Field Notes No. 004 // Wildfires

No. 004

FIELDNOTES

wildfires february 2015

FIELDNOTES art through collection Issue No. 4 wildfires

Field Notes exists to document the expressions and art that collect over the course of our experiences.

Behind most of our grasping and sweating and constant work is some spark that we cannot ignore. We want to be better at something, we want to be better for something. Our energy burns fiercely behind even the smallest efforts - the quiet endurance of love, the physicality of a budding art form, a hungry openness to learn, be critical, and perpetuate that passion in all that we do.

Something sparks in us to lay everything out on the table, to swim upstream, to make contact, to keep working and working and working. Something is sparking even in our failures, to fail again and to fail better. A fire can be brutal, untouchable, and can wreak havoc on our behavior, but beyond all else it keeps us going.

It grants us meaning. It gives us the means to move forward, to dig deeper, to think, love, and be harder.

Everyone has something they have thought up and worked on and been feverishly proud of. Always ask them how they did it. It is the most basic element of their heart.

- Alexa Masi, editor-in-chief

fieldnotesarts.org

contents a note on the table of contents

This issue was unique in that several contributors asked to be represented by an alias, pseudonym, or otherwise made more anonymous.

So, in an attempt to accomodate everyone’s needs, instead of a traditional TOC is simply a list of contributors. All works (sometimes individually, sometimes as a series) will still be credited on their respective pages.

contributors melissa brown caroline cocossa joseph dussault peter giunta jessica halem nick hasko ebony j. shannon keelan

anna ladd alexa masi avery robertson miles ross alfonso ruin olivia stephenson subtle ceiling bianca zabala

cover by: sonja barbaric

collected ceramics through p. 07

melissa brown

from the artist: Art making for me has become a test patience and perseverance when dealing with process. No longer rushing to a result, I aim to forge thoughtful forms and playful surface treatment. My intention is to invite the viewer from afar with colorful/ atmospheric surfaces so that when close enough the work becomes an off putting, somewhat invasive manifestation of unfiltered imagination. Art making in this way has allowed myself to not only play, but dabble in intuition as a means of decision making.

Yours Desperately, MjB

i got to hell but i can’t remember

ever sinning alexa masi this was the idea: if you can’t rule in heaven, if they’re taking away the light from your sticky, seizing hands (something like the gleam of a kitchen knife, set on a surface just low enough for you to reach), then the next best thing would be to hole up in the basement and stop speaking to anyone who tries to tell you that you aren’t, in fact, the most powerful thing around. unless, of course, they’re making a break for the stairs and they find your bedroom just as you’d left it— while you’re heaving your weight across inch after molding inch of carpet, violently arranging and rearranging a fortress of broken dining room chairs just to see how a space shapes its softness against your rage, they’ve found whatever you were waiting for still hanging in the air. you weren’t finished reaching for it but it doesn’t take long for waiting to feel like an insult. this was the idea: if you’ve been thrown up into the endless tangle of sky and are burning so fiercely that you’ve gotten yourself some unwanted (but of course also some very desperately wanted) attention, only to be dowsed in an even denser darkness, then of course you’re going to want to bury yourself as deep down and away from those heights as possible. if you can’t do it at one end, do it better at the other. that’s what you’ll keep saying to yourself: “you better make this work. you better make this work. you better make this work.” but that’s not to say you’ve forgotten what it’s like to burn. and that’s also not to say that desire isn’t discerning. it will not transfer from one point to another like chemical to match head to indifferent flame. striking anywhere that feels rough against your palm is no guarantee. not anything will do. you were waiting for something to spark from your fingertips, for the forgotten firecracker in your pocket with a latency that could’ve killed you—but then it wouldn’t be for nothing after all.

you were waiting and you were holding out and a precarious sense of purpose ran its milkteeth along your earlobe. you wanted something bigger than yourself. and then you thought of yourself as bigger for it. so what do you do when you can’t get what you want? there’s the basement. no one else will make use of that space but you. and you strike matches against the baseboards, against the backs of lady bug carcasses, against your bared teeth and there’s the sparking. there it is and you’re making it happen, maybe not for all of the heavens to see, but you’re making it happen nonetheless. and pretty soon there is nothing for you to touch in this basement that a flame hasn’t touched first. in fine form, I’ve caught myself with my hands thrown up and rigid in the air, placeholders for the horns that will soon squeeze out like whistling barbs of steam.

