Showing posts with label encouragement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label encouragement. Show all posts
Sep 25, 2014
Aug 20, 2013
severed and encouraged
i don't know what i want to say. something has shifted in me since going to europe. i can't describe it. i was so immediately calm once boarding the plane from london to berlin. so indefinably calm, at ease in the most remarkable way. natural. i was never once afraid. but now here i am, back in the U.S. and not knowing what exactly to do with myself...
i sign up for french classes and decide i need to know more about cheese and wine. i'm sitting here with my second bottle of Gewurztraminer and a block of Parmesan Romano. my roommates are helping. we all feel spoiled. we all feel special. life is good.
but my heart aches. it pulls toward those old bridges. my broken german longs for a bit of completion. that strange sadness finds me every couple days. travel sadness. the need to be back in germany and walking across the Oberbaum Brucke, the need to race through berlin on the back of a blond's motorcycle, the need to sit quietly at a cafe and sip a latte while i scribble in my diary. it all sounds so lofty and spoiled to american ears but maybe what i'm talking about is simply Living. maybe what i'm describing are the simple pleasures that come from trusting a stranger simply because you receive an unnameable buzz while in their presence and decide to follow the white hot line of it. maybe what i'm describing is the utter joy that floods one's being once deciding that Flatliners was right and today really is a good day to die... so take a deep breath and embrace what you've got. i'm trying to tell myself exactly that right now. i'm attempting to play tourist every day and see california as a foreigner might. it's a tall order but i'm having a great time trying to satisfy it. still, loneliness finds me. i just need to be in the wind. i'm in that Searching phase of life. i need no schedule and no expectations, just a map and a hunk of bread stuffed in my backpack.
...
while i was away, from time to time i worried about my yarnbombs. i worried whether they'd been taken down yet, snipped away by passersby who wanted a bay-area souvenir or an angsty teenager who felt akin to the sentiments. i was relieved and ecstatic to find them all in place upon my return. each and every banner from Aileen to 59th was still there. AND!!! it seemed as if someone had even been tending to them- straightening them out as they slid down the stop sign poles and making sure the text was straight and discernible. a week or so later, i noticed two had disappeared. then, as i walked to the train station this weekend on my way to work i found two banners sliced off and cast to the ground:
i sign up for french classes and decide i need to know more about cheese and wine. i'm sitting here with my second bottle of Gewurztraminer and a block of Parmesan Romano. my roommates are helping. we all feel spoiled. we all feel special. life is good.
but my heart aches. it pulls toward those old bridges. my broken german longs for a bit of completion. that strange sadness finds me every couple days. travel sadness. the need to be back in germany and walking across the Oberbaum Brucke, the need to race through berlin on the back of a blond's motorcycle, the need to sit quietly at a cafe and sip a latte while i scribble in my diary. it all sounds so lofty and spoiled to american ears but maybe what i'm talking about is simply Living. maybe what i'm describing are the simple pleasures that come from trusting a stranger simply because you receive an unnameable buzz while in their presence and decide to follow the white hot line of it. maybe what i'm describing is the utter joy that floods one's being once deciding that Flatliners was right and today really is a good day to die... so take a deep breath and embrace what you've got. i'm trying to tell myself exactly that right now. i'm attempting to play tourist every day and see california as a foreigner might. it's a tall order but i'm having a great time trying to satisfy it. still, loneliness finds me. i just need to be in the wind. i'm in that Searching phase of life. i need no schedule and no expectations, just a map and a hunk of bread stuffed in my backpack.
