Red River

Me and Ellie at Red River
I took off my shoes and ran a while.
She didnt want to run in the water, though.

Collage

Here is a collage i made for a cd cover for a friend. It is some found photographs, my photographs and some of my paintings.
Like a quilt, little scraps, its just a glimpse of a little life...

Bang! Bang!

So got new hair. Kinda makes me feel panicky though. Never had bangs before. I'm just afraid it makes my face look fat. i always worry about fat and i just ascribe some arbitrary meaning to it, though. Anyway I'm weird about my hair. I have always hated having it cut. its part of me, dammit! There is energy in there! My DNA, anyway! Literally i feel panicky. like Im losing something i cant ever get back. Hair. So i dreamed i went to this shack type house in some city - it was like a group home with lots of old guys and in a back room and there were piles of hair everywhere and it felt really bad, like i shouldn't look. The lady that ran place was angry at me for looking. I think they were selling their hair as wigs or something. But i didn't know if there was scalps in there, too.
Still reading the Carl Jung compilation book.
Still don't understand dreams or subconcious. Working on it. But the basic tenant is that there are no real fundamantel SYMBOLS for everyone - just meanings. so your symbols can really on be interpreted by you. Everyone may have a meaning for freedom; Horses don't equal freedom for everyone, for example. Anyway i feel sick. What was this about? Hair? Yes. i got new hair. Do you like it?

heaven and anorexia

so im actually reading a book called feel the fear and do it anyway by susan jeffers phd and i always had self help motivational books on my list of lamest things ever right beside decaf and yanni but you know at some poin you have to say well why not. except for the yanni thing. so anyway im going to repeat these 4 truths everyday and since i feel like a total dork for doing that ive decided to do it at work so i can torture my co workers most notably charles-randy who i will undoubtedly pass this book along to after im done with bc sharing insights on how to deal iwth depression and anxiety and the fact that we always felt very very ugly has been a constant bonding factor in our friendship. Like wow you've hate yrself since jr high?!?! ME TOO! Cool, here read Be Here Now its so zen-like. And then it sort of went on like we cross reference therapists and stuff but at he same time we are like you know maybe there is nothing wrong iwth us maybe we just suck. but then we will go into a total Defense of Antidepressants rant and defend Depression as a disease so yeah, needless to say we are on the same page about alot of things. Which kind of makes work fun. sometimes. Anyway so yeah im gonna read this book and stop having panic attacks when i try to apply to grad school or send art to galleries.
BC PANIC usually leads me to thinking that if i could just lose 5lbs everything would be just gravy anyway and i mean, who cares about skinny supermodes and all that i really just look at Grey's Anatomy or the skeletons in my drawing books and drool over the bones..yes i really want to be THAT THIN. Its my bones, i can t help them, then just WANT OUT. which leads me to the a cool clip of a movie i want to see that addresses the ED


which i was really excited about
but then i found out that in the plot
lydia gets darcy to try to teach her to be anorexic
and im kinda hoping htis movie doesnt lump or stereo type or
what have you but
anyway
im hoping its
good
however i freaking know
JUST KNOW THIS: is gonna be good


like so good i just want to cry.
bc patti is IT
truly

and im going to buy all of her books now
i mean to already but i didnt bc
i was buying how to train yr dog not to tear shit up and walk on a leash even though my dog
tears shit up constantly and i dont even care anymore im like handing her stuff to tear up like i barter with her.
here, LE, you can tear up this box and this magazine and this shoe and give me back that other shoe and my bra.
little Dog Queen of My Life. So basically i break alot of the how to raise yr dog rules bu tat least i know them.
and i know fear, too but im gonna read this other book and get a handle on fear AND then
im gonna order patti smith bc just hearing one of her songs blows my mind and this trailer was like
an affirmation and more than i believe, any slef help could do..EVER.
Her and Jane Goodall better get put in charge of heaven or im not going

cold as ice colored stripes

In a Hammock
looking at Schiele
eating snocones
Was Egon chauvnist? Misogynist? i hate to think so but i read that some thought so. i almost dont want to konw.
i just want to stare at the rigid lines
indicating a furious energy
scrawled lovingly
at naked bodies

