day one

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i celebrated the first day of 2014 by getting another yarnbomb out in the world. happy new year, everybody.  :)  what way do you need to be loved?


18th street between mission and valencia in san francisco.

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in the wee hours of christmas eve...

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one slow stitch at a time.


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stitch by stich

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a beautiful sunday evening at home.

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don't

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untitled (don't)
50 x 38.5
graphite on paper
angela simione, 2013

available at Darger HQ.

the way you need to be loved

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16th street, san francisco CA

angela simione

severed and encouraged

i don't know what i want to say.  something has shifted in me since going to europe.  i can't describe it.  i was so immediately calm once boarding the plane from london to berlin.  so indefinably calm, at ease in the most remarkable way.  natural.  i was never once afraid.  but now here i am, back in the U.S. and not knowing what exactly to do with myself...

i sign up for french classes and decide i need to know more about cheese and wine.  i'm sitting here with my second bottle of Gewurztraminer and a block of Parmesan Romano.  my roommates are helping.  we all feel spoiled.  we all feel special.  life is good.

but my heart aches.  it pulls toward those old bridges.  my broken german longs for a bit of completion.  that strange sadness finds me every couple days. travel sadness.  the need to be back in germany and walking across the Oberbaum Brucke, the need to race through berlin on the back of a blond's motorcycle, the need to sit quietly at a cafe and sip a latte while i scribble in my diary.  it all sounds so lofty and spoiled to american ears but maybe what i'm talking about is simply Living.  maybe what i'm describing are the simple pleasures that come from trusting a stranger simply because you receive an unnameable buzz while in their presence and decide to follow the white hot line of it.  maybe what i'm describing is the utter joy that floods one's being once deciding that Flatliners was right and today really is a good day to die...  so take a deep breath and embrace what you've got.  i'm trying to tell myself exactly that right now.  i'm attempting to play tourist every day and see california as a foreigner might.  it's a tall order but i'm having a great time trying to satisfy it.  still, loneliness finds me.  i just need to be in the wind.  i'm in that Searching phase of life.  i need no schedule and no expectations, just a map and a hunk of bread stuffed in my backpack.


...


while i was away, from time to time i worried about my yarnbombs. i worried whether they'd been taken down yet, snipped away by passersby who wanted a bay-area souvenir or an angsty teenager who felt akin to the sentiments.  i was relieved and ecstatic to find them all in place upon my return.  each and every banner from Aileen to 59th was still there.  AND!!! it seemed as if someone had even been tending to them- straightening them out as they slid down the stop sign poles and making sure the text was straight and discernible.  a week or so later, i noticed two had disappeared.  then, as i walked to the train station this weekend on my way to work i found two banners sliced off and cast to the ground:

 

the jaggedness of the cuts and the fact that these pieces were then thrown aside let me know that the person who cut them down didn't give a shit about this work and, in fact, was probably pissed off.  this is a wonder to me.  i've never actually ever seen a yarnbomb be so violently removed from public view.  but then again, i've not seen any pieces in the bay area that employ text.  maybe the message angered this person???  maybe they found it annoying and was tired of walking passed it on their way to the train???  whatever the reason, this person was obviously angry as evinced by the fact that not all the banners on telegraph have been cut down, only those on a particular block.  basically, i'm saying they weren't cut down by the authorities.  the authorities would have removed them ALL and wouldn't have cast them into the street.

i'm not at all hurt or offended.  if anything, i'm encouraged.  this type of response lets me know i'm on the right track and that i need to keep going.  i felt a sense of lost whenever a banner would disappear before i went on my trip.  so much so that i replaced the one at 58th and telegraph (whoever you are :)  ).  but something changed in me...  i feel more generous these days, more open to evolution and the pain of transformation.  i feel spurred on by your violence.  your anger gets me hot.  it leads to a deep sense of resolve.  i don't give a fuck.  laugh at me or ignore me.  whatever.  slice my work to pieces, just know i'm sitting at my kitchen table tonight eating Parmesan cheese and drinking a lovely bottle of Gewurztraminer:  my feelings are not hurt.  in fact, i like having these photographs of my fallen banners.  i like having them laying on the corner of my bed.  i plan to frame them.  they have a history now, a story i could never have provided that adds to their beauty and intelligence.  it's beyond description.  

i am thankful for the raggedness that my hands are incapable of dealing.  

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just the beginning

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over a year in production, The Blanket of DOOM is finally finished.   mostly.  a few small tweaks here and there, a few loose yarn ends to be woven in to the grain of stitches, and a ton of photographs to take before i can legitimately refer to this project as Done.  in fact, it could be quite some time before i see the end of this particular piece.  the photo up top signals what i envision for The Blanket: a life prior to finding itself on display in a gallery.  we'll see where we end up together.  :)

but it is a happy moment to see her in all her good glory.  so many long hours and evening spent hooking away at this piece.  it is an expression of dedication and faith that, even if imperfect, the idea was a good one and to chase it to the end.  there were plenty of times at the very beginning of this massive undertaking that i wanted to give up, unravel the entire thing, and focus on smaller projects.  there were plenty of weeks when i didn't touch her at all.  couldn't.  even hated the idea of working on her.  there were plenty of times when i dreaded the work that needed to be done.  it seemed so endless.  impossible. 

when i finally reached the half-way mark, my hope and strength returned and i felt committed to seeing the project through to the end regardless of how it turned out.  i no longer needed it to be any good and i just wanted to make the blanket for me.  i began to see it as a landscape...  a road...  a way to learn something deeper about who i am and the type of artist and human i want to be.  a poem to wrap myself in.

