writer problems

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i need to start over, perhaps. 

i need a different set of rules (or maybe no rules at all) when it comes to this place, when it comes to words on a page, when it comes to reaching out to other human beings through these electronic waves.

i've had this little sandbox of mine for so long, this blog. the last few months it's become increasingly hard to write here and i'm not sure why.  i want to write here.  i miss having a daily love affair with my blog and want to rekindle my fervor. walking home from the grocery store this evening, i agonized over why it's been so hard for me to come here, to type out the words...  and i think it's because i'm judging the whole enterprise by what this blog has been and not allowing for what it could be.  i'm not allowing for change and so it's become stagnant.

maybe i needed a break for awhile too.  maybe i needed to step away from the out-pour.  maybe i needed a bit of privacy.  everyone needs to curl up under the covers some times and just hide from life.  i'm no different.  perhaps that's all i've really been doing by not writing here: claiming a space of silence for myself, allowing myself a deep, abiding privacy and quietude.

some explorations are necessarily made under lock and key, away from the eyes and ears of the world, in total darkness, in total silence, under the sheets, without words, without record, without apology.  i've largely enjoyed my silence. still, it isn't me to not write.  it is such a huge part of who i am and how i live.  there is the diary, yes, and there always will be but the writing i do there is entirely different from what lands in public spaces.  a different impulse is responsible for bringing me to this electric square of light and a different urge is satisfied when i type.  a different demon is exorcised when i publish my thoughts here. 

i need to just let this space evolve.  evolve or die.  the strictures must be chopped away and i need to hold on to the fact that this place was always intended to be a place where i could say whatever i wanted, without fear and without judgement.  it's always been meant to be a play-space.  it's unhelpful for me to judge my life and self and writing NOW by what i wrote BEFORE.  i need to let go of the writer i used to be and nurture the writer i am now. i'm not who i once was.  the temperature of my entire world has changed and, when i look back, certain days feel like total fictions. 

how do i set myself free from what my own practice has been?  how do i stop holding up current projects to the expectations set down by previous accomplishments?  how do i write without thinking at all about what i've written before?  how do i begin again?  how do i start anew?  because that's exactly what needs to happen.


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destruction/creation

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this self (destroyed self portrait)
3" x 3" digitally photographed half-frame photograph
angela simione 2014

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the morning after

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regardless of the weather...

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


the fracturing of The Sublime.


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connecting

last night i finished reading The Passport by Herta Muller and then immediately started reading The North China Lover by Marguerite Duras. this is a lucky and perfect pairing of work. the forms involved! Muller's non-chapter way of writing, the whole work broken up in to fragments. tiny short stories with a title centered over-head. and the entire book worms this way. back and forth between the present, memories. persistent memories. and sorrow. sorrow so deep, so confusing, reality bends. a clock on the wall becoming an evil portent. delicious writing. all the more delicious due to her use of simple words. fragmented sentences that make your breath irregular. and then Duras. lovely, aching Duras. no chapters here either. just spaces in the page. and some paragraphs are written in poetry forms rather than paragraphs of prose. back and forth, winding through tempos, such perfect companions. i'm on page 72.

this morning is cold. i have a cup of english breakfast tea with nothing in it. but it is hot, naturally sweet, a beautiful and simple taste. completely different than coffee. and an unforeseen welcome change in my morning routine.

yesterday, i crocheted almost all day long. there is something about the soft black of yarn paired with the soft black of graphite that has caught my heart. it has my complete attention. and maybe the action of these modes of making too- one mark at a time: drawing. one stitch at a time: crochet. some sort of very personal, very intimate mapping. and although the textile work hides the "hand" of the maker, the anonymity of the stitches seems poignant to me. when i hang a drawing next to one of the crochet pieces, a very beautiful dialogue erupts. something unexpected and i feel so compelled by it. not only to follow this route, but as a looker. when i look at the work, i feel compelled to keep looking at it. there is a mystery in it maybe. or some type of honest land being built. or navigated through. and this is a wonderful feeling. it feels like finally telling the truth. like letting go of an old, hard secret.

