too many words too little time

My sister in '81 0r '82 after the Willie Nelson concert at MSU.

I've missed having time to write, especially since there are many thoughts and questions I've needed to pour into this volumn of words and deed:

Why did my sister survive Katrina to be hit by a car on Valentine's Day? Why does Mr. dd have a compulsion to rub together the satin edging on the blanket at the foot of our bed?? It is as subconscious and one twirling one's hair or scratching their beard... Why do my cats (different in age and breed) kneed the bathrobe my mother sent me for my birthday? Why am I so miserable in my brother's company? Does art matter? Why can't Hillary and Obama get it together and be running mates? How did Foamy survive the journey home for my sister's memorial? It wasn't easy. None of it is easy. I need a drink. Or drugs. Or a good laugh. Or best of all - all three at once.

There are a plethora of words I can begin to answer these questions with but it wouldn't bring my sister back or our democratic front runners together. Instead I've been trying to focus on my students and the immediate matters at hand and on the horizon- art, travel, taxes, my family, thank you cards, my needy cats and maintaining close communique's with my parents. It isn't easy but c'est la vie.

Where did October go?

The Bread and Puppet Theatre came to town a few days ago.
They aren't quite Jon Stewart but you know they are going
to be hitting all the relevant notes regardless of the
weather or the ratings. They are the real deal.

What have I been doing? Missing my blogtime, dealing with slow computers that have been overworked... dealing with a life that is overwhelming at the moment... coping with viruses and allergies that seem to be taking over our fair city... and praying for more rain.

birds and bees

We have many bees, ants, even a monarch or two in the garden these days. It gives me comfort. The world is a mess. Mr and Ms DD's infrastructure at home could use some retooling but as long as the birds and the bees find a welcoming environment we don't worry so much. Ok, Mr. DD does. I don't. When the wildlife disappears, well... it's time to question our protocals at home. When the animals leave I'll be right behind them. MANY years ago my dad proclaimed, upon my compaints about the backwardness of my homeland: "Daughter, Mississippi is last in everything. Its last in education and per-capita income, reading levels, etc, etc... and when the rest of the world goes to hell we'll be the last to go." It's weird. I am feeling that the rest of the nation has been following Mississippi's lead in regards to backwardsness - the difference is our D.C. leaders have their heads up their ass instead of looking over their shoulders.

I hope Papa DD is right since that's where we'll be headed when the going gets too tough for the birds and the bees and the Canadian Geese that have relocated to our neighborhood park. We keep our cats inside most of the time and if nothing else we'll need to look after their best interest!

My neighbor caught a rat in a trap this morning (maybe because we have cat's that can't roam the 'hood). That is one corner of the animal kingdom I don't wish to welcome into my domain. It was in his cage and it wasn't happy, screaming its displeasure. I was reminded of an article I read recently on the empathic, ticklish and competitive nature of rats. (If only the human versions running D.C. were so humane!)

le Execution of Marie-Antoinette

A distant cousin who is my father's age, has been corresponding with me via email. She sent me a surprising link today. Its only surprising because I've never imagined I had relatives whose political persuasions were somewhat like mine. All of the family I spent my childhood surrounded by were good, occasionally frustrating people but we usually didn't share the same political point of view. Religion, art and politics were definitely not dinner topics. We don't see each other very often so why would we want to spend our time in heated discourse?

As I've gotten older I've realized that I am not an alien. There ARE folks in my father's side of the family tree who see the world from a perspective that I can relate to. Hurrah!

My cousins response to the link above paralleled my response to the painting of Marie Antoinette's beheading when I first discovered it during March of 2006 in the Musee Carnavalet. Like my cousin, I consider myself to be against capital punishment but part of me, despite myself, believes that one of the reasons the French Government take care of their constituents and "listen" when the PEOPLE protest is because so many heads have fallen there and so much blood has been spilled on the cobbled stones of Paris.

