reflections – audrey di mola – folkloric futurism

hello again + 2020 !!

hello out there my beauties– !! {freddie mercury said this and i literally cannot, ever, stop beginning blog posts or emails like this..} here is what i wrote to end 2019:

there are not enough words or photos to describe the decade– so i’m not even going to attempt. so many dreams made real. blessings of falling in love. even greater blessings of owning my truth in ways i never thought i would. traveling to places i never thought i’d see. reconnecting with the land, performing my own words + stories, trusting my voice enough to sing + my body enough to dance, returning to theatre, creating my first art installations, sharpie scrawling my words everywhere i went. finally having a room of my own– then moving more times than is probably healthy. reclaiming my own story, alchemizing my trauma, healing my own lineage, brushing up against death, carrying only the firelight of my heart into the deepest darkness + most harrowing threats. i am so grateful for all the people i met, all the places i shared myself + my work, the journeys that have contributed to my ultimate healing, the 4 books i self-published, the tons of shows i curated + hosted all over the city. but really. i have seen the bottom of the bottom. and the heighest fucking heights. i love my family + all those who never lost hope in me, and for me. i am my own greatest gift at the closing of this decade. my own Legend. my own Hero. where we go from here is all of my own choosing. and i couldn’t be happier– to be the sacred firekeeper for my own utterly unique + magickal blaze of a Life.

happy new year, everyone.
may you never give up on yourself.
may you remember what it feels like to wildly dream.

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and with that– may i reintroduce mySelf…

i have been creating art– writing, drawing, book-making, singing, dancing, imagining my own worlds– for as long as i can remember, expressly to make sense of my vivid mental and emotional landscapes, quite literally to survive my everyday traversal of them {map-making comes in handy}, and to bridge deeper connections to my fellow spirits + humanimals.

i started my professional career as an arts journalist + editor and grew to (re)discover my passionate sensitivity for community organizing, holding and facilitating space, and of course returning to my lifelong love of multi/cross-disciplinary performance.

my work is based at the core in communion via the written and spoken word and its theatrical vocalities– four full-length books of poetry + prose and countless live performances charged with immersive imagery, myth + spiritual dynamism; thunderously edgy, honest + rooted in reverence to the natural world.

my practice also extends always into the public sphere– to ephemeral poetry graffiti, whimsical + ritualistic art installations, and lovingly curated gatherings of creative souls, from intimate to massive, dedicated to the expression, experimentation, evolution, and enjoyment of all– both in my longtime independent practice in venues across queens + NYC, and since late 2016, as director of public programs at LIC’s socrates sculpture park {where i grew up playing + exploring, two blocks from my childhood home}.

i am first and foremost a torchbearer, alchemical storyteller, and servant of the people– in addition to a very proud queens, NYC native + descendent of southern italian immigrants {polignano a mare!}. art is my lifeblood and lifeline, and an absolute necessity for the survival turned thrival of these challenging + transformative times we all are called to navigate– both bravely + vulnerably, both inwardly + outwardly.

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what’s. up. NEXT:

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i’m so grateful to be included in the second southeast queens biennial exhibition– the thematic timing couldn’t be better, as i’m literally currently processing, healing + moving onward from many {more} big life changes + moves throughout 2019 that are finally ending in 2020. i’m considering the grander arc of my story in three {four?!} dimensions in this show, with two installations in these two jamaica, queens venues + hopefully some performance too. thank you so much to molaundo + margaret for this opportunity to share new work in new ways. i’m always so enlivened by the challenge + invitation to express myself in ways that are not solely paper + voice, the viscerality of the physical. {coming soon} “IN THE BEGINNING WAS A HERO SEEKING HOME” …

2020 Southeast Queens Biennial – WRITING HOME:
Literacy. Identity. Environment.

Curators: Margaret Rose Vendryes & Molaundo Jones
Dates: February 14 – April 17, 2020
Press Reception with Curators: February 21, 2020 at 1PM starting at York College Fine Arts Gallery and at 2:30PM continuing to the Miller Gallery at the Jamaica Arts Center
Programming: March 27- York College Fine Arts Gallery, 6-9PM / April 16- Miller Gallery, 6-9PM

Opening on Valentine’s Day, the second Southeast Queens Biennial will be a nine-week group exhibition at the York College Fine Arts Gallery and the Miller Gallery at the Jamaica Arts Center. Molaundo Jones and Margaret Rose Vendryes, the curators who are also visual artists, have invited ten Queens-based artists to address literacy, identity, and environment with work that investigates how their creative practice contributes to the life of the borough. Statistics document the remarkable ethnic and cultural diversity of Queens, but relay little about what is it like to live/work/play within culture-fluid communities that are still becoming “home” for many of its residents. Through painting, book arts, installation, photography, doll arts, performance, and interactive constructions, the 2020 SEQ Biennial artists reveal what can be “read,” in more ways than one, through the visual arts. Definitions of literacy, identity, and environment, remain open-ended as these Queens artists compliment, and complicate, NYC life through visual narratives that are like WRITING HOME.

