elements of infinity

"infinity"   click

This page "infinity,"  during all 14 years of its transforming life in ZBOOK, was created with only 7 elements.  3 of which laid the foundation, which I shared about in the week eleven intro post: my ink flower, Jennifer's felt ink female in shapes, and the colors I painted to dance with both, while painting faces in Guadalajara in 1997.  In all these years of constant adding to and recreating Z pages, this page received only 4 more elements:

 The ring of gold twisted into infinity and landed into her hands...

The gold sign of infinity that the dancer (as I feel her to be) is beholding came during the same Guad visit in 1997.  The paint is not painted on, it is in fact applied.  From a cheap bottle of gold acrylic, the kind you find at a craft store, I had unscrewed the top and peeled off the ring of dried paint that had formed at its neck. In my hand this remnant became object and I had to find its use and place in the world.  Enter ZBOOK, this place where all beloved objects (and ideas, and observations, and experiments...) could find possible refuge and purpose.  The ring of gold twisted into infinity and landed into her hands.  hmm... like that.  And it didn't even need to be glued, I pressed the dried yet still gummy object into place and there it has stayed, wonderfully tactile, infinitely intact.

 

The band took root in infinity, where their music was already abloom...

The little Japanese band of musicians... also came from Guadalajara, this time in 1999 while I was living there teaching art at the elementary school for 6 months.  The newspaper in Guad so often had a plethora of great images to cut out and collage with.  These little dudes wanted to play another venue so after gleaning them from the newspaper we toured the pages of ZBOOK for their next residency.  The band took root in infinity, where their music was already abloom, and in fact has always been playing.  

 

Infinity humbly received a silver lining...

In 2002 a gel pen of silver at my local art shop surpassed in quality any gel pen I had since tried and left such a truly metallic silver trace that it eclipsed the mess of the classic metalic ink pens I grew up with, you know the ones you have to shake up, press the felt tip down often leaking out a bubble of ink, and are potent with fumes.  With my new pen I left silver traces, with delightful ease, where ever I could. Infinity humbly received a silver lining.

 

The dancer paints infinity...

This collaged piece is from Jennifer.  ~J, I had always seen the figure you drew as a dancer, and ever since you put this paintbrush in her hand I love to correlate dancer with painter, feeling that if you could trace the movements of dancers into lines you would see the most enthralling images, making them painters after-all.  Do you recall this element's origins?  If so, would love hear about it... I invite you to enter into this post and add its story here:
Jennifer insert: 
" Yes, the painting of dancing and the dancing of painting; Modes I am most in tune with - in both venues... Blessings on this hula dancer!
The paintbrush slice is gleened from a Huntington Gardens (Pasadena) newsletter.  When Hallie was 2 or 3, we bought a year membership and would enjoy the splendor of those grounds and also the images and stories from their monthly newsletter - thus that was in 2003/2004, roughly."
-J.

I look at this page now and am fascinated that it has stood stoic 

while a whirlwind of transmutation was ravishing all Z pages around it.  

With only 7 elements, versus the 100s that touched other pages, 

Infinity stands as a presence of grace, quite bare, baring witness 

to ZBOOK and our lives.

∞ ceci

6

Dancer Be Well

Eight hours ago my grandma fell and broke her femur bone at the hip.  She's in surgery to receive a rod through the length of her largest leg bone.  I'm feeling a drowsy, nautious imbalance.  Please pray for healing and strength of thought for all our family.  This event has activated my pulsations to my cousin family.  We have been speaking and e-mailing as I update Grandma's condition.  It is a great relief to feel the warmth of support from friends and family... it is a huge hug of invisible arms allowing one to float - mahalo!

Infinity's Hula Dancer

My Grandma, Great-Grandma to my children, is 92 years old as of March this year.  She is a dancing queen.  You have never seen anyone strut their stuff till you've seen my Grandma.  In her youth and adulthood before marriage and children, she was a professional tap dancer, touring the states with the George White Scandals dancing troupe.  Before, during, and after that, she was a movie star with Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, specializing in dance and song numbers.  She looks great in Black and White and Technicolor.  Grandma Pearl's stage name was Carol Adams.  She met my Grandpa when she was doing a "soundie", where she was the star of an early music video; she tapped and danced, and maybe occassionally lip synced to a song of the day.  My cousin-in-law, Don Smith has done some tremendous research and gathering of Grandma's record of work from internet and such, and connected her with current celebrations of the golden age of Hollywood, where she is revered for her spry youthfulness and beauty.

