The first thing is to be someplace Then begin somewhere then start
I see us in there
Wading in and out of dream
and wake states my body is continually being born and invented. In the dark I
hold some drawing implement and mark the full body sheet of paper positioned
beneath me. I want to take mark making down to a process of identifying my
physical self. There were many times that I fell asleep and woke up in this
field of marks and paper.
3:21 am Ð
a few nights being born have passed. These marks are beginning to bear my soul
with their honesty. I cannot compare it to any other experience in that way. I
am calling myself something I am opening receiving all these thoughts feelings
words and upside down dreams.
It is me here
being me, always me I am becoming something even more than me
I am becoming something more whole more about the space that I am in
and feel on my legs and against my torso.
I am played into every
moment by a breathing metronome conducting some symphony of my parts.
1:35
am Ð Shadows
they are where my body was
my body smells so
present as it breaths frantic marks laying
one on top of one
missing
This
is not a face.
This is not a
face.
This
is not a face.
This is not a face.
I think in part the bed is
easier because it is there fixed and identifiable by its connection to the
rectangular material softness. The bedroom is insecurely known in my head. It
is the place that my bed resides but itÕs more than that. The bedroom is a
place where I have the greatest amount of control. No other space that I occupy
allows me to modify temperature, change light, and manage over my involvement
with the outside world. In my bed drawing I felt able to explore the material
and the act in a completely open and revealing manner. Though now that I have
to represent the bedroom I do not feel as open and as ready to expose myself.
It was easier to understand what the bedroom meant to me when I was not there.
The bedroom is something that we carry with us. (My bedroom is a place I need
to know that I have when I meet with other spaces).
To represent the bedroom I
made a small clay box. The box describes the way that I desired to touch
and protect my bedroom. In recent years I have rented just a room in someoneÕs
house or apartment and something happens to you when the space that is yours is
reduced down to a small minimal amount. You get very protective of that thing
that is yours. My bedroom is like a physical memory box. ItÕs the place that
would identify me if I were gone and could not. ItÕs a place to show yourself
too yourself. No wonder the
bedroom is always the most out of the way space in a house. You donÕt enter a
house and fall straight into someoneÕs bedroom. Instead there are many levels
we must penetrate before we arrive. Perec asks himself near the close of the
second chapter, ÒWhen does somewhere become truly yours? (Perec 24).Ó
I thought and responded:
Into house and so into the
realization of existing with other people, namely roommates, and the times past
of existing with others. My thoughts travel to home. I have called a lot of
places home and so it is a well traveled word in my vocabulary. Homes and
memories link my growing body to a language of expression and communication.
Using chalk I began to mark with playful unintelligeable scribble shapes and
signs into objects and parts all over the house. Text as images and images as a
voice speak there way across doorways, mailboxes, decks and driveways. The
indecipherable code was the attack of a crawling memory dragging its past over
the sun filled present. Emerging from the wall were symbols delivering a
message from my map.
This is the first space
that isnÕt definite. The area that constitutes my neighborhood is strangely
indefinable. My neighbor in front of me is the Mead Paper distribution company.
The area is clearly marked by a human mosquito net, or fence whatever you want
to call it. Is this area my neighborhood? As my long walks continued I started
wondering what is my neighborhood? Where does it begin and end. My first
thought was that my neighborhood ended when I no longer felt safe. There are
times when IÕm out in it and ill find a road one that I havenÕt seen before or
driven into. ItÕs true that these roads donÕt feel like part of neighborhood.
But perhaps I make my neighborhood the size it is. My lack of venturing into
these areas has led to there feeling dark and mysterious. The next day after
walking down the road previously, it did feel more like my neighborhood. So
maybe it does have a little to do with familiarity. The neighborhood ended at
the place where I stopped.
The
sounds from my neighborhood are many and extremely diverse. From large birds to
thundering trucks from the factory to a small church and children who play
relentlessly up and down my street. So much is here and at the same time so
little. I know none of the childrenÕs names that play in my street I have never
been to the small white church down the newly paved road.
