a white room

42

2011-07-26T09:46:00.002-04:00

I don’t believe, not for a second, not at all, that deprivation and suffering, for the sake of deprivation and suffering, makes people good. In other words an ascetic life – not merely ascetic but one which is stripped of pleasure – is a wasted life.

To be given and granted all that is desired without exchange is equally a waste. When everything is free and easy it is meaningless, valueless.

Life is meant to be lived to its full capacity. It should be seasoned with laughter, good food, good work, kind words, and the arms of friends. The greatest good is to live in this manner and to contribute to a world which is not mean and stingy with such things but makes them more abundant.

This is the meaning of life.

Ever vigilant in internal dialogue … set your guards against the enemies of this life.

Bill Radawec: Into the Blue

2011-07-07T09:03:00.002-04:00

Bill Radawec: Out of the Blue

Statement on Bill Radawec's Website

Bill Radawec Website

Bill's Facebook Page

I have come recently to believe that it’s more important to live an interesting and engaged life than it is to live a “happy” life. It occurs to me that these two conditions are sometimes in opposition to one another. An interested person is awake, aware, eyes are open, a state that doesn’t always make for happiness.

I moved to Cleveland in January 2001 and thus I came to know its strange energy. A tension of opposing identities, on the one hand, rich and replete with possibilities, on the other, shrouded in a veil of self-doubt. Cleveland is a place in transition and it rests rather uncomfortably in this liminal space. It waits still to know what it will become next.

Within this clear medium of Cleveland’s particular time and place are suspended defining moments of intensity. From opening to opening, from event to event, I have made my way. Again and again, I would see him, meet him, be introduced, and reintroduced to him. Eternally coming to know, never knowing, never coming close – ever the thought “sometime in the future …”

Un temps perdu.

What I can tell you about Bill that I do know? That he exuded energy in every meeting. Smiles beamed forth and some spark radiated from within him. He seemed both happy and interested. An anomaly within the world for there was no doubt, from seeing his work, that he was thinking, thinking, thinking, and to this uniqueness he added an even rarer condition when he married Ibojka. He became, clearly, a happily married man. The two of them together magnified and redoubled the energy that had been Bill’s alone. There was a joy between them.

Ibojka and Bill, together, moved through the world filled with the wonder of discovery. It was a way of living the two of them carried through what became Bill’s final illness. Ibojka and Bill let the world into their lives with an unimaginable generosity, sharing this most intimate part of themselves.

We know, don’t we, that we all have times like these to come, and in their generosity they have shown us how to do it best, with joy, love, and grace.

Cleveland is going to miss Bill Radawec.

Bill Radawec passed away on July 5/6, 2011

happiness ...

2011-06-21T23:05:00.001-04:00

some part of being happy is giving oneself the permission to be happy.

happy is maybe not the most satisfying state to live in.

it is more important to be interested i think.

yearning to be free

2011-05-10T01:42:00.003-04:00

Tangled Webs by James Stewart

We are free.

Free to choose, to act.

Free to decide where we will put our energies, what we will sow and to some degree, what we will reap.

It seems sometimes that our culture has lost any sense of ethic. Lying … and it doesn’t seem to matter if someone knows that you’re lying … as a way to manipulate situations and people … has become a matter of course … and next to that as strategies are anger and manufactured drama.

How do we shift this?

Personally … I have chosen to eliminate those who regularly lie as a strategy of control from my life. The only thing I can do is to choose not to participate.

thank you Mr. Cave ...

2011-04-25T16:45:00.001-04:00

Harry and Herminone: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 - O Children by Nick Cave

There’s something potent about this song and it was genius on the HPDH1 director’s part to give it to this scene. It at once embodies the promise of youth – beautiful, strong, alive – married to the inevitability of loss and gain. The song is poignant and thrilling … It sounds like being in love.

Ignorant, arrogant beautiful youth – it possesses us still – even those of us left on this rocky crag and lost to its breathlessness.

the use of cheesy movies ...

2011-04-24T18:08:00.003-04:00

I love cheesy, escapist fantasy movies. They shelter my soul and embedded within them is the ancient wisdom of all our cultures and to prove it here's a quote from a cheesy movie that I doubt I'll ever watch but the trailer had this ...

"I'm not here to save you. I'm the main character of my life." - Daydream Nation.

And it's true ...

Art Farm and other such things

2010-08-22T22:47:00.006-04:00

here in are the images you've been seeking ... Charles Tucker on Residency at Art Farm with his intrepid assistants Scott and Carey ...

The Weasley's Burrow, aka: The Barn
The Artist's Garden
Charles Tucker: Cottage
Residents' House: Victoria
Charles Tucker, with intrepid assistants - Scott Bowers, Carey Tucker
Scott Bowers, Carey Tucker, Charles Tucker
Scott and Carey working on their roof bench
Life on the Farm

being here now

2010-07-06T09:37:00.003-04:00

Revelations

On loss and other real things

I have been thinking … maybe way too much … these past months. The summer especially has been a time of contemplation. I have had a need to come to terms, to find a way of thinking about “things” that is tolerable.

over beer with a friend…

We all die. To everyone there comes a death. For those who love the dying that death is never fair or good enough or kind enough … It is always cruelty that our world should be diminished and that the ones we love eclipsed. The death of the loved is always a portent of our own end.

To each of us comes a death and never can that death satisfy.

---

All is metaphysics … while all may be knowable, there is never knowing enough to hold it all. The mind is at once infinite and finite … its capacities endless yet never all encompassing so that no matter how much is known there is ever the unknown but not the unknowable.

---

There is the “stuff” of being. It is being and it is thought. Thought is pattern and organization it is inherent to a being which arranges and rearranges, endlessly playing out every possible configuration, every possible reality. To ask if there is intelligence in this design is a misconception, intelligence is the substance of being.

---

There is no time.

We can only know now because we are in this configuration and it is necessarily this configuration that we know. We can only know the now we are in.

