all in

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i re-opened my etsy shop today.  it's something i've been wanting to do for quite sometime now and getting into the residency helped me pull the trigger on that this morning.  i'll be putting more and more things up for sale in the coming week, it was just important to open it today.  i simply needed to make the commitment to it.  and it's about more than just needing to raise funds for travel and supplies, it's about having an artistic presence in the world in as many forms and places as i feel able to and interested in.  it's about giving the art a chance to find its rightful home.  it's about taking my role as an artist a bit more seriously each day.

i've been watching my bosses lately, paying attention to how they move, the expressions on their faces, the way they carry themselves, how they speak and, most importantly, how much time they dedicate to their profession every day.  i started watching all this because 2 of them recently had birthdays and they were both in the restaurant on those days.  i'd remarked to our Sommelier "working on your birthday?  that sucks!" and her matter of fact retort was, "that's what this job takes."  her assertion stayed with me the rest of the evening and has followed me around in the weeks since, popping in to my brain almost daily, and is now slapping my in the face with a very simple truism: those who work daily toward their goals, undaunted and with total stubborn persistence, achieve them. those the road through this world is a bit more unclear for artists, it is nevertheless true that making a 7 day a week commitment to ANYTHING will eventually lead to success.  and i'm not even sure what i mean when i use the word "success" in relation to art as i largely already consider myself to be successfully living s an artist-  i wake up every day with enough time to luxuriate in the landscape of my diary before getting dressed for work.  i tend to work a 4-day work week and therefore have 3 days off every week to dedicate toward my own artist aims, whether it be holing up in bed and geeking out on a project of spending an entire day flipping through the monographs of artists i adore. i successfully incorporate art into my daily life.  but i'd rather be plugging 12 to 14 hours a day in to my practice than do anything else.  if i can look at my bosses and take a hint from them, what i'm seeing is the glaring reality to pursue what i want with as much steam and muscle as i've got because, as the lady said, "that's what this job takes." 

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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

:)

on tuesday, i burned through my remaining pencils in a hot and dedicated round of drawing. yesterday, the fire was still burning high and i (painfully) managed to make a drawing using the pencil stubs- whittling them down until they were ridiculously short and impossible to control. ha! but the gnarly hand cramp that resulted was entirely worth it. not only because the drawing i made is really cool (pics soon), but also because it taught me something about dedication and perseverance. two things i really need and deeply prize.

growing up, the only thing that was consistent was instability and chaos. problems were solved by moving. and we moved a lot. the longest span of time i've spent under one roof is 4 years. and that particular roof is a fluke in the group. 2 years seems to be the average when i look back. and that's even been the case since i moved out on my own. not a lot of stability there. and, more and more, i recognize that stability is a necessity when working toward goals that require a tremendous amount of dedication and focus. daily focus, daily dedication, daily effort in a single direction. persistence and commitment become near-impossible without some sense of stability or confidence that world will not fall apart later this afternoon.

and so i've been supplying stability and consistency to myself. it isn't easy and, some days, it isn't fun either, to tell you the truth. but the benefits are fun. and i'm becoming completely focused on maintaining a deep consistency within myself from here on out, to the absolute best of my ability. it is the only thing i know will get me to where i want to go.

i want to experience positive, joyful, lasting changes in my life and the only way to achieve that is with hard work. dedication and unshakable confidence in the value of art and its governance of my life. i'll get where i'm going one day. i can't really control how much time it takes or how long i might walk down a particular road. but i can control my own levels of dedication to the work. practice. practice. practice. and to truly make a deep, 7 day a week, commitment to art-making, learning, reading, writing, struggling, etc, etc, etc. and to a very large extent, i've already done that... but there's been a lot of second-guessing myself along the way. lots of waiting for the other shoe to drop... because, growing up, there always was another shoe and it always did drop.

