All of my work- printmaking, performance, acting, design, jewelry, video, collage, sculpture,etc.- has several primary themes unifying them: human connection, second chances, storytelling, systems of faith, and ritual.
Over the years I hadn’t realized how much and how many times my personal art-making practice (or ritual) has not simply ‘saved’ me’, but also preserved my sanity, helped me to uncover my joy, and to affirm my path and place in the world. Art grounded me during my time in San Francisco where most of my time was spent looking for a permanent home which is technically the equivalent of homeless. I spent my time looking for housing, work, and making art and journaling to document some of my experiences.
Since my time in San Francisco, I’ve shared numerous stories of my life there with others. After sharing various stories with others I was generally met with the same response: “Wow. That is wild. You could and should write a book.” This is paraphrased of course, but I swear this was the equivalent of most responses. I’d generally scoff and say, “Me? Write a book?! I do enough.” And that was the end of it…until the next time I told a San Francisco story.
The years of hearing this have worn me down though. I’d joined a writing group through Hay House publishing after attending one of their virtual writing boot camps. I’d joined initially to help motivate me with screen writing my family’s story regarding our experiences with the Prison Industrial Complex. Even though most people in the community are focused on writing novels and other types of nonfiction, I’d found the community to be extremely supportive. Then the perfect opportunity to test out this book writing theory that so many other people had about me writing about San Francisco presented itself; twice a year Hay House offers an open submission period for members. It seemed silly not to take advantage of this and so I did.
Putting this proposal together tested so many components of my knowledge regarding not only the business of writing but also the business of being an artist. Why do I do the work I do? Who is my target audience? Who am I talking to? What do I most want to say? It was existential…and a smidgen painful. One day I found myself crying because I had a challenging time removing some emotional clutter that was in the way of an idea coming forth. It was like really bad indigestion. In the end, my book of short stories became a teaching memoir combining my San Francisco (and other) stories with various exercises focusing on art ephemera, techniques, and media that have spiritual value for me in my personal art practice.
Though I will freely admit that I didn’t go into this proposal endeavor with a fully baked idea of what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it, I felt like I came out with a product that is digestible. The equivalent of cookie dough ice cream or extremely soft baked cookies; still edible, but for some more people to enjoy my efforts cooking time might be necessary. I am proud though. I feel like my end product held together and yet there is still more work to be done. Much, much more work. So I continue.
One component of my proposal submission was a video. I made it a little about me, my work, and a summary of what my San Francisco book- called The Saints of San Francisco- is about. The saints part comes from the saints and gods that I created for random things like the Goddess of Dirty Toilet Seats and Bug Infested Mattresses while I was staying in many a Super 8 Hotel (not that they were visibly dirty it’s just the nature of hotel toilet seats and mattresses to host many bodies and butts. Why not say a prayer?). Below is my video submission. Please let me know what you think about the video or the subject matter. Would