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.
.

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.

click for larger view

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

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...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.

happy new year Xman!

fotobooth w/Xman 2008-09
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Thank you ~J~ for your shout out to Xman in your post yesterday! Today, May 22, 2010, my lil' bro is 12 years alive! And it's been 12 years since I drew his baby face and the date of his birth on this page.  One month before this day was our first May 16th, 12 years ago.  And one month after this, was my graduation -commencement- from UCSB, 12 years ago.  So there was a commencement for both of us!  Happy new year Xman, your day of birth is a beautiful marker in our lives, and a day of IMMENSE joy and gratitude for me... I have a brother!  And a wOnderful friend. 

Thank you Xavier for ALL you teach me, for your fun & creativity & music(!), and for your kindness and warm heart.  You are a very special little man.

click these for larger view

Xman & me on his 9th Bday, 2007

your sister and homie 4ever

∞ cec

6

Continued Noticias/ Noticias Continued

Here I am!  Today is Friday, May 21, 2010!!!  What a beautiful week of digging soil - seed preparations and nurturing - internally through external actions.  Today is full of Altadena, this whole coming weekend in fact.  In a few moments, I'm off to a hike with my beautiful daughter's 2nd grade class to Sturtevant Falls.  It's cloudy and chill in the air and I'm expecting water crossings to be a large part of the day.  I've got my balance on to help the kids do their best to keep dry... teachers orders.  I must be departing the hike early because I'm coaching circus arts to the middle schoolers at PWS later this afternoon.  We'll be juggling and unicycling, playing with diablos and river sticks... I think we'll have a laughter filled show of tricks to cap it off.

Saturday the 22nd will be a zoo morning, as we're off to a botanical tour in the am and then date night with hubby to the Spring Gala at the top of Lake in Altadena.  He'll be wearing a top hat and I know not what I'll be wearing yet, perhaps feathers - or actually, the theme is weaving a golden thread, so I think I have some cleopatra props around somewhere. 

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Have a great weekend, I hope yall get some fresh air.  Today I saw a huge cactus in full bloom, if I have a chance, I'll post a picture soon.   Spring is showing her colors, and releasing her magic into the ecosphere - get out there and suck it in!

Finally, shout out to Xavier... Happy Birthday!!
May is so full of birthdays and anniversarys and so much celebration - it must be a perfect month!   Thank you Zbook for continuing to open space for sharing these expressions of place and time... what a delight!
-Jennifer

Entwined

Notice This - when you write an announcement of some special moment, you are marking time in your soul. 

This spread of "noticias"  is fun to scroll around because some of the entries are simply check-ins in time and place, and others are notices of monumental happenings in our lives.  Births in particular are called out here with a reverant exclamation of their moment  in time.  Landings in places are also exploititive here!  The thing I know, about these entries on the page we this week gave tital to - often, they are meant to ellicit imaginations of setting.

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Dates and maps, maps and dates; both tools for organizing and planning travel through time and space.  In many ways, this spread of "noticias" is a map of dates.  It would be fun to make notes on a map to go along with this page and make a connect the dates image.  Let's Do it!

Have you ever shared a journal with someone else?  How about pages of drawing - like our friend Ben who is an avid creator of pictures with others.  Feel Free to share gratitude here - in 'comments' - to the person or the universe for the person(s) whom you love to collaborate with - Shout it out!

Thank you Ceci for reflecting and being reflected in these pages we continue to work in together - magic!  As the center image - of zbook - shows, we are knitted together through intense and long haired seeing of each other and ourselves via the other.  Thank you for your friendship and collaboration - we are entwined in these noticias of one anothers lives. - blessings and visions to you and me and our work eternal.-J.

week five>> "noticias"

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This just in: it's week five of ZBOOK 4EVER!  And here is this week's page~spread, we call it "noticias" which in spanish means "the news."  While documentation can be found all throughout ZBOOK, this page became a main haven for sharing some of our pinnacle moments throughout the years, and a few just in passing too.   A great sense of travel is felt here, as if each stop on this page was a conscious breath taken in the midst of great movement; an honorable and festive moment to acknowledgment the doorways that shaped our lives.  

