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Every year as the sun rises earlier and sets later I have the same stream of thoughts running in and out of my head. Spring is a reflective time for me. It is a sad time for me. It is a time that I reflect on what could have- what might have happened, if I had chosen differently. So many roads that could have been taken, so many different things I could have said or done. At this time, during this season, if feels as though my legs walked without me despite where my heart, my mind wanted to go. Other times I feel so blessed I want to kiss the blue sky, the heavens above with thanks. But in the springtime, just the beginning of springtime, I feel as though my path taken was not of my own doing, but of someone else’s.
It’s a feeling, a culmination of memories and dreams of my youth. The past confronts the now, like the wind meets the dirt. It is hazy; it is dusty in these memories. Yet they remain, and become more impractical with time.
The combination of the light, the smell of orange trees blossoming, the feel of the wind on my face as I drive to some place, for something…I want to keep driving. Drive down that old Arizona road, through the small towns, closer to the edge until I reach the ocean and jump in. An Awakening of Mind of body of soul. This is spring. This is fatal, the end of the road and the beginning of another.
It is a bridge that must be crossed in order to move forward. | | |
| I love to make things. I go to galleries and I see something I like, and I think, I can make that. Most of the time I can, although I find myself thinking I would have rather bought the item rather than trying to make it myself. I can spend a whole day trying to copy someone else’s idea and at the end of the day I think to myself, was it worth it? Too spend all this time and energy on something I wouldn’t normally make? And to be honest the out come is never the same.
Yet, I cannot discount the practice of trying to make something I’ve seen. As artists we do copy and imitate things we see- it’s unavoidable. Sometimes it leads to new creations and sometimes it ends up being something not worth pursuing. But how else would I have drawn to these conclusions if it weren’t for the act of trying?
I call this exorcising my demons.
It’s like getting an itch that you just have to scratch. I have to find out for myself. This practice of copying, or using similar techniques, was at first frustrating. I kept thinking to myself, why did I waste all this time on something that I don’t normally do, when I could have been working on something that I know how to do?
Well I have come to a couple of conclusions. One is that I sometimes take my art too seriously and when I undergo the process of copying I find that what I am really doing is playing. I find that I need to step outside my perimeter and fool around with other ideas and techniques. Whether or not it becomes something more is a side effect, the process is the important part.
This in turn leads to the second conclusion.
Most times after I try to recreate something I have seen I usually come away with a greater appreciation of the artists work. This is why; although it may have been fun to reproduce something, I always come away knowing something more. I either know that this is something I don’t want to pursue (most of the cases), or that this is something that I can use. Which subsequently leads me to value my own skills as an artist as well as the artist that I am imitating from.
As an artist I want to be respected, and in turn should do the same for other artists. Just because I make things, doesn’t mean that I can make everything. Sometimes I have to step back and say, would it be worth it for me to try and make this? Or is it more worth it to purchase it? Or both? This may sound like a funny idea, but it has really taken me a long time to appreciate other artist’s work without feeling jealous or resentful. And that it is O.k. to copy techniques and ideas for the sake of growing. (This is a different concept than ripping off an artist.)
So I will continue to make things, I will shed my skin from time to time in order to grow. I will try and step outside my own box and explore new things, in order to make my own box larger.
The point is to continue to play and learn new things. Why stop after school? Why stop at all?
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| When I was young I used to love going into the bathroom of my grandparents house and look in the mirror. It was a cabinet mirror that had three sections and the two pieces on the end you could move to see different angles of yourself. I would draw close to the mirror and angle both sides in so I saw three different sides of my face. Front, left and right. What always caught my curiosity was how different one side looked from the other. It was not a perfect face, symmetrical like I thought it was, but slightly varied.
The other weekend I was scrolling through pictures that we had just took at a friend’s house, and was shocked when I saw a picture of myself. Surely, I thought, this is not me! I know what I look like, and this, well, this is not me. Is this how people see me?
I came to a strange realization about personal reflection.
I look at myself everyday in the mirror, brushing my teeth, washing my face, a quick glance up after using the restroom, and I see myself. But I don’t see myself as other people see myself. It’s like hearing your voice recorded for the first time- there is something familiar yet altogether alien at what you hear. Is That what I sound like?
When I look at myself in the mirror I am taking in not only the reality of myself but also the prospects of something else. I am editing myself in the mirror and thinking that people see the edited version of myself. So when I saw that picture I was surprised at how I looked.
There are truly two different versions of me just like there are two different voices I hear (the one that is heard by others and the one that is heard by me).
Sometimes they live in perfect harmony with each other, accepting and confident and sometimes they are at differences.
Either way the variations exist and like the two sides of my face, slightly asymmetrical, they intrigue me.
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| Part I
I live in a small place. An apartment, well a tri-plex, that seems to get smaller and smaller as the days go by.
