i returned from arizona with my heart full of love, my body energized & motivated towards the coming weeks in which i fervently & frantically apply to graduate school. it was so emmensely satisfying to be among my dearest friends, my family, my desert town. as lauren & i traversed the desert under a curtain of winter rain, i saw the rocks, red dirt & cacti as i had never seen them-- brilliant & otherworldly. falling in love with the place i grew up, all over again. i am so complacent knowing that tucson is there & can return to it when i may feel lost.

the most exciting occasion & reason for my visit was the all souls procession. i'm sure i've talked about it before, but the all souls procession is a tucson tradition, linked directly to the mexican dia de los muertos. the mexican day of the dead has many affiliate traditions, with the creation of altars, decoration & picnicking in the cemetary, commemoration etc. the all souls procession is similar in that people commemorate the dead, but it is also an exceptionally celebratory occasion. i have often thought that it feels a bit like brazilian carnival with the music, dancing, & extreme masquerading. in tucson, people of all ages, but in particular, people in my age group put a lot of emphasis upon the creation of a costume for all souls, & halloween is less important if not disregarded entirely. this year, i chose to commemorate my personal nostalgia for the desert by interpreting a historic photograph from tucson of a 40's pin up wearing an outfit made of cactus. i painstakingly created articifical cactus pieces, & the result was pretty successful, i think. it was really validating to have strangers taking pictures of me, having people buy me drinks, & i was offered a free ticket to see calexico play that night. it was a magical occasion, possibly one of the best that i've had. this year was the 20th annversary of the first procession, so there was a lot of energy put into the occasion, which was really evident in the experience i had.

i have been participating in all souls for what seems like forever. i went through & realized that i have some form of documentation of my costume from almost ever year. some of them are terrible. & you can definitely tell which ones i spent time on & which i didn't. voila :

2009: cactus girl


2008: someone said i looked "spit out by the sea". sort of a mermaid interpretation.


2007: miss coney island, 1928. commemorating coney island, which was partially demolished in early 2008. sierra as a bird & kate commemorating her uncle who devoted his life to searching for amelia earhart.


2006: commemorating my grandfather who died august 29th, 2006



2005: i dont know. sean looks great, though.


2004: wearing my mother's wedding dress, from her 1st marriage.


2003: my first mermaid interpretation.



2002? i think that perhaps this is earlier. maybe 2000. i remember being about 15 here, which would make it older than 2002. i look so young. & carlie too.


somewhere in here, there was also a dress that i constructed completely of silk leaves that was really beautiful. i have no pictures of that, nor do i have any idea where the dress went. sad. i think it's interesting to see the linage of my costumes & how i have repeated certain ideas & progressively put more thought & effort into my designs.

more pictures of the night & all of my beautiful friends at my flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/15675538@N06/

signs of oregon

the past weeks' experiences left me feeling so fulfilled. i revel in being able to show my new home to old friends. there were picnics in laurelhust park, many nights of hot chocolate & flickering old movies on the tv screen. also traipsing to forest park & far away to the maryhill museum in the columbia river gorge, flatlands & wind turbines a-spinnin.

i keep thinking back to a number of the exhibits at maryhill, including a collection of ephemera showcasing the beauty of turn-of-the-century modern dancer & theatrical artist loie fuller. she is most recognized for her "serpentine dance" in which she would create undulating patterns with large silk fabrics & bamboo poles. she is also recognized for her dramatic theatrical lighting which from examples i find are very much early conceptions of the type of aesthetic that german expressionist theatre & cinema is associated with.



i really love this photo for the photograph more than the example it makes of her dance & costuming. it reminds me of a lot of the old spirit photography of apparitions & mediums that i was obsessed with for a long time.



this video, made by the lumiere brothers, is said to be a depiction of her dancing her serpentine dance, but the exhibit acknowledged that it's more likely someone else dancing her dance during the same time period.

the other exhibit that really thrilled me was a collection of wire dolls who were crafted & taken on tour in post-war europe (early 1950s), exhibiting french couture fashion designs. the faces of the dolls are sculptural & ghostly. the erie quality of their faces combined with the exquisite showcase of real 1940s fashions was so near to my personal aesthetic perfection-- i was in heaven perusing these tableaus. what really topped the cake was a complete tableau designed by jean cocteau. needless to say, it was very difficult to capture how magical these mannequin doll ladies were in photographs. the shoes were exceptionally crafted with as much care as the outfits were (i was very much enamored of the shoes). also part of the beauty of the experience was being in the exhibit alone.








