Zoning out

This is something I didn't do today: hit the studio and print. I am definitely cycling out of this pocket of time and space, pretty much done with etching. I have one major project to finish (which I've been avoiding now for a month b/c it's too scary to contemplate what its failure could look like) and that's it! Good timing, too, since I am getting weird wrist pain from all the repetitive motions of printmaking. I'm really looking forward to working at my little sewing table at home and working around my schedule.

Today was all self-care, including yoga with Naz and acupuncture with Isobeau. Good news: Angelo finally got a website! And here is another poem from the Language for a New Century anthology:

Cycle
by Bimbal Nibha

It's been a few days since
my bicycle has vanished
Do you know where I might find it?

It's true that my cycle is small
its tires are bald
they have too little air
the color is faded
the stand is broken
the kinetic light is faulty
the bell trills softly
the pedal move slowly
the chain is old
the handlebars are askew
the wheel is bent and
it has no carrier or lock

Yet no matter what
even if it's flawed and defective
even if it's shabby
no matter what, that cycle is mine
The weight of my body lies on its seat
The measure of my feet fills its pedals
The print of my hands marks its handlebars
My breath rests in each part of that cycle
I am there
That cycle is my life

(What kind of place is this
not unknown to me, my own village
where in the bright light of midday
a whole life can vanish?
Do you know where I might find it?)

It's been a few days since
my bicycle has vanished
Do you know where I might find it?

Translated from the Nepali by Manjushree Thapa

Poetry for a new century

I just finished Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond, edited by Tina Chang, Nathalie Handal, and Ravi Shankar. Not in any way that does it justice, but I had been looking forward to reading it ever since Tina sent out the info about it last year. [The book party is this Friday!] It's a remarkable anthology, with SO much great poetry. The editors wrote really beautiful introductions to each of the nine sections, too, which in turn are given names pulled from poetry in each section. In the last section, called "The Quivering World," Tina Chang begins with a simple sentence: "Once, in New York, I fell in love." Ah! So devastating. For the section called "This House, My Bones," Ravi Shankar writes:

Actually, let me recant that statement. There is a spot in my parent's yard in Virginia, not within the house itself but on the margins of our lawn, where wild honeysuckle and hydrangea bloomed. There was an alder bush the size of a small shed under the overhanging trees and I found a hollow space within it where I could burrow. This became my safe haven in the summertime, when I was seething with anger, unable to stand the sight of a classmate or to communicate with my father; when I was contemplative and wanted to look out at the world but not be seen; or when I sought a simple shade from the afternoon in which to nap. That patch of dirt, with its astringent odor and scrim of green where I could hide, became the place I felt most comfortable. Because it was shorn of history, except for a personal one, because it was simultaneously safe and uncultivated, a vast cosmos with just enough space to breathe. I was freest under this bush.

It reminds me of bushes once outside of our apartment building, big enough to create spaces for my sister and me to crawl into during the winter, and create shelters in the snow. The branches were covered with enough snow to protect us from the outside world, and inside was white spaciousness. We'd tamp down the snow and lay down, all quiet and content. Sadly, the management decided to tear out these bushes to make the lawn just one big expanse of grass, and then our lairs disappeared.

To close is a poem by Shankar:

Exile

There's nowhere else I'd rather not be than here,
But here I am nonetheless, dispossessed,
Though not quite, because I never owned
What's been taken from me, never have belonged
In and to a place, a people, a common history.
Even as a child when I was slurred in school--
Towel head, dot boy, camel jockey--
None of the abuse was precise: only Sikhs
Wear turbans, widows and young girls bindis,
Not one species of camel is indigenous to India . . .
If, as Simone Weil writes, to be rooted
Is the most important and least recognized need
Of the human soul, behold: I am an epiphyte.
I conjure sustenance from thin air and the smell
Of both camphor and meatloaf equally repel me.
I've worn a lungi pulled between my legs,
Done designer drugs while subwoofers throbbed,
Sipped masala chai steaming from a tin cup,
Driven a Dodge across the Verrazano in rush hour,
And always to some degree felt extraneous,
Like a meteorite happened upon bingo night.
This alien feeling, honed in aloneness to an edge,
Uses me to carve an appropriate mask each morning.
I'm still unsure what effect it has on my soul.

Learning to be a normal person

First - look at how great the gas station looks!! This is an image from Jennifer Marsh's installation of a zillion squares of handmade fiber panels sent by people all over the world, to cover an abandoned gas station, to focus on our extreme oil dependency. This year’s project is called the World Reclamation Art Project (W.R.A.P.) and the opening reception is on May 3 in Syracuse, NY. I sent a square a while back made of knitted plastic bags and I am SO happy that she was able to really make this happen! Seeing the images of installation reminded me of my own process with my brick wall, and it's nice to be part of something this big but not have to install it. Hahaa!

