a revisiting of my mfa design grad thesis (not boring)

really surprisingly not a boring thesis. much of it already exists in various forms on the initial portions of this blog (back track to 2006). it reminds me both of where i've been and that it is time to more fully embrace where it will lead me.

a small two cents

"advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't." --erica jong

"sometimes when we get angry enough at being treated as if we are small (very often when we feel small and unheard, it is not because we are small and unheard but because we are acting small and unheard), we get brave enough to trust those who think--and say--we might be big. one slight too many and we finally say our true name, but we "swallow" a lot of anger first."--julia cameron

i don' t remember swallowing anger. i remember my own internal frustration. i remember a slow constant exhaustion. i remember trying to have the smallest footprint i could. i remember trying to be as low maintenance as i knew how. i remember not asking for things i may have wanted or needed help with. i remember trying to not rock the boat. i remember trying not to cause true displeasure. i remember trying to be safe. i remember trying to tell the truth. i remember being a pattern seer. i am not saying i was successful with my trying. i am not saying i tried in appropriate ways.

but i remember my own frustration.
i remember my own exhaustion.
i remember trying to be small.

was there a slight that occurred that i somehow did not cultivate? no. where there slights that weren't slights at all but crushed me none the less because i tried to be small? sure. were there slights i experience because of my own need to be small? of course. whenever i tried to be the size i am, it scared me and i shrunk.

graphic design was a foray, a dipping my toe in the waters, into testing my true size but it still made room for me to hide and be small in my anonymity. i started being my size when i allowed through guidance of graduate school my design to become my own (cheryl, fiona, beckett, ray, teresa, trishadeaux, eddy) which in turn allowed me to risk making bad art (padgett, orto, jimenez, kittleson, jacobs). in the bad art, i found i could uncurl and uncrouch from my self induced smallness. as i stretched out testing my extremities, it unsettled me and those who loved me in my smallness. absolutely they wanted me to be my true size. yet none of us knew what that was. there was a sense of unsureness as to whether this might reveal something in me as good or all shadowy and bad. so there was a tension between allowing and disallowing, between encouragement and shame.

some things i noticed even then was a dwindling of the many unhealthy things i did to say, "please, please see me." the strange list of "see me"s that were shrinking were ferocious diet coke burping, crass humor, flumpy but cool tomboy attire (i thought) that cost next to nothing in the circles i ran in, boy clunky shoes, the many, many ways i denied my own femininity, pretending as hard as i could that i didn't really care that i would never carry a baby in my womb, unkempt hair, trying way to hard to be witty and appear smart and that nothing could hurt my feelings. these things diminished as i no longer desperately needed to be smaller than i am.

though many days i would really like to be small again. it feels safe and i miss terribly the friends of my historical small self.

as a part of not being safe in this moment, as a part of trying not to curl back up, not being smaller than i am, i write. today i write because i have not been doing so. not doing so is a definite shrinking back. writing is part of being my true size, not being small or invisible. it still frightens me. i realized this morning when i was emailing a fellow writer friend some of my students' writings and said, "i am not writing right now, so i am making my students write," that i need to writing. writing, rights me. so today i write.

what is this strange thing i stumble upon late in life

i have always come to the dance late, unsure
a bit slow, awkward
i step in holes
and on feet
i fall

so what is this thing of poetry?
i don't really know
not really interested in googling
someone else's definition
i have not been prone to read it
when i do, i find most to be disconnected
but a few plunge me deep into being alive
i usually weep when i read these
some i can only respond by
writing back

i wept when i read judith krull's the clothes

Of course they are empty shells, without hope of animation.
Of course they are artifacts.

Even if my sister and I should wear some,
or if we give others away,

they will always be your clothes without you,
as we will always be your daughters without   you.

i respond
to excerpts of rilke

The transformed speaks only to relinquishers.
All holders-on are stranglers.

thomas merton

'then what do you know about our courage and our fear? Where do you come from? What is the basis of your statements about us? You say you wrote what you see, but no two men see the same street here. What do you see that you write? What do you mean when you talk about our courage and our fear?'