but i don't live there anymore and all the shoes here are my own. i know nothing is going to fall apart later this afternoon and that it is entirely logical for me to trust the safety and security of my life at the present moment. i'm the one in charge and i supply my own level of encouragement, safety, and stability. and looking at my life from the outside, i can see i'm pretty good at that stuff. :)

the daily run, especially, has become a very active metaphor for how i want to live my life in general. with faith in The Practice. total trust in its Goodness. some days i catch myself trying to make excuses about why it might be alright to take the day off and just laze around. i'll tell myself oh, i did so much great work yesterday. i deserve to take it easy today and just clown around. it's a cutesy way of living in the past. yesterday is a wonderful memory. nothing more. if it does anything for Today, it lets me know that Today i can accomplish a great deal. but it isn't an excuse to take the day off. it's a brick to build with. today, i can keep building.

aren't i sickening!!!!! hahaha! but i tell ya, my winding daily affirmations are working for me! working wonders! i'm trying for tunnel vision these days. :)

BURN, BABY, BURN!

revision

i spent the entirety of yesterday going back and forth between two drawings and an essay on Revising Poetry. the day went by in a quick breeze of graphite and pages turned. the same few pages, over and over again, looking for an answer... but really, looking for an easy answer. the quick fix.

and then a very close friend of mine called crying. nothing tragic... except the tragedy of life itself... disillusionment. and feeling so pitifully unequal to the task before you. that horrible sigh that sweeps through your entire body. the sigh that says it's just so much work.

and though our daily circumstances are very different, the root issues that make up my and my friend's struggles are pretty much identical: tremendous worry and confidence that seems to fail too easily.

while we were talking i heard myself say: if i could just stop worrying so much, i'd get so much more done. all the time i spend worrying, all the time i spend trying to unearth myself from all this worry, could be spent actually working toward the goals i'm trying to reach. my own words sort of slapped me in the face. here i was, trying to build someone else up, trying to give them stamina for the fight, and i ended up saying exactly what i needed to hear. in fact, it's something that i need to hear on a fairly regular basis. that one step, one day, one drawing at a time, one word either read or written at a time, one thing learned, one thing gained, one inch at a time, i will end up building a life that feels right. it comes down to faith. belief in oneself... to keep the dream tight while the big bad world outside, rife with status symbols and expectations, screams NO in your face. to keep going, keep moving, no matter how short the ground i've gained is, in spite of the nay-sayers outside my window. to beat back my own disillusionment and truly believe in myself and the meaning i'm trying to create within my own life. do i really need re-assurance in order to do that? or even praise? those things sure do feel good, but are they really necessary?

i have always written. i have always made drawings and paintings. i have always sung in the shower. i think that as a result of being such a shy child, and also the massive tragedy that found my family so early, i clung to particular talents in an attempt to feel safe. these things became a sanctuary. they were the only site i had where i felt safe and was truly myself. opening up those talents to include the eyes and opinions of others is a very scary thing. basically, i don't want my sanctuary demolished or laughed at or called "flawed". and so i have to beat it in my head, over and over and over again, that my sanctuary is MINE, it's for ME, it is OF ME, and the words and eyes of others don't destroy that. it either welcomes them or it doesn't. and if my work fits well with the life of another human, it is a grand and beautiful thing. i can feel connected and strong and encouraged. i can feel less alone. but even if no one liked what i do, i'd still do it. i know this because that's always been the case. i've always written. i've always made pictures. i've always sung in the shower or some dark corner where no one could hear.

i guess becoming an artist is also about leaving the dark corner. finding a way to make that safety mobile. finding a way to carry the sanctuary with you, on your back like a hermit crab... a bookcase in the brain, all the bibles lined up one right after the other, and just say it matters to ME.

consistent, sustained action in a single direction. and if i come up against a wall and have to chip it down with my own toe-nails... well, that's exactly what has to happen then. and Revising Poetry feels pretty much just like that. this search. this wanting everything to work out... and work out RIGHT NOW. this dark road, no answer, except just keep going.

