week forty seven >> "misc"

You know how we O so adore stickers.  When Jennifer and I were in the throws of our first year of connection and collaboration at UCSB, one of the most potent rediscoveries we experienced through our creative communion was our mutual history and love for stickers, as I storied in my post last summer (here).  Soon after, when in the throws of our first year of sharing ZBOOK, we became aware that we not only now had a place to collect our drawings, thoughts, and found objects... we now had a place to collect stickers again, akin to the ol' sticker collection books of our girlhoods.  We were back in tune with attracting and creating with stickers and began to identify the unsung stickers of our world too... the stickers all around us in our daily lives we hardly notice, especially as stickers.  The sticker on your market apple or avocado, the sticker on your newly bought pair of pants with the size letter, the sticker on your new stick of deodorant, the sticker on your new book or cd, the stickers from junk mail letters and ads, and all the bar code stickers and price tag stickers and of course the ubiquitous "made in..." stickers that all too often come from China. These are stickers too! And we are all equal opportunity sticker lovers for sure. And so although these MISCellaneous stickers can be found all through ZBOOK contributing to many of its compositions, this particular page apparently captured some of these in a more traditional collection kind of way, which to me is simply a celebration of these stickers and our reverence for them. Enjoy what sticks!

"misc"

click here to read all of our posts pertaining to stickers :)

∞ ceci 

6

postscript from Jennifer - today, I was oddly fascinated to listen to the banter of 5th grade girls and boys in essence swapping stickers.  I marked little gardening flags with pieces of blue masking tape and numbered them so they could track their javelin throwing progress as we prepare for the pentathlon.  These kids became momentarily obsessed with what numbers were stuck on their flags - basically, what their sticker i.d.'s were - cookoo and fun!

week forty four >> "amor (love dub)"

"amor (love dub)"       clik to view

This week of valentines brings forth Z page "amor," our most lovey duby spread which I affectionately call the "love-dub" spread. We definitely let ourselves go super girly here, which is my style really, not Jennifer's either, but still undeniably part of our ethos growing up as girls... an ethos I highly resisted I must say, as I never felt akin to the frills and pinks of "what girls like."  I shunned the color pink my entire childhood all the way until I was almost 30... when I realize that my rebellion had only given power to the mass perceived linkage to gender and that the color pink was independently quite innocent and its energetic properties were actually quite aligned with being.... in love.  And so I reclaimed it for my own, on my own terms, in my own truth... and every now and then you may even find me wearing it.

Setting myself free in Z pages of Z book from the ages of 22 to 36, definitely included a lot of reclaiming of old loved things that had been forgotten and these old territories previously subverted.  This page~spread became the place where stickers and images of hearts and romance came to BE, in all there lovey dubbiness.  Where it's okay to be smooshy and kissy and sweet.  And although this indeed is not the whole embodiment of being a girl, why deny this sweet open hearted facet all together.  The world could benefit from allowing more the expression of it's tolerance, kindness, and love... and recognize vulnerability as the strength and vital force that it is.

In this TEDtalk, acclaimed playwright Eve Ensler speaks about how "that there is a girl cell in us all -- a cell that we have all been taught to suppress." That this girl cell in us ALL, women and men,  is compassion, empathy, vulnerability, openness, intensity, relationship and intuition. And how "this particular grouping of cells is central to the evolution of our species and the continuation of the human race."  I invite you to check this out, this is compelling stuff:

I wish someone would have reminded me when I was little that I didn't have to suppress my girly side in order to embrace my masculine energy and that in fact my intuition and ability to connect and relate were strengths and assets vital to my life and our world.  I'm grateful for this awareness now, and my experience through ZBOOK has helped me realize this for myself beyond measure.  This is a huge reason of why we want to share ZBOOK with the world now, starting with a focus on young girls, to help ALL recognize and revere the POWER of all of our open hearted sensibilities.  

∞ ceci

6

week forty one >> "out of body"

My current bathroom book, Synchronicity - Through the Eyes of Science, Myth, and The Trickster, gave me insight into my own experiences this week, particularly in light of posting my musings of this weeks spread, “out of body."  One thing after another seemed to halt and alter my path.

