Two for Tuesday: Rays of Light

Sometimes synchronicity shows up to offset life's randomness and this twosome proves that point.

If you're obsessed with Man Ray's avant-garde photographs, you know this fanciful twosome, a pair that showed up during his heyday in Paris.  I'm not exactly sure what they are; the pair seems to suggest music, a sort of clef note. The sort of surreality Man Ray created and documented.

Well, jump ahead about 70 years. Last summer I began working with a wonderful model who, guess what, had that image tattooed on her back. As an artist and a musician herself, she wanted that twinned shape lining her spine from the moment she, at the age of 16, saw Man Ray's photograph. No wonder we worked so well together. Our collaboration felt meant to be.

Jump ahead to this weekend. My playful friend Jill came to visit just when I really needed her, and we are also bonded by that Man Ray love; in fact, we created nicknames for ourselves after seeing a mind-blowing Man Ray exhibit in Chicago. I'm known as Doe Ray; Jill prefers to keep her nickname secret, but I can tell you it also ends with Ray.

On a good creative day, we channel his fumes, and on the days when the muse is hiding, we look for signs.

It's Getting Pretty Theatrical

It's theatre time over here. Pushing and pulling, pressing against the dimensions. Overwhelmed and wondering: where is my assistant with the seltzer water and sipping straw? I'm thirsty.

The bridemaid dress here, worn by the amazingly inventive Lindsay, is pulled from a sequence I'm combining into a little choreographed moment of movement. Titling the images was a verbfest: pushing, leaning, bending, reaching, sitting, curling.

Now I'm working on writing one word per image to lay down syncopation for the movement.

Fingers crossed, ladies and gentlemen. Fingers crossed.

Two for Tuesday: Warming Up

It's been raining and January raw outside and this twosome of warming sneakers seems well suited for the week we've just had in North Carolina.

I found this twosome leaning up against the radiator one day in Amsterdam, huddled and touching at the tip. I felt instantly struck by the composition with its lovely geometry, painterly and pure. The patterning on the rubber soles only added to the shapeliness of line. I also love how large these sneakers are. Massive really- size 12, 13 maybe. The shoes belonged to some man walking around in socks who has some seriously big feet.

Closer to home, I live in a house with old-time radiators and love warming up my undies and socks in the morning as I shower and get ready for the day. Warmed up clothes feel delicious. Warm shoes, though, what a super yummy idea.

Open the Window

Some words of Taoist wisdom for the start of the work week, with an interpretation by Bruce Lee.

You can never invite the wind, but you must leave the window open.

You can never force a great photograph to happen. You can only be ready to capture it.

If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.
Love Life – Go photograph now!

Blowing It Out

Here's a photograph from yesterday's shoot that didn't work out but I still love.

This series has an alter ego which is super blurry and suggestive and merely hints at the details. I figure part of what makes me love this messy frame is that I know what's really going on. For others it's probably just a riddle.

Here's a clue: the light source is a sparkler.
Here's another: the story is about greeting the new millennium.

Hope everyone finds a little sparkle this weekend.

Getting Ready

The act of getting ready, getting organized, getting my shit together is defining my days and nights. This morning I woke up at 2:30. I refused to leave my bed, but the thoughts churned around like a fan was blowing on them.

It's been hitting me just how much stuff I've made.

S O M U C H S T U F F

This image comes from a sequence I'm building based on getting dressed/undress, zipped/unzipped.

Check out the textured fabric; it's a dream, even in black and white.

Details, Details

Vladimir Nabokov said to caress the details and that's exactly what I've been up to here this week.

Finding my way into the little bits and pieces, looking over my to-do list that's got so many items on it I woke up today at 4 in the morning.

Thanks to Julia for all she brought to the shoot and to the pixies who seem to have planted atmosphere and breath into this image. And thanks to Rebecca, who makes me think and think and begin to see how the pieces need to go together.

Two for Tuesday: Heading Somewhere

Random twosomes are intriguing. Paired and related, but unconnected and singular. Here's a pair of people waiting for the train. Both standing on the platform, both about to board the same train; aside from those obvious similarities their unity divides.

She with the jazzy blue and pink suitcase is embarking on a different trip than the man to her right, who carries only his messenger bag. The man leans against the lamp post, legs crossed, calm and relaxed, ready to hop on the train destined, it seems, for the the same old same old. The woman, her head craning left, peers down the track, anticipating, eager or anxious to begin her trip to who can say where.

Maybe it's the metaphor of train tracks, but the journey always pulls me in, makes me wonder, raises questions about destinations and what's next. Personally, I like both stances - the easygoing familiar and the awakened new.

