Stupid graduate school. I'm so frustrated with them right now. I've had classes canceled on me last-minute (REQUIRED classes), had them combined with undergrads to save money (and therefore dumbed-down to an undergraduate level... no offense to undergrads, but there is a big difference in the style, level of intensity, and courseload, not to mention your courses are cheaper than ours, at least at this school, but we're still paying grad prices for an undergrad education!), and now the latest in my saga... I signed up for a class and was billed for it, but I was somehow never added to the course list. What? Doesn't the computer do that automatically? So I missed the first class two days ago because the professor didn't have me on her list, and therefore didn't email me to tell me when the course was starting, and in the end I only found out that I'd missed the class because a classmate of mine was chatting with the professor and was surprised to hear that I hadn't been in attendance.
Siiiiiiiigh. Let me tell you... I'm trying really hard to be professional in a public journal forum... but this school really is a mess. I've never had to work so hard to do so many other people's jobs in my life. Honestly, I shouldn't have to call an office, ask them how to fix something they've messed up, have them reassure me that they'll take care of it... and then have to call back twice more to ensure that it gets done. Isn't that what they get paid for?
In other news...
I've been itching to clean lately. I've been spending so much time cleaning at my & M's new place that I've completely abandoned the house I currently live in... my parents' house. My room and bathroom here are a disaster. I think it pisses my mom off that I've been cleaning at the new place and not here. There's just so much to go through! I was searching for something in my closet the other day-- a guitar pedal to bring to my friend's house-- and I found half of my life from high school in a giant pile. I need to box that stuff up before it all either gets destroyed under the weight of everything else in there, or just thoroughly traumatizes me. High school was heavy stuff! I don't really want to come face-to-face with "REMEMBER HOW MISERABLE YOU WERE?! SUCKED, DIDN'T IT?!" every time I look for a pair of shoes.
I want to paint, too. And I want to buy more artwork! M and I hung a bunch of pictures the past few days. We have such a random collection, almost entirely from his dad... 17th century European sheet music, a Louisiana Jazz Festival poster signed by Dr. John, a YWCA "Our Second Line of Defense" poster from... the 1940s? maybe?, 6 fancy gold-framed wine labels, an autographed Tori Amos CD insert, an autographed Garbage mini-poster, an autographed poster from the movie Dogma, and an Edward Hopper "Nighthawks" print... and that's just two rooms and a hallway. We have a LOT of artwork. I want more of my own, though. I want to buy a few things to personalize it a bit. I love all the stuff we have so far, but it's mostly hand-me-down art from M's dad and then some pieces of M's, and I want to mix in a few things of my own to make it all feel more like ours, you know?
I'm trying to think of what to buy. I definitely want a Mark Ryden print, I know that much. I've loved his work since high school-- I did a study on "The Bunny Butcher" my senior year, and own a book of some of his work (just up through maybe 2002). I'd like some artistic interpretations of the women I referenced in an earlier post... maybe Eve and the Black Mary in particular. But it would be great to find a set of all four done by one artist in a series.
Hmm. Looks like my Christmas list this year is going to be all artwork and educational materials...
Edited to add: Ooh, I definitely want Allegory of the Four Seasons.
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Friday, September 21, 2007
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Muses.
I'm compiling a list of women who are symbolically powerful for me. It took me a long time personally to get comfortable with my womanhood-- for some reason, I didn't think I was "enough" of a woman for a while... not pretty enough, or thin enough, or seductive enough, I don't even know. But now I'm finding myself drawn to these figures that represent, to me, true female power and strength. I'm particularly interested in historical information/speculation on these women and artistic interpretations of their likenesses. So far, they're all Judeo-Christian religious figures. I think anything linking to Christianity has an underlying power in our society, and of course I was brought up Roman Catholic (although I am currently "on the market") so there's a familiarity entwined with a newfound mystery in these figures, for me.
First on the list is the Black Madonna.
I first saw her in a cathedral in Italy at age seventeen. I wasn't entirely prepared to appreciate the fact that I was in Italy and should have probably been, hmm, paying attention to the breathtaking artwork and architecture and history and life of all those buildings and statues and museums, but alas, I was too busy crouching down in the back seat of a rental car listening to KoRn (yes, with a capital R) and eating gelato three times a day. At any rate, I do remember the Black Madonna, because my aunt was so taken with her presence that she teared up (the only time in her life I've ever seen her cry). Then, a few years ago, I read the book The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I know some people who read and disliked the book, but I absolutely loved it. The imagery of the Black Madonna Honey... something about dark wood and honey just sounds breathtaking to me. I'm a very visual person. Of course, though, there was the character herself-- a beacon of strength, hope, and power. She still possesses that mystery that draws people to her.
