the liminal space

i am a theater artist from the south, currently living in new york city. indulge with me in the liminal space. background photo credit: alec soth

[sellerswebb]

an old piece unedited

you can tell she thinks she sounds ridiculous and that her words are not making sense because it's the first time she has spoken them out loud to someone else and you think she is surprised by how they sound. most of her ramblings are attempts to piece together empty words with her intense feelings about the experiences she has had with this woman who cracked her open in a way no one else ever has. and later on what you remember most is when she talks about how they never kissed because what if they did and it actually meant something? then it would all be real and you couldnt turn back. and you would have to face how you felt about this person. and that could change your friendship forever. and there was the chance you could loose them because of that. and if the kiss didnt mean something there was a chance that all those moments leading up to the kiss when you felt close to this other person - closer than a friend - you could realize those moments just existed in your head. and how horrible that would be. and how delusional you would feel. and you couldnt face the disillusion. at the end of it all she says to you how she knows you probably cant understand because nothing she is saying makes sense, and how she feels dumb even trying to explain, but she feels she "owes" it to you to justify her silence. and you lay on your back beside her on the shore of a lake in italy tears streaming down your temples and into your ear sockets and she can't see and you don't want her to see because you do understand and her words do make sense and even some of the phrases she used were so close to home it was as if she was reading a part of your heart out loud and you know all these things she was describing and share these feelings because you feel them about her. and she has no idea. and she is totally vulnerable opening up to you. but you can't create a safe space for her because your heart is breaking and you can't tell her and so you take a few deep breaths and you feel your throat tighten and your eyelids relax and the tears wet the edges of your hairline before you finally find enough words to tell her she's not alone

[sellerswebb]

"To create anything...is to believe, if only momentarily, you are capable of magic...that magic...is sometimes perilous, sometimes infectious, sometimes fragile, sometimes failed, sometimes infuriating, sometimes triumphant, and sometimes tragic."

Tom Bissell

[paultiradophoto]

[sellerswebb]

as they passed, people whispered to each other the most interesting things. the most common response was, "wow...how brave." people were overtaken with awe. not only at the incredible work of Trina Merry (which is enough to put anyone in a state of absolute wonder), but also at the assumed "bravery" us models had for being naked for so long in front of so many people. how funny it is to be naked. i remember how awkward it was in the first moments after the kimono was off and Trina's body painting assistants began their work - and then how liberating it felt hours later, still naked, and walking around with a ham sandwich in one hand and a cigarette in another. and i remember how little it felt like bravery, and how it felt so much more like when i was young enough to take baths with my brothers and it not be weird.

i love what the naked body represents to people when it is not strictly set in a sexual context.

i love that the people at the Watermill Benefit witnessed physical vulnerability and deemed it brave and not foolish. because it certainly felt foolish. but it also felt surreal. like when you reach the top of the mountain and you somehow feel closer to the sky.

xx sellers

The Watermill Center - Devil’s Heaven: 20th Annual Summer Benefit

Art by Trina Merry

photo by Paul Tirado

[sellerswebb]

this past weekend i returned to The Watermill Center in the Hamptons to be strip down and painted by Trina Merry, and then placed next to a tree for 2 hours. devil's heaven indeed.

[sellerswebb]

scary information. worth a listen if you plan to make money as an artist.

[sellerswebb]

absolute theatrical self-consiousness

my hand shakes when i'm nervous. the only exception is karaoke. but maybe thats because of the shot of tequila i chased with a $2 beer.

i am extremely self-conscious. people might not know this about me because i do a good job at covering it. at least i think i do. unless i have a crush on someone and then the levy breaks. and then i write about it in my journal.

what i love about performance is the chance to confront my instincts. and to embrace this self-consciousness. why waste time trying to pretend i have easy confidence when what excites me about life are the times I'm most afraid? i used to hate that my hand shakes. and now i kind of like it. it lets the audience see me. the real me. not this amazing actor i secretly want them to see.

i often think of performing as a way of pretending. of creating these intricate veils that keep the audience from seeing the person playing the role. there are times when i desperately want to be the kind of actor that is unrecognizable on stage.

