Journal

paper lace lady in brown [detail], originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

so i made with some painting this day of thurs.
i painted a pin-up, which was trashy and not very good, but paisley liked it. i also did a few collages in my sketchbook which are basically my way of trying to appear that i have painting skills, when in fact, i have none.

but cutting i do well.
i love these pieces when they are completed the right way. [minimal, super-clean and polished]

lately, i want to take all my art and throw it in the trash.
not that i don' think i have talent, i know i do... i just really need a big change in my life. i would very much like to scale back on a lot of the crap i own, including my studio goods. i would even like to work from home if i could.

i also want to go back to the gym and start rethinking my whole socialization problem. [mainly, my social retardedness.]

i dream of selling prints every week. not a lot of them, mind you. not hundreds and hundreds a year, but enough that i could actually print really large format stuff and get some pretty good shows in the future.

printing huge = huge cost
but] big prints = good shows
and] good shows = press and more money
which could mean] = making better art in the future
and sometimes that can] = fame

blah dee blah.
you know this show "my parents house" on HGTV? i love that Emmanuel Belliveau. that's some serious hardcore hotness. i suppose it's more of a MILF thing. moms are notorious crushers of the hot daytime TV guys.

but for reals.
he's especially hot.

see? and he is talented apparently. which helps.
so anyways.... i am off to art land.

'Paint By Number 1", originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

new series
gouache on arches 140 cold press paper
12x15

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shows coming up:

august 29, 30 [fayetteville arts festival]
sept/oct [dates not set] possible art market show
november [5x5 auction, art center of the ozarks]
december [second published article in sew somerset mixed media]
feb 09 [houston solo show at aerosol warfare gallery]


i'm also submitting to a few books and magazines, so wish me luck on those. i hope the show in a few weeks is a success. i have been looking forward to it.

the new "paint by number" series i am working on revolves around the piece work of who we are. i don't claim to be a painter. i love painting, but i love it the childish paint by number way. i had a professor always make fun of the paint by number method, but i don't know if too many painters actually tried to make something -look- like it was painted by number on purpose.

it seems like my whole artistic outlook revolves around saying "fuck you" to my art teachers.

anyway, unlike my paperlace ladies/portraits i am more fascinated with filling *in* the holes with these paint by number pieces. there are, in fact, no numbers to paint, just random lines and connections as i see fit. the process is slow and very color is mixed individually. i love the bigger cells in a true painterly piece, especially like those in paint by numbers. huge strokes are so bold and daring in painting. but it;s a challenge to use strict guidelines for creating chunks of color. i hope this series affords me some growing room as an artist, since lately, i have been in a bit of a rut.

always cutting and pasting.
xacto knife callouses.
you know how it is. collage can be tedious.

i have about 50 new prints, as well. i hope i can afford to print these for my show at the end of the month, as i think they will remain my big sellers.

can someone make me about 20 pounds lighter please?
k thanks.

chains of life, originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

some days i just wanna say "okay, i'm out."
i was reading a book of poetry by a woman from some place in the mountains, i don't know, she is a lonely bones kind of poet and she was featured on NPR recently, but i was so inspired by her words.

still words.

some writers have a certain stillness that i long to have in my own brain/writing. it's like, going to someone's house when i was in my early 20s and having no children, no responsibilities and being able to wander through rooms, sunlight spilling across dusty wood floors- pilfering through my professor's library and dogsitting for her while she was in france.

i could get lost in words most days. absolutely lost among the pauses and pretty little breaths that writers take in between each sentence. as if to hand you a slice of bread to butter for them, since you're the one holding the knife. i remember being young, 23 or so, and reading story of 0 and just wanting to puke after every chapter, but wanting, needing more of it. or how i felt when i would listen to NPR's classical music and just dream about some life i might live one day... if i ever got smart somehow. 'my house would be a museum', i'd think. now it is. but i am nothing like the woman i pictured. mostly, i am alone and i have no time for books, except in snatches.

a book someone else recently bought.
a book of poems.
a found object, like a blue jay feather or a crumpled photograph.
these are dirty things we don't dare shove in our pockets unless we're still kids, which i am not.

