Week Three: Live Through This: pages 91-162
"She's Lost Control Again" by Nicole Blackman (pp. 91-104)
"Double Trouble in the Love Art Lab" by Stephens and Sprinkle (pp. 105-118)
"Friends as Heroes" by Silas Howard (pp. 119-128)
"Rappin' My Wounds" by Toni Blackman (pp. 129-140))
"The Artful Art for the Role of Art in the Ugly Art of Survival" by DiMassa (pp. 141-148)
"Weight Watcher" by Stephanie Howell (pp. 149-162)
I can tell most of you are reading the book AND the blog posts. Thank you. I hope you can see the power of “I” language. This book offers us a more open and honest way of listening to writers who write what is really important in their lives—note how one uses an alias. What does it mean in our lives that when we talk about what is most important, there are few venues to share? This book is personal—women struggling for representation and recognition—for sanity and groundedness. We have been making connections to our lives, our teaching, how we have been reared, our questions, etc. Thank you for this.
This week, I really enjoyed Nicole Blackman’s piece, as I so often feel “driven” by things, instead of doing the driving myself, and sometimes it takes a very simple thing, like watching my youngest son study and bite into a fresh tomato from our garden, to remind me of the driving I want to be doing. I liked the stories of art being used as strength and survival in Silas Howard's piece. I especially liked Stephanie Howell’s work, though, as I find it increasingly more difficult to explain to my children why mom is always dieting, when they think I’m beautiful. I love that feminist art reflects so many common-ground issues such as these. What are your thoughts?
Reading this morning moved me off my bum to submit two textual pieces (nonfiction essays), momentary self portraits of sorts, to a literary journal. The call was entitled "Like a girl" (Iron Horse our TTU Literary Mag). I will drop them into an external post.
ReplyDeleteGood for you.I will take a look
DeleteI liked it - hope it gets accepted. I loved the parallel occurring against the backdrop of history defining that moments self portrait!
DeleteThanks Gail :) it is my forrest gump imitation of couching my history in a broader one.
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ReplyDeleteI'm with you Dr H - when I stare into the mirror each night at my scarred and rundown body, after having delivered a little over a month ago, I feel very sad. Worn out by the process and my duties that I have returned to, though, I know that I will recover soon. My husband says such sweet things to me about how great I am doing, how lovely I am, and to not worry about the way I look. His words, though sweet and sincere, don't aways help completely. They seem to boost me up for a moment then ware away when he goes off to work for the day. But when I look down at my 7 week old baby girl, as she sleeps on my scarred and stretched belly, I think nothing of my vanity. There is only her and the whispy sounds of her breathing in and out. The flutter of her eyes and lashes bat away my stress and we are untouchable in our little swaddled cacoon. Out there, at school, work, the "real world" I am driven by my ambitions, professors, colleagues... but at home, I am driving and perhaps even idling for a few moments of perfect sleep.
ReplyDeleteDr. H and Katharine I am my harshest critique too - I struggle with this also - the revolutionary thinking to just love me the way I am (driving) is so contrary to believing culture that thin is in (being driven)! lol!
DeleteI think you have fully retained your Snow White beauty (too me). And your prince charming and little person are a win.
DeleteOf course Snow White did not give birth to her small bodied family of seven so she only had to deal with the sedentary life of a lifeless like sleep j(they failed to animate her resultant bodily atrophy). Plus she never got the opportunity to be a professor, she attained only a flat dimensionless inking on a series of pages. :)
I may not have actually given birth to our four boys.... but I do relate to the topic.and self image for me as I get older and my belly grows I struggle with my physical appearance also.
DeleteWow, Kathryn Kelley, lol - loved your analogy - never heard it put that way before!!!
Delete:) thanks Gail.
DeleteKatharine, as a husband, I can say that I am more drawn to my wife now that I was before we had our first child. Her body has changed, but at the same time, she has become something so much more than she ever was before. I don't know how exactly to explain it, but my wife seems more goddess-like, capable of strength, endurance and nurturing that seems well beyond my own abilities. That is what I see every time I look at her. I am sure your husband feels the same.
DeleteThank you Justin... Thank you
DeleteMaybe more driving
DeleteKatharine I am in your boat! I am still growing mine my second one actually and much like you and many women I stand infront of that mirror and can see how my body is just gross to me the stretch marks my other weird parts that dont look like they used to and even though i have been through this before its like its happening all over again... However this time I am with a man who loves me more than I have ever been loved before. With my first husband he was cold and didnt give me much encouragement he just said "well after the baby you can work out and fix whatever you dont like" um wow. This time my loving fiance says "you are beautiful and what your body is doing is amazing" and it does help me and I look at the way he looks at me and I truly can see the love coming out of his eyes. My now 6 year old daughter comes and kisses my belly and it just feels me with love. Yes I still have body issues but the love from Tim and Trista always always over powers those body ideas and I will get through them like I did before but this time with support :o)
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DeleteKatharine, you have done something amazing! My sister and I were talking yesterday, I was ordering a suit, and she was giving some suggestions and said, "well I can't fit into mine, ugh, I am so fat." She gave birth a month ago. I immediately told her, "you just had a baby! your body has done something amazing, give it time to adjust and remember why your body has changed." I can only imagine, as I have not had children, that it would be hard, and the celebrities who do crazy stuff to get back to 'pre-baby body' are just not realistic (Aishwarya Rai is an exception, and there were some interesting articles about her weight and how it shouldn't be an issue:
Deletehttp://www.firstpost.com/living/cannes-2014-aishwaryas-the-real-star-not-her-weight-loss-1537697.html)
And I agree, we are our harshest critics, but sometimes (like you said Katharine) we have to take that step back and see the bigger picture, the real picture.