I threw my hands up (fine! fine! fine!) and I stomped down every step of the staircase, my own unremmitting rottweiler-barking to keep everyone at bay, to keep everyone under the impression that what I was taking down with me was worth guarding, was worth all of this raging and squalling and stomping a snarling spite into the carpet. whatever monstrous ambition I was caging was packed tightly into the heads of matchsticks, their ruddy bodies eager to please anything I pressed them to. charred and sick with charcoal drying out my stomach, I have very little left to offer them down here. what was the idea? what in the world am I doing. with a dull, rounded ringing in my ears, I can remember hearing this:

one day you will start a fire in somebody and beyond that, I remember thinking that surely nobody wants to touch a fire. but the basement sighs blackened breath and it thinks I was mistaken— I think I may have been mistaken too— and I hear fingertips pressing softly against the door to feel if it is warm, skin saying come here come here come here until its mouth is met with blushing wood. nobody wants to touch a fire, but I am still mistaken— they’ll try to lean in close. they’ll get close, so close.

A fish sees the glinting salts of sky light and so sprouts swampy wings. We have fly fishing and we now need to take the stainless steel to something more than just its head on the cedar chopping block.

I’ve seen blood in the water.

Someone dropped a paring knife into a rippling Bethsaida and I kept it ever since. I’ve been sharpening the grain of my gills and making sure that nothing grows out of them to lift me into hell above.

I’ve seen blood in the water, soaking like oil over its surface while Jesus watched the purpling sun bury itself inside the other half of the sea.

ocean emptier alexa masi

the stats

horoscope: you will hear a woman chanting over the speaker system (it’s part of her radio show) and it will distract you from reading an essay on the aesthetics of Horror. don’t think about this too much. you already know why it happens. horoscope: your dreams are symtomatic but not in any useful way. you’ll think that someone is finally apologizing to you until you wake up with your hands pinned beneath your stomach. make use of how patient and sympathetic you were before feeling your body again.

horoscope: what do you want? what do you want so badly that you keep coming back for answers? fill in their name here and here and use it to punctuate the end of this sentence. use them to fill in any gap that makes you nervous about not knowing what you want. sharp aches make you more productive (i.e. burning buildings make for efficient packers). dull aches remind you it’s not what you want, but how you want it. horoscope: the most violent movements happen when staying in place. hummingbirds are actually quite vicious this way. if you think that nothing is happening to you, check that. there is not an inch of your skin that isn’t crawling, trying to deliver the little flower petals you’ve wallpapered your insides with. everything you’re doing is love me love me love me. if you think that nothing is happening to you, remember that anyone who is truly pleading knows that it doesn’t have to be a stationary activity. in fact, many of them take to crawling.

image by

olivia stephenson

sasha in the air poem with visual textures through p. 15

alfonso ruin

Time out, Sasha You’re up in the air.

I only see you in dreams nowadays.

In these distorted seminars, playing “doctor” Cascades of butterfly heat Antediluvian passions breaking over us.

I remember your jubilee pancake eyes Flying saucer eyes and Cockroach eyelash games.

Lashes stuck to your sweaty, roaring cheeks At wind’s command Falling from grace Drifting, unhinged Lashes like dandelion ashes The fleeting pieces of yourself Like psoriatic skin Shedding fervor, and lost time that we can’t make up for.

And time underhanded, suspended Don’t wake me from this dream.

Paralyze me, Pervert me.

Feed me flint flakes, and drugged sun cakes.

Historicize these frantic spider monkey cranial wars Parading through my head.

Punish me, Purpose me.

Embrace me.

Just don’t wake me from the dream.

Sasha ~ And all the fire in your stomach The reflux of parallel reality Punch lines and rorschach.

The swirling flames in my head Ceaseless ringing in my ears Of your multifaceted love and death.

In and out of dreams.

False, cruel motions in eternal recurrence Cosmic waltzing, I want out of.

I’m stepping back into the light with weary and, Singed eye floater periphery.

I’m calculating back to— From the corner of this red eye—that lucky day: Caught in the wind, Sasha I’m losing myself again, I’m on my way back to you.

