Me and my big mouth

"I knew that with a mouth like mine, 

I just hadda be a star or something."

-- Barbra Streisand

Self portrait 10-3-13

"A man's face as a rule says more, 

and more interesting things,

than his mouth." 

-- Arthur Schopenhauer 

"Some people approach every problem with an open mouth."

-- Adlai Stevenson

"I'll bet my autopsy reveals my mouth is too big."

-- Bill Watterson

Keeping my cool

"As Elsie says: 'Why don't you each draw a picture 

of the coolest, most refreshing thing you can think of?'"

-- 1950s Borden "Elsie Popsicle" TV commercial

Self portrait with magazine cutout mouth and cutout Popsicle 9-30-13

"When he sings, it makes my heart melt like a Popsicle on the Fourf of July!"

 -- Darla, "The Little Rascals."

"A little something happens when I grab that stick

I become a pop star in just one lick

I'm a p-p-p-Popsicle pop star

I'm a p-p-p-Popsicle pop star

All my favorite flavors come on that stick

I become a pop star in just one lick

I'm a p-p-p-Popsicle pop star

I'm a p-p-p-Popsicle pop star."

-- 1980s Popsicle commercial

Where there's smoke

"Quoting, like smoking, is a dirty habit to which I am devoted."

-- Carolyn Heilbrun

Self portrait 8-2-13

Mayday. Mayday.

"When you're drowning, you don't say 

'I would be incredibly pleased  if someone would have the foresight 

to notice me drowning and come and help me.' 

You just scream."

                                                                                                            -- John Lennon

Drowning styrofoam face 5-1-13

Mayday is an emergency procedure word 

used internationally as a distress signal in radio communications. 

It derives from the French venez m'aider, 

meaning come help me.

Behind every beautiful thing

"Behind every beautiful thing

There's been some kind of pain."

                                                                                                 -- Bob Dylan, Not Dark Yet

"The pain passes, but the beauty remains."

                                                                                       -- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Styrofoam wig form with cutout eyes, mouth and push pins 4-20-13

"You," he said, "are a terribly real thing in a terribly false world,
and that, I believe, is why you are in so much pain."

-- Emilie Autumn, The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls

All up in my grill

“It’s one thing to make a picture of what a person looks like, 

it’s another thing to make a portrait of who they are.” 

                                                                                                                 – Paul Caponigro

Self portrait 4-19-13

Thank you, Mrs. Roosevelt

"What are you?" I rasped.

It smiled. 

"Whatever scares you."

                                                                                     

                                                       -- Kim Harrison, Dead Witch Walking

Magazine face with eyes and a lizard 4-15-13

 "I must not fear. 

Fear is the mind-killer. 

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. 

I will face my fear. 

I will permit it to pass over me and through me. 

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. 

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. 

Only I will remain."
        

                                                                       -- Frank Herbert, Dune

  

Magazine face (2) with eyes and a lizard 4-15-13

Eleanor Roosevelt famously once said: "Do one thing every day that scares you." 

She was basically saying "face your fear," but with an important twist.

Notice that Mrs. Roosevelt didn't say, "Look at one thing that scares you." 

Because you can look all damn day at something you fear. But fear doesn't blink. It just looks back. Like those staring contests when you were a kid. Eyes wide open, watering. Waiting for the other guy to blink first. Trying like heck not to. But that's just a standoff, really, a deadlock where nobody ever emerges a clear winner. And if someone wins, who really cares? What do you get? Dry eyes, that's all.

Mrs. Roosevelt also didn't say, "Talk about one thing that scares you."
Because you can talk all damn day about what scares you. Blah, blah, blah-dee, blah. Fear just gets off on the attention.

That's why the girl in today's face is speechless. There's a void where her mouth should be. Cuz that lizard is in no mood for chit chat. And nothing she could say will make it go away anyway.
Because fear doesn't discuss.
Fear doesn't "dialogue."
Fear doesn't  give-and-take.
Fear just takes.
Fear takes a lot.
Fear takes a lot of time.
Fear takes a lot of energy.

Mrs. Roosevelt said "Do."
She said "Do one thing every day that scares you." Because doing something is powerful.
Once you look at something, it's looked at.
Once you talk about something, it's talked about.
But once you do something, it's done. 
It's done, even if the doing simply means waiting for the fear to pass -- to skitter away on it's little lizard feet and go stalk someone else.

I'm not going to list my fears here because:
A: The list is too long, and 
2: Listing them won't make my fears go away. They'll just be all like, "Hey! Check it out! We're on a list!" Like they got their damn name in the paper pr something. I don't want to give them the satisfaction.

But I will say that doing this blog every day scares me. It scares me because it bumps up so hard against so many of the fears that are on my list. 
And that's exactly why I do it.
Every day.
Because it scares me.
Every day.
This project, these faces -- this is how I "do" something about my fears.
Every day.

Thank you, Mrs. Roosevelt.

All right Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up

“There are no bad pictures; that's just how your face looks sometimes.”

                                                                                                          -- Abraham Lincoln

Self portrait 4-14-13

“I always find beauty in things that are odd and imperfect --

they are much more interesting.”

                                                                                       -- Marc Jacobs

Am I missing something?

“There is an optical illusion about every person we meet.”
                                                                                                -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Arranged face with glasses, cutout eyes and mouth  4-13-13

“The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”
                                                                                                  -- Henry David Thoreau 

Twinkle, twinkle

“Rather nice night, after all. 

Stars are out and everything. 

Exceptionally tasty assortment of them.” 

                                                                          -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned

Night face, 4-1-13

“Could it be that the planets are castaway heads.”

                                                              

                                                             -- Visar Zniti, The Condemned Apple: Selected Poetry

Because they ...

"Once conform, once do what other people do because they do it,

and a lethargy steals over all the final nerves and faculties of the soul.

She becomes all outer show and inward emptiness; dull, callous and indifferent."

                                                                                                               

                                                                                                  -- Virginia Woolf

Barbie head with cutout eyes and mouth 3-30-13

You never know when you meet someone
Will she be the one?
You never know and I wonder to myself
I wonder to myself
Are you beautiful?
Are you beautiful on the inside?
On the inside?
Are you beautiful?
Are you beautiful on the inside?
On the inside?

                                                      -- Chris Pierce, "Are You Beautiful"  (from the movie Crash)

Barbie head with cutout eyes, mouth (2) 3-30-13

Cut it out

"Arrange whatever pieces come your way."

 -- Virginia Woolf

Arranged cutout eye and mouth 3-28-13

Pulling faces

Staple puller with foot 3-1-13

This is my staple puller. It is one of the many faces looking back at me in my workspace everyday

I don't know if it is supposed to be an alligator or a crocodile. I honestly don't know the difference. I even looked it up on the Wiki, and I still can't say for sure. Oh, well. I'm going to call it a tie and say it's a crocogator.  Pulling staples is a pretty mundane chore. A crocogator staple puller makes it more like an adventure!

(Shout out to my model, Joe, for volunteering his dismembered limbs for this shoot.)

Staple puller 3-1-13

Staple puller with hand 3-1-13

Primal scream

I am having trouble finding words today. So I'll just scream this.

Wood mannequin 1-26-13

Express yourself

When words fail, screaming helps.
So does art.
Whatever your art, it can be the most precious and effective tool you have to "say" what you otherwise cannot. Artistic expression facilitates and accommodates the visceral side of self that is often too messy, dark and tangled for words. I have found that the messy, dark, tangled stuff is where art gets really interesting. Whatever medium you use, go ahead an let it out. Scream into the void and make something.

Thrift store doll face 1-9-13