http://www.nmwa.org/ - National Museum of Women in the Arts. Free 1st Sunday of every month.
http://www.artsonfoot.org/ - Arts on Foot, Penn Quarter. Wed Sept 8 - 11th.
http://www.celebratefrederick.com/Events/Index.aspx?page=99 - In the Street, Frederick festival. Sept 11.
http://www.tpff.org/ - Takoma Park Folk Festival. Sunday, Sept 12.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Not Gertrude
I wrote the first & third sections of "Not Gertrude" (below) around in June or so of 2009 when I started planning the road trip I would go on that summer. The idea was to find a way to recycle sections of the GodAwful Novel (used in the 2nd section) that I wrote in grad school. I still like the contrast in the voices - one harsher, one more lyrical - but I'm not sure that the piece has enough oomph to stand alone as a short story, and I'm not sure there's a way to sustain that dynamic over a larger piece, the intersection of the Cynthia-as-narrator (but not me) and Maddy story.
The GodAwful Novel is, largely, about a woman driving across the country dealing with the death of her brother many years before. In my real life, last summer, on August 30th, 2009, while I was driving across the country, my brother Tommy passed away unexpectedly. Today, on the anniversary of his death, I'm posting this to say that he was before his death, and continues to be after it, a part of my life in ways I still don't entirely understand. Family, blood, genes bonded us in complicated ways despite radical differences between us, or so I believe. I can tell you for certain that he liked Reese's peanut butter cups and hot dogs.
W. S. Merwin wrote, "Your absence has gone through me / Like thread through a needle. / Everything I do is stitched with its color."
-----------------------------------------
Chapter One: Not Gertude
Shortly after I turn 40, I decide to go on a road trip, write one or two books, and figure out what to do about Maddy. My theory is that since my two college degrees haven’t taught me what I really need to know about writing or myself, I’ll be able to ferret out what’s next if I see a lot of road and a lot of old friends. Plus, I’m sick of walking dogs. And I’d like to leave my boyfriend for a time without actually having to break up.
It’s not that I mind the dogs. Their jowly smiles as they pant in the heat lends them an extra friendly summer veneer. After two years, off and on, I’m am officially Leader of the Pack. Amid the non-speaking, I am Alpha. Amid the roaring of humanity, not so much. Writers tend to be like that.
I don’t mind Mike, the boyfriend, much either. I just seem to have not all that much to say. The pheromone haze after years of celibacy has lifted enough for me to notice…eh. It’s one of those so-this-is-it? moments. Nothing wrong that I can pinpoint. But no violins.
So there are the dogs and the books to be written with Maddy (my fictional counterpart) and my new car. Before I leave on the trip, I must name the car. Sitting in the Drifting Nomad coffee shop with Andrew, my writer friend from a cubicle job in which I lasted three months, I entertain suggestions. The first name he tosses out is Milly (the woman he’s currently interested in), followed by Debbie (his mother’s name) and Lydia (his ex’s name). I wonder about him sometimes. He is ten years younger than I am, and a better writer, both of which annoy me, particularly given that he can be weirdly obtuse.
“I’m thinking the name of a diner waitress with blue eye shadow that calls you ‘hon’ but is still willing to pour hot coffee in your lap if you’re a pain in the ass’” I tell him.
“Gertrude. Gertie.”
“Too militant. Sounds like an overbearing German nanny.”
Our conversation is interrupted by the appearance of Brad, formerly a graphic designer and currently an artist since his Chinatown mugging head injury. Andrew tried to set us up about a year ago, which I open to, and Brad, apparently not, although he politely requested my phone number so he could not use it.
Andrew is saying hi to Brad. He looks older, more gray. I suppose the same goes for me, although I quietly pray I am not already stooped over like a sexless old man. I wish I had showered this morning. I can feel the grease shine on my face.
“You remember Cynthia," Andrew says.
“No.” Brad gives me an eyeless stare. I think, although I am not sure, that he is full of crap, but it’s hard to say on these things. He did have the head injury. He meets a lot of people. We did have quite a few beers that night. And it was a while ago. But mostly it’s: Wow, I’m SO not memorable. Stylin’. Another reason to leave DC.
An hour later, as I’m walking a bulldog named Uma, I decide to name my car, a tidewater blue 2009 Honda Fit, Alice. Alice is a good waitress name a la Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. And, according to Arlo Guthrie, You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant. If I can get anything I want out of this road trip, then maybe I’ll finally get something done. It’s about time.
----
Maddy is the main character of the atrocious novella I wrote in grad school. She has some family hang-ups and a tendency to drive around the country, so you can see she and I have, ahem, similar issues. The interesting thing about Maddy is not that she mirrors many aspects omy life. The interesting thing is that I wrote some plot elements into her story before the correlating events occurred in mine. So, for instance, I wrote that she runs into an old boyfriend before I started dating Mike a few months ago, Mike who was also my boyfriend in high school.
Maddy has brother issues. I’ve started the novella (now a novel) in a million different ways, but currently, it starts with a prologue, a scene from her childhood. It goes like this:
My Hello Kitty alarm clock paws showed it was three in the morning when Cory tried waking me, but at ten years old, I slept as if drugged and never woke with glee. His gentle prods were incorporated into dreams until the malty cozy odor of his breath permeated my consciousness. He leaned in to touch my shoulder, saying, “Wake up, Maddy May.” I broke down and opened my eyes to see his pale face smiled down on me. In the room lit only by the dim watery shadows sneaking around the window shades, his features fell into shades of gray, like the hero of a 1950s matinee: straight nose, high cheeks, round eyes with the outrageously long lashes that threw shadows and made strangers call him pretty as a child. With his changed voice finished with cracking and shoulders broadening by the day, girls turned to look at him in the supermarket. Even the mothers too, sometimes. His classic symmetry would have been dull if not for the dark blue of his eyes, unnervingly liquid like a bottomless lake. He reached out to push a strand of hair off my forehead, and I heard the rustling of the nylon in his jacket, the swish of his restless motion. “Time to explore,” he said. I sat up in a rush of understanding. Road trip. These night wanderings were our time, unknown to anyone except us and unspoken of between us during daylight. He handed me my wool coat as I stumbled around the darkened room pulling clothes over my pajamas. “Dress warm -- it’s cold,” he said.
Once bundled and already beginning to overheat under my layers, he took my hand and led me through the darkened house down the stairs. At the second to the last stair, as always, I paused, and he grabbed my arms and swung me over the stair that squeaked and I remembered not to giggle at my moment of weightlessness. We slipped out into the kitchen, where light pouring though the glass of the back door. I knew then that Cory had chosen this night not just because he’d already spent the early part of the evening before curfew sneaking beers in Marty Spinks’ basement down the street, but because the world outside was transformed. No one, except us, yet knew.
Snow, wet, fat flakes, fell gently over the yard, clinging to the maple and apple trees, outlining every branch. Several inches already obscured the grass and the slate stone path. Street lights reflected wildly off whiteness. Our bad weatherman had missed this, predicting a cold sleet, but here was a world untouched by muddy drizzle.
Walking down the street, we listening to the drifting of flakes and the sound of puffed-up water collapsing under our feet. Neither of us spoke, although Cory pointed once, to a tree branch leaned over under the weight, forming a snowy cave. At Pearson Elementary School, where I would be not attending the fourth grade the next day because of the snow, we had the playground to ourselves. No one would see our tracks there until the sledders arrived after late breakfasts and hot chocolate.
We might have been the last people alive. Certainly, we were the only ones awake for miles around. We paused at the top of the stairs leading down the jungle gyms. He took my hand again, and said, “I wanted you to see this, Maddy May. You’ll always remember, won’t you?” I nodded my promise. Then, with a whispered whoop that echoed unevenly in the gray sky, he dropped my hand and said, “Race you to the bottom.” He rushed forward, one gloved hand clutched to the banister, pushing off the snow. I hurried behind, falling and sliding in his snowy footprints.
------------------
As a beginning, it’s a little schmalty, but I’m fond of the image anyway. In graduate school, I once got a long, long lecture from Professor Goran about how one should never, ever use a prologue. But really, it’s relevant. We love people in our childhood as we can’t as adults. Fearlessly, before trusts are broken. I wanted that as the premise. Maybe disillusionment and innocence lost is a little passé. But I’m OK with that.
