In the midst

BIOGRAPHY

Artchemist. GFTD.VSSL.

Lindsay Imani Tillman is her returning, becoming//un-becoming, and inner-standing. N:0W. and Now. and now. Oh, the work of art she is, we are. Lindsay was born on the 3rd of February, 1999, at 4:44, in Baltimore, Maryland. By the age of three she had chosen her love path with visual arts not knowing that by 7th grade the “visual” would also become her own body as an instrument, as a mover//maker. Lindsay was mentored by Adrienne Watson Carver at Studio A Modeling, Etiquette, and Dance Academy. She trained intensively in Ballet, Modern, Jazz, Hip-Hop, Tap, Liturgical, and Competition dance while developing character, confidence, charm, and charisma in herself as well as in the young students she has instructed and choreographed for. She attended high school at Carver Center for the Arts & Technology for dance and continued her studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA.

Lindsay’s work is oriented around//towards (self)-healing, self-softening, heartwork, and learning//unlearning//relearning all that she is and ought to be. As a preacher’s kid, she has lived and moved through her discerning-body as a divine river and vessel of God. Lindsay Imani Tillman, with her growing business L.I.T.ink (est. 2017), births custom tattoo and logo designs, as she delves deeper into her passion for body as canvas//capturing the liveness of skin and tattoos, as we imprint//impress ourselves on//in the world. In addition, Lindsay embraces vibrant yellows, feeling the sun(light) she is. Her heart is on fire to (co)-create spaces of reality for healing and transformation full of life, light, and love, including dance, visual art and tattooing, poetry and spoken word, voice and singing, and art therapy.

RESEARCH/PROCESS STATEMENT

The ideas I am studying are: re-defining // re-languaging, heartwork, people as oceans, wombs & birthing, planting & rooting, (my) ground zero, devotional silence//deep listening, becoming-body, unseen//where the eye loses itself, natural languages, self-softening, embracing difference, reversals, reflexivity, and reciprocality, evidencing our accumulating innate intelligence, understanding underneath, present absences; absent presences, and N:OW; aliveness. From my "practices as research", Authentic Movement from Shayla Vie-Jenkins, continues to resonate alongside our (the movers//makers in my cast & I) archive of free writes//reflections in the L.I.T. doc, my poems, and my meditational sits with Paul Matteson, that have been orbiting my research. I have been immensely sustained, inspired, and guided by my three dancing angels, one of my home studio dance instructors, Ms. Staci Roberts, and my two dancing sisters, Talaya Jones and Braxton Blue B. Baker <3

The events, histories, and artists that relate to//inform my research are Nora Chipaumire’s Nhaka book and engaging in dialogues and crafting practices with Fana Fraser in our POD, wild, wild self-logic II. The texts I am delving into include, All About Love by Bell Hooks, She Speaks by Kymora Trinity, After the Rain by Alexandra Elle, Won’t You Celebrate with Me by Lucille Clifton, For Nothing is Fixed by James Baldwin, and the lyrics from A Love Supreme by Alice Coltrane. I am envisioning three trios, layering the physical, textual, and visual. I am seeing the poems inside of words and throughout our living//dialoguing dictionary. I see faces and bodies as canvas. I want to ignite love, love, and more love. I am conceptualizing how to further my experience with the digital dancing body, occupying virtual interface, archiving the multiplicity of our imprints//impressions, and capturing the liveness of skin and tattoos. Lastly, for my writing I desire//intend to use black//brown paper//surfaces.

DIaloguing <> Dictionary ii

Interface:

inhabiting the in-betweens...a charged space...a metaphysical transformation into the known...”embodiment and its absence”, “a telepathic trace” (Toni Dove)...not yet; not real...

LOVE:

IS. a wealth of subtlety and sensitivity...”a therapeutic device for freeing me of the burden of my past, which haunts me, determines all my actions, increasingly habituates me to the limitations of my personality and physical appearance” (Adrian Piper)... the capacity to be alone; to go into the deepest core of another person- without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without reducing the other to a thing, and without becoming addicted to the other…HEAL. TRUTH of the hearttime we are...not obsessive nor possessive...

HEARTwork:

a free flow state from my heart’s center...a surrendering/willingness, giving and receiving, but more giving, a birthing...living and moving from a heart that remains unhardened by the sometimes cold and dark places of being in the world…no reason not to forgive me… self-softening

I am a vssl. buoyant echo of a divine river...

Oceans:

people… permeable...waves of present absences; absent presences...“I imagine the body having the choice to come apart and then, coming back together again” (Ralph Lemon)

-ripples, oscillations, growing strength, constant vibrations, trashing, trembling, roaring, silence. Like glass. -mc

Ground Zero:

planting & rooting… “go within and scale the depths of your being from which your very life springs forth” (Rainer Maria Rilke)...affirming direction > speed...trusting the unseen...“The earth, everything, was black. Scorched… sometimes you have to scorch everything to start over. And after the burning the soil is rich and life can grow there. Life that is maybe even better than what was there before. And people are like that too.. They start over. And they find a way”... (little fires everywhere)...”take out ‘because’ and drop a period there” (Kymora Trinity)...voice is limb is voice is.