just keep going. just keep going. and don't make it bigger than it actually is. i have a very bad habit of that. i build things up to be so huge and scary and important in my own head... that nasty perfectionism that really only serves to silence me. that's where all this ridiculous worry originates. fear of my own imperfections. fear of being disappointing. fear of not being good enough. all the common worries of artists. of people in general.

part of maintaining my practice is learning how to trust the process of the thing itself. trusting that yesterday's activities of reading and drawing were, in fact, WORK and that i did move forward... whether or not i can actually feel it. a lot of the struggle of being an artist is overcoming a shit ton of really bad social and cultural lessons- definitions of what constitutes success, what constitutes value.

a lot of this is simply going my own way and not worrying about it so much.

and so... like revising poetry, it's going to take lots of time and effort and somehow managing to acquire fresh eyes every now and then. gaining a new perspective, a fresh perspective, and not giving up. and when i get stale-mated, put it in the drawer and come back to it later when i've learned more, experienced more, and have a better attitude about the task at hand... when i'm not so worried about "what it all means!" and "but is it even any good?"

sometimes, i have to try to let the joy of the act be enough. because it is. it really really is. and to wrap my mind around the fact that, YES, even "work" can be joyful.

writing

" ...Don't wait for inspiration. Push yourself to find the poetry lurking in the ordinary corners of a lived life."

- Dorianne Laux



i found this quote scribbled in one of my notebooks from two years ago when i re-committed myself to learning about writing. i had set my writing practice down when i entered art school. not consciously, just the case. the level of focus required for painting at the time was something i had to fight hard for. i wasn't able to flip the switch and move from thinking in terms of images to thinking in terms of phrases. now, i see they are exactly the same thing. but in school, i couldn't see that. the writing i did was either essays or acts of secret journaling. nevertheless, the call toward poetry presented itself in those forms and i read Ariel and The Journals of Sylvia Plath my last semester in school. A month or so later, i was here in wine country, waking every morning and immediately reaching for my notebook. sometimes i'd walk to the center of town where there is a lonely green bench and i'd set up my writing studio there. one day a man passed by and in the most gorgeous european accent he said "look at you! look how wonderful you are! writing like that right here! i hope you get a million dollars!" he made me giggle and blush and his wish for me was a bright, much needed encouragement right then. right then that exact minute. i needed to know that someone else saw value in the act too. still so awkward in it but so so hungry for it. two years later and i've gotten a little better. two years and i still reach for my notebook as soon as i wake up. i haven't gone down to the green bench in a very long time. maybe i should start that up again. there was a valuable innocence in it. and a valuable resistance too. an act of privacy right out in public. my humanness.

i didn't read the notebook very long. 10 minutes at the most. and it wasn't the hard events at the time that were painful to read, but rather my descriptions of myself- fresh out of school, driven to chase down a life that felt right, strong in spite of my autobiography. shortly after those words were written was when i really started to spiral. when the loss and pain of my life became too heavy and the madness of a huge depression really started to sink in and crawl around. i put the notebook down. i can remember all those things just fine. and for now i prefer to look at certain things through the lens of time. the rawness of the language, the youth of it, embarrasses me a little. i can describe those events much better today. i can be more honest about them too. and i'm sure i'll say the same thing two years from now about the things i'm writing today. and that's okay. but waiting for masterpieces is a waste of work and a waste of life. growth never stops.

and i'm glad i came across that quote this morning too. i think artists live their lives as beginners in some ways- that sense of wonder about a how to make a poem or a painting is an important thing to hold on to. to never claim that you've got it all figured out. to ward of formula and resist the allure of your own tricks.

i worked right up til bedtime yesterday. i wrote an insane amount of words. the back and forth, erasing adding redacting eliminating coercing dance of the thing. choosing what stays put and what to kick out. the sacrifice inherent to the job.

it's exactly like painting.

putting up plans...

