Halloween
“TWO”, 4.5′ x 4′, pigment on wool flannel, something like 1995
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In my book, Halloween holds no ‘elan.
It feels like a holiday for the privileged masses uninterested in or unaffected by a life lived ‘DE-masking’.
Folks take up the guise of goblins and pirates and mummies and witches.
They revel in the softening of themselves in order to slide into the skin of another.
I have spent my lifetime stitching together my very own costume.
And it truly did feel like a costume most of the while I was at work on the project.
“Fake it to make it’ as the adage goes..
The act of piecing together a solid sense of Self as a human, woman, life-participator-of-value,
When one has not had a reliable parent to back you up in the process,
Is a VERY long row to hoe.
And certainly NOT for the lazy or faint of heart.
There are horrors and mishaps and desert-dwelling years without much water.
But the result of such foraging..
IS AN AUTHENTIC SELF!
And that I have.
It is my highest achievement to date.
And I am uninterested and unwilling to pick a costume to cover this preciousness up.
She is too new and untried as yet.
But I keep feeding her with the finest of food,
Like people who can add to her song and huge dollops of Nature and an intravenous line of Spirit.
The restaurants I frequent ask that all masks and disguises be left at the door.
And so the few of us sit there with shining faces and don’t really say much of anything.
We just appreciate one another in our birthday suits.
Dirty Girl
detail of monoprint
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I have been watching a lot of westerns of late.
More than a few have been filmed here in New Mexico so it isn’t hard to imagine myself galloping down a creek bed with mud and gravel thrown back behind.
I would kill to wear one of those split-back coats cowboys wear in winter weather.
What do I love about westerns?
(pardon me while I put on my ‘fantasy glasses..’)..
I love the dirt. The grit. The patina on the lapels of the tired sport coat a cowboy gentleman wears.
The campfires, the ‘ride in-get a drink-have-a-fight-ride-off-unscathed-thing, the good looking neckerchiefs.
The unbelievably communication-challenged men constantly trying to formulate the words of intimacy they wish to speak but settling fore a ‘poke’ with the local ‘whore.’
But the biggest draw for me is the power and freedom I feel when I watch the horses run.
They throw all care to the wind and don’t seem to have to look down worrying about catching a hoof in a hole or branch.
They just GGGGGGGGGGOOOOOOOOOOOO…………
Fast and elegant and purposeful like lightning.
Seeing them like that helps me remember myself.
At least the purposeful and elegant part.
Fast was never my speed.
My muscles used to work like a symphony.
And now some instruments are missing a string.
But if I really pay attention and forget about wanting the past too much..
I can pluck out a little tune on my ailing ukelele…
That’s fit for the king’s ear and cowboy both.
Voice
“INSCRIPTION”, 40″ x 60″, 1993, m/m
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I listen carefully to people’s voices.
The tone and where the sound comes from in one’s body are markers for me.
You could say I sort of ‘read’ a voice.
Unintentionally, mind you, but it happens just the same..
My own, for example, is a perfect example.
If I am afraid for some reason, my voice is up in my throat.
When I feel very at ease or truly undefended, it slides to just below my chest.
Then, occasionally, I feel my voice generated from below my belly.
It’s kind o f the ‘growl-zone’, you could say.
Something gets added to the recipe from that place which has to do with primal interests.
All of my intelligences are piqued and I am called to order.
SomeTHING is afoot.
And the whole of me steps aside (figuratively speaking) to see what wants to happen.
I am fully aware this all may sound like metaphysical ‘foll-de-roll’ but, I assure you, this this is very real to me.
And really… I trust how I hear you more than anything you could say.
Keith Richards
untitled, 22″ x 30″, monoprint
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I am not a big music connoisseur.
It has never been a big part of my life.
When I write or have created art, it has always been in silence because I have wanted to be able to listen and respond to where I was being guided to go.
And not have that affected by where someone ELSE wanted to take me with their music.
There is one caveat to that statement which happens to be THE ROLLING STONES.
I ALWAYS (almost) want to go where they take me.
Keith Richards, the guitarist, has just published his autobiography called “LIFE.”
I love his craggy face and the way his chin juts out defiantly always sporting a cigarette dripping out of his mouth.
I find it odd that he engages me so.
You probably would’nt expect it of me.
But when he released his book I had to buy it.
Why him?, I asked myself as I surreptitiously dialed up Amazon on the computer.
I realized it is because he is TOTALLY UNAPOLOGETIC for the roads he has been drawn down in search of his muse.
Craggy, gritty, inching toward 70 and still out there doing his alchemy-thing.
Saying goodbye to Heroin and making nice and not as best he could with the ego-of-the-century lead man, Mick, while he negotiated his own ego with a capital ‘E’.
Rimming his eyes in black and cloaking himself away from the too bright sun (because he generated enough already?)
And still, after decades of sleeping with his guitar (really), he spins the gold dust left to him in a dream into high fidelity, blood boiling sounds that leave me different and better.
And ALIVE.
In an interview on NPR this week he spoke well and truly of wondering how to present THE STONES on stage as a ‘grown up’ band?
Key in: October 25, 2010
How does one leap and preen and tease out a sound that moves us as 65 yr. olds?
We’re all just making it up here..
Everything is in flux.
And so we need pioneers.
In relationship, health, music, religion, politics, et al..
I love The Stones because they’re all about ‘never say die….’
And so am I.
Bare Tree Me
“TREE” 40″ x 26″” m/m
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.
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BARE TREE
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My favorite tree
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Has misplaced her dressing gown.
.
Naked to the wind she squeals.
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CA 2010
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‘
Place
“SOFT WIND”,36″ x 6′, m/m
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In Santa Fe we live with dirt.
And we love it.
When one builds a home, there is a choice of about 12 different colors of stucco to choose from.