Magicians hands

Looking upon this spread, “out of body,” in this swirl of images, there is a reflection of the ancient art of divination. In older civilizations, the magi, the magicians were looked to with great respect to “provide access to the world of spirits for their communities."  The symphonic gloved hands at right, the magicians hands, pinch the white flaming smoke of the ether to decipher stories from this mist.  (On a technical note, these hands are stickers which we drew in arms for.)  I'm remembering a scene from Harry Potter when Dumbledore pulls a golden memory strand from his head and releases it into the Pensieve.  These hands, in 'out of body' are like pluckers of threads from the vast sea of zbook.

"out of body"

This spread, reminds me very much of a tarot card, where symbols float in space, allowing the viewer to reflect their own meaning from the powerful story of the images.  In my reading of "Synchronicity", I was lightened in my original frustration with all the 'interferences' of my work, to think of the playful nature of forces around us, always guiding us toward self knowledge.

“The Trickster delights in frolicking with symbols. Synchronicity in such instances seems to mirror processes that are afoot deep in the psyche. Jumping across boundaries between the conscious and the unconscious, between the psychological and the physical, the Trickster tosses out images in play that express sheer vitality of the imagination.”


Flame the Pheasant Headed Mask

The story of this page, is story. All of these elements have the incredible potential of story in relation to personal meaning. The story of Flame the pheasant headed mask comes to mind.  At top left, the face whose cheek flashes 'DYNAMIC', in my current place of thought could certainly be a manifestation of Jung, who is known for his studies and expressions of ideas about synchronicity.  I particularly love the image of the waterfall pool at bottom left, where 'story' rises from the mist just above.  It reminds me of the way I introduced Council to the fourth grade class I worked with this week... as a bowl which we carve with our deep listening so that we may pour our stories into and see them swirling, uniting us and helping us to understand one another.

story pool

In other spreads, we have seen representatives of the strong and formed faces which Ceci often draws.  Here, these faces are manifestations from my hand.  My technique is often to free form draw, allowing shape or color to guide my form and then finding the being or face, the personality within that has come through and defining it with features.
Ceci has been charged with documenting and uploading details of zspreads the last few weeks, as she is currently in posession of zbook.  She wanted me to know that one encircling sentence of the right page side was captured in different shots...thus, I feel it is important to decipher said recording and show it's path on the page up close : " I just love bringing Zee book to diff. places & seeing it's beauty glow w/ the settings."

 - to close, a short verse in homage of "out of body"

ENCIRCLEMENTS so delicate and intricate.

Sweet gratitude and Testitude, in love of you.

Out of Body, Out of Mind, soul flight cross waves of time.

Inward unseen, a feeling gleaned.,

A throat, a note, a subtle scene.

Be well and Blessings,

-J.G.

week thirty four >> "aguatulnico" - december BLUE pages!

"transmute"     click

As we deepen into winter during this december month, we celebrate a Bon Iver with Z BLUE PAGES from ZBOOK.  We dipped into blue with last week's "transmute" as last week we transitioned from november to december... and now we arrive into Z BLUE month and begin with this week's "aguatulnico," a very watery page~spread with whispers of glitter and a dash of stickers.

"aguatelnico"       click to w view large

What doe s Aquatelnico mean?  Beats the heck out of me... there coud certainly be a story there, or it's story could be that which hundreds of words scribed into ZBOOK share; the word, recognizable or not, escaped from the mouth and its music could not be denied and thus was captured in ZBOOK to muse over- 4ever.  Hemphill, any internal leads on this one, or the memory of the initial utterance and thus birth of the word?  Or maybe it shall remain untold and it's story is now in this moment in its life of mystery... inviting us to make up our own stories for the word and for the spread, now and every time we revisit the page.  Like going for a swim in reflecting pool... these cool waters feel warm and bubbly to me.

