Walking

Today turned out great. I walked to my studio in what was unexpectedly a hot and humid afternoon for a studio visit with the director of minidutch. Lucia Fabio is really awesome, and I am looking forward to working with her for this future show there. I will be pursuing a new method of working and using up all the old supplies in my studio. Old meets new, its gonna be great, and great fun.

After we ate at The Grind, I went back to my studio to continue to work on the self portrait for the show at Northeastern, and I think its coming along great.

I am starting to believe that I may actually get my idea across. I want this piece to be about self examination. But also I want it to be about the imperfect. Some how I want the viewer to appreciate that creating something like a portrait bust comes from destroying concepts and really seeing. That even in the making process, there is a constant ebb and flow building up and tearing down: correcting. I love making this thing. I love having my mind so completely engrossed and yet so open and free. Some how I am really excited. I love that this very old fashioned discipline, the discipline I abandoned in undergrad is now really an exciting punch line to this project. I am so excited that I think I might be using a traditional craft conceptually. I just need the right title.After I worked to this point, I quit and walked home through the cool and rainy evening.

Try Try Again

I am working on the last piece for my show this summer, White Moment.

My first idea for this was to have two casts of my head, made to look like the buddha heads, looking at each other. I want this piece to have a real self contemplation quality. Well after I asked two people to help me out by casting my head, and after I sat twice to have my face and head covered in plaster gauze, and I assembled them, I realized I didn't like them. They didn't really look like each other!

So then I thought I will use one of them, and have it looking into a mirror. But the problem with that is that the plaster cast doesn't have eyes.


Which reminds me the before I moved onto this step I bought and tried to install glass eyes into the plaster head because this piece is so much about looking, but they turned out SO freaky!

So now I am on the fourth try. I am literally sculpting my self portrait in clay. I must say its really not going well, but I've only worked on it for like 6 hours so far. I once made a really stunning life like portrait bust of a model, but working on myself is much more challenging. I am using the plaster cast heads for help, but for example, while working on the eyes, I need to take off my glasses and look in a mirror, but then I can't see so well.

So I'm hoping that even if this doesn't turn out very well technically and perfectly life like, that this process of looking and examination just to make the piece will come across conceptually. The sculpted head will be cast in white bees wax and be looking into a mirror.

Hyphenated-Time-Waster

Michael and I finally replaced our "dorm room" TV. You know the kind with the VCR in it. Well we bought this fancy pants flat screen TV in part because I could no longer read the subtitles on our old TV. Or at least that's why we finally made the move. I figured this new TV would be great for watching movies, but it is totally destroying my hiatus from TV.

First of all high definition is way better then I thought it would be. It not only looks awesome, but many of the standard channels offer addition channels via the new hyphenated channel system, which is weird but awesome. Our local public station, WTTW, offers three more channels, and two of them are in English! In addition to WTTW (11-2), there is WTTW Create (11-3), which shows tons of awesome cooking shows, This Old House, Ask This Old House and Bob Ross, and the best is WTTWD (11-1), the D stands for digital. To sum up this "new" PBS station its like, to exaggerate, every time I turn it on there is a scene of zooming through the Grand Canyon, or like an awesome scene of wild life in their habitat all in High Def! This channel alone is responsible for the loss of countless hours, which I've excused by saying that its educational.

This new TV also entertains our Little Kitty, who just started watching TV for the first time. You can guess she really likes WTTWD when the animals are on, but she'll watch people too. Its weird.

I can only hope that the end of this novelty in partnership with learning when the awesome nature shows are on in high def will help me return to my more disciplined use of the TV.

My New Circular Saw

I bought a new circular saw today at Home Depot on Addison.

As I approached the mini van with my big orange cart of MDF, PVC male adaptors, other miscellaneous stuff and my new Milwaukee circular saw, I noticed a small man come out from behind the red big construction van parked next to my car. Since the housing market has crashed, men are looking for work in the Home Depot parking lots. Sometimes they want to help load stuff into your car. As I see this small man in a brown Carhartt-esque coat from the corner of my eye, I feel the hairs on the back of my neck spike up like a cat's. I am really aware of my new saw on my flat bed cart.