Lea had said to me once, "your work is so devotional."  her voice came back to me so many times while i worked on The Blanket.  what is Devotion?  what is it to devote oneself to something?  what does it require?  it comes down to an unspeakable trust.  i trust my work with all that i am and all that i've got.  i entrusted my entire life and self to it a long time ago and haven't questioned it since.  my road through this world might very well be different from others but it is a good one and my work has proven itself to be the very best map and guide.

the picture of me laying on top of the Blanket of DOOM was taken this morning in my kitchen.  she takes up the entire floor.   i'm 5'6".  each letter in DIE is taller than i am.   but the work has always been, and always will be, bigger than me and that has nothing to do with physical scale.  :)

 

so happy i could DIE

crochet

kingsize blanket

angela simione, 2013

YO!

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For Immediate Release
Slingshot: Launa Bacon, Lea Feinstein, Freya Prowe , Angela Simione

What………Group exhibition: Literati
When………Feb. 10 through early March
Reception….Thursday, Feb.10th, 6-9pm
Location……Slingshot Gallery, 890 Valencia St., San Francisco, CA
Hours………Thurs -Fri 12-5pm, Sat-Sun 1-6pm
Contact……Freya Prowe: freya@freyaprowe.com, 323.350.1042

Whether taking the shape of a poem, fairy tale, diary entry, grocery list, or miscellaneous receipt, text fuels the tempo of life and identity. It establishes the contour and texture of a day. Language, in its many forms and functions, creates and re-creates reality. It is through words that the world is made.

Whether building poems from spatters of coffee, building zoos of dark fantasy from children's tales, or finding a reflection of one's identity in the life story of a writer, the artwork in Literati offers a map of how text expands our loves, fears, ideas, desires, and philosophies. The artists in this exhibition, great lovers of books and language, pay personal homage to the power of the written word.

Launa Bacon’s work is middlebrow, low-def and “creepy.” Her work is often an examination of the narratives that shape female identity.

Lea Feinstein’s performance and installation work incorporates narratives drawn from nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and other “domestic” sources. She also creates mixed media art books which include her personal narratives.

Freya Prowe’s work is lyrical, dark and draws upon the tradition of European fairy tales of her childhood. Prowe creates images that playfully prey upon the duality inherent in human interactions.

Angela Simione uses the methods of erasure to create her own "redacted" documents, making metaphors for the experiences of loss. Simione presents fragments, tiny bits of evidence, allusions to a lost history.



image:
Dutiful (1 & 2)
44" x 30" each
graphite on attached paper
angela simione, 2010

smack-jack

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nina hagen

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lucky :)

yesterday, while a hard and mean rain came down, i sat in the gallery space and finished my drawing and installation for the december show at Slingshot. the pic up top is a detail shot of the 300 crochet roses that comprise a large work titled Worry Roses (for my mother, for myself). it is the 2nd of its kind. you can see the first here.

i feel honored and lucky to have a space where i can do this kind of work.. where this kind of work is encouraged and supported and seen as relevant. it wakes something up in me. something i somehow lost... knowing that this kind of work IS WORK. so many hours goes in to work like this. hand cramps and a numb ass too. ;) but it's all worth it. when the final rose went up, i layed my hands and face against the piece and relaxed myself in to its scent and softness and listened to the rain come down, the city traffic, and mariachi from down the street.

come see her tomorrow night. we are taking part in the Mission Holiday Block Party so the reception goes until 9pm. doors open at 6.

Temple of Flora @ Slingshot Gallery890 Valencia @ 20th
San Francisco

the end

the end
39" x 51"
graphite and gouache on paper, 2010

divine excuse!

i just found out that september 12 - 18 is National Arts in Education week! YAY!!!! this is a great excuse to fawn all over your favorites, research their work and ideas, or just bask in the awesomeness of painting, drawing, sculture, needlework, film, photography, performance, fashion, poetry, fiction, dance, etc, etc, etc!

ART GEEK IT UP!

here's 15 favorites of mine. i could've easily hit 100. 15 seemed a bit more fair. hahaha! i leave the research to you and your very capable hands. :)





kasimir malevich



annette messager




tracey emin




yuken teruya




vanessa beecroft




kiki smith




henry darger




ed ruscha




banks violette




sally mann




gerhard richter




anselm kiefer




anna gaskell




jenny holzer




artemisia gentileschi

small collection of small paintings

it is not peaceful.

it is because i am the middle-child. text-book that way. secret keeper and all that. learning how to pick battles carefully. learned already. and the great mass of information that i have, quiet and still under the line of the water. beneath. asleep. maybe not asleep. maybe not anymore.

the slow advance.

the cycle of thawing and freezing. melt a little. re-freeze. let the slush find its way back to ice. it is infinite. steady. sturdy. silent. a killer dressed in white. lace at the neck. it only looks soft.



middle child
15" x 22"
graphite on paper
angela simione, 2010

partnership

i've been thinking a lot lately about diptychs and triptychs... pairs of images or a small collection of images that, though they might seem disparate, are not. and how the audience, the viewer, is very important is helping create narrative... that maybe i'm more of a guide or suggestive force than an artist who aspires to giving concrete answers. that i could set up an environment, a point A and point B, and then relinquish control; let the viewer "draw" the line between the two points:

as promised...

the gratitude fridge...













my sweetie says i should leave it. :)

hello chicago!

i am so happy to announce my new representation at Ashes & Milk in Chicago! since the moment i saw their online gallery, i was completely taken in and have dreamed of being able to offer something beautiful to the collection. i am honored that Ashes & Milk is presenting two of my embroidered territories. read more about this work here.


Territories 11
available at Ashes & Milk

keep your hands busy...