holiday break has lead to decisions, decisions

This summer I replaced the hermitage, micro-forest and my mini-meadow that sat at the edge of the Sam Houston National Forest for PhD studies, a 1929 cottage and lots of renovations. I am trying to take it back to at least feel retro. I am stuck on the floor. Trust me the green makes since for this house. Having peel many a door frame back to wood, green was the original color and is the current color of the exterior. Sigh.

The light green tile are a smudge darker and with a hint of olive than what appears in photos

Original plaster walls match the light green tile.

Ha. This room is two colors--dark green and light green like the tiles

Crazy pants, but the previous owners painted almost every room a different color. The bedroom is maroon and yellow. It is starting to grow on me. The turquoise dining room will definitely have to be given a new color.

The study is reddish maroon and gray. Hmmm. 

The 85 year old kitchen cabs are cool but needed a new face, so I built new fronts and sanded the structure down to wood.

I saved the original hardware and will re-attach the doors with them.

This summer while school was out, the neighbors really wanted to help.They got power tool lessons. Sad day, they moved :(

There were somethings I couldn't do that had to be done. So I hired out.

Hopefully by the end of my PhD 

I will have this baby spruced up and retro hip.

I probably should be making art, but renovations are taking priority currently. I do ponder my balls and consider my next art move for the coming summer.

and chairs

stitching remnant tubes; stitching data

Will I be able to maintain a dual practice, art and scholarship, or is scholarship simply an evolution in my medium?

Art practice: stitching together consumer refuse into a coherent aesthetic experiential phenomena. Interdisciplinary

PhD studies: collating and commingling scholarly research residue from discrepant disciplinary domains into coherent bodies of knowledge that might inform the aesthetic experimental practice and phenomenon.

Clearly there are parallels equally weighty (ha) if one does not account for perpetual sweat, grime and dirty finger nails evident in my artistic practice.

Visceral making was my first move out of silence.

Visceral making was my first move out of silence, a move made at a time when I was unsure how to speak into or even grasp my own lived experience, when my body had a more cogent language than my mind.

That has now been partially purged in the pursuit of a clarity in purpose and voice. So I continue the move out of silence, but it will never stray too far from the language of the visceral.

Where that will lead and how it will resolve is an adventure to strike out upon. 

Clearly (ha), there will be no retrospective based on the 14.7 tons of work and residue taken to the dump and a large part of the remainder burned.



Tear wipe. Palm smack to forehead. Dang. Seriously, seven loads, 14.7 tons. Since I harvest from the waste stream, I do not feel overly guilt returning it. But dang if it didn't hurt to dispose of it all.



Ha. Even purged seven years worth of my steel tip work books.

A tad of the purged

Waaaa! It is what it is and it needed done. Shipping or hauling and storing is simply not in my budget. And though I've set myself upon a scholarly path, I am sure that my body will always speak more cogently than my mind.

And to quote my dad, "Make new work."