moving and packing and unpacking and showing

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i keep telling myself that i should be packing but i don't even know for sure what that means or how to begin doing such a thing, let alone WHERE to begin, and i've done this so many times before but this is so much different.  this move is an entirely different experience. 

i secured a little Airbnb studio this evening for our first three weeks in Brooklyn.  that's not long but it's an address.  we have a launch pad and the tickets are bought.  this is happening.  i should be packing.  but what?  what should i be packing???  there are still 3 weeks to go. 

thankfully, i managed to get some art out in to the world so i have far fewer worries in that regard than i did before.  i really didn't want to cart a ton of artwork with me to the other side of the country.  i want to see what new images emerge.  or what old images return.  i want to see what i'll write and what i'll think and what i'll be drawn to, what i'll want to read.  i want to see what types of images and vocabularies i gravitate toward once i set down all these possessions, all these histories and ghosts.  but it's such hard work to make this type of room.  i have to touch everything.  i have to hold these objects in my hands.  i put on old necklaces and look in the mirror.  i try on sweaters i haven't worn in 2 years and consider my reflection.  even the mirror will need a new home.  everything must go.  almost.

there are things that i can't part with, most of which will be shipped to my sister's house in southern california during the next several weeks.  things that belong more to the family than they do to me.  the pictures in the previous post are, by and large, of things my mother owned.  i took these objects from her home when she died.  i filled a cardboard suitcase with things which seemed to bare witness to who see was, things which articulated the indescribable corners of her heart, things that would someday comfort me, someday make me smile.

it's nice that that "someday"  has finally arrived.  i've only looked in the suitcase once before since packing it 4 years ago.  right before i moved here, in to my beloved white room where the reformulation and re-imagining of my life has taken place, i looked inside. i cried.  the sight of these objects carried too much weight.  it broke my heart to look at them.  i couldn't deal with touching them.  it was a happy moment the other evening to come across a picture of my mother as a young woman, to look at her image and smile back at her big grin.  I didn't look at her photo at all for the first 2 years following her death. it derailed me entirely to see her.  i'm thankful that is no longer the case.  i've wanted to be able to look at her for so long.  i've wanted to have her hair and her eyes and her style in my life.  i've wanted to look at her and see the features of my face that AREN'T hers.  i look in the mirror and see so much of her face in mine.  too much.  sometimes i hate looking in the mirror because of it.  i want to see where she ends and i begin.  being able to look at her photograph again is part of that road.  packing and unpacking and coordinating these objects is part of that road.  the exhibition of the "sweaters of death" are part of that road too.

i was very proud last night at the reception to see them hanging together in one place.  i looked at them and decided that they are a single work-  a sculpture.  i do not intend to let the collection be splintered.  i don't want to parse them out.  it is symbolic of a particular era.  it is an act of healing as well as an artwork.  the texts of the individual pieces are too beautiful spinning together in a room, gaining too much poignancy and sensitivity to be splintered.  the collection needs to remain in tact.  it is a diary...  writing that i am proud and privileged to share.

 

i felt incredibly appreciated and loved last night.  so many friends came out to support my work, to support ME, and to give me a hug while we're still in the same region.  i feel so lucky to be able to share this work as i prepare for a new phase of life.  a chapter is closing.  the people who came to the show last night were present in my life through some of my darkest days.  many of them have seen me cry on the anniversary of my mother's death.  many have gone out dancing and drinking with me when all i wanted and needed in the whole world was a friend to have a bit of fun with.  many have read this blog in the middle of the night when i published hard to read (sometimes scary) drunken rants about my anguish and longing.  for however sad the work itself might be, i am happy it exists.  i am happy to be able to display it so publicly.  and i am happy that it is done.  i'm sure i'll make more sweaters in the future but the subject of that work will be very different.  this "work of mourning" has been carried through.  every stitch is dedicated to my mother and siblings, to my mother's siblings, my grandparents, and to anyone who might draw a bit of comfort from the existence of these black twists of yarn.

this is one way to pack and unpack, i suppose.  :)

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I LONG FOR YOU WITHOUT END, the collected "SWEATERS OF DEATH" at ATA

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I LONG FOR YOU WITHOUT END

textile art by Angela Simione on view at Artist Television Access Window Gallery, San Francisco CA March 2015

artist reception Wednesday, March 11th, 7-9pm

Statement:

She got sick when I was 29.  When I was thirty, she died.  It was January.  Cold.  I curled up with my crochet hook and I kept my hands busy.

Looking back, I see it as an attempt at repair; each stitch, an act of healing.  A simultaneous meditation and distraction.

