4 years ago today

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languidly waking this morning next to Brian, i rolled over and looked at his sleeping face and thought, "my mom would've really liked you."  i smiled and rubbed his head and closed my eyes.  it wasn't until another several hours had passed that i realized what day it is.  it is the fourth anniversary of my mother's death. 

i was shocked that it wasn't the first thing i thought of today.  perhaps it's a sign that my life is no longer dominated by her death.  i think she'd be happy about that.  i think she'd be relieved that i am not walking around crying behind my sunglasses the way i used to, a calm demeanor presented to the world but wanting to be just as dead as she is in the aftermath of her loss.  my entire physicality felt like one big gaping wound.  sometimes, it still does.  i don't think i'll ever reach a day when her death doesn't cause pain.  i miss her incredibly and the world is a drastically different place without her in it.   her absence is so palpable some days, so pronounced...  how unfair it all is, how awful.  there's no way around it.  it directly effects the decisions i make.  her early death brought me face to face with the reality of my own mortality and it's impossible for me to take it lightly.

i wrote in my diary like i do every morning then went for a run.  i wanted to feel my body move.  i wanted to breathe heavy and feel blood coursing fast throughout my body.  i wanted to feel my legs getting tired and yet push myself to meet the challenge i'd set for myself.  i wanted to feel young and alive and beautiful.  i wanted to appreciate being in the world.

afterward, i bought myself a new tube of lipstick.  hot pink.  a celebration of life and vitality; an honoring of our shared brevity and a recognition of the fact that life is too short to not live boldly. that's what lipstick symbolizes for me.  when my mother was feeling sad, she'd go to the drugstore and buy herself a new tube of lipstick. 


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i wish she were here.

i wish she could see me.

i wish she could see what i've accomplished in the last four years and how far i've come.

i wish she could see the portrait i drew of her.

i wish she could meet Brian and hear him sing.

i wish i could talk to her.



i wish i could just talk to her.


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i feel very alone in this big world sometimes.  it makes me want to run from people i love because i'm afraid of losing them too.  i didn't realize that i have this fear until recently...  that i would rather push people away and keep them at a distance than get close and deal with losing them.  there is a part of me that somehow believes that everyone i love is going to go away.  i know that isn't true but it's my little girl voice speaking.  it's the little girl in me that still believes i'll never be good enough...  that somehow i'm unlovable and i'll never belong anywhere...  and i don't have a mama to run to to scratch my back and tell me otherwise.


but i have a lover who loves me.
i have friends that love me.
i have a brother and a sister who love me and know exactly what i'm talking about when i say the things that make other people too sad or too scared or too uncomfortable to keep listening. brian too.  he has cried with me and it is such a comfort to me.  it means i wasn't wrong or crazy for wanting to cry about the bad things that have happened.  it means things really were that bad and i perceived it all correctly.  it means i should've never been made to feel ashamed in the moments when i did cry.

and i have Vermont and the awakening that happened there:

my sister pointed out to me how pronounced it was that i quit drawing after our mother's death.  instantly.  i dove headlong into my crochet practice.  it was such a powerful thing to stand alone in my huge studio that night in Johnson, VT and draw her portrait.  our portrait.  it unlocked the floodgates and drawing after drawing spilled out of me after that.  a big part of myself healed.

today, i made a small linocut of an iceberg.  i stamped it out 20 times.  the iceberg is a strange sort of metaphor for me, a self-portrait of mine.  the iceberg is the middle child. 

there are still so many secrets
but i am finding ways to tell them. 
i am finding roads out of silence.
i am finding roads toward courage.
i am more myself than i have ever been and, despite the brutality of her loss, my mother's death worked to teach me how absolutely imperative it is that i BE MYSELF, that i live honestly and bravely, that i keep putting one foot in front of the other, that i must will myself to be undaunted and to build the life i want for myself.  her death taught me that there isn't always going to be another Tomorrow.  if there is something one NEEDS to do, it's best to do it now. 


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my mother used to wear a lipstick named Yummy Plummy.  i stole it from the bathroom the day she died.  it's in my makeup bag.  i never wore lipstick before she died.  now, i twist the hot pink bar of my new lipstick and paint my mouth and allow myself to languish for a moment in the pleasure of being alive.