i'm having some difficulty adjusting to the wintery rain that has made itself a new regular portland presence. this is my first autumn of gold & red leaves. parked on the corner of our street is a rusty 60s VW bus that is shrouded in large yellow leaves, a stunning image that makes me homesick for my family's 72' camper. the changing leaves create a slushy tarp on the ground that can be hazardous to walk upon-- especially on our steep driveway. my only condolance is that this driveway will be a hotspot when it snows, if it snows, as it did last year. sledding & snowmen boyfriends galore.

i have other exciting things to talk about, but i will keep them a secret for a bit longer, as i don't want to say too much if they don't come to pass.

autumn has arrived & i am, as anticipated, dreadfully cold. i wear my knitted mukluks whenever i'm in the house & a large wooly sweater. baths are a regular practice. drinking tea. baking squash. anything to be warm.

i made some pictures with a disposable camera for a project that maxed art is doing. these are most of the ones that came out, because i am not particularly good at using one... no self-deprecation here, just being honest. i think i work better when i have more control. this is a good exercise in letting go of that control.

i interviewed for a job this morning. i have a difficult time representing myself well, selling my abilities. i use generic descriptive words like "fun, capable" etc. i forgot the word "retail" & called it "stuff". i should have had coffee. but i am making an exerted effort to avoid drinking espresso everyday. lia & i reenforced this habit in each other while traveling this summer, & now we are both trying to break it.

i am anticipating a change of pace in the coming week. tomorrow i will be assisting a wedding photo shoot for nine hours & attending an autumn party. if i get the job i interviewed for, i will begin training this week as well. i have some expected guests ( lauren & marshall) & some unexpected, but equally as exciting guests (ciaran) coming also! & i must begin working on my costume for the all souls procession because.... I'M COMING TO TUCSON FOR 10 DAYS! it's official. so, i will be a busy bee busy bee.

we went to the beach. the river, the columbia, sauvie island. the drive takes you past my favorite bridge, the st.john's bridge. a tall gothic structure that began being built in late 1929, the construction employed many locals through the depression. it is painted green & lined with beautiful street lamps. i'd love to be caught strolling along the st. john's bridge on a misty oregon night.

driving through sauvie island, we stop at the country store to buy our day pass & popcicles. there are boxes lining the shelves with all shapes & sizes of metallic hooks & sinkers, sticky jars of glittery bait. & beef jerky. as we wind our way through the island, we pass small farms, berry season near its end & signs for corn beginning to pop up here & there.

the path through the woods is short, opening up onto a sweeping view of a sandy inlet, the columbia river stretching north & south. a large commercial freight ship passes lethargically, towering above the trees & creates a momentary wake, a sudden thrill at the presence of tiny waves lapping at an otherwise still shore.

we forgot a corkscrew. we walk over to two women naked & sunning in the sandy inlet (this is a nude beach). they have a corkscrew. one of them undoes our pino grigio clutching the bottle between her freckled bare thighs, as she shimmies the cork out. "looks like you got some good sun today" i say, but she doesn't respond. we thank her & as we walk away, i feel the perspiration on the cold bottle of wine & picture it between her legs again.

after a few glasses, i notice that i've kicked a bit of sand into the dregs of my wine. i temporarily amuse myself by counting the grains of sand stuck at the bottom of the mason jar, when in my state of sleepy drunkenness i lose count & latently down the rest, sand & all.

the girls do homework, patsy lounging topless on the shore, sometimes reading excerpts of her literature aloud, & just as often chasing fly-away pages in the breeze. lia sits picturesque in a cotton 40s two-piece bathing suit, diligently drawing contours of rocks & posts that line the shore. my camera in hand, i coax them into the high grasses farther back from the shoreline where they stand for me topless & the late afternoon light casts languid, waving shadows across their skin. layers of leaves & twigs, faces & breasts, superimposed, they appear like two mermaids swimming in tangles of sea grasses. i can only hope that the photos captured feel similar.

we end our day on the other side of the island, eating a small picnic on the banks of the willamette watching the sun fall through the trees. after gathering queen anne's lace, we wrap our hands in the tinfoil from our food to avoid the nettle spines as we rip the dried flower stalks from the bank. by the time we are in downtown portland, the sky is plum colored & it occurs to me that tomorrow is the first day of autumn.