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.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Sunday, October 16, 2011
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)
.. 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)
Thursday, July 7, 2011
something a little longer
the inexhaustible exhale of the air conditioning runs straight through me and the walls are all unpainted, leaving the chalky, white plaster the apartment had originally come with. it's a cold hard white that is unbelievable to me. i really just can't believe it if i stare at it long enough.
when i walked into his room, i told my mother that it smelled precisely like dried saliva (but for the record, it wasn't.) she looked at me with surprised eyes and said, since when did you become an expert on dried saliva. but i love that, when people say, yes, that is exactly it, how you described it. no going around it, that was it. it's a feeling of satisfaction, and i say this emphasizing each syllable, sa-tis-fac-tion. it's like i've tamed a bit of truth and cupped it in my hands with something as fleeting and intangible as words. like, an invisible hand extending from brain straight through my esophagus and into my sack of a stomach where i keep all my words secret, in a jumble, and then neatly places them on the bed of my tongue where it is spun into golden fleece, absolutely, thrillingly, and undeniably truthful as dried saliva.
he is something of a legend, a man who has become a monument, solidified in memory somehow even though he is still here. he has become somewhat of a perpetual form, freeze-dried, of only skin and bones. In his blue and white striped pajamas, his head always swivels, from left to right, eyes bright but glassy, swaying. he can no longer speak coherently, but occasionally whisps of sound escape his great cave of a mouth, a deep basin of all his breaths, where all the words he has held back in his lifetime disappear like echoes. his fingers, knocked off from working with machinery years ago (he worked in a little factory workshop behind our old house, greasy, the entire place filled with shadow and metal and dust, where he made sewing machine parts), held steadfastly to the bar on the bed. like a baby! with wandering, kind of wonderful eyes. life in its cyclic perfection, an inescapable wholeness, cruel and wryly unironic. of course this is how a man's life comes to an end, as an infant. how else could it end? what could be more perfect than a return to the womb, to the earth and the oceans and the air?
while this is not really meant to be a memoir, i would like to say, again for the record, that he was a good good man. because i don't know what will be left of him, in the end, and i won't neglect this for the sake of cohesion. right? i'm not even going to put parenthesis around this part. this is my grandfather! and this is a part of his legend. so yes, he was a good man. the epitome of a man of character who was bound to honor and loved his country. he rode his motorcycle to buy us grandchildren breakfast buns every morning, and always sat in front of the tv cutting himself slices of guava with his stubby fingers because other fruits are too sweet for his diabetes. when his wife, our grandmother, lost all their money because of gambling, or because she forgot which article of clothing she had sewn secret money compartments into, he never berated her or blamed her. he never did anything he would have to apologize for. he never did anything he would have to apologize for.
(and this part i'll whisper:) and i already have done so much to apologize for.
his body cannot leave the bed. only two years ago though, he was already bound to a wheelchair. i remember we wheeled him outside in the dense summer heat, to say hello to the neighbors. he's really a shell, even by that time; so much has left him, but only with a bit of lasting clarity left. we smile at him and he looks up at us, waving his head, eyes swaying, and we want to bring some of him back so badly because he's so wonderful and we're outside where sunlight makes miracles happen. i remember, i put my red plastic glasses on him, and i felt so sad and awful because i feel like i'm teasing him to draw out some cognizant reaction, a glimmer of presence. but i smile in his face to make sure he sees me smiling, and god. his face gets all screwed up in this expression like land breaking earthquake shaking, just twisted and contorted in this giant knotted shape of laughter and joy! ha! ha! ha! ha! he's crying through those red glasses that are still balanced on his giant ears, and it's like a volcano erupting!!! he is just so damn amused and moved it's all so amazing and gruesome, and we can all see into his huge mouth, this hole, completely overcome with some kind of break in the heavens, just laughing and crying incredibly and the hilarity is so overwhelming, i can't i just.... laughed.... and..... cried...... incredibly.
i've never loved as much as i did then.
.
.
.
