I love the water. It's something I've written about before. Sitting next to water, immersing in water, and being on top of water are some of my huge, calm centering spaces.

What prompted this entry is anticipation. Thursday night, in what will be a perfect distraction, is a water adventure. One of our longtime donors, who is also a caterer, has offered to serve the staff an amazing meal. That alone is awesomely groovy. But this...this rocks my socks: we will be enjoying this incredibly generous act while sailing on his boat.


When I lived on the coast, my safe space was a certain set of rocks, out on Marginal Way in Ogunquit. The weather was irrelevant.

It may sound cheesy, but the ocean is one place where I feel infinite. Everything is possible. I feel its power and strength, its limitless beauty, the creative and the destructive force that is ocean. When I'm there...I sense it in myself.

Sitting quietly by such vastness, I lose the self-conscious part of me. I'll get to a place where I no longer feel the separation between ocean and self.

A merge.
A fuck.

Yesterday, after painting, Eric came by the studio and we headed for food and then a walk through Olympic Sculpture Park and into Myrtle Edwards. No, it wasn't good for my ankle, but good for the soul. I just needed to be outdoors.

A little slice of Serra...




Claus Oldenburg's piece with an approaching cruise ship and a slight hint of Rainier. I'm a huge fan of Oldenburg's drawings.




And Louise Nevelson's work always relaxes me.

First...back to a daily photo~



I love that book. It's in my studio and I frequently take the time to flip through and read sections. I don't always agree with everything I read but delight in the fact that artists are an opinionated lot and am fascinated by how they each seem to have "the way" to do...it. It's good to read differing points of views.

And yes, I too am highly opinionated.

---------------

To jump into painting again and capture the spark and excitement, I'm returning to my first love...



...still life.

It's comforting, soothing. Partly meditative yet I want to challenge myself with it.

This is the beginning of a piece...not too big - 11x14. Right now, I'm really glad I shot the painting at this stage, because by the time I left the studio, it had died and lost some of its vibrancy. So looking at this will assist with what I'd like to bring back and then push. It's good I have a record of it.

Two Fridays ago I spent the day in the park down the street from my house, showing Bill the water tower, the conservatory and we hit the Asian Art Museum. After not shooting for many days, it was a day that sparked much photography. I'm slowly going through my images. Here are a few from the water tower.

Painting.

It's been an interesting summer regarding painting.

I was on a roll until July. Disciplined. Going into the studio at least 5 days a week. Painting.

July...it slowed down and came to a screeching halt by mid August.

Two trips back east within a month. Dealing with dad's health and all the emotional stuff wrapped in that. Also, there were increased challenges in other areas of my life.

Through this, I kept trying not to feel guilty, but it wasn't working. My energies were going elsewhere yet still nagged by the thought I was failing my practice. My discipline was shot. My creative self felt spent. Even photography became quite sporadic.

Two weeks ago I cut myself some seriously slack and let it be.

Last week it began a slow return. This week, the twisted ankle kept me away from the studio because I'd rather be down for a few days than injure myself more severely and be out for weeks. I wasn't going to attend last night's Art Walk, but changed my mind when a friend contacted me.

While speaking with my studio mates last night the question of whether or not to participate in the 30 paintings in 30 days challenge came up. 'Tis the season. Because I've been so crazily creatively empty, the thought of such a commitment feels like a chore. But if nothing else, it couldn't hurt. Last night I announced that I'd think it through over the weekend.

This afternoon I went in to set up the work space and my studio mate left a note taped to the wall with a message and phone number. It seems that someone saw my work last night, fell in love with what she saw and wants me to call her. The note went on to say that she had purchased a couple of the 30 in 30 from last year and wanted to know if I'd be participating again this year.

Heh.

Two clear messages in less than 24 hours. Gotta listen to the universe...especially when it's insistent.

I'll spend these two weeks slowly getting back into a routine, and then the 30 in 30 challenge begins which hopefully will propel me into a more rigorous discipline.

