The Journey / The Destination

So as I'm riding this train, I'm thinking of what it feels like to be on the train. Go down this track with me for a minute:

Jumping into a car just as the doors close feels like "an accomplishment." (Yay! You did it!) Clicking past each station, each closer to your destination, feels like "purpose" (I'm going Somewhere.) Overhearing conversations across from you feels like you're "a part of this Whole Big Machine."

But what really happens - most of the time - is that I just sit here with my eyes glued to my smartphone; everyone else is looking at theirs, too; not participating, ignoring, sometimes even unconsciously occupying seat space until they are just... gone. And then I start to think about the bigger thing for which we've all purchased a ticket at some point of our respective rides: Ambition. What am I accomplishing with this train ride? Where am I really going if I just sit here... and just wait to get off?

Some people think about "The Journey" and some focus on "The Destination" as they go about their daily lives. I lean toward the Destination, and my husband enjoys the Journey. But we're both learning from each other as we travel our lives together - that passively focusing on a journey may run it off course unawares, and aligning one's eyes only to the destination prevents often interesting side roads of discovery. Both my husband and I strive to balance while time moves us along. So where are you? What are you doing as you're riding the train?

Edgar + Irene

On August 28, 2011, a hurricane came barreling up the East Coast headed straight for New York City. My first experience with a water-based tornado and living in a borough of the Big Apple, I was right in its path. As I waited for the pelting rains and the vicious winds to come knocking at my door, the minutes turned into hours and the hours turned into a long night filled with twitter feeds and facebook updates. Musing on Edgar Allan Poe’s over-emphasis of terror as illustrated in his epic poem, The Raven, I drew a parallel to my experience with the overblown tropical storm.
I penned 16 verses in Mr. Poe’s style as Irene blew over me in Queens.

A year later, Hurricane Sandy - the "Frankenstorm" (October 28, 2012) - was forecast by anxious meteorologists and Governor Chris Christie cautioned that this weather would be "like nothing we've ever seen before." Well, since we didn't really "see" anything in NYC with Irene, some folks took the warning a bit more lightly than before. One foreign friend quipped, "You Americans... as soon as I heard 'Frankenstorm,' I stopped listening. Anyways, I'm headed to Bushwick tonight." (Hope he has an umbrella.) So with gallons of water and bottles of liquor, cans of soup and lawn chairs stowed away in preparation, I settled into my new home – now in Rockland County – and waited with pen in hand, again.

At longs last, I finally finished the poem one year after Sandy, adding the 18th verse, parallel to Mr. Poe. Though East Coast hurricanes are not a regular focus of this blog, I still wanted to publish the poem to share it with you. 

1
Once upon an evening dreary, Boroughs pondered weak and weary,
O'er 'canes' rollick, sand-bagged volume through our tropic-coastal lore...
While I twittered, husband napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, pitter-patting at my door.
`'Tis the hurricane,' I muttered, `rain is dripping, blowing, splashing,
throwing at my chamber door,
Irene is here, nothing more.'

2
Ah, distinctly I remember tweets and news and media frenz'er,
As each separate flying raindrop wrought its wetness 'pon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow
from facebook surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the battered shores...
For the rare and radiant weekend when the angels watched it pour:
Irene landing, less Cat 4.

3
With the whistling, sad, uncertain rustling of each sheeting curtain
Thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before:
And this pause, the still, sound quiet sees the wind on tree top heights,
Irene, Irene, come on Irene, hesitance with no downpour,
'Vacuated, moved, and waited - hesitance with no downpour?
This it is, and nothing more?

4
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
'Bloom,' said I, 'or Bloomberg! Truly your forgiveness I implore;
Din't you say that we'd be thrashed with a violent weather bash, hid
so faint t'was tapping, gentle rapping at my 'partmen'st closed door?'
That I scarce was sure I heard her - while I opened wide my door -
Darkness there, and nothing more.

