FML?

sometimes life decides for you that you need to slow down, stay in bed, and make some art.  under other circumstances, i'd be completely content to do just that but geez... now just isn't the right time.  a man lifted me up the other day and, as chance would have it, he happened to grab me right at the sight of an old injury: my iffy disk.  i've been locked in bed for the last 3 days.  i haven't been able to really walk let alone go to class or work.  and worst of all, i may have to cancel my trip to NY.  i'm trying not to get depressed about it.  getting depressed will only draw this whole thing out.  besides, i'm in enough pain as it is.  bulging disks are absolute agony.  thankfully, i'm in much better shape this time around than i was the first time this happened 6 years ago.  in fact, this injury is what turned me toward crochet as a way to make art.  i couldn't sit or stand.  all i could do was lie flat on my back.  that's not exactly a position from which one might draw or paint and, there i was, heading in to my last year of art school.  so much was on the line.  i had to find a way to keep making art.  crochet, it was!  it saved my degree and my practice.  it saved my spirit.  

and it'll save my spirit this time too.  i'm looking on the bright side and just trying to feel thankful for having the unplanned luxury of staying in bed all week and making art.  The Blanket of DOOM sure has benefited.  Almost done!!!!  a year in the making.  this project is an ERA unto itself!  :D

king size!!!!  and all rendered patiently in single stitch crochet.  good lord.

keeping me nice and warm as i convalesce. :)  can't wait to see and photograph the finished piece.

i want to fuck your brains out

circles of water on the floor next to the bed.  my glass gladly cries as i listen to the song in the post below:

my sweating Greyhound. 

i haven't been home in three days.  off on some sort of adventure through suburbia.  these things come out of nowhere and who am i to say NO?

unexpected and totally welcome, i didn't have these adventures when i lived in a suburb.  i was wound up way too tight for that.  or maybe i had snooty standards?  or maybe i just had the correct reading on life in the suburbs and knew those aristocrats cannot be trusted.  i mean no offense, y'all just believe in too false a God.  i must breathe more honestly than what your picket fences allow.  i'm grown enough to know that human beings are a strange, strange species and there are no easy explanations for anything.  we are (i am) driven by a need to find some sort of comfort after enduring such a steep and horriffic sadness...  and we tend to find said comfort in the glass confines of an illicit bottle if denied the soft mouth of another.  and so, i learned the hard way, again, that drinking an entire bottle of Korbel bought from a Wallgreens at 1:45am will, if drunk by a single individual (me) (even if over the course of several hours), result in such a tormented stomach that the act of eating itself becomes the most torturous experience there is... even days later.  the only sparkling wine one should drink should be the real thing: champagne.  at least then the resulting horror story might possess an air of romance (though, if i may remind you, i am never without romance.  i am a romantic human being and i know how to create romance wherever i go.  if you are ever in doubt as to how one accomplishes romance i have two words for you: back scratch.  simply scratch the back of whomever you are with, especially if it is a friend, and you have abolished all trashiness from the current situation.  trust. ).  and so tonight, on a ravaged stomach, i made myself a Szechuan dinner and it was the first thing i've really eaten in days   ( ...should i really be telling you this?).

still, we breathed at each other's mouths.  we panted at the open wish. we stared at each other, point blank, and he asked me if i was an atheist.  i said i didn't know.  i confessed to him that i had once been thoroughly convinced that there was a God (for my entire life) but, when watching my mother die, He died as well, right before my eyes.  he ate a bag of chocolate malt balls and i listened to his ideas about humanity.  as i poured another damned glass of Korbel we discussed mortality and i pulled the shoes and socks off his feet.  we sat across from each other in deep hotel armchairs and i massaged his feet like a Christ.

i loved listening to him.  he had such a slow, lovely southern drawl.

these are the strange rooms i sometimes am lucky enough to stumble in to.  i am granted the honor and pleasure of witnessing the humanity of another.  i learn.  and then i come home and pull off my worn clothes, i listen to The Smashing Pumpkins and think of a bed in New York, blues guitar and the delirious dreams that followed on the echo of those plucked strings... 

and i am left wondering what the hell the world is trying to teach me.