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agony

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what beauty have i lost?  what beauty have i forsaken???  goddamn it!  i mean, shit, Angela!  what the fuck with your clumsy ass???!!!  i fucking lost the last month's diary in a rental car today.  jesus christ!  my head is spinning.  if not for being drunk, i'd be an inconsolable mess and i'm goddamn serious.  those pages are my life.  they are not eloquent, they are entirely messy and full of slang and all sorts of ill-manner of expression but those expressions are MINE and they are GONE.  i carry my diary with me everywhere.  everywhere.  i need the notebook with me, bouncing against my hip in my tote bag.  i need it.  i NEED it and it's gone.

i can let go.  i can say it doesn't matter.  i can shrug and tell myself , "it's just a thing, little girl.  things don't matter."  but between those black and white speckled covers rests the description of the morning with X when he spoke with his young son...  his small voice radiating from the receiver in to the air of the hotel room while his father lay next to me, naked, caressing my shoulder, as his southern accent filled the room, calling his boy "baby"  and "precious".  such unmistakable, unarguable beauty.  such love.  this father, this son.  and this lowly girl, this stupid, inept, aching woman at his side...  so awestruck by the reality that such a love can exist...  a love my father never felt for me...  yet instantly recognizable to my eyes, to my ears, to my heart ...   it was a moment of such total, clear, undeniable beauty that two days later my heart broke under the weight of such a memory...  a memory i will gladly bleed for and writhe under in pain; a memory i will gladly suffer to keep.  i am blessed to have had that moment.  two hours tops in a hotel room one morning in november...  lost in the contents of my diary, motherfucking LOST!  i hate myself so fucking much right now i have no words!  i have no words. I HAVE NO WORDS because someone out there has my motherfucking diary in their hands and, hoping they love it as i do, i have to find a way to wake up tomorrow morning, make coffee, and write on loose leaf paper.  i want to fucking vomit all over myself right now.  i cannot believe this happened.  rushing, rushing, trying to return the car on time, my precious notebook slipped from my bag and somehow i didn't notice.  FUCK ME!!!  GODDAMN IT!!!

if you rented the zipcar "hot pants" from the chevron on telegraph avenue tonight and found my diary, please contact me.  please please please!!!! angelasimione at aol dot com

thank you and i love you forever.


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tug of war

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DEATHMARCH (write your heart out)

reading Barthes, 3 month mark:

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*the text referenced here is Roland Barthes' Mourning Diary.

"we are already ghosts"

her last post, very much a memento mori, bring shivers and shakes and that familiar, sad pull of helplessness. the hum in the back of your throat, the unanswerable why? i found out from rebecca yesterday that poet cami park has died. the news made my hands shake. i valued her and her work and her presence her in blogland. she and i had corresponded a few times and i sent her one of my prints and she had blogged about my work... i really, truly, deeply liked her. i wanted to know her better...

rebecca wrote a shivering post about cami's death. and then this morning, another post reminding us that the connections we make here in this strange world of text and light are just as real as the connections we make in the physical realm. maybe even more real, more true sometimes.

all these reminders recently of mortality, the shortness of time, the quickness, the rush, the spin. and illness. the tragedies that find us all, unbeckoned and unapologetic. my heart tears to pieces for her daughter. for her friends and family. for anyone who knew her and respected her. this, as winter rolls in. colder now because of her loss.

time is short. too short not to make as much art as you can and as many poems as you can and to fling these loves and fears and questions in to the world. too short to give too much of a fuck what others might say. do your best and GO.

i carry the sweet girl's name and words with me today, tonight, and on and on.

my practice has multiple personality disorder

today is all headless dolls and glitter...



fixed stars
22" x 30"
mixed media on paper
angela simione, 2010


the little dots all around their feet are orbs of gold and black glitter on a velvet ground of black gouache. their shoes are bright, sparkling silver.

shining things are hard to photograph.

i'm thinking of sylvia plath and wanting to read The Bell Jar. again. :)

the title comes from her poem "Words".

education and "education" and love:

the risk of yesterday proved to be beneficial and worthwhile and happy-making. :)

i have put the piece away again but it will be back one day. thank you. (((HUG)))

and last night before bed, i thought of Anne Sexton. opened The Complete Poems at random and read "Suicide Note". then this morning, another random ruffling of pages, and i read "That Day". and so caught by her, her story, her persona (?), the cape that swirls around her, i read the introduction by Maxine Kumin, with my coffee, aloud on the floor of the bathroom.

i knew the neighbor kids could hear me as they walked off giggling to school.

but i read the entire thing out loud, unembarrassed, and by the time i got to the end where Maxine - a friend to Anne, so close a friend that maybe, if we ignore ideas about tradition and location and gender, their friendship could be described more accurately as Marriage - speaks of Anne's threat to never send a telegram of her death plan ever again and then succeeds in her attempt just 6 months after making that assertion. and my eyes teared. teared so badly, i couldn't make out the text. i felt overcome with loss and gratitude and awe and just plain ol' love...


she did not start writing poetry (in terms of words on a page, at least) until she was 28.


