This event was last month but I didn't get to see it until last night-- they recorded me in France-- and thought I would share it because I didn't realize memories like my accordion teacher would come up in such detail. This painting, Study of Vinzula, belongs to and lives with one of you here! And I also talk about the painting's history as well as do a short reading from the story featured in this issue, "Glossolalia." When you hit the link, you might have to put your email address in to see it, as Crowdcast works they then send you the live link again, but you won't get any further email from them, so no worries about needing to unsubscribe. My voice is fine throughout all of the recording, but the visual isn't synced up, no big deal.
Happy October everyone! My September in France, staying with an editor who lives with a big old sweet dog in a large 2 bedroom flat surrounded by park-like woods for 800 euros a month, reminded me of the myriad of ways we can choose to live and at what cost. He is some 20 - 30 minutes from the beach by car, and some 30 minutes from the mountains, living in a Montpellier suburb 4 metro stops from the town center, and where everyone seemed to be so kind. I received so many smiles and warm greetings everywhere I went, even on the metro. This afternoon, home at my place, I pulled out the bottles of toxic nail polish I was going to throw away when I noticed they were damaging my nails, only to save them for painting. (I've already painted a mandala with them, and they are so toxic smelling that they remind me of how the French-American artist, whom I admire so much, Nikki de Saint Phalle, died in La Jolla after all the years of breathing in the toxic paints and plastics she used in her art). This simple cottage by the sea painting shimmers with irredescent gold, as you can imagine from the bottles, but you can't see it in this photo of the painting. I may edit this and switch it out or add another photo when I can figure out how to capture the sheen. But I've decided to paint some childlike paintings imagining where and how I would like to live. By the sea is my ideal. But the other thing I realized while staying with the editor is that I get so much more writing done when there is another person at a desk in the room across from me, doing the same thing. I realized this might be the case when getting together weekly with a writer friend and sitting across the table from her writing pomodoro style-- 4 sets of 25 minutes of work with 5 minute breaks in between and then a 30 minute break after the 4 sets, and you can start all over again)-- and we did this at either of our houses. We would also have a table full of food the whole time and usually a bottle of wine. We did this for 3 years, though not on any schedule since she lives on 2 coasts. Otherwise, whenever I've been living with or married to someone, they work outside of the home, so I have been used to working alone since I was a kid, really. And after this trip, I see my ideal is to have a colleague working in eye and earshot daily. I may have to start imagining more vividly and with more details, since when I have done this accidentally I find at some point in the future that I step into a deja vu.
The publisher works with a designer in Brazil who has done a little over 20 versions of this cover, and as you can probably see my first and last name needs a space, so that it's not only clear but that the Y moves a smidgeon to the right and will look more centered. I feel like I'm back in that fussy detailed mode I never like to be in, but for whatever reasons on each version the designer seems to have missed a small detail or two and then I feel like the bad guy pointing it out. At the same time I am appreciative of being back with a small press, when I was with Bloomsbury I was given maybe 6 or 7 choices at most, but the quality of the graphic application was higher. On the otherhand, knowing what I wanted and sketching it for the designer, which prompted him to do versions that were a jump away from it (maybe he was giving himself more work by not trying my sketch first!) makes me feel like if it doesn't sell I will have no one to blame but myself. Though critically acclaimed, none of my books were considered commercial, while Dive came closest as it was on the road to a movie with 3 different fancy directors attached. All 5 (hardcover/paperback versions) had tasteful arty covers. This one my kid thinks "it's the kind of book you would see in the airport" though she likes it and had many tweaking suggestions which appear on this version, and I told her that I want to be in the airport! I don't see that happening with a small press, but then thinking small gets you small. Miracles do happen : )
I don't know about you and handwritten diaries but I have had a rather conflicted relationship with them, in that when moving (as I have done now around 22 times) whenever I come across the diaries, I either burn the pages in a fireplace if available or bury them in the ground whole with the covers ripped off (if the cover is not biodegradable) or begrudgingly bring a few along with me. When going through a few this time, I happened to skim one and found this drawing (I rarely draw in my diaries) and then read the entry and found that I had sketched the image from a very pleasant dream, which is so unusual to my dream life. I dream often about trespassors and trespassing. When I was younger so many of my dreams were violent, and I was having to defend my family or myself with knives. I have been knived and shot dead in dreams and then have (when lucky) seen myself from above once guides appear in the dream and shown me the unrealness of it. And so, it made sense to me to tear out this proof of pleasance page and celebrate that I had simply been sitting at a table of flowers wearing a dress I was able to remember upon waking up. Nothing big, just simply pleasantry. So I had this framed, just picked it up yesterday from the sweet framer and hung it on the wall next to the bathroom cabinet mirror to remind myself every morning and every night while brushing my teeth that I can have pleasant dreams, even if the next entry at the bottom begins with another nightmare. I don't remember last night's dream but I do believe that it was pleasant! Sufi wisdom says to be glad that you have nightmares because you are burning karma in them rather than having to live out some horror in waking life. But I feel like after decades of nightmares that I am ready to have some real rest as I sleep. : )~
Hello Everyone! Here's a reading of my story "Glossolalia" which was accepted for publication in Kweli Journal at the beginning of this week and will be in my story collection next year, and I have the exact pubdate for the book!