kiss the sky

This pic was taken at red river, Brooks took it with a wide angle lens
which is why i loook sooo loooooong and tallllllllll'

ellie was there and we ran round and round and ellie got to chase birds and ellie LOVES.
to chase birds. She gets this look of PURE doggie GLEE!
and there were so many of them she would start chasing one
and then change to another one and so eventually she was just
running around in circles and zig zagging all over the place.
it was so funny. Then she would run up to me adn jump like
ohmigod can yu believe it!! birds! birds! BIRDSSSS!!!!!
and it was about 7:30 so it had cooled off some and i ran pretty far, down to the water just me and ellie.
She stays close to me and if she gets far ahead she will look back, stop and wait.
I found a crumbled turtle shell and some enormous thorns.
Later we looked at my new Egon Schiele book and took some photographs at odd angles for me to draw from.
Ellie slept all the way home. i bet she dreamed about birds.

blerg**snap-fizzzzz brains out

9 hour drive back from Atlanta. I finished reading Wicked w/out getting too carsick.

Im trying to convince myself to apply to sfa, lsu and uno mfa programs just to see what happens.
i cant stay here anymore.
i don't belong anywhere, i never did.
I'm afraid ill get the MFA and be more in debt and still unprepared for a job but i don't know what else to do.
i hardly ever time to paint anymore and this desk job makes me so exhausted in my brains.
i kinda want to just be a welder and stay in Tullos.
I could do that. Could i do that? cows pigs and chickens...sounds like heaven to me.

The people around me freak me the fuck out. You know what? working with the public is insane. Preachers put in ads for thier churches and half of them are total pricks. The doctors, accountants and realtors are rude jerks. My nicest customer is this guy who owns a bar and has bands come play. I freakin ran his ad wrong and offered to give me a free drink. I screwed up a church ad once and the preacher, like, hung up on me. I love how people hide behind their religion. Its so gross.

capitalism is giant mindfuck that bred with christianity and made a population of WASP bitch soccermoms who are hyper breeding in surburbia. Then crash dieting and buying bratz dolls for thier spawn.
The governmnetis like, here is a prozac now just go buy shit. YUMMY. hmm

well. ive had enough of this. im going to build a castle out of animals bones and rubber tires and hide out.
wake me up when the war is over.

Cynic

Cynic
Originally uploaded by angel in the dope smoke

Completed a painting. i like some of the colour mixtures but i don't know how well they show up in the photo. bad glare on right so i gotta retake soon.

Candies Dress

Candies Dress
Originally uploaded by angel in the dope smoke

Kylee, Amanda and i went to goodwill Sunday. This was a fun find.Kylee found it for me! I think i had one similar when i was about 9 or 10. Amanda got a rabbit fur coat - floor length - for 20 bucks. She put back the leather vest with fringe. Goodwill makes you awesome.

Going to hell!!

oh i love the bastard fairies!

Easter

Easter Saturday. We went Greenhousing!
Im gonna plant snapdragons, soon

Louisiana Wedding

Jacob came in for his brother's wedding. It was out in Natchez at this awesome modern plantation style house. And the weather was gorgeous.

the coveted cuff

shoe•shine•time

i have too many shoes to store reasonably in a closet plus, i think they are pretty so i put them on a shelf in the liv room so i can see them...okay that also keeps them away from a puppy who thinks she is Vlad the Impaler to Shoes.
i really only like cheap shoes though
these are courtesy walmart in jena, Payless, Payless, and Nichols in winnfield. god i love nichols. The chooka rubber boots were actually 40 bucks but i live in the boggy south and my backyard floods so... it was a great investment. i was calling my ankle boots the brett micheals boots (like cheap rock n roll) but im changing that to the punk princess shoes. as in Patti smith not avril lavigne.