Maxine writes: Untrammeled by a traditional education in Donne, Milton, Yeats, Eliot, and Pound, Anne was able to strike out alone, like Conrad's secret sharer, for a new destiny. She was grim about her lost years, her lack of a college degree; she read omnivorously and quite innocently whatever came to hand and enticed her, forming her own independent, quirky, and incisive judgments.


and this passage caught my eye and heart. more and more, i think of the education i am receiving right now, currently, today, this minute, all the minutes stacked one on top of the other, self-governed, fueled by private loves, private interests, private fears - my self and body and history as the manual for such a nebulous, hungry, fiery education - and how lucky i am to have it. to have a site, no matter how small or humble, of fearlessness. to read what i want, to not apologise for my attractions, to think, and breathe, and give myself over to an entire day of reading if need be and not feel bad about it. to play and struggle and dance and sing and yell and cry and cry and cry sometimes...

and that it is a gift too, for as embarrassing or strange as it may seem to some, to tear up in the bathroom over the death of a person i never knew some 30 years ago.

and if empathy is an acquired "skill", should that not be one of the pursuits of education, traditional or un?

and i think of the amazing WAVE of hatred for education that seems to be sweeping through the U.S. lately. a tide that continues to rise and rise and rise. and the false definitions and call for "credentials" that come along for the ride, in this, the Land of the Free. this, in a place that looooooves stories of triumph and beating the odds and rooting for the underdog. and this wave spills on to Art too. the definitions and rejection of lived experience as if LIFE has no relevance. really? then what are you making Art for? what are you reading for?

education only "counts" in this country if it is "formal". and the "formality" of an education is decided by whether or not one might be able to win a paycheck of substance once said education is complete (by that defintion, my BFA is NOT a formal education). but the notions of "completion" and "education", to me, seem completely inharmonious. to the point of sad ridiculousness. when does education complete itself? is there really a day when learning ends? i mean, other than death? doctors, surgeons, lawyers, whomevers continue to study their areas of interests. they write and research and explore. at least the good ones do. the ones whom i would trust to cut me open if i needed to be.

and so too, it should be with Art. and the "best" artists and writers have a wide open definition of what art is, how to make it, what tools can be used. the answer is : EVERYTHING. including your life. especially your life. because perspective, perception, ideas are reality. and so why this limit placed on which education is valuable and which is not? look at the work. the work signifies who has wrestled and who has not. who cares and who doesn't. who is blowing steam and who is a steam engine.

i love critical discourse. it is an area in which art is really wrestled with. explored and fought with and cried over and yelled about. it's exciting! the excitement is infectious and wild and important. but critical discourse is an aid to education, not an end.

Anne Sexton's work was loved and hated in equal measure. it still is today, hated and loved. who's right? will that debate really be won by taking a look at credentials? and what credentials does one need to become an artist, to be an artist, other than the extreme hunger and love of the thing? Mr. Wonderful (our lovely Roland Barthes) knew this. he wrote an entire book, all in fragments, about love... what it is to love. an emotion that, at every turn, shatters reason, thwarts logic, and compels the lover to continue beyond the event of heart-break and humiliation. a critic and philosopher shouting PRAISE for the human spirit. and NO ONE, no critic, has yet to say a word back against that book.

because it cannot be refuted.

because the love of knowledge, of ideas, of exploration, of continuing to learn and grow, is LOVE in action. it is a necessary ingredient to becoming "educated", regardless of how one might define that word or go about attaining it.

