Ash(ley) Michelle C. — 2024 — Juniperus ashei wood, alphabet stamps, oil-based polyurethane
A totem of desire, an earth element of humanness, a heavy stone to move up mountains and reach the heavens, un pene ejemplar, to carve into marble, a sign that the devil, and my ego, wanted me back. If I stroke it, good luck will come… My chisel is dull. Everyday I thought of that someone's dick even though MINE was taking shape by MY own hand and I would remind myself think of MY dick and all that it holds embody MY dick be bolder and stroke it out loud until I'm covered in MY own masculine cum and find those holes of ease and pleasure and make MY way back to MY life a return to MY inner dick The wood grain flows through time. how lovely to be filled a perfect fit like a dovetail joint cut on an Upstate winter's eve by the glow of the hanging shop light the buzz of the radio playing Miles Davis so cool and everything is cold so cold outside another blizzard but my hands are warm sanding away the rough spots until it is smooth enough to smooth even more I'm not there anymore I'm here the late summer heat strokes my thighs I get hotter and I wish you— there I go again time to refocus I get scared sometimes of being too much but I also fear that I will never be enough because in the end it is I who will die alone and Ashley's ashes will mix with dirt and rain will fall turning me into mud and finally I'll leave my mark but nobody will know that they stepped on the last human remnants of my soul Sweat beads up on my mustache. so I live alive on earth and stain the jeans of those who tripped into my muddy path I am sorry let me help you clean it up now here we are maybe I could do a little dance for you maybe I could sit on your lap and read you a poem I could lay prostrate at your feet and say a prayer then kneel and pray harder can't you see I can't see but feel my way through does this seem right I think so right I don't know but I really do I know the water is the sky and that every time I realize today is now I ride a fish for 8 seconds through the clouds My fingers are covered in cuts. FUCK IT THE DICK IS MINE what is so complicated I write with the same hands that cut down the dead oak trees and Juniperus Ashei will take root where once there were shadows letters pressed into my present make it real I drive around the ranch a daydream of getting fucked by the dick that made me return to my own and I'm already coming I'm coming oh yes the dick is mine my dick is mine but maybe it is yours too if we are both pushing into the same hole I rub an oil stain into the wood. I laugh at the sky (which is water) when I turn away to look at a rock instead. It is heavy and I slide it with the come-along. Slow, slower, so slowly, a wet trail in the dry creek bed is uncovered. It is wet because there is an invisible spring that flows. There are underground currents and sediment slides of powdered caliche and time (it has stopped), beds of juniper berries and fragrant wood where one could lie down and die in peace. I make a decision to think about anything I can't comprehend: Like why I fall in love so easily. Why I always leave. Why I run away from me. Why I run to you. Why I can't be aware of how I shape time. Why can't I shape time? Wait, why did I shape time in this way? And why I can't stop coming back. I think about why I'm alone but make myself stop. I already know why and I had told myself to think about things I can't comprehend. I think about running back to me and colliding into myself. A big bang. I walk up the hill and find a fossilized clam. I think about melted butter covering Texas instead of water (the sky) back in the day. I forget that I am woman. I forget that I am man. And I want nothing else. I already know what it is like to be bored in heaven, foolish in hell and hopelessly in love with dark matter. So really, is it that big of an ask? To be the one who holds the dick? I am freer than I've ever been, existing in between desire and instinct, nature and knowledge, wise hoe, dumb bitch, the queen of spades, a road runner sitting on the fence, a fox jumps in a tree, timber! timber! the clearing is made and I can see now, I feel like I can see now, see now, I can, see that bright orange horizon now? The snake falling from the sky? I am Team Real Tree. I rub my wood for good luck as I cum back to life—all over the state of Texas, fuck it, all over the world.
a layered dialogue between vulnerability, assertion, and craft
— Glasstire
The installation is touchable by design. Viewers are invited to handle the work. Each of the 11 phallic forms — carved, shaped, and stamped letter by letter — hangs on a single stringer.
December 19, 2025. 8 AM to 7 PM. 6:30 PM reading.
An 11-hour durational window performance at Artist Television Access, 992 Valencia Street, San Francisco. Sculpt, Stroke, Stamp, Sand, Repeat — for eleven hours, one for each dick. The complete installation hung in the window, touchable. Poetry surprises for anyone who stopped by.
After a month of pondering the dick, imagining the dick, asking the dick questions, going within and finding her own — a series of wooden sculptures that merge poetry with tactile and performative processes came to life.
Each phallic form, carved, shaped, and stamped letter by letter, sprung up from the month-long process of obsession and introspection. The practice of making a book of poetry out of phallic sculptures became an intimate and ritualistic way to uncover her own connection to The Dick: Destruction, Creation, Deviance, Disturbance, Bliss.
My imaginary dick is noble, it is strong, it gives me pleasure and brings me confidence each time I stroke it and think: I'm gonna cum all over the state of Texas, fuck it, I'm gonna cum all over the world.
My inner dick has always been a part of me.
I'm a pretty tough cookie with a deep love for manual labor and all work that requires muscle, sweat, grunting. Testosterone levels, high.
I've built cabins in Texas. I can lay tile and stucco your home by myself. I've raised goats in Upstate New York, been a butcher's assistant in Austin, and worked as a cabinet maker in Red Hook. I wear my cuts and scrapes with pride. I secure 2 x 4s in the bed of a truck with confidence.
I'll mow your lawn and drink the tea your girlfriend offers me.
And if she makes it an Arnold Palmer, I'll fuck her before you get home from the ATM with my day's wages.
