later with the poem of the day. i'm enjoying just thinking about painting right now and want to sit with my coffee and look at the canvas for awhile this morning before anything else. it's romantic. :)

work in progress

the days and weeks of this new year are moving faster and faster. spring arrives and so the new year isn't quite so new. usually, i'd be a bit sad about this. about time moving this way. about how quickly change occurs... or the stagnation of one day blending with the day before and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. but not this year. this year's current and quickness have been a pleasure: a burn. the opposite of 'shiver'. quick quick and buzz buzz and as the day goes dark, i do mourn a bit that it went so quick, but i become excited for morning. i become exhilarated by the prospect of waking up and crawling toward my drawings, again and again crawling, like a reverent servant, like a child to its mama, something lasting that way.

the sun is up and the morning traffic has slowed. i drink coffee. my pen flies. all morning all morning and my courage wells up a little. my desire to share and roll around in the same space the same place the same warmth as another. a hug. a breath.
an excerpt. of me.


-------------------------------------------------------

(non-)





the day swings.
slices my face.

my breath gone.
i'll die one day i know it.

cancerd, like mama,

and hollow.



swing swing,

it slices my face.

i strain.
i swell.

i breathe.
the day,


expanding.



-



hidden increments, like hair
lost in the carpet.
lashes tangled and breaking.
the crust.
the crumbs
catching on my lips.
my mouth, a ring of salt.
dislodged sleep.
the muttering. the thin whisper.

i am embarrassed.

i am afraid to walk alone on the street.

i might mutter more places than in front of my own safe mirror.

that face i've got.
that iffy friend, staring staring.

and the words she uses. words like a mallet. mouth like a tool drawer. all that clanging. teeth slamming, words on broken hinges. she holds them flatly on her tongue. she is always ready to spit.



-



knock knock and i hide in the other room. i hate the sound. i hate the way people come knocking on the door. i hate it that i'm expected to open the door. that's what that knocking is. expectation.



-



i have an ugly face in photographs. very ugly like a monster. i am ashamed of photographs that have my face in them. i feel sorry for the rest of the photograph for having to carry the weight of my ugly ugly face. the crushing weight of the thing. the thing. twisted. shadows that must apologize.

apologize or die.

the apology: i am not ugly outside the rectangle. outside the rectangle, i do not have to apologize to the landscape for containing me. there are vultures on the ground. there are baby teeth in the drawer. there is my brother next to the old, deep frog hole, 6 feet tall and speaking: "just like an alcoholic, only with people who are bad for you."

there is a despair.

there is a despair.

don't you know anything!


striving
striving
striving
striving

always




no. i don't know anything.

and i am embarrassed.




-



you are in this room.
it is a safe room.
the lights are off.
or the lights are on.
whatever you like.
whatever you are most comfortable with.
whatever you prefer.

there is no noise
except that of the comforting fan at the foot of the bed.
or maybe there is no bed.
maybe the bed makes you sick.
maybe the bed makes you sore.
maybe you prefer the deep chair.
whatever you like best.

close your eyes.

there is nothing right about it.
there is nothing wrong about it.
there is no structure.
it is okay the dream has collapsed.
it is okay the diamond shards have lodged themselves in your eyes.
the shards are yours. you can make them hurt if you like.
you can make them beautiful.
you may decide to hurt. it is okay.
you can call these things by a name.
you can choose to name it.
you are in a safe room.
the lights are off.
the lights are on.
whatever you prefer.
the bed or the chair.
shame will not find you.
there are diamonds.
who are you thinking of?


my father

what about him?

i love him.

is he the person you love most?

yes.

where is he?

gone.

where did he go?

i don't know.

where are you?

i'm not sure.

do you miss him?

yes.

what does that mean to you?

i don't know who i am anymore.

without your father?

yes.





-




lay me out something nice to wear, mama. lay me out your hair.
give me your pearls. i'll stick them in my ears.
give me your tall shoes
so i can be tall like you.

ever since i was a little girl.
ever since i was a little girl.



-



you have done everything you've been told to do. in motion. but you haven't done everything. you've left the best part out. the piece i want the most. you've done everything you've been told but you haven't enjoyed it. you are still yourself somewhere in there. you haven't enjoyed it and this is why i turn away. this is why you are not loved by me. you have not been my true squire. you are to be "protege". you are to be "daughter". you are to be my MINE. and this is the cloud that drops the angry word. i own the cloud. i will send out swarms to you. the gnats will fuck your face. you won't be able to breathe without sucking them in. down down and horribly, grossly, in to your lungs. you. that body. my MINE. you have only satisfied my orders with movement. with body. with hair. but that thumping thing still utters a desire outside of my MINE. and that squirming grey thing still sends juice in a direction unchosen by my MINE. this is why you are hated. this is what names you BAD DAUGHTER. you have not surrendered the last piece. you have not given me my MINE.


-



the day swings..




-

how quickly

i am deep inside one of the maid portraits this morning. oil sliding sliding sliding. i have 3 big canvasses in the final stages that have been waiting patiently for my attention for almost 2 months, breathy sigh and all. i took a long break from my ladies because i realized i was putting too much pressure on them, on myself, to be something they aren't. and so, with all these weeks of drawing, thinking, writing, reading under my belt, i'm seeing them again as they are, as they are meant to be, no pressure, no assumption, no expectation, no ridicule, no mean spirited judgement. and so i go and blend blend blend their skin, their dresses, their aprons. they sigh and whisper under the brush. they bend and nudge and allow their nuances to be found. such love. my lovely ladies. beautiful beautiful.