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Until I am done packing. Will leave forwarding information.

Looking back to APE 07

Carman Day Two, originally uploaded by Tugboat Press.

The weather is sweltering. The sun is out. There is hardly a more perfect time to hark back to the breezy, fresh Spring, and the beautiful recollections of APE 07!

Ed posted his amazing interview of yours truly here. I am the first person on the podcast. If you still have any remaining questions about what Fat Camille is, well, go ahead and be enlightened, click on that link!

In More News

I still haven't found my city digs and am torn between various crash opportunities. The more I think about it, the more confused I get.

Cha-Ching!

I am putting on a small studio-moving sale this Sat! This will be your last chance to own a piece of my old stuff. I am making room for new work.

If I could enter a monastery, and the instructions were that I could only come with myself and the clothes on my back-- that would be so fantastic.

I have had the time to think about the past, and what it means (or doesn't). Essentially, it doesn't exist anymore. The things we can hold on to are so ephemeral. I had three big bags of toys from my childhood. Going through those gave me a material impression that my parents loved me. I can call them on the phone and they could tell me that directly. When they die, I won't have to wonder, and not just because of three bags of stuffed animals. I am finding a lot of evidence of how badly I drew when I was young (which is evidence that art education can improve the way you draw), and other goofy stuff.

Childhood was great because we graduated, we commenced, we had to go to new schools, and try new things. Now that I have been out of school nearly a decade, I am finding things get stagnant so quickly. I spent the morning unloading nearly the rest of my attic to a woman who lost her house in a fire and just need "everything." All the boxes of old toys and books strewn across the living room floor looked as if a flood ripped through the attic and threw everything down, willy-nilly. It looked sad, the evidence of my life-thus-far. I'd love to say that I lost everything in a Great Flood.

I found my box of diaries. I started writing in 1989 and I had kept every single one. I secretly thought that this would be some brilliant oeuvre, that posterity would find it and discover what a brilliant and witty girl I was. As I tore through them (getting them prepped for recycling) I caught a few sentences here and there. The writing was pretty inane. Somehow, the world will survive without them. I saved two, my very first one and the one I kept when I went to college. I will read them in the future and laugh (unless they don't survive a second purge).

Back in '89

I found one of my first devoted sketch books. From 1989. I was 14. One of my neighbors was an art teacher at the JC and he was always encouraging. There is a note in the front saying my drawings were very good, but that I should work on value and form. The cringe-factor is so high that it is not going to be painful to put it in the recycling.

Priced to Move

Yesterday I gave away all my remaining oil paintings. It sounds terrible, but it actually was a lot of fun. They were done five years ago, in my sad man collage period (not anything that I'd really like to be remembered for). I also gave away the huge nude that hung for a while in the living room until my roomies got tired of her. She is going over someone's fireplace.

The lady who took them exclaimed that they were "way better than than I expected" so good in fact, that instead of painting over them, she was going to "hang them up." I even signed them for her. I got to be an art celebrity for 30 seconds.

I told this story to a few friends. They were all vaguely horrified.

Filthy Lucre Rant

I am going to make a 12 hour attempt to get some dough out of my next out-from-under-the-bed art collection, just so I can say I tried. If no one calls in the next 12 hours, they are going on the free-list (where my real fans lurk) because I cannot move them.

Why Its Easier to Just Give it Away

This kind of "art" is produced by the tons in art schools. For people to part with money, for stuff that essentially has no material value, the artist has to be a big deal. I like it when people are happy and although money is nice, I'd much rather the art go to a good home. It is so depressing when things don't sell, that I'd rather avoid that at all costs (what! I am not a Damien Hirst!!? Will My Ego Ever Recover?). And I hate putting pressure on my friends to buy things (no pressure! no pressure!). This is why real artists have agents to deal with the chores of pricing and bill-collecting. Its not just tedious, its actually painful.

Farewell, Little Git!

I am reducing my guitar collection by 1. The beloved steel-string Samick is looking for a new home.

PS Once again CL came through for me. The Mighty Samick was purchased by a homeless mother of two small children (+ a dog) who is planning on touring and she needed a knock-around guitar. She paid me more than I asked. There was actually a bidding war between her and a dude named "Travis". I was surprised.

