“We are all connected, there is no me without you”. I feel a great excitement about the show in which I am a collaborator; Titled: Simpatico, showing with Carl Heyward, we will display solo works as well as collaborative pieces, at the Fourth Wall Gallery, Susan Aulik’s place. The energy generated by being involved in this project has been amazing. “From the efforts of one with another emerges entity, THE THIRD MIND” Carl Heyward. I found out we would get the opportunity to participate in a show at the Fourth Wall Gallery last year. It was before the San Francisco International DADA show, which GAP, Global Arts Project, was highly involved in, creating visual work, as well as a performance piece. We also were coming off a show at Room Gallery; a beautiful show. I was disappointed that not one of my works sold, only one artist sold work, even though each piece in the show was stellar. I started feeling disillusioned by all the effort and money it takes to have shows, and couldn’t understand why nobody buys work? I went to the Fourth Street Gallery on a first Friday, opening night. I brought my babies, brother, and his girlfriend. We ate Ethiopian food first, super yummy! We walked down Telegraph Avenue to 25Th street, it was dark out, it was the first time I brought the babies to Oakland; My old stomping ground. I couldn’t believe the change that had taken place on that block, First Fridays: Food Trucks, cool earrings to buy, people, lots of people, there were lots of cops too. On the corners and around the perimeters. When I saw the Galleries I was in Shock. I had heard of Vessel, someone I knew had shown there, but I never made it by; It was a friend of my mom and I’s, my mom had just died, I was really sad. I lived on 19Th and Union in West Oakland for a while. I had an awesome studio in an old warehouse: Dark, lots of old machinery and old office stuff laying around. We’d get stoned and go down there and look at stuff. (We lost our space when a developer came and built fancy, expensive lofts: Circa 1999. We were pissed) I remember nights at the Stork Club where my best friends band, The Kirby Grips used to play. We’d dress up in boots and skirts, dance, get drunk, and ride our bikes home, looking down every street for the pack of wild pitbulls. As I walk down the hall towards the Fourth Wall Gallery there are shiny, pretty paintings on the white walls, bright lights, I peer into the other Galleries, some I go in, investigate further. Pricing is high here, except for a craftsman who makes cool political found art stuff, I can’t remember his name (Bad reporting here) The Fourth Wall Gallery is Gorgeous and Susan Aulik is an inspiring woman and has a deep connection with painting, being an artist, and being a supporter and soldier for the arts communities’. I feel fortunate to have met her! When I left Oakland that night I felt a bunch of emotional feelings. The way things had changed was both amazing and wonderful and I also felt there was still a disconnect. Art is so expensive, most people don’t have $4000 to spend on a piece of art. Susan, Carl, and I agreed we wanted more people to be able to own art, make art assessable for more people. But the question is, How low do you go? I proposed a sliding scale. But I’m crazy. We’re also going to have a big sale in December with lots of other artists! The ways the past merges with the present and informs the future is crazy. I don’t know why but that sentence just made me think of Diarrhea. When one person gets it you know it’s gonna make the rounds! Why would I even think of something like that? I better get down to the studio before Jack and Fiona wake up. I probably have an hour left.
Category: memory
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The sky is bright this morning, the light shown through my bedroom windows, I take out my earplugs to see if I hear the babies awake, no, all quiet. I expect it to be nearly eight, but when I look at the clock it’s 6:30. It feels good to have some time before the babies wake up, then I hear, “Mama” It’s my little boy. Fiona’s still sound asleep. “Do you want to watch one show or come up for breakfast?” I ask. “One show” says Jack. I turn on the T.V., we still have one more day rental of Zootopia, Jack is watching it for the third time. We all watched it together in bed on fathers day, it’s actually a pretty good movie, I like it. “Did you leave the house today?” Alan asked me last night. “No” I said. “You haven’t left the house since Friday?” I haven’t, today will be the first time, and in that space between Friday and today, I’ve had to clean up constantly. Yesterday it took me nine hours to finish the dishes. Staying at home with toddlers takes a lot more work, I clean, then Fiona spills a whole box of spaghetti, I ask her to help me pick it up, but in the meantime I need to run outside to the back yard to check on Jack, the dog runs in, the spaghetti gets broken and strewn all over the floor, it becomes a major mess really fast! And Jack and the sand box, finally he’s getting some major use out of it, but little miss won’t stay up there unless I stay up there. Fiona wants to be glued to my hip at almost all times. To combat this, I feed the babies yogurts and watermelon in the back yard, this keeps them occupied. I squirt out finger paints and lay out tons of paper, I set up their dream situation, water, stuff to make a mess with, this keeps them busy for thirty minutes or so, I work on the dishes and study my sign language. Then they start coming in the house and it’s time to spray them off with the hose. Then naptime, and today they go right to sleep.