...
while i was away, from time to time i worried about my yarnbombs. i worried whether they'd been taken down yet, snipped away by passersby who wanted a bay-area souvenir or an angsty teenager who felt akin to the sentiments. i was relieved and ecstatic to find them all in place upon my return. each and every banner from Aileen to 59th was still there. AND!!! it seemed as if someone had even been tending to them- straightening them out as they slid down the stop sign poles and making sure the text was straight and discernible. a week or so later, i noticed two had disappeared. then, as i walked to the train station this weekend on my way to work i found two banners sliced off and cast to the ground:
the jaggedness of the cuts and the fact that these pieces were then thrown aside let me know that the person who cut them down didn't give a shit about this work and, in fact, was probably pissed off. this is a wonder to me. i've never actually ever seen a yarnbomb be so violently removed from public view. but then again, i've not seen any pieces in the bay area that employ text. maybe the message angered this person??? maybe they found it annoying and was tired of walking passed it on their way to the train??? whatever the reason, this person was obviously angry as evinced by the fact that not all the banners on telegraph have been cut down, only those on a particular block. basically, i'm saying they weren't cut down by the authorities. the authorities would have removed them ALL and wouldn't have cast them into the street.
i'm not at all hurt or offended. if anything, i'm encouraged. this type of response lets me know i'm on the right track and that i need to keep going. i felt a sense of lost whenever a banner would disappear before i went on my trip. so much so that i replaced the one at 58th and telegraph (whoever you are :) ). but something changed in me... i feel more generous these days, more open to evolution and the pain of transformation. i feel spurred on by your violence. your anger gets me hot. it leads to a deep sense of resolve. i don't give a fuck. laugh at me or ignore me. whatever. slice my work to pieces, just know i'm sitting at my kitchen table tonight eating Parmesan cheese and drinking a lovely bottle of Gewurztraminer: my feelings are not hurt. in fact, i like having these photographs of my fallen banners. i like having them laying on the corner of my bed. i plan to frame them. they have a history now, a story i could never have provided that adds to their beauty and intelligence. it's beyond description.
i am thankful for the raggedness that my hands are incapable of dealing.
.
Aug 22, 2011
lucky
there are particular bits of wisdom i always run to. lately i have snuggled down in to the quilts other women have made. i burrow down deep with my thoughts and projects and books. it is there that i mend my heart.
i've been crocheting like crazy. 2 new sweaters have been completed but i want to keep them all to myself for a little while longer. i want to keep my images off the internet for a bit and just see where i end up. i've needed a bit of time away from the digital world. i've needed to recoil from its immediacy and curl in to myself instead. the world of flesh and touch and words spoken aloud. i've needed the privacy of my own bed and notebook and to keep my words and images for myself. a cocoon. i'm still drawing skulls, still faithfully following these impulses. i wake with so many images and ideas swirling around inside my sleepy brain. i make tea and sit down to write.
i have the day off from work today but it is the first day of a new semester and i will be counted at roll call later this evening. a new day. a new week. a new class. a new semester. and i love the way it times my life. not too short, not too long, and always building toward something better. and so i can be languid this morning. i can be easy and slow. soon, a run around the lake but i've spent the morning writing and reading and before i do anything else i wanted to transcribe something here. one of those bits of wisdom i cling to. a mother's warm hand:
What has kept me going and still keeps me going is the knowledge that being an artist is a privilege. And the second thing- which is a consequence of the first - is that one must not ask too much. Well, what do I mean by that? Simply that the pursuit of happiness is fine - we all want to believe in it - but most of the time it is just that, a pursuit. Now the privilege of being an artist consists of three things. First, to have something of your own to say. And then - and this is a fight to the finish - to be able to communicate that to people. At best a school can help you with the second part, but it is obviously up to you what you are going to say, what spark you have, what subject. Now what does this all have to do with making a living?I do not know. When you start to define being an artist in those terms - as a profession like any other profession - you place yourself on a downward spiral. You begin to think: "How am I going to survive?" "I hate my job." "I am a prisoner of the people who depend on me, of people's expectations for my success." "I know that there is loads of money out there but the system is so crooked none of it is going to come my way." "I know there are hundreds of galleries in New York and I have a right to be in one of them - or I'm not in the one I want to be in." The important thing about all these statements is that they are all true - or could be true. But the mistake is to confuse art with a "right" at all. One has no birthright to be an artist. One is lucky to be one and that is all. So why have I mentioned these pessimistic things? Well, in fact, it is to say - as I have said - that things really are not so bad all the same. You are privileged to be what you are, and you have your whole life - fifty years - to figure out how it will be. But if this seems to general, all I can say is that after fifty years as an artist it is my privilege to say it just the same. That is all.
