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.