What To Do When You Have No Answers :: Stop Thinking

::No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.::

- John Donne, No Man Is An Island 

Moving to Mexico has been one of the bigger moves I've made in my life.  After high school, I left New Orleans for Lafayette, LA.  After college, I left Lafayette for New Orleans, stayed a year, moved to Austin, TX for a few years, back to New Orleans for another year, and headed to Berkeley, CA. for graduate school.  After three years in Berkeley I was led back to Austin via a job offer, and remained there to build a life with my children  for the next twenty years.  

My youth is tethered to cast iron, summer rain showers and real French bread with its' crunchy top and big fluffy holes that melt when you take a bite.  My adulthood is linked to the smell of baby urine on carpet  - children and kittens - limestone infused with cedar and long term friendships.  The maps of both merged through the magic of cartography.  Cast Iron became the living plants surrounding not Live Oaks, but Scrub Oaks.  An oscillating garden hose simulated summer rain showers in the backyard of our city house, and formed layers for icecicles on the canopy of the oak motte nestled next to our cabin at the ranch.

In this year and a half of living and working in Mérida I've struggled with staying.   There is no consistent theme running through the desire to leave.  A few days ago I felt driven to drive out because I missed the smell of my daughter.  On another occasion I missed the familiar accents of home - the twang of Texans and the port city yat of New Orleans.  Some days I just can't bear to hear one more word in Spanish.  My brain is frozen and overtaxed.  

I came back from my Christmas holiday with a renewed love of place and home - Mérida.  I had that uncomfortable dizziness those living abroad experience when they re-enter their former lives.  Culture shock was a dark shadow around excessive amounts of technology, dependence on a vehicle and inflated food cost.  On the other hand, I was surrounded by people who love me, inspired to make an art practice and reminded to rethink my paradigm choice.  I am not stuck here or anywhere.  In fact, I am more free to think, breathe, and expand than at any other time in my life.  

I sit down with myself and have a little talk.  It begins with this sentence, "SHUT THE F@*%K UP ALREADY!  RE-THINK YOUR MAP!"  Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about!  Cartographers have to address many issues when they create a new map.  Here is my check list:

• Address physical and abstract space!
• What is three dimensional stays three dimensional!
• Simplify, simplify, simplify!
•  Venn diagram!   

 











Create the life you want! 
The Broad  






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No Running Allowed :: The Power of Words in An Art Practice

Man Ray: A man in love with a woman from a different era. I see a photograph!

Luis Buñuel: I see a film!  

Gil: I see an insurmountable problem!

Salvador Dalí: I see rhinoceros!

- Woody Allan
Midnight in Paris

I've never been able to meditate without falling asleep, but I've been told that letting go of thoughts isn't really the point.  When I am working on a piece my brain rolls into something akin to a meditative state.  It isn't quiet exactly.  Superimposed images, like the love scenes in Indian films, where two flowers merge, evaporate into whispered thoughts of an intangible something that find their resting place in the work.  My focus is concentrated, not easily disturbed by external nor internal noise, balanced in the frame, and agitated if awakened.  I only know any of this once the cycle of creating is completed.

If that flow is not disturbed, if all is allowed, immediately after my session I'm so euphoric that I am rendered worthless.   Nothing I say to another human being will make any sense.  I have been having an internal dialogue with myself.   

I've often observed that many artists are attracted to various forms of science.  This is certainly true for me.  With all things new in my life here in Mexico, I've decided to conduct research on my own creative process by noting what is the first full thought that comes to mind once the euphoria has dissipated.  What is surprising to me is that these thoughts are questions, and that these questions are related to the work in progress.  Here are two examples: 

Have you ever wished you had just stayed inside on a hot summer day?  As soon as you open the front door a choking heatwave rolls up your nostrils and you damn the fact that you have to head out for groceries or whatever.  Add to the hellish heat, a bug of some sort decides that one of your body cavities is their preferred portal to its' suicide.  Opening the door slowly lessens the chance of being scorched.

Have you ever taken something that wasn't yours?  Each time you look at the stolen object there is a little something that let's you know you will never own it.  Why do people do this, take something they can never fully be present with?  And not just with things, but with human hearts.  It seems like madness to think you can own another person. 

What The Hell?  Doesn't your brain just tickle you to pieces??!!

Create the life you want!

The Broad

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Artist & Writer :: Searching For Gringa Latina

:: Never trust an art dealer who'll sit in a room for more than ten minutes with a crooked picture. ::
- Brett Whiteley

:: First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him!::
- Ray Bradbury

When I first moved to the Yucatan I definitely was not myself.  The Good Broad was finally fulfilling a life long dream of moving to Mexico and living an art filled life.  She was sandwiched between two pieces of Masonite, a three drawer Sterilite box, and a glass jar filled with large glue sticks that had traveled 1,500 miles to live under a bed for the next fifteen months.  The Bad Broad showed up the week after arriving in the fishing village that would be home for the next nine months.  She sought out the old by rekindling a ruinous romance with a Jack Pine Savage, called family and friends daily for reassurance, and hung artworks from her former life on the walls of a tiny casita by the beach.  The Ugly Broad was in a state of shock.  She cried, coughed, and spit up blood, and not in the good way like when you laugh so hard that your coffee spews out your nose. 

When I first moved to the Yucatan I didn't realize I was an expatriate.  Somehow I had convinced myself that twenty years of traveling around Mexico had prepared me for living in Mexico.  On a weekly basis small things show themselves serving as reminders that I am not from here.  A trip to the grocery store, a walk in the hood, or a shared meal with my team, all reveal that not speaking Spanish puts me to a serious disadvantage.  I can't curse out the checkout person who laughs with grocery bagger about my ignorance.  I can't engage in light conversation with my neighbors or laugh at the play on words that send my coworkers into fits of giggles.  

