Letter to Believer Magazine

The Young and the Restless

I shot this video footage of my sister in a hotel in Pennsylvania the evening after my aunt's memorial service. In a state of partial dress and infected by the spirit of her Spanks undergarments, my sister, who is a mother of three and a full-time nurse, took on a different persona. I was fortunate enough to capture her alternate persona on video. I added the theme music from "The Young and the Restless" , called "Nadia" as a nod to the drama which pervades many of our familial relationships. Growing up in the 80's, we would run in from school, and throw on the TV to encounter the discordance of this unusual theme music which came to punctuate our days for a short time; we would usually run back outside to play basketball with our older neighbor, John McNulty. Basketball was my sister's obsession, and we would talk about Villanvova's team while practicing dribbling and layups.

Dove (excerpt)

Durt said that Dove’s brain secretes acid, but that doesn't seem fair. There is something incredibly ill-fitting about using the word “secrete” in any kind of sentence containing her name. Then again, Durt doesn't put anyone on a pedestal.  

The night I met her, we were introduced by two close mutual friends on a rooftop.They said, “you know each other”.  And so we did.

She was a curator of experience, sending invitations to meet in a theater, or a rooftop drum circle where a pig roasted on a spit. There were dance parties at Halcyon where each of us knew that we were connected to each other and Dove appeared and disappeared like a puff of smoke throughout the evening and danced in the spirit of her Korean ancestors between cigarette breaks. One Summer night, on rolling green fields between the train and our destination, Dove somersaulted down a hill while the rest of us walked; this being an extension of her martial arts practice. Once, she coordinated a rendezvous at an abandoned communications building on the icy Gowanus Canal. Durt was there with tools to pry off the plywood. We climbed down one by one until the lookouts were in, and the wood was back in place. Dove's communique suggested we come with a poem, or other listenable fare. These were recited from the balconied upper levels of the structure. The floorless shell rose up basilica-like, lending itself to resounding acoustics. We stood in a maze of tags - the ghosts of previous interlopers.   A feather-hatted dandy recited "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" while the Gowanus lapped our sides....

Thoughts on Graduation

                                                 

                                                     

Its May 28th, and I am spending the day thinking about the past two years, and what they have meant.  Granted, I am one class short, but my class graduates today, and I am compelled to share with them in spirit.  I find myself unsure of how to place this event, as my successes seem to occur more on a moment to moment basis, rather than in milestones.  But I would like to try.

My thesis project is comprised of a multi-dimension body of work as an accompaniment to a narrative poem.  The title is "Felcanography".  The poem is called, "Rime of the Dead Science-Man", and it is the story of an ambitious and corrupt geneticist who is inspired to breed a dog with a cat to create the Felcan (feline + canine = Felcan).  He believes it will be "the cutest pet ever."   The Felcan is sexless, albino, slightly amorphous, not so cute, and oddly phlegmatic - that is, unresponsive.  It is also deaf.  It has few instincts, but many superpowers.  It cannot mate, so it is evolved, but endangered.   I do not know what the original impetus was to endow the characters with these qualities, but meaning has revealed itself to me in a great many layers through the time of the project's development.

    If you know me, you know how much going to graduate school meant to me.  Also, you know about the challenges I face as an individual, possibly better than I do.  One of our first readings was "Death of the Author" by Roland Barthes.  This essay is a short summation of the shift in literary critical theory from its emphasis on the writer, to the emphasis on the reader.  That the interpretation of the material supersedes its intent, is an outgrowth of post-modern acknowledgement of the unsung cultures, challenges, and triumphs overshadowed by the hierarchical powers that be, and have been.  I wonder about the ability of the average person to decipher meaning, as much as I wonder about my own.  Is it possible someone can look at my work, or I can look at someone else's work, and have a more profound experience with its expression than the maker had making it?  Different experience, for sure, but more profound, I think not.

I was told the work needed to be "about something".  I cobbled together the narrative, and decided my work would be about the story.  I began  by planning the Felcan to be as pared down of defining qualities as possible.  This was a backlash against the amplified portioning of people into groups that is going on all around us and is propagated by almost all media.  I wanted, through the formlessness of the Felcan  to acknowledge the individual within any group.  It looks like no specific animal, but can be said to resemble a variety of possible animals, including ducks, wombats, and mole rats, or crocodiles.  The felcan has no memory, except for "working memory", therefore it is incapable of judgement.  The thoughts are gone as soon as they come.  This was a nod to objective thinking, which barely exists due to our unavoidable cognitive biases.