∞ ceci

6

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

6

existential silliness

"external" click to view

Deady Eddy click to view

Z page this week "external" was birthed in Guadalajara during the restoration time I shared about in my 6/9/10 post. And as I shared before, it was when I began to paint these faces made of shapes and the lines of negative space in between. Some landed in ZBOOK including this one, created not with paint but instead with white sticker pieces. These pieces made up the borders and framing off an old sheet of stamps which was by this time stampless with only the sticker peripheries remaining. Let no sticker be unrecognized nor unused! As I've proclaimed before, there are stickers all around us in our lives, far beyond the packaged sheets sold at the craft store. The skeleton body came later...
O my goodness it just hit me that this body was drawn in Guadalajara also, but 2 years later when I was living their for 6 months and teaching art an an elementary school. My partner at the time Vinh was going to medical school there (which is why Guadalajara was a frequent spot for me during and after college) and it was a skeleton doll we got during our travels around mexico, in either Guanojuato or San Miguel De Allende, which inspired the drawing that gave the sticker face a body in ZBOOK. O man, what was that skeleton's name?! O yeah! Deady Eddy! ((sigh)) Dead Ed. We loved that that little dead dude. And I didn't even connect that early this week when connecting this page to Dia de los Muertos!

click these to view

ALSO from Guadalajara are these wrappers on the left, that I picked up from the playground at the elementary school I worked at. The top one is for some kind of candy kids eat by scooping out with a little plastic flat spoon. The one below is the top of a sticker package, folded open, you can see the hole in both sides for hanging the package in in the store display. It was Jennifer who later came in and added the middle section that gave a body to the face in the candy wrapper. And after that the dino's body line was extended into the stickers wrapper to excentuate the mirror opposite image in the wrapper, to which I apparently wrote on the side in orange pen " a kind of ying yang" Okay Cec, I suppose :) I'm now teasing myself. And now I'd like to tease myself for teasing myself. O man I did it again. Wait, the date says March 1999 also in orange which would be when I collaged the sticker wrapper in... so Jennifer's dino body came after... so how beautifully did she match up the body line with the "ying yang" line... simple things like this make my day. That is so much of what ZBOOK is about... the magic in simple gestures that meet in perfect timing in the presence of trust and play and availability and receptivity for it all to be revealed and discovered.


So we have bones which are internal yet external in terms of being the matter of the physical... and wrappers that are external and made for for disposal but kept to live on in the internal realm of ZBOOK (look for many other candy wrappers through out ZBOOK too) and on both sides of Z page are the glows of external light of which appear to be auras around these skeleton and dino bodies, also indicating an expression of something internal... or eternal. It tickles me how this page, which is so silly fun to me, also speaks to me of existential awareness. The element that probably set the latter tone, and certainly appeared on the page before the auras did is the cut out quote collaged over Dead Ed:

Cut out from a book that Jennifer sent me color copies of... of the cover and some inside pages, a beautiful book, O man I forgot the name of it again... Hemphill please refresh my memory... and if you feel like, I'd love to hear about how this book came into your hands and how it came to be copied and sent to me... that was late 2000 or early 2001 when Vinh and I were living in New York. And other images and words from those copies of that book appear in other places of ZBOOK. ZBOOK is indeed the search of understanding the mysteries of life... which can never be fully understood of course... thank goodness.


∞ ceci
6

X BOOK !

today with added sticker from Cartagena

first page touched in XBOOK, birthed 2004

It's high time that we share with you X BOOK! Our dear 2nd book in circulation birthed in 2004... birthed at the moment that we began to bring conscious closure to ZBOOK, which was 8 years alive at that time... which still took the next 6 years to truly "wrap up."  I was still living in northern California then and so our book swapping was still active via the post and hand to hand when I'd travel to los angeles.

click these images
for large view

Only now we exchanged one for the other; one with the transitioning ZBOOK, and the other with the dawning xBOOK.   This exchange continued with more frequency after I moved to los angeles in 2006 and still today... with the added element that for the first time in 10 years Jennifer and I began to work in zBOOK side by side during our creative sessions together, in high honor of attuning to the closure of Z pages.  All the while also exchanging xBOOK. 