Katharine - thank you for sharing what many of us feel. I have never had a child, but I have noticed that as I grow older and "not as foolish", my priorities shift and the trappings of vanity seem petty in comparison to magic of life.
DeleteI too felt the power of Blackman's poem although I have never suffered from an eating disorder. Truth be told, I had the desire, I could just never pull the trigger.
I, too, liked Nicole Blackman’s story. However, I question her methods and felt she crossed the line with Alice. Blackman seems to utilize research as a way to continue, “driving” in the uninhibited and intuitive stages of a writer. This came to me as I read Alice’s quote, “I think weight is just a way to measure your control”; and Blackman’s gasping reaction to the statement. Perhaps her intuition kept telling her to keep going because her job as a writer calls her to understand that emotion since she hasn’t experienced anorexia. The word, uninhibited and intuitive came to me from reading about Faye McLeod, a window dresser in the WSJ Magazine, 9/11/15. I saw her installation of window in Paris, with the red tentacles and red polka dots in Louis Vuitton’s storefront. Quite eye catching! I witnessed in Junction, this summer artists at the glass pad, Kim and Chris in their painting techniques and the pottery group that seemed to have a very strong intuitive and uninhibited method in their process.
ReplyDeleteAs a teacher, I think it’s a hard lesson to convey in understanding and teaching about the “uninhibited and intuitive stages of an artist and not to confuse them with self destruction. I feel like she was paralleling this in the statement on page 106; “Eventually I realized they were calling on the (inverted) creative power of destruction, even if it was self destruction.” My impression of this story is that artistry is the process of laying a path to complete your composition - research, practicing the technique, helps in laying the ground work (or doing the driving) What helped the artist to “transcend” was the process of laying the stonework – metaphorically speaking.
Yes Gail those were important lines and I equally latched onto them.
DeleteI did laugh when she links the land mines that are "found buried deep in their (our) bodies" with adolescence. Clearly at forty three Blackman has yet to encounter the bodily turmoil of perimenapause!
I loved her closing lines of this same paragraph as well (pg) 106.
The one thing they (I) can control is (my body as a tool in my art making, which is) ... a determined flag planted in their (my) psyche that says: "I run this body, motherfucker."
But of course I don't in fact fully even control this and I certainly don't control my materials. These actually resist my conceptual and bodily control. They have a will and resistance of their own, so instead of control I become a minor collaborate with materials I use for my art making.
There is a relieving freedom in not being fully in control, perfectionism is not an option.
I totally agree with that KK! - the transcending is when the art takes over my control is just in researching and practice - its so fun to watch the results take place and when I resist that by trying to enforce my "will" on a piece it ends in the trash! I too got the land mines and adolescence...my daughter and I just had a conversation about this and she said the same thing!
Deletethat was my worry too with Nicole did she cross a line? I hope no one ever did hurt themselves or I hope they got more help...
DeleteI dont know what I would have done in her situation... I may have told them to seek help but then would they have been upset if you said that to them?
In terms of food and my body (thinking about Blackman's piece), I have finally arrived with a more gentle internal dialogue. My will has never been able to out smart or manipulate my emotions into compliance. And the more my will cracks its whip, the more that oppression, which I would never put on someone else, raises rebellion in me.
ReplyDeleteImprisonment of my emotions has never played out well for me. Only this year have I found the gentle dialogue.
It simply goes more like this in the moments that there is a enough temporal lapse for self dialog
In the latter part of this day, will this bite, box, or netflix/facebook binge, move me closer to a happier or sadder space within myself? I also allow the dialog to include the option that the choice may be rather neutral, neither moving me forward nor encumbering me.
I still netflix binge, spend too much time on facebook, and shove things in my mouth that diminish me. But I bounce back faster when their is no self punishment, when the whip does not come out. Besides who told myself that my will was in fact the parent or dictator of me, who gives my will this power, and why have I believed that this is the part of me that should be dominant. (ok. well besides modernist, masculine and academic traditions).
Of course it has taken me about 50 years to arrive at the dethroning of my will and cognition as the ruler of self. Art making and writing together has lead to my gradual overthrow of will as all knowing.
this text reminds me that a step towards empowerment versus self-diminishment, is the act of daily writing. i know this. i need this. it has been true since i stepped into my own skin as artist. it is only through writing that i even knew and was enabled to shed the safety of my highly constitutive skin for one of a better fit as artist, a late turn in life.
