Tangible Psyche

If Mr. Ramstead Has Anything To Do With It Blair Witchiness Will Never Eat Mother Earth

2009-05-31T10:12:00.005-04:00

I have the great pleasure of now roaming on tippy toe through the outback of my youth (something I’ve never let die and hence, these crampy calves). I am flipping through the imaginary pages of MtnMan’s portfolio. I understand he is Mark--Mark Ramstead as he has said in response to my many messages.

You are able to find Mark’s no-touristy folio on Red Bubble. It tantalizes us with all mandatory sites to see along any I-40, I-10, I-80 pre-meditation to go west and stay there.

If you are to follow him around, I would recommend that you go thru San Bernardino and for gawd’s sake, Barstow. Here’s the deal on all that: in San Bernardino there is a gas station in which the guys have nothing better to do than to demean women. Now, I don’t typically recommend such sight-seeing detours, but these guys are so extraordinarily swathed in male privilege that I must. This may be akin to the Orange Show in Houston or the, sob, sob, Watts Towers in LA. See them before it’s too late, you see, is the point of all that weeping and odd comparison.

And, Barstow, well, the only personal reason I have to go through there is so I may turn Mr. Thompson’s well-turned phrases over and over in my mind as I speed under the blistery sun in a rented convertible:

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive….” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”

Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. “What the hell are you yelling about?” he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. “Never mind,” I said. “It’s your turn to drive.” I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.

--Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, 1971.

So there I was, surfing Red Bubble, and somehow through the String and Chaos Theories of art appreciation (may we add Parallel Universe ideology?)…somewhere in there was Mark. I believe his love for his Mom and Dad is and always has been, outstanding in the rain, cold, heat and snow (see evidence here) and, further, I suggest that he is a draftsman incognito. Additionally (as they say when they do go on), there is a Cezanne-Gone-Mad latent tendency (in this portfolio at least) that may drive you mad with its tantalizing twinkle in the eye. You don’t have to watch too closely for it.

Anyway.

Given all that, Mark Mountain Man Ramstead’s vision touches me this morning as I re-visit the obligatory natural resources up and down the coastal and other-side-of-the-Divide wonders of this Woody Guthrie song.

That these post-Adams monoliths can be so intimate is a thing. A really fine thing.

I self-console and reconcile these younger, more electronically-bound aficionados of nature who have viewed this work and find it strangely scary because Blair Witchiness has forever estranged them from the cold morning mists of an ambling trek through old forests.

There are people of the Rock Nation in there and Green Folk and devas all rising up to greet you, I say to them.

Prevent matricide and restore the vision of Gaia to magic on the right-hand path! I rail in my usual mania...

Hardly any homicide happens here beneath this canopy!

The only terror you’d better fear is just a black bear’s brand of howdy.

It ain’t no thang.

You can clank that away with a couple of nice metal drinking cups.
Huh? Oh, go to the flea market or swap meet.
They used to make them with clips for your pack or belt loop.

Haunted forests are cool, so cool.

You may find Mark Ramstead’s work on Red Bubble under the appropriate guise of MtnMan.

As you might have guessed, I like it.

2009-05-19T12:19:00.001-04:00

Christenings, lil jj

2009-05-16T14:42:00.002-04:00

set out on hoofin it then found the feets get weary so risk’d it

in the late nite traffic

downhill on a broken bike

swell.

see i went to the museum this a.m.

polite and such

then over to the articulation of what’s in here needin

my heart valves to vent

their lil syncopated rhythms of muscle, sinew,

synapse, electro-lights of my front mind…

so…

it’s been a iffy weekend and i gets my sweet ass kicked out

of love-eyes, sweet heart, soft breath, fierce heartland for free, for gawd’s sake

whatzzat??

nothing but a hot good dam, i’m saying, my tweak’d patience

just fly by

over that median and airborned you ain’t tellin me…

whatzzat? I’m sayin and someone’s wantin me to right this way,well…

i waz jes sayin, for gawd’s sake and the dude ask’d me

o lord…

i conjure up my best yes’m, buddha of compassionate christ o jesus my lil black ass all tangled

up in this some crazy ass man is scaring

patrons?? well… i’m breathing better and i gots my horn and i’s stanin

in the sunlite and i’m taking inventory:

counter rhythms are bred into me besides.

i am loosely arkestral

i am loosely furnished

i am everbody’s young friend…

We be’s de one’s wit de spirit emulated half assedly

one finger: i am loosely arkestral

two finger: i’s smiling

3: i loosely

4: bill collector calls when i finish The Glass Castle appalachian tome

i take it as a sign:

i knew i didn’t make money and no matter to matter bout that.

hell…

let charlie be da narrator or the secretary or worse:

let her hair dred up in the australian humidity so we are all purpose & amp;

we could call poetry nonsense or everythang

so’s we be really kicked out in the rain laughing.

that’s that mad thing they got goin. a jam more marmalade, sweet

darlin…

oh! call me shadow bear for the hibernation is upon us

and mushrooms sprout in corners

ah, in exile now…

rain pelt on sleepy face

steal food from garbage can and coats have no button

i finger this notblown horn: i knew my lips would go dead, well? it’s a passing paralysis…

our pilgrimage would work if we weren’t so passive but that is the point

it ain’t that serious or commonplace neither. so…

i am loosely arkestral/ancestral/furnished…

i am loosely what it is you shame out the doors of free vision, scat!