Becoming-Body:

mending my heart, molding my mind, maturing my spirit…to be in shift.for a lifetime. portals porous and pouring...learning//unlearning//relearning...ever-shifting sand...god bodY (Nyla murray)

Reciprocality:

buoyant oscillation, circling cycles, shrunken gaps between question-answer-question

N:OW:

the precise happening, to everyone and everything...constant aliveness… “in which the existent crystallizes into a form, acquires a meaning— not fixed, not definitive, not hardened into a mineral immobility, but alive as an organism”...our ephemeral eternity…”what will we be like when we get there”??? HERE-ness...arriving and arriving and arriving

Belong(ing):

to love...BE YOU//WITH ME...our complex paradoxes

-past present, this codependent dance we have with our own self and others. Forever creating this state of within and with others. -mc

I am here - Ella

IS:

verb of all life, my light, my voice...my LOVE. has no language yet...

(my) DANCE:

growth, the quieting//silencing...in pursuit of “spirit-capturing motion” (Nora Chipaumire)...my solution, evolution, and revolution…, an awakening…symbiotic… “i can” > “can’t”s...knowing how to make something new from nothing...when//where “the actual body, the artist, and the artwork are inseparable” (Creating New Futures)

HEAL(ing):

infinity of LOVE...thread the needle...touching where it hurts…”learning to allow my pain to teach me, not harden me”... “with an unrushed ease” (Alexandra Elle)...(this is what the world needs!)

Research:

beyond the surface of a thing (ever-deepening and ever-expanding)...spectral seeing//seeking...a re-defining and re-languaging...of understanding//INNER-standing...evidencing our accumulating innate intelligence>>>reaching for, consuming//digesting the unknown. REVOLUTION.

Naming:

BECOMING…the rhythm, the tone, the dance

Letting it in..realeyes...realize…- Ella

Natural:

Before utterance...“[...}with respect to the sum of what can be experienced”; “with respect for what things (present or absent) communicate without words”(Calvino)... “all coming from the same place - all can exist together” (Michael Clark)... “I’m trying to be like water” (Vince Johnson)...sounds that speak...pouredpore(s) ; pores pour…”wild, wild self-logic II” (Fana Fraser)...free spirit...deep ecology: soul-self...zzzzzzzz

-with all being without material. Creation by God but not by us. -mc

I have been here,,,,,,we have been here….. -Ella

In//SIGHT:

Desensitizing our need//the demand of eye sight...where the eye loses itself...why did God show me this???...MINDFUL WONDER

Inside))) multiple sourcing,,it came to me,,guidiing - Ella

“I AM”:

GFTD.VSSL...planted in our divine river...who you are<<<>>>why you’re here...BECOMING//UNBECOMING...vvvvvvvvisssssccceral. clay...what I burn for

Am I)))))) no limit, no pre-conception, here in all any form all any unleashing unbounded everflowing move…. moveBeBreatheLove… -Ella

Wombs:

spatial metamorphosis… of emptying and fulfilling… many selves, many bodies, many living histories... BIRTH.

-developing in a complex being full of life. A space where the unknown is created without fault without sin. Before the beginning. -mc

Reincarnation, life death pain love, neverending, neverbeginning- Ella

tree people...trilogy//tri-ology...trilateration...trilingual

tears:

“GOD’S WATERS” (Braxton Blue B. Baker <3)...”we can see further through our tears than the lens of a telescope”...NO RAIN, no flowers...

SUN(light):

SOUL… we are our own sun, rising from our thunder and our rain...i am the light. the darkness is afraid of me.

-undeniable spirit, blinding to even the common light. Does not dim just is shadowed by physical earth but is refracted by the moon. -mc

held)))))holding,,beyond power- Ella

UNCNDTNL:

through//by//in heart’s spirit...there is so much to be afraid of, BUT LOVE LOVE LOVE: radical love...so pure and intentional...

AS we are.

Return:

“feels like the stretch of a rubber band and then the immediate contraction of it” (Shanel Edwards)... maybe not so much the becoming of “this and//or that” but UNbecoming all that is not you… “everyone will have a reckoning”...the call

Remember. forget. Again_____all ways always coming around flying landing ing - Ella

Womxn:

MUZE...MOYOCOYOTZIN…”what a relief. A womxn who loves herself” (Reyna Biddy)

Mystical, magic, beyond full comprehension, strong, confident, everflowing ever glowing, raw real true badass,,,beyond captivation…shapeshifter, all seer, I know who I am and it’s not for you -Ella

Awakening:

“I don’t want to just speak it. I need to be it.” (Braxton Blue B. Baker <3)... i am the wave, and i am the ocean...my path is infinite...nature’s sacred time//ing...pulse pulses on...focus softly. tendeResolve.

Taking responsibility for my life)))) I already know,,,,I have always known… -Ella