16 June 2012

Sometimes ya just gotta bitch

West Oakland Bart Station
I've got to level with you guys.  I can't stand the Bay Area. How did I live here for so long?  Why did I like it in the first place?  I am aware that my attitude about being here is not the best, but truly, I miss my home in Berlin, my partner Robert, the Impronauts, and my friends there.  Working at the Randall Museum Summer Camp is great and it does feed a part of my soul, but evenings and weekends feel like a desolate waiting room.  I wait to go back to work.  I wait to go back home.

On Thursday morning, I woke up at 5:45 like I usually do, let the chickens out of their hutch, drank some coffee, put on my summer camp clothes and walked to the BART station.  It was surrounded by police.  One of these very unhelpful men (they were all men) told me there had been a fire and BART was closed.  "I need to get to work.  Is there a shuttle bus?" 
"No ma'am.  I don't know."
So me, totally lost in Oakland, is left spinning in circles until a really nice woman named Phoebe walks by at a fast clip and says, "I think there's a bus this way."  We walk about half a mile to a bus stop on an ugly, gray, industrial block where we wait.  A bus passes us by.  I am going to be late for the second time this week.  (The first was because I had to go to a drop-in clinic to get medicine for my seriously debilitating allergies.  The medicine worked.  I can breathe again!) A car driven by a buxom black lady with a warm face pulls up.  Her son is in the front seat.  A woman gets in.  "I've got room for two more."  She says.  Phoebe and I get in the car.  We whiz across the bridge in the carpool lane.  I get out of the car at Embarcadero Station and catch a Muni Metro to Castro Station, then walk up the hill to the Randall, only 45 minutes late.  Not bad!

BART has been repaire and I'll take it to Rockridge today so I can go grocery shopping, then get ready for my garage sale and hopefully find something good to read.  I'm am counting the days until I return...

03 June 2012

"It Gets Better" or "How I Avoided Suicide" Jeans


If you are American and you are queer, you have probably heard of itgetsbetter.org, an anti-bullying organization founded by Dan Savage.  I really like this org.  They do good work and let queer and bullied youth know that they are not alone.  I myself was severely bullied in school by my peers and sometimes my teachers.  The bullying started at a very young age.  I had mild physical disabilities that made me stand out.  When I came out as bisexual in the 10th grade, it just got worse.  I was miserable as a teen and completely self-destructive.  I could see no light at the end of the sewer drain.  Honestly, I am amazed that I survived.
Creativity has always been my savior.  I was big on embroidery, and I funneled all the unfairness, sorrow and anger I was feeling into this pair of retro bell bottom jeans.  Today, at age 36, I am a performer who is is beginning to take her visual art more seriously.

Back Pockets


 Back of Jeans


I am calling this piece the "It Gets Better" or "How I Avoided Suicide" jeans.  They are size 3/4 (I could hardly fit into them then.)
These jeans are the result of 5 years of freehand embroidery.  That's 5 years of an alternative to suicide.  Not bad.  Not bad at all!
Bidding begins at $400.  I will donate half of whatever I receive to itgetsbetter.org


Note the pink and black triangles.  Can't crush this identity, folks!
I even signed them in embroidery.  This is before I adopted the last name Rabbit.
Cunt fly and interlocking male female signs

Freedom Rings.  I used to wear the metal ones around my neck
Left Leg, Detailed photos below


 
Look at how totally psychedelic this is!  And yet it's completely not "Hippy Happy."  It's as if there's fire in there. All these carefully stitched words, "Power" with the woman symbol, "Unfair," "Unsafe," "Feel," and masked but not invisible, the word "Dyke."




01 June 2012

Oakland- Graffiti and Sculpture



Castle Snail by Leah Aripotch


This blog post is mostly pictures of street art and public sculpture, but also features smaller works by Bay Area artist S. Ratton

Metal and Ceramic works by S. Ratton

 





West Oakland

West Oakland

West Oakland


West Oakland




West Oakland



West Oakland

West Oakland

West Oakland

West Oakland

West Oakland
West Oakland
There are all these MONSTROUSLY huge sculptures by Outside of American Steel in West Oakland.  Wow.

Detail of steel sculpture






Oakland, CA, USA

West Oakland
I arrived in California two days ago and have my first dy of training for my summer camp job this evening.  I'm staying at my friend Celia's house in West Oakland, and the place is magical.  There are chickens and 2 cats.  We made a temporary room for me downstairs in the Garage, where her hair salon is eventually going to be.  Right now, I'm sitting and writing in the bright kitchen, yellow chairs, white table, turquoise cupboard and drinking coffee from Trader Joe's.
My first trip back to an American grocery store was shocking.  I spent $70, and I didn't even buy anything extravagant or fun!  I have grown too accustomed to Berlin prices.  In Berlin, I go to the Lidl or the PennyMarkt or sometime the Kaiser's, and if I buy 4 bags of stuff, it might come out to 25 or 30 €.  Food in America is expensive, people.
Walking down the street in West Oakland, I saw this on someone's garage.  The plant underneath the flag is called Nasturtium and is edible!

Also, folks are big on the small talk here, which I kind of forgot about.  You're expected to smile and say "Hi, how are you?" a lot, even if you don't have time to actively listen.  Everything here is so different to what I've gotten so used to.  The architecture, the culture, how everyone speaks English and I don't have to strain at all to understand the language around me.  Honestly, it's weird.  I am homesick for Berlin.  Coming back has made it painfully clear to me that the bay area is no longer my home.
Still, it is great to see Celia and Ra and Audrey.  I am so very excited about starting work on at summer camp on Monday! Yay for playing with kids!  Woo!  Also, there's the matter of all of my stuff.  I'm currently selling all my music, kitchen stuff and Sumsung Replenish Smartphone.  My records are quickly disappearing.  On Saturday, I'm going to my aunt and uncle's house in Berkeley to get some work clothes and see if there's anything that immediately jumps out and says, "Sell me!"
I think that books and clothes will be the most difficult to part with, though I already sold one record that was a large part of my identity for a very long time.  Strange and sort of cleansing.
I have most of the things I need in Berlin, materially, mentally and spiritually.  Still, when Celia said, "I met this girl who makes vegetable dresses and we're going to make a skirt out of plums!" It really made me miss the totally whimsical creativity that is so much the Bay Area.
I had never spent a lot of time in Oakland when I lived in San Francisco.  I went walking in West Oakland with my friend Audrey yesterday and we took a bunch of pictures.  I would like to share Oakland and San Francisco with my European friends in the same way I shared London, Berlin and Prague with my American readers.
From the other side of the pond,
-Harvey Rabbit
West Oakland
West Oakland
Celia's Backyard



Celia's Backyard
Celia's Backyard-Garden and Chicken Coop
Celia's Backyard



Celia's Backyard- The Deck
Celia's Backyard

Celia's Backyard- CHICKENS!
Celia's backyard- Fresh eggs!
Kitchen table

Celia's Kitchen

Things I'm not quite ready to deal with!