Grass matted brown
small gray reflections,
umbrellas dance....... drone drone drone.
feeling caught in a draft.

Waiting for those
long warm baths.
These canvas shoes
turn colors with the rain.

I buy two new pencils (black and white)
which can write on most everything.
I want to write a long list.
Things that need to be done.

Often times words misspelled.
Words with too many letters.

On the side walk
or a park bench.

Words........ when they
make a sound seem similar.
Like the spitting sound
the sky makes.

The pencils have plastic erasers
but ironically the lead is water soluble.

The words form into a puddle that wants to resemble a lake.
This lake brakes apart into tiny streams.
Which want to resemble even smaller streams
trying to resemble even smaller ones still

back to the muddy grass.

Yesterday I passed a man on Commercial Drive with a pigeon balanced on top of his head. He was walking my way and gave me the look as if saying "what are you looking at".

bowen island

an abandoned bike
with a "free" sign
taped to its side

a two month old cafe
the owner handing out
free cookies on the side walk

the sun cradling the bay
like a distant echo
from the mountains

i find a dollar thirty five
in the middle of the street
and buy a coffee

Over the last year I’ve been traveling off and on to several different places and while traveling lightly can be an adjustment when on the move I realize that I posses a difficulty to rationalize the organization of the material things I bring into my life. Granted these things certainly have a general use either from my own vantage point or the commercial incentive that goes along with their prescribed use and meaning, yet I am still coming to terms with this overbearing sense of chaos which I openly submit my full and irrational attachment in-exchange merely as being the owner, manipulator and ultimately governor of such material abundance. In contrast the things that I’ve come to own over the extension of my life have become essentially a more permanent fixture and have formed either into material networks of useful tools or dormant civilizations waiting to be sifted through and somehow organized once again. What I am beginning to understand is how I collect and compile and how I become more selective while I continue to endure these possessions as both necessary creative vessels and hopefully somehow relevant to my life at present. While at other times questions I attach to the validity of these objects causes me to disregard any personal possession I own as something reliable or necessary in the context of having a specific and/or meaningful use. This ultimately may be the catalyst for a continually unfolding existential crisis.

When focusing on my patterns of organization it may be of note that I have the underlying lifestyle of an artist but the social outlook as an opportunist and through this mental framework an intrinsic attachment to resource. May it be old or new, broken or fixed, messy or sterile, audible or visual, complicated or simple, gambled or secure, passive or engaged, unique or ill-defined, et cetera. To put it bluntly I like shiny things. Though a continual resource at best it all still fits together in my mind at different times and in different ways. These objects eventually tend to interrelate when I can give them the proper amount of patience and space. May it be to construct paintings, photographs, sculptures, sound pieces or maybe just the simple attachment for the nostalgic. It essentially all equates to a periodical investment. Though when investment seems to waver given uncertainties when trying to understand what exactly an investment may come to mean; is it too much to consider an investment purely with space? I suppose I’m lucky at least for now to invest platonically into the love and generosity of my mother and coincidently with her investment in a house while putting up with my consequential use of space which has been collecting dust and disorder in her basement for sometime now.

I suppose I chose to write about this “basement” of my life especially in light of investing purely in space and the questions for how should or shouldn’t it be used and what it may mean for something to have a use at one moment and become unused at another. These things I own then happen to also become a representation or symbol for my home and when I can collect them with order and intended use my home then becomes a physical metaphor for my internal life. Then what should I say about when they coax their way into resembling the aftermath of a small detonated land mine on an abandoned field of some long lost war zone? (i.e. in some way being utilized) Or better yet when they merely lapse time collecting dust in the bowels of my mother’s home and not my own? Well maybe If I were to emphasis this space as a metaphor for this existential problem in my life it may make sense to consider the latter to be that as a metaphor for death and the former to be that as a metaphor for life and when utilized properly in my own home essentially a much more complicated and personal metaphor of my emotional, psychological and spiritual self.

I bring into perspective this unique extension of my life because recently before moving to Vancouver I decided to organize the boxes yet again granted that the owner of this basement does tend to emphasis her influence and power into the potential lively hood of this space. The initial task was to throw things away that most easily could withstand such defeat. Then donations to The Salvation Army were taken into consideration. Then scraps of paper with little elephants or half written sonnets were put into a fire protected safe. I folded blankets and painters canvas into half tidied piles knowing that someday they would be unfolded once again. I reminisced upon old letters and gifts. I listened to a field recording of lake Michigan and a secretly captured tape recording of my grandmother telling me about her childhood. I stacked vinyl records at an acceptable height from the potentially flooded concrete floor. And so it goes.

These things are nothing new to me. I’ve known that they’ve existed at one time. But I have also been able to consciously forget of their presence when time began to separate me from them. When taking a moment to reorder them, to readdress them into my current emotional and intellectual state, has allowed their meanings to change granted the context of the present and what value and investment I’ve begun to hold differently to the past. This is where an uprising of conflict has become evident. What is useful now and what is no longer. What will be useful in the future and what will I consider to decay in this space quite possibly for the rest of my life and periodically remind me of this decay throughout the future.

