You taste / the honey of absence

One of my favorite poets, Mark Strand, died today.

He wrote the lines that title this post; they are from his poem "In Celebration."

I pull his books off my shelf and begin to reread.


#OrangeOctober


Companion

Untitled 2 (2013) by Clare Plueckhahn, from the "First We Fall" exhibition
"There is the hidden presence of others in us, even those we have known briefly. We contain them for the rest of our lives, at every border that we cross." 

—Michael Ondaatje

Simpatico

Perfectly stated, from Henry Rollins:

"I don’t get lonely anymore ... I do, however, get a feeling of hollowness now and then. A Camus/Beckett/Céline sense of futility that makes me want to walk forlorn like Harry Dean Stanton in the opening scenes of Wenders’ Paris, Texas on some kind of emo-quest for meaning."






Read Henry Rollins's full post here: http://www.laweekly.com/westcoastsound/2014/08/07/henry-rollins-fake-city?showFullText=true.

Memory

I just returned from a two-week, whirlwind trip. Experiencing new things hones all my senses in spectacular ways. I feel like my entire being opens up for an interval as I breathe different air, look at new art, speak different words, taste new foods, stroll different streets.

Interestingly, these experiences also bring some memories, often forgotten and completely unexpected, back into my consciousness. It's like my mind, in trying to process the new information, forges back on dusty paths. The retraveling clears the overgrowth. The memory becomes sharp and forefront.

"I had forgotten that," I'll often say.

I remember an assignment for one of my painting classes. We were to paint a multipaneled work about a memory. I chose a tryptich, two panels in portrait format anchored by a long panel (shown below) running the length of the other two.
Bottom panel of Fall 1996 (2000). Oil on canvas, 30" x 15".
My memory was about a boy. I painted the texture of grass, abstracted greens and browns. I depicted a wall and the bottom two-thirds of the Breakfast at Tiffany's movie poster. Finally, I painted (above) what I remembered of the Black Forest, the mystery and peace I felt while driving alongside it in the dead of December. During the critique, my instructor commented, "I love this assignment because the things that comprise memories are so arbitrary, so irrational, and yet they come together logically in one's mind."

I have since separated the three panels of the tryptich. One panel hangs in our guest bedroom. Another got trashed during a move. The panel shown above is with a friend. I'm pretty sure he sees the painting differently from how I see it.

And that's the point of memory, right? It's personal and flawed, an imperfect truth.

Intermission

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a very complicated relationship with time. Hours can pass in a blink when I'm working, but seconds are critical when I'm sprinting after a bus to take me to work. I'm always running against some clock, internal or standardized.

Currently, I'm reading Jeanette Winterson's "Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?" I've always enjoyed her work. I love her writing, her perspective, her insight on being a woman and being an artist.  

A chapter—or interlude—titled "Intermission" struck a chord.

She writes,

In my work I have pushed against the weight of clock time, of calendar time, of linear unravellings ... In our inner world, we can experience events that happened to us in time as happening simultaneously.

... I recognize that life has an inside as well as an outside and that events separated by years lie side by side imaginatively and emotionally.

Creative time bridges time because the energy of art is not time-bound. If it were we should have no interest in the art of the past, except as history or documentary. But our interest in art is our interest in ourselves both now and always. Here and forever. There is a sense of the human spirit as always existing. This makes our own death bearable. Life + art is a boisterous communion/communication with the dead. It is a boxing match with time.

I don't make art to have something that exists beyond myself. I make art to get to an essence of what being human means.

So

I've been in postpartum from delivering a commission. I've been regrouping, moving, reorganizing, reestablishing normal. Seeing friends and smiling. Practicing yoga.

Finally, now, working again. For the past year, a new series of oil paintings has been percolating. I've been thinking about what motivates the series, what I hope to communicate in the work. I've also been doing research, experimenting with materials.


I love this part of working. I love the learning and the discovery. I love making mistakes and forging ahead. The most difficult part is suspending judgment, allowing myself to stay in sustained play and exploration.

Spring

I have been up since 4AM. It's the first day of spring.

Perhaps my wakefulness is from jet lag, but from a mere 3-hour difference eastward. Perhaps it’s because I’m starting to feel “normal” again. Today marks the 79th day of 2014, and my year has gone like this: 71 consecutive days of work, 7 days of vacation.

I feel like today could mark a new beginning.

New space, old struggles

On November 2, I moved into a new studio. It took some time to outfit my space so that I could begin to work. I trolled craigslist and garage sales to buy a chair and two tables. I bought a new rug, two lamps for extra light, a new drill to build my canvases; I sought wine crates to use as props and bookcases. I engineered a low-tech way to display photos.

Then I began to work. It’s hard. 

For the past few weeks, I have been staring down a 48" x 84" canvas. I get distracted by new noises, neighboring artists. I don’t have bright, natural sunlight. Fresh air does not circulate well. I have a few paintings hanging, but am not surrounded by past work, for reference and inspiration. More importantly, I haven’t yet instilled creative energy into my space—those new four walls—which comes with time.

I’m getting used to a new routine, being away from home for most days, balancing working time with personal time, negotiating priorities with my beau and family.

I keep coming back to what working as an artist means.

My studio is in the Mission, so I’m back to where I spent seven life-changing, bittersweet years. I frequent a café where Adam used to drop me off on his way to Palo Alto, where he would treat me to coffee and a giant cinnamon roll for breakfast. When I go there now for my mid-afternoon break, often a few cinnamon rolls—still from the same bakery—remain in the pastry case. With these familiar touchstones, I feel at home here. But there are also enough changes that things feel new and scary.

I feel overwhelmed by these changes, all the feelings that have been stirred up. I wish I could talk to my artist friends about authenticity, working through the struggles. I’m not talking about those people who easily self-identify as capital-A Artists, but those who question it every day, even as they work.

I recognize that these vulnerabilities can also be strengths in my work. I make human marks; I make errors. Hopefully, I also make things that are real and raw.