Re:

Bare with me, I ask,

As I learn to fight for Blackness

Drawn so naturally to me,

I'd forgotten how to defend her.

The notion that she might shock and offend

          when she sweetly saunters into a room.

Blackness seducing

Exotic,

Sophisticated

From the mounds of forty-two year-old mouths.

Madame, I'm sorry I didn't notice you,

          Denormalizing me from my fellow countrymen.

Womanhood. You came to me overnight,

          Over boredom.

Found me, fondling, fingers,

          tongues, body and blood.

Womanly: the way I wasn't a born.

Meeting and knowing I would do anything to keep you.

To defend the honor of your company.

Blackness, my flesh,

          I didn't know.

I didn't know of your longing       

          for me.

Believing that you knew you had me,

The way in which I've always carried you.

And I'm making space for you,

A ménage-a-trois to make the carrion scream.

I will to be you both.

Our Stories in Other Voices: The Questions Pt 2

Please compliment yourself in regards to a non-physical attribute.
 

Who are you outside of those moments spent in the mirror? What do you admire about that person? Why do you have people to call friends?
 
I've spent the last 8 years working in the restaurant business here in NYC. I could say much for what I've learned about other people, but the real take away is what I've learned about myself: I love and am really good at taking care of other people. I genuinely want to make sure everyone is having a positive experience in the moments I share with them. Now while this is a mostly positive attribute, I am also working on finding a balance between my care for others vs myself. I tend to bend over backwards in ways for other people that I have not done for myself. I have had the habit of not saving any love and care for Me. That's my challenge. Do you have one?  How does your relationship with what you admire about yourself level in the battle of self & other?

Write about a time in which you've settled for less?

This question. I hate this question. I made this workbook to have an honest conversation with myself and this one was too easy to answer. The recurring factor in my responses evolved around my social and personal life. I find that I settle most often when I make emotional investments in future possibilities. Anytime that I am *hoping* for an alternate future while existing in a tumultuous present is my version of settling for less. I am working on shifting my focus to experiences that make my present moment satisfying. 

What does your version of settling for less look like? Does it involve personal, familial, or financial matters? Something else?
 

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If you're interested in filling out your own copy of OSOV but missed out on the copies listed on my site, please head to Have Company to purchase one there. <3

Our Stories in Other Voices: The Questions (Pt 1)

My workbook, Our Stories in Other Voices is a series of reflective writing prompts which encourage the writer to have an open dialogue with themselves. Though this workbook was developed for the purpose of a workshop, most users will be completing this project at home. For that reason, I want to go over the questions and discuss why I've put them in the book and how I relate to them. As not to overwhelm you, I'll go over the questions two at a time over the course of a week or so. 

How did you feel about yourself this morning? What did you project into your day?
 

I think lots of us internet age people have developed some severely terrible morning habits. If your alarm clock is your cellphone, it's most likely the first thing you look at in the morning. Just Like That, you haven't even said good morning to yourself or your partner before you're on social media scrolling off into the ether. 

If you're stumped on this question, there's a chance you didn't take a moment to think of yourself this morning. Buy a cheap normal alarm clock. Take a moment to think about the day you WANT to have. Take ten minutes to think about yourself, really. If you are having negative thoughts in the morning, consider why. Are you thinking about last night? Or projecting yourself into the future? Remember you're not in either of those places. 

I found that I was having awful mornings for a long time: I always woke feeling really really ugly and soon after slightly sick. Two things were happening: I wasn't washing my face before bed and I was having coffee too soon. These two basic problems were destroying my days. And that's how I started washing my face & quit morning coffee. 

What was the last thing you did before bed?

Again with the phone business. Put that thing down. Nothing is happening in there that's going to give you pleasant dreams, or make you feel relaxed the way a few deep breaths will. Consider those last few moments before you drifted off... What were you thinking of? What were you thankful for? If you suffer from anxiety (like me!) limit how many thoughts of tomorrow you allow yourself to have. 

