For a list of Diary Topics, read here

The Complex Maniac, July 29 2004

A friend stirred my interest when she referred to violence in our society and implied that we women are not as violent as men.  Some may conclude that we would make better decisions for the future of the planet. I know however that women do bad things all the time and are certainly not above it.

For years I might always agree with the first but slowly I've swung the other way ---- not just as a theory or a fact, but also as a source for creative ideas.

My friend Katherine has written about the potential violence in women. Not as a thing to condemn, to say that it is right or wrong, but just that it is. In her mind, the idea that men are the ones who do wrong and that women are the ones who receive or just stand by that wrong, puts women as the victim. Right so far.

But the victim doesn't get the respect, she says, the victim doesn't get the power. This is the way it pans out whether it's fiction or in the news. The victim is not the interesting part of the story.

This perpetual stereotype is part and parcel with other ideas about women that we find frustrating, although maybe easier to explain. I'm not being pro-violence at all, but it underestimates us to believe we just can't do horrorific wrong, that we can't be the destructive, complex maniac.

Katherine saw the fight between the 2 daughters of Ali and Frazer. That the fight could be so intense was a surprise to many, who feel women just don't have that flare for the fight, the blood and the gore. In 8 rounds the women threw more punches than the average major heavyweight fight in 12 rounds.

One fantasy I have is my own remake of Repulsion. Perhaps remake is not really the right word at all, for Catherine Deneuve was a victim in that story and I want to change that a bit.

Not to say the main female character isn't ill, but I'd like to see a woman that is more direct and plotting in her action, who feels she can at least take action, even if it is desperate. A woman who is smart with her crimes, with the awe inspiring kind of criminality reserved for men alone. 

Good looking but not so much that you think she must be stupid. Smart, accomplished and maybe reached that glass ceiling and has cracked. I understand her relish at surprising the motherfuckers when they think it's all business as usual.

Again, this is not about right or wrong. No one thinks that when situations are reversed. It's just a crime story, it's just entertainment, right?

I've had my own little rampages on the street and sometime I will write about them here. I do see now that it really wasn't about them, the assholes and what they said or did to me that day. It was about me. I had to make someone else the victim, it was just not going to be me. I had to turn it around. If that had to mean screaming and yelling and total exposure on the downtown streets, so be it. In fact my heart raced with the thrill of it all.

Postcards, July 22 2004

So here is the original Lovelake. I have had this postcard for many years. Must have found it in a postcard shop like that one on Prince Street in NY. But I've never seen the original piece. It was this image which gave me my name for an online journal, the gallery and eventually, this site. (I hope the artists and their dealer ---Marlborough? Pace?--- do not mind this posting.)

I have seen a few shows by Gilbert and George though, 2 artists I love. One of my favorites was a big collection of postcard collages. Turns out they have a fascination for postcards too and made collages of multiple images --- same card, many times.

I am not a big collector of anything really and shun acquisitions in general. But I have 2 sizable boxes of postcards and it's a collection I started sometime in the mid-70s.

Some are collages themselves, sent by mail artists. Some are sent by heroes --- I have one from Yoko Ono and another from Anne Waldman. Some come from exhibitions which rocked my world big-time, like the big Dada and Surrealism show at the Hayward Gallery in London in 1978. I have beautiful Hannah Hochs and Raoul Haussmanns from that show. My favorites are a small group of Jean Arps which were made by a small press.

Sounds like I have the real thing! But the card collection represents a lot more than a bunch of cards to me. I have carried those images from coast to coast and they have been on walls in my studio, in front of my writing table and sometimes even mailed to someone.

Artists' Books, July 21 2004

Artists' books are a medium to themselves and some galleries regularly show them. Sometimes the books are entirely made by the artist---the paper is handmade, it's all hand sewn. Each one is different.

The thing I liked to do was take a regular found book of a subject matter I could play with and collage into it. I would still keep a major part of the subject matter intact. Not many were made though.

The one I still have was my first ever and these are all pages from it. I got it from John Shirley (over 20 years ago), the sci-fi/cyberpunk writer. He was living in NW Portland in a big punk house at the time… with me, Tom Robinson and a cast of luminaries.

John was investigating cults and faiths of various sorts for his writing. He had all these Scientology books. He had a whole stack of them and they were from a college library, complete with the due cards in the back. Over the years, if I showed it to someone, I had them sign the card. There are quite a few interesting autographs in the book, though it's been ages since I showed it to anyone.

The one I used was for their ceremonies. It’s pretty weird what they agreed to respect in the name of their religion, but that’s hardly unusual.

