An Attempt at Solitude. Performed on December 5, 2007.

Due to

A) the change in color in the birth control pills currently being taken daily by artist, Julia Claire Wallace

B) Disappointment caused by the actions of her friends.
including but not limited to: losing the superior status of 'single,' and acting as if the artist,
Julia Claire Wallace is a female to be fucked or not fucked.

C) Uncomfortableness caused at information that was thrown about and not well explained.

or

D) B and C, intensified by A


Julia Claire Wallace decided to attempt a period of solitude. She decided that maybe she should start avoiding tall, skinny artist formerly referred to as 'The Muse' as well as his sidekick. She also debated ignoring another artist which will be referred to as the 'Cheerleader' due to option C, although she assumed she would talk to the Cheerleader soon, because she knew the idea of ignoring her was silly.

Julia Claire Wallace went to the Menil Collection to see the Bruce Nauman exhibit as her first action of solitude. Although, she must admit, she did realize that this place of art was directly in the midst of the homes of both the cheerleader and the artist formerly known as The Muse.

She parked and began to walk toward the Menil Collection, but halted when she realized that with an hour of daylight left and a group of minstrels (which included a banjo) serenading the neighboring park. She must soak in this beauty and go indoors when it was no longer available.

She lay on the ground reading a book entitled "Stardust" that she had started reading because she felt devoid of the energy to read anything of obvious value.

Julia Claire Wallace soaked in the blueness of the sky, the greenness of the grass and the sweetness of the banjo. The leaves that framed the sky were appreciated greatly by the artist and she soaked in the beauty of the moment without thought of the past or future.

At a particularly strange moment when a tiny white hairy dog, and a large friendly Fluffy brown dog were invading her space she saw the artist, formerly known as The Muse ride by on his bicycle. She waved over the large brown dog and pictured what it must look like. A dog, a waving arm.

Surreally, the artist formerly known as The Muse rode back and lay next to her on the green grass.

They discussed many things that she wouldn't remember.
She asked the story of the ballerina accountant, and creator of life art, the boyfriend.
She was happy to hear these stories.
He said that she probably wouldn't like his music, which annoyed her and made her feel hopeless. She decided that he would never ever understand her. This was understandable, but sad.

She told him that she was unsettled by seeing him here, because she had debated avoiding him for a long time. Of course this didn't bother him. She knew it wouldn't. She wouldn't have told him if it would have.

Finally he rode away, and called after her with a laugh, that she should try not to contact him for awhile.

I would have to TRY to contact you, she thought.

She got up and walked toward the museum.
Tears in her eyes. It must be the pills, there is no reason to cry now.

She walked through the exhibit, but she kept crying while she watched Bruce Nauman painting his face or playing one note on the violin in his art studio. She thought he was beautiful. She wondered how she could find someone like Bruce Nauman. Where are the Bruce Naumans? Where are the people who are not afraid?

She had to leave, she couldn't soak in anything.

She drove to CVS and bought a soda and some candy, she debated buying multiple kinds of candy, she wondered about consumerism as she picked out red licorice and Big Red. She wondered what would happen to her if she ate things this red every single day.

As she got back into her car she thought that she should write a book about the artist formerly known as 'The Muse'. This should be the end. This should be it. I should never see him again. It will be a tragedy. People will hate this book because it is so unsatisfying. People will love this book because it is so real. This is what happens. People just leave. She asked herself what people reading the book would think of her. Will they think she should have pressed the matter? She abandoned that line of thinking.

She decided that she should write a book that would capture The Muse the way that he should be, the way that she wished he could be. She should capture the god that she had created in her mind. He is too beautiful to exist only in my mind.

She felt love, for this artist formerly known as The Muse, she did. She wanted to be his friend. She knew she would probably see him again, and that she would always care for him, and that many more good conversations would most likely occur. He is a normal person looking for a comfortable life, and that is fine. She was glad that his pain seemed to be lessening with the new changes in his life.

But she wanted to snip the string between him and The Muse. She didn't want this man who didn't think she would like his music, who dated, who abstained from cocaine, to pervert the glorious Muse that stood so tall in her mind, with his arms wrapped around himself.