Fashionfreak;Its in the details

So i love braclets and now i am loving to wrap ribbons around my wrists and then put bracelets OVER them. i like chunky featurers on wrists/ankles alot. Once reason is bc it like bondage to your LIFE. being tied to yourself. Typing and moving and doing work is more difficult wiht these cumbersome weights..makes you more aware of your body and surroundings.
when i was going through this long drawn out break up one summer i had about 15 ankle bracelets on each ankle. ribbon, hemp, wire, jewelry, string...all different colors. Strips of fabrick i cut off of clothes.. i would just tie them on me. it was symbolic but ended up looking really cool (to me.) and one day i was walking across campus in flat flip flops and some boy said, "i like your heels." Not what yu normally hear from a boy on campus. it took me a minute to realize he meant my ankles. (anatomy?) anyway later at the end of hte summer i cut htem all off. my ankes were so furry from not being able to shave underneath. .... such a witch, even when it comes to getting dressed. Isnt that a great green bracelet? my mom gave it to me, what is a good name for that green? grannygreen?

im in love with a strict machine

ouch ouch ouch
i got these at payless so you KNOW they hurt. they look awesome though. i think ill wear them for washing dishes. a painful task anyway.
but the black fur - that is lil eleanor. and she says shoes are for chewing.

painting takes dough

$165.65 worth of acrylic paint and medium....and i still need brushes. BUT I LOVE COBALT TEAL!!!! AND QUINACRADONE SIENNA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

messy girls

need THIS!!! He can suck up anything!!
and he could be a messy ADD disorganized person's best friend.
He will suck up the 1/2 of yr breakfast that is in a trail from the kitchen to couch to bedroom and even sawdust!!! He even sucked up my friend George!!
plus..this lil shop vac was only 30 bucks!!

green and red

Shoes from goodwill 3.99. Adding 3inches to my 5'5 shortness is priceless. And what esle is priceless is a free visit with this little green guy. He was hanging out on the Natchitoches Times door...and he gave me a word of peace with his bright green existence!!

stephen crane

The Wayfarer

The wayfarer,
Perceiving the pathway to truth,
Was struck with astonishment.
It was thickly grown with weeds.
"Ha," he said,
"I see that none has passed here
In a long time."
Later he saw that each weed
Was a singular knife.
"Well," he mumbled at last,
"Doubtless there are other roads."

AND NOW ONE OF MY FAVORITE POEMS EVER:

In the Desert

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter -- bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."

Stephen Crane

In Heaven

In heaven,
Some little blades of grass
Stood before God.
"What did you do?"
Then all save one of the little blades
Began eagerly to relate
The merits of their lives.
This one stayed a small way behind,
Ashamed.
Presently, God said,
"And what did you do?"
The little blade answered, "Oh my Lord,
Memory is bitter to me,
For, if I did good deeds,
I know not of them."
Then God, in all His splendor,
Arose from His throne.
"Oh, best little blade of grass!" He said

Stephen Crane (1871 - 1900)


Stephen Crane was the last of 14 children born to a Methodist minister who died when he was nine. As a child he moved three times in the New York area. Crane never cared much for schooling, but he did attend Syracuse University - although only for one semester, and his most noteworthy accomplishments were performed on the baseball field. He lived the down-and-out life of a penniless artist who became well known as a poet, journalist, social critic and realist. His contemoraries noted him as being an "original" in his field of work.

War and other forms of physical and mental violence fascinate Crane. He began writing for newspapers in 1891 when he settled in New York where he developed his powers as an observer of psychological and social reality. After he wrote Red Badge of Courage, which earned Crane international acclaim at age 24, he was hired as a reporter in the American West and Mexico. At the age of 27, Crane moved to Jacksonville, Florida and got married. While in Jacksonville, his boat The Commodore sank off the coast and he wrote about the harrowing adventure in The New York Press. Crane covered the Greco-Turkish War and later settled in England where he made friends with famous writers of the time including H.G. Wells and Henry James. He later covered the Spanish-American War for Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. During the last few years of his life, he began writing furiously because he was in debt and suffering from tuberculosis. He later died while he was in Germany.
http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/stephencrane/

the addict

days that start like this
everyday
swallow the plastic pill.
everyone does, i know.
my last experience with detoxing
from the human pesticide
was grim and inside i know
i cant do it again.
and it gnaws at me.

im just abundle of chemicals
organic wires as nerves
so are we all.
i walk a very very thin line i guess
im balancing on a little blue pill
i wont totally give in either direction
i need the struggle maybe?
id ont know.
i just know
i pay money to a coorporate government
for a pill to make
it okay for me to live and breathe
in this bullshit global marektplace
w/out weeping for hours everyday
i swallow willingly now
but i used to fight.


