fae-eyes

I haven't been around for awhile, DA. The thing is, some passions are easily communicated over the Internet and others, not so much. My passion these last years has been research. This is a thing that is not particularly DA friendly. I could post endless essays and passages from books about gender, about relationships, about sexuality, about identity, about media and textual theory - but somehow I don't think y'all would get too down with that.

This year, I want to get a little bit back to some old passions. I'm taking a portraiture class and I'm looking for projects that help me link my passions - stitch them together into a lovely eclectic quilt (another current passion). I've been heavily researching the role of body image in women's success at work (and public life more broadly). This has involved body language and weight and appropriate attire and selling bodies as part of selling clothes and endless stories from fantastic women whose eating disorders saw them struggle at work, whose weight meant they were mocked instead of promoted, whose makeup got them jobs but then denied them career advancement and whose ability to manage their body hair was somehow seen as part of their professional skill set.

I want to photograph these women. I want to see women at work, the way that they are - not the way the media would have us believe they are. I want to see women getting comfortable in slacks while they nurse babies and women in coveralls in factories because the labour may be different but it is labour all the same.

So those are the plans, at small as they are at this stage. Hopefully they'll turn into something that will be more accessible for those of you out there in Internet land.

X

Today was one of those 'deep breath' days. Take each moment as it comes and try not to think too much. Instead, try to make up a story about a girl who creates a new and intricately delicate dress every time her heart gets broken. Then go out and buy some wool and kit yourself a new heart, or a pair of gloves, whatever works.

Whatever you do - don't dwell on the fact that you feel incapable of trusting anyone enough to ever fall in love again. Also - don't count the number of promises you've watched being broken in your lifetime. It will do nothing for  your health or your heart.

Sometimes, shit happens that contradicts everything you've learnt in your short and angsty life. And then what? Do you start learning all over again? Do you drop the pen altogether; kick the poetry and swear off the prose?

How do I write anything when there are so many things I don't want to admit? Does anyone really want to hear about the loser of the tale; the one left behind?

I wonder if I will always rush to choose fabric over feelings.

I had a dream and there I met a girl with short hair and slender fingers and a curious smile. In my dream, the girl was surprised and couldn't really believe that I had never kissed someone under a table. As if it were so common to drag someone under a table and into an impenetrable fortress of looove in order to kiss them.

As she described this ever so common act, I felt my longing rise. All the things I've done with my life and I've missed out on this most simple of pleasures! I began to wonder what I would give to have felt what she felt. Which experiences would I have traded for this simple hidden kiss?

As I wondered, she brushed her fingers over my ankle and slipped her hand into mine. She smiled and my friends appeared, giggling, across the river. All of this seemed to amount to a promise: one day I will find you and I will give you the gift of the under the table kiss.

Then I woke up, far away in a foreign land that is cold and windy with change. Before last night there was no longing, no aching, no silly desire. Now I feel a pang whenever I see a table tall enough to fit under. What a strange world it is I live in.

As a writer, I am endlessly jealous of performers, who can interact with their art, who can invite others into their sanctuaries. I take photos because I feel it's the closest I can get to being sharing my dreams and my ideas with someone else. Why do I write? My hands always have to be moving, changing making. I don't trust my voice, it falters, goes quiet when I need it the most, gets lost in a fucking forest of feeling.

Thing is, I care so much about art, more than you might imagine when you see me writing essays about gender distinctions and the anthropology of religion. I spend hours searching the internet and books for beautiful images, for haunting eyes and soft hands. I cry when my own pictures don't convey what I feel - even more when I can't work out what it is that I feel.

Maybe I'm just lonely and I use art to keep myself company and remind myself what love feels like.

The question is, will I ever feel good enough? Will I ever feel as though I've captured what needs to be captured? Or is art a never ending thirst, an eternal search, a fucking hero's quest for something more?

its some strange kind of hell - i have taken more photos in the past few days than i have in ages, but alas there is no way to upload them. oh well, there will be an overload when i get home. a yummy yummy overload. reflections and wintery days and warrior hats galore.

in lieu of pic uploading, i figured the most sensible thing to do would be to buy lots and lots and lots of shinies. i have a cake fork wrapped around one of my fingers. talk about awesome. havent bought much apart from rings though, except for one rainbow and a couple of presents. so far i have purchased 8 rings. seriously. when i die i think it will be because i have buried myself in shiny things and can no longer leave the house to get food.

i believe there will be even more photos after tasmania, of lushness and girls in paisley of course. just can't go past the paisley. i feel as though i havent been home in so long, and its been a nice break, just wondering the streets and being totally exhausted at night that i just sleep till i cant sleep no more. i wish i could retain this perspective all the time, can't waste time laying about when there are so many beautiful things to see.