fifty nine: 15th April 2010 - 15th April 2011

Katya Grokhovsky, Status Update, 2011

"As a woman I have no country. As a woman I have the whole world", Virginia Woolf

I must, must I?
CONTRACTUALLY BOUND to my body of work:
this body I own,
Body I bend this way, diagonally and that way, perpendicular, LOOK: it has been a joy,

Bound:
and to enjoy freedom, I shall control myself:
Bound:
by own self-made system and manufactured love of writing,
auto-criticized fictionalized prose and bedtime art story,

let me release you:

If I could Turn Back Time
Time shall be ours
Ours once again: I'll do it all again
over again

oh, painfully and sentimentally aware:

where does this fall
which side do you take?
Where do you stand, shaking violently from all fears?
Perhaps a certain hopelessness falls on my shoulders,
perhaps one more spoon of the deliciously sweet dark honey of art instruction,
one more
one more
perhaps, once more

what have you re-learned?

I touch the keyboard:
another fleeting thought, another crowded day, another limitless life, another limit I mistake for a hat:

Remember:
A contract has been made
A year ago,

Approaching =

Oh, let it be a lyrical journey,
a poetic world of my microtopia
As an alien in a magical land of stars:

No love can Match the Beauty of Their faces
Carry away with my Love Song

OH, Amore

Whisper so sweetly, softly, whisper, whisper a half and half, word, word to me, no words
Come color , come all colors
Come to me: baby blue

OH, do not ever keep me waiting
It is between us
all
There is no her place
No world
This and That and Art and I conceptualize and idealize
stagnating ever so slightly, sometimes, on purpose

Let me grow my Universal from My personal,

And towards passion! Yes, passion! Remember?
This passion I buy into.
Oh, boy! Feminist I am after all, and angry and hungry and all there is, to it:

I stand and slowly DANCE to it and let's get Faster, yell and laugh out loud and let us get loud and
rejoin the living and the memory of this!

keep at it: love me, love my art

What's in a year?
the numbered days, the short hours, the lengthy minutes, the prolonged seconds, the split hairs of time of my time, time forgotten, time lost , time gained, time gone, time found

Time has been Money
Money Time
Timed Perfectly and arranged in rows

trickling: slowing down and speeding my pulse
blood of stones
short, brief, and fictional, factual, actual
closing, opening, flying south
North, I haven't yet

The thoughts, the ideas, the monumental, the minimal, post-critical
I am exhausted, my mind is swollen, my eyes flicker
I, a machine, Oh, my Machine, keep at it, keep working hard
Working Hard

And She has dealt the blows
And she has been given All
Heaven and Hell, she made her own
And then there were many more

Many more of her of them of what

Art: Once MORE !

and kindly words of gratitude:

THANK YOU TO MY FELLOW GRADUATE FAMILY AT SAIC
THANK YOU TO ALL MY ADVISERS, VISITING ARTISTS , INSTRUCTORS AND PROFESSORS AT SAIC
THANK YOU TO MY PARENTS
THANK YOU TO MY READERS

SAIC 2011 MFA Thesis Exhibition:
Opening: 29th April, 2011, 6-10pm
30th April-21st May 2011, Sullivan Galleries, SAIC, Chicago

Book Signing Performance
MFA Sculpture Group Exhibition
May 6th-11th, 2011
Zhou B Art Centre, Chicago

SAIC 2011 Graduation ceremony:
21st May 2011, Frank Gehry's Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Millenium Park, Chicago
Commencement Speaker: Patti Smith

"NOTHING HAS REALLY HAPPENED UNTIL IT HAS BEEN RECORDED"
Virginia Woolf


THANK YOU......
............................

fifty eight: Almost and fulfilling and sugary satisfaction on the Day of Birthday

Katya Grokhovsky, 2011, Untitled(heroic)

Constructed illuminations, whilst I blow that candle of my Birthday.
Another.

Post-relational automatics and I contrive this to be all:
tiny wishes coming true, everything is riding on this one small plastic candle, the light of which highlights my unspoken gratitude. A piece of cheesecake, on the house, it tastes of the years full of opportunities: smallest details and extreme loveliness of the future, promised and forgiven.
Thank you for all and to be and to come again, and to feel once again for all your true roaming hearts. Once upon a time, once again and surely, neverending, the fairytale starts.

A NEW PLACE TO Fulfill
cherish
behold

Critical and subjective, whilst I softly whisper:
so lucky so lucky

And the desire to jump out of my glowing skin smelling like Dior, Miss
Auto-love, auto-addiction, I blame self for I am,

Addicted

memorial to multiplicity and others: hopefully
hopeless monuments
the altar of my sacrificed and treasured past
undefinable nation
flickered lights of theories
heavy sounds

historical and heroic classicism of unimaginable passions
you posses nothing
gently gently
your red balloon
your ornamental present
careful careful
they suffer hard
they play strongly against your will
Liberty leading the people: she said, impending doom foreboding
said to be true
to what end this happens to be true
did I find
Did I find a place for us: for you ?
our father and parental guidance have been extreme and I build you a gold platform to stand on and be treasured and trash your senses to the streets
the streets full of music
yours mindfully
sound of, Oh Russia,
talk to their souls
Yes, souls, I utilize the word here as necessity of my Romantic hope.

in the buildings, they camp and nest

wait, touch, look, LOOK at me, look, stare, I accept
fearful, slight, greedy, impatient, I open the book
mine....


http://www.katyagrokhovsky.com

fifty seven: Standing

Katya Grokhovsky "Untitled (heroic)", 2011

"The women on Death row have murdered, in most cases children, in most cases, their own.
The men have murdered in most cases, women." Julie Carr, 100 Notes on violence.

