LET'S PLAY DRESS UP AND BE SISTERS!

.


i'll be kathleen. you'll be kathleen too. <3







(please do not let being biologically male stop you from playing. everybody's welcome. grab your magic marker.)

practice, practice, practice...

this is what today's practice looks like-


untitled
15" x 11"
mixed media on paper
angela simione, 2009

anonymity
redaction
identity
a document of Unimportance
a document of lost stories
unknown histories
histories that don't matter

who gets to be pictured and who doesn't...

and those white socks just kick me right in the heart.

sisters...

i've been saving a big stack of drawings and mixed media work that i had cut down in to small, irregular squares just waiting for a bright idea to come along. but more and more, the idea of storing stuff for some far-off rainy day that might not ever show up has got me not only in the mood to start letting go of the unused items in my life but, also, to start putting some of these little gems to good use. so the other night, i got the big stack out and noticed that a ton of them function beautifully as formal abstractions in their own right and a boat-load more of little pieces that seemed ideal as a backdrop for something more realistic- environments with potential. i decided to just play and see where i'd end up.


sisters
7 1/4" x 7 1/4" (irregular)
mixed media on paper
angela simione, 2009

this is the third time i've used this image and the more i use it the more i love it. it helps me revisit my own childhood, my sister's and my past, being alone together so often and finding ways to get by, play, feel happy, and scrape something together that could resemble dinner. i feel so close to this image and this won't be the last time i use it. not even close.


sisters detail

available at black fence.

done!

Sunday 3 (Sheep in Fog)
30" x 40"
oil on canvas
angela simione, 2009

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