lately i am so broken.
i eat and drink a certain thick, syrupy sadness that swallows me in it's heaviness. i wander out into the greenery; a fine mist has fallen on us all week to break the heat wave- and i still feel heavy with burden and fear. i am not afraid, i am just uneasy. i am not stressed, i am just without peace. like things are all very tidy upon walking into a cozy room, but something is amiss. a spider on the wall somewhere, maybe? it's that sort of feeling that has brought me to tears many times over the past few days.

i am an older woman now and i cannot seem to rectify the urges i have for gay men or pretty brunette women. even in the monogamous sense, i am confused. it is not sex at all that i prize, as i once did in my younger days, but more the willingness of someone to stay with me for a few hours. *that* i find the most desirable of all. just staying with me, in my studio, or curled around my hair, our noses brushing and our chests rising and falling to the same ancient thrum of pulsing blood.

i am too old for sexual frivolity. i find it to be a manner of teenagerly angst more than pleasure. it's a grunt and a pull and a spurt. nothing so honest, but nothing so indelicate as that. i think once a person starts to spawn creation after creation through art or whatever, sexuality becomes a sort of distant context. it serves a purpose, but it no longer comes first.

i once had many readers who commented and said "kel, this is a nice piece." and i lived for those words. i lived for the fight and the interest and the crazy, hair-pulling sexuality that dominated my every breath. but now, i just like to be told "i like you for who you are." that is enough. not many words and tons of reading by people i don't know. just me and a boy i once knew, an afternoon text:

i still love you after five years.
i like what you wrote yesterday.
have a nice nap.

these ghosts are the constants in my sky. i have a moon and a scattering of sparkling stars in my blackness, but nothing moves me so much as the rare glimpse of a golden tail dashing down toward earth; streaking like a naked body avoiding an open window.

i think of the women i know here, in this journal, and a cabin that is big enough for us all, and waking up in the afternoon, and going to bed in the morning light, wine on our lips- and we dream and say and can feel grown-up things pulsing through us. i do not have those kinds of female friends and it makes me sad a lot. i wish there was a place we all went to, that come fall, we could spend a week together, remembering who we wanted to be before all of this.

green, originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

another week that is marked by near-death icu visits [did you know you can run pretty fast in flip flops and injure your hip without knowing it if a code blue is called over the loud speaker and you are three floors away in the john....?] so, icu visits, complete emotional ambushery, artful living unforgiven, replenishing rain waters, sleeping chihuahua as the only friend you might have left- and feeling boring, old, fat and ungrateful.

so this week, while you might imagine i have some things to write about, considering the fodder of my life moving inexorably toward "snap crackle pop!" - you can forget it. the energy i have must be reserved for more things to do and feel. like "how am i going to live through my father's death?" or "i absolutely cannot have sex right now because i feel so gigantic, like i shall smother any man who entereth my body" or "chuck e. cheese is fun fun fun if you can stop HEARING all the fucking NOISES" which, i have ears and a brain, so i cannot. anyway.

i am currently swelling a lot due to my blood pressure medication, i think. my father is getting better and so now i am hopeful he will be alive much longer than was previously speculated. i have gone from a very toned muscular 180 to a very out of shape and blobbish 205 since march. i feel completely tired, dog-shit tired, in fact, and i hate my own body, my smell, my face and my clothing, which no longer fits me... serving as a constant reminder that i have "let myself go."

most of he time i think only black and white thoughts, which have nothing to do with biracial porn sites, as you might be thinking because you are part of the internet, at least in my mind. but anyways, i think black and white "i am not feeling attractive so you must be the reason i am fat because you do not care about your body, so i should just leave you and go be an apartment person and pretend i can take care of myself until that fails and i am then too fat for you to love for reals."

or i have the black and white thinking "this one week with me one week with neal bullshit custody is the gayest thing since gerbils and i should just let neal have total custody and only have her weekends" and i mean, my life is pretty, okay, REALLY fucking fucked up right now. and i want to be held and to cry but i don't trust anyone to give it, to help, to do his for me.

i am white trash and i know his because i saved money for a long time to buy partial dentures so i don't have to embarrass myself, daughter, loved ones, etc- and the bottom ones fit crookedy and weird and i won't wear them, so i think "well, there's 500 bucks worth of fucking tattoos i could have had - WASTED!" don't hate. you know the bottom teeth don't show so much. not nearly as much as a badass SKULL would have on my forearm. but really, I'm kidding, but only partially. haha. partially, pun. never mind. i have to make jokes or else i get the "i wanna die so bad" thoughts.

