lucky

there are particular bits of wisdom i always run to. lately i have snuggled down in to the quilts other women have made. i burrow down deep with my thoughts and projects and books. it is there that i mend my heart.

i've been crocheting like crazy. 2 new sweaters have been completed but i want to keep them all to myself for a little while longer. i want to keep my images off the internet for a bit and just see where i end up. i've needed a bit of time away from the digital world. i've needed to recoil from its immediacy and curl in to myself instead. the world of flesh and touch and words spoken aloud. i've needed the privacy of my own bed and notebook and to keep my words and images for myself. a cocoon. i'm still drawing skulls, still faithfully following these impulses. i wake with so many images and ideas swirling around inside my sleepy brain. i make tea and sit down to write.

i have the day off from work today but it is the first day of a new semester and i will be counted at roll call later this evening. a new day. a new week. a new class. a new semester. and i love the way it times my life. not too short, not too long, and always building toward something better. and so i can be languid this morning. i can be easy and slow. soon, a run around the lake but i've spent the morning writing and reading and before i do anything else i wanted to transcribe something here. one of those bits of wisdom i cling to. a mother's warm hand:

What has kept me going and still keeps me going is the knowledge that being an artist is a privilege. And the second thing- which is a consequence of the first - is that one must not ask too much. Well, what do I mean by that? Simply that the pursuit of happiness is fine - we all want to believe in it - but most of the time it is just that, a pursuit. Now the privilege of being an artist consists of three things. First, to have something of your own to say. And then - and this is a fight to the finish - to be able to communicate that to people. At best a school can help you with the second part, but it is obviously up to you what you are going to say, what spark you have, what subject. Now what does this all have to do with making a living?I do not know. When you start to define being an artist in those terms - as a profession like any other profession - you place yourself on a downward spiral. You begin to think: "How am I going to survive?" "I hate my job." "I am a prisoner of the people who depend on me, of people's expectations for my success." "I know that there is loads of money out there but the system is so crooked none of it is going to come my way." "I know there are hundreds of galleries in New York and I have a right to be in one of them - or I'm not in the one I want to be in." The important thing about all these statements is that they are all true - or could be true. But the mistake is to confuse art with a "right" at all. One has no birthright to be an artist. One is lucky to be one and that is all. So why have I mentioned these pessimistic things? Well, in fact, it is to say - as I have said - that things really are not so bad all the same. You are privileged to be what you are, and you have your whole life - fifty years - to figure out how it will be. But if this seems to general, all I can say is that after fifty years as an artist it is my privilege to say it just the same. That is all.

-Remarks prepared for art students at Rutgers University, Louise Bourgeios

this statement, paired with the poverty anais nin lived in during her 30s and 40s (which i am currently reading all about - the horror of it and how absolutely defeated one can feel at times) is a great comfort to me, a great and steady encouragement to continue. i have enough money for supplies. i have enough money for books and food. i have enough money for paper. i'm not sleeping on the street and i will not go hungry. i am learning and making my way through the world and it is a privilege in deed to be able to write and make art all along the way. if there is any time when i feel the value of pain it is when it has been transmuted in to a piece of art. it keeps my feet moving. one foot in front of the other. always forward. to be reminded that i am privileged to be what i am is a humbling thing. i am a lucky girl.

the way it is

ever read your own work and think "what a fucking psychopath"? ha! yeah... one of those days. or weeks. still, it feels good to be writing. moving the pen and hitting the keys. i was up so late last night bouncing between Word Documents, adding and subtracting sentences, sometimes spilling entire paragraphs, and i think 2 pieces might actually be the same piece... might need to be combined. i think of anais nin writing the hard stuff first, the passages that were bound to take the most out of her, and then sewing them together later. so much of writing seem to be about building bridges, about making patchworks. i've been cutting up pages and pages of printed prose lately and taping them back together in different arrangements. it's been good to work that way.

i found louise bourgeios' Destruction of the Father at the CCA library the other day and sat down in one of the big leather chairs and read for a few hours.

on page 49:

...You can stand anything if you write it down. You must do it to get hold of yourself.




yes.

"art is the guarantee of sanity"

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remember

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I am not what I am... I am what I do with my hands.

-Louise Bourgeois



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me and louise

my buddy rebecca snapped this of me, scruffy and make-up-less, at SFMOMA and i'm so grateful for the token, for the archive of this experience. it serves as a reminder that i truly do need to follow my own heart and do this thing my way, a way that feels right for me.

it's about honesty.

when i look at louise bourgeois' work, her honesty and bravery radiate right of the surface of her objects. it radiates from the core on out. and standing so close to one of her sculptures, i felt the deep buzz of her love for her work and it was very hard not to touch it. in fact, i should have touched it. the only reason i didn't is the security team at SFMOMA are fanatical and watch every move you make so that they can tell you NO PENS ALLOWED! ONLY PENCIL!





and since the beginning of the year, i've been crawling deeper and deeper in to my own values and ethics when it comes to art and life. and the two subjects are so connected that they are basically the same thing. i want to be a smart artist. i want to be a brave artist. and honorable too.