you lose the privilege of art! you mutt thang, you nut.

that author, more on fire than you comes ridin

greyhounds come from Michiganand we kickin back in some thrift store jordans

to say hell,we’ll just eat our pancakes cooked in nonsense,

we’ll just channel a duke and some damn fine duchesses,

we

sleep on the floor,we

be famous in the midnight with dingo yips and a coyote softshoe

yeah, i been to new orleans…

yeah, paris…uh huh

loosely unknown

the weekend is iffy,

spiffy african-hillbilly-displaced friendsand dredded up secretary of soul,

but i tested de longevity and i’m gonna have to marinate, moonchile.

ah, a vinyl hendrix thang.

ok.

water.

—a conjoint fabrication of his imminency Ariyah Joseph and yours cordially, Marie Monroe

intricately tied

2009-05-10T12:59:00.002-04:00

--jimi jeff walker

driving in open windows the jeep is fast
and alive for the moment, barefoot
it was a mystic's time
pirate-ty and loose

2009-05-07T20:00:00.001-04:00

a zebra faux fur rug, really huge

2009-05-07T19:56:00.002-04:00

and on it a pink silk sofa with silver leafed hepplewhite frame. behind us a twombly piece of plywood nailed just inside an ornate 17th century frame to frame up a child scrawl of the perfect blue and moving on...2 schnabels over there. this place is huge and an ocean of some sort out past the eucalyptus where there's a hammock, diet coke and peppermint. a tiny chime lifts up this sleepy fog occasionally and i am visiting my life, just visiting

considerata

2009-03-15T10:45:00.000-04:00

2009-02-28T21:41:00.003-05:00

A SOCIAL WEBSITE FOR

THE ALCHEMISTCOME JOIN US.

2009-02-15T16:50:00.000-05:00

2009-02-15T16:47:00.000-05:00

7777x4

2009-02-13T22:26:00.000-05:00

It's a Pleasure to Be Yours

2009-02-07T13:39:00.005-05:00

thanks to all my wonderfully talented and tantalizingly eccentrik friends who inspire me continuously. i hope you'll go to Zazzle to see my new products that are inspired by these wonderful people. if you don't see your imprint here now...believe me, you will soon.

i hope you enjoy the Alchemical Protocol site there and will subscribe so updates come directly to you. Please fave the site and visit often! i am having a wonderful time designing there and appreciate everyone whose watching, commenting and shopping!

there are new product lines being developed. today I've added the Itinerant Shaman line for those of us who dabble from time to time in the ethers of this earth...also...

inspired by my Weird Uncle Tony who keeps society safe for all of us as he monitors the darker side of life (and reports to their p.o.'s!), i have developed several products and lines: Crawlspace (because he's creepy himself and a testimony to sublimation...this is the same reason we are all grateful that Stephen King writes! if he didn't, we wouldn't be safe!) and Cannibal Genetix, also inspired by Weird Uncle Tony's direct lineage back to the Donner Dinner Party!

also, please visit another new line destined to become a favorite of mine and all good women everywhere, Vaginal.

Thanks you for reading and watching and shopping and commenting!

much love to youse all.

Vaginal

2009-01-18T12:33:00.003-05:00

Proclaiming the joys of womanhood!

My new product line, Vaginal, is available here.

Come back often for new items!

$piritual Ekonomik$

2008-12-29T19:43:00.005-05:00

I promised a friend I'd write about this today because she's having one of those horrible days where nothing is working out financially. Things are a struggle, but beyond that, hope has threatened to dissipate.

I know those days because I've lived through them and I think that's the really important part: I lived through them.

I didn't think I would.

Somehow I thought that the lack of money would gobble me up.
I had invented a monster, my own personal boogie man, that came to get me when resources were low.

This boogie man jabbered at me constantly:
You're going to do without!
You'll have an emergency and won't be able to deal with it!
You'll starve!
They will take your house!

He went on and on, this boogie man, until I'd roll around in bed so anxious I couldn't sleep.

Everywhere I looked I saw fear, anxiety, scarcity and the brink of ruin.

I also saw self-pity.

This boogie man talked about OTHER PEOPLE in ways that hurt me.
This boogie man LOOKED at OTHER PEOPLE in ways that hurt me.

Their haircuts were nicer.
Their clothes were nicer.
Their this that and the other was NICER.

I didn't resent them.
I simply used this pseudo-information to feel worse.

I was all about feeling worse than, less than, different than.

I read some books about prosperity, wealth and abundance.

They filled me with some hope, but I can't say what actually changed besides my mind.

I had to change my mind in order to survive all that fear.

One of the things I changed was how I viewed wealth.
I couldn't do the look-at-your-friends-love wealth ploy.
I needed more.
So, I looked at assets.

What actually did I have that could be changed into money if I needed it?
And what could I get rid of in exchange for money?

This led me to clear out some clutter and a few good dollars dribbled in.

But this was not the real transformation that helped.
It was something internal that helped me as I began to look at things in terms of my accumulated wealth and possible cashable money assets.

They weren't large, but they were significant. I began to think of money as something that hadn't materialized yet, but could if I really, really needed it to. Like, that ring can bring me $100. That doll is 35.

