st. louis, day 1:

small things

"i cannot do great things, only small things with great love."

i was inspired by this quote. ironically, they are the words of mother theresa.

so often, i think about what great things can i do. what can i create that might move people, inspire someone else or elicit a response.

too often, i fear mediocrity and measure the value of what i aspire to produce before it's even materialized. i worry that whatever i conceptualize will be short of stellar - just another trite condiment at the artists' table. and the orb of my presence in this life cycle might be lukewarm or... beige. (oh, how deathly afraid i am of being a wit-less color. an on-the-fence, without conviction or moxie, beige.)

but submitting to these fears doesn't help anyone. it produces nothing. it's paralyzing, it's lazy, and worse than beige - it's colorless.

and so, i've learned:

1. i cannot devalue the idea before i've even made the attempt to produce it.
2. by what or whose measure is the work valued and why do i give a shit?
3. most importantly, greatness is found not in the act itself, not in the piece that comes of it, but in the intention and process. the catalyst behind the movement.

how much of myself do i commit to any and all acts? what is it that propels me to do so? this is going to sound hokey as fuck, but it really is the love. the more willingly i lend myself to this love, surrender to it, feed it, the more honest is my intention. falling in love with the materials, manipulating them with tremendous care, and really caring about what i'm doing. that is where i find greatness, the driving force behind 'do-ing'.

here is my response to this realization. the first piece of what i plan to make into a series of type and materials exploration.


"small things", photo composite of cut tape on paper

renege.

i take back what i said about animals not having the ability to imagine. who knows what other species are capable of or to what levels they are cognizant. i'm an animal, too. born of this earth to eventually be recycled back into it. just like every other living being.

just because i've yet to figure out how to invite the cat downstairs over for coffee and chit-chat doesn't mean said cat is a soul-less, incomprehensible creature. what an arrogant thing to assume. maybe cat just isn't looking for the invitation and chooses not to communicate with me.

dogs and cats and bears have individual personalities. sea otters hold hands as they float downstream on their backs. rats fight and begrudge each other food in the subway.

for all i know, the only thing separating us from other species is our need to put a shirt on when we step out of the house to harvest food from the local grocers'.

virginia is for lovahz.

sometimes i need a breather from the city - to step out of the heightened buzz and into more of an eased hum. richmond is a great escape in this respect. 1 part progressively urban and 2 parts ma nature, stirred, with a twist of... something sweet. or buttery. or rich.

in fact, if i could give richmond a single word, it would have to be "rich" for the food, the history and the elaborate sophistication of its traditional roots. it's an eager city with a southern drawl. i guess that's what makes it so charming.

thompson street

some of the fellas from the block just wanted to say hello.

lazy sunday...

new moon over c-town.

tonight, i am a tourist in this strange town. i pretend i'm not just a train ride away and wander aimlessly, my thoughts meandering even further from any sort of destination. i'm enjoying this. i'm even enjoying chinatown (there's a first):

on a cool october night, chinatown is actually quite charming. the brassy frenzy that hacks through the daytime hours turns into a luminous hum of street-side cartel. rickshaws of fruit border the sidewalks, peddling their fresh, exotic (and illegal) mangosteen, rambutan and various sorts of lychees. a sturdy, older chinese woman with an anxious smile gestures her leather hands for my attention as i steer past. she stands guard, nestled between a "3 for $10" pashmina sign and a makeshift "jade and silver rings" storefront, and she's selling grapes. just grapes. a shallow box sheathed with these plump, round bunches of green for $1.25 per pound makes me wonder. are they that good? are these seemingly average grapes really worth her idle time on the sidewalk? could she have found a more 'exotic' fruit to sell? i wonder what she makes in a day. could it be more 'fruitful' than the boombox b-boys panhandling on the trains? i wonder how long she's been out here and at what hour or number of bunches sold does she decide to pack up and head home? and where's home? what's it like? why grapes when she could be bootlegging mangosteen, instead?

i wonder, but i shuffle along anyway. i'll ask another day. for now, an upsurge of crashing voices draws my attention across the street to an open-air seafood market. a crowd of people are huddled around a gangly man safeguarding two styrofoam coolers, their lids weighed down by a short wooden plank that is also topped with a fist-sized rock. he's yelping responses in chinese- one hand gripping a large, crawling lobster in the air while the other hand pulls a cigarette to and from his mouth in alternating puffs between each shrill call. it's 10:12pm and he's auctioning the live shipment. his languid pose clashes with the impatient crowd. but the glow of the store's flourescent lighting matches their intensity. i'm drawn into the animated exchange, watching it like a final-four game on a glowing television in my darkened living room.

30-second commercial break.

In a nearby alley, behind the back door of a bustling restaurant, a circle of uniformed kitchen staff crouch low on their heels, passing smokes. their weary eyes are oblivious to the lobster mash happening on the other end of the block. they only communicate in short exhales.

.....

sleepy. finish later.