5
Deep into that darkness peering, short I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
Twitter's silence then twas broken, and the dark unleashed, spoke, and
the only word there spoken were the whistling words, "Hit the floor!
Irene is rapidly approaching. Conditions deteriorating. Stay indoors!
Evac's over, stay indoors!"

6
Back into my 'partment turning, all the trees around me churning,
Lightning flash, I heard the thunder somewhat louder than before.
'Surely,' said I, 'surely is that something at my window taped shut;
Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore -
Let my flashlight search a moment and this mystery explore; -
'Tis gale force wind and nothing more!'

7
Rain is sheeting through my shutters, and with many a push and bluster,
Media reports rave and predict when the storm will step on shore.
Facebook friends' statuses say we; not a minute stopping, staying
Whether in Zone A, B or C, public transport locked their doors.
Jersey, Brooklyn and Manhattan, public transport locked their doors
Evac early, not a chore.

8
Then this grey-whipped storm beguiled my freaked out fancy into smiling,
By its churning, red-punched info-graphics of the countenance it wore,
`Though reported shorn and shaven, thou,' I said, `art still a 'cane, a
ghastly grim and wat'ry grave wandering 'long the nightly shore -
Show me where you rip and whirl and tear our homes on Gotham's southern shores!'
Quoth Irene at 9pm, then, `Wait for more...'

9
Much I marvelled this ungainly cloud to hear it speak so plainly,
Though its answer deep with portent - little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that our rampant social media
Ever'd heightened, helped to spread and, with goodwill yet at its core -

(εἰρήνη in Greek means 'peace') and, with goodwill yet at its core -

Posting through the night to set the score.

10
Hurricanes, they, sliding surely into harbor near us, pounding purely
That one word, in every tweet and post and 'tube was moored.
Anchored with a hashtag, uttered, by 'porter, punk and public - flustered
Till I heartfully then muttered, "Other friends, I hope, dear Lord
have place to stay, dry, safe and warm. All my friends, I hope, dear Lord."
Then Irene said, "I've got more."

11
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "'rene is utt'ring only by her front and force,
Sent from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster
Follows fast and followed faster till her winds one burden bore -
Till our hopes this night a melancholy waiting for:
Destruction of meteorological lore."

12
Thus I sat engaged in guessing with no syllable expressing
To the 'cane whose fiery eye now twisted in my online core;
This and more I wrote ('haps hyping?) with my fingertips a-typing
On the keyboard's clicking that the midnight screen-light washed o'er,
(What monstrous size of Cone shall yet, with Uncertainty, pass o'er?),
Irene presses, yet hardcore?

13
Then, methought, the air grew denser, saturate, humid and tenser,
Stormed by surges swinging forecast, deluge ConEd's string and grid
"Forget Bloomberg," said Ms. Burrus, "Ain't goin' nowhere in this ruckus.
Not with stranger bedbugs, no way." Basement floods, wine in pour.
Power outage yet unheard of; streaming in the muddy floor.
Hurry all, to liquor store!

14
'Irene' said I, 'Thing of evil! Path abandon, weather-devil!
Tempest tossed thee here ashore now, wreaking havoc while we snore.
NYorkers all, we are undaunted on metropolis enchanted.
Cameras charged and laundry folded, flashlight batt'ries at the fore.
Water jugged and tubbed on hold, so tell me truly, I implore -
Will you be here in the morn?'

15
'What's this?' said I, 'Leaves! And branches! Strewn on streets midst lake-like puddles?'
Now the clear sky blue is reigning, rays and sunstreaks we adore.
(Weather-mongers were a frenzy: latent earthquakes lately rumbling,
with tornado warnings blaring, prostrate fell we on the floor.)
Mayor confirms, "Worst is ovah, back to nah-mal will restore."
Raised eyebrow, ope' my door.

16
This "irenic" situation prophesied of devastation,
(bottled bev'rages a-bursting now my 'frigerator door)
Groaning at the past day's hurry-lame with panic, night was blurry -
Storm has passed. The coffee's brewing while I stew and, yes, abhor
my Benjamin's investment of soup now tucked in cupboard, stored.
Garbage cans shall now turn o'er.

(Here the writer paused, only taking up her pen a year later as a new visitor approached.)

17 

'That last word our sign of parting, 'Rene or fiend?' I shrieked, upstarting -
'Sandy’s here! Th'tempest rise on Monday night's South Jerseyian shore!
Tides a’swelling, winds are gusting, watching as the weather spoke of
“Frankenstorm” – a gale unheard of! Guaranteed to burst the region’s power!
Preparedness complete in earnest: chickens, lawnchairs, laundry, furnace,
Stowing candles, flashlights, soup and water safe up in our attic bower.
Quoth the Storm then, “Now, devour.”

18
One year passed, now - trees still fallen, houses drowned, lives' run aground and
we remember weather's wrathful clenching of the Tri-State's seeming pow'r.
Shoreline real 'state plummets lower than one's spirit in foreclosure, signboards stalking every corner, yet the earth still brings forth flower.
So my soul saved from that chaos - that which does not kill us, shapes us - shall be lifted and do more. 

Big Place, Small World

When I was a little kid, my folks took me to Disneyland. They tell me this tale of how the "It's a Small World" animatronic dolls scared me to tears. I've always found it strange that I should have reacted so unhappily, I enjoy exploring cultures and new tastes, new languages... But let's now replace "new" with the word "unknown."

I have been recently awarded a residency in Leipzig, Germany. I would be joining a group of international artists and fellow Academy alums spending a couple of months in a new environment - generating connections to make the world a little smaller. I'd be living in Germany for three months, away from my family, my husband, everything that's familiar to me. But I'm not scared. Though Leipzig is 3960 miles away, here's what I'm really afraid of: Sparkill, New York.  It's 25.9 miles away from where I live, it's a residency program with artists from around the world, but it's just a metaphorical hop, skip and jump away from where I am now.

Except that my whole world would change if I went there. Since last Thursday, I've been waiting through anxiety-fueled moments of "unknown." I don't know if I'll be living in Sparkill soon, and I don't know that if, when I may be living in Sparkill, whether I would be able to reside for a time in Leipzig. Sparkill had never appeared on the map I was creating for myself (getting back to Germany has always been tucked away in the glove compartment), but I think the more I contemplate the windy road that leads to a big Victorian house the more I feel like I could make a home there for a time. Of course, that means giving up everything that I've worked for here. 

Refilling Your Metrocard

Do you just follow the prompts? Do you watch your reflection? Do you try it in Chinese or Spanish? Or do you contemplate the consequences of putting the $10 refill vs. the "unlimited" option onto your ticket?

As you punch in your zip code to confirm your choice, do you imagine what the next zip code might hold? As you wait for your refilled Metrocard to be spat out of the machine, do you map out low long your next journey might last?

I do.

And not just this morning; not just because these questions might lead to life-changing responses in the near future. Every time I refill my Metrocard, I envision what the trip might bring, where it falls into the schedule of my life and yes - whether it will be my last. (Thanks Dad, for the persistent musings on mortality.) We like to create metaphors about our experiences on this earth and then put them on wheels, tracks and feet. You know them just as well as I do:

"... begins with one step."  |  "It's not about the destination, ..." |  "If you don't know where you're going, how will you ever ..."  |  "The only journey is the one within.”

So now I'd like to share some profound inspiration from the MTA with you,
"Touch Start to Begin."

Missed Connections

I start my commutes in the front of the F-train. Sometimes I wonder if I'm in the same car I was in yesterday (and sometimes I am!). Sometimes I see the same people. There's so many new things to see... and so many things that stay the same. These days, I often see this poster by Sophie Blackall and I smile because the artist has charmingly captured just about every kind and type of person I've ever seen in the subway. Except for the punksters, so I snapped this quick pic of the skull-hoodied sleeve cloaking the person next to me. I thought it was just a quirky moment and wanted to remember it.

