love:

.

"To love a stranger as oneself implies the reverse: to love oneself as the stranger."


- Simione Weil, Gravity & Grace, p. 111

.

:)

i have been crocheting roses for the better part of a week and switching back and forth between reading jean genet and simone weil. is that an odd combo? polar mysticisms, for sure. and i bend under the weight and steam of both their writings, come to some sort of faithful ground where exploration as such becomes the best and only beauty. philosophy has always turned me inside out in such wonderful ways. it is a grand art. it always makes me sad to see it flailing, unnoticed, in the background of culture at large: shining and ignored. still, i become more and more thankful for it. i ensure myself some much coveted moments alone with it daily now; the rain finding us so often.

today the sun is high and bright but it is freezing cold. the chill bit my face on the Mighty Run and made my nostrils hurt. the heater on and am wearing a huge sweater, thankful for walls and a roof and the water boiling for cherry tea.

and my head is still not screwed on entirely straight, still lop-sided and dangling (happily!) from the radiating joy of the weekend. a moment of satisfaction??? it was so wonderful to see my school friends again! their smiling faces and warm hugs. it felt like no time had gone by at all and it was just a few weeks ago that we were all crammed in to the studios together, worrying about the meaning of painting and things like Relevance and Historic Reference. hahaha! and of course those things are important but, now, 2 1/2 years later the story has changed: those concerns become tempered, cut down to size by struggling alone with your own practice, your own ideas, picking out books to read on your own, and holding them under your own microscope. my school friends all said "your work is so different now". :) and i suppose it is.

and so i feel quiet and happy today. spinning, but pleased. i will be watching Slingshot Gallery on thursdays so come on down! draw with me! talk to me about books or art or whatever shenanigans you may be up too. it would be wonderful to hang out! i'll be there from 12-5pm at least. i'll keep the doors open longer some days when i don't have to rush right off.

reading Simone Weil's Gravity & Grace

.





the chapter "Attention and Will" has got me by the hair. in fistfuls. i cannot look away. i cannot look away from my own face in the mirror. the indictment. the lesson.

"We have to cure our faults by attention and not by will." (p.169)

"Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love." (p.170)

"Love is the teacher of gods and men, for no one learned anything without desiring to learn. Truth is sought not because it is truth, but because it is good.
Attention is bound up with desire. Not with the will but with desire. Or, more exactly, with consent." (p.171)

like 3 gunshots right in a row. boom. boom. boom. or my face slapped. or maybe kissed? 3 kisses on the cheek. and then that fist in the hair that holds my head immobile and forces me to take a better, closer, longer look at what i assumed Attention and Will (and Love) are.

i have known that place. i have been there. that place, akin to prayer, that raises itself up (and my self along with it) when i am truly attentive. when i am absolutely engaged. the wonderment that courses through a body. i have experienced this while reading, drawing, running. i have felt it while singing in the shower. i have felt it in so many classrooms and while scribbling away in my notebooks.

but also: the result of heart break. the result of brutality. the result of devastation. just as wonderment has coursed through my body, so has an amazing despair. not all exaltation is pleasurable.

good does not always equal fun.

i say that to myself and see that there have been so many times when i have been a spoiled brat, kicking a screaming, because the Good Work i needed to do was also Hard Work and not fun at all. and i only see that, now, that i have been questioned about Attention and Will. i see that i have not been as attentive to myself as i thought. it is not the same thing as self-indulgence and it is not the same thing as self-abasement.

how to turn that focus, that attentiveness, toward myself in the way it is called for in the first quote?

thinking along these lines, this switch in lingo, gives me a new perspective on how to think of struggle and learning. i must pay attention to myself, see exactly what i am focusing on, discern if it is "good" and, if it isn't, (if it is horrible for me, wounding me, if i am only beating myself up) to refocus (attend) to the Good. the good i haven't given myself because it comes in a package i do not recognize or do not like. the good that finds me only through hard work. the good that is hard work itself. i must somehow love myself enough to learn how to do this... how to break the old, bitter habits.