i do, sometimes, though, think for reals we could maybe have more exciting lives if we lived apart. it's not *just* the " i am a whore who cannot compute the monogamous urges, recommendations of another" part of me. it is actually even the wholly good part of me who wants more out of life. i am bored and he said to me early on, if you get bored, no WHEN you get bored please tell me okay. but the thing is i am only bored because i have let myself go and that was probably somewhat because of being bored, but whatevs. how do you tell someone you love that you might be thinking of not co-habitating because you are really in a self-hate cycle at the moment?

can't i just post a sign on my body that reads "AFK?"
(away from kelly)

i want to understand why i am so sad all the time. why i want to just curl into a ball on my bed and do nothing but wait and wait until the mood to change strikes me hard and i actually have the will to live and make things happen for myself again. but instead i have life to confront on a perty much hourly basis, and the hunch never comes. the awakening never happens. it's just me in a cycle/spiral ever toward the end of a big nothingness. i want to sparkle again. i want the glow. the confidence i had. but everything in my life says "this is all wrong, kelly, and you know it."

i am of no use to pretty much everyone around me.
i have no faith in the school system, yet i cannot stay at home with my daughter and help her learn the right way, without stupid people talking about some kid's poop in class. [a teacher, not another student] can you imagine being in first grade, the second day of class, and a teacher talking about how you didn't flush the toilet to the entire class? luckily it wasn't my kid, but my daughter told me, and now i have lost faith. i am a hostile witness in every way. they say "please tell me how to help your child" and i want to scream "how about when you fake ass bitches start CARING about kids and using some God damned common sense, instead of making children feel like inadequate cunts, eh?"

I'm possibly projecting a bit because my own upbringing was not as good, though i was in an abusive home all my life, so school was my only hope for anything normal, and i went to backwoods retard school in louisiana and arkansas, so that didn't offer much solace. no, i am bitter. i have grown up, become bitter and jaded and now that i am fatter and off the medicine and off the working out and dieting shit, i am me again.

stupid ass, bitter, boring old lady kelly.
self-loathing and all. not even a good ol' jolt of cumshot to help ease the pain.

"That's Just How I Roll, Baby", originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

this week my father has nearly died a few times in ICU. i suppose a code blue means, he technically *did* die?

i am at a loss.
he says to me "kelly, you're an artist and you don't give a shit about the almighty dollar"
and i just sort of sob a lot.

the last few days, i just want him to comfort me.
mostly, he tries to make a futile situation better by talking about brett favre and the packers and jets... or he talks about dirty jokes with my stepmom.

in front of us. all five of us kids. like 'jesus, dad."

meanwhile, i have grown so fat i wear only moomoos now.
you think i'm kidding.

he has an inoperable heart valve and is in respiratory failure. he's 63. he filed his retirement papers last week.

i tell my dad i am an artist. and i am a hippie. a free spirit, maybe. but i want to tell him i still dream of buying new tits, teeth, body, cars, trips to islands and private schools for my daughter.

but nothing will buy back any time. and this time right now is precious. if you smoke. ready yourself for this. prepare your wife, husband, family, kids- for this kind of suffering. let me tell you, watching your father basically drown, is not fun.

i mean, i can't even make a joke right now, and i can make a fucking joke out of everything.

S-Bend (i), originally uploaded by fjny.

today, my father turned 65. he is permanently on oxygen for his emphysema and breathing problems. his feet are swollen like footballs inside tight sandals. siting next to him, his breathing was so bad i just could not take it. it makes me so sad, but then so mad. here is a man with a beautiful, youthful wife [think jamie lee curtis in True Lies] and he cannot do anything but cry for her.

have you ever watched someone drowning?
it's like a slow-motion version of this.

so this year, i am going to run again. not for or against him or even myself, but because... i CAN.

i am not going to start running outside until the late summer or early fall. but i can run inside on the stupid lame ass treadmill, and i will.

but come fall, it's just me and the open road and my ipod and some good shoes- and pure power. i miss it. and i want to be able to feel that freedom again.

with my dad right now, it could be ten hours or ten days or even ten years. nobody really knows. it's just this horrible slow process that makes me kind of ill inside.

yellow-green, originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

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*
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*
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i would like to not fail myself tomorrow.
i can't finish anything i work on right now for some reason.
weight obsession, probably. also, not enough movement to really get my juices.. well, juicy.

