with a nod to ice cube...
I gotta say it was a good day.
Lesson #1—leave the house. Preferably on foot or something else near to the ground. My best days here so far have been the ones where I left my life (what I brought of it with me here) behind for a few hours to discover something else. What got me out of the house was having to go to the post office to pick up a beautiful print Myra sent me (thanks, Myra!) You know, there's nothing like getting exciting mail (hint, hint; my mailing address here is 5318 NDCBU Taos, NM 87571, through June 30) and knowing what it was I was already feeling pretty great about that.
I started with a late breakfast; wanting overall change in my life I went someplace other than Michael's Kitchen (http://michaelskitchen.com/) and the Dragonfly Café (http://www.dragonflytaos.com/), and I'm glad I did—the waitress, Marla, at the Bent Street Café (no website) was so much nicer to me than they ever are at Michael's—I wonder if they're Republicans?! (they're always nice at the Dragonfly but Michael's serves breakfast all day.) I was reading the local paper headline and Marla and I both agreed that the woman who'd hit her philandering state senator husband with a hammer was totally justified—she should have hit him harder!
I saw there was an arts and crafts fair in the park across the street. Oh boy, I thought, jewelry! Sure enough, I scraped out the last of my cash and got a beautiful pair of copper earrings (though I'm sorry I let those women put that moisturizer on me—I still reek). Talking with the designer, Fred Wilson (http://kfwilson.com/aboutfred_narrative.html) and his wife, I discovered he is also a potter and muralist (and he makes beautiful jewelry but his is not on their site), originally from California—Westsiiiide! (Okay, I'm being foolish.) He and his wife go to a lot of these kinds of fairs, and he talked about the number of black artists throughout this country who he has met in similar circumstances whose work isn't known, there are no books, but there's this great network of talent out there that's just under the radar. He's right—there are reminders all around me, almost daily, of why I do what I do and why what I want to do is important and why, unlike Kaia (see below) of The Butchies (who, sadly, are no longer!), I don't wear Prada (okay, I have a pair of shoes but my sister gave them to me).
As my partner reminded me last night, most of us have these touchstones, these measures, however ridiculous and vapid, against which we gauge our own successes. Smart or not, that's the way it is. At various times, I've tried to let mine go, to rise above them, be real Buddhist about it, you know, his or her success is my success, but that doesn't always work. What does work, I am discovering, is focusing on what is possible rather than on what is frustrating which we cannot change. I know what I loathe about the art world, about America, and that loathing is debilitating. Instead, I'm trying to stay here—what change can I make; what good can I do?
Lesson #1—leave the house. Preferably on foot or something else near to the ground. My best days here so far have been the ones where I left my life (what I brought of it with me here) behind for a few hours to discover something else. What got me out of the house was having to go to the post office to pick up a beautiful print Myra sent me (thanks, Myra!) You know, there's nothing like getting exciting mail (hint, hint; my mailing address here is 5318 NDCBU Taos, NM 87571, through June 30) and knowing what it was I was already feeling pretty great about that.
I started with a late breakfast; wanting overall change in my life I went someplace other than Michael's Kitchen (http://michaelskitchen.com/) and the Dragonfly Café (http://www.dragonflytaos.com/), and I'm glad I did—the waitress, Marla, at the Bent Street Café (no website) was so much nicer to me than they ever are at Michael's—I wonder if they're Republicans?! (they're always nice at the Dragonfly but Michael's serves breakfast all day.) I was reading the local paper headline and Marla and I both agreed that the woman who'd hit her philandering state senator husband with a hammer was totally justified—she should have hit him harder!
I saw there was an arts and crafts fair in the park across the street. Oh boy, I thought, jewelry! Sure enough, I scraped out the last of my cash and got a beautiful pair of copper earrings (though I'm sorry I let those women put that moisturizer on me—I still reek). Talking with the designer, Fred Wilson (http://kfwilson.com/aboutfred_narrative.html) and his wife, I discovered he is also a potter and muralist (and he makes beautiful jewelry but his is not on their site), originally from California—Westsiiiide! (Okay, I'm being foolish.) He and his wife go to a lot of these kinds of fairs, and he talked about the number of black artists throughout this country who he has met in similar circumstances whose work isn't known, there are no books, but there's this great network of talent out there that's just under the radar. He's right—there are reminders all around me, almost daily, of why I do what I do and why what I want to do is important and why, unlike Kaia (see below) of The Butchies (who, sadly, are no longer!), I don't wear Prada (okay, I have a pair of shoes but my sister gave them to me).
As my partner reminded me last night, most of us have these touchstones, these measures, however ridiculous and vapid, against which we gauge our own successes. Smart or not, that's the way it is. At various times, I've tried to let mine go, to rise above them, be real Buddhist about it, you know, his or her success is my success, but that doesn't always work. What does work, I am discovering, is focusing on what is possible rather than on what is frustrating which we cannot change. I know what I loathe about the art world, about America, and that loathing is debilitating. Instead, I'm trying to stay here—what change can I make; what good can I do?
posted by Carla at 12:24 PM
1 Comments:
Marla rules.
Fred Wilson is right.
And, yes, focusing on what is possible is literally all we have. I have to believe things don't have to be the way they are now.
Post a Comment
<< Home