the opening friday night was wonderful. and insane! it was so packed with people the gallery got hot! :D and that's 3000 square feet of tremendously high ceiling space we're talking about! it was amazing! the art-going public in san francisco rarely disappoints. they come out in droves and love to laugh and smile and join in the fashion parade too. it's impossible for a people-watcher to be bored here. if you're bored in san francisco you might have sadly been born without a capacity for joy.
i've been lost in my elation even since. :)
and i finally got to meet the sweet and talented and absolutely adorable artist Amanda Smith. if you don't know her work you are missing out! it is fantastic! gorgeous! and with a splash of darger on it that is unexpected and beautiful and just so intriguing! it was so wonderful getting to speak with her and we totally had one of those cute and awesome moments when you meet an artist who's work you love and you both say "I LOVE YOUR WORK!" at the exact say time! hahaha! :D i am so happy to have work on the same wall as her.
and this morning, dark and early, i took the first steps toward a few new year's resolutions and enrolled in spring classes. german and ceramics. i'm probably one of the extreme few art-nerds who, in high school, did not take 2 years of ceramics. i think i had one semester and then focused on drawing and poetry as my electives. anyway, i've been wanting to learn how to make crazy plates to hang on the walls for a couple years now so i figured why not now? especially after getting up close and personal with Amanda's work and seeing how beautiful ceramic art truly is. and the same goes for learning german. so many of my favorite artists and writers are from germany and austria. i'd love to be able to read the work of elfriede jelinik and herta muller in the original. though the translations are absolutely beautiful, it is apparent that some soul has been lost. and so here we go! i'm a bit nervous but also very excited! it's been a goal of mine for a very long time.
the month that stands between now and my first day of class is going to fly by in a crazy, wonderful blur of work and art. in the middle of the reception, Freya and i were already working out a plan for the january exhibition. :)
i am stunned by all that has happened and is happening.
Showing posts with label herta muller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label herta muller. Show all posts
Dec 13, 2010
May 8, 2010
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.
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.
Apr 26, 2010
monday!
i have coffee in my cup and a fresh layer of deep grey oil down on a super massive canvas. the scent of it laying in every inch of my small home. a wonderful start to the week, to the day. and it is sunny already. i'll suck up the sun while i can. the rain has not finished with us yet and will be back tomorrow for the majority of the week- no outdoor painting for me... or jogs unless i want to get drenched again. but it's alright. i've been working working working and feeling good about myself. i don't mind the rainy days so much anymore. it's become my acceptable excuse to be reclusive and spent the entire day reading, writing, drawing, painting in my pajamas, drinking too much coffee, and forgetting about the dishes in the sink.
i spent the weekend stretching canvasses and writing a short story. it was nice to step back from the internet. more and more i've been feeling the desire/need to step in to natural light and away from the glow of this rectangle... to spend more and more time with the work and digging through ideas. i've been reading "The Triggering Town" by Richard Hugo, a book about writing poetry. and the subject of finding one's voice is applicable to painting too. in fact, i think it's not something a person only wrestles with once. i think that as i change and grow and explore, my "voice" needs to change and grow too. what worked last year, what felt true to me last year, has shifted a bit... and so i wrestle to shift the voice, marry it to who i am today. right now, i feel that voice is erupting in such a fiery, honest way. it is exhilarating and comforting and all the pieces of my world begin to line up... begin to make sense again. it is relief and an honor and something i am very protective of at present. and proud too. not in an egotistical way, but that sense of pride everyone needs in order to keep chasing the dream... self-acceptance.
last night, i started reading "The Land of Green Plums" by Herta Muller. every single line, every word in this book is a fucking gem. and already, i am inspired in such deep, personal ways. it is shattering and lovely. i only got to page 17 before i decided to let all those words sit in my brain and my stomach overnight. she's a powerhouse. absolutely so. and something about the search for voice, the things i've been wrestling with, Richard Hugo's book, my own writing and the dreams i have for it, elsie on my living room wall, huge and beautiful and full of secrets, images images images and then the passage in her book on page 9:
"The child goes on talking. As she speaks, something gets stuck on her tongue. The child thinks, it can only be the truth sticking to her tongue like a cherrystone that refuses to go down. As long as her voice keeps rising to her ears, she will wait for the truth. But once her voice grows silent, thinks the child, everything will turn out to have been a lie, since the truth has tumbled down her throat. Because her mouth failed to say the words and ate them."
such a bell! such a bell rung out in me when i read this, curled up in my white quilt last night, such a huge haunted resonant thing cried along with this passage and i thought... isn't this what we artists are all doing??? talking, moving, exploring in order to stumble across small truths here and there? or at least to avoid the big lie? and when we stop trying, when our voices no longer vibrate in our own ears and we fall silent, the "lie" sweeps in. i tend to think of the Lie as resignation. i will not be resigned. no no no. there is coffee in my cup and huge canvasses clogging the living room and i finally got more of the lovely 9XXB pencils. there are books in the case and ideas everywhere and the sun is out and the dog is snoring sweetly next to me. the day is wide open. no resignation. none. never.
good morning!
i spent the weekend stretching canvasses and writing a short story. it was nice to step back from the internet. more and more i've been feeling the desire/need to step in to natural light and away from the glow of this rectangle... to spend more and more time with the work and digging through ideas. i've been reading "The Triggering Town" by Richard Hugo, a book about writing poetry. and the subject of finding one's voice is applicable to painting too. in fact, i think it's not something a person only wrestles with once. i think that as i change and grow and explore, my "voice" needs to change and grow too. what worked last year, what felt true to me last year, has shifted a bit... and so i wrestle to shift the voice, marry it to who i am today. right now, i feel that voice is erupting in such a fiery, honest way. it is exhilarating and comforting and all the pieces of my world begin to line up... begin to make sense again. it is relief and an honor and something i am very protective of at present. and proud too. not in an egotistical way, but that sense of pride everyone needs in order to keep chasing the dream... self-acceptance.
last night, i started reading "The Land of Green Plums" by Herta Muller. every single line, every word in this book is a fucking gem. and already, i am inspired in such deep, personal ways. it is shattering and lovely. i only got to page 17 before i decided to let all those words sit in my brain and my stomach overnight. she's a powerhouse. absolutely so. and something about the search for voice, the things i've been wrestling with, Richard Hugo's book, my own writing and the dreams i have for it, elsie on my living room wall, huge and beautiful and full of secrets, images images images and then the passage in her book on page 9:
"The child goes on talking. As she speaks, something gets stuck on her tongue. The child thinks, it can only be the truth sticking to her tongue like a cherrystone that refuses to go down. As long as her voice keeps rising to her ears, she will wait for the truth. But once her voice grows silent, thinks the child, everything will turn out to have been a lie, since the truth has tumbled down her throat. Because her mouth failed to say the words and ate them."
such a bell! such a bell rung out in me when i read this, curled up in my white quilt last night, such a huge haunted resonant thing cried along with this passage and i thought... isn't this what we artists are all doing??? talking, moving, exploring in order to stumble across small truths here and there? or at least to avoid the big lie? and when we stop trying, when our voices no longer vibrate in our own ears and we fall silent, the "lie" sweeps in. i tend to think of the Lie as resignation. i will not be resigned. no no no. there is coffee in my cup and huge canvasses clogging the living room and i finally got more of the lovely 9XXB pencils. there are books in the case and ideas everywhere and the sun is out and the dog is snoring sweetly next to me. the day is wide open. no resignation. none. never.
good morning!
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