-Remarks prepared for art students at Rutgers University, Louise Bourgeios
this statement, paired with the poverty anais nin lived in during her 30s and 40s (which i am currently reading all about - the horror of it and how absolutely defeated one can feel at times) is a great comfort to me, a great and steady encouragement to continue. i have enough money for supplies. i have enough money for books and food. i have enough money for paper. i'm not sleeping on the street and i will not go hungry. i am learning and making my way through the world and it is a privilege in deed to be able to write and make art all along the way. if there is any time when i feel the value of pain it is when it has been transmuted in to a piece of art. it keeps my feet moving. one foot in front of the other. always forward. to be reminded that i am privileged to be what i am is a humbling thing. i am a lucky girl.
i've been crocheting like crazy. 2 new sweaters have been completed but i want to keep them all to myself for a little while longer. i want to keep my images off the internet for a bit and just see where i end up. i've needed a bit of time away from the digital world. i've needed to recoil from its immediacy and curl in to myself instead. the world of flesh and touch and words spoken aloud. i've needed the privacy of my own bed and notebook and to keep my words and images for myself. a cocoon. i'm still drawing skulls, still faithfully following these impulses. i wake with so many images and ideas swirling around inside my sleepy brain. i make tea and sit down to write.
i have the day off from work today but it is the first day of a new semester and i will be counted at roll call later this evening. a new day. a new week. a new class. a new semester. and i love the way it times my life. not too short, not too long, and always building toward something better. and so i can be languid this morning. i can be easy and slow. soon, a run around the lake but i've spent the morning writing and reading and before i do anything else i wanted to transcribe something here. one of those bits of wisdom i cling to. a mother's warm hand:
What has kept me going and still keeps me going is the knowledge that being an artist is a privilege. And the second thing- which is a consequence of the first - is that one must not ask too much. Well, what do I mean by that? Simply that the pursuit of happiness is fine - we all want to believe in it - but most of the time it is just that, a pursuit. Now the privilege of being an artist consists of three things. First, to have something of your own to say. And then - and this is a fight to the finish - to be able to communicate that to people. At best a school can help you with the second part, but it is obviously up to you what you are going to say, what spark you have, what subject. Now what does this all have to do with making a living?I do not know. When you start to define being an artist in those terms - as a profession like any other profession - you place yourself on a downward spiral. You begin to think: "How am I going to survive?" "I hate my job." "I am a prisoner of the people who depend on me, of people's expectations for my success." "I know that there is loads of money out there but the system is so crooked none of it is going to come my way." "I know there are hundreds of galleries in New York and I have a right to be in one of them - or I'm not in the one I want to be in." The important thing about all these statements is that they are all true - or could be true. But the mistake is to confuse art with a "right" at all. One has no birthright to be an artist. One is lucky to be one and that is all. So why have I mentioned these pessimistic things? Well, in fact, it is to say - as I have said - that things really are not so bad all the same. You are privileged to be what you are, and you have your whole life - fifty years - to figure out how it will be. But if this seems to general, all I can say is that after fifty years as an artist it is my privilege to say it just the same. That is all.
-Remarks prepared for art students at Rutgers University, Louise Bourgeios
this statement, paired with the poverty anais nin lived in during her 30s and 40s (which i am currently reading all about - the horror of it and how absolutely defeated one can feel at times) is a great comfort to me, a great and steady encouragement to continue. i have enough money for supplies. i have enough money for books and food. i have enough money for paper. i'm not sleeping on the street and i will not go hungry. i am learning and making my way through the world and it is a privilege in deed to be able to write and make art all along the way. if there is any time when i feel the value of pain it is when it has been transmuted in to a piece of art. it keeps my feet moving. one foot in front of the other. always forward. to be reminded that i am privileged to be what i am is a humbling thing. i am a lucky girl.
