In the morning, in the evening

IN THE MORNING, IN THE EVENING, there is a rush of electricity bursting through my body, it drives to the sound of screaming wild parrots towards Leone’s school. My energy is hot, I dive in cold water scented of chlorine and swim to the music of Moroder, cool down. Hunger, hunger, what a drag, another thing to deal with as I go to my studio. I am working on this show. It opens June 7th in Madrid, the title is “In the morning, In the evening.” It is about…um. let’s just say…the time in a day. When I started working and thinking about this show it felt last minute but there was tons of time until it was last minute. “Be silent, be silent”, I said to myself in the studio. I carved into clay. I thought about a spirit stronger than mine entering my body hoping it would be the spirit of a better artist than me,…but what if it is not?… don’t risk it! Better just work. It is so boring to make objects…until you can make it interesting. Remember that!…Ohhh right…back to work then. Before I started making this work I had a plan. I was trying to make a series of drawings, a show about creation. The vase was the paper, the painting the sculpture, the vessel the child. I have proved so much to myself already and I am confident. When I decided to work with the shape of the vase I understood I was giving myself a tool, the tool was the unassuming nature of working with something conceptually flat. I wanted to treat it like slap-stick. A thin stick that is designed with a secret metal bow in it, it gives a big old honky twang when it is thrown on the floor, “What a sound so unexpected from that little stick!”… the audience laughs. I was looking for that. What can be a more unassuming object than a vase? The guests at the dinner will whisper… “Why… did you notice the vase on the table has no idea it is a vase anymore.” Another guest replies “And have you noticed how confused the flowers are as well”… giggle giggle. I have been making ceramic work for 8 years and so far I have learned it behaves the way you treat it, so if I decide to use it as paper it will behave that way. I admire this generosity. I noticed that Leone sees this same generosity in rocks. He will carry huge ones and blast them on top of smaller rocks, cracking them all up. He finds diamonds, silver, gold, he has even mentioned cotton and fur. These rocks are generous to him as well. We are both very lucky. In the evening I put Leone to bed and read rhymes, tongue twisters, and corny jokes. Have you heard about the corduroy pillows they are selling? They are making headlines! Giggle giggle snore snore. I wake up, it is my second sleep. Peter informed me of this. I thought I had insomnia before I met him. I was wasting my time fretting about sleep, now I can work more. I work in the garage and paint, specifically for this show, every night-morning. It is a parasite this painting! It paints everything but itself, the floors, the chairs, the dress, the hair. It moves around like liquid, it drips, collides, and protrudes into browns and ash. It is cold in Pasadena and drying takes long. I don’t want to work on two paintings simultaneously. I am not going to play smart when I can’t keep the paint on the brush. I have to learn. I paint small fragments of time, filled with colorful intentions. The paintings aspire to be still lives like the Dutch ones, but they are inconsiderate. They move and dance like the flirty lilies next to my bed that are dying to shoot out of their stems and dive out of the frame. Can I make this painting sing, I wonder? Would I have to be a song to make a painting sing, I wonder? And what about Stevie Wonder did he believe in God because his talent was so profound it reached a level where he stopped to understand? I have to learn, I know who God is so I work and sleep my second sleep.

Milena Muzquiz.

March 2017