some pictures:
by krisis
erika
The Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts show was absolutely wonderful. “Are these people,” I reverently asked Melon, “really our age? ”
Maybe I could have believed it after looking at the odd-shaped photorealistic paintings of clouds, or the conference of nearly a dozen porcelain toilets in the middle of the room, or what looked like an drawing Shel Silverstein would have done while taking acid named something to the effect of “A Beautiful Woman Shaves Her Hairy Gums.”
What stunned me were the pieces of art that looked timeless, looked beyond my ability to conceive of. A canvas, as big as my bed, depicting an armored female set against a descending purple twilight. A classical sculpture, in wood and maybe bronze, of a man wearing a boar’s skull. Painting, sculpture, photography, mixed media, all from people who are a part of my generation. Did the student who painted the female warrior watch the same He-Man cartoons as I did? Or, have I lived in a world apart all of these years, separate from the dimension where these artists exist?
In the gift shop I became enamored with a sketching set, suited for the artist who is constantly sketching in the margins of her notebooks. It combined a simple book illustrating how lines form to create simple things like cats, people, and chairs with a neat black sketch book, three pre-sharpened pencils, three sticks of charcoal, and a black crayon of wax (I forget what those are called).
I was determined to buy it for someone – almost everyone I spend my spare time with is an artist of some degree. Any oft hem would appreciate it. But, as I held it in my hands longer, offering it to Erika and Mellon to examine, I realized that all of the people who I wanted to give it to had made it past the margins-of-a-notebook stage of art. I had seen their art, in their rooms, hanging from magnets on my refrigerator, and even decorating their furniture.
No, the set was not for them. It was for me.
So far I have drawn a paper bag, Erika springing from the ground like a tree, a page full of felines and rodents, and a sketch of a Waterson painting. All of the images are imitative, even Ent-Erika, all trying to achieve an image that I have accessed once before. Every time I turn my glance inward I am rewarded only with blank white space, which is mirrored by the empty page in front of me.
Do the artists have a verdant jungle of imagery inside of them, pressing against the backs of their eyes and the insides of their fingertips begging to be rendered into real time and space? Or, is it that they see the same world as I do, yet are inspired to capture the fleeting and intangible beauty of it so that it can always be seen?
I suppose you could ask me the same question about my songs, and my answer would be that it’s all of the above – sometimes they spring from within and sometimes I observe them outside of myself. Sometimes, though, they really do spring fully formed from the proverbial thin air, begging to be formed into something more.
I bought myself a sketch book so that I can learn where to see.
I’m having trouble deciding what i feel about anything except for sitting holed up in my room protected by womb of thick walls and loud music. Yesterday on my way home from class i walked a block out my way – out of boredom, i guess. I had never been on it on foot before, just in a car passing by. The feeling was indescribable, as if i had stepped off of my front porch and onto the set of a television show (because i had never seen that block before except for through the glass of a window/screen).
I think that sometimes Elise feels bad that i don’t write so many songs anymore, as if it’s her fault. It guess it is a little bit, because i am happy and not creating stupid scenarios in my head to connect me to every person that i pass by on the street out of utter desperation to be a part of someone else’s day. It’s confusing to look at the entries in my little grey book from a year ago, while Elise was still new and confusing enough to evoke my typical lyrical ramblings. At a point not too far after that there is a disconnect, and suddenly i am not writing out of my gut anymore, from where my songs used to spring covered in bile and blood. Every time Elise gets used to me not having anything new to sing at all i surprise her, the other night with four new songs that she had never even heard a hint of before. They make me uneasy — i have trouble feeling them and so they are hard to sing.
I have thirty four weeks of college left after i complete my last co-operative learning experience this summer. I said a funny thing last night to Erika about that. I said that i wasn’t returning my mother’s phone calls because she would have to get used to not hearing from me and being worried once i left Philadelphia. I talk a lot about what i may or may not do after i graduate, everything from going abroad to going to grad school, and usually it has an air of fantasy and speculation about it. Last night, though, i said it without thinking. It felt like singing one of my old songs, half diaphragmatic support and half a punch in the gut. I don’t know where i’m going to go, or what i’m going to do, but apparently it’s not going to be here.
Or so i say. But, for as many streets there are in this city that can make me feel alien there are other cities on this planet that i’ll never see. I really ought to start working on that.
I never know what’s going on in my apartment.
There are four of us, spending all of our time alternatingly at work, in class, with our significant others, or on stage. The odds that more than two of us will ever be here at the same time are dwarfed by the odds that the apartment will be empty when one of us arrives.
The way i figure it, you and your college roommates would have to be absolute dweebs for this not to be the case. “Dweebs,” for sure, because the four of us are definitely geeks, so i had to find a word that had more of a “shut-in” connotation.
It’s not hard to spend nearly three quarters of your typical waking hours outside of your collegiate abode; it’s not like we do it intentionally. In fact, occasionally going days at a time without re-entering it really isn’t a challenge — especially when you’re dating someone with their own apartment.
What starts to occur is that, with so many lengthy departures, your home can hold something unusual for you upon your return. Different. It can be full of surprises. And, though these surprises might prove alarming at first, as the length of your residence increases the unusual circumstances that you find yourself entering into become less and less alarming.
Rearranged or missing furniture should not phase you, nor should strangers reclining on said furniture (even if they are the only people presently in your house). The appearance or disappearance of drastically large amounts of any kitchen items, including actual food or liquor, should be duly noted but not unduly fretted over. Finding a sign on your front door that proclaims “Ring hard and often; cover $5” should only bother you if you do not have a doorbell. You should expect to find large new appliances, game / home-theatre systems, or piles of laundry more often than not. You should strive to exhibit no surprise upon the emergence unexpected or unwelcome people from your roommates’ bedrooms. If any of your personal effects seem to be lost or missing, even from your own room or bathroom area, you should allow ample time for them to be returned or replaced before entering a period of mourning.
Then there are the notes. Even in this technologically advanced age, notes are the most effective form of roommate to roommate conversation. Why? You can blow off an email, but there is only so long that you can profess to ignore something that is affixed to your doorknob, disco ball, toilet-lid, television screen, Brita pitcher, or bedroom door. Additionally, you should learn to anticipate what will at first seem like non-sequitir content in said notes, which will eventually bloom to make a terrifying amount of sense once you put the correct context in place, as in the only vaguely exaggerated examples that follow:
and, a personal favorite excerpted from Elise’s house:
College… it’s an adventure.