"I am sure we both loved a different man. Because a lover exists only in fragments, a dozen or so if the romance is new, a thousand if we’ve married him, and out of those fragments our heart constructs an entire person. What we each create, since whatever is missing is filled in by our imagination, is the person we wish him to be. The less we know him, of course, the more we love him."
— Andrew Sean Greer, The Story of a Marriage: A Novel (via devilduck)

found here
nothing to do with anything much
words striking the red chord

...


after a boarders chill out session with gem, have found myself slowly besotted with Nan Golding.












reading an interview with her, she follows the 'snapshotaethetic'... basically her art is her life, it is a reflection of everything she does, everyone she meets. the classic photographer type, camera always around the neck, endlessly snapping and tapping at life. gathering images, memories, peoples, and lives, every photo is a story, one that is lied to the story before, and the one after.

the walls of my house are plastered with such an 'aesthetic'.
postcards, polaroids, portraits... my friends and family surround me lying in bed. papers, notes, printed pictures, stickers, paintings, scraps of moments barely remembered but sentimentality still exists. a cocoon reinforcing, remembering, who i am and where i have been.

my last assisgnment for photography is a self protrait. expressing my identity. there is a girl in my class dressing up as blondie (not a self portrait, even when cindy sherman did it!), but im having trouble disguising myself as... myself.

who am i? what do i wear? i know what goes on inside, but how do i get that OUTSIDE so people can see it? what parts count, what parts dont? where does the inside me and the outside me met, mesh, and seperate? im not sure i really know myself as well as i thought.
i have a strong sense of self in that i know physically who i am, what im wearing now, where im sitting, where other people are...
i have a moral sense of being, what i think is right and wrong, actions and reactions i can justify and believe in.
a knowledgeable sense; i know things about the world, i have had experiences to draw from, memories to base assumptions.
spiritually; im still figuring that out. i have faith; faith in myself, in my friends, in love and beauty and manifest. faith in peace, faith in balance, faith in light. more eastern than western faith, but nothing with so strict a boundary.
emotionally... i havent a clue. im floating in a vast sea of impressions, colours, shapes, speeds, images, feelings and clouds. this is the part of me that holds all the rest together. how do i know who i am if i cant identify who i am? what makes me think and feel and explore and create. where these things come from, the insecurities and the compensation. where im standing in relation to the world. why sometimes theres a puddle but sometimes its a chasm. sometimes its sunlight through soft raindrops and sometimes is lightning through powerlines.

how do i capture all this if i dont know where to look? how to see it? how to emulate it for an audience? how to encapsulate everything i have been, am being, and will be, and put it on a stage?

i guess the only solution is to be inside, and constantly looking out. from outside, i must always be looking in.

it breaks me brain.
*pheh*

...

also; this blog is full of photography awesome. :)

"But I think every writer - hell, every artist - will, eventually, come to a long and dry desert where there is no positive feedback, no hope of success, no way of finding that magic button that turns on the talent within you. It may last for years. And most artists don't talk about that empty space, because there's no way of conveying it because all anyone ever sees is the glorious, envious end product. During that time you're Jesus, wandering in the desert, trying to find yourself and not finding a damn person in the world who'll tell you you're good.

You're not smart. You're hard working. That's all you have."

The Ferrett's wise words of wisdom... on the eve of my destruction; this is pretty good advice.

seriously, if you have ever put off dreams due to doubts fears and insecurities... read this. it wont cure you, but it helps.



---

((not really destruction... i have three essays and two photography projects due in two weeks, which is scary to say the least. but one photo assignments almost done, and two of the essays feed of each other, and the other is a response to an essay, so with luck, talent, and of course, hard work and lots of caffiene and forays into the park, i might emerge in one peice.))

((its more of a refernce to in april having my first -adult- exhibition at work... a retrospective if you will of my comings of ages and becomings of selves. this is what ive feared for years... but hes right in that ive now made concrete plans... the paralyzing fear is regularly -not there-. as long as im doing something, its just panic attacks and random crying fits. no dread, no impalement, no ruts. for now anyway.))