"infinity"    click to view

Infinity's subject, the Hula dancer, is a celebration of the spirit of the dancer, the gesture of the dance.  There is no dance in me which does not have its roots, its ancestry in my grandma's shared dancing.  I honor her with these words and with my prayerful thoughts, and I send out my heart to ask for others healing prayers and loving thoughts toward my Grandma's recovery here in Maui. 


Blessings to you all and peace to all nations. 
Humbly,
Jennifer Gould

week eleven>> "infinity"

One of our fave pages, "Infinity" has stood just as it is for at least 11 years, since 1999, with the exception of the silver lining which I feel appeared in 2002 when I fell in love with silver gel roller pens.  Perhaps the most UNtouched page of ZBOOK, the page with the fewest layers and fewest touches, "infinity" knew just what it was almost immediately and, with conviction, has stood boldly ever since and never asked for more.  During my stay in Guadalajara in 1997, when I found myself painting all those faces out of thickly stroked shapes (as I've shared in week 7), 

click for larger view

I opened up ZBOOK one day and found this page with Jennifer's felt marker expression of a female dancing (composed of shapes! to my delight) on right and my ink drawing flower on the left, both of which had been drawn within the first 6 months of ZBOOK.  I dipped into each of the colors I was painting faces with and began to create thickly stroked tentacles from behind the flower.  And then addressed the negatives spaces created by Jennifer's dancing female. Only four things were added after that and then the page was done, for years.  While all the other pages around it went on wildly metamorphosing, this one incubated, gracefully.

∞ ceci

6

Journey from the Ocean to the Sky

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What breath I inhale when I think on this place I am in, this Maui home in Makena. Our family has held sacred moments here on many occasions. We have been married, we have baptized our children and perhaps conceived one of them on this island we love. For me, this place has a fifteen year memory, including time space when my Grandfather walked on the sands of Polo Beach and sat on the stone bench outlooking toward Wailea Bay. On the "Horizon" spread, there is imagery cut and paste from one special trip I'd like to reflect on for the first time here.
In 1996, I was in Maui, awaiting the arrival of my family, before my husband and children. My dear housemate Kim was with me, and Morris was staying at 101. I remember elements of the stay, we were having fun!

Then, I received a phone call from my dad with news that my Grandpa had gone into a comma with a brain aneurysm while packing, my Grandma had found him and he was in the hospital unconscious and dying. Then, he died and my family went into mourning and calling on all our family to gather in LA.

I prepared to return for the funeral in a few days, and mourned in Maui.

I dove deeply into the waves
and spoke to the sunsets as I waded in the ocean colors.

I listened and offered many prayers to many
and thanked those around me for sharing the rainy space.

dancers pasted in from Maui

When I look at HORIZON JoURNEY, I am aware of that connected space
and I dive once again into the melting colors of ocean and sky and word.

I pasted many things during that time I feel
and I cut a few here and there with my sharp razor blade.

these dancers they laid to protect something sweet,
and I let in their graceful, calm gestures with a lulling dark sleep.

When I returned by plane carrying long maile
and wearing flowing blue, I joined my family from all relations.

I held my grandmothers hand
and heard my uncle cry one huge sob.

Later, my grandmother told me the lei
over casket was a caressing soft hug for her eyes.

And now, in zbook,I have once again found time to reflect
and collect and dive into a space beyond my everyday knowing.

I am grateful beyond senses out
to come into this place, now again, with my grandma and whole family.

to soak in the ocean salt
and laugh loud with my children,

and hold hands with my husband
and walk in the sand with my grandma.

