New books for 2008!!

I was SO excited about Ching-In's gift to me yesterday for my third decade: this perfect journal. Apparently, Bon Bon is a "Japanese-French girl who's ultra-mad about Vespas, Pop Art, space-age lounge, and 60's sounds!" The pictures are hilarious, and ones I like best of her on a corded phone in a womb chair, and of her breakdancing in white boots. Mostly, I am entranced by the moire-pattern volvelle on the cover (the spinning wheel!!).

So that will be my new 2008 planner; I just finished writing in all the dates, birthdays, full moons, and dates for the new mail art project that Ching-In and I will collaborate on for the entire year. I have one more box to make before I make some new books, and got my contracts back from a new collection in Portland. Cindy flies back from Sweden today! She should be landing in about 20 minutes. So, time to get a move on that box...

"Cold heart"

I had this brilliant idea during my morning commute that I should take apart my very first version of one of my artists' books, to make a portfolio for a different set of work. Scavenge for parts. I've done it before with other pieces, and maybe it's not good to get attached to things that stay wrapped in double layers and stashed at the bottom of a pile in a closet that's hard to access. So I pulled it out tonight, unwrapped it, and turned each page. I was surprised by how it struck me anew, all the attention I put into the cyanotypes, the binding, the paper...I worked out a lot of stuff in this version and I can see it now, after making this book three times (2 books the 2nd round, 10 books the 3rd round, setting type TWICE for each version because there weren't enough letters to do the whole book at once). I thought of it as "no big deal" b/c of how cool I wanted to keep it, a book about what was "wrong" with my body and what my mother did to it over the years to make it "perfect." In my mind and files, I often call it the "white book." Terttu calls it the "baby book." The full title is "PROJECT: AIMEE / MISSION: PERFECTION" but I only ever list it as the last two words.

When I first designed it, I knew what text and images I would be using, and its size (big). I was unsure about adding a third layer, to sound an emotive voice, something less clinical. In the end, I left the page blank, since that was part of the emotion. In Wyoming, one of the artists talked to me after my first slide lecture and said she thought that I was too distant, too removed, and recommended giving more to push my work closer to the audience. That I talk about such serious events but give people no way in.

I think this is a symptom of cold heart, which Ching-In and I discussed a week. I never thought I'd end up this way, but I think I have it. I mean, it's not totally frozen over, but I am well on my way if that's my goal. She was funny, b/c she said, "I want it! Then you can't get hurt!" Oh, no. This has been my project for the past how many years? You still get hurt, but usually by your own hand. I made all those freaking bricks to explain that and now they're still haunting me b/c soon they will be arriving on my doorstep with no place to go.

Anyhow, all that to say: I think I'm keeping the first version of this book for a little while longer. For all its perceived flaws, it works (and so the cycle refreshes: the book as me, me as my mom).

Another VT sighting!!!

I have NO IDEA what is going on lately, but this is my second Friday in a row where I've randomly reunited with VT female residents from Jan, in Greenpoint. This time, I was waiting on the subway platform, eating my peeled apples, with Terttu's bday mix on my iPod, thinking about the Beastie Boys' lyric, "NYC is a city I feel at home in." I look across the platform, and Susan Peebles is on the other side!! It was EXACTLY like w/Marcie: 1. What the hell are we both doing here? 2. That's her! 3. Wait, is that her? I'm sure it is but maybe I'm just freaking out some random New Yorker by staring and smiling. 4. Oh, look, she's responding to me!

So I yelled across to Susan and we chatted as well as we could with two train tracks between us. Hilarious. Hopefully I'll see her once we get a hold of each other like normal people via email or phone.

This is from my VT sketchbook. Feels like five thousand years ago. Ching-in, the other night, said, "can you believe it's been almost a year since we met, and that soon it will be January and we won't be in Vermont??" I'm feel overwhelmed by everything I have to do, and just want a studio. I need a studio so badly. I feel crazy not being able to do anything while cutting things on the floor and making tiny wisps of papery things b/c there is no space for anything more.

