Stranger on the Line

A year or so ago something strange happened.  Every day around eleven in the morning, my phone would ring, I would answer and there would be no one on the line.  No sound, no voice, just silence.  After awhile I came to expect that phone call, some days it was the only one I got. There were days when it was the only time I spoke.  

Those few seconds became moments in my day when I wasn't expected to be anyone's anything, just to answer.

Sense of Something Coming

Sense Of Something Coming

I am like a flag in the center of open space. I sense ahead the wind which is coming, and must live it through. while the things of the world still do not move: the doors still close softly, and the chimneys are full of silence, the windows do not rattle yet, and the dust still lies down. I already know the storm, and I am troubled as the sea. I leap out, and fall back, and throw myself out, and am absolutely alone in the great storm. -Rainer Maria Rilke

Sebastian Gone Blanche

"No wonder you smoke marijuana, I never knew your life was that way."

Her words hit me harder than I wanted to let her know.  The truth of it was that most of the time, I smoke to numb that sharp feeling that life isn't supposed to be this way.  It helps me remember that there is something out there, out beyond the world that this house has become.  Once you step into this house, you're in Africa.  Out there is America.  You're not American, you're African.  Said without a choice, no room for argument.  There was no or, no room to grow or decide.  Two steps in the wrong direction and the entire "family" knows.  Your life circles the globe and the tutting and the judgments can be felt before you know it.  The anxiety of "What will people at home say? Like they've forgot that this is the only home you've ever had, and home doesn't even feel at home because who you are doesn't fit in this "home."  The house you live in is less of a home and more of an empty building for the stuff that don't really matter, a place for people to stare at the space you fill, to interact with a cartoon version of the you that you are.  You're part of the scenery, a pretty picture on the wall of someone that might have been.  Smile pretty and be quiet. 

Someone I know from school once posted on Facebook "Its odd to see even the most outgoing person shut down." And that was only from too much Tylenol with Codeine.  What happens when that same person comes home and shuts down because they're meant to be seen and not heard?  What happens when that same person shuts down because being too ambitious makes them "crazy?"  But what do they know?  It happens. Sometimes I just don't have enough energy for you and for me hun.  Sometimes I just want to be that way.  I can't be who you want me to be for you and be who I need to be for me too.

I guess I'm crazy, that's apparently what my family told everyone.  That's fine.  I'll be crazy in the corner.  I can live with that.  Being crazy means they all look past me.  They just point and laugh.  "Her? She's nothing, just a pretty face in the corner, such a shame, she should be married by now, but she's just a tad loopy, we'll never find anyone to marry her."  What does it matter?  The weed is good today, spurred on by the hash I added to it.  What does it matter?  On my own it all makes sense.

Turnt Up!/Are You Shpongled?

I love my job.  I love it.  There's nothing on the Earth like it.   The people that I meet, and the discussions had will probably shape me more than anything.  I work at one of the largest art schools in California, in the fashion department of all places.  Its the dream come true job.  I'm the noticeable nobody.  The person everyone sees, but don't really know.  Almost everyone sees me, but not very many people know me.  I walk past you, you look, I smile and I flounce off.  One day I'm dressed like a monk, the next only fate knows.  Most times I don't talk, once in awhile I do.  I'm well dressed without looking stuffy, edgy yet timeless.  I'm part of the scenery, but you love it.  A day might not be a day without me. 

This room and its members have shaped me, changed me, broke me and then put me back together again.  I've been everything I've ever wanted to be: desert princess, woodland fairy, neo-Twiggy, gothic Lolita, African Barbie, ballerina, hip-street kid, even a long poofy skirt or two.

I wonder what this room will bring me in 2014.

Drugs, Dragons and Duff

I was woozy from the vape hits and the Tylenol with Codeine.  I felt miserable mentally but my cramps were gone.  Floating around in my head made me feel like a mermaid in my own mental sea. This wasn't the time for floating though, my final was in 2 hours and floaty me hadn't cracked a book all semester.  I floated by on sheer panache and everyone loved yet hated me for it.  

Doesn't matter anyways.  I'm just here floating by.  Floating in a mental sea.  The world hustle and bustling by.  I can't believe I grew up for this.  

Class.  I hadn't given a shit about class since him.  But then, even then I didn't so much care about the classes, I cared about him.  Truthfully, I missed him then, and floaty me misses him more.  Shit, I'm a total mess. A fucking Bridesheady mess.  My parents are pretending they're still married and my life is an empty meaningless mess.