'i am still trying to find out: and that is why I write. '

'how will you find out by writing?'

'i will keep putting things down until they become clear.'

'and if they do not become clear?'

'i will have a hundred books, full of symbols, full of everything I ever knew or ever saw or ever thought.'

'If it never becomes clear, perhaps you will have more books than if it were all clear at once.'

'no doubt. But i say if it were all clear at once, I would not really understand it, either. Somethings are too clear to be understood, and what you think is your understanding of them is only a kind of charm, a kind of incantation in your mind concerning things. This is not understanding: it is something you remember. So much for definitions! We always have to go back and start from the beginning and make over all the definitions for ourselves. '

jerry webber

My life cracks open.

I stand in it,
careful not to run.

or mary oliver

Listen -- are you breathing just a little
and calling it a life?

but what is it
what is this thing i only read
when for some other reason than my own seeking
it sits below my swimming searching hunger
what is it
that pulls and tares at the threads
of my being

what is it
this thing called poetry

it is an uncovering
laying bare

laying bare my physical senses assaulted by vividness of being, here
laying bare my depth of intertwining and lack of being, with
laying bare the throbs of life and death that enter me, my being

it invites other into this space of laying bare
and in this bare-ness of being
if it is powerful
if the language wraps round
guides and tugs
lingering in the folds of living
if it is real enough
raw enough
it connects and reconnects me to a living presence

but why do i partake
why do i write

no different

it is to uncover
i so want to know
lay bare
i so want to see
lay bare my physical senses in the ways they ground me in presence
i so want to be immersed, grounded
lay bare my depth of intertwining and lack of
i so want to feel its threads, its roots
to smell the fragrance of life deep within
lay bare the throbs of life and death that enter me
i so want to move into presence of being
to be awake, alive
bare and connected

to see, feel, smell, taste the threads of these living, anchoring, fluid connections

is this different than my making, my art
no different
is this different than my seeking, my faith
no different
is this different than my being, my living
no different

it is not drama
it is entering a living presence
and i want to be present
i want to be living

yet in these my primary internal drives
i find my own oddity

i have no habit of reading (poetry)
and haven't really cared to spectate
i have no habit of to go viewing
and haven't really cared to spectate
i have no habit of claiming a knowing that i know,
and haven't really cared to spectate
i have no habit of history or current events
for i haven't cared for this form of what i experience as a nonliving, a spectating
yet i know i "need" to spectate upon these things
for there is living in the things i call nonliving

there are
the runners before
the runners now
i know they will move me
i am a runner
but not a racer
i do not need to be ahead of you
i am willing to step aside to let you fly
but i am looking for my pace
my own limping gate
the one in which when i find myself old and withered
i am still running in the writing, making, seeking, loving
i am living even if i limp

this laying bare is a digging
i have been digging for as long as i can remember
for i am a digger but not of backpacks or cartrunks
i am a digger in laying bare
this can be frightening and threatening
some misunderstand it as judgment
for me it is simply a laying bare
of an unknowing knowing
through, sometimes, a not so gentle digging
and i am certainly not always "right"
but i am honest to what i can see in the bare-ness
sometimes i have thought what lays there bare
must belong to my history, my habits, my internal home my own running
and spent decades trying to see how and how to heal from this thing exposed
only to discover that what lay there in the bare-ness belonged to another
it did not live in my history, my habits, my internal home, my running

i am honest in my seeing
but my understanding can be blurred with an unknowing
missed-understanding

laying bare is my work
my running
my being
my ground
my digging
my dance

in it is my call

i must find a way around Søren Kierkegaard's definition of the poet.

Waiting a poem and performance by Faith Wilding (Womanhouse)

Waiting
A Poem by Faith Wilding
(early 1970s)

Waiting . . . waiting . . . waiting . . .

Waiting for someone to come in
Waiting for someone to hold me
Waiting for someone to feed me
Waiting for someone to change my diaper Waiting . . .