 

new york rant #1

it's 1 am and i'm in bed with a glass of riesling after meeting up with the crew for a quick round of  cocktails.  everyone wants to know about new york and what i did with my time there.  it's a blurr of fantasy and fascination.  i can't tell you what i did because i'm still waiting for my breath to slow and for the earth to stop quaking.  all i know is that, now, almost 4 days after returning home i feel so heartsick and stupid for leaving.  i have enough in my savings account to make relocating to new york a do-able enterprise.  hard, but do-able.  i just didn't want to be a dick about it. and besides, i still need to go to Germany.  but my heart throbs.  i long to return.  right now.  fuck it.  let me buy the ticket and pack up these stacks of books.  let me throw some clothes in a bag and give the rest to the Goodwill.  what am i sticking around for anyway?  because the truth of the matter is that i feel, every second of every day, the weight of death baring down on me and there are precious few reprieves i receive from it's heft.   in new york, i started crying angrily at my friend that we needed to pick up the pace, that we needed to walk as fast as we could, that I needed to walk as fast as I could and round as many corners as possible and caress as much pavement as possible and hear as many accents as possible because my mother is dead, died at the ripe old age of 55, a week before her birthday, and ever since i feel the weight of mortality pressing against me.  i feel it wrap its eager hand around my throat and i stare at other human beings in disbelief that they seem to think they have time to fucking spare.  news flash:  there will never be enough time.  this is the tragedy of our existence.  this is why we make stupid mistakes.  this is why we risk all for a chance at the fairy tale.  this is why we are bastards to some and angels to others.  this is why i write and write and wait and wait, wait for someone to act like they fucking understand one goddamn word coming out of my stupid, impatient mouth.  because in two seconds i'll be old.  in two seconds i'll be staring my own death in the face.  i don't know if, at that moment, i'll care about whether or not i ever traveled or the books i never read, but i sure care right now.  i care about dancing and sweating and feeling connected to something larger than myself, to some sort of surging universal passion that might **might** be capable of connecting me to another human being in a way that defies all logic and explanation.  is that really out of the question?  in new york, on my birthday, i shared such an amazingly beautiful moment with a stranger and i can't define it at all.  all i can tell you is that i am rattled.  i am rattled in such a way that i'm actually grateful for the pain of intense longing that has resulted.  i don't want to be on the pacific coast any more.  i want to be back on that beloved ferry, named after my brother, looking at lady liberty and crying silently behind my sunglasses.  i can't tell you how emotional it was to see her.  i stood on the deck and stared at her green contours and listened to the myriad of languages swirling around me and thought, "can a person really call themself an American without having seen The Statue of Liberty?"  and then i thought of my mother who died without ever seeing her, without ever seeing the new york skyline or the famous paintings in MOMA or the wide smile of a happy stranger in a dance club in the lower east side at 4am.

these statements make me seem wild and intense.  maybe i am wild and intense.  all i know is that i cannot live without passion.  i tried and something inside me, something fundamental and necessary, withered to a state of unrecognizable atrophy.  finally, that which was stilled has woken up and is gaining strength.  i don't care if i make mistakes.  i've spent the entirety of my life being "good"  and it has only ever amounted to degradation, humiliation and confusion.  it has only ever led to self-loathing and the painful dismissal of tightly held dreams.  no more.   i am unwilling to go that road again.  i know where "good"  takes me.  can "bad"  really be that much worse?  if redemption exists for me anywhere it is in my art, in my diary, in my words.  it is a pity that so few have the stamina to love me and so i traverse this world alone.  fuck it.  let me know you by your art.  you will know me by mine.

a stranger's hand brushed my hair away from my sweaty forehead on a dance floor in new york and my entire life changed.  for as complicated as i am sometimes accused of being, it's just that simple. 

return

i want to drink coffee every night between the hours of 10 and 12. a powerful craving hits and, most of the time, if i can at all manage to get away with it, i totally succumb. tonight, is no different. tonight is only unusual in that i actually got off work before 11pm and have the semblance of a free evening to spend as i choose. i had sushi with anne and then curled up in bed with my coffee and computer. 

i am in one of those phases of life again where Time itself seems like a fiction. the Past falls away from me and feels impossible. i look back at certain events and circumstances in disbelief. it seems incredibly unreal. all the lives i've lived before this one suddenly seem so foreign to me. this girl that i am today...  haven't i always been her?  maybe this girl was there behind the window pane all along simply waiting for me to gain enough strength to steady my heart and look her in the eyes.  i got back on the good road of Honesty and instantly retrieved a true sense of self.

i cut my hair. 6 inches off the length but it still falls to the middle of my back. i have fringe again. "change your hair, change your life" becca tells me and she's been absolutely right. i have an entirely new wardrobe. i have a storage unit that houses the old. and the only books i kept with me are german grammar books, the next volume of anais nin's diary i need to read, gina abelkop's poetry, and my great big book of francesca woodman's photographs. all my drawings, save for a few small skull portraits, are in storage too. i kept the sweaters with me though. they are my armor and are always near.  the most recent sweater, the blue one, came about as a result of pure nesseccity.  i needed to work and blue yarn was all i had.  it is hanging on the wall here in my white room, a flag of hope.