If one could travel back in time, time would either collapse, all nows becoming now, or multiple nows co-existing, segregated from one another. If I go back in time and change my own past then I become two … twins out of joint … One of me with my “original” history and one of me with my “altered” history and those two can never be rejoined. Once a thing has happened it can never unhappen and that is to say it has always been.

This is the nature of infinity … all possible moments beyond our ability to hold them all exist. It is only our knowing of now that creates time.

searching for venus ...

2010-02-21T22:10:00.002-05:00

I realize now the importance of competition
Without competition there is nothing to push against
No standard against which to measure the quality of production

There are infinite reasons not to achieve
Infinite reasonable reasons not to give over to …

All will understand the limits of our success
Because there are reasons
A thousand reasonable reasons
That all our friends will understand
And commensurate
Over the slings and arrows
Which impede our progress

There is nothing to measure
But what we do

an unseen tether

2010-01-24T22:15:00.001-05:00

Saint Catherine of Alexandria

It is easy and it is difficult to know how to surrender and how to give permission.

We live with the unseen witness and we ascribe to this witness many judgments. We believe that somehow if we suffer others will know our suffering and we will gain worthiness through this suffering. Somehow through debasement, by prostrating before others we prove our goodness. Those few exempted from these interior recriminations are those who through some fluke of rearing or through some internal dialogue have managed to persuade themselves, or are raised to believe, that they are worthy … some believe this in excess.

It is nothing more than a contemporary self-flagellation with the same degree of usefulness. While the diseases it spreads are perhaps less virulent than the plague they are none-the-less damning in their outcomes.

No doubt the content of this witness’s character was formed in the early days of Christian guilt. It is no doubt the descendant of those cultural beliefs that allowed the aristocracy to believe that God had ordained them to their places and had just as firmly placed their lessers rightly beneath them. Conversely, those lessers, equally convinced of their place, were satisfied to have a sense of ego/goodness fed through the virtues of their self-sacrifice. (I am made better than you in my suffering.)

Always it is a balance … how to silence this witness and reconstruct the being in some more helpful form… to know and accept that we are somehow worthy of our happinesses.

It is true that faith must be internal … it is the content of that faith we must reconstruct.

blue

2010-01-21T00:15:00.001-05:00

always back and forth
A struggle to do this simple thing
To see and know what has been done
And to know what yet needs to be done

It is the struggle
The knowing of the limits of patience
The standing still
The absolute aloneness of that struggle
of seeing

The community of the lovers of solitude
Those who will stand
And take responsibility for what they have put into the world
A profess-ion
A declaration of the self

It has always been this
This secret love

You are wrapped in its folds of
Forever blueness
My fingers stained

Is it not worthy
Of all my time
Is it not worth
My life
And is it too much
That I profess
My love
In this act of struggling

afterall

2010-01-17T23:28:00.001-05:00

Gustav Klimt, Danae

So why not
Give over
To the life deferred?

Waiting no longer for the validation of
An other
But the self embrace

Why not
Give over
To the love of life?

To joy?

What virtue
To deny the imagined life?

Laugh

Give over

No more waiting
Now to what is loved

zoe home safe!

2010-01-03T18:02:00.001-05:00

the universe smiles ... zoe has returned home.

zoe is missing!!!

2009-12-31T15:10:00.001-05:00

today and everyday ...

2009-12-09T09:41:00.002-05:00

i'm thinking of you. happy birthday.

actions reveal motives
motives decode actions
the choices of a life … write a truth …

in other words …
if you want to know someone
look at the consistency of what they do
a single moment might be an anomaly
a thousand moments writes the story

petition

2009-12-08T23:22:00.002-05:00

note to self:

the people who would say evil things ... are usually evil.

put another way:
don't let the bastards get you down.

a toast and an adieu...

2009-09-27T15:14:00.001-04:00

a toast to the greatest cat who ever lived … (raise a beer and down it) … there was this animal that impacted my life in a way and to a degree and in such a positive manner that I grieve his death as much as I have grieved many others and more than some others I’m afraid … to have him in my life added a texture and a personality that frankly surpassed some humans. stupid to think this… maybe … but I believe that these lives are as potent and as lived and as felt as many an other. I know people who will never get the simple joy from living that he did … that will never value their companions as he did … that never had the courage that he had, nor his devotion… thanks William for finding me and having the kindness to share our lives. i love you always.

learning to live ... finally

2009-09-26T21:16:00.002-04:00

Mama cat
Home
My room, my bed
Pictures of grandfather, sister, mother, father, me
Clothes
My life like it was

RAF
Grandmother
My heart
You
My life like it was

My righteousness
My obliviousness
My innocence
Grandmother
Him
My Youth
Mike
Bobby
A close friend
Daddy’s mind
My heart
Alabama
Mother’s voice
Daddy
My life like it was

Mother
Part of Me
Him
Trust
My life like it was

Lucy
William

--

The true marker of commitment, the signifier of devotion is to bear witness to a lifetime of moments.

i don't even have time to write...

2009-09-24T23:06:00.002-04:00

I'm so busy and I'm thinking of so many things. I so want to get them out before they slip away but the clock keeps ticking and it's already eleven and I have to go to bed.

oh well...

summer... the living was easy...

2009-08-27T20:10:00.003-04:00

back to the fray...

but first a glimpse back at the summer of love...

Dumbledore

2009-07-31T12:50:00.001-04:00

Harry and Dumbledore: Ethical Statement

sometimes i ponder...

2009-07-28T10:34:00.001-04:00

the living cannot intrude on the dead.

the dead do not fear death. the dead do not regret the manner of their passing. the dead are not haunted.

traveling to unknown destinations...

2009-06-29T00:00:00.003-04:00

Katherine and her father, on our journey...

sitting...