Waiting to scrawl, to walk, waiting to talk
Waiting to be cuddled
Waiting for someone to take me outside
Waiting for someone to play with me
Waiting for someone to take me outside
Waiting for someone to read to me, dress me, tie my shoes
Waiting for Mommy to brush my hair
Waiting for her to curl my hair
Waiting to wear my frilly dress
Waiting to be a pretty girl
Waiting to grow up Waiting . . .

Waiting for my breasts to develop
Waiting to wear a bra
Waiting to menstruate
Waiting to read forbidden books
Waiting to stop being clumsy
Waiting to have a good figure
Waiting for my first date
Waiting to have a boyfriend
Waiting to go to a party, to be asked to dance, to dance close
Waiting to be beautiful
Waiting for the secret
Waiting for life to begin Waiting . . .

Waiting to be somebody
Waiting to wear makeup
Waiting for my pimples to go away
Waiting to wear lipstick, to wear high heels and stockings
Waiting to get dressed up, to shave my legs
Waiting to be pretty Waiting . . .

Waiting for him to notice me, to call me
Waiting for him to ask me out
Waiting for him to pay attention to me
Waiting for him to fall in love with me
Waiting for him to kiss me, touch me, touch my breasts
Waiting for him to pass my house
Waiting for him to tell me I’m beautiful
Waiting for him to ask me to go steady
Waiting to neck, to make out, waiting to go all the way
Waiting to smoke, to drink, to stay out late
Waiting to be a woman Waiting . . .

Waiting for my great love
Waiting for the perfect man
Waiting for Mr. Right Waiting . . .

Waiting to get married
Waiting for my wedding day
Waiting for my wedding night
Waiting for sex
Waiting for him to make the first move
Waiting for him to excite me
Waiting for him to give me pleasure
Waiting for him to give me an orgasm Waiting . . .

Waiting for him to come home, to fill my time Waiting . . .

Waiting for my baby to come
Waiting for my belly to swell
Waiting for my breasts to fill with milk
Waiting to feel my baby move
Waiting for my legs to stop swelling
Waiting for the first contractions
Waiting for the contractions to end
Waiting for the head to emerge
Waiting for the first scream, the afterbirth
Waiting to hold my baby
Waiting for my baby to suck my milk
Waiting for my baby to stop crying
Waiting for my baby to sleep through the night
Waiting for my breasts to dry up
Waiting to get my figure back, for the stretch marks to go away
Waiting for some time to myself
Waiting to be beautiful again
Waiting for my child to go to school
Waiting for life to begin again Waiting . . .

Waiting for my children to come home from school
Waiting for them to grow up, to leave home
Waiting to be myself
Waiting for excitement
Waiting for him to tell me something interesting, to ask me how I feel
Waiting for him to stop being crabby, reach for my hand, kiss me good morning
Waiting for fulfillment
Waiting for the children to marry
Waiting for something to happen Waiting . . .

Waiting to lose weight
Waiting for the first gray hair
Waiting for menopause
Waiting to grow wise Waiting . . .

Waiting for my body to break down, to get ugly
Waiting for my flesh to sag
Waiting for my breasts to shrivel up
Waiting for a visit from my children, for letters
Waiting for my friends to die
Waiting for my husband to die Waiting . . .

Waiting to get sick
Waiting for things to get better
Waiting for winter to end
Waiting for the mirror to tell me that I’m old
Waiting for a good bowel movement
Waiting for the pain to go away
Waiting for the struggle to end
Waiting for release
Waiting for morning
Waiting for the end of the day
Waiting for sleep Waiting . . .

“Waiting” was performed at Womanhouse in Los Angeles sponsored by the Feminist Art Program, California Institute of the Arts.