i was mentioned in an article today about the fayetteville arts festival. it's nice. you know, to work all alone in a studio day after day and then finally have shows or recognition. i also sold a print today, which means i can buy a bike or some tattoos. i should probably buy a bike.

so yeah, i have to attend this "preview gala" in which people can pay $25.00 a ticket to come and preview art before the public. it's going to be all fancy. i like fancy stuff. it's cool to work and work and be poor for months, then have all this shit come at you and feel like, at least for a few days, like this princess artist.

even though i usually freak out the night of and dislike that stuf quite a bit.
but anyway.......

i love myself. i love my work.
and i am growing an getting better. i'm proud of my evolution.

'diet adultery' mixed media art quilt, originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

when i started this journey, i used to laugh at people who said "expect to have gains. expect to get derailed. expect to have some failures.. but DON'T FOCUS on FAILURE!"


i was so self-righteous because my weight loss came at a time when i was allowed to obsess over it. my self-obsession came when i was living with another person who was just as obsessed with it as i was, AND i was in a new town and i didn't know anyone! i also stayed at home with my [then] 3 year old daughter, so the gym was my SPA! literally, i could go work out, tan and take a hot shower... and have someone watch my kiddo for FREE! oh, could you ask for MORE motivation than that?


then things changed. i met someone. we fell in love. [we're still together] and my daughter started kindergarten [now going into FIRST GRADE!] and suddenly my life is not so easy in terms of weight loss, or heck, even weight maintenance. if you have a kid in elementary school or belong to the PTA, then you know, pizza parties, cookies and donuts are no strangers to life. they are a *fact* of life. and the gym, well, despite moving where i live and having ONLY the friends at my gym, now things have changed. i took up my long-time fledgling art career and i started actually making a little ching-ching.


then we got this wonderful house, yet despite the spacious rooms and two sets of stairs inside, the outside lacks anywhere to walk. we're not in a neighborhood any more, but more of the side of a hill, with only huge hills all around us. not something an individual wants to tackle in the summer. and then there is the gym. oh the old gym, where i went to sweat off so many of those "sneaky-cheater" calories so long ago. i still drive by the gym on the way to get my frozen kona mocha coffee. i even wave to it when i am leaving hobby lobby with an armful of painting supplies. i also pass it everyday getting my kiddo from her summer day camp! but something about that place makes me want to hide, now. guilt perhaps? probably.


my friend told me last night to come to terms with being what size i am now. to stop obsessing over it and just be happy with my body. she is right on one account, i HAVE to start loving my body *now* not fifteen pounds from now. and as far as obsession with weight loss, i am not sure you can ever go back to a different way of thinking. we laughed that "weight loss should come with a warning label." on the one hand, as an overweight person, i was terribly obsessed with my weight because it was keeping me from living life. NOW, however, my weight is way, way down and LIVING LIFE is what's keeping me from my goal weight. and i am literally a stone's throw away! but the obsession with my goals and failures have actually kept me in this game, though the negative comments in my own head have kept me from success, which is what i want, ultimately - SUCCESS.


as a formerly very obese person, i can tell you that i am used to the stress of disappointment. goal-setting was what *other* people did, not me. and winning? actual SUCCESS? um, yeah... right. were it not for my friend hydie, i don't know if i would have ever really taken it seriously. but when we kind of held one another's hand, we really did lose the weight and while i never finished out my goals, i certainly never ONCE felt i couldn't do it. it was always going to be a matter of "when." losing weight gave me that confidence - and so when i became slightly bored with weight loss and counting calories, i started working on my spirit, my art and my family. the confidence i have now is amazing, nothing short of miraculous since losing weight. but my success has been in other areas. my painting and collage career has taken off and i love what i do. i even feel yucky if i can't work these days. this is the same exact feeling i used to have if i didn't get some exercise in through out my day. so now, my main issue isn't confidence, goal-setting or even a fear of SUCCESS, it's simply... learning how to balance myself as a human being.


the mom.

the artist.

the athlete.

the friend.

the spouse.


