in commemoration of a worm who fought

a true story,

on my way to and from class, there is a long flight of stairs where, if you were walking up it, seemed as though it would lead you into the sky itself, as i often like to imagine.

there were a couple days of rain some weeks ago, when all the worms would venture out into the sidewalks, stretching their long soft bodies around the small stones embedded in the ground. they range in length, in thickness, in stride, but THIS worm, who i found on the stairs after the rainwater had run away, was huge. monstrous, actually. big papa.

i found it dead, and dried, in the middle of the stairs where the railing is. the midpoint of no return. but, you see, it died with it's head up, lifted from the ground. frozen. amazing, don't you think? i don't imagine it's death to be instant, but prolonged and gradual.. but this worm had it's head (or tail, i guess i wouldn't really know for sure) up, persistent even up till its last moment. it fought for life... an arguably pathetic life of blindness and suffering. but it fought.

and there it died, dried, perpetuated in a pose of grit and tenacity.

and as the weeks passed and the rain returned, it was always there. the new rain had softened the body, though, and it would still be there melted against the ground when i came back from campus. it dried up again, and, as of this afternoon, the body had detached from it's original place and was brushed to the side by footsteps or a breeze.. i don't really know for sure. but i can't help but be moved by its great spirit, its will to fight for a life.. of a worm.

bravo, mr. worm. i think you are amazing. your final pose has earned a place right next to the great Greek and Roman sculptures of gods and warriors, at least in my book. good luck on all your future endeavors.

-felicia

http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/ClasDram/images/12/03laocoon.jpg

contacts are dry

today was one of those wonderfully pathetic days where the hours pass on like a leaky faucet. i couldn't bring myself to go back to the studio so it was a really good thing that i brought the borrowed camcorder back to my dorm. i spent some time filming still lives around my room and the kitchen, finding landscapes in the dishes from the drying rack, the natural folds of clothing and sheets, the different kinds of shadows on the walls.. and then finding myself within these domestic mountain ranges, no more a person than the silent objects i find around me. how still, how peaceful..

i can hear the cars go by, feel the sinking weight of my body into the bed. and i feel so much like a child who doesn't want to go back to school, not ever. let me just exist in this deluded brain of mine.

okay look.

im not proud, (of what happened)

but

the sky is so deep and red these evenings,

the clarity that i find in my mind so stark, like the branches of the trees, dark lightning bolts from the earth, the hurt i find at my finger tips from the fight, the

strands of hair i find, loose,

i

find happiness (still).

hair. cut/

this is the proposal i wrote up for a performance piece i was going to do.

hair. cut/

the Proposal.

hair. cut/ is an experiment. a test of conviction, of invisible barriers, humanity, and ultimately, freedom. physically and conceptually, it breaks the artist in two, subsequently proposing other divisions and cuts, until nothing is left.

for you: i am inviting you to cut my hair. you may know me as [blank], under [circumstances], or you may not know me at all. and when you look me in the eye, you see something not of your own. and when i hand you the pair of scissors, how do you feel? are you unsure? nervous? intrigued? ambivalent? bold? and the tension that brews and thickens, only released by a snip. how does this change you? how does this change me? how do you effect other participants? what is this sort of mute relationship we have created?

for me: i am inviting you to cut my hair. traditionally hair is a symbol of vanity and token of identity, and by putting myself in this position where you, someone that I know or a complete stranger, are to snip my hair off however they like, i am putting my own concept of self up for reconsideration. and in a broader sense, i am giving into vulnerability, discovering myself as ephemeral, changeable, my identit(ies) as momentary and passing. subjecting myself to outside effects, becoming something not independent of others, of wind, dirt, damage, change, rendering control as something of mysticism.

don’t get me wrong, i (the felicia) am scared. i, unsure. and fond of this long black hair that has become the symbol of recognition from my peers, something that i have carried for so long, something i (the felicia) am so, so attached to. but I (the other) also need this. because I want to be freed from i. i like touching it, the way it feels through my fingers as though it doesn’t end. i like the unrestrained wildness of it in the wind. after the shower, i like it wet against the total length of my back, like a cold sloppy spine.

it’s something of my own.

ladies and gentlemen: this is a test. of you, me. i can only wonder what will be created by the end.

i wasn't able to go through with it. it wasn't the fear, which was quite real. it was my mom, who didnt want me to have short hair (because of dubious reasons i suspect), who, as it turns out, holds the biggest pair of scissors over my head than anyone else, including myself.