Little things like that. That helped.

I sold a few things and sent the proceeds proudly onto debtors, but again, I think the value was in realizing I could pull money out of my usual surroundings if I wanted.

Another thing I did was label all scarcity thoughts and fear thoughts as what they are.

"There's a scarcity thought>There's a fear thought."

I began to separate myself from them. I had them and observed them, but in observing, I was distancing.

Then, I attacked the idea that scarcity and fear are even possibilities in my financial life. I asked myself whose ideas these were anyway.
The answers really weren't surprising. I'd know them forever, but I'd forgotten that they weren't necessarily REAL.

Scarcity and fear were my inheritance. They came from other people, other generations and other circumstances. They came from the Great Depression, from alcoholism, from clinical depression, and from lack of education. More...scarcity and fear came from abuse, anger, resentment, victimhood.

I looked deeply at myself. I tackled those things in me and decided very basically

"If I wake up tomorrow, I will live. It's as simple as that."

This trick worked for me in many ways.
It took me out of the future where the boogie man mostly lived.

It kept me in one day at the proverbial time.
That really helped!

In my one day I looked for gratitude.
I am convinced that gratitude thoughts cannot co-exist with other thoughts so I drove gratitude deep into as much 'thought time' as I could.

I said affirmations: I am safe.

I drove affirmations in whenever fear and scarcity started and gratitudes needed a rest.

I am safe.
I am capable.
I am protected by a divine presence.
I have enough.
I am a child of this universe.

on and on...

Instead of crying and shaking when I did bills I decided to be grateful.
I wrote things on my checks.
I put have a nice day stickers, Christmas stickers, Easter stickers...on the backs of my envelops. I told the faceless debtors "thanks!" on the check memo's.

I was appreciative. I appreciated being able to send the payment.
I changed my fear and scarcity in sending them to being grateful to send them. Somehow it helped.

I also talked to people.
I asked all my friends if I could have 20 from them if I really needed it.
I didn't take it, but I simply told them, hey, I'm in a crunch I might need to fundraise. Would you be good for a 20?
Everybody said yes, of course, just let them know, anytime.

That was quite a bit of unmaterialized money. It bolstered me. It was imaginary money in my imaginary bank, but hey! money lived in the ethers just waiting to materialize anyway!

The other side of this materialization effect was in me, too. Would I first believe, then secondly accept?

This had a great deal to do with self-worth.
Was I worthy enough to accept?

My 20 dollar exercise helped with this.

It also helped with my pride and my difficulty asking for help.

It goes on and on, my dear friend, but I guess I have to say that somehow, in the end I did practical things like negotiated lower credit rates, transferred credit card balances and the like...

but the chief poverty was inside me. I don't know if that helps you, but that's where I had to heal.

2008-12-27T16:50:00.000-05:00

Marie Christmas Part V

2008-12-24T19:19:00.001-05:00

I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas.
And to let you know that wherever you are, whatever you are doing,
I love you.

I hope you have magic.
I hope you have peace.

Marie

Marie Christmas Part III

2008-12-05T11:23:00.001-05:00

In the event, they say...

I am not 911.

Call 911 in that event.

Oh, I may be 911.

You may call me in that event.

Oh, you may be 911.

I might call you in that event.

I am not 911.

I am 911.

In any event.

2008-12-02T13:58:00.002-05:00

In the mornings when she'd wake up there was a stillness inside her so profound she was afraid.

In this stillness, she thought, there is my death.
This is precisely how it will come.

But these mornings were multiple and so little space between them that she could not continue with this type of fear.

She resolved to carry on despite it.

What if I die, she asked herself, what then?

And, so she carried on.

Then, coming to her thoughts as these nagging thoughts will come, she said to herself it is not what if i die, but what if i do not?

and having said it even in her mind she was now aware of what the fear was for.

it told her she is really afraid to live.

2008-11-28T22:58:00.000-05:00

DOMESTIC CRUDE: SOUL MURDER 2009

2008-11-28T17:20:00.006-05:00

Soul portraits of the victims of domestic violence.

A calendar to combat denial by Marie Monroe.

Red Bubble.

I Love PayPal

2008-11-27T22:56:00.001-05:00

What could be better than to materialize $ out of the ethers?
That seems to be where several advisors have told me it lives anyway.
Now I see what they mean.
Somewhere in the ethers there is PayPal.
God bless PayPal.

No One Can Explain It

2008-11-16T13:14:00.002-05:00

I've been asked to write an article about creativity in daily life. Well, actually I signed up for it. I thought it would be easy. It's not.

My mind is wandering everywhere. I am thinking about laundry. I am thinking about a slide show. I am thinking about disenfranchisement. These are no easy thoughts. They are terribly distracting.

I thought I'd say something about artists--people who putter about with words and images and objects. I thought I would reassure my readers that it doesn't matter if you're an artist or not, you still practice creativity everyday. I dismissed that thought. People usually have a hard time believing it. It is akin to telling someone in the anguishing throes of guilt that it is not his fault.

It's like throwing good money after bad.
It's a senseless and futile task.

It's about acceptance, I decided.
Either we accept our creative natures or we don't.
But how to 'convert' the unaccepting?
Hmmm...trickery sometimes works.

