Thank you, Peppers.

Those are some tired eyes, right there. 3 17-hour workdays for 200 posters. Whew!

What matters is the process.

Envelopes, napkins and the back of my right hand are often the initial recipients of my vague pictoric visions. The occasional worthy idea-seed is hurriedly scuffed in ballpoint on a legal pad — and usually ends up crushed at the bottom of my pocket.

I can do better than this! Where and how to make some sense of my stuttering imagination? To clarify, bolster and then set free that idea-seed, rather than have all these haphazard scraps gather dust in a drawer?

Screenprinting. Why YES.

I learned how to screenprint in high school. I stretched my own fabric over wooden frames, coated them with light-sensitive emulsion in the photography darkroom next door, and set them in the sunshine to expose. These days, I share a small studio with access to modern equipment. Despite fancy new exposure units and belt dryers, though, the physical act of printing remains the same: choosing the paper, burning the screens, getting everything aligned correctly and registered perfectly (this NEVER actually happens), mixing the inks, pulling those inks and then lifting the screen, propped with a roll of painter’s tape, to see the result. I am fascinated by the chaos involved in screenprinting – the misprints, the color variations, the blocked or blown out screens – it’s a new path forged every time to the final result. Individual variations always within each piece, each piece one-of-a-kind. Exhausting. But I’ve heard this can also be viewed as charming.

I do enjoy the physical limitations imposed by these hand-pulled, small-batch screenprints. There is a tipping point, you see, on how many colors before registration is a joke, on how detailed the screen before the details disappear, on how many times you can physically pull before your arms shake too much to administer steady, 45-degree-angle pressure. I find there is a visual punch you can achieve because of these limitations. It has taught me how to show and tell with an economy of color, line, and detail.

Mix this with growing up surrounded by art and music from the late 1960s and 70s. I went to those shows in San Francisco with my parents, a little grub in their arms. Or nestled in the coat check room at the Fillmore, so Mom and Dad could get to the front to see Janis… this all had an undeniable influence on me from year zero. Music was (is) my constant. I taught myself to read by inner sleeve lyric sheets, singing along to already-memorized tunes. I spent hours looking at album art and especially our collected posters and handbills from The Family Dog.

Because of this, I am forever smitten with The Concept Of The Poster. Designed to eye-catch, to entice, and to convey essential information, a poster can be the perfect balance between illustration, typography and rapid-fire storytelling. It’s a good puzzle, every time.

These posters are an icebreaker between my urge to tell visual stories, my need to make good on all the little crumbs of ideas I have laying around, and the challenge to have it all fit together in a way that makes sense to someone other than myself… through the medium of screenprinting.

All while enjoying the process.

“To all viewers but yourself, what matters is the product; the finished artwork. To you, and you alone, what matters is the process: the experience of shaping that artwork. Your job is to learn to work on your work… one of the basic and difficult lessons every artist must learn is that even the failed pieces are essential.”

from Art and Fear, by David Bayles & Ted Orland

You can also check more of ME out right here. I mean my work of course.

I’m in the midst of screenprinting an absolute CRAPLOAD of these posters… they will be for sale at the show (I think. I hope!) If you close your eyes and click your heels three times, I might just print up a few more…

HEY. Hold on. I’ve come here to salvage my life. And my sanity. I know this, I KNOW THIS! I shake a feeble fist at the bullies of my brain’s playground. They take my lunch money anyway.

So today my world has been reduced to a smoldering, stinking pile of rubble. I have royally fucked up. My husband and I are hanging by a thread. I have wasted my life. It is a foregone conclusion that my selfishness has ruined everything. I feel abandoned in my misery. I will now die alone and vultures will pick at my cold carcass. 

Hog-tied and held hostage by these thoughts. Self-pity is so unattractive.

I give in and call home, but it’s awkward and weird. My husband’s voice sounds far away, distracted. There’s a tinny echo and a pre-recorded Indian lady occasionally announces “YOOU HAF UUUSED NINETY ROOPEEEESE”. I hang up, feeling worse after our stunted conversation.

My friend Tom is good to talk to. He’s 65 but you don’t notice. I don’t think he notices either. He’s great. Tom gets me sugar for my coffee and picks up my shawl when I forget it. He’s looking out for me. He calls me kiddo, which I respond to like a dopey 41-year-old puppy. He tells me I need to have patience, for my own particular brand of bullshit, for my life, for as long as I can. Patience, strength and courage for whatever happens. He isn’t impressed with how badly I’ve fucked up. “We’ve ALL fucked up,” he says. “Why do you think you are here? We’re all here looking for help. Looking for a way through life. Everyone fucks up, kiddo, in one way or another. “

It’s true. And there’s a strange camaraderie growing here, with the other fuck-ups. I begin to feel less like the odd one out – and more like we’re all in this together. There’s strength in numbers! We’ve all decided that we can’t do it by ourselves, whatever it is, in our lives back home. We are all here to pause, take a breath, and try again. We are all here because we know we NEED to be. Struggles are shared, accepted, even embraced – and that seems to take the sting out. It doesn’t make my mistakes okay, or go away – but how long do I shake my finger, scolding BAD DOGGIE!, cowering from my own actions? Let’s learn and grow, people. I want to solve my problems, not wallow in them. A wave of understanding and compassion washes over me – for myself, for everyone, for mistakes and struggles in general – and I feel better.