a few days ago i was driving and decided to listen to Post by Bjork. i hadn't listened to it in years and it used to be one of my favorite cds. i popped it in the cd player and turned the volume up loud. music has become important to me again. out of nowhere. for a long time, music stopped being important to me and i felt very sad - almost ashamed - of that fact. and it was also a Loss. music was my very first love as a child. music and words. i found opportunities to sing in secret every chance i could. singing- a safe room. and song 2 on the disk began. it had always made tears well up in my eyes and make my throat tighten. something about this song had always called up a swell of deep emotion. so deep, i have no clue the origin. and it happened again, like no time had passed. i steered the car with tears in my eyes and a runny nose. i didn't try to stop myself. i let the song reach in and pull out whatever it wanted to. and when the song ended and the next began, i felt wide open and unafraid of the world.

then i thought the line that calls up all that emotion is my most perfect artist statement:

i go through all this
before you wake up
so i can feel happier,
to be safe up here with you.

play it loud. this is the song:







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signify

the little icon i use as my "picture" here - the severed rope of braided hair - is my hair hung on a lonesome nail. i chopped it off three and a half years ago.

i caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror the other day. my old self. the self i know. the self i remember and feel lonely for. slender from The Almighty Jog, not skinny. and my hair, already grown long and wild with curls again. a fast growth. a fast return. perhaps my hair missed me too. :)

and what a happy glimpse it was. a moment of safety. security. something true. i am returning to myself- ideas i had been discouraged away from, fallen beliefs, poems. they sweep in like dust, like glitter, like hair across the eyes. it is a welcome warmth. a deep quilt full of ink stains and promise.

i know the face in the mirror again. i know the direction of the eyes. i know the lines at the edge of the smile.

i've been crocheting again. making new banners. messages. preparing for winter when i can use my body as a billboard. i will don the signs and signifiers. a quiet(er) performance. a true performance. drape my form in the ideas and modes i cling to. use the structure of skeleton and muscle as if it were a gallery wall. it seems honest. it seems necessary.

and as i twist the yarn through my fingers, over the hook, i return to my previous wide-open definition of ART. i return to the deep knowledge that a painting is no more important than a quilt or poem or necklace. it is all ART. the differences between are just a preference of form. a way to capture the signifiers, harness them, bend them to desire and need.

it is a cold day here. a day for doing the laundry and then returning to bed with my coffee and crochet hook. a day for a quiet(er) happiness.

this road

i ran out of my delicious hazelnut and walked down to the market to buy more. on the way, i saw a hand painted sign in the window of a boarded up (papered up? sheets of white butcher paper on the inside of the windows) storefront that read closed for renovations in quite a lovely, humble, careful script. the letters were a dusty red on a flat white background. it looked like whoever painted it really took their time- no drips, no sloppy edges with the brush. and it reminded me of margaret kilgallen's work- her fascination with the signs people make for their small business, hand-made cultures, the beauty that follows actions of necessity. and i stopped to look at the sign again on my way back home. it's very simple but something in it spoke very loudly to me about my own life and struggle and pursuits at the moment.

closed for renovation.

i guess that's how i feel right now.

especially about oil painting. as a mode, it just seems so final, so serious, so declarative. and i'm not trying to make any declarations whatsoever in my work right now. i'm searching, hunting, excavating, mapping. and these modes are curious, exploratory. definitely not FINAL. not ABSOLUTE. and oil painting feels like that to me right now. maybe it's the history of oil painting flooding over? maybe it's the grand authority of oil? a confrontation with expectation? maybe maybe maybe...

but pencil, paper... their common attributes. humble, easy to access, the materials of map making. these things call me. they encourage me. i reach for these materials and it feels right. it feels authentic and honest. the right tool for the job.

i'm at a new beginning in life in a whole lot of ways.

i am on my own right now in a whole lot of ways.

simultaneously scary and exciting.

but freedom isn't an easy thing and it doesn't quickly line up with "happiness". there is struggle in those fiesty veins. and more and more i think that the work we make decides for us what type of artists we are, what type of life, what type of "career", what type of happiness we come to. my only choice in the matter is to hold on to the things i value and to stand with my ethics when the world breathes its confusion in my face. the only choice i have is to not crumble, to keep digging, to keep running, one day at a time, 15 minutes at a time, further and further down the harrowing highway.

i worry too much about things that are totally out of my control. a common human frailty, for sure. and i'm really trying to release myself from that shit right now. i'm trying very hard to trust The Work, trust The Process, trust The Materials, trust The Impulse. i've been carrying around one of my many Kiki Smith books again for days and days. again and again, i turn to her because she trusts her own work. she doesn't second guess the impulse. she just goes. and i have paired that book with Sylvia Plath's Ariel. they are laying together right now on the floor next to me. two bibles. two hymnals. two treasures. two books of hope and persistence. gems.