This topic is very difficult to pin down.
I'm thinking about writing. I'm posting on my blog.
I'm looking at my collaborative project and wondering what to post there next.
I'm trying to keep these photos stacked--face down to avoid the dust.
I'm trying to think how I got this way--on the extreme edge of daily creativity...out here where it's tortuous sometime.

I think I know where it began. In loneliness and boredom, in isolation and despair. Yes, I believe that's where I turned to paper and pencil, crayons and paint.

That is an extreme example, an example of needing to connect, to attach, to say something.

That is not what every man's every day creativity is about. Not really.
I don't believe the every day every man suffers that way.

The suffering artist is legendary.
Suffer for one's art? No, I believe it goes another way: suffering because of art.

Here it is, my justification for such a statement: making art is not easy. You get sleep deprived. You feel vulnerable. Your arms hurt. Your materials are too expensive. It doesn't sell well. It fills up your house to remind you it doesn't sell well. You take it personally. You feel like a failure. You try to take the sting out of it and relegate it to "hobby".

In the end, it doesn't matter. Something still wants to be painted, written or drawn. There is the problem of an artist's creativity. It is the problem of compulsion, involuntary behavior.

I don't think that's the every day every man experience.
I think more that a little dab will do you.
I think more that creativity will heal you.
I think you won't become tortured by the drive and vulnerability...that is, unless you need to.

Perhaps you, a nonartist as you say, need something? Perhaps you don't even know what it is. There's the trick. There's where paint and paper and pen and ink will trick you. You will find you needed things you didn't even know you needed.

Ah, what a treacherous business.

Why do it?

Do it to save yourself.
Do it to live.
Do it to hear yourself.
Do it to speak.
Do it to learn.
Do it to distraction.

Yes, distraction.
Take yourself away from there. Go somewhere else. Look around. Bring snapshots home. Do it while you're on the phone...doodle. Do it while you're watching t.v.

See what's going on in that parallel world that is so very distracting.

It opens you up.
It changes you.

No one can explain it.

2008-11-07T13:33:00.001-05:00

Pre-dawn and Gulf Wars

2008-11-06T06:08:00.005-05:00

--for my beautiful friends Lisa Hunt and Lauren Titus

I've been writing a bit lately and i see references to the ephemeral dotting that wordy landscape.

When I was pouring coffee just now I pondered this.

What kind of life am I leading where things are ephemeral?
I got a couple of viable answers.

One was that life is that way.
Another had to do with disenfranchisement.

Oh, I thought, that.

So, let's stay there for a minute in that italicized world where things go tilt and fly by like a stray newspaper in a nice gusty wind...

here's what my full coffee cup had to say this a.m...

you have residual PTSD.
you were a child in the 60's

I had not gotten this angle of it before. not really.
I had gotten plenty else to do with that. the 60s i mean...

I got this notion of how to dress that won't go away and has become at times a source of social pain

I got an inability to wear make-up even though i could certainly use it
as a charitable act for others and self

I got a nice sense of poetry from Bob Dylan, et al--that works

and I got access to a Jackson Brown kind of thing that really graced my young womanhood and I will always be grateful for that vivid cellular memory....i plan to use it in my exit plan, just to drift...

there's lots. lots of good things.
i am proud to have been a pioneer baby, teen, young woman...
social experiments are cool
they are also other things.
they also bring other things.

ask Dr. Leary.
hmmm.

well,
social experiments and social/cultural revolution brought me something else
and
that's a clinical thing, sadly

I realized this morning that I have PTSD that works like this:

I have the unshake-able idea that at the peak of joyous social change really bad and really sad things are going to happen.

I got the notion (suddenly not so ephemeral and italicized) that revolution costs enormous, sad, tragic, life-long, not so great life-altering costs.

I am a child of the 60's. Please forgive me.

Please forgive me, i wanted to say as my friends celebrated the president elect's success.

I am wounded. I am not so optimistic.

I am filled with conspiracy theories and visions of riots.

I could recognize that aerial shot of Detroit burning anywhere.

I memorized it.
I made myself.
I don't know why.
Maybe I was frozen like they say and had no choice but to look, but it didn't feel that way. I had to look. I knew that this was very important and I had to learn it. I remember thinking that, but I don't know when exactly except during the news.....

I can't remember the day, what else was going on in my life or even, right now, what grade I was in.

It should be easy to piece all that together.
I know the year, but

here's how trauma works:
it alters the brain.
it alters its ability to function properly.

i can't do the math,
but i see that aerial shot. i see it in great detail.

it's the same with other traumas of my life.
i can't, for example, tell you when my mother died.
i can guesstimate within a few years of accuracy.

i just can't do the math.

i could get the information on all these things easily.
i'm just not going to do it.

that's another way trauma works.

avoidance is not always a comfortable and easy thing.

we like to blame the avoiders. we like to think they are escaping this hard work the rest of us are doing when we confront and stick around.

that ain't necessarily so.

there's pain in avoidance.
there's even more pain when you realize it's pretty involuntary and compulsory.

avoidance can be harder than confrontation, responsibility, duty and accountability. It has been for me.

Duty comes easily in my life. Commitment to causes comes easily.
I'm sure that's a remnant, too.
Relationships? well, that's a different story.