I've been obsessed with stars lately: I have a black star on the wall in the kitchen that initially was a reminder of Bowie's last album Blackstar and then quickly became something else, as I've always been a night sky gazer and have during the past couple years paid more attention to astrology as an extension of my astronomy obsession. Then 2 weeks ago, I got a black star tattoo on my bum (my very first tattoo! as a marker of this new time in my life without parents) and the day before yesterday a friend brought me 2 chairs for my cottage and by the time he returned a couple hours later I had painted yellow stars on one of them. Yesterday I did the blue ones and today, you have the pictures here in progress, but really all that is left to do is a few more coats on the stars so that none of the color is blurry or seethrough. I have painted clothes many times, but in the moment I can't remember painting any designs on furniture. My daughter was gifted a kid's chair by her other grandfather (now both of her grandfathers are passed) that is painted with spots and patterns, very kidlike, and she still has it in her bedroom, like a favorite possession. I remember long ago being at the wood shop of a friend who makes furniture and a guy coming to pick up a piece, and saw me there drawing in my sketchbook, and he exclaimed: You two could make a fun and beauitful collaboration with his furniture and your paintings on the furniture! We didn't take it all that seriously but today I see his point. : )
While doing Qigong this morning, I noticed I was facing this painting, a diptych that I sold many years ago but inherited back somewhat recently when the owner transitioned, and I realized I wanted to tell you the story of it. This piece is one of my favorites.
I was living in Williamsburg, NY in 1994/95 and my building super, also an artist, would alert me to any thrown out canvases, as I have painted over a few "ghost canvases" I call them. These two masonite boards were both painted-- one green, one purple-- and the artist had started on these bottles and then I guess got bored with them and threw them away. When I saw them, I knew that I wanted to execute an idea I had about two sisters, for which my sister and I had already modeled for this future painting I had in mind. I realized I wanted the piece to be multimedia, because I was telling a short story of slavery and colonialism, by using the photo from a magazine of two sisters in African dress in the upper left and two sisters in the lower right enduring the aftermath of a crisis. The painted sisters are in white lace with straightened hair. All of these years later, 26 in fact, there has been no wear and tear on the painting; the pasted on photos are still perfectly enmeshed with the boards and the paint I used as an overwash. The ghosts of the original bottles are eerie to me and effective to the diptych's story. I have used newspaper too as pasted on images on a few paintings that are all sold. I have one other "ghost" canvas here that is a self-portrait with my dragon, that has a lot of meaning to me.
Happy Summer to everyone!! And hopefully you received your card by the time you see this post. (I am trying tags for the first time since the platform keeps encouraging it like a nuisance, but it probably makes no sense anyway since this is entirely private and between me and you.)
So strange, because I posted this yesterday on Saturday and it didn't show up when I reopened the page today. Hopefully you are all out enjoying a beautiful Sunday and see this for a listen in the perfect timing, whatever days, weeks, months from now. It's exactly 15:15 minutes.
This is the completed wallpaper of '80s fanfold computer paper painted in acrylics, watercolor style, in my nook, and I will now start on the other side.