We had fun yesterday, I was supposed to have a sitter but she couldn’t come to work. I have no days off this week, only when the babies are at Early Start, school, but that’s not too much and one day is sign language class and one day is our parents group, but I’m taking advantage of it, the time with Jack and Fiona, time I will never get back again. I have a book, “Jennifer’s Walk” from when I was a little girl. I love the book; the little girl looks like me when I was a little girl. I told the babies how it was my book, that it was VERY special to me, (It has regular paper pages) “please don’t rip it” I tell them. I pretend as I’m reading it it’s a story about me when I’m a little girl. Jack loves it, he calls it “The Jenny Book” At the end of the story the mommy is waiting for her little girl with lemonade and cookies. I love that part, a wave of sadness flashed over me right then, missing my mom. She was there for me. I am here for Jack and Fiona, maybe even more than my mom was able to be there for me. But she did make cookies and sun tea, which I thought was so cool. Jack is really watching Zootopia, I brought him down a banana, cliff bar, and glass of milk. Fiona’s still sleeping. The sky is bright blue this morning, it might be a hot day. I hope it’s not too hot after school for a hike!
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It’s so quiet right now, almost too quiet. The babies are both sleeping, it’s 1:58 Wednesday afternoon. We had a busy morning, school, sign language class, hike after school, the wind blew hard which made the babies extra tired! Then home, getting from the car to the nursery, changing diapers, checking for ticks, leaving the nursery not sure if the nap would happen, and here I am. It’s too quiet now. As I put on my pajamas, yes I put on my pajamas this early, my mind starts to race, I see the lunch bag that needs to be put away, clothes that need washing, I think about the floors that need cleaning after yesterday’s playdate, but I catch myself, I remind myself, “I do too much” There’s always things to do, that doesn’t mean I should do them. As we walk up the dirt trail I think about last night ‘s bedtime story, which wasn’t really a story, but an investigation, we were looking through one of Fiona’s favorite books, “Encyclopedia of Mammals” and spent a lot of time in the snake section. I especially emphasized the rattlesnake, “If you see a snake and hear a rattle, (I make the movement with my finger and make the rattle sound), walk away. Do not get near it, it bites” I wonder today if they remember what I told them last night. We walk by horse poop and coyote poop, both of which I point out to the babies. “Eat it?” Fiona asks. “No, it’s poop, but Billy might eat the horse poop or roll in it”. I don’t know why, but I’ll never forget the time my mom showed me what coyote poop looked like as we were hiking on Mount Palomar, I was older than Jack and Fiona at the time, probably around eleven, but I remember her showing me the rabbit fur in the poop. For some reason that’s one of my favorite moments. I think it influenced the way I’ve lived my life; the way I respond to the world. I can feel her presence near me on that trail, not so unlike the dirt trail me and my babies hike on today. I wonder if it was how she bent down to show me something, something that many people just walk over. We stopped and imagined the coyote being there before us. Just as I did today. My mom never stopped noticing different animal droppings on our hikes and I guess I don’t either, and the way it’s going neither will Jack or Fiona.
This past weekend was date night! We went out and saw a movie, “The Lobster” a brilliant and weird and disturbing Film, then we went to eat at the new French Restaurant, Le Comptoir, we didn’t have reservations, so we sat at a community table, which is super fun! We ate too much and drank too much wine and finished it off with a glass of port. When we left I had to pee bad, we walked to our car to drop off some cheeses we purchased in the French store, I could feel my pants starting to get damp. I walked behind a bush in the parking lot and there was a woman on the other side of the fence.
“I’m really sorry, I have to pee, do you mind?” I say.
“No, I just did myself “she replies.
I pull down my pants, squat, and pee. I can hear the lady talking to herself. She lost her last twenty dollars, she is looking through her stuff, she can’t find it. I hear her talking about being able to get back to her family. Alan is waiting for me up on the sidewalk. I grab my purse; I think I have a twenty but I only have fifteen. I tell Alan I’ll be right back and walk down to where the lady is. She’s wearing white shorts and has several bags. She’s still talking to herself and she sounds really upset, I almost think she’s starting to cry. I hand her the fifteen dollars, tell her that’s all I have, and she says “Thank-you, Thank-you so much” I give her a hug and she hugs back. She keeps telling me how thankful she is. I ask her if she’s O.K., “Are you sure you’ll be OK?” I ask. “Yes” she says. Alan and I walk up to the park, it’s a clear night and feels good to be out. I start thinking about the time I lost my last twenty dollars. Sitting on the rocks at the bay, peering into the water, I had a little beaded change purse in my hand. I think my grandma had given it to me. We were about to go score and that twenty was going to buy me a quarter. I was so upset. I kept looking for it, I thought I could find it in the water, but it had sunk deep under the rocks somewhere. I remember the feeling so well of being out there with no money, with a strange collection of things to carry around, some invisible, things no one can see but me. Knowing I wasn’t going to be able to buy my drugs. Total devastation. Why is that memory imbedded in my mind?
It’s getting close to the end of naptime and I feel like I need a nap now! They say it’s supposed to rain tomorrow, it’s hard to believe, but it sure would be nice. It’s still so quiet, I wish I would have had time for my studio today. But now It’s time to clean and cook. I can hear Jack and Fiona starting to chatter. It’s time to go through the house emptying trash bins and dirty diapers. Time to vacuum and do dishes. It’s time.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 