Walking home from the video store I like to peek into peoples houses, (I confess to being a bit of a voyeur, which may not surprise you). I love seeing how other people are living, what they are doing, what their houses look like inside, what kind of artwork they have on their walls. It's not a creepy spying thing, but more of a curiosty that spurs me. A few doors down a couple sits at a large dining room table under bright lighting, they look to be conversing. I wonder what they are talking about. A bit further in a student house the tv is on, it appears to be a football game which does not surprise me, they are always watching sports and barbequing in the side yard. Down from that is the house with the red walls. Artist's live there. At least I assume they are artists of some kind because there are huge paintings everywhere, and they seem to love color. I contemplate trying to meet them at some point.
Sometimes I make up stories about the people that live in these houses. In one there lives an old woman who drinks coffee. She waved at us once and I wonder if she is lonely. Maybe her husband passed away recently and her children all live far away, coming to visit only at Christmas. She spends her time in the garden out back, pruning a rare breed of English tea rose. On the cool nights she remembers being a child of seven running outside in a nightgown trying to catch fireflies.
All of this is neither here nor there. Just the various, idiosyncratic ramblings of a curious mind.
write write she says. care not for the contents, just put some words out. she being the voice in my head. (I wanted to delete that last sentence because it makes me sound like a crazy person). Crazy I am. Ma I yzarc. delete i do not.
the clouds move over the sun. my husband practices piano in another room. scales with a metronome. the repetition is making me a little nuttier than usual, the constant clicking. all for a good cause it is, and I can easily put on my headphones. I have been working too long today. I can feel it in my body, in my eyes. Though there was a picnic lunch in a nearby park. We watched a lone brown Canada goose get reprimanded by some large white geese. He skulked away, and we laughed watching him try to sneak back, non-chalantly pretending to eat grass all the while inching over to the water. I found myself experiencing remorse for my fellow countryman. Countrygoose.
I want to write something interesting here but all of my thoughts are currently being poured into a book project. To be honest it is the simplest of things that hold my attention these days, my artwork regressing into a ridiculously basic place. I read somewhere recently that the way forward is to go backward. so backward I go. og I drawkcab os.
holding my attention
1. hole reinforcement stickers
2. pencils (standard hb with an eraser)
3. colored tabs you can write on to mark pages
4. dingleberries (a large seed pod, named by Jeff)
5. Eva Hess
6. nothing and everything
7. thin kraft moleskine journals.
8. tape
not holding my attention
1. the filmmaker Tarkovsky (can someone please explain to me the film "Nostalghia")
Eva Hess is channeling herself through me. She keeps popping up in my life in various places when I least expect it, and when I most need it (if you recall I figuratively ran into her a year ago). And somehow she makes my art/life better.
Exhibit A (she died at a young age of a brain tumour, like my own mother)
Exhibit B (A letter written to her by Sol LeWitt, the thing I needed to hear)
"Learn to say, 'Fuck You' to the world once in a while. You have every right to. Just stop thinking, worrying, looking over your shoulder, wondering, doubting, fearing, hurting, hoping for some easy way out, struggling, gasping, confusing, itching, scratching, mumbling, bumbling, grumbling, humbling, stumbling, rumbling, rambling, gambling, tumbling, scumbling, scrambling, hitching, hatching, bitching, moaning, groaning, honing, boning, horse-shitting, hair-splitting, nit-picking, piss-trickling, nose-sticking, ass-gouging, eyeball-poking, finger-pointing, alleyway-sneaking, long waiting, small stepping, evil-eyeing, back-scratching, searching, perching, besmirching, grinding grinding grinding away at yourself. Stop it and just DO. Don't worry about cool. Make your own uncool.
Make your own, your own world."
(excerpted from "The Accidental Masterpiece" by Michael Kimmelman)
Exhibit C (there does not seem to be a huge amount of information on her life, how is it I keep coming accross her in my travels?)
What else do you need me to know Eva? I'm all ears.
and eyes, and heart.
a rather hopeless morning begins with me feeling "under the weather" because I consumed too much wine at a dinner party last night. I always beat myself up when that happens, because I know all too well having spent many months in the hospital with my mom that there are so many people out in the world who struggle with genuine illnesses every single day, and here I am doing it to myself.
overindulgence. a dirty word. so I sleep a little longer than usual. I try to keep some tea down and remind myself that I am human and prone to make mistakes now and then.
it is only in the last two years that I have really embraced my mistakes. picked them up off the dirty floor and hugged them for all I am worth. Not just the mistakes, but the insecurities, the fears, the junk. What does it mean to love those bits of yourself that you think are ugly?
