Venezia: Perspectives On The City Of Canals

And now for a little travel post, a summer read for your pleasure:

Oh Venice, Venezia, the beautiful city, poetry in boat and bridge form. There sits the indy young female traveler. She unbuttons her leather gloves preparing to nibble a Margherita pizza at a tiny cafe on the harbor overlooking an ancient basilica, drinking in the ambiance. A Venetian woman hardened to the charms of this touristic wonderland. She holds still, eyes glazed on the water boat metro (Vaporetto) as swarms of people scrunch past her with the ever-present inflection of "Permesso, Permesso," (excuse me.) The small child, buttoned up in a wool coat and matching hat, heels clicking across a cobblestone square. She only knows life within the confines of narrow alleyways, piazzas with only one tree planted in the middle. The withered leaves holding all the oxygen of the appartamento’s lining the square built in the 14th century surrounding the Jewish ghetto.

This city, where people breath deep and long sharing the same cluttered archways with pedestrians, boats, scooters and bicycles. Where the same stories are retold on Latin tongues buried deep in cappuccinos at restaurants where recipes are passed down through each generation. A city where the modern artists mimic old ideas retold from the floors of Cathedrals transforming to canvas in techno colors in a galleria stinking of formaldehyde or sewage. A smell that is the base layer of Vencie, stinky, fanciful, man made and imagined. The very wealthy living in a bubble of comfort. The very local living down secret alleyways never touched by the tourist track.

Mist comes in soft puffs down the grand canal, leaving a tiny veil on the fine china cups used to sip espresso in the morning. A cloud of moisture over the calloused hands of the rope tiers who bring the vaporetto to a stop for loading and unloading. The same damp that musses the feathers of pigeons ready to dance in the puddles of Piazza Saint Marco. This veil that captures the mystery of this thoroughly man-made city.

How perfect that glass blowing is the chosen art form of this place. What a delicate and strong art form for a city steeped in fantasy and hard labor.  

Tulsa, Where The Wind Comes Blowing Down The Plain

Hi Yip! we made it. A week of full force, months of preparations, a complete cleanse right before the journey and now a settling into our new home of Tulsa OK. After two days it has not sunk in yet. This is where we are going to live. This is the place we chose to be our own. This is the place the pros and cons list showed to many pros to ignore.

Partly why I don't feel settled is because our first home here is the place we have been visiting for years. Being at my in laws house is like being in my vacation home. Its both pleasing and disconcerting, I feel safe and welcomed in and at the same time antsy to shape this new place as my own. Our plan is to live here for a few months then buy our own house. I am choosing to take this all one day at a time. We have unloaded boxes and organized clothes, Daddy starts work on Monday, These first steps are making this place feel more like home. An icy snow storm hit today and hardy Okies barely batted an eyelash. The cafe we went to was crammed with people per any typical Sunday morning. My wimpy Northwest/Texas winter self has to get re-accustomed to living in ice and snow. The storm should melt in a few days, in time for the first hints of spring to appear.

Sweetpea and I will be exploring this town via foot, pedal and public transport, getting to know our new local library, fun parks to play at and freeish family activities. The Pea starts preschool two days a week on Tuesday. This will be her first real preschool experience. Up until now she went to a small country day care and an in home care with just two other kids. I am excited for her to have this experience, preschool was one of my happiest childhood memories. I loved playing three little pigs under chairs with other kids, singing songs and doing circle clapping games. I also loved my teacher. I hope Sweetpea warms to it in a similar fashion.

While she is at school mama will be preparing for my big art exhibition. I got into the New Genre's Art festival and will be showing my installation "Sweetpea's Gestation" for the month of April in a gallery down town. I will also be looking for more teaching artist work and grounding as an artist in our new home. As my friend Gill said, "You will be big fish in a small pond." This feels just about right for now.

This has all come together on a leap of faith, believing everything would happen in due course, gathering the support we needed to make it work and acting on what we think will be best for our family. So now we join in the love of a new community. So mote it be.

