It's hard to admit that here only a few miles from where I was born. In the middle of a bustling, polluted, bleeding, classically cold, flat city that my body up until now had desperately wanted to leave. ... I found this powerful, penetrative, peace. The same kind that makes it way through my lungs standing nestled between peaks on a mountain range. The same sense of place and purpose that surges though your nerves as your muscles dance rhythmically instinctively forward, hiking your way along a river bank by your sense of sound. The same surge or raw cool spring water seducing your thighs with it's power and purity. Here in a hammock outside the walls of a house I fell in and out of a marriage in. I found peace. I have this evolving relationship between instinct and never saying never. I woke up one day and realize I changed. *change is possible and pretty much a constant option* Even with the constant physical pain and tiredness I accidentally ended up right where I need to be. 60 degrees, foggy, rainy, through the canyon of the alley of layered apartment 3 flats. In a hammock on dec 13th watching the light grow as the sunrises behind the clouds. Waiting for that 8am flock of geese cracking through the hum of rain and chattering local feather fluffs gossiping about the weather. My favorite blanket, txt book, suspending in the sky a perfect workstation and sanctuary. Perfectly placed shelves to the left and art on my right. Supported, suspended and still. In this still I realized change is this beautiful tide and I prefer to be curious, compassionate, calm, ready, and creative for whatever comes my way.
#poetry#chicago#hammock#city#senses#consequence of sound
A mentor, friend and community organizer once looked at me and said “I can’t wait to see what kind of art you will share”. He was implying at burning events. To my knowledge he knows nothing of my love of cinema my 6 year abusive relationship with photography or that I lean towards installations and performance. At that time I was non productive, expressively catatonic and was trying to grasp what it was that I was capable of giving back to a world I seemed to be depending on so much. I came out blank.
Two year later, many miles, stories, pains, pleasures, and movies after I faced my fear and my desire to hook suspend. My toes bore into the ground with my entire weight desperately terrified of the next two inches. A thick band of face paint wide across my eyebrows framing the waterfall of tears surging down my nose. The filter was gone, the anxiety of the past and future world of fears dissolved into a sobering present.
Floating up higher and higher an unfamiliar pain seized my lower back as my spine adjusted to this new elevation. I acknowledge the daily ache in my bones and continued to see past it, to feel the breeze across my chest and the music crawling up my arms and down to my feet. I began to sway, to dance, to observe, to experiment, to laugh, to play, to top. The mixture of all that I am through my culture, my history of honest, service, creativity, ferocity and love. Without barrier it came in waves through my toes and fingers as they traced the sky with the notes of David Bowie.
Here I realized that art shouldn’t dominate my fears, it isn’t a job, it’s a passion and a tool. I gave myself permission to take breaks to wander and to be open to learning of new ways to share my love of living with others. Hook suspension was one of those new ways to dance and to create a space.
- (My next post with be a brain/storm list of performance art ideas that have been bouncing around in my mind. )
#performance art#piercings#hook suspension