I've been reading Robert Coles' The Call of Stories: Teaching and the Moral Imagination, after finishing Ann Patchett's Truth and Beauty. I've been thinking about the ways that I choose to participate in the world, and how being an artist is one of them, but wondering how much responsibility I am taking or not taking, and how do people grow up with a sense of caring about other people? Kids seem kind of concerned about endangered species or littering or other socially responsible things, but adults seem to tune out everything but what they want to care about. How does that shift? Why don't we care anymore about working together to make the world a better place? Why are we so selfish and small minded? Why can't I get myself to write a new artist statement?

Likely, I just feel crazy b/c I trimmed 58 books w/an xacto knife, and then folded and cut 116 endsheets (some by hand, some on the board shears), and then cut down 125 pieces of board. Or b/c I am staring at 80 responses from a performance I did three years ago and wondering what I'm supposed to do with them. Or b/c it is the darkest night of the year.

Who knows! So I'm ending with someone else's words, through Ann Patchett's book. It's about her friendship w/Lucy Grealy, and there are lots of Lucy's letters interspersed throughout. This is part of one of them:

I have been musing some more about what I've said in this letter. My whole concept of art has taken a serious shaking, and I am beginning to see what I can get from this, which has something to do with a better understanding of. . . .christ, I don't know. I did know for a minute there but then I had a coughing fit and now I've forgotten. That is one thing I've learned, that it is possible to really understand things at certain points, and not be able to retain them, to be in utter confusion just a short while later. I used to think that once you really knew a thing, its truth would shine on forever. Now it's pretty obvious to me that more often than not the batteries fade, and sometimes what you knew even goes out with a bang when you try and call on it, just like a lightbulb cracking off when you throw the switch.

Delayed reaction

Last night was great. It was so funny to come in and see the photos I had taken in Mexico of Jill up on the wall. Like another lifetime ago. I stayed for the first two hours of the four hour show, and was so happy to see everyone from the residency: Jill, Kristin, Elizabeth, Gustavo, Gaelyn, and Alicia. Though it was also strange to be coming in from the cold in Brooklyn instead of huddled around the kitchen preparing breakfast or whatnot.

It made me realize how great that residency was b/c it really did take me completely out of all of my comfort zones, into a place I probably will never be again.

Delays

I forgot to say that this came last week: I've graduated! Hahaa. Tonight's big event is seeing Jill and Kristin and Gustavo from the Mexico residency perform for Jill's company and seeing Elizabeth, who is in town from Mexico!!

PARADISE AND ITS DIS-EASE
A Live Art Installation by jill sigman/thinkdance
PARADISE AND ITS DIS-EASE is a durational performance ritual using movement, sound, objects, and fluorescent junk foods. For 4 hours, Sigman will be "in the ring", as object, icon, mover, and substance; each hour will begin a new phase of the installation, addressing the decadence, deterioration, and dis-ease of our time in a different way. She will be accompanied alternately by DJ Joro Boro and composer/musicians Kristin Norderval (voice and electronics) and Gustavo Aguilar (percussion), and assisted by performative helpers Donna Costello and Jennifer Sydor. A live art installation, PARADISE AND ITS DIS-EASE is a hybrid gallery/performance/club environment. Join us for this experiment.

Saturday, DECEMBER 8, 8pm - 12am
FREE FREE FREE
1 Grattan Street (corner of Bogart Street), #221
Bushwick, Brooklyn
Complimentary Wine: Courtesy of Dance NYC

PLEASE NOTE: This is an ONGOING LIVE EVENT that changes slowly over time. Come any time. Stay as long as you like. Have a drink and hang out. Better yet, leave and come back again to witness it at different points during the evening. You can go across the street to The ARCHIVE Coffee Bar for a snack, or wander down the hall to Studio #215 to see PERMANENT PRESENT, a group show of visual art works by artists Gina Beavers, Marilyn Dizikes, Christopher Hines, James Reynolds, Justin Rymer, and Stephanie Rivers. Then come back and visit again.

Recent inspiration

Starting Friday (6-9pm) and running thru Sunday (both Sa/Su, 11-6pm), Marianne from Wyoming will be selling paintings at the Style Market Holiday Sale at FIT's Great Hall (7th Ave/28th St). This is one of her paintings in progress from Jentel.

Clover sent along this AMAZING article about our mutual friend, Julie Laffin. I was astounded by how well someone with no experience of chemical injury could write about Julie's experience. It's a great read, eye opening and compassionate and wonderfully articulate.

