Typesetters Drawer

This was one of my little pre-holiday projects, which was inspired by things I saw people doing on their blogs. I found an old typesetters drawer, but couldn’t bring myself to paint it. I specifically looked for one that wasn’t terribly valuable because I knew I would be drilling holes in it to accomplish what I wanted. 

Drilling the holes proved somewhat daunting because the angle is a bit tough, and there isn’t much space to work with. However, I think this would be an utter pain to do completely by hand as it definitely made a difference to have very small starter holes to screw the hardware into. 

The results satisfy my needs. At least I finally have a way to display some of my favorite pendants and get a few earrings out of my jewelry drawers.

Desolation leads to greater love

I've had a real epiphany with regard to myself as an artist after this long "dark night" which is I suppose the point at which one ceases to need any outward sign or external acknowledgement of one's state of being. 

I struggled for a long time with disillusionment, because I don't care to make art that is marketable, that fits into the canon, that attempts to help one set of people feel more enlightened through contact, or that signals wealth or privilege or intellectual superiority; I don't care to overtly attempt to manipulate societal norms either through willful conformity or rebellion beyond the point that my very existence and action will inevitably do. All I ever really cared about was inquiry, reflection, and discourse. I don't care anymore about making "my" mark or gratifying the angst created my own struggles with mortality. I never could make art as an ego driven act, and I have never liked the cult of the genius. To me, art and aesthetics is a pure communion whereby ones own mind interacts with the wonder and terror of all things and thingliness; but study of art and aesthetics should be taught alongside the study of politics and war. 

There have been so many reasons, all personal, for my estrangement from the "art world" and I will not pretend that there has not been a period of great bitterness and anger, but also I've had to struggle with that chasm one gets to as an innate nihilist. How do you do things when you are constantly asked to justify them? Is there a point, a higher purpose? If there is not, then what is there about *you* that justifies their being done? Is making a genuinely pointless act in dire earnest not a terrible and irreconcilable contradiction?

I have killed most of my ideas because I let other people's agendas control my inspirations due to the fact that on a deep level I know quite well that I simply want to see some things. I want them, and that is pure will and ego. At the same time, one can want for the perceived good of others which is still will and ego just as one can want randomly for self gratification, which has never worked for me as an approach. I've also struggled with the fact that to me the idea trumps all. I've had many ideas of mine stolen, and I can't bring myself to mind. Love of ideas is alien to love of self in my mind, and having something come through me to others is an end in itself. If an idea survives me, then it is beautiful. After my death I won't know anything. This fear I've carried, this desire to create a legacy, it poisoned me when I realized it may not be possible. It allowed others to control me and use me to generate their own ideas. But I think the poison was good medicine in time. The weakness and vulnerability were all my own because I am by nature one who creates, and this requires weakness and vulnerability where remaining faithful to one's own vision requires induration. One must learn to open and shut like an oyster and to remember that every pearl is a little life.

Now I'm engaging in a process to start documenting some of my ideas. I'd like to share them. Some I will try to accomplish, some I would love to collaborate on, and others I hope will just inspire some one else.

Christmas Wrapping

It's that time, and I am still buying presents. Well this year I have been trying to be more organized, and one thing I realized is that I have too many art magazines. What to do? Well, I always say I'll use them for this or that and then never get around to it so this year I decided to use some of the pages for my wrapping paper. The more I do this the more I like it. You can even weave the pages. I'll try to post a picture of all the presents together when I'm done, but for now here it is in all its simplicity. Torn pages taped together and wrapped with some ribbon, or curled paper.

New Song: The Choosing

I wrote this song yesterday and recorded it last night. I'm sorry if the video quality is poor. I'm not very good at this.

