ahhhh...
i love it here. LOVE!
we are by no means settled in in regards to books being in the case and paintings hung on the wall (there are boxes everywhere), but my heart and brain has settled in swiftly. the switch was flipped instantly. as soon as i stepped across the threshold here i was at home and it felt as if the last 3 years in the country were only a dream, never happened at all. it feels like no time has passed since i last lived in this city.
yesterday, i began my new job hunt and am keeping my focus limited to jobs i actually want and feel inspired to try for. i went driving around this morning to drop off a few resumes and locate the closest Bart Station. I also realized that the first tuesday of the month is free admission day at SFMOMA so that's where i'll be hustling off to next. :)
i can't tell you how excited, relieved, hopeful, ecstatic, motivated, inspired, and happy i am to be back in the east bay. a tremendous sense of possibility greets me each morning and i feel so thoroughly hopeful. it makes me aware that i am still young and still strong. it's a very good feeling. there's been far too much despair the last few years. and though i agree that there are definite benefits from having experienced despair and surviving the torture of it, it feels damn good to be on the other side of it today.
there's so much to catch y'all up but i don't know how or where to begin. maybe all the back-tracking is unnecessary anyway. Here and Now is so good and bright! all i want to do is be outside. i just want to walk up and down the avenues of my hilly neighborhood and see all there is to see. it renews me to see the skyline of downtown oakland and san francisco. a new life must be built and i am so excited to have the opportunity to do so.
Showing posts with label moving forward. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moving forward. Show all posts
Jun 7, 2011
May 24, 2011
forward
i woke up and wrote for an hour, drinking irish breakfast tea all the while, and then began filling a box full of our dishes wrapped up in my clothes to keep my beloved blue willow intact while they are transported from the country to the city.
i can't tell you how anxious and joyful i am. how ready. how absolutely ready i am to move. i keep wondering about the images i will make once this is all over. once i'm out of this place and back to something that feels more like myself, my life. i'm eager to find the shadows i will roll up in next.
i took my German final yesterday and worked my last shift at my retail gig. my life here is winding down quickly. we moved the majority of our stuff to the new digs this passed weekend and now there's just the strangler possessions to deal with and the obligatory deep-cleaning to muscle through. i want to be done. i want to be moved. i want to wake up in a new room, in a new square of sunlight, with a new life budding all around me.
i can't tell you how anxious and joyful i am. how ready. how absolutely ready i am to move. i keep wondering about the images i will make once this is all over. once i'm out of this place and back to something that feels more like myself, my life. i'm eager to find the shadows i will roll up in next.
i took my German final yesterday and worked my last shift at my retail gig. my life here is winding down quickly. we moved the majority of our stuff to the new digs this passed weekend and now there's just the strangler possessions to deal with and the obligatory deep-cleaning to muscle through. i want to be done. i want to be moved. i want to wake up in a new room, in a new square of sunlight, with a new life budding all around me.
May 21, 2011
hope
we took a truck-load of books over to the new place yesterday. easily a thousand pounds of paper weight. GEEZ! hahahaha! and this morning i loaded as many paintings as i could in to the truck and j will cart them all over later this afternoon while i get in some study time in preparation for my German final and go to my second-to-last shift at my retail gig. the end of things... the slowing of the old cycle yet still racing to the finish. there are things that i must finalize and be responsible to for just a little bit longer. walking outside yesterday evening in the beautiful yellow light in oakland and having a new set of keys in my hand woke up a firey hope. it was hard to drive away and come back up here to the cabin. and looking at j across the restaurant table yesterday as we celebrated with philly cheesesteaks, i realized that nothing is broken and that we are completely beautiful, wiser than we were at the beginning of this little detour out to the country, and stronger for having gone down this road. i stayed up late drinking mint tea and finished Just Kids. i'm not going to spoil it for you, just read it. especially if you're an artist. especially if you need a dose of courage and an art-related pep talk. i think it's required reading for all artists or anyone caught in a struggle. it's a very encouraging, inspiring document. patti smith's honesty in this memoir is so generous, so beautiful. the book, in so many ways, functions as a guide and a warm hug. it was definitely the right thing for me to read as my life here winds down and a new one springs up in the east bay, right next door to my beloved san francisco.
