Chaos and beauty
June 3, 2013
Get used to it! I cut the ugly rosebush to the ground so now I can get out of the driver’s side door of the Westfalia. I filled the green bin, put out the trash, recycling, all the old court papers. Not all–there are boxes more to go through. So many boxes of books and papers I need to clear out. It seems impossible. Little by little I am making dents here and there.
Still in a state of despair and dread. The uncertainty as to where I am going to live, or if I can keep my home of 20 years with or without struggle, crisis, subterfuge, is poisonous . Would that I could just grieve and work and live and pay bills in a normal manner without this underlying deception and ugly, negative bullshit! My landlord is truly a criminal.
As time moves on, the fear and anger dissipate a bit. I can do little tasks, but it is so hard, and then grief explodes. I consolidated his two small bottles of aspirin-wracked by sobs and sorrow . A little while later the pain wears off and I can go back to that medicine cabinet and find something I need, dental floss, neosporin, and throw the empty aspirin bottle in the recycling. Everything is like this, a herculean task. I washed and folded all his clothes and put them in boxes. Sweats, old, worn t-shirts, shoes, socks. It’s just too much to sort, to decide. How can I deal with real things if I can’t throw out his paint-stained sweat-pants? How can I use these as totems to heal, to answer my prayers, to solve the mysteries of life and death? Time will reveal all if I just push through, watch, and wait.
So many different enormous tasks and struggles to face. Doing normal things, working, paying bills, eating, sleeping, driving, playing music–these are not so difficult, I have practice. They are grounding. Dealing with all these new issues is terrifying–a vampire landlord, hospital bills I can’t and shouldn’t have to pay, unreadable forms I don’t know the first thing about approaching. And then there are two worse-than-useless cell phones, the ancient computer on the verge of crashing.
People keep saying, let me know if you need anything. How do I match them up with things I need doing? That will be my mantra: yes, I need help with . . . this thing!
Can I lose myself in my art? maybe tomorrow.
Five Weeks
May 13–it has been five weeks. Completely terrorized and traumatized by recurring further communications in broken legalese hidden under the guise of notes of condolence from a supposed friend. “Glad to hear you are healing”.
I am not healing, I have not yet begun to heal, I am struggling to survive, I am struggling to sleep, to eat, to think, to drive, to get to work. Some meager sense of safety and home would certainly make that a little less painful. Thank you for adding another layer of Hell to my plate.
Fazed–May 3, 2013
What phase am I in? Shock–wearing off? wearing on? Wearing thin, so the light gets in? What phase am I in? One month in weeks, four weeks tonight, after midnight, my birthday, by the way, Saturday May 4. Not ready for that. Done it all before? Every Saturday, and then, every Sunday, when we all met at the Starry Plough.
Then, Monday May 6, the 1 month echo, the date, so weird and difficult. Janet said it has been two years since her husband died, she still cries, and she is so sad for me, too. The body responds to grief and gives us a firewall–How? It comes in waves, recovery, sleep, burning off grief in bursts of manic housecleaning and work.
Go into the light, Steve
Palmdale, Amargosa Wash, December 24, 2010
Backtrack- April 11
April 11, Thursday, one week since I sold the shop. Six days since . . . Steve left the planet. Woke up at 6:30, back to sleep until 11:30– I am Manic, bereft. I hear little rustlings–rats? fairies? Small doable actions, someone can help with those. Sitting here on the couch I feel warm, somewhat normal, almost blissful. I have cried and hugged and howled and been stoic and smiled and laughed so much i am tapped out. Some kind of endorphin response, or numbing out, or hallucinogenic effect of being in constant shock. I want to paint- what can I do to achieve that? I put on a hoody and black pajama pants over fleece pants, ready to paint BLACK on anything you got–need to paint the bookcase WHITE. Ok, I can do that for now.
Meanwhile- STOP! Again! don’t do anything! don’t answer the phone–Sorry! don’t want to talk to some people. If someone comes, if someone I know, love, trust calls, then yes, I can do that.
Well, never mind, then. I’ll just go back to chewing my tail
.
