business time

photo i took at last summer's writers' residency.  it was so productive that it tempted me to abandon my principles for the day.

i kind of told myself i wouldn't spend a lot of time on writing business (i.e. grant applications, proposals, etc.) vs. writing, the production of work.

all artists are doing it these days.  you have to be a careerist as well as an artist to "make it" (whatever that means--for my purposes it means getting published, winning awards, getting gigs, jobs, residencies, and readings. usually for tiny amounts of money and recognition.)

and then you realize that "making it" means you don't have as much time as you need to "make it."

got it?

so, last year, i was not "making it" in either sense of the word, but was getting a ph.d  instead.  so in 2014 i decided to stop thinking overly much about my career and to instead think about work.

i don't know if this was a good decision.

today i fell off the wagon and applied for a writer's residency, and if i get it, i might have to reconsider this resolve.  however, i do feel kind of sad and empty and insecure inside now.  i seriously feel really depressed after pushing the "submit" button, not satisfied that i completed something.

and jealous of people who have "made" it,

and questioning my purpose, and choices, etc.

this bad feeling has affirmed my choice to focus away from this business stuff, to choose so carefully how i spend my time.

i have my own projects, my own work space, my own group of local artists and musicians to work with, and that's lucky and good.  here and now.

a residency is a splendid thing.  i've only done one, and i think i got a year's worth of work done in ten days, but getting them takes a lot of time, and they're very competitive, so your chances are slim.

so back to thinking about what i'm gonna do back in my d.i.y. head-space tomorrow.

report::::  today i:

**finished parts 3 and 4 of olson's  call me ishmael (done with that book)

**revised tuesday's poem

**applied to hedgebrook

DIY or DIE

ingrid saying good-bye to her midnight swimming pool.

besides visiting the magical campus of bryn mawr college and seeing my otherworldly honey-girl ingrid graduate from her dream school in a vintage rabbit fur hood handed down over the past 125 years of bryn mawr's history, i came away from my visit to philly with some real inspiration.

you may recall my last post, in which i was floundering, restless & depressed.

well, i'm feeling quite a bit better, due, not in small part, to having a vision of a more radical way of life & doing things.

a must read.  craig dworkin, et al.

i'm committing to a year of DIY.

philadelphia magic gardens

after seeing the philadelphia magic gardens

the bride stripped bare of her bachelors, even (the green box)

marcel duchamp's green box.

the rehearsal space for the arkestra in germantown. 

and the rehearsal house for sun ra's arkestra, where they self-produced their work on saturn records,

i spent the drive from philly back to jfk thinking about how i need to break out of the system of literary journals and contests that is not really meeting my needs as an artist--i'm spending more money than i make on submission fees, more time on applications and submission than on writing, and mostly getting a lukewarm to no reception.  i believe in my work, and do everything i can to make things that are new, not vain repetitions of the past,  that are true to my own visions, impulses, beliefs, and love of the tactile world, but that doesn't seem to be enough for any kind of mass institutional embrace.

no biggie.

i just need to get braver and strike out on my own, where i generally do my best work anyway. 

my new year starts here.

may to may.

no more asking to be admitted. 

tiny pieces of little arts

&  today i wore on my legs:  grey jeans, brown boots with silver snaps all the way up the sides, charcoal knee socks.

looking forward: to a restful moment, a nightgown, reading and writing some poems

& here's an inspiration for today:

c. has talked to me for a long time--at least five years--about wanting to make films.  one night, some weeks ago, he said i wanna make a movie of your hand moving slowly.

it was late.  i was tired.  i think i had just attended a holiday party for work or some such function.

i said. uh-huh.  yeah.  that's cool.

but he didn't drop it.  he got out his ipod and started making a movie that very moment.

so i said bring me the bottom drawer of my jewelery box.

so he dumped out some cheap-ass costume jewelery onto the bed, and, shooting using one cheap-ass light from ikea, made this little film.


it's kinda pretty.  a little bit beautiful every once in a while, i think, with its prepared piano sound-track, performed and recorded by c.

admittedly, i have a huge thing for prepared piano--listen to c's small daily moments with the prepared piano on his piano blog.

and it's a good

& nice reminder that you can make something in a relaxed, even lazy moment, a miniature gesture.

& that's all.  the artist is present for a second. nothing more, nothing less.

for me that's good enough,

& way better than nothing.

here it is: