OH, THE GRAVEYARD! OH, THE GARDEN! is a compilation of the threads of my earliest artistic works, documenting my journey out of adolescence. A time where I began to reunite with my body, after psychiatric stays, childhood experiences of medical malpractice and disability. Art was my primary means of returning to myself after being estranged from so long. Beginning with pieces such as Dead Skin, which was born from the obsessive compulsive preoccupation with checking my memories, going through old pictures and diaries all day and night, in order to prove myself alive, and prove that my life happened, and ending with a piece such as Symbiosis, a piece that was born from a desire to move forward, a desire to begin expressing myself freely, and ultimately connecting with something greater than myself. OH, THE GRAVEYARD! OH, THE GARDEN! documents both my evolution as an artist as well as the beginnings of a personal metamorphosis.
18×24. Acrylic on canvas. 2019.
There are rotted remnants
of figs, blueberries, plums,
a feast of fruits
returning to green.
I am trying to wiggle out the weeds,
intertwined with this grass,
to let myself surrender in this garden,
thoroughly damaged,
littered with dried up decaying flowers,
Why would anyone wish to renovate this garden?
I am unable to hold up the ground as it shatters
(Is there no redemption for these ruins?)
11.5×16. Acrylic on canvas. 2020.
Last year I dreamt I pulled
pounds and pounds of tar
from inside of me.
In the first dream,
I found a black stem
poking out of my palm,
interwoven with my veins.
I pulled it out,
walking beneath a bridge,
unraveling myself.
I have always held
more than my
arms could carry;
I would always
peel off my shed,
gather it—collect it,
and stack each bit
of dead skin
on top of the last,
as if I could birth new life
into fossilized fragments
of what was already
cemented
in time.
18×24. Acrylic on canvas. 2021.
If I encompass a transparent shell,
Where does my authority reside?
Within the mirror is an image of
psychic appeal birthed on my axis,
a purple scorpion peeled
through my protoplasm,
inciting noise reminiscent
of a negligence born nocturnal rupture
of stings,
of allusions that shatter.
The lack thereof is alarming;
yet the axis always tips.
8×24. Acrylic on canvas. 2021.
There is a noise, a whisper, a song,
an unbearable ringing in my ears.
You wield a weapon,
bare your arms,
lay down the sword.
For I am not fit,
to spar anymore.
This morning I woke up,
wrist locked, legs numb
in a haze of disjointed limbs
and sleep deprivation.
But as the sun rises
I wash away stamps of
color on my face,
with deep breathes,
unsteady heartbeats.
I want to raise a glass
to the portrait of vulnerability
I painted last night, with
bloodshot eyes under
moonlight.
I should not exchange secrets
with the sunrise.
18×24. Oil on canvas. 2022.
Sitting outside on the porch at night
is an auto-romantic sort of intimacy.
I fell in love with the sky.
I could look over at a cloud,
stretch myself outwards,
without even lifting my arm,
closed up from creaky joints.
Thunder strikes, I close my eyes,
exercise my ability
to stretch myself beyond,
I let myself drift outwards onto the moon,
sit there for a few moments,
looking down on myself,
with a blanket around my shoulders,
gazing up at clouds. My mouth tastes like chamomile.
I cannot gauge the size of my skin from this angle.
When I open my eyes,
and crawl off the moon.
I return to an unilluminated
patch of cement, where the street
lights had already turned off
and I return to
a moment where I am
reintroduced to Saturn
and their lessons
of time
If I focused hard enough I could peak
through raindrops,
to see Saturn for myself.
Or maybe extend my throat,
mouth open wide
and speak with thunder.
to kill Kronos,
close my eyes,
direct lightning towards
the center-point of a storm.
Striking him to the tick of the clock that
shuts off the streetlights at a certain hour.
Oh, to be at the whim of forces much greater than I!