Hazmat Studio
4.5.13
I found a temporary “free” garage space to cut glass and repair picture frames that have come apart. The first time I went to get it ready it was incredibly filthy, thick with leaves, clutter, broken jars and rusty junk all over the floor. I have to clean it out to the corners or I can’t possibly bring my things in, let alone work in there –- raccoon nests and god-knows-what packed solid under the workbench, but a beautiful 6-light, south-facing mullioned window, antique rolling door, high ceiling, and real quiet peace, off-grid, good energy. It really is Dreamy, in my head –- Now that I have SOLD THE SHOP! and I have TIME, I will continue to refine my INTENTION, not just wishing/hoping. A dedicated space to cut glass and build frames (things I can’t do in my carpeted studio) and a flat surface to cut mat board. It will be ok if temporary, a staging and storing area while I look for a better space, a new space to collaborate ?? Or, rebuild the shed in my back yard, or, make space by moving the dead refrigerator out of my Studio Kitchen.
It’s Wonderful
my painting of the moon, lost in reflection
It has been an incredibly difficult, sad and painful 2 years, why I didn’t LISTEN to my instinct that summer of 2011 I don’t know, but it is now, soon, fading into history. I had any number of people who I thought could help, or had time to be there for me, or might know something about business, or screenprinting, or did encourage me ever-so-slightly . . . But once caught, I was all alone.
Some merely said, go ahead, at least you will know. And I do! I know now that I once had a wonderful, simple life, and peace, and trips to museums, and matinees on a Wednesday afternoon–I will, in time, have that back, with a renewed appreciation and knowledge of who I am and what I am capable of.
Hey, it’s not over yet.
I will soon be the person I used to be, after I untangle the mess I made of it.
I so appreciate seeing everyone at my party. THAT night will always be my fondest memory, and in my imagination, what could have been, and how I will live now.
A Perfect Moment
What a great party. Stevie said Best Art Opening Party Ever. Some people just know how to have fun. And hardly any mess, really. These are my people.
Let’s do it again, soon.
itty squidy
3.3.13
Where am I ? Where is my ART? For the last 18 months I have been under the spell of the Vampire Albatross Co., a constant, blood-sucking presence that I tried to coax, coddle, constrain into something of value–only it was LAURIE who was constrained and drained. What art have I done? I spend all Sunday doing accounts instead of pruning pear trees. I lost touch with my Calligraphy guild. Such high hopes! Such crushing isolation! So many cool ideas unrealized, so many revolting, crappy t-shirt designs–printed! Why? This is not my beautiful life! This is not my beautiful Art Studio! Well, I think I am done with all that. I think SMALL is the new watchword for 2013, I am going there now . . .
Joshuas with two moons
While weeding out old photos, I found this shot of a work in progress. Pastel and acrylic on black gesso’d canvas panel. Took this to a class on glazing and it looks amazing now, but this is the preliminary “before” painting.
Yesterday I was in tears, overcome with emotion at the botch I have made of this venture–So confused, such a muddle, so overwhelmed and unhappy. I can’t go on alone. The people I had “thought” would be involved, they are ill and unavailable and uninterested. Today I release and discharge by salt and water and TEARS and my words, the sad sick story of utter abandonment, failure, imprisonment to the extent I want to chew my foot off and escape, three-legged, into the forest. Today I have staged the shop beautifully and brilliantly for the Art Murmur event, and ART opening–so sweet! So fabulous! This is who I am.
Conflict/resolution
I wonder if the desperation of death attracts positive energy. Not death, really, just an inability to generate the funds to continue, loss of interest bordering on sickness. A few people emerge from the woodwork, perhaps to help, perhaps to feed on the carcass? Or possibly, hospice workers to help release the soul. Release! New ideas emerging, not the least of which is just giving up and getting out. Previous threats to chew my leg off were possibly not sufficiently plaintive . . . and now I have a numb spot on my left calf. I’ve made so much progress, so few photographs of what has changed, it looks bleak from inside my head. What’s going on out there?
Leave it Alone!
Every page, blog, email, website I go to to try to add content or update or message keeps changing format. You get something figured out, then some fool decides you don’t have enough glitter and Lindsey Lohan booking photos staring at you from the corner of the screen. You click on a familiar button or tab and suddenly you are faced with an idiotic question or challenge, having nothing to do with the purpose of your visit. Three hours later I still haven’t gotten to the point I intended. What’s the hell is wrong with the color of my teeth, anyway?
Details
The building used to be a grocery store, so these transom windows hinged at the bottom, opened by one of those grappling hook poles from a hundred years ago.
Now there is a sort of drop-ceiling loft, at a level where the windows are readily accessible.
When the glass in one broke this summer, Steve took them out and rehung them so they open sideways, using the original latches–snap!
Today we put up a chandelier in the downstairs front window, and Ann brought a string of twinkling white lights, too busy for home–here they almost compete with STICKY written in light rope to the west, and the Christmas tree lot to the east.
I have wanted to light these windows up from day one. next plan, a word in my windows, too. What will it be?