I turned from the cart for a moment, and he went for it! Immediately I am shouting "NO!" as I take it from his hand. He seems to motion he would put it in my car. I say, "NO!" repeatedly, and make a swiping motion with my hand. He still tries for ten foot peices if 1/2 inch PVC pipe on my cart, and again, "NO!" He finally backs away to stand by the back of the red van, right next to me. He doesn't look offended, and he doesn't defend himself. His face shows no emotion at all.

As I get into my car the adrenaline is pumping through my blood. I feel bad for him, that he probably is just looking for work, but I also feel like when I back out he'll try to car-jack me. I think about storming into Home Depot to complain, but I am worried about leaving my car now that he knows what is inside. I think about calling the police. Then I think both of these ideas are going over board. I wait till some one is near and back out. Its the owner of the red van. As I pull away I see them talking. The man was probably waiting next to the obviously best option for work- the construction van, and saw me when I approached.

Driving to my studio, my resolve of knowing that I handled the situation in the best and most effective way I could have, mixed with the probable reality of a man out of work and who has become used to being yelled at when offering help. The entire situation is upsetting. But the mixing of compassion with self defense in the aftermath felt like shaking oil and vinegar dressing, they mix only with vigorous effort and only temporarily.

When the "Ah Ha" moment is an "Oh Duh"

Last night I had the clearest moment of realization, that in fact all of my current hardship can truly be attributed to my own actions (kharma).

Like- Duh!

Transformation

Since the New Year, I have been making many positive changes to my life. But I think the source of all this change actually came not from my free will, but because I had to stop drinking to take Accutane. Its not as though drinking were some kind of issue, but when it was absent I noticed how much a filler it can be, much like the other things I've phased out

Reductions:

• Not Drinking
  
• Quiting TV
• phasing out myspace
• checking email less

Additions:

• Revamping my studio
• Working on exciting ideas for my new show
• reading more
• going to see more art, going to museums
• collaborating with friends
  
• Volunteering and taking classes at Shambhala
  
• Re-committing to my daily meditation practice and trying to work with lojong
  
• Keeping this blog and my accutane blog
  

Without the time filler activities, I've been able to add in so many more positive activities. One down side is that the Accutane makes me feel like a lethargic arthritic old lady, so I haven't been exercising at all, and it is driving me crazy. I am looking forward to May, when my skin transformation is complete, the accutane is over, and I can maintain my new life style, but with energy.

Discursive Emails

So quiting my gmail addiction will prove to be more challenging then TV, because I do actually have to use it. Its amazing how even just cutting back just this one day has really exposed the discursive quality of my mind's attachment to it. It comes up all the time. Like *Ping* "I wonder if there's new mail?" *Ping*. Its identical to the way thoughts come up during meditation. *Ping* *Ping*

Paramita of Discipline

I've successfully stopped watching TV. I've watched TV twice in the past 3months! This is a big feat for me. I used to love to veg out, unwind and watch TV, especially after work. But really it didn't help me unwind. So basically since the new year, I've been without it.

Quiting TV has freed up time for reading, which is not only great because of the knowledge gained, but actually seems to calm my mind when it is frenetic. The act of reading is so very different from other mental activities and from TV, that really no matter what I am reading, I can feel my mind changing, much like during meditation.

Now for step two.

I will quit checking my email, but once a day, maybe twice a day when I teach at Loyola, because the students use it to contact me. Always having the gmail tab open, is like a bug in my ear. Like a siren, it lures me to a falsehood of connectivity and socializing, but in reality it creates this nuisance habit, frenetic brain waves, and huge amount of lost time.

Web 2.0 is wildly successful at making us think that something will actually happen on the internet. By tapping into one of our strongest needs- of belonging and socializing, it offers us really a bait and switch, and instead leaves a feeling of emptiness and wasted time, and maybe a new pair of jeans.

With my new time, I would like to ideally do actual social things, and participate in society in much more meaningful way. Last night when I finally decided to put this new plan into action, I turned off the gmail, and I wrote the sympathy card for my godfather I should have written two weeks ago, and I burned 3 CDs for my friend and put them in an envelope. I want to write real thank you notes. I want to use my new time to really contact people, and really let them know that their gestures and their friendship is very important to me.