The Addict by Anne Sexton

Sleepmonger,
deathmonger,
with capsules in my palms each night,
eight at a time from sweet pharmaceutical bottles
I make arrangements for a pint-sized journey.
I'm the queen of this condition.
I'm an expert on making the trip
and now they say I'm an addict.
Now they ask why.
WHY!

Don't they know that I promised to die!
I'm keping in practice.
I'm merely staying in shape.
The pills are a mother, but better,
every color and as good as sour balls.
I'm on a diet from death.

Yes, I admit
it has gotten to be a bit of a habit-
blows eight at a time, socked in the eye,
hauled away by the pink, the orange,
the green and the white goodnights.
I'm becoming something of a chemical
mixture.
that's it!

My supply
of tablets
has got to last for years and years.
I like them more than I like me.
It's a kind of marriage.
It's a kind of war where I plant bombs inside
of myself.

Yes
I try
to kill myself in small amounts,
an innocuous occupatin.
Actually I'm hung up on it.
But remember I don't make too much noise.
And frankly no one has to lug me out
and I don't stand there in my winding sheet.
I'm a little buttercup in my yellow nightie
eating my eight loaves in a row
and in a certain order as in
the laying on of hands
or the black sacrament.

It's a ceremony
but like any other sport
it's full of rules.
It's like a musical tennis match where
my mouth keeps catching the ball.
Then I lie on; my altar
elevated by the eight chemical kisses.

What a lay me down this is
with two pink, two orange,
two green, two white goodnights.
Fee-fi-fo-fum-
Now I'm borrowed.
Now I'm numb.

sensory,

photoshop deleted my paintings.
they said they violated terms.
whatever.
fuckers.

i went and tried on lots of different shoes on my lunch break.
i didnt buy any just teetered about in tall heels that i am to0 broke to buy.
i have on purple socks.

and red shoes i love red shoes i love
rope
ribbon
clove cigarrettes
beetles
red wine
dogs.
colors.
handmade paper
dragon flies
toenail polish - red black or pink
kisses
dirt
green green gras
being underwater
fitting into small spaces
ladybugs
millipedes
spiders wih babies on their back
webs with dew drops
bracelets
incense
carving
lipstick
blood
racoons
knives
bones
skulls
black eyed susans
stars
poems
fruit pinapples pears cherries grapes
patchouli
silver rings
marshmallow creme
pills
candles
tree bark
leaves
crickets
frogs
ponds
wading
sisters
photography
pretending
white zombie
white nightgowns
lace
burlap
secrets
rust
empty old houses
blood
psychology
myths
scars
trunks
keys
locks
vines
moss
gauze
touching
thorns
petals
nothing makes sense today im organizing ideas

i wanna girl too sad to give a fuck

ILOVE THIS SONG
LOVER I DONT HAVE TO LOVE
I picked you out
Of a crowd and talked to you.
Said I liked your shoes,
You said, "Thanks, Can I follow you?"

So it's up the stairs,
And out of view. No prying eyes.
I poured some wine.
I asked your name;
You asked the time.

Now it's two o'clock.
The club is closed,
We are up the block.
Your hands are on me,
Pressing hard against your jeans,
Your tongue in my mouth,
Trying to keep the words from coming out,
You didn't care to know
Who else may have been you before.

I want a lover I don't have to love,
I want a girl who's too sad to give a fuck.
Where's the kid with the chemicals?
I thought he said to meet him here,
But I'm not sure.
I've got the money
If you've got the time.
He said, "It feels good."
I said "I'll give it a try."