Ghosts
It’s more than just My Story, it’s embedded in the daily ritual passed on to me. For the first year, either the Expert was there, showing me his way to do things. Then he would come to “help”, when I really needed information, and he would send me on some frantic errand, upbraid me on some idiotic detail such as something I didn’t clean correctly, as if it were still his property, as if I were an idiot, an interloper. It finally broke free for me when I found a big mess of ink in the back sink–which I just left, without saying a word.
I am still shocked when I see the original photographs, remember the details of the rusted sink, the darkroom light switch I had to stand on a riser to reach, the panic of running out of supplies I didn’t know how to replace, the anxiety built in to every little task. Even now, just figuring out cool, new, different ways to do things, it’s based on something I learned from The Expert.
Constant upgrades and changes, putting down colorful wool rugs, painting a purple wall, writing on it in yellow chalk, entering my own password in my own Imac. My personal values of saving energy, making friends with people who come in or call, making a community, a community center, piece by piece. I often find myself lost in routine rather than ritual, although the actual business is not nearly as time-consuming as it was even a few weeks ago. The mental hamster wheel is gone, replaced by my own natural calm.
Just now I am beginning to go through my Prints, to sort frames and move the t-shirts into the background, really get my Gallery space realized for the holidays.
Pivotal to this will be finally getting the metal counters out, that will be a huge breakthrough. I am composing a romantic craig-list ad, I have photos, I have dimensions–just do it!
I made several …
I made several screens of found images that I haven’t fully utilized. I enlarged a bubblegum card photo of The Beatles in Key West and lettering composed to fit, hope to make a t-shirt as a Christmas gift. Plus some of my own pen-and-ink drawings from college, when I did such things. Screens ok, prints, not so much clear sometimes on what I want to do with them. This mask from a drawing I did in 1985 turned out to be Steve’s favorite shirt.
First Year–I’m still here
Saturday September 1, 2012, marks one year I have been in business. August was a wonderfully long month, the rent is paid with the deposit on the latest job (finished and home at 9:30 last night–with the Moon!) shipping out today.
I have a couple of helpers, although no one is getting paid but the landlord, the dentist, and the suppliers, and the utilities, and the dented can store. The ink kerfuffle is sorting out, my neighbor is donating a big glass display case–careful! ! Moving that sucker in.
I am still trucking things back and forth from shop to studio–the camera is here, the scanner there, the card-reader here, the email there, the blog here, the contact list there, the antique, squirrel-driven Mac at the shop, the PC at home, all wickedly, incomprehensibly incompatible .
When I find my camera I will take some photos to post the calligraphy job that came out so beautifully. . . . also at my facebook site
Occupi
Months go by without a post, worse, without any new art. There are sketches and
a simple sketch
I feel I’m not making much headway artwise . At some point the tide comes back in and I start drawing again. i turned this into a screen and printed a line of t-shirts. It turned out very well.
Inevitably, what I am learning technically will translate into screenprints . . . or vice versa
discharge, water base, and oil base inks
Mayday
I spent quite a lot of time the other day posting about my new wall, but for some reason did not show up. What is that about? It seems a lot of hinky electronic anomalies are making themselves known lately, I can only hope that some of them work in my favor . . .
Here is the miraculous Red Wall Ann painted for me at the shop. ‘nuf said, it makes everything so much more alive. The landscape on the light table is my painting of the Mesquite Springs Campground (Death Valley) conflated with a Phainopepla–a bird native to Southern Arizona. 
The one on the floor is a clash between the Sonora (Saguaro) and Colorado (Spanish Bayonet Yucca) Deserts.
Been so long
I have been up to my neck in screenprinting, wanting to share my travails but not even able to focus on anything but the day-to-day gruel of it. I have been keeping up on my journal, so it’s not as if I don’t want some communication–just not sure what needs to be out there ? I’ve even neglected the Possum blog. More likely, I just don’t want to bum anyone out with the REALITY of going into business by yourself when you 1. Didn’t expect it 2. didn’t really want it 3. find that the peeps who were in at the beginning have all but disappeared. I am stunned by my stick-to-it-iveness, my enormous will to go through the unceasing terror and loneliness and bad odors and uncertainty.
