home is where the heart is

I came across this article a few days ago. As I started to read it, I hesitated a little to get too optimistic about the recovery of New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. The entire event, situation, and way in which it was dealt with has been disappointing. Yet, I can't lie that part of me feels like there are forces at work to rebuild this beautiful city and this major force is the community that lives there. My favorite part of this article is a response to the question, "why would people rebuild their homes directly under a previously ruined levee?" The response, "We all gotta live where our hearts are." I believe in this statement. I have known this to be true of myself for as long as I can remember. Home is where my heart is....and where I can dance, dance, dance!

Article: New Orleans: Second Life and Second Line

The Pink Ladies

During my sharing of work last week, I was amazed at the responses from my beautiful cohort of women artists. It was fun to see everyone get a little fired up about the image I presented for my wandering muse. When I went searching for images of my muse's work I kept seeing the image of a vagina, labia and all her juiciness. There was a hint of doubt and fear about putting an image like that in front of people, let alone talking about it. But I have become comfortable with this image, this dialogue over the years of working with my body. The Feminine, my body, the body, violence against women, prejudice, success, roles, myth, movement, connection and the collective unconscious have been my work. Pieces of each or some or one show up in all of my art, because I have committed to knowing them. And I have come to own them all as a part of me. As I continue to read "The Courage to Create" by Rollo May, I am reminded by what he says when I feel this doubt about making or sharing "The Pink Ladies".

"Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt, but in spite of doubt."

This statement gives me a confidence then to make works of art that might stir up people's feeling and levels of comfort. Similar to Ghada Amer, my wandering muse, her pieces reflect her questions of the roles of women, oppression of women and female sexuality. Ghada's commitment to these discussions continue to influence her work and I'm sure for her, her confidence in presenting the topic to the art world. Looking at her work I feel a connection to the embroidered images of a woman in a sexual position repeated again and again on the canvas. The connection I feel is to the bold symbols used, embroidery and it's association to women, looking sexy and it's association to women, and the repetition of these symbols and images in multi media that I see over and over again. Part of me is shocked to see these women and part of me identifies with her too....ha! This would explain the shock! haha! We all get a little freaked out about those shadows that pop up and remind us that they are a part of us too! So thank you Ghada, thank you for bringing those shadows into the light. I too want to bring my own shadows into the light, to see them and own them as a part of me.

More work of Ghada Amer's.

claiming myself in a public way

Tonight's sharing of my works in progress left me leaving energized. The beautiful words and thoughts shared within our safe and intimate group was juicy this evening. I love sitting with a group of fellow artists and responding to each others works in a deep and honest way. There is something about stripping yourself naked to be vulnerable in front of others and then owning all that comes out. Beautiful. There is a synergy that is forming with us in the group of women that I am so proud to be a part of. I look forward to all of our discoveries this summer and how each one of them feed and grow from the other.

here's the plan

This quarter during seminar my intentions are to explore my own authority in my art. What does my art look like when I am in charge and not another outside force/figure? This piece reflects my desire to claim my own authority and use art as a way to make it visual.

I loved working with these images, words and materials during class last week. The phrases I found in an old "Look" magazine from 1959. The phrases at first startled me, but then I felt an excitement to change them. As if by ripping them out of their pages and altering the words to reflect myself, I was immediately saying no to the way of thinking for women in 1959. It was liberating and still excites me to think that I have the power to change that way of thinking. I have the authority.

must keep going....