Feeling great or not at all, fatigue and words, as such, per reasonable doubt. Bones, skull, hair, blood. Rooftop and vodka and cigarettes and sometimes no Body is perceived per se.

Here we are, at your graciously built station, in an elegant city of precious ideas, not letting go. A single second away, a second of a second of your time, let me gather an eyelash and blow. Away. Critically acclaimed work and I will not show you my flesh.

Standing. Effecting the breath of world.

Missing softest feathered touching your fingertips allowing to introduce and forgiving stale smells, plasticine wings, heavy.

Ask me. What to do?
what to learn and to know and how shall I know anyway?

Internalized patriarchy, they told me. Feminist affect?

How much and WHO? Directly at death, stare and realize. This is you. And this is me.

And perhaps, that is exactly how it is. And that is all.
WHO needs to say this again? Sex has become the enemy, don't intrude.
I came upon this article" how to collect female artists for a new collector".
Let's begin.

Anger is not my answer.

Doing and looking and observing and doing again.

Perhaps it matters perhaps it will not and does it occur and does it roll off your tongue when you say my name. No no it doesn't, I guess it doesn't. It catches it in mid air: mid letter: mid word and you jump high and rule out and screen for mistakes and hop to it and rule out failure. Fail you must at something and winning is an option. Achieving the highest and appropriate, my lyrical writing isn't good enough. The turns and postings and my own discomfort. Here we are, leaving behind a sense of learning and newness. I must be gone and then I just continue.

Who keeps it rolling?

who makes a stance? who runs? who lies?
where to go?

why?

Standing.
Academically?

My words are falling, and pausing against the tidal waves of the mud. Always, UP THE CREEK, WILLING TO breathe. reward me or not.

Katyushka, Katenka, Katrusya, little bit.
being itself, being let it be, in the being of it, let it be.

fifty six: untitled (bed)

Katya Grokhovsky, 2011

Response to "Sprawl", by Danielle Dutton


Bed

There was an orange in her bed. Yes, an orange fruit. Citrus. Also, Leonard's cookies and a cup of coffee. Take out coffee. Still warm. In a white paper cup, with a black, plastic lid: shiny. I saw a ketchup bottle there too. Half used. Under all the blankets she uses to warm herself up on cold, unexpected nights. Count them: one, two, three, four. The one acting as a cover is the softest, laying on top of the others. Soft, pastel green, satin piping. It is very large and covers the whole bed, lingering beyond it's borders. Sometimes, I act as If I don't know and hide under all those covers. I hide and act normal.

Orange peels everywhere, dried up and dark brown at the curled, stiff edges: vitamin bottles, nearly empty. Olive leaf extract: it helps with her frequent common colds. Take two capsules, upon immediate discovery of first symptoms, also take for general immune care. She likes to read these long, instructional, small print labels on those bottles. It is reassuring. Two lighters from 7 /11. She buys new lighter every two weeks, and then forgets about the ones she bought. She smokes on occasion. Occasion being stress, lack of sleep and general discomfort.

A paper cup, party cup. Dried inside: black ink and two brushes. Three white paper take away containers. The ones in which you get those Thai noodles or rice with your curry. The rice is dried and is stuck to the bottom of the container. Used chopsticks, stained, wooden.

How personal would you like me to be with you? Tomorrow you will know what I mean in general. Five Postcards. Black and white, seem vintage, but it's Cindy Sherman's "Film stills". Also some newspaper clippings: photographs of recent rebels and revolutions and heroism. Failed all. I was born like this. Consumed, assimilated, burned down. Repeating body gestures I have seen in all of her eighty five years here, I beg her to start dancing and get out of that bed. She enjoys it and complies with my demands. Orange and red hardback covers of books beckon me. What about Cosmo magazine, September 1987? Were you there? "How to look good naked": I read aloud and twirl a little, slightly to the left of her center.

I wash my face with icy cold water and raise both my arms. My pleasure is all yours. Pastel lavender to dusty rose pink flannel bed sheets and plenty of scarves. Worn and Feminine. She has hundreds of scarves tied to the poles of the bed. All colors, imagine: silky red, yellow chiffon, green grass and murky burgundy, white, pastel sky blue, sultry orange and violet. Plenty of blacks. All sorts.