my mind is spinning spinning spinning on new year's resolutions, coming up with all sorts of funky ideas to play with: making a quilt, a sweater, black and white striped curtains... fun stuff like that. but i've also been thinking about more businessy things too. it must be done. big on that particular list is refreshing my shop every quarter which spells quite a bit of work on my part but also, if i can manage it, a bigger commitment to my career in a very tangible way. and that's always a good thing. and i'll be starting on that now, making new drawings and things to offer up come january first. everything that's in the shop now will disappear come the first of the year and then every three months the shop itself will be re-curated with new work. keep it fresh, right? that's the name of the game, i've learned. and it doesn't seem easy but it'll keep me moving forward, determined, and thinking about art in an ever-expanding way.

linked to that, i've decided to go ahead and do the 'a drawing day' thing too. i've always been so impressed by the artists who take this particular project on and there's a ton of blogs out there dedicated to this exact practice. the results are always wonderful. it expands the definition of what a drawing is and how to go about making one. for my purposes, at least at the beginning, i'm going to keep a fairly traditional definition in place: marks on paper. and i'm not going to wait for the new year either. i'm gonna go ahead and get rolling on that now so that when the first of the year hits i'll be off and running at full steam. i may even create a second blog to document it... we'll see. having a list of images without any text is sort of a nice aesthetic and i've noticed i'm a person who responds well to having an OUTSIDE to answer to. it keeps me in line. :) however it goes, it'll go well and i know it'll be such a beneficial and wonderful addition to my daily living. dedication = goodness. i draw almost every day as it is but sometimes i don't finish the drawing and it sits hidden in a portfolio for weeks and weeks before i remember it's there. so that's the catch: to finish a drawing, big or small, every single day for an entire year. this is a pretty steep commitment but i'm up for it. drawing, as an act, has always helped the paintings. always. and it's fun too. i'll keep you posted. i've got 5 1/2 weeks to work out my plan of attack on this and i'm pretty sure i'll need every bit of it. and maybe even a new camera.

other than that, the new year will actually be more about maintaining my current commitments and deepening them. The Almighty Jog, my morning writing time, reading, eating healthier foods, drinking more water, doing the dishes on a more regular basis, practicing good listening skills, the laundry. ha! you know, the stuff that makes life better and a bit easier. and i think i'll save the "drink less coffee" resolution for later. i just love that hazelnut dreaminess way too much. i only got involved in the whole coffee-craze about three years ago so i've got some time before i start feeling the ill effects of a rampant and unrestricted coffee addiction. bare with me on that one. besides, it helps me write and paint and it just tastes too good to let go of. not yet, not yet, not yet. ;)

you don't work, you don't eat...

that's exactly right. exactly. and this painting thing nourishes me in more ways than one. after getting rattled a few days ago and losing a whole bunch of time to feeling inadequate and unsure, i have retrieved my confidence from the toilet and have established a NO SELF-PITY rule when it comes to my practice and to art in general. it's a time waster and it's silly anyhow. i knew when i started that it'd be an uphill battle. i knew it'd be the hardest thing i'd run across yet. i knew there'd be tons of rejection and tons of disappointments along the way. i knew. and i was fine with that. i knew that THIS is what i'm meant to do and meant to be and after 11 years, i STILL know it. however many times i get knocked down, it is for damn sure i will be standing back up. no question about it. whatever pitfall, it's worth it. whatever blow to my ego, it's worth it. whatever karmic slap, it's worth it. this isn't just my "job", it's my life's work and no amount of rejection or struggle or disappointment or attack will change that. ever.

so this morning, i will run and i will work and i will not lose any more time to nursing a bruised ego. i believe in what i'm doing. eventually, others will as well. i'm knee deep in paying dues at this stage in the game and, truth be told, i'm happy to pay them. i am happy to take my knocks. i'm happy to prove myself and my level of dedication. it is a bright beautiful day and i am resolved to not slow down. ever.

the work horse is back on the job.