I too have brother issues. My brother, five years older than me, is autistic. He doesn’t speak, will never speak, and has been institutionalized since he was seven and I was two. My sister recently told me, however, that when we were kids, my mother used to lock him in his room, using a roll of socks to jam the door, because otherwise, he’d wander around in the middle of the night, going from room to room.
Maybe he stood and stared at me in my crib. Maybe I knew that.
The GodAwful Novel is, largely, about a woman driving across the country dealing with the death of her brother many years before. In my real life, last summer, on August 30th, 2009, while I was driving across the country, my brother Tommy passed away unexpectedly. Today, on the anniversary of his death, I'm posting this to say that he was before his death, and continues to be after it, a part of my life in ways I still don't entirely understand. Family, blood, genes bonded us in complicated ways despite radical differences between us, or so I believe. I can tell you for certain that he liked Reese's peanut butter cups and hot dogs.
W. S. Merwin wrote, "Your absence has gone through me / Like thread through a needle. / Everything I do is stitched with its color."
-----------------------------------------
Chapter One: Not Gertude
Shortly after I turn 40, I decide to go on a road trip, write one or two books, and figure out what to do about Maddy. My theory is that since my two college degrees haven’t taught me what I really need to know about writing or myself, I’ll be able to ferret out what’s next if I see a lot of road and a lot of old friends. Plus, I’m sick of walking dogs. And I’d like to leave my boyfriend for a time without actually having to break up.
It’s not that I mind the dogs. Their jowly smiles as they pant in the heat lends them an extra friendly summer veneer. After two years, off and on, I’m am officially Leader of the Pack. Amid the non-speaking, I am Alpha. Amid the roaring of humanity, not so much. Writers tend to be like that.
I don’t mind Mike, the boyfriend, much either. I just seem to have not all that much to say. The pheromone haze after years of celibacy has lifted enough for me to notice…eh. It’s one of those so-this-is-it? moments. Nothing wrong that I can pinpoint. But no violins.
So there are the dogs and the books to be written with Maddy (my fictional counterpart) and my new car. Before I leave on the trip, I must name the car. Sitting in the Drifting Nomad coffee shop with Andrew, my writer friend from a cubicle job in which I lasted three months, I entertain suggestions. The first name he tosses out is Milly (the woman he’s currently interested in), followed by Debbie (his mother’s name) and Lydia (his ex’s name). I wonder about him sometimes. He is ten years younger than I am, and a better writer, both of which annoy me, particularly given that he can be weirdly obtuse.
“I’m thinking the name of a diner waitress with blue eye shadow that calls you ‘hon’ but is still willing to pour hot coffee in your lap if you’re a pain in the ass’” I tell him.
“Gertrude. Gertie.”
“Too militant. Sounds like an overbearing German nanny.”
Our conversation is interrupted by the appearance of Brad, formerly a graphic designer and currently an artist since his Chinatown mugging head injury. Andrew tried to set us up about a year ago, which I open to, and Brad, apparently not, although he politely requested my phone number so he could not use it.
Andrew is saying hi to Brad. He looks older, more gray. I suppose the same goes for me, although I quietly pray I am not already stooped over like a sexless old man. I wish I had showered this morning. I can feel the grease shine on my face.
“You remember Cynthia," Andrew says.
“No.” Brad gives me an eyeless stare. I think, although I am not sure, that he is full of crap, but it’s hard to say on these things. He did have the head injury. He meets a lot of people. We did have quite a few beers that night. And it was a while ago. But mostly it’s: Wow, I’m SO not memorable. Stylin’. Another reason to leave DC.
An hour later, as I’m walking a bulldog named Uma, I decide to name my car, a tidewater blue 2009 Honda Fit, Alice. Alice is a good waitress name a la Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. And, according to Arlo Guthrie, You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant. If I can get anything I want out of this road trip, then maybe I’ll finally get something done. It’s about time.
----
Maddy is the main character of the atrocious novella I wrote in grad school. She has some family hang-ups and a tendency to drive around the country, so you can see she and I have, ahem, similar issues. The interesting thing about Maddy is not that she mirrors many aspects omy life. The interesting thing is that I wrote some plot elements into her story before the correlating events occurred in mine. So, for instance, I wrote that she runs into an old boyfriend before I started dating Mike a few months ago, Mike who was also my boyfriend in high school.
Maddy has brother issues. I’ve started the novella (now a novel) in a million different ways, but currently, it starts with a prologue, a scene from her childhood. It goes like this:
My Hello Kitty alarm clock paws showed it was three in the morning when Cory tried waking me, but at ten years old, I slept as if drugged and never woke with glee. His gentle prods were incorporated into dreams until the malty cozy odor of his breath permeated my consciousness. He leaned in to touch my shoulder, saying, “Wake up, Maddy May.” I broke down and opened my eyes to see his pale face smiled down on me. In the room lit only by the dim watery shadows sneaking around the window shades, his features fell into shades of gray, like the hero of a 1950s matinee: straight nose, high cheeks, round eyes with the outrageously long lashes that threw shadows and made strangers call him pretty as a child. With his changed voice finished with cracking and shoulders broadening by the day, girls turned to look at him in the supermarket. Even the mothers too, sometimes. His classic symmetry would have been dull if not for the dark blue of his eyes, unnervingly liquid like a bottomless lake. He reached out to push a strand of hair off my forehead, and I heard the rustling of the nylon in his jacket, the swish of his restless motion. “Time to explore,” he said. I sat up in a rush of understanding. Road trip. These night wanderings were our time, unknown to anyone except us and unspoken of between us during daylight. He handed me my wool coat as I stumbled around the darkened room pulling clothes over my pajamas. “Dress warm -- it’s cold,” he said.
Once bundled and already beginning to overheat under my layers, he took my hand and led me through the darkened house down the stairs. At the second to the last stair, as always, I paused, and he grabbed my arms and swung me over the stair that squeaked and I remembered not to giggle at my moment of weightlessness. We slipped out into the kitchen, where light pouring though the glass of the back door. I knew then that Cory had chosen this night not just because he’d already spent the early part of the evening before curfew sneaking beers in Marty Spinks’ basement down the street, but because the world outside was transformed. No one, except us, yet knew.
Snow, wet, fat flakes, fell gently over the yard, clinging to the maple and apple trees, outlining every branch. Several inches already obscured the grass and the slate stone path. Street lights reflected wildly off whiteness. Our bad weatherman had missed this, predicting a cold sleet, but here was a world untouched by muddy drizzle.
Walking down the street, we listening to the drifting of flakes and the sound of puffed-up water collapsing under our feet. Neither of us spoke, although Cory pointed once, to a tree branch leaned over under the weight, forming a snowy cave. At Pearson Elementary School, where I would be not attending the fourth grade the next day because of the snow, we had the playground to ourselves. No one would see our tracks there until the sledders arrived after late breakfasts and hot chocolate.
We might have been the last people alive. Certainly, we were the only ones awake for miles around. We paused at the top of the stairs leading down the jungle gyms. He took my hand again, and said, “I wanted you to see this, Maddy May. You’ll always remember, won’t you?” I nodded my promise. Then, with a whispered whoop that echoed unevenly in the gray sky, he dropped my hand and said, “Race you to the bottom.” He rushed forward, one gloved hand clutched to the banister, pushing off the snow. I hurried behind, falling and sliding in his snowy footprints.
------------------
As a beginning, it’s a little schmalty, but I’m fond of the image anyway. In graduate school, I once got a long, long lecture from Professor Goran about how one should never, ever use a prologue. But really, it’s relevant. We love people in our childhood as we can’t as adults. Fearlessly, before trusts are broken. I wanted that as the premise. Maybe disillusionment and innocence lost is a little passé. But I’m OK with that.
I too have brother issues. My brother, five years older than me, is autistic. He doesn’t speak, will never speak, and has been institutionalized since he was seven and I was two. My sister recently told me, however, that when we were kids, my mother used to lock him in his room, using a roll of socks to jam the door, because otherwise, he’d wander around in the middle of the night, going from room to room.
Maybe he stood and stared at me in my crib. Maybe I knew that.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Yay! And yipes!
Yay! "Squid's Garden" sold! According to the new owners, it will be hanging in their living room. I won't be retiring on the proceeds of the sale, but tis better than the proverbial sharp stick in the eye. I've now officially been paid to paint.