As part of the MTA's Arts for Transit programs, I've loved watching the posters parade through the years. A quick search to find out a little more about this poster's artist led me to Sophie's personal project - Missed Connections - where she illustrates the "missed connections" ads posted on Craigslist. While often just a shoot in the dark, each post on Craigslist earnestly searches that some day paths will connect again, describing in hopeful detail the desired persons' appearance and situation.

As she picks posts to illustrate, Sophie embeds warmth into her drawings with wit. On her blog, she tells how the MTA invited her to create the poster that I love looking at. Watch the video she created, telling more about the creation of the poster:

She sat and sketched folks on the subway, just as I do. But while Sophie's project "gives wings" to the stories from the subway, my "before I transfer" portraits will cement them into a beautiful mosaic of faces and memories.

Stuart Smalley in the Studio

Do you remember Stuart Smalley's self-affirmation? I'm chanting a similar artspeak mantra these days to counteract the many excuses that keep me from the studio. I could curate a huge Holzer-esque show simply by displaying the phrases that flash through my brain to talk me out of doing this project. I'm not 24/skinny anymore. I'm tired- I could just watch Hulu for a little while. Carb-dropping is making me crabby. My palette is not cleaned off. My work week has been hectic. Ugh, laundry. I need a drink. Good old fashioned classic Complain-O-Crastination. I keep reminding myself that even though I don't see the actual deadline on this, it's going to arrive all sudden-like. 

Weird? No!

I was out to drinks and nachos with friends and alumni of my graduate school last night and I told them about my project. While the idea seemed to appeal to them, the actual delivery of the card-to-person via transit vehicle raised a few flags in re: social norms.

With encouragements to just sneak photos of folks via iPhone and then sketch at home, I tried to explain that the project stands as a metaphor for making the most of every connection - and while I try to maintain an approachable demeanor (no, John, I am not going to get a pair of anatomically-correct skull tattoos on my neck, even though that would be totally acceptable in this art world) ;) I vociferously maintained that "I am not a weirdo" for pursuing this project.

Dear readers, what would you think if I asked to paint your portrait on the subway?

Reprieve

As I've said before, I am drawn to contrasts. So when I wrote about "the first" portrait in my series, at the same time, I wasn't writing about the very real possibility of leaving our home here in the City to move north for a job. In hindsight, the first portrait could very well have been my last.

But I've been granted a reprieve - a job that will allow me to stay here at least for a few more months. So, I'm getting on this next train and seeing where it leads.

Dashing Through

Christmas this year was filled with the primaverian promise of new beginnings and continued growth as green grass carpeted the ground without the blanket of snow. Along with the unseasonable temperatures (remember "Snowpocalypse" last year? As a home-grown Minnesotan in NYC, where were the plows?!?), there's a change in the wind.

After my husband and I spent the holidays visiting friends in Connecticut, I am now home preparing for seasonable shifts in my own world. The progress in my "Before I Transfer" portrait project was fueled by a significant career change regarding where I thought I was headed, and when I feel uncertain about where I'm going I become especially attuned to "signs" or "flags" to try and make sense of what is happening.  (I've been unemployed for six months now aside from teaching one wonderful Art History class at a local college, but employment opportunities seem scarce these days.) I've been looking for directional markers ever since. Plotting happenings and emotions and friends' feedback onto a mind-map, I'm seeing some paradigm shifts.

I used to think that what you DO is who you ARE. As an artist, this seems natural: you're an artist if you do art, right? And if you're not doing art, well then - do you even exist? But only looking at the finished work on the wall is never the whole story. (While this blog uses this portrait/sketch project as a foundation to record and explore selected facets of my artistic process/psyche, I am also designing, administrating, muraling, photographing, painting, writing, researching and creating whole other projects that are writing their own logs in my life story.) At the risk of sounding too "young adult lit" (but I'm going to say it anyway) - I am the author of this blog, but I am not the author of my life and my path is already paved for me.