i have great respect for actors that can transform. but i am fascinated by an approach to performance that creates ways of letting people in rather than formulates veils to block them out. recently i became interested in autobiographical work. which i realize has the potential for narcissism, and is perhaps overdone. the first thing i think of when i hear "solo-autobiographical-performance" is that episode in FRIENDS when they all trick Chandler into going to see the one woman show. and the woman's first line is: 

"CHAPTER 1: MY FIRST PERIOD..."

but what an interesting way to enter a story - through your own understanding of how you are evolving.

thinking about autobiographical work brought me to questions about the act of keeping a journal. why do we - those of us who keep journals - keep journals? who are we writing too? who are we performing for? are these journal entries extensions of our exploding minds, or are they fabrications of the people we wish to be? are we writing to our future selves? i know that's why i keep a journal. but i also know, deep down - and i'm a bit embarrassed to admit this - that i am writing to whoever will read my journals once i'm dead. and that these journal entries will somehow be a key to the truth of me. my journals will be the anchor for those that grieve the loss of me, and the answer for those who ever questioned my existence. pretty epic, right? and yet i'd be mortified if anyone found my journals and read them while i was still alive. journal keeping seems a tad...well...adolescent. the more i talk about it, the more childish i feel projecting so much importance onto this form of writing. but when i have gone back and read my old journals, and when i was reading the journal entries from the people who so generously submitted their own a couple months ago, i felt...well to put it in the cheesiest way possible...chills. i felt chills.

and i also felt uncomfortable.

is that because these journal entries were written in the private confines of a moleskin? how private can such a tactile object remain? i mean, who are we - the freaks that keep the journals - kidding?

i then realized how intimately and how freely i was engaging with other people's accounts of their own past. and how unnatural that felt. it was like i was looking through my parent's underwear drawer.

what is having a journal about?

what is having a past about? and what does it mean to offer another human being permission into your personal interaction with your past?

the past does many things. it hovers. it roots. it sneaks up on you. it gets buried. and then it climbs out of the packed dirt. and it comforts. and it sits in the backseat and lets you pick the radio station. it is a reminder. and a reference point. it is anxiety. and it is honesty. it is betrayal. the past is distorted. it is a mirror. but more like a funhouse mirror, or those gawd-awful mirrors in department store dressing rooms. it is the fuel. it is hand cramps when your mind is racing but your pen is running out of ink. it is secrets. it is the first draft. it is a void. it is a glint. a soft shadow. a peephole. it is your own imagination.

please excuse my lack of brevity.

i am both captivated by and captive of my past. i am grateful for the opportunity to peer into the written accounts of other's.

what is more intimate than a visceral connection to someone else's absolute theatrical self-consciousness?

xx sellers

[oktheater]

The thing that they can’t take away from you is your perspective. Your perception of the world. Your imagination. No one can go into your brain. You possess that, and that’s the most powerful ability you have to re-conceptualize and re-contextualize, and change the perspective of reality at any given moment… you can create a doorway where once there was a wall. It’s very – its something that you practice.

Reggie Watts (via oktheater)

[sellerswebb]

most recent artistic crush: Doug Jones

[sellerswebb]

life rafts

i've been thinking a lot about introversion vs. extroversion in the past year. last week i saw a cautionary tale at the Flea theater with my friend Joe. go see it. there's this part where this guy presents a speech for graduation.

considering the amount of gawd-awful speeches i've heard in the past few months, it makes sense that this moment would become in retrospect the pinnacle moment of the play for me.

there's almost nothing more satisfying - no, terrifying - terrifyingly satisfying - no just terrifying - and a little bit satisfying - than watching someone have a melt down on stage and feeling as an audience member the truth of it.

choking on my own confusion about what is good and what is successful, i use words like introversion and extroversion to provide some sort of solace. if i can name my problem, i can fix it. but the conflict between self-worth and social/career satisfaction is not a binary issue. it's much more complicated than that. and this conflict actually does have the power sometimes to freeze my momentum. and sometimes i feel like i'm sinking. even though i'm holding onto these words like they are life rafts. and then other times i remember: it is possible to be both quiet and bold. 