it is my love that pushes me. and it is my love that quickens me, spurs me on to learn as much as i can, where i am, with the tools available to me. that allow me to see the circumstances of my own life and history as a rich, valuable site of learning and exploration in and of itself. that the books i read, the images that flash in front of my face, provide a new mirror, a new pick-axe with which i can excavate my own experiences and hopefully, maybe, at least try, to provide that same moment of self-recognition in another human being. that unexpected scorch. that moment that throttles my heart and brain and allows me to dig deeper this time, this time, next time, and to create meaning within my own life. that is what artists do. that is what art is good for. that is what an education truly supplies: the ability to make meaning.

and i really cannot emphasize enough what a wonderful education i am acquiring right now! there are so so so many exciting, dedicated, passionate people from all walks of life maintaining such exciting, driven, forward-moving blogs right now. i have a book list that spans pages and pages in my sketch book that is completely derived from reading other artist's and writer's blogs. the discussions that take place in this electronic landscape, in the comment box, are so fertile and interesting! and it's open to anyone and everyone that has an inclination to learn and a computer to borrow! it's amazing! and then, running through a wide vineyard and drawing pictures and making silly little paper dolls, paintings of icebergs and x-rays, trips to the used book store, walking around in the sun and mosquitoes, listening to music, writing my own weirdo poetry, day dreaming and thinking and embracing all that results- the shine and the sour, the whole shebang.

and speaking of the whole shebang, please please PLEASE read Dodie Bellamy's "Barf Manifesto". two lectures transcibed about what writing and art can do and be, the furious "vomit" that may transpire- the aesthetic of the 'good' and the 'bad' swirling together in the same bowl, the multiple temporalities of memory, how they get all mixed-up and overlap, past experience and right-now-this-minute all mixed up, and what a wonderful, insightful, necessary enterprise to allow the "messiness" of human existence to come in to view. it is benevolent. and expands the definition of art, of education, of skill, craft, and knowledge. it gives "permission" to view one's life as valuable, full of meaning, full of spark; and encourages bravery... risk taking, the flowering of one's own mind and life.

more thinking...

i read guy debord's 'the society of the spectacle' today for the 5th or 6th time- it's one of the theory bits i always go back to... probably because i'm completely sold on most of what it says. and then i went and kept reading 'the bell jar' and i am presently 40 pages from the end. i am drinking a cup of coffee even though it's late enough in the day to make that idea a bad idea. it means i've committed myself to a night of lucid dreaming and highly fitful sleep. and... that's not really entirely bad or unfun when it's friday night anyway. all this reading, all this brain activity, all this swimming underneath the covers, all this ingestion of ideas and words and politics has got me skipping across images and ideas of my own, words of my own, values of my own, and it feels fiery and enormous and swelling and sweeping and energetic. the investigation that becomes inevitable. and more and more i'm thinking of art (or a person) as an evidence room- a collection of evidences: the books in the shelf, the baby teeth in the jewelery box, the music in the back bedroom, the underlined passages of words, the refrigerator magnets, the left over stuffed animals from childhood. all these things. the signifiers. but what do they signify? who? i'm settling on what and not who. i'm settling on an idea that the signifiers are evidence of desire. evidence of loss- the yearning, hoping, coveting, begging, wishing, and craving that create a (true?) portrait of a person's desire. i am not my cd collection and that collection can't be trusted to tell you anything substantial about who i am, what my personality is like, or what my deep values are. but if you take the cd collection and add it to the book collection and add those to my clothes, the pictures in the lip of the mirror, the trinkets on the dresser, the pictures on the wall, the towel on the bathroom floor, the shoes in the hallway, the shoes kicked off right inside the front door, the dish left unwashed, the fragrance of perfume, the stamp collection, the rosary collection, the art collection, etc etc etc... maybe a strange, shifty definition of my desires emerge... as evidenced by all my attractions. just like a flickr account or a tumbler account. a list of images that belie what the person behind the buttons wants for themselves, dreams for themselves, or at least wants you to dream of them as...

these are things i've been thinking about a lot the past couple weeks. this is how i'm thinking of my practice at present. this is why i want to keep a lot of the new work private for awhile. just a bit. just a breath. i am collecting the evidences, i suppose.

side-note: this is my 666th post on this blog. eeewwww.

wow...

oh man! yesterday was quite a day! i drew and drew and drew and 7 hours later, elsie was done with me. so i grabbed my camera and went outside to take a picture in the good light and, of course, the battery was dead. by the time it was done charging, there was enough light left in the evening to snap one good picture and get it posted here... but no. the camera is bugged out and keeps shutting down. my GOOD camera. it may have something to do with the coke that exploded in my bag when my camera was in there too. hmmmmm. so this morning, first thing after the coffee was brewed, i tracked down my old camera and took elsie outside in the crisp, clear morning and took her picture.