It is the best bed I have ever slept on, she exclaims, and jumps onto it. I am having a ball she said, smirking. I walked away fast, stepping lightly. Don't forget the dress, I yell into her ear. Cotton dress, circa 1981. I put it on, metal zipper, sometimes, I even do it up and walk around my apartment, thinking about sleep. It happens so often I am wishing to sleep in this dress. Bill Viola, how about Bill Viola? Silence, sudden outburst: no, Cosmo, circa 1992: " How to have gorgeous skin in under 2 minutes". OK, I answer and keep walking around, raising my glass of red Australian Shiraz towards the ceiling. It is not good wine at all. It is bitter and leaves a strange, tangy aftertaste. I'd like to see it stain this cotton dress. What a lovely, wine color it would make. The dress is pink. Reddish pink. I do not make a stain and go back to bed. It is four in the afternoon. I read Cosmo, 2000: "Stoned to death by her brothers".

Sometimes, there are other fruits in bed. Like that time, I found a rotten apple, once green and juicy. The acid smell of decay didn't bother her either, she likes the perfume of rotting apple flesh. Brown and green still. It tasted bitter. I threw it away and she cried for a long time. Another time, one afternoon, it was sunny and hot, dust in the air, she found a peach there and ate it, it was warm and fleshy, fire red with yellow specks . Very pretty , I said and found an "I love NY" T-shirt between the third and forth blanket. Who's? His? It's small. Its tiny. I put it on my head and stood up. I could see rooftops and red bricks in the window, standing like that on her bed, in my underwear, blue pastel, some torn lace. Old pillows. That time I ate a stake, bloody and raw. I like raw meat. Ancestors call out, as I google blood type diet. Her blood type is O.

How about Andy Warhol? Silence and a passing - by truck shakes my apartment. I live on the 3rd floor, we have rooftop access. In winter, the view is gloomy and snow covers our rooftop, it is very cold, I cannot feel my face, but I go there and stand still. Sometimes, it takes two hours total. Sometimes, I don't do it and I put on my Adidas hoodie and red tights and Australian UGG boots made from Australian sheep and I sit in her bed and listen to iTunes and watch strange things happen. Fruits appear and I imagine gluttony and NYC bagels and Intelligentsia coffee.

I liked the smell of freshly brewed coffee. She shakes her head and finds a cat at our feet. The cat is a kitten, soft, maybe colored pink, sometimes it is lavender, baby blue also, perhaps even beige and creamy, like coffee and milk, it looks like a little tiger. We cuddle it and pet it, until it sleeps. The bed is warm and between fifth and sixth blanket, I find courage and understanding.

Sometimes, I even find a small pine tree in there and winter Christmas lights. Sometimes, it even smells of stale smoke, and I manage to remember and embrace her. Gordon Matta- Clark even? Cosmo, 1999: " How to be a genuinely beautiful, irresistibly fashionable, stay- at- home mum". My nails seem chipped, I paint them dark brown. Better perhaps.

I simply indulge. There is her stance and a helping of generosity and my mild headache. Freshly squeezed Orange juice for breakfast: two glasses. Carefully constructed lies. I beg of her, do not reveal my secrets and illusions of grandeur. Sometimes, I sip my juice and forgive her indiscretions. Old Vodka bottle, nearly empty and a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, brand new. Frozen face skin and luscious intellectually stimulating conversation, I am going to live here. Perhaps tomorrow.

fifty five: down to the business of art

Katya Grokhovsky, 2011

Many and numerous: lectured and talked and desired and spoken to and kissed, liked, hated, held in high esteem and forgiven, crying out: no pain no gain, they said!

Red scarf and yellow dress have initiated your response towards my own dignity and surface.

Ok, so after all, how do I save this world? Tendency towards nihilist thought and existential rants. Red wine and sometimes bad coombinations of rum and coke. Lucid and touched.

So, the Russian will tear you slowly apart, into tiny bits, which will scatter across the world, for them you will search forever.Their reunion shall not be so pleasant.

Who wants to go on a "date" to discuss all? Non believer until proven otherwise, remains to be unproven.

IN the cafes of Paris dear, Paris proper, back when they knew, back when they floated on the hungry sea of illusions, how about that house? Shall we live there? Hard espressos and beer at McDonald's, buckwheat crepes, reembark, now! You designed a logo for both of our names, intertwined? Gothic style? You went to numerous cemeteries for inspiration? Drawing languid female figure in dark cherry inks on watercolor - pad paper, that is how it was, that is how it shall simmer your memories. Cherry and black night inks.

The spotty, murky, dark fairy tales of my mind and the sloppy seconds of my hardly wake subconsciousness. I had no dinner and hallucinated you, jeans are loose in the morning and eyes are glassy and glazed. Ideas are pouring in somehow, truthfully I do not wish this upon anyone.

What will you do, poor grad? Locally aware of methods of loving immoral values. To hell to hell.What's your secret?My sexual energy, recycling itself, circling my body, electrifying and shiny. I search. I meet sparkling eyes and receive wet kisses. I linger and walk away. Every time.

