8th colour of the rainbow

ghost

2011-04-04T23:52:00.001-04:00

i floated, I wafted through you, i paused...
then carried on my way.
I made my way through others' selves
I never forgot.
those others' selves i never forgot
and how they weren't like you.
they were cloudy, thick exhausting.
wore me down to muddy hues.
I turned black, and black i was.
heavy stained the shadows of my eyes.
I did feel ugly, and i felt sad.
because once i felt something better.
I once compared it to the rest
and then the rest was less than okay.
I fell heavy because I once felt you.
~ Chelsea

discarded

2011-04-04T23:47:00.003-04:00

Dusty drawl in southern slander

Quiet strained to understand her

Tired eyes let free her story

Stripped bare of their childhood glory

Heavy eyes, dull grey reflections

Amplified stained imperfections

Hidden between beaten hands

Scrubbed, bleached, scarred and tender hands

Tearful in her struggle, she

Clasps the wisps of cherished strands

and bows shamelessly

Finally.

To life itself

Breathed into lungs

Revived her health

A tiny fleck of spirited stealth

Behind the scars, beyond the fears

A dusty drawl in southern slander

Dazed I strained to understand her

spoke seven words...

“...it’s like I seen my momma again”

My heart shattered like the life within her

I embraced that child and never left her
~Chelsea

Watermarked

2011-04-04T23:45:00.003-04:00

There once was a boy who didn't speak. He didn't cry, and he didn't yell. But he smiled like he knew. He smiled like he understood. He left home one night and many nights to wander and explore. He had no fear, and he had no cares. This was 3046 years ago. I remember still, the vibrations of his eyes like they sang untold words to my heart. He wore a necklace. Only a necklace when he explored. It was his mother and his father dead and gone. It was a necklace left around his neck to mark from where he'd come. He spoke with body and eyes and love to the animals he met. They shared with him the secrets of a world that any and every human could explore. And explore is to search, but explore isn't to find, and explore isn't to understand. Explore isn't to have siblings of the natural beauty around you.

He passed away young, he floated home peacefully in a river as a sunday sun rised above him. they cried. the animals. all of them cried. The humans wouldn't speak his name, but the animals screamed it proudly. They cremated his body that night and the ashes blew away with the wind.

there was one small thing where his throat had been...

a diamond.

So I wear it around my neck today, in search for a life he lived.

Once in a while I become enchanted when I hear the forest stir.

Once in a while...

when the night gets late and the humans are asleep and quiet.
~Chelsea

the lost ones

2011-04-03T12:58:00.001-04:00

I was looking through my pictures, and realized these three never made it up for some reason! So here they are, the lost collection. One is sitting at home, one is in my girlfriend's room, and the last was a gift to a fellow dancer, and her new baby.

the remnants of a beautiful dance

2011-04-03T12:43:00.002-04:00

I am drained of everything I was. Pulled out, forced out, drawn to the surface, beaten and dissected. I did it to myself. I tore out what was not ripe and ready. I have nearly nothing left. I am raw and open and so so susceptible to every emotion, feeling, and touch that I might die in the overwhelming flow of it all. I think I love everyone to the same depth that I love my girl. I think I can’t eat or breathe for the feeling of my organs moving inside of me. I hate so deeply and so entirely that it will surely hurt me soon. I cry for love, I cry for loss, I cry for art, and emotion, and loneliness, and the cotton candy I’m eating which is turning my mouth blue. I might strip my bedroom walls of everything because the memories are too intense. I am a mess.

I love my dancers, and every ounce of effort and care they’ve put into my dance. I’m in love with the story they tell, and the way they tell it. That story has a life, has a meaning, and has a death lock on me. It won’t let go. It hangs from my heart, heavy and used. I want the dance back. I want it to live again. But so many little parts of the story have gotten lost in the dance anyhow. No audience could possibly know the gravity of it all. No dancer could know the gravity of it all when I am only experiencing it now.

Videotaped, I can watch it now, and a million times over. I can experience the exact movements, facial expressions, brilliant moments and adrenalin etched along the recording. I can move with the images, remember through the images, but the images are a sad imitation of the thing that was.

I wasn’t ready to create that piece. I was in a dark and uncreative place in my life, but I forced myself to feel and to move when my soul was not ready. It has never been so difficult to create dance, but I pulled my soul along by a string, like a rag doll, and I made it stand, and I made it talk, and I demanded strength from it, and I think that tore it apart. My soul hangs from my heart. Utterly it is so, torn apart.

