unmakings

i have been blogging less because i have been making very little in terms of art work in the past few weeks as i settle into my new job (landscape architecture studio admin assistant/ graphic designer/web person) and new house, decorating and making artistic choices more on the domestic level (putting up stuff i find on the walls and replanting little succulents into mini terra cotta pots, drinking beer in my garden and reordering my closet. lately mostly what i've been doing at work (like i wrote in the last post) is digitizing and organizing images for the image library they have here-- some are mundane pictures of benches and lamp posts but often i come across interesting sculptures, walls or earthworky unusual treatments of land. i think this job is rekindling my interest in mapping also-- the architects here all use aerial perspective for their drawings and have pretty intense schematic and symbolic systems for representing different elements of landscape. reminds me that as much as i have read and waxed on and on about globalized labor and the loss of the handmade these past few years, its really the mapping, systematic and imformational aspect of clothing patterns that really drew me to them. they map the body in this weird totally unemotional way. i want to do more stuff that relates to clothing with blue prints and landmaps-- in portland i got kinda into going to home depot as sort of a project runway type exercise -- like running around with a cart looking for things that are ment for landscape/architectural construction and reinvisioning them in processes that are clothing related. like knitting construction mason line. i have this silly yearning to make a garment out of traffic cones. i am actively looking for a studio for this year. tomorrow i am looking at one in the dogpatch. i know i tend to be pretty hard on myself but not making much after having so much momentum for the past 6 months, the residency hopping and constant studio dilegence--- now i feel like most of my time is spent imagining myself as an artist but not really actively being one. oh well, it'll happen soon! also, after talking with ben more about the show in his space that he runs with anohter person here in san fran, it seems like they have too much going on and dont know whether or not they want to continue using their space as a gallery. so its still pretty up in the air/ unlikely i will have a show there. i was sort of releaved (weirdly), and i think its because i realized in portland how different working towards the idea of a show and my studio practice is, and i feel like i really have to address what is more important to me. my thesis was largely an installational idea that used material studies in the studio to become a grand experience, and then portland had a similar rhythm in my mind. it seems like the knowledge that people will come experience the work, thinking of them walking through a space, makes me feel that a show has to be installational or environmental for it to be powerful, which i know isnt true but i think at least right now, is the most exciting type of work that i respond to in shows. but, as an artist i think i enjoy a studio practice that is more material and labor intensive, hands on, exploring processes and inflicting different actions on objects in a systemized whimlike way. so these two things seem in conflict and maybe i'd just like to focus on the latter right now. and also, once i get a studio i can always invite people over to see the work, i'm not too worried about it. anyway i should get back to work... attached are some images i liked from the image bank that i found recently.

...and just so i don't forget:

-i find this women's apartment inspiring for domestic purposes: http://freundevonfreunden.com/jenna-brinning/?sessionId=s3dlbvo84lu4sd6f88ang0hot4

-someone emailed me this link for this show in philly of fibers/found objects artist sheila hicks' work http://www.icaphila.org/exhibitions/hicks.php and i love the images included in the online write-up. i'm including the images here.