Most of it is dark but that is how I felt about institutions at the time. It’s a little beat up and maybe doesn’t translate here very well, but as a book it is a fun piece to have. There are over 100 collages in it.                                                        

Greek Church Near the World Trade Center, July 20 2004   

Perhaps the first oil painting I kept from after I seriously took it up in the 80s.

When I first arrived in New York, it was way downtown I loved best. The older the better, often alongside very new buildings, like the World Trade.

I was really impressed with this one lonesome, singular Greek church which stood next to the towers. How those people held on to that real estate, I don't know. I never photographed it or even drew it on site, so it was just an impression, a reduction.

During the time I lived in Manhattan, I think I visited just about every Greek orthodox church there was. Their art, the Byzantine style, the icons, the mosaics and all that gold, is some of my favorite.

When the towers fell, I was in Portland but immediately thought of that small church. Eventually the NYTimes did quite a piece on it and while covered in debris, it amazingly survived! Some of it had to be rebuilt of course.

Secrets, July 19 2004

Often people leave secrets behind which we get to wade through upon their death.

In most cases it would have been better to just be honest. My whole adolescence was finding out one secret after another about my mom and to this day she is a puzzle. Most of it might not really be my business, but when you find out you’ve got a sister at 30, you start to wonder what else could be there. 

Well, to the person who will have to wade through my paper notebook diaries: good luck. As the years have progressed my handwriting has completely degenerated. Even I have problems reading it sometimes. I’ve held nothing back but there are no bodies buried anywhere.

I do have one idea for it. There are women's institutes which are full of diaries as historical research centers. They've got ones from the civil war, WW2 and so on. I don't know what my history could offer, but it does open up with man's landing on the moon (1969) and from time to time, is about much more than one person. And if we ever need more than just what Bridget Jones has to offer, jeez do I have the imperfect life of a single woman in the big city down. Glad that's over but glad I lived it too.                                               

The Decline, July 17 2004

When young I liked just the old and the new. I wasn’t that wild about any art associated with Christianity, for instance, save of Byzantium. Over the past 2 decades I’ve been making up for that though.

Still I think there is a big connection between ancient and modern art and I like to spin them together in collage. Here we have a Brancusi with an old Roman Bowl and a bit of William Morris thrown in.

An art history Prof at PSU stated that the gradual mix of all styles in art was an indication of the general decline of Western civilization. As we move further away from the pure styles in Greek art, we are in further decline from the ideals of balance, perfect ratios and so on. I liked the purity but I guess I like the decline too.

Trains, July 15 2004

Before I drew and painted planes, there were trains. Many of them, over 50 altogether.

It all started when I made one painting with a red train wrapping itself around a mountain. Then a friend found a pile of Train magazines on the streets of New York and brought them to me. They were fantastic of course.

Eventually I had a wall of the drawings, all in charcoal, which suited the gritty nostalgia of the subject matter. I had enough to fill a small billboard which was my dream presentation but that never happened. Very few I made in color but this was one of them.                      

The Image Rules, July 14 2004    

My friend was over yesterday, playing me a tape of psychics and mediums that were supposedly channeling the spirit of Yves Klein. He then went on to say “You believe in the Tarot and all of that but I don’t.”

Well let me set the record straight here. The last thing I would want you to believe is that my life is guided by seeking questionable guidance.

My life is guided, if anything, by the image. The image rules (more on that later). The cards for me are a set of images with implied meanings, a framework for imagination. I never think, when I read my own cards or anyone else’s, that I can see tomorrow, next month or next year.

I see possibilities, springboards, ideas ---- all communicated with the all-powerful image. And that is all. But enough for me.

The above collage is Autumn. I’ve got the other seasons too which I’ll post sometime.

Escape, July 13 2004   

I’ve told you about escape before. It is a major them for me. Just getting out and leaving it behind.

She always reminded me of Queen Elizabeth a bit. Must be the scarf and bag. This picture is actually from the last World War, a German making her escape through the woods.

Closure, July 12 2004

They say you can't judge a book by the cover and for the most part I agree. Unless you happened upon a certain girl's diary.

When I first started pasting images on the covers of my notebooks, it was not some big project or concern. Often I only get around to getting something together when much of the book is already filled, like an afterthought. But now that I've got 121 notebooks, well, it is it's own collection of sorts.

Once I had a slashed red heart, barely held together but rip apparent, on the cover of a book. My intimate associate of the time comments that "it was an interesting image." Perfect example of blinders fully on. He didn't see that it was my heart I illustrated! And who else's would it be?

A few years later came the above cover. I was just about ready to have surgery and this image was a bringing on of the closing down. It did occur to me that the blind could be going up, not coming down, but that was not my mood.