Revisiting my own gestural ideas and professional lingering in my mouth. What did I do? Proposals magnifying my need to beg the world. One at a time. More, just a little bit more. Just this time perhaps: just this once I receive one cookie, one! Beg borrow steal and I slip into miracles, readings and theories and constant flow. Remember this, now.

fifty four: a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose. Gertrude Stein

Katya Grokhovsky, Untitled 2011

"What you have to play with is yours". Gertrude Stein.

In one month this project will end, and in a little more than two months I will graduate.
Is it time? what is time?
Loosing myself and looping in the loop of Stein's writing, I dust the roses of my labors and sniff the moody Chicago icy sunshine of a brand new tired, sleepless day.
Perhaps, there I reside, in the never attained horizons of new and born super human knowledge. What do you mean what do I know?
I know that and I know this and perhaps nothing and does it matter after all.

Relational aesthetics and participatory poetry, feminist ideals and my fists into the thin, frozen, air. She said writing into the unknown is the best strategy. Let me gallop there, holding on, just barely onto the rough constraints of my time here.

I do not know how good or good or not I am or great or not , perhaps never reaching the best or the ambitions or the real and realities of it I'll be able to truly fix all of this to the hems of my lacy sexy nightgowns. I do not own any lacy sexy gowns. Black or white?

In high heels I struggle, pain acquiring legs, feet, status of a woman and falling harder and standing once again.Colors flying, clothing I have been given and ultimate reward points I have been able to gather.

Not gaining theory and irrelevance I am able to keep preparing. Color, folding classicism into chaotic struggles. Shifting uncomfortably, yes this iceberg has been there all along.

fifty three:

Untitled, 2011

Hear me,
going under
words
no words
worried
occasionally
respectful
dramatized
spectacular

Throw in the towel
perhaps
perhaps now
the time is for revengeful ideas
nowhere she walks over knives and proclaims the cool
now, she slams doors
read the article " The end of Men"
discuss!
when women are taking over, it is what? disturbing, says new yorker
disturbing, say men, promptly closing their eyes and sliding lower into the depths of the couches,
their mothers egging them on to do better
is this the end?
or the start of a new war?
war is never over, unitl it is over and it is never over, until she sings!

says she, starting to roar, forward, seeking,
bathed in pinks
glowing in sparkling tights and platforms,
surrounded by joy and masks of bleached blonde and Gagas:
strips and sings,
romance into your ears
Thelma and Louise kill the men

I search and search for empowerment
everywhere I look I am confronted by
laughter
laughing and crying she confirms sadness and no, I'm not lonely at all
I am quite sane and I march ahead, my failed revolutions in my skirts
heavy stepping over your incompetence and impotence
deal with it and stop asking me to seduce you
no, nothing is good or over and nothing is as nothing does
I said this all over and before it has begun, everything I said, I have said before
and again, again, over and again


She stands proud, contesting classicism
in her stride
blow air
and rejoice
sing and sip your high teas

it is time for that revolution
who says?
she says
the wounds are deep, they hurt,
and always on time

fifty two: before the art and after expression

untitled, 2011

Expressing ultimate discontent, discomfort, which clouds clouds and swirls
twirling
see that object, I didn't make it
enough, enough I saw enough

I argue for no objects,
I argue for that, which will express, immaterial and material: plus visceral
that, which swirls and twirls

Gertrude Stein

Left and right I said believe it,
mask your face
go your own way, go your way, go your, way go
Tough mess seeping through:
my slightly adjusted scowl

Scowling at it all: grow down, and up you jump
Once I get going I will not stop:
for nothing: not even anything: things to do
thing for nothing, there are no things here
Face away, away you face the wall
badly cornered in your bad corner

girls are doing better
better they are

listen and behold or behold nothing, thing again
that means I have no idea
I am not interested at all whatsoever at all and no one to blame for it all
trust me: no one to blame
you did it all
yourself
woman, face the wall
they will not win
you have strong arms, which lift you
above and beyond the rest
strong legs which carry you far far further on and further away you run
running and standing still suddenly, stopping
look look looking around
soft struggle and slight change in atmosphere, time to flee the nest
those who flee, survive

centuries , it has been that long
and the end, has come
and it is a pink bed sheet and a blanket flying into the air

fifty one: one word, criticism and realism

Social Realism, USSR, internet

Una noche...

One word,
who.
who,
why
what?
this partial testimony of an existence, is for?
my audience? the need to write, document. exist. at least if I am here?
what is this necessary freedom of expression and must, I ?

((but...Deep in my heart there is a fire
but...Deep in my heart there is desire))

One word, criticism, good, bad, good, great, feeling good.

Feeling bad. Bad is in terrible, bad as in legally inhibited by nightmares,
terrible as perhaps I'm sick, bad as in feverish, bad as in who and where, feeling sorry for mybody?

Writing as an once upon time-event,
event as a gesture, gesture as effort, effort as life, life as struggle, struggle as forgiven.
One word...accumulation.

One word,
criticism.
In terms of cool.
Cool.