and in a strange way, the piece was, not necessarily completed, but resolved by me not doing anything. aside from not having a final project in mind, i still wish i could've done it. i wanted to know what it would have felt like.

actually.. i think i needed to know what it would feel like.

la felicita

so, i'm supposed to be writing my rough draft for a paper..




my eyes are so bad that when i close them, i see a print of the world lingering on the back of my eyelids. sometimes it feels as though this copy may be clearer than its original.

somehow by coincidence, both my chinese and english names mean "happiness". but you see, i waver, all the time. i ask myself, what do i have to be unhappy about? and i'm not sure what is more frightening, the fact that i have nothing to say, or its implication...

dissatisfaction. the root of my difficulties and ignorance. wealth is not measured by how much you have, but by how much you don't need. and oh how independent i think i am sometimes, until i enter this cycle of going to bed feeling like *this* and waking up still feeling like *this* and it feels as though the days all become this one giant day strung together with dragging feet and periodic naps. why do i always feel this heavy weight on my shoulders, when i have so little to bear?

on the other hand, i can be so happy sometimes. when i feel like i don't need nothin' and it's just me and this big, beautiful world. there will be days when all the leaves from the trees fall at the same time, and all of a sudden this space, this space that i pass through every day is activated through the unfurling of leaves in their own signature descent back to the earth. the most beautiful thing ever. and i feel like i am so filled with love, there isn't anything out there i'd want.


but my point is, i guess, i just can't decide what kind of beast i am.

rabbia, stuppore, la parte, l'attore

dottore, che sintomi ha la felicita?

thursday notes to self

met something real ugly today


how would you ever know if you were stupid or smart?


process versus product, and its relationship to value. is there a value? worth?
---> cultural value, market worth, or any combination

---> and is strong concern for value-worth of your own piece indicative of a concern for your own genius?


death of the mythical artist-genius


yoko ono's Cut Piece translation, research and clarify position



seriously hate the guy who posted up that sign on the door. i feel targeted =( hatechu.

wednesday morning post

there always seems to be a challenge to chase around here

so, since i can back from my trip, i find myself constantly asking, "what am i doing?", and an even scarier question "what is worth doing?" i feel like i was constantly stuck between this opposition between social responsibility and self-gratification of art. and i think for a while, this question was resolved, in that i do believe that what i'm doing has a benefit, or at least has the potential to, and also the realization that i probably would be asking myself that same question even if i were in a different field of study. what is really worth doing anyways? there are so many holes in any answer in any field, so maybe i should just leave it as an unanswerable question but also an evolving challenge in my practice.

but i've come back to it. the two long-term projects that i've been working on both have social functions (or at least i like to think they do), and while i believe in them, as an artist i have found them to be incredibly unsatisfying to make. both involves lots of engineering and logistics, and i don't have that sense of satisfaction in their creation. and see, over the summer i had to come to the unavoidable conclusion that the reason why i make art is almost purely for self-gratification, and to sort of justify this, i've been planning projects centralized around the goal of social benefit. and so here i am, in this rut of electrical wires and rulers and t-squares. and while i have been laboring for two months now, i havent been able to create something truly satisfying for me.

and so it all comes full circle: what am i doing?

my head is so full of nap

/edit/

Francis Alÿs - When Faith Moves Mountains (2002) - Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

"When Faith Moves Mountains" by Francis Alys

/edit/

a couple of weeks ago, i took this very debillitating nap that made me lose certain functionalities.. (not bodily functions, don't worry). however, i am feeling it again today and it feels as though someone stuffed my brain with cotton. maybe this is the result of making stuffed organs last semester? i don't know.. karma works in mysterious ways.

anyways, my situation has recently become clear; while my major department has revealed itself to be grossly inept, and while it is still unfair that i have paid so much money for a school where trying to get someone to educate me in my field is like pulling teeth, i gotta pull my own weight. i still think it's unfair and wrong and unjustified.. this is the situation that i am in, i'm not going to transfer, so what else can i do? it's tough and poses its own set of frustrating problems that i don't feel that i need to run into right now, this is how things played out so i guess i have to respond appropriately. sigh. and it feels like the world is on my shoulders.. but i'd be feeling like this anyways.. (a happy person will always be happy, a complainer will always be a complainer.. i guess i'm a complainer)

something is beeping rapidly from the architecture studio.

BUT. other than that, i bought a typewriter from Goodwill for $12!!!! joy and joyness~ (: