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30 December 2017

resolutions


spent my day thinking about what resolutions I wanted to make for 2018... each year I list out all the things I'm thinking about for the coming rotation & carve them down into "resolutions" for me to work toward... for 2018 I'm not sure what I want, I'm not sure what life I want for myself, but I'm starting with these ideas.

22 December 2017

in the bones


BONES (full poem/film) from Natalie Raymond on Vimeo.

My first excursion into the overlapping space between poetry & filmmaking is this experimental short called BONES. I wondered: how can we bring poetry from its flat life on the page into the dynamic world of visual experience? I imagined a kind of music video for poetry. BONES is the result of these imaginings.

More: natalieraymond.com/bones

This short will likely be the last time I am *in front* of the camera. As I was editing this piece, over a year ago, I was almost unable to watch the clips I was in. Instead of being a kind of "actorish" modesty I felt like I looked uncomfortable. Many months later I had my aura photographed & one thing that was mentioned to me was that my aura read as me being unsure of if I want to be photographed or not. The photographer told me: you're not totally comfortable in front of the camera.

This is true. In the months since I've been thinking about this, turning it over in my mind. Really, all the time I spent fancying myself an "actor" was forced. I was never comfortable in front of cameras or on stages, but I was able to conceal this by not being myself, by trying to become the character. Of course you cannot ever really become a character, there are always still shards of you inside. When I watch myself in my acting projects I feel acutely aware of the viewing experience. You can see me being watched in my body language. What a liberation it is to now be the one doing the watching!

03 December 2017

25 November 2017

layers

iphone collage no. 1
on top
on top
above

let it all
blend in.

+++

making collages on my phone while I lay in bed.
my brain turned toward what has never been.
I've wanted I've wanted I want--
but desire is the 8 of wands,
arrows lost in the dark

10 November 2017

pieces

"the body on the side of the road was a metaphor."
mexico city portrait.
+++

I'm writing a novel & that's the opening line.
poems seem far away by prose is harder.
prose is solid lines.
poems are fogs gathering in valleys.

+++

some blogging about mexico city.

20 October 2017

"I am a mixture."

- Frida Kahlo.






mixture
late middle english
from latin

how many parts
can make you
up.

04 October 2017

dreaming of frida

I can't remember when I first became infatuated with frida kahlo. it was later in life than most creative young women discover her I think. she was always a bit mythic to me & I was content to view her paintings from a distance, & flip through the pages of books about her in museum gift shops.

in a few weeks I'm heading to mexico city. I've wanted to visit for many years, but never found the time or the justification. this past summer I thought: I want to go to the frida kahlo museum. & scheduled the trip for that purpose. I'm excited to see her blue house & maybe feel closer to this women whose picture hangs on my wall. she's always been a symbol of permission to me. frida says: ok. now go.

now I want to know more about her. she is quite enigmatic. but the biographies I've found center her as a "married woman" & seem to gloss over her bisexuality, her politics, her contradictions. this is not uncommon in the ways we think about women artists. most often they are asked to be flat things. not allowed the flaws & problems of their male counterparts. I wonder: what will history erase of me? what will it erase of my female friends writing & painting & making art...

26 September 2017

new adventures are coming...

I recently decided to get back into traveling, after being pretty stationary in either NYC or LA for the past 10 or so years. I'm starting small, but working my way out to larger trips.

To that end I started a travel blog, Angelino All Over, to document my adventures both close to home & far away. Give it a click if you so desire. My first post, about Lime Oregon, went live today. Stay tuned for more adventures in the US & abroad.

22 September 2017

personality crisis

& all I want to do

is keep

moving. 


heading to mexico city in a few weeks. happy to get back to my wandering.

16 September 2017

reeling

My project of late has been to work on the frozen-in-place-ness I feel because none of my work is perfect, or good enough, or made on fancy equipment. It's a kind of imposter syndrome I guess. I keep wanting to wait to begin until I am sure I will already be good at it (great?) & I have the excellent cameras & lenses & stabilizers to go with it. But if I keep waiting for these things I'll never get anything done at all.

So, to that end, my first ever directing reel went live today in all it's rough glory. I am still working on the audio & music, & have a few more projects I am hoping to add soon, but this is my first go. Watch it below or on my website: natalieraymond.com/reel.



Natalie Raymond Directing Reel (Rough Cut) from Natalie Raymond on Vimeo.

22 August 2017

Lime

Made my way to Lime, Oregon to watch the solar eclipse. Lime is an abandoned cement factory in Baker Country on the eastern edge of Oregon. The eclipse was absolutely stunning, but impossible to capture in photos. I am fascinated by abandoned places though, & made a short documentary about Lime. Watch the complete documentary below & check out my photography from the site at natalieraymond.com/lime.