the world changed some months ago and this little electric land of mine went silent. i lived without a stable internet connection for just about 4 months. unheard of these days. there were times i'd go 8 straight days without being able to so much as check my email. but, as i fell out of step with the modernity of the rest of the world, i fell in step with an older aspect of myself. i began to believe in myself in an entire new way. or, perhaps, a way i once had but forgot how to summon forth. all the writing i did was private and shitty. all the writing, the feel of it, has been fantastic.

but the tap of the keys is a familiar song. i lean in to it. i fall in to its rhythm and don't question its rightness. i missed this place and the connections it can establish. i missed the dialouge with writers and artists. i missed the way we speak to each other here- a way that is so much more romantic than how we'd speak to each other's faces. i love the drama of it. the urgency.  i even love the emoticons.

i especially love the emoticons. :)


at 3am when i can't sleep i will regret this cup of coffee.

is it enough to just be a Diarist? especially in the most encompassing sense of the word? is it okay to only want to scribble? and make sweaters? and paint my fingernails and my toenails? and paint portraits sometimes? sometimes draw, sometimes not? and read filthy, highbrow erotica like Georges Bataille and Anais Nin? is it enough that this is my week? and that this week is my life? and studying German, learning a new group of words and sounds? is it okay to sit quietly and not move my pen for 15 minutes at a time some mornings? is it okay to want to smell exceptionally good? is it enough to let my life be about these things? at least for now?

what is this place and who am i when i'm here?

shall i tip-toe back in to this room?

this quiet confessional, all text and light? beaming beaming.

throwing words. tears. longing. sorrow. my sad vomit. so sad i vomit. has that ever happened to you? have you been so sad that your body rebels against you?

my mother's death has sped life up in certain ways. slowed it down in others. the world is an entirely different place now.

i was driving in the dark winding roads back home from work one night and suddenly i said to my self, out loud, "her death is going to impact my life in ways i can't even begin to imagine and it is going to go on like that for years." this is a fact. this is one of the few truths i know and i'm not sad about it. i don't ever want this to stop hurting. i want it to hurt forever. i'll find a way to let it polish me.

there is too much to catalogue. all that has happened. all that is still happening. all that will continue to happen...

for months, i've been recoiling from using this space in certain ways. i needed it to become more artistic, more invested in blogging as a particular form of writing like fiction or poetry. roz thinks it could be Performance. i like that idea. but it remains that i have no clue what i need this space to be anymore. i have no clue about of a lot of things these days.

i'm taking german and pottery at my local community college. i spend a lot of time listening to Rammstein and Bauhaus and Patti Smith, deciding on some level to go ahead and let the goth-girl in me flourish for awhile. let her have her say. my dear friend sent me a tube of bright red lipstick. i've only had the guts to wear it outside once. i think i need to go blonde. and every chance i get, i read Anais Nin's Diary. i'm on volume 2. i see myself in her pages. i know that world. i know those longings. i know those struggles. i can catch a glimpse of the girl behind my reflection... the one who is trying to wake up, trying to talk, trying to Become... if only the outside expectations would stop choking her out. if only i were strong enough to bar them from my life and heart.

but it's safe to say that, with each day that passes, i give less and less of a fuck what people think of me or who they would like me to be... the performance they want, the image they prefer. Lea, Freya, and i talked about feminism while we installed the new show. Lea said "some stories need to continue to be told and i take it as a personal duty to tell them". this made my heart jump and shiver. it made me feel thankful.

this is post 971. i will get to 1000 before i make any decisions about this space. i will let this space twist up on itself, writhe around on the floor, fight to become whatever it is that it needs to become. or else i will kill it. we'll see what we see. but there are no more rules. there are no more requirements about how often i post or what i post. i believe words can work magic. i will be patient, for 30 more posts anyway, and see what finds me.

i am smiling at you.

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

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

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


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

i sat down with my tea, back in bed with my notebook, in the early morning. black outside. steam and honey in my cup. i scribbled the date - Dec. 15th - and my pen moved no further as i realized there are only 2 weeks left in this month: only 2 weeks left in this year. and i have only just taken a breath. i have only just had a short rest. i look up and we are on to the next thing. i am not complaining. i have finally learned how Good it is to be busy.

life is changing. it has too.

i am changing right along with it.

even this blog is changing. and i guess that makes perfect sense: as i change so do my expressions. i am in an in-between, something of a transition or transformation. and i feel encouraged by this. bare with me while this mirror wobbles and attempts to show my reflection again.

and in the meantime, i twist up new roses and lay the oil down, speeding toward the new year with as much strength as i can muster. we're almost there. finish strong.

