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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