I drew the photo from memory
2.16.2023
I am looking for a photo of me from when I moved back to New York City from Germany. It contains multitudes and depicts my mood, which was melancholic. Yesterday I drew the photo from memory.
Being a young adult once again living at home in the room where I imagined navy personal, maybe even officers, slept while in a submarine, was a humbling experience. A long, narrow space, my bedroom was also the passageway to the patio. Located in Chelsea on 29th street near 8th Avenue, it was walking distance from the job I found selling wholesale posters, of which a leopard in repose was a best seller.
The photo is a mirror selfie with me in bangs, a turtle neck, and thick rimmed glassed looking dour. The mirror was rimmed with lights, which I hung there. Were they stars? We will see once I find the photo. *
There was another stint with my Dad and Sarah when I was around 25 and my bed was in a tiny loft the size of a large coffin. They lived in an apartment on 8th Avenue, between 17th and 18th streets. I was deeply depressed at that time. This bed had a shelf with C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia books, which I read through.
*2.24.2023 I found it and think my drawing does capture its spirit.
falling down is a fact
10.10.2022 Falling down is a fact. As I walk, I catching myself, a foot at a time. In my life there have been at two historic fallings: one brought jubilation and the other, fear and war.
I moved to Berlin, Germany, eleven months before The Wall fell on November 9, 1989. In 2000 I moved back to the United States, to New York City, a year and a half before the fall of the World Trade Center. My experience of these historic events and of the people around me was filtered by my language, my history, my sense of the world.
I love how historic this photo of me at the wall looks, like I’m thinking “I’m here, right now, in this white outfit and this corral scarf”. But I don’t know what I was thinking. I might have been angry with my boyfriend at the time, as I usually smile in photos.
notebooks
4.15.22 Trying to organize myself as I have a myriad of ideas and ways of gathering them. There are at least three notebooks of varying size and style on my desk — one I love looks like fish scales and is iridescent yellow. The “scales” are shiny plastic and are layered and three dimensional so I can stroke them.
There is also a surfeit of calendars — as I’m addicted — on the wall, weekly book calendars, and a table top monthly calendar. And I have at least 4 small notebooks — one for to dos, a few for when I’m out and about, older ones I want to review, one to rip out pages to serve as post its. I also have a note book for meetings and coaching. In addition, I take notes on my iphone, which is linked to my computer. Also I have a journal and a separate notebook for creative ideas. I think I need to streamline and not be so scattered. I do love notebook.
Film Stills from Childhood
These are stills from short films my Dad made around my 3rd and 4th birthdays. I don’t know if I’ve seen these films before. Some feel familiar, others not. They start with me learning to walk with my Mom nearby. I love Matthew’s soft, sweet face and my cute stripped dress. Watching myself at a time when I know my parents were in deep distress and divorcing is odd. Not sure how I feel, which is often my problem.
Jean
4.7.22 I’m ordering and rereading letters in my archive. Jean has written me so many in her legible handwriting, infused with her warmth and care in every line. In the letter photographed below, she is lifting me up. Many of her sign offs are so loving, like “…as you Make Your Way.”
I have a hard time describing Jean — her name says it all. To me “Jean” means a loving, heartfelt, kind woman, one who lives a life of service and care for others.
Our home had a commune vibes, with Jean at age 21, living with us to care for us in a home with no Mother and a workaholic Father. Only fifteen years older than me, she was like a loving aunt. As a child, I felt loved and nurtured. Jean often read books to me until she was hoarse, with my pleading for her to continue. I was addicted to cinnamon toast and I remember her once making piece after piece for me until I think I ate eleven slices. We also played rhyming and word games as she helped with my homework. Mostly there was love, kindness, and care and what more does a child need.
photo of a painting of me
2.23.2022 This photo of a painting of me at around age 12 was sent to me by text on May 2, 2021 by my cousin Ivan. The painting had been rolled up at his apartment, somehow getting there from our Grandmother Vincy’s house in Clinton, Iowa. With five grandchildren, she only had one painting of one, me. I shared a birthday with her so maybe that’s why I was chosen?