Good-bye, Samick, have fun on your adventures! I bought it when I was living in Redding, 9 years ago. I was taking guitar lessons at the local JC. It was the first instrument I purchased. The tone was so beautiful when I tried it out that I wept. I stopped playing it after I moved from Capitola, then I lost my calluses (talk about weeping for music!) and I got the super-easy playing classical guitar and blah blah blah.

PPS I actually bought the Samick for my sister. She wanted something to use when she led her students in song (even then, she knew she was going to teach kindergarten). She was afraid to pick it out by herself, so she sent me with $100 bucks to get one for her. I brought back the Samick, after spending $200. She was so horrified by the price (actually, decent guitars start around $500) that she wanted her money back. I bought her out and kept it. She bought a really cheap guitar that was unplayable (even after my dad attacked it with the belt sander).

Purchasing instruments is very magical. I'd imagine its like buying a puppy. You are not just a consumer looking for a product, its more like you are shopping for a friend, seeking a give-and-take that is lacking from other buyables. Guitars seem to hum on their own. I never realized it until I changed out the strings for the first time. I pulled the old strings off and all of a sudden it was mute. I hadn't been aware of it making noise on its own, but without the strings, it was like its soul was gone-- like trying to find a spark of life in a shoe box. As soon as it was strung again, the imperceptible humming started again. Its is vaguely uncanny.

home?

With eleven days before I move on from the glorious town of Flip Flop, I am looking around this house and wondering exactly what it was I considered home.

I came home today after being over the hill for five solid days (when one way of my communte is consistently an hour and a half long, I opt to couch surf). The living room was tastefully redecorated (the usual piles of other people's stuff mysteriously vanished in my absence. Bravo, housemateys!) and the corners appointed with regal Costco houseplants. I had the odd sensation of going into someone else's house. Fortunately, the homey piles of dishes still held court in the sink and the linoleum was still curling up in front of the dishwasher. After a second, more penetrating glance, the house still had its familiar level of decay.

My perpetually messy room has become the vortex in my packing operation. Warehouse, abandoned studio, sty-- it wears many guises, but not that of "bed chamber." The floor is covered. I had a brief vision of it's potential in my mind- a peaceful, uncluttered space, where I could rest, surrounded by a few small art pieces. In some ways, it has ceased to be my room. In a few short days, the M*ster will be calling it hers. It is slowly morphing back into a space that is not my own.

Is it the comforting, familiar mess that says "home?" Or does "home" simply mean a place that I intend to stay at for more than 30 days into the future (assuming a month to month lease)? Are certain things or people necessary to a home? I am teetering on second base, at a figurative apogee, at once fleeing from and looking for home.

Motivated Self Starter

The sense hit me hard today that my life is made up of the myriad little decisions I make in a day. I probably read this on a bumper sticker in Bear Town.

I had a few hours to kill before my next appointment this evening (dinner with the Swedes! I am so blessed) and I was nearly overwhelmed with the options. I could take a bicycle ride in the Baylands. I could spend money I don't have and get coffee and draw. I could go to the library to check CL (something I am obsessing about this month). Even the library had an almost overwhelming number of options. I thought that having no money would narrow it down, but it doesn't. The internet, the stacks-- these jewelled moments are like diamonds in my hand. Its a gorgeous day, even staring out the window would be a lovely thing to do.

I made a choice. I decided to look for more rooms on CL. Now I am blogging. How is this molding my life, I wonder? What kind of person will I be?

Lists

I am overwhelmed right now with sheer mass of things that must be done for my move in the next 25 days. There doesn't seem to be enough time or money.


One of my favorite coping habits when I feel this way is to write lists. I am superstitious about listing. It is not all about just the things I want, or even what I think I need. The process of listing provides a place for day-dreaming.


I am praying hard. (is there such a thing as "soft prayer"? It sounds limp and nasty, like silken tofu)

perfect room
spacious
airy
bright
hardwood floors
big closet
clean
high ceilings

location
near freeways
hip neighborhood
safe
ample parking

housemates
sane
communicative
laid-back
fragrant
intelligent
creative
financially stable
imaginative

Jobs



I was just cruising around the art-educator job openings and reading the various job descriptions. Most of the descriptions are so loaded with palsied psuedo-educator-human-resource-ese that my eyeballs nearly mutinied. I had to cleanse my vitreous orbs by visiting the Pirate Store On-line. Ah. I can breath again.