i see the mortality that surrounds us. how short, how small a day is.

i want my outsides to mirror my insides. i do not want to "live one way and pray another". i want my expressions to be as honest as possible. i want to whittle away at whatever hypocrisy exists in me.

and so i excavate. i writhe. i push the dirt aside.

i am trying to ignore fear.

i trust the pencil's scratch so completely. i trust it like i trust poetry. i trust it like a mother. i climb in to bed with my papers and all my blankets smell like graphite dust. they smell beautiful. my intimate "renovations".

maybe i'll make my own hand-painted sign? hang it on the wall in the living room. or maybe in the big window.

this is why rants and blogs are good:

i re-read the post below and realized i answered my own question: sit here and look at the work and shuffle it all around and see what narratives arise as a result. patience patience patience. curation is tough stuff. the worst thing i can do is rush and start forcing things together.

anyway, for all the writers in the room, here's a portrait for you. ;)




writer
15" x 12"
graphite on paper
angela simione, 2010

wondering, wandering, wondering...

yesterday, i had the same conversation with three different people about how to define a "body of work". what is the criteria?

materials? concept? aesthetic? serial? a combo?

one friend offered up the word Time as part of her personal approach to grouping work together and calling it a Body- that the work in the collection is representative of a particular time in her life... a time (or era, moment) defined by particular concerns... not necessarily whether or not the work LOOKS a certain way. another friend offered up the phrase "themed accumulation" which i really like. and again, nothing really about the LOOK of individual pieces but rather the concerns of the work. there is freedom in that. i like it. but it also starts complicating my already complicated issue.

my practice is, by nature, full of multiplicity. though i speak to the same concerns in all my work, the voice changes. multiple personality disorder, for sure. and though i joke about that a lot here on the blog, when sitting down to the task of putting things in order, i get lost pretty easily at first.

right now, as i continue to wind my way through all my portfolios, taking pictures and seeing what i've got, i find recurrent themes or modes or LOOKS that guide me in putting all this work in to Bodies... but i also see how these Bodies are really body Parts... and how they relate to one another and how i got from point A to point B, shifting through voices, making the issues deeper, more complex and multi-faceted. like Sharon Olds' book "Satan Says".

i see how i do not stand firmly in either camp: critical vs. emotional. my work is a blend of the two. i care about both spheres equally. i think both are necessary. the union is necessary.

and so... how to group things? since the aesthetic i operate in is so strong - black and white - i have to be very careful when putting things in a line. they all LOOK good together because they are unified by palette. but just "looking good together" isn't enough. we black and white artists run the risk of looking "slick" if we go off looks alone. and, in art-speak, SLICK is not a good thing to be called. it means the work is superficial.

and so grouping work based on looks alone isn't going to work for me.

also, i very rarely stumble in to a "series". when i try to force a series, the inspiration for it dries up pretty fast because i start feeling like i'm just making the same painting over and over and over again and not really investigating anything. i'm much more interested in artists like Banks Violette who create collections of work rooted in concept, who trust the intelligence of the audience, who understand that the audience is entirely capable of seeing (or even making) the lines that connect one piece to another... that the audience can see the corollary between a painting and a drawings and a quilt and a found object thrown on the floor. it doesn't need to be ALL drawing or ALL painting or ALL sculpture. the audience does not need everything spelled out to them that way. to me, it's so interesting to see artists working across disciplines, embracing different modes and means of creating an image or object... giving substance to an idea by whatever means suits it best.

when i was first at CCA, i said that to a teacher and the teacher said "if you attempt to be a jack-of-all-trades, you'll be master of none". at the time, that statement was definitely warranted. definitely. i was all over the place in a very uninteresting way at that point. the work looked amateurish and floundering. and that's a stage everyone spends a pretty big hunk of time in. also, i didn't have any real conception (at that point) of what art is good for, how it can be harnessed, what its Past has been, and what it is up against now (thank you critical theory!). also, i really had no clue what I wanted to use art for... what I cared about and wanted to speak about and wanted to wrestle with. now, i do. and 2 years later, that same teacher totally encouraged me to let a painting be a painting and a drawing be a drawing and YES go ahead and nail a rope to the wall and a doll head and a rope of my own hair and see how these things function together. see how these seemingly "disparate" items speak to one another, see what dialogue arises. and it is so compelling (i think) to work that way. i love seeing other artists take that approach within their practice. it creates multiple layers of meaning. so much meaning that everyone, no matter what camp they belong to, can get something out of the work. it's an inclusive way to work.

