it isn't vanity

.


a deeply held belief i adopted during childhood:

i am singular and will go through life that way.

i am trying to uproot it and it is very difficult.

scary as fuck.

the only place i feel entirely safe is within myself.

but that is a nebulous world.

mutable and full of anxious longing.

i take pictures of myself to prove that i exist.

not to prove it to you, to prove it to ME.

these shapes and angles and senses.

i take pictures of myself so that i can look and see and believe that i am

here, real,

walking and breathing along with the rest of you.

an attempt, maybe, to unhinge this belief in my own singularity;

to disrupt my distrust and make a window

in to (or out of) my own nebulous world.


.

polaroids

.

a diary.


.

a greater frequency of experimentation encourages a greater frequency in the occurance of happy accidents

.

untitled (three and the same)
half frame photograph
4 x 6
angela simione, 2014

exacerbating

.

THE WAY YOU NEED TO BE LOVED   (exacerbating 1 & 2)
photo performance
angela simione, 2014


i finished the new blanket in the very early morning hours of january 1st.  i started it the day after i came home from germany 6 months ago.  it's amazing to see it finished.  it feels amazing to sleep below it, to hide from the sunlight that creeps into my room each morning, to dream below the teetering text that i have meditated on daily for half a year.

i can't set the idea down.  THE WAY YOU NEED TO BE LOVED.

how do i need to be loved?

how do you?

i am dumbfounded and compelled in the same breath.




i'm interested in finding the line between devotion and obsession, between catharsis and self-absorption.  i'm interested in the strange back and forth dance between these ideas...  the odd cadence contained in the image i made tonight of my naked self seated in front of an object in took so long to create, posed for the quick snap of a camera's shutter...  6 months caught inside the flutter of a split second...  devotion paired with instant gratification.

is my devotion soiled by my nudity?  does my body detract from the seriousness of the process of making a blanket entirely by hand?  does my skin somehow erase the beauty of my dedication?  the beauty of patience?  does my nudity compromise my talent for such faithfulness? and if so, why?  does the blur across my face help the matter?  does it ease the blow?  or am i exacerbating everything and making it even harder to find an answer to the question of  THE WAY YOU NEED TO BE LOVED?

do images like these make it harder for you to love me?

.

open-mouth kisses

.

how to speak of desire?
how to speak of fantasy?
how to speak to you
directly
except with an open mouth.


how else to speak to you
except like this. here. in the room where i am king.

alone in my room at night, i photograph my mouth.  monday afternoons, i drop 2 rolls of film off at the one-hour photo lab up the road and wait excitedly to see what magic might occur.  half the time, it's all total crap and a sad waste of money...  but maybe not.  maybe not.  even the worst photograph teaches me something, especially a new way to see.  and then there are the days like today when i flip through the shiny photos and line up the images and find some sort of nebulous narrative that has the ability to speak to the hardest topics i contain, the themes i shy away from and the names i don't want to give up.  but maybe you already know.  maybe, if you've stumbled here, you already know your name rests hotly on my tongue.


how to speak of need?
how to speak of ache?
how to speak of dreams that linger long after waking and which make it so hard to get out of bed?

how to speak without crying?
how to cry without embarrassment?
how to quiver and writhe?
how to stop waiting for unneeded permission?



this suite of photographs i'm amassing is loving referred to as the Kisses Collection and i'm liking what i see.  i like how it feels.


.

imagine me. i'm imagining you.

.

 

"The contradictions the mind comes up against, these are the only realities, the criterion of the real.  There is no contradiction in what is imaginary.  Contradiction is the test of necessity."

Simone Weil

Gravity & Grace, p. 151

imagine me.  i'm imagining you.

(self portrait)

4" x 6"

35 mm color half-frame photography

angela simione, 2013

makes me wish you were here

.

 

.

look again

.

 

during my breaks in french class, i have a habit of going to the bathroom just to take pictures of myself in the long, dirty mirror.  i don't have a full length mirror at home so i rarely see my entire self all at once.  i am always broken up in to bits and pieces;  a fractured image, shattered glances.  or maybe i'm just fucking vain.  ;)

i'll admit i like looking at myself.  i like seeing which parts of my face i inherited from my mother.  though my lips aren't quite as full as hers were, i have her mouth.  i glance at my posture and can see my father standing there.  i have his calves and shoulders.  i have my mother's eyes (all her children do) crowned by my father's evil-arch eyebrows.  i have his pale skin and her freckles. 

but i return to the mirror expecting to see something different.  i'm not exactly sure what or why.  maybe i've never learned to trust my own image.  there's something the mirror lies about or simply can't reflect-  the changeability of my face.  my sister has this quality too.  we look like totally different people in different slants of light or even simply from different angles.  each side of the face is totally different from the other.  despite my absolute love for it, i have an absolute lack of symmetry.