I found a fascinating passage written about her by a fellow Blogspotter, a Gnostic priest:
The Black Madonna is Dark and calls us to the darkness. Darkness is something we need to get used to again "the Enlightenment" has deceived us into being afraid of the dark and distant from it. Light switches are illusory. They feed the notion that we can "master nature" (Descartes' false promise) and overcome all darkness with a flick of our finger. Meister Eckhart observes that "the ground of the soul is dark." Thus to avoid the darkness is to live superficially, cut off from one's ground, one's depth. The Black Madonna invites us into the dark and therefore into our depths. This is what the mystics call the "inside" of things, the essence of things. This is where Divinity lies. It is where the true self lies. It is where illusions are broken apart and the truth lies. Andrew Harvey puts it this way: "The Black Madonna is the transcendent Kali-Mother, the black womb of light out of which all of the worlds are always arising and into which they fall, the presence behind all things, the darkness of love and the loving unknowing into which the child of the Mother goes when his or her illumination is perfect." She calls us to that darkness which is mystery itself. She encourages us to be at home there, in the presence of deep, black, unsolveable mystery. She is, in Harvey's words, "the blackness of divine mystery, that mystery celebrated by the great Aphophatic mystics, such as Dionysisus Areopagite, who see the divine as forever unknowable, mysterious, beyond all our concepts, hidden from all our senses in a light so dazzling it registers on them as darkness." Eckhart calls God's darkness a "superessential darkness, a mystery behind mystery, a mystery within mystery that no light has penetrated."
Note to self: figure out what Gnosticism is, exactly, especially since it's so very unlike anything Christian I've ever experienced or encountered. Maybe I'll ask the priest.
Edited to add: I believe that section posted above was not written by the blogger, but was quoted from this article by Matthew Fox. My error! I really recommend reading the Fox article, though... it's fascinating.
Anyways.
I have also developed an obsession with artistic depictions of Eve.
This one above is, by far, my favorite out of all the paintings I've seen. It's the only one I know of in which Eve doesn't look evil, manipulative, or weak. I also like that the serpent is included in the imagery, but not directly as a puppeteer; nor is he hovering above her in a position of power.
We all know the story... Adam was a good boy, Eve gave him the apple, Adam was weak and he ate it and they were naked and God was pissed and now childbirth sucks. I'm a big Tori Amos fan, and she put a new spin on Eve that I'd never encountered or even considered before in a number of her songs on her 2005 album The Beekeeper. She describes the album concept really well in this interview:
"Maybe being a mom has pushed me to [speak and write about things in a way that I haven't before], without it being a studied sort of exercise. It changes your place in the tribe and in the structure when you're protecting a young voice, instead of being a young voice. So, maybe realizing that I needed to protect a young voice, I knew it was important. Because those voices won't have an opportunity to speak unless we give them access to certain information and civil liberties. So the beekeeper is really crawling inside and maybe creating another garden for people to walk into. Not just the Garden of Eden, or the Garden of Gethsemane- not the garden of original sin, but the garden of original "sinsuality." God's mother's garden Sophia, who is wisdom, who encourages Tori to eat of the forbidden fruit, from the tree of knowledge- And only then will she be able to see what's truly going on in her own life, much less the outside world.
"... a lot of women have had a hard time with holding the archetype of mother and mistress. In clearer terms- holding the sexual and the sacred. Sacred sexuality, which the honeybee represented in the ancient feminine mysteries. And that's one reason why (the album) is called The Beekeeper, because this is a record holding all aspects of women and trying to pull it together piece by piece- which is a reflection of the book.
"... Women have had to choose, even within the Christian story, either the Mary Magdalene path, or the Mother Mary path. The Mother Mary, as I have said, having been circumcised of her sexuality, and Mary Magdalene being stripped of her spirituality. So women have either gravitated towards an archetype of the sensual woman, or the nurturing mother. And it's been very hard to hold both within the being, because there's been an archetypal division. There hasn't been a place where you have a woman who holds both."