the audience trusts the artist. artists who reciprocate that trust, artists like Banks Violette and Kiki Smith and Jordan Kantor, create spaces for experiences that are amazing and deep and i admire that so so much.

and so, as i go through this huge documenting phase, i continue to make new work too, getting inspired over and over again by having artwork spread all over the house. and i see that the lines connecting one piece to another are totally there, that the audience will see them too, and that my job is to not overload the issue... to not appear slick, the keep it sincere and meaningful and to really wrestle with the ideas i investigate by not compromising the work to any degree. especially not by sticking to the easy connections: all drawings on one side of the room, all paintings on the other. it feels false for me.

but tell me- how do YOU define a body of work? what criteria do you use? what assumptions do you discard? and how big must a collection be? could a collection consist of only 4 pieces? can it be small? do writers allow themselves the luxury of saying "these 4 poems or pieces are all it takes. finished!" visual artists do that all the time. if it is cohesive, it's cohesive. does size really matter in that regard? "narrative" will occur no matter what when you put two pieces of art side by side, whether or not they are similar.

so how do you group things? how do you define a body of work? what strictures do you impose? what is your governing logic? tell me. i am eager to learn.

process process process

i am deep inside the documentation end of things and will be locked up taking pictures the entire weekend. whhhoooooweeeeee! i did not realize i had this much work to photograph! most of it is on paper, tucked away in one of my many portfolios that are all over the house, hidden behind the paintings that are leaning against the walls. and as i go through each portfolio and pull the work out, i see how strongly rooted my entire practice is in the act of drawing/writing.

maybe drawing and writing are similar in more ways than simply being on paper? i think so. definitely so.

there's an intimacy in both practices. a very deep degree of Search and Explore. paper, being a common and humble material, fosters an amazing level of privacy. and that privacy, as an experience, encourages a ton of bravery. paper is easy to hide. easy to lock away. and i think the diaristic attribute of that is something so valuable and courageous that, as i go through all this work, i bounce back and forth between opposing shudders of elation and embarrassment. ha! but embarrassment in a good way- a necessary exposure. work that does not pull it's punch and risks humiliation in order to go all the way. and that makes me feel great.

it helps me to see the all the work together. how, in spite of extreme shifts in stylistic approaches, all the work is rooted in the same concepts. whether it be oil on canvas or shoe prints on paper, it all comes up from the same well. it all grows in The Blackland and i think each piece lends itself to every other piece in a very nourishing, substantiating way. a very very VERY interesting conversation ensures when all this work is allowed to rub elbows with one another, for sure.

here's some "diary pages". the more i look at this sector of my practice, the more i like it and the more i want to lean deeper in to it. none of this work is titled yet and i'm not sure what i'll do with it. maybe nothing. maybe everything.

the 2nd one down has been following me around for 2 years now and, originally, i thought of it as some sort of sign for myself. i had it hanging in my studio and it would fall off the wall and i walked all over it a few times because i didn't think of it as art. but i guess getting a few pale shoe prints on it added something to the piece, gave it a new layer of meaning along with the dirt. :) i like it.

the 3rd piece was originally an art poster i got in the mail promoting an exhibition that i quickly redacted.

and the first piece was finished just yesterday. a mono-print of silver blowing leaves that i wrote all over. is it a drawing or a poem or a diary page? having those kinds of questions come up is exactly why i like it and why i like ART in general.

okay okay okay

time to get back to the regularly scheduled program.

i must. my routine is too damn precious to be allowed to spiral. it really is. i'm the kind of person that needs structure within a day... even if i don't like it, even if that structure is easy and joyful, i need it. i need to get out of bed at the same time every morning and go make coffee, go write in my notebook, obey The Almighty Jog, and then go to work. too many days spent away from the schedule tends to make me feel like i'm lacking something. and of course, when hard hours hit, the schedule seems to be the very first thing sacrificed.

sometimes, that's necessary. but sometimes, it's caused by sadness and fear. and when the latter is the case, abandoning The Routine makes a day more chaotic than it might have been.

