The Medici sure knew a fine piece of land when they
saw it.

We had trekked all afternoon w/ the cypress twisting along the paths. Centenarian statues had few pieces left, so guessing the character became harder + harder to figure. Most were propped + suspended by awkward metal rebar + metal tubes, leaving empty space equivalent to what was missing. A few of them looked as though a game had not ended, as players took turns, rather slowly, fitting in a stone puzzle piece of the body each had been dealt.

We had visited Neptune in his abbreviated habitat. He stood rock on rock, threatening his trident at a menacing water thing, while sea deities hid beneath in the hollows crouched out of the way of him doing his business.

We had chalked the mosaics + taken the obligatory photo ops. Looking around there were literally masses of opportunities begging to be violated.

With all of the other amusements in the Baboli Gardens we were still disappointed that a high sharp wire wall had sealed off the Grotto of Buontalenti. The structure seemed to be in repair, but it didn’t look as though the maintenance man would show anytime soon. Yes, 423 years can be a very long time for fake molten rock to look rather slimy + rotten. i think they may have just got sick + tired of foreigners putting their hands all over it. The day had been planned around visiting Buonarroti’s Prisoners. Actually, the fakes, as the real works were in the Galleria dell'Academia. There, the trumpet in your head goes off for David, not the six prisoners lining the nave. Mickey thought himself a tool of god, + by reckoning god created free-hand, he did the same. W/ the fevered spirit upon him, + chisel in hand he hacked in a cloud of dust to expose the figure locked inside the stone. They call it religious frenzy. What the reality is + always will be — out of time + over budget. These restless men are claustrophobic, possessed, struggling to free themselves from the stone. The figures were abandoned just as they surfaced from a pool of water. Perhaps he was satisfied w/ the bellies emerged shiny + finished like a target.  There are no apologies in the grooves from the chisel. Emotionally charged work has always intrigued me far more than the perfection of David, who in his temple tomb is treated to reverent gazes + hushed voices.

Of course, on the flip side, Mickey may have simply been delighting in a practice of 3/D stone sketching by pulling out muscular, tanned, + sweating bodies of the workers from the Carrara marble quarries.

Oh, how we wanted to climb that dangerous looking barbed wire + walk into that chamber. It was the only way in, unless of course you crawled onto the dangerous looking apogee + dropped in through the ceiling cupola.

We never took these things personally.

After we had gained entrance, we reckoned we were obliged to stay until dark.

The bathing Venus was no longer alone. The painted mural to the back opened the view to the outside world, so you were 'looking out' from the shelter of the grotto. This was a pastoral setting of wild beasts that absently glazed over the landscape w/out threat. The play of faux, relief + dimensional made the grotto look expansive. There was a nice little kitten that had followed us in who apparently took an easier route. She was a bubbly little thing the color of whipped butter making herself at home by loitering w/ stone sheep, + curling up in a Shepard’s goblet.

Michelangelo’s men were impressive in this venue. Two of the prisoners were graced there but not imprisoned by the hardened merd that had been slug everywhere around. The well endowed bearded man + the see-no-evil figure were embedded, but stood out in white form from the other Mannerist sculpture that also inhabited the cave. The two were slumped over + forward, leaning into from opposite corners.

We camped in the back near Rossi’s Helen and Paris. Talking about the surreality of situations, thinking of past moments, + wondering if we would ever think of this one hence.

On our way out in the wee hours the cypress had grown eerie sparkle lights, glowing from the damp ground to the tiptops high above us. They lit up in time, in turn, in tune w/ each other. How thoughtful the lightening bugs had been to enchant the garden. i half expected to see Puck fall out from behind a bush, quote a snatch of Shakespeare + disappear again into the briar.

(kb'd do just about anything just to hear me laugh.)

A moment of reprieve...

How quickly things can change in little or no time + the devastating/wonderful consequences that can result from those changes.

You want to know what i feel is one of the coolest things about life?

That you can figure + plan to the unth, but usually what happens is something you never counted on or dreamed of.

STONE is what it’s made of.

We found St. Peter’s square to be a rock growing out of the water. Settling on grand, but undecided as whether or not to fully emerge.