ReplyDeletewhen the act of writing regularly wanes, I understand this as kind of flashing check engine light. i love all my phd readings (99%), yet for me as a slow reader it is a bit of a fire hydrant drinking situation, leaving almost no time for processes, not time for mulling over. Fortunately I like water, yet one explicit goal for my phd studies has been to not do the next years in a frenetic state. how does one not allow the academic/scholarly frenetic model of immersion overtake oneself? I am way too old to want to live the next five years with the blur of a rock thrown through me own life. i have always leaned toward the sip, sink in and savor approach. probably my neurological hardwire. all this to say, my not writing (the personal, the unpacking, the textual exploring) of late, has my check engine light is on as I hunt for a balance.
of course the more i think about it, the more i know the phd studies is simply a superficial whipping boy for my engine lights blinking. my engine light was blinking even this summer when i had no explicit obligations to my program. actually prepping for my show this past summer was the first solo exhibition i did not write my way through simultaneously with my making. blink. blink.
Deletethe flashing check engine light.... I like that :o) mine seems to blink all the time too but i am glad i have these MAE classes to help get my engine by for now BUT I do know I do need to do more art because I have all these ideas just bouncing in my head some I have even had in there for over 10 years that I should let them out!
DeleteSo glad its not just me experiencing this! Love the flashing engine light!
DeleteBlink blink. But not today. I spent most of the morning free writing my next conference paper plus some personal unfolding and repacking. Felt good to just write (nonacademically)
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ReplyDeleteThere was a quote in Silas Howard’s story that really stuck out with me. “But, once we quit drugs and alcohol, an amazing thing happened: we starting creating. We became the audience for one another, allowing each other to be the important person in the room.”
I have a really solid chunk of my existence that was almost pickled with booze. I’m pretty sure it’s a family tradition. But as I began to fill my life with things I valued, I found less time and energy to drink. As I did, a fog lifted that I didn’t realize was there. I imagine it is similar to those infants that put on glasses for the first time. If you don’t know things are blurry, you don’t realize that there are things you aren’t seeing clearly. Everything was tinted, even when I was sober, and every moment I was just waiting until I was able to start drinking again. Once my life became full of things I couldn’t manage while drunk, the amount of time I was sober greatly increased. I was amazed at how much easier life became, and how much fuller my relationships were. Also, how much more productive I could be. I think that line, “allowing each other to be the important person in the room,” wasn’t at all possible years ago.
Of course, I still haven’t completely exercised that demon. There’s part of me that doesn’t want to. There’s a beautiful moment of peace, relaxation, and joy that comes with that perfect level of drunk. And, sometimes you miss the mark, things break, and you have to put them back together again. It’s probably not worth the trade off. I’m sure eventually I will break something important. But for now, everything in moderation, including moderation.
I too underlined those words from Howard. I think it is such a true statement for many destructive activities... once we quite destructing, we start creating. How simple and beautiful that creating allowed them to stop focusing so much on themselves first.
DeleteI can say that in my most destructive days, I thought a lot about me. About my pain. Sometimes destruction and creativity overlapped, but in my most purely creative days, I am a much more giving person.
Justin I too have had my dark days specially living in a world surrounded by it living on bases where the shoppette is open 24/7 always ready to sale beer and all us and our friends knew were to have a drink cause we were all 21 now thats what you do when your a "grown up". My ex is a heavy drinker and i was one with him, but after I got into college and became a mother i didnt have time for that anymore and my fog was lifted and he seemed to not like that as much because i started to see him a little clearer too. I liked this story too because I had friends that saw what I went through and even my father and they helped really open my eyes to see the bigger picture in life and like Toni Blackman to love me more than anything else so that i could take better care of my self and kid. Being in Art School really helped me grow and when I created I wanted to be 100% in my mind not dulled down.
DeleteJustin, Howard's quote on page 121, "I started to believe I was the bad things happening to me", is her reflection of the very demon which you refer to. But I also think that that quote might be her early understanding/revelation that SHE has more power than initially thought. Like your own revelation that you were better without the pink elephants.
DeleteJustin - I most certainly know what you mean when you say "a fog was lifted". Drinking heavily was a huge part of my lifestyle and culture during my nine years in the military (most of my 20's), and at the time, there was just enough room for everything I wanted. But once I decided to get out of the military and test my wings, I found myself in the same position with my filmmaking and education. I could no longer function as a functioning alcoholic, and I was relieved when the fog lifted because there was finally a good enough reason to stay clear and awake.
DeleteOh, and also like you, I think moderation should be done in moderation as well. And so, I enjoy that occasional bliss of drunkenness. Besides, there's no better way to get to know your classmates! :)
Holley, Everyone needs an occasional trip to the Metal Bar to shake free the dust of life.
DeleteI really love the strength that comes from these stories how the journeys can be hard but how these women fight and get past them.