To be human, by default, is to be lost in the woods. We’re not given a map when we arrive – yet we’re all so bewildered when we don’t know the way! We just need to admit this. And if we do, our collective question of Marco? should be answered with a unanimous Polo! This is alright. It’s OK to be lost, because we all are. Our general cry for help can unite us. That’s what I think.

Frank the Cosmic Bear tells me, “If we all knew how much we REALLY had in common, we wouldn’t ever be able to leave each other.” Well said, C Bear, well said.

And wouldn’t that be nice, to remember that we are all so similar? Wouldn’t that save us a lot of trouble – make us less harsh and more accepting of ourselves and others? Wow. Since when did I start tearing pages out of the Northern California Hippie Burn-Out Basics Handbook? It’s TRUE though.

With all this universal love I’m feeling, it might be time to start that commune I’ve been joking about for so many years.

I see yogis dressed in orange, ash on their foreheads and long dirty grey hair. I see Rajastani ladies in bright turquoise, gold, fuschia, emerald. I see three men balanced on one bicycle, bell pinging – a pleasant warning to jump out of the way. Babies with khol smeared under pretty brown eyes. Sikh gentlemen with straight backs and waxed moustaches, riding ancient motorcycles. Tiny old women, shawls flapping, bowl-legged and bowed over walking canes, sharp elbows out for protection – I’ve had a fair few of those elbows prod my kidneys. Gaggles of young men hold hands – it is customary for men to hold hands here. It’s innocent and sweet and adorable. Groups of young ladies, headscarves forgotten and flipped over a shoulder, duck and giggle as I return their smiles. I want to hold their hands. A man with a HUGE turban (stop-sign-size, I kid you not), curled-toe shoes and a dagger on his hilt, chin up and shoulders back, standing to attention as the crowds flow around him. What is he waiting for? Why is he so still?

I see families with cracked bare feet. I see tired girls tending to younger siblings, mothers in-the-making. I see beautiful men with creamy-coffee complexion, black beards and flashing brown eyes. I see small bundles of belongings balanced on heads, thin sleeping mats tucked under arms. I see anklets and bracelets and earrings and nose rings. I see open and curious faces. Children shyly approach to shake my hand, to touch my pale skin. We point and laugh together at the parrots in the trees as they squawk and preen. I feel like I’m in a National Geographic article.

Over in the langar, the big free kitchen, food is served to all. It’s the great equalizer – a way to break the caste system by feeding people from all walks of life, regardless of class. Brahmins and Untouchables sit together on the floor, elbow-to-elbow and knee-to-knee. The air is thick with smoke from the kitchens, their fires making almost a million chapatis each meal, serving row upon row of people. Row upon row of tandoori ovens, enormous bubbling cauldrons of dal, and vats of chai. Fuel for the fires is piled high next to the ovens – dry reeds and rushes gathered from the sandy banks of the local river.

We foreigners are allowed to walk through the langar, to watch and marvel as food is prepared for the masses. The chapati ladies sing as they work, squatting next to blazing ovens as they make their million, call and response rounds of their song rolling and repeating between the kitchens. We are each given a chapati as we leave, warm from the fires and smelling of fresh ghee and coriander. I hold mine and feel the love with which it was made and given.

Could I eat this? I am so very undeserving of this chapati. What the hell have I done to help the human condition lately? A big fat self-indulgent nothing. I am so humbled, so overwhelmed, so unworthy, so lucky. Thankyouthankyouthankyou. I am suddenly happy to be here – somewhere peaceful and clean despite the numbers, to try and come to terms with what lies beneath MY life’s surface. As is everyone else. We’re all trying to find a clear line from Point A to Point B. Maybe this trying is a good start. Maybe this chapati can give me strength along the way! Things are beginning to feel rather mystical. I am in India, after all.

So I did eat it, grateful tears smearing my vision, as I walked my soft white butt back to my comfortable room with a bed and a heater and light and running water – as I walked past families rolling out their thin sleeping mats – past people who don’t even have a mat to call their own, lying on the ground under the trees and jeering parrots.

…the chapati was absolutely delicious.

Frank. I call him, in my head, Frank the Cosmic Bear. He LOOKS like a bear. A big head on a short thick neck and rolled shoulders. Veritable paws for hands. Small, deep set eyes under a heavy brow and above a big soft nose. He always wears brown. “You making the sun come up?” he asked me the first morning, as I stood with my disgusting cup of Nescafé looking out the window. “I’m waiting for it,” I replied. And I was. I was waiting for the sun to leave California and come to see me, here on the other side of the planet. He nodded. “You’re keeping your world in order. That’s good. You seem familiar.” Frank then shuffled off.

