NB: I started writing this post on Thursday before getting into a massive weather-related travel snarl. As of sending, I am still in the Alburquerque airport and not sure when I’ll actually leave New Mexico, leave the U.S., and get to my destination. [sad emoji] Send good travel vibes please!
Some thoughts on the eve of leaving for Italy for nine days…I have not been writing on this blog much (to my disappointment) as I got hijacked by other things this year: too much work and problematic stress (bad); developing my artwork and artist’s statement for the upcoming show on June 6 (good).
I have never felt more on a hamster wheel than I have in the last five months. It’s not sustainable at all—a topic for another post—but for now I am forcing myself to take a seventh-inning stretch before one more push in June when I launch several work and personal projects.
The last time I was in Italy was in the summer and fall of 1996. I was 20, turning 21, and full throttle into ragazzi, wine, cigarettes, and spontaneous trips here and there around Europe. Night drive to Zagreb? Hashish and couscous in Paris? Night clubs in Sicily? Amsterdam. Check, check, check, and check. My enthusiasm for a good time was cool; I felt cool.
I was also going to school to study the Italian language (Si, ho parlato), art history, and film editing, where I learned how to do an open-door transition with actual film.
I lived with five other women in a big apartment near Porta Romana; the long walk up and down Via dei Serragli to the school on the other side of the Arno still playing in color. I smoked like a chimney, hanging out the kitchen window, and pissing off at least two of my roommates. I dated an Albanian guy who worked in the market for a few months, which, in hindsight, was probably all kinds of wrong and sketchy, but, hey, misspent youth.
And maybe most importantly, I learned to draw a bit. As part of my art school in this past year, I somehow blanked that fact out of my mind. Yet digging up some old journals revealed some sweet little sketches. When I see these glimpses of my old self—sparks of certain kinds of talent that never got followed up on—I wonder how accessible they still are? Can I still see these lines and follow the perspective? Can I still convey the narrative of my foot in a sketch? I’d like to think I can and it’s just a rusty skill waiting to be truly reawakened. ( I can assure you my art teacher Sarah Grass founder of The Pack would say “Yes, of course it’s still there!)
One of the tensions that’s been exquisitely articulated to me this year is my desire to live more fully in a creative life (making art and writing)—and my slavish devotion to work (and enjoying an adjacency to prestige and intellectual validation.)
I started drawing a little more here and there—I left my colored pencils and paper on the kitchen counter so they were never more than an arm’s length away. My random ideas were more Roz Chast than Leonardo di Vinci but they made me happy.
For now, there are no answers other than I am trying to live two parallel lives—retreiving my artist self in small measures while also attending to my professional executive self. It’s not an easy task, weaving the center of life where I am drawing circles and “circling back” in equal parts.
So, like any good yogi going on retreat, I am lugging an intention with me. First one? Just effing get me to Italy (and make the airlines cough it up for this inconvenience)! Then if you would be so good as to show me how to be less stressed, find a working situation that is sustainable, pays the bills but also lets my creative self have much more time to play? I promise I’ll help others do it too if you can show me The Way.
Grazie molto
P.S. For all my fellow Italophiles, have you watched Ripley? Incredible. Watch it again.
wonderful to renew your former self - like reliving history - BRAVO 111111
Hope you are well on your way over her and that all intentions are realized. ❤️❤️