February 11th, 2010.

     I have long been dreading this day, February 11th 2010.  It marks the one year anniversary that I heard from an "ex" via email asking if we might be friends.  I, still feeling anger from an incident that had occurred the last time we saw each other, responded with an email asking for an apology.  Of course I never heard from her again.
     And the February 11th before that I was 'two months out' from a near fatal head injury, screaming at two people I care deeply for "Why didn't you just let me die!!!"  Obviously the meds needed a little adjustment.
     But February 11th 2010 the gauds decided perhaps I could use a little love from the universe.  I woke up to the news that a heart piece I had created was on the cover of our local alternative paper, the Eugene Weekly.  Suddenly February 11th became one of my favorite days of the year so far.  The dreadful depression I have been a slave to for more years than I care to remember seems to be better managed this year (thanks to exercise and 2000 units of vitamen D a day.  And the remorse of 'a love best left undone' seems to have relocated itself (at least this week). 

 

     For this February 11th I am celebrating loving myself better each day.  (Yeah it's a few days early but that doesn't really matter).  And the better I love myself, the better I can spread that love around to others in my life.  When the day arrives that a special someone comes along she will not be the type to 'kick me to the curb'.   She will not be partnered to a substance of which I will always fail against.  And I will not feel like I am licking the floor for scraps whenever I want and/or need attention.  

     No, I am going to start using February 11th as the day to plan my own special Valentine.   A day to do some real Heartwork of a very special and personal nature.  Perhaps making nuno-felted hearts everyday for the last two months (in preparation for the Valentine's show) has left me lighter in my head.  It has definitely left me lighter in spirit.  It feels good to be letting the love in and spreading it around like one would spread seeds in a garden.  It feels especially good when I give myself a delicious, juicy hug and say 'I Love You'.   Like a gently raised kid I am eating it up cause it really is good for me. 

Julie's 50th B-day party...

I am diverting here for a posting to do a mini blog entry of Julie's party last night.  If you didn't go or don't know these people there are some unusual photos taken w/o the flash.  If you went you might be able to find yourself in some of the photos. 

Above is the party girl dancing with one of my best friends Suzie.

This is Julie, the b-day girl and Sandy her partner sharing a cocktail with a weird little LED lite in it...  ... one of my fav photos of the night. 

Below is the fabulous Elena talking to a couple of ghosts......

Then there was the disco ball installed for the evening in the skylight, swirling light vibrations like happiness energy throughout the room.

Lots of good friends just hanging in the kitchen area...Pam Mathis, who i haven't seen in forever talking with Penelope who is standing next to Carole talking to Suzie... so good to see everyone having a good time... 

By the end it was a beautiful blur of lights dancing in the ethers ...

More Valentine's...

As promised I took a few more pictures today.  The first one is of the scarf I made last night.  In my humble opinion it did indeed turn out to be a winner.  here's the picture: 

 

What I like best about nuno felting (and what makes all that hand washing worth it) is the texture it creates on the silk.  This piece of silk has a beautiful lustre to it and thus the texture looks almost like ripples in a pond.  Here's a close up:

This scarf is also longer than my other ones (and lighter weight too)... great for spring or autumn wear.

I also took some pictures of the pendants I am working on.  First one is a sterling heart set in a silver plated box and strung on rayon with a magnetic box closure.  Here's the picture:

The next one is similar but it is a handblown glass bead with a matching lime bead on the top and both are also set in a silver plated box pendant.  This one however is on a chain.

The next piece is an african red heart bead (more anatomically correct than our hearts) set on a silk strand.  A gold rose was E-6000-ed to the front and small matching african red beads w/black glass czech beads complement the pendant. 

Next is a pendant made w/a steampunk button, a victorian reproduction heart and a small sterling goddess charm hanging from the bottom.  It is strung on black artificial sinue and accented with black glass spiral beads and vintage white-hearts (they are actually red beads with white centers).

I made one other thing which is a winged heart, nuno and needle-felted with a cord hanging from a card.  You can leave it on the card or remove it and hang on the wall or leave it on the card and set it in a frame.  It features a reproduction of a brass button that was popular in the early 1900's.

That's enough for now... I will be posting more regularly up until the sale in hopes of getting you to come out and join us for a good time and some valentine's treats.  Even though I am official single I buy myself and some friends a Valentine's every year.  After all the holiday is basically about Love in the many forms it takes.  What could be better than that?

Valentines is just around the corner....

...and I am making Mixed Media Hearts using handmade nuno felt, vintage skeleton keys and an assortment of beads.  They are hard to describe so here's a picture: 

Each one of them is going to be very different, perhaps symbolizing something that you love...

 I am also making them into hands since not everyone likes hearts.  Each one has an old skeleton key needlefelted into it and a strand of beads or a button or some other embellishment.

 They come on a blank card with an envelope so you can use them as a card or if you remove them you can hang it on a wall or in the window.  You can also use the card as a canvas and frame them.  All this for only 18 dollars.