ReplyDeleteIn Holy I was really worried for Nicole Blackman for a minute about how all these people started looking to her for advice after seeing her work. However I am glad she was able to help so many people and took the time to do that. One thing she mentioned though really stuck out how "male anger focus outward and female anger focus inward" I am not sure about the male part of that but I know as a female i have been guilty of being upset with myself or wondered what did I do wrong if something goes bad in my life.
But like she told Alice... Drive, Alice Drive!
My favorite was Double Trouble in the Love Art Lab I really loved this story how these two started the love art journey and when Annie was diagnosed with breast cancer Annie mentions she was kind of glad it was breast cancer cause she could continue to use that in her art works. I was inspired by that how yes she was scared but she stayed strong by continuing her work not hiding from the world but still living and working in it.
Friends and Heroes was another one i liked how these 3 ladies met in a dark time in their lives but here heros for each other and pulled each other out of that dark place and used their love of music to heal.
Rappin My Wounds was a sad but proud one for me to read how any body can go through a bad relationship male or female abuse can come in so many different ways not just phyical but I am proud of Toni for sharing her journey with people and learning to love herself more and getting out of such a heartbreaking and hurtful relationship.
Yes, I was worried too and I really think she overstepped her boundaries ,it can be very dangerous counseling someone when a professional should really handle that.Sometimes we forget that we are artists sharing our voice ,,but that dot qualify us as experts in the subject we are expressing,,I think if she has disclosed that this was a work of art and not pertaining to me personally in the beginning it would have been best.
Deletesee I have so many questions about her stuff cause she mentions that people came up to her and when she told them it was fiction they were made which i kind of dont blame them.... but then later instead of admitting it was fiction she just answers with "well, what did you get out of it" or "what did it make you feel?" her story was kinda hard to swallow I mean in a way I was like "thats nice you helped these people" but then did you REALLY help???
DeleteI like that Nicole began to answer questions about the fiction of her work with more questions. That is what really turned me to her. "Their questions were really just a portal for them to talk about their own lives and experiences." Her work not only touched others, but I think her willingness to let the audience create their own narrative is what allowed so many to open up and want to seek some kind of healing.
DeleteBringing this back to teaching, I NEED to ask more questions than give answers! Art gives way to questions... which can lead to stories shared. I need to allow more safe story-sharing in my classrooms.
I wholeheartedly agree.As a studio art professor so many things surface in the critique process.When students share their concepts a real forum of discussion is created beyond the formal aspects.A dialogue is established.I am reminded of the following quote:I see teaching as a very important thing, and not only because I teach [the students] things, but also because we have a dialogue, and you see what you really want. You find things out. I still believe in the Socratic dialogue. Art is really something that you learn from being around people. Marlene Dumas
DeleteYeah I agree with both of you Courtney and David i think its our nature to want to talk about ourselves or to share part of who we are with people who really care about us. I remember learning so much about my peers in school some heartbreaking and some inspiring :o)
Deletei have regularly done one project with my students and though it is not intended this way, it often results in first disclosures. The project prompt is simply to write a short 98% true story about a time they either crossed the line or stayed in line...this is then used to generate metaphorical work.
Deleteafter the first semester and being left in a sniffling ball of snot at the edge of the abyss, having read all of them--sexual abuse, rape, first kiss, abortion, not abortion, etc--I announced with the project directions that a. I wasn't a therapist and I could only truly walk with them through its realization as art and b. don't go anywhere they didn't feel ready to go...
cause truth be told, they could in fact write about something positive...ie one girl wrote about her first step of a mountain during her first experience hang gliding...
Anyhow like Candace and the rest of you, my warning flags went up during parts of Blackman's story.
'Holy" is a profound bit of writing.Blackman's piece is quite visual.In spite of the criticism leveled at her by sufferer's of anorexia and her resultant action not to disclose whether or not her writing was fact or fiction, her altruistic motives are clear.Effective art delivers sublime truth(s).I think of growing up as a male in a female dominated household: mother,grandmother and great grandmother.They all wore dresses.The family photographs reveal baggy clothes worn, both female and male.Perhaps this was Puritan denial(the length of the skirt ,etc.).I even went to the dry goods store with them to by hats and dresses-now that is dated! It was an old world existence of shops still in the 60's.People seemed to not care about weight or at least they didn't talk about it.Fat or skinny? Who cares? in my case they all said: "he's not fat he's just big boned.Here are a husky pair of jeans.They will fit".In exploring this issue of appearance,I share some quotes ,a few quite scary:
ReplyDelete"I don't diet,I just don't eat as much as I'd like to."-Linda Evangelista,former supermodel;"Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels"-Kate Moss,UK model;"There is no magic cure,no making it go away forever.There are only small steps upward;an easier day,an unexpected laugh,a mirror that doesn't matter anymore'-Laurie Halse Anderson,author of Wintergirls. Blackman's final phrase really got me:" I will be so slight that I will pass through all of you like the wind"The other truth was the male / female responses to aggressivity: The fuck you(outward) vs.fuck me(inward ). I would love to share a message of hope and self worth from one of my favorite 50's Sci Fi movies(when concepts were strong and special effects were not) "The Shrinking Man" by Richard Matheson, author of "I am Legend". Scott Carey was exposed to a mysterious mist at sea and had been steadily shrinking in size. "...He'd always thought in terms of man's own world and man's limited dimensions.He presumed upon nature.For the inch was man's concept,not nature"s...But to nature there was no zero...he would never disappear,because there was no point of non-existence in the universe".
