cobaltika

looking forward with current vision.

maybe these photos from the wetlands last weekend were not a true accident. but instead are relevant? well. if that were absolutely true, they would be much darker, less colorful and much more blur. i am always rather retarded about camera settings, but the accident of forgetting to turn off the macro seems to have created … nailpolish pictures! and this *does* seem representative of my feelings for the week. maybe some of it has to do with the blatant reminder that another year has passed, but more and more i am wondering what the hell i am doing with my one precious life. it seems NOTHING. going to my job each day, sitting there for 92 hours per day, with really not that much to do. awaiting payday. paying everyone. i’m not getting ahead. i’m barely keeping up. and there is not much chance of that situation improving. the artStuff. still sad. but i’m still forcing my hands to be busy each evening. just glueing shit down. rubbing gesso around. if nothing else, i will have a pile of prepared books stacked in a corner when they find me on my deathbed.

soon i may just have to take a leap. be brave. after all, when the girls left to go to school, and my income was reduced by 1/3 and i didn’t see how i was going to do it … i’ve done it. if my income were reduced by 1/2 could i still? GULP. (i don’t see how!!!) would i finally be forced to use my artSkills to create income for myself? would i be forced to live my DREAM? (or would i have to work the midnight shift at the KwikShop?) i don’t know. but i am considering finding out.

ok. maybe happier in general.

but not about everything.

the artStuff is breaking my heart. i didn’t want to think about it yesterday, because it is better to think about the good things on a day where it is easy to see how quickly the past 6 years have passed and does that mean the next 6 will pass as quickly and thinking of *that* number and wondering whether one would be any closer to one’s fucking Life. Long. Dream. than now? scary. waking-up-at-4:30am stuff. maybe writing will make it go out of my head.

for well over a year i have been *extremely* dissatisfied with my “artwork”. most of it is in the trash. or a box. there is nothing to show. i walk around constantly with ideas and images and possibilities in my head. i am constantly inspired. but my hands will not do it. i *am* adept and i am not dreaming outside reality, composing with materials i don’t have or things i am not capable of, etc. but my hands just Will. Not. Do. It. somehow there is a short somewhere between my hands and head again and i don’t know how to fix it.

i have been trying to work pale, with layers of transparent pales, for several years. color seems busy and dirty to me and i want pure. i can’t really describe. sometimes it has worked and i have been pleased, but of course i don’t want to make the same thing over and over. i want to progress. it is not that i am lazy and undisciplined. even with limited energy, and a companion, with whom it seems i do nothing but eat and watch Italian films and wander in nature and i’m not telling the rest, i sit myself down to the artTable several times a week after being at the office all day. i actually am doing *more* now, than i have been in the last year or so, where it was too easy to come home and plop down for the evening with a mystery and some wine and a bowl of white starch.

but i feel like i am moving backwards. i am not hypercritical of my own work. in fact, i am almost embarrassed how much i love it sometimes. i am known to secretly stroke a new piece and go “mmmmm”. i have a great tenderness for my images and my tangible work. just not lately. there is nothing good now. for over a year. yes, images. i like them still. but to me, they are not Tangible. until printed and matted, etc. and that is fine, but i want to *continue* them. objectify them beyond the traditional. maybe that is a bad idea? so i’ve tried to leave them out of new pieces, and just work with color and texture and abstractions. still … not working. so i end up piddling on a prepared book or some paper bits. wasting time. exercising, sure, but wasting …

my life.

and today i am the mother of yet another adult woman. well, a quasi-adult. my little Margaret is 18. the second greatest day of my life, when she was born.

i have been making lots of pictures. but i haven’t felt like (or had the time for) messing with them. my favorites might be the ones from the Swamp on Saturday where i forgot to turn off the macro setting on the camera and shot the distant sunflowers and amazing clouds. i swear i should just work with a point and shoot anyway. i am too befuzzled by mechanical things. then i remembered i now have my own permission to just write without popping an image into my page. oh! what freedom.

this is the day i traditionally do stuff like cut off my hair, make naked self portraits and engage in every selfish activity that i wish. but today was different. no office, but i had to go to take my first medieval art history exam. so i did. then walked home on a beautiful morning. passed a volkswagen camper van that was ready to go and for sale. lust. it was sunflower gold. on my block, heard a funny noise and there is my poet on my Black Belle bike. riding without hands! in his pockets, woolen socks for my gift. wheeeee! we walked downtown for lunch, then home, where i spent the afternoon at the artTable, making nothing worthwhile, mostly now in the trash, but so what. someday i’ll make something real again. we have dined on vegetarian whiteBean chili and birthday cornbread, my cake, loaded with corn, onions, peppers and cheese. such yum. now we shall watch a film on laptop theater. maybe one of the Antonioni’s?

so many things have changed this year. i am older. sillier.

and happier.

yesterday. the most amazing sky EVER. all day. errands and chores in the morning. sandwiches of garlic bread, cheese and avocado and rosemary potato chips. to The Swamp (which seemed more a Prairie at this time). wandering off the path through clouds of asters. wild sunflowers everywhere, arching over secret celebrations. the other side of the swamp equivalent to the other side of the equinox. changing leaves. the path with monarch guidance. timid turtles sliding into the brilliant duckweed. what a beautiful walk. riding high one barely needs the assistance of the mechanical eye to see (but it is such fun to capture and save). home to work. a long talk with margaret. real popcorn and Il Grido on laptop theatre. sweet dark sleep.

today. work study work study. (heh. probably.)

note to self: more Antonioni please. what visuals!

treasures are to be found when one finally manages to leave the house early enough to take a route that is not the fastest and also remembers to put new batteries in the pencam. marigolds! along with zinnias, my favorites! hundreds of them. i will go back with another camera this weekend. but the pencam was pleased this morning. as was i.

so happy for friday. even the friday of a working weekend.

today an impulsive visit to a pumpkin farm occurred. i had never been to one. yes, really! what a crappy mother! has never taken her daughters to a pumpkin farm? my friend traci came along with me for some errands and then we decided to go. we had cameras of course. and she had A CREEPY DOLL! my first chance to shoot a creepy doll! it was muddy and freezing cold out there but what fun!

: : : : : : :

i don’t really think it is *that* morbid. i think he is rather beautiful. we were able to be very close to him and see the texture and color of his fur which was quite amazing. he was not visibly damaged. in fact, appeared to be napping at the edge of the road. the crossing and gesture of his front paws is graceful and what i admired most. he is heavily cropped, so the open eye that eliminates the fantasy of a creature merely at rest is not visible.

i am up too early. no oversleeping today. further contemplation of yesterday’s dream occurred. even after writing the details, it became clear that the act of having to get all the organizing of the photos and negatives complete before clearing the path to the open door (out of the “office”) was obviously about my failed “plan”. that by the time the girls left home, i would have my debt and life in order and be “free”. ha. NOT. it has not happened. and i am no closer. only more fearful and bound.

my poet and i dined on southwestern soup, ideas and possibilities last evening.
and white peaches for dessert.