My practice is really important to me...and necessary. It's tough to return to it but will feel good once I'm back.

Call me Grace.

It happened in the office about 6 am Tuesday morning. I have a habit of tucking one leg under the other while sitting at my desk. I needed to get up, shifted my legs and immediately felt my left foot was deeply snoozing. It always happens and I'll let it wake up and then stand. Except on Tuesday.

It was more asleep than ever before. I was telling myself "M, don't get up yet, don't do it..." and yet, chose to fully ignore myself knowing I was doing something possibly stupid.

I stood and immediately landed on the outer side of my left ankle. The pain was sharp, fierce and quite brutal. Fear that it was broken ripped through me. Luckily, it only seems to be twisted. It's still swollen and sore but I'm relieved that both have decreased substantially since Wednesday.


Ice and Advil have become my friends.

The three flights up to my apartment have not.

One more taken by Bill Pusztai...

(Photography by Bill Pusztai)



This was a weekend of profound healing. Each day offered a new gift, allowing me to become aware and access a phenomenal strength that resides within. One of those gifts was wrapped in boots.

My love of boots is not only a fetish. Honestly, fetish is too mild a term for the effect and importance of boots...boots as metaphor.

It runs deep...a part of my essence.

Service. Service first and foremost to myself, and from there, outward to others. Boots represent not only a particular service but for me, a larger sense of service...one of compassion that will flow into the world, a service in all aspects of my life, not only in kink venues. The greatest service we can offer begins with honesty, first with ourselves...opening...and then with others. Years ago, my mentor taught me how all of life is one ongoing scene. It's not contained in the dungeon, not compartmentalized, yet instead with each inhale and exhales continues to expand.

For about 6 years I've shielded myself from boots because of a loss I experienced at that time. The protection was so thick that I had not only forgotten the smell but the magic that comes with boots.

Yesterday, to my surprise, within the context of a photo shoot, the shell covering the soft rich leather cracked. With that, came memories and then tears...leading to ecstasy and on to peace.

A couple of fun and spontaneous photos of me taken by Bill Pusztai at the Seattle Asian Art Museum.

Those of you who know me know that letting myself do this is quite unlike me. I was actually surprised that not only did I agree, but felt pretty comfortable...even with people coming in and out.

Where have I been?

It's been (and still is) a time of a huge crisis of faith…trying so hard not to sink into the "I was born broken and that's why people run from me" trap that I know all too well.

I haven't done anything other than work, then go home to lick my wounds and try to breathe. Throw in a therapy appointment and a couple days where I continue to be available to a friend who is going through an incredibly intense healing time and painful fight of their own.

There has been no blogging, no photography, no studio.

This image was shot a few months ago and was being saved for an entry I was attempting to write after a huge insight where I saw how I was dumbing parts of myself down simply to fit in. It was a big realization a while ago and so I was beginning to hang onto the strong parts of myself, no matter how different than what I even encounter in our subcultures and yet now...now I can't access my strength and instead feel like I'm sinking.


I do have plans for the weekend that I am looking forward to and will keep. It'll be good for me.

I'm struggling with the essence of who I am. What I seek and hunger for is so divergent that it feels like I've been on the wrong path my whole life.

Why can't I shut up and just take it?
Why can't I conform?
Why do things affect me so deeply?
Why is it never enough?

How do I fix it?
How do I become like everyone else...so I can feel safe to others?

It's all too much.
I am too much.


(This is not a plea for strokes. Although we all love them, they are only a momentary balm and right now I don't believe anything will help. Somehow, someway, I've gotta tap into my own strength.)

Bill and Daniel are spending a few weeks in Seattle.  It's been wonderful having them around.  

Early this week when they came in the studio, Dan walked around my work table and his eyes lit up.

"Would you like to paint sometime?"  I continued, "you're welcome to.  And I can either be here, or not."