I have always hated that quote "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels"
DeleteI dislike the consumer thought process.... I call it that because of advertisting and so on that mold this type of thinking or ideas of what women and men should look like.
I remember someone telling me, after I had lost some weight in high school, "Don't you feel better? It's true, 'nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.'" It really upset me, because I had dealt with fear of my size and weight since I was 5, but when I lost weight in high school it was because I had quit the tennis team due an injury and knew I had to adjust my eating (because I was no longer playing tennis 4 hours everyday). But to be honest what is worse is that now I have some relatives who say, "Remember when you were thin?" "You were in such great shape (after tennis)." People just don't realize what their words are really doing sometimes... or maybe I just hope they don't really know.
DeleteHey Kim! F@#$ them. That's a good mantra
DeleteI can think of many things that taste better than skinny feels. I'm not going to list them all here, we don't have that kind of time, but there are certain taco joints that I'm not sure I could give up even if my life depended on it.
DeleteWell said Justin! I can think of a lot too!
DeleteYes, I'd rather be ten pounds heavier and happy than skinny and hungry!
DeleteNicole Blackman's piece moved me the most in this block of reading. She "recognized the need for ritual and belief, and the need for mastery at a time when they feel most powerless." Wow. Thats me. So much of my art-as-therapy is like a ritual, a search for belief, and search for power through creativity.
ReplyDeleteI look at big transitions in my life where I felt most powerless and unstable. Most recently: my transition in to motherhood and breastfeeding. I create art like it's my lifeline, my only way of driving or at least understanding where I'm being driven.
I feel like that is where Beth and Annie Sprinkle were coming from: a search for ritual and belief in the midst of cancer. I loved how they both shared their journey, committing "the 'crime' of actually making art that had content about life...". I have not experienced cancer (or many of the other traumas in this book), but I know many couples who have. And I know many loved ones who keep silent about their cancer experience. But I think Annie is right in that "sharing honestly about our lives really helps us all, whether its in a twelve-step meeting, in church, or through art." It helps me, an outsider, know more of the larger human experience, the bodily AND emotional trauma of cancer, and to see the cancer patient as more than a victim.
Agreed! Almost like a ritual cleansing... as if all of the cancer was in Annie's hair and to cut it off symbolized cutting out the diseased tissue. In many cultures they practice the removal of hair, tow/finger nails, or skin scrapping after a significant or traumatic even in one's life. As I was reading "Hairotica" I thought (and wrote in the margins of my book) "now this is driving! drive Annie, drive!"
DeleteCourtney I like that about your work how you embrass motherhood all of it. The last class we were in i really enjoyed that
Deleteyeah Annie and Beth were one of my favorite stories too!
Thank you, Candice.
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ReplyDeleteWhile reading Nicole Blackman I began to reflect on last week's Carol Queen. Queen said "the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts". That quote really impacted and reflected my own practices of being a fussy type A personality. Thinking about everything all the time, until you just make yourself sick with worry as Queen did. But in this instance, reading Blackman's account of girls and boys who indeed think such loooooong thoughts that they ritualistically and literally sacrifice to the gods of deception and folly manifested in a different stream of fussy.
I was the skinny, fair skinned, glasses/braces wearing, clarinet player, and know it all in my school. I was called all the names and thought long and hard about myself. Never hurt myself, thank goodness, but those "mean girl" thoughts stay with you. I still remember every single person who said mean things to me (and joyfully see how ordinary their lives are on FB). But, why did I look at ME? Blackman posits this question to her reader. Why do girls say fuck me and boys fuck you?
I am very fortunate to have an insightful "boy", man, in my house whom I can always rely on the male perspective from. I read the paragraph on page 98 to him about just that. I asked why do YOU think this is the case. He thought a moment and politely responded with - "When someone is mad at me or says something is wrong with me I reflect on the issue. If I find that it is their problem I think 'fuck them, they are wrong!' I don't care what they think about me, I'm fine. But, when women are criticised they instantly think that there is something wrong with them that needs to be fixed. They alter themselves, and when they can't, they hurt themselves in various, unfortunate, and cruel ways." I asked him if he thought that their might be a biological reason? Some ancient ancestral reason, I always go to logic first. He said - "No, its a learned gender response. Girls (no matter how liberated some are) think I have to be perfect so that I can find a husband, so I'll have friends, so people will like me. Men can do whatever, women have to be pleasant."
It's crazy how it is 2015 and these antiquated models are still ruling our genders structures. I hope that I can instill my husband's confidence into my daughter.