Not many pieces of my own art are really suitable for the medium, but here are two attempts. The squirrel needs to be redone. The mask is awesome, but hard to photograph. It also printed beaulifully on Arches text wove paper in a chocolate-brown ink. Interesting note: The zig-zaggy yellow with purple ink pillow on the couch next to Steve is a print I hand-cut and printed at CCAC in 1985.
possible silkscreen material, but very fine pencil work doesn’t translate
Steve instantly took a liking to this shirt I printed from an ink drawing of a mask I did years ago.
burning a silkscreen from my pencil drawing takes some adjustment
Photographs
While taking photographs of the shop, I did that thing I have done before, looking through the camera without a spotter, I tripped and fell on my lens. Alas, I let my warranty run out–but I never liked that camera as much as the one I put in my pocket and leaned on the fender of my truck and . . . I have been wanting that small credit-card Nikon with the sliding cover, the S100? with 16 mm and 5x zoom–that would be easier than getting a bigger purse. The AW 100 is good, too, designed to take a fall or a drop in the . . . bathtub, or worse. And the S1200pj–with a projector. I have always liked that feature. So, anyway, in homage to my first digital Nikon, coolpix 5600, here are some photographs I took from late 2005 and onward.
Stone in stone, Yosemite
winter sun at Sea Ranch
Last light, Anza Borrego
China Spring near Darwin
In my element--off-kilter-Sequoia
We are the Ones we’ve been waiting for
My neighbors stopped in to remind me.
We Are The Ones We've Been Waiting For
Now more than ever.
my shop . . .
After a long week of hard work and gardening, I am planning to go to the shop and feel the energy there. Sticky Art Lab is holding am Sunday classes with the biodiesel folks, bees, chickens, house rabbits. I don’t know what class is there today, but I intend to go sniff around. I have shied away from opening the door, it’s all so familiar, but uncertain. What t-shirts do we have? Halloween, the Ramones, miscellany. All will be revealed in time, after breakfast.
Print Shop
I have spent much of the summer working at Berkeley Screenprint Company, which I am taking over as of September 1. I am a printing junky, but this is a very different type of work than I have been doing. I am not certain yet how I am going to proceed, except to keep it much the same at first. I have so many ideas, and plenty of room to try them out. Luckily, the previous owner is still around generating work and helping with the transition. At home I printed 30 more invitations to my closing show on the Epson 1400—I accidentally printed the same thing on both sides of 8 of them. Not acceptable! There seems to be a 25% failure rate in my printing process, which doesn’t bode well for a print-shop business model. I am using beautiful Staples Mat Brochure paper for business cards. I printed another batch with the possum family singers schedule ( Baltic 2nd Thursday/Chester’s 4th Thursday) on back, using Photoshop– They look great. I spent half an hour trouble-shooting my auxiliary printer which I discovered was jammed due to a tiny rubber snake which had fallen into the platen. This is not what I meant by bringing odd animals into my work.
cedar waxwing sketch
Dead Squirrel Wrap
I found a dead squirrel, a red squirrel
hands curled, a girl
feet up and tail bedraggled–caught my breath
then, in sadness,
put on another pair of gloves-
not a plastic bag!
a gag
reflex,
revulsion
fear of touching
a dead thing
a sad picture–
A newspaper?
a paper bag, smaller,
just her size.
A tool? No-
turned her over and felt the weight to ground myself
picked her up, a sleeping face
I slipped her into the
brown paper pillowcase-
inside a small, squirrel-sized shopping bag,
plastic and angel-white–
“thank you Have a Nice Day” in red
carried her to the trash bin;
blessed her life+
sent her on her way.
Hoarding for Earthday
I had a dream of an avalanche of shoes, which became silkscreens, which became art. What is my unstoppable outflow? Apparently, so many incomplete canvases that I can’t open my closet door without a refrigerator dolly. Clearly, I need a Gallery.
Sick in bed the other day, I was fascinated to come upon a marathon showing of a program called “hoarders”. I saw these people’s oceans of stored debris as a fight to keep some small amount of control over beautifully engineered packaging, and manufacturing artifacts out of the landfill–Lest we believe there is an “away” that allows us to blindly use third-world children as our slaves to save a buck, and throw our sewage into life-giving waters, or believe there is an “other” that we can bomb off the face of the earth to claim our own purity. I recognized myself in these people, victims of a throw-away culture, and their struggle to come to grips with a world of disposable ingenuity! As someone who has studied packaging, I have always collected beautiful wrappings and logos, jars with interchangeable lids, cardboard boxes of certain reusable dimensions, magazine articles I hope to read someday when the world breaks down. Styrofoam cut to fit fragile, expensive electronics is such a feat of engineering I keep it stored in the box it arrived in, as if some day when I am done with it, I will be able to ship it back to the manufacturer. In fact, the box itself tells me so.
birdnest medicine cabinet
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