Blessings on your days,
ALoha, -J. Gould

to be continued everywhere

I feel drawn to uplift this piece of the page, so that we can submerge in these words transmitted by Jennifer...

thank you Hemphill... what a pleasure it is to unearth, more and more, your verses from ZBOOK

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∞ ceci

6

ALOHA

A                  L                 O            H        A
I have small spurts of desires to post all night; however, I have ocean colors calling me moment to moment, and children asleep in the sand to tend to when they wake, and great-grandmothers to show gratitude and care to, and wind to absorb, and water to dive into, and birds to hear, and papayas to prepare and pineapple skewered mai tais to imbibe...continue on and on. Though last night, at the locale food only, 'Flatbread Pizza', in Paia, ( I have pictures), GG and I continued the mojito gesture we had been served earlier w/mint at Polo Beach, when we sucked down fresh, organic ginger, 100%  pomegranate juice mojitos with mint and ice in large tumblers - phew)...

Gecko's chirp... have you caught that on any of your Hawaii sojourns, anyone?

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Last night, no, two nights ago, T. and I awoke in the 4am hour and watched a dripping full moon disappear into cloud, island, and sea.  And of course, Sunsets are where the mai tai's go down.  Tonight, T's bbquing fresh caught Mahi Mahi for fish tacos we'll make for 5, while Gp and Gma go to an O'lei party   ALO - HAAAH!

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yes, Breathe in, Breath out, all day..

GG's in need for me,

 -Aloha and mahalo -J.

p.s.l. I am working on an edit to post this eve, of zblizzard epics stories...

week ten >> "horizon"

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Turning to this page I'm suddenly dreaming, lucid dreaming... laws of physics dissolve... I'm flying... or swimming... or traveling in between subconscious levels... and there are voices, who speak in verse and riddles, and sign language.  Jennifer is responsible for most of the words on this page... viva her ability to respond!  Fearlessly delivering story, word by word, before it's even heard by even her.  Like a lucid dream- you're aware and in control yet you can only know what is possible in the moment you discover it.  Such is art.  Such is travel.  Such is life.  In a world of "guarantees" and top ten lists and homogenized corporate controlled consumer experiences we sacrifice adventure and our affinity for the strange and unusual which usually would lead to our greatest creative discoveries, in our art and in our lives.  

detail from "horizons" bottom of left page at center
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I revere the venue for sanctioned madness that ZBOOK has provided us.  Helping me give myself permission to create from this FREE place in my every other arena.  Fortifying my ability to respond.  Responding to existing horizons and in turn, creating new ones.

Happy solstice everyone...

And Happy birthday to my dear ol' pal Shrine who forges new horizons with every step he creates... 

And happy anniversary leOz and Vanina, my dear family, I celebrate youz and honor the beautiful life you are creating together -your adventure inspires my own.

∞ ceci

6

Where to go....

Where to go, Where to go, where to go, Where to go????

As I sit here in the quiet of the night, embarking upon my bimonthly all nighter, having just checked in to Zblog after a lapse - due to report writing overload - The question in my head is a resounding:  WHERE TO GO?  where do I start - and man, it hits me strong - this is the question living in this "post" spread - alive for me in its potential inception, and alive for me today in new and perhaps deeper ways.

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During our time at UCSB, Cec and I explored an unusual type of art class together - 4D - a visual performance class - intended to add the element of time to the visual landscape of sculpture, image, etc..  In that class, for our ending project, I created a painting which then fractalled into 20+ postcards which I individually responded to and sent in response to responders of a question I posed to the other 4D participants of that semester... Where would you go???  (and why?)

remaining postcard piece XXII
awaiting its flight through 'post'

At the time, this question was living in me to the core as I pondered the composition of a journey around the world which my parents were gifting to me as a graduation present at the end of that school year - must have been Spring '97 then...

The participants answer papers, which were scrawled upon in numerous levels of thought and neatness, were profoundly impacting on my own decision making process toward planning an itinerary for the coming year.

I remember professor Kip's, who preferred to give weight to who he would go with, rather than where they would go.  And Ceci's, which I believe I returned her one day many years later - for reference - or at least we talked about it - (my memory of essence, vs. particulars is at play in all these recollections) - hers was about being in a place that had been shared with her through another's memory experiences so strongly, they imprinted on her.  And then my friend Michelle (with whom I bonded in Hermann Hesse class as well as 4D) - hers cemented our relationship when she sighted India, to meditate (something I knew I intended to do along my travels - and did / do!)  And another friends - who when I wrote back, I told him He and Michelle and I should take a long road trip together - or go deep sea snorkeling... he chose two places and they were both related to his family's ancestry.

