New Work…

This is just a small glimpse into the work that I created last semester.  I am not terrifically happy at the outcome of the semester, but I am thrilled with the prospects of the this coming semester.  I started the semester by creating the fireplace piece, the quickly became obsessed with Bread and Dough, and the medium consumed me.  I am interested in how dough grows and is alive and flesh-like and when it is cooked, it becomes static and dead, but at the same time a source of nourishment.  Bread has also been linked across time and history, wedding itself to the Church and Communion as well as humanities symbol of survival.  Dealing with certain personal issues last semester regarding displacement and loss, I sought to learn more about family and home and what it means when a mother loses a child.  Last semester I fought against myself, against my thoughts and thrust out art like I was picking a scab off of a healing wound.  It was none too pleasant.  However, this semester, I am looking forward.  I am working on a collaborative piece, illustrating a fairy tale “East of the Sun and West of the Moon,” I am also further exploring the technical aspects of creating a bread cradle, as well as creating a life-size nest in my studio in which I play the role of the bird, hunting for soft, pliable material to weave and construct this object.

Awakening

I feel as if I have been in artistic hibernation these past nine months. Applying to graduate school was my last scrounge and scrape to get me through the long, dark winter. Then, in March, like the ground hog poking it’s head out at the first sun, I realized that Spring was nigh. Right now I am like the sleepy bear rumbling around in it’s damp dark cave groggy with a fierce hunger in my belly. I am HUNGRY, but I am weary. Like learning to walk again after a serious injury, my mind starts to focus as I amble blindly into the light.

7777 On my mind

I forgot about the incessant boredom of over-preparedness.  It is amazing the polarization of two tax offices less than twenty-five yards from one another.  One job I am given to much work and responsibility, while I try to navigate the ship from certain destruction among the rocks.  The other office, I am dutiful and mindful.  I feel like a puritan woman in a church.  Quiet.  Organized.  Well-kept.  Sitting patiently.  Waiting the time away.

If it were me.  If I were “Id,” I would take a bucket of pink paint and a four-inch brush.  I would dip the brush haphazardly into the sloppy pink, with bristles leading a path along the walls.  I would start in the grey stairwell and paint my way up to the seventh floor.  The bristles would gently graze along the hallway’s edge as it came to Suite 702.  The brush would drip-drip on the floor as I fumble for my keys, my right-shoulder pushing open the heavy door.  I would start at the front desk and I would just pour the pink over the desk riddled with pages, creating a puddle.  Drip-drip.  I would slash that blush brush onto that painting of San Diego and then create a path of pink along the floor and out the door.  Dragging the brush, swish-swish past the Elevator Room to Suite 717.  I don’t have a key to this office, so I paint the door instead.  Up and down swish-swish, until the whole door is pink hot pink.  I go back to the Elevator Room and float down down down and out that door.

But I am not all “Id.”  So, instead I just take the brush to a section of my hair and leave everything else in that dull grey ocean.

“Shoot an Iraqi” by Wafaa Bilal

Click on the link below to listen to the NPR segment explaining the piece.

\”Shoot an Iraqi\” by Wafaa Bilal

rain rain rain

Life becomes very strange when all you do is listen to NPR.  You end up creating little monologues in your head that you want to post on your blog.  You talk about yourself in third person, and say things that sound very important.

For example, I thought this one up yesterday:

AJ and I have begun to start talking about our unborn children.  Even though we both agree that we don’t want to have children for at least another three years to five years, they have begun to make their way into our lives.  It is almost as if they have become, oddly, another character in our tight-knit existence, slowly weaving their way into our everyday discussion.  For example, the other day I caught myself justifying the purchase of a few children’s books, “I am buying these books to read now, but they will also be good for the children.”  Or anytime AJ wants to do something involving money that I don’t really quite agree with, I shout “The Children, AJ!  Think about the children.”  Or, if I we had children, then we could qualify for Medical…Yes! I kind of like the thought of these children slowly creeping their way into our lives, perhaps then it won’t  be such a shock when they absolutely do arrive, but that is doubtful.  

Then, a little music and then “Melissa Gordon is a part-time accountant assistant/artist who lives in San Diego.  This segment was brought to you, in part by This American Life ,NPR, and PRI, public radio international.

***

Thank you and good night.

