the last train for the coast

here is a smattering of things i have not forgotten but at the same time have forgotten as well as some new. long run on sentence.

cody hudson

Jakub Julian Ziolkowski



Matthew Palladino

michelle blade

ludachristmas

i couldn't help myself. happy thoughts to all this week.
(and yes, i am a bad jew)

lightning with stag in its glare

one day, not long from this one, i want to ride a beautiful train with you and talk about life and eat cheese and laugh and forecast our futures. i want to forget all that has come before for a few minutes and only think of the present, the movement of the train and the light spilling in through the windows. i want to hold hands and steal kisses and take sips of dark beer. i want to fall asleep on your shoulder and wake when you nudge me and see your smile and have your run your fingers through my hair. i want to take a thousand pictures of this moment that i will show to people when i return, so they can see our smiling faces and know that we existed only for each other. dreams are hard to become reality, but i feel this one just might. far from this frost covered land that i lately inhabit and far from the pain i feel right now. that train ride exists. it exists just as you and i exist and somehow it will all come together and will be even better than my thoughts.

set yourself on fire

i sometimes look at things like this and wonder why i am not there all the time.
probably because of the zombies.

cold blooded old times

last year at this time, i was cold. thinking about graduate school applications and wrestling with daily snow storms in chicago and wondering where my life was going. i was frozen last winter. i wore long underwear, double gloves, scarves, hats, and a long puffy jacket. i wore my uggs into the ground. i would sit in matthew's apartment, in my long underwear, in my hat, under a blanket, and think if it was feasable to smoke a cigarette with my frozen hands. he drank a lot of tea. i drank a lot of hot chocolate. he never understood how i could drink mine when it was still so hot, and i think it was because i was frozen. when your bones are chilled, you are never warm. you never think you'll be warm again in fact. i would go home at night to my freezing apartment and sleep in my long underwear and sometimes even socks! and wish i had either a boy or a puppy to curl up with. funny. i still have those thoughts, although right now i would rather have the puppy. after the coldest winter months, after i threw out my uggs and hung up the winter coat in a closet far far away, i was still a bit chilled. but probably because of other reasons other than weather. i was accepted into grad school and my future was around the corner, but my past was lurking. it lurks still. it jumps up and down when i need to concentrate on things in the present. it says rachel rachel i am here and i am going to annoy you and make you feel the cold, the chicago cold that never escapes your bones after you live there. i am wearing gloves right now and two sweaters and socks and i even turned the heat up. i tell myself to stop being cold. i am willing it but i cannot escape it. not here, not even when i turn my face to the california sunshine and smile. i suppose that is just how it will be now. i suppose i am going to be ok with that.

a did you know lesson

here

una lettera per voi

i just wanted to write quickly. tell you i am thinking of you. hope you are doing well. i am deep into finals, with 2 left to turn in and a residency application for berlin almost finished. but today i am heading to the east bay for a bbq and beer wintery celebration that will most likely get me drunk before 6 o'clock. lets hope that i can pull myself together and finish that paper and that project and that application all in time for my 6:30am flight on thursday. new york city will be so cold. i do not think i am ready for it. i bought an amazing black and white dress yesterday and i am excited to wear it and be a new yorker for three weeks. museums galore, bagels, and my beautiful sisters to drink wine with. i am thinking about brooklyn and my nephews smiling faces and rainbow cookies. oh venieros! how i would love to snuggle up with a latte
and a rainbow cookie right now. instead i will heat up some lentils and brush my teeth and think about you. i am sending you happy thoughts, so please do not be cold and sad. think of me sitting in my light filled dining room thinking of you in yours.

irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically

i noticed that sometimes when i don't leave my house, i forget where i am. my only contacts are my roommates, who just remind me of love and home, and my emails, which are usually from places all over that central location means nothing. the beauty of the dot com. i wonder if i could be anywhere right now. i am here though and here is good. there would be better maybe. sometimes i wish i could subsist only on figs and california wine and a little sunshine. i don't know what that would make me. fruit and fermentation. maybe one day i will pick my own figs and make my own wine, although molly tells me fig picking is a quite horrid job. itchy and sticky. i would rather be fresh when i eat my figs. i have a whole bag of persimmons that came from my brother's tree. they have yet to ripen, but when they do, they will be gooey and sweet and delicious like jam and jellies. i hope they ripen before next thursday. i am most definitely back on cigarettes for the time being and each one reminds me of somewhere else. back on that somewhere else. maybe it is nerves. maybe it is the looming end of the semester. or maybe its just cold.

ausstellungsmacher

ich bin für sie

berlin

beat the time dead

I like to think that somewhere out there, on a planet exactly like ours, two people exactly like you and me made totally different choices and that, somewhere, we're still together.


the twins

there is no me here

i think there is some sort of guinea fowl outside my dining room. wings keep flapping and its a strange voice, not one of a pigeon or even the hummingbird that comes to visit our garden. i smoked a few too many cigarettes this weekend, but now i want to smoke more, because i want my voice to be low and husky and beautiful.

flapping continues. tourism continues.

today i ate brunch at an old fashioned fountain store that had paper straws and vegan options. now i am reading about the space of death which made me look up anne frank and then shed a few unsubstantial tears. the dog is barking because of the birds. cliff calls each of us in my house kid and that really warms my heart.

barking continues.

now i must continue reading for a bit longer in order to reward my voice with that cigarette. then i will hop on my bike and sing as i pedal down the hill where someone is waiting for me.

loss of a halo

the start.

i want to live this way until i die

right now, i am thinking about tours around berlin and utopias or nowtopias and kyong park who i am finally meeting tomorrow!!, along with ideas of nationalism and great motherlands and soup. and i am sitting next to a box of fudge thanks to my mom. i'm trying to figure out ideas about my thesis and right now, i have a very raw one about looking at what has happened in detroit over the past quarter century and compare that to what has happened in another city, berline maybe? but not the cities as much as maybe artists working there? the activites that have formed. i don't know. that seems a little iffy. i need to visit these places for sure. my ideas about detroit are possibly going to drastically change when i get there. i am definitely going to ask kyong park about this tomorrow. i was saddened to find out object orange has all but left the detroit area. although maybe all great social justice movements can only exist for a short period of time. i am just rambling now. i made lentil soup today.

(love)story

to continue with my random batman finds

deutscher modernismus

i brought up ludwig mies van de rohe's grave in a conversation today. and so, i decided to revisit some of his works, partly due to reading about the bauhaus and partly to show my lovely sister-in-law his buildings. and i've decided that sometimes, i wish i could be a modernist architect. or maybe just once talk to good ole ludwig about his ideas. a few years ago, i would never have considered myself a modernist lover. i used to feel very closed off towards this type of building, not really understanding it, and thinking it was so stark and uninviting. now, however, i can say fully i would give anything to live in the farnsworth house. i am lately more impressed with architecture than most other visual stimuli, and it makes me want to spend time talking with these geniuses and wanting to hear their explanations of space. but then again, some things don't need explanations. they are truly wonderful without anything at all.

click on images to make them bigger!

floating staircase, the arts club of chicago

seagram building, nyc

museum, berlin

crown hall, chicago

farnsworth house, chicago

there is not one but many silences

Imprisoned by four walls
(to the North, the crystal of non-knowledge
a landscape to be invented
to the South, reflective memory
to the East, the mirror
to the West, stone and the song of silence)
I wrote messages, but received no reply.

envoi by octavio paz

from stone to cloud

exactly

we'll listen to thunder road

although i am not sure if i am in the summer of my life, i am definitely changed since moving to california. i have seen the pacific. i was awed. people are right about that. there was a slight movement of my soul, hardened from heartbreak and cold weather. although i am not sure if this is the place for me, as i seem to have left my heart in chicago, my head tells me daily i am in the right. i am scared though. i am scared to fall in love with california. or maybe i cannot until the rest of me catches up with my head. i am slightly more than lost sometimes. i think about splinching, an unlikely harry potter term. i am splinched between here and there. and really, no amount of magic can fix it. i suppose i have to stay stuck a little while longer.

hadrosaurus

the state dinosaur of new jersey.

no more empty clotheslines

i stumbled upon this and really enjoyed the idea. it should continue around the country.