I love the feeling of that whole album-- it's this soundscape that feels like an actual place you can go to, mentally, and sometimes I need to be there. I want to embrace this concept of Eve as a real, rounded woman. Stepping back and really understanding who I am is something I've only just started to do, sadly, now in my mid-20's and I'm starting to love myself this way, so this image of Eve is very powerful for me.
Note I included some thoughts on "the Marys" as well. The Black Madonna is already listed above, but Mary Magdalene is next on the list.
First on the list is the Black Madonna.
I first saw her in a cathedral in Italy at age seventeen. I wasn't entirely prepared to appreciate the fact that I was in Italy and should have probably been, hmm, paying attention to the breathtaking artwork and architecture and history and life of all those buildings and statues and museums, but alas, I was too busy crouching down in the back seat of a rental car listening to KoRn (yes, with a capital R) and eating gelato three times a day. At any rate, I do remember the Black Madonna, because my aunt was so taken with her presence that she teared up (the only time in her life I've ever seen her cry). Then, a few years ago, I read the book The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I know some people who read and disliked the book, but I absolutely loved it. The imagery of the Black Madonna Honey... something about dark wood and honey just sounds breathtaking to me. I'm a very visual person. Of course, though, there was the character herself-- a beacon of strength, hope, and power. She still possesses that mystery that draws people to her.
I found a fascinating passage written about her by a fellow Blogspotter, a Gnostic priest:
The Black Madonna is Dark and calls us to the darkness. Darkness is something we need to get used to again "the Enlightenment" has deceived us into being afraid of the dark and distant from it. Light switches are illusory. They feed the notion that we can "master nature" (Descartes' false promise) and overcome all darkness with a flick of our finger. Meister Eckhart observes that "the ground of the soul is dark." Thus to avoid the darkness is to live superficially, cut off from one's ground, one's depth. The Black Madonna invites us into the dark and therefore into our depths. This is what the mystics call the "inside" of things, the essence of things. This is where Divinity lies. It is where the true self lies. It is where illusions are broken apart and the truth lies. Andrew Harvey puts it this way: "The Black Madonna is the transcendent Kali-Mother, the black womb of light out of which all of the worlds are always arising and into which they fall, the presence behind all things, the darkness of love and the loving unknowing into which the child of the Mother goes when his or her illumination is perfect." She calls us to that darkness which is mystery itself. She encourages us to be at home there, in the presence of deep, black, unsolveable mystery. She is, in Harvey's words, "the blackness of divine mystery, that mystery celebrated by the great Aphophatic mystics, such as Dionysisus Areopagite, who see the divine as forever unknowable, mysterious, beyond all our concepts, hidden from all our senses in a light so dazzling it registers on them as darkness." Eckhart calls God's darkness a "superessential darkness, a mystery behind mystery, a mystery within mystery that no light has penetrated."
Note to self: figure out what Gnosticism is, exactly, especially since it's so very unlike anything Christian I've ever experienced or encountered. Maybe I'll ask the priest.
Edited to add: I believe that section posted above was not written by the blogger, but was quoted from this article by Matthew Fox. My error! I really recommend reading the Fox article, though... it's fascinating.
Anyways.
I have also developed an obsession with artistic depictions of Eve.
This one above is, by far, my favorite out of all the paintings I've seen. It's the only one I know of in which Eve doesn't look evil, manipulative, or weak. I also like that the serpent is included in the imagery, but not directly as a puppeteer; nor is he hovering above her in a position of power.
We all know the story... Adam was a good boy, Eve gave him the apple, Adam was weak and he ate it and they were naked and God was pissed and now childbirth sucks. I'm a big Tori Amos fan, and she put a new spin on Eve that I'd never encountered or even considered before in a number of her songs on her 2005 album The Beekeeper. She describes the album concept really well in this interview:
"Maybe being a mom has pushed me to [speak and write about things in a way that I haven't before], without it being a studied sort of exercise. It changes your place in the tribe and in the structure when you're protecting a young voice, instead of being a young voice. So, maybe realizing that I needed to protect a young voice, I knew it was important. Because those voices won't have an opportunity to speak unless we give them access to certain information and civil liberties. So the beekeeper is really crawling inside and maybe creating another garden for people to walk into. Not just the Garden of Eden, or the Garden of Gethsemane- not the garden of original sin, but the garden of original "sinsuality." God's mother's garden Sophia, who is wisdom, who encourages Tori to eat of the forbidden fruit, from the tree of knowledge- And only then will she be able to see what's truly going on in her own life, much less the outside world.