Then my mind went dark,
We both forgot where your car was parked.
Let's just take the train.
I'll meet up with the band in the morning

Bad actors, with bad habits...
Some sad singers, they just play tragic.
And the phone is ringing,
And the van is leaving
Let's just keep touching,
Let's just keep...keep singing

I want a lover I don't have to love,
I want a boy who's so drunk he doesn't talk.
Where's the kid with the chemicals?
I got a hunger and I can't seem to get full.
I need some meaning I can memorize.
The kind I have always seems to slip my mind.

But you, but you...

You write such pretty words,
But life's no storybook.
Love's an excuse to get hurt.
And to hurt.
Do you like to hurt?
I do, I do.
Then hurt me,
Then hurt me,
Then hurt me

Fripps island, i remember

summmer was...
this.

bonescar

Bonescar.
i want to see my bones.
no really.
sometimes my heart feels so goddman broken.
its getting colder
outside
im a summmerchild
winters are hard
for the birdgirls.
My bones feel strange
they have strings...
strings tied to old things
that dont even exist anymore.
yes my bones are tied to ghosts
like the waking dead.

funeral in july

i almost made the casket drop....
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural


Last year i did a painting called Waiting Ones

alot of people think it is sad

what do youthink?

http://www.shawnaatkinsart.blogspot.com/

i was thinking about this painting

bc i have been dreaming of my great uncle

who died around this time last year.

He left me with books and poems he wrote.

ineIn the dream we was lowering his casket into the ground

with red velvet ropes... but mine got hung up on the wooden roller and got uneven. i almost made the casket DROP. he was heavy

after he died i dreamed him ALOT. the week before he died i had some images of my paintings and a letter to send him

but i never did

it has always felt so unfinished.

i dont believe in the streets of gold

type of reunion

but all our energy, from the stardust we started out as to the petals leaves, air and dirt we become.. the energy...has to reconnect at some time or anotherwether we know it or not..must nt it?

iwas supposed to take some dirt, from the dugdemona river back to his grave.

i never did

anyone want to take a road trip Tehaucana TExas to pour mud on a dead mans grave

so happy!

I am so happy. I did like 4 paintings last night. It felt so good, i had been sooo locked up, creatively, since the Tech thing. As i was working, i was aware of things that needed to be improved, but i could not help but think "i do TOO have skills!!" Some of my paintings, i LOVE them. i think they are beautiful even if i see 2 or 3 spots that need work. And i honeslty do not CARE at all what anyone else in the whole world thinks. Some of them I HATE and see them as a manifestation of everything that is wrong with me. But as i was working, i was just like - i know what im doing. i know exactly what im doing. I experimented with painting with coffee over compressed charcoal. It was fun and different. It made it so hard to come into work today, though, to leave my nest of creative freedom where i can carve new paths out of realitly to the drudge and dull boredom of routine work and fussiness.. At least my boss is awesome, he is a real art person. i cannot complain too much. i will be leaving soon, too, but not soon enouogh....focus on the plan...... focus on the path.....see it crystalize..

buzz brain

so i have been reading more blogs in my downtime at work and (okay when i should prolly be working) adn i have linked to some interesting ones. i dont really know blog protocol - can you just link to whoever you want? do they KNOW you linked to them?! I do more on my myspace (or as my mom says yourspace) blog than on here bc more people see it and i want to discuss all this cultural/science JUNK i find but its like nobody wants to talk about it. People respond more when i do sme bleeding heart bullshit like "i got dissed at TECH". - Which is NICE and i appreciate that adn i appreciate the fact i have found friends through the online community (esp since iwas so techno/internet phobic fer soooolong) but later i alwasy feel like such a loser for having this emotional explosion on the frikin internet. Its hilarious - what blogging and myspace is - this cultural phenomenon... How i blog things i would NEVER say to people who (may) read what i write. It so changes perspectives.... Im late to the internet game, i was late to the email game (Hell i still play cassette tapes) Itis fascinating though - all matrix like. We make these "personas" online, they could be like masks - as true or as foreign to your real self as you want. What if they started interacing online w/out us knowing??. our Online personas that is. Hee hee. So yeah when i freak out and blog sumthing that seems important at the moment and then later im like, "oh yeah...that happened..." i have to resist the urge to delete it. i try not to though. Bc this blog thing this internet thing its liek im participating in some collective experiment. I burn an event into the interweb adn then leave it there...technology is terrifying. cell phones still freak me out. text messaging especially. i can do a painting, photograph it, email it my sister who is 3 states away and she can SEE within minutes what i just painted....12 hours away.....wow. my brain is buzzin

master of fucking arts

I didnt want it to hurt, but it did...



