Ordinary Notes Multiply

January 19, 2024 Elizabeth Arzani

Christina Sharpe wrote the words: these ordinary notes multiply.

In a series of 248 notes, which could also be calculated as 261 notes if you were to count her selection of self titled beauty-everyday photographs as each holding a note of their own. She describes her photography as a collection of “flowers, trees, the light, clouds, the sky, moss, water, many things, in order to try to insist beauty into [her] head and into the world.” These notes as photographs appear as the ending, concluding the section: viii. to notice or observe with care.

A pile of books read and notes taken while snowed in over the weekend.

Sharpe’s collection of words and photographs, a body of observations with care, form the book, Ordinary Notes, published last year in April 2023.

In an interview with Jenna Wortham for The New York Times Magazine article, “The Woman Shaping a Generation of Black Thought,” Sharpe asks “how do we find the words and grammars we can live in?”

A screenshot from the tab I’ve kept open, so I don’t lose access by hitting my limited free reading quota. (A note about pay walls).

Sharpe is poignantly talking, writing, and living an accumulation of notes that shape Black life and ways of Black being. And as a white woman it is important that I take notes.

I find her notes, vital, historical— gut punching and painful. They are persevering notes mixed with joy, nostalgia, and celebration. Heart warming notes on love and the hands that hold them. Here, collecting, recording, listing, and photographing take alternating forms of care, grief, and loss, but make visible beauty as a method.

“I’ve been thinking about what beauty as a method might mean or do: what it might break open, rupture, make possible and impossible”

Note 51, page 79

Last weekend and continuing into this week, a beautiful blanket of snow, but mostly sinister ice covered up the city of Portland (OR). Powerful gusts of wind knocked down trees and power lines; rendering it impossible, rather dangerous and irresponsible to keep the gallery and my two-person exhibition with Renee Couture open for business as usual.

Installation view of *Covered Up in Dailiness,* featuring Elizabeth Arzani and Renee Couture, January 2024, documentation by Marcio Gallucci Studios

The irony of a show with a title, Covered Up in Dailiness, also becoming obscured and covered up by something as daily as weather in the winter was not lost on me.

Covered up in snow, Saturday, January 13th 2024

Instead of gallery sitting, I spent the weekend under blankets, returning to Renee Gladman’s book, Calamities. Where I began each of her essays with her repeated phrase, I began the day with.

I begin (most) of my days with writing in the form of a list of connected or disparate thoughts—quickly scribbled into somewhat legible notes.

“I began the day having given myself the task of compiling a list. I wanted to see whether I could trace all the problems—large and small…rather I wanted to document the questions that led to writing.”
Calamities, page 5

It was this time last year that I began each day of January focusing on (w)hole studies; researching relationships between text and clay—the project of an artist residency. As part of this study, I took a years worth of accumulated notes, and curiously reviewed what happens in a year that I deemed worthy of noting.

What didn’t I note?

redacted notes - continued edited copy.jpg

I wondered, if it was possible to read my notes in a new way? Would I be able to find anything hidden inside? Did my ordinary notes multiply?

Looking for holes, I began line by line, selecting words in the order in which they appeared on the page. Words revealed against their redacted sentences shape-shifted the past in the present, forming a collection of erasure poems.

Detail of *Monday (to admit),* Elizabeth Arzani, 2023, documentation by Mario Gallucci Studios

There is no one way to create an erasure poem. Erin Dorney presents: crossout, computer, cut out, covered up, retyped and visual as variations on form categorized in the blog post,“6 Styles of Erasure Poetry.”

Presented in my exhibition with Couture, I used screen printing, collage, and hand-built ceramics as methods to cross out, cut out, cover up, rewrite, reprint, remold and make visible the beauty of a line.

The morning the show opened, I spent some time covered up in my own observations.

