illuminated fictions, shadow puppet dioramas, wind-up toys, and whatever is hidden under that giant tarp
in which I change the subject
I am new to this platform and was concerned about my focus because so many writers seem centered on a particular subject, like maybe they do self-help or writing workshops, maybe they are experts in a field, climate change scientists, long covid researchers, wise-cracking moms, brooding poets, plant geniuses, archaeologists, fortune tellers, or bird watchers. I am very interested in all of these things, that’s probably why my inbox is exploding all of a sudden. It is a little intimidating because it seems like everyone has their shit together for the most part, and that’s great, good for y’all, but I absolutely don’t. I’m trying. This is the eye of a storm, calm but in every direction blocked by winds too powerful to push through. I don’t know what to write about lately.
Honestly I don’t want my thing to simply be, “woman wasting away from long covid under a heat dome while the world burns.” I admit there is a certain poetry to it (a grim fucked-up preventable poetry, an unfortunate poetry, a hot coal in my hand), however the reality is that I don’t want to be in that place, staring worlds into yellow wallpaper all day or whatever one does to pass the time in this situation. For now I think this is a good place to take a deep breath, have a good stretch, and go on about something more pleasant, like …
Being a tortured artiste
I would sketch every day but lately I don’t
I plan a handmade/drawn/written/puppeteered/painted/installed/crafted set of story worlds,
connected and sometimes intrusive, a stained glass comic flowing into a shoebox diorama, a sculpture melting into words on a typewriter, a giant doll made from typewriter ribbons and construction scraps, a balloon for a head, a cape knitted from old cassette tapes, wings made from cassette bodies.
bookmarking pages in old sketchbooks, diagrams for future sculptures, recipes for paper clay, inventories of supplies, designs for a portable shadow puppet theater, a garden plan, some pressed flowers fall out, they’re from the tree in the front yard that smells like buttered eggs when it blooms, the art table is piled up with books, they are in the way, projects are stalled.
I’m tired. Sprawled out on a futon in the middle of the living room floor next to a fan and listening to music while typing sideways with one finger tired.
In a dream I adjust to new space and slow time,
ask each piece of clutter “should you stay or should you go?”
clean and set a mise en place for making a story world.
mystery and melancholy under a tarp
Thirty or so years ago though fresh in my thoughts like a couple of days ago, I wait with my coffee by the door in the mist to greet the custodian, follow him in when he unlocks the building, and skip up the stairs to the drawing classroom. A hexagonal wooden platform sits in the center of the floor, and on it is a mysterious thing under an enormous black canvas tarp, the form more kiki than bouba1. A threatening sign is stuck to it, something like “Gone for coffee, don’t look under the tarp, I WILL KNOW!”
Is it presents for everyone? A bomb? Godzilla? Snacks?
The art horses form a stellium around the draped hexagon, worshiping their god, a striking wooden dandelion, white walls and black floor, early morning fog out the windows. I find a seat, unpack, warm up, automatically drawing shapes with charcoal and conte crayons, eyes closed or staring out in space. I make loose strokes on the newsprint with all of my arm, fill in spaces, shade in volume, pressure, texture, movement, expression. As I draw, more students arrive and settle into their morning drawing routines. They sip coffee, make bold marks, swoop, dash, smudge. They blow charcoal dust and brush stray powder, move with stumps and lift with kneaded eraser bits as the the dandelion clock gradually fills. We nod, catch up in library whispers, until professor arrives and stands on the hexagon next to the mysterious thing.
He wants us to draw what could be under the black tarp. Not what we think is probably there, he does not want us to guess, there are no prizes for being accurate. We are to draw what could be there, to look at the thing in front of us and allow our imaginations to transform it.
I dig in, draw shapes, cut in folds, and gradually pulled a shiny charcoal robot from the mess, brand new, out of the box. Then we were to do a second picture, same subject, but change something. I made the robot rusty, corroded, covered in spiderwebs and dust. I stare at them, knit them together in my mind, what happened to this machine so cold and lifeless and shiny in one picture, so battered and wise in the other? What happened in the in between time, the hundreds of years that passed between unveiling, retiring and unearthing?
I wish I still had the originals, even pictures of them. I’ve tried to recreate them a thousand times and have drawn the robots as different aspects of one, or two with different functions but complementary — an orchardist and scarecrow, a lab assistant and butler.
The professor used our drawings and probably the colors we wore (he said that wasn’t intentional) as a compass to lead us to an artist who would be our guide for the semester. Mine was Giorgio de Chirico.
Until that class I only recognized one of his paintings. I don’t know where people are as far as art history knowledge, but this is a painting that if you feel steered toward surrealism, here is where you might begin, you are running into the unknown and rolling a hoop:
For years I play with his visual style, combined with Will Eisner’s Expressive Anatomy figures, faceless but emotive beings that started to belong to a future world when it remembers its past, they represent “before times” reconstructed in an “after” time. I liked the drama and mystery but also not having to draw too much detail in a hurry.
I think it was very nice of my drawing professor to assign a painter who was kind of responsible for letting all the surrealists out of their cages, and here I am, letting him down by getting sucked into the internet world without a pile of new paintings to show off, just a bunch of old sketches that suck:
I will try to do better in the future, but setting up the workspace is going slow because of the galloping consumption or whatever this is. We’re repurposing old furniture so I don’t have to buy anything. Most of our furniture is hand-me-down, traded, or thrifted, and our dining table is too much now that the kids grew up and started new lives in the world, but the beauty is that it’s sturdier than any work table I can buy new, and cheaper and prettier than anything I’d make. I’m probably going to spill ink on it, but everyone spilled ink on it already so that’s nothing to cry about. I claimed it for a work and sewing table.
And yes, it’s covered in books and junk now, it would be silly to think it would be ready for spontaneous art attacks just because I see it in my mind. I was reorganizing the bookshelves and had to put them somewhere. They can’t just float around, I’m not Merlin.
Anyway, all will be ready soon. There’s a progression of to-do’s that depend on each other and all of our things are playing musical chairs, and then I had to stop because ever since taking Pearl to her first little vet visit I’ve been resting, it seriously wiped me out.
Oh, after class we got to see what was under the tarp. It was a pile of chairs and art horses. We didn’t get to keep them.