So I'm in my final week or so of the quarter and am feeling the angst 105%. Good god!!! After a 14 hour homework day I am ready to throw in the towel, but the scary thing is there is this energy that I have buzzing through my veins. This energy wants to keep going, wants to complete assignments, write papers and arts statements, create more websites, do more research and go all the way. Unfortunately, this energy, this spark doesn't realize that I must have sleep so I can go to work tomorrow!
But I push on, the world goes on, life goes on, I continue to breathe, water flows, wind blows and everything else moves along just as it should. It is satisfying in a way and also desperately sad. I sit here all day working on school, uploading my facebook status, chatting with friends. Meanwhile, my 90 year old grandfather sits in bed dying of lung cancer, waiting for the "god lord" to take him. My mother called today to let me know that, according to the hospice nurse, he will probably pass this week. My eyes overflow at this point because I do not know how to contain it. This feeling that I have, this feeling of sadness.
I have put everything into these past three years of grad school, of work, of my life. These past three years have changed me in from the core. I am confident in myself. I know and claim to be an artist. I have a heathly career. I can take care of myself, yet know how to ask for help. I have a supportive and loving group of friends and family by my side. I know all this to be true at the culmination of my graduation and the truth that I might not celebrate it with my collegues, here in Oakland, with my friends makes me sad. Sad not only that I might lose my grandfather and must morn his death during that time, but also sad that I might not get the chance to celebrate my transformation, my success, my Self.

What Makes Me An Artist???

As I'm finishing up my thesis and wrapping up this quarter before graduation I starting doubting myself. I know, crazy, isn't it. I've spent the past 3 years learning who I am as an artist and in one evening started to forget. I started wondering if I wasn't fitting into the stereotype of being an artist. I don't have a BFA or MFA, I've never sold a piece, I've never applied for a grant, never been shown in a gallery outside school. I have a full time job completely opposite of being an artist, I'm an administrator for a behaviorist consulting group.

So what makes me an artist? I whipped out this piece of raw, ungessoed canvas, cut it into an organic shape and wrote my answers all over it with marker.

This is what makes me an artist:

• I'm not afraid to take up space and get really really BIG!
• I own my mistakes and see the beauty and lessons in them
• I express myself through my art
• Art is my way of healing
• I think outside the box...and around the box, in the box, on the box, with the box, without the box, deconstruct the box.
• I LOVE ART
• I want to Explore, Dream, Discover
• I never stop wanting to learn...about the world, about people, about myself
• I am part of a community
• I AM MYSELF. Everyone else is already taken.
• It's the time in my life, art making that is, when I feel the alive. The opposite of out-of-body experience. It is a deeply felt inner body experience.

What I realized after making this piece was that I am an artist based on my own definition. I'm an artist because every morning I wake up and want to make art. That above anything else, makes me an artist. I came to JFK to study Transformative Arts to discover myself as an artist, to claim her, to be her. I have done that. There is no reason to doubt myself anymore.

I AM AN ARTIST!!!

I'm packed and ready to go!

I had a dream last night that I was getting ready for a trip. I'm getting dressed, packing my bags and checking my flight time. I look at the clock and see that I have plenty of time to get it all done. I smile and delight in that as I walk to the kitchen to make myself another cup of coffee. Calm and centered, I wake up.

I'm starting this blog not just to vent all my frustrations, challenges, moments of inspiration, great and lame ideas, but also because it is time I get out there!!! I've been on this quest now for 3 years, really like all 28 years, of my life trying to speak my truth. My truth is in my voice and my voice is this miraculous gift that can transform on paper, on canvas, in movement and in the mere being as a human...an authentic human.

I'm starting this blog to create a space for my voice, for my artwork, for my passions and concerns, and most importantly to be seen. I've struggled for years with this fear of really being seen, of being too big, too loud, too special. Fears that stem from childhood and the oh-so-common fucked up psychology that everyone can claim as their own as well. But I have decided that these fears need to cease! They serve no more purpose in my life except to paralyze me and doubt myself. Well, times they are a changin' and I am ready to push forward and begin to release those fears. Now as I am in the final stages of finishing my thesis and graduating from the most powerful transformation yet, I am embarking on yet another transformation, a journey.

I am setting out on a journey to claim my voice, own my body and position in the world, to be seen by others and in the world, and above all...to explore the infinite abyss that is this world.

Thanks for joining me and I hope to see a lot of you! ; )