Guerrilla Girl

Judy Chicago Dinner Party

Terrible bout of loneliness today. Succumbing to society's mandate that I marry, or at least take a lover. Must have a male presence. I want to quickly say here, I like men. Most of my closest friends are men. When my life went to shit last year, it was men who stood by me. I'm equally discouraged though that although they like me, invite me to come around, respect me, they always marry someone else. The only explanation I can come up with is I open my mouth and brains come out. Not just smarts in particular, but views, opinions, challenges. The latest interested party came right out and admitted feeling intimidated. He wanted to take my painting class you see, and upon rendering his patchouli laced ideas of what he perceives art to be, I returned volley with what I thought was a gentle dose of what it really is. Nietzsche said people don't like to hear the truth because it shatters their illusions. I started as a tiny cute blonde. My truth transformed me into Medusa. She's hard to get cuddly with, snakes in her hair and that whole turn to stone thing.

I'm trying to come up with something to make me feel better and get out of my couch lamentations. "Art, go to art," I hear my head suggest. "It won't work!" it screams back. I had !Women Art Revolution sitting on my dresser upstairs unviewed. Oh ok, FINE. I get a little tired of what is now viewed as a dirty word, feminism. I think those women had to push the way they did to even get heard. I went to a female art celebration thing a couple weeks ago and sat uncomfortably as this same male-diminishing theme was passionately presented. As I may have mentioned, I like men. I don't feel that by mocking them in the same way some have done to us to make themselves feel more powerful is the answer. No one is equal in either equation.

Judy Chicago's Dinner Party was 1979. I went to college the next year and actually learned about this installation in art history class. What I didn't know is that Congress put a bill on the floor to prevent it from being shown in DC. It failed thankfully, but there was about and hour ½ discussion about the piece. It was that big a deal. I've visited the Women's Art Museum in DC. I wondered why we needed a separate building? The Guerrilla Girls can provide the stats why. There is still terrible inequality in the arts. White men. Still in charge.

Point of all this I was suddenly ok. Not lonely. I went from feeling that my life was pointless and stupid because I haven't mated . . . I have to add lately because I was married a while back for a few years . . . to a sense of purpose again. Art. It's always about art. Most of the residents in the Pioneer Building* are women. Quite a few got married and raised a family before they pursued their practice. There wasn't much of a choice for their generation. Here I am again, the product of doors women opened in the '70's. I mentioned this in relation to general living and business in the last post, but it translates to art as well. And once again, as I barreled forward in my career after my divorce, it never occurred to me I couldn't. I feel privileged to paint. I have the luxury to reject traditional female roles and paint. I feel I owe it to those women to paint. Not as a woman painter. As a painter. 

*artists studios in Detroit

Atta, Go, Get It, Girl

I watched a doc on PBS about Women's Liberation last Tuesday. I had a vague idea of what went on in the '70's. My family watched the Mary Tyler Moore Show weekly along with the Brady Bunch. I watched the Bobby Riggs/Billy Jean King match in real time. I remember the ERA marches on the news. When I tried out for high school volleyball, I had no knowledge of Title 9. I just played.

I left for college in 1980. (Yep, I'm that old) It never occurred to me I should find a husband like most of the other girls in search of their MRS degrees. I actually thought I was there to get an education (imagine that). When I graduated and entered the advertising biz, I went after it with the intention of accomplishing something and build a career. Newly minted ambitious women bumped our heads against a corporate glass ceiling. Didn't deter me one bit. It was probably a good thing I didn't realize the Women's Lib movement had just happened. I assumed I could go where I wanted if I worked hard enough.

All of this lit my dating light bulb. My parents, and with particular influence, my Dad, never put me down, belittled me, made me feel small because I'm a girl. Dad actually gets a kick out of the fact that I'm smart and doesn't mind if I know something he doesn't. With a brainiac Dad, however, that happens pretty infrequently. Point is, in dating, this is a bit of a challenge. Men my age and older grew up with a girls-belong-in-the-kitchen mentality. The younger ones, whom I seem to be the most attracted to (um, yeah), assume a girl has a career. They are a little easier to get along with. Both, however, have trouble with brains, independence and strength. I dated a guy a couple summers ago who, upon regaling him with my take on world history during the time of Kublai Khan's rampage through the East, burst out laughing "I really like you!" Jackpot. Or so I thought. Turns out he couldn't handle it in the end, stood in my house just before Christmas and delivered a speech I've heard so many times I could have given it to myself. You know the one. "I don't want to get into anything right now, etc." Of course he added, "we can still get naked and roll around." Yes, I'm sure you'd like that. Jackass. Get out.