Mar 1, 2011
dear kate
originally a comment left here.
i wrote of you the other day on my blog. like rebecca, i read here every day too. i miss you on days you don't post. like a junkie. entirely selfish for my fix. that is the way i miss your writing.
but i am blasted apart lately. shrapnel in the air. that is what i am. that is why it is so hard for me to leave comments on other people's blogs for the passed few months. that is why it is so hard for me to fall in to a rhythm here on my own blog. i am shrapnel. or space junk. colliding. not falling. nothing has fallen back down to earth yet. everything is suspended and staring and sharp-edged. i don't know what this means for me except massive change. i know the change, eventually, will be Good. i know you know this road.
so many things seem unreal. in the Baudrillard sense of the word. the fucking Matrix. all a farce.
real things: nail polish (i'm sort of sorry i keep talking about the stuff but not really. there is something life-affirming, not to mention Girl-Affirming, about it and i need that right now.), wild hair, art, books, cool shoes, music, poems, diaries. and the need to be alone long enough to stake some sort of claim to myself. that's been big on the list lately. i've been spending so much time off on my own, involved in my notebook and studying and making things... it is a hunt for identity maybe. or a way to find the new dings and cracks. or a way to establish a new identity. this new self. this status of Non-Daughter. or is it Anti-Daughter? i have an entire rant about this in my notebook which might end up in public soon.
sometimes i worry about what i share here. sometimes i am embarrassed and worry myself sick that i have said too much.
i've had those same humiliating discussions about jobs and money. they are so horrible and so damaging. they have reduced me to a tearful mess on so many occasions. so few family members will ever understand the sacrifice of Life Style for the chance to be an artist. keep writing as much as you can. and i love the image i have of you writing and reading in those "train wreck" dresses. that sentence of yours: I've decided lately I want to have the personal aesthetic of a train wreck. ah, i know this and i love it and it made me smile so damn wide when i read it. it made me feel proud of you. there is bravery in it. bravery is always worth more than fearlessness. so much more. and always will be.
i've been working on dressing like a gothy patti smith. patti smith back in the days of being a kid with mappelthorpe and Fuck The Clock and all that bit. white t-shirt, black pants, cool dirty shoes. but i'm also working on being brave enough to wear insanely bright red lipstick. i'm trying to become the sort of girl who can do that and not feel self-conscious. i'm trying to go from a naked mouth to a painfully red one. it's pretty jarring. i wear it around the house and my sweetie does a double-take and says "that's really bright". i respond "that means it's cool" and leave the conversation there.
i have a valentine for you. i am horribly late this year, i know. but it is here in an envelope and i promise to get it to the post-office today. i'm such a fucking jerk sometimes. sometimes it's hard to get much done. sometimes the simplest task - going to the post-office - presents itself as such a huge, daunting, unbelievably high hurdle. it's ridiculous. this is sadness and the related selfishness, i guess. i hate it.
my fingernails are silver. gold at your tips makes me smile and feel close to you. i keep buying books you've recommended so that i can be a smarter, better, more connected, more sensitive artist... a better human being.
the other day as i was walking across campus i saw the huge banner stretched across the library that read WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH! i thought... do we still need a month dedicated to us like this? and then i looked at the swarms of 19 and 20 year old boys i was trying to make my way through, a sea of boners, and sadly realized that yes, we still do.
when you're doing readings for Green Girl i hope you can come to san francisco. i want to see you in your dresses and go to the SFMOMA with you.
and then you said this:
I am also realizing in terms of my communication of the self here, and in private, in public and in private, all in an attempt to have a community, I do not really articulate the nature of my depression, my apartness, my solitude, and I still even though I have formed friendships of a sort through this do not understand the texture of anyone else's suffering. Because when we see each other or write each other we always speak around it. So how do I really reveal myself at all? I have one friend who I write my depression to, and she writes hers back to me. Like sliding notes underneath the door.
tis a call to action that i take very seriously. i'm trying to do better. to be more willing to risk everything in order to reveal the texture, as you say. i want to be able to do it. and i need to.
to echo rebecca again... i learn so much from you.