Something from Kimsooja that I found while cleaning out bookmarks (I'm switching browsers and trying out Camino):

Although the nomadic lifestyle is a characteristic phenomena of this era, I could also be one's choice we can still live without moving around much and be rooted in one's own place. Human curiosity and the desire for communication expands its physical dimension and happen to control human relationships and the desire of possessions, and pursuing the establishment of a global community, which includes the virtual world. But a true nomadic life wouldn’t need many possessions, or control and it doesn't need to conquer any territory it's rather an opposite way of living from a contemporary lifestyle, with the least amount of possessions, no fear of disconnection, and being free from the desire of establishment. It is a lifestyle that is a witness of nature and life, as a kind of a process of a pilgrim. Nomadism in contemporary society seems to be motivated from the restless desire of human beings and it's follies, rather than pursuing true meaning from nomadic life.

Open seams

A ripped out page from my newest book. Last night was super; I had a great time w/Josh and Lynn. I'm still unclear about what will happen show-wise in Mexico but it was a fun evening and there was plenty of wine and we talked about how sad it is that we don't play our instruments anymore (and about a million other things). I have been particularly sad lately b/c my biggest violin callus on my index finger has been peeling away. It's amazing that you can work for 20 years, but then in less than one, all that hard work disappears. I always thought my calluses would be forever. It was hard enough for me to lose my violin hickey, but my finger calluses! Devastating. Not to mention that I have less protection for when I accidentally cut my fingers when chopping veggies: those calluses have saved me time and time again from painful and bloody finger injuries.

It makes me (almost) want to pick up my fiddle again just to build up the skin. But that takes a long time. In the meantime, I still have violinist friends that I can live through vicariously. When I saw Kiwon this week, she talked about how she had to go to Philly because she had five open seams. For a moment, I was stumped. And then I realized we were talking about her instrument. When temperature/humidity shifts, wood instruments expand/contract, and often parts will pull away from each other, causing gaps at the seams. You can hear open seams if you hold the neck of the violin and knock lightly all along the perimeter of the instrument. Wherever you get a different sound, you know you have an opening. So you have to go to the shop and get it glued and clamped back together since it affects the sound of the instrument when you play. I haven't taken mine in for a tune up for years, not since halfway through living in Chicago.

Hopefully I get to take care of my own seams in December, figuring out what will happen in the spring, seeing more art, and getting into shape. Or maybe I'll sit around like my violin in the closet. Here's to the first option. Oh, and Jennifer in upstate NY got my knit plastic bag panel; an image is up on her website (scroll all the way down). And, I finally read for colored girls... on the train late last night. I still remember helping my painting teacher prep sets for that production at Oberlin almost 10 years ago. Someday, I'll do sets, too.

Gerbil brain

These are my favorite pieces from the Frank Lloyd Wright house at Oberlin.

I'm spinning. I might have a show abroad and one in the Great Plains next year but not sure yet. Really annoying news: my res site won't be ready for me in January. "How about May?" How about May?? Are you joking? I decided not to take a job b/c of that res! I really hope a few others work out in the interim, b/c I am ITCHING to make new work. Oh, and the hilarious news: apparently, I have been assigned the task of cooking Thanksgiving dinner for five. Super.

Work has been killer, but I'm surviving. Today, I was delighted to be back on a board shears (it's been over 6 months!) and was SO happy that I still had my chops. Plus, the construction people were playing hilarious Polish music outdoors, which made up for being soaked by the morning downpour. I got new striped socks and a fun pair of leggings (w/only the legs) from Cindy last night, so now I'm set for colder weather.

What else?

1. I am considering a last minute photo shoot for my knit halter
2. I am considering sending DV tapes to my Chicago editor to cut a January performance, w/o even viewing the tapes myself
3. I am considering knitting lots of plastic bags
4. I am considering NOT sending xmas cards this year
5. I discovered how to survive rush hour (hint: let everyone else do the work for you)
6. My iPod died on me this morning but never fear! Kanye will rock my Friday. I insist.

Back on track

This was the sweetest gift from one of the Oberlin students - she had taken notes from my lecture on one of her popup practice sheets and gave it to me. Once I get better shots of the whole thing, I'll post them.

Things to do:

Impeach
Read poetry
See art

Negligence! No, paranoia.