DECEMBER!!!!!! DUDE!!!!

wheredidnovembergo??????wheredidtheyeargo???????ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

but it sure has been a good ride. :) i mean it. for all the ups and downs and twists and turns and being of extra-humble means this year, 2010 has been pretty great. and it continues to be great as we move in to the home stretch. i've been so busy with the projects i've got going and trying to get them all wrapped up beautifully within the next four weeks. thankfully i've been a very good girl and the finish line is in sight. the next few days though might be kinda brutal. november just disappeared and december has begun and there is the december show to install at Slingshot in a few days. EEEK!!! i thought i had another 2 weeks to get my projects for new show finished! NOPE! good thing i've been working my tail off and am definitely on-time production wise, i'm just stunned how quickly our first month in the space went! tomorrow, i sit the gallery and, in terms of this particular exhibition, it's the last time you can see it and me at the same time so, if you haven't made it down yet, i'd love to see you. it'll be up until saturday for sure but i think we're taking all the work down on sunday.

also, i just finished my packet for one of the residencies i've been dreaming of and not a moment too soon. the post-mark "Due By" is tomorrow. hahahaha! and it's not like i waited until the last minute either. i've been arranging and re-arranging and writing and re-writing for WEEKS. this is why deadlines are actually a good thing: i could torture myself with this application forever.

and in other news, i'm actually really liking my new day-job. it's quite a change. i've never worked in a clothing store before. it's actually pretty fun. this particular shop has a really great group of people in it and they are all around my age which is FANTASTIC! i was afraid that i'd be the dinosaur in a group of 19 year olds. i definitely don't ever want to find myself in the "mother hen" role. no no no definitely not. i've been a second mother and the results are fairly fucked up so that's really not a role i ever want to inadvertently stumble in to again or acquire by default as the elder female in the group. gross. because i still feel 19 years old half the time myself. still stunned by the world and its events, still confused more often than i'd like to admit. but i'm learning that's the way it is for everybody: constant change and consistently struggling (in one form or another), and the struggles of 2010 have actually been what's made it so great. i've learned a lot and come through a lot and i feel more like myself than i have in a very long time. it's a wonderful feeling.

i'm rambling on and on now. time to put this post away and get myself to the post office before it closes so that i can send off my big envelope an entire day before the post-mark. hahaha!

a new week begins

i am dirt. and sweat. and ice. the roads are not safe out this way. this morning everything is frozen. anti-californian. i put on my freddie fruger sweater and went running down the highway through the slush and leaves. i dreamt of new york and berlin and travelling to all the places i've not yet been. i dreamt of my new painting and all the black roses i've been crocheting, the end of the year and a new year about to born. i dreamt about going blonde and wearing red lipstick. this is something i may actually have to do. i've never been much of a lipstick wearer. suddenly and unexpectedly, i am very interested in becoming one. i have no clue why. just the call. that call to make your outsides mirror your insides. to give shape and shadow to all those twists of soul and spirit. to make the windings of my mind and heart physical somehow. apparent. why this is being translated in to going blonde and wearing red lipstick, i can only say that something about it feels correct. i have no deeper analysis than that. it just feels like it could be the exact right thing to do.

transitions. encouragements. seeking a new lens to look through. the rituals of the new year are finding me. and maybe it's just a result of the life i've been leading the passed few years... the passed few months especially. all this running and working and reading and drawing. this morning i read this interview with William Pope.l and i felt like it was a moment of dumb, amazing, inexplicable luck to have stumbled across it. there are beautiful, gentle, necessary permission slips in there. encouragements and hugs and nudges... things i've been feeling a bit hungry for. but aren't we all? encouragement is a thing that seems to be in very short order in this world. i caught a lucky break today by reading this interview. a new lens, indeed.

my painting is calling from the other side of the room - a commission i'm working on - so i'm off to wrestle the black oil. but first, i've got to melt away all this crazy california ice from my arms and eyes. it is freezing cold here today. sheets of broken ice like panes of glass all along the road. weird.

crutch. cross.

the boxes we've been given.

the boxes we've accepted.

the boxes we've constructed.


i have constructed more than a few horrible boxes for myself, that's for sure. horrible rooms of horrible silence, horrible stillness- the evil twin of what i'm experiencing now. the hateful flip-side of solitude and graciousness. maybe the word would be "abjection"?

in my mind now i can see those horrible boxes i constructed for myself. i can see them with the label ABJECT stencilled across the front in spray-paint and Jasper Johns lettering. though that description makes it seem almost romantic. and maybe there are moments when abjection rubs shoulders with romance? maybe sometimes our pain would be too great, our loneliness too hard to bear, if we did not romanticize it a little. romance provides strength. it makes the world tolerable in intolerable moments.