In other visual news, because my computer died, and I am, at the moment, on an old version of Internet Explorer, I know that the blog looks darn ugly in 6.0. Yipes. It may be coming time to do an overall of my online presence.
And for those of you keeping track, I haven't forgotten about the post on music...still settling into the new digs. And doing a little happy dance.
In other visual news, because my computer died, and I am, at the moment, on an old version of Internet Explorer, I know that the blog looks darn ugly in 6.0. Yipes. It may be coming time to do an overall of my online presence.
And for those of you keeping track, I haven't forgotten about the post on music...still settling into the new digs. And doing a little happy dance.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Yes, I'm ignoring you.
Blog has been sorely neglected in the interest of packing...I'm returning to Nuclear Free Zone Takoma Park, having signed a lease on a cute little apartment that may or may not be able to contain all the art supplies I've accumulated over the last few months. The line between artist and packrat is very, very small as it turns out. I'll be buff from moving all those boxes though.
As part of the avoiding-packing project, I found some old framing that (miraculously) was just the right size for "Squid's Garden." I only had to cut down one side. Now that it's looking so fancy (gold, no less), I might try to sell it in the estate sale on Saturday. You never know what folks might buy.
Upcoming blog (post move): Ruminating on my odd relationship with music. Random notes are as yet too incoherent even for me.
As part of the avoiding-packing project, I found some old framing that (miraculously) was just the right size for "Squid's Garden." I only had to cut down one side. Now that it's looking so fancy (gold, no less), I might try to sell it in the estate sale on Saturday. You never know what folks might buy.
Upcoming blog (post move): Ruminating on my odd relationship with music. Random notes are as yet too incoherent even for me.
Monday, August 9, 2010
12 Days Project, Day 7 Writer
This probably doesn't make that much sense without the context of the song, and maybe not much even with the context of the song (I am the queen of plotless, after all), but so it goes.
http://www.twelvedaysproject.org/home/. I'm the writer for, Day 7, so here's the direct link to my page (as the home page will be changing shortly): http://twelvedaysproject.org/home/?p=258. There was confusion on timing, and so, it's short...had I known I'd really have much more time, maybe I would have done more with it. Then again, maybe not. Best not to spend too much time with What Ifs, and just go with what is.
http://www.twelvedaysproject.org/home/. I'm the writer for, Day 7, so here's the direct link to my page (as the home page will be changing shortly): http://twelvedaysproject.org/home/?p=258. There was confusion on timing, and so, it's short...had I known I'd really have much more time, maybe I would have done more with it. Then again, maybe not. Best not to spend too much time with What Ifs, and just go with what is.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
American Visionary Art Museum
Last weekend, I went on a field trip out to Baltimore to visit the American Visionary Art Museum. It was just the kind of day I needed, a change of scene to shake me up. Even 45 minutes away from home can be enough sometimes. And AVAM is a good place to go if you're feeling like a square peg. It's a place full of the art of, well, other square pegs. The exhibit while was was there was "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness," topics which, like most any artist, I spend a fair amount (perhaps too much) time thinking about. How to do what I want to do (whatever that might be - it's hard to tell some days) and still afford fancy stuff like food, shelter and cat food?
The AVAM trip restored some perspective, especially when reading the bios of many of the artists. I've got such a cushy life.
Here are the notes I took, just because something touched a nerve one way or another. I've dug up some links if I could find them (no photography allowed inside the museum, alas):
"Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. " -- Helen Keller. I no longer remember what this quote was attached to, but it hit me at once.
Painting: "Straight Jacket," haunting figure, wrapped in a straight jacket. The artist's note: "We all go through feeling absolutely trapped before we can truly break free." -- Sermet Aslan, artist and Charleston, SC restaurateur.
My favorite machine: a very fancy looking device that looks like 1950s medical equipment. It's called the "Purr Generator" Made by Duncan Laurie. For a picture, see http://www.duncanlaurie.com/studio/inventions/purr-generator
From the bio of Donald Austin of Tarboro, maker of machine-looking gadgets: "Austin believes if something looks as if it should work, then one can more easily believe that it really does serve some kind of useful purpose. Three-piece suits often provide the same illusion." I can never resist cubicle escapee humor.
The grand nephew of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, Andrew Romanoff, paints on Shrinky Dink material. I don't think there is a way to sound stuffy and elitist and overly-beret wearing artiste-y and say: "My medium is Shrinky Dink" as well. I love it.
In terms of liberty: one floor had several pieces by people serving life sentences in prison. There was also a series of pictures done by a man in and out of institutions for most of his life, often of the people he saw struggling as well. There was art done by the Ala Bashir, former personal doctor to Saddam Hussein and witness to many horrors (see http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7078646.ece, for details on his life). There was work done as memorials to people lost. Honors to heros Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks, among others. And there was an entire country created, completed with a political systems and characters in every imagining, the intricacies revealing the complexities of busy mind. Another artist minaturized, in stunning detail, works of art that moved him. Sadly, I didn't write the names down of many artists, the lapse of which is painfully clear to me now.
I thought as I started writing this that I wouldn't have much to say, that I'd lost pieces in the hustle bustle of the intervening week. Instead I'm finding how much stuck with me, the art and its impact, the stories of the people drawn to make things not because of training but just because, that's what humans do, how we process our world, often our pains, and make it into something else, this art that stirs the rest of us, inspires us to go and make our own. What a cycle.
In short: a fabulous museum. Go. Oh! And there's PostSecret there too, of which I'm a religious reader. And...
... a magic bus. How can you not want to see the magic bus?
The AVAM trip restored some perspective, especially when reading the bios of many of the artists. I've got such a cushy life.
Here are the notes I took, just because something touched a nerve one way or another. I've dug up some links if I could find them (no photography allowed inside the museum, alas):
"Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. " -- Helen Keller. I no longer remember what this quote was attached to, but it hit me at once.
Painting: "Straight Jacket," haunting figure, wrapped in a straight jacket. The artist's note: "We all go through feeling absolutely trapped before we can truly break free." -- Sermet Aslan, artist and Charleston, SC restaurateur.
My favorite machine: a very fancy looking device that looks like 1950s medical equipment. It's called the "Purr Generator" Made by Duncan Laurie. For a picture, see http://www.duncanlaurie.com/studio/inventions/purr-generator
From the bio of Donald Austin of Tarboro, maker of machine-looking gadgets: "Austin believes if something looks as if it should work, then one can more easily believe that it really does serve some kind of useful purpose. Three-piece suits often provide the same illusion." I can never resist cubicle escapee humor.
The grand nephew of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, Andrew Romanoff, paints on Shrinky Dink material. I don't think there is a way to sound stuffy and elitist and overly-beret wearing artiste-y and say: "My medium is Shrinky Dink" as well. I love it.
In terms of liberty: one floor had several pieces by people serving life sentences in prison. There was also a series of pictures done by a man in and out of institutions for most of his life, often of the people he saw struggling as well. There was art done by the Ala Bashir, former personal doctor to Saddam Hussein and witness to many horrors (see http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7078646.ece, for details on his life). There was work done as memorials to people lost. Honors to heros Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks, among others. And there was an entire country created, completed with a political systems and characters in every imagining, the intricacies revealing the complexities of busy mind. Another artist minaturized, in stunning detail, works of art that moved him. Sadly, I didn't write the names down of many artists, the lapse of which is painfully clear to me now.
I thought as I started writing this that I wouldn't have much to say, that I'd lost pieces in the hustle bustle of the intervening week. Instead I'm finding how much stuck with me, the art and its impact, the stories of the people drawn to make things not because of training but just because, that's what humans do, how we process our world, often our pains, and make it into something else, this art that stirs the rest of us, inspires us to go and make our own. What a cycle.
In short: a fabulous museum. Go. Oh! And there's PostSecret there too, of which I'm a religious reader. And...