((there will be a light))

<3

awwwww yeah!

sometimes i forget im an artist.
i doodle occasionally, and i make pretty things at work, but its been so long since ive done any painting for myself, even photography and thats part of my course.

the 'real world' takes over, endless waking in the morning to go to work, or study, or work again. endless hours spent wandering from one side of twon to the other on some kind of mission. busy busy doing life i forget what life is, wake up on my one day off in two weeks, and get stoned cause i cant handle the silence, clean cause i dont know what else to do.

finally sitting down at my dusty easle, grope around in my mind for an hour before finally pulling something from the depths, like hair from the drain pipe. slow agonised sketching, and finally creativity comes creeping back.

am scared that by the time i get my art degree, there wont be any art left in me.
lols.

mmmmmm thats it.

be excellent to each other
and party on dudes.

*

...

at this point, there is not really much to say. get up, go to work, get drunk, go home, sleep. repeat. things are steadily plodding towards spring, towards change and newness. although i am nervously waiting the next crisis, for now there is a sense that everything is okay. ever tired, and slightly bored of mundane chores and lifepaths, sydney is calling me to escape. (soon, my love, very soon)


comics however, are still funny.
:)

...

for those that care; here is a sample of the way my brain thinks, taken from editing a draft of an essay of nightmare proportions that im sure everyone is sick of hearing about ((and i KNOW am sick of talking about)). its pretty much a direct thought stream, musings on advertising meshing with contemporary art.

"The point is, as our culture moves away from the post modern culture of abstraction and determining fields of view upon perception of the individual versus the anonymous to one of fantasy, to further their own ambitions advertising companies are reflecting same trends. The bizarre has come back into fashion, the man wielded facedown by his wife eating away at the grass brings all sorts of gender biased, sexual, emasculating connotations, the last of which is a Kit-Kat bar. Likewise in exhibitions such as that on at SSAMSTAG right now, there is an obvious escapist trend in the photographs and prints (even sculpture with nick follands amazing crystalline cloudscapes hovering above the gallery floor and patricia puccinini creating these amazing and disturbing beings, theres even a giant table with a HUGE fuckoff spider under it)"

thats all there is. the whole paragraph, lol. it just stops. :P

scathing hard-edged academic cynacism, random analysis of examples... then start thinking about artworks themselves and get distracted by imagery of clouds peiced together from ALL the crystal bowls and cups and platters EVER MADE hung from the ceiling of the gallery in formation.

theni come back across it days later, so WTF? and have to try and work out the point i was originally making and re-iterate. lol.

my thought generations drive me crazy.
ramble ramble ramble nothing

...

- due to my boss losing my job through his business ineptness, i now have a sole income of $144 a week.

- this gives me maybe $50 food shopping (two bags roughly), one bus ticket, one or two petty am taxis home from work, a cheap lunch or two in town, one new shiny under $15, and a choice between one night out, one nice dinner, or buying one study materials (film-$7-$12 per roll, paper $26 per pack)

- my electricities about to be cut off...

- im about to be kicked out of my house due to not paying rent for a few months, and my parents unable to afford to cover for me any longer.

- my cat has a giant cyst under one arm that desperately needs medical attention, but alas the vet charges about $90 just to walk through the door.

- despite the obvious solution of finding another job, im not sure i really want to join another commercial work force where all i have to trade is my heartbeats and there is no humanitarian value being earned by the company, the customer, or myself. i cant participate in the kind of culture that is purely based on sales-targets, deadlines, or repetitious machine-like efficiancy. i cant support a system that only supports those standing on it, those three men at the top and the members of the board. i cant trade my life force for thir tax-evasive holidays abroad and giant mansions coke addictions and take-over bids designed not to help this world parachuting into disaster but to make sure thousands are crushed cushioning their fall when the end does eventually come.

- i am caught between a mission of soul and a mission for survival, and all it results in is mind-bogged-ness. how does one survive in darkness and atrophy having sold their soul? and how do you eat morals for breakfast in the cold with dead pets???

