Felice Tebbe: cLeft unDone, Aug/Sept 7, 2010

cLeft unDone, essay by Rebecca Alvarez, 2010

Schpeel, 2010

Book is good, 2010

Markers, 2010

Iron Fist, 2010

The Bride, 2010

Indent, 2010

Wingspan, 2010

Muzzle, 2010

Tommy, 2010

top

Schpeel, 2010

This is a whole new schpeel.
It's a whole new thing & nothing has changed.

I have no idea what I am doing, really.
He started a company & then he left it.

I told her not to worry because it works.
No special skills or talent is needed.
None at all.

How could this be the beginning of
something beautiful?

It just finished.
Never a splash.
Just a silent slip.

top

Book is good, 2010

He cut my hair straight.
That means that this will continue for awhile.
Unfortunately.

Bangs & all.
All I had to do was pay him &
be quiet & it all blew over.

The fact is that I do feel exposed.

I tried drawing with a pencil.
That didn't work.
Maybe I should go & swim.

What do you think?

The book is good at least.

This is supposed to be black.
This is dark.

They wanted me to talk about the art.
I had nothing to say. (Didn't I say enough already?)

There is nothing to say--ask you.
What to say in the fortieth year of this.

I put on Ryan & felt lighter.
But that was not what you were looking for--
you were looking for someone professional.
Not a divorcer.

I am finished with many things but I can't tell you what.
I have to go back & try again, for sure.
But I really don't see it anymore. How can you?

I just wanted you to be simple.
But that was not possible. Go now.
But I don't move anymore.

top

Markers, 2010

I did buy a red marker.
I have to make many of these at once.
There's a pattern and they are getting better.
Looser. Closer to you.

Nelson asked for one.
He has first pick.
He like "The Bride."

I prefer the next one.
Looser. I don't like that one.
It's an evolution on where ever you see it.

I have to work today. This weekend.
Do you know how this goes?
I don't. Could it be more?
I don't know if this will last but it's just markers.

I think time & love moves differently for me.
She said she hasn't thought about drawing in a long time.
It's not you.

Is it easier to see you every week
or never again?
Never again.

Whatever it is, this is not easy.
But, the joy is so immense.

top

Iron Fist, 2010

I have a metal fist that I have to remove before I lay down.
So as to not hurt anyone.
That is imperative.
Essential.

It was given to me by the 36 traders. I worked for once.
By my archer--that I survived.
It is something that needs to be disabled.
An iron fist.

His favorite movie was the Iron Giant.
I loved him like no other. No idea why.
I just filled in the blank space with my words.
To fill the blank space.

I write & draw, I always have & you two had no idea.
Is that possible? Not knowing.
Pure blindness.
Pure love is the closest sibling.

This should be a part of the writing.
But it's not.
It's all part of the same totality.
He told me to draw my writing.
That was all those years of work.

Draw what you write.
Said that to me. Just that.
It was all worth it.
All of it.

I am not sure you understand
how many hands probed me.

The woman from the association
had the tone of pity in her voice.

That was gone years ago, pity,
when I realized, came to know, that
marked is beyond perfect.

Beauty with a flaw is beyond your pity,
beyond your concept of what is perfect.
It is me.

My mother wrote me an email
saying to me that it must be difficult exposing
myself to others with the writing & the nudity.

But, what she doesn't say was that she was
embarrassed by it.

She said that "we'd all" be there for me
during the opening.

I wrote her back the difference between public and private,
and, that I am a professional. I've been doing this all my life.

This is not really what is going on for me.
Or, is it. And, this is just my profession, putting it out for you.
As a gift.

I has to explain these things overtime the family sees my
work, private & public. There is a difference.
Do you remember each time?

I just wanted to know why she was so adamantly opposed to
kindness. That was my question.
Just wanted to know why she opposed it.

Everyone has opinions. I'm just glad I don't anymore.

top

The Bride, 2010

Once she asked a doctor as we stood at a railing, if the IUD caused my cleft. because that's how stubborn I was to live. "No," he said. But she doesn't know that I know why the cleft happened. I found out years later. The day I met my future husband's family--more specifically, his grandfather. He walked across the room & said, "Chicago, 1971? Dr.--?" There had been a measles epidemicthat winter in Chicago. A rash of cleft lips followed. He was partners with my DR. (I had been his last patient. I was a favor for my parents. They were charming.) He recognized the Z stitching of his long-dead friend. At our wedding, that grandfather wore a pink searsucker suit. He held me too close when we danced. I was a bride once.

Now I'm no one's bride, only my own.

I just don't know if this all is worth it.
Somedays I get up & don't know if this is all worth it. I think that ice coffee has saved my life everyday for twenty-five years. A bribe that keeps working. A bribe, not a bride. If I didn't have you all, I would leave.

I sometimes feel like I did when I started drawing. Life is a spiral, not a straight line. We go round and round, up always moving upwards, slowly. Steady mate. Especially with this series. Like the first time I drew faces. It was something I had never done yet and all of this that I'm doing now differently is so uncomfortable. Some moments I just want to crawl out of my skin. And, some moments, I want to jump. But what I realize is that, I've already jumped.

For you, not me.
Just all of you--that's why I do everything.
All this shit is for you. All. And those two women,
who are so sexual. They are mine.

top

Indent, 2010

He wrote that God pushed harder on my lip so I wouldn't tell about what was beyond here.
I had seen more than others.
I know more.

Can I tell you--what I saw was
simply joy, that's it. You & me & truth.

Will you meet me there? Now.
If you must, just go.
Red & green lights confuse me.

I wear my silences as scars on my face.
Beauty is amplified with imperfections.
Just like prayer rugs have one knot backwards.
Like me. Backwards.

I was not so sure how I would love you.
If it was possible to not pummel you. If it was possible to not cut you with my voice.
Sometimes I snap.
I spit & wrastle.
Yet, you are so kind--I could not.
I was castrated.

top

Wingspan, 2010

It was a drawing of me as a pieta
& he hung it over his bed as a child.
Now he has some athlete hanging.
They have the same wing span--to fly.

I had a dream of still working in that hell-hole.
Trying to be someone that I am not.

The truth is so beyond what I thought was even possible.
That's why. I kept going back to make sure.

top

Muzzle, 2010

There are two clefts:
one was muzzled
& one was closed for business.
(Banksy inspired me.)

I just put the pen down & drew a straight line (after 8 years).

He said they told him to sit in the front (row) and talk.
My heart cracked open when he said that.
It was me.

top

Tommy, 2010

He came to me in my dream last night.
I told him the unsaid things.
That we know where he is.

The two men held onto each other--because of his absence.
They could hold each other b/c we are here.
But not you, you left.

top

cLeft unDone, essay by Rebecca Alvarez, 2010

This page is maintained by Marshall Weber.