Instant Grant Program from Steve Lambert on Vimeo.

i'm looking at earthworks. i am looking at lots of things, actually, but i am hoping to schedule some trips to see remaining earthworks in the west. the agnes denes' piece (may not be a typical out in the wilderness earthwork) takes place in lower manhattan, and is reactionary to the empty lots that dotted manhattan at that time (1982). she harvested the wheat and it was sent around the world to be replanted. a sort of end to world hunger. but i'm interested in her taking over this lot, and just creating this wildness amongst the city. obviously, there are city gardens, but this is something of a grander idea. its something that really resonates with me.

agnes denes


robert smithson


walter de maria


michael heizer

(love)sick

1. pennies- paper bird
2. sea anemone- jets to brazil
3. going to georgia- atom & his package
4. i break horses- smog
5. your rocky spine- great lake swimmers

6. lover, you should have come over- jeff buckley
7. i should have known better- she & him
8. american music- violent femmes
9. for emily, whenever i may find her- simon & garfunkel
10. mt. st. helens- mirah

the first day of my second life

i have this idea that detroit will be the city of the future and we will all be left in its wake. one might laugh at this idea, knowing that detroit is in a constant state of rest and unrest. a shrinking city. a place of vandals and wildflowers. i now consider it post post-industrial, although i have never visited. but things happen in detroit, as much as one might be turned off by the idea. such efforts of the heidelberg project, object orange, and others (i am in the midst of finding these others) are reinvigorating detroit. or maybe they are just the beginning of the mass renewal that is starting to happen and this urban utopia i dream of invigorates detroit in the wrong direction. but, luckily, things move slowly in detroit, and it will take more than a few new buildings to bring the major capitalists. it is not a global city and it really has no chance of becoming one, so my bet is a safe one. rebecca solnit wrote a great article published in Harpers about detroit and its return to something other than a city, more than a city. i suppose we'll see what happens.

first exposure

the suburban

cuts

i've decided to start a new exhibition space out of my house. or rather i should say, out of the outside of my house.

i'm naming the space cuts and i plan to host a monthly exhibits. i will collaborate with artists to do more site specific works since the space is so unique.

it looks very raw at the moment, as it has some junk stored inside. but i am also digging on the rawness and hopefully people will utilize that aspect.

i am absolutely loving school, but at the same time, i am feeling as if i am not creating enough. this outlet will definitely help and i feel will get me more involved in the community here on the west coast. and of course, i plan to use what i am learning (and have learned) in this situation.

Official knowledge has disregarded almost everything of significance that's happened in the history of the world.

-Avery F. Gordon

modernity

my dream house.
pure and absolute loveliness.

meditation

mysticism

a thousand new ideas

i attended a lecture tonight by an artist named ou ning. he started his lecture by saying that everyday, he wakes with a thousand ideas. as i sat through the lecture, i certainly started to believe him. he is one of the most creative (or just hardworking) people i've met.

i have this major fear that i will lose my creativity. not just for a short spell, but for forever. my mother always told me i was always her most creative child, but sometimes i think i might wake up and it will have left me forever. maybe this is a common fear amongst people working in creative fields. but, i want to wake up each morning with a thousand ideas. and follow through with at least one of them. maybe that is the key. the follow through.

9 things i am thinking about:

1. china 2. detroit 3. city maps 4. the wire 5. urban politics 6. the neighborhood corner 7. 19th century french apartment buildings 8. working port cities 9. bay area activits/artists

we found this.

i kept it.

the cardinal hits the window

a project by lee lozano that i stumbled upon for a class has really gotten my attention. i was able to read lozano's journals, which were transcribed by ben kinmont (an artist/curator/rare book seller who has won my esteem), and am now hoping to re-examine and possibly re-instate her dialogue project. ben agrees this is something that i should look into. it is simple and elegant and i think a way of connecting to people on a very personal and yet social level. over the next few months, i will invite people to have dialogue with me at my house. below are a few exerts from lozano's project. she exchanged dialogue with some really amazing people of that time in new york and i'm hoping to do the same in san francisco presently.