<3
i wrote of you the other day on my blog. like rebecca, i read here every day too. i miss you on days you don't post. like a junkie. entirely selfish for my fix. that is the way i miss your writing.
but i am blasted apart lately. shrapnel in the air. that is what i am. that is why it is so hard for me to leave comments on other people's blogs for the passed few months. that is why it is so hard for me to fall in to a rhythm here on my own blog. i am shrapnel. or space junk. colliding. not falling. nothing has fallen back down to earth yet. everything is suspended and staring and sharp-edged. i don't know what this means for me except massive change. i know the change, eventually, will be Good. i know you know this road.
so many things seem unreal. in the Baudrillard sense of the word. the fucking Matrix. all a farce.
real things: nail polish (i'm sort of sorry i keep talking about the stuff but not really. there is something life-affirming, not to mention Girl-Affirming, about it and i need that right now.), wild hair, art, books, cool shoes, music, poems, diaries. and the need to be alone long enough to stake some sort of claim to myself. that's been big on the list lately. i've been spending so much time off on my own, involved in my notebook and studying and making things... it is a hunt for identity maybe. or a way to find the new dings and cracks. or a way to establish a new identity. this new self. this status of Non-Daughter. or is it Anti-Daughter? i have an entire rant about this in my notebook which might end up in public soon.
sometimes i worry about what i share here. sometimes i am embarrassed and worry myself sick that i have said too much.
i've had those same humiliating discussions about jobs and money. they are so horrible and so damaging. they have reduced me to a tearful mess on so many occasions. so few family members will ever understand the sacrifice of Life Style for the chance to be an artist. keep writing as much as you can. and i love the image i have of you writing and reading in those "train wreck" dresses. that sentence of yours: I've decided lately I want to have the personal aesthetic of a train wreck. ah, i know this and i love it and it made me smile so damn wide when i read it. it made me feel proud of you. there is bravery in it. bravery is always worth more than fearlessness. so much more. and always will be.
i've been working on dressing like a gothy patti smith. patti smith back in the days of being a kid with mappelthorpe and Fuck The Clock and all that bit. white t-shirt, black pants, cool dirty shoes. but i'm also working on being brave enough to wear insanely bright red lipstick. i'm trying to become the sort of girl who can do that and not feel self-conscious. i'm trying to go from a naked mouth to a painfully red one. it's pretty jarring. i wear it around the house and my sweetie does a double-take and says "that's really bright". i respond "that means it's cool" and leave the conversation there.
i have a valentine for you. i am horribly late this year, i know. but it is here in an envelope and i promise to get it to the post-office today. i'm such a fucking jerk sometimes. sometimes it's hard to get much done. sometimes the simplest task - going to the post-office - presents itself as such a huge, daunting, unbelievably high hurdle. it's ridiculous. this is sadness and the related selfishness, i guess. i hate it.
my fingernails are silver. gold at your tips makes me smile and feel close to you. i keep buying books you've recommended so that i can be a smarter, better, more connected, more sensitive artist... a better human being.
the other day as i was walking across campus i saw the huge banner stretched across the library that read WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH! i thought... do we still need a month dedicated to us like this? and then i looked at the swarms of 19 and 20 year old boys i was trying to make my way through, a sea of boners, and sadly realized that yes, we still do.
when you're doing readings for Green Girl i hope you can come to san francisco. i want to see you in your dresses and go to the SFMOMA with you.