January 6th 9:02 am, I noted:

pipes covering tree roots (memories of entanglement)
wire wrapped tubes covering absence (spray painted blue)
a tree stump also covered blue (found chopped and discarded at a neighbor’s curb)
letters covering shelves in small nooks and crannies, spilling out onto the floor (where do our words go when they are lost?)
branches turned upside down in the shelf (a stomach, an inside suspended, a limbo, reaching, wanting, yearning for touch—to take root)

Notes (continued):

flattened words covered in layers, repeated out of order (whispered underneath, softly, asking a memory to remember, to hold it dear)

three dimensional words covered in fragments, disintegrating, cracking, illegible (words that ask you to read by walking around them)
pedestals covered in domesticity, furniture holding a capsule of stories shelved (recycled souvenirs sentimental to former selves)
phrases repeated cover up time, reflect a time, diminish time, question time, talk to time (the time I cried while I blow dried my hair, looking in the mirror, I saw my tears evaporate from my cheeks)
grief circulating time and mincing words, slipping in and out of a room subtly, abruptly, loudly (and quietly)
color painted over texture covering the simultaneity of a day filled with multitudes

I noted Couture’s work after viewing it in person for the first time:

structures held together by single screws (is this motherhood?)
skeletal ladders, posts, boxes without walls, stairs without steps (interior outlines of a home holding a body )
a large body of small undulating, hypnotic, mesmerizing lines (mediations of clouds, the sea, the sky above and fields on fields on fields below)
moments of time (encapsulating thin paper, draped, exhausted, held on by t-pins)
the color of prescription pills (pale pinks, minty greens, sky blues)
faces obscured in embrace (heads on a pillow, legs in the bath or cheeks kissed)
collaboration of marks (the complexity of mother and daughter)

While I was still making the work for this exhibition, I was reading, Motherhood, by Sheila Heti. Grateful for a book about not knowing if you want to be a mom, written by a childless woman in her late 30s. This year I go from being a childless woman in my mid 30s to a woman in my late(r) 30s.

Heti begins her book with a note about how “flipping three coins is a technique used by people who consult the I Ching, a divination system that originated in China over three thousand years ago. Kings used it in times of war, and regular people used it to help them with life problems.”

*Flipping three coins on a desk. Two or three heads—yes. Two or three tails—no.*

Does it really matter how I’m feeling?
no
No, no I didn’t think so. So many feelings in a day…What’s a better thing to steer your life by? Your values?
yes
Your plans for the future?
no
Your artistic goals?
no
The things the people around you need—I mean, the things the people you love need?
yes
Security?
no
Adventure?
no
Whatever seems to confer soul, depth and development?
no
Whatever seems to bring happiness?
yes
Motherhood, page 11-12

Written on Wednesday, December 13th 7:57am:

Motherhood as a theme keeps resurfacing. Within twelve days of each other, two friends in their thirties, both living in a different country than me, gave birth. While here, in the same city as me, another friend in their thirties was diagnosed with cervical cancer and had a radical hysterectomy. I wrote these notes down the morning before I went to see her in the hospital, still questioning what brings me happiness.

I take pictures of the sky and color of leaves on the days when my friends give birth and I can’t be there. (Polaroids above are for Jil & Samuel)

Couture’s work pulls from the many (small, big) moments of motherhood, with its romantic imagery and contradicting reality. Where time is held together by bursts of flimsy starts and abrupt stops.

Days swallowed whole, filled with lines that have neither a beginning nor an end—leaving only a brief space in-between, a hole to pause and hear the sound of a deep breath: inhale, exhale. Repeat.

Installation view, *Covered Up in Dailiness,* Elizabeth Arzani and Renee Couture, Carnation Contemporary, January 2024, documentation by Mario Gallucci Studios

Motherhood or not, both our repetitive routines and patterns comment on our respective everyday, noting the complexity of loving and wanting to be loved in return.

And while the gallery remained closed, I finished all three books.

Noted & underlined:

time we are seeing
the soul of time
so many feelings in a day
the cause of the stars in the sky
a secret I keep from myself
keen to kill an afternoon
lay your hands on reality
worries over paths not taken
a loose ends feeling
hiding in your voice
catching a breath
not there
nooks and crannies of the soul
there is never an end to holding
the pain that opens the door

(Heti)

//

an empty flaming room
two words at a time
closed quotes
i opened the quotes again
map a problem of space
can you translate problems into lines
something without edges
a picture-feeling
to think in paragraphs with a single sentence
the shadows said so
writing that also drew
un-alphabetic
endmatter

(Gladman)

///

held by a note
note to take hold
i felt i knew it
wounding work
listen to what i did not say
this telling
try daily
the space of weeks
hidden in air
a different note
gesture: a bodily grammer
not not sadness
dear, dearer still
time and untimes
(Sharpe)

Weather permitting, the gallery will be open the last two weekends of January and by appointment. We will also be giving an artist talk, moderated by Jay Ponteri on Saturday, Janaury 27th at 1pm. Please join us for this in person, free event.