2009-06-22T21:49:00.004-04:00

red hot chili peppers is in the background. the conversation is as always intellectual intrigue and then... i love that phrase "and then..." certain phrases are pregnant with tomorrow. did you know there's someone who reads my blog who won't read this post most likely because it doesn't have the right title or search words. no search words! search me. (ok i'm smiling now).

so sitting at a table with conversation and always imagining the future and remember the past but beer at least erases some of that.

i am filled with love, beer and happiness and music right now, right now.

banff, midway...

2009-05-30T21:54:00.001-04:00

Castle Mountain, Rockbound Lake Hike with Susan Bowman, Scott Dorman, Charles Tucker (and me); Chuck Listening to Jazz; Columbia Ice Fields Visitor Center; Chuck and Lane on the road to Columbia Ice Fields.

We went hiking yesterday with Scott and Susan. We've been going to Jazz and making work. Here are just a few pictures from our adventures. I have a million more... sigh.

Charles Tucker, Lane Cooper and Scott Dorman in Banff

2009-05-21T01:43:00.004-04:00

Wow... what a week at Banff! I've finished seven small paintings... I'm looking for the truth in painting, ala Derrida. Also looking for a subject for paint... I think the truth, the subject might be paint.

I'm shooting lots of raw footage for my videos. I've got to work out the sound design... but hey it'll come together. Yesterday I cast my finger and tomorrow I'm doing a papermaking workshop.

Our friend Scott got here on Sunday. It's so good to see him. He grew up with Chuck while I've only known him for nine years. He is such a sweetheart. This Saturday, we're all going on a hike and a picnic. In the meantime we're cranking the work. Scott is a chemist and he's working with Chuck on a project. It's so great to see people from back home.

Tonight we went to hear Jazz. The groups were amazing, especially the last one. These two sax players were incredible.

I'll blog some more tomorrow maybe. There's so much going on.

charles tucker, amanda almon and lane cooper -- that's right we're all here

2009-05-17T19:19:00.003-04:00

Well I made it to Banff. I've actually started a whole other blog to chronicle my travels so I won't discuss the details of that here.

We've settled in and today the weather is beautiful. The week's been very hectic but we've met some great people and I've started to get some work done. I actually finished a video short last night but it's done using old footage. I've started shooting today on our hike up Tunnel Mountain... beautiful, beautiful, wish you were here kind of thing. Saul and Chuck have been squirreled away working on their research although we all take time out to hit the pub. Chuck, Amanda and I went to a puppet show today as well. It's not what it sounds.

I'll try to post about the folks I'm meeting here. They're very kind and interesting people. The land is amazing. I've never been anywhere like here although I have that strange feeling I've seen it before. So many pictures... you walk outside though and wham the scale is overwhelming.

Now I have a remaining five weeks to make work. It seems both long and short. It makes me though want to go on other residencies.

i am i am

2009-05-04T23:04:00.003-04:00

i will be away for a while. maybe i'll blog on the way to banff. maybe not.

Chuck and I have been together for over ten years and ten years is a long time to be with someone. It is the nature of commitment - through good times and bad. I hope I make some good work while we're at Banff. I hope the people are kind there, respectful. I'm a bit nervous but I'm sure it will go well. Chuck is nervous too. We will face it together though and I think it will be fun after all. Overall we are looking forward to this time to do work and on the other side we should have a collection of things to show and the drive back with Katherine will be an adventure.

peace be with you.

to honor... that which is important...

2009-05-03T14:45:00.005-04:00

Here I confide to you the deepest part of me. The driving reason for all my doing... It is the knowledge which underlies every choice. Do not imagine that I'm sad. This is just the compass of my heart.

Life seems to be about balance. Not too much of this or too much of that. Living well; to honor those things that are truly important; that is the only goal. How to parse it out and fill up the mind with those subjects which occupy and which allow for some sort of productivity? It is balance isn’t it?

What makes the urgency of this goal setting clear? What brings me to it? What are the engines, the causes, and the reasons of my work? What is it that I remember - those things which are seared into my mind … those moments that are unassailable, un-remittable, indelible. (C’est moi ma mere, c’est moi. Ecoute’ a moi si vous plait pour seul une moment.)

When I waiver, when I get lost, I remember watching you die mother and my own impotence, crying to a god I don’t believe in. I remember the cruelty of that god in forsaking you and I promise I will ask what you were afraid to ask. I will live. There was that stillness of that moment when your fragility was over come and there was no more hope for your betterment and I became cut loose, adrift. Your beauty, your worlds, your hope were washed away. There are times when this is all I can see and I rage at a world that does not mourn your loss as I do.

I remember that once in the world there was a person who wanted, as I want now. I remember that once there was in the world someone who loved me and wanted for me all the dreams she had.

Mother what can I do for you now but live the best I can?

(Picture: Charles Tucker and me from April 17, 2009)

purpose...

2009-05-01T09:29:00.003-04:00

The purpose of this blog has shifted over time. Originally it was meant as a communiqué to my friends and family in southern locales. Initially it contained random bits of information from my day to day life and narratives of events I thought they would find of special interest – events like heavy snow (which still fascinates me anyway).

Gradually it has moved into the realm of the open epistle or personal essay. It is a place where I “confide” the interior self to a public realm. Since it makes no demands, the blog, it sits and waits for an audience, I feel ok with this. I feel no more vanity in putting myself here than I would speaking with a close friend. It provides me an unburdened witness. -- The interested will read and those that are not will pass on by. It generates within me the same feeling of joy that an empty canvas can sometimes elicit. It is pregnant with possibility and I alone censor its content. I am at liberty here.

I am grateful to the ether and its indulgence. I am grateful to an empty space waiting to be filled. It is nice to imagine kind hearts finding empathy with my words.

So in short – thank you.

small joys ... charles tucker, carey tucker and lane cooper (me)

2009-04-18T06:56:00.002-04:00

lane cooper, banff and charles tucker...