There were other influential and not so -  one thing funny, the one postcard I wrote back with an air of indignance (vs. gratitude and openness which the rest were replied to with) - was a young man who wrote 5 cities and 5 words which were the reason he wanted to go to those places - I complained he had reduced those places to stereotypes - anyhow, I'm pretty sure I visited every one of those cities...I remember on his list were Paris, Amsterdam, Agra, Sydney...where else?  I don't think i visited via his suggestions, but it's funny to think back now and realize that.   

I remember hand delivering each postcard too (because I was too late to mail them in time for the final) - most people lived in Isla Vista - and I remember sitting on the entry way rug at Kip's end of year party trying to piece together the postcard painting - unfortunately only a handful of the people who had come remembered to bring their cards (per my written request on their notes).  Somewhere in my files of slides, there must be an image of that effort...somewhere!

Enough - Basta!

-J.

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).  

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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!

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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

beautiful

'This is your Life' is so beautiful to me.  There is an incredible soul sense depicted in this image.  The floating quality of the angel beings is palpable.  I perceive the thick water mist as holding the weight of the horizontal breathers - In my eyes, it looks as though the dark kiss of the blue faced angel aims to pull the green faced under his spell; and the blue of the mist is the last thing holding the green faced from sinking into the oblivion.

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And then, there is the distinct body presence in between blue and green - a body whose face is not seen; unless you look more fractally beyond the others faces, to see an eye, fingers, eyelashes, ears and facely shapes.

To give props, my memory (which previously has been proven flawed,) tells me I sliced the angel face pieces from a KCRW fundraising flyer - what happened to the slices life once it was rubberized into Zbook is all us though!

In this spread, there is an interior presence - it is a shadow of the heart space I feel.  I believe we crystallize that experience with EKG lines in the left middle top, stickered with the mini red heart, then leading to the blood like dripping at top left.  Then there is the right page side with multiple references to cellular walls and bodies.  And look magnifying glass closely at the tiny girl figure in the top right corner - she is cut off just below the solar plexus, allowing her image focus to be the heart space - where the activity of the rest of the spread may be said to be taking place.

There is more to support this theory: reflection, life, glue glob, on and on...
~J.~

the feel

O how I love the sensual experience of ZBOOK.  The visual is paramount, scent has been added via elements such as Jennifer's blood red ink, and then there is the is the perpetual delight of touch as you experience ZBOOK in your hands.  

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In this page,"this is your life," you see a rounded darker area beneath the word "your."  This was painted with rubber cement leaving the area tactile, coated with rubberized skin that invites you to rub.  Painting with this rather translucent substance of this glue reminds me of painting my backyard's wood fence with water when I was a little kid.  The wood gets darker in color when touched with water and I would enjoy "painting" the fence with the hose, splashes from a bucket, and my fingers.  The images would dry fairly quickly and I thought of the fence as my giant etch-a-sketch.  When painting with the rubber cement the natural fiber of the book's paper got darker too, but the darkness stayed intact as the glue dried into a top skin layer.  Crazy we haven't painted more with it in ZBOOK.  Jennifer has used glue as a medium quite a bit, such as hot gun glue, especially in her honors work at UCSB.  Hemphill, it would be great to see some pictures of those pieces and installations.  Obviously that period was pre digital picture flurry; do you have any photos of that work in print? Would be great to scan a few and hear your glue stories. Let's paint with glue together soon!

∞ ceci

6

PS(L): I also love the piece of mirrored sticker on the left top page. Also seen in "identity" above Fiona's head

this is an illusion

painting Live at LIB
photo by Ivan Oxlahun  click for large view

2 weekends ago I had the pleasure to experience and participate in Lighting in a Bottle, the marvelous and enchanting art & music festival put on by The Do Lab in southern california every May.  An amazing 4 days of music, art, performance, healing workshops, and awareness expanding seminars.  Everyone came bringing their own magic in a beautifully fierce and fearless way.  It's a serious convergence of astounding talent and vital artists.  And I'm proud to have been a part of it! I showed a piece in the Dialect festival gallery, and painted live in the Lightning-in-a-Paintcan project in which a group of artists are spread out over two field stage side areas to paint live for 3 days at the end of which the paintings are bid on and proceeds are given to Sonic Muze. 

