Room for Obsession — Translucent Matter

A sample of the many books that Lola made by hand.

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. More room. Think about that: obsession is already there, give it as much space as it needs.

I thought about my own artistic process. I have always been a little embarrassed by how I fall in love with something, like a painting, or a kitchen knife. When I was twelve, my mother enrolled me in a flamenco dance class. The dresses, shoes, and music moved me in ways I didn’t understand. Playing castanets. But mostly because my feet became a percussion instrument. I remember being obsessed with the steps. Waiting in line for a movie, I would practice the steps in my mind. The best was when there was a hardwood floor, and no one watching. Then I would go for it, even if I was wearing sneakers, and imagine the sound of the zapateado that I was learning.

A couple years ago, I found myself staring at a skein of vibrant red yarn in a cubby while knitting in the crafting circle at the yarn store The Little Knittery. (Birthplace of the pussyhat movement.) There were at about 6 people in the circle, but I only had eyes for that deep red, with a cool undertone of blue that just brings out the intensity. I knew that I have six (yes six!) bins of yarn at home, but I cannot imagine living without that red. Thinking about what I can do with that gorgeous color. I held it and saw that its name is Blood Runs Cold. Wow, what a knockout. That name made me love it even more. I bought two skeins that now live in one of the bins. Someday that yarn will be a shawl. I just stopped writing, got up and dug through a bin, and placed it on my desk.

File folders filled with drafts of poems.

And what about all the paper I have saved for collage. Everything from plane tickets to DC to visit my sister, ticket stubs to the Hollywood bowl, an old Thomas Guide, a falling apart dictionary. And now that I make sourdough bread, I am obsessed with my starter, with flour. With the ratio of flour, starter and water. Finding recipes that use starter discard.

But most of all, how I have rolled a word around in my head for days, or even weeks. Perhaps it is volcano, blue, or scissors. Wrote the definition over and over. Looked for related words and wrote out lists of those words. And their definitions. All this interspersed with my associations. Cotopaxi, Hawaii, sky, water, the Sam Francis’ painting I love, Venetian blue glass, hair. The pages, and pages of the same lines of a poem in progress written over and over, variations and versions, until at some point that word, that one, that obsession, became a poem.

Stitch after stitch. Word after word. Mark after mark.

What do you obsess about?

PS
Patricia's latest obsession is making ink from what she can find in her home: food, spices, plant material and metal objects. Onion skins, blackberries, hibiscus, rust on copper, acorns. This week she's giving me some of the ink, and I'm going to experiment with a fountain pen.