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May 16, 2011
Feb 22, 2010
oh man
the weekend when by in a fast grey blur of drizzle and graphite.
a drawing marathon ensued and i just couldn't stop.
the only time i did stop was to go to the art store and buy more pencils and a new big portfolio to contain them in. other than that, it was eat, sleep, draw, eat, sleep, draw all weekend long. and during this race through graphite, wonderful philosophic conversations about art with my sweetheart. and common sense conversations too which, sometimes, are actually the bigger help- the "keep it simple" mentality is a rich and surprising one. i've become a fan. and a big time fan of artist Banks Violette this weekend too. his work reminds me of what i was moving toward when i was in my last year of school and getting ready to graduate. not that my work looked like his... but the impulse was very much the same; the desire, the "voice", the narrative that the audience creates with just a few hints from the maker of all these seemingly disparate images...
the life story.
the back-story.
the autobiographical nature of this whole enterprise.
and i looked at his work and read his interviews and studied, studied, studied and drew pictures. i sat in bed with a big board on my lap, big paper on top, pencil in hand, and sharpener to my right. i worked and explored and the only criteria, the most important criteria, was that i move forward with images that truly captivate me RIGHT THIS SECOND. i choose to abandon all concern of whether or not the images have anything in common or how they would work together and blah blah blah. they have me in common.
sometimes the conceptual framework for a body of work comes at the end. it comes after the work is done and you lay it all out together across the living room floor and all the ideas, all the desires, all the fascinations rise to the surface. that is how i proceeded in school. fearlessly. unrestrained by rules and just ran toward what attracted me. i let myself gravitate toward images that i had a deep, emotional response to. i drew and painted what i cared about- nothing else. and that's why i could spend 10 hours in the studio at a stretch without a break. that level of commitment, being able to sustain that kind of focus, achieving that degree of dedication, only happens when you are truly captivated by the image. and so i have to say, in all honesty, that my struggle the past year has come from the fact that i have been searching searching searching for captivating images and sometimes i've come up short. sometimes i've found a dead end. that's just the nature of this thing. that's the nature of exploration. that's the nature of a maze. and then suddenly, here i am, on a path that lets me wind around again, meander through the tall dark trees and see my life and my past and my needs and my hopes...
and they are not all sweet.
they are not all nice.
about a year ago i got the urge to do sylvia likens' portrait but i just wasn't ready. not even close. and so i wandered off in a different direction and got lost. that's just how it goes sometimes. but there was something about Banks Violette's work and reading the poetry of Aase Berg and all the blogs i read and looking through Vitamin D (an artist's bible if ever there was one) and thinking about myself, who i've become through the trials of the last few years, the massive depression and fears and all the journals i've filled, all the words words words, and the reaching, crying, searing hope that burns through me daily to find something honest. and i thought of elsie and i looked at The Good Daughter portraits hanging on my bedroom wall. i starting thinking about ghosts and rituals and acts of mourning. i starting thinking about honor and courage and saying "THIS IS RELEVANT AND I DON'T NEED ANYONE TO AGREE WITH ME". and i thought of seances and vigils and anniversaries and the need to commemorate something... something, anything, everything. and then it happened... i became, in that instant, ready to do her portrait. large and in graphite. extreme contrast, dark and light, the binary, the right and wrong, the beauty and the horror, the longing and the anger and the surprise at the unbelievable strength and fortitude of such a young girl. the naive and beautiful belief that her suffering could protect someone else.... her sister.... and it did. it did. she took the torture and it spared someone else. and in her photograph she has the sweetest, most innocent, happy smile.... the whole thing shakes me to my core. the whole thing breaks my heart. the whole thing makes me writhe and i wonder... what can i do?
i can do her portrait. i can do as many as it takes. it always has hurt me that we know that names of murderers but we don't know the names of their victims. it is a sick honoring of their "work" that we, as a culture, keep their names and not the names of those who suffered under their hand.
and i think of value. what i value. and i know the paintings i did for JonBenet creeped people out but it was important work. it is important to keep some candles lit. it is important to remember.
