Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Tag, I'm It...

So.  Hands, huh?

Three things come to mind, as I think of hands.  The first is teaching Sunday school classes, at a small church on W. 11th St, in NYC, years ago.  The second is sitting beside my friend James, as he lay napping and dying, in his bedroom in Seattle WA, in 1995.  The third thing is a bar of soap.

I volunteered for the Sunday School gig, mostly because it gave me regular access to crayons, and because it gave me a (semi-) respectable reason for missing half the Sunday service each week.  I also tend to relate more easily to children, I think, as their agendas are usually more transparent and immediate, than those of their older human relatives.

But this group of kids was unusual, especially by Sunday School standards.  They were being temporarily housed in a shelter, and could only come to participate in our program if they'd 'been good' that week.  Many of them seemed, to me, to have been damaged a great deal already, in their young lives.  So, although I'd been urged to tie our Sunday School activities to the church lectionary, it quickly became clear to me that, given the sporadic attendance that was the norm, we would all be better off, and happier, if we just did a simple art project, and then had cookies and juice.

Each Sunday, then, I would arrive early, to set up the tables and lay out the supplies -- crayons and markers and colored construction paper.  Some decorative hole punches, some small bottles of glue.  And rubber stamps, with ink pads.  There'd be a sudden stampede of small feet on the stairs, a quick shedding of coats and hats, and the spate of hello's and other greetings, as the kids took their seats.  Everyone would get as calm as possible, and then start, by selecting a piece of colored paper, and, very carefully, tracing onto that piece of paper, one hand.

As they attacked this simple task, the kids would spill over with things that had gone on that week -- why Joel wasn't there, what Sarah said at lunch, whether Sammy would be going home again the next day.  The outlined hands, weak or emphatic, shaky or direct, would fill up with other imagery -- planes and bombs, palm trees and vibrant birds, or a string of little boxes, each filled in as neatly as possible.  We might add some punched-out shapes, of hearts and stars, with splotches of white glue.  The rubber stamps, of leaping dolphins, or angels, or giraffes, were especially popular, bounding onto their work.  I would remind them to add their name, in big letters, so everyone could read it.

And when it was time to clear the table for treats, they would help me decide where to tape their new pictures --  we had created quite a collection, really, that was stretching around the walls of the little room -- and the kids usually pointed out another hand, made by a friend who wasn't there any more, or those they'd done themselves, a month earlier, on a different colored backgrounds, with different animals leaping about.   We would say a simple grace of thanksgiving, and eat cookies and drink juice, surrounded by little hands, pressed against colored surfaces on all sides, reminding us that they'd been there before.  And might be back again.  Maybe.

My friend James was sick.  Those few of us who could spend much time with him were expecting him to die, any time that week.  I'd flown in from Rochester NY, and tried to keep myself busy, making soup, or helping with laundry, or sweeping the driveway.   Crushing ice cubes wrapped in a kitchen towel, on a cinder block just outside the kitchen door, beating on the cold things with a hammer, and trying not to make too much noise.

James was napping mostly, lying alone in his big bed and having what he called 'Fifties Dreams'.  From his slurred descriptions, it sounded as though he was trapped in an endless loop of production numbers from 'Soul Train', with lots of big skirts and big hair, follow spots and reflections, acres of turquoise and pale yellow and hot pink.  But the dreams wouldn't stop, or even slow down enough, so that he could get a grip on them, make sense of them.  He needed to make sense of things.

Under the top sheet, pulled up to his chin to keep him warm, his gorgeous dark hands would fret and worry.  It was as though they knew they should be sharpening another length of draughting lead, and then hovering over a sheet of fine French paper, laying down line after line -- transcriptions almost -- that would, upon accumulation, resemble the many rain-spattered airplane windows James would have seen, peripherally, walking up and down the aisle of some United flight to Newark, passing out napkins and collecting trash.  Instead, his hands were reduced to scrabbling noiselessly, curling and uncurling, reaching and releasing, like spoiled pets impatient for their master to come home and let them out, just one last time.
 
