Ode To A Friend

Letter To N.Y. 

For Louise Crane

In your next letter I wish you'd say
where you are going and what you are doing;
how are the plays and after the plays
what other pleasures you're pursuing:

taking cabs in the middle of the night,
driving as if to save your soul
where the road goes round and round the park
and the meter glares like a moral owl,

and the trees look so queer and green
standing alone in big black caves
and suddenly you're in a different place
where everything seems to happen in waves,

and most of the jokes you just can't catch,
like dirty words rubbed off a slate,
and the songs are loud but somehow dim
and it gets so terribly late,

and coming out of the brownstone house
to the gray sidewalk, the watered street,
one side of the buildings rises with the sun
like a glistening field of wheat.

--Wheat, not oats, dear. I'm afraid
if it's wheat it's none of your sowing,
nevertheless I'd like to know
what you are doing and where you are going.

by, Elizabeth Bishop

When I heard Ira Glass replay a piece with David Rakoff talking with Terry Gross on This American Life, Rakoff recited this poem.  And I cried, almost from the title, and thought of Suzanne.  For so many reasons.
I love that the combination of these things make me think of her.
Today is Suzanne's birthday and this is my ode to my friend.

Only Surround Yourself With Things You Know To Be Beautiful

{we had} learned for many years, like many artists, you don't sort of say well should I go in my studio today or I really don't have any good ideas maybe tomorrow I'd have a better idea. You go in your studio, if you don't have any ideas, you sharpen pencils. If you sharpen pencils long enough, you get an idea. -George Woodman

Some of my happiest, most reflective, float away on a thought, moments happen in my studio.  And it's because of all the things I'm surrounded by,

But it wasn't always a 'studio' in the proper sense of the word.  I haven't always had a 'studio' to retreat to.  So, it's really just being surrounded by my stuff.  (i cried when i watched the previously posted video, that's a guy who gets it!)  That's what makes me happy.  Makes me feel dreamy.
I realized, walking around our apartment tonight, I have a lot of stuff.  I cannot stress that enough.  But because I like a glass half full, I tend to think of it not as too much stuff, as some might think.  It's a lot of little stuff.  Really, I mostly collect smalls.  Mostly.

It's really just that I grow into a place.  And, it seems, we've completely grown out of the apartment we're currently in (see: video).  Looking back, I remember so well feeling like I had so much room to work.  Now, I feel like I could fill up five rooms of the same size, surrounding myself with found things and weird treasures and small talismans.

It seems as if there's no end to this ongoing collection.


Well,
I suppose,
I could stop bring things into my space...



Nah, that's never gonna happen.

This Is My Home

A man after my own heart.

(mom, turn up the volume and hit the little button in the corner that has the four little arrows!)

photo

...When it's over, I want to say 
all my life 
I was a bride married to amazement. 
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. 

When it's over, I don't want to wonder 
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.  

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, 
or full of argument. 

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

-

mary oliver 
when death comes

thanks bonbon via what possessed me

Opportunity Lands!

Have you SEEN this?!

If you haven't, I totally understand... you were out of the loop for a few days, no one told you we were going to space, you were super busy with all the things you have to do here, on earth.  I get it.  I, too, can get overwhelmed by all that's happening in my immediate surroundings, let alone the world, let alone what's going on in space!

But, now that you know.. aren't you excited?!

For me, all it took was one look at this photo.  To be in that room.  To feel that excitement! 

But now, really take in. Read slowly.
And realize: What it took to make {this} little Opportunity get to it's destination. What it took to make {the} Opportunity land. What it means for {the} Opportunity to have a "rock-vaporizing laser" oh yeah, and "other instruments", too, of course. It lays out a reasonable calender of time for {the} Opportunity to do what it needs to do. First {the} Opportunity makes a move in Mid-September ("at the earliest"), and the next dramatic move would go down in October or November. {The} Opportunity knows.

Okay, so I'm not going to become a person of space (is that what someone who works at NASA is called?), it's true.  But, I am going to very carefully understand what is happening here.  I'm going to apply it to my own current fluctuating, roiling, "careful and methodical" choices, fate, time and space and friggin go for it.

What's your opportunity?

Mail Art

I just know I have some mail art readers that peek into this little house in the clouds every once in awhile.  You, well, this is for you.  I love a good art benefit and I happen to love the purpose, the mission, behind The Prison Library Project so much so that it's inspired me to go looking for our own Prisoners Literature Project program here in Northern California.  Excited to get my volunteering on!

Considering the love and support of snail mail is part of 8mm ideas own mission statement ,  I couldn't pass this by.  I'll be working on and sending out at least two pieces (will post here or here when finished), partly to keep the USPS in business, as well!

Have fun, get your art on, and support a great cause to create a better world!

The Rules: The ones I actually try to follow

(this sign hung in the art room, stenciled by sister corita)

Immaculate Heart College Art Department Rules

Rule I Find a place you trust and then

try trusting it for awhile.

Rule 2 General duties of a student: Pull everything out of your teacher.

Pull everything out of your fellow students.

Rule 3 General duties of a teacher:

Pull everything out of your students.

Rule 4 Consider everything an experiment.

Rule 5 Be self disciplined.  This means 

finding someone wise or smart and 

choosing to follow them. 

To be disciplined is to follow in a good way.

To be self disciplined is to follow in a better way.

Rule 6 Nothing is a mistake.  There's no win and

no fail.  There's only make.

Rule 7 THE ONLY RULE IS WORK.

If you work it will lead to something.

It's the people who do all of the work all the time

who eventually catch on to things.

Rule 8 Don't try to create and analyse at the 

same time.  They're different processes.

Rule 9 Be happy whenever you can mage it.  

Enjoy yourself.  It's lighter than you

think.

Rule I0  "We're breaking all of the rules, even

our own rules.  And how do we do that?

By leaving plenty of room for X quantities." John Cage

Helpful Hints:  Always be around.  Come or go to everything.  Always go to classes.  Read anything you can get your hands o.  Look at movies carefully, often.

Save everything - it might come in handy later.

There should be new rules next week.

It's Friday. oh, how we dance