Thursday, July 8, 2010
physicality of art
June had 18 days over 90 degrees, which may explain my blog silence, at least in part. It's been hot, continues to be now that we're well into July, and after hours out with the doggies, I am flat out. Despite my griping (significant) on the weather, however, I appreciate the physicality of my day job, and groove on that aspect of art as well. If you spend 3 hours moving very large canvases around, your arms will eventually feel like Jello. Art is not just the theoretical, the-what-does-it-all-mean?-and-how-does-it-make-you-feel? touch feelie aspects, but also sweat and labor, hauling canvases and cans of paints and visiting hardware stores and finding lattice the right size (still looking) and inhaling weird fumes that may make me grow a third eye. There will be nailing (hopefully not of my thumbs), hoisting, more moving of collected supplies (some of it aka "crap") in the future, cooking up base coats (gesso? rabbit glue? I need to figure that out) for big frames, chopping up bits of metal for Ugly Mobile #3, drilling, cutting, etc. It's Twister movements trying to get something heavy affixed to the wall and tiny fine motor skills getting that dot in the eye in the right place (faces: still a complete painting mystery to me). That physicality is, in some ways, why art looks different in person...you can see the 3 dimensions of it, the peaks and valleys of brush strokes, the way you know a painter not just by subject, but by the movement, the physicality of the way he applied paint, as personal and complicated as a fingerprint. I love that.
word of the day: smut
In a slightly gin-enhanced conversation by a stack of books outside a bookstore, the word "smut" came up (referencing a suggestively shaped peach in a black and white photo), and I find, days later, I'm still enjoying saying the word. Come on, everyone say it - the people in the next cubicle over may peek over the wall just to see what you're up to. If you say it with derision - what smut! - it has an angle of Germanic asp to it. But if you say instead, mmmm, smut, with a bit of a husky quiver to it, you can probably make that coworker blush. Then there was the way I said it, well, golly gee! smut! Whee!
And this is just one word, spoken one way or another, embued with various approaches to sex, society, art, judgements, etc. The power of language, particularly the music of it, never ceases to amaze.
And this is just one word, spoken one way or another, embued with various approaches to sex, society, art, judgements, etc. The power of language, particularly the music of it, never ceases to amaze.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
NYC #3 - MoMA: Willliam Kentridge, Picasso, Lee Bonecou, Marina Abramovic
I know everyone from DC says this, but still, it throws me: you have to pay for museums in NYC. Let me just say, it was so worth the $20 to get into MoMA. To avoid museum burnout (the glazed over eyes that no longer see), we only moseyed here and there, making no effort to see everything. What I saw inspired. If you're in NYC, go to MoMA. Right now.
First, check out the William Kentridge exhibit. The sketches are riveting, many self portraits, and quite a few of another figure, a woman in glasses. But the most absorbing elements of the exhibit are the short films. Some are animated sketches that grow in process to complete pictures, then evolving to other images, landscapes growing, figures marching with burdens weighing them down, disasters and wars in some movies, other more fanciful, e.g., trips to the moon. If you click on View Video in the link, you can see an example of what I mean. My favorite area was the room where eight or so different films played at once, some featuring the artist, some shapes in motion, all playing around with time and gravity (e.g., running film backwards so he appears to magically catch papers behind his back). The effect, if you turn slowly around in the room and catch bits of each film running all at once, is of being inside a busily creative mind, ideas flying in all directions.
It'd be wrong to go to MoMA and not see some Picassos. So do that. There are the classic asymmetrical features-all-over faces of women that you would expect, along with more realist work. The range of his experimentation is stunning. I was particularly curious about his prints, having recently learned more on the process from sorting Karen Laub-Novak's work. KLN, with her horsemen of the Apocalypse, would likely have enjoyed his progression of a print, each print adding another layer to create a more and more defined and complicated horse.
One piece that knocked me down, and was, in fact, the only photo I took while in the museum, was by Lee Bontecou. According to the signage, she worked on it for 17 years. She has a focus on time, mechanical, and astronomy elements, so it's no surprise it appealed to me. It flew off in a many directions with wire and gold, dimly reminding me of the guitar strings in the the Ugly Mobile 1.0.
Lee Bontecou: Untitled
Finally, a performance art piece was in process at MoMA. Marina Abramovic sat on a chair in the middle of a large, cordoned off square across from another chair. Gallery patrons could wait in line to sit in silence in the chair across from her for as long as they felt like staying. When we arrived, one woman who had clearly been waiting for a while was walking out to sit in the chair. The vibe off her was almost hostile after a while, like a staring contest, trying to prove something. She was there for quite a while, as we circled the area, taking in other parts of the museum. After her, a dark-haired man sat in the chair, and his vibe was much more relaxed, sitting in companionable silence. It's hard to say how I know how I felt about the participants. Marina kept her face as expressionless as possible, and so did the participants, and yet they clearly put off differences that were easy to read. Everything was being filmed from several angles, so I'll be curious to see how she presents the expressions through the editing of that film. When I did a yoga teacher training, one exercise we did was sitting in silence and looking another person in the eyes for several minutes. It's a weirdly intimate experience, and as such, initially uncomfortable, and then too comfortable, as if you're now best friends forever with someone with whom you have only a passing acquaintanceship. It amazes me how we're wired for eye contact, body language, connection with our species, how we interpret what we're not even conscious of most of the time. As with lots of performance art, I did have the sense of this one taking itself just a wee bit too seriously – would it kill her to crack a smile, just for a moment? And what if she needs a break to go pee? How is that arranged amid all the silence? But at the same time, I found the concept, and for the most part, implementation compelling. Finding the links for this blog entry, I thumbed through some portraits taken of people that sat in the opposed chair. It did not surprise me to find that some people cried. Being present means being vulnerable. Hence, the piece's title, The Artist is Present...
First, check out the William Kentridge exhibit. The sketches are riveting, many self portraits, and quite a few of another figure, a woman in glasses. But the most absorbing elements of the exhibit are the short films. Some are animated sketches that grow in process to complete pictures, then evolving to other images, landscapes growing, figures marching with burdens weighing them down, disasters and wars in some movies, other more fanciful, e.g., trips to the moon. If you click on View Video in the link, you can see an example of what I mean. My favorite area was the room where eight or so different films played at once, some featuring the artist, some shapes in motion, all playing around with time and gravity (e.g., running film backwards so he appears to magically catch papers behind his back). The effect, if you turn slowly around in the room and catch bits of each film running all at once, is of being inside a busily creative mind, ideas flying in all directions.
It'd be wrong to go to MoMA and not see some Picassos. So do that. There are the classic asymmetrical features-all-over faces of women that you would expect, along with more realist work. The range of his experimentation is stunning. I was particularly curious about his prints, having recently learned more on the process from sorting Karen Laub-Novak's work. KLN, with her horsemen of the Apocalypse, would likely have enjoyed his progression of a print, each print adding another layer to create a more and more defined and complicated horse.
One piece that knocked me down, and was, in fact, the only photo I took while in the museum, was by Lee Bontecou. According to the signage, she worked on it for 17 years. She has a focus on time, mechanical, and astronomy elements, so it's no surprise it appealed to me. It flew off in a many directions with wire and gold, dimly reminding me of the guitar strings in the the Ugly Mobile 1.0.
Lee Bontecou: Untitled
Finally, a performance art piece was in process at MoMA. Marina Abramovic sat on a chair in the middle of a large, cordoned off square across from another chair. Gallery patrons could wait in line to sit in silence in the chair across from her for as long as they felt like staying. When we arrived, one woman who had clearly been waiting for a while was walking out to sit in the chair. The vibe off her was almost hostile after a while, like a staring contest, trying to prove something. She was there for quite a while, as we circled the area, taking in other parts of the museum. After her, a dark-haired man sat in the chair, and his vibe was much more relaxed, sitting in companionable silence. It's hard to say how I know how I felt about the participants. Marina kept her face as expressionless as possible, and so did the participants, and yet they clearly put off differences that were easy to read. Everything was being filmed from several angles, so I'll be curious to see how she presents the expressions through the editing of that film. When I did a yoga teacher training, one exercise we did was sitting in silence and looking another person in the eyes for several minutes. It's a weirdly intimate experience, and as such, initially uncomfortable, and then too comfortable, as if you're now best friends forever with someone with whom you have only a passing acquaintanceship. It amazes me how we're wired for eye contact, body language, connection with our species, how we interpret what we're not even conscious of most of the time. As with lots of performance art, I did have the sense of this one taking itself just a wee bit too seriously – would it kill her to crack a smile, just for a moment? And what if she needs a break to go pee? How is that arranged amid all the silence? But at the same time, I found the concept, and for the most part, implementation compelling. Finding the links for this blog entry, I thumbed through some portraits taken of people that sat in the opposed chair. It did not surprise me to find that some people cried. Being present means being vulnerable. Hence, the piece's title, The Artist is Present...