Twisted Wedding

The tale of my wedding is a mighty twisted one

Tensions ran high

Some serious monkey business went on

Trees grew inside the house

Outside, crushed lightbulbs glittered in the green lawn

Fortunately, when I look back, my wedding is a murky remembrance

 full of mood but few details, an experience way far away 

a lot like this image appears back where the hand meets the wall 

and the unbuttoned lace sleeve dangles in the shadow

(Didn't intend the prose poem. But the text started pouring in centered and I liked the look.)

Perform @ SECCA: A Dozen Dresses | Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art

Okay, so here's the first official invite I'm posting. Come on out to SECCA, Thursday Feb. 9th. 

Perform @ SECCA: A Dozen Dresses | Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art

Not Exactly

Okay, so things don't always turn out the way you think they will. We know this by now, of course. But when things are malfunctioning and falling apart as they were last night during a shoot, I just quit while I was ahead and shifted gears. Gave up on plan A, threw one dress down, found another, turned on some lights, grabbed the secret element that produces the smoky look you see here and exhaled. Voila.

I don't love a lot of things about aging, but I do like that I now know how to surrender more quickly and move on.

Two for Tuesday: Duet Going Nowhere

Here is a scene played out in countless cities - the street musicians parked by a busy train station. This twosome seated outside Amsterdam's central train station played Klezmer music, lively and buoyant and a complete contradiction to the vibe they put off, which seemed cold and defeated.

The older man, sitting by the poster for the torture museum (it's impossible to read here, I know) looks out at the indifferent passing crowd with a dastardly distain. Even if you wanted to put money in their small suitcase lined with a folded purple towel, the fox-like look on papa's face seems too menacing to step that close.

I've always been fascinated by people who work in jobs where everyone else is going somewhere - toll booth attendants, airport employees, train station concessionaires. All those hundreds and thousands of people on their way somewhere else and you, the person stuck in one place, watching everyone moving, leaving, heading out.

And Light Was Served

Got back into playing around yesterday. The rough drafts started my blood flowing again.

The resolution for my new year: get looser and make more.

Cheers to experimenting more and embracing a happy go lucky, why worry approach to creating.

When I pulled together the elements for these images, I had no clue the sparkles would light up that way, and I sure didn't count on that circle of light imprinting a halo onto our scene pictured in the image below.

Always grateful for the light.

Back in the Closet

Ahhhh, I'm feeling a tad shaky. This week I jumped back into the dresses and recollections, became preoccupied with something called a forthcoming engagement. For over a year now, I've had my head in the closet working on a new series and I'm about to come out.

Until now, I've written grants about The Recollection, my series of stories and images. I've collaborated with people and spaces, turning stories into theatrical snapshots. And I've privately shared bits and pieces at friendly gatherings and portfolio reviews. But to step fully out of the closet - that's a whole nother thing. Februrary 9th at SECCA I will share stories and photographs from this personal body of work.

Right now I'm fantasizing about sudden illnesses and/or wintry mixes.

The story of The Recollection started off innocently enough with a dance to the Pussycat Dolls' song Buttons. From there, it's been a ride and a half. The stories brought me back in time in ways that were funny and bitter-tasting, embarrassing, melancholic and beautiful.

The past is so big, you know. It opens a world. It provides linearity and order and yet stirs up a emotional wind that blows time on its ticking head.

I leave you with one parting thought.

This week I watched a TED talk with Brene Brown, a social worker, who spoke about vulnerability.  She said people who have the courage to be imperfect, to be vulnerable, approach life in a more wholehearted way. "What made them vulnerable made them who they are," she said. "It made them beautiful. There was a willingness to do something with no sense of outcome."

Two for Tuesday: Floating First Days

Found this arresting twosome in a window one night recently. Floating feet; two soles pressing against glass or water or fabric or, possibly, all three.

A pair of feet is so familiar, but not from this angle. And not in a store window at Christmas. Look at the way the ankle begins to move into the calf before disappearing, the way the whole body seems suggested. It pulls me into a trance of wonder. The gesture becomes a portrait of beginning steps moving into the new year.

As I start writing in my new moleskin calendar, still reeling from the intoxicating blur of December, I'm feeling a little floaty myself. I'm not sure where I am anymore, or where exactly I'm going next.

I'm suspended...but getting ready to move. Yesterday afternoon, I cleared 12,000 images from the three bulletin boards across from my desk. The slate is blank. Lift off has begun.

Happiness 2012

I heard something on the radio New Year's day that is lingering in my mind. A man said that instead of concerning ourselves with "the pursuit of happiness" we should let happiness catch up with us.

Let happiness catch up with us.

I like the idea that happiness is there if we slow down enough to experience it. It reminds me of this volunteer garden jutting out of the wooden fence. Happy without a plan or purpose or pursuit.