There are so many reflections to explore here, and we will this week.  One right off the bat is the bottom left corner "happy May 16th" dated 1998.  This was our first May 16th, the one that practically proclaimed itself OUR day, which I just storied about in yesterday's post, yesterday May 16th, 2010.  Catch up on it there, and look for further stories about this special date as Zblog grows on.  We are celebrating May 16th all week!  

∞ ceci

6

Happy May 16th !

This is the day ZBOOK was made.  Well... that's how the myth will likely go down in history that is.  :)  ZBOOK was of course made over a 5,110 day period and was actually birthed in the month of November... However, it is May 16th that has become the day of hemphill and cec, aka Jennifer and Ceci, our day of celebration and gratitude for our creative partnership, our mayhem, and our kinship.  It's our "holiday" and very much like a "birthday" for us and, since ZBOOK is a direct expression of all that is ~J~ and ~C~, figuratively it could be said that if ZBOOK had a "day" it would also be May 16th.

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In the late spring of 1998, ~J~ and I had an especially amAzing special weekend.  ~J was visiting me at UCSB.  She had recently come back from traveling for months solo around the globe (badass) and I was finishing my last year of school.  My honors art studio was at Harder Stadium and we were hangin' there quite a bit.  That weekend happened to be SB's annual "Estravaganza" festival which takes place at the stadium.  In fact, I just looked it up and today is the 30th anniversary of Estravaganza! Nice. Well, we found ourselves with all this music and color and lively people all around and seamlessly flowed right in there, making the field our own dance floor, every person we encountered a fellow reveler, and every sight, sound and flavor a lucid experience of reverence.  The festival, a ton load of frisbee disc huckin', and other Isla Vista antics made for one spectacular time that we knew we'd never forget. We decided right there and then that May 16th was our day, for Life.

Happy May 16th hemphill! I love u lady.
∞ ceci
6

correspondence

postcard from ~J, arrived 5/11/10   click for larger view

We correspond, ~J~ and I.  In many ways.  Especially the in the arena of postcards.  We've delighted in sending postcards to each other for almost as long as we've been pals.  In 1997 I traveled Mexico a bit and ~J, post graduation, went on a world tour, traveling the globe solo (what a badass).  Our postcard correspondence did thus commence.  Each postcard from ~J's global pilgrimage was a story, each image a visual treat, each arrival a quiet thrill.  For 10 years, as ~J~ and I went on to live in different places, the postcards continued.  And even after I moved to Los Angeles in 2006, and now see each other with joyful frequency , our exchange via post has never ceased.  Our on going postcard collection is as thick or thicker than ZBOOK, and certainly an extension of it.  Or more like, our books and postcards are an extension of US.  

"life"     click for larger view

Behold the postcard I got in the mail this week! Thank you ~J~   It is dated "Four, Twenty, Two Thousand and Ten" which was our ZBOOK 4EVER launch date a month ago.  Sometimes a card does like to hang out for a while before actually getting into that bluebox portal, I know how that is ~J  :)  And always the timing of arrival reveals itself to be perfect!  Just look at this image of underwater life!  Speaks directly to our ZBOOK page of THIS week, yet was chosen and written 4 weeks ago; only this week did it finally make it's way into the post.  Love it.  You know, life.  O yeah, and "life"!  This postcard's image playfully puts into perspective my sense of a subterranean realm as being a bottomless abyss.  I am seeing that it is also just fishbowl, whether ocean or any vast unknown darkness, making it manageable after all.  Instead of feeling tiny and insignificant, dive in and feel your immense divinity, bigger than life!  And then BAM! the world is in your hands.

∞ ceci
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red ink

If you could smell this page, you might detect the faint lingering of a soul satisfying scent; like the memory of inhaling the rich perfume of a full bloomin red rose in the spring.  As Ceci brought forth her study of neurons in her last post, I call attention now to my devotion to color with all its glorious sacrifices and offerings.  Noted in Cec's post, the red ink which came in to the being of this neuron pregnated page dripped from my hand.  In fact, it flowed down the glass point of an old fashioned plume I purchased one fateful day on the westside of Melrose.  Not only was the implement an object of lust, the ink too was sultry; a small potent pot of scarlet, tinged with an olfactory hallucinagen.  That ink inspired me to great love letters as well as devoted entries in zbook and other manuscripts.  Here in "life", the glass pen was so smooth following the lines of Cec's neuron, I remember feeling intoxicated by the process. 

