unmakings

this is a video i just finished in collaboration with kira akerman. we used some videos from my thesis and one (the middle of the series) was a piece i didn't end up using in my thesis series, because it is not tailored to the wall but filmed from above, a little crocheted creature. kira wrote a poem that i read based on the 3 videos, and titled them time; space, loneliness; love. we put some music zoe and i made long long ago to the films and i tinkered in final cut to get it all going. all the collaboration happened just over the internet, not even a phone conversation. we are applying to an art show in athens, georgia. i hope we get it! making this, i remembered how i kinda like making videos! i think i forgot this, and only remembered the parts i didn't like about the process. one thing i really liked about making it was its relation, in the way that user-friendly computer programs now seem to have, a relation to handmade. garage band and hole in my computer to record my voice, vimeo and g chat to share thoughts, photoshop text for the title pages. it all seemed very janky and hand done, a sort of new generation of handmade, lo fi. i also liked how there seemed to be an end in sight to this video. kira had made a recipe and i followed it, straying when i felt i needed to, but there was a script i was following and i ended up staying up really late working on it because i could foresee 'finishing.'

that is something that is NOT happening with the sculptural work i've been doing in the studio. everything is a work-in-progress-- i am so into the idea of 'living with' these things i am making long enough for them to evolve. its like i think they will tell me when they are done. like the time spent waiting for them to congeal will imbue them with more....more of something. i talked to travis last night and today about my show in portland at appendix, and we set a date for my show, feb 25, a friday. it does feel good to know exactly when the show is, as a deadline for all this stuff i'm working on. and i am going up there 3 weeks prior to the show to see the show before mine, and also to be able to get as much crit/residency-like time there as i can. while im not using that as an excuse to slack off, i am hoping that a change of scenery and input from zach and travis (and others there) will help edit and evolve the work. Right now i see the show divided among 5 catagories/pieces.

1. camo printed tankini piece

2. sorry/sari printed piece

3. tent piece

4. seam drawings series (walls, possibly hanging installation?)

5. mutant clothes series

i've begun to stiffen things with epoxy resin-- so far i've done part of the camo tankini piece and one of the 'mutant' shirts. its surprisingly fun and i always feel like i'm really 'making art' when i'm using materials that involve messiness and/or the use of 'studio clothes' or rubber gloves. it just takes a while to get myself to want to engage in new processes; i'm very tied to my sewing machine and my snips.

i've been having stressful dreams, although my waking life is very calm and the weather here is so amazing for january. i kinda wanna stay up really late tonight working on my sari/sorry piece (out of an indian sari i found at a salvation army in philadelphia, more blogging on this to come). i miss school, where late night studio time is such a group effort. i wish i had studio buddies here, aside from patches, my cat. grad school?