Today xBOOK is traveling with me, here in Cartagena!  And ZBOOK is at home with Jennifer.  During this trip I came across some rad stickers (peeled off of a internet cafe wall), sparkly and, not surprisingly since this is Colombia, catholic.  The scenes are lovely as I choose to remove the dogma from them and receive from them their simple expressions of prayer, reverence, and gratitude. Plus they're shinny and glittery :)!  Here are the X pages on which these stickers now live... keep in mind that these pages are fully in progress as xBOOK swims in full circulating current between Jennifer and myself. 

Look for more shares of X pages to see how these grow.

"reflection"  in ZBOOK

So super that these newly gleaned stickers come to XBOOK the week that Z page here, "reflection," also has two stickers of deities, the metallic buddha on left, the Morcheeba sticker that we got at their concert in let's see 1998 which also birthed this page, and the metallic virgin mary on right peeled off a candle in Guadalajara in 1999. RAD.

∞ ceci

6

 

"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

6

week sixteen >> "good witch"

Jennifer once brought me a sarong from Maui, a gift from one of her many family trips to her beloved island.  It came with instructions, not in words but rather in pictures, suggestions really on ways to use the sarong, pointers to the fabric's versatility, an invitation to be creative.   I cut out these drawings of the sarong sportin' ladies one by one and collaged them into ZBOOK here on this page.  One day, maybe years later, maybe less, I opened up this page to find these ladies had been dipped in pink and had become their very own ensemble... with one swipe of the scissors and another of glue, the words "hot skillet lickers" made these ladies into super stars. 

[ click images to view ]

"good witch"

It must have been the work of the good witch!.. who appeared a bit later below at the center seam of the page.  She dresses in pink herself... maybe she made the sarong maidens into her backup singers, or maybe they are her projection of her multiple personas, or maybe she's an awesome sticker that Jennifer stuck in here to give the page more pink, and more magic.  

∞ ceci

6

this too shall trespass

"caution"

Both an ode and an exposé, "caution" is a cautionary tale about 

our modern world, the world we love and hate... of conveniences, 

standards, regulations, technologies, structures, communications, 

test markets, commercial branding, warnings, liabilities, and 

messages, messages, messages.  All with a good chuckle, of 

course, at all the hoopla and conditioned frameworks we create.

 * click all images to view large *

This page is comprised of mostly an assemblage of the daily stuff of our lives, gleaned from the stuff we consume, cut out tags and peeled off stickers with messages of some kind of warning or commercial agenda.  Messages that tell us or sell us what to do and what to not do. Or messages that "feel good" but are manufactured for the sole purpose to sell a product; we consume the message, we consume the product... in other words, we "buy it."  

But "caution," in the very act of identifying each object and placing it on this page, is also a revelry in being AWARE... of being a target, being a market group, being conditioned, being hooked on "convenience," and being a willing participant in it all.  It is a wake up call to our own part of the game and a kick in the pants for being hip to it.  It's a chance to call ourselves out and confess that these things that give us "security" and "freedom" actually keep us captive... 

 

...like the car that makes us feel free to go anywhere but is ruled by the viscous animal which is oil that holds the keys.  Huh, funny, I just now made that specific coloration, with oil.  This cut out image has always, for years now, signified to me the irony of our dependence on technology, as well as the nature vs. nurture debate, And now, in 2010, my thinking goes beyond technology, for it is painfully clear that our dependence is truly on what fuels our technology and the fuel that it is all manufactured with... for thAt is the true gate keeper and key master.  I could wallow in disgust and animosity but that is a loop hole keeps us in the muck where there is no hope or possibilities. It is our expanding AWARENESS and release of our shame that gets us present and in position to make actual changes.  For me, that is what this page is about, the moment of honestly looking myself in the face, and instead of crying, have a good laugh at our unthinkable state, and begin to trespass our trespassers, change the game, make new choices, cross the boundary lines of the regulations that regulate our minds.  Laughter may just be our first step over the barrier.