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ReplyDeleteDouble Trouble was interesting to me on the grounds of making something constructive out of something destructive; Annie’s thoughts on chemotherapy. I found her mindset to be very powerful. I think it’s courageous to bring “the process of art” while dealing with illness. Usually that’s a time when the attitude is down or shuts the person down due to a feeling unsafe.
I find Silas Howards comment could apply to more then just drinking – there are many forms of self-destruction. I agree with all of you! That once we stop those annoying self-destructive patterns a fog is lifted and a “new world” of clarity and transformation exists. Justin I love that you filled your time with more meaningful moments and that you’re brave enough to share your story – Courtney also!
ReplyDeleteI love that this story shows how Silas’ redemption led to finding his truth and he then used art to become the important person in the room. I also love that his friends noticed and wanted the same freedom/life! It’s as if our art helps us make sense of our world. As I read this story a friend opened up to me about a situation she was having – I told her I needed some help painting fabric would she like to come help me. She could paint what ever she wanted I wouldn’t judge her. I thought it would just help her relax and a gift of enjoying her day versus stressed about her situation. However, she said no because she felt like it would be a “vomit portion of her life” and a waste of time, (her words). I thought how incredibly sad that she doesn’t get it – that she sees “art” or “creating” as a waste of time. I feel a sense of camaraderie with these authors not cause I’ve experienced their situations but because I love creating and making art! How sad that my friend didn’t accept the gift but I’m so glad Silas friends did.
Oh man, I can't find it now, but I'm pretty sure that David addressed this. It did make me uneasy when Blackman started advising Alice. I have students that come and speak to me about their problems and I know that I am not qualified to speak with them. I appreciate that they feel comfortable with me and want to tell someone about their issues, especially if they are dangerous. But we live in this terrible world where nothing is sacred and anyone is accountable. I have to pass my undergrads off to the school counselors and say nothing back to them. I had one student once tell me that her stepfather fostered an inappropriate relationsihp with her and her sister. It was awful, she was trying to tell me how she has risen above it and I had to ask her if this incident had been addressed by the proper authorities yet and notify my chair as well as the university health advisor to cover my back. All of that vulnerability and none from me in response. But I don't know how to respond anyway. I know art, history, and a few other things, but I don't know how to be "there" for someone. I wasn't raised that way... stiff upper lip and all.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I was raised in a very, "you're fine, get over it," kind of household. I have trouble expressing sympathy. My mother's voice always chimes in with a, "well that sucks, but you still have to manage your responsibilities." I don't know that I could handle a large group of people coming to me for emotional support.
DeleteThat's how I was raised too. My husband even treats me the same. When I come home wallowing in self pity about how bad my day was he just says, " you're fine, we moved here for you to do this so do it ".
DeleteThere is an old statement "children should be seen and not heard" .This was practiced in my household.Learning how to be open with one's heart and mind took time for me learn ,in short honest verbal expression.I began teaching in 1982.It was still a pretty cool time up to about 2005 when I heard the word Ombudsman.Now we live in a world of litigation, whereby, we have to be careful as an educator ;and if we do care about our students and their problems we have to do what Katharine had to .One Puritanical system has been replaced by another:Religion replaced by law.This is a shame as we get pretty close to our students especially in studio art courses.Now ,as educators,we have become pretty neutered in our responses to them .
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ReplyDeleteAwkward (for me). I am just going to say straight up, my identity has not been linked to my boobies. Barbie ruined me for that. And besides i did not develop early or late, i was neither large nor small. Boobies were and are a rather non-event for me. Of course i am sure this is probable some for of denial, but my identity as a child was strongly linked to being a tomboy, being out doors, playing kick ball. As a matter of fact i remember being horribly disappointed in third grade when my brother received a bright yellow chopper bicycle for christmas and i got a midsized pink bike with a banana seat covered with flowers, a whit wicker basket on the front with god awful flowers on it. For me this was my first conscious memory of feeling unseen. The bike was not the disappointment. I remember that the dissappointment came in the thought that my parents had no clue as to who i was, that the me of me was invisible.
ReplyDeleteWe latch on to objects as reflections of our identity. Forme these objects did not include my boobies nor a overtly culturally gender-linked bike.
Bikes were linked to my core, to my child identity. Riding my bike, hands straight out to my sides precariously bouncing and balance over the concrete road riiver, the wind and sun kissing my face and fluttering my shirt this was who i was. Alone in the breeze. A pink gender linked bike got in the way of mybeing free. My boobies have not gotten in my way.
And fortunately cancer did not tie to my identity nor hinder bouncing and bobbling along the concrete rivers of my urban and suburban life. Thyroid cancer is in fact one of the most cureable forms.
Not saying this couldnt change nor that i am somehow better than for the nonbinding situations that have not adhere to the constituative nature of my identity. In these ways i have simply been fortunate. Of course my former got all tied up in my thyroid cancer but not in ways that drew us closer together more in ways that reaffirmed the way his identity was tied to the notion of martyr, which in turn is linked to the concept of goodness. (Good thing this is a private blog). For him, he definitely drew close and linked himself to "my wife has cancer." Of course he couldn't take off when i got the call after some testing before the C word came up that i needed to come back in to meet with the doctor and that i should bring someone with me. As a matter of fact, he wasn't going to take off for the surgury, but his boss told him to, ha and even then he went back to work shortly after a woke up. But he did milk the situation to maintain his identity structure. Ha. This sounds like a chip on my should but actually it is simply an acknowledgment of my lived expereinces. I am sure his narrative would depart from this.