If our leaders ever considered they could be held accountable for their sins and indiscretions
perhaps they'd at least listen to their consititents! In France when there is a protest or manifestation people of all ages and class either take to the streets or hide in their flats - because the government responds and believe me, I've been there. It isn't that different than most any Mardi Gras!

Since I had this epiphany that March I've realized that people here have spilled blood for their beliefs and, to my dismay, it seems to be the good guys who get the bullet. Lincoln, the Kennedys, MLK, Malcolm X... whether you agree with their politics of not these men worked hard and paid the price for standing up for their beliefs. Are there any honorable politicians in Washington? My fear is that even if they go in clean they'll get their hands so dirty surviving their compromises outweigh any good work they manage to do while in office. Are we fukced or what?

7:00am

left: from a sketchbook series created a number of years ago: "Message in a Bottle." collage, charcoal acrylic and graphite on paper

Many mornings a friend and I meet in a local park and walk very fast... she mostly talks and I listen and offer support as best I can. My verbal skills are far below mine or anyone's average early in the morning. If I could walk with an IV/Caffeine drip like some people walk with an ipod hanging from their neck we might all be better off.

This morning our conversation took a dangerous turn and a yellow warning light should have started flashing in my head... but no, I was too slow on the draw.

Soon, for a cause I have yet to determine, my friend turned and walked away and said she couldn't do this anymore! (talk to me, walk with me??!!) I was shocked though we do get into trouble when she asks questions, I answer and sometimes the answers upset her... BUT... mainly I listen to her. a little earlier this morning I told a story to try to illustrate a point and she said "you've always got a story, don't you?"
(It was a sad story, too...)

She came back at me and said I am "always just unrelenting - and so and so agrees - it makes us crazy... etc, etc." What?

We continued what has become a tearful walk for me and I listened and expressed my absolute distress because I realized (but did not express) that not only do I FEEL misunderstood most days... that I AM misunderstood. (this isn't the romantic tortured state an adolescent may feel when they first read that great line... Emerson, I think? This makes me think perhaps I am feeling a tinge of early alzheimers or someother disease that affects communication skills... a disorder of some kind?) Perhaps all this time spent working in the studio and in ateliers elsewhere has done more to weaken my communication skills rather than sharpen them.
Whatever... it hurts.

So - I came home and looked up the word unrelenting to try determine more specifically what my friend was referring to. These definitions popped up on Ask.com:

noun·re·lent·ing (ŭn'rĭ-lĕn'tĭng) pronunciation
adj.

1. Having or exhibiting uncompromising determination; unyielding: an unrelenting human rights worker.
2. Not diminishing in intensity, pace, or effort: an unrelenting ice storm.

Firmly, often unreasonably immovable in purpose or will: adamant, adamantine, brassbound, die-hard, grim, implacable, incompliant, inexorable, inflexible, intransigent, iron, obdurate, relentless, remorseless, rigid, stubborn, unbendable, unbending, uncompliant, uncompromising, unyielding. Idioms: stubborn as amuleox. See resist/yield.

unrelenting
adj

Definition: merciless
Antonyms: compassionate, flexible, merciful, relenting, sympathetic

Français (French)
adj. - implacable, acharné (une poursuite)

I now understand that I can be unrelenting when I believe in a cause but when talking to a friend about something I think is unimportant. Unfortunately it wasn't my intention to sound like any of the adjectives described above during our morning walk over something that really didn't affect either one of us in a direct way. I am baffled and then I am not.... more than anything I am frustrated.

If I had a nice cool cave behind my house I would hang out there all summer and make work. I'd tell everyone I am working on a residency in California and that is where I'd stay. No social contact... no telephone... maybe internet access and a good library and a garden roof - for napping. My ideal summer. We'll see.