 

Lawrence of Arabia/Still Inspired

Earlier today I found out that Peter O'Toole died at age 81.  I couldn't tell you why, but last year I became completely obsessed with the movie Lawrence of Arabia.  I happened to have downloaded a free online movie and TV show app and at the time, it seemed the only thing almost watchable, well that, and the last thing I thought would be Arabian would be a blue eyed blonde man, so with that, I decided to see if it was just a case of Hollywood male stereotypes.

What I found was a story almost out of a geek's dreams.  Your first glimpse of  Lawrence is of him painting a map in what he calls "a nasty dark little room."  His bearing seems like in person you might have found him a pompous annoyingly overeducated twit in person, but he took himself seriously.  His ambition at the beginning of the movie didn't suit where he was, and suddenly, his life put him in the right spot where who he is and what needed to be done matched up perfectly.  Truth was, he belonged in the desert.  He was a stranger in a strange land who finally found his land, but was still a stranger.  That's got to be a hell of a life, being alien where you feel most at home. 

You'd wonder why I love this movie so much.  Its because in the darkest most strange parts of it, there's a look on Peter O'Toole's face that transcends time and space.  When he's in the desert staring off into the void, there's something there that most humans will never long to understand.  There's a special alone in greatness that makes someone and breaks them too.

"I can't answer for the place, only for myself." So true Mr. O'Toole.  The world sells us dreams of money and stuff, of shiny new gadgets and gizmos, but I can't answer for the place, only for myself.  I don't believe that I can change everyone out there, only myself.  I've learned a lot in the past few months.  I've learned that I have a dream that's possible in this world.  Other people have done similar things, and with half a much stuff as the world says that they needed.  Maybe that's the paradox of our age.  We spend money and time on things that in the end we really don't need.  We have the technology to end hunger and poverty, but we spend it making people homeless and hungry.  There's enough for everyone out there, except if you're a minority, gay, handicapped or in other words less than what we think perfect is.  But still, I can't answer for the place, only for myself. 

Yesterday I admitted that my one luxury is a cup of Starbucks, but I know I could learn to do with less.  Its a habit that is probably holding me back.  Each cup of coffee is $5.  That's money I could've spent of art supplies or given to someone who is hungry, put them aside for a rainy day.  I guess I'm changing.  I'm thinking differently.  The world is slowly becoming a different place.  These days alone isn't so lonely, just quiet.  These days, I'm trying to care less about the fancy life our society sells.  Maybe there's something else out there besides that life, besides the BUY BUY BUY that they sell us between our favorite TV shows and on our morning commute.

I wan to learn what else there is.  Outside the world of oversexed and over-photoshopped.  What experiences are left for me?

Request Line

"This is a request Mr. Radio Man
Just one desire from a hip-hop fan, hey DJ! hey DJ
Play a record by my favourite band."
-Request Line by the Black Eyed Peas featuring Macy Gray

Life has a weird way of answering you if and when you decide to ask it questions.  You might or might not like the answers because the path is harder than the one you're willing to take, but life also has a strange way of becoming un-bearingly simple if you continuously take the easier path.

In my everyday life, I'm an illustration model for a fashion school.  I love my job, its the part of my week that I look forward to the most.  Understandably, its also the part of my week that I stress about the most.  I stress over what I'm going to wear, what poses I'll be able to do, if there's anything I could do to be better, but its a stress that I could and should probably learn to embrace.

I know that people have a rather glamorous ideal of what life as a model is really like. People think its all runways and designers, couture dresses and movie stars, but my life is nothing at all like that.  The only glamorous dresses I come across are the ones I walk past in the display case for student work, and the only fashion designers I know are still 'aspiring.'  There aren't any movie stars and even though I have a face that's worth looking at, my height makes runways an improbability.  I don't starve because I want to be skinny, most days I starve because I simply can't afford to eat.  My amazing made for fashion body is only the way it is because I'm too poor to gain weight.  The pain I deal with after work isn't anything anyone would want to photograph, but I love my job.

