the original meaning of the emotional term “depression” involved the disconnection; the absence of feeling; connection to;
so the absence of any emotional connection to …. anything
an emptiness —anomie
and I realize this is what I am experiencing
as …. I’m searching how to navigate through this terrifying chasm
Electra’s dictionary Noir
What I love about New York City is how you can be among a crowd and be anonymous; you can dress outrageous and no one will notice; you can walk for endless miles and forget even that those androids buzzing by are actually humans
The penthouse has become my fortress. It seems. I hadn’t realized until the urge and the need of it compelled me to get away from all the things that are cold and unfamiliar that too lately became my life.
It is possible to find solitude in a New York crowd.
It seems natural to return to Ethan Rhys Jones’ last address; never mind it is partially a museum. And even that has become familiar to me; you don’t realize until you miss something what things mean to you
I like the connection to my father; I suppose this is why I return. It removes that sense of feeling lost
I do stop to see Gerald. He has been busy—back from Tibet and his (with Kaylee) twins with them. We have tea before his client comes, so I go to the Met to look at art
I spend hours there, getting lost then in thought ….
Later….
The bath is bigger than I had remembered. I keep floating up when I fill it ….there is an knack to staying wedged if it’s not too high …. it is one of those original antique ones ….I watch the city lights move across the walls and think I hear music —until I realize it is my own mind creating it
What do I hear? What do I play …. some theme to some mystery drama perhaps
I get out and let the water, walk naked through to the bedroom dripping and throw myself on the bed. And again watch the city lights
I have been doing the books for the artist, having altered my title to ‘privileged character’ —instead of that notion of bimbo and doing the website too for the penthouse’s museum. It takes up most of the morning and the replies to emails takes up the afternoon. So a long walk to Gerald’s was in order, and a good excuse to be re-inspired artistically. Of course, I made sure to stop to see Edward Burn Jones’ The Lovesong, and why I got lost in thought for hours
And late returning in the dark
I think about that painting as I lay in bed watching the lights move across the walls…. those lights that turn into bats that fly across the room….it puts me to sleep
It has occurred to me, as often I know I have said; but then I forget…. but I desperately need my walls. Whatever the form they may take; mural or physical large work …. or even a heavy knife
I start to open the large pre-stretched canvases that are sealed in protective wrappings and for hours I stare at them. I am thinking. About so much. And I do not have words for my thoughts lately.
I feel like a bumper car stuck in a corner at the fair. I think about this. And the still life’s or scenes in my head to paint as I can see them. And even as I see them. Watch them. My inner eye is turned elsewhere
So I don’t even see the blank canvases anymore.
I sit on the floor of this fresh new art studio he has built just for me. I think. And wonder
….
So many things form your mind. Some things you accept but others you do not.
What am I doing here? I wonder ….to find out our ‘WhatIf’ story after? ….we closed that book so long ago
Do I really matter to him? I wonder. Actually matter
So upon considering why I had first been pulled under the poetry of the PreRaphaelites, the tragic loss I’d suffered, I could never fully embrace Dante Gabriel Rossetti —even as he was the driving force of the brotherhood I was disturbed by his sense of ethics. Especially as it felt to me hypocritical of what he claimed for their vision as artists, but deep down —a poet who digs up his wife’s grave to retrieve his poetry which he claimed he wrote for her….coupled with stealing William Morris’ wife around this time just is not garden variety immorality but something near a supreme sense of self importance and it comes across in his art
while I love his use of red and his earliest drawings of Elizabeth Siddal, I find his inability to get his perspective right (Ecce Ancilla Domini to name one instance) gives me motion sickness —but his peer John Everett Millais was a most brilliant member; his work has always been among my favorites, especially ‘the Order of Release’ which I had framed and always hung everywhere I lived but got lost somewhere in the ruins I long left
….and so, it is a long time that I stare at the wall. I sit down on the floor and look up
and I think about his words how does he do this to me? just when I think ….no, I was just dreaming…. he proves himself ….and another one of his—some kind of mind blower moments and, me, like a moth to a flame …. like a magnetic pull to him his strange innate proclivities are at the exact polar place of all mine that in the middle it is like some exact balance
I almost fall off the earth and it seems there is …. I stare at the wall and think I think about all the paintings he has put there…. and his quiet …. silent …. way ….of reading me —memorizing my in between the lines that I only attest to as poetry but still my utmost ethically true ….but there he follows ….behind the doorways and I guess if it is worth the tedious but intended misdirections to him then I am more than glad to entertain whatever ideas he has in mind
So I sit on the floor and think— they are all elan …. the same story…. I look at the celves and think about the fossil I found that day After awhile I get up
I had an art professor at school who forbid short handled paint brushes
He made us stand several feet away from our work. And squint to obscure our eyes.
But then, he only allowed primary color paint as we had to create every nuance of hue from this
The point was, well, a painter is not an illustrator so the long handle is old school meant to not fall under the photographer syndrome of duplication
