Talking to Strangers

What a strange world we live in today. Yesterday, I read a message from Mark Zuckerberg, facebook founder, discussing this strange "talking to strangers", revealing too much, a new era, blah-biddidy blah blah. No new news there but just a new perspective I have today. I say this as I post, talking to the waves, to friends, to strangers.

I am sitting here having very real thoughts and feelings. Lost. Where do I go with them? Journal, perhaps. Call a friend. Who do I call? What can I do to distract myself. All those thoughts. Then I think oh yea I'll blog. How odd that I have that thought, that that is the solution, the place to go. I think of myself as trying to live mindfully. Being authentic. Sensitive to things that are real. And I take this path of refuge.

There is the How of it.

I am sad. Really sad. I miss my friend. I feel like there is a big hole in the room, in the space. Everyone is carefully walking around it so they don't fall in. Some are staring at me with wondering or fearful eyes. Some are pretending it is not here at all. And there are those who notice the hole but don't know that it is a permanent hole.An then those who don't care.

There is the The of it.

It happened. It can't be undone. It is. No matter what, things will and do move on and around and through this. That is all. Everyone will be fine in the end. In fact everyone is fine now. Though it is really unexpected. Really tragic. Sad.

There is the Hell of it.

I can just have my feelings. Not know what to do with them. Post them on my blog (never on fb!). Talk to strangers. And continue to wonder How The Hell did this happen!

Things I am Thankful For

Too late to talk, to post, to start- though it has been a week.

Mercury in Retrograde.

So many upsetting, humongous things have come to pass. Around me. Affecting me but not directly to me.

I have personally received large amounts of nourishment, gift, celebration.

My child is a gift of insight and joy.

I am thankful for all of that and more.

Posting work in progress, questionable

Posting unfinished work, work in progress, both of those things are questionable. 

I've done it. 

Like many things, I am at an confessional stage- an expose of sorts.

Here we are blogging some very personal musings.

The works shown in the previous posting (earlier today) are small- 6" squares. I cut a bunch of museum board at that size and started doing some collage work. I pasted and redrew and painted and pasted some more. None finished or satisfying. The subjects are very didactic. Women- women working, earning, creating, even nursing while creating (and probably earning too). 

Then some of the other boards became part of another process. These drawings are created in rather indirect ways, using beet juice. I saved this cooking juice in my refridgerator for months, perhaps a year. Different jars from various cookings of this rather beautifully colored vegetable. The drawings themselves are almost sculptural as they soak up the juice in various dunkings and dry naturally warping and curling as they do.

In the first picture, I show a small group of collaged pieces checkered with the beet drawings. It is an idea. I'm not sure I like juxtaposing them. Here I am exposing a visual thought. Perhaps this takes me to another place...

Maybe that place is building the lower area of the wall with the beet drawings, like bricks or rocks, though not in a grid-ed format, leading into the "mother" collage. thread can link them. or not.

In any way I think of it I must continue to work on them individually.

Ultimately the excitement of this is that the wall is my canvas; to display them in their natural unframed form or individually framed. All this because they are going to be displayed in an exhibition at The Gateway Arts Center CDC, in Brentwood, MD (DC area) opening May 14th. I'll post these details later, closer to the date!

quick pictures of what Ive been making

Spring!

St Patrick's Day!
Not yet March 21st but the Hyacinth buds are visible, with hints of purple tone. The light is bright and the sun is warm, the sky is a particular shade of blue- only in spring.

I walked my boy to school today, we talked about the spring and how the green pushes from the earth to feel the sun, just like we do. He woke this morning saying "Is it summer today? I've been waiting so long."  It is slow for Spring to come and then Summer too. One day at a time, growing and healing. It feels slow to wait, slow to live and then suddenly there it is upon you a bright day with buds of hyacinth!

new perspective

I just talked to a friend, I have a new perspective- so obvious but I'm trying it out...

this is a place for me to speak, share, communicate, not just share what is inside my head and my tenuousness and discomfort sharing my life challenges (and how I work through them), the path I am moving through... that too but to share my immediate place, my surroundings, my day. Of course this simplicity- I want to share this VISUALLY but not all that easy even though it IS easy. But I can start with sharing it with words too.

Here we go-part one

On my way to work everyday (if I'm not in a rush), I walk through New York's dwindling flower district. The "district" is now compressed to one block between 6th and 7th Avenue on 28th Street. It is a kind of oasis. In the early morning, even in the cold winter, they have the sidewalk filled with plants, flowers, trees. They leave a very narrow path for pedestrians, between the flowers in front of their shops and the  "gardens" created, in descending size, from the curb to the path.

These are no ordinary flower shops- they are pack full with all kinds of wild, exotic plants, huge branches, flowering or bare. This is where all the event and exhibition designers shop at 5 in the morning.

I love to walk here, see the colors and smell the fresh plants alive and oozing oxygen. Often even the fragrance of the flowers waft in the path. This gives me a fresh beginning and a new perspective to go to work.

Though I have to say, I hate when people in front of me are smoking. I think there should be a law against it, tickets given, in this compressed garden space, the offense of smoke. Though I remember as a smoker the need to have it fill my lungs, after running or biking and especially in among the the fresh smells and extra oxygen of trees and plants.

This smoker offense happened to me today. I waited, lingered and let them pass way way in front of me instead of muttering under my breath and cursing them all the while.

I am learning to create my reality, choose my perspective, ever so slowly and only sometimes, but I am learning.

4 now

Posting, no visuals. It has 2 weeks since the last post.

I hear my baby stir in the bed.

We just passed through a celebratory birthday week for him.
Not a baby, 4years old now. And he has pee-ed in the bed 3 times in 2 weeks. Hello 4 year old. New challenges. Do we go back to pullups in the night?

I am not happy about some things that have come to pass. This bed wetting is so minor in comparrison. I guess it is all perception. Sleep would do me well. I am needing to accomplish many things which need to be done and are not, until after my child sleeps.

At this hour, I hear sounds in other apartments- talking, fighting, sex.
While mine is silent.

I need to speak my mind at the appropriate times. That "right time" never seems to appear. So I speak inappropriately.

I started a list of things to be grateful for tonight. I intend to do this nightly. Someone shared with me how this daily habit has helped them greatly. It will help me to keep things in perspective, to move forward, despite myself.