I have a story out on The Markaz Review, which some of you have already read, but I will record a reading of it within the next couple days for those of you who like to listen.
I went to LACMA last weekend where in the courtyard they had all 12 Chinese astrology figures, just the heads, mounted on very tall polls and because my one-time-print level patrons get a choice of prints, it reminded me that with the printmaking process of intaglio on copper plate, I had made a very small series of this Tiger and Snake, specifically with Chinese astrology in mind. I made only 6. They were in various colors, red, orange, yellow, black, and this is the only one left. I just wanted to share it with you.
Do you know your Chinese astrology sign? I'm a tiger!
I wanted to read to you my essay for Los Angeles Review of Books new Spring Quarterly Journal called "Key to the City." I read it at the launch party two Saturdays ago, but I wanted you to hear it, and myself as well, since I got so much positive feedback afterward.
The day before yesterday I had another essay accepted by Parabola magazine, who twice now, take only 2 days to respond to a submission! My piece for them is called "The Only Black Person in the Room" and is for the coming fall issue on the theme Belonging. I wrote for them last fall on the theme of "Fire" where I talked about when the family home burned to the ground.
The essay I am reading for you above for LARB is on the theme "What is L.A.?"
Hope you enjoy the reading!
LOVE! And happy full moon Lunar Eclipse on Sunday!
Since you saw many of the finished drawings while I was in process last July/August before my deadline,I just wanted to post a couple of the published drawings in Leslie T. Grover's novel The Benefits of Eating White Folks, which as far as I can tell the author and the publisher have done little to market and publicize. It's a refresher course for me on all what not to do-- as I had to bug the publisher on 3 occasions just to get a single copy! My contract says I should receive 10, the book came out last month in April and a single copy arrived for me a few days ago. They are promising the 10, and I am not mad at them, maybe irked a bit, but I am moreso observing what shouldn't be done when a new book is published. All 3 of my books I pushed as hard as I could, for both Cune Press and Bloomsbury, and this also involves making sure that as many people as possible receive an advanced copy. I worked and toured tirelessly, and will do so again for the coming story collection.
By the way, the cover features all 20 of my drawings in tiny size, smaller than a lady bug, and since the cover is white with black/gray print, it's not exactly an attention grabber on a table of books at the store. But again, no complaints, I was paid, I did the assignment and am proud of my own work and accomplishment. The author DM'ed me on Instagram how happy and touched she is by the images, which means so much, so all in all, these two things-- her happiness and mine-- is what matters most for this project. So glad I asked for an advance-- only royalties were offered at first-- otherwise I would have been cheated into doing all of this for free as there appears to be no way I will be receiving royalties from a book few could know about.
I am just about finished negotiating the details of my contract with the publisher for the story collection, we have come to agreement on everything except the title. The working title was (is) "Random Kid in a Black Hole" named for one of the 14 stories, but the publisher says he is "sick of black holes." I have this ongoing list of titles to try on and last night at my poet friend's reading at the Stories, Books, Cafe bookstore in Echo Park, I asked the poets and writers gathered there and at the bar afterward celebrating our beloved colleague, what they thought of the original title, as well as this one above, which is a riff on Rumi's line "The Lover Whirls About Him." "Him" of course refers to God and the Lover is a Whirling Dervish, and I say I am "riffing" by trying on "Them" so that the pronoun refers to either gender and/or is non-binary and brings the love to the human, in the same way that Jesus said, The Kingdom of Heaven is Within. Which I take to mean that God is within. And aside from any religious definitions, it can simply mean one's lover is whirling about him or her. And the stories do feature lovers of many kinds. The poet last night looked at this and with his fingers covered "The Lover Whirls" and said, "How about this title: ABOUT THEM." He thought that could be it. But when I think about it, I find it as cold and ironic as "Random Kid in a Black Hole" which brings me back to the original affection for that title. Black Holes contain the event horizon, which to me is about all possilbilities, and I do not actually believe in anything or anyone being "random" and see "Random Kid" as tongue-in-cheek.