Blows my mind A. the ERA was shot down in 1979 and B. it took until 2009 to get the Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act passed. Congress just argued whether to renew the Violence Against Women Act? Really? I spoke at Take Back the Night twice in the '90's. Battered women and rape isn't eradicated here in the US let alone around the globe where this kind of violence has reached heinous proportions. I really like men. Most of my close friends are men. But when it comes to dating, there is a crazy shift in thinking. One guy I know, after hearing everything I'd been through last year exclaimed, "You're the man!" 'Cuz I'm so tough. True, but I'm still a girl. Another one worries I'll get pissed if he opens the door for me. No, I'm still a girl. I do get terribly lonely and very disappointed when a man I like shrinks back to his cave after he figures out I'm smart. I swear, right here and now, I will not dumb it down for anyone. There is something that resonates from the '70's so quietly but ferociously, I cannot accept anything less than equal. The man who can look me square in the eye is in for a delicious surprise. My close friends call her "Pumpkin". She's all girl and once you meet her, it's all over but the cryin'. What do they say about the best apples are at the top of the tree? (Rotten ones are easy pickings lying on the ground) I'm looking for a climber. They're rare it turns out. Fine. It's so damn sunny and warm up here, I'll wait. It's easier to get up here than they think. A really smart one will figure it out. Brains. It's what's for dinner. That and a slice of Pumpkin pie. 

*related older posts Dirty Girls July 2010, BOOM! March 2010

Honey or Vinegar

 

Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.

          Walt Whitman

You know that pointy mallet used to tenderize meat? That. I was bludgeoned with that. There are plenty of folks willing to provide insight as to the necessity of such a pummeling. Pain is the touchstone of all spiritual progress, one can only learn through suffering and so on. Bite me. The launching pad for recovery was one thoughtful gesture that set off a chain of kindness.

I was merely responding to an inquiry as to how my life was going. Still in the tank. It wasn't whiney, just a statement of fact. The soul that heard this responded by anonymously gifting me a tiny Christmas tree complete with ornaments and lights. This promptly moved me to gift my violin to a friend who had been waiting 50 years to learn to play. A subsequent pay it forward trend ensued. Now there's Christmas as it should be. From the heart without all the shopping mall brawling.

Since I think in pictures, the yin yang symbol is a perfect depiction of life for me. Yin is dark, yang is light. You can't have one without the other. Life ebbs and flows. The dominant trend reaches its zenith and shows a bit of the change to come before it completely turns over and rolls the other way. Life was trying to go positive last spring before it got swallowed by yin's final heavy blows. The well intended advice didn't help. It says you don't think I can come up with answers myself. It was the love and compassion from those who freely gave it that turned the boat around. In predictable fashion naturally, just moments before it went over the waterfall.

Let me offer a wisdom that comes via the awful grace of god. Buddha is right. Jesus is right. John Lennon is right. Love and compassion were the only things that got through and made a real difference. The power of one considerate gesture changed everything. It seems hoarding is the way to hang onto what appears to be security. There isn't any. Except in giving it away. I was afraid. That first give was really hard. I considered getting the panhandler's number in case I needed those couple bucks back. I didn't. Honey or vinegar. Fear or love. Seems a no-brainer. So maybe I should use my heart instead.

Sooooo Talented

"My sister's an artist! I mean, she's in real estate, but she gets to do what she wants and be creative. She's soooo talented." Those of us who suffer the steady slings and arrows of a painter's* life want to kick you in the kneecaps when you say that. I've come to realize you, as in the you making such an ignorant statement, have no idea what it means to choose the life. I don't have another job. Painting is my job. Few of us enjoy elevated status. We're lucky if we can pay the water bill on time. Despite the constant precarious balancing between living and utter annihilation, I'd rather have one toe still on the art beam than all my extremities immersed in a corporate cube.

