Artist, In Plain Sight, 9-5.

Artist, In Plain Sight, 9-5.
How do you find art where there is none? You create it.
Where does it come from? Inside.

I used to be inspired by the depth of a shadow, the curve of a form, the flow of a fabric, the wrinkle of weathered skin, the narrative of blacks, blues & scar silver.
I used to compose a painting in my head, infuse meaning through juxtaposition, imply motion through gestured lines. I used to sit silently for hours with mellow neo-soul music bumping through my laptop speakers, steady keeping the rhythm of the ebbs and flows of paint and creativity.
While these days I zone out to the window just outside my office walls, daydream of huge canvasses and industrial easels, studio space and thick, heavy body paints, those days I used to simply zone into that world.
How do you find art where there is none? You create it.
Where does it come from? Inside.

I stop and wait for inspiration. Get real silent and hope it speaks a language I can understand. Lets me capture it and move through me- a current conducted by otherworldly forces-

This     can’t      be     me.

I am but a vessel to this brilliance, humbled by the act of expression, moved by it-
Driven by it.
Just keep driving by it, until somehow it impels me to leave my problems at the door, to sit, stand, squat or lay down- long as I stay for a while.
This whisper is my religion. This creative ground is gessoed white and pure- I leave my shoes to walk among it and it is at that altar that I emit the toxins that lace me up tightly.
Toxins that tie my hands, I do little to fight.

I used to know restless and channel it, anxious and manage it through art therapy. There was just me and it, still my best relationship to date.
Dates that lasted for hours, no selfish men, but givers of meditative moments. Moments of ablution. Wiped clean by warm, rich colors, charcoal and graphite insidiously spreading across olive toned skin.
Healed by these moments.
Revealed through these moments.
Completely letting go of my superficial self without willing myself to do so.
Self-abandonment that transcends to something larger than us.

How do you find art where there is none? You create it.
Where does it come from? Inside.

Where do you hide this inspiration? The key to this secret world? If not deep within the depths of one’s twisted complexities and over-thinking. Clever to hide it in plain sight.
I don’t feel stupid that I hadn’t found it sooner, in its obvious location, but rather relieved.
Once again, You’ve chosen me. You didn’t have to it, but You did.

I don’t want to stick out (fame can be for those who need it), nor do I want to recede to the antisocial shallows of seclusion, where no relatable art can be made.
Hide me in plain sight.
Whisper inspiration during a mundane work day.
Penetrate my thoughts with something more substantial; less watercolor wash, more heavy matte.
Remember me, even when I’ve all but forgotten You to the seemingly non-artistic stressfulness that fills my busy days.
Calm me down, and work me up if You wish. I have experienced no better feeling than this.
Art is love. Inspiration is restoration for the self I somehow lose to daunting tasks.
Art is the answer to the question you don’t know to ask.
How do you find art where there is none? You create it.
Where does it come from? Inside.
Put me in the last place I would think to hide-
In plain sight, 9-5.

Summer Goals

Recently, I read a blog post by a good friend of mine that detailed her summer goals.  Being a native-born Floridian, and having been out of school for about two years now, I find it difficult to distinguish between seasons. Maybe because Florida doesn't have any. And maybe because it has recently become irrelevant with the sunshine and beach breezes relegated to just outside of my office walls and windows!

I decided to capture a few of my very own summer goals. For me, this means "short term" goals. Or, "goals before law school," which is a short 2 1/2 months away.

1) WORK HARD
My work ethic has been at varying highs and lows depending on whether I was preoccupied by law school applications, studying for the LSAT, hearing from law schools or making plans as to which school/state I would live in for at least the next three years. Now, I have my plans, my end date and nothing substantial to slow me down! This is the final sprint through the finish line. I couldn't see it before, but now, it's just ahead. Full speed ahead! (This goal includes utilizing my entire allowed OT to make that last extra dollar or two before being without an income for some time...)

2) ARTLYFE.ORG
This is the domain name I have for my new website that I am dedicating to my theory that art should not be separate from life, but that the two are one in the same. I am an artist going to law school. I am a legal assistant and an artist. But I am an artist. There is only one community- not the art community, but the community at large. The two should not be mutually exclusive. I would like to build a business/ legal practice around this same arts inclusion, if possible. I am very passionate about this idea, but the website is still only a work in progress. But it's a start.