DIALOGUE PIECE

(Started April 21, 69) OR VERBALL. CALL (OR WRITE/SPEAK TO) PEOPLE FOR THE SPECIFIC PURPOSE OF INVITING THEM TO YR LOFT FOR A DIALOGUE. IN PROCESS FOR THE REST OF “LIFE”. [printed in the note-book’s margin] NOTE: DEFINITION OF “DIALOGUE” REMAINS OPEN. VERBALL GIVES SOME INDICATION.


May 23- Call Larry Weiner (as I promised at Cooper opening). Make date for visit Mon, May 26, 4 P.M.
May 24- Kaltenbach comes at last for our first “official” dialogue. We trade a lot of our art ideas & discuss doing a piece together when he returns from Cal. (He leaves on June 3 for teaching job).
May 24, 69 When I call Claire Copley to apologize for abrupt departure last night from La Monte’s I invite her & we make date for Wed, May 28, after 7 P.M.
25 Call Yvonne around 2 P.M., no answer. Again later (to be cor-rect) at 6:15. No answer.
25 Call David Diau, he’ll call very soon for a visit.
25 Call Alan Saret, he will come tonight at 9:00. Later: it was very sluggish dialogue but I learn more than can be expressed ver-bally from Alan (a lot abt his no-scene), and about this time & place in history. Also realize I have no floor-pad for stoned guests stretching.
26 Larry Weiner & I have a “fast-paced” dialogue. He seems to behave as though to let the other person talk is to let the other person win. The “element” missing from this dialogue which happened to be present in all the previous dialogues was love.
28 Claire Copley mostly talks during dialogue, is interested in learning, she said.
30 Dan Graham & I have important dialogue in that definite changes were immediately effected because of it.
June 2, 69 Call Poons, leave name & no. w/ A.S.
Call Brice, make date for June 3 (Tue), 8:30. Will Brice Marden bring his old lady I wonder?
3 No Brice doesn’t come with Helen & we discuss “the Revolu-tion”, Brice talking almost entirely abt shitty business practices in the art world, & shitty treatment of artists by each other.
4 Larry Stafford who is in bldg to visit Ray Siemanowski knocks on my door & we have spontaneous dialogue, much abt gallery & dealer pitfalls.
5 & 6 Alan Saret returns both these nights & we continue dialogue. More later re this.
6 Vogels visit, we have long “dialogue.”
7 Serra comes over a little high on beer & no food. Just into a dialogue with him ( we’ve been smoking Saret’s hash) when he gets an attack (too stoned), falls off chair to floor with a crash, has “convulsions” & passes out. later he feels sick, lies down on bed until Saret comes over.
9 Call more people for dialogue. From now on I won’t enter these calls in Piece but only dialogues per se, & calls when they are relevant.
10 Meet with Dick Anderson. We walk to 8th st. bkstores & return to his loft for rest of “dialogue”. He talks continuously.
June 16, 69 Gary Bower comes for dialogue at 3:00 P.M. & leaves at 9:00 P.M. It was engaging almost the whole time.
17 Gary Stevens talks abt his job at mental hosp. & other interest-ing subjects but I sense something (resistance, tension)? which keeps him at a distance. Perhaps he was just uncom-fortable?
18 Send following postcard to Walter De Maria: “The reason I called you twice to which you have not been gracious enough to reply was to invite you for a dialogue. Love, Lozano”. [Walter replies by letter before he leaves town for summer. July.]
23 Felix Roth comes for a “dialogue”, laying on me all the prob-lems of the middle class including operations.
24 Jake (neighbor, 2 loft bldgs east of mine) unexpectedly drops in thru fire escape door which I open in hot weather. We have dialogue including stock market info & drug info.
30 I receive a visit from Romy McDonald & her friend Margo who were given my name in England by Tim Head. Pass info.
July 9, 69 Jason Crum comes & is interesting but we do not have dia-logue.

