manifesto monday: artists

the first time i visited san francisco i was a senior in high school. our legendary art history teacher, cheryl hughes, arranged for a large group of students to travel there to see the art that that western city has to offer. i barely recall any of it...i was consumed with my first broken heart...unfortunately the heart-breaker was on the trip too. so, i was dealing with such heartache in the only way a high school girl knows how: i was acting tough, and went out of my way to pretend i was really enjoying myself. but a high-school relationship is not what i want to talk about. what i want to talk about is what little i do remember about the trip: a woman who was an artist...one that even non-art historians would recognize because she was that good.

georgia o'keefe. between my acting scenes on that trip nine years ago, we entered a museum with a greek-looking facade. white columns. measured to perfection. we were there to see her flowers (i had yet to learn to appreciate her deserts). have you ever noticed what happens to your heart and to your soul when you see great art in person? every emotion you didn't know was in you comes right to the surface. you become delicate. at the same time your eyes open, and i'm talking about that third eye especially. the one that brings visions of who you are, and what the world and the universe are.

the toughness had to melt. so i cried when i saw the colors of a phoenix in flower petals. i knew what it meant to be a woman when i saw the organic lines of stormy blues and grays surrounding the white pearl in the center of another flower (though i didn't know it fully at the time). this is the most vibrant of all my memories of that trip so many years ago.

this weekend cj and i visited that city together. his parents met us there for a short vacation. saturday afternoon we quickly headed to the MOMA, not knowing what we were to see.

georgia o'keefe. once again, there was a special exhibit of her work there. this time along side the photographs of ansel adams. we met again...me and that woman. this time it was much the same, but also there was much that had changed in my relationship with that woman. first of all, i have read and studied more these past nine years about women, gender issues, and art. second, i have fallen in love with the tortured, yet beautiful landscapes of the southwest.

interestingly, i tried, still, to be tough. as soon as i approached one of her paintings with the wings of a pelvis in the sky of a moon i got that lump in my throat. the last thing i needed was family asking if i was ok...how do you explain that for some reason these paintings are bringing up every emotion including awe, wonder, gratitude, regret (for not learning how to paint), rage (for a society that doesn't value art as much as it should), etc? it is not easy to tell everyone the range of feelings that a person has acquired over a lifetime (even if my lifetime has only lasted 27 years so far).

then i was oh so grateful for a husband who is an artist. when we retured home i could cry to him about how i wish i could paint...it truly seems like a release and a way to speak that would heal a person. artists truly are a gift to our hearts and souls. perhaps because they must struggle to get by in this world...they know how beautiful yet agonizing life can be. i will learn how to draw and to paint. this will be yet another way i can speak. this i believe.

amen, amen, amen

been listening to Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. this is a MUST READ. i've learned about certain events that he mentions throughout his book in some of my history classes. i think it's a fabulous book for anyone who wants to know our history. it's essential, and it's cheaper than spending thousands of dollars to get a degree in history to get this perspective. below is an excerpt that i thought was especially poignant:

"It is very important for the establishment, that uneasy club of business executives, generals and politicos, to maintain the historic pretention of national unity in which the government represents all the people and the common enemies overseas, not at home, where disasters of economic sole war are unfortunate errors or tragic accidents to be corrected by the members of the same club that brought the disasters. It is important for them also to make sure this artificial unity of highly privileged and slightly privileged is the only unity, that the 99% remained split in countless ways, and turn against one another to vent their angers.

"How skillful to tax the middle class to pay for the relief of the poor, building resentment on top of humiliation.

"How adroit to bus poor black youngsters into poor white neighborhoods in a violent exchange of impoverished schools while the schools of the rich remain untouched and the wealth of the nation, held onto stingily where children need free milk, is drained for billion dollar air-craft carriers.

"How ingenious to meet the demands of blacks and women for equality by giving them small special benefits and setting them in competition with everyone else for jobs made scarce by an irrational, wasteful system.

"How wise to turn the fear and anger of the majority toward a class of criminals bread by economic inequity faster than they can be put away, deflecting attention from the huge thefts of national resources carried out within the law by men in executive offices.

there is much to be done. and it can be done.

image via here.

New York City: MOMA

While in New York City I stayed with my cousin, Ryan, his wife, Bea, and their cute daughter, Olive. They were the perfect hosts. Bea always had yummy and healthy food for us, and we stayed up late talking every night. Hooray for family!
My first day there Bea, Olive, and I went to the MOMA. I loved it. It was good to be in a museum. So happy to see Rothko, Mandrian, and Chagall.

Dreams of Teachers

My favorite things about high school: 1) Art History teacher, Ms. Hughes and 2) English teacher, JudyMac.



Last night Ms. Hughes popped up briefly in my dreams. So glad she did. I think everyone who was in her Art History class decided to major in it their first year of college, but soon dropped out because the professors weren't nearly as good as she was. She, like JudyMac, are the teachers that finally taught me to learn to love learning!

I can still hear and see JudyMac saying "then all smiles stopped together." from Robert Browning's poem, My Last Duchess.

Thank heaven for good teachers. Too bad it took my senior-year-teachers to teach my how to love learning...could have used that a bit earlier! But, alas, I love it now and forever grateful!