Unanticipated Blossoms

Yesterday I visited my abstract painter friend's Dumbo studio. It was wonderful to smell the oil paint, sit in the southern light, and talk about books and images.

She and I have discussed her work a lot in the past several months, and I enjoy our conversations. Her work maintains a tension between representational and abstract presentation. This is an area that holds my fascination. Her project is about the relationship between humans and animals.

She let me photograph some of her current paintings, a series depicting birds (above).

After the studio visit, we walked over to Brooklyn Heights for the Kids Art opening at BRIC's Rotunda gallery. Our mutual friend runs an outstanding arts education program for the gallery. Each year the gallery shows work created by public school children who participated in Rotunda's programs.

Some children who participated in the program attend, along with parents, teachers, artists, and principals. The children perform docent activities happily. It is a wonderful, heartfelt celebration.

The painter recalled that we have attended this event for several years. I've reached that age in which time moves too fast for me to track. There is a great divide between my sense of time that has passed and the actual passage of time. It feels as if I have attended the event for the past three or four years, but in reality it has been nine years.

Yet this phenomenon seems to indicate a good experience. I suppose I inadvertently made good use of time because the outcome of the event as it relates to me is so positive.

For example, although I have no formal relationship with the gallery, I recognized a half dozen people I knew in the audience and had an opportunity to reconnect with them. All of these people are people I genuinely enjoy. It is a pleasure to catch up with them each year.

One of them is a woman with whom I worked almost 3 years ago. She was a designer who was laid off in 2006. I liked her a lot and was sorry to see her suffer unemployment. I've encouraged her to work at Rotunda ever since the lay off. She just started working there this spring, and I am delighted the connection bore fruit. It is a perfect fit for her.

I don't often recollect connections I've made for people. When I was assigned to an assessment team at the publisher several months ago, it surprised me when the team leader for the project reminded me that I had helped her daughter get a job. I didn't know her well and it had been a couple of years since I made the connection.

In general, I regard life as a struggle for most people. If I can assemble people to bring them joy or make something happen, I am happy to do it. I consider any good outcome a blessing. As far as I am concerned, these things are pleasant happenstance and I don't think anyone owes me a favor.

Perhaps I have inadvertently embodied the goal of tending the garden without a focus on results. I'm glad that is the advice I adopted without realizing it. It feels good to be a force for good in the world. I swear I can die happy knowing I tried to make things better, and sometimes succeeded.

Taming the Obstacle

Lately I've been thinking about obstacles within. I know I spend my time stupidly, and then am angry with myself that I haven't produced any paintings or filed enough job applications.

So, I've been thinking about why I let myself putter instead of being more industrious.

A friend and I recently discussed a mutual acquaintance, a very talented artist who produces scant work. I don't know him well, but two friends know him intimately. He appears to be hindered by a desire to create perfection. His expectations are so high it is unlikely that he will meet them. Therefore, he doesn't attempt to create anything.

As we discussed this, I recognized some of the sentiment in myself. It is something I have struggled against in my own art practice.

Conversely, I am a non-writer who is able to maintain a fairly robust blog. It is riddled with imperfection, but I can live with it because it isn't precious to me. And unlike my paintings which have a small audience I care about, I don't really expect anyone to read my blog.

This idea led me to ponder the increasing disposable nature of writing. I recall as a child thinking that writing was a permanent enterprise. Any assigned report invoked writers block as I imagined the improbability that I would produce something worthy of gold embossed leather binding.

Today I wondered where this notion emerged. It may have been my own twisted invention based on popular culture's output about writers and their work. As crazy as it sounds, my mother may also have facilitated it. Many people keep copies of their school work, but she is the only person I know who reads it and regards it highly.

This morning I read yet another essay about the demise of print publishing. While I prefer to read any text on paper because I find a lit display mildly distracting (resulting in less careful reading), I acknowledge the merits of a paperless world.

The world is fluxuating continuously, yet writing in books seemed fixed. Hence, reprints and multiple editions with revised forwards. Now that writing is lifted from the permanence of bound paper, it becomes a fluid stream of text. Much in this stream is carelessly formed and read with little regard. Most of it is not intended for posterity.

As an amateur writer I take comfort in the disregard for and disposable nature of the modern writing platform. The medium now reflects art making; a process that happens over time.

So I conclude that the goal is to just do whatever I need to do without considering outcome.

As I write this several literary allusions I can barely grasp emerge in my mind. I recall some Chinese and Indian philosophy emphasizing action without concern for result. A notion that confused me at the time. It struck me as a call for aimless action.