- i had a needle cancer vaccination yesterday, and after fasting for twelve hours had two bloodtests taken today (with a two hour wait in between-still no food!!) to check for diabetes. half way through the wait i got my period.

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH
how is it possible to live this way?!?!

(discalimer: i am fully aware there are thousands of people with far less than what i have, weeks between meals, sleeping on dirt floors or the streets, watching their loved ones die though violence and disease and neglect. i fear for my life to retrograde so far as to become one of them, but at the same time there is a burning guilt knowing i should be doing SOMETHING to change this system and make these hideous realities mere fancies of disabled minds.)

That is all.
(just a rant, nothing more)

i dreamed about you the other night. maybe yesterday, maybe last week.
(saturated fluro pinks and blues and dull orange hair and pale flesh glowing in the half-light. you leaned down and spoke to me while i was paralysed on the bed, then you vanished into other subconcious plot-less worlds.)

i wrote an entry saying how it didnt effect me untill today
(now the anxiety's set in again; shakes, nausea and the black tar of depression lurking at the bottom of my brain, memories flashing in the spaces between thoughts, the good and the bad and both tinged red with guilt.)

of course, i accidently highlighted and deleated it in a typo.
(cause im clumsy like that)
(or maybe karma telling me not to dwell on these things, and that they too in time will pass, just as the tears did dry, and the hole did fill, and the inability to leave my bed faded day by day as the pain healed slowly)

its hard to believe i still care enough to cry in public,
even with all the good things ive got.

...


maybe its just the flu

.

"in this case, a single group of leaders of the Church had created both the pope and the antipope."

<= this is why i love christianity. the drama! the conniving for power! the ultimate corruption! the hypocrisy never ends. :) the bold and the beautiful could learn a few things from religious history, am sure.

...

im about an hour away from finishing my essay at long last!!! ((then theres only one more 3000 to start and finish tomorrow, then i can think exclusively on finishing photography and then im done for six weeks! whoo!))

to get me through, this is what ive promised myself for dinner:



awwwww yeh!!!
:D

wasting time, should be writing, really not caring right now.

i dont really have anything to say, i just wanted to write the title.

something about the notion of 'art' and 'the other'...
good vs bad and beauty vs ugliness

what is the nemesis of art?
modernism? commericalism? ants?

...

"Throughout the period of modernism, art was construed as the other. Other than state, other than religion, other than commerce, other than culture industry. The other was never outside of culture but was an intergrated component of its values systems and operations."

how is something both outside and inside a culture group?
its this two faced hypocrisy of definitions that makes modernism a nightmare.
gah!

vive la revolution!

A list of Silly Things I am Afraid of:

~ sharpening knives (in case the metal filings end up in my lungs)

~ mould (ewwwwwwwwwww)

~ spray'n'wipe (see metal filings)

~ talking to people i havent met but know about from other people (?)


~ when strangers talk to me theyre not being friendly (oh no, theyre either wanting to have sex with me, or cut me open.)

~ the possums screeching on the fence at night are actually demons trying to get in my house (lol)

~tops too tight around my neck (like a noose waiting for my last breaths. scarves are fine.)

~ squid suckers on tentacles. (not the squid themselves, just the suckers.)

~ tequila.



A list of Silly Things I Should Be Afraid of, but am not...

~ walking alone at night

~ running in front of traffic

~ talking to drunk bogans 3am at the pub (its hard to disguise your true nature when youre that wasted, lol)

~ licking the nutella/vegemite/honey/etc off the knife blade (mmmm)

~ getting muffins out of the toster with forks (as long as you dont touch the sides its fine, right?)

I CANT SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE WASTING TIME ON STUPID ASSIGNMENTS!

im just regurgitating, not growing, and its disgusting.

its taken me almost two weeks over when i had to hand this stupid thing in, just cause its so tedious. even though the lectures are interesting and the tutorladys great THE ESSAYS ARE SO DRY.

doing a third year course and a first year course at the same time truly makes me realize how far ive come academically. why oh why do i have to go back?!?!?!?!?!!?
((its ever so boring...))