Somehow, I felt like I hadn't blogged in a long time. But I only missed a day. Which is good; my new mission for my life is to calm down. Impossible, you'd think, I'd think, for me! But after evaluating my health and well-being in Wyoming, where my biggest scheduling stress was when and where I would walk (the road? or the hills?), and comparing it to my state of being everywhere else, I realize that overscheduling is not doing me any favors. It exhausts me and makes casualities of everyone else around me. In the obsessive quest to create really long TO DO lists and then cross everything off the list in record time, I've sacrificed a whole lot of the good life.

This is the view from the grave of my very good friend who died of leukemia in 2003. I had never visited it before, and my trip to Cali was spurred by the sudden desire to visit. It was pretty uneventful on the outside, except that the weather shifted suddenly and was rainy, windy, and cloudy, to the shock of my Californian host. But big things shifted inside, and I realized that

1. dead people's bodies don't go anywhere if they're buried in the ground
2. your life goes on even if someone you really love is buried in the ground
3. I don't have to live in California! [This is huge, for anyone who knows of my long-standing desire to live there.]
4. if I don't have to live in California, then I can be HERE, NOW! Hey, what a concept! I can just be happy with where I am now and not freak out about not being somewhere else!

and so on. I am happily shedding all the useless things, people, ideas, and dreams that I have been holding onto for a loooong time. I don't want anything that doesn't serve me anymore. What I do want: to read this, prep a really good class for Oberlin, and renew my commitment to a daily meditation and yoga practice. That's the short list. Wait, no more lists! Haha. Clearly, I'll need to recruit more help on this road.

Caving in

I'm back in New York and utterly overwhelmed. I am so confused by the flood of mail that was waiting for me (all these slides and I don't know where they're all from). I've logged all my receipts but can't reconcile my bank statements b/c the site is being overhauled. I'm unpacked and have piles like, "take to next residency," "hide for a while," "take to Oberlin in two weeks as teaching samples," and so on. I am really tired of flying, but leave in two weeks to teach a book workshop and give a lecture at my favorite alma mater, Oberlin College. On one of those propeller jets, too.

I'm going to put that out of my mind for now as I stare at the piles. This is an image from Chela's studio, and even though it was Thursday, it feels like forever ago now that I'm back home. It's so tricky, this time, b/c I feel all the things I've learned and the subtle shifts that have happened from all the traveling. But that time goes up in smoke so quickly! But for now, I'm back in the same place, but at a different point in the spiral. I'm thankful for everything, mostly the over-the-top amazing friends that I have, like Anju, who saved my ass in a major logistical glitch at the end of my trip.

I have black ink all over my hands (it exploded in my blender; no surprise. I should have just left the ink in Wyoming) and realize I didn't avoid re-entry by going to California; I just delayed it! Tomorrow will be a huge work day, but how excited am I about tonight: sleeping in my own bed after five weeks! Yeeehaw!!

Not quite over, but over

I'm totally thrown off by Joana leaving a day early (tomorrow) and everyone else being all packed up (or so it seems). I've tried to pack my studio bag, and had a hard time figuring out why it was so easy for me to shove the blender in the bag on the way here. It was really hard this time. This is the comic I drew today to leave for future residents.

Chris, Joana, Marianne, and I all took a great hike up to the highest peak that is closest to the property. The view was stunning. And hilarious, b/c a herd of cows was grazing in our front "lawn" (like vast expanses of grassland). On our way to town today, we saw real cowboys!!! At least four of them, and at least two herding dogs, and one guy was even swinging a lasso in the air! What they were doing was very sad, separating the calves from their mothers. But then again, the bumper sticker I saw in town before I pigged out on an amazing Mexican lunch was also depressing: "vote Republican." Ew.

Back to packing!

Show and tell

Today we had open studios, and visited each of the six studios to hear about work and see what we've done in our almost month here. It was great to see everyone's spaces and progress, and share my own things. Jami sent a beautiful package today, which made me happy, and then I ate three lunches and passed out in my studio. After a walk with Joana, I overate at dinner and now am trying to sort myself out in the studio. What to leave? What to mail? What to donate back to the thrift store? Should I pack now? Later? The yoga mat is in the washing machine!

These are tags from Marianne's studio. I love her little notes, and her paintings.