The soap is on the sink in the bathroom on the second floor, at the studio.  It's one of two bars, really, but I  remark this one because it's pink, and has a faint almond scent, like the Jergen's Lotion my mother used to use.  It's also worn, and cracked, from caring for who knows how many dirty hands, but smooth overall -- looking curiously like a semi-precious stone, a kind of dulled opal, or a bit of moss agate.  I especially like the lines on the one side -- a long dark trail, horizon to horizon, like stubby trees in the distance, and maybe a faint road running alongside, and all suffused in an improbable pink light, like the midnight sun in a high overcast sky above the Arctic circle.  Odd, I think sometimes, that an ordinary process -- wet, grip, swirl a few times, rub and rinse -- can lead me to so many different times and places, all at once.  Because I want clean hands.

Monday, July 11, 2011

July... Already???

So.
Today's thoughts are influenced, I'm embarrassed to say, by the heat'n'humidity.  I'm such a wimp, in some ways -- susceptible to the vagaries of weather, easily stymied by the moistness of my own skin...  Even as a kid, I remember, I was fixated, during summer nights, of arranging the sash windows in the dorm room just right, to allow the hot air out at the top, and the cool air (wishful thinking here) in at the bottom.   And then going back to my damp cot, waiting for the corroborating waft of breeze, to let me know I hadn't wasted my time...

Anyway, here is my new little fan, whirring reassuringly, and the sparrows chirping on the fire escape in the alley way, and my van slowly reaching cooking temperatures, parked out on Market Street.  I'm rearranging things  in my space -- freeing up more wall space, for newer emerging studies, and also moving supplies from the area where, I'm told, a new wall will be installed tomorrow.  Which, in a way, is so much like my life these days -- the tidal quality of my ever-ebbing energies washing relentlessly and somewhat impotently, back and forth, back and forth, across the fields of my accumulated materials, my accumulated sketches, my piles of paints, my stacks of notebooks, back and forth, momentarily considering, but then redepositing, like the desultory rearrangement of worn quartz pebbles on an unpopular beach.  Back and forth.  Here and there.  Or there.  Or there again.

Another thought, brought to you (?) thanks to Miss April Field, a former student of mine from my teaching days in Philadelphia.  She shared a video of juried student works from a recent SNAG (Society of North American Goldsmiths) competition, 'Fluxuation'.  Her work is in part II, and is quite striking.  Among the other works is what looks like a hinge-topped little box, worn like a locket on a chain, and containing what looks like a wasp's nest in one section, and maybe some waxy mirror image in the other.  The work was constructed by Samantha Mitchell, from James Madison University, in Virginia, and it's the title that made me sit up and take notice.  'No seed ever sees a flower', she said.

'No seed ever sees a flower'  I have been nearly suffocated -- even moreso than usual, lately -- by the awareness of my own imminent death.  Maybe this is because my father died just after his 66th birthday, about 18 years ago.  (And my own 65th natal day bears down on me, in the autumn)  Maybe it's the fallout from the shame of having allowed myself - as I see it, at least -- to be drummed out of the academic world, just two years ago now.  Maybe this death-dread has seemingly intensified because, at long last, I feel as though the artwork I have blundered into making now is the strongest, most unapologetic and uncompromising that I have ever managed to create.  So of course, now would be the time to die.  Or so I tell myself, thus tying my own hands and feet together, as it were.

But... 'No seed ever sees a flower'  I almost don't want to 'know' too much about this little proto-haiku.  What I can appreciate, sweating here in the studio, just hours after having first, accidentally, read the thought, is its potency in re-focusing my creative attention.  I hate to admit that, with the upsurge of this surprising vein of work (and at an age where, according to Otto von Bismark, as he lay out the cynical Prussian 'retirement plan', I should be lying in a coffin), I've become distracted from the work itself, and have been wondering, almost subconsciously, about when the inevitable critical approbation would show up.  When will I be rescued?  And while I wait, I'm becoming impatient, it's sad to say.

