aesthetic dialectic

Packing for Singapore is going slowly.   So far I have packed: a pink dress, a purple bandana, a universal plug adaptor, and a camera.  That’s all I should need, right?

Conference info here.

I am home from Dallas. I am sitting on my bed in my purple house. Serena is here also, we’re having a sing-a-long, Heather is upstairs, Quint is downstairs. It’s happy.Here are some pictures from CAA/Social Fabrics:(Rachelle’s pictures here.)

Also, Social Fabrics is featured in Intelligent Agent 8.1. (Our work on pages 57 and 58.)

My teacher from undergrad, Joanna Frueh, has a new book out that is published by Duke University Press. I went to her book signing, where she was radiant as ever.

Heather,Rachelle and I were lucky enough to have a few run-ins with Yoko Ono, who was at CAA receiving a Distinguished Body of Work Award. Can I just say, that lady is fierce. So beautiful and full of life. She restores my faith. Her bodyguard told Heather that “they” (meaning himself and Yoko) liked her hair! Preceeding Yoko’s participation in the CAA Annual Artist’s Interview, she showed the audience film clips from when she was child. She was incredibly funny and touching, talking about her parents and her life growing up in both Japan and San Francisco. She then read a very moving poem that she had written four days prior, on her 75th birthday. Here it is:

It is a giddy feeling
like being on a mountain
looking down
many little houses
many little streets
I was once in them
how little they were!
The cars are driving
like soldiers
like cockroaches
like dots

I look up
there are many trees
leading me to…
is that the top of the mountain?
I see that I have
much more to go

Then I see
that I am still in my kitchen
In one of the little apartment buildings
which looked like a pebble from the mountain!
making my morning coffee
sitting at my computer
looking over the park
Sunrises.

Yes!
Seventy five
and I’m alive

My body is filled with
many people
many cities,
many countries
many laughters,
many loves
many, many spaces and
oh, many, many times…

Is that what it is
to be omnipresent?
to experience all your
senses and feelings
of all times and space at once?
With no limitations
of the human world
Freed from time
Freed from space?
Are we all getting there?

I am full of thankfulness
for being alive
I am full of love
for knowing you
knowing life

Your beauty
Life’s amazements
still unfolding
it’s mystery

Thank you, thank you, thank you
For a very rich experience

Yes. I’m seventy five!
I’m alive
still dancing
in love with life.

Now, I’m suddenly
at the top of the mountain
Seeing the other side -
The Future!

It’s so magical
I’m speechless.
It’s so beautiful
We’re smiling!
You are there
We are there

Yes. we are all there!
We are all there.
Still dancing
In love with life…..

For February 18th, 2008
yoko ono
nyc

Tomorrow, I am headed to Dallas.

I am really happy to be going and looking forward to being in Social Fabrics, with Rachelle and Islay, and for Heather’s show (Points of Convergence: Masters of Fine Arts).

I will be giving an artist’s presentation at the International Symposium on Electronic Art, July 25 - August 3, in Singapore.