polaroid water lillies my favorite childhood polaroid picture sits in the bottom of a box somewhere. I do not actually need to take it out and look at it to remember. the details are forever forged in my mind. it's a polaroid my mom took right after she surprised a ten year-old me with a redecorated bedroom. in it, I'm sitting on my bed, which has been freshly repainted, the old comforter replaced with a brand new cream-colored satin one. there are fresh, frilly new curtains on the windows, a cornflower blue bedside table (covered with flowers hand-painted by my mother) and a frosty new glass lamp. plucked right off the pages of the JCpenny catalog, I believe. in the picture, I'm sitting on that bed and I'm beaming. it's a moment I revisit again and again. because it was a room that made me feel special, a room that felt authentically mine. I knew then there was a very specific art to the planning and making of a space. that there was love in it, so much love. in all the details, love. what I didn't know was just how much it would affect me later on in life. how much it would influence me, both as an artist and a mother. and so this is the subject of my most recent piece in issue sixteen of uppercase magazine: my mom and the home she (artfully) made for her family. it was not an easy piece to write, friends. but I'm glad I did it, I'm glad I pushed through. it was the least I could do, the very least. and I wish you could read it, mom. I really really do. because this one's for you. 130215 ... raze i took a few pictures of the ghost of the building some others have taken pictures of, armed with new black & white film for an old polaroid camera. a new-old camera, really, since the first old one won't take pictures anymore. now all it does is eat film. this new film is sensitive to light. the second a picture shoots out of the camera you need to cover the exposure and keep it covered for ten minutes or it won't develop right. they gave it the right name. they called it "impossible". i took a picture of a "no trespassing" sign half-hidden in the vines, and a small broken umbrella someone left on the ground. something a child would carry. you wonder about a thing like that. you can wonder a long time, because you'll never know how it broke or who threw it away or why they left it where they did. but it made for a good picture. 150823 ... raze i wish i'd checked to see if this word had been blathed already, so what i wrote wouldn't have ended up tacked on to that stolen bullshit up there. but what can you do? 150823 what's it to you? who go blather from