Evidence

I went to see a movie recently that really wasn't very good but there was a monologue performed by Julianne Moore that was really truthful about relationships i think. So i scoured the internet to share it with you, here is some evidence that film can be very truthful:

JULES: "Its no secret, your mom and I are in hell right now and the bottom line is marriage is hard. It's really fuckin' hard. It's just two people slogging through the shit, year after year, getting older, changing -- its a fucking marathon, okay? So sometimes, you know, you're together so long you stop seeing the other person, you just see weird projections of your own junk. Instead of talking to each other, you go off the rails, and act grubby, and make stupid choices, which is what I did. And I feel sick about it because I love you guys, and your mom, and that's the truth. And sometimes you hurt the ones you love the most, and I don't know why. You know, if I read more Russian novels... Anyway... I just wanted to say how sorry I am for what I did. I hope you'll forgive me eventually. Thank you."

I cant seem to get the lyrics of Janelle Monae's song "cold war" out of my head, its so painful and yet so comforting at the same time. Its one of those songs that is fantastic because it makes you feel so much all at once. I identify with it so many levels and am also excited by the music. It a bunch of happiness and sadness wound up into a great tune. Also the video is particularly awesome if you get a chance to watch it. Evidence that artists are still kickin'lyrical ass:

So you think I'm alone?
But being alone's the only way to be
When you step outside
You spend life fighting for your sanity

This is a cold war
You better know what you're fighting for
This is a cold war
Do you know what you're fighting for?

If you wanna be free?
Below the ground's the only place to be
Cause in this life
You spend time running from depravity

I'm trying to find my peace
I was made to believe there's something wrong with me
And it hurts my heart
Lord have mercy, ain't it plain to see?

I recently learned to use imovie, well, i recently tinkered around with imovie...this is my first humble attempt to make something that resembles art with it, so go easy on me. Its a compilation of places, people, and things that i have encountered in my life in the past few years that have given me a lot of joy, and made up my life. Most of these videos are taken with my blackberry and are mostly sentimental, or are clips from my video logs from china. My only regret is that i did not video more of it as it were happening. Its a bit of a manifestation of something i have learned in my early adulthood: that nothing really means much unless someone is there to share it with, and that home is the people you love. Evidence that i have lived:

art ethics.

Here’s something I haven’t talked about in a while if only due to distraction. After my yearlong hiatus from all things seriously photographic I’m getting the itch again. I remembering how much I love painting because it is so physical and ancient, and im experiencing a bit of trepidation about this new venture in the world o’ art that begins come October. I know I want to try but I’m not exactly sure how its all really panning out with me. The more I think on it, the more important it seems that I should continue to evaluate the way I feel about digital art and art in general as a means to an end. I just don’t want to find myself two years from now up in a dark room posterising a pill bottle in photoshop and using font to convey things like "betchya cant eat just one"

What I would really love to do is book covers, or magazines. I think this has come up because it has occurred to me that I’m getting in to the business of coercing people, which prompts me to think… is all beauty coercion?

Is all allure inherently trickery? Can we not avoid persuasion at the taste and smell of something exquisite? We think and feel and eat with our eyes primarily, and so, i have to try to navigate the ethics of this new thing that will possibly become my life.

You have to get past a lot of tape before you really start to become prolific and my website is a bunch of old shit by now. Well not shit, but old, at least in terms of what im capable of i think. So i suppose im a little concerned that i will, as i and so many others inevitably do, begin to hate craft out of frustration and burn out. It is here that I assume I will glance back at Colorado and say “if only i had chosen you.” But I guess the grass I always greener.

So if I’m to remain on the up and away from the trickery of modern advertising, I need to ask myself a few questions. What am I doing this for? How does this make the world a better place? Does this help only rich people and coerce only consumers? Or is it some kind of beacon for people who love things to be beautiful. Is it its own art form, or just a perversion of a few? I am now trying to count all of the times in my life that an ad has helped me in some way... cricket cricket.

Well I do have to say that have always appreciated a beautiful cover to a good book, or a fantastic layout in a magazine, or a good deepened cover photo, or a flawless piece of packing, namely bottles, specifically liquor and wine bottles....GASP...they’re so pretty. Okay, so there is some redemption to this I think, it’s just kind of under the radar.

right?

I mean there is something to living in and around and using art. Even just being in Morgan’s parent's respective houses the other day (I wish I had photographed more but I only got the one photo) was like this fantastic...thing? An art museum really...I mean, they ARE just things, but it makes you feel a certain way to live in and through and around art. Its like the reason that people play fantastic music in the backdrop, and the reason...if they’re fuckin’ lucky, have a Rauchembourg or two hanging on the back wall. It just and experience to live with art, its the same way its an experience to live with a person, or with an instrument. Its does something to your cognition and makes life generally more enjoyable if not just different. The more you live with a painting, the more it means to you, you start to attach memories and feelings to it and it evolves overtime as you look at it. Until one day, its just...part of your life. The space you live in is not the evidence of your life, but rather the skeleton that your life fleshes out. It sort of makes me feel like a hermit crab. A stylish hermit crab.

Its hard not having anything that is ever really certain sometimes, there are things that are certain for the era, and when the times are changin’ way too fast and you feel disoriented it can be exhilarating and it can be discombobulating. Its also exhausting constantly debating yourself, I suppose what I would like to give myself the permission of doing is to say that there is nothing wrong with taking a step back from self evaluation and self searching and change and constant upheaval and just stand there for a minute in your own happiness. It sometimes healthy to challenge and to let go of your stagnancy, and it sometimes healthy to stand still in your happiness. Be still and know that i’m content in this current phase, and i don’t wish to be disturbed for the moment. There is some sort of power in saying, “This is true right now.” Its true that I love you right now, and its true that the peach I ate this morning was sweet, and its true that all of the things I currently believe and feel are good and okay for now. And there is not shame in telling the guy next to you who is debating your every feeling and inclination to just shove it. You don’t always have to be something for everyone, and you don’t always have to question everything. Some things are better left untouched, while others thrive when moved. For now, I’m feeling good where I am, and im just gonna take a breath. I sometimes and lately have been afraid of the person im becoming. Perhaps it is here that change is a bit rapid and often for the moment. There’s nothing wrong with taking 5. Everyone needs a break.

