Monday, April 30, 2007

sometimes too many to remember

In no particular order, some people I miss:

roxanna mennella
fiona pechukas
maribel garcia
aunt emily
grandma phyllis
uncle herb
claire caine
carroll johnson
will sudo
kevin
agnes martin
sholmeit shaki
elsi and chelsea
dennis cook
aunt marie
mr. bing
grandpa joe
uncle john
uncle richard
melanie pelacios

Playing possum



Why is it that when I have way too much to do, I have the tendancy to choose to withdraw into myself? Here are some of the reasons I didn't call people back, and barely left the house this weekend:

-Apartment open house this coming weekend (cinco de mayo)...

For the apartment to be ready I had to repaint and detail all door trim and window trim, buy and install new door hardware and faceplates, repaint all doors, repaint kitchen, pack and store all item deemed "un-desirable" by the realtor: extra books, chatckas, things in closets, extra luggage.

It's interesting that one has to devole one's living space in order to make it "desirable" and "sellable"...I've been fixing the medicine cabinet in the bathroom to have only the "right" cosmetics; my bamboo floor mats in the bathroom are being replaced by cheery white fluffy mats; a new shower curtain liner (xtra long please) is needed to make the bathroom seem cleaner; all pock marks out of the kitchen walls please and can you paint over the mirror trim in the hallway? get rid of the christmas lights around the windows and why can't you have window treatments that are more "neutral"? Change the bathroom light bulbs, make sure there are fluffy pillows in the extra bedroom don't have any clutter or anything dark because that's not what people want to see when they buy something and don't you know your kitchen isn't neutral enough...the european sized refrigerator is not neutral your stove is not neutral your glass shelves are not cabinets and they aren't neutral there are still dings in the walls you can try to cover up if you want a better price please dust and make the plants look healthy by saturday

-Open studios in two weeks. Need to upload my images on the studios' website, make postcards, make business cards, change my own website, send the morse code necklace images to potential buyer, make more art work stretch some more big canvases cast another form for the double portraits and clean up.



-In-laws also in two weeks. Make sure food in fridge is in-law ready; go food shopping, make sure bedding is clean and ready make sure apartment has extra set of keys buy two metrocards are there any good art shows that week? buy another TONY for them, be in good mood be on best behavior see if my parents are free to meet for dinner one night don't lose mind. At least we can talk about motorsports and art...I love the new Alfa:



-Building project: roof on tomorrow? How much is next draw? When will next draw have to be ready? Does this contractor have all his numbers right? Is our insurance up to date? Have I paid all the bills for overdraft, credit cards, builder's risk insurance, mortgage, maintenence, phone bills cell phone bills cable bill, did i send MA the money for hawaii? Will I have enough money to cover the loan? Is our neighbors' wall secure? When will the foundation guy do the backyard tub?



-Massage: did I cover all appointments for Thursday so I can go to MK's opening? Check to see if paperwork is in order at work; make sure cancellation for Wednesday went through MA; make appointments for AS and JG this week and make sure to schedule time for one massage yourself on Saturday maybe but I'm not sure because I may have to be in studio making work for open studios when my apartment is being shown for the open house.

-MK opening Thursday night in Chelsea. Make sure to inform parents and second parent and friends. Look presentable try to lose weight go for a run or jog or at least do some sit ups and see if any of your clothes still fit you since you gained all this weight; buy different eyebrow pencil color because once again you messed up your eyebrows by trimming them first before tweezing them. Good thing you're going to see people in two days that you haven't seen in six months!! Great job winner.

-Make sure apartment is theft proof for Saturday: all valuables, passports, important docs are in safety deposit box by Thursday before opening. On the way. Have fridge look presentable. Clean all surfaces inside and out.

-See what is causing stomach upset, bloating, fatigue and exhaustion

-Sleep more, eat better, make more artwork, sell apartment, move, move studios, go to european shows, go to london? go to hawaii get out of debt pay off lot loan sell condo pay off huge mortgage loan make art work full time. sleep more

Friday, April 27, 2007

Morning meditation


Yesterday's inspirations

from the perspective of a tulip


up the birch tree


down this year's christmas tree


new growth, magenta pinecones

new growth in motion

Thursday, April 26, 2007

onto today

Oh yeah in addition to working in a whole new way, being more and more inspired by life around me and collaborating with friends almost on a daily basis, I am building a builidng in Brooklyn! Older picture below; on my way to the site now on our trusty motorcycle. More photos later on today! After buying resin for the double portrait idea.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

The Colaborator in my life


Making Sense, Collaborating, A reel/real, Reality







I have been painitng with an ease- I think about it like cleaning and from there I know I can do it. It does not carry the loaded history with it- I'm just scrubbing and polishing.