This weekend, I tried really hard to just have a weekend - the kind that I hear normal people have, where you don't work and you do fun things to relax. We had a family dinner out in Chinatown for my dad's birthday this week, and I spent a lot of time with my sister and her husband just vegging out, doing spring cleaning, and watching "2 Days in Paris." I put in about three hours in the studio yesterday, but did my best to be laid back about it, not pushing myself to do too much, and stopping once I got good results at the press.

Theeeeey're home.

After a few postponements, the delivery of bricks finally happened today. I can't believe that the museum wanted to save money by having the crates just dumped outside. I mean, I can, but I'm glad that Dennis of Craters and Freighters was kind enough to call and ask if that's really want I wanted to do. There were three crates, and he just opened them up and I ran the bricks inside. Now they're in a massive pile next to my bed and I really can't be bothered right now as to what the next step is. But I'll do it soon.

In the meantime, my wedding gigs have been stressing me like mad. As well as passport renewal stuff. I finally just took the car and drove over to a CVS and got my picture taken. I don't look all puffy like the photo I've had for the last ten years, but for the next ten years, I'm going to look like an ax murderer. I hope Korea doesn't reject me for a visa based on these photos. But the good news: I made an acupuncture appointment for Friday to address my TMJ, thanks to Jami! And hopefully I'll get myself to Feldenkrais class tomorrow.

Papanicolaou = ??!

Whoa! I had forgotten the way that the medical system works, being so long out of the loop. The fasting allowed more time to do work since I couldn't eat or drink, and the shipper decided not to come today w/the bricks, but next week. But I had no idea that I had to get certain things done. I was hoping that a rectal exam could be skipped (turned into a "we'll skip it, no, we won't skip it!" decision) and then what was up with "Papanicolaou required over age 21" - I totally didn't recognize that as a Pap smear. I got blood taken and also a PPD and ALSO a lesson about tetanus shots: they're made in horses! Or something like that. He asked if I was allergic to horse serum. I said I'm allergic to horses but their serum, who knows! So we skipped a booster b/c he didn't want me to go into anaphylactic shock. But is that really the only way to manufacture a tetanus shot?

Anyhow. I was supposed to hit the studio tonight but that whole experience knocked me out cold - I took a to-the-dead-and-back nap and will be lucky if I am able to review an app for Elizabeth before the night is up. Good news - last night, I finally finished knitting my second panel for printing!!! It took a month (and with some fast and furious knitting, too. I underestimated how huge that skein was - I had no idea the final piece would be as tall as me but that is actually a blessing). But as much as I enjoy life w/o doctor visits, I appreciate this one making the time for uninsured little me on such short notice. Fulbright really puts the heat on, b/c the medical forms - with all required are due within three weeks of acceptance. Three weeks?! Doesn't it usually take at least four to just schedule an appointment?!

I'M GOING TO KOREA!!!

I GOT THE FULBRIGHT!!!

I am sad

And that is that. No getting around it. I had hoped it would pass and today would be a glorious new day, a bright Monday, the beginning of a new consciousness. But not so much. I did some taxes, went into a panic about my brick wall, and sewed two zines. I got this stack of books from the library, a good indicator of how I am feeling right now. But Elizabeth just sent a good email about changing your life or changing how you see it, to get out of depression.

And here is a poem from Nikki Giovanni, from Blues: For All the Changes --

The Poem for Frances Brown
(My First Warm Hearth Friend)

There are things you know . . . Clouds rise . . . Stars twinkle . . . Snow
melts . . . Rain makes thins grow . . . Sunshine warms . . . Trees cool . . .

If you love something . . . You will lose it

But the memory of motion . . . The wonder of the enchantment . . . The
blue of the glacier . . . The blue of the sky . . . The blue in your heart . . .
The reality of conclusion . . .

Through transforming . . . Stays

Delayed obit

I got this from a papermaking online group, and even though I never knew Kiichi Sakurai, I think he is worth remembering:

Obituary from Japan

Shiroishi shifu weaver Sadako Sakurai's husband Kiichi Sakurai died at his hometown hospital in Mito Ibaraki prefecture Feburary 16, 2008. He was 83 years old.

Kiichi and Sadako had always worked very closely together and were responsible for reviving Shifu successfully, as it had once disappeared from the Shiroishi area where it had been a family art and craft industry. When first Kiichi and Sadako saw and touched shifu fabric they immediately fell in love with it. Reviving this process wasn't so easy, using many expensive handmade papers to weave yardage of fabric, even failing many times and becoming almost bankrupt. Sadako cried, was discouraged, and tried to quit each difficult time, but Kiichi was always beside her encouraging her, and gave her enthusiastic support, no matter what the situation was.

They eventually successfully followed the traditional shiroishi shifu technique. It took them four years to accomplish this.

