"I am trying to check my habits of seeing, to counter them for the sake of greater freshness. I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I'm doing." - John Cage


Monday, April 7, 2014

Day 8 at VSC: A Frozen River

This is April in Vermont.  They say mink may mate outside my window. I can cross my legs in this raisin-colored chenille chair and rest my head back on a wing, close my eyes.  Who am I? I’ve become someone who habitually distracts herself and now I’ve brought myself to Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont, to see if I can break this habit. The print-maker from Lisbon, Portugal, asked me what kind of trees we were passing in the shuttle from the airport and I couldn't say.  Through busy-ness, I’ve lost touch with myself as I would a childhood friend. On my bulletin board in my studio here, someone wrote “Don’t forget to get out of your own way. Let go.”  I can feel my worn anxiety shedding like corrugated sheets of snow off a roof, leaving that jagged fracture line.  Writers’ footsteps cross the hallway above my studio, doors slam, paper jerks its way out of the printer like a wagging tongue. 

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