week fifty >> "wait a minute"

"wait a minute" side view                   click to view

In honor of Jennifer's request, and in the very spirit of the title of Z page from last week, let's "wait a minute" this week before moving on to a new page and stay a bit longer with "wait a minute." I always enjoy turning this one 90º counter clockwise, or 270º clockwise, to take in the left side's landscape view of figures and color.

Speaking of color, I read a quote by artist Paul Klee today, which a friend posted on facebook, and Hemphill you immediately came to mind as I am keenly aware of your love affair with color.  Of course I adore it and all its aliveness as well, but this one's for you:

"Color possesses me. I don’t have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Color and I are one. I am a painter." – Paul Klee

Gabriel Mott, who posted this quote on his facebook page: Seeing Things: Color is Relative, is an artist who is devoting his life to color.  Inspired by great color masters of our time, Gabe is spreading the awareness and experience of the "grammar of color" with the world. He says "When we understand how our eyes process color, we can intentionally create luminosity and brilliance through the relationship of color."  He shares about how he became enthralled with color and the Color Box (http://acolorbox.com/blog/) he created to share his experience with the masses in his Color Movie:

  Also, check out this RAD

interactive site from Gabe:

http://colorisrelative.com

∞ ceci

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week thirty three >> "transmute"

"the opening" of Indulge celebrated on right    click to view

Back in May, in a post called "trust," I told the story about the first "official" collaboration that Jennifer and I did, a show called Indulge at UCSB. The left side of Z page~spread this week "Transmute" is the other side to a page (we have yet to present here in ZBOOK4ever) with shiny colorful stickers of champagne and cheer in celebration of "the opening" of our show on december 10th, 1996... turn the page and find this muted and rather dark page which mutters "the cleanup," the burnt colors bleeding unto it's preceding page, revealing the other side of the proverbial coin of "the opening." The experience that our show had offered included the indulgence of food for the senses, a lot of food, including a floor covered in powdered sugar for the shoeless to sink their toes in.  Well, we flirted with indulgence and indulgence toyed with us in return taunting, you want to play, okay, I'll overindulge you then... and all the indulgent amounts of yum soon verged on yuck... as the powdered sugar floor turned into a sticky mess. A sticky mess that was not forgiving in the least.  Powdered sugar, it looks sweet, but it is not to be underestimated; it is horribly stubborn in fact... as dear Jennifer found out the next day after our show. I had not anticipated the need for such an elongated "de-stall" time and had made plans for which I honored, simultaneously dishonoring the reality of the closure of our show's cleanup and Jennifer who was left to deal with the unruly bully who wouldn't budge from the gallery floor.  

"transmute"           click to view

One day soon after I opened ZBOOK to this burnt page with muttered words "the cleanup" and at once held my breath... until I hurt in my chest, until finally all I could choose to do was breathe again and with that breath came deep gratitude... for the immense cleanup that Jennifer took for the team... and for the friendship that made it possible for trust to allow the experience to transmute itself into a philosopher's stone of experience of surrender, forgiveness and love.  The aqua-blue spheres came through Jennifer's hand as well, I believe, and when they appeared on the right page the next year, I felt that the burnt terrain was being renewed with cleansing waters for a fresh new face of one doosey of a first collaboration.  The word Transmute blossomed onto the spread... now a reverence to the space, of time, trust, love, and breath that restores life experiences into a renewed form, stronger and mature and free to transmute again.  Thank you Hemphill for your earnestness in seeing our show All the way through and for loving me All the way through too.

∞ ceci

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getting in touch

"touch" click to view

On the other side of Z page "Touch" is the story who a girl who invited a story. As I have shared before (visit 4/28 post) there was a time in 1999 that I taught art at an elementary school in Guadalajara, Mexico. After a wonderful visit from Jennifer I had ZBOOK with me in Guad and brought it with me to school everyday. One day when sharing ZBOOK with 2nd grader Paloma, she began asking me about my friend who does ZBOOK with me. "What is she like?" I told her that she is fun, loves to play, and loves postcards. "I want to write her," Paloma said. So I opened up ZBOOK to a blank page and offered it to her with my blue pen. On the upper left of the page you will see the words:

click to view

click to view

from Paloma.... Hi....what is your name?..... Are you a friend of Ms Ceci?..... Write me over here----->

She followed her words with a column of horizontal lines. "She can write me back here," Paloma told me. Jennifer did write back (in purple pen) later that year, unfortunately by that time I no longer lived in Guad and had already bid farewell to those lovely children.

click to view

Many years later appeared this neuron atop this correspondence, which I would normally assume came from me, but this one has such the watery feel of Jennifer, the very veins I know so well from her hand... hmmmmm. Do you remember, Hemphill? It does seem evident that it was the last element to grace Z page since its body of veins extends perfectly into the space created by the leaf and correspondence auras. Right in the same spot... the birth, with Paloma's writing, and the close, with the hovering neuron.... full circle of life. Fitting for the season we are in, of autumn, fall, harvest. Perhaps that is why the leaf found its way here to this page spread. Fell right in.






∞ ceci
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week twenty two >> "howl"

Week 22 finds me back in los angeles after two blessed weeks visiting my Grandma Tata in Cartagena... plus 3 wonderful days in south florida on way back to visit a slew of cousins, aunts and uncles that all moved there from Cartagena as of 10 years now for most of them.  It was so great to reconnect with my family so many of whom I haven't seen for years.  My primos and I grew up playing together during my Cartagena summers and now we are all grown up stepping into being the adults of the family. Wowzers.  Even after all these years, even through all of our changes since we were kids, it is so beautiful the love that we share and has even grown deeper now.