-------

each time i have seen the womanhouse video of this performance i have wept; each time my heart has broken

for waiting is my habit
for as long as i can remember
it has been my habit to wait
and to work to understand, sympathize,
care, make room for, rationalize,
explain away

it has been a silent waiting

my waiting has been different than in this poem
there never were children; they did not come and
i don't think any one else is responsible for me
i never have; though some have come alongside
but i have waited none the less

my form of waiting has been an unhealthy habit
but i have believed (and still do) to wait is compassionate, giving,
caring, making room for imperfections
and so i have waited for as long as i can remember
for it is my habit

it has been my habit to wait to see
that person with whom the other claims to be,
manifest within our relationship
it has been a waiting to see that kernel
of all the goodness i can see buried there,
surface
it has been a waiting for the things that cover
over, that muddy, that distract, that alienate, that distance,
melt away

my form of waiting was meant
to deflect my hurt without blaming;
deflect disappointment without burdening
another with my hopes or needs;
to deflect anger at what appeared as disregard
because anger didn't resolve it simply alienated;
any hint of anger, disappointment or hurt
appeared experienced as threat;
my form of waiting was to hope in goodness uncovered, made real

my form of waiting appears to
not uncover goodness,
does not make room for it to become real
but instead enables
i do not understand this

hope and waiting have always been linked for me
i think my habit of waiting stemmed from hoping
but how does one stop waiting
without giving up hope
i experienced that once
the loss of hope
it was devastating

yet i repeatedly return to my habit of waiting
if i stop waiting
were will hope go
isn't hope a form of waiting
how do the different forms of waiting separate themselves
so that i can hold on to a healthy waiting
one that is not enabling
i want to hold on to
the one that is hopeful
the one that is believing
the one that is trusting
and let go of the waiting which enables

honestly, i have no idea how to do this

maybe i am not suppose to wait

isn't waiting a form of not living in the present
but living instead in tomorrow
where no one else resides?

maybe i am not suppose to wait

but what is hope then?

a responsive flapping

Jerry writes...

Don't Do a Thing

The time has come to be quiet
to let the stillness wash over you
cover the noise
and unsettledness
in thunderous silence.

Don't do a thing;
Just sit there
out of the way
Spacious presence
to what cannot be seen
in the turmoil
and
the flap of lips
waving of arms
pace of feet.

Can you not go away,
wait and watch
for a span of time
to bring yourself
more fully real
to pure presence?

But you're talking
mad-talk now,
the kind of thing that happens
to the disengaged.

And i tap with my lips flapping cross the keyboard.

aaagggh! Jerry, you've been inside my head this month or reading my unposted posts and prophetically hitting the mark. awe what a mess right when i was starting to wake up in my life i fell over and skinned my whole being!

