Teeth

 "Truth, it seems, is various; Truth is to be pursued with all our faculties. Are we to rule out the amusements, the tendernesses, the frivolities of frienship because we love truth? Will truth be quicker found because we stop our ears to music and drink no wine, and sleep instead of talking through the long winter's night? It is not to the cloistered disciplinarian mortifying himself in solitude that we are to turn, but to the well-sunned nature, the man who practises the art of living to the best advantage, so that nothing is stunted but some things are permanently more valuable than others." Virginia Woolf, On Not Knowing Greek, 1925.

Artist Statement:


I started a draft of this statement years ago, and keep returning to it in moments of searching for validation and at times when it feels like I have done nothing, or that my work, my life, my person is scattered and useless nonsense. So I try again to gather ink into a coherent shape, a concrete and honest truth that carries just the right amount of weight. Each time I return to this exercise it is with frustration, but perhaps I can put that down for a moment.


I am interested, as I've said before, in les affaires de la bouche, the affairs, or the business of the mouth.

It's a strange thing, no? An opening, a hole, aperture, crack, slot, slit, cleft, cranny, chink, gap, space, vent, breach, break, rent, fissure, crevice, rift, perforation, pore, an orifice of the face.
Orifice: directly from Latin orificium "an opening," literally "mouth-making," from os (oris) "mouth" + facere "make."

It takes in, drivels out, masticates, speaks, sometimes it breaths, it tastes and swallows, hopefully it kisses, and it shapes sometimes the most minute gestures of expression: the unintentional curl of the upper lip as a nostril flares in the subtle disgust you never meant to share.

What I love about this thing is that it does all of these most intriguing, enjoyable, and disgusting things with the littlest thought. In my appropriation of Heidegger's phrase, I love how "ready to hand," the mouth is.

I am, first and foremost, interested in the good life. Eudaimonia, as Aristotle called it, and over which, for all of time passed and yet to pass, humans will argue more or less civilly. We develop our lives, good or bad, in the creation of habit, that is, by taking things or actions and by practice and effort, turning them into something which is "ready-to-hand," available for use, and in relationship with us. Eventually a thing is so close to us, we cease to even acknowledge it until it is faulty. Because we operate in a world that is both changing us and being changed by each of us, we must operate on the basis of interreactivity: that whatever attention I direct within the world, is also being reflected back within me along with the attentions originating within the world, and among others. The body, yes, is a wonderful example. Most of us pay little or no attention to the body until it hurts. Some of us pay so much attention to it that it begins to hurt. Either of these are perversions of intentionality. Such modes of being divorce the world from the body and elevates one above the other, rather than allowing them to be in constant intercourse.

The useful and intimate quality of having the body, the mouth, be so ready-to-hand makes it a particularly special experiment in inverting the rays of intentionality. By practice of new shapes, sounds, and tastes, the mouth becomes a thing that is aware of me, of itself, suddenly of its environment, in a playful rather than an obsessive way.

My aim is to develop in myself a middle way: allowing my body to be a primary maker in the world, while refraining from isolating my body/myself from the world, and acknowledging, indeed, reveling in the world's making me.
One point at which the Stoics disagreed with Aristotle's philosophy of eudaimonia, was in the league of 'worldliness;' while Aristotle held that there lies value, virtue even, in health, wealth, and beauty, the Stoics flatly denied such. Often we are caught these days in a world of such disparity, values of selflessness and martyrdom are juxtaposed with enticing values of instant gratification and indulgence; we are lead then to have a constant brew of guilt bubbling on the back-burner even in the midst of something lovely (a croissant, for example), and to always harbor self-righteousness, pride, or resentment when acting stoically. It is here that I am doing my work to value enjoyment and pleasure, and to act with what Victor Frankl called responsibleness, what the Buddhists might call, "right action."

"Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness." -Frankl

My final aim and ultimate reason for this blog, is in the practice of articulation: the development of a language which works within my world and myself, which utilizes the tools available and also shapes new tools needed in describing, understanding, and knowing our lives. The lineage and legacy of philosophy and literature is great in many ways, and I am grateful for it. The available resources for women to write their lives are however limited because the language has been shaped so predominantly with the gaze cast upon us, a perversion of intentionality, ultimately objectifying, or at the very least simplifying us. We are thus left with fewer models of self conception, wherein we struggle to make sense of our lives.

Oh look at that. I slipped into the royal we. I ought to have said, more honestly, I struggle to make sense of my life.

I am interested in exploring the hidden gems of models for making sense, and in so doing, adventuring in the creation of my own. Life, that is.

living for the memoir.