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A festival like this one, so alive with creativity and exponential trust, creates a highly conductive field for self reflection and discovery.  And I did certainly face lot in myself and my creative process during these 3 days of painting.  I see now that I must have put a potent dose of pressure on myself, yearning greatly to produce something wonderful.  That must be why I seemed to have fallen back on many of my past established and depended on devices, which are rather systematic and controlled.  What resulted is a very nice painting, very pretty and very nice.

Painting at bidding point, to be continued...
photo by Craig Brayton   click for large view

In the "final" moment before bidding, after 3 days of painting, as much as I liked the painting just fine, I was over it already.  I knew that I needed more, more than just a "nice painting."  It hit me hard: this painting, like so many images and writings I have created in the past 13 years since college, is more symbolic than experiential.  What I have been realizing, and on this night it became sO crystal clear, is that the art I want to see in the world, espEcially from myself, are expressions that deliver gateways to EXPERIENCE and feeling, rather than simply present representations of ideas.  And the avenue that creates experience is what Jennifer honed in on way back in the day and voiced to me in 1996: story.  Story, created with moments, beats, images to hone in on & create your own visual stories from, access points for your imagination.
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It hit me hard, but goooood.  All that night I felt sO Over it! So over myself and all my "ways" and the debris of my needs for control and preparation and perfection.  But refreshingly so, none of this was out of judgment or self deprecation, as I have done with myself before on many a self-renewal occasion.  It was an experience of pure liberation from outmoded illusions and of pure excitement to create from a raw and unknown place!  An excitement from a deep inner knowing about potential potent expressions that can only be unearthed via the darkness of my uncharted creative courses, and from explorations with story.  I felt robustly new, like in new skin, full with a fresh emptiness.

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The night I returned home, my body proceeded to physically reflect this renewal with a 24 hr flu that had me purging and sweating everything out of me.  I completely surrendered and, although obviously uncomfortable, I never resisted, trusting in my body's call to release.  I awoke 2 mornings later in seriously brand new condition, in every way.  A week later today, I remain clear and alert and fearless.
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Check back for the posts on what I paint next.  And from this renewed place I'd also like to bring a fresh closure to my painting from LIB.  I'm getting in touch with the winning bidder to see if they are open to it.  If and when I do, I will post a photo of the "finished" piece.

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I am so thankful for painting exactly what I did, so I could clearly see, right before me, all that I have been, all I want to let go of, and the enthralling beginning of what I want to create.  I must say that there is in fact one area of my art, of my life, that is and has been already aligned with the quality of free self expression, experimentation, story, and experience that I am now infusing into all areas of my creativity: ZBOOK!!! Dude, just when I thought that I was just now coming into this awareness and practice, here I hold in my hand 14 years of developing this process already, and in divine collaboration with Jennifer, in ZBOOK! Wow. And this is how our art is helping me heal and grow.  How wonderful that I cannot deny knowing how it feels to create from this beautiful and playful abyss... yes! What a gift to have access to this feeling and bring it into everything else I do. "Another reflection gone... and yet saved to ponder... on & on & on & on..."

∞ ceci

6

week eight >> "this is your life"

This is Your Life

Kiss Me Angel Quick

Lip to Lip en Mexico

I grab your hip paciando

and Cast your Shadow

on and on and on and on.

This is Your Life

You Breathe to Me

Blue Hand slapped upon my cheek

and another reflection is Gone

click for larger view

...saved to ponder on my heartbeats wake:

"permanecer sentado, por favor,"
in a rubber cement bubble,
paciando en Mexico.

I hope you've enjoyed this installment of "words" from Zbook. 

As we have explored our thoughts and processes toward presenting this ongoing zbook collaboration;

quite often, my inspiration has been to spill forth in metaphor and poetics the experiences of these spreads. 

This spread poem has been waiting on a blue post it magneted to my vision board... waiting for this release to a broader audience... and now it waits again, with a little less dust built up on its surface!