i flap, stamp, and pace with my mad internal talk for in my head I must again overlook, overstep…celebrations of life entry points for those who only still linger…in my mind. i see them laid out before me, they alter my path for the unwelcome must be set aside, and i must step over, around these days, these moments. i must pretend i don't care without a hardening. how? i don't really know. i flap. i pretend. i tuck my flapping feelings and pacing wishes into a tiny box. i work them into the small mundane space between the dirty corrugated walls of used imagined cardboard, yet the feelings are so fricking loud, remaining vividly fresh. but i get them in, holding the flaps of the lid down tightly as the box becomes softened with it’s soggy emotionally ladened content; i quickly wrap the silver duct tape round and round with blog postings and unpostings leaking, spilling out, of every gap. lifting with both hands, i put the saturated squashed up box up over my shoulder and slide it into the pack with the others. i cinch the pack closed, tussle it a bit to even out the load across my back, a few of my wrapped boxes continue to spill out onto my blog. i stand anyway. aren’t i suppose to pick up my mat. i am walking again, navigating around the day, over the absent celebrants. i travel now on a new path for the unwelcomes will lead me to new unexpected places where i am welcome. or at least this is what i tell myself as i try to loosen my flapping grip on mental lingerings so that i can move and breathe stepping into the open space of his spacious presence. i know it is true. i look for these welcomings. i must open myself to new welcomes no matter that i can't imagine them. pace. pace. i will believe they will come. i know they are already here but i am blind by my need to box and attempt to put away, so tired of seeing. so i wipe and flap at the blindness. boxes sometimes scatter and spill back out. i know i have had many welcomes the last two years but they have been hard to hold onto for my blind flapping leaves me so distracted by the uns...they overwhelm me. i simply haven’t learned to hold loosely, sit still beside the quiet waters. but two years means, dang it all, it's time to shut off the overwhelms of the uns before it becomes the place i live and can't crawl out of. i haven't known how to do that. shutting people off, or simply shutting off, is counter to how i am built. this boxing isn't who i am. and not finding a way to work it out is counter to how i am built. my flapping arms feel bound. so i struggle flap. the boxing is counter to all i believe but i don't see an avenue to work through. i am built to see not to box. i am built to work through not box. but now i keep catching myself disengaged in my boxing. these boxes i carry shouldn’t be here but i can’t unpack them without seeing and seeing means i am "suppose" to do something with it and what it seems i should do is unwelcome within the body of the unwelcomes. flappingly i disengage. sit still. but then i get flapping for there is the way my calling and practice of art are so intricately linked by inner listening, seeing, a place where i catch hold of the throbs of patterns in culture, in others, in self with life working it's way in and out of them. i have always seen these patterns and flows in others and myself with the hand of history and the nows tugging the individuals and groups. i suppose this kind of seeing is suppose to be a gift, this seeing or being sensitive to. but i am still raw and i don’t want to see what i can do nothing about. boxedly i disengage. over-seeing again flappingly, pacingly disengaged. need to stop seeing all the connections, sit still in that washing stillness. yet living and my practice are so intertwined with the seeing which is a type of still sitting, that it is hard to know how to take my fingers off the throbs of seeing into what is art and life, for art is harvested from living. they are so interconnected -- how do i pull out some of the threads or cut them out without severing the entire cord? how do i gaze else where? or even simply to harden or disengage one area for me would simple make all of me hard and brittle so instead i end up soggily flapping my keyboard for fear of hardening and disengaging. i don't seem to find an inbetween place of “don’t do a thing” of stillness. i do grow more gentle and merciful with each of my failed attempts and others. today i am soggy again with the paced flapping, flapping as i pretend to have stepped over and around with my mad talking these historical celebrations. and i realize getting lost in the seeing is just as disengaging. were my gifts, my calling, are, there to is my sin. ramble, keyboard lips flap, pace, with my own mad talk. aggggh. why is it that stitching tubes with my hands moving, the scents of rubber and grime, move me into a stillness that washes over my inner noise of seeing, boxing, flapping? now i must get back to sewing.

flap. flap. stitch. stitch.

naming me with its soul quieting sounds of stillness

faintly the remembered wind whispers
naming me with its soul quieting
sounds of stillness
it gently touches flutteringly with its caress
across my dried salt streaked cheeks and
as i allow it, the space opens to me

even from yesterday and before tomorrow
god's lips blow breath far into my future
carrying me from the weight of another
wound filled thought whispering
comfort to me even now
he lifts from me my mountain, my seas
as i sit still in this weightless moment
with tendrilled strands gently stirring the surface of my face
my fingers hushed and dirty with making
i carry the wind this autumn day

don't respond kathy

of course this is a response

dang it

it would not be loving
to respond
it would not be compassionate
to respond
it would not be forgiving
to respond
it assumes what i cannot know
to respond

of course this is a response

just continue to pray for healing for myself and others
continue to pray that my heart will not
grow hard
continue to pray that i will
not respond with hardness
continue to pray that i will
not respond with assumptions
continue to pray that my heart will
expand with compassion
continue to pray that i will
not be arrogant and assume i know because i can't
continue to pray that i will
grow in the capacity to forgive
and accept forgiveness
continue to pray that i will
not respond out of hurt, hardness,
false knowledge and assumptions,
anger, pride, or faulty practices
of self preservation

to late; try again

of course this is a response
i am doing it again

dang it
no body invited me into it
but i step into it anyway
every time
why do i look
why do i look
if goodness and compassion were to be offered
it would not be through that vehicle
why do i look
why do i have any expectations
why do i hope
why do i hope
and respond each and every time
as the many hopes i hold appear dashed

dang it kathy
of course this is a response
it is unkind
unloving
assumes what i cannot know

try again

now just go and grade papers and student blogs

Location:Pine Valley Dr,College Station,United States

Day 9. -- a shift in her being to allow the dappling light dance down and enter her soul

She'll stream down from the roof tops of the forest high, where the light streams in. Spreading out, funnel-like, she will spill down across the glade, as her mouth opens up for her grief poured out, her form will contain more and more openings like these allowing the light to dance and dapple through the canopy of her opening spreading soul releasing her sorrows and deep grief as she is filled with the life and light.