A sexual/gender role revolution can be a mixed blessing for a child/pre-teen/teen/young adult/adult/middle-adult/aging adult...

That's another thing to take to the pier and let the slow, warm waters of the gulf wash away...
I am so wounded by the losses there.
That is another crippling sadness.
That is another remnant of my era.

i want to insert something about addicts here, but i'm tired to death of that.

i've been on a mission since the 60's to be an addict, recover from being an addict and to help other addicts.

i'm sick to death of it. This morning I don't care who wants to use dope. This morning I am sick to death of caring about other people.
This morning I am, yes, a compassion fatigue casualty, but more, this morning I realize that I am of a generation hell-bent on compassion fatigue crash and burn.
We flew into our own towers.

We didn't mean to, but there we were.

Here a lot of us still are.

Vietnam vets were not the only casualities of that era.
There are many adult children of the 60's still around.

A lot of us are scared right now.

You'll have to forgive us.

We got called in from recess because the Russians were coming to drop mushroom clouds on our school.

The president had been shot.

There was a silence I had never heard before.
I can't do the math, but I remember a silent tunnel that I was running through.

I was little enough to be on the slide.
I was big enough to be on the big slide.

I remember running as fast as I could when the teacher's face looked like that.

I knew it was something more terrible than anything ever.

Somehow, it made me afraid for my daddy.

I thought he might be dead.

When bad things happened he went there with shotguns.

He might not come home from work every day anyway, but on this day...

When the really bad guys were loose he really might not come home today ever... surer than everyday when he might not.

This day for sure.
This day for sure.
This day for sure.

This is the way the math dies.
This is the way trauma works.

You will have to forgive me.
I was a child in the 60's.
It hurt me.
I almost got lost.
I didn't come back till the 80's.
Not really.
I guess I did get lost.

I was trying to do good things.

I remember feeling good for awhile.

I remember doing some things right.

I am wounded.

I am still afraid.

There are many of us around.

We whisper about it.
We don't want to hurt you with it.

Slowly, we know we can't.
We can't hurt you.

We love you.
We need you.

You are our beautiful children that we were so afraid we couldn't have.
We were afraid we'd hurt you because we were lost.

I am so glad you are here.

I'm sick to death of it.
I'm wounded.
I'm tired.

Everybody works until they can't work anymore, but
you know what?

Retirement is cool.
I usually mess it up. I say "When I graduate...."

I'm still in school.
Jesus.

I'm still memorizing stuff.
I'm still staring at it.

I'm sick to death of it
and

I am so proud of you.

I bless you.

I take you as my own.

You, go, girl, as you're fond of saying.

I'm taking a break.

All of this is in your really excellent hands.

I'm proud of you.
I'm so very, very proud of you.

You are the children we wanted.

Image by Mark Welsh

2008-11-02T14:42:00.001-05:00

Mark Welsh: Loving the 'Unlovable'--the Sweet Impermanence of Physicality

2008-11-02T14:28:00.004-05:00

Scouting the nether regions of aesthetics, Mark Welsh is a collector. He retrieves, and lovingly preserves, a collection of never-seen specimens for us to inspect. Some are disturbing, but only at first. Some are whimsical, but somehow deeper than that. All are rare.

One wonders where he has gone to find his ephemeral creatures…how he made their acquaintance and why he came to love them. Skimming his collection and his writings, we find clues:

there is usually a rigid pattern performed without a conscious design in response to certain stimuli —Mark Welsh

This helps me. I begin to understand the xenophobic response that tried to pull me away as I first moved in closer to his work. I begin to understand why, once intimate with these images, I have now broken something inside me, something that has needed to be broken, something judgmental and full of limitation.

Welsh’s work captures the spirit long enough to tutor it and to help it remember basics.

In this world all things are equal.

We would do well to be compassionate and to have an unconditional and loving regard.

Physicality is transient and haphazard.

Something greater is at work.

Welsh not only tempts our vision, pulling us, compelling us, but he tests his viewers, challenging the limitations of our acceptance, of our aesthetic. He engages us in an examination of conscience as we absorb his work.

Often oddly pulled, cropped, distorted and malformed, faces appear to confront us, but they are not aggressive. In fact, there is a stillness about them that reassures us that we may look as directly as we want without reprisal. The admonishment to look away from the malformed falls away. It is polite to look, even to stare, in Welsh’s world. In fact, his characters expect inspection and wait serenely for it. They are not self-conscious. They wait patiently for me to resolve my own discomfort.

Somehow, these characters understand the viewer’s limitations and give us time to work them out. In the end we are equals with xenophobia dissipated. These images teach us that we are similar. They take us to the physics of spirit and help us abandon the physical. This, I think, is Welsh’s greatest gift to his viewers. I begin to wonder about the artist himself and look about for what might be a self-portrait and I think I find one in Aka

Aka, the artist’s chosen RedBubble icon, brings another batch of odd thoughts and feelings. This character is young and I feel protective of him, tender toward his youth. Measurements appear, in the background, some geometric calculations…an intelligence lives in these worlds. Kafka himself lives there. These images are teaching me very pertinent lessons: human beauty is not always symmetrical; commonalities win out over differences…I expect the artist to be a bodhisattva of sorts. I imagine him walking lightly, but with stealth, watching for what must be resolved.

