critical mass

Tappin into my psyche.
This swarm of red lights and wheels floating up and down all the city streets and hills, gliding around all the street corners.
We rode past the carnival, the dude on the tall bike made lots of jokes and even the el Cajon thugs loved his style. Kids on the street curb like it's a parade. One kid about 10 years old rode with us for a long part of the way, not even with an adult, just enjoying the night ride with this mass of people. Barking and howling and shouting and screaming at cars and drivers and people in the bars. We crashed SD state. I bombed a hill with my arms raised high.
The best view of the night was all the post debate action, we rode through city heights, and all the old black ladies where leaning out there windows shouting " Barack Obama, Barack Obama!" and I'm sure seeing us en masse reminded her of old times in our country.
Racing through cyclists, joking about everything, crashing into each other, making sure we didn't get hit by cars, double taking with strangers because you like like an old friend to them and they look like a dear friend to you.

i made this little paper headband to wear for these kinds of events. Everyone loved it and it made me recognizable enough that people would talk to me when we kept pacing each other. Next month it will get bigger and go all around my head to make me more visible from behind ( for the friends I kept leaving in the dust, haha)

burrito bomb

OK so I just made up that term, although also may have heard it somewhere. A burrito bomb is specifically a home made burrito that is so cram full of goodness it explodes while you're eating it.

When I was 21 I was as broke as broke could be, often I had $20 to see me through a month's supply of groceries. I think I went to Costco pretty regularly for free samples. anyway. I made burritos all the time and I would set up like a burrito factory in the kitchen. First I would make the filling and it usually consisted of typical broke ass breakfast burrito things, eggs, potatoes, hot dogs and some El Pato sauce. a little pepper. maybe bell peppers, maybe onion.
generic white tortillas. I'd roll them up and wrap them in foil and store them in the fridge to be eaten cold in the car while it warmed up, to be microwaved at school or work, to be sold to roommates $2 a piece, when they were too lazy to make food.

Well being broke brings back some of those habits. Only this time I'm 28 and a little more health conscious, especially since I ate my last hot dog of my life september 2nd, my nephew was witness. I will never eat a hot dog for the rest of my life.

So What's involved, oh boy, potatoes, garlic, onion, bell pepper, maybe a little brocolli, cauliflower squash, whatever is left over in the fridge. black beans, avocado, feta cheese and whole wheat tortillas. Tofu is common, cilantro, maybe some left over salad mix.
Thats it. just burrito reminiscing.

Art in motion

This reminds me of seaweed, you should see it when the wind blows through the house.

treasures

about 2 years ago I became enamored with all things nautical, and now I am here, with nautical treasures making their way into my life every day

some people will say that this is not the place to be so personal, that it makes them uncomfortable to read it. As a person who wears their heart on their sleeve I contest; there is no better place and it's why this space exists.


I can get through my day in a very focused way, but when I walk to the corner store by myself to buy coconut milk I miss you, and the song in the store is not classical it's that new country song about Johnny and June, and that song is really nice.

The man behind the counter calls me dear. I walk home in the dark with a red bell pepper balanced on my head and coconut milk slopping around in the can. And I wonder where it was that you went again, how did I end up here feeling so all-of-a-sudden alone.

The gap inside me still exists, and as much as I shift around it is still there. Illuminating your absence from my day to day. and yet at the same time there is this overwhelming calm. I am here doing what I'm doing and it feels right.

I'm making green vegetable curry without you, in a kitchen we once shared, the cat is running in and out of the house, jumping in through the window.

Months have gone by and still there are these moments when your absence feels so suddenly surprising. and it takes me a minute to remember this is how it always is. me at ease, living by myself again.

dear lost sister

Where exactly did you leave us?
our dear lost sister.

The cat is in the garden,
watching the wind in the leaves.

Are you practicing your french for us
Are there thistles in your skirt

When did we lose you.

breast buds, paper hearts, fortune tellers,sleepy eyes and wild curls.