Well my god.


I heard that all of NSU's credit hours for a MA in Art (what i gots) could possibley transfer to Tech for an MFA so i gather up some images and go see the director of the Art Dept in Ruston.


Fuckme.


He looked at my art and proceeded to tell me i was unskilled and that he saw no need for 'romantic ideas'  in the arts. He told me he did not care at all about "process" and then showed me his "true art" - a digital photo on the wall. It was the SIDE OF A HOUSE made of vinyl siding. Wow. In addition to that the director and the other egomaniac, i forget what he was, were terrible rude and condesceding.At one point asked me if i knew what gesture drawing was. Everyone learns that their FRESHMEN year in their FIRST drawing class. I wish i had a video of when i told them i dealt with feminist themes in my art.i never saw two old WASPy yuppie patriarchal assholes stiffen up so...


They bragged alot about thier "facilities"  and money like all good old rich egocentric white men. Yeah the facilites were nice and new but i would rather make art in a garbage dump that in a cold clinical factory that only produces replicas of reality and calls it art wihout adding any bit of creativiy or idividualism or other romantic ideas, uh, such as emotion.


It was alot like going to a hospital.


God it was so much like going to a hospital with a sick soul reflecting a sick world and having a cold white man devoid of any sympathy pick yu apart and tell yu how yu arethe one fucked up.


Something i did not want to be reminded of.


And that shit he siad about process?...? I become something else when i paint  - I am shamaness healing myself...healing the world by feeding it back the truth as i see it now and as i saw it as a child.


and that may sound like an inflated sense of myself but.... my art is the only thing in my life that i ever been sure of ....the only direction that ever felt even 'real' More so than even who i WAS. And used to, i never cared who saw it, or if anyone did. or if it got destryoed after it was made, it was the PROCESS that mattered...those intense moments of creative explosion then it was over forever..like sex and like LIFE & DEATH.


And if that it not what art is for another person, that is fine. I can also appreciate art on a formal level. i dont particulary care for photrealism but i woul never say it was not art. Bc the art world - the whole discussion of art for hundreds of years -includes a hell of alot more than photo fucking realism. So how can the director an art program at a gradschool exclude the 10000s of ideas about making art that have been generated over 100s yeas of human history and just say - realism and technical ability are all that matter. Its one thing to hold yrself to a belief such as this but to hold others...when you are in a power positoin at university..!!.. that decision is NOT for you to make. It is made and remade in journals and universities and studios and galleries and minds all over the world every day. From Outsider art to Impressionism..the best an educater can do is provide as MUCH info and training as possible. NOT disregard as much as possible!!


Anyway...I wll not lie - i was stunned and a little wounded by their cold superiority and obvious distaste for my artwork and beliefs about art (which is a rather popular and often written about idea of art esp in cultural studies- i didnt just make it up!!) I didnt want to be hurt by it, i really didnt. But i was. I was not so much hurt that they did not like my art ( ive had lotsa insults since i started showing work thats okay) I was hurt that those people EXIST in power positions to judge and rule and decide who is worth what. These are the men who build walls of steel and barbed wireto keep dark skinned people either OUT or IN these are the same men who sign treaties and make decisons about women and womens  bodies and about people who dont speak english, the chosen language, ore wear funny hats and have lotsa oil. These men are the ENEMY of individualism and cultural difference. They are the ones who make a nice clean WHITE STERILE box for each person to fit in. a nice narrow box of conformity and they just cut off what every doesn fit.