but i will not climb back in to particular boxes.

i will not accept particular boxes.

i will not construct particular boxes.


i do not want to contain so much pain that i must romanticize my self, my life, my pain, in order to bear it. in order to move even the shortest of distances. i have lived too many years that way.

i am tired of bullshit pain and want the pain that finds me to be real and necessary. not made-up, not unnecessary. and in the in between times, a soft joy. pencil scratches and ink dripping and words to rummage around in. i am learning to appreciate the open air now. feathers and leaves falling. the wind cracking through tall trees. angry squirrels clawing the roots. and such a luscious moon.

:)

could it have been the waves? or reading Art & Fear, there, at the edge of the world? a shore where the water is too cold for humans but just right for dogs. and i made a pile of river rocks, beautiful grey stones flat as pancakes. and another pile of soft-looking, impeccably white stones with the intention of bringing them home and putting them in glass jars on the window sill. but i left the piles there. smiled, as i walked away, that a child would probably be the person to notice the piles and think it an act of magic. :) i was that kind of little kid, for sure.

and so this sweep lately- bits of my childhood-self beginning to show up again in my daily life. innocent, trusting actions. simple and sweet and so endlessly enjoyable. the warm lure of the potential that exists inside a regular day. maybe this is the One Day at a Time philosophy in action. i've been trying to harness it for months and i finally feel like i've got my hand in the mane of that particular horse. it is soft and exciting and today i woke with such a pleasant sense of possibility.

this morning, i will run as if i am already a marathon winner. and i will write as if i've already published a novel. and i will paint as if i am already welcomed in to a museum. because it relieves the pressure to look at those things. to get back in to the single moment, be present in the action, and not look outside for encouragement. what could we accomplish if we did not worry about markers of success? such greatness! such happiness and capacity for joy. such long, hefty laughter.

looking back, i see that the last year of my life has been a kind of process of elimination. moving things out of the way so that i could move forward. so that i could see. clear out the clutter. the world begins to brighten again. i have painted and read and wrote more since january than i have since i was in school. my life gets fuller and fuller, built with (and on) only the things i truly care about. art, writing, laughing, running, reading, dancing, singing, dreaming, digging.

some days, i have to live in 15 minute increments in order to not become daunted by the task (or dream) in front of me. it works. i feel like i've finally cleared out enough clutter, swept out enough confusion, to really be able to identify the road i'm on. it's a good road. one that has brought such wonderful people in to my life (you and you and you and you and). and all the ideas you bring. all the toys we share. who would've thought that the seemingly geeky act of blogging would have dumped such a strong feeling of gratitude and connection in to my life! it is amazing and i learn so much from this community of people who, like me, deeply believe that art and words and ideas matter. that they are powerful and necessary.

it is an odd time in life. but also rife with wonder and possibility. it is a creative time. i'm happy to be here to share in it and offer whatever small kernel i can.

good morning. :)

big and beautiful life changes on the horizon...

for the past several weeks, my sweetheart and i have been talking A LOT about quality of life, goals, dreams, plans, etc. and the time has come to make a move on these things. we are currently at our two-year anniversary of moving out here to napa valley. and though many positives have come out of living in such a beautiful landscape, the truth is that there simply aren't many opportunities for artists out this way... or anyone really who isn't connected to the wine industry. i have to drive an hour and a half to participate in the san francisco art world. and it has definitely been an uphill battle to get to openings, be involved, be supportive of my own community, and be a recognized face in the scene. i'm actually amazed i've been able to get as much done as i have being this far away. and i miss my art school buddies more than i can say. gas money to the city isn't something i have to burn every single day. and so the decision has been made to get rolling again, get back to the hustle and bustle, back to the land of the living. i am so excited and happy that i almost can't stand it. i am relieved and hopeful. i miss my beautiful city by the bay. i miss having close access to museums and galleries. i miss everything about living close to a cosmopolitan place. every single thing. and so i've already been sending out resumes this morning. i can stand the long commute for a couple months until we have the cash saved up to move. besides, if everything is going well right now in new york at AAF, i'll have most of the money we need to make the transition. i'm just thankful we have a plan now, something to work toward together that we both want, that we both need.

and so in the spirit of hope and change, if you're in the SF bay area (or even near it) and you catch wind of something, please think of me and let me know. it doesn't need to be art related. i am quite the skilled custom framer though and also a very effective research assistant. i'm aiming for jobs that i actually want, first. it's always best to aim high rather than settle for what you know you can get... though, if need be, i will. i want to move back so bad that, if it comes down to it, i'll suck it up and wait tables again. it's worth it. completely.