At the bookstore last night, I was thrilled to see my books on the shelves. Heat Signature isn't there but the hardcover and paperback of Dive as well as the paperback of Glow in the Dark are there, as you can see in the photograph. And by the way, if you would like to get Heat Signature from me, rather than Amazon or whatever, I am happy to send you a signed copy.
I hope I am not overthinking this title thing. Ocean Vuong's title "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" is one of the most gorgeous titles for some gorgeous writing that I can think of from the decades of my own many bookshelves but, other than in Vuong's case, you can't judge a book by its cover.
Most of you know from my social media posts that my dad made his transition and so most of my time has gone to service and burial arrangements, which aren't yet set due to the backlog in the death industry, and I have been doing too much squeezing off of grief to get through everything and be the big sister of three girls, as well as a responsible mama for my kid, who is an adult, and is actually doing a lot of checking in on me.
But I also feel like my dad is lighting a fire under my butt since I got a book deal day before yesterday and spoke to a writing class at Stanford yesterday, with many other good creative things cooking. This painting above is my hope for summer, to feel like that, like a kid with a giant lollipop instead of this moment of being an adult and feeling like life is short and full of pressures, red tape, and sadness. I am fully aware that this is not the case-- life is so much more, and can be this giant lollipop-- I just may make a postcard of this painting (long ago sold) to remind me of that.
Wishing you all a very happy April! I wanted to tell you the story of this painting, "Laura with Tulips," which my sister modeled for, and was bought in 2019 by a couple who lent the painting to a safe house/halfway house in Minneapolis, and while it was there so many children, who did not live in the home, made trips to come and stare or marvel at the painting. And because there were so many children making these pilgrimages they decided to move it to a church and give it it's own viewing room so that the children could take their time and be with the painting. This story made my mother cry-- and this happened only a few months before my mother died-- and of course I was beyond moved all of this. I haven't yet visited this Minneapolis church, but I intend to hopefully in the next year or so.
For some days now I have finally been going into the fat box of 1980s fanfold computer paper that my friend Joel Rose gave me when I was living in New York in the '90s. Joel published a literary magazine called Between C and D: New Writing From the Lower Eastside Fiction magazine, printed on this paper and wrapped in a plastic bag. My stories appeared in two issues, and they had been submitted while I was still in L.A.
When I first found this cottage mid-January (and before being able to get in on Feb 1st) my kid Imogen showed me an Instagram account where a group had turned their nook into a monthly changing gallery, which was such an inspiration to see. So I started these paintings on the fanfold computer paper; they are all acrylic but I am using it like watercolor, really, and I took this picture yesterday while a new one was drying and that painting is already added to the wall. So far, for 5 of these 7, I have used Florine Stettheimer paintings as an inspiration-- I happen to have a book of her work called Manhattan Fantastica, and am flipping through it and doing a take on any painting that grabs me. I like her "naive" almost "outsider" style and the inspiration goes with the light cheerful feeling here in this nook. They are tacked to the wall and I like that I may change the "wallpaper" whenever I get tired of it.
I realized that I often do not share what may have been posted on Instagram, Facebook and/or Twitter-- all of where Housing Works posted this video-- so here is the video where I share my thoughts on why I think it's important to write your story. I was invited by the wonderful actor, writer, teacher, mentor Michael Kearns, who I met when he was running the westside arm of the non-profit Spoken Interludes, which places writers in underserved classrooms. I worked a lot with Juvenile Hall youth, one of my favorite places to be. Michael Kearns is an amazing human being, as he works tirelessly for this world, and I adore him.
Just wanted to share with you my first cottage nook watercolor painting session, two days ago Sunday. I have been devouring Alice Walker's coming "Gathering Blossoms Under Fire" a collection of her journals, which comes out mid-April. Many years ago she sent me herself a copy of In Search of Our Mother's Gardens and signed it to me with the inscription "In Sisterhood" with a card of a picture of her when she was 6 before the accident that blinded one of her eyes. She instructed me on how to create dreadlocks, as I had written to her asking when I was maybe 22 or so, and the watercolor is of her, with my strict use of 3 colors. Looks nothing like her, but I had such a sweet time.
