No. 16

TO APPROACH Medusa

                                                -even without a touch

                                    he finds himself    a sort of night-

mare of whim.

His letter.

            I must go if I die.

she was,

                        still hurt her

                                                            a mature country girl,

and a touch of old-fashioned style

            “Now you’re here,”

“Still, I’m here,”

                        “You thought I had gone.”

“But some day, I suppose, it will happen?

   “I shan’t be sorry,

                                    One decides quickly enough when

there is any question of desire.”

                        ‘Go in,’ he said to me yesterday.

                                                            No. 15 is empty:

It’s nailed up:

            out of the room.

.           .           .           .           .           .           .           .           .

the fish pie lay on her tongue like wadding.

                           poured himself out a glass of water.

                                    “This is the worst time of day.

He held me responsible.

“You’re so beautiful.”

“I was ill yesterday.

                                                -Come.

                                    do you hear?

“A waterfall in my head.”

                        There’ll be no ‘here’ left--how can you

come back?”

“But my poems . .

                        -the piano inside my head, the waterfall

inside yours.

Never never try to betray.

   “I’ve got to live

                                                            “Don’t write.”

                                    but she was a girl who had never

been touched

   He has lost me, too.

“Don’t forget your poems.”

                        see if we are still here.”

                                                            “Should not see anyone.

“Sleep . . . “ Her

                                knockings you bear

From "Dear John" series.

Reduced

This must have been the second chapter I worked on.

Looking on the dates when I made these work, I think I was either suffering from insomnia or just manically working non-stop day and night.

When I was at MacDowell, I typically worked in the printmaking studio during the day, and worked on installation in another large studio in the afternoon and evening. All these book pages were done at night. My cottage where I slept was quite far from my studio. I had to walk through the woods. There was no lights outside except the lights from other fellow residents' studios. I carried a flashlight to walk through the woods. There was a bed in the studio, so sometimes I just slept there.

Sixteen years later, I'm looking back at these words I chose. At the time of making, I really wasn't reading any of these stories. As a matter of fact, I don't know any of these stories to this day. Yet, I feel like I know these stories so intimately, because I made them into my own. I had the most intimate and strangely engaging experience with this book without actually reading the stories. When I opened each page, certain words just jumped at me, and those were the words I "saved."

I didn't have to think. These words simply began to float on the page, and I painted around these words. I almost could't keep up with "their" speed. It sounds bizarre, I know, but I felt a close kinship with the author, Elizabeth Bowen who was an Anglo-Irish novelist.

Maybe I lost words of my own. Maybe I had to borrow someone else's.



"Reduced" from Dear John

no chair invited you.

                 A pretty September day

                                                                                    married at

nineteen.

she was twenty-seven or –eight

         reputation of being the most unpopular man

                                    He was careful, savagely careful, about

money and not careful enough about seeing

            anxious to “settle”

                        bought reduced coats and shoes for the little

girls

        the girls’ education would be a heavy expense.

                             She was a shiftless woman.

                   The house looked dedicated to a perpetual

January

            The nicest woman like having unattached men.

Around, “She must be full of brains.”

                        after one more forbidden

                                    our darling should leave

                        black chill of

                                                The schoolroom had a

faded sea-blue wallpaper

                                                                        “Have you

stopped painting?”

                       

                                                            on such a fine day

there would be shadows.”

    wash that blue off your paint-brush.”

The little girls were alike,

             part of her power

                 they prayed she might die

                 unwound the skipping-ropes

                                    skipped seventy-eight     her toes

bounced

out of her head. At last the rope caught her toe. “That’s

the record.”

            ‘Surely                                                at last.

               know                                         “I’ve

“She was accused of murder.”

                                    So she disappeared, hoping to be

forgotten

            Children,

                        They sat stone-still, clasped hands.

                                                            she will play games

                                                                                    My

own children are strangers;

                                                It’s rude to look at each other

when mother speaks!”

From "Dear John" series.

Dear John - "The Disinherited"

Dear John \ - jän\ n (ca. 1945) : a letter (as to a soldier) in which a wife asks for a divorce or a girlfriend breaks off an engagement or a friendship.

Dear John is comprised of a total of 152 pages from a book called Stories by Elizabeth Bowen, published in 1959. Each page is covered in watercolor and mineral pigment except for the selected words and sentences. Covering the words meant uncovering my deepest feelings at that time, making unspoken feelings visible. 

I started covering words on these book pages shortly after I received a letter from my ex-husband asking to end our marriage. Strangely, he did not use the word, "divorce" in his letter. 

I was at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire when I received this letter right after Christmas. I had two studios there; a printmaking studio and a large studio to work on installation. At night, I retrieved myself to a large studio up on the hill. I opened this book, and started covering pages. I did that every night at MacDowell, and continued on at Centrum in Port Townsend in Washington where I went for a month after MacDowell Colony.

I remember the time especially in Port Townsend as profoundly lonely period in a lonely place. 

I was the only artist at at the residency for the first two weeks. The property was located in the Fort Worden State Park in the Victorian seaport of Port Townsend, which is perched at the northeast tip of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. You literally feel like you are at the edge of the earth. It was January. It's mostly grey and rainy in Washington in January. I walked a lot. I walked to the town along the beach during the low tide. I walked around the fort, and walked back and forth between the studio and my little cabin. 

This was my first chapter. It has 22 pages. I'll just extract words from the first five pages and show you those pages. 

                                                                                    A lover

might contemplate the idea of death.

                        green.

                                                                                   brick-red

                                                                              shallow river

   a  better green

                        Sometimes a swan,

away from wherever she might be living,

                he was up there constantly,

                        Her existence was temporary;

mortification and dullness ravaged her. But, at twenty-

nine, she had no more money of any kind; she had run

through her capital; love-affairs and her other expensive

habits had ruined her.

                                                                          of impatience,

she had had really, at one time, every control,

                                    dead,

                                                been loved,

this dull, pink wife

                       

                                                            touch

                                                              all

                                                               her

                                                            less

                                                                       

smile, could be enchanting,

                                                She

            to lovers whom her appearance beguiled.

                                                                                    pale and

                                                                                   blue-pink

the stigmata of intellectual

                                                , but the room had no pulse

to ill health.

                                                                                         happiest

     work in connection

                          dined in hall                                         Once or

            the Art Club. Life here was full of interest,

                                                            After twelve years of mar-

riage his wife still charmed him with her serenity, mild

good spirits, and love of home.

                                    He had been with Mrs.

                           good old Robinson died.

                                                                        make love to the

maids, or expect beer.

                  he was tucking her into the car,

                    he drove,

                                his face was always shadowless,

The only look he gave you was level and unmoving.

Though she got all she paid for, she could not feel he was

hers.

he was,

of death. . . .

simply

                                                Her own nights were

                                                Of dyspepsia,      long bed-

.