Day 9 -- ladened with dew

The morning, dripping with dew as  each web is respun.

The slightest of wisps softly lifts from the surface as the sun clears a crystal path of warmth across this pond. Yes, the warm day already encroaches, as i pop open the top of my morning coffee* here in my nest whose sticks surround me with the lithe movement and grace of Matisse's ringed dancers upon the blue painted surface.

*diet coke

Day 8 -- I wandered back out after she'd come and gone only to be caught by her sister.

Still slick with what she spilled during her rumble...

...magnificent and slightly frightening things catch my eye as I wandered back down to my work site. Naturally this site is out of doors...well because of doors and the limited scope of their orifices. Though this does not bother me a bit because I prefer, and actually love, working outside (even in Houston's sweltering heat. Of course I am in Connecticut, so much the better).

I arrived at my work site, straight back to work. Sewed several tire tube veins when I heard her sister rumble. Right when I thought this one, she'd pass me by, she gave me a good hard soak. Hunching up against the dry side of my shade tree, back pressed tightly, tools in hand, seriously hoping that is not poison ivy I am standing in...

Finally a mad dash to my studio, sacrificing my fresh diet coke to this rumbly wet sister.

Day 8 -- the thunder, she dances and rumbles

I felt her an hour before she arrived. I listened to the hum of her low distant rumbles draw near. I smelled her moments before she was on top of me. Not as strongly as some, just faint as though she would not last long. And I heard her through the tree tops when she began to spill. Now I wait for her here just inside, sitting with the door opened wide and my seat pulled to its threshold. She rumbles on as she hovers here. I think she plans to stay awhile.

Day 8 -- OMG

I am out of diet coke!!!

I sit here this misty morning on the lake with the slightest of moist chills upon the air, I know there is hope for today. It is grocery day! Soon my diet coke stash shall be replenished. Plus bagels and fresh arrugala.

Chef Bob came back from his holiday last night to cook for us. While he was away volunteers came and prepared our evening meals. Oh we artists are going to get so spoiled!!

Day 7 -- I repeat myself in my gratefulness

I am just southeast of East Haddam, due north of Old Lyme, I would guess a mere hop skip and a jump from New London, where my mother grew up and met my father, a young Coast Guard cadet. Her father, Jerry Barton Hoag, a nuclear physicist in the thirties, forties and fifties, out (or ousted out) of the University of Chicago, refused (or so the family legends go) to help develop the bomb as part of the Manhattan project and thus ended up as a physics professor and head of the science department at the Coast Guard Academy. And whom because of his peaceful nature, his lovely daughter met my father, i eventually came into existence. This place I've never visited before, here so near the place of my heritage, is where I am. Currently i am sitting in the shade on ~450 acres of farmland that has gone back to natural habitat. The owner decided it was too beautiful to just keep it for himself alone, so he has opened it up to share with six invited artists of image, object, word or sound each month who come to work and be revived and inspired in this environment. Early each morning I hike down to a beautiful pond, sitting at the end of an artist made pier, I listen as the bullfrogs begin to sing as the sun first warms. I watch the pollen drift slowly across the still black silent surface. I hear the gentle breeze pass high over head as it dances and rustles through the tree tops. There are so many fresh smells new with each passing day as the differing flower strains come into bloom according to their own time. I sit here in stillness and quietness for a couple of hours and listen, hear, smell, gaze, think, write, and meditate. If I sink too deeply into my grief, God uses all these physical things to pull me back into my body, back into this present moment to show me again all the gifts She has given me.

It is exactly what I needed to refresh my soul and allow grief to finish its deep work in me as I am moved towards the threshold of something new, something different. I could never even begin to express my deep gratitude for the gift of this place and this time. It heals me again and again each morning. God has repeatedly these past two years shown His unfailing love to me in ways i can understand. He heals me with all these gifts.