Cool is a name. Cool as in you, cool as in cold and unapologetic. Cool is as cool does.
who cared?
never get one of those real lives.
It's not worth the struggle, the effort. Not forgiven.
what?
The despised reality. The testimony. Bother little.
Hands down. My pen and ink. Down they lay, down they lay. Onto bed of insecurities of a little girl. Tears?
Killing them, seething, my teeth shattering.
Who do you think?
Leading the battle?
winner?

"what is there is my name for you?
it will die out, like sad waves sounding
their last, on distant shorelines pounding.
as in deaf woods night's sounds ring through." Pushkin

Russian restaurants
live pop music
terrible singing
awful backup amateur dancers and singers
their short skirts and leopard fake pleather thigh high boots
that nightclub cage,
tight dresses

Oh the breaking of hearts and male egos
she leaves

unprofessional, uncivilized, unorganized, unstable, hysterical, feeling too much,
saying too little, oh woman, woman

anger.

skip and hop
to Bunnyville
you'd say
you'd stay
cream and sugar in your morning coffee

chocolate pudding with your coffee?
giving me a push out the door
rain rain- stopping for your seconds
clocks I do not own.
Nobody wins.
The long and tired race is not over, not yet, not yet

(( you are my heart,
deep in my heart there is desire for a star,
you are my soul))

whisper it a thousand times, into her/his/their ear.
Valentine's special.

Who said you have the authority to care?
To question.
Uncool and cool.
Plaid, velvet and crucial moments at the right angle.
organic honey.
Curry, coconut milk .
I like soy beans.

((keep that candle burning,
living in my dreams))

I'll be holding you forever
My soul
My heart
My.
Oh my that's the only thing I really know.
How dated you seem. I go, there you are, shining, holding you forever, feeling like I lost control, that is the envy, oh my , good, thing I know, at last.

I lost: will loose: already gone - control.
Control over your actions, all actions.
That is the only thing I actually know about.

The blue dress.
People.
Mambo for me.
Italian

Oh boy,
do I like all that.

I will keep writing.
One word: ?

fifty: timing perfect: I CAN CAN

Timing
Sometimes it's all about timing
and the question of what if
You cannot spend your life thinking about what if
What if
What if I never migrated to Australia
What if I continued my St Martin's Fashion Degree and became a fashion designer in London or Paris: as planned
What if I married my first great love and had children at the age of 25 in Paris?
What if I never came back to Australia to study for my second degree and never have met my Australian artist family ?

What if I never decided to continue My education and throw everything at my MFA?
What if? who would I, be where would I be?
would I be at all?
would I be the I, I am NOW?

For all this, what if I never came to being in the first place? The darkness of the abyss fascinates and calls forth all fears of never-everness, which used to plug my consciousness in childhood. Right before going to bed, I plunged into the fear and looped dread. Heavy thoughts, blanketing my tired limbs.

I messed up. Those clothes need to be thrown out. Perhaps one day I will learn to appreciate the fact that I am alone, or not alone.

I so CAN CAN,
I can !
I CAN CAN
slowly, lifting heavily
what the hell is wrong now?

Orange juice, apple cider and Smirnoff vodka...
Cure the cold, this cold of heart
once again
I forgot what I lived and loved
fluid in my head
Lonely thought, whatever happened to it all,
approaching spring
Timing
Perfect
or not
ready or not
here it goes
a week summed up in 6 word novel exercises:

Exhausted, attempted to try and failed.
Not enough love, she yelled louder.
Vodka, blood and tears, her vices,
Tears behind her eyelids, hidden, forever.
Do not escape this memory, now.
Fearing him, she started dancing faster.
Flowers, puppies, photographed in sepia tone.
The song is calling her to act.
Power lost, sunny world gained again.
Need to remain on the edge.
Traveling and remaining still, at times.
He cried for her, she laughed.
Damn it all, I am yours.
Running and forgetting, across the world.


work in the exhibition: Communicative Commonality



trip to NYC, CAA
MCA Chicago: Every house has a door

forty nine: status update

Katya Grokhovsky, Status Update, 2011, photo: Andrew Green

Burn my body, scatter my ashes
perhaps make a small diamond
update my status

a story of her existence
they don't give your computer password to your relatives when you die

shouting and trusting grey loving green drinking red feeling soft lying eating
purple cabbage
time tickles, pressuring me, I dive hastily into deep, irrelevant thoughts
whatever
I am hungry, so hungry

across the world, into light
your ascending star has no idea
having thickened doe
itching all and everywhere
imagine us imagine
parents: variety and perverted sense of humor
writing with black cheap acrylic on canvas
feels great
feels so good
I feel so great
I feel so good
You were not there

Remembering something, I'm trying extremely hard to remember something
Something was there
Someone was there
Lurking, pretending not to notice, testing, smirking, laughing
Laughing into tears

Bursting into luxurious song
That song, that's it
I remembered now
I think , I believe, I do believe, I remember now

That song
My mother sang it to me, before I fell asleep, or when I was extremely sick, which was so often, a tiny bundle of bones
hardly breathing, with a forever-blocked nose and painfully swallowing
hot milk, mixed with honey, I listened intently, alert, not sleepy at all, trying to remember the moment. Capturing it. Somehow, aware of the upcoming future, incoming pain
For later, I guess
why was I trying to remember those moments, that song....

