with the over-played chocolate rabbit.
Easter Sunday
Coffee B. Doile
photo or paint?
I now reject facebook for journalistic blogging (ugh, terrible word, blogging). Surely, keeping a record can have more dignity than the daily wordbite.
So, now,
I'm beginning to seriously look at grad school, as rejection letters from residencies seem to rain down on me (2). I joined gradcafe, am requesting catalogues, and reading tarot cards (my superstitious behavior becoming even more pronounced).
So, I make photos and then paintings. Yeah, to my ego, this seems an overly simplified process when compared to the complex processes of others. I have yet to find the program or teacher who really delves into this dichotomy of image-based perception which so fascinates me (no actually, Kristin was my first mentor, I miss her being closer).
Reality, an instant, the time it takes to make a fucking "heroic" homage to a single second. These, like the truism of books as a unit of time (to write, to read, to process, to simply hold in the present, impossible to devour instantly). Why compare, why quantify so damn much, the painting/printmaking, the sculpture, the public process concentration! Why can't I find a program to aspire to! And I'll ve damned if I go somewhere that puts me 50,000$ in debt. Concentration camps happen folks.
Really, I just don't want to pick a future, and my cards say it's not going to be easy. They reflect my current mood, much like a parroting therapist. My paintings are nets for seconds digested, this is practice for saying, and a lie as soon as spoken!
So, silly again with juvenile angst and self-consciousness (our confidences seem, in retrospect, such diletantes), I troll for the little trail. Seriously, I hoped to travel the entire world, be more perfect, confident, worrldly. All these "labels" Alana said during one of our first conversations, and so what if these words project my "Neapolian" or "Chihuaha" complexes. Yes, I like to put things neatly into boxes, to file and measure. It makes things safer, more accessible. Visually, this comes in frames. In viewfinders. Stretched and labored over. 2-dimensional, as real-life overwhelms me. A frightened tiny hero; what a silly and typical stereotype.
Double-Jointed Sleeping.
Walking through the sundust days of rest, I spy a handmade cage swelling with grass still sweet, crinkling with memories of the field. The bars are lashed together with bright yellow unraveling thick ropes, and completely open in the front.
"Is this for viewing purposes?" we ask each other.
The shrinking grass pads the bottom for some odd creature that swings trapeze above it. Two of them, in fact, curled on hooks. Like to children's flash cards of caterpillars as anything I have ever seen. Little snakes, clumsy, compacted, cute even, but eyeless, which would eliminate any inkling of a cuddle, or even a quick fingerstroke. My small companion, big with the bravery of childhood refuses to even look and in her eyes closing stumbles, knocking the enclosure.
The curl (like a newborn fat finger releasing) goes jumping, changing, growing spider legs, thick and jointed, out of the open bars and onto the wet concrete floor. It skitters away with typical terrific speed into the freedom of the zoo viewing area. The day becomes tinted with magenta and we continue to the tigers.
While leaking with the orange-striped, pacing, eyelined rolling paws, you are reminded of your own lost patient passions. The day stays pinkish, sunny-yellow retreating as we sit arrested, grey in the knowledge of our complicity in the creation of the zoo.
So, now,
I'm beginning to seriously look at grad school, as rejection letters from residencies seem to rain down on me (2). I joined gradcafe, am requesting catalogues, and reading tarot cards (my superstitious behavior becoming even more pronounced).
So, I make photos and then paintings. Yeah, to my ego, this seems an overly simplified process when compared to the complex processes of others. I have yet to find the program or teacher who really delves into this dichotomy of image-based perception which so fascinates me (no actually, Kristin was my first mentor, I miss her being closer).
Reality, an instant, the time it takes to make a fucking "heroic" homage to a single second. These, like the truism of books as a unit of time (to write, to read, to process, to simply hold in the present, impossible to devour instantly). Why compare, why quantify so damn much, the painting/printmaking, the sculpture, the public process concentration! Why can't I find a program to aspire to! And I'll ve damned if I go somewhere that puts me 50,000$ in debt. Concentration camps happen folks.