Never had a meditation practice longer than 90 days-- and that was 7 years ago due to a challenge that I signed my name to, saying that if I didn't, I would cut my hair off-- but as the world continues to turn in ever more tightening, constricting and frightening ways, it's time for me to think of meditation like a shower. I've been doing it for the past few days, and come March 1st tomorrow I'm gonna commit.
Maybe a week or more ago I saved an image of a baby who I wanted to draw, and this was unusual since I don't think that I have much drawn babies other than my own kid when they were first born. I remember selling the first painting I did of them, which was called "Fire Rat" because that is their Chinese astrological sign and it was a close-up of them crying in my arm, and all of my arm you could see was about as much as in this drawing. Otherwise, I did plenty of joyful drawings, as did they of the two of us (I am including here Imogen's assigned Etch-a-Sketch drawing in preschool when asked to make a portrait of them and their mother).
As I started drawing this baby, not more than an hour ago, I turned on the radio, thinking I was getting NPR's "Press Play" but since it's the Presidents Day holiday, they had a special of readers doing Toni Morrison's work. I happened to tune in when Phylicia Rashad was reading the short story "Sweetness" in first person POV from a light-skinned mother who gave birth to a dark-skinned baby-- "Sudanese black" she called her-- and about her fear and dread and loathing of this baby. It was a shocking emotional piece to listen to while drawing a baby, and made me think about this essay I wrote for Essence magazine about how when out-and-about pushing my baby in a stroller in the streets of New York, where they were born, how white people assumed I was their nanny because I am dark-skinned and they were so lightskinned. If their white father pushed the stroller and I accompanied the two of them, people still thought I was the nanny being brought along for when he couldn't handle his baby. The stunning amount of racism I experienced in New York during the seven years I lived there I don't think can compare to what I experience here in L.A., which perhaps I know how to navigate since I was born here. And we only lived in New York for two years, once they were born, largely because I got sick of everyone assuming I was not their mother but their nanny. When that piece ran in Essence, I got so many letters from Black women who were mothers of biracial children and who had experienced the same, all mainly on the East Coast. On the west coast, during our visits home to family, there was no one in the street or wherever we went that didn't recognize that I was my baby's mother.
I spent the morning, as I did the weekend, going over the English edit version of The Passenger California book, which came out in Italian last week (I have no idea what edits they made since I don't know Italian) and the Brit who is editing for Europa Editions, asked if we shouldn't spell out BIPOC since Europeans wouldn't know what it is, and I said, let's leave it because they can Google it. We exchanged pleasantries this morning too, none of this was hostile, it's just that sometimes dealing with issues of race feels like a bummer on a Monday morning.
I think it was on Saturday morning that I listened to Alain de Botton being interviewed on NPR's The Examined Life (?) I think the show might be called. And he talked about our human need to have friends, loved ones who we can say anything to, confide our deepest thoughts, secrets and who will receive without judgment, but also who will call us out on our patterns, and that we are that person for them too. This inspired me to make these simple line drawings of two people looking into one another's eyes.
I am finally in my new home and feeling so very grateful for the loved ones in my life who were so compassionate and supportive of me during such a stressful time. And that very much includes you here. And it's thanks to one of you here, dear Debbie, who found this lovely cottage for me. I am so full love and gratitude on this Valentine's Day, and wish you all a beautiful day of cherishing this life we have.
Hello everyone, it's my half birthday today and I write you from the room of my host's community house. I may have, probably have, mentioned that my first publisher is interested in doing another book and I was planning on emailing him during the next few days the title I am thinking about "Random Kid in a Black Hole" stories as well as the screensaver on my phone, which is a photo of Frida Kahlo's kitchen that my ex-husband/kid's father took and sent to me. He is the one who photographed the cover of my hardcover story collection that Cune Press published as well as so many portraits of me that I've used over the years for promos and bio pics. It is unlikely that the Kahlo estate would allow this as a cover-- and it is too confusing to have her name involved at all-- but I simply want to show the publisher an idea of how colorful I can see a cover for a story collection we could do together.
