foreshadowing

Italian art jovialist, perhaps?
This will surely be a future look...just need some Mediterranean sun on the regular.
Amen, to the leopard flats.
For more FAB street fashion, go to the The Sartorialist.
delicious.

SIR: style.identity.reduxxx.

You can call me Sir.

I am realizing how much character informs my own personal style-- rather than aesthetic. Or therefore, my aesthetic is readily informed by intention. I WANT to provoke a specific thought by the way that I dress. Then you can attach more opinion when engaging my swagger, and therefore my outfit is formed. I wonder if this is the way I create, the way I work....of course, of course.

images, images...

Recently, a coworker (Patricia!) and I simultaneously came to the conclusion that my style is counterintuitive. Over the past two years, I have transgressed, progressed, and assessed my ensemble evolution. I have moved from "urban ballerina" wearing skin tight jeans and varying leo/uni-tards with hi-tops, bucks and chucks...while toting newspapers and slinging lattes for about a year; to "expat dancing detective" when I ran away from home for half of 2009-- living out of suitcases in Europe and the L.E.S. and crashing in the apartments of eclectic strangers. Wardrobe must be mobile on multiple levels--oversized trenchcoats, dark tights, and layered sweaters as coat substitutes. And now, my silhouette portrays "international dance teacher"-- rooted in one spot but certainly living in my figurative "house on a hill"-- producing insight and lesson plans from boyish layers and secondhand mens shoes. The intuition countered could quite possibly be the fight for survival--all perhaps invisible. Ah, yes, but seemingly INVINCIBLE based on appearance.

I sincerely enjoy evoking "character" with my day to day apparel. Call me crazy..or just call me. I love getting dressed and relish in the mysterious results. All abstract, ecstasy pour moi. And, I rally around those that do the same. Step into your wardrobe driver's seat and gravitate towards what you want to wear-- don't plan. Form narrative around what you want to wear, if you wish...

symbols, symbols...cymbals?

The man in the photo exemplifies such. His demeanor exudes more than his white top and bottom offer. Style is just as much about personality as it is about color coordination. The photo is courtesy of the Sartorialist. I hope he doesn't mind. The man in the photo, that is.

4 years later. Stranger on the Road.

7 million dollar settlement for Sean Bell family and two friends involved in Police murder in November of 2006.

Detective Palladino called the settlement laughable and that police were performing their lawful duty.

The officers were acquitted of all charges in June of 2008. I am struggling with resolutions here. It is alarming that this monetary reparation required almost four years--and what's even more unfortunate and is how little this will heal. It ends up driving deeper, the placement and empty value that informs the belabored perspective of black and brown people in America. I am not ungrateful, I am honestly finding it difficult to feel any real pathos on a human (forget social, at this point) level, when justice continues to be impaired.

"I'm just a stranger, traveling on the road. I don't know nobody and I don't know where to go....I'm just a stranger, a long, long, long, long way from home." - Shirley Caesar

Accept loss forever. KEROUAC

murmurations

According to the accordion of current catastrophes I am to unfold as many menageries. On earth. Replicating some symbolic growth on original soil. I taste irrelevance…familiar salt as I awaken again from this non-sleep repeat. Death to the learned me and light on ancient self that remains on my heart shelf. To see in shapes is to miss mistakes and movement lies when frozen inside.

Somehow God had been forgotten—therefore involved, but somehow rotten. I have never attempted to deny and have only been in search of reply…seeking the stars to get me by, standing, MY, decay, all in evidence’s way of shadow and smoke, identifying as a practical joke and creating my own symbol of gracious shape at night I would produce the magic tape hoping to win. And even if I got in-- my story grew scarce. The frown’s just purpose is to reject plastic repairs.

And so I begin the debate surrounding how to NOT wait.
To diminish time right up to the minute is the only way I think I will again GET IN IT.

Refusing to seek some final place, I pray to enjoy my own space.

"I don't rehearse, because performance art is not about rehearsal; that's what makes it different from theater." Marina Abramovic

And, that may be the only difference.

NY mag's latest piece on The Artist is Present

Intimacy as performance--roles that we take on to please ourselves and our partners. Places of understanding. These are considered our comfort zones where we fearlessly shield connection--therefore connection as a performer is also slightly disconnected? Nothing new, but what can be removed is the unattainable shadow of abstraction surrounding performance. Interaction is perhaps a variable; and regardless of its definition, its presence within performance art and theater are consistent and reflective. An audience will applaud or will stare at you stone faced without any understanding of what might have actually occurred. It seems that an audience reaction is not necessary.

However, this is the difference between intimacy and performance. Interaction must be static to cause exchange, dynamic, and finality. And it appears that expression may exist simultaneously within courage because the advances are based on assumption, repetition, and intuition.

excerpt from cowboy

My Beatitudes, July 2007

Never complain.

Believe.

Ask questions.

Intervene for your friends.

Expect nothing. HOPE for everything.

What your friends and loved ones believe is their gospel. Accept it, knowing the truth and let them feel comforted. Educate but do not humiliate.

Look directly into the sun--stare directly into the light.

Breathe.

Walk in the originality of your own path.

Spend wisely—time and money.

Always sing OUT LOUD.

Work hard and NEVER give up.

Ignore the devil--he is very busy.

Wash your hands, BEFORE and after indulgence—food, sex, and learning.

Say, “I love you”. Expect it in return.

Share.

Nourish your body with good food and good drink.

Listen.

Discuss sadness and tragedy as a way towards healing.

Remember, that your heart is your family and the foundation of your soul. Please do not forget this.

Speak to the dearly departed at rest and at rise.

Believe that God is everywhere and seek His inspiration.

Cry. Wail. Crumble. Release.

Do NOT explain yourself.

Enjoy laughter from your belly as often as you can.

Compromise nothing for a full experience. Be present.

Relish in your rebellion, but do not pursue it.

Maintain mystery.

Leave home and know you are allowed to look back.

Introducing....

PUERTO RICAN DISCOVERY #23: Portrait In Raising Self Esteem by Sandra Maria Esteves

Brooding Woman (recto), Three Children (verso)
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973)


Flirtatious dreamers
we judge ourselves all wrong

Backward guilt
feet-first jumpstarts into birth
innocent to realize
rain days can be good
blessings from heaven
disguised

We watch for signs
Survival manna
slow to discover learning lessons
on an oceanic route
full of rocky struts
fathomless caves
voluptuous hills
sea water from the unexpected...

We are infants compared to the universe
a wise great-grandmother
who can harvest the stars around the moon

The names of all things are sacred
like thoughts breathing clean air
More than loving
living means giving
Like homegrown food
from the eternal harvest within

But for real.

performance

My soft frailty center eventuates myth
Epic death at the hands of audience member
Fiction, determining the story
And choosing my own adventure
I conduct the show
Withdrawn from my conclusion
Creating on canvas of great life details
Seeing my individual visual emerge visible
And somehow, misunderstanding the colors
The stencils outlining the live action
The living performance
A moving image
Enclosing my opening
(Folding inward doublespeak)
Makes me
Not reality
This fantastic spirit fantasy vision
Envelopes your expectant entertainment
Earthly volunteers temporarily in seated agreement
Their applause rendering darkness
Reversing accolades
Not my goal,
Nor my fruit
I insist upon an encore

Gallery 788, Baltimore

This show features effervescent photographer and my super dance pal, Lauren Barnhart

Gallery 788
*a co-op featuring local artists
BALTIMORE
Sunday from 12-6 , with performances beginning at 2
check the postcard for address details