I was about to close down in more ways than one, more than I ever conceived. It was prophetic. Most of all, the window shade was my insistence of a private world, and that the biggest hero can be the one who does not participate at all.

On a Sunday morning I glued it down and my intimate associate of that time furtively watched me and said not a word. I wondered what he was thinking and was a little disconcerted that one could be so uncurious. But perhaps such blinders are preferable.

It took years but I did eventually say I want closure. I'm sure this image was nowhere on the surface of my mind, but perhaps there in the background, like a backdrop, the curtain for the stage.                                            

No. 5, July 11 2004

Kenneth Noland was not the only artist I cut up, making art about art.

This collage is 2 of my favorite paintings rolled into one: the O'Keeffe piece and I saw The Figure Five in Gold by Charles Demuth. It’s sort of a tribute to American art, especially the Stieglitz circle.  The No. 5 painting is based on a poem by William Carlos Williams. I love the painting and the poem:

Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
firetruck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city.

The Russians, July 10 2004       

There has been some expression lately of missing the cold war. I don't know that I miss it, but for years I made a lot of art inspired by it.

My husband remembers doing nuclear holocaust drills at school and hiding under his desk, plus all the bomb shelters being built. But if you've seen many films of blasts it is hard to imagine that any of that would do any good.

In high school I liked to play devil's advocate and when it came time to create a mock United Nations in Social Studies, I threw myself into the role of the Soviet Union. I loved getting all their propaganda in the mail.

As I learned about art history, the Russians figured big. Malevich, Rodchenko, El Lizzitsky and so on. I loved the red and the black, their gold icons, the contrast of the stark grayness next to the lushness of the Czars, the art of the ballet and the art of the spy.

Once I did a window installation called Russian-American Friendship at the Eye Gallery in SF...I think I got the name from a magazine, some slogan. The backdrop had the words in huge letters, all black and red, and there were collages (like the one above) and scenarios/props in the space.

Yes, she's going to be a Soviet Woman. But she is also just a little girl.

The Tale of Genji, July 9 2004  

I don’t read as many novels as I used to but hope to get back to it someday. Sometimes they took over my life so much that I illustrated them. They became my subject matter. This was especially the case with the Tale of Genji by Lady Muraskai.

My pal Terez once told me that this book “…was the first word in literature --- and the last.” I can believe it. It is, anyway, the very first psychological novel, written over 1000 years ago. In Japan no other writer has been canvassed more, though most of the books will say that she could not have written it, it must have been her father and so on. It has only been in the last 100 years that people will agree that yes, indeed she wrote it.

Genji is the Shining Prince. But Genji also means that the good times are gone and we are in decline. For me, the Genji was really not so much about a man as all the women he knew and loved, a study in women.

In those days people spent their lives behind screens and if you actually laid eyes on someone, you sent them many poems afterward. The Genji is full of lovely poems, many of them one-liners. Plus all of the intimate details of life are the facts which count: the colors one wears, the scent of a piece of paper.

In the early 80s I had a small show in San Francisco called The World of the Shining Princess, which was all the Genji collages I made, plus other things I could gather at the time. Murasaki (a name the writer created for herself and her heroine in the book) also means purple and is also the word for wisteria, one of my favorite blooms. Fortunately the exhibition happened in May, the time when wisteria blooms and I was able to have masses of it at the show.

The Target, July 8 2004

In Ashland way above Lithia Park is a rifle range, generally used by the police. During high school I used to go with a friend to steal the targets, preferably already shot through but not always.

Of course we did not use them for firing at but for collage.  I’ve been using targets off and on ever since, for the meaning and the form: a shape inside a shape inside a shape.

I also like the artists who used targets, especially Kenneth Noland. I used his work in my collages often. His latest ones in bright colors are especially nice but of course he can get dull --- I was kind of disappointed by the collection the Portland Museum acquired. There is something like 26 of them and none of them are all that thrilling. Wouldn’t you know.  

Fashion Plates, July 7 2004

Sometimes I just need to exercise when it comes to art making. Genius ideas won’t come (!) and so I’ve got to scratch around, put no pressure on and just play.

Right now I am trying to kick out the jams as regards painting because I have a big show in a great gallery to look forward to in 2005. So the collage suffers a bit – in fact none are made right now --- and I try not to feel guilty about that.

      2 Theme Suit

But if I were on myself about it, then I would exercise by cutting up whatever in some sort of series. That is how these Fashion Plates were made.

It's possible that I am still traumatized from losing my stash bag of images. Ever since I began the practice of collage, I would funnel favorite images into a bag for safe keeping, like a holding area. Sometimes all I would do is look through magazines and rip and stash. I had had this old bag for many years and some of those images had traveled with me from coast to coast.