These sweet drugs, to be Out of this filthy body cage.

The scene “In Moorish wastelands and lost bazaars, Shimmering salt flats and fallen stars.

In alchemical confinement and astronomical alignment, The devilish sun and androgynous moon Together, in the air— Waves of sari and impossible jewelry, The paradox of true harmony.

Now they mock me, Call for me, Slowly seduce me back into a pervert’s dream...” !!!

Oh, There and back here, The space in between.

Too many alcoves for eyesores.

Rushing in, The flooding of alarms and street-mare sideshows Post-punks and cigarette butts Broken bottles and the air of a dying pregnant cat.

Limbs broke and raw sewage spilling To vomit stain the streets purple-green.

Suicidal cricket chirps in locked iron caskets Eating kipper tombs, A taste of Dread.

The cheap drama of this life.

Sasha And to bask in the joke.

Here’s to no realness anymore.

No realness to this blood.

The party is ending The drugs are worn The fire is dying The fire is dying.

And the ire of choked flames and Recurring whimpers for Passed occasions, Blurred in some artful impression.

And in the dream, to bathe you, again.

In lukewarm showers of once steaming, unrequited blood The ardent softness of Past’s flaming blood.

What was warm Colder and calmer, this time around.

For your see, I am the mad clown The sad messenger.

Beyond the mad ranting I am still— Locked in these dreams, Swirling in fish scales; Floating from the nightmare.

Sasha I’ll let forth the Chopin relapse, Penderecki synapse.

The Tangier overdose, Psilocybin open source.

I’ll lock myself under self-suggested trapdoors And slowly rekindle our perverted flame.

The capital fires of Perdition won’t touch me I’m wrapping new skins of eternity.

Dancing to new tunes Post-everything— Jazz, and cricket chirps.

Orchestrating a new drama For dearest Sasha.

Perverted peace In the wildifre

collected collected photography photography through p. 23 avery robertson

graceless bianca zabala

it’s three in the afternoon & you’re sitting across the only window with no blinds on. i realise i am better at making you love me than i am at being intimate with my hands. mother still keeps the old vase on top of the aquarium. it’s three in the afternoon & nothig has changed, the sun is still setting & the world sways on. mother says s—s—stop the frenzy in her voice the panic in her eyes the room is smaller— the room is on f i r e— i’m staring at the cross-stiched hail mary on the wall & wondering acting like i still know it ave maria, gratia plena liars burn liars burn put the blinds down who lied to you? said you didn’t have lionesses under your skin? the vase is cra—crack—cracking tick tock tick crash vase on the floor / gold shards on the floor don’t step don’t step s t o p you’re back to writing poetry on shower curtains again & scribbling with soap on the bathroom floor where does your father think you get it from it’s three in the afternoon it’s three it’s three it’s four & the sun is in your eyes again, ave maria, gratia plena.

peter giunta

hot dreams You breathe dreams into some lungs the dust from your cracked ceiling floats above you ready to crush you but then your bed would fall through the floor too and there you would be in your basement and the neighbors would float from tupperware homes and feel for you and then take the feelings home with them.

And now you have to clean but the dust has covered your bedroom in tablecloth so you plant Christmas lights under the rug hoping that they’ll grow into lamps and scare the dust away.

You wonder why they can’t feel the dust in their ears and they wonder why you never listen.

Don’t they hear it rap against the bay windows?

They don’t use their flashlights at night or they’d see the little moths too and there they would be flailing in the wind.

from the artist: Everyone has had a feeling that they never want to leave them. People and places that feel like they fit into life, that for once they’re right. Someone told me that they never take photos of anything because they get too caught up in living. More and more I’m wanting to be a part of life not just watching it, but there’s things I can’t help but just watch and know that it’s beyond me. My photos are moments I fell into and realized there was something good there.

On the artistic value of nostalgia (in relation to Game Boy music) joseph dussault Chiptune—that is, music made with or inspired by retro video game systems—is long-settled into geeky niche territory. We associate it with pizza, anime, Surge soda, and the expansive void of regurgitated 80s/90s teen culture. And few outside the community would argue that there’s more to it than that.