but that isn't really it.  it's the desire for my outsides to match my insides and i'm not sure that they do.  for however open i might seem here, there is so much i keep quite and safe from the light.  there is so much i do not share.  not with anyone.  it all lands in the diary and then slowly is reworked in to drawings or poems or blog-posts or blankets.  this morning, becca and i texted back and forth about autumn's slow arrival and the call to spend long evenings in bed knitting(her) and crocheting (me).   we talked about the urge to return to sweater-making, the ritual of black wool twisted around a hook, and the knots that work together to comprise a solitary work...  a piece of clothing which one cannot buy, but only make for oneself.  there is a comfort and a loneliness contained in such an act, in such a display of patience.  the ache is belied.  and though i may wear all my secrets emblazoned on the tshirts and sweaters i make for myself, when i cry it is for an audience of One.  i have the only seat.

it's an image of me i no longer offer face to face.  i will be silent and still.  no flutter of heartache, no betrayal of need or fear.

i like the blurry photograph in the middle the best.

this wish

.

.

tonight, the center of my heart is still

.

my bedroom window in open.  i can hear my neighbor flirting with a girl on his front porch.  and every so often, the thick click of a new can of beer being opened overlaps their giggles. 

this is the dance.

i think of my newest banner stitched to the cold pole of a stop sign in front of a wasted, graffiti covered warehouse.  the words wail out in black in white: THE WAY YOU NEED TO BE LOVED.  isn't that the only search?  isn't that what we're all up too out here?  isn't that the dance?

the voices next door lower.  they're speaking softly in spite of the beer.

the way you need to be loved...

i've been asking myself this question for a while now.  we all crave that beautiful sense of security that tends to proliferate romantic partnerships.  we all want that sense of security and belonging, of being understood.  i'm no different.  those things feel good and sometimes in the middle of the night the deepest seed hunger in me begins to ache and twist.  i think of eyes locked in to one another and hands lost in hair.  i think of eager mouths and eager hearts and sweat flying.  i think of all that gorgeous softness, all that fantastic hardness and sigh.

the way you need to be loved.

i think of the words i bang out across the keys.  i think of all my scribbles, the pages i fill, another volume of the diary nearing its end.  i think of the images i've made and the images i need to make.  i hunger after their creation.  i want them in front of me.  i want them to exist.  i want them to be seen and to be known.   my value dwindles in their absence.  a day passes and i haven't drawn and so i begin to feel the worthlessness of my life stand tall.  if i can't do this, what is my life for?

the way you need to be loved.

i remember laying awake next to the snoring body of a man who no longer touched me.  i remember waking up early to run and sweat.  i'd pretend the pounding rhythm of my feet on the pavement was the pounding of hot, delicious sex.  i was young and alive and i wanted to express those qualities, luxuriate in the beauty of them, but i was in a relationship that no longer provided for such things.  my heart broke over and over again every time he rolled on his side away from me in the bed.  i would gaze at this dark outline and try not to cry as i felt the worthlessness of my life stand tall.

the way you need to be loved.
the way you need to be loved.
the way you need to be loved.

i miss my siblings.

i miss our mother.

i thought about her a lot in Germany.  that was her fairytale land.  it's a place where anyone can fall in love.  it's a place where spectacular heartache and spectacular beauty rest side by side.  one morning as we cruised through sunrise in the most uncomfortable bus i've ever sat/slept in, i looked up right in time to see the sign for Hannover.  i thought, "that's your Germany, mama.  i'm heading back to mine; my rough and tumble Berlin"

i'm more schooled in what i do NOT want than what i do.  i look at myself in the mirror and realize that i'm simply searching.  just searching.  i've still got so many unknown corners within myself to explore.  i don't want to backtrack.  i don't envy the relationships i see around me.  all the locks.  all the ugly names.

i took this photo in a mirror inside an exhibition at the Foam Museum of Photography in Amsterdam a few weeks ago.  It's half-frame photography that ended up in an accidental double exposure.  it's actually a very accurate self-portrait.

the images collide and waver.  the outlines are indefinite.  i am searching.  must it feel like sadness?

that seed that twists itself like a knife within me is trying to tell me something but i've not yet learned its language.  i have to listen closer.  i have to get the static out of my ears and the anger out of my heart.  i have to pay attention and make room for the unexpected.  i have to pay attention and i have to be brave.  i have to use my two hands and build a life for myself that fits me.  who i truly am, not who i've been expected to be, nor the dream others have of me.

i like this moment...  laying in my bed alone listening to my neighbor flirt with a girl.  soon, another beer will crack open and i'll raise my cocktail silently toward my open window in cheers.


the way you need to be loved
the way you need to be loved
the way you need to be loved

.

regardless of the weather...

.

...i come equipped with clouds of my very own.  force of fucking nature.  ;)


the fracturing of The Sublime.


.

investigate, over and over again

.


i was given a camera for my birthday back in september.  i am experimenting.  it feels fantastic.

untitled self portraits
8" x 12" each
half frame photography collage
angela simione, 2013


.

camera 1, camera 2

.

