note to self

it gets to a certain point in the night when my brain ceases to function correctly and my thoughts lose friction. so, when left with the dilemma of whether or not i should stay up and dawdle or go to sleep, just go to sleep. nothing good ever happens after 2 am. even cognitively.

Smidgeon the Crow

Smidgeon the Crow follows me around all day and pecks at the back of my head. He whispers, "..and then you'll be happy." 

making a person

some in process photos of my figural sculpture course:

the completed bust

 

starting to make the plaster mold

made of marshmallows and whipped cream :)

gouging out the clay and revealing the internal structure

the right boobie that came out intact

after taking out the clay and filling out the mold with a harder kind of plaster, we're now chiseling away at the mold to reveal what's inside

an arm fell off. had to redrill.

 

finished product sans refining. kind of too lazy for that shit right now.

why hello

fill me

fill me
with all the spaces
and all the nooks
of grandmother houses
all lined with shelves and seashells
lung-fulls
of dusty, cathedral air
colored and holy
with light from the stained glass
among the frozen pews

inhale
great bowls of that which surrounds tightrope walkers
balanced from end to end,
fistfuls
of what lies beneath chairs,
the whispers that reside in the folds of your ear,
the wind that escapes through your fingers


until i can't take anymore of it
until i can't love any more

spring 2012

 get moving


studio things:

jiu-fen 九份

Memories, regrets, and epiphanies and all that. run-on sentence, run-on sentence.

My last night was on their porch, when the police came after they heard the sounds of our fireworks leaving hazy trails of smoke in the sky. It was one of those hot nights in St. Louis with fireflies, my final hurrah before I returned to my empty apartment, furniture-less, and everything just on the floor. I'm always the last to leave. Those people and those places that are now cast under the light of hindsight, becoming distant islands within the smokiness. What's left are these memories, the realities of which are prone to editing, embellishment, and the one that hurts me the most, forgetfulness.

Which is why I remind myself of now. And so from now on I'll tell you about how beautiful Taipei is, which it really is. How the summer heat can simply swallow you whole, how a crazy forest of green can brim over great big blocks of concrete (which I love), how the city is like an un-ending gestalt, a kaleidoscope of signs and sidewalks and bicycles and 7-elevens. How good music is, playing just over the sounds of the subway. How wonderful and humbling it is to see your grandmother, the same woman from '89 as far as I know, so often and so conveniently. How it feels to discover strands of the culture you thought you grew up without laced within your mental fabric, as well as the kind of redemption that it offers.

My work has been all about places and spaces, the exchanges that occur between the internal and the external environment. It's time to be brave and embrace new ones. Taipei isn't Paris or New York or Shanghai. But you cannot deny that the people here are among the kindest, most warm-hearted and down to earth people in this day and age. It doesn't have the most active art scene, but it is earnest, and that's enough by me. Even better, there is also freedom here.

Let me tell you, I could really grow into this, and I hope you'll let me tell you about it: my experience of coming to understand a city that is utterly new and foreign, and yet, one that I am deeply, intimately, irrevocably related to. Perhaps even more so than I can understand.


Most importantly, in addition to finding and discovering this current time and place, I need to allow myself to grow into someone better, kinder, and wiser. Less fearful. I don't have the luxury of being an art student anymore, I have the privilege to be an artist. (And to be young... everyone keeps telling me I'm young.)

And so I'm also going to make work. And come out of paralysis and make art for the Fat Lady. Live without the air conditioning on and let nature inside. And dance and love and all that. Say yes. Yes, yes, yes.

Yes.

for the fat lady

" 'I remember about the fifth time I ever went on 'Wise Child.' I subbed for Walt a few times when he was in a cast - remember when he was in that cast? Anyways, I started bitching one night before the broadcast, Seymour'd told me to shine my shoes just as I was going out the door with Waker. I was furious. The studio audience were all morons, the announcer was a moron, the sponsors were morons, and I just damn well wasn't going to shine my shoes for them, I told Seymour. I said they couldn't see them anyway, where we sat. He said to shine them anyway. He said to shine them for the Fat Lady. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, but he had a very Seymour look on his face, and so I did it. He never did tell me who the Fat Lady was, but I shined my shoes for the Fat Lady every time I ever went on the air again - all the years you and I were on the program together, if you remember...

.. I don't care where an actor acts. It can be in summer stock, it can be over a radio, it can be over television, it can be in a goddamn Broadway theatre, complete with the most fashionable, the most well-fed, most sunburned-looking audience you can imagine. But I'll tell you a terrible secret - Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. That includes your Professor Tupper, buddy. And all his goddamn cousins by the dozens. There isn't anyone anywhere who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddamn secret yet? And don't you know - listen to me, now - don't you know who that Fat Lady really is?... Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.'"


Franny and Zoey, Jd Salinger
(if there ever was a book that i needed to read at exactly the right moment)