A little bit waxy, a little bit sticky, totally veiny and peeling off in the most wonderful shapes, pojagi voices whispered as I peeled tomatillo skins, “get the thread!” A twisting and delicious adventure in cooking and art unfolded for days.
There’s a moment I think about often. Sitting in my car in Costco’s parking lot on a grey Seattle Saturday in October a few years back. Chainlink fence and train tracks in front of me. A still sunkenness inside, my hands not wanting to leave the steering wheel and open the door. Outside, a blur of movement. Chaos. Screeching tires, wet pavement. Grinding metal, uneven cart wheels. Blinkers blinking.
Just minutes earlier, I had let go of my grandmother’s hand for the last time after she passed away. Now, here I was, sitting in my car with humanity swirling around me, going about their day as if nothing had happened. A huge gaping hole had been left in the world and people were pushing oversized shopping carts with giant stuffed bears teetering on top through a maze of traffic.
It was such an odd moment. Not exactly a sad moment. More of an “Oh, this is how it is” moment. That gaping hole, I’m sitting alone in it for a good reason. It was formed from so many years close to her and from being with her in that intimate moment when she transitioned from physical being to living in the hearts of those who were lucky enough to know her.
With that moment in mind, I made this.
FAQ: What’s your medium?
Answer: Whatever is around.
Example: I was lucky enough to receive @harryanddavid pears over the holidays. Each pear was wrapped in gentle green and metallic gold papers. The person who sent said pears had a birthday coming up. Hmmm I said to myself with very little actual thought and took an envelope from the stack I saved from holiday cards, finding the one from the birthday girl herself, and green padding from the pear box to make a canvas.
Theeeeeeeen, I had a cup of tea and wistfully thought about the birthday girl, leaving the tea bag on the tea papers for a couple days to leave a nice stain. Once that was dry, a plain ol ballpoint pen revealed the character hidden in the stain. With a dash of glue stick on the back, that went in the middle of the canvas. I don’t know why, that’s just where it seemed to want to rest.
Layers of tea-as-paint and bits of pear papers fell joyfully in place from there. I found some gold thread sitting next to my sewing needle stash and that seemed appropriate. I let the stitches fall wherever felt right. A few more layers and voilà, birthday art completed with
whatever was around.
Sometimes, I don’t know how to put a response into words or describe how I feel about things in-the-moment. On a certain crisp Fall morning, I sat with words exchanged a few days before. As I hot glued down needles, a beautiful and fragile web formed. I gently dropped in pieces of handmade papers my aunt had given me and blew tiny feathers in, watching to see how they moved through the scene. I laughed at myself when I tried to predict, with hands shaking from caffeine, where a drop of glue or piece of paper would land. Or how far a tiny glue string would stretch. Afterwards, I felt a great comfort and knew what to say. My reply was this process and piece.
Take a relaxing breath and listen to this story about how art was made on a recent Monday morning.
A while ago, I pulled some photographs and paintings out of my uncle’s (davidkingartist.com) trash. I heard one singing to me from a bin in my studio the other day. Then, my pile of stained tea wrappers joined in the chorus. And finally, I turned to my sewing machine to provide a beat.
My Aunt Patti’s Pojagi work providing heavy influence, I stitched the wrappers to the painting following ghostlike lines from the painting beneath, along wrinkles and edges. Whatever felt right.
Once it felt finished, I flipped it over and after a moment spent with hands on hips, I grabbed my watercolors and filled in the stitched patterns. It was hard not to peek, but my hope that paint was bleeding through the holes left by the sewing needle came true. Beautiful blots of color had joined variations of brown and a reversible painting was born.
The End.
We turned on some music and scribbled (6B water soluble graphite stick - basically a big fat pencil) to give some overexposed polaroids new life.
When I saw the notice that Recy Taylor had passed away in late December just a few days shy of her 98th birthday, I froze. The world seemed to stop. (Note: If you don't who she is, read or watch her story, say her name ((pronounced Ree-cee)), share her story.)
Although I can't remember or find the exact quote, something she said really helped me cope with my own experience with assault. She said that even though law enforcement had failed her (understatement of the century), she believed speaking up at very least made her assailants think twice before committing further crimes. I immediately started sleeping a bit better at night.
My grandmother was born and died the same years as Recy (1919-2017). I needed to talk to them both. Some might turn to a ouija board to do that, I turned to art.
Simply painting wasn't enough. I needed something more sculptural, something with layers. I started melting wax and found some old airline tickets. I turned off the logical side of my brain, turned on Tupac, and talked to them as I melted, carved, pressed pigments with bare fingers, and cut tiny pieces of paper from my past.
Sarah shifted her weight behind the podium to her right leg, pinching off her bladder as the heat and pressure of suppressed laughter bore down. She shifted back to the left. The heat rose to her chest and then her throat. After the words escaped her mouth, she bit down hard on her right cheek in a last-ditch effort to stop her body from erupting. It worked. She felt powerful.
Hilda's very soul cringed as the photographer shouted "smile!"