On Thursday, he took me up on the offer.  I gave him materials and we created a work space. From there, Bill and I left for the afternoon to check out galleries and the museum while Dan had my studio to himself, where he happily painted for three hours.

He was still working when we returned.

I've been thinking a lot about an experience I had 12 years ago. It was a profound lesson on communication.

I had been dating someone for a couple years. Not sure why because there wasn't a specific incident, but I felt their walls go up. With that, came deception. Somehow, we tried to talk about it.

It was three very brutal days. Not the bleeding kind of brutal but the muddy kind. As we attempted sort it out and talk, things felt like they were getting greyer and heavier instead of better. But I knew that if we persisted, we could come to some type of understanding. I wasn't sure how, yet firmly believed we could break through the confusion. It clearly felt to me that we were speaking on different levels...and therefore neither was truly capturing what the other was saying. Very frustrating.

At some point on the third day I asked her "what's your definition of commitment?"

She responded with the "living together forever" answer. She then asked me to define commitment. I said that it was a desire to work something through to the end whatever that ending was. For me, commitment to another in an intimate relationship, is a willingness to keep taking down the walls and coming to an honest place regardless of whether it means dissolution of a relationship or not. It wasn't the forever happy ever after definition. It was a decision to work at being really present, each moment.

She looked at me and exhaled deeply. It seems her fears were based on assumptions that I sought to chain her to some life of whatever was in her head. The relief she then showed in her body was palpable.

Her fears were brought on by her projections.

A month later, with not only my blessing but full support, encouragement and love, I assisted with her moving 3000 miles to go live with her sister. It was the right thing. It was good and it was sad. I missed her terribly. But it was perfect. We parted as friends who love each other.

It was a big lesson: asking for definition, and granting each other the space to explain is a huge gift. Knowing that sometimes it won't be a pretty conversation and can be a very scary prospect but the willingness to work through it knowing...knowing that honesty is the best way to live because only in that can there be peace.

It has stuck with me ever since.


That memory has been in the forefront of my mind recently because I've been feeling judged and sentenced without being allowed to speak. In turn, I've had feelings that have made me uncomfortable because those feelings are rooted in my assumptions, knowing I don't truly understand either.

We can't live life making decisions based in suppositions of where another is at.

We are human. We fuck up and we bless. The more intimate the relationship, be it lover or friend, the greater the likelihood that we'll rub ancient wounds. But with communication, we discover and see what came from the past and was projected onto the present and can then separate that from the actual moment.

In May I heard the Dalai Lama speak. He spoke of the importance of dialogue. I cried because I knew the truth in that and yet struggled with the fact that one can't dialogue alone.

In July I made the decision to remain silent and step back. What else could I do?

My therapist, a man of great compassion and peace...one who I trust because of the great suffering he has endured and successfully worked through, began to poke and prod me. He, at first gently and then with firmer insistence, taught me that I'd need to shake the waters a little...share my willingness to create space to come to understanding and at the same time create boundaries.

We worked hard together.

This week I've been on vacation. Having finally completed a few difficult actions, with the oversight of my therapist, have left me spent. I thought it would be a week of much painting. Instead, it reopened the pain and I felt depleted. In speaking with my shrink about it, he smiled and said "that's about right."

But I force myself into the studio each day. Whether I'm only staring at the work on the walls, reading a screenplay I'm consulting on, painting a mess or just drawing a bit...I make myself go.

Yesterday I realized my studio is the safest as well as the scariest place. Just like my intimate relationships.

17 August 1908


stills from "Fantasmagorie"

Today is the 100th anniversary of the first animated film Fantasmagorie by Emile Cohl. (link to see film on YouTube).

More links:
Fantasmagorie: 1908

Films of Emile Cohl

Wiki on Emile Cohl

This image is from yesterday because there are none shot today. It was too hot, although I did make time in the studio. From there, the day called for some slugging out in front of the fan. I don't do well in weather close to 90. My body feels like my blood sugar is in a permanent dive.

Tomorrow will be cooler.