Lime, Oregon from Natalie Raymond on Vimeo.


18 August 2017

sun + sand + videos

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sometimes the sky is so blue
it looks like cobalt paint.

more to come.

30 July 2017

more more more




the poem a day project continues to rattle on into infinity. much the same way the days bleed together as I work work work. 
eventually will everything look like a smudged drawing? no distinctions in sight?

26 July 2017

today's poem





thinking about who we are, who we believe ourselves to be, & who we've become.
 
follow my poem a day project: poemadaydoctoraway.tumblr.com

23 July 2017

memory notebooks

Looking over old journals this morning. It's strange to think how I wrote them with the idea of "an audience" in my mind. Everything is so restricted. So performative. I was so held back.

It's sad because I'll never get those high school notebooks back. I'll never get those days back & I can't remember what I was really like. A journal should be a record of that but I was so concerned with performing. I was so obsessed with self-censorship. Whatever I was then has evolved away & there's no record of it. She's lost to the years.

It renews my dedication to be honest in my current notebooks. A diary is a record yes, but it's also something of a self-portrait. Of course we can't be totally objective when it comes to our selves, but I think trying to keep an accurate outline at least is beneficial. Maybe it's how we learn not to lie to ourselves?

17 July 2017

weekends

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Went to the getty to see some concrete poems.

12 July 2017

movements

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los angeles stretches out like bones under taut skin.
no one was made here
we all came
to be born or
die.

06 July 2017

5 min free write

"Sun beans on sandy hills the heat like potatoes boiling in rusty pots. California rises up like Lazarus reborn into desert, birthed through cloudless skies.

I wake up in my bed in Hollywood, fan circulated breeze slipping around me like olive oil separating from water.

The dream I had made my palms damp & clammy, but the memory dissolved with the last of my sleep.

A tuesday like any other, I'm waiting to bank on the pavement. Waiting for deliverance from the stale heat."

02 July 2017

documenting mess












thinking about spaces, & where we make. 
the clutter, the grime, feels like home. 
how else can I fit everything in?

28 June 2017




from my poem a day project: yesterday's poem, day 127.

thinking about what being able to get the healthcare you need means/feels like. & why it's hard to dig out our healthcare traumas to try to beg other people not to strip us of that access, limited as it already is. seeing all these people on twitter talking about how they or their children would be dead without the ACA is so upsetting to me. we shouldn't have to relive our traumas for public consumption to be deemed worthy of a basic human right. & it's made even worse by the fact that the people who would take what small steps toward healthcare we have away from us don't care about our suffering.

22 June 2017

roach

”But there it is, the neutral roach, without a name for pain or for love.”

“For I was exaulting. I was coming to know the violence of the happy dark — I was happy as a demon, hell is my maximum.”

“Oh God, I was feeling baptized by the world. I had put a roach’s matter into my mouth, and finally performed the tiniest act.”

“Through the living roach I am coming to understand that I too am whatever is alive.”

“That was when the cockroach began to emerge.”

“The cockroach is pure seduction.”

+++

nearly done with my first chapbook, the memoir of a cockroach. I have plans for this little lovely when done. currently: seeking an epigraph from the astonishing book The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector (the source of all the above quotes), which I highly recommend.

16 June 2017

new looks


A little bit of a new look for natalieraymond.com as I transition from being in front of the camera to being behind it. Moving toward directing, screenwriting, & producing is a direction I never would have seen coming even just 5 years ago, but my recent soul searching has lead me to start making the switch. Look for more projects coming from me in the next several months.

Also very pleased to announce that my book, missoula., was deemed a semi-finalist for the 2017 Tarpaulin Sky book prize. This was the first time I have sent the manuscript out as a whole, & I'm quite pleased with the result. Read my poem a day project to get your daily dose of poetry & look for more publishing news in the near-ish future.

I will be making a real effort to blog more this summer! Watch out!

-N

19 May 2017

debuts

After much waiting & toil, my directorial debut short film is finally online for your viewing pleasure! Learn more about the film at natalieraymond.com/4bfilm & watch it in its entirety below.


4B (FULL FILM) from Natalie Raymond on Vimeo.

18 April 2017

Projects



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Continuing on with my poem a day project.
Editing my poem/film.
Co-producing my first feature.
Projecting films at the Downtown Independent.
Writing a screenplay.
Working. Working. Working. 
Reading tarot again.
Preparing for my Saturn returns.

02 March 2017

daily

started a new project.

writing a poem

every. single day.