Really, I just don't want to pick a future, and my cards say it's not going to be easy. They reflect my current mood, much like a parroting therapist. My paintings are nets for seconds digested, this is practice for saying, and a lie as soon as spoken!
So, silly again with juvenile angst and self-consciousness (our confidences seem, in retrospect, such diletantes), I troll for the little trail. Seriously, I hoped to travel the entire world, be more perfect, confident, worrldly. All these "labels" Alana said during one of our first conversations, and so what if these words project my "Neapolian" or "Chihuaha" complexes. Yes, I like to put things neatly into boxes, to file and measure. It makes things safer, more accessible. Visually, this comes in frames. In viewfinders. Stretched and labored over. 2-dimensional, as real-life overwhelms me. A frightened tiny hero; what a silly and typical stereotype.
Double-Jointed Sleeping.
Walking through the sundust days of rest, I spy a handmade cage swelling with grass still sweet, crinkling with memories of the field. The bars are lashed together with bright yellow unraveling thick ropes, and completely open in the front.
"Is this for viewing purposes?" we ask each other.
The shrinking grass pads the bottom for some odd creature that swings trapeze above it. Two of them, in fact, curled on hooks. Like to children's flash cards of caterpillars as anything I have ever seen. Little snakes, clumsy, compacted, cute even, but eyeless, which would eliminate any inkling of a cuddle, or even a quick fingerstroke. My small companion, big with the bravery of childhood refuses to even look and in her eyes closing stumbles, knocking the enclosure.
The curl (like a newborn fat finger releasing) goes jumping, changing, growing spider legs, thick and jointed, out of the open bars and onto the wet concrete floor. It skitters away with typical terrific speed into the freedom of the zoo viewing area. The day becomes tinted with magenta and we continue to the tigers.
While leaking with the orange-striped, pacing, eyelined rolling paws, you are reminded of your own lost patient passions. The day stays pinkish, sunny-yellow retreating as we sit arrested, grey in the knowledge of our complicity in the creation of the zoo.
Cycling Through
Last Thursday I woke up; a free morning stretching out before me a little lonely with T out of town again. The dog was already awake, peering at me from the foot of the bed. We decided to explore a new area. After a little Google Earthing, we headed out to the Kennesaw Mountain Battlefield area North of Atlanta. It took about 45 min. to get there.
We meandered off the Barrett Pkwy exit and entered a swanky residential neighborhood with huge lots and gated entrances flanking the gently sloping roadway. Sighting an enormous parking lot followed by a split-rail National Park gateway, I pulled into the gigantic but largely empty parking lot. The usual suspects were scattered across the absurd concrete expanse; lonely folks in parked cars of varying values avoiding eye contact with soccer moms striding confidently towards the paved roadside path, while a couple NorthFace suburban kids prepared for a day hike. No one acknowledged us, and we didn't bother either.
The dog and I jumped a red-clay washout and crossed a broad field kissed with wild phlox in bloom to a footpath on the other side. I tugged the leash off, and she went mundanely feral, snuffling loudly a couple yards ahead or behind me. The mood was determined and the sky was dark as clouds gathered for a show later. There was a particularly animated tree trunk; a Sweet-Gum to be precise, that presented itself to the left, sculpted into a snout facing up and Northeast. We traipsed over the railroad tracks, through another convex field, and onto an overgrown logging path. These broad dirt roads always make me feel so thirsty, so I struck off up the hill, noting the burgeoning poison ivy. A couple weeks and that hill must be impassible even to the most tough people hides.
As we approached the top there was a chair sunk knee deep in leaves facing a burned-out pine with a bum?-fire in the middle. Just the years-cold tracks of either boy-scouts or the intrepid homeless left-behind and sinking in. All signs were a little baneful and very post-human, with felled skeletons looming and their roots forming a colony of underground homes for whatever would nestle there. We continued quietly. I was practicing being very still while moving, doing a little Tom Brown roll with my feet as I high-stepped through more leaf-fall.
Rounding the hill, there were piles of rocks swooping broken-down along the crest of the ridge. Surely, it must be one of the Civil War Battlefields trumpeted on the Nat'l. Park signs. Pretty impressive for a piled up effort two centuries old. I mis-stepped vainly trying too hard to soft-foot, sunk leg-deep into a hole and out again all goose-bumped and suddenly afraid.
