Hoarder

So I don't throw away everything; so I keep movie stubs and brochures and invites from art shows etc. I scrapbook them sometimes. Lots of people do!
The turtle shell, sand, seaglass, seashells, rocks, pebbles and driftwood? I'm an artist, I use that stuff in my work.
I think there's justification for my keeping most of the crap that I've stored in my apartment, except... that it's stored in my tiny apartment. My place was made to exist in, not to make a life. So all these things that I've spent my independent years accumulating are running out of space.
And that is when hoarding becomes a problem; when it impedes the hoarder from functioning productively. I am rarely able to walk a straight line in my apartment; there are cords and scarves and books and shoes and pieces of broken appliances everywhere.
I'll admit to some stuff being junk, but I haven't found the time or the resources to be able to get rid of those things. Like a broken fan that might not be broken; I would like to send it to a repair shop first- it would only be the most economic decision- but I'm not sure how or when or where so it's under my bed. Waiting. And it's a really nice tower fan too; the nicest I've ever had. I'd hate to think that kicking it accidentally while jumping off my bed one morning made it stop FOREVER. I am not Jackie Chan.
Anyway, I've read the wikipedia article on hoarding and I don't think I have a problem. If I wasn't an art-maker, I would be. My problem with keeping stuff stems out of sentimentality, yes, but mostly it's just me being really, really, cheap and more than a little lazy.
So... back to cleaning and making those hard decisions.

*Exclusive New Recipe*

Empty Kitchen Scavenge Pasta

Ingredients:
Pasta:
Water
Salt
I Can't Believe It's Not Butter
Vermicelli noodles from Eid 2008

Sauce:
I Can't Believe It's Not Butter
Lemon juice
1 can Brunswick Tuna- Chunk in Water
1 can Arcor Pizza Salsa Sauce
1 packet Pepper Sauce from KFC

Instructions:

1. Overboil noodles in water with salt and ICBINB to taste
2. Drain
3. In heated saucepan, melt 1 tsp ICBINB.
   
4. Add tuna
5. Add 2tsp of lemon juice to cut freshness
6. Add pizza salsa sauce
7. Add pepper sauce.
   
8. Stir occasionally and add water when it gets very thick, like if you know what you are doing.
9. When you become more hungry than interested in what you are doing, turn off burner.
   
10. Dump sauce onto noodles that are now one glutenous mass.
11. Wish you had cheese.
12. Enjoy!

Jemima's Cones

Preview of my awesome little cone. Painted n waxed it this evening at Alice Yard. Smiley face!

Shabine!

Untangling my boats before reassembling my installation last week.

Shabine!
Soft Box Studios
#9 Alcazar Street
St. Clair
Mon-Sat 10am-2pm

The foreword I wrote for my class' art show at Soft Box Studios:

Derek Walcott's "The Schooner Flight" provided fruitful ground for creative expression amongst the University of the West Indies' Department of Creative and Festival Arts Year II Fine Art class in 2009, as well as other students within the Visual Arts degree program.

Notably, three decades after the poem was written its themes and imagery were found to still be relevant to the class' varying demographics of contemporary artists. Societal and individual issues present in the poem such as domestic tension, political corruption, loneliness, sexuality and emotional insecurity are decidedly universal. Comparatively, concepts like the discovery and exploration of ambiguities in racial memory, disparities between smaller cultures within a small space, as well as survival in a society based on violence are arguably quintessentially West Indian problems.

All of these ideas and more were explored over a period of four months which involved peer critiques, consideration towards media, form and finish and significantly, much self-exploration for each individual as a student within the framework of the course as well as an independent art-maker.

This collection of individual responses to the poem's many depths of stimuli presents thought-provoking visuals representative of just some of the capabilities and potential of the members of the University of the West Indies' Visual Art degree program.

Where Is The Window (at Soft Box)

"WHERE IS THE WINDOW THAT FRAMES MY LIFE?"

The Schooner Flight provided Shabine's physical escape from all the traumas which haunted him throughout the poem; these dozens of tiny paper boats all moored to a broken conch shell island illustrate my own frustration at being unable to physically leave the space in which I found myelf unsettled.
Seen through suspended black frames, the scene is meant to be one of despair and futility.

Photography by Roger McColin
(I edited it a bit to make it more grainy and more in tune with the resolution of the photos I have on this blog tee hee)
This is the second time I've installed my boats, so sharp-edged and precious! Come down and check them out if you have time this week. Exhib runs until Jan 30.

Felisha B.

That new place on the Savannah near QRC

Salsa, onion, garlic sauce, honey mustard I think, tartar sauce and a lot more!

Is this TT$30 worth of food? You decide.

The food is pretty tasty, if really pricey for something you could make at home for like, nothing. Raqs and I go to steal condiments. Yay for freeness!

coming up for air

Christmas wrapping, bedclothes and carefree. Over the past year I've learned the value of just having someplace comfortable to lay your head. Homelessness is a scene, yo.


Got up early to play pool with myself at this beachhouse in Mayaro. I've accepted that I will always have to power nap during limes and that I will always be the first one up the morning after. There's too much to get done during the day, folks. Not about to waste it.


Out our bedroom window, also in Mayaro. It's been insane, looking out my windows in belmont or in st augustine and seeing only sad concrete walls.

These past few months have been so good to me. Pyke came back for a couple weeks, I reassessed my priorities as an individual and I learned some very hard lessons about people, money and opportunities. Here's to a great start, and hopefully I can maintain this blog with all the awesome crap I am bound to be doing!

My class is also having an art show, guess I'd better start promoting it huh