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Fire Fire!

Continuing with Golden Walker....

caution readers of the book! plot spoilers ahead...

The Visit

Misha in prison, so angry he is "lost"- changed to fire and can't remember how to change back.  Only the old nurse dares to go near the door.
A painting about two different states of mind...

Heart of Fire

Misha escapes, and becomes a raging fire outside the city.  Because he loves her and some part of him recognizes her, Nadia is able to escape the city and walk into the heart of the fire.
This painting is about trust, the ecstasy of being totally surrounded by love, and in the middle of a great big scary passion, finding that you are actually completely safe..

CAUTION: CAT PICTURE AHEAD

I would have made more paintings, but Hazel won't get off the art table.

new work

Summer is over and so is my holiday from this blog.  I took a holiday because it has been a writing summer, finishing up another section of Golden Walker and I simply had nothing left to say on the blog, after writing all day, there were no more words....  Oh well.  That is what summer is for, and now I have the fun of coming back with new enthusiasm...

So Melissa and I are still writing the end and we also have got some altruistic volunteers to read the thing and see if it possibly makes any sense to anyone.  (I already have a request for a map.)

Still doing the illustrations.  Here are some new ones.  (Catuion readers!  Plot spoilers ahead!)

Aya the Only

This painting is about the frenzy of loss.  Aya the Only, the mother of the seven brothers, knows they are gone.  She tears up her room and rips her feather bed, and reaches up into a mysterious and ghostly breeze that now is never absent from the house.

Salix Vs. Misha

This painting is about a clash of anger.  Each brother is trying to overpower the other.

Yeah, I'm not even going to get into the plot as to why.
I think it would just make you scratch your head and feel tired.

Til next time...

Sling Some Ink

Big Star Bar
7:30
Tuesday May 8

I will be reading a story about babysitting at Big Star Bar in the Heights this week!  Do stop by if you are free. It's through the Slinging Ink writing program from Diverseworks.  Here is the link for some more info about the program:

http://diverseworks.org/2012/slinging-ink-big-star-bar-spring-2012/

and  map to Big Star Bar (it's at 1005 West 19th Street, that's kind of west of Durham)

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

new work: rainbows and ramones

Death of Sasha
If you have been following this blog for awhile, you might remember Sasha as the swishy one in fancy clothes (the entry is "Looking for Sasha").  This is his death... Sasha's gift is his all-seeing vision.  He has rainbow colored eyes that can see anything he wishes no matter how far away, and also some clairvoyance.  He was blind for a while which broke his heart.  In death, he can see again.

(detail of Sasha)

Dee Dee
This is a picture from the childhood (or teenager-hood, which to me is still childhood) of the seven children.  Misha, whose gift is turning into fire, used to sneak out to clubs and go dancing. He tried to keep his identity secret by calling himself Dee Dee (I got that from Dee Dee Ramone because I think Misha would have liked the Ramones, if they existed in Fehran...) but his disguise is rather pointless because the habit of turning into fire sort of gives him away.

The blonde girl in the foreground is Noel, Misha's first love.

In the Schoolroom
Another one from the kids' childhood.  Misha, Leila, Ariel, and Salix question their teacher about the faraway city of Iirvska.

detail from In the Schoolroom.
I got Misha's outfit and hair off Ben Wishaw in the movie "I'm not There" because Melissa and I thought he was cool.  Hopefully I will not get sued or anything.

*note of self-praise from Brooke: check out the (relative) lucidity of these pix!  I am learning to photograph art!  yay.

primrose meditation

(I passed these flowers on the walk to Fiesta the other day.  I used to pick them all the time as a child, with my grandma)

your petals are sensitive,
like the pink-veined delicate ears of a cat.
you're teacups of pollen, you are tiny cups of light.
you have spangled yourselves all over the vacant lot,
on my side of the chain-length fence, and the other.
could you care for separations?
you children of light, you cannot even see them
you tiny lights, you are as many
as sparkles on the sea.
does nature ever see things like a chain-length fence?
could I draw a line upon the surface of the sea?

More new work- Seven Brothers

Care for Life
Nadia is a shaman.  Here she holds Leila's spirit (in the form of a little bird) in her hand, watching over it until it is safe to release it back into Leila's body.

Her Father Walks Away
Nadia has a recurring dream about her father, the King of Iirvska.  Over and over, her father walks away from her into Fehran, pausing only to look at her coldly over his shoulder.

(detail) Sometimes I am adding a detail because the faces are hard to see.

Your Words are Killing Me
(the death of Oran)
This is watercolor and tracing paper.  Sorry for the blurriness! better pictures done by a professional coming soon!