Pause for a blur of ingenious riot of costumes.

The Venetian Carnival trip was couched around shooting long exposures w/ a 120slr. We dressed as dark whirling Dervish + spun on top of a canal bridge at midnight under the hazy street lamps.

We awoke on a stone bench in the morning mist lost on the island of St. Peter’s. Carnivale was over. KB looked great in long johns + a tux shirt w/ the collar up + the french cuffs down to accommodate his lengthy arms. He carried himself like a dancer + when he stopped he always looked as though he were posing.

Those images are vividly burned into my mind because the film had not advanced.

There isn’t proof any of it ever happening.

Dream; i am riding on a train that is in a perpetual right turn. i realize it’s on a wheel, of sorts, caught in going circles. i end up on my doorstep at a suburban sprawl house. Reaching for the door handle my male springs out of the door, pacing, totting in place + impatiently questioning.

“Do you want to go running?”

“No, I want to go eat.”

i worked in overtime + overdrive during my out times. i have had white-outs, but i never lost a decade. These white-outs have afforded me the knowing that if i have worked through layers + layers of emotional mud, i didn’t know about it. Sometimes + thankfully, the upheavals expected lay dormant through denial + have gone undetected.

It’s curious how things were, how they are, how they could be. People in our lives that aren’t there anymore. The way time travels. Simple twists of fate. Some times they happen in an afternoon, 
YOU CAN SEE THEM HAPPENING. 

Another time it takes years to pull your attention full circle.

At some point you’ve lived long enough to recognize the cycles in life. What folds back upon itself. What wheels around again, + again. It’s interesting to see the circles we chose to close, which are left open, what ones filled up + frozen solid w/ memories.

  Yet, we really never know what the next day will drop in front of us.

   i see a full circle, your circle.

  There is  a dismal attempt to put pieces back together again. i know that it is impossible.

   One of those wicked deja vu days.

One of those, you think you know how the day will go days —  then as simply as can be — someone phones up + rings into a time that you thought was past years ago. + thinking that it would never be, cant be, + will never be - could be here now. If you were only brave enough.

i wrote a lot more than i got down on paper. 

You know how things take flight + circle, spiral up  again + again so high up there that they become unimportant or evaporate until the next time around.

Three made the mod squad.

When i’m on deadline, different thoughts surface, some adjusting into clear memories, others sift away + only an anxious feeling remains. Just shots of memories. Standing at a stoplight on a certain corner as a car speeds by + a passenger yells wtf out the window to you. i’m thinking everyone has this experience of ‘hits’ when the mind is occupied in one area or another. Isn't it Joan Baez that sings about memories tumbling like sweets from a jar?

i had thought to put in different names, but this was so very long ago, kind of. + although this may not make since to you, it’s just how the mind works, yes?

When looking  back on being w/ Kyle the vague feeling of eminent trouble surfaces. Our compatriot Dana joined in our artistic carousing. He wanted to be a writer so i reckon he felt no competition from us. We loved him because he was quirky (who were we to say), he wore gardening gloves in the winter, brought strange + stranger women home to stay over night + lived to be a character from the film Chariots of Fire.

Dana fired off odd one liners, “Jayne, of all your faults, malicey is not one of them.”

We'd rehearsed non-existing screen plays in the subway at rush hour.

Once, we scaled a fifteen foot cyclone fence at dusk to walk across a barricaded rickety scaffold high above careening traffic. Actually, once was enough.

We had spontaneous photo shoots on the roof top. On one occasion Kyle + i dressed Dana as a messiah in a lamé diaper. It was cold. Dana was really cold. i wanted  him to wear double stick tape on his tattered sandals so that he’d pick up and drag leaves, dirt + small sticks. i thought for some reason it would make the image authentic, as though that was important.

jahh / Script for a practicing artist + an unfinished life. Posted just because.

  

We were fixing an installation at Forte de Basso when he sent me off via taxi. He armed me w/ a to-get list on a slip of paper, instructions on to-and-from, + i was off on an obscure errand to find hardware in a foreign city where i did not understand the roads, language or currency. The taxi driver rolled away into the pouring rain + darkening sky. Cold dread was written on Kyle's face as though he had just made the worst mistake + mega-regret of an entire lifetime ... reading as, What have I done? I’m never going see her again.