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
New York #2 - Almost Dorothy by Neil de la Flor, Marsh Hawk Press, reading at Ceres Gallery
My friend, Neil de la Flor, had a reading of his book Almost Dorothy, winner of the Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize 2009 at Ceres Gallery. Three other Marsh Hawk authors, Philip Lopate, Sandy McIntosh and Eileen Tabios, also read from their works. They were certainly engaging readers and writers, but I've never giggled with them over crepes and red wine on South Beach nor collaborated with them in grad school on paintings and poems, so I'll just blather on here about Neil.
There was some concern that Neil wouldn't actually make it to his own book launch reading, as his flight out of Miami that morning was canceled. But they rustled up another plane, and so he arrived with time enough to check-in, gather his thoughts, and show off his rather stylin' hat.
Ceres Gallery, a small but interesting space, is just what you think a NYC gallery should be, housed in an old building with huge wooden beams and white walls and track lighting. We arrived and helped those bearing cheese and fruit plates bring things up, and then we all stood around as people trickled in. Each poet had put the word out among their people, so in short order, it was a fairly lively room. For me, the biggest change from this room versus readings in graduate school was that the average age of the attendees and the poets was significantly higher. These were working poets well past college age, and heavily published. There were poetic vignettes on colonscopies and uretheral probes, not the ordinary material of sun-burnished U Miami coeds.
Neil read last, as his flight delay had put him there in the line-up, just in case. In some ways, his work is more out on the edge than the other poets reading that evening, as most of Neil's work, while often narrative, is also sharp images and playful language.
Being Neil, he started with a MadLib he had created of one of his own poems, so the audience full of word people churned up some interesting choices (an animal - lemur, a piece of furniture - credenza), and a hybrid poem was born. I've talked before about Neil's tendency to collaborate and teach, and this struck me as a fine example of that. Having traveled with Neil on a road trip, I know that somewhere out there are old MadLibs full of goats, ham, lichees, Cracker Barrels and a host of decidedly not family-friendly words.
After the MadLib, Neil read Introduction (the fake autobiography that starts the collection) from Almost Dorothy. Unlike much of his other work, it's very direct, talking about the narrator exploring homosexuality and his early sexual experiences with men. Wrapped into all of this is attraction, drive, lust, death (the virus), confusion, rejection, longing and how all that is and is not related to feeling close to another person. I thought it was a gutsy choice to read. At the same time that I love that piece, I would have also liked to hear some of the poems that are less narrative, with a heavier emphasis on the language and the way he flips it about so skillfully. So with that in mind (and with Neil's permission) here's a poem.
Sweetmeat
Sweetmeat is so goopy in the mouth, pulpy
and sentimental, goat-licked. All things
flaccid, I have no rigmarole left, only my sordid
lover to melt me down for fructose. Fructed out.
Your sweetmeat slick as grease goes down
a rearing hog's hocks. So I am hocked.
Sincerely. I wish every hard bent scorpion
on this earth will jab their hell-pincers in your eyes.
Eyes are myopic: two eyes. I will chew mine
in bed, I will slosh toward the dirty college
and fold the sheets in this porno of never
loving you. Because it is a chewing,
because today's cleavage is another life's
straightjacket. This shag baby dethreads life.
I keep threading the same Singer. Thread
and needle, Lucite and sphinx, I have no
fur but couldn't be hairier. Please,
don't come any closer. I am sorry my slab
is all dystrophy and no muscle -- the body
is a simple kind of bomb and language.
There was some concern that Neil wouldn't actually make it to his own book launch reading, as his flight out of Miami that morning was canceled. But they rustled up another plane, and so he arrived with time enough to check-in, gather his thoughts, and show off his rather stylin' hat.
Ceres Gallery, a small but interesting space, is just what you think a NYC gallery should be, housed in an old building with huge wooden beams and white walls and track lighting. We arrived and helped those bearing cheese and fruit plates bring things up, and then we all stood around as people trickled in. Each poet had put the word out among their people, so in short order, it was a fairly lively room. For me, the biggest change from this room versus readings in graduate school was that the average age of the attendees and the poets was significantly higher. These were working poets well past college age, and heavily published. There were poetic vignettes on colonscopies and uretheral probes, not the ordinary material of sun-burnished U Miami coeds.
Neil read last, as his flight delay had put him there in the line-up, just in case. In some ways, his work is more out on the edge than the other poets reading that evening, as most of Neil's work, while often narrative, is also sharp images and playful language.
Being Neil, he started with a MadLib he had created of one of his own poems, so the audience full of word people churned up some interesting choices (an animal - lemur, a piece of furniture - credenza), and a hybrid poem was born. I've talked before about Neil's tendency to collaborate and teach, and this struck me as a fine example of that. Having traveled with Neil on a road trip, I know that somewhere out there are old MadLibs full of goats, ham, lichees, Cracker Barrels and a host of decidedly not family-friendly words.
After the MadLib, Neil read Introduction (the fake autobiography that starts the collection) from Almost Dorothy. Unlike much of his other work, it's very direct, talking about the narrator exploring homosexuality and his early sexual experiences with men. Wrapped into all of this is attraction, drive, lust, death (the virus), confusion, rejection, longing and how all that is and is not related to feeling close to another person. I thought it was a gutsy choice to read. At the same time that I love that piece, I would have also liked to hear some of the poems that are less narrative, with a heavier emphasis on the language and the way he flips it about so skillfully. So with that in mind (and with Neil's permission) here's a poem.
Sweetmeat
Sweetmeat is so goopy in the mouth, pulpy
and sentimental, goat-licked. All things
flaccid, I have no rigmarole left, only my sordid
lover to melt me down for fructose. Fructed out.
Your sweetmeat slick as grease goes down
a rearing hog's hocks. So I am hocked.
Sincerely. I wish every hard bent scorpion
on this earth will jab their hell-pincers in your eyes.
Eyes are myopic: two eyes. I will chew mine
in bed, I will slosh toward the dirty college
and fold the sheets in this porno of never
loving you. Because it is a chewing,
because today's cleavage is another life's
straightjacket. This shag baby dethreads life.
I keep threading the same Singer. Thread
and needle, Lucite and sphinx, I have no
fur but couldn't be hairier. Please,
don't come any closer. I am sorry my slab
is all dystrophy and no muscle -- the body
is a simple kind of bomb and language.
NYC #1 - New York Snippets
New Yorkers treat the whole city as if it's their living room - with that many people jammed up against each other, you just have to do whatever you need to do where you are. So folks change shoes mid-street next to trendy outdoor cafes and tighten up their bra straps on the subway while eating large, unwieldy sandwiches. Conversation isn't politely contained in whispered corners, and the snippets us tourists heard wandering by made us wonder what's happening upstairs where it is private (The two examples that made both Neil and I turn our heads were: "Are you the whipper or the whippee?" and, a block, later, "Well, it was rodeo season, so..."). New Yorkers embrace trends quickly. Fyi, skinny jeans are SO in, and rolling up your jeans to expose your ankles a la highwater pants, "geek chic," seems to be catching on. Only in NYC will a 25 year old wear a bow tie. But they will also wear pretty much whatever because, hey, it's their living room, so the guy that looks like he's wearing the pajamas he slept in last night, well, he probably is. The models may have on the 4 inch heels and little black dresses, but the average joe has his t-shirt and sneakers. They're both black too, of course, because everyone wears black in the City.
After stuffy, status-ridden Washington, DC, New York was a treat. Where else can you see things like this?:
New Yorker advertising:
and creatively-phrased grafitti:
After stuffy, status-ridden Washington, DC, New York was a treat. Where else can you see things like this?:
New Yorker advertising:
and creatively-phrased grafitti:
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Alice Walker poem, On Stripping Bark from Myself
I woke up thinking about this poem - a good day in the making if you wake up with words.
-------------------------------
On Stripping Bark from Myself
(For Jane, Who Said Trees Die From It)
because women are expected to keep silent about
their close escapes I will not keep silent
and if I am destroyed (naked tree!) someone will
please
mark the spot
where I fall and know I could not live
silent in my own lies
hearing their "how nice she is!"
whose adoration of the retouched image
I so despise.
No. I am finished with living
for what my mother believes
for what my brother and father defend
for what my lover elevates
or what my sister, blushing, denies or rushes to embrace.
I find my own
small person
a standing self
against the world
an equality of wills
I have lived to understand.