in other news, i spent the entire day painting yesterday and the next 5 footer is almost done. i hope to get it wrapped up today after The Almighty Jog and a breakfast of raspberries and coffee. :) i must say... this recent wave of painting and drawing that has flooded in to me, out of me, all around me, clogging up the living room, makes me feel so good and alive. and writing writing writing too. life is good and i am soooooooo anxious to move forward again.

good morning. :)

february already...

geez. the new year is flying by! and so i've begun the slowing down process... giving myself reminders to stay in the present, to really pay attention, to use each day toward good aims... to be aware of the wealth of opportunities that surround me (that surround us all), great and small, and to not scoff at any one of them; to proceed with grace and confidence...

one of my life-long problems has been of minimizing. my own pain as well as the good that i do. i was so shy as a child that anything, even wonderful things, that brought me extra attention was something i absolutely did not like. i hid my own talents for years. and now, spending time thinking about TIME, about mortality, i'm choosing... have been choosing... to not hide for one second. to live life as it comes to me: daily. "we are not promised tomorrow". that quote is the last line i write each morning in my journal. a memento mori. and to proceed with as much strength, grace, and confidence that i can.

it's so easy for us humans to forget our accomplishments... the hurdles we've lept over, the hardships we've overcome. and now i set out to let those hardships polish my goodness rather than compromise it. i do not believe that we are given talents and beauties to throw them in the trash.

it's okay to save some things for private experience. but that is not the same thing as hiding.

yesterday, i stocked up on my beloved black gouache. i bought BIG paper and new pencils and found a copy of "Alice's Adventures Underground" at the used bookstore... the edition kiki smith used for her print series. only 15 bucks so i couldn't resist.

my oils are hanging on the walls in varied states of finish. all whispering, all lovely and confident.

i am surrounded by bibles. these things, these objects, these marks on paper. art and its' tools. my many loves quicken my breath and my heart jumps and i am amazed and humbled and curious. there is deep deep deep play in my heart and shoulders and finger tips (rebecca). it is such a huge act of trust, of faith, of grace, of willingness to learn, to stumble, to find, to try.

i am eager.

i love everything.

plans

today is a day for doing the laundry and washing the dishes. i'm making my preparations for my trip out to tennessee. clean underwear and that whole bit. i have to decide what books to take, what projects to bring on the plane, a whole wealth of little things to decide upon. tomorrow is pay day and i need a few tubes of gouache and a big tube to transport big paper in. i need to buy that anti-flea juice for inga so that it's here while i'm gone. one less errand for my sweetie to run. and then of course there's the problem of fashion- a whole different climate. word on the phone-line is that it is cold, cold, cold out there. some snow on the ground too. my sequined shoes are not optimal. maybe this is my excuse to go ahead and buy those yellow rubber rain boots i've so desired for so so long. :) and i am printing out the photo references i'll need and font patterns for cross-stitching and poems i need to keep working on. i'll be gone two weeks and i leave in two days, bright and early sunday morning. it's hard to know what i'll need. and i haven't been away from my sweetheart for so long in years and i've never been away from my baby girl dog like this. but i'm bringing my running shoes and will use the old pick-up truck to trip a mile so i can run run run and keep track of the distance and keep track of my focus and keep a high, bright spirit. my trusty hot pink sports bra is tumbling around in the dryer as we speak. i'm very much looking forward to waking up to my mama and morning coffee and conversation and an icy landscape. i'm looking forward to taking pictures, a practice i've not taken part in really for a couple years ever since reading susan sontag. ha! maybe i'll buy some black and white ilford for my minolta while i'm at it. and tonight at 9, i'll be shutting my shop down so if there's anything in there that is a must-have, grab it now and i'll ship it tomorrow. and there are checks to write and stuff in envelopes and stamps to put on those envelopes. prepare, prepare, prepare. i don't want any nagging thoughts or worries of things i forgot to take care of while i'm away.

rise and shine!