The blanket on the freshly watered grass

Could we ever write you letters again?
folded up with pull tabs and inked hearts

Streams of ants thread their way across the cement
into the cool dark places beneath the roses.

I'm afraid you can not come back to us

These things can not make you return

spiderwebs in sunlight
dresses and socks on the line

I crane my neck in hopes

I can feel that you are there.

hidden in the empty spaces of daylight.

new true

This move. The process of extracting myself.
Makes me question a lot of my own beliefs. Like Aurora said, "we lock things in or lock things out."
What has become evidently and eternally true?
The fact that we are all in flux, some more than others, at different rates, in different aspects of our lives.
My mind is in flux, my opinions are in flux, my self perceptions are in flux. always adapting to what feels more honest to me. Another truth; I can't give my energy to everything all the time.

" Everyone is entitled to their own happiness, How they get there is none of my business."

I understand that I walk a pretty different kind of line in this life. Drawn to the rawness, the exposed, the decay, the stillness, the undeveloped, the forgotten. The process of this life. I have a tendency to remain open to everyone and everything around me. This fact is pushed to the forefront often here. I operate on another level, I have a different kind of M.O.

Reading John Berger. " We come upon a part of the visible which wasn't destined for us." "a painting is lifeless until the painter has the nerve to get close enough for a collaboration to begin."

The power of imbueing things

The serendipity of it all.

home

Home is a place inside me. Making a home is the process of making a place mine; of taking what is inside me and pouring it out into the real world. Jennifer Emerling, sweet talented sister of sisters, took these photo's of my home in Fresno. Things I made that I never documented because I lived with them. When you are engrained in it, sometimes it takes a stranger to point out the magic. This for me is the basis of Fresno town.


My dad made me paper glasses when I was a kid, revisiting.


'Let's put the ice bergs back together' The ice berg was returned back to it's original state using yarn and I floated it above my bed. that was my nightly prayer for my planet.


I watched as the men pulled this down from the old Fresno Beauty supply Co. I asked them if I could have it, and of course they said yes. I wasn't aware that this cursive style of writing would eventually pervade my own work. I wonder if it is still in the back yard, someone please check for me and get it back.


floating in the kitchen


my own version of stained glass windows. At sunset the sunlight would project everything on the surrounding walls.

just a sample of new series

This is heartbreak

the distance the time the absence the love the dreams the loss the hope the helpless the struggle to move forward

Lykke Li

I bought the album. of course I did. And dance dance dance is the song of the day

'having troubles telling how I feel but I can dance and dance.
Couldn't possibly tell you how I mean but I can dance dance dance. So when I trip n my feet. look at the beat, the words are written in the sand. When i'm shaking my hips look for the swing the words are written in the air.
Dance, I was a dancer all along,dance dance dance, words can never make up for what you do. Easy conversations there's no such thing, No i'm shy shy shy.
My hips hey lie case in reality I'm shy shy shy. But when I trip on my feet look at the ground. the words are written in the dust, when I'm shaking my hips, look for the swing, the words are written in the air. Dance, I was a dancer all along, dance dance dance. words can never make up for what you do.'

to be sent in the post

ms. Emily Peters,

sunlight thoroughly engrained in her skin,
pours out of her fingertips
in tiny stitches and loose threads.

She is fierce and sweet all in one breath

She is a palette all her own

jellybones

un-necessarianism

installation sketch


This is where all my energy lies these days. I spend hours with these things.

I have done this for years and have never documented it.
Make paper hearts, write positive affirmations on them and leave them on random cars when out around town.
I like to think that someone somewhere picks it off their window with curiosity and find that the saying hits them in a deep place and maybe they leave it in their car for a few days or take it home and put it with their dailies.

Whaley house

C. had to water the plants. of course I tagged along. I haven't taken polaroids in so long. Felt so good to have my eyes back. I'm always drawn back to the tiny details.