So even though I am reassured that "everything works out in the end," I'm still afraid of leaving New York City. I'm scared that I will suddenly drop off the local radar if I branch out beyond the boroughs to earn a livelihood, even if I'm not earning a living here. I'm scared that all my connections will be severed. That's really the core of this project - to breathe into painted portraits the connections to folks that mean so much to me while I've lived here.

Therefore, there's now a date on my calendar: the first portrait painting session for this project with a dear supporter and friend. He's a visionary. In addition to beginning his own global movement to strengthen family bonds through MaJenDome, he has always encouraged the pursuit of the best-possible outcome for not only me, but also for the entire student, faculty and alumni community at the school where I earned my MFA. It will be an honor to paint his portrait - as the first - in my project.

Stopped, before I start?

Some thoughts about this project, and other folks who have used Metrocards as a medium.

• Artist Draws MTA's Ire With MetroCard Art
• MTA Sends Cease-and-Desist to Artist Who Paints MetroCards
• MTA Goes After East Village Artist for Painting on Used Metrocards [Updated]
• MTA Tracks Down MetroCard Painter for Trademark Infringement
• MTA Not A Fan Of MetroCard Artists

Road Trip

Actual journeys, not just the metaphorical ones, make you really appreciate the connections you get to strengthen from point to point. The in-between lets you reflect on what (or who) you've left and where you're going.

I will be making a copy of this painting, The Jack Pine,
by Tom Thompson, a member of the Group of Seven,
by personal request from friends visited along this road trip. 

My favorite painter from Canada's landscape artists is 

Franklin Carmichael. He might have even grown up near
the place from which my grandfather hailed from in Canada. 

Perhaps we're related? 

10 years ago, I and my (then, boy-)
friend went on a big road trip to Canada, an art-pilgrimage to see the Gustav Klimt retrospective at the National Gallery of Canada. We entered into the trip (well, to tell the truth, I entered into the trip) with reservations. Not to a hotel, but about our relationship. As we traveled together, we learned valuable things about each other and truth be told again, that trip solidified my commitment to the person who became my husband.

One of the lessons learned was the palpable difference between pursuing life as a "destination" or a "journey." I was so eager to get TO my end goal that I was missing, and even deliberately trying to ignore, the adventure with him along the way. He taught me to be aware of the nuances in landscapes and the relationships between places... and people. To allow and be open to revelatory surprises when you least expect them. And while I was so keen to see just one person on the journey, I was introduced to a new group of artists that have made my visual life more vibrant.

So with this recent trip to pick up our new-to-us vehicle, I am now looking forward to driving into uncharted territory: artistically, socially, and personally.

GPS

If your life were mapped out for you, would you want to see where the road is leading?

Speaking of "road signs," there have been a number of markers in the past couple of weeks that I've told myself are significant. They've been pointing toward a more tenacious grip on finding creativity, finding solutions for integrating a consistent studio practice into making a living. Though I feel like I'm driving in a fog right now, not able to see clearly what is ahead, I'm keeping my GPS* on the dash of my mind.

All these road metaphors must have something to do with the transportation device that surprisingly blew into our lives. We now own a Volkswagen Golf, and my dear husband just informed me that the car was named after the Gulf Stream wind like the other cars in that series. Winds of change, right?

This vehicle is currently located in Minnesota. We've got a big road trip ahead of us
to retrieve the car and bring it back home to New York.

Parallel Tracks

On July 2, 2011 six people were killed in an early morning fire that engulfed the Bohemian Bed & Breakfast on 3rd South and German Streets in New Ulm, MN. Bobbi McCrea, the owner of the Bohemian and a vibrant champion of the arts, culture and Gemütlichkeit in my hometown, died. Bobbi reached so many people with her kindness and creativity. The community rallied around her. Bobbi wrote a blog, and her last entry was written on June 22, 2011.