Commemoration Delegation

Mr. dd set aside 24 hours of his life to interview people on Monument Ave regarding their feelings about the Robert E. Lee Monument. It also happened to be Confederate Commemoration Day which wound up being a gathering of all the Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy from the Mid-Atlantic Region. It was a warm day and I was concerned some of the octogenarian re-enactors would suffer from heat stroke in their gray wool uniforms.

When I was a child the Civil War always seemed to be part of another era for me - a time that didn't affect my life... well that was before I moved to Virginia. As a born and bred Southerner who has made my way in and out of many foreign lands throughout my life - usually alone - I consider myself as much a wanna-be expatriot as an American these days... a somewhat worldly person... until someone begins to make fun of these strange confederate re-enactors! Its a strange reaction... I don't understand it myself. Perhaps its just genetic. Many men in my family fought in that war and none of them had slaves... I have little or nothing in common with most of these people parading down the Avenue. I don't dig NASCAR or motorcycles or civil war romance novels.... and I am sure we probably vote very differently on most everything.... still... I believe they have the right to gather and commemorate their ancestors and I don't think its funny. I don't really get them, but I don't think its funny.
My husband believes that the great poet Robbie Burns inspired the southerners of Scotch-Irish Descendents to fight for states rights during the "great war." As long as it's been and as much water has passed under the bridge since that time our nation has really never come to terms with this part of our history... for me it's just one more clue as to why the conflicts in Iraq and elsewhere never really heal. Class, race and religion are the fuel of most political fires... and not topics most political parties support their platforms with.
One woman we know suggested that instead of interviewing people at Mr. Lee's Monument he interview people at the new tri-city International Slavery Reconciliation Monument in Shockoe Bottom. An excellent suggestion except he would have to approach people with windshield wiper tools at the intersections to get them to stop and talk. That Monument is placed in the middle of a very heavily trafficked piece of roadway.

My favorite response was from an older African American gentleman. He said "Its just a man on a horse."

Finally, as a big SUV circled the Monument - as it is in the middle of a European-style round- a-bout - the young black man inside yelled out "I'm Free, Free at Last!" I thought to myself well that's another blessing we can count. We're all free - for the time being, anyway.

taking time to smell something other than the coffee

taxes, spring cleaning, meeting deadlines, marking calendars, attending and traveling to weddings, meeting print schedules, finishing freelance projects, grading, gardening, teaching, building, planning, petting, caretaking, daughtering, wifeing (barely), but most important... WALKING. it is a constant in our life... more than coming and going to work or even art making.

it is the thing that gets us from place to place and from a foul mood to a better one. i don't know how i cannot walk when it is the best option. i felt a little guilty on sunday when an old boyfriend asked me about one of our cars - which is sitting in an undriveable state and it has been for quite a long while. somehow i wound up explaining our love of walking (to divert attention from my negligence) and that we wouldn't even own a car if we it wasn't a necessity for reasons I won't go into (this is all true!) i realized as i was saying this that i was dissing his way of life and his livlihood...which wasn't intended. hey, my dad must have a car. transportation is essential for personal freedom whether its a good pair of shoes or reliable transportation. I prefer human powered transportation or public transportation whenever conditions are appropriate!

but, i'll tell ya... one can't smell the wysteria or the bartlett pear trees surrounding fountain lake if one is enclosed in a metal box on wheels. it serves its purpose but it certainly isn't the only way to get around and it is often not the best way to get around... for us, anyway.

Mood Music

I found an art blog more eclectic than mine with the file above embedded. Someone commented on his blog asking if this clip was posted in honor of President's Day...

Playing the hand you are dealt

The past two summers I've made long excursions to spend some time with Toulouse Lautrec. I've always loved his work and really paid little attention to the story behind the work until last summer. Students murmered about his affection for prostitues and show girls as well as his afflictions which all work to sell his story but without the whole story it's just sensational
gossip.

