Learning new things

I think I wrote awhile ago that I wanted to learn how to sew.  The first thing I wanted to do was to make awesome clothing for myself.  Then, maybe if I get good enough and actually enjoy it, I'll make a few things for others...set up an Etsy store and peddle my dresses there.

One thing I've learned is this:  sewing is something I can do while I'm working during the school year, whereas creating my boxes is too intensive to do when I'm teaching full time.  Partly it's a time thing, but it's also a brain-thing.  Not sure how to explain it, but it's hard to shift mental gears when I'm in the middle of a box, and then go in and explain how cameras work.  Those mental processes are incompatible somehow. 

Not true with sewing.  I can do "this little thing" or "that little thing" in small time chunks and never feel like I'm losing track or like I can't remember where I am in my class schedule.

Anyhow, here is my latest dress.  I really like it.  I always like the thing I did last the best. 

morning, noon and night all rolled up into one thing.
and my heart is free!
someone told me I could skate, and it was true. i didn't even need wheels on my feet; i could skate in my shoes.

and me, now skating on leather soles down the middle of grand avenue, with a bunch of others also skating wheel-free. how beautiful they are!! so many colors! hair flying, all interwoven. i watch them, i can see they also watch me. i wonder why it took me so long to figure this out.

and suddenly it's night time and i have to go.
i don't know where i'm going, but it was never far away. i'm driving. and making a left hand turn onto a ramp.

and there, as i'm making that turn, i see another car coming towards me in the dark -its headlights off. it's impervious, moving mindlessly through the night...like on autopilot. i mean, i see no driver. i am already moving through the turn; it's too late to make a different choice, so i mash down hard on the gas, but it doesn't work.

now i see my driver's wheel is somehow on the right hand side of the car, like i'm sitting in the passenger seat. and the oncoming, unlit sedan crashes into me...into ME. not into the metal of my car, but into my own body.

there is no pain, only confusion. everything is gray, and i don't know where i am. i don't know if i'm dead but then decide that if i were, i would be able to see myself lying there. i know i'm injured, but i don't know how much or if there is a place to draw a line, put a boundary, a period. to know anything.

and i think about skating on my shoes, and wonder if i will ever skate again or be with the others. or if i am stuck, blind, in the gray Nothingness forever.

doing something different.

So a couple of weeks ago I wrote an entry here on my weblog.  It was a bit of a kvetch about juried competitions, and high-priced entry fees to places like Photolucida and (to a lesser extent) LensCulture. 

The entry was prompted by an email I got from LensCulture, telling me that one of my images scored in the top 10% of all images submitted to LensCulture last year.  The point of telling me this was to also inform me that artists with images in the top 10% generally did very well in LensCulture's Exposure Awards.  Well, every application costs $50...so yeah, thanks a bunch, but NO THANKS.

I don't want to lay out details, because I get all riled up, but the point I was making is that I want to spend my money on supplies and my time on creating.  Instead of spending my money on entry fees and shipping and my time seeking, seeking, then framing and packing and running out to the post office, etc...  One challenge is that I have thought of my work in terms of showing for so long that showing is sometimes the motivation to create.  and I don't like it.  I want to go back to creating for the sake of it. 

Here are some ideas for reverting back to creation for the simple joy of it:

  • I am not applying to any more juried exhibitions.  Not for at least a year, maybe longer (we'll see how it feels after a year) 
  • I am never (never for the rest of my fucking life) making work for a gallery again.  They either like what I have, or they don't. 
  • I am letting go of every single practice that I do for the purpose of "building a body of work."  that is a market-driven practice and it needs to go.
  • The normal "artist's statement" can kiss my sweet ass goodbye.  (really, like I don't write enough?  LOL)

Anyhow, the next day I was checking my FB account and found an entry by another photographer.  Here is his entry (highlights are things I've said here on my own weblog):

He's kinder about the FB process of "mutual shoulder patting."   and maybe you noticed that at the end of his entry he mentions pen pals.  So I decided "why not?"  I don't know that it will ultimately work for me, or that he will find my mail very interesting...Here is my first penpal note to him:

Here's what it says:  So when I was a little girl (7 years old) my family moved to München.  And for one excruciating year, my sister and I suffered the indignity of attending school on an army base.  One of my teachers there had conn…

Here's what it says:  So when I was a little girl (7 years old) my family moved to München.  And for one excruciating year, my sister and I suffered the indignity of attending school on an army base.  One of my teachers there had connected with a school in the states and we were to form pen pal relationships with kids across the pond.  I tried this.  I mean, I gave it a valiant shot.  We'd been instructed to tell our stories.  But at 7 there weren't a whole bunch of stories to tell, and snap-shots of houses and parents and pets...I just didn't care. 