2009-04-13T00:17:00.003-04:00

Just so you know I will be at the Banff Centre for May 11 to June 19 or so. Chuck and Saul are going for their Thematic Residency "Analogous Fields" and I'm going for a self-directed experience. I will be working on video and writing. Frankly I'm really looking forward to it. I was thrilled when Chuck suggested I apply. I think it will be a good time. His daughter Katherine is going to come spend some days with us while we're there as well. Back at the homestead, Carey and Chris will be holding down the fort and feeding the kitties.

Leave comments if you like.

a razor's edge

2009-04-12T12:52:00.003-04:00

I identify with Larry in Somerset Maugham’s “The Razor’s Edge.” It is an elegant, and rather romantic presentation of a philosophical worldview – It is a discussion and a contrasting of ethics.

I have been thinking a lot about ethic as motive; the internal compass that drives decision-making. It seems, or I tend to imagine rather, that most do not consciously consider the ethic which drives. “What will it be?” “What are the limits I will set?”

The culture has slid so far from judgment that my perception is that the critical eye, the witness, has been largely shut off. The cultural position appears to be that it is ridiculous, antithetical, an exercise in futility to consider the larger significance of decision-making, better to respond, to react. It is more honest, more authentic to go with gut feeling.

I find that talking to myself will tell me, often, the truth of things, if only I will listen. To describe a thing to myself, if I hear those words then I may find the ethic which drives me. What do you want? To say “plenty of money” – first – then it is most likely this that directs my choices.

What do I want? Or rather what do I value?

To think, to talk, to taste good food, to know those who think and talk.
A glass of wine, a good book, a warm place.
To care and be cared for.
To do work and be satisfied with that work.
To breathe, to taste, to think, to have intercourse of all passionate sorts –
To live.

& then there are birthdays... lane cooper, charles tucker and beloveds...

2009-03-29T23:36:00.007-04:00

I had a dream the other night. Sometimes I hear things in my dreams. "Well at least if they want a piece of you, then they want some of you." I took it to mean that there are some of us who want to be consumed just so we can feel wanted. Me... I don't think so any more. Let me eat cake.

Pictured: Anna Cottos, Carey Tucker, Marc Tomko, Charles Tucker, Saul Ostrow, residue of an evening, a sign for peace

picture this: Lane Cooper, Charles Tucker and Julie Langsam

2009-03-08T14:59:00.007-04:00

Pictured: Lane Cooper, Charles Tucker and Julie Langsam

so every now and then i google myself... (doesn't everyone?)... when i do this, as i did today, i'm disappointed at the images that come up as "me." looking around my computer i find lots of pictures that i wish would google. some i like because i think i look good in them and some i like because i like who i'm with and some i like because they make my life look exciting. so i have lots of images that i would like to post just so they'll search but the ego self-indulgence would just be too obvious and my ego would not have that so instead i'll self-control and just post these. they're pretty good if i say so myself... and now in the hopes they'll search and i'll have a face on the internet that is actually mine (and not a mini cooper or some guy with a beard or a twelve year old) here are so pics. oh and don't let me mislead you... i have lots of pics not because i'm so photogenic but because i work to have good looking pictures. oh well... vanity thy name is lane.

thanks for indulging me dear ether. (me, me, me)

a walking shadow...

2009-03-03T20:38:00.004-05:00

Ghost Dance to music from "The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford," - Song for Bob, by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis

-- an incredible soundtrack. Please buy so they'll make more wonderful music.

---

A walking shadow…

"She should have died hereafter; 
There would have been a time for such a word.
 To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
 Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, 
To the last syllable of recorded time;
 And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
The way to dusty death.
Out, out, brief candle!
 Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player 
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage 
And then is heard no more.
It is a tale 
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
 Signifying nothing." — Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)

You, the other, are a fiction to me. All others are figments of my imagination, flesh made to bones through the text of acting on a stage. We perform. Even the secret is a performance… not hidden but a performance of veiling – an unveiling of intimacy.
My knowing of “you” – my knowing of others – is now; it is this moment; it is my memory of the last performance I saw of “you.” An act held in the line of the play by my memory of the acts coming before. I read the meaning through the lines and actions of the characters. I deconstruct to find meaning. Actions, Words, reveal logic extending from ethic that is motive.

More directly –
We cannot know others. We can only imagine them based on our reading of their actions – this is the text that we read. Throughout our engagements with others we tend to base our understanding of them on the last exchange yet framed by a context of earlier action. I read the semiotics of your actions but my knowledge of you, the other, occurs as internally as my reading of any text.

It is only after the last last act that the text takes on the sum of its meaning. The character becomes transformed and how we imagine them shifts from the myopic to the gestalt. The fragility of prolonged death falls away and it is replaced by the remembered vigor of youth. The most perfect form stands in place of ravaged minds and bodies and becomes what is lost, what is longed for.

I would talk about my mother in order to really explain but it’s not possible. To say that unto death… until that moment, that moment is inconceivable and it is unto that moment as yet uninhabited that we live in the now and it is now that defines the texture, meaning, state of a relationship. It is in that now we imagine the other until the now can no longer be sustained and while the text may be yet fully revealed, it is written.

bondage

2009-02-09T23:53:00.004-05:00

As you are so I once was.
As I am so shall you be.

Age is interesting. It gives one a particular perspective on things. What once seemed easy and light becomes more ponderous and weighty. The frivolous undertakings of life, those things we once called fun, carry with them consequences and complicity.

Bon chance.

** Bette Davis from Of Human Bondage.

life and websites... charles tucker and lane cooper

2009-02-01T12:37:00.001-05:00

Charles Tucker, my frequent collaborator and partner, and I are working to become more web savvy. Chuck and I both have websites up and now we're trying to figure out how best to use them. In addition I'm trying to balance my personal practice as an artist and my work with events at CIA, and teaching. Honestly I feel very excited and hopeful, as if a number of things are about to come together in a positive way. The studio-house is about to be ready. (I keep thinking this). I imagine evenings sitting in the house surrounded by our work, friends and visitors who are interested in ideas. The exchange of ideas; I want very much to create a space where this can happen. I do believe that when ideas and thinkers meet the sum can be greater than the parts.