Exploring the MET (Metropolitan Museum of Art) with Sweetpea

I strolled my sleeping child through the rows of ancient Greek statues, awed by there presence. Daddy went off to see a world war II photography exhibit, disappearing under the white tent folds of the MET's newest installation. I preferred the ceramics of antiquity. As I turned a corner to the most ancient pottery of the Mediterranean I saw her, the big, billowy, thighs and chest of an ancient mother Goddess, propped up on two metal hooks, encased in glass under soft light. She was hard to spot amongst the vases and oil urns, but she stood out for me, glowing with an aura of majesty. As I stood transfixed, the halted movement awoke my dreaming child. Sweetpea woke up with a start as she always does, immediately alert and ready to tell me something. As if being pushed in a stroller over the cobblestone pathways along central park west was a part of our daily routine. Waking up surrounded by artwork in a large, loud, echoing room was just a part of the fun of having two adventuring parents.

"What’s that mama?" Her crackly just awoke voice said pointing at the little Goddess I had found for us.  “It’s our mother Goddess Sweetpea," "Mother Goddess" I hear repeated back to me, a slight pause, "why?" I go into an explanation of how this little Goddess represents the power of women as life givers and how ancient people's worshiped this power that all women have. I lift her up and we stare at the little figure, I smell her slightly sweaty hair, and marvel in the beauty of sharing this with my daughter.

I was only a little older then Sweetpea is now the first time I came to the MET. It was a daddy daughter date in the city. There is a picture of me flat up against Cleopatra's needle in a multi-colored, terry cloth dress and blues sneakers. I remember going there, I remember walking through the Egyptian temple, and admiring the old Roman statues. I have been back many times sense. As a teenager my unschooled friends and me would rain down on NYC and meet in front of the MET. We would hang out on the front steps leading up to it and check out the fashion history exhibit in the basement. My favorite place in the museum was in the Arab section, a tiny dome made of wood, carved in intricate patterns. This dome sits in a hallway in between rooms. It is quiet, like a tree house within the vast open spaces of history and art.  


Later, with my husband and daughter in toe I walk them towards the Roman statue hall. We ended up in an atrium with a larger then life bronze statue of Perseus defiantly holding up the head of Medusa. I pointed at the statue and said "Sweetpea, look at this beautiful statue."  With a look of wonder and horror my child stares and begins a long strand of "why?" questioning. I realize after the fact what a strange statue this is to point out to her. In one room I am talking about ancient people's worshiping the great Mother, in the other room I am trying to explain Greek myth and the chopping off of a woman's head. My daughter is learning life is complex.

I have cornered myself into this conversation so I go back to the beginning, we first talk about stories, how they are different from real life. Then I talk about Medusa, what she did and why someone would want to chop off her head. It is a delicate explanation.  I am trying to explain things simply enough that she will not draw conclusions about good and bad, and will instead focus on truth and fiction. The rest of the day she reports to everyone we talk to about "Dusa, and how he chopped off her head." We still talk about it months later.

Our last stop is the Tiffany hall, we all stand awestruck in front of the huge Tiffany windows, lit from within, exuding an aura of holiness. We play make believe games with the bear statues in the hall and pretend to chop off each other’s heads. :)

There we were, only a 3rd of this grand museum explored and still content with all we got to see. We went just outside the gates to a NYC park complete with meandering benches and metal play structure letting the art of the day soak into our souls.

Sacred Intentions

I have had many exciting ideas in my life. I have gone down many twisty turning paths leading to inspiring adventures that have become intentional moves and flights of whimsy. Some things have always stayed the same and strong within me. My deep happiness when I am in connection with trees, the earth, the wild things that live around us city dwellers. My absolute love of being creative and artistic and my passion for deep committed relationships.  I have fared well in my life having a lot of these sorts of experiences. I have felt the vibrating emotion of love. I have been captivated by nature and entranced in art. 

 I am reading a book by Starhawk called "The Earth Path." In it she asks the reader to come up with a sacred intention, something you want to do and commit to doing that will care for the world at large. I have been mulling this over for sometime. In some ways I have always known my intention it is just the where and when of it I have not known.

I want to get to know a piece of land, I want to watch it grow and help shape it. I want to spend time knowing the things that already live there and work at the pace of a snail, tending and being fully aware of my foot print on that place. I want to understand what it really means to be sustainable and not see myself as different or better from any other living thing. As I build this kind of relationship with land I want to teach other people how to live this way. I want to teach the tools of sustainability. 