There are always times in your life when you have the realization that you really don't know someone.  Several years ago I borrowed a power washer from a friend to clean the Texas dust off of my house in Austin.  I couldn't figure out how to use it and returned it.  A few weeks later, during one of our weekly jam sessions, this friend announced to everyone that I almost killed him as I hadn't turned the thing off.  Seems like that would be something you would tell someone in private.  Though that was a deliberate act, unintentional carelessness can be just as hurtful to a friendship.  I was guilty of just that with one of my friends here, and knowing that lasting friendships are jewels, it pained me deeply that I had hurt her through my carelessness.  In this way, expat life is not that much different from my life back home.  Small things can and do hurt you and those you love.

I've begun to examine the behaviors and attitudes that block me from doing the one thing that was a constant force behind this move.  Making art full time may not be possible.  I seem to still be a workaholic, forever seeking maintenance at a fiscal level, and bottom line security.  It's really sort of ridiculous because my art has always been well received and offered financial solvency.  If I am to become an expat, I will need to shed this mask that whispers to me in anxious voices that I can never have enough money.  I have a stinking suspicion that this dough whisperer belongs to my grandparents and parents who carried the fears of the Great Depression in their hands for all their lives.  Even the way I save bits of cardboard scraps for my compost pile is determined by how deeply they owned that crisis.

These may not sound like reasons to suggest that I am not an expat.  I suppose there are many individual ways of posturing on this subject.  As I move through the baby steps of my second year with my regular and regulated thoughts of moving back home, I must acknowledge that I am not fully transplanted, that I still must care and be attentive to all the details of being fully surrounded by brave new ways of seeing myself in the world.   

Will I be an expat when I devote myself to my art?
Will I be an expat when I can converse with my neighbors?
Will I be an expat when I am confident in my new friendships? 

I don't have the answers to these questions.  I wish I had paid more attention to the process my Mexican friends went through as they assimilated into the Austin community.   I regret not asking more questions of first and second generation students I taught, by encouraging them to share the stories of their parents and grandparents lives as expats in a new country.  I imagine that their experiences would be similar to mine.  What could I have gleaned that would help me adjust?

The intensity of life as an expat can sometimes feel like a fatal gash.  I assure you, it is just an irritating paper cut.  I'm excited that all of us still have adventures to look forward to and new ways of becoming the people we hoped Mexico would dream for us.  As MaMere often said, "It's important to have goals, Dawlin."
  

Create the life you want!
The Broad

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In Flashes :: Meet the Collaborators :: Lovers & Artists

::I think art is a total thing. A total person giving a contribution. It is an essence a soul, and that’s what it’s about. In my inner soul art and life are inseparable.::
- Eva Hesse, artist


Do you have moments, or even days, when you just see everything unfolding?  A few weeks back, G and I were discussing that very idea, the ways we imagined ourselves in our new lives before we had lives in Mérida.  His terrace is a magical place to dream and imagine.  On a star filled night there seems that there is no better place in the world than living in Mérida.  I invite all of you to try it sometime, maybe when G has his housewarming party.  We've already decided to invite everyone we know!

As an artist it seems very natural to reach beyond what I am seeing.  Practicality delays some of those dreams, and as we know, the stability of our personal realities can shift in moments with the loss of a loved one or income.  Yet, most of us continue to push ourselves forward and project our desires onto a tangible surface.  Making dreams come true is complicated business.  It takes a lot of energy, great desire, and a bit of luck.  Change takes effort, and even when we dream of a future, we sometimes will not take the steps to turn them into a reality.  Some of us just get stuck, and need some help figuring out the steps, sort of like learning to tango, we need a partner.

So, when G and I were on the terrace, we finally turned the conversation towards love, specifically imagining love into our lives.  Our situations couldn't be more different.  He has no children, his parents are cared for by siblings, and he has few friends back home.  His job is in the US and he still owns a home there.  He travels all around the world.  When he is here he has a quick online morning meeting and is free for the rest of the day to connect with people living here.  Our community is much more suited for single men.  G will meet someone very soon.

Today I am struggling with remaining in Mérida.  I have no home in Austin waiting for me, but I do have family and friends there.  The majority of my time is spent working - nearly 70 hours a week.  I don't think it would be an issue to go back to work with my former employer, but don't I really want to listen to those horror stories again.  The men I meet here are wonderful.  The problem is they are much older, gay or married.  I've begun wearing a wedding ring because the men that seem to be attracted to me are married Mexican men.  On the rare occasion I've been asked about my pretend husband, the question most asked is, "Isn't it difficult maintaining a long distance relationship?"  Yeah, it would be. 

A year ago I was struggling to stay for very different reasons.  I was totally freaked out by how severely I had cut myself off from my former life, and could not see my future beyond the drive down.  I asked friends to encourage me to stay.  I knew it would pass and that I would regain my footing, and I did.  Just as each day I see something amazingly strange and beautiful that I wish to share with someone I love, I also feel more a part of the rhythm of this city and culture.  I'm finding my groove by making time to create art, well, to be honest I am doing more talking about art than actual making.  Cooking is my current creative outlet, and planning some art workshops for next year is also filling the void of actual making.  All in good time.

Today, unlike last year, I struggle because I can see every part of my future.  It includes someone that I will love deeply.  It includes making more changes, dreaming in new ways, imagining and re-imagining so that our lives can be shared.  It is a highly inventive and a charged binary process, and a collaboration in artful partnership.  The dream has to be created with that other person.   I know that when I make art, the deepest parts of me resonate with all that is around me.  In planning art making opportunities with others, we can similarly craft our future selves into collaborators, with one another and with those deeper selves.   Art saves the day!

Create the life you want!
The Broad  

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