And thanks to Alan Viramontes, if you missed the artist talk, you can watch the recording below.

What is covered up in your dailiness?

Unpacking & Color Coding

December 25, 2020 Elizabeth Arzani

On my last class of my first semester of grad school, I heard the same phrase (in so many different words) that I’ve heard all term, “I feel sorry for how robbed you are of this experience.”

When contradictory feelings overlap

As I write this I’m looking through my collection of polaroids. It is Christmas and there are only 6 days left of 2020. I am still unpacking (in all of the literal and figurative ways you can imagine) from both an international move last summer and the many tragedies of this infamous year.

These polaroids, a timeline of: pictures, portraits and portals are a color code of what can be pictured and not pictured.

Yes, you should always have multiple pairs of scissors

Mary Ruefle color codes sadness in her book, “My Private Property.” Blue, purple, gray, black, green, yellow, orange, red, brown, pink, white. In no particular order they are each their own sadness.

Gray sadness is the sadness of paper clips and rubber bands, of rain and squirrels and chewing gum, ointments and unguents and movie theatres. Gray sadness is the most common of all sadnesses, it is the saddness of sand in the desert and sand on the beach, the sadness of keys in a pocket, cans on a shelf, hair in a comb, dry-cleaning, and raisins. Gray sadness is beautiful, but not to be confused with the beauty of blue sadness, which is irreplaceable. Sad to say, gray sadness is replaceable, it can be replaced daily, it is the sadness of a melting snowman in a snowstorm.
p. 46, Mary Ruefle, “My Private Property”

Yet (spoiler alert) hidden in the last sentence of the last page under acknowledgements, Ruefle also notes, very slyly, that the word happiness can be substituted for the word sadness and nothing changes.

How does this work?

Is gray sadness the same as gray happiness?

I’ll try.

Gray happiness is the same sadness as an invisible horizon line- sea becoming sky and sky becoming sea. It is ferris wheels on rainy days and second hand buildings selling second hand chances. It is the questions you ask yourself when you are watching strangers shop. Which people donate the chances and which people take them? Gray sadness is the same happiness as the gate blocking your view of the city at the top of the historical Rundetaarn (round tower) observatory.

It is the gray patch of paint used to hide graffiti that resembles the shape of a rectangle, but will never be a true rectangle and the wall will never be the way it was before. Gray happiness is the same sadness of the trick of mirrors reflecting the clouds as if they were living inside a room for Magritte, but knowing the truth of it is that they are always out of reach. Gray happiness is the same sadness as Notre Dame before her fire.

According to Ruefle these gray feelings are replaceable. So what makes blue feelings so irreplaceable?

Blue excerpts from Why Art? by Eleanor Davis — Blue excerpts from *Why Art?* by Eleanor Davis

I’ve already mentioned in Parisian Doors & Color Histories, how Maggie Nelson wrote an entire book, “Bluets,” dedicated to the color blue. For just under 100 pages, Nelson’s prose chart literary histories and relationships in objects, locations and songs in a numbered list from 1 - 240.

My collection of blues are my own snapshots. You see the clouds parting above the tiled roof, but I don’t expect you to know about the argument that was building behind it or the quality of the quiche lorraine and conversation below the umbrella in a crowded courtyard. The same way you wouldn’t have guessed that a blue box of matching pots and pans was my clue to finding my way back from a detour on a cold day lost in Copenhagen.

Blue is the repetition of the striped portrait in Trier years after having painted a portrait of the same person wearing stripes, sitting in a striped chair in the suburbs of Mint Hill, North Carolina. Or the crisp air of fresh snow in my old neighborhood in Gonderange, one of the few places I have lived where you still have to go to work on a snow day.

It is the reflection of water underneath Lorenzo Quinn’s Building Bridges, (2019) sculpture of oversized pairs of hands arching over the Arsenale’s waterway in Venice and the icy cold temperature of the lake after sweating from hiking only halfway up a mountain in Switzerland.

Blue is walking on the land of past tragedies now presented as painted bridges between one’s own legs or labyrinths of sorrow encased in cement columns stretched out for as far as you can see. It is in the fragile tension of “elemental choreography of aerial theatre” presented in Tomás Saraceno’s Disappearance of Clouds, (2019) and is the unexpected hiss of a swimming swan or the amount of trinkets you can shove under a tent at a Sunday flea market in Vienna.