Check out our websites! and when the house really is open I'll let you know the progress of my fantasy. The picture is from my "real" home.

katherine, carey and charles tucker (and me) New Year 2009

2009-01-03T22:41:00.005-05:00

A New Year, a renewal, a re-beginning...

Here's a post for anyone who wants to know how our New Year's (and Christmas) went.

It was a quiet affair. We spent Christmas alone. Carey went down to visit his mother. Chuck gave me beautiful artist-made jewelry - a necklace and a bracelet. The necklace is wonderful because it actually matches some earrings he gave me a few years ago. It (the necklace) has yellow heart-shaped crystals and an iridescent glass center-piece. We had some wine, a little cheese... all in front of our "charlie brown" Christmas tree.

Carey came back in time for New Year's and Katherine flew in with him. I actually had pies baking in the oven for them. (For those of you unfamiliar, Chuck has three really amazing off-spring, Christopher, Carey and Katherine. Being able to share in their lives is the greatest generosity anyone has ever shown me. Thanks to Chuck and also thanks to their mom Karen.) Chris wasn't able to make it in I'm afraid. We re-did Christmas with them and then watched movies together for New Year's Eve. We had one disruption that evening but by mid-night everything had settled down and we toasted one another with asti-spumante... super sweet. The hillbilly in me loves it.

According to tradition (at least where we come from), what you do New Year's Day sets the course for the rest of the year. Eating greens brings money; eating black-eyed peas brings luck (the eyes i think); and a ham hock brings wealth. I made us all of the above plus a chicken. If I say so myself it was a great meal.

Chuck has spent the holiday keeping us in fires and we've worked on the house I bought for us to use as a studio. The cats have lounged and enjoyed everyone being home and the extra attention. All in all ... it was better than last year ... what could be better than being surrounded by those you love.

I hope everyone else had a wonderful holiday and that the New Year brings us peace and some contentment. With LOVE to you all. You're in my thoughts.

The pictures are from New Year's Eve and actually today, except for the one of Chuck and Katherine, which is from Thanksgiving at Chuck's parents.

speaking the name of god...

2008-10-18T13:13:00.005-04:00

This year… or year and a half, has been about assessment - assessing my life… trying to find reason to it. I have not given you, the ether, a report on my condition, as of late – Let me summarize by saying it has been a year of loss and challenge… beginning with the Summer of 2007 I learned that my cancer had begun to grow again and it required a fourth surgery to remove five tumors. Not long after, on Thanksgiving of 2007 my mother died… I won’t go into details. Then on December 17th 2007, I had my fourth cancer surgery with Chuck by my side. In the Spring of 2008 I was deeply depressed and grieving. I received good news though in March… my cancer was, for the first time ever, below any detectable levels. The first time a possibility of a cure has ever been seriously mentioned in the twelve years of fighting it. Chuck went to Banff to make work. I went to New York to heal and do the same. During that time my personal life underwent an unexpected change and again I found myself living with uncertainty and grief. This time has caused me to look inward and once again take an accounting… make an assessment of the things I value and what choices should be precipitated through this evaluation.

More recently someone described to me his current existential crisis. It reminded me of my own major journey into that darkness in 1996 when I was first diagnosed with cancer. All I could see then was a black infinity… and nothing… “a million years from now is only 30 seconds away” was my most conscious and persistent thought. What did anything mean? How was there any purpose to the things I was doing? I would sit in the class I was teaching and stare at the floor… It was all-pointless… meaningless. I carried with me an anger for humanity’s stupidity. I remember someone telling me they believed me an angry feminist and who hated all men. They didn’t understand… I was just angry that life had lost its flavor.

Slowly I began to climb out from that darkness. It was a place where I had just been barely clinging to the walls. As part of that climb, I consciously chose that which would be important to me. I needed a system to determine the value of those “things.” I decided I to develop a “metaphysical” frame … That system began with: Lane ends when Lane ends -- but there is an interconnectedness among people. I am part. You are part. This is my god. What I say and do now telegraphs to the future… It is carried forward like the mutation in mitochondrial DNA – a marker influencing future thought. My individuality may no longer exist, but my thought, and to some degree my mind, continues in that it is embedded in any thought, any life, which contains a residue of my thinking. Each of us has influence on others in this way. It is both conversely rhizomatic and linear.

As a consequence of this understanding of meaning and its transmission to the future and conceivably infinity, I began to become more aware of the individual’s responsibility for signification … First I became aware of it in my work as an artist, and then in my life “acts” and how I impact others. This understanding of things gradually gained influence over my life and my thinking. It now provides a foundation of logic as to how I make decisions; choices; etc. It is an ethic that I apply with lesser and greater consistency depending on my own clarity and personal discipline. It guides me and provides a measure for the choices I make. As a result there are times and choices I regret.

There are those I know, well respect and love who believe that to regret is waste… but I understand regret as a kind of grief – an acknowledgement of a loss due sometimes to mistakes or perhaps failed choices … and it is only through loss, the experience of grief, that the full value of “things” can become clear against a non-hierarchal background. Sometimes that loss may be as simples as a particular sense of the self.

Valuing and evaluating my enacting of signification with a recognition that all signification is transmitted to the larger culture allows me to determine if I am “saying” what I mean, … being who I want to imagine myself to be… rather than intuitively creating myself – this process of measure and the taking of responsibility allows me to actively and consciously … with an awake mind … create myself.

love's labors lost...

2008-09-25T16:55:00.003-04:00

Sometimes things are beyond your control... What am I to learn from this the past year? It seems there must be something... some task I've set for myself; some betterment of my greater person...

Let go and accept... let go.