This morning, as I counted pennies to make it onto the train to work through bleary eyes (it was really early in the morning and sleep and I aren't friends) I prayed to the Universe for a sign that I should continue doing what I love even if my life is hard.  When I got to work, the teacher I work with gave me a hug and a plastic bag with a sweater set from Italy from the 80s.  This man single-handedly started my career.  When I had less hours than I do now, and I could barely afford to sneeze, he was the first to ask for me to model for his classes. I thought that was enough of a sign, but looking around at the student's portfolios, I saw more pictures of me than I expected.  I saw stuff from students who could barely draw 15 weeks ago.  On the way home a 70 year old man randomly told me "Do what you're passionate about in life.  You're young enough to make it work." Lastly, on the way home from work, a friend of mine gave me enough food to last until next week and she told me to come back if I needed more, and then she gave me $20 to make it to work next week.

The Universe answers if you let it.  Sitting here right now,  my life isn't picture perfect, most days the only moment of extravagance I can afford is a chai-tea latte from Starbucks. I'll never be rich, own fancy things, or walk a runway, but right now, this is the most grateful I've ever been for my life.  I'm blessed to have people who support me, people who have taken me into their lives and their family, or even said a kind word or two in passing.  I've lived to inspire people, to make people smile.  Maybe that's what matters over the money. 

I honestly believe that there's a way for me to do what I love and to live a lifestyle that is sustainable.  I don't believe that the Universe makes us to be miserable, but we as humans create our lives that way.  I'm hoping that the next year makes it possible for me to do what I love and to afford to eat at the very least.  That's what I'm asking the Universe for next.  Help me find a lifestyle that I love and sustains itself. 

Vibe My Tribe

Last week the world witnessed the death of a wonderfully inspiring man-Nelson Mandela.  And when it came time to bury this legend of a man, all eyes were on South Africa.  Laying a man of this magnitude to rest is an international affair.  This man single-handedly changed the face of the entire world.  He taught us all what strength and dignity really stands for.  His funeral would be viewed by billions.  But when it came time to make sure that everyone everywhere to come together to grieve the loss of the man who inspired millions, millions of deaf people were left out.

Yes, I'm sure you've already heard about it, but the sign language "interpreter" was a fraud.  As an African that is somewhat fluent in American Sign Language, I was horrified at what I witnessed.  What I saw wasn't the beautiful poetry of the language I learned to love in high school.  I was a mockery, a sham-empty signs with no meaning, conveying absolutely nothing.  It made me think of a line from Shakespeare:

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

that struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more.  It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing"

 

In that moment of seeing such a wonderful thing as someone's life turned into a parody shook me in a way that maybe, if I hadn't spent 2 years of my life learning to translate life into symbols and facial expressions and hand wouldn't have mattered in the least bit.  A tribe of people I had learned to identify with wasn't being "vibed" (In other words, they had been treated unfairly).  I remember the strange looks I got from my African family when I announced that I was quitting French to learn Sign Language.  It didn't go over very well.  It wasn't until my family learned how much money ASL interpreters make that they deemed my choice as smart.  I can understand underestimating just how important sign language may be if you're a hearing person, but to the deaf community, sign language is the only way they interact with the world.

 

 

When I sat down to write this blog post, I wanted to rant and rave about how Africans need to learn to embrace things outside of our culture because continuing on the path we're on is making it hard for the rest of the world to take us seriously, but now, as I sit here, I'm proud be to be able to sign, it makes me different. 

 

Its nights like this I wonder where my life is going.  I wonder what they'll have the opportunity to misinterpret. 

 

I hope its half as good as the life Nelson Mandela's interpreter messed up.

Shopping Malls/Winter

In my younger days (because people still tell me I'm young) I used to enjoy shopping malls.  Everything in clean lines and brand new, but now I spend more time in art stores than shopping malls.  The malls have nothing for me.  They used to reflect the things I must own to be the person I wanted to be, but now, I see mindless consuming, BUY BUY BUY!!! CONSUME CONSUME CONSUME!!! Does not match my inner voice of CREATE CREATE CREATE! There's an intrinsic power deep in creation, something different than that of simply making something.

Shopping malls.  No clocks on the walls, time flies and all you've done is meander through halls.  I never thought I'd dislike the experience of shopping like I do now.  I used to get high on the feeling of buying, the rush in acquiring new things was like a drug, but now the rush is gone, there was no purpose in all that buying.

I'm changing.  Changing in a way that I didn't see coming.  Changing from autumn to winter.  

Send me your love 

In a million different ways, send me your love.

Send it to me from the forest, amid the trees.

From the ocean, your kisses ride the salty breeze.

Send me your love from the hustle and bustle of the city.  Your steps like the beat of my heart.