There has been so much inspiration for me on this site I am not sure where to begin.






There is so much strength here! And so much sorrow! It is real.






Please paint AEIOU- you are right it is wanting attention and is very strong.






Healing Wounds- the sketch I posted far left- from SA was needing a voice and I am so happy to be fullfilling that. Open Wounds (in the middle and detail on the right) is a 4x6foot canvas that will continue onto the walls of the gallery- For the second time I know am meant to be painitng this image. I want to share my statement with it as well:
Going far outside myself to a point half way around the world, I left a part of me far behind, opening a space.
In this cleared space I was able to listen to the other’s stories. The honesty of their words, their struggle, and their overcoming moved me to address mine.

Through meeting the people of South Africa, the landscape, my personal guard had broken-down. This guard was put up the night my father abused my mother, a crime I witnessed and carried from the age of nine. The courage to face this event was directly related to South African people’s confrontation of their past- a process I see rarely done in other states.

I am indebted to the people and land of South Africa for shifting my perspective and in turn changing my life. Open Wounds talks about seeing the trauma of ones life clearly, and processing it. Amazingly, it then moves on.
Thanks Angela , continue the fabulous work!

Collabs this week

To get out of my head a little, I thought I'd post some pictures of a scultpure collab with some friends on Saturday


when is underpainting enough?

I've been thinking about painting this morning...interested in the the dynamics of continuing a painting or changing course in a more appropriate way, more universal and inclusive. My interest in feminism and using my own story as the basis of my work seems to have had a muddy history when it comes to painting and mark making on canvas...all my weirdness has tended to come out when I think about painting too much...even when I paint I have tended to get very weird about it. Hopefully this post can help alleviate the shame of the past, create new space for a more positive present and future.

So, my question about underpainting and changing direction:

The muzzle-megaphone cow paintings have run their course for now. My excitement about 6' painting has subsided...altered its form. But yet I still have five canvases somewhat finished, somewhat executed, somewhat intruiged. I sketched many times what had become a very interesting potential, but now I would like to continue to expand on an idea I developed a couple of years ago on the same canvases. My studio is quite small and so is my budget, so a natural inclination is to cover up what I have been working on to pursue an idea I think has more to do with what I'm working with than the cows.

I ask myself, in the process of continuing to be weird: when can I paint over them with what I really interests me? Isn't it all the same thing? When is the spiral of picking up and letting go applicable to painting? I guess: always..one just has to be cautious of not separating media and intention.



The volvelle, the AEIOU (the agressive girl, the easy girl the indulgent girl, the obsessive girl, and the unattractive girl) calls to me and wants to be painted, sketched out larger than 1" x 2". I can see the series, like the overlapping portraits and the 10' pole. It all makes sense writing it out like this...to myself, to you Tereza. More this week

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

VA University shooting, from AP

Gunman kills 32 in Virginia Tech rampage

By SUE LINDSEY Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press

BLACKSBURG, Va. — A gunman massacred 32 people at Virginia Tech in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history Monday, cutting down his victims in two attacks two hours apart before the university could grasp what was happening and warn students. The bloodbath ended with the gunman committing suicide, bringing the death toll to 33 and stamping the campus in the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains with unspeakable tragedy, perhaps forever.

Investigators gave no motive for the attack. The gunman's name was not immediately released, and it was not known whether he was a student.

"Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions," Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said. "The university is shocked and indeed horrified."


But he was also faced with difficult questions about the university's handling of the emergency and whether it did enough to warn students and protect them after the first burst of gunfire. Some students bitterly complained they got no warning from the university until an e-mail that arrived more than two hours after the first shots rang out.

Wielding two handguns and carrying multiple clips of ammunition, the killer opened fire about 7:15 a.m. on the fourth floor of West Ambler Johnston, a high-rise coed dormitory, then stormed Norris Hall, a classroom building a half-mile away on the other side of the 2,600-acre campus. Some of the doors at Norris Hall were found chained from the inside, apparently by the gunman.

Two people died in a dorm room, and 31 others were killed in Norris Hall, including the gunman, who put a bullet in his head. At least 15 people were hurt, some seriously. Students jumped from windows in panic.

