Sunday, June 30, 2013

day 21 | hmmm. déjà biting shallow space.

i really should edit this before i hit submit, but alas i am not.

Seven useful tools -- seek truth, not do-doing, be open, get support, learn from everything, cultivate a real love of self, have a practice.

déjà biting shallow space. i really enjoyed yesterday's autocorrect in which de-habiting was converted to déjà biting. there is something important in that somewhere i am sure. this morning though it seems to overlap or underlap with seeking truth or avoiding it.

truth | the forms i make often have strong gender specific bodily reference, typical feminine. somewhere in 2005/06 as i stepped into my own skin as artist, a shift away from designer, a shift away from invisible, these leadings became overtly evident. only once or twice, jokingly, did i set out to have that to be so. though initially i liked to believe my work came from trying on patterns i observed in culture and then unpacking how these played out with me, they ended up self referential in nature, it was definitely with the intent of analyzing culture, with a sort of self distancing built in. yet there is no distance, as a matter of fact the work is extremely intuitively autobiographical and unfortunately [?] highly public.



yet in terms of truth, i have not been able to truly unpack where within myself these repeating forms emerge and why they are repeated so often. i have inklings of maybes, threads i might tug and follow. i am not interested in living in a way that has me biting shallow space. it seems to find a deeper space i might follow these threads as to why these highly feminine forms [eeek. vaginas, folds, breasts, orficies. go away freud and klein!] keep manifesting in my work...it is a bit uncomfortable unpacking why one, this one, might make and publicly display such vaginal forms.

what the hell am i saying and to whom? i am pretty sure my work is largely a talking to myself, a trying to bite deeply, but i am not sure how to get there. but i must be attempting something more because the work and process are so public both in real space and cyberspace. am i making an assertion? a plea? a reveal? what am i doing? why?

a thread of subthreads...

relaxing into my own femininity sometime after the chrono reads 43 and occurring concurrently with a subtle grief of the losses as i approached the pause, a loss of biological and cultural femininity, i began making work in real space, three dimensional space. shoot right when i was just finding my own femininity i was loosing it. this relaxing into my own femininity, embracing it as an actual component of my identity was new. i previously was unaware of a conscious usage or dependence on my gender specificity. i would even say i intentionally submerged it. my parents in traditional gender roles worked to instill an independence in me, a gender neutrality. it was the heyday of full on feminist movement. my folks tried to raise a liberated she-child in a gender specific home. with little gap from that i married into a system in which men feared the feminine in response to historical familial systemic abuse, addiction, and dysfunction [redundant since the first two As cover it] -- the female feared. the subtle thinking and actions reinforced a gender neutrality that was already in the works within myself. to be female, to be feminine had negative and even detrimental ramifications, much in the same way to express emotion [a feminine trait?]. ha. though unnecessary financially, i worked from the onset of the union of 23 years because the unit clearly communicated if i did not, i would be like his mom [gracious wonderful nonworking woman who sat on boards at church, hospitals, and nonprofit do good organizations. the woman i knew was always striving to better herself, to be healthier, to love more deeply, to find god, to make a difference, etc. but like us all, the unit lived still with the alcoholic mother from his childhood, a woman long outgrown by her own hard work that i never met. i only knew her now version]. so combine my history, my inherent disposition, cultural context, with the unit's needs, an intentional and unconsciousness submersion of latching onto or attaching myself, my identity, behaviors, to the truly feminine was definitely playing out through childhood and the bulk of the marriage. yet an acceptance of my own femininity, relaxing into it with its concurrent fading has been definitely simmering to the surface--first in the non-languaged based form of making. my question is why? to what end? for what purpose? i am not interested in a simmering for the sake of simmering in the same way i am absolutely not interested in art for the sake of art.

i feel like i have bitten this before but haven't found depth of space within it. so now i will begin biting more tentatively...feeling for more threads...


identifying myself as artist, stepping into my own skin, is relatively new, making is not...

Saturday, June 29, 2013

day 20 | déjà biting shallow space

ooooh. that is the most awesome autocorrect. I intended to type dehabiting. mmm. sometimes I love auto correct. 

the work | not finished yet, but closer. top piece needs replaced (was left over from test one). need to add lip to hold foam sides on frame. also need to explore surface coatings to prevent dirt and scuffs. 


i know. i know. i made parts. shoot. frankly, i intended to make a square super soft like funnel entrance thingy, instead, i made girl parts. dang. at least i didn't make 25 nine foot tall suspended vaginas this time. oh, freud would love my work!


day 20 | habit



ha.. . reading the text, the power of habit, and laughing as it clearly supports the way i developed the structure and content of the entire first day of WASH, Workshop in Art Studio + History, along with the pace of that first crazy few weeks of making. all of which are critical to the flow and expectations for the entire semester. scope, sequence, structure, content and delivery is imperative if the goal is critical thinking, self reflectivity (both of product [choices-material, method, content, context, form] and process) and application. probably why it has been copied and repeated. learning [creativity] requires at some level the unpacking of our chunking, habits and assumptions of mind and movement in both cognitive and real space. the book is very good, the research studies of interest. i do enjoy when the data supports what i have developed intuitively. i developed much for the program--initial structure that sets the pace and intense programatic expectations, community/table team based studio setting, guided individual nonverbal (crit guides) as well peer team process and end crits, the silliness of implementation of game show TV like crits right down to people choice (peer) awards, cyber presence, object study/research guides, projects unique to program, etc. i will miss the development and my WASHers. i am thankful that i publicly documented my teaching process every semester via course blogs and will absolutely not miss the gaminess of the unnecessary political arena.

speaking of habits, this was a good first test run. though foam is still far too flat, shallow, but good test run. the forms are reminiscent but not quite right yet.