As I bid adieu once again toward sweet sleep, I leave you with this verse, which I chose to be the closing words said as a sort of prayer by the parent council at PWS this past year:

Gratitude takes three forms:

A feeling in the heart,

An expression in words,

And a giving in return.

-Arabic proverb

Thank you known and anonymous for your support and challenges,

-J.

pieces of Cec

outlines of color gradients from gesture strokes beneath
detail of "unfolding at dawn" Jan 2010.... click for larger view

When a drawing's ink goes through to the other side of the page, the shapes that are relieved on that other side cannot be denied.  These shapes are fragments, "negative" space, that the mind then can reconnect into a transformed and new whole.  When I see these shapes revealed through the bled-through ink lines I am instantly compelled to outline them.  I love to create new whole formations and new possibilities out of discarded parts; that must be why I love to outline everything!  Isolating shapes of color or opacity creates a new visual playground to embark from.  I like to discover which images emerge and allow their forms to mutate in my mind, like when gazing upon the clouds.

"enjoy the ride" click for larger view

"identity"  click for larger view

On the left side of this week's "enjoy the ride" we see shapes created by ink lines that came through from the other side's marker drawing of Fiona (as seen in last week's "identity").  So of course I outlined these shapes, the ones in pink, and Jennifer later came in with black to give some outlining to the less defined shapes around Fiona, which I love because it reveals a sort of aura of hers.  Followed by another aura layer of Jennifer's silver force field lines, and then by my red emanating lines, I would say that this side of the page reveals Fiona's energetic body.

This is profound for me because her emanation casts upon the fragmented face that I painted in Guadalajara in 1997 while recovering from an accident I had months before.  In 1996, the year that Jennifer and I discovered our friendship, I was in a major bicycle accident in which I flew over the handlebars and the entire impact of my landing was endured by my face and skull therein.  It marks a significant launching point in my life, one that presented the opportunity for me to dispel identities of victimhood from my life, and to reclaim myself whole, in more ways than one.  I had felt quite fragmented already as a person since some experiences in my childhood, and then BAM the literal translation came as half my face was torn up to the tune of 300 stitches in reconstructive surgery.   I was so driven at the time to meet my pre-set goals that it took me months to finally take the time off I needed to recuperate. Although these months, during which I forced myself back to school, were rough, it was also the time when ZBOOK with born (!) and Jennifer and I had our first collaboration together "Indulge."  The show (and my recovering brain and face) presented tough but important challenges for us (see trust).

faces done in marker, 1997 journal
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When I finally did surrender to ceasing my "doing" to recover my living, I went to Guadalajara where Vinh, my partner at the time, was studying medicine.  It was May and Vinh's year finished a month after my arrival.  He went home to California for a summer month and I had space alone to recoup.  It was during this time I began to paint these faces, painted as if in pieces, but really I was simply emphasizing the individual shapes of the face, allowing negative space to provide the (out)lines.  Sometime later after painting the silver one on Z page that later became known as "enjoy the ride", I went back and wrote an anecdote of this critical time with in the negative space lines in the face.  

"Enjoy the Ride" Jennifer added years later.  I don't even know if she was aware at the time that the face is in connection to my bicycle "ride."  It's perfect.  Because although I wouldn't have signed up for it, my "accident" was a great blessing and opportuntiy for me to piece myself back together, beyond my face and brain, to get back in touch with and reclaim all the Cec I thought I had lost, that I thought was taken from me during past emotional trauma as an adolescent.  And I could only do this within the stillness I had never before allowed myself to have.  I had to FACE myself and know who I was, despite the transfigured and fragmented face I carried while all my sutures were healing.  For I am not this face or this body, truly.  I am who I am at my very essence of being ...Cec. The particular frequency of my own spirit, my energetic body emanating from within, chemistrizing with the world and with you.  And no one can take that away from me.  And so I give great gratitude for my "ride" as a vital rite of passage in the great ride of life.  Enjoy the the ride!

∞ ceci

week seven >> "enjoy the ride"

Weeeeeeeeee!!

As I come to ponder this page, I am filled with a flood of rollercoaster madness.