Alec Calhoun, a 20-year-old junior, said he was in a 9:05 a.m. mechanics class when he and classmates heard a thunderous sound from the classroom next door — "what sounded like an enormous hammer."

Screams followed an instant later, and the banging continued. When students realized the sounds were gunshots, Calhoun said, he started flipping over desks for hiding places. Others dashed to the windows of the second-floor classroom, kicking out the screens and jumping from the ledge of Room 204, he said.

"I must've been the eighth or ninth person who jumped, and I think I was the last," said Calhoun, of Waynesboro, Va. He landed in a bush and ran.

Calhoun said that the two students behind him were shot, but that he believed they survived. Just before he climbed out the window, Calhoun said, he turned to look at the professor, who had stayed behind, perhaps to block the door.

The instructor was killed, he said.

At an evening news conference, Police Chief Wendell Flinchum refused to dismiss the possibility that a co-conspirator or second shooter was involved. He said police had interviewed a male who was a "person of interest" in the dorm shooting who knew one of the victims, but he declined to give details.

"I'm not saying there's a gunman on the loose," Flinchum said. Ballistics tests will help explain what happened, he said.

Sheree Mixell, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the evidence was being moved to the agency's national lab in Annandale. At least one firearm was turned over, she said.

Mixell would not comment on what types of weapons were used or whether the gunman was a student.

Young people and faculty members carried out some of the wounded themselves, without waiting for ambulances to arrive. Many found themselves trapped behind chained and padlocked doors. SWAT team members with helmets, flak jackets and assault rifles swarmed over the campus. A student used his cell-phone camera to record the sound of bullets echoing through a stone building.

Trey Perkins, who was sitting in a German class in Norris Hall, told The Washington Post that the gunman barged into the room at about 9:50 a.m. and opened fire for about a minute and a half, squeezing off about 30 shots.

The gunman first shot the professor in the head and then fired on the students, Perkins said. The gunman was about 19 years old and had a "very serious but very calm look on his face," he said.

"Everyone hit the floor at that moment," said Perkins, 20, of Yorktown, Va., a sophomore studying mechanical engineering. "And the shots seemed like it lasted forever."

Erin Sheehan, who was also in the German class, told the student newspaper, the Collegiate Times, that she was one of only four of about two dozen people in the class to walk out of the room. The rest were dead or wounded, she said.

She said the gunman "was just a normal-looking kid, Asian, but he had on a Boy Scout-type outfit. He wore a tan button-up vest, and this black vest, maybe it was for ammo or something."

Students said that there were no public-address announcements after the first shots. Many said they learned of the first shooting in an e-mail that arrived shortly before the gunman struck again.

"I think the university has blood on their hands because of their lack of action after the first incident," said Billy Bason, 18, who lives on the seventh floor of the dorm.

Steger defended the university's conduct, saying authorities believed that the shooting at the dorm was a domestic dispute and mistakenly thought the gunman had fled the campus.

"We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur," he said.

Steger emphasized that the university closed off the dorm after the first attack and decided to rely on e-mail and other electronic means to spread the word, but said that with 11,000 people driving onto campus first thing in the morning, it was difficult to get the word out.

He said that before the e-mail went out, the university began telephoning resident advisers in the dorms and sent people to knock on doors. Students were warned to stay inside and away from the windows.

"We can only make decisions based on the information you had at the time. You don't have hours to reflect on it," Steger said.

Some students and Laura Wedin, a student programs manager at Virginia Tech, said their first notification came in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m., more than two hours after the first shooting.

The e-mail had few details. It read: "A shooting incident occurred at West Amber Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating." The message warned students to be cautious and contact police about anything suspicious.

Edmund Henneke, associate dean of engineering, said that he was in the classroom building and that he and colleagues had just read the e-mail advisory and were discussing it when he heard gunfire. He said that moments later SWAT team members rushed them downstairs, but that the doors were chained and padlocked from the inside. They left the building through an unlocked construction area.

Until Monday, the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby's Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.

The massacre Monday took place almost eight years to the day after the Columbine High bloodbath near Littleton, Colo. On April 20, 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives.

Previously, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history was a rampage in 1966 at the University of Texas at Austin, where Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower and opened fire. He killed 16 people before police shot him to death.

Founded in 1872, Virginia Tech is about 160 miles west of Richmond. With more than 25,000 full-time students, it has the state's largest full-time student population. It is best known for its engineering school and its powerhouse Hokies football team.