Lol now that I got all that out, I feel silly. I guess I’m just thinking of what people will think when they go to read it, and maybe I shouldn’t think about that. Maybe you won’t think I’m silly and a dramatic. I hope you don’t, because creating is a powerful thing... I don’t know if I’m alone in feeling this way, hopefully I’m not. I’m just a human. Just a human, looking to make pretty and romantic things. I’m empty now, lol and utterly so. :P

Funeral of a Kinder Spirit

2011-04-01T23:19:00.003-04:00

"Enter my palms, and you slip through them just the same. I love you too deeply to protect you, or set you free. But in my gentle nature, I know it's not my say. Briefly, I am warm arms to rest within, before the winds carry you down..." ~ Chelsea Papps

This is my creation for my third year choreography class at York University. The dancers are Aria Evans, Taylor General, Niko Markakis, and Emily Downs. I never could have found better dancers than these. They were dedicated, so so talented, brave. And I don't think they know it, and I never got my head around it until recently, is that this piece is my heart and soul. it is my creativity, and everything that is me. It is so shocking to see yourself in others, and i saw myself in them. everything pure and honest in me, they laid out on the stage. It breaks my heart to see this end. I feel a little empty, a little drained. All i can wish is that my dancers enjoyed the experience, and that they know that through this, i have learned from them. They are four beautiful humans i will never forget. so.....

this dance is dedicated to them. to freedom, little kinders and fledgling feathers. Remember, everything and nothing exists, this must be believed. Never stop searching, no conclusion is ever sufficient, and be sure to live. xox

Music: Fletta by Bjork and Antony and the Johnsons

Achihba Spirit

2010-11-01T11:01:00.001-04:00

My piece follows the structure of a story I’ve created. It is one of my personal mythologies of these two native children who discover their animal spirits for the first time. The tribe has an ancestry of shape shifters, and from the stress of war the children’s human spirits cry out to their counterparts as the children run into the forest to escape the stresses of life. This is where the story particular to my choreography begins. The children awaken into their new bodies. One is a praying mantis, and the other is a field mouse. The friends do not recognize each other at first, and begin a defensive dance. The face-off becomes playful as they accept their own realities. It begins to rain, and while the raindrops are tiny, the dance continues to be playful. But as the raindrops mature, it becomes a struggle for protection. The story ends when the praying mantis with his composure and swiftness, helps the field mouse to safety. But in his efforts to help his friend, he is hit by a raindrop and falls to the ground.

Thank you so much to Keirsten Pugh, Christina Greiner, and Candice Irwin for putting forth an incredible effort for this piece! I'm sorry Candice, that you weren't able to perform, and tenfold that your legs hurt so much Keirsten! You're all soldiers to me! :D

2010-05-31T10:09:00.000-04:00

I think this is 20"x46", Acrylic on canvas, a gift for my girlfriend's 19th birthday ( : xox

2010-05-31T10:06:00.000-04:00

30"x30" acrylic on canvas by Chelsea Papps (me) :D un-named, I don't know what to call it..

done at six

2010-01-09T14:50:00.000-05:00

My friends died today. I miss them terribly. They were a pair, and almost identical, but i could always tell. I lost them, which happened too often. I'd always find them hidden in the oddest of places. The little metal round nooks of my desk, in the folds of day-old clothing, one time i found them in my eyebrow! They were very tiny, so it wasn't ever difficult to lose them. But when i did find them, they had magnificent stories! Well they were quite ordinary stories, but from their meek perspective, even the chubby dust bunnies can be hazardous. Jeremy told me this one time that he watched Cecilia fell asleep on the newspaper funny pages. To someone so small, the pages are really soft! It makes me jealous that I can't be so tiny as to... but then the fate that they met... But Jeremy was telling me a story, and i was thinking it, and then not, but he said that she had layed her face on the funnies, and the colour sticked! She had a blue face the entire day. She said that she could have taken it off right away by flying around. Their sweat pushes out bad stuff. It's why they were always so pure. They went to visit my fishie the other day. His name is Hawk Megatron Bunnies. He has the sharpest eyes, but the softest tail. His scals are shiny like a metal rainbow in the light of the setting sun. Jeremy is a poet. He told me that, and he wrote it down too. Too small for my bulbous eyes to read, but i guess not small enough for a magnifying glass. They were in my microwave. In my cobbed corn in the fridge actually. But my big friend who wanted to eat the corn didn't know. She couldn't see my two little friends. Jeremy was who i heard first. his scream was an eerie persistent whistle, and then Cecilia chimed in with a sound like a screech from something sharp scraping across a bell. The noise broke my heart before I even understood that it was them. But it's okay though, they were old; way past their years. My mom says imaginary fairy friends can't survive past my sixth birthday, and I'm now 20...