Besides:
My struggle was always against
an inner darkness: I carry within myself
the only known keys
to my death - to unlock life, or close it shut
forever. A woman who loves wood grains, the color
yellow
and the sun, I am happy to fight
all outside murderers
as I see I must.
-Alice Walker
-------------------------------
On Stripping Bark from Myself
(For Jane, Who Said Trees Die From It)
because women are expected to keep silent about
their close escapes I will not keep silent
and if I am destroyed (naked tree!) someone will
please
mark the spot
where I fall and know I could not live
silent in my own lies
hearing their "how nice she is!"
whose adoration of the retouched image
I so despise.
No. I am finished with living
for what my mother believes
for what my brother and father defend
for what my lover elevates
or what my sister, blushing, denies or rushes to embrace.
I find my own
small person
a standing self
against the world
an equality of wills
I have lived to understand.
Besides:
My struggle was always against
an inner darkness: I carry within myself
the only known keys
to my death - to unlock life, or close it shut
forever. A woman who loves wood grains, the color
yellow
and the sun, I am happy to fight
all outside murderers
as I see I must.
-Alice Walker
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Not Fan Mail
I received this email today from a total stranger. I think I'll let it speak for itself.
"Dear Cynthia,
I read your prose online. In your writing you come across as much younger than you are. It seems as though you play a character who you believe is entertaining to read about. If I consider your character, I see the bittersweet experience of a boring, generic middle-class female who is suffering guilt for consensual sensual pleasure.
I could tell you how to get rid of the guilt, but that would make you more angry. I can't tell if you are married. But I do know you haven't read many literary masterpieces. It would have worn off on you. I feel bad for you. You're going nowhere fast. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.
I'm sorry if what I write offends you. Almighty God has inspired me to write you; a person I've never met. That indicates He must care about you. But lacking any form of communication beyond email, I can only say what God wants me to, and leave it that.
What I saw was a sad woman hiding behind a keyboard; a self styledfeminist trying to be strong, and failing; someone who believes truth can be learned in school. I saw a facade of control hiding chaotic emotions, desperation for change, and sarcasm to dull the pain.
There is an alternative. You can learn how to write. You can become an inspired writer; one whose profound ideas never stop flowing; one who will change the world. I have written because I see raw potential. But the rebellion against traditional gender roles has your head buried under miles of deceit.
Your life is as good as it can be, for right now. I'm not a stalker, or a weirdo. I'm just a Christian man reaching out to heal the soul of another. Language is a fantastic element, because it uses words, and the correct words combined in the correct order heal the soul.
You are selling yourself short, because of guilt. I changed my mind. I'm going to mention three methods that allow females to dispense with guilt for consensual sensual pleasure:
If a female is married, she can veil her hair, kneel before her husband, and confess her sins; including consensual sensual pleasure. Her husband will be motivated to sow his seed of forgiveness in her contrite repentant womb. All life comes through masculine forgiveness. When she conceives, she knows she is forgiven.
A woman who is impregnated regularly is purged of guilt, through labor. A female who is physically forced to have relations bears no guilt for the pleasure she experiences, because it isn't her fault. She gets all the pleasure without the guilt. Plus, past guilt is removed from her heart. But the female must protest and fight back, at least for a short time, or she won't know whether or not she was forced, and guilt could become a problem.
Here's what to do after the guilt is gone:
Become Roman Catholic. Catholic women are chaste. Chastity is the key to female happiness.
Say The Five Decade Dominican Rosary each day. Give God 1/2 hour of uninterrupted time per day. Pray for inspiration. And in five years you'll be on The New York Times Bestseller List.
Just work hard every day, and read classic literature. Don't write like a disgruntled feminist. All those ugly dikes will be dead someday, and their genetic legacy will be purged from the human gene pool. Only the
righteous survive.
Change must come from inside. Changes to one's environment, for the sakeof change itself, is only a symptom the disorder that lay inside one's self. Be at peace. My peace I give you. My peace I leave with you. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My Word shall never pass away. What was Truth IS Truth NOW, and it always will be Truth. There is One Truth. Everything else is wrong."
"Dear Cynthia,
I read your prose online. In your writing you come across as much younger than you are. It seems as though you play a character who you believe is entertaining to read about. If I consider your character, I see the bittersweet experience of a boring, generic middle-class female who is suffering guilt for consensual sensual pleasure.
I could tell you how to get rid of the guilt, but that would make you more angry. I can't tell if you are married. But I do know you haven't read many literary masterpieces. It would have worn off on you. I feel bad for you. You're going nowhere fast. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.
I'm sorry if what I write offends you. Almighty God has inspired me to write you; a person I've never met. That indicates He must care about you. But lacking any form of communication beyond email, I can only say what God wants me to, and leave it that.
What I saw was a sad woman hiding behind a keyboard; a self styledfeminist trying to be strong, and failing; someone who believes truth can be learned in school. I saw a facade of control hiding chaotic emotions, desperation for change, and sarcasm to dull the pain.
There is an alternative. You can learn how to write. You can become an inspired writer; one whose profound ideas never stop flowing; one who will change the world. I have written because I see raw potential. But the rebellion against traditional gender roles has your head buried under miles of deceit.
Your life is as good as it can be, for right now. I'm not a stalker, or a weirdo. I'm just a Christian man reaching out to heal the soul of another. Language is a fantastic element, because it uses words, and the correct words combined in the correct order heal the soul.
You are selling yourself short, because of guilt. I changed my mind. I'm going to mention three methods that allow females to dispense with guilt for consensual sensual pleasure:
If a female is married, she can veil her hair, kneel before her husband, and confess her sins; including consensual sensual pleasure. Her husband will be motivated to sow his seed of forgiveness in her contrite repentant womb. All life comes through masculine forgiveness. When she conceives, she knows she is forgiven.
A woman who is impregnated regularly is purged of guilt, through labor. A female who is physically forced to have relations bears no guilt for the pleasure she experiences, because it isn't her fault. She gets all the pleasure without the guilt. Plus, past guilt is removed from her heart. But the female must protest and fight back, at least for a short time, or she won't know whether or not she was forced, and guilt could become a problem.
Here's what to do after the guilt is gone:
Become Roman Catholic. Catholic women are chaste. Chastity is the key to female happiness.
Say The Five Decade Dominican Rosary each day. Give God 1/2 hour of uninterrupted time per day. Pray for inspiration. And in five years you'll be on The New York Times Bestseller List.
Just work hard every day, and read classic literature. Don't write like a disgruntled feminist. All those ugly dikes will be dead someday, and their genetic legacy will be purged from the human gene pool. Only the
righteous survive.
Change must come from inside. Changes to one's environment, for the sakeof change itself, is only a symptom the disorder that lay inside one's self. Be at peace. My peace I give you. My peace I leave with you. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My Word shall never pass away. What was Truth IS Truth NOW, and it always will be Truth. There is One Truth. Everything else is wrong."
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Moving along
It seems I've not done well on posting in this in April, and here it is now May. But I've been thinking deep arty thoughts, I assure you. OK, perhaps not. But I have been sorting through lots of paintings and prints and sketches, and have made progress with the inventory of Karen Laub-Novak's work. Archiving is a fascinating process, finding a personality shifting over many years and moods. The range of her work inspires me. And her obsessions I find weirdly comforting - ah, the wings of a bird of prey or a terrible angel, the horses of knights or the apocalypse, these familiar places that slot my understanding of individual work into the larger context of its entirety. Conveniently, I'm not unnerved by locusts or grief, sinewy or skeletal figures, shadow spaces. I am thankful that she did not focus on spiders, of which I have a complete lack of bravery and irrational dread.
In terms of my own archives, I've recently dug through some of my own work from grad school. There are some poems that I have no memory of writing at all. Seen from that distance, they no longer have the starry sheen of inspiration, and fall flat. There are a few exceptions...and perhaps I'll play with those more. There is some satisfaction is being able to recognize where things fall down, in any case. And I find a certain symmetry in realizing I do have an angel poem. I suspect Karen would be amused. There is a story I'd forgotten about that interests me in some ways, although those reasons are possibly more psychological than artistic. I am clearly someone who writes out her demons, fictionalizing them into something manageable. That level of exposure is a wee bit uncomfortable.
