Sunday, February 28, 2010

play

(detail)

bending steel stud

thinking about cutting out and framing the in-between space

friend play (photo by Adriana Evans)

(photo by Adriana Evans)

working privately, outside

Experience Music Project

reading about sexuality and space
the whole space was unreadable from any given perspective

both cement as well as wood flowed

the experience within produced similar, curvilinear flow





Saturday, February 27, 2010

In the last four hours I just applied to the Bemis Center for a residency in 2011.
Heard about it last night at around 11pm.
I love following through on things like this.
We board for New York on Monday.
Dinner tonight with workshoppers in Oakland
x

Friday, February 26, 2010

impermanence


( arranged sticks in winter sun)

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Memory



Last night I saw a documentary about Los Diaparacidos - the Argentinian generation who the government "disappeared" in 1977-1978. More than 30,000 people died, have never been found. Thrown out of planes, shot at close range, tortured. Erased. It was a difficult film to sit through, but I am glad I went.

A few minutes before the film began, I got a call from my mother telling me that another of our relatives, Elizabeth, had just died. This news came a week after she told me her cousin Dallas died of stomach cancer.

It was interesting timing - the news of this new death, and the film I was about to see.
I was thankful the lights in the theatre began to lower so I wouldn't have to talk about anything at that moment.

There has always been a lot of death in my life.
I began thinking about how I could express my experiences with it in my work.
I have had this thought for years now, and never knew how to begin.
What medium?
What images?
Why would I want to unravel the past?
And again "What is the stain of memory?"

During the film, my thoughts went to the Argentinian artist who painted the portraits of the disaparacidos with water on a cement sidewalk on a hot day. As soon as the portrait had been painted, the sun had evaporated the water. Countless faces were painted, and erased.

Erasure.
Memory
Carrying on
Enduring
Forgetting
Remembrance.

I thought about how the passage of sun over paper weathers it; how "archival" is so important in most aspects of fine art.
But what if the traces of sunlight over a page does exactly what it is intended to do - to fade, to stain, to remove...?
I thought about tracing light over a surface of a painting since last summer, but now it's evolved into more of a concise desire.

My cousin Dennis died in the World Trade Center.
Lisa Steinberg died when I was 11.
AIDS started to kill people in Chelsea and the Village when I was 7. No one knew what it was, or what was happening.
The first AIDS quilt was only one piece in Central Park on the Great Lawn. I walked around the whole thing with my mother and remember how quiet the park felt that day.
Today there are thousands of quilts of equal size all around the world. It could never be in one piece in one place again.

Etan has still never been found.
Nixmary Brown died a few years ago.
Schlomeit.
Wil Sudo
Maribel Garcia
Roxanna Rose Mennella.
died of unnatural causes, or by their own hand. The frequency of deaths in my life increased in high school - the class before mine was cursed: 5 deaths in 4 years. Fiona Pechukas and I rode the train together often after school. I skipped the turnstile when I went to her funeral in Brooklyn.
Uncle John
Uncle Richard
Grandpa Joe
Aunt Marie
Uncle Frank
My father's father Athanasious died when I was 13.
Many people died on Sept. 11. I saw their faces on "missing person" posters on chain link fences all over the city.
100,000 people just died or are waiting to die in Haiti.

New Orleans.
Iraq
Iran

I found a way to begin to communicate all I have to say about this - about death.
Not just how death has affected my life, but how to begin to expand it outward - to include my story in a more universal story.

A friend just pointed out that the painting at the top of this post was my angle of the twin towers when they fell.
She was right, and when I heard that I almost started to cry because I did not realize that before today. But it is true.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

applications, applications, applications

I've been applying for the past two months, one each week.

Repetitive, continuous.

New Hampshire, Hartford, Calgary, Colorado, and state colleges all around Washington.

It is like sowing seeds, but not nearly as freeing. Each packet takes sheets and sheets of paper to prepare. Each application just different enough from the other that they all need individual attention.

I always say to myself- just this last one...and then the next and the next, until hopefully at least one will bloom?

Art wise it is the same- a thousand ideas. Starting each one and seeing what germinates...

Monday, February 22, 2010

new space

A new day a new space to live in.
This week.
I am anxious; there is a knot in my stomach, and am feeling very desperate - like time is fleeting
and I'm not

getting

anything

done.

I'm broke
and have nooo direction anymore.
It has been like this since August, and yet somehow just now
is when I am feeling my most insecure.
Is this when something magical is supposed to happen?

Not sure what my artwork is about
Not sure what I represent

The sun is still shining
and with everything I have in my life
I still feel alone.
It is very quiet out and I am alone.

I'm not thinking ahead
I am not thinking behind
I am observing the fading daylight in the East Bay
and looking at the Camilia tree.

moving day

I'm moving studios and cities today - from Santa Cruz to Oakland.
It's the last leg of my California adventure before heading back to New York.
There is a lot of work to do this week, which means I'll have an income.
Relief.
I rolled the paintings
Packed up the beads
Swept
Washed and dried the sheets and towels
Vacuumed
Cleaned all the plates
Put back all the tea
cleaned out the closet
washed the windows
fluffed the pillows
put back the table
inspected the cabinets
dusted the lamp shade
replaced the toilet paper
turned off the thermostat
signed my painting
lit white sage on the mantel

Monday, February 15, 2010

Friday, February 12, 2010

studio shots - in progress

One of the reasons I'm in Santa Cruz for the month is to work on a painting commission for a friend and patron.
The painting is of an Acacia tree - this is the progress shot, underpainting mostly.


The rest are my own sketches and thoughts.
It's really interesting to be painting again - i hope to find some more cohesion as I keep working.
There seems to be a common thread of working with notions of domesticity, a sense of place and home.








Monday, February 8, 2010

questions from Vermont

Outside play

















Inside installation









Saturday, February 6, 2010

Another answer

Partner got job in New York starting ... soon ?
We may be moving upstate.
Or staying in Brooklyn.
Or moving to SF temporarily.
Or to Santa Cruz.

Thinking about intention
expectation
being in the present moment
danger of identification
compassion towards myself.
I'm not pregnant.