ilovemypencil@pm.me
03-04-2026
hello blog, and my bff ryan, who may be the only salami blog reader.
it is... 20:52 Uhr. I’ve never been good at solving the puzzle of reading time on clocks with hands. it takes me too long to follow the short hand to a point and then the long hand to a different point and then descipher those two points into a number sequence that describes the present moment. I used to wear a digital watch which pointing puzzle for you, and it lit up in the dark and was waterproof. sort of recently it started to give me a rash when i wore it which i took as sort of a sign i was getting allergic to clock time. i also no longer think its necessary for the indication of military time to be so indestructable and attached to me at all moments. everyone deserves to be able to get lost in their own time.
during my time in europe i tried to familiarize myself with 24 hr time, military time as we call it. i wonder how noon feels in a day that is 24 hours long instead of 2 12 hours bunkbedded together. if i wake up at noon i sometimes feel like ive lost a whole day because of my upbringing as a 12+12er. something about being able to tell time in 24 and 12+12 interchangeably feels akin to being bilingual. im trying to become a polyglot
my friends got used to my typos and eventually all learn to decode my bizzarely assembled text messages. it is freeing to just communicate using the tools given to me instead of adhering to some rules.
**i guess i was thinking about [x], a little bit, because you are so good at proof reading, and knowing whats write or wrong about centence structures. it is a skill and intelligence that has always impressed me, but over time, after all our trials and tribulations, i guess i started feeling like what i was doing was merely the first draft and surely riddled with errors and typos, i grew to untrust my eye.
after my visit to berlin last fall i started daydreaming about moving there. I started learning german and found it delightful to unearth the building blocks of a new to me language and system of logic. now i know how to type characters like ö and ä on my keyboard- who knew! There they were inside the trapdoor underneath these letters i touch every day.
i wont lie, though its frustrating and confounding, and one german lesson almost made tears come out of my eyes, i do sort of enjoy furrowing my brows in confusion and awe as i try to make sense of this world. there is a liberating feeling in the growing pains, knowing that i could at one point use this bizzare complicated language to express my very own thoughts and feelings. in those moments of frustration i still smile inside knowing with enough determination i wont always be a lost tourist with a blindfold and a map of the city.
im attached to the time i spent in berlin, because it is part of my future, and i am inbetween the two, pulling them together.
i got this little rock creature at a junk store near neukölln in berlin.
i thought it looked like me because i had just bought this handmade alpaca(?) hair bonnet at the street market. I liked the bonnet because it looks like hair, like a wig. and i guess i am always looking for myself in these inanimate things because they seem to understand me without saying a thing. we are talking, they become petrified angels. the other day my rock friend shattered in a morbid accidental execution as i was rearranging my room. what is the message???
*
the store is packed to the brim with random uncurated household items. i asked the owner of the junk store where he gets all this stuff. he says: “when people die, i come and take all”
it spooked me because a month before that my grandma warmed me about reposessing old things and buying vintage because the spirit or tragedy of the last owner affects the karma of the object. from the looks of it my little rock guy has defeinitally seen some shit
it spooked me because a month before that my grandma warmed me about reposessing old things and buying vintage because the spirit or tragedy of the last owner affects the karma of the object. from the looks of it my little rock guy has defeinitally seen some shit
*i am reminded of the half floor in Being John Malcowvich where the main character finds the John Malcowich chute.
i was going back to a point i had remembered from earlier in the sentence. in my physical reality, i am making preparations to move to a different country. in the psychic realm, i am expanding my spirit towards possible horizons as i am in this space, the space of the US Empire, which feels endlessly repressing. I guess im preparing for the likelihood of space getting smaller, more restrictions, more surveillance, watch wearing, autocorrect.. and im armoring myself with my own freedom, that which cannot be taken from me. In the spirit of Assata!
yesterday jack whitten space
my laptop is almost out of juice and the chattering across the street has subsided. time to turn on the radio and let a bit of the city in...
02-28-2026
stopped by Ave Maria Grotto on the way back down to new orleans
02-26-2026
its the last day on the farm!
i completed the tree, which i’ve called Tree Is Me- T.I.M. for short.
I haven’t made work since a year ago at the farm, when I came for the first time in March 2025.The two main stained glass Artifacts I made last year, Open Mouth Object [O.M.O.} & Subsequent Findings [S.F.}, searched for solutions to merge the image and the Frame, for which as a Drawer, has often been an afterthought. The Frame turns the Drawing into an artifact, it brings it into the physical realm. I always felt a disconnection between whatever Frame I used to enclose my drawings, and now I seek to dissolve the distinction between the two. The more I do stained glass the more I realize I connect with my abilty to shape the glass as a Frame for images that are pressed inbetween, rather than using glass to make the image itself. Last year, I made drawings on old typewriter paper that I got at J & J Junk Store outside of Birmingham Alabama. This paper is delicious- perfectly transluscent, weathered, warm with time. I love old paper and am always on the look for it now. Its sad to think even paper is diminishing in quality as we move into the future.
