I am so glad I am not living in California right now.

Actually this entry is an excuse to list my current mood as “moody”. If only there was an option for moodily moody. Late yesterday I ran over to the gallery to meet with Sarah, the designer who is fabricating “the big one” the latest piece for the upcoming London show. “the Big One ” is a 16 foot long white nylon bunny suit proportioned like a child’s snow suit. We had to adjust the ears: too small, a little too pointy. Last Friday I spent a couple of hours rolling around on the floor stuffing it and it’s one of the best ways to experience the piece: as a cross between furniture, wrestling opponent and pal. So far most people who has seen it wistfully say ” I wish I could lie down on it.” To me yesterday it looked both inviting and corpse like. There is a kind of glee that comes over me when I’m showing folks a piece and I feel that it’s working, that they are thinking about what they’re looking at, that it pleases them. Very distinct from the ways in which I please myself in the making of the things. On reflection I’d say that my mental state while working is more one of suspension, an attempt to attune myself to the varieties of experience that are emerging from the work situation itself. I can find my way back to that kind of attention most easily when I draw consistently. All of which is now leading me to think that I’m probably not letting my self draw much theses days because I sense some sort of obstacle waiting for me in the drawing, a technical hurdle or emotional situation that I need to confront and work through but that I’m hanging back from. All of this goes back to the studio issue. I need to make a time and a place to make the work. Or that is the story I’m telling myself and I wonder about it being a species of avoidance. I have a history of making myself think that I can’t deal with something until I have the “right tool”. I can’t start in on that book project until I have the right laptop and the perfect cafe to sit typing in. Setting is nice, but the opportunities for working are always at hand around me every day. It’s like needing the right yoga mat, the right gym shorts, the perfect pen. I’m willing to compromise on the equipment I use for my vices, so why do my virtues have to be so perfectly accessorized?