Send me your love from a mountain top, arms outstretched closest to God but furthest from me.

Last of all, send me your love from the dawning of a new day, with crystal clear vision.

Papers spread all over the floor, Department of the Treasury catches my eye and zaps the remainder of my energy.  I wanted to do something creative, but the hum-drum hold music coupled with the seriously bureaucratic forms and letters splayed out in front of me shattered my mental scape.

I might as well go to class after this. My mood is shot. It was shot once I realised that this the papers and the forms was a bigger mess than she let on.  The dates didn't match her false cheer and now it was all dumped in my lap.

I had run away from what was in front of my wide eyes the whole time: Things were getting tough quickly.  Things were bad enough for me right now: on the verge of bankruptcy, feeling stuck and hopeless, just trapped.

Things will get better.

The Linda Lesson-Be Nice, Smile Twice.

My favourite designer (Julius Lumsden) once told me about meeting Linda Evangelista.  From the look on his face, I could tell she wasn't warm and fuzzy, the way she uses her face makes her seem like she's the anti-warm and fuzzy.

I learned a lesson from that moment: be nice, smile twice.  Linda Evangelista could get away with being the way she was because she was a product of fashion and her time.  These days when everyone everywhere could video tape you, be nice and smile twice.

I watched Kim Kardashian on TV yesterday and I saw something shocking.  She had made a promise to appear somewhere for her birthday, and her mom/agent Kris canceled.  Kim insisted on appearing even though it was her one day to rest.  For all she might be, I learned something from her too: Always appear when promised.

Thinking It Through-Mixed MEdia attempt #2

So far, so good.  The mixed media paper holds up like a champ and somehow I've developed enough patience to let separate washes of ink dry.  I'm not exactly sure where I want to take this next, but I'm learning that time does crazy things to art.

In the meantime that huge empty space at the bottom is calling out for something.

I love the colours on this piece, and I'm sure there's a way to come up with something like it that's eye popping that carries the Egyptian theme.  I have the same colours in gouache and I'm totally hoping the matte gouache looks nice against the watercolour-like ink and the graphite pencil on the face.

ArtIsT

Every so often, I get into my art.  I give up everything and go into my "art cave." The phone goes off, the vape comes on and I just go at it.  Until now I've never liked what comes out, always wanted to change my "style."  I guess things change, I change, but my style is a constant.  I'm learning to love it though.  Love it like a companion, like a friend.  I have to, we'll be together awhile.

My style started off as change.  In the third grade we learned cursive, and I was hyper-active.  My teacher switched my seat around a lot and the desks were in rows of two.  I always took notice of the handwriting of the kid next to me.  Serena had a nice flow to her cursive, the kind produced by a fluid wrist.  Tony had nice round bubble letters girly but proud. I adapted their letters into my own.  If I had know better then, I would've seen the makings of a graffiti artist, but life is funny, and it took years.

Change is hard, but it happens.  Sometimes changing is an art form all by itself.

Hippies and Chai-tea

"You ain't artsy-ER than me,

Cuz you speak real soft and drink chai-tea"

-"Artsy" by the Grouch

I would have never known about chai if it weren't for the hippies.  I'm a hazelnut macchiato type person, coffee is as coffee does.  Things change, people change, and I change.  

Changing takes space and time.  Space to become something new and time to get used to it.  I guess it takes a blind leap too.  

I've changed.  I wear sweaters instead of the latest fashions.  I buy paint.  I drink chai tea.  The world doesn't seem so big anymore.  I don't feel like I have to be bigger than I am, the world doesn't need big.

Mixed MEdia

I'm pretty sure I'm a mixed media type of artist.  I love being able to throw random colours somewhere and hope they interact ok.  I've learned some lessons but most of all this:  your surface matters the most.

This attempt started out awesome, as long as I stayed committed to markers.  Never stayed committed to one media before, can't understand why I would have that kind of random commitment now.

So I tempted myself and used colour pencils, then ink, then gouache.  By then I knew I was in too deep.  Lesson learned. 

So back to clean pencil lines. Boundaries and barriers on another surface.  But before then, some food a quick nap and a giggle.

He was right...this is gonna take awhile.

Attachment

Attachment is something we all face in life.  Attraction can sometimes lead to attachment and attachment to attraction, and after awhile you can be stuck.  Last year I learned this in the most spectacular way, and after being attracted I wanted to be attached-permanently.