and yeah, when i started this "journey" and these people from forums and all around who had lost weight before... when they said "keep your eyes open, don't be fooled that weight loss is always going to be easy" and i would laugh and say "yeah right!" well, i am eating all those words now. nobody tells you once you lose the weight that one day, you're going to just be a person. just a plain old regular person. nothing to write home about. no more weight to lose. now it's just status quo and even though i have gained [ and need to lose some more for reasons i have stated above] still, nobody is going to really notice or care much these days. it's like going from a slave, fighting your whole life to be free, then once you are- then what?


nobody had any of THOSE answers.


so here is my best answer to myself:

"kelly, you're just going to have to be the queen in your own mind. you are going to have to be special, by just being YOU and setting goals that are triumphs and success stories along the way. starting over. losing the fifteen pounds right now that will allow you to fit into your clothes. making choices at very meal, not having a big meal and then saying 'to hell with it, i suck!' - and you're going to have to look at LIFE, not just weight loss, as an overall success story for you. where you have come from. where you have been. the frogs you have kissed in order to find your prince... this is it, sister. you're here and so what if you're not the perfect size 8 in order to go out there and celebrate. i mean, you have so many things *to* celebrate, why waste a party hiding because you didn't reach your goal weight? and what if you NEVER reach it? are you going to feel like a failure your whole life, despite having already lost over 100 pounds? NO. live live live!"


and if i decide today, tomorrow or next week to start making weight loss a priority again, then so be it. i am not a weight loss machine trying to be human. i am a human being trying to lose weight. simple as that. i was not built to lose weight. i was built to live. so if getting back in shape needs me and i need it, then well, we might have a winner. maybe i can find some of that precious joy out of running i once had. but for now. for today- i am fighting for my own humanity. i just want to be the person "kelly." i want to enjoy some of my happiness for a little while longer.


it goes back to that saying from a commercial years ago:

"Life's messy. Clean it up!"


how true that statement is. it's almost a mantra for me, in more ways than just cleaning a bathroom floor. for me, it has a meaning that is powerful to all areas of life. life can be messy. it can be hard and challenging to focus in on... it can even be a drain at times. but we're human. as much as we'd love to clean up *everything* in our lives, well, we only have so many hands.

spying on big daddy via cam, originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

oh photobooth, thank you for giving me this very personal and stalkerish gift of loving my boyfriend from afar... even though we are in the same room.

so yeah. dude. i cannot stand cigarette smoking, you know this right? because it hurts my lungs so BAD now. i was with my friend mike who smokes on saturday, just casually hanging out and he doesn't smoke that much - but i started getting a yucky throat. but then tonight we go to craig and alana's and they smoke in this room and i was there and JESUS, i am so coughing up crap already, after one stinking evening.

i wish my wessy would stop that crazy nasty habit. i find it so totally one of those turn-off things. anyway. i was talking tonight about feeling sorry for myself for having to break down and buy size 16 pants because my big ass cannot fit into the size 12s OR 14s in my closet.. and i heard myself and i was like "okay, kelly, his is lame. stop being so LAME!"

so i am going to start hardcore CARING about my weight and stop freaking out about it. i am not huge. i mean, i am SO not huge. but i am a ize 16 now and that's NOT comfortable. plus, i am not eating RIGHT and i am not working out any more, so i feel like shit a lot more often than not. and as far as being alert? um, not even...?

tonight i looked at a lot of those fancy bitch suicide girl types on flickr. sometimes, i don't even want any more tattoos because of these fake bitches who be all frontin. i mean, i love ink and i love that people are wild and more accepting of tattoos now, i am. but what i cannot stand is some fake bitches bringing down the whole community of tattoo collectors/artists by having dumb shit all over their body. but anyway. i also hate smoking unless it is done by brigitte bardot 30 years ago.

oh and i LOVE vegan smokers.
that's a lovely stupid human trick for ya.





anyways y'all. i'm a bitch tonight. i have hurty lungs because people don't understand that smoking is killing them. i guess maybe if ou hav to watch your daddy walk around with an oxygen tank up his nose, you'd probably feel more like me about the whole issue. you know he smoked True brand which in the 60s and 70s, hell, even 80s, were touted as a safer smoke because they had less nicotine and less tar!! yummy! less TAR! yeah, well, True.... thanks for nothing. my dad can't breathe now.


bleh.
i want to just run and run and run.
i miss my old mind and my old body and my old discipline.
i want my fucking robert downey jr.-like renaissance soon dang it.
can i have nine lives like him?
please?