(detail)  Some thoughts about this painting... each of the brothers has a magic talent, and Oran is the great listener- he can hear anything he wishes, even sounds miles away.  He is literally killed by words.  His brother Salix speaks the spell that kills him, but the worst words are the ones Salix uses to explain himself and manipulate his brother.  He tries to get power over him, which one of my favorite writers Brene Brown defines in this way:
"I will define who you are and then I'll make you believe that's your own definition."
But Oran will not agree.  He knows who he is.
This painting is about how words spoken by someone who absolutely refuses to see you can harm the spirit and make you disappear.

New Work

Well, we finally decided on a title- the name of the novel is now "Golden Walker."  Melissa has finished six new chapters and working on just a few more, finishing up the ghostly deaths of the seven brothers and Nadia's escape from Paythe.  Here are some illustrations I have finished for that part of the story.

"Salix the Convalesce"
This is Salix, the middle child and the one who was always sick, convalescing in his sickroom.  The monotony of pain.

(This is a close-up of his face in that painting. Sorry for the blurriness.)

 "Mar"
Misha and Sasha watch Mar above them change into water.

 "Death of Ashen"
Ashen, the brother who can turn into plants and growing things.  He is pushed forever into the other world, where he can be only plants, and he can no longer return as a human.

Impressions from Zoe and Juniper

The show that was recently at Diverseworks called  was so “A Crack in Everything” but the company Zoe and Juniper was so amazing that I wanted to write down what affected me so much about it.  It was one of the most powerful works of art I have ever seen.  I have to commemorate this in some way.  I used to write these things in a sort of art journal but now this blog is sort of becoming my art journal.  This is not a review and is just written from the point of view as a spectator who came into Diverseworks knowing nothing about Zoe and Juniper’s show except that people on facebook were saying it was cool.  The worst thing is that the show is over, so I cannot encourage people to go see it, and this blog entry might be extremely annoying if you missed it!  I wish I had seen it every Saturday in February instead of just the last performance, because they say it was different every time.

I enjoy installations. But it’s kind of the same way I enjoy paintings- I am looking into a different world.  I don’t every really experience being part of the space of an installation.  I am physically in it, but I know it’s intentional and I’m not, it’s Art and I’m not, I am usually not supposed to touch it or push stuff around, so it is it’s space and I am my space.  I have to sort of look around and ignore all the annoying people ruining everything by taking pictures with their iphones and talking about their boring jobs or dinner plans.  The installation and I, we don’t really know each other.  Probably because I am too fastidious about how I want to experience it, but that’s just how it is…

 “A Crack in Everything” was incredible because I HAD to be part of the space.

The reason was the dancers were moving in the same space as the people.  Not just not-on-a-stage, but really among us- we were encouraged to walk around the space throughout the performance.  People were milling around in their jeans and t-shirts and bags and iphones, and then this faerie appears- she like an other-worldly being because of the conscious way she is moving- not like us- her movements are so conscious and full of intention and other that she is truly in another dimension.  We look at her, but she looks through us.  She doesn’t see us any more than a ghost does, and she is full of secret intention, and we are just random.  The other people- they were part of the space too, iphones and sneakers and everything.  Nothing could ruin it because there was a place for everything.  And for me, too.

There were times within the performance where I was sitting in front of a screen with projections of dancers.  Behind the screen, I could see the hazy figure of the real dancer, imitating the filmed dancer.  The image of the movie-dancer was more clear to me than the real dancer… how strange!  All the thoughts this one movement touches in me- is a thought of someone more real to me than the person it?  Do I try to behave like an image of myself or someone else?  I don’t know what the dancers intended, those are just my own reactions.  It reminds me of that scene in the film Mulholland Drive (but much less creepy) where a woman is singing, and then drops down- and her voice continues- it is a tape recorder.

There were many times in this performance when I felt empathy and two times where I was even to the point of tearing up. 

There was a video of two people yelling at each other.  Their heads circled like dogs ready to bite, but they never did.  They just bit with words.  Their mouths had some kind of yellow goo dribbling out like the nastiness of some kinds of anger.  They brought their mouths close to each other’s necks to bite or kiss, but never did- their eye contact was mesmerizing- in a way it was thisclose to sexual but not quite- and they were blind to everything else but each other and the fight.  I thought the video was silent.  It was only later I heard the faint sound of barking that I realized they were NOT speaking in muted words, they were barking.  I am rarely really disturbed in “disturbing” art installations because I’ve just seen so many that hit you over the head relentlessly with the same effect (which is not even that different from the media images I see in everyday non-art life).  I am dutifully disturbed in my head when I am there, but then I just leave the art show and get a coffee with friends or something and forget.  However, the anger video in this installation did disturb me and make me uncomfortable because of its truth- that is how I am when I am yelling- also because it was the only thing in an otherwise rather pretty installation that was that jarring to me.

