I have fallen into a feline rhythm this pandemic year and spent more time with the brothers Otto and Fritz von Kat, than any other beings. They are the only ones I have touched and they have taught me the art of seeking sun spots and the afternoon nap. Otto and Fritz are my lifeline this year.
Read More
Mami called her first cup of coffee mi taza de entendimiento, my cup of understanding. I gave up coffee in 1998, and I’ve missed that acrid sweet bite on my tongue every morning, especially the first sip when brain fog starts to lift. In this year of restraint and solitude, I started drinking coffee again.
Read More
I have a large glass jar of embroidery thread on my coffee table, the size of a small bucket and filled to the brim. The glass is mostly frosted, except for a clear inch at the bottom. I find all glass beautiful, even shards of broken windshield scattered on cement.
Read More
When Joe and Kamala won the election, that glorious Saturday Pennsylvania finished counting, it was raining in Los Angeles–the first rain since spring, amid a summer of devastating fires.
Read More
Rumination on Clara Peeters’ Painting Still Life with Cheeses, Artichoke, and Cherries
As a Distraction For Free-Floating Anxiety
“I was fighting a Nazi youth, and I punched him so hard, he fell down a staircase. No really, I did.”
Read More
Baking bread is like kissing, I learned in my bones by doing, and it is different every time. Even if the mechanics are the same.
Read More
I’ve been obsessing on Lola’s obsessiveness. Especially the role obsession has on making art. When I was in Patricia Yossen’s studio, I saw a torn piece of paper on her wall, handwritten in pencil: Dale más lugar a la obsesión. Make more room for obsession.
Read More
“Lola influenced my art practice more than any famous artist or movement” states Argentinian artist Patricia Yossen.
Read More
Abeles writes:
We tend to simplify our relationships with her, always referring back to an incident or series of effects that hang on the shoulder like a yoke. As adults, we imagine a chance to reframe a new portrait for her with warm and fuzzy edges. I am not asking the writers and artists in the show to address their ill-feelings in public, but I am thinking about complex connections that were forged in the past. In this way, we might observe a multi-dimensional impression rather than hiding out in our memories.
This is the time of year that we think of our mothers and of mothering. It's inescapable.
In that spirit, here’s a poem of mine:
My Hairdresser, Mercedes, Seven Days After Her Mother’s Funeral
Read More
On November 19, one of my dearest friends, Doran George, died suddenly of a heart attack. It’s still confusing and will always be heartbreaking. As with the sudden loss of all full-of-life humans, it’s freakin’ hard to conceive that Doran does not inhabit this realm.
Read More
I've been thinking about Mexican writer Rosario Castellanos lately, especially her direct and fierce feminist voice. And since today is International Women's Day, and Mexicans are being maligned by you know who, it seems perfect. Also, she is virtually unknown outside of Mexico and Latin America.
Read More
Since then, I have had the deepest, most feminist, political, openhearted and beautiful conversations of my life. Often, these are random conversations with strangers or acquaintances. A shared humanity of choosing not to normalize what we know to be against core values of human decency. So we speak and we march. We knit and crochet. We make phone calls and we write postcards. We make art. We laugh and make jokes. We say over and over again- “I can’t stay silent.”
Read More