In the weeks following her death, I would wake up crying;  a mess of sadness.  I hid myself.  I didn’t want anyone to see me cry but my confused despair was impossible to hide.  I was ashamed of my red eyes.  For as sympathetic as people were, they were equally uncomfortable.  I was deep within the landscape of my mother’s death (and the early confrontation with my own mortality) and I was in it alone.

There are no spaces for these conversations in our culture.  No one wants to talk about death over morning coffee.  Or afternoon coffee.  Or after-dinner drinks.  And after a few weeks, there is a collective pressure for one to bounce back, for the grieving to subside, for a smile to flicker and pull at the corners of one’s cheeks again.  The pressure to resume one’s previous dance, to return to business as usual is torturous.  I couldn’t stand it.  Still, I wore dark sunglasses and waterproof mascara.  I tried hard to contain the mess of my sadness.  I tried to control my tears.  Sometimes, I would suddenly start crying on the street.  Never wailing or sobbing, no bunched up red face, just tears silently running from my eyes.  The dark glasses and waterproof mascara were my preventative maintenance.  They helped me prevent myself from making other people uncomfortable.  They helped me prevent my mother’s death from spilling on to their lives, such an unwelcome topic, such an inconvenient contagion.  They prevented me from embarrassing myself.  Nevertheless, the tears came.  An overflow.  A mode of expression that wouldn’t be denied.  A supplemental voice.

Eventually, I got angry about the silence but I didn’t know where to go to say the things I needed to say.  I didn’t know where to go to find people who were interested in talking about death and its aftermath.  Behind my dark glasses, I was stoic.  Straight-faced.  I marched across this city silently, clad in black and smile-less.  I noticed that no matter what I wore or how I looked, someone was bound to notice me.  It was then that I discovered the power of my body to speak for me, to create an area for discussion and exchange of ideas.   My personal billboard.  My own private gallery wall.  My mobile wailing wall.  

Taking phrases from my personal diary, lines from deeply loved songs, and scattered bits of my own poetry, I began to speak of my mother’s death.  I embedded my longing for her in the clothing I wore.  I broadcast my anguish, my confusion, my loss, my unbelievable anger, and my longing for a reckoning.   I emblazoned my feelings across handmade sweaters, each stitch bearing witness to my silent suffering.  They spoke the words that I couldn’t say without completely falling apart.

Now, 4 years later, the repair that I was attempting feels as if it has largely taken place.  Presented at ATA in their entirely are my “sweaters of death”, a fragmented poem of sorts, my “work of mourning”. 

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one slow stitch at a time...

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untitled (i want to hold your face in my hands)
filet crochet curtain
angela simione, 2014




i need a much taller window.  :)

the full text reads: i want to hold your face in my hands but you go on backing away away away.  the text is from a poem i wrote over a year ago that will probably never see the light of day, save for this excerpt.  and i like that...  the secrecy of it...  which is very much what this work is about. i like the idea of hanging my secrets in the window, allowing the light of day to use the twists and turns of my private thoughts (and the hook that has given them shape) to make shadows sigh and heave on the adjacent wall.  i like the tease of it.

this piece taught me a lot.  it's still teaching me.  not merely about the method of production and where i failed and where i succeeded in using it, but also how i want to use light and shadow as materials themselves...  transparency...  absence and presence.  in this regard, this method is very much like drawing.  the emptiness of the page is just as important as the mark.  it's poetry.  the things that aren't said add weight to what is.

it's hung up in the window of my bed and i stare at it for a little while every day.  i finished it over a week ago and i'm still so bowled over by it.  it's a new "first step".


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I WANT TO BE HOME FOR THE WORST PARTS OF YOU

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this is a horrible picture of this piece.  this isn't even how i think this piece should be displayed.  it's simply that i want to live with it for awhile.  i want this net of poetry falling all around me, encircling my bed, greeting me in the half-light of early morning when the brightness of the day first spills in through my window:  I WANT TO BE HOME FOR THE WORST PARTS OF YOU -  my masochism sunning itself in the twists of black yarn, stretching its limps in the slow patience of each stitch, as pleased and self-satisfied as a cat.

these games of exposure are sticky.  how much of this ends up being Persona?  how much of myself am i actually exposing?  how much do i want to expose?

the level of redaction i employ when culling phrases from my diary is steep.  i look for poetic turns of phrase, a nod toward a particular shadow of self.  i tell the truth but not the whole truth.  these sentiments are divorced from their original context.  entire paragraphs and pages that flesh out the original meaning and situate the phrase in a more complete environment and atmosphere have been obliterated.  one sentence remains.  a fragment.  and that fragment is let to sparkle in the rays of sun that come filtering through the broken blinds above my bed. 


a tease.

a hint.

a half-truth?


lying by omission?


my banners wave, endlessly endlessly, in the soft light of fantasy and desire.  in just such a light, it is easy to fashion whatever truth one wants, whatever truth one needs.  i can be whatever you need me to be.  my desire, a chime that beckons yours.  




a spider's web.


