stepping into the fire.

burning up by riikka sormunen.

i've started to paint work for a show that has been a year in the making, a conversation of images and text, a divinatory process/ experience / experiment. you may have caught whispers of this before, as this show was set to go on several times before and had always been pushed back, but now will wash ashore here in philly in august. painting in the summer is my absolute favorite. the light lasts longer. everything feels lazy yet urgent. i'm always hot and expedient. turmoil and sleep. endless research & the purging. & so it begins!

xo

the kiss anne sexton

my mouth blooms like a cut.

i've been wronged all year, tedious

nights, nothing but rough elbows in them

and delicate boxes of kleenex calling crybaby

crybaby , you fool !

before today my body was useless.

now it's tearing at its square corners.

it's tearing old mary's garments off, knot by knot

and see -- now it's shot full of these electric bolts.

zing! a resurrection!

once it was a boat, quite wooden

and with no business, no salt water under it

and in need of some paint. It was no more

than a group of boards. but you hoisted her, rigged her.

she's been elected.

my nerves are turned on. i hear them like

musical instruments. where there was silence

the drums, the strings are incurably playing. you did this.

pure genius at work. darling, the composer has stepped

into fire.