For participating artists, location details, and general RSVP, visit: www.seqbiennial.com

ABOVE: cut outs of all the places i’ve lived after leaving 25 years spent in my same family home in astoria/long island city. it’s been a wild ride, to say the least. “i did it for Love” …

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more in the hopper from me, from the 2020 season at socrates sculpture park, new collabs + evolutions of the very interesting shapes my work is stretching towards taking. i hope to use this site more often + not have everything lost on facebook + instagram {although it’s worth watching on instagram .. hahah}. i’m feeling a Moment of edging + discovery and i’m hoping to have more of these conversations + discussions in Person, soon. the last piece i wrote felt like physically feeling my way into the darkness– using my instinct instead of my eyes.

i was very unexpectedly not able to have a formal book launch for my latest, THE BOOK OF LEGEND back in september, so it feels as of now incompletely introduced, in a way– but as the universe always does– it has its own plans. i still think it’s learning how to take up space, how to howl from its gut, its Own Name.. and i’ll let it lead me there, and to you.

here’s to what’s Out There– and In Here, of course, too–

‘go slowly, see miracles’ the art installation experience

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go slowly, see miracles opens fri 5/20/16 from 6-10pm in 43-01 21st street in long island city but will be on view 12-6pm on saturday 5/21 and sunday 5/22!

it’s a little after 2 in the morning and less than an hour ago i returned home from day 3 of my install for LIC arts open 6. sitting down at this blank page (computer screen?!) words just can’t seem to do it justice. carolina and richard from LICAO- thank you, thank you for this opportunity..

this is more than a project, an art installation, a room transformation.. it’s a commemoration. a milestone. this was one of those things- it emerged out of dreams, experiences, words, darkness. to think that- earlier this year, i was in a place where i couldn’t recognize myself, at all. the changes in my life completely displaced me- the decisions, the goodbyes, the wild adventures, the woods, the farms, the art, the risks, all certainty became uncertainty, grounded to a sudden halt. all unfamiliar, hollow, numb. i perceived the disassociation as a new norm.. but out of that darkness- came the beginnings of this. i’m a lifelong writer but also a lifelong artist. when words failed me- i worked with my hands. i worked with scratches and tears, collage, mixed media, the mysticism of found objects, ink and smears, fire. golden paint like byzantine halos. earthen material. the things i couldn’t say- i created. it was the only thing i could do, at that moment.

we often get stuck in our own spheres.. i am a poet- i use voice, i use words. that’s who i am. it’s scary and uncomfortable to own another role (in this case- installation artist), and we so often hesitate. paralyzed by judgment of self and imagined from others.. yet my longing to expand remained. poetry in three dimensions materialized while creating ‘art for the wild’ with my brilliant sister april- found poetry, tearing up books, collaging with images onto wood, onto painted glass bottles, inspiration stones. THE WILD PAPERS in collaboration with some beautiful friends was my first site-specific experience in the theatrical/performative realm- i carry it with me everyday. but i have wanted to create a world of my own since before the conception of that show.. a space i could transform. fairy lights. jungle greenery. hideaways. wonderland.

the roots of this project are deep- but somehow deepest at the moments when i felt my own nearly ripped out from under me. the fact that i am here, in realtime- three days into the installation of that world i dreamed of, the world i laid the foundations of in one of the deepest darknesses i have ever experienced.. the vision is becoming real. the vision is challenging, humbling, emotional, electric, frustrating, EXCITING. BEAUTIFUL. WILD. but it is all mine. my ladder climbs. my sharpie words. my mirror shards. my relics. my tangles. what will you think when you see it? what will you feel? what will the reception be..?

for me, this is not just an installation. it’s the identity i swore i’d lost. the legend i swore i’d lost at the beginning of 2016. my heart, my memories, my story- in three dimensions. in a space. in a world. i feel like i’ve created neverland and now i can go home again.. yet it takes creating something OUTWARDLY to realize that it has always existed INWARDLY.. creation is an incredible thing.

over and over.. you recreate from the ashes. you honor where you’ve been. ’go slowly, see miracles’ is my chance to do that. to prove to myself that i can survive. that i have survived. and i can trust these hands, this head, this heart- to carry me into what will soon be my 30th year on earth.

i choose life. i choose immortality. i choose wildness. gratitude. grace. a prayer of thanks to THE WONDER and the beauty of losing and finding and losing and finding it again.

thank you for being a part of my story.. come see it in front of your eyes this friday, 6pm at the opening for the 43-01 21st st building, filled with incredible art of myriad mediums and 2 other immersive installations.

thank you// mama always. my family. amazing april. scott weiland. nahko bear. ‘to the wonder.’ marcus & zuko. daddy. kristine. j. syd. sana. joan. nick. everyone who finds my writing in the street. the friends who looked for me. the words that saved me. riley, isabella, cristiano, layla. the woods. the ocean. pluf. chris mccandless. jen & TYR. my patron saint peter pan. my guardian angel nana. my TRIBE. LICAO. and the darkness that almost beat me.. for showing me how bright i can be.

[[SO MUCH MORE is going on in LICAO 2016, check out the booklet for all event & exhibition listings! festival runs may 18-22

scenes from the journey thus far… (click on the videos to play them!)

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reflections from tonight:

{insert really loud peter pan crow here}

strands.

there’s something strange that rides on the edge of disaster.

a kind of hope, in the distance, in the blinders.

in the windshield promise of the open road.

the fact that even in the heartache..

things change.

again – we were in the car, me shotgun, outside my house. impressionable in college, anyway. i let you cut my hair and you butchered it. but you said: “if nothing changes, nothing changes.” your mom, passed on, told you that. and you still wore a few strands of her greyed hair inside your necklace.

i wonder what i would do if i could pull apart what we are – what parts would i take? wear around my neck? crystallize? lift up to the shelf where all of our myriad objects from journeys get left.

i was moving my clothes and your terracotta incense burner shaped like a church fell. and broke.

i wonder.

the heart is not a metaphor, they say.

what about everything else?

there is a strange promise in the artery of heartbreak.

even in the severing, you take comfort in the fact..

you’ll bleed new blood.

it doesn’t mean –

never trust again.

it doesn’t mean –

never love again.

it just means..

there are more mirrors in this house than i expected.

but i realize now how easy it is for you to look past your own reflection.

isn’t it funny, how we all always say –

i thought i knew you?

maybe it’s not even possible – to know.

it’s just whatever strand of light hits the glass first.