always david

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he is almost an instinct of mine.  in my alcohol-fueled lethargy, i began to quiz myself over the relevance of art...  what it means, what my art means and whether or not it even matters.  this is an aggravating little game artists play with themselves, it seems, but in the moment it really hurts.  it hurts to ask yourself, "is art meaningless?"  it's so close to asking whether or not life is meaningless.

and maybe it is.  maybe life is meaningless.  maybe art's role is to provide the meaning we're all searching for?  or at least an avenue to it.  i don't know.  i just suddenly found myself wondering this evening whether or not i'm defeated...  whether or not i still contain the requisite amount of FIGHT.  despite recent encouragements, i suddenly felt worn out.  

i got out of bed and went to my book case.  i needed another artist.  i needed a mentor.  i needed someone to tell me that everything is okay and to pull my shoulders back and fuck what the rest of the world thinks.  my eyes flowed across my collection of art books.  so many volumes of kiki smith's work, louise bourgeois, keith haring, andy warhol.  i paused at francesca woodman.  i paused again at terrence koh.  then i came across a book i forgot i had.  a book i hadn't even read yet.  i pulled it from the shelf.  david wojnarowicz's 7 MILES A SECOND. 

the moment i start reading his work i come face to face with the truth that art is a way of life.  i don't need to torture myself with the question of whether or not my work "matters".  what does that even mean?  i don't need to make myself cry about the accomplishments i've not yet made.  art is a path.  or better yet, art is a language.  it is how i speak.

i read his texts and i want to cry.  not only because of the sadness his work so often describes but because of his fearlessness in telling his story, his bravery in regard to confronting the twists of the heart and mind.  his love of humanity was so unapologetic, so humbling...  and so i want to cry when i am confronted with his work:  i am humbled.  i realize, in the face of david wojnarowicz's work, to ask, "does my art matter?" is a waste of time and effort.  just do the work.  just speak.  and even if it's just to speak about something as aggravating as my struggles with my own artistic temperament, that's alright.  i silence myself too quickly sometimes.  i mean, we all need to complain to each other every now and then.  it does us good to know we're not total freaks in this regard.  we all fear our work is total crap...  that how we are choosing to spend our lives is an act of  futility.  david's work reminds me that this is absolutely not the case.  the point is to care enough about the brevity of life to use what time you have to connect the way you want to connect with other human beings.  the point is to breathe as deeply as you can breathe, so deeply it hurts and then to tell the truth about yourself...  the truth that hurts.  the truth that nags and won't stop tossing and turning until you finally acknowledge it exists and needs a space in which to be seen, to be dealt with, to be wrestled with and contended with.

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gently and gladly

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there are blessings everywhere.  even in this pain.  i am reminded of the very first injury-  it was then that i picked up my dusty crochet hook and taught myself the bastard stitch.  it was then that i began to lean on text and textile rather than oil.  it was then that i learned how to be patient-  a hard task for such an eager girl.  this past week, i had to learn it all over again.

it's not easy for me to be cooped up.  for as much as i may enjoy my solitude, it is only because my life is generally very busy.  my days careen by in a fantastic parade of images and sounds, a whirlwind of restaurant life, art life, and romantic intrigue.  my long mornings at home before work have become so precious to me and i am possessive of them.  the hours i spend sipping coffee, writing, and listening to music as i leisurely get dressed are prized.  my days off are spent primarily at home.  i am stingy with my free time as that is really the only time i have to become deeply involved in my projects.  this past week though, i actually had time to read again.  i pulled IN MEMORIAM TO IDENTITY  by Kathy Acker from my shelf, lay down on my stomach with an icepack on my lower back, and read until the narcotic bliss of the Norco i'd popped swept me away in to a crazy menagerie of chemically fueled dreams.  actually quite a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.  one must look for the pleasures within the agony in this type of situation.  :)

slowly, i'm bouncing back.  i could walk today with just a hint of a limp.  i couldn't walk at my normal quick clip but i could walk.  that's truly all that matters.

