proto-coffee muse

More than enough to do these days, so expecting silence will be normal. 

Trying to reverse-engineer crumpled paper arranged on a wall is proving difficult. I've a mind to stiffen it all with a toothbrush sized paintbrush (said, without any commitment in the least).

I've lost my formal work days to other strange assignments—making cords for the double majors graduating, drawing lines in a field for boys to discover. I have just mapped out the next four weeks of school, bringing another panic attack to the fore. How to have time to finalize four more pieces for the exhibition in May, pray tell?

Is there really such a thing as "taking more on than I can handle"? We will soon find out.

State of Grace

And like this, the first spring storm opens me. I was torn from complacency. The sorrow nearly suffocating me, and I strangled paper for release. I drenched it, scratched it, savage in form and it responded. I left it on a white wall, blinked, and took it down; graphite smudges the only remnant. It sits like a dog at my feet.

Or a child. And like that, I moved my chin up and parallel to the ground. I talk unashamedly, no apologies in sight. I am here, on this strong earth, so let the flood come. A month ago I taunted the universe, calling insults and begging to hit me harder the next time. Sometimes being human goes to my head and I forget the universe always answers. 

Yet I am here, surviving. A colleague asked me why the "point of no return" is my favorite idea to iterate in my work. My heavy lids only let me sigh at the time.

I know now that the changing event, the pivotal point of any story, is always the time one learns and grows. It is my first love, this passion for learning. I know only life from it.

A Field

My apologies for the week of silence; too many things have changed for me to make comment.

Currently I am away to help plan the set for Three Days of Moonyman; I am "the artist" and will be drawing lines in a field for this film. It is exciting to remember the film when it had just budded, the faint idea of a wide angle lens witnessing a boy in the middle of nowhere. 

Instead of leaning on tea and coffee in the late afternoons, I have more than enough energy to stay up well past sundown. There is no question I have needed a break. So many looming deadlines, like any human being, and it is hard to remember my brain cannot be "on" all the time.

I stood, dust to dust, in a field all afternoon. I remembered about snakes and tried to find clouds in the sky. There is no place like home, there is no love like this... So here I am, daydreaming and making dinners and burning all my car's fuel to support someone else's dream.

Organized?

I have an intensive overview calendar I draw out every three weeks on white cardstock. This, along with with scraps of paper I use to write down class assignments and a notepad on my desk for regurgitating errands to complete. A printed calendar with important deadlines written in bold, black Sharpie hangs on my wall. A dry-erase calendar sits unmarked in the kitchen next to the sink, a rectangle for me to stare at while I wait for water to boil. Smaller sheets of dot-graph paper hold the impending dates for my senior seminar class; this I keep tacked to my studio wall and hardly glance at. I have a palm-sized black Moleskine for general thoughts and a suite of three Field Notes journals that organize my personal meetings, my finances and grocery list. A small John Deere flipbook denotes the immediate errands I must run on a particular day, and post-its litter my purse, my desk-drawer, my research books... Not to mention the obsessive calendaring I impose on Google Calendar. The alarm settings to remind oneself is an incredible feature.

It is all I can do to keep breathing. A studio visit with a professor revealed I must "keep my heart Chakra open," keep my posture from closing all my energy inside. And so I took the last two rolls of white butcher paper I had and cut sections out that were as large as me. I wrestled with them, using my entire body to fold and tuck and strangle and kick and tear. And then I tacked them onto a wall and decided it was An Exodus.

Love, like

Last week knocked me out; I dragged my feet from my afternoon class on Friday and fell into my bed, what gravity. And so I spent the next two days organizing rooms, learning all the "stuff" I own. Heavy work. Yet I continue to rearrange filing cabinets and art supplies and projects, these little things adding. A compulsiveness bred from waning control. It's sunk into my imagery. I put weights in this rice paper project, An Exodus.