I grew up with a cunty body, but only later in life learned how to honor the so-called feminine energy.
Goddess this, luna that, steam your twats, let go of thoughts… and the water, intuition and stars—I went all in. And with all those practices of the soft body and energetic fields, my imaginary dick got soft too.
I was wet…with all the tears I finally cried after years of silenced traumas and fears of not being good enough. I was tender, small, and in the process of being reborn as the woman I really was supposed to be.
For a hot minute (ages 29-36), I had forgotten completely about my imaginary dick I grew up with and, to a large extent, had learned to depend on.
I do not prescribe to the divisions and definitions of masculine or feminine, however I do have distinct relationships with myself that flow between these different concepts of identity.
I enjoy entering the realms of genitalia-based assumptions to take what society has created and fuck it all up by doing what feels right for me.
I'm fascinated by our emotional relationships to our sex. How they subconsciously guide us for better or for worse and how, when played with, can become an impetus for change and liberation.
I love my pussy. How it can get wet from a stranger's gaze that hits just right or the sound of your voice reading a poem. I love my clit and how it gets engorged when physically stimulated (like a couple nights ago under the harvest moon).
But this time (as opposed to masturbation month), I'm obsessed with the penis—the physical properties of it getting hard, ejaculating and putting on a show, fitting into holes both metaphorically and literally for more ease and pleasure.
Much of this intrigue is directly related to my juxtaposed sexperience of growing up in a small town.
A place where we never talked about sex and I learned about the penis from reading the encyclopedia…and from getting a contact dick-energy education by being a girl with guy friends but never BOYfriends.
In school and those horrible church camps my dad made me go to, we were taught that girls were to be humble, charming, decent, inviting and outgoing in the right kind of nice lady way.
No wonder I had always wished I were a man when I was a teenager and woman in my twenties.
I had never let myself be hard out loud without later feeling guilty, ashamed, or like I was disappointing the world.
So really, I had cultivated a false ideal of "feminine" energy as a child and then had to go back and do it all over again as a woman and all the while, quieting my dick energy or feeling ashamed at having it! JESUS CHRIST.
With all this cultivation of "feminine" outward energy, I got soft, soft, softer, my emotional dick shriveled UNTIL…
and I started to get wet AND hard again.
It all starts with a good piece of hard wood.
A totem of desire, an earth element of humanness,
a heavy stone to move up mountains and reach the heavens, un pene ejemplar,
to carve into marble, a sign that the devil,
and my ego, wanted me back.
I wanted that dick. The dick of a someone specific who had put me in a deep slut trance. A someone who made space for me to vocalize my dirty and creative mind and cultivate a beautifully scummy longing.
I spoke up more. My confidence grew.
I spoke up more. I heard myself be truthful.
The dick as a blessed microphone.
I wanted it so badly…
perhaps inside of me
or maybe as my own,
if I could put it on.
I was ready to pack my satchel, make some sandwiches and cross continents for that dick.
BUT THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN, with the illusion of finally fucking playing on repeat in my head, sending my blood rushing, as I had one foot out the door and the other ready to run…the skies darkened.
A late August downpour in the Texas panhandle struck.
I was trapped in a truck, ready to fuck, as a flash flood of two words carried away my hope for easy access: "It's complicated."
I swore up and down like Scarlett on Gone with the Wind:
I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry [for dick] again. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill, as God is my witness, I'll never be hungry [for dick] again.
Poor me! Wha! I don't get what I want! Wha! Now I have to find a way to go on and not be an impotent, whining, baby. Wha!
But here's the meat and potatoes of it all: instead of suffering from an ego death or feeling jealousy, I was given the opportunity to make a decision…
1. wallow in disappointment
2. or get hard and cum in a new way.
So OBVIOUSLY it occurred to me to mark this Aha! Moment with an experimental poem/object/art/performance.
A stick, my dick, a poem, my prayer,
hold it, stroke it, cum with confidence,
be obnoxious again, step on some toes,
find the holes of ease and pleasure, insert
my presence without worrying:
Will I be a good enough woman?
I decided, I had to embody and stroke (my) imaginary dick to come back to my nature.
I had to activate a performative practice of creating my own kind of power I wanted to reclaim; to create an object that symbolized my true desire to be seen, to impose myself without having to go through the pageantry of "a lady has entered the room;" to stop looking for a special dick to fill the hole in my heart.
I've distracted myself enough.
Day 1, September 17th: Fell and Size Up
Find an erect, hard Juniperus ashei branch.
Cut with a handsaw and bring back to the house.
Peel back the bark with a draw knife to reveal the smooth interior.
Chop (saw) down to size.
Voila. A page for my poetry.
I'm taking my time with this dick because the more I work it, the more I discover my own stories of both power and impotence, truth and lies, and who I really am in connection with myself and others, with pleasure and my ability to express it.
Also, I realized it's very difficult to shape and carve wood when you are the owner of rough carpentry tools. I am NOT a fine carpenter and have no experience carving wood (besides making spaces for door hinges on the frames).
But this is what I do. I create literal and metaphorical challenges for myself in order to learn. It brings me joy. And once again, I love to suffer because when I finally find the opening…it's bliss.
Chapter 5's physical artifact — a book that arrived in the mail and could be held in the hands. The companion object to the sculptures, the performances, and the texts.
The complete installation includes all 11 Juniperus ashei sculptures on their original stringer, ready to hang from a wall hook. The work is intended to remain touchable — this is not incidental to the piece but central to it. The sculptures arrive exactly as they were made and exhibited.