up and at 'em. up and at 'em. but it's raining and dark and i have a dentist appointment later this morning. and i brought my friend home from the hospital yesterday and will set up shop at her house (which is just right next door) when i get home from my un-fun dentistry hour. they put a plate in her leg. and the plane ticket to go see my mom out in tennessee is bought and paid for. i fly out on sunday and will be there for a full 2 weeks. i'm bringing my big Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale collection and she busted out her Brothers Grimm so we'll have lots to talk about... not that there's ever a shortage of words in this family. we're all pretty chatty. i may even get to see my grandparents while i'm out there- weather permitting. it's been snowing out there. the roads are dangerous way out in the countryside when the ice arrives. i haven't seen them in about 5 years, i think. and one of my aunts is coming out for a visit too and i have no clue how long it's been since i've seen her... 10... 11 years? geez. we're a pretty spread out group, that's for sure. it's always interesting to see and get to know extended family members all over again as an adult. i'm planning on taking a landslide of pictures of my mom so i can do a new portrait of her. it's been quite a while since i've done one and i'm pretty sure she's got all of them. i want to do 3 portraits of her, all the same and of the same pose, one for me, one for my sister, and one for my brother. i'll bring a big stack of large paper so i can keep rolling with the gouache paintings while i'm away from the big oils. i was hoping to get at least one of the canvasses wrapped up before i left but... well... you know how it goes. some paintings just won't be rushed, nor should they be. patience, patience, patience. they'll all be here waiting for me when i return. and the rain keeps on coming down. splat splat splat on the glass and shingles. inga snoring and the click of the keys beneath my finger tips.

5...

the countdown begins...

and me, still sick and heavy with the sadness sickness brings... or is it the holidays? this time of year seems to have an adverse effect on most people. it breaks the stride of happiness and productivity and thankfulness, contrary to what the holidays are supposed to mean. still sniffly and stuffy and aggravated but somehow excited to see the new year arrive. i'm glad to see 2009 shove off and a new opening, a portal, spread wide-open in front of me. there are too many hopes for me to list. my head is too deep in the fog of congestion. the fog is not burning off. but the hopes are here, alive and thumping despite lethargy and distraction. hope always, shining bright as a child, shining like a new tooth, a golden door knob, an open, lucky window, a promise ring, a charm bracelet, a poem. shining shining.

the shining is what needs to be clung to.

this year so many things changed. it was all flux and chaos and desire. it was lost to despair sometimes. it was swimming in bliss sometimes. it was a bundle of love and hate and hurt and pleasure. it was angry and mean. it was gentle and soft. time fell out of step. the fog layed down. the fog refused to burn off. and then suddenly... the brightness. shining hope and unexpected kindness and inexplicable resilience. and there are still 5 days to go.

most days, i am thankful for all of it. even the hard stuff. even the stuff that hurt so bad and broke my heart. even the things that made me want to scrap the whole shibang and start all over again. all of it. because through the hard stuff came such beauty, polished and gleaming and unexpected. in that barren space, words sprung up and twisted themselves around in to odd little poems and i learned that the rules no longer matter. and it's a nice place to be... to have gotten far along enough to know that the rules no longer apply. and that is what 2009 has been. the shattering of ALL RULE.

a decade ends... it's a biggun!

with the New Year coming up quick, i think it's time for us all to sing our own praises for a minute. it's a good time to reflect, for as ritualistic as it may seem (besides, i like rituals), and see how far we've come, the strides we've made, and the people we've become.

in spite of economic hardship and all the up-hill battles we've been faced with, there is goodness all around us. i want to hear your story, the lessons you've learned, and the things you hold dear. post a link in the comments section if you undertake this biggun. i want to know. and if you can make it through this lengthy post, here's mine:


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yesterday, i talked with my mom about how fast the last 5 years have went by... the entire decade actually. the 2000's are a bit of a blur. and if someone had told me, on the eve of 2000, where i'd be 10 years later i wouldn't have believed any of it. in spite of the hardships of the last two years (which seems to be a fairly universal complaint and not at all specific or individual to me), the decade itself has been pretty amazing. a time of flux and seemingly constant re-evaluation, hard work, and learning how to put blue jeans on my dreams. a time of learning and renewal, consideration, thoughtfulness, and determination.

10 years ago my biggest dream was to get out of my home town. i call it my home town only because, through all the moving, it's the place i kept ending back up. and each return to that place was sour, disappointing, heart-breaking even. it's one of those places where even the young people say "no one ever gets out" and tell you to your face that your aspirations are stupid. getting out was priority number one... the hardest one. and i knew that school would be my ticket out.

i took classes, in between holding 2 jobs, at the local community college for 7 long years, well beyond what it took to transfer to a university because the money was just simply not there. but i wanted to keep in practice with attending classes and doing homework and being dedicated. i knew when i turned 25, the policies of the financial aid department shifted in my favor. so i bided my time until then and decided i'd learn as much as i could and "bloom where i was planted". a bitter resignation at the time but well worth the wait. i showed in bars and co-ops and started building a little art community of my own. i worked my ass off and practiced patience... and looking back, the struggle to get to art-school made the experience of going so much more magical and important than it would've been had it come to me easily. i wouldn't have appreciated it had i gotten to go when i was 18 or 19 years old. and i wouldn't be making the work i'm making now.

