in love with a (strict machine)

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Seven Thatcher,

Allow me to get all gracious thanks out of the way first. I'm absolutely flattered that you took the time to read the article. You've been a huge influence on my early work, and are a continuing influence on the latest. If you'd like, I could send some sketches I've done for pieces based on your artwork. Is that terribly gauche?

To answer your question, yes, it was a real train in Grand Central Station that they took that picture in. We were all shuffled all the way to the back, and they didn't even let me wear my own clothes. You'd think they'd leave the wardrobe up to the designer, but apparently not. I've sadly never had my palm read, nor been to London, but maybe someday. What did the blind woman say your palm said?

I love industrial metals. I do prefer the industrial revolution, however.

-Lucy

PS - I've never addressed a letter to Greece before.

[star studded]

Seven Thatcher,

Usually I'd lament about the weather, but I'd be lying. I love rainstorms, preferably ones that include thunder and lightning and flash flood warnings on my television. Plus, maybe the letter is a reflection too. Writing is like a big game of telephone, and the end result is never as pristine as the initial message.

In attempting not to be flattered, I've stuck the sketches in this big brown envelope with the letter. Hopefully the rain has let up by the time this gets to the island, so the pastel doesn't smudge and run all over the place. Or maybe, hopefully it's still raning, since you seem to like my work best after it's been destroyed. Maybe you can make something out of them, like you said. We'll co-parent a piece of art.

The photoshoot wasn't that bad, but I feel the same way about clothes. The separation of self made perfect sense. Unless you personally pick them out yourself, I think clothes have very little meaning. Costumes, or uniforms have always made me worried, just because they clump people in, close them up, mash them all into one big smear of monochrome. As risque sounding as this is, what are you wearing?

I'll get my palm read the next time I'm above Avenue D. I'll go to London after the fall show. Maybe. London's full of bombs right now, and underground explosions. I hope all is steady in Greece.

I can't wait to see what's coming in the mail. I've started new sketches. I haven't sketched in weeks.

-Lucy

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Seven Thatcher,

I don't know why I have the compulsion to write about this, but this morning I saw a bug that had to be as long as my pinky, with billions of little legs, running at full speed across my new hardwood floor. I say new, because I've just moved into this place, not because I had the whole thing refloored. My point is, if I have one, that it was the most hilarious thing, but it also scared the hell out of me. It looked like a little person, running as fast as it could, flailing arms and screaming, away from some impending danger. That's the funny part. I don't know what the scary part about it was, but I ended up standing on a chair and shouting for help, even though I live alone. I wonder what makes us do that. What inspires those sorts of reactions?

Maybe that has to do a lot with other things. Movies, books, television, art, fashion, and they either make you stand on a chair and scream, or laugh your head off. I want to make a garment that terrifies people and makes them laugh all at once. Could I handle my work being laughed at though? Even if that was my intention, of course. Maybe I'll just work on something to terrify first.

I think I might have meant when you were reading, or when you sat down to write again, but as a whole works too. I have a thing for rifling through people's closets to see what they wear, if I can get close enough to their closet, and since yours is time zones and airfare away, that was as close as I could get. I'd tell you what I think your wardrobe says about you, but I don't want to give away my dark, black secrets.

Sadly, yes, London has gone through some ugly attacks in the past weeks. Be lucky we're both far from them. I've always wanted to visit Amsterdam, too! In fact, there are plenty of places I'd love to go if I had the time and the will and all of that. I've only ever been to Rome, and to the other side of the United States. I feel so sheltered, though hopefully I don't act it. Congratulations on your godson! Stellan is a beautiful name. It makes me think of constellations. Stencils in the sky. I just bought a baby name book of my own. I think I might be jumping the gun, however. Maybe someday I'll go visit your friends. I seem to say that a lot. Maybe someday...

Your package arrived at the store after I left today. I'm going to go in and attack it tomorrow.

Enjoy your mud.

