First May Friday

Sorry for the late notice but White River Junction, Vermont, is the host of a First Friday arts event this evening.  I have two pieces in the Upper Valley Zen Center benefit show.

More details here;

https://www.facebook.com/events/526397790831831/

'White River Junction...  It's not so bad!'  Awesome.

New code for the old book

Today I walked to the park by way of two Little Free Libraries, sharing Filth's surplus copies of The Yiddish Policemen's Union and Geek Love, which latter volume has acquired new coding on the back...

Then I headed down to Klingle Gulch...

Back in the Studio

 Yesterday was a lovely day in southern Vermont.  I spent some time cleaning up after the winter and then got down to serious work; airing out the studio and getting ready for art production season.  Really, it's two seasons; one from now until the mosquitos become thick enough to preclude working and then the second from when I get desperate enough to wear DEET in the studio until the weather gets cold enough that paint doesn't dry properly.

I set up the furnace.  I added some reflectors to direct the heat up and away from the ground and cinderblocks.  This turns out to make a huge difference; instead of taking fifteen or twenty minutes for 1/4" PVC to get warm enough to work with, it takes less than five.  It's actually too efficient and I'm not totally sure if I will keep using the reflectors.

I made an armature.  This is PVC tubes, chicken wire, and popsicle sticks.  

I taped up some PVC.

I cut some PVC.  The '31' refers to the number of cuts to be made.

 I also fiddled with some twigs and devices from last year.  I like how this came out.

Where We Are Broken

Dental cast, tulle, feathers, cut-up photograph (DJH by Scott Church), molded acrylic, notebook panel, sigil, doily, lace, dye, paint, water-damaged bathroom sign, found rusty hook.

A New Show, A New Project

Happy spring!

I have a piece in a show at the Artistree Gallery in Pomfret, Vermont, starting Friday and running through May 2.  If you happen to be around, go see it.  The image links to the Artistree web site.

Also, I'm working on a project and you can help.

I  have a slew of these QR code stickers that point to my website. If you promise to stick one of these someplace public and arguably subversive, take a picture of it, and send me a copy of the image, I'll happily mail you two of these awesome 3" x 3" stickers plus a really cool 6" x 6" sticker (below). If you'd like to participate, please send me your mailing address via private message on the BxiieVision Facebook page (http://bxiie.com/fb).  Blah, blah, I reserve the right to limit the number of stickers I send out so please message me early.

The best sticker placement (as judged by me) will win a special prize; a one-of-a-kind sculptural 'device' made from a credit-card-sized piece of PVC. If you're planning a visit to North Korea in the next few weeks, let me know and I'll include an extra sticker.

Thank you!

Remember, for a joke to be practical, the jokee should get something out of it that they can use.

What's Been Going On With Me (djh)

Hey, so it turns out that revision is the extra-hard part of writing a novel! This is the stage I had avoided for LITERALLY* DECADES. (Even in college I never revised; I just rewrote. I threw on another coat of first-draft.)

Once, never having had a Pilates class, I tried out a Pilates machine that isolates the abs. It turned out that I basically HAD no abs. I've always relied on other muscle groups (most catastrophically my neck). Take away those options and I could not budge that machine.

To revise, I need to find a mental space between my day-job mode (proofreader/copy-editor) and my creative-writer mode -- or some way to switch back and forth without losing either energy. I need to reexamine my own work without my inner critic dismissing the whole drafty project as garbage and sunk costs.

You know how one can usually read one's own handwriting, even if no-one else can? That's the other reason it's so hard to edit oneself: because I KNEW WHAT I MEANT. A few simple words may flood my brain with imagery, but no-one else is necessarily going there with me. "That day in the rain" has everything inside it for me and nothing for you -- or it might trigger a completely different flood of associations, to which I have no access unless you write your own story. (Which you should totally do! I recommend keeping it very short, and making a thorough outline.)

I keep groping blurrily for the imagery that will transfer across the barrier, yet will not be a cliche.

"even if I could put down accurately the thing that I saw and enjoyed, it would not give the observer the kind of feeling it gave me. I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at -- not copy it." ---Georgia O'Keeffe

It is brutally hard work and most of it is invisible. I don't look any different when I am tweezing the slivers of glass out of my own flayed-open heart than I did when I was just goofing off. My loved ones do not get what is taking so long.

This week I finished a second draft. It is shorter and possibly tighter than the first draft. It might be missing whatever the good parts were, whatever elusive magic kept me striving. I have no idea. I can't look at it right now (only partly because my Beta Reader took her copy home and I am out of paper). I will probably go for a lot of walks. I do not know what is next.

*NON-FIGURATIVELY