Its
different being out here. Things change quickly sometimes instantly. You are
aware of sights:
1. The houses from here look like hiding people.
2. I am more aware of a kind of responsibility
here.
3. The house from the street is so small.
4. There is a white telephone pole in my neighborhood.
It looks like a long white elephant tusk, it is beautiful.
5. I am immediately aware of something larger than us.
6. Other life going on not just our own.
7. Curiosity about those lives is triggered.
A curiosity about how my life compares has begun.
9. The boundary separating our lawn from our neighbor is the
height
of our grass.
10.
You can see the
factory working at night with the light it makes. Its easier to see factory
things at night with the light they make
Being on the outside of windows. Being outside.
Shallow night sky crisscrossing veins of electric
power
Sounds of industry, sounds
of nature.
Caution beware stop buried no parking street to be
paved
children for sale gate 5
Lawn and refuse
Mead and Longley Ave.
516XDK NHT Fences for communication.
over 18 tons or over 30 ft in length safety starts
is here.
They planted 9 Sweetbay MagnoliaÕs in our
neighborhood.
W.
Dixie gutter guard.
0202
Express B1096, and church.
City: October 31 Ð November
17
There is so much
happening!
I wish I could hear the
birds without hearing the cars and trains
So much metal rhythm, too
much metal. Birds are gathering you can hear it. From up there Ð where they fly
Ð I wonder if all this looks more logical.
city embodied the feeling of being encircled, inscribed. my voyages in
the city left me feeling put in/ its in/ the fence was where it was/ clear/
where they were.
We are - passing
buildings.
It was all of us/ I had a
conversation with a homeless man/ he told me his life story for a dollar. He
spoke of his father who weighed 297 lbs and a mom who was pretty
and of countless
sisters and countless tragedy. He took long pauses when he spoke to let the
city tell its side. sounds from the city drive in. his story was the collection
of events I thought I might find here.
City awoke me to the collection of us and the distance that cuts its way through
tiny cracks dividing our soft bodies.
Country: November 18 Ð December
5
Towers. Communicating
devices holding, pushing through fast information that isnÕt mine, or for me,
or by my hands. Bound/and bound for something. Lines set the limits of the
space.
Large everything to be
large
Long forever long but longer than me
More than I was
Stronger than I was Being told directed
flooded into.
Lines set the limits of
the space.
Europe: December 27 Ð January
9
The first thing
is to be someplace
Holdings open
up
I see us in
there
I see you inside a room
We see you is what I wanted to say
Outside is in out/ from that is in/ in from that is__
The insiders Passing
captive
When we are in we are sharing the
chance to imagine ourselves beyond. Inside the space that holds us is the
beyond. Spaces become ours/ become out places to Drift. Drift. Drift. Drift.
Drift
We are defined by entering and leaving spaces. The struggle
is trying to be inside and outside. The struggle is to be ourselves and someone
else.
There was a space under the Eiffel tower in the
dark.
You can illuminate the water.
You can illuminate the water.
Inside out. Spaces are defined by
what they are not.
By where they are limited by. By
what they are limited by.
There was a man playing
violin by the train to Villars as I left up the corridor to the street the
space was defined by the gradual loss of his music. There was a small bathroom
on the train no one wanted to go in it because it smelt so awful. The space was
defined by the accessibility it restricted due to the smell.
2 spaces were created by 2 speakers talking in 2
different languages
Light in the cabin of the
train is on and all eyes and ears are glued to the smallness inside. Suddenly
the light in the subway car flickers out and immediately the space is emptied
and we are swimming in the street lights far away.
A man on the train was using a five dollar bill as
a book mark.
the way to the train was a
long and straight path
it was where I walked
the area outside it was
something else.
For more information visit: angusgalloway.com
Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design Galleries
10 Peachtree Center Avenue
Atlanta, GA 30303