I am also making some new scarves for spring-ish weather.  They are not as heavy as the winter scarves I made for Holiday Market.  They are still nuno felted onto a hand dyed silk chiffon substrate.  Here's a picture of what I have so far:

deep red and gold on a brown silk chiffon

Pink and green on a burgundy silk substrate:

I am making a few pendants too using some very old skeleton keys, steam punk buttons and various odds and ends that I have collected over the years.  Here's a few pictures:

And another one...

The sale starts Friday, Feb 12th at Susan Klein's studio on 2nd street.  I will send out more details as we get closer to the date.  Meanwhile save some time on Valentine's weekend to come shopping.  Friday nite we will have wine and probably some chocolate, Saturday we will serve some cookies and Sunday afternoon we are doing a tea with the artists.  Thanks for reading and I hope to see you in Febuary.     xoxoyo

A New Decade upon us...

    New Years for me is a capsule of time that I can use year after year to compare 'myself now' with 'myself before'.  In my case as of this writing a head injury in 2007 reset my clock so that I only have 3 years worth of comparison; 2007, 2008 and 2009.  Still it is an effective measure for me of whether or not I am moving in the right direction.
     Being an artist most of my real goals are not about money or acknowledgment; they are about whether what I have been creating is fulfilling the part of me that lives in the imaginary world of my creations.  I have heard 'that part' referred to as the muse, one's soul and the creative spirit.  I call it 'the land of the gauds'.
    Today I was working on a rusty and weathered piece of metal.  Though it has been hanging on my fence for nearly 5 years I have never much liked it and my eyes have slid right past it every time I went in and out of that gate.  But suddenly today I saw it in sections and I realized it would make interesting additions to the art I have been working on the past few days.
     I was trying to split open a jump ring to separate the sections and it required precision use of both hands.  My left hand has not been fully functional for the past few years and serves as both a symbol and a signal as to how I am doing.   In comparison to New Years 2009 I have a good deal more functionality in my hand.  And New Years of 2008 I could not even dress myself without the help of a friend.   So though I was initially frustrated by my hand's inability to do what I needed it to do I kept trying different ways to open up the jump ring and separate the different parts.

     Still there will always be a part of me that remembers I once wore a superwoman cape and could accomplish anything (or so I thought).  Certainly before my head injury getting the parts of the rusty metal thing separated would have been a 'no-brainer'.  The memories of my old self and my new self can make the comparison process a messy, non-linear, ball of confusion.  And sometimes, when I limit my comparisons to what my left hand can and cannot do it is very easy to see how much healing I have done.  After all I am using both hands to type this very message to you.  It has taken two years for the pinky finger in my left hand to learn how to hit the 'a' key instead of the 'shift' key.  And I still get it right only half the time. 
    In terms of my progression as an artist I made two pieces this year that were very personal in nature and that I am proud of.  The first one you can read about and see here:  http://yonacriel.blogspot.com/2009/12/re-post-resurrection-of-yo.html .  The second one was a piece I started in Oaxaca and completed when I got home.  To read about and see this one go here:  http://yonacriel.blogspot.com/2009/12/la-madre-de-todas-mis-santos-patronas.html
     Despite having completed a mere two pieces this year, that's two more than I completed last year and thus in my better moments I say to myself, 'you did good, I am proud of you'.
     I won't show you just yet what I am working on now.  Let's just say it involves a lot of heart.  Once we get closer to Valentine's day I will post some pictures of the pieces I am making for a show I am doing Valentine's weekend.  Thanks for reading.  And happy New Decade!
     
   

My favorite songs discovered this year

      I don't know if it's his dark moody voice or his equally dark and moody lyrics but many songs by M. Ward have appeared on my playlists this year.  I downloaded 'Transfiguration of Vincent" from the libary which I think I like better than "End of Amenisia".  Most notable are "Carolina" and his version of David Bowie's "Let's Dance".   The guy is definitely gifted when it comes to lyrics.  In "Carolina" he sings he "used to feel like California, now I feel like Carolina, split myself in two".  I bet even Tom Waits thought that was a good line for a song. 
     Speaking of Tom and good lyricists I think he is one of the best out there.  Last year I saw the movie 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" and just when it gets really intense Tom starts singing "All the World is Green" extracting uncontrollable tears and some serious shock and awe out of me.  It was really hard to leave that movie as they returned to the same song when the credits rolled.
     And then there's Alice.  I do have a really good friend named Alice but I am talking about the Tom Waits song with that name.  If you have never heard it get the cd of the same name from the library and download it.  "....with a secret kiss, comes madness with the bliss, I must be insane, to go skating on your name, and by skating it twice, I fell thru the ice, of al..ICE...".