For my whole life I have had difficulty looking at photos of myself. It was as if that person could never be enough for me, I did not want to see any of my flaws (or the things I percieved as imperfect). Now as I sit here at this cluttered desk (nursing a headache), I liken it to the process of creating a piece of artwork, and being willing to make work that is imperfect and flawed. This morning I was reminded of an article I wrote in "Living Out Loud", entitled "how to wreck a sketchbook". I feel another article coming on right now along the lines of "how to take bad photos of yourself". How to really look at those photos and let them be. How to love that image flaws and all. Yeah it looks like I have a double chin and a huge nose, and I don't know why I ever thought that skirt looked good on me. fuck it. that is all of me. Yes I can love me when the situation is favourable and flattering, and everything is just so, but can I love me when things are messy?
there is me the beautiful, inspired, kick-ass, full of life woman. and there is me who had too much to drink and wishes she could take back the last 12 hours, in her pyjamas that smell like cereal and milk. and there is the me that worries if people see a bad photo they might not like me as much, I will be taken off the list of "beautiful people they know", and put onto the list of "people who look unique".
all of me.
and if you want to work on embracing these things in yourself I suggest you go spend some time with some woman friends who will look at photos of you and see your real beauty (the stuff you can't see because of all your shit), and they will tell you about the little details, how your personality was captured by the way you tossed your head or held a glass, or how your eyes lit up for an instant and they saw your soul flood out. And if you are lucky, if you allow yourself (even if you really don't like the photo and want it burned), you might for an instant be able to see what they are seeing. you might start to realize that the real essence of you has nothing to do with what you are wearing or what your hair was like that day.
It is possible to love the bad photos. I'm actually thinking of creating a new gallery for them in my house.
Some little pangs of hunger start to creep in. a good sign I am on the road to recovery.
back to an empty work space, the deadlines, the sound of a radio with shrill violins playing in the background, to the picture of frida hanging over my desk with the bubble that reads "risk everything", to the pile of paper that I don't even want to look at, to the phone ringing.
and what do I bring back with me? how do I hold onto the laughter and the crying and the emotion? how do I avoid slipping back into the same routine of before? because I am changed. I feel stronger, I want to let that strength spill out onto the street while I walk so everyone can see it. I want to channel the different energies of all the women, each one so unique and special. How do you speak of these things without sounding incredibly trite?
Today it starts with the purchase of a new skirt, the ultimate tool of feminine expression. A new uniform. when you put it on you feel different. only you know what it represents but others can sense something big. You notice people at the coffee shop looking at you.
a friend mentions, "I don't know what it is but you look really good today."
I know.
But it's not the skirt. It's the feeling in the pit of my belly, the one that tells me I can conquer the earth today.
And somewhere in that place I know that the deadlines, the pressure, the business, the ego, the obligations don't really matter at all.
Today I feel like traveling. I want to roam the earth and suck in every last bit. Drink strong espresso, eat fruit and pannecotta, try on high heeled shoes (because I never do), sit in cafes and write letters to friends, find a fire to throw my worries into, have a conversation with an old woman who has lived a good life, hear an language that I don't understand, sleep outside under a tree, be a seductress, cook italian food, take in some views.
"The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe." ~Joanna Macy
(scribbled in the backseat on the car ride home, trying not to get carsick.)
because of you I am more sexy (and feminine and beautiful).
because of you I feel able to face my vulnerabilities, and speak openly about them.
because of you public nudity is possible.
because of you I am more aware, hungry to run directly into the unknown and know that it will be o.k.
because of you I recognize that the small pieces of my heart that I thought were damaged and broken are definitely healable. and I feel that healing happening as I write this.
because of you my heart has grown in new directions, and I think that it might burst open as I run through the moments of the last few days.
because of you I am able to say "fuck it" and "I don't give a rats ass!" whenever the need arises.
because of you I will forever laugh uncontrollably when I hear the song "Afternoon Delight". or the words "my lips hurt real baaaaaad". (shit I'm laughing again now.)
because of you I know that I am loved.
because of you I want to run wild with no cares of what people will think of me.
because of you I am becoming more of the person I always wanted to be.
thank you to my girls, I love you all.
tiny pieces of you are with me always.