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ode to eva hesse

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IT IS SOMETHING. IT IS NOTHING. Ode to Eva Hesse.

crocheted sweater

angela simione, 2014

i keep forgetting to post this!  the first sweater of 2014!  it felt so good to make.  it feels like it's been forever since i made a sweater.  the process is just long enough to feel substantial, and quick enough to supply me with my fix of instant gratification.  :)

the text is taken from Eva Hesse's artist statement for her 1968 exhibition "Chain" which is taped to the inside of the front cover of my "sketch" book.  i took her last two sentences.  

"I would like my work to be non-work.  This means that it would find its way beyond my preconceptions.

What i want of my art I can eventually find.  The work must go beyond this.

It is my main concern to go beyond what I know and what I can know.  The formal principles are understandable and understood.

It is the unknown quality from which and where I want to go.

As a thing, an object, it accedes to its non-logical self.

It is something.  It is nothing."

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she's a mess

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a major round of Sciatica brought me to the ER on monday.  i spent two days laying in bed before making the call to go to the hospital and i've been laying in bed ever since.  luckily, it's not as bad this time around.  i am able to walk, albeit slowly.  i am able to sleep, albeit with the aid of Vicodin and muscle relaxers.  i am able to work on projects from my bed, though i wish i was out in the world, making money and friends, and taking pictures.  it's hard for me to lay around like this.  it truly is.

the first time i dealt with back problems was during my last year in art school.  crocheting was the only art-making method i could utilize while laying flat on my back and not moving for hours upon hours at a time.  i suppose it's no wonder that i view the skill as one of mending, of catharsis, of process, of healing.

yesterday, in my warm opiate surrender, i started making a new text piece that i'm not sure will be a yarnbomb or a scarf.  perhaps it will be both.  perhaps i'll wear it for as long as the cold weather calls for it and then transform it by stitching it to a pole somewhere.

i like that idea.

i like this notion of giving away my history.  or better said: gifting away my history.

this work has so much to do with the conflation of the public and private self.  i take texts from my diary or lyrics from songs i like (in this case, the lyric comes from the Lady Gaga song 'Dance in the Dark') or bits of my personal autobiography and stitch them in to sweaters, scarves, and blankets.  i take the text of my fear and desire and twist them in to some sort of signage... my story being told one yarnbomb at a time on city streets.

it's a game of exposure, of exploration, where the photographic image also plays a very heavy part.  which image of me is real?  which image is the most honest?  the image you've met in person?  or the image i make in my diary?  what does it mean to sit naked in front of a mirror, taking pictures of one's own reflection wrapped in the lyrics of a favorite song?  especially when the chosen text is "she's a mess. she's a mess. she's a mess".  especially when the naked body in the mirror's reflection is a body in pain.

maybe i was a mess this month in more ways than one.  currently, i am a physical mess but there was also the fact of my mother's birthday and death anniversary to contend with.  those events are exactly a week apart: january 12th and 19th.   and amid all this, i'm trying to learn my own curves of conscience, the twists within my personality and sensibility.  i'm learning about myself through these moments of exposure. i'm learning what i'm capable of and who i want to be.

i felt lonely today being cooped up like this.  i made a choice just to bare it.  i reached for my crochet hook and let the soothing tingle of medications wash over me.

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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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stitch by stich

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a beautiful sunday evening at home.

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love:

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"To love a stranger as oneself implies the reverse: to love oneself as the stranger."


- Simione Weil, Gravity & Grace, p. 111

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the way you need to be loved

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16th street, san francisco CA

angela simione

happy

went out yarnbombing last night after a beautiful and fun dinner with my beautiful and fun friend Trish.  i love that we got to see each other before i take off on this adventure.  she is one of the most well-traveled, adventurous, insightful, and open people i have ever met.  i feel so blessed every time we hang out because i walk away so much richer with insight and perspective than i was before.  i picked her brain for travel advice and how tipping works in other countries.  i'm so looking forward to the food.  especially in france.  i will definitely eat snails and frog legs.  but more than anything, i'm looking forward to simply being in a foreign land.  simply sitting at a cafe and people-watching will be such a deep pleasure for me and so affective.  Trish said to be safe but not worry too much and just have fun.  i will do my very best to do just that.  she bought me two greyhounds at a bar we'd never been to before after dinner and then dropped me off at the corner of Claremont and Telegraph so i could install a few pieces on my walk home.  i've been trying to get every parking sign on the even numbered side of the street from the traffic light at Aileen to the light at 59th.  last night i reached my goal.  :)  it was important to me to get it done before leaving.  i walked slowly down Telegraph Ave and straightened the other bombs and even replaced the one someone snipped down as a souvenir.   i was sad to see one go missing but also complimented that someone out there likes the work so much they couldn't resist taking it.

