Physicality

There's a wonderful ditty of a book about art by Jeanette Winterson. She talks about the nature of the artist in perceptive, direct ways and says something I really relate to. She says artists are intensely aware of the physical world.

I just love what she writes about Cezanne. Cezanne painted like a blind man. He seems to have hands in his eyes and eyes in his hands.

Uncertainty

It's been said that artists must make friends with uncertainty. This is a theme that's present in this image photographed two weeks ago. It's interesting fun to think about uncertainty and look at it, to play with this force that's not only a given in art but in life as well, and yet is seldom spoken about.

Are you feeling uncertain?

What do you mean you're not certain?

Certainty is our American prerogative, thank you very much.

Are you certain you're feeling uncertain?

Well, yes, in fact, that may be one of the only things I feel certain about.

Stepping Out

There was a lot of joy this Friday, visiting my precious daughter for her birthday.We had plenty to celebrate, this year especially, this week especially, that day especially. Earlier in the morning I'd gotten a little mushy about this glorious affair of being a mother to my daughter all these many years.

It's more than I can go into, but I'll record here a portion of poem I'd been reading by Louise Gluck that sent me into a misty state of awe over the whole thing, the whole cycle of life, the whole wonder of being alive, being here and being lost, living and dying.

This is why you were born: to silence me.
Cells of my mother and father, it is your turn
to be pivotal, to be the masterpiece.

I improvised; I never remembered.
Now it's your turn to be driven;
you're the one who demands to know:

Why do I suffer? Why am I ignorant?
Cells in a great darkness. Some machine made us;
it is your turn to address it, to go back asking
what am I for? What am I for?

Mama's Lips

Heard some funny stories from the sisters Q this past weekend. This one here is about Mama's plumped up lips. Mama, well, she swears up, down, and sideways that her lips have never - not once- been touched by a doctor's needle. This snapshot captures a little whiff of the hilarious sketch comedy performed by these two beaming creatives.

Absurdity is something they know first hand. And hard as that can be, there's also a good bit of silly outrageous stuff ripe for the picking.

We all plan to gather again soon. I'm bringing my tape recorder and camera this time. This portrait is an audio-visual for sure. I'll be piecing together work soon, creating a family portrait that touches on such things as brown spots, car rentals, energy conservation data, drugs and alcohol.

Until then, stay tuned, and many thanks to R & R Q.

Intimacy

I had the happy fortune to wake up today, get some coffee, feed the dog, and snuggle right back under the sheets to finish the most incredible book. Proust was a Neuroscientist. It's a book marked up with pen, stars and comments all over the margins. It's that sort of book.

"We are only intimate with ourselves," is one pearl from Jonah Lehrer's chapter on Virginia Woolf.

Another is this: "As Woolf understood, the self is a fiction that cannot be treated like a fact."

Twilight

Feeling a little twilightish, if that's a word I can use. Crepuscular is the fancy version. Anyway, my plans and projects are all leading nowhere fast. It's not significant like Egypt's uprising or health reform, but it's bugging me and pulling on me like a tide. I'm hanging onto the light where I can find it, but it's a faint force, bound to get brighter in the coming days.

Broken Record

In the cold and rain yesterday I dared to enter a haunted house I'd been curious about for years. I needed to get out of the office in the worst way. Something creepy seemed just right.

I found this broken record in the corner. It felt like finding a memory, an abstract memory that needed to be contained. This memory that belonged to someone else pulled me in with its sad beauty.

The writer Thomas Moore says that memory is potent, a kind of poetry, a force that ties our past to our present to overcome the disjunction of a too literal life. I would add that memory is always composed of what's included and what's left out, and this image speaks to that truth vividly.