Another sort of emotionally wrenching moment was two dancers facing off, connected to each other by a red yarn, each dancer holding one end of the yarn in her mouth.  The mouth was so intimate a connection that my whole body was in sympathy with this.  More than if the yarn had connected their hands, or genitals, or hearts, or stomachs, or foreheads- I don’t know why the mouth was so affecting.  I think it’s something so subconscious in my body that reacted… one dancer backed away from the other.  The yarn got longer.  The moving-away dancer pulled and breathed and panted with a great effort, and the other dancer was like an indifferent donkey- she only took a step or two forward, glassy-eyed.  I very moved inside because I was reminded of a heart’s extreme connection to people in my life, especially trying and wishing someone would behave in a way I want, or come to me, or respond to me…

Sometime after this (?) there was a release of tension- the dancers now were dancing among a hall of two movie screens and there was a film like snow going upwards like the bubbles in champagne, and Schubert started playing, and the movements were lyrical and the dancers danced together and this was such a release of tension that I cried, but am not consciously sure why.

The space was enclosed and used no natural light, except for a long vertical crack at the very back space.  The light coming out of the crack was coming from some unseen window and was whiter and brighter and fresher and more powerful, as daylight is.  Some dancers were pulling towards it, and one was sitting on the bench like a little girl, her hands in her lap.  A dancer tried to pull the little one to the light, beckoning with great energy, but she would not come.  Then finally, she did stand up and start to walk, and that too erupted a great emotion in me but I don’t know why. 

When they got to the crack, I thought something happy would happen, but they just continued their searching movements.  There was no resolution, catharsis or ending, just continuing.

a mind like grackles

Mind, they told me you are a bird

Because you have such a gift for flying.

I’d like it if you were some great white thing

with wings that spanned the horizon, sea to sea

plunging in and shooting up

to the stars.

But honestly sometimes you are like a grackle

scavenging among things that are dead, like bad memories

picking at trash other people have left on their tables

with a voice like a car alarm, that can only scream something like fear

who stays with the other grackles, all the same, and will not often

go or even wish to go any higher than telephone wires.

I know you can sometimes be a mourning dove

softly crying, the naïve slow one so easily hit by cars

who weeps with joy to hear the morning come

who loves your friends, and every spring

so glad to come home.

Or sometimes, like the mockingbird- small and gray and clean

Alone, and not alone,

watching and listening

singing back in a voice like rain every ugly or beautiful thing you take in.

Blackout

During the storm a few days ago (well, the storm was in the morning and this happened at night) my street got a blackout.  This is a journal entry from that night.

Tonight the light was snatched away.  I left my painting and my preoccupations and was IN this old building.  A neighbor above shouted BLACKOUT! like Happy New Year's.  Neighbors coming outside into the night, laughing.  "So much for dinner!"  "I was cooking too!"  "It's the whole street!"  "Is the bar open?"  "Hell the bar is blackout too prolly."  "If only this had happened at schoo!"  "And Miss Carol's lights too?"

Wait a little while at my desk.  My eyes do have large dark windows for occasions such as this and I am just waiting as they widen, widen, widen before they cast out nets.  And your fingers are smarter than you know.

Light!  Even a little!  I get to the door by my knees and feet with antennae looking for bumps and sharp dangerous things.  My face hates to go forward because it's imagining a thousand ghostly walls to smash it flat.  Screen door, open.  cool night.  Sweet rain.  Patter, wet leaves, a taxi drives by with a light on, their voices ("Dad, the cars still have lights")  the sweet sad wind, the old train voice.  Silver thinned with black in my dim house.  a candle!  Brighter than a star.  I never knew a candle was so bright.  So a candlelit room at night: once I thought of that as a dark room but now I see this as a room where forms can emerge and singing yellow stars restore the world I know.

When the lights came on it was like bleach like chalk and a little sadly I saw myself once more close and lock the outside door.

the body inside the body

A lot of my artwork is about the experience of being in a body because this takes up a huge part of my life.  One of my favorite quotes ever is by one of my favorite inspirational people ever, the Butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno, who said something like if you want to know yourself you can start by observing everything you can about your own body.

As a child I was gentle and wimpy.  I was always the last one chosen for the kickball team.  At 12 I grew too fast for my bones and my knee got permanently messed up.  It’s been fixed, but still is not normal and one leg is much smaller and weaker than the other because I never do the therapy like I’m supposed to.