Web logs are created for a variety of purposes - to track project progress, to share ideas, to tell stories, to document life. Following the story of the tragedy in New Ulm, I found that Bobbi had a twitter account and a LinkedIn profile in addition to her blog. Her last tweet on July 1, 2011 from @thebohemianbnb described her life just hours before the fire: "providing shelter from the storm. more important, good company swept in. wow."

And all of it just stopped.

On July 7, I was "fired."

Just minutes before I told my husband my news,
he had made this surprise investment. Perhaps, now,
with this new mode of transport, we can
"explore uncharted territory" not limited by the MTA.

I am the Editor for my institution's social media and online presence. I curate content for our website and blogs, grew our connections from less than 500 to over 3,000 people on facebook and tweeted to the world. I am responsible to a large community from that institution to establish and build relationships, generate opportunities, share information, while supporting professional endeavors and fostering connections. I will be leaving this position to seek out new adventures very soon.

I'm not evaluating the two happenings up against each other in comparison; there's no correlation. But there is a parallel in the words I've chosen to form a theme from these two accounts: Creativity. Connection. Fire. Stop. But where my hometown champion's connections are now in a different atmosphere shall we say, I view the parallels I'm choosing to draw from these events as "road signs." So I will continue to seek out and facilitate connections to sustain and support my community. And I continue to blog - to track this project's progress, to muse, to share experiences in the hopes that one day this project will be complete.

Creativity, connection, fire... Go.

From Memory

Süßes Schmerz

As I was out with a friend one evening, we stopped by Ferarra's - the best Italian pastry shop in Little Italy, or so I've been advised - so that I could get him to try a cannoli. We picked out a sampling of sweets, most of which he'd not tasted before. He looked over the display and commented that "sweet things often end up badly" (this Sprichwort sounded better in Swiss).

I've been thinking about that "box of pastry" ever since.

I have trouble drawing things from memory, and that's why it took me so long to make this little sketch of the aforementioned "sweet things." However, I have a very photographic, detail-capture function in my brain. I can recall, with clarity, specific life-changing events from when I was two years old. I can tell you what shade of aqua and how deep the rippling water was the first time I tossed a coin into the Trevi Fountain. (And no, it's not because I can just google up the image on my browser.) But if you asked me to draw these things - to use my hands to create a likeness of the picture in my memory - I'd lose it. My perspective would be wonky, the value incoherent, the foreshortening a mess. In fact, I think I'm afraid that I'd lose the memory if I let it filter out through my fingers.

With my art, I have built up a storehouse of usable material in my head. Projects, like this one, are filed in hierarchical and separate drawers. But that's not the problem. My internal filing system isn't a hindrance and the answer is not, "just throw it all down on paper/canvas - don't bind yourself with these left-brained concepts of organization, let it happen naturally!" (Complete with a bohemian stupor of manic creativity?) Here's the real problem: the projects in my head aren't getting out... in any way, shape or form.

See, that's the thing about what you think you want and what is good for you. What I want is to live with conviction and passion. What is necessary at the moment is to make a dent in those student loans from an education that provided me tools to realize, with more conviction, my artistic passion. So what is good for me? Though the metaphorical life lived inside of that box of pastry, with all of its sensory titillation may momentarily satisfy, it doesn't give one much sustainable energy. Sweets are tasty on occasion, but to sustain a life-long stream of creativity I need to be feeding myself a steady diet of healthy studio practice.

Runs both ways.

Speaking with a dear friend tonight, he noted that he looks forward. He said that with whatever direction he is going, he had no fear or hesitation adjusting his direction to head to another place. I responded that I felt I was so tied to the past, so entrenched in what might be in the future, that I often missed the present moment.

But roads run both ways. Train tracks run both ways.

Yet, I think his point hit home: If I hadn't been aware of my surroundings on the track I'm currently on - I might have missed the chance to jump out for just one night and connect with my dear old friend in the present.