i really can't stop looking at her.

she wouldn't stop talking yesterday. oh! such a gorgeous child! and so haunted, so delicate, so full of things i don't quite understand. it's going to take quite a bit of studying to prepare for her final portrait. an oil painting. who knows... maybe she doesn't even need or want that... maybe the roughness of paper is what she wants. i don't know. all i know is that i have to keep drawing her.

this is the 2nd study i've done-



Alpha (study #2)
30" x 22"
water soluble graphite and gouache on paper
angela simione, 2009


i went big with this one. 7 years of life-drawing classes taught me that while your learning, use the biggest piece of paper you've got. give yourself room to feel around, sound out the vowels of a form.

i don't use projectors and i don't trace. it isn't that i have a problem with those methods at all, i don't. it's just preference. i want my hand to be as diligent and specific as a camera. that's what i aspire to. a machine at the end of my wrist. but a machine that has embraced chance and flaw and accident.

besides, this work is too personal. a human has to do it, not a device. this work is more about memory than accurate rendering. doing her portraits are an act of remembering... remembering someone we know nothing about. no favorite color, no favorite food, we can't even be sure what color the cape she's wearing in the photograph is. her portrait is a portrait of loss... and getting every single shadow exactly right really isn't the point. it's about listening. it's looking at those strange eyes, light refracted all through them, and trying to see who she might have been...

who she could be now. or is.

history...

redacted book page
angela simione, 2008

this one's for you...

dear sweet radish king.


8" x 10"
ink on paper
angela simione, 2009


reminded me of you and yours. :)

in fog...

i put on my grey dress and we walked through the vineyard fog. the poppies still sleeping, but strange, wakeful birds clicked in the tall trees. i brought the fog home with me, cloaked these daughters in it, and remembered my long lost sunday dresses...

my sister and i posed together
in simple frocks our mother made-
up all night at her sewing machine,
without our father
and brother,
without without without...

but we make progress here...


sunday 3 (sheep in fog)- in progress shot
30" x 40"
oil on canvas


number three in this strange series. these two sisters appearing on there own... unexpected. in my work, two girls have always signals me and my sister, and this painting in particular makes me miss her company more than i usually do- that strange tie that keeps us, makes us. we are very different girls but not separate in the least, standing close to keep the secrets from spilling out, to keep from feeling afraid, and the only time in my life i was not afraid of the dark was when we were young and small and shared a room, sleeping safe in bunk beds...

and now these weird years when a person begins to look back, picking through memories and wondering if those times were real or dreamed, and the last line of a plath poems flashes in the brush and the canvas finds its name before it finds its finish...



SHEEP IN FOG


The hills step off into whiteness.
People or stars
Regard me sadly, I disappoint them.

The train leaves a line of breath.
O slow
Horse the colour of rust,

Hooves, dolorous bells-
All morning the
Morning has been blackening,

A flower left out.
My bones hold a stillness, the far
Fields melt my heart.

They threaten
To let me through to a heaven
Starless and fatherless, a dark water.





-Sylvia Plath
from Ariel

loss...

back on the painting train this morning. i've got another big canvas following close behind and can hopefully get it wrapped up within the next 2 weeks or so. i'm so happy to have so many things to work on right now. between painting, drawing, writing, and crocheting, i should never find myself with nothing to do and feeling bored that's for sure.

after working for a while on the next big canvas first thing, i finished this little painting that's been floating around the studio for a couple months:


untitled
12" x 12"
oil on canvas
angela simione, 2009

i can't quite figure out what the hell i like about this particular painting but i do. i really do. it's a bit nostalgic, a bit creepy, and hey, it's even got some color in it! :) whatever. ha! but the more i look at it, the more i like it. i may end up hating it by next week but for now i'm enjoying it. i've got it tucked in my bookcase. these twins are busy watching over my poetry collection... definitely something guard-doggish about this piece... in a "The Shining" sort of way.

