Huntress of the Lens

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Friday, August 14, 2009

Avalanche


It's like an avalanche, this thing that happens inside me, and it's cyclical. It's creative and spurred by my involvement with life and other people. It was named "Makin' stuff" by Paul, when he was little, and kept out of my little square of our apartment kitchen by the front of the office desk/baby gate barrier I had constructed to secure the tiny area that would have been the dining room, that I labeled my studio. "Whatcha doin Mommy? Makin' Stuff?"

This space was about 6 feet by 6 feet and was mine all mine. It was bordered by bookshelves that contained art supplies and my budding reference library. It had a bucket of water under the desk for rinsing my airbrush, and the tank of compressed air that ran it. It had little boxes of bits and pieces, beads and feathers and glue and leather, illustration board and Tarot cards, Astrology charts, both finished and unfinished. None of it could be reached or pillaged by little hands. The desk/baby gate combination was a line that said "This is Laura's space, do not intrude!" and even a husband tall enough to step right over like I did respected that. I would kill for that much working space again today. There is nowhere that large to claim in this house, there's a person in every room and an object in every space.

Tattooing for my career satisfies my drawing and line=color-picture urges. I'm a production artist and rarely feel any need or even urge to express myself just for the hell of it in that way any more. If that muse does touch me it seems like someone walks into the shop and their tattoo magically calls for whatever I'm longing to use in the two dimensional world and I just work it in. I'm fat and satisfied in that hunger, and have been for almost twenty years now. The avalanche is happening for other things though. I miss wood chisels and the odd bits of beautifully grained wood. Where is my box of acrylic paint? Where is that box of German paint/ink pigment that my dad got me for my airbrush that is so fantastic for staining leather that has the name for color in four different languages and is removed from the bottle with a dropper built into the cap? (did you know the name for purple is purper rot in some language? I think German) I miss beads. I long for those brown paper hard paper boxes of different shapes and my pile of assorted magazines to slice up for their words, and my clear spray sealant, and that brings me back to my box of acrylic paint and all my brushes. Where are all the supplies for bas relief back and forth plaster sculpting? I know where the tools I made by hand for that are, but where are the rest of the supplies? I want to do all those projects. I want to make stuff again.

Why is this somehow connected to people and my level of interaction with them? Is it because I have always made things and then given them away rather than selling them or putting them in a show somewhere? Once on Tribe we did valentine cards for randomly drawn members of the tribe, and mine was a hand-painted heart-shaped-box suspended by fish hooks in a string-wrapped metal hoop with messages in word beads hanging down from the bottom. I spent hours making that, it was really hard to get the box impaled just right by those three hooks and still be able to open it and read the word collage inside, and to keep the tension on the string just the way I wanted it. The whole thing was meant to hang and turn, since I had painted both sides of the box. Everyone else interpreted the assignment as "make a valentine card" and there were some really pretty ones.

Or Angelique's wimple ornament that I felt had to be made only from "the pieces that I had saved", that was an extremely satisfying project that I spent an evening on. Was it my connection to her that made it so fun to do? For whatever reason, the rumbling is beginning again, and I simply must create. Multi-media. I have to start makin' stuff again, as well as write, and be in service, and tend this headache, and go make a living with these two dimensions and color, discover ever deepening levels of intimacy with the amazing soul I married and finish raising these adult children who should already be grown and onto their own lives. The only facet I miss yet know I won't pursue is iron art, I just know I'm not really going to get into a welding shop any time soon, that's like wishing for an old lover who is already into another relationship. I think that's just something I need to let go of, a girl can only do so much.

What am I thinking? Is it not enough to just go to work, be a little illness, go to a meeting now and then, do my share of dinner making, write a book, watch some TV, go to bed and then get up and do it all over again? Why and where do I think I'm going to do all this other creating that is starting to burn in me and cover me like an avalanche of autumn leaves?

Is it because I'm going to die soon? Or live soon?

1 comment:

  1. Your writing, Laura, is a beautiful journey. I wake up each morning, pray, smoke, drink coffee and then log on to read the next piece of the puzzle that get me closer to knowing more about you. I too love to make stuff, and can relate so much to this writing today. I have all of these fabulous things and am unable to find time to do it all. I also make stuff just to give it away. I've been offered money and turn it down because it's not about the money for me. I like to give, and I like how giving makes me feel. Sending you much love today- xo Kerrie

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