The T-Square:

Uranus: given the name of the ancient Greek god of the sky, father of time, with an energy that exists to change and often, and unpredictably.  Like weather, patterns we assume adhere to a predictable order of things (a natural order), until the natural order expands beyond what we can count, or see, or imagine.  Chaos.

Uranus was the grandfather of Zeus, later known as Jupiter, the jovial planet.  The ruler of Sagittarius, who embodies the animal and the human.  Instinct and Mind: when opposed, swans seduce women.  When together, creation ignites but only with sacrifice.  (The instinct made sacred, the mind made sacred).   When the intellect is backed by the gut, ideals become.  But, have faith.

We are set in motion, fueled by motivations we may not be ready to describe, mysterious reasons, and big ideas.  And Saturn sits across the way, holding out blindspots to our noses (like when one of the cats I had as a child peed on the rug and my mom would take the cat and hold it’s nose to the pee spot, but the cat didn’t seem to get it.)  It feels like that sometimes: very unpleasant, confusing and seemingly sadistic.  So is it at these times that we ask… why do I feel like I’m drowning in my own remnants?  Yet it is natural for cats to pee.  It is natural for us to cover our eyes.

Until Pluto comes in a flood of oil (sea of the underworld risen from the dead).  Until we cannot cover our eyes anymore because we might fall in too deep.  Pluto is the last word.

Until we all move on, because it is more of a circle than a line (ring around the T-square).  Time to move the hands from our mouths and start cleaning, helping, doing something about those “blind” spots.   Bring in the mind and instinct, then come the ideas, and maybe soon we stop fighting all this life.

The Fort is ready.   Judgement Day was last weekend, the first quarter moon, good time to initiate (the end).  And this weekend, Graham Patzner and The Wolfskin Traders.

(The leader of the pack is chosen not by physical strength or forceful demeanor, but by the speed of their heartbeat.  The one with the slowest heart beat, the one with the calmest way, is chosen.)

So the Fort is ending for now, but fret not.  There is more from where that came from.

Sara Aboulafia

Maybe you’ve seen Sara as a featured artist at the Starry Plough, or crooning at Mama Buzz Cafe. Either way she might bring tears to your eyes with her hand written songs and silky-rich voice.

Hassan

Hassan is about to embark on his first nationwide tour, with the local band Dum Spiro Spero. He is a songwriter, storyteller, and well on his way to living the life of a dreamer.

Jord Peck and the Squid

Upon first seeing Jord Peck with his squid, a multi-instrumental creation he straps on and draws audiences to him regardless of location, you may want to call him an inventor. Until you hear him wail through “Folsom Prison” on the harmonica, and it becomes evident he is a music man.

Mario Monkey Mouse (Mr. Fuzzy).  He was found, tiny, in the back of a PG&E truck in a PG&E yard by my uncle, his brother and his sister.

He came to my parents’ house a few weeks before I moved back to Danville.  The first time we met I called him “silly”.  I have been raised among cats.   I remember all of them, each was different.  I will surely be a cat lady when I shove off, but when I met Mario I had been living without the company of animals for several years.

He was so small, huge eyes, rat-tailed and fearless.  The courage that comes with complete innocence, and requires fragility.  I was not the same.  I was leaving a home, my boyfriend, all that had been safe for several years.  I was on a rush of ok change is now let’s ghost ride the will… and scared solid, crystallized in my resistance to admitting vulnerability, heading for some speed humps that would come soon enough.  Little naked Mario was silly to me: that was all I could feel for fragility at that time.

The whip cracked.   Danville came in a rush of dark dawns and strange connections, obsessions, and a wake coming in slow and heavy, unstoppable.  No control became evident.  Where do you turn when the concept of direction is null: in circles.  Walking in circles, drawing circles, thinking in circles, speaking, praying for circles, for spirals… to live to live, anything as long as I can keep that…never before in my life had I asked to keep living.

The first cat I knew was white with one blue eye and one green eye, her name was Macha.  I remember when she was dying, gasping on the hunter green wall to wall carpet of my childhood duplex.  My mom was crying, she felt guilty for some reason, I felt sad about that but I was too fascinated to cry, the moment was too important of a lesson to lose focus.  It was my first consciousness of absolute truth, life’s truth, true acceptance, helplessness and courage.

The first time I actually felt these absolutes came later, then I cried.  This was a circle too- child loses pet, thinks of loss, child loses self, realizes loss, and love (that’s why, that’s the reason for all this spinning).

Because the love was what I had lost, the love was what I lost myself to find.  And how could I find it if I kept standing in the way, blocking the view?  I do that some times.

I saw Mario tiny on the bed and knew I was missing out on something.  I thought I was the crystal, seeing everything ahead of me in prismatic clarity.  But I was the mirror, seeing nothing greater than myself.  And after the shattering ( what was the shattering?  physical, emotional, familial, careerial, lots of stuff… we have our stories), I look at my cat and I don’t see silly anymore.

And I can honestly say I love him.

I first saw the ocean rising like a blue glass slope at the end of Ocean, after leaving city college, after my cello lesson.  So I went to the beach off the Great Highway, close to Lake Merced.  Walked out and saw names left carved under my feet as I passed and craved drawing so I found a stick to draw with.  A dinosaur first, had trouble with the legs, the feet were too big and I didn’t realize this until I stepped back, thought of leaving it because who am I trying to impress?  nobody damn you.   But then I changed them: because it was not about impressing, I decided, it was about honoring the form, the body I saw in my mind.  Honor, respect for beauty, respect for my own desire, what I want to see.

