This was always my original idea for the magazine images I've started collecting, but it's been hard to find exactly what I'm looking for. This being my first, I'm happy with the outcome- a good marriage between image and lyric. It's kind of like those e-cards you see with old-timey people saying slang or subversive things, but also different. You'll see! More to come...

Also, to spice things up a bit, if you like any of these pieces I post with the label artistic calisthenics, be the first to let me know via the comment box with an overly enthusiastic and highly encouraging comment*, and I just might send it to you**!

*or send $$
** some terms and conditions may apply, which I'll make up as I go along.

I'm back from Bonnaroo, and it's official. I want a hula hoop.

I'm wondering if it can be done in the privacy of my one bedroom apartment, just until I get the hang of it. I'll have to move some furniture around I suppose. Or if you hula hoop and want to hula with me, I could be up for that. I'm not ready for public displays of solitary hula just yet.

One day though, I could be that free-spirited looking girl with rock hard abs shaking my hips in the front lawn of my apartment building, looking as if there was not a thing on my mind. And then maybe I can take it on the road. One can always dream.

All this is to say, I did make it back in one piece, and I have many pictures and words to share. Stay tuned.

Animaniacs was pretty smart, and (because I am, too,) I loved it when I was a kid. They could say things that actually meant something, and it was entertaining.

I always think of this song whenever I hear the word pistachio. I also trace my adamant aversion to high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils back to Yakko, Wakko, and Dot. Thanks, you guys.

I made It Don't Come Easy last fall for my show at the Birdhouse in November 2011.

I put a lot of things I had been thinking about in this piece. It references my business endeavors that fall under the moniker With Bear Hands, the 100 (well, 99) mason jar paintings I made last year, and also the inclinations I was having at the time to start making abstract paintings.

I wanted to make a painting about the things I've been working toward, the things I've wanted for so long, all the hours spent in my studio and devoted to art, where I want to go from here. I wanted to talk about how chasing a dream (that you can't even see) can feel terribly unnatural, like domesticating a wild animal. And even when things seem to be shaping up around you, how you still might feel the inclination to run off into the wilderness- naked, with no possessions- and never come back.

But making this painting was really enjoyable, and that's the curious thing about art (or maybe any dream). It can feel like it's going to kill you, and at the same time, the act of doing it can ease all amount of frustration.

***

It Don't Come Easy
acrylic on canvas
2011
36" x 30"
$1500

8 x 10 prints of this painting are for sale here.

I've noticed a trend lately in my life. It has come to my attention that over the past year or so, I've been attracting men who can best be described as Honey Badgers.

In the beginning, I'm attracted to their honest personality. They're the kind of person who will say what's on their mind, and it's refreshing. They might be cynical and slightly judgmental, but, truth be told, they say what I'm probably thinking anyway but would never verbalize, and it makes me laugh.

There comes a point, however, when their demeanor takes a turn, and they say something like this:

I don't care what other people think of me. I say what I want, and if people don't like it, screw them. They can quit hanging out with me if they don't like me.

I'm not lying, about four guys have expressed this exact sentiment to me over the past year or so. The first time I heard someone say it, I thought, "Wow. How cool. I wish I had that kind of confidence." By now, however, the novelty has worn off, and I realize the fine line between honesty and tact.

The last time a guy said this to me was a couple of weeks ago, and his face morphed into a Honey Badger's as he said, "... I don't care anymore. I don't give a shit..."

It was awesome.

So I've been thinking about it a lot lately, asking myself some questions like:

If they don't care what other people think, am I foolish to believe they care what I think?  
How am I attracting these men when I actually do care deeply about what others think? 
Did something happen to them that made them this way?  
Were they born Honey Badgers? 

I like psychoanalyzing people, and men with the Honey Badger Syndrome have proved to be the most intriguing. You know what my research in the field has found? Do you know what they all have in common?

Each had something traumatic happen to them- a heart-wrenching break-up with a girl they were madly in love with, the death of a close family member, abuse.

I'm no psychiatrist, but if I had to put two and two together, I'd say their not giving a shit was all a ruse. Instead of showing grief or sorrow, they decided to become apathetic in order to cope with something they couldn't control- abandonment, love lost, whether romantic or familial. Their "revenge" for what they could not change became not caring.

