Breaking up with Mr. Zio

Mr. Zio is my heart monitor. We've been close these past two weeks, investigating all of the pings and rattles. Anxiety? Not anxiety? Who knows these days, right? But tomorrow, I peel him off my chest and send him packing in a box. Such wonders modern medicine provides! I'm a little fuzzy about what happens after that, but I'm sure there'll be some sort of report. How are you, dear reader? What's pinging and rattling in your life? I'm obsessed with making collages. No art background. Just pandemic online heart-saving classes. I'm mystified by the glues and finishes. I like my finished work to be smooth. I don't want wrinkles. I don't want shine. But I put together these masterpieces with all kinds of snippets, and some papers like one type of glue with other papers like another.

These two collages seem to me to be about luck. Luck feels like such a mover and a shaker to me these days. I'm planning a party--a missed major milestones party. I've ordered food and cakes (one cake for each of the four big occassions we've missed.) My son and his family are traveling from Phoenix. Hey, Southwest Airlines, I'm imploring you NOT to cancel that flight. Because 38 tacos. Because four cakes. Because I have not seen them for more than two years. I'm just so shocked every time I think or say that. More than two years. For god sake, dear pilots, I've already put the extra boards in the table.

Dear everyone, wishing you luck with your endeavors.

33 Collages....about my divorce

 

I've been over the break-up of my marriage so many times I've lost count. Over means over--until that feeling is over. And then there you are again. In it.

When I found out that the Someone intended to terminate (in fact had terminated) my alimony at the end of 2020, I dropped into feeling it all again. Add in a pandemic, a quarantine, and a recent interest in all things book arts--and here you have it. One collage for every year spent with someone I never really knew. 

These individual collages are not meant to each sum up a particular year, but simply reflect my thoughts and feelings in the moment of making them. 

And  of course, “These are works made of paper. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.”  I might add that life often feels as fragile as paper and seems quite dependent on coincidence.

In a day or two I hope to sign the official paper that says I expect no more alimony. It turns out that the Someone is not only completely retired, he's in ill-health. 

As this final collage of the series reflects, I'm ready to move on.

Light a Candle and Move On

I love coincidences

 Several months ago, pre-election, when I was on a book making binge, I made this.

It's a flip book in the style of the Exquisite Corpse game.

The pages are divided into thirds. Each whole page depicts a person, and when you flip a section of the page,  part of the person can be changed into someone else. Fun and games, and my mind saw a message just in the format. Walk in someone else's shoes. Get inside someone else's head. Feel what's going on in the heart of someone that isn't you. I thought the book needed a few words though so I excerpted several lines of a poem called, "In This Place." Turns out it's a poem by Amanda Gorman. I had no idea, back then, how appropriate that would be.

In other news, I am in this place--my new house in my new study where everything finally has a place and I no longer have to excavate a bin from beneath a bed to find a certain piece of paper.

Here are the other books I made during the book making binge.

And the sturdy deep shelves with room for books and my never ending collection of stuff.

The tiny closet is a wonder. There's room for my handmade paper, my hand-marbled paper, and all the stuff I use for collaging, plus the usual crap one keeps in a filing cabinet. Things like a final decree of divorce, mediation agreements, new divorce advice, tax forms, etc. 

A long while ago, there was this coincidence. Life is so mysterious and interesting. 

I'm just F-ing beside myself. You are too, right?

 

The news, the news, the news. What if we are on a rocket going backwards? Do we want the rocket to safely splash down in the 1950s, say--or do we want it to explode in mid-air? I'm asking. 

I made the mail art card above for a dear loved one. The king lying under the rock in the lower right hand corner might have been too subtle of a choice. 

Last night the wind roared for hours in Minneapolis. I've lived here in this building for 17 months. The wind last night howled like a monster and shook the things on our balconies.

This is what I see from my balcony at night. Like other things I've more or less taken for granted, it too is in the process of disappearing. A new building is going up. Every day, this vista is one day closer to gone.

This is this week's collage. When I can't follow a thought long enough to write, I cut up paper and make things.

Plants, pajamas, pandemic

I was supposed to go to Oaxaca for a painting workshop this month. That didn't happen. But I kinda brought Oaxaca to me by re-inventing my balcony. Plant stand, rug, plants--check. Soon there will be a bench and an umbrella. This quarantine would be so much worse without ordering stuff on the internet.

 

This giant mess happened first though. Right in the middle of my kitchen. Yes, hi, it's me. I have not been kidnapped and replaced by an impostor. This is the first time I've attempted a gardening project without a proper outdoor space to work in. Even in my 400 sq. foot apartment in L.A. I had access to a hose because I was on the first floor. Here, I potted everything on the kitchen island, feeling like there would be a stern knock at the door and I would be arrested.  

So that mess got cleaned up and everything was wiped down and sanitized. Today I decided I would make a new mess...collage because I took a very brief online class last week about inspiration for collage and photomontage, and we are checking back in with our work tomorrow. I made the paper below that I collaged on a few months ago, and also did the letter press on it in the same workshop. Now it's a collage. I was able to use some of my marbled paper as well.

I'm working on a second collage too. It's inspired by a line I read, "You break the secret or the secret breaks you." I was really happy about having the blue door in my collage pile, but now I'm thinking it doesn't belong. Maybe it's all about the tree.
The trees are leafing out here. I've been trying to force myself outside since Sunday, and I haven't made it yet. In fact, it's almost 5 pm, and I'm still in my pajamas. This is a new thing. I've been showering and dressing everyday--wearing favorite earrings and a necklaces like life is normal. But maybe not getting dressed is normal now. How about you? Do you wear your pajamas all day? What are you doing to keep from weeping? Are you making things? Writing?  Baking? Are you feeling healthy?

Collage

I have discovered collage. 

Mostly though, I've been writing, and writing, and writing. 

Stopping the words and reveling in the visual is a relief.

Luckily, I can send these creations out as greeting cards to friends. They can do with them what they will. Space here in my new abode is limited.

Collaging summer scenes might be fun when it's 40 below here. Right now winter fascinates me.

Now that I've made a few collages, I see that the world is a collage. Clouds, cityscapes, the fallen leaves. All of it pasted together by nature, god, and man.