the weird and inexplicable events of late were definitely a bit distracting but, after touring SFMOMA with my friend, everything felt right in the world again. i felt such a deep joy and freshness within myself standing in front of those gorgeous, gorgeous paintings. and it gave me the strength to look at my own work with a stiffer resolve... and also the direction i need to move in. there's an un-fun business decision on the back-burner, on the horizon, that, though based in positivity, is never the less sort of daunting and sad. and on the heels of this, comes some very scary, very serious news about my family member who is currently fighting cancer. the great sweeping wind of resolve that found me when i was standing in that cathedral of a museum, effectively blew off somewhere else and yesterday i was pretty much derailed and depressed. i went running. i took a shower. i working on a drawing for a few hours. that was pretty much it. when J got home, we vegged out in front of the TV and watched a harry potter movie. not normally my cup of tea, but it did the trick. i was distracted from the hard hours and allowed to feel something other, something lighter, than this weight of fear- the weight of The Unknown. and i'm all the better for it this morning.

i have my cup of coffee and i've done my scribbling and i'm picking up my schedule. i wrote 15 minutes on my forearm to remind me how to proceed today- 15 minutes at a time, if need be. i am no longer feeling crushed and sucker punched. i am surrounded by paintings that i care about, paintings i believe in, that i can see are Good, and i am sitting inside faith today rather than fear.

i'll take a long, long run this morning. it has become such a private and beautiful act. completely like prayer. i will let it do its good work so that i may do mine.

good morning.

i've missed you. :)

drawing

the sun is up

yesterday, after i wrote that big beast of a post below, i got lost in a word document for the rest of the day. what began as a letter, morphed in to an odd twisty curly memoir-ish sort of thing that just kept rolling and rolling and rolling. i'd write for awhile and then stand up and walk around the house and go outside with my dog for a minute and then come back in and get another cup of coffee and look at my paintings for a minute and then the next line would pop in my head so i'd sit right back down in front of the glowing rectangle and write some more. back and forth like that over and over again. and before i knew it, my sweetheart was walking back in the door from work and the sun was beginning to drop and 4,000 words were sitting in front of me. 4,000 words is not a ton but all inside a single day it sort of is and its been happening like that more and more frequently lately. the last few months, my stamina for The Work in general has steadily increased and i find myself coming up on the end of the day so quickly lately. and i find myself worn out when i get in to bed. and excited to go to bed so that i can wake up early and get back to it the next morning.

maybe it's because the sun comes up so much earlier now? maybe it's because i have to obey The Almighty Jog so much earlier now that summer is here? maybe it's because i have finally learned how to obey a Bed Time? maybe it's all the books i'm reading? maybe it's learning how to just fucking relax a bit and not worry so much about what all this might add up to or what it means? maybe it's because i type out all this weird self-exploration here on a public blog where anybody who wants to see it can?

whatever it is, a surge had resulted. and this letter i started writing is to a person i don't even know. it's in response to something they wrote, something that touched a bad memory and i saw something of myself, some of my regrets and fears in their work, i wanted to tell somebody i suppose about the time i feel i've lost...

and so this letter curves all around, runs in 4 directions at once, goes wild and sad and strange. and i realize while i write it that i haven't lost any time at all. that everything that came before leads up to Right Now and Right Now is full of excitement and enthusiasm and commitment. Right Now i have a story to tell. and so it's a letter that will never be "sent" because it's no longer a letter. it's this whole other thing and my mind and heart are wrapped up in it and there's some huge wind of honest exposure and acceptance that flows out of it already- the undoing of secrecy, the unraveling of expectation. and my long-windedness unleashed a bright wind of hope yesterday. rambling, stuttering, striving. a search taking place. a map being made. bad teeth being removed. the ugly bed being made. yesterday was a good day.

and so The Almighty Jog awaits. and the letter. and the curling road. and oil on the wall and graphite on the palm and dog's ears to scratch and hope to have and coffee coffee coffee and word words words. the bang of keys and the scratch of things and today i think i'll spend a little time singing.

how are you?

whirl

this day has moved fast fast fast. i look up and it's afternoon already. almost evening. a dizzying array of words spilled out after hours at the canvas. i am worn out but then there's the feeling of the chase still stuck in my fingers and shoulders and heart and brain. chase chase chase the thing down. and really, i have no clue what it is i'm writing. it's all locked up in my notebook and i don't have the fortitude right now to dig it up and type it out. the scribbling was so wild that i'm a bit high-strung from it all. dizzy. but hungry. that feeling of absolute need. a headache on the horizon, i'm sure. ha! but whatever it is- all these paintings and poem-type things that i have no idea what they are, feel important. they need attention and polish and patience too. patience is something i am bad at when it comes to all this. i get so excited and i just want to find a way to send it out in to the world. but these weeks of keeping so much work to myself, hanging on the wall for just me to look at, and pages open just for me to read... it makes a nest in a way i haven't had in a long time. this slowness is necessary. the baking hours. incubation and protection.