"hidden"

click these for large view

"love bomb

"howl"

 Z page for this week, "Howl," first took shape in in response to the bleed through from Z page before it, "love bomb."  Just as Z page "hidden" was initiated via the bleed trough from "love bomb" on the other side.  As if impregnated by the breathe seeped through from the other page, "howl" speaks in bellows and plumes, the straight lines of it's "genes" fast becoming swollen and mailable into wafts of color and space.  ...I remember Jennifer telling me a story once that led to words written on this page... 

and through my breath I will impregnate you

perhaps you will recount this story in a post this week dear Hemphill... I would love would that so... 
...please tell me a story :)




∞ ceci
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enter here

"5:40 am"        click to view

Who knows where it all began, this page of word flurry.  It's fun to compare our passing of ZBOOK back and forth with each other over the years with the playful fun of girls passing notes between each other in class... and here is a page that is literally packed with actual notes to each other and other verses to the cosmos.  Jennifer and I, as this page reveals itself this week, enjoy how these morsels of expression bring us directly inside of a moment, dipping inside of our own stories, of which we may not know the date, but can recognize the FEEL, triggering our memories, like remembering bits of dreams... 

I don't know what day this journal entry turned verse is from (below), but I can picture the scenario perfectly ...a day in the life of Hemphill and cec roaming the streets of Isla Vista (IV), our potent lil' student town extending from our UCSB campus.
Hucking disc at dawn, 5:40am to be exact.  :)  Synergizing visions, getting into each other's heads like dancing synapes.  Discovering great little gems of spots all over IV and campus to commune in through drawing, tarot card reading, and other spontaneous rituals in honor of the magic of the moment.  The disc I speak of is of the frisbee variety, and huck it we O so love to do.  Back then we would aimFully stroll down the beachy streets of IV, Jennifer on one side, I on the other and we'd huck as we walked, back and forth, with one foot after the other in a full forward current, hardly missing a beat.  Of course there were cars parked at the street sides and so it became clear we were not only hucking disc, but also "saving cars" ...from their imminent risk of disc attack. For the joy of disc in not only in the huck but also in the thrill of the catch.  We became known as "car savers" as did our IV disc walking expeditions.  The only way to travel.
 

These (at right) are lyrics I wrote for a song I made with my band when I lived in
New York in 2001.  

 


These words (at left) I wrote the year after my accident during my last and best year at USCB (97-98). Ironically this was the year that all my PSLers, including Hemphill, were gone and graduated, but after my recoup time away, this last year was indeed my best personal year at SB.

"noticias"       click to view

This word flurry page reminds me of Z page "Noticias," however that one is more report and "5:40 am" is more rapport.  Baring no dates, the words of "5:40 am" are partial glimpses into stories, offering morsels of experiences.  (Just as I was last week with the word web in "Mapa," I am again reminded of Johnathan Harris' work)  It is fun to identify these lil' clues of our moments in time, each one holding a place from which we can enter the narrative of our lives.


∞ ceci
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"hidden" context

As we were feeling out the page for this week Jennifer and I could sense it but could not see it until finally our eyes focused in on what is after all "hidden."  This page, quite pale, translucent even, does not live in the forefront, it does not cry out loud... it waits backstage, patient and equinanimous, for subtle moments to express... in whispers.  "Hidden" is a place we haven't returned to visit as very often, unlike other boldly seductive pages, and so this week we re-discover it and it's secrets.

"love bomb"     click to view

"hidden"     click to view

One of the more flamboyant pages in its contrast is actually responsible for the birth of"hidden": "love bomb"  The pastel markers that formed the force field in "love bomb" did bleed over creating the mid right section of "hidden." Thus the initial mark on "hidden," the impetus for the entire page, was in fact no mark at all, at least not from the surface, it came up from the depths below.  This bleed-through was left untouched and only extended by lines that formed a completion via mutation inspired by the form on the other page it mirrors. 

Another page connection lies within these added lines, the metalic purple diamond like shapes... when turn ZBOOK on its side you may be able to detect that it is a series of identical figures with the arms up and legs apart, and that btwn each  is another figure and another btwn each of those and so on.

"hidden" detail : burning man pattern     click to view

"good-witch" detail : burning man pattern in circle   click to view

To my surprise this exact pattern with the same pen was included in Z page from last week, "good-witch"!  If you look closely to the circle in of the middle right side, going round are these infinite dudes again.  This pattern was inspired by Burning Man and it's symbol of a man spread wide open.  I had initially come up with this pattern of forever burning men as a possible design for jewelry at at that time was drawing it every, as I now remember. the fact that we chose the pages back to back is just another wonderful moment is the life that ZBOOK, and all our co-creating, most certainly including Z Blog, has all of it's own.  Getting out of our own ways and allowing this ZBOOK creature to unfold and mutate and create into what it IS to become has been not only thrilling, but seriously healing, as an artist and thus a human.  This "hidden" page seems to exemplified this with all it's cryptic messages and deeply embedded stories.

"it's my intension

it's like even when

it's not my aim

it iS" 

is what came forth from my pen onto this page on day years ago,

intention misspelled respectively, and a size small sticker

peeled from a garment used for the "s" in "iS."

  I guess I knew then what I didn't know now.

∞ ceci

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