A Collection of Impossibilities

I was born without a voice. Without a voice and without a history. No-one can tell me anything about the circumstances of my birth. There are names on my birth certificate, but they sound too convenient, too common. The people who abandoned me could be anyone. The doctor who presided over my birth is the same. So I can’t tell you that I came out of my mother’s womb silent, not for certain, though I like to imagine it that way: a pale infant, sucking in air and pushing it back out, without sound. What I can tell you is that my medical records, everything I have to my name, state I was born without vocal cords. There is nothing to create sound inside me. No instrument to strike, no fold to rake over and tear out cries of terror or sadness or surprise or happiness, nothing to power my laughter or my tears. I am only air. Only silence.

The Quarter in Retrospect

So it's the Sunday before finals week and I am finished with my portfolios, which I didn't really think was possible. That said, I fully intend to work on some new Observations - now theme free - for the sake of practicing and generating new material.

If there are themes or ideas or concepts that anyone wants to see appear in Observations, you should let me know in the comments section.

In other news, I think I'm going to pursue the urban faery-tale short story collection I keep coming up with new plots for. I will try to post excerpts of those as they appear.

In other other news, if anyone is a tumblr user, tan·gen·tial now has a companion tumbl-blog. A lot of the same material is probably going to start appearing, as I am trying to figure out the best way to signal boost my work online. Thoughts, anyone?

See you next time!

Blindfold

Click to enlarge. In the middle of the quarter, I took some photos which played with the idea of erasure, especially in terms of the erasure of one's voice. If I were to turn my observations into a physical chapbook to be abandoned in various locations, this is what one of the included images would look like.

Original photos taken by R.N. Jones. Photoshopping done by me.

Observation #20, 12/6: Somewhere nearby there is a faultline

(Theme: Paranoia)

The hill is slowly slipping down over the sidewalk, headed for the street. The curved trunks of trees, hooked like canes, fighting the pull of gravity, reaching skyward, attest to the slow certain advancement of the whole Arboretum, the forest threatening to crash downward, a train wreck in slow motion. Thin sick rivulets clotted with mud leak out under the strain of all that water, all that rain, storm system after storm system saturating everything, calling out the road workers and their yellow-lighted trucks - won't you prop up this hill for us? In some places they've laid out heavy netting meant to hold back the slow sudden advance of nature but it looks like thin mesh against the hulking mass of all that earth, all that stone looking down on the access road running parallel to campus. And walking along that road, the sidewalk is clear but its pores are filled with silt, the remains of the slide those workers scrambled to clear before working hours and my boots have poor traction, and I slide. It's a short leap to imagine it all coming down and how would I react, what would I do, where could I possibly go? First I see myself sprinting for the environmental science building but I know enough about velocity about speed + direction about force and weight to know I wouldn't make it. Second I see myself curling up into a ball but what good would that do except to kill me quickly, or would I be buried and slowly crushed, drowned? Third I see myself making for the slope, hoping to climb on top of something, to ride a tree down the slide like riding a wave, I've body boarded enough, but then there's that problem of speed + direction and tumultuous motion and force and I already know what happens when a wave decides fuck you, today's not your day. The hill puts itself back together. I walk home. There are no more scenarios to invent because they are exhausted. If it happens today, I am dead. No matter what I do.

Creative Project Entry #6: Catcher in the Rye

The last one. Possibly the most simple, but hey, sometimes simple is best.

Cheers, everybody.

Observation #19, 12/4

(Theme: Paranoia)

Things of Which I am Regularly Afraid:

Bridges. Falling in cars. Unmarked lanes. Broken lights. Broken glass. Needles. Pins. Tacks. Staples. Nails. Air pressure. Water pressure. Depth. Unseen things. The dark side of the street. Walking alone in the morning. Walking alone to school. Walking alone on trails with the trees pressing in. Walking alone near roads and cat calls. Walking alone in the evening. Walking alone at night with the 2AM drunks and their stale breath and their bloodshot eyes. Walking alone with the silence and stilldark of early morning. Walking alone unarmed. Walking alone looking like a woman. Walking alone.

Creative Project Entry #6: Looking For Alaska

Alaska in vector, based as closely as possible on descriptions of her from the book.

Been drawing a lot of characters viewed from behind because of this project, probably because I have a lot of feels about spoiling readers' perceptions of what a character looks like. Faces are important and expressive and powerful in art, but I think I prefer being allowed to imagine those faces when it comes to non-graphic novels.

In other news, I hate drawing feet.