-Lucy

[star studded]

Seven Thatcher,

I don't think there's much scary about moving into a place by yourself. I missed the city. I lived in it for a long time, and then I moved just outside of it, and it made me feel out of place. I think that was more the situation than the place, however. I felt for awhile that I was wearing someone else's clothes. That whole sense of not being yourself, or trying very hard to be something you aren't. Which isn't to say that I couldn't be that thing. Just not at that time. Or in that godawful place. The city swallowed me whole when I moved back though, and I enjoyed it. It's strange. Parts of it are dusty and rubble-filled and in ruins and parts of it are stockpiled with suits and pristine glass buildings and smooth steel and all of that. But everyone's making noise, everyone's always chattering. I like noise. But no more than I like quiet. New York, New York. City that never shuts up.

I didn't mean to be unfair when I said that I was going to keep what I thought your wardrobe said about you to myself. I just figured you already knew. I imagine you as a machine. Something teriffically wired, complex and maze-like, but every output is essentially simple, even if not to the naked eye. Simple clothes with accidental personalized markings. A tear. A smear. That black line of paint across white cotton.

No more maybes. Perhaps you're right. I'll go to Amsterdam someday. As soon as I have the money and the time and the means, it will be the first thing on my list. I'll wander the streets and send all of my friends in New York cryptic postcards. I'll send you one, too. Something sketched out quickly on the back. No signature. You'll just know it's me. Because how could you possibly forget?

Your gift is beautiful. I put it in a place where it can catch the sun and shine, like you said. Thank you.

-Lucy

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Seven,

I'm still trying to figure that out. I know who I am not, though. I am not built for the suburbs. I think I could either live in the most sardine-packed city, or the most remote island, or on a gorgeous bluff somewhere overlooking stretching seas. But nowhere with the trees all cut down and the streets named after them. I think I'm confusing. A barrier. Or a bridge. Sometimes I feel like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy, all fuzzy and the quality dumbed down, but that's usually just on bad days. On good days I am sharp as a fabric pin. If my clothes could talk, they'd call me indecisive. What would they call you?

Secrets can be wonderful if they aren't the sort that, once you uncover them, they completely destroy you. Or maybe those secrets are wonderful if the destruction is necessary. Because anything you knock down, you have the power to rebuild better and more true to form. At least, that's what I like to think. I have such a romanticized view of cyclic things, starting over, rebirth, even when I'm cursing my own need to do it.

Enclosed, is a postcard with a random sketch on it. I don't really even know what it is. It looks a little bit like the insides of a computer if you hold it right, but i think if you flip it around, it looks a little like a robotic animal. It's not from Amsterdam, but maybe it can hold you over until I get there. What are you going to do with your television after you take it apart?

-Lucy

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Seven,

Do you like it there? You must, at least a little, or you'd just move, I'd assume. Unless there's something keeping you there. You're teaching, aren't you? I read a little snippet awhile back in the Village Voice. Sculpture, correct? A good friend of mine is/was an English professor at New York University. How is that? Do you enjoy working with students? I think I would be an awful teacher. I'm too critical of my own work to be gentle with other people's. Scratch that. I'm just critical in general. Also, I don't think you're a ghost. And if anyone is intruding, it's them. You do live there, after all. Maybe your perfect original self is the real ghost.

I took some instant polaroids of myself, so I apologize if the quality is shit. I don't trust anything digital. I like the process of developing something, even if it's all done chemically within the picture itself. I threw in five, because maybe I'm a little vain and like taking pictures of myself. You can pick and choose. I'd be honored if you did a portrait, of course. Not only would it feed my ego, but no one's ever done a potrait of me. Not even one of those carnival caricatures.

I have an idea for a new gown. Hope all is well in Greece.

-Lucy

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Seven,

Greece, Amsterdam, Cambodia, Thailand, New York. I'm keeping a running list of all of the exotic (and not so exotic) places that you've mentioned in your letters. They're all so romantic-sounding, like fuzzy edged, thick smelling pages in history books. Just discussing them makes me want to uproot and take off. I've always wondered what that would be like to just disappear for awhile, take flight, do what I want, and then wash back up on shore and say nothing. I am very good at acting like nothing ever happened. As for spirituality, I suppose I don't have much to say about it. It interests me, but I've never found a fitting place for it. I'm a non-practicing Jew.