*headdesk*

-----------
DISCLAIMER: i am fully aware of how much its my own fault for not working harder (faithfulness?) and passing in the first place. i just want to bitch. cause its suck.

where is the line between acceptance and rebellion?
when to say no, and when to have patience and wait for the light to come?
when to rise against poisonous ideals and when to just leave it be, hoping one day theyll understand?

if unconditional love can only be achieved through acceptance, where does the acceptance change and become self-preservation? social preservation? when does a misunderstanding become a war crime?
wheres the line?

~

somewhere in the past week, there's a darkness settled over me, both restless and dampening, angry and apathetic.
so far chocolate, beer, weed, mexican food and kisses have yet to shake it.

drawing helps.

~

i dont know.


...

above written a few days ago...

theres a part of me thats constantly wondering when im not going to be worth the bother anymore, a part always questioning his effects on me, if i want to deal with it, if im getting in too deep, if i have a choice or if my emotions are leading me down that dark garden path again. that if i can trust him when he says he likes me, or if hes just using me cause im here and i buy him things and dont object too much about anything.

always the wondering, the worrying, the waiting for it to fall horribly apart.
looking for (making up?) problems to flee from before it all comes crashing down on my head.
we're not in a mess atm... but at some point we will be... what then?

i dont like being this way... im in too deep now. april is our six month... its hard to be casual about it when its six times the longest ive been with ANYONE since David. i dont know what to do, feel, act. i like the boy... im just scared at how easy it all is... the warnings of gradual slide into the apathy of happiness before BAM the shit goes down.

amongst the relationship destruction that's surrounding us, im not surprised that im a little anxious about whats going on.

i think maybe im overreacting, having anger and then panic thats unwarranted.
but im really not sure.

blah...

everything in life is cyclical... around and around we go like creatures on a carousel, up down and in circles, bright colours, plastic faces and blinded by mirrors.
the great karmic wheel of death and rebirth, cycles of souls throughout lives and the smaller wheel within those lives, the passage of the seasons and tides, days following nights, orbits of the planets, rules of three, zodiacs and Tao and moon cycles and on and on into infinity...

this is my chance to start again, resolve the issues that i had last time i attempted this stage in my life. after trying and failing and traveling some world and a hell of a lot of psyche, im almost back to the start. the situations are the same as three years ago; living out of home, no job, black sheets, collaged walls, stuck to a computer screen, packet pasta with tomato and tuna, strange geeky boyfriend, still getting stoned, still drinking too much, still painting cause i cant help it, still wearing the same pinstripe jeans, still kinda lost and not sure where im going.

there are differences though, this time around i feel like ive got my shit more in order, i have more chance of passing. im stable in my house and in my confidence. as opposed to being swamped in an overwhelming sea there's a slow burning anger now that every time ive tried all ive proved is how much i can fail. i want to pass more so i can prove to myself that my brain hasn't wasted away, that i still have the smarts and the passion to carry myself where i want to be. right now im not feeling that, just a grudge against myself that i got so distracted, that i let all these other things rule my life cause i didnt know what i wanted, or how to get there.

im not as scared. im completely over working in jobs that dont help me at all... they just take in the wrong directions, waste my time and my energy and leave me stranded wonder what the fuck to do. thats not who i want to be anymore.

i want to be an artist; i want my painting and drawing skills to improve, i wasnt my visualization and imagination to improve, i want to be practicing and selling and inspiring. i want to pass my courses, i want to do well and retain the knowledge ive learned, and help it make everything i do better. i want to know the history, i want to believe the theory.

i want to teach. i want to guide people, to help people navigate this shit hole of a system into a semblance of a better life. i want to ease the confusion, and get the good vibes coming back out. i want to see us progress, evolve, grow above the money-grubbing selfish short sighted society we are into something beautiful.