i think that even something as horrible as self-hate is a habit. that malicious routine of pick pick pick and point point point: berating the self, attacking, snarling. as routine as brushing your teeth. it signals a corrupt notion of love.

maybe practicing Attention can teach me a new notion of love? a new notion of faith? maybe i have not yet truly "consented" to learning certain things? i have feared the lesson. maybe i have been afraid of looking at particular realities? seeing them, as they truly are and without any consolation, the realities alive in me.

tuesday morning art and politics with William Kentridge and Riot Grrl

William Kentridge: charcoal and torn paper and opera... the man is amazing. i fell in love with his work, with his mind, the very first time i saw it. i am lucky that my first experience with his work was in the flesh, face to face at LACMA. i was 20 at the time, i think. my mother and i decided to drive out to LA and see what was going on one day, completely spur of the moment, and that's when i learned of William Kentridge. immediately, i was at home with his images and aesthetic. i was working primarily in charcoal at the time. black charcoal and white acrylic together on a page- ghostly swirls of grey. and the second i saw Kentridge's work, i looked at my mom and said: SEE! someone else who loves charcoal! art can be made this way, it doesn't have to be oil paint! i was so excited! overjoyed! and then when my friend Daniela and i accidentily stumbled across his show in San Francisco when she was up here visiting a few months ago. gorgeous etchings based on Gogol's short-story The Nose.

over the weekend i watched the new Art:21 documentary about his current work and he seems like such a playful man. seeing his work is an experience that i can only really describe as Home Coming and it's so heart-warming to watch him in the studio. in the documentary, he speaks briefly about "the seriousness of play" and it reminds me of what poet Rebecca Loudon stresses- finding the site of deep play and there is where the poetry grows. and then later in the film, he says (and i am paraphrasing), "my life and work changed when i started seeing the world as Process rather than Fact". something about that statement hit me so hard. in the face, in the heart. it is still hitting me hard. it's so damn smart it makes my head spin. and i try to catch it so that i can hold it, apply it, trust it, such a brilliant tool! and of course, when i think i've managed to catch it i lose it again. isn't that always the way. ha! but there is something in that statement that is so inviting, so opposite what dominant american culture espouses... process rather than product. the Means rather than the End. a life's work, always UP UP UP. not climbing in the hopes of finding a pleasing plateau, but climbing because that is the job... to climb. and i know this is all romantic and beautiful and so i run to it as fast as i can! these kinds of ideas are so attractive to me. the idealist in me flings her arms wide open to embrace all this beauty of thought and action. my americanism snaps me back and squeezes my face, forces me to look at the goals that are permissible for me to have, the desires i am supposed to chase. the money plateau. green and leisurely. and then just sit there, just coast, do nothing but spend...

it is uncomfortable and lonely to be Outside but i must be Outside. i must remain Outside. in my sketch book, i have a quote written and i have no clue who said it but here it is: Becoming aware of your power to make choices and not go with the status quo is a huge first step.

last night before bed i read Joanne Gottlieb's and Gayle Wald's essay "Smells Like Teen Spirit: Riot Grrls, Revolution and Women in Independent Rock" about zines and music, power, how girls can create their own agency by resisting the cultural allure to stay inside, stay quiet, sit down, and continue the practice of minimization and silence within themselves... that something as seemingly simple as making a zine or t-shirt or stitching your own scarf is an act of resistance to the Status Quo... a dominant culture that still, right now, prefers everyone to fall in line, do what they're told, and do not make waves. this is definitely still the case. and right now, with all the economic worry and hardship and fear, i think it's an even scary proposition i'm making to ask myself (or anyone else) to ignore the status quo, basically forgo safety and security, in order to establish a bit of freedom for myself; a bit of agency, a bit of happiness. but look where the Status Quo got us! i mean... come on! the president cannot do a damn thing about individual levels of greed and feelings of entitlement. he just can't. that's my job and that's your job. it comes down to not only a re-evaluation of what we hold dear culturally, but also individually within our own homes and families. i simply cannot fall in line with the practices that led us to this place of completely unethical levels of spending and wanting and grabbing and enslaving others to our desire to collect as many status symbols as possible. i just can't do it. and ofcourse the temptation is there. it always will be. yes, money is a necessity in this era... but does the necessity of money mean it must be worshipped as a God?