"Time to head back to civilization." I said outloud, and strange to the dog.
So we did, passing over the balding top and through the pseudo-graveyard and town. I was feeling even panicky and hurried the dog verbally and often, still weird and discombobulated. She stopped intently by a particularly large, and recently occupied root system. I followed her over to the open mouth of the den, and found her nudging a dead two-tone black canine puppy. It had healthy fur tipped silver in the clear light of spring. She was mis-behaving, whining, her maternal instinct all hackled up. I turned and almost stepped on another puppy, then another, both smaller than the first. All appeared to be healthy, excepting death. Dismayed isn't a strong enough adjective, but the panic was subsiding. These were just some abandoned corpses warming on an old battlefield, nothing to be alarmed or suprised about.
As we proceeded past the exposed and mother-less pups, the largest one gave a meek cry and shifted slightly. I couldn't leave him. I felt very purposeful, heroic even, as I whipped off my sweater and pulled his stiff body from the ground.
We hurried back, him curled up and swaying rhythmically in the sweater. Finally arriving back at the Subaru, and thinking of my afternoon plans, I drove to the nearest gas station for water while looking for a vet. I touched his grimy tongue with a wet finger and he mewed some more, and with more vigor. He seemed to be rallying slowly. We found a vet, who advised euthanasia and was out of formula. By the time we found the next vet, the sad little thing was warmed up and squirming. Vet #2 was not so dire and recommended formula, a heating pad, and some wildlife stations nearby. He doesn't look like a dog, probably a coyote.
I decided to go to house nearby that T is renovating in a Northwestern suburb. We stopped on the way for formula and a heating pad. I put the heating pad in a box and him on top, covered with the sweater. My hands itched and I wondered about mites or viruses. I started making phone calls. The two numbers I had were voice-mails, the second stating she was not accepting rehabiliations at this time and to call another number. So I did, smiling at the thought of my persistence paying off. The number yielded a concerned voice with the reassuring advice of formula, heating pad, and time. Their director had just died, they weren't taking animals either. But, she promised to call around.
I went into the garage and painted for a couple hours, checking on him sometimes. He seemed to be having sharp dreams, bad ones. He died I don't know when, his body much colder than the pad when I pulled it up and buried it in the copse of pines out back. It's very easy to dig in sandy soil. That made it easier. I stripped my clothes off and washed them, showered, and put on my spares.
T came in from being out of town and proposed to me at first sight. I was exhausted and started to cry.
I said yes.
We hurried back, him curled up and swaying rhythmically in the sweater. Finally arriving back at the Subaru, and thinking of my afternoon plans, I drove to the nearest gas station for water while looking for a vet. I touched his grimy tongue with a wet finger and he mewed some more, and with more vigor. He seemed to be rallying slowly. We found a vet, who advised euthanasia and was out of formula. By the time we found the next vet, the sad little thing was warmed up and squirming. Vet #2 was not so dire and recommended formula, a heating pad, and some wildlife stations nearby. He doesn't look like a dog, probably a coyote.
I decided to go to house nearby that T is renovating in a Northwestern suburb. We stopped on the way for formula and a heating pad. I put the heating pad in a box and him on top, covered with the sweater. My hands itched and I wondered about mites or viruses. I started making phone calls. The two numbers I had were voice-mails, the second stating she was not accepting rehabiliations at this time and to call another number. So I did, smiling at the thought of my persistence paying off. The number yielded a concerned voice with the reassuring advice of formula, heating pad, and time. Their director had just died, they weren't taking animals either. But, she promised to call around.
I went into the garage and painted for a couple hours, checking on him sometimes. He seemed to be having sharp dreams, bad ones. He died I don't know when, his body much colder than the pad when I pulled it up and buried it in the copse of pines out back. It's very easy to dig in sandy soil. That made it easier. I stripped my clothes off and washed them, showered, and put on my spares.
T came in from being out of town and proposed to me at first sight. I was exhausted and started to cry.
I said yes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)