I thought the translucency of the paper inside the stained glass worked nicely, allowing the image to melt into the background color during the day and reappear on a white surface at night. Drawings feel especially pedestrian- I liked how this solution not only merged the frame and the drawing, but created something that is best when it is suspended. I don’t like when my drawings are against a wall and only one side of it can be seen. It interests me to make objects that react to time and perspective.
This visit I wanted to revisit this idea of encapsulating an image within two panes of glass. When I solder around the edges of the glass to seal the frame, the image inside is forever trapped, like a specimen. I gravitaed towards the thinnest clear glass I could find. The best kind I’ve found is taken out of picture frames. I thought about family photos and the pedestal given to an image when put inside a photo frame. As a sort of warm up I started making collages out of photos on my camera roll and ones I’ve taken over the past year on my red digi cam. I like making my collages by copy and pasting on Finder. You can’t rotate the images, do much editing except basics- which is perfect for me. More limitations please!!
I wanted to make a bigger Artifact this time, something that could stand on its own, so to speak. I cut out circle panels out of the clear scrap glass. I thought about venn diagrams and thought bubbles. I made this pregnant tree animation a week before my visit so it clicked that I should make a Tree. A Tree is where family is grown, violence is hung, paper is made, lift shelters. I cannot deny a motif the time of day when it keeps reappearing! Nicky helped me make the trunk out of scrap wood- three different woods glued together, planed and shaped into the same surface, jigsawed into shape, grinded divets on the trunks to hold the weight of the glass frames, which I began to call its Hair. Besides the scrap wood glued together to make the body, I found a way to assemble the rest of it without glue (i don’t want to use glue!) which was extremely satisfying. Everything is held up through friction, tension. The root legs slide on and off the trunk, and the glass panels are attached to each other like a Wig and can be lifted off the Body.
Today I had to finish the tree. I needed to interact and understand the Body. I lathered the whole thing in Linseed oil yesterday which felt like moisturizing skin. I thought, the Tree Is Me. In tattooing I sometimes use this stencil transfer paper to make stencils when i don’t have access to a stencil printer, and still have the same transfer sheet that I first used nearly 7 years ago. It’s a nice archive of designs- each time I use it, i trace the design on top of the stencil sheet to turn the paper I am tracing with into the stencil itself. It leaves an impression of the design on the stencil sheet while still leaving room for endless tracings on top of it. I wondered if this would transfer onto my tree Body. I also save all the stencils I use after tattooing them, and I pulled them out to see if they would transfer onto the wood (some did, some didnt.) It felt like this Tree and Me were searching for an identity. The different woods took the stencils differently. This wood with separate origins were forced to assimilate into one body, but they did not become a homogenous material.
I started compressing the collage scraps into the glass scraps as a way to resolve the unused material. As if looking under a microscope/ petri dish/ patterns, colors, textures remain / the debris takes a new form, its beautiful!
Ryan called it [ A Compass to Nowhere}
02-25-2026
Fiona Apple: “ I simply will not talk to you unless I think that you’re listening to me”
02- 02 - 2026
The picture is coming together. What satisfaction! I feel most free when I start the painting. I want to hold onto that freeness as details emerge. I am afraid of overworking it and overthinking. Oil is oily and slippery. I like wiping it away with a rag or my sleeve. I like pushing it around with my brush.
31 - 01 - 26
Francesca Woodman -
Francesca Woodman -
27 - 01 - 26
Oil painting is changing my relationship with image. with oil, you push the pigment around till it lands in the right place. an explosion of paint thinner can take every delicately placed pigment away. I think that is the most exciting part because intricacy serves to help me think. I do not feel so precious about the intricacy. I think the more important focus is intentionality. When i start to overthink is when the mark swells, bloats, or becomes plastic
preciousplayspiano on youtube
jan svankmajer (1964)
26 - 01 - 26
Discovering what i am drawn to and what they are trying to tell me. Narrowing the scope, arranging the furniture that was already in the room, opening the window to look out at the landscape
wiz of oz- the house spins up, lands somewhere else
magic treehouse books
the dream travel white laying in bed
dreaming presumes some sort of body safety state
Ruth Asawa [I’m really concerned with how much I can pack into one day, then into 9 months or a year. I’m really concerned with every single day.]
Assata Shakur
[’I am about life’ i said to myself,’ I’m gonna live as hard as i can and as full as i can until i die. And i’m not letting these parasites, these oppressors, these greedy racist swine make me kill my children in my mind, before they are even born. I’m going to live and i’m going to rejoice. Because our children are our futures and i believ in the future and in the strength and rightness of our struggle.]
Martin Wong
“The Museum of American graffiti is a privately funded institution devoted to the study of arisen heiroglyphics. It is hoped in the future that additional grants will enable us to publish and document information crucial to the field before luck and the vagaries of time will have dispersed this material. “