xx sellers

[sellerswebb]

excited to experience this exhibit tomorrow with my dear ivan

[sellerswebb]

[sellerswebb]

“It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive. It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithlessand therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence.”

oriah mountain dreamer

[sellerswebb]

ice cream truck

i'm sitting on my porch and i'm struck by how far the sound of an ice-cream truck carries.

i feel an overwhelming feeling to write about it.. online. i'm not sure why, since i've never been one to keep a blog before. i usually write in my journal. and in my journals are a bunch of random phrases about sounds and smells and song lyrics and feelings i can't shake. and when i look back through the pages i sometimes don't even know why i wrote them. but i pride myself on the genuine-ness of it all. except for when its not genuine and its clearly an attempt to prove something to myself or escape the truth. when i reread those parts i feel sick inside - because why would i waste my time detailing accounts of the mundane parts of my life and try to make it sound poetic?

i'd much rather read the mundane parts just as they are.

i'm attracted to the genuine, whatever that means. part of being a theater artist means i have the privilege to enter spaces where i can connect on extremely vulnerable levels with other people. or just regular vulnerable levels. some of these are people i otherwise would not have sought refuge in or opened up to. and that is beautiful. stripping away the pieces of ourselves we've carefully made into a collage in an attempt to find truth and connection. or something like that. it's still surprising to me how easily we accept one another when feel we have nothing to prove and we recognize the possibility of support from the group. another part of being a theater artist, however, is experiencing the swift and brutal shift between these moments of honesty to moments of muted fear. the response to this fear often develops into the "i'm an actor/director/writer/whathaveyou, this is what i'm working on currently" persona. i recognize this is a natural part of what makes us both artists and human beings. and i have to recognize this because i do the same thing. all the time. and i wish i didn't, but i do. so allow me to ramble through my frustration.

i hate hate hate going to parties or hanging out in groups where everyone i talk to is from some conservatory, or done some awesome master class, or just booked an acting job, and i look into their eyes...and their eyes are glossed over, and i know they are not hearing a thing i am saying, so i kind of just allow the conversation to go where it inevitably goes, and then i end up participating in this weird "well i'm working on this, and i've done this, oh and i've worked with this person..." and the words come rolling out of my mouth and i hate them. they make me sick. because, who the fuck cares? don't schmooze me. i've seen you cry in a tank top and yoga pants. i know you're beautiful. not because i've seen your head shot or liked your profile picture. i know you're beautiful because i've watched you surprise yourself in a game of zip zap zop.

zip zap zop for heaven's sake..

[sellerswebb]

Today, like many days, I thought about going vegan again. I tried it last summer, and have been too lazy to keep up with the daily task of balancing my diet and making sure I get enough protein. Also, I'm just such a lover of pizza and ice cream and all things cheesy. I do believe in the vegan/vegetarian lifestyle, but not without recognizing it's faults. From what I've come to understand, choosing to become a vegan or a vegetarian is not a private affair. Most food-conscious people, including myself, desire to spread knowledge about what we're eating and encourage others to limit their intake of food that exploits our earth and each other. But often times a pattern forms and it suddenly becomes more about defining ourselves by a strict diet rather than coming to the table for conversation. Food is a personal subject, and when I was a vegan and a vegetarian I received a lot of backlash and a bit of ridicule. I think this comes from a deep-seated fear of judgment and change. Anyway, these responses quieted me for a second, and I questioned what my stand against meat was really doing? Was the label I identified with really opening a dialogue about our food industry? Or was I somehow isolating myself from those who eat meat regularly? The act of naming myself as a "vegetarian" or "vegan" made my experience with food extremely insular. And, isn't the culture of eating one that encourages shared experiences, good conversations, and connections? I eat a limited amount of meat, and try not to eat any dairy if I can help it. But I am in between knowing whether or not I want to define my diet, or remain secular from this food religion. Anyway, I came across this video and it got me thinking...yes vegans love sex. But, DON'T WE ALL?