At 21 I was like an old woman, always tired.  It’s hard to remember now, but my energy level was listless as rotten flowers.  A model in my art school, an absolutely beautiful dancer named Kendra, invited me to come with her to a Qigong class in the lower east side because she thought I was far too young to have so little energy. 

I did go, and was it a great calming experience that solved my problem?  No it was not.  It was horrible!  It was probably one of the most physically horrible experiences of my life!  We did standing meditation, you just breathe and stand.  You relax your head- then your shoulders- arms- chest- stomach- at this point my body screamed at me that it was going to fly to pieces and I was going to DIE if I relaxed my stomach.  I bravely kept taking deep breaths but my body was not kidding.  I passed out in front of everyone- crash!  My gentle but firm teacher led me to her kitchen and gave me a blanket and water and I finished the class lying down under her kitchen table trembling and curled up into a ball.

She said it meant I was sensitive to Qi and if you have reactions like this, Qigong is the best thing you can do.  It’s healing you.

I did stick Qigong not so much to heal myself but because of the beauty of the movements.  You see it was Soaring Crane Qigong, and I loved to move like that huge and beautiful bird and that feeling of flying. But off and on I did have to deal with cold sweats, terrors, nausea, shaking, and there were more times when I did have to go back under the table. 

Later in my life I did simpler forms of Qigong that were not so difficult and had a good experience with them, but I still find it too powerful an energy rush for me so now I do yoga which seems for me gentler.  But I do meditate (sitting down) each morning, and some of the feelings from that first Qigong lesson I still am dealing with, in sitting meditation.

So meditation is supposed to be really calming, la la la.  Not for me, not usually.  For me it’s like a workout.  My experience with meditation is so visceral and so physical it can be more draining than a visyana yoga class.  And I’m not a beginner beginner, really, it’s been 2 years since I’ve been doing this.  The same nausea and panic.  The same voice that screams if you relax your stomach you will fall into pieces and you are going to DIE.  (But now I know that if you feel like you’re going to pass out, for heaven’s sake STOP!  Lie down!)

But lately, after 2 years, an amazing thing has happened.  First of all these difficult times come around less often.  Secondly when the panic does come, and all the physical unpleasantness, I never fell to pieces and I’m not dead.  The intensity of the feelings lessened, so much.  I am able to ride them out and I can observe them and they do go away.

I find this process very interesting, the process of the movement of energy inside me, like weather, like storms and storms passing.   And I started writing about it to try- can I capture on paper something so subtle, so delicate?  To even perceive it in my body I have to be so still (all these crazy feelings only come when I sit still and breathe, not when I'm walking around doing my day). I have tried to remember this passage of energy in words and in some drawings.  

 It’s a very simple movement of energy I am tracing.  I feel tightness like a black ball of tar in the solar plexus (that’s right under your heart, the area in the triangle of the rib cage.)  Then the tightness dissolves (crying often accompanies this) and a lightness fills me like clear as running water.  That is what I would like to share today. 

The sketches are from a sketchbook and the pencil mark is really tentative, soft.  I had to doctor them up with the contrast in photoshop so you can see them on your computer.

The black ball of tar under the ribcage:

One day as it dissolved it was like a flock of white birds literally flew out of my chest.

 Sometimes, if I don’t get too scared of it, it is a tremendous energy a like gold light

 Some writings from my journal:

Feeling of anxiety:

drawing a soft breath

I can pet the baby animal in my lungs

with a touch.

Between my lungs and under my heart

there is a baby bird

with a tiny heart that beats too fast

*

Feeling of fear:

my stomach is small and black  like a tar ball.

inside there is a hole.

the hole appears to be small

but goes back as far as the universe.

in a place with no ground

I cannot rest

I’ll fall to pieces…

*

Crying again:

tiny bird for a stomach

little claws, for a heart

press behind me

hot, snot, salty

tears press slowly through

if you can’t bear it, who will?

*

How does it feel to cry?

Stomach is red, hard,heavy, black and filled

with something ashy, something hot

tight violin strings.

tears,

I know you’re there.

How does it feel to cry?

Shivers that start on your back

melt stomach

warm eyes

poignant and tart.

Morning is gray like a mockingbird

breath of daylight

my lungs are two white flowers.

Stomach goes soft,

like a limp magnolia,

cool and hollow in the middle,

a goose’s belly,

a baby rabbit,

a breast,

white lemon scent of a star,

this is the fragrance of the moon.

Top row of teeth clench

bottom row of teeth

nickel-plated chain

they are falling open

like the soft decaying petals

of a flower.

a Clear feeling:

With every breath that pushes it out

I make a big red rose in my belly.

My throat is a shaft of sunlight

My head is just a basket for soft green leaves

And my smile is the sun thru rainclouds