"Okay," he said brightly, "We can each have 3 and a half headaches.”
-kb, after counting the aspirin for the unth time.

jahh / Script for a practicing artist + an unfinished life.

Make room for more WHITE paper + sharp pencils.

78
One of these December nights, I was awakened by the jazz station I listened to for white noise. The man behind the microphone was crying and stuttering. I couldn't understand what was happening. Was it a sleepy fog of twisted sound or a disaster at the radio station? I peered below, over the edge of my loft bed just as Guffrie jumped up from his cot to his 6’6” height.
“Oh, my god...” He reeled with his hands to his head as the TV crawler announced the assassination of John Lennon.

Walking up to Central Park the following Saturday you would have merged with other overwhelmed city dwellers.Talk became hushed tones. A bitter cold was blowing in. At the band shell Imagine played and a memorial silence was obeyed. Afterward, the paper had Yoko saying she had seen John’s face smiling down from the sky. She can see things like that. On the walk home it began to snow and a lightness filled the air.

jahh / Script for a practicing artist + an unfinished life.

53/54
...and as a custom he always took an uncharted street home.
He was entranced with radio games and truck gimmicks. Colored glasses that turned the landscape into a novelty scene. What is most vague? What is most uninteresting? One late afternoon he rode half way across Kansas with a set and clear conscious. He passed that peculiar water tower with obscure graffiti. As it shrank from life size to a spec in his rear view mirror he felt himself mentally backing up.

Plan ‘C’ found him being assistant to an artist. Tedious. He was entrusted to stretch and make ready canvas. This yoga-monkey-man task left him mental time with cunning thoughts. While sizing fabric he would under paint geometric shapes with gesso. Perhaps a large X, stripes, or a single block letter. After the applied final coat of white paint was dry and ready for the artist’s paint, a hint of his mark remained. This was subtle graffiti at its most tasteful.

jahh /  Parallel Chances Tend to Neglect

133
We were somewhere between San Francisco and our Santa Barbara destination. Your hands full of hose. Looking up in mischievous impatience, you catch my eyes and raise an eyebrow sensing a question.
“...I just never thought I’d see you siphoning gas from a strange car outside a biker bar in the middle of the night...”
“You think I was never a teenager?”

89
It was short walk from the apartment on Union Square to the village sandal shop that was run by Hells Angels. There is nothing more noble than a kneeling Angel as he traces your foot and asks,
“How long do you want the straps?”
I had an idea I wanted them very long, but didn’t know how to say without seeming like it was a lot of trouble. I imagine it was Kyle that broke my indecision by interrupting,
“She wants them to wrap up her legs and around her waist twice.”
The angel tilted his head up with a confused complexion,
“How would that look...”
Kyle pursed his lips, raised an eye brow, turned on one heel and began searching the notice board. The biker lumbered to his feet and embarrassingly asked if they could have the twenty-five bucks in advance.
I still have those simple leather Grecian sandals. In some places they are brittle from sea water and there’s a bit gnawed from Maine rodents that aches my heel when I wear them. But then, every pair of shoes has a story.

All of those Z Z looking guys have the choice of impersonating Santa or Bikers.
And ... I am wondering if, as children, future bikers used the card & clothespin trick on the spokes of their Stingray (with banana seats!) to get the Hog sound they would future fall in love w/ ...

It’s not really that dark in here. 

Just a quote from an old friend. 

Honest. 

Really.

When I am put to the test of optimism, i become skeptical to the point of pessimism.

I once thought that you would rob the truly appreciative minds by laying down for the last time.
Rubbing your fingers to your temple instead of the large hand you would faint in.  -kb

Life + death fit so very close together + the hand of god looks more like a fist.

-Being Red Skelton. 

Three memories with Hats:

1. There was usually a group of musicians over for the day or the fortnight blasting looped tapes out the second story window to see the street walkers reactions. These guys, judging by the sounds they crafted, majored in the most compelling + wonderful feedback imaginable. One handsome devil was obsessed w/ Einstein on the Beach at the time. We’d have parties depending on what we wanted to score. For instance; The Hat Party. People invited would know hats were mandatory. Eventually everyone would get drunk + a sea chapeaus would be left behind. Voila. +, if it ever got too weird, i could always crawl into my loft + pretend i didn’t know what was happening. 