learning how to work hard, how to keep trying in spite of the hardships you face and the mean jokes that get made, was the best lesson i've ever learned. and i've learned it so deeply that giving up is never an option. i don't even think that way. trying is a constant in my life. it is ingrained. nay-sayers don't do me any damage at this point at all. i tune them out and keep on moving.

learning how to shrug off the ill will of others and how to keep working in moments of doubt and chaos served me well once i finally got to my dream school. especially that first year of insanely hard critiques and working full time while carrying a full class load. i won't say there weren't moments when i was amazingly unsure of myself and deeply depressed and questioned my ability to even pull the whole thing off - there was - but i wasn't about to stop trying. i knew before i got to CCA that once i got there, the real work would begin. and it did. i'm so lucky that my sweetie and i had found each other by then and had already made the commitment to help each other through roughness and disappointment. he encouraged me and showcased faith in my abilities in moments when i needed it the most and, at times, seemed to believe in the value of art more than i did.

in my second year, i hit my stride and made another goal that seemed out of bounds and entirely idealistic- getting gallery representation prior to graduating. i wanted to walk in to a career as soon as i collected my degree. and so i worked on my portfolio to HANG for a solid year and a half and, finally, a month before i went in to my senior year, i sent it off in the mail with my fingers crossed and the knowledge that i'd done my very best.

and it worked. the day i signed my contract was one of the happiest, most awe-struck moments in my entire life.

and then everything went crazy in my private life. not between my sweetie and i, but within my family. and it stayed crazy all the way up until i graduated. so crazy that i'd let go of the goal of graduating with High Distinction or any honor at all... getting the piece of paper was all i wanted at that point.

the specifics aren't something i want to get in to publicly. let it be enough to know that tragedy was everywhere and two slipped disks on top of it. weeks missed from class and sickness and ambulances... insanity. no glitz. no glamour. and it was all i could do to keep my eyes on the finish line. i made up my mind to hold myself together until then... and then i could fall apart. i told myself to keep as dry an eye as i could and struggle through to the end, screw my GPA, just finish. finish and then lose my mind.

on graduation day, i showed up in my black gown and spike heels and learned i'd be receiving my degree with High Distinction. me. the girl who spent 7 years in community college, who graduated from a continuation school, who comes from a humble home in a hateful town. speechless. and not at all proud. humbled to the core. shocked, tearful, and amazed. the walk across the stage was as bitter-sweet as any walk could be.

i claimed my life as my own... and lost someone in the process. and that loss translated in to what ended up being a massive 2 year long depression that i could barely see through. cross the finish line and then lose my mind? pretty much.

and during those dark days, which i'm only recently surfacing from, came a great many wonders: inga, art shows, the Microsoft Collection, auctions and galas, a strengthened commitment between myself and my sweetie, moving to wine-country and learning how to appreciate the beauty of a natural landscape, The Almighty Jog, becoming tight with my brother again, stronger friendships, new friendships, reconciling my own definition of success against outside expectations, and picking back up the pen to write.

i'm amazed that i kept working during that time. i'm amazed the work was at all good. i'm amazed that the maid series came along and opportunities to show that work and get in out in the world presented itself. i'm amazed that, though my practice may have slowed, it remained good and fertile. maybe i didn't lose my mind after all?

today, with a lot of patient and painful work behind me, i feel gratitude for everything that has happened in my life. every single day of it. and i look forward to the New Year with the knowledge that there will be more patient and painful work... that tragedy will find me again, that it will find all of us... but that i will not create it in my life. i will not look toward the negative and hurtful, i choose to look at the beauty of my life instead. i choose to keep my eyes on the accomplishments, not the "failures", to see how far i've come and to learn from this wealth of experience. i choose to breathe gratitude rather than resentment. i choose to see the many blessings in my life rather than the hardships.

in the new year, i resolve to make the commitments i already have in my life at present deeper, healthier, more precious. health in all its forms- my body, my art practice, my relationships, even this blog. when i look at my daily life, i'm entirely amazed and absolutely astounded to have found myself in this time, this place.

during my slumber party with rebecca, we talked about New Year's Resolutions. she's the only other person i know who makes them too. and big on the list she'd made was "feel calm and accomplished". it's important to see the good. it's important to feel good about yourself... to give yourself that kind of permission... to like who you are. calm and accomplished. has a nice ring to it, don't you think? and i'm definitely going to shoot for that. to enjoy the beauty that exists in my daily life, to practice gratitude and humility, to truly appreciate the opportunities that have come my way and to work as diligently as i can to rise to the challenges and show due respect for the blessings that have found me.

p.s.

read this because this is art.