Tag: night

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Creativity requires a void. There has to be something missing for us to want to see something new. When life is two replete, where there is no blank wall, no empty space, the urge to make anew flags and ultimately stops.

Early on in your career, you’ve made no mark on the world, it all feels blank, awaiting your voice. As time goes on it can feel crowded, choked with all too much stuff, or a comfortable, affirming mirror. Neither possibility leads to working.

The abundance of infostractions dumped in my lap by my computer keeps me from feeling what I need to be working towards in the studio. Click by click I move away from the unquiet thoughts of my own lack that prod my arm to move the pen across the page. I know so much about so many things that ungraspable, shifting bits. Why do I like to see where a show of mine is going to happen? So that I can begin to play with that blank wall in my mind. It’s something to push against, so cozy up to or to reveal in an unexpected configuration. I have to make that something happen in my workspace if I hope to get anything done. I need to see a box to put the thing in.

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Sweaty and quiet.
Thinking of what I didn’t do.
There are tulips in the kitchen.
Small heaps of things surround the home keyboard.
Some movement was made on parallel situation in the office.
Abundance is servitude.
My technology is cranky.
A letter has gone awry; one with a check in it.
And clothes. and clothes.
In the dream the sheet was a keyboard somehow.

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Last night was the end of the year dinner for my students, out little in-house graduation before the official event at Bard on Saturday. A generous trustee hosts it at their house every year. The students got dolled up and we presented them with a certificate that I designed. It’s a lovely event and this year seemed especially emotional. I’m very grateful to have been able to spend the last couple of years with these people. I got a little teary during my short speech to them. Maybe it was the excellent red wine.

And now is the chance to get some of the built up pressures of the past couple of months dealt with. Through some talks with good friends I feel like I’ve developed a clearer picture of how I want the next year to go. The warm weather is helping with that as well; somehow walking out the door in just my shirtsleeves always fills me with a sense of possibilities.

Oh and the boot? A friend told me her husband has been following the blog, and so when she showed off the footwear, I told her I’d put it up here for his delectation.

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Pulled myself out of the house yesterday evening, to meet with Fred, and a couple of other folks for dinner. I suggested Gobo, which did not dissapoint. In fact, as I was heading home I reflected on how much better my body was feeling after a day full of headaches, allergies, bloaty-ness and lassitude. I guessing that in part it was because there were very few carbs in the meal. The standout dish was a nori wrapped tofu in a thai red curry. It had bite and an undercurrent of smokiness. As for the company, it was one of those evenings where as we talked more, we ran across yet another person that we knew in common. It was one of those cases where we were much in each others lives, even though we saw each other rarely. Perhaps the fact that I didn’t have any real responsibilities in the evening helped to lighten my mood.

Today I’m teaching at the center, and then getting together with some more friends. It’s funny how elastic time is: when I start doing little tasks, I have plenty of it: when I worry about tasks it flies by and I feel like there’s not time to do anything.

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If I’m going to have sugar, make it sugar like Air’s Ce Matin-La off of the Moon Safari album. French horn, tremulous strings and a wah-wah pedal late in the game. iTunes has just played it followed by some Yma Sumac.

It’s beautiful outside, but I haven’t been outside in it. After last week’s excursions, I’ve taken the opportunity for anti-sociality. Solitude that is. What do I do with my days?

Through the window I see the leaves coming onto the trees. Just barely in the case of those trees on my block, but through their branches I see one that is fully flowered, and I realize that it’s a tree on the next block over that I pass every day when I walk Lehigh.

New York is responding to the increasing warmth by dumping more people out on to the streets. SO while feel like going for a walk, I feel a little iffy about encountering the crowds. Still it’s important to get out and see some things. And Lehigh could probably do with some more outdoor time.

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Five artists whose works I greatly admire have graciously consented to make or read something in relation to one of the pieces in my current show at Location One. Come by tonight at 8pm and hear from these supremely talented folks:

Carmelita Tropicana
Rob Fitterman
Sarah Schulman
Robert Gluck
Dominic Vine

It’s all happening at 20 Greene Street

Hope to see you there!