A cat is a cat... not a person... no greater or lesser than any other animal... but my true and loyal companion... the one who made me the center... She fed me and now... even this... In the scope of things, surely not the greatest loss of my year -- but what a comfort she's been to me. I hope I was right daddy... I hope there is a heaven for kitties.

let go...

zoe, lucy's step-daughter is on the left; lucy is on the right. I'm such a sap... please send some good thoughts my way.

coming soon...

2007-08-31T16:08:00.000-04:00

I've been away (mentally at least) -- new posts coming soon

lucy ii needs a home...

2007-05-25T11:46:00.001-04:00

My mother is moving into an assisted living home... My dad's cat, Lucy (named after my lucy) needs a home... If you know a kind person who loves animals and who would be willing to take her ... please let me know. I would take her but I have three cats and William, my seventeen year old, is still angry and peeing on things because of the addition of Sam.

It is very important to me that Lucy ii finds a good home ... she was with my dad when he died.

snow... snow... snow...

2007-02-15T12:45:00.000-05:00

more snow than i've ever seen... these pics are from February 13... I kept thinking the lens was getting wet... alas not... it was the flash hitting the "blizzard like conditions"... I never thought I would ever see so much snow... Carey and I decided to go out and play ... Then Valentine's Day Chuck, Carey and I, and the rest of Cleveland spent the day trying to dig out...

baby it's cold...

2007-02-04T14:04:00.000-05:00

(My post from Myspace...)

It's a balmy 5 degrees here right now... The low tonight -1...

I never knew cold before. Thank God I have my soviet era German military coat to keep me warm... best thing my second ex-husband ever did for me.

and so it goes...

in other news...

I'm working on a new attitude via neuro-plasticity... I'll let you know how my transformation goes...

Last night step-nephew Carey and I went to see Pan's Labryinth...

Horrific and brillant... It took hours for my mental equlibrium to come back to plane...
We had to watch Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to adjust...

Just now Carey and I are spending a lot of time together... in that he's run into... err... shall we say... difficulty at school...

Step-Aunting can be so difficult.

and so i hurl this note into the void with wishes of peace and love...

christmas '06

2007-01-19T15:16:00.000-05:00

Well... it didn't snow... and there were boxes everywhere from the move but Christmas, despite all the stress from trying to finally get in the house... was great! We missed Chris and there were others we would have spent time with but Katherine and Carey made the holidays.

The kitties, of course, participated and Sam was slightly more social than usual. (Samalina is black and white... William is all white... Lucy, not pictured, is orange and white.) Lots of good presents... I got earrings, candles, pajamas, movies... Katherine and Carey both got lots of clothes and Chuck got a movie, cookbook, house shoes and a Joseph Campbell book he read in two days.

I was a little sad not having everyone in the same place... It's always difficult with us being in Cleveland and everyone else being in Alabama, Mississippi and North Carolina... but all in all, I think it was pretty wonderful... Our first Christmas in the house.

wheels keep on turning...

2006-12-19T12:11:00.000-05:00

So Sunday we headed south (sorry everyone that I wasn't able to visit)... Cleveland to Birmingham on Sunday... then to Tuscaloosa where Chuck and Carey loaded a Uhaul to take back to Cleveland... Christopher met us to help load and carry... and then I went on to Jackson to stay with mother while Kathy and her family went skiing. Chuck and Carey are currently enroute to Cleveland. (Hope they're careful!)

That's Ms. Traina-Gams with the dogs. Mr. Gams with their tree. Carey and Chris at the Waffle House. I haven't had eggs that good (unless we cooked them at home) since I don't know when.

The BMW is my niece's :-)... Oh I'm so envious!!! I thought it made a funny comparison to my sweet and sassy '99 Saturn.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday!

snow and lucy...

2006-12-08T23:21:00.000-05:00

For all my bama babes... Snow in the great white north...

I'm thinking of you all and missing you.

meatloaf last night...

2006-12-03T10:34:00.000-05:00

Over the years I've had the great joy of having some amazing people as students. They are wonderful and this year's crop is no different. I won't lie to you... from time to time you have the student that you know isn't ready to "be here," but for the most part -- I've been granted a great gift... an incredible gift... my students truly are a joy...

Last night my second years had a closing reception for their show "meatloaf." It was incredible... Their invitations were beautiful, the food was well thoughtout and delicious, they had a documentary video interviewing each of them concerning their work, and speaking of work... it was pretty damn good. They curated themselves and installed it. The publicity was obviously successful... the turnout was huge.

I sound like ... a dolt... but I mean it... I'm so impressed with them. I can't wait to see their futures...

Congratulations guys on a great show!

i took tons of pictures... here are just a few.

show info:

meatloaf. works by fourteen area artists
nov 27 to dec 2
Cleveland Institute of Art Coffeehouse Gallery

Featured Artists:
alicia oblander
patrick mooney
carolyn shank
michael meier
jon sommer
martin eisert
peter tabor
angelo nicoletti
rebekah wilhelm
barbara polster
melinda laszcynski
rachel allen
christa drew
andrew kuhar

still shouting and other holiday thoughts...

2006-11-24T09:17:00.000-05:00

a house of the present... a house of the past...

---

... so yeah... double thanks to Laura and Andy again... especially after they brought down leftovers for dinner tonight...

love to...

Emily and Todd...
Anna and Mike...
Everyone in Florence, including Kritter...

---
now for the other thoughts...

nostalgia - a longing for a perceived past

holidays invoke the reconstructed past...

I'm working on a project that might be good...

we'll see...

Thanksgiving shout out...

2006-11-23T21:31:00.000-05:00

I'm Thankful for the people who love me...

My family... (mother of course)... Chuck, Carey, Ms. Traina and Mr. Gams, Joy...

the folks upstairs (Laura and Andy) -- thanks for the delicious Thanksgiving... I'll never wear pants again that fit...

Kristen, Amanda...Ben... Hey Yianni too... Adam (I'm thinking of you!)... Alicia... Duane... David... Charisse...

My cousins... Chris S. especially...

Liberal Arts Folks...

Thanks Rita for all the support...