now, laying on an icepack again in bed, smiling to myself as i realize it is friday night and most other people i know are excitedly hurrying off to enjoy whatever revelry awaits in this wide city, i am content to spend the evening at home with my work.

earlier today, i shipped two crochet pieces to Darger HQ for next month's show and then spent a few hours leafing through old portfolios of my drawings, work i haven't viewed in close to three years.  i smiled to myself as their graphite edges dirtied my hands.  i smiled and thought, "geez...  maybe i am a pretty good artist after all."

all week i've returned, over and over again, to the knowledge that art is truly what my life is about and that i should never allow myself to become blind to or distant from that fact.  it's easy to get wrapped up in work and saving money and making plans for the future without stopping to think about the REAL work i do: the art.  maybe because i've spent the last 2 years working primarily on the street, it's easy for me to forget the old dreams of attending residencies and submitting work to shows, magazines, etc.  it's easy to fall out of that particular loop when one no longer pays any attention to things like deadlines.  for awhile, i didn't miss it.  in fact, i liked not being a part of it.  i liked having a break from all that worry and struggle.  it was important to me to separate myself from those ambitions because they had been so intertwined with the life i led in my last relationship.  i didn't want to think of those goals and i didn't want to look at the work i made during that time.  especially during the last few years.  the pain and isolation i felt during that time was too easily awakened.  it sat so plainly on the surface of all my drawings.  it was so obvious.  i couldn't do anything but tuck them safely away in portfolios to be stacked in the back of my closet.  i needed to make a new life.

but lately, i've been thinking of those dreams again.  i'm excited about next month's show- to have work in a gallery space again, to see how it interacts with the work of other artists, to see how it looks surrounded by white.  and looking at my old drawings today made me want to show them too.  but more than that, it made me want to draw again.

soon.

soon.

and i look forward to being totally sideswiped by it.  i look forward to seeing what images arrive first.  tonight, it is enough just to listen to the click of the keys beneath my fingers and the train in the distance.  tonight, it is enough to dream again, to hunger after these things.  tonight, it is enough to lay in bed on an icepack and crochet.  this gentleness is its own type of luxury.  quiet and unassuming and hidden from the eyes of the world, i lay below an open window and knot thread in to lace, and feel happy about the future.

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anti-solace

let me crawl back under my rock now.  let me crawl back to where i came from.  my coils of black wool and ink, graphite dust stuck to my feet, smudged across my face, empty bleeding heart dragging its ugly shape and shame across the page.  the inches are horrible.  each scratch of the pen, an agony.  each inch of wool twisted into knots, a horror.  but it is the only repair that has ever worked.  it is the only repair i trust, the only truth i know.  i bring my two hands back to myself.  at least for a time.  at least until i can see straight.  no longer interested in reaching toward the world, toward unknown doors.  at least not until it is time to pack a bag.  i see now that what i've been accused of is true.  i talk too good a game.  i take pictures of myself wearing a cap that says SLUT across the front and everyone automatically believes it.  they see my red lips and how seldom i become upset.  they see how independent i am and somehow, inexplicably to me, confuse me with being cold. i am not cold.  nowhere close.  my brashness is a moral responsibility to my own life...  to live as fully and as wholly as i can manage.  but i am not callous and i am not flagrant and i am not without compass or standard.


but fuck it.  what do i know?  i don't know a damn thing.  it's why i want to live.  in order to find out.  something.  anything. and it could quite easily be that it's my mirror that shines askew.