You sleep in a hammock and eat peanut butter? That's so odd, considering I've been craving peanut butter for about a week now. I slice up apples and cover them in it, or fill celery stalks with it and put little raisins on them like I'm in kindergarten again. I'm sure your students, or your fans, or people who just appreciate your work, would find little pieces like that about your life very interesting. They'd be looking for where it factored into your work, though. We all have our own idiosyncracies. Once, I put a sewing needle straight through my finger while stitching together a piece on my machine. The material was crawling along, and then the needle just crashed through. My fingernail still has a weird, warped line, right down the middle. I guess that corroborates your comment about asymmetricality. We're all asymmetrical though. One hand is always bigger than the other, one foot. I just happen to be a little more pronounced, I suppose.

Thank you for the compliment (?), however. It was the most original I've heard. You know, the only time I've ever seen you was a picture in the rags, way back when. The details are fuzzy now. Do you avoid cameras? Are you afraid they steal pieces of your soul?

Lucy

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Seven,

I imagine you've traveled alot. Or at least, lived in several places that weren't your run of the mill, banal suburban neighborhood. You're travel-jaded. But that's alright. I'll be excited enough for the both of us. You didn't kill the romance in travel for me. I'll be a total tourist, with the big floppy hats and the camera around my neck.

Escape artistry is definitely my cup of tea, however. I want to perfect the art of disappearing. I already did a nice job of it. The 'for sale' sign up outside of my old house is a testament to that, I think. However, I've got a whole six and a half months left before I can go travel-crazy. Maybe I'll just take a trip upstate to somwhere wooded and remote. I'll perch, kick up my heels and create for awhile. Alone. I want so badly to be alone, but at the same time I'm completely petrified of it.

Do you eat peanut butter on things? Or just straight from the jar? Variety is the spice of life, you know.

Your mirror sounds really interesting. Is it old? My nail just looks a little warped. Most of the time I keep it covered in polish. I wear lots of bracelets on my left wrist most of the time. I have a lot of strange imperfections. One of my eyes is lazy. I'm bowlegged. I'm a mess.

Thank you for the compliment, then. And remember: no one can steal your soul unless you hand over the pieces willingly.

-Lucy

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ July 23, 2005 01:26 AM: Message edited by: godawful champagne ]</font>

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Seven,

Maybe it's not being jaded. Maybe you're right, it's just another way of life, unlike my own. It's yours, and therefore it's completely separated from what's mine. Unless you believe in the interconnectivity of everything. Maybe that would make more sense, considering the way I view the recycling of art and vision, your things into my things, my things into your things. I'm sorry if I stole anything of yours, excitement or otherwise.

I want to be alone because I don't want to be pampered and consoled. I don't want to be ushered nicely through a terrible time. I want to be angry and I want to break things and I want to make drawings that no one finds attractive but me. I started making the skeleton of this gown, with a big slash across the boddess that I'm going to stich stiff taffeta and chiffon against, in an attempt to look like it's all coming out from the inside. I do things that people frown upon when I'm alone. And that's why I prefer to be in good company. Or maybe I just have made a habit out of contradicting myself.

Formal meals are nothing to write home about. Highly overrated. My meals lately have been fruit and some sort of topping. Strawberries and whipped cream, apples and peanut butter, etc...

Thank you for granting me the thrill of movement and location change. But I am a mess. We all are. Even you, sometimes, maybe. Despite being a machine.

Oh, look what I found:

automatism (n.) - a theory that views the body as a machine and consciousness as a noncontrolling adjunct of the body; Suspension of the conscious mind to release subconscious images; The surrealist trend towards spontaneity and intuition.

Thought that might interest you.

Lucy

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Seven,

I did get your sketches. They weren't damaged. At least, not by the post. They were damaged, I think. Or they showed some damage. I am damage. I think. I like it that way. These sentences are so short I feel like I need to write one that has a few clauses and some extemporaneous punctuation. God. But yes, they were effective and emotive and beautiful and horrific all at once. I don't know what to say but thank you.

To answer your question, I don't know if I'm going through a terrible time. All time is terrible time. Or maybe this is the first good time I've had in awhile, I just don't know how to enjoy it, or experience it. I'm in transition. Hence the new apartment, the new life, the sloughing off of ideals, the philosophy. I'm not always like this. But maybe I can be. Maybe I want to be.

Don't even apologize for the length of your letters. I'm lucky enough that you're still writing. Please write again.

I hope you're well.

The ________,
Lucy