lots of new ideas and the organization of old ones.

today working on editing the video I made in Portland—adding music. I’m handing it into ATA which is that video collective that I went to a show at when I first got to the city. When I saw that show I was interested in becoming more involved with that video meets music meets installation world—I guess this is a good opportunity. I guess applying to juried shows feels important and good when it supplies me with an external and real deadline to work towards. The outcome of whether or not I get selected is sort of irrelevant to me. But I think I’ve chosen to revisit this Portland footage because I believe it is good and never really had the affirmative response from the folks there … perhaps ATA will see it differently?

My description of the video:
I am interested in the disconnect between an object and the process of its construction; I see my material world as teeming with labor, history and potential. This video depicts both literal and metaphorical tangled and interconnecting systems that continually reorganize, expand, and ebb; I have used knitted structures to allude to environmental landscapes, biological cell structure, and textile based handwork. Through unmaking and then remaking, I destroy a microcosm of our world, and then, hopeful, I rebuild it.

I’ve been trying to revisit my artist statement and make it more relevant to the work I’ve done since college. Seeing these little bodies of work I’ve done (thesis installation, costume work, individual objects, Portland installation) as related but separate… how can I better link them with words?

Right now the big themes are :
- disclosing/making foreign the process of making clothes & the material traces of making, processes disconnect from product - mapping, systems and information
- destruction, rebuilding, and traces, decay with time
-the material environment abounds with an anarchic energy of making -- objects, materials and environments have their own volition
-value & trash-to-treasure, preciousness, clothes are portals into the past/stories. the bargain barn & the idea that manufactured objects possess a life cycle of their own
- process is a combination of whim and system
-closet rituals and the curation of one's personal things.

im already having a GREAT TIME in san Francisco. I am looking for an apartment and studio this week so I can get back into making. I want to keep up the same momentum I had this winter and in Portland—I have a feeling this is going to be great. i am goign to ahve a studio here in san francisco, I have a job and I will just spend all my time working and making. Last night I went to a video show at the ATA (artists’ television access) – there was a series of videos shown by different artists, all combining video with sound (some live and some recorded.) Anyways, highlights of the show: this one girl lana (I lost my program and can’t remember her full name) made this piece where she layered video tapes with an old vcr mixer and played electronic music over it. Such cool images/sounds resulted. There was some other really beautiful footage of space from semiconductor films (here is the video).

These videos got me really inspired about adding sound to my films, and combining footage in a more ‘material’ way like I do in my sculpture. like how in my plaster pieces, each piece goes through a laundry list of processes before it is done—cut, sewn, inked, epoxied, plastered, wet down, painted, dirtied. I was thinking about how I could combine different existing footage with my knit videos and how sound could be a part of it. also-- video could be a good outlet for me while I don’t have a studio or place to live, as it is all contained in my computer.

This weekend I am going to go back to santa cruz and work on more seam drawings because I have some potential buyers! I’m excited to go through them and really address what are the best ones. I also really want to do some more traditional drawings (in charcoal) of some of them, like the polka dot one. Ive been feeling the need to make some drawings after having dinner with Christine Bourdette in Portland. I was inspired by her sculpture but also by the fact that she also makes very beautiful drawings and seems to be quite fluid between mediums. I'd say right now she is one of my biggest inspirations at the moment. That’s all for now.

{photos: 1 & 2 are my own works in process cocoons and seams (2011), 3 is christine bourdette's mistaken identity (2006}

i am always collecting jpgs (i separate them by month) on my computer sort of like a perpetual virtual mood board like fashion designers have. this month's collection so far has a very distinct Color palette, army greens and muddy wine red, mostly. i am thinking of dying some of my mutant clothes and seam drawings so that my portland show reflects this 'color way.' dye seems like a way to change and bite into the materials and revamp them, take them farther from bargain barn loot and clothing cast offs. but is it important that they retain their old color personalities?

I spent today coating my mutant clothes, sari piece and camo piece in epoxy to stiffen them. they look really good and creepy empty. yesterday my family and i went to the city to look at art and some of the things i was really responding to were work that had a very tangible feeling of the artist's handling the work, like i could very visually imagine their process and it was clear they just loved the hand to material experience. (ei. robert brady, manuel neri)


i know that sort of thing just sort of comes out of art when the artist engages in that hands-on experience with it, but i was thinking of ways that my work could feel more like that to people. i already let threads hang and leave seams raw, but what are other ways to show that trace of making and show my revelatory process to people? through my recent experiences with epoxy, i am realizing that i really feel like i am 'making art' when i am engaging in materials that are messy. i had the idea of further stiffening the mutant clothes with something visibily messy like plaster. What if I covered some of the mutant clothes (after epoxy) in plaster?

i also just came across this french artist named emilie faif, who i do find a little too cutesie to be fully inspired by but she uses clothing and fabric in her work and i found this one installation she did involving the pattern pieces to a pair of jeans all laid flat out on the wall.I've been reading one of andrea zittel's diaries, and am very inspired by the way she creates systems and rules that govern her life, and in the diary her life seems so fluidly her art, and all her musings are included, shared with others. i almost feel like blogging is a way to do this, to let people in to what i am thinking (almost) every day even if no one is actually reading. I feel like I am effectively achieving blurring the distinction between my own clothes and clothing i use in my work, but i wonder how i could further embed my systems into my life. or do i even want to?

i have been getting a lot of compliments on the film i did with kira, especially regarding the interaction with my animations and the music i composed. since i have been wanting to do more composing, and have been tinkering a little, i was thinking about making a big goal out of it. i was thinking about the san francisco show at ben's space, and maybe for that show i would do a whole 'album' like series of animations, each with its own customized score. and then it could be a real venue for some sort of performance, music... maybe even some movement... i was really getting excited while i was swimming today thinking about it. i do feel like those films are unique and a good way for me to bridge my music and my art together, and it really feels like 'me' behind it all, i really get that sense of self expression when i show them to people. i think i really need to consider continuing with them.

{photos: from top to bottom, left to right, comme des garcons fw09, jean yves lemoigne, don't know (from tumblr), lisa kehoe a public loo in norway, manuel neri standing figure (1982), robert brady new work (2010), my own dopplegangers and mutants (in progress), emilie faif patron/ vetement isabel marant (2010)}