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A little iphone video. Full screen it for better viewing. Shot in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Leaf House by Animal Collective.
How much of the time are you watering down your work? Are you making your art/writing/painting pleasing enough to satisfy mass as opposed to self?
I went to see the Francesca Woodman exhibit at the Guggenheim with Bindu Wiles (who is a master at understanding, being with, and sharing great art.)
We wandered through the space sticking our faces up to each photograph, one more breathtaking then the next. Most are self portraits, many nude. I was relieved and inspired that there was another human that had some of the same inclinations as myself, the same desire to document FEELING. In each of her photographs I feel her urge to say something, however painful.
But what struck me the most about her work is that it had no regard for me. The photographs let you feel her solitude, like we are able to see inside of her emotion. She did not need me to like her, to accept her, to catagorize her in any way. This is freedom. And then to put this work out for us to see her guts, her insides, as if she did the work and walked away. (She committed suicide very early in life, and did walk away.)
Great art asks us to be TRUE.
This is the only goal. And the most difficult.
As we walked out I said that my renewed goal was to please no one. To aim for allegiance only to the voice that comes through me. I’d like to grow bolder and work towards UN-DILUTING, knowing that we water ourselves down every day to be accepted.
To accept yourself is the goal. And to let everyone else contend with themselves.
What would you write if you were in a vacuum? What would you paint?
I try to work this way. I’ve stopped checking stats or twitter feeds and let go (mostly!) of needing you to give me direction and acceptance. I encourage you to try a little bit of this in your creative world.
(I would never reproduce one of her photographs here- if you live near NY try to get to her show. Below- my own photograph shot with iphone.)
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TELL THE TRUTH. This sounds simple. It’s not. We are social animals that want to fit in. We want to be accepted. Sometimes a slew of these little decisions we made to feel comfortable, to feel loved and accepted, can cause us to wake up in Asia and realize our work is in Germany and we have to go. Living as you are supposed to live does not mean by anyone else’s standards but your own. Get with yourself often in the quiet and make sure you are not getting too far from your center. And if you are? Scooch however slowly and gracefully you can manage back to where you once belonged.
LET EVERYTHING GO. And everyone. You walk alone. As long as you are needing/wanting/demanding change in someone else, you are not living your life fully. You don’t get their life. You only get your own. What am I clinging to out of FEAR? Who am I asking to CHANGE to make things better for me? Kiss your loved ones and set them free. They can’t change for you even if they wanted to. And they are too busy wishing you would change for them to think about changing for you. Change is a gorilla wrestle in a ring with your demons. Letting people off the hook for your life is a spiritual IRONMAN. Change yourself. He still pisses you off with the fill in the blank, but what if you decided to release that anger? What if you could DECIDE not to give away one more minute of your beautiful morning to something you cannot control? Let it all go and get back to your life. What were you doing?
LIVE YOUR AMENDS. We are tragically flawed, bumbling through life. We hurt people. We’ve been hurt. We can’t do this perfectly and it’s not the point anyway. But live your amends. When you realize you are in the wrong, feel the melting of your ego. Don’t worry about this, it will come back strong as ever in a few minutes. ! Say that you are wrong. That you are sorry. Then wait to hear whatever is coming back. Decide that no matter what this person says to you, it’s OK. This gets easier over time. Not carrying around shame and guilt frees you up to be, well….FREE.
TELL THE TRUTH AGAIN. Create your life from your true position on this earth. Do your thing like a house on fire. You really might be gone tomorrow. No one is looking, no one is judging, it’s only you and you.
When you can be the TRUTH of who you are, and give everyone around you the power to have their own truth, with daily amends to yourself and to them, you are clean. See yourself clean. You are free of debris that is not yours and unencumbered by guilt, shame, fear, and resentment. No pressure to create a masterpiece, this work is great for sitting peacefully with yourself.
(as always i write what i need to learn the most, so lest i sound like a know-it-all or a i’ve got it all figured out-er, this is a disclaimer. i hear and learn passing truths while sitting clearly in i-don’t-knowness.)
(is this from a cherry blossom? shot with iphone and worked in colorsplash and snapseed. i think.)
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I’m wondering if the swinging pendulum will slow down over time, with the years, and come resting to a middle ground. Finally coming to the middle stillness that is death. I’m thinking this is so.
After 40 some odd years of completely rebelling against the way my mother chose to be in life, in many ways I have followed her footsteps. As we work so hard to do it differently we are still operating from the story we were told. The same point in the sand that was put before us.
As I went into surgery for my breast last week I thought to myself, Good God! How could I consider plastic surgery? Why would I elect to put myself in this odd unloving environment for a procedure that at it’s very best is false?
But of course, everything I’ve said I would not do in my life I HAVE DONE. I suppose that is just going to continue to be and I have to make peace with the fact that I DON’T KNOW SHIT ABOUT ANYTHING.
Ok. That’s not totally accurate. And it’s the pendulum swing again. But you know what I mean.
