š "A glass of wine or five."
Lost & Found: 3
Over the past several weeks, Iāve struggled to stick to a book, for reasons I obviously donāt need to explain. Iāve found five to six options, each time thinking they were right for me and then losing momentum twenty pages in. This week, I tried Anne Boyerās The Undying again, her memoir and meditation on the personal and cultural experience of illness and the symptoms of America's capitalist cancer care system. I finally made it past the prologue, past page twenty even. Her writing grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me awake.
The first paragraph I transcribed to my notebook was about Aelius Aristides's Hieroi Logoi (Sacred Tales), in which the Greek orator captured his illness and the dream revelations he made with the healing god Asclepius:
Not only is Hieroi Logoi a record of prescriptive dreams, but it is also an autobiographical account of what it is like to have a body in a specific time and place. Sacred dreamers took papyrus into the incubation room. For Romans, it seems, dreams were had in order that they could be written down.
This weekās featured work from surrealist collagist and digital painter Brecht Lanfossi similarly engages with the idea of a body in a specific time and place, in a dreamlike state, where memory and environments are warped, true and false, within reach and ephemeral. And Joey Thibeaultās Belvedere explores how confinement to his home for an undetermined amount of time has amusingly affected his domestic relationship with his loved one.
By the time youāve finished reading this newsletter, weāll have decided on next monthās theme, which we left to all of you to vote on: Body at Motion, Body at Rest; Salt; Negative/Positive Space; and āCan I ask you a personal question?ā To see what the winner is, be sure to follow us at @tartmgzn on Instagram and Twitter, or else youāll have to wait until the last Lost & Found newsletter is published next week to find out. Weāll accept submissions for this new theme on a rolling basis until June 30.
āAlicia
Untitled
By Brecht Lanfossi
To describe my work, it's best to start by quoting two men:Ā
āIn the future, humans will be able to simulate entire universes quite easily. And given the vastness of time ahead, the number of these simulations is likely to be huge. So if you ask the question: āDo we live in the one reality or in one of the many simulations?ā, the answer, statistically speaking, is that we're more likely to be living in a simulation.ā ā Silas BeaneĀ
āOur brain simulates reality. So our everyday experiences are a form of dreaming, which is to say, they are mental models, simulations, not the things they appear to be.ā ā Stephen LabergeĀ
One could argue that what Beane says is nothing new. Artists are already simulating universes for their viewers in a seemingly effortless way. Because of the immense range of works and styles in art, the number of simulations is already large. An artist offers viewers the opportunity to live in this variety of simulations for a while.Ā
And Laberge states that things are not what they seem to be, which can be traced back to every artistās work. In their own context, artists let viewers experience this noble fact.Ā
While creating my artwork, I always keep the ideas from these quotes in my mind, hoping to share them with any potential viewer.
Belvedere
By Joey Thibeault
Belvedere and I have lived together for a while now. As with most relationships, we've long adhered to a dynamic and routine that landed us in two traditional roles. I was the breadwinner. I put the food on the table. He, on the other hand, has always been the type that likes to be kept by another manāand Iāve always been more than happy to take care of him as well.Ā
Of course, it wasn't great all the time. When I was at work, he just seemed to nap and snack all day. Most nights we would barely talk when I got in, and most mornings when I woke, he was already awake and staring at me. Dead in the eyes.
When I was laid off, it was a pretty big adjustment for us both. A lot of emotions were at play, and I donāt want to seem judgmental with how others deal with stress, but he was kind of hostile at first.Ā
For example, we've always known that one of us is probably immune to Covid-19 thanks to a certain genetic marker. And if you think he didnāt lord his immunity over me, you are sorely mistaken. A few times he left the house acting like he was going to get a job, presumably because he "could" and "was allowed." I had to physically wrangle him back inside, which made me look like an abusive captor to the neighbors. I know this played right into the optics he was trying to create, but what else was I supposed to do? Iāll note, this man has never had a job since Iāve known him.
But this time at home has also been therapeutic for us. Iāve been cooking more and heās been very supportive of it, which feels nice. We used to eat separately for the most part ā he was on a pretty strict diet of protein meal replacements ā but now we're eating together most evenings. Slowly, weāre finding a new balance.
Weāve also both really gotten into Normal People, and now that weāre both home, we keep each other accountable for not watching ahead without the other. I think we see a lot of our early relationship in Connell and Marianne, so Itās been fun to reminisce about when the depth of our relationship was a secret from some of our friends.
Belvedere isn't a big drinker, but he doesnāt mind if I have a few glasses of wine in the evening. Now that itās been a few weeks since Iāve been to the barber, it's becoming a bit of a ritual for him to do my hair while I enjoy a glass of wine or five. We definitely have different styles ā his is quite messy and he's a little rough with my roots ā but it feels nice to be pampered. Since no one else sees me, I try to wear it around for him until I take a shower.
By the time we head up to bed, we both just pass out most nights. Itās been really nice to reconnect, and I think both of us agree that ā especially because he's a cat and I'm a human man ā it would be weird to introduce sex to the relationship now.
About the Artists
Brecht Lanfossi (alter ego: nozem) is a Belgian surrealist collagist/digital painter inspired by dream-like and psychotic consciousness free of reason and convention. He is a Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK Ghent) drop-out who never gave up the idea of making some āartā one day.
Joey Thibeault is an artist and furniture maker living in Maine. You can follow him on Instagram @jobeault.
āØLAST SLICEāØ
Weāll just leave this here.