maybe because of my own high level of happiness lately, the news about nicholas hughes' death the other day really threw me off balance. i had actually just been thinking about him a few days prior- about his reclusive lifestyle and how hard that must be... the fact that he lives a life of semi-anonymity... not quite a regular guy, not quite a celebrity, but infamous because of all the death and trauma that exists in his family... and the horror of having that trauma play out in public. i was thinking that i didn't know what he looks like... if he favored his mother or father in appearance... what color his hair is and if he and his sister resemble one another... how i know who he is but that i don't know a single thing about him...

and then two or three days go by and i read that he committed suicide. gone. and his sister is now the only living member of the plath/hughes family. she is alone. and she hates us. and i think she's right to hate us even though it hurts. and again- one more person there's not much any of us can do for... except leave her alone. i'm glad she's an artist and writer. i'm glad she has a husband to wrap herself up in right now. i'm glad she has places to go, corners to hide in, words to get lost in...

awful.

no no no! it just gets worse and worse! i don't want this to be true but it is.

Nicholas Hughes, son of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes killed himself.

article.

brewing...

just about 1 in the morning... a pot of coffee brewing and a whole bunch of ideas swirling in my head. i think it's safe to say my health has returned. enough at least to dive back in to my beloved night-owling. i missed my nights of smudging graphite and spilling ink and smearing oil. what's not to love about an art studio? room of one's own, indeed! and i am thankful every day to have it. just sitting in my own space surrounded by my own tools and my own books and my own stupid little nic-naks feels great and precious and miraculous even. and above all else, it is safe. a protected space where i am king. i can do what i want and there's no apologies necessary. it's been a big help the last couple days while i've struggled to get over this sickness and start doing some more hard-hitting, risky work. the drawing i posted last was fairly difficult even though i've had the idea to do it for quite some time. it's hard work to do... to literally tape a small child's mouth shut is no easy task even if it is "just" a drawing...

there have been plenty of images that i feel a bit damaged by, haunted by, sickened by... and i'm not just talking about art. there have been tons of advertisements that have offended me to such a deep degree that sometimes it's taken quite a bit of work (and time) on my part to shake it off and get back to my own life. images have power. and images can do violence. in the case of this last drawing, the role was reversed and i did violence to the image. i spent some time drawing a lovely, academic rendering and then pulled out a roll of duct tape and destroyed it. i shut it up. i made it a victim. not an easy thing to do to the image of a someone who died a horribly violent death. not easy at all and i still feel a bit fucked up by the experience. i wanted to highlight the loss of HER. she was silenced in such a hateful, violent, unspeakable way that i guess that's what i wanted to get at... somehow... the unspeakable loss of her... the quick violence done to something cherished and beautiful and admired... silenced... undone... without all the drama and media frenzy and judgemental spectacle, the sensationalism... just the loss of a child, a daughter... and what a horror it is.

there's just something about black and white...

i know, i know... i'm supposed to be trying for a bit of color inclusion in my work these days but, honestly, i'm getting ready to just scrap that idea completely. at least for now. it's just not the right time. my heart's just not in it and i feel like it's pretty apparent. and one thing is for certain, i never want to fall in to that horrible habit of doing work just to do it or satisfy someone else's desires. the work, at very least, needs to be sincere. good or bad, it doesn't matter as long as sincerity is evident in the work. and that's not something that can be faked.

and at this point, the reason i've not posted any of the more recent oil paintings is because well... there aren't any to show. they are all half-finished, half-hearted attempts to move away from my beloved black and white and i just can't keep moving in that direction. that is a shift that needs to happen naturally in the course of my practice and i'm just not there yet. i am more interested in exploring the subtleties of color, the way a black and white approach can suggest color, than actual using color. i'm sure than sounds a bit strange or nonsensical but it's where i'm at with this work. dealing with the huge issues of loss and trauma, and their influence within the identity project, just feels a bit contrary to color... at least at this stage of the game.

i'm happy with my black ink and black paint. i'm happy with my white thread and white paper. the work has an elegance to it which is a wonderful surprise considering the somewhat sad nature of the ideas being explored. i'm completely satisfied with the works on paper and the redaction pieces and i need to trust the work and follow it's lead.

even something as simple as this piece...