"I Want A Job That Gets Me Out Of The House", originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

mixed media collage
[spray paint, found porn magazine cutting, thread/stitching, pen & ink, Sharpie marker, paint pen, glue] on textured paper
8.5x11

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tonight i saw Dark Knight and i am pretty much speechless.
so much to think about. i loved it, actually. but it was draining.
big time.

i'm going to sleep now.

popular culture, originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

'popular culture
no longer
applies to me'

-art brut

_________

i broke down. i am fat. i am horribly awful fat, please stop making me eat. this was the conversation. then i had some wonderful comments on my work. a great artist who wants to collaborate with me. a larger format print sale. [repeat customer, too] then i framed a lot of work to go into the show in august.

i also got notice of an article to be done for another publication. then just a bunch of really nice people and artsy types added me on flickr and have been really chatting up my work. so all in all, not a bad day. but i hate my body lately and it's been driving me up the wall. i feel bloated all the fucking time. i am pretty sure it's my blood pressure medication. i fluctuate in water weight by at least ten pounds from week to week. it has made weight watchers almost impossible.

i have a crush on reverend butter. i am sure he thinks i am a douche. hell, i doubt he thinks of me at all except this one letter i wrote him via myspace. yes. i actually have that silly of a crush on someone. listen. i am OLD, okay? i dunno how to flirt any more. i just say "man i want to show you my pussy real bad."

for the faint of heart who may be reading this blog, i apologize.
i am really off my rocker lately.

so a question:
if i sent you art for your streets, would you put it up?

crazy ass daughter, originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

i would be lost without some people. reading your words about family and loss makes me happy, even though i think you should get paid for entertaining others with crisis; fabulous word play career is not a click on a pull-down menu, usually. unfortunately.

i have my own baby-daddy/baby-mama life to live and plus now i try and take on the intensity of an meaningful life with art & shit... and it all just imploded when i stopped medication for anxiety. some good things come around. [i missed random dick-suckery, for example] but i also do not miss the "oh my god is that pain in my chest for real or for fake... is my brain faking me out, or am i really sick" crap. the anxiousness of sitting and wondering is lonely and worthless. i can't imagine why any kind of God would have made this genetic flaw other than pure sadism.

the thing about being non-sick, mentally, is when you get better how everyone just stops remembering the old you. you have to always be good it seems like. an example would be "so i started running four miles a day.... but then my heart and blood pressure made it impossible, or at least dangerous for me, but i at least walk now." and the looks are "oh, well, so you're a fatass again?" i mean, eyes cannot talk, but they sometimes mumble.

also, when you stop crying yourself to sleep. maybe some people think there are no more tears inside you because you are happy. but you want to say "hell, fuckers look at my whole existence, okay? i make art to sell to make money so i can have more tattoos and false teeth." i cry, but it's a worthless sort of crying and i know it. the last time i cried really big was when i was coming off the celexa medication. my body ached and ached for that drug, all said, and i knew it was time to stop taking it. the ingestion of drugs for my mental illness has made me half the human being i was supposed to be.

usually my boyfriend wessy, and daughter paisley, are like foreign objects in one another's life. i think that maybe they will never really understand the other one or how valuable and loved they are to me. but then i go downstairs after getting ready. i am the last one to b ready after i get all others ready and i usually look like a tawdry mess, but whatever. i see them down there on that big couch a'snugglin, her head on his roundish tummy and he is petting her hair. there are always going to be things i do not know. things that i am missing because i am a self-obsessive child.

i don't know how to be in love with anything or anyone for too long. our love affair with one another must've ended with a long phone call at the end of which i was instructed not to tell you girlfriend or livejournal or something to this effect. but we don't talk and maybe now i am boring, which okay, i can take. but i feel like an old sow, just now. so i try not to think of you. friendship is responsibility and not the kind where you tell someone "oh hey, my girlfriend is a jealous rage-a-holic so let's not tell anyone about our sweet phone talk.

i am sensitive and most of the time lonely.
i get sad about this sometimes then i remember walking my dogs.
my daughter's face when she eats a veggie burger.
and how wes grabs my love-handles no matter what size they are.
then i just think "dude, go outside and fuck all those losers."

i love because of.
not despite.

inner workings, originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

'Obscenity is a cleansing process, whereas pornography only adds to the murk'