Sadako has been preparing for an Exhibition coming up on April 19-26 next month in her town of Mito. Anyone who wishes to send her remembrance greetings can send them to her address:

Sadako Sakurai
838-4 Horimachi
Mito City, Ibaraki pref.
310-0903 Japan

Spring fever is no joke

Wow. It's been rough lately; lots of internal and external drama that has wrung me out. I love that as far as humans get from nature, in the end, we are no match for it. The seasonal changes are just too strong to ignore. This is from my final project for my poetry class with Myung Mi Kim. I feel like that now: when you're done with a semester and are about to be severed from a teacher and a classroom and then what do you do with all that you've been doing for the last few months?

Maybe that's not how I feel at all. I'm shut out of the printshop this weekend for the holiday - good and bad. Good b/c a break is handy. Bad b/c I was just getting ready to produce my zine in an etched format. Yesterday in the studio, I got horrible headaches from the bad ventilation. But I worked on seven plates, and had fun playing w/a new technique: sugar lift. I haven't been documenting my printmaking learning curve, so here is a good video on both the aquatint and sugar lift techniques, by Crown Point Press in SF.

I'm also in the bereft state of mind. I miss Ching-In - she's in Singapore on spring break. Before she left, she said that I read like a writer. My boss today showed me self-portraits she did when she was 10 and 20 years old, and I thought about what it might be like to know that you were an artist from an early age. I used to envy my musician friends who knew exactly what they wanted at age five. Or even fifteen.

Today was another exhausting studio day at work, but exciting: I began the very first production run at the resurrected papermill!! There are still lots of kinks to work out in the new space, but I managed to pull two sets of sheets, about 70 in all, while looking out the windows at the garden-in-progress. It was funny being back at the vat, after such a long absence. But I guess it's like what they say about riding bikes, or having sex (maybe they only say it about riding bikes...) - once you learn, you never forget. [Though I kind of protest this point b/c I learned how to ride a bike when I was a kid, and then had to re-learn it in college.]

My word ruler!

More like, my shot memory. I knew I was forgetting something today! I forgot to shoot this in daylight. Oh well. I'll pull more prints tomorrow; this piece is way too fun not to print constantly. It's in alpha order but within letters, not alphabetical. And, yes, the word "asshole" is at both ends of the ruler. That's the only anomaly. See? I'm getting a lot better at writing backwards (you have to scratch out the words in reverse if you want them to print properly).

This Sunday was NOT a sabbath

Daylight savings really came and kicked my ass today. But I still managed to haul myself through massive wind tunnels to the studio and make two new plates. They were FUN. Today's especially - it's like a word ruler. A ruler to measure the distance between words. I'll take pics tomorrow b/c I can't explain it very well. Paulette came to see the show and buy a zine, and it was really nice to have someone who was genuinely interested in what I was doing. I kept thinking she wanted to leave, but then remembered, "this is the woman who flew to Chicago from NY and back in a day just to see my brick wall!!!" She says that this blog does my work and process no justice. But I try. I just don't have the patience to set up a tripod in a communal studio to document my printmaking process. I'd probably be kicked out! Hahaa.

We dined in Chinatown afterwards, and marveled at the unraveling of the current social fabric. I rode home on a crowded train, w/an overly perfumed woman right next to me, yammering the ENTIRE RIDE on her phone (after loud texting) about some black dress she found on sale, and three loud teenage girls talking in front of me, in Korean. I am heavily nostalgic for the days when all you could do on a train was sleep, read, and other non-digital/electronic activities. People have always talked loudly, but I'm convinced that noise pollution has reached an all time high. It makes me want to re-read Alberto Manguel again, how he talks about the fact that we all inhabit a world together, and we canNOT have it otherwise. So, how do we negotiate how we share this space, knowing that we can't live without each other?

Scattershot

I forgot to say that yesterday's (and today's) images are of the latest knit book, w/intaglio. I also feel very scattered and behind, but apparently the feeling of always catching up is endemic to workaholics. Though I'm trying to pause in the studio for a moment b/c 1. I want to do all the work for the project w/Clover, which is going to be all performance / sound / video / audio based and 2. I have no good ideas for a new copper plate. Tomorrow I might go and fool around w/long skinny scraps that I beveled last night.

I am still recovering from my movie intake this weekend: "Blood Diamond" (shudder) and "The Italian" (I loooove the shots of little Vanya sitting on the windowsill, looking outside). I think in general that anything referring directly or indirectly to chopping off hands will upset me for a while. But I tempered it by reading Susan Howe's Souls of the Labadie Tract, and finally finishing Alberto Manguel's The City of Words on a park bench yesterday. Park bench reading has been destroyed by cell phones. But I still managed to finish it! I liked best his quote from Anthony Burgess: "Editors never emend orchestra scores or panoramic paintings; why should the novelist be singled out as the one artist who doesn't understand his art?"

I'm skimming Howe's The Midnight, and my favorite from that so far is "It is fun to be hidden but horrible not to be found--the question is how to be isolated without being insulated."

Zine #2, but #1 to be posted online

In case you were curious, here are the contents of the zine I made this weekend. I'm now going to make pockets to display them in the show at Manhattan Graphics Center. Enjoy! [Ignore the weird color; I'm a notoriously poor color corrector.]