Now an art form populated mainly by bedroom producers, chiptune has nobler origins. Early video game soundtracks featured little more than superficial bleeps and bloops—that is, until bona fide composers like Manami Matsumae and David Wise brought their craft to the consoles. Primitive sound chips forced game composers to work with incredible limitations—it’s damn-near impossible to create a masterpiece within four channels of simple noise. But when they did it, they fucking did it. That’s why, above any song released in the last 40 years, the Mario theme is the most instantly recognizable tune in pop-culture. And you don’t have to play the game even once to know that.

But 1985 is no longer imposing its limitations on us. Eighth-gen consoles can play hi-fi audio without any problems, and some desktop DAWs can simulate a 50-piece symphony orchestra like it’s child’s play. So it seems a little bit silly that so many of us (myself included) are still making music with “hacked” Game Boys and Ataris. Some would argue that we do it because the limitations force us to be creative. And that’s true. But that’s also what we say to validate ourselves when we’re dismissed as nostalgic basement-dwellers with a hobby.

We don’t like to admit that our love for the form is so deeply rooted in nostalgia.

It’s because “nostalgia” is a dirty word. And I get that. That dude you know who always says he was “born in the wrong generation” is the fucking worst. But in a musical context, nostalgia can actually be pretty useful. Nostalgia is a songwriter’s tool. Classical composers use leitmotifs—not out of laziness, but to evoke moods and memories. In the hip-hop community, there’s a long history of sampling jazz and Motown classics. It may be that those samples “sound good” superficially, but more important is the notion that those sounds meant something to the artist. We invoke sounds (and books and movies and all media) in art because it is easier to understand how we feel now through the lens of, “how did I feel then?”

We re-purpose the nostalgia. We use the past as a reference point in trying to understand the present.

Which is why I express through chiptune. As a solely instrumental songwriter, melodies have always been representative of feelings to me, rather than specific events. And as someone who still struggles with emotional bottling, it’s helpful to my expression to run my feelings through a filter of familiarity. So in trying to make sense of my pseudo-adult life, I do so in relation to the games of my childhood. The incomparable serenity and sense of possibility that I felt, and still sometimes feel, when I heard the swelling SS Anne theme. In this way, a sound texture—even a crude 8-bit fuzz—offers a sense of security in addressing untapped feelings.

image by

facing page

olivia stephenson

torch song for ravenna’s christ bianca zabala

Ravenna’s Christ walks on beasts but I pray to him anyway. I wipe my bloody hands at his feet, I seek salvation from a chariot of fire, I eat affection from his holy palms.

Ravenna’s Christ is a warrior so I always take the long way home, just to prove that I can. Mother says Stop apologising but I keep saying He tastes like ashes. Father says Stop apologising but I have been on my knees for so long, I don’t remember what pride feels like.

When will you stop apologising?

When it stops burning.

When it stops burning.

When I am cupping smoke and cinder between my fingers and refusing to say I am holding what remains.

Ravenna’s Christ is still a young man and already, my hands are charred.

I don’t remember what spark set me off, this enduring funeral pyre.

`

contrast while driving

through the city caroline cocossa

Writing about light and goodness seems reductive The sun is too much, too far, too perfect Give me layers of ozone and clouds to shelter my sky from that light— For the rosy tinted haze that makes colors deeper and feelings more saturated comes from the light of a sky just about to pour buckets Dreams of flying through woods of silver barked trees the deepest green to swallow pure air and loam Make me rich as the damp soil and remind me that we too, come from the ground in a certain sense I’ll return to it, at the very least.

I’m hard pressed to find the right syllables to convey the lovely sight of a sky but I want to— Full of grey-purple clouds, softly lurking, pressing down, as that ever-persistent yellow light leaks lazily covering like a cup overflowing, It feels easier to breath

collected images through p. 31 ebony j

“22�, ink and watercolor (2014)

`

“agave cube”, cyanotype (2014)

“bell jar�, cyanotype and watercolor (2015)

`

`

(hammock) nick hasko Seasoned veterans slit blood rushing combat in broken company of bayonets stands tall.

Fall turns the sycamore gasping red in the drains, grasping; please relieve the pain’s ghastly enough and I don’t need rusted metal confirming my end won’t come soon and I’ll watch as oxygen leaves plasma to coagulate brown carbon seethes and seizes; forgetting the breeze is necessary but trees don’t breathe this air will never reach my lungs again; demanding quiver so deliver your O2 not understanding the terror my throat ensued is through.