I've been thinking about that, about the ever watching Eyes of Audience, in terms of this blog. A number of people have remarked on how personal it is, more journal than anything else, and I find the exposure is, well, awkward. Largely, I started this blog with the understanding that it incredibly obscure and of interest only to those who already know me, and even those that know me don't necessarily want to hear me rambling along all the time, but will probably forgive me my typos and awkwardness. Now there are a few folks that I've never even met who have read it. On the one hand, I understand, yo, that's the idea, and the star child in me is thrilled by that, let the applause, or attention anyway, circle round. On the other hand, it freaks me out. How exactly do I present here? Neurotic or nutty, funny or damaged, smart but self-conscious, analytical but antsy, all or none of the above? This is the thing with art, writing, voice, honesty, fiction, you always show more than you think you do, and it's filtered through someone else's equally subjective world view. I'm more comfortable with that now than I used to me (don't like it? don't like me? don't read it, and, uh, don't care). But to say I'm completely comfortable? Umm, no.
On that note, it is my mild hope to pull this more up out of my particular ponderings and react more to other people's work. I'll be going to Neil de la Flor's book launch in NYC in mid May. I hope to catch a Good, Greasy & Baked show while I'm there, if they're playing (need to check that). Maybe see the Marina Abramovic exhibit at MoMA Neil has been talking about. Getting out of the studio for a bit, into the life and noise of NYC seems a good plan. So more on that to come. In the meantime, those in DC should tell me where to be going for art, music, writing, etc. I want to be in the summertime flow of dancing in the streets.
In terms of my own archives, I've recently dug through some of my own work from grad school. There are some poems that I have no memory of writing at all. Seen from that distance, they no longer have the starry sheen of inspiration, and fall flat. There are a few exceptions...and perhaps I'll play with those more. There is some satisfaction is being able to recognize where things fall down, in any case. And I find a certain symmetry in realizing I do have an angel poem. I suspect Karen would be amused. There is a story I'd forgotten about that interests me in some ways, although those reasons are possibly more psychological than artistic. I am clearly someone who writes out her demons, fictionalizing them into something manageable. That level of exposure is a wee bit uncomfortable.
I've been thinking about that, about the ever watching Eyes of Audience, in terms of this blog. A number of people have remarked on how personal it is, more journal than anything else, and I find the exposure is, well, awkward. Largely, I started this blog with the understanding that it incredibly obscure and of interest only to those who already know me, and even those that know me don't necessarily want to hear me rambling along all the time, but will probably forgive me my typos and awkwardness. Now there are a few folks that I've never even met who have read it. On the one hand, I understand, yo, that's the idea, and the star child in me is thrilled by that, let the applause, or attention anyway, circle round. On the other hand, it freaks me out. How exactly do I present here? Neurotic or nutty, funny or damaged, smart but self-conscious, analytical but antsy, all or none of the above? This is the thing with art, writing, voice, honesty, fiction, you always show more than you think you do, and it's filtered through someone else's equally subjective world view. I'm more comfortable with that now than I used to me (don't like it? don't like me? don't read it, and, uh, don't care). But to say I'm completely comfortable? Umm, no.
On that note, it is my mild hope to pull this more up out of my particular ponderings and react more to other people's work. I'll be going to Neil de la Flor's book launch in NYC in mid May. I hope to catch a Good, Greasy & Baked show while I'm there, if they're playing (need to check that). Maybe see the Marina Abramovic exhibit at MoMA Neil has been talking about. Getting out of the studio for a bit, into the life and noise of NYC seems a good plan. So more on that to come. In the meantime, those in DC should tell me where to be going for art, music, writing, etc. I want to be in the summertime flow of dancing in the streets.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Joan Didion quote from The White Album
I rediscovered Joan Didion, The White Album, today. Great quote for writers:
We tell ourselves stories in order to live. The princess is caged in the consulate. The man with the candy will lead the children into the sea. The naked woman on the ledge outside the window on the sixteenth floor is a victim of accidie, or the naked woman is an exhibitionist, and it would be "interesting" to know which. We tell ourselves that it makes some difference whether the naked woman is about to commit a mortal sin or is about to register a political protest or is about to be, the Aristophanic view, snatched back to the human condition by the fireman in priest's clothing just visible in the window behind her, the one smiling at the telephoto lens. We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the "ideas" with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.
Or at least we do for a while. I am talking here about a time when I began to doubt the premises of all the stories I had ever told myself, a common condition but one I found troubling.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Kid Canvas Transformation
It takes a certain amount of hutzpah to start a blog, to proclaim I am So Sure that people out there in the world want to hear what I have to say. In normal life, we can see people's eyes glaze over if we wander into murky territories and clam up, but here in blog land, the rambling never stops.
Of course, it also takes a certain amount of guts to step out on the stage and give folks opportunity to take pot shots at my art. On that note, this weekend, I went out to Lewes, DE, again, to the Novak beach house to collect some prints, walk on the beach, and (the most fun) play with oil paints in the studio there. I have permission to work on unfinished canvases, so I started with a canvas that was clearly identified as a Kid Canvas (that is, a canvas Karen donated over to her children, presumably so she could do a little of her own painting as well).
So it started out looking like this:
Of course, it also takes a certain amount of guts to step out on the stage and give folks opportunity to take pot shots at my art. On that note, this weekend, I went out to Lewes, DE, again, to the Novak beach house to collect some prints, walk on the beach, and (the most fun) play with oil paints in the studio there. I have permission to work on unfinished canvases, so I started with a canvas that was clearly identified as a Kid Canvas (that is, a canvas Karen donated over to her children, presumably so she could do a little of her own painting as well).
So it started out looking like this:
This is what I did to it:
It's, uh, abstract. I'm thinking about calling it Squid's Garden. Oil paints are way more forgiving than arcrylics in some ways, as you have more time to mess around with them, and blend them into each other. I haven't quite figured out how to work with all the mixing, stand oil, stinky turpentine, etc., and different kinds of consistencies and brushes and such, but I had a great time experimenting with the possibilities, and occassionally pausing to dance to some very bad pop music on the radio. A good weekend all around.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
guardians
In an odd, bookend sort of way, my creative life is populated with deceased painters. One of the first stories I ever wrote was about Anne Freeman's death, a friend of my then-boyfriend. Anne died before I ever even met Jim, and he still reeled from it then (and now, in quieter ways). She was a painter, although I have no idea how dedicated she was or could have been. She was only 17 when she died. It could be I've expanded her artistic inclinations for my own purposes.
Now I live in an artist studio surrounded by the art of Karen Laub-Novak. She passed away last year. I know her through her family (my friend Jana, who is her daughter, and now Michael, her husband and my landlord), through the works of other artists who wrote some profoundly touching remembrances, but largely, I know her through her art, the paintings, her studio, and the prints. I've yet to catalog the prints (still on my list), so my knowledge of those is incomplete. But her paintings, finished and unfinished, resonate with me - art about struggle, striving, color, flight, movement (a sampling, not including many of my favorites, at http://www.laub-novakart.com/index.html. And I also came to have an idea of her when I cleaned out the studio.
An artist, of course she liked lights - light fixtures, lamps, lightbulbs - this makes sense to me, the play of light being crucial. But the box full of hinges and locks remains a mystery, part of some project I don't know about. The handyman took the two sinks, closeout deals for renovation projects that didn't come to fruition, and many, many tools, saws, drills, sanders, etc. The books on art, the St. Christopher medal, the shelves of wooden plaques, hunks of clay, many different levels and rulers and boxes and boxes of nails, and those endless tweaks to the house - she was a painter, assuredly, a writer, a sculptor, but she was also a builder, a tinkerer, a collector of Might Be Useful Someday, a collector of possibilities. I relate to that, and stare at those wooden plaques, thinking, hmm. The blue plumbing metal tubing I wove into the Ugly Mobile 2.0.
Both Anne and Karen have, in different ways, served as guardian angels of art, people that I have re-created in my own ways to look out over me. For years and years, I wore Anne's rings (yes, given to me by that beau - as a morbid teenager, I found it romantic). Now I stare around a living room covered with paintings by Karen, and have acquired her old blank canvases to use for my own wranglings with paint. I find I'm not quite sure how to approach those canvases yet - I've never even used oil paints, her medium, and have little to no idea what I'm doing with my batch of acrylics. But I want to do something on those canvases, stretch something inside myself, prove that somehow I've absorbed something of the energy of the art on the walls, the paint splashed on the floor.
