Just Another Patron

Lately, I've been contemplating art and the variety of forms in which it is able to manifest. While 'conventional' art is generally more frequently regarded, I've become enthralled—for lack of a better word—with motion and people. Perhaps being in a country where there is very little ethnic diversity (if you live in Korea, more often than not, you are Korean) has sort of awakened within me an interest in people-watching, in studying faces, shapes, kinetic energy. It's not that it didn't interest me at all before, but here it's different; I am more likely to look at Koreans since I am more than aware that they're staring at me.

I've come to regard 'the human-being' as perhaps the most versatile of art projects, adaptable, ever-changing, often disturbing. The human as art is not a new concept. In fact, I'm sure it's one of those notions that has become stale, entered the realm of the cliché: "The body is a temple," etc. People understand this—we decorate, add instalments, and chip away, investing much time and money, like any good art patrons might. We tattoo, pierce, insert; we scratch, pluck, tweeze; we tighten, build up, polish; we plasticize, cut off, suck out.

I lay in bed last night waiting for the sleeping pill to take control. I smoked a cigarette wondering when I'd finally be overcome, when I'd feel a sort of jolt, like the gel cap suddenly popping inside me, and I'd be granted the beautiful gift of being able to vanish in the soft smoke, my butt gradually extinguishing in the ashtray beside me. I watched the smoke rise, floating upwards and tried to distinguish shapes to pass the time. Smoke shapes have always been infinitely interesting to me. The whorls and swirls are like spinning dust in a sunbeam, finding good from bad; ironically optimistic. I focused my eyes, their lids growing increasingly heavy, on one twirling shape, like a fairy dancer, limbs extended, the spinning arms of a nebula in the heavens, as it made its way to my bedroom ceiling, committing suicide in a crush of gathered cloud. Deep breath. My cigarette out, I turned off the light, got under the covers and closed my eyes.

While it's no surprise (given my "sleep issues") that I've tried many sleeping pills over the last few years, sometimes, rather than losing mental consciousness, my ultimate goal at the end of the day, I become physically incapacitated. Many sleeping pills are merely muscle-relaxants, you see. My arms and legs become awash with the sensation of "being asleep," a feeling I hate. They tingle, become revoltingly heavy, molten. My neck against the pillow becomes too weak to support what feels like a suddenly awkward, bulbous head. This happened last night, and instead of keeping my eyes closed and ignoring the drippy, molasses feeling I dread, I was suddenly struck with what people do to themselves for the purpose of scheduling. As the phenomenon grew more pronounced (I'm sure I was in a state of sleep paralysis, which has happened to me before), I imagined myself petrifying, turning to stone, a sort of Kafka-esque Metamorphosis befitting my personality. After an anxiety-riddled hour or so, I finally closed my eyes, un-furrowed my brow, and tried to assume a pleasant expression, just in case I woke up (or didn't, that is) as a statue.

Perhaps it is ironic, or appropriate, that in a week where I've been obsessed with watching motion, I imagine myself as a piece of stone, stoic inertia plopped down amidst a shape-shifting, transfiguring mass of human-flesh. The feelings of awkwardness aren't alien to me of course, but perhaps it's my recent frustration, feelings of invisibility and helplessness which have triggered my recent thoughts.

My boss has changed my schedule yet again. Everyone's been running around, making things different, moving. I wait for my classes to begin, unaware that they're all different now. No one tells me anything. When I confront my boss, asking calmly, "How am I supposed to know if I'm not informed?" (Every class this week has been at strange times I've never taught at before), he looks surprised and bewildered that Miss Kim hasn't told me.

Basically, I've just decided to show up for work, sit there for 8 hrs and teach when they tell me I'm on. It's very frustrating. I feel like I'm some sort of burden. If I stay overseas another year, I'll work someplace where there are other foreign teachers to help me…I hate the feeling like they're all talking about me, the big joke.

Also somewhat distressing this week is that once again, my fingers have magically become covered with cuts and tears. I wake up with them, suddenly aware that my digits are raw, dry, peeling. Sometimes they bleed. I honestly have no idea why. Perhaps it's the cold weather that has suddenly gripped the area, with the frigid wind, rain and snow, which is insufferable to walk to and from work in (or, maybe I gnaw at them in my sleep, I really can't say). Sometimes, as I write in my notebook, I become aware of the bones in my wrist, in my fingers under my skin. They move, contort, like something fluid. Sometimes, I can see the veins beneath. I wonder how thick my skin is, both figuratively and literally. It seems very fragile to me, pocked with old scars and burns.

I'd be lying if I said I had no interest in human flesh; in fact, it is one of my many obsessions, if not the focal point of my life. Both in myself and in others, I am captivated, delighted and disgusted, often all at once, with the extensive range of the human form. That it's able to grow expansive, burdensome, no longer able to fit the frame it's hung on, is both amazing and alarming to me. It all looks like so much overflow. I imagine elastics, stretched to capacity, since I guess that's all skin is, really, a sort of flimsy covering, a container for the more precious material within. Sometimes, sadist that I am, in my mind, the elastic snaps—painful; red welts against tender skin. Other times, the rubber just falls apart in my hands, finito.

