Woman and Child First

Tribute To Theresa Lee Duncan

  It was a year ago that I slowly became aware of the suicide of my favourite blogger, Theresa Duncan. A stranger from America was kind enough to track me down and tell me. Lisa had noticed I was a regular commenter on T's blog. Thanks again Lisa.

 I was devastated. And massively confused. How was it that someone I had never met could impact upon me so?

But it's nothing new. Take the mass outpouring of grief when Elvis died, when John Lennon was shot, when Princess Diana was killed. You don't have to be in physical presence to be moved by someone expressing who they really are. The difference with Theresa was that she never became that famous.

Did that relate to the fact that she was a drop-dead gorgeous blond who was not ever afraid of speaking her sometimes intimidating razor sharp wit and intelligence? (Diana has a somewhat different role in history).

Yeah I'd reckon that's a definite possibility.

She should have been famous and by all accounts she wanted to be. At the very least, she sought to be  heard. I could rave on for hours about that one, but suffice it to say:  this woman had the kind of  impact on me that only a handful of people ever had.

I thought she was brilliant and that's because she was. Funny and entirely confident about her sexuality,all of it, she was a true inspiration and continues to be a muse for me. I have adopted her as a personal goddess in the year since her decision, asking for guidance as I go. And guess what.

She's always right and with a familiar sense of humour.

 Wit.

To all the people that knew her in real time, I hope this anniversary re-instates your own worthiness and reminds you to keep going.

Theresa pictured above with lover and artist Jeremy Blake who drowned himself a week after her death.

Depressive Realism

There is a theory that's been around for some years in psychology and it's called Depressive Realism. It's a theory which suggests that depressed people have a better grip on reality than non-depressed people. There has been much research on it. Example.

So let's say I assume Theresa Duncan was depressed before committing suicide. This would be a fairly safe assumption I would say, though no-one has talked about this in anything I've read. Then I could also assume, for instance, that she may well have been one of those depressed people who experience Depressive Realism.

And that means, if my assumptions are correct, that there would be quite a few people who at the very least are shifting nervously in their seats, since she quite lucidly describes harrassment on her blog.

So then. Paranoia or realism?

Just thought I'd through an intriguing bit of psychological research into the ring. Something to think of anyway eh?

Pictured is Lauren Alloy, one of the two researchers who discovered the "sadder but wiser" (depressive realism) effect in the late 70's. Her colleague, Lyn Abramson was the other researcher.

Hey That's My Piece Of The Collective Unconscious

  Now who amongst us has heard of Carl-baby Jung? Hmm?

He was the guy who clinched the concept of the "collective unconscious." The collective unconscious is that ethereal place where all of the human race, everything it's done and said, or thought of... every image and every idea... is pooled. We all have access to it.

In his words the collective unconscious is:

"a reservoir of the experiences of our species."

See, I have problems with Theresa Duncan being accused of plagiarism when the woman herself said something along the lines of (not verbatim, friends) ..."Ok look I get information and ideas thrown around me, at me, like all of us do nowadays and sure... I pick up on some sentence I like... It's not deliberate..."

(Someone please tell me which post that was and whether or not I went into my 'collective unconscious' rave). Found it - Plagiarism, Cont.

In the ether lies every single thing we've done etc. It belongs to all of humankind for all of time. By chance, we pick up on it, tiny bits of it and it comes to our consciousness: as an idea, an inspiration, a business negotiation, as a SENTENCE GODDAMN IT.

See my blog? It's just the same format as Theresa's. That wasn't unconscious, I wanted it. She could have called me a thief, a plagiarist. But she didn't. She entirely overlooked it like it didn't matter and it doesn't.

Always and still, I think that to be a generous, full of heart and very cool thing to do.

Theresa Duncan was not a plagiarist. She was a fabulous moment in time.

Moral of the Story: If you have a good idea, act on it. Because if you don't, someone else will pick up on it. Also, don't be too precious with ideas, they belong to all of us it would seem. (Learnt that one the hard way, chaps).

Carl pictured. Forget where I got it.

She Said She Said

Theresa Duncan liked brevity. In a comment about the documentary film, Grey Gardens, she said:

The people we are aware of who "love" this unfunny film are usually creepy bottom feeding art world female masochists of the girl-photographer ilk.

Tee hee aren't women crazy?

Aww come on. It's funny. Christ I miss her.

From A Greyer Garden - post Dec 18 2006 on Wit of the Staircase.

She Said She Said

Dead Artist, Beautiful and Brilliant, Cops Further Beatings

Perhaps contrary to my last post... I Will Say This:

The articles I've read so far on Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake have fallen into a little neat heap of similar analyses. Don't we just love to put things in teensy boxes and cover them with plastic labels? Ah...That feels better.

And the conclusion is: They were paranoid freaks that lost their grip on any sort of reality. (Oh. But they were really interesting). There we have it. Good as Done.

One more thing: Theresa Duncan could be really difficult. Like I mean totally really difficult.

Look I don't know and I never will whether Theresa and Jeremy were being harrassed by the Church of freaking Scientology. But I do know something of the ugliness of human nature. I know something about how easy it is to call them paranoid. NOW. They're both dead so they can't defend themselves.