How does it go? That song...
Soft voice, soft voice, I can't I can't
It's a dream
no, it happened, it did, really did, truthfully did
It was real
All real
You were there, yes you were there
A small, skeleton-like child, you never ate
never grew somehow for a long time
smallest and weakest

the song....
there was a young boy in the song, he was standing near the fountain
I see his soft, grey silhouette
that's how it went
young boy holding a young girl's hand
and there was a fountain
I have an image of the fountain
it is blurred
then there was an old man holding a hand of an old woman
the young boy, grew into an old man
still holding her hand
and still near the fountain
the same fountain

The melody slowly drifts into my present

I do remember now
The words escape me, they escape me
It is so difficult to remember them

I just can't seem to place them
Mother
mama do you remember the song?
Can I hear it again?




....

forty eight: Whiteout Poetry or just snow '11

Katya Grokhovsky, Snowday, 2011 , (not home not love 2008)

I'd like to make a snow bunny

Putting hands together she laughs out loud

Dance harder. No, wait stop. Stop right NOW

You have no right, no idea and no breath

Jump up and down: see, I had a flash of a storm

Behind you: The madmen laugh and your joy or was it terror?

Bloody awfully terrific Hot chocolate

Somewhere into the future: Officially engaged to nothingness

Energy suddenly, red wine flowing through me to them

Hangs on, hang on: I haven’t said it all yet

I propose to glow: actually, I learn faster

Believe or not: I dream bigger

Generating heat: Blanket one

It comforts softly: Bunnies, add some feathers

Sequins, my pants are falling

Heels clicking on concrete floor: Click:Click

Everything along the Lake: Has fallen

Tragically living and bestowing it on you

Hope it works. Hope it works out, gathering myself, pressing my burning cheek to the cold, shaking window, let's fly, Chicago: I, Margarita!

Over you, with grown wings, I slather the oil of youth and foster forth over your magnificence! Notes to self: do not forget to blink once in a while, and fly a little

My heart hearts your heart: remember: Year of the rabbit

Playboy Bunny Ears, I want them: oh no, I want a burger all of a sudden

With pickles on the side, those dill Kosher ones

Oh, I have sausages, I cook

Playfully I move my coins, contained in a jar

Hanging laundry, watching cycles, spinning my waist-length-hair (phantom limb)

Running on one spot, loving those trifles, caramel filling, oh yes

What are you talking about

Grey skies, lavender, sickly yellow, messed up pallette

Lightening strikes twice

My heart pounding against nobody's skin

Skin to my ear, I press: oh harder, I push extremely

Those blue sparkling, two of them. Eyes

Bless the storm and: Shuffle. Jump to that amusing radio station

Dry it all out. Warm it up: A plate of tomato soup, home cooked

Nowhere, along the line of small miracles

I forget. New York and Chicago and Los Angeles and Melbourne

Odessa, you are there too: I visit Rome

I propose the memories, they shriek away from my glance

Nowhere to run. Here I - snowbody. Out there: The whiteness, witnessing it

Oh this was childhood, ships and rolling snowmen and sliding down, breaking fragile limbs, screaming: Tumble down down the road, it just won't matter

Loving whatever and thinking of sex

Coffee. Again

Listen....

Not one thing is uttered. Music into air

The conclusions are reached and members notified

You will be recalled, in time for revenge

Read Primo Levi " The Periodic Table"

Perhaps, my own very system devised for YOU: See this. Watch this SPACE

Roads traveled, cookies and tea, Proust

Read all about it: EXTRA effort needed

Announcing periodically: Fashionably cute and exhausted

How beautiful, don't you think? The twirling poetry, bouncing there

The wind throwing it's magic ball to you. To me

Catching fire and in flight, I imagine this: I do not return: Never

Ever. And forever once again: Looping, linking major events of my life

Crushed under the weight of methods and blushing so sweetly:

Oh, I don't really blush, I turn unpleasant red all over

Roses and Roses, thorns and knees

And at the end of the day, do you think, the smallest gesture of my smallest finger on my smallest hand falters, altering the motion of the sea?

Perhaps it does

At the end of the day

The snow DAY>

forty seven: Speeding into the light of the Last Semester of the MFA. Last, but not least: Back to School.

Katya Grokhovsky, Status Update or How do you feel? 2011, acrylic on canvas.

Words fail. Transforming slowly back into the student.
Now. Anxious, annoyed and interrupted.
I keep thinking about my recent visit to Disneyland.
However, some kind of half formed and barely baked partly-raw and vile--sentences overwhelm me and I am not consciously capable of forming a written statement about the visit. Chaotic, overcrowded, over- marketed and psyched, elbowed and yelled at, fire-worked and paraded for Xmas.....lit up like a giant, yes, one of those Happy Xmas trees, spooned around and tossed aside.

