the old dreams were good dreams.

Untitled.
2008. Watercolour,
Ink.


And I'll Sing Once More
2009. Mixed Media
















What We Can Fathom
2008. Charcoal, graphite, mylar, ink





Embrangled

Mixed Media Painting, 2009

"Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie."

-Jean Cocteau

Remember the times when little girls’ hairs would knot up, and when left untreated, would worsen and create a mesh of fibres that pulled on delicate heads. Remember when mothers were too unwilling to comb through that thickness, and instead pulled out the shears and chopped off jaggedly the strands that had once shone in morning light. Remember how little girls cried for the sake of their naked heads, and tears dripped onto the clumps left on the floor-- clumps that had once been flowing and free, an extension of their movements of poetry, a symbol of liberty.
In turn, what melancholia that bubbles inside can become the same strands of hair that grow on one’s head. A single weaving may swell into a nest of ugliness, eventually taking a form of its own. These emotions, these mental braids, left unattended will turn savage and greedy and will swamp a person. They will overwhelm one’s body, and take away her identity. If not cautious, a person can disappear in that furry darkness. A person can become entangled in that hirsuteness, and never come back.
Auspiciously, not everyone has the chance to disappear in that wreath of hair. There is a door within us all that leads to this shadowy place, and some are born with it open, some closed. Those born with it open are, sadly, more susceptible to leave through that door, to walk into a space where something so familiar can become a threat to their existence. This is a place where things silently crash, where people drown without struggle.
In this painting, hair is still hair. The girl is almost completely gone, underneath the nearly fluid chunkiness of her hair, her hair that she let grow out of control. Airplanes, from texts (because information is powerful) swoop from above this mess and collide with her. Out of all this chaos, the viewer can see a door, from which the girl came. Sinking, eyes closed, the girl green with an innocence that comes with most childhoods, is embrangled in something too thick and horrendous to try to untie.
Learn from this girl. She was able to survive and knows that how imperative it is to comb through what is knotted, to pay attention to things that may overwhelm her. She knows now, that if she ever has an urge to leave that door to the choking metaphorical tresses, to come back. There is so much more worth fighting for on this side of the door.