3) BREATHE
This is less of a goal, more of a mantra. Of course we breathe without willing ourselves to do so. Lately, I've been forgetting to do it little by little, and find myself sucking in huge, gasping breaths to fill my whole chest. I haven't had as much actual anxiety attacks as before, but the daunting expenses- bills, loans, budgeting- take over my brain if ever it's at rest. I'm working on trying to approach these next few years in graduate school on a year by year basis- since that's how loans are fashioned anyway. I'll be okay. I won't have the money I've had to buy the things I see and "can't live without," but I'll be fine. This is a nice, welcome change. It's the next necessary step to getting me to where I want to be- which is so far only a hypothetical outline of high ceiling lofts, large over sized easels and canvases, Spanish tiling, natural light and warm colors. I'll get there.

4) BE BLESSED
It's what we are naturally, but what we forget to acknowledge daily.

Be blessed. We already are, we just need to start acting like it.

Noms de guerre

I have come to so many surprisingly mature realizations lately worth sharing.

However, I can sadly report that all of these are deeply intimate, and better shared under a noms de guerre, which I am in the process of developing.  Social criticism may best be experienced without being able to consider my personal bias.  What is in a name?

Everything.

I have done so well with this name- ALLISON EVE- that to pollute it with exceedingly political ideas might devalue it somewhat.  Or maybe it would make it stronger, but unwillingly so.  I could be better expressed by the stroke of a paintbrush or a hand on my hip.

So, to whomever wherever who decides my blog is worth reading, just know- if you don't know me well enough to know exactly to what I'm referring, look out for an incredibly private memoir to make its way to the incredibly public internet arena.  You won't know it's me by name, yet if you're a devout sharer of my blog experiences, you may recognize my writing style.

Easy Street doesn't even run through MY city.

A good friend and I had a long conversation last night on the telephone.  A couple of different points were established that I think are blogworthy:

1) This was probably the biggest eye-opener for me- "normal" people (we must accept this term "normal" as the whole, majority, most people- to get this rationale) don't feel like they want to scream loudly and flail their arms wildly and in the middle of some public socially constructed arena, do something completely and undeniably inappropriate.
     Really? Am I the only person to whom this wild gesture of toxic release appeals?  Sometimes I feel like nothing I can do (not the usual vices of painting, poetry or even sex) will liberate me from myself like this imagined scenario I know would.  Being a rational human being- which is being "appropriate" most of the time, understanding how to act in different situations, maturity, discernment, practicality- and the adult words just keep pouring out... (Does this means I'm officially adult that I can name so many big girl words?  Please, let me know)... means NOT doing this. Besides, what is a gesture?  It is so empty- a symbol for something else.  A metaphor.  A simile.

So, what you're saying- or what he was saying, rather- is that to feel like this is ABnormal: something must be wrong.  I think it's a perfect example of one artist submerged in a suburban setting of solitude without inspiration to whet her palette, and without motivation to travel far and wide to find it.  Self-defeating, I get that.  How does one make art where there is none? 

To make the mundane magical (?)

2)  Those who struggle less are at an advantage.  I quickly refuted his idealized notion that less struggle could possibly equal more reward.  Those handed things in life are left helpless (like me being a daddy's girl who learned only recently the different parts to my car engine).  We can only even really know things from our own perspective, and those spoiled by others without working hard, hardly wish away their fortune to understand the plight of the lower middle class. 

And I guess it is as well my idealized notion to think that the way I went about things, the only way available to me (student loans, a few jobs and a lot of hard work), was the best way.  I guess what I really mean by this is that I am exceedingly happy with the person that I am.  I understand that I would not be the person I am, were it not for the hard work I had to put in.  And if any other route would change me to be someone else, assumed to be less appreciative of their situation, I'd pass.

Everyone is blessed.

So, even the slight delusional thought that it would be good to feel just for a minute how life is on Easy Street, is a wasted thought. 

I was blessed with a struggle.  Blessed with a restlessness that makes me want to unlace the thick black tar that intertwines my blood as it surges throughout all my body's veins.  Blessed with a desire to be something better.  To make something better of everything.  To want to understand the plight of those who have had to work for their bread and butter.  To work as hard and harder than I ever did to ameliorate the struggles people must endure to make ends meet.  Somehow I will find a way to do this through the legal system.  Public interest law?  All I'm saying, Universe, is those law schools who've yet to admit me would be better off to have me in their entering class for my restless passion in the public's interest.

Easy Street is a cookie cutter suburb to the diverse urban city that overflows with the arts and culture of a people who work and breathe their struggles; who eat their struggles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and are left hungry.  Their insatiable hunger is as well in me- my restless, my passion, my commitment to community.




I wasn't nearly as eloquent when I had the conversation.  And I went off on some bitter rant about Valentine's Day, which probably discredited everything I had to say thereafter.  Figures.