Last weekend, I was captivated by traditional Korean dancers at a fancy Buddhist/Vegetarian temple cooking restaurant called Sanchon. The girl dancers were hypnotic, light on their feet, with frozen perma-smiles (which I found a little unsettling, actually). They twirled in their hanboks, gracefully weightlessly, effortlessly. My favourite performance was perhaps a toss-up between the frantic spinning dance of a man with a long length of ribbon tied to his hat (ones eyes were inclined to follow the spinning of the silk as the dancer violently tossed his head back and around), and the black-robed, long-sleeved spectre (who looked like the classical personification of Death) who drummed and danced in a very finite, eerie sort of way. The food was very good, if a little too plentiful, but it was definitely the performance and its energy that remains in my thoughts.

It's a rather new line of thought for me, this consideration of movement. My art, if it might be called as such, has always been rather two-dimensional, dark, a moment captured rather than a moment lived. I have been very embarrassed in the past about motion; its honesty and utilitarianism had seemed a little too naked to me. I remember high school, how I walked slowly--shoulder dragging against the wall-- from class to class, avoiding contact with the other moving beings: Their superior mastery of their own skin intimidated me and I felt it unwise to alert more attention to my corporeal short-comings than were already apparent. Up against the white concrete, I tried to blend in, be more wall than student; it made my skin cold.

In the past few weeks, I've imagined a sort of "art" that is grown, not crafted. That is, finding beauty or at the very least, interest, in what already exists rather than in what has been carefully, meticulously constructed. The most obvious answer to this problem is of course, the human being, a controversial topic if ever there was one.

While believers of Adam and Eve might very well quote Genesis to me, telling me all about the dust and the rib bone that figure so significantly in their notion of the elaborate development of human beings, I am entirely more interested in the fact that despite witnessing much to the contrary, Christian theology continues to suggest that humans are more "constructed" than "grown." Despite my disbelief of religion of Creationism, I am still an avid reader of old Creation stories. One in particular which stands out in my mind is the story of Adam's first wife—He had two, actually, before Eve.

We've heard of Lilith, the 2^nd; she figures in popular mythology as an evil, succubus-like figure, fond of controlling men. In the Pre-Raphaelite era, Dante Gabriel Rossetti grew obsessed with her and represented her often, with long, flowing hair, the source of her power and femininity—a sure-fire way to strangle or suffocate her mate. In the Old Testament, Lilith was written as a very sexual being. In the end, the Creator destroyed her because Adam experienced discomfort at her desire to dominate; she wanted to be "on top" in coitus, you see.

As unfair as Lilith's fate might seem to the modern female; that of Adam's first wife has always fascinated me most. In the story of Eve, we read that God created her from Adam's rib while he slept. In the morning, Adam woke up to a perfect, complete woman. For Adam's first wife, however, who never lived long enough to have a name, God put her together in front of a very conscious Adam, piecing together bones, flesh, bodily organs, blood and skin, bit by bit. This honest display proved too much for Adam, and though his wife was indeed beautiful upon completion, he could feel nothing but repulsion towards her; every time he looked at her, he recalled her blood and flesh; he was thoroughly disgusted and essentially ungrateful towards his (and her) creator. God exterminated her after only one day of life. If anything, she remains alive as a legacy to the hatred and dissatisfaction society often hurls at the female form. It's a hatred of the fleshy bits, as I understand it, and I do (understand it, that is).

I of course know the obvious answer of where my interest with the human form stems—I do not need the therapist's couch to unearth this intelligence. I am however, slightly undecided and hesitant to say what has awakened my newfound consideration of movement in the human form. I watch people walk. I imagine their hip bones shuffling upwards and down; I wonder if they protrude. I look at high-heeled feet balanced on twig-legs made to look thinner with the added height. I contemplate my own feet, sneaker clad, and how I'll walk crooked regardless. I am a bit jealous and wonder if the owners of said feet bleed as mine would. I check out collar bones and remark to myself how nice they look uncovered, no necklaces. I stop myself, knowing my comparisons are unhealthy, counterproductive, but why should I deny them; they are very real.

Though I spend much time examining the flesh of others, when it comes to my own, I shrink away (read that as you will). When my skin is grazed, ever-so-lightly with soft fingers, brushing the inevitable strand of hair from my eyes or my mouth, I am both delighted and confused. I am afraid of sensory overload but thrilled with the attention. I don't enjoy the unanticipated, the uncontrolled variable, which is often myself or my skin's reaction to outside forces. Upon contact, my eyes clamp shut inevitably, whether out of feeling or terror, or the logical combination of the two.

The unprovoked cuts on my fingers have often made me think my skin is dead, ready to peel away. Though it hurts, I optimistically think that maybe it's a sign that it needs replacing (and that it's even a possibility). Perhaps once shed, in whatever dramatic, bloody, painful gesture is necessary for such an occurrence, I will be different, revitalized. Perhaps I can reinvent myself; disguise the run of my skin; make myself my greatest piece of art by absorbing a new personality through virgin pores. On the other hand, maybe I am more reptilian than I once imagined, and like a snake whose scales dry up and crumple off, flaky like old rice paper, my new skin will only be temporary, it too subject to an expiration date.

Given my history, as flecked with temporary moments of happiness (giddy little pockmarks), and punctuated by long bouts of discontent (ugly, blotchy blemishes) as it's been, I am more prone to imagine the second, less optimistic fate of my flesh, which I am grateful for nonetheless, as even a plateau is preferable to a downward spike; a single moment of elation more tolerable than consistent indifference. In any case, this week I've considered my tendency to question my humanity and as I sit here writing this, I wonder if resuscitation (a veritable art revival!) is possible in one whose pulse remains undetectable—my blood crawls, caterpillar slow--as yet.