I didn't know that Toulouse's parents were first cousins and that his afflictions were caused by a genetic disease. He died in his early 30's in his mother's home in southwest France. She was very devoted to him and donated his estate to a museum in Albi which has the largest collection of his work anywhere. A writer friend with a background in medicine suggested that many of his health problems sounded more like the result of his mother being infected with syphillis than anything else. Said writer also said that prostitutes were common methods of birth control at that time and wives were often victims of their husband's indiscretions.

What bothered me about this conversation is that everyone wanted to talk about Toulouse's scandalous family and no one had much commentary on his painting or brilliant work as a printmaker. Art is work. Painting and printmaking is toxic, back breaking work for anyone - but much harder for someone lacking physical strength. Such endeavor requires faith and passion that can fade so easily even in the best of circumstances. Lautrec's work was vibrant, provocative, sexy and REAL. Its is an unflinching view into a world that is long gone.

If only...

Let them eat cake? Swiss cheese!

Strange art for strange times: sculpture depicting babies...
left a baby Charles Manson and right (crawling) a baby Michael Jackson.

No, this isn't a post about cheese all of you foodies out there. If I were to write about cheese it would be an earthy, creamy Roquefort. Last night we made the First Friday art opening and it was a slow, predictable evening. I made the effort (art openings are work for me) in hopes of seeing some good work, running into friends and maybe even meeting a few new people. I haven't been around for the past six months I mad managed to stoke a glimmer of hope for the evening.

We ran into a little of all of the above but finally wound up at a local restaurant with a lovely swiss photographer we've known for many years. She chose to move BACK to the states after working in Berlin for 5 years is now regretting her decision. (She attended graduate school here in the 80's. ) Many things have changed in this country over the past 5 years and they don't seem to be getting better. This feeling was amplified by the fact that she was just in Switzerland where her friends our age have the same kind of jobs we have, make two or three times what we make salary wise and live and eat at about 1/2 the cost of what we spend. Of couse if they have a car they pay a premium for that. No, I've never been to Switzerland but I've befriended many, many Swiss over the past ten years... each so very different, so talented, so articulate. They seem to be born of a place that is what America once aspired to be... Democratic, Neutral, Pluralistic, Diverse, Middleclass. What has happened here? How have we let this happen?

One of things really bugging my friend, I realized, is that an old friend of hers moved back here from S.F. Her friend never finished her university degree and didn't have much job experience. She finally found a job an art director at Capital One. She makes 60K a year doing direct mailing for them. Mr. DD is the senior writer for a magazine he has written at for 13 years and he makes a little more than half that and gets only two weeks of vacation a year. We all know what teachers and nurses make. Its a national f*^ck#$g tragedy, to quote NOLA's Ray Nagin.

One of our favorite new toys is a key chain called "Mayor in da Pocket." It has six buttons, each of which features a memorable Nagin post Katrina sound bite. Its hilarious. I must confess I was hoping he would win the mayoral election to extend the comic relevance of our new toy. (I really didn't think Mitch could do much better anyway....)

After four months in Paris, listening to my Swiss friend's rant and hanging out in the home of a friend who is a card carrying (and newsletter recipient) member of the green party I have made a conscious decision to a) opt out on all credit card mailings I get in the future. I am sick of it.... the waste... the risk.... the clutter in my mail box... and b) join the Green Party.

I've always believed in the Green Party but never made the effort to be a paying member. I may not vote green in National Elections (I would vote for a martian to avoid putting another Republican in Office) but I will give the Greens anything I can afford to give them and vote for them on the local and state level whenever I get the chance. Go Green!

before too long there is November

Two friends from home are visiting. Its given me a chance to look at parts of the Louvre I haven't seen in years. Its been good but hard since I have a show coming up in a few weeks and its been difficult working around our their schedule. It'll all work out and I know they are still in a state of jet lag.

I must have faith or patience... time will tell.

The Real Deal

I've posted the image posted above on my studio door. Its nice to have an image that demonstrates my point of view that transcends language and point of origin!