     Maybe it is because I am in my 50's and I shared similar experiences, but Rickie Lee Jones is another amazing song writer that keeps on giving me 'ear candy' year after year.  Her new album "Balm in Gilead" is all good but my favorite is the one she wrote for her daughter's 21st birthday called "Wild Girl".  This song has everything that I love about Rickie; from her chords, to her pacing, to her particular way of articulating a verse, this song brings forth those salty tears again and again, letting me know she has hit my spot.
     Okay, yeah, I am a sucker for really good ballads.  But I also love a good world music sound.  Balkan Beat Box, who was last scheduled to hit Eugene at the Shed a year or so ago (and was cancelled due to imigration B.S.) put out an amazing song called "Ramallah Tel Aviv".  We are talking middle eastern rap (just for the record I detest rap music) .... and it was music to my ears.  Difficult to describe.  All I can say is it makes me wanna dance unlike any rap song I have ever heard.
     Then there's a band called Bajofondo.  I got into them because I like 'nuevo tango'.  But when I heard "Pa Bailar - Siempre Quiero Mas" I flipped.  Beautifully rhythmic.  Very danceable.  Gorgeous female lead vocals featuring Julieta Venegas.   It gets me all mushy even if I don't understand most of lyrics.
     I also discovered another singer songwriter this year, Devandra Banhart, probably because he was the free single of the week from either Starbucks or I-tunes.  Went to the library to see what else he had done and sure enough his album 'Cripple Crow' is a winner.  I love "Santa Maria da Feira" the most for it's beautiful vocals in spanish mixed with just enough folky guitar to appeal to a '50-something' like me.
   Perhaps none of these are new to you, but if even one is I will consider my list a success.  I would feel even more 'successful' if you left your favorite songs discovered this year.  They don't have to be new, just new to you.  And thanks in advance for reading and responding.
   

The resurrection of Yo

     Being an artist, for me, has not always been pretty or fun.  Nor does my process fit nicely into the perimeters of a timeline.  I can start a project with a ‘guesstimation’ of when it will be done, but I never really know what will happen once I start.

     In September 2006, I started a life-size mannequin by covering a foam one (I had laying around) with papier mache.  Then, I used the plaster gauze to make a smooth, hard surface to collage upon. I then collaged the entire surface with maps I printed out from various sites I found on the web. In the next step, I laid tissue paper that sewing patterns are made of, and then finally I painted over the entire surface, thinking I was going to sand back through the layers and come up with some interesting texture as skin.  

     By the summer of 2007 she was completely covered. Her torso and arms were sanded down revealing an unusual textural surface with an occasional word showing through. Her legs had red and white striped ‘socks’. Her face had tiny words embedded deep into her skin and eyes.  She sat peacefully in a cross-legged position with her fingers laced together.  And I hated her.  I just could not make any real meaning out of her even though the surface of her ‘skin’  looked just fine.

     Day after day, my frustration with ‘the mannequin’ grew whenever I tried to work on her.  Finally, sick of the frustration, I cut off her arms, then I cut off her legs and I wrote ‘I hate you’ and ‘throw me in the river’ all over her.  That day I promised myself, tears flowing, that I would throw her in the back of the truck, drive down to the river and throw her in.  ‘She will finally stop haunting me',  I thought.

     Then in December of 2007,  I had a near-fatal head injury to the right side of my brain caused by a sinus infection.  I was in the hospital for a month. By the time I got home I still had very little use of the left side of my body.  I could not put on my own clothes, tie my shoes, zip up my coat.  Making art was out of the question.  But everyday for several months I would walk up to the hospital for my physical therapy appointments then walk back.
     Eventually, I learned to read again, type, use my cellphone and most miraculous to me the pictures inside my brain came back.  (I had secretly feared I had lost my imagination).  To make art I would collect things in baggies and hang them on the wall and try to extract meaning from them.  And  I spent a few hours everyday writing.  The mannequin was the last thing on my mind though she still haunted me whenever I went out to the shed.  (I never did make it to the river.)
     I spent the next year volunteering at MECCA trying to learn how to work with others with my new limitations.  The head injury caused a lot of fatigue along with heightened anxiety when dealing with people.  The volunteering helped me learn how to negotiate my new limitations.
     When Mija (the director at MECCA) first said the words ‘Art Challenge’ I immediately knew I had to resurrect the mannequin.  The moment I saw the old lamp I knew that the lampshade was the skirt I had been looking for. And the base of the lamp would be heavy enough to hold up the mannequin.  So inspired was I, that I strapped the lamp onto the back of my bike because I had to start work that day.

      This is when it dawned on me that resurrecting the mannequin mirrored my own resurrection from the brain injury.

     Everyday, for the next two months, I would find little things at MECCA that spoke to me and I knew they belonged with the Resurrection piece.  Death sits on her head to remind me that it is always near, and a skull sits in a closet (or a coffin) on her back to remind me that grieving is a very necessary part of the healing process.  As I first said, for me, making art isn’t always a pretty or timely process.  But, at least this time, it is what makes meaning in my life.