When my kids were young their dad would spend long chunks of time away. I got a nanny right away to help me. I never liked this arrangement, and in all the years I had help, I wasn’t able to make peace with it. This project of raising children was too delicate, too important, but the reality is that I couldn’t do it alone. What I really needed was two lives, one that I could fully nest in with the children without anyone looking on, and another life out in the world with my continuing career. I was never able to find this balance, but only go back and forth when the feeling on one end of the pendulum made me feel too sad. None of these nannies were right in the long run. I swung that pendulum wildly looking for the right support. From the first nanny who was a mother herself, then on to the young au pair, to the foreign, to the American. The young back to the old.
These days I’m trying to slow it down. Or is it that I’m slowing down no matter what? The pendulum taking it’s natural course that I’m only along for the ride with? The illusion of control.
I’ll most likely keep it swinging. I’ll say all kinds of things here and then take them back, change my mind, find out I’m not exactly the person I thought I was yesterday. This life is a mess that we just keep trying to find the beauty in. Most days I do.
Two photos taken with Iphone and put together in the Diptic app. The left, a door in Greenwich Village, the right, tulips in Central Park.
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It’s not in the afternoon. As much as I cling to the granite existence of non change- I’m really a transition person. The morning is new- fresh- I have a positive ephemeral existence and the miracles can happen today. But my body rhythm slows after a time- the real read of the day presents itself with all it’s history and shit lists and leftovers that need killing. The work of a lifetime makes me want to close my eyes. Fuck you. I find this solitude of refuge and going inward- I let it wash over me as if I had a choice. This long unending part of the day is hot. My head is heavy. My vision interrupted. Some time in the evening the air tells me there will be an ending- my cells cock an ear- I begin to wake again. With the limits presented I know who I am and if you build me a fence that is high enough that I cannot get out of I will fight and grasp the reason to live.
And then we went to Central Park. I followed her because she knows these things and I am trying to believe. We walked the rounds and I let the color wash over and I want to make it stay somewhere in my head. What is the temperature? Angel breath on cool marble and bring it to peaceful. No longing here, no wishing, like that middle place you can float. As we lay on the blanket I wanted to say I could stay here forever. My afternoon was still happening but someone is here with me, not asking, but just being. I always wondered about these scenes I was on the outside of. This one fleeting that I won’t be able to do again, but in that time we were.
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“Your outer relationship is a projection of the relationship you have with yourself.”
I think I’ve heard that a hundred times. Or at least three. Yeah yeah yeah.
I thought about the times I’ve been disappointed. Angry. Afraid. Distrustful. When I need to shame crawl on my knees and wipe the slime off my lover and crawl back to my own space, sitting with myself. Well. I always have work to do. Lots of it. It’s really an incredible gift to have these miracles of insight and the days to try to work on them. Change. Your. Self.
My ego, not long ago a solid gold statue, like an Oscar! has shattered to the floor. It wasn’t solid gold! Instead, it was actually made of that weird Styrofoam that breaks into all those tiny balls. The ones that stick to EVERYTHING? They are are impossible to gather and keep sticking electrically to whatever they can. That shit doesn’t give up. That ego structure is a motherfucker.
I keep all the little styrofoam in a container in the front part of my mind. A bit of a tribute to the past.
I remember my sister telling me how, some months after her divorce, she found herself standing in the kitchen alone and said out loud, to herself, “Wow. I really am a bitch!”
I think of this often and laugh every time. The things that don’t work in your life are nobody else’s but your own. You carry your work with you wherever you go. This is a big pill to swallow, but it really is the good news. Because once you realize all the work you have to do, you can release everyone around you. This, the work on expanding and letting go, the work of becoming a more loving and more evolved human being. The work that only YOU can do on YOU, will transform the world around you.
Baby steps, little tiny chicks along the way, the universal power of love, I send to you.
(photo taken on upper east side w iphone)
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If all the world is a projection of my inner life, then let me
hope to be
determine to be
the gem that I polish. Over and over sanding smooth the rough places for the clarity to come through. I give
hope, determination
to create the world I long for.
As we grow the inner sanctuary, the outer world settles and it’s own truth delivers.
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You’ve been given a studio in which to create your art. You have all the paints (film, people, ideas, nails) that you need for your project along with unlimited time. You’ve invited your parents, your friends and your colleagues to come into the studio and sit on bleachers that have been set up. A camera is attached high in a corner to web cast the workings.
You are paralyzed.
You need everyone to leave.
You feel very badly. Your mother loves to spend time with you, your friends want to share in your experience. Your colleagues don’t want to be left out of your process because it might say something about their own and this is a competition, isn’t it?
You know that if you really had your shit together you could let them all have their own little worlds, because you are the one with the brush.
But you are also human.
You need them to leave. You want to have this space to yourself. Everyone is disgruntled and one person shouts at you as he is leaving. There is flak. Slumped in a corner, you are afraid you cannot remember what your project was called or what the journey was. But after some days, you get up and start.
There is no one here in this space but you. The vibrant and sparkly rush of freedom fills you as you realize that their pleasure is not your domain.
Take your space. Fill your heart. Do your thing.
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I had this strange period of days when I could not turn any music on. I was fearful. That’s the best way I can describe it. Then I did. This song came on and I felt like it broke me open again. I made this video. (It’s really best if you can view it full screen with headphones on and volume high.)
Gorgeous song by Sufjan Stevens. If the song sounds familiar, I had already used it in a video in August of 2010. Here is my older version. Please share it if you like it. Thanks!
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