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 Often in these and other collaborations, each line stroke is felt with such sensuallness, the work of art becomes a means to explore the gifts of touch and sight.  The consuming lusciousness of working with the dip and flow of this pen and ink on this spread, led me to touching each image surface with the red color.  As previously mentioned, the red came in to existence years later than some of the imagery; I could guess it was in 1999 because that is when I was living with my grandmother for a spell in WestHollywood, and I was exploring the surrounding regions.  By that time in our collaboration, Cec and I had begun to really trust our give and take, trust subtlety and boldness so that we were really interacting in the artistic spaces, rather than just existing side by side.  Remnant from the early days is exposed on the left of "life" where the butterfly (Cec's drawing) and the shark (my totem) remain separate in their own corners.

Though i'd like to delve into the blues of the watercolor, my son has just awoken from deep sleep and I must bid adieu for tonight.  Bon Voyage fellow travelers.  Send a postcard.

-J.

I heart neurons

my first drawings of neurons straight from Histology textbook
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When I was living in Gudalajara, Mexico in 1999 I fell in love with neurons.  Those microscopic nerve cells that transmit information in our bodies, or in other words communicate.  Vinh, my then partner (and dear friend today) was studying medicine at the time and had given me his Histology texts because the images of the microscopic cells and tissues reminded him so much of my drawings, which at the time were made of super intricate lines with ink.  I was fascinated by these books and by the  incredible correlation between my art and the images the books revealed on the structure of our micro inner landscape.  One night I came upon the nervous system chapter and encountered neurons.  I was gripped at once; they appeared to be liitle entities, life forms with individual attitudes, identities, characters.  The nucleus of each neuron seems like an eyeball.  And that alone gives these little dudes personality.  And the fact that these cells do in fact serve as individual communicators in the body, well they might as well be their own life forms living in the galaxies inside the universe of our bodies.  I began to draw these lil' dudes of connectivity at once and incorporate them into my drawings of macro/micro worlds.  And on this page of ZBOOK, during this same time in Guad, I drew one here on the left, in purple fine point sharpie.  Years later ~J~ came in with blood red ink that set it off, connecting it with all the other life forms on the spread.

The Observer, acrylic on found wood, March 2010   click for larger view

To this day you will find neurons appear in my paintings.  What if the intelligent "life" we wonder about is not only "out there" but in here.  As we've been breaking down cells into atoms into protons and electrons into quarks and beyond we discover only more and more expanded space.  I'm fascinated by the life forms on all levels of being, inner and outer space, and what we all may have to communicate to each other. To reflect for one another in the learning about what is possible in ourselves.



∞ ceci
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week four >> "life"

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Along the veins we travel now to "life".  Life painted in shades of blue and gray, life drawn in lines of black and red.  Sink into this spread as it draws you underwater to the silent sea bottom, where life is unfolding and bubbling.  As I become absorbed in the images here, I am drawn into the dance of the multi armed gymnast.  Her gesture lifts my own swerving chest and shoulders into the breadth of a wave.  Like kelp swaying endlessly underwater to the pulse of the current, my thoughts enter this world where sound is lit by an everpresent static.  My internal images float with this spreads suggestion to memories of existing in this undersea gallery. 

Particularly present in this moment is the feeling I still conjure up from a night dive with the UCSB scubadiving club.  Having entered the water off campus point at dusk, then swimming along a seaweed strewn pipeline to an anchored buoy; my partner and I raised to the surface to find the night had enveloped the sky.  Taking our courage, we lowered back into the dark water, with our flashlights on, following lobsters and an octopus and a pink spanish dancer... then, together, we signaled and turned out our lights.  The viscosity seemed to change in that instant.  I lost awareness of my bodies differentiation from the body of  the sea.  In that moment, life was one within and without of me.. it remains one of the most spiritually enlivening experiences of my life.  Everything was alive with pulsing light; where I thought it would be dark, it was electric.  The serenity of that experience lives with me and is pulled into being as I reflect on this weeks spread - knowing that it was surely influenced by that and other moments of tapping into the great silence of life.