"... a lot of women have had a hard time with holding the archetype of mother and mistress. In clearer terms- holding the sexual and the sacred. Sacred sexuality, which the honeybee represented in the ancient feminine mysteries. And that's one reason why (the album) is called The Beekeeper, because this is a record holding all aspects of women and trying to pull it together piece by piece- which is a reflection of the book.
"... Women have had to choose, even within the Christian story, either the Mary Magdalene path, or the Mother Mary path. The Mother Mary, as I have said, having been circumcised of her sexuality, and Mary Magdalene being stripped of her spirituality. So women have either gravitated towards an archetype of the sensual woman, or the nurturing mother. And it's been very hard to hold both within the being, because there's been an archetypal division. There hasn't been a place where you have a woman who holds both."
I love the feeling of that whole album-- it's this soundscape that feels like an actual place you can go to, mentally, and sometimes I need to be there. I want to embrace this concept of Eve as a real, rounded woman. Stepping back and really understanding who I am is something I've only just started to do, sadly, now in my mid-20's and I'm starting to love myself this way, so this image of Eve is very powerful for me.
Note I included some thoughts on "the Marys" as well. The Black Madonna is already listed above, but Mary Magdalene is next on the list.
Mary Magdalene is the "whore" of the Bible. We all got to "know" her a little better by watching The Da Vinci code, in which (don't read this if you haven't seen the movie yet and plan to) she is revealed to be the secret wife of Jesus. Now, I imagine it had to be difficult to follow a suspected religious wacko around from town to town spreading the word about his alleged deeds and greatness for anyone, much less a woman back then... so I suppose it's no surprise she got slapped with the hussy label. After all, women weren't supposed to be bold back then! I'm a little irritated that I didn't know until now that there was a Gospel of Mary, a fifth gospel completely left out of the Bible. I feel like I should have been told! Argh. But again, I shouldn't be surprised-- apparently she broke some of the rules in writing it.
I don't know exactly who she was or what she's done. I do know, though, that she must have been someone amazing to have done what she did, and I think there's a lot to know about her that may have just been lost to history. I can't imagine anyone will ever know (or admit) the impact she may have had on early Christianity. That's huge.
And finally... there's Dinah.
Have you read this book? That's all I can say for a description. Read it. You'll get it. Essentially, I feel like she's the first woman to tell "the woman's story," and I think anyone who grew up horrified by some parts of the Old Testament will feel a bit better to "hear" another perspective. I don't even know why it makes me feel better. It makes it more real, at the very least. But I feel so connected to her.
Monday, September 3, 2007
pieces.
I miss art.
I've been packing and unpacking, carrying boxes, cleaning and organizing for the past... well, two months. M moved into his new place, which we're calling "our" new place even though I won't be living there for a year, and it feels like this endless mountain of sheer stuff that needs to be moved around and put into Just The Right Spot. It's become overwhelming. I don't handle long-term stress well; I'd much rather just get it all done at once and have things As They Should Be but between M's stuff (minimal), my stuff (very minimal, at the moment) and M's father's stuff (three houses worth of furniture, artwork, vases, lamps and a metric ton of steak knives, some of which is staying with him downstairs and some of which is coming upstairs to us) and I'm really wondering if we'll ever find places for everything!
I've been so busy, I almost forgot I used to do things like draw, or paint, or write (crappy) song lyrics about how miserable my upperclass white suburban teenage life was (eyeroll), or just playing the piano when no one's home. I started doing that again this summer, when my family was up at the summer house and I could sneak a few minutes back at home before or after work. I really missed the piano.
I need to slow down. My mother's been telling me I'll drive myself crazy with this whole "new house thing." Things have slowed down a bit, now that I've drained most of my finances on cute candle holders and placemats and cloth napkins and curtains. Are there 12-step programs for people who burn themselves out trying to be Martha Stewart?
I started this journal, in part, because I needed to finally carve out a peaceful space for myself in the internets. I've been Livejournaling for so long that it became, for me, a friends network rather than, well, a journal. With all that I've been doing these past few months I've hardly taken a moment to examine the state of my brain. When I do take a few moments to check Livejournal, it's to skim through my friends list to keep up with what about five people are doing, leave quick comments, and move on to something else.