So she attempted to snip the string in her mind,
and she felt some relief, but she knew it wasn't really gone.

She went home and created a Life Art Blog to help her deal with the intensity of her emotions.
She documented "An Attempt at Solitude". This helped her feel better. She no longer felt a desire to run away, but she didn't feel the desire to run toward anything either.

She sent the former Muse the writings, even though she had just vowed not to contact him. Although she did realize that she had decided to avoid The Muse, and that she was now contacting the artist formerly known as The Muse which was an entirely different thing altogether.

The Shower Story: A collaborative piece by The Muse and Julia Claire Wallace. November 2007 (Precursors to the Performance of the Letter )

On one November night of 2007 Artist, Julia Claire Wallace performed arguably her best performance to date. These are the precursors. They deserve their own name.

I call this collaborative piece, "The Shower Story"

(an integral part of this piece is that it was told in story form multiple times at multiple bars by the artists)

It (debatably) begins with a conversation:

Setting: car, night, on the way to an after party, both intoxicated, Julia is definitely more intoxicated

Tall and skinny artist who will be referred to here on out as 'The Muse'-
"Julia, can we be completely honest with each other?"

Julia Claire Wallace (frightened)-
" I guess."

The Muse-
"I just saw this movie, there was this woman and she was on top of the man and she says,

'If I fuck you I will hate myself in the morning'
and he says,

'That doesn't really matter to me.'

And that, Julia, is how I feel about you. "

Julia Claire Wallace is surprised, annoyed, and wishing she could write this down to decipher when no longer intoxicated.

Subject Changed.

After Party is attended.

The party is uncomfortable for Julia Claire Wallace due to the lack of her usual female friends as well as glimpses of angry conversations that seem to be revolved around her as well as the strange and bothersome conversation that had occurred earlier.

It becomes apparent that the movie The Muse has seen was The Darjeeling Limited so Julia Claire Wallace makes a mental note to see it the next day.

As people leave the party The Muse calls Julia's attention to a small easel in the corner. He collects various writing utensils from the vicinity. A broken pencil. A blue ballpoint pen. An orange and red crayon. The artists begin to create. They draw circles and lines. They draw with fervor. It is an intense experience for both participants, and they declare the outcome amazing. At this time a self proclaimed authority figure asks them to leave, so they decide to continue the art making at the apartment of The Muse.

The Muse pulls out a very large piece of cardboard. He collects pastels and charcoal and pencils and they begin creating a magnificent art piece. Sweeping lines and circles and tiny tracings. They create with a fever, barely speaking. They only touch once, when The Muse presses a black piece of charcoal into her fingers and grasps the green piece of charcoal from her hand in exchange. She doesn't look at him, she just draws.

He brings paint out. They are covered in paint and colorful dust.

One masterpiece and one semi-masterpiece. They stare at the paintings. She feels amazed at their genius.

It is freezing outside, it is raining. It is 6am.

"You can stay here if you take a shower."

The Muse's bed is white, a white cloud of comfortable. When one lays upon it, there is thirty more seconds of slowly floating downward into a soft resting place.

Julia Claire Wallace begrudgingly agrees to the deal, due to a certain hesitance concerning taking off her clothes.

She waits for The Muse to take his shower. She waits on a giant beanbag in his living room in front of a heater, staring off into space listening to a CD player skipping. It played the same 15 second line over and over for his 20 minute shower.

Finally, The Muse comes out with his towel and she asks in a small whiny voice if he has another towel, and if she should borrow clothes. She walks into the bathroom, and The Muse takes the towel from his own body and hands it to her, and she sees him naked. The bathroom door closes as much as it closes. The Muse's bathroom door does not have the capability of closing fully.

Julia Claire Wallace takes off her shirt. She is not wearing a bra today, and it feels wonderful to take off her shirt and stretch her naked body. She continues undressing and climbs into the warm shower smiling, because it everything feels so good.

At one point during the shower, as she is washing in between her ass cheeks, she looks out of the cloudy transparency of the shower curtain and she sees a figure. Julia Claire Wallace is frightened to death, but then realizes it is simply the shape of some clothes hanging on the door.