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The declaration turned title, ENJOY the RIDE, is the springboard of my acknowledging our shared obsession with speed and dips and loops and twists.  Perhaps the past memorial long weekend provides a bounce to this connection as well... it seems to host a call to wild abandonment and exuberant yalping.  The red lines of this spread speak to me of tracks too - and I must give props to myself for the collaged in climber... I must say, she makes the page for me... climbing to new heights, prepared to jump from the highest point!

Yes, we have been known to indulge in binge cycles of amusement park ambushing.  Though neither Cec nor I were engaged directly in rollercoastering this past week, I could easily metaphorize our fully engaged lives onto the cart chain of an old wooden rickety or new aeordynamic multicolored breed of coaster.  We are both buckled in and sending our energies on a path of ups and downs with opportunities for screaming and laughing in joy and fear with exhausting releasing effects.  More on all that to come.

It's really appropriate to have the opportunity to share this spread this week.  It is the flipside of last weeks "identity" spread; a continuation on the path of mirroring we began to tread two weeks ago with the "noticias" spread.  As a rollercoaster often swerves back and forth through different planes of the same dimension, we too, reserve the right to swerve to and fro along the lemniscate of our internal ride revelers.  In other words, we have more to say on the past, present and future... so, enjoy the ride!
-J.

editors post note:  this is funny...after I posted the accolades to myself for the sweet climber placement in this weeks spread, ceci sent me the following note - "dude, the climber in this week's page. I clearly remember putting her in there. cutting the close contour around her figure and finding the exact red lines that her position fit so perfectly in. hmmmm. you too? well, that's funny :) ".  ... So, I actually trust Ceci's memory more than my own, and I will easily concede to her version, however, I will hold fast to admitting I was sure i had put her in there because there is such a strong connection in me to the image - and thus, I now give props to myself for bringing light to another mystery of zbook... the overwhelming experience of shared flow which has guided the creation of zbook - leading us (or just me perhaps) to wonder often, did I do that, or did you?!

identity

Ceci and Jennifer 1996

So you meet a friend that blows your mind and busts wide open your heart because they draw from the same pool of inspiration that you do, thrive from the same stimulus, and dream of such similar possibilities of life and art and adventure.  Feels amazing, feels like home, feels like you were always together even during all those years alone.   Jennifer and I rode O so high on this very experience in the first year of our meeting. We were an unstoppable team, ready for anything, together nothing could hinder us!  We were sure that through our childhood years, growing up as only kids with mostly only ourselves to entertain us and play with us, that we somehow- perhaps metaphysically- must have been together growing up. We thought, maybe we were eachother's imaginary friends, and that at last we had materialized in eachother's lives at the age of 21! 

Our bond was so seamless, and it was exhilarating, until another experience reared its unexpected head, one I can only describe as an identity crisis.  The bond is so seamless that at some point you start to ask, where do you end and I begin, are my thoughts my own, who am I as an individual?  About a year into our manifesting friendship (1996-1997, UCSB) I remember starting to feel conflicting emotions between my great admiration for Jennifer and a surprising rising up of resentment.  I began to feel that I was losing my own definition, I began to fear this divine connection.  The truth was, as I can see it clearly now, that this was something I was going through all on my own in this critical time and age of my life.  Not only was I shifting into adult from child, I had also just been through a traumatic accident that had me piecing myself back together from scratch (which I will share further about later).  While the identity challenges presented by the twin activating powers of Jennifer and Cec were for real,  I now know it was also a reflection of my own inner turmoil of self identification during that time. 

A great partnership is made from two whole individuals.  Jennifer and I have grown to not fear our kinship, knowing that it does not extract anything from our individual selves, it only adds to and enriches our lives and what we create.  We celebrate eachother's choices, we acknowledge eachother's special qualities and offerings.  And we revere all the ways we continue to correlate and connect and correspond, because we Are truly a reflection for each other, but not of what we are not -which comes from fear... we help reflect to one another all that we Are - which comes out of trust. 