in the William Kentridge documentary he relays a funny story about a friend of his who basically made fun of him for always trying to figure out what he should do, like, for a job. ha! and the friend told him, look, you're 28 and you're unemplyable. no one is going to give you a job. so stop arguing with your trajectory. success or failure, you're an artist. that's when William Kentridge decided to say fuck it and just be himself.

and so i had a hard time falling asleep because i was so excited and encouraged by the film and by what i had just read, but also a bit afraid. it's hard not to feel afraid once realizing that i am completely in control of my own life and it's really just a matter of what i'm willing to put myself through in order to build a life that feels right for me and is respectful of who i am. this comes back to what Kentridge said about seeing the world as Process rather than Fact: that the world is malleable, changeable, able to shift. and so i must somehow become ready to make a shift as well. it is the world in me that must change first. my body and all that it contains. my perceptions must shift. i must identify them as process, not as fact, and establish my agnecy through acts of art-making and writing and crocheting my own sweaters and running along the highway regardless of the perceptions of others. and somehow i must become okay with all this... to stop worrying about whether or not anyone understands what i'm doing and why it is relevant.

painting candles and reading Simone Weil

.






the physical element by which sight is made possible: light.



she says: Love is not consolation, it is light. (p. 59)


to love is to see.
and to see clearly. plainly even.
no disruptions, to desires, no figments, no fantasy, no lies: to see something as it actually is without the governance of desire or protocol, without imposition, alliances, biases, expectations... without silencing

or dulling the color.

light:

we find the shape, the texture, the angle. the light does not promise we will like what we see. the light does not promise pleasantries. the light does not speak of "likability" and "pleasurability". the light says nothing about preferences.

Love is not consolation... and so love is not about satisfying preferences.

...it is light a new lens given, love is the ability to see reality: unmisted, unobstructed.

philosophy is a necessity

kate durbin's The Simone Weil Fashion Project has reached right out of the computer screen and done something unnameable to my heart. pairing sentences from weil's philosophic/spiritual work with High Fashion photography is a concoction that, at first glance, may seem to dance at the boarders of sacrilege (for lack of a better word), but serves to heighten the power of simone weil's work. this pairing, which seems so odd given the very pious nature of weil's search and writings, highlights in such a violent and gorgeous way one of the main themes in her work. the nature of love.

i have been infected by the project in a very wonderful way. i ordered Gravity and Grace (the book kate is currently culling quotes from) and it arrived yesterday afternoon. i sat on my chilly front stoop with it, not even making it back in doors after finding it in my mailbox. an hour later, i made some chamomile and kept reading. another hour, another hour, another hour. i took notes. i looked up and it was bed time.

it has shaken out of me the first sentence i've been waiting for. the sentence i needed in order to begin my dream essay, The Value of Sadness. it is begun. it could take a very long time to write but it is begun.

the sentence is one of simone's.

"Love is not consolation, it is light."

and i thought about light. the physical element by with sight is made possible. love is sight. seeing. and this says absolutely nothing about liking what we see. that thought was welcome the very second i had it. and kate's project very much illustrates this thought: love, as a mode or way of being/proceeding, having nothing to do with what is preferable or pleasurable to gaze upon. it is acquiring the ability to see things as the actually are, not what desire would oblige them to be. things, people, ideas unclouded by Wants.

these thoughts stick in and refuse to be pulled out. and this is good because i have no urge to pull them out. if anything, i feel like pushing the thorns in deeper. to the origin of my confusion, my pain, my ideas... and see what happens then. what light might be found.

an act of unclouding. shooing the swarm.