He sends us postcards from his walk: a series of specimens that tell us more about this spiritual journey. He inspects earth’s fundamental elements. He captures insects, reptiles, foul and sea creatures then writes to tell us:

in the north, ever i walk searching.
i am all consuming passion and life.
fire in the belly, fire in the mind.
i bring colour to desert earth
and evolve in all things.
i am fear and burn in all that dream.
you will know me by my touch
and the mark i leave on your soul.
i am the fullness of summer’s joy
and the protecting love of the father.

There’s more, much more… the Purge series invites us into the passion, but also reminds us that the refrigerators, toasters and tables of the world are debris and we must look somewhere else for the essence of this walk that has, I suspect, traveled far since these works were created.

Please watch for him. There will be much, much more to come.

Mark Welsh lives and works in Fremantle, Western Australia.

He displays his work on Red Bubble as Elsh.

For more about his work, please visit his site.

Interview

2008-10-18T13:30:00.001-04:00

CHONCHY interviewed me about art, art therapy, personal hygiene and such.
Thanks to Rae.

The Birth of Another Me!

2008-10-12T09:42:00.004-04:00

My readers and watchers know I am prone to sprout me's all over the place!
As they say of the reproductively productive: I am quite fertile...ahem...but all that aside, I am pleased and proud (again, as they say) to report yet another psychic birth:

Psyche Delia has been born!

Delivered without complication, quietly in the Kentucky night, this beautiful bouncing girl slid into the world, effortlessly, on lightbeams and color wheels.

She is so gorgeous, such a visual feast, that it is almost as if her heart and soul and psyche have been vectored by the great vector guru himself!

Who is that!?, you may ask...I shall, of course, tell you!

It is the man who knows when color, or even the possibility of color, arrives on earth....

Psyche Delia was discovered by the candied eye of Matt Mawson who keeps watch from down under while the rest of me sleeps.

Matt Mawson is the Vector Guru Exemplar--see proof here! in his recent book, Vectored, a sweet passport to vector-vision where all the world's inhabitants are related.

His images are joy-filled and intense, full of chuckles, smiles and giggles. He knows a colored psyche when he sees one...

The Red Bubble community loves Matt. You will, too.

Here's to you, Our Bubbly Vectored King!

I take my new moniker and use it proudly.

I am Psyche Delia!

------
Matt Mawson lives in Tallebudgera in Australia and is fond of people, rust, cars, trucks and color.

Ben Galley: Finding God & London's Vandals

2008-10-11T11:52:00.002-04:00

Marie Monroe
USA
10.10.08

Ben Galley’s London dwarfs its people as they walk down city steps, look for sky overhead and smudge along the city’s walls. There are really more interesting things here than who these people might be. What is more important is the city’s breath--its breeze or mist or wind, even the absence of these. People are integral but not. Clearly they are welcomed here, but it is nice without the chatter of personality. It is better with hints and traces of where personalities have been.

Only a few of his human subjects claim individual power in this London, but at the hub of this city’s beautiful, deep breath stands Galley’s unknown man--The Traveller. He alone is empowered enough to stand still, strong and in solid form. Whoever that man claims to be, I see him as Galley himself. This is his iconic self-portrait… the man who watches London with the lonely vision of an urban and practical mystic.

With a handful of prints to thumb through, Galley’s vision sneaks up to say, I am an important staple in this city…my eyes are an axis around which London’s ephemeral, somehow confrontive streets are spinning out their days.

He apparently loves this city in which its characters can be the faceless near-shapes of unspecified persons. A painless loneliness is everywhere in these works, but there is also delight and not an unhappy eye. The cityscapes are beautiful, singular, soon to evaporate in a mist that’s felt without being seen. The eye feels the cool mist of Galley’s vision. The trees, when we visit, puff their cool moisture to us, but the city is simply soft, muffled, breathing deeply and still.

There are markings about--pedestrian debris. People seem contently estranged from one another so we come to believe that our artist is as well—politely, unobtrusively looking. ..Galley seems to resonate with the city’s folk, but he leaves them to their own business. I like that. I like that very much.

Galley’s vision is not mature and that is exciting because it is already accomplished. It will break through again and again before he’s through. He is not only his Traveller, but is also, I think, the boy in Finding God--alone in the city, at home, but solitary, still close to an adolescent vitality, still stricken by the scrawl of vandals or the postings of renegade artists. He is traveling through London like our iconic traveler and I want to stalk, a few steps behind, watching him watch the city, watching his own Grimm’s tale of live and breathing things still warm on his heels from childhood. He seems to remember his childhood means of discovery and he looks (most times) straight into the image. That is charming. It is also effective.

I cannot wait for him to watch more, but his breathy trees can wait. They know he’ll come back from the sidewalks and buildings, the streets and vandals. He’ll be back, done that day, hands in pockets and walking home.

Ben Galley is a photographer living and working in London.
See his work on Red Bubble where he exhibits as Redtempa.

Thank YOU

2008-09-26T10:42:00.003-04:00

Thank you to all my friends who have supported my new ventures, particularly on

Red Bubble.

The inspiration was greatly needed, the financial boost certainly appreciated and the hugs and kisses sweet and swell.