Not sure why I didn’t have the painting myself. When I received the text, I replied that I’d like to have the painting, even in its disintegrated state. No answer from Ivan. A few days later he surprisingly invited me up to his place when I reached out that I was in his neighborhood. We usually just go get a bite out. When I asked him about the painting, he looked ashamed and said he had thrown it away.
a creative space for myself
2.17.22 Watching more Aachen videos from around 1998/1999, I’m struck by how I made a creative space for myself at a time I know I was in crisis and dealing with the end of my partnership with Christoph and considerings whether I should move back to the U.S.
And yet I did have fun and was in a room of my own. I did also walk down the streets crying and hung out in a cemetery. Looking for a therapist when you are overwhelmed emotionally is tough, but I found one with whom I spoke in German. He did help jump start me into action — the action of moving back to New York City. Sometimes I wish I had stayed and completed my Diplom at the HGB Leipzig, if only to be in a place without a romantic partnership in the center.
me falling through the sky
4.4.2022/4.5.2022 Thinking about what attracts me: color green, clocks, calendars, rulers (all tools of measurement). Safety pins, velcro, erasers, pencils.
Thinking about who I am vulnerable with.
This painting of me falling through the sky is from a workshop at the HDK Berlin, I think. I laid down on the thick paper and had someone outline me and then I painted the night all around. Later I placed the painting on the floor of my apartment for people to walk on during a party. Not sure what I was thinking. Now that feels disrespectful of my work, or maybe I wanted people to sense a weightlessness.
The apartment was my first effort at living alone. It was too expensive — I had inherited the lease from another American living in Berlin and it had two rooms. One corner was set up for me to give English lessons to adult students I poached from Berlitz, where I also worked. I found this apartment amidst a painful breakup with the German man for whom I had moved to Berlin. During our tumultuous separation, there were many pain points.
1. I went to an art workshop and slept with another man (who would become my partner).
2. I hid this from my boyfriend, a very jealous person who was also flirting with his work colleague, who later became his partner.
3. I twisted my ankle on the way back from the workshop and was in a cast.
4. the lover came with a bunch of lilacs to our apartment. My boyfriend threw them out the window, vase and all + ripped out the pages of Rilke’s Letter to a Young Poet and left money inside too. He correctly assessed this was a present from the lover. I maintained my innocence for a long while until he badgered me to say what had happened.
5. I had to move out. Taking a laundry bag filled with one frying pan and some clothes, I went to a friend’s studio that had no refrigerator. It was winter, so I left my cottage cheese on the outside window sill. Then I moved to a Wohengemeinshaft (something like a coop) and stayed with a kind woman and her baby. Finally I went to a larger space of my own and I remember frying up round chunks of zucchini.
6. During all these moves, I told the lover to stay away as I had to sort of what was happening with my boyfriend.
7. The lover did one Bold Move. I must have told him I was going to see Simone Reifegerste, my favorite Berlin jazz singer for my 25th birthday. I went with my boyfriend and in the middle of the concert, Simon dedicated a song to me! Auuuuggghha — I knew it was the lover and had to convince my boyfriend that I had mentioned the concert to a friend and she must have meet with Simone earlier to make this song request.
8. I went home to NYC for Christmas and afterward reached out to the lover as my other relationship was completely over. We met at a bar at Check Point Charlie. I was wearing a cape and I think he was impressed. We stayed together for 7 years.
The year after I met and fell in love
The year after I met and fell in love with Christoph, he launched the Sommerakademie for Kunst and Musik, a set of summer workshops and programs for adult students of all ages.
Me participating in a Sommerakadmie sculpture workshop, probably lead by artist Dietz Eilbacker.
I was feeling myself in this photo and was in Full Artist Mode, which I didn’t always feel. I liked the stone and touching it.
The Sommerakademie was a place for me to explore, but also I was too isolated and became depressed. Somehow I went from living in Berlin and then in a small, thousand person village in East Germany, with the closest “big town” being Ilmenau, then Erfurt*, Weimar, and Leipzig (I think). Being in this village — while still having an apartment in Berlin and later Leipzig — was an opportunity, and a cause for depression. As an American in my mid 20s, this place was too isolated and that deeply effected my mood and overall well- being.
*Erfurt is a city in the central German state of Thuringia. Martin Luther, father of the Protestant Reformation, was ordained in the Cathedral of St. Mary, whose origins date to the 8th century. Next to the cathedral is the Gothic Church of St. Severus. The Augustinerkloster is a monastery where Martin Luther lived as a monk. The Krämerbrücke bridge has medieval houses and shops, and stretches over the Gera River. (via Google maps)
Room 144 