This is about space.
2 bedrooms, 1 bath, small kitchen with a half size stove. 4 pans will not fit properly on all burners. There is a slight tilt of the stove, not sure whether it is from the floor or from the stove itself. There is a gap about 4” wide from the stove to the countertop. This space drives me nuts. It’s where all the grease resides with bits of food that have fallen tragically to their death. I can’t seem to clean this space enough.
I have taken one of the stove shelves and hung it from the ceiling. This is so I can hang pans on them. I used to use the side of the refrigerator, but being too close to the stove, the pans became quickly covered in grease. The shelves are small and limited. The utensil drawer seems to need a spinal adjustment, for it never wants to close properly.
Part II
Granddad Toms house. Everything had a place and everything was clean. There was always great light coming in through the windows. Each room was a perfect rectangle with slightly kitschy wall hangings that Grandma Jinny made or bought. This house demanded respect- and expected no less, and yet it never felt hostel. There was a non-verbal love in the house, for granddads actions spoke louder than his words.
Grandma Lorene’s Adobe house; It was never real dirty, and never real clean. Usually it was dark to keep the cool inside the house, and the darkness was never heavy but cool, like the cold tile beneath the feet. Each room felt like a discovery of a new island. Cluttered with craft materials, yard sale items, trucker hats, gadgets, car parts and papa’s hand made furniture that was always heavily stained with varnish. It was a colorful mish-mash of his and hers with no dividing line. The kitchen always had an after cooking smell, southern and comforting. The house was filled with hand made love, it was like a big pillow that you wanted to rest your head upon. I always felt comfortable, taken care of and loved. The house gave back, always gave me something before I left.
Part III
The second bedroom is our divided art space. It’s filled to maximum capacity with art supplies, amps, guitars, and household items like the vacuum and the ironing board. If you remember those cheap puzzles as a kid that had a bunch of little plastic squares with one missing, this is what the room is like. There is a little space, but in order to get from one place to the next, everything has to be adjusted and moved.
The closet is a carefully constructed tower of things. On the bottom are two chests. One is my granddad's WWII, and the other is a red dented chest that I have had since Jr. High. Both are filled with my personal history, photo’s and memorabilia. I used to have 3 chests, but realized along life’s road, not everything is meant to be saved. On top of that is a box of fabric, and next to that a box of negatives, and on top of that is a box containing the vacuums extra parts. It is like a Jenga puzzle, carefully put together and yet so easily to fall apart.
Part IV
It’s amazing how space can alter how we feel- whether its feeling comfortable, heavy, dark, fresh, awkward, frustrated and so on. I remember the spaces of my youth. Granddads house, before and after grandma Jinny, his wife, passed away. The transition from one death to another changed the space, the home. Sometimes it’s not always a visual change, but something you feel.
I remember my grandma Lorene’s adobe house, and all the good comforting memories that took place in that house. Never understood till now why grandpa Roy sold the house after she died. He understood his own space. It’s not only how we arrange things in an environment, but also what we bring into it. When the heart of the house leaves, what is left but an empty space?
And finally, I also remember my childhood house and the slow transition from one brother leaving, to the next and then mother leaving to take care of her father, and finally me. As one by one left the space, the spirit of the house changed until when it was finally empty, it was empty. It became a cold shell of a memory, which still haunts me in my dreams.
All these spaces, all these homes and memories, never one home to stay in one place forever. The home sometimes homeless itself, yet continues always to follow the heart wherever the heart should take us.
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| The dividing line
There seems to be many crossroads in life, forks in the road and many paths that lead to one place or the other- sometimes to the same place. Many roads lead to nowhere, but the journey was essential to know that even nowhere has a road to it- just no road through it.
But the dividing line, well that is something that once you cross, you can’t comeback. Even if you do re-cross that line, it’s not the same. Life has changed the place or life has changed you.
The entrance to adulthood was a slow walk out of town. I thought I was an adult when I was 18- but now looking back, what vanity I had as a teenager! Yes, I thought I knew beyond my years, but now I know that was the folly of my youth. I am now coming to the realization that I am an adult, and I don't know anything. Silly me, if I had only known, maybe I would have relished the lack of responsibilities that I had then, compared to what I own now.
The dividing line is adulthood. I can’t go back to my youth.
It was so fun to touch the beginning of freedom when responsibilities were few. It was so beautiful to be in a different country when someone else was paying the big bill.
And now, when I think of being free, I think of being free of my responsibilities to everything. There are so many things that tie me down to this earth, and I want to fly…but at what expense would I be willing to untie myself? Nothing is free, even freedom.
I am passed the dividing line, no turning back to the youth of my past. Now what faces me are roads, paths, byways, highways, one-ways, trails, scenic routes…and choices, so many choices.
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