Another Writing Sample

 Here's another sample of my writing, enjoy!

It snowed the night before my Uncle Nicolai was released from prison. I had gotten up early that morning, and ran around the front yard for an hour before joining my mother on her walk to the grocery store. The stores in Brighton Beach were crawling with scarved babushka women on their emergency shopping trips after the first snow of the year. I danced around them, retrieving things for my mother as she steered our cart through the mass of people. The other boys my age did the same weaving dance, it was a strange tradition of modern day hunting and gathering.

  We were walking home, when my father’s green station wagon pulled up into our driveway. He was dressed nice, going to work nice. He never worked on Sundays. The passenger door opened, revealing another man in the car. He exited, standing to an impressively tall full height. That was when I saw Uncle Nic for the first time.

Tall and weedy, blonde and pale, he was a stranger with a face similar to my father’s. Broad grey eyes, hooded, wide and searching, until they settled on me and mother. He was bundled up tight in one of my father’s coats, with my mother’s scarf wrapped around his neck; he waited at the end of the drive with a battered blue suitcase…my old suitcase.  He smiled and waved a gloved hand at us…I bet they weren’t his gloves.

“He’s wearing the scarf I got you for Christmas.” I grabbed her hand defensively as we got closer. “And he has my suitcase!”

“It’s okay, Gannon.”

“Did he take it from you?”

“No.”

He helped us carry in the groceries, setting each item on the blue Formica countertop in little rows. I watched him pick at the plastic packaging of the cheese and frowned as his longer fingers poked and prodded other things.

“Who is he?”

Mother sighed and put the milk away. “Your uncle.”

“Oh…Dad has family?”

“Unfortunately.”

---------------------

His second night with us, my parents moved Uncle Nic into my room, and by the fourth week he was in there, I had started to refer to it as his room. He barely fit on my bed. His ankles hung over the edge. So he usually curled into a tight ball under my cowboy rodeo covers. His belongings were scattered all over the blue, shag carpet. Everything he owned had once fit into my little, carry-all suitcase. However, I found myself marveling at the amount of stuff he pulled out of it each day, adding to the growing piles of garbage; more and more random knick knacks and letters.

After the fifth week, I knew I was never getting my room back, and I settled into what had once been father’s home office. I missed my room, but would never tell him that. Weeks six and seven consisted of father moving my dresser and other miscellaneous items into my new room.

On a Tuesday, Uncle Nic stood in the doorway to my makeshift bedroom, arm pushed up against the fake wood panel frame. “Sorry for kicking you out of your room, Kiddo.”

His voice in English was different that I made-up in my head, and that was possibly because I’d never heard him speak any language but Russian until now.  “It’s fine.”

“Well…ummm…thank you.”

He was more awkward that I imagined him being, and I felt strangely in love with him.

Artist's Statement

In the last four years of education, I have begun an introspective approach to creating artwork. Prior to my self-examination, my work was mostly obtuse and directed by some sort of requirement for a specific class. I soon realized that my art meant more to me than a grade. So, I began to create my own projects to take steps toward doing art that mattered deeply to me. 

Currently, I have taken the time to focus on my childhood. It has always been my opinion that children are much closer to themselves and their emotions than adults are. Childhood innocence is a wonderful concept. However, as children grow into adolescence and adulthood, they lose that true sense of self. As we age, our emotions and thoughts begin to slip into a more even state of awareness. However, I miss the sensation of being in tune with myself.  

I am not exactly sure when I lost the freedom of childlike feeling, and when it transformed into a strange coldness of adulthood. However, I have come to the point where I have realized that the feeling is gone and that I want it back. My art lacks an element of whimsy that could possibly push my conceptual work to a new level. Therefore, my most recent creations have been an experiment into the idea of fighting to reclaim something I have lost, my childhood innocence.

Most of my introspective works are in the form of printmedia. My printmaking process started as an experiment. I was looking for a new method to create, and produce work at a rapid pace. I had previously worked with Lithographs, and had enjoyed the work I had created with photo plates. However, I wanted to learn other techniques. I then moved to Intaglio printing and found the result rewarding, but the process very complex. I recently was watching a demonstration on the technique of silkscreen printmaking, and was greatly fascinated by the speed of the process. The idea of multiples, and having a series of works was a very interesting concept. Therefore, I have begun the transition to creating most of my work through silkscreen.

 I have begun using different materials in my printmaking work to capture the youthfulness I desire. In my “Eat Me” series of images, I used different packaged cereals, that I remember eating as a child, to create patterns for silkscreen exposures. I created simple patterns using the simple cereal polygons to mimic childlike fabrics. I plan to expand to other foods, simply because of the senses attached to food; smell, taste, touch. The senses open the possibility of creating something that examines the viewer artwork relationship.

To date, I am still searching, with no exact way of retrieving anything from my past. Yet, I would like to continue this exploration. I want to utilize silkscreen processes with other media. I’d like to combine my printing with photography, creative writing, collage and digital image composition to create more quirky work that relates more to my personality.  However, I would like to study more about child psychology and relate my findings to my artwork. I want to remain focused on reclaiming youth and finding the point at which our feelings become buried within ourselves.

More Writing

I guess I'm just going to post a bunch of these now that I've started...But here is another, in no linear order, sorry guys.

This restaurant sucks more than I remember, but you insisted we meet here. I didn’t like this place then, and I still don’t like it now. It’s near the old hostel you crashed at when one of your flights brought you into town. It was convenient, like so many other things. I never had the chance to tell you that I hated it, and I didn’t think it would be right to spring on you now. There’s just something about this place. Possibly, it’s the ugly brown striped walls or the menu with the cartoon clown chef on the front. Or maybe it’s just the name: Mario’s.

This restaurant isn’t even Italian.