Whoever hired me!!!

Oh hey, that includes Phillip... thanks Phillip for everything you've done for me.

and fur people too...

so loved...

William, Sam, and Lucy...
Abby and Stella...
All the Traina/Gams monsters...

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

the fall...

2006-09-17T11:34:00.000-04:00

The year has begun again in earnest... A whole new group of students... new faces, new names and how quickly I fall in love with them.

For all of them I want success -- I envision happiness for their futures and allow myself to imagine I might have played a part. The other night at the faculty opening I stood on a balconey overlooking the crowd and (after I wrestled down the desire to sing "Don't Cry for Me Argentina...") I was washed over with... gasp... love for all these people. Sick and romantic isn't it?

In other news I'm sewing... hey I think I would like to start a church of craft... and I'm cycling (at least sometimes)... It is very calming. It's a solitary exercise of sorts and I can actually do it. (Thanks Andy for putting the bike back together.)

goodbye Roscoe...

2006-07-26T13:56:00.000-04:00

Roscoe was our next door neighbor's cat. He was scrapy, a fighter. Our cat William and Roscoe tangled more than once. I think it was actually fun for the two of them and they never did horrible damage to one another. (Although William did claw Roscoe's owner once...)

Roscoe was part of our lives. We looked forward to seeing him in the evenings sitting on his stoop. His family kept a little "Wanted" poster of him on their door. His owner... the family's teenage son adored him.

Roscoe died of wounds from a dog attack. The dog wasn't on a lesh and was roaming free. Some would say I have a double standard about such things... cats... allowed to roam free... dogs... no.

Reasoning: Cats don't usually attack people (children for instance) and when they do it's rarely fatal. Even when they fight with other cats, that too, while more frequently fatal is usually not.

I prefer to keep my own cats in but two of them are rescues and were already trained to go in and out.

Anyway... Roscoe's death makes me very sad. I feel sorry for his family and I'm going to miss him.

absolutely potty...

2006-07-12T17:35:00.000-04:00

Those who know me know that I am one of the geeks... the sad horrible geeks who love the escapism of the Harry Potter books. They sooo satisfy my inner child. So indulge me while I indulge myself and if you happen to be a Potter fan forgive me and you may not want to read the following no matter who you are...

(book 6 spoiler warning...)

Theories on Harry Potter, Book 7

Dumbledore is dead. He knew he was going to die and arranged it with Snape.
Snape is a good guy. He is trying to protect Draco who he feels some compassion/connection with. Dumbledore, as well, was interested in protecting Draco in that Draco is a naïf, in over his head.

Harry is a horcrux. Part of Voldemort’s soul was unwittingly bound to him. Harry’s mother cast a protective spell that required a human sacrifice. She was the sacrifice and when Voldemort killed her it completed the charm. The magic was so strong that Voldemort couldn’t kill Harry and the killing charm he cast backfired and also made Harry the horcrux for the splinter of Voldemort’s soul that his mother’s murder created.

Harry is “the chosen one” in that Voldemort literally, and again unwittingly, chose him. It is why they share powers and are telepathically connected.

Aunt Petunia actually loves Harry. Uncle Vernon hates him but Petunia put up with his treatment of Harry because she knew their home was part of a protective spell for Harry. She was afraid Vernon would throw Harry out. She is also terrified of magic.

In the end, the final battle, Neville will be forced to kill Harry. Harry will ask Neville to do it. They will both realize it is the only way. It is the reason they share the same birthday.

Neville himself may not make it through… but then again he might and his parents may actually regain their faculties once Voldemort has been killed.

Ron and Hermione will face the future together after watching their friend die.

Some emotional relief for the readers? A glimpse perhaps of Harry’s afterlife? Will he be greeted by Sirius and his parents?

sleep...

2006-07-12T10:33:00.000-04:00

A dreamless night in my own bed after time spent in the heat and in conversation... a visit with my mother who is stronger than I ever imagined then to see Ms. T and the monsters... a chance to laugh out loud... my mind washed clean by a southern sun... The summer is finally here for me...

I love you all...

a great sadness overtakes me...

2006-06-28T08:30:00.000-04:00

to use and be used...

the momentary sensation replaces the human connection...

those who love you are an imposition...

is this the way you would live your life?

do you love more the pleasure you give yourself or the kindness you share with others? do you care what toll that pleasure takes on those around you?

what will be the meaning of your life?

who are you?

I thought I knew you but I don't. you're capable of things I never would have believed.

Sans compassion pour ton famille... Tu est cruel a les gens qui t'adorer... pour quoi? mais tu embrasse les gens du moment...

sans reason...

in answer to your question...

2006-06-27T12:48:00.000-04:00

"will it stand...?" You bet. Here's the finished piece outside CIA's Future Center in the "courtyard"... When it stood, (not weakly, but very securely...) a case of beer was lost...

There are some much more stunning pictures of the piece... (the piece isn't crooked... the camera isn't level... my photography) however they keep loading sideways... I'm not as tech savy as I should be so I don't know how to fix it. I think eventually they'll be posted on CIA's website (www.cia.edu)

Assistants on the project included:

Benjamin Rodriguez, jr (benrodjr.com)
Katie Loesel
Derek Gelvin
Jeremy Felice

Search them on the web. I know that Katie, Ben and Slate have websites. (I hope I spelled Katie's last name right. Sometimes it helps to add "art" to the search.)

Again it was tremendous fun working with the young people. (I intentionally didn't include photos with them simply because this is a private blog.) They were so committed...!

what we did for summer vaction...

2006-06-25T13:18:00.000-04:00

this past week Chuck, Kevin and I worked on the Cleveland Institute of Art's Precollege program. The theme this year was Art + Earth... We worked with a group of 24 really cool young people... who, to a great extent... really threw themselves into the project that the program was based on and also spent time on drawing, etc. The youngest was a very mature fourteen year-old and the oldest was a nineteen year-old deeply devoted to drawing...