-Henry Miller

_____

'obscenity' is oneness with all things natural, animal, biological and human. to grind. to fuck. to make one's self recoil at the sudden jolt of the animal instinct- that is living life. it's called being a person.

i love to be dirty. as in dirt. i also love to be filthy, as in screwing my brains out. i used to sit here and wonder "oh what if the vegan, cupcake making moms read this?" but now i don't care. now, i am being the two-fold artist, mother and being i was meant to be.

the author and the gardener of my own field. come work a row with me. just one row. let's look at the dirt, if nothing else. down there, as is the case of the spirit inside our bodies, is where it counts most. if it's too wet, the rows die. if it's too dry, same thing. it's a little of this and pinch of that and a lot of sunshine.

go out with your face held high.
go out with the crows cracking and crooning at the october sunset. harvest your gold. make your two-fold selves have a one night stand, at the very last.
so live. live. live.

i mean
the alternative is too fucked up to even ponder.

'objects' in progress, originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

i finally talked to jason tonight.
i like it when i get to talk to people i care about online - in real life.

other than that, i am so exhausted.
time to sleeeeep.

'white glove test', originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

gender and personal conflict;
july 2008

---
pain is nothing new to me.
i will swim with my kid despite having a major tooth throbbing sensation right now and then i'll watch some TV and i dunno. maybe later there will be other fun things with the S.O.

i made art and i cleaned my studio and it looks and feels so much better.
anyway. lame update i know.

i am rather fond of the work i've been making lately, though it's a pretty unusual style for me. i think i am more interested in the contact i am making with myself in terms of artistry and passion. i have been missing something and i don't know what, but i can feel relaxed when i am working, which isn't the case doing other things.

i still smirk and fret sometimes that i call "art" you know, "work." but that's the limitations of the English language.

a lot of the days this week were spent waking up and wanting to smash things with a sledgehammer or rip apart something pretty with a chainsaw.

'queen of chemistry', originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

'During depression the world disappears. Language itself. One has nothing to say. Nothing. No small talk, no anecdotes. Nothing can be risked on the board of talk. Because the inner voice is so urgent in its own discourse: How shall I live? How shall I manage the future? Why should I go on?' - Kate Millett

____

today has been hard. if i am not feeling violent, i am afraid. if i am not chatty, then i feel absurd for the very act of existing. i have made all kinds of mistakes with my mind and mouth lately. besides a trip to paranoia-land, i am also suffering from a lot of physical pain in my mouth. i tough it out, without the pills. so what's a klonopin? what's a beer? chocolate...

i was happy last week with less to be happy about, and this week, so much to be thankful for and yet, smiles are few and far between. i could go all Tom Cruise with this shit and just say fuck it. fuck the pills, the drugs. screw it all and just be whatever bastard-whore of a human i am going to be.... and then there is the mother inside me. the 'think better of it kelly" who wants to just be well and smiling. even if that means a cardboard cutout of a person is all that might be left standing there.

when i am like this, my whole body twinges and my heart flutters and i swear to God i feel like nothing is ever going to make me happy unless it involves my own grave. i sink into my work. i try and isolate. i feel like i am a withering plant, unnoticed and ill-fated. beauty all but disappears. my art is a waste of time and energy. i am argumentative and crazy-headed. i want a pony and i want it NOW, daddy!

mental illness starts somewhere lower, like in the abdominal region. it moves up until it hits the head and the heart and mouth. either it captures the tongue and seizes it in my mouth, or it pulls and tugs at it until it has destroyed all the ears around it. words like bombs.

a mind that is a war on full throttle.
leave no prisoners. leave no trace of life.

holy ears, not holy teeth, originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

i've ben waiting for this day for a while now.
for those of you who know, yay, right?

love and kisses, lamb chops!

look at those white teeth! i am so pleased. my dentist was amazing and confident. he made my old face look so new again.

"she really loves him, Prescilla", originally uploaded by paperballet.

i miss my old face.
and my old body.
& my oh my how 20 pounds can make a person feel like a butterball of nothingness.

