True Crimes

Very cool...
I have been asked to submit my photo as a cover for a poetry anthology: The Lineup Poems on Crime. Seems that people are finding my stuff on the net and that always surprises me because the amount of information, including photos, that get uploaded and end up floating cyberspace every second is mind boggling.

This image is one of my contenders for the magazine cover.
Self portrait, of course.
One of my many homages to one of the greatest and most influential self portrait photography artists of all time - Cindy Sherman.

As with most of my best self portraits - this one was an accident - shooting blind is sometimes the most creative ways to shoot.

 (photo to come...)

i am woman, hear me roar...

this year has been a difficult one

kicked out of my apartment, wrestling with personal physical and spiritual demons...

for a long time, i feared that I had lost my way, strength, purpose, but that has all changed since we moved into our new home.

and indeed, it is a home that is surrounded by green everywhere. I wake up to the birds chirping, i fall asleep to the sound of only the wind in the trees.
Finally, i can hear myself think, talk down those demons in my head who mock and threaten me; calm the restless agitated soul and terrified wandering subconscious.

I have physically moved into a new space, and i feel myself moving into a new emotional/psychological space as well.

it's as if somebody has pressed the "reset" button and I am having a chance to revisit, relive and reform my so called life.


I had realized that trying to re-invent my own wheel while trying to stay in a home/situation/relationships that were toxic to me was only going to lead to failure and eventual disapointment.

The universe gave me the kick in the ass and keys to the new home i needed to find myself again.



As i sit here in my new office, surrounded by my ridiculously huge art photography book collection, staring into my shelves of cinema studies and then glance over to my acting/drama section, i have finally realized that I have all the strength inside of me to become the apothecary of my own artistic success.

A little dash of cinema, a pinch of acting, and a smidgen of photography to create a whole new direction in my life.


With each passing disruption, disappointment, discordance, i stand defiant and say: "Go ahead, try to bully me. I'm not afraid of you anymore..."

I am woman, hear me roar...

disappear

Separation penetrates the disappearing person like a pigment and steeps him in gentle radiance

I'm very sad to be forced out of my home...

10 years of memories: days and nights lived, awake, asleep.
Tears and laughter released from my eyes, my mouth

I find myself paralyzed with fear. This unwanted separation from my comfort zone during a time in my life when what I truly needed was peace;  a desperate need to feel grounded on the foundations that I stood upon.

Through wishful and forceful thinking, my ineffective rationalization through this chaos: 

perhaps this is a shedding of old skin. A decade of physical and psychological debris that has been gathering around and inside of me, needed so desperately to be purged.

Nature and the universe shook me by the shoulders and slapped me hard.

Sloughing off, re-emerging new.

repetition does not make it more believable

repetition does not take away the pain

repetition does not

repetition does

This self portrait was taken during a period in my life when I believed my future held endless possibilities. 

And that stepping out of the present, into the unknown was a necessary rite of passage towards growth.

Separation penetrates the dissapearing person like a pigment and steeps him in genltle radiance

let the separation from the past and the present pigment of experience fill me with light, wisdom and courage to move forward into the unknown once again...

image © Kathy Slamen Photography  2010

shine like you are

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others .
(Timo Cruz)

the general function of dreams

The general function of dreams is to try to restore our psychological balance by producing dream material that re-establishes, in a subtle way, the total psychic equilibrium.

CARL JUNG, Man and His Symbols

Dreams
I have a lot of them and remember most of them.
The past few have disturbed and perturbed me.
Now comes the task of transcribing my morning ramblings from my voice recorder.
But they will be worth the wait.

This is how I feel when I wake up from a disturbing dream: still in its web...

from a friend

a fellow flickr friend is in crisis.
And I know this crisis well, as i seem to be in the same mode these days.

and it's not easy.

I equate it to a complete existential meltdown. Nothing makes any sense anymore. There are no rights or wrongs, only maybes and I don't know for sures.

cavedweller

I've stopped seeing myself, or being able to see myself. Making self portraits when you can't see yourself is very hard I find. The last time I really had a full mental picture of myself was a few years ago and I didn't want to look.

When I'm between work and projects and have nothing I'm focusing my efforts on or planning, I feel adrift and panicky. I've barely been out of the house in weeks except to go food shopping, hit the post office, catch a movie and get a hair cut, avoiding the heat and conserving resources until the next thing comes....

when it all comes together sometimes...

today, i had planned to see an art expo. An old friend of mine now has a gallery (and oddly enough, a few doors down from the last amazing show I saw last week, and even more bizarre, in the same spot where i worked in a photography gallery almost 10 years ago. Weird..) and had contacted him about stopping by.