I have been managing to get writing done in the varied homes and atmospheres of beloveds putting me up until I am able to sign the lease on Feb. 1st for a cottage, a find and happening with all thanks to Debbie here. The drawing is from today, a contemplation of pigs and all we have in common with them, and then the photograph is from the magazine Autre-- I am writing a story inspired by these 2 pages called "Mystery Girl 363" because I had a dream about the number 363 and then received this magazine, where this mystery girl appears on 363, and it occurred to me after looking up the year 363 and all of the hellish religious restrictions and goings-on that it was ripe for writing about-- even if it may not end up being so much about the year as about the woman.
I am writing you from a tiny room in a community house with a shared bathroom in the Mar Vista area of L.A., where it's been raining non-stop for days. I will be here through New Year's morning, when I move to a friend's place in Silver Lake, while looking for an apartment to rent.
I have your cards in my bag to mail, already stamped, but with all of the lugging around of my stuff in the rain these past few days, I haven't taken the cards out of my sketchbook lest they sog and bleed.
I had some good news over the past couple weeks: WW Norton is licensing one of the stories from Glow in the Dark for an anthology to be published in 2023, and I have the essay and the Author Recommends column coming out in February 2022 in The Passenger: California published by Europa Editions, via Iperborea in Italy, and I have a few words on Joan Didion coming out in 11 papers of the Southern California New Group, and will appear online next week. I feel like I'm forgetting something...
But I just wanted to wish you all a beautiful New Year's Eve and a lovely ringing in of 2022. The New Moon is on Sunday morning PST time and though I won't be "home" as I am pretty much unhoused, I am confident that not far into January that will no longer be the case.
Sending lots of LOVE and GRATITUDE to you all for supporting me and making this year of working almost exclusively on my own creativity a most profound one. This has been a deeply touching journey and amazing year, all thanks to you.
I returned early from Sedona since I want and need to move from where I've been living and so I didn't take time to make a medicine table but I did light a candle on the money jar I created/activiated after receiving the book Your Intuition Led You Here, using their 3-day ritual that involves rice or oats, your choice, cloves, basil leaf, molasses, 2 white votive candles, a green candle and 21 dimes : )
This is the first time I've ever did a "spell" from anyone's book of recipes, but the jar sitting atop my turquoise bookshelf of art books is reflecting a deep green from the candlelight and the green self-portrait (Self-Portrait with Mud) that hangs above it, with the Solstice crystals I added around it.
I got so much writing done in Sedona. I turned in my essays to the Italian publisher Iperborea for the Europa Editions The Passenger series, so The Passenger: California will be coming out in February. Also, while in Sedona, I received the great news that W.W. Norton will be publishing a story from my collection Glow in the Dark in a fiction anthology coming out in 2023. The Norton editor and my hardcover publisher, Cune Press (Bloomsbury published the paperback and my 2 novels) reached out to regarding the story permission & payment, and Cune offered that we do another book together, so I am coming into the new year feeling great about work, and so very grateful to you for accompanying me through this year that I would never have felt as supported or as high or as blessed without you.
I was listening to Imogen TV's beautiful soundtrack for Glen Falls Sequence, when just afterward my Itunes played this surprising track I didn't remember recording-- from the L.A. Forum group show Every.Thing.Changes. which happened last summer when I was asked to write a vision for L.A. and chose to write about my dream of a collaborative house called The Castle in the Trees. This is the story that was printed on a large poster along with a Q-code for Imogen TVs music on site in Highland Park at Elephant Space, where our partner architects constructed a one-day castle on the site, and everyone came out to see it and celebrate, en masque and undeterred. Hope you enjoy!
Since I have been sharing my tables, I continue here. The intention in creating the table was balancing masculine and feminine energy for the planet. At the back left is Bastet again, with the Angel at the center, holding a small piece of jade, polar wolves at her side, looking over the world. At the back right is a Shiva lingam accompanied by a polar owl. Upfront are the bears, front left a rabbit, front left a seal and dolphin. I got the polar figures over a month ago for the table not knowing the eclipse would be seen from Antartica, I just wanted to connect with that part of the globe. We did our personal intentions last night, placed them under the world, and had a little toast of champagne.
One of the astrologers I read monthly, Michael Lennox, gives free daily analysis during eclipse season, and the one arriving today on Saturday, said that the New Moon and Eclipse are still very potent during all of today for your intentions. So I recommend you write an intention and light a candle, if you haven't already.