Because I never met either of Anne or Karen, part of my draw to them is perhaps really to the affection those left behind have for them. Perhaps if I can tell a story or draw a line or carry on, in some way, a legacy of creative spirit, I too will merit that kind of love. Of course, the grieving for lost love is perhaps the saddest, and most strongly idealized.
With the death of my own brother - a real live person that I actually knew, but at the same time, did not know, because the severity of his autism locked him away from me, from my family, from ever even hearing him say my name - I find I am also mourning not just his loss, but also the fictionalized version of a "normal" brother I wrote into my godawful book. I'm aware that this makes me sound a wee bit delusional, but rest assured, I still know fact from fiction.
Many people comment that art is all about creating something, that it is new and love and creation and sunshine and rainbows, cathartic and transformative. And it is. But it is also, for me anyway, with these shadow guardian angels that inhabit my creative world, about mourning a loss, accepting not just the creative force, but the destructive force as well. The time that we have together is so fraught and brief. And sometimes, we never really meet at all, as it was with me, and Anne and Karen. And my brother Tommy, the boy I have always missed.
Now I live in an artist studio surrounded by the art of Karen Laub-Novak. She passed away last year. I know her through her family (my friend Jana, who is her daughter, and now Michael, her husband and my landlord), through the works of other artists who wrote some profoundly touching remembrances, but largely, I know her through her art, the paintings, her studio, and the prints. I've yet to catalog the prints (still on my list), so my knowledge of those is incomplete. But her paintings, finished and unfinished, resonate with me - art about struggle, striving, color, flight, movement (a sampling, not including many of my favorites, at http://www.laub-novakart.com/index.html. And I also came to have an idea of her when I cleaned out the studio.
An artist, of course she liked lights - light fixtures, lamps, lightbulbs - this makes sense to me, the play of light being crucial. But the box full of hinges and locks remains a mystery, part of some project I don't know about. The handyman took the two sinks, closeout deals for renovation projects that didn't come to fruition, and many, many tools, saws, drills, sanders, etc. The books on art, the St. Christopher medal, the shelves of wooden plaques, hunks of clay, many different levels and rulers and boxes and boxes of nails, and those endless tweaks to the house - she was a painter, assuredly, a writer, a sculptor, but she was also a builder, a tinkerer, a collector of Might Be Useful Someday, a collector of possibilities. I relate to that, and stare at those wooden plaques, thinking, hmm. The blue plumbing metal tubing I wove into the Ugly Mobile 2.0.
Both Anne and Karen have, in different ways, served as guardian angels of art, people that I have re-created in my own ways to look out over me. For years and years, I wore Anne's rings (yes, given to me by that beau - as a morbid teenager, I found it romantic). Now I stare around a living room covered with paintings by Karen, and have acquired her old blank canvases to use for my own wranglings with paint. I find I'm not quite sure how to approach those canvases yet - I've never even used oil paints, her medium, and have little to no idea what I'm doing with my batch of acrylics. But I want to do something on those canvases, stretch something inside myself, prove that somehow I've absorbed something of the energy of the art on the walls, the paint splashed on the floor.
Because I never met either of Anne or Karen, part of my draw to them is perhaps really to the affection those left behind have for them. Perhaps if I can tell a story or draw a line or carry on, in some way, a legacy of creative spirit, I too will merit that kind of love. Of course, the grieving for lost love is perhaps the saddest, and most strongly idealized.
With the death of my own brother - a real live person that I actually knew, but at the same time, did not know, because the severity of his autism locked him away from me, from my family, from ever even hearing him say my name - I find I am also mourning not just his loss, but also the fictionalized version of a "normal" brother I wrote into my godawful book. I'm aware that this makes me sound a wee bit delusional, but rest assured, I still know fact from fiction.
Many people comment that art is all about creating something, that it is new and love and creation and sunshine and rainbows, cathartic and transformative. And it is. But it is also, for me anyway, with these shadow guardian angels that inhabit my creative world, about mourning a loss, accepting not just the creative force, but the destructive force as well. The time that we have together is so fraught and brief. And sometimes, we never really meet at all, as it was with me, and Anne and Karen. And my brother Tommy, the boy I have always missed.
Commitmentphobe
On my refrigerator is a magnet that says, "Leap and the net will appear." I'm hugely fond of this idea - that if you just Go For It! - the universe will support you somehow. But I'm having a great deal of trouble putting it into practice. There are all these things that I want to do (or claim I want to do) that, instead, languish in various stages of disarray. In some cases, I can understand this. A book, however godawful, is a large undertaking, so fine, I can be a bit intimidated. But what about some of the godawful short stories? I can fit the entirety of their plots in my little brain all at once, and yet, I don't fix them, don't finish them, let them rot unpolished and decidedly unpublished.
I could go on a long psychological harangue on how I'm a commitment-phobe and afraid of failure, blah, blah, blah. All that's true, but really, what will it take for me to just suck it up and do something other than what I positively have to do in order to be able to survive? I mean, I want more than subsistence creativity, but I settle for the bare minimum, the burst of words or painting or fumbled guitar chords that gets me through without gaining me any ground. Art is craft, and craft takes practice, time, practice, practice, practice. The view from this plateau was lovely when I first stopped to rest, but how much more resting do I need? Am I really this lazy?
I could go on a long psychological harangue on how I'm a commitment-phobe and afraid of failure, blah, blah, blah. All that's true, but really, what will it take for me to just suck it up and do something other than what I positively have to do in order to be able to survive? I mean, I want more than subsistence creativity, but I settle for the bare minimum, the burst of words or painting or fumbled guitar chords that gets me through without gaining me any ground. Art is craft, and craft takes practice, time, practice, practice, practice. The view from this plateau was lovely when I first stopped to rest, but how much more resting do I need? Am I really this lazy?
Friday, March 5, 2010
death & taxes
Another Ani quote: "I was a terrible waitress, so I started writing songs." I waitressed for three days at a place called the Greenhouse in Harvard Square in Cambridge, back when I lived in Boston in 1989, in between colleges. It's the only job where I just walked off, failed to politely give notice and leave with bridges unburned. Charlotte, the unpleasant, mean ole wombat of a manager, yelled at me for letting the patrons crowded at the door sit down before the table had been cleared, and that was somehow it for me. I went back in the kitchen, took off my apron, collected my sad tips, and waved at her on the way out the door.
My bravada lasted until I got to the T subway. I was 19, and (although not yet consciously acknowledging it) on the verge of being fired at my other job at the day-glo spandex clothing store. I had no ability to get hamburger orders correct (there's a difference between a single and a royale) or sell flourscent pink socks, and it was becoming a problem. Scrabbling for change to buy a token, I burst into tears at the window, much to the concern of the old man behind the plexiglas. He asked me what was wrong and I blurted out my story, how I'd quit my job, how I couldn't afford it, how my boyfriend was going to be mad, how I was going to die in the gutter just as my parents predicted when I left college. He pushed a token through the slot, told me to keep my money, instructed me to go home, assured me that it would be OK.
And it was. A few days later, I interviewed at a jewelry and mineral store and got the job. I politely exited Day-Glo land, much to the immense relief of my manager. A month or two after that, I was promoted to Assistant Manager, my affection for shiny, pretty things finally being useful.
Today, I'm trying to keep the long view, that however circuitous, I am finding my way. And it is a scenic route.
My bravada lasted until I got to the T subway. I was 19, and (although not yet consciously acknowledging it) on the verge of being fired at my other job at the day-glo spandex clothing store. I had no ability to get hamburger orders correct (there's a difference between a single and a royale) or sell flourscent pink socks, and it was becoming a problem. Scrabbling for change to buy a token, I burst into tears at the window, much to the concern of the old man behind the plexiglas. He asked me what was wrong and I blurted out my story, how I'd quit my job, how I couldn't afford it, how my boyfriend was going to be mad, how I was going to die in the gutter just as my parents predicted when I left college. He pushed a token through the slot, told me to keep my money, instructed me to go home, assured me that it would be OK.
And it was. A few days later, I interviewed at a jewelry and mineral store and got the job. I politely exited Day-Glo land, much to the immense relief of my manager. A month or two after that, I was promoted to Assistant Manager, my affection for shiny, pretty things finally being useful.
Today, I'm trying to keep the long view, that however circuitous, I am finding my way. And it is a scenic route.
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