Blue is wearing out your shoes to finally reach the base of the Eiffel Tower and wishing you could have spent more time in Aldo Rossi’s domed (space ship) tower at the Bonnefantenmusem on your Tuesday afternoon.

Black happiness can be found in a collection of silhouettes, outlining horizon lines, bridges, Cologne’s famous gothic cathedral and the Parisian clock at the Musée d’Orsay. They are shadows dancing with time. What sound might they make?

Poet & painter, Etel Adnan’s most recent book, “Shifting the Silence,” talks about shadows, sounds and time.

“Yes. The shifting, after the return of the tide, and my own. A question rushes out of the stillness, and then advances an inch at a time: has this day ever been before, or has it risen from the shallows, from a line, a sound?
…A particular somnolence takes hold of you when the shadows start growing. Then, the heart creates different beats. You want to touch the leaves, look intensely at each tree. The night falls, already tired, already bare.”
-Etel Adnan, Shifting the Silence

I suppose green happiness is Middle Eastern palm trees, the Witte Huis in Rotterdam, one of the few buildings to survive the bombing of World War II and Vianden Castle, dating from the 10th century, fully restored after a long history of abandonment and ruin.

Green sadness is retired signage, the amount of time it has been since i’ve seen my sister and the city I said good bye to after almost two years in Europe.

Green happiness is the color of leaves shining in the sun, the Palmenhaus Schönbrunn greenhouse, with it’s spiral staircase and Japanese pear trees from my new backyard or the day my friends got married and having an entire vacation with my parents to myself.

Yellow happiness is the same sadness of sitting in the sun on your golden birthday drinking lemonade when a bird poops on your head. It is the reflections in the canal, umbrellas, and restaurants by the waterfront in Nyvan that provide outdoor heating and blankets or cubed buildings in Rotterdam that you can tour if you are into that sort of thing. (This was all pre-covid of course.)

Yellow happiness is the same sadness of finally meeting your friend’s baby after 9 months and only getting to know her for a day and a night. (This was not pre-union striking in France.)

Yellow sadness is the same happiness when it is your last day in France or the small town of Ptuj in Slovenia. It is touring your grandad’s 4k+ beer glass collection, knowing it is now being packed up and sold or your first (film) selfie on your fifth anniversary after eating ice cream on a not so warm day.

Yellow sadness is the same happiness of faded buildings and sunshine filtering through the Musée d’Orsay’s many windows.

While red happiness is the bustling Carmel Market in Tel Aviv, round-a-bout, center-of-the-road poppies, stripes and French bistro chairs. It is Alexander Calder’s “Eagle,” at Olympic Sculpture Park, a European motorbike and the leaning canal houses of Amsterdam.

Red happiness is house boats with jacuzzis, retro volvos, fruit stands, salvaged type, faux windmills and the last christmas we spent with the legendary Carl Holt.

Red happiness is vintage tin containers at the Waterlooplein market, red Parisian doorways and outdoor café seating (back when people used to sit close together). It is brightly painted homes in the neighborhood village, international dog-sitting in Vienna and retro Beetles that are probably really difficult to drive.

Pink sadness are cotton candy like blooms swaying in the wind on your walk home from the gynocologist. They are the lifesize dollhouses you could only admire from the sidewalk or the roses that cheered you up when you were crying in public.

Pink happiness is the Majolikahaus, designed by Otto Wagner. It is the greeting of a friendly mascaron at your doorway or the blooms of Spring matching the neighbor’s house.

Orange happiness is the Hundertwasserhaus and the rejection of straight lines, pumpkins at the Torvehallerne market, sunflower patches and golden frames next to hanging chandeliers.

Orange sadness is the color of the sky during wildfires and sculptures that die after a site specific installation ends.

While white happiness is the first snowfall in a new city, Clervaux Castle, housing the permanent exhibition, “Family of Man,” curated by Edward Steichen, Rundetaarn Tower’s many “hidey holes” and happy accidents within double exposures.

White happiness is the view from behind Mudam, touring the Ptuj Castle, new Spring blooms and finally finding the Jean Dubuffet sculpture at the Louisiana Museum Sculpture Garden - which is strategically hidden in the courtyard only accessible through the café.

White sadness is fog hiding your view of the Eiffel Tower and running out of film. It is the same happiness of finding the trailhead after getting lost on backwoods gravel roads, dodging potholes and eating a donut after hiking for seven miles.