After photographing it, I realize an exodus isn't a one-stop shop. It is a reinvention, a rebirth every time. The title isn't truly fitting; a power like that shouldn't be matched with quiet, manageable shapes. But I know now that the piece's title isn't An Exodus. My entire spring semester is an exodus imminent.

"What Kind Of Man"

I have fallen into fifteen-hour work days, what with projects and essays being due. This month-long intro to my last semester in undergrad has been lethargic. I am ready to be jolted out of that.

Florence + the Machine has released a new single, announced a new album. It woke me up, much like Swift's "Blank Space" did a couple months ago. This dry winter air has cracked my knuckles mercilessly, regardless of the lotion I slather religiously.

I am almost done with my first project, An Exodus. Cleaning up the edges on my paper forms was born of rage and confusion. I started a 6 feet tall drawing right next to it. I sob into my strokes, releasing the pressure I feel constantly behind my teeth. It is akin to those bursting cinderblocks four years ago that my tracing finger wanted. 

And this drawing lives next to my installation while I waver between sudden loss and complete domination. I wrote three poems under the title An Exodus before I started organizing these paper forms. I hope this love that cures blindness will be evident in my project.

Just

And another week in this final semester waits to be filled. I've begun Ilan Pappe's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. When the cold death house was being torn apart and abandoned, I took my father's books and adopted them as my own. This book especially sat above his desk, nestled in with outdated books on C++ and Java.

It is this severe reminiscing that is causing me weight. I can't help but gather my memories and count them, like Baby Suggs and her colors. I am desperate for spring imminent, like everybody else. Like everybody else, I am wanting a "next step" to be visible.

This right-between-heaven-and-hell breeds sickness. I've self-diagnosed to clean up my computer's filing system and drink copious amounts of Earl Grey.

Some Line

Digesting a book about human's need for stories, midway upon that journey. Many hours spent stationary coupled with 6 degree weather makes life incredibly small. Funny that all the ice will predictably melt tomorrow in the late afternoon sun and risen temperatures.

I am making headway on my first project, the rice paper experiment. Rid of daily anxiety, I am fighting to know a new kind of fuel. It is strange to not be prodded by my deep fears, and instead lead by immense love. Love moves me to many things, including basking in a chair or sleeping hours at night. Fear made me block these things out, so I could keep work work working. 

Plan B is taking the form of lists on white legal pad paper, highlighters and sparing post-its. It is a limbo for months to live in, unfortunately.

Mark Time

Mercury is in retrograde for the next month, and as a sun sign ruled by this planet, I will blame every "misfortune" on its movement. Minor annoyances have become highlighted, is all.

Spring semester is now begun, and I start each week with six hours of work study. I open doors for people and shuffle papers and smile at unsure freshmen. I choreograph my own thought patterns and research within the small bustle of this office. 

I have a blank wall waiting for notes; begging, you see. I have finally received Random Access Memories, so "Daft Punk Syndrome" mapping is in full attention. As is Taylor Swift and her mirror-like quality.

Moving is easy. Hand over hand is a predictable way to know the world is moving forward. It is under my control, this situation, and it will soar because I am giving it attention.

But waiting?

"Wildest Dreams"

I have recently acquired Taylor Swift's entire discography, quite a treat to kick off this semester's research. Upon listening to 1989 on repeat for the last week, one of Swift's songs is reminiscent of Timberlake's "Blue Ocean Floor." Not that this is a diagnosed "syndrome"; rather, this might be the keyhole to align a similar story arc in contemporary pop music albums (those on "this side" of the millennium).

I've also begun Roger Fouts' Next of Kin. This book has quite honestly rearranged many doubts I've held onto about my coming graduation and what "happens after." Fouts' testimony and journey through not only academia, but his research and love for his chimpanzee family is inspiring. I am hoping one day I can tell him how much I admire his perseverance.

And like this break, my waxing lust for writing will soon break way into a waning love when spring semester arrives.