I struggled a little with knowing how to conduct myself on a largely minority campus.  I felt silenced in classes when discussion of race came up, because I did not want to even take the chance of saying the wrong thing.  It was suggested to me that I read a book called "White Fragility" by Robin DiAngelo.  I learned from this book, that to dis-acknowledge race is a mistake that white people make because we have the luxury of not thinking about it.  I felt certain that I was sending out the wrong message, and shored up my championing of the individual.  I am not sure if I was successful in this!

  One of the great things about our program at Brooklyn College is the opportunity through events and visitations to get genuine feedback from other people.  I was tremendously moved by what flowed back to me, and put it back into the work.  There were times I felt like the Felcan was me, all alone and very much misunderstood, or that I was the Science-Man with his hubris and myopic determination.  I got a lesson in humility, that I did not expect.  I was pushed to explain the work, which told me the work does not speak for itself, and this was frustrating and dashed my hopes of art being my only language.

Along with emphasis on the individual came the exploration of the phenomena of "uniqueness".  I truly believe that expression and uniqueness go hand in hand, and that somehow this is connected to freedom.  I deliberately made each piece as distinct from the last as possible.  This created the problem of how to unite them.  So came the poem.

As much as I do not know how to celebrate graduation, I do know that the moments I spent in my school studio, before that time was cut short by Corvid-19, were among the most free and happy I have ever known!  It actually feels good saying that.   I am so grateful that I had a chance to feel that particular way, in a big well-lit studio with lots of tables and room to make a mess.

Love,
Marlene

Corvid Blush, 2020
30" x 22"
Hair dye, Urban Decay Blush, oil paint on Vellum.

                 

Revisiting Disney

Its May 21st, and I am spending the day working on my final animation project, which will bring me one step closer to graduation.  This class was meant to cover Adobe After Effects, specifically.

By the time I fumbled my way through the rudimentaries of navigating the computer lab, Corvid-19 set in, causing Brooklyn College to move to the "distance learning model".  The syllabus for the class changed to accommodate those who are not setup with computers at home.  This was an unexpected boon, which caused me to have a practical understanding of timing in animation that would have taken years to learn on AFX.   We made flip books for an assignment, "the classic bouncing ball." After 47 drawings, I had one and a half seconds worth of bouncing.  My "Jumping Girl" took 138 drawings for 4 seconds.  The computer does something called interpolation between frames, which is the act of filling in the inevitable missing information.  This is a wildly complex process with limitations.  Hence, the many drawings.  The math gets as complicated as you want to make it regarding frame rates, etc.
      During our last class discussion regarding timing, I was experiencing some pleasantly innervating mental triangulation regarding the word "parallax". When the figure in an animation composition or anything is moving, the layers of space behind it move at different speeds, the closest layer moving the slowest.  This is referred to a "parallax", and is also the name for what happens to a shape when viewed from two different positions.  Astronomers use the concept used by to measure space outside of our solar system.

 

We were introduced to Oskar Fischinger's work, "Optical Poem" with its gyrating shapes, Grave of the Fireflies, by Isao Takahata, and we revisited Disney often. There is lots to explore there, when admittedly I had written it off because of the Prince and Princess thing. I watched Wall-E for the first time, and even the bit between the two robots was a bit cloying, although I loved the movie's first half with all the piles of metal, and Wall-E, himself. I didn't need to see all the fat lazy people. The Iron Giant - how come I have never seen this movie?

I am thinking about the kids in my class. I am a graduate student, but the class was undergraduate class, so I very realistically could have been their mother, and was probably older than the teacher. Sadly, I am not good with computers, so it filled me with fear when I saw the other screens in the class fill with After Effects magic, while I was trying to find my file. They are responsible, bright, and so so young! When I think seriously about how my life would have been affected if this plague came when I was in my 20's or 30's, I feel the depth of sadness that I have been able to avoid, due to the distraction of school.

This is my "Goldilocks" who is a silver-haired "Moldilocks". Goldilocks originally had silver hair, but because of reasons, it was changed to gold somewhere along the way. I clearly have things to work out with this 10 seconds of a "walk-cycle". I will replace the video after I work out the bug regarding the table. I decided at the 11th hour that the original table was too small to be for bears, so I had to make a new table and add it in, which I did not leave time to do properly, because I am a spaz.