My father

Today we discussed distractions.  Those little things in your life that are good, but take away from the one thing that could make you great.  For example, I am reconstructing a jacket right now, I find it fascinating, ripping apart each seam, writing my name all over this old jacket.  And I am learning, but could I be spending my time better elsewhere?  

Sometimes I am not even sure what ‘elsewhere’ is though, and I can only see what is front of me.  My mom was cleaning out the closets and she found this old jacket of mine that I had never worn.  It was right in front of me.  If I didn’t reclaim it now, it either would have been sent to goodwill or shoved in my closet for another decade.

Elsewhere.

I had my fingers of my right hand wrapped around my large coffee mug, just under handle; my left hand was breaking a popsicle stick in my lap into a million pieces.  My dad was talking.  I moved the little popsicle stick pieces to the book on my lap and started pushing them around with my index finger.  He was being so open and honest.   

He even said the word “Bragadacious.”  

Whatever that means.

At one point, I looked down at the little wooden pieces in my lap, arranged in a neat little pile.  I looked at the coffee mug.  My mind said, grab the pieces, throw them in the coffee and drink it.  You will be healed.  My arm resisted.  My brain thought it over again and decided it probably wasn’t the best idea.  

Wait.  What was he saying?

I looked at his eyes.  Full of water.  Full of water.  Maybe not so full, but I could tell.  They were shinier than normal, and his eyebrows were a little higher than normal.

My children.

My job.

My life.

I look out the sliding glass door and I see field mice playing.  A hummingbird is hovering above the roses.

And it’s gone.

My hands my hands my hands.

I wanted to hug him and say, “Look. You are here.  And you are giving me something beautiful right now,” but there were heads between us.  He was talking of his fortunes and his regrets.  How he felt purpose in his job, but regretted not being at home more.

“I was in my office one evening, and this man was talking to me about how hurt he was as a child because his father was never around.  Thirty years later, this man was in counseling for this past wound.  And all I could think about was my children at home, laughing with their mother, but not with me.”

“But you were there!”  I screamed in my head the rebuttal.  My mouth swallowed, “How can I make him understand that?”

So I just went back to the house.

I see some of the most beautiful things everyday.  Each night, I go to sleep and forget them.  Is this a tangent?  Is what I am writing a distraction, or is it my purpose?  

My dad gives and gives, and he is great at his job and as a father.  

How do I find this?

Where is my elsewhere?

reawakening

A small hiatus,
but I have plans to return to this blog
and continue it’s growth.

It’s nice when you are hopeful for things,
even if you know they won’t come true.

Potential.

I.
HAVE.
POTENTIAL.

This blog has potential.

My life has potential.

*shudder*

The times, they are a changin’

SO! Big news for all of you that I haven’t talked to in the last week.  AJ applied to Wells Fargo in Seattle, and was denied…which was unfortunate.  We had made a pact on the honeymoon, that if he couldn’t get a transfer to Seattle we wouldn’t go.  So…San Diego (for at least 1 year) it is!  

Upon hearing this news, we immediately started looking for an apartment…and found one!  We only looked at one apartment, and were happy with it.  It’s in Golden Hill.  The address is 3341 C street San Diego CA 92102!!!  We will hopefully have a housewarming party once we get more settled.  I am SO excited…sleeping on a twin bed was getting a little old.

Also, more pics to come later.  I have to resize them all, etc.  There are some real keepers.  This is one of my favorites!

Wedding Update

My latest project: An archway using oversized crocheted flowers:

 

 

I’ve been cutting up long strands of white t-shirt material into a thick ‘yarn’ and then crocheted these large flowers.  The largest flower is fifteen inches in diameter.  I also have been dyeing the yarn with tea to give them a more antiqued look.  I also starched the flowers to give them a little more stability.  To find my pattern for the archway, I took a picture of all of the flowers I’ve crocheted (the first picture), then printed multiple copies, cut them out, and organized them on the carpet and took the picture above.  The length of the archway will be roughly eight feet long.  I am also imagining lots of yarn hanging down, especially on sides.  More pictures to come.  :)

You will never believe this…

…last night it actually rained.

 

I know, I know.  Any of you living any other place than the deserts of SoCal think I am crazy, but I am very serious.  I run outside and practically sing worship songs to the Rain God.

I’m not kidding.

The bad news is, is that I will probably see 3 car accidents on the way to work because people around here don’t know how to drive in the rain.

**

In other news:

I leave for Seattle in about 2 weeks.

I bet you can imagine my ecstasy.