I have no doubt whatsoever that my beloved Theresa could be difficult. She was an artist and an intellectual, damn you! She's meant to be provocative and challenging.  Did we all expect her to be "nice" and polite and sweet to everyone did we? Oh shucks.

Get a life. She had things to say.

One of the 14 million reasons I loved that woman and her blog was because she had edge and a sharp one. I just adored her for that. I always knew that I were ever to be so honoured and lucky to meet her, that she had the potential to scare the shit out of me. THAT'S A GOOD THING. Her intellectual edge invited me to stand up and meet that challenge. That's called divine opportunity in my language.

The lilly-livered, packaged conclusions that have been drawn about this woman, attempting to do the impossible (explain human complexity in about 9 nine sentences), are falling short of doing anything but making me want to hit someone.

TD pictured in New York. The Present in New York Is So Powerful The Past Is Lost on Wit, 21 November 2006.

Withdrawal

Hi Folks, I've withdrawn my previous post "Get Levelled - Theresa's Tragedy" as it seemed to have created some sad and offended responses from some. To those that have commented on this post, I apologise but your comments have been deleted too. I have heard you though, and that's why I've taken it down, with respect. My aim was not to offend.

I don't wish to get involved in discussions about Theresa's personal life, the harrassment she spoke about, the suggestions that it wasn't a suicide and so forth.

I loved her and her blog and will miss it sorely. It was in that medium I knew her and I have no business or interest in talking about her life outside this. For all the rest of her life, I don't know anything and am in no position to comment on it.

Cheers, Alison.

Lovers of Illusion

Swati Pandey makes decent enough attempt at rationalising the loss of Theresa Duncan when you didn't really know her and yet you feel you did.  LA Times.

And you probably did.

The Artist As Mentor

Grief is grief. How many grieved for John Lennon and who still misses him? Scores of people who never met the man.

Artists are vital. They speak for us, they mirror us. They tell stories about our culture - who we are and who we are meant to be.  They tell stories that show how frigging stupid we are.

I'll lay bets that your favourite artist is someone who is saying and doing something that almost exactly speaks something from your own self.

And if they die before us, we have lost something vital. Our spokesperson is no longer here to represent us. What remains for us privately and individually is what was inspired within us and what we will do with it now. This is the key to moving forward.

The beautiful and eternally brilliant Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake are pictured.

Medicine of Love Meets the Refusal to Despair.

After a splintered week of everyday obligations and dealing with the complicated grief of losing my favourite blog person, indeed a mentor, Theresa Duncan, I had become exhausted. A significant depression loomed close. I spoke to my boyfriend, Teddy about this. He had one sentence, It was a magic sentence.

That one sentence beckoned a familiar argument, but in the magic of a moment I thought to myself: He's right.

In the second moment, something lifted. A few minutes later, I was laughing.

Anais Nin:

"It's almost like the man who goes to the bottom of the ocean and takes with him some oxygen to equalize the pressure. I'm talking about equalizing the pressure between outer actions and events which are shattering and devastating to us and then the place where we recompose and reconstruct ourselves, where we finally achieve what Jung called the second birth. The second birth we are entirely responsible for; it's a self-creation. This second birth is the one that you can make, and the discovery of that to me was always a great relief..."

From A Woman Speaks (Chapter 2: Refusal to Despair) 1982

Thanks to Kim Richardson for once again painting my mind and further, what it needs to see.  Contrary Shaman pictured.

Theresa Duncan - Death of an Ally

Today I learnt of Theresa L Duncan's suicide in New York on July 10. I'm assuming that if I read it in the New York Times online, then it is in fact truth. And that her lover and soulmate, Jeremy Blake reported missing, has in fact, swum out to sea off Rockaway Beach, also leaving a note.

I came to regard Theresa as a favoured female companion, though I never met her in person. Her blog became my daily fix of intellectual stimulation, artistic inspiration, humour and fabulous links. I was always honoured to find she had posted my comments. All of them. She must have liked me too. We exchanged the odd email and last week, seeing something was obviously amiss, I emailed her to check up on her.

Her blog was the first one I ever read. A fortunate fluke - it was to be the main inspiration for starting my own blog. You will notice that I have reverted back to my original page layout, as a tribute to her. You will also notice, if you visit Theresa's blog, that the similarities between the look of both hers and mine are deliberate. I just thought she was marvelous.

I feel I've lost an ally, a significant and important one.

I have no idea of where to place my grief for the loss of her. I never met this woman but I knew her and respected her greatly.

Selfishly,I don't know what I'll do without her. My brain needs that stimulation and I know many others would feel this as well. Her comments on women, art, culture and politics were always supremely interesting and intelligent. A laugh out loud response was common for me.

How do you reconcile the loss of someone you admired so much - in cyberspace?

My first response was a predictable human one, shock. After a while, I stopped myself from thinking it was unacceptable to mourn for a cyber person, a virtual companion. Then I was able to shed some tears.

The world has lost one of it's greatest female thinkers. At the age of 40. And damn it, I've lost a friend.

So what will I do? I will keep blogging, that's what.

My sympathy and condolences go out to all her loved ones, her real life companions. But also to those like me: her "children and sisters" of the Staircase.