No seed, though, ever sees a flower.  If I can adapt myself to accept the role of seed-hood (seediness?), then concerns about rewards and punishments, for some reason (and maybe only for today?), seem to fall away.  The seed is tight and closed, taut and compact, focused and blind, incapable (for the most part) of anything but accidental locomotion.  If, even for a little while, I can slip my arms into a kind of seed-hood, I could anticipate a kind of liberation -- not from work, for goodness' sake, nor from sweating, nor from hunger, nor even from ultimate dissolution.  Just for today, I think the best I could ask, as a seed, would be an escape from the burden of my greatest nemesis (which was operating, actually, even in that stifling orphanage dormitory, with the carefully-balanced sash windows), which is,, and pretty much always has been, hope.          

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Way After the New Moon...

Ooops -- discovered the original post, hiding behind everything on my desktop, as I was shutting things down, to go home.  So now it's out there (I think), in addition to my peevish post-post failure rant.

And I did manage to get one more sample piece tied together today -- it'll need more work, but at least it's up on the wall with the other things.  Tomorrow (or the next day?), I'll tackle the orange version, and then... who knows?  Layers of colored plastics?  And wait until I start slinging the shellac around.  I'd like to have about a hundred of these smaller things before it's time to pack up.

Hah.  Like that's gonna happen...

After The New Moon...

Well, this is my first 'blog' entry actually created in the studio itself, and even though I'm a bit disoriented (how did I know that a 'dashboard' was going to permit me to type things?  This doesn't happen in my car...), I'm more pleased than not.  And a little excited, finally, to be working in the space, making new things...

So far, I've put up a lot of stuff on the walls (I think I covered this in my first post), and have brought in some older work that needs repairing, and I made three test samples of wall pieces, using the new colored plastic bags I was so excited about when they arrived... oh, months ago already, I think.  I've installed two nice sturdy hooks from the nice sturdy ceiling; I've changed some of the fluorescent bulbs to the day-light variety.  I've gotten myself a selection of power cords, and a new glue gun (the old one died on Sunday -- is this an omen?), and a package of strawberry Twizzlers, which I'll have to remember to hide, to deter varmints...

My next order of business, on the practical front, is to provide myself with a wheeled work table -- I've already pretty much covered the five flat surfaces initially available, and I'd really like to see what it's like to work on a relatively clear space, instead of either in my lap, or on top of three months' worth of accumulated who-knows-what-this-is/I-hope-this-doesn't-fall-over/at-least-not-while-it's-still-wet...

I'm also daydreaming about creating a plexiglass storm window, so I can uncover the back window without letting in arctic blasts of early spring air.  We'll see...

So.  Nothing of particular profundity here, I don't expect, but it's still interesting to have this as a kind of cyber-journal -- a way of checking in, even if only with myself.

And the new moon -- I'd mentioned that I'm intrigued by trying to schedule things in synchronization with the lunar cycles, and that I'd given myself permission to use the first few days of the residency for moving in.  The moon was new, officially, on last Friday afternoon, and I was working here on Saturday and Sunday.  I heave a sigh of relief.  It's not much of an accomplishment, I know, but I'm so talented at subverting my own efforts, that it's nice to see me managing not to get in my own way once in a while.

But now, the new glue gun is hot, and it's time to glue some stuff to other stuff, and see what things look like, covered in heat-shrunk yellow plastic.  I wonder what Christopher Columbus would think, if he knew what we do with this America he found...

Again with the New Moon...

Well, this is disappointing...

I just spent nearly half an hour, pouring out a touching little post about how excited I am, having more or less moved into the studio, and in synch with the new moon, and when I went to preview the post, I couldn't get out, and ended up posting absolutely nothing.  Maybe I'd better go check the parking meter -- I got a $45 ticket on Saturday (twelve hours or so after the new moon, by the way), while I still had 40 minutes on the clock.  Court date, anyone?

So, eventually I'll catch on to the difference between previewing and saving and publishing, and I apologize for carping, but I tend to get grumpy when 'tools' end up getting in the way of the work they're supposed to support.