When i looked to see who the artist was, i was blown away. Dita Kubin - a brilliant beautiful photographer who's show was all about self portraits. Well, i was not ready for what i would see that night. It was one of the most pleasant life path affirming surprised i had in a long time.

Well, not so long ago.

This morning while waiting for my doctor, i picked up the august edition of Vogue that was just lying around. I flipped through the pages of the "powerful women over 40" issue and said to myself: "yea, if that were only me..."

but what really blew me away, in the light of the whole "self portrait" bender i have been on, telling everybody who will listen that i am re-igniting my pilot light for my documentary about self portraiture, i flip to the center of the mag, past Christy Turlington who looks sinfully beautiful at 41, to the women of 50; and low and behold, a glorious shot of the queen of self portraiture. SImply put - my inspiration, and who got me into this s.p kick - Cindy Sherman.

I almost fell onto the floor.

The whole article talked about how now that she's 55 (she looks like she's 30), the way she is approaching self portraiture is different because she has aged and matured. Giving a new angle to the many visages she steps into. I felt relieved and rejuvenated simultaneously.

It's as if i had asked the universe: "where the fuck am i going with this stuff? Where should i even begin to look!?" and there, as plain as day and as black and white on the pages of this magazine, the woman who moved me so completely that it changed the course of my photography forever. Cindy Sherman.

wow.

Talk about synchronicity.

And the week before, just happened to receive an email about 2Fik's show, without knowing that he was also a self portrait artist, and also today, seeing that my photo that i submitted to "Book about death" had made it onto facebook.

I know, some people might be saying: "n'ya. Small beans that facebook..." but I am #400 in the entries - out of 500. I like round numbers...

but still.

I feel good.

and despite the next little march up the hill of ill health and uncertainty (mom starts her methotrexate, which she is dreading like the plague, and then my switch/upping of my anti depressants, it can start to get ugly and insane; but something is being laid down in the big law of the universe. Soon, this path, a dirt road, will find the materials it needs to become paved.

one stretch of road at a time.

At least now, I know that other people are waiting to go somewhere on it.

If i build it, they will come.

one scoop of asphalt at a time.

good to know i'm not the only one...

August 26, 2009. 12:56AM. Dear Diary: I can't believe it! Ever since I've started posting semi-nude self-portraits on Flickr back in 2005, I've been flooded with international sexual opportunities! Can my perfectly rounded scoops of flesh and my unyeilding neurotic preoccupation with sex, sexy thoughts and all things sexual (for that matter)really cause such a stir?

Dr. Jo

DRK:

Hahaha! I feel like I've just read a "spam mail" heading!

"My intentions are good, I use my intuition, it takes me for a ride," sang John Lennon. How fitting. I think.

Anyway, this is hilarious.

Dr. Jo:

My breasts have become completely unresponsive to any and all attempts to cajole them back to Fucker. I mean Flickr.

HPK:

hahah! Yep. My hooters have been hiding behind a well padded facade for a while now. Ignorance is oddly blissful, but at times, suffocating. Flickr haunts and taunts me, but alas, mine are unresponsive as well. Don't worry dear Joanne, a few more weeks of bench presses and they will be popping out of your shirt - literally!!! lol !

Dr. Jo:

You too, HPK? My "relationship" with Flickr and the Flickr "audience" has undergone many transformations but it seems to be on the decline as of late. I wonder if that's all there is or simply, has my desire to be "out there" waned a bit? Perhaps I haven't any more to give...or I just like the "intimacy" of FB better? Dunno., but this is fine for now :)

HPK:

It's comforting to hear I'm not the only one going through this bizarre period. Flickr is a strange place now, crawling with bottom feeders trolling for porn in whatever crumb they can find. That's one big reason I didn't post my profile pic here there. Can you imagine how many foot freaks would fave that photo? Ewwwwee...

And I've noticed some of the people I had as contacts have "un-contacted" me. I feel a bit betrayed somehow. I exposed myself to them, they replied with love and support, and now it's as if i don't exist. (but that's a whole other bag of beans).
Transformation. A change of direction in our art? It's all so scary. What used to be my saving grace has now turned into a used kleenex. Why am i keeping it if it is just making my pocket all soggy? But It's more than a kleenex - it's a handkerchief really. And that always has sentimental value attached. So flicker, & style that defined me are my hanky. Toss, wash or keep? That is the question...