 2. i went down to see the opera production director w/ a hat in question pinned together, mocked up to the nth detail. Upon seeing it, he ripped it apart verbally + shredded it literally. Humiliated, i came back up stairs to the craft room where Charles was huddled over a balsa block pining a turban. He glanced at me sideways for a moment + caught the mortified shock on my face w/ the hat draped over my arms in pieces. He offered, Oh, I forgot to tell you he’s in a snit today.  From Charles i learned of the blind nuns at dawn stitch.

 3. Manhattan winters are slap-in-the-face cold. Turning up toward the sun to warm our faces, we walked along planning a trip to the flower mart. We carried three regular coffees from Chock Full of Nuts steaming into the chilly early morning air. Heading down to the Bowery we traversed Union Square where we recognized the huge pile of fabric as Evelyn. She embodied a fashion statement by building a hat ornament day to day. If you had the time, you would notice that she added a bit of this or that to her chapeau everyday until her headpiece became too heavy. She’d have a two day break + then begin the building ritual again. She inhabited a homeless dingy heap moving from this place to Washington Park on quieter days. Kyle + i had been paid in cash for a restaurant installation the day before, so life was good. i casually handed Evelyn a twenty dollar bill + coffee as we passed her in the park. Her frosty breath rose from the lifeless pyre into the crisp air. When she bolted + came chasing after us, we didn’t know if she was in trouble or if we were. 

When snow is part of a memory.

... You’d remember the night. That day, the snow had started falling, + by the time we finished our design work to begin our city walkabout, it had built up to our ankles. All was quiet as we headed down toward Soho around midnight. Pink snow danced from the sky as hushed magic filled the city air. i don't know how long we lost ourselves in the sharp turning streets of lower Manhattan but hours later we were numb from the wet cold + exhausted from walking + talking. We headed toward home as the street lights began to fade into morning gold. Ahead of us, an underground bakery door opened miraculously. Out came a long belt conveying beautiful golden loafs into the back of a delivery truck. As we neared, the warm savor hit our noses + triggered the saliva thingie. 

Breaking the silence we heard a compassionate voice w/ a new york accent hollered from bellow up to the driver,
Do they want wheat or white?

It is a mystery, that somehow the patience department has gotten compartmentalized.

We may have patience for teaching kids, but not for threading a needle ... patience to cook for 20 guests, + none left to talk to them ... patience to read a novel, but none for any learning curve...

I’m too impatient to do it right, but too stubborn not to have it be perfect. -kb.

My uncommitted understanding of being a twelfth house sun sets me adrift near the knowing just enough to be dangerous category. 

Everyday occurrences can become much too much to process. There is a constant need to disappear. Fortunately, my dearest friends accept my habit of excusing myself from social to-dos to be left to function with/ my own mental climate. Since i dislike common small talk, is not my forté. i do enjoy living vicariously, though, + since one can’t know everything, that must be what friends are for. You may have figured, there just HAD to be a reason. 

Maybe not.

i had finally made it, + there was KB, smoking violently + leaning up against the wall. He saw me coming. Stomping out his cigarette, he rolled his eyes + asked,
What took you so long? we pushed open the pearly gates + entered together.

i am hoping, of course, that the line of questioning is to our general advantage. How much we enable others... not what we gleaned + garnered for ourselves. How wonderful a friend we were ... not how many we had. How much we gave away ... not how much we ended up w/.

The good samaritan makes to-do lists for escapism. When the chances arise they need to be ready for any level of miracle. Leave expensive jewelry at rest stop in impoverished areas. Pay the toll boother one hundred dollars for you + the next ninety-nine cars. Store priceless marble statues in the trunk of a stranger’s car for ballast.