Rev. Smith. Kind of crazy guy that looks and acts like the doomed pastor in Deadwood. He has a slow Texas drawl. At the meetings he gnashes his teeth and wrings clawed hands. I then see him later, still as stone, meditating under a tree.

Minerva. Lady that always wears floor length skirts so I never see her feet. She glides, she sweeps! She also wears a tall velvet hat over a complicated and ever-changing up-do, usually incorporating a black velvet bow. She looks like she should teach at Hogwarts. I’m waiting for her to pull out a wand one of these days.

Barbara from Louisiana. She’s 80 years old, just re-married for the third time, has an accent as thick as molasses and came to India by herself. She looks and sounds like she should be slinging Bibles, but she’s here. At an ashram. In the dirty back waters of India. She has just been diagnosed with advanced osteoporosis and will be going home to a back brace, a walker, and all manner of structures to keep her brittle bones upright – but for now she is slowly, determinedly walking with a cane, and loving every minute.

SHAAA. He calls himself SHAAA. Yep, with A-A-A, capital letters. His name is actually John. He also uses his adopted name as an exclamation, usually followed by, “ROCKIN!” I stood in line behind him to buy postage stamps and his sentences were constantly interrupted by “SHAAA, ROCKIN!” Long white hair and a squishy face, always wears purple. “Most spiritual color, sister, SHAAA!” Tries to give his music CDs to everyone. “Getcha higher than LSD or (SHAAA ROCKIN!) mushrooms…” He is AMAZING.

Droops. Tiny, glum, round lady that looks EXACTLY like Droopy Dawg. Poor thing fell on her first day here, and consequently has a swollen, purple right eye – making the similarities between her and Droopy irrefutable. Her sad little face, chin just clearing her plate of dal at lunchtimes kills me. She’s… so… HAPPY.

Ralph. Like Chief Bromden from one Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. A slow face full of gentle confusion and wonder. I kind of want to hold his hand. That’s all. Just stand next to him and hold his hand for a minute.

The Gentle German Lady (or, affectionately in my head, Gentle Germie). Speaks not a word of English. Dark hair in a bowl-cut and huge blue eyes behind thick glasses. Always in a long, lumpy maroon sweater and army pants. I saw her slowly walking around the garden at twilight, stopping and placing a hand to each tree trunk in greeting. Whenever we pass she talks to me softly in German and nods her head.

…those are just a few.

Well, bullshit. I NEED some actual coffee. This Nescafé crap is an insult to my morning tastebuds. It smells like dirt and puckers my mouth with a sour chemical tang. No help with jump-starting any real brain activity, either.

Christo, a witty and handsome fellow from South Africa, succumbs to my charms/pleas and donates a single, precious cup of the real stuff to my cause. Morning sparkles once again!

Actual food for thought: seasoned ashram-ers come here equipped with little coffee presses. And coffee. And peanut butter. And Bragg’s Liquid Aminos and peppercorns in grinders and olive oil and gomasio and marmite and marmalade. Lining their cherished supplies along their chosen tables, both laying claim and securing said table as their own for the duration of their stay. The tables are thus identified and owned by their display of culinary enhancements to simple ashram fare.

“It’s better than pissing around them,” says a guy originally from San Diego but who now lives in Bulgaria. Charming! But, YES, a lot better. Tastier too.

The cool thing is, no one pinches anything. There’s a healthy bartering system in play though. A smear of peanut butter for a lug of olive oil? Done!

Apart from the coffee thing, breakfast here is wonderful. There are cereal options, but I like two warm chapatis, some fresh curd, and a blop of spicy sweet apple-ginger-chili chutney. Truly delicious. A papaya from the local market stall will be a good addition.

Then I, too, will have something to display on my table.

Makes for a strange social situation, this relentless fellowship. It’s not bad at all; there’s no metal cups being hit against the bars just yet, but it’s not socially normal either.

We DO have metal cups, though.

However. I didn’t come here to make friends, or chit-chat, or to be clever or funny or quick-witted or cute or show off or keep up or prove anything. I do enough of that at home. I don’t need or want to maintain a certain persona here. I’m more than happy to talk to anyone, but I’m not going out of my way to do so. It’s actually nice to just shut the hell up for a while. I realize how much of my energy is typically taken up by others: wondering how they are, if they are ok, if they are ok with me, what are they doing anyway? I wonder if they will call. I haven’t heard from them in like two whole hours. Where are they? I bet I made them mad, when I did that thing. Shit I hope I didn’t make them mad. I wonder if they are ok…

…and on and on.

None of that here. Home and its inhabitants are now too far away to worry about. My cellphone doesn’t work and there’s no internet access. I’ve gone cold turkey on the information era. I am solitary, despite all this togetherness… lonely but selfishly relaxing. I am happy to stand to the side and observe, watching the roles people have appointed themselves, watching alliances form and avoidances begin. It’s a new chapter every day, with character development and deepening plotlines. I look forward to seeing what happens.