Lyrics as follows:

We're searching for reasons but we won't find one 'cause there was no reason for what was undone, none for undoing, and none for the memory.
Love's just a word we use when we need to believe it's true, 'till we convince each other it must be you.
Forked tongue of reason might shatter our lies. Blink and the scales fall away from our eyes, each thinking the other can rescue these pretty things.
Oh love can be anything. It's heaven or hell, you choose, whatever you believe in until you're through.
Looking for reasons, but we won't find one 'cause there is no reason for what may become, none for becoming, and none for the ecstasy.

Coral Blossom Cocktail

This was my cocktail experiment for the night. I'm very happy with it. I bought some Maraska Cherry Wine to try in place of Maraschino liqueur. I can't say that it's the same (it's really not even close), but now I have this bottle of very sweet earthy Cherry Wine to use.

I was trying to think of something to consume a little of it and came up with this very simple sweet but not too cloying drink. I like it. I couldn't find something just like this so I decided to name it after the pretty coral blush color. I'll probably forget about this tomorrow, but if anyone wants to try it the recipe is as follows:

2 oz Vodka (I just used Titos)
1/2 oz St. Germain
1/4 oz Maraska Cherry Wine

Pour ingredients into an ice filled shaker, shake, and strain.

My take on the 53%

This is not a good recording. I made it with my iPhone during practice. This song is about 95% complete. The middle section just isn't right yet, and I haven't quite worked out the right lyric there either.

Click here or on the image if you're curious to hear the progress.

Lyrics below:

Not terribly Creative: Now with more Absinthe!

I don't have anything interesting to post.

Actually, I wrote a song about the recent protests which I think voices my opinion on the state of my country in my own way. I just don't have the stuff to record it though, which makes me very very sad. It makes me so sad I decided to make a drink and forget about it all for the night. 

Here is an unintentional little still life. I've been thinking a lot about things and thingliness as well. In my mind I imagine a project whereby I photograph and document every single item I own. The stupidity and the overwhelming weight of these things, their history, and how little my life means in the context of these objects fascinates me. I used to study art history, and in a sense I can see how much and how little our things say about us. In this picture: 

A cut glass very like my family's old antique set from on of my maternal grandmothers. This is not one of those as mother decided we shouldn't use them anymore. These I think she bought on impulse at some estate sale or antique store. I like them a lot.

Inside the glass is the drink I made tonight. I decided to drink some of the absinthe I bought. The absinthe is green, and usually I avoid the green varieties except the clerk at the new liquor store I found (which sources violet liquor, St. Germain, and maraschino) insisted I buy this one instead because he likes it better. He took nearly twenty dollars off of the tag to entice me to switch brands, so I did. He is right about the taste. It's very good. Anyway, I decided to prepare it in the modern pyrotechnic fashion. Then for no reason I decided to drip some violet liqueur into the bottom so it would have a neat little shadow underneath. Mercifully this tastes very good. Oh, and I used some Perrier instead of tap water because our tap water tastes terrible. I thought the carbonated water might be unpleasant with absinthe but it's definitely not.

Behind the glass is a sort of tiered candy plate that folds up when not in use, and some books that I could probably part with.

To the right is a little sculpture some one gave me as a gift of the fountain from Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights and the card that went with it. I like it. I'm not much for kitsch or display, actually. Even as a child I didn't really appreciate toys.

There's a ribbon laying across the shelf with a Texas charm on it. If I had to guess I'd say that's my mother's. She's much more of a hoarder than me. I typically keep only things I use and things that are simply waiting with me while I live-- mausoleum garbage. 

Also in the photograph I can see a little ceramic bowl I bought at a craft fair because I'm very fond of ceramics. The bowl can not be used for food because the glaze is leaded, but I used to keep a bit of water in it to display a glass egg that had a beautiful translucent shade when wet. Since I have cats now, I can't do that. 

After writing all of this, I have almost finished the absinthe in that glass. I'm amazed by how buried I am in hateful little objects! 

It would be nice to start clean; but that would also represent such a loss. I love some of our old things, the family portraits and stupid junk. Still, things left in a room like this one, they take a deathly air don't they?