"pictured window"
6" x 3 3/4"
redacted book page
2008

...speaks so beautifully and elegantly about loss (and the poetry that can be found within the event of loss) that i feel compelled to keep up my current approach to exploring these ideas. i feel like i am on the right track here and i'm excited to see where it takes me. process has become an ever-increasingly important aspect of my practice that even the silliest experiments in the studio end up being such a thoughtful and genuine experience that i'm inclined to stop second-guessing my instincts.

p.s. lots of new stuff in the shop these days. everything from doll collections to home invasions to redoute-inspired botanicals. check it out when you've got a few minutes and let me know what you think. thanks!

more about WHY...

last night in bed, i couldn't stop thinking about my last post and the question WHY. it's been my belief for many years that all art is in some way a self-portrait, no matter what the work actually looks like or the form it takes. even something as simple as aesthetics (preferences) can be pretty telling about the person who makes the work... even if it's just something as simple as an affinity for certain colors and shapes. in my case, i'm obviously drawn to a more black and white approach within art-making. as far as i can remember, i've always loved the color black and, when i was a new painter, it was actually very hard for me to figure out how to work with it. it took years to get away from a very, very colorful palette. during that time, i rarely made a painting that i actually liked. they just looked so opposite from what i was feeling and thinking about. when i finally learned enough to be able to bring the work to a place where my ideas took charge and i could dictate the appearance of the paintings, i was overjoyed. i was finally making work that i liked looking at. the appearance of the work finally mirrored the driving force behind it: loss.

so picking up where i left off... WHY loss as an issue?

loss is a huge component within identity construction. things, people, experiences are largely defined by what they are not. the absence of something highlights what is present... and it doesn't always have to be a bad thing. sometimes the experience of loss is actually quite happy. for example: graduation day. you put in the time, do your homework, and pay your tuition bills. then one day you get to walk across a stage, shake hands with some big important dude from your school - whom you've never even seen before - and then become a graduate. and in this becoming, you lose what you were... a student at that school. you don't get to come back after the summer passes, you don't get to hang out with teachers and other students anymore (at least not in the way you had been), you are finished with that experience and it isn't going to repeat itself. the experience is gone. your memories of that time are what you get to keep. memories are a direct result of loss. and these losses (happy and sad) comprise a persons present state, outlook, and the way they conduct themselves. of course i'm simplifying the issue right now, everyone's experiences are different and effect us differently... but we have all experienced some form of loss and we can use those experiences to relate to one another, to understand the OTHER point of view, and to well up compassion for one another.

it's compassion that i'm after in the work... and sometimes, in order to create a space where compassion is possible, the brutality of the situation or experience of loss needs to shown without any softening or sugar on top. we live in a pretty jaded world, i've realized. our tolerance for horror is pretty high. we are Romans in that way. and the the thing we lose when we gain such an enormous tolerance for horror or trauma, is the ability to sympathize... to feel (or at least validate) the pain of The Other. so my work uses metaphor to get around this huge tolerance and come at uncomfortable issues from a different direction.

adorno's famous quote is "There is no poetry after Auschwitz", meaning that human kind had lost it's humanity. the losses experiences (anguish, torture, humiliation, murder)was so vast, so unexplainable and horrible, that beauty was no longer available... and that any attempt to make beauty was a slap in the face of those victimized and brutalized. i can see why this statement was made but, nevertheless, a huge percentage of those who survived the camps became poets themselves. words were what helped them survive, helped express their guilt about having survived when so many others had not. it was when i read the work of Paul Celan and Charlotte Delbo that the power and promise of metaphor as a way to build a bridge toward understanding and compassion became clear. my work is definitely not on the same level as theirs, never will be, but the lesson of how to communicate about loss, trauma, suffering came through: metaphor... a more poetic approach.

poetry exists even at the epicenter of destruction. it is a form of communication built from fragments, shards, remains... and is beautiful in spite of this. this beauty is what i chase.

that's why i deal with loss in my work.

quiet...

i really like the documentation of the redacted book page project i've been working on... in fact, i think maybe they could stand on their own as photographs. there's just something so simple and beautiful about these pictures. i think i might actually like them more than the object...
they're just so humble, austere... poetic.

Page 28 (Blackland 2)

15" x 11"
ink on paper
2008


i don't know what took me so long to get around to the idea of drawing my very own book pages but i'm sure glad i finally did. i guess i had been sort of turned off by the idea of my own hand writing being present in the work. thankfully, i got over that weird little hang up and here she is... Page 28 (named after my age). the text reads "black as her ribbons" and i leave it to you to interpret that fragment in whatever way pleases you best.

(click on image for larger view)