I guess it was Fun Fun at the Happiest and most occupied -to- the maximum- human-capacity place on earth. I am pondering. Looking at Paul McCarthy's recent work inspired by Disneyland- drawings and sculptures. I am feeling viscerally aware and fuelled. Highly lucrative overwhelming desire to be overtly messy and slightly vulnerable, physically fragile, mentally edged emotionally up against and into a wall of art, exposed, wide angled-opened and violated by Sparkle-Pink-Happiness of the Disney- sprinkled Cartoon Sugar-Load. I am there. Can I play now?

Can I be disgusting, can I not clean for weeks? Can I live as an over- educated, artistically professionally inclined, coffee-snob-addict-soon to be unemployed, once again, pretty piggy-pig? Please? Can I eat whatever comes to mind, whatever I can afford and whatever I , please, want? Can I stay in bed all day in my flannel faded pyjamas? Can I live like this? Please? I declare my bed a studio and get out of it, reluctant.

Perhaps, it all makes absolutely no difference. Stressed, angry, ill and overwhelmed madly, welcomed back to the Happiest Place ON Earth, Art School . Hooray!!!

forty six: sultry layers of dust/Status Updates

Katya Grokhovsky, Status Updates, 2010/11

Strong feelings were meaningless. Tender Californian sun glowed, catching her by surprise. The light, the awkward light. Uninterrupted Space. She lowered herself into the ocean of limitless procrastination. Regardless, she will conquer this vacuum. For what? Are you Happy dear?

*Happy: feeling light.

Sipping her latte at Intelligentsia, she inhaled deeply. How are you doing? Has anyone asked?
Waxing lyrical about the artist's fate. How she wished for Paris, 19th century. The poverty, the parties, absinthe, early tragic death, prostitution and immortal genius, of course.

*Massive Headache: drinking lots of water and daydreaming endlessly.

Stand on your head. A year, another year, another year.

*Traveled to Los Angeles and back to Chicago. Tired and pensive. Hibernating.

Painting with words. Do you remember when you wrote about the sea? The black sea?

As you mixed your watercolors so technically well, imagining unclaimed lands and territories...romantic heart of darkness.

The folds of her vintage eight dollar cotton dress covered her fuller figure well. Black tights, black boots.

*Buying vintage clothes. Spent forty dollars. Bought: two sweater dresses, one black sweater, two velvet bolero vintage jackets.

The dusty slightly mauve sky promised little. The rain hasn't stopped, perhaps it will snow soon. The red brick houses, Velvet trench coat.

*I have nothing to say today.
*Watching Mad Men. All seasons.
*Anxious. Re-working my CV.
*Obsessively expanding my horizons today.
*Reading book : Power, follow up to The Secret.
*Self-not-helping by sleeping all day long.
*Pushing the envelope of daytime laziness.
*Deciding to begin.
*Not cleaning my bedroom.
*Cooking basmatti rice. Broccoli and garlic stirfry with soy sauce. Dinner.
*Apple cider. Organic. Two spoons in a glass of water. Every morning.
*Unbearable incurable net-surfing.
*The edge of reason: work on it.
*Multi-vitamin. One a day with a meal. For women.

*In the dead of winter: sun shines in My Book.
*Not consistent: Julie and Julia, Eyes wide shut, Whatever works, White nights, Flash Dance, Shall we Dance, Dirty Dancing, Becoming Jane, Dorothy Parker and the vicious circle. Laurie Anderson at Harris Theatre in Chicago.

*Hypnotized and floating.
*Is one more important than the other? - Random phrase, random book on my bedroom floor.
*Be Loyal to both: phrase from an ad, glossy magazine on my floor.
*A second chance for every skin. Vogue.
*Chop. Chop.
*Waking up to my heart beating extremely fast.
*Nothing to report. I am cold.Hot coffee and toast with honey. 4pm Breakfast.

forty five: pause - ahead:

Katya Grokhovsky, video still, senseless, 2008

So let me PAUSE, right here.

Saving......

I have decided not to dwell on the Best off 2010.

It has all been, THE Best.

I take the packaged year, all of it neatly wrapped up into the softest layers of the tulles of memories: still fresh and burning, the subtle, smoky colors of unseen, wished for romantic sunsets and anxious deadline-induced sleepless nights, covered in the new knowledge of unknown, yet confident, tomorrowness, I put it gently away into the pocket of my Experience . Right now, Yesterday. The blonde wigs, the dancing till dawn, the whiskeys on the rocks, the frustrations and joys, the failures and successes, the slow dancing in the lobby of Palmer House Hilton, the dresses, the American Flag, the Ukrainian dancing as a boy, the travels, physical and metaphorical, hours of crap TV to numb the over-active mind, the endless reading lists to last lifetimes, the heated debates, the arguments, the nervous smoking, the stress and yes, new hairs, devoid of color. grey. I kiss.