Many years later I met Eliot who became my AA sponsor.  We met every Monday for 4 years at the Village Inn in Buffalo, NY, and I'm trying to remember when we started telling stories.  (i.e., back-stories - our herstories)  We sorta didn't.  We focused on shared observations and we talked about the Now and about what we believed in, and about being sober drunks.  And I got to know who she was by how she was.  Eventually, stories about her unfolded.  It was natural.

I flew from Portland to Buffalo when Eliot was in hospice, and I stayed in her apartment, surrounded by all her things.  And I decided to take some.  Not to take anything of financial value, but items that would keep her close to me.  I took photos, I took a well-worn leather coin purse full of pennies, I took a couple of her AA books - ones she'd scribbled all over.  There were stories connected to each thing I took, and how much I cared about her stories.

Everybody is "other" until they're not.  I don't know where that point is, where a person goes from something alien to being a part of me...maybe it's a slow thing.

I wonder about this pen pal thing.  I'm 60.  I wonder if you will reply.  I wonder if I will care or if it'll be kinda like when I was 7.  I dunno.  But I'm game to find out.  K, that's it.

Bye.

Not sure this will be up his alley if he wants to talk about travel...only place I travel to are places in my mind, after all.  Maybe I should have started with a conversation about art, but this is what was on my mind.  So I wrote it.  and just look at the sassy stationery. 

Here's the envelope:

B*A*N*K

new orleans long before katrina.

and me and my parents hangin' out in a less well established corner of the city; it's like a mismatched quilt--elegant restaurants and people in evening gowns and tuxes here. . .kidz in ripped up clothes slammin this-n-that across the street.

and we seem to be in both places at once.

maybe we're nowhere...fuck knows.

but we're movin'...meandering...gliding from joint to joint. or perhaps i should say, from joint to establishment, yeah. that's more like it.

"what a GREAT day!!" my mom says, "shall we visit our good friends at the bank?"

she's, like, airy or something. airy and light and full of fresh-cut flowers and little white bunny rabbits. and my dad says, "why sure, dear...let's do that." and even tho i am an adult, he takes my hand like i can't figure out where to go or how to properly tag along like a good kid, and we're off, gliding on our invisible monorails towards a brick building on the opposite side of the street. there's a big sign nailed to the front of the structure. it says,

B*A*N*K

and my mother -always the one for appearances says, "we need to don our sunday best. i want a bonnet. i want ribbons. i want some pretty patent leather shoes."

and my father says, "don't be silly dear...you know the bank is closed on sunday."

and

thru a big wooden door that had been propped open -like it was expecting us, waiting for us to get there, we glide.

the bank is a huge, stadium-sized deal and it is full of furniture. chairs are sitting on chairs are sitting on chairs.  they are piled so high that they are un-sit-able (except by other chairs, apparently)

and the velvet rope around the edge, propped up by chrome supports leads us along the outer rim of the room.  We pass by tellers and wandering customers who seem oblivious to the impractical excess surrounding them...

and all i can think of is...

where's the bathroom?

i gotta pee.

we get to the counter. it's free junior mints for kids. i open the box and all the little erythrocite-dealies in there are normal...except for one.

it's...blonde.

i fish it out. where's the chocolatey-brownness of the chocolate?

it was eeeewwwwwwww. like, who would eat that?  its presence contaminated the pristine yumminess of entire box - and suddenly i see all the normal brown guys as suspect -as blonde guys in hiding...and after 40 years of wondering what that closure tab on the junior mints box is actually FOR (because who eats half a box and then saves the rest for later? LOL) i realize it is for THIS eventuality -for that moment when you discover a mutated candy in the box.

i pick up another box and peer inside. there are more blonde ones in this new box; i close it and give up.

 we are standing at the window in the bank.

i still have to pee.

suddenly i realize that i am peeing on the floor of the bank. only it is dark and no one can see me or the puddle forming between my feet.  as we walk off i shuffle through the pee, thinking that if i spread it out some it will dry faster and no one will notice what i did.

and now we are walking along the exterior of the other side of the room, guided still by velvet ropes...heading for the door, i hope.

