Ally Messer

●      it’s a particularly rainy and windy day, my umbrella flips inside out twice on the way to my first physical therapy appointment.

●      i am overcome by anxiety and, unfortunately, say nothing when i am assigned a man physical therapist after having explicitly asked for a woman PT over the phone.

●      the arthritis in my neck aches a bit less and the train takes me to my studio.

●      as the music emanating from the Cecil B Moore stop fades, i fall into the vegetable otherworld.

●      i hinge a vine on an apple and invent a machine.

●      i bend vegetable elbows and shake vegetable hands.

●      feeling prepared for my upcoming critique, i vow to come in early the next day and wish the vegetables a good night.

●      at long last, i return home to my loving partner Vincent who had artfully prepared a 3 cheese macaroni for us to share.

●      we eat together on the couch and celebrate my enormous cat Huckleberry’s 10th birthday (all month long).

●      i practice my physical therapy exercises called “Open Books,” where i stretch my back by craning my arms open, more like alligator jaws than a book.

●      i make plans to cancel my physical therapy appointments and reschedule somewhere else.

●      i chomp my hands together 20 times before i turn off the light and fall asleep.

Ally Messer is an interdisciplinary artist and maker currently dabbling in stop-motion animation. She has called Philly home for a little over 2 years and is an MFA candidate in the Fibers and Material Studies program at the Tyler School of Art. Her work can be found online at allymesser.com or on Instagram at @babyavacado.