Your Voice, or, To The Bone - A History, An Explanation, A Process, A Poem in Progress

It's been a really, really, really long time since I sat down and wrote anything creatively.

Since October, roughly.

Initially I was invigorated by the success of the Call and Response show at the Canvas. I was immensely proud of the show, and especially proud of what I was capable of when I forced myself to work. Immediately, all these ideas for projects I had over the years percolated back up to the surface, no longer seeming like impossible dreams. New ideas and avenues sprung up before me.

But first, I needed a little break.

Although we had started working on the project during the early summer, I didn't really start producing work in bulk until August or September, and then I was frantically working at every possible moment. I don't know why, but my juices never seem to flow until the gun barrel is nestled comfortably, expectantly against my temple. We were literally still hanging portions of the show up until the 4 pm opening on First Friday. So after that last-minute-break-neck flurry of work, I felt I deserved a bit of break. And then I would push on.

That break ran about 6 months. The further I got from the show, the harder writing seemed to be. I'm not sure who said it, but I am sure I have been told many times that writing is like a muscle - to have it working properly and working as hard as it can, you have to exercise it. Instead of regularly jogging around the block, my writing muscle decided to flop on the couch, flip on HBO, and plow its way through Haagen-Dazs and Doritos.

Now I am trying to get back into the swing of things, and just like exercising, the first laps are the roughest. But at least I am back out on the track.

Donna and I have been talking about doing a second installment of Call and Response, so that's where my writing head has been at lately. I've been thinking about the pieces that we did before, and specifically the ones where I love the concept behind the piece, but feel like my writing didn't hit where I wanted it to hit. I'm going back and retooling these near misses, trying to get them into the shape that I wanted them to be the first time. I don't know if they will be incorporated into the next show, but if nothing else the retooling will at least satisfy my inner critic.

The one I come back to the most was called "The Singer" in the Call and Response show. This one was - and is - very tricky for me to get just right.

Those that know me well know that I have Strong Feelings About Music, and this piece is an ode to all my favorite singers - Billie Holiday, Thom Yorke, Bjork, Tom Waits, Joanna Newsom, Jonsi Birgisson, Amanda Palmer, Devendra Banhart... I could go on for quite a while.

Some of these singers are well respected for their voice, while others of them are usually written off. You could make a case against almost any one of these individuals for not being a technically good singer, and you would be right. Some of them have a limited range or no range at all, some can't stay in key ... all of this is true, but I don't really care.

What matters most for me is passion and believability. If they can bring those two assets to the table, I'm sold. I don't know how everyone else sees it, but I don't see passion as just belting out every note. A seductive whisper or a playful, bouncing line can have just as much passion as a soaring high note or a desperate howl, if it's in the hands of what I would call a gifted singer. Give me Jeff Mangum - or Amanda Palmer for that matter - belting out "Two Headed Boy" with every ounce of guts and conviction they have over a pitch perfect American Idol any day.

So with all that said, it's been very hard for me to capture that sentiment, that feeling that they all stir in me, in a creative way that I am satisfied with. Here's how the effort turned out for Call and Response:

"His voice is the sound of raw nerves, burning and exposed in the open air. I can taste his feeling, can feel the grit of his song in my teeth."

It felt like a good seed, and it worked well enough for the show, but I didn't feel like I was done with it yet. For one, it excluded all the female singers that move me, by virtue of personal pronouns used. So I started brooding on it, flipping it over and over again, trying to think of what I was going to do with it, but mostly ignoring it during my long vacation from writing.

I finally started to do some real work on it today:

The pictures above were taking with my phone, so you'll have to bear with the quality. No one ever gets to see my works in progress like this, either, which makes you Very Special, just like your mother always said.

Anyhow.

The first thing I did was cut out the masculine personal pronouns, and just started scribbling gibberish that came to mind when I was thinking of particular singers, or their voice in particular songs. Then I started cutting out bits that didn't roll right, or scratched again and again till I found a word that fit. I questioned one section's existence, circled one I felt was important but that I was unsure of how to incorporate. Then I started numbering them in the order that I thought they should run.


The following is what I have come up with so far. The title is now probably "Your Voice" or "To The Bone"

_ _ _

Your voice skips
through puddles, through fields
chirping, unashamed
bursting with innocent power.

Your voice swims around me
like silky smoke
steamy, seductive,
teasing towards release.

Your voice is a knife
slipping effortlessly
through skin,
through flesh,
through nerves,
through blood,
to the heart, to the bone.

I can taste the grit of your song in my teeth.

_ _ _

It still feels like a good start, and it still doesn't feel 100% done. I really like the "raw, exposed nerve" part from the previous draft and today's note, but I haven't figured a way to work it in yet that feels right. And I am not sure about the last line, either. I am inching closer, though.

Of Obsolescence

Over the last couple of months I have rediscovered my love of analogue cameras, thanks to Lomography. Long story short, they are company built on their love and production of lo-fi plastic lens analogue cameras in the style of those found in the Soviet Union a couple decades ago. The above photos were taking with my Lomography Colorsplash 35mm with Fujifilm 400 speed color negative film. The flash has a wheel built into it that can hold several different color gels, so you can tinge your photos with green, blue, orange, red, etc. You can see more of my Colorsplash experiments over here.

I recently picked up a Lomography Holga that also has a colorsplash flash. I haven't developed the first batch of black and white film I shot yet, but it is my new favorite toy, and it is ridiculously lo-fi. It's essentially a box with a flash and lens. Advancing the film depends entirely on me paying attention to the dots and numbers coming up in the view pane - no automatic safety stops when the next frame is loaded. Its technically a 120mm camera, but you can make all sorts of temporary modifications to the Holga to make it photograph on smaller sized film. I have gone into a gleeful little frenzy over my lo-fi toys, stocking up on color slide, red scale, and black and white film to play with over the coming weeks and months.