night time,

bank is closed

parents are gone

and i'm alone in the

drip

drip

drippy wetness of the basement

and there's ductwork and the rice-crispy goodness of crackling electrical boxes, and weird shit all around me.

twisted wire.

and the scuttling of shadowy forms.

and now the darkness of a man approaching.

and

i got nowhere to go...am my mother's white bunny.

i am not me, and there is no DOWN to my safe place (breathing underwaterland)

only cinderblocks and concrete

and me in an unlocked closet, with my foot wedged between floor and door.

and footsteps approaching, i reach to turn off the light. if he cannot see me in here...if there is nothing but blackness he will just leave. i flip the switch and it doesn't work. the light is blasting onto my face and i see him looking through the crack between the door and the frame. he is not just perusing my features, there is eye-contact.

oh god.

it is time for me

to be

shredded.

and left half dead.

and then

he

leaves...

and before i find out if get to live or die, simon starts yowling at the door.

and i wake up.

bleary and weird. and simon leaps onto the bed. he just wants to go out and play, he doesn't realize he just saved my life.

:)

or?

maybe he does.

Wolff Gallery

Today?  Studio visit.  Zemie Barr and Shannon O'Connor braved the ice outside my house to journey here and look at my work to see if it fits into the aesthetic sensibility at Wolff Gallery.   They think "yes."  And since it's the only gallery I wanted to contact in Portland, I am really glad they also think it's a fit. 

Rather interesting, I asked them how they arrived at the name for the gallery.  There were so many reasons!  For one, they mentioned that they are interested in representing traditionally under-represented artists -artists who remain under the wire, anonymous, if you will.  And they told me about a quotation by Virginia Woolf that I'd never heard before, but that really struck me:

I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.

They also mentioned that the double-f on the end of the gallery's name represented them in a way, 2 Females, women. 

I loved watching them look at my boxes.  They made little exclamations.  They un-scrolled the scrolls, touched and noticed everything.  It was good.  We talked about the Ghost Ships project and I think that looks like a "GO!"  Very VERY glad about that since I am sitting here with all these frames, images and trinkets and no home for them.  I also told them about my murmurations idea, and they seemed interested in that, so maybe some time down the line...

They drove off after about an hour and a half, with 4 of my tiny pieces to put in their shop.  I feel really fortunate to have connected with them and am very much looking forward to seeing how things unfold! 

Actual snow in portland...

So today at 4 PM, the school announced while I was in the middle of a lecture that they were closing an hour early because of "impending inclement weather."  and that we should "pack up our belongings" and gtfo.  I as I peered through the window into the flake-free parking lot, I thought,

"OK, so now PCC is closing because it might snow in the future...."

Really, Portland is the laughing stock of the nation when it comes to snow and how we react to it.  Here is an article written in the Oregonian in December about how the entire city closed down for an INCH of snow.  We seriously go nuts here when a single flake drops from the heavens.

But tonight?  Yeah!  we actually got some real snow!  here is a photo taken from my front porch about 15 minutes ago:

January 10, 2017

January 10, 2017

 

 

This morning I received an email from a gallery that one of my boxes, "Dust," was damaged during the show.  As the story goes, an unsupervised child was running around in the gallery and knocked my box off of its perch.  I don't have the box back yet, but I feel sick to my stomach. 

This would be the second box that was damaged in a gallery.  And the kicker is that they are not that delicate. 

I have a studio visit next Saturday with the Wolff Gallery and she is interested in the boxes.  Right now I'm not sure I ever want to show them again.

At what point does a utilitarian object become "art?"

Black and White and Gray all Over

Do you think you’re a “good” person?  I bet you do.  Most folks do.  But when you and I get into an argument and I walk away thinking that you’re an asshole, and you walk away thinking I am...well, who’s the asshole?  I know, I know...THEY are.  But what if they aren’t? 

I began thinking about this last year when I did something in particular and thought to myself, “Wow, ‘good’ people don’t do that kind of shit.”  But I’m a good person, aren’t I?  Well, maybe I’m not...or maybe instead, it’s not useful thinking of people in terms of “good” or “bad.”  Because the fact is, good people do bad things, and bad people do good things.  Smart people do stupid things, and people you think are dumb can be really insightful.  It’s a muddy world out there, and it’s a muddy world in here *taps chest* -if you know what I mean. 