White, blinding void of leaves of grass of earth is foreign now.

Autumn’s flush too soon, the frost came early that year.

“girls and glasshouses�, cyanotype and watercolor (2015)

narcissus (2014)through p. 35 anna ladd It was only in my last two years that I have felt like I can begin to explore my femininity and my sexuality—I have always been uncomfortable with these parts of myself, maybe because they were expected of me, but I remember being 16 and cutting off all my hair because too many people told me that it was pretty.

A big part of my exploration of my body has been through taking pictures of myself every day. My face, my body with and without clothes, my favorite and least favorite parts.

They were never taken with the intention of sending to anyone, they just became a daily part of my routine—finding out about myself, what I liked and didn’t like, through my appearance and the ways I was willing to photograph it.

Gel transfers of selfies on handmade paper from my last haircut

anna ladd

canyon

my thighs are littered with crevices but i think i like how it feels when your fingertips find them— my instinct says to pull back, to squirm, to flinch, to repeat these motions until my body resumes its position in a self-inflicted vacuum, untouchable. i’d let spikes grow out of my legs if i could i’d let my arms be carnivorous if it didn’t mean i would have to chase you off with them. oh my fucking god, i moan, having a body is the worst thing in the world, i whine, i would rather be a floating aura of senses that knows how to speak. i am only half kidding. some days i want to start over completely and crawl out of this mess of skin and spine and wake up with new limbs, a new head, legs without canyons that feel like they are miles deep they remind me that growth is gradual when sometimes i need it to be sudden.

a love letter to sad musicals jessica halem Theatre as escapism is so prevalent in discussions about musical theatre. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the phrase, “people go to the theater to escape their problems.” I disagree wholeheartedly... for me at least. Maybe someone out there is going to the theater to escape their problems, but I’d like to ask them how that’s working out for them. I’m sure their problems are still there after the curtain falls. I go to the theater to face my problems head on and to learn how to overcome them. I want to feel every emotion played out on the stage. Only then will I feel the catharthis of letting my worries and problems go.

I love sad musicals. It sounds like a paradox, but hear me out. In musical theater writing, it is said that a song begins when emotions are heightened. When dialogue can no longer support the motion of the moment, the character sings. I cannot spontaneously break into song. I don’t have the talent to compose a worthwhile piece of music on the spot nor do I have a capable singing voice. I can, however, vicariously feel the emotions being felt on stage, through song. I can feel my own confusion and pain when in The Last 5 Years, Cathy Hiatt sings, “Jamie is over and where can I turn / covered in scars I did nothing to earn.” I can face my own insecurities when Bebe in A Chorus Line sings, “different is nice, but it sure isn’t pretty / pretty is what it’s about / I never met anyone who was different who couldn’t figure that out / so beautiful I’d never live to see.” I’ve never lost a close friend or relative, but I feel the raw sadness and grief in Spring Awakening’s “Left Behind” when Melchoir sings, “all things he ever lived are left behind / all the fears that ever flickered through his mind / all the sadness that he’d come to own.”

I allow myself to feel deeply whatever the characters (and actors) are being put through. If they are in pain, I feel the same weight in my chest. Only after weathering the storm in the safety of the theater will I be able to face my own anxieties and issues. Only after going on the roller coaster of emotion that is Next to Normal will I be able to appreciate Diana Goodman singing, “you find some way to survive / and you find out you don’t have to be happy at all / to be happy you’re alive.” I am only able to truly appreciate and believe in that statement, inside and outside of the theater, if first I have felt her pain, and thus confronted my own.