When Wall Street, my mural business and consumer spending went down, I knew the jig was up and made two calls. First to my tax attorney and then to my Dad. Both have been indispensable in my survival these past 4 years. I'm beyond blessed to get the help I need to keep going. I could just as easily gotten the tough beans response and been relegated to the cube out of necessity. I could have fallen through the cracks and become a realtor who paints on the weekends. My soul's slow extinction would be evident only in the spark that faded from my eyes. On this Thanksgiving, I'm grateful to those who have kept the fire lit. It's been an ugly year, but I'm still standing. It's not fancy, but the lights are on, there's a meal in the fridge, a paintbrush in my hand and an abundance of love that makes the journey a bit easier.

I'm gonna go gorge myself now. It may have to last a while ;)

*Painting: meaning sculpture, photography, dance, literature, all the arts.

Please Sir May I Have Some More

Banksy

I've been remiss in writing because things got so bloody miserable and who wants to think about it let alone read about it? The final blow came the end of August in a trip to the ER with a severe allergic reaction to I still don't know what. I was covered in huge welts and my face started to swell. Don't want to exaggerate, but death was one conclusion in this scenario. They loaded me with Prednisone and Benadryl via IV and kept me over night to make sure my throat didn't close. My blood pressure hit 180. I was a tiny bit scared. A very nice gentleman came around to ask if I had health insurance. I do not. Answering honestly incited a deluge of tears streaming down my face. He filled out his form and left. He returned a little while later to apologize and ask if he'd said anything offensive. "No," I responded, "you're just doing your job. I'm just embarrassed." Embarrassed? I'm humiliated I can't take care of myself right now.

Other recessions have slowed me down, but I was never out. I've always been able to set my mind, exert some effort and my boat would turn around. This time it seemed the harder I worked, the worse it got. And now I'm in the hospital with a running meter and no insurance. My worst fears materialized this year. I'm never sick. I visit the hospital. I'm not the patient. I've been in pain and/or physically compromised for 6 months. I have a physical job which became difficult to perform exacerbating my already strained financial status. Fear became a constant companion.

When I got the first hospital bill, it was reduced by 40% right off the top. I called to see if that was the final word. "Are you saying you want to apply for hardship?" Yes. I do. Look, I don't want to ask for help. I like being able to pay my way. It makes me feel good about myself. The current truth is, right now, today, I need help. I had a Bridge Card (food stamps) for 2 months last year. That was revoked due to Governor Snyder's retooling the requirements to qualify. If you have assets over $5000, you're out. I foolishly paid off my car a couple years ago. Adios Bridge Card. First the Governor takes my job by slashing the film credits and removing the industry from the state, then sends a suck it letter when I can't find work and need to eat.

I was completely destroyed, beaten to a pulp and left like road kill. The good news is at that point you can rain down all the blows you want. I can no longer feel them. That's the moment, mangled and bleeding by the side of the road, yet still breathing, you either give up or open up. I had been afraid. Really afraid. My first instinct is to fight. I fought like a champion. Sometimes it's just best to get out of the ring. Haven't I always been ok? Even when my husband, now very ex, ran us into the ground financially, including drawing the attention of the IRS (never do that. it's very bad), I made it out and came back to buy a house, start and IRA, couple trips to Europe and bought myself a set of diamonds. When my valiant run at professional dope fiend came to a screeching halt via my own hand, I came back to live honestly with compassion and be of some use to others. So why all the fear and doubt now? I've been to the bottom before.

Started doing some morning meditation to set my mind right before the day got a hold of me with all of its viciousness and cruelty. I made some calls looking for work. A cousin I've worked for before had some. That started the flow. I suddenly had an avalanche of work. Continued to start every day with a quiet moment of gratitude. I don't want to focus on what changed so much on the outside, but being able to comfortably pay a bill for the first time all year, well, helps. Some fun jobs started to come. My workshop at the BBAC is damn near sold out. I just got the final bill from the hospital. I owe them zip. Zero. Nada. Wow. There is help out there if you ask for it.