I have been really bored with photography for a long time, mostly due to the prevalence of the digital camera. Sure, digital is way more convenient and you can do some things you can never do with an analogue camera. But digitals can also take a lot of the fun out of photography by doing a the work for you. I enjoy the process of loading in the film, the possibility of light leaks, of never knowing what you're going to get until the film is developed. It forces you to commit to the moment, acknowledge the possibility of mistakes and pray for happy accidents.

Lomography ups the ante for me by allowing the user to do a lot of the manipulation of the image in the camera and the development process itself - colored flashes, multiple exposures, building panoramic shots blind by counting the clicks of the advance wheel, cross processing film in the "wrong" chemicals, and using many different forms of filters, splitters, and lens. I am in love with the lo-fi look of the shots, the over-saturation of color that seems to come out of almost every camera they produce. These pictures pop with life and character. Lomography has gotten me excited about photography again. As they say, the future is analogue.

Great Success

With some last minute scrambling, the First Friday opening of Call and Response went much better than I had expected. The Canvas was packed from the 4:30 opening until the 7:30 change over to the live show from local band One Aisle Over. Many great conversations with local artists, writers, and art appreciators were had, and many of the piece sold and have continued to sell at a steady clip. We even had the last minute addition of a live guitarist for background music, who offered their services the day before the show opened. I didn't catch his name, though...

It was great fun and a great encouragement to have such a wonderful response to my first real airing of my work in public. I immediately began to brew all sorts of other plans for shows and projects to produce, now that I have successfully gotten myself over the first big bump in the road.

Pictures will come soon, I promise. In all the excitement and sleep deprivation, I failed to bring my camera to capture shots of the visitors, or an close ups of the show. Donna grabbed a few on the Canvas' camera, but we have just not retrieved them yet.

Right. Now to get cracking on new projects! Things to watch out for: short story collection by yours truly, and some hand made graphic short stories, both of which (hopefully) will be available for sale at the Public Market during Thanksgiving weekend. I am splitting a booth with Donna, Misty, Josh, and Olga, all makers of fine and various bits of wonder. Donna and I are also discussing doing a assemblage/collage show sometime next year.

Right. Quit distracting me.

Rough Drafts for October Exhibit

Below are some rough drafts of my contributions to the October show Donna and I are doing at the Canvas. We decided to a back and forth exchange, where I would write some really short stories/images/poems/etc. and she would then illustrate them, and she would produce drawings that I would then write about. Most of these are new, except Currents, which is an excerpt from Dancers. I'll probably put some more of these up as I amass ones that I like, and you can expect a big update with photos and such when the show goes up in October.

Snowbirds

The Snowbirds are perhaps one of the more peculiar of migratory species. Though they persevere through much of their adolescent phase, it is often not until the middle to elderly phase of their lifespan that are able to sustain prolonged flight from the colder regions to warmer climes. Perhaps even more peculiar than this delayed migratory phase, is the complete lack of vital necessity to their travels. Perfectly capable of forging for sustenance and shelter in the cold winter months, and often long past their reproductive stage, they never the less expend vast sums of their resources in order to spend a few months in warmer weather.

Bonfire

The air is sweet with wood smoke and filled with the pops of burning pine and chatter of the scattered circle of friends sipping from plastic cups. Someone strums their guitar to the steady beat of the waves on the beach.

Folk Fest

Drinks and drinkers slosh through the packed bar, feet stamp out a frenzied joy on the crowded dancefloor, as the bluegrass band churns through chorus after verse after chorus. The air is hot and humid and celebratory, stark contrast to the cold drizzly April night outside.

Cabin Fever

Symptoms may include: dizziness, claustrophobia, sense of purposelessness, drowsiness, insomnia, acts/states of dementia, listlessness, aggressive mood swings, poor choice making. Treatment: Certain pharmaceuticals are available both over the counter and by prescription to relieve or suppress symptoms. The disease seems to go into remission upon the patients’ removal from the outbreak location, but tends to flair up again shortly after their return. There is no known cure for this disease.

One More for the Road

The night is cold again, but the warm hands of whiskey pushes you forward. The fine icy rain cuts through your thin jacket, but the lacy fingers of cigarette smoke beckon you on. You tip in and out of the bars along the main street, trying to find that last one for the road. And the warm hands of whiskey pushes you forward, and the lacey fingers of cigarette smoke beckon you on.

Currents

They swirled and spun alone before the band, ease and muscle memory stepping into their places. Communication broke down to the pressure of eyes and the trailing of hands on flesh; messages were tapped out across the telegraph wires of skin. Bodies became waves, steps and spins became thoughtlessly dynamic; they rode their own currents.

No Dreams

No Dreams

Last night
I had no dreams.
No fine figment fingers
Followed my spine,
Only pillow-soft embraces.
No Dali escapades,
No fevered Bosch inventions
Punctured my blank black sleep.

Entry #3: Small Sacrifices

Here's a rough draft of a poem that I have been working on. I got the idea after I sliced the tip of my thumb off while fixing potatoes, and called it a sacrifice for breakfast. This is the only bit that I am satisfied with so far -


Small Sacrifices

A small boy
stood up on a
bench in the park
and toppled down
face first in the path
the pebbles splitting
the forehead, opening
the third eye, anointing
the sidewalk with blood.
Since my infancy, I have spread
small sacrifices across the surfaces of the world.

But is it Art? #2.1 He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss) - final sketches and finished piece

Here's the last few sketches for the newsprint man and woman, and the final and framed piece. The show goes up tomorrow at the Silverbow.