Art and design are very ephemeral. It’s very hard to explain why and what art does, I don’t think anybody really knows why they do it, except that they just have to. It somehow salvages life for me in a way that I cant very accurately explain. And for this reason, I believe that art is a type of faith. Something that appears to you that you trust to do what it always has. And although it lets you down, quite often more than not, it keeps living and it keeps coming back. It is also very hard to say what art even is! I think, we identify with art in this way: because we alike art are not sure of what we are but endure in the absence of certainty. Though painful, we keep changing. A whole mess of success and failure that really has no rhyme or reason that can be attached to it, and yet it is this great romance that leads us on in a very Sisyphean way. The great sorrow and the great joy of life, is finding out why the fuck we do anything that we do at all. What is the what? What is the question? What's it to you, and what’s it to me? Maybe this is why we keep calling it up for coffee. It has no basis, no concrete definition, no practical implications as far as survivalists can prove, constantly evolving, does not have a specific or even sometimes reasonable way of being reached, and doesn't even always show up when it says it will. Furthermore, offers no guarantee of giving you anything in return necessarily. Art is a big fuckin’ flake.

I suppose the nirvana of this task is finding the "sweet spot" where you can create with the acceptance that what you toil over may be meaningless, with the iron clad hope that it is not. Maybe its worth it or not, but its definitely rewarding. Inherently accessible to all who posses a pulse, art is the peoples science, it is for everyone and by everyone alive, but sanctioned as the quiet obsession of an elite few.

a site that is so much fun its almost as much of a time suck as facebook:

http://www.sweet-station.com/blog/

the unframed awesome watercolor/crayon drawing in mo's room at her dad's house:

Yea, you.

The great joy and sadness of life is that everything changes. For the better, for worse, but all sand: fluid, amorphous. I can't figure out why this is scary. I suppose because it suggests that you will lose everything and everyone you love, and rather lightly proposes the idea of adventure and renewal.
The most important thing to me as far as i have observed it is relationship. As much as the person terrifies me, the person sustains me. My friends are my family, as much as i keep running away from them. Im sometimes not sure you all realize how important you are to me, how deeply i feel for all of you. In fact, i maybe seem flippant and hyper independent, but i can only sustain because i have depended on you first. I can only hope that the love i feel for each of you is even slightly mutual.
My life does not fit in a template, and it does not scroll as if linear. Its just there. evolving, changing, being.
When i look at the type of love that exists in Mo's family, the type of honestly and comfort that inst overbearing and isnt perfect, i feel very hopeful. You have always and do believe in me. You have accepted and pushed me. And that has meant more to me than i can ever express.

When i look at you, and you, and you, and all of you I feel nothing but gratitude in the strongest of terms.
I feel that i know who i am in a very comforting way when I'm around you.

I get myself knocked around now and again, it doesnt mean its my fault, it doesn't mean I'm stupid or a failure, and it definitely doesn't mean im going to hell or have lost my way or something. This is my way. Im happy here, with you. If i have nothing else in my life, if i don't live past today, if I never make a dime, my life will have been great because you have all meant something very strong and very fulfilling to me.

" this is who you are now jessy, and one experience cannot undo who you are, how is that even possible?"

"you are okay and its not your fault"

"I will help you"

"You are talented"

"i forgive you"

"i accept you"

"i love you"

"you are my edie"

"i miss you"

"you're ace"

"be careful"

"there are no mistakes, only research"

I prefer to remember all of the good things you guys give me. And its out of control. Its fantastic to feel so much empathy for all of you. Take this little piece of my heart, and anything that i have, consider this my offering you guys. If you need me, day or night, rain or shine, good terms and bad, im a call away, im a bike ride away, im a skype away, im on the next plane. You are my heart. If youre questioning weather or not im talking to you, I am. Yea, you.

Im a little shaken up lately.

Life is good in general.

-j

New Season's Resolutions

I know its a bit late for a new years resolution but Ive never really measured my year beginning January first, and if you ask me you should revolve your year the most important thing to you. To me that is summer, and with today being the worst day of the year, August first, the beginning of the end, the last first of summer, and with my life taking so many changes as of late, Im making the executive decision to list some new season's resolutions. With that said:

This season I plan to...

Give more. Its easy to get caught up in caring only about yourself, this season i plan to give much more of my time, money, and energy to other people (while still taking care of myself)

Sing more and make it permanent. I want my life to be more concretely musical, i saw a posting for a free piano on craigslist today, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship i hope.

Work harder, procrastinate less. Lets face it, I spend way too much time stumbling, phoning, and facebooking. Im gonna kickstart.

Invest more, spend less. Buy only what i need, very little frivolous spending this season.

Im going to try this thing that ive recently heard of that makes a lot of sense that i probably already do mostly but havent been conscious of it. I dont want to eat any foods that have more than 5-8 ingredients listed on the label. Also im gonna cut back on chemicals, that means, natural shampoos and lotions and no make up a couple days a week. If i wont put it in my body then i wont put it on it.

Ignore my current cynicism, more.

check the mirror less.

Make a more conscious effort to fix my posture.

Less cardio, more strength training. (this is the hardest one)

Karaoke, more.

sincerely,

-me