Developing the habit of coming home and washing my face immediately, affected the beginning of the upcoming day. I figured out a very simple way to stop letting today bleed into tomorrow. Those first moments in the mirror in the morning are a result of the last moments in the mirror before bed. Having an evening ritual has become very beneficial for me, maybe you could use one too! Wash your face. Get a glass of water. Say goodnight to yourself. Look at the moon. Think about the cells of your body replenishing themselves because that's what's happening and it's cool AF. 

******

If you're interested in filling out your own copy of OSOV but missed out on the copies listed on my site, please head to Have Company to purchase one there. <3 

Home: On Being There, Looking For One & Finding One

    The lease on my apartment was ending, I’d just been fired from a soul-sucking retail job and I loved the sun. That’s why I moved to Los Angeles in 2009; it was that simple. I had $500 in my bank account and I used half of it to buy a one-way ticket.  My friend’s parents agreed to put me up until I got on my feet. I arrived and proceeded to not work for a month and a half. I was being a post-collegiate deadbeat, but didn’t know how to navigate my way out then. I was too busy succumbing to sun-kissed wanderlust, sprinkled into days where I endlessly filled out my bedspread. The bounty of vitamin D was no opponent for my waves of depression.

    Save for a few possessions, I had nothing to really call my own. It weighed on me emotionally. I couldn’t provide for myself. I didn’t live anywhere. My life was completely borrowed. With the money I had, I rode the bus to the beach and drank cheap beer at outlier bars. Eventually, yes I got a job and made a friend (yes, just the one) and we went on to ride buses together. Our terrible retail job, turned into a pretty okay job at a bakery and I moved in with her. I visited NY for my sister’s wedding and sold all of my winter clothes (that’s commitment!). Just a few weeks later I would find myself sitting on a concrete canal of the LA river, crying and my eldest sister bought my flight back home.

    I felt like a king in an empty castle. It killed me that my mother had no idea what my world looked like, and I wasn’t sure if she ever would. I felt guilty sucking up all that landscape and adventure by myself. I’d rather live in the filth with my friends. And just like that, I found my way back to Brooklyn.

******

    The apartment I live in now has been my home for five years. It has taken just as much time to accumulate the notes, photographs, and artwork that make it feel like it’s mine. I worked hard to build that feeling of foundation. But recently it’s undergone these transformations. My partner, “ours,” more material things. Furniture rearranged and purchased to accommodate the newly acquired romance and the possessions that came along with him.  India, infidelity, no partner. No matter how much of Me fills this space, it’s not the same. This home is no longer that to me.

******

    Home. Tattooed on my ribcage. It tells me, reminds me, that everywhere I go I am home. I have to be. I lose track of that notion from time to time. The place where one lives permanently. Inside of this body; I’m my only option. I thought about that everyday during my residency at HC. I meditated. I slept well. I did yoga alone and sang at the top of my lungs. I made new artwork, and I accepted when I didn’t. I wandered through the city and then I wandered to Detroit. I moved with my inner winds. Somewhere along my lines, I forgot that this is what I do. I construct these little versions of home everywhere I go for however long I stay. Home is where I am and where I’ll always be. Knowing and feeling that is grounding. It calms me. Wellness is an integral part of my work, and life. When I am internally unbalanced it is reflected through my lines. I have only ever made self portraits.

                                                            (After: Clarity IV, ink on bristol 17” x 14”)

a collection of the things I produced during my residency at Have Company, in Grand Rapids, MI. 

At The Yards | Week 1

Week one of my month-long residency at The Yards, in Rochester, NY is complete! Above are the works I completed this week, in five, six-hour sessions, in the order in which they were produced. And yes, those are terrible photographs because I was too lazy to scan them in. Whomp Whomp.  

A few notes about each day / image:

Day 1:
Migration I, image 1 & 2
I started the day with a sketch warm up of "cells" of various sizes. As much of my work focuses on the innate desire to find connections I began to toy with the idea of connecting some of the cells. Migration I shifted as I created it, and my thoughts drifted into the realm of cellular diffusion. (CD is the movement of molecules from an area of higher concentration to an area of lower concentration). One type of cellular diffusion is passive transport, of which there are three main kinds: Diffusion, Osmosis & Facilitated Diffusion. I spent most of my evening after making this piece researching all of these fun things and making comparisons between the natural occurring state of equilibrium desired on a cellular level, and the lack thereof within the rapidly gentrifying city in which I live. 

Day 2:
Migration II, image 3 & 4
Riffing off of the same concept, Migration II depicts a cluster in a state of oversaturation, in the beginning stages of a passive-transport. Chemicals move throughout cells in pursuit of equilibrium, but this movement is only possible if the space is available, and if the molecules can fit through the membrane of the cell. Otherwise we dip into a realm a whelm of Second Active Transport- forms of assisted entries... Are you bored yet? Because my mind is racing. 

Is Gentrification an opportunistic transference of chemicals into a solvent because the space is available, but like a bad experiment where the chemist forgets to stop pouring and equilibrium is never achieved?  Is affordable Housing as the response to a lack of balance within the housing market of NYC a way to add more solvent to the solution? 

Day 3:
Vacancy, image 5
In considering the patterns of migration, and our country's history of colonialism, Vacancy explores the idealistic circumstance of unchartered / uninhabited land. This space exists to relieve the strain for space the "cells" of the previous two images are experiencing.

Day 4:
Woman: Tangled, in Rest  Image 6
It is sometimes difficult to believe the things you know to be true, about yourself and about the world around you. While time may be infinite, we never seem to have enough of it. This linework was channeled through a conversation about setting intentions, knowing what you need to do to see them through, and getting past the (always) hard part in the middle. It takes a lot of breath to move past being overwhelmed and to see the light coming from the other side. Thank you for the inspiration, M. 

Day 5: 
Mountain Women I & II, diptych Image 7 & 8
Since my arrival on Sunday, I've been very diligent about spending 6-10 hours in the studio every day. It's what I came here to do :) On Friday, I wanted to round of the week with two smaller images nodding back to one of my older series a triptych entitled "Wholly, Holey, Holy Women." The figures in this work are faceless and multiheaded- honoring the women who may go through their days unthanked and anonymous, functioning as working-professionals, mothers, friends, after school tutors, chefs, tailors, and so so much more- all in one day, all in one body. 

I feel so incredibly lucky to have to opportunity to be here and explore my mind, uninterrupted and without regulations. In the upcoming week I'll be working on collaborative pieces with my co-resident, Andrea Durfee who is a talented gem of an artist, specializing in watercolor landscapes that blow my mind.  

Until next time,

atiya 

Systems

Earth.

Badlands, Interior, SD.   

pleased

Greyscale

for you and me

Texture studies in nature. At the Muir Wood Park, Mill Valley, CA 2015.  

Expired Film Delights

2009? 2010? I think. Maybe. Hazy, like these photos. 

past faces/places

Photos: 
1-8 Purchase College, 2008.
9-10 Sunken City, San Pedro Los Angeles, 2013.
11-14 Quito, Ecuador 2014.  

2/3 of Wholly, Holey, Holy Women series. Inspired by the atrocities women face all over the world because they exist.

our bodies

Working on it. 

I am somewhere else. 

And it is beautiful. 

A friend of mine questions this shirt every time I wear it. He hates the word "no," as he associates it with a strong negativity, and rightfully so, as it's negative in its nature. However, I love "NO." I find power in its unwavering certainty. While I know embracing positivity is important to the psyche, I can't help but glow a little when I get to utter the sweet nothing of a "No." The occasion is rare and coveted. 

Photo: Atiya Jones.

Shirt: Laura Serman, whose work can be found here. 

paint more every thing. 

active listening is not waiting for a chance to speak.