My EDGE

Today, I made a choice to be my very own person, at whatever the cost.  I can't lose my edge.  My daddy has always used the word "sassy" to describe me.  A great lawyer whom I professionally admire told me I am "full of piss and vinegar," and that's why I would make a good lawyer.  Sometimes being with someone means compromising to a fault; to avoid conflict; to avoid drama. 
Today, I decided-

I can never lose my edge.
My FIERCE...
My FIERY...
My PASSIONATE...
My SHARP-
Edge.

Teetering though I do on the edge of the abyss, I go between restless and apathetic, passionate and then lack of motivation.  It's easy to let the system kick you down.

But, NO.
The edge of the abyss is where I get my edge.  It's a precarious balancing act, but worth its weight in gold.  I wager everything I own on it.  That edge does not compose me; I compose it.  I'm safeguarding it better this time. 

Fortunately, nothing is irreversible. 
Moving forward, I know that I could lose and find myself ten times in the same week. 
But, what next?


You'll have to check back in and find out.

Did you say BLACK? Speak up.

I understand that some people are developmentally slower than others (while biology boasts that no one person is more or less evolved based on evolutionary trends... too slow for us to see- like the turning of the earth on its axis). I always thought I was "more evolved," a lie my mother told me to make me feel better about having been born (though it has since been removed) with an extra thumb.

What I'm really referring to though is when white people tell me stories (in Long Island, where most of these story tellers have not ever experienced diversity, and have no friends of other races). If, in the story, one of their characters is BLACK/black/black they whisper the word when describing that character.

First, they look around to be sure it is only an inside story amongst us white folk, and then the secret is shared in mouthed almost inaudible whispers... Does this character's race matter to the story? Is your punch line derogatory? Am I in on the secret because my skin color makes you believe our shared history is that of homogeny and lack of cultural diversity; incorrectly?


Black is not a bad word.

You don't have to whisper it.

(I shared this story with a friend, since this occurrence has come to pass several times since being in a setting with little to no people with skin colors that differ from my own. She asked if I said something. I hadn't. I, too should speak up.)

Ushering in a NEW YEAR, to surpass the last

As I mull over the spectacularly lengthy list of tasks I need to complete, I am overwhelmed. This usually leads to an activity not on the list, not particularly important, and not at all productive. I should be attending to my ridiculously messy room, doing one of thousands of loads of laundry to clean clothes I never wear anyway, not just because they've been dirty for months. I wrote myself a brief list of New Year's Resolutions, and I'm counting on the dropping of one big ball in major cities all over to indicate the end of me dropping "the ball" on every project I start but never finish. I am famous for this, though hardly renowned outside of my family for this awful ambitious, not manifesting head of mine. Will this new year be any different from the 22 I ushered in each year before? 

Living with ones' grandparents should be a ticket to spend more time focused on ones' self; time is fleeting and eventually you get old and don't have the energy to do the things you could when you were younger. However, I feel myself slow leaking as I am forced to wait things out. Apply to law school, wait. Work hard, wait to move. Save money? This is a concept I have yet to master- source of anxiety, distress, general unhappiness at times. I get used to at least a dull feeling of gloom that comes from too much work and not enough hours in the work day, so many lists transferred but not shortened, and money made equaling, if not surpassing money spent. Is this adulthood?

I had a wicked stomach flu this weekend that put me out of commision entirely, floored me to the bathroom tile. My head spent the better part of Saturday and Sunday shoved into a porcelain throne and tiny bathroom wastebasket. I couldn't remember feeling lower. And today I returned to work with a new resolve! Dilapidated, though I am, I sluggishly made my way through one of few days I was alloted to "get caught up." It's only a hypothetical concept, however, and the work hardly diminishes, though I work diligently filling a day with tasks, client phone calls, and translation. Are my efforts made in vain? Do I work for myself or solely for others?


Who will answer these questions I posit?

In my distraction, I wander to one of my favorite search engines: yahoo.com and discover an article about a 7-year old who "paints like an old master." He is not driven by any burdensome task of self-discovery. And he is not laboring over a canvas to pay FPL or keep his water running. He's just painting because he likes it. He doesn't feel guilty when he doesn't paint.

So on top of my generally discontent, half-sick, weary ushering in of yet another ephemeral Tuesday evening, I see this kid who admittedly makes me feel even worse. How do we peel back and experience that simplicity? Is it even possible?

I ask these questions of you, my probably non-existent readers, one of my three followers maybe, and of you, the Universe. Answer them in whatever form you see fit. I am open to signs; I will try to keep my eyes open and my senses alert for the answers to seek me as I have asked them of You.

These are two paintings by the 7-year old prodigy, Kieron Williamson:

 

Ushering in a year to surpass the last, I wish you well. And I wish you inspiration not just to write about it, but to be about it. I am closing my laptop to take my very own advice...