Contemplating on the meaningful takes much longer. i fall asleep wondering if i’ve done all i can do ... The favor is returned w/an uncomfortable dream. i am lying on a rug + friends are encircling me taking turns w/ a talking stick. Passing the token, each verbally digs at what they really think of me. Even in this dream state i know their reasons didn’t rest on bedrock, but i still became emotionally stripped. i awoke thinking this dream was so hurtful it must satisfy one of the prerequisites of the twelve steps.

A friend not only tells the truth, but leaves unsaid the obvious at an opportune moment.

It’s been a day of allegories.
Some better than others.

Shadows are purple, except when they aren't. -jahh

Art is often like opera, some people just need the super-titles.

           -Lonnie Hanzon - in a frustrated moment.

Fall in love with something every day, even if it’s just a color.

          -Kyle Bradfield

First names i'm fairly good at knowing. Last names need to be indisputably visual. i have made it my business, throughout life, not to know anyone. i'm not attesting to anti-socialism, but to my non-socialization. i don’t consider myself naive, as i am probably in the second half of my life. But it has only been recently realized one could talk to strangers + they would decently talk back. i had seen this done, my mother being a champ. She would get off the phone after 20 minutes of conversation just to say it was the wrong number. But i had always imagined if i talked to an unknown someone they'd get a far off look in their eyes as though they were in State Fair,  start singing, turn + walk away. The rules change the reaches, as Le Guin says.

It is good to remember ... all is fleeting.

87 

The apartment's kitchen was situated inside what used to be a walk-in closet. The Fridge door opened only half way, as it was wedged in + the stove edged out of the door frame. If there had not been a barred window, making it seem expansive as you looked out over the gray rooftops, it would have seemed you were cooking in a closet. We worked okay, side by side Kyle + i. Since he was so much taller than me we used different elbow space.

He had to have that credenza. That damn piece of furniture. We hauled it 16 blocks uptown from the salvation army. This huge buffet counter thingy, resembling a moose — as long as a coffin, heavy + on high spindly legs. you know, that thing from th e'50s that store china + linen for fine dining. We trudged it, stumbling, having to stop every 20 feet or so. i remember someone passing with the quip, Why don’t you put a handle on the top to carry it? To the cop we pretend it wasn't ours. (What credenza?) When it got so late we discussed using it for an overnight bunk bed on the street. We fibbed to the door-man by saying a friend had won it. Up the freight elevator ... i'm reckoning it’s in that apartment on 208 W 23rd street today still. It would be fun to know. i carved a note on the outside back of the drawer for posterity.

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.  -Mark Twain.

i am not afraid.

Dream of shuffling the scripture.

Sign on the pearly gate, We have the divine right not to serve anyone. i’m thinking ...Who’s sign is this anyway?

A sputter. Religion largely assumes we exist + that we are spiritual beings w/ a direct propose.

Questioning belittles faith. i do believe on a sanctified level we are not at all that different + so to put much energy into worrying about the hereafter life may be time not well spent + possibly wasted. Being spiritual about the herenow plane, though, has benefits. Spirit creator, spirit redeemer, all spirit w/in us. 

words & excuses / loop knot / slip knot...ooops!
A question crawls out of the question before. 

Ask the kids and they will answer:
i don't think Jesus is in heaven anymore, that was a long time ago.  -ANHH

Maybe we cant remember what heaven was like before we were born because it’s the same as here.  -CMHH

At the risk of getting heavy...

61
As an artist you must be responsible for the images you create. As a person in general it is important to be in touch w/ your motives. i know that i would make a poor debate partner as it is more important for me to make an eloquent point than to get the facts straight. An artist’s statement is always changing. When developing as an artist you never call yourself one because you’re not there yet. By the time you are, your work has become so Byzantine the Artist label is an easy way out.

+ so, + i’m figuring this out as i write, the personal work that was offered out into the world so tentatively twenty-five years ago, is now flung out w/ confidence + unconcern for the frequent belittler. Not looking back, but ahead + over yonder to fill in more lines to appease my disquieted mind. Make room for more white paper + sharp pencils. Zen says you can not get to truth through reasoning, it is too limiting. There’s a good reason for ya. 

Rest on that.

Start by doing what's necessary, then what's possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.  - St. Francis of Assisi 

above - CMHH in Practically Pink / art happening