While other things not so fun were going on in our private life,...

Working with the young people in this program was very satisfying... It was great to see their committment and accom-plishments.

The project was a cast/rammed earth project that the students designed and built with help from great folks like Derek, Slate, and Jeremy... They worked their butts off... Katie (who you see in some of the pictures) helped me with the drawing part of the program.

Posted photos are of in progress work...More photos of the actual finished piece are to come...

attachment and the end of the term...

2006-05-24T08:22:00.000-04:00

I hate the end of term... I have post-partum or something... I always think about what else I should have taught them... and then there's the grading... It is always a delicate balance.. and then when one sometimes has to write down the "bad" grade... I hate it...

I hope my students find joy in the lives and pursuits they've chosen. I get so attached to them. Yes this is the cause of all suffering, isn't it, attachment... but then what joy when they graduate and they succeed...

Go forth and conquer... live with joy and wild abandon...

(That's right... I'm a complete geek.)

Happy Mother's Day to Carey's Mom...Karen...

2006-05-14T18:43:00.000-04:00

Pictures of Carey wishing his mom a happy mother's day and saying hello to everyone.

drive by...

2006-05-02T12:48:00.000-04:00

Dear beloved all,

I have “discovered” Drive By Truckers (for those out of the loop – music). I remember, Anna, sitting in a one room apartment that was crammed so full of recording equipment that there was only a shelf for its resident to sleep on…

Being here has given me a different perspective… It has been a long time coming. I remember sitting in “joe”… and I remember a group of people coming in and I said something scathing to my companions concerning how “they” were dressed and even uttered the word “red neck.” Mr. Giles gave me a cold eye and said, “Lane, how can you say something like that? How can you be so cruel?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Lane, those are your people. They are from the same place you are. Who are you to be a snob to them?”

Ouch. – but thanks again Mr. Giles.

You cannot be inside from the outside. You cannot reject what made you without rejecting some part of yourself. You cannot hold your own in contempt without self-loathing.

… and so thanks Mr. Hood, et. al. for “Outfit”, “Decoration Day” – and your ability to be authentic without pretension – You guys rock!

Ciao babies…

spring...

2006-04-30T11:30:00.000-04:00

I can't get used to the Spring here... five years and it's still blowing my mind. Everyone keeps talking about how beautiful the weather is... and during the day it is... at night though... April 30 (yes I remember what day this is) and last night I froze my butt off.

But the flowers are beautiful. So much color. I bought a reel driven (old fashioned -- no gas) mower... and I'm actually doing yard work. I'm sure the neighbors think I'm nuts but I'm channeling my grandmother...

As always, send good thoughts and I will send them to you all as well.

tut, tut, tut!

2006-04-01T12:36:00.000-05:00

Arrrrggggghhhh!!!!

Hey, where's my Tutenstein?

Please send positive energy... sometimes forces conspire to create a trap of negative karmic energy...

pie anyone?

2006-04-01T12:19:00.000-05:00

Carey had an assignment back in the fall to make a "chemical" pie using Ritz crackers. It wasn't too bad... (apples would have been better ... but hey, he needed the credit.)

Guest blog by Carey!

2006-03-30T22:54:00.000-05:00

Happy birthday Mom!

you say it's your birthday...

2006-03-25T10:42:00.000-05:00

Hey it's my birthday... I'm watching Tutenstein, hanging out with one of the furry ones and playing with my computer.

I love Tutenstein because Tut reminds me of one of my favorite people... Like her, he's kinda of gross (into creepy, rotting things that really should be relegated to the underworld). He's/she's bossy, sometimes blunt, deeply tender and kind hearted -- they love to a fault ... oh yeah, and they both make me smile...

Happy Birthday Ms. CTG.

For the folks in T-town -- kisses -- and here are some more pics of Carey... He's working on his sugar palace with his project partner. He was talking to Chris on the phone while they worked.

Happy Birthday to KST as well...

a picture made by me...

2006-03-24T14:22:00.000-05:00

If you who haven't seen my work lately this is what it looks like... (I'm also doing video)...

Yes this blog is really sloppy and not very focused... but for those of you who haven't guessed, it's an empty white room for me to fill up with my randomness...

Carey...

2006-03-24T14:12:00.000-05:00

Here are some bad pictures of Carey... forgive the red eyes... I will upload some better pics later...

the freedom of space waiting to be filled...

2006-02-26T23:05:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I just need the joy of filling up the blank space... It is for me an absolute freedom... it is my space to fill as I see fit... it is infinite with possibilities... that practice keeps me sane... so I hope that the fates will allow me this luxury from time to time and understand that it is what keeps me...

art theory...

2006-02-25T18:16:00.000-05:00

I have a friend who doesn't believe that there can be something called "art theory..." ah, but it is like any discipline... we have our terms... our jargon. In art it just means an idea of what art can or should be... Everyone has an art theory... an idea of what art can or should be... It is usually that which we call "good" or "bad" or even that which we say is NOT... The problem with "good" is that it carries this moral implication...

It is an interesting exercise to consider what you require for something to be good...

what becomes a legend most...

2006-02-12T23:25:00.000-05:00

Ok CT... the best cat...

in love with fur...

2006-02-07T23:20:00.000-05:00

selfesteem...

2006-02-06T12:19:00.000-05:00

we all secretly believe we are superior...

It is easier sometimes not to test this.

dreaming...

2006-02-04T13:39:00.000-05:00

Dreams are the human mind absent the matrix of civilization. The mind operates through association and metaphor – the womb of art – this is the reason we, as a species have so rarely been without it – the image, the ritual, the act - art - a world of magic and spontaneous transmissions is our natural state.

An animal sees the human and associates sensory experience with that image. I stream together a series of images and words because my mind wants to dwell upon the sensory significance of those images and words. Our waking selves filter and order, and repress these associations as dictated by the systems of interpretation and response that our culture and more intimately, our families have embedded within us.