i want my spirituality back. i want to study Reiki and Buddhism and Tao and Confucianism and see the beauty in the world and learn how to flow with it, to change it and to love it. i want to know it, inside and out. i want a giant purple yellow and turquoise aura, i want to be settled in my center and having a constant flow of energy in and out.

i want to eat awesome food, and stop feeling constantly starving or nauseous, and stop having nightmares and not sleeping or sleeping too much. i want my scabs to heal, my hair to stop falling out, and my feet to carry me firmly on. i want to not rely on myself for EVERYTHING, but have the flexibility to ask for help and accept it when its offered. i want to trust again, not be wary and flinching inside every time i talk to people. i want easy conversation, where i can be strong in my ideas and not so confused by the endless possibilities that i retreat into silence.

i want these edges of madness to stop creeping in... or if i cant stop it embrace it and keep going, and not be paralyzed by fear. i want to not feel so alone and embattled in my head.

but most of all, i want out of this rut that i keep falling into. i want to stop being bored, but unable to be passionate. seems the only time im alive im drunk, and then im unpredictable and barely remember in the morning. i want to feel there's something in this reality to sustain me, i want to be sustained.

((Where's your good fire baby?))
am missing things that haven't happened yet.
curiouser and curiouser.

...

it seems i constantly wander from place to space, seeking something. maybe a moment, a face, a scent or shape that will bring the saturation flooding back. sight sound and love restored. there's a sense im not on the right track, but so close in parallel the me of the other world has my hand and is walking sideways, trying to pull me through. there's something im still missing...
(something in the way...?)

...

walking through the food court today, for just a moment between the tuxedo shop and the news agency, the world dropped away. everything was unfamiliar, new and strange. blank without memory, like id never been there a hundred times before.
stuck on a pinnacle somewhere between isolation and disconnection i was totally alone, i knew no one, i had nothing. the world around a shadow of a facade, no movement, no people, just blankness and fluro lights, a distant trough of no sensation.
it was like being back in London streets, Aberdeen shopping malls, Hong Kong train stations, where civilization still exists around you, but you have no part in it, no association, just passing through onto another world.

then snap, everything was back, experience empirical again. sights lead to memory to information to thoughts to steps, mapping my way home across a city i knew. faces were real, window shopping was fun, the sky an odd colour but at least something familiar.

then later in my lounge room, again the same surrealism. suddenly im ten feet tall standing in the archway gazing on uncharted territory. the armchair not mine, the walls i painted from a different lifetime, and the couch is the smallest thing I've ever seen, a room so familiar but also so strange, so far removed from emotions or memory. like a dollhouse, and i was a Goliath in the sky.

They will see us waving from such great heights,
"Come down now," they'll say
But everything looks perfect from far away,
"Come down now," but we'll stay...

...

on a more mundane note; am worried about my cats.
one is missing still at 12.30 am (though sometimes he sojourns and nothing is heard until early morning then wiggly white meowing all over), and the other is passed out next to me on the desk, a dark sooking clinging cat, giving the keyboard jealous daggers for stealing my fingertip attentions.
he was in another fight two days ago, bloodied leg and grumpy all night but essentially okay. cant help but stress though, knowing what could be boiling in his blood, under the skin.
maybe if i stop thinking about it it'll be okay.

am worried that me worrying about them so much makes them worse, lol.
reverse wishes manifest and all that.
stress is silly.

...

last of the vet bills to be paid tomorrow... maybe next pay i can go buy some pants...
for serious yo.

i need another job... not just cause am ridiculously broke living on $150 a week (needless to say the rents not getting paid), but also to keep the boredom at bay. things have been getting more randomly surreal and schizophrenic... is it possible for your mind to wander away into psychosis? maybe its just the constant frustration of not having the means to do what i really want. a massage, a Reiki appointment, stars inked into my skin, clothes that fit me and nice smelly things to make my hair shiny.

cant wait for uni to start, give me something to take my mind of the nothing rut, the slow progression to nowhere.

On the bright side, life looks more like this than this, this, this, or THIS. omg random,.

would be much more fun though, if it was like this. science, skulls and high fashion? AM SO THERE.