Each is the color of earth found locally.
The result is that when I look out over the wide landscape of my beloved town, I can’t tell who has money or who doesn’t because each home looks like the landscape…dirt.
It is the great equalizer.
The other thing that happens is that one can not tell how very many people inhabit this place because all the colors are so natural that the distinction between home and land is blurred.
Sometimes, I am just called to go visit a church I know on off days (meaning not Sunday..)
It is made of adobe which are earthen bricks.
They have weight and volume which are quite different than ceramic bricks we are used to.
When I visit this church, everything in me slows to a hush.
It is a marvel of a structure with it’s ceiling height and 200+ year history.
I go in and sit in a front pew.
No one else is there.
Sometimes a stooped and hobbled human arrives and visits the adjacent small chapel dedicated to one or another saints or deity.
The place holds a perfect combination of the preciousness of both The Great Mystery and our own humble and miraculous selves trying our damnedest to sweep our own floors to make room for our Selves.
Often, in churches, I get overwhelmed by the heaviness of spent tears and sorrows given over after the weight becomes intolerable.
Particular places are generous in that way. They hold what we can’t.
But this building made of humble earth feels like the gentlest of car washes; the softest mist of wet, almost imperceptable,
attracts the grit of life and takes it down some invisible drain.
I leave there soft and ready.
Ready to begin again.
I never think too much after I leave there.
I seem uninterested in ‘what just happened.’
I just take the gold and try to spread it around a bit.
But only if I’ve enough to spare.
Those Among Us
“TRIBE” ceramic,steel, 14″ x 7″ x 4″
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I ran into a few friends at a favorite haunt.
Most of the time I like to be left in peace with my thoughts-of-the-moment.
But not this time.
These people are pretty stellar representations of our very humanness.
One artist/writer/life-appreciator extraordinaire…one enigmatic and engaging Hopi man… and a psycho analyst you’d walk hundreds of miles in the desert for one of her cards.
There we all sat talking.
I actually can’t recall one single thing we talked about. (granted, it’s still early morning yet.. something about prayer and porosity and Peru, I think…)
And I don’t care.
Except it WAS a fascinating conversation!
The thing I took away was the essence of the thing.
The fragrance I was left with.. the between-the-lines electricity.
The satiation and hunger, both… I had plenty but there was more…
I wondered why this chance meeting was so very satisfying to me.
One part has to do with the sense that I was witnessed with every antenna these folks had available to them and I, in turn, but not because it was expected, was There in full receptive mode.
The student in me learned.
The artist was inspired.
My inner writer was fed.
My heart was both soft and full.
The thing is… I came away MORE.
More than I was.
I took up space differently when I walked out of that restaurant than when I arrived.
And I like the new me.
Interior
detail of painting, m/m
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If you were to look inside my brain, you might see something like this. (photo)
Not literally but, in essence, the kind of activity you might see seems like it would look similar to the above.
From the outside, I may seem like I lead a life in the narrows.
But no.
That is not the case at all…
There’s this disability thing and my book proposal and getting dressed in time for the acupuncturist and getting my hand to work right so I can hold the water to wash my face and wondering which of my friends will put up with going to get groceries AGAIN for me and getting the dog outside and calling the editor and bending down to straighten the wrinkle in the rug and getting stuck and the dirty dishes and the letter that needs writing and the meditating and… and…..
See..no lack of movement here.
My brain clearly still works.
But it needs a rest.
And the ONLY way it gets it is to sit at my altar and meditate.
Sit.
Sit down.
Breathe…
..and do it again.
and again…
……..and…..again…………………..
Women, Art and Hope
“PRIESTESS”, 14″ x 4″ x 4″, ceramic, steel
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Well, after telling the world yesterday that I have moments when I feel less than in love with myself,
I came across one hellava’ perspective shifter.
As you might know, I pay attention to a website called TED.COM
Within the sometimes narrow confines of ‘chronic illness-land’, this site keeps my head and heart charged and engaged.
Each year they award someone a $100,000. grand prize to spend as they wish.
This years award went to an artist.. he goes by just JR as he wants to remain in the shadows.
Scroll down three posts until you see: ANNOUNCING THE 2011 TED.COM PRIZE WINNER:JR The trailer is called: “Women are Heros”
The link shows a short trailer of his work which involves going into crumbled and poor, physically disintegrating slums of Africa and photographing the women there VERY up close and personal.
He then blows the black and white photo up to larger than life size and in true guerilla style, surreptitiously plasters the image on ‘in-your-face’ surfaces around the town.
Seeing this short trailer will shift your day toward the core of goodness, I promise you.
Sit, breathe and watch someone spinning gold.
Waking Up
“GIFT”, 14″ x 4″ x 4″, ceramic, steel
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A friend emailed me yesterday saying he had not looked in on my blog for 4 months and fully expected to find it filled with grief but was surprised to find it was not.
And this morning I wake up and my first thought is: “I hate myself.”
I promised to tell the truth on this blog and here is some of it.
I chose this image for today because it represents me well on most days of late.
Teetering on the pinnacle she tries in ernest to remain upright.
She still has a modicum of grace to call on as she says a whispered prayer and listens maybe half-heartedly for an answer.
My ‘default’ seems to be shame.
It is a state I am most familiar with.
Historical issues ushered it in probably at birth,
Usually, I have a well-turned and solid, hefty rope as my ‘thread to God.’
But sometimes, in the mornings before my body becomes mine again, I can’t find that rope.
Thankfully, as I eat courage and gumption for breakfast, it makes itself known again.
And I reach out with the weakened musculature of a starving child,
And grab it…
I hold on for dear, dear life.
And every time it saves me.
Every time.
And the woman I remember and now love walks back into the room.
And we chat over tea.