Series still for "Through the Eyes of Strangers"

One of fifteen images for our show in October

death and life

It's so interesting what comes into one's world when one opens up to it.

The woman I knew as my Grandmother died this week, and a very good friend's wife had their first baby on the same day.

Even though Eda had been out of her mind and in a nursing home for a couple of years, her passing marks the end of an era in my maternal family: she was the last one left in her generation. Her twin sister died a few years ago, and the rest of her siblings many years before that. My Grandfather died when I was 17, his brothers when I was younger...unfortunately too many to count (and that's only my blood family, not including my family of friends who are no longer with me in this life)...

But then I know 6 women who are giving birth in the next month or have just given birth within the past month. Somehow their choices to start a family both draws me in and draws me away. I am less torn between having a baby and not having a baby, and more concerned with the "when"...

I realize the tantrum I threw and posted about last week was not a superficial or isolated incident at all, but it came from a deeply rooted place with a million strings attached. After it was over I slept for 13 hours, waking up in the same position I went to sleep in. Something dislodged from my entire being; the black anchor has lifted from around my heart. I don't think I'm an angry person anymore.

Not to say I'll never get angry again, but I think I confronted the first trauma in my life: my inability to admit I didn't know something and to say "I don't understand" with the willingness to learn. I don't have a very solid history of asking questions when I didn't know something...somehow just getting by on what I thought I knew with my attitude and false confidence was enough. That began to change when I stopped being so insecure about who I was or how I wanted to live my life, but still the old habits died hard, and I still clung on to (albeit old and useless) patterns of thinking.

But last week, seemingly out of nowhere, something that usually happens at workshops, happened on my own volition in my own studio. With my husband. As easy as that. Although it was what I can only describe as a complete physical and mental shift in consciousness, it was almost over as soon as it began, with me never able to be the same person again for the rest of my life.

I did not know how to describe how I felt because I had no memory or recall of ever feeling that way before. I feel like an open book, a boundary-less drifter in my own life. My brow is less furrowed. I sleep better at night.

That happend the day before my Grandmother/Great Aunt died, the day before Zelda was born. Life and death and personal transformation has been on my mind all week. Thank you Tereza for posting that link to another blog it was very aptly timed.

A brilliant woman's dying process

http://www.sillipages.com/

I feel like I need to drastically alter my life, processing her beautiful death.

getting on with it

Almost immediately after my temper tantrum I realized the misdirected choices I made that got me blue in the face. I confronted the issue and sorted things out. I think everyone is in each others' lives for a reason, especially the difficult ones: always there to teach one something. Until I learn my lesson about patience, grace, tolerance, and tact I still have challanges that push all my buttons.

tantrums

It's so interesting how much change a person can go through in half a day. I posted earlier this afternoon so happy and inspired, only to turn cold, rigid, and uncompassionate only hours later towards a very recent former friend.

I don't have a poker face. I can't pretend to be interested in people or in things I detest. I embarrassed my husband and made myself look like a spoiled brat. I'm 32 years old still throwing tantrums about things that don't even really concern me.

Why are certain patterns so hard to shift out of?
What sense of self righteousness do I have to be obnoxious towards others?

I was very bratty. How can one deal with the aftermath of bad behavior?

Letter to M

Hi M!
I hope you are having a wonderful day. I wanted to let you know I made a tentative play date with Ivy and Ursula for this Saturday, and that I am finally doing all the artistic things on my list of things yet to do.

I miss you and love being in your studio. NYC sure feels empty without you, J, and J around.

I am trying my best to be as productive as possible...I feel so much better when I listen to the creative sides of myself and get into studio more often than not.

Getting used to being an artist again full time takes a little getting used to after convincing myself for so long that I couldn't do it.

The building is coming along nicely, and I can safely say I can breathe a little easier knowing it's getting taken care of by people I finally trust. Working with Turu is still super great, but I have to say I'm really looking forward to being around all that art in Venice, Kassel, and Germany (and to be around all the girls too; too many boys on construction sites!)

Anyway, I hope you have a happy birthday too and I'll see you soon. I think your birthday was yesterday. OK bye! Have a great time teaching. Can't wait to see everyone,
Angela

"Thank You for Seeing Me"- form the album, Universay Mother by Sinead Oconnor

been dancing a great amount. It is in a very different context than ten year ago when I was competing. This time I am moving my body freely with other women. It is about just that- it is still an expression of feeling at times sexual, mostly not. Where I was moving my body for others; judges, men, women, I am now moving for myself.

I have also started teaching couples! and of course the every day- tension with the history between man/woman; sexual, predatory, vulnerable, submissive, strong, weak are all there. I am excited to be working in this dynamic, for as an objective (at times!) outsider, I see and can tweak this dance. I am excited because I think I can shake up some of their respecive roles and hopefully when the dust settles (and they are done kicking up their heels) things may settle in a different way.

For myself the dance of nia has been grounding my independence as a woman, person, soul. Will post images soon and am very exited to be Through the Eyes of Strangers with you! (We are all going to help install the show and be there hopefully for the opening).

re-arrange, recognition

I rearranged my entire studio today; now my 6' paintings are confronting each other, the ten foot poles are on the other wall, and I can still see the traces of all my writings through the gesso...

It's not about the cow being the cow anymore but the female in relation to the male...aspects of my work that have always existed as a reaction to a former trauma now existing quite literally in the same space. Webbing together outside and inside.

Working title is The Stain of Memory: for Europa. Bringing together my interest in the "other" side of Greek myths, confronting Zeus, Apollo, and all the other immortal rapists. Zeus is in the form of the bull that kidnapped and raped Europa; the sacred cow is the sacred cow.

Two aspects of myself facing each other
the submerged and the surface
the repressed and the "easy"
the light and the dark
the masculine and the feminine
the back and the front

Some parts of my long list checked off today. More studio time tomorrow!
Tereza my images to the show out there are being sent out this weekend at the latest...Re-working the word wheels but the images/text pieces are done.

I'll post them here once they're scanned.

xxx

spirit of aloha

This image (found on many postcards in Kauai and Oahu), resonated with me while I was in Hawaii. The spirit of Aloha what I understand it to mean is realized in the act of placing a lei onto another person.

The statue of King Kamehameha covered in leis made me think about how I love hanging things, draping things, layering things, like Annette Messeger's work:


What inspired me about the King's statue was the act of confrontation, recognition, acceptance, compassion. This has everything to do with the morse code necklaces, and everything to do with facing my former traumas. I immediately also thought of Cornelia Parker's wrapping of the Kiss by Rodin


What could it mean for me to place morse code wrappings around the statues of Zeus, Perseus, and other mythical "kings"? What could it mean to adorn a known perpetrator, as an act of compassion and acceptance?

The possibilities are endless, and I'm excited that they are extensions of what I like to do anyway, just in a relevant context. Much more to come.

getting back

The lists, the endless planning, the not breathing...all changed on my (5 year belated) honeymoon to Kauai. It was inspiring to be on an actual vacation, the first in a decade with my partner. I am recommitted to my studio practice, realizing I'm a visual artist and no one really knows about what I do or who I am. I've been inspired by the levels of work by my colleagues, and feel ready to make that leap into the great beyond I used to call Faith that the universe will provide, and that money is energy, etc. etc.

So I made a list of things I want to accomplish this month. It's totally realistic. I'll blog about each item as they get done.