In the West, Voltaire's characters in Candide recommended that we tend the garden. I suppose it should be tended without expectations of yield, but just worked thoughtfully.

A Bargain

After much hemming and hawing, I finally got a scanner. The fact is, I could rationalize buying it for my freelance work. The need to send faxes emerged several times. Then I needed to copy receipts for reimbursement. So I spent $120 on a scanner.

I had dreams of keeping an online blog of water colors, but this is the only one I executed. It took forever to make. I am a very slow painter.

Now that I am scrambling to find a job and freelance work, I have no time to paint. Maybe I'll be able to fulfill my painting and blog ambition once I get a job.

In the meantime, I made this watercolor of a petite, elderly woman I saw at Fairway around October. She was determined to get the best cantaloupe regardless of placement in the pyramid. I thought the whole lot would tumble down on her, but only a couple cascaded down.

The grocery stores in Chelsea (practically all are Gristides) are obscenely expensive. In the fall I started shopping at Fairway for certain staples once a month.

Here is a comparison of prices to indicate why I bother to travel 50 blocks for cheaper food: Sabre hummus approx. $7.50 Gristides/ $4.80 Fairway, Brown Cow yogurt $1.40 Gristides/ $0.99 Fairway. I can't remember the prices of other items. I don't want to post them unless they are accurate.

Most likely I only save about $5-10 buying at Fairway rather than Gristides once a month. But every dollar saved helps, especially now that there are very few being earned.

Grey Gardens Burlesque

Thank god I made it to Grey Gardens burlesque last night. It was off the hook. Coney Island Burlesque on the Beach basically reenacted the film (using the play soundtrack) with a burlesque twist.

It opened with little Edie doing a striptease in which she takes off one head wrap after another. I was in convulsions. Finally, the Lilly Pulitzer bathing suit comes off and she's got on enormous white underwear with a stain and bunched up pantyhose for pasties.

Tigger was the marble fawn. He stripped for Edie's corn. He pulled a raccoon's tail out of his dirty tighty whiteys and then out of his ass. For the finale he showered in corn.

Little Brooklyn did this number where she was little Edie taking a swim. As she swims she's attacked by a shark. She would go under the water and emerge with these glittery wounds attached to her body.

A skinny french raccoon performed a short monologue and then "a dance plastique that will confuse you." It was like something out of a 1950s American interpretation of France. Very funny.

I hope they revive this one. Brilliant! All of the performers deserve a MacArthur genius grant.

Never Assume

A freelance client unexpectedly sent me to Washington, DC again. It was a whirlwind trip. It was short notice and I had to make it fast to balance the work of another project. The meeting I was to attend began at 8:30am, so I had to get to DC the night before.

I took a cab to the hotel because my train didn't arrive at Union Station until 11:30pm. When the cab pulled up to the hotel around midnight, there were about 20 police cars parked in front of the entrance.

I immediately wondered whether some horrible thing had happened at the hotel. I couldn't imagine what would trigger such a huge police response.

The second I walked in the door, my mind was put to ease.

The hotel was hosting a police officers' convention.

The Truman Effect

I was rushing to an appointment. I missed the weather report, so I looked outside to see how people were dressed.

It has been a cold spring, but it surprised me to see a couple wearing winter coats.

I grabbed my raincoat and headed downstairs. When I reached the stoop, I saw a computer screen. It was at the height of people's heads. It was strange to see it outside and at such a height. Then I noticed it was on a tripod. It took me a couple of seconds to realize it was a camera monitor.

There was a film crew outside of my building.

The couple across the street were actors in a film. They had their coats half off while waiting for the next shot.

Most people on 21st Street were wearing short sleeves or light sweaters.

The magic of Hollywood tricked me into wearing a raincoat today.

The Victorian in Me

Today's front page of the New York tabloids feature the Wesleyan University stalker who killed a female student. The headlines focused on his romantic obsession with the beautiful co-ed.

As I glanced at the covers, it struck me that these sensationalized news stories make the events seem like fiction.

I suppose this is one disturbing nugget about sensationalism, but I just hadn't identified it before.

I recognized the result but not the vehicle. That these stories tended to render readers callous to the news, but I didn't connect that the method of doing so was fictionalizing news. It makes the real seem fake and easy to disregard.

It is strange because it is my understanding that sensationalism grabs the audience's attention. Perhaps part of its appeal is that it allows an audience to more easily process information. It allows them to filter unpleasant information by disregarding it as realistic fiction rather than leaving an impression as something that impacts lives.

Perhaps this is why public interest groups struggle to put a face on problems and convince the public that they could be the next drunk driving, heart attack, or police brutality victim.