...

right about now, ima go to bed.
grabbing a book and my one cat and vanish for a while,
eventually to slip gracelessly into sleep.

i miss my cupcake.

...

NEVER lose your sense of wonder (its not in the alphabet soup, look around)

art over apathy dammit, get off the couch

the path of least resistance is what makes men and rivers crooked

somebody's going to fall in love tonight

if just one life changes... maybe all this will be worth it

...

been browsing through my old sketchbooks...
comparatively, they kick ass. paintings, sketches, scrap booking, experiments, writings, cut outs from magazines and newspapers all over, notes, photographs, randomness, crazy captured moments of turbulence and (rarely) joy. confusion and lamenting. memories flooding all over place.

looking in my book now... the one ive barely touched in weeks... its pale and fever-stricken... starved of inspiration and slowly withering away.

i did some painting and sketching today, for the first time in what felt like forever, but with nowhere near the same intensity, the same passion and joy.
when did i become so stilted? when did i lose my connection, my love, my faith in art?
when did the horoscopes proclaiming insensitivity, cold-bigheartedness, and over-armored self-protection start to apply?

was it hormones settling out of teenagerhood, there's just not the same fire in me? was it when i stopped smoking? was it when i stopped studying? was it when my mind and spirit broke? was it after, in the process of rebuilding myself, passion was too painful and left to the side until the wounds healed? was it in exploring the greatness of the world, was i too over-awed and full of everything, i just forgot what i could do in the face of it all... and im still forgetting? was it when i became a salesman, all empathy aside for the sake of profit? was it a slow erosion... too lost, too lazy, too drunk, shotgun creativity slowly bleached bone hard by inattentiveness and lack of practice?

surely, instead of smashing dishes in the morning, it would be far better to mash paint instead? break out of the shell instead of breaking my phone. control nothing but the line. draw more read less. read more, vague out less.

less is more, more or less. cups are full and empty at the same time. the wands are damp and the swords are blunt. the earth is buried in hypotheticals.

gone. gone. gone beyond. gone altogether beyond.

its that happy place between the rest of the world and home
the ability to find anything anywhere and so much nothing-less
be anyone and completely yourself at the same time.
its hiding and shouting
sitting and flying
becoming stupider with much knowledge found.

mmmmmmm
yes its the intarnets...
and once again my home sanctuary has an anonymous portal to infinity.

for some reason, this makes me happy on some rediculously deep level.
a one-good-reason-not-to-jump-off-cliffs kinda level.
should be disturbed by this dependancy, but instead im relaxed.

i can connect again.
:D

...

im waiting.. waiting for an unknown given...

~
*
~


so they tell me im skinny
skinny in a way i dont believe
pure in a way i dont understand
choking on my alibis
not quite willing to reveal what i truly am underneath
a little bit truth, a little bit lies...

half what i am, half what i want to be
half sober with realizations,
half drunk with what everything could be given half a chance

i dont know where i am
in the grand scheme of things
but dammit if im trying to figure it all out
mixed messages in the half-light
glimpses of wonder
mixed up in the meshes of the yellow afternoon light.

they tell me im awesome
im something seen to be believed
whatever

i see it all within me
every up and every downward spiral
in the dawn light
in the evening
those darkest parts of 2am in the drunken spaces
that could be the pub or could be your bedroom home sacred

listening to the rain
and wishing that the purity within that smell
could embed itself within me
make it something worthwhile...
something beyond the dreaming...

...

http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=377

morbid and beautiful all in the one glassfull

"How is it that art is always ahead of us? How is it that artists, who work so slowly, with such care and patience, who sleep in, and can't start, and don't know where they're going, always arrive before us? How is it that art knows what artists don't? How is it that art makes makers to make itself?"

--Russell Smith

http://www.unisa.edu.au/samstag/scholars/essays/02smith.asp

(also= "Art is a mode of perception that involves being always innocent, forgetting everything in order to learn again what we thought we knew")