Love,
Kryzamelah

My Corona

   
      Last night, I posted this image of the Corona virus, on Instagram.  My posting was a little tongue-in-cheek, and I thought better of it afterwards, for fear offending anyone who may see it as a mockery.  However, my experience so far, has been a creative boon, and there are others who share this sentiment.
     To create the image, I referenced the iPhone emoji for viruses, which I had been inadvertently using to decorate my messages.  I was attracted to it before the Corona Virus was even a twinkle in our eye.  In fact, I thought that it resembled none other, than a green twinkle - an erupting spark of life.  Despite various conspiracy theories and the highly disruptive tumult which the virus has caused, I see it as nature striving to cut a hole for itself, much like the weeds that grow out of the cracks in the sidewalk.  I cry along with people on the news at night who are losing jobs and loved ones, and the exhausted medical professionals who cannot hide their emotions while interviewed.  However, stories about lions and bears coming out out of their hiding spots to bask in the sun give me so much hope.

Twinkle

Medieval

4/8/20

       

                                 ...e continue to use the "distance learning model" to advance our studies during the pandemic. Yesterday, I met with Professor Charles on Zoom.  I almost missed our meeting, as I had become engrossed in editing my CV.  I raked my finger nails through my hair and threw on a dress, but was not in the head space to talk about the work I have been making, and which hangs in my bathroom and bedroom now awaiting next steps.  Lack of preparation was no matter, as I have learned preparation often backfires even more than winging it.  

Martin Schongauer The Temptation of St. Anthony

        Professor Charles, a painter, is someone that I do not know well, but like the other teachers, he is totally present during the conversation.  He stated early on that he is surprised that I do not use more text in my work.  This excited me, because I want to use text, and plan on using text, I just haven't quite figured out how to do it yet.  What will the text say?  I love the cryptic, but how will actual language factor into my Cryptopia?  The implication that something is trying to be said, that meaning is lurking just under the surface, like Captcha phrases, is delicious.  The suggestion of meaning, like the suggestion of importance.   He responded to one of the more rectilinear works-in-progress strongly (below), and in fact drifted back to it throughout our conversation.  He saw incipient letters in these "Elevators", and even mentioned that his 12 year old son is now working on an illuminated manuscript-style capital letter for an assignment.  I remembered including a Renaissance engraver, Martin Schongauer,  in my list of artists (on my mind while working through the pandemic at home) in an explanatory pre-meeting email.  This list, cobbled together without much thought at all, may very well have included an entirely different set of names one day earlier or one day later.   But Schongauer was frontal on my frontal that day,  as I had been transcribing notes from an art history lecture I attended recently, and Schongauer's engraving, The Temptation of Saint Anthony  (1470-1475) was mentioned as the inspiration for Michalangelo's piece (1487-88) of the same name.  This happens to be Michelangelo's first known painting.  The fantastic creatures seemed desperately familiar, but I could not at the moment put my finger on where it was that I knew them.  The lecture, which centered on the Medieval hybrids known as satyrs and centaurs, was of interest due to my interest in hybridism as it pertains to the Felcan, emergence, evolution, and fantasy.  It was not until after speaking with Professor Charles about text and Medieval manuscripts that I looked up Schongauer's engraving, thus reigniting waves of hidden childhood fervor, which felt as new as it did the first time.

 
   

Elevators  2020

           As my eyes processed and remembered these beasts- demonic violent companions from a time long ago, tingles overcame me from head to toe.  This image, estranged from my memory somehow, had been an object of much obsession for me for a time in my early youth.  What year?  I am not sure, but my dad was alive, and I can remember the green shag carpet.  I had ravaged it with my youthful eyes and drawn it line for line - painstakingly re-imagining the details too small to make out.  Where did i find it originally?  It had to be in print, as I can tell even with my hazy recollection that this relationship took place well before Google replaced my brain.  In fact, it is likely that I found it in the set of 1981 World Book Encyclopedias my Mom stored behind the sliding door of our coffee table, which was nested in the green shag carpeting.  This was the way I wanted to draw.  This image represented the ultimate in good art, as far as my preteen brain was concerned.  And I made it my masterpiece.  It became my raison d'etre as I carried it rolled in a scroll back and forth.  The memory was coming into focus.  There is escapism and refuge in the act of looking and copying.  A meaningful way to get lost in time.  A parallel memory floats by - the back page of the TV guide, wherein was always included a drawing challenge.  I may or may not have ever actually entered the contest, but the idea of copying something perfectly had come on my radar.  Others who came of age in the 80's and who loved to draw will recognize this:

Tv Guide in the 80's always included this challenge on the back page.

Bonus: "Letter O"