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Language Log

Thursday, May. 20, 2021 - 2:33 p.m.

J’s parents came into town last night, and since they aren’t staying here with us or even coming over, I’ve been pretty relaxed about it all. All the kids seemed very happy to see them, Q and U very excited to talk with them it seemed. I hope they don’t screw it up by being too corrective of U. He’s being very open with them and just wants to be seen and accepted for how he is. Chiding him for how he is will not have good end results.

What I came here to say though was that my ideas were racing by this morning again, and first of all I have to note how painful my imagination is for me. Not because strong emotions crop up, though they do, usually a sense of frustration and failure, but just from the sheer bandwidth and amplitude of stuff happening. Secondly, I feel like the heroine of the Tam Lin story, grabbing an idea and having it morph and shift into things that are hard to hold onto, and only if I can stay holding on do I end up with something to keep. Only it’s not a naked prince, it’s a dumb art idea. I take an exhaustion nap, wake up, contemplate the idea I came away with, and most of the time am like, wait, what? Who would want that? I don’t even want that. Toss it back to the faeries.

I had a realization recently that all my art is still masking of some kind. Other artists talk about it being a way to show the world who you are, but for me, it’s always some kind of mask. I forgive the cyanotype jewelry for that because it’s calculated to be commercially viable. But even the rest. Sigh.

The other thing is, I don’t want to make anything I wouldn’t love to have if I saw it somewhere and someone else made it. I often try to imagine in the third person, since I’m not capable of good ideas myself, I like to imagine a good idea someone else would have that I would love. Then I would steal it. My imagination balls at this though and just says stuff like, “mortise and tenon joints but paper jewelry” or “cardboard but with resin and gold leaf” or “use your old receipts, use ephemera” oh god it’s all terrible, it’s terrible.

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