So what's "good," anyway?   Mostly folks agree on the basics, and it’s really not that confusing, is it?  Most of us value the same sorts of things:  loyalty, honesty, kindness, intelligence, and being good in the sack generally rank pretty high on most people’s lists.   OOPS, sorry...that last bit just kinda slipped out there...  :P

But OK, Honesty.  This is a quality that I have wrestled with my whole life.  I believe people should be honest.  But they’re not, and frankly, I’m not.  So for example, in my capacity as a teacher I sometimes tell little fibs.  It goes like this:  I make a JUDGMENT about how a person is doing (emotionally) in their process, and I give them feedback based on a combination of factors....so if x + y + z < 0 I lie.  if x + y + z = 0 I give them a soft truth.  It x + y + z > 0 I give them a hard truth.  Here, x is how long they've been working at it.  Y is how I believe they are feeling.  And z is the quality of the print.  See what I'm saying?

Sometimes, after a person has sweated in the darkroom making multiple prints of the same image trying to perfect it, and they come out feeling proud of themselves for a print that is still slightly blown out in the highlights, and I KNOW that hearing a critical comment from me will squash them, I lie.  I tell them it’s awesome and their grade also reflects the awesomeness.  And MOSTLY it IS awesome....it’s just that one spot, you know?  Or that one quality that could have been a bit more carefully rendered.  Because here’s the thing, if they shuffle off with their print –yes, the one that they were so proud of- feeling defeated and with their tail between their legs, they are less likely to continue doing photography at all.  And as long as they come back, we can work on those little things.  I have had students stay with me for years, who have gone back and looked at the work they did in Photo 1, and then said to me, “Wow...these prints are not so good, huh?”  Because they can see it now, and that is how it’s supposed to be: they are supposed to get good enough to know for themselves when the print still needs attention. 

I guess I would say that I tell them what I believe they need to hear.  Sometimes what is needed is a well-considered fib.  Sorry, just the truth there...because sometimes the actual truth is not useful.  It just isn’t.   Since I’m outing myself on this topic, I should say that I also get people who reeeeeally want the truth and who would prefer a hard truth to a lie, and a hard truth to a soft one.  And I have no problem at all saying what I see. 

Here's another tidbit:   I tell them I always tell the truth.  But that in itself is also a lie. 

One last tidbit:  What I say to them in critique (a public forum) is not the same as what I say to them in person. 

It’s a slippery slope. 

Moving on from the teaching realm (and I saved this for last because nobody is going to read this far) here’s another thing in the truth department...and this is where I went wrong last year.    FACEBOOK.  Omg, with the FB humble-bragging.  I fucking hate it.  My sister said I should really try to get my work out there on FB, and last year I made a valiant attempt.  I tried all kinds of wording, tried the humble-bragging, tried excitement, etc.  but it all just seems like so much self aggrandizement. 

I had (notice the past tense) a friend –and I considered her a friend irl...not just a FB friend.—who was something of a champion at posting her accomplishments on her FB feed.  OK.  That’s her business and her thing –works for her, wouldn’t work for me, but I still couldn’t help having sentiments about it. 

Well, guess what I did.  I composed a letter to my sister, stating my opinions about one of her posts.  I did so in derogatory terms.  And I accidentally sent it to the person I was criticizing.  OMFG...can you say:  Terrible Moment.   Yep, it was a terrible moment.  And it’s a moment I will remember for the rest of my life for so many reasons.  Here are some:

It was a moment of honesty that I would NEVER have shared with anybody but my sister, much less the subject of the criticism.  I really DID believe that this person’s post was horseshit.   And though this ex-friend and I had previously discussed how her FB presence didn’t really match her real life self, I had never stated -nor would I ever have been so specific and harsh in my critique of her posts.  I hurt her feelings.  Like, a lot.  It is the one thing that has continued to be hard for me to swallow.  That I could say something hurt somebody like this. 

This experience also solidified my beliefs about telling the truth.  Some "truths" are just not useful.  But I have been taught, and also on some level believe that the truth is important...that it is somehow "real" and that there is value simply in knowing that reality.  So I want to be honest.  And I was wondering:  if the truth is hard to tell, then maybe there is some way of changing certain kinds of truth.  Subjective truths, truths that are about how something makes you feel... these kinds of subjective "truths" might be mutable.  Meaning:  what if I could change how I feel in the first place?   Alternately, what if I could get into a place of non-judgment about stuff that doesn't matter anyway.

Anyhow, my ex-friend has certainly moved on from this.  However, because I am the perpetrator, I have not been as successful letting go of it.  Many times, this whole affair has made me wonder:  “am I really a ‘good’ person?”   “do ‘good’ people act like I act?”  and you know what?  I think they do.  Because unless we are 2 years old or we are not too swift, we all form opinions about how the world should be, and sometimes the world doesn’t manifest in expected ways, and/or other folks don't see or believe the same things we do.