RED BUBBLE

2008-09-26T06:19:00.002-04:00

TANGIBLE IS NOW ON RED BUBBLE
SEE SLIDES
SEE YOUR MOM
SEE YOUR EX

Today is a Good Day

2008-09-12T09:56:00.003-04:00

today is a good day. i woke up with discernment.
i knew where my strengths were. i knew who my friends were and i let them know.

there are too many places for us to hide.

this morning, everyone was found
except the half-ones (uglier than the invisibles, human but not quite)

this morning, i didn't give a damn about them.
i didn't forgive them or rationalize them.
i let them go back to their shadows and half-smiles,
back to the crevices of heart.

the half-ones
they live in shame: one foot in and one foot out.
a hokey-pokey of authenticity,
the way they regret their space
the way they regret their breath
the way they spread regret
the way they hide.

all abused children are not lovable adults.
some are sadistic
some are narcissistic
some will kill you out of love.

it is a trick to live among them.

today is a good day.
i woke up with discernment.
i woke up knowing who i love
i let them know.

CLICK ON ALL MATH

2008-09-07T17:32:00.003-04:00

2008-09-07T17:31:00.002-04:00

2008-09-07T17:22:00.001-04:00

What feels, in the nightmare or the waking dread, capable of eroding, drowning, engulfing you in the eternal nightsea...your terror is simply an alert that something momentous has you in its sights. Don't be afraid to die: the brain helps us at that doorway. The soul itself is activated just in time to enfold you safely into death's full impact. It is a serenity you can never imagine until it taps you on the shoulder. People have experienced it. If this is your ultimate terror then see what they can teach you. Can the tadpole image its future form? STALK OBLIVION.

Pace

2008-09-07T17:13:00.001-04:00

Don't be fooled by someone keeping pace.
Look for someone that will improve your game.

paradise

2008-09-07T17:09:00.001-04:00

blessings

2008-09-07T17:04:00.001-04:00

please click on all math

2008-09-07T02:59:00.001-04:00

2008-09-07T02:58:00.000-04:00

2008-09-07T02:43:00.000-04:00

2008-09-07T02:33:00.000-04:00

2008-09-07T02:24:00.000-04:00

2008-09-07T02:15:00.002-04:00

2008-09-07T02:10:00.000-04:00

2008-09-07T02:09:00.000-04:00

2008-09-07T02:08:00.001-04:00

2008-09-06T22:22:00.001-04:00

2008-09-06T22:21:00.000-04:00

2008-09-06T22:06:00.000-04:00

2008-09-06T22:01:00.000-04:00

2008-09-06T12:48:00.000-04:00

2008-09-05T14:50:00.000-04:00

are you incinerating i'm not taking good care of things?

2008-09-05T14:43:00.000-04:00

what kind of lazy bastard would rip up the tao?

2008-09-05T00:20:00.001-04:00

2008-09-05T00:19:00.000-04:00

yeah well i cldn't help myself

how you gonna say?

2008-09-05T00:17:00.000-04:00

it's an inebriation

2008-09-05T00:06:00.000-04:00

2008-09-05T00:03:00.001-04:00

2008-09-05T00:01:00.001-04:00

ain't no body gonna take me no where. i got powers in here.

2008-09-05T00:00:00.000-04:00

2008-09-04T23:57:00.000-04:00

arm yourself if you must
fortify something internally.
then go to the shadows of
lost souls looking for the one who
might want to surface even just
for a moment. this is the mission
of angels & though you may be an
assassin you will never be called
to kill (sic)

evil is no match cause you the angel girl.

2008-09-04T23:55:00.000-04:00

she don't care. she the lead angel.

2008-09-04T23:53:00.000-04:00

sitka cries everyday the jeeps come

2008-09-04T23:51:00.000-04:00

i don't care i still love him

2008-09-04T23:49:00.001-04:00

he'll be mine forever

2008-09-04T23:45:00.000-04:00

notebooks of outrage
longitudinal studies
psychosis ain't no thang
i talk to angels
you a angel, girl
you a lead angel

2008-09-04T23:43:00.000-04:00

A rabbit for quick wit;
a tibetan bead for protection
a chunk of turquoise for earthing
a water bottle cap for purity
a weapon for kicks
unknown red fetish for unfettered menses
dressed to kill
c. 1982

If He's Sick Let's Help Him, but Let's Get Him Off His Throne First! Viva La Raza!

2008-09-04T23:38:00.000-04:00

They Found Me

2008-09-04T23:28:00.002-04:00

they did.
they found me.
and ever since they found me i've been making video collages to the tune of Tangled Up in Blue.

high school reunions.
harumph.

i liked that girl.

she was smart.
she looked nice in drag.

she wore redwings before redwings were cool.
she climbed straight up the cliff
instead of doing the switchbacks.

she was a ridge-runner.
she wore a mccarthy button.

she would not eat lettuce or grapes
and spoke fluent spanish.

she dreamed of a Tavo or Jesus.
she dreamed of guatemala.

she sat in a cloud in zacatecas
and met don juan at the border.

she hocked her $10 handmade classical guitar
for food money in texas.

her daddy had 2 social security numbers.
she thought nothing of his portrait beside a bullet-riddled ford.

her mama was gorgeous.

she was a pirate looking for a band.