.
when i walked into his room, i told my mother that it smelled precisely like dried saliva (but for the record, it wasn't.) she looked at me with surprised eyes and said, since when did you become an expert on dried saliva. but i love that, when people say, yes, that is exactly it, how you described it. no going around it, that was it. it's a feeling of satisfaction, and i say this emphasizing each syllable, sa-tis-fac-tion. it's like i've tamed a bit of truth and cupped it in my hands with something as fleeting and intangible as words. like, an invisible hand extending from brain straight through my esophagus and into my sack of a stomach where i keep all my words secret, in a jumble, and then neatly places them on the bed of my tongue where it is spun into golden fleece, absolutely, thrillingly, and undeniably truthful as dried saliva.
he is something of a legend, a man who has become a monument, solidified in memory somehow even though he is still here. he has become somewhat of a perpetual form, freeze-dried, of only skin and bones. In his blue and white striped pajamas, his head always swivels, from left to right, eyes bright but glassy, swaying. he can no longer speak coherently, but occasionally whisps of sound escape his great cave of a mouth, a deep basin of all his breaths, where all the words he has held back in his lifetime disappear like echoes. his fingers, knocked off from working with machinery years ago (he worked in a little factory workshop behind our old house, greasy, the entire place filled with shadow and metal and dust, where he made sewing machine parts), held steadfastly to the bar on the bed. like a baby! with wandering, kind of wonderful eyes. life in its cyclic perfection, an inescapable wholeness, cruel and wryly unironic. of course this is how a man's life comes to an end, as an infant. how else could it end? what could be more perfect than a return to the womb, to the earth and the oceans and the air?
while this is not really meant to be a memoir, i would like to say, again for the record, that he was a good good man. because i don't know what will be left of him, in the end, and i won't neglect this for the sake of cohesion. right? i'm not even going to put parenthesis around this part. this is my grandfather! and this is a part of his legend. so yes, he was a good man. the epitome of a man of character who was bound to honor and loved his country. he rode his motorcycle to buy us grandchildren breakfast buns every morning, and always sat in front of the tv cutting himself slices of guava with his stubby fingers because other fruits are too sweet for his diabetes. when his wife, our grandmother, lost all their money because of gambling, or because she forgot which article of clothing she had sewn secret money compartments into, he never berated her or blamed her. he never did anything he would have to apologize for. he never did anything he would have to apologize for.
(and this part i'll whisper:) and i already have done so much to apologize for.
his body cannot leave the bed. only two years ago though, he was already bound to a wheelchair. i remember we wheeled him outside in the dense summer heat, to say hello to the neighbors. he's really a shell, even by that time; so much has left him, but only with a bit of lasting clarity left. we smile at him and he looks up at us, waving his head, eyes swaying, and we want to bring some of him back so badly because he's so wonderful and we're outside where sunlight makes miracles happen. i remember, i put my red plastic glasses on him, and i felt so sad and awful because i feel like i'm teasing him to draw out some cognizant reaction, a glimmer of presence. but i smile in his face to make sure he sees me smiling, and god. his face gets all screwed up in this expression like land breaking earthquake shaking, just twisted and contorted in this giant knotted shape of laughter and joy! ha! ha! ha! ha! he's crying through those red glasses that are still balanced on his giant ears, and it's like a volcano erupting!!! he is just so damn amused and moved it's all so amazing and gruesome, and we can all see into his huge mouth, this hole, completely overcome with some kind of break in the heavens, just laughing and crying incredibly and the hilarity is so overwhelming, i can't i just.... laughed.... and..... cried...... incredibly.
i've never loved as much as i did then.
.
.
.
.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
effects of art on the brain of an underprivileged child
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1799
Friday, February 11, 2011
note to self
To be able to make the observations that I make, I believe that I allow myself a significant amount of displacement or separation from a collective reality. My work has had the tendency to be quiet and demand solitude while viewing. My intentions as an artist are often to draw the viewer into a very personal and meditative experience that is only allowed through a retreat from the outside world into an inward gaze. However, through conducting research on the artists whose sensibilities that I admire, or who I share subject matter or common forms of media with, I have found that every individual artist actually has a heightened sense of awareness of the world around them that allows them to make such acute observations, or to be able to make such strong connections with their viewer and environment.
le cerveaux de l'enfant
de chirico
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