note to self:

there's no such thing as a perfect painting. it isn't even about that. perfection is boring. there's no mystery. no search. no struggle. no discovery. it isn't effective. or affective either. perfection has no function. it is already solved. it is isolated and requires nothing. it has no needs. it has no desires. it is uninteresting.

grrrrr

i'm in very strange head space today. have been actually for the past couple of days. agitated is the correct word. but i knew this feeling would find me when i was working on the big snarling dog painting. i knew it was going to cut something loose. and here it is. and words fail. and all i want to do is rant and rave, hoping to locate words that don't fail. all i want to do is drink coffee til my guts explode, yell at the stupid face in the mirror, complain complain complain, and then go paint fucked-up angry images. that growl. that growl made of oil leaning against my big bookcase in the living room certainly has unblocked something deep. i am wrestling and reaching and crying for the thing i'm chasing to slow down so i can get closer to it. flailing embarrassed like a confused child, like a lost teenager. where's my knee socks and mary janes? where's my music that will strike fear in the authority figures? where's my temper tantrum? where's my F-BOMB? a bitch all in black.

smear it

oil everywhere. fanatical. taken in. taken deep and getting lost. but that's how maps are made. stumble. stumble. stumble. it's still a procession. it still counts. i don't know the name of the road and so what.

:)

oh, i am worn out. i'm very glad tomorrow is saturday and i can sleep in a bit.

after finishing the beast yesterday, i started priming another canvas of the same size. i've noticed that doing the grunt work, the prep work, keeps me hungry for the "real" work. the nuts and bolts of a practice are very important- the little things that keep you rolling forward. my shoulder muscle is sore and it feels good.

i haven't enjoyed such a big explosion of creativity in a long time it seems. but i guess (maybe) (possibly) i haven't been myself in a long time either... and these things are linked. chained. padlocked together.

for awhile there, i think i mistook the dreams other people held for me for the dreams i have for myself. i think i got really hung up on what other people expected or wanted and lost sight of what i want to do with my life and time. and i think that happened because for awhile there, the two sets of dreams lined up. they matched. and so i didn't notice right away that my dreams were trying to change. or maybe i did and i got sad about it, resisted it. the death of a dream can be a painful thing.

but it isn't a bad thing. hard, but not bad. and it's actually quite freeing to get to a place in life where trusting my instincts is the right thing to do. to have the ability to trust them is wonderful. a whole new way of seeing comes in to play and i begin to trust myself and trust the work in a deeper way. fearlessness breeds fearlessness. confidence breeds confidence. i feel better and better. i'm being myself. i'm opening up. i'm experiencing a tremendous wealth of new ideas, new interests. and this gives rise to new dreams. amended dreams. some dreams just needed a bit of a tweak and that's happening now.

and reading has been such a large part of that. reading widely, not just sticking to what i know. i actively search for new material, new ideas, contemporary authors and poets and bloggers. and writing every morning in my notebook. first thing. first cup of coffee and the pen in my hand. that practice has been going on for about 2 years now and it has made all the difference.

so today, i'll be mindful of these things. read and write and go jogging with my dog. the sun is up and the sky is dry. i'll do the grunt work and get a healthy sweat going and i will trust that all these things matter because they DO make my life so much better. and i won't worry about a damn thing.

happy friday. ;)

very much a fever

the storm has arrived. down down down it comes, dropping the white sky all on my roof and windows. drops dancing wild and mean. it is okay by me. i've been feeling much the same way lately. the urge to pour, to drop, to spit. and so i have been- all over my massive canvas. 5 feet tall, a snarl in oil.

my secrecy over the new work will end soon. but the fury of it needs a bit more time. privacy is a requirement. it feel like i'm building a bomb. or several bombs. it is a strange collection that might in fact splinter in to two separate bodies of work. icebergs and Jon Benet, her tire swing. a shower drain. an angry animal. there is a common cord the twists all this work together but i don't know yet how to name it. for now, i just go go go. draw paint write read scribble scribble scribble and make another pot of coffee.