∞ ceci

6

stickers!

unicorn metallic sticker from Jennifer's own childhood collection,
now living in ZBOOK.(& see above that for piece of orange glitter
 sticker sheet, as mentioned in last post)  >>click for larger view

Jennifer and I were hanging out in her room at the apartment she had just moved into in 1996, in Isla Vista, CA.  (Was that Trigo St, Hemphill?)  Still fresh in the first season of our friendship, we were reminiscing over stories about when we were kids... and we both started to remember how much we had loved stickers!  All the different kinds... such as metallics, iridescents, oilies, fuzzies, scratch n' sniffs, etc... and Jennifer said she still had her collection at home (! which she retrieved and presented to me a week or 2 later).  I had let my affection for stickers go dormant since the 6th grade, having shed my devotion to them in an attempt to"grow up", I suppose.  Suddenly, here in this room, at the age of 21, my love for stickers busted wide open once again.  This was the moment I gave myself permission to adore stickers again, have fun with stickers again, and simply have FUN again. This marked the moment I got PLAY back into my creative and life experience.  Thanks to this inspiring reflection, this I'm-possible connection with a long found friend, I made the great return to a vital part of myself that I had denied for 10 years. Stickers were simply the catalyst.  

As I write this I am realizing that it was indeed middle school when I began to turn away from my art (and thus my heart) in which I had been fervently active since birth it seemed, and began to buy into all the voices of fear delivered by my parents and teachers.  Voices that said that art would deny me a future, that I needed to get "serious" and calm down, that I can't let a "hobby" get in the way of my "real" future career.  I was in an emotionally vulnerable state at that time and maybe that's why I did so choose to buy into these notions and proceed to sacrifice my (he)art for the pursuit of getting "serious."  When Jennifer and I met, at age 21, I had just months before finally emerged from this abyss, no longer being able to deny myself of myself, and had decided to stay a 5th year at UCSB to add Art Studio to my degree (English).  

click for larger view

And thus Jennifer & cec did meet, and our friendship made it possible for so much further awakening.  Not only did I get back to stickers, I got back to PLAY.  And then ZBOOK gave us a place to play, a place to collect and create with our beloved stickers and our every whim of inspiration, a place to truly BE creative.

PLAY, I have come to rediscover, as most kids well know, is the liberation of pure creativity.  Through what the hands make and the ideas the mind innovates.  Thank you Hemphill, thank you ZBOOK, and thank you cec, for playing.  :)

∞ ceci

6

PS(L): happy Bday today to our dear PSL brother Millar, a man devoted to play in notably athletic and musical ways....!
 

Sticker Blub- check it dude

From THE LONDON DUDES COLLECTION,
posted 3/23/2010 at 10:19am on www.stickerblub.com  

Speaking of stickers, if you dig 'em you've got to check out 

Jesse Spear's Sticker Blub!  

www.stickerblub.com  

Jesse's open invitation to the planet: send her your stickers and she will post them to the site. And then one day in a future near us, she will be turning the collection into a sticker museum!  For realz, located in los angeles, the museum will also feature a "sticker lovers paradise" gift shop and every name who gave painted on the wall. 

Jesse Spears is a dexterous muralist and one badass artist.  

Be on the lookout for her. 

∞ ceci

6

week nine >> "post"

Beyond what seems to be a stamp collection, I feel this page~spread to be an ode to travel, to the stories and the stamps we choose to tell them with, to the post and the forgotten miracle the mail is, and to... stickers!

click for larger view

Our passion for stickers has a huge influence in all of ZBOOK (and in our others books). For all stickers out there, we also love recognizing all the unexpected stickers that show up in our lives in subtle ways. Stickers are everywhere! Such as the stickers that label fruit, the stickers that come on new clothes showing sizes, the stickers that stamps have become, and the sticker sheet left behind by the stickers lifted from it. You can see here, on the left, two small strips in parallel; these came off a stamp book, the edges from around the stamps. Same with the stickers in the bottom left corner, the "time to reorder, this block is not valid postage" stickers, which actually peel out in sticker rings- so cool. You will find non-trad stickers all over ZBOOK. ZBOOK definitely gave us a place to collect stickers again and beyond that, create with them (!) which is like a sweet gift for madly creative gleaners like us.

∞ ceci

6

and one more note in week nine opening- deciphered from the blue ink on "post"...

"These people, places, visitings,

they fill my soul for FREE.

I send to you my thoughts, my sights...

I blow fresh wind your way.

You stand in here, you sit in here,

you sing in here, you stay."

ciao bella,

~chrriot