Now there's nothing wrong with this, if the feeling was mutual, and in this case it was, but not on the level I was on.  This was an attachment that became a bit too...dependent and needy.  Those are unhealthy.  I'm learning this now, but to learn this, I had to see it in reverse.

My attachment and attraction perverted the nature of the relationship and pushed it to end.  But now after some time apart, I realise that my attachment was too unhealthy.  I expected her to supplement me in a needy way-I needed her, and no one should ever be needed in that way.  Its just so unhealthy and disgusting.

I learned this today in the strangest way.  There's someone I bonded with, felt attachment and attraction to, and then it went overboard.  Things shifted and now I'm feeling smothered.  I know the lesson.

TRIBë of Erös~The People of Love

It's so late that its early.  The floor of my studio is littered with scraps of tracing paper, bits of tape and hundreds of drawings tossed aside in a head that looks akin to demented cartoon sketches.

Graffiti writing in several stages.  From paperboy to piecer. That's the goal.  At least piece something on good paper.

For the last year I've battled my style, cried for realism when cartoony is all I had.  Berated for simplicity when I should have taken better notice of negative space, but then when you're wholly negative negative space is just space.

I guess that's how I felt in your absence.  I put you in that box labeled you love and expected you to fit it.  Cursed you for being you, wanted more, but couldn't take only what you gave, couldn't let go enough not to see that if I wanted more you I needed to give you a safe space to be you.  You've created that for me and I've yet to give you the space you deserve.  Maybe it's there somewhere, in a place neither one of I'd expected.

You said that you're a man and you're right, you said you were no Prince Charming and you were right again.

Still I love you.  Not the you that left, but the you that is floating out there.  The you that I might run into one day, shiny and improved, same you, just radiant.

Until then Nothing is Something Worth Doing...always.

A Letter to Narcissus

My Dearest,

I've seen you change so much in the past year,  I'm so proud of you.  I love your zest for life. I wish I understood you better.  You're such a beautiful person (that moustache makes you look like someone's dad) the smile behind it is ten years older.  Time has settled on you beautifully.  

I've lived a year beyond my wildest dreams and every second of every day I've missed your voice.  I've missed your very being. I think in time I've grown thirsty for you like water after a long hard walk in the desert.  You dream of the sea, and I of the forest. You of fish me of fairies and nymphs, but we both live under the same moon and the same sun.

I know you'll think I'm just a silly young thing with foolish notions of love, but however I know how I love you.  I love your moods, your mind, your soul and your spirit.

I used to think that I have big dreams and ambitions because I love you so, but now I know differently.  I have big dreams and ambitions and I love you.  Love should only add to the person you are, as you have added to my life.

I have nothing more for you than my love. But in all I know "Nothing is Something Worth Doing" always.

I wish I were bold enough to beg for a sign that this crosses the ethers and reaches you.  That I'm not drunk on the beauty of you.  I wouldn't know what to ask of you.  Nothing so grand as what I've asked for in the past, just you only you.

Love forever,

Your Goldmund

Dreams

Delusions of grandeur lead me to this.  Once in awhile the vapour dreams lead me to dancing in the kitchen.  Dreams aren't fluffy things in your head, they're written all over your body.  You can be that if you want.  They'll tell you it takes stuff you don't have, they're wrong.  They'll tell you it hurts, they're lying.  You only come this way once feel every fucking second.

There's that moment when you finally feel  connected to your life, the moment the veil lifts and you see yourself.

Thanks for the Giving

At every Thanksgiving, we stand up and state what it is we're thankful for. Everyone says "I'm thankful for my family, my friends, my life..." or some seriously dry and slightly revamped head-rehearsed version of the prayer.  This year it came to me and I said "I'm thankful for art, and experience." Everyone was silent and I blurted out "And fashion!!! Lets not forget that, dear God lets not forget fashion!" and everyone laughed.

God forbid we forget fashion! Please no!!! They might laugh, but to me, fashion is how I sense the world.  You'd never know it, but how people style themselves says everything about them.  The brands they buy, the way they wear their clothes and how they walk says more than they ever will and before they ever will (in most cases, there's always that one weirdo, the someone dressed as nothing.) Fashion has taught me of the past and where we are in it's repeating. It tells of where we have yet to go.  

So thank God for fashion, because there are so many other silly things I could be thankful for, but fashion has a lot of beautiful places to tell us, and wonderful secrets to hide.