Where ever I live I want to be in conversation with the environmental devastation that is happening to that place, in the northwest the chopping down of our great forests, in CA the over development and wild fires that persist, In OK the drilling and fracking for oil, in TX the pipeline. The nuclear power plants all over the US. I want to understand what is happening in these environments and be able to speak articulately about what we can do to change them. Also I want to learn how to live with and through environmental devastation.

Art and close friendships weave into this intention beautifully. I cannot do this important work alone and I have to many people in my life that already carry a similar vision. Art is at the center of my passion, it is the tool I use to inspire myself and others, it is the way I set up the spaces to grow and create, it is the way I get to work and the thing I most look forward to.

At this point in time I see how I can ignore to some extent how badly we have treated our land, I think this is a privileged view that I will not feel the same in the near future.

This is my sacred intention, this is my land, for better or worse I live in the United States in the beating heart of the south and I will make a difference here.

Artist Mama

This spring has been crazy busy. In March we moved in with our new housemates. In April and May I got to work making the trailer for my documentary film “Czechxan.” I was story boarding, finding crew, shooting, editing, getting regular childcare and writing a grant. Talk about super mom! It was all made possible by the burning fire I have for my work, the blessing of another mom who could do weekly 5 hour trades, my awesome husband who took over the second he got home from work and occasional sitting from my housemate and a teen I hired for the month of May. Also the amazing support I got from having a weekly goal check in with my mother in law called our “artist hour.”

I have not had time to write this blog and I have missed it. I have been facing the question a lot of artist moms face, "who does she think she is?" BTW, This is also the name of a great documentary made recently about artist mothers. According to our capitalist society, I am choosing to live in poverty, neglecting my child, selfish, can't have it all and need to grow up. If you are not being a successful artist aka making money, there seems to be no reason to continue on other than at a hobbyist level. I am here today to share with you the reality of being an artist mother.

1. I actually have more attention for my art and my child by being both an artist and mother at the same time. I know it sounds wild, but there is a very small window of time in my day I get to work so I use it! The second she goes down I am at my computer or notebook working till she wakes up. In the evening the second she goes down I go to work at my desk for a 3-4 hour chunk and know I have to stop at 10:30pm otherwise I won't be able to face the next morning with her. I get work done, am able to be with my daughter and get mostly enough sleep, shocking!

Because of these intensive spurts of creativity I am able to put it away when she wakes up and get my mind going in a different direction, food, diaper change, play dough or park usually do the trick. I think my artist mind needs the break of being able to be on toddler time, engaged in her growth and development and not thinking to hard about my work. I would even say my work is enriched by the play/out doors time I have with her.

When I was solely focused on my art I spent a lot of wasted time in guilt spirals for not doing enough, lack of accountability and getting lost in silly activity’s. I think parenting is a great focusing tool, helping me to decide what is doable and what is the most important. I still spend a lot of time on facebook and having tv/movie time with daddy, but it feels balanced and a welcome break from always having to be on.

2. Because I am deciding to make my art and parent my young one full time I can have my passionate adult time so I don't feel like my whole life is my daughter. This also gives Sweetpea a chance to have relationships with other loving adults and socialize with other kids. She gets a lot of close time with her dad and she still gets to have a lot of me, in some ways, it is a win win situation.

3. It is f*&^ing hard to really pull off and a constant negotiation. As a co-parent I am not the only one being affected by my life choices. My amazing husband would love it if we were not strapped for cash every month. We also have different ideas about day care and me getting a "real" job. For me, I see having this time with sweetpea when she is young as invaluable and also great that she gets to have a lot of one on one time and not have to join the pack of kids and rules that come with day care. She socializes every week with her friends and her housemates. She is rarely sick and she knows her caregivers have attention for big feelings so her sense of security is strong.

I was not a day care kid, my husband was and he says it was a good experience for him. We have often tried to negotiate ways for her to go to half time care and me to work at least half time for pay. After trying to get lots of different jobs our first year here I realized, the job market is hard and overloaded right now and it was time to start listening to myself and what I really wanted to be doing here in Austin

It is not easy but I have never felt so alive and though we are broke, our quality of life is really good. We have a great time in our city doing free or cheap activities. We live simply and get to have a lot of time together. We miss out on regular big, fancy dinners, far away vacations, gym memberships and new goods and clothes, but it seems like a good trade off, for now.

I am running an online funding campaign to make my film “Czechxan.” It will run till July 18^th. Please check out the trailer and share the link.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1210194179/czechxan-the-film