One of our aims in sharing ZBOOK is pasted on this spread in the blurb at the top right (upside down from a time when we were experimenting with flipping zbook in all directions)
"Spiritual services with an enlightened touch" ...
we open this call by offering witness to your stories.

Feel free to take a moment now to pull into your presence one of your own moments of enlightenment.  Hear the silence, embrace the connectedness and see the vividness.  Then, please share a comment - share an image or a clarity of that moment in your life.  Share your healing story.

Be well and Blessings,
Jennifer

happy Mama day!

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dearest ~J~ happy mama day!

~J~ is a mother of 2 beautiful children, ~h~ is 8 and ~j~ is 3 in a couple days! ~J~ is truly the divine mama -it has been an honor and joy to witness J's opulent grace through her Being mother. The patient and ever present quality of her nurturing, the nurturing of her children's imaginations, creativity, & reverence for beauty, her devotion and earnest love for her family... ~J~ is an inspiration. Thank you ~J~ for the love you foster in your family is a gift to our planet. happy day! love u, cec

J & all~ Have you heard of StoryCorps? It's a nonproft group who has set up recording booths in public places all over the U.S. for people to freely enter in pairs to share a conversation, sharing their voices, their story.  A copy of every story is stored at Library of Congress and StoryCorps has become, since 2003, one of the largest oral history projects in U.S. history.  The project has produced a couple books, one of which just came out, called "Mom: A Celebration of Mothers from StoryCorps"   It shares the conversations btwn mothers & their children.  Here is an excerpt from last friday's Democracy Now! where Amy Goodman interviews the founder of StoryCorps, Dave Isay, about the book and how prevalent and endearing the voices & stories of mothers have been during this amazing adventure in the gleaning of stories.

In the celebration of storytelling and of mamas everywhere, please enjoy... Happy mama day to all!

link to this

 Happy mama day to mama Gladys and mama Lucky! We love you, we are so grateful for you!

∞ ceci

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our companion

~J~ holding ZBOOK  click for larger view

It is lovely to share with you the open spreads of pages from ZBOOK... but how about the object of the book itself?  Here see ZBOOK in our hands.  Our fearless companion through the many ventures of our lives from 21 to 35 years of age.  The book, which ~J~ and I created and communicated through over land, sea, and time, became it self a friend, a safe and fun place to release dreams and fears and wonderment.  When it would arrive into my hands for the next round with me, it would be the sweetest reunion, like with a best friend.  ZBOOK in my bag and we'd be ready to make any ol' outing a fun adventure.  What I see, what I feel, things I find... ZBOOK would receive it all.  Whenever ~J~ and I would do a hand to hand exchange of ZBOOK, the moment would have a very special and reverent quality, with a sweet sigh of profound honor.  And a touch of giddy.  [This continues today as we exchange our current through XBOOK, which was birthed 6 years ago.]  ZBOOK has held together pretty well considering the many years of wear and tear.  We carried it in a paper sleeve for many years, which was the envelope that license plates arrive by mail in, a perfect fit.  Today ZBOOK is housed in a soft grey leather book sleeve that I found at a vintage store in the town of Joshua Tree.

ceci holding ZBOOK   click for larger view

When you hold ZBOOK in your hands there is a lovely weight to it.  Open it up to pages overflowing with textures - of found object, collage, chalk, wax, ballpoint pen, stickers and rubber cement.  There are many occurrences of shine and iridescence -via metallic inks, paints and more stickers(!)- which make the pages come alive in endless ways under all the various lights of day or night.  It is very speical for us to share ZBOOK in person.  Maybe one day the opportunity will arise for you to meet ZBOOK. 