sylvia's portrait is almost done. it will be done and done again as often and as many as it takes. a vigil. an honoring. and i am honored to be doing it.
a drawing marathon ensued and i just couldn't stop.
the only time i did stop was to go to the art store and buy more pencils and a new big portfolio to contain them in. other than that, it was eat, sleep, draw, eat, sleep, draw all weekend long. and during this race through graphite, wonderful philosophic conversations about art with my sweetheart. and common sense conversations too which, sometimes, are actually the bigger help- the "keep it simple" mentality is a rich and surprising one. i've become a fan. and a big time fan of artist Banks Violette this weekend too. his work reminds me of what i was moving toward when i was in my last year of school and getting ready to graduate. not that my work looked like his... but the impulse was very much the same; the desire, the "voice", the narrative that the audience creates with just a few hints from the maker of all these seemingly disparate images...
the life story.
the back-story.
the autobiographical nature of this whole enterprise.
and i looked at his work and read his interviews and studied, studied, studied and drew pictures. i sat in bed with a big board on my lap, big paper on top, pencil in hand, and sharpener to my right. i worked and explored and the only criteria, the most important criteria, was that i move forward with images that truly captivate me RIGHT THIS SECOND. i choose to abandon all concern of whether or not the images have anything in common or how they would work together and blah blah blah. they have me in common.
sometimes the conceptual framework for a body of work comes at the end. it comes after the work is done and you lay it all out together across the living room floor and all the ideas, all the desires, all the fascinations rise to the surface. that is how i proceeded in school. fearlessly. unrestrained by rules and just ran toward what attracted me. i let myself gravitate toward images that i had a deep, emotional response to. i drew and painted what i cared about- nothing else. and that's why i could spend 10 hours in the studio at a stretch without a break. that level of commitment, being able to sustain that kind of focus, achieving that degree of dedication, only happens when you are truly captivated by the image. and so i have to say, in all honesty, that my struggle the past year has come from the fact that i have been searching searching searching for captivating images and sometimes i've come up short. sometimes i've found a dead end. that's just the nature of this thing. that's the nature of exploration. that's the nature of a maze. and then suddenly, here i am, on a path that lets me wind around again, meander through the tall dark trees and see my life and my past and my needs and my hopes...
and they are not all sweet.
they are not all nice.
about a year ago i got the urge to do sylvia likens' portrait but i just wasn't ready. not even close. and so i wandered off in a different direction and got lost. that's just how it goes sometimes. but there was something about Banks Violette's work and reading the poetry of Aase Berg and all the blogs i read and looking through Vitamin D (an artist's bible if ever there was one) and thinking about myself, who i've become through the trials of the last few years, the massive depression and fears and all the journals i've filled, all the words words words, and the reaching, crying, searing hope that burns through me daily to find something honest. and i thought of elsie and i looked at The Good Daughter portraits hanging on my bedroom wall. i starting thinking about ghosts and rituals and acts of mourning. i starting thinking about honor and courage and saying "THIS IS RELEVANT AND I DON'T NEED ANYONE TO AGREE WITH ME". and i thought of seances and vigils and anniversaries and the need to commemorate something... something, anything, everything. and then it happened... i became, in that instant, ready to do her portrait. large and in graphite. extreme contrast, dark and light, the binary, the right and wrong, the beauty and the horror, the longing and the anger and the surprise at the unbelievable strength and fortitude of such a young girl. the naive and beautiful belief that her suffering could protect someone else.... her sister.... and it did. it did. she took the torture and it spared someone else. and in her photograph she has the sweetest, most innocent, happy smile.... the whole thing shakes me to my core. the whole thing breaks my heart. the whole thing makes me writhe and i wonder... what can i do?
i can do her portrait. i can do as many as it takes. it always has hurt me that we know that names of murderers but we don't know the names of their victims. it is a sick honoring of their "work" that we, as a culture, keep their names and not the names of those who suffered under their hand.
and i think of value. what i value. and i know the paintings i did for JonBenet creeped people out but it was important work. it is important to keep some candles lit. it is important to remember.
sylvia's portrait is almost done. it will be done and done again as often and as many as it takes. a vigil. an honoring. and i am honored to be doing it.
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