For me it was my first delving into cyber research back before there was google. For me it was far more linked to my identity i associate with being a people warcher, for research and trying to figure out why we function the way we do. So the c word was my first foray into cyber research. And the link of my identity to needing to appear "smart."
Bla blah. Needless to say i am jiggling my way through the collaborative chapter on double trouble.
Oh yes and NO i have never seen Annie's boobs before page 112, nor have i been a porn star or pin up. I think i will keep fabricating objects that are not attached to me as my art form.
I haven't finished the chapter yet so i may regret some of my blathering in context of a life threatening form of cancer. Posting anyway (in the non-editable format. :0 )
wow what a guy him and my ex should meet ;o) ... i know this does not compare to cancer but in a time i needed my ex after having a c-section and having postpartum he did nothing to help me or the baby because he had to "work" yet they gave him two weeks off of work BUT he was taking a college class so he had to do his homework... its funny cause i work, take care of my daughter, and do my homework just fine. At first I was really hurt with him but now i look back and see it was the worlds way of preparing me that I would have to always do it on my own and to know how to appreciate someone who is there for me. (my now fiance has been a blessing I am truly grateful for he has been helping raise my daughter and is so good to me)
Deletethanks candice. to be fair to the former, i did bring my own idiosyncratic baggage to the party of our marriage. they just weren't the same as his...fooooorrrrr example and i didn't know it until i got unmarried and the behavior suddenly stopped, my behavior...
Deletediet coke burrrrpping....somewhere in the early years of marriage, like an acting out teen, I discovered that if I burped, I could actually get his attention, he would look at me. Of course the look of disgust wasn't what i was after, but dang if it wasn't at the least a look. note earlier i stated i might have issues with feeling invisible. diet coke belches insured i did not disappear into the couch within my marriage. it stopped without intention the moment the marriage was dissolved.
so i brought immature, nonfunctional identity baggage/shit to the marriage also. dang. alas it is true.
most interestingly is in his new marriage, he is over compensating for much of what i struggled with him...he has altered his ways and even TAKES OFF WORK just to go bike riding with her. I say good for him (and lucky her). Sure it would have been nice if that had played out between he and I, but sometimes we get so locked into a particular dance that significant changes are unlikely...
ps that is another one of my behaviors, rationalizing another's junk, like the former, so it doesn't look so junky to them or me...which also sets me on a cycle in which rationalizing their junk minimizes my needs and puts me, all by myself, back at invisible and they didn't even lift a finger during the erasure. sigh. identity junk. it is messy. i keep trying to get mine down to a cocktail bag versus the super sized that we now have to pay extra for!!!
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ReplyDeleteI don't think that anyting "defines" me... perhaps my scholarship. I identify greatly with scholars and my fellow colleagues but I couldn't pick one aspect of my life or body that is ME. I think that's why I could neveer get a tattoo.... nothing is THAT for me.
ReplyDelete:) Katharine, maybe we should go get our first tattoos with our favorite scholarly quote...in some place that doesn't show...
Deleteactually i have been considering a barcode with small Helvetica text, all caps, below it that reads
"best if used before expiration date."
One of the readings that really resonated with me this week was "Double Trouble", primarily because I identify with how these two women turned something devastating in their lives into an exciting new adventure. My mom first instilled this in me as a young girl when she started making something called "Ugly Sticks". Are you familiar with the expression "Someone beat you with an ugly stick"? That's where she got the idea. She would make these ugly sticks by sawing tree limbs, that were the size of my forearm, into smaller pieces that she would then sand and paint. One day, she was preparing another tree limb when the radial arm saw that she used jammed and yanked her hand into the blade, severing her left index finger. We never found it.
ReplyDeleteAfter several months of surgeries and physical therapy, Mom turned her attention back to the infamous limb that had played a part in her accident. She painted it as a humble priest offering up a quiet warning of caution. (see my post with the picture). At the time, I thought it was morbid, but I have come to see how healing that was for my mother. She doesn't shy away from an art project just because she could get hurt. In fact, her accident inspired several pieces of art as well as improved her typing. Like Elizabeth and Annie, she turned a harrowing experience into a healing one.
I had also read Double Trouble and it sent me back to my mother Lorraine's cancers(yes plural) from 1993-2004.She had suffered from Non-Hotchkins lymphoma,breast cancer requiring a lumpectomy and finally, she succumbed from a butterfly brain tumor.The Dr. gave her 6 months she lasted 7.The brain cancer was painless, but it was hard to watch her memory deteriorate and her motor skills practically non- extent.My wife and I were 5 minutes from a visit to the nursing home she had lived in.We received a call via a Nokia cell phone(our first) from the attending nurse:Your mother just died.We couldn't believe it.We called my pastor,visited the home and I asked to see her body.She was completely jaundiced.The nurse who called us had said that she read a letter to my mom from her friend of 65 years .She thanked her and said she was tired.She never woke up.The pastor came and said a prayer over her.She willed her body to science. She drove up until 5 months of her death.What a tough lady!