and then you said this:
I am also realizing in terms of my communication of the self here, and in private, in public and in private, all in an attempt to have a community, I do not really articulate the nature of my depression, my apartness, my solitude, and I still even though I have formed friendships of a sort through this do not understand the texture of anyone else's suffering. Because when we see each other or write each other we always speak around it. So how do I really reveal myself at all? I have one friend who I write my depression to, and she writes hers back to me. Like sliding notes underneath the door.
tis a call to action that i take very seriously. i'm trying to do better. to be more willing to risk everything in order to reveal the texture, as you say. i want to be able to do it. and i need to.
to echo rebecca again... i learn so much from you.
<3
Jul 27, 2010
dear ariana reines,
for what it's worth, i really like what you're about. i saw a person talk some shit to you online in the comments section at Everyday Genius. i like the way you handled that. i liked it as much as i like your work and your blog, which is VERY MUCH. there's just something about what you do that gives me a lot of hope and i'm really appreciative of that. it makes me want to be more courageous and more attentive to ethics.
i like how you tell the truth. i like the words you use. i like your eyeglasses.
i like that you know you don't owe anybody anything and so all the work you make has a Gift function. i especially like that you MEAN IT- this art thing. again, it gives me a lot of hope.
thank you.
angela
for what it's worth, i really like what you're about. i saw a person talk some shit to you online in the comments section at Everyday Genius. i like the way you handled that. i liked it as much as i like your work and your blog, which is VERY MUCH. there's just something about what you do that gives me a lot of hope and i'm really appreciative of that. it makes me want to be more courageous and more attentive to ethics.
i like how you tell the truth. i like the words you use. i like your eyeglasses.
i like that you know you don't owe anybody anything and so all the work you make has a Gift function. i especially like that you MEAN IT- this art thing. again, it gives me a lot of hope.
thank you.
angela
Oct 22, 2009
sigh...
i cannot stress what an absolutely beautiful day it is today. just stunning. i took The Almighty Jog a bit earlier today and it was then that i noticed how beautiful it is where i live. the big rain that came through brought out so many green and pretty things and the air was fresh and clean and the sky was wide open, blue as blue can be, and i felt happy to be running through it all with my dog bouncing along at my side. i came home, measured my waist (because i haven't done that in a while and i'm supposed to be keeping track of this stuff) and discovered i've lost another inch! yay me! and so i tried on a pair of pants my tall, lean mama gave me about a year and a half ago - a pair of pants that are super cool but that i couldn't really fit in to - and THEY FIT! AHHHHHHHHHH! i've got 'em on right now! and not all squeezed in, suffocating, cutting off blood flow to my legs style either. i am COMFORTABLE in them! it's a wonderful, wonderful feeling! it's so nice to see the changes i'm trying to make in my life take root. it encourages me to show that same level of dedication and faithfulness in other areas of my life. areas where progress is sometimes hard to see and the reward for hard work is really the self-investigation that such changes require.
and i've been painting all day. it seems like it's been so long since i've painted ALL DAY LONG. and i have definitely missed the feeling. i feel so focused and calm today, so grateful for so many things. i guess the gratitude fridge is working some magic! it's nice to have all those reminders sitting there waiting to be read while i wash the dishes, make dinner, or even scan for midnight snacks. it's doing me a world of good right now and helping me to remain positive and objective about things. i feel encouraged and hopeful and just happy.
it is a beautiful day here. i hope it is where you are too. :)
and i've been painting all day. it seems like it's been so long since i've painted ALL DAY LONG. and i have definitely missed the feeling. i feel so focused and calm today, so grateful for so many things. i guess the gratitude fridge is working some magic! it's nice to have all those reminders sitting there waiting to be read while i wash the dishes, make dinner, or even scan for midnight snacks. it's doing me a world of good right now and helping me to remain positive and objective about things. i feel encouraged and hopeful and just happy.
it is a beautiful day here. i hope it is where you are too. :)
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