This is what i made today:

I am a lantern, a sundial, I am summer windchimes;
I am a 20 ounce chai,
I am samosas, McDonald's fries;
I am spacing out the window:
"Girl, why you always lookin' at the sky?";
Yeah, I am dreaming, I am scheming, I am havin' revelations;
Correlations, scientific desecrations
I am gonna make so much more than illustrations
I am choosing my hues in brighter combinations;
I am that wicked little kid playing pretend;
I am trouble, I am naive, I am heartfelt advice to a friend

I am a mantra walking under city lights into a dead end;
And all the while wandering I am singing
I am swinging, ringing, freestyle winging
I am slinging unchained melodies, calling and solemn,
I am a solidad,
And I am singing: "solidad,..... solidad, my love...."
I am wearing that name, his name, like a favorite sweater,
I am the feel and the sound of it- which heals me, reveals me, and teaches me to be better;
I am the dictionary definition of passion, desire, inspiration, and fire,
I am that word, his name, that lyric that takes me higher
Beware! I am brighter, lighter, a witness & a fighter
I am all that cannot be underlined or defined,
But damn! i am sure as hell gonna try-
I am that song , I am beauty, I am a powerful longing;
I am solitude, fearlessly singsonging

Oh, but then I am twelve again, remembering, shot down by first love in third period bio
So now I am also my heart's preemptive denial
I am prevented, relented, consequented yet again,
I mean, why-oh-why am I....?
why do I...?
why can't I....?

Ahh, nevermind.
I am gonna stop, backtrack & rewind to another line
I am a child of my time, I am a transplanted urban daughter,
I am the crisscrosing roads which brought her into humanity,
I am profanity, I am creative vanity,
I am in a deserted back alley, throwin' color, taggin' tallies,
I am Criminal typography, my canvas is the geography,
I am brick walls and cryptography
I am rockin' life in the city, yo!
I am the video, the radio star killa, a prophecy from a psychadelic caterpillar
I am the forgotten track those hipster kids brought back
I am the remix, fly, live, and I am humming along
I am the art scene, a collective dream, an agent of change and ambition

I am the spot I live in, the hoods I give in, the town I grew up in,
I am the recollection of my roots, I am home, I am the back roads, the earth and the sea
I am walking in the woods, learning the names of trees
My teacher's long gone but i can still remember:
Pine, maple, birch, chestnut and elder
I am a lesson learned, turned, the experience unforgotten, I repeat
I am the ground under my feet, moss, leaves or concrete,
I am in my mind, all in good time, my heart is open, I know-
 I am gonna find the meaning behind
All that
I am

Something has changed in the way I make art. I'm more patient. Where once I used hole up for hours and slap everything together in a brilliant frenzy, my process has become.... less manic. I'm still hermiting for days at a go while creating things, but I've noticed myself savoring.... pausing.... stopping for days at a time while working on one piece.

 It started with the bowerbirds. Have you ever seen a bowerbird bower? I went home last weekend- to sit on the parents' new couch, watch high-definition wide screen science channels, and eat ice cream aaaallll day long- and NOVA had on a program about "Nature's Casanovas" or some dreck. But I liked the birds. A lot, apparently. They are natural sculptors, hoarders, aesthetic gurus. They collect all sorts of found objects, sorting them by color, shape, shimmer, and carefully display them in their brush-twig galleries. If you move a pebble out of place in a bowerbird's treasure, he will swoop in, squawk at you, and set things to rights. I can relate; I've been just as fastidious in my own studio.

I've also had it in my head about Mexican folk art lately, specifically those brilliant handmade Dias del los Muertos shrines. I've always liked them, maybe because I'm a packrat and I like little secret nooks. Beads, empty bottles, boxes, nooks and crannies sort of thing. After googling around this morning I discovered they have a name: nichos. Some are campy, colorful, and funny, and some house pictures of saints embellished with beads, ribbon, or milagros, little silver luck charms. I like the assemblage element of them, made of everything that's available on-hand- the collected beads, bottle caps, sequins, stones, bits of paper- everyday treasures collected, made precious, and hoarded into a little sacred space. They are a storytelling sanctuary.

My jailbird called me the other night and we talked for a long time about art and creative motivation. He says that he's been struggling a lot lately with maintaining the momentum to "go beyond himself", in order to accomplish and create the things he wants. I've been feeling very similarly lately. Maybe I've been gliding along all this time, unfocused, and only achieving what's within my means. I feel a need to stretch a little, go outside my realm of comfort, and do the difficult thing. Maybe that's why my creative process is changing.

So this is what I've been working on. I've had it in my mind for a half-year now, collecting together all the little objects which have been left around our home since his departure, or the things I come across everyday which remind me of him. I have a thought that if I gather them together and concentrate their presence into one place, then somehow he'll become tangible again, almost as if he were here. At the very least it's a placeholder for his homecoming, and then again, it's also a temple to my creative solitude.

 I'm calling it "Solidad", which is not only his name, but also my magic word. So, here's to reaching beyond myself.