I, and many of friends, see this return to "realism as the only good form of art" as a byproduct of the conservative administration running the government. It is  happening in more and more schools that i explore. It is like a pulse beating and radiating out. No radical ideas. Only safe, safe with in our big protected regulated borders. The establishment hated the impressionists and the expressionists and all non traditional forms of art. (even though the poor impressionists have been reduced to address book covers in waspy womens purses -  who woulda thought they were once the punks)


And that is what stung the most. I insulate myself with people who would rather celebrate differences, in artistic style or culture, than eradicate them. People who question the establishment.I forget how to deal iwth powerful people who are the polar opposite of  that. So now i appreciate the individuals who make and/or love art a little bit more. I appreciate the people at NSU who encouraged me to express myself freely with paint and to paint like my life depended on it. And i encourage all of you to do the same. Express yourself freely however yu do it as if yr life depended on it. Bc the way this rock is rolling, is probaly does.


 


*and yes i  know that i prolly take my life, my art, and the world around me way


way


too seriously.


andimfinewththat

escape

I found this image on the web. It really summed up a disease.

(although I doubt that's what was meant by it).

Den of the Biting Beaver

This is a link to a blog with an interesting article, Pandora's Box, about "pretty." Pretty is a small box. Skinny is a small box. The post, Pandora's Box, asks a lot of questions about knowing yourself outside of what society pressures you to do and BE. If the Maybelline man made a little box for you to struggle for perfect skin and hips in, then who are you to escape that box?
And if you do get out, what do you feel? Do you feel Power or do you feel Fear? Do you feel critical eyes and judgment from both men and women? (It hurts the most when women criticize you for rattling the bars of your cage, I think) Do you feel Lost? What do you strive for day to day if not to be "pretty." What would you worry about if not the size of your thighs? Where would you direct your energy? The answer to that is huge and scary and liberating.

I would say that the women I know, self included, are at times personally bound by these ideas of beauty and conformity. I would say that our lives, however, are not completely dictated by this industry of female oppression and idea of unachievable mangled beauty ideals. BUT, our lives are our own ONLY because we make a conscious effort for the Patriarchal Beauty machine NOT to control our being. It's like wearing a tinfoil hat to keep out the bad waves - slivers of hips in destroyed jeans, collarbones all shined up. We acknowledge the fact that these images are the ones HONORED in our consumer society, but we know we should be looking for the dirty hands that serve food in soup kitchens or the chalk dust settled on a school teachers skin. These are the images we as individuals try to honor, as we ignore the breast implants and unnatural bleachy-while smiles shoved n our faces with the message " you are not quite good enough" securely attached.

I found that Pandora's Box article, and I will share it with my friends, because I went looking for it. What worries me is the younger girls who are becoming indoctrinated earlier and earlier in the misogynist's cult of beauty/body control. Like the insidious tentacles referred to in the Pandora post, the seed of desire to be one of "those images" can become secretly embedded so early that a girls sense of self grows malformed around it. She won't go poking around on feminist blogs, she won't raise the lid of her box and peer out. The younger girls, who aren't aware of Mr. Media and his ritual rape of the female image, are the ones we have to work for. Maybe seeds of hope, strength, female body acceptance and equality can be planted, also. The world could be a better place if the time and energy that went into tummy tucks, botox and diet pills could be spent on something more beneficial to society, such as the promotion of tolerance and peace and education. And think what could happen if this started early on in life so that it would never seem like a radical idea.

I have mentioned the idea of "pretty" before to men and it is sometimes hard to make them understand how much much more it is than just a word. Most women know what I mean when I say it with emphasis. This idea of prettiness needs to be explored in our personal lives, as pointed out in the Pandora post, and then filtered out into society from within us. There is too much to do in this world, in our short lives, to stay curled up in the beauty box. I say Raise the lid.

a fortune tellin' parrot

Here is one of Joseph Cornell's sculptures. Its a fortune telling parrot. i need one of these.
a fortune telling parrot.
i need my fortune told.
I got a job offer in shreveport.
should i take it? im going to grad school
eventually. i have to find out where
and specifics but...
should i try this first - being a vocational rehab counselor?
would it be too draining, for me to focus on my art at all?
do i want to live in shreveport?
i need a fortune telling parrot.
i am not used to making real life decisions.
I am not so sick anymore.
it feels strange to worry about
moving around in a real world of choices and
locations, reality and human interactions
instead of a sick realm of despair and bone lust.
for so long my interactions were with demons
who only wanted pain or death for me!! now i have moved myself
out of Poisonview, (that subdivision where i resided within a sick mind)
I'm lurching forward w/out a parrot on my shoulder..
or a god in my vision..
i must say, the confusion of a real world decision
is better than the confusion
of wondering what is even real at all.

