Voice, Art, Delight
Hi, blog reader! It’s been a while.
For some time I’ve been meaning to post these drawings I made in May 2020, around the time I last wrote here. A friend was soliciting animal artwork, for the shelter where she worked. They held an auction and some of these pieces went to new homes! I don’t know which ones.
Looking at them now, I am quite pleased with the fineness and detail.
…and with a VERY stylish linoleum floor.
The place: H&H Fruit Market on Sixth Avenue. The time: a couple of days ago.
Two nights ago I didn’t sleep. It was the noise: choppers, bullhorns, small explosions. A voice screaming, “Stay together!” Sirens. More choppers. The windows at my temporary house were flung wide open. With my still-weak lungs, the fresh air makes it easier to breathe. I was gulping down the air and listening. The sounds of a falling civilization.
Last night I slept, aided by a long playlist of forest SFX. Rain and owls blended with sirens and cracks and shouts in my dreams. I think I’m recovering. My symptoms are easing, ever so slightly. Having been awake two days and a night, I didn’t need my sedative.
Tonight, will I sleep? I don’t know if I will want to.
My heart is with all who are out there marching, defying curfew, and staying together.
No, I said to myself in admonishment. I was attempting to wash the dishes in my kimono, and of course the sleeves were getting wet and in the way. No, do NOT wear a kimono whilst doing housework! Don’t you understand that a kimono is for relaxing??? People like you shouldn’t be allowed to even have a kimono. I was tough but fair.
For the past week I have been living in a big empty house belonging to a client. I’m not working. They just invited me to stay, as I continue to convalesce, and this has done wonders for my mental health so far. As I write this the sun is coming out and shining brilliantly on the garden deck. I’m not being messy; rather, I clean obsessively out of gratitude. But I have to keep reminding myself, sternly, that I’m NOT at work (unless you count my creative work, which has been a joy to resume lately). The kimono, just the sight of it sometimes, helps remind me. Remember in ANNIE (1982) when she gets to the Warbucks mansion and, asked what she’d like to do first, says, like, “Um, I guess I’ll start with the windows, then I can do the floors…” and they all laugh at her? It feels weird not to be working, by which I mean laboring.
This kimono is one of my favorite garments. I found it in brand-new condition at Beacon’s Closet two or three years ago, with tags still on it. It’s a large-size men’s kimono and was much too long for me, so I had it altered at Jerri’s Cleaners on Sixth Avenue and they did such a quick, beautiful job! The sleeves are wide, comically so. You really CANNOT do dishes while wearing it.
Seeewwww, I tweeted awhile back that it would be funny if somebody did this, and then I realized *I* could do it! Hope you enjoy.
Of course, 12 ANGRY MEN stans, it’s much more likely that this jury contained a couple zodiac repeats, with a sign or two left out, than that each of the twelve slotted perfectly into a place on the wheel. But I found it an interesting challenge to force all of them into signs since there are twelve of them. (And hey, if you’re feeling generous you can allow for rising signs and other prominent placements.) Bonus audio below, and below each picture.
JUROR 1 (Martin Balsam): Virgo
JUROR 2 (John Fiedler): Cancer
JUROR 3 (Lee J. Cobb): Leo
JUROR 4 (E.G. Marshall): Capricorn
JUROR 5 (Jack Klugman): Scorpio
JUROR 6 (Edward Binns): Taurus
JUROR 7 (Jack Warden): Sagittarius
JUROR 8 (Henry Fonda): Libra
JUROR 9 (Joseph Sweeney): Pisces
JUROR 10 (Ed Begley): Aries
JUROR 11 (George Voskovec): Aquarius
JUROR 12 (Robert Webber): Gemini
My last thought is that I hope this inspires some people to watch the movie who have never seen it before. Even with all these spoilers, it is eminently worth your time. xox
It’s Monday! I have a few more artworks to share, and I also just wanted to write something here to say hi. For the past while–a long time, actually, like over a year–I have been feeling very conflicted about my own creativity. When I was younger, I never thought I’d be this way; I knew people who sometimes expressed these feelings and I didn’t get it. Feelings of not wanting to bother creating, because it didn’t matter, because it would not change anything.
I think it’s incorrect that “art” (or whatever we do) doesn’t change anything. Most crucially it changes you, the one making it. And that should be enough… no? Understand that I conclude this now, blogging here after days of trying to decide whether it would be “worth it” to blog. Guess I’m just still trying to understand what I’m scared of, what I have to lose by just writing/blogging/expressing.
Regardless, I am grateful to my past self for starting this site so I have a place to go.