nobody feels like you.

best thing i've seen in a long time.

is there anything as still as sleeping horses?

i slept with my back door open last night,
secretly waiting for you to crawl into bed.
i heard noises all night.
it was just the wind.

once you sang me the blues.
and now, i need to hear it again.

all that's solid melts into air

usually, i am completely ok with who i am. i'm satisfied, thinking i have made mostly the right choices, dealing with the fact that i haven't made some folks too happy with my "art school" notions and my tattoos and living in a world that is unlikely to get me a well paying job. sometimes, i feel i've disappointed my family, but in a very superficial way such as cutting my hair too short and wanting to move to berlin instead of paris and fleeing for california instead of back to the east coast. and i sort of wonder, thinking maybe they are right...maybe i'm pushing myself into this life that is so different from what was originally planned for me, from who i am. but then i do what everyone who feels this way does and say its bullshit.

i am not a new yorker, no matter how hard i'm pushed in that direction. i am not seeking power and glory and money. i am completely (for the most part) carefree about where i might end up in 2 years. in fact, it excites me, knowing i can be anywhere. i spent the past seven years in chicago, where i became a much different person than when i first moved there. my life changed drastically. there were the rollercoaster highs and the low tides and the one time my heart shattered, but mostly, it was splendid. and i wouldn't change it for anything. i would not change me anymore. i think i am who i am supposed to be. for many reasons. and instead of having doubts about my future path, i worry about student loans. typical.

three weeks ago i stopped feeling comfortable. i left the one place that had immediately felt like home (a place i barely left for more than 2 weeks in 7 years) and moved to san francisco. my close friends, the tree lined streets, and the stoop i loved all vanished. i have forgotten how to be alone and i really am bad at it. being alone is not easy...your heart becomes heavy, yearning for a dog to walk, a monday night dinner, a shared laugh. there's little laughter. you are not as strong as you want people to think. habits are hard to break, even when the people you share them with are far gone. i miss the movie nights, i miss the cigarettes, i miss the streetlights. but that's necessary. i've waited a long time to be where i am and i have no intention of turning back. i have the intention of suceeding. i want to be an exhibition maker. ausstellungsmacher.

goodbye chicago. i love you.
goodbye friends. you are always in my heart.

hello san francisco. you have a lot to live up to.
hello friends. you have even more to live up to.

treehuggers and totoro lovers

as far as i am concerned, forest preservation is a top priority. but in the case of the totoro forest, it is HIGH on my list of forests that need to be saved. this forest was inspiration for my favorite film by miyazaki called my neighbor totoro. definitely go to the website to see some pieces by artists all over that are influenced by the movie, the story, the forest, etc. one day, hopefully soon, i can walk through that forest, maybe stumble upon my own totoro.

there's going to be a show here in san francisco of the works up for aucton. at the cartoon art museum that i had no idea even existed. fancy that.

a day off for the working citizens

tomorrow i start my classes at the san francisco art institute.
i promise to actually start writing things on this blog that
coincide somewhat with what i am learning and doing.
until then, here's some things i'm momentarily obsessed with.

roy mcmakin, private residence


z words in scrabble i had never heard of:
zelkova, zwieback, zabajone, zloty



bunny lane, bernardsville, new jersey

a house inside a house.



something i just found and am totally amazed.
in preparation for hurricane gustav in the french quarter:

just outside the sunbelt

the backyard of my house. we moved in on monday.
the four of us i'd say are quite enthralled with this
place. we have ample amounts of space and light
and there's just a general sense of homeyness
right from the start. i'm very grateful to be here.


my bathroom. glad to be back to the claw foot
tub. actually 3 out of the 4 bathrooms have claw foot tubs.



that is carmen in the living room. she found the house.

this is the swing outside of my bedroom.
it might be my favorite thing so far.
oh wait...did i mention the avocado tree?

and by the way, i've completely forgotten how to take pictures.