isolation, creation: Piney and the Underground Girl Who Saw Light

oh dear mom:

living far away from family and friends is sometimes lonely. after all, i don't have you around to harangue me with demands to fix your phone, which you swear is 'utterly and completely broken', only to discover your rage-oid dog gnawed out the battery compartment while you were sleeping. whoever thought i'd miss that?

strange enough, i do. and i can hear your response as if you were sitting in the room: so what are you doing about it?

why, lots of things! i give myself fake interviews, collect roadside trash, wash myself in cooking supplies and massage my houseplants, for starters.

in the remaining few hours, i try -- and sometimes succeed -- in making art.

i have been collaborating with a wonderful Japanese artist, Takeshi Nakajima, to produce a book, Piney and the Underground Girl Who Saw Light. 

Takeshi, if you remember, was my student. i was supposed to be teaching him English. we began this book instead and have been working on it ever since. 

Piney and the Underground Girl is the illustrated story of a pinecone and a subterranean girl who serendipitously meet.  you see, the Underground Girl has never ventured from her cave and Piney, as all pinecones do, must soon fall to earth. can they possibly help each other with these transitions?

page three: the Underground Girl hears music.

sometimes, i'm really sad to be away from you. but if i hadn't left the U.S., i don't know that this project would have come into being. i'm really pleased with how it's coming along.

page six: the Underground Girl's delicious vision of the world above.

so yes, i'm far away from almost everyone i love... and this is what i'm doing about it.

oh dear mom, i'm learning that isolation can really pay. it gives time to create and space to imagine. know what else pays? having an awesome mom who encourages you to dream.

love always,

Gina

Swimming

oh dear mom,

it's been while since i've had a chance to write. but now i'm back in the saddle with plenty to say! and of course, now that you've got the skype thing down to a pre-gallilean type of science, our communication is better than ever.

so. remember in my last letter how i passive-aggressively attacked your parenting skills for forgetting to teach me to swim? well, i'm over that now. i've decided to channel my feelings into art instead.

this is a still from my performance piece called 'drowning in the shallow end' and i'm dedicating it to you. rightly so, for there were plenty of real 'oh dear mom' moments: being lapped by the grandparents, then again by their grandchildren... getting a charge of electricity IN THE POOL from the dry swim cap... and for the final act, having the top half of my bathing suit undo itself (which redeemed me somewhat -- with the grandfathers, at least) in the midst of thrashing for the very life you gave me. think it will be a hit?

swimming is a real challenge. luckily, my swimming teacher has the kind of patience people in our family can only dream of. he understands our special brand of oppositional thinking -- like when he says 'float', i immediately start to 'sink'. or when he says 'arms first, then legs', he says it knowing all appendages will flail out with Shags-like arrhythmia. (remind me to discuss your musical abilities in my next letter.) he hasn't wept openly yet -- although we ARE in a pool and it would be easy enough to hide, no?

i shall keep you posted on my progress, useless goggles and all.

to the dearest dear mom in all the universe!

love always,

gina