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∞ ceci

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rootways

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Ceci spoke the word "root" today during our backyard conversation under the blossoming pomegranate tree....a word that is sticking to my thoughts and feelings as I embrace the mad CHAOS of 'indulge'.  There is in this spread so much overlapping and crossing of lines and colors that I feel as I look into it as if I am plunging into the dirt to extract the minerals from the soil.  I want to suck in these words which we once poured onto this page in our quest to form the spark of creative collaboration.  I want to drink their vitality with my straw.  Yet, something now holds me back from disecting the ground as I am drawn to do.  My sense is that in this page, I  know there is incredible power.  There is a certain sacredness here which leads me to a much more inward reflection.  Like walking the path of a spiral on the ground, this page with so much insanity vibrating all within it leads me to want to shed the chaos, rather than focus in on it.  As i walk the spiral of my thoughts, calming, clarifying, I receive a light of inspiration from this work.   Reflecting into the biography of our work, revealing the roots of our time together and the work both visible and invisible which has proceeded through the years to bring us to this place of inspiring collaboration - it is energizing!  It is so I believe because in this process of looking back with attention to each page, yes, it is wonderful to release the stories of time and places and people, that is thrilling, and more bright for me at this moment is the exhiliration that by engaging this reflective work, we are strengthening our current and potential work with layers of energy.  Yeeha!  And so, I leave this post, looking into the image of indulge for closing revelations... and I see the cutout of computer drones, labeled buyers and sellers, and in the center, we have written, INTERPRETERS - yes, we are interpreters of our own pathways on this day.
Blessings,
-J.

trust

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Looking at this "indulge" page it's hard to know where to focus. There are so many layers of different lines, shapes, and colors, and so chaotic in relation that it reminds me of acid jazz. Makes a lot of sense though considering the very first layer of the page was a storm itself. The words of our brainstorm for our colab show Indulge, back in 1996, written the first day of sharing this co-journal (!). The energy of those days must have been imprinted on the page because the shapes and lines that eventually emerged from it are all kinds of crazed.

Indulge was our first collaboration together. The first time we were officially putting our creative synergy to work. After the initial excitement, we got to work and soon found ourselves confronted with unexpected challenges. Perhaps we had taken our special bond for granted and assumed that because our co-creative play was so fluid that our co- creative work would follow suit. But here you had two very bold and independent individuals who were used to running their own ships. We now had choices to make- together. Roles to take on and now also give up. Shapes of visions to pursue and now also compromise. I discovered that although we shared an instant soul connection and kinship, the depths of out trust were still yet to be developed. I remember feeling rather shocked and disorientated, not knowing what was occurring, not being able to recognize that it was trust that was lacking in the moments of discord. Frankly, I couldn't fathom that trust could be an issue at all between us. But I was underestimating the great undertaking it is to create in partnership. Great and noble, that is if you can create boldly and humbly at the same time, and if you can truly trust each other's instincts and the independent life of the co-process.

It was a fantastic experience, that show. A vital one for us as artists and collaborators and friends. It was our reality check that our creative working relationship was not to be assumed into existence but instead was something to be developed and honed. I grew to see that we GET to develop and strengthen our art, our collaboration, our trust-- like any composition in the making. And that is precisely what we continued to do, little by liitle, more and more, for 14 years in the creation of ZBOOK. I remember our first drawings in ZBOOK were done in separate corners, so careful not to interfere with each other. Then slowly but surely at some point beginning to intertwine. And then a few years in, bold moves began in painting or collaging on top of other images, changing the entire essence of a page. That takes trust, on both sides, to let go and let it become. And when you do give that trust and receive it, wow, it feels amazing. Amazing to allow a piece to become what it must despite the ideas of your own mind. In the last 4 years we have been bringing closure to ZBOOK together, working the pages simultaneously (after ten years of switching it back and forth over distance and time). It has been exhilarating to observe the fluidity with which we now create together, like visually finishing each other's sentences. Yes we are amazing friends, but it is the amount of time and attention we have given to our co-creative work, via ZBOOK, that has cultivated the trust that makes the level of our collaboration today possible.

Thank you ~J~ from the depths of my soul for your incredible collaboration and amazing trust. love u.

∞ ceci

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