 

this afternoon, i walked back to take photos of the work.  i decided to put on my travel bag, fully loaded, and see how heavy the thing really is.  after about a half hour, it felt pretty heavy.  Becca and i are going to get fucking buff, is what.  ha!  but it was such a privately romantic moment...  just walking down my city's streets with my bag on my back, dreaming of new york and paris, and berlin, and  photographing my work up in midst of all this oakland buzz and hustle.   it was a beautiful way to spend the afternoon.

the last few days have been exceptionally beautiful, actually.  i had dinner with Becca's mom the evening before and being around her is so emotionally and spiritually nourishing.  i think of her as Spiritual Food.  i truly do.  i leave feeling replenished and excited and driven to "be MORE myself" (always hearing your voice in my head these days, suzanne, encouraging me along).  we had goat cheese stuffed dates that were wrapped in bacon and they were unbelievable.  i can't even describe how delicious they were.  over dinner we talked and talked and talked about europe and how special it is that Becca and i are undertaking this together.  "i met your daughter almost 8 years ago in a color theory class and look at all the beautiful colors we've managed to bring to each other ever since." i said.  sentimental as fuck, yes!  but sentimentality has its place too and i'll never feel embarrassed of appreciating and loving another person.  not ever.  i am honored to have the opportunity to do so and to feel this way.  i'm lucky to have such amazing women in my life and i adore them something fierce.

and then last night after i got home from dropping all my bombs (6 in total last night), seth and i stayed up drinking (well, i drank anyway) and watching the final dance scene in Dirty Dancing over and over again.  i tried to learn the steps in the kitchen and quickly realized i need to hunt down a tutorial.   :)

watch this and try not to smile.  it's a piece of my childhood and makes me laugh joyfully like a child everytime i see this!

 

 :D

a run of beautiful days leading up to my departure.  i am so thankful for the beauty that swirls around and through my life.  hard to imagine how desperate and sad i once felt.  hard to believe that i was once convinced i was not capable of living this way.  i am astounded and endlessly grateful for the freedom i now enjoy.  endlessly endlessly endlessly.

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

beautiful evening

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sometimes a girl just doesn't feel like herself until she gets some art out in the streets.  :)

CRY HARDER

yarnbomb 

corner of Claremont and Forest in Oakland CA

angela simione, 2013

BOOM!

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FML?

sometimes life decides for you that you need to slow down, stay in bed, and make some art.  under other circumstances, i'd be completely content to do just that but geez... now just isn't the right time.  a man lifted me up the other day and, as chance would have it, he happened to grab me right at the sight of an old injury: my iffy disk.  i've been locked in bed for the last 3 days.  i haven't been able to really walk let alone go to class or work.  and worst of all, i may have to cancel my trip to NY.  i'm trying not to get depressed about it.  getting depressed will only draw this whole thing out.  besides, i'm in enough pain as it is.  bulging disks are absolute agony.  thankfully, i'm in much better shape this time around than i was the first time this happened 6 years ago.  in fact, this injury is what turned me toward crochet as a way to make art.  i couldn't sit or stand.  all i could do was lie flat on my back.  that's not exactly a position from which one might draw or paint and, there i was, heading in to my last year of art school.  so much was on the line.  i had to find a way to keep making art.  crochet, it was!  it saved my degree and my practice.  it saved my spirit.  

and it'll save my spirit this time too.  i'm looking on the bright side and just trying to feel thankful for having the unplanned luxury of staying in bed all week and making art.  The Blanket of DOOM sure has benefited.  Almost done!!!!  a year in the making.  this project is an ERA unto itself!  :D

king size!!!!  and all rendered patiently in single stitch crochet.  good lord.

keeping me nice and warm as i convalesce. :)  can't wait to see and photograph the finished piece.

incriminating crochet

:)


not the most exciting video in the world but it's totally meant as a personal spiritual souvenir.

and you get to finally hear my voice and laugh.

nice to meet you.

and again

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telegraph ave, oakland ca


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BOOM AGAIN!

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walked down the way and dropped a bomb in front of Cakeland Gallery tonight in Oakland. crossed the street and picked up a bottle of vodka at Uptown Liquor afterward.  A very tall, beautiful woman walked in after me.  at the register she told me i was beautiful.  i had only just taken my tapestry needle out of my mouth and stuck it in my back pocket.  my smile was instant. 

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BOOM!

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first ever yarnbomb dropped!  58oo block of Shattuck Ave in Oakland.  if you're taking a stroll through my neighborhood, be sure to keep your eyes open for this.  it's the very first in a series.  i have a few more bombs in my bag ready to go off.  :)

daily

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i long for you without end
crochet
angela simione, 2011

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