You finally arrive, and the guilty feelings dampen my mood. I was now beyond simple agitation. Everything had transformed into absolute disgust. You carry a cane, and not for looks. I loathe the way you lean greatly on the engraved metal handle. Your once confident strut is now a skewed gait. Your left knee is encased in a tight brace. It’s only temporary, but I still find myself judging the way you hobble into the restaurant. You shouldn’t have let him drive you around in his fancy, jackass mobile.

It’s all his fault. He ruins everything.

I refuse to rise when you make it to the table, but I greet you with a soft hello, in the whispery tone of my voice that you claimed to like the most. You had once called it my sultry voice. We sit in thick silence as you glance at the menu. My patience is already thinning.

Just decide already.

The air is congested with scents. I know yours, instinctively; something that makes you uniquely David. Yet, something seems different. You smell unfamiliar. I can only guess it’s what he smells like, and it lingers about you as you pause to examine the menu. You always get the same thing: French onion soup and a small house salad. Yet, you continue to glare at the menu as if it has decided to change, without you knowing, in the last few years.

No decision.

Instead of picking your food, you ask how I’ve been doing. I want to tell you I lost my old job, and couch surfed for almost a year. I want to say that I’ve wound up working at one of those seedy clubs down on Gibbons Avenue. I’ve partied, I’ve had too much to drink far too often for me to admit, even as a casual joke. I’ve met so many random guys on the dance floor, only to follow each one into a secluded dark corner. I’ve needed somebody, anybody, and I didn't care who he was. Sex isn’t what it used to be.

 However, I choose not to bore you with all the details of where I went or whom I did. I’ve simply been around, and that is enough information for you. You already know the truth, and don’t care for the details. You claim to know how it is when you're young.

We’re the same age.

Honestly, I’m just here to visit because I feel obligated since the accident. Still, you’re just pleased I’m even sitting here. I accepted your invitation, so in your mind that means that all must well between us.

The conversation is broken and awkward, and occasionally, there are thinly veiled insults geared towards my dislike of your new boyfriend. Any charm you might have once had seemed lost on me as I sat there coldly. Your eyes flutter closed as you recant everything to me. Bits and pieces of the last two years flood out onto the table and puddle between us. You’re still a flight attendant.

----------------

“Welcome to Iberia Airlines!” You chirped happily with the other flight attendants. Smiling at each passenger, while half shouting in your singsong voice over the crowd, you had my attention.

I wanted you to know you. There was as strange sensation I felt as I looked at you. A quiet sort of authority radiated from you. And I couldn’t shake the feeling that you knew it was the only thought currently going through my mind as I approached the spot in which you waited. My eyes kept flicking in your direction. I’m sure you could see the subtle signs of nervousness setting in with each step closer.

“Welcome, Miss.”

“Thank you.”  

“Enjoy the flight.”

Yeah whatever…

I loaded my carry on into the overhead storage and sank into my aisle seat. It had been over a month at my new internship and I was just ready to head home. Your fellow attendants went through their pre-flight show and tell dance. I could see you from my seat. You stood in the back talking with one of your other coworkers.

When we finally began taxiing for takeoff, you sit. The lights were dimmed, but I knew where you were. You were sitting next to another man, in your little flight attendant nook. You were strapped in, the grey bands of your seat belt crisscrossing navy of your uniform and shocking red tie. Your heavy lidded eyes closed as we took off; thick lashes cast slight shadows on your face as you unconsciously leaned forward during the ascent. Perfection.

 Stop staring.

Something I like to Think I'm Good at

    I really love to write; creatively that is. I've been working on  a creative writing certificate through my university, and as I've been considering which graduate schools to apply for, I've also been looking into their creative writing programs.

    I wanted to post a little sample of my writings, and more will come in the future. However, for now, this is it:

These are some characters I've been fleshing out. so I wanted to do a quick scene with them.

“Your father should have given you a power name.”

He was talking loud, but I was only half listening to him as I pressed the phone closer to my ear. The plastic blue earpiece sat awkwardly on my skin; it stuck to me with a faint wetness that reminded me that numerous other people had used it before me. It was sticky. It was disgusting. However, I held it close to. It was my only lifeline to him.

The Plexiglas that separated me from Uncle Nic was cracked, and covered in blurry grease marks that resembled fingerprints. They marred his face, and it made me uneasy even though nothing was truly different about him. I wanted to clean it; I wanted to see him better. I wanted him to be the same. My fingers ran down the length on the metal wire that disappeared into a hole drilled into the concrete wall. Everything was cold and sterile, even the metal folding chair I sat in, my legs gawkily gathered into the seat, close to my body. He had laughed in the past when I curled up like this, but now he wasn’t laughing. He was just happy to see me.

“Don’t get me wrong, Gannon. He gave you a nice name, but if you were my boy, you would have been named more carefully.” Gannon was my grandfather’s name, and picking it was a cop out, Uncle Nic had once said. My father lacked imagination.

When I told him that I had been accepted into one of the colleges I applied to, his eyes lit up more than my father’s had. “Which one?”

“Columbia…”

“That’s great!”

I nodded and pressed the phone closer, the plastic now biting deep into my skin as I waited to hear my uncle speak again. He smiled wide, and nodded approvingly as he leaned closer to the glass, holding the phone loosely in his left hand. I knew what was coming next.

“What did your father say?”

“Nothing.”

He looked confused, but the smile remained. “Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

After that, we sat in silence. Uncle Nic looked serious for once, and I could feel him studying me as my fingers tightened around the phone just waiting. His smile was gone and his gray eyes scanned my face. I could feel my heart beating. I wanted to say something, but I just listened.

“If you were my son, I would have named you Dmitri. Dmitri Vargas is a power name.”

“I like it.”

 His smile returned. “That’s because it’s a power name.”