Táchiben Vision

© Olivia Callender, “TheRoseIsGentrified”,...

Fri, 17 May 2013 20:00:08 -0400

Small remarks/ the air is filled with hanging transitory shapes/ chrysalis stages/ this era another cocoon that refuses to break/ will it one day break?

© Olivia Callender “RoseIGentrify” 2013 The burning eyes/ plague...

Wed, 15 May 2013 19:20:59 -0400

The burning eyes/ plague that working world/ Bukowski just did enough/ drinks, rent, write./ If I could last just as long/ let alone the apparition of success/ till I’m old enough to endure it./

Olivia Callender© “Children & Pizza” Brooklyn,...

Wed, 08 May 2013 18:55:00 -0400

Olivia Callender© “Children & Pizza” Brooklyn, NY, 2012

Stuck in one hell of a rut. Please oh Please let Ron move out so I can start a-fresh… sort of.

© Olivia Callender “Invert All” In her deepest of...

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 17:30:00 -0400

In her deepest of hearts, she thinks / it may be that existence wasn’t her goal / and that modern science thwarted her move / to right her mistake. / It was only a curiosity / that lasted a few months / and was lost before completion.

©Olivia Callender “outside the gallery” winter...

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 18:30:21 -0400

©Olivia Callender “outside the gallery” winter 2012

I can’t hear out of the right side of my head. My friend came home and I made pancakes… he didn’t have any. I cuddled with miss mary and won at poker though I’m not sure how. days pass days pass days pass.

Olivia Callender© “Morgan’s Haircut”, Winter...

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 18:30:00 -0400

Olivia Callender© “Morgan’s Haircut”, Winter 2012

I never allow myself to get sick, like real sick. Like I don’t get really drunk. I just sort of stay tipsy… So I’m Tipsy Sick. Headache, soar throat, slight waives of nausea. I’m fully functional and can get myself home.

Olivia Callender© “outside the art show”...

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 21:30:00 -0400

Olivia Callender© “outside the art show” 2013

Looking over some random files. I’d rather do that than work on things I have to…

Olivia Callender © “Amityville” Long Island,...

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 19:00:22 -0400

Olivia Callender © “Amityville” Long Island, 2012

The same color in the evening/ It is different against the whiter sky/ This burnt orange darkens/ against the pail blue/ lightens against the dark cerulean. /

Color, relative always.

Olivia Callender © “Street Fashion”, Brooklyn, NY,...

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 16:30:00 -0400

Olivia Callender © “Street Fashion”, Brooklyn, NY, 2012

Olivia Callender © “street fashion” Brooklyn, NY,...

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 22:30:05 -0400

Olivia Callender © “street fashion” Brooklyn, NY, 2012

Olivia Callender © My brain is just a smattering of electrified...

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 20:00:03 -0400

Olivia Callender ©

My brain is just a smattering of electrified tissue and it hurts.

Olivia Callender © “Fashion Shoot #1”, Fort Salonga,...

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 12:48:00 -0400

Olivia Callender © “Fashion Shoot #1”, Fort Salonga, 2013

I wish my language was a text I could choose from the bar above. Then I could tell you all about my disappointments.

artsorbit: I got some hate mail this week. Most of it landed in...

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 18:09:35 -0500

artsorbit:

I got some hate mail this week. Most of it landed in my spam folder, thankfully, but a few ended in my inbox. I didn’t read every e-mails in full—just the first sentence, or long enough to realize what kind of correspondence it was. These tirades, calling for me to kill myself, or saying that I was a whore or whatever, came from a certain group of white supremacists who were angered by my column last week saying they were irrelevant.

Loved this little essay. I applaud her for such a brave and honest look at herself and the question of racism in general. We have not moved beyond Racists but it is definitely time to look a little deeper at the uncomfortable subject of unintended racism. That I think in the long run is what keeps us from transcending.

Yay for conscious Caucasians!

Olivia Callender © Portrait Series, Parker Circa 2012 Finding...

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 21:13:00 -0500

Olivia Callender © Portrait Series, Parker Circa 2012

Finding the time is what really is important / I thought the day was for myself / Which one is it? / Time is a figment or there is only the passing of time? / Can I relax yet? / Answer: No.

“Street fashion”, November 2012, Olivia Callender...

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:14:34 -0500

“Street fashion”, November 2012, Olivia Callender ©

I’m always apprehensive about writing personal information on this blog for multiple reasons. My father’s paranoia (He once scolded me for sharing health issues for fear of insurance men reading and taking advantage of it)… Caribbean ethics of ‘don’t talk about family business’, and general weariness, but what is a blog if not a personal dairy.

My mother lost her job today. She’s in her 50s having to hit the pavement, with numerous bills, debts and a neck and back injury, which she has to receive treatment for.

My mother worked in fashion as a fabric sourcer. For those who don’t know, fabric sourcing is imperative creating the designers ideas for a new line. My mother is good at her job. She knows about fabrics, she’s a classically trained textile artist for christ sake. Who could know more about fabric sourcing than a woman who knows the intricacies of making it? Most designers don’t know jack all about fabrics and when they want to make a structured coat out of linen, who tells them it won’t work, my mother.