So at this point I admit that I have some logic to this system and order. Though it’s nothing complicated or documented in any way. Photographic related items go together in disarray brimming to the top of a freshly tape mended overly sized brown packaging box. Messy art supplies cram together into deeply weathered wooden containers. Stretched paintings huddle closely along the last likely floodable wall space. Music equipment piles amongst amplifiers and an adjustable piano bench. Stuffed animals considerably slumber together atop piles and piles of unused books. Records, CD’s, tapes, hi-fi stereo equipment has no sequential order at all except togetherness. A small fart machine a friend gave me on a boring February Michigan evening has stopped working (Hours upon hours of entertainment I might add). And lets not forget all the random things that really have no logical place accept to be ordered together as random memories, thoughts and emotions. These are the ones that, for a brief moment, make everything a little more viable not only for the intended order but also the gravity for these complicated attachments.

Typically this order is about intuition. Where I feel something should go that is where it should go. This is mostly an aesthetic response and holds just cause to the relationship and functionality that these items had once held and their potential usefulness in the future. Thus I’m constantly redeveloping new order and frameworks for my possessions as long as I evidently give myself a break from their uses and have time to reflect. In conclusion when attempting to exploit the logic behind all of this collecting both in a physical or psychological way I begin to essentially grasp more forward thinking into the impulses and incentives as both a consumer as a well as a creator. I assume then if it wasn’t for this clutter or this organization that my life may be a little more simplified or in contrary immensely more complicated. All in all this system does bring a sense of meaning to my life no matter in what way I choose to perceive it. May it be systematic, chaotic or simply pragmatic.

I went to the country side over this last weekend. it was awesome. for some reason I decided that Bowen Island would be the place. I had to take a city bus from downtown to Horse Shoe Bay.... then a 20 minute ferry to the island.... it is a small island with very little people there! but many ferry boats luckily commute.. i had to wait no time at all in both directions..

i arrived just before dusk and found my way to Killarney lake just a short hike from the port. it took about an hour to convince myself where i was and its subtle quiet impact. the peaceful ambiance compared to the bustling city.... i mean granted its a far different city then Chicago or Detroit.... a little more laid back i suppose... i mean come on.... we have a nude beach on campus! who does that?
but when freshly arriving to a new place and trying to figure out transportation and housing... let alone a new campus and curriculum and student body it can definitely be stressful.... did I mention about the whole lack of organization and living out of a suitcase? its enduring to an extent..... though it has kind of felt like this since last April ( golly has it already been six months?) i odnt know if i ever mentioned the whole living in my painting studio over the summerin Florence? yes that was an adventure!!!! attending community showers on a timed schedule....cooking on a tiny hot plate that would blow the circuit breaker every five minutes.... sleeping on the floor in the stuffy corner (i.e. the sad fort) of an old dusty turpentine soaked facility?..... but the dance party! that must have saved me....oh and yes the eighties music of course! all in all i would probably give up a great deal to be back in Italy for a time being.... living in the studio again and dancing to a ha.

but yes.... i must stay on track ..... back to the amazing sun filled weekend.....after a while of taking in the quietness i became more and more aware of the wild life..... and while enduring the dark peaceful space it became more rambunctious with all sorts of strange animal sounds... i decided to sleep as close to the water as possible. first tying my food to the branch of a tree. i wasnt sure if there were bears on the island or not. i found out later they are much farther away and in the mountains on the mainland.... just little harmless black ones.

in the middle of the night I'm woken to the strangest sound. a large ploping sound in the water. after first i figured it was my food and a raccoon had gotten the best of me.....but after it continues for over ten minutes i realize that im not going crazy and its a large fish catching bugs after projecting itself straight out of the water. i am relieved but find it difficult to sleep with such a loud ruckus. to make a long story short though.... i concentrated on all of the wonderful sounds surrounding me until i drifted into a half lucid dreamish state of relaxation...only to be woken up again to the sound of a giant fish jumping into the night sky for its late night snack..... it felt good to be back in the woods once again (jerry i'm sure you can relate!).

the next morning i made my way to Mount Gardner. i probably wasnt in the best shape at the time but when you resolve to climb a mountain you start to gain new incentives. the sun was spilling through the trees at random angles..... the forest was old and full of birds, moss and deer. small creeks trickled past along the trail. at the top i could see the whole downtown of Vancouver almost twenty miles away. the peninsula where my school is situated. the northern mountains and the other many islands scattering the shore line. its a great feeling to constantly create new reference points in light of a new environment. i suppose the struggle is when you live someplace for such a long period of time it becomes more difficult to keep a growing perspective. the benefits of moving someplace new is that your perspective may easily be constantly changing.

my life is overflowing two suitcases on a kitchen floor.
this may go on for a month..... but the best part about being disorganized is that you dont really need to waist time organizing. this makes it easier to do other things........ like collecting stones at the seaside.

finally found a new place after much searching, questions and deliberations.
I'm going to rent a sunroom....a living room...a bathrooom.... a kitchenette... a bedroom and a three closets... and a garden. i have this problem of finding the best place ever for the most reasonable price...

ilikeithereverymuch