The campus is centered on the Drill Field, a grassy field where military cadets practice. The dorm and the classroom building are on opposites sides of the Drill Field.

President Bush offered his prayers to the victims and the people of Virginia, saying the tragedy would be felt in every community in the country.

After the shootings, all campus entrances were closed, and classes were canceled through Tuesday. The university set up a spot for families to reunite with their children. It also made counselors available and planned an assembly Tuesday.

Police said there had been bomb threats on campus over the past two weeks but said they had not determined a link to the shootings.

It was second time in less than a year that the campus was closed because of a shooting.

In August, the opening day of classes was canceled when an escaped jail inmate allegedly killed a hospital guard off campus and fled to the Tech area. A sheriff's deputy was killed just off campus. The accused gunman, William Morva, faces capital murder charges.

Among Monday's dead was Ryan Clark, a student from Martinez, Ga., with several majors who carried a 4.0 grade-point average, said Vernon Collins, coroner in Columbia County, Ga.

At a hastily arranged service Monday night at Blacksburg Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Susan Verbrugge gazed out at about 150 bowed heads.

"Death has come trundling into our life, a sudden and savage entity laying waste to our hearts and making desolate our minds," Verbrugge said during a prayer. "We need now the consolation only you can give."

After the service, Clark's friend Gregory Walton, a 25-year-old who graduated last year, said he feared his nightmare had just begun.

"I knew when the number was so large that I would know at least one person on that list," said Walton, a banquet manager. "I don't want to look at that list. I don't want to.

"It's just, it's going to be horrible, and it's going to get worse before it gets better."

studio thoughts

studio shots




Sunday, April 15, 2007

Overlapping memory/two sides of the coin



I am increasingly interested in the overlap of perpetrator and victim...how a traumatic event (initiated by one onto another) links the lives of both parties forever.

Nelson Mandela and Verwoerd, the grand architect of Apartheid, Joel and Lisa Steinberg, Nixalise and Nixmary Brown, Jennifer Levin and Robert Chambers, John Lennon and his murderer, etc.

What happens when the gazes of both parties overlap at the viewer? Who is seen? Who is being judged? What possibility is there of a new understanding of the event? I ask this because of my own fading memories of being attacked and the indelible marks that remain with my psyche. Working in a communicative way helps erase the shameful associations, but the actual faces of my assailants has faded over time.

What do those 12-year old boys look like now? Do they even remember the event?
What about my 18-year old? Does he remember what he did to me?

The preservation of an image is interesting as it relates to memory. Reading other blogs (that I don't know how to link to yet) inspired me to ask this question. What is it that remains of the image? Is it really the resonance of the molecules of the artist? How can that translate to working with trauma? Are the molecules of the perpetrator forever linked with those of the victim?

Both sides of the equation are interesting to me now...now that I've started to take responsibility for my own past and the choices I've made because of it. More images to come from these ideas soon...

Saturday, April 14, 2007

more reality

Also from Tania (Katan, not Kattan)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z1qB9i1PfE

Reality check

from Tania Kattan, with her permission:

http://www.collectivegesture.org/look/?page_id=20

Sunday, April 8, 2007

Inspiration

Tereza it's so interesting how your double self portrait immediately reminded me of Anitra's double portrait of her mother...and then to see that piece on her website way so great!

It seems the ebb and flow has come your way too. Last week was full up the brim with e v e r y t h i n g; but this week the tide of moderation has seem to come in.

I'm painting my apartment to get it ready for the "market", not seeing any separation between what "work" is. Talking to other workshoppers really really helps. I'm still really inspired by Lorna Simpson's work; it is so great how one can see one's work in a deeper form in someone else's work!

What's the workshopper motto: steal, steal, steal...I love it!

coexisting in black


That white- oogh. let me try that again!

art lifting

coexisting

My inspiration has been plentiful these past weeks. Your photos, checking friend's sites-http://www.michellemagot.com/, http://www.anitrahaendel.net/,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXnl6bbyWjc, and our catalogs from SA. Seeing others working eases me into doing the same. The pressure of ART lifts. Am interested in Global Feminism- show at the Brooklynn Museum- ordering the catalogue.

Saturday, April 7, 2007

At the Whitney

Went to the Whitney to see the Lorna Simpson show...it blew me away. I'm so inspired! Very clear, simple messages...very profound and beautiful and well done. Going back this week for sure.

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

co-exist







co-existing with my father...collaborating on the volvelles