And so, as of NOW, I have 3 months left of GRAduate School and this blog. Forgive the sentimentality and tears, held back behind this screen, for the Tears, they will be streaming. Oh, come theeeeee, Come oh, May.

There will be, of course, amazingnessss in Future, for MISS Future is a Queen, always, ever shiny, sparkling and shimmering in the oh-so bright distance. I believe. For MAster, Master, I am the MAster, I can do.....

What awaits? As any Graduate Student worth her/his salt, I have no clue. MAster plan?

Yes, many in the stew. Yet. I rest . I pause. Processing the ingredients.........

Trusting my own gut instinct, throughout most of this time, I currently take pleasure in the fact that I am now, in the MFA club. What the hell does it mean? Stakes are raised and they are high and some of us are perched onto them. Money spent, knowledge earned, dark competitive bruises and post-critique scars aquired and healed. Graduate Family. For my life.

As I arrive in Chicago O'Hare Airport from LA, at midnight, one cold weekday, last week, I am greeted by a good looking: " what's up baby, welcome to Chi", I whisper " home..." and smile shyly back, answering I am excellent!!!!

Shall we make some ART?

Let me come out of it and as I stand , ambitiously creatively naked in front of you I proudly SAY this:

I love ART.

For what it's worth.

ok, melting my own icy heart with the melodies of listened- to- in- the- name- of- research of hundreds of slow songs , I ALSO say, in the words of those we know well,

LOVE> is ALL you Need

r.i.p 2010

forty four: Welcome- 2011- Yes We Can

Katya Grokhovsky, Artist Journals, 2008/9


The breadth, the breath of the human stuffy warmth,
stretching lovingly beyond your own means
laying out the large, roughly scratched, leathery hands
hot to the touch they sway and lower you to the ground
up again

pushing tight, cursing roughly, imagining:
eating dirt, consuming spirits, wanting more: being so much less
spotting pretty hard, agonizing over the details of the damned table setting
forwarding painfully aware memories

many more unreliable wishes:
to be adored: to love
to start and manage

RIP 2010

pastel lavender desire, frosting on your cupcakes
I am wishing hopelessly
wondering
orange cat
lazy winter LA sun
pink flannel

nothing beats you
blood or rain

fast winds of thought
accumulating into whirling pools beside your feet
free falling and acrobatic challenges in my head
heart in first and foremost later
don't you forget this
I am your true only one: blue and borrowed
forgiving now and escaping,
the universe tells you to jump off the bridge:
glad to help you

hmm..
what
testing and preparing for flying
skimp up stream

flow

gather strength
shoot the loads

homage to dead women
I form into a puddle of rubbery texture
when I'm dead , I'll meet you inside the sticky cherry jam darkness, homemade

Pina Bausch
Frida Kahlo
Artemisia Gentileschi
Louise Bourgeois
Eva Hesse
Marilyn Monroe
Iris Murdoch
Virginia Woolf
Sylvia Plath
Emily Dickinson
Audrey Hepburn
Georgia O'Keefe
Hannah Hoch
Meret Oppenheim
Chanel
Catherine the Great
Camille Claudel
Jane Austen
George Sand
Edith Piaf
Madame Vionnet
Isadora Duncan
Bronte Sisters
Anna Akhmatova
Natalya Goncharova

Black prune waves, emerald green velvet traps, pomegranate wine, sucked in
plums and peaches, that was quite a traumatic reading of your palm
plus size models, marching on your street today
meaty, fleshed out, volume up, voluptuous growth: trembling
softening your resolve
squeezing, fuming, grazing: greetings
smashing cliches, fluffing egos,
creeps and line up your freaks

fake lawns and butterflies: badly made ideas floating in your wine glass

she looked around and imagined softer light. this room needs orange curtains and a vase. yes, a vase, the vase has to be green. perhaps bright green, perhaps even neon green. perhaps grass color. perhaps even a bottle. those poor flowers need to be in a green vase, in fresh water, on that table, near the entrance to the dining room. she suddenly got up from her favorite yellow faded velvet armchair and walked out of the door. lifted her skirt up. she quickly bent down and looked at her crotch. well definitely no underwear. she had no underwear on. she looked up. just neatly arranged well manicured houses in front of her. she kept holding her dress up. her white cotton skirt had blue polka dots splattered on it. her neck was covered in bed bugs' bites. she kept smiling. Los Angeles.

welcome
ornamental pursuit of excitement and anguish: salutation and disease.
I don't want you.
I just didn't think I wanted you.
perhaps I do want you one day, one day perhaps I will
Perhaps I should give you up:
I am brutally honest.
Meat.
describe: bloody raw. meat between your teeth. rotting , vicious flesh.

what the hell is love.
perhaps: unreliable and messy.
unaccomplished and real.
vile. for the sake of the mess.
undying and scrutinizing you: every inch of you

there is a pimple there is a freckle there is a nail sparkling dust in your stupid fake Disney sky
And so That was the Year
The tough skin became scales
green blue
the lovers, aside, pushed away

achievements

2011.
ready. set. welcome: