[ Thursday, December 30, 2004 ]
I'm excited.[ Monday, December 27, 2004 ]
Tonight I finished & posted a new painting. For the last few days I've just been overwhelmed by images & have had the urge to just furiously throw paint on something--wood, board, people, whatever, with whatever. I found one blank canvas, which is not the norm. Usually when the mood strikes to paint--I have nothing. I picked up an old issue of People magazine with Star Jones plastered on the front, her shit eating, look at me, i just got married grin almost blinding me as much as the 100lb. pendant she wore around her neck. ( I'm no Kojo but that was tacky. )
A vision of a painting flashed in my head. Blue mottled background. Primitive, crude bride, enormously wide smile, teeth everywhere, FU pendant? & old handwritten journal entries cut to make the bridal veil & bouquet. "Keeping up with the Joneses." This was not going to be a pretty painting. One to make me smile? Oh yes. But not something most would want to hang on the wall.
I flew into that painting.
Completed the background. Gave it a wash of dirty brown, splashed some paint & prepared to paint the bride. Drew the shape, realized I had no white paint. Ivory. But no white. With this color scheme ivory just wasn't going to work. Too yellow. I wanted to keep it simple. Childlike almost. I tried the ivory. Didn't like it. Said fuck it. About 30 minutes later I came back to the painting, propped against laundry & floor. I decided to finish it. Didn't matter what it was. Just as long as I finished it or made an attempt. I started painting crude forms. Filling them in. Black lines, ink. It's becoming something. I don't exactly know what that something is. But I'm making myself fill every inch of that canvas. I give up too easily. I put stuff away, come back to it, never finish it. This one may not be exceptional, by it's going to be done. And it's going to be mine. And that kinda makes me feel good.
Tonight, I came home & worked on that one. While searching for india ink I discovered a small little painting that I'd begun in the summer. It was really crude. But appealing. I picked up a pen & just began sketching. The pen was almost out of ink. The lines were choppy. I liked it. As I was scribbling, these lines just kept coming to me. Lines that described the painting, the scene, the places I've been in that have allowed me to create it. I scribbled them onto the canvas. They're unreadable. But I liked that immediate release. The idea of having it there & no where else. And what it adds to that piece of artwork. For me at least. I'm not claiming that I've ever produced gallery pieces. But I've always wanted to create art that means something, that expresses some emotion, some feeling, some idea, some place I've been, some girl I've been. That one act. That one touch endeared the piece to me, made it mine.
So I have that one posted on my site. A Briar Cycle. Plus an oil that I did for Christmas for Beverley. Crazy Quilt & Mason Jar.
That has excited me.
My intentions were to do laundry, clean, find a place for the lifetime supply of tampons I now have. (What do you do with all those after a hysterectomy? Send boxes & boxes to your niece.)
I haven't done a thing but create more mess. But that's okay cause I feel like this was needed. It's been a long time since I've felt like I've actually created something.
I'm looking forward to tomorrow night. Guardrail is practicing as I type. I should be over there with my cowbell, practicing for the big gig, really exploring the space & performing the hell out of it, but I'm not. Tomorrow night maybe. Good things: beer, flannel shirts, live music, Lisa, Dave, a crowd to watch or not watch. Taking it in. Living. L-I-V-I-N.
Happy New Year, Folks!
~ Rebecca 8:06 PM [+] (0) comments
-->randomness<--
stumbled across a website tonight. a little girl who lived down the road. who grew up. who is now doing graphic design & art & just extraordinary pieces of work.
i remember her.
she rode my bus. we were the last two stops. we would sit behind the bus driver & talk about this little old man who tormented big andy ridge. he had long beard and a little rusty maroon car and drove 10mph. he was clay. a cable. she could talk just like him. because she spent a long time talking to him. we'd tell stories--meaning she'd tell stories about clay & i'd take them in & laugh because he was eccentric & sometimes scary & afraid that someone would break into his trailer. so he rigged up a shotgun to the door, then ended up shooting himself in the leg because he was testing it and apparently it worked and no one broke into clay's trailer because the story spread through the state. or at least the county.
but i remember her. and how alone she seemed. and i think about the artist she is now. and how maybe that lonliness created the need to communicate. i think that's where it comes from. just a general feeling of no one understands or no one sees this shit the way i do. i think that compels you to put it down on paper or canvas, to lay it out anyway that you can.
i'm thinking about shitty apartments, broken typewriters, words plunked out because they have to be plunked out, because they'll kill you if they're not plunked out, because they'll gnaw the lining of your belly if they're not plunked out. i'm thinking about men who spent lifetimes inside shitty little apartments, who sometimes ate & sometimes didn't. who wrote. hard, raw, w/ no sugar coating or sickly sweet layers to cover the shit. it's such an admirable and sad fucking life--to write, not because you're expecting a sleek, shiny hardback but to write because words are an honest companion.
i'm thinking about clay. and lonely little girls on buses. and how that feeling of never quite fitting in just might have been an accidental blessing. i'm thinking about pretenses & what's it all mean. and maybe it just doesn't mean shit. take in what you can. survive however you can survive. don't aim for happiness. live for seconds. blissful little seconds. little moments of pure uncensored, unfiltered joy. hoard those motherfuckers up. wear them like a coat. and if you survive with hope intact, bless your heart.
~ Rebecca 9:38 PM [+] (1) comments
