"on a scale of 1 to 10, how much pain are you in?"

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ohhhhh... i'd say about 7. 

 

feeling a bit like Frida today.  and not in a good way.  i spent the majority of yesterday laying on ice in bed, hoping to stop the pain roller-coaster before it really got moving...  but atlas.  my iffy disk is a cruel sadist.  i'll definitely need to go to the doctor later today.  or the ER.  whichever entity will see me and give me muscle relaxers.  then, i'm going  to spend the next several days laying flat on my back, stuck like a turtle, and trying to maintain a positive outlook on this shit.  i'll watch the movie Frida and be reminded that, for however big my pain is, it is nothing compared to hers.  i don't need to be wrapped in a cast or held in traction.  this time around, i was standing on one foot in my bedroom, pulling a shoe off my foot.  a fucking lightening bolt of pain ran through my body and literally brought me to my knees.  i stayed there on the floor for several minutes, shocked by the level of pain that i'd just experienced, shocked that such an innocent act had brought it on, and silently begging Fate not to put me in bed for a month.  currently, i can hardly walk but that's not really an accurate barometer of how badly i;m hurt.  i could be back to normal in just a few days so long as i go to the doctor.  i've learned now just to go.  don't be proud, take the drugs, and stay in bed.  it sucks.  i don't want to be that person.  i don't want to be seen as fragile. i'm not fucking fragile and i don't need to be handled with extreme care.  this shit rears up from time to time and it takes me out of the game for a week or two but i am not some fragile girl who needs to tip toe around.  i'm not going to ever be that girl.  i'm not going to be someone who lives in fear of tripping on a crack in the sidewalk.  today, something as simple as that could in fact take me out in a major way.  that's the truth.  i can hardly move right now.  but i'm not going to live in fear of it.  i need to get to the bottom of this and find a long-term solution.  the idea of surgery scares the shit out of me.  my father is a quadriplegic and the idea of someone cutting open my back and scooting my spinal column to the side so they can clip the end of my sciatic nerve is a horribly scary idea.  i'm not even sure i'm a candidate for it.  i need to have an MRI and find out what's really going on inside my body.  

things change in an instant, guys.  these moments always remind me of the fact that if there's something you really want to do in life, better find a way to do it.  i was pulling my fucking shoe off.  i wasn't being a daredevil to any degree.  you can be going along just fine, feeling invincible and like you've got all the time in the world to waste on bullshit...  then a tiny little thing sweeps in and changes the score entirely.  in these moments, i'm so thankful that i created opportunities for travel in my life.  i'm thankful that i have this laptop so i can write and reach out.  i'm thankful for every moment of friendship, every opportunity i've taken to dance and laugh.  

 

the above image is of me last march finishing the Blanket of DOOM when i slipped a disk and was locked in bed for a solid month. 

even these moments are good teachers.
even these moments have led to beauty.
these moments, more than others, lead me straight to art.

i'll try to remind myself of all this later when i'm crying to myself about how unfair this shit is.


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wear it, swear it.

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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.

life's work

i've been thinking a lot about limits lately. and art.

perceived limits.

how all the artists and writers i admire have highly multi-faceted practices. they don't just write or just paint. they embrace a wide definition of what art is and can be. and what it can be made with. and i'm so attracted to that. i'm so compelled. just turned ON but that expansive, inclusive, generous view.

and then a few nay-sayers arrive and start trying to infect me with all sorts of dualities that i simply don't agree with, that i find no real foundation for. the nay-sayers that shout oil paintings are better than drawings and why would you waste time crocheting when you could be painting and writing? i thought you were a painter?

for awhile, these interferences accomplished just that: interference. but i've decided that part of being an artists is simply being yourself and ignoring all that chatter. because those nay-saying remarks, those limits, those expectations are not critique. and therefore need to be thrown out and turned a blind eye.

the really wonderful, happy circumstance of my life at present is that i have no one to answer to, no one to argue with about these things, no one to sell my ideas about art to. i can sit, alone and quiet, and hear the crunch of the road i'm on. i can find a site of stillness where i know, beyond any doubt, that i am moving in the right direction for me, for my practice. and it's become important to track down like-minded people who really do truly care about the job artists do and believe in its relevance. this blog has been absolutely wonderful in that regard. completely. my instances of fear and doubt are becoming less and less frequent as a result of this practice, this weird electronic landscape.

but is it weird? it doesn't feel weird. i take it back. it feels good. it feels happy.

thank you for travelling over to Gaga Stigmata yesterday. i hope you liked the work. i hope they are good images regardless of what your art opinion is of Lady Gaga. she's become very interesting to me in the passed few months. very compelling. the image she's made. the images she continues to make. and there's just something about that Hair Bow.

also, when it comes to music, anytime someone gets labeled "poison for the minds of our youth", you can be sure i'm going to take a better look at what they're up to. ;) and it's especially scary to me that she's been labeled as such when her dominant message is to love oneself.

but i guess that is a dangerous message somehow... if we all loved ourselves a little bit more (love, the opposite of indulgence) we probably wouldn't waste time caring about the kind of car we drive or who has the hottest boyfriend or how thick our wallets are. if we all loved ourselves a little bit more, our social values would definitely begin to shift. education and culture and walking through life with respect and kindness... ethics... would become much more prevalent and important within our society. maybe even come to be viewed as necessities?

somehow this all leads back to DIY culture in my mind. how it shatters a lot of those perceived limits. how it is the best antidote to consumer culture available to us right now. relying, every step of the way, on buying survival puts me in a very weak position. and i'm talking about the basics- food, shelter, clothing. i have to buy a place to live and buy the food i eat and buy the clothes i need to cover my body. i have no choice but to participate in the system.

wrong.

after making the most recent banner, i realized that i already have a skill that can be used to satisfy one of my basic needs- clothing. and with autumn's arrival, i decided that rather than buy sweaters and scarves, etc, etc, etc... i'll make my own. i'll buy yarn instead. and lead a more artful, more creative, more compassionate life that way. i want the objects in my life to have some type of meaning... and i just don't find the meaning i'm looking for in mass-production. can i find a way to love myself enough to figure out how to be less reliant on a system that keeps artists down? yes i can. i totally can. it takes time but i've become willing to spend my evenings with my crochet hook (and learn to knit too!) so that i don't have to buy a blanket or buy a pair of mittens. i'd rather give cash to the people who make the supplies with which i can use to build (truly build, with my own two hands) a life that i love and feels good. making my own sweaters is a good way to begin. it's a start. it's a start that takes a stand too. and i think artists and craftsmen who do this need to be supported as well. i think it's wonderful to buy t-shirts and stuff like that from the artists on etsy and places like that. a t-shirt can carry a lot of meaning sometimes.

i'm not going to choose between painting and drawing and crocheting and writing. i'm going to do them all. i love them all and they all feed each other. having a wide practice makes life more interesting, more beautifully complex. it erases dualities and strictures and just opens the world up. a sweater could be Art, for sure. a sweater can operate as a billboard. just like the banners do. fashion is Art, so why not?

one of my favorite art pieces ever is Jenny Holzer's t-shirt project. body as billboard, clothing as a warning label. i love it.




talk about a ton of bricks, right? t-shirt as Art.

thanks Jenny. :)