So yes, I love sad musicals. They make me truly feel something, and thus truly feel alive. They remind me that I am not alone in whatever emotion I may be swamped in. They tell me that “even the darkest night will and end and the sun will rise.”

image by

melissa brown

lady parts

tea and ink

shannon shannonshannon keelan keelan shannon keelan keelan

from the artist: This piece confronts the fire of sexuality. A fire that’s often removed from our brain and morphs into a drive that can become out of our control. Sometimes we are disgusted by our drive and other times we enjoy the separation that comes from it.

visual journaling

through p. 42

subtle ceiling

peach

o.g.s

sleeping naked for the first time with someone you love on a summer night with the windows open because it’s hot as hell waking up at three am and doing it and it’s the best thing because it feels like a dream you are together in the shower and later, on your chest there is a reminder unsullied by the water for the rest of the day the one you love making you eggs **** a bite mark bruise on the top inside of my right thigh, finally not a bruise atop a bruise a bruise on unmarked skin hands that smell like touching me sink your teeth into my thigh like the flesh of a peach it’s the same consistency, firmness, with a bit of give

miles miles ross ross miles miles miles ross ross ross miles ross milesross ross miles miles rossmiles rossrossmiles milesmiles ross ross miles ross miles ross miles ross acrylic on canvas and newspaper

comic

FIELDNOTES art through collection

additional artist information

caroline cocossa clcocossa@gmail.com A Massachusetts native currently studying in New York trying to get something out there. A fan of places and people and things. Heavily considering running away to the forest, but then what good is a Communications degree?

joseph dussault http://t-tb.bandcamp.com/ https://soundcloud.com/t-t-b-1 jessica halem jessica.l.halem@gmail.com Jessica Halem is a third year student at Northeastern University, pursuing a dual major degree in Media & Screen Studies and Theatre Production. She is currently working as a programming intern at 54 Below in New York City. She enjoys theater, music, television, her friends, bagels, and musicals that make her cry. nick hasko nghasko@gmail.com themostbandct.bandcamp.com/releases india1.bandcamp.com/album/everything-is shannon keelan shannonpdk@gmail.com Shannon is a Boston based artist getting her bachelor’s degree in communications and theatre.

You can expect a website of some sort when she gets her act together but for now you can email shannonpdk@gmail.com if you’d like.

anna ladd aladd@uarts.edu annamakesthings.tumblr.com annaladdphoto.com Anna Ladd is a Philadelphia based fine art and portrait photographer. She is pursuing a BFA in photography at the University of the Arts with a minor in film and works with a mixture of digital and analog processes, focusing on personal experiences and pieces of writing. She likes Breaking Bad, burritos, and dogs of all sizes. avery robertson architecture student

robertson.av1@gmail.com

miles ross (twitter) @amyfieldmouse http://amyfieldmouse.tumblr.com/ http://artsyfieldmouse.tumblr.com/ i’m at any given time an artist, drummer, 16 year old girl, vinyl fiend, cat person, bookworm or any combination of the above. olivia stephenson oliviagraystephenson@gmail Olivia Gray Stephenson is twenty one and from Texas. They study art history and pursue photography and writing on the side. They can be reached via email at oliviagraystephenson@ gmail, but please visit their writing blog and photoblog as well (itsracingthroughmyveins.tumblr. com and r4bbitheart.tumblr.com, respectively) subtle ceiling subtleceiling.tumblr.com subtle ceiling is mixed media artist, performer and workshop facilitator. I make what I can from whatever items, moments and spaces I flow through or collide against. I’m interested in DIY. decolonization, intersectionality, healthy healing + coping, solidarity and resistance through radically existing within the white-supremacist capitalist cis-hetero patriarchy. bianca zabala Bianca Zabala was born in Quezon City, Philippines, and has considered herself in transit ever since. She is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in History, and is using poetry as a way of relearning to be honest. Get in touch on tumblr @sleepyenjolras or twitter @bzabalas.

FIELDNOTES art through collection

inquiries // submissions

fieldnotesarts.org editor@fieldnotesarts.org

SUBMIT: Issue No. 5 Field Notes is always seeking art and written work, under the broadest of definitions, from as many willing voices as possible. If you have put yourself and your experiences into some printable form, please do not hesitate to send it our way.

Issue No. 5 will be centered around duality - an effort to explore the spaces of contradiction, split selves and multiple truths within us. We are seeking works relating to this prompt, whether directly or loosely; but, of course, we will still review and accept submissions of any form, content, and topic.

More detailed information on the prompt, submission guidelines and due dates can be found on our website.

To ensure your work will be reviewed and accepted in a timely manner, please submit no later than March 1st.

We look forward to hearing from you.

field notes issue no. 004