"Let your song fly. The rest of us need it." ~Kelly Joe Phelps
a new lamp design (based on the plywood collages) that I did for the fabulous Moody Buddha. Here is another one. They will be available for sale in February! There are so many beautiful designs on this site, I wouldn't be able to choose.
***********************
Also on the subject of illumination...On thursday am headed off on an artist retreat with eight inspiring and creative women. You know them...
Christine, Andrea, Jen, Penelope, Katrina, Kate, Christine, Pixie
I am so excited I am bursting. It is going to be rather surreal as I have only met one of them in person, and we've all been writing for years! So many thoughts flit through my head. I hope I can sleep tomorrow night.
(*It works best if you can print on cardstock.)
I'll write more in the morning. But right now Truman Capote calls.
(this will transform an average evening into something great.)
exercise:
1. Find a piece of music that could be desribed as ethereal, strange, or mysterious. (my choice was "Jack's Lament" by Danny Elfman.)
2. Go for a walk at dusk.
3. Pretend everyone you see are characters in a movie, everything choreographed for your amusement. (a grocery store is instantly transformed into something surreal and bizarre.)
4. Play close attention to the wind and the trees and the sky.
wake. tea and toast while reading truman capote. I notice the sun is out today, after so many weeks of rain. the sky is a strange shade of pink, and the sun makes interesting shapes on my floor. I make a plan to feel it on on my face. a few hours of work, doing things I have been avoiding, just jump right in and face it head on. this is how i work, avoid, avoid, then whaaaaaa, do everything at once.
california is a world of opposites to me. (it's like that superman episode about bizarro world, a mirror image in which things are reversed.) everything turns from brown to green in the winter. dormant things come to life. you can pick things off trees and eat them. I have been gleaning oranges and lemons from an empty house on our street. instead of snow there is lots and lots of rain. the produce is always good. the world becomes filled with new colors, blooms and sunsets.
I get on my bike and ride downtown. on my favourite street, the one with the crooked house, i have an 'aha' moment. it is january. i have never seen a january like this before. warm and playful and green. seeds crunch under my tires and I start to laugh. i feel grateful that I have had an opportunity to experience something new, something different than the last thirty four years. instead of comparing it to what is normal. instead of focusing on why it is different, i start to celebrate the differences. It is sunny and warm in January, how wonderful!
I head to the junk shop to look for collage materials and fabric for a new bag, (to make with my 'new' vintage sewing machine I got for x-mas), but there is nothing that speaks to me. I have a hankering for coloured tweed these days. Flipping through heavy stacks I find several interesting album covers to use for collages. I notice the place smells wet, fermented, as if there are mushrooms growing in the corners. In the children's section I kneel down to look at the books and am delighted to find and old copy of "veronica" by Roger Duvoisin. When I stand up I realize I have been kneeling on a damp towel and my right knee is soaked and smells like a rotten mushroom.
The man at the counter gives me a discount because I have left the records behind, it is only the sleeves that interest me. (I take this as fair payment for the mushroom knee situation). I pay him $2.43 and place the 'covers' into my big red bag. Veronica's smiling eyes peek out of the top of the bag. there is a green smell outside that I cannot identify, I stand for a moment trying to take it in.
on to "chocolat" for cappuccino and a croissant. I feel very french eating it. I only need a worn copy of Rimbaud to complete the picture. I eavesdrop on a table of young friends talking about funerals. "What would you want for your funeral?" they ask in an animated way. Their answers are amusing, naive in a refreshing way, (as if they don't believe it could ever happen to them).
on to the co-op for some groceries. some tahini. a huge dark red apple, of a variety I've never seen before. a woman asks me, pointing, "what kind of potatoes are those", and I shrug saying, "I have no idea". there are so many varieties of everything here, it is hard to keep track. the catch of afternoon is a fragrant loaf bread with toasted sunflower seeds on the top.
it becomes immediately apparent as I set off on my bike that I have once again bought too many heavy things, and my front wheel waddles and sways with the momentum of the overfilled wicker basket. turns become a matter of control, not letting the handlebars pull you off track. bumps in the road seem more treacherous than before, avoidance of them important. Because it takes longer to pick up speed I have to focus while crossing the busier roads (of which there are only two on my ride home). the habit of singing christmas carols as I ride has apparently not left with the season.
I skirt around the abandoned christmas trees left out in the street to be picked up by the garbage collectors. they look sad and dejected having outgrown their former usefulness.
I look forward to a cup of peppermint tea with the apple.