I think I need a bit of space from that need for validation, as well... there are comments here on blogspot, but without that intensive community feeling that places like Livejournal have with the particular type of interface and friends lists and all that, I don't get that "I'm talking to you and you're not listening and commenting and leaving tons of messages!" feeling. This space looks and feels more like a personal website to me, which gives me some breathing room from that "conversation in a crowd" atmosphere. It's quieter here. Erm, e-quiet.
That said... M and I watched Justin Timberlake's HBO Concert Special tonight. M was so sweet; he set it to record so when I showed up at his/our place and realized I'd missed a big chunk of it I could still go back and watch it. Then he set "The Pick-Up Artist" to record for me in-- well, 6 minutes-- because I missed it while watching "The L Word" upstairs. (New favorite DVD, by the way. I'm hooked!)
Anyways, Justin... he did a little Tori Amos thing at the piano with the vocal & piano improv'ed intro to some song of his I don't know, and I thought it was awesome. I love that Justin Timberlake is not at all facially attractive (hey, just my opinion) but he does the "I wear hot suits" and "I can dance" and "I have a cool, intense-yet-laid-back attitude" thing and it totally makes him hot. Guys can get away with just charisma... what a double-standard. Boo!
Ack, it's late. I have to be up early tomorrow... I want to get back to M's place while the rug guys are still there, and then I'm picking my dog up at his doctor's appointment. I wonder exactly how many pounds overweight the little guy is this time, now that we're home from the beach and he's not running around as much...
I've been packing and unpacking, carrying boxes, cleaning and organizing for the past... well, two months. M moved into his new place, which we're calling "our" new place even though I won't be living there for a year, and it feels like this endless mountain of sheer stuff that needs to be moved around and put into Just The Right Spot. It's become overwhelming. I don't handle long-term stress well; I'd much rather just get it all done at once and have things As They Should Be but between M's stuff (minimal), my stuff (very minimal, at the moment) and M's father's stuff (three houses worth of furniture, artwork, vases, lamps and a metric ton of steak knives, some of which is staying with him downstairs and some of which is coming upstairs to us) and I'm really wondering if we'll ever find places for everything!
I've been so busy, I almost forgot I used to do things like draw, or paint, or write (crappy) song lyrics about how miserable my upperclass white suburban teenage life was (eyeroll), or just playing the piano when no one's home. I started doing that again this summer, when my family was up at the summer house and I could sneak a few minutes back at home before or after work. I really missed the piano.
I need to slow down. My mother's been telling me I'll drive myself crazy with this whole "new house thing." Things have slowed down a bit, now that I've drained most of my finances on cute candle holders and placemats and cloth napkins and curtains. Are there 12-step programs for people who burn themselves out trying to be Martha Stewart?
I started this journal, in part, because I needed to finally carve out a peaceful space for myself in the internets. I've been Livejournaling for so long that it became, for me, a friends network rather than, well, a journal. With all that I've been doing these past few months I've hardly taken a moment to examine the state of my brain. When I do take a few moments to check Livejournal, it's to skim through my friends list to keep up with what about five people are doing, leave quick comments, and move on to something else.
I think I need a bit of space from that need for validation, as well... there are comments here on blogspot, but without that intensive community feeling that places like Livejournal have with the particular type of interface and friends lists and all that, I don't get that "I'm talking to you and you're not listening and commenting and leaving tons of messages!" feeling. This space looks and feels more like a personal website to me, which gives me some breathing room from that "conversation in a crowd" atmosphere. It's quieter here. Erm, e-quiet.
That said... M and I watched Justin Timberlake's HBO Concert Special tonight. M was so sweet; he set it to record so when I showed up at his/our place and realized I'd missed a big chunk of it I could still go back and watch it. Then he set "The Pick-Up Artist" to record for me in-- well, 6 minutes-- because I missed it while watching "The L Word" upstairs. (New favorite DVD, by the way. I'm hooked!)
Anyways, Justin... he did a little Tori Amos thing at the piano with the vocal & piano improv'ed intro to some song of his I don't know, and I thought it was awesome. I love that Justin Timberlake is not at all facially attractive (hey, just my opinion) but he does the "I wear hot suits" and "I can dance" and "I have a cool, intense-yet-laid-back attitude" thing and it totally makes him hot. Guys can get away with just charisma... what a double-standard. Boo!
Ack, it's late. I have to be up early tomorrow... I want to get back to M's place while the rug guys are still there, and then I'm picking my dog up at his doctor's appointment. I wonder exactly how many pounds overweight the little guy is this time, now that we're home from the beach and he's not running around as much...
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