.

belief

we stay up late. we discuss our theories.  we discuss the theories of all the big dogs and i count my blessings.  then, i count how many shots i've poured.  i count how many books i've read this year (far fewer than the last) and i count how many times i can get a raised eyebrow out of a man.

my roommates head to bed and i hang new pictures on the wall.  pollen filters in through my open window and i listen to the neighbors fighting.  i put on a slow song of romantic redemption.  i take off my shoes.  i take off my socks.  i pull the braid out of my hair.

earlier, we discussed the power of images.  we discussed the power of persona and watched Lady Gaga videos.  i played my favorite and said: "she understands visual pleasure. she knows the exact moment when taboo begins."

that picture up top:  that image is me and it is not me.  i am that girl sometimes.  and sometimes that is the truest self i can express.  sometimes i am a girl of fishnets and wild hair and all i want is for someone to notice that i need a nice, good slap.  but there are reasons for this and those reasons matter. those reasons are not contained in the photographs i present.  there is the allusion.  there is the heartache.  it is spelled out in vivid pink.  it is scrawled all over me.  but i don't want to have to go on and on about it.  sometimes i just want a reckoning and i don't want to have to argue for it.  just do what needs to be done.

that picture up top:  it is me and it is not me.  sometimes i am not that girl at all.  sometimes i am too angry for romance, too absorbed in my own slow rage.  i am too interested in my own steam and decorum to consider the desires of another.  leave me alone.  i like my lonely road just fine.  i need no hand to hold.  god died for me the second my mother did. and let me tell you, i've never felt so fucking free.  i twirl my hair and paint my nails and stare you in the face.  i don't owe anyone anything and i plan to keep it that way.

that picture up top:  it is me and it is not me.  

creation/destruction/creation

i am slowly re-acclimating to my daily life in California.  it helped to have two days off from work.  in between dealing with the rigmarole of a stolen car (stolen two months ago and then found the day i flew to new york) and the legal and financial headache that results from such an event, i walked around my neighborhood and took pictures. 

the light was beautiful this afternoon.  warm and yellow.  somewhat hopeful, somewhat sad.  i walked down Shattuck Ave and took pictures of graffiti.   i walked to Berkeley and took more pictures.  on film no less.  it feels romantic and poetic in the best way.  it'll be some weeks before i make it to the printers but it's exciting just the same.  it's been at least 5 years since i've had film developed.  there's just something about looking through that little window at the world.  in NY i didn't take many pictures at all.  i wanted to be entirely in the moment, each and every second.  i didn't want to be a spectator or documentarian, i wanted to be human.  i wanted to be alive and full of flaws.  i wanted to sweat and cuss and laugh and that's exactly what i did.  in fact, i haven't taken many pictures at all for the passed several years other than to document art.  i'm not sure where the urge to make photographs went or why it left me.  seeing the francesca woodman retrospective at SFMOMA at the beginning of the year woke up an old, hidden urge.  it woke up so many ignored desires.  it woke up a forgotten courage too.  

and i've been writing like crazy.  poems are spilling out of me again.  little snippets of prose, descriptions of memories, secret desires and the way smiles look in the dark. 

something has definitely changed within me.  i visited my tiny storage unit for the first time in close to 7 months.  everything inside seemed so foreign to me, distant, relics from a past life...  the objects of ghosts.    and when the wrecking crew came to collect my car this afternoon, i didn't remove the 7 year old art that was rolled up in the back seat.  i let it get wrecked along with the rest. 

clean slate.

investigation

.

from the ice queen series of photographs

angela simione 2012

night light

lately, and for the past several years, this has been the reason

i take pictures of myself to see this image with my own two eyes.  somewhere inside me lives the notion that seeing is believing and maybe i don't believe any of this is real.  everything that has come before now feels like a lie.  like sabotage.  i was never that girl.  i take pictures of myself to catalogue the deep breath in.  the held oxygen.  to prove to myself that i actually exist.

dying portraits

i celebrated my independence by wearing red lipstick and having my passport photo taken.  i can hear the boom of fireworks in the distance.  i ran outside when they began but i can't see the show from where i live.  it is enough this year just to hear the drumming of the blasts, that spectacular clap of faux thunder. 


i spent the day making a small drawing and a series of photographic self-portraits.  i have no clue what i'm trying to accomplish with photography, with these images, this form of image making.  all i know is that i am drawn to it.  it is so unlike painting.  the intention behind a piece can be absolutely lost and replaced by mechanical or digital surprises.  chance is in full operation regardless of how staged a photo may be.  i embrace my amateur status and see these first exercises as a joyful event.  i am turned on by the potential of photography and don't mind being bad at it for awhile.




the shirt i'm wearing is a plain Hanes t-shirt that i scribbled across with a sharpie.  the stuffed bear in the background is one of the few remaining artifacts of my childhood.  i really like that both the bear and the text in these works is clear but the characteristics of my face are not. 

who cares. no apologies for art.

dying portrait 1, 3, and 5

digital photograph

angela simione, 2012

.





.