After the shower, she dries with The Muse's damp towel and puts on a few articles of clothing. She takes the clothing that she has decided not to put on once more to her purse in the dining room. She does not see The Muse. She returns to the bathroom area and notices a small, hastily written note on the floor. It reads,

Had to go. Enjoy your stay.

-Muse

Julia Claire Wallace laughs. She looks outside into the freezing, 7am rain outside. She shakes her head in amazement.

She ponders going home, but one look at the fluffy cloud of bed makes her stay. As she lies down in the midst of the fluffy poofs of white, down comforter she makes sure to fully appreciate how much nicer it was that the entire bed is her own for the night.

She has a lazy morning in The Muse's apartment. She reads a couple of pages of the book she had just lent him. She watched an episode of MASH.

(But it should be noted: The abruptness of The Muse is a thorn in the side of her enjoyment, because she feels that it was a little mean spirited. )

She decides she is in the mood for a nice hot bath. As she lays in his bathtub, with the beautiful sound of November rain in the background, she reaches her hand down to pleasure herself. She leans her head back and fills his apartment with moans, with the happiness she was giving herself. She has multiple orgasms in The Muse's bath tub.

She roams around The Muse's apartment for awhile, stealing some of his paper to write out some of her annoyance concerning the conversation of the night before and the abrupt disappearance of her fellow artist. She looks through some of his things.

She takes an unsealed envelope of secrets that she once sent him in the mail and burns it over their painting, then places the remains into a box of wheat thins in his trash can, but she keeps a small portion of the envelope for herself. (This is the tragic demise of The Secrets Performance).

Before leaving she decides that she must leave a note. She leaves one next to the bed concerning the conversation, but this note is not worth mentioning.

Then she takes a piece of paper, and tears it down to the size of a plaque. She inscribes the plaque with the following:

Historical Marker

This is the bathtub of the artist, known as The Muse. Although it is famous for another reason. It is rumoured that famous artist and autoeroticist Julia Claire Wallace once masturbated here on a cold and rainy afternoon in the November of 2007.

She placed the plaque in the bathtub, then she left the apartment, with a spring in her step.

The Secrets Performance: Performed from September? 2007 through November 2007

After discovering that the The Muse does not open letters, Julia Claire Wallace decided to do a performance in response to this habit of his. She found the habit beautiful yet maddening, and contemplated for ages what she could do to explore her interest in the matter.

Finally she wrote down two secrets in a beautiful card, with a canoe on the front.

One secret was embarrassing but silly.

One secret was disturbing and frightening.

She wrote an explanation letter to be sent along with the secrets, but she decided to keep that letter in her journal.

She mailed the envelope of secrets, on the outside she wrote a fluxus score for The Muse and a statement of dismay at the beauty of this art piece.

The envelope came to the apartment of The Muse and ended up on his kitchen counter.

Julia Claire Wallace inquired a few times about the secret letter, but The Muse said that it had not come.

When Julia Claire Wallace visited the apartment of The Muse she noticed that the envelope HAD come apparently unnoticed by The Muse.

Weeks later, The Muse mentions that he discovered the letter of secrets, and had not opened it.

A few times artist, Julia Claire Wallace had the opportunity to steal the letter back, but decided to leave her secrets on the kitchen counter of The Muse on account of the extreme discomfort it caused her.

Once, The Muse threatened to go home and read the envelope of secrets with a friend of his who was wearing extremely shiny, red high heels. His threat was made amidst an evil laugh, increasing the discomfort of the artist, Julia Claire Wallace.

She reflected on the discomfort, and decided that it was beautiful discomfort, and definitely one of the most glorious results of the art piece.

Later, she visited the apartment and spied the envelope still unopened on the counter.

The secret letter was partly explained to the Houston artist known as The Cheerleader. She advised that the letter be stolen promptly.

Finally, during "The Shower Story" a collaborative art piece that occurred in November, Julia Claire Wallace secretly stole the letter of secrets and burned through the middle of it as part of a collaborative painting in The Muse's living room.

The remains of the burned letter were placed inside of a Wheat Thins box in The Muse's garbage bag, except for a small portion of the envelope which currently resides in the armrest in Julia Claire Wallace's car.

The Muse is most likely still ignorant to the letter's demise, which is a significant aspect of this piece.