Seems like the older I get, the grayer the world becomes.  It was so much easier when the whole shebang was black and white.

 

ARGH!  I keep going back and forth on these 2 variations.  Long?  or short?  Short?  or long? 

for the love of Stories

I always found ways of surviving trauma.  When I was little, trauma looked kinda like this:

  • Math class
  • Moving
  • Navigating my way in a foreign country
  • Eating my broccoli
  • What to wear to school
  • My dad’s wrath

And so on...  These days it’s a little more complicated, but not much. 

Right now I’m remembering my youth and what it was like to suffer through math class.   I was attending an international school in München that was teaching something called, “New Math.” 

Topics introduced in the New Math include modular arithmetic, algebraic inequalities, bases other than 10, matrices, symbolic logic, Boolean algebra, and abstract algebra.  All of these topics (with the exception of algebraic inequalities) have been greatly de-emphasized or eliminated in US elementary schools and high schools curricula since the 1960s.

Just to say, this subject made no sense to me at all.  Even my mother, who routinely helped me with my homework, finally threw her hands up in the air and declared that she couldn’t do it either.  I was, forthwith, shuffled off to my bedroom where I was supposed to wrestle with this shit on my own.  K, it sucked.  But here’s the thing...

I had a radio in my bedroom.  And this radio became my best friend every night during my “math studies.”  Most particularly, I found a station that featured mysteries and dramas.  I am not sure of the particularities anymore, but I do remember, specifically, a show called SUSPENSE!

I got totally lost in these stories...I loved them.  And then they disappeared.  And it was years before I really cared very much about radio again.  In 1998 a friend introduced me to Art Bell, and all the old joy of radio flooded back to me...then Art retired, and the world was silent again. 

Last year, by accident, I discovered podcasts!  I had no idea that it was actually radio.  And a whole new world of imagination opened up to me!  Man, I love these things!!  Here are my current favorites...

I'm always looking for new ones.  I like dramas best...stories that unfold and unwind over time.  There are other good shows, like "Lore."   But the extended story is where it's at for me...maybe I need to expand my listening parameters beyond shows with a paranormal bent to them.

At some point last week I realized that I run stories in my head, like, all the time.  I was shopping at an antique store and stumbled into a vendor's booth...they had tons of Victorian lace in little plastic baggies, crocheted doilies, wooden furniture with elaborate scrollwork, and various odd bits and bobs.  I sat in this space for about 45 minutes.  I opened each plastic baggy - noticed that the vendor had folded them with care- to examine the intricate details of each piece of lace.  I could see how each was made, how some of them were put together in little modules, I imagined what kind of dress each piece of lace or trim had been attached to...I wondered what happened to the rest of the dress...I ruminated about the women who actually wore these dresses, what their lives were like... and then I carefully re-folded each piece with care.  I finally arrived at the register and the clerk said, "Ach!  This vendor can't figure out if he is #44 or #47!!"  and I said, "HE?"  And then I thought, good lord, I am SOOOO stereotyping.  But I was also a bit surprised, because I had also unknowingly imagined the vendor.  

And then I thought about every human interaction I have...There is so much that goes into every single meeting.  All our histories (mine and theirs) follow us into each present moment making it difficult to just see the uniqueness of each PERSON in front of us.  How to take each individual I meet without "filling in the gaps?"   Stop, I guess.  Remember to not remember.  Listen.  and know that each person who enters my orbit brings with them an ungraspable complexity that my imagined stories can never do justice to.  

me, at 60. (I know you will fill in the gaps!)

me, at 60. (I know you will fill in the gaps!)

Happy and Fulfilling New Year to All!!

2016

● Discovery Channel - Large Asteroid Impact Simulation (2008). Earth was born as a result of repeated asteroid collisions, the moon was created by a single giant impact event. Then, Earth's size attracted huge meteorites, which slammed into it, causing super-high-temperature rock vapour to cover the entire surface and evaporate all ocean water.

New Box

I'm working on a box that I see as more of a book.  I just completed the chapter on hands.  I am also creating a chapter on "heart" and a chapter on "mind" ...here is one of the small pieces from that box.  The original is 4 x 3.5 inches.  The photos of the little people are from an album of old family photos that a student, Chip, gave me.  The hands belong to my friend, Levi.