Wednesday, June 26, 2013

day 17 | talk of commodification has enter the dialogue a good bit oflate

so i laughed on today's outing when i stumbled upon farmers taking that idea to full fruition. i'd noted the heaping mound from a distance and was initially lured by the round forms recognizable from a great distance.


but as i drew ever nearer it became exceedingly clear that this was total cow commodification as the stench of fermenting fecal matter wafted my way. so many metaphors in that i don't even know where to begin.



commodify that!


day 17 | bahahaaa. I thought it would be lighter

but fifty pd bag of plaster = fifty pds of object plus foam and burlap. who knew? ok. I did; I just didn't know it'd take the whole freaking bag. I've a bit to learn about plaster. I used it in my grad thesis with tar, but I was pouring it into molds along with the tar. mixing and pouring is pretty straight forward.




tomorrow I sand this puppy butt smooth (baby butt that is).

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

day 16 | 9 more so i explore things to do in tandem with the stitch,stitching

sans the digital exertion of my opposables, i am experimenting with some of my original materials pre tires and tubes. cut, glue, sand, surface some foam as an under structure for a wall piece that will appear solid. naturally, it will have tubes suspended from its base. this will be an attempt to make work of a much smaller scale = commodifiable.





Monday, June 24, 2013

day 15 | ouchy opposables scare the crap out of me

sure two weeks straight of stitch, stitch, stitching, shoving metal wire piercingly through thick multilayered rubber and clip, clip, clipping hundreds of times a day should result in sore digits. need to find a sustainable pace. saturday i slowed, sunday full on break, today carefully stitching alternate material that provides little resistant to the wire, to my digits, yet they are still tender.



it is like a singer needing periods of silence to rest her primary instrument, so to, i must rest my opposable and clutching digits. so i do. but i have so much i want to make, it is difficult to obey the bodies limits, yet i am of the age i know there is tender and there is damage. i don't want damage. ha. what the heck would i do then. a livelihood in art, though glamorized by cultural needs, is hardly a livelihood at all. and then there is academia, a systemic propagation of ... undisclosed rant. excellence in either field is not reflected in terms of quality or capacity for food, shelter, etc. but the lack of useful digits scares me. shoot, what doesn't scare me. it is not so much that i am more afraid than others, but as a watcher i am more tuned to certain realities than what i, as most, prefer to glaze over.


damaged digits, not a thought to ponder long. simply must care for them and work at a sustainable pace and partake of tool usage to extend my capacities.


oh beautiful clippies, but who resist my opposables, i've noted your formal beauty before, but am reminded that i want to develop a body of work that is ephemerally held together with only the clips. yes. yes. i do want to use you.

Friday, June 21, 2013

day 12 | pseudo-Texan slinging my tubular holster

day 12 | ummm I drove an hour to save cashola

hmmmm. an hour? admittedly only 34 miles to retrieve a passel of balls @ 2.34 a piece. ok. well I also went to Home Depot, buying only what was on my list. Good Kathy! We're provided with great food, unlimited diet coke (fountain) and fresh coffee, yet still the artists wander off, iPhone in hand, to sit in the coffee shop or local cafe. I have resisted the familiar outing urge to redirect my funds for supplies and shelter so I can extend a significant period to grow and evolve my work. so the outing habits of my own are being minimized with something longer term tickling just out of sight.

 initial experimental results.

NO! but will contemplate the implications. 




day 12 | the intricate art of those shaky in-between states

"“negative capability” — the intricate art of embracing uncertainty and living with those shaky in-between states, echoing Einstein’s contention that “the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.” Still, we’re creatures incredibly susceptible to cognitive dissonance and painfully prone to paralysis in the face of ambiguity, especially when it comes to the most tender and vulnerable corners of our inner worlds." -- by 




Thursday, June 20, 2013

day 11 | woodpushing

woodpushing but i will shake it off momentarily or at least by the end of the day. as i was writing yesterday, i definitely came to the conclusion that impotence, woodpushing, in a field i excel in and have vested in is one of my major inflection points. i need to create new habits, rituals to work around these inflection points. i will. it would seem i need to pursue new alternate areas in which to excel. woodpushing is not my style.

just maybe i should stick with my stitch, stitching for i would be in very good company

Lee Bontecou

me





Lee Bontecue

me



Eve Hesse and her post-minimal feminine forms

me

me and my forms




Robert Morris and his felt piece

me and my muscles!


my forms and forklift


me and my forms




and muscles

yes. i am having a moment to say, "nope, i don't suck." and if i review my teaching portfolio and my evals, it is clear i excel in my role and as mandated, i just suck at woodpushing.