signify

the little icon i use as my "picture" here - the severed rope of braided hair - is my hair hung on a lonesome nail. i chopped it off three and a half years ago.

i caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror the other day. my old self. the self i know. the self i remember and feel lonely for. slender from The Almighty Jog, not skinny. and my hair, already grown long and wild with curls again. a fast growth. a fast return. perhaps my hair missed me too. :)

and what a happy glimpse it was. a moment of safety. security. something true. i am returning to myself- ideas i had been discouraged away from, fallen beliefs, poems. they sweep in like dust, like glitter, like hair across the eyes. it is a welcome warmth. a deep quilt full of ink stains and promise.

i know the face in the mirror again. i know the direction of the eyes. i know the lines at the edge of the smile.

i've been crocheting again. making new banners. messages. preparing for winter when i can use my body as a billboard. i will don the signs and signifiers. a quiet(er) performance. a true performance. drape my form in the ideas and modes i cling to. use the structure of skeleton and muscle as if it were a gallery wall. it seems honest. it seems necessary.

and as i twist the yarn through my fingers, over the hook, i return to my previous wide-open definition of ART. i return to the deep knowledge that a painting is no more important than a quilt or poem or necklace. it is all ART. the differences between are just a preference of form. a way to capture the signifiers, harness them, bend them to desire and need.

it is a cold day here. a day for doing the laundry and then returning to bed with my coffee and crochet hook. a day for a quiet(er) happiness.

:)

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. :)

philosophies

such a quiet.

and a moment of stillness.

and i am less and less concerned with right and wrong.

just effective and ineffective, warranted and unwarranted, what works for me and what doesn't work for me. a stoic philosophy- knowing myself and then living in accordance with what that is/means.

behavior that lines up with belief.

and i acknowledge that this harmony may not always be pleasant or appear beautiful. "beauty" is as subjective as "right". morality is relative. ethics are individual. and i mean that in terms of application. i mean to say that my ethics are for me to apply to myself. that's who they exist for. it is my code, my way, my walking stick.

the big WHY.

these pictures are a document of that wrestling: a catalogue of my attempt to make meaning. accuracy is important. it takes courage and patience. but accuracy about what? my life and what it has meant. it may mean something different in a year, in a month, tomorrow. and so... some sort of exorcism. some sort of reckoning.

self-portrait after self-portrait.

aren't we all just talking about ourselves? giving light to our loves, hates, losses, and concerns.

i don't think a person can make ART about shit they don't care about. captivation is mandatory. the subject must be relevant to the artist dealing with it. it has to be. and it IS if it is any good at all.

when i am captivated i can work all day. when i find the right form, the right image, when everything is married and conjoined and aligned in a way that makes sense to me, that is true to the mess of things or the beauty of things, i will work until my hand locks up in a huge, painful cramp. i do not abandon it. i stay and stay and stay because something honest is going on. and that site of honesty, for however idiosyncratic it may be, is where the reckoning occurs. it is where ART is made.

i can be honest about my own impulses toward blame or self-pity if i dig deep enough to actually see where they come from, if i find the hidden kernel that gives rise to those feelings. but merely to offer an expression of blame, an expression of self-pity, adds nothing to the conversation. it shuts conversation down. all it is is lashing out. it is not courageous. the results are not ART.

but that doesn't mean an artist can't be angry or ugly. you can be. is it warranted? and if it is- don't excuse yourself, don't blame anyone else, keep the responsibility and guilt of it for yourself, let it be ugly and don't try to cover it up or run from the aftermath. stand there. own up. that might be ART: to not run. to not make excuses.

to make a statement and stand by it even if the statement is ugly or offensive is an act of courage that has the capability of causing a reckoning, a fracture, a tear, a split in the seam. "ugly" is relative too. and sometimes, it is warranted. sometimes an ugly expression causes us to notice an overlooked beauty- a situational contingency or symbiosis that supplies knowledge and an avenue to compassion... and those things are rewards.

rewards are not always shiny and warm.

behavior that lines up with belief.

