This could be explicit...
Tonight, I found myself in the Bronx with no phone and no money and really no idea where I was or how to get home.
I haven't been in that position of real isolation and financial desperation since December 16, 2009 the morning after a Christmas party that I had built the costumes for the hosts and the staff or the party. It'd been a successful night, but I'd spent everything I had in my bank on the expenses leading up to the event and hadn't received my pay yet, then my phone died. Even though I had earned money on its way- the sensation of having nothing in that moment was/is crushing.
Money is linked to the first chakra, the root chakra, the color red- it's located in your tailbone at the base of the spine, it's your ass. So I'm like 'what the fuck is wrong with my ass?'
Tonight was a night where I felt absolutely everything was wrong; in these moments the preceding catapulting moments flush over me. What was the turning point? The decision. The choice.
'In those ten minutes, going so hard to finish your project you think of all those times you could have been sewing but instead you got drunk or dicked around and you're like 'FAAAACK why did I do that?' -F. Burke. (genius designer- Bazzul)
All those times- those seconds- that lead to the present moment... Was it when I left him? When I left her? When I tried to kiss him? Because he couldn't kiss me back?
Or should I have done that painting? But my ego couldn't handle it- didn't trust something of the relationship? Should I have made that jacket? Or should I have hired someone to sew long ago instead of tirelessly trying to understand the craft by building everything? Should I have drawn instead of jerked off? Not gotten drunk? Not gotten high? Or have gone through with whatever?
In writing this it all seems rather petty. I call myself on it & I judge myself on it and rationalize it and apologize for it.
This is city life: Everything and Nothing. Glamour- looking amazing but not having $10 in your pocket and hoping the bar takes credit...
'Within and Without'
(Fitzgerald)
Go see The Great Gatsby. It's a brilliant and beautiful film. Baz Lurhmann is an incredible artist and I love all of his films. I know exactly the feeling Nick (Tobey Maguire) has as he looks out onto the city and sees the 'inexhaustible variety of life.' I totally look into every window I can. I'm curious. Curiosity is an integral part of being an artist and I need to be more curious than I am- or channel it in a different way than it's been of late. Within and without. I have always been able to observe and see things: be sensitive and intuitive to situations and been able to understand things but not really be involved. Intimacy exists through the melting of two- 'does it say pick out your cloud?' (Tori Amos)
Hell no.
It says give me your everything.
'I traded fame for love without a second thought'
(Madonna)
Tonight catapulted the flashbacks of the orchestration of my decisions that have me here. New York City. I love every light. I have no regret. I am an artist and I've done what I've felt is best, or at least what I could do for my art. My work. I've slept with pins and sequins in my bed, sewn all night, sewn on the floor, slept on the floor, sewn on the subway, sewn on the bus, wrote the bill on the plane, gone out with paint and oil and thread on my clothes, unshaven, spent every penny for the art, made it without spending anything, made the mess I needed to regardless of who the space belonged to (sorry). This work is in me like 'the night in my veins' (The Pretenders). Every artist has this. This work inside awaiting to pour out however it might. I have this work in me and I'm desperate to work every day. To create.
I think that was the point of this night. I walked home (It was only a 30 minute walk over the Harlem bridge). When nothing is right everything becomes light.
Clear.
I'm here
to show you the beauty
within
and without.
ps- nothing to worry about actually :) I am secure but I had a moment and felt obligated to speak about these steps on this journey which are not always quite as glamorous...lovematters=creation