I'm exhausted. And in there is a growing realization that it's over. I'm on my way back out. I wouldn't have written that even a couple weeks ago. I'm sure enough to say it out loud. I want to support myself. Sometimes things just go terribly wrong. Yes, there are people out there who abuse our welfare system. There are people out there who abuse our tax system. I actually needed help. And when I don't, I'll be happy to pay my fair share. I didn't need a car elevator. I just wanted to eat.

For Lovers and the Lost

The stress has been relentless. One problem would just ease up before another presented. Job issues, car trouble and property taxes. These items alone generate anxiety, but these days it also adds to the already cumbersome financial pressure. Fear is my least favorite emotion. Depression I can handle. Kind of has a dark sweetness to it. And I sleep really well. My most effective coping mechanism for stress has been to get on my bike and ride it out. My slowly healing thigh leaves me alone in my knotted head. After a call came in Wednesday morning with a decorative emergency, a mural that needed executing by this Tuesday but the client is unavailable for final consult totally gumming up the works, the gun to my head was getting hot and I was crawling out of my skin.

Not entirely sure how to hit the release valve, I headed out to Cranbrook with my camera. Tentatively proceeding into the gardens and knowing I wouldn't be able to walk too far, it started with some gorgeously twisted bark. Headed over to the Greek Theater, got some shots of some freakish gooey algae and stones under green murky water, when I spotted a couple. Yes. A great place to kiss. I used to go out there with a boyfriend years ago. I tiptoed away to look for a solitary spot to breathe. Just a short walk to another fountain, I laid down on the waiting bench.

Peering up through the trees, their tops softly swayed in the gentle breeze clearly unfettered by human concerns. I'm reminded that trees have been peacefully brushing the sky like this since they took seed. They swayed when Elizabeth l sat on the throne and ruled the world. They swayed when Genghis Khan rampaged through the East, during the Crusades, after Britain was bombed and when Jews were enslaved by the Egyptians. They swayed exactly the same way when Lehman Brothers went down. My competitive nature isn't making my life any easier. It seems like an asset, but I have wasted too many days fighting. For what? It all works out in the end anyway no matter what I think I've done to contribute to a conclusion. A curious chickadee took some interest in my presence and hopped down, one branch at a time, to the lowest branch right above me. Looking. Checking. Flew away. He did this a couple times. The breeze kept the smell of cedar and damp moss in my nose. I was only there maybe 15 minutes or so. I don't remember a conscious shift in thought. But when I got in the car to drive home, I could barely keep my eyes open and wound up sleeping 10 hours last night (tired much?).

I'm watching the phone a little this morning waiting for the client to call for the pending mural's final consult. I also have more peace than I did yesterday. More perspective. I don't lament the past much, but I have a merciless habit of fretting over the future. I was never going to amass a fortune. It's always been about the day itself. And in the day it's always just fine. If I could just stay right here. Only here. For a goal setter, it's really hard to just let life meander along any way it wants to. Except that's where the peace is. And after the past two unrelenting weeks, I'm desperate for some peace. Think I need another session with that bench, my curious little chickadee and the ever present, unchanging, reliable trees. That mural I'm supposed to paint by Tuesday? Trees. Coincidence? I don't think so.

lover

soft

smells like laundry

tasted like Monster

skilled creative mind fingers

tender

hesitant

sitting next to me

pliable and taunting

the keen hairs on my arm

if only I weren't

50.

ascends

I knew he would

passion commitment devotion

inked clues

hint 

smile

I'll agree to anything

with a low rumble

he's gone again

if only I weren't

afraid.

Lennon and the Reverend Mother

Climb every mountain, ford every stream. Follow every rainbow 'til you find your dream. Thank you Reverend Mother, I will.