the passed few days i've been trying to photograph finished drawings that have been hiding in one portfolio or another for quite some time. the grunt work of documentation, but also a very necessary step in the process of curation. because i live with the work and it isn't caged away in a separate studio space, i can easily lose track of what i've made. and this experience of going through the work piece by piece, laying it across every inch of my small cottage, crowding myself with all the black and white and nebulous greys is such an inspiring thing. i can see the lines that connect one work to another. i can see how far back these fault lines run. that i've always made portraits of some kind. the only thing that has changed is my idea of what a portrait is.

in a nut shell, each piece of mine is a portrait- of loss, of desire, of anger, confusion, longing, struggle, failure, and love.

the work is personal and the work exposes things that even i am surprised by sometimes. even the work i consider to be not "good enough" for public consumption, has such a steep value to it. the pieces that i struggled hard with, the work that never came easy and never really became what i wanted it to be, is the work that supplied the best learning curve. it's the work that taught me the most, showed me the most, and, like a good teacher, kicked my ass all over the place when i needed it. my Learning is evident in those pieces and, because of that, they are Good.

it's interesting how one's eyes change.

and i feel lucky that those pieces can have a voice every now and then here on the blog. there's really no such thing as "failure". it's a false construct. it's a lie. Learning is not failure.

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i'm learning a lot these days... and sometimes i get tired, sometimes i get mad, sometimes i am totally frustrated and confused. and then the next morning arrives and i scribble away in my notebook and some sort of answer or brightness falls out of my pen and i find a way to proceed. when i feel especially lost, i spend time with the work of artists i admire. louise is at the top of the list. i am currently trying to leech some of her bravery, some of her gnarly french fuck-off attitude. i love the way she lived her life. i love the way she never gave her power away. i love how she stood, secure and strong, on the foundation of her beliefs- the things she believed to be important about art and life. she was unshakable and didn't give a shit if anyone agreed with her.

talk about faith.
talk about courage.

what a gift that woman is.

my love. my beloved. for you. a testament.

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precious violin (for Louise Bourgeois)
15" x 11"
mixed media on paper



silver gouache and graphite. lovely. and after standing with her "spider" at SFMOMA last week, my heart opens with such gratitude for her work and to have come alive in an age where she was working. such ferocity and beauty. she is a force like no other.

here we are at thursday and i feel happy.

there is a nice, warm calm i've been hoarding for myself lately. lots of writing and reading and drawing and crocheting. soft days. the week has been good to me: ideas, ideas, ideas and coffee and poems and taking my friend to the dentist to get a tooth yanked out. the stuff that makes a life.

i've been practicing being present. not anguishing over the future, just letting the joy flood back in to my practice and letting go of rules and definitions. isn't that what art's supposed to be about anyway? ha! and i must laugh at myself. i must and i do. everyday. and i've also re-invested in the good habit of dancing in the living room. blasting music in the morning and even singing in to a hair brush. silliness! and happy laughter!

and so today i have absolutely no plan for the hours to come. let them come however they want. it's bright and beautiful here. the curtains are open and i've still got a half pot of coffee to get through. there are blackberries in the fridge and bagels in the cupboard. the big spider i'm drawing for louise bourgeois is lording over my bedroom, tacked to the wall, beautiful and creeping.

i think i'll take my coffee to bed and sit with the big spider for awhile. eat breakfast with it and enjoy the calm of this beautiful morning.

repair

i am still thinking of louise bourgeois. i have become warm and still, comforted by her face, her smile, and the awesome fortitude and courage she showcased in her work and life. i think of the fact she was 70 before critical attention and acclaim found her. late recognition but she kept going going going and, by the time her due came, it was beyond earned, beyond deserved, and her fire was charged, endless, heartbreaking, and something so tremendously special that our language has not yet birthed words to describe.

my tribute today is that i will not beat myself up with the things i have yet to accomplish. i will enjoy the pace of this day. i will draw and be present and not torture myself with worry and fear and uncertainty, those assassins of aspiration and joy. i will relish in the fact that my hands are black with graphite. that my scent is covered by the dust of the pencil. that the scribbles and scratches have meaning.

her work is here.
the comfort of it.
she left us with such a strong, capable cradle.

i am drawing a huge spider today. all day. for her. for myself.

heart break break break

okay. enough. i'm sick of this: death everywhere.

one of my favorite artists of all time died today. another genius gone from the world. another one. and i am angry and sad. very angry and very sad. all my angry confusion about all sorts of other, far unrelated things, surges to the top of my head and locks up my throat and all i can think is this isn't right this isn't fair just like a little kid. she herself would tell me to shut the fuck up.

i bet you anything she figured out the meaning of life in the wee hours of the morning and that's what did it. once you attain perfection, you go. and there she goes. 98 years old. fire on top of fire. burning intelligent searing honest woman. i miss you so much already.

i was convinced you were immortal.

i will tack a spider above my bed.




"spider"
louise bourgeois