Un-spirited

2010-01-09T14:23:00.000-05:00

this little poem is flawed because I'm too lazy to work with it at the moment, but i will update it soon :P

One of many gorgeous round things,
Rolling like a scatt'ring blast.
Swept them sideways on their sideways,
Rolling, gliding, they'd been cast.
Unpredictable,
Nervous and gullible,
Scattered, splayed,
Cast, played.
Rendezvous,
Round they view.
Little men, young boys,
Freeing their hands and
Throwing their marbles. If
Only they knew.
I play a game, game,
The game if skills.
I steer the marble, and
I may make it still.
Still still i wait for
Some boys to play while,
Stuck inside a glass bubble,
Humble.
Painful: a sentence, to aid boys in fun.
It's fun, so so fun,
With my wings stuck straight...
And my spirit stuck straight...
I have no choices outside of this game.

2009-12-11T19:19:00.000-05:00

2009-12-11T18:55:00.000-05:00

Look to center of our mother,
plastic chokes the life of nature.
plant me some imperfect flowers.
ones to nourish bees and laughter.
enjoy colours, scent thereafter.
sun's sweet kiss and children's patter.
grass through toes, safe lovely nurture.
capture it, feed child's vague future.

fight to live

2009-11-10T00:38:00.001-05:00

Trivial daunting
Light becomes haunting
Life less than living
I feel very guilty
So empty of filling
I’m wanting I’m yearning
I don’t cry. I should cry.
I’m much less more fortunate
My life is ornate
Privileged but burning
Crumbling for upkeep
Passion dwells hazy
In the corners of each eye
Always there but not fully
I can’t ever reach it
Too shy to exist
I must will it
And call it
And yearn

Sidewalk

2009-11-10T00:35:00.000-05:00

Balancing on the edge of the sidewalk is tricky business.
One hearty gust of wind, and no matter how much arm-flailing,
falling from that ledge is inevitable.
A slight heart-skip and a step up later,
I find myself on the ledge once again.
I close my eyes and imagine i am on top of the tallest building.
Twilight has set upon the city, and a storm is rolling in.
I feel the first kisses of baby raindrops on my face.
The mist snaps at my senses, and my ankles start to wobble and strain.
It suddenly feels much higher up.
But I can’t step away from the ledge.
The fear of falling is hidden behind a veil of wonders.
The sun is flickering like a child’s heavy eyes,
upon the tops of cars lining roads like veins through the city.
The wild has come to reclaim their forest.
I see raccoons, and skunks, and possums,
and squirrels running feverishly free.
I wonder what falling would feel like.
I know my ankles and knees are in favour,
but my heart is hiding in my throat.
The wind is much stronger up here.
The baby drops have grown up into rain now.
I was once told that God is in the rain.
I wonder if He’ll give me wings.
I step forwards, heart swelling in my throat!
And it sinks back down as I land on cement.
Beside my sidewalk.
What limitations.

Light Age

2009-09-22T14:13:00.000-04:00

Light Age, by Chelsea Papps.

acrylic on canvas

If I Were to Travel

2009-08-29T01:53:00.001-04:00

There is something so pure and refreshing in not knowing where your next step will take you. I will drop off the face of the social earth one day soon after university. I hope i won't be traveling alone, but if i do, it will just be more of a personal experience. I will leave for years with no technology in my pockets, and little money in the bank. I will travel by foot, bus, bike, train. My home will be on my back, and i'll live off of the generous souls i'll meet along the way. I'm excited to sleep on a bench, or bathe in a watering trough. I want to bless my ears with all of the musical thrums and hollars of nature. I want to experience a silence so deep i feel it pressing at my eardrums. I want to learn other languages, including sign language and water and insects. I want to find a place on earth which isn't actively owned by any one person or organization. What does the sun look like when it rises over a tall mountain range? How do the trees sway way at the top canopy of a forest? If i lay on the ground in the sand and dirt of one random place, how long will it take for the residential insects to claim me as just another part of the ground? If i sit and stay still and calm will wildlife fear me? How many colours of rocks are there? Are there secrets out there just waiting for someone to discover them? If i eat grass and berries and little fish until i'm a thin wild child will my soul stay the same? Will i see things differently? If i'm attacked by an animal will i wonder what i did wrong? How tough am i? How many tears can i cry before my eyes dry up? How dirty can i get before people start shying away and ignoring me? I don't even want to travel to find answers. I want to explore to discover questions. ~ Chelsea Papps

suspended, stuck.