Maybe tomorrow I'll get back into the expansive literary mode.  Now I'm just going to use my new glue gun, to cover something with other things, and then shrink some yellow plastic over it all.  It's a dirty job, but...

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Thoughts on Moving In...

Well, today, finally, I was able to get some more stuff from my basement and my back yard, packed into the van, and hauled into downtown Newark (during rush hour, of course), to continue the process of... getting ready to make new work, in this new space, in this new program.

It's odd, I think, that I'm experiencing what seems like resistance, instead of rushing right in to engage in this terrific opportunity.  I mean, I've made lists of things I want to bring, and things I know I'll want to use, and things I'm fond of, etc. etc. etc.  But when I actually get into my basement (where I've been making work for much of the past year and a half), I kind of freeze up, and get sullen and moody, and don't want to do anything at all.

Part of this resistance is superstition, I think -- or something disguised as superstition.  The new moon, you see, isn't until March 4th, and that's really the ideal time for beginning new enterprises.  So I've been figuring that I've got until that first Friday in March to get myself more or less installed and ready to crank out the new stuff.

But really, on thinking this through a little more, I've realized that I'm already worried about what's going to happen when these six months (which have barely begun, of course) are over.  I have such a penchant for daydreaming, for building up secret fantasies of splendid successes and wonderful art triumphs, that when the usual, respectable, reliable realities come to pass ('Nice to see you.  Interesting work.  What's it about?'), I feel flattened and confused.  I've been doing this for so long, and enthusiastic reviews don't support storage facilities.  I'm keenly aware of my mortality.  I'm concerned about the amount of stuff I collect, and create -- and in six months, I'll have even more things to house... someplace, somehow.  It's as though I'm already having the hangover, before I've even decided whether or not I'm going to take a drink. 

I know these thoughts and feelings are more or less normal, but that doesn't make them any more pleasant. 
  
So this is what I did today.  I decided that I had an emergency.  I pretty much just grabbed the closest things I could find -- mostly so I could clear off a table I wanted to bring along -- tossed everything into the van and then rushed down to the gallery like some kind of criminal.  I decided I could only stay there for two hours (well, that part was actually true -- there was lentil soup simmering on the stove), and my job was just parking as close as I could, emptying the van, and then seeing what would happen next.

It was easier than I'd expected, actually, to find a relatively convenient place to park, and tote everything across Market St.  Maybe six or seven trips, stowing everything first inside the front door, and then hauling it up to the third floor.  Bags of plastic bags.  Bags of plastic tubing.  Bags of scrap cloth, and odd bits of metal.  Pieces of paper, and a half-finished drawing.  Push pins and tape and a broken plastic refrigerator drawer filled with spent CO2 cartridges.  My tables, of course.

It was easier that I expected, to begin finding homes for these things -- a place for the plastic to live, a wall where I could pin up knotted lengths of red jersey, the built-in shelf/table that seems destined to be my 'headquarters'.  I'm actually pleased, for the time being at least, with the way things are gathering themselves.

I think I even had a realization, actually, as I was playing with these odds and ends I'd grabbed, some from the snow still mounded in the back yard, some from the foot of the basement stairs.  I've been tying things in knots.  Just simple, overhand knots, like you're starting to tie your shoes.  It just feels right.  And I've been hanging these knots on the wall.  I find them fascinating, so readily identifiable, yet unique, depending on what material I'm twisting this way and that.  Rows of these knots.  Do they... mean anything?

Here's what I think they could mean, for me, today.  Just after I was born, pretty much the first thing, my umbilical cord was cut, and tied into a knot.  Simple, quick, overhand, tucked in.  I guess we all have that knot, don't we?  And for now, I'm surprisingly content, to realize that, without thinking about it, I've been behaving a kind of signal moment -- a single, simple human link -- a clear, succinct gesture which has been helping me build what I hope will be a comprehensive, cohesive and convincing body of work.

But now it's time for bed.  And, tomorrow, more...?