I just can’t believe that a person with so much work experience would be tossed aside. I know it’s the difficulties of our times and her position had three people in it but, I don’t know, she’s always been so devoted to her work. She needed a fucking alarm to tell her when to leave damn it!

Now in the end I’m sure she’ll get another job and I won’t have to throw into the collective pot. I was down to, told her how much I got in the bank, and I would because lord knows like most American children I am massively spoiled and should give back but the sad truth is I have debts to pay. So now it’s just a tightening of the belt, no healthcare for me. Thank goodness I never get sick and I got that other thing sorted to the best of my ability.

In the end really I’m just bummed for a woman who’s not meant to be idle.

God save my brother who still lives at home…

Olivia Callender© From the Series “The Rose is...

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 18:02:32 -0500

Olivia Callender© From the Series “The Rose is Gentrified”, Roosevelt Island 2012

I don’t want it to snow.

Karen Smullen© “Freshmen Film Premier” Shit look at...

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 13:01:13 -0500

Shit look at that, freshmen year, my long ass hair, good friends. Yeah okay I miss it.

This was my hubby’s first film premier and we all came out to support. We had a strong crew but ya kno time flew haha

Vid from his mom stole it off her computer.

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 00:38:00 -0500

Projects on Gentrification aren’t all that new yet they seem to be rarely done by the locals themselves. I’ve been going around photographing the things that have “changed” or “stayed the same” since the summer. I’ve got plans to photograph the Goldwater hospital before they demolish it this year and also take portraits of the old and new residents. I’m not sure if I want to have statements across the photographs yet though. If you have thoughts about that let me know.

I guess this all stems from the deep pit of bitterness I have over the loss of my childhood home. I’m trying not to be really but it’s hard. Things change I know, I know they do… It’s just hard when it doesn’t seem for the better.

Blackwell park located behind the Blackwell town house was the largest children’s park on the island. Its layout was probably one of the best I’ve seen for a kid’s parks. We had a stone castle that stemmed out from a natural hill. It had a Merlon top that you could sit on or hide behind. It was good for water fighting and in the shade the stone got cool. We had three slides, one that curled another that was straight and narrow and a large wide one off to the side. It fit at least three kids and was long enough to play kick the climber.

Farther back on the hill were two other structures. They were odd, like two tall and thin houses made of mettle bars and wood with pointy roofs. Pigeons would sometimes nest there in the winter, but in the summer we’d sit inside on rainy days, tiers of children from top to bottom. We hatched plans there, the leaders sitting in the rafters while others sat on the lower bar and then finally the rest on the wooden floor

But that wasn’t all. We had a monkey bar set with similar roofs on either side. You could climb up into the “attic” and sit while waiting to climb across the bars.

There was also the tire swing set next to the monkey bars and next to another structure with a wooden bridge that swung back and forth. You could get splinters running across barefoot or you could get pinched between the gaps in the bars. Next to that was the jungle gym. The jungle gym was the courtroom of our playground life. Laws were made, children punished in the squares that made up the blue spaces we climbed over.

The only thing left is the stone fountains in the back. They are still capable of scraping the skin off of you. The kids can still hop from one to the other but I’m not sure if their overprotective parents will let them.

I was in college when they tore down my park, the place of so many memories. In many ways that place is essential to who I am today. I cried when my brother showed me the empty hole.

It was just as upsetting to see what they had done to it. This small, boring little playground with one slide and a rubber rock wall, it made me furious.

My rock wall was made of rock. I used to rub my calloused palms across its surface to marble the flesh down. They’re measly swing set in the back doesn’t hold a candles to the vomit inducing heavy rubber tires I had. There are no bars to climb higher, to hang off of, and to jump to your doom from. There are no monkey bars to scale across or run on top of, dangerous feet only for the brave. There is no playhouses, no strange structures to use at your imagination.

And most of them don’t remember the freedom of running from the next great leap to the wild swing, or the unbalanced climb. They don’t remember the cool rock or the mettle burn. These children are designated to one playhouse, bare bones in its imagination, and it’s okay for them because they don’t know what it used to be like.

But I pity the kid who doesn’t get a bunch of scraped knees, or a few good scars, and a bushel of bruises from societies cradle, the playground.

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 18:48:11 -0500

Better work ethic… bigger ego…

Things I need.

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 16:28:51 -0500

It’s so hard getting back into blogging. I’m such a pussy when it comes to keeping up my internet presence. Oh well just another thing to get over.

This was taken in brooklyn for the lovely Daniel who I have been collaborating with in hopes of putting together a fashion blog with brains (or at last a nice dose of self-mocking).

Why aren’t our cars beautiful like this? Why did we loose the importance of design with the advent of new technologies. Bench seating COME ON it’s so much better. In any situation whether you’re road tripping with a bunch of friends or makin’ out in the back! Comfy and lots of room. And I don’t trust button operated windows. What if you’re plunged into the ocean and the system fries and there’s no way to get out. Now you wish you’d bought the shitty car with roll down windows DON’T YOU!

Yes I know these cars are like mettle coffins and that in a car crash you’re more likely to live in the new crush and crumple mettle of today… but hey, if you’re gonna go out might as well go out in styyylllee.