No one is living a perfectly peaceful existence and certainly not financially these days. If my worst problem is some credit card debt, then so what. Really. I'd prefer to be loan free, but the climate hasn't allowed for that. Just about everyone I know has some kind of loan out. Medical, IRS, credit cards, student loan, something. One friend doesn't, but man life is tight. Only one friend is in the clear and cruising. Bitch. JK. Despite my hardship, I'm living pretty good. Cute house in a nice neighborhood. Tasty nutritious food in the pantry. I need health assistance right now and my folks are helping. I'm smart, got skills. I have the best friends anyone could ask for. I have a cottage to go to get away and (damn, the bright sun is just lighting up the tender new leaves on the trees in an incandescent yellow- stunning) I have a wacky but loving family to share it with. Fanciest bit of poverty I've ever seen.

I have no idea how I'm going to make it. Keep plugging. Don't crumble now and quit before the miracle happens. It's one thing to sing a song in a movie. It's quite another to go out and do it. What possessed me to believe in follow your bliss eludes me but somewhere down the line I drank a Kool-aid that stayed in my system. Flowers make me happy. They don't know I've barely worked in months. They don't know that I finally have some work but I injured my leg so I have to delay or forfeit doing it. They come up anyway. The soft misty mounds of forget-me-not blue. The pink bleeding hearts. The first buttery yellow cups. The sun goes down and the sun comes up. What I know for sure it this will change into something else. What? Who knows. The trick is to let it. I'll still cross that stream, I'm just going to try and not fight the current. It'll likely take me somewhere I'd never have thought to go on my own. Somewhere the sun is lighting up those trees and reminding me in the end, none of this will amount to a hill of beans. The only thing that will matter is the love I gave and the love I accepted. And maybe a painting or two.

Gramps

Stanley Fay

I remember a man sitting in a leather recliner with 3 pictures of a very old football team hanging on the wall next to him. There is a paperweight containing a dollar bill won in a long standing bet with an MSU friend/rival on the table. On the bookshelf there's a football shaped music box that plays the Victors. He also loved chocolate. Had a loyal Dachshund named Frieda. Smoked Lucky Strikes. Had a career at Ford Motor as Harry Bennett's favorite tough guy. Had the most cornball sense of humor, relishing the groaner. A joke with the punch line "ice cream Cohen" killed. Television blew his mind. Any time you went to the house it was on. Almost didn't matter what was being broadcast. Had a keen sense of fairness and didn't hesitate to exact justice, usually anonymously. Even as an old man his strength lingered in his massive chest. He possessed the ring they still give to the Senior football players. He stopped wearing it at some point because it drew too much attention. What would he think of Michigan's new stadium and his picture so prominently displayed? He would have hated it. Not that they did it, but any attention it may have garnered. To him it was something that happened a long time ago and had no bearing on today. Didn't ride his moment into the sunset. In case I didn't already admire this man . . . wow.

I sat next to him in Section 2 row 66 seats 9 & 10 for several seasons. There were plenty of Big Ten Championship rings in that section. Much fancier than the ring Gramps didn't wear. They had no idea who he was. I remember him riding around in a golf cart on the field once in a rare acknowledgement of his accomplishments. The only other hint was the hat he wore to every game. A hat you couldn't buy at the M Den, you had to earn it. I've only seen one other hat like that in the stadium. The family lived in Schenectady, New York after Gramps parted ways with Harry Bennett because no one in Detroit would hire him due to that association. Drove Gramps nuts he couldn't get the football scores there. Dad tells a story of he and Gramps driving all the way to Ann Arbor for the Army (maybe Navy, don't remember) game and Michigan lost. Dad was crushed and Gramps told him it was "just a game". College football wasn't anything then what it is now. It wasn't when Bo first took command of the program. The only televised game was M/OSU. It wasn't elitist then. The money wasn't there. The spectacle wasn't there.

I loved that ratty old stadium. It was one of the last big schools to get a makeover. Had to happen. Had to. It testifies to not only how much bloody money that University has, but the station of that football program. And, like it or not, Gramps is a significant part of its history. The news, even TMZ, always remarks on Gerald Ford's participation in the program. I guess if you land a title like POTUS, it doesn't matter that the 1934 team you won MVP for went 1 and 7 on the season, after Gramps and 2 All Americans graduated. Well, there he is on the stadium wall big as life. In so far as the University of Michigan is concerned, Captain will get you noticed. Love and integrity get you a picture on my wall. He's there several times.

P.S. Millie Schembechler fell in love with this picture. Can you blame her?