To prove this theory even further, it makes sense for me personally because I've always been one of those dumb girls who likes to take care of broken men. I've never understood how, but nurturing females will always find the wounded male, and vice versa. It's as if we have a magnetic pull that draws us to one other. It's a catastrophic recipe, but for a time, the Honey Badger finds someone to love him, to take his mind off his hurt. It doesn't take long, however, for him to become restless, to remind himself that he doesn't give a shit, and off he wanders to lick his wounds or find someone else to love him for a little while. 

Whether my theory is correct or not, it's helped me deal with the fact that the Honey Badger can't be mine. I still give a shit for him, I hope the best for him (always), but it's easier to let him go.

Hopefully the next time one saunters across my path, I'll have the gumption to resist him all together, no matter how much watching him tear the head off of a cobra makes me (devilishly) laugh.

This is the second post in the series Single and Ready to Eat Pringles.

I'm sitting in my friend Amelia's den, waiting for her to walk with me to the Public House for a night cap.

Her voice calls out from her bedroom, "Guess what trend I'm bringing back?"

My mind begins sifting through the possibilities, but she enters the room before I can form an educated guess.

She holds up a pair of worn out leather boots. "Timberlands."

"Noooo." I say. "No."

We laugh and she asks, "Will you be embarrassed if I wear these?"

"No... I just don't want them to catch on."

"Oh, it's going to spread like wildfire," she says as she wraps the long laces around the the back of the high top and ties them back in front.

"The ole wrap around... you know what I'm talking about."

I do know what she's talking about.

***

They actually don't look that bad on her, but nothing ever does.










***

If you're curious about the evolution of Timberland fashion, I encourage a little image searching. Very interesting. Below is an example (from this website) Seems like they've stepped up their game.

I've had an art show up in downtown Knoxville this month that I'm taking down next week. It's at Kate Moore Creative and Jennie Andrews Photography studios at 123 South Gay Street. You may still be able to pop in there to see it during normal weekday business hours Monday through Wednesday of next week.

The final product of this show was really surprising to me, as I had a different idea for it, even a week before the opening. Changing my mind right before a show, however, is nothing new. I intended to make simple graphite drawings of buildings, but the idea to make multiple xeroxes of those drawings didn't come until about 4 days before I hung the show.

The originals- graphite drawings

I still didn't know what the outcome would be when I began hanging it. It took me about 7 hours to install, maybe 2 to 3 hours physical and 4-5 hours mental (because I am A} mentally inept or B} a creative genius. The jury's still out on that one)

So I made these small graphite drawings of buildings which was a welcome relief to me. Through them, I fell more deeply in love with this mysterious thing called art, which has all ready cast a spell on me. Graphite on paper is the equivalent to young autumnal* love. I became lost in the simplicity, the honesty, the vulnerability of it.

I drew buildings on the Knox Heritage and East Tennessee Preservation Alliance endangered lists- beautiful dilapidated buildings, schoolhouses, and homes. I wanted to "give them a voice," so to speak, so I put speech bubbles above them.

I decided to leave the originals blank, being satisfied with them visually and conceptually (you can see one of them here), but I also wanted to add text, so I decided to make multiple copies of them at Kinko's.

***

Over the past few years, I've been recuperating from an emotional low that hit me right after college. (I mention it a lot. I apologize if it becomes annoying) It had been building up for years before then, and so it makes sense that it would take years to heal from. In an effort to reclaim a sense of emotional well-being, I have filled journals with thoughts, read numerous books, talked to generous and loving people, and even researched online how to cope with pain, suffering, and stress...

***

I decided to put these two things together- the dilapidated buildings and the research I found online, statements or words people can say to help them cope with pain or suffering. From there, I began looking up quotes from famous people on the subject of pain. I filled in the speech bubbles with these words on the xeroxed pieces.

***

It might be presumptuous of me to assume what a building would say if it could speak, but I soon realized this was more for me than the buildings. Making these was a way for me to cope with the fact that there's nothing I can do to help these buildings. I have no money, no power, but I can draw, that's it.

Also, I hate to even say this as I hope people would realize it on their own, but it's meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Everyone knows it sucks admitting you have a problem with anything, but when you come out of it, (it might take some time, but) you can finally laugh at how desperate you once were. And it's funny because I find the websites on coping to be just as depressing as being depressed (Here is an example). It's all just too much...

So anyway, here is my artist statement and more photos of the show. And thank you, thank you for going to see it if you did. You are the bomb.org.

Of course, there were mason jars ;)

*Autumn love is far more romantic than summer love, at least in my book.