i am changing my attitudes about certain things. effective, ineffective. acceptable, unacceptable. necessary, unnecessary. and only as they apply to me, my practice, my life, my ins and outs and daily grind.

and so this catalogue is only a catalogue. it is not an argument for why i might be right and another person is wrong. it is not a case i am building against anyone or anything. and if i have indited anyone, it is myself. it is either effective or it isn't. and if i can get to that site of honesty where the reckoning occurs than i can steadfastly believe in what i'm doing because i have achieved an amount of courage, i have achieved an amount of clarity, i have done something relevant for my own life. and of course i want the looker to be effected. of course i want to catch their eye and keep it. but i can't dictate that. my tastes, my desires, my needs are my own to satisfy. just as i walk passed paintings, others will walk passed mine. it is no strike against me. the other person has an entire life inside them that i know nothing about. we are not all cut from the same cloth and we do not all share the same beliefs or have the same needs. especially not when it comes to art. i'm more than okay with this and am not beaten down by it. and increasingly, i am thankful for those who do stop to look. who stay a minute and look at the lines and shadows and (hopefully) see a bit of their own biography in the shape and twist.

tick tick tick tick

more and more, i've been thinking about philosophy- its relevance. its importance. philosophy as necessity. philosophy as NEED.

and like art, philosophy in this country is perceived as a pastime. something frivolous. something to take part in if you've got some spare time on your hands but not at all integral to daily life.

and how sad. how lost. ethics as an exercise in frivolity. it knocks the wind out of me.

and just as i think that an arts education should be mandatory; mandatory in the same way as literature and science and math, so too should be philosophy. how much cooler and progressive a world, a more humane world, if philosophy was part of standard education in high school. if philosophy was welcomed in to daily life.

i think philosophy is absolutely necessary- the ethic, well wrestled, well thought out, hard won code that governs a life. academia seems to be the only situation in which philosophic conversations are taken seriously. or the pockets it lives in when in discussion with close friends or colleagues who have a similar desire to live in a more conscious way, not just "go with the flow".

it is sad to me that in our common day-to-day existence, we are routinely asked, EXPECTED EVEN, to drop our philosophic code when it makes things even the slightest bit harder for others. and by 'harder' i mean less fun. what are ethics good for if i drop them when the tough times find me? isn't that when i need them most? when the temptation arises to skirt the hard responsibilities of my life and run? isn't that when a set of ethics is most needed?

but the trade is that sometimes you will walk the road alone. sometimes you will be Outcast. sometimes you will be Other. sometimes you will be Cruel or Crazy or Arrogant or Selfish. these are all titles that get applied in improper ways a lot of the time. it is not selfish to obey an ethical code. it's cowardly to not.

and all this is on my mind more and more. the more i read, the more i draw, the more i expose myself to the outside world, the more i find these deep pockets of discussion where art and philosophy are appreciated, nurtured, encouraged. and there is no rule that i must have all the answers RIGHT THIS SECOND... just that i try to head in a better direction. just that i am curious and open. just that i rinse the dust out of my eyes. just that i think.

spectacular!

and so now i circle back to 'The Society of The Spectacle' and i see how savvy it all is- mistaking appearance for reality... or, rather, accepting appearances as reality: 'seeing is believing' and all that. and just as Debord says, sight is the most easily tricked of all the senses. accepting appearances as reality is accepting a non-reality. it is living a lie.

so... how to crack this non-reality? how to create a fissure where the truth can actually be seen? how to establish a road toward hope where truth can even be recognized as such?

he says: In a world that really has been turned on its head, truth is a moment of falsehood.

how sad and how helpless we all feel sometimes. how inept, how confused, how forlorn and despairing. how sorrowful the world becomes when truth is denied for the sake of appearances.

a hand must be kept on hope. art is a way to find that hope. it can be the thing that encourages the crack in The Spectacle. it can be the thing that counters the upside-down appearance with an odd mirror that restores a true(r) perspective. the fast flash of undeniable reality, charged and angry and lovable- necessary.