Day 5 -- Saturday morning as i drift back to my spot on the lake

Back to my spot on the lake which this morning is blanketed in a velvet coat of pollen. It's almost eight and the sun's sting of heat on my neck is late and the bullfrogs don't yet sing. There is a thin smear of clouds across the sky as the sun tries to burn her way through for those who wait and would sing. As I sit here, they begin. Their voices ripple across the water's placid surface while the gentle breeze passes high in the tree tops. Even the leaves rustle with voice of morning. There is no gray to this day except that which lies within. Yet this will pass. It is why I was given this gift of place and time. It is the place for my grief to pass through--finish its work. I need for it to pass through.

treading where no one hears the echo of her foot fall Solo Exhibition @ Women and Their Work up until April 15, 2010.

kathryn kelley
Women and Their Work
1710 Lavaca Street
Austin, TX 78701-1316
march 6-april 15, 2010

each piece in the exhibition, instead of being titled, is associated with a poem written during the same approximate timeframe in which i was making the work (i write--i make; i make--i write; each is part of the process of the other)

~18' x 6' x 10' made from remnant tubes, door, frame, wood, 2010.
associated poem

when i shut up love
the door bangs closed
i pound and scrape
my fingers
bloody with prying
but without love
without hope
tightly shut it remains
i smell the void
the vacancy

the remotest parting
and i find
my lips part as they
press to the frame
to drink in the waft
that trickles through
i scribble down
as fast as can
the words that
spill over
and i reach
for the handle

~8' x 8' x 10' made from remnant tire elements, door, frame, wood, 2010.
associated poem

i breathe

i could no longer stay
self sequestered there
in the tower of my making

there is no good way to destroy
one's own tower
while remaining inside
there is no good way to get down
without help

no one came

i crumbled the tower
of my making
from within

and now
i wipe the dust from my face
and i stand in the rubble
of this crumbled tower

i see my feet are on the ground
i reach down
brush aside the rubble there
i am searching
searching for my path

i breathe and
i am grateful for that breath

yet i am so grieved
that they needed to tell me
i would be and will be destroyed
my breath catches deep within

~15' x 8' x 10' made from remnant tubes, door, frame, wood, 2010.
associated poem

as the ache
swells in me
there is a splintering
at the horizon of today
fragments of yesterday
and tomorrow

and i listen at this abyss
as the beyond beckons me
with its urgency and passion

i open my splintered self to it
and it whispers
my name

poem associated with exhibition title, treading where no one hears the echo of her foot fall, and the source text for the development of the exhibition:

Tell me the story of when fire came down and consumed two souls, two melded not in sameness but in fiery harmony, where they fit together and made a wholeness, a rightness, a space of intimate belonging, where love and partnership merged in the flame, a love so deep the aching overwhelms. Tell me the story of the unfolding of the fragments of wholeness through the vehicle of love. Tell me the story of a fire that can burn me with goodness and beauty. Tell me this story, not one of shadows; one of hope, not hardening. Let me flee the shadows that are bleak with chill and harden my soul in areas that have only yet begun to thaw. Tell me the story of love and light, the one that draws back the curtains of my soul and beckons me to the scent of dawn. Tell me the story where I can know light, where I can flow into the future fully present, one where this gentler light warms the hard places of my soul. Tell me a story of fire.

I don't want to hear the story of she who steals, who embraces the cold shadow of lie and self-deception that dance teasingly over her heart.

I don't want to hear her story of longing that goes empty, a space where she remains vacant and lost and wretches in the wilderness of her under grown soul.

I don't want to hear the story of the girl who got lost in her head with a thought, an idea, who lost all sense of presence and found herself alone in the vacuous cavern of her own mind, treading where no one hears the echoes of her footfall.

I don't want to hear the story of the girl who sacrificed herself for doing only what is right, who didn't know love because she was to afraid of doing wrong.
I only want one story; I don't want to hear the others for fear that they are me.