So then his feet were in proportion, and two kids ran over and asked “Is that a dinosaur?”

“I think so” I said.  The little boy asked,”What kind is it?”

“I think it’s a veloceraptor (me wondering… I think?  why don’t you know, or at least why don’t you make what you intended, what did you intend, and if changing the feet were for the integrity of  your will, how silly to be unsure of what the entire thing is in the first place?)

I continued,”Buut..I think (hmm) he is missing a claw, I need to draw the big toe claw…”

“It looks like a T-Rex to me, it’s a T-Rex” said the boy.

“Yeah”  I said.  hmm.  The little boy ran off to the water with his sister.  I stood over the dinosaur.  I didn’t add the toe claw.

I looked at the waves breaking and started drawing circles.  Big and smaller, my arms started to burn.  The little girl came over after a bit, tiny girl, maybe 3 or 4.

“Is that a meteor?”   wow, awesome.

“It looks like one doesn’t it?”  She found a rock and started scraping the sand with it, then tossed it away and dug her fingers in, digging like a dog.  Her brother joined.  They send splatters of wet dark sand across my meteor, it was pretty.  Like splatterings of paint.  Their mom ran over, “no! NO! watch where you are throwing sand, she is trying to create art!”

oh man.  “Oh no, I’m doing what they’re doing” I say.  You wish, I think silently.  But actually I was feeling good at that point.  I picked up some handfuls of sand and dribbled them across the meteor, but it didn’t look as much like paint splatters.  I thought about digging doggy style in the sand, but didn’t.

I picked up the stick and started walking around dragging lines through the sand as I went.  There was a dead:

Comoront. I drew a circle around it, and noticed a lady bug sitting inside my circle line. I drew an arrow pointing to it.

I drew a face.  The stick gave it a coloring book feel, or blue-prints.  A face sand sculpture was my plan.  All mine, it felt good,grabbing, scooping the sand, clawing it violently to gently pile on a nose, lips.  Smooth it, pat it down like you pat a horse’s neck – feels solid, powerful but has give, elasticity, fragility.  Be careful.  Make what you see, make sure you see what you are making.  I had to go to the bathroom so bad, but she had no eyes.  “Finish Me”  I wrote on her would-be forehead, and climbed up the dune.  But after the bathroom, I decided to stay.  I would finish.

Back on the sand, puppies ran from somewhere and climbed on my back.  I was surprised how light they were, and how hard I was laughing.  They crushed the nose on my face, I felt a little pain but… they were like children, so innocent, happy completely happy.  I picked-up the puppy, so worth some crumbling sand.

I focused on the eyes.  I felt the sun lowering, air lifting, light deepening at the brink of low clouds.  There were people around me, I hardly felt them, but could hear a man’s voice drifting in:  ” the tide comes all the way to the dunes, I don’t think she knows that”.

I smiled.  Because I am not making this for you, I thought.  I finished and walked to the water, feet in the water, washing sand from deep under my nails and glanced back.  The man’s daughter was standing over my face, taking pictures.  She was smiling too.

Right, this is right too.  I don’t have to make it for anyone, but it is right for it to be received.  To be shared.  Like puppies.

AMP:Connect

An arts networking event
Featuring 23HAM

Meridian Gallery
535 Powell St. San Francisco [map]
Saturday, February 27, 2010
8 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.

The Event

AMP: Connect, will bring together twelve of the best grassroots arts organizations in the bay area for a night of connecting and fun.
23HAM has been selected as one of the participating organizations.

There will be artists and grassroots art organizations from various disciplines—music, dance, expressive arts therapy, film, theater, and more. This is not just another ho-hum gallery show with people blithely sipping wine, staring at walls, and not talking (although there will be fabulous wine and hors d’oeuvres). The evening will include fun interactive games, installations, and mini-workshops, all with the intention to provide a networking opportunity for the Bay Area’s diverse arts community. What better place to connect with creative individuals and artistic communities while tipping some wine and popping hors d’oeuvres. There will also be a live DJ.

$10 donation for 3.5 hours of fun = 10/3.5 = (2.8571428571)$/hr + (.2844497964) = $π/hr. Even cheaper than Indian food.

The Host

AMP – Artist Meeting Place and Resource Collective, a Los Angeles-based, international arts organization, is a thriving online hub for artists, with nearly 4,000 members in 85 countries. AMP’s website empowers members to meet, share their work, post classifieds, and search AMP’s worldwide directories for other artists, as well as artists’ resources. AMP also sponsors networking events, focusing on not only sharing art, but creating community, which is essential to generative, relevant, and interesting art making.

23HAM | House of Art and Multimedia
903 Camelia St Berkeley CA 94710
510 647 8603
23HAM.com

It is very good.  But time passes, a day and I am reminded of why I was in a pinch, and only a pinch over a month to this day (the longest night of the year) I set out for something like HAM.  To be solitary is one side of a multi-facet life, with cuts hewn in constant time.

I feel a bit lonely right now, missing those gone the ways of the compass, those gone to carve their owns ways, and those who are gone for reasons I don’t understand.

I like Bessie but she offers me more blues, as beautiful as they are, she offers little more of what I long for than do the Gmail chats and Facebook boxes and the text message chime.

Warmth.  (These blues just won’t burn…..)  A perfectly flawed smile, preferable to the FB emoticon…

But still, I know this is a place that we all are returning to.  (….But they will carry me through)