'man party', originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

11x11
gicleé print

Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common.
~Dorothy Parker

----

today has been about power and pornography.
the sacred and profane; the naked and the nude.
it seems the only way i can get in touch with my female sexuality is to try and get int touch with my masculinity.

i think it's easier to find the male violence inside myself, as opposed
to the female violence for which i am supposed to feel guilt.

i have a messed up shoulder tonight.
i'm a super boring person with a wild imagination.
you should know that.

painting & kicks, originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

Krylon Gloss & Krylon H20 spray paint on black 140 lb textured paper.
this is just the first layer of a soon-to-be collage. i do like the organic, ethereal quality of this background layer, but i just think it's not "me" enough just yet. though, i can totally see another artist calling this a finished piece.

i hate art magazines.
i mean, i love them and i hate them.

but all they do is sometimes just piss me off because of the nature of the work inside. mostly, if it feels good, i will just look and come back to it. but then there are those pieces that i just want to rip out and throw in the trash; those pages upon pages of artists who suck and make me upset because why are *they* in the magazines and not me?

it's probably quite childish, but then again, what art is, is a game of children over and over into adulthood, still making pictures for mom and dad- still waiting for that one special moment when you're good enough for the fridge door.

today i stopped working at 1 o'clock.
i dunno. i just felt like it. and i was a little high from paint fumes.
i have a friend's art show to go to tonight and i have to take paisley swimming.

my days are so constant.
i just wish i had more time to do absolutely nothing.

those fingertips, originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

hello AWESOME.
iPhone 'My Lists' application stats

United States: #38
Australia: #47
Belgium: #44
Brazil: #99
Canada:#34
Czech Republic:#27
Denmark: #60
Germany: #78
Spain: #60
Finland: #87
France: #87
Hong Kong: #71
India:-#31
Ireland: #38
Israel: #29
Korea:- #24
Malaysia: #10
Mexico: #41
Netherlands: #62
New Zealand: #74
Norway: #61
Poland: #19
Portugal: #32
Russia: #69
Switzerland: #59
Slovakia: #14
South Africa: #48
Sweden: #54
United Kingdom: #54
Japan: #70

today i painted, bought some more spray paint and *re-learned* that people are the fucking GAY.

now, i sleep.

'tears of joy', originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

16x20
gicleé print

-
i can still sometimes feel you if the weather is just right.
when leaves reveal skeletons
& butterflies begin migration in later summer.
it's been five years since i last saw you.
that day you broke my heart and i never believed in it's repair.
but here i am in this new skin
half the woman i used to be, half my size
yet whole of heart.
anyway, i came to this conclusion today:
i love you, yes, but i hate knowing you know it.

-

i think i am going to have a show in houston
sometime around february of 2009.
i am thinking a heavy unrequited love theme, perfect for valentine's day.

misery. love. lust. crazy brain. mish-mash of stalking and ego and genius and hatred. violence and blood and passion.
i am working some things out right now in my head.
truth be told, i am pretty depressed since i returned from Texas.
galveston island isn't like paradise or anything, but it beats arkansas.
everyone has an agenda right now- and they are succeeding and this is wonderful. i am proud of the company and all that.
but mostly, i want to just hibernate... and dream of being ooshy-gushy in love again.

our company website screenshot, originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

we currently have two of the top 100 iPhone applications on iTunes! [my lists at #57 and wooly willy at #98]

http://www.pazeinteractive.com/iphoneapps

seriously. wooly willy is just nostalgic fun times. we've worked hard to do the original justice. you draw with your finger and when you shake the iphone, it erases! just like those old ones... and yeah, wooly willy loaned us his name, as well as hairdo harriet. the original company still exists, and is all american, baby.

my lists and the quitter applications are functional and great for the basics. sometimes people just leave out important USEFUL tools like listing programs. but we think ours are perfect- [perfect for people on the go, business, home and tons of other uses for the iphone.]

we're glad to be a part of this.
im proud of my boys.

'agreed', originally uploaded by paper•ballet.

listening to milieu.
got tennessee loveless CDs.
worked on art.
did not take any medication for over 24 hours.
did not die. did not even freak out.
read some poems.
watched a little frisky dingo.
went to the comic book store.
had a bit of the in-out.
hated being fat.
wondered what if life was not about hating being fat.
boyfriend snoring.
chihuahua, gassy.
wrote two places for gallery shows.
wanting, needing my own show this year.
hating gallery people.
all of this art/business is like jerking off with one hand,
& turning head away and watching the news...

the sky was lightning electrified tonight
and i wished, secretly, i could make bolts of it
shoot from my fingertips.
because i am silly. because of magical thinking.
cuz i like to pretend the other life is always
better than this one.