This is not too say i dont miss my sickness
sometimes
or long for its bony embrace
the death hold
anything grows comfortable
after enough time it seems.
brain can rewire itself
pleasure pain buttons get confused.
OK!focus focus focus
im not even going to think about that place.
Real life advice anyone?

deer

This is the place where i see deer. They are almost always there. I think they are eating berries which is usally the reason i am there. Its really peaceful anc nice. I imagine the deer in the trees watching me as our worlds touch. Its really strange, the way deer make me feel. Like they seem mystical as if i am not supposed to see them. Dreamy Shivers as their soft green hazy animal world brushes against my human conciousness.

Not kingsnakes, but RACERS

i made a doll

flesh and glass

This is a pic of 2 gifts.
one is a tiny porcelian doll, missing her head and other important parts. Randy gave her to me - he found it on a walk. He was in field near an old house site. The house was gone. I wonder how old it is. It is one of my favorite trinkets and i carry it in my purse at all times. I call her "little one" and i wrapped a paper clip and red ribbon around her. Little one is on a brown leather sketchbook that james made for me. James was sweet to make it but i had to mess with him about giving me cow skin since i am on the way to being vegan. I mean, it's real leathery too. i draw in it and have been carryin it around with me too. Two cool gifts...for lucky me!!

elcaminos&snocnes

i love el Caminos andi love sno-cones!! i love swearing. (And more people than i thought read my space blog, so now i feel bad about swearing) if i could eat a snocone while riding in an elcamino and swearing, id be the happiest the grrrl in the wirld. i would be happiness cubed.i saw an el camino while on my lunch break and i was reminded ofthe utter coolness of el caminos. Then i bought beer fer some cinco de mayo celebration that may or may not occur. Then i gessoed 2 canvases - Yay tonight it is ON fer painting!!
**WHAt dO dReAmS MeAn??**************
lAsT nItE i DreAmEd i was in a knife fight. It is a recurring dream theme. i was fighing a scrawny girl (but last time i was fighting a HUGE viking with armor and everththing.) I always have a knife in each hand. i always get cut and the other person does too. Last night i had a serated long (really long) kitchen knife and a shorter thin dagger. i cut that girl in the top of her scalp. It was really, really, really wierd. We were fighting in my grandmas house, how it was when i was little......in the blue room, which was my room. My ex was there. Later i end up on a beach with kylee and amanda

bright angel tear drops

Here is another of my flowers. i think it is called something like angel teardrops.... im not sure. Anyway it has got some killer bright color. I went on my walk today and the little black dog friend was not there. It was about to rain though, so he probably stayed home. Then it did rain a nice soft rain............big plump raindrops.

new dog-friend

Well Here is apic of my new friend. He is hangin out at the boat launch where i walk everyday. I thought he was a stray but maybe he lives around there and just comes to hang out. Anway he went on my whole walk with me and acted like he has known me forever.

Lil Dagover

Lil Dagover. that was her name, the main woman in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
Cesare was awesome. Made me want a coffin box to hang out it in. oh.
i just remembered I HAVE one. i made it. It is still at NSU, though. hmm
Geuss i should get that since i have more room in my house. Living alone is
great until its time to pay bills. :( Last night i watched MirrorMask with Kylee.
It is Dave McKean movie. Also, on my walk yesterday i met a beautiful black dog.He was
so pretty and sweet and friendly -spooky light eyes. He walked with me the whole time. When i first met him he came
running up lke "hey, lets be friends!" i wish i could bring him home...but i cant. I am pretty sure he is stray.
When i go walk today i am going to bring him food. Realistically, i know he will probaly be picked up by
the pound or hit by a car, but i plan to enjoy the time he is at the boat lauch and give him food and love. I actually look forward to seeing him today, i hope he is there. i wonder where he sleeps?