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A couple months later I was in Guadalajara (1997), recovering from my accident and renewing myself on all levels, including my art.  I came across this image in the newspaper (on the left) of the mirrored figure on stairwell.  I cut it out and pasted it in ZBOOK, feeling Jennifer, feeling our great opportunity to transcend the challenges of sharing such immaculate reflection and with trust allowing it to be a great source in our lives for creating great work, together and individually.  Later other dualistic images emerged on this page, as well as a reflective "mirrored" piece of sticker on the right above the drawing of Fiona (which appears mostly blue in this photo-scan).   Jennifer dropped in the "Calling All Angels" and I love it because for me it reminds us that we are all indeed unique individuals, or angels if you will, And we are ALL called forth to synergize our individual talents to create further growing unique creative experiences.  It is an honor to head this call with you Hemphill.

∞ ceci

6

names

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Jennifer recently wrote a comment in reply to the "Happy May 16th !" post from last week.  It is a great conversation to open up, especially in connection with this week's page of "Identity."  In her 5/25 comment she writes:

So, in this post, you have used many namings of both I and you... I like that, because it allows a fluidity to live in me with the nomen of J.

I was feeling a bit overused as J., starting to have a sense in myself that perhaps it is more like a signature (which is how I often use it) versus a calling name - though I do like it also... thus, please hear my jabble that i am feeling slightly confused in continuing to be called hear J. all the time

thanks,
~J~

I wrote a comment back to her today and I would like to share again here:

I hear you, here dear Jennifer Hemphill Gould, my cherished friend.  Strangely enough, I am quite unfamiliar with calling you by your name, Jennifer.  I, as with many of our ol' homies from school, have relished calling you by your incredible and wonderful maiden name of Hemphill, for practically as long as ZBOOK has walked this earth.  I have a long standing relationship and thus a heartfelt affection for your maiden name, which is as much your name to me as my name of cec is to you.  As we began to embark on a road of public arena with ZBOOK 4EVER, I tried out a route where I would call you by how you chose to identify yourself in here: J.   I hear you that, rather than a name, it is a signature.  Okay love.  My jabble now is that it is your name of Hemphill that flows so organically from my lips and my pen and my fingers as I type.  I will however, if it is your wish, refer to you as Jennifer in our blogging (with dashes of Hemphill here and there when I just can't help it! :) .  Of course I am aware that Jennifer is in fact your name, given and chosen for the world to know you by!  And I love it because it's you.  And I also love your other birth name, which I have celebrated since we were young pups. I love you Hemphill.

∞ 6

And so let it be known... my dear friend and sister to my heart, Jennifer, is lovingly known to me as Hemphill, the last name she had before she did wed, her maiden name, her nickname in our PSL circle of college buddies, and an exquisite name to boot.  Her name first is indeed Jennifer.  Hemphill, I do love how you use your complete and full name of Jennifer.  I know you are also Jen to some people (and at first to me), but Jennifer to most and that is actually quite lovely in the light of so many 'Jen's in our American lives.  The choice to primarily use your full 'Jennifer' re-roots the name in its elegance and integrity.  It does speak of you. You do wear it well.  

PS(L): Please do feel free to call me by any of my names in here!  You did call me ~supercec~ in your comment in reply to 5/10's post, which you signed ~Hemphill... :)!  Sweet.  Call me Ceci, Cec, supercec, super, 6, super6... or even Cece which is what has organically flown from your fingertips on hundreds of correspondences to me from you.  I am your cec-ster 4ever.

love,

cec

6

week six >> "identity"

Calling All Angels to our vision.  We stand in action before you with dreams united to share our story of collaboration and friendship caught on fire.  We dedicate our work to inspiring others to create and share and unlock imaginations offerings.  Week to week, we pledge to bring forth our reflections and wisdoms as we express zbooks magic and velocity. 

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Into and out of the ether, we crystallize our common goal to bring light and life to the threads which bind us in book and image making together.  Through our musings of our weekly spread choices, we ignite vast organizing forces to conspire in our destiny.  Great wealth and opportunity, we call on you also to feed our bonfire of artistry and story telling.

With our individuality fueling our co-creations, we sing forth to the universe to mirror our pictures.

In prayer and thanksgiving, we focus our hearts and minds and wills to move ever forward toward the great unknown with courage and faith and knowledge that we are not alone. 

Shout it out loved ones - we invite you to join in our building of zbooks storyline - please know, we do not ever profess to hold monopoly on interpretation or understanding of the work we engage in.  Feel free to share your thoughts in comments.  gracias

-J.