DeleteHolley, my tools actually scar the hell out of me for that very reason...that a blade will catch and yank me into it. Eeeeek
Deletelove the ugly stick idea.
wow what a story and what a lady! now i feel bad that i dont make enough art.
DeleteHolley thank you for sharing about your mother's art making! I love that she had the desire/courage/need to return to that stick.
DeleteSometimes I feel like I am the tool to my art, rather than the art my tool. It draws me back despite the risks (emotional/physical).
I also love Stephanie Howell's act of embracing her frustration with her body image and understood how to celebrate it in her performance. How freeing that must have been for the "realization moment" she had in Gypsy. Really liked this story!
ReplyDeleteANGER? WTF.
ReplyDeleteI don't have anger issues!
ummm. except one reading of the scale and the gnarl of my work suggests to some, not just one, anger...I still contemplate this being not totally sure if it is an accurate reflection of me or them and what they bring to the work.
Based on my process and notion that much of my work taps bodily and emotional knowing that I cannot access directly. And that i both grew up in and married into systems in which anger should not be expressed, it was negative, bad. I grew up and married into a system in which alternative methods, peaceful, non boat rocking ways should be used.
only guessing but i would guess my anger is expressed in the harnessing my body, "motherfucker" to do more than its capacity. my guess is the energy of anger is acted out in my making process. I don't think my work scale is about anger. I think it reflects two things...when making art I tend to use my whole body, when figure drawing, I draw from the should and not from little movements of my fingers. the second, is i think my work scale is hoping that i am speaking loudly enough to not be invisible, to not blend into the wall or disappear. The scale of my work is my outside voice, indoors, not just to not be invisible, but to make myself known...i don't want another bicycle with a flowery banana seat and white wicker basket from some one who loves me...
PS this is in regards to Diane DiMassa
Deleteare anger and control related? or do they just tug at one another?
Deleteweight watchers weight watchers weight watchers...perhaps controlling but when i married, the spousal unit pronounced that we would not have a scale in the house. he held firm to this.
ReplyDeleteit was a blessing to not wake up in the morning and step on the scale; it was a blessing to brush my teeth before bed and not step on the scale. it was a blessing to shower, dry off and not step on the scale. it was a blessing to flush and then not turn to step on the scale.
i had to trust my clothes as an indicator of shifts beyond the microlevel. i had to trust that eating as healthy as i could, and reasonable work outs were enough.
and i did. so know i step on the scale annually to get my thyroid prescriptions refilled and once again at the OBGYN. twice a year i step and the scale and i dread it.
i am all for recommending getting rid of your in house scale.
perhaps you will thank me later! way later after you repurpose twenty minutes a day checking and hours fretting about it and beating yourself up over 2 or 3 or even 5 pounds....throw it away. a very small fee to be free of micromanaging your numbers
Deletei should probably do that especially these last three months of pregnancy lol :)
Deletethrough it out! then your real focus will simply be more along the lines is "did i eat somewhat healthy today" without being caught up in those dang numbers we use to punish ourselves (or at least that is what it was like for me)
DeleteWhen I married (5 yrs ago) we never bought a scale. And me, being the frugal minimalist, insisted we didn't need one. It has helped me not think less of myself, but think of myself less. I finally broke down and bought one after giving birth because I was so excited to see the pounds just "fall off" from breastfeeding.... ha ha. After 6 months of those numbers tracking me, I put it under the stack of towels in a shelf. And its the first thing I recommend to do to new-mom-friends who are struggling with postpartum changes.
DeleteI keep a scale in my bathroom, and hop on it every morning, but I think there is definitely a different level of pressure on men than women. I use it to make sure I don't slide into that, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, lift your corpse out of a hole in the wall with a crane kind of situation. I've never been too worried about the "beauty" aspect of it. I'm more afraid my extra weight will lead me to an early grave. That being said, there is still some pressure, or a sting of disappointment every time those numbers move in the wrong direction, and also some sort of fear at this point in my life that I will get to an age where there's no turning back and I will spend the rest of my life looking more like Santa Claus than George Clooney.
DeleteI know this reply is very late, but this really reminded of my paternal grandfather. He weighed himself on a scale every morning and evening. He would tell me about his weight change, even the change in one day (which was water weight) and he was so concerned over that number that he would be anxious if he wasn't able to check his weight. (And his weight was fine) It makes me wonder what it would have been like for him to not have had that scale, I think he would have been less stressed for sure.
DeleteI don't keep a scale at my house, because I know I would do the same thing - fret over every change. But I make note of any major changes when I go to the doctor, and my GP and I talk about my weight in purely healthy way and usually that I just need to not consume too much soy, etc. It is very stress-free.
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