Personal portrait of the inner guru and spiritual growth....
Not quite done...working on it.
New work
There is always a leader who speaks first, says I go first.
This is Da Leader.
SPRING!
The thing is, cold weather's been keeping me busy reading and researching my new project(s).
I don't plan, in fact I never know what the end result is going to look like since my struggle has always been keeping myself out of its way. Today I started a story. Had four canvas and straight out of bed began working on the platform. ( background). Platform because like a trampoline I jump right in following the trail of an invisible stage. I've been preparing for these guys, however preparing for what I don't know yet.
New Project in the works!
I have been taking advantage of the freezing weather to think about and research my new project. A lot of external events keep throwing me off my creative center, and while riding with that wave, I have no other choice but to wait it out till everything around me calms down so I can get back my routine again.
In the interim I'm experimenting with texture and colors, pricing paints and doing a lot or reading and writing.
The challenges ahead always come down to solitude/ respect that I don't get from others. This is an ongoing constant balance/struggle because my time with my art is not respected or valued unless I completely alienate myself from everything and everyone and right now that's not possible.
The colors coming through differ from what I put down on paper. The texture I see in my mind's eye are softer and brilliant, not bold or tough to look at. What I do see when I look at my prelim idea is ME screaming for help.
Apocalyptic Cold Weather
This cold weather is doing something to my brain. It is simply too cold for me to focus. Instead, I am taking this time to research my next art project and write. I also just got " Restless Ambition" a new Bio of my idol Grace Hartigan and am loving it. Even though there are a million of us painters out there, I always feel alone in my journey. Getting insights from a master like Grace is comforting that the anxiety and struggle is valiant.
My next project is clear as ice in my mind. I've been keeping busy researching colors and color techniques, putting down my thoughts and energy to paper. The final product is never what it starts out to be since it is all about emotions and right now I'm really grumpy with this weather.
I look forward to Gallery shopping when the weather gets warmer. Got lots of plans.
Sample of my writing.
.......the connection was instant. Snap. It happened, for at that moment past present and future collided and he stepped right out of it waking her up from a memory that never happened; yet as real as the blood flowing through her. Serious dude. Cool ice, almost arrogant if it wasn't for the twisted mischievous smile and the way he penetrated with his eyes when spoken to. A young Keith Richards look alike with bad skin, dark cropped hair like he cut it himself and dark eyes. Anorexic slim, outlines of blank tattoo designs traveled up his arm with the promise of more color to come. A silver inverted pentagram hung over his blank tank with an image of Road Runner.
.....His voice...something about his voice kept her from running away and that's exactly what her heart was screaming for her to do because everything about his guy felt dangerous. Instead, she remained in place outside the group of punks and her friend Sean listening in, only to his tone of voice, soft and penetrating vibrating through her body like if everything he was saying was meant for her to hear it.
Bitching...
2015 started interesting. I haven't been able to spend as much time with my art as I would like. People don't understand what is like to be an artist. Silence is my friend. I am IN the work I'm doing. In the zone I don't want to hear anything, specially chit chat.
At work changes are taking place. So far my job is safe but who knows...
I let the chips fall where they land.
Memory of Once Upon a Time...
Everything always starts out a fog..
First Project of 2015
I didn't know who I was back then..no idea of self. I identified with the streets, buildings, windows, vagabonds and garbage.
That was real to me.
Happy 2015
I got lots of projects I'm working on. Writing and working on collage. In order for me to go back and remember the feel of what it was like in the past, I have to piece it together first. At first I was kind of reluctant to write anything letting the pieces speak for themselves; for some for born at a very low and dark point in my life movie and while I remember everything, Now is where I want to be.
I look back and nostalgia creeps in.
I used to watch the lights in apartment buildings feeling the warmth and family connections in each window. I remember thinking, wouldn't it be nice to be that happy while here I am, in the cold, watching in a doorway freezing my ass off..
Been writing..
I am also injecting the art pieces into the writing because they are mutually exclusive. So far I have 11 pages ready to edit and re write. I started painting as an extension of writing poetry and the progression grew and expanded pushing writing to a side.
I am very comfortable doing both.
CB stories...
Combat Boots story...
In my one room I rented, spend many hours alone looking out the window. Cheap place, $70 a week. Didn't have much, a dresser, a single bed and a two tier book case half filled with my favorites...Anna Kavan, Djuna Barnes and Rilke. And yes of course, a radio.
Just when I think I had given up writing poetry, compulsion of emotions were determined to be heard. Emotions I desperately blamed for my pain. I felt way too much.
Combat Boots Memories
My Mentor Brainard Carey has suggested I write down the stories my old combat boots have to tell...
Notes to self in the laundry mat.
I have to go with what I feel. Must stop fighting the process.
Feel like writing today...
Like I said, I was never Norma Jean a candle blowing in the wind...Terror walked with me. Looking at all the positive responses I've gotten from my High School Graduation picture I posted on Facebook while visiting my family in Miami last month, it is not only astonishing but liberating to go back to that time, that exact moment when that picture was taken and recall how ugly I felt. Not only ugly but useless, ashamed and empty.
I don't play the blame game, at least I've outgrown it as I matured, yet...shame and fear was all I knew because somebody else's reality was forced upon me and I always sensed from a very early age, there was something wrong with this picture and it is not me.
I was a rebel with a cause. I had every reason to fight back to save myself from the suffocating stagnation all around me day in and day out. On a daily basis I was made to feel ashamed of myself and my feelings, I was the bad person for having dreams and aspirations of freedom and art. Freedom from the darkness of conformity. Change was never an option. My opinions were gagged and bottled with dirty glances and that non human vapor ganging up on me.
I was a good kid. I was a smart and sensitive girl made to feel ugly and empty. Today all I can say about that is WOW...
Excited..
Looking forward to painting this weekend.
I'll play your silly game...
New Project
Not really new...
Been thinking about it for a month, painting it in my head.
sway...
Art to me is a working process. First the colors then energy. Takes me weeks, months to sit and paint and when I do if I don't do exactly what the paint wants, we fight. When my ego gets in the way I have a problem. Not the painting. Me.
Its an awareness that kind of chuckles when I get in its way.
Back from Miami
Miami has changed since the 70's. South Beach used to be known as Ocean Drive and if you sat on the ocean wall you can dip your feet in the water. Today half of mile of sand separates the sea from the luxurious hotels and bars.
That's when I had an existential moment walking around the Art Deco neon props.
I visit to see family, that's all I really go there to do. Creatively, I am vacant in Paradise. I may not be physically painting but in my head there are always all sorts of images and projects going on. I am in Miami and my mind goes blank and panic quickly ensues inside me.
Been thinking about the WHY. One of my many reasons is the ocean. What is the correlation between my creativity and the sea, and why when I am so close to it my creative well runs dry. Could it also be the neon props overwhelming my senses?. Miami is the city queen of neon...its everywhere, can't get away from it.
Yet...there is nothing creative I draw from it. Its fake.