As always, I have four paintings in progress: this one you have seen in at least 2 stages, what is new is the blue background and stars, which look a little like a children's book, I see now as I post the picture.
Thank you so very very much for continuing this journey with me. It means everything to me. And you have made me considerably braver. I have always overthought every single move, but here with you is the place and the space that I simply share without reservation or worry. That is a tremendous gift, your trust and your support, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
By the way, today is a Palindrome, Anagram: 12022021
Due to the time of morning and the current poor light of the front room, it is hard to see the details of this table, but the figurehead is Bastet, flanked by tarot moon and world cards. My partner happens to have two Bastet figures, so I put the other in the bedroom in front of a crystal during this Full Moon, Lunar Eclipse phase. Spiraling out from Bastet is thyme from the garden, as well as red berries, I think of as junipers, but are actually far from that, I can't place what they are. Also, are rudraksha I picked from the forest floor on private native land in the Big Island, Hawaii, where on my birthday 12 years ago, it was opened for me and my then husband, because they perceived me to be a Lumerian goddess returning, particularly since some condor who lived there gave birth upon my arrival, and hadn't for however many years. They named the baby condor Lisa, which is a shame, because it's the plainest name other than Jane, the baby could have hoped for. This land was so sacred that if I say anything further about it, it would only sound all the more insane and completely from my imagination. But writing you all about this reminds me that I should write about it in Diary of a Yogi, which by the way, I just sent excerpts of to an agent (so do think positive thoughts for me, as I hope he and I are a match!) and the book is the forum where this would fit, anyway.
As for my medicine table habit-- this one reminds me of when a friend was in the hospital for surgery, and though to the outside world she is a novelist, writer, critic and teacher of law, she thinks of herself as a witch, and when I lived in Laurel Canyon and had woods for a backyard I often pulled plants and flora for my tables-- and for her I put together just the right mix, because a falcon arrived as I sat there in prayer for her, and when I told her this, she exclaimed, Falcons are my spirit animal!
This kind of mysticism materialized is why I continue on this path of total faith and belief.
With this full moon I declare a release of fear. We will see how much fear I manage to release.
By the way, last night I saw a gorgeous show at REDCAT by Carmina Escobar, who named one of the chapter pieces for this performance of music, dance and voice, after my poem, Sun in My Heart, Blood in my Shadow and credited me in the program, which I am grateful for.
Oh, and why I know it's Karthigai, Festival of Lamps today is that my dear friend Naren often sends video postcards of his life in S. India since he moved back there from L.A. this past July.
An Italian publisher approached me this past Friday about writing for their travel book series, this one being on California (as opposed to a country, their previous books are on Ireland, Japan, Greece, Turkey, but I do realize Cali is as big as those countries...), and over the process of figuring out the California book, album, and film I would write about-- as well as the precise subject of the longer form essay, they asked me for suddenly this morning-- I started skimming through old films on Criterion and came across a David Hockney documentary I hadn't seen before (I think I have seen at least two). They haven't asked me specifically about art and what a California colorscape might be, but I am thinking about this as I go through my library looking at books, my music collection, and film faves in my mind's list for all of these genres of art that help defiine this state.
Please feel free to add your favorite California books, albums, and films here!
As I am working this afternoon on the large "Laura on Wilshire Blvd" painting, which still holds challenges around capturing sunglasses properly after two years, I have also been doing a color study, the one above which looks like a fist. I added the Bangkok painting because I realized afterward that it was inspired perhaps subliminally by Hockney and maybe more particularly, R. B. Kitaj, who also used Los Angeles as a subject. The music page color pastel above was done directly after going to see a David Hockney documentary at a theater years ago and feeling inspired by his palette.
As for the Italian publisher, what is currently up in the air for me is if it is really necessary to get the irs document that costs $85, which certifies one as a U.S. citizen-- when working with publishers from other countries has never required this at all. It could be a deal breaker as my pay is a pittance, and going through red tape & $ for a certificate that does what a passport does, makes little sense in this moment. We are in negotiation over this hiccup and I will let you know what happens!
