Tuesday, September 11, 2012

9.11.12


Sunday, September 09, 2012

art is good.

today, seeing as we were no longer under a tornado watch, I headed to brooklyn with a friend who had mapped out the studios of several artists taking part in Go art brooklyn or Go brooklyn art...anyway, this painting is called Empire and was in Jennifer Delilah's studio along with some very cool drawings of crows and very odd paintings of half-bird/half-humans doing nasty S&M type things to each other. All very cool. We visited 10 studios total before we were just too tired. It was my first extended trip to W'burg in ages that didn't involve a rock show or someone's party.  Lots of glass/ugly modern buildings going up (same as the E.V.) and lots of cool spaces for making art.  I could never live there - can't imagine what it would be like there at night or in winter. Some of the art we saw was wonderful, some not.  I really liked Gary Mellon's wood work (garymellon.com), Lynda White's masks arts.lyndawhite.com & her VERY cool skeleton king sculpture, Ryan Scully's paintings (ryanscully.net), and Clark Goolsby's  big puppet man (clarkgoolsby.com). Overall it was a great "field trip" and it was good to see so many people making things in this city full of people who mostly seem to just be about how much money they can make and how much stuff they can amass.  Last weekend a friend described me as a "stuff" person & looking around my tiny apartment I guess that's true. The stuff in my life though is made up mostly of books, things people have given me (rattlesnake skin, horse skull, hand made pottery, pieces of art), and then I have some shoes and some clothes (though not many for a woman living in NYC), and lots of cups to put tea in.  Most other things are in storage or sold or given away.  Seeing all these artist's spaces I see how much different and how similar my little space is - lots of odds & ends & photographs & stones from hikes & shells from the ocean & whatever else will help me make stories.  I'm not a painter so I don't have all their tools but that same need to have more than the basics, more than bare walls and a few pieces of furniture.  Of course, if I had a house, it would seem very empty indeed.  These are the things all this viewing of art has made me think about.  That and the description (somewhat inaccurate) of me as a "stuff" person.  Most of the artists we met were very nice people - some awkwardly charming, some trying hard to be hip, and some just nice people making good art.

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Saturday, September 08, 2012

of tornados and summer's end

somehow it's september. today nyc is under a "tornado watch" which allows me to avoid being social and instead stay inside nursing my post-teaching hangover.  something about the whole experience of facilitating a writing workshop. in brooklyn. on a saturday morning.  just leaves me tired.  NY1 is busy celebrating their 20th anniversary. I don't think I watched them much until 9/11.  Tuesday will be the 11th anniversary. shortly before 9/11, I was seriously considering leaving nyc for australia. and yet, here I remain.  still not sure why.  The fall semester in both my grad programs starts about now.  my over-priced textbook hasn't yet arrived and the online readings won't load so that's one class down.  the other one starts monday night.  and a 3rd - about mid-way through the semester.  meanwhile, re-working one of the four failed novels I've written in the past few years.  read something somewhere about research and fiction.  how sometimes it helps. how some writers think it's a bad idea. not sure how I feel about this having done both.  "write what you know" but look some stuff up while you're at it? I don't know how writers have the patience to deal with agents -  people who can't write themselves but have no problem telling me what/how to write? okay, sure. why not.  what's really on my mind today: summer's over. that seems impossible to me but there it is.  I spent most of July in Ireland with a group of students from NYU. maybe I'll write about it on here at some point. post some photos. maybe. next time (if there is a next time), I'll definitely go with less people.  something about a crowd of Americans - a crowd of any people - makes me seriously uncomfortable.  not to mention the reactions we got from the locals.  I did read a lot of good books this summer.  will probably post some reviews here at some point. Today I plan to avoid the phone, maybe watch a movie, and do some work.  maybe write another story about a boy name Fred. although I wrote one this morning about a girl named Florida. she seems to want to stick around so maybe I'll write about her instead.  meanwhile: the Tornado Cometh (or not).

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