Digesting the news can sometimes be difficult. If we simply regard people like the Wesleyan killer as an evil character rather than a person with a history and context, it is easier to dismiss him and his actions as evil, crazy, or isolated.

It keeps one's understanding of situations shallow so there is little chance of developing insights about them. This seems to restrict the public's ability to develop ideas about how to address situations meaningfully. The answers become simplistic (execute, lock him up) rather than thoughtful or nuanced (identify triggers to behavior, explore remediation possibilities, examine possible loopholes in current stalking laws).

I tend to regard fiction stories as beneficial and enlightening. In this context, they seem dangerous.

The Screaming Comes Naturally

As I was walking down 8th Avenue with my laundry, I heard a man say to his colleague:

"I've been screaming since I learned to talk."

His demeanor and tone suggested that he was defending himself from criticism.

Regardless, it is a great line.

The Anomaly

It is difficult for me to remember being 14. My grandmother, who was the primary responsible adult in my life, was diagnosed with brain cancer. Throughout most of my high school years she existed in a vegetative state. It was a complicated and difficult time for me. I was profoundly unhappy.

It is unreasonable, but I tend to transfer my own experience to others. Adolescence is a notoriously difficult time. There are plenty of studies and articles attesting to this. Yet, now that I see my nieces at this age, I realize that my sad adolescence was at the edge of the bell curve. It is comforting to know that my experience isn't typical.

A portion of my weekend was spent with my cousin and her family. We are a year apart and spent about a third of our childhood growing up together. Her children consider me their aunt and I consider them to be nieces and nephews.

My oldest niece is 14. I am relived to see her happy at this age. She is thoughtful, kind, talented, and carefree. Her friends are sweet and her parents encourage her to pursue her interests.

I accompanied my cousin as we drove my niece and her friends to the cinema. The girls were talking about a get together that happened the night before. They discussed their admiration for a boy who attended the event.

First, they praised his appearance.

Then they admired his singing and dancing abilities.

When I overheard that he sang and danced, my interest was piqued. I had a flashback to the drama department of my high school, and began thinking of all of the sweet boys who later emerged from the closet.

Finally, one of the girls declared that the object of their praise was effeminate.

The rest of the girls were confused. The girl explained that it was her vocabulary word that week. She informed the group that effeminate means feminine.

The group agreed that he was feminine, but they liked him anyway.

Attitudes about gender roles have changed. Boys get manicures, use hair product, and pluck their eyebrows. This young man may be a straight male anomaly who likes to dance and sing.

My cousin and her friends belong to a rather conservative Christian church. For example, she no longer lets her children trick-or-treat. I don't know their views on homosexuality, but I can't imagine they are embracing the concept.

It appears that these girls are close to encountering a life lesson.

Boobies, boobies, boobies

When I was a tween, I had no desire to develop breasts or wear a bra.

The breasts appeared, thankfully not in the oversized version that burdened my mother. Although they were modest, they had to be harnessed.

At some point, my mother forced me to go bra shopping. It was intensely embarrassing experience, although now I don't know why I felt that way. I looked for the plainest, simplest bras I could find. Still, I found these wire and lace-free contraptions intensely uncomfortable.

Thirty plus years later, I still avoid bra shopping.

This weekend, my aunt (a breast cancer survivor) mentioned that she needed to get bras and needed a fitting. Since we were in a mall running her errands and we had to walk through the store to get to the car, I recommended going to the lingerie section of Nordstrom's.

While she was in the fitting room, I rummaged through the sale rack. Since I had nothing else to do, I thought it was a good time to finish this long-avoided errand for myself and started trying bras on.

Within minutes, I was getting a fitting in the dressing room across from my aunt. This was an unexpected bonding experience.

We joked about my diminishing breasts. I've lost weight since buying my last set of bras and the cup material had begun puckering. I was bracing for an A, AA, or AAA.

She seemed pleasantly surprised that her fitting revealed she needed a double D cup. I was pleased to remain in a B.

Its strange to realize that we care about our breast size in the stereotypical way.

It brings to mind the generalization that men focus on penis length, yet I doubt that their discussions about size would follow the pattern of the banter between my aunt and I. Rather than boldly boasting about our attributes, we express relief, gratitude, and surprise that the flesh remains.

Aside from the first bra shopping experience as a tween, I don't recall bra shopping with anyone since.

It was a somewhat odd thing to do with my aunt now that I am in my forties. But shopping with her made this chore surprisingly pleasant.

Our bodies, attitudes, and relationships change gradually. Its funny that it takes an experience like shopping for bras with my aunt to put that transformation into perspective.