2009-08-29T01:49:00.003-04:00

Mother pleads for her boy not to go.
Man is done with rules and walls.
Bricks of limitations and expectations and
freedom is in the night.
It snakes around black with danger
and stars' cold stare.
Eyes of mothers; many children lost.
Dark whispers in directions and circles
always leading down to hit earth.
Pleasure before pain.
An acidic household corroding and peeling
at edges of skin and nerves
like fire, and a rope holding something special up.
Mother broken, blames the husband.
Man to boy. who rules this kingdom?
Of a flame and a rope and something special.
Tears flow hazy glazes over vision of too many backs turned.
Mother blames eternity and God's wicked humour.
Mother ready to fall at the lick of a flame.
~ Chelsea Papps

Trapped

2009-08-29T01:47:00.002-04:00

A feather can float on a breath for it's lifetime. My feather tells me of freedom with rain and speckles illuminated in sun and rainbows with eight colours. My feather lives in my image until i inhale once again. ~ Chelsea Papps

One Loud Night: Ode to Sony

2009-08-29T01:42:00.003-04:00

stereo blinks morse code
screen set to demo
if it had a brain
it could be my hero
soothe me deep into sleep
an embryonic floating state
coo softly in the corner
ease out all the notes like bate
draw me in now protect me
the house won't cease it's screaming
if you coddle me in thrumming
then i'll pretend that i'm just dreaming
draw me in...
~ Chelsea Papps

Completed Pieces and Exploratory Art

2009-08-28T23:53:00.010-04:00

This is one of my many abyss creations. I turn up some energetic music to blockout sound, time, space and thought. All that is left is put on paper.

This one was inspired by my brother. It shows penguins trying to escape a burning field to pluto. The ozone is melting away, and if you look closely there is a clock in the centre of pluto. It's my version of global warming.

A different version of the abyss, is created with elastic bands, newspaper, rice, various glues, sand and acrylic paint.

My first nude study. Tell me what you think.

Lyrics by Alicia Keys - Diary. The creature is a living diary, ready to listen, ready to absorb, ready to sit motionless, and emotionless until needed once more.

One of my creations; an angel. It holds it's soul (or spirit/essence) in it's hands.

It has the ability of absorbing the spirit of animals into it's own, becoming one with them. With the spirit of a bird, he unveils wings.

Another abyss. It seems to contain the theme of mother nature, and the circle of life. There are fairies hidden throughout the picture.

An older drawing of a boy being pulled out of a hole of hellish flames and influences by a mass of electric saving hands.

This is a self portrait of me from a few years back. Some of it is indescribable, but the basic feel is an overwhelming feeling of finding an new layer of myself. A layer filled with light like golden rays, something spiritual and ethereal, and an edgy lining of defiance.

A little girl, who wants to take her own path through life, even if it means falling into mistakes along the way.

The dolls are society, and the puppeteer is the media, of course. It illustrates anhorexia, depression, and the use of substances.

This is how music affects me. I can float in it for what seems like eternity, electricity dancing overmy skin in rainbows and textures.

I use nudity as innocence. This is a watercolour of a blind girl seeing beauty through the sense of touch. A feather falls from her hand.

This picture contains a theme i've been developing. A cloud emerges from the head, illustrating the conscience, the sub-conscience, the spirit, anything. The emotion rains down from the cloud.

A girl trapped in walls. She projects a vision of a girl hugging a power tool as moustaches rain from her cloud. It's a joy the trapped girl will never be able to indulge in.

Once again, a drawing from the abyss. Sneakers rain down from the cloud.

A rainbow shoots from the third eye changing bombs into birds. It's a very simple and child-like message.

I thought i'd experiment with magazine clippings... a rainbow and a tower.

Choreo #1 of many many many

2009-08-28T14:42:00.004-04:00

Thank you greatly Jocelyn and Brianna, the two of you are angels.

The choreography is my interpretation of one of my favourite songs by CocoRosie; a live performance of two of their songs, Good Friday and Happy Eyez.

It's a story of a mother and a daughter. It helps to date the story back to the day when girls learned how to take care of a family, and be a successful housewife through their school books. It's only imagined that from the moment a girl graduates, that text book becomes her life. An ideal world within the words of a man. So her life is summed up to protecting an image of an ideal family. The daughter, a strong young girl of 5 or 6, is caught between the words in a textbook, and a boy's play things. She doesn't like restrictions, dresses or cooking. She watches her brother be strong and free. She feels smothered in a world forced upon her. Of all people in the world, her mother would understand. Right?

Mother is caught up in the image of a perfect family, and can't see any farther than that. She sees a child who couldn't know what she wants, and a world filled with judging eyes. A little force is all that is needed to set a child in line.

The child runs away, and is lost on the streets. It's a scary place to be. The lyrics say the rest.

My mother i seek,

I'd like to curl up meek,

In the lap of your laughter.

You wanted a daughter.

Well i am no Jesus,

If you give me a dress,

I could become your princess.

It's alot to fit into a small dance, but all i hope is that at least a bit of the story translates.

Enjoy :)