But when we moved this last year somehow the stash bag did not follow us. I told myself that maybe this could mean a breakthrough (look on the bright side) but so far it has only meant a huge lull in collage making. Like I said, I try not to give myself shit for that ... and as Tom Cramer told me: 'You have to know when to not make art." Maybe this is one of those times!

Nothing, July 6 2004    

Recently Michael Kimmelman reviewed a show on minimalism and the art of nothing. Many people are indeed inspired by nothing and I am one.

But when I hear someone say to me “Yea, Eva I think it’s cool that your art is about nothing” --- that just doesn’t sound right to me. Nothing is everything OK? But you knew that.

My favorite nothing-ist is Yves Klein, the discoverer of the Void. No one understood it better, did so much with nothing. Taking a tip from the sea and the sky, he used his own special ultramarine blue to demonstrate the vast richness in absolutely emptiness.

His Leap into the Void is a collage masterpiece. While celebrating emptiness, he was anything but calm. Dead at 34 from a heart attack, I understand he loved speed. He probably didn’t need it though.

   He did pretty well with gold too.

Crowley, July 5 2004     

Someone asked me why I prefer the Crowley deck.

Crowley uses everything in this deck. There’s the planets, there’s the numbers, you have all the colors and what they can infer. He uses herbs and plants and gems and animals, all as symbols. There is just so much to work with. If you have a creative mind you can tell quite a story and not know a damn thing about the tarot per se.

But I’ve studied the tarot since I received my first deck---an Aquarian deck---when I was about 12. So I’ve been looking at the Hanged Man and the Moon and the Star and the Tower for a long time.

Then I spent years having witch-type friends tell my fortune. There are 2 in particular  who taught me a lot --- both in San Francisco. I kept just gathering knowledge as I went along and it is for me a visual type of communication.

Crowley said you could be jailed but if you had the tarot, you had the world.

As a Dadaist I believe in the power of chance. Having said that I also believe much is not coincidence. But the game of chance is very enlightening and card reading is sort of a very refined game of chance. Art is similar and of course this kind of game of chance is discussed by Jean Arp a lot.  

I rarely read tarot cards now, not even for myself and actually that is where you learn the tarot the most. There’s a book called Tarot for Yourself by Mary Grier which is quite instructive, like a workbook. The author compares the various decks and Crowley rules.

Fantasy Life, July 4 2004

"You've had a big fantasy life since you were a little girl. But I'd like to convince you how much more interesting reality is."

And I also heard : "You have a rather naive and even infantile behavior, stemming from living in your own private world---rather difficult but charming too."

---Opinions from boyfriends I could never neatly refute at the time. Maybe I didn't need to. Fantasy can fuel the reality, whatever you decide to manifest. Mom didn't send me to college, to Europe, to New York. Fantasy is what urged me on. And then indeed you do have an interesting reality.

But otherwise, I beg to differ, looking back, on how very bloody interesting "reality" can be. Punching the time clock and paying the rent, working overtime to be beautiful be smart and be all things a single girl can be. Get the painting down after the job, mapping out the most important thing in your life in the downswing, such a downswing, my feet hurt so much I had surgery on them both by the time I was 33.

I had plenty around to remind me just what reality is all about. You bet I had my fantasies!

Still, I was shocked that they knew I was in so deep. I never told them. Somehow they knew and I suspect it was art work which gave it away, not just my personality. It is a double-edged sword, the source of intrigue and narration in art, but also the source of vexation for those who want control. Over you. Or at least cooperation!

So I wondered if my inner life could be doing me harm. You do hear that women want Prince Charming or certain situations that don't exist. This is a topic for many articles in Cosmo or other magazines. My good pal Hitchcock once wrote on a card to me "She Married the Price of No Prince." This is in my collection now of great quotations.

I did wake up one day, after being married for a while and realized that hey, I didn't have all these private dreams and scenarios anymore running my life like I used to. There are still some, but not to the degree that there once was.

But people I cannot tell you that this is altogether better in every single way. Dreams have their function and you can't always be the editor. Along with the good will be some bad byproduct, but gee there was some fabulous good.

In a way painting, at least at the start, functioned right out of my fantasies, an attempt to communicate what was inside, my big stories, made up of atmosphere and possibilities. It sounds all intangible but once the painting is there, it isn't at all. It can be the best of reality.

Sometimes it remained a private partner, but since it was all mine, it was no less real. I could count on that.

More Entries: June 2004

                         May 2004

(for more information on this diary, click here) 

Lovelake