writing about writing

So we started a new class this semester. A class in which she suggests we write at least 10 minutes everyday. I thought, what better way than to write on here, right? She says we shouldn't self-edit. That's going to take a lot of getting used to...Anyway. I'm just writing. This is a way that I can keep myself in check. Everything has a date stamp. No files on my computer, no loose papers that get lost or thrown away. It's in the internet now. Lost in that space that constantly hovers above our heads and looms until sucked through another computer at another access point. Another thing I was considering was poetry. I wrote poetry last year at this time and it inspired some work. What happened to that? I suppose life did. The rest of grad school, etc. But I'm going to try to pick it up again. That might require some hand written work because there is a certain way that I write poetry that I like. I like the visuals of it. But don't worry, they will be scanned and posted on here as well for each writing exercise. I think this could really get some juices flowing for my visual work. I know that it is "supposed" to get them flowing for the thesis, but writing is such an essential part of my process. Or I suppose thinking is. But to me, thinking is writing. It's just writing on the soft, easily-erasable tissue in your brain that is easily wiped away by a passing thought. So maybe it's better to put this in the Network. I know the phrase: "Once it's out there, you can't take it back." (Boy, this is really hard not to self edit. We have been trained to do it for so long...) And of course, I know the limits of what can and cannot/ should and should not be send out there in interspace. However, I do believe there is a certain account of credibility for me taking the assignment blog-style. Others can read. I can read over and over again. It is no longer a ghost that floats in my head, awaiting the moment to be expelled, which quite frankly, doesn't happen as often as it should. Is it 10 minutes yet? 8 minutes. Hm...cat. cup. cable. computer. coffee. creamer. can. cabinet. cone. carpet. well, not carpet. cap. canvas. clock. clack. clip. clap. clump. clumps. claw. cut. cringe. carry. curl. cuddle. compose. compromise. compost. cracker. cackle. cad. crap.

"I dreamed of a nest in which the trees repulsed death."

Over the break, I have been reading...and reading...and reading...
I have a stack of books almost a foot high that I am working my way through:
Victor Burgin In/Different Spaces
Guy Debord Society of the Spectable
Jun'ichiro Tanizaki In Praise of Shadows
Martin Heidegger Being and Time
Deluze and Guattari A Thousand Plateaus
Gustave Flaubert Madame Bovary
Michael Cunningham The Hours
Gaston Bachelard The Poetics of Space

I started with the last in this list: Bachelard. Bachelard breaks down the secrets of spaces, starting with the house (childhood home) and continuing to drawers, corners, nests, shells, etc. In my interpretation, Bachelard references to the home does not end with the first chapter but continues to apply throughout the entire book. His chapter on nests however, particularly interested me. The obsession that comes with building a nest. The imagination that occurs when we find a nest, both full and empty. The mindset that we obtain upon finding a nest in the garden or the forest floor:

"This wonder is lasting, and today when we discover a nest it takes us back to our childhood or, rather, to a childhood; to the childhoods we should have had."

It is this kind of wonder and sense of play that I like to encourage in my own studio practice. So why not draw nests? 

This one is finished.

detail

This one is a work in progress.

detail

What I like most about these is the opportunity for surprise. The moments for the detailed pieces. I also really like watching them appear in process in the studio, watching each mark I make build upon the next and affect the next in space much like a bird building a nest so gently and each piece is considered. The marks of the paper are spinning out and into themselves, creating a pause and rush of time simultaneously - I am speaking about time by trying to eliminate time, in both the marks of the paper and the philosophical/phenomenological support of the subject matter. I love the sense of play and yet the serenity in completing these. I often think of a poet that Bachelard quotes in The Poetics of Space:

"I dreamed of a nest in which the trees repulsed death."

"I dreamed of a nest in which the ages no longer slept."

-Adolphe Shedrow