2008-09-04T23:26:00.000-04:00

male privilege

2008-08-22T23:28:00.001-04:00

in the heat he'd whine about the heat
in the cold he'd whine about it
in the night he'd whine he was too tired
in the day he'd whine some more
in the afternoon she'd be home soon
in the morning she wasn't gone yet
at lunch she might call or worse
at dinner he'd have to cook it
when she cracked i guess he settled in
when she cashed her check, for sure
when she calls he rattles on to her
and sleeps late till she calls some more

from the divine posey

2008-08-22T23:26:00.002-04:00

in the winter she went scrambling around--no one blamed her
and no one really cared.
she hated homosexual men and had no way to explain it
till one day she happened upon the picture that she threw away.
it is always easier to compartmentalize.
that is why we used to have trains.

pig boys

2008-08-22T23:23:00.001-04:00

pig boys are usually shorter than the girls they date

they smile, just happy to be along

they won't go away even if you insult them

they keep coming back for more

2008-08-22T23:21:00.000-04:00

2008-08-22T23:18:00.000-04:00

his lessons were really not known

2008-08-22T23:16:00.001-04:00

so he'd wander all around looking at the rest of us
first me then me again
it was exceptionally raw
but i took the bait as it's commonly known
and went looking after myself myself

egged & farther curiosity

2008-08-22T23:14:00.003-04:00

in lunching she sat almost in a chair
hovered they'd say about us
with delicate munchies and less sound
she'd wait till someone in a distinct
way would grab her
this is how she lived until she couldn't
this is how she'd know what was

incinerati

2008-08-22T00:19:00.001-04:00

elevate my soothings
corroborate my bearings
scintillate my fallen star
validate my parking

2008-08-17T00:36:00.001-04:00

please visit poetix

http://marie-poetix.blogspot.com/

when demons present themselves

2008-08-17T00:11:00.001-04:00

it's not always easy to see what lies beneath the social facade.

where would you go if you were rodrigo?

2008-08-17T00:04:00.000-04:00

2008-08-17T00:02:00.000-04:00

2008-08-16T23:58:00.000-04:00

2008-08-16T23:55:00.000-04:00

Home again.

2008-08-16T23:47:00.000-04:00

gigbag

2008-08-16T23:44:00.000-04:00

Spiritual sight glues us to the world.

Greetings

2008-07-25T11:55:00.005-04:00

A long overdue hello!
Many transitions have occurred--all of them excellent and with promise of more to come.
I haven't been able to be here since February, but things have settled down.

News? There's lots, but first and most recently....

I have been working with Jimmy Anasazi as he composes some fantastic music coming out soon on Warner Brothers.
I am so pleased for him and really honored that he has asked for my help with lyrics.
After all those years in studios and venues, he deserves his gear in one locale. He deserves those checks in the mail, too.
Congratulations, Jimmy!

I am somewhat sleep deprived due to the intense energy of all that creativity, but it appears that now, after about 30 days of daily work, that people are able to nap and sleep a full night. I hear exhausted little zzzzzzzzzz in Louisville, Santa Fe and LA. What a wonderful world when the band members and one's collaborators can live thousands of miles apart.

Who invented the bubble mailer? or the fax? we honor them as well.

Also, I am pleased to announce that an academic project will soon ship off for publication. The title is in negotiation, but here I am, exposed--yes, i do have a bundle of synapses that fire coherently. I'll keep you informed...

Then, there is a project that is rippling ashore in sweet little fits and starts: a children's book about a magical magpie that lives high in the New Mexico mountains.....I have found the illustrator and we have begun our relationship.

New Mexico is at every turn. The dream is churning out its wave.

Much love to you.

When things have more solid forms I will certainly let you know.

i yam

2008-02-21T20:54:00.000-05:00

i yam pleesed und plowed

2008-02-21T20:47:00.002-05:00

i stood in a parking lot at thornton's in the freezing cold and sold fotos.

i was the only white girl there, but
i was the man with a cell phone.

it was less discreet than a drug deal.

i am pleezed & prowd

2008-02-21T20:46:00.001-05:00

mr. harper kommishund a cd cover.

i am pleased & proud

2008-02-21T20:45:00.001-05:00

my fotos will fly out to denver.

Greatist Things

2008-02-21T20:41:00.002-05:00

the greatist things okur when i sorender.

coyote piks me up & shakes me.

tumps the world on its head

pores appels on me, spitz & grinns.

the werld is knew.

i new it!

evidence of answered prayer

2008-02-20T23:24:00.002-05:00

prayer stix flap in the wind
parasites fly off, human and non.

love, its season, dormant was never so

latent love rises like kundalini.

gratitude, gratitude.

the cactus guardian

2008-02-10T22:11:00.000-05:00

spirit of psilocybin

2008-02-10T21:59:00.000-05:00

welcome to the world, kate

2008-02-02T02:47:00.000-05:00

Let this be a warning to ya

2008-02-02T02:38:00.000-05:00

the abuse quilts, M(2)RiE Monroe, Louisville, KY

2008-01-27T20:37:00.000-05:00

M(2)RiE = marie monroe, louisville, ky

2008-01-27T20:12:00.000-05:00

DADGAD tuning for everyone! The key of D is the centre of the universe. Go there with me!

Explore Chaos/String and know that Fractals R Us.