Twitter Art Exhibit: Orlando

I tweet.

A lot.

A lot a lot.

Okay, I don't tweet nearly as much as some, but definitely more than others. I read my tweet stream often; that's where I learn about (at least initially) a lot of the themes that show up in my work. It is also where I learned about the #TwitterArtExhibit. This year--the show's fourth--is in Orlando, Florida, and the sales of the postcard sized works entered will benefit the Special Needs Dance Programs of the Center for Contemporary Dance.

I think I first learned of this last year. I remember enquiring about the deadline, and (almost as promptly) letting it pass by. I don't know why making such a small work was met in my mind with so much resistance, but it was. This year, I had been seeing quite a few Orlando-bound works in my Twitter feed, but it wasn't until very recently that I sat down and started to sketch something out.

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"I stay 'woke." 

The above is a slang phrase used sometimes, when someone wishes to let others know that they are always paying attention, guarded, observant, vigilant, with a response at the ready.  Someone that "stays 'woke" has their own ideas and opinions about everything they see and never blindly accepts the narrative given by those in authority. They aren't hesitant to make those opinions known to all who might listen. If I had to guess the origin of the phrase I would pin it to the final scenes of the 1988 Spike Lee film "School Daze":



Quite a few of the film's characters were literally waking up as they gathered outside in pajamas and nightgowns around Dap (Laurence Fishburne) as he yelled and rang a shrill, piercing bell. Dap wanted his peers to be aware and take notice of all that was going on around them, both in the world at large and the microcosm of that world in which the film was set, a HBCU (Historically Black College/University) campus in the late 1980s. The film ends as Fishburne gazes directly at the camera and says in a quieter, slightly pleading voice directly to the viewer, "Please. Wake up."

"Please. Wake up."

And so she is. Facing the viewer but not seeing them, she stretches, rubbing sleep from her eyes. It is morning, because she dared to see.

Morning (When I Dared to See)
gouache and graphite on paper
4"x6"

Disconnect (Letting Go is Flying)

Disconnect (Letting Go is Flying)
©07/2011
12"x18"
mixed media on paper
This piece is available for purchase.

There is such a thing as too much self-awareness.

This piece came from a repetitive theme in some of my journal entries: a feeling of disconnect between my physical body and my emotions or between myself and other people. It wasn't even something I recognized as such until I heard the song Private Party by India.Arie.

"I'm gonna take off all my clothes
Look at myself in the mirror
We're gonna have a conversation
We're gonna heal the disconnection
I don't remember when it started
But this is where it's gonna end
My body is beautiful and sacred
And I'm gonna celebrate it"

In dreams, a very clear picture of myself emerged. I was light and airy, floating like a balloon, my disconnection from my physical self never more obvious. It was my way of separating the parts of myself that I believed were valuable and worthy from those parts that made me frustrated, angry, that I hurt and that hurt other people.

"All my life (all my life)
I've been looking for (I've been looking for)
Somebody else
To make me whole
But I had to learn the hard way
True love begins with me
This is not ego or vanity
I'm just celebrating me"

No matter where and how far I run, I will still be there...and that's okay.

Jasmine Dreams

Jasmine Dreams

5"x5"

gouache on paper

I don't often make things for swaps. I get attached, and I don't want to send them anymore, so I don't offer. This little painting, though I am a wee bit attached, will soon go where it was intended to. It is not often that I spend the majority of the time working on a painting talking to its recipient...whose name, not coincidentally, is Jasmine.