 

what is it about me that makes people seem to believe that i have no feelings?

i've cried three times this week.  everyday, for 3 days running, a small horror found me.  and even in the moment i told myself to feel blessed and lucky because i haven't had a bad run of luck or days of pain in so long it seems.  everything has been going pretty well.  no major complaints.  but i could feel it all along brewing in the background, simmering below my naive feet.  i've expected it for quite some time now that my brashness, my good game would lead directly to the wind being knocked out of me.  i've been going against my better judgement in certain ways because i just became so damn tired of loneliness.  i became so tired, painfully tired, of not allowing myself to know the world and to know other humans.  but i knew it was coming.  i knew i would wake up, humiliated and stupefied, and feel the urge to run away from the life i have here in Oakland.  and  maybe it's necessary?  maybe it's the kick i need?  i have wondered while crying if i should try to feel thankful for this pain...  it untethers me, afterall.  there is no longer any reason to drag my feet.  there are no anvils around my neck.  there are no gentle hands to lay me down and smooth my hair back across my forehead. 

i wake up this morning and a Great Goodness finds me...

baby's first passport arrived in today's mail.  i kissed it and kissed it and wanted to cry.  it is sitting next to me on my bed right this minute.  it is a gem.  it is my most sacred, most valued, most loved possession.  today, it trumps every piece of art i own.  everything pales in comparison to this little book: a testament to faith and struggle and belief.

in 4 weeks i'll be back in my beloved NYC for a few days before hoping on a plane and heading to europe for the very first time.  my very first trip over seas.  i am beside myself.  i can't find the words.  i'll find them in europe, i suppose! ha!  Becca and i stop in London for a night and then the next evening, on the 4th of July, our Independence day (and the 1 year anniversary of when i had my passport photo taken), we fly into Berlin.   a few days later, we will take a train from Berlin to Paris to see our beloved Rammstein play in Nancy, France.  after that?  hahahaaa!  there is absolutely no way to know!  but when (if?) i return, i fly back to new york for a few days before heading back to Oakland.  i'm sure i'll spend the first few days back crying, forlorn and lonely and in total anguish, in my bed before having to tie the apron around my waist once more, put on my bright lipstick, and tell jokes table-side.

i am lucky in that i will have a job to return to.  i am lucky in that i like my job.  i enjoy being around people and i am very good at creating an atmosphere of warmth and ease.  i'm good at being a waiter and, come July, it is a profession that will take me around the world.  well, at least half way.  :)  but i'm telling you, these next 4 weeks cannot go by fast enough.  the passed two days i have been crawling out of my skin.  i have never wanted to hop on a plane so badly in my entire life.

i am not afraid of knowing the world.  i am afraid of NOT knowing it.  i am not afraid of people, not even if i know i will suffer as a result.  i am more afraid of dying without ever having known what real love is.  i can tell you, right now, that i do not believe i have ever experienced it.  not on the receiving end anyway.  not a healthy love.  it seems definitions for love run the gamut and i am a dunce trying to figure out what the fuck i'm supposed to be doing and saying in the midst of it.


i'm supposed to be making art in the midst of it.
i'm supposed to be writing.


at very least, i know what my life is for.

art and pain

the man said Art doesn't work without pain.

i have been taught to disregard statements like that but, sometimes, when i look at my own work, the painful origins of my images are too stark and strong to deny. i read his statement again and see that it is honest, accurate in a way that makes me uncomfortable. uncomfortable maybe because i am an american and i want to seem tough, cool, collected, unshakable. then i remember i have a blog and i remember the things i've written on this blog and the reality of the situation dawns on me: OH SHIT! MY BLOG IS ON THE INTERNET! EVERYONE CAN SEE IT! hahahaha! silly, i know, but i try not to think about it. i've actually been pretty successful at convincing myself that no one reads this thing and that all my words here are really just skipping stones across a quiet lake. it's better for me to think that way about this practice because otherwise i might not say anything at all. i might become too embarrassed, too ashamed of my own life, my own lived experiences and expressions of pain. i might hide instead and cry where no one can see.

but where would be the benefit in that? where would be the art?

it is more than pain, something beyond pain, but pain nevertheless, in each contour, in every shimmer... because life is like that too. some things must be alchemised if we expect to be able to look at them. some types of pain has to be romanticized in order to even be carried. some pains are just that great, just that crushing. a conversion must take place. we develop new eyes, new words, new hands that are capable of holding new pain. we must, if we must continue.




Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terror, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.

— Anaïs Nin