(…but your body ticks, creaks and thunders too
your heart beats to an electrical timer,
moving to the signals you send and if you stand for too long,
your legs snap. during a brief moment
of restrained mobility your bones crack
to the sound of thunder)
28×28. Oil on canvas. 2023.
I used to want to be a tree, firmly planted, roots weaving themselves around one another, speaking effortlessly and silently. I remember one night, I sobbed and sobbed and begged for the universe to turn me into a tree. The desperate pleas to turn flesh to wood was the backbone of my teen melodrama. I wished to be strong, solid, sturdy; I wished to be wise.
Truthfully I do not know if I could survive planted in place. I believe I would learn to survive in any conditions that come since that is the only option, but if I was embedded into dirt, sprouting up and up for centuries, extending myself above and below the ground, never leaving one particular spot, would there be more or less of an “I” to survive? Would I find myself reunited with a patience I did not know I had? Would I be liberated? Does freedom define itself subtly? Through the ability to sit still as snow coats your branches without growing demoralized? Does freedom reside in not the acquisition of power but the absence of the pursuit?
My leaves could carry themselves wherever they pleased when autumn would arrive. Centuries would pass and I would remain in a singular spot. I am not sure if I am cut out to be a tree. However, there is much to be learned from trees. I could listen. I could learn without skinning myself alive and sticking tree bark to my battered bones—
There have been times when my hands hung heavily by my side and I marched towards subway stations, school yards, moving forward as if nothing was out of the ordinary. On most days, until someone would let their alarm bells ring out with a gasp, I would forget about the blood stuck to my skin, of my hands stained red from soap, and my hands stained red from repetition.
So I took my bloody hands, kneeled down on bloody knees and I returned to a garden, where grass was growing in the very place I claimed to be beyond redemption.
(nothing needs to be bought back)
My wrists crack as I crawl and I feel shreds of dirt burrowing beneath my nail-beds.
I sit beside a tree and take note of sap seeping out of holes in the bark, while I peel off bloody knuckles and throw the bones in dirt besides an abundance of earthworms and arachnids. Awestruck, I plead for my place in the ecosystem, making the choice to rest wounded hands in the resin, sinking into the skin it only begins to close up.
In exchange for medicine, symbiosis, I must integrate— a process that begins with pitch pine instructing me to take a deep breath, to sit quietly and listen to the resonance of crickets, the resonance of droplets of blood cascading onto a forest floor.
Despite a stinging sensation, my knuckles once overrun by deep gashes, now reveal nothing more than shallow slits and indentations with pitch pine resin seeping out. I place vegetable scraps at the base of the tree’s roots, remembering once more the existence of uses for dead skin and vegetable scraps far beyond my comprehension.
Remembering again, through perceptual abnormalities of an ever-evolving occipital lobe, I merge with the wonder of what has been sown and transformed. However, in the center of becoming a noise averts my attention elsewhere (for a moment).
I look forward, locking eyes with a squirrel as it gnaws away at a pinecone. Startled by the sensation of my eyes, the squirrel freezes.
Making a decision once more, I close my eyes and sit quietly in an attempt to inform the squirrel that I am not a threat. In the silence, the squirrel accepts my presence; it continues to nibble at its dinner, as if my eyes and I were not even there.
So, I look to my left to see an acorn, tinged with dried stains of blood that once dripped out of my knuckles. I remember once more, my hand is red as I pour out
even blood outside the body must move forward and settle into a heart somewheres,
where it shall swirl outwards and back into itself.
A spider sits atop the acorn, passing through on a march towards the center of the tree-trunk. With my right I hand reach over and let the spider use my arm as a bridge away from the acorn. It walks over and away; eight legs carrying it towards the hole on the side of this pitch pine tree where sap still resides.
In light of my ever enduring inquisition, I place the blood stained acorn on the back of my tongue. Swallowing specks of dirt as they slide down my throat,
I remember yet again, accessing information encased in microbiotic specks,
I understand the spider.
I understand the squirrel.
There is a taste on my tongue, flavor profile something between nutty and primal— something free.
belle judy 