yes hello..it's me procrastinating. well, not so much procrastinating as reworking...trying to keep the monkey mind occupied with 1 hand while the other hand stirs the creative stew. yes - the mannquin. i just don't like what i have worked up. so i unworked it and will begin again. the problem: 3 different ways to go with it. i must re-focus on my intent for the piece, then let her go about doing what she wants anyway. a local gallery owner tasked me with creating a piece (a few years ago) that was an homage to his long ago relative. she grew up as caretaker of her siblings, parents, aunts, and eventually died, alone, in a nursing home, having never left the small town she grew up in. her story touched and intrigued me. it all started when the gallery owner...wait - backup...the gallery is in a huge HUGE ancient building that dates back to the 1800's or early 1900's and was a factory of some sort. upstairs from the gallery proper, are floors and floors of studios. one end of at least one floor is a giant storage area. now back to our story. one day he let me wander through the storage area (hundreds x hundreds big) to look for rusty metal. as if i had to look far. but then in a small locked room, were Things. he let me in the room, and it appeared to be leftover props from shows, but no - it was actually some of his family's old furniture, etc that was being stored there...50's couches and 60's chairs...and a suitcase. i was in my suitcase phase at the time, so this caught my eye. i asked if i could have it, and he said he had to ask another family member downstairs (i didn't realize this was family stuff yet). seemed odd, but i said ok. that's when the story of this suitcase, and it's owner came to light. the other family member said a reluctant yes, because the gallery owner had told her i was going to do a piece about the suitcase's owner. i was?? there were amazing, magical things that happened with that suitcase, and how the family history came falling into my lap from bizarre and miraculous sources. i wasn't even looking into it that much, but everywhere i turned, there was someone who was from that tiny tiny town and knew the history, or a postcard featuring the town found at a gigantic antique show...it was spooky cool. but the piece wouldn't come. too much of a real person to try to capture. so i kept the suitcase on a shelf for another time. fast forward a few years. the mannequin project. and after rough mind-sketching, and beginning parts of it (that remain) i realized...i was making the piece the gallery owner had somewhat commissioned. she stands in the suitcase. and the rest is a big secret for now. subject to change anyway. i spent part of today doing a "hair" weave on her a la Hey Girl salon downtown. not sure if it will stay, but have decided never not ever to get a weave personally. ouch and who can sit that long. when i need to clear my head, i walk diva, or go meditate in my closet. diva has been walked to within an inch of her life and runs under the bed when i come near. so i guess it's time to get into the closet. speaking of which...can i just say that i attract some of the strangest people to me? it mostly wonderful, sometimes a little scary, always enhancing, but why me?? i don't think i look anything like someone who has all the planetary connections to help mankind. in fact, most days i am not quite public-ready...racing to the grocery store from 5 hours in the studio - eyes glazed, half shot from caffeine, glue and plaster and paint in my hair and all over my clothes. i would run from me if i saw me. and yet. maybe they think i need a friend and the best they could come up with as an opening line is "can you reach the bisquick i have to make 200 biscuits for this funeral thing well not really a funeral more like a celebration of a life but if the persons gone then why do they call it that you know and i just don't know why i got into catering...." etc. 1 breath - 1 hour. while you wait. buckshot conversation. while i nod at appropriate times as if encouraging and empathizing. once - i pretended to speak a different language and tried to tell them i had no f-ing clue what they were saying. they continued. louder though so i'd understand their english better. oy. although that did work with the person trying to sell me Sprint phone service. they called 3 times. THREE times during dinner. THREE times in a half hour. so i finally pretended to be the senile grandmother visiting from China. "ello?" i repeated after everything they said. interspersed with an approximation of what i thought perhaps sounded somewhat similar to maybe Cantonese vulgarity. which is not a language i speak, nor have ever heard, to my knowledge, but maybe. the man on the other end became frustrated yet amused..."can you hear me now??" he finally asked. anyone knows he stole that from verizon. so i finally said "you vera bad boy" and hung up. no more sprint. but meanwhile, i feel like i could burst from being a human secret warehouse...people i've never met just...tell me things. my secret-keeping ability wavers. if it's very very important that i keep the secret, i will. if it's moderately to not so important, it will find it's way past my lips. i can't help it. i mean, i spoiled my own surprise party by telling myself. (i had somewhat planned it, control freak that i am, and let my husband think he did it all). ( but it was glorious and wonderful in all the ways that are impossible to plan.) and i can't help but let a few slip because i just have too many inside me. years as an investigative reporter and as a woman have filled me to the very brim. i am a levee near high tides...some day someone will just drop one too many secrets on me, and BAM! i'll just sit down wherever i am and spew out everything i know. EVERYthing. it would make an amazing and embarrassing performance piece, this verbal diarhea, but it's like holding back tears - once they start, there is just no stopping them till they are done. so all that said, i've lost my train of thought which is good - it means i can get back to art now. but i leave you with this: The Journey One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice-- though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do-- determined to save the only life you could save. -Mary Oliver my inspiration for my mannequin piece. now there's a hint of a secret. L.