Absorbed Words

I wrote a letter recently to an artistic friend of mine in the hopes that he would join me in an imaginative Art adventure. I had a spark and I was pumped to share. I spilled my beans and waited for a response and alas, he's too busy and can't partake in my creative concept right now. Bummer. So I went home and grumbled for a while and then thought....what the heck! I can do this art project with ANYONE! And EVERYONE! or NO ONE! It doesn't just have to dissipate because he's too busy with his own artistic visions. It's whatever it wants to be, and isn't that what art is all about after all?  Whoa, didn't mean to get all existential on you there. So, here is a proposal to all of you, whoever you are, in the interest of art's sake and all that it encompasses. Follow along, if you will.....

Since I was a kid, I have written things that I need to remember on my hand. I used to write them on the palm of my hand but over the course of the day, washing my hands, (wait, I NEVER washed my hands which is the reason why I was never sick as a kid) sweating and so forth, the words that I would write would fade away. So, instead, I started writing on the top of my hand. That way, I could see the words and they didn’t get washed off. Somehow I was capable of only washing the insides of my hands, which is a fantastic talent to master. 

 Over the years, I have been constantly teased, chastised and questioned on both the reason why I wouldn’t just use a piece of paper as well as what the words actually meant. I found both forms of questioning quite personal, considering that the words were an extraction from my mind and a mental connection of some form to my own personal thoughts, even if in a rather mundane way. And if I thought that a piece of paper would have solved the problem, I would have done so originally, so the question is offensive in that it questions my mental capacity. 

Beyond the simple social interaction that writing on the hand conjures, there is also the concept of memory that is connected to writing. I try to condense a concept as much as possible so that it still makes sense to me, and will trigger my thoughts, without having to write too much on my hand. There have been times where my hand has been covered in words, and there have also been times when I don’t understand what I have written and it either comes back to me at a time of deep rest, or subconscious thought, or not at all and I am left simply with a random word that has absorbed into my skin. 

That brings me to my next thought; absorption. I have been writing on my hand for at least 30 years, I figure, having my first conscious memory of doing so when I was around eight. The only thing I can think of is that someone told me to write it on my hand, and I thought it was ingenious. Or perhaps it was just a voice in my head because I used to do really weird things like chew a pencil right down to the graphite and had wood and paint chips literally floating around in my mouth. I have no recollection of anyone telling me to do so; it was a self directed habit. Alas, I have used ball point pens of all sorts, as well as Sharpie markers. Permanent ink has been soaking into my skin for a long time. I’ve been literally absorbing these words both mentally and physically.

So with those concepts in your mind, I propose that every time I write something on my hand, I post those words to you to do with them as you wish, considering concepts such as social interaction, memory triggers, and absorption.  I will use my friend Harriet's suggestion, and post them on Twitter. (Twitter is so ridiculous that I might as well write random words that will seem senseless to everyone on there anyway.) I'll post my Twitter link at the end of this blog. (I also learned in the process of figuring out Twitter that after you have posted something, it's called "tweeting", not "twitting" or worse yet, "twatting"....Yes, I have learned.) The project would be random, yet perpetual, albeit timely (I do have a feeling that this project does have the ability to go on for the rest of my life while I still have hands and markers are still available). I too will do the project and then we can compare notes in a year? Two years? It will take a while for the project to work, as I never do know when I am going to need to write something down. I do have concerns that my hand writing will be contrived now, but then I realize that it is because of my lack of short term memory that I have been doing this for the last 30 years anyway. So it has been contrived and will continue to be. 

My personal approach to the project is once I have written something on my hand I will go home and write it on a pair of jeans that I have in my studio. I like the idea of the ink absorbing into the fibers of the denim. It bleeds a little bit, just like the ink bleeds when it settles into my skin.The words will be written randomly and not in order. I am also going to attempt to document what people say to me when I write on my hands. My nephew's words were the first to be documented, when he came up to me and said, "You're not supposed to write on yourself." (I look forward to the conversation he and I can have when he's a bit older about how people have been ritualistically and ceremonially "writing on their hands" since the beginning of time. He's a budding artist and am surprised that he hasn't coated himself in markers yet. My son was multi-coloured any chance I gave him when he was a toddler. He was always naked and always had a marker in his hand. *sigh*)

And I also have intentions of wearing the word covered jeans as I would any other pair of jeans and am curious of the conversations that will ensue not only with my inquisitive nephew, but with others as well. Words stimulate words. 

I don't know why I have the urge to do this. I have no idea why after all of these years, seeing the words "EGGS" and "stapler" written on my hand suddenly seemed so poignant. The mind is a funny thing and I'm just following this concept for a while with curiosity and interest in the direction it may take. Are you game to join me? 

Here's the link to my Twitter account....Man, I can't believe I have a Twitter account.